Page 80 of What She Saw

“He watched Guitar Girl and the chick with her real close. He liked the look of them both.”

“Did he follow the women?”

Jim sniffed. “I don’t know. I was smoking and Bill asked for a toke. I turned to give it to him. We shot the shit for a while, and when I turned back, that Colton guy was gone. So was Blue Guitar Girl and her girlfriend.”

Taggart removed Patty’s picture from his pocket. “Was she in the woods?”

Jim studied the picture. “Hamburger Girl.”

“You know her?”

He handed back the image. “I bought a burger from her. She’s a hottie.”

“But she wasn’t in the woods?”

“Not that I saw. But it was crowded. Why all the questions about these gals? Is there a problem?”

“Might not be a problem at all.” He’d been searching for Patty and Laurie. Jim must have spotted Blue Guitar Girl, a.k.a. Laurie, around midnight.

Taggart opened his trunk and removed the mud-splattered black backpack. “If I have more questions, I’ll call you.”

Jim unzipped his backpack and dug out his wallet. “Yeah, sure, man.”

Taggart slid behind the wheel of his vehicle. He’d learned a long time ago that if his gut was tight and he felt edgy, something was off with a case.

Right now, he was working on an ulcer.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Sloane

Monday, August 18, 2025, 8:00 a.m.

The drive to Brian Fletcher’s home took a half hour. His daughter Tristan was among the missing from the Mountain Music Festival. Brian wasn’t responding to my calls or emails. But I was accustomed to rejection. He wasn’t the first person who didn’t want to talk to me.

The Fletcher house was a dark-green two-story wood-frame house. Shrubs lined up in single file along the front. A large oak shaded a mulched bed filled with blooming azaleas.

Tristan Fletcher had wanted to be a dancer. She’d been hired as a backup performer for the Roving Rangers, and local media had taped one of the band’s performances. The film had captured her petite body moving seductively to the rock music. Her long black, curly hair framed her heart-shaped face.

I’d watched the video a dozen times. When she’d moved to the music, her hair had swung from side to side. She was eighteen when she’d vanished, but she looked a few years younger.

As Tristan danced, I shifted my focus from her to the people around her. A few of the band members tossed her grins, and when one of the guitar players launched into a long riff, he faced her. Smiling, shemoved toward him, swaying her hips. The guitarist leaned toward her. She skimmed her fingers down his arm. He wagged his tongue at her.

The crowd cheered at the sexual teasing between the two, and when Tristan moved back to her spot in the background, the crowd was applauding.

I rang the bell. Silence echoed in the house. I glanced toward the four-door car in the driveway. As silence stretched, I wondered if Mr. Fletcher wasn’t here. Also not a first.

No one came to the front door. So I retraced my steps and walked down the sidewalk toward a privacy fence. It was locked. I fished a pocketknife out of my backpack and used the blade to wrestle the lock loose. The latch gave way and the door swung open. I pocketed the knife. I listened for the growl of a dog. When the stillness remained, I stepped into the backyard.

A rainbow of flowers rimmed the privacy fence and filled a mulch bed in the yard’s center. A children’s swing set complete with a yellow slide, tower, and red rings. I knew Tristan was the older of Fletcher’s two daughters. I’d not dug into the younger sister’s life, but I guessed she’d had a child.

When I rounded the corner, I saw a man hunched over a bed. He wedged a trowel at the base of a weed.

“Brian Fletcher.”

When he didn’t react or turn around, I noticed his earbuds.

My eye remained on the sharp edge of the trowel cutting into the weed as I approached.