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“Where. Is. My. Daughter!” Margo pounded out each word and the glass quivered beneath her fist. Josie slid to the car floor and covered her head with her arms.
“Ma’am, come away from the car,” the deputy said. There was quiet for a moment, then a wounded shriek that sent a spasm of dread down Josie’s spine.
I want to die,Josie thought as Margo Allen’s cries grew fainter. But if she couldn’t die, this was where she belonged, on the floor of a deputy’s car, her face pressed to the floor mat, gritty with dirt from criminals and drunks and bad people.
Deputy Levi Robbins tapped his steering wheel impatiently. He was agitated. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Brock Cutter knew a hell of a lot more than he was letting on.
It was looking more and more like Ethan Doyle killed his parents and took the Allen girl with him. Or maybe he killed her too, dumped her body, and took off. The evidence was mounting against him: the tension with his family, the alleged harassment of the ex-girlfriend, the shotgun found in the field. And now he learned that the Allen family was receiving phone calls from someone claiming to be Ethan Doyle.
And as the case against Ethan was growing, so was his suspicion of Cutter. He was with Ethan Doyle the day of the murders, was near the scene of the crime soon after, and was trying to cover his own ass by lying to law enforcement.
He didn’t have high hopes of finding him at home. Brock wouldn’t be eager to talk now that he’d been found to be lying about his whereabouts the night of the murders.
He was so tired. Dirt tired, as his grandpa used to say. If he was smart, he would go home and get a few hours of sleep, but with every second that passed, chances of finding Becky Allen alive were getting less likely.
On his drive to the Cutter house, he passed three roadblocks and what looked like a pair of search dogs and their handler. The state police were pulling out all the stops. Excitement bloomed in Levi’s belly. He was onto something with Brock Cutter; he knew it.
The Cutters lived a mile from the Doyle farm and Levi knew there was bad blood between the two families. He had even been called out to deal with a few of their disagreements over the years: a fertilizer spill, damaged crops, a few missing animals. Nothing ever came of the reports, just more resentment. This was one of the reasons that Levi was surprised that Brock and Ethan were supposedly friends. This wouldn’t have gone over well with the parents.
Levi drove down the Cutter lane and parked in front of the sprawling rust-colored brick ranch home surrounded by three hundred acres of corn and soybeans. Beef cattle grazed in a far-off field.
Before Levi even stepped from the car, Deb Cutter was at the front door. “Hello,” she called out. “Is everything okay?”
“All’s well, ma’am,” Levi said, keeping his voice light, conversational. “You heard about what happened over at the Doyle farm the other night?”
“Of course, everyone’s heard about that,” Deb answered, twisting a dishrag in her hands. “Another deputy was out here yesterday. I told them I thought I heard the shots.”
“What time was that?” Levi asked.
“Around midnight or a bit later,” Deb said. “I didn’t realize what it was until I heard the news. Terrible, just terrible.”
“It is,” Levi agreed. “And that’s why I’m here. I’ve been sent out to talk to Ethan Doyle’s friends. See if they had any insights as to where he might be.”
“Brock and Ethan are not friends,” Deb said sourly. “We told those two boys to stay away from each other. Nothing good ever came out of those two boys being in the same space with one another.”
“I understand, ma’am, but you know boys.” He leaned in conspiratorially. “Sometimes they don’t do what we know is best for them, right?”
Deb gave a little smile as if she knew exactly what Levi was talking about. “Maybe come back later, when my husband is home,” she suggested.
“Sure, but the thing is,” Levi said, running a hand through his hair. “We’re running out of time. The longer it takes to find those two kids, the less likely we’re going to be able to. And as a mom, I think if the shoe was on the other foot, and Brock had gone missing, you’d sure appreciate any and all the help someone could give.”
Deb considered this. “Brock’s not home, but I can have him call you when I see him.”
“Any spots you can think of that he might be right now? Any bit of information can help. Brock probably might not even be aware that he knows something.” Levi waited while Deb Cutter mulled this over, then added, “After two days, chances are we won’t find Ethan and Becky alive.”
Deb shook her head at the tragedy of it all. She couldn’t imagine losing her son. Brock was wild, but he always came home. What if one day he didn’t? She would be heartsick. Terrified. “You might try the old Richter farm. Randy’s setting up a hog confinement over there. Brock’s been helping out.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Cutter,” Levi said, “and if you can think of anything else, don’t hesitate to call.”
“Of course,” Deb said. “I’ll do anything I can to help.”
Levi climbed back into his car and cranked the air. The Richter farm was only a few miles away, but he felt like he was going on a wild-goose chase. He would talk to the Cutter kid even if he had to chase him across all of Blake County.
The old Richter place was exactly how it sounded. Broken down and desolate. The farmhouse was crumbling and all that remained of most of the outbuildings were piles of barn boards. It smelled even worse. A combination of decomposed swine fecal matter and urine, creating a thick stink that made Levi’s eyes water.
Levi stepped from the car and examined the landscape. No vehicles were parked nearby, and except for the snuffle and grunt of the hogs locked away in the confine, the place appeared to be deserted.
Levi made his way around the house. The gray paint had faded, bleached by the sun and scoured by the elements. It was uninhabitable, the windows and doors covered with plywood, the guts shucked down to the studs. Levi remembered hearing something about a farm auction after the death of Leland Richter, the eighty-six-year-old man who insisted on staying in his home until his death a few months ago. Randy Cutter must have had the winning bid, though it didn’t look like he won much of anything.
