“Hi,” she said bluntly. “What’s up?”
“I just wanted to check in before I join the next search,” Cody said. “They’re organizing something closer to the lake, starting in about fifteen minutes.”
“Whythere?” Kelly demanded. “Do they have a reason?”
“No, simply a next step.” If Kelly’s tone irked him, he wasn’t letting on.
“Where are the kids right now?”
“With your in-laws.”
I’d risen by this point and taken a few steps toward Cody.
“Cody, hello, I’m Bailey Weggins withCrime Beat,” I said, offering him a business card as well. “Can I grab a few minutes with you before you leave? We’re planning to do whatever we can to spread the word.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I’ll be part of a search line, and I need to leave at the same time as everyone else.”
“How about later today?”
He sighed wearily. “Okay.”
“I’m staying at the Breezy Point, so it would be easy enough to drop by your house.”
“No, I’ll swing by here after the search is over, sometime around dusk.” His expression darkened. I had the feeling he was going to add a comment like “Unless we hear news,” but decided to skip it.
“Thanks, I’ll wait for you here. And best of luck with the search.”
This was good. I would be able to include quotes from Cody in the post I filed later today. And I’d also be able to work with whatever the sheriff coughed up at the press conference later in the afternoon. Anything else would be gravy.
After the door closed behind him, I pivoted back to Kelly. Her face was a blank, but I could almost feel hostility coming off her, like heat from a stove. I opened my mouth to bid her goodbye when the door opened again and a sandy-haired, fortysomething guy—a volunteer, I assumed—strode in. He immediately fixed his gaze on me.
“Are you about finished?” he asked.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“I’m Dr. Claiborne, Kelly’s husband, and I think she’s done enough press for today.”
“Doug, please, it’s fine,” Kelly said.
“Not a problem,” I said. No point in rocking the boat. As I took him in, I saw that he was nice-looking enough, but nowhere in the same league as his brother-in-law. He had what to me was a Ken-doll blandness, but hey, some women dug that kind of thing. Clearly Barbie did, right? “Thanks for your time, Kelly.”
There were still a few hours until the press conference, so I made a quick trip to the Breezy Point Motel, which I’d booked online last night and was only two miles north of Dot’s. My room had been done in classic Adirondack style—rough-hewn wood furniture, birch-bark lampshades, and mounted deer antlers over the door, a kitschy but refreshing change from the mauve-and-green color schemes and Naugahyde chairs I’m used to in the motels and hotels I usually bunk down in for work. There were even some cute toiletries in the bathroom.
I changed into jeans and wolfed down a sandwich I’d packed in a small cooler. I considered making a fast trip to the local elementary school to see if I could talk to any moms who were there for pickup and might know Shannon, but it seemed smarter to save that for tomorrow morning and instead keep an eye on the action at the volunteer center.
Upon my return, I saw that Hank was back in the building, thumbing through papers on one of the tables. I headed over and introduced myself, handing him a card. As I did, I realized that his jet-black hair, which was either defying age on its own or with some help from Grecian Formula, had ledme to assume he was younger than he was. He had to be close to sixty, though overall in good shape.
“You come all the way up here from the city?” he asked.
“That’s right.”
“Well, I bet the networks aren’t far behind, are they?”
“You’re probably right. Do you have any theories about what might have happened to Shannon?”
He smiled but not the kind that fell into the super-friendly department. “I’d like to help you, Ms. Weggins, but I’m just here to supervise volunteers. That’s really a question for the sheriff. Why don’t you ask him at the press conference?”
“Fair enough. Kelly mentioned you’re a retired cop. Has anything remotely similar happened here in recent memory?”
