“I’m thinking.” He rounded on his partner. “Where would she go? She ate a mouthful of toxins and jumped into a river. Where do you go after that? We need to check the local hospitals, emergency clinics, anywhere she might have turned up. She had to have been sick, possibly injured.”
Will rolled his eyes. “Emil, none of that is here or there right now. Let’s get the results on the vest first. Then, if they prove something, we’ll go after her. In the meantime, we need to go get this guy.”
Reyes didn’t tell Will that he’d already confronted Henry with the life vest. His partner would scold him. It was sloppy police work. He fully expected Davenport to confirm that the vest belonged to his missing wife. Reyes’d thought that would wrap it up, shift them from homicide into missing person, perhaps even tampering with evidence for the planted hoodie. But Davenport had looked him straight in the eye and denied it, leaving himself squarely on the hook for the murder of his own wife. It made no sense.
“Fine,” he told his partner, caving. “Let’s go get him.”
Only, it wasn’t so simple. When Reyes checked with Johanna, Henry Davenport’s administrative assistant, she said he hadn’t been back to the office since that morning. He hadn’t even called, which was wholly unlike him.
Deciding to try the house, Reyes and Will pulled up to find the same rented Corolla parked in the drive. When he arrived earlier, Henry had been about to leave. Had he changed his mind? They got out and started toward the front door.
Reyes peeked in the Corolla windows. The briefcase he’d seen Henry put inside was no longer there.
On the porch, his partner Will was already ringing the bell, pounding his fist against the wooden door. “Hello?” Will called. “Mr. Davenport? Are you in there?” He turned to frown at Reyes.
“Force entry,” Reyes said, joining him on the porch. “We have the warrant.”
Will pursed his lips. “We should call for backup first.”
“Move aside,” Reyes told him. He was tired of playing the Davenports’ games. Reyes didn’t like being made a fool of, having someone play on his emotions. Not that he believedshewould really do that, the woman who’d saved his life. Or that they could have known about his past, his history with domestic abusers. His head was hot right now, the exact opposite of where it should be for this, but he didn’t care. He wanted answers. With a deft, powerful kick, he blasted the front door from its hinges as Will pulled his Glock from its holster and unlocked the safety. But the house only echoed the bang of the door, and all the lights appeared to be off.
Will entered first and Reyes followed, but he didn’t draw his weapon. The house was empty. They moved slowly around the first floor of the residence, looking for anything that might allude to where either of its owners had gone.
A biting chill began to steal over Reyes, the harbinger of dread. His confidence was sinking with every step they took, even as his certainty grew. He’d fucked up—royally. And now she would pay for his mistake. Unless he could find a way to protect her. He owed her that much.
“He’s not here,” Will said at last, putting his gun away.
“He fled,” Reyes said, defeated.
Will turned on him. “Why, Emil? How would he know we were coming for him?”
He hung his head. “I might have come by before the station, questioned him about the life vest.”
His partner groaned. “Goddamnit, Emil. We’ve talked about this. You can’t go off half-cocked like that. It’s not professional.”
His little, unannounced visit earlier had tipped the husband off. Henry Davenport now believed his wife to be alive, and he’d gone in search of her.
Reyes mounted the stairs. He had no defense for his actions.His hunger to know what had happened to Mrs. Davenport, to find her alive, had clouded his judgment. In his rush to save her, he’d put her in harm’s way. He wandered through the second story, guilt and duty riding him. When he entered the master bedroom, he found both closet doors open, clothes strewn across the floor, a suitcase on the bed that Henry must have decided against taking. He entered the wife’s closet where the destruction was far worse. Shattered wooden shelves littered the floor. Blouses had been ripped from their hangers and torn apart then cast aside. Jewelry speckled the carpet in sparkles.
Reyes sighed. The man had not gone after his wife because he loved her. He wasn’t out to save his marriage. He’d gone after the woman who betrayed him, duped him, and tried to frame him for her murder. He wasn’t out for reconciliation. He was out for revenge.
And Reyes was the source that tipped him off. Piers Davenport would not be safe, wherever she was. Her crime, however illegal, was not to serve an injustice but to right a wrong. To imprison the man who had hurt her and would do so again if given the chance. To protect herself and every other woman besides.
Wouldn’t he have done the same to the tall man if given the chance?
He owed it to her to find Henry and stop him for good. But could he get to him in time? The only way to find him was by finding her, but how?
Looking down, he spotted a plastic toy, a skull with little feet that walked when it was wound up, making a chattering noise. He stooped to pick it up and saw the carpet, the corner where it had been pulled back. Beneath it lay a small wrapper, white with a gold seal and Chinese lettering, curling at the corners where it had been wrapped around something. Reyes picked it up and turned to find Will standing in the doorway.
“I need to show you something,” Will said.
“What is it?”
He sighed, turning a laptop around in his arms. On the screen,an article flared to life, the image of a body lying next to a field crop. The headline read,Man Found Dead from Poisonous Pokeweed Berries.The opening line continued,Don Rodgers had been traveling for work, his wife confirmed, when he turned up dead along this secluded road in Virginia from an ingestion of pokeweed berries. Authorities are puzzled as to where he got the berries or why he consumed them. Suicide has been written off due to theft of his motor vehicle along with other valuable items. His wife verifies his last point of contact was a call from his hotel room in Charleston before leaving, more than forty-eight hours prior to the discovery of his body.
Reyes met Will’s eyes. “We need to get the name of that hotel and find that car.”
“You were right,” Will said. “She’s alive, and she’s on the move.”
