“Good morning.” Autumn showed her badge. “I’m Autumn Riley with the Canyon Creek PD, and this is my partner, Bear. Would you mind answering a few questions about Jenny Clarke?”
Karen’s smile faded and she glanced around the store. There was a woman browsing in the aisle, but nobody was waiting to check out. “I don’t mind, but I don’t see how I can help. Jenny hasn’t worked here in months.”
“Eight months, correct?” Autumn stepped closer. “She didn’t give you notice that she was going to quit her job? Maybe to relocate to Denver?”
“No. She just didn’t show up for work.” Karen flushed. “At first, I was mad—you know how some of these kids are. They’re just not responsible. But after two days, I called her brother, Jordan. He was listed as her emergency contact.”
Autumn nodded encouragingly. “What did Jordan say?”
“He sounded frustrated, as if he’d thought Jenny blew off this job, too,” Karen admitted. “Teenagers, right? But then he called me back about an hour or so later claiming Jenny had gone missing. That nobody had seen her in the past two days.”
“Were you surprised at that?” Autumn asked. “Had Jenny mentioned wanting to move?”
“No, she seemed happy here.” Karen shrugged. “I didn’t encourage her to confide in me, if that’s what you’re looking for. She was my employee, not my friend.”
Autumn nodded, although Karen’s comment was disappointing. So much for learning inside information about what Jenny was going through back then. “Did anything else seem off about Jenny the days prior to her not showing for work? Had she been sick, upset, preoccupied?”
Karen waved an impatient hand. “I don’t remember. That was a long time ago.”
“Jenny has been murdered.” Autumn gave her a hard stare. “Think back. It could be important.”
“Murdered?” Karen paled. “That’s awful. How? When?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t get into the details of our investigation.” She knew the news of Jenny’s death would make it through the grapevine soon enough, but she wasn’t going to reveal pertinent information. “I just need you to tell me anything you can remember about how Jenny acted those last few days before she went missing.”
“I wish I could be more helpful.” Karen’s brow furrowed with concern. “The only thing I can say for sure is that she suffered morning sickness. Used to sit here at the register eating crackers.” After a pause, she added, “Oh, and we made arrangements for her to be off work for her doctor’s appointments.”
That matched the comments Jenny made on her text messages. “Anything else? Like I said, even the smallest detail could be important.”
Karen slowly shook her head. “Nothing comes to mind. I can’t believe she was murdered.”
Autumn pulled a card from her pocket. “Please call me if you remember anything else.”
“I will.” She took the card. “Murdered,” Karen repeated under her breath. “What is this world coming to?”
Autumn didn’t have a good answer for that. She left with Bear, who looked up at her as if expecting to be given the search command.
She crouched beside her dog. “Soon, Bear. Hopefully, we’ll have something more to go on very soon.”
Making a mental note to sweep the field where they’d found Jenny’s body again in the daylight, she eyed her watch. She still had almost two hours before she could meet with Sasha. Jenny’s friend and roommate worked at a local insurance company as the receptionist, and didn’t want to have the interview during her work time.
“Let’s head back home for a bit, hmm?” She rose to her feet. There might be time for her to dig into her list of recently released perps. She’d identified two possible suspects, Denny Oswald and Tomas Showalter, but hadn’t had time to dig into what they were doing now.
Were they still in Canyon Creek? Or had they moved on to a bigger city?
The drive to her place took about twenty minutes. She probably should have set up in a coffee shop someplace, she thought as she pulled into the driveway.
She opened the back hatch for Bear, then abruptly straightened as she realized the side door of her house was hanging open. Pulling out her weapon, Autumn swiftly moved closer, listening intently.
Silence.
Then Bear sat beside her, raised his nose to the air and howled. His alert!
The gunman had returned.
She called 911, requesting police backup. “Stay,” she told Bear, then eased into the house.
Her home had been ransacked. Stomach churning at the violation of her privacy, Autumn quickly moved from one room to the next, making sure the intruder wasn’t still inside.
