“We have,” he says. “You might want to give Stephanie a sec to cool off before you hit her with round two.”
Abby rubs the inner corners of her eyes. This is obviously an ongoing conversation she’s tired of having.
“Cal, you have to stop,” she says. “The governor’s office is putting pressure on Harris to shut down the entire investigation.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” Cal slaps the back of his hand against his palm. “Why wouldn’t the governor want us working on this?”
“Because you’re trying to smear his brother’s name.”
“I’m trying to solve this case,” he says.
“By stepping out of bounds whenever you feel like it, you are sabotaging this case.” She narrows her gaze. “Finding justice for every dead girl in the state isn’t going to bring Vicki back.”
My lungs forget how to breathe.
Dead girls? What dead girls?
Cal glowers at his partner, and I realize Abby’s just revealed something Cal didn’t want me know.
“As of this moment,” he says coldly, “McKenzie Sommers is still missing.”
Abby closes her eyes for a long beat. I’m not sure if it’s her frustration with Cal that has her treating me like background noise, but frankly, I don’t mind it one bit. I’m still coming to grips with this new information. Cal didn’t say anything about dead girls, though apparently my suspicions about his sister were right.
When Cal’s partner finally turns her full attention on me, I freeze like a deer in headlights.
“Holly, is it?” she says. I nod. “Listen, Holly, I know you’re worried about your friend. But is there any chance she may have just skipped town?”
I clear my throat and find my voice. “She would never leave without me.”
“Okay. Then the best thing you can do to help us find her is come down to the station and file a missing person’s report. If it’s been at least twenty-four hours, I can take you there myself right now.”
My body tenses. I’m sure Abby’s perfectly friendly when she wants to be, but every cell in my body is screaming don’t go.
I look to Cal, who’s already shaking his head.
“She’s not going anywhere without me,” he says.
“No one said you couldn’t tag along.”
Cal scrubs a hand over his five o’clock shadow, grimacing. He says in a low voice, “I don’t want Holly anywhere near the station.”
“Why the hell not?”
“There’s a leak in the department. Someone with ties to the reverend and Russell King.”
Abby’s shoulders fall. “You can’t be fucking serious.”
“How else could they have known about the investigation?”
“Cal.” She touches her temples. “As your friend and your partner, please listen to me when I tell you that you’re starting to sound unhinged. You’re spiraling. You’re not making sense—”
“For God’s sake, it’s the only thing that makes any damn sense. It’s how King knew I’d be at his party, and the reason Reverend Davis had some guy pick up his next vic instead of being there to grab her himself.”
My throat tightens. His next vic, meaning...his next victim?
I wrap my arms around my stomach.
No. No. No. Not Kenzie...
“This is exactly why Harris put you on leave,” Abby says, looking more woeful than angry. “You need a fucking break. Go home and let me do my job.” She turns to me. “And just so you know, Holly, if McKenzie was kidnapped, the longer you let this guy drag you around on a wild-goose chase, the less likely it is that we’ll find her alive.”
I feel the weight of Cal’s hand on my shoulder, his sturdy presence against my side. Is Abby right? Am I wasting time by trusting Cal’s instincts?
Before I can weigh the soundness of her words, Abby ducks into her car, starts the engine, and drives away.
“What did she mean by dead girls?” I ask.
Cal exhales and saunters toward his truck.
I stare at his back. “Cal, what haven’t you told me?”
He opens the passenger-side door, then holds out his hand to help boost me onto the seat.
“Buckle up, sweetheart. I’ll tell you everything.”
Chapter Seventeen
Caleb
“I’m not just investigating missing persons, Holly. I’m a homicide detective. That means I’m murder police.”
Holly stares blankly out the windshield. She hasn’t blinked since the traffic light turned red.
“How many?” She speaks so softly I have to ask her to repeat herself.
“This case?”
She nods.
“A lot,” I say.
“What’s a lot?”
Goddamn it, I didn’t want to have to burden her with this. “Four DBs within in Knoxville City limits—”
“What are DBs?”
The traffic light turns green. I press on the gas.
“Dead bodies.”
Her breath stutters as she inhales. “And how many bodies in all?”
“Over the last two years, there’ve been seven that I know for sure are from our guy. But evidence from around the state over the last half decade could bring the total as high as twenty, plus the five missing persons. All young women and girls around McKenzie’s age.”
“Twenty-five,” she whispers. “Twenty-five dead girls.”