“What about siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, anyone?”
“I wasn’t employed here at the time, but according to the records, his wife came in, requested a cremation. There was no viewing. This is odd, though.”
Stuart waited. “What’s odd?”
“No one picked up the ashes. It looks like the bill was paid, but...” Banner looked up and frowned. “I think we still have his ashes.”
Minutes later, Banner came out with a cardboard box with Robert Robinson’s name and a date on it.
“I need to borrow these as part of an ongoing investigation,” the sheriff said and signed a form saying he would be responsible for the ashes.
Once out in his SUV, he swung by the crime lab and left the ashes. He needed to know why a man’s wife hadn’t cared enough to retrieve her husband’s remains. All his instincts told him the answer would be in the DNA results.
HOLLY JO FRANTICALLY looked around the room for something to fight off the two people as she heard their footfalls growing closer. But there was nothing even if she had felt strong enough. Earlier, the man had taken her plastic spoon and the paper plate, leaving her with only the bottle of juice. She spotted the small plastic bucket and her empty juice container on the floor in the corner, her heart sinking as she heard the key in the lock.
As the door swung open, she knew there was nowhere to run, no place to hide. For the first time, they both came into the room, making her terror rise after what she’d heard the woman say outside the door. The man had his mask on. The woman didn’t wear one. Her face was pale in the dim light, and she looked as scared as Holly Jo felt.
But it was what she held in her hand that had Holly Jo too terrified to cry or speak. The woman carried a large pair of scissors.
Holly Jo frantically looked around the room again for something to use to defend herself. There was nothing. There was no one to save her, and even if she hadn’t felt so weak and tired, she knew she couldn’t fight them both off.
“Let’s just get this over with,” the man snapped, shoving the woman toward Holly Jo and closing the door.
She pressed herself against the wall as they approached and heard herself begin to whimper. Her body felt so sluggish from the juice drug that when the man rushed her, she could hardly lift her arms to fight him off. He forced her down on the floor.
She tried to curl up in a ball, but he jerked her head up by her hair.
“I’ll hold her. You do the cutting,” he snapped at the woman, who had stopped in the middle of the room. “Come on. Do this.”
The woman took a step closer, then another. She was shaking her head and looked close to tears. “You said I wasn’t going to have to do anything.”
“Oh, for crying out loud. You want the money? Then get over here and do it.”
The word money made the woman look up. “But you said—”
“I’ve changed my mind. You’re right. After everything we’ve had to go through, I should be reimbursed. But I want a whole lot more than some ten-thousand-dollar reward. Now do it.” He pinned down Holly Jo’s arms and forced her into a sitting position.
The woman came over and knelt beside them. “Once we do this, we get the money, let her go and leave, right?”
“Just do it,” he ordered.
Holly Jo tried to pull away, but the man snapped, “You want her to cut your throat? Hold still or you’re going to bleed.” She stopped fighting, closed her eyes and held her breath, not knowing what the woman planned to do with the scissors. Her heart raced. The man’s grip was painful, and he was sweaty and gross.
When the woman took hold of her hair, Holly Jo opened her eyes. She heard the snip and saw a lock of her hair flutter downward. That was all they had planned to do? Take a little of her hair? She felt so relieved that her eyes burned with tears. She took a shaky breath, her chest aching.
“What is wrong with you?” the man demanded. “You aren’t giving her a trim. I said cut off a chunk. A big chunk, right in front. I want it for the photo.”
The woman grabbed hold of her hair again as the man held her too tightly. She watched the woman grab a handful of hair at the front and begin sawing through it only inches from her scalp.
“No!” she cried as she thought of all the nights her mother used to brush her hair, saying how beautiful it was. Then her mother had gotten sick and died. Heartbroken, Holly Jo had chopped her hair off one day in her grief. In all the months she’d been at the ranch, it had finally grown out. It had become beautiful again, the memory of her mother brushing it no longer breaking her heart. “No!”
“There,” the woman said, holding out the thick hunk of hair to him as he let go of his grip on her. Holly Jo struck out at him and tried to kick the woman.
“Stop it!” he ordered her, grabbing her hair and hauling her up to shove her against the wall. “We aren’t finished. You have to help,” he said to the woman.
The woman took hold of Holly Jo like he had, pressing her against the wall and at the same time trying to stand back as much as she could. All Holly Jo could do was glare at the phone as the man took photos of her. She swore that she would never drink the juice again no matter how thirsty she got. She would find a way to escape. After she got away, HH would find these two. Then they would be sorry for what they’d done.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE DISPATCHER PUT the call through to the sheriff’s cell phone. “It’s Penny, the waitress at the café. I found an envelope on a table here after the evening rush with a note that says, Give this to Holden McKenna.”
“Did you see who left it?”
“No, but the cook said he thought it was a woman. Didn’t see her, but he said she didn’t seem familiar. Probably not from around here.”
“Don’t let anyone else touch the envelope, please,” Stuart said. “I’ll be right there.”
Five minutes later, he was bagging the envelope with a large chunk of dark hair inside. He didn’t need to wait for the DNA report to know it was Holly Jo’s or question why it had been left at the café. He was only thankful that it hadn’t been a finger or a toe. The fact that it was a thick chunk of her hair made his stomach roil. He feared what might come next. He swore he would find this kidnapper if it was the last thing he ever did.
Once they had proof of life—the hair didn’t prove that Holly Jo was still alive. He needed a photo. As he left the café, he got the call from Holden that a photograph had been received. The FBI lab already had it.
He would make arrangements to send the hair on to the lab so it could be matched with the hair from Holly Jo’s brush. He saw no reason to show it to Holden, who was already furious over the photo and what had been done to the girl’s hair.
Stuart was anxious to hear about the cardboard box of Robert “Bobby” Robinson’s ashes from the funeral home that were also now at the FBI lab and asked that a DNA sample be compared to Holly Jo’s DNA. He knew he was spitballing as he drove out to the McKenna Ranch. It was late. He’d grabbed a sandwich and ate it as he drive.
His mind whirred. What wife didn’t pick up her husband’s ashes? She’d paid the bill but hadn’t wanted an urn. The ashes had never been picked up? Maybe she’d been too angry at him for dying—especially since alcohol had been involved after the rodeo. Or maybe, his gut told him, something was wrong.
Stuart was anxious to talk to Holden about what he’d found out. He was positive now that the rancher knew a whole lot more than he was telling him—starting with Holly Jo’s father.