“You and your mother must miss each other.”

“We’re getting close now,” he said, as if he’d had enough family talk. He turned the cruiser onto the ramp to downtown Chillicothe. “Let’s go over this again. I’ll drive past Dr. Stevens’s house, then her vet clinic. They’re not in the same area. The clinic’s off Bridge Street near the hospital. Just take a good look at both places to see if anything prompts a memory. Behind her vet clinic, near the train tracks, she had an extension built out the back that’s evidently not used. It’s something my dad discovered and I’ve checked on periodically since. I’ll interview her while you look around, and if you see anything at all suspicious, just meet me back where I drop you off, and we’ll check it out together. Tess, are you okay? Got that?”

“I hear you. Agreed. It’s all a long shot, isn’t it? You have to just keep unraveling threads and hope that something really frays or tears loose.”

“That’s a sad way to look at police work, but I guess, at least in the case of the Cold Creek kidnapper, that’s right.”

She reached over to squeeze his shoulder. He covered her hand with his. At that smallest touch, her heart soared.

* * *

“This is certainly a surprise and, quite frankly, not a welcome one,” Dr. Linda Stevens told Gabe as she sat across her desk from him. “I was barely beginning my practice here when your father came calling with cloaked innuendoes that I might have something to do with a kidnapped child when I only had contact with Dane Thompson for business.”

The vet going on the offensive reminded Gabe of Dane’s attitude earlier. He felt deflated that Tess had not recognized this woman’s house or clinic from their drive-by, but he wasn’t giving up on this interview. He kept thinking his only chance without a solid lead was to rattle each possible suspect’s cage. It bothered him when there were so many caged animals nearby. He could hear the muted cries of dogs and cats, even with the office door closed. But he’d give about anything to hear a young girl’s cries from her place of imprisonment, so he could rescue her.

“Each time there’s another abduction,” he told her, “we need to go back over all former evidence. These crimes may well be linked.”

“But I gave no evidence, per se. I merely gave a deposition that Dane Thompson visited me the day of that first abduction for which he was wrongly suspected.”

The woman lit a cigarette then inhaled deeply. It surprised him, but then he knew all kinds of doctors smoked. He took it that she was nervous enough to light up in front of him without asking if he’d mind.

Linda Stevens was a good-looking woman in an icy way. Her blond hair was pulled away from her face into a twist. A face he’d call classic or aristocratic with high cheekbones and arched eyebrows. He could see why it was his father’s theory that Dane Thompson was interested in her for more than business reasons.

“So, what can I do to get rid of you?” she asked, tapping nonexistent ash from the end of her newly lit cigarette into a cut-glass ashtray.

“Make my day. Admit you covered for Dane by giving him a false alibi that he wasn’t in Cold Creek when Teresa Lockwood was abducted. You certainly won’t be prosecuted for misleading statements to my father from twenty years ago, whereas withholding information now that would be useful—that could be a different story.”

“All right, so I was seeing Dane socially at that time and didn’t want people to think I was dating a possible kidnapper.”

“I believe that much.”

“But I don’t think he was—a kidnapper.”

“I should tell you, however, that all kinds of law enforcement, even media, may be swooping in here with our new emphasis on the investigation. And one way to stop that is to level with me about the drugs you and Dane use to sedate animals.”

“What? Now, wasn’t that a non sequitur!”

He hoped she’d be upset enough to go for his bait-and-switch tactic. Maybe she’d want to get him off the topic of her earlier lies in her deposition and instead give him info about sedation drugs available to vets. He saw her quick mind follow exactly what he’d implied. She stubbed out her barely smoked cigarette with such vehemence that her long fingernails went rat-a-tat against the ashtray.

“Drugs?” she said. “Ask him. Besides, all vets use sedation drugs. And yes, some are the same or similar to what would be used by doctors of Homo sapiens, if that’s where this is going.”

“A drug like Versed, for example?”

“You mean midazolam? That’s for humans. It’s an amnestic. With a dog or cat, unlike with a person, it isn’t necessary to suppress memories of a medical procedure. We use pain or knockout meds for animals. However, I will say one other thing, if you keep it off the record.” She hesitated, frowning.

He shifted slightly forward in his chair. “So far, this is all off the record.”

“Dane, at that time, not now, was my source for drugs. Vet drugs, not recreational drugs or medical drugs for humans like midazolam. He had some source on the East Coast, got them cheap from some clearing house, nothing illegal.”

That was intriguing, perhaps useful. But he decided to go for another quick change in topic. “Did he phone you to say I might be visiting today?”

She blinked, once, twice. “I don’t see him anymore. Haven’t for years.”

“That’s not what I asked. You want me out of here right now, answer the question.”

She pushed the ashtray away. Her hand was shaking. He heard a distant train coming closer and thought of Tess. The tracks were barely a block from here. Would that sound trigger a memory that she’d been kept near here, even for a short while? He wanted to be with her in case her memories came back. The problem was, he wanted to be with her more and more.

“Yes,” she said, not looking at him. “He phoned earlier to give me a heads-up you might stop by or that Reingold might. Look, Sheriff, I had nothing to do with the first abduction or this latest one of Sandy Kenton or anything!”

He stood. Maybe that was why Dane was so confrontational. He was afraid Gabe would uncover his drug pipeline, whether for animals—or young girls.

“I see you’re keeping up with details of the latest kidnapping,” he said. “You know Sandy Kenton’s name.”

“It’s been in the papers for several days, for heaven’s sake!”

“Thanks for the information. I’ll show myself out. And even though Dane phoned you, I’d advise you not to report this interview to him or take more of his calls, or it will look like current collusion, as well as twenty years ago. I’d advise you to steer clear of him.”

He walked away and opened the door, then turned back. She looked as if she was going to cry. He’d probably overstepped, but learning Dane was a drug supplier was important. And that search warrant he was going to apply for would give him the power to comb the man’s house and clinic for any trace of amnestic drugs.

17

“You won’t like this,” Tess told Gabe as he picked her up down the block from the vet clinic. “Despite that train going by—much closer than my memory of it—I looked in the windows of that wing she has built out the back.”

“Tess, I told you—”

“I know, I know, but I want to help, and we’ve got to find those girls. I think it’s meant to be a kennel for boarding dogs, but it’s empty. Maybe she built it, then decided not to expand that way. Did she say anything to help?”

“She gave me a lead on some drugs Dane might have access to.”

Tess rubbed her arms through her jacket until she realized she was trying to soothe the memory of injections she’d once had there. Gabe went on, “It will help me get a search warrant if there’s any problem with that. Since the guy’s supposedly such an upstanding member of society, the judge may balk. Would you do me a favor while I drive, partner, and look up a drug called Versed or midazolam on your phone, then read me the specs on it?” He spelled it out for her.