Chill Factor by Sandra Brown

He just didn’t want to cope with Mrs. Gunn’s desperation tonight, when he was having a hell of a time battling his own.
    Mr. Gunn was a rotund man who looked even larger in his red-and-black checked wool coat, thekind Dutch associated with lumberjacks. Gunn did, in fact, work with wood. His carpenter’s hands, roughened by decades of manual labor and chapped by the cold, looked like sugar-cured hams.
    He was threading his hat between his scarred fingers, staring vacantly at the stained brown felt. At an elbow nudge from his wife, he looked up and followed her hollow-eyed gaze toward Dutch.
    He stood. “Dutch.”
    â€œErnie. Mrs. Gunn.” Dutch nodded at them in turn. “It’s getting bad out there. You ought to be at home.”
    â€œWe just came by to ask was there anything new.”
    Dutch knew the reason for this ambush. He’d received several telephone messages from them today but hadn’t responded. He wished one of his men had warned him that they were in the office so he could have delayed his return until they gave up and went home. But he was here, and so were they. He might just as well get the meeting over with.
    â€œCome on back. We’ll talk in my office. Did somebody offer you coffee? It’s thick as road tar, but it’s usually hot.”
    â€œNo thanks,” Ernie Gunn said, speaking for both of them.
    Once they were seated across the desk from him in his private office, Dutch frowned with regret. “Unfortunately I don’t have anything new to report. I had to call off the search today for obvious reasons,” he said, motioning toward the window.
    â€œBefore this storm hit, we towed Millicent’s carto the county pound. We’ll be gathering all the trace evidence we can from it, but there are no obvious signs of a struggle.”
    â€œLike what?”
    Dutch squirmed in his seat and shot a glance at Mrs. Gunn before answering her husband. “Broken fingernails, clumps of hair, blood.”
    Mrs. Gunn’s head wobbled on her skinny neck.
    â€œThat’s actually good news,” Dutch said. “My men and I are still trying to reconstruct Millicent’s movements her last evening at work. Talking to everybody who saw her in and out of the store. But we had to suspend the canvassing this afternoon, again on account of the storm.
    â€œI haven’t heard anything more from Special Agent Wise, either,” he said, heading off what he figured would be their next question. “He was called back to Charlotte a few days ago, you know. He had another case there that needed his attention. Before he left, though, he told me he was still actively working on Millicent’s disappearance and wanted to use the computers there in the bureau office to check out some things.”
    â€œDid he say what?”
    Dutch hated admitting to them that Wise—in fact all those FBI sons of bitches—was stingy with information. They were especially tight-lipped around cops they considered to be inferior, incompetent burnouts. Like yours truly, for instance.
    â€œI believe you gave Wise access to Millicent’s journal,” he said.
    â€œThat’s right.” Mr. Gunn turned to his wife and clasped her hand for encouragement. “Maybe Mr.Wise will come across something in it that’ll lead them to her.”
    Dutch pounced on that point. “That’s a very real possibility. Millicent might have left of her own accord.” He held up his hand to stave off their protests. “I know that’s the first thing I asked you when you reported her missing. You dismissed it out of hand. But hear me out.”
    He divided his best serious-cop look between them. “It’s entirely possible that Millicent needed some time away. Maybe she’s not connected to the other missing women at all.” He knew the chances of that were highly remote, but it was something to say that would give them hope.
    â€œBut