Mortal Crimes: 7 Novels of Suspense by Brett Battles, Robert Gregory Browne, Melissa F. Miller, J. Carson Black, Michael Wallace, M A Comley, Carol Davis Luce Page A

out sooner or later anyway. “Kristy's mother is flying in, so we'll talk to her.”
    “What about the other kid? The one on Mt. Lemmon? You talk to her parents yet?”
    Laura hesitated.
    Jaime broke in smoothly, “We're working on it.”
    Rory Flynn's eyes narrowed. He knew they weren't going to share anything else with him, and he was mad about it. He tossed off a last shot and bit into a lime, then said, “Why don't you take me back to the party?”
    ________
    On the drive back home, to the Bosque Escondido, Laura saw fireworks over the mountains. The official fireworks were over; these were the renegade ones—small and sporadic—but far more dangerous to the tinder-dry Tucson valley.
    Fires everywhere, but people had to have their fun.
    After Jaime dropped her off at the Department of Public Safety building, she'd tried to run down the missing girl. As she'd suspected, there were no missing children reported in Tucson during the years that concerned her, other than the three she knew about. There were sure to be runaways, but they would be older. She'd follow through on that tomorrow.
    She and Jaime had learned little more than was in the report. They would follow up on the short order cook, but Laura doubted it would pan out. The guy who took Micaela had been driving all over hell and back.
    Maybe they'd have better luck with the TPD detective who investigated Micaela Brashear's disappearance. Unfortunately, he now lived in Florida. She would have liked to talk to him face-to-face, but due to budget cuts, times were hard and money scarce.
    Laura's house loomed up chalk-white in the starlight, situated on a dogleg in the ranch road. The dirt lane was lined by walnut trees, mesquite, and a stand of bamboo. The Bosque Escondido, a guest ranch sprawling across twenty acres of desert foothills, was owned by an old friend from high school. They'd worked out an agreement—she would maintain a law enforcement presence on the property, occasionally working traffic control for weddings and other events, and in return, she got to stay in the little house for minimal rent.
    County land abutted the ranch on three sides. None of the ticky-tacky houses growing up over Kristy Groves's gravesite would ever set up shop in this pristine part of the world.
    The house was closed up. She flipped on the pump switch for the swamp box cooler. She turned on every fan in the house and put her files on the desk in the alcove by the kitchen. Already this case was messy. Three jurisdictions, five detectives—one of them dead and another living in Florida. A tangled skein of egos, lapses in time, communication snafus, and turf battles. She needed to get control of the material, untangle all the threads. The thread she was most inclined to pull was the carnival connection. Both Micaela and Kristy Groves had been to a carnival within days of their abductions.
    A carnival would be a perfect place for a serial killer. Serial killers, as a rule, loved to travel. A nomadic existence suited them well, the major reason why so many murders went unsolved. Hard to follow a shadow across the country, completely free to go where he wished. Serial killers were as efficient as any other predator. They killed and then just went on to the next victim.
    Her head ached. She did not want to think about it.
    She got a few baby carrots from the fridge and walked onto the porch, listening to the crickets and enjoying the view of the dark mesquite forest that made up the front yard. She let herself out the creaking gate and followed the well-worn path down toward the corral.
    As she crossed the small wooden bridge over the irrigation ditch, the air dropped five or six degrees, because of the trees and the proximity to a spring.
    There had been a path like this on the ranch where she used to keep her first horse, when she was going to college and engaged to Billy Linton. It had been a time full of hope and promise, but it had ended way too soon.
    That youthful bliss