Cold Case Manhunt

Chapter 3

The next day, Jaslene put one harness boot down onto the slushy pavement and alighted from Cal’s SUV. She couldn’t look at him without anger flaring. She didn’t tell him what happened in her awkward situation because he had labeled her without having the facts.

“I’ll be back in about an hour,” he said.

She turned back to see his handsome face, dark hair neatly trimmed and blue eyes glowing even on this dreary day. Irritation joined her temper. Why on earth was he still so attractive to her?

“Okay.” She hated how attracted she was to him, a man who was so quick to judge.

Shutting the door harder than necessary, she ducked her head from the spitting snow and hurried into Pinocchio’s. The hostess led her to where Catherine and Tatum already sat at a tall bistro table along the front window.

“Sorry I’m late.” She sat on a chair next to the window, feeling a chill radiating through the glass.

“Who’s the hottie?” Tatum asked, as Cal pulled out into a break in traffic, windshield wipers swiping big snowflakes clear.

Jaslene watched him disappear up the road, his profile blurred by moisture on the windows of the car and the restaurant, but still managing to imprint on her brain.

“Detective Chelsey,” she said tersely, hanging her purse on the back of the chair.

“The detective you’ve been complaining about?” Catherine asked.

Jaslene shrugged out of her long black jacket and let it fall over the back of the chair, wishing they wouldn’t go there.

“You’re kind of edgy,” Tatum said. “Is he still going nowhere with the case?”

“He dropped her off for lunch,” Catherine pointed out. “They’ve been getting close.”

Tatum observed Jaslene, scrutinizing her. “Have you?”

“You look nice today,” Catherine said.

“She does,” Tatum added.

“Would you two stop?” Jaslene had worn a long black sweater over heavy tights, nothing sexy but she wouldn’t admit she’d taken more care getting ready today than she usually did. She wanted to make Cal squirm somehow for the things he had said to her.

“What happened to you?” Catherine asked with a sly smile.

“Nothing. What do you mean?”

“You haven’t had a single nice thing to say about that detective and now he’s dropping you off for lunch?” Catherine said. “Where were you before that? Obviously you were with him.”

“I was at his new office. He left the force to join a private detective agency.”

“Ooh, a man of action.” Tatum fanned herself. “Apparently, he’s not the slacker you had him made out to be.”

“I never thought he was a slacker.” Jaslene looked for a waitress, eager to get on with this before her friends exaggerated her relationship with Cal. Just because he dropped her off didn’t mean there was something romantic going on between them.

“Not smart, then,” Catherine said.

“No, I never thought that, either.” She had always thought he was shrewdly intelligent. “He just seemed to...not care very much, or...not have any feelings about anything, really. But he quit the force because his boss was going to reassign him.”

Tatum drew her head back and Catherine froze as she lifted her water glass.

“Wow. He...quit his job for you?” Tatum asked.

“No, not for me. To investigate freely.” Her annoyance came out in her tone.

Tatum looked at Catherine at the same time Catherine looked at her, and then they both returned skeptical gazes to Jaslene.

“He only cares about the victims. He said so himself,” Jaslene said.

“Did you have sex with him?” Tatum asked.

The question stunned her. “No!” How could they ask such a thing? She hadn’t thought about sex with another man since before her husband died. She had felt the urge in her awkward situation and felt guilty about that to this day. But Cal had no right to judge her.

“I thought he wasn’t doing anything to solve Payton’s missing person case,” Catherine said. She was always so practical.

“I thought he wasn’t, either, but it turns out he was. He found evidence Payton’s house and laptop might have been searched before police got there.”

“My, oh my, he is smart,” Catherine gushed.

The waitress came to deliver Jaslene a water. She hadn’t even looked at the menu yet.

“Was anything missing that police didn’t notice?” Tatum asked.

“I don’t think so, but Payton was in contact with a man she never told me about. Did she ever mention she was seeing anyone to you?”

Tatum shook her head.

“No,” Catherine said. “Did your detective find out she was?”

“We know she met a Dr. John Benjamin for lunch one day. He denies having any relationship with her and says she was his patient, but I can’t get past how odd it is that she met him for lunch. He claims it was to introduce her to a chiropractor, but the chiropractor never showed up.”

“I agree it’s odd she met her doctor for lunch.”

“She would have told us if she was seeing anyone,” Catherine said.

“Dr. Benjamin is married.” Jaslene waited for that to sink in.

Tatum drew her head back in surprise and Catherine just stared at Jaslene.

“Payton was having an affair with a married man?” Catherine said. “That is so not like her.”

“I know,” Jaslene agreed. “I think that’s why she didn’t tell us.”

“Wait a minute.” Tatum leaned forward on her elbows. “You’re not saying you think the doctor kidnapped her and maybe killed her, are you?”

“What if Payton threatened to tell his wife?” Jaslene wanted to hear what her friends would say. “Maybe he told her he would leave his wife and then she found out he had no intention of doing it.”

Catherine shook her head this time. “She wouldn’t do that.”

Jaslene didn’t think so, either, but she’d wanted to know what they both thought.

“There’s something else,” Jaslene said. “I saw Riley the other day. He made a pistol with his hands and mimicked shooting me.”

“Oh, that slithering snake.” Catherine made a face.

“Why is Riley stalking you now?” Tatum asked.

“Did you tell the police?”

“Cal knows. I saw him outside my house a month ago, too. I’ve seen him around town, just random run-ins, like normal. But he stops and watches me, like he used to do to Payton. He’s never made shooting gestures to me before. I guarantee you, I’d have told the cops if he did. There’s nothing anyone can do about a man who’s doing what he normally does in town and happens to run into me.”

“He’d like to kill you,” Catherine said. “Isn’t that what his little gesture means?”

“That’s how I took it,” Jaslene said. “He had an alibi, but Cal is going to look into that again.”

“It makes more sense that Riley had something to do with Payton’s disappearance than a married doctor she might have been experimenting with sexually,” Catherine said.

“Cal?” Tatum queried. “You just called your detective ‘Cal.’”

“Detective Chelsey.”

“You’re calling each other by first names now?” Tatum teased. “Ooh la la.” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

“Stop it.” Her friends knew her well enough to pick up on undercurrents.

“What’s been going on between the two of you?” Tatum asked.

“Nothing.” Her response, if she was truthful, would be wild attraction—before he had insulted her, but she would rather not go there.

Both Catherine and Tatum pinned her with doubtful gazes.

“Nothing,” she repeated.

Tatum cocked her head dubiously and Catherine started to smile.

“Nothing is going on,” Jaslene almost snapped.

“He’s very good-looking,” Tatum said.

“And manly,” Catherine added. She’d married a tall man herself.

“There’s nothing going on between us,” Jaslene insisted. “In fact, I told him about Ansel and he assumed I cheated on my husband.”

“You almost did,” Tatum said.

Jaslene lowered her head with the pang of grief and regret that fact instilled. She felt like she had cheated. And Cal was right. Her husband had died not knowing the truth.

Tatum reached over and put her hand over Jaslene’s. “I’m sorry. I know what a sensitive subject that is for you.”

“You didn’t cheat on Ryan,” Catherine said. “Ansel kissed you. You didn’t kiss him. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Jaslene wished her heart would believe that. True, she hadn’t been the one to initiate the kiss, but what it had made her feel was the part that felt wrong.

“I asked my husband what he would do if something like that happened to me,” Catherine said. “He told me he’d beat the hell out of the man and make sure I felt loved.” She smiled, full of affection for her man.

Had Jaslene’s husband made her feel loved? Ryan had been a geologist like her. They’d gone to school together. Sometimes she thought both of them having the same profession wasn’t such a good thing. They’d both had different ideas on certain earth processes, for one. For example, he supported global warming and had conviction that would be the cause of an apocalypse. She agreed humans were responsible for climate change, but she also thought the earth was far more powerful than any human influence. People would heat up the earth, but that didn’t mean the planet would come to an end. The earth would recover, even if humanity did not.

She and Ryan had argued often. Jaslene had fallen in love with his intelligent mind and his dark good looks. Best friends, they’d shared a love of nature. But had that been enough? Why had another man sent sparks, which she had never felt with Ryan, chasing through her? She had liked Ryan’s lovemaking and his kisses. But she hadn’t been transported to outer space. She wasn’t sure Ansel could have done that, either, but he had gotten off to a good start with that kiss.

“Well, you aren’t a cheater,” Tatum said. “You have integrity and respect for others. You don’t have it in you.”

“Tell that to Cal.” Jaslene smiled to cover the sick feeling churning her stomach.

“Something tells me he’s going to discover that on his own,” Catherine said. “He doesn’t know what he has yet.”

What did he have? Her? Not yet, and Jaslene wasn’t sure she ever wanted him to, since he thought so little of her now, without any details on what had really happened with Ansel.

* * *

Dr. Drake Faulkner, the chiropractor Benjamin had recommended for Payton, welcomed Cal into his office. He closed the door, muffling the sounds of voices considerably. Dr. Faulkner was almost six feet and fit, with salt-and-pepper hair and titanium glasses.

“Thanks for seeing me.” Cal sat on a chair, taking in the stacks of files on the desk and cluttered windowsills. Outside, the snow had picked up, flakes hitting and melting against the glass.

“My receptionist told me it was important...related to a missing person who may have been a patient of mine?”

“Yes. Payton Everett.”

The doctor’s interest perked up. “She wasn’t a patient of mine. She was referred to me but never came to see me. Seems I can’t help you after all.”

“I think maybe you can. What can you tell me about Dr. Benjamin?”

“What do you want to know?”

Rather than say he needed to know everything, Cal started with “Did he ask you to meet him and Payton for lunch?”

The doctor hesitated. “Yes, but I refused.”

“You refused or didn’t show up?”

The doctor leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “Mr. Chelsey, Dr. Benjamin asked me to meet with a potential patient. I found that ethically insulting, not to mention a risk to my practice.”

“Why did you think it was ethically insulting?”

“Because I don’t have personal relationships with my patients. If he intended to refer her to me, then why do it over lunch?”

“Why did Dr. Benjamin ask you to meet her?”

“Maybe he liked her. I don’t know.” Dr. Faulkner leaned back.

“What was the nature of your association with Benjamin?”

“I worked for him when I opened my practice, but I went out on my own because I didn’t agree with his philosophy...like meeting patients for lunch.”

Cal believed that. “Do you know if he had any kind of personal relationship with Payton beyond meeting her for lunch?”

“No. Like I said, she never came to see me and I went out on my own shortly after that incident.” He tapped his fingers on the end of the armrest.

“If you worked for him, why the need for a referral?”

“His company is large and includes several clinics and practices. He had a referral program set up between them all.”

He seemed agitated. “Why did Benjamin ask you to meet him and Payton for lunch? Why not just refer her to you like a normal doctor?”

Faulkner grunted derisively, his fingers stilling. “You just answered your own question, Mr. Chelsey. There’s nothing normal about Dr. Benjamin. He’s not a man who lives by any rules other than the ones he makes up himself.”

A lot of criminals embarked on their wayward careers with that kind of mentality. Could Dr. Benjamin be behind Payton’s disappearance? If he liked her as Dr. Faulkner suggested, that would be highly unlikely. Unless Payton posed a threat to him, but what threat could she pose? Telling his wife didn’t seem enough for a motive. Maybe Faulkner just disliked the doctor.

“Can you tell me of any other incidents he caused?” Cal asked. “Do you think Dr Benjamin was having an affair with Payton?”

“It’s possible. That wasn’t the first time he took a patient to lunch, if that’s what you mean. He had a way of treating his practice like it was a personal extension of himself. He grew a very successful business on charisma alone. He owns several clinics across the country now, including two home health care services companies. Many doctors and nurses work for those clinics. He’s a multimillionaire. I give him credit for being smart, but I found his personal interactions with his patients too risky. I wanted no further association with him.”

Dr. Benjamin did have a way of presenting himself as friendly. He had been kind and patient and cooperative up until the end, when he’d refused to answer any more questions. Jaslene had noticed that, too. But was that all a show?

“Did you remain in contact with Benjamin?” Cal asked.

Faulkner’s fingers started tapping again. “No. He wasn’t very happy with my decision to leave his company.”

“Did he know why?”

“I didn’t publicly condemn him for his ways. He wouldn’t have liked losing the business. He lost most of my patients when I left.”

“So, you were gone before Payton disappeared.”

“Yes I was. I left shortly after he invited me to that lunch. I heard about Payton in the news.”

“Do you think Dr. Benjamin could have been responsible for her disappearance?”

“I knew him but I didn’t know him that well. I wouldn’t make an assessment either way. I’m not even sure how involved he was with her.”

He asked the chiropractor a few more questions about the day Payton disappeared, but he had already branched off on his own by then and had no contact with Benjamin or Payton for quite some time before that. He thanked him and left.

Time to go pick up Jaslene from her lunch with her friends. He wondered if she had cooled down yet, and part of him wanted to make it up to her.

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