I bolted out of my seat. “No, I’ll find her.”
“Sit back down.”
“I won’t be ordered around. Not by you or anyone. I’m leaving.”
“You need my help.”
“Since when? You’ve never wanted my help, and you’ve certainly never asked for it except for when you’re trying to get information out of me. You just want to keep me contained so I don’t get in your way.”
“This time is different.”
“How? Because it seems the same to me.”
“It’s personal. We need to work together.”
After all my previous attempts, I couldn’t believe he was offering now.
“Work together? Why? You don’t care about Gran. She’s just a case you need to solve. I know you, Coop. I know how you operate. I don’t need you to find her.”
I flung the office door open and stepped into the hall, expecting Nick to jump up and try to stop me. He didn’t. He let me go.
“You’re right,” Coop called after me. “Everything you said is true.”
I didn’t stop. I kept on walking. I felt trapped by him. I needed to break free.
Coop came into the hall. “Cordelia’s not just a case, Sloane. And I do care about her on a personal level.”
“Stop it, okay?” I shouted. “Stop doing this to me. You don’t even know her.”
“I do though. She’s dating my father.”
Dating his father?
I froze, trying to decide if it was true or just one of Coop’s manipulation techniques. “Since when?”
“A few months ago.”
“That’s not possible. She would have told me.”
“They met at a city fundraiser. Cordelia didn’t know he was my father at first. When she found out, she didn’t think you’d approve, given our history.”
“You mean our rivalry?”
“I suppose now would be a good time to admit she’s the one who suggested I show you the photo of my daughter. She said I needed to find some common ground with you, make things right, or she wouldn’t agree to keep seeing my father.”
I turned, looking him square in the eye. “I knew you had an agenda. You always do.”
“Look, Sloane. Cordelia makes my father happy. So what if we butt heads all the time? You’re a pain in the ass. I am too. We may never get along, but we can try, can’t we?”
“How can you expect me to do that after what you just pulled?”
An elderly man stepped in front of me. He wore black-rimmed glasses and a bowtie, was a few inches shorter than Coop, and was dapper for a man of his age. He scowled at Coop and then stuck a hand in my direction. “Hello, I’m Alfred, Detective Cooper’s father. You must be Sloane. I know how hard it is for you to work with my son right now,” he said, “but please, for your grandmother’s sake and mine, would you be willing to do it for me?”
CHAPTER 37
Over the past six years, I’d had a handful of high-priority cases, the kind where someone usually wound up dead. Vicki Novak had been killed by Coop, Sam Reids by Giovanni. A distraught Ivy West had thrown herself in front of a train. Eddie Fletcher and Shawn Hurtwick were both serving life sentences in prison with no possibility of parole. Rocco “The Rock” Romano had fled the country via plane only to discover he wasn’t as clever as he thought. Giovanni had made it onto the plane with him, and while he had never been heard from again, and his body had never been found, it wasn’t hard to imagine what happened to him. No one who crossed Giovanni Luciana had ever lived to tell about it. Rounding out my more recent cases, Rob Wilcox had taken his own life by shooting himself in the head. And finally, a jealous Carol Ayres was in prison for committing a double homicide.
Eight murderers.
Five dead.
Three in prison.
Coop divvied out the cases and questioned me about each one. Some he was already familiar with, and others he wasn’t. No one stood out. We were looking for a family member connected to one of my cases who harbored enough resentment toward me to pick off the people in my life one by one. I didn’t believe the man we were looking for was tied to my old cases. We were looking for someone else. Coop believed there was a good chance my hunch was wrong, but I knew it wasn’t.
Who hated me enough to go after all those I loved? And why abduct Gran in? Given her car was parked in a public parking lot and there could have been people around, he may have decided it was better to wait. But that hadn’t stopped him before, and I couldn’t help but feel he had a grand finale planned—a finale that included me.
Even more curious was the way the killer had been discovered by Gran’s neighbor. He’d tripped the outside light and then stood beneath it, almost as if exposing himself on purpose. Although Coop’s men had been through Gran’s house, I’d decided to take a look for myself.
Sitting on a folded blanked at the bottom of the bed in Gran’s bedroom, I found her wedding album. I pulled it onto my lap and flipped through it. The last time I had visited, she’d pulled it out of a drawer, and we had spent half the day reminiscing about past memories. At the time I had wondered if there was a specific reason she was showing me the album that day. We’d gone through it together before. Had she planned on telling me about Alfred?
Nick and Maddie entered the room.
“How’s it going?” Nick said. “Find anything?”
I shook my head. “You should be home with your wife. Not here with me. I’m sorry.”
“She understands. Besides, if I weren’t with you, Coop would have assigned someone else to be here. At least we’re familiar.”
“Yes, we are.”
I rose from the bed and walked through the rest of the house, stopping when I reached the kitchen. Gran had a habit of littering the outside of the refrigerator with photos. Today they looked different somehow. I leaned in, taking a closer look.
“What is it?” Maddie asked.
I shrugged. “I’m not sure. Some of these photos have been here for years, and it looks like they’ve been rearranged.”
“Huh, that’s strange.”
I went row by row, checking for any I hadn’t noticed before. On the third row, I found what I was looking for—an older photo of a newborn baby.
Maddie reached out, grabbing my shoulder. “Sloane, are you all right? You’re shaking.”
“He was here, he was in here, in Gran’s house.”
“Who was here? The killer?”
I nodded.
“How do you know?” she asked.
I removed the picture, staring in disbelief at the playing card stuck behind it—the Ace of Hearts.
Maddie looked at the playing card and then at the photo I held in my hand. She detached the card and flipped it around, reading aloud:
How does it feel to lose the one you love?
How does it feel to never know him?
CHAPTER 38
“I need to tell you both something,” I said, “and I don’t want either of you to get mad.”
“Whatever it is, you know you can tell us,” Nick said.
“Yeah,” Maddie said. “Why would we get mad?”
“Because it’s something I should have told you both a long time ago, something no one knows, except for a few people, like Gran.”
“Are you referring to the baby in the photo?” Maddie asked. “Who is he?”
“You both know I was married once a long time ago, before I knew either of you.”
Maddie shrugged. “Yeah, to that alcoholic loser you dated when you were in high school.”
“Logan, yes. I’ve also told you that when he had too much to drink, he was physically abusive, taking his anger out on me. The night I finally told him I wanted a divorce, he attacked me.”
“Yeah,” Maddie frowned. “We’ve seen your scar. I’m so glad you got away from him when you did.”
“After I got the restraining order, I moved in with Gran and Gramps, and Logan never dared come after me because he knew if he did, Gramps would have killed
him.”
“Well, yeah,” Maddie said, “your grandpa was a badass FBI agent.”
“What does your past with Logan have to do with the photo of the baby?” Nick asked.
It only took a few seconds for him to figure out the answer for himself, and a look of shock to set in.
Maddie looked at Nick and then at me. “What’s going on here, guys? What am I missing?”
I took a deep breath. “The baby in this photo is mine. He’s my son.”
Maddie jerked back, waving a hand in front of her. “What? No! I don’t believe it. No way! You’ve never had any kids. I mean, I thought you said you couldn’t have any kids?”
“I can’t now. I mean, I couldn’t, not after I had him.”
The pain and hurt on her face mirrored Nick’s. My best friend and my ex-boyfriend, both significant parts of my life, and I’d kept a monumental secret from them.
“So where is your baby?” Maddie said. “And when did you have him?”
“The night I left Logan and filed for divorce, I didn’t know I was pregnant. I mean, I suspected I might be, but I wasn’t certain.”
“When did you find out?”
“The minute Gran took me in, I threw up. A few days later, she bought a pregnancy test, and it was confirmed.”
“What did you do?”
“I thought about keeping him at first. I wanted to keep him, and had I known I wouldn’t ever have a child again, maybe I would have.”
“What made you decide to give him up?”
“Gran kept talking to me about how young I was and about how I’d have to spend the rest of my life trying to keep him a secret. Logan had relatives in Park City. Gran worried Logan would find out and sober up just long enough to convince a judge to give him some kind of custody. Even with Gramps’ connections, there was no guarantee I could keep the baby from Logan for his entire life.”
“So you decided not to tell him at all?” Maddie asked.
I nodded. “All I wanted to do was to protect the little guy. I didn’t want him to grow up to be like his father.”
Maddie leaned against the counter, stared at the floor. “I get why you didn’t tell him, but why wouldn’t you tell me? I’m your best friend.”
“I was ashamed, I guess. Both of you have every right to be angry with me. I shouldn’t have allowed my fear of reliving the past keep me from telling you the truth.”
Nick crossed his arms. “So, where is the boy now?”
“I don’t know. It was a closed adoption. Back then most adoptions were. I haven’t had any contact with the agency or the parents since I gave him up. Prior to his birth, the agency helped me find a good family.”
“Did you meet them, the adoptive family?” Maddie asked.
“Once, right before I gave birth. They were good people. I felt like they would give him a good life.”
“Did they know about Logan?”
“I told them he didn’t want to be part of the baby’s life.”
“Even if Logan found out about his son,” Nick said, “why wouldn’t he just confront you about it? Why go on a killing spree?”
“Yeah,” Maddie added. “How can you be sure it’s him?”
Because Logan was volatile.
“A couple of years after our divorce, Logan met a girl at a bar, and after three months of knowing her, they married. She was a drifter, claimed to have no home and no family. About six months into the marriage, she found out she was pregnant and didn’t tell him. She never wanted kids, and I guess he’d just assumed she would come around. While he was away one weekend, she had an abortion. She made the mistake of telling a girl she had been hanging out with in town. The girl told one of her friends, and that friend told Logan. A couple days after Logan returned, Beth disappeared.”
“What do you mean disappeared?” Nick asked.
“Logan filed a missing-persons report and showed the local cops a note he claimed Beth had left behind.”
“What did the note say?”
“It said she was leaving. She couldn’t handle married life and needed to be on her own again. The cops looked into it, but without any family interested in pursuing it, or any evidence to prove she really hadn’t just left town, there wasn’t a lot they could do. Her body was never found, and no one ever saw her again.”
“Are you saying you think he killed her?” Nick asked.
“In my opinion? Yes, that’s exactly what he did.”
CHAPTER 39
Logan ran a quick errand to the local grocery store, leaving Cordelia zip-tied to an old metal furnace in the bedroom. He’d thought about gagging her before he left but then decided there was no point. The cabin he’d rented was several miles outside of Park City. She could scream for days. No one would hear her.
Back at the cabin, he folded the egg over the cheese, slid the omelette onto a plate, and switched the burner off, staring down at his culinary creation. The egg was a bit crispy on the edges and not entirely intact, but it served its purpose. He’d never been much of a cook, preferring a simple hoagie and a stiff drink to putting forth the effort needed to make a meal for himself, but today he was cooking for two, and he supposed he needed to give her something more than the fast food he’d offered earlier in the day.
He walked down the hall and entered the bedroom, almost turning and walking back out again when he was greeted with an irritating scowl.
“I made you some eggs,” he said, “if you’re interested.”
“It’s about time,” she spat.
He clipped the zip-ties off of her wrists with a pair of scissors, slid the plate in front of her, and grinned, thinking back to a time over decades earlier when he and Sloane were dating, and he actually cared for the old broad. “You always were a tough old bitch.”
She glanced in his direction. “You got that right.”
He laughed, and she did too, which he found puzzling. It had been a long time since he’d seen her. It was possible she was losing her marbles in her old age. Then again, he was several marbles short of a handful himself.
She set the plate on her lap, frowning at his choice in silverware. “Is a cheap plastic fork the best you can do?”
“Yep. Don’t trust you with a metal one.”
“Why not? You’re the one holding the gun, aren’t you?”
True. But she was intelligent, and he knew better than to underestimate her.
She stabbed at the egg with a fork, stuck a piece in her mouth, and screwed up her face. “Oh, for goodness sake, have you never cooked before?”
He bent over, gripped the corner of the plate, and tugged it toward him. “I could take it back, let you starve.”
She snatched it back. “Don’t you dare.”
“Want a beer to go with it? That’s all I have. Well, except for water.”
She shrugged. “Sure, why the hell not? You plan on joining me?”
He grinned, mimicking her. “Sure, why the hell not?”
She set the fork down and rubbed her wrists, and he noticed gashes on both arms where the zip-ties had been. He supposed he should have felt badly for her, but he didn’t. He snapped the cap off the beer and held it out.
“I guess I should thank you for your ... well, small sliver of hospitality,” she said. “If I can call it that, except you are holding me against my will. Are we ever going to talk about why I’m here, or am I supposed to guess?”
He liked the idea.
“Go ahead. Guess.”
“This isn’t a game, Logan. Not to me, it isn’t. Does this have anything to do with Sloane? I mean, you haven’t seen her in what, twenty-something years?”
“It has everything to do with her.”
“Can you tell me why?”
“She took something from me.”
She raised a brow. “I seem to recall you taking a lot more from her when you two were together. Mmm?”
His temper flared. She was testing him with her sarcastic remarks, seeing how far she could go. He’d entertain
it, but not for long. “Did you know about him?”
“You’ll need to tell me who we’re talking about first.”
“The baby. Our baby. My son.”
He stared at her, waiting for a reaction. She must have known about the baby. She had to know, and yet she met his gaze and didn’t even blink.
“She didn’t want to give him away, you know. She wanted to keep him.”
Through gritted teeth, he said, “Then why did she?”
“It wasn’t my doing, and it wasn’t Sloane’s either. It was her grandfather’s idea. It was the only way he’d allow her to stay in his house after you two split up. And you remember how he was at getting what he wanted, don’t you?”
He remembered all right, all too well. He’d always hated Sloane’s grandfather and his “holier than thou” attitude. But was Cordelia telling the truth? The old man was dead. There was no way to know if she was lying or not. “She still had a choice, and she made it. He was my baby too. She should have asked me.”
“How do you know about the child, Logan? Sloane doesn’t even know where he is. She tried finding him once and couldn’t. Did he come looking for you?”
“Maybe.”
“He must be graduated from high school now. I’ve always wondered how he turned out, what he was like, what he looked like.”
Logan dug into his back pocket and pulled out a photo. He showed it to her.
“Where was this taken?” she asked.
“My house, after he came to see me.”
“He’s very handsome. I see you in him. Sloane too.”
Now she was just trying to appease him. It wouldn’t work. He shoved the photo back into his pocket and stood, holding out a hand for the plate. “Going to have to tie you back up again.”
“I don’t understand why any of this is necessary. Why won’t you tell me?”
“You’ll see, soon enough,” he grunted.
“Logan, there must be a way for us to—”
“Stop talking, or I’ll gag you too.”
She made a face like it didn’t matter one way or the other. “Do what you have to do.”
Gone Daddy Gone (Sloane Monroe Book 7) Page 14
