Agent Daddy

by Alice Sharpe

  “A fuse,” she mumbled. The fuse box was literally right behind her in the tool closet. She grappled around for a few minutes, but it was so dark she couldn’t see anything and was afraid to start pushing random switches.

  She’d seen a flashlight in the truck glove compartment. She was trying hard to stay calm, but the sudden darkness and silence had her spooked, and she gripped the rope between both hands as she cautiously made her way toward the bedroom door.

  Two steps later, she collided with the precariously stacked drawers and stubbed a toe. “Damn!” she said, her voice sounding unnaturally loud in the all-but-empty room. Limping now and irritated as well as spooked, she felt her way into the hall.

  A noise up ahead froze her at midstep. The sound of cloth brushing against cloth. The sound of an exhaled breath. She looked toward the ambient light coming through the large window in the main living area. The outside porch light was off, too. “Ruby?” she said.

  No response.

  “Ruby? Is that you?”

  Nothing.

  Maybe it was her imagination. Maybe it wasn’t.

  She took another step, straining to hear. Still detecting nothing, she picked up her pace. The outside door was just a few steps away. She could get the flashlight. Hell, she could lock herself in the truck and sit there all night if she had to. Her purse and phone were out there…the keys. Her heart hammered so loudly she could barely hear herself think. She was moving on instinct, all senses alert.

  Thank goodness David was in jail.

  He was, wasn’t he?

  The door wasn’t far ahead now, a shining gray rectangle, the truck a big, hulking shape beyond. A few more steps to safety.

  And then she heard it again, this time from behind, as though whoever it was had stood silently as she passed.

  Before she could turn, a rock hard arm caught her around the neck, a cloth covered her face. She screamed, but there was no sound. She struggled but felt herself sagging. What was wrong with her, why wasn’t her body responding? She was falling.

  She hit the floor without feeling a thing.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I told you I would never hurt Gina, I loved her,” Peter Saks said. He sat at a table in the small, windowless nook that passed as the Shay police department interrogation room. Chief Novak was conducting the proceedings but Sheriff Torrence was there, too, and he’d insisted Trip be allowed entry.

  Saks held his head in his hands, his previous bravado absent. Trip did his best to disappear into the wall and leave things to the two official lawmen. He watched Saks with a critical eye, trying to detect how good an actor he was.

  “I loved her,” Saks repeated, looking up at Novak. His gaze slid to Trip. “Her body was in his truck. Ask him how she got there.”

  “Mr. Tripper was never alone long enough to have the opportunity to put Gina Cooke’s body anywhere, even in his own truck,” Torrence informed him.

  Trip found himself very grateful that two or three of the guys had glanced in the truck that morning and could attest it had been empty when it left the ranch. Otherwise he might be trying to come up with an alibi.

  Novak circled the table then leaned in close to Saks. “Where’s Marnie Pincer?” he asked.

  “Marnie Pincer?”

  “The waitress at Shay’s Diner.”

  “I know who she is, but I don’t know where she is.”

  “Funny how she disappeared right after you and her got into it at Shay’s.”

  “Now wait a second,” Peter Saks said, his body growing rigid. “I never—”

  “Did you know her car was unlocked? It looks like someone grabbed her when she went to leave for work. Just like someone grabbed Gina when she stopped for coffee.”

  “I don’t know nothing about Marnie Pincer.”

  “I tell you what I think,” Novak said. “I think when Gina refused to go off with you, you got mad. I think you threw her in your car and took off and then you killed her.” His voice turned to steel. “I think you kind of enjoyed killing Gina, so you nabbed Marnie Pincer for a repeat performance. Where is she? Is she still alive?”

  “You’ve got this all wrong. Sure, I waited for Marnie but that’s just because I wanted to apologize for maybe getting her in trouble with her boss. I didn’t hurt her. I even saw her drive away from the restaurant.”

  Saks had waived his Miranda right to keep silent. When would it would occur to him to stop talking and demand legal representation?

  “I never hurt Marnie and I sure as hell didn’t lay a hand on Gina.”

  “My guess is you brought Gina’s body back here so you could try to blame everything on Luke Tripper. Am I right?”

  “I’m not saying anything else,” Saks said, closing his mouth with a visible snap.

  “You don’t have to,” Novak sneered. “I got me a warrant. We’re going to tear your place apart. We’ll trace the tarp, we’ll find your DNA on Gina, maybe we’ll even find Ms. Pincer out at your place. God help you if we do.”

  Peter Saks was as good as his word—he refused to open his mouth. Novak called in his deputy. Lenny took the handcuffed Saks out of the room and, as Torrence and Novak exchanged a few words, Trip followed Lenny, thinking he’d check in on Duke.

  But Duke was no longer in a cell; he must have made bail or transferred out. The more alarming fact was David Lee wasn’t there, either. Once he and Lenny had left the cell block, Trip said, “I thought you guys arrested David Lee.”

  “We did, but his mom got him out. He left two hours ago.”

  “How many times are you going to let him go?”

  “The Chief says Lee is just a troublemaker, nothing to worry about, not when we got us a real murderer.”

  At that moment Torrence appeared. “Trip, you want a ride out to your ranch?”

  “Yeah,” Trip said. A restless, uneasy feeling was growing in his chest. It wasn’t an entirely new sensation. He’d felt it before—when he was undercover, when he was pretty sure someone was on to him. But that wasn’t the case now. He didn’t know what to attribute this feeling to, except that Gina was dead and Faith didn’t answer her phone.

  Nate Pincer was striding across the parking lot as Trip and Torrence exited the station. The snow that had started earlier was sticking now, and it was still coming down. The wind had picked up, too.

  Pincer rushed toward Torrence with single-minded passion. Grabbing the sheriff’s sleeve, he demanded to know what was being done to find his wife.

  In his anxiety, Pincer knocked Torrence’s hat from his bald head. The sheriff retrieved it and pulled it back on as he said, “Mr. Pincer, calm down, sir.”

  “I don’t trust Novak,” Pincer said.

  “He has a suspect,” Torrence replied.

  Trip had seen his share of frightened relatives of victims. Nate Pincer looked the part. Unshaven, wrinkled, almost dusty despite the weather, he seemed to be shrinking in front of them. Trembling, he said, “Our son is on his way home from college…you’ve got to do something.”

  “By this time tomorrow, sir, the place will be crawling with law enforcement. Go home. Let us work on this. Get some sleep.”

  “I heard about the Cooke girl,” Pincer said. “What if there’s a serial killer in town? What if he grabbed my Marnie?” He moved off without an answer, flinging open the station door so hard it crashed against the wall.

  “He’s got a point,” Torrence said as he unlocked the squad car and got behind the wheel. “Trouble is, I happen to know he and Marnie got into a fight before he left on his last trip.”

  “He claimed they hadn’t,” Trip said, but now he recalled Nate’s pause.

  “Told me he was embarrassed to admit it. Said it was no big deal.”

  Trip was scanning the calls he’d missed while inside with the others. Novak had insisted on no cell phones interrupting his interrogation.

  “Dumb obstinacy is not good in a lawman,” Torrence said, as he started the car and pulled away from the curb. “Novak h
as settled on Peter Saks.”

  “He settled on Saks days ago.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I tried to talk to him—”

  “He resents you. He’s never investigated a murder before, and he’s not going to listen to me, either. It’ll be out of his hands tomorrow, though. All I need to do is keep him from impeding things tonight.”

  “Better you than me,” Trip said.

  Trip bypassed a message from Colby to listen to one left by Faith. Something in her voice brought a smile to his lips until the content sank in—she was on her way to the Lee household to pick up her furniture. “Turn around,” he said suddenly. “Drive to the Lee house.”

  “But—”

  “Faith thinks Lee is in jail, but he isn’t—he’s been out for two hours. She’s over at his place now.” As Trip spoke, Torrence made a U-turn. Trip punched in Faith’s number as the car screeched out of the curve and sped back into town. The phone flipped over to messages after two rings. Trip hung up and swore.

  “Go faster,” he urged. “Hurry.”

  The feeling in his chest suddenly had a name: Faith.

  They arrived at the Lee house within ten minutes but they were a long ten minutes to Trip. There was no sign of Lee’s car parked at the curb. Torrence turned in to the driveway, the headlights bouncing as they headed down. While there were lights on in the top part of the house, the basement was dark. Trip’s truck was parked outside, the tailgate open, a chest of drawers ready to load, everything sporting a scattering of newly fallen snow.

  Trip was out of the car before it stopped. The front door of the basement apartment stood wide open but the light switch didn’t work. Torrence’s headlights illuminated some of the place, but not enough for a good search. Trip dashed back to the truck and opened the door, which activated the cab lights and set off the key alert chime. Faith’s purse and cell phone were on the passenger seat. He reached past the steering wheel, grabbed the keys out of the ignition and retrieved the flashlight.

  The main living area was empty. Calling Faith’s name, he moved through the small rooms and found nothing out of place except for a stack of drawers in the small room. The door to the closet was open as was the sliding panel. The inside door itself was locked from the other side.

  “You find anything?” Torrence asked as he entered the room wielding a flashlight of his own.

  “Nothing.” On their way out, Torrence flashed a light into the bathroom, but Trip kept going into the living room. His flashlight had revealed a coil of rope on the floor. He knelt to pick it up.

  “That rope mean anything to you?” Torrence said.

  “No. Anything in the bathroom?”

  “Nope.”

  “Let’s get upstairs and see if the landlady knows what’s going on.”

  They started out the door, Torrence leading the way. It was impossible to see any tracks on the ground, as it was a muddy, snowy mess. Trip held back for a second, trying to figure out where Faith could have gone. The logical assumption was that something had happened to the lights and she’d left the apartment to go ask the landlady for help. Maybe she didn’t know about the flashlight in the glove box of the truck.

  It didn’t feel right.

  He started off again, but paused as he detected a noise on the hillside at the back, up toward the row of houses on the other side. He swept the flashlight on the wooded area, but the falling snow precluded seeing much of anything except occasional glimpses of a path. As he stared, something moved on the path.

  He immediately took off at a dead run. The noise in the bushes got loud enough to hear over the wind whipping the trees overhead. He reached for his gun and realized he wasn’t carrying it, he hadn’t put it on that morning when he left the house for a day at the auction.

  A day with Faith.

  What if he was chasing a bunch of kids out on a winter night escapade, or a homeowner looking for a dog? What if Faith was at her landlady’s house?

  What if she’d been snatched away like Gina and Marnie?

  He ran harder.

  The trail was steep and slippery with icy mud, and he was encumbered by a heavy jacket. Pushing branches out of the way, he ran mostly blind.

  He finally stopped for a second to get his bearings and listen again. He heard more crashing noises, heavy breathing that wasn’t his own. Grabbing at slippery rocks and tree limbs to traverse the rain-gullied path, he climbed steadily until a grunt and an oath were followed by a dark shape hurtling down the bank, headed right for him. He shined the light upward and caught sight of a shining halo of gold.

  Faith’s hair.

  Running fast now, scrambling on all fours when necessary, he tried to reach her before she hit the ground. He wasn’t fast enough. Her body crashed up ahead and immediately began rolling, the lifeless, soundless way it moved constricting his heart.

  He caught her as she flew off the edge of the path. Her weight threw them both to the ground, but at least this time his body cushioned her fall—if she was alive to feel anything.

  Before he could roll her over and get to his feet, more crashing announced another body hurtling down the path, but this one was on its feet. A man wearing a stocking mask jumped over Trip and Faith and continued down the hill.

  Trip let him go. He gently rolled Faith onto her back. He was vaguely aware of lights and shouting at the bottom of the hill, but he ignored them, concentrating on Faith.

  He shined a light on her muddy, bloodied face, smoothing her hair away from her eyes and mouth. His breath condensed into a cloud of vapor, shrouding her face—or maybe it was the tears in his eyes that blurred her features.

  “Hold on,” he urged, leaning over and kissing her forehead, putting his freezing fingers against her throat where he found a heartbeat. Her eyelids fluttered and he moved the light so it wouldn’t blind her, but her eyes didn’t open. She was either drugged or hurt, or maybe both. He dug in his pocket for his cell phone but before he could flip it open, he heard sirens in the distance and Torrence yelling at him.

  FAITH AWOKE WITH A monumental headache and a dry mouth. Where was she?

  She recognized the smells and sounds, the hushed urgency. A hospital.

  For a second, she was in Westerly. She’d been hit by a car; she hurt everywhere. Where was her father? Where were Zac and Olivia? She heard a noise to her left and turned her head too fast. The room spun, her stomach lurched. She closed her eyes and took shallow breaths and within a few seconds the sensations lessened to where she could handle them. She opened her eyes.

  A man lay sprawled on a chair. At first she thought he was Zac, and then he opened his eyes. Not blue like Zac, but velvety brown. His nose hadn’t been broken, he was heavier, darker.

  “Trip?” she whispered.

  He was at her side in an instant. “I’m here.”

  She looked around slowly, trying to remember.

  “You’re going to be okay,” he added. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like hell,” she murmured.

  “Do you remember what happened to you?” His voice was soft and his eyes glowed as though worry burned his brain.

  “Faith?”

  “I…I don’t know for sure,” she said, the effort of trying to think almost too much.

  “Later—” he began.

  “The lights went out,” she said. She could recall the terror of the dark rooms. “Someone was there.”

  “Someone cut the wires to the apartment,” Trip said.

  “It was dark.” Her hands flew to her throat. “He grabbed me.”

  “Did you see who it was? Could you tell by his voice?”

  “He didn’t speak,” she said. She could feel the beginnings of the shakes way deep inside, and she willed them to stay hidden. “I couldn’t see him. He put a cloth over my face.”

  “He drugged you. Then he picked you up and carried you up the hill. Do you remember any of that?”

  She shook her head, which was ill-advised. Again her stomach flip-flopped
and her vision blurred.

  “Do you know who it was?” she whispered.

  “David Lee.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Torrence caught him at the bottom of the hill.”

  “Where were you?”

  “I was with you,” he said, a knot forming in his jaw.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He dropped you as he was trying to escape.”

  “And you didn’t go after him?”

  “This can all wait,” he said. “You need to get some sleep.”

  “Are the children safe?”

  “They’re fine—they’re still with their grandparents.”

  “I want to get out of this hospital,” she said, her voice only slightly wavery.

  “You’re scratched and bruised, and you still have whatever he gave you in your system—”

  “I want out of this hospital,” she repeated, struggling to sit up. The shakes had burst through her weakened defenses and her hands trembled as she peeled blankets away from her legs. “I can’t be here. I can’t go through this again.”

  Tears burned her eyes as she struggled against his gentle but firm restraint. She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want to be weak and vulnerable and scared….

  “I want out of here. Please, Trip, please don’t leave me here.”

  He sat down on the bed and gathered her into his arms. “Who said anything about leaving?” he murmured, holding her like she was a child, his warm hands pressing her cheek against his chest.

  She fell asleep in his arms.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “He said he parked his car on the street on the other side of the gully because he didn’t want the police to know he was at his mother’s house.” Torrence pushed his hat back on his head and sighed.

  “How did he explain the fact he had Faith?” Trip asked.

  “Listen to this, you’ll love it. He said he was coming down the hill when he heard someone crashing through the brush. He stepped off the path just as a man carrying something over his shoulder approached him. He said the other man panicked and it looked to Lee as though he decided to cut his losses by tossing what he was carrying—which we now know to be Miss Bishop—down the hill. David Lee decided to get the hell out of Dodge while the other man rushed past him.”