Snowfall

by Sharon Sala

  There was a pause on the other end of the line, and then the woman spoke. “I’m Georgia Calhoun. Who’s calling, please?”

  “Miss Calhoun, I’m with a lost and found organization, and I’m working for a family who’s trying to locate a woman named Georgia Calhoun.”

  “Oh my! Like on those talk shows where long lost relatives are reunited?”

  “Something like that,” he said. “But I need to ask you some questions to make sure I have the right person. Will you help me?”

  “Why, yes!” she said. “What do you need to know?”

  “First, how old are you?” Mac asked.

  “Twenty-three.”

  His hopes fell. This couldn’t be the woman Devlin Bennett had been paying. According to Charles Abernathy, he’d been sending money to her for nearly thirty years. This woman wasn’t old enough.

  “Well, that doesn’t fit our parameters. I was thinking that the woman would be in her fifties, at least, maybe even older.”

  “I was named for my aunt Georgia. Maybe it’s her you’re looking for?”

  Mac’s hope rose once more.

  “Maybe,” he said. “Is it possible for me to talk to her?”

  “Oh, no. I’m sorry, but Aunt Georgia died a few years ago.”

  Damn. Another roadblock.

  “I see. Have you by any chance ever heard the name Devlin Bennett?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Is that the man who’s looking for Georgia Calhoun?”

  “In a way, yes,” Mac said. “Is there anything else you can tell me about her, like where she was born? Does she have any living siblings who might know something more?”

  “Mother would. If you’ll wait a moment, I’ll get her.”

  “Thanks,” Mac said. “I appreciate your help.”

  A few moments later, he heard footsteps returning. He hoped this woman was as willing to help as her daughter had been.

  “This is Grace Calhoun. My daughter says you were looking for Georgia?”

  “Well, ma’am, I’m looking for a Georgia. I don’t know if it’s the woman to whom you’re related.”

  “I see. What do you need to know? She’s been dead some years now, you know.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Your daughter told me. I’ll ask you the same question I asked her. Have you ever heard the name Devlin Bennett?”

  “No, I can’t say as I have. It’s too bad my husband has passed. He could have told you more than I can about Georgia.”

  “She’s not your sister?” Mac asked.

  “Oh, no, she was my husband’s family. Stepsister, actually, but most of the time she went by Calhoun. You should really be talking to Joseph, but I have no idea where he is these days.”

  “Who’s Joseph?” Mac asked.

  “Her son. But he moved away after she died.”

  Mac fidgeted, wanting to hurry her, but knowing she was going to have to tell it her way.

  “I see. Look, Mrs. Calhoun, this is a delicate subject, and I want to assure you that I mean no disrespect when I ask, but if she had a son and still went by the name of Calhoun, did she divorce and take back her maiden name or—”

  “Oh, Georgia never married,” she said. “It was quite a scandal at the time. That was…oh, let me see, back in the sixties, I think, and in those days no one here in Ohio, and I mean no one, had a baby out of wedlock and ever admitted to it.”

  “Yes, ma’am, but she did?”

  “Oh, yes. After a few years, well, it didn’t seem so bad. Of course, Georgia never had much money, and Joseph was a sickly little thing when he was small. But he grew up to be a good-looking man.”

  “What about the father? Didn’t he have anything to do with them?”

  Grace lowered her voice. “That was just it, you see. We never did know who the father was. She wouldn’t say. Never did tell. I heard that she told the boy on her deathbed, but he left right after she died, so I don’t guess it mattered any to him.”

  Mac was running out of questions and ideas. None of this made any sense. If this Georgia had been getting two thousand dollars a month from Devlin Bennett, then she would have had some money. Not a lot, but some. This couldn’t be the woman.

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Mac said. Then he glanced down at his notes, remembering a question he’d been going to ask when she’d changed the subject.

  “Another question, Mrs. Calhoun, if I may?”

  “Yes?”

  “You said that Georgia was your husband’s stepsister?”

  “Yes. Their parents married when Georgia was six and my husband was two.”

  “By any chance, do you remember her maiden name?”

  “Let me see…I’m sure I heard Frank speak it before. Frank was my husband, you know.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I know the boy’s name was Joseph Raymond. Georgia said she named him after Joseph Cotton and Raymond Chandler. Those were old-time movie stars, you know. Way before your time.”

  Mac grinned. “Now how would you know how old I am?”

  She giggled. “You just sound young, that’s all. Am I right?”

  “I’m thirty-five.”

  “Close enough,” she said. “As for Georgia’s name…where would I…?” She gasped. “The Bible! It would be in the family Bible. Would you like me to check?”

  “Yes, please,” Mac said.

  He wasn’t sure how it could matter, but he’d listened this long; the least he could do was hear her out. He waited, hearing bits and snatches of her excited conversation with her daughter as they scrambled to find it. Finally she was back.

  “Let’s see now,” she said. “It would be way back toward the first. There’s been a lot of births and deaths recorded in this book since we started. Here it is,” she murmured, talking more to herself than to Mac. “Neil. Her name was Georgia Faye Neil.”

  Mac was assimilating the information as he quickly wrote down the name—Joseph Raymond Neal. Then he hesitated.

  “Would you spell that last name for me please?”

  “Certainly. N-E-I-L.”

  Mac made the correction without thought. It was only after he had laid down the pen that the name actually clicked. And when it did his fingers went numb. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t even find the strength to hang up the phone.

  “Mister? Are you still there?”

  He shuddered, making himself concentrate. “Would you spell that last name for me again?” he asked.

  “N E I L,” she said.

  “And you said the son was Joseph Raymond. Did he go by Neil or Calhoun?”

  “Well, now that you mention it, I believe he did favor the name Neil. It was his legal name, you know, her not being married or legally adopted by my Frank’s family.”

  “Uh, thank you for your help,” he finally said, and hung up before she could say anything more.

  He tried to get out of the chair, but his legs wouldn’t work. He didn’t know why it was happening, but he knew who was after Caitlin. Now how could he get her back without alerting the man that he knew?

  Amato. He would help.

  He grabbed the phone and punched in the number. The man answered on the first ring.

  “Amato.”

  “Detective, this is Connor McKee. I need you to go get Caitlin and bring her to the phone ASAP.”

  Amato frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “Miss Bennett isn’t here.”

  “Where’s Kowalski?”

  “Out. What’s going on?” Amato asked.

  “Caitlin isn’t there watching security tapes from her building?”

  “No. There wasn’t anything on those tapes. We discovered that days ago. What the hell is going on?”

  Oh, Jesus. “Neil came by here probably two hours ago. Said he and his partner needed her to view some security tapes. He said he’d bring her back when they were through.”

  Amato’s stomach turned. After what they’d just seen, this didn’t sound good.

  “
Look, McKee, we got the results from that tape back from Quantico. There’s something on it I think you should see.”

  “I don’t have to,” Mac said. “It’s Neil, isn’t it?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Because I just got off the phone with a woman in Toledo, Ohio, who told me something very disturbing. We learned today that for the past thirty years, Devlin Bennett sent two thousand dollars a month to a woman named Georgia Calhoun. He sent it every month up to the day she died. Now, I don’t know all of it, but I do know that she had a son named Joseph Raymond. And that he chose to go by her maiden name, which happened to be Neil.”

  “Oh man,” Amato muttered. “This isn’t good.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Mac said. “Caitlin is somewhere in this city with a man who wants her dead. I don’t know why he hates her, but we both know what he’s capable of. I’m on my way down there. Have Kowalski waiting.”

  “I’ll send a squad car,” Amato said. “You’ll get here faster.”

  “Wait, I’ve got a better idea,” Mac said. “Meet me at Neil’s place. I can’t believe we’d get lucky enough that he’d take her there, but it’s the first place we have to look.”

  “Good idea. I’ll give the patrolman the address.”

  Caitlin shivered as a cold gust of wind whipped around the corner of the building, stirring up a small eddy of snow and blowing it into her eyes.

  “Careful,” J.R. said, and took her arm as she ducked. “The street is slippery. I wouldn’t want you to fall.”

  “Thanks,” Caitlin said as he settled her in his car and then hurried around to the driver’s side to get in.

  “Buckle up,” he said as he started the engine, then flipped the locks on the door. When she jumped at the sound, he smiled. “Safety first.”

  “Of course.”

  They pulled away from the curb, weaving skillfully into the traffic. Caitlin leaned back with a sigh, gazing out the window at the snowy streets.

  “Sometimes it feels like this winter will never end. I know you’re not supposed to wish your life away, but I am so ready for spring.”

  “Spring,” he echoed, and gave her a cursory glance.

  Caitlin nodded and smiled. “Yes, it’s my favorite season. When I was a child, we always went south in the spring. We had the most wonderful old house on the North Carolina shore. Mother would bake cookies, and Daddy would pretend he was a bear and growl that he was going to eat them all.” She sighed. “It was so much fun. Later, after his business really took off, Daddy didn’t go with us anymore. But I have the memories.”

  A muscle twitched near the detective’s eye as he braked for another light.

  “Memories,” he muttered. “Yes, we all have our memories.”

  As a writer, personalities were always interesting to Caitlin. She looked at him, urging him to share.

  “What about you?” she asked. “What are some of your favorite childhood memories?”

  “Let’s see. There was the time when my mother got fired because her boss found out she was an unwed mother.”

  Caitlin gasped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—” J.R. interrupted her, letting the poison of his childhood spill between them.

  “Oh, yeah,” he drawled. “I’ll never forget the big family dinners we used to have at my uncle Frank’s house. Everyone sitting around whispering about me, wondering who the sorry bastard was who knocked my mother up and then abandoned her.” He looked at her then, enjoying the shock on her face. “I was sickly as a child. Hard to believe now, isn’t it?”

  Caitlin was stunned by his bitterness.

  “Detective, I didn’t mean to resurrect bad memories. Maybe we should change the subject.”

  He started to laugh. A slow, deep-belly chuckle that sent a chill up her spine.

  “You still don’t get it, do you, Caitlin? You are the subject.”

  He hit a switch, and the siren came on and the red light on the dashboard started flashing; then he accelerated swiftly through an intersection as Caitlin stared in disbelief.

  “What are you doing?”

  “It’s payback time,” he said. He took the next right in a skid. “Sit back and enjoy the ride.”

  “You? It’s you who’s been sending me those letters?”

  He smiled. “Oh, those ‘juvenile’ little love notes? Yes, it was me.”

  “And those women? You killed those women?”

  He shrugged. “Expediency. Practice. Releasing pent-up hostility. Call it what you will.”

  Don’t react. Don’t scream. Whatever you do, Caitlin Bennett, don’t let him see you cry.

  Caitlin’s fingers curled around the door handle as she took a deep breath, ignoring her instinct to panic. As long as he kept driving, she would keep breathing.

  “Another thing,” J.R. said, chuckling beneath his breath. “You can’t open your door until I unlock it, so don’t bother to try.”

  “On the contrary,” Caitlin said, making her voice steady when all she wanted to do was shriek. “I wasn’t going to jump. Unlike you, I’m not suicidal.”

  He hit her cheek with the back of his hand.

  “Shut up, bitch! You don’t know anything about me.”

  Tears of pain pooled quickly, shattering her vision of the world. She touched the place where he’d hit her, and her fingers came away covered in blood.

  Dear God.

  She thought of Mac, back in the apartment, completely unaware of the danger she was in, and almost lost it. This wasn’t fair. Surely God wouldn’t give her a man to love and then let her die before they had a chance to enjoy a life together.

  The buildings they passed were little more than a blur. Drivers honked, people shouted at him, some even cursing as he wove through the traffic. But the flashing light on his dashboard gave him free access to the streets. It was everyone else’s job to get out of his way.

  Caitlin’s mind was racing as she thought back to the books she’d written. What on earth would one of her heroines do in a situation like this? Taking a tissue out of her purse, she blotted the split skin on her cheekbone and then took a deep breath.

  “You’re right, J.R. I don’t know anything about you. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have judged.”

  Startled by her quick about-face, he hesitated before he answered.

  “That’s better,” he muttered. “I’m the one in charge, bitch, and all the money in the world won’t change that fact.”

  Money? Is this about money?

  “Tell me why.”

  “Why don’t you just sit still and shut up?” he muttered.

  “I just think I deserve to know why you hate me, don’t you?”

  When he spoke, his voice was hard and full of menace.

  “You open your mouth and scream for help and you’re dead. Here. Now. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, her heart in her throat.

  He shook his head, like a dog shedding water, and then blinked. When he did, Caitlin felt as if another man had just taken the wheel of the car.

  “You don’t know who I am, do you?”

  She shook her head again, afraid to speak.

  “Devlin Bennett was my father. I’m the bastard he left behind as he went on to bigger and better things.”

  Caitlin gasped. “You’re my brother? You’re my brother and you want me dead?”

  He accelerated, laughing maniacally as the car fishtailed.

  “You don’t know anything!” he shouted. “I’m the firstborn…the one who should have inherited all his wealth. But no. He didn’t even acknowledge my existence when he died!”

  Caitlin moaned beneath her breath.

  “But I would have given you half. All you had to do was tell me,” she said.

  A muscle jerked at the corner of his mouth. If he was surprised by her acceptance, he showed no signs. Moments later, he took a sharp left turn. Half a block down, he came to a sliding stop. He turned where he sat, staring at her face in disbelief.

  “And you know
what you would have done? You would have demanded proof. How could I give you proof? That evil son of a bitch who fucked my mother made sure I could never substantiate that claim.”

  Caitlin was shaking from the inside out. The fact that they had stopped in front of what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse was superseding every sane thought she had. She made herself focus, knowing that once they left this car, her chances of survival would be diminished to almost nothing.

  “What are you talking about? All you would have to do is take a blood test. DNA would do the rest.”

  He grabbed her by the throat, pulling her face so close to his that she felt the heat of his breath.

  “No,” he said slowly, as if explaining himself to a simple child. “Daddy had himself cremated, didn’t he? And he had his ashes strewn all over the Atlantic. There was no way I could prove his paternity if there was nothing left of him to test. Right?”

  Tears seeped from Caitlin’s eyes as she struggled to breathe past the grasp he had on her throat.

  “But I’m here,” she said, still choking for air. “They could have tested me.”

  He turned her loose with a shriek of laughter and thrust her backward. Her head hit the window with a thud.

  “You still don’t get it! Testing you would prove nothing! Nothing, do you hear? You’re adopted! Even I knew that.”

  Caitlin’s ears began to roar as J.R. jerked her from the car. Stumbling and falling as he dragged her into the building, she finally started to fight. The struggle was brief. He hit her once, and then the world turned black.

  The squad car ran on full alert all the way to Neil’s apartment. As it slid to a stop at the curb, another black and white was stopping right behind them.

  “Apartment 505, sir,” the officer said as Mac reached for the door. “That will be Detectives Amato and Kowalksi behind us.”

  Mac got out, unwilling to wait, and started into the building on the run.

  “Wait!” Amato yelled. “The manager is meeting us with a key.”

  The detectives caught up with Mac at the foot of the stairs just as a middle-aged woman came out of the apartment on their right.

  Amato flashed his badge. “Ma’am, we need you to let us into 505.”

  She handed him the key. “My husband’s not home. The stairs…my knee…I can’t take you there. Bring it back when you’re through.”