Flashback

by Gayle Wilson

  “We need to run this by the FBI.” She was still studying the picture.

  “You mean the guys who have given Raine up as dead?”

  She looked up at that. “Even if they have, they haven’t given up finding her killer.”

  “You turn this over to them to pursue, how long will that take?”

  “What do you want me to do, Jake?”

  “Think about who in Waverly might fit this profile. Who has moved here from one of these two locations? Or who has family living in one of them? Use the fact that this is the kind of place where you know all about your neighbor to your advantage.” He touched the folders on her desk. “And find him before he does to Raine what he did to these two little girls.”

  “What was that?” she asked, holding his eyes.

  “He killed them,” he said bluntly. “How long?”

  The pertinent question. As far as their chances of rescuing Raine were concerned.

  With his forefinger, he pushed the folder containing the details of the Louisiana case toward her. “Her body was too decomposed to tell when it was found.”

  “And this one?” Eden held out the picture of the girl who’d been taken in Alabama.

  The blonde child who looked enough like the picture he’d found in the file marked Christie to be her sister, as well.

  “The investigators on that case believe he kept her alive for at least four days. The coroner couldn’t be any more precise than that.”

  He watched the impact in her eyes. Four days. A time frame they had passed yesterday.

  JAKE HAD LEFT the files and the notes he’d taken on them for her to study. Even with the day’s almost constant interruptions, Eden had finally managed to read through all of it.

  In spite of her initial skepticism, there were undeniable elements in the other two cases that mirrored the kidnapping of the Nolans’ daughter. Jake’s premise was worth investigating. Especially, she reminded herself, when she had nothing else.

  She automatically glanced at the clock as she reached for the phone. Her hand hesitated in midair when she saw how late it was.

  Dean would be asleep. And although he would be the ideal person to pose Jake’s questions to, she couldn’t in good conscience wake him for information that half a hundred other people in town could just as easily provide.

  She pushed up from her desk, stretching muscles cramped from too many hours spent hunched in the same position. Then she walked down the hall toward the common area of the station, her footsteps echoing off the narrow walls.

  Winton was manning the front desk. He might be young, but he had been born here. His family, like Jake’s, had been founders of the community.

  “Going home?” he asked, looking up from whatever he was reading.

  “Not yet. Who else is around?”

  Winton considered her question before he shook his head. “I think we’re it. Everybody’s pretty much worn out.”

  That was nothing less than the truth, Eden acknowledged. Everyone in the department had worked overtime on this, and most of that hadn’t been on the clock.

  “You know anybody in town who has Alabama roots?” Considering how quickly the information about Jake’s flashbacks had become public knowledge, she didn’t want to make this new avenue of investigation grist for the gossip mill. But she didn’t really believe Winton was the source of that leak. If she had, she would never have broached this subject with him.

  “The Carmichaels. I think their family was originally from Montgomery. ’Course, I guess that was a pretty long time ago.”

  Edna and Sam Carmichael were in their eighties. “Anybody else you can think of?”

  “Wasn’t Miz Greene originally from Dothan?”

  Lincoln Greene’s wife, Laurie. Lincoln Greene, whose pickup had been parked at the end of Jake’s drive the night someone had taken potshots at her.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Not really,” the kid said with a grin. “My mom would know. She remembers that kind of stuff. You want me to call her?”

  Eden believed that if she told Winton her inquiry was to be kept confidential, he would respect her request. She wasn’t sure that his mother would.

  “Thanks, but it’s not that important. Oh, and don’t mention to anyone that I was asking about this. You know how people take anything and run with it these days.”

  “You don’t want to make trouble for Miz Greene,” Winton said. “I get it.”

  “Thanks. You here all night?”

  “Only till midnight. Then Carl comes in.”

  “Okay. I’m going to call it a day. Don’t hesitate to wake me if something comes up.”

  “Will do. Want me to look at the county records?”

  Puzzled, Eden turned back to him. “For…?”

  “The Alabama thing you asked about.”

  “What would you check?”

  “I don’t know. I was thinking driver’s licenses. Don’t you have to submit your old one to get a replacement?”

  “I’m not sure. The state handles those.”

  “I can look into it if you want. I’m not doing much good just sitting here.”

  “Then why not?” she asked with a smile. “See you in the morning.”

  “Get some rest.”

  “You, too.”

  “I’ll sleep in tomorrow. I need to catch up on some of that stuff. Like everybody else, I guess,” the deputy said almost apologetically.

  Eden nodded agreement and continued to the outer door.

  Playing catch-up was exactly what the department was doing. On sleep and everything else. After the frantic activity of the first few days, the search for Raine had become routine, and once more, eating and sleeping had taken precedence over searching and strategizing.

  Although she felt guilty about that, that initial frenzy had gotten them no closer to the child than they were now. And other than Jake’s idea that this kidnapping might be connected to the ones he’d discovered in her father’s materials, there was nothing new to pursue.

  In light of that, she changed her previous decision and pulled out her cell. As she climbed into the cruiser, she punched up Dean’s number. If she woke him, as tired as they all were, she had no doubt he would be able to go back to sleep.

  “’Lo.”

  Not asleep, Eden thought in relief. “I need to run something by you.”

  “Okay.”

  “There are a couple of child abductions, one in Boothville, Louisiana, and another in Bayou La Batre, that bear some striking similarities to Raine’s. Can you think of anyone in town who has connections to either of those locations?”

  “What kind of similarities?” Dean sounded more confused than excited.

  “Use of a bunker located on public land. Similar demographics of the areas. Victimology. One of the girls looks enough like Raine that they could be sisters. Home invasion.”

  “Are you saying you think they were all committed by the same kidnapper?”

  “I’m saying it right now, that seems like a possibility. Look, I don’t know that this will lead to anything, but I think it’s worth checking out. Can you think of anybody who might have lived in either place?”

  The silence on the other end was prolonged. When Dean broke it, there was a trace of irritation in his tone. “Not right now. Where are you?”

  “Leaving the office. Did I wake you?”

  “Yeah. I’ll think about it when I’m more functional.”

  “Okay. Sorry. I just thought it was something we should look into.”

  “The Bureau call you?”

  “About this? No.” She hesitated, reluctant to admit it had been Jake’s idea. Reluctant also for some reason—maybe nothing more than her father’s secretiveness—to reveal the source of Jake’s inspiration. “This came from somewhere else. It may not amount to anything, but…I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Sometimes there isn’t anything else, Eden.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not to the point of admitting
that. Go back to sleep. If somebody comes to mind, give me a call.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Of course. If you think of something.”

  “I’m not much for thinking when I’m asleep.”

  Eden wished she could say the same. Raine haunted her dreams as well as her waking hours. “Just call me if you do. Okay?”

  “Whatever you say, Chief.”

  The click on the other end seemed abrupt. As did Dean’s closing comment.

  She laid her phone on the seat beside her, trying to chalk both up as the result of too little sleep and too much frustration. After all, the agents had never once suggested that this case followed a pattern established in any previous kidnappings. And she had to admit, despite being personally willing to grasp at straws, the connections Jake had found were tenuous.

  Based on what she had right now, she didn’t feel justified in waking anyone else. In the morning she’d contact Doc Murphy, who not only knew everyone in town, but also had an encyclopedic memory. She would also check out Winton’s comment about Laurie Greene. And, given Dean’s reaction, she would also call the FBI to get their take on the other two cases.

  The rest of tonight she would try to sleep without allowing the images of what might be happening to Raine as she did invade her dreams. Unlike Jake’s flashbacks, she had no faith in her nightmares indicating anything other than a sense of desperation.

  SINCE SHE’D EXPECTED to be home well before midnight, she hadn’t left any lights on in the house. Not only was the darkness uninviting, so was the obvious emptiness of the rooms she passed through. And although the cardboard box in which her father had kept his files was still on the kitchen table, the man who had spent the night guarding her was gone.

  She filled a glass from the dispenser on the refrigerator door and downed a couple of the ibuprofen p.m. tablets Jake had given her to help her sleep. Then she carried the water with her into the bathroom, setting it down on the counter as she started to unbutton her shirt.

  She was still thinking about people who might fit Jake’s profile when her eyes lifted to the mirror above the sink. The words, written in what looked like blood, seemed to leap off the glass.

  Christie says come out and play.

  She took a step back as if to escape their impact, but as with the quilt and the doll, there was no escape. Whoever was doing this knew too much about her sister’s kidnapping. And exactly how to taunt her with its outcome.

  Was that the intent? To convince her that she would have no more success finding Raine than the police had had in locating Christie? Or was it possible that there was some real connection between this missing child and the long-ago disappearance of her sister?

  A door slammed at the back of the house, breaking through her shocked paralysis. Without thinking of the possible consequences, she whirled and ran toward the sound.

  She had switched off the light when she’d left the kitchen. In the darkness moonlight spilled across the tile floor from the glass of the back door. The security chain, which she never unfastened except to take out the garbage once a week, swung gently back and forth.

  Whoever had written that message on the mirror had been inside the house when she’d arrived. And he had wanted her to know that.

  Infuriated rather than frightened, she crossed the room to turn the lock and secure the chain. As she did, she looked out into the yard. Nothing moved, the shadows thick under the trees and along the side of the garage.

  Her weapon was still in her utility belt, which, from force of habit, she had draped over the back of the couch. She retrieved the Glock, its familiar feel reassuring.

  She lifted the edge of the front drapes to peer out into the street. In the spill of dappled light under the sheltering oaks, the neighborhood was as peaceful as the backyard had been.

  Her every instinct urged her to go outside. To find the bastard who was trying to terrorize her and put an end to this once and for all.

  Her training dictated that she call for backup instead. To stay inside until whoever the dispatcher sent out arrived and conducted a thorough search of the grounds. By then, of course, she knew the intruder would be long gone.

  Somehow, he had access to her house. He’d been inside it at least twice, despite her increased vigilance in locking her windows and doors. And, unless she wanted to give up sleeping here, there was apparently no way to prevent him from coming in again.

  So instead of calling the dispatcher, she turned the dead bolt on the front door and eased out into the shadows cast by the overhang of the wide veranda.

  Ready or not, you bastard, I’m coming after you.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jake had expected her to call. To tell him that the FBI had denied the connections he thought he’d seen. Or that she didn’t think they were strong enough to waste the department’s limited manpower in pursuing. To tell him something. That she hadn’t bothered to contact him at all was, he supposed, as telling as putting her doubts into words.

  Despite the hours he’d spent reading her father’s files last night, sleep eluded him. Thoughts and theories ricocheted uncontrollably through his head until he’d given up and crawled out of the sweat-tangled sheets.

  He stood now in his grandmother’s kitchen, looking out at the moonlight filtering through the branches of moss-draped oaks. For some reason, his nerves were as taut as they had always been before the start of a mission.

  There was nothing in the quiet darkness to produce that anxiety. Nothing that should make his hands tremble or his heart race.

  He closed his fingers tightly over the rolled edge of the old-fashioned sink, willing them to stillness. At the same time he leaned forward, breathing through his mouth. Something was wrong. Something—

  The shadows he watched danced suddenly, evolving into shapes as familiar to him now as the planes of his own face. The transport directly in front of theirs, silhouetted against the distant mountains. Silhouetted until it dissolved into a plume of flame and black smoke.

  He smelled the fire first. And then the rest, rushing into his consciousness like a flood. Blood and heated metal and burning gasoline. Underlying all of them was the undeniable stench of death.

  The sounds followed. Tearing at him. Shredding his control as they always did.

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, the desert brightness spun away, leaving an unfamiliar darkness in its place. And in the stillness that was left when the cursing and screaming had stopped was the sound of someone crying.

  Soft. Hopeless. Lost.

  Then that, too, was gone, leaving the quiet moonlight to paint his grandmother’s neglected flowerbeds with a beauty they had not possessed since her death.

  He took a breath, aware once more of the grip his fingers had found over the porcelain. He forced them to loosen and made himself breathe again.

  There was no doubt in his mind about what he had heard. Someone crying. And not the harsh sobbing noises Martinez had made as he died.

  Although he hadn’t seen her, he knew who cried in that darkness. And he also knew that this time the sounds she made had been born not of terror, but despair.

  THE FAMILIAR HAD become foreign in the moonlight. And Eden had no idea what direction the man she sought had taken.

  Avoiding the antique wicker furniture on the porch, she edged along the front of the house, the Glock, held with both hands, leading the way. She reached the corner of the house, her spine still pressed against the wall. She took a breath and then turned her head sharply to scan the backyard. Nothing disturbed the expanse of lawn that eventually gave way to the grasses that grew along the finger of the inlet that backed this neighborhood.

  It had been at least three minutes since the slamming of the kitchen door. Whoever had been inside her house could be anywhere by now.

  Alert for any movement, she turned the corner and took a careful step forward. As she moved, her gaze swung back and forth from her own backyard to the Perrys’ home on her right.

  By now her eyes
had adjusted to the lack of light. The shadows under the trees were heavy, but there was no darker anomaly among them. Once more, her gaze lifted to the inlet.

  Using a rowboat would have lessened the chances of the intruder being seen. Anyone who knew the area well would be able to navigate out there, even at night. Especially as bright…

  The mental image was sudden: a full moon casting a swath of light across the smooth black surface of the water. Illuminating every cypress knee and black-gum stump in its path.

  She began to run, zigzagging, as she had watched Jake do only a few nights ago, in order to take advantage of the concealment afforded by the patches of shadow.

  How long had it been now? Five minutes? Six? Long enough for him to have paddled out of the slough and into the inlet itself?

  She reached the edge of the cordgrass, her breath rasping in and out. The pier her father had built stretched into the water like a reaching finger. Her feet pounded across its wooden boards as her eyes searched the surface of the slough.

  The wide trail of moonlight lay across its smooth darkness, just as she had pictured it. But there was no boat. And no boatman.

  Why would there be? she realized. If he wanted to escape detection, especially if he were a local, he would be skirting the banks. Hiding in the area where the low-growing vegetation of the land merged seamlessly with the marsh grasses of the water.

  It was too dark there to identify any shape as a vessel. She held her breath instead, listening for the unmistakable plop and stroke of a paddle.

  The gentle lap of the water against the pilings beneath her and the familiar nighttime chorus of insects masked any sound he might make. She had begun to turn back toward the house, when a movement along the far bank caught her eye.

  She whirled and raised her weapon. She deliberately held her breath as her finger tightened over the trigger in anticipation.

  Slowly, a blue heron emerged from the shadows, majestic wings spread to lift it into the ribbon of moonlight. Unthinkingly, she followed the trajectory of the bird’s flight with the Glock until she realized what she was doing. She lowered the gun, releasing the breath she had held to steady her aim.