Whisper of Revenge (A Cape Trouble Novel Book 4)

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “Okay.”

  “Campbell’s Hardware.”

  “Ah.” There was a little silence. “Yeah, it’s struggling. I think the guy got cocky, thought he could take on the big boys. He should have stuck to the smaller towns where he wouldn’t face any competition. First his prices were too high. Now he’s trying to undercut the others, but he has to be losing money hand over fist.”

  “You think the store will go out of business?”

  “I’m giving it another month.”

  Daniel thanked him. Call ended, he sat at his desk in the police station and reflected on what was really nothing but confirmation of what other people had suggested. How much had Campbell sunk into launching the latest store?

  There was no denying that $250,000 would come in handy right now for a man who had also clearly had his eye on Hannah for some time. If she hadn’t put him on her list, Daniel could have. He’d seen the guy watching her often enough.

  He struggled with his own prejudice against Campbell, the city council member who was his biggest aggravation. This was one of the pitfalls he’d discovered in small town law enforcement. The longer Daniel stayed, the better he got to know people. That gave him a starting point in an investigation – but he was also forced to try to block out his own emotional reaction to those same people. Unlikeable didn’t mean guilty of an extra dose of meanness or greed. Friendly and outgoing could be a façade.

  In Daniel’s opinion, Campbell was self-righteous and smug, neither an attractive quality. He loudly opposed any social service that would take money from his wallet. He didn’t care if the land got bulldozed and paved over if he believed that would boost business. An internal snapshot of himself cuffing Ron Campbell gave Daniel a wistful moment he wouldn’t share with anyone but Sophie. But setting that aside…

  Campbell kidnapping a young boy? Daniel stumbled there. And, while he could believe the hardware store owner disliked Elias, Daniel found it hard to see how he would have found the time to pursue such a single-minded vendetta. Campbell had been married for a lot of those years, his divorce having happened only four years ago. His hardware stores ranged up and down the coast, which meant a lot of driving. Aside from the city council, he was active in the Chamber of Commerce.

  And, damn it, he had been married. Surely he asked the woman out to dinner sometime before she accepted his proposal. Unless she’d been so dazzled by having a secret admirer, he had somehow made the bizarre method of courting work?

  Daniel groaned. He could track down the ex-wife and ask her. Wouldn’t that be fun.

  But first he’d make some easier calls, tapping easily accessible sources to learn more about Patrick Fletcher’s finances. Even though Daniel liked the man, the fact that Elias had had a buzz of uneasiness boosted Fletch on the list of suspects. A connection had formed in Daniel’s mind, too. Lori Dressler had worked in escrow, Beth Stanford for a pest control company. Shepherding real estate deals through, Fletch had almost certainly encountered both women.

  A minute later he was listening to Detective Rey Mendoza at North Fork P.D. tell him an apartment building Fletcher owned had become a headache for police in his jurisdiction.

  “I remember it as a decent place when I was still on patrol,” Mendoza said. “But it hasn’t been well-managed. Too many renters are low-lifes involved in drug dealing, domestic violence, other assaults, even prostitution. Units can’t possibly be renting for what they are in similar apartment houses in town. And you know how much physical damage that kind of renter tends to do. There’s a note that Sergeant Hite spoke with the owner, urging him to work at cleaning the place up.”

  “How did Mr. Fletcher respond?”

  “Don’t know, but I can ask the sergeant when he comes in tomorrow.”

  “Do that.” Daniel knew this tingle. He’d felt it and been wrong, but not often. “Thanks, Rey.”

  “Any time,” the detective said.

  When Daniel had taken the job in Cape Trouble, each police agency in the county worked in almost complete isolation. Daniel and Alex Mackay, the county sheriff, had built a bridge and now the two agencies often worked major crimes together. Howard Lundy, the North Fork police chief, was an ass who wouldn’t admit he needed help if a bomb took out half his town. Rey had risked his job by working cooperatively on an investigation this spring that led to the arrest of a sheriff’s deputy who’d killed half a dozen people. Daniel liked Rey and respected him as a cop. He hoped he wouldn’t quit for a less aggravating job somewhere else.

  So…had the apartment building become a sinkhole for Fletch, the way the newest store had for Ron Campbell? Was he just delaying upgrades until the real estate market surged? Or did his financial problems go deeper yet?

  Fletcher Realty dominated the listings in Burris County. But when looking into Patrick Fletcher’s background after Hannah first came to him, Daniel had learned he’d recently let some agents go. Daniel’s real estate contact had printed out both listings and sales for the past year. What he’d seen had made him wince. The houses and property that did sell was going for well under asking prices. Sales were down overall from the previous year. And, while Fletcher still planted more signs in front of houses than any other agency in this area, the opening of a Windermere office in North Fork had cut into business.

  Daniel reminded himself that real estate was about as stable as nitroglycerin, and Fletch had been riding the ups and downs since he came home a few years after college and went to work for a now-defunct agency. Ten years ago, he’d gone out on his own and succeeded in a big way, at least by local standards. This latest downturn was lingering, but it hadn’t been cataclysmic. Fletcher had to know the economy here on the coast could pick up anytime and he’d be having to put in a new order for ‘Sold’ signs.

  Plenty of people hit hard times and didn’t resort to taking a hostage, for God’s sake.

  Daniel didn’t like what he’d learned about his current two leading suspects, but, tingle or no, his bigger worry was that the kidnapper was someone they hadn’t considered at all. If he’d never expressed his interest directly to Hannah…shit. It could be any man in town.

  His cell phone rang. Sean Holbeck.

  “Got anything?” he asked.

  “Nada.” Sean sounded as tense as Daniel felt. “Samantha Mays – nice woman, by the way – showed me six houses, Rebecca Walker another five or six, and Charlie Groendyke some more. She left her card at each house, so we gave her multiple clients in case Fletch calls. Which she says he’s bound to do, after such a flurry of showings. We skipped the houses that are occupied, although I’ve driven by them all now to be sure they really are.”

  “So this is a dead end.”

  “That’s my take.”

  Daniel swore, thinking of too many possibilities where a young boy could be held captive. Deserted old cabins out in the woods, rarely used garages and sheds, storage units at the several facilities here in the county. An RV or camper parked with apparent innocence in a driveway or under cover next to a house. Rental homes, apartment houses where residents neither knew nor cared who the neighbors were or what they were up to.

  Maybe especially Fletch’s own apartment building. But would he really risk being seen hauling a hefty duffel inside, or coming and going repeatedly?

  Daniel found himself shaking his head. One dead end after another.

  Where was Ian Cline?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “No word,” Elias told his mother, before she could ask. Like everyone else in town, she had an idea what Hannah was going through. He hadn’t been able to tell her about the bungled ransom drop, but in this town, news spread like wildfire. Gail Burton had already heard about the note left at the daycare center, if not the contents.

  “Is there anything I can do?” she asked, practical as always.

  “Yeah. That’s why I called.” She’d suffered enough losses in her life, he didn’t want to say any of this to her, but she was a strong woman. And maybe she wouldn’t be surprised
. She knew about the ugly rumors; she knew about Polly Jennberg’s near-fatal car accident, she knew about Amy Ainslie’s death on the surf-battered rocks.

  Elias had to ask himself why he hadn’t connected the dots the minute Ian was grabbed, given that he’d been set up to be the bad guy. But he knew – this crime was so different than anything that came before. And, of course, the focus had been entirely on Hannah until Elias stepped in.

  He had gone out on Hannah’s front porch so she didn’t have to listen to the conversation and where he could see whether anyone was within earshot.

  “We think everything that’s happened is an attack on me as much as on Hannah. I should have stayed away from her.” His throat clogged. He cleared it. “I knew somebody didn’t like me. Those rumors have a source.”

  “How anyone could believe—” she exclaimed.

  “At least Hannah doesn’t.” No, she thought he had decided to settle for a tall, buxom, freckled redhead because he couldn’t have what he really wanted. “What matters now is that Daniel Colburn believes, and I agree, that my…enemy—” that sounded melodramatic, but he couldn’t think of a good alternative “—didn’t stop there. If he could convince a woman I was scum, he was satisfied. If he failed, they had to be eliminated some other way.”

  “Oh, no,” his mother whispered. “Polly?”

  “And probably Amy, too.” He had introduced both women to his mother. “It’s as if he’s making sure anyone who matters to me gets taken away.” He paused. “Except you.”

  “I’m your mother,” she said after a minute. “That’s different.”

  “It has to be somebody I know, and probably well. Either I did something to this guy in the first couple years after I moved back to Cape Trouble…”

  She finished his sentence, sounding thoughtful. “Or this antagonism dates back to high school.”

  “Yes. I need to figure out who it could be. I’m hoping you can help.”

  They started with him telling her some of what he’d been thinking – about the caricature he’d used to skewer Ron Campbell, the car accident in which two of his friends had been injured, another, more casual friend he’d bested to become starting quarterback.

  “Nash Peterman.” Mom had known all his friends. His house had been a favorite gathering place. Everyone liked Gail, who was happy to feed starving teenagers but didn’t go overboard with the mothering. “He was competitive enough not to be happy about losing out to you, but I think he was more focused on baseball anyway.”

  “Right. He played shortstop.”

  “He went to Oregon State on a baseball scholarship.”

  “I’d actually forgotten.” He reminded himself how many years ago that was. Only the closest high school friendships had a chance of enduring. Nash had been an adequate student with a passion for cars. In fact, he was now a partner in his father’s automotive repair business, and Elias had heard he had a sideline in restoring vintage cars. Aside from high school reminiscences, Nash and Elias had next to nothing in common.

  His mother reminded him of other incidents, none of which had enough bite to cause this level of hate. Except…the guy was obviously a nut job. He could have magnified something petty into the insult of the century.

  The way I magnified a teenage crush into the great love of the century? His mouth twisted.

  A little silence let him know his mother was thinking. Waiting, Elias watched a boy pedal hard down the street and, a minute later, a neighbor wheel his lawnmower out of his garage and then disappear inside again without firing it up.

  Elias glanced at the grass right in front of him. Hannah’s lawn was getting shaggy, front and back, as was her elderly neighbor’s, which made him suspect Hannah mowed for her. Earlier, he’d heard some yapping from Mrs. Stanavitch’s fenced back yard. Maybe it would help Hannah to bring Jack-Jack home?

  “I wonder,” his mother said tentatively, “whether this man isn’t determined to take away every woman you ever cared about because you took away a girl he loved.”

  That made a painful kind of sense. Except… “I don’t know if I ever did.”

  “Your memory lapses are convenient.” Mom did tart well.

  “Who?”

  “Noemi Smith. I seem to recall a fight.”

  Oh, yeah. Noemi had dumped Mark Rankin, who decided it was Elias’s fault. A couple of black eyes later, they were both hauled to the principal’s office.

  Incredulous, he said, “What were we? Sophomores? I don’t even know if Mark lives around here anymore.”

  “And you know Fletch liked Laurel. He thought she went for you because you starred on the football field while he had to sit on the bench in a cast.”

  Because of an injury that had been Elias’s fault.

  “I guess I did vaguely know that,” he admitted. “But Fletch hadn’t even made a try for her.” Self-absorbed teenager he’d been, he hadn’t worried about hurting a friend. “They hooked up after she and I split, anyway.”

  “But he might have felt…”

  Second best. The realization hit Elias like a hammer blow. And then…Fletch hadn’t even made a try for Laurel. Unless he’d slipped an anonymous gift or two into her locker? Elias shook his head. Laurel would have told everyone.

  “Did he ever say anything to you?” he asked.

  It was Mom who’d thought they ought to take Fletch in his senior year rather than let him go to a foster home. Elias, a loner even then, had been a little less enthusiastic. As it turned out, that year had been really good for a boy whose home life had sucked even before his remaining parent abandoned him altogether.

  “He was always careful not to criticize you.”

  Movement caught Elias’s attention. The neighbor finally reappeared carrying a gas can. Two minutes later, he started up his lawn mower. The noise drove Elias to his feet and back into the house.

  “Seems like we never reconnected after college,” he said, closing the door behind him.

  Despite the warmth of the day, Hannah curled up at one end of the sofa, wrapped in a fleece throw.

  “You have quite different personalities,” his mother pointed out.

  Despite the seriousness of the subject, the corner of his mouth lifted. “You don’t think I could be a charming salesman if I wanted to?”

  If Hannah was listening, he couldn’t tell.

  “I think it’s an enormous effort for you.”

  “You’re right, it is.” He had to show his face at gallery openings, attend banquets when he won awards, and on occasion make nice to people who’d spent a lot of money on one of his paintings. He did his best, but knew he came across as unapproachable anyway.

  “Fletch,” his mother said suddenly, as if the concept had finally sunk in. “I just can’t imagine. The two of you were good friends for so long.”

  They were, but in retrospect, Elias realized they had mostly run in a crowd the way boys did. Two guys that age didn’t talk to each other, not the way two girls would. He didn’t remember them ever discussing Laurel beyond agreeing she was hot.

  The idea that someone he had called a friend had held a grudge like this for twenty years, even killing so he could see Elias suffer…it just didn’t track.

  Not Fletch.

  Yeah? Then who?

  He could maybe understand a reaction this extreme if he’d gotten drunk and killed a man’s wife in a car accident. Or make that his wife and child. After losing her husband and child to a drunken, speeding driver, Emily Holbeck had virtually withdrawn from life for years, from what Elias had heard. She’d had reason to hate.

  Everything Elias had come up with so far was high school bullshit. He kept thinking there had to be something more.

  After Mom agreed to keep thinking, they ended the call and he sat down on the coffee table, his knees almost touching Hannah. She didn’t ask if he’d had any new ideas. She’d been looking at him the same way she might a stranger who took the chair beside hers in the waiting room at the dentist’s office. Right now,
her eyes stayed trained on the two cell phones.

  “He’ll call soon.”

  She nodded.

  “You want to lie down?”

  Vehement shake of her head.

  Hating her withdrawal, he stayed close as the day drew on, occasionally bringing her a drink, or just talking whether she listened or not. Emily Holbeck showed up with several bags of groceries and stayed for a few minutes, the understanding in her eyes making Hannah shrink back. Elias persuaded her to eat half a sandwich for lunch.

  There were a few quiet moments when she really looked at him, questions in her eyes but not condemnation. It was enough to give him hope, although he felt like a jerk even thinking that, when Ian was what mattered right now.

  Her phone rang half a dozen times, mostly friends, once her ex-husband who had looked into borrowing money and thought he could come up with another thirty thousand. She thanked him without saying, too little, too late.

  For dinner, Elias made macaroni and cheese from a box, and persuaded Hannah to come to the table.

  The stricken way she stared at the serving he put in front of her had him wondering if he’d had the bad luck to offer Ian’s favorite food. The choice might have been subconscious; mac cheese had been his favorite as a kid. Didn’t most people think of it as comfort food? He’d told himself it would be mild enough for her stomach to accept. After a minute, Hannah picked up her fork. While they ate, he’d have sworn there was a ghost with them at the table – Ian chattering in between bites.

  “Why would he let an entire day go by?” she said aloud.

  “To unnerve you until you’re willing to do anything at all,” Elias said.

  She didn’t look at him. “I already am.”

  And then the other phone rang.

  *****

  White-knuckled, Elias rocketed up the Pacific Coast Highway toward his house. His headlights stabbed the darkness ahead. If a state patrol officer clocked him, he’d get a ticket. Except not even flashing lights coming up behind him would compel him to pull over.