Truth is in the Darkness (Paynes Creek Thriller Book 2)

by Heather Sunseri

  Thirty-Six

  Lil

  Linda was being held at the Lexington Detention Center. I’d never actually been inside a real jail before.

  I stood with Coop outside the interrogation room where they had moved Linda.

  “I’ll be right out here,” he said. “When you’re done, knock on the door.”

  I nodded and stepped inside.

  Linda was seated at a table, her hands cuffed in front of her, her face devoid of makeup. She wore a plain blue prison jumpsuit, and dark circles under her eyes indicated a lack of sleep.

  Surprise registered on her face when she saw me, then she looked away. “What are you doing here?” she spat.

  “What? I’m not supposed to visit my own mother in jail?”

  “You shouldn’t be here.” She slammed her cuffed hands on the table. When the sound made me jump, she frowned. “Are you afraid of me, Calla Lily?”

  “Would it make you happy or sad if I said that yes, I’m afraid of the woman who painted ‘slut’ on my suitcase?”

  She leaned back in the chair again. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

  “Why not?”

  Her eyes hardened. “Because I don’t want you here,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “It seems you’ve forgotten that I don’t care what you want. I haven’t cared since I was eighteen years old.”

  She scoffed.

  “Why do you hate me?” I asked. It wasn’t an emotional question, thanks to years of therapy.

  “Hate you?” Linda had the nerve to look hurt. “You need to go home. Go back to New York.”

  “Why? Why do you want me back in New York?”

  “Because you’re not safe here.”

  “Tell me why, Linda!”

  She turned away.

  “Did you throw that blood all over Grammy’s house?” I demanded.

  No response.

  “Did you hang a dead fox in my room the night of the cookout?”

  “You think I would admit it if I had? Look where I am!”

  “Yes, look where you are. In jail. And I’m the only person who can help you. I can get you an attorney. I can ask a judge to go easier on you.”

  Her eyes found mine. “Why would you do that?”

  “You’re my mother.” I shrugged. “But you’re also my stalker, aren’t you? If you want me to help you, I want to know why. Why have you been sending me crap in the mail and making me think someone was watching me in New York? And why do you think I’m unsafe back here in Kentucky?”

  “I haven’t been sending you shit!” she screamed. “You’re the one who messed up his life. And when that stupid whore Tricia screwed up, he killed her.”

  I backed away slowly from Linda until I reached the door.

  “Calla Lily, where’re you going? You said you wanted to help me.” Her words dripped with sarcasm, and she started laughing. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to handle the truth. And I was damn sure you didn’t plan on helping me. But before you go, I want you to know, I didn’t do the things you accused me of. The only thing I did was figure out when your flight was coming in and try to scare you back to New York.”

  I strode back toward her, grabbed her by the chin, and forced her to look up at me. “Who killed Tricia? And whose life did I mess up?”

  “If I tell, I’m as good as dead.” She jerked her face from my grasp. “Go back to New York, little girl. You’re safest there. You’re certainly not safe with Cooper. If Mr. Big Shot FBI Agent was worth half a shit, he would’ve figured this out already.”

  I just stared at Linda. Studied the woman who had delivered me into this world. “What happened to you?” I asked. “How did you turn out so cold?”

  Linda scoffed again. “Hey, when you get a chance, could you bring in some cigarettes? I could really use some.”

  I stepped away and knocked on the door behind me. Coop entered immediately.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fantastic. Linda knows who killed Tricia and who’s stalking me. And apparently you have all the information you need to figure it out.”

  Armed with my sketchpad, I sat in a chair on Coop’s back patio. But I didn’t draw. For what seemed like hours, I simply stared out at his back yard and into the trees. I had said goodbye to Coop once in that forest. It had been one of the hardest goodbyes I had ever endured.

  However, spending time with Linda today nearly made me want to say goodbye again and go right back to New York. She was a big part of why I’d left Kentucky the first time.

  But she wouldn’t drive me away again. No, Linda would not dictate my life any longer.

  When we left the jail, Coop assured me that if he had the information to figure this out, he and Luke would do just that. Or they’d squeeze Linda every day until they got something out of her.

  The two of them had been in Coop’s home office since we got back. That was five hours ago. They barely looked up when I walked in with sandwiches. Luke was on the phone while Coop flipped through a pile of papers.

  And now, as I sat in the cool spring air with a threat of storm clouds to the west, I finally began to sketch. And I wrote the beginnings of a story about a couple of kids who lived on a small farm with a portal into another world in the forest behind their house. I got swept up in my work, even more than I had the previous day. And I supposed I was able to escape into my work because I trusted Coop. He would figure out what was going on. He would put a stop to it.

  He had to.

  As I was sketching a path into the forest, my phone rang. Bryn. I answered immediately.

  “He’s cheating on me, Lil,” Bryn said. I could tell she’d been crying.

  I set my sketchpad to the side and sat up. “Bryn, slow down. What makes you say that?”

  “Because I can unlock his phone. While he was in the shower this morning, he got a bunch of texts from a pissed-off woman. He was supposed to come over last night—that’s what a text said. And if he didn’t get over there first thing this morning, she was going to blow the affair wide open.”

  “What was her name?” I asked.

  “Oh, he’s smart enough not to put her in his phone as a contact. There was no name. But he’s having an affair. What else could those messages mean?”

  “Are you sure they were from a woman? Tell me exactly what they said.”

  “They said, ‘You were supposed to come over. If you don’t show up today, we’ll blow this situation wide open, and it won’t go well for you.’”

  “Where are you now?”

  “I’m driving around. I tried to work, but I’m a complete mess, so I left.”

  “Why don’t you come get me? I’m at Coop’s.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Bryn went quiet.

  “Bryn… what’s going on?”

  “I’m following him.”

  “You’re following Jake.”

  “Yes. Judy told me Jake would be getting out of court around one p.m. When he did, I was waiting.”

  “You were waiting where?” She was beginning to worry me. She didn’t sound sane.

  “In my car. He came and got in his car, and now I’m following him.”

  “Are you still in Paynes Creek?”

  “We’re way out in the county. Near where he lived as a kid.” I remembered the old house, though none of us ever went there. His mom was hardly ever around anyway, and after we all graduated high school I heard she finally sold the place and left town.

  “Bryn, this is crazy,” I said. “I talked to Jake yesterday. He swore to me he wasn’t doing anything that would hurt you.”

  “You said something to him?”

  “I just gave him the protective cousin speech. ‘You hurt my cousin, I’ll kill you.’ That sort of thing.”

  “Aww, honey, that’s so sweet,” Bryn said. “Wait. He’s pulling into a drive. This is it! He’s pulling in at the house where he grew up. What do I do?”

  “Are you
prepared to tell him you followed him?”

  “I don’t know. Please, Lil, just tell me what to do. I’ve clearly lost my mind.”

  “I think you should turn around and head back to town. I’ll meet you at your place, and we’ll talk this out. What you’re doing right now… it’s not the right approach. Even if he is having an affair.”

  A few seconds passed. “Okay,” Bryn said finally, sniffing loudly. “You’re right. Can you meet me? I really need a sane person to talk me off of this cliff.”

  “Yes. I’ll meet you at the coffee house.”

  Hanging up, I went immediately to Coop’s office, knocked lightly, and opened the door. Luke lifted his head in a gesture of greeting, but Coop was on the phone.

  “Just run them again!” he practically shouted. He hung up and tossed his phone on the desk. Only then did he notice me. “Oh, hi.” He walked over and kissed my cheek. “Everything okay?”

  I waved a hand. “Oh yeah. Everything is fine. I need to run into town.”

  He narrowed his gaze. “Need to?”

  “Bryn’s having trouble with Jake. She’s really upset. It’s important.”

  “I don’t have an officer available right now to go with you.”

  I let my face soften. “I’ll be fine. I won’t even unlock the car or get out until I’m with Bryn.” I held up my phone. “I’ll text you when I get where I’m going.”

  He reached in his pocket and came out with the key to his SUV. “Take mine. Luke and I will use his if we need to go anywhere. Please be careful.”

  I smiled. “I’ll even stop at the store and get some steaks on my way back for the two of you to grill.”

  “I wouldn’t turn down a steak,” Luke said.

  “Okay. But text me when you get there. And again when you leave,” Coop demanded, and he gave me a kiss.

  I waited at the coffee house for twenty minutes and called Bryn at least five times. She didn’t show, and she didn’t pick up. The storm that has been approaching as I sat at Coop’s was getting closer. The skies in the west had darkened to a charcoal gray, and the leaves blew inside-out on the trees lining Main Street.

  Finally, getting worried, I did something I knew Bryn would hate. I called Jake.

  He didn’t answer the first time I called. The second time, he answered on the first ring. “Hey, Lil,” he said, sounding all cheery.

  “Hi, Jake. What’s going on?”

  “Just the usual. Did you get an address to use for your business?”

  “Actually, no. Something came up. Hey, you haven’t seen Bryn this afternoon, have you?” I squeezed my eyes closed, hoping Jake wouldn’t sense that I was lying to him.

  “No, I’ve been in court. I assume she’s at the coffee house.”

  If Jake hadn’t seen Bryn, then she hadn’t confronted him. That was good.

  “Okay, I’ll look for her there. And I’ll get you that address as soon as I can.”

  I hung up with Jake and called Bryn again. Still no answer.

  I knew she wouldn’t just ignore me like this. Had she gotten into an accident? Run herself off the road? She had been so upset, either one was possible.

  I decided I needed to find out. I would drive out to Jake’s old house and see if I came across her at the side of the road somewhere along the way. I wasn’t sure whether to hope I did, or hope I didn’t.

  I drove Coop’s truck down miles of twisty country roads, my head swiveling for any sign of Bryn’s car, but when I got out to Jake’s old house, I’d still seen no sign of her. I drove on past, pulled over in front of a gate that opened into a neighboring field, and called Bryn again.

  Still no answer.

  Thunder grumbled to the west. Typically, I loved thunderstorms in the spring. But I didn’t like being out in them.

  I looked back once more at Jake’s childhood home.

  That’s when I finally spotted Bryn’s car, parked around to the side.

  Jake had lied.

  Thirty-Seven

  Coop

  Luke and I had been poring through evidence all morning, and we kept coming back to one loose end: that second man who was present the night Lil was kidnapped.

  “Someone else was there that night,” I said. “But the only things Lil could tell the police about him were that he was male, she thought his voice sounded younger, and that he was ordered to get rid of her car.”

  “But she was drugged and probably a little unsure.”

  “Except that we know there was someone else there, because the police lifted a set of prints from her steering wheel that didn’t match hers, White’s, or Richardson’s. Or anyone else in the police database.”

  Luke pointed to a crude, faceless stick figure I’d hung beside a photograph of Richardson. “The mystery man. And you’ve always believed that this man was the reason Richardson was returning to Paynes Creek.” He rubbed a hand across his jaw. “A family member. Perhaps even a son.”

  I nodded. “Yes, that’s always been my theory. We have no record of him having children, but that doesn’t mean anything. It took us a long time just to put a name with the man.”

  Luke and I straightened at an urgent knock at my front door. After trading looks, I made my way there.

  When I opened the door, Barrett, the young server from the coffee house, stood on the other side. He looked disheveled and nervous.

  “Barrett? What brings you all the way out here?”

  Barrett looked over his shoulder, then back at me. His eyes widened when Luke stepped up behind me. “Uh… I…”

  “Barrett, this is Special Agent Luke Justice.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Barrett said.

  “Did you remember something about Tricia?” I prompted. The poor kid looked scared out of his mind.

  “Yes. Can I come inside?”

  “Of course.” I backed up, and Barrett entered. I closed the door behind him. “What’s on your mind, Barrett?”

  “Tricia had a second job.”

  “Do you know where?”

  Luke leaned against the wall with his arms and legs crossed. He could be intimidating when he wanted to.

  “Yes. I saw her there, about a month ago. She didn’t see me. I don’t think any of them saw me.”

  “Them?” Luke asked.

  “Where did you see Tricia, Barrett?”

  “At Girlz Next Door. It’s a strip club in Lexington.” He waved his hands. “I don’t go there all the time or anything. It was a bachelor party for my best friend from high school.”

  “Going to a strip club isn’t illegal, Barrett,” I said. “Why don’t you just tell us who and what you saw?”

  “Tricia is… or was a… what do you call them? Exotic dancer? You know. A stripper.”

  “And she was performing on the night of the bachelor party?”

  “Yeah.”

  That tied Tricia to Linda.

  Barrett shifted nervously. “But I saw something else too.” He twisted his hands.

  I was starting to think I was going to have to tie Barrett upside down by his feet and shake the information out of him.

  “Barrett,” Luke said, taking a step forward. “Tricia was murdered. If you have information that can help us find her killer, you need to tell us now.”

  “Y-yes, sir. It’s just… Well, okay. I saw her there, like I said, doing one of those private dances for a guy, like a lap dance. I looked away because I didn’t want her to see me—I guess I was embarrassed to be there. But then a while later I had to go to the bathroom, and I took a wrong turn. I came around a corner and saw Tricia in a back room with two ladies and a man. I’m sure you’ve already talked to him, but I don’t know… I just felt like…”

  “Barrett, just tell us what you saw.”

  “She was with Jake Earlywine. Bryn’s… you know. And they weren’t just talking.”

  I’d had a lot of practice over the years at not showing emotion on my face when interviewing a witness. But I was still glad that Luke was there to continue
questioning Barrett while I processed what he’d said.

  “What were they doing?” Luke asked. “Be specific,” he added when Barrett hesitated.

  “They were snorting something. Cocaine, I guess.”

  I straightened, narrowing my eyes.

  Barrett must have thought I was questioning his knowledge of what snorting cocaine looked like, because he quickly added, “I’ve seen people do it in the movies. I ain’t never done it.”

  “We’re going to need you to make an official statement, Barrett. Are you comfortable doing that?”

  Barrett backed up. “I mean… I don’t know. What if Jake finds out it was me who told the feds he was doing coke? He’ll get in trouble, won’t he? What with being a lawyer and all. And you do know Bryn’s my boss.”

  “Hold on a second, Barrett.” I ran to my office, grabbed two photos from the wall, and returned. “Do you recognize either of these two women?” I held up two recent photographs: one of Linda Thomas and one of Bree White.

  “Yeah, that’s them.”

  I placed a hand on Barrett’s shoulder. “You were very brave to come to us with this. We’ll hold off on an official statement for now. But in return, I need you to do us a favor.”

  “Sure.”

  “Tell no one you came here. And don’t repeat what you saw to anyone.”

  When Barrett was gone, Luke stepped up to me. “Coop, I’m thinking you may be too close to this case. First it involved your old girlfriend, now your best friend is hip-deep in it too…”

  I clenched my jaw. “What are you saying, Luke?”

  He backed off. “Nothing. Just—”

  “Good. Because there’s no way I’m stepping away from this case.”

  Fifteen minutes later, we stormed into Jake’s law office.

  Judy stood abruptly. “Coop? What’s wrong?”

  “Where’s Jake?” I asked as I walked past her and into Jake’s empty office.

  “He left for the day. Can I help you?”

  “You can tell me where he is.”

  “He said he had some personal things to take care of. I can call his cell.”