by Cole, Bobby
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2012 William Robert Cole, Jr.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Scripture quotations are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
Published by Thomas & Mercer
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781612187211
ISBN-10: 1612187218
This book is dedicated to the fine folks of West Point, Mississippi.
I’m humbled by their enthusiastic support.
CONTENTS
Start Reading
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
CHAPTER 72
CHAPTER 73
CHAPTER 74
CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER 76
CHAPTER 77
CHAPTER 78
CHAPTER 79
CHAPTER 80
CHAPTER 81
CHAPTER 82
CHAPTER 83
CHAPTER 84
CHAPTER 85
CHAPTER 86
CHAPTER 87
CHAPTER 88
CHAPTER 89
CHAPTER 90
CHAPTER 91
CHAPTER 92
CHAPTER 93
CHAPTER 94
CHAPTER 95
CHAPTER 96
CHAPTER 97
CHAPTER 98
CHAPTER 99
CHAPTER 100
CHAPTER 101
CHAPTER 102
CHAPTER 103
CHAPTER 104
CHAPTER 105
CHAPTER 106
CHAPTER 107
CHAPTER 108
CHAPTER 109
CHAPTER 110
CHAPTER 111
CHAPTER 112
CHAPTER 113
CHAPTER 114
CHAPTER 115
CHAPTER 116
CHAPTER 117
CHAPTER 118
CHAPTER 119
CHAPTER 120
CHAPTER 121
CHAPTER 122
CHAPTER 123
CHAPTER 124
CHAPTER 125
CHAPTER 126
ONE YEAR LATER
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
He set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
—Psalm 40:2
CHAPTER 1
AS DARKNESS ENVELOPED the newly constructed two-story house, the sliver of moon added to the gloom that was a chilly autumn Mississippi evening. Scout was stretched out on the kitchen floor, sound asleep, with her favorite chew toy nearby.
Morgan Crosby had just finished cleaning the kitchen and strongly suspected she had math homework in her immediate future. A quick glance at the wall clock revealed that she was missing Dancing with the Stars, but she didn’t really care. She was happy. Typically Jake would have had a fire burning in the den by now, but he was at a business dinner and wouldn’t be home for at least another hour or so. It was blues night at Anthony’s Market, and Jake’s bosses loved to schedule business meetings around great food and the Delta’s music that flowed there on most nights.
Morgan was thrilled with Jake’s renewed interest in his career, but she still didn’t like being home without him. Her therapist had promised the anxiety would slowly dissipate. She just needed time. It had been almost two years, and Morgan was doing much better. The recent move to a gated neighborhood had helped tremendously. She finally felt safe. Her face glowed as she placed a hand on her stomach and thought about the surprise she had for Jake tonight. He had no idea she had been to the doctor.
Katy suddenly came crashing down the stairs with her books in hand, ready to conquer her fifth-grade math assignment.
“I’m ready, Mom!” she exclaimed, as if Morgan should drop everything and come running.
“Okay, let me wash up,” Morgan replied. “Go ahead and get started.”
“Yes ma’am. We started fractions today, and they seem easy,” Katy said with confidence.
Morgan dried her hands as she watched Katy enthusiastically dive into her homework. “Just let me know if you need some help.”
From across the kitchen, Morgan could hear the friction of Katy’s pencil against the paper. Morgan smiled, sat down at the table, and began flipping through the latest issue of Garden & Gun. She enjoyed the garden portion. Jake loved the guns.
When Morgan was halfway through the magazine, their normally silent cat grunted a meow, indicating he wanted to go outside. Morgan glanced up from a recipe. As she had done hundreds of times, she walked to the back door and with one hand flipped on the outside light switch. With the other, she unlocked the door and slightly opened it.
The black-and-white cat squeezed through the crack. When the tip of his tail cleared the door, Morgan slowly looked up to see the silhouette of a man less than fifteen yards away, the glow of his cigarette slightly illuminating his sinister face. He looked her dead in the eye before grinning and then stepping backward and disappearing into the darkness of the woods.
Morgan screamed, slammed the door, and quickly locked the dead bolt. Still screaming, she pushed the panic button on the house’s alarm, unleashing an immediate high-pitched shrill from the speakers, which were located in the attic. Katy was wild-eyed as she watched her mother race from the touch pad to the cordless telephone and begin dialing.
With remarkable clarity, Morga
n Crosby explained to the 911 operator that a prowler was outside of her house and that she needed immediate help. As she ran to the kitchen window in search of the stranger, she quickly verified her name and address. The operator dispatched the police and stayed on the line to comfort Morgan, who was now shaking uncontrollably.
“The West Point police will be there in three minutes, Mrs. Crosby,” the young emergency operator said reassuringly.
“I don’t know what he was doing! He was just staring, staring in the windows…at me!”
“Can you describe him?” the operator asked calmly and then alertly mouthed to another operator to also inform the sheriff’s office.
“I don’t know! He was standing in the shadows,” Morgan said, shaking her head and realizing there was something faintly familiar about the man’s profile. “I need to call my husband!”
“You mean he’s not home?” the surprised operator asked.
“No! No, he’s not. It’s just me and my daughter.”
This increased the intensity of the situation. The operator snapped her fingers at a coworker and then mouthed, “She’s alone!”
“Listen, ma’am, don’t hang up, okay? I need you to stay on the line until the officers get there. Do you have a cell phone handy?”
“Yes! Yes! Right here!”
“Okay, use your cell and keep this line open. The officers are getting close.” The operator was trained to keep callers on the line, sometimes improvising to keep the situation under control.
“Please tell them to hurry!”
“They are, ma’am, I promise. I need you to turn on all the outside lights you’ve got, and then you and your daughter—what’s her name?”
“Katy.”
“Okay, you and Katy need to get away from the windows. Don’t hang up, but run, turn the outside lights on, and come right back. Can you do that for me?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Don’t hang up.”
Morgan wrapped her arms around the now-crying Katy in an attempt to calm her. She told Katy to sit on the kitchen floor and that she’d be right back. Katy started to protest, but Morgan turned around with a stern look and then took off for the front door. After flipping on the light switch, Morgan dashed back into the kitchen, turning off the light as she entered, hoping he couldn’t see her inside. The alarm continued to blare. She hugged Katy as she sat down beside her. She picked up the landline and said, “Okay, I’m back.”
“Good job. Now call your husband on your cell phone. Don’t hang up this phone, though.”
“Okay.”
Morgan picked up her cell phone and fumbled to dial Jake’s number. She started talking the moment the call connected.
“What? Just slow down. I can hardly hear you over the alarm,” Jake said. He was shocked to hear her hysterics, but he was already moving in the direction of the restaurant’s entrance.
“Some man was just in our backyard, looking in the windows!”
“Have you called the police!” Jake was nearly yelling as he ran toward his truck.
“Yes, I’m on the phone with them now!”
“Good. I’m on my way!”
“Hurry, Jake!” Morgan shrieked, tears of terror running down her cheeks.
“Ma’am, two units just turned into your neighborhood. But stay on the phone and don’t go to the front door until I tell you to, okay?” the operator asked.
“Pleeeease tell ’em to hurry,” she said frantically.
Morgan tightly squeezed Katy as they cried. The piercing alarm had surely scared off the Peeping Tom, but it was fraying both of their nerves.
CHAPTER 2
JAKE SPED TOWARD home, not knowing what to expect…what to think. He’d never heard Morgan so upset; the terror in her voice was clear.
It had been almost two years since his horrifying all-night ordeal at the Dummy Line in West Alabama. Not a day went by when he didn’t anxiously remember being in the wrong place at the worst possible time. His journey through life had hit a fork in the road on that night. Fortunately, the decisions he had made were the right ones. Although the event had been physically rough on Jake, Morgan was really having a hard time emotionally. Knowing that she had nearly lost her husband and her daughter was still taking a significant toll. The event had forced both Morgan and Jake to reevaluate their priorities and their relationship. Morgan went to therapy, but Jake just forced it deep down into his guts—as deep as possible. On some level, he knew that one day it would surface with a fury, but he didn’t have the luxury of worrying about that now. He had a family to take care of and to provide for first.
As he sped through the Old Waverly Golf Club, Jake saw blue lights flashing on at least two police cars in front of his house and saw another driving through the neighborhood, searching with a spotlight. The tires squealed as he slammed on the brakes and parked crookedly at the end of his drive. He jumped out and ran toward the house. A young police officer searching the front yard recognized Jake and radioed the other officers that “the husband” had arrived.
Inside the house was chaos. Scout, their aged black Lab, was barking at all the strange men and couldn’t hear Morgan’s repetitive commands to hush. Several police officers were now in the house, talking excitedly on their handheld radios, coordinating coverage of possible escape routes and asking for additional manpower. Morgan was on the verge of hysterics. Katy’s eyes were swollen from crying, but she was watching the police officers with great interest. When Morgan saw Jake, she ran to him, and they embraced for a long moment. Jake looked over her shoulder into an older officer’s eyes, trying to read the situation. Nothing in the officer’s face or demeanor offered any clues.
“What’s going on? What do you know?” Jake frantically asked.
Morgan had her hand over her mouth. The lead officer spoke first, allowing Morgan a chance to compose herself.
“Apparently, Mr. Crosby, at the very least y’all had a Peepin’ Tom. Maybe he was gonna rob the house. Maybe worse,” he said carefully, knowing they needed to hear the truth. He continued, “But we think when your wife turned on the outside lights, he got spooked and fled the area.”
“How did he get in here? How did he get past the security guard?”
“We don’t know yet. Since Old Waverly only has two ways to drive in, if he drove, we’ll know. We’ve got backup arriving now to seal off both exits. We’ll check every vehicle, stickered or not, and we’ll grid search for him in case he’s still on foot.”
“Has anybody been broken into out here?” Jake asked, assuming the incident to be an interrupted burglary.
“No, sir—not unless it happened tonight and it hasn’t been reported yet. This is one of the safest places in the entire state. We’ve never had any incidents out here. Look, we’re only ten minutes into this thing, so we really don’t know what’s going on yet. But we do have most of West Point’s officers out there, plus two county deputies, and the local state trooper just radioed in that he’s en route. We gotta good chance of catching this guy if he’s still in here. He might can hide in the woods along the golf course or around homes that don’t have dogs, but he’ll be wantin’ to get outta here as fast as he can…and that’s when we’ll catch him,” the officer replied confidently.
With his arm still around Morgan, Jake rubbed her back while he looked out the windows. The small town of West Point, Mississippi, seemed to have deployed everybody on this call. He watched the parade of law enforcement officers outside and saw the constable arrive. He realized he didn’t even know what a constable was, but there was one in his driveway who apparently wanted to help.
Jake turned to the policeman. “What can I do, Officer?”
“Can we get this dog in a room somewhere and let me ask y’all some more questions?”
“Sure,” Jake said as he headed toward Scout. This was the most excitement she’d experienced since retiring from duck hunting a year or so ago.
As Jake returned, an officer opened the front door and stood in
the doorway, obviously excited. “I found something!”
Everyone in the room turned to listen.
“Whatcha got?” asked the lead officer.
“There is a big oak tree right there in the corner of their lot. You can see the kitchen clearly and what appears to be the master bathroom. At any rate, there’s about twenty-five cigarette butts in a pile behind it, and judging from their appearance, I’d say some are over a week old. Some of ’em are fresh.”
Everyone looked at each other.
“Do y’all smoke?” asked the lead officer.
Morgan shook her head and squeezed Katy tighter. Jake shook his head too and then said, “No, sir. None of us do.”
“Okay.” Turning away from Jake, he said to the other officer, “Let’s photograph the cigarette butts and then put ’em in an evidence bag. We might get lucky and find some DNA.” He then turned to another officer and said, “Have there been Peeping Toms or anything similar to this going on around town at all?”
“No, sir. Nothing at all,” the officer said with certainty. He then turned to Jake and asked, “By the way, Jake, where were you tonight?”
Jake was surprised by the question but appreciated his reasoning. “Working. I…I was at a business dinner at Anthony’s.”
The police officer nodded. “Okay. Have y’all seen anything or anybody suspicious around here? Anything out of the ordinary?”
Jake and Morgan looked at each other. Both drew blanks. Neither had noticed anything out of the norm; that’s why they had moved to Old Waverly in the first place. After the life-altering events at the Dummy Line and the kidnapping of a neighbor, Morgan had insisted they live in a secure neighborhood. Jake understood and agreed. Morgan had been the intended target of the kidnapping—only the bad guys had abducted their next-door neighbor by mistake.
The Old Waverly Golf Club community perfectly fit their needs, although neither Jake nor Morgan golfed. Fortunately, the property had a lot of fishable water that was full of big bass, and there were deer everywhere too, so Jake enjoyed being there. The security at the entrance into the development was adequate. Unless you were a resident, a member, or a registered guest, you weren’t getting in…unless, of course, you could bullshit your way past the guard.
“There’s never anything out of the ordinary here. That’s what we like about it,” Jake said with a smile.
