The Innocent

by Amanda Stevens

  “Until I arrived in town, I hadn’t seen her in years. We aren’t close.”

  “That’s a weak argument and you know it. And I doubt very seriously it would wash with Sheriff Mooney.”

  He sat forward, gazing at her earnestly. “I let her down once, Abby. I can’t let her down again.”

  Abby saw the guilt in his eyes, and the torment, but she was at a loss as to how to help him. Her hands were tied. She couldn’t risk her own career, could she? “I don’t know what I can do,” she said helplessly.

  “This could just be between you and me. No one else has to know.”

  Abby glanced up in alarm. She felt almost breathless by what he was asking her to do, and not a little angry. “You mean go behind the sheriff’s back? I can’t do that. You’re asking me to risk my job for you.”

  “Not for me. For Sara Beth. For Emily.”

  He knew exactly the right buttons to push, Abby thought bitterly. All the right bells to ring. He knew exactly how to get to her.

  As if sensing her weakness, he pressed his point. “I was with the FBI for twenty years. I’ve been a profiler for ten. There’s no one on these cases more experienced than I am. I can help you find those children. I know I can.”

  The problem was, Abby knew it, too. She’d known it from the first. She’d also known that Sam Burke was going to be a dangerous man. Dangerous to her career. Dangerous to her peace of mind. Maybe even dangerous to her heart.

  “Come on, Abby. You need my help. You know you do.”

  “You have no right asking me to do this,” she said angrily.

  “I know I don’t. But I’m asking anyway. Abby—”

  “Oh, just shut up for a minute and let me think,” she snapped.

  All right, here’s the deal, she told herself. She could make a phone call, get Agent Carter over here, and let him handle the situation. She could get up from this table, leave, and forget she’d ever met an ex-profiler named Sam Burke. She could discount the very real possibility that his experience and expertise might be invaluable in solving these cases. Might help lead them to those missing children before it was too late.

  She could wash her hands of the whole mess and just walk away.

  But the trouble was, she couldn’t walk way. Her conscience was even now flailing her that she would consider for one moment putting her own career needs before the welfare of those children.

  Would it hurt to at least ask Sheriff Mooney about the possibility of Sam consulting on the cases? The sheriff wasn’t an unreasonable man, and he had no particular fear of or affinity for the FBI. Just because Sam had apparently fallen from the Bureau’s good graces didn’t mean his services wouldn’t still be valued by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department.

  But what if Sheriff Mooney said no? What then? Would Abby really have the guts to go behind his back and keep Sam active in the investigation?

  Yes, she thought. She would do anything to find Sara Beth and Emily, even risk her own career. Because if she didn’t use every tool available to her to bring those children home, how would she be able to live with herself?

  “I’ll do what I can,” she said reluctantly, “On one condition.”

  “Name it.”

  She gave him a warning look. “The knife cuts both ways. You find out anything, you let me know ASAP.”

  “That goes without saying.”

  “No,” she said. “It doesn’t. I want to hear that you agree.”

  He gave her an exasperated look. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a real hard-ass, Sergeant Cross?”

  “Every single day. So, do we have a deal or don’t we?”

  “We have a deal. And now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go wash Mama Evie’s barbecue sauce off my hands.”

  “You might want to hit that spot on your tie a lick, too, while you’re at it,” Abby said dryly.

  She watched him walk away, feeling a quiver of excitement in her stomach and a sense of dread in her gut.

  With or without the sheriff’s blessing, Abby and Sam were going to be working together on this case. Day in and day out. Far into the night. Familiarity bred contempt, she’d always heard, but it could also nurture intimacy.

  The kind that almost always spelled trouble.

  AS SAM HEADED toward the back, Abby got up and walked over to the cash register to settle the bill. Shani rang her up, but before Abby could leave, Evie Mae came bustling out of the kitchen and thrust a tiny glass vial into her hand.

  “What’s this?” Abby asked, glancing at the contents with a fair amount of suspicion.

  “A little of this, a little of that.” Evie Mae smiled mysteriously. “Use it sparingly.”

  Abby narrowed her eyes. “This isn’t some kind of love potion, is it?”

  Evie Mae grinned. “You don’t need no love potion. I done seen them looks you two been giving each other. I know a dog in heat when I see one.”

  Abby didn’t think she could possibly be any more mortified, but then she turned and saw that Sam had come out of the rest room. He was standing behind her, and he couldn’t have missed the comment unless he was deaf as a fence post. Which Abby knew he wasn’t.

  She stuffed the vial into her purse and strode out of the restaurant before Evie Mae could do any further damage to her poise.

  “Sorry about that,” she muttered as they stood outside in the heat.

  Sam shrugged. “Don’t be. I told you, I think Evie Mae’s great.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever blushed so much in my life.”

  “Looks good on you.” It did. Sam glanced down at her, noting the high color beneath her tan. It brought out the warmth of her brown eyes. The softness of her features. “Besides,” he said softly. “She’s right.”

  Abby’s gaze shot to his. “What do you mean?”

  “I am attracted to you.”

  “Sam—”

  “If we’re going to be working together, I just thought we should lay all our cards on the table.”

  “Oh, now you want to be honest?” She gave him a long, hard look. “Well, forget about it. It’s not going to happen. A male officer goes out with one of his colleagues, everyone just shrugs and says ‘boys will be boys.’ You know what they call a female officer who dates an associate?”

  Sam knew all right. The euphemisms changed depending on the law-enforcement body and the area of the country, but they all meant the same thing, and none of them were flattering. “I’m not a cop,” he pointed out. “I’m not even FBI.”

  “Maybe not, but if you’re going to be involved in these cases, any kind of personal relationship between us is strictly taboo. You got that?” She pushed back a strand of hair that had fallen loose from her ponytail.

  “Loud and clear,” Sam said with a shrug, but he was a little put off by her attitude. “We’re not going to sleep together. Okay. Got it.”

  “Good.” She turned and started toward her car. “Just so you know.”

  Sam said to her retreating back, “Do you always have to have the last word?”

  “You don’t know Southern women very well or you wouldn’t have to ask that question.” Pausing at her car door, she glanced back at him. “This is against my better judgment, but do you want to take a ride with me this afternoon?”

  “Where to?”

  She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “South. We won’t be back until late.”

  He gave her a skeptical look. “Care to elaborate?”

  “No. So, you coming or not?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I think I will.”

  His chest tightened as he walked toward her. She was right, of course. A personal involvement, even a one-night stand, was out of the question, and not just because of the ethics. He and Abby were worlds apart in their thinking, in their experience and especially in their ages. She was not the kind of woman he wanted to take any chances with.

  But his resolution did little to lessen his attraction for her. He was in Eden after all, and the forbidden fruit was alw
ays the most tempting.

  Chapter Eight

  As they drove south toward Crawford County, Abby explained to Sam about the printouts she’d received from the state crime center and how she’d been searching the lists for viable suspects.

  “I admire your tenacity,” he said. “But it must be a little like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.”

  “Except a lot more depressing.” She watched the road for a moment. “All those names. All those child molesters that we know about. And then the ones we don’t—” She broke off, shuddering. “They’re out there watching and waiting for their innocent little victims.”

  “It’s disturbing,” he agreed. “To say the least.” Abby shot him a glance. “I guess no one would know that better than you. I can’t imagine the cases you must have seen in the ten years you were a profiler.”

  He frowned at the passing scenery. “Believe me, you don’t want to imagine them.”

  “Is that why you left?”

  He shrugged. “I left the FBI for a lot of reasons, none of which are relevant to these cases.”

  Meaning he had no intention of telling her the full truth of his resignation from the Bureau. Fair enough, Abby guessed. She had things in her life she didn’t like to talk about. Her ambition, for one thing. Her dream of being an FBI profiler. What would Sam say if he knew about that? About the acceptance letter from the Academy in her bureau drawer?

  Maybe that was why she couldn’t leave his retirement alone. He’d had what she’d always wanted, and he’d walked away from it. Abby couldn’t help wondering why.

  Still, he was entitled to his privacy, so, for the time being, she let the matter drop.

  He was studying the rap sheet Sheriff McElroy in Palisades had faxed Abby earlier that day. “What is it about this guy that warrants a road trip?” he asked.

  Abby shrugged. “He’s not the only name I pulled from the list, but he’s the only one I couldn’t resolve to my satisfaction over the phone. Most of the others are either dead or back in prison. But Hatcher is still out there somewhere. He spent nine years in Parchman for aggravated assault and kidnapping. He went in after Sadie disappeared, and he got out a month before Emily and Sara Beth were abducted. The length of his sentence caught my attention as much as the crime.”

  “What did the local authorities have to say about him?”

  “Not much,” Abby admitted. “A man named Wayne McElroy is the sheriff down there. I’m hoping he’ll be a little more cooperative when we show up in person.”

  But McElroy was just leaving his office when Abby and Sam arrived shortly after five o’clock. She’d hoped to get there earlier, but traffic on the Interstate had slowed them down.

  McElroy was around fifty, with grizzled hair and a jagged scar over his left eye that gave his appearance a sinister quality. The image was further enhanced by his sidearm, a wicked-looking Colt Python he’d strapped to his lean hips. A cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth as he shoved back his Stetson and gave them an unfriendly perusal.

  “You folks caught me at a bad time,” he said as he grudgingly led them back to his office. “I was leaving a little early today. Hoping to get an hour or so of fishing in before dark.”

  “This won’t take long,” Abby said. “I need to follow up on our phone conversation this morning.”

  “You get the fax?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  He shrugged off her gratitude. “Don’t know what else there is to say. It was all in the report.”

  Abby hesitated. “I had a feeling there were some things you weren’t telling me about Bobby Lee Hatcher.”

  “Like what?” The cigarette moved up and down as he talked, loosening ashes that drifted to the surface of his desk. He swiped the mess to the floor with the back of his hand.

  “What can you tell us about the kidnapping?” she asked.

  McElroy frowned. “It was in the fax I sent you. Didn’t you read it?”

  “Yes, of course, I read it,” Abby said impatiently. “But you were there when Hatcher was arrested. You know as well as I do that not everything goes into the official report.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe it did, and maybe it didn’t.”

  “Meaning?”

  McElroy turned to Sam in disapproval. “You always let her do all the talking?”

  “It’s her case,” Sam said. “I’m just along for the ride.”

  McElroy’s gaze narrowed shrewdly. “Never met a fed who was just along for the ride.”

  “All right,” Sam said. “I do have a question for you. What is it you’re not telling us about Bobby Lee Hatcher? Is he a relative of yours?”

  McElroy gave a short grunt of laughter. “The Hatchers are no kin of mine, that’s for damn sure. But the boy did his time, and that’s a fact.”

  “We still need to talk to him,” Abby said.

  “If it’s about those kidnappings up in Jefferson County, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. Bobby Lee’s victim wasn’t a five-year-old. The girl was seventeen, and Bobby Lee knew her. He didn’t just grab her off the street.”

  “He may not have grabbed her off the street, but he did assault her,” Abby said. “He did use violence.”

  The sheriff shrugged. “He roughed her up a little, but I reckon nothing more than he did to his own wife.”

  “Bobby Lee is married?”

  “Was. I expect they’re divorced by now.” McElroy flicked ashes toward a glass ashtray as he stared at the ceiling for a moment. “Damned if I can remember what they called that ol’ gal.” He shook his head. “I never was any good with names.”

  “Then I guess you haven’t remembered the cousin’s name, either,” Abby said.

  “No,” he admitted. “But I asked around after you called. One of my deputies remembered him. Name was Marvin. Not much of a looker, but he was the best damn auto mechanic I ever saw in my life. Hated to see him leave these parts, even if he was a Hatcher.”

  “What about Bobby Lee’s wife? What can you tell us about her?”

  “Not much. She didn’t hang around long after Bobby Lee got sent up. She was from New Orleans, best I remember. I heard tell she used to dance in one of those nightclubs down on Bourbon Street. That’s where she met Bobby Lee, and then she followed him up here. They stayed out there with his grandma for awhile after they went and got themselves hitched. I figure the girl hightailed it back down to New Orleans because she was afraid to live with the old woman once Bobby Lee wasn’t around to referee.”

  “By old woman, you mean the grandmother?”

  McElroy nodded. “There wasn’t any love lost between those two. Nellie Hatcher claimed the kidnapping was the girl’s idea, that she used drugs or voodoo or some damned thing to get Bobby Lee to go along with her.”

  “What did you think?” Sam asked.

  “I don’t believe in voodoo, but I always figured there was some truth in what Nellie said. You could tell that girl was bad news just by looking at her.” He struck a match and lit up another cigarette, blowing a stream of smoke from the corner of his mouth as he shook out the flame. “I never could prove it, though.”

  “Where can we find Nellie Hatcher?” Abby asked.

  “The old Hatcher place is out near the swamp. You take Highway 7 east out of town, and about five miles down the road, you’ll see a catfish house on the left. There’s a gravel road that leads back to the swamp.” The cigarette flopped at the corner of his mouth, like some forgotten appendage. “The house is at the end of the road, but if you’re going, you best get on out there now. You don’t want to be near that swamp after dark. The place is crawling with gators and moccasins.”

  Abby suppressed a shudder. “Thanks for the warning.”

  McElroy took the cigarette out of his mouth and aimed the tip in their direction. “Another thing you got to watch out for—Bobby Lee’s younger brother still lives with the old lady. She and Ray Dean are both a little prickly about the law, especially since what happened wit
h Bobby Lee. The boy likes to carry around a twelve-gauge shotgun that he says he uses for protection out in the swamp when he’s hunting.”

  “Sounds reasonable enough,” Abby said doubtfully.

  “Yeah,” McElroy agreed ominously. “‘Cept what he hunts are cottonmouths, the bigger and meaner the better. Sells ’em to one of those snake-handling preachers over in Mason County. Sometimes he’ll have thirty or forty of those damn things crawling all over each other in a cage he keeps out back somewhere. I wouldn’t want to be around if he ever turns ’em loose.”

  Great, Abby thought. This just kept getting better and better.

  THE GRAVEL ROAD narrowed as they neared the swamp. Huge cypress trees grew in profusion, their lacy fronds creating a delicate green parasol that blocked the late sunlight. Even in the car with the windows up, Sam could feel the thick humidity seeping through the air-conditioner vents, but he didn’t remove his jacket because he didn’t want to reveal the 9mm SIG Sauer he wore in a shoulder holster beneath. He didn’t want to inspire Ray Dean Hatcher’s itchy trigger finger.

  He glanced out the window. Ahead of them, something slithered in the underbrush. A huge tail whipped, then disappeared. “Did you see that?”

  Abby stared grimly at the road. “Yeah. One of the gators McElroy warned us about?”

  “Or one hell of a big moccasin.”

  She glanced at him. “You’re not afraid of snakes, are you?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t have a phobia, if that’s what you mean, but I wouldn’t want to be around if thirty or forty cottonmouths were turned loose in the same place.”

  Abby shivered. “Me, either.”

  “Look.” He pointed ahead to where the house had come into view fifty yards or so in front of them. It was bigger than Sam had imagined, a two-story farmhouse with fading wood and a wide porch that sagged slightly at one end. An old red truck sat on blocks at the corner of the yard, keeping company with a banged-up aluminum fishing boat and two small tractors that had been stripped of various parts. Toward the back of the house, more abandoned vehicles littered the property. Sam remembered that Sheriff McElroy had told them Bobby Lee’s older cousin was an auto mechanic. He wondered if the junked cars in the back were Marvin Hatcher’s handiwork.