by Karen Rose
“I have no idea, but you’re going to tell me right now, aren’t you?”
Chase sounded cranky and Daniel guessed his meeting with the captain had gone even less well than his visit with Marianne Woolf.
“A disposable cell phone. It wasn’t in his room and the cops didn’t find it on his body, but Mrs. Romney had written down the numbers in his call log. The number for his incoming calls matches the call Jim Woolf got Sunday morning.”
“Yes,” Chase hissed. “Does it match any of the incomings on the cell you found on the pizza parlor guy, Lester Jackson?”
“Unfortunately no, but we finally have a solid connection.”
“I wish you’d told me this before I went into my meeting,” Chase grumbled.
“Sorry,” Daniel said. “How bad is it?”
“They wanted you off the case, but I convinced them otherwise,” Chase said dryly.
Daniel let out a breath. “Thanks. I owe you.” His phone beeped and he glanced at the caller ID. “It’s Ed. I gotta go.” He switched calls. “Hey, Ed. What do you know?”
“Lots,” Ed said, clearly pleased. “Come to Bailey’s and you’ll know lots, too.”
“I’m just leaving the Woolfs’, so I’m not far. I’ll see you in twenty.”
Atlanta, Thursday, February 1, 4:50 p.m.
“Alex. Wake up.”
Alex twisted out of sleep, a warm mouth meeting hers. “Umm.” She kissed him back, then leaned back against the sofa in the break room where she’d drifted off. “You’re back.” She blinked her eyes open. “What time is it?”
“Almost five. I have a team meeting, but I wanted to find you first.” Kneeling on one knee next to the little sofa, he gave her an appraising glance. “Did you get your clothes back from the bungalow?”
“No. Shannon, the agent who was there last night, said they’d been slashed.” She shrugged. “So I went shopping.”
He frowned. “I thought-”
She patted his cheek. “Relax. Chase had one of the agents ‘accompany’ me.”
“Which one?”
“Pete Haywood.”
Daniel smiled, relieved. “Nobody messes with Pete.”
“I should think not.” The man had been bigger than Daniel and built like a tank.
“Nobody tried anything?”
“Nobody even looked at me cross-eyed.” She struggled to sit up and he easily lifted her. “I got a call from my friend Letta.” Alex had called him with Sissy’s revelation earlier in the afternoon. “She said there was no letter from Bailey.”
“It should have arrived already.” His brow creased. “How long since you moved?”
“A little more than a year. Why?”
“The post office only forwards mail for about a year. Did Bailey know you’d moved?”
“No.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s probably at Richard’s house. I’ll call him.”
“Where are Hope and Meredith?”
“Back at the safe house. Hope was exhausted after she and Mary were done, so Meredith took them both back. Hope was able to pick out two of the pictures, then Mary showed her a bunch of different hats and asked Hope to pick out one that matched the hat she drew on Bailey’s assailant the other night. Hope picked a hat just like the one they wear in the Dutton sheriff’s office.”
He nodded soberly. “I know. I stopped by the team room on my way to find you.” He rose and held out his hand. “Come. We need to talk to you.” He pulled her to her feet and, sliding his arm around her waist, walked her to a conference room with a big table. Around the table were Luke, Chase, Mary, and a woman she hadn’t yet met. “I think you know everyone except Talia Scott.”
Talia was a little woman with a sweet smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Alex.”
“Talia’s been interviewing all the women in the pictures.”
And Alex could see the day had taken its toll. Although Talia’s smile was sweet, her eyes were weary. “It’s nice to meet you, too.” She looked at the table and saw the two pictures Hope had identified.
Garth Davis, the mayor, and Randy Mansfield, the police deputy.
“What did they say when you arrested them?”
Chase shook his head. “We haven’t arrested them.”
Alex’s mouth fell open in disbelief, then anger started to rise. “And why not?”
Daniel smoothed his hand over her back. “That’s what we wanted to talk to you about. We don’t know which of them abducted Bailey. Maybe both.”
“So arrest them both and sort it out later,” she said from between gritted teeth.
“At this point,” Chase said patiently, “it’s the word of a four-year-old against two men who are respected in the community. We need evidence before we can bring them in.”
He said the words as if she were four years old herself. “This is insane. Two men can abduct a woman and beat her head in and you won’t do anything?” She whipped her gaze up to Daniel. “You were there at the pizza parlor. Garth Davis walked up to our table and a minute later, Hope’s smearing sauce all over her face like blood.” The memory had surfaced as soon as she’d seen the picture. “Garth Davis kidnapped Bailey. Why is he walking free? Why haven’t you even brought him in for questioning?”
“Alex-” Daniel started, but she shook her head.
“And Mansfield… he’s a cop. He has a badge and a gun. You can’t just let him roam free while you figure all this out. Everything he’s ever done has to be suspect. I mean, he shot the guy who tried to kill me after the guy killed Sheila Cunningham. Isn’t that enough evidence? What does it take to get arrested in this goddamn state?”
“Alex.” Daniel’s voice was sharp, then he sighed. “Just show it to her, Ed.”
Ed moved a box filled with books, revealing a silver flute. Alex’s mouth dropped open. “You found the flute Bailey was playing.”
Ed nodded. “We sent out a team with metal detectors and found it behind a fallen log. It had been buried under about a half inch of dirt and a pile of leaves.”
“Where Bailey hid Hope.” She glared at them all, her breath hitching in her chest. “While those men beat her senseless, until her blood soaked the ground.”
“Alex.” Daniel bit her name out. “If you can’t hold it together, you’ll have to leave.”
She stopped, still furious, but now embarrassed as well. Chase only talked to her like a four-year-old. Daniel treated her like one. But perhaps he’d had a right. She was closer to hysteria than she’d ever been. She drew on her control and nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said coolly. “I’ll hold it together.”
Daniel sighed again. “Alex, please. The flute isn’t what we wanted you to see.”
Ed held out a pair of gloves and obediently Alex pulled them on. Then her eyes widened when he handed her a piece of paper, creased where it had been folded longways multiple times like a child’s fan.
“Ed found the note inside the flute,” Daniel said. “It’s from Wade to Bailey.” He held a chair out for her and she sank into it, her eyes fixed to the page as she read aloud.
“Dear Bailey, after years of trying, I’ve finally succeeded. I’ve been hit and I’m dying. Don’t worry. There’s a chaplain here and I’ve done my confession. But I don’t believe God will forgive me. I haven’t forgiven myself. Years ago you asked me if I killed Alicia. The answer was no then and it still is. But I did other things and so did Dad. I think some you guessed. Some you never will and that’s for the best.
“Some of the things that I did, I did with others. They won’t want anyone to know. At first there were seven of us, then six, then five. When I die, there will still be four men who share the secret. They live in fear and distrust, always watching each other, wondering who will be the first to fall. The first to tell.
“I’m enclosing a key. Do not carry it with you. Put it somewhere safe. If you’re ever threatened, tell them you’ll turn it over to the authorities. But not to the police. Not in Dutton, anyway. The key will unlock a secret that some of the four would pay to
keep and some would kill to keep. Two have already been killed to keep the secret.
“I won’t tell you the names of the four, because you’d feel you had to report them. Once you go down that road, you’d be as dead as me. Them knowing that you have the key will be the only thing that will keep you alive.
“I know you’ve stayed in the house, waiting for Dad to come back. I’ve told you before, he won’t. He’s not capable of the goodness you want him to have. If you see him, give him the other letter. If you don’t, then burn it. Then let Dad go. Let him kill himself on booze and drugs, but don’t let him drag you down with him. Leave the house. Leave Dutton. And for God’s sake, don’t trust anyone.
“Least of all me. I’ve never earned it, although God knows I’ve died trying.
“Take Hope and leave Dutton and never look back. Promise me that. And promise me you’ll have a good life. Find Alex. She’s the only family you have left now. I never told you before, but I love you.”
Alex drew a breath. “Lt. Wade Crighton, United States Army.” She looked up. “He sent her a key. Do you think that’s what Bailey sent to me?”
Daniel sat in the chair next to her. “We think so. Three of the four victims this week were found with keys tied to one of their toes. Now we know why.”
“Do you think the keys tied to their toes are the same as Wade’s key?”
“No. The keys we found this week are brand-new. It’s a sign, a message. Like the hair he tied around their toes.”
“Alicia’s hair.” She stared at the note, trying to focus. “He says there were seven. Two died before him. Both killed to keep the secret. But Simon died in Philadelphia.”
“Wade didn’t know that when he wrote the letter,” Daniel said. “He died a few weeks before Simon. He thought Simon was still dead from the first time.”
“So they all thought that Simon’s first ‘death’ was done by one of them,” she murmured. “They live in fear and distrust. So one of the dead men he’s talking about is Simon. Who is the other?”
“We don’t know yet,” Chase said, “but we have an idea of three of the remaining four.”
“Garth Davis and Randy Mansfield,” she said. “And I guess Rhett Porter would have been the third.”
“That means we still have to identify two,” Daniel said. “One living, one dead.”
“What will you do?”
“Try to use the two we know to turn on the one we don’t,” Chase said. “But in the meantime, we still don’t know who’s behind all of this.”
“It’s revenge,” Daniel said. “We figure that much. Someone is using Alicia’s death to get us to focus on these men. We have to be careful, Alex. We can’t let them know what we know until we know what it all means, or at least until we know more. If Garth Davis or Randy Mansfield had something to do with Bailey’s disappearance, we’ll find out and they’ll answer for it. I promise you that. But, Alex, I’ve got six women and four men in the morgue. At this point nothing else is more important than making this stop.”
Alex dropped her eyes, ashamed. She worried about Bailey. Daniel worried about all the victims. Six women. Four men. Rhett Porter, Lester Jackson, Officer Cowell, and Sean Romney. That was four. But six women… Janet, Claudia, Gemma, Lisa, and Sheila. That was only five. Slowly she lifted her eyes. “Six women, Daniel?”
He closed his eyes, drained. “I’m sorry, Alex. I meant to tell you… differently. Sister Anne died this afternoon. Even though we think Crighton is responsible, we’re counting her among the fatalities. She would be the tenth.”
Alex let out a breath. Pursed her lips. Felt the sympathy from everyone in the room. “No, I’m sorry. You were right. I wasn’t helping. What do you want me to do?”
His eyes flashed approval and appreciation. And respect. “For now, just try to be patient. We’re getting warrants for phone and financial records on both Davis and Mansfield to try to tie them to each other or to the other two Wade mentions or to the man who killed four women. And we hope that somewhere this guy makes a mistake.”
She nodded and looked back to Wade’s letter. “Wade says he didn’t kill Alicia. At that point, why would he lie? So if he didn’t, and Fulmore didn’t, then who did?”
“It’s a good question,” Talia said. “I’ve talked to seven of the twelve surviving rape victims and they all tell the same story. If Simon and his friends raped Alicia and left her alive like they did all the others, but she was dead when Fulmore found her in the ditch, what happened in between?”
Next to her, Alex felt Daniel tense when Talia mentioned the twelve victims, but his expression didn’t change. She filed it away. She’d ask him later.
“Whatever happened, Alex, you saw something,” Dr. McCrady said, “and it had to do with the blanket Alicia was found in. If you’re up to it, we need to find out what you saw.”
“Let’s do it,” Alex said. “Now, before I lose my nerve.”
Mary gathered her things. “I’ll get ready. You’ll come when the meeting is finished?”
Daniel nodded. “We will. Chase, have we informed all the women at risk?”
“There were a few we couldn’t reach. A couple were out of the country. A couple aren’t answering their phones. But the ones we did talk to will be smart if they just stay home with all the doors locked.”
“And their guns cocked,” Alex muttered.
Daniel lightly smacked her knee. “Sshh.”
“I’m going now,” Talia said. “I’m leaving early in the morning to drive to Florida to talk to two of the victims who have moved.”
“Thanks,” Chase said. “Call me if you find anything new.” When she was gone, he turned to Daniel. “We got Lisa Woolf’s cell phone LUDs. No calls from anyone she hadn’t been receiving calls from for months.”
“And her roommates?” Daniel asked.
“They say she went to a bar last night to unwind. She never made it home. But they did find her car about five blocks from the bar.”
Everyone at the table seemed interested by this. “What?” Alex asked.
“None of the other cars have been found,” Daniel said.
“What kind of car?” Chase asked.
“She was a grad student with no money,” Chase said with a shrug. “She drove an old Nissan Sentra. It’s being brought down here on a flatbed so we can take it apart. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find something he left behind.”
Daniel considered it. “Janet had her Z, Claudia a top-of-the-line Mercedes, and Gemma drove a ’Vette. None of those have been found, but he ditches the Nissan.”
“The boy likes fancy cars,” Luke said.
“We processed the scene at Alex’s bungalow,” Ed said. “Lots of prints to work through. It was a rental property, after all. Nothing on the bathroom window or sill. The bowl of dog food had a very high concentration of tranqs. If your dog had a normal digestive tract, Daniel, he’d be barking with the choir eternal right now.”
“I stopped by the vet on my way in from Bailey’s,” Daniel said. “Riley will be okay and now we know they were likely looking for the key that Bailey sent to Alex.” He looked at her. “Don’t forget to call your ex.”
“I won’t.”
“Then until tomorrow,” Daniel said and started to get up.
“Wait,” Alex said. “What about Mansfield? I mean, I understand how you have to be careful not to show your hand, but the man can’t be allowed to simply roam free.”
“We’ve got him under very close surveillance, Alex,” Chase said. “We started setting it up minutes after Hope picked him out of the photo array. Try not to worry.”
She huffed out a breath. “Okay. I’ll try.”
“Then until tomorrow,” Daniel repeated and started to get up again.
“Wait,” Luke said. He’d been typing on his laptop during much of the conversation. “I eliminated all the minorities and dead people from our list of graduates.”
“Right,” Daniel said, then caught his breath. “But there was one o
ther that was killed ‘for the secret.’ ”
Luke nodded. “Still taking out the minorities, there have been five deaths among the Dutton males graduating within a year of Simon, not including Simon, Wade, and Rhett.”
“Check them out,” Chase said, “along with their families.”
Daniel looked around the table. “Anything else?” When nobody said yes, he said, “We’re sure? Okay then. We all meet back here, tomorrow, eight a.m.”
They all stood, then Leigh poked her head in the door. “Daniel, you have a visitor. Kate Davis. Garth Davis’s sister. She says it’s urgent.”
Everyone sat down again. “Show her in,” Daniel said. He looked at Alex. “Can you go and wait with Leigh in the outer office?”
“Of course.” She followed Leigh to the front where a young woman in a trendy suit waited. Alex searched her face and the woman met her gaze unflinchingly. Then Leigh took her back to the room while Alex settled in one of the chairs to wait.
Chapter Twenty-one
Atlanta , Thursday, February 1, 5:45 p.m.
According to Luke’s speed-of-light Google, Kate Davis was a bank manager in her uncle Rob’s bank. She was barely a year out of college, but her eyes looked old.
Daniel rose when Leigh brought her to the door. “Miss Davis. Please sit down.”
She did. “My uncle’s grandson was killed last night.”
“Yes, Atlanta Homicide is handling the investigation,” Daniel said evenly.
“He was a sweet boy, a little slow. Not the kind to mastermind any plot.”
“We didn’t say we thought he had,” Daniel said. “What can we do for you?”
She drew a breath. “I got a call from my sister-in-law an hour ago. She’s somewhere out west with my two nephews.”
Daniel lifted his brows. “Not a vacation, I take it.”
“No. She ran because she was scared. She called me because she wants this to be over, because she wants at some point to be able to come home. Garth and my uncle Rob argued this morning. Garth’s done something that’s made him a target. He’s been sitting down the street from my house for the last two nights, watching me. I saw him both times. I thought it was sweet. You know, he’s my big brother, and he cares.”
