The Coldest Fear

by Debra Webb

  Bobbie crossed the street and hurried toward her car. The music from a club somewhere nearby drifted in the night air. She hugged herself and rubbed her arms. She’d almost reached her car when she saw him.

  Nick waited, leaning against the driver’s door as if there wasn’t a BOLO out on him, as if Weller wasn’t out there hoping to ruin him or worse.

  She defied her initial reaction to seeing him and mustered the anger she’d felt last night. “I thought you wanted to be alone.”

  He pushed off her car but stopped short of moving toward her. Instead he stood stone still and waited for her to come closer.

  When she stopped in front of him, he said, “I owe you an apology.”

  She hit the fob, unlocking the car. “Get in. In case you haven’t heard, there’s a BOLO for you.”

  He rounded the hood and climbed into the passenger seat while she slid behind the wheel. For half a minute they sat in silence.

  When he remained quiet, she said, “Kessler, that FBI agent from Atlanta, is certain these murders are your way of drawing your father here for some sort of showdown. She’s setting you up for a murder rap.”

  “I’m aware.”

  The words, spoken as if he’d just told her the weather forecast or the time of day, infuriated her. “You mentioned an apology.”

  “I shouldn’t have left the way I did.”

  She kept her gaze trained forward though she felt his burning into her profile. “That’s right, you shouldn’t have.”

  “I don’t want you to be hurt anymore, Bobbie. You’ve been through enough.”

  “I’m a big girl, Nick. I’m a trained officer of the law and I’ve worked as a homicide detective for seven years.” She drew in a big breath. “In case you’ve forgotten, I survived the Storyteller and I survived Steven Devine. Your protection isn’t what I need.”

  If that wasn’t clear enough for him, then he wasn’t half as smart as she’d thought.

  Another long stretch of silence elapsed.

  “I am not what you need.”

  “We’ve had this discussion.” She was not going to argue with him. “Thank you for the apology. I guess I’ll see you around.”

  She started the engine and waited for him to get out.

  “We should work together.” The words were spoken with heavy reluctance. “This once,” he added quickly. “As much as I want to focus solely on finding Weller, the children deserve justice. I’m beginning to think finding one will give me the other.”

  Bobbie turned to him. “And after that?”

  He held her gaze, his resolute. “There is no after that.”

  “All right.” Hurt speared her. “How do you want to do this? It’s not like you can waltz into the police headquarters and sit in on any briefings.”

  “You focus on the investigation and we’ll analyze what you learn whenever we can. I’ll be close.”

  “Fine.”

  “Good.”

  With one last fleeting look, he got out and disappeared into the night.

  Twenty-Two

  Willow Road

  10:30 p.m.

  Troy sat outside the house where he’d grown up. The house that had been a happy home for the first six years of his life. Birthdays, Christmases, Thanksgivings. The whole Durham crew, including extended family and close friends, would gather to celebrate. The split-level ranch was the perfect kid-friendly space. There was a pool and woods in the back. Just the kind of place to raise kids.

  Except Troy’s mistake had shattered that dream. He had torn his mother and father apart. He remembered how they’d slept in separate rooms after Brianne went missing. His mother slept in his sister’s bed every night. His parents no longer kissed each other goodbye or shared those secret looks they thought he hadn’t noticed. They rarely touched each other at all. Their lives had stopped the day he failed to protect his sister.

  “Way to go.” He’d screwed up his whole family in one moment of stupidity.

  Take care of your sister, Troy. Mommy’s counting on you.

  That was the last time his mother looked at him with pride in her eyes.

  Why the hell couldn’t it have been him?

  Exhaling all the air in his lungs, he got out of the car. Nothing annoyed him more than the feel of oxygen-rich air filling his lungs once more. He had no fucking idea why his worthless heart kept beating.

  His parents were still up. The downstairs lights were on. He’d called hours ago and given them the news. His father would likely have preferred to hear it from anyone else, but that was too bad. No matter how much they hated him, they were still his parents and he would do what he could to protect and help them for as long as he was breathing. Didn’t matter if they wanted him to or not.

  When he’d first come home after years away, it had torn him up to see how old they looked. He’d spent so much time anywhere but at home, he hadn’t been prepared for the consequences of time. His father’s heart attack had forced Troy to see that he was no longer the strong, capable man who had busted kneecaps as a cop for better than forty years. He was old and worn-out and weary from loss.

  But it was the hurt in his mother’s eyes that damaged him the most. She always dredged up a smile for Troy. Always prepared a good dinner for his weekly visit. She talked endlessly about what she and her book club friends were reading. She never talked about Brianne. Never. Troy knew his sister’s room was exactly like it had been the last time she’d slept in it, though he hadn’t been inside it in twenty-five years. The last time he’d dared to go in there, his father had come unglued and told him never to touch his sister’s things again.

  At the door, he raised his hand to knock but it suddenly opened. His father, clad in the same brown housecoat he’d owned for as long as Troy could remember, turned and shuffled away, leaving the door open. Troy stepped inside, closed and locked the door. The smell of fresh brewed coffee drew him to the kitchen. His mother poured a cup and placed it on the table. His father dropped heavily into the chair at the head of the table. He reached for the cup of coffee, his hand shaking as he lifted it toward his mouth.

  How could so much be the same and yet everything had changed?

  They were like strangers stuck with the same last name, in the same town with the same friends and neighbors, stuck in this tragic twilight zone.

  “You want coffee?” his mother asked. “I doubt any of us is going to get any sleep.”

  “No coffee for me, ma’am.”

  “Have a seat.” She gifted him with a dim smile as she took her own seat.

  “No, thanks. I just came by to make sure you’re all right.” Troy stood just inside the kitchen door. On Sundays when he came over for dinner they used the dining room. He felt like an outsider in this kitchen. This was the place where he and Brianne had eaten oatmeal every morning. They’d made macaroni art and cookies at Christmas. He no longer belonged in here or even in this house.

  “Already told you we don’t need a security detail,” his father snapped.

  Troy shifted his attention to him. “I’m not here about the security detail.”

  His mother’s face paled.

  “You’ve attended the same church with the Cortlands, Wilsons and Cottons your whole lives. You were friends. Brianne and I played with their kids. We all knew the Sanderses. We took that old hound dog to him when she got sick.” Troy summoned his courage. “Why Brianne? Why the others? Of all the children in Savannah, why did he take them?”

  No one spoke or even looked at him—it was as if someone had suddenly pushed Pause on the movie of their lives. Anger overrode his good sense.

  “I remember the hushed meetings between the two of you,” he said to his father, accusation thick in his tone, “and the other fathers. Something was wrong and it started when the Foster girl was m
urdered.”

  Outrage flashed on his father’s face. “You don’t know anything!”

  Troy stepped closer to where he sat. “You might not have been in charge of the investigation, but you were aware that Randolph Weller was called to evaluate the Bonner boy. You had to know and yet not one word about it was in the file. Why is that? Why are so many of Detective Rhodes’s reports missing?” He hitched his thumb at his chest. “I’m astonished at all that’s missing from the case file. Every time I interview someone, I learn something else that should have been documented. How did that happen?” He braced his hands on the table and leaned closer to his father. “Why did you allow it to happen?”

  His mother abruptly stood and walked out the back door. The screen door slammed against its frame, the sound like a slap in his face. He straightened and forced himself to take a breath.

  “Is that what you came here to do?” his father snarled. “Upset your mother? Haven’t you hurt her enough?”

  His father was right.

  Troy backed up a step. “Whatever you think of me, whatever happened all those years ago, if you want to protect her, then you’d better listen up. This bastard Weller is here for revenge or some sort of twisted game.” He turned his hands up. “I can’t even begin to see how any of this ties to him or what his goal is, but it’s real. It’s happening. Something’s even more wrong than we know with what happened all those years ago and now the people who were a part of it are dying. If you know something that can help me, for God’s sake tell me.”

  “Go do your job,” his father blustered. “You’re wasting your time here.”

  Troy nodded. He’d been wasting his time hoping for his parents’ forgiveness for years. Hell, he didn’t know why he expected them to forgive him when he couldn’t forgive himself.

  Twenty-Three

  Bull Street

  Sunday, October 30, 7:00 a.m.

  Hoyt Wilson felt ashamed.

  He had done a number of things in his life that he regretted and he had tried to make up for those. He had endeavored especially hard to atone for one sin in particular. That vile deed had cost him dearly. The very idea that Wayne Cotton had called to demand that they meet at the church, of all places, was unconscionable.

  This was God’s house. How could they even talk about such evil within these holy walls?

  Hoyt shook his head. “Charlie Grogan told me the police are investigating the possibility that someone Edward fired murdered him. The FBI agent who came all the way from Atlanta says that serial killer they’re looking for had nothing to do with Edward’s murder. And then she mentioned his son. I’m completely confused.”

  Wayne whirled on him. “Are you senile? Have you finally lost the final remnants of any good sense you ever possessed? Our high and mighty Mayor Grogan has no idea what the FBI is doing. He knows what they want him to know. The damned chief of police isn’t even sure.”

  Anger stirred in Hoyt’s belly. He tried hard to be a patient man. Never to say anything unkind about anyone, but Wayne Cotton was sorely testing his limits. “I came here this morning like you asked, but I’m not going to stand here and put up with your attitude.”

  “Someone knows what we did,” Wayne snarled. “Don’t you see? It’s no longer our ugly little secret. Edward is dead because he was the one who provided the place for disposing the body. Maybe that’s why Allison walked into that lake. Maybe she wanted them to drag the water so they’d find his damned bones.”

  Hoyt shook his head. “How would Allison know? We agreed never to tell anyone, not even our wives.”

  “Edward was dying.” Wayne exhaled a heavy sigh. “He told me he confessed to Allison and that’s why she killed herself. Fucking old fool.”

  “He didn’t tell me that.”

  “Of course he didn’t,” Wayne mocked. “He knows you don’t like to discuss those things.”

  Fury simmered inside Hoyt. For thirty-two years he had hated Wayne Cotton. He’d pretended nothing had changed. Acted as if they were still pals for all to see. “We should never have listened to you.”

  Wayne laughed long and hard. Hoyt’s fingers curled into fists to prevent reaching out and strangling the son of a bitch. Maybe Edward had told his wife, but no one else had ever known. Not Bill Sanders. Not even Luke Durham had been certain they were the ones who took that boy. He’d suspected but he hadn’t known for sure.

  “It’s a little late to whine about that now,” Wayne said. “Besides, Edward was the one who came up with the plan.”

  Hoyt shook his head. “No, no. It was your idea.”

  Wayne glared at him. “Are you calling me a liar?”

  Hoyt ignored his demand. He did not want to talk about this anymore. He preferred not to think about it at all, but there was no help for it now. “It’s Lucille Bonner. She figured out what we did and she took our babies.” Agony swelled in him like a massive black tidal wave. His little boy would not have suffered this awful end if not for their actions. That one snap decision had cost them all far more than they would have ever dreamed.

  “We all thought she was the one.” Wayne fired back. He laughed then. “She was fucking crazy and that Potter bitch, hell she was even crazier. You were afraid to even pass her on the street.”

  “I wasn’t the only one who was afraid.” They’d all been afraid of Amelia Potter looking into their eyes and seeing what they’d done.

  “Obviously she wasn’t the one we should’ve been worried about,” Wayne snapped.

  “Obviously we didn’t understand how deep the betrayal went,” Hoyt snapped right back. “Bill and Nancy are dead. Our children—” hurt howled inside him “—were in that fucking cemetery all these years. Bill, at the very least, had to be involved.”

  Sanders had played the part of good friend all these years. He’d spearheaded the search for the children when they went missing. How could he do such a thing? Dear God, Hoyt wished he didn’t know these things...wished he could go back in time and undo all the ugliness.

  Wayne threw up his hands. “Maybe they were all in it together.” He paced back and forth in the small meeting room. “Bill may have helped Lucille plan and execute every step. I’ll bet he was fucking that crazy old bitch. Her husband sure as hell hadn’t been giving it to her.”

  “You should be ashamed,” Hoyt growled. “Her husband was injured working for your father. If she hadn’t been rushing to the hospital she wouldn’t have had that accident and that boy of hers wouldn’t have been born brain damaged. Your family should have helped the Bonners, instead your father fired the man before he was released from the hospital.”

  Wayne stepped in toe-to-toe with him. “Don’t pretend to be better than me. You’re just as guilty as I am. Each of us took our turn beating him.”

  “He wasn’t supposed to die!” Hoyt shook with the anger and the self-loathing charging through his chest.

  “But he did,” Wayne snarled. “Somehow that bitch figured out what we’d done and she got even, didn’t she? Apparently, our old friend Bill helped her.”

  Tears burned Hoyt’s eyes. She had taken their babies and they couldn’t tell a soul they suspected her. They’d watched her every move but they’d had no proof. They’d threatened her. Hoyt closed his eyes. So many horrible, horrible words. She’d just smiled and said she had no idea what they meant.

  So they’d kept their mouths shut and never told a soul.

  “You were the one,” Hoyt accused, his voice wobbling. “Don’t you dare try to pin it on Edward. If you—”

  Wayne scoffed. “You’re pathetic.”

  “I won’t talk about this anymore.” Hoyt held up his hands and backed away. “I can’t do it.”

  Wayne pointed a finger at him. “We have to ride this out and keep our mouths shut just like we have all these years.”

  God have
mercy on them. Now Hoyt understood what this impromptu meeting was about. “You’re worried I’m going to tell.” He shook his head. “It’s too late to come clean now. My boy is dead.” Renewed rage sparked inside him. “They’re all dead and nothing we do now is going to make a difference.”

  “Make sure you remember that when the police knock on your door,” Wayne warned. “Edward is dead and so is his wife. There’s a strong possibility we’ll end up the same way, but I will not have my family’s name ruined by a mistake we made thirty-two years ago.”

  Except it hadn’t been a mistake. Hoyt walked out of the room and then the church without looking back. No. What they did to that poor mentally challenged boy had not been a mistake.

  It was premeditated, cold-blooded murder.

  Twenty-Four

  Abercorn Street

  8:00 a.m.

  Troy slid into the booth and braced his forearms on the table. “I appreciate your agreeing to have breakfast with me.”

  Bobbie relaxed into the vinyl leather seat. She was beat. Too many nights without a decent amount of sleep...too many murders. “We both needed a break.” She summoned a smile. “According to one of the brochures at the inn, this is home to the best breakfast in the city.”

  A faint smile tugged at his lips. “It’s in the top five for sure.”

  Edward Cortland’s friends and neighbors had reiterated that he was depressed and grieving the recent loss of his wife but none had any idea if there was anything new going on in his life. Cortland had kept to himself since the funeral. Not the first neighbor had seen any strangers near his home. A forensic tech had discovered his cell phone in the house. No calls or text messages to unknown recipients showed up. Of course his phone records—cell, home and business—might tell a different story, but obtaining those records took time.