by Debra Webb
When she was outside, she slammed the door behind her and rushed across the parking lot, stood on the farthest edge and stared back at the house.
Freud remained at the door barking and snarling.
Hands trembling, Rowan called Billy from her cell phone. As much as she didn’t want to call him, particularly at this hour, this was far more than a mere misplaced object or unlocked door. This was the work of someone who understood how deeply her mother’s suicide had impacted her. Someone who knew her deepest, darkest secrets.
Julian, the son of a bitch, knew her too well.
The memory of one of his victims in Nashville wearing a noose exactly like that roared through her head like a train rushing from a dark tunnel.
Billy answered on the second ring.
Rowan blurted the words. “He was here.”
Billy didn’t ask who, he just promised to come right away. He stayed on the phone with her until, less than half a minute later, one of the two officers on protection detail rushed into the parking lot, tires squealing.
“Are you all right, Dr. DuPont?”
She wanted to say no, that she wasn’t all right at all. Instead, she bobbed her head up and down and hugged her arms around herself, her weapon still clutched in her right hand, her cell in the other. “You didn’t see anyone go into the funeral home?”
He stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. Of course he hadn’t seen anyone go inside. The entrance had been locked. She’d had to unlock the dead bolt to get out.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, I didn’t see anyone.”
“The side doors,” she suggested.
“Why don’t we check those?” he offered. “My partner is already checking the back door.”
Numb, Rowan walked with him first to the east end and then the west end of the building. Both doors were secured.
“Do you want me to wait inside with you, ma’am?”
Rowan shook her head. “No. Thank you.” She didn’t want anyone to see what was inside. Billy would have to see it but no one else. Frankly, she couldn’t bear the thought of anyone seeing what was in there. So she waited. In the middle of the parking lot, her arms tight around her body. The cool night air sending goose bumps over her bare legs.
Billy rolled into the parking lot a minute later. Rowan braced herself and waited for him to join them at the front entrance.
“You okay?”
All she could manage was a nod before she croaked, “We need to talk.” She cleared her throat. “Inside.”
“Thanks, Rogers,” Billy said to the officer. “You can go back to your position now.”
Rowan had no idea where the two officers were positioned. She had demanded they be out of sight and they had been. Was that the reason they hadn’t seen the intruder enter the funeral home?
How could this be? No one else had a key—only she, Billy, Herman and Charlotte. Even the cleaning team had to go through one of them now. Herman would never, ever do anything like this. Nor would Charlotte. It had to be Julian. There was no other explanation. The question was, how?
Billy reached for the door, pulled it open and put a hand on her back as he ushered her inside. Her mind was whirling. Addington had been inside her house. Maybe not for the first time.
Why was he so intent on playing these disturbing games? Why not just tell her what it was he wanted to say?
Perhaps he was building up to some big climatic conclusion.
Rowan’s gaze lifted to the banister and the air in her lungs vanished. The rope was gone. No noose...no nothing.
“Ro?”
Billy was looking at her now as if he feared she would shatter into a million pieces. She rushed up the stairs, ran her hand along the banister. “It was here.”
Billy climbed the staircase and came to stand next to her. “Tell me what happened. What was here?”
“Freud woke me up. He wanted to go out...or something. He was whimpering and pawing at the door. So I got up to let him out, but he ran to this door.” She gestured toward the living quarters. “He rushed into the lobby and barked and growled and just stared up at it.”
“It?”
She moistened her lips and said what had to be said. “The rope with the noose hanging from this banister.”
He stared at the banister now, ran his hand over the wood, smooth with age. There was no rope, much less a noose. “It was there,” she argued. “I saw it.”
He crouched down and visually inspected the banister more closely. “Oh yeah.” He pointed to the wood. “You can see where something rubbed at the finish.” He stood, his gaze coming to rest on hers. “Someone was in the house.”
“Had to be. I know what I saw.” She hugged herself tighter, felt the worry twisting harder inside her.
“You think Freud knew someone was downstairs before you woke up? Maybe that’s why he was behaving strangely.”
That was the only explanation that made sense. “I believe so, but he didn’t bark so I can’t be sure.” She couldn’t be sure of anything anymore. Her shoulders sagged in defeat.
Billy’s arm went around her, and he ushered her toward the living quarters. “It’s like you’ve said before, if it’s someone he knows, he might not bark. Either way, we’ll figure this out.”
“It had to be him, Billy. It had to be someone who knew how that image would affect me.” She explained about the victim in Nashville and how Julian had used a noose to taunt her then.
Julian wanted her to feel this way...uncertain and afraid.
Damn him!
When they were in her living room and Rowan felt reasonably calm again, she deposited her weapon and phone on the table by the sofa and turned to Billy. “What now?”
Billy was checking his cell. When he looked up he said, “I’ve got my officers checking the place from one end to the other. Windows and doors, all possible access points, for any indication of forced entry. We’ll figure this out.”
She scrubbed her hands up her arms. “We’re going to need some caffeine for this. I’ll put on a pot of coffee.”
“Let’s have a look around first, then we’ll start the coffee.”
Room by room, they went through the living quarters and then he led the way into the kitchen. Frustration tangled inside her. She had seen the rope and the noose. It could not have simply disappeared.
When she’d set the pot to brew she turned to him. “It was Julian. He’s the only one who would understand how deeply Mother’s suicide changed my life.”
“You think he hired someone to do the job for him or do you think it was him? Is he physically capable?”
“He’s a perfectionist, which prevents him from letting go of the things he wants to control. He’s as physically fit as a man half his age. But it’s possible he used someone to do the job.” She shook her head then. “Either way, it’s him. I know it’s him.”
“But does he have one of the new keys?”
“He managed to get one the last time we had the locks changed.” Dear God, who else had he murdered for access to her? She shivered. “If he doesn’t have a key, there has to be a window unlocked, something. He was here. No one else would know.” Her pulse rate had begun to slow and still she felt as if she were running in a marathon.
“There wasn’t a note or message left to you?”
She shook her head. “Not that I’ve found.” Her gaze latched on to his. “You don’t think I imagined this, do you?”
“You know me better than that, Ro. If you say it happened, it happened. I can see Addington playing those sorts of head games. Besides, there’s evidence of something having rubbed against the surface of that wood banister. My evidence techs will check for prints or anything else they can find. But I need to know if anything else like this has happened? Maybe you thought it would be best not to tell me or you dismissed the situation.”
> “Nothing exactly like this, but...” She dropped her gaze for a moment. “I think I mentioned to you that I’ve been forgetting things. I turn around and things are in a different place than I remember placing them.”
He reached out, tugged at an errant lock of her hair. “You’ve been under a lot of stress, Ro. Part of that is normal. I don’t have to tell you this.”
“It doesn’t feel normal. It feels like I’m totally losing it but it’s only when I’m at home.” The realization dawned with such force that she shook with it. “I haven’t forgotten a single thing or misplaced the first item when I’m away from home.” She rubbed her arms with her hands. “He wants me off balance. He’s trying to shatter my defenses a little piece at a time.”
“I agree.” Billy reached for his cell. “One moment.” He answered and listened for a half a minute. The hard line of his jaw warned that this was not good news.
“Good job, Cooper. Thanks.”
When he’d put his phone away, his gaze settled on Rowan’s. “One of the basement windows was open.”
Renewed fear spiked through her. “I never leave those windows unlocked, much less open.”
“The evidence techs will find anything there is to find. Meanwhile, how about that coffee?”
She nodded and headed toward the kitchen. She’d almost made it there when she stalled. She whipped around to face Billy. “Where is Freud?”
Billy’s look of confusion had worry zipping through her.
Rowan rushed downstairs and out of the funeral home, calling his name. Billy did the same. They walked the block, calling for him.
And then another block and another.
Freud was gone.
Twenty-One
The entire Winchester Police Department was keeping an eye out for Freud. Rowan had spent the predawn hours walking block after block around the funeral home. At daylight Billy had gone with Rowan from door to door.
No one had seen Freud.
Rowan was devastated.
Herman had joined the search, but when a client called, he had to go back to the funeral home to take care of business. Billy had enlisted the help of a friend at the local radio station who put out a call for assistance from the community. Audrey Anderson had called Rowan when she heard the news and posted an alert on the paper’s online edition.
As difficult as it was to shift her attention from the search, Rowan still had to find Woody. The evidence techs were looking for anything left behind by the unknown perpetrator who had hung that rope on the second-story railing last night. Rowan had gone over the events before Freud disappeared a thousand times and she couldn’t quite pinpoint the moment when she last saw him.
Whoever had left the rope and noose had known her well enough to understand she would be shocked by it and would react exactly as she did. Had Julian planned the whole event just so he could snatch Freud? He knew how much that dog meant to her. He hadn’t hurt him last time. She hoped he wouldn’t this time. But if he did...
“Son of a bitch,” she muttered.
“Did you say something?” Billy shifted his attention from the road long enough to glance at her.
She shook her head and refocused her attention on the here and now. “It’s possible, if Woody did something criminal, he may have cut and run.”
“Or he could just be laying low until the heat dies down.” Billy glanced at her again. “Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?”
She was too tired to smile or laugh, but the idea that they knew each other so well and thought so much alike even after all these years made her want to. “I’m fairly confident I am.”
“If it’s true—if he did something to Mr. Phillips’s body—we only have a dead woman’s word for it.” Billy turned onto the street where Woody lived. “I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. No point in upsetting the family unnecessarily with unsubstantiated theories.”
“We’re on the same page on that one.” Exhaustion tugged at Rowan. She had only slept two or three hours last night and that had been littered with dreams. Not dreams. Nightmares. Everything about the past two months had been a nightmare. She glanced at Billy. Well, not everything.
The small white house where Woody lived looked as deserted as it had when Rowan came looking for him yesterday. The car he drove was not in the driveway. On a more optimistic note, someone had cut the grass since yesterday. When they climbed out of Billy’s truck, she slid her cell phone into the back pocket of her jeans. The wind toyed with a wisp of her hair and reminded her that she should have worn a sweater.
“I doubt he’s here.” Rowan had not been this frustrated in a very long time. It felt as if every aspect of her life was coming apart at the seams and somehow Woody and Julian were the ones pulling the threads.
“We’ll find him,” Billy assured her. “You don’t waste any time worrying about that. I will track his sorry ass down one way or another.”
Rowan did smile then. “I want to be there when you find him.”
Several knocks on the front door confirmed her conclusion. Woody was not home. “What now?”
“Now we go to his current place of employment.” Billy indicated that she should precede him off the porch.
They had to keep looking until they found him. Geneva Phillips’s daughters were counting on her and Billy to find the truth.
As Billy drove across town, Rowan stared out the window, her chest tight with worry about Freud. She should have been paying better attention.
“You know Freud is a smart dog.”
She glanced at Billy. “He is. I’m hoping he’s found his way home by now.”
Herman would likely have called her, but she could still hope.
The parking lot at Gardner’s Funeral Home was empty, just as it had been yesterday. Rowan and Billy got out and went inside. Like yesterday, Mrs. Sturtevant greeted them in the lobby.
“Good morning, Chief.” She turned to Rowan. “To you, too, Rowan. I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”
“I don’t know if you heard,” Rowan said, “but my German shepherd, Freud, is missing. I’ve been driving around town looking for him.”
The other woman’s eyebrows flew up. “I’m so sorry to hear about your dog. It’s nice to have such a handsome chauffeur for your search.”
Billy, his hat in his hands, smiled. Rowan moved on. “I wanted to talk to Woody to see if he might have any ideas on where else I can look for him.” This, of course, was not why she wanted to talk to Woody, but she certainly wasn’t going to tell this woman what she and Billy feared Woody had done.
Mrs. Sturtevant’s flirty smile faded. “We had to fire Woody.”
“Would you mind sharing the reason with us, ma’am?” Billy asked.
Rowan was glad he did. She felt confident the woman was more likely to answer that question from Billy than she was from Rowan. True to her long reputation, the lady liked to flirt.
“Well.” She put hand to her throat. “To be quite frank, I’m not certain I should be talking about it.”
Rowan kept quiet and let Billy do the placating and nudging.
“Ma’am, you can rest assured that anything you tell me will be held in the strictest of confidence.”
“I’ll just wait over by the door,” Rowan offered.
This seemed to please the older lady. Billy’s expression warned that he wasn’t too happy about the suggestion, but he let her go. They both wanted to find Woody.
She stared out the door, soaking up the sunlight filtering in through the glass. All morning she hadn’t been able to get warm. In her pocket her cell vibrated. She reached for it, saw Woody’s name and tapped the screen to accept the call.
“Have you seen Freud?” she said rather than to demand the answer to the other questions she had. The question about her dog would likely put him off balance. She ne
eded him confused and giving answers before he had the opportunity to think was a good way to start.
“No. Why would I know anything about your dog?”
“He ran away last night and I can’t find him.”
“Too bad about your dog but I really couldn’t care less, Rowan. You got me fired.”
She heard no indication in his voice that he was lying about Freud. Renewed worry seared through her. What if Julian had taken him? Clearing her head, she summoned as much fake interest as she could and asked, “How did I get you fired?”
“You went to Gardner’s checking up on me and that old bitch got pissed so she fired me.”
“I wouldn’t have gone to Gardner’s at all if you’d answered your phone, Woody. I need to know what happened with Howard Phillips. Mrs. Phillips’s daughters are filing a complaint.”
The last part wasn’t exactly true—at least not yet—but he didn’t know that.
“What the hell? The old hag was pissed because she said her husband’s watch was missing. He wasn’t wearing a watch when he got to the funeral home and she didn’t bring one when she brought his suit. I don’t know what the hell she was talking about. I’m telling you she was crazy.”
Every word that came out of his mouth was a lie. From the slight quiver and the hesitation to the high-pitched adamancy.
“I’ll need you to submit an official statement for my files.”
“Sure. What the hell? I’m not taking the fall for whatever crazy shit that bitch hatched up.”
Fear had crept into his voice. His anxiety was off the charts. Whatever he had done, he understood at this point that he was caught. “Can you come by and take care of the statement? Maybe we can discuss you coming back to work.”
“You’d be willing to hire me back?”
Not in this life, mister. On some level he dared to hope. Later he would realize that he’d been foolish to do so. “Sure. Well-trained help is difficult to find.”
“Good. Okay. I can come by after lunch.”
