The Ultimate Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Bestsellers)

by Perkins, Cathy

She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “You haven’t changed,” he told her.

  “It’s been so long. Why did you stop coming to see me?”

  Guilt flooded through him. He dropped his head and looked at the floor. “I’ve come every night that you slept here,” he answered, “but I thought you had… well, grown up, and didn’t need to be bothered by a ghost. So I didn’t wake you.”

  Tara stretched out her hand as if to take his. But Riley didn’t respond and she drew it back.

  “You still won’t touch me?”

  “It’s not that I won’t, Tara. I can’t.”

  They were silent a moment, staring at each other, and Riley wondered if the ten or eleven years of “absence” had ruined their friendship.

  “Why did you wake me tonight?”

  Riley looked at the floor again. “I spoke to someone, Chase Bowden, who suggested that you might like to see me. I hoped that he was right. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.”

  “No. No. I’m glad you came. It’s been such a long time. I began to wonder if you were an imaginary friend. I’m…. I couldn’t talk to anybody about you. I had no way to look for you or contact you.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Riley moved over to the bed and sat beside Tara. The minutes ticked by in silence as a comfort level was found.

  “I’m glad you came tonight,” Tara said. “Adam is dead. He was murdered.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” Riley folded his hands and placed them in his lap. He stared at them and then at Tara’s hands and wished he could hold them, or that he could hold her and let her cry.

  She looked at him. “That is why you’re here tonight, I think.”

  “Partly.”

  “Just tell me the truth, Sam.”

  Riley glanced into her eyes, shocked. “You know my name?”

  “Chase told me. How come you never did?”

  “I didn’t want you getting too close. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “But you left me anyway. When my grandfather died, I wished every night that you would come. I stayed awake some nights just watching for you, and praying that you would come and talk to me.”

  Riley rubbed his hands together. Whenever he had seen her awake, he hadn’t come in. He hadn’t realized she was staying awake to see him. “I didn’t know.”

  Tara lifted her hand and reached toward his. He pulled them away and stood up.

  “There is nothing here, Tara.” He gestured at his body with open hands. “You can see me and hear me. But there’s nothing here.”

  “You’re wrong, Sam.” Tara sat up, the blankets falling free, exposing a long white nightie. “There is something there; the kindest, gentlest friend a girl could want.”

  Riley stood silently and watched Tara’s face. There was a pinkish tint to it that glowed as she smiled at him.

  “You have not solved your case?”

  He shook his head.

  “When I didn’t see you anymore, I thought maybe you had solved your case and that you had been freed.”

  “I wish that were true. I…” He turned his back to her. He hadn’t planned to pursue the case tonight but the opportunity had presented itself. He couldn’t look at her when he asked. “Do you know where the painting is?”

  “No. Is it important to you, too?”

  He turned to her. “I’m sorry. But Bowden thinks it is tied to my case. I think your whole family is involved going back four generations. I’m sorry, Tara.”

  She got out of bed then, her mouth open slightly. “My family is not involved in anything illegal.”

  “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  “Don’t start backing out now, and leaving me to wonder what you mean.” Her words were sharp, demanding, her body rigid. “Explain yourself.”

  “I think your great-grandfather procured some money with immoral and possibly illegal trading practices. I think he passed the money on to your grandfather, who painted clues in the picture indicating its location. I think that is why Adam was killed, and the painting stolen.”

  “Why wouldn’t I know anything about this great inheritance?”

  “I don’t believe your mother knows about it either. The house and the property were willed to her. The boys got the painting.”

  “Then Uncle Vince took it. No… Chase Bowden is working for him. He doesn’t have it either.” Tara looked into his eyes. “I never knew I lived a lie.”

  “You don’t, Tara. You’re outside it. Your grandfather left you and Kay out of it on purpose. I think maybe that was what he had in mind, when he painted the picture. Maybe he wanted to leave the whole family out of it, but wasn’t sure.”

  “So someone killed Adam for the money?”

  Sorry that he was the one telling her this, he sighed. “I believe so.”

  “And the suspects are members of my family.” Tara stated it as a fact.

  “Not you, and not your mom, or your dad. They wouldn’t know about it. They already got their inheritance.”

  “But another cousin, like Andre, Doug or Rene… Oh, Sam. It can’t be true.” Tara flopped on the bed and buried her face in her pillow and cried. “They wouldn’t turn on their own blood.”

  “I’m sorry, Tara. I should never have...” His voice faded.

  She lifted her head from the pillow, but did not look at him. “No. You needed to know. I’m selfish and… you need to solve your case. You need to be freed from this world.”

  “The sun will rise soon. I have to go.”

  Tara lifted her head from the pillow, her red eyes beseeching him. “Sam. Promise me that you’ll come back tonight.” She wiped at a tear with her thumb. “Promise to wake me, and let me help you. Please. Let me be your friend again.”

  He stared at her a second as he realized the honesty of her request and the purity of her soul. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  7

  The morning was still dark when Bowden parked the black Escape a block away from Andre Fonck’s house in Kirkland. The residential neighborhood probably contained over a hundred separate homes, with sixteen homes packed inside each acre. The streets that wound through the houses were designed with curves, cul-de-sacs and circles to confuse would-be burglars.

  The theory was that burglars wouldn’t want to enter a maze to commit a crime; they would want a simple escape route. The theory didn’t take into account that 82 percent of all burglaries were committed by someone living in the neighborhood.

  Bowden pulled out his binoculars and studied the house. Once it got light, his activities wouldn’t go unnoticed. The front of the house held a front door and a three-car garage. Above the garage were a couple of bedrooms. The main part of the house was built behind it. The light blue paint with white trim was standard in the complex. Every fourth house boasted the same colors.

  Ten feet of the yard, from the sidewalk to the house, was manicured grass with two large, landscape rocks and a single ten-foot tall tree. A light shown in the entryway above the door and all the windows were dark.

  Bowden set the binoculars on the seat and turned the heater down, but let the car run. He wanted to stay warm and he wanted the windshield wipers working. He’d parked on a curve so he could watch the house through the windshield and wouldn’t have to turn his head.

  A light came on in an upper room, glowing through the shade drawn across the window. He looked at his watch and allowed 30 minutes to pass, then he got out and walked to the front door. A newspaper, wrapped in a plastic bag, lay near the porch and he picked it up before ringing the doorbell. He waited a minute and rang it again. The foyer light turned on. He stepped up to the door as it opened.

  Andre Fonck stood inside wearing blue sweatpants under a purple robe. He held a coffee cup in one hand and a towel in the other. He had just finished shaving, but hadn’t had a chance to dry or comb his hair.

  “Hi. I’m Detective Chase Bowden. Could I come in a moment?”

  Andre took a half step backwards witho
ut saying anything, and Bowden stepped through the narrow opening and into the house.

  “Is there a place we could talk without disturbing the rest of the family?”

  “It’s just my wife. We don’t have kids. Why don’t we go into the dinning room?”

  He could smell the strong coffee in Andre’s hand, and suddenly craved a cup. He used to drink four or five cups in the morning as he prepared his cases.

  “The coffee smells good.”

  Andre paused. “Would you like some?”

  “Black, please.”

  He watched Andre take a mug from the cupboard and fill it. He took the mug from Andre and sipped the coffee. His lips contracted as the sweet substance hit his tongue.

  “It’s Hazelnut Cream. My wife likes it,” Andre said, providing an explanation. “You kind of get used to it.”

  They went into the dining room, where Andre sat down. He held his cup in both hands and rested his arms on the table.

  “What can I do for you, Detective?”

  “We need to talk about Adam.”

  “About his murder?”

  He nodded. “I have a wit that says you left the house shortly before the patrol units arrived.”

  Andre’s eyes widened and the mug in his hands slowly dipped until it rested on the table. “What’s a wit?”

  “Sorry. A witness. I have a witness that saw you driving away from the house.”

  “I don’t know when the police arrived.”

  “But you were at the house?” He asked the question, already knowing the answer, in an attempt to get Andre to open up a little.

  “Are you going to advise me of my rights?”

  He sighed. “Have I arrested you?”

  “No.”

  “Then I don’t need to advise you of your rights.”

  “But I’m a suspect, right?”

  “No. Unless you know something that we don’t.” The “we” was to further Andre’s belief that he was a police detective.

  “Don’t you guys usually work in pairs?”

  “Only when we are contacting suspects. Now, I need to ask the questions or I might be stuck here all day.” He took a sip of the coffee. He wanted to provide a natural break in the interrogation. It was subtle manipulation that returned the questioning to him.

  “Why did you go to Barry’s house?” he asked.

  “It’s not Barry’s house. It’s Kay’s. I went up there…”

  Andre’s gaze darted up to his face, and fell back to the table. Bowden knew that the rest of the sentence would determine how the interview would go.

  “… to find the painting,” Andre added.

  “What painting?”

  “You know. Barry reported it stolen about a week ago.”

  “Sorry.” Bowden shrugged. “Paper doesn’t move through the department that fast. But if it was stolen, why were you looking for it in Barry’s… Kay’s house?”

  “I said that Barry reported it stolen. I don’t think it was. I think he hid it in the house and reported it stolen.”

  Bowden nodded to convey the appropriate interest. “Why would he do that, and why would this painting be so important?”

  “The painting is very valuable. Several of Pierre’s heirs wanted it. I think Barry hid it rather than give it up.”

  He swirled the coffee in his cup. The idea that the painting remained in the house intrigued him, but it wasn’t the information he came for.

  “All right. So you’re in the house and what happens?”

  “Well I started….” Fonck’s eyes widened and he gripped the edge of the table. “Wait a minute. I don’t… it wasn’t a burglary.”

  He helped him out. “Did you have a key?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then it wasn’t a burglary. Go ahead now. You started what?”

  Fonck release the table and sat back in his chair with a sigh. “Well, I started looking through the house. I went upstairs first and looked in the bedrooms. I couldn’t find anything, so I went back to the study. That’s when…”

  Chase waited, not helping him out this time.

  “Well, that’s when I found Adam. I got out of there fast. I thought that I… well, I hadn’t been invited into the house. You see?”

  “So you drove to Issaquah and called 911 from a pay phone, because you didn’t want anyone to know you went into the house without an invitation.”

  “Yeah, I…” He glanced up at him. “How’d you…? I called anonymous.”

  “That’s okay. I’ve been doing this a long time.”

  “I didn’t kill Adam!”

  “Hold on. I didn’t say you did, but you left out a chunk of the story. What happened when you found Adam?”

  “I was surprised. Scared, actually. I just took off.”

  He sighed audibly and placed his coffee cup on the table.

  “So you found him dead?”

  “Yes! I told you I didn’t kill him.” Andre squeezed his mug between his hands, his knuckles turning white.

  “You are misunderstanding my questions. I’m not accusing you of the murder. I want to know if Adam was still alive when you found him, and died while you were there. Did he have a chance to say anything to you? Did you find a knife? That’s the kind of stuff I’m looking for.”

  “Oh. Um. No, he was dead when I found him.”

  “How did you know? Did you check? I mean did you touch the body?”

  “Yeah. I went up and put my hand on his back and shook him. Then I grabbed his wrist and tried to find a pulse. I couldn’t find one.” He paused. “I didn’t see a knife.”

  “When you arrived, did you expect the house to be empty?”

  Andre ran a hand through his black, wet hair. “It should’ve been.”

  “Did you see anyone leaving when you got there?”

  “No. Adam and his sister were supposed to leave for Spokane earlier that morning.”

  “His sister?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know why she would have left without him.”

  Bowden tried to remember all the people he had seen coming and going from the house. If there were houseguests, it would explain why the house was never empty.

  “They were staying at the house?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did they drive?”

  “Adam’s white Cherokee.”

  “What’s his sister’s name?”

  “Michelle.”

  “Fonck?”

  “Right. She’s eighteen or nineteen. She’s not married yet.”

  He pulled the notebook from his pocket and flipped a couple pages. He found the note on the white Jeep Grand Cherokee and found the plate written beside it.

  The vehicle had been parked out front when he began his surveillance of the house. When it left, it kept coming back, and he thought that it belonged at the residence. He remembered that the two girls usually drove it. So where was the car? And where was Michelle?

  “Thank you, Mr. Fonck. You’ve been very helpful. I appreciate that. Look. Could I have your phone number in case other questions come up, and I, or someone else from the police department, need to reach you?”

  “Sure.”

  He found a blank page in the notebook and wrote the numbers down. He handed the mug, still half-full of coffee, back to Andre. “Thanks again.”

  “No problem.”

  He walked to his car and got in. He drove around the block so that Andre would see him leave, and so that he could watch the house from the other side.

  After parking, he flipped through his notebook. Had he missed something during his surveillance? People had come and gone while he slept in his car. He knew that and it couldn’t be helped. He couldn’t go three days without sleep.

  But what happened to Michelle? He remembered seeing the girl. She was about five-foot six inches tall, an inch shorter than Tara, and had light brown hair that curled around her narrow face. The face betrayed the fact that she was twenty pounds overweight.

  A half-hour later, t
he garage door on Andre Fonck’s house rolled up and the red Corvette backed out onto the street. The taillights popped on and the backup lights went off as the car started to drive away. He shifted his car into drive, but didn’t step on the gas.

  Another car had started up and turned on its headlights.

  Bowden stared at it as it pulled out onto the street. He hadn’t turned his lights on yet and he wouldn’t until the cars had passed the first block, but he hadn’t seen anyone enter the other vehicle. He thought about the street as he had seen it when he went into Andre’s home. The car hadn’t been there. It arrived while he was inside. He remembered it now, a little ways behind his car, parked and empty—unless the driver had ducked when he came out the door.

  He drove to the first stop sign and put on his headlights as he turned onto the street. It was just after seven-thirty in the morning and still dark out. He pulled up behind the vehicle between him and Andre, and read the plate, then eased back, letting the distance between the cars widen.

  When they stopped at a light, he pulled out his notebook and wrote down the plate. It was a blue Honda Civic. Maybe a cop car. He reached for his cellphone, then muttered to himself. He didn’t have it. He’d have to ask Cooper about it.

  Soon afterwards, the Corvette went through a yellow light, and the Civic slid through on the red, forcing him to stop as the cross traffic filled the lane behind it. He watched as the two cars drove away. He took a deep breath and let it out, mentally releasing his stranglehold on the steering wheel. There are always days like this.

  Then, he saw Andre pull off the road and the Civic follow him. Bowden raised up in his seat to get a better view, trying to see over the tops of the cars passing in front of him. Andre had stopped at an espresso bar and rolled the window down. It was one of the hundreds of bars built along the streets of the Greater Seattle area, which sold lattes and mochas through a drive-up window.

  The light turned green and he waited until the car behind him honked. He rolled forward and saw Andre hand a bill through the window and pull the cup into his car. Bowden rolled the window up and pulled to the side of the road. He gave Andre plenty of room ahead of him as he pulled out.

  The blue Civic shot out onto the street, its tires spinning on the wet pavement. The driver glanced in his rearview mirror to see how close Bowden came to rear-ending him. Bowden flicked his high beams on. The other driver reached up and turned the mirror, making Bowden smile and turn the high beams off.