Sophia lifted her shoulders and drew in a deep breath. “No, I don’t guess you do.”
The sheriff adopted the typical cop pose, arms across her chest, legs slightly apart. “But you would like to know, wouldn’t you?”
Sophia tensed, her fingers tightening around Dylan’s hand. “Yes, I would like to know…not that I’m going to do anything about it. I don’t want to claim any part of the Wakefield inheritance. Really, if I am related to them, I don’t want anyone to know. But I think that I need to know.”
Soileau pressed her lips together. Was that the answer she had wanted? Hard to tell.
The sheriff folded her hands in her lap, but it wasn’t a restful pose. The fingers of one hand tightened over the other. “I think I’d like to know…in case I need the information for future reference. This investigation gets more tangled the more I dig into the past. I’ve learned some things today that… Let’s just say the people of St. Denis Parish aren’t telling me everything I need to know. Not until I make them.” The sheriff shot Dylan a knowing look. “It would be in your best interest to talk to Detective Moreau and tell him everything you know about Audrey St. Clair’s disappearance.”
Dylan shifted his gaze to Sophia. Had she shared her speculations about Audrey with the sheriff?
Sophia shook her head as if he’d asked the question aloud.
“Look, Hunter, I know you have more that you could tell him. You need to clear your name because you don’t need that accusation hanging over you. The revelations are going to keep coming out of Wakefield Plantation, and Sophia may not be able to keep from getting pulled back into the drama. If you care about her, and it seems you do, then you need a clean conscience before you help her take on such a huge mystery.”
Sophia snapped. “I have no intention of finding out—”
“No, I’m sure you don’t plan on hanging around Wakefield, but life has a way of forcing you down certain paths whether you want to travel them or not.”
Soileau was gone before Sophia could argue.
Dylan stared at the door as it closed behind the sheriff. Maybe the woman was right. Maybe it was time to work with Moreau instead of against him.
Chapter Twenty
Several days had passed. Dylan had recuperated, but Sophia was taking a little longer to shake off the trauma of the last few weeks. Determined to put the whole thing behind her and get back into her life, she announced that she was going to her apartment to pack some things and she didn’t want Dylan to come with her. When he objected to her going alone, she had informed him that she couldn’t be afraid of her own shadow the rest of her life. Brandon was dead. He couldn’t stalk her any longer.
While she was away, Dylan called Moreau and told the detective he had remembered some things that might be connected to Audrey’s disappearance. The cop wasted no time pounding on his front door. The two of them sat across from each other in Dylan’s living room. Dylan nursed a beer, but the cop had opted for ice water.
“So what do you need to tell me after all this time?”
Dylan rubbed the back of his neck where it had begun to ache. “I should have told you these things long ago.”
The cop nodded. “Yeah, you should have.”
“I didn’t do anything to her.”
“Tell me why I should believe you. After all this time, your story better be good.”
Dylan leaned forward. “First, I want to know why you never questioned Sophia. She had just as strong a motive as I did.”
Moreau snorted and rubbed his upper lip. He leaned back in his chair, the wheels in his agile brain obviously turning. “I know she did, but after I made some initial inquiries, I never suspected her.”
“Okay, but why?”
“Do you want me to suspect her?”
“No, of course not. I just thought it was kind of strange. It seems to me you didn’t investigate all the angles. Like maybe you were focusing on me a little too much.”
Moreau inhaled and exhaled. “I thought you were going to tell me something new. Okay, out with it. Tell me why I should have focused on someone else.”
“Sophia was being stalked. The guy harassed her for months and then stopped suddenly. I never put it together back then, but after talking to Sophia about it lately, I think the man realized he was harassing the wrong woman. I think he didn’t know who he was after until he figured out Audrey was the woman he was looking for.”
“Why do you think that?”
He had the cop’s attention, so he kept going. “After we started living together, I noticed Audrey would get a lot of hang up calls. A man would call and ask for her. If I told him she wasn’t home, he’d hang up. If she answered the phone, she’d turn pale. But she wouldn’t talk about it. I thought she was cheating on me. She was always anxious to get the mail before I did. Once I found a letter addressed to her from Atlanta. I never thought anything about that until Sophia reminded me about the last phone call she got from her stalker.”
Moreau crossed his arms over his chest. “Okay, tell me about that.”
“He would ask her if she’d heard from the boys from Atlanta like she knew what he was talking about. One time, she thought he was asking her about a peach tree, but he wasn’t. He was talking about some place on Peachtree in Atlanta. When she told him she didn’t like peaches, he hung up on her and she never heard from him again. Just stopped cold.” He paused to let that settle in.
“I think he realized he was harassing the wrong woman. Audrey and Sophia roomed together. Maybe the guy knew where she lived but didn’t know her name or what she looked like. I know that seems kind of strange, but it’s possible, isn’t it?”
“Why didn’t you tell me this months ago?”
Dylan’s aggravation rose up from the calm place he’d buried it. Moreau always brought out the worst in him. “I told you I thought she was cheating on me. I just never put all the pieces together until recently. I’m telling you now because I thought you would want to know.” He snorted. “I’m trying to cooperate with you for a change.”
“I discovered the Atlanta connection months ago.” Moreau dropped the bomb as if it wasn’t loaded with explosives.
“Really, Moreau? If you knew this, why have you been harassing me?”
Moreau smiled. “Because you knew more than you were telling me, and if you thought you were my prime suspect, I had hoped that might force you to tell me what you knew.”
Unbelievable.
“I’ve known for some time that Audrey had a stalker. I couldn’t understand why you didn’t mention it. I couldn’t decide if you knew about her past in Atlanta. Maybe you were a part of it.”
Dylan wanted to punch the guy. “I’ve never been to Atlanta.”
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t know who was harassing her.” Moreau leaned back in his seat, a satisfied smile on his lips. “I suppose Sophia told you about the hit and run accident.”
“No, Audrey did. Only she told me that Sophia was driving, but that was a lie. Sophia said Audrey begged her not to call the police because she already had two DWIs.” He punched the arm of his chair with his fist. Audrey’s behavior was making him angry all over again. “Sophia said she couldn’t have driven the car if she wanted to that night. She was in no condition almost as if she’d been drugged. She wondered if she’d been dosed. Wait. How do you know about that?”
“Anonymous tip. Someone told me to look at Sophia Cannon for that.”
“Oh, really?” Dylan bounced in his seat. Moreau was a frustrating… Incredible. Just incredible. He’d put Dylan through crap for nothing. If Moreau had shared what he knew, then maybe Dylan would have felt more comfortable telling what he knew. They could have been working together all along.
Moreau had warmed up to his subject. His eyes blazed with excitement. “I finally put it all together. Audrey’s disappearance had something to do with that accident, and if I’m right, that was no accident at all. And it didn’t take much for me to figure out Audrey had been driv
ing. I had our crash expect look back over that report. No skid marks. The way the guy was hit. I’m convinced Audrey ran over him on purpose. But the thing is we’ve never been able to identify the man.”
“So where does that leave me? I don’t want to be a suspect in her disappearance any longer. It’s obvious I had nothing to do with that.”
Moreau rose to his feet. “Someone saw her in town last week.”
Dylan closed his eyes. The woman was a nightmare that kept repeating. Why couldn’t she have gone away and stayed away?
“If she contacts you, call me immediately. Then I will believe you had nothing to do with helping her disappear.”
****
Being back in her apartment, even for a little while, felt good. Really good. Sophia spun around and surveyed the space she’d occupied for years. She was saying goodbye. Letting the lease go. After all the wasted time, it appeared her relationship with Dylan was finally settling into something that looked a lot like forever. If so, she wouldn’t need a separate place to live.
Since they’d been discharged from the hospital, he’d been reluctant to leave her side. She’d finally insisted on some much-needed space. She loved being with him, but sometimes she just needed to be alone to recharge and find her center again.
She was still tired from her ordeal. Recuperating had taken her longer than it had Dylan. The fall down the stairs had bruised her ribs. Every breath ached for a while. She was just beginning to feel some relief from the pain.
She was through packing, but not yet ready to leave. Transitions needed to be savored.
Instead of rushing out the door after putting the last box in the back of Dylan’s truck, she settled onto the sofa that she would have to sell and closed her tired eyes for just a moment.
The brush of fingers on her cheeks startled her awake. Her eyes popped open.
The new Les Wakefield stood over her, his eyes bright with excitement. “Sophia sounds so much like Celia. Do you know how hard it is to find a woman named Celia any longer? I guess you will have to do.”
She screamed but no sound came out of her mouth. Movement was difficult, as if she were moving at the speed of a glacier. Her head felt heavy. She hadn’t felt this fuzzy since the hit and run accident. At the time, she had wondered if she’d been drugged.
Had Les Wakefield given her something to make her compliant?
The scene seemed so much like a bad horror movie, blurry around the edges and a bit surreal.
Maybe I’m dreaming again.
“You look just like her, you know.”
She remained mute, unable to demand an explanation. Who did she look like?
He pulled her off the sofa by her limp arms and crushed her to his chest. “Maybe you will be more faithful than she was.”
What had Charlotte Soileau told her? All of them had been found. All the Celias. Buried at Wakefield Plantation in the family cemetery. She didn’t want to be another Celia. Her mind told her arms and legs to fight, but her body wouldn’t cooperate.
His lips pressed against hers. Cold and hard. Brutal. She felt her breakfast rising up from her gut. She’d spew chunks all over him. Would that anger him enough to kill her?
With Brandon, she’d felt hope that she would overcome him and escape. She played his game, knowing he wasn’t completely in control of his actions. But this man? He had found a way to control her. She was helpless.
Visions of the shallow grave and the cold rain seeping into the dirt over her nose filled her mind. Lettie had died that way.
“Wake up, Sophia.” A familiar female voice shattered the dream. A hard slap to the face brought her out of her stupor.
When she opened her eyes, the scene surrounding her jerked in sharp focus. Audrey’s face hovered over hers. The contempt in her eyes drilled holes in Sophia’s courage. She had traded the evil in her nightmare for horrifying reality.
“Audrey?” Unlike in her nightmare, she had a voice. “What are you doing here?”
Audrey’s fingers curled into her shoulders. “Where is it?”
“I don’t have anything of yours.”
Anger suffused Audrey’s cheeks with bright red. “You know what I’m talking about. You’ve hid it from me all this time.” Her face came within inches of Sophia’s. “If you don’t give it to me, they will kill me.”
“How did you get in here?” Sophia shook her head. Such a silly question under the circumstances.
Audrey’s eyes glowed with a condescending gleam. “You left the door wide open, stupid.”
No, she hadn’t.
A fear greater than Audrey’s crazed presence filled her. Had Les’s presence been real? Maybe she hadn’t been dreaming.
“Was there a man here when you came in?”
Audrey laughed, the cackle of the deranged. “No one was here.” She smiled. “You were asleep. Must have been having a nightmare because you screamed like death was choking you.”
Sophia managed to rise to a sitting position. “I think you should leave before I call the police.”
Audrey sneered. “You’re not calling the police. Do you want me to tell them about your hit and run accident?”
Sophia shook her head. Audrey was crazy. She wasn’t remembering that right. Audrey had told Dylan the same lie. An idea popped into her head. A monumental bluff. “I already told the cops everything I know about that night. They’re looking for you. You should leave town if you want to stay out of jail.”
Audrey spluttered and fumed. “You told the cops about the wreck? Are you crazy? I’m a dead woman. I’m dead.” She started pacing.
The landline in the kitchen rang. Sophia stared at the phone on the wall. No one ever called her on that number. No one except those odious call centers trying to sell her car warranties.
Audrey jumped back several paces from Sophia. “He knows I’m here.”
Before Sophia could ask whom she was talking about, Audrey was gone.
Audrey had only been gone a moment when Dylan and Moreau entered through her still open door. Dylan rushed to her and put his arms around her. “Are you all right?”
“Sure, I’m all right.” She hoped she was all right. She’d just experienced one shock right after another. “What are you doing here?”
“When I couldn’t get you on the phone I thought I’d better come check on you.” He glanced over his shoulder at Moreau.
The two of them had something significant to tell her. She could feel it in every one of her bones.
“Moreau just told me Audrey has been seen in town.”
Moreau stepped further into the apartment. “She might be dangerous.”
Oh yeah, he had that right. She pointed toward the open door. “She was just here. She might not have that big of a head start.”
Moreau rushed out the door before she could give him any more details.
She sniffed back her tears. “I thought it was all over.”
Dylan sat beside her and pressed her head against his chest. “No, babe. I think it’s just getting started.”
“He was here, Dylan. Before she came in. He was here.”
He pushed her back a little to stare into her eyes. He didn’t have to ask whom she was talking about?
She told him anyway. “Les Wakefield. When I woke up, he was standing over me.”
Dylan glanced over his shoulder at the open door. His muscles tensed beneath her fingers. “Are you sure?”
She hesitated. “I don’t know. It could have been a dream. It seemed like a nightmare. I had just laid down for a minute.”
“Surely, it was just a dream.”
But Sophia could see in his eyes that Dylan didn’t believe that any more than she did.
That same day, Dylan and Sophia left town for an extended vacation. If Les Wakefield IV was going to terrorize her, he was going to have to find her first.
****
Charlotte had first made the trip out to Bobby’s trailer, and when she hadn’t found him at home, she went all the way
out to Sephronia Adams’s shack down the bayou on the edge of the swamp. Perot hadn’t wanted to go with her, but she wasn’t going alone. He’d started this mess by implying Bobby had deceived her. She wanted to settle the question before the day was over.
When she discovered Sephronia’s shack empty, the tingling began in her fingers, the unmistakable feeling of dread sweeping over her. Sephronia Adams never left her shack. Never.
She dragged Perot back to Bobby’s place. Once they were outside his locked door, she instructed the deputy to bust the lock. He hesitated a minute too long.
“We have probable cause, Perot. I have reason to believe someone has done bodily harm to Bobby. This place feels deserted, doesn’t it? Butch said he hadn’t seen him in two days. That sounds like probable cause to me. Kick it in.”
Perot sucked in his breath and did her bidding.
With the broken lock dangling from his fingers, he hit her with his hard opinion. “He ain’t here and it doesn’t look like the place has been disturbed. This wasn’t right, Sheriff. He’s gonna come back and find his door busted and then he’s gonna cause a ruckus.” Perot dropped the lock on the floor and placed his hands on his hips.
She’d had it with the little weasel. “His truck is parked outside, Perot. Bobby don’t go anywhere without his baby. You should know that.” She shot him a mean glare. “Pull on your gloves and go through his stuff. I wanna know where he is.”
Perot grumbled and then voiced his complaint in a strident voice. “I don’t like it.” He half-heartedly shuffled through the stuff on the kitchen table.
Charlotte sat down at the desk and started going through Bobby’s papers. Then she set about digging in his desk drawers. A notebook had been wedged in the bottom of a drawer. She yanked it out and flipped it open. What she read took her breath. No wonder he had an interest in the Wakefield estate.
She glanced over her shoulder and noted Perot’s attention was elsewhere. Instead of bagging the book, she took several photos with her cell phone. Her gut instinct told her that Perot didn’t need to know everything she knew. She shoved the notebook back underneath the papers in the bottom of the drawer where she’d found it.
The Unmistakable Scent of Gardenias (Haunted Hearts Series Book 6) Page 25
