Cold Feet

by Brenda Novak

  Joanna Stapley appeared behind Brianna, toting a backpack. “Your timing’s good,” she said. “I just finished my homework.”

  “Perfect.” Madison gave her a grateful smile and dug through her purse for the money to pay her. “Did anyone call while I was gone?”

  “You had an ad call on the rental place.”

  “An ad call?” Brianna echoed. “What’s an ad call?”

  Madison shook her head. Her daughter was only six years old, but nothing slipped past her. “I’m trying to rent out the carriage house. Did the caller leave her name?” she asked Joanna.

  “It was a he.”

  “Oh.” For safety reasons, Madison had been hoping for a female tenant. But at this point, she knew she’d take anyone with good credit and solid references.

  “What does it mean to rent out the carriage house?” Brianna asked.

  “It means someone else will live there,” Madison said.

  “Why?”

  To help her financially. When she’d purchased the house and her business, she’d planned for the eight months it would take her to learn what she needed to know and get her broker’s license. But she hadn’t expected business to be so slow once she actually took over. And she’d already lost her top agent, which meant she was down to three. It wasn’t going to be easy to survive if the real estate market didn’t pick up.

  “Because it might be fun to have some company once in a while, don’t you think?” she said to Brianna, even though company was really the last thing Madison wanted. She’d dealt with enough curious strangers to last her a lifetime.

  Brianna scrunched up her face as though she wasn’t quite sure about company, either, but Madison was more interested in what Joanna had to say. Danny had made some comments that led her to believe he and Leslie might sue for custody of Brianna again. Madison wanted to be ready for him. She needed to save what little money she had left from the divorce for a good attorney.

  “Did he leave his name and number?” she asked.

  Joanna frowned as she tried to remember. “Dwight…Sanderson, I think. His number’s on the fridge.”

  “Good. I’m having trouble finding a tenant. Everyone wants to come for a visit, but the ferry can take as long as two hours, so we’re not exactly in a prime location for people who work on the mainland.”

  “This guy definitely sounds interested.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem. If you need me again, just call my cell.” The door slammed behind Joanna, then Madison heard the distinctive rattle of her Volkswagen bug as she pulled out of the drive.

  “Dwight Sanderson,” Madison mumbled to herself, heading straight to the kitchen.

  “I don’t want a man to live in the carriage house, Mommy,” Brianna complained, trailing after her. “That’s where you draw, and me and Elizabeth play.”

  “It’s nice to have the extra room, but we can do without it,” she replied.

  “Daddy said we live in a closet.”

  Daddy doesn’t know everything, Madison wanted to say, but she bit her tongue. “Our house isn’t as big as his, but I like it here, don’t you?”

  Brianna nodded enthusiastically. “This is a cottage for princesses.”

  Hearing her own words come back at her from the day they’d moved in, Madison smiled. “Right. And we’re princesses, so it’s ideal.”

  “Will the man who moves in be a prince?” she asked.

  Madison stared down at the Post-it note Joanna had stuck on the fridge, and thought about her father, her two half brothers and her ex-husband. She hadn’t met very many princes in her life. She was beginning to believe they didn’t exist.

  “I doubt it,” she said, and picked up the phone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  CALEB STOOD in the antique-filled living room of his parents’ white Victorian, staring out the window at Guemes Channel and the wooded island beyond as he wondered what he was going to try next. He’d already spent three days doing everything he could think of to dig up some kind of lead on Susan. But he’d had no luck at all. Along with the police and the private investigator hired by Holly’s parents, he and Holly had talked to Susan’s friends, neighbors and work associates. They’d visited nightclub after nightclub with Susan’s picture and checked her bank account again.

  Still they’d come up empty.

  “Holly called while you were in the shower,” his mother said from the doorway.

  Caleb glanced over his shoulder. Justine Trovato was in her early sixties, but she looked at least ten years younger. Today she’d pinned up her white hair and was wearing a tasteful pair of brown slacks and a silky blouse, with pearls at her neck and ears.

  “If she calls back, tell her I need to do a few things on my own today,” he said.

  “If she calls back? Aren’t you going to respond to her message? She thought you might need a ride somewhere.”

  Caleb didn’t want to talk to Holly. They’d lost their tempers yesterday while canvassing the apartment building, and she’d stormed off for a couple of hours. She came back when she’d cooled off, but they were both pretty tense. He thought they could use some time apart. Which was the story of their whole relationship. “I’ll rent a car.”

  “You know you can take my Cadillac.” Justine moved into the room to straighten a doily, and Caleb immediately recognized the lavender fragrance she’d worn since he was small.

  “I don’t want to put you out. I don’t really know my schedule.”

  “I’m sure I could live without a car for the day. Your father’s out back tinkering in his shed. He could drive me in his little pickup if I need to go somewhere. Or there’s always your sister.”

  Tamara, Caleb’s older sister, lived next door with her husband and twin boys in a home his parents had helped them buy. “I appreciate the offer, Mom, but I’ll feel more mobile if I have a car of my own.”

  “If it makes you more comfortable, dear.”

  More comfortable? Caleb wasn’t feeling very comfortable about anything. He’d already spent far more time than he’d hoped it would take to find Susan—and he wasn’t any closer than the day he’d arrived in Seattle.

  She’ll turn up…. He’d told Holly that when she first called him. But those words seemed terribly glib now. He was beginning to think that if Susan did turn up, she’d turn up dead. Otherwise they would’ve found some trace of her.

  “Where are you planning to go?” his mother asked.

  “I spoke to Detective Gibbons this morning and—”

  “Oh, he called here yesterday saying he’d received a message from you.”

  “He got hold of me on my cell.”

  “Can he help?” His parents were as worried about Susan as he was. They’d met her at his wedding—the second time, they’d eloped—and had seen her at a few family functions since.

  “He doesn’t know much about Susan’s case. It’s not his to worry about.”

  “Then why did you contact him?”

  “He worked on the Sandpoint Strangler task force with me.”

  “Those poor women.” His mother shuddered. “But you’re not interested in the Sandpoint Strangler anymore, are you? I thought you put that book aside.”

  Caleb had always been interested in the Sandpoint Strangler. Probably because he’d been brand-new to the police department when the killings first started, so he’d followed them from the very beginning. The Sandpoint Strangler was the biggest case he ever worked, too, and the most frustrating. He felt as though they’d come within inches of unraveling the whole mystery—only to have Ellis Purcell check out before they could hit pay dirt. When the killings stopped and the case went cold, the task force disbanded and the police naturally changed their focus to finding those rapists and murderers who were still living and breathing and capable of violence. Caleb had given up the search then, too. But he’d never stopped wondering how, exactly, the strange Mr. Purcell had managed to kill so many women and dump their bodies in such public places without le
aving more of a trail. He’d since done several books about murderers: on Angel Maturino Resendiz, who was convicted of murdering a Houston woman but was linked by confessions and evidence to at least twelve other killings nationwide. On Robert L. Yates, Jr., who admitted to fifteen murders, and Aileen Wuornos, a female serial killer convicted of murdering six men while working as a prostitute along highways in central Florida. Or Jeffrey Dahmer, who’d been convicted of seventeen homicides, most in Milwaukee. Caleb had written several other books, as well, mostly isolated cases where a husband killed his wife for the insurance, or a wife killed the man who’d been cheating on her. Whoever did the killing always took a significant misstep somewhere.

  But not Ellis Purcell.

  “Holly told me something at the airport that’s bothered me ever since,” he said.

  “What’s that?” his mother asked.

  “Ellis Purcell’s grave was disturbed the night before I arrived.”

  “I read that in the paper.”

  “I’m wondering how whoever it was found out where he was buried.”

  His mother twisted the clasp of the necklace she was wearing around to the back. “Maybe someone in the family let it slip.”

  “Maybe,” he said, jingling the change in the pocket of his chinos. But when he remembered Madison Lieberman and her mother, and how staunchly they’d supported Ellis throughout the whole affair, he doubted they’d revealed anything at all.

  THAT AFTERNOON Caleb pulled his rental car, a silver-and-black convertible Mustang, in front of 433 Old Beachview Road, the small brick house that corresponded with the address Detective Gibbons had given him for Madison Lieberman. Then he bent his head to look at the place through the passenger-side window.

  It was small but charming, not unlike Langley, the closest town, which boasted the highest density of bed-and-breakfasts, country inns and guest cottages in the state. An arched entry covered with primroses partially concealed the front windows. But he didn’t see activity anywhere, and there weren’t any cars in the drive. Chances were Madison wasn’t home.

  The dull-gray mist that shrouded the island made it seem much later than midafternoon. Caleb glanced at the digital clock on his dash to see that it was just after three, close to the time school let out, and wondered if he should wait. When he’d still been researching her father’s case a couple of years ago, Madison had been working as a Realtor and living in a house not far from Bill Gates’s mansion on Mercer Island. But Detective Gibbons had told him this morning that she and her husband had split and Danny Lieberman had bought her out. Now she owned a small real estate company with office space only a few miles away, in Clinton.

  Caleb parked next to a stand of pine trees and got out to have a look around. He’d never approached Madison Lieberman in person before. When he was an officer on the task force, he was new enough that he’d been relegated to the work least likely to bring him in contact with her. And since he’d quit the department and started writing full-time, he’d seen too many news clips of Madison turning her face resolutely away from the camera, read too many comments spoken in defense of her father, to harbor any illusions that she might be willing to cooperate with him. But, using his pseudonym, he had sent her, as well as Danny, several letters over the years. Danny had responded a time or two, but it quickly became apparent that he didn’t have the answers Caleb needed. Madison had finally replied by threatening him with a restraining order if he so much as tried to speak with her.

  He hoped she didn’t feel quite so strongly about the issue now that her father was dead.

  Shoving his keys in his pocket, he strode up the walk. The yard was generally well-kept but had once known a more diligent hand; he could tell that right away. A couple of hummingbird feeders and a birdbath sat in a meticulously tended herb garden off to the right, but the trees and shrubs everywhere else were overgrown and the grass was a little too long. What with being a single mom and trying to run a small business, Madison probably didn’t have the time or money to maintain what had been in place before she came here. No doubt money was the reason for the For Rent sign Caleb saw attached to the small cottage at the side of the main house.

  For rent… He hesitated briefly at the arch before changing direction and heading toward what had once been a garage. It was renovated now. Through a mullioned window exactly like those in the main house, he could see a studio apartment, complete with kitchen-living room, a single bedroom and a bath. A brown wicker couch with giant yellow-and-blue cushions faced a television in the large main room, which had a wooden floor and lots of rugs. A chair that matched the couch and the drapes sat off to the side, next to a rack of magazines. White cupboards lined the kitchen in the corner, which contained a round wooden table with plaid place mats in the same blue and yellow as the couch and drapes.

  He could see only a slice of the bedroom and bath through two open doorways, but he could tell the bedroom was furnished with a four-poster bed, a fluffy down comforter and more pillows—these in red, white and blue. The bathroom had an old-style sink with brass fixtures.

  He liked the place, he realized. It had the sort of country charm his mother had taught him to appreciate.

  Taking a narrow path that led through the herb garden, he crossed over to the main house, where he saw a similar decorating theme. Madison’s home wasn’t quite as light and airy as the garage, certainly not as new, but it had a warm, cozy atmosphere.

  The sound of a car pulling up made Caleb jerk away from the window and start toward the drive.

  A petite woman he recognized as Madison Lieberman jumped out of a Toyota Camry as soon as she cut the engine. “Oh, my gosh! I never dreamed you’d beat me here,” she exclaimed, obviously flushed from hurrying. A thin, strawberry-blond girl got out much more slowly, clinging to an old stuffed rabbit. “The ferry must be moving quickly today.”

  Caleb hadn’t taken the ferry. He’d come south over Deception Pass from Fidalgo Island, which was due north. But he didn’t correct her. He was enjoying the warmth of this reception—especially when he compared it to the “Get off my property” he’d most likely receive the moment he identified himself as the crime writer who’d contacted her before.

  “Did you peek in the windows?” she asked.

  He cleared his throat. “Actually, I did.”

  “I think you’d be very comfortable here.”

  Madison was much more attractive in person. Maybe it was because this was the first time Caleb had ever seen her smile. Only five foot four or so, she had a gymnast’s body, which made him believe she stayed active, and almond-shaped brown eyes. Her hair was auburn—not his favorite color—but it looked soft and swayed gently around her chin in a stylish cut. And other than a few freckles sprinkled across her nose, her complexion was smooth and slightly golden.

  “I know you’re worried about privacy,” she was saying, “but we’d never bother you. It’s quiet here.”

  The little girl with Madison glared at him. He could definitely see a family resemblance, mostly through the mouth. They both had full, pouty lips. “Is this your daughter?” he asked.

  “It is. Say hello, Brianna,” Madison prompted.

  Brianna said nothing. She folded her arms around her stuffed toy and jutted out her sharp little chin.

  “She’s not happy about renting out the carriage house,” Madison explained. “She called her father last night and he told her—” she waved her hand “—oh, never mind. I’ve got the key right here. Why don’t we take a look inside?”

  Caleb realized that now was probably a good time to explain that he wasn’t who she thought he was. But he didn’t see any need to hurry. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to catch a glimpse of what Madison Lieberman was really like. That could only help him understand her family and, by extension, her father.

  “Sounds good,” he said, following her to what she’d labeled the carriage house.

  Brianna glanced back at him several times, as if she thought she could scare him away with her
dark looks. But he merely smiled and, when Madison swung the door wide, stepped past her.

  The place smelled like an expensive candle store, Caleb decided as he began to notice several things he’d missed before—the vase of fresh wildflowers on the kitchen table, the small shower in the bathroom he’d been unable to see from the window, the mahogany entertainment center in the bedroom that housed another television.

  “You know, from your voice, I thought you’d be older,” Madison said as she watched him look around.

  Opening what appeared to be a pantry, he pretended not to hear her. “How soon did you want to get someone in here?”

  “As you can see, it’s ready. I’ve had a phone installed and everything. You could move in tomorrow.”

  The hope in her voice and the modest car she was driving reinforced Caleb’s impression that, considering Danny Lieberman’s wealth, she hadn’t managed to get a very good divorce settlement. “How long has it been on the market?”

  “A little over a month. But I’ve lowered the price.” She tucked a strand of hair behind one ear in a self-conscious movement. “I’m only asking eight hundred.”

  He nodded and walked back into the living room, wondering how to turn the conversation to her father—while feeling a peculiar reluctance to do so. “This place is small but…nice,” he said.

  Brianna was sitting on the couch with her stuffed rabbit and had spread several sheets of paper on the coffee table in front of her.

  “These are very good,” he said when he realized they were sketches, and that she meant for him to see them. “Who drew them?”

  “My mom.”

  He studied the first, a pencil drawing of an old, gnarled hand gripping a cane, then the second, a set of clasped hands—one male, the other female—and the last, an intriguing pair of eyes. Were they Ellis Purcell’s eyes? Caleb could have sworn they were. They seemed to hold all kinds of dark secrets.

  He wondered if Madison knew those dark secrets, and if he’d ever be able to get them out of her.