Cold Feet

by Brenda Novak

  “Just tell me everything’s going to be okay,” she whispered.

  He brushed back her hair and placed a featherlight kiss on her temple. “It might get worse before it gets better, Madison, but…” He hesitated, and she leaned back far enough to look up at him. “I’ll be here if you need me,” he finished, and she smiled because it sounded so much like a promise.

  THE SLIGHTLY FLORAL SCENT of Madison’s perfume and the softness of her body beneath the baggy sweats she was wearing kick-started Caleb’s libido. He knew he’d be much better off sending her back to her own house—right away—but he couldn’t seem to let go of her. She’d come to him for comfort, and he wanted to give her that much. Obviously she wasn’t as insensitive about the suffering of others as he’d once believed.

  Or maybe he couldn’t let go of her because he needed a little comfort himself. The past four days hadn’t been easy. He’d had a difficult time grasping the fact that such evil had touched his own life in a very personal way. Holly had been almost childlike in the way she’d clung to him, irritating yet sympathetic in her neediness. Her parents treated him as though he and Holly had never divorced, and had been leaning on him to deal with the police and also with the funeral home regarding Susan’s burial. Beyond that, every extra minute had been spent helping Detective Gibbons. Caleb had been tracking down Johnny’s friends, from previous schoolmates to cellmates, and some friends and neighbors of Tye’s, too. He’d told them he was a private investigator working on a murder case and showed them pictures of Susan. And he’d haunted the pizza parlor and surrounding neighborhood, looking for the driver of that blue Ford in the picture—all to no avail.

  He felt exhausted, frustrated, torn. Yet he still had some difficult decisions to make. Like how far he was willing to go to manipulate Madison into lending him Ellis’s truck. He knew Gibbons would be calling him—if not tomorrow, then the next day.

  “I just don’t understand it,” Madison murmured. The movement of her lips, tickling his bare skin, was enough to make his heart race. “I don’t understand why anyone would want to hurt and humiliate another human being.”

  Caleb pressed her closer, enjoying the sensation of her against him while consciously working to keep his thoughts from turning sexual. Having Madison in his bed would give him a lot of comfort, but he was pretty sure sex wasn’t the type of comfort she had in mind—and it certainly wasn’t a memory she’d appreciate once she learned who he was. “Psychologists claim most violence is about power.”

  “I don’t see how hurting someone or something weaker makes a man feel better about himself.”

  “Neither do I,” he said, admiring the slight tilt at the end of her nose and the fullness of her lips. He remembered the softness of those lips all too well….

  Before the temptation to abandon his morals could strike again, he stepped back, grabbed a sweatshirt he’d left on the couch earlier and held it out to her. “Put this on, and I’ll walk you over to your place.”

  She pulled the sweatshirt over her head while he held the door.

  “I’m sorry for waking you,” she said as they crossed the drive.

  Caleb jammed his hands in his pockets so that he wouldn’t touch her. Now that he’d created some space between them, he needed to maintain it. If she cozied up to him again, he doubted he’d be able to stop himself from at least testing how she might respond to his desire for deeper intimacy. When the truth came out, she’d end up hating him for making love to her under such deception. But there was the argument that she was going to hate him anyway….

  “No worries,” he said. “My door’s always open.”

  She smiled. “I like you, Caleb Trovato,” she said. “I’m glad you moved in.”

  They’d reached her door. Caleb leaned a shoulder against the front of the house while she stood at the threshold.

  He liked her, too. Which only made his next question that much more difficult to ask.

  Fixing a picture of Susan’s battered body in his mind, he called up the rage he felt at whoever had hurt her. “By the way,” he said. “Any chance you know someone who owns a truck I could borrow?”

  “What for?”

  “I have a friend who’s moving and could really use some help.”

  “When do you need it?”

  “Tomorrow or Saturday, if possible.”

  She seemed somewhat hesitant, as though she was going to refuse him. But then her smile returned. “My dad’s truck is just sitting in the garage. I’ll see what I can do.”

  IT RAINED THE FOLLOWING day, tiny drops that quickly turned into a constant drizzle.

  Madison grumbled at the damp, foggy weather, wishing she didn’t have to drive over to the mainland to get her father’s truck. But the memory of Caleb taking her into his arms when she was so upset last night made her want to go to the extra trouble. He’d been there for her. She wanted to be there for him.

  “That’s what friends are for,” she muttered, and dashed out of the office building that housed her business, ducking beneath her briefcase until she could reach her car.

  After starting the motor, she turned on her wiper blades, then backed out of her parking space. As soon as she was in line to catch the next ferry, she forced herself to do what she’d been dreading all morning—call her mother.

  “Madison, is it you?” her mother asked. After their conversation the night before, Annette’s voice was noticeably cool. “You’re cutting in and out.”

  A moment later, Madison inched forward along with the other cars, and her cell reception improved. “Can you hear me now?”

  “Yes. Are you in the car?”

  “I’m about to cross over to the mainland. I’m on my way to your place.”

  “Are you showing the house?”

  Madison felt a twinge of guilt, because she’d had several calls on her mother’s house from both agents and buyers. Just as she’d feared, some of her callers seemed more interested in the house’s dramatic history and getting a peek at it than in purchasing the property. Still, there’d been some legitimate calls, as well. Legitimate calls she hadn’t returned. And she’d put off the people she’d already talked to, trying to avoid selling the house until she could decide what to do with the box hidden in the crawl space. “Not today,” she said. “I’m getting some interest on it, though. Maybe I’ll be able set up a tour for tomorrow or Sunday.”

  “So why are you coming here? Brianna’s in school, isn’t she?”

  “I’m just dropping off the comps I said I’d put together for you.”

  “The comps?”

  “The list of homes in your area that have sold in the past few months, along with the price of each.”

  “Oh, right. Okay.”

  “And—” Madison took a deep breath “—and I was hoping to borrow Dad’s truck.”

  Dead silence. Madison knew it was her imagination, but it felt as though the temperature had dropped another ten degrees. “Mom?” she said, cranking up her heater.

  “What’s going on?” her mother demanded. “Why are you suddenly interested in the truck?”

  “Nothing’s going on. I want to lend it to a friend, that’s all.”

  “You know how your father felt about that vehicle.”

  “Of course I know.” Once that witness had placed Ellis’s truck at Anna Tyler’s apartment, he’d become increasingly afraid to drive it. He’d parked the truck in his garage to be sure no one had access to it. At the time, the police were so determined that Ellis was their strangler and so desperate to solve the case, Madison had believed her father’s concerns to be legitimate. But now she had to wonder if his paranoia revolved around a fear that Seattle detectives would plant evidence—or find it.

  “This has nothing to do with the police or anything else,” she continued. “I’m just trying to help Caleb, my new renter.”

  Another long pause. “Do you have to help him like this?”

  “Mom, I’m tired of being paranoid,” Madison said. “Caleb needs
the truck for only a few hours. For once I’d like to respond as a normal person would. For once I’d like to say, ‘Sure, no problem,’ as if we don’t have anything to hide.”

  “We don’t have anything to hide,” her mother replied.

  “Then why can’t he borrow the truck?”

  Madison could tell Annette didn’t like being cornered, but she’d already decided to throw her support Caleb’s way. She couldn’t see how it would hurt anything to help him out.

  “I’ll leave the keys on the front porch,” her mother said. Then, without a further word, she hung up.

  MADISON STARED DOWN at the bulge beneath the mat on her mother’s stoop. Evidently her mother wasn’t going to soften and come to the door. Well, Madison wasn’t about to let Annette’s disapproval change her mind. She’d spent the past twelve years supporting and protecting her parents. Surely she could do a friend a favor.

  She just wished that favor didn’t entail entering the garage where her father had ended his life. Situated at the very back of the property, the garage opened onto the alley. It was hidden by trees and overgrown with ivy. She hadn’t been anywhere near it, or the workshop inside, since her father had shot himself. There hadn’t been any reason to go there. Tye had cleaned up the mess, and her mother always parked in the front drive, closer to the house.

  Bending, she left the folder of information she’d gathered for her mother on the step and removed the keys from beneath the mat. Then she rounded the house, opened the gate and stared out over the wide expanse of lawn dotted with ivy-covered trees.

  This was where she’d grown up knowing a father who loved her….

  A father who might have murdered eleven women.

  She thought of the photo album Brianna had dragged out from under her bed, and felt her throat begin to burn. She simply couldn’t reconcile those memories with what she’d found in the crawl space. She and Ellis might have had occasional differences while she was growing up, but those differences were nothing out of the ordinary. When she was a child, he’d let her follow him around all day and help him in the yard. He’d bought her a big piggy bank and always gave her his change. He’d even spent his “hard-earned money” on a swing set when she begged for the shiny metal kind that came from the store instead of the wooden one he’d planned to build. When she was a teenager, he’d provided her with a car and helped her maintain it. Sometimes he’d surprised her by filling it with gas.

  A man like that couldn’t be evil. He couldn’t be a loving father and a twisted killer—could he? Wouldn’t she have seen some evidence before now that her father was capable of such things? Wouldn’t she have known?

  Maybe the friends and relatives of killers like Ted Bundy felt the same way….

  Whether Annette was really at the window or not, her mother’s eyes seemed to bore holes in her back as Madison started across the yard. Her heels sank in the wet earth, slowing her progress, but she reached the safety of the overhang before the misty rain turned into pellet-size drops.

  Unlocking the padlock, she turned the handle and used her shoulder to open the stiff, creaky door.

  As she’d anticipated, it was mostly dark inside—dark and damp and close.

  Leaving the padlock hanging, she stepped hesitantly across the threshold of her father’s workshop and closed the door to keep out the rain. But what she found wasn’t what she’d been expecting.

  A wheel of jars containing various nails and screws hung from the ceiling. Her father’s old black radio sat on the dusty window ledge, its antennae bent but still extended. A gray filing cabinet stood in the far corner, next to a scarred wooden desk. Which wasn’t unusual. But there was also garbage tossed around, mostly sacks and cups from various fast-food restaurants. A dirty old pillow and blanket had been discarded on the floor. There were cigarette butts all over and a plastic lid teeming with ashes. And the whole place reeked of cigarette smoke and—marijuana.

  What was going on? From the look of things, someone had recently been living inside the workshop. But how did he get in? Who was he? And what had happened to her father’s guns? The rack that normally held his rifles and the shotgun that had ended his life was empty.

  Her heart pounding in her ears, Madison opened the door she’d just come through and left it ajar, so she could make a quick exit if necessary. Then she peeked through the door that led to the two-stall garage.

  There was no noise or movement. Whoever had been living in the workshop seemed to be gone now.

  Slipping into the garage, she flipped the switch to the fluorescent light hanging from the ceiling. It buzzed and flickered, but even before it came on she could see that the window on the far side of the garage, facing away from the house, had been broken and was letting in the wind and rain.

  So now she knew how whoever it was had gotten in….

  Madison surveyed the place, taking in the empty stall to the right, the blue Ford parked on the left. Not far from the window she saw what appeared to be a filthy pair of jeans lying on the cement floor—and something else. Madison couldn’t tell exactly what. She was just moving closer, trying to identify it, when the garage door suddenly rolled up.

  Whirling, she found herself staring at Johnny.

  “Johnny, you scared me to death,” she said, putting her hand to her chest. “What are you doing here?”

  He looked her up and down, then glanced beyond her. “Are you alone?”

  Madison was breathing heavily, but she managed to nod. “Why?”

  “I don’t want your mother snooping around out here, hassling me.”

  Madison arched her brows. “She happens to own the place, remember?”

  He shrugged. “My father was the one who paid the mortgage. I figure putting me up for a few weeks is the least he can do. It’s tough for a guy like me to find a house these days.”

  Maybe that would change—if he was willing to work. “How have you been getting by?” she asked.

  “One day at a time.”

  Madison thought of Ellis’s guns and was willing to bet Johnny had pawned them. He’d probably taken other things that had belonged to their father, as well. “Did you ever get hold of Tye?”

  “He doesn’t want anything to do with me,” he answered shortly. He crossed to the object she’d been trying to make out a few seconds earlier, and she immediately realized it was a small pipe, obviously for drugs. Of course.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “I told you before, he and Sharon aren’t getting along.”

  “You never told me why.”

  “Beats the hell out of me.” He dug through the pockets of the discarded jeans and came up with a lighter. “Hey, you don’t have twenty bucks, do ya?”

  Madison felt a sinking sensation as she looked at her brother. He was never going to be in control of his life. He wouldn’t even try. “No.”

  “Well, don’t say anything about me being here to your mother.”

  Madison pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to quell her irritation. “Just tell me you’re not on the run.”

  “What, you think I busted out of prison or something?” he said with a laugh. “I got out on good behavior. You can even call and check if you want.”

  She decided she believed him. “I’ll give you a week. After that, you’ve got to find somewhere else. Mom’s selling the house, and I’ll be showing people through it.”

  “No shit.” He shoved his straggly bangs out of his eyes, stuffed his pipe in the pocket of his jean jacket and searched for a cigarette. “And I was just growing fond of this place.”

  “Then you’re the only one,” she said, eager to leave. She didn’t like being in Johnny’s presence. She wanted to love him, did love him because he was her brother, but she couldn’t relate to the type of person he’d become. He was throwing his life away, which was a terrible tragedy—but unless he wanted to change, she couldn’t help him.

  “So what brings you out here, all dressed up?” He spoke around the cigarette he was li
ghting.

  Madison glanced down at her suit and the keys in her hand. “I need to use the truck.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He shoved his lighter back into his pocket and took a long drag. “Well, sorry it’s a little low on gas. I didn’t have the money to fill it up.”

  “You’ve been driving Dad’s truck?”

  “Why not?” he said. “Nobody else does.”

  “Where’d you get the keys?”

  Smoked curled toward the ceiling from his cigarette as he clasped it between two dirty fingers and took another drag. “He always kept a spare out here. You didn’t know?”

  She shook her head.

  “I guess there are a lot of things you never knew about dear old Dad, right?” He put his hands around his throat in a choking gesture and started making jerking motions and guttural noises, then laughed.

  “I’ve got to go. I’m late for an important meeting,” she said, and hurried to climb into the truck. She’d been planning to search it extensively, but she just wanted to get away. Besides, it looked completely clean. Leaving her own car parked out front, she backed out of the drive without bothering to wave.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CALEB SPENT THE MORNING trying to console Holly—who was still taking her sister’s death very hard—and the afternoon with Gibbons, going over the evidence that had been found at the site of Susan’s body. When he finally pulled into Madison’s driveway, he found a shiny black Jaguar sitting in his parking spot. He might have wondered who drove such an expensive vehicle, but the license plate, “Lieber 1,” gave him a pretty good indication.

  The Jag’s window slid smoothly down as he approached, and he immediately recognized the pasty-faced man he’d seen in Brianna’s baby book.

  “Can I help you?” Caleb asked.

  Danny leaned away from the open window to save his expensive suit from the light rain as he studied Caleb. “Don’t tell me you’re the renter.”

  “Why not?” Caleb asked.