The empty boxes hit the concrete floor with a hollow thud, and Carly’s captor placed a roll of packing tape on the bookcase. “Pack!” The brusque command had a terse finality to it, and the captor turned to leave.
Carly sat straighter on the bed. “Where are we going?”
Her villain stopped, then looked over a shoulder at her. “South. First I have to take care of that meddling witch once and for all. She’s stirring up the entire town! Then we’ll go where no one will find us. Pack!”
The door slammed and Carly stared at the boxes. “God,” she whispered, “if we leave, Mama and Daddy will never come. No one will come.” She slid off the bed and went to stare into the boxes. She sighed and put a few of the DVDs into one of the boxes. They were mostly boring anyway.
The books were different. Only two went into the box before the third one caught her eye. It was old, its binding cracked and pages yellow. But the beautiful, golden horse on the cover seemed real enough to stroke. She spoke the title aloud. “Robin Kane—The Mystery of the Blue Pelican.”
Carly sat on the floor and scooted her back up against the case. “Maybe if I don’t pack, we don’t have to leave.” She opened the cover, which cracked but held tight. The smell of old paper wafted around her, but Carly’s gaze settled on the first sentence and she disappeared into the world of the young girl detective and her brilliant palomino, trying to ignore the curses and thuds echoing through the vent.
ELEVEN
Dee slowly replaced the cordless phone in its charger, still a little surprised by the answer she’d received. She turned to Maggie, who sat by the windows overlooking the front lawn, nursing a cup of tea. “Bethany Davidson has agreed to talk to me.”
Maggie set the Earl Grey on a low table beside the chair. “Why does that surprise you? Didn’t you call her and ask?”
Dee lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. “Maybe it shouldn’t, but it does. And, yes, I did, after Tyler agreed to it. But I really expected her to say no. In a world of people who love Jack and Nancy Bradford, she stands out as the one who doesn’t. She was one of Tyler’s ‘persons of interest’ in this case. They interviewed her twice. Why would she want to be interrogated again?”
Maggie’s responding smile was both gentle and mysterious. “Get yourself a cup of tea and join me. Let’s chat a minute. What time are you meeting Bethany?”
In the galley kitchen, Dee pulled a cup from the cabinet and selected a tea bag from Maggie’s extensive collection of teas. She filled the cup, added the tea bag, popped it in the microwave for a couple of minutes, then leaned over the counter that separated the kitchen from the great room. “Between 12:30 and 1:00. Lunch. Tyler and I are driving into Portsmouth, and he’s agreed to let me talk to her alone. She said she’s working a twelve-hour shift today and can meet me in the cafeteria.”
“So there will be people around.”
Dee’s eyebrows furrowed. “You think there should be? You think she could be dangerous?”
This time, Maggie was the one who shrugged. “I don’t know anything for sure. I know Fletcher doesn’t trust her to be completely truthful. Maybe in a public setting she’d be less likely to claim later you said something you didn’t. Do you have a recorder?”
Dee shook her head. “But you think I’ll need one.”
“I do. I’ll get my little digital one out of my office before you leave. It’s small enough you can slip it in your pocket. Insurance. Interviews can be tricky, and unless there’s a record, she can later deny anything you say she told you. I don’t know if she’s that kind of person, but it’s always better to be safe.”
The microwave dinged, and Dee removed the tea, tossed the tea bag in the garbage, and added milk and sugar before joining Maggie. In Dee’s eyes, Maggie was her complete physical opposite, with her long legs and slender build. The retreat’s manager always wore long skirts and practical boots, and her reddish brown curls cascaded down her back. With her feet tucked neatly up beside her, Maggie reminded Dee a great deal of an elegant, quite regal, feline.
As opposed to my resemblance to a fireplug, Dee thought. She tucked one strand of her mostly straight, dark hair behind an ear and tried to avoid sloshing her tea as she sat. “Is David asleep?” she asked.
Maggie nodded and released a long sigh. “I had to take a break. He’s been running me ragged this morning.”
Dee couldn’t help but grin. “You’re a great mom. I don’t think you can look at him without your eyes being full of love.”
Maggie tossed curls back over her shoulder and chuckled. “Shhh. Don’t tell him. When he gets older, I’ll need him to think I’m serious about time-outs.”
“Are you going to homeschool him? It seems like the retreat would be ideal for that, between you and all these writers who have so much information in their brains.”
Maggie shook her head. “Fletcher and I discussed it, but I’m not convinced I have the temperament for it. Homeschooling takes a very special kind of mom, and I’m not convinced I’m right for it. The church has a great day care, and we’re going to start sending David to a ‘mom’s day out’ in a few months, to get him adjusted to being away from me.” She sipped her tea. “Did you homeschool Joshua?”
Dee looked into her cup, her mind drifting. “The last year, Mickey and I planned to do so at least through middle school. Joshua was borderline gifted, and he read way above his grade level. Math and science came so naturally to him that he’d finish assignments before anyone else. His teachers had a hard time keeping him motivated. So he got into a lot of trouble. Fights with the boys who bullied him.” Dee knew how sad her smile must look, but these were cherished if painful memories. “We looked into private schooling, but finally just decided to bring him home.” She looked up again at Maggie. “On his last tests, he was scoring so high on his reading and math, Mickey and I joked about enrolling him in college.”
Maggie watched Dee a moment, then asked softly, “You seem to have let go of Mickey more than you have Joshua.”
Dee nodded toward the hallway and the baby’s nursery. “You have a son now. You must understand…” She paused to take a sip of tea before going on. “I think if Joshua had been older, if we’d had more time to separate in a natural way…it might have been easier.” She shrugged. “You’re right, but I’m not sure how to explain it.”
“Maybe Tyler has helped?”
Dee looked up sharply. “What?”
Maggie’s gentle expression reflected the care in her words. “Dee, everyone can see how close you and Tyler have gotten. How your friendship with him has grown. And he treats you like a princess, even the night…or maybe especially the night…he brought you home from the hospital. Do you think you’re ready for another relationship?”
Dee just stared at her friend, a wave of uncertainty flooding her. “I don’t…I don’t know.”
Maggie shifted, as if suddenly uncomfortable. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business, really, but Fletcher and I both see how much better you are than when you arrived.”
Dee’s mind still whirled with a touch of confusion. “And you can’t believe how grateful I am to both of you.” She looked around the room. “And to Aaron for building this place. I don’t know what I would have done without it.”
Maggie accepted the change of subject with a sigh and stood up. “Have you seen this morning’s paper?” When Dee shook her head, Maggie picked up a paper from the table beside her and handed it to Dee. It was folded open to her column. “That, my friend, is the writing of someone who has a grasp on her world again. Very good.”
“Oh.” Dee could only manage that small sound as she scanned her own words in print. Slowly her eyebrows went up as her eyes widened. “It’s not bad for a midnight scribble, is it?”
Maggie snorted. “It’s more than ‘not bad,’ girlfriend. You need to stop being so hard on yourself. You and Tyler both make me crazy demanding so much of yourselves, as if you weren’t—”
“Tyler? So you’ve noticed it, t
oo?”
“Yeah. He seems to think he’s messed this case up. Fletcher thinks he’s done fine, given what he’s had to work with.”
Dee sat straighter, ignoring the drops of tea that splashed out of her cup at her sudden move. “That’s what I told him. I fussed at him when we were going to the Bradfords about how hard he was being on himself. I just don’t see how he could have done more than he has.”
A smile slowly crept over Maggie’s face. “Tyler’s a good man. One of the best.”
Dee paused, suddenly feeling as if she’d walked into some kind of trap, but one she couldn’t quite discern. “Yes,” she said, suspicion making her drawl out the word into at least three syllables. “He is.”
Maggie laughed. “Trust me, I’m not trying to suggest anything. Yet. But I do like how you and Tyler have become friends. You are very cute together.”
Heat slid up through Dee’s face, and she chewed her bottom lip for a moment. “I like Tyler. I do. I think we’re friends. But he’s so…Mercer.”
Maggie looked puzzled. “What does that mean?”
Dee held up her hand. “Don’t get me wrong. That’s not a bad thing. But he just seems so…I don’t know…entrenched here. I mean, after I met him, I fully expected to hear that he’d married his high school sweetheart, who was now head of the local chamber of commerce.”
Maggie scowled. “So he’s not worldly or sophisticated.”
Dee shook her head furiously. “No. That’s not…” She stopped, took a deep breath and gathered the words in her head before speaking. “You can’t be a cop without having a sense of what the world is about. Tyler isn’t provincial or naive. But he loves this place, and I can’t imagine him being happy anywhere else. It just seemed to me that he’d be more interested in someone who shared that love of place, like someone who grew up here, or moved here and grew to love it.”
Maggie’s eyebrows arched. “You don’t like Mercer?”
Dee waved her hand in a negative gesture. “I adore it! That’s not the point. I won’t be staying here forever. You know we all agreed I could stay as long as I needed to be here to recover.” She paused looking down at her cup again. “Y’all saved me from my walk on the edge. But I can’t live here forever. My family is still in Tennessee.”
Maggie watched Dee a few moments, then spoke softly. “Not even if you fell in love here?”
Dee swallowed hard, then stood up. She couldn’t have this conversation right now. “I’m running late. I need to head for Portsmouth.” She took her cup to the kitchen, rinsed it, then put it in the dishwasher. When she turned, Maggie stood in the doorway, the digital recorder in one hand.
“Be careful with Bethany Davidson. I’m sure she wants to talk to you because she wants yet another person on her side. The AMA won’t listen, the press won’t listen. She may tell you about a Jack Bradford you won’t like hearing about.”
Dee squared her shoulders, ready to return to her work. “Do you know what Jack says about her?”
“Jack says her claims have no foundation. That she has never worked with him in the O.R. and is basing her accusations on hearsay. Her one chance to get her story into the public eye was this case, so she seems a bit frustrated that the press ignored her as a suspect, even though she declares she’s innocent.”
“Sounds like a mixed-up lady.”
Maggie handed her the recorder. “She sounds like a desperate lady. So be careful.”
“I will.”
“Are you riding in with Tyler?”
Dee palmed the recorder and gave Maggie a quick hug. “Nope. I need to do a bit of girl-type shopping before I meet Bethany, so he’s going to meet me after I talk with her. We’ve got a couple of other people to see, then he’ll follow me back.”
Dee returned to her room for a notebook and a blazer to go over her light shell and jeans. Slipping the recorder into the blazer pocket, she headed back to her cabin, where her tiny compact car was parked. White and nondescript, the little car had barely been driven since she’d arrived at the retreat. She used it for an occasional run to the grocery store. She’d only driven to Portsmouth once, and as she settled into the seat, she checked her map again for the fastest route. The two-lane Mercer Pike led to the 125, then over to US Route 4, then…. Dee followed the roads with her finger, then dropped the map into the passenger seat and fastened her seatbelt. She could do this.
Turning right out of the retreat, she followed the narrow road into town, slowing a bit when she reached the curve where Tyler had almost hit her. That seemed like an eon ago, even though it had only been a couple of days. Her nose, so tender to the touch, prevented her from sleeping on her stomach—her favorite position—and two tiny bandages still held cuts closed on her cheeks. She checked her face in the visor mirror again, wincing a bit at the bruising that remained around her eye. At least Bethany’s a nurse so I won’t scare her to death.
Dee rolled down the windows and waved at a couple of folks on the sidewalks at Mercer. She did adore this small town and its residents, but she had been surprised to find out that Tyler was not married. “Tyler’s the heart of Mercer.” The wind, swirling strands of hair around her face, absorbed the words.
The words, however, brought to her mind Tyler’s face, with his firm jaw and blue eyes that had just enough green in them to make you look twice. And she had looked twice. Dee grinned. More than twice.
Do you think you’re ready for another relationship?
Maggie’s question hung in the back of her mind. Am I ready? Tyler was certainly on her mind a lot these days, as a close friend, but…she hesitated, even in her thoughts. Anything else, even romantic thoughts of another man, continued to hold a twinge of betrayal for her, as if she were cheating on her husband, who had been dead for three years.
“Maybe. Perhaps not….”
The roar of a revved engine caught her attention, and she checked her rearview mirror, where the grillwork of a large SUV filled the back window.
Dee’s eyes widened. “Man, you’re too close!” She sped up a bit, but the SUV kept pace, swerving back and forth behind her, doing everything to crowd her but actually bumping her back fender. For more than two miles, the SUV would speed up, closing in on her, then back off a bit. Each time, the grillwork seemed closer, overpowering in her mirror. The SUV darted in and out of the lane, as if seeking to pass, only to retreat in the face of an approaching car.
Dee’s heart rate soared as she looked for a place to pull off, but the narrow shoulders of Mercer Pike held no escape, and the steady oncoming traffic left no run for the SUV to pass. Finally, Dee saw the entrance of a subdivision ahead, and she signaled, then slid into the entrance, stopping just inside the dual brick pillars that announced that she was entering Oak Hill Estates. The SUV roared by, and the driver leaned on the horn until the vehicle had passed out of sight.
Dee put a hand on her chest and caught her breath, swallowing hard as the adrenaline eased away. She closed her eyes, pushing away the memory, the mind-crushing memory that just such an incident had started the chain reaction that had led to Mickey and Joshua’s deaths.
“Not that,” she muttered. “Just one rude driver. Just rude.” Gulping in air, Dee gathered her thoughts and her wits before pulling back out in the road. “Focus, girl. Focus on the case. On finding Carly. On getting through this.” Yet, as she focused, it was not Carly’s face that settled on her mind.
It was Tyler’s.
Tyler hung up the phone, a sense of frustration edging into every muscle. He looked up as Fletcher entered his office and dropped into the chair next to his desk. “That was Rick. They still can’t get away, and he’s not convinced extra manpower would help at this point.”
Fletcher’s typically stoic expression remained firm. “But they’ll still let us send evidence to their labs for analysis?”
Tyler nodded. “Wayne is taking care of that part. So far, we’ve had no results on the dress or sandals.”
“What about your conversation wit
h Nancy and Jack?”
Sitting forward, Tyler rested his elbows on his desk. “I’ve been on the phone this morning, tracking down some of his ideas, and I wanted to talk to you about that, even though you are still new to the area. Nancy continues to doubt, but Jack’s convinced that this is personal, that it’s someone they know. Neither had wanted to consider that for a long time. I think they wanted it to be a stranger.”
Fletcher’s eyebrows went up. “Of course. No one wants to admit they’ve been friends with someone who could commit this kind of horror. It makes you feel like an idiot and a fool. But Jack’s come around?”
“Yep. He gave me some ideas, including Bethany Davidson again.”
“We talked to her. She’s angry, but I can’t see her for this.”
Tyler sat back in his chair again. “Agreed, although after talking with Nancy, Dee decided to talk to Bethany, to see it from a ‘woman’s point of view.’”
“And you agreed to this?”
Tyler scowled. “Couldn’t stop her. Not really. She was pretty determined about it. I’ll be right behind her. Nancy also told Dee about a pet store where Carly had made a lot of friends, and a teacher who paid special attention to Carly, even though he wasn’t her teacher.” He crossed his arms. “A Mr. Riley. Zach Riley. I thought we might have something, so after Dee meets with Bethany, we were going to debrief, then talk to the pet store folks and Riley.”
His jaw tightened in frustration. “But when I called the school, they said Riley is on sabbatical and has been since before Carly disappeared. They said they’d try to get me an address, but they think he’s on a fishing expedition in Canada.”
Fletcher stiffened. “You think he’s really out of town?”
The Taking of Carly Bradford Page 10
