The Truth About Comfort Cove

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “Maybe.” Emma adored Frank’s son Cal, the boy she’d loved as her big brother—and the man he’d become, too. But Emma hadn’t said a lot about Frank. “Who’d have figured that no one would mention the delivery truck having been on the street that day?”

  “Or the fact that young Cal had cut school. If the boy had been where he was supposed to have been he’d never have seen that little girl in his father’s car that morning,” Ramsey added, his voice gaining momentum.

  “If Cal hadn’t seen Claire in Frank’s car, Frank would never have been a suspect and Jack, as the only other occupant of the street at the time, would have been the prime suspect. You think Whittier chose that particular day and time to do something with Claire because he knew the delivery truck would be there and could be a diversion?”

  “It happens.”

  “But no one reported seeing the delivery truck that day,” Lucy repeated, frowning in the darkness, needing answers while not yet sure they had all the right questions.

  “Young Cal and the neighbors were asked if they saw or did anything unusual that day, anything outside of their normal routines. That truck was routine. No one reported the cars that were usually parked on the street, either. Or seeing their neighbors going to work. They only said they didn’t see anything different or unusual.”

  People noticed what they expected to notice. “And unless we’re going to believe that the neighbors also had something to do with Claire’s disappearance, then we have to believe that they were all engaged in their own lives, their own mornings, and didn’t notice anything unusual or someone would have seen that little girl snatched away from her home in broad daylight.”

  “Exactly. How did that happen?” Ramsey asked what she knew was a rhetorical question. And it wasn’t.

  “Unless someone who was supposed to be on that block, someone who knew her, took her. What I remember from the police reports is that Claire didn’t cry out. Or scream. Her mother would surely have heard that.”

  “Right. No one heard anything.”

  “She wouldn’t have gone willingly with Jack Colton. She didn’t know him. Which is why we’re right back to Frank Whittier.”

  Ramsey’s angle was a good one. The most likely one. Probably the right one.

  If Frank wanted the delivery guy, Jack Colton, to be a suspect, he’d have mentioned the guy when he’d first been questioned twenty-five years before. To divert attention from himself, if nothing else.

  “Maybe there’s someone else,” she said, anyway, to keep them both sharp enough not to overlook anything. Not to miss what might be right in front of them. The evidence told the truth and they just didn’t have enough of that yet. “Someone who also knew Jack’s schedule. Someone unrelated to either him or Frank. Because if Frank timed his move in line with Jack’s truck on the street, wouldn’t he have led the police in that direction by mentioning that he saw the truck there?”

  Theories were an important part of police work, she reminded herself. Theories led to questions, to quests for information, that often led to evidence. To the truth. They just didn’t want to get so lost in one theory that they missed another. Or lost sight of facts.

  “Someone could have silenced the child before she had a chance to scream for her mother,” Ramsey said. “Jack could have been working on his own. Other than the fact that he’s a great guy who cares about old ladies and saving money and is faithful to his girlfriends, who pays his taxes on time, has no police record and not even points on his driver’s license, he could have done this.”

  She empathized with his frustration. Felt it along with her own mass of tumbling emotions that night.

  “You know something?” she said as she sank a little deeper into her pillows.

  “What?”

  “I’m glad that I had Allie’s missing-person’s file checked out when you went looking for it to find out if she was one of Walters’s victims.”

  “Why?”

  Just like a guy was her first thought. He couldn’t intuitively understand an emotional outpouring and return it in kind? “Because you called me to ask about it and I found out that I’m not the only person whose every waking moment is centered on searching for missing children.” Because he’d called her and become her best friend in the world. “This quest just never lets me go. Ever. And it’s the same with you, isn’t it? You’ve got Claire Sanderson and I’ve got my sister.”

  “I saw the evidence in Walters’s basement.”

  He cared so deeply.

  And she wanted to feel that intensity in a physical sense.

  She rubbed the back of her neck. “I’m glad that we found each other,” she admitted, the darkness, her meeting with Wakerby, messing with her.

  It wasn’t that she needed Ramsey. She was just feeling… glad that he was on the other end of her line.

  “There’s no off time for us,” she rambled on. “Any time of the day or night, we’re ready and willing to talk about a case. Before you, I had to wait for a decent hour to run things by a colleague.”

  In other words, they were both fully engrossed in work to the exclusion of any other aspect of life. They were twodimensional human beings living in a three-dimensional world.

  Could sex be two-dimensional, too?

  “I’m accomplishing a lot more on my cases, in less time, because of you,” she finished.

  “Speaking of which, what’s the latest on Wakerby? Have they indicted him?”

  “For rape, yes. Not for murder yet.”

  Beyond that she couldn’t think about the man any more that night. She needed daylight.

  “I received an invitation to Emma Sanderson’s wedding today.” Why was she doing this? Clearly Ramsey Miller wanted nothing personal between them.

  She wouldn’t, either, once the night was done and she was in her right mind again.

  In complete control again.

  The thought had Lucy sitting straight up in bed.

  Somehow Sloan Wakerby had taken away her sense of control. And she hadn’t seen it coming.

  Damn him.

  “Did you get an invitation, too?”

  “Maybe. There was an envelope with Emma Sanderson’s return address. I didn’t open it yet.”

  After contacting Cal Whittier regarding Claire Sanderson’s missing evidence box—and ultimately finding Jack Colton— Ramsey had contacted the second person with evidence in that box, Emma Sanderson.

  Emma was four when her little sister was abducted. And her life, like Lucy’s, had been abnormal ever since.

  Ramsey had reported the missing evidence, interviewed Emma regarding anything she might know about anyone who might have stolen the evidence and then asked Emma to bring in some of Claire’s belongings so that the lab could try to extract some of Claire’s DNA to either identify her or rule her out as one of Walters’s victims. Ramsey was determined to have the man tried for every single child he’d hurt. Lucy figured Ramsey wasn’t going to rest until Peter Walters was put to death.

  Emma wanted answers about her sister. She wanted closure. She’d agreed to Ramsey’s request for Claire’s belongings.

  And because of a similarity in Lucy’s and Emma’s situations, Ramsey had asked Lucy to fly in for the meeting with Emma.

  Ramsey had been thinking of the case. Of making Emma comfortable so she’d talk. Of using Lucy’s interrogation and listening skills to get answers they didn’t yet have.

  And, in Emma, Lucy had found another kindred spirit. Which meant two in one year. And two in a lifetime.

  “I sent my RSVP back this morning.” She was going to wear the little black dress.

  And she wanted him to see her in it.

  “When’s the wedding?”

  “Thanksgiving weekend.” Three weeks away. “On a boat at the fishing docks in Comfort Cove.”

  “I don’t do weddings.”

  “I’m going.”

  “You’ll be flying in?”

  “Yeah. I’d love to have someone there I know.�
� And to dance with him.

  “I’ll probably be working.”

  “We could compare notes over a toast.”

  “You’re sure you’re flying in?”

  “Yeah. I already made my reservation.” She’d done that just before going to see Sloan Wakerby that evening.

  She’d been thinking about Ramsey then, too.

  “What time do you get in?”

  “Ten o’clock Saturday morning. The wedding’s at four.”

  “I’ll pick you up.”

  Lucy grinned. A big grin that stayed there. “Then you pretty much have to drive me to the wedding because I won’t have a rental car.” It didn’t occur to her to prevaricate. Not until she’d already spoken.

  “It’s my fault you got the invitation at all. I can’t leave you to go alone.”

  She guessed that meant they were going together. It shouldn’t be a big deal. Tomorrow it wouldn’t be.

  And with that resolved, she was determined to get back on track. “You know what’s bothered me all along about Jack Colton?”

  “Other than the fact that he was there that morning?”

  “He admitted, when you questioned him this summer, that he saw Claire outside her house.”

  “Right.”

  “Her disappearance was big news.”

  “Right.”

  “While Comfort Cove is bigger than Aurora, it’s not all that big now. I’m guessing, twenty-five years ago, it was quite a bit smaller.”

  “It was.”

  “So don’t you think Jack would have heard about a child missing from a street he did business on? Don’t you think, when he heard when the abduction happened, that he’d have called the police and told them that he’d seen the little girl in her yard that morning? Or when he heard that Frank Whittier was a suspect, he’d have called to tell the police what he told you this summer? That he’d seen Frank get into his car alone?”

  “I asked him that question last time I spoke with him. He didn’t call because he figured that as soon as he did, he’d be a suspect. He was a young kid on his own. With no money. He couldn’t afford to lose his job. Couldn’t afford to be brought in for questioning. Couldn’t afford a lawyer. Short answer is, he was afraid.”

  “So he let Frank Whittier hang?”

  “He said that he watched the news enough to know that Frank Whittier wasn’t charged and that was good enough for him. He didn’t realize the hell Frank’s life became because of the ongoing suspicions against him. He did say that he’d been feeling guilty for years about not coming forward, but thought that to do so so late would only raise more suspicions about his possible involvement. And he’s right on that score. I am suspicious.”

  “Basically, he turned a blind eye to save his own ass,” Lucy summed up drily.

  “You know as well as I do that folks do it all the time. Colton said that he was afraid that if he came forward, the real kidnappers would come after him and it wasn’t like he had any information that would actually help the police find Claire Sanderson. He saw her in her front yard and she was fine. And when he drove by again, she was gone. He didn’t see anyone in the area and has no idea what happened to her.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “You got time to make a run to Cincinnati to check him out?”

  “You bet.” She’d make time.

  For Emma. For Claire Sanderson and Allie and all of the other children who’d been ripped away from the families who loved them.

  And for Ramsey Miller.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  R amsey was out all day Thursday and Friday, pursuing leads. Late Friday afternoon, he rode the elevator with Bill up to their desks.

  “Think Walters will get life without parole when he finally goes to trial?” Ramsey asked Bill.

  Bill shrugged. “I hope so. But hindsight tells me not to hold my breath.”

  It told Ramsey the same thing. Which was another reason he couldn’t rest until he found the rest of the pervert’s victims. The man had to pay for each and every one of them.

  And families needed answers.

  Kim Pershing met Bill at his desk. “We got a hit on that homeless guy,” she said, looking from Bill to Ramsey.

  “The lab lifted fingerprints from his suit, but he wasn’t in the database. The suit was custom made, though, and I tracked it down to a place in New Haven, Connecticut. From there, I was down to three men who purchased the same suit in that size in the past year. I was able to reach two of them. The third is an Ivy League human-studies instructor at Yale who took this semester off to finish writing his doctoral dissertation. Joel Randolph. Twenty-eight. Part of his thesis required that he spend a week on the streets, with no connections, no one knowing where he was.” Kim pursed her lips.

  Ramsey and Bill exchanged glances. “Sounds like your guy,” Ramsey said.

  “Have you contacted the family?” Bill’s question was directed at Kim, who, in expensive jeans and a fitted longsleeved T-shirt, did not look the detective part at all.

  “No, sir. I didn’t want to give anything away.” Notification was up to Bill. Kim’s job, as support person, was to investigate possible identities for their dead body. “Their information is on your desk.” The woman nodded toward a manila folder in the middle of Bill’s desk, atop various papers and charts strewn across every available inch of space. Bill used to be completely rigid, too. A place for everything and everything in its place. And then he’d fallen in love with Mary. He was as committed to stopping crime as ever; he’d just relaxed a bit when it came to the little things in life.

  “You really need to clean that desk up,” Ramsey said as he left his colleague and mentor to one of the most unsavory parts of their job. Delivering the final blow to loved ones.

  Becoming a bad memory someone was never going to forget.

  “You were out of line, hayes.”

  “Way out of line.” Standing in the captain’s office with the captain and Amber, Lucy looked between her coworker and her superior. “I know,” she said. “I apologize.”

  Amber, who already had her mouth open for a comeback, closed it again, as her expression deflated.

  Lucy looked at Lionel Smith. “I have a feel for this guy, Captain,” she said. “I know I’m not impartial enough to run the case—Amber drew it and it’s hers.” With a nod toward the other woman, she continued. “I have every confidence that she’ll bring this one home. I just… There’s more.”

  “Your sister.”

  “Yes.”

  “We haven’t forgotten Allison, Lucy.”

  “But you’ll send him up and leave it at that if you can’t get anything more out of him.”

  “We need evidence, Lucy. You know that.”

  “If I get the rape charge, and give the D.A. enough to get a conviction, he’ll be at our disposal any time we need him,” Amber added, her tone mollified.

  And if Lucy messed things up, Wakerby could walk.

  “I didn’t talk to him about the rape.” They were three of Aurora’s four detectives, discussing their biggest case.

  “That’s your word against his.”

  She shook her head. “I had my phone set to record mode the entire time I was in the room with him.”

  Turning back to Lionel, who stood behind his desk in his black suit and tie, Lucy said, “And if my mother doesn’t stand up to trial, and the defense manages to convince the judge that our DNA sample is tainted, he’s going to walk and I might never have another chance at him.”

  Lionel’s scrutiny might have been hard to take if Lucy wasn’t one hundred percent certain of the case she was pleading. She could get this guy. And now might be her only shot at him. Certainty didn’t stop her from sweating beneath her navy jacket and cream-colored silk blouse.

  She took a deep breath as Lionel’s attention switched to Amber Locken. “Lucy’s earned her reputation for interrogation results. Whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, she seems to be able to crawl right up inside the perp and see
where to hit so it hurts the most.”

  Amber nodded.

  “She’s okay to have her go at Wakerby…”

  Lucy’s smile was strictly on the inside, but it was a big one.

  “…on two conditions.” Lionel’s firm stare went between the two of them. “First, you keep Amber informed at all times— before you visit, and immediately afterward, too. No surprises.”

  Lucy nodded.

  “And second, no mention of the rape, Sandy, any evidence pertaining to either, any charges that are filed or charges that might be filed. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “Amber—” Lionel glanced at the other woman “—as a professional courtesy to one of our own, I’m asking you to keep Lucy informed as you work this case.”

  “Sure.” The thirty-eight-year-old redhead nodded toward Lucy. “I was doing that, anyway.”

  Amber Locken had been a new detective when Lucy volunteered to be the stoop for the Gladys Buckley sting. She’d been Lucy’s guide, her voice of encouragement. Lucy was glad not to have lost that support.

  “I grossly overstepped,” Lucy said again. “I’m really sorry.” She was. Honestly. And she’d do the same thing again if she thought it would help her find her sister. She gave every waking hour to the job. Her life belonged to her mom and Allie.

  “Okay, then, I guess we’re done here,” Lionel said, spreading his hands as he dropped down to the old leather chair behind his desk. That chair and that desk had been sitting in that office in the Aurora Police Department since before Lucy was born.

  Lucy waited for Amber to leave. She had something else she wanted to discuss with Lionel. Claire Sanderson was not her case, was not even close to her jurisdiction, but her DNA had been found in Gladys Buckley’s evidence—found only because Lucy had made it her personal business to check every missing child she ever heard of through the database she’d had set up after Gladys turned over her records.

  “Sir, I visited Gladys Buckley this week…” Lucy started in as soon as the door closed behind Amber.

  “You don’t have to report to me every time you question a prisoner, Hayes.”

  “I know that, sir.” Lucy sat in the chair in front of Lionel’s desk. A place she’d been often during her two years as a detective. “I was doing some research for a friend in Massachusetts.”