The Truth About Comfort Cove

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  He’d tried himself, delivered a guilty verdict and handed down the death sentence all in a day.

  Ramsey wondered about the wife and kids, glad that telling the family didn’t fall to him. The family were out of his jurisdiction.

  Jack Colton wasn’t. Ramsey called the man and requested an in-person sit-down, just to go over what the man remembered, one more time.

  Or so he told Colton.

  The long-haul semitruck driver agreed to meet with him on Saturday, at the end of an East Coast run.

  After paying a visit to Colton’s former employee, with a request—not a warrant—for Colton’s delivery-route logs for the three years he’d worked there, Ramsey set out for a holein-the-wall bar not far from the docks, where he could sit in a corner, have a burger and a beer and study Jack Colton’s moves twenty-five years before.

  Before he was done, he was going to be so far inside Jack Colton’s skin, the man wouldn’t know where he ended and Ramsey began.

  He reached his destination, parked, landed his table, ordered, opened his folder and pulled out his cell. Lucy had texted him. Because his body had responded as soon as he’d seen her name, he’d forced himself to wait to text her back.

  You’re closing in, he typed in reply a couple of hours later and added, Call if you need me. He read what he’d written. Deleted the if you need me. Reread it. Then deleting, Call, typed, Good job. Read it one last time. Nodded. And hit Send. Nothing too personal.

  She didn’t trust men in a personal sense. She trusted her fellow officers. Of which he was one.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A t ten minutes before midnight on Thursday night, Lucy’s phone chimed “Carol of the Bells”—her favorite Christmas song, and also her year-round ringtone for text messages.

  There was only one person who might text her late at night. Everyone else she could think of who would contact her that late—and there were a number of them—would call.

  There was really only one person who’d texted her at all since she’d purchased her new smartphone.

  She’d set a police-badge icon as Ramsey’s contact ID. It appeared on her screen as she opened her messages.

  Lucy set down the phone. She finished pouring the cup of tea she’d been in the process of preparing for herself to take into bed with her.

  Other than his brief response to her text, she hadn’t heard from Ramsey in almost forty-eight hours—not since she’d dropped him off at the departures gate at the Cincinnati airport Wednesday morning.

  She’d expected at least a text letting her know he’d arrived safely back in Comfort Cove. She’d have sent him one if their situations had been reversed and she’d been the one traveling.

  Picking up her cup of newly prepared tea, she blew across the steam. The fact that he hadn’t called Wednesday night hadn’t bothered her. Much. She’d had a few things to share with him, but if he was busy, they could wait. He probably had a desk full of work to catch up on after being away for a few days.

  Days he’d partially dedicated to her and her case. Her life.

  But tonight, she’d really been hoping to speak with him. What would be in Wakerby’s box of goods?

  And what news did Ramsey have on Jack Colton’s bank account? Had he been able to finagle a warrant to have a look at them?

  And did he regret not having kissed her? Did he think of her as a woman at all?

  Did he know that she was turned on by him? Was he avoiding her because of it?

  Picking up her phone in her free hand, she took her cup of tea, intending to make it to her room before looking at the message he’d sent.

  Intending to wait until morning to reply.

  But she didn’t turn left at the hall to go to her room. She turned right—and ended up in the spare bedroom. The one Ramsey Miller had used. She hadn’t been down this way since he’d left. And shouldn’t be there now. Saturday morning, when she came in to get the used sheets and clean the bathroom would be the time to be in the room.

  Standing in the doorway, she looked around, hoping for a trace of him, something he’d inadvertently left behind. When there was nothing readily discernible, she flipped on the light switch and moved farther into the room—peering over the end of the bed to the other side. No stray socks there. Or even so much as a scrap of paper. No dropped pen or lost tie.

  He hadn’t left so much as a crease on the bed.

  “Carol of the Bells” sounded a second time.

  Telling herself that she really was sick, Lucy walked into the bathroom, to see if there was any trash in the small can beside the toilet. Had she imagined Ramsey there? Imagined that they were starting to become friends?

  She was a top-notch investigator. She could find evidence of someone’s presence when they didn’t want to be found.

  The trash can was empty.

  Either the man flushed his dental floss or he took his trash home with him.

  Coming back into the bedroom, she meant to turn off the light and head into her own room where her pillows were already fluffed, her blankets turned down and ready to welcome her for the few brief hours she had to rest.

  She turned off the light, but she didn’t leave. Sitting on the bed, she smoothed her hands across the covers. She wouldn’t pull down the coverlet. Wouldn’t let herself sink so low as to lie on Ramsey Miller’s sheets.

  But she could rest her head, for just a minute, on the pillow he’d used. Setting her tea down on the bedside table, with her cell phone still clutched in her hand, she lay back slowly, as if the pillows would evaporate from her life, as the man appeared to have done.

  The pillows supported her weight. And they smelled like Ramsey Miller.

  With a deep breath, Lucy lay her hands on her stomach and closed her eyes. Breathing in the essence of a man who made her feel…good. Just for a second, she’d take strength from knowing that he existed. He didn’t have to know. No one had to know. She’d be fine. Her old self. In just a second.

  “Carol of the Bells” peeled from her stomach. Lucy grabbed the phone from her midsection, wondering why it was there, just as she was remembering where she was.

  What time was it?

  The LED screen showed two in the morning. Two hours since she’d come into Ramsey’s room? She’d been asleep for two hours?

  Sitting up in the dark, she opened her phone.

  U okay?

  The most recently sent text message showed on her screen.

  Scrolling with the thumb holding the phone, she read the string.

  Possible Colton development to discuss when you get the chance. The first message that had come in just before midnight had been very closely followed by Let’s discuss Wakerby development.

  She’d texted Amber’s news about Wakerby’s request to meet with his lawyer. She hadn’t mentioned the couriered box of belongings or her invitation to go through them. She’d been saving that for the phone call she’d been sure she’d receive that night.

  He’d texted instead and implied that she should call.

  Shaking her head, sleepy, but grinning, she texted back, Fine. Fell asleep. Up now.

  Can you talk?

  They’d known each other for months and suddenly he was asking?

  Of course.

  She’d barely hit Send when her phone rang.

  “What’s the development?” she answered on the first ring. She was going to get up. Head to her own room. Or at least the couch.

  In a minute.

  “Two things. I got Colton’s current bank records. There was nothing from twenty-five years ago.”

  “That was quick.”

  “Yeah, well, I was convincing.”

  He had a good case.

  “Have you had time to go over them?”

  “Last night.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing. He’s a saver, just like you suspected. He’s got a couple hundred thousand put away, but based on his income, which I am gathering from regular deposits and tax returns, all I can pr
ove is that he spends wisely. There’re no big influxes of money. No big deductions, either, other than the payments he’s making on his semi.”

  “You don’t know if that two hundred thousand is from twenty-five years of working hard and living frugally or from other means,” she reminded him, lying back on the pillow that he’d used just a couple of nights before.

  She felt decadent. And naughty.

  “But I can do the math and see that based on his rate of deposits and spending and saving over the past three years, he could very easily have amassed that amount of money simply from hard work and light spending.”

  “So maybe he got out of the baby-stealing business too long ago for you to see any indication of it.”

  “Then what did he do with the money?”

  “Same thing he could still be doing with it if he didn’t get out of the business. He could be stashing it in an account we can’t see.”

  “Why?”

  Motive. Why would a man risk stealing children, selling them and then not use the money?

  “For all we know, he does use it,” Lucy reminded him. “We see the Jack Colton he wants us to see. The Jack he shows the world. Who knows what he does with the time we can’t see? Maybe he has a house in Jamaica. Or a life in Montana! A wife and kids and life that he lives under an alias. If he has a secret bank account, he’d use that account to finance his other life. It’s not like it hasn’t happened before.”

  She felt good. Better than she’d felt in a long time.

  “Okay, we’ll keep that possibility open.”

  His “we” made her warm.

  “You said you had two developments.”

  “I found something in Colton’s work log from the day that Claire Sanderson went missing. He logged in an unusual gas stop. The only time he ever did so, at least as far as the record shows. I’m going through boxes of old handwritten ledgers that probably should have been thrown out years ago except that the owner of the company has a huge basement and keeps everything.”

  She sat up. “Are you sure? About the gas stop being one he never made before or after?”

  “As sure as I can be. He didn’t log it again, I can tell you that much.”

  “Have you questioned him about it? Or what about his old employer? I’m assuming he gave you the records or you wouldn’t have found anything.”

  “He gave them to me. Said he’d do anything he could to help find the missing girl, but that he’d trust Jack Colton with his own kids. I found the discrepancy just before midnight so I haven’t called him yet.”

  “What about Colton? Have you talked to him?”

  “He’s meeting me at the station on Saturday. Ostensibly to go over what he remembers one more time.”

  “He still thinks you’re just looking at him because of having found out about him from Cal’s book?”

  “That’s all I’ve told him.”

  “How’s it going on a warrant for his DNA?” They’d discussed Ramsey’s chances of getting the various warrants on their way to the airport Wednesday morning.

  “No go. Not until I can find something besides theory to support my case.”

  “Maybe the gas stop will do it.”

  “I’ll get the sample somehow. Offer him a drink on Saturday. Something. Once I get his DNA, I can run it against the evidence we just recovered in the Sanderson case.”

  “Have you heard back on the Sanderson evidence yet?”

  “No.”

  Investigative work required patience. Loads of it.

  She’d been patient on Allie’s case for nine long years. Was that why she was having a hard time believing that they were closing in on Wakerby?

  Under the cover of darkness, she told him about the couriered box of Wakerby’s belongings. Of Locken’s invitation to her to be present when they went through it.

  “People hold on to innocuous items that connect them to things that they don’t want others to know about,” Ramsey said softly.

  He wasn’t telling her what to do. Wasn’t implying she didn’t know. He was reminding her of what she knew.

  Because he knew that in the morning, with Wakerby’s things in front of her, she might not be at her best.

  At least that’s how she took his remark. And she smiled again.

  “A magazine with an address label, but the clue isn’t the address label, it’s a random picture somewhere in the magazine that prompted the person to save it.” She’d actually worked on a case where that scenario had come into play a couple of years ago, when she’d been a very junior detective.

  “And then there are the accidental things.” Ramsey’s voice was soft, tired sounding. “A receipt that was left in the bottom of a bag of old socks.”

  The word socks grabbed her. She’d been thinking of that box of belongings in terms of clues to finding Allie. Socks took that box down to a different level, a more personal level.

  She didn’t want to see Wakerby’s socks. Or anything else that brought the man any closer to her.

  And she was lying on top of her spare bed because it smelled like a man who’d shown no sign, whatsoever, that he knew she was a woman.

  Lucy was off the bed in seconds, picking up her cold tea and making a beeline for her own room.

  A beat-up woman, age indeterminable because of the swelling and bruising around her nose, mouth and eyes, was standing outside the office door when Ramsey got off the elevator just after six on Friday morning. He had paperwork to catch up on, reports to write, and had been hoping to get it done before all hell broke loose for the day.

  Or, if no new jobs came in, before everyone showed up and started yawing at each other or someone turned on the television.

  Walking past the woman might have been his easiest course.

  “Is someone helping you?” he asked, standing there like he had all the time in the world.

  “They said I could come up here and wait for a detective.” Her words came through lips that were stiff and doubled in size.

  “Sure. I’m Detective Miller,” Ramsey said, pulling his badge out of his brown suit-coat pocket. “What can I do for you?”

  Who in the hell did that to you and where am I going to find him?

  “I want to know what would happen to a kid if he beat someone up.” She sounded like her mouth was wired shut. But maybe it just wouldn’t open. If her jaw wasn’t broken it was a miracle.

  “Is that what happened to you? A kid beat you up?”

  Her chin lifted. Ramsey couldn’t tell if it stiffened or not because of the swelling. The woman looked grotesque. Worried.

  But not scared to death. “I just want to know what would happen if a kid beat someone up,” she repeated, almost as if she’d been rehearsing the line during the time he’d taken to get to work and find her there.

  “It depends on the circumstances, ma’am, and the age of the kid, too.”

  She didn’t reply. She wasn’t shaking. Wasn’t looking over her shoulder, or panicking. He had a feeling she might just turn, get on the elevator and leave.

  He couldn’t let that happen.

  “You’re not in good shape, ma’am,” he said, stepping closer to her. “Have you seen a doctor?”

  She started to shake her head and winced instead. “I’ll be fine. I don’t need a doctor.”

  It had to hurt like hell to speak.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Lonna.”

  “Lonna what?”

  “Lonna Baker.”

  Good. Even if she left, he’d be able to find her. And find out what happened.

  “Are you married, Lonna?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  “No.”

  The ante had just upped. “I need to know who did this to you, Lonna.”

  “I don’t want to press charges.” She spoke carefully as though the process was becoming more painful.

  “A crime has been committed here. The state could press charges.”

 
; Now her gaze, little slits within puffy skin, darted. Now she was afraid.

  But not for herself?

  “What kid beat you up, Lonna?”

  Tears pooled within her swollen eyes, and eventually trickled over the edges of her bruises.

  “My kid.”

  He should have expected that. He hadn’t.

  He wanted to puke.

  R amsey called Kim and then sat with Lonna in an interrogation room until the female detective arrived. He didn’t offer her anything to drink, not certain that she should ingest anything. Instead, he called for emergency medical services. They arrived just about the same time Kim did.

  Half an hour later, he was on his way to meet Randall Davenport, Jack Colton’s boss from twenty-five years ago. He took Ocean Drive across town, adding a good twenty minutes to his trip. He had to get out. To breathe fresh air. Comfort Cove wasn’t a huge city like Boston. It also wasn’t a small town like Aurora. It bore no resemblance whatsoever to Vienna, Kentucky.

  Ramsey could process a dead body, male or female, without losing his appetite. Especially if it was a clean shot to the head that did the killing. He could handle guts and gore from bar fights and suicides just fine. Car accidents and even strangulations were part of the job. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to seeing women and children abused. It wasn’t death that bothered him. Suffering did.

  And he had to make certain that Claire Sanderson, dead or alive, hadn’t suffered. He knew her family, had an invitation to her sister’s wedding. They needed answers—were suffering hugely without them—and it was his job to find those answers.

  Randall Davenport, a portly man, invited Ramsey into his office and offered him a cup of coffee. Ramsey accepted the drink in the guise of politeness, of friendliness, not because he intended to drink a sip of it.

  “I was not quite thirty when my old man hired Jack Colton,” Randall said, leaning back in the chair behind his desk. “Not all that much older than Jack was, which is why I remember him.”

  Ramsey, with his portfolio resting on his thigh, settled back into the armchair on the opposite side of Davenport’s desk.

  The room was clean. Organized. With family photos and local awards on the walls.