The Truth About Comfort Cove

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  After sending his ludicrous text—which he was going to explain away by the one beer he’d had after work at Bill’s invitation several hours before—Ramsey opened the Jack Colton folder.

  Halfway through the first couple of pages, he picked up his phone, just to make certain he hadn’t missed something coming in.

  Nothing. There was nothing new in the first few pages of the folder, either.

  It wasn’t like Lucy to walk away from anything. Obviously he’d offended her.

  Because he needed her input on the Claire Sanderson case, he picked up his phone, reopened the text conversation between the two of them and typed, Sorry, with one thumb.

  She’d warned him. It could appear that he’d ignored her warning. Just what she’d probably expect a guy to do.

  For what?

  Pushing.

  Pushing what?

  Not sure.

  ???

  Leave it.

  Not a good idea.

  He frowned. The whole thing was out of control. What do you want?

  To know what you want.

  That was easy. Your trust.

  You’ve got it.

  Relaxed, he made his second stupid move of the night. Outside of business?

  Why in the hell had he done that? He picked up the folder again. And heard his text message tone before he’d focused on the first Jack Colton page.

  Yes.

  Lying there nude, with the covers halfway up his chest, Ramsey nodded. Squirmed in the bed a bit.

  And then said, Good. Night.

  Night.

  He went back to work with a smile on his face.

  J ack Colton’s handshake was firm. He looked Ramsey straight in the eye and took the seat Ramsey offered. The same one Lonna Baker had occupied the morning before.

  “Coffee?” he asked, standing by the pot on the counter. “Yes, thank you.” Colton’s tone was respectful. “Cream or sugar?”

  “Black.”

  Ramsey poured himself a cup, as well. Black and strong. He

  took his time before he sat across from the man and officially started the interview. He needed the time. He couldn’t get a read on Jack Colton. Either the guy was as honest and good as he seemed or he was the best actor Ramsey had ever met.

  The best criminal. He’d never met one without a chink of some kind.

  “Thank you for coming in.” With nothing left to do, he sat.

  “If I can be of any assistance… I feel horrible about that man, Frank Whittier. I can’t sleep for thinking about the twenty-five years he’s lost. Those years are on my shoulders. If I’d known…”

  Colton’s gaze was direct; the moisture in his eyes real.

  There were no other suspects. And little girls did not just evaporate into thin air.

  Something happened to Claire Sanderson.

  And there wasn’t a single person involved who was not cooperating completely. Everyone seemed to sincerely want to help. To know what happened.

  Someone had to be lying.

  His money was on Jack.

  “I’ve had a look at your bank records.”

  “You what? How? Why?” Jack’s brow furrowed.

  “I got a warrant.”

  Ramsey watched every nuance of the other man’s countenance, finding his way in.

  “You got a warrant.” Confusion gave way to resignation in the older man’s expression. “Well, I hope you’re satisfied with your findings,” Jack Colton continued in a voice bearing not the least bit of fear. “I would have turned everything over to you if you’d have asked. I have nothing to hide.”

  Ramsey wished he had proof to argue that point.

  And that was why Colton was there. To give Ramsey his proof.

  “I had a visit with your former employer yesterday. Randall Davenport.”

  “His father was my employer.”

  “He passed away. Randall runs the business now.”

  “I suspect it’s doing well, then. Randy was a bit squirrelly, with little sense of humor, always one step above the rest of us, but he was also honest and organized as hell. Even more so than his father.”

  Thinking of the binders lining the walls of Davenport’s office, the orderly files in the basement, Ramsey had to acknowledge that Jack Colton was good at reading people.

  So he could be good at working them.

  Like he was trying to work Ramsey?

  “You’re right about one thing,” he said now, opening his binder. “Davenport keeps meticulous records.” He pulled out the delivery time sheet from the day Claire Sanderson went missing and slid it in front of Jack. “This shows an unscheduled gas stop that just happens to coincide with the time frame of Claire Sanderson’s disappearance.”

  Colton looked over the sheet, but only briefly enough to identify it. “The truck I drew that day came in half empty the night before,” he said, his gaze still openly meeting Ramsey’s.

  “And you remember that? More than twenty-five years later?”

  “I remember because it was the morning the little girl went missing. I lost time going back around the block to check on her, and then had to stop for gas.”

  “I’m just wondering,” Ramsey said, leaning forward. “If you noticed the truck was low on gas in the morning, why didn’t you stop for gas right away? Or wait until lunch? Why go right after Claire Sanderson went missing?”

  Colton blinked. And then said easily, “I did it then because there was an accident stopping traffic and making the light at the intersection permanently red. The only way around the traffic was to cut through the gas station. One of our drivers had just been given a ticket for cutting through a gas station to avoid a red light, and beyond that, in our drivers’ safety manual it told us never to cut through parking lots to avoid traffic. I did quick calculations and figured I would spend less time getting gas and leaving via the other side of the gas station than sitting in the traffic. As I just said, I’d already lost time that morning.”

  The explanation was given slowly, clearly, as though Colton were speaking with someone who struggled to understand.

  Or because Ramsey was getting to him?

  “You know, Detective, you’re all alike. You guys get some kind of mind-set of what makes a criminal and you look at every case through the same eyes. Frank Whittier had been seen with the child in his car, so he must have done it, right? Because statistics tell that more times than not a child abduction involves a family member or close friend.”

  Colton knew more than the average citizen.

  “And now you find out that I was in the area. I was young, in need of money and driving an enclosed truck so I must have done it.”

  The profile fit. And the reason profiles existed was because human nature was human nature. Human beings naturally acted in certain ways. And patterns of behavior solved crimes. Successfully.

  “Maybe if someone had looked outside the cop perspective, or away from all of the personalities you learn about in detective school, you’d have found that little girl.”

  Now Colton was pissing Ramsey off.

  “You watch a lot of cop shows?” he asked quietly.

  “No. Cable is a waste of money. I read. I also wonder, did anyone ever check the big sewage drain just down from that little girl’s home? You know the kind that are big enough for kids to stand up in? The kind where you see drug deals being made? That’s the first place I would have looked.”

  Everything inside of Ramsey stilled. The room was encased in cotton, buffering Colton’s words so they would not be lost.

  “I’m sure they did,” Ramsey said, when he wasn’t sure at all. He knew those early reports front and back and sideways, too. There’d been no mention of a drainage ditch or sewer of any kind. But the entire area had been searched. Multiple times. By hundreds of people.

  “Why would it be the first place you’d look?” he asked as though they were just making conversation.

  “Because one day when I was
on my route, a couple of little kids were out on a driveway trying to lob a basketball into a hoop that was way too high for them to reach. It caught my attention. Just then one of the kids tossed the ball up—it missed, hit the pole, rolled into the street and down into that ditch. Next thing I know the kid was tearing across the street after his ball. He ran right in front of me. If I hadn’t been watching, I could have hit him. I didn’t wait to see him come back up out of the pipe with his basketball, because I would have gotten behind schedule, but I never drove on that street again without watching for kids running into or out of that pipe.”

  Colton should have been a writer. His attention to detail was remarkable.

  Or…he was telling the truth.

  “I did not take that little girl, Detective.”

  “Then you won’t mind giving us a sample of your DNA, will you? Just so we can verify that you don’t turn up on any of our evidence?”

  Jack Colton opened his mouth.

  Ramsey pulled a cotton swab tube out of his pocket, took the swab, closed the tube, slid it back into his pocket and then said, “I also paid a visit to UC.” He wasn’t stopping until he knew everything there was to know. Until he had all the answers. He tapped the black portfolio he’d set on the table when he’d come in. Some of Colton’s records were there, not all of them.

  Jack Colton’s gaze narrowed, but the man looked more aggravated than alarmed.

  “I had a warrant for your records.” Ramsey’s coffee was getting cold as he kept one hundred percent focus on his suspect.

  “You’re digging deep,” Jack replied. He hadn’t touched his coffee, either.

  “I met Chester Brown.”

  “He’s still there?”

  “No, he’s retired. I paid a visit to his home.”

  “He’s well, then?”

  “Seemed to be.”

  “I’m glad. I liked Chester.”

  “Then why didn’t you stay in touch with him?”

  “Because when I lost that scholarship, I had the choice to let the disappointment sour me, or to move on. I chose to move on. I’ve spent much of my life fighting against the chip that would like to rest on my shoulder, Detective. Things other people take for granted, I’ve had to fight for. I’ve never known the security of unconditional love. Or a guaranteed roof over my head. I never had visits from Santa at Christmastime or home-cooked holiday meals that weren’t charity handouts. I sure as hell never had anyone who would help me through college, or buy my first car, or help pay for insurance. I knew a long time ago that I had two choices. I could either feel sorry for myself, wear the chip, hate the world, take what I deserved, or I could stand up to the challenge, work hard, be a decent person and make the most of my life. I chose the latter.”

  “With the exception of not coming forward the day that little Claire Sanderson went missing. It wasn’t such a decent thing, letting Frank Whittier take the fall just to save your ass.”

  Colton’s gaze didn’t falter. “No, it wasn’t,” he said, looking Ramsey straight in the eye. “And that’s a choice I regret deeply. But do you really blame me, Detective?” Colton laid both hands on the table. “You’ve proven my point. This is why I didn’t come forward twenty-five years ago. I’ve done nothing wrong, but you’re poking into every aspect of my life, talking to people I associated with, laying doubt as to my innocence. You’re investigating me, Detective! Simply because I was doing my job at a time and place where someone else did something hideous.”

  The man didn’t raise his voice. But he was showing emotion. A step in the right direction.

  “I’m older now, Detective. And self-employed. I can handle the negative aspects of being interrogated, but twenty-five years ago I was a kid starting out. I had very little savings, no means to get a better education and no parents to fall back on. The only thing I had was my reputation and if you’d done then what you’re doing now—which we both know you would have—I could have lost every chance I had at a decent life.” None of which meant that Colton did not take that little girl.

  “Chester told us that you had a girlfriend while you were at UC.”

  “I dated.”

  “Someone outside of UC.”

  “That’s what I told the baseball team.”

  “It wasn’t true?”

  “I didn’t have a girl, period,” Colton said, his gaze as direct as always. “I dated a couple of girls a few times, but that was it. I knew I couldn’t get involved. I had nothing to offer anyone, no ability to support anyone.”

  Not many freshmen in college thought about supporting their dates.

  “I most certainly would not have brought a girl to any of those baseball parties. I didn’t date those kinds of girls. And even if I did, I wouldn’t subject any girl to the avaricious appetites of those immature, egotistical clods. They didn’t know when to say when.”

  “You remember any of the girls’ names? Or anything about them?”

  “One. Haley Sanders,” Colton said without hesitation. To remember a casual date’s name that easily after so many years meant something.

  That the girl had made an impression? That Jack Colton was as careful with every single aspect of his life as he was with his money?

  “She was sweet, different. More mature than the rest of the girls I knew.”

  “You remember anything about her? Her parents? Was she a student?”

  “I met her outside a movie theater near campus. She was waiting on a date who stood her up. I never met her family. Or knew that much about her. She didn’t like to talk about her life. We met up a few times, but I never even had a phone number for her. She always called me, which is how the guys knew she existed. We had a pay phone in the hall on our floor and I wasn’t always there to get her calls.”

  “You hear from her lately?”

  “Not since a week before the cuts were announced. Whether I made the team or not, I told her I couldn’t continue to see her.”

  “Why couldn’t you see her?” He made himself sound merely curious. And had a feeling the answer was important.

  “Because I liked her. A lot. And I could tell she was liking me a lot, too.”

  “And that meant it had to end?”

  “Yes. I was not going to settle down until I had the means to provide.”

  Right. Colton had already said that.

  But he’d seemed to live it, too.

  “You’ve got the means now.”

  “Yes.”

  “By the looks of things, you’ve had them for a while.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Then why haven’t you settled down?”

  “I never met another Haley.”

  The ring of sincerity in the man’s tone almost convinced Ramsey that Jack Colton was telling the truth.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  L ucy didn’t wait for Ramsey to call her. No more late-night conversations between them unless there was an emergency that needed immediate attention. Those intimate hours in the dark of the night were far too personal, and reserved for her most private moments.

  Saturday, an hour after his scheduled meeting with Jack Colton, Lucy called Ramsey. She was on her way home from Cincinnati—an impromptu trip to see Lori Givens, off the clock, with hopes of picking up the hair ribbon that Claire Sanderson had worn—disappointed and empty-handed. She’d pulled in to get gas and dialed Ramsey while she waited for a pump to clear.

  “Miller.” She recognized his business voice in the one word.

  “You at the office?”

  “Yes.”

  “I won’t keep you,” she said. “I just wanted to know how things went with Colton.”

  “I got his DNA.”

  She smiled at the tiny bit of ego she heard in his voice. “Good for you!”

  “I actually have a few things to tell you when I can talk freely. Can I call you tonight?”

  No. She’d made a decision. She knew her limits. Had a weakness where he was concerned.

  Just like
her mother’s weakness for alcohol.

  “Of course.”

  She’d always been reticent by nature—she rarely shared anything—and suddenly she was wanting to tell this detective, this man, everything. Every thought. Every feeling.

  “I’m on my way to Boston. Following a lead. I pulled over to take your call but was planning to call you when I got home.”

  The bad mood her dead-end trip to Cincinnati had caused suddenly dissipated.

  Nothing was resolved, different or better in any way, but she was smiling.

  He’d been planning to call her.

  “You’re like a fine glass of wine at the end of the day, Detective. You better watch out or I might get addicted.”

  Lucy’s throat was dry again.

  “Are you getting fresh with me, Detective?” she said back, in a voice she didn’t recognize. At all.

  “Depends.”

  “On what.”

  “On what you’d do if I was.”

  “Oh.” She didn’t know what she’d do. What in the hell was going on? Ramsey Miller had no more interest in a relationship with anyone than she did.

  But she was dying to sleep with him. Had she given herself away? Or was he fantasizing about her, too?

  “I’ll talk to you tonight, okay?”

  “Yeah. Talk to you tonight,” she said, but he’d already disconnected their call.

  L ucy stopped in to see Sandy and Marie. The two women were sitting at the table playing cribbage. Sandy was winning. Of course. Her mother was great at cards. Luckily Marie enjoyed playing and didn’t mind losing.

  She’d called Ramsey. She’d seen her mother. She wasn’t expected at work until Monday. Which left her with the unaccounted-for time she needed.

  Time to do what she had to do without having to answer questions. Or listen to lectures about protocol, safety, cop smarts or her lack of professional detachment.

  She drove across town, out of town, to the grocery store where Sandy had stopped for baby food that fateful day so long ago. The store had been remodeled, the parking lot repaved, but the basic structure was still the same.

  Today’s market bore security cameras at every outside corner and interspersed throughout the store, as well.

  Parking where her mother had parked, Lucy walked into the store, collected a basket and walked around the store, stopping for a time at the baby-food aisle, looking for diapers. And milk. She continued on through an empty checkout and back outside, without picking up a single item. Pushing the basket with the metal child seat inches from her body, she imagined Allie sitting there, propped up with her blanket because she had just started sitting up completely by herself.