FADE TO BLACK - Thrilling Romantic Suspense - Book 1 of the BLACK CATS Series

by Leslie A. Kelly

  “Do me a favor, okay?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  “When I tell Winnie, keep a close eye on her husband, would you? He’s not the nicest man in the world.”

  His eyes narrowing, he tried to read between her simple words, wondering if Stacey suspected Lisa’s own stepfather of killing her. That seemed like a long shot, the Reaper being reckless enough to kill someone so close to him. But he’d certainly seen criminals do reckless things. “Of course.”

  When they reached the same small, dingy, shuttered house they’d visited the previous evening, Dean noted the beat-up old hatchback in the driveway, as well as a dusty sedan with a smiling laptop logo on the side, and heard Stacey’s slow exhalation. “They’re both here.”

  “It’s a rotten part of the job, but you’ll do fine,” he murmured.

  When he saw the thin, wasted-looking woman appear in the doorway before they’d even exited the car however, he had to rethink that. She didn’t look strong enough to carry a gallon of milk, much less hear news of her only child’s murder.

  The victim’s mother had obviously heard from her neighbor that the sheriff had come looking for her the previous night. She walked down the steps toward them, looking both hopeful and terrified. “Sheriff?” she called. “You got some news?”

  Stacey reached for her hat, which she’d set between the front seats, and put it on her head as she stepped out of the car. It was the first time he’d seen her in it, and somehow it completed the whole image of a strong, in-control professional.

  The slight tremble of her lips, however, said a thousand times more about the woman wrapped up in all that professionalism.

  His heart twisted in his chest, an unfamiliar sensation that he’d only ever experienced with Jared, when his little boy had been hurt or was afraid. He wanted to soothe her, to protect her, to take this burden from her. But Dean knew he could only cover her back. And be there for the inevitable recriminations and emotional overload once she had done her job and gotten far away from here.

  “Can we speak in private?” she asked.

  The woman paled, her eyes darting frantically, as if she half expected to see her daughter appear, safe and sound, maybe in handcuffs but okay. Alive. Accounted for.

  “Please, Winnie. Let’s go in out of the heat.”

  The older woman nodded, twisting her hands in the front of her drab, shapeless housecoat. “All right.”

  The house, with its dingy and weather-beaten exterior, was equally as morose on the inside. From the cluttered foyer, he noted that every curtain was drawn, each visible room cast in shadows that defied the bright morning sunshine. As if it weren’t welcome here, as if the whole place were already in mourning.

  He supposed it had been, for seventeen months. But for Lisa’s mother, the true mourning was about to begin.

  “Winnie, this is Special Agent Dean Taggert, from the FBI.”

  He extended his hand. She merely stared at it, as if it were a snake ready to bite. Maybe she thought not acknowledging his presence would forestall the dark news she already sensed was coming.

  “Is Stan here?” Stacey asked.

  “He’s sleeping. He works nights a lot now.”

  “Maybe you should get him.”

  “He’ll be mad,” the woman whispered. “Tell me about Lisa.”

  Stacey took her hat off, holding it at her side. “We should wait for Stan.”

  The two women stared at each other, Stacey resolute, Mrs. Freed visibly afraid. Finally the older woman looked away, knowing in her heart what was coming, wanting to forestall the inevitable moment when reality could no longer be evaded. “I’ll go get him. Have a seat in there,” the woman said, gesturing toward a shadow-filled living room.

  They watched her trudge down a hallway, open a door, and descend into what must be a finished basement. Separate bedrooms in the Freed marriage, perhaps?

  When she was gone, her slow, aged footsteps growing lighter until they disappeared altogether into the bowels of the house, Dean stepped into the cavelike living room. Cluttered with a mishmash of furniture, it was as hot as an oven despite the closed curtains blocking out the sun. A sad assortment of ceramic figurines covered the surface of the coffee table, shepherds, milkmaids, and farm animals, gathering dust and ignored. The room had an abandoned feel, and he suspected that when Mrs. Freed was in this house, her existence consisted of sleeping, bathing, and eating. Not really living.

  Catching sight of a number of framed photographs on the wall above the well-worn couch, he leaned closer. “Lisa?” he murmured, eyeing the sweet-faced little blond-haired girl in school pictures like the ones he had of Jared back at his place.

  Stacey joined him, though she looked like she’d rather be anywhere else. “Yes.”

  “I wouldn’t have recognized her. She was so pretty, so innocent,” he said, having to swallow hard as suddenly something clicked in his brain. He recognized it as the moment that came in almost every case, when the victim became a person. Someone’s loved one, someone’s daughter. “Sad.”

  “She was a doll,” Stacey admitted through a throat that sounded tight. “I used to babysit her. Can’t tell you how many puzzles we did together right on that table.”

  He jerked his attention from the half dozen photographs of the ponytailed child, and stared at the woman standing so stiffly beside him. Stacey had admitted she knew Lisa, just not how well she’d known her. Realizing how much this had to be personally affecting her, he again felt the urge to put his hands on her shoulders and tug her close to enfold her in his arms. He sensed she didn’t lean on anybody very often.

  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, knowing he couldn’t reach for her, couldn’t make this personal. Not here, not now. Not until she made it personal.

  “I’ve got to catch whoever did this, Dean.” Her voice shook with angry emotion, her slim body suddenly seeming too fragile to handle the weight that had been dumped on it. “I can’t live the rest of my life without catching him.”

  Hearing the depth of her frustration, he couldn’t resist putting one hand out, touching the tips of his fingers lightly to her arm. He wanted her to feel the unvoiced support he was offering her. “We’ll catch him. I promise you.”

  She glanced at his hand, but didn’t pull away. Instead, she lifted her own and covered his fingers with her soft, capable ones. And in that moment, the touch, intended to be comforting and impersonal, simply became more. It secured an invisible connection between them, reinforcing his promise that he was here and wouldn’t let this case go unsolved. And underscoring her belief in that promise.

  It also acknowledged that they both knew there was some personal force at work between them that went beyond the job, beyond the case. Beyond this room in this house.

  “Thanks,” she murmured. Nodding and clearing her throat, she ducked away and turned her back on the photographs, as if unable to stand the innocent eyes that he knew she saw as accusing. Glancing at the floor for a moment, then at the figurines on the table, she suddenly stalked back out of the room to wait in the foyer.

  He followed, knowing she couldn’t stand being in that room with those memories.

  A moment later, Mrs. Freed returned from the basement of the house, still wearing her faded housecoat, but having pulled her hair back off her thin, bony face. The style emphasized the dark circles under her eyes and the haggard folds of skin hanging on her neck. “He’s comin’.” As if realizing they might be curious about why her spouse was sleeping in the basement, she grudgingly added, “Air’s not very good up here. It’s cooler down there, so he sometimes sleeps on the sofa in his office.”

  “Understandable,” Stacey said, shifting on her feet. She obviously hated the delay and wanted to get this over with.

  Mrs. Freed glanced toward the room they’d just exited, then at Stacey. “Want to go into the kitchen for a cup of coffee?”

  Nodding once, her back stiff, Stacey followed the woman, Dean taking up the rear. Though small, the
kitchen appeared immaculately clean. With no shades or curtains to darken it to a tomb, it was better, less cloying than the rest of the place.

  Gesturing for them to sit at the round table, Mrs. Freed prepared two cups of coffee and brought them over. She pointed at the sugar bowl, plopped a small carton of milk beside it, and mumbled, “I’ll go see what’s keeping him.”

  The woman had been morose and frightened when they’d arrived. Now her tension had shifted, worry changing to jittery nervousness, and he wondered just what her husband had had to say to her when she’d awakened him. Was it even possible that her motherly concern had been diluted by the annoyance of an angry husband? Given the few comments Stacey had made about the victim’s stepfather, he imagined so. Winnie Freed looked cowed by life, by tragedy, and also, perhaps, by the man she’d married.

  When that man entered the room a moment later, Dean felt sure of it.

  “What’s this all about?” the man asked, his tone nothing less than surly.

  Stan Freed was a head taller and about a hundred pounds heavier than his waif of a wife. With heavy, bloodshot eyes, a deep frown on his brow, and a belligerent jut to his chin, he obviously didn’t appreciate being awakened.

  Stacey immediately rose to face him. “You and Winnie might want to sit down.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do in my own house, young woman.”

  Dean stiffened, already disliking the man intensely.

  Ignoring him, Stacey turned to Lisa’s mother, putting a hand on her shoulder and taking her arm. She gently pulled her forward and helped her down into a chair, then sat directly in front of her. Bent at the waist, with her elbows on her knees, she took Mrs. Freed’s hands in her own. “It’s about Lisa.”

  The other woman sniffed, staring at her own lap. Before Stacey said another word, a drop of moisture dripped out of the woman’s eye, slid down her cheek, and landed on the women’s joined hands.

  “I’m very sorry to tell you this, Winnie, but we have evidence that Lisa is dead.”

  The older woman’s shoulders shook, and the single teardrop was joined by another. And another. But her grief remained silent, pent-up.

  “We believe she died a long time ago, probably the same night she disappeared.”

  “Well, that’s a fine job you’ve done as sheriff, then, isn’t it?” Stan Freed muttered. He remained stiff and scowling, his arms crossed over his chest, watching the scene as if it didn’t affect him. As if he hadn’t just learned that his stepdaughter, his wife’s only child, was dead.

  Dean felt heat rise from low in his body up into his head until his pulse throbbed in his temple. He struggled to keep a lid on it, not let anger drive him, to avoid giving his temper free rein by saying what he really wanted to say to the man.

  Stacey remained remarkably calm, ignoring the husband, focused only on the wife. “I wish this had turned out differently. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

  A long shudder racked the woman’s body. Her chin jerked; her thin shoulders banged into the back of her chair. She managed to bite out one strangled word: “How?”

  Stacey glanced up for a brief moment, meeting Dean’s eye. He offered her what silent assistance he could, knowing she’d be careful in what she revealed.

  “It appears she was murdered, Winnie.”

  The woman moaned, then tilted her head back, looking at the ceiling. A low, keening wail began to fill the room.

  “Knew that girl would get herself killed one day,” Stan muttered under his breath.

  Stacey finally put her attention squarely back on the man, leveling him with a glare so heated it was a wonder he didn’t singe.

  As if just realizing the hateful words had actually left his mouth, he flushed a little. Then the mean-spirited husband reacted in a somewhat normal way, finally stepping over and putting a hand on his wife’s shoulder and squeezing it. Hard.

  Dean frowned. Freed’s hand went white as he squeezed. Temper. He doesn’t like to be challenged.

  “Mr. Freed?” he said, no longer able to remain out of this strange situation, not when he suddenly realized just how cold and detached Lisa’s stepfather appeared about her murder. As if he wasn’t surprised. As if he didn’t give a damn. And that harsh hand on his wife’s shoulder seemed more threatening than comforting. “Why don’t you and I go talk in the other room?”

  Mrs. Freed’s hand came up and she covered her husband’s, clawing at it frantically, not letting him go, even though his grip appeared punishing. “Please …”

  “I’m not leavin’,” he said to both of them.

  Dean nodded in concession, but also held the man’s eye, making sure he knew they would be having a conversation sooner or later. Because Dean was suddenly very curious about Lisa Zimmerman’s stepfather. How they got along. Whether the man had a history of violence. If he’d ever been arrested. Whether he was really going to work at night, as his wife had said he was.

  And suddenly, remembering what Wyatt had told him earlier, he found himself wondering if Stan Freed really had been asleep downstairs in his office.

  Or if he’d been online.

  Mrs. Freed swiped her arm across her eyes. “Who did it?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Stacey said. “But we’ll find him, I promise you. We’re working on it with the FBI. He won’t get away with it.”

  The woman shook her head, hard, as if to wake herself from a dream. The low wailing continued, whimpers bubbling up in her throat and falling out of her mouth like helpless coughs. “When can I see her?”

  Stacey glanced at Dean again, wariness visible in the tense lines of her face. She’d worried about this moment; she’d admitted that last night. Knowing from experience that some people simply would not accept a loved one’s death without seeing the visible proof, Dean understood completely. Though, in his mind, it was unfathomable to think of a parent witnessing the remains of a child who had been dead for a year and a half.

  In this instance, it was almost a blessing that Lisa had not yet been found.

  “Mrs. Freed,” he murmured, taking the situation out of Stacey’s hands, “while we are sure that Lisa was killed, we have not yet located her remains.”

  The woman’s head jerked as if she’d been slapped. So did her husband’s. They both gawked at him. “Well, how do you know she’s dead?”

  “Ma’am, we have irrefutable proof.”

  “Maybe it’s not her; maybe she’s not …”

  Stacey cut her off. “I saw the proof, Winnie. It’s her.”

  “I want to see this proof.”

  “No,” Stacey said. “I identified her myself. There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind, and I’ve known her since she was a baby.”

  The woman stared, saying nothing.

  Leaning close, still holding those tired, trembling hands, Stacey lowered her voice, sounding like a parent comforting a child. “Please do yourself a kindness. Remember your daughter by those photographs in the living room, and mourn the child you raised. I know you have lots of wonderful memories. She was a happy little girl and she loved you very much. Let that be enough, I’m begging you.”

  Stan cleared his throat, obviously reading between the lines how graphic their proof must be. For the first moment since they’d arrived, Dean saw a hint of humanity in the man’s hard-eyed stare. His shoulders slumped, and he cleared his throat and mustered a concerned tone. “Sheriff’s right, Win. You shouldn’t be cuttin’ yourself up like that.”

  Human tenderness? Or guilt?

  Whimpering, Mrs. Freed gave it one more effort. “But what if they’re wrong?”

  Dean met Stan’s eye, shook his head once, expressing every bit of confidence that they weren’t.

  “They’re not wrong. And you’re not looking at that proof, Winifred, so get it outta your head.” Stan slid his hand across his wife’s shoulders, tugging her hard against his side to underscore his command. She flinched, then allowed it.

  That flinch said more than a million words Winnie Freed
might have uttered.

  If this scumbag hadn’t beaten his wife at least once a week since he’d married her, Dean would give up his badge. Nearly choking on the disgust of it, he had to turn away and stare out the window, noting the decrepit, rusting swing set rising like an ancient ruin from the scraggly, knee-high grass.

  Poor Lisa. No safe, happy playgrounds for her. Not for a very long time.

  “I promise you, we’ll catch whoever did this,” Stacey added. “And God willing, we’ll find her remains soon so you can bury her.”

  The victim’s mother must have heard the resolved certainty in Stacey’s tone. That word bury seemed to sink in like nothing else had. The finality of it. The harshness of it. Because she stopped moaning, stopped shaking, stopped hoping.

  AS HE ENTERED Brandon and Lily’s joint office Saturday afternoon, Wyatt felt the frustration thick in the air. It was evident in their frowns, the tension of their bodies, the angry jabs of their fingertips on two computer keyboards.

  His two IT specialists had been working since just after dawn, trying to keep up with the sick inhabitants of Satan’s Playground. Especially one sick inhabitant. But the site kept throwing up barricades, stumbling blocks that its “legitimate” users obviously knew how to get around. Unwelcome visitors, however, didn’t find it as easy. Even visitors as brilliant as Brandon Cole.

  “Have you found anything else?” he asked. He hadn’t checked in since noon, not wanting to pressure the two, who’d put in hours just as long as his own since this Reaper case had started.

  “He’s gone. He put up that sign, let the crowd worship him, then disappeared.” Brandon sprawled back in his chair and shook his head. The young man scowled at the monitor in disgust, watching the sick acts taking place all over it. “He crawled back into his hole and hasn’t come out again, though I can tell by the users list that he’s online, watching. Just not participating.”

  Or maybe not sitting in front of his computer. But always there, hovering, like some damned malevolent presence.

  “Keep trying,” he said.