Shadows of the Past (Logan Point Book #1): A Novel

by Bradley, Patricia

  The telephone rang, and her mother rose to answer it. After a few words, she pointed toward the phone and mouthed, “Farm business. I’ll be in the office.”

  Taylor set the glasses in the sink and turned to go upstairs for her keys to drive into Memphis. The back door scraped open again.

  “Well, girl, it’s time for a better hug than I got last night.” Jonathan’s smile stretched from ear to ear on his jowly face. He bent over and wrapped his arms around her. “How’s my favorite niece this fine day?”

  A small chuckle escaped her lips. “I’m your only niece.”

  “Darlin’, if I had fifty nieces, you’d still be my favorite.”

  He hugged her again, and she rested her head on his chest and breathed in horses and hay and the pipe he smoked when her mom wasn’t watching. He oozed safety . . . security. For the moment, she forgot the land issue.

  Her uncle released her. “Let me look at you.”

  She hadn’t seen Jonathan in years, not since he’d come to her college graduation in New York. He’d lost a little more hair on top, making his long face seem even longer, and he’d put a little weight on his lanky frame. But the skin around his blue eyes still crinkled when he laughed.

  Jonathan squeezed her hand. Taylor patted his small potbelly. “I see you haven’t missed any meals.”

  “Your mama sees to it I don’t go hungry.” He hitched up his khaki pants. “Where’s Allison?”

  “In the office.”

  He nodded. “So, how long are you staying?”

  “I don’t know. Classes begin again in August.”

  “Good. That’ll give us the rest of the summer to work on getting you back home for good. You could teach at the University of Memphis.”

  “Are you still doing community theater?”

  His sidelong glance told Taylor she hadn’t fooled him, but thankfully he played along.

  “Occasionally,” he said, “but mostly I take Abby to practice. She’s really into this acting thing, and if there’s a good part for an old, balding, character actor, I’m their man.”

  “You’re not old. What are you, forty-four?”

  “Twenty-nine!” he retorted, then grinned. “And I have been for the past fourteen years.”

  Taylor remembered the mysterious light. “Were you up at the old home place last night? I was looking out my bedroom window and saw a light go around behind the house.”

  “It wasn’t me. I turned my phones off and went to bed at nine. Could’ve been Pete, though. Teenagers around here have discovered the legend about the tunnels beneath the house, so I asked him to keep an eye out. Wouldn’t want one of them to get lost down there.”

  “I didn’t realize the tunnels at Oak Grove were still open.” Dug long before the Civil War to aid slaves escaping to the North, they connected the old house to caves in the nearby river bluff.

  “Only a couple of them go all the way to the river bluff.”

  Taylor’s skin prickled, and she rubbed her arms. “You won’t get me near there. Close me in, no light—I would die on the spot.”

  “That’s one way you’re not like your mama. Before you and Chase were born, Allison spent hours exploring those tunnels with your dad.”

  Taylor’s heart hammered in her chest. “Jonathan . . . why did my daddy leave?”

  Disbelief darted across his face and then a flash of something else. Something so fleeting, Taylor wasn’t sure it had been there at all.

  “Taylor, you aren’t still pursuing that, are you?”

  “I don’t understand why you don’t want to look for him.”

  “I did look. When he first went missing.” He planted his feet wide and gestured with his hand. “Don’t you know if someone wants to disappear, they can do it? Please. That’s all behind us. Don’t stir it up fresh again.”

  What happened to the uncle she always went to as a ten-year-old? The uncle who always said the right things, told her one day they’d go find her dad. She was thirteen before she realized he was placating her. That’s when she quit asking. Until now. “My nightmares are back. I . . . thought if I could find him and ask why he left, they’d go away. You used to tell—”

  “If your father is alive, it’s plain he doesn’t want anyone to find him.”

  Hard and cold, his words stung. Taylor blinked back tears. “This time you have to do better than that. I have to know.”

  “Some things are better left alone. You can’t change the past. Let it go.”

  She lifted her chin. “I can’t.”

  “Even if it means destroying your mother? This family?”

  “Truth won’t destroy us.” She touched her chest. “And how about me? I need to know.”

  His face softened. “Is that why you came home?”

  “Not entirely. A case I was working on in Newton has a Memphis connection, and Chase wanted me to weigh in on the land deal.”

  “Oh.” He rubbed his balding head. “Well, I want you to hear my side before you come to a decision. This is a really good deal, actually more than the land’s worth. We’ll call a family meeting after dinner tonight and fully discuss it.”

  “Why not now?” Chase demanded from the doorway. “We’re all here.”

  Startled, Taylor jumped and turned as Jonathan jerked his head toward the doorway.

  Her uncle’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you’d already left for the office.” Then he curtly nodded his head. “But now is fine. Get your mother.”

  While Chase went to find their mom, Jonathan folded his arms across his chest, and the “my mind is made up, and I’m not changing it” scowl settled on his face. It was a look she’d come to know well growing up. Her stomach tightened. She did not want to be here.

  Silence thickened in the wake of Chase’s exit.

  “I need you to hang with me, darlin’.”

  “But Jonathan—”

  “Taylor, I need the money this sale will bring.” Desperation edged his voice.

  “I have a little saved up. Let me loan—”

  “I’m not borrowing money from my niece.”

  Chase returned to the kitchen with Mom. She carried a large white envelope in her hands. “Do we have to do this now?” she asked.

  “Mom, let’s get it out of the way. It’s been hanging over us too long as it is.” Chase pulled out a chair for her.

  From the look on her face, Mom didn’t want to be here any more than she did. Taylor returned to the seat she’d vacated only a short while ago and waited for the meeting to begin, but first her mom handed her the envelope. “This came for you today. Who knows you’re here?”

  Taylor stared at the white envelope her mom handed her. A dull ache started in her temple. No. It had to be something from Christine or the college, and she laid the envelope on the table. “It’s probably from the university. I’ll look at it later.”

  Mom took her seat. “Who wants to go first?”

  “I do.” Jonathan leaned forward and put his arms on the table. The scowl had disappeared. “First of all, as usual, we’ll abide by majority rule, and we’ll vote after everyone has spoken.”

  Chase’s jaw shot forward. “I say we vote now and save time.”

  “No.” One word, but it carried weight. “I know how you’re going to vote, but Taylor doesn’t know all the particulars, and your mom still has a few questions. I’ll go first with why selling is a good idea, and you can end with why we shouldn’t.”

  Her brother pressed his lips together in a grim line and sat back in his chair, arms folded.

  “So Taylor will know, the offer is from someone working with the contractors who built the subdivision across the road. It’s a million dollars for the sixty-five acres of farmland behind our three houses and does include Oak Grove. That breaks down to roughly two hundred and fifty thousand for each of us. The buyer will pay the realtor, but there are a few other fees.” He looked around the table. “Any questions so far?”

  Mom leaned forward. “I thought you were going to
negotiate with the buyer to keep the old home place.”

  Jonathan rubbed his jaw. “We need to let it go, Allison. Do you know what it would cost to fix it up? With Oak Grove being part of the Underground Railroad and on the National Register of Historical Places, do you want the hassle of dealing with the restrictions to renovate? I don’t. The agent wants an answer by the first of next week. If we accept the offer as it stands, we’d have our money within a month.”

  Taylor lifted her finger, hoping Jonathan wouldn’t snap it off.

  “Question or comment?” he asked.

  “Why do we have to decide now? Why can’t we take a few more days?”

  “Because I’d like to tell the realtor our answer today.”

  “No way!” Chase gripped the table. “Unless it’s a no vote.”

  Her uncle closed his eyes briefly, then shook his head as if to clear it. “Before you say any more, Chase, let me explain why I think we should sell. Fifteen thousand an acre is top dollar for that land. You think those two-hundred-thousand-dollar houses across the road are expensive? The houses built on our land will start at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars—we’re not talking about cheap tract houses. Now, say your piece.”

  “First,” Chase said, “I want to know why. Why now, why ever?”

  Jonathan snorted. “It takes a small fortune to keep this place up. Taxes, mowing—which you never help out with—repairs . . . do I need to go on?”

  “You won’t let me help. I’ve offered.”

  “Maybe that’s because I want it done right.”

  “You won’t—”

  Mom banged her hand on the table. “That’s enough, you two.”

  Both startled but closed their mouths.

  Her mother massaged her hand. “Chase, go on.”

  He swallowed. “I just want to remind us all that this land has been in the Martin family since before the Civil War. The land and Oak Grove are our heritage. Think about Granna and Papa.” He glared at Jonathan. “I can’t believe you’d sell your own parents’ place. Oh, but I forgot. You don’t have a sentimental bone in your body.”

  “Chase . . .” Mom touched his arm.

  The dull ache in Taylor’s head had morphed into full throbbing. “Can we wait until later to do this? My head is killing me.”

  Three pairs of eyes turned toward her.

  “I think that’s a good idea,” her mom said.

  “Could we at least have a prelim—”

  A hard look from her mom silenced Jonathan.

  “I’m going up to my room to try to ward off a full-blown migraine.” Taylor stood and started for the stairs.

  “Wait,” Jonathan called after her. “You forgot your envelope.”

  He handed it to her, and she hurried up the stairs.

  In her bedroom, Taylor examined the envelope. The postmark was blurry. How did she miss that downstairs? She looked closer. Memphis. She covered her mouth with her hand as the room spun. Scott? But how did he find her? She ticked off the people who knew where she was and came up with only five. Livy, the secretary at the university, Christine, Sheriff Atkins, Nick.

  Nick? He didn’t have her address, but how hard would it be to find the Martin address on Google? She tried to remember if she’d mentioned either her mom’s name or Jonathan’s.

  Maybe she was worrying for nothing. Tight-lipped, Taylor grabbed a tissue and opened the flap. When she pulled the contents out, a wave of weakness swept over her. The poem. Three photos. The first two were the same as others she’d received—her sitting on a rock, her standing in her kitchen. She flipped to the last one and choked out a gasp.

  The Coleman crime scene.

  How had Scott taken this? She stared at the photograph that showed her watching the paramedics load Beth Coleman into the helicopter bay, the husband and daughter hovering beside her . . .

  I KNOW WHERE YOU ARE. The words were neatly printed with a black Sharpie across the bottom. The same Sharpie had circled her image . . .

  She snatched her cell phone from her pocket and called Sheriff Atkins at home. “Dale, are you up to talking to me a minute?” she asked when he answered.

  “I was actually going to call you shortly. I just found out the Coleman kidnapper didn’t commit suicide.”

  “What?” Blood pounded against the top of her head.

  “The doctors finally allowed one of my deputies in to take Beth Coleman’s statement. Appears there were two kidnappers. She believed at first that only Ralph Jenkins was involved and tried to escape from him with little Sarah. They struggled, and that’s when his partner shot her.”

  “Could Beth describe the second man?”

  “No. She never saw him.” Dale inhaled a shaky breath. “But he whispered something in her ear before she lost consciousness.”

  She steeled herself.

  He continued. “Something about death unfolding like a flower. When Zeke showed her the poem, she recognized the rest of it. Taylor, you need to be very careful.”

  The photos slipped from Taylor’s hands. A numbing chill gripped her stomach and spread to her lungs, choking off her breath.

  A man dead, a woman shot.

  And now, by coming home, Taylor had drawn her family into a murderer’s direct line of fire.

  11

  Taylor, are you there?”

  “I’m here, Dale.” Breathe. Think this through. What kind of person kidnaps two people and kills their partner to send a message?

  A very sick person. The same one who wanted to kill her. Who knew where to find her.

  If she didn’t stop him, someone else would die, and it would be her fault.

  Taylor sat on the side of her bed and concentrated on breathing. “Whoever it is, he knows where I am. I just received another package with photos that included the Coleman crime scene.”

  That up to this moment she truly believed Scott had sent. But his profile didn’t support the type of planning it would take to pull off such an elaborate scheme. And it didn’t support such cold-bloodedness.

  “I want a copy of everything in the package.”

  “Yes, sir.” Now she knew why the Coleman case had nagged at her. That was why it had been so easy. “It was a setup . . .”

  Taylor closed her eyes and tried to snag the elusive hunch that wouldn’t stay put. Talk it out. “Beth Coleman and her daughter were taken in Newton County . . . they were chosen because the kidnapper knew you would call me in on the case. If I’m the primary target—”

  Beth, little Sarah . . . My fault. All my fault.

  She balled her hands into fists. “The kidnapper had to find someone in our county he could manipulate.”

  “Right. This probably eliminates Scott Sinclair. Nineteen-year-olds don’t typically have the ability to plan a complex situation like this.”

  “I know,” Taylor said.

  Dale broke into a coughing fit. “I’m sorry,” he finally wheezed. “Lost my breath there.”

  Guilt flushed her cheeks. She hadn’t even asked how he felt. “Are you okay? You haven’t gone back to work, have you?”

  “Not full-time. Working a little bit from home since Zeke left for a conference in your area.”

  “Zeke Thornton is here, in Mississippi?”

  “He’s attending a conference on cyber crimes at the National Forensics Training Center in Southaven. I think it ends Saturday.” His voice cracked. “I’m getting tired here. You need help on this. I’ll have Zeke call you.”

  “I’d rather call my friend at the Memphis Police Department.” She shouldn’t have kept him on the phone so long.

  “Don’t fight me on this, Taylor. Zeke has your cell number, and he’ll be calling you.”

  She didn’t look forward to butting heads with Zeke. “You take care of yourself.”

  Taylor paced her room. She had to tell her family—they had a right to know she’d brought danger to their doorstep. They needed to watch themselves, be careful. But first she’d call Livy. Taylor punched in her
number.

  “Reynolds.” Livy’s voice sounded hurried.

  “I have a major problem.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I received another package . . . photos. Here, at Mom’s. And it includes a picture of me taken at the last crime scene I worked in Newton.”

  “You’re kidding.” Livy paused. “Hold on a second, Mac.”

  “You’re busy.”

  “Have a meeting with the captain in two minutes. Why don’t you call Ben Logan?”

  Logical. Taylor should have already thought to call the Bradford County sheriff. It would be Mississippi jurisdiction, anyway. “Do you have his cell number?”

  Livy gave her the number. “Call me after you talk to him.”

  “I will. Doesn’t look like I’ll make it to Memphis today.” She’d really wanted to start looking for her dad’s files.

  “I’ll take care of it. And you might want to think about moving in with me until whoever is doing this is found.”

  “That’s a thought. Then I would only have to worry about you getting hurt. I was thinking along the lines of a motel.”

  “Do what you have to, but you’re welcome anytime.”

  She broke the connection and dialed the sheriff’s number. Ben answered on the second ring.

  “Taylor? I heard you were coming home, but I didn’t expect to see your name on my ID,” he said with a chuckle.

  “I didn’t expect to call you, either.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I have a problem, and I don’t want to discuss it over the phone. Or here, at Mom’s.” Taylor wanted a plan ready before she told her family.

  “How about at Kate’s? I had planned to stop by there later today, anyway. Mom’s birthday is next week, and she’s been hinting for one of Kate’s porcelain pieces.”

  Kate Adams’s pottery studio would be perfect. Nothing ruffled Livy’s aunt, and anything said there would stay there. “How soon can you meet me?”

  “I stepped out of a meeting with the mayor to take your call. Shouldn’t take over half an hour to finish up.”