by Alexa Grace
“I just need to talk to them. No shooting involved.”
“In that case, follow me.”
He led Cameron to a horizontal row blocked off as an observation area for the twenty-lane, covered outdoor range. It wasn’t hard to spot the Blacks, even if they hadn’t been the only ones on the range. April wore a bright floral housedress, looking like the mother character in a sixties sitcom. Next to her, Dwayne stood wearing a cowboy hat, dark T-shirt and black jeans, and holding a twenty-gauge shotgun. Johnny Cash had nothing on Dwayne Black. Cameron sat on a bench near their lane to watch.
With his arm around her, Dwayne showed April how to hold the shotgun correctly. “Honey, hold the grip of the gun with your firing-hand.”
“How am I supposed to know which hand is my firing-hand if I’ve never shot a gun before?”
Exasperated, Dwayne took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “April, if you’d give me a chance to talk, I was about to tell you that it’s the hand you use to write with.”
“Well, why didn’t you just say that?”
“Hold onto the gun securely, but gentle, like you’re giving it a handshake.”
“Honestly, Dwayne, the last thing I’m giving an intruder is a handshake.”
A grin pulled at his mouth. “The gun, not the intruder. Hold the gun gentle, like you’re giving it a handshake. That’s it. Now you’re going to put the gun into the firing position. Pull it up to your shoulder. Press it against your shoulder like you’re giving it a cuddle.”
She looked at her husband as if he were joking. “A cuddle? Really?”
“April, if you don’t keep it tight in your shoulder, you’re going to feel a painful kick that could leave a nasty bruise. So just hold it tight and let your body absorb the kick when you fire.”
Cameron watched the middle-aged couple and wished his case was over and done with—perp caught and convicted. Justice done. As he got to know each one, his list looked less like suspects and more like the families of victims that they were, just trying to live and forget, striving toward a new normal.
He thought of his suspects. First there was Anthony Cooke, still devastated over losing his only child. Was it a coincidence that he burned his hand the same night the Lucas mailbox was set on fire? Bobbie, his wife, claimed he was sleeping next to her during that time. It wouldn’t be the first time a wife lied for her husband. But could the Anthony Cooke he’d known since high school write cryptic notes, throw a bloody rock, and set a mailbox on fire to terrify the parents of the boys who killed his Destiny?
Tate Green. Could he be seeking retribution? Initially, Cameron had liked him for terrorizing the Lucas couple. The guy had some anger issues, but was it likely he was the perp? His alibi checked out for both dates. Besides, Tate was working full-time hours with Best Buy, plus taking care of his terminally ill mother. Where would he find the time to drive an hour to and from the Lucas place for each act of vandalism?
And then there was Kaitlyn Reece. Now there was a live-wire of a suspect. He had personal knowledge that Kaitlyn carried insects from the house and planted them on the lawn outside rather than spray or stomp on them, like most people. A third grade teacher, it was Kaitlyn who started a support group for families of victims. She was the worst excuse of a suspect he’d ever had and having her interviewed as one had earned her anger, as well as the wrath of his younger brother.
Cameron had officially crossed Val Staley’s parents off his suspect list the day before. Val had the distinction of being the youngest murder victim. At fifteen, she was a runaway who’d lived in the area only six months when she had the misfortune of being at the wrong place at the wrong time and fell victim to the Lucas brothers. Mr. and Mrs. Staley lived in Chicago and their alibis checked out. They’d been cooperative on the phone, answering his questions and providing names and phone numbers when asked. The couple was suffering a terrible guilt that had pervaded their lives. Where did they go wrong as parents? What could they have done to prevent their young daughter from running away in the first place? No, Val Staley’s parents were more obsessed with self-blame than lashing out at the Lucas couple.
“Hey, take a picture. It will last longer!”
Dwayne Black, hands on his hips, glared down at him as April placed a restraining hand on his arm.
“Sorry about that. I was waiting for you to finish.” Cameron stood, slipped out his identification out of his pocket and handed it to Dwayne. “I’m Sgt. Cameron Chase…”
One glance at his badge and April’s hand flew to her chest. “Oh, God. Has something happened with our kids? I knew I shouldn’t have left them with a sitter!”
“Everything is fine. I stopped by your house before coming here. Your sitter told me where you were. I’m with the Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office and I need your help with a case I’m investigating.”
Dwayne’s arm curved protectively around his wife’s shoulders. “A gun range is no place for us to talk. There’s a Cracker Barrel about a mile away.”
Cameron nodded. “I saw it on the way here.”
“We’ll pack up and meet you there in about twenty minutes.”
Mid-morning at the Cracker Barrel, too late for the breakfast crowd and too early for the lunch crowd, the hostess easily found a table near a window where Cameron could watch the parking lot. A young waitress poured him a cup of hot coffee and asked if he’d like to order. When he told her he was waiting for someone, she said, “Lucky woman,” and shot him her most flirtatious smile. What he wouldn’t give for one of those smiles from Robynn Burton, who still hadn’t answered his calls.
Cameron heard a ping and checked his phone. Cheryl Davis, the crime scene tech who was at the Lucas place the night of the bloody rock incident, had sent him a text. The good news was the shoe impression she’d taken was identified as a Genuine Dickies Men’s Job Rated waterproof work boots. The bad news was it was one of the most popular work boots sold at Walmart. The best she could offer was to match the print to any work boots owned by the vandal, whenever he was identified. Crap. Could this guy not leave a solid lead, like DNA or a fingerprint?
Soon April and Dwayne Black joined him at the table. The waitress reappeared and without looking at a menu, Dwayne ordered two fried eggs with cheese grits, biscuits and sausage gravy, and an order of thick-sliced bacon. Cameron ordered the same thing, while April went with a more health-conscious order of a yogurt parfait and an apple bran muffin. As soon as the waitress left, Dwayne got right down to business.
“I’m not sure how we can help you with an investigation in Shawnee County. We’ve only been there a couple of times. Last year we were there during morel mushroom hunting season. Hunted mushrooms then went to your mushroom festival in Morel.”
Apparently, Wayne Griffin had not gotten to the Blacks to give them a heads-up. Cameron waited for the waitress to deliver hot coffee to the Blacks and to pour some of the hot brew into his cup.
“I’m here about Tisha and Bradley Lucas…”
Confused, April pushed her bangs out of her eyes. Dwayne just stared, a spark of recognition in his eyes. “Aren’t they—?”
“They’re Evan and Devan Lucas’ parents.”
“What about them?” Dwayne wanted to know, his eyes now filled with suspicion.
“Someone has been vandalizing their property and sending them threatening notes. Just wondered if you knew anything about that.”
April still looked confused. “Why would we know anything about Mr. and Mrs. Lucas? We’ve never even met them. Not that we’d want to after what their sons did to Sharon. Did you know our daughter was beaten so badly by the Lucas twins that the only way she could be identified was through her dental records? Our girl never hurt anyone. Why did she have to die like that? We had to have her casket closed at her funeral.” Her voice faded away and Dwayne covered her hand with his own.
“You’ve been through hell. Maybe you want payback for all you’ve been through thanks to the Lucas boys. Maybe you want retribut
ion?”
“Payback?” Dwayne leaned forward, incredulous and more than a little offended. “Hell, if we wanted retribution, it would be from their two no-good animals they called sons. Do you know what it’s like to tell three small children that their mommy is never coming home? Do you know what it’s like to listen to your wife cry herself to sleep each night?”
April interrupted, touching a gold locket at her throat. Cameron recognized the locket immediately. It was the one they’d found in a bin at the Lucas storage unit, where the killers kept souvenirs of their victims. Like it was yesterday, he remembered mailing the locket to April so that she would have something that belonged to her daughter. “See this locket. I gave this to Sharon for her thirteenth birthday. She wore it every day of her life. I wear it now and I’ll never take it off. I’ll never forget her. And I’ll never forgive the murderers that took her from us. Never. But the Lucas parents? I imagine they’re in a hell of their own.”
His eyes taking a hard edge, Dwayne lowered his voice. “That doesn’t mean we don’t expect them to pay. You might as well know, we’ve seen an attorney who says we can sue the Lucas couple for negligence, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. They may not have committed the murders, but they certainly contributed by providing their sons a work van they used to abduct their victims, and a storage unit where they tortured and killed them. In the way they raised them, they undoubtedly contributed in ways we’ll never know. We’re talking with the families of the other victims, so this may turn into a class-action lawsuit.”
“So you’re saying this lawsuit is your way of getting payback?”
“I don’t think of it as payback. It’s something we have to do for our family. I’m a house painter and April has to stay at home to care for Sharon’s three kids. Raising three small children requires more money than I make. We want the Lucas parents to take responsibility for their sons’ acts and help us raise our kids financially. It’s only fair. Sharon would be here today taking care of her own children if it weren’t for their sons.”
Cameron nodded. What could he say to that? Murder impacts so many more people than just the victim. But was money enough for the Blacks? Was their resentment so deep that they’d harass Tisha and Bradley Lucas? He couldn’t picture April committing the acts of vandalism or writing the threatening notes, but Dwayne was another story.
Cameron pointedly glanced at Dwayne. “I need to know where you were the evening of April tenth?”
“How the hell am I supposed to remember that?”
“Wait a minute.” April opened her purse and took out a small calendar. She flipped a couple of pages, then responded. “Dwayne worked late at the Holly’s house on South Street. They’re expecting a new baby, and Dwayne painted their nursery. I have their phone number if you want to call them.”
Cameron withdrew his notebook from his jacket and pushed it across the table to her. “Thanks. Just write down the name and number.”
As April wrote, a sharp image sizzled through Cameron’s brain—Bradley’s desk in the reception area, coated with about a half-gallon of blood red paint. Dwayne Black was a house painter.
“Hey, Dwayne. My brother’s fiancée watches a lot of HGTV. She says we need to paint our front door red for a pop of color. Do you have many clients that want their front door painted red?”
“Sure, I’ve had a couple of clients who wanted to do that.” He slipped a business card out of his pocket and handed it to Cameron. “Just give me a call. Of course, it might cost a little extra considering the drive and all.”
“Thanks. Folks, I think we can wrap this whole thing up if I could take a quick look inside your house and garage.”
A flare of anger lanced through Dwayne’s expression, as he got up and slid his chair back into place. April followed suit. “You can go straight to hell and while you’re there, get a search warrant.”
Chapter Thirty-six
Second Day Alone
Sunlight streamed across the bed and assaulted Tisha’s eyes as she struggled to wake up. Something inside her head pounded like a sledge hammer, and she winced from the pain as she shielded her eyes with her hand. Finally, she managed to push herself up to a sitting position, opened her eyes, and realized she was fully dressed, wearing the clothing she’d worn the day before. Oddly, her grandmother’s quilt covered her. The quilt was stored at the back of her closet and she had no memory of getting it out last night. Tisha cursed herself for finishing off the entire bottle of Pinot the night before. Damn it. She wanted the wine to make her sleepy not knock her out.
With her head exploding with pain, she got up and made her way to the kitchen where she brewed a pot of strong coffee. With a cold glass of water, she downed a few Advil, opened a bag of bread and placed two slices in the toaster. Her father used to tell her that strong coffee and plain toast was a good remedy for a hangover. Tisha hoped this was one of the times he was right.
Filling her mug with coffee, she wandered into the living room to sit in her favorite chair near the fireplace. She’d taken a couple of steps inside the room, when her heart froze and she dropped the hot coffee to the floor, ignoring the burning as it scalded her legs. Biting off the urge to scream, she felt the blood drain from her face. Everything in her living room was different. Furniture that hadn’t been moved in twenty years was now in a difference place. Her favorite chair near the fireplace was now by the window. The table that was in front of the window was now in a dim corner of the large room. Trembling, she gripped the back of the nearest chair and willed herself to calm down and try to make sense of it all. Easing toward the wall, she flipped on the light switch. To her horror, framed photographs of her sons lined the fireplace mantel each documenting a happy time in their lives. Happy times that lived only in her distant memory.
This was impossible. She had to be imagining the row of pictures on the mantel. Bradley had made a big show of packing them in a box and storing them in the basement, lecturing her the entire time about starting a new life, creating a new normal. Sobbing, Tisha sank to her knees, sick and shaken. Was she going crazy? How did the photographs get from the basement to the mantel if she didn’t put them there? Had she been in such a drunken stupor that she couldn’t remember what she did the night before?
Struggling to her feet, she moved from room-to-room checking each door and window to make sure it was locked, looking for any evidence that her home had been broken into the night before. Finding everything as it should be, she swallowed hard and returned to the living room half-expecting the photos to be gone and the furniture back where it should be. But it was not.
Fighting to even her breathing, she called Bradley at the hotel in New Orleans, but the call went to voice mail. Disconnecting the call, she thought about their last conversation when he’d called her crazy and paranoid. There was a good chance that her husband would not believe her. He may think she rearranged the furniture and returned the framed photographs to the mantel herself. Would he think she really was crazy and have her locked up somewhere?
Looking down at her cell phone, she wondered if she should call the police. Would they believe her? Probably not. One call to her husband, and they’d think she was daft, too.
Cursing Bradley and Krystle for leaving her alone, she went to the bar and poured herself a tall glass of wine, the nerves dancing in her body be damned.
Chapter Thirty-seven
The Visit
Bryan tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and glanced at Mollie in the passenger seat beside him. “I’m not sure this is such a great idea.”
“No kidding. I didn’t get that. You’ve only said that three times now.”
“Tell me again why we’re driving to the Lucas house.”
“You were there when Cameron told us that Bradley went to a four-day conference in New Orleans leaving Tisha alone in the house. She must be scared to death with their vandal still on the loose. I just want to pay her a friendly visit, give her this basket of her favorite choco
late-chocolate-chip muffins, and make sure she’s okay.”
Grinning, Bryan asked, “And why do you think those are her favorite muffins?”
“I don’t think, I know. She always orders them when she comes to my cafe. That, and Bradley occasionally stops by to take a dozen home with him.”
Bryan pulled off the highway onto a dirt road that ran perpendicular to a field of corn.
“What are you doing? This is not the route to the Lucas house.”
“Correct.”
“Why are you stopping?”
Instead of answering, Bryan levered back his seat and dragged her over the console until she was sitting on his lap. Before she could object, he crushed his mouth to hers, exploring her mouth for all it was worth, igniting a bone-melting fire that surged through his blood. He wanted this woman. Seeing her and not having her was making him a crazy man.
There was an excellent chance she wanted him just as much because she melted against his body and wound her arms around his neck.
Bryan paused, drew a ragged breath. “We need some time alone.”
Looking down at him, trying to catch her breath, Mollie said, “I know it’s not easy dating a woman with a teenager in the house.”
Bryan feathered light kisses down her neck as his large hands circled her waist, holding her captive. “Any chance we could have next weekend away, just the two of us?”
“I’m not sure I can wait that long. It just so happens that Hailey is spending the night with her best friend. How does dinner for two tonight at my place sound?”
Smiling suggestively, he rubbed his thumb along her lower lip. “Just a heads up. I may not be able to wait for dessert.”
As he pulled into the Lucas driveway, Mollie adjusted her clothing and put a fresh coat of lipstick on her mouth. Bryan opened her door and when she got out, gave her an affectionate pat on her bottom that made her blush. At the front door, he pressed the doorbell several times before Tisha appeared, her blond hair tousled, her clothing wrinkled as if she slept in them.
