“What’s going on?” the boy asked. He sounded even younger than he looked.
“This man’s from the police. He’s checking to make sure we didn’t remember anything that’d help bring Emma home.”
“Call me Pepper,” he said to the boy, smiling. Fake Officer Friendly. Pepper could remember being his age. He’d avoided adults like they were aliens.
“I remembered something,” said Mason.
“Something you didn’t tell before?” asked Mr. Bailey. The boy’s father suddenly sounded anxious. Excited.
The boy nodded. “I remembered I saw the Greenhead guy somewhere before.”
Pepper got excited too but tried not to show it. “Do you remember where you saw him?”
“I’m not sure. I think on TV.”
“TV? What show did you see him on? The news?”
“I forget. But it was on TV.”
Pepper thought for a bit, then asked, “What made you remember that?”
“I saw the news about Emma and they were talking about him. And I pictured what he looked like when it happened. I never saw his face too good. Just his green head.”
“What did he look like?”
“He looked like you, but older. And with a fatter face. And a lot meaner.”
“That’s great, Mason,” he said. He would have to pass along this tip to Detective Sweeney. Someone would follow up, interview the boy more thoroughly and show him a photo six-pack again. “Can you think about that some more? Maybe you’ll remember something else. It’d be a big help.”
The boy looked happier. The parents looked more optimistic too. Pepper was glad his visit had helped raise their spirits a bit.
“I won’t take any more of your time,” he said. “But please know everyone’s working hard to bring Emma home. Both Emmas.”
“You promise?” asked Mason, brightening even more.
“I promise. I’ll bring Emma home… Or I’ll die trying.” As soon as the words came out of Pepper’s mouth, he realized how stupidly mistaken they were. Crazy promises that could only give false hope. Writing checks his dumb butt can’t cash…
Pepper’s cheeks reddened and he made a hasty goodbye. Hoping the Baileys wouldn’t take his promise to heart. Hoping they’d forget. Because Pepper knew he never would.
Idiot.
Pepper was driving back to New Albion when his cell phone buzzed with a text message. It was Delaney.
Freaking out! U there? it said.
What's wrong? he texted back.
After a pause she replied, Someone outside!!!
Then his phone rang. “I need you to come over!” said Delaney, her voice high and panicked.
“Tell me what happened.”
Delaney started sobbing. “Someone was at my door. I heard footsteps and somebody knocked. I’d just showered, so I didn’t open it. I just looked through the peekhole.”
“Was it Casper Yelle? The guy in the picture?”
“I couldn’t see anyone. But then the person shook the doorknob real hard, so I backed away, you know? And then the person kicked my door three times, really hard. So I ran into the bathroom and called you. I’m kinda freaking out here… I think it was the Greenhead Snatcher!”
Chapter Seventeen
Pepper was ten minutes from Delaney’s apartment. He made it in five.
He’d told her to hang up, call 911, but she didn’t want to overreact. So he stayed on the phone with her. At his suggestion, she checked the lock on her door and closed her blinds.
At one point she said she heard footsteps near her door again. When she looked through the peephole, the fishbowl view was empty.
Pepper hastily parked in the Langham Arms apartment complex’s large lot and jogged toward Delaney’s building, which was the left side of the U shape of three buildings. Each building had exterior walkways, like at a cheap motor inn.
Delaney was on the second floor, but Pepper didn’t know which apartment exactly. He’d never gotten closer to her place than the parking lot.
He took the shaky metal stairs two at a time up to the green fake-turf carpeting of the second floor. “Hey, I’m here, which apartment?” he asked into his phone.
Pepper saw a door open halfway down the hall. Delaney’s face peered out. Then she stepped into the hallway in a Ramones half-shirt and faded cutoff jeans and gave him a thin smile.
“Thank God! Pepper, I’m so sorry! It seems silly now, but I was totally freaking out!”
The door next to her apartment opened, and a tiny elderly woman in a pink bathrobe stepped out.
“Oh, it’s you making all the fuss!” the lady said to Delaney. “Who’s this?”
“Hello,” said Pepper, smiling.
“You got a lot of male visitors today. Lots of fuss.” The lady sniffed—clearly she wasn’t a big fan of male visitors or fuss.
“Did you see the person outside her door a little while ago?” asked Pepper.
“The last fellow sniffing around? I saw him through my blinds. He came and left, then came back. I don’t like it, we got enough noise here.”
“What did the guy look like?”
“Tall like you. He was wearing a hoodie and sunglasses…he looked like a drug sniffer! I almost called building management, but then the guy took off around the corner.”
Pepper had seen no video surveillance cameras for the parking lot, the stairs or the hallway. He showed the neighbor the grainy picture of Casper Yelle, but she couldn’t say if he was the man in the hallway.
“This used to be a nice place,” she sniffed, then shuffled back into her apartment, slamming her door.
“You must feel pretty protected with a neighbor like her,” Pepper joked.
“We’d better go inside before she calls 911,” laughed Delaney. She looked like she was feeling better already.
Pepper followed her in. Her half-shirt revealed the first verse of the pretty script tattoo down her back, which he now recognized as the opening lines to “American Girl” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The rest of the song disappeared into the back of her cutoff jeans, but he could imagine the lines…
Delaney closed the door and gave Pepper a huge hug. “I’m still a little freaked out,” she admitted. “Can you just stay a while, take my mind off it? The two missing Emmas…and to think the guy who snatched them might live in the next building over!”
Casper Yelle? “He’s not the only suspect,” cautioned Pepper. “Maybe he did it, maybe not. I’d like to see some real evidence which puts him at one of the kidnappings when it happened.”
“Could he have had a partner?”
“Possibly. Kidnappers usually act alone, though.” Pepper had learned at the police station that the FBI had confirmed this for the kidnapping task force.
Delaney shivered. “Let’s talk about something else,” she said. She pushed up against him, and without thinking he put his arm around her. Gave her shoulder a squeeze.
“I was alone in the bathroom, totally losing it,” she said in a quiet voice. “I just wanted to be someplace as far away from here as possible.”
Pepper hugged her again. Then he smiled down at her. “I know the perfect place.”
Chapter Eighteen
It was about a half hour drive.
Delaney sat in the middle of the front seat of Pepper’s truck and took charge of the radio. She sat back when she found a Zac Brown song.
“I love this guy!” she said.
“Aha!” laughed Pepper. “So you’re a little bit country!”
She punched his shoulder. “More than a little!” She explained she’d grown up on a small farm in Vidalia, Georgia.
“You’re ridin’ with a former Teen Miss Vidalia Onion, thank you very much!” she said, putting on a thicker southern accent.
He laughed.
She shared that besides growing a lot of onions, they’d raised cows, chickens and geese. Killed their own farm animals for food. “You should see me with an axe!” she laughed.
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�Hey, fair warning. I get it, you’re a badass.”
She pinched Pepper’s side. “No, I’m a farm girl. You’ve got to be tough to survive.”
She turned up the radio, and they sang along with Zac. Fucking great vocalist—you could tell Zac Brown meant what he sang. That’s what Pepper was always trying to do, but he wasn’t sure how successful he was yet.
Delaney started laughing when he pulled into the parking lot of Pirate’s Cove Mini Golf in South Yarmouth.
“Oh my God, Pepper!” she laughed. “I haven’t done mini golf in so long! Like, since I was a teenager!”
Pepper had been a teenager last year. He just said, “You’ll probably be real rusty.”
She punched his shoulder. “And this place looks amazing!”
It actually was amazing. Pirate’s Cove was the Mount Everest of mini golf. Its holes were steep, twisty and tricky, weaving up and down a hill around a gigantic pirate’s ship resting in a fake lagoon. It could be an intimidating test for rookies or the uncoordinated.
Pepper had been on dates at Pirate’s Cove starting in middle school—it was always a great way to have fun and flirt and chill out on a warm summer afternoon.
He decided he’d take it easy on her so she wouldn’t feel bad. He wanted her to have an escape from the recent bad events back in New Albion.
After Pepper paid, they picked a colored ball and putter, then headed to the Blackbeard Course. Delaney stepped up and put her green ball on the rubber mat. “Okay, honey,” she said, her hands now on her little hips. “What’s the bet?”
Bet? “Ah, loser buys ice cream?”
She laughed. “What’re you, twelve? How about winner gets to decide where we go and what we do next? Anything goes. You up for it?”
Pepper’s mind began racing with all kinds of dirty possibilities which probably had nothing to do with what she had in mind.
But he said fine, whatever. Tried to sound casual and not too horny at all.
Besides, maybe a little bet would help her focus on the mini golf and forget the Greenhead Snatcher situation for a minute. There’s nothing less stressful than playing mini golf on Cape Cod on a warm summer afternoon.
Or so he thought.
It turned out to be pretty stressful for Pepper.
First, Delaney was excellent at it. And she trash-talked him every time he got over a putt. His little purple ball seemed to have something wrong with it—it wobbled away from the hole if he hit it too softly. Which made Delaney snicker. And if Pepper hit his putt too hard, his ball popped over the tin hole and took off in the wrong direction.
Which made Delaney crack up every time. She was laughing at him and wiggling her butt when she putted and just having a hoot of a time. Mostly at his expense.
Delaney had taken control of the scorecard and mini pencil, and she announced to him after each hole just how far ahead she was.
After nine holes, she was five strokes up. But she hadn’t mentioned the kidnappings. She was laughing and goofing around and having a blast. He was too.
But he was super competitive at heart. And he was a damned athlete. He tried to focus and catch up.
Pepper picked up a stroke on each of the following two holes, and that’s when she started cheating. She came up behind him when he was putting on the twelfth hole and put her arms around his waist. “Y’all need a lesson?” she asked, squeezing against him and rocking back and forth. “It’s all in the hips, see?”
Pepper putted and his ball hit the brick at the edge of the course and hopped over, rolling through the short grass and slipping into a little fake river.
“Oh, that’s gonna cost ya!” Delaney laughed.
No girl, of all the girls he’d brought to Pirate’s Cove in his many years of dating, had ever been so vicious.
On the eighteenth tee, one stroke ahead, Delaney sent her ball up and into the hole in one shot.
A bullet through Pepper’s heart. He’d lost.
Before they left Pirate’s Cove, he bought Delaney a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone at the little store next door and tried to win a couple of arcade games. To get back a little pride. He failed.
Then Delaney tried a game which required you to time the spinning lights to stop on the right bulb. Of course she won first try, getting the prize of a key chain with a little penknife dangling from it. A cheap piece of crap, which she awarded to Pepper as a consolation prize.
“I’ll treasure it,” he said. She seemed much happier and relaxed. He felt that way too.
“One of my favorite bars is on the way home,” she said with a mischievous smile. “Jack’s 28 Club. Even though I won, I’ll let you choose your punishment. Would you rather buy me a few drinks at Jack’s, or take me straight back to my place?”
Pepper could just picture getting carded and thrown out of the bar in front of Delaney… But even if he had been legal, Pepper would have picked the other choice. He was impatient back then, when he was twenty.
“You have anything to drink at your place?” he asked, going for casual to hide his growing excitement.
“Good choice,” she said. And she took his hand as they walked to his truck, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Can you play me your song again, the one from our gig?” asked Delaney.
Pepper and Delaney were in her apartment again with an unspoken energy flowing between them. Like they both knew something was about to happen…neither of them rushing it.
He’d mixed them drinks. Pepper was trying to keep it together, taking his cues from Delaney. Not wanting to screw this up, because it was perfect.
Delaney grabbed a guitar from the corner of her messy little apartment, and she looked so adorable, what could he do?
He quickly tuned the guitar and sat on her saggy blue sofa. Then he sang his song, “Try Me.”
Delaney sat beside him, watching his face intently all the way through. When Pepper looked up, he saw she had tears running down her face.
“Oh my God, Pepper. That’s so romantic and sweet and just cool. Whoever inspired your song’s a damn lucky girl.”
He didn’t answer. He looked away.
Delaney squeezed his knee. “Pepper you didn’t…you didn’t write it for me, did ya?”
His mind was spinning—he was scared, embarrassed and excited, all at the same time. Of course he had. “What if I did?” he asked, finally looking right at her.
Delaney gave him her foxy little smile. She leaned over and lightly put her hands on both sides of his face. They felt small and hot.
Then she leaned in and kissed him.
Delaney’s hands were so light on the sides of Pepper’s face that her fingertips tickled.
One of his hands was tangled in her hair. The other was on the back of her warm neck. Crazy warm.
He was almost right up against her, close enough to feel heat radiating from her body. Close enough that when she inhaled deeply, their chests touched.
Then he leaned back to look her in her beautiful mismatched eyes—one blue, one dark hazel. Their twinkle matched the smile on her lips. Then she slowly peeled her shirt over her head. In slow motion, Pepper saw her flat belly first, with a cute little silver belly ring. Then her ribcage, coming and going with her labored breath. Then her bra. Black, lacy and skimpy. Then her pale, smooth neck. And then her smile again.
She stood and, without breaking eye contact with Pepper, hooked her fingers in the top of her shorts.
And at that moment, the apartment’s fire alarm split Pepper’s eardrums.
“This might be funny eventually,” Pepper said to Delaney, standing in the parking lot with a hundred other residents of the apartment complex. She had her shirt back on again, tragically.
“That’s the story of my life,” she sighed. “Bad timing!”
There were two fire engines, two police cars and an ambulance on the scene already.
No smoke that he could see. So, what—a false alarm? Perfect. Somebody probably burned their dinner…
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Dinner! Pepper had completely forgotten that Jake was cooking a family Sunday dinner. A rare event for the three Ryan men this summer. Both Pepper and their dad had sworn they’d be home tonight by six.
It was almost that time now.
“Crap! I’ve got to go anyway,” he said, taking her hand. “I’m late for a family dinner!”
“That’s cool—I’m officially giving you a rain check. And I’d like to meet your brother and your dad some time.”
“You bet!” he said, and gave her a quick, awesome kiss.
Pepper jogged to his truck to head home.
When he reached his truck, he saw it was completely blocked in its space by the ambulance. But no one was behind the ambulance’s steering wheel.
And could he really hunt down the EMT to move the ambulance in the middle of an emergency response situation?
Crap.
He jogged back to the crowd to find Delaney. Maybe she could give him a lift home. But he couldn’t find her in the crowd.
Double crap!
He checked his watch again: 5:50. He had to be home in ten minutes! It was only a mile to the Ryan home and Pepper did the only thing he could think of.
He started running.
Chapter Nineteen
Emma Bailey was blind in the darkness. She could hear the new girl’s muffled sobbing across from her. Neither of them could speak due to the stupid gags in their mouths.
Emma was hungry and needed to pee, but there was nothing to do about that. She wasn’t ready to wet herself again. She passed the time trying to think of ways to escape. She either needed to get loose while Shrek was away. Or else she’d have to somehow get him to take off the plastic zip ties and the bike chain, then either overpower him or just outrun him. Escape up the metal ladder.
She stretched and twisted her wrists back and forth in their plastic constraints, trying to break free. She had a tiny bit of room to move her wrists, which helped the circulation in her hands, although when she twisted and pulled at the binding as hard as she possibly could, the plastic dug sharply into her wrists. But she made sure not to cry out. Like Shrek had said, she needed to set a good example for the new girl.
Kill Tide Page 10
