Never Look Back

by Mary Burton

  It all went back to the question asked by his mentor. How did you boil a frog alive? Slowly.

  In Shepard’s dark eyes, he saw the isolation. The loneliness. In her, he saw his own anger mirrored back. She was not as subtle about her frustrations as he was, but then he doubted she cared if she offended anyone.

  If Ramsey shared his files with Shepard, she would not run away from it. They had more in common than either was willing to admit.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Tuesday, August 25, Noon

  “Mom!” Melina shouted as she pushed through the front door of her parents’ house. She removed the key from the lock, rattling the ring in her hand as she crossed the living room and headed down the back hallway toward the kitchen. The light of a television glowed, and the sound of the midday news mingled with her parents’ voices. “Mom!”

  “In the den, honey! I heated up a plate for you. It’s in the kitchen.”

  Her stomach grumbled. “Be right there!”

  “Mom made meatloaf, buttercup. Your favorite,” her father shouted.

  It was the one dish her mother made well. “She’s a goddess!” She hurried into the kitchen, pulled a warm plate from the oven. She peeled off the foil and grabbed a fork and a soda before making her way to the den.

  Her father sat in his recliner, his legs elevated, a slipper on his left foot and a cast on his right. He wore a favorite pair of khaki work pants and a T-shirt smudged with paint colors from last summer’s renovation project. She kissed him on the forehead, and he patted her on the arm as he muted the news. Axel, their nine-year-old rescue pit bull mix, lay on his dog bed. He thumped his tail as he looked up at her.

  Melina kissed her mother, who peered up over half glasses, smiling as she sat in another tufted chair. “How’s it going?”

  “Just watching a game show, kiddo,” her mother said.

  “You haven’t killed Dad yet, I see.”

  “A few close calls but he still lives to tell the tale.”

  She sat and cut into her meatloaf. “She’s dangerous, Dad.”

  “I know,” he said. “Never a dull moment in this house, but Axel keeps me in line.”

  The dog lumbered to his feet and sat in front of her. He had the pitiful look down pat when food was involved. She pinched off a piece of meatloaf, and he eagerly accepted it.

  Her mother sighed. “The vet says he’s fat.”

  “He’s husky,” her father said. “Big bones.”

  Her parents argued often about the dog’s weight. He was their second child, the son they never had. “Speaking of bones, have you broken any lately, Dad?” she asked.

  “Better to break bones than sit on my ass all day and watch the world go by,” her father countered.

  Hank Shepard had been in law enforcement for over thirty-five years when he’d retired the year before. Since then, he had spent the better part of the last year rebuilding the house from the outside in. She had no doubt, once he had the all clear from the doctor, he would be back on a ladder like nothing had happened.

  Meanwhile, he was doing a fantastic job of driving his wife insane. Lately, she had been talking about selling the house or taking a long vacation. All her plans had fallen on her father’s and Axel’s deaf ears.

  “You’re going to owe her that vacation,” Melina said. “Give me enough notice and I’ll watch Axel.”

  “Seriously?” her mother asked.

  “I promise.”

  “I might consider it.” Her father patted Axel on the head.

  Her mother ignored her father’s vague promise and shifted narrowing eyes on Melina. “You don’t like to babysit Axel. What’s going on?”

  Melina took a bite of the meatloaf and savored the mix of vegetables, spices, and ground beef. “This is why I moved back to Nashville. To be close and help.”

  Her mother’s face stilled as if she were waiting for a second shoe to drop. “I thought you said it was the promotion.”

  “And the meatloaf. And Axel.” She took several more bites, not realizing how hungry she had been. “This is amazing.”

  “Glad you like it.” Her mother put her book down. “What brings you by in the middle of the day?”

  “Do I need a reason?” Melina asked.

  “No, but you have one,” her mother countered.

  She stabbed one more bite, swirled it in the butter mashed potatoes. Her mother knew her too well. She ate the last bite and placed the plate on the floor for Axel to finish off. He began lapping up the scant remains immediately.

  “We have a six-year-old child in the hospital. She was in a car accident.” She saw the worry darken her mother’s eyes. “The child is fine, but the driver abandoned the vehicle and the child.”

  Her mother hissed in a breath and sat a little straighter. She said nothing, but both her mother’s and father’s attention was laser focused. “Social services has the case, and she’ll be moved to a foster home likely by tomorrow afternoon.”

  “What do you know about the driver?” her father asked.

  “This is confidential, guys,” Melina said.

  Her father’s gaze warmed with interest. “You know we’re a vault.”

  Melina had no doubt. “The driver’s name is Bonnie Guthrie. She did time in California but missed her last appointment with her parole officer. She’s not the child’s mother, according to the child.”

  “And?” her father prompted.

  She popped open her soda and took a long pull. She skipped over why Ramsey had originally come to Nashville. “FBI got involved when an officer found a pickle jar filled with severed fingers in the trunk of Guthrie’s car. All the fingers appear to be female. The medical examiner has pulled prints. We have identification on two of the victims.”

  “It’s not like you to discuss your cases with us,” her mother said.

  And here came the part that dug into uncomfortable feelings. “The kid kind of reminded me of myself. The way she was just left.”

  “Aren’t the scenarios fairly different?” her father asked.

  “You always gloss over how you found me. And I’ve never pressed for details. Now, I’m pressing.”

  Her father glanced at her mother. And when she nodded, he sat a little taller. “A call came in that there was a child on the side of the road.”

  “Who called it in?”

  “We know the call came from a pay phone at Stella’s Diner. Back in the day, no cells.”

  “I get it. Old school,” she said. “Did anyone ever talk to the folks at the diner?”

  “I did, after I picked you up,” he said. “You were standing on the side of the road hiding behind a guardrail.”

  “I remember that part of the story.”

  “No way I would have found you if someone hadn’t told us to look near mile marker one twenty-five.” His voice grew quiet. “I drove past you twice and saw no sign of you. I decided the third time would be the charm. That’s when I saw your yellow jacket. You reminded me of a frightened animal.”

  Her mother rubbed Axel’s head in a soft, loving way, as if she were calming that lost version of Melina.

  “When I reached for you, you took off running,” her father said.

  “You said I came straight to you.”

  “No. I had to move quickly to snatch you up. You started kicking and screaming, and I held you tight until you calmed down. Must have taken a full five minutes. Finally, I think all the trauma just wore you out, and you collapsed against me.”

  “That’s when he called me,” her mom said. “I met him at the station.”

  “Foster care took me,” Melina said.

  “For seven days,” her mother said. “Took that long for your daddy and me to pull every string we had to get custody.”

  “When you went to the diner, could anyone tell you who called the police?” Melina asked.

  “The call came in at 10:05 p.m. on a Thursday night,” her father said. “The restaurant manager didn’t have surveillance cameras, and it h
ad been a busy night. There’d been an event at the local high school, and the place was packed full of kids and parents. But Brenda, the woman working that night, did remember a woman coming in with a boy. She remembered thinking the woman wasn’t a regular customer and the boy looked upset.”

  “Did Brenda say what the woman looked like?”

  “Blond. Dressed kind of showy. Drove a big car.”

  A faint memory of a car flashed. The vehicle had a wide back seat and was stuffed full of suitcases and garbage bags filled with clothes. “Did the woman or boy call?”

  “She’s not even sure if either one of them made the call. In her words, it was busy as hell and she didn’t know up from down.”

  “Anything else about this woman?” Melina had pushed aside this story for so long she had almost convinced herself that it did not matter. Now, the scant details teased her with a past that suddenly felt as if it mattered very much.

  “Any names? Credit card receipts?”

  “None. Paid cash. Didn’t leave a tip. They each ate, used the restroom, and left. No one saw them before or since.”

  “How do you know they haven’t seen them since?”

  “For a few months, I checked in at least once a week. Social services searched for your birth family but stopped after a few months. I kept looking just in case there was someone who might make a claim on you.”

  “Your father knew I wasn’t going to let you go without a fight,” her mother said.

  “Whoever the woman was, she never came back to Nashville.” Her father studied his daughter with the keen eye of a veteran cop. Every so often she caught a glimmer of the badass cop he had been back in the day. “Has this case brought all this up?”

  She sighed. “I suppose it has. I had a dream last night.”

  “What kind of dream?” her mother asked.

  “Being in the back of that oversize car and then getting yanked out and being left on the side of the road.”

  “You used to have nightmares when you were little, but they stopped when you were about ten or eleven,” her mother said.

  “They never really stopped. I just stopped talking about them.”

  Her mother frowned. “You always had the same dream?”

  “Yes.” Melina did not like seeing her parents’ deepening frowns. She had never liked seeing them worried, especially about her. Maybe that was why she had stopped talking about the dream, excelled in school, and been a model student at the academy. Somewhere buried in her subconscious was the idea that if she was not perfect, they would not want her. “But it’s nothing like it used to be, and these days, the dream doesn’t bother me that much. I think seeing Elena today just reminded me of how I ended up.”

  “Who’s overseeing this child’s case with social services?” her mother asked.

  She checked her phone. “The guy’s name is Richard Barnard.”

  “I don’t know the name,” her mother said.

  “I could make some calls,” her father said.

  “That’s kind of what I was hoping, Dad. Better I stay out of it since this is an active homicide investigation.”

  “Homicide?” her mother asked. “That poor girl.”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “I’ll look into it.” Her father’s tone had shifted from dad to cop. “I’ll see to it she gets the best foster home.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “Any time, squirt.”

  Sonny was glad to be home. It had been nice spending the night at his lady’s house, but it was time to get back into his routine. There had been a season when he could be on the road for months and be content. But as he had gotten older, he’d liked sleeping in his own bed. Liked having his stuff around him.

  Restless, he shoved the key into the lock and pushed open the door. He dropped his small duffel bag and flipped on the light.

  The instant his gaze scanned the small living room, he knew something was wrong. He quietly closed the front door behind him and reached for the SIG in his waistband under his shirt. He chambered a round and very slowly crossed the pine floor toward the couch and collection of photos he had taken on the road for over fifteen years.

  The house was silent except for the slight hum of the refrigerator. He flipped on the kitchen light and confirmed that the space was as neat and clean as he had left it. He liked a clean house. Liked knowing the scent of pine waited for him when he came home.

  He jiggled the back doorknob and discovered it was locked. Still, the hair on the back of his neck rose, and he could not shake the feeling that someone had been there.

  “Bonnie,” he muttered.

  She had been calling him for weeks, but he had ignored her. He had no idea how she had gotten his number but knew damn well how clever the woman could be.

  Seeing her had been a kick to the gut. It had taken everything to remain calm. Once he’d checked his emotions, he’d recognized that familiar hangdog expression on her face. She’d had a sob story and when that had not worked on him, she’d cut to the chase. She wanted the key, but once he gave it to her, she would realize he had spent the money.

  His fingers itched as he imagined wrapping them around her pencil neck and squeezing until she died. Then the kid had gotten out of the car, looking for Bonnie.

  If not for the kid, he would have strangled Bonnie right there. He had sure dreamed of it often enough. But the kid had gotten to him and twisted his heart in ways he had thought were not possible anymore.

  She was a cute little thing. She needed a real parent and protecting, something he had never really had. But all that was drowned out by the deep sense of betrayal he still felt toward Bonnie.

  He had been a teenager when the cops had cuffed Bonnie’s hands behind her back and led her to the squad car. She was all he had in the world and was the closest thing he had to a mother. When she was taken away, he was scared shitless. He scrounged enough money for a bus and rode it to the city jail. Bonnie had always gotten out of scrapes, and he prayed she’d find a way out of this one.

  When he arrived at the city jail, his hands were trembling as he sat in the visitors’ room and waited for Bonnie. When she’d appeared, he’d been so glad to see her.

  “Baby, you came to see me,” she said through the thick glass.

  “What do I do, Bonnie?” He scooted closer on his seat, wishing he could hug her.

  She sniffed and leaned forward a fraction. “Is all our stuff still at the motel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Pack it up and find a place to live. There’s money in the bottom of the black suitcase. That will do you for a while. There’s also a key. Hang onto it. It’ll take care of us when I get out. In the meantime, you know how to get money. Don’t worry, Sonny.”

  She had taught him how to pick pockets, shoplift, and extort money, but she had always been there to distract the mark. And because they had moved around so much, he had no friends, and whatever real family he might have had was long gone. Now he would have to survive by himself. He was alone.

  Bonnie was not out soon. Despite her pleas of innocence, she was sent away for seven years. He cried the day she left for prison, and for weeks he barely got by, living on the streets. And then a local minister took him in, fed him, and gave him a warm place to sleep. It was about that time that he was going through the black suitcase again, looking for more money. When he found the key hidden in a side pocket, he threaded it through a chain and wore it around his neck for years.

  There were GED classes at the center and people who encouraged him to figure out what he wanted. He had no more excuses not to live a clean life. A job as a roadie with a band followed. He took the key, found the duffel full of money, and used it to build up a pretty damn good life.

  He walked toward his bedroom, passing the rows of pictures taken of him on the road. More places than he could remember, but all damn good times.

  He carefully pushed open his bedroom door and turned on the light. His gaze swept the room, which at first glance l
ooked intact. He almost thought he had imagined the home invasion stuff when he saw the closet door ajar.

  Sonny was a creature of habit and always closed the closet door. His heart beat faster as he moved toward the door and opened it wide. Dropping to his knees in front of the pair of boots, he knew in his gut what he would discover. Bonnie had come back, and she had remembered his habit of stashing cash.

  He shook out the pair of black Tecovas boots, and when nothing came out, he shoved his hand into the boot and fished around with his fingers. It was empty.

  “You stupid, stupid moron.”

  Heat rushed to his face as blood rose in his cheeks. He had been a fool even to answer the door.

  Once Bonnie set her sights on someone, they could resign themselves to being screwed every way to Sunday.

  He slammed the boot down. It was not the cash that really bothered him but the credit cards. None were his, and they could be traced back to his lady friends.

  He ran his hands along the wall and felt for the pickle jar hidden under a blanket. His fingers skimmed over dusty plywood flooring, finding no blanket or jar.

  “Shit!”

  His heart galloping, he reached for his cell and turned on the flashlight app and searched the darkness. No jar. The space was empty.

  “Bonnie,” he hissed.

  She had taken his jar of memories, knowing she could use it against him. With the jar, she could easily shatter the life he had built.

  He glanced at his phone and double-checked his incoming calls. There was no number that he did not recognize.

  He rose and walked to the window and discovered it was unlocked. There were scratch marks along the metal frame. Bonnie had pried it open, climbed in and out with his treasures.

  It was Tuesday afternoon. The cops had not come knocking on his door, which meant Bonnie had not gone to the police. Yet. She also had not contacted him, which was not like her. Patience was not one of her virtues.

  Whatever game she was playing, she had underestimated him this time. He was no longer a naive young boy desperately seeking her approval. Bonnie did not have a clue who she was fucking with.