Obsession

by Patricia Bradley

  “That’s much better,” Emma said. “At least I can wiggle my fingers.”

  “Just remember what I said about lifting,” her dad said, then he turned to Sam. “Emma said you received the private investigator’s report. Mind if I look at it?”

  Sam handed him the envelope. “Let’s move to the table where we can spread out.”

  Once they were seated around the table again, Sam removed the two reports. For the next few minutes, the only sound in the room was that of pages turning. While they read the reports, he scanned the newspaper clippings. Mary Jo’s body had been found at the bottom of a cliff at Loess Bluff by coon hunters, and the articles left no question that everyone suspected Ryan of the murder. Sam took out his phone and googled the distance from Loess Bluff to Mount Locust. Three miles. Interesting.

  The next article was an interview with Sheriff Carter where he was quoted saying that it appeared the Selby girl was running from someone and they struggled and she fell, hitting her head. Then he went on to point out that Ryan Winters, a person of interest, had gone missing. Carter might as well have put out a Be On the Look Out alert. Sam looked up as Jack laid the report on the table.

  “I didn’t remember Bell’s report being this thorough,” Jack said. “Do you have Sheriff Carter’s file on Ryan’s disappearance?”

  Sam handed him the sheriff’s report. Jack grew very quiet as he read the report and then handed it to Emma. “Looks like he didn’t go to much trouble looking for Ryan,” he said. “There’s no mention that he even put his information into NamUS.”

  Emma’s dad must have been conducting his own research to know about the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. “I’m not certain NamUS was that well known when Ryan went missing,” Sam said. “And from what I’ve learned since I’ve returned to Natchez, Carter was lazy.”

  “It always looked to me like he wanted to pin Mary Jo Selby’s murder on Ryan. My question is why?” The older man stared at the reports spread out on the table. Sam could almost see his thoughts churning, then Jack raised his head. “But before we get into that, I’m getting the feeling you’re not telling me something. So, let’s hear it.”

  41

  This was the very thing Emma had feared. She glanced at Sam. He looked as though he wanted to be anywhere other than her living room.

  “We all knew Ryan,” Sam said. “He wasn’t capable of killing anyone, and especially not Mary Jo.”

  “You’re not answering my question.” Her dad tilted his head. “But maybe you did. You said ‘knew’ Ryan, as in past tense.” He looked from Sam to his daughter. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  She should have known her dad would figure it out. “We don’t know for sure,” Emma said. “The dig at Mount Locust. We believe a body was buried there.”

  Her dad crossed his arms over his chest. “You’ve been digging there for three days. Either a body was there or it wasn’t.”

  “Originally we weren’t sure,” Sam said, “and then someone stole whatever had been in the ground.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish,” Emma said. “We continued the excavation and found one bone. The thief must have dropped it when he carted off the rest of the body.”

  “Was that all you found?”

  “We uncovered a . . .” She swallowed. “A ring . . .”

  Sam finished the sentence for her. “A man’s 2012 Mississippi State class ring.”

  Color drained from her dad’s face. “You think it was Ryan’s.”

  “It looks like it, but it hasn’t been confirmed officially yet,” Emma said, her voice breaking. “RTW was engraved on the inside. And I gave Sheriff Rawlings a DNA sample today to compare to the DNA in the bone we found.”

  “I plan to check with the university and the ring company tomorrow,” Sam added.

  “There won’t be two people with those initials graduating from State in 2012.” Her dad leaned back, his body sagging in the chair. “I’ve known all along this day would come.”

  Emma rubbed her forehead. What if it wasn’t Ryan? Was it wrong to destroy her dad’s hope that his son was still alive? Would this be yet another regret she’d have to live with? “Maybe we shouldn’t have told you.”

  “No. You did right,” he said.

  “I feel so responsible,” Emma said.

  “Why? Your brother made his own choices.” A frown creased his brow. “You haven’t been blaming yourself, have you?”

  “No. Yes . . .” She slumped in the chair. If only she hadn’t told him . . . “I don’t know. If I’d just stayed with him that night . . .”

  “You did nothing wrong. You had a migraine and had no way of knowing what was going to happen after you left.”

  She couldn’t bring herself to look at him.

  “Emma, honey, don’t tell me you’ve lived with guilt all these years.”

  She looked up at him, and something must have shown in her face.

  He groaned. “I should have realized you felt that way. Honey, you have to put this behind you and move forward.”

  “How?”

  Her dad was quiet a minute. “The way I did.”

  “You felt guilty?” she asked. “Why?”

  “For the same reason—I kept thinking if I’d gone with you after we left the restaurant, he’d still be here.”

  Ryan’s disappearance had affected each one of them. “How do you deal with it?”

  “I’ve accepted that I can’t change history—just like you can’t unscramble eggs. And I’ve come to understand that the choice to not go with you two that night wasn’t the wrong choice. I had to work the next day. You and Ryan were twenty-one, old enough to fly on your own.” He stood and took his cup to the coffeepot. Once he filled his cup, he turned back to them. “And lastly, I took it to God and came to realize that he was big enough to carry it. But it didn’t happen overnight.”

  How she envied the peace in her dad’s face and in his voice.

  “I’ve tried to tell Emma that,” Sam said. He’d been quiet until now.

  She turned to him. “How about you? You said you were still struggling with your decision to leave the Hideaway.”

  “You felt responsible for my son?” her dad asked. “Why?”

  “I’m afraid that’s my fault.” Heat flushed Emma’s face. Sam might not have felt that responsibility if she hadn’t pushed it on him. “I should never have asked you to stay with Ryan. And I shouldn’t have gotten angry when you made the choice to help your sister.”

  Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. Then he took a deep breath. “As long as we’re confessing—”

  “Look, I think we’ve beaten this rug long enough,” her dad said. “We need to switch gears and start looking for whoever killed Ryan, if that was his body buried at Mount Locust. And if it’s not, then we need to track him down wherever he is, once and for all.”

  Her dad was right, but first she wanted to make sure Sam understood none of this was his fault. She turned to face him, her heart hurting at the sadness his eyes bore. “You did nothing wrong that night. I was wrong to make you think you did.”

  A look crossed his face she couldn’t read.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” he said softly and squeezed her hand.

  “Are we good now?”

  “I hope so.”

  His touch was like an electric current racing up her arm. Would it be too much to hope they might have a future? She marshaled her thoughts back to the reports and found Sheriff Carter’s thin file. “It says here that witnesses saw Mary Jo and Ryan together at the tavern and that they left together. But the only witness Carter names is the owner of the Hideaway.” She looked up. “Who are the others?”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said. “I’ve never seen such a sloppy job in an investigation and don’t know how he got away with it.”

  “He made Ryan the handy scapegoat.” Her dad picked up the sheriff’s report. “Do you think Carter could have killed Ryan?”

  “If
he did, we’ll never find out now. I’ve heard he can’t even remember who his son is half the time,” Emma said.

  “Since Trey was one of the last people to see Mary Jo alive, maybe that’s why the sheriff accused Ryan of killing her,” her dad said. “He was protecting his son.”

  “Why were Trey and Gordon even in Natchez that weekend?” Sam asked. “It wasn’t spring break or anything.”

  “That was Ryan’s doing,” Emma said. “He got them to skip class on Friday and drive down for our twenty-first birthday celebration—those two were always looking for a reason to party, Gordon especially.”

  Sam nodded thoughtfully. “Wasn’t Carter running for reelection that year?”

  “Yes, and it was a hotly contested race,” her dad said. “I think he won by a narrow victory. If his son had been accused of murder, he probably would have lost the election.”

  “And by pointing the finger at Ryan, it looked like Carter had solved the crime,” Sam said. “It wasn’t his fault Ryan had disappeared—although we know why now. I wonder if the FBI investigated the crime since it happened on park service land?”

  “I don’t remember hearing anything about the FBI.” Her dad rubbed the back of his neck. “Didn’t the Selbys have two daughters?”

  She searched through her hazy memories of Mary Jo. They’d gone to school together since junior high when the family moved to Natchez, and while she and Mary Jo hadn’t been close friends, they’d known each other and were in the same church youth group. “I have my school yearbooks . . . if she has a sister, maybe she’s in one of them.”

  Emma hurried to her bedroom and dug into her cedar chest for her yearbooks, quickly realizing she’d have to have help. Just as she opened her mouth to call for her dad, Sam appeared at the door.

  “Need help?”

  “You know I do,” she muttered and stepped aside so he could get the annuals.

  She followed him back to the living room, and each of them took a yearbook. Emma started with her tenth-grade one while her dad and Sam took other years. Right away she found Mary Jo’s photo not too far from hers. The girl had had the it factor. Cheerleader, class president, voted most beautiful in their sophomore class.

  “There are no Selbys here other than Mary Jo,” Sam said and put his annual aside. He took out the newspaper clippings while Emma picked up another annual. After a few minutes, he said, “Mary Jo’s obituary lists the sister as Sandra Wyatt. It doesn’t give her age, but she was already married by the time Mary Jo died.”

  Emma set her annual aside and peered over his shoulder at the obituary. “I wonder if she has a Facebook page?”

  Sam quickly connected to the social media site. “I don’t find anything.”

  “I wonder if she or her parents still live in Natchez? I’d like to talk to them,” Emma said.

  “Good idea.” Her dad stood. “But we can’t tonight, and I have an early morning meeting.”

  Weariness radiated off him like heat. She’d not seen her dad so tired in a long time. “I wish we didn’t have to deal with this again.”

  “I know, sweetheart. And since we don’t know anything for sure yet, we don’t want to tell your mom.”

  “My thoughts too.” She stood and hugged him. “Thanks for dinner.”

  “Anytime.” He turned and shook hands with Sam. “Can I count on you to watch out for my girl here?”

  “Yes, sir,” Sam replied, his face somber.

  She hated that her dad was worried about her. Thank goodness he didn’t know about someone shooting at her. A chill raced down her spine. Was someone shooting at her because she was getting too close to discovering what had happened to Mary Jo?

  42

  He pressed his phone close to his ear. Jack Winters had left, and Ryker and Emma had moved away from the living room, making it difficult to hear them. If only he’d had time to place the other bug in her kitchen. Twice he’d about had a heart attack when someone fumbled around the bookcase.

  One thing for sure, Ryker hadn’t told Emma how he’d hugged her friend. Confirmed Ryker was trying to hide it from her. And he didn’t tell her that he’d had a fight with her brother at the tavern. That was something he could put in his arsenal and use against Ryker.

  They had discussed Mary Jo’s sister, Sandra. That was a problem he hadn’t anticipated. Did she remember him? They’d met only that once and briefly at that, but had Mary Jo talked about him? He didn’t want to kill Sandra—he wasn’t a monster. He hadn’t meant to kill Mary Jo. Ryan, yes, but not that sweet girl.

  But in the end, she hadn’t been so sweet. Screaming those horrible names at him because he’d shot Ryan. He hadn’t meant to kill her, but she shouldn’t have run from him.

  He stiffened. Emma was crying. What had Ryker done to her? He pressed his lips tight. This could not go on. This week, maybe tomorrow, he would do something to make sure Sam Ryker would never hurt Emma again.

  43

  After Jack left, Sam’s thoughts whirled as he helped Emma put the dishes into the dishwasher. Mentally he made a list in order of priority, starting with talking to the owner of the Hideaway, but first he had to get his name.

  “I saw your dad the other day,” Emma said.

  Sam stopped with a plate halfway to the bottom rack. He hadn’t seen that coming. “So?”

  She ducked her head. “Nothing. Forget I said anything.”

  He heard the tears in her voice and quickly set the plate down. “What’s going on?”

  “Really, I shouldn’t have mentioned him.”

  “I’ll agree with that.” He used his knuckle to raise her head. Tears glistened in her eyes. “But something else is going on. What is it?” Tears leaked onto her cheek, and he brushed them away. “Is it Ryan?”

  “No. Maybe.”

  He pulled her to his chest. “I’m sorry this is happening. You deserve better than this. Ryan deserved better. We’re going to get his killer.”

  “I keep thinking if I could just talk to my brother again, there is so much I would tell him, but most of all that I loved him. I’ll never be able to do that.” She pulled away from him, and for a few minutes they were silent as she washed and he dried. “I’ve heard your dad has become a Christian.”

  Sure, he has. To be a believer one had to admit they were wrong and ask God for forgiveness. People like his dad never admitted they’d committed any wrong. “I don’t want to talk about him,” he said.

  With a sigh, she nodded and finished loading the dishwasher in silence. “There’s something I should have already told you.”

  “If it’s about him, I don’t want to hear it.”

  “He has cancer,” she said.

  Sam absorbed the information. “I hate to hear anyone has cancer, but it doesn’t change the way I feel or what he did.”

  “I get that, but there’s something else you need to know before it happens.” She took a breath. “I’ve heard your mom is going to let him come home so she can take care of him.”

  “Mom would never do that.”

  “She told her Sunday school class that’s what she planned to do. Her class is going to help with meals.”

  The betrayal almost knocked his legs out from under him. He clenched his jaw so tight pain radiated down his neck. Sam made a point of checking his watch. “It’s getting late, and I better go home.”

  “Don’t hold on to your anger, Sam. It’ll only hurt you.”

  She hadn’t lived with his father. She hadn’t been called stupid and irresponsible. She hadn’t borne the welts on her back from his father’s leather belt. “I have a few things I need to do tonight. Do you know what time you want to take the cat to the vet tomorrow?”

  His face burned under her scrutiny. “Whenever I can get an appointment.”

  “I’ll call you in the morning,” he said.

  “Don’t you have to work?”

  “I’m taking the morning off. Brooke can handle the day shift by herself.”

  A few minutes later, Sam sa
t in his SUV staring up at her windows. Emma meant well, but she didn’t understand. He took out his phone and sent her a text.

  Sorry for the way I acted. Make it up to you tomorrow.

  He held his breath, waiting for her reply.

  That’s okay. I shouldn’t have tried to push you into something you didn’t want to do. See you tomorrow. xoxo

  Feeling better, he started his SUV. It wasn’t that late, and he had time enough to check out the Hideaway. Once he checked Google for the name of the owner, he drove to the sports bar out on Highway 61 that featured wide-screen TVs and dancing. Judging by the packed parking lot, business was good. Once Sam was inside the building, he paused to let his eyes adjust to the dim light. He doubted his lungs would adjust to the cigarette smoke. Sam ambled to the bar and nodded to the bartender wiping the counter.

  “What’ll it be?” he asked, tossing the cloth on a counter behind him.

  “Is Charlie Shaw in?” Sam asked.

  The bartender looked him up and down. “You a cop? ’Cause we don’t serve minors in here.”

  “Nope.” Sam was glad he wasn’t wearing his uniform and gun.

  “What do you want with Mr. Shaw?”

  “I knew him when I lived here a few years back, and now that I’m home again, thought I’d touch base.”

  “Then you should have recognized him when you came in.”

  Sam shot the bartender a puzzled look, and the man nodded toward the door. Sam turned. A couple danced to slow music on the floor, but beyond them a short, squat man with an almost nonexistent neck sat at the first table inside the building. Sam didn’t remember the owner resembling a bullfrog. “Didn’t say I knew him well,” he said. “And he’s put on a little weight since I last saw him.”

  “You could say that.”

  “Thanks.” Sam made his way through the crowd to Charlie Shaw’s table. “Mr. Shaw?” he said.

  The man removed an unlit stogie from his mouth. “Depends on who’s asking.”

  “Sam Ryker.” He held his hand out, and the bar owner ignored him. “Mind if I sit down a minute?”