by Paula Graves
It didn’t matter. No calls from her father. She called and left him a message that she was at Annabelle’s and could wait only a little while longer.
She also noted that J.D. had called twice since she shut off the phone. His sheer doggedness was beginning to worry her. What did he want? Had something happened she needed to know about?”
With a sigh, she tried his number. It went straight to voicemail. “Damn it.” She left a quick message. “It’s Natalie. I’m meeting my father but I’ll call back later.” She shut the phone back off and put it in her purse.
Leaning back against the seat, she wondered what her father wanted. She shouldn’t be surprised he was late; for all his talk about punctuality, he watched the clock only when it pertained to work. Family could always wait.
He was probably stuck in a meeting. Or ran by a store to meet with a vendor. Anything work-related could have held him up.
She stared through the windshield at the restaurant facade, remembering the last time she was here, with J.D. That had been a disaster, hadn’t it? She was getting very good at creating disasters. Too bad she wasn’t getting any better at warding them off before they arrived.
The interior of the Lexus was beginning to get hot. Prickles of sweat bloomed on her skin, a rivulet of perspiration sliding down her back between her shoulder blades, but she couldn’t bring herself to go into the restaurant. She knew she would smell the phantom blood again. She would picture the scene of her sister’s murder in haunting detail.
Why had her father wanted to meet her here of all places?
J.D. TRIED NATALIE AGAIN while waiting in the deputies’ bullpen for Travis Rayburn to show up. No answer, but when he hung up the call, he saw a message waiting from her, telling him she was meeting her father. He tried calling her immediately, but she’d apparently turned off the phone again.
“I just got off the phone with her father,” Massey said. “He’s in Mobile for the day and didn’t call.”
J.D. spat out a profanity. “Has she tried to call him?”
“He just got out of a meeting and hasn’t checked his messages on his cell yet. He said he’d call back if he found one.” Massey’s gaze shifted toward the doorway. “There’s Rayburn.”
J.D. looked up to see a wiry deputy in his mid-twenties, with short-cropped brown hair and watchful gray eyes. He gave J.D. a curious look before crossing to Massey’s desk. “Daniels said you were looking for me?”
“Sit down.” Massey indicated the chair by his desk.
Rayburn’s eyes narrowed. “What’s up?”
“Why did you tell Becker that Daniels gave you a message for her?” Massey asked.
“Because he did.”
“That’s not what Daniels says. And there’s no call to Becker logged for today.”
Rayburn glanced at J.D. “I can only tell you what Daniels told me.”
“Have you ever heard of a place called Buckley, Mississippi?” J.D. asked.
Rayburn’s gaze flickered his way. “Sure. It’s near Hattiesburg, right?”
“Three women were murdered near Buckley over a five-year period. Are you familiar with Millbridge, Alabama?”
Rayburn’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”
“This is J. D. Cooper,” Massey answered.
J.D. watched him closely. There. A little flicker of recognition. Rayburn knew who he was. He knew why J.D. was there in Terrebonne.
Rage flooded J.D.’s body as all the pieces clicked into place. He stared at Rayburn, trying to see some evidence within the deputy’s smoothly handsome face to prove the theory.
But the deputy’s expression had gone neutral again. He actually managed a polite smile as he nodded to J.D. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Cooper.”
“Cooper’s investigating a string of serial murders.” Massey’s voice was diamond hard. “He thinks the two murders that happened around here in the last couple of months may be connected to the other murders.”
“Are you a cop?” Rayburn asked genially.
“You killed the girl in Moss Crossing,” J.D. said bluntly. “It’s why the murder scene doesn’t match—he sent you to kill for him. To set up his alibi.”
Both Rayburn and Massey looked at J.D. as if he’d lost his mind. “What are you talking about?” Rayburn asked. J.D. could see Massey wanted to know the same thing. He didn’t get it yet.
But he would.
“We couldn’t figure out why the M.O. didn’t match, even though everything else did,” J.D. said to Massey.
Massey nodded, the first flicker of understanding coming into his dark eyes. “We thought it might be a copycat.”
“It was.” J.D. leveled his gaze with Rayburn. “You knew what to do, but when Lydia Randolph fought back, you couldn’t stick to the script. That was her name, you know. Lydia Randolph. I assume you know her name, since you’re the new forward scout.”
Rayburn turned to look at Massey. “Is this some kind of joke, Doyle? You’re just letting crazy people come in here now and make wild accusations?”
J.D. clenched his fists at his sides, wanting nothing more than to drive his knuckles straight into Rayburn’s smirking face, but he didn’t have time for revenge. He needed information, fast.
“Where did you send Natalie?”
Rayburn stared back, silent but smug. His expression reminded J.D. of the way Marlon Dyson had looked at the jail, almost gleeful about protecting the mysterious Alex.
How had Hamilton Gray purchased such loyalty? He had enough money to buy the county twice over, but the price for selling one’s soul was surely higher than that, wasn’t it?
“He’s lured her somewhere,” J.D. said aloud, fighting any show of fear. A sign of weakness would only strengthen Rayburn’s resolve. He had to be the stronger horse. Alpha to Rayburn’s beta. “He’s going to kill her.”
“I thought you liked Natalie.” Massey couldn’t hide his disgust. J.D. could only imagine how the deputy must feel, having worked side by side with Travis Rayburn for who knew how long without having a clue what he was really up to.
The phone on Massey’s desk rang. He glanced at J.D. and grabbed it. “Massey.”
“You know Marlon Dyson was murdered, don’t you?” J.D. asked Rayburn quietly. “That’s the loyalty Alex shows his partners.”
“I heard he poisoned himself.”
“Is that what you heard? Did you know about Victor Logan, too? How he blew up in a gas explosion Marlon set?”
Rayburn’s eyes glittered with hidden satisfaction but he remained silent.
“You killed Dyson, didn’t you? Or paid off someone to do it.” J.D. shook his head. “That’s how Hamilton does his dirty work, you know. Through his lackeys. But he won’t let you kill the women for him. He’s the only one who gets to do that.”
“I thought you said I did kill for him,” Rayburn shot back, his eyes glittering with a pride he couldn’t conceal. “Lydia Randolph, I believe you said?”
“That’s right. I’m sure you’ve read the case file. I can’t imagine you’d have been able to resist the chance to gloat over your handiwork.”
Massey hung up the phone. “Annabelle’s,” he barked. “She’s headed to Annabelle’s.” He grabbed his jacket.
J.D. grabbed his arm. “I’ll go.” He lowered his voice. “Don’t let Rayburn leave. He killed Lydia Randolph.”
“Do you have proof?”
“Just keep him here. Try to keep him from making any phone calls, okay?”
“I’m sending backup!” Massey called as J.D. started for the exit, adrenaline pumping in his veins like fire.
As he reached the doorway, Rayburn called after him. “You’re crazy, you know that?”
J.D. paused just long enough to turn and glare at Rayburn with stone cold fury. “And your friend is a dead man.”
Then he raced for his truck, hoping he could stop Natalie from making a fatal mistake.
NATALIE WIPED THE perspiration from her brow and checked her watch. Eleven-forty and still no sign of her fath
er. Was it possible he was already here? He could have had someone drop him off there, thinking he could get a ride back home with Natalie. It didn’t seem like something her father would do, but since Carrie’s murder, none of the Beckers were really acting like themselves, were they?
If he had a key—and knowing Carrie, she’d probably given her parents a copy—he might already be inside, waiting for her.
That meant she was late.
Reluctantly, she got out of the car and trudged up the flagstone walkway to the restaurant’s front door, wishing she’d just left her father a message to meet somewhere else. She tried the front lock and found it still engaged.
Pulling out her key, she opened the door and stepped inside. Even without air-conditioning, the restaurant was considerably cooler than the interior of her car.
“Hello?” she called, in case her father was in the back.
She listened carefully but heard no response. Still, she couldn’t shake the sudden feeling that she wasn’t alone in the restaurant.
Carrie, are you here? She didn’t say the words aloud—that was a little too crazy even for her. But as she pulled down one of the chairs from the nearest table and settled to wait, she could almost feel her sister’s spirit with her.
Natalie wished she could keep Carrie’s dream alive, but she knew nothing about the restaurant business. Her best hope to honor Carrie was to find a buyer who loved the place as much as Carrie had and who’d breathe new life into the old building.
With a sigh, she stood up and walked to the front window, peering out into the bright sunlight. Still no sign of her father. She pulled her phone from her purse and checked for a message from her father.
The second the phone came on, it started to vibrate. J.D.’s name filled the display screen again.
With a sigh, she answered. “What’s up, J.D.?”
“Thank God!” J.D. sounded almost hoarse with relief. “Listen, Natalie, you have to get out of Annabelle’s. Get in your car and head straight to the police station.”
She frowned. “How did you know where I am?”
He ignored the question. “You were right. Well, so was I, but—you were right about Hamilton Gray. He killed your sister.”
She felt a flicker of satisfaction, quickly eclipsed by revulsion at the thought of Carrie’s last moments being spent knowing that her husband, the man she’d loved beyond all reason, was going to kill her. “How do you know?”
As he outlined Hamilton’s past as a stalker, Natalie’s gut tightened with growing rage. How many people had known about his history? Terrebonne was a small town—he couldn’t have stalked Brenda Teague without people knowing about it, could he?
“She didn’t tell anyone? What about the Teagues?”
“They talked to his parents, tried to handle things quietly. Nobody’s going to want to go against a family like the Grays.”
What about her own family? Had her parents known Hamilton’s little secret when they gave Carrie their blessing to marry him? Had his money trumped any of their concerns about his character?
“Your father didn’t leave a message for you at the station. Are you out of the restaurant yet?”
She realized she hadn’t made the first move to leave. “I’m leaving now—”
“I’m afraid you’re not.”
Natalie whirled around at the sound of the low, amused voice.
J.D.’s voice was urgent in her ear. “Natalie, are you out of the restaurant yet?”
It took a second for her eyes to adjust to the dim interior of the restaurant after so many minutes gazing outside at the bright day. But what she saw when her sight focused made her blood freeze.
Hamilton Gray stood a few feet away, smiling with wicked delight. In his right hand, he held a compact black Ruger.
And, tucked under his left arm, he held J.D.’s son, Mike.
“NATALIE?” HER SUDDEN silence on the other end of the line set J.D.’s nerves on edge. “Are you out of there?”
He heard a voice on the other end of the line. Not Natalie’s. A male voice, indistinct but unmistakable.
Then the line went dead.
J.D. punched the resend button. The call went straight to voicemail. He growled a profanity under his breath and gunned the Ford’s engine. But within moments, traffic along Sedge Road, that had never been heavy during J.D.’s stay in Terrebonne, drew to a crawl. Ahead, he saw flashing-blue lights. An accident?
The next turnoff was a half mile down the road, blocked by about two dozen cars between him and the side road. Behind him, traffic was already backing up, boxing him in. The shoulder wasn’t wide enough to accommodate a motorcycle, much less his F-250. Worse, the slow crawl forward had come to a halt. He didn’t even have room to pull a U-turn and head back up the road to the crossroads he’d just passed a few minutes earlier.
He tried Natalie’s number again and got voicemail. Tamping down his rising fear, he searched his contacts for the Ridley County Sheriff’s Department and asked for Doyle Massey. Massey answered on the second ring.
“I reached her on the phone but she hung up suddenly,” J.D. told the deputy. “But I heard what sounded like a man’s voice over the line before she cut off. Now I can’t reach her, and I’m stuck in some sort of traffic jam on Sedge Road.”
“On Sedge?” Massey sounded surprised. “Is it an accident?”
“I see blue lights ahead, but I can’t see a crash.” J.D. tried to see past a tall delivery truck a few vehicles ahead of him on the road. “I can’t even pull a U-turn—I’m boxed in.”
“I called in a backup unit for you—you should see them on the road behind you somewhere.”
J.D. checked his rear view mirror. “I don’t see anything.”
“I’ll call and see where they are—”
“Wait—where’s Rayburn?”
“He lawyered up. Union lawyer’s on the way, so he’s cooling his heels in one of the interview rooms.”
“Are you sure he’s still there?”
“I’m looking at the door right now. No other way out.”
The car ahead of J.D. inched forward as the traffic started to move, giving J.D. just enough room to cut left into a U-turn. “I’m making the U-turn. I’ll call you once I hit the crossroads and you tell me the best way to Annabelle’s from there.”
“Okay. I’ll see what’s keeping your backup.”
J.D. hung up and wheeled the truck around until he was headed back up Sedge Road in the opposite direction. As he neared the crossroads, he called Massey. “County Road 6. Left or right?”
“Take a right, then the first right on Lombard. It’ll parallel Sedge to County Road 9. Take a right there and you’ll hit a crossroads with Sedge a quarter mile up from the restaurant. I’ve checked in with the backup. The traffic snarl is from a road block—apparently the department got a tip about someone carrying a load of stolen pseudoephedrine heading down Sedge Road.”
“Called in when?”
“About an hour ago.”
“About the time Natalie got the mysterious message?”
Massey was silent a moment, then growled a profanity.
“Get the backup to Annabelle’s however they have to do it.”
“I’ll see if I can track them down and reroute. All the other units are out on calls.”
J.D. hung up and took a right at County Road 6, praying he wasn’t too late.
Chapter Sixteen
“Put the gun down, Natalie.” Hamilton pressed the barrel of his pistol into the side of Mike’s temple, making the boy gasp.
Natalie had never doubted his treachery, not since she’d found her sister dead and knew, bone-deep, that Hamilton was behind it. But until this moment, she hadn’t really realized just how truly depraved he was. He might pretend he was trading Mike’s life for her cooperation, but Natalie knew he couldn’t afford to let either of them out of here alive. The only thing her cooperation might afford either of them was a little more time.
“The gun?” Hami
lton prodded.
But a little more time was better than nothing. A little more time might give her the chance to come up with a way to save J.D.’s son’s life as well as her own. Slowly, she took her Smith & Wesson from the holster at her hip and laid it on the floor.
“Kick it over here.”
She did as Hamilton asked, locking gazes with Mike. The kid looked terrified, but he also looked angry as hell, reminding her of his father.
Hamilton kicked her gun across the room. It skittered behind the cashier’s desk, hitting the wall with a low thud.
“He won’t let us live,” Mike said. “We already know what he looks like.”
“Natalie knows who I am,” Hamilton corrected with a smile.
“I think he’s the one who killed my mom,” Mike said urgently.
“I know,” Natalie said, everything starting to make sense. “You’re the infamous Alex, aren’t you?”
Hamilton’s smile widened, making him look like a snarling wolf. “You always were so much brighter than your sister.”
“Don’t you dare speak of my sister.”
“What—you don’t want to know all the gory details of what I did to her? Or why?” His smile faded, though an expression of cruel amusement remained on his face. “I thought she was dim and malleable, you know. It’s why I married her. I needed a wife at my age. She stopped the vile questions about my manhood.”
“What manhood?” Natalie kept her eye on his trigger finger. Though his finger was off the trigger, a twitch could fire a shot.
Hamilton’s eyes darkened. “What would a sexless crone like you know about manhood?”
“I know real men don’t get their jollies with knives. They use what God gave ’em.”
To Natalie’s surprise, Mike’s lips curved in a smile of satisfaction at her taunt. What a tough little kid.
“She didn’t suspect a thing until she started talking to you,” Hamilton continued, ignoring her words. “Maybe if I’d killed you first, I wouldn’t have had to kill her until much later on. Does that make you feel guilty?”
“Only that I didn’t figure out what a sick bastard you were soon enough to save the other women you’ve killed.”