by Karen Rose
Daniel sighed again. “Alex, please. The flute isn’t what we wanted you to see.”
Ed held out a pair of gloves and obediently Alex pulled them on. Then her eyes widened when he handed her a piece of paper, creased where it had been folded longways multiple times like a child’s fan.
“Ed found the note inside the flute,” Daniel said. “It’s from Wade to Bailey.” He held a chair out for her and she sank into it, her eyes fixed to the page as she read aloud.
“Dear Bailey, after years of trying, I’ve finally succeeded. I’ve been hit and I’m dying. Don’t worry. There’s a chaplain here and I’ve done my confession. But I don’t believe God will forgive me. I haven’t forgiven myself. Years ago you asked me if I killed Alicia. The answer was no then and it still is. But I did other things and so did Dad. I think some you guessed. Some you never will and that’s for the best.
“Some of the things that I did, I did with others. They won’t want anyone to know. At first there were seven of us, then six, then five. When I die, there will still be four men who share the secret. They live in fear and distrust, always watching each other, wondering who will be the first to fall. The first to tell.
“I’m enclosing a key. Do not carry it with you. Put it somewhere safe. If you’re ever threatened, tell them you’ll turn it over to the authorities. But not to the police. Not in Dutton, anyway. The key will unlock a secret that some of the four would pay to keep and some would kill to keep. Two have already been killed to keep the secret.
“I won’t tell you the names of the four, because you’d feel you had to report them. Once you go down that road, you’d be as dead as me. Them knowing that you have the key will be the only thing that will keep you alive.
“I know you’ve stayed in the house, waiting for Dad to come back. I’ve told you before, he won’t. He’s not capable of the goodness you want him to have. If you see him, give him the other letter. If you don’t, then burn it. Then let Dad go. Let him kill himself on booze and drugs, but don’t let him drag you down with him. Leave the house. Leave Dutton. And for God’s sake, don’t trust anyone.
“Least of all me. I’ve never earned it, although God knows I’ve died trying.
“Take Hope and leave Dutton and never look back. Promise me that. And promise me you’ll have a good life. Find Alex. She’s the only family you have left now. I never told you before, but I love you.”
Alex drew a breath. “Lt. Wade Crighton, United States Army.” She looked up. “He sent her a key. Do you think that’s what Bailey sent to me?”
Daniel sat in the chair next to her. “We think so. Three of the four victims this week were found with keys tied to one of their toes. Now we know why.”
“Do you think the keys tied to their toes are the same as Wade’s key?”
“No. The keys we found this week are brand-new. It’s a sign, a message. Like the hair he tied around their toes.”
“Alicia’s hair.” She stared at the note, trying to focus. “He says there were seven. Two died before him. Both killed to keep the secret. But Simon died in Philadelphia.”
“Wade didn’t know that when he wrote the letter,” Daniel said. “He died a few weeks before Simon. He thought Simon was still dead from the first time.”
“So they all thought that Simon’s first ‘death’ was done by one of them,” she murmured. “They live in fear and distrust. So one of the dead men he’s talking about is Simon. Who is the other?”
“We don’t know yet,” Chase said, “but we have an idea of three of the remaining four.”
“Garth Davis and Randy Mansfield,” she said. “And I guess Rhett Porter would have been the third.”
“That means we still have to identify two,” Daniel said. “One living, one dead.”
“What will you do?”
“Try to use the two we know to turn on the one we don’t,” Chase said. “But in the meantime, we still don’t know who’s behind all of this.”
“It’s revenge,” Daniel said. “We figure that much. Someone is using Alicia’s death to get us to focus on these men. We have to be careful, Alex. We can’t let them know what we know until we know what it all means, or at least until we know more. If Garth Davis or Randy Mansfield had something to do with Bailey’s disappearance, we’ll find out and they’ll answer for it. I promise you that. But, Alex, I’ve got six women and four men in the morgue. At this point nothing else is more important than making this stop.”
Alex dropped her eyes, ashamed. She worried about Bailey. Daniel worried about all the victims. Six women. Four men. Rhett Porter, Lester Jackson, Officer Cowell, and Sean Romney. That was four. But six women . . . Janet, Claudia, Gemma, Lisa, and Sheila. That was only five. Slowly she lifted her eyes. “Six women, Daniel?”
He closed his eyes, drained. “I’m sorry, Alex. I meant to tell you . . . differently. Sister Anne died this afternoon. Even though we think Crighton is responsible, we’re counting her among the fatalities. She would be the tenth.”
Alex let out a breath. Pursed her lips. Felt the sympathy from everyone in the room. “No, I’m sorry. You were right. I wasn’t helping. What do you want me to do?”
His eyes flashed approval and appreciation. And respect. “For now, just try to be patient. We’re getting warrants for phone and financial records on both Davis and Mansfield to try to tie them to each other or to the other two Wade mentions or to the man who killed four women. And we hope that somewhere this guy makes a mistake.”
She nodded and looked back to Wade’s letter. “Wade says he didn’t kill Alicia. At that point, why would he lie? So if he didn’t, and Fulmore didn’t, then who did?”
“It’s a good question,” Talia said. “I’ve talked to seven of the twelve surviving rape victims and they all tell the same story. If Simon and his friends raped Alicia and left her alive like they did all the others, but she was dead when Fulmore found her in the ditch, what happened in between?”
Next to her, Alex felt Daniel tense when Talia mentioned the twelve victims, but his expression didn’t change. She filed it away. She’d ask him later.
“Whatever happened, Alex, you saw something,” Dr. McCrady said, “and it had to do with the blanket Alicia was found in. If you’re up to it, we need to find out what you saw.”
“Let’s do it,” Alex said. “Now, before I lose my nerve.”
Mary gathered her things. “I’ll get ready. You’ll come when the meeting is finished?”
Daniel nodded. “We will. Chase, have we informed all the women at risk?”
“There were a few we couldn’t reach. A couple were out of the country. A couple aren’t answering their phones. But the ones we did talk to will be smart if they just stay home with all the doors locked.”
“And their guns cocked,” Alex muttered.
Daniel lightly smacked her knee. “Sshh.”
“I’m going now,” Talia said. “I’m leaving early in the morning to drive to Florida to talk to two of the victims who have moved.”
“Thanks,” Chase said. “Call me if you find anything new.” When she was gone, he turned to Daniel. “We got Lisa Woolf’s cell phone LUDs. No calls from anyone she hadn’t been receiving calls from for months.”
“And her roommates?” Daniel asked.
“They say she went to a bar last night to unwind. She never made it home. But they did find her car about five blocks from the bar.”
Everyone at the table seemed interested by this. “What?” Alex asked.
“None of the other cars have been found,” Daniel said.
“What kind of car?” Chase asked.
“She was a grad student with no money,” Chase said with a shrug. “She drove an old Nissan Sentra. It’s being brought down here on a flatbed so we can take it apart. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find something he left behind.”
Daniel considered it. “Janet had her Z, Claudia a top-of-the-line Mercedes, and Gemma drove a ’Vette. None of those have been found, but he ditches the N
issan.”
“The boy likes fancy cars,” Luke said.
“We processed the scene at Alex’s bungalow,” Ed said. “Lots of prints to work through. It was a rental property, after all. Nothing on the bathroom window or sill. The bowl of dog food had a very high concentration of tranqs. If your dog had a normal digestive tract, Daniel, he’d be barking with the choir eternal right now.”
“I stopped by the vet on my way in from Bailey’s,” Daniel said. “Riley will be okay and now we know they were likely looking for the key that Bailey sent to Alex.” He looked at her. “Don’t forget to call your ex.”
“I won’t.”
“Then until tomorrow,” Daniel said and started to get up.
“Wait,” Alex said. “What about Mansfield? I mean, I understand how you have to be careful not to show your hand, but the man can’t be allowed to simply roam free.”
“We’ve got him under very close surveillance, Alex,” Chase said. “We started setting it up minutes after Hope picked him out of the photo array. Try not to worry.”
She huffed out a breath. “Okay. I’ll try.”
“Then until tomorrow,” Daniel repeated and started to get up again.
“Wait,” Luke said. He’d been typing on his laptop during much of the conversation. “I eliminated all the minorities and dead people from our list of graduates.”
“Right,” Daniel said, then caught his breath. “But there was one other that was killed ‘for the secret.’ ”
Luke nodded. “Still taking out the minorities, there have been five deaths among the Dutton males graduating within a year of Simon, not including Simon, Wade, and Rhett.”
“Check them out,” Chase said, “along with their families.”
Daniel looked around the table. “Anything else?” When nobody said yes, he said, “We’re sure? Okay then. We all meet back here, tomorrow, eight a.m.”
They all stood, then Leigh poked her head in the door. “Daniel, you have a visitor. Kate Davis. Garth Davis’s sister. She says it’s urgent.”
Everyone sat down again. “Show her in,” Daniel said. He looked at Alex. “Can you go and wait with Leigh in the outer office?”
“Of course.” She followed Leigh to the front where a young woman in a trendy suit waited. Alex searched her face and the woman met her gaze unflinchingly. Then Leigh took her back to the room while Alex settled in one of the chairs to wait.
Chapter Twenty-one
Atlanta, Thursday, February 1, 5:45 p.m.
According to Luke’s speed-of-light Google, Kate Davis was a bank manager in her uncle Rob’s bank. She was barely a year out of college, but her eyes looked old.
Daniel rose when Leigh brought her to the door. “Miss Davis. Please sit down.”
She did. “My uncle’s grandson was killed last night.”
“Yes, Atlanta Homicide is handling the investigation,” Daniel said evenly.
“He was a sweet boy, a little slow. Not the kind to mastermind any plot.”
“We didn’t say we thought he had,” Daniel said. “What can we do for you?”
She drew a breath. “I got a call from my sister-in-law an hour ago. She’s somewhere out west with my two nephews.”
Daniel lifted his brows. “Not a vacation, I take it.”
“No. She ran because she was scared. She called me because she wants this to be over, because she wants at some point to be able to come home. Garth and my uncle Rob argued this morning. Garth’s done something that’s made him a target. He’s been sitting down the street from my house for the last two nights, watching me. I saw him both times. I thought it was sweet. You know, he’s my big brother, and he cares.”
“But?” Daniel asked.
Her chin lifted a fraction. “My sister-in-law said Garth received a threat on my life with a demand for money. Garth wired a hundred thousand dollars from his sons’ college fund. She wanted to go to the police, but Garth wouldn’t let her. He said Rhett Porter was executed because he said too much. This doesn’t surprise you.”
“Go on” was all Daniel would say.
“Then Garth said Jared O’Brien had also been eliminated.” Her eyes narrowed. “That does surprise you.”
Daniel glanced at Luke. Luke typed, then shook his head. “He’s not dead.”
“He’s not been declared dead,” Kate corrected. “He disappeared more than five years ago. I was still in high school at the time. I’m sure you all can dig up the old police reports. Unless, of course, it was investigated by Loomis’s department.”
Daniel wanted to sigh. Instead he kept his voice even. “Explain, please.”
“Garth asked my uncle if he would go to the police. Rob said, ‘Not in this town.’ Then Garth threatened to report Rob for bank fraud if he said a word. My sister-in-law said she’d put up with Garth’s affairs for years, but wouldn’t allow him to jeopardize the safety of her sons.”
“Do you know where she was?”
“No, and I didn’t ask. I suppose you could subpoena my phone records if you really wanted to trace it. She used her own cell phone. She asked me to come and talk to you if I wasn’t afraid. If I was afraid, she said she would call you herself. But she said she wanted me to know that Garth was afraid for my life.”
“Are you not afraid?” Daniel asked softly.
“I’m terrified. I’m afraid I’ll end up like Gemma or Claudia or Janet. Or Lisa.” Sadness swept over her face. “And I’m afraid for my family. Both Garth and Rob have enough ammunition to ensure the other’s silence. That terrifies me most of all.”
“You’ve taken a risk coming here,” Daniel said. “Why?”
Her lips trembled and she firmed them sternly. “Because Lisa and I were friends. I used to borrow Gemma’s nail polish during lunch. Claudia helped me pick out my prom dress. They were part of my childhood and now they’re all gone and part of my life is gone with them. I want whoever did this to pay.” She rose. “That’s all I have to say.”
Alex stood at the end of the hall outside Leigh’s outer office, next to a window where she could get decent cell phone reception. And a little privacy. Her toe tapped and she realized she was nervous as the phone rang on the other end.
“Hello?” a female voice answered, and Alex wanted to sigh. She’d been hoping Richard would answer. Instead she was talking to Amber, Richard’s wife.
“Hi, this is Alex. Is Richard available?”
“No.” The word came too quickly. “He’s not here. He’s at work.”
“I called the hospital. They said he was at home. Please. It’s important.”
Amber hesitated. “All right. I’ll get him.”
A minute later she heard Richard’s voice, quiet and awkwardly formal. “Alex. This is a surprise. What can I do for you?”
“I’m in Dutton.”
“I heard. I . . . saw the reports on the news. Are you all right?”
“I am. Bailey sent me a letter. I think it came to the house. Can you check?”
“Hold on.” She heard him moving things around. “Here it is. It’s got a key in it. I can feel it through the envelope.”
Alex drew a breath. “Look, I know this sounds totally crazy, but I want you to only handle it by the corner and open it with a letter opener. It may become evidence.”
“Okay.” She heard him rummage in a drawer. Then, “You want me to peek inside?”
“Carefully, yeah. And if there’s a letter, read it to me.”
“There is. You ready?”
No. “Yes. Read it, please.”
“Dear Alex, I know this letter will come as a shock to you after all these years. I don’t have a lot of time. Please take this key and put it someplace safe. If something happens to me, I want you to take care of Hope. She’s my beautiful daughter and my second chance. I’ve been clean and sober for five years now, all because of her. And you. You were the only person who believed in me when I hit rock bottom. You were the only one who cared enough to try to get me help. But I want you to kno
w I got help and Hope is healthy and normal. A million times in the last five years I’ve wanted to call you, but I know I burned my bridges that last time and I couldn’t face you again. I hope you’ll forgive me and if not, then please take care of Hope anyway. You’re the only family I have left and the only one I trust with my daughter.
“Hide the key. Don’t let anyone know you have it. If I need it, I’ll call you.” Richard cleared his throat. “It’s signed, Love, your sister, Bailey, with a little cartoon of a sheep.”
Alex swallowed hard. “A lamb,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’m going to need to ask the police what they want you to do with the key. If they ask, can you FedEx it to me tonight?”
“Of course. Alex, are you in any danger?”
“I had a narrow miss a few days ago, but, um . . . I’m in good hands down here.” Her voice had changed, softening as she said the last words.
“What’s his name?”
She smiled. “Daniel.”
“Good. You’ve been alone too long,” he said gruffly. “Even when you were with me.”
Tears unexpected sprang to her eyes, burning her throat. “Tell Amber if I call again it’s just to get the letter, okay?”
“Alex, are you crying?”
She swallowed hard. “I seem to be doing that a lot lately.”
“You never cried. Not once. I used to wish you would.”
“You wanted me to cry?”
“I wanted you to let go,” he said so quietly she almost didn’t hear it. “I thought if you cried, you might be able . . .”
Alex’s heart clenched so hard it hurt. “To love you?”
“Yeah.” The one word came out sad. “I guess so. Good luck, Alex. Have a good life.”
“You, too.” She cleared her throat and wiped her eyes. “I’ll call you about the letter.”
Atlanta, Thursday, February 1, 6:00 p.m.
When Leigh had escorted Kate Davis from the building, Daniel turned to the group. “Six down, one to go?”