by Sandra Brown
“I didn’t say they would dismiss an unwanted and inconvenient pregnancy. Wes would simply do whatever was necessary to make the problem disappear.”
Uneasily Marilee conceded that William was right. Wes would.
• • •
“What the hell was going on in there?” Begley asked under his breath as he and Hoot carefully made their way down the icy front walkway of the Hamers’ home.
“I couldn’t tell you, sir.”
Once they were inside the bureau’s sedan and Hoot had the motor going, Begley said, “But you sensed something, right? I wasn’t imagining those undercurrents?”
“Not at all. I felt like we were watching a play where everybody was carefully reciting his lines.”
“Good analogy.”
Begley took off his gloves and briskly rubbed his hands together as he watched Dutch and Wes say good-bye to each other at the Hamers’ front door. The police chief then walked to his Bronco and climbed in.
Looking back at the front of the house, Begley mused out loud. “The mother seemed on the verge of disintegrating. Wes Hamer was too loud, too cooperative, and too jaunty by half. I didn’t swallow a frigging thing he said. Burton was playing both ends against the middle, shielding his lifelong friend from us and not really giving a damn about Millicent Gunn because he’s preoccupied with his ex-wife. And the kid was—”
“Lying.”
“Through his teeth.”
Hoot waited until the Bronco had pulled away, then steered the sedan behind it and followed at a safe distance.
Begley directed a heating vent toward him, although the air coming from it was still cold. “But what was he lying about, Hoot? What was everybody but us dancing around? That’s what I can’t quite figure.”
“I don’t know, sir, but I don’t think Burton was clued in either.”
“He appeared confounded, too, didn’t he?”
After a moment of private reflection, Hoot said, “Even though he and Wes Hamer are supposedly best friends, I sense a friction between them. An underlying . . . rivalry.”
Begley turned in his seat and fired an imaginary pistol at him. “Dead on, Hoot. I get that from them, too. They say the right things, go through the motions of being bosom buddies, but I don’t know, there’s something under the surface.”
“Resentment,” Hoot said. “For all practical purposes, Hamer, as city councilman, is Burton’s boss. Burton hates answering to him.”
“Maybe that’s it, Hoot. Maybe that’s it.” He wiped the windshield with his sleeve. “Still not much visibility, is there?”
“No, sir.” Begley heard the beep at the same time Hoot did. He checked the pager clipped to his belt. “Perkins.”
Then for a time the only sounds in the car were the swish of the wipers, the purr of air coming through the vents, and the crunch of tires on snow. Finally Begley said, “The kid got particularly jittery when you asked him the cause of his breakup with Millicent. Both parents perked up and seemed awfully interested in the answer to that question, too.”
“Especially Mrs. Hamer.”
“Because I don’t think she believes that ‘got tired of each other’ crock of crap any more than we do.”
“What about Mr. Hamer?”
“I’m still mulling that over, Hoot. But my gut instinct is telling me that the coach knows a whopping lot more than he lets on.”
“About their breakup?”
“About everything. Unless you’re a movie star, a used-car salesman, or a pimp, you’ve got no use for a smile like his.”
Hoot pulled into the slot beside the Bronco outside police headquarters. They tramped into the building seconds behind Dutch Burton. The interior smelled like scorched coffee, wet wool, and men who hadn’t showered in a while, but at least it was warm.
The dispatcher said to Hoot, “You’re supposed to call Perkins in Charlotte soon as you come in.”
“Yes. May I use your phone again?”
The dispatcher motioned him toward an unoccupied desk.
Begley, forced to wait to hear what Hoot would learn, if anything, joined Burton, who was pouring himself a cup of coffee. “What do you make of our visit with the Hamers?”
“I don’t make anything of it,” Burton replied.
“No need to take umbrage.”
Burton snorted into his coffee mug, took a sip, then asked, “What did you make of it?”
“Wes and Dora Hamer are a long way from Ward and June Cleaver, and there’s something the matter with their kid.”
“You deduced all that after only thirty minutes with them?”
“More like three.”
“However long it took, it was a waste of time, as well as an invasion of their privacy. We’ve tagged our man. It’s Ben Tierney.”
“At this point, Mr. Tierney is wanted only for questioning. Nothing more.”
“My ass,” Burton said. “You were searching his rooms at Gus Elmer’s place. Harris told me so. What did you find that gave you a hard-on for him?”
Begley refused to acknowledge the question.
“If that’s the way you want to play it, fine,” Burton said angrily. “I’ll go out there and see for myself.”
“Listen to me,” Begley said, his voice low but vibrating with menace, “you tamper with anything out there, you even step foot in those rooms, and I’ll personally see to it that you won’t be able to buy yourself a job in law enforcement, and I’m talking goddamn game warden. I can do it.”
“Why aren’t you trying to get up there and apprehend Tierney?”
“Because a jealous hothead ruined all chance of that this morning,” Begley fired back.
Burton was so irate, the corners of his eyes were twitching. “Leave it to the fucking FBI to pester my best friend and his family about some pissant high school romance that has no bearing on the case while issuing empty threats to me. Meanwhile, the likely perp is—”
“Excuse me.” Hoot practically wedged himself between them. “You’ll both be pleased to learn that we’ve been guaranteed a helicopter and small tactical rescue team as soon as the weather clears, which, hopefully, will be tomorrow morning.”
“I want Lilly rescued. I want Tierney arrested,” Burton declared. “You’ve got all the fancy equipment, but this is still my jurisdiction, and he’s my prime suspect.”
“Kidnapping is federal. We can—”
Begley raised his hand, stopping Hoot from saying more. “Understood, Chief Burton,” he said, surprising even himself with his calm.
He wasn’t backing down, he was simply trying to pacify a man on a ledge. It was only a matter of time before Dutch Burton self-destructed, either on purpose or accidentally. Either way, Begley didn’t want him further provoked before Tierney was in custody and the former Mrs. Burton was safe.
“Between now and when the chopper arrives,” he continued, “I suggest you get those cuts on your face treated by a medical professional, then go home and rest. You look done in. Whatever tomorrow holds in store, we’ll all need to be sharp.”
Burton looked angry enough to spit in his face, but he said nothing.
Begley pulled on his gloves and asked Hoot if he’d gotten what he needed from Perkins.
“Here, sir,” he said, holding up a folder. “I took notes by hand.”
“Good. I’m ready for a hot toddy and a crackling fire. I’d be willing to bet Gus Elmer can supply both.” As he moved toward the door, he shot Burton a look that warned him against even trying to search Tierney’s cabin at Whistler Falls Lodge. He would be watching.
A few minutes later, he and Hoot were back in the cold car, skidding along the deserted streets of Cleary. Begley said, “Dutch Burton is a calamity waiting to happen. My guess? He’ll eat the barrel of his pistol one of these days.”
Then he ran his hand over his face to wipe away the disturbing thought. “Give me the condensed version of your conversation with Perkins. Unless it’s something rock solid, then I want details.”
> “Perkins has been searching for any linkage between Tierney and the other missing women.”
“And?”
“Carolyn Maddox—”
“The young, single mother.”
“Correct. She worked at two local motels prior to where she was working when she disappeared. As of now, it’s unknown if Tierney ever stayed in those places. Perkins is still checking his credit card statements.”
“He could have paid cash.”
“In which case we would have to depend on the motel registries.”
“Where he could have signed in as Tinkerbell.”
Hoot nodded grimly.
“I don’t suppose she ever worked at Mr. Elmer’s lodge.”
“No, sir. That was the first thing Perkins checked.”
“Go on.”
“Laureen Elliott, the nurse. Her only surviving relative is a brother, who lives with his wife in Birmingham. They’re snowbound, too, but Perkins reached him on his cell phone. If his late sister knew anyone named Tierney, she never mentioned him.”
“Tierney is a name you’d remember because it’s not that common.”
“My thought, too, sir.”
“The widow?”
“Betsy Calhoun. Her daughter still lives here in Cleary. Perkins was unable to reach her.”
“Do you have an address?”
“I’m headed there now. It’s in the next block.”
Begley smiled. “Excellent. And last?”
“Torrie Lambert, the teenager.”
“Who was probably a random selection.”
“More than likely. But I’d hate to assume that and then have there be a previous connection we overlooked. Perkins is still trying to contact her mother.”
“In the meantime . . .”
“What, sir?”
“Do we stay on Tierney to the exclusion of all others?”
“Scott Hamer, for instance?”
“Is it like Burton says, Hoot? Should we take the Hamers and everything they said at face value and end that line of thought entirely? Reasonably, Scott could have a motive for doing Millicent harm. Love affair gone awry, et cetera. It’s even conceivable that he chanced upon Torrie Lambert in the woods that day. But what would a good-looking young man like him have to do with an obese nurse, a single mom with a sick kid, and a widow lady older than his mother?”
“Which brings us back to Tierney.”
“To whom the same question applies. Say Tierney has a lech for teenage girls. Even Carolyn Maddox would fit if we fudged a couple of years. But the other two? Goddammit! Why can’t we find a connecting thread?”
Begley appreciated Hoot for not trying to produce an answer just to fill the silence.
Eventually the senior agent sighed. “Until that commonality becomes obvious, give me an educated guess, Hoot. Is Tierney our man?”
Hoot stopped the car at the address he’d jotted down. The frame house was little more than a cottage, its small yard enclosed with a white picket fence, now half buried in snow. Smoke was curling out of the rock chimney covered in a dormant wisteria vine. A fat, yellow cat was sitting on a windowsill staring out at them through lace curtains.
The two men sat in silence as they looked at the house belonging to Betsy Calhoun’s daughter. Begley was thinking that the house looked so innocent, so Norman Rockwellian, one couldn’t imagine tragedy visiting the people who lived there. Yet Betsy Calhoun’s daughter went to bed every night without knowing her mother’s fate.
“That has to be pure hell.” Begley didn’t realize he’d spoken the thought aloud until he saw the vapor of his breath swirling in front of his face. “We gotta get the bastard, Hoot.”
Hoot seemed to have followed his train of thought. “Absolutely, sir. We do.”
“So, the Hamer family’s jitters and evasions notwithstanding, does Ben Tierney still look good to you?”
“Yes, sir,” he replied. “Tierney still looks good to me.”
“Well, hell. He looks good to me too.” Begley shoved open his car door, and as he stepped out, he glanced in the direction of the cloud-enshrouded peak and said another brief prayer for Lilly Martin.
CHAPTER
23
EACH TIME LILLY EXHALED, THE TENDRILS OF vaporizing breath became finer.
She was chilled to her bones but had neither the strength nor the initiative to get up and place another log on the coals. What would be the point?
She wasn’t one of those people who dwelled on death and dying, fretting over it until the worry hastened the worrier’s demise. However, after Amy died, she naturally had contemplated death, wondering what the passage was like from this life into the next, never questioning if there was a next. That sweet, vital nova of life and energy that her daughter had been couldn’t simply have ceased to exist. Amy had merely moved from a dimension governed by physics into a realm of the spirit.
Believing that had helped Lilly survive her bereavement. Yet she had anguished over the nature of the journey between the two worlds. Had Amy glided into it peacefully on a carpet of light? Or had her passage been dark and terrifying?
That was when Lilly had come to think about her own death and ponder whether it would be serene or traumatic. But only in her nightmares had she died of suffocation while alone.
At least she would depart knowing that Blue would be caught. Before she became too weak, she used a paring knife to etch TIERNEY = BLUE into one of the kitchen cabinets, believing that would be more effective than a note written on one of her blank checks, which could easily be overlooked in the hubbub sure to arise during the discovery and removal of her body from the cabin.
Tierney.
Just thinking the name jerked a sob from her constricted chest. She was outraged over her own culpability. With self-scorn she thought of how easily she’d fallen for his rare combination of ruggedness and sensitivity that day on the river, of how she had pined these last months over the sacrificed opportunity to see him again.
From the start, he had seemed too good to be true.
Take note, Lilly: What seems that way, usually is.
She was a little old to be learning that valuable lesson, and unfortunately she wouldn’t have an opportunity to apply it to her own life, but it was worth noting anyway, wasn’t it? Maybe she should leave it etched into the cabinet as well, the way prisoners leave moral messages on the walls of their cells for future occupants.
But now she didn’t have the strength even to hold the paring knife. Bouts of mucus-producing coughing had left her so weak she could no longer sit up. She was out of energy, to say nothing of time.
There was one advantage to dying. Imponderable questions were finally answered. For instance, she now knew with certainty that one wasn’t propelled into the afterlife in a blaze of dazzling light. On the contrary. Death stole over one like a softly gathering dusk. The darkening was gradual, the shrinkage of vision almost imperceptible, until only a pinpoint of light and life remained.
And then that too was swallowed by the blackness that was absolute and all encompassing.
Desperately she looked for Amy in the impenetrable darkness, but she couldn’t see her. She couldn’t see anything. Her ears quickened, though, at the sound of a voice coming to her from far away.
It was her daddy. He was calling her home from where she was playing in the next block.
“Lilly! Lilly!”
I’m coming, Daddy.
She could envision him standing on their porch, hands cupped around his mouth, calling anxiously until she called back and told him that she was on her way home.
“Lilly!”
He sounded afraid. Frantic. Panicked.
Couldn’t he hear her? Why couldn’t he hear her? She was answering him.
I’m on my way home, Daddy. Can’t you see me? Can’t you hear me? I’m here!
• • •
“Lilly! Lilly!”
Tierney tilted her upper body over his forearm and thumped her hard on the back. A glob of m
ucus was expelled onto the blanket covering her lap. He struck her between the shoulder blades again, forcing out more mucus, which dribbled from her mouth. When he released her, she flopped back lifelessly onto the sofa, her head lolling to one side.
He tore off his gloves and slapped her cheeks, arguing with himself that her face was warm. It was his hand that was cold, not her gray skin.
“Lilly!”
He worked his hand inside her coat, beneath her sweater, and pressed his palm against her chest. When he felt her heartbeat, an involuntary cry issued from his raw, dry throat.
Rapidly he unzipped the coat pocket in which he’d placed her pouch of medications. It was a green silk bag with crystal beading decoration, just as she’d described. When he opened it, the bottle of pills fell onto the floor and rolled out of sight, but it was the inhalers he was after. He scanned the labels. They might just as well have been written in Greek.
One, he remembered her telling him, was used to prevent attacks. The other was to provide immediate relief to a patient suffering a severe attack. But he didn’t know which was which.
He shoved one of the short nozzles past her bloodless lips, worked it between her teeth, and depressed the canister. “Lilly, breathe.”
She lay perfectly still, unresponsive, gray as death.
He slid his arm under her shoulders and lifted her up again, shaking her viciously. “Lilly, breathe! Inhale. Please, please, please. Come on, take a breath.”
And she did. The drug did as it was supposed to do, instantly relieving the muscle spasms that had closed her airways and, by doing so, reopened them.
She drew in a whistling breath. Another. As she exhaled the third, she opened her eyes and looked at him, then clasped her hands around his where they still held the inhaler inside her mouth. She depressed the canister again. Her inhalations were gurgling, wheezing, awful noises.
Tierney said, “Music to my ears.”
Suddenly pushing the inhaler away, she coughed into her hands. “Here.” From the other sofa, he snatched up the towel he’d used the night before to support his head and thrust it at her.