by Mary Burton
The lights from the dash sharpened the angles of the beautiful face. “I’m your mentor, aren’t I?”
His lip curled into a childish pout, childish but he’d felt alone these last few weeks and couldn’t stop himself. “Yes. You’re in charge. I’ll never question you again!”
“Good.”
Tears choked his throat. Ford was damned grateful to have his mentor back, that he didn’t dare push his good fortune. “What do I do?”
Dark eyes narrowed with approval. “You know where she lives.”
“Yes. I followed her all those nights just like you told me.”
“Go to her house and wait for her. When she arrives home, do as we discussed.”
Excitement simmered in his veins. He’d felt lost these last days without his mentor. “I’ll go there now.”
“Try not to be obvious.”
“And I take her to the house we looked at?” He pictured the rancher in the 12 South neighborhood. It had been vacant for weeks.
“Be very quiet. She can’t make a sound.”
“She won’t.”
“Half the fun is killing amidst many unsuspecting people.”
“I’ll get her now.”
“Don’t be too anxious.”
He drummed his fingers, already halfway to her house in his mind. “I won’t.”
“Remember how we rehearsed it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure? We can run through it again. Everything has to be perfect.”
“I’ve imagined it a thousand times in my head.”
“Good. I’ll see you there.” His mentor slid out of the car. Ford put his truck in gear and slowly and carefully drove across town. He arrived just after three in the Germantown neighborhood. He’d have to wait for her. Normally she didn’t get home until six.
He considered where he should wait. Even he knew not to park a van in front of her house. As he considered his options, he saw a flicker of movement in the front window. Excitement surged as his anxiety rose. She was already home. This was not what he was expecting.
He considered his options. Wait. Call his mentor. Grab her now.
He needed to show some initiative. Show his mentor he was a man to be respected. If he grabbed her now, then he could spend hours with her before his mentor arrived. Private time. Away from prying eyes.
He moved his vehicle down the street and parked in a retail parking lot. He reached for a general repairman’s ball cap on his front seat and got out. A few hours alone with her. Yeah. That would be real nice.
Jenna could no longer ignore the urge to see her family’s old home, the spot where her life had been shattered and forever changed. Several times, she’d almost gotten in her Jeep and made the twenty-mile drive but each time, she’d lost her courage. Now, with the greater Nashville area knowing she was back in town, it seemed foolish to fear driving by the old place.
She had found the address a couple of years ago when she’d been closing up her aunt’s apartment. There’d been a very old letter from her mother to her aunt and printed on the top left corner of each envelope had been her old home address.
The letter had been simple and to the point. Aunt Lois, sorry to hear about Uncle Henry’s death. Know that you’re in our thoughts and prayers.
Love, Carol.
Jenna had been uninspired by the letter that had offered little in the way of her old family. If only her mother had taken just a moment to write something about her daughters or her husband. A few scrawled words . . .
But there’d been nothing but the address.
Now, following the GPS directions she turned into the tree-lined neighborhood located in an upscale community outside of Franklin.
The neighborhood was older and filled with brick homes and large oak trees with large, wide canopies of leaves. Curb and gutter trimmed the streets and lined green rolling lawns.
A long way from the small apartment she’d shared with her aunt.
The directions ended in a cul-de-sac and she parked at an angle from the home. She shut off the engine of her car and got out. Slowly, she moved to the edge of the yard and stared at the big home made of brick with large windows flanked by hunter-green shutters. A crepe myrtle drooped full and heavy with pink blossoms beside a graveled driveway lined with square stones.
The house, she’d learned, had turned over ownership several times in the last twenty-five years. It was in a prime location and she supposed buyers were willing to overlook its history. To look at the house it would be easy to assume she’d come from money, but her aunt had said the house was mortgaged, and that by the time the house had finally sold a year after the murders, there’d been no money.
She drew in a breath as she stared at the house. A memory flashed. She was running across the lawn. Laughing. She’d been wearing a blue dress and she’d been holding a balloon. Another girl, older, her sister, had chased her. She was also laughing. She closed her eyes, hoping to draw more from the moment but it faded like smoke in the wind.
Jenna looked up at the second-floor window. Her memory shifted and she was back in time. A woman stood in the window. Her mother. She was weeping.
“Why were you crying, Mom?” Jenna’s own throat now tightened with emotions that threatened to pry the armor from her heart. She didn’t want to feel this. She didn’t want to remember. Hers was a good life, and she didn’t need the past poisoning what she had.
On reflex, she shifted to cop mode. “Then why’re you here? If this was such a happy place and life was perfect, then why’re you here? Why’re you remembering the image of your mother crying?”
Why did perfect feel broken?
Jenna didn’t have an answer.
A dark Lexus pulled up behind Jenna and after a moment, Susan Martinez got out. She walked with purpose up to Jenna. “Thank you for agreeing to the meeting.”
She slid her hands into her pockets not sure what to say. “Sure.”
Susan held up keys. “Want to see the inside of the house?”
“How did you get those keys?”
“The house is for sale.”
“There’s no sign.”
“In this neighborhood, there often aren’t signs. No one likes to see turnover.”
“Who gave you the keys?”
“From my realtor friend. He said the owner wouldn’t be home for a few hours. We’ll have the place all to ourselves.”
She cleared her throat. “Why is he selling?”
“Money trouble from what I hear. He’s been in the house for twelve years but for whatever reason ran into problems. Who knows? Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
She followed Susan up the brick sidewalk, concentrating on the click of the reporter’s heels instead of the thump, thump of her own heart. Susan inserted the key into a lockbox by the front door and then removed the house key. A flip of the wrist and the door opened.
For a moment, Jenna hovered on the front porch, bracing as if past ghosts rushed through like an arctic wind.
“You okay?” Susan asked.
She hesitated as she searched for her voice. “Yes. I’m fine.”
“Emotions can be overwhelming.”
Memories of laughter elbowed to the front of her mind first as she moved to a large, bull-nosed banister that led to the second-floor landing. She’d remembered running down those stairs, excited and happy. It had been her first day of school. She’d been wearing new shoes and had a bow in her hair.
Jenna moved toward the darkened hallway as Susan flipped on the light. She glanced to her left into a parlor that felt similar to her parents’ front room. A picture on the wall, a landscape, also triggered a moment of déjà vu. “It doesn’t look like it’s changed much.”
“I was never in the house while I was covering the case. The cops had it closed up for almost a year and by the time it reopened, life had moved on to the next story.”
The next story. The Thompsons had been forgotten.
“What do you remember?” Susa
n asked.
“Very little.” A glance toward the kitchen at the end of the hall quickened her heart rate. That was where the police had found her slain family. Father at the back door, likely first shot. Mother by the stove and Sara just inside the kitchen from this hall. Police theorized he’d killed her parents and waited for Sara.
She grazed her fingertips along the polished dark wood of the banister. She drew in a breath knowing smell was a key trigger but her memories, huddled in the shadows, would not be coaxed out. “My room was the third on the right, upstairs. It was next to my sister’s.”
“Let’s go look.”
Jenna glanced up the stairs, feeling the interloper and intruder. But this was the chance she’d driven so far to grab. Slowly, she moved up the stairs, hoping each step took her closer to memories that could not be articulated. She peered in the first bedroom. Four-poster bed, neatly made with a blue comforter as smooth as still waters, a gilded mirror above the headboard, and a dresser with brushes neatly cleaned and lined up in a row. She moved down the hallway to the next room. A teen girl’s room decorated with posters of rock stars and dominated by a bed made up in purple and covered with dozens of different pillows. Bead strands hung over the windows. In a different decade it could have been Sara’s room.
She drew in a breath and stepped toward the room that had been hers. Her mouth grew dry and her hands clammy. She pushed open the door to find the room of a little girl. Pinks and whites dressed a brass daybed. Dolls lined up on the bed’s pillow, sheer curtains covered the windows that looked out over the front lawn, and a large teddy bear sat slumped in a corner.
“It’s not decorated like it was, but the room layouts are the same.”
“Stands to reason, largest to smallest.”
She touched the soft coverlet. “Yes.”
“Do you remember that night at all?”
“Not much. I fell asleep and when I awoke, Ronnie’s dirty hand was on my mouth.” “Shh, be very, very quiet. There are bad guys outside that want to kill you.” She touched her lips with her fingertips. “My next memory is the closet.”
Susan shifted her stance, gripping the leather strap of her purse so tightly that her knuckles whitened. “There’s no easy way to say it but to just say it.”
Jenna frowned. “What’re you talking about?”
“I knew your father.”
Jenna sat straighter. “Excuse me?”
“He and I knew each other. I met him while I was covering the courthouse.”
“Okay.”
She dropped her voice and adjusted a gold watch on her wrist. “I cared for him.”
Jenna stepped back from the bed. Memories of her mother standing in the window, crying, flashed. “You had an affair with him?”
A frown stained the edges of an otherwise smooth forehead. “You make it sound cheap.”
“No. But let’s call it what it was.”
“I loved your father. And I know he loved me. I met you once when you were about four.”
“Really?” She should have been shocked or angered by this revelation, but the curiosity for her past overwhelmed all other emotions. “Where?”
“You were at the high school football game. Your older sister was cheering and your father took you to the game.”
“My mother wasn’t there.”
“I never saw her.” She shifted and managed a smile. “You were a cute little thing. Looked like a mini version of your sister.”
“My aunt said that once.”
“You’ve not seen pictures?”
“I just have one. It was taken of the four of us. My aunt said they were all destroyed.”
Susan reached in her designer leather purse and pulled out a picture. “I’ve been thinking about giving this to you since I first saw you.”
“You didn’t dig into my past. You recognized me.”
“I saw your sister and your father in you. And I knew your name was Jennifer, of course. Jenna, Jennifer, not a huge leap.”
Jenna struggled to assimilate what she was hearing. “Why didn’t you say anything to me before the interview? Why tell the world who I was?”
“I’m desperate for a story so I can keep my job. I didn’t stop to think until later. I should have talked to you first.”
“Why not expose your own connection?”
“I’m a coward.”
Jenna studied her a beat. Her father’s affair explained why her own mother had been crying. Maybe even why Sara had been fighting with her father.
Susan held out the picture. “Take it. It’s the least I can give you.”
She accepted the picture and stared down at the face of a man, her father, standing with two girls. The older girl, Sara, appeared to be about fifteen and the younger one, Jennifer, four. Sara wore a cheering outfit and she did as well.
As if in explanation, Susan said, “You loved the idea of cheering like your sister. I believe it was your mother who made the outfit for you.”
Staring into these faces triggered a surge of sadness and joy and longing. “You took the picture?”
“Yes. That day at the game.”
Jenna traced the face of her sister. Her parents’ marriage, the affair, even their connection should have been on top of her list of questions. Instead, all she could ask was, “Why did he do it? Why did Ronnie kill my family and take me?”
Susan raised a manicured finger and brushed a single strand of hair back in place. “I don’t know. I wish to hell I did, but I don’t know. Have you read the police records?”
“Not yet.”
“Ronnie worked at the high school around the time your sister arrived there as a freshman. By all accounts, no one ever saw the two together. No one understood the depth of his obsession with your sister. She was out of his league and he knew it.”
“He did all this to punish her?”
“That was the theory.”
Jenna’s emotions swirled around her and she had to struggle to keep them silent. She had no idea if Susan was telling her the truth or lying to get her story. The picture she held in her hand might be precious but it could have been taken by anyone. Her defenses rose.
“Can I keep this?” Jenna asked.
“Of course. I brought it for you.”
“Thanks.” She glanced down again at the picture. More emotions of loss and longing swirled.
“Sure. Sure. I’m here for you.” Susan lifted her hand as if to touch Jenna’s hand.
Jenna drew back, straightening. They weren’t friends or comrades. All she knew was that she might have a shared connection to her family. “Thanks.”
Jenna’s phone buzzed. It was her bride. Ready to see her picture. “I’ve got to go. Thank you.”
Susan laid her hand on Jenna’s arm stopping her. “You can trust me. I’m your friend.”
Jenna hesitated, searched the older woman’s eyes, full of sadness. Was she a talented liar or telling the truth? Jenna pulled her arm away and hurried out of the house not sure if Susan had reached out a helping hand or pulled the strings like a puppeteer.
When Rick walked into KC’s bar, it was close to midnight and the place was still crammed full of customers. There were two female singers on the small stage. One of the women, a redhead dressed in jeans and a tank top, played a guitar and the other, a blonde, played the violin. The customers crowded around the stage, swaying time to the music.
He glanced toward the bar and didn’t see KC but his backup bartender instead. Rick made his way through the crowds toward the back office, where KC no doubt was getting a head start on the night’s receipts.
Down a narrow hallway, he spotted the light coming from the door that was ajar. He knocked.
“Go away,” KC grumbled.
Rick smiled and pushed open the door to see KC hunched over a state-of-the art computer. He sported half-glasses and a blue Hawaiian shirt that accentuated his balding head and broad shoulders. “KC.”
The older man turned and his frown softened whe
n he saw Rick. After all the years KC and Buddy had been partners, KC was like family. He snatched off his glasses and rose, crossing the small office in one step. He extended his hand to Rick. “What the hell brings you out? Tell me you’re chasing a woman.”
“Nope, not a woman.”
KC shook his head. “You’re a monk. You need to live a little.”
“I could say the same for you.” He glanced around the office and the wall of cubbies filled with neatly stacked papers. “I hear from Georgia that you work all the time.”
“Don’t feel like work,” KC said. “I like slinging drinks and not chasing bad guys.” He studied Rick with a paternal glare that reminded Rick of his own father. “So what brings you to my neck of the woods?”
“A question about an old case.”
He nodded. “Don’t tell me, Jenna Thompson.”
“You saw the news report.”
“Who hasn’t?”
“When she showed up here, did you have any hint about her past?”
“Nope. Not a one. The last time I saw Jennifer Elliot Thompson was almost twenty-five years ago. She was just five. When Jenna showed up here, she never once mentioned her past.”
“You worked her case with Buddy?”
A scowl deepened the lines of his face. “Everyone worked her case. An entire family was killed and a little girl missing. We were all scrambling to find her. No one figured we’d find her alive.”
“What can you tell me about the case?”
“Open and shut. We found the killer. Dead of an overdose. End of story. We were all glad she was alive.”
“Why’d he do it? Ronnie. Why’d he kill the family?”
“Best we could figure was that he had a thing for Jenna’s older sister. I’ve spent the better part of the last couple of days trying to remember the case but can’t seem to jog too much loose. Have you pulled my case files?”
“I’ve requested them.”
“The files will tell you more than this old memory of mine. Buddy, being Buddy, kept great notes.” KC cocked his head. “So why the interest in the case?”
“I didn’t like being blindsided by the reporter’s question.”
“That happens. Not a call to dig into twenty-five-year-old case files.”