“Do you recognize him?”
At the corner, she stopped and searched the corridor. A few people walked this way and that, not very busy, but no sign of the stranger. Where had he gone? Side doors and restrooms could have given him a way out. She stopped and looked back. They’d passed another men’s restroom, a different one from the one Brycen had used.
“No,” she said.
Brycen backtracked their steps and went into the men’s restroom. When he reemerged, he said, “He’s gone.”
“Of course he is. He knew you’d be here. He didn’t try to approach me until he saw you go into the restroom.”
She went to the front entrance to the small airport terminal, opposite the entrance she’d used from the tarmac. She didn’t go outside. No cars moved. A couple approached the entrance. The stranger had planned to get in and out fast. He’d planned carefully, and he’d taken a risk in coming here to warn her. A friendly face on the inside of a dangerous crowd. Whatever Noah had begun to uncover, it was more than a domestic violence call or a robbery or an attempted sexual assault. One of those calls, or another he’d responded to, had led him into something much, much darker.
*
Brycen didn’t like how easily a stranger had penetrated his watch over Drury. But it told him a lot about his adversary. He didn’t work alone, and Noah had threatened him with more than an arrest in relation to responses for calls for help. Talking to Noah’s partner wouldn’t help. Carter didn’t appear to know much.
Through the SUV windows, he spotted Drury tugging Junior toward the vehicle. The boy pouted and resisted, clearly not wanting to go with her.
Her parents came out onto the porch and waved at Brycen. He waved back, watching Madeline wrap her long sweater tighter.
Junior broke free from her grasp and would have run back to his grandparents if Drury hadn’t snagged him by his arm. She pulled him to face her and crouched before him, talking to him sternly until the boy’s head lowered and he finally nodded. Whatever talk she’d had with him hadn’t worked. Taking his hand, she stood and took him down the sidewalk, turning to wave to her parents. They waved back and continued to watch.
Drury opened the back door and Junior climbed in, head low, giving in to a good pout.
“What’s the matter, Junior?” Drury asked in the open doorway.
Junior’s gaze lifted and he glowered at Brycen. His guess would be he now understood his father was dead but had difficulty accepting another man in his mother’s life. His curiosity had taken a backseat to the threat of having to give up on his father ever coming home.
“Nothing,” Junior said.
“I thought we had a nice talk last night. Is something bothering you about that?”
“No.” His curt response said the opposite.
With a sigh, Drury started to move out of the doorway.
“Why don’t you give me a minute alone with him?” Brycen suggested.
She looked at him a moment and then nodded. Closing the door.
Junior slouched in the back, mouth tight, smooth skin creased above his nose. Getting out, Brycen went to sit in the back. Junior ignored him.
“I was an only child,” Brycen said.
The boy still ignored him and didn’t look at him, but began kicking the back of the front seat as he swung his foot.
“I can’t say I know what it’s like to lose my dad. I had a pretty good relationship with him. But my parents didn’t love each other and ended up divorcing. Do you know what that means?”
Junior nodded, still without looking up.
“I was older than you when they did so it didn’t really affect me much.” After he felt an inner feeling disagree, he decided honesty would work best with a kid like Junior. “Well, I mean, I didn’t think it did. But it did bother me. I didn’t understand why they stayed married so long. I still don’t. But they’re both happier now.” Drury had made him see that. “I was mad at them for not splitting up sooner, maybe I was mad at them for getting married in the first place.” He grunted derisively. “Which is kind of self-defeating. If they hadn’t been together, I’d never have been born.”
The boy stopped swinging his foot and finally looked up at him.
“Your situation is a lot different than mine,” Brycen went on. “I’m not trying to make it seem like we have anything in common there. I guess my point is things happen with your parents that you don’t always understand. It’s tough to work through, but eventually you will.”
“I miss my daddy.” He sounded defiant, mad. Probably that was a good sign.
“Yeah. If I lost my dad, I’d miss him, too.”
“I want him to come home, but Mommy says he can’t.” Again, angry defiance gave bite to his words.
Junior understood his father would never come home but didn’t want to accept it. Acceptance would take some time. He needed relief, sympathy or for someone to tell him everything was going to be okay.
“I wish I could bring him back home for you,” Brycen said. “But all I can do is catch the man who took him from you.”
The boy lowered his head again. Several seconds passed before he asked, “Is that really why you’re here?”
Junior wanted the bad guy caught but struggled with another man getting close to his mother. “Yes.” Brycen had to reassure him in a way that wouldn’t end up being a lie if he couldn’t control his desire for Drury. “Your mom’s a pretty special woman, Junior. You probably feel like you need to step up for her now that your dad is gone.”
Junior shrugged without looking at him.
“I like her,” Brycen said. “But I think you need to know that no matter what happens between me and her, I would never try to take your dad’s place.”
The boy looked up at him again, no longer antagonistic. Now he listened. Really listened.
“I’m not your dad. I won’t try to be. I’ll just be your friend...if you let me.”
Junior took some time mulling over that. Then he asked, “Are you going to leave after you catch the bad guy?”
Why did he ask such a question? Did he rebel out of fear of abandonment or did he feel threatened over the possibility another man could end up with his mother? Brycen suspected it was a little of both, but probably more of an abandonment issue.
“Is that what you want me to do?” Brycen finally asked. “Leave?”
With the boy’s hesitation, he took heart. Then he shrugged.
“Not sure?” Brycen asked.
With a quick glance up at Brycen, Junior nodded.
“You want me to catch your dad’s killer, but you’re not sure if you want me to leave once I do.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, after I solve your dad’s case, I’ll have to go back to Chicago where I live.”
When Junior started kicking the back of the seat again and didn’t respond in any other way, Brycen knew the boy suffered from abandonment issues. He may have imagined the cool detective staying. They’d play games together and do boy stuff. Likely Junior had not imagined such things since before his father passed. But he did not want his mother with another man.
“How do you feel about that?”
Junior shrugged.
“Tell you what,” Brycen said. “How about we be friends like I suggested earlier? We’ll start with that. How does that sound?”
Junior looked up at him. “Will you be my mommy’s friend, too?”
“I’m already her friend. And no matter what happens between me and your mother, she’ll always be here for you and I’ll always be your friend.”
He didn’t respond, only continued to look at him.
“But if I do something you don’t like, let me know and we’ll work through it, okay? If I have boogers in my nose or I start drooling, you’ll let me know, right?”
Junior smiled with a laugh and nodded.
“Everything’s going to be all right, kiddo. You’re going to be all right.” Brycen messed up the top of his head. “Okay?”
“Ok
ay.” He was still smiling.
Brycen had started to get out of the backseat when Junior said, “Mr. Cage?”
He looked back. “If we’re going to be friends, you have to call me Brycen.”
“Why did my mommy want you to come here?”
He kept asking that. “Because it’s my job to catch bad guys and I’m told I’m pretty good at what I do.”
“Is she in trouble?”
Trouble? Why would he think such a thing? “No. Why do you ask?”
The boy tentatively looked over at him a few times. “She wanted you because you’re the best?”
“Yes.” He must have already been told that but needed reassurance. And Brycen began to suspect why. “Nothing or no one can take your mother away from you.”
“But...someone took my daddy from me. What if the same thing happens to her?”
The poor kid dealt with a serious burden. Had he revealed this fear to anyone else? Brycen crouched in the open door and reached over to put his hand on Junior’s where it rested on the seat. “I won’t let anyone hurt her the way your dad was hurt. No one is going to take your mother away from you.”
“But what about when you leave?”
“I won’t leave until I’m sure no one will hurt her.”
Junior scrutinized him some more.
“I’m the best, remember?”
At last Junior smiled again. “Yes.”
Brycen would give him time for all that to sink in. Maybe he’d made headway, maybe not. He hadn’t felt pressured to catch a killer in a long time, but this time the importance hitched up a few notches. All for a boy. Drury’s son. An alien feeling for a man ordinarily hardened to the horrors of violent crimes, a piece of his steel barrier chipped away. Try as he might to put it back in place, he figured he’d lost it for good.
Chapter 6
Two days later, a snowstorm descended on Anchorage. Drury loved to watch the big, heavy flakes propelled to the ground by a driving wind, but she didn’t look forward to getting out of Brycen’s SUV. By the time she adjusted the hood of her jacket and slipped on gloves, Brycen appeared outside the passenger-side door, braving the weather in a jacket and nothing else. His eyes squinted against pelting snow.
Drury climbed out when he opened the door. Putting her foot on the runner, she slipped and might have fallen out of the SUV if not for Brycen wrapping his arm around her and setting her firmly down.
“Oh.” With her hands on his sturdy chest, she stared up at his handsome face and decided to make light of the instant heat the close contact caused. “Well, I couldn’t have staged that better.”
He grinned. “Do you always fall into your men?”
“Are you my man?”
His grin dimmed a bit, but at the same time, a biting gust of wind whooshed snow in their faces and pushed the door open wider.
Keeping his arm around her, he manhandled the door shut and shielded her from the wind as they walked toward the state troopers’ Bureau of Investigations unit. Carter had been out of the office until today, so they’d had to wait to speak with him.
Opening the terminal building door for her, he ushered her inside and made sure the door closed with the next gust. Out of the noise and fray, he heard an officer behind the reception counter finish saying something to a woman standing on the other side.
Drury stomped her feet and pushed her hood back before stepping farther into the building.
“I demand to talk to someone who can help me!” The fortyish chubby woman with short, curly dark hair and busy, multicolored long shirt over leggings slapped her hand on the reception desk. “My friend is missing. Don’t you care about that?”
Drury slowed, something about the woman’s urgency and her mention of a missing woman compelling her.
Brycen slowed with her. “What’s the matter?”
“We have the report, ma’am. We’re looking into her disappearance.”
He followed her look just as the woman slapped her hand again. “You aren’t listening to me. I want to talk to the person in charge of her case.”
“He isn’t here right now, as I’ve told you. I’ll pass along your number.”
“I want to talk to someone now. Every day Evette is missing is another day she could wind up dead, if that monster of a husband hasn’t killed her already.”
“Evette Cummings?” Drury asked.
The woman turned, green eyes bright and surrounded by healthy white and a layer of mascara. “Yes.” She approached them. “Are you in charge of her case?”
“Not exactly.” Drury glanced at Brycen, waiting for him to answer. Some details should be withheld until they learned what this woman knew.
“You’re that detective.” The woman pointed at Brycen, her gold loop earrings swaying. “The one who came to solve that trooper’s murder case.”
“Brycen Cage. This is Drury Decoteau,” he said. “You are...?”
“Juanita Swanson.”
“Are you sure Evette is missing?” Drury asked.
“Oh, I’m sure. I’ve called her, and I’ve gone to her house and Melvin keeps telling me she isn’t home and he doesn’t know where she is. I reported her missing yesterday and nobody is doing anything.” She sighed her frustration, glancing back at the desk officer in annoyance.
“When’s the last time you saw her?” Drury asked.
“Two nights ago. She called me in a panic. Melvin smacked her around real good. He’s a regular at that.”
“Why did he beat her?” Brycen asked, even though he probably already knew.
She humphed. “Melvin needs no excuse or reason to beat Evette. It all depends on his mood or the amount of booze he’s had. But it so happens, this time he had a reason. It goes way back to when that state trooper was killed. He beat her bad then, too. Told her if she ever called the cops again, he’d kill her. I went to see her two days after. She said he was mad because the state trooper came when he had a meeting with someone. She should have gone to the hospital after that beating.”
A man had arrived between the time of Evette’s call and the state troopers’ arrival? They couldn’t reach people who needed help in a matter of minutes when they lived in remote areas as Evette and Melvin did.
“What meeting?” Drury asked.
“Don’t know what it was about. Neither did Evette. She spent most of her time trying to stay out of the way of Melvin’s fists.”
“Who was the man?” Brycen asked.
“Don’t know that, either. Evette didn’t know him and Melvin didn’t tell her his name. He never talked business with her. He only threatened her with her life if she told police he was there.”
For a fisherman, he had secretive business meetings. Something didn’t add up. “But...you said the troopers arrived when the meeting was scheduled.”
The police report said Evette showed no sign of abuse when Noah and Carter had answered her call for help. Melvin had beaten her after Noah and Carter left. But Noah and Carter hadn’t seen the stranger. Or had they?
“That’s why I reported her missing. After that trooper was killed and I went to see her again. I asked her why Melvin beat her. She brushed it off into something insignificant. I asked her if it had anything to do with that trooper’s death and she said no, even though he was the same trooper who answered her call for help. She told me she was mistaken that the man had been there when the trooper arrived. She said he left before that because Melvin told him to.”
She kept saying trooper and not troopers.
“There were two troopers who answered that call,” Brycen said.
“She only mentioned the one.” Juanita didn’t seen troubled by the discrepancy, but her loop earrings wiggled as she looked from Brycen to Drury.
Why would she only refer to one of the troopers? That also didn’t add up. Carter had been there, or so he’d claimed. Why hadn’t he been killed if Noah’s murder had anything to do with that call? Had only Noah seen the stranger? Why would he not tell Carter? Had he gone
off onto his own investigation? Kept it secret?
If so, why hadn’t he told Drury anything about it? They’d had a good marriage. They talked about everything. Or so she’d thought. Maybe their communication hadn’t been as spot-on as she’d believed.
“Do you think Evette lied about the man not being there when the troopers arrived?” Brycen asked.
“Not lied. Beaten and battered, she was too scared to say. I forgot all about it until now. She came to see me the day before yesterday. Scared to death again, because of him. Saying Melvin was paranoid over a detective who’d taken over that trooper’s murder case.” She inspected Brycen. “You.”
Drury could tell Brycen had to hold back his temper knowing Melvin hadn’t heeded his warning—that he’d been unsuccessful in protecting Evette. “And are you certain Evette only referenced one trooper?”
“Yes. She said a trooper came to the door, not troopers.”
Brycen glanced over at Drury, who grappled with all that implied. Had Noah gone on that call alone, and not told Carter? Why?
“Thank you, Juanita.” Brycen took out a card and handed it to her. “If you have anything else for us or have questions, just call.”
She took the card and removed a pen from her big leather purse. She wrote a number on the back of the card and handed his card back to him. “Why don’t you call me when you find my friend?” She met his eyes dead-on.
He smiled slightly as he took his card back. “That will be my pleasure, Ms. Swanson.”
When the woman turned to go, heading through the doors, Drury said, low enough for only him to hear, “Is it possible Noah discovered something about Melvin and went alone because he suspected Carter’s involvement?”
“Quite possible.” He turned to meet her look and she didn’t like the certainty she saw in his eyes.
“Why would Carter lie about being there?”
“So he could say no other man was present when they made the call.”
“He didn’t write the report. Noah did.” Noah hadn’t included a stranger present at the Cummingses’ residence in the report.
*
In a blue state trooper uniform, Carter smiled when he saw them approach down the well-lit hall. Brycen noticed no insincerity, but he’d learned long ago not to trust a man who might have secrets to protect. He shook the man’s hand.
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