Still Waters

by Debra Webb

  She scrubbed at her eyes. “We have to search my house. Now. I need to know if they were watching me... I need to be sure.”

  “Since no other toxins have been found, I think it’s safe to have a look. But I’m not letting you stay there again until this is over.” Sean gave her hand a squeeze before letting go.

  She held his gaze a beat longer. “Okay.”

  His entire being aching to lean across the seat and kiss her. He shifted his attention straight ahead. What he really wanted to do was pull over and make her feel this raging desire building inside him. She needed kissing. She needed to feel safe and cared for. For the first time in a very long time, he hoped he got the opportunity to make her feel that way.

  Forest Brook Drive, Homewood

  AMBER STARED AT her home for a long moment after the car stopped moving. Sean was getting out and would be at her door any second, but she suddenly couldn’t move. Growing up, she had spent endless hours in this house. Louisa Roberts had been the perfect grandmother. She always baked cookies for Amber’s arrival. If it was summer, there would be fresh-squeezed lemonade. If it was winter, there would be homemade hot chocolate. They read together and played games. Grandma Louisa owned every good board game made between 1950 and 1980, she’d boasted.

  In this house Amber had felt completely safe and loved her entire life.

  Until now.

  Her door opened, and Sean waited for her to climb out. She stared up at him, conscious of her need to throw herself into his arms. She suddenly felt so isolated and completely alone. He was the one person that made her feel remotely safe right now. She wanted to know the shelter of his arms...she wanted to know him.

  Shaking off the overwhelming reactions, she emerged from the car and steadied herself. When this was over, she intended to take a serious vacation. She hadn’t taken a real vacation since the summer she graduated college. The job at the station was already hers, so she’d taken two weeks on the West Coast to relax and shop for a fashionable wardrobe. She’d returned well rested and seriously broke. Her grandmother had laughed and given her a high five. That winter Louisa Roberts had passed away.

  Amber pushed aside the tender memories and waited while Sean unlocked her front door. The silence inside made her belly clench. Normally her security system would be screaming for attention, but she had left it disarmed for the police. Actually, they hadn’t armed it when they’d raced out of here headed for the ER. How had this place that had once felt so safe suddenly become so filled with potential danger?

  Her heart was pounding by the time she crossed the threshold. As terrifying as the reality that someone had broken in and touched her things was, it was still good to be home on a level no one could touch.

  The evidence technicians hadn’t left the mess she had expected. Everything looked just as she’d left it when they’d hurried off to the ER last night. The teacup she’d used as well as the can of tea were missing. Both were evidence now. In a day or two the lab would be able to tell her what sort of poison had been added to her tea. She’d done some Google searches before she’d fallen asleep this morning, but the symptoms for most toxins were so similar it was impossible to narrow down the possibilities. She was, however, relatively certain the culprit was some sort of plant.

  “Where should we begin?” she asked, shifting to what they’d come here to do.

  “The cameras might be really small. Basically they could be planted anywhere, but—” he met her gaze “—we should check the bedroom and bathroom first.”

  The idea made Amber sick to her stomach. “How do you want to do this?”

  “Do you have a stepladder?”

  She nodded. “In the garage.”

  Rather than go to her bedroom, Amber waited in the living room for Sean to return. She hoped the feeling of uncertainty in her own home would pass quickly. When this was over and she was on that nice, long vacation, she intended to have the house cleaned and painted. All the food products were going in the trash. Every dish and spoon and utensil would be sanitized in the dishwasher. Every single item she owned was going to be washed or dry-cleaned.

  It was the only way she would ever feel comfortable in her home again.

  While Sean checked the overhead light fixtures and tops of the windows, Amber started the challenging task of going through the bookshelves and clutter on the chest of drawers and dresser.

  “Here we go.”

  She turned from the bookshelf to see him take a small object from the narrow shelf made by the plantation shutters on the window. Her heart lurched.

  “We need a box,” he said. “A shoe box, hatbox, whatever you have handy.”

  Amber rushed into her closet and grabbed the first shoe box she could get her hands on. She dumped the contents and hurried back to where he waited. He placed the small gadget in the box. She positioned the lid over it. If the thing was still live, she didn’t want whoever might be watching to see anything else.

  Before moving on to the next room, they covered every square foot of her bedroom and discovered one more camera, this one on top of a family portrait that her grandmother had commissioned when Amber’s father was five. Even if the evidence techs had moved the painting, they wouldn’t have noticed it unless they were looking specifically for something so tiny.

  A third camera was found in the bathroom on the cabinet above the toilet, angled to ensure she was captured taking a bath or shower. The fear she had felt earlier was gone. Fury had taken its place. This was her home! The living room and the kitchen were bugged with one camera each. She stood in the middle of her kitchen now and allowed the rage to course through her. It was either that or throw up, and she’d done enough of that last night.

  “We should take all this to Harper,” Sean suggested.

  Amber didn’t argue.

  When they left she armed the security system for all the good it would do.

  Sean called Lieutenant Harper, who suggested they meet at Thrasher’s home since he was en route there with a warrant.

  “Did they find him?” Amber wanted to know. Sean hadn’t mentioned the floral shop owner.

  He shook his head. “One of the neighbors said he left this morning at the same time he always does to open the shop and he hasn’t returned.”

  “He’s gone.” Amber didn’t need confirmation. The man knew the police were getting close to figuring out his connection to Adler and the murdered women and he’d run. Damn it!

  “I’m sure the BPD issued a BOLO. Thrasher won’t get far.”

  Amber hoped he was right.

  Killough Circle, 6:15 p.m.

  A BPD CRUISER sat on the street in front of the house belonging to Peter Thrasher. The sedan Lieutenant Chet Harper and Detective Chad Cook had arrived in was parked in the driveway alongside the evidence techs’ van. Yellow tape marked the area as a crime scene. The two uniforms guarding the perimeter had informed Amber and Sean they had to wait on the street until further notice. Two other cruisers had blocked both ends of the block. No reporters were getting in.

  Amber had been pacing the sidewalk for a good forty-five minutes. She was dying to know what was going on inside the house. Had they found evidence tying Thrasher to Adler? She rubbed at her forehead. Had they found photos or videos of her or the other women?

  She hugged her arms around herself and paced in the other direction. Had the two sold the intimate look at her life to some adult site? Her stomach churned. If they had uploaded the videos they made to the internet...

  “You’re going to wear out that sidewalk,” Sean commented.

  Amber stalled and glared at him. Leaning against his car, his arms folded across his chest, ankles crossed, he appeared completely unperturbed. How could he look so calm? Two women had been murdered. She would have been number three if someone hadn’t killed Adler. She might still end up murdered if Thrash
er wasn’t found. Reality washed over her like a dash of icy water. She would be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life if he got away.

  She couldn’t fall apart now. Deep breath. “We’ve been waiting almost an hour.” She looked back at the house. “Do you think they’ve found evidence to connect him to the cameras we found in my house?” She had stood outside the yellow tape at plenty of scenes where a crime had been committed. In her experience the longer the investigators were inside, the more likely the findings were significant.

  “Chances are if they’d found nothing, we’d know it by now.”

  Of course they had found evidence. She really was out of sorts here. How long had she been reporting the news? Going on seven years. Granted, she rarely landed the major crime stories like serial killer Eric Spears—that was Gina Coleman’s domain. Frankly, it didn’t matter how many times she had worked a crime scene like this; this was different. This was personal. She was on the other side of the event this time. The reporters following this case were talking about her, which was in part why her boss had insisted she take a few vacation days. She’d been thinking about calling to do exactly that. He’d beat her to it.

  Sean abruptly straightened away from his car. Amber’s gaze followed his to the detective exiting the front door of Thrasher’s home. Her pulse fluttered.

  Detective Cook was only a couple of years younger than Amber. She’d seen him at Gina and Barb’s engagement party. Cook had just popped the question to Dr. Sylvia Baron’s daughter. Amber remembered feeling vaguely jealous of the couple. They had looked so in love.

  Her gaze drifted to Sean. She blinked and looked away. God help her.

  Cook gave Sean one of those male nods of acknowledgment, then he turned to Amber. “Ma’am, Lieutenant Harper will be out shortly. He’ll brief you on what we found.”

  “Thank you.” It was about time.

  “We’ve got Ricky Vernon headed over here to take a look at the computers,” Cook said to Sean. “Harper doesn’t want to risk triggering any safety features that might shut down or wipe the systems.”

  “Are you saying there’s more than one computer?” Amber’s stomach sank.

  Cook shifted his attention back to her. She held her breath as he seemed to decide how much he could tell her. “Yes, ma’am, four desktop computers and one laptop. It looks like he was watching a fourth woman. The lieutenant has sent a couple of uniforms over to check on her.”

  “Is she okay?”

  Cook hesitated again. “We’re not seeing her on any of the cameras. We’ve made a couple of calls already, and she wasn’t at work today.”

  “Thrasher may have taken her.” A chill bored into Amber’s bones. And he was out there somewhere. She turned all the way around, scanning the neighborhood. He could be anywhere.

  Chapter Twelve

  Magic City Beer & Burger, 8:00 p.m.

  Amber needed to relax. She sat on her side of the booth, her back ramrod straight. Sean had hoped that coming to an out-of-the-way place—one he doubted she’d ever set foot inside—would help make that happen. No such luck. She jumped every time the bell over the door jingled with a new customer.

  “You should stop worrying about who walks in and just eat.” He nodded to the house special on her plate. “You know the sauce is a closely guarded secret.”

  “I’m sure it’s great.” She forced a smile into place. “I’m really not hungry.”

  “The fries are the best in town.” For emphasis he stuffed one into his mouth. Bad move. Rather than follow his example, she watched him chew. Out in LA he’d dated plenty of celebrity types. Every single one had been unique, but the one thing they all had in common was the inability to hide certain basic feelings. The flare of desire he spotted in Amber’s green eyes startled him almost as much as he felt certain it did her. They’d had a couple of moments the past few days, but this was the first time she’d shown true hunger, and he was relatively certain it wasn’t about the food.

  “Eat,” he encouraged. “You’ll thank me later. Besides, you don’t want to offend the chef.”

  She glanced over at the counter as the owner and cook shouted, “Order up,” and placed a meatloaf special on the counter of the pass through window. With a sigh, she picked up her burger and took a bird-size bite. The surprise that captured her expression made him smile.

  “I told you.” He tore off another bite of his own sandwich.

  For a few minutes they ate in silence. Amber stopped sizing up every customer who entered, and she ate not only the burger but every single fry. Apparently the lady hadn’t realized how much she liked burgers. She’d polished off a good-size one at the Garage Café, too. All this time he’d been watching her on the news he’d had her figured for a vegan.

  She patted her lips with her napkin. “Wow. I can’t believe I ate so much.”

  “Good.” He tossed his own crumpled napkin into his now-empty serving dish. “Would you like dessert? They make the best deep-fried Oreo cookie on the planet.”

  Amber held up her hands. “No, thanks. I couldn’t eat another bite.”

  “Coffee then,” he suggested.

  She nodded. “Coffee would be great.”

  Sean waved over the waitress and ordered coffee. When she was on her way, he watched as Amber drifted back into her own troubling thoughts. “They’ll find him.”

  She blinked as if resurfacing from a faraway place. “I hope so.”

  “Harper and Cook are the best.”

  She nodded. “They were part of the team Jess had when she was still with the department.”

  Sean’s boss was pretty much a celebrity herself. “Lori Wells and Clint Hayes were on the team, too.” Clint was the senior investigator at B&C now. One of the things Sean liked most about the older man was his straightforwardness. He didn’t tolerate the games some people liked to play. Amber appeared to share that feeling. So far Sean had found her to be honest and direct. He liked that about her.

  “Gina is always telling stories about Jess’s FBI days and how her profiles were responsible for bringing down the worst of the worst.”

  “Eric Spears.” Sean was still living in Hollywood when the infamous serial killer followed Jess to Birmingham, but he’d heard plenty about it from his family.

  “Eric Spears was at the top of the evil scale,” Amber said. “Gina did an exposé on the way Jess profiled using a scale she called the faces of evil.” She laughed. “I’m sure you’ve heard a great deal about how amazing your boss is.”

  “She is amazing and tough.” Sean had experienced the latter firsthand.

  Amber pushed her empty plate aside and braced her crossed arms on the table. She leaned forward and looked directly into his eyes. “How many other women have been hurt or murdered by Thrasher and Adler? What if Pettie and McCorkle weren’t their first victims?”

  “Jess doesn’t think there were other victims, but we may never know for sure,” Sean allowed. The waitress arrived with two steaming cups of coffee. Sean gifted her with a smile and thanked her. He sipped his coffee, hoping Amber would do the same rather than dwell on the what-ifs.

  When she followed his lead and tasted the coffee, she made an approving sound. “This place is full of surprises.”

  The place looked a little rough on the surface, especially with the old truck front end hanging on the wall behind the bar. Rustic but homey in Sean’s opinion. The staff was extra friendly, and the craft beers were second to none. “My folks used to bring us here here as kids. It was a ritual after church on Sundays.”

  Amber smiled, that genuine one that made his heart beat a little faster. “You went to church?”

  “Didn’t you?” he teased. “You grew up in Birmingham—you must have.”

  “I did. I still do occasionally. Work sometimes gets in the way.” She sipped her
coffee and turned thoughtful for a moment. “Even when we traveled, we found a house of worship. Whether it was a Jewish temple or a Buddhist one. My parents embrace all people and their cultures.”

  “More people should raise their children that way.” Sean damned sure intended to—if he ever had any. Now there was a thought that came out of left field. Just because he would turn thirty this year didn’t mean time was running out. As far as he knew guys didn’t have so-called biological clocks. He drowned the crazy idea with more coffee.

  “Why does Jess believe there aren’t other murder victims?” Amber’s smile had disappeared. The worry was back in her eyes.

  “She read the case files on Pettie and McCorkle. She concluded that the first murder, Pettie, was likely a surprise to both men. The work was sloppier. They were more careful and organized with the second victim, McCorkle. Even the way the cameras were placed in the homes, Pettie’s versus yours, was progressively more precise.”

  “So they may have started out as Peeping Toms hiding in the girls’ bathroom at school or watching their sisters or mothers?”

  “Exactly. The BPD confirmed the two attended the same schools. Jess believes they probably teamed up as school chums and things grew from there.”

  Amber shivered visibly. Sean reached across the table and placed his hand on hers. “Even if Thrasher is stupid enough to try, he’ll have to go through me to get to you.”

  A faint smile trembled across her lips. “I’m really grateful you’re here.”

  The warmth that had spread up his arm and across his chest from nothing more than touching her hand had him wondering how grateful she would be if she knew how much he wanted to touch all of her.

  She straightened away from the table, breaking the contact. “I think maybe I’ll have one of those deep-fried Oreos after all.”

  Rather than summon the waitress, Sean went to the counter and placed the order. He needed the distance. Allowing personal involvement with a client was a mistake he did not intend to repeat. Too bad the only part of him sticking by that motto was his brain—everything else was pulsing with need. He returned to the booth only a few minutes later with their desserts, and they both dug in.