by Gayle Wilson
They had told him when he’d been commissioned that he was an officer and a gentleman. He’d always tried to live up to both standards. He had every intention of doing that tonight.
Except he knew very well which road was paved with those kinds of intentions.
Chapter Fourteen
Eden opened her eyes to sunlight filtering in around her bedroom curtains. The bedside clock read 7:30, at least an hour later than she normally got up. Still early enough, she assured herself, to grab a shower and make it in before the media began questioning why she wasn’t there to talk about yesterday’s discovery.
With that thought came the memory of Jake asking to see her father’s files and promising to wake her. The fact that he hadn’t might indicate he had left with the sunrise. Or it might simply mean he knew how much she had needed this sleep.
For the first time in days, she felt as if she could take time to think things through without someone believing she was falling down on her job. And the first thing she needed to think about was a statement.
It was always possible Dean had already taken care of that. A task she was more than willing to hand off to her second-in-command. She just didn’t believe he would attempt to do it without consulting her. Which meant…
She threw back the covers and crawled out of bed. In case Jake was still in the house, she gathered up every item of clothing she would need for the day before she walked across to the bathroom.
She couldn’t tell whether or not she was alone by the quality of the silence that greeted her. Only the fragrance of coffee that permeated the air told her that, whatever else Jake might have accomplished last night, he’d kept his promise. He had stood guard over her as she’d slept, just as he’d said he would.
As soon as she was decent, she would thank him for that, as well as for the caffeine. Despite having slept longer last night than she’d managed during the past four days combined, she knew she badly needed the stimulus a couple of cups of coffee would provide.
Fifteen minutes later she emerged from the bathroom, showered, dressed and wearing makeup. She refused to examine too closely why she had felt the last was necessary, chalking up the impulse to giving her confidence a boost as she faced the cameras.
When she entered the kitchen she found her breakfast table buried under mounds of folders. Although they seemed to be arranged in stacks, her initial impression was one of chaos. Whatever hope she might have had for some breakthrough as a result of Jake’s search through her father’s documents quickly faded.
“Good morning.” Jake verbally acknowledged her presence, but his eyes remained focused on the pages spread out in front of him.
“Thanks for staying. And for making coffee.” Not exactly the speech she had planned, but since he didn’t seem particularly interested in what she had to say, she decided it would do.
“How’d you sleep?” He looked up this time, eyes narrowed slightly against the sunlight that streamed into the room through the window over the sink.
It illuminated his face: the angles of his cheekbones, the strength of his jawline, the shape of his mouth. Eden’s heart stopped. Literally.
And although it quickly resumed an almost regular rhythm, she knew that her uneventfully small-town existence had just taken another turn. One as potentially life-altering as the crime that had changed everything she had once believed about Waverly.
Jake’s eyes appeared blue, rather than their normal gray. A trick of the light? Or a reflection from the navy polo he wore?
All she knew was that the difference between their color and the deep tan of the face that surrounded them was stunning. The growth of dark whiskers covering his cheeks pointed up that contrast, as did the midnight gleam of his hair.
Perhaps because she had at first considered him nothing more than a suspect and then, only later, an ally, she was shocked to realize now how breathtakingly handsome she found a man she had never thought of in that light.
Blatantly masculine, yes. She had acknowledged that from the day he’d walked into her office. It would be hard not to, given the testosterone-laden confidence with which he’d carried himself, despite the limp. But handsome? “Eden?”
Hearing her name brought her out of the shattering fog of self-discovery. She was attracted to Jake Underwood.
Not because of his intellect or his service record or the way he had handled himself from the beginning of all this. Or maybe because of all of those.
And at some point she would have to deal with her feelings. Just not while he was sitting at her kitchen table.
“So, what did you find?” The tone of her question was too bright. As if they were talking about the weather. Or a book they’d both read. Not the search for a terrified child.
“Several things I’d like to look at a little more closely.”
That didn’t sound encouraging, but then she hadn’t expected him to discover Raine’s kidnapper lurking among her father’s yellowing papers.
“Of course. You want to take them with you?”
“Maybe. I haven’t even finished going through everything. Your dad was nothing if not thorough.”
“I told you. He was… I guess obsessed is fair. He really thought that if he looked hard enough…” She blocked the memory of all those nights she’d watched her father pore over these same documents. “I have to go. There are eggs and bacon in the fridge. Cereal in the pantry. Feel free to browse.”
She couldn’t seem to stop the flow of words. Too many. Too fast. Almost certainly too revealing.
“I’m fine.” His eyes fell again to the papers before he looked up to smile at her. “I’ll clean up before I leave. Like the bed corners, it’s a habit.”
She couldn’t remember ever having seen him smile. Whatever had stirred in her chest a moment ago happened again, but lower this time.
And that was not surprise, she acknowledged. Not deep in the bottom of her stomach.
“It doesn’t matter. Call me if you find something.” She tilted her head toward the stacks of material.
“Like I said. You’ll be the first to know.”
She didn’t want to leave. She wanted to sit down in the chair beside him and read whatever he was reading. Talk about it. Talk to him. Instead…
“I have to go.”
“I know. Good luck with the jackals.”
She nodded, and then forced herself to turn and walk toward the door to the living room. When she reached it, she couldn’t resist looking back at him.
Head down, he’d already returned to his perusal of the opened files. The morning sun picked out blue highlights in the darkness of his hair.
What was she doing? Mooning like a teenager over a man who…
Who was what? Crazy? Damaged?
Brain-damaged, she amended. Whatever the hell that meant.
Jake Underwood seemed more normal than most of the people she knew. Certainly more normal than she was right now.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the front door and stepped out on the wide veranda that ran along the front and down one side of her house. In spite of the shade it provided, and the fact that it was only a little after eight in the morning, the heat struck her like a physical blow. And despite it, she was expected to be cool, calm and collected for the horde of reporters who would be waiting at the courthouse.
Jackals. Her lips tilted. A damned apt description from someone whose brain was supposed to be screwed up.
She managed to hang on to that smile most of the way downtown, losing it only to the reality of how appropriate Jake’s description truly was.
DEALING WITH THE PRESS hadn’t been the worst part of Eden’s day, but it was certainly near the top for that honor. Since Jake’s seemingly psychic description of the bunker they’d found was now well-known, most of the questions had revolved around his possible role in the kidnapping. Other than reiterating the things she’d been saying since his flashbacks concerning Raine had become public knowledge, there wasn’t much she could do to d
efuse the town’s growing hysteria.
And when the father of the kidnapped child became one of the more vocal critics of law enforcement’s efforts to direct the investigation along avenues they believed would be more productive, the media became exactly what Jake had called them.
Although she wasn’t particularly hopeful, Eden had found herself wondering, during the almost frenetic activities of the day, whether he’d discovered anything in her father’s files that might be helpful. Because if he hadn’t…
She felt again the even heavier weight of responsibility she bore for finding Raine. She’d been wrong about the bunker keeping the agents in town. If anything, the fact that it had been found—and found empty—seemed to solidify their decision to leave.
She had been assured they would be available for consultation; but she could see in their eyes that as far as they were concerned, the outcome of this case had been decided. The child they had come here to find was dead. If at some future date the department located her body, that would provide closure for the family and the possibility of forensic evidence that might lead to her killer. If that occurred, they had urged her to place a call to Jackson, and they’d get an evidence team right down here.
Which meant that, from now on, the Waverly police were virtually on their own. And other than continuing to do what they were currently doing, Eden had no idea where to go from here.
“I’m going home.”
She looked up to find Dean leaning into the open door of her office. “Get some sleep,” she urged. “And something to eat.”
“You do the same.” He had already turned when her question stopped him.
“What do we tell them tomorrow?”
“The Nolans?”
“The search teams.” The number of people who had shown up for those had decreased with each passing day. And now they were searching areas they’d been over before.
“The same thing we’ve told them every day. Our best chance of finding her is to have everybody out looking.”
“You think he took her out on the water?”
Dean shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “That’s always been a possibility.”
“We may never know what happened to her.”
“We know what happened to her, Eden. We may never find her body, but we all know what happened.”
She nodded, too dispirited to argue with the reality of that. A reality she knew better than most.
Winton stuck his head in the door, looking from one to the other. “Am I interrupting something?”
“I was just leaving,” Dean said.
“Major Underwood’s here to see you, Chief.”
Although she noted Dean’s brows lift, Eden instructed, “Send him back.”
When the deputy disappeared down the hall, Dean said, “Given the mood of this town, the man’s either exceptionally brave or a fool.”
“I don’t think he’s a fool.”
“So I heard.”
The undertone was impossible to miss. Or ignore. “What does that mean?”
“Somebody mentioned his truck was parked in front of your place all night.”
“And?” Despite the calmness of her response, her heart had begun to pound.
“You being intimate with Underwood makes your defense of him a whole lot less believable to folks around here.”
“My being intimate with him? Where the hell did you get that idea?”
“Why, I don’t know, Eden. Maybe from him spending the night at your house.”
She thought about telling Dean exactly why Jake had stayed. Although intimacy had nothing to do with it, the real reason would only make her look weak. Something she’d rather avoid before a subordinate, particularly in the current situation.
As she tried to think of some plausible explanation for Jake spending the night, she heard Winton direct him down the hall to her office. “We can talk about this tomorrow,” she suggested instead.
“Whatever you say, Chief.” Dean’s tone was as mocking as it had been when he’d thrown his bombshell.
And it was the first time she could remember him addressing her with anything other than respect.
“Major Underwood.” Dean nodded as he walked by Jake and out into the reception area.
“Your deputy said to come on back,” Jake apologized.
“It’s fine. We were just touching base about tomorrow.” Eden could feel the rush of blood to her cheeks. As she’d told Dean, Jake was no fool.
“Rough day?” He hadn’t yet stepped inside the office, as if unsure of his welcome.
“The Bureau pulled out.”
“Can they do that?”
“Essentially, they said to call them when we find the body. Actually, it was more like if we find the body.”
“They’re playing the odds. They knew from the first that would be the most likely outcome.”
“If giving up is playing the odds, then what are we doing?”
“Assuming she’s alive. Until we have proof to the contrary.”
“I’m not sure I can do that anymore.” After today, hope was in very short supply.
“Then you need to turn the investigation over to someone who can.”
“If I knew who that might be, I would.”
“You give up now, Eden, she’ll never be found.”
“Then give me something to work with.”
She had meant that to be theoretical. Or maybe she was hoping, as she had for the past three days, that Jake would have another of those flashbacks in which he saw Raine.
Whatever she had meant, his response caught her off guard. Jake limped across the room to place something on her desk.
Her recognition was instantaneous—file folders from her father’s cardboard box. She looked up from them and straight into Jake’s eyes.
There was no sense of “gotcha” there. No promise. And no hype.
Apparently, he was giving her exactly what she had asked for. Something to work with.
Chapter Fifteen
“There are two that have some striking similarities to this kidnapping.” Jake spread the folders out, although he knew the names at the top by heart. “Shauna Terrell in Boothville, Louisiana, 1999, and Madison Stewart, 2005, in Bayou La Batre, Alabama.”
“What kind of similarities?” Eden’s question seemed careful.
Maybe she simply didn’t want to get her hopes up before she had something concrete to pin them on. Jake thought he could give her that.
“In both cases the kidnapper used an underground dugout to conceal his victim. More important, in both instances the hiding place had been constructed on either public or corporate land.”
There was no reaction in her eyes. At least not the one he’d anticipated. She seemed underwhelmed by the connection he’d found so obvious between the three disappearances.
“But…wouldn’t that make sense?” she asked finally. “If he did that, then even if someone discovered the dugout, there would be no way to tie it to him.”
“Except a perpetrator of this kind of act isn’t usually motivated by what makes sense. In most of these crimes, the kidnapper wants to keep his victim as close to him as possible. In his basement. Attic. Somewhere he can be with her. These three—” he again touched the folders on her desk. “They didn’t have that proximity. And that argues he has more control than most of those who commit these offenses.”
“Three?”
“I’m including Raine’s kidnapper.”
“So you think this is someone who lived in Alabama and Louisiana before he came here?”
He had known she would find that a stretch. That some criminal newcomer to Waverly, where everyone knew everyone else’s business, could escape detection. “Or someone who knew those areas. Maybe he hunted or fished there.”
Her laugh was disbelieving. “We don’t have to go out of state to hunt and fish.”
“Then maybe he was visiting family in those locations and encountered the victims. Or maybe he moved here after the
last of them. Maybe he had family here. Or grew up here and came back home.”
“That’s possible,” she admitted. “A lot of people feel the grass is greener somewhere else. Or they just get tired of the confinement of small-town life.”
“So you think this is worth pursuing?”
“I’ll have to look at the files. But if the bunker is the only thing they have in common—” She looked up, her eyes apologetic.
“It’s not. Looking at these places on the map, the towns where these abductions took place seem tellingly similar to me. You’re probably more familiar with all the things they have in common than I am. Coastal waterways for one. A lot of the population involved in activities that depend on those waters. And a lot of uninhabited land.”
“What about the kidnapping themselves?”
Jake had known that would be the part he’d have the most difficulty convincing her about. His own conviction was so strong, however, that he was determined to make her see what he had seen.
“One of these was a home invasion, much like Raine’s. The girl was taken from her bed in the middle of the night. The rest of the family slept through the entire thing.”
“And the other?”
“The child was playing outside after dark. Or almost dark. She disappeared from the family’s front yard.”
“Then how can you make a connection?”
“Because of the bunker. And the physical similarities.” He opened one of the folders and pulled out the picture of the girl who had disappeared in Alabama. “Look at her.”
“Oh, my God,” Eden breathed softly. “She and Raine—”
“Could be sisters.”
Jake regretted the words as soon as they came out of his mouth, but Eden didn’t react, her eyes still on the picture. And as he’d presented the evidence he’d found, his own confidence in it had grown.
There were too many things that pointed to this being the same perpetrator. A conclusion he might never have reached had Eden’s father not laid the groundwork.
“I don’t know a lot about the psychology of this kind of crime, but don’t serial killers seek out victims of the same physical type?” he prompted.