by Diana Palmer
He nodded. “We have a murdered child north of here,” he replied. “Homicide is my specialty, so I was assigned to the case.” His expression tautened. “I’ve been in law enforcement most of my life. Usually, not much shocks me. This case…” He shook his head. “The perp took the child right out her bedroom window. We found evidence of a violent encounter in the room.” His eyes flashed angrily. “This man is an animal. He has to be caught.”
“Have you found any clues?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. But I’m like a snapping turtle. I won’t stop until I’ve found him.”
Coltrain smiled. “You’re like your brother in that I gather.”
“Back when he was a Texas Ranger,” he confided, “Cash chased a robbery suspect all the way to Alabama.”
Coltrain chuckled. “That, I’d believe.”
He shook his head. “If anyone had told me that he’d settle down in a small town and have kids, I’d have laughed my head off. Since his daughter was born, earlier this month, he’s become a committed family man.”
Before Coltrain could reply, Grace came back down the hall, looking morose and lonely.
Garon felt her pain keenly. He was no stranger to loss.
“Come on,” he said gently. “I’ll follow you home.”
Grace hesitated. She looked up at Coltrain.
“You’ll call me…?”
He nodded. “I’ll call you, Grace.”
Above her head, Garon’s eyes met Coltrain’ sand a silent message passed between them. Coltrain would call Garon as well. He told him, without saying a single word.
GRACE PULLED UP at her front steps with Garon right behind her. She got out of the car hesitantly. It had been a very long time since she’d been alone with a man at night. She didn’t trust men.
She hesitated at her steps, turning on the gravel path to watch Garon get out of his car and join her. She was stiff as a poker, something he must have recognized.
His dark eyes narrowed. “Do you want me to send Miss Turner over to spend the night with you?” he asked.
“No. I’ll be fine. Thank you,” she added jerkily.
He scowled. She’d been relaxed at the hospital, with Coltrain nearby. But on her own like this, with him, she seemed to grow thorns and barbed wire. It didn’t take rocket science to know that she was uncomfortable. He wondered if she was that way with other men.
“You’ve got our number,” he reminded her. “If you need us, just call.”
“Thank you. It’s very kind,” she said.
He drew in a long breath. “I have a hard time with relationships of any sort,” he said out of the blue. “My line of work puts off any number of people, especially when they realize that I carry a gun all the time, even off duty. I make them uncomfortable.”
She bit her lower lip. “I’m not used to people, either,” she confessed. “Granny and I keep to ourselves. I have little jobs that I go to,” she added, “and I have just a handful of casual friends. But nobody close.”
He cocked his head. “Is there a reason for that?”
“Yes,” she said simply. “But I don’t talk about it.”
She made him curious. He noticed that she was still wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, with a jacket. None of her clothing was new, and her loafers had torn places and scuff marks. She must budget like crazy, he thought.
“You like roses?” he asked, noticing the pruned bushes near the front porch.
“I love them,” she replied, smiling. “I’m especially fond of my Audrey Hepburn and my Chrysler Imperial.”
“A pink and a red,” he mused.
“Why, yes!” she burst out, surprised.
“I haven’t had much opportunity to plant bushes in recent years,” he said. “I might get back to it, now that I’ve got the ranch. It used to be a hobby.”
“I’ve babied these rosebushes since I was a little girl,” she recalled warmly. “My grandfather—he’s dead now—loved to grow them. He knew all the varieties, and he taught me. We were best friends. He died when I was nine.”
“I never knew any of my grandparents,” Garon replied. “They all died before we were born.”
“We?” she asked. “You and Cash?”
“There are four brothers,” he replied. “Cort and Parker are the other two. Cort runs our West Texas ranch with our father. Parker’s in law enforcement.”
“Was your dad a lawman?” she wondered.
“No. But our grandfather was a U.S. Marshal,” he said proudly. “I’ve still got his gunbelt and his old Colt .45.”
“My granddad was a horse wrangler,” she said. “But he got kicked by a bull and crippled. He retired and moved here with Granny when my mother was a little girl.”
“Your roots go back a ways here,” he said.
“Yes. It’s nice to have some.”
He checked his watch. “I’d better get home. I’ve got some paperwork to do before I can go to bed. Call if you need us.”
“I will. Thanks,” she added.
He shrugged. “It was a good cake.”
She smiled. “I’m glad you liked it.”
“Lock your doors,” he called as he got into his car.
“I will. Good night.”
He waved and drove off, but she saw him hesitate at the end of her driveway until he saw lights go on in her house. It was rather comforting.
SHE LOCKED THE DOORS and checked them twice. She checked the broom handles placed crosswise in all the long, old-fashioned windows to keep anyone from opening them. She checked her bedroom window four times. It was a ritual that she never skipped.
Her neighbor had surprised her by showing up at the hospital. He was a loner, as she was. She hadn’t liked him at first, but he did seem to have a few saving graces.
She put on her long white gown and brushed out her hair so that it swirled around her shoulders like a sheet of gold. She didn’t look into the mirror while she did it. She didn’t like looking at herself.
It was almost dawn when she heard someone knocking like crazy at the front door. She was sleeping in a downstairs room, rather than the old bedroom she’d had on the second floor of the house. It wasn’t far down the hall. She threw on a thick robe and paused to look out the small square windowpanes after she turned on the porch light.
She frowned. It was her neighbor, dressed and solemn. Her heart ran away with her. She could only think of one reason he might be here.
She opened the door with a little sob in her voice. “No,” she said huskily. “Please, no…!”
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
“She’s…gone?”
He nodded.
Tears ran down her cheeks. She didn’t make a sound. She just looked up at him with her tragic face, crying helplessly.
He moved forward to take her by the shoulders. It was an invasion of her personal space that shocked, frightened her. She jerked nervously, but when his hands loosened and were barely resting on her, she relaxed suddenly and moved into his arms. She couldn’t remember a time in her young life when anyone had held her while she cried.
He smoothed her long, tousled hair with a big, gentle hand. “People die, Grace,” he said gently, using her name for the first time. “It’s something we all have to go through.”
“You lost your mother,” she recalled, sobbing.
“Yes.” He didn’t add that she wasn’t the only person close to him that he’d lost. He didn’t know her well enough to confide in her.
“Was it quick?” she wanted to know.
“Coltrain said she just took a little breath and relaxed,” he replied. “It was quick and painless. She never regained consciousness.”
She bit her lower lip. “Heavens,” she choked, “I don’t know anything about her burial policy. She went to the funeral home herself and filled out all the papers. She had a little policy…I don’t know where it is.” She wept again, liking the feeling it gave her to lean on him. She hadn’t ever been the sort to lean. He was warm
and strong and right now, he wasn’t threatening.
“I’ll help you with that,” he said. “But you’re coming home with me now. Go upstairs and change, Grace. We’ll worry about the arrangements tomorrow. Which funeral home?”
“Jackson and Williams,” she recalled.
“I’ll phone them while you’re getting dressed. I’ll phone the hospital, too,” he added before she could ask.
“I don’t know how to thank you…” she began, lifting a face torn with grief to his eyes.
“I don’t want thanks,” he returned. “Go on.”
“Okay.”
She turned and went to her room.
Garon watched her go with narrowed eyes. Coltrain had been emphatic about keeping an eye on Grace. He said that she was going to take it hard, and she’d need someone to watch her. The redheaded doctor had known her for many years. Maybe he just cared more than most other people did.
Garon pulled out his cell phone and dialed information.
4
GRACE SAT WITH GARON in the office of the funeral home, while Henry Jackson went over the arrangements for Mrs. Collier’s funeral with her. Garon had taken a vacation day so that he could help. He didn’t tell her that he hardly ever took time off, but she guessed it.
There weren’t a lot of arrangements to make. Mrs. Collier had laid out her desires, and even paid for her casket, a simple pine one. She was to be buried in a local Baptist church cemetery, next to her late husband. Her insurance would cover the costs of the service, so that Grace had nothing to worry about.
The next stop was Blake Kemp’s office, where Grace learned that she’d been left the house and land. It was a little surprising, because she’d expected her grandmother wouldn’t leave her anything at all.
Garon was sitting in the waiting room while Grace spoke to her grandmother’s attorney.
“I didn’t think she’d leave me anything,” she began.
Blake leaned forward. “She had a guilty conscience, Grace,” he said gently. “She failed you the one time she shouldn’t have. I know she wasn’t kind to you. Maybe that was just an involuntary response to her own behavior.”
“She blamed me for Mama,” she replied.
“She shouldn’t have,” he said with the ease of someone who’d known the family for many years. “Nothing that happened was your fault.”
“That’s what Dr. Coltrain said.”
“And he’s right. We’ll go ahead and file the papers, making you executrix of her estate.” He held up a big hand when she started to speak. “You don’t have to do a thing. I’ll handle it. Now, about the funeral,” he began.
“Mr. Grier is helping with that,” she said.
“Cash?” he exclaimed.
“No, his brother Garon. He lives next door to our place,” she said.
His eyebrows arched. He wasn’t expecting that. From what he’d heard of Cash’s brother, he didn’t go out of his way to help people.
“He’s very nice,” she continued. “He had his men fix my car. And I baked him an apple cake.”
He smiled gently. “It’s about time you started noticing bachelors, Grace.”
She closed up at once. “It’s not like that,” she assured him. “He’s only being kind. Miss Turner probably had something to do with it.”
“She might have,” he conceded. “Well, if you need anything, you know where I am.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
He smiled. “It’s no trouble. When we get the papers drawn up, you can swing by and sign them. I’ll do the rest.”
She started back out of the office, smiling at the receptionist, a new girl who’d replaced Violet Hardy, who was now Kemp’s wife. Garon got up from the comfortable sofa and went with her. The receptionist’s eyebrows arched and she grinned at Garon. He scowled.
“It’s the thing about small towns,” Grace said uneasily when they were out on the sidewalk. “If you’re seen with anybody, people gossip. It’s not malicious.”
He didn’t reply, but he didn’t like it, and made it obvious.
“Thank you for taking time off to help me do these things,” she said when they were on the way back to her house. “I really appreciate it.”
“I didn’t mind.” He checked his watch. “But I have to go back to my office. We’re working on a murder. A child. I have some more calls to make.”
She stiffened. “Do you have any leads?”
He shook his head. “It’s early times. She was apparently taken right out of her bedroom, with her parents asleep next door and kept for several days. A hiker tripped over her body behind a church.” His face hardened. “She was ten years old, and all her immediate family members have alibis. She was assaulted. What the hell kind of human being feels attracted to little girls?”
She was breathing uneasily, her arms folded tight over her chest. “Inadequate men,” she bit off, “who want control.”
Her reply surprised him. He glanced at her. “Excuse me?”
“Men who can’t make it with grown-up women,” she said tautly. “And they hate women because of it. So they victimize the most helpless sort of females.”
“You’re good,” he murmured with a faint smile.
“Yes, that’s my take on the case, too.” His eyes were still on the road. “You’ve got potential. Ever think of law enforcement for a career?”
“I hate guns.”
He laughed. “You don’t have to have a gun. We employ civilians at the Bureau,” he added. “Information specialists, engineers, linguists…”
“Linguists?”
He nodded. “In the old days, you had to be an agent to work for the Bureau. But now we’re more laidback.”
She smiled in spite of herself. “You’re not laidback, Mr. Grier,” she returned.
He glanced at her curiously. “How old are you?”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“Tell me,” he persisted.
“Twenty-four.”
He smiled. “I’m thirty-six. That doesn’t qualify me for a rocking chair. You can call me Garon.”
She gave him a long look. “That’s a name I’ve never heard before.”
“My mother had four children, all boys. My father says she used to sit on the porch and go through baby name books for hours. At that, my name isn’t quite as bad as Cash’s.”
“Cash isn’t all that unusual,” she pointed out.
“His real name is Cassius,” he replied with a smile.
“My gosh!”
“That’s why he uses ‘Cash,’” he chuckled.
“Are the two of you close?”
He shook his head. “We’ve had some family problems since my mother’s death. We’re in the process of getting to know each other. Cash went off to military school when he was about eight or nine years old. Until this past year, we didn’t really speak.”
“That’s sad, to have a family and not speak.”
He wondered about her parents, but it was too soon to start asking personal questions. He didn’t want any more contact with her than necessary. He was married to his job. On the other hand, he’d just talked to her about his work, and that was something he’d never done before. She had an empathy about her that was hard to resist. He felt at home with her. That was dangerous, and he wasn’t going to let anything develop between them.
GARON DROPPED GRACE OFF and went back to work. Marquez’s captain had called and the senior ASAC called Garon into his office and authorized the Bureau’s assistance. Garon would head up the task force as they searched for a murderer who killed little girls. Nobody was saying it out loud, but it was very possible that they had a serial killer on their hands. At least four cases shared the same basic pattern of death.
“I’ll get started, then,” Garon told him.
“Marquez’s captain said the case needs to be solved as soon as possible,” ASAC Bentley remarked. He was older than Grier, near retirement and had asked for assignment to San Antonio, where he had relatives. He was a kindly man,
with a good heart, and he was a superior agent. Garon respected him. “The captain has an open mind, but Marquez’s lieutenant doesn’t. He thinks it’s all coincidence.”
“I don’t. The cases are too similar,” Garon said doggedly.
The ASAC smiled. He’d known Garon a long time. He knew how determined the agent could be. “That would be my gut feeling, too. Stay out of trouble.”
“I’ll try,” he replied. The grin gave him away.
HE PHONED MARQUEZ and they met at a local diner. Marquez looked tired. There were dark circles under his eyes.
“You look like you’ve been burning the midnight oil,” Garon remarked.
He laughed, a little hollowly. “I take these homicides seriously. I phoned the Oklahoma P.D. where the other red ribbon murder occurred. That was an eleven-year-old girl. They found her facedown in a patch of brown-eyed Susans near a cemetery.”
“Assaulted?” Garon asked.
Marquez nodded curtly. “Yes. Strangled, as well. And then stabbed about twenty-five times. Just like this one we’re working on. Too similar to be unrelated.”
Garon’s lips made a thin line. “A very personal attack.”
“Exactly my feeling. The perp hated the child, or what she represented. It was overkill, plain and simple. Something else—there was another victim, same basic MO, over near Del Rio, about ten years ago, killed with a knife and left in a field. I was looking for similar cases and happened to run into one of our older investigators who remembered it. It wasn’t even fed into a database, it was so old. I e-mailed the police department over there and asked them to fax me the details.” He ran a hand through his thick, straight black hair. “Little girls. Innocent little girls. And this monster may have been doing it since the nineties, at intervals, without getting caught. I’d give blood to get this guy,” Marquez added. He paused long enough to give the waitress his order and wait until she could pour coffee in his cup before he spoke again. “He’s got to be a repeat sex offender. He’s too good at what he does for a sloppy amateur. It takes a wily so-and-so to take a child right out of her own bedroom with her family in the house. And he does it over a period of years, if the cases do match, without getting caught or even seen.”