Cold Touch

by Leslie Parrish

  It didn’t end there, however. There had also been the lonely souls who called in on every tip line just to have someone to talk to. The vengeful exes looking to put somebody they’d once loved into a brief jam with the authorities. The suspicious neighbors who were just sure the guy next door would do something like that to a kid. There were the sick pranksters, the inevitable false confession from some poor crazy son of a bitch who’d gone off his meds, and on it went.

  Ninety percent of these were a waste of his time, and the other ten long shots. Still, no matter how implausible, every call had to be evaluated, which would take up a lot of man-hours. His man-hours. There was no task force working this old, cold murder, just him and Ty, plus whoever else was willing to help them out while also dealing with their own workloads, which were all just as heavy as steamy Savannah boiled over into tense, angry Savannah.

  It only takes one. He kept reminding himself of that every time he lifted the phone to return a call to somebody who might know something important.

  “Hey, Cooper! Somebody’s here to see ya,” a voice called.

  Lowering the phone back into its cradle, he looked up at Kinney, a longtime patrolman whose shitty attitude had kept him from ever climbing the SCMPD ladder. The barrel-chested man was old school—racist, sexist, always smiling but as quick to stab you in the back as to offer you a hand in friendship.

  “Who is it?”

  Kinney wagged his bushy eyebrows. “A woman. She says she won’t talk to nobody but you. Hot, juicy little piece.”

  “Classy as ever, Kinney,” he muttered in disgust.

  Hard to insult, the man simply shrugged. “She says it’s about some fire you’re workin’. I put her in interview two,” Kinney added.

  Gabe nodded once, figuring the woman might be another reporter. If so, he couldn’t help wondering why she’d just shown up rather than calling first. He didn’t have a lot of time to deal with impromptu interviews, but he couldn’t deny being curious about the woman who’d insisted she talk to him and only him. Sounded like a little more than a media request.

  Ty had gone out to grab a late lunch, so Gabe headed alone down the long hallway to interview room two. He rapped once on the door, then pushed it open, his gaze immediately moving to the woman sitting at a small, bare metal conference table.

  Surprise shot through him at the sight of her. His feet hesitated for the briefest moment, causing a tiny misstep between one stride and the next. Because it was her, the redhead who’d stepped into oncoming traffic Monday and had almost paid for it with her life. The woman he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since, the one whose face he hadn’t been able to get out of his mind.

  In his memory, though, her eyes hadn’t looked like this. They were green and huge, yes. Beautiful, heavily lashed, expressive. But now they were reddened and luminous with recently shed tears. This woman looked like she’d been crying all morning and no amount of eyedrops could have disguised that.

  “We meet again,” he said.

  She nodded, then reached into her purse and pulled out a small box. “These are for you.”

  When he saw the label, he had to laugh. “You really didn’t have to replace them. I was serious; they were dollar-store throwaways.”

  “It was the least I could do. Thank you again for what you did.”

  Even as she said it, he knew that replacing his broken sunglasses wasn’t the reason she’d come here. The woman’s slim throat quivered as she swallowed. Then she licked her lips nervously, and Gabe’s heart skipped a beat. Not only was he damned glad she’d waltzed back into his life—since he’d been kicking himself all week for not getting her name—but he also thought she might be ready to tell him what she’d really been doing outside Fast Eddie’s Monday morning.

  His excitement grew, as it always did when he sensed he was on the verge of some kind of break in a case. If this attractive woman had been crying like her heart was fit to break and had then come here, insisting on seeing him in person to talk about the bones found after the fire, she might have recognized the sketch from the news. Might have known that boy enough to be well and truly grieved at his passing.

  Might be here to give him just the lead he’d been hoping for.

  The woman managed a small smile as she gracefully rose to her feet and extended her hand. “I saw you on the news. Your name is Detective Cooper?”

  “Guilty as charged, ma’am,” he replied, his voice low, unthreatening. He wanted to keep her calm and relaxed while she told him whatever she’d come here to say, not only because he hoped he could use the information but also because, like most men he knew, Gabe was completely useless around a crying woman.

  Not that she looked on the verge of crying again. That stiff spine and lifted chin showed grit. Like somebody who had a job to do and aimed to do it, no matter how much he or she might hate it. He didn’t know this woman from Adam, but already he respected her, at least a little.

  “And you are?”

  “I’m Olivia Wainwright,” she told him.

  Their hands came together. His, he knew, big and rough. Hers, much stronger than he’d have imagined. Soft, yes, and small, but her grip was firm, as confident as any man’s. The pretty mouth—full lips—didn’t tremble, nor had her voice quivered. Those tear-moistened eyes seemed to be the only chink in her armor, and he’d bet she would graciously accuse him of seeing things if he dared to ask her why she’d been crying.

  “Thanks for coming in,” he replied when their hands slid apart.

  “Thank you for seeing me.”

  Niceties—check. If they were anywhere else, and there weren’t a child’s murder to investigate, he’d happily keep right on chatting like they were just two strangers meeting for the first time. But they didn’t have that luxury. “How can I help you today, assuming there are no speeding cars heading in your direction?”

  She smiled slightly, a strained one, but he did note that her tense shoulders might have relaxed the tiniest bit. “I came to see you because I think I might be able to help with the case you talked about on the news this morning. About the murdered boy?”

  Still speaking slowly, conveying a casual, laid-back mood he definitely didn’t feel, he said, “Is that right? Well, that is good news. Hey, listen. I was just fixin’ to have some coffee. You want some before we get down to business?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Okay, then, let’s have a seat.”

  “Your coffee?”

  He waved an unconcerned hand. “It’ll keep.”

  “Very well,” she said, drifting back to her chair. She cast him a slightly suspicious glance, and he wondered if he’d overdone it with the folksy Southern manner. It worked on most people when he wanted it to, and right now he wanted her comfortable and relaxed. But she had heard him in his blunt, no-nonsense glory on TV this morning. Plus she looked a little smarter than the average bear.

  Smarter, cooler, all put together.

  Again he noted the smoothness of her movements, the way the air seemed to part around her rather than her pushing through it. It suddenly occurred to him that she moved like water, flowing from position to position, and he wondered if she was some kind of dancer.

  Though, to be honest, she hadn’t shown much grace when strolling into the path of that car. He didn’t even like to think about what she might look like now if he hadn’t grabbed her out of the way. He just thanked God he’d been nearby and had seen what was about to happen.

  One thing was sure, this Olivia woman was not, as the piggish Kinney had said, some “juicy little piece.” There was an elusive quiet quality about her, nothing at all inyour-face. But she was definitely attractive, with beautiful red-gold hair that hung in a silky curtain down her back.

  Redhead with big green eyes—a deadly combination for any man.

  The rest of her was just as distracting. Her soft, heart-shaped face was a little too sweet to be called beautiful, her body more slender than curvaceous. Her tasteful jewelry, sma
ll handbag, ivory-colored dress and high-heeled shoes didn’t scream that they’d come with a very high price tag, but oh, did they ever whisper it. Which meant old money. Old Savannah money, he’d be willing to bet, having heard that unmistakable lilt in her voice.

  Gabe was good with accents. And though hers was buried beneath probably at least six years of higher education, he definitely caught the melody line at the bottom of the orchestration.

  “Now, what is it you wanted to tell me?” he asked.

  She got right down to it. “I think I knew the boy in the drawing.”

  His heart lurched, though he didn’t show it. “Is that so?” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small notepad and pen, and flipped the pad open, wanting to make sure she knew this was slow and easy, unthreatening, nothing to get upset about. Because, damn, he did not want any tear fests in interview two.

  “His name was Jack. At least, that’s the name he was going by when I knew him. I suspect it wasn’t his real one.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I think he’d been kidnapped.”

  That startled him, and he stopped writing.

  “I believe he was being held captive by the same man who kidnapped me.”

  Not only wasn’t he writing, now he actually dropped his pen. “Beg pardon?”

  She sighed, as if realizing she was not going to be able to simply dump him in the middle of her story but would have to go back a little, or a lot. So that’s what she did.

  “A little over twelve years ago, when I was fifteen, I was kidnapped right out of my bedroom in the middle of the night.” Staring hard at him, she added, “It happened here in Savannah and wouldn’t be hard for you to verify that I’m telling you the truth. You might even remember hearing about it on the news.”

  “I moved here eleven years ago.”

  “It was a pretty big story,” she said, not sounding proud of that but in fact rather bleak.

  Considering twelve years ago he’d still been scrabbling to survive, counting down the days until high school graduation so he could get out from under his grandfather’s thumb, he’d have to say he hadn’t been a big follower of the news, national or state. Big news to him in those days was when he actually managed to go a week without the old man trying to smash a board upside his head.

  “I was taken for ransom money. I was . . . my family is well known.”

  While she spoke, he finally remembered where he had heard the name Wainwright. Not much giving a damn about politics, it had taken him a few minutes to put it together. It could be her father who was currently serving as senator from the great state of Georgia, but for some reason he didn’t think so. Maybe it was her grandfather, uncle or cousin? Someone like that.

  “I get the picture.”

  Looking relieved she didn’t have to cop to being a rich, spoiled brat, she continued, talking about enduring a horrific ordeal like she was relating the key plot points of a movie she’d just seen. Impersonal. Detached.

  He supposed she had to be. Letting something like that remain a prominent, active part of your psyche would probably drive a person nuts.

  “And you never got a look at your kidnapper’s face?”

  “No. He covered my face when he took me. The boy was the only one I saw until . . .”

  “Until?”

  “Until right before I escaped. But I didn’t see the man, even then.”

  She went on. And as the story unfolded, he found himself less interested in taking notes and more interested in learning what made this woman tick. How had she come back from something like that, being kidnapped right out of her bed as a teenager, then getting away with the help of a strange boy a few days later? Hell, he dealt with people all the time who excused their crimes by saying they just couldn’t get over daddy leaving mommy for his assistant. So what made her the calm, cool exception?

  Then he thought about it, wondering if she’d just done what he had: decided to live as a sort of fuck-you to the past. Not letting it drag you down was the best revenge, right? And letting some awful memory distract you from living whatever life you had left was a sucker’s play. He was no sucker, and he sensed Olivia Wainwright wasn’t, either.

  “So this Jack, you say he was, what, guarding you during your captivity?”

  “Sort of,” she admitted. “Although, as I said, I think he was a prisoner, too. He’d obviously been abused; he was all bruised and scarred. And I heard him being struck.” She shivered, as if that sound, that crunch of fist on flesh, still echoed in her mind.

  “Did you ask Jack who this man was, why he was with him?”

  She nodded. “He didn’t remember any other life, said he’d been with him forever. But he did not say the man was his father. He’d just been captive so long, I honestly think he was brainwashed. That’s how he sounded, anyway. Flat, emotionless. Hopeless.”

  A lump formed in Gabe’s throat, one he couldn’t swallow down. What she was describing could certainly fit the abused child he’d been picturing since the autopsy report had come back. Whoever that boy was, he’d had so many broken bones—most of them not properly reset—that Gabe suspected he’d been beaten every week of his young life.

  “I know Jack didn’t like having to be an accomplice in this; it wasn’t like he had any choice. He hated that I was tied up and terrified. He brought me food and water.”

  “And eventually, he even helped you escape?”

  For the first time since she’d begun quickly skimming over her ordeal, the redhead’s eyes shifted. She glanced down at her own hands, which were clasped on top of the table. A surefire indication that she was hiding something or else was about to tell an untruth.

  “Something like that,” she murmured.

  He breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn’t lied. No, she hadn’t told him the whole story—he imagined there was a lot more to tell—but he liked that she hadn’t taken a step into deceit.

  Her story was, as she’d said, easily verifiable, and, of course, he was going to have to verify it. He’d like to trust her, but even witnesses to a crime that took place yesterday got details wrong today. He saw it all the time.

  This could also just be a product of survivor’s guilt or of wanting the answer to a question so badly, you saw similarities where none existed. She’d showed up at the scene on Monday, long before the sketch had been made, based on . . . what, nothing but a report of an old skeleton?

  This was looking more and more like a long shot. Maybe she’d seen what she wanted to see in that sketch. Memory could be a tricky thing; it could create scenes that hadn’t happened or leave out details that it didn’t necessarily want to remember. Frankly, he suspected there would be a lot a young woman wouldn’t want to remember about a kidnapping ordeal that had gone on for days.

  Fifteen years old and taken right out of her bed. Jesus. She was lucky she’d gotten away because the far more likely scenario was that she would have been killed. Or, like one of the more well-publicized kidnapping cases in recent years, she might have been kept in sexual servitude for years. He couldn’t help wondering if that’s why this boy, Jack, had been kept alive.

  Though revolted, Gabe forced his instinctive emotional reactions away, thinking of all the possible explanations for the mysterious Jack. There was one big one. Could the boy actually have been the son of Olivia Wainwright’s kidnapper? And if he were, did that make his whole sad tale better or worse? He honestly didn’t know. But being a blood relative of somebody did not, by any means, guarantee a life free from abuse and pain. He knew that far better than most.

  He also knew he had to keep an open mind and acknowledge that, even though her memories might have played tricks on her, her story could be entirely true. That boy’s face may have been imprinted on her mind, and the forensic artist might have been able to draw him accurately enough to be identifiable. Stranger things had happened. He’d learned in his career to never rule anything out until he had hard evidence on which to base his decision.

/>   God, he hoped it was true. He would really like to have just been handed his first solid lead in this murder investigation. Going back to her kidnapping case would be like finding a secret staircase in a huge house. It could take him down hallways he’d never have thought to explore. Including right to her own kidnapper, who might very well have murdered his young accomplice for helping Olivia to escape, not that he was about to mention that possibility. Why add to her guilt by pointing out something he’d lay money she had already considered?

  Honestly, at this point, he wasn’t placing bets one way or another. But he certainly hoped she was right. Not only would it make his job easier, it also might give her a little closure he suspected she badly needed.

  “The news said he was hidden in that bar that burned down?” she said.

  “That’s correct. He’d been entombed right behind the drywall.”

  She blanched, and he kicked himself for being so blunt. But she didn’t back down. “When you say entombed, do you mean the killer built a wall around him? He didn’t just stash him in a crawl space or something?” she asked, a frown line appearing between her eyes.

  “He worked hard to conceal him, making the wall look like part of the construction.”

  “That would take some time,” she murmured, the frown deepening.

  “I suspect this guy knew what he was doing.”

  In fact, he’d already been gathering information from the contractors on every person who’d worked that reconstruction job. That was a chore, considering the way the construction businesses had collapsed when the economy did. A lot of the workers had already been transient types, going up and down the southeast coast looking for work during the busy hurricane season.

  “Did you happen to see any construction equipment when you were held? Anything that would indicate he worked in that field?”

  “No, I didn’t.” She nibbled the corner of her mouth, trying to work it out, then mumbled, “But if he were a carpenter or something, that would make sense, wouldn’t it? Then he could build something like that very quickly.”