Cold Fear

by Toni Anderson

  She stumbled over a stone and cursed. The biggest thing she had to fear was fear itself. It stopped people thinking and acting rationally. She had a gun and a dog and she was fit and not too proud to run for her life if she needed to.

  Really, what were the chances some bogeyman was stalking her through the forest when she hadn’t told anyone her plans?

  A noise off to her right had her jolting and whirling around to face the threat. Heart hammering, she tried to see through the gloom, but short of going into the bush to investigate she couldn’t see anything. She eased Barney’s leash into her left hand so her right hand was free to reach her weapon. Barney whined and normally she’d have let him go. He knew the way to Ted’s house and in the winter this area was generally deserted. Today, she held him tight.

  The wind was getting up and on top of everything else going on in the world, another big Nor’easter was sitting out in the Atlantic stirring things up, trying to decide if it wanted to go north or over the top of the Carolinas.

  Storms were a fact of life here, but a really big storm, like Hurricane Irene in 2011, could destroy the bridges between the island chain and cut them off from the rest of the world for weeks, if not months. The idea of being trapped here with a killer made her stomach cramp.

  She lengthened her stride, sweat blooming across her shoulders as another rustle came from deep within the woods. Dammit. It was probably a frickin’ squirrel, but by the time she saw Ted’s home amongst the trees, she and Barney were almost running. They burst out of the trees like lunatics.

  The house sat in an open space with a large raised vegetable garden and a barn that was almost the same size as the house. All the trees close to the property had been felled because of the danger from frequent storms. The two-story house was painted a pale gray with white trim, and had a wraparound porch. The storm shutters on the windows on the top floor were still closed. It didn’t look like Ted had bothered to open them since the last storm had battered them the night Helena was killed. Ted tended to be economical with his labors and considering his bedroom was downstairs and with this new storm hovering, Izzy could understand why he hadn’t bothered taking them down. Barney barked excitedly and she let him off leash, knowing he wouldn’t go far from the main house. She hurried up the steps onto the porch and knocked on the door.

  When no one answered she turned the knob, expecting it to be open, but her shoulder crashed against the wood. Locked.

  “Well, hell,” she said. Even Ted must be spooked.

  She headed back down the porch steps and peered inside his truck. There were no keys in the ignition or under the sun visor. Damn.

  His SUV was parked beside the barn that doubled as a garage so she walked over and opened the door of the four-wheel drive, leaning inside to check for keys.

  “How’s it going, Iz-biz?”

  She jumped so hard she cracked her head on the doorframe. “For the love of God, Ted!” She rubbed the knot she now sported on the back of her head. “Stop creeping up on me. I could have shot you.”

  “You’re the one stealing my car,” he pointed out, giving her a wry smile.

  “I was going to borrow your truck—the way you’ve told me a million times to do and ‘not to ask’—but the house was locked and the keys weren’t in it. Is this you finally being security conscious after sixty-plus years of pretending the rest of the world doesn’t exist?”

  He dug into his hip pocket and pulled out a set of keys and dropped them into her palm. “I figured if someone could hurt a nice girl like Helena then who knows what they’ll do to an old goat like me. Dingbatters everywhere. Place is going to hell. Talking of dingbatters, how is the FBI getting on finding Helena’s killer?”

  “I have no idea. They don’t confide in me.” She clasped the keys, which were still warm from his body heat. She looked at him properly. “You look very smart. New jacket?” She reached out and touched the lightweight but sturdy material of his black jacket.

  He shrugged and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “There was a sale on in Manteo. We all bought one.” He looked a bit embarrassed by that.

  “You, Seth, the pastor, Hank, and Mr. Kent? What, are you like a gang now?” she joked.

  He snorted and shook his head. “We thought it’d look cool if we went bowling or whatever—Seth’s idea.”

  “Are you off to the bar?” She checked her watch. He met his buddies there almost every Saturday night, but it was a bit early yet.

  “Nah, not tonight. Carl’s taking Mary out on that date so I figured I’d go to the movies in Corolla. Wanna come with me?”

  “Who’s going?”

  “Me and Kenny. Seth and Hank are both working.” Lines creased his forehead and fanned out from the corners of his eyes as he frowned. “Where’s your car?”

  She was surprised the grapevine hadn’t been quite so efficient this time around. “Someone smashed all my windows when it was parked outside the hospital. It’s at Seth’s place getting fixed.”

  “I guess that’s why he’s busy tonight. He never mentioned it, though.”

  “It’s not exactly big news…” She trailed away. It still pissed her off.

  Ted’s lips mashed together. “Why’s it happening, Izzy? We don’t normally get this sort of trouble around here.”

  “Hell if I know.” She huddled into her jacket, wishing she had answers and could feel safe again. With the theft of her shovel, then being smacked on the head and now this, all in the wake of Helena’s murder, it was starting to feel personal. “Seth said he’d get the glass tonight and it’ll be ready by morning. Mind if I keep the truck until then?”

  “Sure. Actually you’ll be doing me a favor. Leave it at Seth’s place when you pick up your car because it needs a service. If I do it in winter he gives me a special discount.”

  “Cheapskate.” She kissed his sandpapery cheek. “Thanks.” She whistled to Barney who came crashing out of the woods like a thing possessed. She opened the door and the dog jumped into the cab as if he rode in the front every day.

  “You be careful. Keep that gun loaded and your doors locked.” Ted put his hands in his pockets and stared off into the bush. “Something doesn’t feel right around here.”

  “I’ll be careful.” She looked into his tired eyes, the ones that reminded her so much of her mother’s.

  “Storm’s coming,” he warned.

  She could feel it.

  Ted stood back as she reversed the truck in a wide half circle. Out of the open window she called, “You be careful, too, Uncle Ted. I worry about you out here alone.”

  “Don’t you worry about me, Iz-biz. Just take care of yourself and your sister. You’re all that really matters.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  LINCOLN FRAZER DIDN’T remember the last time he’d slept for more than two hours straight, and he was beginning to think the zombie apocalypse wouldn’t be such a bad thing—he’d fit right in. He was in the rental car, heading west on Interstate 40 toward Beaufort, North Carolina.

  At Maysville, he’d had to smooth over Petra Danbridge’s ruffled feathers and bring her up to speed on the investigations. Officially, the Charlotte Division was now running the show on the mainland, but Chief Tyson was conducting his own part of the investigation on the islands—and Frazer was consulting for him, alongside Lucas Randall.

  After Frazer had spent forty minutes reassuring SSA Danbridge that he wasn’t a backstabbing blue-flamer who was trying to steal all the glory for himself, he’d then had to persuade local cops that once they’d finished processing the current crime scene they needed to bring in cadaver dogs and start searching for more bodies—all on the word of a condemned serial killer.

  He needed a stiff drink, but consoled himself with a bottle of water and some headache pills. By the time he’d finished at Maysville it had been too late to drive to the morgue before they closed for the day, and Simon Pearl hadn’t returned his calls. Frazer didn’t know if that meant good or bad news.

  T
he old abandoned school had been a fitting place to find a dead body. It looked like the classic haunted asylum, complete with eerie mist that had clung to the crooked peak at the top of the central clock tower like wisps of smoke from that long ago fire. Boarded-up windows had stared sullenly out at the world in blind despair. Frazer was surprised it hadn’t been bulldozed years ago. The Catholic Church owned the land. Maybe it was appropriate it was now a burial ground.

  Dense thickets surrounded the clearing in the woods where Elaine Patterson’s body had been found. He had the suspicion that Denker, or his accomplice, had hoped the FBI themselves would be the ones to stumble upon the dead woman. She’d been displayed in a demeaning way, designed to maximize shock value. The track marks on her arms confirmed she was a drug user in addition to being a well-known sex trade worker in the Greenville, North Carolina, area. The killer had considered her trash, something to be used and discarded, with a total disregard for the sanctity of human life.

  Her shoes were missing, but then so were all her clothes and belongings. Were shoes this killer’s thing? Were they paraphilia, or trophies? Or both?

  Was there another body buried around here, or was Denker jerking them around for fun?

  Ground penetrating radar could be used in the clearing itself, but the whole school property would now need to be searched by dogs, which was going to take days of meticulous police work. Hanrahan was working his magic at the scene and impressing the hell out of everyone in attendance with his legendary reputation. As long as he got the job done, Frazer didn’t care. Frazer didn’t allow anyone to sit on their laurels or ride past glory. Not even himself.

  Alex Parker and his cyber security team could not find any trace of Jessica Tuttle’s cell phone. This was very bad news as the girl was still missing. The good news was they’d removed the image of Kit and Damien from every server it had been saved on, and from every cell phone it had been sent to. That wasn’t to say someone couldn’t have saved it separately on their hard drive or on a flash drive and it could resurface at any time. But between them they’d done everything they could to minimize the damage to a couple of vulnerable young teens.

  It was a small victory in a morass of losses.

  Damien Ridgeway was still on his list of suspects, and he intended to grill the young man tomorrow morning. Right now, he was on his way to the home of one Mildred Houch, former secretary at St Joseph’s School for Boys. Parker had tracked her down for him. He didn’t call ahead and hoped to God she was home and he wasn’t wasting his time.

  The clock was ticking for Jessica Tuttle, though it was possible she was dead before they even knew she was missing.

  He drove past Beaufort city limits and the GPS system told him to hook a right down toward the water. He eyed the giant mansions lit up with glittering arrays of Christmas lights and wondered why anyone with less than a dozen children would choose to live in rambling mausoleums. He hung another right and then immediately another. The houses on this row were smaller, but had big yards separating the properties. He pulled up outside number nineteen, noticing the lights were on and a TV was flickering inside. He climbed out of the car and dialed Mildred Houch’s phone number.

  As he listened to it ring, he saw the silhouette of a person crossing the drapes. A woman answered and repeated the number back to him.

  “My name is Assistant Special Agent in Charge Frazer of the FBI. Am I speaking to Mrs. Mildred Houch?”

  “That is correct.” She sounded elderly and fragile and intrigued.

  “I’m hoping you can help me with my inquiries. Are you available?”

  “Oh, I’m not sure how I can help the FBI—”

  “It will only take a moment of your time, Mrs. Houch.”

  “Oh,” she repeated. “Well, I suppose I could…when would be a good time?”

  Frazer knocked on her front door. “Now would be perfect, ma’am.”

  A shocked gasp came through his cell and then silence as she hung up. She opened the door with a security chain on. He held his creds up to the light. “Sorry to bother you so late, ma’am.”

  The door was shut in his face and for a moment he feared she wasn’t going to talk to him after all. Then he heard the slide of the chain and she opened the door and motioned him inside. “You’d better come in.”

  She was tall and graying. Her bent posture reminded him of a crane. She peered at him through thick glasses. “Can I get you a warm drink, Agent Frazer? It’s freezing out tonight.”

  “No, thank you, ma’am. I need your help regarding St. Joseph’s School for Boys.”

  Enlightenment moved over her features. “This is about Ferris Denker.” She wrapped her cardigan tight around her tall, thin frame and moved back into the lounge. She sat in a chair that was pulled close to a gas fireplace. She picked up the TV remote and turned it off. The sudden silence had weight.

  “I’m curious what you remember about him?”

  An amused smile curved her lips. “It’s a bit late, isn’t it? Unless you’re writing his obituary.”

  This was true. “I take it you weren’t close to him?”

  She pursed her lips and regarded him curiously. “He was no worse than some of the others.”

  Frazer frowned. “It seems like an odd way to phrase it.”

  “St. Joseph’s School for Boys was a boarding school for troubled youth, Agent Frazer,” she said primly. “The boys who came to us might have sung in the choir, but they were not choirboys.”

  “Any idea why Denker ended up there?”

  She regarded him quizzically as if wondering why he was asking this now. She was right. This work should have been done years ago. “He’d been upsetting the neighbors. Rumor had it he was tinkering with the little girl next door.”

  “Tinkering?” his voice grew quiet.

  She shrugged. “I don’t think there was ever any evidence. No one pressed charges. But he was sent to us and from what I understand the neighbors moved away soon afterwards.” She eyed him over her specs. “It happened a lot more than you might think. Not everyone wants to get the police involved when their children misbehave.”

  He knew it, but it turned his stomach that there were so many voiceless victims out there.

  “Did he cause trouble at school?”

  “Like I say, he wasn’t particularly disruptive. He got good grades. Was talented at music. Not very good at sports.” She opened her mouth and closed it again.

  “What?” He pressed.

  Her eyes shifted nervously. “I don’t know if it was true or not, but a couple of the boys claimed they’d been sexually assaulted by one of the teachers around the time Ferris Denker attended our school.” Her chin ducked into her chest. “The gym teacher. Mr. McManus.” Her cheeks went crimson. “I overheard some of the boys calling him some very inappropriate names.”

  “Was Denker one of the pupils who claimed to have been assaulted?”

  “No.” She flapped her hand at him as if the idea was absurd.

  Frazer frowned. “Were any charges ever brought?”

  She shook her head. “There was probably nothing to the accusations. Gerry McManus categorically denied ever doing anything wrong. He was a nice man with a wife and children.”

  Many pedophiles were. “Were any of the boys who claimed to be abused examined by a doctor?”

  Now her ears turned pink. “Of course, we had a doctor on staff. He said there were no bruises or physical signs of abuse.” Her voice lowered as if sharing a confidence. “Dr. Rabon suggested some of the boys might have been engaging in sexual relations with one another, which was against school rules, obviously.” Her lips primped. “He suggested some of the older boys might have been interfering with some of the younger boys.” She looked away. “It was an all-boy boarding school.” She shrugged a gnarled shoulder. “These things happened.”

  A thin thread of rage ran through his veins. He’d gone to an all-boys boarding school. His mother had been a teacher at the school before she’d been murde
red. If a kid had gone to her claiming abuse, she’d have kicked ass and taken names to get to the truth. It was the school’s job to protect the weaker children from those ready to abuse them.

  His school had kept him on as a pupil after his parents’ death. He’d inherited a little money, but could never have afforded to stay on there without the school’s charity. They’d provided tuition, room and board, and he’d known how lucky he was to get the opportunity. He’d worked his ass off, needing to be the best at everything he did, to make his parents proud and to pay back the school for their generosity. Ever since he’d been rescued, he’d known exactly what he was going to do with his life. And to do it, he’d first needed a degree and a scholarship.

  Fifteen years old and he’d known exactly what he was going to do with the rest of his life—and here he was doing it, listening to weak people repeat the excuses they’d fed themselves that enabled monsters to flourish. He couldn’t afford to show his disdain or his contempt, but it didn’t mean he didn’t feel it. “Do you remember Denker having particular friends?”

  Two lines appeared between crinkled iron-gray brows. “There were two other boys he spent most of his time with. I don’t remember their names.”

  “The school records?”

  Her face went white. “Everything was destroyed in a fire in 1985. The school closed down. I decided to take early retirement.”

  Damn. “Is the gym teacher still alive?” That was one thread he could chase up and tie off.

  “No. Gerry died of a heart attack on the football field—in front of all the kids actually. It was horrible. It was the second death at the school that year.”

  If the accusations were true, Frazer suspected some of those kids would be been dancing for joy on the sidelines.

  “The other death?”

  “Some of the boys went swimming in the pond even though they weren’t supposed to. One boy drowned. Another was revived with CPR, but it was a close thing.”