Extreme Pursuit (Chasing Justice #2)

by Alex Kingwell

  She took a long drink. “Thank you for that.”

  “You were looking pretty desperate.”

  “They wouldn’t let me get away. A full-frontal charge would have been the only means of escape.”

  Up close it was obvious he’d had his hair trimmed. He glanced at the women, still huddled by the banquet table. “I can see why you didn’t attempt it.”

  “Not very dignified behavior at a funeral.”

  He stroked her arm, gave her a little smile.

  Even though she was at a memorial service, her mother’s no less, the smile made her go a little weak in the knees. She was too vulnerable, too exposed around him.

  She said, “It was very nice of you to come.”

  He didn’t say anything, just continued looking at her.

  Another thought came to her, this one even more inappropriate. If she could have mindless sex with somebody, he’d be a prime candidate.

  Warmth crept up her neck and across her face. She took a large gulp of water, set the glass on the table, nodded at him, and walked away to join her family.

  * * *

  That night, after a dinner at her father’s house of a warmed lasagna casserole, Nicky stacked the last plate in the dishwasher, gave the counter a final wipe, then joined her father, sister, and uncle in the family room.

  Karina handed Nicky a glass of wine. “Thanks for cleaning up. I don’t think I have an ounce of energy left in me. That was a very long day.”

  “It was the least I could do.” Nicky smiled at her older sister, who’d been uncharacteristically withdrawn much of the day.

  As Nicky sat down, her Uncle Steve said to her, “We were talking about what a nice service it was. Quite a few people came.”

  Nicky smiled and they chatted for a few minutes about people they hadn’t seen in years who’d shown up, including a man and woman who’d been in the same medical school class as her father. The couple had flown in from California.

  Her father said, his voice slightly slurred, “I didn’t realize they’d married.” Fatigue had deepened the lines of his face and his eyes were dull. He held his empty whiskey glass, his third, for Karina to refill.

  Karina seemed about to say something, then rose to refill it. Her father waited until she’d sat down again, then said, “There were a lot of people I hadn’t seen in years. I’m not sure I wanted to see some of them.”

  Nicky waited, tense.

  Her father took a sip of whiskey, then looked at his daughters. “Some of them didn’t have very nice things to say about your mother over the years.”

  “Daddy,” Karina said, getting to her feet.

  He held up a hand for her to stop. “You have a right to know. Your mother and I talked about this affair.” A snarl curled his lips as he said the word “affair.” “But it was over.”

  The raw tone in his voice knotting her stomach, Nicky glanced at Karina, who knelt in front of him, putting her hands on his knees. “Of course it was.”

  Pushing her hand away, he flopped back. His face was red and the slur was even more pronounced. A lump rose in Nicky’s throat. It was the first time she’d seen him drunk. By the looks on their faces, Karina and her Uncle Steve shared her surprise.

  After a tense silence, Karina got up and went back to her seat. Nicky was about to ask if anyone wanted coffee when her father said, “I’m not finished.” His voice was harsh.

  She froze. Her uncle stared grimly at his glass.

  Karina said, “Take all the time you want, Dad. We want to hear.” Long experience had obviously taught her not to interfere when their father was angry.

  James Bosko drew in a sharp breath. “I forgave her and it didn’t change the way I felt about her. Nothing could have changed the way I felt about her. She was my life.” His eyes moistened with tears, which he brushed away. “But I won’t forgive him because I know he killed her.”

  “Daddy—” Karina’s voice was shaky.

  Ignoring her, he stared at each of them in turn. “I don’t know why he killed her, but I do know I have to find out who he is if it is the last thing I do.” He broke down in sobs, joined quickly by Karina.

  Biting at her lips, Nicky exchanged a glance with her uncle. His face had gone tomato red, as if he felt the pain just as much as her father.

  After a few minutes, Nicky went into the kitchen to put coffee on. Everything, it seemed, had shifted. Their father, normally so taciturn, had opened up in a way she had never seen before. Part of it was the booze, but it seemed as if the murder hadn’t just aged him but made him bitter.

  The light had gone out of his eyes. They were glazed, cold.

  Filling the coffee filter with grounds, she glanced at Karina, who was reclined on the sofa staring ahead, her eyes vacant. Tears filled Nicky’s eyes. She hated to see her father and Karina like this.

  Her uncle walked into the kitchen. “I feel helpless. I have no idea what to do.” He spoke in a quiet tone.

  “You and me both,” she said, reaching into a cabinet for coffee mugs. “I feel like I should be doing more to help the police, but I can’t seem to remember much from back then. Whatever’s there is buried pretty deep. I get some snippets but nothing useful.”

  He grimaced. “You can’t blame yourself. Even if you could remember, there’s no telling it would have anything to do with what happened to your mother.”

  “I realize that.” The doubt in her voice was poorly concealed and he reached over to stroke her arm. She poured coffee into the mugs and reached for a tray beside the toaster oven.

  Her father had fallen asleep. Slumped to one side, eyes closed and mouth hanging open, his head bobbed forward on his neck. Beside him, Karina still had that dazed look.

  Putting the mugs onto a tray, Nicky hesitated, feeling a heaviness in her body. For her whole life, her instinct had been to rebel and run away. The temptation now was stronger than ever. But running away was not an option. If she wanted to help her father, and Karina and herself, she had to carry her weight and help find out who killed her mother. Otherwise it might never be over.

  Nothing could be done now about the hurt her behavior had caused her father in the past, but in this, at least, maybe she wouldn’t disappoint him. Maybe she could earn a measure of redemption.

  Picking up the tray, she followed her uncle into the family room.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It took Nicky just over an hour on Saturday morning to drive to Lisette, where she stopped at a service station and asked the teenaged boy behind the counter for directions to the farm where her mother’s remains had been found. When she spotted the two-story house from the road thirty minutes later, she put her compact Chevy in second gear, drove quickly up the long, rutted lane, and then found a hard-packed surface near the house where she could park. The barn, or what was left of it, was a crumpled heap of boards one hundred yards farther down the lane.

  The house wasn’t anything like what she remembered. It wasn’t white any more, the paint having peeled away to expose weathered-gray horizontal boards. Many of them had fallen off, offering glimpses right through the house to the trees and gray sky on the other side. Windows held no glass and a section of the moss-carpeted gabled roof had caved in, flattening the front porch.

  Walking around the house to the back, a breeze whipped hair around her face. A tiny brown bird, likely a sparrow of some sort, flitted about a wild rose bush growing in the middle of the grass in what would have once been the backyard. Trampled grass seemed to indicate the house and immediate grounds had been searched, although there was no evidence of digging. The rear entrance to the house was an old wooden door with a rusty latch.

  She came around the house full circle and stood beside the car. In the lane, muddy ruts from large tire tracks continued down to the barn. Hadn’t Fraser and Ackerman mentioned the remains had been found near the barn? Swallowing hard, she hesitated a moment, then grabbed a sweater from the car and set off.

  Yellow caution tape fluttered in the wind ab
ove a machine-dug hole near the barn’s stone foundation. A large area had been excavated, roughly twelve square feet, the dirt dumped in small piles to the side. At some point, possibly as part of the police search, the barn had been flattened. The boards lay every which way in a pile about ten feet high on the far side of the foundation.

  Had her mother been photographing the barn when she was killed? Or was she killed elsewhere on the property, the house maybe, then buried here?

  Icy fingers grabbed her heart and squeezed. Suddenly feeling dizzy, she found a large rock and sat down. She shouldn’t have come alone, should have taken Emily up on her offer to tag along.

  The wind picked up and dark clouds blackened the sky. Walking back to the car, she retrieved a water bottle and took a long drink. She’d had the vague notion coming here would make her feel better, which she now realized was ludicrous, although she could understand what had intrigued her mother. A derelict property held so many mysteries. How many generations had lived in it, and why had it been abandoned? How had her mother found it? Had the pictures she had surely taken here been destroyed?

  The rain started coming down in earnest. Nicky pulled up her hood and dashed to the back door. So far, the farm had released no memories, but the inside might be different.

  The latch on the back door was broken, allowing easy entry to a small room that would have served as a mudroom or back porch. A built-in cupboard occupied one wall, while another held five rusty hooks for coats. Through an open doorway was the kitchen at the front of the house. Fragments of plaster and empty tin cans littered the sloping floor. Shoe and boot prints in the dirt were evidence many people had walked on these floors recently. Cops.

  Off the kitchen was where the center hallway had been, now a crumbling jumble of rotted boards from where the roof had caved in, taking the second story and front porch with it. Rain washed down through a gaping hole. A musty smell invaded her nose and mouth.

  In the kitchen, against one wall, stood an enamel stove with a cast-iron top. An old straw broom, its bristles curled from use, gathered dust in a corner. Behind the stove, wallpaper in a large geometric pattern covered the wall. She walked over to look at it more closely, her shoes scuffing the dirt on the floor, and a memory rose suddenly. Closing her eyes, she brought it into focus. She had been in this room. Her mother had marveled at the wallpaper, a retro yellow-and-orange print now peeling away to expose large patches of crumbling plaster.

  She clutched her chest as more memories and images tumbled through her mind. Her mother laughing. Taking pictures. The doll’s carriage had been in the room across the hall, which wasn’t accessible now. But she had crossed the hall all those years ago, and they had gone upstairs, she first, her mother following. Her mother had warned her to be careful. She remembered rooms with low, sloping ceilings, an old bed.

  As she peered up through the hole, a sound came from outside. Someone was opening the back door.

  * * *

  Cullen opened the back door of the farmhouse. When he’d driven up the lane just minutes earlier, he’d spotted an old car parked beside the house. It was likely kids, teenagers. They had no business being here.

  A headache sawed away at the area around his eyes. He massaged his temples, but there was no hope for it. He’d had too much to drink the night before and had only himself to blame.

  Swinging the back door open, he glanced around the small room and listened for the intruders. Nothing, save the wind and rain. Stepping inside, he closed the door and walked into the kitchen.

  A sudden movement caught his eye. It happened so quickly he barely had time to react. He put his hand up to shield his head as something came swinging toward him. The object struck his hand. Grabbing it, he yelled out in pain and a woman screamed.

  Nicole Bosko.

  Staring at the broom handle in his hand, he cursed loudly.

  Her whole body shaking, she stared at him with bulging eyes. Then she slumped against the wall and covered her face. Speech must have been impossible, because if she’d been able to talk, he’d be hearing it.

  His pulse raced. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  She stood rigid against the wall, nostrils flaring, still saying nothing. With shaking hands, she pushed strands of wet hair from her face. Her mouth was agape, exposing chattering white teeth.

  She was terrified. He took a step toward her.

  She held up her hand to stop him from coming closer. Her breaths were short and raspy and it was a long moment before she spoke. “What am I doing here? I’d say the question is more what are you doing here?”

  “I’d think that was very obvious. I’m investigating a murder.”

  “You said the police were finished here.”

  “Officially, yes, I came to see if I missed something. You?”

  She said, “I came to see if I could remember anything.”

  “That’s great. I’m glad you’re trying to remember stuff, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to come alone.” For someone who was obviously smart, she didn’t seem to act like it. Her mother had been killed here, for God’s sake.

  When she didn’t say anything, he said, “Well?”

  Those dark eyes shot daggers at him. “Well what? You didn’t ask a question.”

  “Do you remember anything?”

  “I remember being here with my mother, but not much else.” She pinched her lips together. “I’m sorry about almost clobbering you. I didn’t realize it was you.”

  He propped the broom against the wall. “Maybe next time you should check first.”

  Ignoring the comment, she walked across the room and looked out the kitchen window, fingered a piece of gauzy fabric, browned with age, hanging from a thin metal curtain rod. She was wearing a hoodie and skinny jeans that showed off a cute butt and her long legs.

  He looked away, feeling the heat rising in his neck, and walked toward the center hallway, where he could see dark sky through a hole in the roof.

  She said, “So?”

  He shook his head, stifled a yawn. “So what?”

  “So have you missed anything? Or are you too tired?”

  “I’ve only just gotten here.” The words came out gruff. Her attitude didn’t help. Or that the three cups of coffee he’d had on the drive over pooled like acid in his gut.

  “Well, I’ll leave you to it, then.” Rubbing her hands together, she gave the room a once-over, then walked toward the back porch.

  He didn’t want her to leave. “Wait.”

  She turned around, raised one of those arched eyebrows. He’d never seen eyes as dark as hers, more black than brown.

  He said, “Make sure you have a good look around, in case you can remember anything.”

  “I’ve had a good look, so if you don’t mind, I’ll leave you to it.”

  He rubbed his temples, a tight band of pressure now encircling his head. This was not going well and he realized it never would. He was attracted to a woman who couldn’t stand the sight of him.

  She said, “One thing before I go. Was this place searched when she first went missing?”

  “No, apparently, nobody mentioned it at the time. And you’re the only one who says they remember coming here with her. Your father says he didn’t know about it. Maybe she thought he would disapprove.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Why would he disapprove?”

  He gestured around the room. On the counter beside the enamel sink, an old jar held two wooden spoons and a rusted spatula. In the middle of the ceiling, a bare lightbulb hung from a frayed cord. Filling the air was a smell of decay and emptiness. “It’s not everybody’s cup of tea.”

  “I remember I loved it. It was mysterious. Even now it makes me wonder about the people who lived here, how many families. Now it will be torn down and all new houses put up.” Sadness replaced the anger in her eyes. “There will be a new layer of history, and all the secrets of the past will be buried. Including what happened to my mother.”

  The comment surp
rised him, not the sentiment so much as her sharing it.

  She said, “Was it thoroughly searched after my mother’s body was found?” At his nod, she said, “No camera was found?”

  He shook his head. “We checked everywhere.”

  She said, “The house is a lot smaller than I remembered. In my mind it was more like a mansion.”

  “Sometimes when you’re little, you think everything’s big.”

  “True.”

  If anything, she was more beautiful today, her oval face slightly flushed, the damp hair falling over her shoulders like rain. And of course those deep, dark eyes.

  He smiled. “Well, at least we have found something to agree on.”

  “I wouldn’t let it go to your head.”

  The remark itself wasn’t bad, but the scornful smile accompanying it had him clenching his jaw. He said, “You really should learn to hold your tongue.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. She was goading him and it was as if she enjoyed doing it, was making a sport of it, even. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He said, “I think the statement was pretty clear. You’re so busy being angry at me you can’t see past that, even if it would help solve your mother’s murder.”

  “I get it.” She glanced at him scornfully. “You’re going to blame me if you don’t solve this case. You should stop harassing me and look for some real clues.”

  “Don’t tell me how to do my job. I know how to do my job.”

  “If that were the case, you would already know who killed my mother. You certainly wouldn’t be wasting your time trying to dig up the old memories of a messed-up kid.”

  He scoffed. “I don’t think you were a messed-up kid, and you’re certainly not a messed-up adult. What you are is a woman who is so afraid of people caring about her that you’d rather hold on to childhood anger than allow somebody to help you.”

  Eyes narrowed, she crossed the floor to stand directly in front of him. “How dare you. You know nothing about me.”