Deadliest of Sins

by Sallie Bissell

  Copyright Information

  Deadliest of Sins: A Novel of Suspense © 2014 by Sallie Bissell.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First e-book edition © 2014

  E-book ISBN: 9780738737232

  Book format by Bob Gaul

  Cover design by Lisa Novak

  Cover photo: 136554325 © Santiago Bañón/Flickr Open/Getty Images

  Editing by Nicole Nugent

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  Manufactured in the United States of America

  My thanks to Susan Blexrud, Jeanne Charters, Jennifer Holmes, Cynthia Perkins, Madeena Spray Nolan, and Beth Robrecht—good friends and fine writers who read this manuscript in its earliest incarnation. Thanks also to Susan Walker, RN, MSN, ACNP-BC. All made it a much better book.

  Special thanks to Robbie Anna Hare, friend and agent extra-ordinaire.

  Prologue

  “You gonna be okay, driving this bad boy home so late?” Ray Atkins stood in an instinctive cop stance, arms folded, legs wide. He smelled of bourbon and cigarettes, remnants of his evening at the Boot Scoot Club with Kathy, his wife.

  “I’ll be fine, thanks.” Samantha Buchanan tugged the heavy car door open. The overhead light came on, revealing the Lincoln’s dark maw—black leather seats, black dashboard, an inky interior so spotless that the car could have come from a dealer’s showroom rather than her stepfather’s garage. Gudger lovingly called the car Suzie Q. She and her little brother Chase called it The Hearse.

  “I didn’t think Gudger let anybody drive this car.” Atkins lurched forward to shut her door.

  “He didn’t until a couple of weeks ago.” Sam put her purse in the passenger seat, where she used to sit, enduring Gudger’s hand on her knee, his awkward brushings against her breast as he wiped some imaginary spot from her window. “I don’t know why he decided to start letting me drive.”

  “Maybe he thought you’d grown up enough to do it.” Ray Atkins’s eyes lingered on her legs as she buckled her seat belt. He, too, apparently thought she was grown up enough to do a lot of things that had nothing to do with babysitting his children.

  “I guess I am, then.” She turned to the man who’d just given her a five-dollar tip on top of her hourly fee. “Your boys were awfully good tonight, Officer Atkins. Both asleep by nine thirty.”

  “Then you must have the magic touch.” Weaving on his feet, he gave her a tipsy wink. “Maybe you can come and touch ’em again next week.”

  “Just give me a call.” Tired of woozy, middle-aged daddies who still considered themselves studs, she turned the key in the ignition. Suzie Q’s engine roared to life.

  “Whoa!” Atkins jumped as she gunned the motor. “Are you sure you’re okay driving this thing? You want me to follow you home?”

  “I’m fine,” she assured him. “Just hit the gas a little too hard.”

  “Well, take it easy. It’s mighty dark on these roads.”

  She smiled, then put Suzie Q in Reverse. With Officer Atkins watching, it took her three tries to maneuver the car around their sprawling patio, but she finally got the big Lincoln pointed in the right direction. With a brisk wave at Atkins, down the driveway she went, veering only briefly into his wife’s row of yellow forsythia bushes.

  When she got to the end of the driveway, she paused, releasing the breath she’d been holding. “Thank God,” she whispered. “No half-drunk cop following me home.” She turned left, driving slowly, figuring he would watch her taillights until he couldn’t see them anymore. Half a mile down the road she lowered the car windows and sped up, turning the radio to a rock station out of Charlotte. Pink’s old “Blow Me” came on; she turned it up loud. As the song blared forth, she pressed the accelerator harder. The massive car leapt forward, gobbling up the pavement like a hungry animal. A cool night breeze whipped through her hair, teasing her with the summery scents of honeysuckle and fresh alfalfa. Right now I could go anywhere I wanted, she thought. Charlotte, to see that fancy South Park Mall. West Virginia, to visit my old house. Even Florida, where I could finally see the ocean. I could drive down there, sell this old car, and just live on the beach, she told herself. I’d never have to look at Gudger again.

  As she flew past battered rural mailboxes, Florida suddenly seemed like a real possibility. They must have children down there who needed babysitting. She could take them to the beach. Smear their little noses with coconut suntan lotion, play Frisbee in the sand, then let them nap under a palm tree, the waves lulling them to sleep. At the intersection of Cordell Cove Road and State Route 19, she actually stopped and considered it. A left turn would take her home, a right would get her to Charlotte. From Charlotte she could find her way to Florida—people did it all the time. She started to turn the steering wheel to the right when she realized it was crazy. Gudger was a retired cop; all his friends were working cops. If she drove this car a mile out of Campbell County, he’d have her arrested and put in jail. Or worse, take it out on her mother.

  “Some other time,” she whispered, her dream of Florida vanishing as she turned left. “Some other life.”

  Now she drove slowly, wanting to stretch out the minutes before she pulled up in Gudger’s driveway. He would, of course, be watching for her, his figure dark in the light of the kitchen door. Probably by now he’d be pacing by the mailbox. Before he’d driven her to her jobs, jingling his keys in front of the kitchen sink. Where are we going tonight? he’d growl. Remember, you’ve got to pay me for gas. But lately he’d changed, preferring to sit in front of the TV, staring at a baseball game, a cooler full of beer cans at the ready. Tonight he’d even entrusted her with an errand.

  “Stop by the Gas-n-Go on your way home,” he’d told her, pulling a five-dollar bill from his wallet. “I want some Jo-Jo chocolate milk. They only sell it there.”

  She knew then that he meant to do some serious drinking. Gudger only drank chocolate milk as a hangover preventive. She shot her mother a warning look as she headed toward the kitchen door.

  “Be careful, honey.” Her mother perched like a little sparrow in the chair next to Gudger, still wearing her gray work uniform.

  �
�I will, Mama,” she replied. “You be careful, too.”

  “Don’t forget his chocolate milk,” Chase had whispered, looking up from his book as she passed by the kitchen table. “There’ll be trouble if you do.”

  She drove on, thinking what an asshole Gudger was, wishing she could go back home, load up Chase and her mother, and just drive away, leaving him to his beer and his Barcalounger and his stupid chocolate milk.

  “Like that’s ever going to happen,” she whispered. She was stuck at Gudger’s one more year, until she finished high school. Chase would be stuck for five more beyond that. How long her mother would endure Gudger was up for grabs. “He’ll give us a safe home,” her mom had told them when she and Chase asked why on earth she was marrying this bald-headed creature who strutted around in a police uniform. “We won’t have to worry about being on the street.” At first Sam had understood that; lately she thought they’d all be better off on the street.

  As the car floated down the road, almost steering itself, she wondered where she would be two years from now. They had no money for college and though her grades were good, they weren’t scholarship-good. More than once she’d considered joining the army. Fort Bragg was fairly close—if she could get stationed there, then Chase and her mother could come and live with her. They’d never have to see Gudger again. Warmed by that thought, she pulled to the corner of Route 19 and Potato Branch Road. She was halfway through her turn, picturing herself saluting people in a snappy army uniform, when she realized she’d forgotten Gudger’s stupid Jo-Jo milk. Sold only at the Gas-n-Go, a good ten miles in the other direction.

  “Shit,” she whispered, her fingers tightening on the steering wheel. Forget the army, forget everything. Her first night with a mission and she’d already screwed up. For a moment she just stopped in the middle of the road, wondering what she should do—if she drove home now she wouldn’t be late, but she wouldn’t have the milk. If she arrived late, she’d at least have chocolate milk to mollify Gudger. Being late would be bad enough, but showing up without the milk would be much, much worse.

  “Come on, Suzie Q,” she said. “Gotta go the other way.”

  She turned around and sped south, driving along a divided four-lane that sliced through acres of farmland—wide-shouldered, with cornfields growing on both sides of it. In the morning it would be crowded with commuters heading to Charlotte and Gastonia. Now, Suzie Q’s headlights flashed along a deserted road, skittering through tall, ghostly-looking stalks of corn.

  A few minutes later, she pulled into the Gas-n-Go, a small puddle of neon light in the darkness. A Hispanic man stood at the gas pump, filling up a battered red station wagon that seemed to hold at least ten squirming children. She got out of her car and hurried into the little store, where a bored-looking black man sat behind the counter, playing a game on his cell phone.

  “Have you got Jo-Jo chocolate milk?” she asked.

  “Back wall, next to the beer,” the man replied without looking up.

  She found it quickly—Jo-Jo Choco read the label. Chocolate milk from chocolate cows. She grabbed two small cartons and ran to the cash register.

  The clerk looked up from his game and gave her a sly grin. “You got a jones for chocolate milk tonight?”

  “Yeah,” she replied. “I do.”

  He rang up her purchase. “$3.79.”

  She gave him Gudger’s five-dollar bill and raced for the door.

  “Want your change?” called the clerk.

  “No. You keep it.”

  She hurried back to Suzie Q. The Hispanic family had gone, leaving the parking lot empty. She turned around in a single large swoop and headed back the way she’d come, plunging into the cornfields. She drove fast, praying that no deer or raccoons would dart out in front of her. The last thing she needed was to come home with roadkill smeared across Suzie Q’s grille. With her tires hissing along the pavement, she’d gotten halfway home when she saw something moving on the side of the road. She swerved into the left lane, blowing her horn. As she flew past, she glimpsed what she assumed was some animal. But as she hauled down the highway, she realized it wasn’t an animal at all. It was gray, but tall, with angular edges.

  “Oh my God!” she whispered. “That looked like a baby’s car seat.”

  She drove on, telling herself that it was a box, or a crate, or even some suitcase, flown out the back of someone’s truck. But it was moving, a voice kept saying in her head. It was a car seat, and it was moving. Those Mexicans have dumped one of their kids.

  “It was just a box,” she said, gripping the steering wheel harder. “The car going by made it move.” She told herself that for another mile, then she could stand it no longer. She jammed on her brakes and turned around, driving over the grassy median that divided the highway. Suzie Q bucked and lurched in the rutted ground, but regained her traction as her tires hit the pavement again. Sam sped up to ninety. Whatever Gudger might do to her when she got home, she couldn’t let this go. If there was a baby in that car seat, she’d never forgive herself for not stopping.

  She raced on, watching for the car seat on the opposite side of the road. She saw nothing for so long that she wondered if she hadn’t imagined the whole thing, then suddenly, there it was—a car seat, still wiggling, still facing the cornfield. She pulled over to the median, but a large culvert ran down the middle of this section, impossible for Suzie Q to ford. She would have to go down to the nearest access road and approach the thing from behind.

  She zoomed down the road, finally finding an access road that bridged the culvert another mile away. She jerked Suzie Q to the left, made the turn on two squealing tires, then tore up the road in the opposite direction. Flipping her headlights on bright, she peered into the darkness. Then it came into view—the dim, wiggling thing she’d first thought was a possum, was, in her bright lights, clearly a car seat. She braked hard, pulled to the shoulder of the road. Her first instinct was to run and grab this child who’d been dumped like so much garbage. But what if whoever had dumped this baby changed their minds and came roaring back to pick it up? If they found her here, they would realize how much trouble they were in. Or worse, accuse of her of trying to steal their child.

  “Don’t be an asshole,” she told herself, unconsciously adopting Gudger’s tone of voice.

  Twenty feet away, she put Suzie Q in Park but left the motor running. Quickly, she got out of the car. The road was devoid of cars, of trucks, of everybody but her. As she left the comforting purr of Suzie Q’s engine, her footsteps echoed on the pavement and she felt as if she were the only person in the world.

  Just think of how that poor baby must feel, she told herself, disgusted at her own cowardice. She walked on, getting closer. As she did, the car seat seemed to move more vigorously. “Honey?” she called, her voice thready. “Sweetheart? Did somebody drive off and forget you?”

  She cocked her head—did she hear a whimper of response? Was that a tiny bit of pink blanket poking out from one side of the car seat?

  “Oh my God,” she whispered. “It’s a little girl!”

  She hurried forward. Only a few more seconds and she’d be back in the car, with an abandoned baby! Anxious to turn the car seat around, she was reaching for the top of it when she felt a sharp sting on the back of her neck. Instinctively she tried to slap at whatever insect had bitten her, but her knees suddenly grew weak, then crumbled. Still trying to get to the car seat, she collapsed by the side of the road, thinking of her mother and the warm sand of Florida as the hum of Suzie Q’s engine faded into silence.

  One

  Patsy King had just aimed her right foot at Mary Crow’s nose when the Rolling Stones blared forth over the grunts and groans of the karate class—Mick Jagger, singing “Start Me Up!”

  Startled, Mary jumped back from Patsy’s oncoming foot and scrambled to grab her gym bag. “Start Me Up” was the only ringtone she’d ever purchased�
��and she’d dedicated it solely to calls from the Honorable Ann Chandler, governor of North Carolina.

  “Sorry,” Mary apologized to Patsy, who was now hopping on one leg like a wounded stork. “I’ve got to take this call.”

  Hurrying past scowling old Yamamoto, the renegade sensei who gleefully taught women every forbidden kick and illegal hold in all of karate, Mary grabbed her bag and went out into the hall. She fumbled with the phone, finally cutting Mick Jagger off mid-chorus. “Governor Chandler?” she said, her voice echoing in the empty hall.

  “Hello, Mary. How are you?”

  “Fine, thanks.”

  “Are you in your office?”

  “No ma’am.” Mary felt her face grow hot, as if the governor had caught her goofing off in a woman’s self-defense class when she should be working. Then she realized it was a foolish reaction—though she was on retainer as the governor’s special counsel, she’d had no directives from Raleigh, nothing much to work on at all. So she’d filled her empty hours with learning eye gouges and how to release her inner tiger.

  “Can you get to someplace private?”

  Mary glanced down the hall. The lower floor of the downtown Y held the ladies locker room (which was private but could get noisy) and a deserted dance studio, empty until the noon Zumba class. She ducked into the dance studio. “I’m in a private place now.”

  “Mary, we have a situation in Sligo and Campbell Counties that I’d like you to look into. Are you aware of the Bryan Taylor case?”

  The name rang a distant bell, but nothing specific. “No ma’am, I’m afraid not.”

  “Bryan Taylor was a gay man who was found beaten to death in Campbell County last month. A year ago, another gay man was similarly killed in neighboring Sligo County.”

  “That’s terrible,” said Mary.

  “Have you heard of Homer Trull, North Carolina’s latest em-

  barrassment?”

  “You’d have to live in a cave not to have heard of Homer Trull.” Mary recalled the infamous YouTube video of a fiery preacher advocating that gays and lesbians be imprisoned behind electric fences. It had gotten over half a million hits; only a handful had been positive.