The Ultimate Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Bestsellers)

by Perkins, Cathy

  A few minutes later, Robbins stopped at Grunder’s Café—Sharon’s favorite restaurant. He picked up the to-go dinners he’d ordered earlier that day and placed them on the back seat where they wouldn’t get knocked over. He caught himself smiling and humming a line from some song as he threaded through back streets and cut over past the cemetery. The smile left his face as the graffiti-tagged wall mocked him.

  Robbins glared at the offending bricks. People were upset about the vandalism. Spray paint anywhere was a nuisance. Spray painting a cemetery—that was just low. He hoped the judge’s sentence for the offender—and they would catch whoever did this—included scrubbing the wall clean.

  Another few turns and he entered his neighborhood, trying to recapture the good mood he started home with. Surprises for his wife. She’d be happy. He might even get lucky.

  He pulled into his driveway. The yard guy had done a good job, he noticed. The guy even edged the drive and sidewalk. A smile turned up the corners of his mouth. His plan was coming together. Sharon was home from work—her car was in the garage—but it was too early for her to have started dinner.

  He was transferring the meals to plates when Sharon walked into kitchen.

  “Larry? What are you doing home?” She eyed the plates and takeout boxes. “What are you doing, period?”

  “I want to have dinner with my wife.”

  He saw confusion, and maybe a little suspicion, in her face. He dropped the serving spoon into the container, and arms crossed, leaned against the counter. “I know I’m not the easiest guy in the world to be married to. I have unpredictable hours and a stressful job. But I want us to work. Our marriage. For you to be happy.”

  Sharon looked at him for a long silent spell. Long enough that he nearly started to sweat.

  “I miss the kids. A lot.” She dropped her gaze and he hoped she wouldn’t start crying.

  Again.

  This wasn’t how he’d envisioned the evening working out.

  Finally she raised her head, a smile plastered across her face. She crossed the kitchen and draped her arms around his neck. “You’re a good guy. A good father.”

  This was more like it. He wrapped his arms around her waist, took a deep breath, and inhaled her perfume, her body scent.

  “It’s going to take more than one dinner to turn you into a good husband.”

  “It’s a start.”

  She smiled for real. “It’s a start.”

  After dinner, they settled in the living room with a cup of coffee. Robbins fiddled with the recliner, adjusting it to the right angle while Sharon curled into the corner of the sofa. He took a sip of coffee, then said, “Our kids. They’re good kids, right?”

  She put down her cup, instantly on alert. “Why? Did something happen? Is that why –”

  “Nothing’s wrong. I was just thinking about them. But if they did do something, we’d forgive them.”

  Sharon eyed him. “Is this related to one of your cases?”

  He looked away. It was an unwritten rule. The job stayed at the office. The rule had been in place so long he couldn’t remember if it was because she didn’t want to hear it, or he didn’t—couldn’t—talk about his cases. But this thing with Hayes and his parents, that wasn’t just the job. How could he explain his anger that they’d washed their hands, erased their child from their life?

  His cell phone rang, shattering the mood.

  He glanced at the screen. “I have to take this.”

  “Of course.”

  It was only when she leaned back that he realized she’d strained forward, as if wanting to hear what he said. About their kids? The case?

  “Robbins,” he said into the cell while he watched Sharon from the corner of his eye. Did she want to know more about what he lived with?

  “You need to get down here,” Jordan said through the phone.

  The call he’d been waiting for. He shifted forward, cell pressed against his ear. “What have you got?”

  “A hit on Beason’s credit card. A motel north of town.”

  “Meet me there.” Robbins closed the connection and rose to his feet. “I may be late.”

  “I’ll wait up. I’d like to finish this conversation,” she said. “Be careful.”

  “I always am.”

  He kissed her goodbye, something he’d gotten out of the habit of doing. Her lips were soft and she tasted of coffee and something sweet, and for a second he thought about going for a second round.

  But his mind was already back on the case, wondering whether the men were still at the motel, or if once again they’d missed the pair.

  The motel was one of those no-tell, mo-tell places north of Newberry, located on a narrow state highway that eventually led to the Interstate. It consisted of a single-story string of rooms where the car parked directly in front of the door. Robbins figured the bar next door probably provided most of the customers.

  He bypassed the office, followed the blue lights to the rear of the building, and pulled up beside the patrol unit. Jordan stood with two uniformed officers. Frazier, a sandy-haired guy, had been with the sheriff’s department for a few years. Bowen was new. They were both young, more Jordan’s age than his.

  Damn but they made him feel old.

  “Room 16.” Jordan gestured toward a unit near the end of the cinderblock building.

  “The Caddy isn’t here,” Robbins noted. Only a few pickups and a couple of dusty sedans were parked in the rear lot.

  “They gave its tag when they checked in last night,” Jordan said. “Even if one of them went somewhere, the other one could still be here.”

  “It’d be just our luck to miss them again.” Robbins examined the motel layout. A string of rooms. Wood panel doors. Aluminum frame window beside them. One window per room. “At least we know they didn’t climb out a window.”

  “We got a few peeks from a couple of rooms when we drove up, but no one’s come outside.”

  Typical for a joint like this. Robbins scanned the line of rooms. A few showed lights. A shadow appeared briefly at one window, then faded back into the room.

  “Should we move people out?” Jordan asked.

  The rooms on either side of Unit 16 were dark. Robbins shook his head. “Let’s do this.”

  The uniformed guys went first. Robbins felt the tension in the air. Adrenaline. Testosterone muted by training. The officers’ muscles tensed, ready for action.

  Frazier knocked. “Police.”

  No response.

  Robbins waited a mental five-count. “Open the door, Mr. Hayes.”

  No response.

  Bowen drew his pistol and readied a heavy-duty flashlight. At his nod, Frazier hefted a small black ram, swung it, and the flimsy door popped open. The two uniformed officers whipped through the opening and peeled left and right, covering each other.

  Robbins followed Jordan through the door, nerves on alert. The room was dark, lit only by the dim exterior light falling though the open door. The place smelled of mold, old cigarette smoke and stale beer.

  “Clear,” Frazier called from the back of the room as he swept the bath.

  A second later, Robbins nearly knocked Jordan over when the kid abruptly stopped. With a muttered curse, Robbins sidestepped him.

  Then he saw what had stunned Jordan.

  Gloria Beason Washington.

  Chapter 11

  Robbins stepped across the motel room to Washington’s seated figure. She jerked and rocked. Agitated sounds came from behind a gag.

  “Hold still.” He jerked the gag from her mouth. “Where are they?”

  “Untie me,” she screeched.

  Robbins wondered if releasing her was a good idea.

  He eyed her. No obvious concealed weapon.

  What the hell. There was plenty of backup if she attacked them. He dropped to one knee beside the chair and worked on the knots at her wrists.

  A moment ago, he’d been pumped with adrenaline, amped on anticipation. Then came the simultan
eous plummet of disappointment over missing Beason and Hayes and the shock of finding Washington.

  What kind of game were they playing?

  All of them. Hayes, Beason and Washington.

  Jordan squatted in front of Washington and tugged at the bindings around her legs. Frazier and Bowen moved to the door, their job now to keep other people out.

  “He’s a maniac. Look what he did to me.” Washington’s voice rose, pitching toward hysteria. “He kidnapped me.”

  The rope fell from her arms.

  She burst into tears. Her hands rose and covered her face. Moans came from behind the screen of fingers.

  Jordan finished untying the last knot and stepped aside. Robbins took his place and loomed over the wailing woman. “Cut the crap. We know you visited Hayes. Where’s your father? Is he with Hayes?”

  “I don’t know,” emerged between sobs.

  “You’re part of this. What are they doing?”

  “You think I did this?” The tears stopped with her outraged protest. She held out her hands, displayed wrists rubbed raw by the rope.

  “You could’ve staged it. Tell me. What’s your role here?”

  “I’m the victim. Why are you being so awful? It was terrifying.”

  Robbins turned to Jordan, deliberately ignoring her. He’d found unlike men, women talked more when they were pissed off. Washington had already proven she was the kind to get mouthy when angry. He pointed at the desk chair. “Bring that over here.”

  Movement behind him made him turn back to Washington.

  “I want out of this room.” She rose and glanced around, distaste written all over her face. “This place…it was a prison.”

  “Sit down.”

  She returned to the chair and glared while she massaged her wrists. “What kind of policeman are you?”

  A pissed-off one. “Why’d you go see Hayes if you’re so scared of him?”

  “I wasn’t scared then.” Washington hugged her arms across her chest.

  Jordan dragged the chair over.

  Robbins sat down toe to toe with her. She turned her head, glanced at Jordan, as if hoping he’d bail her out.

  “Why’d you go see Hayes?” he repeated.

  Her voice when she spoke was defiant. “Tyrell said he was a friend of my nephew. They served together in Iraq. Tyrell wrote to me from prison. He said he was lonely. In prison for a crime he didn’t commit.”

  “Prison is full of innocent men.”

  “We corresponded.” Washington ignored his cynical comment.

  “Why? He’s your mother’s second cousin?”

  “Obviously, he isn’t a relative.” She crossed her arms and heaved a dramatic eye-roll.

  “You make a habit of writing strange men while they’re in prison?”

  “Of course not. I was trying to reach out to my family. Dr. McKinley said I should. Of course, most of them slapped the hand I extended, so I didn’t have a lot of choices.”

  That sounded more consistent with her earlier bitchiness. “So you reached out to Hayes.”

  “Yes. He asked me to visit him. Apparently, the military won’t let just anyone talk to their detainees. They took forever to approve my visit.”

  I wouldn’t have let her in either, Robbins thought. He leaned forward and spoke deliberately. “Why’d you go see him?”

  “I was curious.”

  “About?”

  “What he could tell me about Akeem.”

  “And you went? To see some criminal you didn’t know?”

  “I needed information.”

  “On what? Price? Availability to grab your father?”

  “My father…? No.” She shook her head in vehement denial. “You’ve got this all wrong.”

  “Yesterday you were angry with your dad—claimed he killed your mom and got away with it. You hire Hayes for some payback?”

  “No, no. I didn’t do anything wrong.” Tears again filled her eyes. “Yesterday morning, after I talked with you, Tyrell showed up at my house. I was so surprised, I just opened the door and let him in.”

  What woman let a guy fresh out of prison into her home? “How’d he know where you lived?”

  “I told you. He wrote to me. At first, I thought he expected to stay with me since he was out of prison.”

  “Must have been a cozy visit down there at the brig.”

  “Stop it.” She banged a fist against her thigh. “He grabbed me. Threatened me. He forced me into the car—my car—and brought me here.”

  Her voice rose again, screeching toward hysterics. “I thought he meant to rape me. He pushed me inside this horrible room. My father was here, tied to a chair. He tied me up”—she extended hands, the wrists raw from the rope that had bound her—“and gagged me.”

  If she was telling the truth—and Robbins still wasn’t convinced—then Hayes just upped the ante.

  She grimaced, twisted her lips and shuddered, as if she could still feel a rag in her mouth. “Then Hayes took a nap like none of it even mattered. Like my father and I were just…part of the furniture.”

  “Where are they now? What’s their plan?”

  “I told you, I don’t know.”

  “Everything you’ve said tonight has been about you. What about your father? If anything happens to him, how are you going to live with yourself?”

  His words rolled right off of her. “I didn’t have anything to do with this. I told you, I’m innocent. A victim.”

  Robbins wanted her to get the rest of her story out there before he challenged it. “When they left, how did they seem?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The men. Were they excited, afraid, nervous?”

  She bit her lip. Her eyes drifted as she thought.

  Remembering or making up a story? Robbins hadn’t figured out her body language yet—when she was lying or telling the truth.

  “My father seemed resigned. He didn’t fight Tyrell when he untied him.”

  Beason was nearly eighty and Hayes was a very fit twenty-eight. What did she expect her father to do?

  “Tyrell seemed jazzed up. Maybe he was on drugs.”

  “Jazzed about what?”

  “Whatever they were doing.” She again raised her hands, this time in a dramatic shrug. “I heard him say he’d let my father go after they got ‘them.’ Do you think he will? Let him go?”

  Probably not, Robbins thought, but didn’t say.

  She slumped in the chair as if the emotion had finally drained her. “You have to find my father. Before that man does something terrible to him. You’re the police. Why aren’t you looking for him?”

  “We need to know where to look. They aren’t here.” He spread his hands indicating the cheap hotel room. “When did they leave?”

  “It seemed like forever, but maybe an hour?”

  “We have to find them before Hayes decides Beason is a liability.”

  “A liability? What does that mean?”

  “It means a copper urn instead of a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow.”

  “Tyrell might kill my father?”

  “Isn’t that what you wanted? Your father dead for killing your mother?”

  “No!” Wide-eyed, she shook her head. “He’s all I have left.”

  Her concern for her father seemed over-played. Seemed like she had family when it was convenient—for her.

  “Let’s go back to your visit to Charleston. Did Hayes ask you about the cylinder seals or did you already know about them?”

  “What are cylinder seals?”

  She maintained her innocence as Robbins pushed and prodded her story, trying to figure out what the men were doing and where they might go next.

  “What are you saying?” she demanded. “You think I was involved in whatever Tyrell is doing to my father?”

  “I find your connection to both of them interesting.”

  “Am I under arrest?” She rose, indignant now. “I’m leaving.”

  “You need to stay he
re—for your own safety. As you pointed out, Tyrell kidnapped you once. He could try again. And you’re now a material witness to a series of crimes.”

  Robbins stood. He’d let her chew on that a while.

  He had enough for a forty-eight hour hold, but was it enough to arrest her?

  He crossed the room to where Jordan leaned against the wall. “Call in a BOLO for her car.”

  “I already did.”

  “Ask the guys over in Kershaw County if there’s an abandoned Caddy near Washington’s place.”

  Jordan nodded. “You really think she’s working with Hayes?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. She’s so self-centered… She could’ve said something without thinking it through and set Hayes off. Or she could be an effective way for him to keep Beason in line.”

  “Do what I say or I’ll hurt your daughter.” Jordan frowned at the seated woman. “What do we do now?”

  “Other than pray someone sees them? Get Washington to start at the very beginning and look for any shred of evidence. Or gap in her story.”

  He crossed the room and sat back down. “Start at the beginning.”

  Chapter 12

  Damn.

  Robbins slumped in the driver’s seat. Discouragement leaned heavy on his shoulder. They were no closer to locating Beason and Hayes than they were before they found Washington.

  He watched Frazier escort the woman from the motel room. Her sister had driven over from Marion when Washington called. The women embraced—a quick hug—and the sister led Washington to a dark blue Kia.

  Gotta watch those hand-biters, he thought sourly. If you aren’t careful, they’ll take you home and feed you. From the way she was moving her mouth, Washington was giving her sister a blow-by-blow description of events.

  He cranked the engine and headed for home. Rather than pick up the Interstate, he turned onto US-76, heading south. The miles passed, as dark as his thoughts. Washington bugged him. More than her self-absorption, her complete disregard for her father—for all authority—annoyed the hell out of him. He saw the same lousy attitude in ninety percent of the kids he arrested.

  Maybe that was why he had a hard time believing her protests of innocence.