“Two bodies.”
“Ticks me off. Adam will be insufferable.”
Anissa was rattled. And Anissa was never rattled. “No he won’t. No one wants to be right about something like this.”
Her only response was a quick huff. She still hadn’t made eye contact.
“Thanks for calling me out here,” he said.
“Welcome. Captain wants to try to keep it close to the vest.”
He could understand that. No one wanted the county in an uproar over a possible serial killer who cuts off hands and heads.
“Do you want the case?”
Wow. Anissa offering to give up a high-profile case? That was not normal behavior.
“I’ll take it if you want me to, but I don’t want it.”
She finally looked at him. “Why not?”
“I’m working the lake John Doe, and Leigh’s stalker, and I have four other open files moving closer and closer to court dates.”
“So you’re too busy?”
“No. I’m not. I can take it, but I think it makes more sense for you to work this scene and this case while I work the John Doe from the lake until we are certain we’re dealing with the same killer. And then I think we should work it together. There are going to be so many moving parts to this one. I think an extra set of eyes will be invaluable.”
She nodded. “Thanks, Parker.”
“You sure you’re okay?”
Her mouth formed a thin line. “I’m fine.”
She wasn’t. But he wasn’t going to get any more from her. Not now at least.
“Okay. I’ll leave you to it,” he said. “Let’s plan to talk later tonight or tomorrow and compare notes.”
“Sounds good,” she said.
He walked back to where the captain and Mr. Cook stood. “Ole Blue found the body?”
“Sort of,” Mr. Cook said. “He went crazy over here, so I followed him in. He dug up a bone and I pulled him off and called the captain.”
“Have you been on a vacation recently, Mr. Cook?”
“Huh?”
“In the last year or so, have you gone on a trip? Been away from home for a while?”
“Boy, I don’t take vacations. Why are you asking?”
“I’m wondering how someone could have gotten the body in here and buried without you hearing or noticing.”
“Are you accusing me of murder?”
“Absolutely not, sir.”
“Are you even going to consider me as a suspect?”
“Absolutely, sir.”
Mr. Cook slapped the captain on the back and howled with laughter. “You’ve got a good one here, Mitchell.”
The captain looked like he’d swallowed an ice cube.
“Parker, I will look back over my calendar for the past couple of years, see if I can find a space where I was gone for more than a day. Can’t think of anything off the top of my head, but that doesn’t mean much these days.”
He shook his head. “Can’t believe that kind of evil came so close,” he said. “Makes me sick. Glad Mrs. Cook didn’t live to see this.” He turned to the captain. “I’ve already told Anissa this, but you can have whatever you need from me. Traipse all over this property. Bring in more dogs. Do whatever you need to do. I won’t complain. Don’t hold back because you’re trying to be polite. You hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” the captain said.
“This has to stop. I’ll be praying.”
Ryan followed Mr. Cook and the captain back through the woods, to the trail, and eventually back to the house. Mr. Cook didn’t speak the entire time.
He had probably already started praying.
Ryan said goodbye and headed for his car, but before he pulled away, Mr. Cook waved at him. He rolled down the window. “You need something, Mr. Cook?”
Mr. Cook walked over to him. “How’s Leigh Weston doing?”
How on earth would Mr. Cook know he . . . ?
There was no sense in fighting it. The man knew everything and everybody.
“She’s doing fine, sir. Going back to work tomorrow.”
“Good. Good. Glad to hear it. Captain says you’re working on her case.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any leads?”
Ryan imagined whatever it was Mr. Cook liked about him going up in a puff of smoke, but he couldn’t lie to the man. It would be like lying to a preacher. “No, sir. Not really.”
Mr. Cook nodded. “I’ll be praying on that too then.”
10
8:58 P.M.
Leigh glared at the digits glowing from the wall oven.
He wasn’t coming.
Which was fine. It wasn’t like they had a date or anything.
But he’d come over every night this week. And with the way things were when he left . . .
She unlocked her phone. No missed calls. No texts. He could have called.
She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and flopped onto the sofa. It was almost comical. Almost, but not quite. She’d pined after Ryan most of her high school years. She’d skipped sleepovers with her girlfriends if he was coming over to her house. She’d gotten up early on Saturday mornings to fix her hair and put on her makeup because she couldn’t risk him seeing her in her pajamas when he came down for breakfast. Of course, he and Kirk usually stayed up so late they’d sleep until noon, so she’d tiptoe around the house trying to avoid waking them while secretly wishing they would get up.
Eighteen years later, and she was lying on this couch, fighting tears because he hadn’t come to say good night. Had she misunderstood?
Heat flooded every inch of her body. That was it. He hadn’t missed the supercharged emotions she was tossing around, and he’d been too kind to tell her he wasn’t interested. Then this morning . . .
But it hadn’t seemed like she was the only one interested.
Ugh.
She grabbed a throw pillow and pulled it over her head. She wanted to scream. She wanted to rage against everything that had happened. She wanted to yell and shake her fist at . . .
No. Not at God. She knew better than that.
But . . .
How could he do it? How could he let it all happen? He was God. He was in control. He had the power to stop it. Didn’t he? She knew he did. So if he did have the power, then why wouldn’t he use it on her behalf?
Didn’t he care?
She didn’t have answers. Her parents would have said of course he cared. That he was working out everything for her good and his glory. But it certainly didn’t feel that way.
It felt like she’d been abandoned. Again.
She didn’t remember the orphanage in China. But she remembered being terrified, even into her early teens, that her parents would leave her. That she would do something and they would send her away.
As an adult, she understood her issues with abandonment. She also understood how deeply and completely her parents had loved her. How much Kirk loved her. Their bond forged not by blood but by shared experiences.
She could call Kirk. He would understand.
But he would understand too well. He would be worried, even more worried than he already was, and he would come home.
An image flickered through her mind. She could see it against her eyelids. Mom and Dad, hands entwined, heads bowed.
Praying.
They had believed. When they couldn’t have biological children, they chose to adopt. Mom never shied away from the truth that barrenness had broken her, and yet she always said she wouldn’t have had it any other way. That she’d never ask God to change it because she got Kirk, and Leigh, and a relationship with her heavenly Father that could only have been forged through struggle.
“You can let it drive you away from him or you can let it drive you to him, Leigh,” she would say. “I let it drive me to him. And he was faithful.”
Faithful?
He didn’t feel faithful. He felt far, far away.
“I will never leave you, nor forsake you.” The w
ords learned long ago in Sunday school wormed their way into her mind.
Really? You haven’t left? So you were hanging around when Barry lost his mind? You were there when I got in a car with cut brake lines? You watched as Pete ate poisoned gelatin meant for me?
Her heart pounded in her chest at the audacity of her thoughts. Her breath sounded loud in her ears.
She was alive.
Very much alive.
When she should be dead. Barry could have killed her several times. She should have died Sunday. Twice.
But she was still here.
Was that what God was trying to get her to see? That he’d been protecting her all along?
Her phone buzzed and she ignored it, choosing to allow this concept to percolate a few moments longer. If God had protected her, that was awesome. But why allow any of it? Was this some sort of effort to drive her toward him and not away from him?
Maybe.
Her heart rate slowed. Her breath came easier. She still wasn’t sure about everything or about why God would keep her safe but not Pete. Why he’d protect her from Barry but still allow the tumor that killed him.
But somehow, just being still and asking the questions—wait. Was this praying? It certainly wasn’t what she thought of as praying. But maybe this wrestling about hard things was what her mom had been talking about.
A fresh ache pierced her. If her mom were still here, she would be able to explain it all. Why hadn’t she asked her to tell her everything while she had the chance?
The pounding on the door scattered her thoughts in a million directions. She jumped from the sofa, still clutching the throw pillow.
“Leigh! You okay in there? Open the door.”
Ryan. He had some nerve.
“Coming,” she said. She took her time letting him in.
“You scared me,” he said once she opened the door. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
“I was busy.”
“Busy? Seriously? I’ve been going out of my mind. I . . . you . . .”
“Don’t you dare fuss at me. I don’t owe you an explanation for anything.”
His head jerked back like she’d slapped him. She stared him down. She would not apologize. He’d kept her waiting all evening and then yelled at her because she didn’t answer her phone?
The tension between them tonight bore no resemblance to the electricity from this morning.
Ryan took a step back. “I’m sorry to bother you, Ms. Weston. I’ll leave you to your evening. Good night.”
He walked out.
She stared at the door. He’d come back.
But he didn’t.
At 11:13 p.m. Gabe’s car pulled up beside Ryan’s. Ryan rolled down the window. “What are you doing here?”
“I called for a status update and heard you were pulling the night shift in the car. What’d you do to get banned from the house?”
Awesome.
“I wasn’t going to spend the night inside the house anyway,” he said. “Might as well sit here.”
“’Cause she kicked you out?”
“She did not.”
“I heard you pounded on the door, demanded she open up, and then stayed inside less than two minutes before you came out and got in your car to start pouting.”
“I am not pouting.”
Gabe lifted his eyes heavenward. “Okay. Sulking? Moping? Wait, have you been crying?”
“Shut up.”
Gabe laughed at his own joke for a good thirty seconds before he regained some composure. “Seriously, man. What happened? I thought you were making progress.”
“Progress on what, exactly? You know as well as I do that we have nothing to go on with this case. Nothing. If that computer forensics professor Adam knows doesn’t find something, we’re dead in the water.”
“Adam says she’s awesome,” Gabe said. “I’m sure she’ll find something. But that isn’t what I was talking about and you know it.”
Ryan crossed his arms. No way he was talking to Gabe about this. Whatever this was. Or wasn’t. Since he’d apparently misread every cue he thought she’d been sending.
“Wow,” Gabe said. “You’ve got it bad.”
Ryan wanted to argue with him, but that wouldn’t do any good. Gabe loved to argue. He’d pick a contrary side for the fun of it.
His best bet was to change the subject. “You drove all the way out here to mess with me?”
“Pretty much.”
Great.
“You could have apologized.”
“For what? For being worried about her?”
“I heard you yelled at her for not answering your call.”
“Oh, good grief. I did not yell.”
Gabe made a show of looking at everything but him as he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Not sure how the officer outside the house could have heard it if you weren’t yelling.”
“I was—”
“Yes?”
“I was concerned something might have happened. No one had talked to her in hours. She could have been in there dead for all I knew. And she knows we have people watching out for her. The least she could do is answer the phone.”
Gabe pursed his lips. “Ever occur to you that maybe she couldn’t answer the phone?”
“That’s exactly what occurred to me, you moron. That’s why I was worried.” What was confusing about this? Why was he the bad guy for being scared half to death that something had happened to Leigh?
Gabe gave him the kind of look he’d give a five-year-old who didn’t understand why he couldn’t have more candy.
“You’re the moron. Maybe she was in the bathroom. Maybe she was brushing her teeth and didn’t hear it. Who knows what women do when we aren’t around. I certainly don’t. The bottom line is, you could have given her the courtesy of assuming that if she could have answered, she would have.”
“I’m not sure she would have.”
“Did you have a fight this morning?”
Ah. This morning. The softness of her cheek. The way her breath had caught when his lips had touched her. The way he’d literally had to run away to keep from pulling her into his arms.
Gabe waved a hand at him. “I’m going to take your vacant, dreamy expression as a no. Did you kiss her this morning?”
Not the way Gabe meant. Not that he hadn’t wanted to.
“You did?”
“No. I mean. Yes. No. I kissed her cheek.”
“I’m confused,” Gabe said.
“You and me both, bro.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes.
“I still think you should apologize. Or at least ask her if you could talk to her. Fix it.”
“It’s probably best that I don’t.”
“You know, if you keep on this way, my eyes are going to roll right out of my head,” Gabe said. “You cannot be serious.”
“She was completely irrational.”
“Someone tried to kill her twice a week ago and she’s been cooped up in her house ever since. I give her a gold star for maintaining even a loose grip on her sanity.”
“You don’t have a high bar.”
“On the contrary,” Gabe said. “I set a bar so high it’s impossible for any woman to ever measure up to. I set it that way on purpose. I’m not marriage material, and I won’t date a woman just to have someone to hang out with and kiss good night.”
“Your point?”
“You, on the other hand, are marriage material. You want the wife and the kids and the house. Maybe a house on the lake with the boat and the skis and the diving and the whole domestic bliss package.”
Ryan snorted.
“Why are you fighting it, man?”
“I’ve seen what it does to people.”
“You talking about Rebecca?”
“Of course I’m talking about Rebecca. She loved that idiot. Still does, I think. And he had all of us fooled. Now what does she have?”
“She has two beautiful children and a life
that isn’t what she was planning but isn’t as awful as you’re making it out to be,” Gabe said.
“Her life is hard.”
“It was going to be hard regardless.”
“What sort of bizzaro philosophy is this? Something you cooked up on all those nights undercover?”
Gabe didn’t rise to the bait. “Life is hard, Parker. Everyone has tough stuff. There’s no perfect relationship or perfect job or perfect house that will somehow make your life easy. What throws us for a loop is when life is hard in ways we weren’t prepared for. Divorce. Illness. Disability. Money problems. Rebellious kids. Reporters who blow undercover ops. Friends who don’t have the good sense to see they are messing up something really good that has fallen in their lap and they’d better fix it before it’s too late.”
Leave it to Gabe to drop some deep truth and then end it with a jab.
“Fine. I’ll call her in the morning.”
“Text her.”
“Now? She’s asleep.”
“I doubt it.”
Ryan grabbed his phone off the console.
Can we talk?
“There.” He showed the phone to Gabe.
Gabe smirked. “I was right,” he said.
Ryan looked at the screen. Three little dots blinked back at him. She was texting him back.
His entire body tensed. The dots continued blinking. Was she writing a book? How long did it take to say yes or no?
The dots disappeared. Was she not going to respond at all?
The dots continued to appear and then disappear.
His frustration grew with each passing second.
Gabe’s chuckling didn’t help.
Of course.
Really? Two minutes of typing for two words. He showed the phone to Gabe. Gabe shook with laughter. “You are in big trouble, buddy. But I think you’ll survive.”
Now?
I guess so. Why, are you awake?
I’m sitting outside your house.
No dots this time. Three seconds later the front door opened. “Seriously?” Leigh did not sound pleased to see him.
Gabe slid down in his seat. “I can see you, Gabriel Chavez,” Leigh called.
“Good luck,” Gabe said.
Ryan rolled up his windows and got out. “Thanks a lot,” he said to Gabe before walking toward the house.
“I’m here for you, man,” Gabe called after him.
Beneath the Surface Page 11