Cold Case Witness

by Sarah Varland

  Except this time he might get what he wanted.

  She kicked as he dragged her, not going easily. Her heart sunk when he managed to drag her around the house and up the steps to the front porch. Matt was still around the back of the house and had no way of knowing which way she’d gone. How long before he wondered what was keeping her?

  Gemma bit back a sob, tried to keep fighting even as her hands were bound behind her, the pressure against her broken wrist making it hard to breathe, much less move, without pain shooting through her.

  When the blindfold went on, she knew her fight was over.

  He dragged her again and this time she didn’t fight him. She couldn’t see where she was going—couldn’t risk pulling away from him only to fall off the side of the porch or down stairs and badly injure herself. He finally let her go only to shove her to the floor. Gemma wasn’t sure how high up in the house they’d gone, had lost count of the stairs they’d climbed.

  She heard the low laugh again, then a door slamming. The door to wherever she was? And was he in or out of the room?

  She had to assume out. She couldn’t handle the thought of being trapped with a killer. Staying positive was her only hope of getting out of there.

  Her heart pounded. As the pain in her wrist eased to a dull throb, she tried to think again, tried to figure out an escape. Gemma wasn’t a quitter.

  And then she smelled the smoke. Heard the crackle as the fire advanced.

  Gemma threw herself backward against the wall, hoping beyond hope that the ropes binding her would catch on something, that she’d be able to get loose. She tried again, this time hitting her wrist so hard she had to pause for a minute. The smell of the smoke intensified, pushing her to think faster before it was too late.

  Her blindfold. She had to forget her hands, do without them for now, and somehow get her blindfold off so she could at least look for a way out. She rubbed her face against her shoulder, loosening it a little, but not enough to move it away from her eyes. She turned her head, tried one more time on the other shoulder.

  And felt fabric move. She pushed again, still hoping to get it off and over her head, but after another few seconds without progress, Gemma tried the other way. Even getting it down around her neck would make it possible for her to see.

  There. She had it.

  But the ability to see at this moment only overwhelmed her. The blindfold was gone, but the room was so full of smoke that she couldn’t see clearly. She could make out a window, but the glass was shattered in some places, boarded up in others. Not a good escape possibility, especially since she didn’t know how high up she was at the moment.

  “Matt! Help!” she yelled, realizing that since the man had let her go she could once again shout. But could Matt hear her over the fire?

  Gemma lowered herself to the ground, walked on her knees to keep the worst of the smoke—which hovered higher—from overwhelming her. If she had her hands, she could crawl, but that wasn’t an option right now. She had to work with what she had.

  The door seemed far away, even though it was only a few feet. She moved toward it as quickly as she could, trying to decide as she did so whether she’d take the risk and open once she reached it.

  Gemma glanced back at the window. Saw flames. Was the fire coming from multiple directions, or was her stalker still out there, setting more fires as he waited for them to overwhelm her?

  “Matt!”

  She kicked the door open after only a few tries, thankful to her gym in Atlanta for all those fancy exercise machines that people in Treasure Point would have made fun of. Smoke filled the hallway, too, and Gemma was disoriented, unsure where to find the staircase. She ran right, which took her into another room, this one filled with...

  Maps? Maps covering the walls. Not antique ones. Current ones, with locations on them. She took one second to stare, tried to absorb all she could in case she did get out of here and this room was destroyed. But surely it couldn’t be relevant, could it? This was an abandoned house. Just a piece of the past.

  But that was an X where Claire’s house was.

  And X where she’d been run off the road.

  An X at the Hamilton Estate.

  More X’s she didn’t have time to look at because the smoke was making her dizzy, burning her eyes, reminding her that none of this would matter if she didn’t get out alive.

  Gemma turned left, moved as fast as she dared with almost no visibility, and tripped down several stairs. Stairs! She was headed the right way. She moved more deliberately, down, down, down.

  And ran into...

  Matt.

  “You’re okay!” His voice was panicked. Relieved. Loud and yelling in her ear and the best thing she’d ever heard. “We have to get out of here!”

  She knew. The house had looked near to crumbling before the structure had been damaged by the flames. “Where’s the front door?” she yelled back at him, the roar from the fire seeming to suck the volume from everything in the room except the flames themselves.

  “Down more stairs. This is the second floor.”

  Had she been pulled that far?

  “My hands are tied. I can’t go very fast.”

  Matt reached behind her, made an attempt at the knot and shook his head. “Too tight. We’ll have to wait until we’re out to untie you.” He coughed, pushed his hand between her arm and her waist to guide her. “Come on.”

  They rushed down the last set of stairs together, as a team, as a rumble from the upstairs sent pieces of the house crashing to the floor. Just bits here and there, but Gemma didn’t want to stick around to see how much of it would be devoured.

  They pushed outside, into the safety of the yard. Gemma turned to look, doubling back at the sight of the entire top half of the house engulfed in flames.

  “The fire department?”

  “Too far.” Matt shook his head. “I’ll call to report it, but it’s too late for them to save it.”

  For a second she’d forgotten that they were on an island.

  Fear stabbed her stomach. Alone with a killer.

  “Matt. He might still be here. Unless he’s already gone to his boat, the killer may be here with us.”

  Her chest tightened. She’d thought escaping the burning house would be the best thing that could happen. But what if he was here, watching? Waiting for the right moment? Getting out of that house and out into the open where they could be attacked at any moment might have been the most dangerous step to take.

  * * *

  With them out of the house and that immediate danger passed, Matt took a minute to look at Gemma’s hands behind her back. The knots were good, he hadn’t been able to break them, but in the light he could take his pocketknife to the ropes, and as long as he was careful, she’d be free.

  “Hold still. Just one minute. I’m going to cut you free.”

  He heard her breathing change from normal fear to terror. Matt had to get her free and out of there fast.

  “You can do it, Gemma, just let me cut...” He was careful with how he touched her broken wrist, but he could still see her body tense when his hands grazed it. The idea that someone had exploited her injury as a way to subdue and try to kill her...

  Matt reminded himself to stay calm, focused for a minute on his own breathing. He needed to slow everything down, take things one step at a time, get them out of there alive.

  Maybe catch whoever was behind this in the process.

  He couldn’t believe they’d been so close, that they’d been on the same little square of property with the guy and Matt still hadn’t gotten him.

  He didn’t get mad often. It reminded him too much of his dad, whom he never wanted to emulate. But right now... When would this stop? When would he be able to put this to an end? The criminal behind this sure wasn’t going to quit anytime soon. The more Matt thought about his behavior, about the case as a whole, the more he thought their killer was the leader of the gang behind the thefts—and the deaths. And maybe he was
still leading some men. It would explain his ability to be everywhere, have eyes everywhere.

  Which meant there could be more than one man here, ready for a fight on this island.

  But Matt wasn’t giving up.

  One more good cut and Gemma’s hands were free. She rubbed her hurt wrist without taking her eyes from the flames. “Thank you.”

  He nodded. “Let’s go.” He reached for her hand, determined not to let them get separated again. They ran together down the path through the woods, Matt readying himself around every curve to draw his weapon if he needed to, but knowing that taking a slower path through the woods was just as dangerous in this situation. Time wasn’t on their side.

  They raced to where he’d tied up the kayaks, came out of the narrow woods path onto a beach where there was...

  Nothing. The boats were gone.

  Matt squinted. Saw one kayak two hundred yards or so out, being carried away by the ocean current. The other was in the opposite direction, in the marsh, so the current wasn’t carrying it.

  It was being rowed.

  So Gemma’s attacker had escaped. Taken their boats and done who knew what with whatever transport he’d taken to get there. And left them on an island to die.

  Because if the house fire didn’t get put out soon, the entire island could go up in flames.

  Please let it rain, Matt prayed with all his heart. And thunder rumbled.

  But the skies, the ground, stayed dry.

  “We have to do something!” Gemma yelled, tears now streaming down her face.

  Matt reached for his phone. Service out here was sketchy at best, but maybe...

  “Hello?”

  “Chief, it’s O’Dell. I’m out on Whitetail Island with Gemma. The man we’re after was here, but he got away. We are trapped on the island with no boats and there’s a large house fire.” He delivered the information as quickly as he could.

  “We’ll send someone out to get you both. Water’s choppy around here with the storm, but it shouldn’t take too long. Hang tight and try to keep her calm.”

  “I will,” Matt promised.

  “Matt!” Gemma’s voice was more insistent.

  He turned to her, kept the phone at his ear.

  “Tell him that there’s a room in the house—though it’s probably burned by now. But there were maps. Maps of places I’ve been. Pictures of me around town.”

  He shivered. Calling the man a stalker had been more accurate than he’d realized. Matt nodded. “Sir? Gemma just told me there’s a room in the house with maps of her whereabouts. The man truly has been stalking her, and it appears this may have been serving as a sort of command center.”

  “Then, we’d better hope the fire doesn’t destroy everything we could have used as evidence. Because we need to catch him. It appears this man isn’t giving up. As many close calls as we’ve had, I’m afraid we’re running out of chances. One of these times...” The chief’s voice trailed off.

  Matt looked away from Gemma, couldn’t handle being pulled into her dark eyes and seeing the way she looked at him, like he could keep her safe, like she trusted him to. Instead, he focused on the dark plume of smoke rising in the distance, tried to remind himself that no matter how his feelings had gotten involved, this was still a case. And he was good at his job. He could do it. Prove himself.

  “I know, sir,” he confirmed.

  “I’m counting on you.”

  “Yes, Chief.”

  And they hung up the phone.

  “There’s so much smoke.”

  Too much, Matt feared, to hope that they’d be able to investigate any of what Gemma had seen in that room. It was likely gone. Once again, they only had her memory as evidence.

  He looked over at her, tried to put himself in her shoes. What was it like to carry the weight of the knowledge she had for a decade? To truly believe that someone had been murdered but to have no evidence to substantiate her claims? To wonder if someone had gone free because no one believed her?

  And then to find out all these years later that she was right.

  “I’m sorry, Gemma.”

  She turned to him, face streaked with tears. “You got us out. That was all you could do.”

  “I don’t mean that. I mean, everything. I’m sorry you’ve had to go through all this, that this nightmare has lasted so long.”

  “It is what it is.” Gemma’s shoulders fell as she looked back at the smoke.

  “Who do you think is doing this?”

  “It’s hard to imagine anyone in Treasure Point acting like this. Whoever it is, I don’t think they know me.”

  “They stalk you awfully well. Doesn’t that seem to contradict that thought?”

  Gemma shook her head. “I don’t think so. I still think it’s someone from a nearby town.”

  Matt didn’t argue with her. She didn’t seem emotionally ready to consider the possibility that her attacker could be someone she knew.

  “His laugh.” Gemma said the words out of the blue, catching Matt off guard.

  “His laugh?”

  She nodded. “I would recognize it. I don’t know why I wasn’t able to place the voice a decade ago, even though it seemed familiar to me. But if I heard it again, I’m sure I’d know that laugh.”

  “Wait, if you recognized his voice years ago, what makes you think he wouldn’t be from Treasure Point?”

  “I got out of town a decent amount back then. I spent a summer or two working on St. Simons and I was taking a college class in the afternoons in Savannah. It still doesn’t mean anything.”

  Matt dropped that line of questioning. Pursuing it wasn’t getting them anywhere right now.

  Instead, he watched the smoke, waited for rescue and tried to figure out what lead to pursue next. They needed to know who wanted to see Gemma killed before he or she succeeded.

  THIRTEEN

  Less than ten minutes had passed since Matt’s phone call with the chief when the rescue boat arrived. As they climbed in, Gemma let out a sigh of relief.

  “Close call,” commented Clay, who was driving the boat. “I looked for anyone suspicious in the marsh on my way, but didn’t see anyone or anything. No one at the dock in Treasure Point had seen anything, either.”

  “Was there anyone you didn’t recognize at the boat dock?”

  Clay shook his head. “Sorry, just town regulars.” As he spoke, he maneuvered the boat away from the island and out into the water. “The chief wants to see you both at the station. I’ll give you a ride there after we dock.”

  Gemma had seen that coming. It still didn’t make it less intimidating, though, walking into the police station for the first time in over a decade.

  By the time they’d finally gotten there, she still hadn’t managed to convince herself to be less intimidated. But she took a deep breath and followed Matt in anyway.

  “O’Dell. Miss Phillips. Have a seat, I want to hear what happened.” The chief wasted no time with pleasantries, something Gemma could appreciate.

  “Sir, I charted out the addresses of homes that had maps stolen in the case Gemma testified in a decade ago, and today I planned to drive out to all of them and see if I could figure out any pattern to the places that were hit. I thought it might give us an indication of who could be behind all of this, or maybe even help us predict the next place that might be hit.”

  “And one of those places was the house on Whitetail Island. I see.”

  Silence hovered for just a minute. A thick, heavy silence that could burst any minute into a storm of words that Gemma didn’t need to hear. Matt had been as vague as possible with her earlier when describing what had happened on that island years before. Though the case had remained unsolved and eventually turned cold, there were plenty of details, enough to give a person nightmares for weeks. That house... It was good that it had burned.

  He hated that greed led people to spill blood like that.

  “When we arrived there,” Matt continued, “we decided to investiga
te the house itself a little, since I knew it had been...involved to a greater degree than some of the others. I was in the back looking in an outbuilding and called to Gemma to join me. Too many minutes passed and I wondered if she’d gotten stuck on some of the thorns in the overgrowth. And then I smelled smoke.”

  “And what was happening to you?”

  Gemma recounted her experience, which was about what Matt had assumed from how her hands were tied. Her stalker had tied her up, tossed her in a room and left her for dead once he’d started that fire. Destroying the evidence of his “command center” and his only witness all in one light of a match? Brilliant.

  And pure, coldhearted evil.

  “Miss Phillips,” the chief began once they were done filling him in, “do you have any idea who could be behind the threats against you?”

  She glanced at Matt. “Matt asked me the same thing earlier. I’m afraid I don’t, sir. I suppose it could be someone from around town, although I doubt it. My best guesses are that it is someone from Savannah or St. Simons, because I don’t think it’s someone I know from Treasure Point.”

  “Someone is stalking you because you were a witness in this case. Remind me why it’s necessary that they know you outside that?”

  “Because I recognized the voice, sir. I couldn’t place it, but it was definitely familiar. I spent enough time in Savannah and St. Simons that year that it could have been someone I knew from one of those places.”

  “What voice?”

  Gemma frowned. “When I heard the men arguing in the woods ten years ago.” She glanced at Matt, but he looked as confused as she did. “I had run from the first men—the ones I saw hiding the things they’d stolen. But then I tripped, and when I went to get up, I could hear an argument. I could only see one of them, Harris, who ended up dead. The other man, the one who sounded angry, I couldn’t see, but I could hear him. His voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t identify it. I told the police officers at the time, but they didn’t seem to think it was important. And even though Harris had disappeared, since there was no evidence that foul play had been involved in his disappearance, and I couldn’t place the man’s voice...basically I was told that no one believed me, that I must have gotten mixed up after the trauma of knowing I was seeing people cover up a crime.”