by Greg Howard
Tony’s only response was a silent, unsettling leer.
Cooper turned and hurried for the door, sensing Tony boring a hole through the back of his head the whole way. Tiny beads of sweat broke out along his hairline. His palms prickled, and his fingertips burned with an agitated, preternatural energy. He took a deep breath, clenched his fists, and bolted out the door.
Welcome to fucking Georgetown.
Chapter Three
Phipps House was quiet. Too quiet. No television blaring in the front room. No pots banging around in the kitchen. The monotonous ticking of the antique grandfather clock in the foyer was the only audible disturbance. Cooper let go of the handle on his rolling duffle bag and closed the door. He took off his coat and tossed it over the luggage.
“Lillie Mae?”
He stripped off his gloves, hoping her usually cheery voice would drift down the hall to greet him, but no answer came. All the lights were on. She would never have left the house with all the lights on. Dropping his scarf on his bag, Cooper wiped his shoes on the rug and walked down the hall toward the sitting room.
The house hadn’t changed much since his last visit. Outdated, paisley wallpaper peeled in all the same places, and Lillie Mae’s eclectic mix of ’60s and ’70s kitsch fused with the centuries-old antiquities contributed to the schizophrenic personality of the historic, three-story home. Sitting opposite the one hundred-year-old grandfather clock was an assembly required Walmart curio cabinet circa 1995. Every glass shelf in it teemed with collectible porcelain dolls, all fat bellies and creepy smiles, purchased from one of those shop-at-home networks that Lillie Mae watched to all hours of the night.
Stepping into the sitting room, Cooper detected movement from the corner of his eye. He snapped his head around and sighed. His reflection stared back at him in the screen of the fifteen-year-old Panasonic television—her first color one—sitting atop an eighteenth century Jacobean server.
Her little sanctuary was so still, so empty. He ran his fingers through his hair and scratched the back of his neck. This was where she spent most of her day. This was where she was supposed to be right then. Waiting in the silence, he willed her to answer him but heard only ticking. Cooper crossed the room, his chest tightening with every step, and pushed through the swinging door he loved playing with as a child. The kitchen was empty as well. A pot filled with water sat on the stove. A peeling knife and partially cut up potatoes with browned edges littered the counter. Lillie Mae would never have left even a small mess like that. She always took pride in her spotless kitchen.
Cooper scooted around the island in the center of the room and looked out the window over the kitchen sink. The prefabricated carport addition behind the house was an eyesore compared to the stately Georgian architecture of Phipps House. The front of Lillie Mae’s twenty-year-old Crown Vic peeked out of the carport, illuminated by a single light bulb hanging over the entrance. A shiny layer of ice blanketed the car’s hood and windshield, confirming that it hadn’t been driven recently. Not that she should be behind the wheel anyway.
Cooper roamed through the ground floor, opening every door, calling her name, and picking up his pace with every cleared empty room. He didn’t need to check the upper floors. Lillie Mae wasn’t able to navigate the stairs anymore. She’d moved her bedroom downstairs years ago.
Wind rattled the glass in the sidelights of the front door, drawing Cooper back to the foyer. He stood staring at the door, swallowed hard and pulled it open. A rush of cold air greeted him as he stepped onto the porch. Freezing rain pelted him from every direction, like the storm had skimmed water off the surface of Winyah Bay and slung it recklessly around the neighborhood. He descended the slippery steps, balancing himself with outstretched arms.
“Lillie Mae!”
Jogging around the side of the house, he repeated the call of her name. Frigid air sliced through his thin cotton shirt, making it hard to breathe and antagonizing his already growing anxiety. He stopped and wiped the icy rain out of his eyes with the back of his hand. Turning 360 degrees, he scanned the yard.
His vision waned momentarily and an eerie, greenish glow coated the trees, the house, and the cars parked on the street. Cooper rubbed his eyes, trying to reset his altered sight. He looked up and in all directions. The strange night-vision effect was everywhere. Then it was gone. He shook his head and sighed. Too many hours on the dark road staring at a parade of slow-ass taillights.
He hurried back to the front of the house and down the brick walkway toward the street, wind wailing in his ears and whipping through his hair. Stopping at the waist-high gate, he rested his hands on the tips of the cold iron spires and looked up and down the street. A few porch lights cast a dim glow onto empty sidewalks, but there was no one but him out in the storm.
“Lillie Mae!” The echo traveled down the street, bouncing from one Victorian home to another, never finding its intended target.
Where the hell was she? Maybe she got confused and wandered off. She’d been so out of sorts lately. He’d noticed it getting worse over the past year but figured it was just age. He should have insisted that she see a doctor. Too late now. She could be roaming around in this weather, wearing only her nightgown without even knowing her own name.
With a final glance down the empty street, Cooper stepped back from the gate. He drew a chilly breath into his lungs and exhaled through frosted nostrils. He needed to think. There had to be an explanation. People didn’t just up and disappear in Georgetown. Ears and hands frozen, he turned and went back inside the house. He closed the door behind him and leaned against it, letting the frigid night melt away from his bones.
“Lillie Mae?”
He wasn’t sure why he kept calling her name. He no longer expected her to answer. He’d had his chance to talk to her; he’d just been too busy chasing tail to be bothered. Some real World’s Greatest Grandson shit right there. Cooper brushed ice pellets out of his hair and trudged back to the sitting room. Standing in the arched entryway, he scanned the room again. Something was off.
Nibbling on the tip of his index finger, he took tentative steps across the room and stopped in front of the fireplace. Frozen faces, all awkward smiles and heads tilted at odd angles, stared back at him from the mantel. His parents, his brother, Grandpa Joe, Lillie Mae, even his own—all at various ages and stages of life.
A small picture toward the back of the clutter caught his eye. He was eight years old, standing in front of their childhood home, posing proudly with sassy hands on his hips and wearing his favorite Wonder Woman T-shirt. Cooper stared at the picture. It had been taken before. He didn’t know that happy little boy anymore.
A wire stem poked out from behind the frame. He slipped his fingers through the maze of framed memories and pulled out a child-sized pair of glasses. His glasses. Lillie Mae had kept them all those years. As a kid, he’d been practically blind as a bat without them, though he never needed them again after…
Cooper shook his head and pushed the glasses back behind the picture, tucking them as far back into the Olan Mills mini-gallery as possible. The last thing he needed was to be reminded of that day. He turned his back to the mantel and scrubbed a hand over his numb face. God, why did he let this place get to him?
Pulling out his phone, he replayed the message on speaker, as if listening a hundredth time might expose some additional information he’d missed. Lillie Mae’s voice filled the sitting room, sounding right at home. The anxiety in her crackling voice haunted him, the slight inflection of fear probably noticeable only to him.
When the message ended, he tossed the phone onto the sofa. “Dammit.”
The something off drew his attention to the coffee table where Lillie Mae’s family Bible lay open. It was one of those doorstops of a Bible, with a white faux leather cover and gold leaf, indented tabs separating each book of scripture. The thing had never been moved as long as he could remember. She always kept it closed and sitting in the same spot in the corner of the table. No
w it was in the center, facing the sofa and opened to the family tree, completely innocuous except for a fresh marring.
Cooper walked over and sank down into the lumpy cushions. His mouth went dry as he stared at it, not believing his eyes. It didn’t make any sense. The word written on the page didn’t belong in the Bible. It didn’t belong in any Bible. He rubbed his clammy hands on his pants and then pulled the book to him by a tiny corner of well-worn leather with the tips of his index finger and thumb.
A red smudge marked the corner of the page. He focused on the single word scribbled across an otherwise cheerfully illustrated family tree diagram. Dark red letters burned his eyes.
Warfield.
Sweat broke out on Cooper’s palms, and the room spun around him. He pushed the book away. A torrent of memories, nightmares, and ghosts he’d been self-medicating away for years flooded back to his mind. Blue, Trevor, that day—all conjured up by just one word. Warfield.
Something snagged his attention. A small picture poked out from the gilded edges of the pages. He leaned forward and pulled it out. Another smudge of what appeared to be blood marked the lower right corner, just under the face of a young girl he did not recognize. She wore a long, thick ponytail draped over one shoulder and her blouse buttoned all the way to her jawline. Her tiny freckles framed a pleasant, yet vacant, smile. Anyone other than Cooper might have easily mistaken the girl for a young Lillie Mae. She had the same family freckles, squinted, smiling eyes, and full, round cheeks that he and Lillie Mae had.
He flipped the photograph over, barely able to read the faded ink.
Sally – 1864
Gazing back down at the open Bible, Cooper dropped the picture on the coffee table.
Warfield. It seemed impossible that Lillie Mae could be there. His jaw stiffened, and he gritted his teeth. If that was Lillie Mae’s blood on the page, then God help the son of a bitch who wrote it.
Cooper’s fingertips tingled with energy. He leaned back, filling his lungs with deep breaths, trying to calm the boiling rage inside. He stared at the ceiling. If he would have just answered her first call, the one that rang the moment he introduced himself to whatever the hell his name is, she might have been safe and sound in her bed right then. He was such a selfish prick sometimes. If anything had happened to Lillie Mae, it was on him.
Cooper shook his head, scolding himself internally. Enough. Every second that ticked by was another Lillie Mae could be hurt, cold, and scared.
At first, he thought he should go to Warfield. Just to be sure she wasn’t there. But why would Lillie Mae go there of all places in the middle of the night, or ever for that matter? There had to be a rational explanation, unless she was taken there against her will.
Cooper looked down at the phone lying beside him, picked it up, and stood. Standing meant taking control of the situation. At least that’s what he told himself.
Staring at the blank screen, he walked over to the front window. Who the hell did he think he was going to call? Lillie Mae was his only family. She’d never been particularly interested in making small talk with the neighbors, even though she’d lived there for almost sixty years. As far as he knew, the woman who came in once a month to set and dye her hair and the cleaning lady that came every two weeks were the only people who saw her on a regular basis.
He pushed back the curtain. The sleet had let up a bit. Front Street glistened in the moonlight, and a thin sheet of ice coated everything in sight. A wave of guilt washed over him. He’d stayed away too long.
He flinched as the grandfather clock sounded down the hall, marking the hour with nine, muffled chimes. On the last one, he pressed three numbers into the phone and hit the call button.
Before the second ring, a disinterested voice mumbled in his ear, “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
“Hello. I just got to my grandmother’s house, and she’s not here.” He scratched his forehead. “I mean, I think she’s missing.”
“Okay, sir, what is the address, please?”
He released the curtain and walked back over to the sofa. “It’s 42 Front Street, Georgetown.”
“Thank you, sir. That’s 42 Front Street in Georgetown. What is your grandmother’s age, sir?”
“Her age?” Cooper sat and took a moment to think. “I’m not sure.” He didn’t even know how old she was.
Nice, Cooper. Real nice.
He looked back to the Bible resting on the coffee table. Eight reddish-brown letters taunted him. Warfield. The word ignited something dark in his very core, something heinous and long forgotten. Or at least long buried. He closed the book with more force than he intended. The coffee table shook.
“Do you have any reason to believe she might be in danger, sir?”
Did he have any reason to believe she was in danger? Hell yes, he did. A message written in blood was a damn good reason.
“Sir? Are you there, sir?”
He curled his fingers into a fist, trying to suppress the nefarious force rumbling around inside him. “Yes,” he finally answered. “She might be in danger.”
Chapter Four
Cooper paced back and forth across the foyer, the old, wooden floor counting his every step with strained creaks. The constant tapping on the windows along the front of the house grew louder by the minute, a nagging soundtrack to his growing irritation. Pulling back the sheer fabric covering the sidelight, he peeked out. Ice pellets bounced off his SUV in the driveway. He glanced back at the grandfather clock. Where the hell were the police? He’d called them twenty minutes ago. Twenty fucking minutes. No way there was that much going on in this shitty excuse for a town.
After another five laps up and down the hallway, the doorbell sounded a pompous melody about three notes too long for Cooper’s agitated state. Without checking the sidelight to see who it was, he pulled the door open.
A tall, broad-shouldered police officer filled the doorframe. A wide smile full of gleaming white teeth lit his face. The uniform threw Cooper for a second, but the pronounced dimple in the chin and the twinkle in those soulful brown eyes were unmistakable, even after all the years that had passed. A silver nametag pinned to the officer’s chest bore the name Collins, confirming Cooper’s slack-jawed assessment.
“Holy mother of hell. RJ?”
The officer gave a slight nod and tipped the bill of his cap. A few stray ice pellets spilled off and hit the doorsill. “Hey, Coop. Yeah, it’s me. I go by Randy now.” He nodded over his shoulder toward the stormy night. “Can I come in?”
Cooper heard the question and knew he needed to answer. To move. To let the guy in the house and out of the storm, but for the longest of moments, he couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. RJ Collins, of all people. His brother’s best friend and Cooper’s first crush. He hadn’t seen that face since the day of his brother’s funeral ten years ago. Back then, he might have crumbled under a wave of childhood insecurities if he had to face RJ. Probably would have melted into a pile of goo and panted like a lovesick puppy. Not anymore. And certainly not tonight.
A rush of ice-cold wind blew into the house, reminding Cooper they were still standing in the open doorway. He moved to the side. “Oh sure. Sorry. Come in.”
Removing his cap, Randy brushed the sleet off before he entered. A woodsy waft of cologne followed him in, tickling Cooper’s nose with a decisively masculine scent probably called Liquid Sex or something.
Cooper closed the door and faced Randy, his body stiff as a board. “Thanks for coming.”
“Sorry it took me a few minutes to get over here. Crazy out tonight. Roads are a mess. We’re not used to this kind of weather here. I haven’t seen a winter storm like this in years. But you know how it is around here. Could be beach weather by tomorrow afternoon.”
Cooper didn’t respond. The very last person he’d expected to find behind that door was RJ Collins, and now all he could do was stare. Dirty blond hair cropped close to the guy’s head showed signs of premature gray around the temples. Weatherworn
creases framed his eyes, aging him more. Other than that and several new layers of expertly crafted muscle, he hadn’t changed much. Still had that chiseled movie-star face and that magnetic, boyish smile. Randy offered his hand as an afterthought.
“So you’re a cop,” Cooper said with a firm shake of Randy’s sizable hand. “I didn’t even know you were out of the military.” It was his second obligatory attempt at small talk of the night. It was jarring to see Randy, but Cooper didn’t have the time or patience for idle chatter right then.
Randy stood a good three inches taller than Cooper, his thumbs tucked casually in his duty belt, weight resting on his left side. “Deputy Chief, now. I ended up back here after eight years with the SEALs.”
Randy peered over Cooper’s shoulder. “Haven’t been in this house in a long time. Always was a funny old place. Aunt Mae made it feel homey, though.”
Hearing the locals’ nickname for his grandmother brought all Cooper’s concerns to a hard boil. “Yeah. I’m really worried.” Cooper led Randy into the sitting room. “This isn’t like her. Her car is outside. Doesn’t look like it’s been moved in a while. I already checked the house inside and out.”
Randy strode over to the wingback chair opposite the sofa and sat without invitation. He didn’t remove his thick Gore-Tex jacket. Either that was standard procedure, or he thought Cooper was overreacting and that this wouldn’t take too long. Cooper imagined him listening to the call over the scanner and shaking his head. Just whiney, little Cooper Causey. Panicking as usual. Just like when we were kids.
Randy cocked his head and leaned forward in his chair. “When’s the last time you heard from her?”
Cooper sat on the sofa facing Randy and cleared his throat. “She called a few times last night. I missed the calls. She left a message.” Guilt settled in his gut like a rock sinking to the bottom of a river. He pulled his phone out of his pants pocket, pressed a couple of commands into the screen, and handed it over to Randy.