The Truth About Comfort Cove

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “Yes, sir, looking directly out at the street. That’s why I chose that room to sew in. So I can see what’s going on.”

  “You keep pretty good track, then, of who comes and goes around here?”

  “Not like I used to, but yes, a girl living alone has to always be aware of her surroundings to keep herself safe.”

  True. Wrong that it should be that way, but true.

  “Did you ever notice any other visitors to Jack’s place?”

  “No. Nothing that stood out. The boy worked so many hours it would have been hard for him to do much entertaining. Besides, Jack was a quiet boy. He liked to read. Watch TV. And work. He was always concerned about saving his money. Didn’t waste it on eating at restaurants. That boy would paint a room in exchange for some of my stew. I’d give him soup and two days later the bowl would be outside my door empty and clean. I started leaving him a list of things on sale at the grocery store every week and the next thing I knew, he was insisting I leave my trash just outside my door, and it would always disappear.”

  So Jack needed money, too. Motive.

  “Did you ever know him to drink?”

  “Alcoholic beverages? Jack? Never. He didn’t use tobacco, either. He lived right above me, Detective, and he never gave me one bit of trouble.”

  Amelia nodded toward his mostly full cup. “You aren’t drinking your cocoa, Detective Miller.”

  Ramsey wasn’t real fond of hot drinks. And after a full day of investigating chocolate in relation to two missing little girls, he didn’t relish it, either. But the obviously lonely woman had taken the time to prepare it for him so he picked up the cup.

  “Is there anything else you can remember?”

  She watched him sip. “Mmm, good,” he said, winning him another one of her smiles.

  “Jack liked my cocoa, too,” she told Ramsey. “He helped me out in exchange for my homemade cooking, but he made extra money doing odd jobs around here for the landlord and was called upon to change my furnace filters a time or two. And to fix the leak in my kitchen drain. He put new flooring in the bathroom, too, a real nice tile instead of linoleum. You want to see?”

  He had to get going. Ramsey drained the now-cooled cocoa and stood. “Sure,” he said, slipping Jack’s picture back into the inside pocket of his suit coat.

  Slowly leading the way down a narrow hall with gleaming hardwood floors covered with peach throw rugs, Amelia turned left at the first door and flipped on a light switch.

  “There, see?” She pointed toward the floor.

  Ramsey glanced, and did a double take. The flooring was clean, but the edges were sharp in places where the mortar had worn away. The tub was claw-footed. In pristine condition. Probably worth some money.

  The bottom of the toilet was missing mortar or caulk, and the crevice in between the porcelain and the tile was an ugly brown.

  The bathroom floor was as clean as the rest of the house; the peach and white swirled tiles sparkled. All the room needed was a little TLC—a little time.

  Looking at the floor, he tried to picture Jack Colton there, down on his haunches, helping an old woman in exchange for cocoa and the probable pittance his landlord would have paid him. The image fit.

  Ramsey should help her caulk her floor. She’d given him cocoa. And information.

  No. He had work to do.

  She was lonely.

  He was a loner.

  He followed Amelia back out to the living room. “Thank you very much for your time,” he told the older woman, making his leave known before she sat back down and had to get up again to lock up after him.

  “Come back anytime,” she said, her smile still broad as she stood, hunched, in the middle of her living room.

  He made it to the door. She wasn’t following him. Probably something to do with the limp that had become more pronounced, the gait that had slowed considerably, on the short walk from the bathroom.

  “I noticed some drywall tape coming lose in the corner over there.” What in the hell was he doing, making her worry about something she obviously couldn’t fix? Or afford to hire out? She was a retired teacher. From a small girls’ school. With no apparent kin.

  “Oh?” Wide-eyed, she turned, and Ramsey was fairly certain that, although she studied the wall, she couldn’t see the damage he referred to.

  “I could fix it for you.” No, he couldn’t.

  “You could?”

  Technically. He knew how. Thanks to his father who made certain that Ramsey knew the basics of home maintenance and repair.

  “Yes.” He could bring his caulk gun and redo the bathroom, too. The kitchen sink should probably be checked and…

  “Then that would be fine,” Amelia said. “When will you be back?”

  “Sunday, does that work?”

  “As long as it’s in the afternoon, then yes, it does. I go to church in the morning.”

  He opened the door, and realized that she was going to have to follow him over there to refasten the dead bolt behind him. He wondered why she didn’t have a cane. Or a walker. Or…

  It was none of his business. Amelia Hardy had gotten along just fine without him for almost ninety years.

  “Detective?”

  He turned back. She hadn’t moved. “You never did tell me why you wanted to know so much about Jack. He isn’t in any kind of trouble is he?”

  He couldn’t give information from an ongoing investigation. “No, ma’am, he isn’t,” Ramsey said.

  Standing where she was, Amelia nodded. Ramsey looked at the woman, at the lock, stepped back into real time and closed the door behind him.

  He was outside her door, five minutes later, when he heard the dead bolt click into place.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  T he night was dark and there was no moon, making Lucy’s bedroom a box of shadows in black. She’d acted rashly. Her visit with Sloan Wakerby that evening would not go unnoticed by her superiors.

  The possibility of being reprimanded was not what was keeping her awake.

  The sister she’d never met was doing that. She had her mother’s rapist. The man was going to pay for what he’d done to Sandy. Maybe she should just let it go.

  If Allie had survived the abduction almost thirty years ago, she’d be an adult now. Living her life with no knowledge of Lucy or Sandy. Who was to say the woman would even want to know about them? If she’d been sold to a decent couple, she’d probably had a great life. Was most likely still having a healthy, normal life.

  So was Lucy’s hell-bent determination to find her sister more for her own sake than for Allie’s?

  Sandy would have a better chance of rehabilitation, of getting off the booze, staying off, if she knew that Allie was safe and happy.

  But then she’d want to see her.

  And what if Allie didn’t want to see Sandy?

  Or worse, what if Allie was dead? What would that knowledge do to Sandy? While there was still hope that Allie was alive Sandy had something to live for. To hold on to.

  If they knew Allie was gone, would Sandy give up completely?

  The thought reminded her of Emma Sanderson. Not too long ago, the Comfort Cove high-school teacher had said the same thing about her own mother regarding her little sister, Claire.

  Lying flat on her back in panties and an extra large T-shirt, with the sheet pulled up to her ribs, Lucy stared wide-eyed into the darkness, her gaze pointing toward the ceiling she knew was up there.

  She’d only known Emma Sanderson for a short time, and didn’t know her all that well. But the memory of the woman stuck with her. They had one thing in common: they were both the surviving daughter of a single mother, with a sister who’d been abducted. They’d both grown up with griefstricken mothers. They both had mothers who leaned on them unnaturally, relied on them almost exclusively, needed them to the point of emotional exhaustion.

  Or maybe it was just Lucy who was exhausted. She closed her eyes and willed unconsciousness to follow. Since the night she’d broken
the taillight on Sloan Wakerby’s car, Lucy hadn’t slept worth a damn. She was tired.

  Still, Emma was getting married. Lucy smiled in the darkness. In the midst of pain and sorrow, there was happiness. In the aftermath of tragedy, joy was still attainable.

  Maybe she should quit the investigative profession and become a poet, she thought, staring at the ceiling again. No one lived or died because of a poem.

  Emma had talked about writing her own wedding vows. Traditional promises didn’t run deep enough for her. Or fit her, either.

  And how would Emma’s wedding fit Rose Sanderson, the mother who clung to her so voraciously? In some ways the day wouldn’t be easy.

  Would Ramsey Miller attend the wedding? She’d never seen him outside of his professional capacity. Never even so much as had a drink with him.

  Not that she needed to. She liked having a professional soul mate, of sorts. That was all.

  He’d be in a suit, of course. In the handful of times she’d actually seen him, he’d never worn anything else. Pants, jacket, matching shirt and tie and shoes. That was Ramsey Miller.

  If a woman were to have sex with him, she’d get to peel away all those layers… .

  Ramsey worked all hours of the day and night, but he was human. All man. Built just right in all the right places. It stood to reason that he had sex regularly with someone.

  Not her.

  With Lucy he was always in control.

  But would he loosen up after a glass of champagne? Did he drink beer?

  Or dance?

  People danced at weddings. With their arms around their dance partners.

  Ramsey’s shoulders were broad. His arms would be strong. And warm. His thighs rock solid.

  It had been so long since Lucy had been held… .

  Why had she never put a night-light in her bedroom? They were in every other room in the house—softly illuminating her space so that she could see, the minute she walked into a room, that she was alone.

  Would she always live alone? And maybe just have a lover?

  Someone who was passionate about what he did? Who cared about outcomes? Someone who hurt for the babies who were lost?

  Someone whose hands would caress her skin with the tenderness he kept hidden so deeply inside?

  Someone who didn’t want to get married any time soon…

  Sandy would be front and center if Lucy ever married. The thought was enough to make her stop thinking about weddings.

  The fact that her phone was ringing helped, too.

  Grabbing the cell phone from her nightstand, she expected to see either her work number or her mother’s number on the caller display.

  It was neither. And if her caller had been reading her thoughts a few minutes earlier, she was going to just go ahead and die.

  Mental telepathy wouldn’t be so cruel… .

  “Hello?”

  “Did I wake you?” The deep tenor of Ramsey Miller’s voice shook her insides and she welcomed the darkness that had been closing in on her just seconds before.

  It was almost midnight. Her shift started at eight in the morning. So did his. “No, I was awake.”

  He couldn’t know she’d been thinking about his fingers on her naked skin… .

  “I have a favor to ask.”

  About his thighs pressed against hers…

  “What do you need?” Her words came out too soft, too intimate, like he was there, lying in bed with her. Lucy cleared her throat. If Ramsey had a favor, it was strictly business. “What’s up?” she said loudly while her toes curled and her naked thighs felt exposed, in spite of the sheet covering them.

  What in the hell was the matter with her? She was a professional. Always.

  “Jack Colton.”

  “The delivery truck driver?” Lucy sat up, the sheet pooling over the bottom of her T-shirt, pretty much forgotten. Ramsey had said he was going to do some more checking up on the guy. This was bigger than sex. Bigger than any personal life she’d ever have.

  “It bugs me, you know? I can’t let this Sanderson case go.”

  “Then you must be on to something. There’ve been other cases you’ve looked at in relation to Walters, found that the DNA didn’t match and been able to move on from.”

  “I have them all in a stack on a corner of my desk.”

  The news didn’t surprise her. She had a stack of cases, too. Ones she’d pulled while looking for connections to Allie. Ones she’d found during the Gladys Buckley investigation. Ones she’d get back to.

  “Maybe it’s because we worked with Emma Sanderson. Because she was willing to risk her life to find her sister. Or because I think Cal Whittier is an honest man who deserves to have his father exonerated once and for all, or be tried for his crimes. Or maybe I’m just turning into an old coot who can’t let go of a bone.”

  “You aren’t old.” Lucy chuckled. “And Claire Sanderson’s case is different,” Lucy said, feeling more like herself. “You go looking for DNA to either tie her to Walters or free her from him, and instead, you find that the box of evidence pertaining to her case is missing. You couldn’t just let that go. You had to find out who took it and why. Any good cop would.”

  “And I did.”

  “Yes, but in the meantime, you met Cal Whittier, the only suspect’s son, and you found a piece of new evidence in the case, evidence the detectives who had the case twenty-five years ago didn’t have. You have to follow up, Ramsey. Just like I’m doing with Wakerby.”

  Maybe she and Ramsey were meant to be married to their work.

  “How’s that case going?”

  She’d let Sloan Wakerby take away her ability to be peacefully alone in the dark. She’d rather think about Ramsey’s arms, holding her close on the dance floor.

  Or any other floor.

  “We can talk about my stuff in a minute. You called about Jack.”

  “Yeah. He went to UC for a semester.” He gave her dates. “Maybe there’s still someone there who’d have been around then, someone who knows something.”

  Something Jack Colton wouldn’t want them to know. “Are you getting a warrant?” They’d need access to records. “I should have it on my desk in the morning.”

  “Are you there now?”

  “At work? No. I’m home.”

  Which, based on the work habits he’d confessed to during one of their late-night conversations, probably meant he was in bed with his computer propped up on his chest.

  Lucky computer.

  “Do you know where Colton lived when he was at UC?” She forced herself to think about things that mattered.

  “No idea. I’m hoping a dorm.”

  She was thinking the same thing. Thank goodness. Back on track. “We’d have more chance of finding someone who knows him, that way. There’d be records of resident assistants. Dorm managers.”

  “We could get lucky and find that his dorm manager is still working there.”

  “And if he had a roommate we’d have another possible witness. There could be a suite mate, too. Or even a floor mate who remembers him.”

  “Things happen for a reason,” Ramsey said, almost to himself. “Any good cop knows that.”

  “And?”

  “When I called Caleb Whittier this summer to tell him about the box of missing evidence in Claire Sanderson’s case…”

  Because some of the missing evidence had pertained to Cal.

  “…he told me about the book he’d written, putting events from his life in chronological order. He told me for a reason. He gave me Jack Colton.”

  “He told you about the book because he was trying to get you off his father’s back.”

  “Knowing about the book gave me the ammunition to bribe him. Either he let me read what he’d written or I’d go hard on his father. He put himself in that position by telling me the book existed in the first place.”

  “Maybe, unwittingly. But you said that he didn’t even realize the information about the delivery truck on the street that
day was in the book.”

  As a traumatized teen, Cal had written about the day Claire Sanderson had been abducted. Cal remembered that morning as the day his father had made him go to school against his wishes. He’d hidden behind Jack’s truck in order to find his way undetected to the backyards in the neighborhood to gain access to his own backyard without being seen. He’d planned to stay there until the coast was clear—meaning Claire’s mother, Rose, and Cal’s father, Frank, had both left for their jobs at their prospective schools—so that he could go back into the house with the spare key he always carried.

  It was the first account that had been given of the delivery truck. And Cal’s father, who’d spent twenty-five years as the only suspect in the case, had been exonerated by things Jack had said when he’d finally, twenty-five years later, been questioned.

  “Just because Cal Whittier said he didn’t realize that mention of the truck was in the book, doesn’t mean that he was telling the truth.”

  Ramsey’s fatigue sounded loud and clear through their cellular connection.

  “You think Cal was handing you Jack?”

  “I think it’s possible.”

  “Cal couldn’t have known that Colton had anything to say that would clear his father’s name.”

  “Unless he knew exactly that.”

  “You’re saying you think that Cal and Colton have been in contact? That a deal was struck for Colton to clear Frank Whittier?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “You checked phone records.”

  “They could have used prepaid cell phones. Or snail mail. Or…maybe I’m digging up dirt where there is none.”

  “Jack Colton was driving a delivery truck on the street where an abduction took place at about the same time it happened,” she reminded him.

  “Just as he did every other Wednesday before and after that. A guy’s not a criminal for doing his job.”

  “Could be someone knew about his route and purposely chose the date and time so there’d be a suspect.” She played Ramsey’s theory out because that’s what good cops did for each other. And because being Ramsey Miller’s sounding board was a good part of her life.

  “‘Someone’ being Frank Whittier?”