Anywhere She Runs

by Webb, Debra

  There will be no princess in this house!

  Adeline whirled around, her gaze seeking and finding Wyatt where he stood a few feet away. “You know what this means?”

  “That old Ms. Nichols was right.”

  Adeline nodded, not surprised that he was thinking along the same lines as she. “She knew he was bald. She knew about the princess thing.” Adeline turned back to the house, shivered as the nasty vibes washed over her. “He’s holding them in an old house or shack near water.”

  Not once in her career as a cop had she ever put any stock in a so-called psychic’s claims. But this was real. Nichols had nailed too many details.

  Dawn had started its slow winter climb above the treetops. The whole place was creepy. Deep in the woods. Jamison had settled his little family well away from town or any neighbors. The property had been searched and no dead bodies, human or otherwise, had been discovered. Nothing to indicate he’d been looking into Prescott’s, Arnold’s, or Adeline’s lives. Not a single piece of evidence.

  What had she expected? This guy was meticulous. He’d spent years in that institution . . . plenty of time to formulate a perfect plan.

  But why now? More than ten years after his release? Had the news that his wife was growing a princess in her womb been enough to push him over the edge at which his existence apparently hovered?

  Sheriff Henley had jumped in with both feet as soon as Wyatt had explained the situation in Jackson County. Henley, too, was certain Jamison was their man. Both his wife and son had been assigned a security detail. That hadn’t stopped him from getting to his wife in the hospital. The wife had since been moved to ICU where security measures were stronger.

  Between his grandparents and two assigned deputies, the boy was in good hands.

  Adeline had a nephew.

  Too much to absorb. She shook it off. Now was not the time to deal with those emotions. Or the fact that her mother had withheld important information related to an ongoing case. All of that would have to wait.

  Whether Prescott and Arnold were still alive or not, they had to be found. Daniel Jamison had to be stopped.

  Adeline wanted those women to be alive. She didn’t want to fail them.

  Just something else she would have to deal with eventually. She had two sisters. Two. No way was she going to count Jamison as a brother. Clearly he was a psycho just like his fucking daddy.

  Her daddy.

  No. Adeline shook her head. Carl Cooper was her father. And Irene was her mother. No one else counted.

  She settled her attention back on the house. “I’m going inside.”

  “Henley said the property had been released,” Wyatt commented, moving up beside her, “but I’m not sure going in is a good idea. On a personal level.”

  Adeline shot him a look. “Get real, Wyatt. You know how I am. I need to feel the vibe of the place.” Those she was getting out here in the yard were seriously creepy. Lots of pent-up rage . . . intense secrecy.

  Jamison wasn’t the only one who’d been keeping secrets.

  “We should have asked Henley for access. Gotten a key,” Wyatt suggested.

  “Come on.” She headed for the porch. “Chances are there’s at least one window unlocked. We probably won’t even need a key.”

  “Breaking and entering, Detective Cooper,” he reminded. “Just because we represent the law doesn’t mean we’re above the law.”

  “Yeah, yeah. So arrest me.”

  The windows in front were locked. In back, too. Damn it. Front and back doors were secure. The credit card thing didn’t work. She had strong-armed Wyatt into trying when she’d failed to get the job done.

  Wait. Adeline turned to Wyatt. “She was found in the basement. That’s what Henley said, right?” A house this old likely had an exterior entrance that wasn’t a typical walk-through door. Hope resurrected.

  She hustled around to the back once more. The ground-level double doors were almost completely concealed by a thicket of shrubbery. She parted the dense greenery. Dawn’s gray gloom provided sufficient light to see that there was a big-ass lock secured to the doors.

  “Well, shit.”

  Wyatt crouched down to get a closer look. When he’d completed his assessment, he glanced up at her. “I think I can handle that.”

  “You carry bolt cutters in your SUV?” she called after him as he jogged toward the corner of the house.

  “You’ll see,” he called back.

  That was the problem. She’d already seen too much. Her biological father was literally an axe murderer. Her brother, too. How fucked up was that?

  She should call her old partner. Braddock would laugh his ass off and give her kudos for coming up with such a great joke. But it wasn’t a joke.

  And Adeline wasn’t laughing.

  Wyatt hustled back to where she waited. She got to her feet. He’d brought a flashlight. Good. She frowned when she recognized the tool in his hand. “So you don’t carry bolt cutters but you carry a hammer?”

  He adjusted his hold on the tool. “Carrying a hammer makes getting into places when the need arises considerably easier.” He tapped the hammer at a nonexistent target. “One tap, the glass breaks.”

  “And you were warning me about breaking and entering?”

  “Never without reasonable cause,” he clarified.

  “Whatever.” She bracketed her hands on her hips. “So what’re you going to do, beat the doors in?” That could prove time-consuming.

  “The doors are wood,” he said, “the lock is attached to the doors with screws. Nails and screws can be pried out of wood if one is persistent.”

  She hadn’t thought of that. “Good to know.” She stepped back and let him have at it.

  He passed the flashlight to her and set to the task. Ten minutes later she admitted that he’d been right about one thing, persistence was essential.

  A little more splintering and groaning and the brackets holding the lock on the doors burst free. He pulled them open. “And there we go.”

  “I’m impressed, Wyatt.”

  He shoved the hammer between his belt and the waist of his trousers. “I’ll go first.”

  Fine with her. She passed the flashlight back to him. It was dark as all get-out down there.

  The basement smelled like dirt. Wyatt roved the flashlight’s beam around the room until he located a light switch. A bare bulb in the overhead fixture glowed, filling the fairly large area with dim light.

  Adeline blinked to focus. Shelves lined the walls. Lots of stuff and dust. Her attention settled on the pile of rocks at the far end of the basement floor. A hole, about six feet in length, maybe two feet wide, had been dug where the rocks had once rested. She walked over to the makeshift grave and squatted for a closer inspection.

  The shovel he’d used had likely been tagged into evidence. The smaller piles of dirt inside the hole were probably from the shovelfuls he’d tossed in atop his unconscious wife.

  What kind of piece of shit did this?

  Wyatt surveyed the last of the shelves lining the wall. Nothing that shouted psycho. Just the usual tools and boxes of last year’s toys. He turned to see what Addy was up to. What he saw took him aback.

  “Addy, I’m sorry.” He shook his head as he walked over to the grave Jamison had dug for his wife. “That’s just too weird.”

  From her reclining position in the grave, she shot him an I-could-care-less-what-you-think look. “Imagine, Wyatt. If she roused at all while he was covering her, she would look up into the face of the man she’d married—the father of her children. When she’d first started to suspect things weren’t right, imagine going to sleep next to him every night.”

  Adeline reached up. Wyatt took her hand and assisted her climb out of the grave. Brushing the dirt off her backside, he considered giving her cute ass a swipe but she took care of it before he could put thought into action.

  She moved over to the stairs. Walked slowly up, then backed down. She examined each tread with her
fingers on the second trip up. “Henley said she fell down the basement stairs.” Adeline stopped about a third of the way from the top. “Here we go.” She patted the tread. “This one’s been replaced. It’s a lot newer than the others.”

  “Doesn’t mean he did it,” Wyatt reminded. “This is an old house. Could have just had a bad board that he replaced after her fall.”

  She studied the rest of the treads, then shook her head. “I don’t think so. The treads aren’t that old.” She descended once more and ducked around behind the staircase. “Bring your flashlight under here.”

  Wyatt joined her beneath the primitive stairs.

  “Check the bottom of each tread, from one stringer to the other.”

  Starting at the top, Wyatt moved the flashlight’s beam from left to right over each tread.

  “Right there.” Addy pointed to the bottom side of the one that had been replaced.

  The tread was just over his head, but not so far that he couldn’t reach up and touch the bottom of it.

  “Check that out.” Addy pointed to where the tread sat atop the stringer on the right.

  Wyatt focused the light’s beam there. He stood on tiptoes, reached up, and touched the markings on the stringer. The wood was marred as if something had rubbed against it repeatedly. Addy was right.

  “He sawed the tread from the bottom until there was only a microscopically thin layer of wood on top,” she surmised. “The first time his wife stepped on that tread, that thin layer gave way, sending her headlong to the rock floor.”

  Wyatt shook off the brutal images. “I’ll be sure to pass this along to Henley. The forensics folks weren’t likely looking for anything related to a prior fall when they were here investigating the wife’s attempted murder.”

  He checked the time on his cell. “We should get going. We can make the necessary calls en route.” Hattiesburg and Wiggins needed to be updated on Jamison. They finally had a break in the case. Whether it helped find Cherry Prescott and Penny Arnold alive was yet to be seen, but it was something.

  “I want to walk through the house.” Adeline rounded the staircase and headed upward. “Just once.”

  “Sure.” They had already broken the law, what was a few more minutes?

  Wyatt watched her move from room to room, touching things, studying others. She considered the Christmas tree at length, fingered an ornament that looked like something the son had made at school. Wyatt’s heart thumped harder and harder. How had he allowed these last nine years to get past him without making her listen? Without trying harder to get her back?

  He’d pretended not to miss her that much. That he was too busy to care about a real social life. Just because he was thirty-two didn’t mean he needed to be married with kids or even dating steadily.

  But he’d been lying to himself.

  The one thing he had needed had been gone.

  The worst part was she would be leaving again.

  How would he ever live with losing her twice?

  Wyatt’s phone vibrated, yanking him from the painful thoughts. He pulled it from his pocket. “Henderson.”

  “Wyatt, you and Addy need to get back here.”

  The tension in Womack’s voice chilled Wyatt’s blood. He turned away from where Addy was checking out a family photo album. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s Irene . . .”

  Wyatt’s heart surged into his throat.

  “The bastard got to her just minutes before security could get into place. The doctors were already working on her when I reached the hospital. Wyatt . . . Jesus Christ. They tried everything they could.”

  Womack’s voice quavered on the last. Wyatt tried to push the words he needed to say past his lips. Couldn’t.

  “Goddammit, Wyatt,” Womack sobbed, breaking down. “She’s dead. Addy’s mother is dead.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  It was daylight. Cherry could see the dim rays of light attempting to invade the cracks in the walls. Her body ached from being in one position too long. Her wrists and ankles burned where the ropes cut into them. She was cold. So cold. She just wanted to go home.

  Please, God, let them find us today.

  She’d prayed for days. Over and over. But no one had come. Each morning when she woke bowls of water and oatmeal sat within her reach. At first she’d refused to touch either. Then, desperation had taken over and she’d gobbled from the bowls like a starving dog.

  Yesterday . . . or maybe the day before . . . Penny had been dragged into this awful place with her.

  Cherry couldn’t estimate how long she had been here. A week? Maybe.

  Penny had cried at first. Her wails had been nearly unbearable. Finally, she had fallen asleep again. That was the only relief Cherry had gotten from the pitiful sounds. Penny lay sprawled on the floor, her shackles twisting her arms and legs at an odd angle.

  Cherry prayed he wouldn’t come back today. Maybe he would be hit by a car or would have a heart attack. Glee gathered in her chest. She and Penny might die here if they weren’t found, but at least he wouldn’t have the satisfaction of torturing them any more . . . or killing them.

  And he was going to kill them as soon as the last princess had joined them.

  Cherry closed her eyes and sobbed softly. She wanted to hold her children. To kiss her husband. There were so many things she wanted to say to them . . . before she died.

  So many, many things unsaid . . . undone.

  She should never have tracked him down. She had started this . . . horror.

  The nightmares had pushed her to do it. Once the nightmares had begun, she’d started to remember things. Little snippets of a life that wasn’t the one she’d always thought was hers. A woman with blond hair and blue eyes rocking her, singing to her. A smaller girl, maybe two years old, sucking her thumb and holding on to Cherry’s hand. An infant in a crib in her and the other little girl’s room. She’d remembered the pink girly wallpaper. Toys, especially a stuffed bear.

  Then she was under the water.

  Hot tears burned her cheeks. Something or someone was holding her beneath the surface. Eventually the images in the nightmares started to change, became Cherry and her sweet daughter. In the awful dreams, she would hold her precious baby beneath the water . . . ignoring the child’s frantic struggles. Her baby’s eyes would widen and then her little mouth would open and the battle was over.

  Desperation had pushed Cherry to find answers. She hadn’t told her husband, but she’d driven all the way to Jackson and spoken to a psychologist—using a different name of course. Skeletons in one’s closet were bad for political careers. The psychologist had told her that the sort of memories she was experiencing were likely real. Repressed by some childhood trauma. Was it possible that she had been adopted? Had some traumatic event blocked those memories until now?

  That was when Cherry had started her search. She was an attorney, she’d known the places to go and the buttons to push to find what she was looking for. She’d quickly discovered that she had in fact been adopted. She’d learned her real name and the names of her siblings. But not their new names—the ones they’d been given, as she had, in their new lives. She’d struggled with the need to question her parents . . . but she couldn’t bring herself to drag them into the misery overtaking her existence. So she’d kept quiet and kept digging.

  No one from the dioceses would give her the priest’s name who had handled the adoptions. They had pretended the information had been lost years ago. But she had known they were keeping their secret.

  Since her brother had been the oldest at the time, she began her search with him. Reason dictated that he would be the most likely to remember what really happened. Cherry had gone to the reporter who’d followed the Solomon case the closest thirty years ago. He’d been in a nursing home. Macular degeneration had stolen his sight. Complications from diabetes had stolen his legs. She’d told him she was a writer and wanted to do a true crime novel on the case. The enticing scent of a story sti
ll alive somewhere in that shell of a body, he’d given her everything he remembered, including the fact that the boy had gone to the Healing Institute in Jackson.

  Finding her brother from there had been a breeze. Along the way she’d discovered that Sarah Solomon was now Penny Arnold and Tessa Solomon was Adeline Cooper. She’d printed pictures from the Internet of both women. Of the two, locating information on Penny had been the simplest. Though her adopted parents were now deceased, as a real estate agent Penny maintained a significant presence on the Web. Adeline had been a different story. All the information Cherry had found on her was around nine years old. But her adopted mother had still been alive.

  Cherry had been so damned clever. No one had suspected for a moment that she was involved in a clandestine investigation into her murky past. As painful and confusing as all she’d found had been, she hadn’t shared even a hint of it with her parents or her husband. She’d told herself at the time that it was the only way to protect them. Hurting them had been the last thing on her mind.

  What a fool she’d been. Her most monumental mistake had been going to Daniel Jamison first. She’d taken the photos of their sisters she’d gotten from the Internet. She’d so hoped to gain some insight into what had happened to them as children. And to see if he had the nightmares, too. He’d refused to talk to her. Had ordered her off his property. She’d left him the photos, including one of her, in hopes that he would have a change of heart.

  A couple weeks later, when she’d worked up the nerve, she’d gone to Penny. The reception hadn’t been much better there. She hadn’t believed Cherry. No matter that she’d shown her the proof. But Cherry had seen the fear in her eyes when she’d asked about the nightmares. Are you afraid of water or do you have bad dreams about water? Like Daniel, Penny had promptly ordered Cherry to stay away from her.

  Eventually Cherry had again summoned her courage and attempted to find her other sister. Adeline’s mother had repeated that pattern. She’d denied everything. Refused to give Cherry any information about where Adeline was now. Disgusted at that point, Cherry had prepared to go home. She’d climbed into her car, tears pouring from her eyes, her nerves frayed.