Shadows of the Past (Logan Point Book #1): A Novel

by Bradley, Patricia

  “How about the black hoodie?” She gripped the Styrofoam cup. “That’s what Scott always wore to class. A black hoodie with a Nike emblem.”

  Thornton’s heavy-lidded eyes blinked, reminding her of a skinny gecko. “Him and half the male students at the university. But I’ll add your description to the file.”

  She gritted her teeth. By the tone of Zeke’s voice, he’d made his mind up that she and Sheriff Atkins had interrupted a burglary.

  He hitched up the belt that held his holster. “So, how are you feeling?”

  She waved her hand back and forth. “So-so. I’ll feel better when I know Dale is going to be okay.”

  “Me too,” he said and nodded. “If I learn anything new, I’ll give you a call.”

  As Zeke strode toward the exit, Nick gently took the cup from her. “What’s going on between you two? I sense an undercurrent between you two.”

  She rubbed her arms. “Zeke sees everything in black and white. We don’t agree about victim profiling, and he doesn’t understand that it isn’t an exact science, that instinct plays a big part. He gets impatient waiting for results.” Actually, he’d never been totally on board with her being part of Dale Atkins’s team, and even less since a hostage situation six months ago ended with Taylor losing the gunman and his hostage. But if she hadn’t been brought into the situation so late, the outcome might’ve been different.

  “He’s just jealous you got the spotlight for saving that little girl today,” Christine said.

  She had saved Sarah Coleman and hopefully her mom. She chewed her lip. Zeke Thornton was dead wrong about this case being a burglary. She’d just have to prove it to him.

  “I understand, Andy.” Taylor held out her hand, palm down. God, please don’t let this boy kill his stepfather. “You feel like you don’t have any other choice. But this hasn’t gone too far. No one’s hurt yet.”

  The young man turned, and she stared into the eyes of death.

  “You don’t want to do this, Andy.”

  Taylor struggled against the paralysis trapping her in the nightmare.

  God, please! Just this once.

  “He hurt my mama. I won’t let him hurt anyone else.” Andy jerked the gun up, and a beam of light pinpointed his target—the dead center of his stepfather’s chest.

  “Andy, nooo . . .”

  Taylor bolted straight up in bed, her breath coming in gasps. She hugged her knees to her chest, waiting for the hammering in her rib cage to slow. Even in her dreams, God didn’t answer her prayers. Andy Reed still killed his stepdad.

  Pain speared her head, clearing the remnants of the nightmare but not the lingering sense of failure that pervaded her life . . . the Reed case, the failed engagement to Michael, who’d left a “Dear Jane” note on the seat of her car, and now Dale Atkins. And the futile search for her dad overshadowed it all.

  Taylor tested the lump on her head. Still tender. And her shoulder still ached where the pipe had grazed it. If only Dale had gotten off as easy. After two days, he still lay unconscious in ICU. She picked up the phone by her bed and dialed the hospital.

  No change, according to Dale’s wife. But the doctors were hopeful. Taylor told her she’d visit later in the day. She slowly replaced the receiver. His wife sounded so tired. More guilt piled on her head.

  She closed her eyes against the headache throbbing to the beat of her pulse. Burglary gone wrong. She still didn’t buy it, and Zeke refused to listen to her, totally dismissing her theory about Scott and the note. Certainty burned in her gut that the two were related. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a memory tried to scratch its way to the surface.

  Frozen . . . she’d frozen in the dark . . . Taylor leaned against the headboard, wanting to curl in a ball and hide from the world.

  No. She was not a quitter. Not in this matter and not in the matter about her father. Heaving a sigh, Taylor threw off the coverlet and padded through the bedroom to the kitchen, avoiding the living room, where a bullet hole in the wall still waited to be repaired. She rummaged in the cabinet for her Earl Grey. The aroma of citrus blossoms mingled with black tea leaves would lift her better than any pill. After turning on the burner under the kettle, she took out Granna Martin’s white porcelain teapot with its blue forget-me-not floral pattern.

  Memories of her grandmother washed over her like a warm rain. Four o’clock tea on wintry Sunday afternoons. Granna dabbing a drop of Evening in Paris behind Taylor’s earlobes; the sweet scent of roses and violets curling in her nose. She could not have been more than five or six when the two of them sat in Granna’s small parlor at Oak Grove, the old home place, sipping Earl Grey from dainty porcelain cups that matched the teapot, both wearing white gloves and hats because her grandmother said ladies always dressed for tea.

  Sometimes her father joined them, looking very handsome in his suit and smelling of Old Spice. Tears burned her eyes, and Taylor blinked them back. Her father. Didn’t take a degree in psychology to figure out that the root of her failed relationships began and ended with him and the day he’d walked out of their lives.

  The kettle whistled, piercing the air, and Taylor poured steaming water into the pot. After the tea steeped, she poured a cup and took it to the den, then retrieved her laptop from her bedroom. Some burglar . . . didn’t even find her computer in plain sight.

  Settling in the recliner, she sipped the tea and clicked on her email and waited. The university server had become so slow. Finally, her account came up, and she scanned the inbox. A reply from Livy.

  She opened the email from her childhood friend, now a detective for the Memphis Police Department. She’d asked Livy to locate her father’s old case files, since the MPD had investigated his disappearance—he’d last been seen boarding a Dallas flight at Memphis International Airport. Livy had finally gotten around to making inquiries last month, and Taylor had emailed her again Sunday, inquiring about any progress.

  Sorry I haven’t had time to look for your dad’s files. When are you coming home? I can get authorization for you to look for them. Besides, I’d love to see you, kiddo.

  Home. Logan Point, Mississippi. Twenty-three miles east of Memphis. Twenty-three hundred miles from Newton.

  A wave of homesickness blindsided her. Livy had been her best friend until Taylor left home. Then she’d been too busy getting her doctorate and working with the Florida State Police, then the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to make a new best friend.

  Taylor had opted not to teach the June session and had planned to visit Logan Point in July, mostly to get her mom off her back. She supposed she could move the date up.

  It wasn’t like she didn’t have a relationship with her family—she talked to her mom every week. Taylor’s fingers hovered over the keyboard. I’m working on it, ma chère.

  She almost deleted the childhood term they’d used when one of them needed rescuing. Livy was the only person who understood why she hated coming home, and how much her father’s desertion affected her.

  Taylor hesitated, then typed once more.

  In case I haven’t said, don’t mention to Jonathan I’m looking for Dad’s files.

  Her uncle had blown up when she’d called him at Thanksgiving and broached the subject of her dad. “Taylor, don’t stir this up again. The gossip was bad enough the first time around. He’s gone. It’s in the past. Let it stay there. And why all of a sudden do you want to know?”

  But it wasn’t sudden. She’d always wanted to know, only no one in the family would ever talk about his leaving, and she put it behind her. Or so she thought. When Michael dumped her and the nightmares came back, the smoldering question of why her dad left flamed anew. What was so wrong with her family—with her—that he had taken ten thousand dollars from the farm safe and disappeared? But after her uncle had blown his stack, it’d taken four months and more nightmares before she started her search again.

  Taylor couldn’t understand Jonathan’s problem—it was his brother who’d been missing for twenty ye
ars. She pressed her lips together. What her uncle didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

  Taylor copied the contents of the email and added it to the other information she’d compiled in a file labeled James E. Martin. She added a few notes, then closed the file and checked her watch—still time to catch a little of the morning news.

  Taylor clicked on the TV. The title of a book, Dead Men Don’t Lie, filled the screen as the A.M. News co-host spoke in the background.

  “. . . debuted at number nine on the New York Times bestseller list and continues to climb.”

  As Taylor sipped tepid tea, the camera panned to host Laura West, tanned, blonde, and dressed in business black, and then to the guest. “Nicholas, welcome to the show.”

  Taylor caught her breath. Nick Sinclair? They never had gotten together after that awful night. “Thank you, Laura. Glad to be here.”

  Nick’s laid-back Southern drawl countered West’s clipped tone, and Taylor refreshed her memory of him. He still had that hint of a beard. On purpose, she decided. He’d gotten a haircut, though. She had kind of liked the dark curls on his neck. The camera backed off, revealing jeans and cowboy boots.

  Unease pricked Taylor’s heart. Nick had struck her as vulnerable, and Laura West was famous for ferreting out information her guest didn’t always want to divulge. She almost felt sorry for this author she’d never heard of until two days ago.

  Taylor’s stomach rumbled, and she glanced toward the kitchen. Cranberry bagels a neighbor had brought yesterday or English muffins? She settled on the bagels. After refilling her cup, she popped a bagel in the toaster, half listening as Nick spent a few minutes talking about what it meant to grow up in the South.

  She caught the words “RC Colas” and “Moon Pie” and “sweet tea.” Nodding, she returned to her chair. It’d been years since she’d thought about the taste of banana-flavored marshmallow sandwiched between two graham crackers and the way it stuck to the roof of her mouth. Hard to believe she and Nick had grown up only twenty miles from each other. For a moment, she slipped into that time when she and her friends played hard, most nights lingering outside until well after dark.

  The memory faded, replaced by another recollection, unbidden and unwanted. It’d happened the summer after her dad left, when her mom was on an out-of-town trip. Taylor and her friends were playing “Mother May I?” in the field beside her house, the light waning into that dusky time when day faded into night, and one by one, parents called their children home until she stood alone.

  Taylor frowned. Why the memories all of a sudden? She threw off the haunting recollection and focused on the TV.

  “So, I understand you’re a fan of the blues. You even play a blues harmonica.”

  Nicholas laughed. “I try. It’s hard to live in Memphis and not like blues. Or Elvis.”

  “True.” Laura leaned forward. “Let’s talk about your book. It’s about college politics, intrigue, and murder. Was it difficult to write about murder after what happened to your wife?” The anchor had injected just the right note of sympathy in her voice.

  Nick’s wife had been murdered? Taylor frowned as the camera switched from the full-blown compassion in Laura’s face and zoomed in on Nick, catching the quick smile that didn’t quite reach those hazel eyes. Taylor applauded him as he held on to his smile.

  “Death, even murder, is always difficult for me to write about. Life is precious, and I try to convey that in my books. It’s very important when I write those scenes that I show the body being treated with dignity, no matter whose death it is.” Nick leaned toward Laura. “Don’t forget, Dead Men Don’t Lie is also about love and relationships and good and evil.”

  Good job, Nick. Taylor wanted to clap.

  “Still, I find it fascinating that you write about murder. Do you think your wife would approve of your subject matter?”

  “My wife did some of the research for the book, and a percentage of the sales will go toward building a camp for inner-city boys in Memphis, a project that was dear to her heart and now mine.”

  “Very commendable.” Laura West glanced down at her notes. “I understand you have a new book coming out in November. Who did the research for it?”

  He raised his hand. “I did all my own research this time. It’s about the murder of a news anchor—”

  “Really?” Laura’s eyes widened. “Are you putting me on?”

  Amusement stretched across Nick’s face. “Why, Laura, I would never put you on.”

  She paused a minute, then tilted her head and gave him a genuine smile. “I want to thank Nick Sinclair for being our guest on A.M. News today. He’ll be signing Dead Men Don’t Lie at the Barnes and Noble on—”

  Taylor raised the remote and pressed the off button. Nick appeared to be the real deal, a true Southern gentleman. Maybe even worth getting to know better. She bet he wouldn’t leave a Dear Jane note on the seat of his fiancée’s car.

  3

  I don’t love you. Nick Sinclair stared at the words he’d typed and flexed his fingers. The mournful riffs of “Careless Love” from Big Walter Horton’s harmonica filled his office even as the blinking cursor mocked him.

  He tapped his foot to the slow rhythm of the blues tune. Maybe he should turn the music off. Instead, he hit the backspace key. At this rate he’d never finish the revisions his editor wanted by morning. It’d been this way ever since he’d returned from Seattle over a week ago. Taylor Martin kept getting in the way.

  Nick bookmarked the page and went to the next section of revision, working for an hour before he hit a blank wall again.

  “Come on, Nick, you can do this. You’ve done it before, remember?” Angie’s voice crashed through his veiled memory like a tsunami, washing him in guilt and then in anger.

  His leather chair creaked as he leaned back and folded his arms. There shouldn’t be someone like Taylor to think about. Angie should be here. He focused on the music, letting it carry him to times before that dark night two and a half years ago.

  His wife had been with him through the lean years, the days of beans and rice, always his cheerleader. She should be here now to see his success. Could she see from heaven that his last book made the New York Times bestseller list?

  She’d always insisted success would happen before he turned thirty. She’d been right, and he ought to be floating around the room. He would be . . . if he had someone to float with. If he still had Angie. Somberly, Nick raised an imaginary toast to her photo on his desk. “Thanks for believing in me.”

  His cell rang, and he glanced at the ID, not recognizing the number. “Hello?”

  “Nick Sinclair?”

  The voice held a faint Southern undertone. Blue eyes and raven hair flashed in his mind. “Taylor?”

  “I thought I had dialed the wrong number.”

  “Is everything okay?” His heart thumped in his chest. He should have already gotten back with her and explained about the poem instead of waiting until after he found Scott.

  “Slowly getting back to normal, whatever that is. I saw your television interview last week. You held your own with Laura West. Came across as a true Southern gentleman.”

  “You think so?” At the time he hadn’t cared how he sounded. West overstepped her bounds when she delved into his personal life. “At least she generated a buzz about the book. The signing at Barnes and Noble on Saturday was a huge success.”

  “Good. Um . . .”

  He didn’t like what he heard in her voice.

  “Have you heard from your brother?”

  Ah, the real reason for her call. Disappointment surprised him. “And here I thought you were calling just to hear the sound of my voice.”

  “I could fib, if you’d like.”

  “No, you’ve already wounded me,” he said, faking a sigh. “Seriously though, I haven’t heard anything. I’ve talked with the private investigator, but he hasn’t found him. And just for you, I’ll call him again later tonight, and if he knows anything worthwhile, I’ll let
you know. Are there any other suspects?”

  “I don’t know. Zeke Thornton doesn’t exactly confide in me. He’s still trying to say it was a burglary, but I don’t buy it—they didn’t even try to steal my laptop. I’ve been looking at some of the cases I’ve worked on with Sheriff Atkins . . . so far that’s been a dead end. Your brother is still my number one suspect.”

  He hesitated, then plunged ahead. “Taylor, you have the wrong person. Scott would never hurt you.”

  “You haven’t seen your brother in a while. He could’ve changed.”

  “Not that much.”

  “Nick, he wrote the poem. I’m almost certain of it.”

  That poem again. It was time to tell her he wrote it. He doodled on his desk pad. Not over the phone. “How well did you know my brother?”

  The line was silent for a moment. “Not well. I met him when he took my Introduction to Criminal Psychology last fall. He was quiet. Made a good grade, as I recall. I did find poems like the one I received doodled in the margin of his outlines.”

  Tell her.

  No. He wanted to see her face when he told her, to judge her reaction. Yearning skittered through his heart, surprising him again, and he realized it was more than that. It wasn’t just her reaction he wanted to see. He wanted to see Taylor.

  He dropped his gaze, and Angie’s photo pierced him. Her smiling face . . . laughing brown eyes . . . the mugger holding a gun to her head. He swallowed the lump threatening to choke him. “I’ll . . . call you if I find Scott.” After Nick hung up, he sat at his desk. Why did thoughts of Taylor lay a guilt trip on him? Angie was gone, and he didn’t see himself being alone for the rest of his life. Or did he? Sighing, he scrolled through his contacts for the PI’s phone number.

  He’d contacted Carl Webster years ago while doing research on his first book. When Angie died, Scott had already taken off for who knew where. But Angie had been like a mother to Scott, and Nick wanted his brother to know. He hired Webster to find him.