by Gayle Wilson
“That you weren’t attached.”
“I was married. It didn’t work out. Once burned, I guess…In any case, there’s nobody else.”
“Not from any lack of opportunity, I’m sure.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re still an attractive man.”
He laughed. “Thanks. I think.”
“You know what I mean. I thought at first the bright lights, big city had changed you, but…you’re still here. Still in Crenshaw, so…I’m sorry. I know I’m prying.”
“There’s no secret about any of it. I spent some time in the military. Some of it in places that made me appreciate my upbringing. I came back because I wanted to.”
“I see.”
“You probably don’t, but it doesn’t matter. I wanted to be here. I just never found anyone here that I wanted to be with. Not until now.”
Although that sounded promising, Blythe tried to rein in the surge of pleasure it gave her. Wanting to be with someone might mean something very different to Cade than it did to her.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
There was a small silence. For a second, looking up into his eyes, she thought he might kiss her again. She wouldn’t have the strength of will to protest if he did.
Instead, he stepped back, increasing the distance between them. “Where do you want me to set up camp?”
“I’m sorry?”
“I think I’ll move into the front parlor. The floor in the hallway is pretty revealing. I’ll be able to hear anyone going up or down the stairs. And making trips back and forth for coffee will help keep me awake.”
“Whatever you think is fine. I’m grateful you’re here.”
“Then take advantage of it. Try to get some sleep.”
“I will. I should warn you. If you hear Maddie screaming, it may just be another night terror. And once she starts, there isn’t much I can do until it runs its course.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
His smile, slightly one-sided, made her heart turn over. An old-fashioned phrase for an old-fashioned feeling.
And as far as getting lucky was concerned, she thought that, despite everything, maybe—just maybe—she already had.
25
C ade had put his cell on vibrate after Blythe had gone up to bed, but he hadn’t really expected anyone to call. Certainly not at…he looked down at his watch as he fumbled the phone out of his shirt pocket…2:24 in the morning.
He flipped the case open, dreading whatever this was. “Jackson.”
“Something’s going on out here.” The voice belonged to Doug Stuart, who’d been scheduled to replace Smothers out front.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Something was moving in the woods behind the house. Could have been a deer. Maybe a dog, but…I thought you ought to know.”
“You still in the cruiser?”
“I got out to try and get a closer look. I’m alongside the front porch. To the left as you face the house.”
“Stay there. I’m coming out the front door. I’ll take the other side. There’s a fence in the back. Watch out for it.”
“Got it.” The connection was broken.
Cade pushed up off the couch, adrenaline already beginning to make inroads on his exhaustion. He unholstered the Glock as he crossed the room.
He stepped out into the darkened hall while his mind replayed the call. When he glanced up, he saw a dark shape near the front door. Reacting instinctively, he brought his weapon up, both hands around the butt. Then, knees bent, he peered into the shadows, trying to bring whatever he’d seen there into focus.
Hall tree, he realized. His own jacket providing the bulk that had seemed man-shaped.
Blowing out a breath to release his tension, he straightened, lowering the gun. He closed his eyes to fight this second rush of adrenaline, one strong enough that, on top of all the caffeine he’d consumed tonight, he was almost light-headed from its effects.
Then he hurried forward, trying to make up for the two or three seconds delay his mistake had cost. As an afterthought, he grabbed his jacket off the hook as he went by. Switching the Glock from hand to hand, he shrugged into it.
His fingers had closed around the knob of the front door when he hesitated again, mentally preparing for whatever lay ahead. Doug’s assessment was undoubtedly correct. Whatever was out there was probably animal rather than human. Especially with a couple of police cruisers parked in the front yard.
With the hand that held his weapon, he turned the dead bolt. Then he allowed his fingers to complete the movement they’d begun, opening the door wide enough to slip through before he pulled it closed behind him.
The cold was so sharp it took his breath. It also cleared the last of the brain fog caused by his tiredness.
Glock in his right hand, he reached behind him with his left and tried the knob. It turned, and the door moved inward. He reached inside and pressed the button, again pulling the door to. This time when he turned the knob, the door didn’t open.
Although he would have to wake Blythe up to get back in, he wasn’t about to leave the house unlocked while he checked out whatever his deputy had seen. He didn’t believe this had anything to do with the murders, but that wasn’t a chance he was willing to take.
He glanced to his left. In the moonlight, Doug crouched at the edge of the porch, watching him through the banisters. Cade raised his free hand, making a forward motion with its index finger. As soon as his deputy nodded his understanding, Cade began moving to his right.
He switched the Glock to his left hand and placed the other on top of the porch railing as he stepped over it. Before he dropped to the ground, he looked down the side of the house.
The leafless branches of the trees at the back of the property were stark against the sky. The picket fence gleamed in the moonlight, the potting shed a hulking shadow at its back. His eyes tracked left, taking in the other outbuildings.
Plenty of places to hide. Plenty of places for an ambush. And right now Doug was making his way back there alone.
Still holding on to the top of the banister, Cade jumped off the porch, hitting the ground with a small thud. He waited through a couple of heartbeats for any reaction to the sound before he began to move in a crouch toward the fence.
He stopped when he reached the back corner of the house. Leading with the Glock, he moved so he could see around it.
Doug was already at the opposite corner. He shook his head as Cade looked across at him.
Again Cade gestured him forward. Together they trailed along the fence on opposite sides.
The back garden, exposed by moonlight, was empty. The rear of the house seemed undisturbed as well, curtains drawn over the windows and the door closed. There was no sign of forced entry, at least none visible from here.
When he reached the shed Maddie had once taken refuge behind, he turned the corner of the fence, checking out the space between the pickets and the back of the small building. It was also empty.
That left the woods at the back of the lot, where Doug had seen something moving. More than a hundred feet of lawn lay between Cade’s position and those trees.
Was the watcher Blythe had seen lurking at the Wright place the night of the fire out there now? Just as he’d been here the night Maddie had hidden behind the shed.
The crack of a broken twig on his right brought his body around, the Glock again outstretched. He had already identified the sound as well as the person who’d made it before his deputy threw up his hands.
“It’s me, Sheriff. Sorry.”
Cade straightened. “That’s a real good way to get shot.”
The kid nodded, his hands raised as if in surrender. “Sorry. Sorry.”
With a mouth gone dry at the realization of how close a thing that had been, Cade asked, “Where’d you see movement?”
“Right over there.” The area Doug pointed to was at the edge of the property, wh
ere the woods dipped off into a ravine.
If anyone was out there, it was unlikely he would have been headed in that direction. Not unless he had better night vision than most.
Something about this was beginning to set off alarms. Hoyt had said good police work consisted of luck and instinct. And right now his instincts were all telling him—
“Get your car and drive over there. Direct the headlights where you saw movement. If you see anything, call my cell.”
He had already turned, starting back toward the house when Doug stopped him.
“What are you gonna do?”
“Make sure everything’s all right inside.”
“You think—”
“I think somebody ought to check,” he said as he holstered his weapon. “Since I’m the one the family knows, I guess that ought to be me.”
Unwilling to explain his sense of urgency, something he didn’t completely understand himself, Cade started back the way he’d come. Before he got to the corner of the house, he had begun to run. At the same time, he reached inside his jacket and pulled his phone out of his shirt pocket.
He had added the number of the Mitchell house to his contacts list the last time he’d had occasion to need it. He slowed as he climbed the front steps, scrolling down until he found Mitchell and then punching the call button.
He could always ring the doorbell, but a phone call might be less frightening. No matter what he did, he was going to jerk Blythe and, more regretfully, probably Maddie and her grandmother out of sleep. This way at least they’d know immediately he was the one seeking admittance.
He listened through four rings, his anxiety growing as it had when he’d waited for her to answer the door. Wake up, damn it. Wake up.
“Hello?” Blythe’s voice was filled with the same sleepiness as when she’d come to the door.
“It’s Cade. Come down and let me in. I’m at the front.”
“What are you doing outside?”
“The deputy on watch saw something. I came out to help him look around. I didn’t want to leave the door unlocked while I did. Just come down and let me in.”
“Okay.”
“And check on Maddie.”
He wasn’t sure why he’d added the last. Now that he had, he had no inclination to take it back. He didn’t know what his gut was trying to tell him, but through the years he’d learned to respect that niggling sense he got when something was wrong.
“What?”
“Look in on Maddie before you come down. Just make sure she’s all right.”
“What the hell is going on, Cade?”
As the cold night air had cleared the cobwebs from his brain, his suggestion that she should check on her daughter had brought Blythe to full alert.
“As far as I know, nothing. Just…Just look in on her.”
She slammed down the phone. Cade stood for a moment with his cell pressed against his ear, breathing still ragged from his run.
Out in the driveway, Doug started the engine of the patrol car. Its headlights came up, bright enough that Cade raised his hand to shield his eyes. The deputy gunned the motor, sending the car roaring down the right side of the house.
Cade lowered his arm, finally remembering to look at his watch. The luminous hands revealed it was seventeen minutes until three.
He closed his phone and put his ear against the solid wood of the door instead, listening for Blythe’s footsteps. Which was stupid, he realized. She wouldn’t put on her shoes. Not just to run downstairs to let him in.
Another couple of minutes went by, his tension increasing as he waited. It should have taken Blythe thirty seconds at the most to throw on a robe, look in Maddie’s door, and then come down the stairs. What the hell was she—
The sound of the dead bolt turning interrupted that litany of impatience. A second later the door was flung open.
“She isn’t there,” Blythe said, eyes wide and dark in a face that was colorless.
“What do you mean she isn’t there?” He pushed past her into the front hall.
“She isn’t in her bed. She isn’t in any of the other bedrooms. I’ve searched everywhere upstairs. If she’s hiding…” Her voice faded behind him as he rushed down the hall.
Hiding. That’s what she had done the night she had noticed the man watching them. Cade wasn’t sure what she would be hiding from tonight, but since the house had been locked tight against intruders, that seemed the most logical explanation.
Taking Blythe’s word that she’d searched upstairs, he headed toward the back of the house. As he passed the front parlor, he slowed for a cursory examination, but it was obvious the room was empty.
If Maddie had come downstairs in the middle of the night, either sick or frightened, she probably would have headed to where her mother had been when she’d fallen sleep.
As he entered the den, Cade flipped the switch of the overhead fixture. Behind him he could hear Blythe and her grandmother calling Maddie’s name. He continued to hunt, even looking behind the massive TV cabinet and under the throw that lay in a tangle at one end of the couch.
As Blythe and Ruth continued to search the other rooms, periodically demanding that Maddie answer, Cade moved on to the kitchen, methodically opening the base cabinets and stooping to look inside each one before going to the next. When they had all been searched, he went into the utility room, a space that had obviously been partitioned off from the original kitchen.
He felt around for the light switch, finally locating it on the left-hand side of the door. As the overhead fluorescent flickered on, what it revealed caused his growing sense of disaster to escalate.
The door to what he had to assume to be the basement stood ajar. No light came up the stairs, but the first two or three were visible through the narrow opening. He could feel the cold air seeping through it and into the warmth of the house.
“I should have thought of that,” Blythe said behind him.
He turned. “Thought of what?”
“My grandmother told her that some of my old dolls were down there. We looked this afternoon, but we couldn’t find them. That’s when I promised I’d get her one at the store.”
She tried to move past him, but he caught her arm. “You think she’s gone down there to look for those dolls again?”
“The one you brought had fallen off the bedside table. Maybe she didn’t see it, so she came down here to look again for mine.”
Given the whole have-to-have-a-doll business from earlier tonight, something about this was finally beginning to make sense. Using his elbow rather than his hand, Cade pushed the door open wide enough to squeeze through.
“There’s a light,” Blythe said.
Before he could stop her, she reached in behind him to flip the switch. The glow of the bare bulb that dangled from an old-fashioned, cloth-wrapped cord illuminated little more than the area at the base of the steps.
“Don’t touch anything else,” he warned.
He couldn’t blame her for what she’d done. Her primary concern was to find her daughter. It was his, too. But he also had the responsibility of preserving evidence if this turned out to be a crime scene.
Crime scene. With that thought, the chill in his blood was back.
“Maddie?”
There was no answer.
“You call her,” he ordered. If the child responded to anyone, it would be Blythe.
“Maddie? If you’re down here, young lady, you better answer me.”
“Tell her I’m coming down the steps,” he said softly. “Tell her it’s okay. That everything is okay.”
“Maddie, Sheriff Jackson’s coming down there. It’s okay, baby. We just need to know where you are. Did you see the doll I got you? It’s in your room. I put it against the bedside lamp, but it fell off. It’s got bottles and everything you wanted. There’s even a stroller so you can push her around.”
Still no response.
Cade eased the Glock out of its holster again, sidestepping down the
first few risers until he could see the entire basement. There was no sign of the child.
Although shelves lined two of the walls, there was no furniture. And no place for her to hide.
“Flashlight.” He spoke the word without turning, continuing his slow scan of the basement as he listened to Blythe climb the stairs to obey. His eyes focused on the window on the opposite wall.
It was too high for Maddie to reach. If she’d come down here, she hadn’t gone out that way.
Not unaided.
If anyone had come in or gone out that window tonight, there would be some evidence. Marks on the sill. Or in the dust beneath it. The one thing he didn’t want to do—
“Here.” Blythe touched his left shoulder with the flashlight.
He reached up and took it from her, pushing the button as he descended four more steps. The beam revealed that there was no mud or leaves on any of them, not even those at the bottom.
He directed the light over the concrete floor. If there had been enough dust to leave footprints, he couldn’t see them.
He came down the remaining steps, but even shining the beam directly on the floor from a distance of a couple of feet revealed no pattern. No dust. Nothing.
He stepped off to the side of the last riser and, skirting the center of the room, walked across it to the window. Slowly he played the light along its sill and then around the frame. No debris from the ground outside clung to either.
He slipped his weapon back into its holster, freeing his right hand. He ran the tips of his fingers along the part of the sill that extended beyond the frame and then held them out in front of him. There was no telltale smudge of dirt. Either the window had been wiped or…
“Delores clean down here?”
“Of course. It’s my grandmother’s pantry.”
Wood that was frequently dusted would make it impossible to tell by this kind of examination if someone had come into the house this way. He directed the flashlight at the glass instead. Its blackness cast back their reflections, but he couldn’t tell if there were any prints on it.
The window was the type that pushed out rather than up. With the same fingers he’d used to test for dust on the sill, Cade pushed against the bottom of the single pane. Its frame creaked and then moved outward. Despite the inherent dampness of its setting, it wasn’t stuck. Nor had it been locked.