A Desperate Search

by Amanda Stevens

  Nikki nodded, vaguely aware of his impending nuptials to Rae Cavanaugh, whose relatives owned the Echo Lake Star. But her attention was caught once again by the stranger’s brooding scrutiny. “What’s his story?”

  “He told one of my officers that he was walking along the lake when he spotted the body.”

  It was hard to read Tom’s expression behind his mirrored sunglasses, but something in his voice troubled Nikki. “You don’t believe him?”

  “I’ve no reason not to.”

  “Then why that tone?”

  Tom’s mouth tightened. “We’ve had our share of trouble in Nance County. Drug trafficking, disappearances, murder. I guess I’m just naturally wary of strangers who happen upon dead bodies. But then, he’s not really a stranger.”

  “He isn’t?” Nikki tried to catch a glimpse of the man from the corner of her eye. She saw him rise from his perch on the log and rotate his arms as if to loosen kinked muscles. Then he moved up to the perimeter, leaning a shoulder against the nearest tree trunk as he slipped his hands in his pockets, all the while never taking his eyes off the corpse. Unlike some of the officers, he didn’t seem affected by the smell or the condition of the deceased. On first glance, his body language appeared almost apathetic, but there was tension in his neck and shoulders and something darker than curiosity in the gleam of his eyes.

  He was close enough now that Nikki felt the need to lower her voice to a near whisper. “Who is he? How do you know him?”

  “I only know of him,” Tom said. “His name is Adam Thayer. He just moved into his grandmother’s old house on the other side of the bridge.”

  She stared at him in surprise. “He’s Betsy Thayer’s grandson?” Was that how she knew him? Had she caught a glimpse of him at one time or another when he’d come to see his grandmother? “I thought the family put her home on the market after she died.”

  “I doubt they got any bites,” Tom said. “Prime location for a fishing retreat, but the place needs a lot of work. The fact that it was used to hide a kidnapping victim probably didn’t add to the appeal. Come to think of it, maybe it’s a good thing Thayer will be living there for a while. Empty houses tend to attract criminal activity.”

  “Not just houses.”

  “No, not just houses.”

  They turned as one, lifting their heads to the top of the embankment, where an old smokestack rose out of the pine trees. The towering cylinder was all that could be seen from their vantage of the tumbledown structure known as the Ruins, a former psychiatric hospital.

  Nikki’s observation had touched a nerve for both of them. Fifteen years ago, three teenagers had entered the Ruins on the night of a blood moon. One of the girls was Tom’s younger sister, Ellie. It was presumed that a former mental patient known as Preacher had taken the other two girls when Tom had found Ellie the next morning facedown at the edge of the lake. He’d managed to resuscitate her, but Tom, his sister and the whole town of Belle Pointe had never been the same since that night. One of the two missing girls had turned up days later wandering down the side of a country road. The other girl had disappeared without a trace. So had Preacher.

  Despite the dark history, Nikki didn’t share the town’s fear of the Ruins. She’d always found beauty and solace in the place, but her penchant for hanging out there when she was younger had only added fuel to the whispers of dark cults and satanic rituals after the girls had gone missing.

  Tom tore his gaze from the smokestack. “Thayer’s only been down here a few days, but already there’s buzz about him in town. I’m surprised you haven’t heard about him before now.”

  “I don’t get out much.” Nikki kept her tone neutral as she side-eyed Adam Thayer, a tall, lean man in cargo shorts, wet sneakers and a plain gray T-shirt. His hair was clipped so short that when he bent to swat a mosquito on his ankle, Nikki noticed what appeared to be a scar that ran from his forehead back into his scalp. “What’s his real story?” she asked.

  “Homicide detective,” Tom said. “Dallas PD. Wounded in the line of duty, according to my sister. An arrest somehow turned into an ambush and shoot-out.”

  “That explains the scar.” It was all Nikki could do to keep her gaze averted, not so much out of curiosity, but from the stranger’s magnetic stare. “How does Ellie know him?”

  “She went over to the Thayer house one morning to feed the peacocks and found him sitting on the front porch, drinking coffee. Evidently, he’d moved in during the night. She was wary at first, but it seems they’ve hit it off.”

  Nikki lifted a brow at his tone. “You don’t approve?”

  Clearly, he didn’t approve.

  They were still speaking in lowered voices across the body. Tom rose and moved down to the water. He motioned with a jerk of his head for Nikki to join him. She peeled off her gloves and followed him.

  “Just between you and me, I plan to keep an eye on him,” Tom said.

  “Because of your sister?”

  He hesitated. “Let’s just say I don’t trust anyone who feels the need to slip into town under the cover of darkness. Something odd about the way he moved in. Something odd about that shooting, too. I’ve got a few friends up that way. The Dallas PD kept a tight lid on the investigation. I’m not accusing him of anything, but it’s a little strange that he’d relocate to a place like Belle Pointe.”

  Now it was Tom who’d touched a nerve. Considering that Nikki had once found herself on the wrong end of his father’s unfounded suspicions, she was inclined to give Adam Thayer the benefit of the doubt. She liked Tom. He was a good man and as intuitive a law enforcement officer as she’d ever worked with, but her voice cooled just the same. “Maybe he came here to recuperate.”

  “And just happened upon the body of one of our most prominent citizens?”

  She gave him a reproachful look. “Now who’s speculating? You don’t think he had anything to do with Dr. Nance’s death, do you? Why would he? If he’s that new in town, I doubt they even met.”

  “You said yourself, Dr. Nance spent a lot of time out here on the lake.”

  That gave her pause. “You think he saw something?”

  “I think I’ve said too much,” Tom muttered. “You’re right. I’m speculating. We need to wait for the autopsy before we start drawing conclusions.”

  “What was odd about the shooting?” Nikki couldn’t resist asking.

  Tom looked troubled. “The fact that it was so thoroughly hushed up, for one thing. Hardly a mention of it in the papers or even on social media. The man took two bullets in the chest. A third skimmed his scalp. By all rights, he should be dead. He was dead, from what I hear. His heart stopped beating before the EMTs arrived. That kind of event involving a cop ordinarily generates more than a passing mention.”

  Nikki was starting to feel uneasy, too. “What are you saying, Tom?”

  “Nothing. Just make sure Dr. Ramirez does a thorough job with the autopsy.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that. He’s the best there is. He knows what to look for and I’ll be assisting. Two pairs of eyes, as they say. But don’t expect miracles. After this long in the water...” She trailed off as she glanced out at the lake and then over her shoulder. Adam Thayer watched her with deep, brooding eyes.

  Déjà vu shivered up Nikki’s spine. Their paths had crossed before, she was certain. She still couldn’t place him, still didn’t know the why or when or how of a prior meeting. But even from a distance she could have sworn she caught the glimmer of recognition in his eyes.

  The intensity of his gaze only deepened her foreboding. He was too far away to overhear their conversation, but she had a feeling he knew exactly what she was thinking. Even with state-of-the-art forensic equipment and the latest techniques, cause of death after that long in the water could be hard to prove.

  No one would know that better than a homicide detective.
/>   * * *

  ADAM THAYER SLAPPED a mosquito at the back of his neck and inwardly swore. Damn swamp. He was being eaten alive out here. He moved into a patch of sunlight, but the bloodthirsty little bastards followed, buzzing around his ears before sinking their needles into the exposed skin at his nape.

  Echo Lake was a beautiful place, a primordial paradise of sloughs, channels and open water, but the wildlife took some getting used to. He swatted and slapped and cursed some more. In the five days since he’d moved into his grandmother’s old house, he’d learned to keep the bug spray handy, especially on sleepless nights when he sat out on the dock or wandered down to the bridge. Of all the days to leave home without his usual dousing.

  He still didn’t know what had pulled him all the way past the bridge to this particular spot. Gut instinct? The subtle waft of putrescence on the breeze?

  He was no stranger to that smell. He couldn’t say he missed that particular aroma or the way it sometimes lingered in the nostrils for days. But the rest of it...the methodical processing of a crime scene, the interviews, the tracking down of leads and the adrenaline rush that came with the eventual unraveling of an alibi...yeah, he missed all that. He missed his job and the way his life had been before the shooting. He missed feeling normal.

  Batting away the mosquitoes, he watched the Nance County sheriff huddle with the coroner at the edge of the lake. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he was familiar enough with death scene procedure to intuit the usual discussions about cause of death, time of death and the victim’s identity.

  He also knew enough about human nature to assume that his status as a material witness might soon be elevated to that of person of interest. A stranger in town stumbles across a body, he’s going to be scrutinized regardless of the circumstances. If the sheriff suspected foul play, then said stranger would probably be questioned and maybe even surveilled if the manpower and resources could be justified.

  Or maybe he was borrowing trouble. He’d been on the other side of enough interrogations to know how to handle himself. How many times had Stephanie accused him of having ice water in his veins?

  Still, he didn’t like the notion of being put under a microscope, his every move and utterance examined and reexamined for inconsistencies. He’d had his fill of that after the shooting. Moving into his grandmother’s lake house, ostensibly to renovate and get the place ready to sell, was bound to generate talk. He’d prepared himself for a certain amount of idle curiosity and gossip. What he hadn’t counted on was the sudden death of his one and only contact in town.

  Shifting his position to get a better view of the body, he ignored the dull throb at his temples. Pain had become an old friend. Weeks of recovery and months of physical therapy had left a lot of jagged nerve endings. He didn’t sleep much. He walked a lot and thought a lot. He pumped iron and mostly ate all the right foods. Gave up drinking. Spent time at the range. Except for the lingering headaches, he was in peak physical condition. Except for that damn psych evaluation, he would have already been reinstated. Worst mistake of his life, telling the shrink about his nightmares. Well, second worst. The first might have been trusting Stephanie.

  But he couldn’t go back in time. He couldn’t fix all those old mistakes. He had a new concern now. Dr. Nance was dead, which meant the old man’s suspicions might have had a basis after all.

  Adam’s gaze moved once more to the corpse as he reflected on the conversation that had brought him to Belle Pointe. He hadn’t wanted to put stock in Dr. Nance’s vague misgivings, but the man could be persuasive when he wanted to be.

  If you get down here and decide I’m just a delusional old coot tilting at windmills, then turn around and head back to Dallas. We’ll never speak of this again. But I’m telling you, Adam. Something strange is going on in this town. Something dark. I think it has been for years.

  So here he was, Adam thought. And there lay a very dead Dr. Nance.

  What now?

  A few hours ago, he would have liked nothing better than to pack in all the peace and quiet of the country and head straight back to the urban sprawl of his home city, a place he both loved and despised. Maybe with a little more effort, he could pick up the pieces of his shattered life. Claw his way back into the department. Maybe even give Stephanie a call.

  He scowled at that thought. The chance of reconnecting with his ex-fiancée was every bit as great as the probability of his walking away from Dr. Nance’s mystery, which was to say, none at all. No way he could turn his back on a dead man’s last request.

  As if intuiting his thoughts, the sheriff glanced over his shoulder, caught Adam’s gaze and nodded briefly. Then he turned back to the coroner, speaking in low, urgent tones. She listened intently as she used the back of her gloved hand to push aside her hair.

  The gesture stirred a memory. An image flitted. A vision that was there one moment and gone the next.

  Who are you? Adam wondered. How do I know you?

  He assumed a neutral expression as the sheriff pivoted away from the lake and headed up the bank toward him. The coroner returned to the victim. Two officers continued to search along the water while the remaining cops milled about in a small circle at the top of the embankment.

  The young officer who had been photographing the scene joined the coroner. Navarro, the sheriff had called him earlier. He hunkered on the bank with his camera, but instead of focusing on the victim, his attention strayed to Adam. He said something to the coroner that caused her to glance over her shoulder. Her gaze met Adam’s, and for a moment, he stood transfixed by the intensity of her bold stare.

  Something that might have been recognition danced in her eyes, or maybe that was a glint from the dying sun. He didn’t know her and yet he still had the strangest feeling that he’d seen her somewhere before. She was average height, slim build, straight dark hair pulled back and fastened haphazardly at her nape. Not beautiful by Adam’s measure, but certainly attractive. A word he rarely used came to mind. Enigmatic.

  He’d let his mind wander too far and now a piercing scream physically jolted him back to the scene. The eerie cry carried across the water and halted the sheriff in his tracks. He, along with everyone else in the area, turned anxiously toward the sound.

  Everyone except the coroner. Her dark eyes remained fixed on Adam.

  Chapter Two

  An uneasy quiet settled over the landscape. The hair at the back of Adam’s neck lifted unexpectedly as he scanned the lake. The light had dissolved rapidly with the setting sun. Twilight inched closer, deepening the sky and then the water. Still the coroner’s gaze lingered.

  He massaged his nape and then brushed his hand across his scalp, fingering the scar tissue that had begun to tingle. He told himself the sensation was just raw nerve endings that still needed to heal.

  At the top of the embankment, someone laughed awkwardly, breaking the silence. Another officer swore. “What the hell was that?”

  “A peacock,” the sheriff called up to him. “Probably wandered away from the Thayer place.”

  “A peacock? You serious?” The officer peered across the lake. “Sounded like a woman screaming her head off to me.”

  Navarro crossed himself. “Maybe that’s exactly what it was.”

  An older officer stared down at him from the top of the embankment. “The hell you talking about, son?”

  Navarro’s gaze swept the water. “My grandmother says this lake is haunted. She says if you come out here alone in the middle of the night, you can still hear the screams of the mental patients that were tortured in that hospital.”

  Someone hummed The Twilight Zone theme, inciting a few chuckles.

  Sheriff Brannon ignored the ruckus. “Your grandmother is a fine woman, Navarro, but I wouldn’t put much stock in her ghost stories.”

  The young officer continued undaunted. “It’s not just her stories. Her cousin’s
friend worked in that place before the government shut it down. He said a lot of bad stuff happened there. All kinds of experiments. Things we couldn’t begin to imagine. They kept the worst of the worst locked in cages on the third floor. Think of the souls that could still be trapped there.” His gaze lifted to the silhouette of the smokestack.

  Adam hadn’t walked down to the Ruins yet, but he was itching to see the place by moonlight. Was it still there? he wondered. The secret he’d uncovered beneath the floorboards?

  The prickle along his scalp intensified. He ran his fingers through his clipped hair as if he could brush away the unpleasant sensation.

  The sheriff sighed wearily. “The place was shut down because funding ran out. It happened all over the country. All that talk about experiments is just an urban legend.”

  “Myths and legends are often based in reality,” the coroner said.

  Sheriff Brannon groaned. “Don’t encourage him. It was a peacock. End of story. No more talk about trapped souls and haunted lakes. We have a job to do, so let’s get to it.”

  A muttered chorus of yessir’s followed. Navarro picked up his camera. The coroner went back to her work. The deputies at the top of the embankment continued to mill about while waiting for her to release the scene. Adam gave her another quick perusal before returning his attention to the sheriff.

  “You’re Adam Thayer?” Tom Brannon removed his sunglasses and slipped them in his shirt pocket as he closed the distance between them. Adam was glad for that. He liked being able to see a person’s eyes when he talked to him. Tom Brannon’s were gray and guarded. Already a little suspicious. “My sister told me you’d moved into your grandmother’s old place. Said you gave her quite a scare that first morning.”