Breaker's Reef (2 page)

The radio crackled, and Myrtle’s voice rasped across the airwaves. “Will do, Chief.” As she began radioing the other cars on duty, he went back to the body and stooped down next to the medical examiner. “Where’s the gunshot wound, Keith?”

The ME pointed to the hole in her stomach. “No exit wound, so it probably didn’t happen at close range. The bullet’s still in there. But she was shot hours ago. Bled out before she was put into the boat.”

Cade stood, a sick feeling twisting in his gut as he anticipated having to go to her home and break the news to her parents. They might not even know she was missing yet. If they’d gone to bed before her curfew, they wouldn’t know until morning. But if they were more diligent, as he knew Alan was, they might be up even now, waiting to confront her when she came in.

In a million years, they would never expect news like this.

He wished he was in charge of the investigation, but the murder hadn’t happened on his turf. Still, he looked over the body as the medical examiner knelt beside her.

“That a bruise on her jaw?” Cade asked.

“Yep. Several more on her arms and legs. There was definitely a struggle. And look at this.” He pointed to the chafed skin around her mouth. “Looks like duct tape was pulled off of her mouth and wrists.”

It had clearly been an abduction. Cade looked across the dark water. Was there a murderer still lurking on his island, looking for young girls?

“We need to notify the family, Cade.”

He turned to Grant. “I’ll do it. They’re friends of mine.”

“I’m waiting for the GBI to get here. I’ll need their help on this.”

Cade knew the GBI, Georgia’s Bureau of Investigation, had the resources to solve this case. He was glad they’d been notified so early.

“One of our detectives is going to need to go through her room, see what we can find,” Grant said. “If you can just break the news to the parents, then my detective or the state’s men can take it from there.”

Right. Let me do the dirty work, then be on my way.
“That’s fine. I’ll seal off her room, make sure nobody goes in there.”

He strode back to his truck, trying to get his head together. How was he going to break it to them? The muscles in the back of his neck were rock hard, and his jaw hurt as he ground his teeth together. What would he say? How would he phrase it?

Lord, give me the words.

As he drove his pickup back to Cape Refuge, Cade rehearsed the hated speech in his mind.
Alan and Marie, I’m afraid I have some bad news …

T
he ringing phone snapped Blair out of sleep, and she sat straight up and grabbed it. “Hello?”

“Blair, it’s me.” Her sister Morgan’s voice sounded strained, rushed.

“Oh no. You’re in labor.”

Her sister was eight months pregnant, far past the danger of the miscarriage she had experienced a year ago, but it was still too soon for the baby to be born.

“No, I’m fine.”

Blair shoved her hair out of her eyes and blew out a sigh of relief. “Oh, good. You had that bad news tone.”

“I do have some bad news, Blair. Jonathan had to go in to City Hall early this morning, and he just called to tell me there was a murder last night. Emily Lawrence, Alan and Marie’s daughter.”

Blair caught her breath. “She was
murdered
? How?”

“I don’t have any details, but I knew you’d want to cover it for the paper.”

Blair stood, thinking of the girl who’d frequented the library when Blair still ran it. She had tried to guide Emily to literary maturity, but the girl had rarely deviated from the Baby-Sitters Club and Nancy Drew Mysteries. She’d often given Blair lists of books she wanted her to order.

A sick feeling twisted her stomach. How could she be dead? “I’ll call Cade right now.”

“No, don’t,” Morgan said. “He’s at their house with the family. Jonathan did know that much.”

Blair tried to think as she grabbed some clothes. She’d need to take her camera. Where was it? “Morgan, I think Sadie took the camera home last night. Is she up yet?”

“No, but I can go wake her. Do you want her to come to work early?”

School had ended last week, and Sadie was working for her full-time during the summer. She wouldn’t want to be left out for the sake of sleep. “Yeah, tell her I’ll come pick her up in fifteen minutes.”

“She’ll be ready.”

S
adie was crying as she ran down the Hanover House steps and opened the car door.

“What happened to Emily?” she asked as she got in. “I just saw her a few days ago at school.”

“I don’t know yet, honey. Was she a good friend of yours?”

Sadie’s face twisted as she struggled to hold back her tears. “Not a good friend. But I like her. She’s one of the good ones.”

Blair knew Sadie didn’t relate well to most of her classmates. She had come to Cape Refuge as a sixteen-year-old ninth grade dropout, and when she went back to school, she was two years older than those in her class. As an eighteen-year-old junior, her background made her the subject of ridicule, but Blair knew that the cruelty of some of the girls at school was due to jealousy. Sadie’s fine blonde hair and big blue eyes were the stuff of beauty pageant queens. But such things didn’t interest the girl. She
spent her free time working for Blair as a reporter and photographer. Despite her age, she was already a gifted journalist.

Over the last year, since Blair had hired Sadie to work for her, the girl had turned into a more self-assured young woman, one who wasn’t that concerned about her classmates’ approval. Strangely, as she put less emotional emphasis on her acceptance at school, she began to make more friends.

Sadie wiped her eyes. “What did Cade say about it?”

“I haven’t talked to him yet. He’s at the Lawrence house. That’s where we’re going now.”

“The Lawrence house.” Sadie repeated the words with great thought. “Are you sure we should? I mean, it seems like a violation, the press showing up when they’ve just found out.”

“We won’t intrude, Sadie, I promise. We won’t be the only press there, guaranteed. I just want to get the facts down. Be there for any statement the police give. We’re a vehicle for helping find the killer, and we’re responsible to get the news out to our readers.”

Sadie drew in a long, deep breath. “You’re right. I was just thinking of her parents … What they’re going through …” Her voice squeaked, and the words fell off.

“I’m thinking of them, too, honey. Trust me, okay?”

J
ust as Blair predicted, a television news van sat parked in front of the Lawrence house. Several people stood clustered in the yard, members of the Savannah media, waiting to get a statement. Blair saw Cade’s truck in the driveway, next to a Tybee Island squad car.

Sadie had stopped crying, but her face was tight. She peered up at the front door as if imagining what was going on inside.

Thank heaven Cade was the one talking to the family. He’d notified Blair when her parents were killed. He had a gentle touch, and if any comfort could be given, she knew he was the one to give it.

Her heart swelled with love for him, and she whispered a silent prayer that God would grace him with all the strength he needed. She wished she could go in and hold his hand as he did
this, comfort him when being strong began to take its toll. They’d grown so close over the last year that she felt his burdens as keenly as her own, and she wanted to help shoulder them.

As if her very thoughts summoned him, the front door opened, and Cade stepped out. The press members descended on him with microphones and shouted questions, but Blair hung back. She would get the story soon enough.

“Chief Cade, did the family have any ideas who might have killed their daughter?”

“How did her parents take it?”

“Were they aware that she was missing?”

He came down from the porch and stepped across the yard before speaking. “The Tybee Police are working with the state on this case,” he said as he walked. “They’re inside now. They’ll make a statement soon.” Cade met Blair’s eyes and jerked his head toward his truck.

Blair handed Sadie her keys. “I’m going to ride with him and get the story. Can you stay in case the police make a statement, then drive my car back to the office?”

“Sure.”

Blair hesitated. “Sadie, are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Go ahead. This is important.”

Cade was getting into his truck, and Blair slipped in on the passenger’s side. “They’re going to claim favoritism,” she said.

“Let them.” He looked out the rear window and began to back out of the drive. His face was tight, and the corners of his mouth trembled.

“Cade, are you all right?”

He ignored the question. “Marie fell apart, started screaming that it wasn’t true, that it couldn’t be her daughter. Alan couldn’t help her. He was crying like a baby.” Tears glistened at the rims of his eyes. “I remember when Emily was three. At the Easter egg hunt at your house. Your dad hired Jonathan and me to help hide the eggs, and I was trying to help her find some. She was such a cute little kid.”

“Oh, Cade.” She took his hand, and he squeezed hers, but didn’t look at her as he drove.

“I think Marie’s going to have to be sedated. I called Doc Spencer, asked him to come over. He’s their family doctor, so he should be able to help.”

“I’m sure Morgan and her comfort brigade will be over soon. Cade, what happened? How was she found?”

He took a turn that put them at the newspaper office and pulled into the parking lot. Shutting off the engine, he sat there for a moment and told her what he could. He gave the facts in fits and starts, struggling to control the emotion in his voice and on his face.

She reached across the seat and pulled him into a hug. “I can’t imagine being a father and getting news like that.”

“Neither can I.”

He held her for several moments, clinging to her as if she kept him from sinking into the depths of despair, drowning in the sheer tragedy of it all. When he let her go, he drew in a deep breath. “I’d better get to the station. I have to brief the department.”

“You’ll be all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

She gazed up at him, wishing he would let go and cry instead of struggling so hard to hold it back. She knew his heart was breaking.

He touched her face and kissed her gently. “Thanks for being here. You want me to take you back to the Lawrences’?”

“No, that’s okay. I’ll wait here for Sadie.” She got out of the truck, walked around to his open window.

He was staring vacantly through the windshield. “They’re good people, the Lawrences. Strong Christians, active in their church. And they love their children. I’ll never get used to horrible things like this happening to people who don’t deserve it.”

“Neither will I.” She leaned in through his window. “But I remember what you said to me after my parents were killed, when I thought of God as some divine terrorist who used homicidal maniacs to carry out His will. You said God is a loving father,
with purposes we can’t understand. You said we may never see the purpose in their deaths, but that we can be sure God has one.”

Cade looked into her eyes and brushed her hair back. “I still believe that, but I needed to be reminded.” He kissed her again. “You’re good for me, you know that?”

“Of course I know. I’ve been trying to tell you that for the last year.” She stroked his unshaven jaw, and he took her hand and kissed her knuckles.

“I knew it long before that.”

Smiling softly, she stepped back, and he put his truck in gear.

“I’ll call you later.”

Her smile lingered as she watched him drive away.

S
adie stood among the reporters in the Lawrences’ yard, waiting for one of the state’s detectives to come out and make a statement. Neighbors came out to see what they could see, and a few of them approached the door and knocked, probably hoping to offer their help, but the family never answered.

A carload of teenagers pulled up behind one of the TV vans, and as they piled out, Sadie turned away. They were all her classmates—two cheerleaders and a quarterback-in-training.

“Sadie!”

She turned back to them, surprised they even knew her name, when they had always ignored her before. They cut across the lawn toward her.

“Sadie, is it true about Emily?” April Manning addressed her as if they talked every day.

“I only know what’s being reported.”

“But you work for the paper, right?” Courtney Gray flipped her three-tone hair back. “You would know.”

“I’m waiting for a statement. The police are still inside.”

“The radio said she was found in a boat. Was she, like, shot or something?”

Sadie fought the irritation rising inside her. Couldn’t these people hear? “I told you, I really don’t know.”

Steve spoke up. “She seemed straitlaced, but there are rumors that she may have had a drug problem.”

A drug problem? Sadie knew that wasn’t true. “Emily was a Christian. She didn’t do drugs.”

“You never know,” April said. “People aren’t always the way they seem at school.”

Steve nudged her. “You ought to know.”

The girl grunted.

Sadie didn’t have the energy to deal with their rumors and speculation. “I have to … change my film.” She left them standing there, working out the inane details of Emily’s life and death, and got into Blair’s car. She could sit here until the police came out to make a statement. It was better than standing in the yard like one of the grief groupies.

She leaned her head back on the seat and wished she had more charitable thoughts toward them, but the snubbings she’d gotten from these very people since she’d started attending Cape Refuge High still stung. The snubs had subsided over the last several months—either that, or she had stopped noticing them—and she didn’t feel self-conscious when she walked down the halls anymore. She had more important things to worry about—like her mother and her job.