Closer Than You Think (14 page)

Eastern Kentucky, Monday 3 November, 7.45
P.M.

Corinne woke with a gasp, her body aching, her head pounding. Yet numb. Fuzzy. Again.

He’d drugged her. Again. She remembered now. He’d done it himself this time, not sending the young girl in to do his dirty work. He’d been in a hurry, so frantic that she’d hoped they were about to be found.

It was still dark.
Still blindfolded
. Her hands were bound, this time behind her back. She gave a tentative tug, stifling a cry when her wrists burned like fire. He’d tied her with rope so tightly that she’d never get free.

No. You will not panic.
She drew a deep breath through her nose, trying to calm her racing heart.
Oh no. Oh God.

The odor was all too familiar. Blood. Sweat. Death.
Ari.
The memory of her friend’s screams echoed in her head.
Oh God, please don’t let it be Arianna.

The floor bumped up and she gritted her teeth for the inevitable landing. She was in a vehicle. A moving vehicle. Not a truck. Probably a van. She was being taken away.

She bit her tongue to keep from whimpering.
Someone
was driving the vehicle. If whoever that was thought she was still out cold, her chances were better.
Better than what?

Better than dead
, she told herself sternly and made herself remember the voice of her boot camp instructor.
Pull yourself together, soldier. Figure this out.
She could do this. She had to.

First thing – she needed to see. The blindfold was . . . She lengthened her jaw, feeling the skin around her eyes go taut. Duct tape.
Just wonderful
.

She needed something rigid to scrape against the edge of the tape. She turned her head, smooth cold metal against her cheek. That wouldn’t help at all.

She rolled her head the other way, hit something hard. It moved a fraction of an inch. Rocked actually, pressing back on her face even as she placed the sensation, the odor.

A boot. And from the weight, a large one. A man’s boot. Was he a prisoner too? Was he even alive?
What if it’s his blood I smell?
Bile burned her throat
. What if he’s dead?

Worse, what if he was a guard and conscious?
He’ll know I’m awake. And if I’m still blindfolded and bound when this van stops, I’ll be at the driver’s mercy
.

She had to take the risk. ‘Hello?’ she whispered. Nada. Nothing. Drugged or dead.

She bit back a curse.
Stay calm. Figure this out
. She brushed her cheek across the boot and breathed a sigh of relief. It was a lace-up boot. There’d be ridges around the laces.

She prayed they’d be rigid and sharp enough to give her a hard edge. Using her body to rock her head, she scraped the tape across the boot. It might work. It had to.

Mt Carmel, Ohio, Monday 3 November, 8.30
P.M.

Without her cell phone, Faith had no idea how long Novak and Kimble had been inside the house. But it seemed like too long for them to have found nothing.

That the obnoxious Detective Kimble hadn’t been able to make her key fit gave her comfort. At least she wasn’t crazy. Somehow the events of the evening before seemed wavy in her mind. Like when she woke from a dream and wasn’t sure if she was still in the dream or in real life.

She’d walked around the house. Had seen no one. Had heard no one. Except . . . 
Oh no.

She closed her eyes, suddenly ill again. She’d heard a scream. She’d told herself it was a dog howling. Or all in her mind. But it had been real.

‘Oh God,’ she whispered. It had been Arianna Escobar, crying out for help. Screaming in pain. Faith remembered every one of the girl’s wounds clearly. She’d been tortured.

And I walked away
.

She pressed down her horror.
Novak needs to know.
She started to get out of the SUV, then remembered his ‘not a request’. He seemed to be her ally at the moment. She didn’t want to piss him off too. She kept the door open, but remained in her seat.

A few minutes later, the front door of the house opened and Novak and Kimble headed straight for her. Faith’s heart sank when she looked at their faces. Grim. Angry. Frustrated. She got out of the SUV, biting back a wince when her feet protested.

‘Did you find her?’ she asked before they could say anything. ‘The other girl?’

‘No,’ Novak said. But he’d found something else. She could see it in his face. ‘We need to ask you some more questions about this house.’

‘Okay,’ she said, ‘but first I need to tell you something. When I was here yesterday, I heard something. I think it was a scream.’

Novak frowned. ‘Why didn’t you mention this before?’

‘I didn’t think of it until you were in the house and I’d started to calm down. And because, at the time, I’d convinced myself I hadn’t really heard it.’

Kimble stepped closer, hemming her in. ‘What did you hear, exactly?’

She leaned back, putting space between them. ‘I’m not sure. It was getting dark and it was just a soft sound. I told myself it was a dog or maybe a coyote howling. Or that I had simply imagined it.’ She searched the men’s faces. ‘But I didn’t, did I?’

‘No,’ Novak said quietly. ‘I don’t think you did.’

She slumped into the SUV’s seat. ‘Arianna was in there. I walked away. I left her there.’

Novak’s grim expression softened a fraction. ‘Did you know she was in there, Faith?’

‘No! I would have called the police, just like I did when I found her on the road.’

‘Then you couldn’t have helped her. But you can help her now by showing me where you were when you heard it.’

‘Of course.’ She accepted the hand he offered to help her to her feet, wincing when her soles prickled like pins and needles. ‘What did you find in the house?’

‘We’ll get to that,’ he said. ‘Adam, did Tanaka’s tech find any shoes in the Jeep?’

Kimble glanced at Faith’s feet, confused. ‘I don’t think so. What happened to her shoes?’

‘She lost them climbing the embankment to get to the girl.’

Kimble’s eyes shot up to hers, now narrowed. ‘You climbed that hill in your bare feet?’

‘Yes,’ she said simply. ‘My sneakers were in a gym bag.’

Kimble nodded thoughtfully. ‘That they found. Wait a minute.’ He opened the trunk of his sedan and rummaged around. When he returned, he was holding her sneakers.

Novak dropped into a crouch, sweeping his coat out of the way with a flourish that seemed more of a reflex, then stunned Faith by lifting her foot and slipping on the shoe.

‘You don’t have to do that,’ she protested.

Novak didn’t respond. He tied the laces and did the same with the other foot with a gentleness that surprised her. ‘Can you walk on your own?’

She wanted to say no, wanted to lean on him. But his compassion might be part of his good-cop persona, and that she wanted no part of. ‘I think so.’

‘Then take us through what happened yesterday, from the moment you arrived.’

She started to walk. ‘I parked where your SUV is now, got out of my car, went to the front door. My key didn’t work. I almost left then, but I needed to see the cemetery.’

‘Why?’ Novak asked.

‘Because I’d promised my father I’d send him a photo.’

‘Of a cemetery?’ Kimble asked, incredulous.

‘My mother is buried here. My father used to come on the day of her death every few years, but he had a stroke a year ago and can’t travel anymore.’

‘When did your mother die?’ Novak asked.

‘Twenty-three years ago,’ she said, managing to sound neutral. She hoped.

‘Oh.’ Novak packed a lot of understanding into the single syllable. ‘So you were here the day she died, you attended her burial, then you never came back? Not until yesterday?’

‘Yes.’ They reached the cemetery fence. ‘I tried to get in yesterday,’ she said, ‘but the gate was padlocked and I didn’t have a key. My grandmother’s attorney didn’t have it either. The local historical society cares for the area around the cemetery. They probably locked it.’

‘Okay, so where were you when you heard the scream?’ Novak asked.

She led them to where she’d been standing. ‘Right here. That’s my mother’s grave.’

Novak shined his flashlight on Margaret’s headstone, then flicked the beam over the others, stopping at the stone identical to her mother’s. ‘Barbara Agnes Corcoran O’Bannion. You took your grandmother’s maiden name?’

‘My maiden name would make me too easy to find. Not that it matters now.’

Novak moved his light to the other side of the headstone and made a surprised noise. ‘Your grandfather died only two days before your mother.’

‘We’d come up for his funeral, me and Dad and my mother. Dad and I went home alone.’

‘What happened?’ Novak asked.

‘Car accident,’ she said tersely.

‘You didn’t live here?’ Kimble asked.

‘No. We lived in Savannah. After my grandfather died, nobody lived here. Gran moved to the city because she didn’t walk well and couldn’t live out here in the country by herself.’

‘What time did you hear the scream?’ Novak asked.

‘About five thirty. The sun was starting to go down.’

‘When did you arrive?’ Kimble asked.

‘Maybe twenty minutes earlier. I sat outside for a while, trying to make myself go in.’

Novak glanced at her curiously. ‘Why?’

‘Because . . . I don’t have the best memories of this house.’

‘And yet you came here when you needed to disappear,’ he noted.

She felt like he’d figured something out that she’d wanted to keep secret. ‘Yes.’

‘Okay,’ Novak said. ‘When did you leave Miami?’

‘Saturday, a little after noon. I stopped for the night in Atlanta, then came straight here.’

‘Did anyone know you were coming?’

‘Only my father and stepmother knew I was coming here. I suppose anyone who saw me packing up the Jeep knew I was going somewhere, but I didn’t tell anyone else.’

‘Not even your grandmother’s attorney?’

‘He didn’t know I was in town until I called him today to ask for the key. Why?’

Kimble jumped in. ‘We’ll get to that. What did you do after you heard the scream?’

‘I texted a picture of my mother’s headstone to my dad because he’d asked me to. Then I left, went to Wal-Mart, checked in to my hotel, unloaded my Jeep, and went to bed.’

‘And today?’ Novak asked.

‘I went to work downtown. At Huntington Bank.’

Both men looked surprised, but it was Kimble who spoke. ‘You’re a psychologist who treats sex offenders,’ he said, his contempt clear. ‘Why are you working in a bank?’

She stifled a weary sigh. ‘I’d appreciate it if you could confine your questions to this case. And then let me go on my way.’ She lifted her bandaged hands. ‘I still need to get to the ER.’

Novak’s odd eyes flickered with what seemed like genuine distress. Or maybe she just wanted it to be genuine. He played the good cop so very well. ‘We’ll make this as brief as possible,’ he said. ‘While at work you called your grandmother’s attorney, the power company, the locksmith and various other service people. Did you have contact with anyone else?’

‘Co-workers, yes. But about the house, no.’

‘Does anyone else have access to the house?’ Kimble pressed.

‘Not that I know of. Neither of my uncles wanted it. Not to live in, anyway.’ She blew out a breath. ‘Uncle Jordan needs to know what’s happening here. Whatever “this” is.’

‘Wait.’ Kimble held up his hand. ‘You have uncles?’

‘Yes, two of them. Twins, actually. Jordan and Jeremy.’

‘Do they live here? In Mount Carmel?’ Novak asked.

‘Oh no.’ The very thought was downright ludicrous. ‘Jordan lives in a townhouse in Mount Adams. I don’t think he’s been out here since he moved my grandmother in with him, except for the day she was buried. Jeremy lives on an estate in Indian Hill.’ Less than fifteen miles from her grandmother, yet he’d never once come to make things right.

Kimble’s brows rose. ‘They’re your mother’s brothers and they didn’t inherit the house?’

‘No, my grandmother left the house in Mount Adams to Uncle Jordan. She left the house and the property out here to me.’

‘Nothing to Uncle Jeremy?’ Kimble asked.

‘No,’ she said, suppressing a grimace. ‘Jeremy and my grandmother were never on the best of terms. Not in my memory anyway. They’ve been estranged since my grandfather died.’

‘Why?’ Novak asked curiously.

Faith hesitated. ‘My grandmother didn’t approve of Jeremy’s sexual preferences.’

Novak tilted his head. ‘That can mean a whole lot of things.’

‘In this case it means he’s gay.’ Not a lie, but not the whole truth. Her uncle was bisexual, preferring his partners to be youthful. And pretty.

So pretty
was what he’d said to her, looking at her, touching her in ways that had made her uncomfortable even then. A thought inserted itself into her mind, one that made her sick to even consider. Jeremy had had access to the house at one time. He could have easily changed the locks. Could he have done this – kidnapped and tortured Arianna and her friend?

Instantly she rejected the idea. It simply didn’t make any sense. She realized that she’d dropped her eyes to her feet. When she looked up, she saw that both men had picked up on her distress. Kimble was coldly assessing, but Novak’s eyes flashed fury.

‘What?’ Novak demanded.

Faith shook her head. ‘Nothing. I’m sure it was nothing.’ But she heard the doubt in her own voice. Novak heard it, too.

‘What did he do to you?’ Novak’s tone was so close to a growl that Faith took a step back.

‘Nothing,’ she insisted. ‘That’s the truth. He’d say I was pretty. Would touch my hair. He was . . . a little creepy,’ she allowed, ‘and my father never trusted him. Dad made my mother promise to never leave me alone with him. My mother thought he was being silly, but she did promise him.’