Cold Touch (31 page)

Nothin’ too fancy—a good boy didn’t need much more than a fishing pole to

entertain himself, not that there was any water near the camper. But someday

he might take Jackie out to hook a catfish or two. So a rod and reel would be

good. And maybe a basebal bat, a nice, heavy wooden one, the kind that stil

cracked when it connected with the sweet spot, not those pussy aluminum

ones that didn’t do much more than
tink
.

He’d like that, a fishing pole and a basebal bat. What boy wouldn’t want

those things for his tenth birthday?

Twelfth. He’s gonna be twelve
.

No, that wasn’t right. A man oughta know how old his own son was, oughtn’t

he?

Confused, he put down his knife, which he’d been using to scrape the dirt

and damp grass out of the soles of his work boots, and cal ed, “Jackie-boy?

You excited about your birthday this week?”

The boy, who’d been washing some clothes with jugs of water in a big

washtub outside the camper, lifted his head and pushed his floppy hair off his

face with a sudsy hand. “It is?”

“Course it is!” he snapped. “You stupid or somethin’?”

The boy swal owed, hard. “Uh, I don’t know what month it is; we ain’t got no

calendar.”

Johnny got mad at himself. The boy hadn’t been saying he forgot his own

birthday; he just didn’t know the date. Hel , in Georgia, al summer months

were so damn hot, who could be expected to know June from August?

“Today’s August fourteenth. And your birthday’s the sixteenth. That’s only two

days away.”

The boy remained silent, watching, wide-eyed.

“How old you gonna be again?” Johnny asked, reaching up to scratch

behind his ear with the handle of the knife.

“Wel , I guess if my birthday’s this week, I’m gonna be twelve, sir. Last year,

on my birthday, you gave me eleven whole dol ars ’cause I was eleven.”

That was right. How had he forgotten that? Or, had he not forgotten? Maybe

Jack was trickin’ him.

It’s true. I told you. Twelve. The bad year. The dirty, lying, cheating year
.

Johnny stared hard at his son. “You sure?”

Jack nodded quickly, then ducked back to finish the wash, which, for some

reason, irritated him badly. Why did the boy have to be so squirrel y? So

timid? Johnny rarely hit him; it wasn’t like he had it so tough.

His anger grew. Here he’d been thinking about doin’ something nice for the

boy for his birthday, and this was how he was repaid?

“Little whiny bastard,” he muttered under his breath.

“Huh?”

“Shut up. I wasn’t talkin’ to you,” he snapped. Then, for good measure, he

flung the knife from his hand. It spun through the air—Johnny had always been

good at knife throwing—and plunged into the dirt a few feet from the boy,

blade down.

Jack shrieked with fear, and he jerked so hard, he fel back into the wash

water with a loud
ker-splash
. It was quite a comical sight. The boy looked like

a drowned pup, dirty, gray soap bubbles dripping down his chin and his

clothes al sopping wet.

Johnny couldn’t help it. He slapped his hand on his knee and proceeded to

laugh until he was fit to bust. Jack, who’d been terrified a minute ago and who

now looked on the verge of tears, final y smiled weakly. Then a little more, until

at last he laughed, too.

A man and his boy laughin’ together in the sunshine, was there anything

better? In Johnny Traynor’s opinion, it was moments like these that made bein’

a father just about the most beautiful thing in the world.

“Now, son,” he said, once the hilarity was done, “what should we do for your

birthday?”

So far, the joint task force of two Savannah detectives, plus the owner and three agents from eXtreme Investigations, seemed

to be going pretty wel . Sitting around the large conference room table, Olivia had to take a moment to be thankful for the

presence of every other person in the room. They were here for her. She knew that.

Oh, sure, Gabe and his partner were doing their job. But they were here, in this office, working with her and Julia, and Mick

and Derek, because they had faith in her and believed what she’d had to say. Or at least believed it enough to do some further

investigating.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew it had been a big stretch for Gabe to accept what she’d told him about what had happened

down in the parking garage. It had been an even bigger shock for his partner. Yet both of them had set aside their own skepticism and attacked the case as if the information she’d provided had come from a live witness rather than a dead one.

Probably the most shocking thing about this meeting, for Olivia, anyway, was when Gabe had final y shared
everything
he

knew with her and with everyone else.

For a second, when he’d told them about the visit from that grieving mother, Sue-Ann Bowles, Olivia had felt a flare of anger

rise within her. Gabe had kept this from her, not saying one damn thing about the possibility of there being another boy at risk

right now.

But her anger hadn’t lasted for long. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to understand that trust didn’t come easy for him. He was

opening up, little by little, but he was a long way from the kind of man who would put forth conjecture and theory in place of

cold, hard facts.

She respected him for that.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t stil reeling from his revelation. Olivia stil couldn’t quite believe it. That psychopath hadn’t kil ed

only Jack; he might have gone on to kil two other boys?
With another one out there, perhaps with only weeks or days to

live?

The idea revolted her, and she was sure of only one thing: No matter what happened, no matter what this ragtag group

managed to uncover together, Olivia would not give up until that monster was caught and every little boy was safe from his

brutal hands.

“So, that’s it, then? We’ve gone over al the details and everyone has the game plan?” asked Julia, leaning back in her chair.

She was sitting on the opposite side of the table, having offered the head position to Gabe, subtly reminding everyone in the

room who was in charge. Julia might be a bul dozer, but she did have some tact.

“I think so,” said Gabe. He glanced at his partner. “Ty’s going to take Mick over to the evidence graveyard and try to dig out

whatever’s left from Olivia’s kidnapping case.”

“After that,” Ty said, “I’m going back to the station to weed out these missing kids cases a little more. Looking for a boy with

the first name Zachary.”

“Plus a deceased mother,” Olivia said.

Ty, who she was real y starting to like, if only for the great smile and the cute way he kept trying to slip Southern expressions

into his decidedly non-Southern vocabulary, nodded. “I tel you, I think we might be able to get somewhere now.”

She would bet he’d rather go back to the precinct and get to work on that list immediately rather than escort Mick to the

evidence lockup. Then again, considering how fascinated he’d looked by Mick’s teacup performance, maybe not.

Gabe turned his attention toward Derek, who was, as usual, sitting a little apart from the group, over by the window. Though

a good guy, Derek was a bit of a lone wolf. He definitely looked the part, right down to the faded jeans, the tight black T-shirt,

the engineer boots and the chain looping from his belt to his back pocket. With the clothes, the motorcycle, his longish hair

and unshaven face, he looked more like the kind of guy the police would be investigating rather than one who’d be helping

with an investigation. His attitude usual y didn’t help matters, either.

Surprisingly, though, he’d been pretty receptive to this whole working-together idea. Normal y, Derek didn’t play wel with

others. Olivia had never had any problems with him, except for the fact that he was a little irritable on occasion, but he and

Julia had gone toe-to-toe a few times. And she knew Mick’s sense of humor sometimes grated on his nerves. Despite that,

they al stil respected one another, which was why he stayed.

That was a good thing; Derek was incredibly gifted.

“Julia and Derek are going out to the site of the old barn where Liv was held to see if there’s anything left to find,” Gabe

said, “and to do whatever else it is they’re going to do.”

Olivia knew what they were going to do. Derek—dark, dangerous-looking Derek—had a good eye. A real y good one. In

fact, it was so good, he was able to see the imprint a violent death left on the world. Not cognizant ghosts, like the one Julia

saw.
Or the one I spoke with?
These were more like photocopies: It wasn’t real; it was Memorex.

If anybody else had been kil ed around that barn, Derek would see an imprint of it. Not who did it—he only saw the victims.

Stil , the knowledge of exactly where and how somebody had died could be very important. He’d give the information to Julia,

and she would give it to Morgan, who would leave for a while, then come back with some useful tidbits. Like whether the

person who’d died was stil “lurking around” somewhere, or if he or she was beyond his reach.

For the first time, she wondered where Morgan got those tidbits and where those spirits lurked. Did he go to the station

Zachary had mentioned? And what was it, some kind of railroad depot between this world and the hereafter?

Sometimes she wished she had been left with some memories of what had happened during the two minutes and ten

seconds she’d been dead. Had she gone to that station? Been unable to afford the fare? Missed her train? What?

“And Olivia and I,” Gabe said, looking her in the eye as if he realized she’d been drifting, “wil go over the names Agent

Ames e-mailed me, find out what those people are up to now and see if we can come up with another possible suspect.”

“I’l do my best,” she told him, though she knew her parents should probably be the ones to help him with that list. She might

remember some of the names, but she wouldn’t recal them al . But she stil didn’t want her parents to know any of this was

happening, not until it was absolutely necessary. Bad enough that Brooke had gotten sucked into this.

Olivia had promised to cal her sister this morning to let Brooke know what was happening. As much as she hated to admit

it, Olivia figured Brooke might be able to help. “Brooke was pretty young, but she was at the house during the days I was

missing. She might recognize some of the names I don’t.”

“Want me to go pick her up?” asked Ty, with a quick, suggestive lift of his eyebrows.

Interesting. It appeared the handsome detective had a mild crush on her baby sister. She only wondered whether Brooke

had noticed and what she thought of it. Considering Brooke was engaged, she probably wasn’t interested. But considering

she was engaged to a jackass . . . Olivia couldn’t help hoping maybe she was.

“You need to go with Mick,” Gabe told his partner, rising to his feet.

Everyone else fol owed suit, exchanging phone numbers and other information, then leaving two by two. Meanwhile, Olivia

made a quick cal to her sister, who promised to come in immediately, sounding excited at being involved. Olivia only hoped

that excitement didn’t get Brooke into any kind of trouble—with her fiancé or anyone else.

Soon, Olivia and Gabe were alone in the silent conference room, alone for the first time since last night. He stood at the

head of the table, a few feet away, busy reading over some paperwork, and she took a long moment to stare at him: the

masculine profile, the perfect mouth, the strong, slightly stubbled jaw.

Memories of how it had felt to taste him, to touch him, washed over her. Her fingers tingled as she remembered touching

that flat stomach, rippling with muscle. Oh, had she wanted to keep touching him. Al over.

A sensation that was part awkwardness and part anticipation slipped through her. She’d been wondering since last night if

he’d kissed her back strictly because he felt sorry for her and because she’d practical y leapt on top of him. God, she hoped

not. She didn’t know what she would do if she found out this intense attraction was strictly one-sided.

There was one way to find out, she supposed. “So, about what happened yesterday . . .”

“At the coroner’s office?” he asked, immediately frowning.

“No, uh, afterward. In my room.”

Unfortunately, his frown didn’t ease up by much. “Yeah,” he said, not meeting her eye, “I’m sorry about that.”

“I’m not,” she said with a simple shrug.

He turned slightly away from her, busying himself with the files, opening them and spreading some lists out on the table.

“Hel o? Did you just drop out of this conversation?”

“I didn’t know we were having one.”

She walked around the table and pushed a chair out of the way so she could stand toe-to-toe with him. “Wel , we are. I’d like

to know what you’re thinking.”

He thrust his hand through his hair as if frustrated, then asked, “You want the truth?”

“I would prefer it, yes.”

“Okay, truth. I think we should forget it ever happened. Last night was great. I loved hanging out with you, getting to know

you. But what happened in your room . . .”

“So you’l be my friend, you just don’t want to kiss me.”

He blew out a hard breath. “Kissing you—that was a mistake.”

Olivia paused, letting herself process that, not reacting immediately. Ghosts in parking garages notwithstanding, she was a