Doom with a View (11 page)

I looked at her and felt a wave of sadness for what I now knew I had to tell her. “Terry,” I said gently, “I believe that your daughter is somewhere close by that cabin,” and I remembered what I’d told Gaston, about Bianca’s body being near water.

Terry began to cry again and this time her sobs were all-consuming. Jessica wrapped her arms around Terry and tried to comfort her, even as her own tears fell. The awful atmosphere of the room was broken when a male voice demanded, “What’s going on here?”

Jessica glanced up at a man standing in the doorway looking around at all of us in alarm. “Oh, Jeremy!” she said desperately, and the rest of her sentence was caught in her throat.

Mr. Lovelace crossed the room quickly, his face stark and pale. Addressing Harrison, he said, “You’ve found my daughter?”

Harrison’s face held that same stony look. “Not yet,” he said before shooting daggers with his eyes at me and Candice.

Candice stood quickly and took control of the situation. “Mr. Lovelace,” she said calmly as she extended her hand. “My name is Candice Fusco. I’m a licensed private investigator and this is my associate, Abigail Cooper. I know Jessica from a few years back, and when I heard that her stepdaughter had gone missing, I knew I had to try and assist in any way I could. Abby and I believe strongly that your daughter may be somewhere in the vicinity of your ex-wife’s cabin, at Burt Lake.”

“Alive?” he asked, his voice filled with tension.

Candice’s lips thinned as she shrugged her shoulders once. “I don’t know, Mr. Lovelace, but until we search the property, we won’t be sure of our hunches.”

Jeremy looked again at the keening form of his ex-wife. “Why is she so upset?” he asked a little more gently, and I noticed that the question was largely directed at Jessica.

“Do you remember that psychic I told you about years ago, honey? The one that predicted all those things that came true for me?”

Jeremy looked at her in confusion. “Yes,” he said, again looking down at Terry.

Jessica pointed to me. “Abby is that psychic. And she’s just made contact with Bianca.”

Jeremy shook his head, and I knew he wasn’t grasping what that meant. “Mr. Lovelace,” I said to him, still feeling Bianca on the edge of my energy. When he looked at me, I said, “Bianca’s spirit contacted me.”

I didn’t know how Mr. Lovelace was going to react, but I certainly didn’t expect him to start laughing. Color flooded his face and he looked at his new wife in relief. “Oh, my God, Jessica! You had me scared to death! I thought you’d heard about some hard evidence or something.”

I would have let it go, I swear I would have, but Bianca began shouting in my mind and what I thought I heard was,
Say “chuckles”!
Without thinking, I repeated what was booming around inside my head, “Say ‘chuckles’ . . . chuckles, chuckles, chuckles.”

Jeremy immediately became serious. With large round eyes he looked at me and gasped, “
What
did you just say?”

I backed up a little on the couch, uncomfortable with his intense stare and Bianca still repeating over and over the word “chuckles.” “It’s not me,” I said weakly. “It’s your daughter. She’s yelling at me to say the word ‘chuckles,’ and I don’t know why, but she keeps pointing to you, then to herself, and I can’t figure out whether she’s talking about how you just started laughing or something else.” When Jeremy continued to stare at me in disbelief, I added, “I don’t think she’s talking about you, though. I think she’s talking about Chuckles as a
name
. Like maybe someone’s favorite pet was named Chuckles or something.”

Jeremy staggered to a chair and sat down heavily. Looking at Terry, who had regained a tiny bit of her composure, he whispered, “Did
you
tell her to say that to me?”

Terry shook her head and I could tell she didn’t know what he was talking about. “Don’t you remember, Terry? The nickname I gave her when she was ten and we took her to Sea World. She was laughing the whole time we were there, having a blast, and I started calling her Chuckles. Every e-mail, letter, or card I ever got from her after that, she’d sign it, ‘Love, your devoted daughter, Chuckles.’ ”

The room was silent for several long moments save for the occasional sniff from Terry. Her ex-husband sat dumbfounded in his chair, and my heart went out to him, but I wanted to wait and let him absorb the truth about what I was telling him. Finally, with moist eyes he glanced at me and asked, “What else does she say?”

The answer came immediately. “She says she’s happy you’ve quit smoking and that you’ve taken up jogging again.”

Jeremy blinked and he looked to Jessica, who gave him a small, sad smile. “It really is her,” she said to him. “You even told me last week when we were talking about how much we missed her that you just wished you could see her to tell her that you’d finally kept your promise and that you’d quit the cigarettes.”

“She knows,” I said to them. “And she’s relieved.”

“Can you tell her I love her?” Jeremy said, his voice ragged and pained.

I swallowed hard again even as my own eyes misted. “She knows that too,” I assured him gently. And then I felt Bianca fade away from me, like a tide from the beach. “She’s gone,” I announced.

The room fell silent and somber again. Jeremy finally got to his feet and walked over to his ex-wife. Lifting her up off the couch, he gave her a tremendous hug and she wept into his shoulder. Then, he backed away from her and held his hand out to his new wife, and she got up to stand next to him. Turning to Harrison, he said, “How soon can you get a team up to the lake to search the cabin?”

Harrison appeared taken aback, but as he looked around the room, I knew he wasn’t going to protest the request in the face of so much support for our side. “Give me the address and I’ll make a call,” he said, getting up. Terry gave it to him and he jotted it into a small notebook before excusing himself and stepping outside.

Candice and I also got to our feet and expressed our condolences to the family. “I’m so sorry,” I said to first Jessica, then Terry, and finally Jeremy.

He surprised me again by reaching out to shake my hand at first, and then he pulled me into a tight hug. Whispering into my ear, he begged, “If she comes back to you again, please tell her that I will never stop until I’ve found the person responsible.”

I nodded against his shoulder and he let me go. Overcome now by his emotions, he excused himself and left the room. Candice said to Jessica, “I think we should give you all some privacy.”

“You don’t have to leave,” Jessica protested, but I could tell she desperately wanted to go comfort her husband.

“Thank you, Jessica,” Candice said, grabbing her purse off the sofa. “But we really should be off. I’ll call you as soon as I know something, okay?”

We found Harrison on the phone, pacing next to his car. He didn’t look happy, but then he never looked happy, just occasionally smug. As we came abreast of him, he clicked off his phone and motioned to the car. “Get in,” he ordered.

We loaded up and he started the car again without waiting for either of us to finish buckling up. “Are we headed back home?” I asked into the tense silence.

“No.”

“Gee, Agent Harrison,” I said moodily, finally irritated enough to be brash, “you’re so forthcoming with details. I can hardly keep them all straight.”

Harrison’s jaw clenched and he shot me a smoldering look. “You say there’s a body at the lake? Fine, we’re going up there to find it.”

My mouth dropped. “That’s got to be a five-hour drive!”

“Four,” Harrison said, his mouth turning up at the corner.

I looked at the digital clock on the dashboard. It was noon. “Can we at least get something to eat?”

Harrison eyed me skeptically. “All that hocus-pocus whip up an appetite?”

“I could go for a burger,” Candice called from the backseat. “But I’d understand if you wanted to steer more toward something with a few less calories. You probably need to start watching the carbs, right? Especially after eating that heavy Italian meal the other night.”

I turned my head to hide a smile and the car fell silent again.

Harrison drove with his typical stoic glare, and I almost thought he was going to ignore the grumbling sounds coming from my stomach when he pulled into a lovely little restaurant called Clara’s on the River.

Candice and I both ordered burgers, fries, and Cokes, while Harrison got the Cobb salad. Candice made sure to smirk at him when our food arrived. He made sure to ignore her.

We were back on the road by twelve forty-five, and now that my tummy was full and I’d expended an awful lot of energy back at the Lovelaces’, I talked Candice into taking the front seat with Mr. Charming so that I could take a catnap in the back.

It seemed like I’d only let my head rest against the backseat for a few minutes when I was being gently shaken awake. “Are we there?” I asked groggily.

“No,” Candice said from her twisted position in the front seat. “We’re still about twenty minutes out. Harrison just got the call from the local PD in Cheboygan. They’ve discovered a body and they think it might be Bianca’s.”

“In the cabin?” I asked.

Candice shook her head. “In the boathouse.”

Chapter Five

Candice and I sat in the car for much of the time that we were at Terry’s cabin. Harrison was handling most of the dirty work and he didn’t seem very open to the idea of my partner and I getting in the way and making a nuisance of ourselves.

Soon after we arrived, one lone news reporter turned up and Harrison immediately cornered the poor woman and her cameraman. I had little doubt he told her nothing of substance and convinced her to leave the scene after her camera guy had taken a few clips of the coroner’s van.

After the reporter had gone and Harrison continued to direct the scene, time seemed to drag. With a yawn I wondered out loud to Candice why he’d insisted on taking us here in the first place and Candice said, “He never thought Bianca would actually be here.”

My brow furrowed. “Then why make the drive at all?”

Candice’s sly smile appeared again. “Because he thought that he could embarrass you by having the police comb the place over and find nothing, then arrive with you a few hours later and have you fall flat on your face when you couldn’t locate her body either.”

I sighed tiredly. It had been a long day. “You’d think he’d know better by now.”

Candice replied, “Maybe you don’t need a lot of common sense these days to join the FBI.”

Just then the whirring sound of a helicopter coming in low and fast reverberated across the metal of the car. Reflexively, Candice and I both peered up out the back window as the blinking lights of a chopper came into view. “Someone’s come to join the party,” she said over the noise.

Sure enough, in the field across from the cabin the chopper set down. When the blades had slowed, out hopped Bill Gaston, Jeremy Lovelace, and my boyfriend. “Dutch!” I exclaimed as I threw open the car door and rushed out to greet him.

Candice was right behind me and we met the men on the road next to the driveway. “Is it true?” Lovelace asked me at once. “Have they really found my daughter?” I noticed that he looked pale and shaken. Even though I’d prepared him earlier, this had to be unbelievably difficult for him.

I shook my head as I answered, “I don’t know, Mr. Lovelace. Candice and I only heard that they’ve discovered some human remains. I’m sure Agent Harrison will be able to fill you in on more of the details.”

Gaston, Lovelace, and Dutch all looked up over my shoulder. I turned to see Harrison waving them over. Lovelace quickly hurried toward him, but Gaston hesitated and squeezed my shoulder. “Jeremy told me what happened at the house.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t follow orders, sir.”

“You did great, Ms. Cooper. My friendship with Jeremy goes way back, and I know you brought him some measure of comfort this afternoon. I would like to thank you for what you said to him. I know that sometime later, after the shock of losing his daughter ebbs a bit, he’ll bear the loss a little less painfully because you convinced him she’s still nearby, in spirit.”

I nodded and ducked my chin, a little embarrassed. When Gaston left me for Harrison, I felt a strong arm snake around my middle. “Good work, Edgar,” Dutch whispered into my ear, using his favorite nickname for me (after Edgar Cayce), while he pulled me close.

“I wish it could have had a happier ending.” I sighed.

“It is what it is, Abs.”

I squeezed him tightly for a few seconds before realizing that his being here probably meant good news. “Have you been cleared by IA?” I asked, glancing up into his face.

“Not yet,” he groaned. “Hopefully another few days and this mess will be behind me and I can get back to my job.”

“How were you allowed to come along, then?” I asked, pointing to the helicopter.

“The same way you were,” he said with a grin. “We didn’t tell anyone important about it.”

“So what now?” I asked, turning to watch Harrison talk to Gaston and Lovelace.

Dutch motioned with his head in their direction. “We wait for my new boss to get finished briefing those two. Then we take you and Candice back home.”

“Thank God,” I said. “I’m beat.”

“Does that also mean we’re done with the case?” Candice asked, and I could tell she’d been reading Harrison’s body language as his eyes kept roving over to us.

Dutch sighed. “It might,” he admitted. “Gaston told me on the way over here that Harrison called on some big guns last night. People he knows personally in high places. The word on your involvement is starting to leak, and by continuing to have you two around, it could look really bad for the bureau if this thing goes south.”

“What does that mean exactly?” I asked. “How could it go south?”

“It means that if any other VIP’s kid is abducted and/or murdered, you two could be blamed for sending the FBI on a wild-goose chase and diverting the agents from the real clues.”