Love Inspired Suspense December 2013 Bundle: Christmas Cover-Up\Force of Nature\Yuletide Jeopardy\Wilderness Peril (16 page)

His father jerked as though Jordan had reached out and punched him. He turned on his heel and left the room.

“Give us some time.” His mother took a deep breath. “I have a feeling we're going to be talking a lot over the next several hours. Probably days.”

Jordan nodded. Maybe she was right. Seeing Katie right now wouldn't be good. They both needed to process what they'd just learned about their dead son.

He gave his mom another hug. “Call me if you need to. I'll check on you later.”

She nodded and Jordan headed for the front door, hoping Katie wasn't ready to kill him for making her wait so long.

FOURTEEN

K
atie was ready to kill the man. She was sore all over and had a headache that wouldn't quit. Thankfully he'd left the car running with the heat on, or she'd be freezing, too. It was only the fact that she was warm that kept her from biting his head off when he slipped into the driver's seat and gripped the steering wheel.

Then she got a glimpse of the pain on his face, and her anger melted like ice cream on a hot summer day. She reached over and placed a hand over his. “Are you going to be okay?”

In one move he pulled her into a hug, burying his face in her neck. Stunned, she sat there, then wrapped her arms around his shoulders. A shudder went through him. “That was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but I'll be all right. I just pray they will be, too.”

The need to comfort him swept over her and she just let him cling to her in spite of the physical pain his embrace caused her.

He shifted to place lips over hers. A light kiss at first, as though he was saying thank you. She felt his deep sorrow, the tightly leashed control on his grief—and his unspoken need for comfort. She kissed him back and let time stand still.

When he lifted his head, he sighed and closed his eyes. “Thank you for being here.”

Katie cleared her throat, trying to dislodge the lump of tears that had gathered. “Sure.”

“They're not ready to see you yet.”

“So you don't want me to go inside?”

“No. I think it's better if we let them digest everything I told them and try again another day.”

She swallowed hard. “All right.”

“Mom knew about Neil.” The words sounded forced, painful. Then they registered.

“She knew?”

He nodded. “And she kept it from my dad. He's not happy with her.”

“Oh, dear. I'm so sorry. Are they going to be all right?”

“I hope so.”

He cranked the car and backed out of the carport. Katie touched his arm and pointed at his mother, who was walking toward them. He stopped the car in the driveway. “She's got something.”

Jordan's mother approached the vehicle, carrying two cups with lids. Her smile was strained, but at least it was there. Jordan rolled the window down and she handed him the cups. “Hot apple cider.”

Jordan passed one to Katie. Stunned, she took it. “Thank you, Mrs. Gray.”

Jordan's mother bit her lip, then sighed. “You're welcome.” Then she leaned in and pressed a kiss to her son's forehead. “Please be careful.” She flicked a glance to Katie and once more offered a wobbly smile. “Goodbye.”

“Bye.”

Then she was back in the house and Katie was left staring at the front door. “Wow. Didn't expect that one.”

“Tell me about it,” Jordan murmured. But Katie could see the hope in his eyes and for the first time since Neil's death, she thought forgiveness might come from his parents.

Katie's phone rang as they pulled away from the house. She glanced at the number and did a double take. Her lieutenant. “This is Detective Randall.”

“Katie, how are you feeling?”

“I'm sore and banged up, but nothing that will keep me down for long.”

“Good, good, I'm glad to hear it. I was wondering when you plan to come back to work.”

Katie swallowed. She'd planned to take advantage of every minute of leave she could get to work on Lucy's case, but... “I have four days of medical leave, but do you have something you need me to cover?”

“We're having a rash of crime here and I'm short staffed because of the flu. If you're able to help at all, I'd appreciate it. I'll give you some time off later. If the doc says no go, I understand. I don't want you to push it.”

She was going to push it, whether it was working on Lucy's case or one he had for her. “Tell me what you need.”

“I've got a dead body dumped off the highway along I-85 North. Gregory's already on his way. Can you meet him there?”

Katie bit her lip. She didn't want to be interrupted, but she knew she needed to do this for her boss. “I can be there in ten minutes.”

“Thanks, Katie. I owe you.”

“Sure.” She hung up and looked at Jordan. “I need you to drop me off.”

“Leave is up, huh?”

“Yes. For now. If I was truly incapacitated, it wouldn't be an issue, but I'm not.”

“You'll be with your partner and a whole slew of other law enforcement personnel, right?”

“Right.”

“It still may not be safe. I mean if he's got a sniper rifle—”

“Doesn't matter. I've got to do my job. I'm not going to let him take this from me, too. You can stay, if you want.”

He narrowed his eyes as he thought, and at first she thought he might decide to stay. Then he shook his head. “You should be safe enough at the crime scene, and your buddies won't want me hanging around.”

“We're not a territorial group.” He scoffed, and she laughed. “Okay, okay. I wouldn't mind you there, but you might get a few looks from the others.”

“I may go back to my office and look at the pictures from the neighborhood again.”

“Call me if you come up with anything?”

“Absolutely.”

Jordan dropped her at the crime scene, scoped out the area for the next twenty minutes, and when he didn't find anything or anyone that posed a danger to Katie, he headed for the office. He had an idea he wanted to implement.

Once in the office, he pulled Lucy's file and went straight for the pictures. He studied them one by one and gave a grunt of satisfaction when he thought he found what he was looking for. He picked up the phone and called Danny Jackson.

“Jackson here.”

“Jordan Gray. I was wondering if you'd have a few minutes to talk about Lucy Randall.”

A heavy sigh filtered through the line. “You still gnawing on that one like a dog with a bone, aren't you?”

“Yes, I guess I am.”

“Then all right. But you gotta come to me. I'm down at McGee's Café.”

Jordan grimaced. A thirty-minute drive. “All right. Don't leave, it'll take me half an hour to get there.”

“I'm not going anywhere. Got nowhere to go.”

Jordan gathered the photos and slid them back into the file. Then he grabbed his phone and sent a text to Katie, letting her know what he was doing. And begged her to stay with someone in order to ensure her safety until he got back.

She sent him a text assuring him she was surrounded by law enforcement and would let him know when she was finished. He tucked his phone into his pocket and sent up a prayer for her safety. And for God to bring closure to this search for Lucy—one way or another.

FIFTEEN

K
atie did her best to keep her back from being exposed to any place she thought might be a good spot for a sniper to draw a bead on her. Out on the highway, trees lined the road for miles. Lots of hiding places. She noticed Gregory keeping an eye on her and the area around them, too. He said, “You all right?”

“I've been better, but I'm making it.”

“Mom wanted to have flowers delivered, but you'd already been released. I told her to send them on to the hospital, you'd probably be back tomorrow.”

She gave him a light punch on his arm. “You're hilarious.” She pointed. “Who do we have here?”

He turned serious, all business now. “You're not going to believe it.”

She lifted a brow. “Try me.”

“It's Norman Rhames.”

Katie gaped for a full two seconds, then snapped her mouth shut. She rubbed her head and stared down at the body. “You're right. I don't believe it. I take it the lieutenant didn't know who he was when he sent me out here?”

“Nope. We just got confirmation on his identity about a minute before you drove up.”

“I'll keep my hands off the investigation since there's a possible connection to Wray, but since I'm here, will you tell me what you know?”

“He was shot in the back of the head. Execution style.”

Katie narrowed her eyes. “Now that's just shouting for an investigation. I want to know the connection between Norman Rhames and Wesley Wray.”

Gregory pursed his lips. “You don't think it's a coincidence?”

“There's no way this is a coincidence.”

He nodded. “I agree.”

Katie got on her phone and called Jordan. He answered with, “Are you okay?”

In spite of the seriousness of the situation, Katie almost had to smile at his instant question. “What makes you ask that?”

“Cute.”

“I'm also fine. Guess who our dead guy is?”

“Who?”

She filled him in. “You want to use your FBI contacts and see if you can find a connection between Wesley Wray and Norman Rhames sometime before Christmas?”

Katie felt a little disloyal to her department, but the FBI had more resources than a local department. With one phone call, Jordan would probably find what she wanted to know within the hour.

Her phone buzzed and she lifted a brow at the name that popped on the screen. “Hello, Detective Miller, what can I do for you?”

“You working that dead body on the highway?”

“I am.”

“Heard it on the scanner. Thought you were on medical leave.”

“I did, too.”

He gave a half laugh, half snort. “Flu's swept through this department like a tsunami.” He paused. “I got to thinking about your sister's case.”

She stepped to the side out of the way of the crime scene unit that had just arrived. “Why's that?”

Gregory shot her a curious look that she ignored. She kept her back to a tree and let her gaze probe the area. Nothing set off her alarms. No rustling leaves, no shadowy figures. Nothing. Her muscles relaxed a fraction.

“Because you won't leave it alone and...” He paused.

“And?”

“And I might not have put some things in the notes that should have been there.”

Her stomach knotted. “Why would you do that?”

“I didn't do it on purpose,” he snapped. “I was going through a bad time that year. But that wasn't your sister's fault, and she deserved a better investigation than she got.” He paused and she thought she heard him swallow. “If you'll meet me somewhere, I'll do my best to tell you everything I remember. I don't know if it'll do any good, but I'll tell you. And give you the notes that I made. I only have one copy and I don't want to fax them or email them anywhere. I don't want anyone stumbling across them.”

The rough edge to his voice captured her attention one hundred percent. She looked around. “When and where can we meet?”

Another pause. “This can't get out, Katie. If it's known I didn't exactly do my job, my name will be mud around the department. No one will look at me the same. I don't want anyone to know we're meeting. This has to be completely confidential or it's going to come back to bite me.”

“I won't say a word, Frank. I just want to find my sister.” She stuffed down the anger she wanted to heap on this man's head. She couldn't blast him. Not yet. Not when he might have more information on Lucy. She looked around. “Give me another thirty minutes. Where do you want me to meet you?”

He gave her the address, and she memorized it. “I'll see you shortly.”

* * *

Jordan pulled into the parking lot of the local pub. His buddy at Quantico had promised to get back to him within an hour with the connection between the two parolees. If he could find one. Jordan figured he would.

Katie sounded like she was fine, and Jordan offered up a prayer for the Lord to keep her that way.

He stepped inside the restaurant and spotted Danny Jackson at the bar nursing a drink and watching a football game on the television hanging from the wall. Jordan slipped onto the stool beside him. “Thanks for waiting for me.”

“Like I said, I didn't have anywhere else to be. My wife died last year after a two-year battle with cancer, and I've just been going through the motions until I can join her.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

Danny shrugged. “I always thought I'd be the one to go first, you know?”

“Yeah. In our line of work, odds aren't exactly great for us to reach retirement age.”

Danny grunted. “You didn't come here to chew the fat with me. What are your questions?”

Jordan didn't take offense at the man's gruffness; he figured that was just part of his personality. He'd seen too much, lived through some bad stuff and watched his wife die. The man had a right to be a little rough around the edges, he supposed. But he couldn't just let it go. “You think God's finished with you? That you don't have purpose anymore?”

Danny stilled. Then took a sip of the drink. “Funny you should say that.”

“Why's that?”

“Because I was just wondering that very thing last night.”

“So you believe in God?”

“More now than I used to. My wife was a believer.” He shook his head. “She didn't want to leave me, but had no doubts where she was going when she took her last breath.”

“I'm glad you can take comfort in that.”

“I do. Not everyone can say the same for someone they've lost.”

Jordan thought about Neil. While his brother had made some really rotten choices toward the end of his life, he'd given his heart to God at a middle school summer church camp. Jordan had no doubt that Neil was in heaven; he just wished he hadn't gone quite so soon.

He shoved thoughts of Neil away and focused on the man next to him. “But the Lord's left you here. Guess there might be a reason for that.”

“Might be.”

“And that reason might have something to do with Lucy Randall.” He phrased it as a statement and waited.

A heavy sigh escaped the man and he rubbed a callused hand over his eyes. “It might.”

Jordan took a stab in the dark. “Why don't you tell me what's been bothering you for the last fourteen years?”

Danny jerked like he'd been shot.

Bull's-eye.

Danny stared at him a minute, then finished his drink. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“To my truck, where we can't be overheard because the conversation we're getting ready to have never happened. Understand?”

“Gotcha.”

Jordan followed Danny out to the man's oversized pickup truck. He had a fishing rod hanging on the gun rack on the back window of the king cab. Jordan climbed in the passenger seat and shut the door.

Danny cranked the truck and turned the heat on, but didn't move to put it in gear. “Ask me your questions.”

“What is it you don't want to tell me? What are you afraid of?”

Danny barked a harsh laugh. “I'm not afraid of anything, son. Fear isn't keeping my mouth shut. Haven't you ever heard of a thing called loyalty?”

Jordan blinked. “Loyalty? To whom?”

* * *

Katie glanced at her watch and headed for her car. She was running later than she'd expected, especially with Gregory harassing her about needing an escort to wherever she was going.

She felt bad about putting him off, but she needed to talk to Frank, and Frank obviously didn't want an audience. If she had someone with her, he might clam up and she'd never learn what he wanted to tell her. However, she could let Jordan know what was going on. She shot him a text and waited for it to send.

Glancing around, she wondered if she was being watched, if someone planned on following her. With a shudder, she climbed into her vehicle.

If someone followed her, she and Frank would take care of it. Thirty-eight-year-old Norman Rhames hadn't had a chance. The medical examiner's off-the-record deduction had been that in all likelihood Rhames died from the gunshot to the back of his head. The lack of defensive wounds on his hands said he hadn't put up a fight. Katie wondered if he'd trusted whoever it was that had killed him.

Possibly.

But it wasn't the same person who'd killed Wesley Wray, because that had happened while the man was locked up.

She checked the area one last time. Gregory waved to her and stood watching with a frown on his face as she pulled from the gravel edge of the highway and merged with the traffic.

Nerves danced along the top of her skin and she kept her eye on the rearview mirror.

* * *

Jordan sat back as the answer hit him. “Loyalty to your former partner. Frank Miller.”

“Yeah. Frank.”

“What was Frank's problem?”

Danny ran a hand over the gray stubble on his chin. “His problem was his personal life. More specifically, his wife and family.”

Jordan nodded. “It happens.”

“His wife was going to leave him. Gave him the whole line of grief about how he's always working and never home, yada yada.”

“I feel for him. He sure didn't need that on top of the stress of the job.” Jordan shook his head. Not every officer's wife felt that way, but too many of them did and those in law enforcement had a high rate of divorce.

Danny seemed to relax a fraction at Jordan's understanding words. “Well, she wasn't a prize when he married her, but she was a looker, and I guess that's what attracted him to her.”

Jordan thought about Katie's beauty. While he appreciated the outward package, it was her heart and inner beauty that drew him like a magnet. “So Frank was a bit distracted from the investigation.”

Danny nodded. “
Distracted
is a kind word. It was weird, too, because he pushed for the case. It had originally been assigned to two other detectives, but Frank wanted it. The other detectives sure didn't care. As overloaded as we all were, they gladly passed it on to us.”

“Why was that?”

“He said he needed all the work he could get. Said he couldn't shut his brain off so he might as well do some good.” Danny rubbed his chin. “And he did. He worked a ton of hours, slept at his desk, solved a lot of cases.”

“But not Lucy Randall's.”

“No. Not Lucy's.” He frowned. “I'd never seen Frank so messed up. He finally told me what was going on. His wife had filed for divorce six months prior and then just four months before we got Lucy's case, his niece drowned at summer camp. Frank loved that little girl like she was his own. His sister and her husband had let him stay with them until he could get set financially, and he and Jenny really bonded during that time.”

Danny took a swig of his drink and sighed. “He and his wife didn't have any kids, which turned out to be a good thing in the end. So not only was he struggling with the demise of his marriage, but his sister turned into a raving madwoman, wild with grief.”

Jordan swallowed and pinched the bridge of his nose, his heart going out to the man. “That's awful.”

His phone vibrated, indicating a message. He'd check it in just a minute. He didn't want to do anything to cause Danny to clam up.

Danny said, “I told him to focus on the case, that if he just put all of his energy into solving Lucy's kidnapping, he could get his mind off of his troubles for a while.”

“Did it work?”

“Seemed to. For a while.” Danny chewed a toothpick and stared out the window.

“What else?”

A heavy sigh left the man. “We questioned a witness, and she talked about a car being at the scene.”

“A gray sedan?”

Danny lifted a brow. “Yes. I documented it and put it in the report, then in the file. The next day it was gone. When I asked Frank about it, he just shrugged and said he didn't know what I was talking about. I documented it again and put it back in the file. A week later it was gone again. I demanded an explanation, and Frank dodged it. Said he didn't know and to quit bugging him about it.”

“What'd you do?”

“I dropped it for the moment. We weren't getting anywhere on the case, anyway. Didn't seem like a big deal.”

Jordan pulled out the picture Mrs. McKinney had given him, then the ones taken the day of the kidnapping. “Take a look at this.” He handed Danny Mrs. McKinney's picture. “This was shot a few days before Lucy was taken. The lady who took this picture spent a lot of time outside while the car was parked there. On this particular day, it was her son's birthday and they'd given him a skateboard. He was out there having a blast while his mom took pictures to put in her scrapbook.” He handed him another picture. “This was taken by the crime scene photographer the day of the kidnapping.”

Jordan tapped the photo. “This is one of the officers' vehicles. It's parked in the drive, but tell me that's not the same car in both pictures. The one on the street and the one in the drive.”