Cold feet (7 page)

"Or one just like it."

Another connection. At this stage, Caleb saw no benefit in keeping his reason for renting the cottage a secret. With the appearance of Purcell's truck in this picture with Susan, Holly's fears were already confirmed. "You wanted to know why I rented this place," he said.

"You're finally going to tell me?"

"Madison Lieberman lives next door. She's my landlady."

Holly's brows drew together as if she couldn't quite identify the name. "Madison Lieberman..."

"Ellis Purcell's daughter."

"Of course! I heard about her over and over when you were researching the Sandpoint Strangler. But she'd never talk to you. Has she changed her mind?"

"Not exactly. She doesn't even know that Caleb Trovato and Thomas L. Wagner are the same man. She was looking for a renter, and I happened to get here first. That's it." He tapped the picture against his palm. "Tell me how Jennifer came across one of our flyers."

"She's a graduate student at the university and saw it posted at the library."

Holly had insisted on putting her phone number on the flyer, which made sense because hers was local and not long distance. Also, Caleb knew a woman's name and number would seem less threatening. But Holly and this Jennifer woman had both been stupid to meet on campus so late at night--not that there was any point in arguing about it now. "What I don't understand is why she noticed something so obscure in one of her pictures," he said.

"Susan was involved in an argument that drew everyone's attention. When Jennifer saw the flyer, she looked through the pictures she'd taken that night and, voil
, there was Susan."

With a truck like Ellis Purcell's in the same vicinity. Was it another strange coincidence? Or did the police have a copycat killer on their hands?

"Did Jennifer say what the argument was about?" he asked.

"She wasn't sure. She thinks Susan bumped someone's fender while trying to park or something like that. Jennifer and her friends weren't really aware of anyone else until Susan screamed a curse. Then they all craned their heads to see what was going on. A male voice answered by calling her a stupid bitch. Then Susan got in her car and peeled off."

"What did the guy who called her a bitch look like?"

"He was beyond their view. After Susan left, Jennifer and her friends went back to their fun. She said if she hadn't seen the flyer, she probably wouldn't have thought about the incident again."

Caleb returned his attention to the picture, trying to figure out what it meant.

Holly watched him closely, fiddling with the cuff of her long-sleeved, black cotton blouse. "This might or might not have any relevance to my sister's disappearance, though, right?" she said. "I mean, for all we know that truck's a coincidence and Susan was arguing with Lance, the guy she was dating."

"At least this picture narrows down the time she could have disappeared," Caleb said. "Jennifer said this was taken on Tuesday?"

Holly nodded.

"She was reported missing when she didn't show up for work on Wednesday, which means she disappeared sometime Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning."

"Do you think it was Lance she was arguing with at the pizza place?" Holly persisted.

"We've talked to Lance. The last time he saw Susan was when they spent the night together on Saturday, remember?"

"That's what he
says.
Maybe he's afraid to tell us about the argument for fear it'll make him a suspect in the case."

"He's already a suspect," Caleb said. "In any homicide, the police look at the husband or boyfriend first, then extended family members and friends. But Gibbons doesn't believe Lance is our guy."

Her eyes narrowed. "When did you talk to Gibbons?"

"Last night."

"You didn't mention it to me."

"I haven't had a chance."

"We were passing out flyers together all day!"

"It's a moot point," he said. "Lance has a good alibi."

"For when?"

"For Monday
and
Tuesday nights." And for Wednesday and Thursday, as well, but Caleb didn't want to go into that.

"Where was he?" she asked.

Caleb raked his fingers through his hair, wondering how to frame his answer.

"What is it?" she pressed when he didn't respond right away. "You know something you're not telling me."

What the hell, he decided. The truth was the truth. "Lance is engaged to be married," he said. "He's been living with his fiancee and seeing Susan on the side."

"What?" Holly scrambled to her feet. "Susan told me he was living with his sister."

"If it makes you feel any better, his fiancee didn't know about Susan, either. She kicked him out as soon as she learned. But she maintains that he was home by six o'clock both Monday and Tuesday nights. She works evenings and needed him to sit with her mother, who just had surgery to replace a knee. The mother confirmed that she and Lance watched television together for several hours both nights."

"I can't believe it," Holly cried. "What scum! Men are all alike!"

"Hey, I never cheated on you," he said.

"You quit loving me. That's even worse." Burying her face in her hands, she dissolved into tears.

Her crying tugged at Caleb's heart, but he told himself not to feel any sympathy. He couldn't afford sympathy. Where Holly was concerned, the softer emotions always got him into trouble. But he couldn't stand to see her, or any woman, cry.

Leaving his beer on the counter, he went to see if he could get her to settle down. "Holly, you'll meet someone else," he told her.

She slipped her arms around his neck. His immediate impulse was to pull away, but she looked so crestfallen he couldn't bring himself to do it. "Someone who's more compatible with you than I am," he added, patting her awkwardly. "And we'll find Susan, okay? Don't give up hope. Not yet. She needs us to believe."

Holly clung to him, nestling her face into his neck. "What if we don't find her? I'll live my whole life never knowing what happened to my own sister. I've lost you already, Caleb. I can't bear to lose her, too. She's all I've got left."

Caleb thought of the other families suffering through the same kind of loss. He didn't relish the idea of lying to Madison Lieberman, but it seemed a small price to pay to resolve the mystery that had affected so many lives.

"I'm going to help you find Susan," he said. "Have some faith."

Holly shifted slightly in his arms, fitting her body more snugly to his. "If we don't find her, you'll eventually have to give up."

"We'll find her." He got the impression she was making her body accessible on purpose, and decided he'd given her all the comfort he could.

But when he tried to release her, she held on tight.

"Caleb?"

"What?"

"Is it
really
over between us? Because sometimes it doesn't feel like it is."

It had been more than two years since he'd made love to Holly. After his second divorce, he'd gone on a brief womanizing rampage, trying to repair what his failed marriage had done to his ego, he supposed. But he'd soon found the lifestyle too empty to bother with and had thrown himself back into his work. Now it had been ten months since he'd made love to
any
woman.

He had to admit he was beginning to feel his body's long neglect, but Caleb wasn't about to make another mistake with Holly. After their first divorce, a moment's weakness had left her pregnant and, for the baby's sake, he'd married her again. He certainly didn't want a repeat performance.

"It's really over," he said, putting her firmly away from him.

"Is there someone else?" she asked.

After tolerating Holly for so many years, Caleb suspected he wasn't naive enough to ever fall in love again. "No."

"You came back here to help me, even though we're through?"

He nodded. He had come to help her, and Susan. And because of Madison, he just might get lucky enough to solve the murders that had obsessed him for years.

CHAPTER SIX

M
ADISON WAS ON THE PHONE
with Tye when Caleb knocked at her door for breakfast the following morning. Propping the receiver against her shoulder, she yelled for Brianna to let him in while she flipped the pancakes on the griddle.

"I can't believe Johnny's out," Tye said. "When did they release him?"

"He couldn't really tell me. I think he was on something."

Tye sighed. "That comes as no surprise."

Caleb knocked again. Evidently Brianna wasn't getting the door as she'd asked. Covering the phone a second time, Madison prompted her daughter to hurry.

Once she heard the patter of Brianna's feet finally heading down the hallway, she returned to their conversation. "I'm sorry. I thought you'd want to know," she said. "He tried stopping by your place before coming here. I guess you weren't home, but I'm sure he'll try again."

"Did he hit you up for money?"

Madison didn't want to admit that Johnny had asked for money, because she probably shouldn't have given him any. But letting him have what he wanted was the easiest way to deal with her conscience over everything that had happened--or not happened--in his life.

"He asked for a few bucks," she said.

"Did you give it to him?"

"What do you think?"

"Madison, we've talked about this before."

"I know." The emotions that made her give Johnny the money were so complex she couldn't have explained them if she'd tried. Especially because she felt some of the same guilt about Tye. He'd certainly turned out a lot better than Johnny, but he'd endured the same kind of childhood, and it had taken her years to get to know him well enough to feel comfortable calling him occasionally. "I won't give him any more," she said.

She could hear Brianna at the door, greeting Caleb with a chilly, "Oh, it's
you.
" Momentarily distracted, Madison covered the phone to tell Brianna to mind her manners. But she was trying to get the pancakes off the griddle at the same time Tye was asking where she'd moved their father's coffin. She decided to have a talk with Brianna later. "He's at the Green Hill Cemetery in Renton," she told Tye.

Caleb's footsteps came down the hall and into the kitchen. She turned to wave a welcome, and ended up letting her gaze slide quickly over him instead. Not many men looked so good in a simple rugby shirt and a pair of faded jeans.

No wonder he had beautiful blond women visiting him in the middle of the night. The only mystery was that the woman hadn't stayed until morning and made him breakfast herself.

He gave her a devastating smile. "Smells great."

Madison told herself not to burn the food. "I hope you like pancakes."

"I like everything."

Suddenly remembering that she had Tye on the phone, she cleared her throat and told Caleb to have a seat. "I'll be with you in a second," she said. "I'm talking to my brother. I hope you don't mind."

"No problem." He removed the newspaper he'd been carrying under one arm and spread it out on the table.

Brianna sat directly across from him, twirling the fork at her place setting and glaring at him.

Madison threw her daughter a warning glance. Then she turned her attention back to Tye, because there was something she still wanted to ask him. Johnny had told her that Tye and Sharon were having problems, but Tye acted as though nothing had changed.

"Would you and Sharon like to drive over and have breakfast with us today?" she asked, trying to introduce the subject of Sharon as naturally as possible. Madison hoped, if he needed to talk, he might feel safe opening up to her. "It's nearly ready, but you don't live far. We could wait."

"Not today," he said. "The kids have soccer games."

"Oh." Madison poured more batter on the griddle, wondering what to say next. She wanted him to know he could trust her, but she didn't want him to think she was prying into his personal business. "Maybe Brianna and I could come and see them play."

"Next week would be better," he said.

"Next week" would probably never come. Madison wanted to see more of her nieces and nephews, but Tye was always so aloof. "Well, you know I'm here if you need anything, right? You'd call me if...if you ever felt like you wanted to talk, wouldn't you?"

"Of course," he said. But she knew he never would. Madison was fairly certain he still harbored some of the resentment he'd felt toward her when they were young. She had no idea what she could do to overcome it. She'd never mistreated Johnny or Tye. Some of the anger they felt toward Ellis for not being there when they needed him, and her mother for being such an unresponsive stepmother, had slopped over onto her.

"I'd better go," he said. "I don't want to make the kids late for their games. Thanks for telling me about Johnny."

"Sure." She hung up, feeling slightly hurt that Tye never wanted to include her in his life.

The rattle of the newspaper behind her reminded her that she had other things to think about.

She poured Caleb Trovato a cup of coffee and a glass of orange juice and motioned for Brianna to put down her fork and quit staring daggers at him.

"Thanks," he said, lowering the paper enough to look over it. He glanced at Brianna, grinned and went back to reading his paper.

Brianna's expression darkened the moment she realized her acute unhappiness at his presence caused Caleb no discomfort.

Madison decided she really had to talk to Danny about unifying their efforts to raise their daughter as a happy, well-adjusted child. "Did you sleep well?" she asked Caleb, cracking an egg into the skillet she'd just gotten out.

He folded the paper and set it to one side. "Very well. You?"

She was more than a little curious about Caleb's late-night visitor. But she wasn't about to mention it. She didn't want to seem like a nosy landlady--especially when she guarded her own privacy so carefully. "Fine, thanks."

"Was that the brother who came by last night?" he asked, nodding toward the telephone.

"No, that was Tye. He's a year older than Johnny."

"Do you have any other siblings?"

"Just the two brothers."

"They're both weird," Brianna volunteered, wrinkling her nose. "And Johnny stinks."

Embarrassed by Brianna's behavior, Madison grappled for patience. "Brianna, that's not polite. You're talking about your own uncles. And Johnny smells like smoke. That doesn't mean he stinks."

"He stinks to Elizabeth. And he stinks to Dad," she said smugly. "Dad says it's a wonder Johnny hasn't--"

"Let's not go into what your father has to say," Madison interrupted, knowing it wouldn't be nice. She added a pancake and a piece of bacon to Brianna's plate, and set the food in front of her in hopes she'd soon be too busy eating to speak.

But Brianna only stared at her food. "He doesn't like you, either," her daughter responded sullenly. "He said you couldn't see what was right in front of your eyes. He told Leslie that no-good son of a bitch father of yours nearly ruined his life."

Madison's jaw dropped. Brianna's words were obviously a direct quote, but that didn't make it any easier to hear them. "Brianna, you know better than to use that kind of language!"

"Dad says it," she said smugly.

"That doesn't make it right. Why don't you go to your room and see if you can remember what we talked about the last time you used a bad word."

Brianna spared her an angry glance before heading out of the kitchen, carrying Elizabeth smashed beneath one arm. She walked with her spine ramrod straight and her head held high, but it wasn't long before Madison heard sniffles coming from the direction of her bedroom.

Torn between going to her daughter and trying to remain firm, Madison closed her eyes and shook her head. "I'm sorry, Mr. Tro--"

"It's Caleb, remember?" he said gently.

"Caleb, I'm sorry. I'm afraid we're dealing with some...issues here. If you'd rather, I could bring your meals over to your place in the future."

"No, that's okay. Brianna doesn't bother me. I'm sure she's a great kid."

A lump swelled in Madison's throat. "She
is
a great kid. She's just a little out of her element right now. Her father remarried this past year, almost the day our divorce was final, which hasn't helped. The woman who's now her stepmother was already pregnant."

"That's a lot for a child to deal with."

Madison got another plate from the cupboard. "I'm afraid she's blaming me for all the changes, but I don't want to be too hard on her."

"A bright girl like Brianna will figure things out."

Madison scooped two eggs onto his plate. "I hope so."

"Here." Standing, he crossed the distance between them and guided her to Brianna's seat. "Why don't you sit down and relax a minute? I can get my own food."

Madison would have argued, but she'd been taking care of her mother and Brianna--and Danny before that--for so long, it felt good to let someone else take charge.

Using the fork Brianna had been so fixated on twirling, she began picking at the food she'd dished up for her daughter.

Caleb set a cup of coffee near her plate. "Sounds as though your ex-husband doesn't like your father much." Gathering his own plate, now heaped with food, he took his seat.

She put her fork aside and added some cream to her coffee. "My father's dead."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Caleb paused, his own coffee in hand. "When did he pass away?"

For her, Ellis had died just recently--the day she'd found that box. Somehow, letting go of the man she'd believed him to be felt worse than living without his physical presence. "It's been a year or so."

He took a sip. "That's too bad. How old was he?"

"Fifty-eight."

"Fifty-eight's pretty young. Did he have a heart attack?"

Normally Madison didn't like talking about her father. But Caleb was a complete stranger, which meant he had no stake in the situation. That seemed to make a difference. "He shot himself in our backyard."

His eyebrows drew together, and his gaze briefly touched her face. "That must have been terrible for you."

"It was." She remembered Johnny calling her the day it had happened. She'd felt shock and grief, of course, but also an incendiary anger. She'd believed the police and the media had finally badgered Ellis to the point where he could tolerate no more. She'd stood in the middle of the mall, her cell phone pressed tightly to her ear, her legs shaky as Johnny told her what he'd found. And once she'd hung up she had to break the news to her mother.

"Was he going through some type of depression?" Caleb asked. His attention was on his food, but the tone of his voice invited her confidence.

Madison wondered if telling him a little might bring her some solace. "My father was Ellis Purcell," she said.

Caleb set his coffee cup down with a clink. "Not the Ellis Purcell who was implicated in the killings over by the university."

"I'm afraid that's the one." Her father had been on the national news and in the papers so many times, it would've been much more surprising if Caleb
hadn't
recognized his name, but it was still a little disconcerting to have him clue in so fast.

Caleb didn't say anything for a moment, and Madison immediately regretted being so forthright. "I shouldn't have told you," she said.

There was a hesitancy in his expression that gave her the impression he agreed with her. But his words seemed to contradict that. "Why not?" he asked, stirring more sugar into his coffee before taking another sip.

She couldn't see his expression behind his cup. "Because I've spent years trying to escape the taint of it."

He put his coffee back on the table and finally looked at her. "I'm sorry," he said, the tone of his voice compassionate.

The ache that had begun deep inside her at the outset of the conversation seemed to intensify. She wanted to hang on to someone, to break away from her troubled past and be like other people. But it was impossible. Her father, or whoever had left those sickening souvenirs under the house, had seen to that. "That's what my ex-husband was referring to when he said what he did in front of Brianna," she explained.

"I see." Caleb cleared his throat. "How old were you when the first woman went missing?"

"Fifteen. I remember my mother talking about it one night. But it was just another story on the news to me then." She chuckled humorlessly. "Little did I know how much it would affect me later...."

He started eating his pancakes. "What was your father's reaction to the news?"

"He didn't really say anything. My mother was the one talking about it."

When Caleb had swallowed, he said, "Your father must not have been a suspect right away, then."

"No, he wasn't drawn into it until two years later, when some woman claimed she saw my father's truck leaving the house of her neighbor--who'd just been murdered. Then the police started coming over, asking questions. They contacted just about everyone who'd ever known us. They searched the house."

"What did they find?" he asked, pushing his plate away.

"Besides the fact that I was exchanging love letters with a boy my father had forbidden me to associate with, and I had just bought my first pair of sexy underwear?" She laughed. "Nothing."

Caleb's lips curved in a sympathetic smile. "They exposed all your girlish secrets, huh?"

"To this day I stay away from airports just in case security decides to rifle through my bags."

She'd meant her comments to sound flip but was afraid they didn't come across that way when Caleb remained serious. "So what do you think?" he asked.

"About what?"

"You probably knew your father as well as anyone." She could suddenly feel the depth of his focus, which seemed at odds with his casual pose. "Did he do it?"

She'd faced this question before, dozens of times. And she'd always had a ready, if passionate, answer. But that was before. Should she tell him what she'd believed throughout the investigation? Or should she admit that she might've been wrong all along?

She'd opened her mouth to tell him she didn't know
what
to think when the telephone interrupted.