Find Me (5 page)

"Fact or fiction? I doubt anyone really knows," Newton muttered, her attention seemingly still lingering on the cliffs.

"Stories like that have a way of surviving through the generations," Kale suggested, hoping to stay in that neutral zone. Some folks believed the stories, others didn't. "It's hard to say what's fact and what's fiction." The one certainty was that most of the tales were embellished over time.

Newton suddenly faced him. "Twenty years ago the bodies of two young women were found here. You have any facts on that case?"

"Some." The chief had briefed the council on any possible similarities between Valerie's murder and the ones twenty years ago. "Other than location there are no real similarities. But we're not ruling—"

Newton lifted the tape and ducked under it.

"Hey, you can't do that." What the hell was she thinking?

She turned back to him and gave her head a little shake. "Don't get your boxers in a wad, Conner. This scene's no longer officially sealed."

"But—"

"We're alone." She sounded distracted now, as if she was totally focused on the place and could care less what he said or did. "No one will ever know unless you tell." She walked slowly around the perimeter of the stone floor, seemed to study every crack and crevice.

"Damn it." Short of physically hauling her ass back over to this side of the tape, what was he supposed to do?

She glanced at him. "Relax, Conner. I know what I'm doing. I'm not breaking any laws."

He hadn't meant to say that out loud. He surveyed what he could see of the road, listened for traffic. Shit. If Chief Willard found out he'd allowed her to cross that line. Shit. He would be in a buttload of trouble. Whether the techs were finished here or not, it was the fucking principle of the thing. Oh, yeah, how had he forgotten? This lady had no principles.

"You have pictures of how the body was positioned?" Newton pointed to the center of the stone floor where the darkened bloodstains remained.

Kale tamped down the urge to drag her back to this side of the yellow tape. "The chief has a complete file on the case." How did she think they did business up here? "We could go—"

"Have you seen them?" She looked at him when she asked the question. Really looked. As if she was watching for a certain reaction.

He nodded.

"What did you see?"

"You didn't read those details in the newspaper?" Just about every damned thing about the murder scene was outlined in print as well as on every news channel from here to L.A. Except for the one detail they had excluded from all reports. Nausea roiled in his stomach as the grotesque letters scrawled on the victim's body shimmered in front of his retinas.

"I want to know what
you
saw that morning."

His guard went up. How did she know he'd been at the scene that morning? His presence hadn't been reported in the media. She was fishing again. Had to be. He could lie. But, as she studied him like an amoeba under a microscope, he understood with complete certainty that she would recognize the lie. It was more than the way she looked at him. It was her too-laid-back-and-yet-completely confident posture. The cool, I-see-everything look in those eerie blue eyes.

"I didn't say I saw anything
that
morning. I said I saw the crime-scene photos."

"But you did… see something that morning. You were here."

"Why the hell would you say that?" She was pushing his buttons and it was working.

"You have that look, Conner. The one that says I was here and I saw things I never want to see again."

He started to take a stab at a subject change by reminding her to call him Kale, but the way his gut churned he wasn't sure he wanted to open his mouth.

"So"—she turned her attention back to the chapel with its cold stone floor and century-old wooden canopy—"when you stood here in the freezing cold with the tang of coagulating blood rushing into your lungs, tell me what you saw."

When he didn't answer right away, she went on. "You told me we were on the same side. Now's your chance to prove your claim."

He thought about that for a few seconds.

Then he caved. Cooperate as much as possible, that was what the mayor had said. "There was a lot of blood." He closed his eyes and forced his mind to relive that morning. He and the chief had been having coffee at Cappy's. The same way they had a thousand times. Fate, bad luck, whatever, the call had come in and Kale had ended up riding out here with Willard.

"She was lying here, right?"

Kale opened his eyes and stared at Newton. She lowered into a crouch, studied the place where Valerie Gerard's mutilated body had been positioned.

"Yes."

The lone word echoed around him, haunted him. He shouldn't talk about this… not with her…

"Was it unusually cold that morning, Conner?"

He nodded, then remembered that she wasn't looking at him. "Damned cold. The stone path was icy." The chief had fallen twice in their haste to scramble up the slope.

"The medical examiner said she'd only been dead a few hours," Newton prompted.

"Between three and four, but the temperature made it difficult to nail down a more exact time frame." Kale stared out at the ocean, couldn't bear to look at the bloodstains any longer. "No one should die that way."

"The medical examiner's preliminary assessment," Newton said as she pushed to her feet, "indicated that the victim was alive while her lips were sewn closed."

Kale didn't want to hear this. He'd seen it in his dreams every night for almost a week.

"But that wasn't the worst of it," Newton continued as she moved around the place where Valerie Gerard had gasped for her final agonizing breath. "She lived through more than a hundred lacerations and gouges. Some seemingly pinpointed to nerve centers to optimize pain."

"That's right." His heart pumped harder with each passing second. He wanted to puke each time the images from that morning floated before his eyes.

"And yet, no real evidence was left behind. Just a few footprints. Too indistinct or contaminated to make a decent impression."

That was partly his fault. He'd been so shocked, he'd rushed to help. The chief had tried to hold him back. The next thing Kale remembered there were people everywhere and things got out of control. He'd never seen grown men cry like that, then he'd realized he was crying, too.

He felt sick.

Enough. "We done here?" She obviously knew the facts the same as he did.

Newton crossed to where he stood, lifted the tape and slipped beneath it.

He hoped that was a yes.

"That's the thing that bothers me, Conner." She folded her arms over her chest and stared directly at him. "How is it that some twisted piece of shit brought that girl up here, sewed her lips shut, then played psycho surgeon without leaving a single piece of evidence."

Anger ignited amid all those other emotions churning in his gut. What the hell was she saying? "That's what we're trying to figure out." He reached deep for calm, couldn't find it. "That's the thing that has folks believing this somehow relates to a curse." Or the devil himself. He hated to bring that up, but, after all, that was the reason Sarah Newton had come. The rag she worked for,
Truth Magazine
, had made its place in the print world by allegedly exposing the truth wherever the unexplained was sold.

This sure as hell was unexplained so far.

Newton stared at him without saying a word for about ten more trauma-filled seconds, amping his tension to an explosive level. "This was no paranormal event, Conner. This was plain old carefully planned and painstakingly executed murder. By someone who knew the victim well enough to hate her enough to do all that you saw that morning."

She made it sound so neat and easy when no less than twelve cops, local and state, had been working this case and not one had reached such a concise deduction. "That's just another theory, Ms. Newton. What makes yours so special?"

She laughed softly but there was no amusement in the sound. "There's nothing special about it. But I will do one thing as damned fast as I can."

He shouldn't have let her bait him. "And just what is that?"

"While everyone else is still running around in circles trying to do the PC thing"—she inclined her head and stared at him another long moment—"I'll prove my theory."

He shook his head, couldn't help himself. "I sure as hell hope you can. But I have to tell you that's a pretty damned ballsy statement."

She wasn't put off in the least. "It's actually quite simple. You see, I don't have any friends or family here. I don't even know anyone except you. I'm not ethically bound by the same rules and restrictions as your fourth-generation chief of police. So I'll step on toes, I'll piss people off, I'll do whatever it takes to find one thing."

She held his gaze a second, then another. "The truth."

2312
Beauchamp Road

She
was here.

Jerald Pope adjusted his telescope lens to narrow in on the faces. Kale Conner looked a little green around the gills. The woman, on the other hand, looked focused and determined. She was here and she'd dug in her heels. If her skill could be accurately measured by her media reputation, she would find what others had missed.

Many of the villagers were upset by the idea that her magazine had chosen to get involved, but Jerald didn't have a problem with this turn of events. Her tactics were a bit unorthodox and her empathy somewhat lacking, according to the articles and blogs he'd read, but neither had affected her success rate.

Only her popularity… or lack thereof.

Sensing that he was no longer alone, Jerald straightened and stepped away from the telescope.

"What has you so captivated, darling?"

He turned to acknowledge his wife Lynda's presence. "Come see. Our young Mr. Conner has been saddled with the duty of escorting the controversial Ms. Newton about town."

Lynda crossed the expansive great room and took a look for herself. "She only arrived this afternoon." Lynda adjusted the setting of the far-reaching zoom lens. "It certainly didn't take her long to plunge right into the investigation." She peered through the delicate but powerful instrument. "What do you suppose they're doing up there?"

Jerald gazed beyond the floor-to-ceiling window to the chapel perched high on a hilltop in the distance overlooking his home. "She's getting a feel for the scene."

His wife moved away from the telescope and allowed her interest to follow his. "Do you think she's really as good as they say?"

A local woman was dead. Another was missing. If the police couldn't find the murderer, then more power to anyone who thought he or she could. "Time will tell."

Lynda turned to him, her respect and admiration for him still as strong as it had been in the beginning. "It always does."

His wife was still as beautiful as she had been when they'd married twenty-eight years ago. Coal-black hair and eyes the color of rich jade. Her skin remained flawless even as she neared her mid-fifties. Her figure… well, he was a very lucky man indeed. She worked hard to stay in shape. Her eating habits would be envied by the finest nutrition experts. Her willpower was nothing short of militant.

And yet they had drifted further and further apart.

"Is this why you haven't been sleeping well?"

He considered his lovely wife at length. Was there a particular reason for her concern? "I sleep as well as any man with a life-changing decision before him."

That much was certainly true.

Designing and producing elegant schooners and yachts was more than what he did. It was who he was. Few true artisans remained in the business. Painstaking craftsmanship had been replaced by assembly lines and the need to expand. He built each vessel by hand only after weeks, sometimes months, of carefully planning each design detail. That his work was considered the best of the best domestically and internationally had garnered him a fortune many times over. But no amount of money could replace the immense satisfaction he gained through his work. The creation of each design was as intimate to him as the birthing process to any mother.

Though he might not know that particular process firsthand, he had shared with his wife every intimate nuance of his daughter's development during pregnancy and then her birth.

The most integral part of him was being threatened by his own body's weakness. Recently he had been forced to face a hard fact, he was neither immortal nor immune to infirmity. The numbness in his hands was the first sign of trouble. There were steps he could take but those steps carried significant risk. How could he gamble with even the slightest change in his ability to touch the wood? To judge its potential in raw form and then to slowly coax forth its utter luxury and beauty?

He could not.

The occasional weak tremors and more frequent bouts of numbness were two things he would simply have to live with… until he had no other choice.

"We should do something special tonight," Lynda suggested as she wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her firm, high breasts to his chest. She'd always been able to read his moods. "We haven't gone out in a long time," she urged. "We could drive over to Camden and have dinner at Sydney's. You love that quaint little place so much."

"Sounds pleasant. I'll text Jerri Lynn and invite her to join us. Perhaps she hasn't already made plans." An evening away from the house would do him good.

His wife tensed. The change, though subtle, was undeniable. "I'm sure she'll be busy with her friends. It is Friday, after all. We should just hop in the car and drive. Remember? We used to do that all the time. We haven't done anything impulsive in years."

"I'll extend the invitation," he countered, keeping any hint of impatience from his tone. "If she has plans she can decline."

Lynda stepped away from him, the distance claimed emotional and physical. "You'll let me know then." Her disappointment was palpable.

When she would have turned to go he asked, though he knew well the answer, "Why does it annoy you so whenever I insist on including our daughter?"

The incensed expression appeared almost genuine. "Don't be ridiculous, Jerald."

She folded her arms over her low-cut silk blouse. The blouse and the slacks fit her toned body as if the designer had fashioned them precisely for her. Jerald wouldn't even attempt to hazard a guess at the exclusive labels inside that delicate gold fabric. From the shoes to the hairstyle, her entire appearance demonstrated a taste for the extravagant. No one in Youngstown dressed as well as Lynda. Probably no one in New England did. Yet, as self-centered as that one flaw made her seem, she gave of her time and money generously. There wasn't a high-profile charity organization in the region that she failed to avidly support. When it came to giving, Lynda rivaled, if not surpassed, Stephen King's generosity.

If only she had once given their daughter that kind of attention.

Lynda sighed in that long-suffering way that warned she was weary of the subject. "There are simply times when I would like an evening alone with my husband. We don't do that often enough anymore."

Anymore, meaning since they'd had a child. Almost nineteen years. Lynda had not been satisfied since Jerri Lynn developed her own personality and became more than an extension of her mother.

He should have learned long ago that this was not a battle either of them would or could win. They had gone head-to-head on the subject of their one child far too many times in the past to believe otherwise. He could allow the tension to escalate into a full-fledged battle of wills or he could defuse the tension here and now.

Considering he had more than enough on his mind at the moment, the latter was by far more appealing. "I suppose you're right."

She latched on to that small concession with renewed fervor. "I just want things to be more like they used to be. That's all." She curled her arms around one of his. "I miss the way we once were, Jerald."

BC… before child.

Why couldn't she be like other mothers and put her child above all else? Not that Lynda had been a bad mother… she was just a selfish, at times indifferent, one who refused to share what she felt was rightfully hers.

Perhaps twenty years ago when he had insisted they have a child, he had made a mistake… but he'd had his reasons. He pushed that thought away.

"She won't be with us much longer," he placated, knowing exactly what she wanted to hear. "After college, we'll hardly see her." His chest ached at the thought. His life would be empty without his little girl around.

Admittedly, he had his flaws but he would do anything to protect his daughter. She was his heart… the heart he had never possessed, hard as he had endeavored, before her birth. The potential, however remote, that she may have inherited a life-altering weakness from him caused a kind of anguish he had not known existed.

Lynda lifted her chin in abject disapproval. "She would be away at school now if you hadn't insisted she attend a university so close to home. You hold the apron strings far too tightly, Jerald."

He took his wife's hand in his and fixed a firm gaze on hers. "My decision was based on what was right for our daughter. She still needs us. She'll be gone soon enough and you'll have me all to yourself." He kissed her hand, then her cheek. The subtle scent of her perfume stirred his loins. He resented her lack of emotional attachment to their daughter but he did love her so very much.

A seductive smile slid across her lips. "I miss that." She drew away from his touch. "But you can't distract me from the real problem here."

"What does that mean, Lynda?" He was no longer able to conceal his own weariness of the subject.

"She's strange, Jerald. I'm very concerned." Lynda turned to stare out the window. "She's not normal. I've told you this before but you refuse to listen."

"We have discussed the issue many times and I am not in agreement with your conclusions," he offered, drawing on a well of patience that should long ago have ceased to produce.

"She has no friends except that odd Tamara girl. Of course, that's not so surprising considering where we live."

That was something else Lynda would change if he would only agree. She hated the cold… hated this place. This place was his home… too much of him was here. He could not leave.

He moved up behind her, put his arms around her waist and pulled her against his body. Her well-maintained rear snuggled him. "I'm certain our daughter will grow out of her awkwardness," he assured before leaving a soft kiss on her shoulder. "After all, she has you for a mother. How could she not blossom into perfection?"

Lynda folded her arms over his. "I hope you're right. Otherwise…" She sighed. "I don't know what to expect from her next."

As if the worries she voiced had drawn him there, he gazed across the snow-laden branches, rested his thoughts on the chapel and the visitor there. Sarah Newton had come to find the truth, but would the truth serve the true purpose?

Every small town had its secrets. Secrets that could destroy carefully constructed lives. Youngstown was no different. But would uncovering those secrets stop the evil that had already chosen two victims in as many weeks?

One could only hope.

Jerald would do whatever necessary to protect the women he loved. He would not allow the evil to take them from him.

Ever.