Читать книгу Dead Certain - Carla Cassidy - Страница 10

Riley Frazier hadn’t reached the age of thirty-four without learning when to balk and when to comply. When a woman who’d just suffered an emotional trauma pointed a gun and began to bark orders, it was definitely a good idea to comply.

He got out of his car, placed his hands on the roof and spread his legs. “There’s a wallet in my back pocket with my identification in it,” he offered.

She frisked him with a professional, light touch, beginning at his ankles. She patted up his legs, then around his waist. Only then did she pluck his wallet from his back pocket.

He remained in place, although there were a million things he wanted to say to her, things he wanted to ask her.

“What are you doing here, Mr. Frazier?” she asked.

He dropped his arms to his sides and turned to face her. In the bright illumination of the parking lot light overhead he got his first good look at her. A rivulet of pleasure swept through him.

Earlier at her parents’ house he’d been too far away to see just how beautiful she was. Long black lashes framed dark eyes. Her hair was jet-black, and the short cut emphasized high cheekbones and sensual lips.

She stared at him expectantly and he frowned, unable to remember her question to him. “I’m sorry…What do you want to know?”

“Your identification says you’re from Sycamore Ridge. What are you doing here in Cherokee Corners and what were you doing out at my parents’ ranch?”

Riley suddenly realized what it looked like…why his presence had prompted her to pull a gun and check him out. “It’s not what you think.”

“And how do you know what I think?” she returned in a cool tone as she handed him back his wallet.

“I know what I’d be thinking if I was in your place,” he replied.

“Riley!”

They both turned at the sound of the young male voice. Scott Moberly hurried toward them, and Riley thought he heard a faint groan come from Savannah.

Scott reached them, half-breathless from his run across the parking lot. “You bothering the local law enforcement, Riley?” Scott asked, a wide grin stretching across his freckled face.

Riley shrugged, and Scott turned his attention to the woman officer as he withdrew a notepad and pen from his pocket. “So, what’s the scoop, Savannah? Is your father dead?”

“Scott!” Riley exclaimed as Savannah’s features twisted with a combination of pain and anger.

“Oh…was that insensitive? Sorry.” Scott sighed miserably. “How about an exclusive, Savannah?”

“I’ll give you an exclusive. All reporters are pond scum.” She turned on her heels and started toward her car.

She’d written him off as a reporter, Riley thought. He fumbled in his wallet and withdrew his business card and a copy of a newspaper clipping.

“Savannah,” he shouted, and ran after her. She didn’t stop walking, didn’t indicate in any way that she had heard him.

He caught up with her at her car. “Savannah…wait.”

She whirled around to face him, her eyes flashing dark fires of anger. “No interview, no scoop…I have nothing to say.”

“Please…I’m not a reporter,” he said quickly. She jumped in surprise as he grabbed her hand and pressed his card and the copy of the clipping into her palm. “Call me when you’re ready to talk.”

He backed away and watched as she got into her car and drove out of the hospital parking lot. He hoped she’d call. He hoped she’d read the old news clipping, but there were no guarantees. For all he knew she might toss what he’d given her into the trash without even looking at it.

“Did she say anything to you?” Scott asked eagerly as Riley returned to where he stood.

“No, nothing.” He turned and looked at the young man he’d befriended two years earlier. “Thanks for calling me.”

Scott nodded. “As soon as I heard the initial report, I knew you’d want to know.” Scott glanced longingly at the emergency room door.

“Go on, Scott,” Riley said. “Go see if you can get a story, but try to be a bit more sensitive. Anyone you find to talk to about any of this will be in shock…in pain.”

Scott flashed him another quick grin. “Got it.” As he disappeared into the hospital, Riley sat on a nearby bench, not yet ready to make the hour-long drive back to his home in Sycamore Ridge.

The late-June night air was unusually warm, more in keeping with August than June. It had been on a hot August night that his world had been ripped asunder, and for the past two years he’d felt as if his life had been in limbo.

He’d awakened each morning with unanswered questions plaguing his mind and had gone to bed each night with those same questions still begging for answers.

He’d met Scott in the dark days following the event that had shattered his life. The brash young reporter had journalistic dreams of becoming the next Ann Rule and writing bestselling books about compelling crimes.

Initially Riley had found the young man relentless and his questions an irritating breach of good manners and an invasion of Riley’s privacy.

But when the cops had gone away, when the crime-scene investigators had packed up and gone home, Scott had remained. When the neighbors had stopped sending cards of condolence and the flowers on his father’s grave had withered and blown away, Scott was still around, sometimes asking insensitive questions but also offering friendship and support that Riley desperately needed at the time.

The friendship had lasted, although there were times when Scott’s eagerness overwhelmed his tact. And tonight with Savannah had been one of those times.

He turned his head as he heard the hospital door open and Scott walked through. He spied Riley and walked over and sat next to him on the bench.

“What did you find out?” Riley asked.

“Not much,” Scott replied glumly. “Thomas James is still alive, but he’s in a coma. I tried to get some information out of Glen Cleberg, the police chief, but he wouldn’t tell me anything. It’s going to be hell trying to get any information from law enforcement…you know, the brotherhood of cops, the blue wall and all that.”

“I think that’s only a myth when a cop is supposed to be bad or corrupt,” Riley replied.

“Who knows what was going on with Thomas. You know he was chief of police before Glen Cleberg. Maybe somebody had a score to settle with him.”

“And so they banged him over the head and did what with his wife?” Riley asked.

“I don’t know,” Scott admitted. “I’m just speculating here.”

“I thought good reporters weren’t allowed to speculate. I thought they were just supposed to report the facts.”

Scott grinned widely, exposing a chipped front tooth. “Who ever told you I was a good reporter?”

“So, tell me about Savannah James,” Riley asked, changing the subject.

“Her name is actually Savannah Tallfeather. She’s a homicide dick and a widow. About a year ago her husband, Jimmy, crashed into the old bridge over the Cherokee River. The wood was old and rotten and his car went over the edge.”

Riley frowned. There should be a law—only one tragedy in a single lifetime. The fact that she was so young and already had suffered two seemed vastly unfair.

“It’s eerily similar to what happened to your parents, isn’t it?” Scott asked. He wasn’t talking about Jimmy Tallfeather’s untimely death. He was talking about whatever had happened at the James ranch.

“Yes…at least from the snippets of information I’ve heard so far.” Riley sighed and looked upward toward the night sky where the stars were obscured by the bright parking lot lighting. “But I hope it’s not the same.”

He looked back at Scott, but his thoughts were filled with a vision of the lovely Savannah. He knew every agonizing emotion she was experiencing. He knew intimately the sensation of shock, the taste of uncertainty and the scent of your own fear.

He knew the furtive glances of people willing to believe the worst. He knew the isolation of friends drifting away, uncomfortable and somehow afraid. He wouldn’t wish what he’d been through in the past two years on anyone, especially a young woman who’d already been touched by tragedy.

“I hope they find Rita James alive and well. I hope she left for a planned trip hours before her husband was attacked.” Riley held his friend’s gaze intently. “I hope this is nothing like what happened to my parents. But if it is like what happened to my family, then God help them all.”

It was near dawn when sheer exhaustion drove Savannah to bed. She’d been up for over twenty-four hours, and although her head wanted to keep searching for her mother, her body rebelled, forcing her to rest.

The night had been a fruitless search. She and Clay had contacted half the townspeople to see if they knew anything about Rita’s whereabouts.

They had contacted friends, relatives and acquaintances, all to no avail. Savannah had taken a photo of her mother to the bus station while Clay had checked all the rental car companies.

Nothing. It was as if Rita had packed her suitcase, then disappeared off the face of the earth.

Before crawling into bed for a couple hours of sleep, Savannah sat in her living room window and watched the sun peek up over the horizon as if shyly testing its welcome.

Tears burned her eyes. Was her mother seeing the sunrise? Had she left on an unexpected trip and had no idea what had happened at the ranch? Or had whomever hurt Thomas also done something awful to Rita?

Savannah had shed few tears all night, but as she watched the beauty of the sunrise, sobs choked in her throat, racked her body and ripped through her heart.

She’d believed all her tears had been depleted on the day she’d buried her Jimmy, but she’d been wrong. A river of tears escaped from her until she fell into an exhausted sleep.

Her alarm awakened her at nine. Gritty-eyed and half-asleep, she stumbled into the bathroom for a quick shower.

As the steamy hot water washed away the last of her grogginess, she mentally steeled herself for what lay ahead of her—the walk-through at the ranch house to see if anything was missing or out of place.

Savannah had been to many crime scenes in the six years she’d been a cop, but she’d never been to a crime scene where her own family members were the victims. And there was no doubt in her mind that her mother was a victim as much as her father was. They just hadn’t figured out yet what her mother was a victim of.

Before leaving her apartment she called Breanna to check in on their father. There had been no change in his condition, and Breanna told her she and Adam were heading home for some much-needed sleep. Clay had no news, either.

In the brilliant sunshine of day the crime-scene tape surrounding the house looked even more horrifying than it had the night before.

Savannah got out of her car and was greeted by Officer Kyle O’Brien, a young man who’d apparently drawn the duty of guarding the house until it was released by the police department.

“The chief is on his way. I’m sorry I can’t let you inside until he gets here.” He looked at her apologetically.

“It’s all right, Kyle.” She forced a smile. “I’ll just wait for him in my car.” She slid back in behind her steering wheel, ignoring the look on Kyle’s face that indicated he wouldn’t have minded a little conversation.

She didn’t feel like talking. She leaned her head against her headrest and closed her eyes as the events of the night before replayed in her mind.

He’d had the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. Her mind filled with an image of the man she’d frisked in the hospital parking lot. Yes, he’d had the bluest eyes she’d ever seen, but they hadn’t sparkled; rather, they had been somber and filled with sympathy.

She rummaged in her purse and pulled out the business card he’d handed her the night before. Riley Frazier, Master Builder of Frazier Homes.

She’d heard of Frazier Homes. But why would a homebuilder think she’d want to speak with him? She wasn’t in the market for a new home, and last night had definitely not been the time to approach her. It didn’t make any sense.

At that moment Glen Cleberg arrived on the scene. Savannah shoved the business card back into her purse, then got out of the car to greet her boss.

“How you doing, Savannah?” he asked with uncharacteristic kindness.

When Glen had become chief a year ago, he’d seemed to be afraid that the James siblings wouldn’t honor his authority after serving under their father. He’d been harder on them than on any of the other officers and it had taken several months before they had all adjusted.

“I’m fine…eager to get this over with.”

He frowned. “Maybe I should have had Clay do it…but I was afraid he’d look at the scene professionally rather than as a family member.”

“He probably would have,” Savannah admitted. Clay was consumed by his work as a crime-scene investigator. She suspected if somebody cut him he wouldn’t bleed blood, but would bleed some kind of chemical solution used in his lab to look for clues.

“We tried not to make a mess, but you know some things can’t be helped,” Glen said as he handed her a pair of latex gloves.

“You don’t have to explain that to me.” She pulled on the gloves, surprised by the dread that she felt concerning entering the home where she’d been raised by loving parents.

Glen drew a deep breath. “Let’s get on with it, then.” He unlocked the front door and together they stepped into the large living room.

Savannah drew in a breath as she saw the blood. It stained her father’s chair, dotted the ceiling overhead and had dried on the television screen in front of the chair. She knew enough about blood-spatter evidence to realize her father had received a tremendous blow.

She struggled to find the emotional detachment to get her through this, trying to think of it as an unidentified victim’s blood instead of her father’s.

Fingerprint dust was everywhere and swatches of carpeting had been cut and removed. Her father’s chair faced away from the front door. It would have been easy for anyone to ease into the house and hit him over the head.

“Let me guess, no sign of forced entry,” she said. “My parents kept their door open and unlocked until they went to bed.” Emotion threatened to choke her. She swallowed hard against it. “It would never have entered their minds to be afraid here, to think they should lock up the doors and windows.”

She drew a deep breath and looked around the room carefully. “Nothing seems to be missing in here. If it was a robbery attempt, you’d think they would have taken the stereo or computer equipment.”

Glen didn’t quite meet her gaze, and with a stunning jolt she realized he believed her mother had done this. He wasn’t seriously entertaining the thought that it had been a botched robbery or anything else.

“Glen, I know my parents fought. Everyone knew they fought. They fought loud and often in public. They were both stubborn and passionate, but they were madly in love. You know my mother isn’t capable of something like this.”

His gaze still didn’t meet hers. “Savannah, we can only go where the evidence takes us, and until we find your mother, she’s our top suspect in this case.”

Knowing he thought it and hearing him say it aloud were two different things. She swallowed the vehement protest rising to her lips, aware that whatever she said would make no difference.

From the living room they entered the kitchen, which was neat and clean and showed no evidence that anything or anyone unusual had been in the room. The only thing out of place was a pie that sat on the countertop, along with a knife and a plate. Her father loved his pies, and Rita baked them often for her husband.

The next two bedrooms yielded nothing unusual. Nothing appeared to have been touched or disturbed in any way.

As they entered her parents’ bedroom, a small gasp escaped her lips. Here it was obvious something had happened. The closet door stood agape, and it was evident clothes were missing. The dresser drawers were open, clothing spilling out onto the floor as if somebody had rummaged through them quickly.

She walked to the closet and looked on the floor, where three suitcases in successive sizes had always stood side by side. Now there were only two. The middle size was missing.

She stared at the spot where the suitcase had stood, trying to make sense of its absence, but it made no sense. In all their years of marriage her parents had never taken trips separately.

It would have been extremely out of character for Rita to pack a bag and go anywhere without her husband. Just as it would be extremely out of character for her to harm the man she loved.

Clothes were missing…several sundresses, slacks and summer blouses. Empty hangers hung on the rod and littered the floor, as if items had been forcefully pulled off them. A check of the dresser drawers showed missing lingerie, sleepwear and other personal items.

She became aware of the ticking of the schoolhouse clock that hung on the wall, stared at the beautiful dark-blue floral bedspread that covered the bed.

What had happened here? She looked at Glen, whose face was absolutely devoid of expression. “I don’t care how it looks. I’ll never believe my mother had anything to do with my father’s injuries.”

“But you have to admit, it looks bad.”

Savannah’s heart ached as she acknowledged his words with a curt nod. Yes, it looked bad. It looked very bad. If her father didn’t survive, then her mother would be wanted for murder. Either possibility was devastating.

They finished the walk-through and left the house. She’d hoped to find some sign of an intruder, some clue that somebody else was responsible for her father’s condition. But she’d seen nothing to help prove her mother’s innocence. And where was her mother?

She remained in her car long after Glen had pulled away, trying to piece together possible scenarios that might explain the absence of her mother’s personal items, the missing suitcase. But nothing plausible fit.

So, what happened now? Where did they go from here? She dug into her purse to find her car keys and suddenly remembered that Riley Frazier hadn’t just handed her a business card the night before. He’d handed her something else, as well.

Digging in her purse, she finally found the sheet of paper that had been thrust into her palm by the handsome stranger. She opened it.

It was a photocopy of an old newspaper article that had appeared in the Sycamore Ridge News on August 14, two years ago.

Man Murdered…Wife Missing, the headline read. Savannah’s heartbeat raced as she read the article that detailed a crime chillingly similar to what appeared to have happened in her parents’ house.

The victim’s name was Bill Frazier and the woman missing was his wife, Joanna. According to the article a son, Riley, survived Bill Frazier.

What had happened to Riley’s mother, Joanna? Had she been found and had she been guilty of the murder of his father?

She needed to talk to Riley Frazier. She needed to find out how things had turned out in this case. And she needed to know what it might have to do with her family’s case.