Читать книгу New Year Heroes: The Sheriff's Secretary / Veiled Intentions / Juror No. 7 - Carla Cassidy, Delores Fossen - Страница 13

Mariah was grateful that he didn’t mention the kiss as they drove to the sheriff’s office. She couldn’t imagine what had possessed her. But more, she couldn’t imagine what had possessed him.

By all rights he should have been livid with her. She’d said terrible things to him, but her bad behavior certainly hadn’t stopped him from kissing her.

Definitely temporary insanity, and it was obviously a state they had both suffered—for just a moment at the exact same time.

She was acutely conscious of him and she couldn’t understand it. She wasn’t even sure she liked him that well, but all she could think about was the heat of his mouth against hers, the memory of his hard body holding her tight.

How easy it was to focus on these things when the only other emotion she had inside her was wrenching, chilling fear. Her need for Lucas was so much simpler than all the other emotions that filled her at the moment.

“Did Wally say where he picked up Remy?” she asked, finally breaking the uncomfortable silence that had ballooned between them.

“He didn’t say, and with Remy it’s hard to tell where Wally might have found him.” Lucas turned onto Main Street.

The sun broke over the horizon, painting the buildings with a burst of gold light and dancing on the flowers that bloomed in pots in front of the shops.

Monday morning. She should be getting Billy out of bed and ready to go to the babysitter so she could go to work. She closed her eyes as she thought of sitting on the side of the bed next to her sleeping son. He always slept on his side, curled up in a warm toasty ball, and he always woke up with a smile.

He’d been a sunny child from the moment he’d been born. The only thing that had been able to put a cloud in his eyes had been his father.

She opened her eyes, consciously willing away the painful memories as Lucas pulled up in front of the sheriff’s office. Please, she prayed. Please let the answer to where Jenny and Billy are rest with Remy Troulous. And please, let him talk to us.

Wally sat at the desk just inside the door and he rose as they entered. “Morning, Sheriff … Mariah.” He nodded to them somberly. “I got him cooling his heels in the interview room. I’ll warn you, he’s not a happy camper.”

Agent Michael Kessler also rose from the desk nearby. He walked over and introduced himself to Mariah. “Nice to meet you, although I’m sorry about the circumstances. I’ve been trying to run down your ex-husband,” he said.

“No luck?”

Michael shook his head. “He hasn’t registered a car in his name for the past two years nor can I find an employment record for him. I’ll keep hunting, and in the meantime I’ve been interviewing locals for information.” He gestured toward the interview room and looked at Lucas. “I’d like to be present when you interview Remy Troulous.”

Lucas nodded, then looked at Mariah. “Initially, I want you to sit and watch outside of the room,” Lucas said to her. “Let me and Agent Kessler have a go at him and see what happens.”

“Before you do that, Louis got some information about Phillip Ribideaux you might find interesting,” Wally said.

“And what’s that?”

“It seems that ne’er-do-well Phillip has been cut off. According to his friends, his daddy got fed up with him and stopped the gravy train. Young Phillip now has to get a job and pay his own expenses.”

Mariah watched the play of emotions on Lucas’s face. He looked slightly dangerous, with a muscle ticking in his jaw and his dark-brown eyes narrowed. It was hard to believe that this was the same man who had minutes earlier held her so tenderly and kissed her with a fire that had momentarily chased away the arctic chill that had possessed her for the past two days.

“Louis is still sitting on him?”

Wally nodded. “But no offense, chief, somebody’s going to have to take over for him so Louis can get some sleep.”

“When Ed comes in this morning, put him on Ribideaux for the next twenty-four hours.” Lucas looked at Mariah. “Maybe this is about a ransom after all. Maybe Ribideaux got desperate when his father financially cut him off.”

“Then why hasn’t he made a ransom demand?” Mariah asked.

Lucas’s eyes were dark as he held her gaze. “Right now the only answer I have is that whoever is holding Billy and Jenny is enjoying the game. Once the ransom demand is made, the game is over.” He took her elbow and nodded to Agent Kessler. “Come on, let’s go see what Remy Troulous has to add to this mix.”

Lucas led her to a closet-size room with a window that looked into the next room. Inside the bigger area was a long conference table, and seated at the table was a handsome dark-haired young man.

He was sprawled in the chair with the arrogance of youth, legs up on the table and a smirk on his full, sensual lips. He wore a pair of worn jeans and a sleeveless shirt and had a large tattoo on his right shoulder. The tattoo was two letters—VP. Mariah guessed it stood for Voodoo Priests.

“I’ll be right back,” Lucas said as he gestured her to a chair.

She sat and stared at the young man, wondering if he had entered her home and somehow tricked Billy and Jenny into going with him, or forced them from the house at gunpoint. Or perhaps he’d encountered them in the park and seen an opportunity.

Although he looked like a punk, he didn’t look evil. She had to remind herself that evil often wore a benign face. True evil could hide behind an easy smile and laughing eyes.

She drew a deep, tremulous breath and stared at the man in front of her. Did the answer to Billy and Jenny’s whereabouts rest with Remy Troulous?

She moved to the edge of the chair as she saw Lucas and Agent Kessler enter the interview room. “Get your feet off the table,” Lucas said to Remy. “You might do that at your house, but you’re in my house now.”

For a moment Remy didn’t move. He stared up at Lucas with insolent challenge, and Mariah could feel the tension between the two even though she wasn’t in the same room.

She released a small sigh as Remy pulled his feet from the table and sat up straighter in the chair. “Why is it that whenever anything goes wrong in this town one of your men hauls me down here?” Remy asked.

“Because when things go wrong, you’re usually in the middle of them.” Lucas remained standing. He looked fierce, like a warrior facing his enemy. “You know my sister is missing?” Kessler stood just inside the door, obviously not intending to be an active participant in the questioning.

Remy laughed. “This is a small town, Sheriff. Somebody coughs in one house and the next-door neighbor calls somebody else to tell about it. Nothing much happens here that everyone doesn’t know about.”

Mariah studied Remy’s face, watching his handsome features for signs of something, anything that would indicate he was behind the kidnapping.

“I don’t know why your deputy dragged me down here,” Remy continued. “I don’t know anything about your sister’s disappearance.”

“One of her friends told me she’d been seeing you.” Lucas took a step closer to where Remy sat.

“That’s crazy,” Remy exclaimed as he broke eye contact with Lucas. “What would somebody like me be doing with the sheriff’s sister? Get real, why don’t you?”

“Where were you on Friday between the hours of ten and five?”

Remy laughed once again, the sound deep and pleasant. “I’m not sure where I was last night. I sure as hell don’t remember where I was on Friday.”

Lucas sat in the chair next to Remy. “I think maybe you need to try harder to remember.”

Remy frowned and rubbed a hand across his forehead. “I don’t know, I was probably hanging out with my boys, that’s what I do most days. You can check with one of them, they’ll vouch for me.”

“You mean they’ll lie for you,” Lucas replied. “When was the last time you saw Jenny?”

“I don’t know. I might have passed her on the street last week sometime. I got me a girl, Sheriff, I’m not interested in Jenny like that.”

“Then why was she seeing you?” Lucas pressed. “What interest did you have in her?”

Remy’s eyes narrowed and he blinked several times. “I told you already I wasn’t seeing your sister, and that’s all I got to say on the matter.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t know where your sister and that little boy are. I don’t have anything to do with them being missing. And unless you’re going to charge me with something, I’m leaving. Are you arresting me?”

Lucas shook his head. “Not at this time.”

“Then I’m out of here,” Remy replied.

Panic shot through Mariah as Remy stood. He was their best lead, and if he walked out, who knew if and when they would get the opportunity to question him again.

Remy headed for the door and Lucas followed him with Agent Kessler trailing behind. Mariah jumped up from her chair and met them in the hallway.

“Mr. Troulous,” she said. “I’m Mariah Harrington and it’s my little boy who is missing with Jenny.” She grabbed his hand and tried to ignore the smell that emanated from him, the odors of stale sweat and cheap beer and swamp. “Please, if you know anything that might help us find them, if you had anything to do with it, please tell me.”

She held his hand tightly, as if it were a rope that held her dangling over an abyss of grief. If she released him, if he walked away, then she was afraid she’d fall and crash into a million pieces.

Remy looked distinctly uncomfortable as he tried to pull his hand from her grasp, but she held on, refusing to allow him to move away from her.

“Billy, that’s my son. He has asthma and if he gets scared or stressed out he’ll have an attack. He’s a smart boy and he loves school and learning about new things. He loves to play baseball and he doesn’t like the dark. He needs his medicine but more than anything he needs to be home with me. I need him home with me.” A sob welled up in her throat.

“Look, lady. I’m sorry for your troubles, but I don’t know anything about it.” Remy looked at Lucas for help.

Lucas stepped closer and placed a hand on Mariah’s shoulder. “Let him go, Mariah,” he said gently.

She didn’t want to let him go. She wanted to hold his hand until he confessed he’d kidnapped Jenny and Billy. She wanted to cling to him until he told them where he had the two stashed and how she and Lucas could bring them home safely. But his dark, heavy-lidded eyes let her know she could squeeze his hand through eternity and he wasn’t going to give her the answers she needed.

Reluctantly she let go and dropped her hand to her side. Remy raced for the exit as Lucas took Mariah by the arm and led her out of the hallway and into the interview room, Kessler following just behind them.

Lucas pulled out a chair and motioned her to sit, as if aware that her trembling legs threatened to give out beneath her. Once she was seated, he left the room then returned with a bottle of water and set it in front of her.

She smiled at him gratefully and uncapped the bottle and took a drink. “You okay?” he asked as he perched on the table next to her chair.

She shrugged. “I guess I was expecting a Perry Mason moment. You know, you lean on him and he breaks and tells us everything we need to know. Stupid, huh.”

“Not stupid,” he protested. “Just maybe a bit naive.”

“I’ll tell you what was smart on your part. Talking about Billy like you did,” Agent Kessler said.

“What do you mean?” She looked at the blond-haired man curiously.

“You said his name, told Remy a little bit about him. You personalized Billy to the man you thought might have him. That’s a smart thing to do. It’s what hostage negotiators do when they’re trying to resolve a situation.”

She sighed wearily. “I don’t understand how two people could seemingly disappear from the face of the earth and nobody knows what happened.” She put the cap back on the bottle of water and fought against the wave of overwhelming despair that threatened to consume her.

“Why don’t you just hang tight right here,” Lucas said. “We need to coordinate with my men.” He stood. “You need anything?”

“The only thing I need is the one thing nobody seems to be able to get for me,” she replied.

They left her then, alone in the interview room with only her faltering hope to keep her company.

THE MEN WERE ALL THERE except Ed, who had taken over sitting on Phillip Ribideaux for Louis. It took almost an hour for them to exchange pertinent information. Wally had been in touch with the phone company, trying to trace the calls that had gone to both Lucas’s cell phone and Mariah’s home number. As Lucas had suspected, other than the call that had come from the pay phone, the calls had been made by disposable cell phones that were almost impossible to trace.

He’d given the original copies of the recorded messages to Kessler, who would forward them to specialists in the hopes that they could identify a background noise or a voice pattern that might lead to a suspect.

Louis added that while he’d had Phillip Ribideaux under surveillance, the young man hadn’t gone anywhere or done anything suspicious. After losing him, Louis had picked up his trail again at his house, where Phillip and some of his friends had spent most of the night drinking beer and packing a rental moving van.

Ben had searched the cemetery to look for the bullet, but hadn’t found it.

There was still no word from Shreveport about Frank Landers and no other potential suspects on the list. Lucas instructed Ben to grab a couple of citizens who’d volunteered their time, and search all the empty buildings and storefronts in the city.

With nothing more to do, Lucas left his men and headed back to the interview room. Before he reached it, on impulse he went into the smaller room, sat in the chair and gazed at Mariah through the one-sided glass.

She sat with her profile to him, staring at the wall with no expression on her face. Her shoulders were rigidly straight and she seemed to scarcely be breathing.

He thought of the things she’d said to him during breakfast. Did he really remind her of her abusive ex-husband? Was he too overbearing with Jenny? In his concern that she not become a woman like their mother, had he stolen his sister’s self-esteem?

Jenny had once mentioned that she’d like to be a teacher, but he had been adamant that a business degree was a smarter decision. He had just been trying to steer her in the right direction. Was that abusive?

Irritated with his thoughts and with the small flutter of self-doubt that suddenly assailed him, he stood. Dammit, he had more important things to be concerned with than analyzing his relationship with Jenny. He had to find her.

He got up from the chair and went into the interview room. Mariah stood as he entered, looking weary despite it being just noon.

“Let’s get you home,” he said.

She nodded and together they left the office and headed back to her house. They didn’t speak. It was as if the failure to learn anything from Remy sat between them, creating a barrier too big for words to get around.

The minute they were back in her kitchen, they both saw the blinking message light. Lucas checked the information on the recorder. One recorded message, and it had come in three minutes before they’d walked through the front door. Without even playing it, he knew it was from the kidnapper.

Mariah grabbed one of his hands as he punched the button and the now-familiar voice filled the kitchen. “No answers at the office, right? Well, I have a little something for you. By the twisted tree you’ll find a clue, where the grass is green and the sky is blue. Where the flowers bloom you’ll find something rare. So go there now if you think you dare.”

Lucas wanted to punch something. The bastard was watching their every move. He seemed to know what they were doing almost before they did it.

“It’s the park,” Mariah said, her blue eyes lighting with life. “A twisted tree, I know the tree. It’s near the swings in the park.”

Lucas frowned. “There must be a hundred twisted trees in Conja Creek.”

Her eyes flashed with a touch of impatience. “But he would pick the one we know. Everyone refers to the tree in the park as the twisted tree. It’s got to be the one in the park.”

Mariah’s excitement was contagious, but Lucas tried not to get his hopes up. He hated the bright shine of optimism that shone in her eyes—a shine that could so easily be doused.

“Mariah,” he began cautiously. “We thought we were going to get something positive when we went to the cemetery, but the only thing we got was shot at.”

“Surely he wouldn’t do that again.” She headed for the front door. “He says there’s a clue there. He didn’t say that about the cemetery. This is different. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t check it out.” The words bubbled out of her, as if escaping an intense internal pressure. “Maybe this time he’ll give us something to go on, or at least something to let us know that Jenny and Billy are still okay.”

Lucas hurried after her and a moment later he backed out of her driveway and headed for the nearby neighborhood park. He had a bad feeling about this. It worried him that the caller had known that they’d been at the sheriff’s office. It enraged him that the kidnapper was obviously close enough to them to know what they were doing and when they were doing it.

Who in the hell was behind this? It was possible Remy had made the call the moment he’d left the office. He probably possessed more than one cell phone that could be used to make the anonymous calls.

Lucas believed Remy hadn’t been completely forthcoming, especially when Lucas had questioned him about why he’d been seeing Jenny. Although Remy had professed that he wasn’t seeing Lucas’s sister, Lucas hadn’t believed him. Remy had avoided his glance when he’d answered and blinked one too many times, like liars usually did.

It bothered him that a ransom demand hadn’t been made. That meant this was about something more than money. That meant it was something personal. And with both Jenny and Billy taken, it was impossible to know who was the real target.

The park was empty when they arrived, probably due to the intense heat and humidity of the day. Mariah was out of the car almost before Lucas had brought it to a complete halt. She raced across the parking lot toward the gnarled tree that rose up near the swing set. He ran after her, his hand on the butt of his gun.

“Mariah, wait,” he called. Dammit, he didn’t know if they were walking into some sort of a trap again or not. She didn’t slow down.

He caught up with her when she halted in front of the tree. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to the ground. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Have you forgotten what happened the last time we followed the caller’s clue? Just stay down for a minute and let me assess things.” He held on to her arm with one hand and kept his other on his gun.

He gazed around the area, not liking that the south side of the park was flanked by a wooded area that provided plenty of cover if somebody wanted to hide there.

“Lucas, if he wanted to kill us, we’d be dead,” Mariah said softly. “If we’re dead, the game ends and we both know that doesn’t seem to be what the kidnapper wants.”

As much as he hated to admit it, she made sense. The kidnapper was obviously getting off on running them around town, feeding their fear and anxiety. If he killed one or both of them, his game would be over.

Mariah stood and began to search the tree. She looked up into the branches, then walked around it, checking out the trunk. Lucas looked as well, but found nothing. “‘Where the flowers bloom you’ll find something rare,’” Mariah said, and her gaze focused on the flower bed in the distance. “It’s not the tree, it’s the flower bed,” she exclaimed.

A deep weariness overtook Lucas. “Let’s see if he really left us something or if this is just another step in his sick game.”