Читать книгу Cold Case Witness - Sarah Varland - Страница 13

FOUR

Gemma held her hands together in front of her, tight, wishing she had something else she could squeeze besides her own fingers.

How could he have gotten her cell phone number?

She glanced up at Matt, noting the tightness of his jaw. He was asking the same questions she was, but not out loud. Gemma almost wished she could talk to him, but...what had the message meant? He still didn’t believe her?

She wanted to cry. Instead, she swallowed hard and made herself ask the only question that would fully form. “What now?”

“We investigate more thoroughly.”

“Right. But I mean now. Am I in danger? Is he...” Her gaze moved toward the solid wood door. It looked secure, made her feel safely closed in from the night outside. But one good shot to the knob...

Matt was already pulling out his own phone. It looked as if he had a plan. “I’m going to call Clay.”

“Clay?”

“Officer Clay Hitchcock. We patrol together sometimes and he has a little fishing cabin near here where he spends all his free time. He can help me secure this area and make sure it’s reasonably safe. Then we can get you home.” He held the phone up to his ear and stepped away from Gemma. Her shoulders tensed. Being near Matt O’Dell made her feel safe. Who would have thought?

She wanted to let her mind go back to high school, think about the friendship she might have had with Matt if she’d been brave enough to strike up a conversation with someone so opposite of her, but she could think of nothing but the text message, and the impending sense of danger that pressed in on her like a tangible thing.

Gemma swallowed hard, feeling the beginnings of a panic attack. Was it too late to shake it? Maybe if she could have a change of scenery... Hands shaking, heart racing, Gemma wanted to run, but didn’t know where she’d go. And it obviously wasn’t safe for her, not anywhere.

Gemma swallowed hard, willed herself to take deeper breaths.

He doesn’t believe you...

Did the killer know she was at his house? The first time she’d read the words, she’d assumed the attacker knew Matt was the officer on the case. Scary enough. But what if her stalker had actually followed her, knew where she was?

She sank a little deeper into the chair, as though somehow that could protect her from whatever evil might lurk outside in the darkness.

“I think he’s just lent some credibility to your claim that this is all related to what happened ten years ago.”

Matt’s deep voice seemed deeper in the tension. Gemma turned to look at him. “What do you mean?”

“Until now, we just had suspicions. You may have believed someone was after you because of what happened back then, but it was hard to substantiate. His bragging about that, ironically enough, is what’s going to make people believe you.”

She narrowed her eyes in Matt’s direction. “He was right?”

Their gaze had no sooner connected than Gemma jerked hers away, tried to school her features again. So she was hurt. Fine. She didn’t have to show that to Matt, did she? Give him the power to hurt her more?

“Not what I meant.”

“It’s what you said.”

Understanding dawned as she searched for some kind of indication that Matt was like the other officers, that he didn’t believe her side of the story, either. She finally landed on it. Those minutes she’d been alone in the car, when he’d talked to Shiloh. His attitude toward her had changed after that. Shiloh must have told him something that made him doubt her story.

Just like the text had said.

Gemma did her best to leave her face expressionless, but somewhere in her heart, she could feel the battle going on between too many emotions to name. She couldn’t let him see that.

She stood and walked away from him, momentarily forgetting her fear until she heard a car outside. Gemma jumped away from the window.

“Relax. It’s probably Clay.”

She nodded wordlessly and sat back down.

Matt reached to open the door. “We’re going to have to talk about this later. About me believing you and about that look on your face.”

He could read her so easily?

* * *

Matt didn’t feel comfortable leaving Gemma alone, even for a few minutes. This case was growing messier by the minute, and it looked as though the star witness in the stolen antiques trial from a decade ago might be poised to become the only witness in a murder case.

Even if he didn’t have a bit of a personal interest in her, her safety was too important to get sloppy about this.

So he stepped onto the front deck to meet Clay, leaving the door open six inches or so. He’d only be out here for a second.

“What’s the emergency? You’re going to have to connect some dots for me, man. I didn’t go into work today.”

“You heard about the body, though.” Matt didn’t doubt that for a second. First of all, Clay had law enforcement habits embedded too deep to have turned off the scanner all day, even for fishing. He was too protective of the town he was protecting during the hours he was on duty to ignore it just because he was off. Second, Treasure Point was a small town. Matt couldn’t remember the last murder they’d had.

This would be news everywhere for a long time.

“Just that there was one. At the Hamilton place?”

Matt nodded.

“What is it about that place that attracts trouble?” Clay gave a fake shudder and Matt knew he was remembering a case they’d worked a year or so ago, one involving Shiloh and her past. They’d been present for the final showdown, which had taken place underground in a series of tunnels that led to the old house, and while everything had turned out well, it could have just as easily turned out ugly.

“It’s in the woods, just out of town...” There were plenty of reasons the place seemed like a crime magnet.

“Yeah. Tell me about this one.”

Matt shook his head. “I will. Inside. I have a...” What did he call her? She wasn’t officially a witness yet. Saying he had a woman inside just sounded as though he had some kind of date, which hadn’t been true for him in years. Women in his dating pool wanted to settle down, raise families, and no one wanted to consider doing that with a man whose dad was a felon.

“You have a what?”

Clay’s gaze moved behind Matt and he turned slightly to see that Gemma had walked up behind him. He took in her appearance again, trying to see her through Clay’s eyes. A dark purple fitted T-shirt that somehow managed to highlight the honey flecks in her brown eyes, and comfy sweatpants. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She looked as if she’d put zero effort into her appearance, but she could draw the attention of anyone she wanted.

And the attention of those she wouldn’t want, too. Like himself. Yeah, Matt was pretty sure he was down on the list pretty close to last as far as people she’d ever want to get involved with. No way she’d trust him after the way his family’s past had affected hers.

And he didn’t blame her. People could move on, but they couldn’t erase things that had happened, could they?

“Matt?”

Clay’s eyebrows were raised and the smirk on his face hinted that this might not have been the first time he’d called his name.

Oops.

“This is Gemma Phillips.” Matt switched to his all-business police officer voice, introducing them since Clay had moved to town about a year after Gemma had graduated and move to Atlanta. Clay’s amusement didn’t dim at all. Yeah, his friend knew him too well for that.

“She has something to do with you calling me over here when I was fishing?”

Matt hesitated, not sure how to say it.

“Somebody’s trying to kill me.”

“You don’t sugarcoat things, do you? Why don’t y’all let me come inside so we can shut this door and talk...” Clay’s voice trailed off. Matt and Gemma stepped back almost in sync and Clay moved inside, toward the kitchen. Matt locked the door tightly behind him, still not sure what their best next step was. Were they being watched? Should he head outside to canvas the perimeter?

He looked over at Gemma again. She was a strong woman. He’d always thought so. But leaving her inside, even with a gun—provided she knew how to use one, as he suspected a Southern woman like her would—didn’t feel like the right choice.

“The house is secure already?” Clay turned to Matt to confirm. Matt nodded.

“There doesn’t seem to be an immediate threat,” he admitted. “But someone is after her, and he seems to know she’s here.” He explained about the text message.

“Have you checked things out outside?”

He shook his head.

“He didn’t want to leave me alone,” Gemma chimed.

Okay, so she was more perceptive than he’d thought. There was a good chance he was underestimating her ability to handle the situation, but he wanted to take care of her. Was that so wrong?

“I’ll take care of it. Tell me the rest of what’s been going on. Start with the body.”

Matt gave him the short version. Clay just kind of took it in, nodded and seemed to think about it without saying much.

Clay was steady, not quick to jump to conclusions. He could spring into action when he needed to on the job and react quickly, too, but if he had the choice, he’d take things slow.

The opposite of Matt.

“So far it hasn’t been that bad, right? Besides the carbon monoxide thing?”

Matt raised his eyebrows at his friend. Seriously, had he been listening? “Isn’t that bad enough? It could have killed her.” The pale shade of Gemma’s face seemed to imply that she agreed with him.

“Listen, though, he could have shot her, finished things quick and certain. With the gas, there was always a chance she could escape. What if it was a warning? Maybe he figured that if she didn’t die, that would be enough to scare her off, especially when he followed it up with a text message and then coming over here.”

“So you don’t think it will get worse?”

Matt wasn’t happy with the lilt of hope in Gemma’s voice. He liked how it sounded, but it was false hope right now, and he couldn’t let her hang on to it. “I don’t think we can say that for sure.” He glared at Clay with a “thanks a lot” kind of expression.

Gemma’s shoulders fell. Matt noticed for the first time how much more exhausted she looked even than she had after the carbon monoxide incident earlier.

“All right, if that’s all I need to know, I’ll head out and check things out.”

“Be careful,” Gemma urged.

Clay smiled and nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I will be.”

Matt followed him to the door, then locked it behind him after he left. He turned back to Gemma.

* * *

Matt’s eyes on hers seemed to look deep into the tangle of fears weaving its way around her heart. His expression had become more serious since the text message. Even though he’d been so insistent earlier that he didn’t want to push her into sharing more about the past than she was comfortable with, Gemma knew the rules had changed at this point. The text message had been a game changer, and everything was going to be different now.

Her heartbeat quickened and she had to remind herself to breathe deeply as she waited for what he’d say. She couldn’t bring herself to just volunteer the information. She needed him to ask, needed to know that he wanted to be invited into the not-so-pretty sections of her past.

Another deep breath. And another. She wasn’t ready.

“Do you have any more coffee?” she stalled.

“Gemma.” He shook his head. “I’m pretty sure you don’t need more coffee with whatever drugs you’ve got in your system that they gave you after the carbon monoxide.”

Her shoulders slumped as he sat down on the other end of the couch and looked at her. “I know I told you we wouldn’t talk about it...”

He trailed off. Gemma looked away.

Since she was looking at the wall, studying the mounted fish trophies that somehow looked not awful in this cabin, she didn’t see Matt reach out.

But she sure felt his hand cover hers and squeeze.

She swung her head back around, eyes meeting his with no hesitation. She’d expected him to yank his hand away quickly, but he let it stay there.

“I want to keep you safe, but I don’t know how to do that when I don’t have the whole story. He’s going to be one step ahead of me, Gemma, trying to get you, if I don’t know at least what you do about who he could be.”

This time the skipping of her heart had more to do with the emotion in his words, the words themselves and how he cared, than with fear. Something deep inside her felt...something.

“And, Gemma, I’m willing for this to go both ways. You tell me what really happened that night, trust me with that, and I’ll keep you in the loop on my investigation.”

He didn’t break eye contact as he said it. Everything about his body language backed up his words—he was telling the truth.

An inside look at the case, through his eyes? That would keep her close to it. Ensure that she could do everything possible to guarantee all the loose ends were tied up this time, that she really got closure and her life back.

Her self back. She was tired of being known as the girl who’d been through this or that related to the trial.

She wanted to just be Gemma Phillips.

Ending this case would let her do that, at least she hoped so. Which was why she nodded. Took a deep breath.

“You already know I was on a walk on the Hamilton property when I saw those men. I guess maybe I was curious, I don’t know, but once I saw movement, I studied them for a minute while I was walking, just curious about what they were doing. They were burying things in the ground, which struck me as odd.”

Matt nodded. “I remember this part. I paid attention at the trial—I knew you’d tell the truth about what really happened and I wanted to know.”

“Really?” Gemma had known Matt was there, but had assumed that when she’d talked he’d probably tuned her out. It went right along with her assumption that he would probably always hate her for her part in putting his dad behind bars. Now he was telling her he’d listened? And...appreciated what she’d had to say?

When had she ever felt as if anyone had appreciated the sacrifices she’d made to testify?

“I always wanted to tell you,” he admitted, his eyes not wavering from her.

Somehow it gave her the strength she needed to keep going. Gemma squeezed her eyes shut, then forced them back open. Stood up and started to pace.

“I saw them burying boxes. You heard all of that testimony, so there’s no need to go over it again.” Anytime anyone brought it up she saw the whole thing in her head all over again. Saw them behind the hanging Spanish moss, thinking no one saw or heard them as they talked about what they’d done, how many estates they’d stolen things from. She’d recognized a couple of them. Matt’s dad, for one, and Rich Thompson, who’d worked at a gas station not far out of town. Several of them were unfamiliar to her, but she could tell by their accents that they were mostly local. Not necessarily from Treasure Point, but at least from this corner of Georgia.

“I ran back toward the Hamilton House, but I tripped. The doctor told me later it was the worst ankle sprain he’d seen in his career. In any case, I fell.” Hard. The pine straw on the forest floor must have muffled her fall. Either that or the men she’d seen next had been too distracted by their own disagreement to notice a little bit of noise in the woods...

Her own heartbeat had been the loudest thing in her ears then, even when the men’s fighting had grown louder. They couldn’t have been standing more than thirty feet from her, off the little game trail she’d been using. She’d only seen the other men a minute before—they were close enough that she assumed they were together, even before she heard what these men were saying.

“Gemma?”

She had to blink to see Matt and his living room, rather than the dark, thick Southern woods she’d been lost in, in her mind. When she finally focused she noticed she’d stopped pacing. She was standing in the middle of the room, suddenly afraid to go on, afraid to move.

Somehow afraid that someone was watching...

Listening?

“Gemma.” Matt was up from his place on the couch now, moving toward her. All she could do was shake her head.

“What is it? You can trust me. You know that. I know you do.”

He was right. She did trust him, for reasons she couldn’t explain even if she tried. But she couldn’t shake her sudden uneasiness.

What she was about to say she’d only said out loud a handful of times. Once the police had decided that this part of her testimony was questionable, that it had too many gaps to be useful, she’d stopped telling this half of her story.

“They were fighting.” She lowered her voice. Looked around the room again. No one was eavesdropping. Gemma tried to use logic to calm her fears. Matt was inside and hadn’t noticed anything else unusual since the text message, and Clay Hitchcock was out there somewhere in the night.

No one else was here. She took a deep breath. Time to be brave whether the emotions were there or not. “They were fighting and I interrupted them. Harris Walker is the only one I could identify for sure. The other man had his back to me. His voice sounded familiar, but I never could place it.”

“That’s not uncommon in situations like these. Sometimes the trauma makes it too much for the brain to process.”

Gemma nodded. That was what she had assumed. “Anyway, when I fell, my ankle hurt too much for me to move right away, and I could hear them talking. Their voices were tense and it wasn’t long before their fight got out of hand. Harris wanted more money—I assume from his part in stealing the antiques I’d seen the other men hiding—and the other man wouldn’t give it to him. The argument grew more heated. The last thing I heard was Harris threatening the other man. Even though my ankle felt as if it was on fire, I got up and ran anyway. I was afraid that if they saw me, they’d kill me. All I could hear from then on was my heartbeat and the pounding of my feet as I ran. I don’t know if he was shot or killed some other way, I just know that no one ever saw him again. And I think I was yards away when he was murdered, the second-to-last person to see him alive.”