Cold Touch (24 page)

Because she needed to talk to him, needed to tel him everything.

She’d had a chance to think about it al the way home as she’d drifted off to sleep. She’d put it al together—al the clues,

the visions, everything that didn’t quite fit—and had come up with a whole new picture.

It changed everything. Nothing was as it had always seemed.

While the realization she’d made didn’t shock her quite as much as she’d have expected it to, since she’d been thinking

along these lines since yesterday, it did make her feel sick. Even now, hours later, and after that wonderful interlude with Gabe,

she felt the horror trying to claw its way back into her.

“Don’t,” she told herself as the fear tried to take hold. “Don’t let it.”

Looking at her reflection in the mirror, she swal owed, then licked her lips. She’d done as Gabe had suggested and splashed some water on her face, though she stil looked pale and drawn. Reaching for a facecloth, she wet it, then pressed it

to her closed eyes, hoping to bring down the swel ing her tears and fatigue had caused. As the coolness penetrated her forehead, she suddenly became aware of an unusual intermittent warmth on the back of her neck. Not like a breath, certainly,

but more like warm air fal ing from a ceiling vent. But there were no vents in the bathrooms of this old house, only radiators that

she hadn’t turned on for months.

Strange. But on the strange scale, definitely nothing compared to the rest of her day.

Final y, after counting to sixty, she lowered the cloth.

And gasped.

The shower curtain had moved. It hung from a round loop on the ceiling, draping down over the clawfoot tub, and it had just

visibly fluttered, as if someone had brushed past it. Someone who’d been standing behind her, between her and the doorway

to her bedroom.

“Who’s there?” she asked. Her mind worked frantical y. “Gabe?”

Nothing.

He wouldn’t play games with her, wouldn’t stay silent if he were real y in her room and knew she might have seen him.

Nobody else in her house would, either. They al knew how unraveled she’d been earlier, or at least she assumed they did by

now.

So who had been there?

“Nobody,” she told herself in a firm voice.

It had been a blur, a trick of the eyes after she’d dropped the cloth and let the light back in. Nothing else at al . She was

jumping at shadows now, and that was one thing she couldn’t let continue. The horror in her life was compartmentalized; al the

ugly, scary, dark stuff was only supposed to happen when she was working. Here, in her home, it simply wasn’t al owed.

“Got it? Not al owed,” she told her reflection.

Taking a quick glance at her face, she remembered she hadn’t worn any mascara this morning, knowing it might be a crying

kind of day. So no emergency makeup repairs were required. That was a good thing, because she’d kept Gabe and the

others waiting long enough.

Stepping into the bedroom, she glanced around quickly, confirmed the emptiness, then headed out the door. Descending

the stairs, she fol owed the sound of their voices, al coming from the den: two masculine ones, Julia’s brusque, throaty drawl

and her sister’s light, lyrical tone.
God, how did Brooke get sucked into this?

Entering the room, she found Gabe, Brooke, and Julia, of course, plus an extremely attractive man who looked a little like

that actor from
Criminal Minds
—Shemar Moore. Wow, they grew them nice at the Savannah PD. At least she assumed this

was Gabe’s partner, Detective Tyler Wal ace.

Gabe had been leaning against the fireplace, his hands in his pockets, when she came in. The pose was casual, but she

saw the tension in his broad shoulders and the frown on his face. “You okay?” he asked, ignoring everyone else.

She nodded. “I’m fine.”

Julia had been sitting on the edge of the desk, her long legs swinging as she talked to Brooke about heaven knew what.

Now she hopped off and walked over. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be nosy. It’s just, when Brooke cal ed, looking for you, and

was so upset . . .”

“You asked Morgan to check on me?”

She nodded. “He told me a strange man had carried you into your house. I panicked, cal ed her back, and we al raced

over.” She glanced at her watch. “Hel , we should probably listen for the doorbel ; I bet you anything Mick wil be showing up

soon.”

Oh, wonderful. “You cal ed him?”

She merely shrugged, unrepentant. “Hey, we’re a team, remember? But don’t worry. I couldn’t reach anybody but Mick.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gabe grimace. It didn’t take a genius to see that he didn’t think much of Julia, though

they’d only just met, as far as she knew. That surprised her; most men liked sexy, bal sy Julia a lot. Not that she had eyes for

any of them. Olivia suspected her heart stil belonged to a man who was thoroughly beyond her reach.

Gabe’s partner walked over and extended his hand, which she shook. “We didn’t get a chance to meet yesterday. I’m

Detective Wal ace—Ty.”

“Nice to meet you.” Though it would have been so much nicer to meet him and to see Julia and Brooke anywhere other than

in her house minutes after they’d interrupted those wonderful moments in Gabe’s arms.

Lie. It was over before they walked in.

Perhaps. But she liked to think she might have convinced him to change his mind.

“Now,” Julia said, “Detective Wal ace fil ed us in on what he knew, and he,” she waved at Gabe, “told us the rest. Everything

except the Final Jeopardy answers.”

“Questions,” she murmured absently.

“Whatever.”

“Stop browbeating her,” Gabe snapped. “Can you at least let her sit down?”

That sounded remarkably protective. Wel , she supposed his protective instincts had gotten al worked up today. Frankly,

that had been good, at the time. Now, though, she didn’t need that. She just needed him—al of them—to listen. And to understand.

So, without hesitating, she told them what she’d learned about the final moments of the boy who’d once saved her life. They

didn’t interrupt, not once, though she saw Gabe’s brow furrow in confusion when she mentioned one thing: that she’d seen the

boy’s face and recognized his reflection as the sunlight gleamed on the water in the washtub.

She should have known he’d be the one to realize something was wrong with that statement, even if he couldn’t puzzle it out

right away. He was quick, always thinking, alert and attentive. She admired that about him.

He’d also frowned when he’d heard the boy had cal ed his attacker “Uncle Johnny,” which in no way sounded like Dwight.

But he’d probably assumed the kidnapper had used a false name.

Though it was difficult thinking about the most pitiful, heartbreaking part of it, she also shared one more detail, the one that

had been so very hard to hear. “He said something at the end.” She swal owed, trying to find some moisture in her very dry

mouth. “His last words were ‘My name is Zachary.’”

Brooke, who’d been sniffling since almost the start of the conversation, started to cry in earnest. Detective Wal ace pul ed a

handkerchief out of his pocket—what a nice, old-fashioned thing for a young, modern man to carry around—and gave it to her.

“Zachary,” Gabe said, looking relieved to have the boy’s real name to go on. It was an excel ent clue, and she knew it. That,

in itself, was worth the ordeal she had gone through to learn it.

But it wasn’t the most important thing. Oh, no.

“What happened after that?” Julia asked.

Olivia looked at her, blinking, her mouth opening, then closing. She lifted her hand to her throat, trying to focus, wanting to

help, but unable to think, unable to even consider thinking about the moment his face—her face—had gone into that water.

“What the hel do you think happened? He died,” Gabe snapped, sounding angry. He strode over, stood beside the chair

—the one where he’d held her on his lap just last night—and put a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to say anything else,

Liv. You can put this al behind you, forget about it.”

A nice thought, but it wasn’t true. She looked up at him, saw the concern and appreciated it more than she could say. “I need

to tel you one more thing the man said.”

“Yes?”

“When Zachary tried to deny letting me go, the man got angry, saying that word of my escape was al over the news.”

He drew in a low, audible breath, understanding washing over his features. It al clicked in his mind, the way it had in hers.

“The sunlight on the water,” he mumbled.

She nodded.

“Christ.”

“What is going on?” Brooke asked. “What are we missing?”

“You don’t remember the details as wel as I do, you were so young,” Olivia said, tearing her gaze off Gabe to glance at her

sister.

Gabe jumped in to explain. “Dwight Col ier, the man everyone assumed had kidnapped Olivia and kil ed young Zachary, was

himself kil ed in a shootout with police the
night
Olivia escaped.”

Detective Wal ace muttered a curse, and Julia gasped as it hit her, too. But Brooke, sweet Brooke, whose mind didn’t work

in warped, evil ways, stil didn’t quite see.

Olivia leaned forward, reaching for her sister’s hand. “I heard the kil er’s voice, and I know he was the same man who had

taken me, and . . . who did what he did to me.”

Brooke squeezed her fingers tighter.

“Jack—
Zachary
—helped me escape, and I spent the night in the cemetery. But he was kil ed in the daytime. I saw the blue

sky, I saw the gleam of sunlight on the water, and word of my escape didn’t hit the news until the next morning, when they found

me in the cemetery.”

Hours after Dwight Collier was dead.

Suddenly, her sister saw the same thing they al did and looked every bit as dismayed. “Oh, my God.”

Olivia knew it was true, didn’t doubt what she’d experienced with her own eyes and ears, but it was stil hard to take in.

Yesterday, she’d voiced concern about an accomplice, wondering if someone else had wal ed up the boy’s remains. In truth,

Dwight Col ier had been the accomplice al along, sent to pick up the ransom money and paying for that errand with his life.

Which meant the man who’d kidnapped Olivia, drowned her, then murdered Zachary, had escaped altogether. And he might

very wel stil be out there.

After he’d finished burying the rich businessman from Jacksonvil e, Johnny Traynor went into the motor home and headed for

the kitchen to wash up for supper. He’d told Jack to have his food ready, and when he entered, his stare immediately went to

the table to make sure he’d been obeyed. He saw a bowl fil ed with some canned stew, a plate stacked with bread, a box of

crackers and a big glass of water.

Wel , wasn’t that fine.

“Good job, son,” he said, smiling broadly at the boy, who stood in the corner, his eyes big and round in the near darkness.

His smile quickly faded, however. “Why din’tcha turn the lights on? It’s dark as a witch’s snatch in here!”

The boy darted toward the lamp and flicked it on. “I din’t think you’d wanna waste the gas from the generator. It ain’t been

dark but for a couple’a minutes, and I could see okay.”

Johnny gave him a thumbs-up. “Smart thinkin’ there, Jackie-boy.”

Seeing the sticky, dried blood and dirt on his fingers, he paused for a second, confused. The dirt, sure—he’d buried a man,

hadn’t he? But the blood . . . he couldn’t quite recal where that had come from. The body’d been al wrapped up in plastic,

hadn’t it? It’d been lyin’ there on the ground, waiting to be buried when John had gotten back from . . . wherever he’d been.

Dang, he must be getting old; he couldn’t remember shit these days. He’d come back from using the man’s own keys to

break in and rob his house, taken a nap, then . . . then buried the man rol ed up in the tarp.

Wherever the blood had come from, he didn’t want it on his hands while he ate the fine meal his son had prepared for him.

Needing to wash, he headed to the sink, giving the kid a little hair ruffle as he passed. He’d been pleased with how wel Jack

had been behaving lately.

The boy ducked his head, probably feeling embarrassed about the praise. He was a shy one, quiet, maybe a little soft. But

hopeful y he would toughen now that he was getting older.

How old? How old is Jackie-boy?

Johnny paused and turned his head, thinking he’d heard something—a voice—but there was nothing, no sound at al but for

the screaming bugs outside the trailer.

Screaming . . . the businessman from Jacksonvil e had screamed, hadn’t he? Somewhere off in the distance.

“Don’t matter,” he mumbled under his breath. The businessman from Jacksonvil e was gone now. And there was lots more

money waiting to be hidden away, along with the tens—maybe hundreds—of thousands of dol ars he’d col ected over the past

two decades. Much of it—any ransom money, for instance—couldn’t be used anytime soon. He knew better than to think those

rich assholes would keep their word and deliver only unmarked bil s. But someday, in a few years or so, when he was ready to

retire, he’d dig it al up. Then he and his boy would move somewhere far away, live high on the hog.

But he won’t be a boy anymore, will he? He’ll be a man. A lying, untrustworthy man.

“You say something?” he asked Jack, who again stood in the corner, watching.

“Nossir, Uncle Johnny.”

His hand flew out, the back of it meeting the boy’s cheek in absent irritation. “I told you to stop cal ing me that. I’m your