Heroes In Uniform (271 page)

“Can you come by my house to take a look at the plans with me? I have some questions for you before we move forward. Things Sam noted, but didn’t really explain well. He had his own shorthand that only he understood. Between that and his chicken-scratch handwriting, I can’t understand some of the notations he made next to the blueprints.”

“Oh, yeah. I can do that. When did you want me to come by?” Katelyn asked. She’d seen the way Sam scribbled on the edges of the blueprints and had wondered herself how he’d be able to read it later when the time came. She couldn’t imagine someone else trying to decipher it. Hopefully, she’d remember everything they talked about when she saw what Charlie was struggling with.

“Could you come by today? I understand if you can’t,” Charlie started, but Katelyn cut in.

“Now is fine. I can come now,” she said, pushing herself up from her father’s desk with no small sense of relief. She’d prefer to throw herself into the building of the studio and get back to her art instead of trying to delve into the decisions she seemed unable to make at home. A distraction right now was exactly what she needed.

“Wonderful,” came Charlie’s answer as she grabbed her keys and purse and headed for the front door. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

There was no need for him to tell Katelyn where he lived. Even someone who hardly spent any time in Evers knew Charlie Hanford owned the big house at the top of Evers Hill. Katelyn texted John as she pulled up the long drive leading to the house with its white front porch and limestone exterior.

Ran over to Charlie’s to work on studio blueprints. Text when you’re ready for dinner?

She didn’t wait for a reply. She knew he was often too busy when he was working to respond to her right away, and she knew his answer would be yes. Slipping her phone in her purse, Katelyn shut the car door and walked up to Charlie’s front door. Snippets of the false memory that had plagued Katelyn for years bounced around in her head, but she pushed them aside. There weren’t any pine trees around, just as she’d known there wouldn’t be.

For years, she’d tried to grasp at the memory. To pull at the strands in her mind to knit a picture together, but there just weren’t enough strands. In fact, she wasn’t sure she could truly
see
anything. It was more a feeling, or a sense. A
sense
of being in a pine forest, rather than the actual sight of trees.

Katelyn took a deep breath and pushed forward despite the shiver running down her spine, causing an involuntary shudder. Twenty-four years. Surely her mother’s ghost was no longer haunting the halls of the house she was about to enter.

“Come in, Katy.” Charlie stood on the porch, holding the front door open. She hadn’t even realized he was there, and she wondered briefly if he’d seen her fortifying herself.

“Thanks,” she murmured as she entered the foyer, feeling the weight of being in his home on her shoulders. She followed Charlie through the entranceway and into a large living room. When he
headed toward the French doors, Katelyn knew they would lead to his office, as if it were instinct or some long-buried memory speaking to her.

She stopped short. She couldn't go in there. Surely, he wouldn’t walk her straight into the room where her mother had died. Katelyn’s palms grew clammy, and her stomach flipped over, churning with unwelcome nerves she honestly hadn’t thought she would have. It had been so long ago. Another lifetime, really.

“Honey, are you okay?” Charlie asked, turning back to peer at her before smacking his forehead in an almost comic-like gesture of stupidity. “What am I thinking? I can’t bring you in my office. I’m so sorry,” he said, leading her to the couch in the living room.

Katelyn was astonished at how limp she’d become, how pliable she was as Charlie practically pushed her down onto the couch, talking all the time about how thoughtless it had been of him to try to walk her into his office.

“Such habits, Katelyn, I tell you. You get to be my age and you just don’t think about things like that anymore. Everything’s such a habit. You sit right here. I’ll just get the blueprints and bring them out to you here.” He patted her hand and rushed into the office.

As far as Katelyn knew, her father, as close as he was to Charlie, hadn’t stepped foot in this house other than during the investigation in the weeks following the murder. He had never come here in all these years. He visited her over the holidays in Austin and always timed his visits with Charlie’s holiday party. Katelyn frowned. In fact, it seemed odd now that Charlie would have stayed in the house after what had happened. She’d never given that any thought, but she wondered why he would have stayed after his best friend’s wife was murdered in a room he worked in on a daily basis.
Who does that?

Charlie came in with a roll of papers under one arm and a blanket over the other. He dumped the papers on the coffee table in front of Katelyn then draped the blanket around her shoulders before eyeing her.

“You’re still looking pale. I’ll get you a glass of water,” he said and didn’t wait for a response before leaving her again.

Katelyn pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders, frustrated with herself for the response she was having to simply sitting in Charlie’s living room. Just as she was about to tell herself to get it together, the scent hit her. The blanket smelled of pine trees. Katelyn lifted the blanket and took a deep breath. A pine forest. The pine forest of her disconnected snippets of memories. The bottom fell out of Katelyn’s stomach as though her whole world had fallen out from under her.

She didn’t remember making the conscious decision to go into the office. In fact, if she was thinking at all, she likely would have had the wherewithal to get up and run out the front door. But, her brain wasn’t functioning. Some primal memory in the mind of that four-year-old child was all that was at work now. One minute she was on the couch, and the next her hand was on the doorknob to Charlie’s office, pushing the door open, knowing she had to see, had to know what she seemed to know in her heart.

She had been here. She
had
seen and heard her mother’s murder.

Nothing could have prepared Katelyn for the weak sensation in her legs, the feeling that her world was spinning sideways, as if she were losing her legs beneath her. Her eyes traveled instantly to the chest in the bay window with its brightly colored cushions creating a tempting reading nook. She’d played in it as a child. Of that she was absolutely sure.

Katelyn walked to the chest and lifted the lid, her head whirling dizzily as her mind was assailed with memories, with sensations. It was dark. She was in her hiding place when the voices started. She watched through the narrow slits between the boards of the chest. Not through trees in a pine forest. Not pine at all, she realized, now. Cedar. The chest was cedar, designed to preserve the blankets and linens stored in it. Her childish mind must have mistaken the scent for pine and kept that false memory alive all these years.

The memories connected themselves, one to another in her head. The snippets no longer floating, disconnected and unclear. This time, the scenes fell into line in her head as a linear puzzle now pieced together. Two faces, two angry voices. Her mother’s and Sam Denton’s. Her mother’s scream as she fell when Sam reached out to grab her. Then a third face, a third voice that sent cold fingers of dread dancing an unwelcome pattern up Katelyn’s spine and the shiver she’d felt earlier returned ten-fold.

Charlie.
Uncle
Charlie, asking Sam what happened. Uncle Charlie saying it was too late now. Her mother could not be allowed to wake up. Uncle Charlie hitting her mother repeatedly in the head with a bookend, until no life remained in the still form Katelyn could almost see lying there still on the floor.

For a moment, Katelyn was frozen in fear as the child-Katelyn had been so many years ago. Frozen and mute and helpless as she recalled Charlie’s rushed instructions to ditch the murder weapon; the cash from a box he’d stuffed in Sam’s hands as he shoved Sam out the door leading to the manicured back lawn of his oversized home.

The memories released their ghostly hold on her, and Katelyn backpedaled. She had to get out of the house now. That much she knew. The voice behind her, the arms grabbing her, much stronger than she’d expect them to be if she’d stopped to think about it. Strong arms that stopped her heart and stole the breath from her lungs. Uncle Charlie’s voice was gone. In its place was nothing but the voice of a psychopath. Like nothing she’d ever heard before. Flat and dead as he spoke so matter-of-factly in her ear, it drew a sort-of panicked giggle from her throat that ended in a choked sob.

“I had to be sure. I couldn't chance it coming out after all these years,” he said, with no feeling whatsoever. Simply mild interest. “And, what better way than to see if coming back here triggered any memories for you?”

Katelyn lashed out, swinging her arms and elbows behind her, trying to break his hold on her, but his grip was strong.

“Now then,” he said, with a senseless level of calm that belied the situation they were in. The soothing tone he adopted was nothing short of sick, and Katelyn felt her stomach clench.

“We can’t very well do this here. Although there is a hint of romance to it, people would probably catch on if you were found dead in the very spot where your mother was murdered. Even I would have a hard time making that look like an accident, and I have to say, I’m beginning to excel at getting away with murder. It’s beautiful, really, if you think about it.”

“It’s disgusting is what it is,” Katelyn spat out, and her stomach protested the thought that she might not get away from him, sending a wave of bile up her throat. “Sick and disgusting, just like you.”

She threw her head back hoping to connect with his head. If she connected, she’d probably only succeed in knocking herself out, but she tried anyway. She had to try something. Had to try everything she could to get out of this. She remembered something about the importance of mot letting an abductor remove you from the initial scene. Something about the chances of death increasing exponentially after you were moved.

So, hopeless as it was, she threw her head back, but she only met his shoulder and he laughed, the cruelty in his tone almost stunning to hear, given what she’d come to associate with Charlie Hanford. The whole town saw him as the benevolent benefactor he’d always portrayed himself to be. Charlie had been so supportive. There was none of that in him now as he dragged her toward the door of his office and out onto the back lawn. Katelyn kicked out, knocking over a flower pot that sat next to the door. Her only chance if she couldn’t stop him from taking her was to leave a sign for John, some clue that she’d been taken, and pray he could find her.

As Charlie dragged her to his car, Katelyn fought his hold, digging her heels into the soft dirt to leave a furrow of evidence. She kicked out at the planter that stood at the end of the path, but missed. The driveway was paved. She was running out of opportunities to leave signals for John. Katelyn kicked off a shoe as Charlie opened the trunk of his car and shoved her in. Panic flooded her, and she didn’t start breathing again until the trunk door slammed and she realized she was already shut in its coffin-like interior. There could be no more signaling John. If he was going to figure out she was in trouble, he’d have to do it with the clues she’d left. She just had to hope he’d come to Charlie’s place and then find some way to track her once he figured out Charlie had taken her.

It seemed hopeless. How could John track where Charlie took her? Katelyn choked on a sob, but focused on her breathing and tried to calm herself. The darkness of the trunk was overwhelming. It filled her with dread as she realized Charlie could take her anywhere he wanted to and she’d be defenseless when he opened the trunk. Katelyn reached around her, trying to find something, anything, to use as a weapon, but the trunk was empty. Of course it was. He’d planned this.

Her mind raced back to a TV show she’d seen once. One of those Worst Case Scenario episodes or something. It showed what to do if you’re locked in a trunk.
Yes!
There should be a safety release latch in all new cars. Katelyn felt for the latch on the side of the trunk. Nothing.

She shifted and twisted, wincing as the car hit a bump, tossing her up into the ceiling of the cramped space. She kept moving though. She doubted she had much time. Katelyn’s hands found the flap that should have covered the safety release, but there was no release. Could he have removed it before putting her in here?

Not a problem, she tried to tell herself, attempting to force her stomach to stop the roiling flips it was doing and steady her hands as she thought back to the TV show she’d only barely watched.

Not a problem? What am I, nuts?

The girl trapped in the trunk as part of the reality show had next done some trick where she pulled the wires of the tail light out and made it blink to let people know she was in there, or to try to get a passing police officer to pull the car over. Katelyn couldn’t for the life of her remember how the girl had done it, but she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to try to signal someone. The car slowed and then turned, the turn and the bumps in the road combining to toss Katelyn sideways to one end of the trunk. They had to be on a dirt road.

She scrambled back to the center, trying to balance herself before focusing on getting into the guts of the tail lights. She didn’t make it very far. The car pulled to a stop, and Katelyn braced herself for her face-off with Charlie. She might have nothing to fight with other than her fists or nails or feet, but she’d fight.