The Truth About Comfort Cove (11 page)

“H
ow old was
J
ack
C
olton
when he was at UC? Eighteen? Nineteen?” Lucy was driving again—toward her house, for sure this time. She’d managed to use up a couple of hours of the evening at the restaurant on the river, managed to delay her arrival at her place until after dark.

“About that. He was there twenty-seven years ago and he’s forty-six now.”
Sandy should already be out for the night with the help of the sleeping pills the doctor had prescribed for her. Just for this first week.
“And already he was fixated on money,” she said. Focusing on Jack Colton at dinner had helped center her. Ramsey wasn’t going to try anything with her. He wasn’t going to kiss her.
She didn’t interest him in that way.
She should have thought of Sandy before she’d invited Ramsey to stay with her. She should have thought, period.
“Colton was an only child of older folks who gave him no financial or emotional security. I can understand why providing for himself was important to him.” Ramsey was continuing on with the dinner conversation as though they were talking on the phone, not getting ready to have a sleepover.
“Yes, I can, too,” she managed, in spite of sweaty palms. “But Jack seems to exhibit more than a normal drive for money. He worked in place of fun, but also in place of sleep— at college and, from what you said, back in Comfort Cove, too.”
Headlights came at them, illuminating Ramsey’s face as he looked at her.
“Right. Where are you going with this?”
Lucy signaled the turn onto her street, and slowed down. “Motive. What if working all the hours in a day still didn’t provide Jack with enough money for him to feel secure? Because if, as it sounds, he suffered from scarcity mentality, then no amount would have been enough. It’s not like he was saving for something in particular, right? Or supporting anyone. A single guy, living alone, could certainly have lived on what Colton was making.”
“Especially as frugal as he apparently was,” Ramsey added. “As you said, he worked all the time, but he didn’t own anything of value.”
“I’m guessing he had a nice bank account. People with scarcity mentality fear that there will never be enough. No matter how much is there.”
“He somehow makes a connection with the black-market baby business and Claire Sanderson becomes another consequence of Jack Colton’s fears.” Ramsey went with her theory.
Was she off base here? Lucy pulled into her drive and straight into the attached garage, closing the automatic door behind her, trying to get more completely into Jack Colton’s mind-set, to let her instincts speak to her.
Her work instincts.
“What do you think?” she asked him, turning off the car.
Think Jack. Talk Jack.
“It’s just the garage, but so far, it’s nice.” Ramsey smiled.
“I meant Jack’s motive.” She swallowed.
“I think you could be right.” He was all cop again as he looked at her and she wondered if she’d imagined the personal moment. Or conjured it out of an embarrassingly desperate, sudden longing for his body. “I’ve already looked for blackmarket baby connections and found nothing,” he continued, clearly unaware of where her thoughts had been heading.
“What about Gladys? Jack was in Cincinnati to go to UC. My mother heard about Gladys from an unsavory crowd hanging out by the riverfront in downtown Cinci. Maybe Jack heard of her then, too? And maybe that’s why Claire’s hair ribbon was at Gladys’s house.”
Her heart rate was double-timing, and not just because of the man sharing the front seat with her. She was on to something. She knew it.
Ramsey’s intent stare told her he felt it, too.
“When the baseball thing didn’t work out, he’s on a super downer, losing all hope of ever getting out of the poor man’s life because he thought his only chance at a degree was the baseball scholarship. He wouldn’t go into debt to pay for college, and he thinks he’ll never get ahead legitimately without the degree, so he returns to Comfort Cove. He gets the job as a delivery man, which provides him with an easy means for kidnapping and transporting children, and then he sells them.”
“If not all to Gladys, then to someone else.”
“I’ll see if I can get a warrant for Colton’s current bank records. Chances are there won’t be any dated back twentyfive years.”
“Still, a victim of scarcity mentality is often a hoarder, and if we’re right about Colton, if he has money that can’t be explained, we’ll be one step closer.”
“And then I need to have another meeting with Jack. I have to make him talk to me.”
“And we should speak with Gladys, too. Maybe she’ll remember something once she knows that we’ve made the connection and are going to find out what went on.”
She opened the car door, feeling a little panicky. Excitement over the case transferred to excitement over Ramsey. He opened his car door, too, but didn’t get out. Lucy looked over. He was watching her.
Jack. Claire. The cases.
“What we have here makes sense,” she blurted. “But we have no proof. Other than that hair ribbon which ties Claire to Gladys’s house but doesn’t tie Jack to Claire or to Gladys.”
Ramsey held up the folder they’d been working on over dinner. “We’ve got six professors, five of whom are men and not possible girlfriends, but who may know if Colton was involved with a teacher other than one of his own. And one, the female English professor, is still there and is of an age to have been in a relationship with him. We’ll go see her in the morning before our meeting with Wakerby. Then we call the other five. And we’ll find out everything they know about Jack Colton. Maybe someone saw this guy with Gladys, or someone who knows Gladys, or someone who adopted a baby or wanted a baby or…”
They were out of the car. Lucy unlocked the back of the Rendezvous. Ramsey lifted the hatch and pulled out his carryon-size suitcase and garment bag.
He’d have personal items in there. Like underwear. Because he’d be stepping out of his in her house.
She was sick. Really sick.
And now it was time to take him—and his luggage—inside.

T
he first thing
R
amsey did
when Lucy left him alone at the door of the spare bedroom of her home was close it. Firmly behind him. He didn’t look around. Didn’t take in his surroundings, didn’t note the location of every piece of furniture, every window and door and hinge and lock. He went straight for the bathroom.

He saw the towels on the rack in his peripheral vision. She’d mentioned something about having put them out. Not taking the time to dig into his bag for his toiletries, he pulled off his gun, setting it on the counter just outside the shower, turned on the cold water, stripped off his clothes and stepped into the spray.

It had probably been rude to excuse himself from her company the second they got home. It would have been far worse to accept her offer of a hot-chocolate nightcap and further conversation in the intimacy of her living room with his body hard in response to her closeness.

Tonight, Lucy Hayes’s spare bedroom was a hotel room. One that was convenient for her to chauffeur to and from. No more. No less.

He was not her personal guest. Didn’t want to be her personal guest.
And she was not one of his casual, one-night stands.
Looking down at himself under the stinging spray, Ramsey wondered how long it was going to take to convince his body of that fact.

H
e
’
d packed sweats
and a T-shirt for sleeping. With his laptop on his chest, Ramsey lay on top of the rose coverlet on the queen-size bed, settled in for the night. Best that he not climb in between the soft sheets. Not tease his libido with images of Lucy Hayes making the bed, or lying on the sheets.

Best that he not give her more work by having to wash sheets and remake a bed when he was gone.
One o’clock in the morning and he wasn’t sleeping, anyway. There’d been two other abductions in Massachusetts on delivery truck routes not long before Claire Sanderson had been taken. Both toddlers. Neither had ever been found. Jack had been cleared of any suspicion in those abductions—they weren’t on his route, and during the first one, he hadn’t even been driving a truck yet.
But maybe there was some other connection. Jack could have come back from Cincinnati, armed with Gladys’s information and a plan. He could have originally started as the middleman between the delivery truck drivers and Gladys, and then determined that he could make more money by cutting out the portion he had to pay to the delivery-truck man by handling that part of the job himself. Every piece of that puzzle fit.
Now all he needed to do was prove it.
And find out what had happened to those three children.
He searched the three routes, marking all the similarities he could find, right down to fast-food places from the same chains. It was only two in the morning.
And the phone rang.
Ramsey waited. If Lucy was being called in to work, she’d let him know she was leaving.
Maybe he could ride along. Be of assistance.
And if she wasn’t…
He listened for her voice. Heard nothing. And went back to work.
At three, he awoke from a doze and sat instantly upright.
He’d heard something. A shuffle? A…
Cupboard. In the kitchen. Lucy was up.
Settling back against the pillows, Ramsey willed himself to ignore the fact that someone else was in the house. It didn’t matter what she slept in. Or if she’d pulled on a robe for his benefit.
Didn’t matter if she was having a sleepless night. Or if the phone call had upset her.
She had his cell-phone number. She’d call if she needed him. She always did.
Or…she could always knock on his door.
Pulling the computer to his chest once again, he went back to work.

J
ack
C
olton
’
s
E
nglish professor
, Melissa Beck, had just been starting her career twenty-seven years before. Now she was the head of the English department and, with an eight o’clock class, Lucy and Ramsey figured the best time to get her was before that. Which meant that they were leaving Lucy’s house before six in order to make it to UC in time.

They were leaving before Sandy would be up, Lucy thought as she pulled out of her driveway and confirmed that there were no lights on in her mother’s small bungalow across the street.

“Is that your mother’s place?” Ramsey was following the direction of her gaze.
“Yes.”
He didn’t say anything more. Didn’t ask to meet Sandy. And Lucy was thankful for his lack of interest. She’d learned early in life to keep Sandy off-limits from the rest of her associations.
And to keep her associations off-limits from Sandy. If her mother had any idea she’d had a man spend the night with her, Sandy wouldn’t rest until she met him and knew for certain that he wasn’t going to take Lucy away from Aurora. Away from her.
“I heard your phone ring last night.”
“Oh.” She’d felt like an interloper in her own home the night before. “Sorry. I was hoping it didn’t wake you.” Because what she’d wanted to do as soon as she’d hung up the phone was to knock on the spare-bedroom door and ask Ramsey Miller if he’d…what? Be her one-night stand? Lucy hadn’t had sex since she’d slept with her guns instructor at the academy. He’d been a mistake. She’d thought that she and the thirty-yearold bachelor had something. The arrogant jackass had talked about her in the locker room.
“Was it work?”
“No.” Two could play Ramsey’s game—one word or less when it came to answering personal questions.
But then, he didn’t ask personal questions. Until now.
Was he feeling a change in their relationship, too? Was her attraction to him reciprocated? At least a little?
Would he have opened the door the night before if she’d knocked? Invited her in?
Could be he was just making conversation. They had an hour sitting in small confines ahead of them.
“Everything okay?” He was looking out his passenger window. Maybe following the progress of the barge that was making its way slowly upriver.
Sandy had had another nightmare. They’d handled it. “It’s fine.”
“Your mother?”
“Yes.”
His gaze turned toward her. “Was she drinking?”
She never should have told him about Sandy’s drinking. It was a part of her life that was between her and her mother and Marie. Outsiders didn’t understand. They judged.
But Ramsey Miller had been safely removed several states away, with no cause to ever be in Aurora, or anyplace close to her personal life, the night several months before then when she’d first found out Sandy was drinking again. She’d been tired. And discouraged. And he’d called to tell her that another missing toddler had fallen into Peter Walters’s clutches.
They’d both been having low moments and had traded woes. No big deal.
“I don’t think she was drinking,” she said in answer to his question. If he judged he judged. He was going back to Massachusetts, anyhow. “She had a nightmare.”
“Wakerby induced?”
“They all are, in one fashion or another.”
“She has them often?”
They were passing the time it took to drive to their next business meeting. What was it going to hurt to be honest with him? He saw too much, anyway.
And, she reminded herself again, he was leaving.
“All my life. When I was little she used to come into my room whenever she had a nightmare and wake me up just so that she could make certain that I was okay.”
Maybe if people saw Sandy’s pain, they wouldn’t judge her as harshly as her teachers at school had. The guidance counselor in junior high who’d tried to sic child protective services on them. The mothers of schoolmates—potential friends— who wouldn’t let their children play at Lucy’s house, or, in later years, hang out there, because of Sandy’s influence.
“We’d play games. Or watch television. When I was a little older, we’d watch movies on the VCR.”
“On school nights?”
“Yes.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“Uh-huh.”
“That must have made it rough at school the next day.”
“I graduated with a three point six.” She’d shown the naysayers that she could thrive just fine living with her mother. “My mother lost a child in a brutal fashion,” she said, turning onto the freeway that would take them into Cincinnati and back to UC. “It’s something she’s going to live with for the rest of her life. You don’t go through something like that and get over it.”
“I’m not suggesting you do.”
His tone suggested that she might have come on a bit too strong. Defensiveness where Sandy was concerned was inbred.
“I can’t take away the horrors my mom lives with, but I
can
make the worst times easier to bear,” she said, softening her tone. “Talking to me, connecting with me, eases her panic. Calms her. I bring her a measure of peace.”
“That’s a hard cross for a child to bear.”
“I turned out okay.”
He didn’t respond and his silence bothered her. Did he think there was something wrong with her?
Was he judging her, too?
Was that why he wasn’t interested in kissing her?
Shaking off the residuals of a lifetime of warding off others’ negative reactions to her mother, Lucy thought about Jack Colton. About Professor Melissa Beck. About…
“Have you always lived in Aurora?”
What was with the personal questions?
Did he realize that turnaround was fair play? They had another forty-five minutes in the car and Lucy wanted to know some things about him, too. Just to file away in the box labeled A Guy I Used to Work With.
“Yes, I’ve always lived here…” she said. “Though I was born in Newport, Kentucky, which is where my dad was living and working until his death.”
“He was a cop, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Killed in the line of duty?”
“Yep. He was working undercover, part of a drug sting. My dad went for a drop. His dealer made him and came out of the car shooting. I have copies of the newspaper articles about it. He was given a posthumous commendation.”
“Was this before or after you were born?”
“Before. Mama couldn’t catch a break, you know?”
“Were they married?”
“No. He was recently divorced. They met when he was called in to work a lead on her case—someone turned in a surveillance tape from a bank. The camera caught a woman and child that matched the description of Mama and Allie during the time Mama can’t remember anything. It turned out not to be them, but all it took was that one meeting. He made her feel safe. When she was with him, she felt less panicked. And he drank with her. Anyway, she fell for him. Things got out of hand. Mama thinks he would have married her.”
“You don’t think so?”
“After he died, there was money. It all went to his ex-wife who turned out not to be quite so ex. He was separated, the divorce papers had been filed, but nothing was final.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. I was never acknowledged as his child. Mama wanted them to do blood tests after I was born, to prove that I was his and therefore entitled to some of the settlement, but she was threatened with a harassment charge. They said that she was an emotionally unstable woman trying to make trouble for a fallen officer. The guy had kids of his own. Friends in high places. And Mama didn’t have money to get an attorney and pursue things.”
“Is he listed on your birth certificate?”
“No. She was afraid someone would file charges against her if she did. She let them intimidate her into putting Father Unknown.”
“Have you ever tried to find your half siblings?”
“No. Why would I? I didn’t know their father. He’s no more than a biological set of chemicals to me. Not that there’s any proof of that. And I already know I wouldn’t be well received.”
She and Sandy were a family.
“All my mother ever wanted was to love and be loved,” Lucy said, needing him to understand, even while she knew it didn’t matter. “She just made some bad choices where the men in her life were concerned.”
“What about while you were growing up? Were there men, then, too?”
“One. He finally gave up on her and moved to Arizona.” “Only one? Your mom never dated after that?”
“Nope. After the rape…and then my father… Mama doesn’t have much faith in men.”
“How about you? Do you share her feelings?”
Did he think she was gay? Was the chemistry that absent for him?
They should be discussing Jack Colton. A guy she most definitely didn’t trust.
“I like men just fine,” Lucy said, wishing the miles between them and UC would pass more quickly.
I especially like you, Ramsey Miller, and I don’t like that at all.