Scream For Me

Chapter Seven

Dutton, Tuesday, January 30, 1:55 a.m.

Alex closed the door and leaned against it, eyes closed. Heart still racing. She brought her hands to her face, smelling his scent that lingered on her palms. She’d almost forgotten how good a man could smell. With a sigh she opened her eyes, then pressed her hands to her mouth to muffle a shriek.

Meredith sat at the table choosing a hat for Mr. Potato Head. She grinned as she plugged the hat in the hole meant for the feet because lips already protruded from the top of the head. “I thought I was gonna have to bring you your shoes.”

Alex ran her tongue over her teeth. “You were sitting there the whole time?”

“Mostly.” Her grin widened. “I heard the car stop outside, then heard you open the door. I was afraid you’d decided to test your new… thing.” She lifted a brow.

“Hope’s asleep. You can call it a gun.”

“Oh,” Meredith said, blinking innocently. “That, too.”

Alex laughed. “You’re so bad.”

“I know.” She waggled her brows. “So was he? Bad, I mean. It sounded bad.”

Alex shot her a guarded look. “He’s very nice.”

“Nice is not nice. Bad is nice. She’ll tell me all,” she said to the potato-head, which looked more like a Picasso-head with every feature out of place. “I have my ways.”

“You scare me sometimes, Mer. Why are you playing with this? Hope’s asleep.”

“Because I like to play with toys. You should try it, Alex. It might relax you a little.”

Alex sat down at the table. “I am relaxed.”

“She lies. She’s wound tighter than a corkscrew,” Meredith said to the potato-head. Then her eyes grew sober. “What are you dreaming, Alex? Still the screams?”

“Yes.” Alex took the toy, aimlessly twirling an ear. “And the body I saw today.”

“I should have gone instead.”

“No, I needed to see for myself that it wasn’t Bailey. But in my dream it is. She sits up and says, ‘Please. Help me.’ ”

“Your subconscious is a powerful force. You want her to be alive, and so do I, but you have to come to terms with what happens if she’s not, or if you never find her at all. Or maybe worse, if you find her and can’t fix her.”

Alex gritted her teeth. “You make me sound like some Dr. Roboto control freak.”

“You are, honey,” Meredith said gently. “Just look.”

Alex looked at the toy in her hands. Meredith’s Picasso-head was no more, every feature now properly placed in the right slot. “This is just a toy,” she said, annoyed.

“No, it’s not,” Meredith said sadly, “but you keep on thinking that if you need to.”

“All right. I like control. I like to have everything neatly labeled. That’s not bad.”

“Nope. And sometimes you get a wild hair and buy a thing.”

“Or kiss a man I just met?”

“That, too, so you aren’t without hope.” Meredith winced a little. “No pun intended.”

“Of course not. But I think that’s exactly why Bailey gave her that name.”

“I agree. These toys are important, Alex. Don’t discount them. Play takes our minds to a place where our guard comes down. Remember that when you play with Hope.”

“Daniel’s bringing his dog over tomorrow to see if Hope likes animals.”

“That’s nice of him.”

Alex raised a brow. “I thought nice wasn’t nice.”

“Only when it comes to sex, kid. I’m going back to sleep. You should try, too.”

Tuesday, January 30, 4:00 a.m.

Someone was crying. Bailey listened hard. It wasn’t the man in the next cell. She wasn’t sure he was even conscious anymore. No, the weeping came from farther away. She looked up at the ceiling, expecting to see speakers. She saw none, but it didn’t mean they weren’t there. He might try to brainwash her.

Because she hadn’t told him what he wanted to know. Not yet. Not ever.

She closed her eyes. Or maybe I’m just losing my mind. The weeping abruptly stopped and she looked up at the ceiling again. And made herself think of Hope. You’re not losing your mind, Bailey. You can’t. Hope needs you.

It had been the mantra she’d chanted when Hope was a baby, when Bailey had wanted a fix so bad she thought she’d die. Hope needs you. It had gotten her through and would continue to do so. If he doesn’t kill me first. Which was a definite possibility.

Then in the next cell she heard a noise. She held her breath and listened as the sound became a scraping. Someone was scraping at the wall between the two cells.

She pulled herself to her hands and knees, grimacing when the room spun around her. She crawled toward the wall, a few inches at a time, then breathed. And waited.

The scraping stilled, but a tapping took its place, the same rhythm again and again. Code? Dammit. She didn’t know any codes. She hadn’t been a Girl Scout.

It could be a trap. It could be him, trying to trick her.

Or it could be another human. Tentatively she reached into the dark and tapped back. The tapping on the other side stopped and the scraping began again. She’d been wrong. The scraping wasn’t on the wall, it was on the floor. Wincing at the pain in her fingertips, Bailey pushed at the old concrete floor and felt it crumble.

She drew a sharp breath, then let it out, dizzy in her disappointment. It didn’t matter. Whoever was scraping was digging a tunnel to another cell. A tunnel to nowhere.

The scraping stilled once again and Bailey heard footsteps in the hall. He was coming. God help her, she prayed he was coming for the other guy, the scraper. Not me. Please not me. But God didn’t listen and the door to her cell swung open.

She squinted at the light, weakly raising one hand in front of her face.

He laughed. “It’s playtime, Bailey.”

Tuesday, January 30, 4:00 a.m.

He was a fortunate man to live in a county with so many drainage ditches. He leaned to one side and let the blanket-wrapped body fall to the ground. She’d died so beautifully, begging his mercy as he’d done his worst. She’d been so prissy and full of contempt when she’d held the power. Now the power was his. She’d paid for her sins.

So would the four pillars of the community who remained. He’d gotten the attention of his first two targets with the first note, with his tracing of the key that would exactly match their own. He’d get some of their money with the second, due to be delivered to the same two some time later today. It was time to begin to divide and conquer. He’d take down the first two, and by the time he was finished they’d be ruined, every last one of them. And I? He smiled. I get to watch it all crumble and fall.

He pulled the blanket away from her foot and gave a final nod. The key was there. In the Review’s picture of Janet, she hadn’t been wearing her key, so the first one must have gotten lost somewhere. Disappointing, but he’d made sure this one was tied on extra tight. The threat would be delivered. Take that, Vartanian.

Dutton, Tuesday, January 30, 5:30 a.m.

A loud creak woke her and Alex snapped her head up, listening. She’d fallen asleep on the sofa after Meredith had gone to bed. She heard the creak again and knew she hadn’t dreamed it. Something or someone was on her front porch. Thinking of the gun in the lockbox, she quietly grabbed the cell phone she’d left on the end table instead.

Hell of a lot of good a locked-up gun did her now, but at least she could call 911. Although that wouldn’t do a hell of a lot of good either, if Sheriff Loomis’s response to Bailey’s disappearance was his norm. She slipped into her kitchen and chose the biggest butcher knife in the drawer, then crept to the window and peeked out.

Then let out the breath she’d been holding. It was just the paperboy, who looked like he was closer to college-aged. He was filling out a form on a clipboard, the small flashlight clenched between his teeth giving his face an unearthly glow. Just then he looked up and saw her. Startled, he let the flashlight fall from his teeth to the porch with a clatter. Eyes wide, he stared, and Alex realized he could see the knife in her hand.

Lowering the knife, she cranked the window open a crack. “You scared me.”

His swallow was audible in the predawn stillness. “You scared me worse, ma’am.”

Her lips quirked and tentatively he smiled back. “I didn’t order the paper,” she said.

“I know, but Miz Delia said she’d rented the bungalow. The Review gives a free week to folks new to the neighborhood.”

She lifted her brows. “You get many new people to the neighborhood?”

He grinned shyly. “No, ma’am.” He handed her the paper and the form he’d been filling out. She had to crank the window a little wider to take it from him.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Don’t forget your flashlight.”

He picked up the light. “Welcome to Dutton, Miss Fallon. Have a nice day.”

She cranked the window closed as he got back into his van and drove to the next house on his route. Her pulse nearing normal, she opened the paper to the front page.

And her pulse started to race again. “Janet Bowie,” she murmured. Alex had only a vague recollection of Congressman Bowie, but his wife she remembered clearly. Rose Bowie and her negative, very public assessment of Alex’s mama’s character had been the reason they’d stopped going to church on Sundays. Most of the women in Dutton had shunned Kathy Tremaine after she’d moved in with Craig Crighton.

Alex rubbed at the sudden pain in her temples and put Craig from her mind. The memory of her mother wasn’t so easily dismissed. There were the good years, when her father had been alive and her mother had been happy. Then the hard years, when it had just been the three of them, Mama, Alicia, and me. Money was tight and her mama had worried all the time, but there had still been some happiness in her eyes. But after they’d moved in with Craig, her happiness had been extinguished.

The last memories she had of her mother weren’t good ones. Her mother had lived with Craig to give them a place to live and food to eat. And women like Rose Bowie had shunned her for it and made her cry. That was hard to forgive. For years Alex had hated all the whispering biddies. Now, as she stared down at the headline, she had to wonder who’d hated Janet Bowie enough to kill her that way.

And why her killer had resurrected Alicia’s ghost after all these years.

Dutton, Tuesday, January 30, 5:35 a.m.

Mack got back into his van and rolled up to the next house. Old Violet Drummond came tottering out of her house to get her paper as she did every day. The first time she’d done it, he’d nearly freaked, but she hadn’t recognized him. He’d changed in the years since he’d left Dutton, in many ways. Old Violet was not a threat, but a great source of information, which she readily provided. And she was friends with Wanda in the sheriff’s office, so her information was usually pretty good.

He handed her her paper through his window. “Mornin’, Miz Drummond.”

She nodded briskly. “Mornin’, Jack.”

Mack looked over his shoulder at the bungalow. “Got yourself a new neighbor.”

Violet’s old eyes narrowed. “That Tremaine girl is back.”

“I don’t know her,” he lied.

“Girl’s no good. She shows up in town and this starts happenin’ all over again.” Violet thumped the front page on which Jim Woolf had described Janet Bowie’s demise in great detail. “Doesn’t even have the decency to behave properly.”

His brows lifted. “What’s she done?” His surveillance told him that Alex Fallon was single-mindedly determined to find her stepsister, but she’d done nothing improper.

“Kissin’ that Daniel Vartanian. Right on the front porch, for all the world to see!”

“That’s disgraceful.” That’s fascinating. “Some people have no class.”

Violet huffed. “No, they don’t. Well, I won’t keep you, Jack.”

Mack smiled. “Always a pleasure, Miz Drummond. See you tomorrow.”

Atlanta , Tuesday, January 30, 8:00 a.m.

Daniel joined Chase and Ed at the team table, fighting a yawn. “Our ID’s confirmed. Felicity said Janet’s dental records match. It’s amazing how fast things get done for a congressman,” he added dryly. “The dentist met me here with the x-rays at five a.m.”

“Good work,” Chase said. “What about the boyfriend? The jazz singer?”

“Lamar has an alibi, confirmed by ten witnesses and the jazz club’s security tapes.”

“He was performing when Janet was killed?” Ed asked.

“In front of a full house. The boyfriend’s really torn up. He sat and sobbed when I told him she was dead. Said he’d heard about the murder but had no idea it was Janet.”

Ed frowned. “What did he think when she didn’t show up for their weekend date?”

“He got a voicemail from her. He said she told him her father had some state function and he expected her to be there. Call came in Thursday at eight p.m.”

“So she was still alive at eight p.m. and probably dead around midnight,” Chase said. “She spent the day at Fun-N-Sun and left when?”

“I don’t know yet. Lamar said she’d taken a group of kids from Lee Middle School.”

“She was a teacher?” Chase asked.

“No, a volunteer. Seems Janet was ordered to do community service after a little diva-brawl with another cellist in the orchestra last year.”

Chase snorted a surprised laugh. “Cellists brawling? What, did they cross bows?”

Daniel rolled his eyes at the lame joke. “I haven’t had enough sleep for that to be funny. The other cellist accused Janet of damaging her cello so that Janet could get the first chair. The two women had an out-and-out catfight, pulling hair and scratching each other. The other cellist charged Janet with assault and property damage. Apparently they caught Janet on tape messing with the cello, so she pleaded out. Her brother Michael said the volunteer work had made an impact. This group of kids was important to her.”

“They went to an amusement park on a school day?” Ed asked skeptically.

“Lamar said it was her reward to kids with straight As and the principal approved it.”

“It’s a four-hour drive from the amusement park back to Atlanta,” Chase said. “If she called Lamar at eight under duress, her killer had her by then. We need to find out what time she and the kids left the park. We could have a nice, tight window of opportunity.”

“I called the school, but nobody was there yet. I’ll head out there when we’re done.”

“Hopefully you’ll get more than we got at her apartment,” Ed said glumly. “We took prints, checked her voicemail and computer. So far, nothing pops.”

“We’re assuming she called Lamar under duress,” Chase said. “What if she was two-timing him? What if she was meeting some other guy for the weekend?”

“I’ve got a request for her LUDs,” Daniel said. “I’ll see if she called anyone else. But speaking of LUDs, we got the warrant for Jim Woolf’s. I should have them soon.”

“Woolf was there last night, at the Bowies ’ house,” Ed mused. “How did he know?”

“He said he followed the line of cars up the hill,” Daniel said, and Ed sat up straighter.

“Speaking of cars, Janet Bowie drives a BMW Z-4 and it’s not in the parking garage under her apartment or at the Bowies ’ house in Dutton.”

“She didn’t get those kids down to Fun-N-Sun in a Z,” Chase said. “It’s a two-seater.”

“I’ll ask the principal. Maybe a parent drove. None of the kids would be old enough.”

“Chase?” Leigh opened the door. “You’ve got a call from Sheriff Thomas in Volusia.”

“Tell him I’ll call him back.”

She frowned. “He said it was urgent. Danny, here’s your fax-it’s Woolf’s LUDs.”

Daniel scanned the LUDs as Chase took his phone call. “Jim Woolf got a call at six Sunday morning on his home line.” He flipped pages. “He got a call two minutes earlier from the same number on his office phone. And… he got another call from that same number… Oh, hell.” He looked up with a frown. “This morning at six.”

“Fuck,” Ed muttered.

“Fuck is right,” Chase said, hanging up the phone.

Daniel sighed. “Where?”

“Tylersville. One girl, brown blanket, with a key tied to her toe.”

“You were right, Ed,” Daniel murmured, wondering if this could be Bailey. The possibility of breaking the news to Alex made him sick, but the reality of their situation made him sicker. “Gentlemen, we’ve got ourselves a serial killer.”

Tuesday, January 30, 8:00 a.m.

She heard the scraping again. Bailey blinked, the pain in her head nearly unbearable. He’d been brutal last night when he’d taken her away, but she’d held on. She hadn’t told him anything, but at this point she wasn’t sure it would matter if she did. He was enjoying the torture. He laughed at her pain. He was an animal. A monster.

She tried to focus on the scraping. It was rhythmic, like the tick of a clock. Time was passing. How long had she been here? Who had Hope? Please, I don’t care if he kills me now, just let my baby be all right.

She closed her eyes and the scraping faded. Everything faded.

Volusia , Georgia , Tuesday, January 30, 9:30 a.m.

“Who found her?” Daniel asked Sheriff Thomas.

Thomas’s jaw tightened. “Brothers, fourteen and sixteen. The sixteen-year-old called it in on his cell phone. All the kids cut through here on their way to school.”

“Then he wanted her to be found again.” Daniel looked around the heavily treed area. “On the last scene we had a reporter hiding up a tree taking pictures. Can you have your deputies walk through the trees and check?”

“We’ve been here since the kid called it in. No reporters could have gotten through.”

“If he’s the same guy, he was here before the kids found her.”

Thomas’s eyes narrowed. “This sicko is feeding him?”

“We think so,” Daniel said, and Thomas’s mouth twisted in distaste.

“I’ll go with them, make sure they don’t disturb anything you guys might need later.”

Daniel watched Thomas motion a couple of his deputies to the tree-line, then turned to Felicity Berg as she climbed from the ditch.

“Same, Daniel,” she said, peeling off her gloves. “Time of death was between nine and eleven last night. She was put here some time before four this morning.”

“The dew,” Daniel said. “The blanket was wet. Sexual assault?”

“Yes. And her face was broken the same way as Janet Bowie’s. Same bruising around her mouth. I think I’ll find it’s postmortem when I get her into exam. Oh, and the key? It was tied on super-tight. If she’d been alive it would have cut off all circulation to her toe. He wanted you to find that key.”

“Did she have track marks on her arms, Felicity?”

“No. Nor a lamb tattoo on her ankle. Tell Miss Fallon this isn’t her stepsister, either.”

Daniel breathed out a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

Felicity drew herself straighter as the techs brought the body over the edge. “I’ll take her in now and see if we can’t find out who she is.”

As the ME vehicles drove away, Daniel heard a shout and turned in time to see Sheriff Thomas and one of his deputies pull Jim Woolf out of a tree, none too gently.

“Woolf,” Daniel called when Thomas had dragged him closer. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“My job,” Woolf snapped.

The deputy held up Woolf’s camera. “He was snappin’ away.”

Woolf glared. “I was outside the crime scene and on public land. You can’t take my camera or my pictures without a court order. I gave you the other pictures to be nice.”

“You gave me the other pictures because you’d already used them,” Daniel corrected. “Jim, think about it from my point of view. You get a phone call at six a.m. on Sunday and then again at six a.m. today from the same caller. Both days you show up at a homicide scene before we do. I might think you had something to do with this.”

“I didn’t,” Woolf gritted.

“Then prove your good intentions. Download that memory card onto one of our computers. You walk away with your pictures and I’m reasonably pacified.”

Woolf shook his head, angry. “Whatever. Let’s get this done so I can get to work.”

“Took the words right outta my mouth,” Daniel said mildly. “Let me get my laptop.”

Dutton, Tuesday, January 30, 10:00 a.m.

Meredith closed the front door behind her, shivering in her running clothes. “It’s got to be twenty degrees colder this morning than yesterday.”

Alex held up her hand, her eyes fixed to the TV. The sound was muted and she’d moved Hope’s chair so that the child couldn’t see the screen. “Sshh.”

“What’s happened?” Meredith asked urgently.

Alex worked very hard to keep the fear from her voice. “Breaking news.”

Meredith swallowed. “Another?”

“Yeah. No details yet, and no pictures.”

“Vartanian would have called you already,” Meredith said softly.

As if cued, Alex’s cell phone rang and her heart dropped to her gut as she checked the caller ID. “It’s him. Daniel?” she asked, unable to control the tremble in her voice.

“It’s not Bailey,” he said without preamble.

Relief shuddered through her. “Thank you.”

“It’s okay. I take it you’d heard already.”

“The news didn’t give any real information. Just that there’s another.”

“That’s about all I know, too.”

“Just like…?”

“Just like,” he confirmed quietly. Alex could hear the slam of a car door and his engine starting. “I don’t want you going out alone. Please.”

A shiver shook her, unpleasant and unwelcome. “I have places to go today, things to do. People to talk to. I won’t get another chance until Meredith can come back.”

He made an impatient noise. “Fine. Just stay in public and don’t park your car anywhere secluded. Better yet, let a valet do your parking and don’t go to Bailey’s house by yourself. And… call me a few times so I know you’re okay. Okay?”

“Okay,” she murmured, then cleared her throat when Meredith gave her a knowing look. “Will Loomis search Bailey’s house now that she’s been declared missing?”

“I’m headed into Dutton to see Frank Loomis right now. I’ll check for you.”

“Thank you. And, Daniel, if you can’t make it tonight, I’ll understand.”

“I’ll do my best. Gotta make some more calls. Bye.”

And he was gone. Carefully Alex closed her phone. “Bye,” she murmured.

Meredith sat down next to Hope, then tilted her head, looking from Alex’s picture to Hope’s. “You all have similar technique. You both stay inside the lines.”

Alex rolled her eyes. “Yes, I am a control freak.”

“Yes, but you color a pretty picture.” Meredith hugged the little girl’s shoulders. “Your aunt Alex needs to have fun. Make sure you guys play while I’m gone.”

Hope’s chin jerked up and her gray eyes widened in panic.

Meredith just smoothed her thumb over Hope’s cheek. “I’ll be back. I promise.”

Hope’s lower lip trembled, breaking Alex’s heart. “I won’t leave you alone, honey,” she murmured. “While Meredith is gone, I’m sticking to you like glue. I promise.”

Hope swallowed, then dropped her eyes back to her coloring.

Alex leaned back in her chair. “Well.”

Meredith laid her cheek on Hope’s curls. “You’re safe, Hope.” She met Alex’s eyes. “Keep telling her that. She needs to hear it. She needs to believe it.”

Me, too. But Alex nodded firmly. “I will. Now, I’ve got lots of stuff to do today. My first stop is the county courthouse. I’ve got to apply for a license to carry the… thing.”

“How long does that take to get?”

“The website said a few weeks.”

“And until then?” Meredith asked meaningfully.

Alex looked at Hope’s coloring book. All that red. “I can keep it in my trunk legally.”

Meredith sucked in her cheeks. “You know a half-truth’s the same as a lie.”

Alex lifted her chin. “You gonna call a cop?”

Meredith rolled her eyes. “You know I’m not. But you will, because you promised Vartanian you would. And you’ll call me right after you call him.”

“Every few hours.” She pushed back from the table and headed to the bedroom.

“I have to leave here at five to make my flight,” Meredith called behind her.

“I’ll be back by then.” She had only seven and a half hours to apply for a concealed-weapons permit and then to talk to anybody who knew Bailey’s habits, her friends. Her enemies. It would have to be enough.

Tuesday, January 30, 11:00 a.m.

“Hello.”

It was just a dream. Wasn’t it?

“Hello.”

Bailey lifted her head a fraction of an inch, reeling when the room twisted around her. It wasn’t a dream. It was a whisper and it came from the other side of the wall. She forced herself to her hands and knees, gagging when the nausea hit her like a brick. But nothing came up, because she’d been given nothing to eat. Or drink.

How long? How long had she been here?

“Hello.” The whisper came through the wall again.

It was real. Bailey crawled to the wall and collapsed on her face, watching as the floor moved, just a little. A teaspoonful. Gritting her teeth, she brushed at the dirt.

And touched something solid. A finger. She sucked in a breath as the finger wiggled and pulled back through the hole, taking some of the dirt from her side with it.

“Hello,” she whispered back. The finger reappeared and she touched it, a sob heaving up from her chest.

“Don’t cry,” he whispered. “He’ll hear you. Who are you?”

“Bailey.”

“Bailey Crighton?”

Bailey stopped breathing. “You know me?”

“I’m Reverend Beardsley.”

Wade’s letter. The letter that had contained the key he’d demanded every time he took her from this cell. Every time he… “Why are you here?”

“Same reason you are, I’d guess.”

“But I never told. I never told him anything. I swear it.” Her voice shook.

“Sshh. Good for you, Bailey. You’re stronger than he thinks. So am I.”

“How did he know about you?”

“I don’t know. I visited your house… yesterday morning. Your cousin was there.”

“Alex?” The sob rose again and she pushed it back. “She came? She really came?”

“She’s looking for you, Bailey. She has Hope. She’s safe.”

“My baby?” The tears did come now, quiet but steady. “You didn’t tell her, did you?” She heard the blame in her own voice, but couldn’t stop it.

He was quiet for a long moment. “No, I didn’t. I couldn’t. I’m sorry.”

She should say I understand. But she wouldn’t lie to a reverend. “Did you tell him?”

“No.” She heard the pain behind the single word.

She hesitated. “What has he done to you?”

She heard him draw a deep breath. “Nothing I can’t take. And you?”

She closed her eyes. “The same. But I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”

“Be strong, Bailey. For Hope.”

Hope needs me. The mantra would have to keep her going a little longer. “Can we get out of here?”

“If I think of a way, I’ll let you know.” Then his finger disappeared and she heard dirt trickling back into the hole as he covered it up from his side.

She did the same, then crawled back to where she’d lain before. Alex has Hope. My baby is safe. That’s all that really mattered. Everything else… Everything else I brought on my own head.