Cold feet (27 page)

"What's bothering
you?
" She grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop only a few steps from his front door.

He couldn't help looking back at Madison's house, to see that the shutters were tightly closed. Holly wanted to know what was bothering him? Losing Madison bothered him, even more than he'd thought it would.

Holly followed his gaze. "Wait a minute. Don't tell me there's something going on between you and...and Purcell's daughter. Are you sleeping with her?"

Caleb tensed at Holly's proprietary tone. "You act as though you have a right to ask me that, Hol."

"I do! You came here to help
me.
You're supposed to be searching for Susan's killer, not...not climbing into bed with Ellis Purcell's daughter!"

A muscle began to tick in Caleb's cheek. "Holly, don't push me, okay?" He jerked out of her grasp. "Now, I'm really tired. If you don't mind, I'm going inside to get some sleep. I'll call you tomorrow."

He started to move beyond her, but she reached for his jacket. "Wait...Caleb, don't be angry. I only came here tonight because Detective Gibbons called my place, looking for you."

He'd opened his door, but this succeeded in gaining his attention. "Why?" he asked, rounding on her.

"They've found Susan's car."

Caleb's jaw dropped.
"Where?"

"Parked only a few blocks from Lance's place. Can you believe it? I think Lance has been lying the whole time. I think he killed Susan because she found out about his fiancee and threatened to tell her about their affair."

"Holly, Lance isn't even a plausible suspect. Our killer knows too much, which means he has to be someone closer to the case. Remember the Ford truck outside the pizzeria?"

"That could've been a coincidence."

"The way Susan's body was positioned was no coincidence. And if Lance did kill her, he'd have to be an idiot to park Susan's car so close to his house. But come in," he said, holding the door. "I'll give Gibbons a call. I want to see that car."

She didn't move right away. "You've changed, you know that?"

"Are you coming in?" he asked, refusing to spar with her.

Grudgingly, she stepped past him. "I think I was wrong about you. I don't think you're going to find this killer. He's much too smart."

M
ADISON COULDN'T SLEEP
.
She stared at the ceiling, tossed and turned, took a hot bath and went back to bed. But Caleb's face still lingered in her mind, and her heart threatened to break. They hadn't known each other long, but when they'd made love she'd felt like she was part of him. And tonight, when she'd met his family, it had seemed as though she belonged....

How could she have been so wrong?

Eventually, she gave up trying to drift off on her own and took two sleeping pills. She didn't have Brianna to worry about tonight. And, judging by the snoring in the next room, Johnny was so deeply asleep she doubted he'd wake before noon.

The medication was just starting to take effect when the doorbell rang. She heard it as a faint echo in the distance and eyed the digital clock near her bed. Two o'clock.

Caleb again, no doubt. With Johnny already here, it was too late to be anyone else. Except maybe Tye...

Madison wanted whoever it was to go away so she could sink into the oblivion that finally hovered so close. She needed to sleep, forget and wake with renewed perspective and resolve. But the bell rang again, accompanied by a loud knock, and she began to wonder if, by some chance, Danny had decided to bring Brianna home early.

"Johnny? Can you answer the door?" she called.

No reply. Just more snoring.

"Johnny?" Madison feared she was slurring her words. It required real effort to lift her eyelids, but picturing Brianna out in the cold got her up and moving.

She managed to find her robe. She had trouble shoving her arms into the sleeves and couldn't tie the belt, but she didn't care.

Another knock. Only now did Madison realize that whoever stood at her door was actually giving it more of a light rap than a pounding. If not for being a mother, she probably wouldn't have heard it at all.

"Just a minute!" she called, and stumbled down the hall.

"Madison? It's me." It was a female voice, a voice Madison recognized.

Sharon? Quickly unfastening the latch, Madison opened the door and drew her sister-in-law inside. Then she poked her head out to see if Tye's wife was alone or if she'd brought the kids.

Madison couldn't see so much as a car in the drive--and she was fairly certain the sleeping pills had nothing to do with that.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine," Sharon replied, but it was misty and cold, and she wasn't wearing a coat. She hugged herself, rubbing her arms, as she trailed Madison into the kitchen.

Madison gave her a curious glance. "How did you get here?"

"I drove. My car's parked around the corner."

"Why'd you park it there?"

Sharon didn't answer, but the adrenaline boost of finding Tye's wife at the door helped counteract the sleeping pills. Madison smoothed down her hair, righted her robe and offered to make some tea.

Sharon accepted with a nod, and Madison put on the water.

"You're probably wondering what I'm doing here," she said when Madison didn't speak right away.

"I'm guessing you want to talk about Tye, but let's get you warm before we do that--or anything else." She went to the living room to retrieve the lap blanket, which she brought to the kitchen and draped over Sharon's shoulders. "Can I make you something to eat?"

Sharon gazed longingly at the refrigerator. "No, I'm not staying more than--"

"It'll only take a second."

"Okay," she said, and pulled the blanket more tightly around her. "I'd like that."

Madison collected the mayonnaise, mustard, lettuce, tomato, sliced meat and Swiss cheese from the refrigerator and set about making a sandwich. "What happened?" Sharon asked, eyeing the black plastic covering the window.

Madison followed her gaze. "Oh, that. We...had a little accident earlier." She turned her attention back to what she was doing. "Where are the kids?"

"They're--" Sharon dug at her cuticles, her expression furtive "--somewhere safe."

"Safe?"
Madison glanced over her shoulder. "Why wouldn't they be safe here?"

Sharon's eyes met hers, but they looked haunted, worried. "I...I overheard something, Madison. Something that has me really scared."

Madison's pulse kicked up a notch. "Of what?" She finished making the sandwich, set it on a plate and put tea bags in two mugs of hot water. After carrying it all to the table, she pulled her chair close.

"Of Tye. And Johnny."

Madison peered down the hall to make sure it was empty. "Why?"

Sharon stared miserably at her food. "You know Tye's always had problems--a...a temper. When he gets angry, he sometimes says or does things he doesn't mean. It stems from what happened to him when he was a kid. I've tried to be understanding about that. But last week, he...he just went too far."

Madison wished she'd never taken those sleeping pills. She was feeling more alert than she had a few minutes earlier, but her senses still seemed slightly dull. "In what way?"

Her sister-in-law took a bite of her sandwich. "The police came by several days ago," she said when she'd swallowed. "I heard them at the door, talking to Tye."

"What did they want?"

"To know if he'd seen Johnny."

Madison considered telling Sharon that Johnny was sleeping in Brianna's bedroom, but she was afraid the news might make her sister-in-law hurry away before she had a chance to say what she'd come to say. And Madison was hoping she'd be able to help her. This was the first time Tye's wife had ever reached out to her. "What did he tell them?"

"That he hadn't." She put the sandwich down. "But he
had,
Madison. Johnny came by the house several times. He even stopped in the day he got out of jail."

Madison remembered her conversation with Tye that Saturday morning when she'd cooked for Caleb.
I can't believe Johnny's out. When did they release him?
He'd lied to her, too.

"Why would Tye feel he needs to lie about whether or not he's seen Johnny?" she asked.

"I think it's because Johnny had something to do with that woman who was murdered. What else could it be?"

Madison twisted to glance down the hall again. "Johnny wouldn't hurt anyone," she said, lowering her voice. But she was remembering another conversation in which she'd told Caleb her father wouldn't have killed himself unless he'd found that box and thought Tye had murdered those women. What if it had actually been Johnny?

"You don't understand," Sharon said. "I heard them talking, just a few days after Johnny got out of prison. Tye was saying, 'Why'd you do it, man? That's stupid.' And Johnny said that something inside him just snapped. When I came in the room, they exchanged a look and shut up, and later Tye wouldn't tell me what they'd been talking about." She twisted her long, sandy-colored hair into a knot and pulled it over one shoulder. "But I knew whatever they were talking about wasn't good. Tye gave Johnny a pile of cash, told him to buy a car and get out of town."

Madison felt a shiver go down her spine. Johnny had been desperate for a mere twenty bucks when he first came to her place, which meant the money Tye had given him had already gone up his nose. Drugs made a person do crazy things. Could Sharon's story be true? "Is that why you left Tye?" she asked.

"No." Sharon stared at her food. "After the police talked to Tye, they wanted to talk to
me.
"

"What'd you tell them?"

Sharon pressed her palms over her eyes before looking at Madison again. "Tye warned me to say I hadn't seen Johnny, either. I told him I didn't want to lie, that we could get into trouble doing that. And he grabbed my arm so hard, I thought he might break it. I've never seen such a fierce look on his face." She started to cry. "I told him he was hurting me, and he said it was nothing to what he'd do if I didn't tell the police exactly what he told me to say."

"So Tye's covering for Johnny?" Madison said. Was that why he'd visited the crawl space of her mother's house?

"Of course," Sharon continued after a sniffle. "I told the police what he forced me to say, but I wasn't sticking around. Not if my husband was going to risk himself and our whole family to cover for a murderer. Tye wasn't acting like himself. He was tense, angry. I was afraid he might hurt me or one of the kids."

"So you took them and disappeared." Madison stood up to get some tissues. "What made you come here?"

Sharon accepted the tissues and dabbed at her eyes. "I keep hearing television reports about that woman who was killed, wondering if I'm endangering someone else's life by not coming forward with what I know." She dug at her cuticles some more, even though they were already red and sore. "I don't want to turn on Tye. But I don't want to be responsible for--" Her voice caught and broke, and she buried her face in her hands.

Madison tried to comfort her. But she couldn't seem to do anything more than awkwardly pat her shoulder. She felt numb. "We have to go to the police," she said, sick at the thought. Johnny had had such a bad childhood. And despite all her negative memories, she had a few good ones of him, too. When Perry Little across the street made fun of her because she wasn't as developed as the other girls, Johnny had given him a fat lip. She remembered feeling quite vindicated when the other kids started teasing Perry because he couldn't talk right. And there'd been that time when Tye was so angry with her for leaving the rabbit cage open, and Johnny had stepped in to defend her. Johnny rarely stood up to Tye. That day Tye had been so surprised he'd stared blankly at them both, then simply turned and left.

It had to be the drugs, Madison decided. She knew Johnny had problems, but she also knew he wasn't innately violent.

"I can't go to the police," Sharon said. "What if...what if Tye does something to the children? I have to let him see the kids eventually. I'm afraid he might try to get back at me through them."

"The police will protect them," Madison said, and hoped beyond hope that it was true.

"You didn't see the look on his face."

Madison wished she hadn't taken those sleeping pills. They were making everything fuzzy again. "Don't worry. I'll turn him in myself." She had to, before anyone else was hurt. "Just do me one favor." She checked the hall a third time. Empty. "Write down the address where you're staying and a number where I can get in touch with you if I need to."

Sharon hesitated, but in the end gave Madison the information.

Madison let her sister-in-law out, and watched her disappear into the darkness, toward a car that was apparently parked around the corner. Then she walked as quietly as possible down the hall toward her bedroom. She had to get dressed so she could go to the police. She dared not call, not from here. Not with Johnny in the house. She wanted to get away from him while he was still sleeping soundly....

Only she didn't think he was sleeping anymore. When she reached his door, it was open, and she could no longer hear him snoring.

CHAPTER TWENTY

C
ALEB STOOD
with Holly and Gibbons at Lance's front door. After Susan's car had been towed away around midnight, Gibbons had tried to get him and Holly to go home. It was late, past two o'clock. They probably should've listened. After what had happened with Madison earlier, Caleb wasn't in the mood to be out. But Detective Thomas's wife had just had a baby, so Gibbons would've been alone if they hadn't stayed with him. And Susan's car had been found so close to Lance's house that Caleb was as eager to catch him off guard as Gibbons was. He was beginning to wonder if he'd overrated the guy's intelligence.

According to Gibbons, Lance now lived with a buddy from work. Caleb wasn't particularly impressed by their small Renton neighborhood, but it seemed quiet enough. He'd seen a thousand streets exactly like this one, filled with inexpensive tract homes that alternated between four basic models. Most of the residences on Riley Way were well-maintained. But Lance and his roommate obviously didn't possess the same domestic ambitions as their neighbors. The front window had been broken and was covered with tape and newspaper. The yard was overgrown. And what sounded like a very large dog jumped against a wobbly fence, barking wildly in the backyard.