Bone Deep (7 page)

He was right. She had said that. Some random brain cell screamed at her not to let him go. She was all alone in this and she needed someone.

“You found nothing that might help.” Her voice sounded as hollow as she felt. There had to be something.

He reached for the door. She didn’t miss the fine tremor in his hands. “The police will figure it out. They can’t be that blind.”

Adrenaline fired through her. He had found something.
Stay calm
. “You’re probably right.”
Don’t challenge him. Lead him
. “They aren’t blind. I’m just not sure they’re going to look.”

In a few days they would call off the primary phase of the search for Cody. It was the only logical thing to do. She knew the routine. A bigger story would come along and the press would lose interest, search volunteers would return to their lives and jobs. Then it would be over for Cody. But every fiber of her being cried out for them to continue. He was out there. She knew he was. And he was alive.

“I can’t control what the local authorities do,” Phillips argued. “I can only tell you the three things I know.” The haunted look in his eyes—this man she had deep down hoped would be her miracle—spoke of uncertainty and fear. Emotions every bit as strong as her own.

There was something. Jill’s heart rose in her throat. “Please, tell me.”

“First,” he said tightly, “any fool can see the beating your sister suffered didn’t take place in her home. It happened somewhere else, at the hands of someone besides her husband. Whoever did this to her, she feared for her safety. Make them look harder.”

“There is more to this.” It wasn’t a question, she’d known it all along. But to have it substantiated, even by someone she had every reason not to trust had victory soaring inside her. This was no love triangle. Her sister hadn’t been involved with another man.

Phillips held up a hand for her to listen. “Second, your sister, in my estimation, most likely did kill her husband. I can’t give you motive for her actions or even for my conclusions,” he went on before she could interrupt, “it’s just something I know.”

Jill’s hopes wilted. She still resisted accepting that her sister could do such a thing. How could he know with such certainty? He couldn’t. More of that frustration she’d been battling swooped in on her. How could he give her such hope only to knock her down again?

She wanted to rail at him that he couldn’t be certain but one more look into those fierce, dark eyes and she had to admit that, somehow, he was. Defeat settled heavily onto her shoulders.

“Third,” he continued, his voice low and tight, tension spiking. “The boy” he paused, looked away. “The boy’s alive... somewhere.”

Jill’s heart leapt in her chest, her hands went to her mouth to hold back the sob that shook her. Thank God. Oh, thank God. She’d known Kate couldn’t hurt her son. She’d known it with all her heart.

“We have to find him.” No matter what she thought she knew about this man, he believed her. She couldn’t let him go.

“Don’t.” He held up his hands, his face grim. “This is all I can give you. Don’t ask me to stay.” He shook his head, the movement scarcely visible. “I can’t.”

As frustrated and confused as she felt, she understood that whatever had happened to this man, the pain and fear he suffered was very real. He was rigid with the weight of it, distant, untouchable. The articles she’d read about him…the horrors he had investigated and evaluated…the breakdown…all of it zoomed into vivid focus like scenes from the latest bestseller by Stephen King.

He’d said he didn’t do this anymore. Coming was a favor to Richard. In that moment Jill suddenly realized the heavy price it had cost Paul Phillips to come here.

As much as she needed him, basic human compassion wouldn’t allow her to beg him to stay. This battle was going to consume her life, perhaps even tear it apart. How could she ask him, a man who had no personal ties to the crime or the people involved, to set himself on a course for self-destruction again? She couldn’t.

“I understand.” The words were hers, but the voice was alien to her ears.

He nodded, the movement stilted, his gaze shifting away.

She extended her hand. “Thank you.”

He stared at her hand. For a long moment she wasn’t sure he was going to touch her. Then he wrapped those long fingers around hers. He flinched, startled or pained. Her own body reacted to a flutter of awareness.

“At least I have something to go on. Thank you for that. I will find my nephew.”

He drew his hand from hers. All signs of pain or fear or the other emotions he battled disappeared. “Wherever he is,” he warned, the change in his tone chilling her to the bone, “he’s safe from the threat.” He looked around the room as if searching for the right words, then his gaze zeroed in on hers “Whatever this is, don’t go looking for it, Jillian. It’s already looking for you.”

Chapter 5

His lungs would not fill completely with air, no matter how deep the breath he took, no matter that his driver’s side window was open and allowing the wind to whip against his face.

Paul drove faster, wanted this damned town as far behind him as possible. He wanted images of Jill, Kate, and her son out of his head.

But they wouldn’t go.

Save us
.

He couldn’t save them. He was way beyond saving anyone. Didn’t they know that? He couldn’t even save himself.

The urgency wouldn’t go away. Those needy tentacles reached out to him, urged him to go back. He couldn’t go back.
Not and survive
. Right now survival was all he had left.

His panic grew, expanded, crowding out all rational thought. He had to get back in control.

Breathe
.

Don’t think.

Just breathe and drive faster. Get the hell out of here.

A sign inviting him to
Please Come Again
mocked him. The idyllic garden scene depicted behind the name Paradise made his gut clench with the urge to heave. But the symbolism was more accurate than anyone knew. Paradise was the perfect small southern town, all right. Just like the Garden of Eden to Adam and Eve. Perfect, serene, offering all that their simple lives required.

But they hadn’t been alone... something bad had been in that perfect garden with them. That same kind of evil was in Paradise.

He hoped Jill would watch her back. Saving her sister and nephew might just prove the last thing she ever did.

Sweat bloomed on his skin. Not the clean kind you earned with hard physical labor. But the tainted kind, soured by the essence of pure terror.

His terror.

He couldn’t risk getting sucked into that kind of darkness. He’d gotten lost there too many times… until he’d broken. Now he could never go back… not and walk away with his sanity, such as it was.

The deepest of the darkness had been waiting for him in Paradise. Like a cancer that lay dormant until just the right moment and then it awakened, consuming all in its path. He had worked for five long years to keep that abyss at bay.

Still they came to him, begging for his help. He told them what they wanted to hear and took their money. He’d hoped that with enough failures they would stop coming.

But a single success out of dozens of failures gave all the others hope. And they kept coming. Wanting answers he couldn’t give without wading into the darkness.

He couldn’t do it.

A cat darted in front of him. He slammed on the brakes. Tires squealed. The odor of burning rubber filled the air.

The Land Rover skidded and rocked to a stop.

For long minutes he couldn’t move. Just sat there on that deserted road and tried to regain some semblance of control. Inside, where no one could see, he was shaking with a fear that refused to be conquered.

A fear that wasn’t about Jill or Kate or the missing kid.

It was about Paul Phillips.

A secret fear that had been growing, becoming stronger every day as long as he could remember.

His work had only exacerbated it. No matter how hard he focused on something else it was always there. Waiting. It had taken over completely that once… in that dark, dank cave where a little girl had died just because he had been a coward.

The threat of it hadn’t left him since. It hummed just behind his every waking thought, never really quieting. Never really going away. His only escape was sleep and even then he dreamed. Dreamed of staring at himself... hearing his own voice, tasting his own fear and knowing somehow that he was already dead. The only time that perpetual awareness had slowed, at times ceasing altogether, was when he drowned it with enough alcohol. Didn’t matter what kind. The stronger, the better.

Not even the loving parents he remembered so well could protect him from the fear of that darkness. They had loved him, had protected him as best they could. But he’d always felt separate from them. An emotional distance he couldn’t quite identify. He could replay every birthday, every Christmas, every vacation they’d shared, but it was as if seeing it from some detached place. Pictures in a book. His book, but one that held nothing except impersonal landmarks of his early life which stirred no distinctive reaction.

That emptiness and the perpetual undercurrent of fear marked him as flawed, seriously screwed up.

He let go a shaky breath and almost laughed. This was why he never got close to anyone. Never allowed another human being to touch him. His whole life was superficial... skin deep.

Somehow Jill Ellington was in a similar place. Detached yet eyeball deep in the muck. She couldn’t do this alone. Her ability to deny what she felt was far too strong.

She needed help.

He shook his head. He wasn’t supposed to get involved.

Yet he wanted to go back. Needed to help her for some reason that eluded him.

He was a fool.

More of that panic exploded in his chest.

He shoved the door open and half stumbled out of the Land Rover. He reached back onto the dash for his cigarettes. His hands shook so badly it took three attempts to light one. He inhaled deeply, waiting for relief that wouldn’t come. He closed his eyes and exhaled. The silence was deafening, broken only by the hiss of smoke as he released it from his lungs.

He’d lost complete control once and it had cost him everything. It had taken him nearly a year to pull himself together again. Two months of that year were spent in a psychiatric hospital. Oh the Feds had sprung for a ritzy joint. They’d wanted the best for their top dog-and-pony show. The doctors had filled him full of powerful meds unknowingly sending him deeper into the black abyss.

He’d barely survived.

He took another deep drag from the cigarette. He couldn’t go back there.

The hero the world had once deemed him to be had died in that darkness a long time ago. There wasn’t a force on earth that could resurrect the dead.

He dropped the cigarette butt onto the pavement and squashed it with the heel of his shoe.

Besides, Jill Ellington didn’t need a hero. She needed a miracle. He’d stopped believing in miracles about ten years ago.

Chapter 6

Wednesday, July 13

Kate suffered a grand mal seizure during the night. Her condition had been touch and go for a time, but she eventually stabilized. The doctor was performing tests this morning to determine the cause of the seizure and any possible damage incurred during the episode.

Jill sat at Kate’s bedside, not bothering to restrain the tears that trekked down her cheeks. Her sister was asleep, had been since Jill’s arrival. She had prayed over and over this latest turn of events wouldn’t make things any worse for Kate. And if her sister suddenly awoke, how would Jill tell her that Cody remained missing? The chief had warned her this morning that hope of finding him alive was waning fast. There had been no hits on the Amber Alert. No one had seen him… no one had come forward with any sort of knowledge about him or about Kate.

Richard called to see how things were going. Jill couldn’t bring herself to tell him Phillips had gone. Instead, she discussed Cullen Marks’ recommendation with Richard. To her surprise, he agreed. If no supporting evidence could be found, her options were sorely limited. She had to face that reality. When Richard asked what Phillips thought, she’d at first considered not telling him. It would only make him all the more certain of her only recourse. In the end, she’d told him that Phillips felt confident Kate had killed her husband. What else was there to say?

Jill barely slept last night. Those last few minutes with Phillips kept playing over and over in her head. His fear had been palpable. At first she’d been angry that he’d just walked away. Despite the glaring fact she’d wanted him to go from the beginning. But some part of her wouldn’t let go of the idea that he knew something. Sensed something more than he’d shared.

He made several valid points.

If only she could get the police to look more thoroughly into why Kate had been beaten and where it happened. What, if anything, did the beating have to do with Karl’s murder? Those were answers she urgently needed but no one wanted to bother finding them. They had their murderer, who was clearly not competent to stand trial. End of discussion. Kate’s motives would only sully the family name. Jill should let it be. That was the general consensus. The chief was only dragging his feet with formal charges because it was unnecessary until all the facts were in. But it was only a matter of time before charges were made.

But Jill wanted answers, whatever it did to the family name. She wanted Cody found. Hope bloomed anew as she replayed Phillips’ certainty about her nephew being alive. Why she foolishly clung to that hope was beyond her.

Jill exhaled a heavy breath, her gaze settling on her twin’s battered face. Why would Kate hide her son? What if he’d been kidnapped by whoever beat her? Jill stilled. She hadn’t considered that scenario. Had the chief? What if someone had taken him and that’s what this was all about?

Maybe Karl had been the one to inadvertently allow it to happen and in her grief and despair, Kate killed him. Jill frowned. That didn’t feel fully plausible. Karl wouldn’t have done such a thing on purpose. If a scenario like that had taken place, surely he would have called the police. But, as a criminal attorney, she’d seen and heard a lot that appeared far less plausible. The human psyche was a strange and delicate thing. Maybe some external trouble, such as the loss of her child, had disrupted the delicate balance of Kate’s.