Scene of the Crime: Return to Bachelor Moon (4 page)

She frowned. Last night felt like a nightmare, and even in the light of day a shiver tried to take possession of her, but she shrugged it off. “I should be fine. I’ll lock the house and just let in the people I know and trust.”

“Have you thought further about anyone who might want to cause you harm?”

He’d asked the same question the night before. “I can’t imagine,” she said, giving him the same answer. “Maybe I just freaked out a drifter who was hanging around and he accidentally shoved me as he ran away.” It sounded lame, but it was the only rational explanation she’d managed to come up with. “Whatever happened, I’m sure it was an accident and whoever was responsible was afraid of getting into trouble.”

“Why don’t I give you my cell phone number, so if anything comes up, you can call, and we can get right back here?” he suggested.

She smiled at him gratefully. “Thanks. Just let me get a piece of paper to write it down.” She hurried into the kitchen, grabbed a notepad then returned to the dining room and wrote down the cell number he gave her.

“We should be back by dinnertime,” he said as she walked with him to the door. His gaze held hers for a long moment. “Don’t hesitate to call if you need me...us.”

As she watched him head to the car where the other two agents awaited him, she decided that maybe Gabriel Blankenship wasn’t so bad after all.

She locked the door behind him. Despite what had happened the night before, she felt no real danger directed specifically at her. Still, better to be safe than sorry.

She was back in the kitchen when Cory knocked on the door, eyeing her quizzically through the glass pane. She hurried over and unlocked it to allow him and John to enter.

“Why the locked door?” Cory asked as he sat at the table in the kitchen. John sat next to him. Most mornings the two of them showed up for breakfast, but it was usually Daniella who did the cooking and serving.

“I had a little unexpected encounter with the pond last night.” She explained what had happened, and both men looked at her in stunned surprise.

“Thank God one of those agents managed to get to you,” Cory exclaimed.

“I didn’t know you couldn’t swim,” John added. “Do you have any idea who might have pushed you?”

“Not a clue,” she replied, not wanting to think about how close she’d come to death. “I imagine you two are looking for something to eat. Why don’t I whip up a quick batch of pancakes?”

“Sounds good to me,” John replied.

As she got out the ingredients to make the pancakes, the three of them talked about the pizza place where the guys had gone the night before, the weeding that needed to be done and the continuing mystery of the Connellys’ disappearance.

Marlena liked John. The dark-haired man had an easygoing temperament and had bonded instantly with the younger Cory and kept him busy working by his side on the grounds.

After the two had finished their breakfast, they left by the back door, and Marlena relocked it after them. For the remainder of the morning, she busied herself upstairs, making beds and freshening the rooms where the agents were sleeping.

She immediately knew that Gabriel had slept in the lavender room. As she plumped his pillows and straightened the spread, she smelled his cologne and was surprised by the tiny ray of heat that fired up inside her.

There was no question that she was physically drawn to him, and there was also no question that she had no intention of following through on that attraction. The most important thing right now was that he stay focused on finding Sam, Daniella and Macy.

When she’d finished upstairs, she returned to the kitchen to start a large roast cooking for dinner that evening. An hour or so before mealtime, she’d add in potatoes and carrots.

During the slow months of July and August, Pamela was scheduled to clean two days a week, Mondays and Wednesdays. Since it was Saturday, Marlena would take care of the daily duties to keep the place in shape. Even though Daniella was gone and there were no guests, Daniella would want the routine of maintaining the bed-and-breakfast to continue.

Marlena sank down at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, her heart crying out for answers. Where were the Connellys? Nobody would ever make her believe that they’d just walked away without a word to anyone.

Daniella was living her dream, loving a man she’d never expected to find, working in this business that had been her desire since she’d been in high school and raising her daughter in the cocoon of family love. No way would Daniella willingly leave her life behind.

Marlena nearly jumped out of her chair as a loud rap sounded on the front door. Her nerves were on edge. Even though there were no guests scheduled, that didn’t mean someone couldn’t show up.

She relaxed as she approached the front door and saw Thomas Brady on the other side, his pleasant features radiating concern for her. She unlocked the door, and he instantly pulled her into his big arms.

“I just heard about the Connellys,” he said as he continued to hold her. “I was working out of town for the past couple of days and got back home only an hour ago.”

She was grateful when he finally released her and sat on the sofa in the great room. “How are you doing? Is there something I can do to help? I heard you’ve got a couple of FBI agents staying here. Do they have a theory on what happened?”

Marlena waited until he’d run out of breath to begin to answer his questions. “I’m doing as well as I can, although I’m terribly afraid for the family. There are three FBI agents staying here, and, no, they don’t have a clue yet as to what happened and who might be responsible.”

“I don’t like the idea of you being here by yourself, especially with nobody knowing what happened to Sam, Daniella and Macy,” Thomas said. He leaned forward, his brown eyes earnest. “You should move in with me. You would be safe under my roof.”

“You know I’m not going to do that,” she said softly. “Besides, I just told you there were FBI agents staying here. I also have Cory, so I’m definitely not by myself. Now tell me about the job you just finished.”

Thomas was a local carpenter who not only did renovation work but also specialized in spectacular decks and patios. His skills often got him work in the larger cities in the state.

As he told her about his latest job in New Orleans, she listened absently. She had known for some time that Thomas had a thing for her. They’d even gone out on a couple of casual dates.

Sam and Daniella hadn’t thought the carpenter was good enough for Marlena, but they didn’t have to worry because Marlena knew her future wasn’t with Thomas. She just couldn’t seem to make Thomas understand that.

She enjoyed his company as a friend and thought he was a nice man, but she had no romantic feelings toward him at all. She’d told him that a hundred different ways over the past month or so, but he was still a frequent visitor and a man who obviously didn’t take no easily. He seemed to think that, if she just spent enough time with him, he could change her mind about their relationship.

He couldn’t. She’d rather be alone than be in a relationship without real passion, without true mutual love. Been there, done that, and the results had nearly destroyed her.

As he rambled on, Marlena realized it was the first time that he sat in the house with her. Normally Sam made it uncomfortable for the man to be anywhere but on the porch when he came to visit Marlena.

Thomas was a big man, with wide shoulders and thighs the size of tree trunks. Physical labor had given him the muscles of a bodybuilder, but he had always been gentle and soft-spoken when around her.

He had to have known that Sam and Daniella didn’t approve of him. They hadn’t hidden the fact that they thought he was all wrong for her.

Her heart began a slightly faster unsteady beat as she stared at the man on the sofa. Was he so obsessed with her that he had removed the people who disapproved of him? Left her alone in the house and frightened, hoping he could step in and be her support, the man she turned to in her need?

Ridiculous,
a tiny voice whispered inside her.
You’re looking for a bad guy in a friend who has never shown any violent tendencies, a man who has never pushed you to accept any unwanted advances.

Still, she was grateful an hour later when he finally left with the promise to check in with her soon.

Maybe it was time she moved up her schedule for leaving Bachelor Moon.

And maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to mention Thomas’s name to Gabriel.

Chapter Four

Sheriff Jim Thompson was a font of information about the history of Sam and Daniella’s relationship, which had formed when Sam had come to the bed-and-breakfast for a vacation.

During that two-week stay, it had become apparent that Daniella was in danger—the first indication the murder of Samantha Walker, the daughter of Mayor Brian Walker.

It had later been determined that the bed-and-breakfast gardener, Frank Mathis, had been obsessed with Daniella and little Macy. He’d killed Samantha Walker as a gift to Daniella, because Samantha had planned on opening a bed-and-breakfast that would directly compete with Daniella’s business.

Armed with this little bit of history, the three agents were now on their way to see Brian Walker. “Maybe the old man blamed Daniella for his daughter’s murder and exacted some kind of revenge against the family,” Jackson said as Gabriel drove down the tree-lined street that would take him to the ex-mayor’s house.

“More than two years is a long time to let rage fester,” Gabriel replied. “If he does have something to do with the Connellys’ disappearance, then there had to have been some sort of trigger.”

“A week ago was Samantha Walker’s birthday,” Andrew said from the backseat where he had a laptop open, checking facts.

“That could definitely be a trigger,” Gabriel replied.

“There...on the left,” Jackson said, pointing to the house where Brian Walker had lived for the past two years. Gabriel pulled into the driveway of the small, ill-kept house.

Weeds had long ago choked out any semblance of yard and an air of desolation hung upon the faded forest-green ranch house. Gabriel turned off the car engine and the three agents got out.

The heat was nearly overwhelming, pressing against Gabriel’s chest and making it difficult to draw a deep breath. He unfastened the safety snap over his gun and knew the two agents behind him had done the same thing. They had no idea what they might be walking into. Brian Walker could be a dangerous man.

Gabriel knocked on the door, his emotions cold as he went into the survival mode that had kept him alive through many heinous cases.

It helped that he knew Jackson and Andrew had his back. He’d worked with them long enough to know they could handle almost any situation that might fly their way.

Gabriel knocked again and heard a faint cry from inside. “I’m coming. Hold your damned horses.”

Gabriel drew his gun from his holster, not liking the man’s tone nor his delay in opening the door.

When the door finally opened, a man in a dirty white T-shirt and a baggy pair of black slacks stared at Gabriel and then the gun he held in his hand.

“It would be a great blessing in my life if you’d just shoot me, but I would like to know why you’re doing it before you pull the trigger,” he said.

Gabriel holstered his gun and instead pulled out his identification. “May we come in and have a chat with you, Mr. Walker?”

“Why not? I haven’t broken any laws. Drinking too much, being slovenly and wishing yourself dead isn’t a crime if it’s done in the sanctity of your own home.” He opened the door wider to allow them inside.

The blinds were partially pulled as if to ward off any sunshine and cheerfulness. The living room reeked of alcohol, stale cigarette smoke and old food. Gabriel’s initial assessment was that Brian Walker was a man on a mission: to wish himself dead.

“Mind if my partners take a look around the house?” Gabriel asked as Brian eased into a recliner where he’d created a nest of trash around him.

“Help yourself.” Brian waved airily and picked up a glass with contents that looked like scotch. “I don’t suppose I could interest you in a drink.”

“Thanks, but no.” Gabriel lowered himself to the sofa.

“I bet I know what you’re thinking,” Brian said, and then took a deep swallow of his drink.

“And what’s that?”

“How hard the mighty fall.” Brian took another drink and then set the glass on the nearby end table. “A little over two years ago I was happily married, mayor of this little town and encouraging my beautiful, divorced daughter to follow whatever dream she had in her busy, ditzy head.”

“And then Samantha was murdered,” Gabriel added, his gut already telling him that this sad, broken man had nothing to do with the disappearance of the Connelly family.

Brian nodded. “And within that moment of insanity in Frank Mathis’s violence, he ripped apart my entire world. A month later my wife had left me, I had resigned my position as mayor and had crawled into the bottom of a bottle and a hole that I have no desire to ever crawl out of.”

“You’ve heard that the Connelly family is missing?” Gabriel asked.

“I heard, but if you’re here because you think I had something to do with it, then you’re wasting your time. I never held Daniella responsible for what happened to Samantha. Daniella was just another victim of Frank Mathis’s craziness. The only difference between her and Samantha is that Daniella was lucky enough to survive his insanity.”

By that time Andrew and Jackson had returned to the living room, indicating with shakes of their heads that they’d found nothing to link Brian to the Connelly family disappearance.

Minutes later the three agents were back in their car and headed out to check on another man, who Sheriff Thompson had mentioned might have reason to harm Sam Connelly.

“You can’t help but feel bad for Brian Walker,” Andrew said from the backseat. “Poor guy lost everything he loved—his job, his wife and his daughter.”

That’s why it is easier not to love,
Gabriel thought. Better to keep people at bay, better to not expect kindness or love from anyone else, because when it went bad, it went so terribly bad. Certainly Gabriel had learned, at the absence of his mother’s knee and at the end of his father’s fist, that some people weren’t meant to be loved.

“I think we can pretty much rule Brian out as a suspect,” Jackson said. “I’m not sure his alcohol-addled brain could summon the cunning and savvy that our attacker had to possess in order to control the kidnapping of three people all at the same time.”

“I definitely agree,” Gabriel replied. “Let’s see if Ryan Sherman shows a little more potential.”

“Ryan Sherman, thirty-four years old,” Andrew said from the backseat, once again on the laptop utilizing FBI access to the most information possible about a person.

“He spent two years in prison on an assault-and-battery charge. He’s been out of the joint for the past three years and works as a mechanic at Glen’s Garage,” Andrew continued.

“From what Thompson told us, he and Sam have had several run-ins. Seems Ryan has a real bad attitude when it comes to the law and took a special dislike to former agent Connelly,” Jackson said.

As the two of them talked about Ryan Sherman and the case, Gabriel’s mind drifted to Marlena and the night before. Would she have managed to make it to shore had he not heard her scream? Somehow he doubted it. Had she been shoved off the path, or merely stumbled and imagined being pushed?

They certainly did not need another element to the mystery they’d already been handed. And the
very
last thing he needed was to think about how soft and vulnerable Marlena had looked in her robe with her damp curls framing her lovely face.

He didn’t want to think about how her body had looked with her wet clothes plastered against her. In truth, he didn’t want to think about her at all.

Thankfully, they arrived at Glen’s Garage. As Gabriel parked on the side of the building, they were met by a man in coveralls who introduced himself as the owner, Glen Grable. “What can I do for you folks this afternoon?” he asked with an affable smile.

Gabriel flashed his identification. “We’d like to speak to Ryan Sherman.”

Glen’s smile transformed into a frown. “He in trouble again? Damn him. I told him, the next time I had to bail him out of jail, he was finished working here.”

“We’re not here to arrest him, but we do need to talk to him,” Jackson said.

“Is this about the Connellys?” Glen’s eyes darkened.

Gabriel took a step toward the older man. “Why would you ask? Do you know something about the Connellys?”

Glen shook his head. “Just heard that they were missing. That’s all everyone in town has been talking about.”

“Do you know where Ryan was on Thursday night?” Gabriel asked.

“He worked here until seven. After that I have no idea. I don’t keep track of my mechanics when they’re off duty. I’ll go get him for you. I’d rather you talk to him out here than inside my shop where I got customers.”

As they waited in the midafternoon heat, Jackson pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and mopped his forehead. “Jeez, it’s hot. It would be nice to wrap this up quickly and get back home.”

Gabriel frowned. “The only way we’re going to wrap this up quickly is if the family suddenly reappears alive and well, and at this point, I don’t see that happening.”

“I have a bad feeling about this whole thing,” Andrew said softly. “I think the next time we see that family, it’s going to be in a shallow grave someplace.”

Andrew’s words sent a somber pall over the three of them. But Gabriel knew the stats. He also knew how difficult it would be to hide three people and keep them silent and alive for any length of time.

He tensed as he watched a big, bald, tattooed man approach them. It was obvious by the sneer on his face that he wasn’t happy to meet them. He was dressed in grimy coveralls and held a red grease-stained rag in his hands.

“Glen told me there were a couple of Feds out here. Just what this town needs, more Feds.”

“We’ve heard through the grapevine that you and Sam Connelly didn’t play nice together,” Gabriel said.

“That sanctimonious bastard thought he was better than everyone else in town,” Ryan said, and it didn’t miss Gabriel’s attention that he’d spoken of Sam in the past tense. “He had plans to run for sheriff after Thompson retires. I didn’t want him as the new sheriff, and I let him know how I felt about it every time we ran into each other.”

Ryan’s brown eyes narrowed, and the snarl returned to his upper lip. “I heard he and his family are missing, and I’m sure you’re here talking to me because I’m an ex-con and must be guilty of something, right? Ex-cons are always guilty of something.”

“Where were you on Thursday night?” Gabriel asked, refusing to let the man’s attitude get under his skin.

“I was here working.”

“According to Glen, you got off work at seven.”

Ryan’s scowl deepened as a sheen of sweat glistened on his bald head. “I left here and went to my girlfriend’s place. I spent the night there. And now if you’re finished harassing me, I’ve got work to do.”

“Your girlfriend? What’s her name?” Gabriel asked.

Ryan released an irritated snort through flared nostrils. “Tammy Payne. She lives in the Bachelor Moon apartment complex. I got my own place there, too, but most nights we’re together. She’ll tell you I was with her all night and had nothing to do with whatever happened to the Connellys.” Without waiting for a reply, Ryan stalked off back to the garage.

“What do you want to bet that Tammy tells us whatever Ryan tells her to?” Jackson asked as they headed back to their car.

“No question. But I
would
bet that Tammy Payne is either a prostitute or a stripper, because I get the feeling that’s the kind of woman who’d take on a loser like Ryan. At least that’s been my experience with hot-headed ex-cons, although I know there are exceptions.”

Within minutes they were back in the car, the air conditioner blowing welcomed cool air as they headed to the Bachelor Moon Apartments.

“It’s frustrating that Ryan Sherman is our first real person of interest in this case,” Andrew said.

“Unless you count the lovely Marlena,” Jackson added.

“I don’t think she had anything to do with this,” Gabriel said.

“Is that your professional opinion or a personal one?” Jackson asked with a raise of a dark eyebrow.

Gabriel hesitated before replying, wanting to make sure his crazy physical attraction to her had no part in his reply. “It’s both,” he finally said.

He hadn’t mentioned Marlena’s dip in the pond the night before, but he did so now, explaining to the two men how he had dragged her out of the pond.

“Do you really think somebody pushed her?” Jackson asked.

“I don’t know what to believe, but she certainly believes it. What I can’t figure out is if the incident is somehow tied to the disappearance of the Connellys or not. I have to ask myself if somebody wants the people associated with the bed-and-breakfast out of the way,” Gabriel said.

“Out of the way of what?” Andrew asked.

Gabriel flashed him a tight smile in the rearview mirror. “I have questions, but nobody said I have any answers.”

“Who is the beneficiary of the place if anything happens to Sam and Daniella?” Jackson asked.

“We need to check that out. I would assume that initially it would have gone to Macy, with an executor or representative in place until she reaches of age. But with her missing as well, I’m not sure what would happen. I don’t even know if they have a will in place.” Gabriel made a mental note to check for that particular information.

By that time they had arrived at the Bachelor Moon Apartments, and they all exited the car to check out Ryan Sherman’s alibi with his girlfriend.

Tammy Payne looked like she’d been ridden hard and put away wet. Lanky blond hair fell into her face as she opened the door to allow them inside. She gestured them toward the threadbare sofa and then curled her painfully thin frame into a chair facing them, but that didn’t mean she sat still.

“Ryan called a little while ago to tell me to expect you,” she said, first pulling on the ends of her hair and then picking at a scab on her chin. She dropped her hand to her lap but continued to fidget in junkie fashion.

“I can tell you that Ryan was here with me all night on Thursday. In fact, he’s here most nights, although he has an apartment of his own.”

“Is it possible he was here for a while and then maybe left while you were sleeping?” Jackson asked.

She flashed a quick smile, displaying a missing front tooth. “I don’t do a lot of sleeping. So, no, that wouldn’t be possible. I’ll be perfectly honest. I’ve got a little problem with meth and Ryan is trying to help me stay on the straight and narrow.” She giggled like a young girl, although she had to be in her mid-thirties. “He tells me I’m a full-time job for him.”