Don't Cry (32 page)

Zoe whined, “Ah, J.D., don't go yet.” Then she smiled. “Sorry. I know you're working on a very important case and you're trying to find a murderer before he kills again. You should get back to work.”

“Who are you, young lady?” J.D. asked playfully. “And what have you done with my daughter Zoe?”

Zoe laughed. Audrey smiled.

J.D. put his arm around Zoe's shoulders and said, “I'll call you tomorrow, and after your big Saturday night date, I'll want a full report.”

“Come on, I'll walk you out,” Zoe said. “And as for a full report…well, you don't want to hear any of the mushy stuff, I'm sure.”

Audrey heard him say, “There had better not be any mushy stuff going on,” as he and Zoe headed outside onto the porch.

She hadn't intended to eavesdrop when she passed the front door on her way into the hall. But she couldn't help overhearing Zoe say, “I'm worried about Audrey. She's been having nightmares. I've heard her crying a couple of nights and this morning early, I heard her screaming. She says it's just bad dreams about the day her little brother disappeared. I wish we could do something to help her.”

“Just be as good a friend to her as she's been to you,” J.D. said.

“I'll try.”

Audrey hurried down the hall before Zoe could come back inside and catch her listening to what was supposed to be a private conversation.

Hart pumped into the woman lying beneath him, his thrusts increasing with the urgency of an impending climax. She clutched his shoulders, digging her nails into his flesh. The pain sent him over the edge. As the aftershocks rippled through him, she shivered, whimpered, and then cried out as she came. Falling off her and onto his side, Hart opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. He had just had mind-blowing sex with a woman whose name he couldn't remember. Iyana? India? No, it was Imani.

When she curled up against him and danced her long, red nails over his chest, he glanced at her. Imani was pretty, with short, curly black hair, sparkling brown eyes, and skin the color of smooth caramel. He had noticed her immediately and picked her up in the bar because she reminded him of Tamara. And from the moment he had stripped her naked and laid her down in his bed, he had made love not to Imani, but to Tam. Always Tam.

Hart rolled out of bed and removed the condom on his way to the bathroom. After taking a piss and quickly washing his genitals, he returned to the bedroom, picked up his discarded jeans from the floor, and slipped into them.

Imani sat up in bed, her melon-sized breasts revealed as the sheet dropped to her waist. “Playtime over?” she asked.

“Yeah, for tonight,” he told her as he gathered up her panties and knee-length sweater dress. “Here, sugar—” He tossed the clothes to her. “Get dressed and I'll take you home. Or back to the bar, if that's where you want to go.”

“Who's Tam?” she asked as she flung back the sheet and stood.

“What?”

“You called me Tam a couple of times.” Imani went into the bathroom. “Who is she?” she called to him. “Your ex?”

“Yeah,” Hart said.

“Want to talk about it, tell me what she did to break your heart?” Imani came out of the bathroom wearing her bikini panties. She reached down on the floor and picked up her bra.

“No.”

“Suit yourself.” She hooked her front-closure bra and pulled her dress over her head. “And the night's still young, so you can take me back to the bar. Who knows, I might find a guy who can remember my name when he's fucking me.”

“Look, I'm sorry, okay? But you got your cookies off, didn't you? What more were you expecting?”

“You're a real shit, you know that, don't you?” She slipped into her spike heels, walked over to Hart, and gave him the finger. “I'll call a cab. You'll pay for it.”

“Sure, whatever you want.”

Hart escorted Imani out of his bedroom and into the living room, and she retrieved her purse from the floor where she had dropped it earlier.

The front door swung open and his uncle Garth tromped into the house. He stopped dead still and looked from the empty beer bottles on the coffee table to Hart and then to the sultry woman at his side.

“God damn it, Hart, what's this?” Garth demanded.

“By this, are you talking about me? If you are, then ‘this' is a woman,” Imani said. “And ‘this' is leaving just as soon as Hart calls me a cab.”

“You got a cell phone with you?” Garth asked.

“In my purse,” she replied.

Garth jerked his wallet from his pocket, opened it, took out a fifty, and handed it to Imani. “Get out and call yourself a cab.”

“Who the hell do you think you are?” She snarled the question.

“I'm the man who's going to toss your ass out onto the sidewalk if you don't get out now,” Garth told her.

“Some friend you've got.” Imani flashed Hart an angry glare, gave Garth the finger, and headed for the door.

As soon as the door slammed shut, Hart was left alone to face his uncle's wrath. “Yes, I picked her up in a bar. And yes, I had a few beers and I drove when I shouldn't have. But I promise you that—”

“Shut the hell up!” Garth yelled at him. “You know damn well what's about to happen. How can you bring home some spicy piece of ass and get drunk and maybe say or do—?”

“Booze and sex help me forget,” Hart said. “You know that. You've used both for as long as I've known you for the same reasons.”

“I won't deny it, but damn it, boy, you need to pull yourself together. We've got trouble heading our way.” Garth removed his jacket, but left his shoulder holster in place. “If we can't find our killer in time to stop him from murdering Somer Ellis, then she's going to show up in a rocking chair somewhere with a toddler's skeleton in her arms. And we both know who that toddler is going to be, don't we?”

Hart followed Garth into the kitchen and watched while his uncle removed a box of leftover Chinese takeout and a water bottle from the refrigerator.

“Is there any chance y'all can stop him before it's too late?” Hart asked.

Garth set the water bottle on the table and then dumped the leftovers onto a plate and stuck the plate in the microwave. “If we're lucky, real goddamn lucky, it could happen.”

“At least I'm no longer a suspect.” Hart snorted. “Ironic, huh, that Special Agent Cass thought I might be the Rocking Chair Killer.”

“You're not a murderer. It's not in you to deliberately harm another human being.” Garth removed the plate from the microwave, set it on the small kitchen table, and then pulled out a chair.

Hart sat down at the table opposite his uncle. “What'll happen if he kills Somer Ellis and another Baby Blue toddler shows up?”

Garth wolfed down several huge bites of chicken-fried rice and chugalugged the water. He looked at Hart. “We hang in there together, as a family, you and me and Audrey and Wayne.”

“That's a given,” Hart said. “But that wasn't what I was talking about.”

“I know. Try not to worry. I'll figure out something. There has to be some sort of reasonable explanation,” Garth said. “But I can't deal with work, with our problem, and take care of you all at the same time. I need you to straighten up and fly right until this is all over, one way or another. Can you do that, boy? Tell me you can. I want to hear you say the words.”

Garth reached across the table and patted Hart's cheek as if he were still a child. He supposed in many ways, he hadn't grown up…and never would.

“I can do it, Uncle Garth. I swear I can.”

 

“Hush, little baby, don't you cry.”

Somer's quavering voice echoed in the hushed stillness as she sang the old lullaby. She remembered a few of the words, enough to please her captor; the rest of the words, she made up and repeated them again and again.

When he left her alone, she went out of her mind, waiting and wondering, longing to be rescued, praying for life. But now she knew who had abducted her and the fate that awaited her, the same fate that had ended three other lives. Why was he prolonging her agony? Why didn't he just smother her and end the torment the way he had with those other women she had heard about on the TV news?

If by some miracle she could escape or if she was rescued, she would be able to identify him. She had seen his face. Awake or asleep, his image never left her mind.

Had the other women he had kidnapped and murdered known who he was, had he showed them his face, or had he hidden himself from them?

When he was there in the dark room with her, she couldn't begin to describe the terror she experienced. The first time he had placed Cody in her arms, she had screamed hysterically. Even now, after holding the tiny skeleton in her arms many times, she couldn't bring herself to look down again at the “child.” He had once been someone's little boy. His parents had loved him and were perhaps still mourning his loss. Did they suspect his fate or did they still live in hopes that he was alive and would one day come home to them?

When his hand smoothed down over her head from crown to nape, she shuddered. She hated the feel of his hands, despised the sound of his voice, and felt nauseous smelling the faint hint of his expensive cologne. Each time he touched her, always with the utmost gentleness, she wondered if it was the touch of death, if this time, he would end her life.

“He loves it when you sing to him,” he told her. “And so do I. Keep singing so Cody won't cry anymore.”

He stood behind her, his hand on her shoulder. “If that looking glass gets broke…” Her voice cracked with emotion. She gasped for air. Tears filled her eyes. He moved to the side of the rocking chair, reached out and fingered the dampness on her cheek. “Don't Cry, Mommy. Don't you cry, too. Cody's going to be all right. God will take care of him. You'll be with him forever. I promised you, didn't I, and I would never break my promise.”

She gulped several times, swallowing her fear, doing her best to believe that God would take care of her, too.

Are you there, God? Can you hear me? Do you care?

With a courage forged of pity and resolve, Somer rocked back and forth, humming the old Southern lullaby generations of women had crooned to their babies.
Poor little baby.
She cradled the shawl-wrapped skeleton.
Somebody's baby. I don't know who you are, little boy, but one day very soon, you will be going home. Your mommy and daddy will be able to say a final good-bye to you.

Somer tried not to think about her own fate, although she knew the odds of ever leaving this dark, dank room were not good. It would take a miracle for anyone to find her, and she wasn't sure she believed in miracles or in a loving, benevolent God.

The question of why bad things happened to good people had become far more than just a philosophical one.

What had she ever done to deserve this? What had the sweet, innocent child she held in her arms ever done to deserve death at the hands of a madwoman?

 

Spending time with his mother and brother always gave him a feeling of deep and abiding peace. His sweetest memories were of standing beside his mother's rocking chair as she sang to Cody. For so many years after he was taken from her, he dreamed about her and Cody. But when he had shared his dreams with anyone else, he had been told he was simply having nightmares, that none of it had ever happened. And eventually, he had believed what he was told and had almost forgotten about his mother and his brother.

Two years ago he had begun searching for the truth about his biological parents. What he had unearthed had changed his life forever. He had known the first time he visited Regina Bennett at Moccasin Bend that she held the answers to all his questions. Regina, Cody's mother. And his mother, too.

Coming out of the old, ramshackle church, he stood on solid ground and gazed up at the night sky. Twinkling like minuscule Christmas lights thrown onto a black canopy, stars glimmered from far, far away. The crisp autumn wind rustled through the treetops in the surrounding woods.

Regina's voice came to him. He could hear the last thing she'd ever said to him, could feel her hand clutching his and her eyes pleading.

Promise me that you'll go there and find Cody. I want him to be with me in heaven. Put him in my arms so I can hold him forever.

He breathed in the night air, cool and fresh there on the country hillside, far from the city and its dirtiness. Once he fulfilled his promise to his mother, she and Cody could rest in peace, their souls joined forever in heaven. And then he would be free to live the life he had been destined to lead without being weighed down by nightmares from his childhood.

Rest tonight, Mommy. Tomorrow night, I'll come back one final time. I'll place Cody in your arms and you'll be with him forever and ever.

 

J.D. wiped the shaving cream off his face and splashed warm water over his smooth cheeks. He had come home after midnight last night and had fallen fast asleep. His alarm had gone off at six. He had showered and just now shaved. He was meeting with Tam and Garth at police headquarters at eight that morning.

As he walked barefoot into the bedroom, wearing only his boxers, he heard his cell phone ringing. Where the hell had he put his phone? Was it still attached to his belt? No, he distinctly remembered taking it off his belt and laying it down somewhere. He checked the nightstand. Wasn't there. He glanced around the floor on either side of the bed. Not there.

The phone stopped ringing. J.D. cursed under his breath as he stomped around in his bedroom searching for his phone.

And then it rang again.

He stopped, listened, and followed the sound.

Squatting on his haunches, he ran his hand under the right side of his bed until his hand encountered his phone. How the hell had it gotten under there?

“Special Agent Cass,” he answered.

“Good morning,” his boss, Phil Hayes, said. “Are you at home?”

“Yeah. I'm meeting Sergeant Hudson and Officer Lovelady at eight.”

“Well, you're going to have some mighty interesting news to share with them,” Phil told him.

“I am?”

“You are.”

“And what news would that be?”

“I have some information that's going to blow your mind if it turns out to be what I think it is.”

“Damn it, Phil, stop dragging this out and tell me.”

“Those adoption records you were so interested in…Seems like that court order has paid off. In spades.”

“We've found Corey Bennett.”

“Yep. A nine-year-old boy named Corey Bennett was adopted the year Dora Chaney married Frank Elmore. It was a private adoption, and as you already know, the adoptive parents, through their lawyer, paid Dora Chaney twenty thousand dollars.”

“Who were the adoptive parents? Have you got a name for me?”

“The adoptive parents were a well-to-do Lexington, Kentucky, couple, both in their mid-fifties at the time of the adoption,” Phil said. “He was a lawyer and she was an interior designer. Their son followed in the old man's footsteps and became a lawyer. Morris and Lynn Bryant are dead now, and before you ask, both passed away of natural causes.”

“Morris and Lynn Bryant?” J.D.'s mind whirled with the information. “My God!”