Dread Champion (11 page)

Judge Chanson busied herself with her computer, positioning the mouse just so. “Okay.” She turned to the prosecution table. “Ready with your first witness for the day?”

“Yes, Your Honor.” Stan Breckshire sprang to his feet. “The people call Tracey Wilagher.”

Milt watched the young woman approach the witness stand with the discomfited awareness that all eyes were upon her. Tracey was short, as apparently her mother had been, and very slender.Her hair was a light brown, layered and with fashionable bangs cut at various lengths. Not too bad-looking. She wore a sleeveless green dress that exposed bony shoulders and a graceful neck.Milt pondered the outfit.Was she trying to make herself appear wispy, vulnerable?

Stan Breckshire massaged his right arm. Pacing before the witness box, he asked questions about the background she and her mother shared. Her mother, formerly Shawna Wilagher, had married Darren Welk four years ago, when Tracey was sixteen. Shawna had been thirty-seven. Tracey had rarely seen her biological father, although they kept in contact. The father she'd known as a child had been the man whom Shawna had married when Tracey was seven. He and Shawna divorced six years later.

“How did you feel about your mother's marriage to Darren Welk?” Breckshire asked.

Tracey raised a knobby shoulder. “It was something she wanted to do. She really loved him.” Her expression sickened, as if she couldn't believe such a thing could ever have been true. She lowered her gaze to her fingers, laced and fidgeting.

“Did you get along with Mr.Welk?”

Tracey's eyes wandered toward the defendant, then swung away. “Sometimes.”

“What do you mean by ‘sometimes'?”

“I basically stayed out of his way.He had his work; I had school. And then I started working after school. So we didn't see each other too much. Plus it was a big house, you know?”

Breckshire nodded. “Where did you work?”

“When Mom opened her adoption agency, she paid me to help answer the phones and do books.”

“I see.Were you the only person who worked with your mom in the adoption agency?”

“No. Janet Cline was there. She was Mom's partner. I just helped out where I could.”

“Did you like working there?”

“Yes.” Tracey managed a smile. “For the same reasons my mom did.We loved seeing couples matched with babies. It made people so happy.”

Tracey's words curled at the edges. She blinked rapidly.

Breckshire paused. His next statement was in the
sotto voce
of lawyerly empathy.“Tracey, I need to talk to you about the night your mother was killed.”

“Objection,” Terrance Clyde's voice boomed. “There is no basis in fact for that statement.”

Breckshire swiveled a hawkeyed stare at the defense attorney, then shook his head.

“Sustained.” Judge Chanson's face was impassive.“Continue, Mr. Breckshire.”

The prosecutor pursed his lips with a look of rabid apology. “Tracey. I need to talk to you about the night your mother … disappeared.” He emphasized the word as if it were utter nonsense.“Are you ready to do that?”

Tracey seemed to shrivel in her dress. “Yes.”

“Okay. How did you first hear that something was amiss?”

“I got a phone call,” she said quietly. “About one forty-five in the morning.”

Milt Waking's pen scrawled as Tracey Wilagher told her story. …

T
RACEY WAS SOUND ASLEEP
in her large bedroom. She'd come down with the flu three days before and had finally given up and crawled into bed after twenty-four hours of suffering through fever. She'd hardly been out of her room since then except to eat and go to the bathroom.

The ringing phone jangled through her head like a distant warning bell. Slowly she opened her eyes. Her room glowed with the bluish tint from the “flying windows” on her computer's screen saver. The jeans and sweater she'd worn two days ago draped over the padded chair in front of her desk. She fumbled an arm to answer the phone.

“Tracey, you've got to help me.” Her mother's voice sounded tense.

“Darren's drunk and I'm afraid. I need you to come get me.”

“What?” The words swirled in Tracey's head.

“We're at Breaker Beach. Darren's drunk and roaring mad. The Browards are gone and I'm scared. I'm afraid he's going to hurt me.”

“Hurt you?” Fear chased away the thickness in Tracey's brain.

“Where is he right now?”

“He's stumbling around the fire, cursing and breathing his own smoke. I'm up here by the car.”

“Well, get out of there. Take the car and come home. We'll worry about him later.”

“Ican't. Darren has the keys. Itell you, he's roaring mad. Idon't dare ask him for them.”

Tracey struggled to compute. “But it'll take me twenty-five minutes to get there.”

“Iknow.” She breathed hard into the phone. “Darren's drunk enough; Ihope he'll pass out soon. If he does, maybe Ican get his keys.

You come on and get me. Keep your cell phone on. If Ican get the keys, I'll call you and let you know.”

Tracey ran awarm hand over her face and swallowed. Her throat still hurt. “Okay. I'll move as fast as Ican. But I'm still kind of shaky.”

“Oh, I'm sorry, Iforgot. You're sick!”

“That's okay. I'll come. Just be careful. Call me soon, okay? Once I'm on the way, call me and let me know you're all right.”

“Iwill. I'll just stay up here by the car until you come. Hurry.”

Tracey tried to hurry, but her legs and arms shook from fear as well as flu while she dressed. She'd seen her stepfather drunk before and it was not a pretty sight. He turned mean, illogical. Even Brett steered clear of Darren Welk when he drank. As far as Tracey knew, Darren had never yet physically hurt her mother. But there was always a first time.

Dizziness washed over Tracey more than once as she fumbled for her keys and purse. On the stairs she sat down hard, closing her eyes until the woozy feeling passed. Her car was parked out front. She slipped through the front door without seeing Brett. She assumed he was in bed and his car in the garage, but she gave him barely athought.
She was too concerned for her mother.

Tracey knew the location of Breaker Beach. She hoped she could roll in quietly, pick up her mom, and back out in ahurry, never laying eyes on her stepfather.

Turning right out of the long driveway, Tracey headed up Cooper Road and onto Nashua, crossing over Highway 1where it temporarily turned inland. Nashua turned into Molera Road, which cut a corner and crossed Highway 1 again, nearer to the ocean. Tracey turned north on the highway.

Fifteen minutes passed. Tracey's body felt heavy and dull.Uneasiness settled at the back of her neck. Her mom hadn't called yet. She checked her cell phone, reassuring herself that she had asignal.Another five minutes passed. Still no call. Tracey bit her lip, fighting the urge to call her mom's cell phone. Probably wasn't agood idea. What if her stepfather heard the ringing? What would he think? Tracey drove on, slumped close to the wheel, her labored breathing loud in her ears. The turnoff was about five miles up. She passed no one on the road. By this time it was 2:30 a.m. She turned left onto the winding road that would take her to Breaker Beach and eased her way around its dark curves. Her eyes cruised the night, expecting that her mother had walked out aways to meet her. But she saw no one. When Darren Welk's car came into view ahead, she immediately stopped, cutting her own car's lights and engine.

Her heart drummed hard, beating pain through her head as she clicked open her door and slipped into the night air. The sliver of a moon did little to light her way as she took a few hesitant steps, gazing toward the beach. Down toward the water afire flickered, casting light on a form sprawled in the sand. Tracey stared at the still form, heart clutching. It had to be Darren, passed out. Tracey cast her eyes right and left. “Mom?” she whispered into the darkness. “Where are you?”

No response.

Her knees trembled. She swallowed hard, wincing at the pain in her throat. Where could her mother be? The last thing she wanted was to waken Darren Welk.“Mom,” she whispered louder, muscles tense. Still no answer.

Tracey's next memories jumbled into a near-mindless sequence. She found herself stumbling around the top of the beach, calling her mother's name louder and louder, the rising flood of fear within her sweeping away all caution.Her chest grew heavy, her knees jellied. Then she was raking open the doors of Darren Welk's car, searching the front seat, the back. On the floor of the front seat she saw her mother's small evening purse. Ahorrifying, black thought mushroomed in her brain, and she fumbled for the latch to pop open the trunk. Tears scalding her eyes, she stumbled to the back of the car, swaying with relief when she saw the trunk was empty.

Finally she could stand it no more. She made her way back to her car and drove forward as far as she could, stopping at an angle so her headlights washed the length of the beach. The figure of Darren Welk lit up but still did not move. Tracey lurched out of her car, searching the beach up and down, forcing her fogged brain to process. “Mom!”
she called. “Mom, please, where are you?”

The sizzle-hiss of waves upon land was the only sound.

Something on the sand caught her eye. Something glistening darkly, not far from the fire's embers. A block of ice fell into Tracey's stomach as she stared. She forced her leaden legs forward. As she neared the glistening dot, she saw others like it. She stopped above them, unwilling to bend down and add undeniable senses to the terrifying shadows ghosting her mind. Slowly she reached out a trembling finger and touched the disfigured surface of the sand. Granules stuck to her skin. She raised her finger, turned it toward the car's headlights. The granules were dark red.

With a cry she flecked them off her finger and shuffled backward, eyes widening as she noticed more and more drops of what looked like blood. She tried to convince herself they belonged to Darren Welk but knew it wasn't true. The man breathed heavily in his drunken stupor, one beefy hand on his chest, the other flung out wide. She saw no injuries on him. Tracey scanned to his right and saw her mother's jacket draped over anearby log, and her pair of low-heeled shoes. Acell phone lay in the sand. She dragged herself over and picked up the jacket, inspecting every side, air jagging in and out of her mouth. No blood.

Tracey let it drop.Her eyes grazed the sand near the water, windblown smooth except for three places.

The footprints fairly leaped out at her.

Tracey's next memory placed her beside a trail of kicked-up sand leading into the ocean. It ended in ahalf print of a bare foot, the heel defined in wet sand, the rest smudged away. Surely it was her mother's.
Another larger trail headed into the ocean as well, leaving a partial shoe print in the wet sand. Asecond partial shoe print pointed back out of the water.With her eyes Tracey followed that print to a trail of churned sand leading away from the ocean. It became impossible to follow once it hit sand that had been walked upon many times. Still, its beginning led toward the fire, where Darren Welk slept. The truth hit her like a brick.

Three trails in and out of the ocean, not four. No bare footprint left the water.

“Mom!” Tracey screamed at the dark tide under the black sky.
Surely her mom hadn't gone swimming. Alarge sign near the dirt lane forbade it; the currents were far too dangerous. Even the area of water on the right that was partly sheltered by the curving line of boulders was not protected enough to be safe. And just before Tracey had gotten sick, hadn't she heard that someone had been attacked by a shark not far from there? If her mom had been bleeding…

Tracey emitted a sob. In desperation she shuffled toward Darren Welk. Only when she reached his side did she notice that his shoes and the pant legs around his ankles were wet. Fresh fear for her mother made her forget herself. She kicked him with all her might.

“Wake up! Wake up!” She kicked him again. “What have you done to my mother? Where is she?”

Her stepfather coughed and hacked and snorted, then drew himself into a sitting position, incensed. “What're you kickin' me for, you brat? Get outta here.”

Tracey screamed accusations, pointing to the blood, sweeping her hands around the empty beach. Darren Welk lurched to his feet and lumbered around, calling, “Shawna! Hey, Shawna!” There was no reply.

“Idon't know where she is,” he insisted over and over. “When I passed out she was… she was here.” He turned in a full circle, arms lifting.

“Where did the blood come from?” Tracey rasped. Her legs quaked and her chest was molten lead.

Sudden awareness shuttered his face. “She fell.”

“She fell? In the sand?”

Fury and fright sucked up Tracey's veins, trailed by denial. Surely her mother was all right.Maybe she called afriend, someone who could come get her more quickly. Maybe she'd called the Browards. Maybe the bare footprint leading into the water belonged to someone else.

Tracey had to get home; that's what she had to do. She had to get away from this beach, this man, this place of darkness and blood and—

She could not allow herself to finish the thought. The next thing Tracey knew, she was back in her car, ignoring the bellows of Darren Welk. She'd brought her mother's jacket, shoes, and cell phone with her, flinging them onto the front seat. She turned her car around, then surged forward, tires spinning. At some point along the way home she thought to snatch up her cell phone, flicking on the overhead light to see if the message icon was visible. It wasn't. By the time Tracey jerked up to the front of the Welks' home, she'd convinced herself that she'd find her mother inside. The surety of her coming relief swelled her lungs with anger. How could her mom have done that to her? How could the woman have frightened her so?