Guilty as Sin (16 page)

"He said it was a game." Megan's words came back to her, bringing a chill that had nothing to do with the falling temperature. If this was all a game to him, then taking Dustin Holloman was a brilliant and ruthless move. In addition to raising questions in the press, the search for the second missing child would take priority and consume hours of manpower from two law-enforcement agencies already investigating the Kirkwood kidnapping—the BCA and the Park County sheriff's department. The Deer Lake police would be involved because of the possible connection to their own case. They would be forced to widen the investigation because of the involvement of a whole new group of people—the Hollomans and their friends and associates and enemies. In one move their adversary had taken their team and scattered it all over the board.

"This is where they took off," Mitch said, flashing his badge at the deputies who stood wary watch around a naked sapling on the boulevard.

Ellen let him herd her through the group to the center, foreboding pressing down on her like a great weight.

Tied around a branch of the tree was a bright-purple scarf. Crocheted by someone who loved Dustin. He had probably got it for Christmas and had probably wished it were a Power Ranger toy instead. It fluttered on the branch, an oversize ribbon marking a terrible trail. And pinned to the scarf was the note.

                    
but sad as angels for the good man's SIN,

                     
weep to record and blush to give it in.

Ellen shuddered. She couldn't get the sight of that scarf out of her mind. A small symbol of a small child snatched into a madman's game for a purpose known only to him.

 
He said it was a game.

But with what rules and what goal and what motivation? And what players? Virtually everyone in Deer Lake who had ever had a conversation with Garrett Wright had been questioned. His acquaintances were well-respected professional people, baffled by the turn of events that had landed him in jail. His students had rallied to support him. The faculty at Harris had nothing but respect for him. No one had uncovered or hinted at Garrett Wright being anything other than what he appeared. No secret taste for child pornography. No ties to the criminal underworld. No hidden life of satanic worship.

As his wife had said, Garrett Wright didn't so much as speed in his perfectly sensible Saab, let alone hang out with criminal types. There were precious few people on the list of Wright's known associates who looked even remotely like an accessory to kidnapping and assault.

But someone had brought Josh Kirkwood home and someone had taken Dustin Holloman away.

And she was too damn tired to try to figure it out tonight.

As Ellen reached toward the remote control for the garage door, something hit the driver's-side window with all the force of a rock. Bolting sideways, a little shriek of surprise ripping up her throat, she twisted around wide-eyed to see Jay Butler Brooks looking in at her.

"You gonna sit here all night or put the car away and invite me in for coffee? I'm freezing my ass out here."

Ellen answered him with a scathing look. It was late, she was tired, and she still had work to do before she could lapse into unconsciousness for a few hours. But as she drove the Bonneville into her garage, he sauntered in beside her as if he had every right to be there.

"Glendenning can't force me to be 'accommodating' in my own home," Ellen said, hefting her briefcase out of the car. "As much as I may feel like one from time to time, I'm not a slave."

"I'll take that for you," Jay offered, reaching for the attache. It was old leather that had taken a beating no live cow could have endured. The size of a small building, it looked as if she had packed it with granite blocks.

"No, you won't," she said, and headed for the door that led directly into the house.

Jay hopped up on the stoop beside her and held the storm door while she dug for her keys. "Ellen, I'd like to talk to you."

"And I'd like to go to bed."

He leaned ahead, into her line of vision, and gave her a slow, sexy smile, glittering with humor. "Can we talk afterward?"

Ellen told herself disgust was what made her fumble with her keys and drop them, not the mental image of Jay Butler Brooks in her bed wearing nothing but a sheet and that smile.

"I'm in no mood for sophomoric humor, and I've had my quota of arguments for the day," she said, letting herself into the mudroom, where Harry lay curled up on his cedar-stuffed cushion. He boomed a bark of greeting and hopped to attention, his toenails tapping out Morse code on the vinyl flooring. Ellen gave the dog an absent pat, still scowling at the man who seemed bent on invading her life. "Why don't you go back to wherever you came from?"

"I came from Campion," Jay said, smoothly stepping inside before she could close the door on him.

"You'd make a great Fuller Brush salesman," Ellen muttered, toeing off her boots and setting them on the mat beside the door.

"Been there. Done that." He pulled off his gloves and stuffed them into his coat pockets. "My respectable old southern family ran out of respectable old southern money long before I went to college."

He offered his hand to Harry. The golden retriever sniffed him, then slurped his big pink dog tongue along the back of Jay's knuckles. Ellen gave her pet a look that branded him a traitor and headed for the kitchen.

"So your morbid curiosity drove you to Campion," she said to Jay. "I'm not surprised. The plot grows thicker for you. Did you get a good, close look at the boy's mother? I would suggest Kathy Bates to play her in the movie. I thought there was a strong resemblance—but, then, she was bawling her eyes out, so it's hard to say."

"I didn't go near the woman." Jay stopped in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room. "It makes me sick to think another child is going to suffer. I'm not a ghoul, Ellen, and I resent the insinuation."

She hefted her briefcase onto a cherrywood table with graceful Queen Anne legs, setting it down with a solid thud. "Tough. I didn't ask you to come here. I didn't ask you into my home. And, frankly, I'm in no mood to play hostess."

"I came to see how you were doing," he said. "You've had a hell of a day."

He took in the dining room in a single look—mottled soft gold walls decorated with brass sconces and primitive portraits of eighteenth-century people. Tasteful, simple, classy. The back wall was taken up by a bay window, the center section of which was a door that probably opened onto a deck or patio. Opposite the window, a railing ran some eight or ten feet, providing a graceful spot to look down on the living room below.

"See how you've misjudged me?" He shuffled down the carpeted steps to the living room. With a flick of a switch the brass table lamps filled the room with muted light. "I came here out of concern for you. I mean, we shared a bonding experience of sorts this afternoon, you and I. Trying to raise someone from the dead is a pretty intimate experience."

"Yeah, we're practically blood brother and sister," Ellen said dryly. She slipped her coat off and hung it on the back of a chair, her wary attention on the man who was intruding not only in her house but in her case. He prowled her living room like a restless cat, running a hand over the furniture as if marking the territory.

"And aside from your great concern for me," she said, descending the stairs, "you had no intention of coming here to try for a little inside information on the kidnapping of Dustin Holloman?"

"I can get that information from other sources. Better sources, if you want the truth." He flipped a brass-framed switch beside the fireplace, and flames instantly leaped to life around a stack of fake logs. Neat, clean, no muss, no fuss. He turned his back to the fire, pressing his hands against the screen to absorb the warmth that was real even if the logs were not.

Ellen stood across the room from him, beside a sturdy overstuffed chair. She obviously hadn't made it home before being called to the crisis in Campion. She was still in the charcoal suit she had worn at Wright's bond hearing and Judge Franken's demise. Her hair had come down, pure, straight silk that fell artlessly to brush the tops of her shoulders. Her veneer of makeup and manners had long since worn off. She looked exhausted and short-tempered and utterly unapproachable.

But even as he saw this, he could remember the way she had looked going into the command post in the Campion Sons of Norway hall— shaken, afraid. Their bad guy had thrown them a wicked curveball, and no one had been ready for it.

"The judge on your case dies on you, another child is kidnapped while your bad guy sits in jail," he said, coming toward her slowly. "That's a lot to deal with."

"Yes, and now I have to deal with you," Ellen said, crossing her arms. "Wondering if you're committing my every word to memory or if you've got a tape recorder in your pocket."

"You're damned suspicious."

"I wouldn't trust you any farther than I could throw you."

"After I came to check up on you and convince myself of your well-being?"

"Uh-huh," she said with no conviction.

"You can frisk me if you'd like," he offered in that dark, sexy tone. "But I'll warn you right now—that's not a tape recorder in my pocket."

"I'll take your word for it. So now you've seen that I'm still in one piece." She held her arms out from her sides to display the fact. "You've done your Good Samaritan deed for the decade. You're dismissed."

Ignoring the suggestion that he had worn out his welcome, Jay sat down on the fat arm of the overstuffed chair. He could be as deliberately obtuse as a post. It was a skill that had served him well as an attorney and more so as a writer. Persistence was the name of the game when it came to getting information.

"Do you think it's part of Wright's plan?" he asked. "A diversionary tactic? I should have thought bringing back the Kirkwood kid accomplished that."

"But it didn't spread out the defense," Ellen mumbled more to herself than to Jay.

"I don't follow."

"A football analogy. I had a law professor who used to play for the Vikings."

"Ah. I'm a baseball man myself."

"The offensive team shows a formation that causes the defensive team to spread themselves all over the field, inevitably creating holes for the offense to slip through."

"Involving a whole new set of victims in another town forces the investigation to broaden instead of focusing tightly on Wright and Wright's secret pal," Jay deduced. He gave Ellen a nod. "Sharp thinking, counselor."

"It's conjecture and speculation," she said as she went to the door. "For all I know, the kidnapping of Dustin Holloman is unrelated to the kidnapping of Josh Kirkwood."

He thought of what he'd seen and felt in Campion tonight. The sharp metallic taste of fear, the sense that the place had somehow slipped into an alternate universe. Evil. It had been as much a presence as the police and the press. It seemed to permeate the night, dyeing it blacker, giving the wind a razor's edge. And fluttering brightly against it was a little boy's bright-purple scarf tied to the naked branch of a winter-dead tree.

He remembered thinking, Jesus, Brooks, what have you walked into here?

More than he had bargained for.

"I think we both know better," he said to Ellen, slowly pushing himself away from the chair. "The question is, how will it affect the prosecution of Wright?"

Ellen took a deep breath and let it out in a gust, leaning back against the wall, too worn-out to keep herself upright. "Look, you're right, it's been a long day and I still have work to do, and there's no point in your staying because I'm not going to share anything with you—"

"Regarding the case or you?"

"Either."

"I just can't win with you, can I?" He pretended frustration, his brows tugging together. But, as always, the wry amusement was there in his eyes.

Ellen steeled herself against the effect. "Not on your best day."

Jay weighed the wisdom of trying to press for something more but decided not to push his luck. He needed to win her over, not piss her off. He was already digging himself out of a hole after the Glendenning debacle, which he had to admit had been a major blunder on his part. Instead of smoothing the track for him, bringing in Glendenning had had the effect of throwing down a gauntlet. That's what he got for rushing into this thing, but he was in it now, a part of it. That had been the goal—to get inside.