Killer Love (48 page)

Wil’s heart sped up. This could be something. “I need you to tell me everything you can about this girl. Where she lives, her age, name, everything.”

Abby gave a small sigh of resignation and then she told him.

Wil called Ray and asked him to send someone to take over surveillance. When Prescott arrived, Wil drove to the police department and by the time he left there, he had a print-out on twelve-year-old Brittany Goddard and was headed to Crowley, Florida, a small town eighty-five miles east of Blue Harbor.

It was close to nine p.m. when Wil pulled into the upper middle class neighborhood on the edge of Crowley. The Goddard’s lived in a large, red brick, single-story house with a carefully landscaped lawn and a two-car garage.

Since Brittany was an only child, it didn’t take long for Wil to locate her bedroom through the binoculars. Her room was the one with the fire department sticker on the window, letting firemen know which room held a child so they could rescue the child first. Not as much of a safety precaution as one might think. Not if you took kidnappers and pedophiles into consideration.

Wil waited until late that night when he was relatively certain the occupants of the house were asleep. Then he made his way to Brittany’s window.

Using a glasscutter, he cut out a hole just large enough to slip his pen light through and to give him a little wiggle room. Had the pink curtains been open, he wouldn’t have had to make the hole. He made a mental note to anonymously inform Brittany’s parents that they needed to replace her window.

Slipping the pen light through the opening in the glass, he pulled the curtain back and let the beam play over the room. Against one wall was a brass daybed. A small figure lay under the comforter, facing the wall. Blonde hair spilled out over the pillow.

There was a chance the miniscule shine might wake the girl, but it was unlikely. If it did, Wil could be long gone before she alerted her parents.

He moved the light around, taking in the details of the girl’s life. On the dresser stood a few softball trophies and a jewelry box. A couple of Dr. Pepper cans and some clothing were piled around them. A cloth-covered board hung on the wall, framed with a squiggly blue border. The board held a collage of celebrity photos that had been cut out of magazines.

Because Wil had a teenage daughter, he recognized Hillary Duff and Justin Timberlake, but none of the others. In the center of the pictures, beneath haphazardly placed red block letters that read ‘Me and Cami’, was a snapshot of two smiling girls, one blonde, one dark-haired, their cheeks pressed together as they posed for the camera.

Satisfied he’d seen enough, he clicked the pen light off and pulled it back through the hole.

The girl hadn’t stirred.

****

Wil drove to Diane’s house. Prescott’s cruiser sat at the end of the block. Wil pulled up beside him and told him he’d take over the watch.

Once the patrol car was out of sight, Wil parked his pickup in front of the next door neighbor’s house and moved stealthily to Diane’s back yard. He jimmied the lock on her kitchen door, letting himself in. He sent up a brief prayer of thanks that there was no alarm.

Using the faint moonlight streaming in between the blinds, he found Diane’s bedroom.

She lay sleeping, her body beneath the blankets rising and falling with her breaths. He sat in a chair next to her bed for ten minutes or so before she sensed him and bolted to a sitting position, a small scream leaving her as she clutched the covers to her chin. Her hair was wild, her eyes round with fear. A crease from the pillow marred her left cheek.

Her expression changed from fear to confusion and then to irritation when she recognized him. “Wil! What the hell are you doing here?”

“I thought I’d give you another chance to come clean about Perry.”

She dropped the covers, revealing a blue flannel nightgown, and pointed at the door. “Get out, now! Before I call the cops.”

“Sorry, sweetheart, I
am
the cops.”

“You resigned.”

He lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug. “Once a cop, always a cop. But that doesn’t really matter right now. Hear me out, and if you still want to call the cops afterward, I’ll let you.” He leaned forward in the chair and linked his hands between his knees. “If you don’t want to talk about Perry, how about if we talk about Brittany?”

Her face blanched and a small moan escaped her lips.

“I can tell by your reaction that you love your daughter as much as I love mine.”

A look of resolve entered her eyes. “Abby told you I have a daughter? So what?”

“I’m trying to decide what to do with that information. I don’t know whether to tell her the truth about you so Mike and Cassandra Goddard will never let you see her again, or make something...” He paused and gave her a level stare. “...
happen
to her. Maybe something like what happened to Lindsey.”

Diane’s lips stretched into a brittle smile. Her voice quivered when she spoke. “Just because you know her name, doesn’t mean you can find
her
. Or get to her.”

“No? Not even at one of her softball games? Or when she stays at Cami’s? Or, maybe in her bedroom, where I could slip in and snatch her right out of her comfy day bed?”

With each word Wil spoke, Diane’s face paled even more until it looked ghostly in the bedroom’s dim light. “You’re a cop,” she said, her voice sounding strangled.

Wil leaned back in his chair and smiled. “Resigned, remember?”

“But...you’re a father.”

He nodded in agreement. “Yes, but I’m the father of a rebellious, high-maintenance, smartass teenage girl. You can imagine why the species doesn’t elicit much sympathy in me.”

She shook her head. “You wouldn’t. I know you woul—”

He leapt from the chair and slammed his hands on the headboard, one on each side of her trembling body, so close he could smell her perfume and the faint scent of garlic and booze.

“Whoever did this,” he growled into her terrified face, “has fucked with the two people I love most in the world. I don’t give a damn about anything
but
that right now. You see, I have nothing else to lose. I’m certain you know who it is. Certain enough that I’m willing to take my frustrations out on your little girl if you don’t tell me what the fuck I need to know.” He punctuated each of the last words by banging his fist on the headboard next to her face.

“Okay!” she screamed, sobbing and shaking her head wildly back and forth, her hands clamped tightly over her ears. “Okay, okay, okay. It’s fucking Perry, okay? Please don’t hurt my little girl.”

Wil went limp and dropped back onto the chair, the adrenaline leaving him as if it had been siphoned with a hose. “Where is he and what has he done with my daughter?”

Diane’s body shook and tears streaked down her cheeks. “I don’t know. I swear. I don’t know where he is or where he’s holding Lindsey. But she’s fine, I promise.”

“Don’t say her name,” Wil growled. “Don’t you ever say her fucking name.”

Her eyes rounded and a fresh wave of tears filled them. “He didn’t tell me where he has her. I swear.”

“How do you get in touch with him?”

“I don’t. He’s not keeping his cell on and he has a supply of those throw away trac phones with different numbers. He calls me to check in periodically.”

“When? How often?”

“He calls me in the mornings, usually around six or six-thirty.”

Wil’s gaze went to the clock, as did Diane’s. Four a.m. “He should call in a few hours, then.”

“What do we do in the meantime?” Diane asked shakily.

Wil raked a hand through his hair and sighed wearily. “We wait.”

He wanted to call Abby, but hopefully, she was asleep and, if she was, he didn’t want to disturb her rest.

“For what it’s worth,” Diane said, tears making her voice thick. “I had no idea he’d hurt Lind—your daughter—or Abby. The night she and I went out, he told me to slip something in her drink, then take her home and he’d meet me there, do the rest. I did as he asked, but if I’d known his plan was to hurt her, I’d never have gone along with it. By the time I found out, I was in too deep.”

“Just what
is
his plan?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. He lets me know only what I need to know as we go along. He’s been watching you for years. When you moved here, he followed you and when you started dating Abby, we insinuated ourselves in your lives.”

“Why watch me for so long before making his move?”

“I don’t know. He kept saying he needed to prepare, everything had to be just right. Befriending you and Abby was part of it. The thing is, I really grew to care about Abby, consider her a friend.” She gave a choked laugh. “I know it sounds crazy, but sometimes I forgot being her friend was just part of the plan.”

“Why is he doing this? Why does he hate me?”

“Because,” she said, looking him square in the eye, “you murdered his sister.”

Chapter Twelve

Wil stared at her incredulously. “I what?”

“You murdered his sister,” Diane repeated. “I don’t know all the details, but he said you killed her.”

“That’s crazy.”

She shrugged. “That’s what he said. It happened just before I met him. He and his sister were very close growing up. His parents were abusive alcoholics and treated him and his sister like shit. They had a huge life insurance on both kids. When Perry’s sister died, they collected and lived like royalty for a little while. Then, they both died in a car accident. I always wondered if Perry...” She shrugged again. “But I can’t say for sure. Anyway, Perry inherited all the money from his parents and he’s made it his life’s goal to avenge his sister. He adored her. He always talks about how smart she was. About how, in spite of her upbringing, Marissa would have made something of herself.”

The name hit Wil like the gust of a hurricane. “Marissa? Did she and Perry have different last names?”

“Yes. Marissa was his half sister. Same mother, different father. But they couldn’t have been closer if they’d been full blood siblings.”

“Oh Christ.” Wil now knew why Perry hated him.

Thirteen years ago, in Miami, Wil had been called out on a liquor store robbery. The clerk had been shot to death. Wil and his partner, Rafe, had taken the call. Rafe was a rookie who’d only been on the force for six months.

They confronted the suspect leaving the store. It was dark, and they couldn’t get a good look at the figure, but they could see a gun in the gloved hand. Their commands to drop the weapon were ignored. Rafe headed toward the suspect, gun pointed.

When Wil ordered his partner to fall back, shots rang out and Rafe dropped to the ground. The suspect swung the gun toward Wil and Wil fired his weapon.

It was afterward they discovered the suspect was a seventeen-year-old girl, Marissa Hoffman. She died before reaching the hospital.

Rafe survived but was paralyzed and hadn’t been on the force long enough to earn much of a disability pension. He had a wife and two young children.

For years, Wil had questioned his actions. The thought of ending a young girl’s life was almost more than he could bear. But, she’d murdered a sixty-five-year old man who owned the liquor store, and she’d ruined the life of a young police officer. Wil dealt with his guilt.

But now he understood why Perry hated him so much.

And how very precarious, how very serious, Lindsey’s situation really was.

****

Wil was startled from a light sleep by the ringing of a phone. He was surprised he’d dozed, but a look at the clock told him it had only been a few minutes.

Diane stared at him as she picked up the receiver from the nightstand.

“Perry? You have to stop this. You have to let Lindsey go and end things now without anyone getting hurt. They know I’m involved somehow and it won’t take long to figure out you’re the one behind this.” Moisture swam in her eyes. “They know about Brittany, and they’re going to hurt her if you don’t let Lindsey go.” She listened for a few seconds. “Wil,” she said, obviously responding to a query about who ‘they’ were. “Yes, he’s serious. You didn’t see the look on his face.” Diane’s eyes met Wil’s and her voice dropped to a whisper. “I know he’ll hurt my baby. I know it.”

Diane listened for a bit more, then said, “You don’t mean that. You can’t be serious.” Her face drained of what little color she had left and tears poured from her eyes. “No. No way! I won’t let you—” Her face reddened, and her expression turned to rage. She said, “You piece of shit. Your revenge is more important than our daughter’s life? Sorry motherfu—”

She stopped. Perry must have hung up. She closed the phone and her eyes were dead when she looked at Wil. “He said he wouldn’t release Lindsey. He’s willing to take the chance with Brittany’s life. He said he doesn’t even know her, but his sister was the person he loved most in this world.”

Wil’s heart sank with her words. Even though he now knew who had his daughter, finding him and stopping him were beginning to seem impossible.

****

The sliding door was opened a crack, just enough to let the evening breeze in and Abby breathed deeply of the clean air and ocean. She stared out through her own reflection in the glass, watching the moon play on the surface of the water.

Wil’s image joined hers and she gave him a small smile.

“How you holding up?” he asked.

She shrugged, not turning around. “Okay. You?”

His gaze stared over her head into the blackness beyond the deck. “Wondering about Lindsey. Where she is. How she’s doing. If she’s scared. If she’s hungry. If she thinks I’m not trying hard enough to find her.” Even with the distortion of the glass, Abby saw a sheen of moisture in his eyes. “I don’t think I ever told you, but she’s afraid of the dark. Still, at fourteen, she has to sleep with a nightlight. If she has a friend over, she doesn’t, she’s too embarrassed. But any other time...” He drew in a long, shuddering breath. “I’m sure it’s because of her mother. The bad dreams.”

Abby turned to face him. “I’m so sorry, Wil.”

He looked down at her, his eyes not really seeing her, their tormented expression far away, with his little girl. “She wanted a lamp left on her mother’s grave, didn’t want her spending eternity in the dark, alone. I got Tara one of those eternal flames and that seemed to placate Lindsey. I wonder if he’s leaving a light on for her.”