chapter Ten
Amberly paced the floor of the conference room, occasionally stopping in front of the bulletin board to stare blankly at the crime-scene photos, but her thoughts weren’t on the crimes. Her head was consumed with thoughts of Cole.
He’d left earlier with Ben to drive to Kansas City and question John. She was anxious to hear what they’d discovered when they returned, although she was certain there was nothing to discover.
As anxious as she was about their investigation of John, she was equally confused and still a little flustered by her lovemaking with Cole.
Nothing in her marriage had prepared her for what had happened between herself and Cole in his bed the night before. The passion she’d always feared she’d never experience had exploded out of her in Cole’s arms, and it had been sheer, unadulterated passion for him.
Lust, she tried to tell herself. And everyone knew that lust didn’t last, that it eventually waned and left nothing behind. That hadn’t been her problem in her marriage. There had never been any lust for her where John was concerned, just a bottle of champagne and a night of mistakes.
Had last night with Cole been a mistake? How could she possibly categorize that splendid act as a mistake? She hadn’t known how wonderful lovemaking could be until last night. And now she would never want to settle for anything less.
He was getting to her, with his blue eyes and hot body. But more than that, he was getting to her with his compassion, with his intelligence and with his very heart, and she couldn’t allow that to happen.
Her life was complicated without a man in it. She had Max to consider, and she’d absolutely made a vow to herself when she’d divorced that she wouldn’t drag a parade of men through his life.
At least she hadn’t slept in Cole’s bed. After they’d made love, she’d gone back to the guest room, afraid that by sleeping in his arms, by awakening with him in the same bed to the morning light, what they’d shared would somehow transform into something deeper than mere lust.
She needed to be home. There had been no other threats against her since the photo and dream catcher hung on her mailbox. Maybe they’d jumped the gun by removing her from her home, from her son.
Sure, there was no question that the message sent to her mailbox had frightened her, but maybe it had been nothing more than a prank played by one of the men she’d fooled the night she’d gone to the bar and hadn’t told anyone she was an FBI agent.
She stared back at the crime-scene photos, her heart beating an uneven rhythm as she gazed at the victims. Was she willing to take a chance with her life, assume that it had been just a prank? Was she willing to take a chance on Max’s life?
She turned away from the board as Roger Black entered the room. “Thought you might like some lunch,” the deputy said as he placed a fast-food bag on the table.
“Lunch? Already?” She looked at her watch and realized it was just after twelve. Where had the morning gone? “Thanks, Roger. It was really sweet of you to think of me. What do I owe you?”
His cheeks blushed a bit. “Don’t worry about it, it’s just a cheeseburger and fries.” He headed for the door. “I’ll get you one of those diet drinks you like from the vending machine.”
Before she could protest, he was out of the room. She sank down on the table and opened the bag. He’d ordered her cheeseburger just the way she liked them, with no onions and double cheese.
It was just another indication that she’d been in Mystic Lake for too long. Everyone knew how she ordered her burgers, what she liked to drink, and the small police force had been as accommodating to her as anyone could be.
She smiled as Roger returned to the room, her diet drink in one hand and a canned orange in the other. “Here you go.” He set her drink in front of her and then sat across the table. “How’re you doing?”
“Hanging in there,” she replied as she plucked a hot fry out of the paper container. “Although it seems to be taking Ben and Cole an unusual amount of time to question John.”
“I know they wanted to find a time when your little guy wasn’t around, and you know how these things go…it always takes longer to interview somebody than you think it’s going to take.”
She offered him some of her fries but he shook his head. She took another one, ate it and then focused back on Roger. “What do you think about all this? You have a specific theory to the case?”
“I still think Jeff Maynard is good for the murders. He’s a nasty piece of work. It’s easy for me to imagine him killing Gretchen and getting off on the power of the kill.”
“Enough to make him kill again and again?”
Roger nodded. “I just think he’s the type that once he got the taste of murder in his mouth, he liked it. Besides, it would tickle him to death to sit back and watch us run around like chickens with our heads missing.”
“What about the dream catchers?” she asked and then bit into her cheeseburger.
Roger frowned. “That’s the part I just can’t make sense of, no matter how I twist it around in my mind.” Roger snaked one of her fries out of the container and then popped the top of his soda. “I can’t imagine that Jeff would know a dream catcher from a tom-tom drum.”
“And I can’t imagine my ex-husband had anything to do with any of this,” Amberly said, tension tightening in her chest.
“I think Cole was looking to definitively count him out rather than seriously looking at him as a suspect.”
Roger’s words released some of the tension. “I hope you’re right.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “And I wish they’d get back here soon. The waiting to hear how it went is about to kill me.”
As if conjured up by her very wishes, at that moment, Cole and Ben entered the room.
“It’s about time,” she said, her appetite gone as she stared first at Ben and then at Cole. “So, what happened?”
“We didn’t get any real definite answers as far as alibis for the nights of the murders,” Ben said.
“According to John, many evenings when he’s alone, he shuts off his phone and works. He says his best creativity happens late in the night or in the very early morning hours. Apparently, the last month he’s been working overtime to get paintings ready for a show he has coming up,” Cole said.
Amberly nodded. “That’s right. He has a big show scheduled, and he does often work late into the night all alone.” During the years they’d been married, John had often started painting after dinner and had worked into the wee hours of the morning.
“Makes it tough to confirm an alibi.” Cole sank down at the table in a nearby chair. “Although he did think that on one of those nights he’d played chess with your neighbor, Ed.”
“And so we stopped at Ed’s and spoke to him,” Ben said. “He wasn’t good at particular dates, but said he and John frequently play chess in the evenings.”
“That’s true,” Amberly replied. She fought against a sigh of frustration. “So, is he still a suspect, or did he answer your questions satisfactorily enough that we can mark him off our short list?”
“I’m still ambivalent,” Cole confessed after a moment of hesitation.
Deep disappointment flared through Amberly. She’d hoped to at least have some closure where this situation was concerned. Her heart rebelled at the very thought that the man she’d married, the man who had been her best friend for the past eight years, could actually be a monster.
But there was no question that since Cole had told her Ben’s crazy theory she was having trouble completely dismissing it from her mind.
“So, what happens now?” she asked.
“I think we all go back to the drawing board,” Cole said, his gaze moving to the pictures of the victims. “Somehow we’ve missed something, a key piece that would point a finger at somebody.”
“It’s the dream catcher,” Amberly said without hesitation. “Until we figure out what meaning it has to our killer, we won’t have the clue we really need.”
Cole frowned thoughtfully. “We need to delve deeper into the suspects we have and, at the same time, reinterview family members and friends of both the suspects and victims. I’m afraid we’re back into the drudgery of leg- and paperwork.”
Ben smiled easily. “And unlike what is seen on television, that’s usually what solves crimes.”
“What we’re looking for is either Native American ties or specific affinities to dream catchers,” Cole said. He appointed a victim and a suspect to each deputy and kept Jeff to reinvestigate for himself.
He assigned Amberly nothing, and she figured it was because he identified her as a potential victim and didn’t want her running off on her own to investigate anything.
After the two deputies had left the room, Cole moved to sit next to Amberly. “I wish I had the words to erase those worry lines that are creasing your brow,” he said.
“The only thing that will do that is getting this creep behind bars and letting me go home to Max.” What she wanted to do was melt into his arms, for him to hold her and tell her that everything was going to be okay.
The victims cried out for justice, and she just wanted to hold her son close and assure herself that he was happy and healthy. “Do you really think I’m in some kind of danger?” she asked.
This time, it was Cole’s forehead that wrinkled with worry lines. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I expected another body or something to happen before now. I thought he was escalating, but I think maybe he’s just cunning and calculating, waiting for the best possible opportunity to strike again.”
“If I’ve been marked as his next victim, maybe he didn’t anticipate that I’d move out and come here to stay with you. Maybe that slowed down his time line a bit.”
“Perhaps. But I don’t know why he hasn’t just picked another victim. Even though I’ve warned the young women in this town not to be out alone, that doesn’t mean they’re all heeding the warning.” Cole stood abruptly. “Come on, let’s go see what we can find out about Jeff Maynard’s past. Somehow, the answer is here in town. We just need to find it.”
“Then let’s get to it,” she replied.
For the next five hours, she and Cole talked to everyone who knew Jeff Maynard. They asked about any Native American he might have in his background, if he’d ever shown or talked about any interest in Native American history or myths and legends.
“I’d like to get a warrant and search wherever he’s been staying, maybe get hold of a computer he uses,” Cole said once they were back at the office.
“Unfortunately, a judge wouldn’t even entertain the notion of a search warrant based on what we have,” she replied. “We have a public fight between him and Gretchen, but he also has an alibi we haven’t been able to break for the time of her murder.”
Cole checked his watch. “It’s after seven. I guess we’ll call it a day and head home.”
Minutes later, as they rode back to his house, Amberly felt his discouragement. “You know, the FBI doesn’t always get it right, and some crimes are never solved,” she said softly.
“Don’t even think that,” he replied firmly. “We’re going to find this guy and stop him. I won’t quit until I’ve found him.”
“I like a man with that kind of determination,” she said in an attempt to lighten the mood.
“What kind of food would you like for dinner? Personally, unless you’re in the mood to cook I’m all in for takeout.”
“Is there a Chinese place somewhere? I’m definitely a fool for sweet-and-sour chicken,” she said.
“Mr. Wok’s, two blocks away. I just like eating out of cartons with chopsticks.”
She laughed, although it certainly wasn’t a laugh from her heart. They were both making light to cast away the discouragement over the fact that they couldn’t catch a break to nail the killer.
Thirty minutes later, the two of them were seated at Cole’s kitchen table eating from half a dozen different cartons from Mr. Wok’s.
“What worries me is that the break we’re waiting for will come at the price of somebody else’s life,” she said as she speared a piece of sweet-and-sour chicken with the end of a chopstick.
“That worries me, too.” Cole leaned back in his chair and shoved his empty plate away. “Even in the years I worked in St. Louis, I never had a case where there was no significant evidence left behind. Whoever is doing this has to be smart and very organized.”
“And that takes our top three suspects right off the list,” she said dryly.
He returned her smile. “I’d be the first to admit that I don’t believe Jeff, Raymond or Jimmy are the sharpest crayons in the box, but I also don’t want to underestimate any of them. One of them might just be playing the fool.”
Amberly ate the last piece of chicken off her plate and then leaned back in her chair. “How long do we do this? How long do I keep away from Max? From my life?”
“I wish I had an answer for you, but I don’t. All I know is that I feel like something is going to break soon, that whoever is committing these crimes won’t be able to help himself from committing another one very soon.”
“I feel it, too,” Amberly admitted. “It’s like the tick of a time bomb that’s been hidden in the room, but no matter how hard we search we can’t find the bomb, and detonation is about to happen.” A shiver worked up her spine, and she wrapped her arms around herself in an attempt to stave it off.
Cole reached across the table and covered one of her hands with his. “I’ve only felt this helpless one other time in my entire life, and that was when I couldn’t get to my wife in time to save her. If this creep’s intention is to get to you, then I just want you to know that he’ll have to come through me to do it.” There was a fierce protectiveness to his tone that she found oddly comforting.
She curled her fingers with his. “Thanks, but it’s not me I’m worried about.”
“Max?” he asked. “John won’t let anything happen to him.”
“I know that. Even if I believed that John was capable of the murders of these women, I know he’d never hurt Max.” She paused, a tightness filling her chest. “I just keep having that same bad dream about him. He’s running all alone in the dark. He’s so afraid and he’s lost his protection charm and I can’t get to him.”
Cole’s eyes were soft blue depths as he held her gaze. “Why don’t you sleep with me tonight in my bed, let me be your own personal dream catcher,” he said. “Sleep in my arms, and let me keep your bad dreams away.”
Amberly knew if she accepted his offer, they’d probably wind up making love again. She also knew there was nothing that she’d love more than to sleep dreamlessly in his strong, safe arms.
She didn’t want to think about whether it was right or wrong, she didn’t want to consider any consequences, she just wanted to feel his body next to hers, his heartbeat against her own.
She was suddenly overwhelmed with a bone-weary exhaustion, with the grief of missing Max and with the need to allow not just any man but Cole Caldwell to take control of her, to wrap her in his arms and steal any bad dreams out of her head.
“Yes, please,” she said simply.
COLE AWAKENED BEFORE dawn, Amberly snuggled against his side and sound asleep. They’d left Mr. Wok’s on the table the night before and had undressed and tumbled into his bed.
Silently, they had made love, and it had been afterward, when she curled up in his arms and fell asleep, that he realized he was in love with her.
He hadn’t been looking for it, certainly hadn’t wanted to feel these kinds of feelings and emotions again in his lifetime, but they were there nevertheless, and there was nothing he could do about them. He certainly had no intention of letting her know how he felt.
He knew from the conversations they’d had in the past week that she felt guilty about leaving John, that she hated the fact that John was in love with her and she didn’t, couldn’t love him back.
The last thing Cole would do was burden her with his love for her. She’d made it clear that she wasn’t ready for a new man in her life, didn’t believe in love that lasted.
All he needed to do was stay focused on solving the murders so she could get back to her life with her son. That would be the best gift he could give her.
He closed his eyes although he knew any further sleep would be impossible. He should get up and look at the files again, see what they’d missed, if they’d missed anything vital, but he was reluctant to leave the bed and Amberly.
He found it difficult to take Ben’s theory of John being guilty of the crimes too seriously. When he’d talked to John, the artist had appeared completely forthcoming despite the fact that he didn’t have any really solid alibis for the nights of the murders.
It was obvious that John was still hung up on Amberly and that he loved both her and his son to distraction, but John seemed too smart to be the killer. He’d have to know that the dream catchers would point to Amberly and ultimately come back on him. Hell, with John making his living painting Western art, he’d probably painted more than one dream catcher in his career.
Cole frowned, his eyes still closed. Still, as much as he wanted to completely dismiss John Merriweather from the suspect list, he couldn’t. As he’d told Amberly, he was ambivalent about the man.
It all came back to the dream catchers. They felt like a personal call to action for Amberly. Maybe instead of the key to the crimes being the dream catchers, maybe Amberly was really the key.
He remained in bed until dawn began to light the sky and seep in through his window, and only then did he slide out, leaving Amberly still asleep.
He grabbed a clean uniform and went to the hall bathroom to shower and dress, and once that was done, he went into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee.
Minutes later, he stood at the window and sipped a cup of the fresh brew, his mind whirling with new thoughts. They’d investigated the victims to find a pattern, they’d interrogated the men they thought might be capable of murder, but nobody had thought to interrogate one of the investigators of the crimes.
He felt energized by the new trail that had suddenly opened up to him. All he had to do was wait until Amberly got up to ask her some questions about past cases she had worked on or enemies she might have made.
It was possible that Mystic Lake was just the random small town close to Kansas City where the killer had decided to play his games, games that were intended specifically to draw Amberly in.
He should have known it was personally directed at her when the dream catcher and photo had been hung on her mailbox. He’d just assumed somebody had followed her home from Mystic Lake, but it was possible their perp was closer to her home than to his.
He was on his second cup of coffee when she finally came into the kitchen. She’d showered and was dressed in her black slacks and a white blouse. Her hair was neatly braided, and she looked more rested than she had all week.
“Good morning,” she said with a bright smile as she beelined to the coffeemaker on the countertop.
“You slept well?” he asked although he already knew the answer.
“Like a baby,” she replied. She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat in a chair at the table.
He refilled his cup and then sat in the chair opposite hers. “I’ve been thinking,” he began.
“Uh-oh,” she said and quickly took a sip from her mug. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”
“I’ve been thinking that maybe we’ve been approaching all of this from the wrong angle.”
She cocked her head and frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I kept thinking that the key to the murders somehow rested with the dream catchers that were left at the scenes.”
She nodded and took another drink of coffee. “We’ve both been functioning with that thought in mind.”
“I think we’ve been wrong. I think the dream catchers were just a ploy and the real key to the killer is you.”
Her dark eyes widened slightly. “Are we talking about John again?”
“Not necessarily. But I think the killer is somebody from your life, somebody who is just using Mystic Lake as his playground, and the victims and the dream catchers were just a ploy to get you here. I think Ben was right as far as that part of his theory. I don’t know if it’s John or not, but you need to think about other cases you’ve been involved in, people you’ve had fights with and anyone who would want to hurt you. I want you to take Mystic Creek out of the mix and anyone else but you.”
She sat back in her chair and wrapped her fingers around her mug, as if his words had suddenly made her hands go cold. “I can’t imagine anyone who would go to these lengths to hurt me,” she said after a moment of hesitation. “The last case I worked was a kidnapping for ransom, but I wasn’t lead on the case and didn’t have that much interaction with the perp who was caught.” She shook her head, obviously at a loss. “I try not to make enemies in my life. Granny Nightsong always taught me to tread lightly and leave no footprints behind.”
“A nice concept but almost impossible to do.” He took a sip of his coffee and then placed the mug back on the table and leaned forward.
“Sometimes you step on toes and don’t even realize it at the time. You’re tired and frustrated and snap at somebody who doesn’t deserve your attitude. There’s got to be somebody, Amberly, and we need to start someplace with this new theory.”
“So, what do you need from me?”
“I’d like you to make a list of coworkers who might not be thrilled with you. I want you to write down the names of neighbors and friends you interact with on a regular basis, criminals who might have a personal reason to hate you.”
“You really believe this is somebody from my life and not just some creep from your town?”
“I can’t be sure. But we’ve been spinning our wheels in my town. Now I think we need to spend some time spinning them in your life.” He could tell by the darkness of her eyes how much the idea disturbed her.
“You still think John might be responsible for all this.” It wasn’t a question but rather a flat statement that held the undertone of displeasure.
“Do you really think I’d park my son with a man I thought was capable of killing anyone? I’ve known John for almost eight years, was married to him for three of those years.” She moved her hands from her mug as she continued. “I’m not a stupid woman, I’m an FBI agent, and I would have seen through the years, I would have sensed, if something was this off with John.”
“I’m definitely leaning toward the assumption of John’s innocence,” Cole said softly. “But I’m also leaning toward this being all about you and the fact that Mystic Lake is involved at all might be incidental.”
“I think I liked it better when it was some crazy serial killer just randomly murdering women,” she replied.
“It’s still that,” he countered. “I just think whoever it is wanted you specifically on this case, wanted you away from your comfort zone because it might make you a more vulnerable victim.”
She rubbed two fingers across her forehead as if to ease a headache that had begun to pound.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have at least waited to talk to you about this until you’d had your second cup of coffee.”
She flashed him a quick smile that warmed him from head to toe. “I’m not sure that an entire pot of coffee would have managed to take the sting out of this conversation.”
“At this point, it’s just another crazy theory,” he said in an attempt to take away the sting. “For the moment, we remove John from the scenario and see who else you might come up with.” He got up from his chair. “And now I’m going to make us some breakfast so we can start the day off right.”
“A little late for that,” she muttered.
Still, by the time they’d eaten eggs and toast and sausage links and she’d downed another two cups of coffee, she appeared ready to focus on this new task.
“Are there any more Native American agents in the Kansas City office?” he asked as they drove to the office.
“No, I’m the token Injun,” she said, deliberately being politically incorrect.
“So, it would be natural for somebody to believe that the dream catchers at the sites might encourage the FBI to call you in.”
“There’s nothing about any of this that’s natural,” she replied. “But yes, I suppose that makes a certain kind of crazy sense.”
“Do you have other Native American friends? Somebody who maybe has a beef with you, somebody for whom the dream catcher might mean something personal?”
She shook her head. “There’s a Native American center in Kansas City, but I’ve never been there. I know a couple of men who work there, but they’re good men.”
“Everyone, I want everyone on the list you’re going to make,” Cole said firmly. “I don’t care if you believe they’re good men or not. If this is really all about you, then we need to know about everyone in your life.”
By that time, they’d reached the office, where, for the next hour, Amberly sat in the conference room with a legal pad and a pen in front of her and listened while Cole discussed his newest theory with the other deputies.
She looked fragile as if, for the first time since finding the items on her mailbox, the full realization of the danger she was in from somebody who might be close to her had finally struck.
He wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms, shield her from anything that made her eyes darken with fear and her lips to quiver with emotion.
He wanted to fix her world, even knowing that once it was fixed she’d go back to her life and he’d once again be alone, only this time he’d be alone with a bruised and battered heart.
“I’ll check in with you around noon,” he said to her after the deputies had left the room. “You’ll be okay here?”
She looked down at the blank legal pad in front of her. “Sure, just me and all the people who might want me dead.” She reached into her purse and pulled out the bag of licorice he’d bought her the night before. “I’ll be fine. Go do some sheriffing.”
He fought the impulse to lean forward and kiss her on the forehead. Instead, he left the office and hit the streets. It was cooler today, feeling more like autumn than the late-summer weather they’d enjoyed until now. The skies were overcast, and Cole found his mood reflecting the dreariness of the day.
He’d forgotten what it felt like to be in love, and while it filled his soul with joy, he knew it wasn’t what Amberly wanted or needed in her life. All she needed from him was to solve this crime and send her back home, and it was the one thing he had yet to be able to do for her.
Although he’d downplayed to her his feelings about John’s guilt, he still felt as if her ex-husband had the most to gain from this particular case. John knew Native American culture. He’d also probably known that Amberly was the only Native American working out of the Kansas City office.
But he was willing to admit that it might be somebody else altogether, somebody with a grudge against Amberly, and only she could identify that person for them.
He just hoped she could do it soon, for he definitely felt the tick of that time bomb, and if it exploded, he somehow feared she might not survive the blast.