A Desperate Search Page 3

  “She startled me, too. I wasn’t expecting anyone to come by so early. Or at all, for that matter.”

  The sheriff nodded. “She promised your grandmother before she went into the hospital that she’d look after the peacocks. She’s been feeding them ever since.”

  “Gram would appreciate that. It would have broken her heart to have them taken away.”

  “My sister has always had a soft spot for strays. Even the kinds that bite.” His innuendo was hardly subtle. “I’m Tom Brannon, by the way.”

  “I know who you are.” Adam’s gaze dropped to the badge clipped to the man’s belt. “Ellie speaks highly of you.”

  “That’s a surprise. She tells me to my face that I’m a pain in the ass. You know how it is with big brothers. We have a tendency to be overprotective and overbearing.” His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You’re the one who called in the body. Can you walk me through how you found him?”

  “Like I told one of your officers, I’d been working inside the house all day and decided to take a walk to get some fresh air. I usually head back when I get to the bridge, but today I kept going. Needed to work out the kinks. I saw the body floating in the water, called 911 and then doubled back to wait for the first responders. I figured it would be easier if I led them back. That’s when I spotted the overturned fishing boat wedged up against the bridge supports. It wasn’t noticeable from the other direction. I waded out to make sure no one was trapped underneath and then I climbed up to the road when I heard the sirens.”

  The sheriff took all that in without comment. “Your grandmother’s house is on the water. Have you noticed any unusual activity on the lake since you’ve been here?”

  “I don’t know about unusual. I sometimes hear boats at all hours. Night fishing must be pretty popular around here.”

  The sheriff’s expression turned glum. “Among other activities. You’ve been here, what? Close to a week?” He gave a quick nod toward the body. “You ever see that man on the water? Or maybe on one of your walks? He had a fishing cabin across the lake from your grandmother’s house. He may have been staying there before he died.”

  “I never saw him there.”

  The sheriff gave him a shrewd appraisal. “You sure? He’s not that easy to recognize in his current state.”

  Adam squinted into a patch of dying sunlight. “I’m sure I would have recognized Dr. Nance if I’d seen him on the water or anywhere else.”

  Brannon stared at him for another long moment. He didn’t seem surprised by the revelation, though it was unlikely he knew about Adam’s friendship with the dead man. He couldn’t have known about that last phone call, either, unless Dr. Nance had gone to him for help. Given that possibility, Adam decided not to hold anything back. Information had a way of coming out, and the last thing he needed was to have the local authorities turn on him, too.

  “You might have mentioned earlier that you knew him,” Brannon said.

  Adam shrugged. “I had no idea who the victim was until you turned him over. Even then, I wasn’t certain until I heard you say his name.”

  Brannon accepted the explanation with a vague nod. “How did you know him?”

  “He was my grandmother’s doctor for years. She thought the world of him.”

  “Everyone did. He was one of a kind. He’ll be sorely missed around here.”

  Did he detect a hint of accusation in the sheriff’s tone or was he being paranoid? Adam wondered.

  “I can understand why,” he said. “When my grandmother took a bad turn, my dad had her transferred to a facility in Dallas. Dr. Nance still came to see her as often as he could. He and I became acquainted during his visits. We were both with her at the end. His kindness made an impression. You don’t often see that side of human nature in our line of work.”

  Brannon’s gaze flicked to the scar on Adam’s scalp. “Ellie tells me you were a detective.”

  “I still am, Sheriff.”

  He looked unimpressed by the clarification. “She said you were wounded in the line of duty. Said you almost died.”

  Adam hesitated. He would share what he knew about Dr. Nance, but he had no intention of elaborating on his own injuries or the fallout from the shooting. That was private business. He’d told Ellie Brannon enough to quell any misgivings she might have about her new neighbor, but he’d kept the really dark stuff to himself. The threats and suspicions. Stephanie’s betrayal. The underlying politics involved in his delayed reinstatement.

  “I don’t like to talk about it,” he said. “You can understand that, having been through a similar event yourself recently.”

  A frown flickered. “Ellie told you about that?”

  “She said you’d been shot. She didn’t supply the details and I didn’t ask for any. That’s your business. What happened in Dallas is my business. It has nothing to do with Dr. Nance’s death.”

  “Maybe not, but I can’t help wondering what brings someone like you to Belle Pointe. We’re not exactly on the beaten path. Why now when your grandmother’s house has sat empty for so long?” He glanced over his shoulder at the body. “Under the circumstances, you can understand why I might find your timing a little curious.”

  Tom Brannon was nobody’s fool. Adam warned himself to tread carefully with this guy.

  “The timing isn’t coincidental,” he admitted. “I came because Dr. Nance asked me to.”

  “He asked you to come to Belle Pointe? Why?”

  “He said something strange was going on down here. Something dark. His words exactly.”

  The sheriff looked momentarily startled. “What did he mean by that?”

  “I don’t know. He wouldn’t talk about it over the phone. I suggested he come to you with his concerns, but he said he didn’t want to embarrass himself or waste your time until he knew for certain he wasn’t imagining things. He asked me to come down, take a look at what he’d found and make sure he wasn’t going crazy. Also his words.”

  The sheriff canted his head as he considered everything Adam had told him. “When was this?”

  “He called early last week. Tuesday, I think. I owed him a favor, so I agreed to come.”

  “Just like that.” There was that note of suspicion again.

  Adam shrugged. “More or less.”

  The sheriff said pensively, “Ellie said you arrived on Sunday of this week. Today is Thursday. I’m guessing he’s been in the water longer than five days. Weren’t you concerned when you arrived and didn’t hear from him?”

  “He told me he’d be out of town for a few days. A medical conference in Houston, I think. I decided to come down early and get settled in. I wasn’t sure my grandmother’s house would even be livable. So, no, I wasn’t concerned when he didn’t call.”

  Brannon’s expression turned grim. “He obviously didn’t make it to that conference. Why do you suppose he didn’t tell anyone about his change of plans? Is it possible he drove out to the lake to see you?”

  The throbbing intensified at Adam’s temples. He resisted the urge to press his thumbs to the pulse points. “I doubt it. He didn’t know I would be arriving early. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision.”

  Brannon fell silent. Adam could well imagine all the scenarios churning inside his head, all the loose threads and unanswered questions that would keep him awake that night. When the sheriff finally spoke, something new had crept into his voice. “How did he seem when you last talked to him?”

  Adam said carefully, “If you’re asking about his mental state, the only thing I can tell you is that he didn’t seem himself. At least, not the Dr. Nance I knew. He sounded anxious and paranoid. He was sometimes distracted. Frankly, that’s another reason I agreed to come. I was afraid he might be losing it. He sounded as if he might be worried about that, too.”

  Brannon turned to skim the lake, letting his gaze drift toward the
bridge. For a moment, he seemed to forget Adam’s presence. “The onset of dementia would be hard for a man of his intellect and accomplishment to accept.”

  “It would be hard for anyone to accept,” Adam said. “Are you suggesting he deliberately crashed his boat into those pilings?”

  The sheriff frowned. “I’m not suggesting anything. Just thinking out loud.”

  “Is there any reason to suspect foul play?”

  The interview had shifted and Brannon didn’t like it. His scowl deepened as he returned his focus to Adam. “I’m not going to stand here and speculate about cause of death,” he said in a brusque tone. “That determination will be made by Dr. Dresden and her colleagues at the lab.”

  “Dr. Dresden?” The name zinged along Adam’s scalp like an electrical shock. Dresden. Dresden. How did he know that name?

  “Nikki Dresden. The Nance County coroner.”

  Adam’s gaze shot across the bank to where she knelt beside the body.

  Nikki Dresden. Holy hell. Now he remembered where their paths had crossed. Now he understood his strong reaction to her.

  She looked very different from the last time Adam had seen her, but then, people changed in fifteen years. People grew up. Most people, anyway. He certainly wasn’t the same person he’d been at seventeen. Nikki Dresden had undergone a dramatic transformation in both appearance and stature. Adam would never have placed her if he hadn’t heard her name, but he supposed that was understandable. They hadn’t been friends or even acquaintances. He doubted they’d exchanged more than a dozen words during the entire summer he’d spent with his grandmother. Still, as odd as it now seemed, there’d been a time when he felt he knew Nikki Dresden better than he knew himself.

  He scanned her features, searching for even a shadow of the eccentric girl he remembered. Gone were the black clothes, the dyed hair and the mask of heavy makeup. Her hair was still dark, but natural and glossy, her face scrubbed clean of cosmetics. She looked intense, yet comfortable in her skin and confident in her element. She had her kit open beside the body as she gathered samples, her brow furrowed in concentration. She didn’t look up from her work, but Adam had a funny feeling she was all too aware of his interest.

  He watched her for a moment longer before the sheriff once again commanded his attention.

  “I take it you’ll be sticking around for a while,” Brannon said.

  “I don’t have a timetable.” Adam ran a hand over his head as he averted his gaze from the coroner. “There’s a lot to be done at my grandmother’s place.”

  “Good luck with that. In the meantime, I’d like you to leave a contact number. Depending on the autopsy results, I may need you to come in and give a statement.” Adam supplied his phone number and the sheriff jotted it in his notebook. “I’ll be in touch. You’re free to go, but I’d appreciate your discretion until we can make the official notifications.”

  Adam nodded his agreement and then moved away from the perimeter, stepping deeper into the shade of the pine forest before pausing to glance back. Between his prickling scar and throbbing temples, he felt as if the top of his head might come off. Maybe he wasn’t as healed as he wanted to believe. Maybe his peak physical condition was only an illusion or wishful thinking. Maybe he would never be the same man he’d been before the shooting.

  He didn’t want to think about that. Easier to drift back into the past than to worry about his uncertain future. Besides, the coroner’s transformation fascinated him.

  “Nikki Dresden.” Her name slipped out on a whisper, barely audible even to his own ears, but the wind seemed to tear it from his lips and carry it down to the edge of the water. No way she could have heard him, yet her head came up and she searched the tree line until she found him.

  Their gazes locked for the longest moment. The charged tingle at his scalp raced all the way down to his fingertips. She felt it, too. He could have sworn he saw again the glint of recognition in her dark eyes and maybe this time a hint of fear.

  With good reason.

  I know who you are, Nikki Dresden. I know what you did that summer.

  Chapter Three

  Dusk had fallen in earnest by the time the stretcher arrived. The horizon deepened from scarlet to violet and the moon was just starting to shimmer through the pine trees. A mild breeze drifted off the water, but the air was still hot and humid and the drone of mosquitoes seemed incessant.

  Nikki oversaw the removal of the body and then waited until the last squad car had pulled away from the side of the road before she climbed up to her vehicle and changed out of the damp coveralls into fresh clothes and dry sneakers. Then she traipsed back down to the lake. She had one last thing she wanted to do before heading home.

  Turning her back on the bridge, she hurried past the spot where the body had been recovered and then moved steadily along the bank until the path ended at a steep embankment. She could just make out the roofline and the smokestack that rose from the boiler room at the back of the property. She’d been called out to the Ruins recently when another body had been discovered at the bottom of an old elevator shaft. That trip had brought back a lot of memories for Nikki. She’d been meaning to return sooner, but one thing after another had kept her away.

  When she was a kid, she’d considered the Ruins her own private hideaway. She’d spent a lot of time prowling through the maze of hallways and rooms. Despite the dark history, she’d never felt uneasy or oppressed there, never felt lonely in that abandoned place when all she’d ever felt at home or in school was alone.

  After Riley Cavanaugh had gone missing, Nikki’s trips dwindled, not because she was afraid of being taken, but because her visits had started to feel intrusive, like she was violating a sacred place.

  Using vines for leverage, she scrambled up the embankment and paused at the top to scour the looming facade. Most of the windows were broken and a part of the roof had caved in. Curling tentacles of ivy grew up the brick face, reaching for the eaves and creeping through shattered windowpanes. Ignoring the decay, Nikki trailed her gaze over the graceful arches and stately pillars and thought again what a beautiful place it must once have been.

  She entered through one of the arches, using her flashlight to chase away shadows from all the deep corners. Running the light up one wall and across the ceiling, she paused on the demonic mural that someone had painted of Preacher. Red eyes stared down at her. Had he really taken Riley Cavanaugh? No one knew for certain. They might never know. The mystery of her disappearance still haunted the town—still haunted Nikki—fifteen years later.

  Moving away from the mural, she made her way up two sets of precarious stairs to the third floor. The tall, arched window at the end of the hallway allowed in sunlight by day and moonlight by night. Nikki kept her gaze averted from the area at the back of the building. She didn’t want to think about the poor, damaged souls who had once been locked up there.

  She found her room and entered cautiously, wary of the sloping floor and sagging ceiling tiles. Nothing remained of the original furnishings. Most of the beds and mattresses had either been carted away years ago or piled in the basement for rats to nest in. The iron bars at the windows had been removed and sold for scrap metal. Graffiti covered the peeling walls, some of it strange and disturbing, some of it quite beautiful.

  Nikki crossed the floor, pausing over a loose board that creaked beneath her weight. She resisted the urge to drop to her knees and pry it loose. Maybe she would before she left. Wasn’t that why she’d come? To retrieve a part of her past she’d left hidden here all those years ago?

  She’d been wondering ever since her last visit to the Ruins if the journal was still there. All those dark secrets and breathless confessions she’d poured onto the pages of a spiral notebook. Or had rodents chewed away at her teenage angst, leaving nothing behind but the metal binding?

  Nikki had abandoned the journal and her all-black wardrob
e when she left Belle Pointe for college. She’d wanted a fresh start in Austin. No sense dragging that baggage with her. But it was hard to bury one’s past completely. She was older now, and age put a lot of things into perspective. Maybe she would find it cathartic to revisit the weird, dramatic girl she’d once been.

  Right now, though, she needed a few minutes in this quiet place to think about Dr. Nance.

  Hoisting herself up to the window ledge, she sat with legs dangling as she gazed out at the water. The rising moon seemed to hover over his fishing cabin, as if the whole universe mourned his passing.

  Why had he gone out to the lake when he was supposed to be in Houston? Why hadn’t he told anyone about his change of plans? How did a strong swimmer such as he was end up floating facedown in the water?

  Accidents happened. Nikki saw the results of carelessness and happenstance every day, and yet doubts continued to plague her. She hoped the autopsy would provide answers, but after so many days in the water, the breakdown of organs and soft tissue could make a definitive conclusion impossible. The diagnosis would likely come down to a matter of elimination and educated guesswork.

  A floorboard groaned out in the hallway, and Nikki whirled, catching a glimpse of a silhouette through the doorway. Startled, she swung her legs inside and grabbed the flashlight as she hopped down from the ledge. “Who’s there?”

  A deep voice said from the shadows, “Adam Thayer. Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I didn’t know anyone would be up here.”

  Really? He just happened to come up to the third floor, to the very room Nikki had always claimed as her domain?

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Exploring.” He appeared in the doorway then, a tall, lean figure with eyes that seemed to pierce through the gloom until he found her. “It’s Dr. Dresden, isn’t it? I saw you on the bank earlier.”

  Nikki gripped the flashlight. Why she felt threatened by Adam Thayer, she didn’t know, but that niggling familiarity unsettled her. “Yes, I saw you down there, too. You’re the one who found Dr. Nance’s body.”