A Desperate Search Page 4

  He remained on the threshold as he took a quick survey of their surroundings. Was he noting how alone they were? How isolated this place was? Nikki didn’t want to be that person who eyed a stranger in town with unwarranted suspicion, but neither could she ignore the little voice in her head that told her to tread carefully with this man.

  “I saw the vehicles drive off a little while ago,” he said. “I would have thought you’d left with the others.”

  I should have. I really, really should have. “I needed some time to think,” she said with an uneasy shrug. “I’ve always found this place peaceful.”

  “This place?”

  Strangely, his incredulity relaxed her a little. She allowed a slight smile. “I guess that does sound strange, considering.”

  He ran a hand through his clipped hair as he glanced around. “No, I get it. I think. If you want peace and quiet, you can’t get much more secluded than this. The view of the lake from that window is killer.” He paused. “Mind if I take a closer look?”

  She stepped away, keeping him in her line of sight and the doorway in her periphery.

  He walked across the room, testing—she could have sworn—the loose floorboard she’d noted earlier. But his hesitation was undoubtedly her imagination.

  Propping his hands on the ledge, he leaned out into the breeze. Nikki studied his profile. He looked tall and lean and dangerous in the gathering darkness. Déjà vu taunted, prickling her spine and lifting the hair at the back of her neck.

  Who are you, Adam Thayer?

  “I can see my grandmother’s house from here.” His voice was a deep, rich baritone. The low timbre seemed intimate in the quiet room.

  “In the winter after the leaves have fallen, you can see all the way across the state line into Louisiana,” Nikki told him.

  He pulled back to glance at her in the shadows. “You come out here a lot, I take it.”

  “I used to. Not so much anymore.” She surprised herself by moving up beside him and leaning into the breeze. The air had finally cooled and the lake looked soft and shimmery under a full moon. “When I was a kid, I could spend hours sitting in this window reading or just staring out at the lake. It was my favorite place in the whole world, though granted, my world was pretty limited back then.” She closed her eyes for a moment, letting the scent of honeysuckle and old memories whisper over her.

  “You weren’t afraid of all those trapped souls?”

  The teasing quality in his voice made her warm to him, but she didn’t want to warm to Adam Thayer. She didn’t want to feel anything for him tonight or ever. “I was never afraid here. There are far, far scarier things than ghosts.” Her gaze lifted to the scar at his scalp. “You probably know that better than I do.”

  “I’m betting we’ve both seen our share of horror stories.” He turned, propping his shoulder against the window frame as he gazed at her in the thin light. “It’s always hard when the victim is someone you know.” A slight pause. “You and Dr. Nance were close?”

  “He was a mentor and a dear friend.” She was amazed at how unemotional she sounded when tears burned behind her eyelids.

  He folded his arms, seemingly at ease. “I got to know him pretty well before my grandmother passed away. He spoke often about someone he called Nik. He never mentioned a last name, only that you were a doctor. He was very proud of you.”

  Nikki cleared her throat. “He was a very special person.”

  “Yes. That was the impression I had of him.” Adam turned back to the window, staring out into the night with a brooding frown. “What do you think happened? The overturned boat would suggest an accidental drowning, but things aren’t always what they seem.”

  Nikki struggled to keep her voice dispassionate. “I don’t like to speculate. Hopefully, the autopsy will give us some answers.”

  “Do you really think it will, though? After that long in the water?”

  “We have one of the finest forensic pathologists in the state on our team. If there’s anything to find, Dr. Ramirez will find it.”

  “That’s good to know.” He pressed fingertips to his temples as he closed his eyes briefly. Nikki thought again about the shooting, about Tom Brannon’s suspicions. About how easily she’d leaped to a stranger’s defense because of her past experiences with Tom’s father. She liked to keep an open mind, but there were times when it paid to be cautious.

  “Are you all right?” she couldn’t help asking.

  He dropped his hands to the ledge without answering. “If I were you, I’d pay close attention to the toxicology screen. Minute traces of toxins can go undetected in cases where cause of death is presumed accidental.”

  Nikki bristled. “I don’t presume anything. Contrary to what you seem to think, we know what we’re doing down here.”

  “I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”

  “Sure you did.”

  “If that’s how I came across, I apologize. I’m not trying to step on any toes, but I do have a vested interest in this case. I’m here because Dr. Nance asked me to come.”

  Nikki grudgingly accepted his apology with a brief nod. “Sheriff Brannon mentioned that Dr. Nance had called you recently.”

  “We talked early last week. He told me something strange was going on in Belle Pointe. Something dark. That it probably had been for years.”

  “It?”

  “He wouldn’t elaborate. When I pressed him, he said he’d tell me everything when I got here. He mentioned something about files and notes. He said it was all there in black and white, but he wanted me to come down and help him make sense of it. And to make sure he wasn’t going crazy.”

  Nikki’s voice sharpened. “He said that to you? He was that worried about his mental state?”

  “Apparently.”

  She said pensively, “This talk about something strange and dark going on in Belle Pointe... Would you say he sounded delusional?”

  “I don’t know if I’d go that far. I can tell you this. He didn’t sound like the Dr. Nance I’d come to know.” His gaze narrowed, as if he were trying to recall the nuances of that phone call. “Are you aware of any medication he was taking?”

  “I never knew him to take so much as an over-the-counter pain reliever,” Nikki said. “However, we’ll request his medical records before the autopsy. That’s procedure. But even with a full history at our disposal, cause of death remains indeterminate in more cases than most people realize.”

  “One step at a time,” Adam said.

  She nodded, shifting her gaze from the lake to his profile and then back to the water. Recognition still tugged and a memory flitted, lingering in the light for only a moment before skittering back to the fringes of her subconscious. Nikki suddenly had an almost overwhelming sense of fate and she didn’t know why.

  Beside her, Adam stirred. “I should go and let you get back to your solitude.”

  “No, wait. I need to ask you something first.”

  He stared down at her for the longest moment before he nodded. Nikki couldn’t tell what color his eyes were, only that they were dark like hers, but with a golden shimmer. Or was that the moonlight playing tricks?

  He leaned an elbow against the ledge and waited.

  “This may sound like a very bad cliché,” she said tentatively. “But I have a feeling we’ve met before. You seem so familiar to me and yet I can’t place you at all. It’s been bugging me ever since I saw you at the lake earlier.”

  “It took me a while to figure it out, too.”

  Her breath caught. “Then we have met. When? Where?”

  “Right here.”

  “Here? At the Ruins, you mean?” Her heart thudded as her focus plunged momentarily to the loose floorboard at their feet. He couldn’t know. No one knew. She’d never told anyone about her secret hiding place. Never confessed to anyone what she’d done.


  And yet...the way he stared down at her in the dark...the way his voice lowered knowingly...

  She suppressed a shiver. “I’m sorry. I still don’t remember.”

  “It was the summer that local girl went missing. Riley Cavanaugh.” His deep gaze took her in. “Surely you remember her.”

  * * *

  ADAM SEARCHED HER face in the moonlight. She didn’t react to the name, but he could sense her wariness. The tension in the room thickened oppressively.

  Something crept into her voice that he couldn’t identify. “Of course I remember Riley. Everyone in town remembers Riley Cavanaugh. But I still can’t place you. Are you sure we met here?”

  “We never actually met,” he said. “I saw you out here with your friends from time to time, but mostly you came alone. Your nose was usually buried in a book or else you were scribbling in a notebook. We spoke only once that I recall. You made it clear you didn’t like to be bothered, so I kept my distance.”

  She shook her head helplessly.

  Adam didn’t know whether to be amused or insulted that someone had blocked a memory of him so thoroughly. In Dallas, he had people come up to him on a regular basis to either thank or berate him for a previous interaction. To Nikki Dresden, he was a complete nonentity.

  But she was still trying. He’d give her that.

  “Who were your friends?” she asked. “Did you hang out with any of the local kids?”

  “I didn’t socialize much that summer. I was sent down here to work.”

  “Where did you work?” Before he could answer, she rushed to add, “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound as if I’m interrogating you. I just know it’ll drive me crazy until I can put a memory with your face.”

  “It’s okay. It’ll come back to you eventually.” Or maybe it wouldn’t. And maybe that would be for the best. He’d probably stayed too long in her orbit as it was. The last thing he needed was an entanglement, no matter how superficial or fleeting. Stephanie’s betrayal was still too raw and he was in no hurry to go down that road again. Nikki Dresden fascinated him and that was never a good sign.

  “I worked for my grandmother,” he said. “I’d just graduated high school and made the mistake of telling my folks I had no intention of going to college in the fall. So my dad sent me down here to repair some storm damage to my grandmother’s roof and dock. He figured a few weeks of working in the hot sun might persuade me to reevaluate my options.”

  “Did it?”

  “You could say that. By the end of the summer, I went back home determined to become a police detective.”

  She glanced up at him. “That seems an odd transition.”

  He didn’t know how long she expected him to keep talking, but she seemed in no hurry to end the conversation. So he settled in and returned her curious stare. “Like I said. That was the summer Riley Cavanaugh went missing.”

  A long pause.

  She tore her gaze from his and glanced back out at the lake. “Did you know Riley?”

  “No.”

  “But you decided to become a police detective because of her disappearance?”

  “That was the catalyst.”

  “Strange.”

  They both fell silent, each lost in thought as night sounds drifted in through the open window. Adam studied her profile from his periphery. She was a coroner, but he didn’t see death when he looked at her—the opposite, in fact. Youth and vitality radiated from her slender form like heat waves shimmering off asphalt. She wasn’t beautiful like Stephanie, but she was far more attractive than he’d given her credit for earlier. And still just as enigmatic.

  “Tell me more about your summer here,” she said. “We were all so close to what happened. Riley’s disappearance affected everyone who knew her in one way or another. It’s interesting to hear an outside perspective.”

  “Haven’t I taken up enough of your time?”

  “No, please. Go on.”

  He shrugged. “It was a long time ago. A lot’s happened since then. But I remember when I first got to town that the other girl had just been found wandering down a rural road.”

  “Jenna Malloy.”

  “Yes, Jenna. She was in such a state she couldn’t tell the police anything about their abductor or what had happened to them. Her trauma and Riley’s disappearance were all anyone could talk about, including my grandmother. Before long, I became caught up in the mystery, too. At some point, I got it in my head that I could do what the local police, the county sheriff’s office, the Texas Rangers and the FBI couldn’t. Find Riley Cavanaugh.”

  The note of self-deprecation in his voice didn’t seem to register with Nikki. Resting her head against the window frame, she lifted a hand to tuck back the loose strands of hair at her temple. “Everyone looked for Riley. The search went on for months. They brought in bloodhounds, psychics. No one could find her.” She shook her head sadly. “It was a terrible time for her family. For the whole town. I don’t think Belle Pointe ever recovered.”

  “Something like that changes a community,” Adam said. “Especially if there’s never an arrest. People get suspicious of one another. Rumors start circulating.”

  “Oh, there were plenty of rumors.”

  “People like to talk,” he agreed. “The consensus seemed to be that the abductor was a former psychiatric patient named Silas Creed. Preacher, they called him, because of the fiery sermons he delivered on the front steps after this place was closed down. You said you spent a lot of time here as a kid. Did you ever see him?”

  She shook her head. “Not here. Not that I remember. But I saw him around town now and then. He did odd jobs to get by. My grandmother always warned me to keep my distance, but before the disappearances, he just seemed like a harmless outcast to me. I felt sorry for him.”

  “Do you think he did it?”

  “I don’t know. No one ever saw him again after that night. The way he skipped town certainly seemed suspicious. But I always wondered if he ran away because he was afraid of being blamed. People tend to scapegoat those who are different.”

  Adam’s voice softened. “He wasn’t the only scapegoat in Belle Pointe, was he?”

  “No.” She lifted her face to the sky. Her skin looked pale and translucent in the moonlight, her eyes dark and unfathomable. Something stirred inside Adam. Something unexpected and completely unwise. Maybe even dangerous, considering the circumstances.

  “You looked a lot different back then,” he said.

  “Which is why my friends and I were scapegoated.” She scowled into the night. “If you were around that summer, you must have heard those rumors, too.”

  “About satanic cults and devil worshipping? Yeah.”

  She gave him a sidelong glance. “You aren’t afraid to be alone with me out here?”

  “Not for a second.”

  His conviction seemed to rattle her. “Maybe you should be.”

  He pointed to the scar at his scalp. “Foolish or not, I’m not that easily spooked.”

  She turned back to the lake. “The police targeted us because of the way we dressed, the books we read, the music we listened to. People started calling us the Belle Pointe Five.” She shrugged, though it was obvious the memory still stung. “Small towns can be rife with narrow minds.”

  “The city, as well,” he said. “For what it’s worth, I never believed those rumors.”

  “Why not? You didn’t know me.”

  Because I found your journal beneath that loose floorboard. Because I learned from reading your innermost secrets that you and your friends were also harmless outcasts.

  Harmless...but not altogether innocent.

  “I wanted to form my own opinion about what happened,” he said carefully. “In my spare time, I scoured online news sites and social media for accounts of the disappearances, gathering whatever bits of informati
on I could find. It was like putting together a puzzle. I dug it. After pounding nails all day in the hot sun, I’d sometimes take a dip in the lake and then hike down here to poke through the rubble, hoping to uncover something that had been missed by the local authorities.”

  “Did you?”

  A loaded question.

  He hesitated. “Nothing that would lead me to Riley Cavanaugh.”

  She fell silent once more, leaning through the window into the breeze. The reflection of the moon on the lake was magnetic, drawing Adam’s gaze down into those dark, murky depths. All their talk about an old disappearance had made him momentarily forget why he was really here. Something strange is going on in this town. Something dark. I think it has been for years.

  “Someone’s down there,” Nikki said.

  The comment startled him out of a deep reverie. “What? Where?”

  She pointed toward the bank. “He’s there, just beyond that large cypress tree. You can barely make out a silhouette. I’ve been watching him for the past minute or so. I thought it was a bush or a limb at first. But then I saw him move down toward the water. Now he’s just hunkered there behind that tree as if he’s waiting for something.”

  “Could he be fishing?” Adam peered through the darkness, trailing his gaze slowly along the bank, then darting back when he spotted the silhouette.

  “Whoever he is, I doubt he’s fishing,” Nikki murmured. “I never heard a boat. He must have walked down from the bridge.”

  He was too far away and it was too dark out even with the full moon to tell who he was or what he might be up to. For all they knew, the man could have a perfectly innocent reason for sitting in the shadows staring out at the lake. But he wasn’t that far from where Dr. Nance’s body had been recovered. That and his stealthy behavior triggered Adam’s wariness.

  “Do you think he heard about Dr. Nance?” Nikki asked. “Maybe he came out here to see where it happened.”

  “Like one of the creeps who shows up at crime and accident scenes out of morbid curiosity?”

  “It would explain why he’s just sitting there,” she mused.