Sound of Secrets (20 page)

Cara and Gray exchanged another look. Karen listened intently as Gray told her their theory that Cara’s questions had made somebody nervous enough to stage a series of incidents designed to make Cara leave town.

Karen shook her head in disbelief, hardly able to form her thoughts. She had thought Skippy long forgotten by anyone but her parents and the succession of bodyguards her father had hired to protect her. After she’d run off the last of them the year she’d turned twenty-one, even her father had seemed to relegate Skippy to a distant, painful memory.

"I find it hard to believe that anyone, even the kidnapper, would be nervous about being found out after all this time." She intended to tell both of them to go away so she wouldn’t have to think about the event that had shaped her life. But then a vision of Skippy’s dear, little freckled face filled her mind, and she couldn’t do it. Not when she’d grown up and experienced life while her brother was frozen in time at five years old. "What do you want me to tell you?"

"Anything you remember," Cara answered. "Anything at all."

Karen closed her eyes. The things that had happened on the day her brother was kidnapped came back the way they always did: a collection of events so fuzzy she wasn’t sure whether they were real or manufactured memories.

"It was overcast that day." She uncrossed her legs and rubbed her hands up and down her arms. "We had a nanny back then. The three of us went to the park anyway, hoping to beat the rain."

"She took both of you to the park? Both you and Skippy?" Cara’s voice raised in surprise.

Karen was so intent on trying to remember that all she did was nod. "I don’t remember how it happened. I don’t even remember searching the park after he was gone." She frowned. "My parents must not have wanted me to know he’d been kidnapped, because I don’t remember much of anything until he died."

Her voice caught and came out ragged. "I remember that only too well. When they told her, my mother cried so hard I thought she’d never stop. She walked around in a daze for years after that. Sometimes, I think she still hasn’t come out of it. And my father, who used to laugh all the time, became this solemn-faced stranger who wouldn’t even let me play at a neighbor’s house without a bodyguard tagging along. They never talked to me about it. Never."

Karen took a deep breath and tried a smile she couldn’t quite achieve. "And that," she said brightly, too brightly, "is my story."

Silence greeted her remark along with twin stares laced with pity she didn’t want. She was about to say so when Gray broke the quiet with another question.

"The nanny’s name was in the case file: Rosa Martinez. Do you have any idea how to get in touch with her?"

"I was only four years old when she left, Gray," Karen said, sidestepping the question. "About the only thing I remember about her was that she liked to take us to the park and that she had a big, warm lap made for sitting on."

"Are you sure you were with the nanny that day in the park?" This time, the question came from Cara, whose expression was as troubled as Karen’s memories.

"That’s one of the only things I am sure of," Karen answered. "The nanny was hired to watch both of us, so we did everything in a trio."

"Then why did the kidnapper only take your brother?" Cara asked slowly. "Why didn’t he take you, too?"

Karen shook her head helplessly. She’d asked herself that question a hundred times over the years. Then, as now, she didn’t have an answer.

"It could be kidnapping two children would have been riskier than kidnapping one," came the cool voice of logic, Gray's voice. "Or maybe the kidnapper planned to take two children but could only reach one."

Or maybe, Karen thought with a sharp flash of guilt, she’d been spared by pure dumb luck.

"You don’t have to take me to lunch," Cara said as she and Gray walked down the main street of Secret Sound. She didn't look at the assortment of shops and businesses lining the sidewalks but at his face. Something was bothering him.

"I know I don’t have to." His voice was as impassive as his features. "I want to."

"Then why do I get the feeling that you’re acting as my personal watchdog? That you’re afraid somebody will come after me with a rifle and fill me full of buckshot if you let me out of your sight?"

He looked sideways at her. "Don’t you think you’re being a little melodramatic?"

"You tell me. Of course, it might help me to understand if you told me who you went to see this morning."

Only the muscle working in his jaw let her know her remark had hit on something pertinent.

He was quiet for long moments. "It’s not my place to spout off about unfounded suspicions."

She grabbed his arm so he had to stop walking, surprising both herself and him. "Was it Sam Peckenbush you went to see?"

"Sam has an alibi for last night," Gray said. "His son Danny said they were both home watching Dog the Bounty Hunter when the car tried to run you down."

"And you believed him?" Cara asked incredulously. "Haven’t you noticed how cowed that boy is by his father? He’d say anything Peckenbush told him to say."

"Danny’s an honest boy. He wouldn’t lie to me."

"If you don’t think Peckenbush tried to run me down, who did? Who did you go to see this morning, Gray?"

Again, silence greeted her question.

"This is my life we’re talking about," she said urgently. "If you think you know who’s trying to kill me, then tell me."

He stared down at her, and she saw indecision cross his face. "I’m not sure anybody is trying to kill you," he said finally. "Maybe, like you said before, somebody is just trying to scare you."

"And you think you know who that somebody is."

His silence confirmed her statement, and Cara wanted to scream at him in frustration. Nowadays, a lot of towns had names that made little or no sense. She’d been in a Lake Springs that was as dry as the desert and a Burning Sands that had rainfall as its primary resource. But Secret Sound was full of secrets and people who wanted to keep hiding them.

"You suspect something," Cara accused. "You suspect something and you won’t tell me what it is."

Gray absently ran a hand through his hair. She remembered touching the thick, dark strands the night before when she’d nearly succumbed to passion. What kind of an idiot would consider giving herself to a man who wouldn’t give anything of himself in return? Especially while mulling over another man’s marriage proposal.

"I’m a cop, Cara. I always suspect something."

"That doesn’t explain why you won’t tell me what it is!"

"Because as a cop my word carries more weight," he said. "If I start spreading rumors when I have nothing to back them up, what kind of a cop does that make me?"

"A cautious one." Her eyes pleaded with him to trust her. "But we’re not talking about rumors. We’re talking about a confidence between me and you. If you think somebody in town is a danger to me, it’s your duty to warn me. It’s your job to keep me safe."

"The best way for you to keep safe is to leave town."

"Oh, that makes a lot of sense." Sarcasm laced Cara’s words. "Somebody in Secret Sound committed a crime that, even all these years later, they’re desperate to cover up. And the one person who should be duty-bound to uncover it wants to bury his head in the sand so he can pretend he can’t see what’s happening."

"I never said that—"

"You didn’t have to," Cara snapped. "Even though you’re going through the motions of helping, it’s obvious you don’t want to know what happened."

He didn’t have an answer to that, so Cara pivoted away from him and continued walking up the main street of Secret Sound while she cursed him under her breath.

Halfway down the block, she brushed a pedestrian coming the other way, forcing her to apologize and take note of her surroundings. Crosswalk pavers and new park benches in a beautiful redwood graced the street, obvious signs that it had been refurbished with the original feel of the town in mind. A red-and-white pole, reminiscent of bygone days, marked the front of an old-fashioned barber shop. A window embossed with cursive white letters proclaiming the place Baked Treasures marked the bakery.

In front of her and off to the side, a sign on a white-washed building advertised weekend showings of the play "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." Cara stopped not because of the choice of the play, which happened to be a favorite, but because of the oddly shaped windows on the building.

There were three of them, positioned in a perfect isosceles triangle and shaped like pentagons with mullions that separated the windows into four panes. They were striking in a world where homogeny was the rule. Cara knew that somehow, somewhere she had seen them before.

A chill snaked down her spine, reminding her that her role as a brave investigative reporter was only a masquerade. She had always been a timid soul. She hadn’t had the courage to stand up to her parents and follow her dreams because she’d been too afraid of leaving Sumter. Too afraid of the unknown.

So why, when her sanity was on the line as much as her life, did she think she was brave enough to stay in Secret Sound?

"Don’t leave me!"

The child’s shrill voice startled her, drawing her attention from the windows to the sidewalk. A small boy, no more than five years old, ran toward her. When he got to within twenty feet, she saw his face clearly. The shock of dark hair. The sprinkling of freckles across his nose. The huge, haunted dark eyes.

Skippy Rhett
.

Cara blinked once, twice in disbelief. She couldn’t erase the image of Skippy running toward her.

"Don’t leave me!" he yelled again.

She raised shaking hands to a mouth that had dropped open and stared at the boy who should have been in his grave instead of running loose on Main Street.

"Well, if you’d stay close instead of lagging behind, you wouldn’t have to worry about that. Now, would you?"

The woman’s voice came from behind Cara. She turned so fast it took a moment for the world to stop spinning so she could focus. The woman was in her early twenties, holding a shopping bag with one hand and a little girl about three years old with the other. She had the harried look of young mothers everywhere with too much to do and too little help.

"I was afraid you'd leave me," the little boy cried.

Cara turned back to him. He was closer now, no more than a few feet away, and he didn’t much look like Skippy at all.

He was tow-headed rather than dark. Instead of brown eyes, his were so blue they would have been reminiscent of a sunny sky if they hadn’t been brimming with tears. Not a single freckle dotted his nose. He didn’t even glance at Cara as he passed her by.

"Just come on," the woman said impatiently. The boy swiped the back of his hand against his wet eyes.

"Is something wrong, Cara?" Gray suddenly stood next to her, positioned off her right shoulder. She’d been no more aware that he had caught up to her than she’d been of the young mother. She’d only been cognizant of the boy and his plea, which had seemed like a message from the grave.

Don’t leave me
.

"Don’t you dare tell me to leave town again," she said in a low, resolute voice. "If you don’t want to help me find out what happened to Skippy, I’ll do it myself. But, mark my words, I will find out."

"I said I would help you." Gray's mouth twisted. "So I’ll help you."

"How? By following me around to make sure I don’t get too close to the truth?"

"I pulled the case file on Skippy’s kidnapping this morning.” His voice didn’t reflect the anger that had flashed in his eyes. “That’s how I knew the name of the nanny. I thought something in the file might help me figure out what’s been happening to you, but there was nothing.

"I think the only way we’ll make any progress is to talk to the police chief who investigated the crime."

His reasoning was so simple that Cara’s pulse sped up in anticipation. Of course! Who would know better about a case than the lawman who had conducted the investigation?

"When are we going?" she asked.

"Not today," he said. "Maybe even not tomorrow. Before we talk to him, I have to find out where he is."

"You mean you don’t know?"

He shook his head. "I lost track of him a few years ago. My dad might know where he is. In the meantime, you’ll have to be patient."

"Patience isn’t a trait we reporters possess," she said, momentarily forgetting she wasn’t a reporter at all.

"If you come to lunch with me, you can yell at me some more. It’ll take your mind off the waiting."

She couldn’t bring herself to bat away his olive branch any more than she could stop her lips from curving. He smiled back.

"Later, I’ll take you to a party the newspaper staff is throwing tonight. That’ll help, too."

"What makes you think I’d want to go with you?"

He took her arm, and even that incidental touch reminded her of why. "I can be charming when I want to be."

And that, Cara thought, was most definitely not the least of her problems.

Karen Rhett switched on the interior light of the sleek black Lincoln Continental she’d received in her divorce settlement and peered at herself in the rear-view mirror. Frowning, she dug a slim tube from her purse and reapplied her lipstick darker and redder. Then she fluffed the hair she’d just washed and blow-dried, trying to achieve an elegantly tousled look.

She didn’t know why she bothered. Here it was Saturday night, her birthday no less, and she was headed to the Dew Drop Inn to have a drink with one of her female employees. Mandy didn’t even know about the dubious occasion. It didn’t matter, because there wasn’t much to celebrate. Karen doubted that being thirty-four would be an improvement over being thirty-three.

She might as well spend the evening listening to Mandy’s problems. The younger woman had insisted she needed her advice, and Karen had automatically concluded she was having man problems. Mandy probably figured Karen had been with enough of them to be an authority on the subject. She couldn’t know Karen had man problems of her own.

Gray was still gallivanting around town with that nosy Cara Donnelly, too busy, it seemed, to return her phone calls. And Tyler Shaw had given up on his notion of taking her to dinner after a single refusal. Not that she wanted to go. It irked her, though, that he didn’t think she was worth asking twice.