Whispers Under A Southern Sky

CHAPTER THREE

I need background checks on every candidate.

TWO DAYS AFTER his visit to Amy, Sam sat at the long wooden table on his deck and sent the text to Zach. He’d thought long and hard about where to conduct interviews for a sitter for his son, mindful that it could be problematic for a single man to hire an underage girl. He hoped like hell he got some applicants who were grandmothers. In any case, he’d decided to hold the interviews outdoors, in full view of the road in case nervous parents wanted to oversee the proceedings. He didn’t begrudge any parents the urge to supervise their kids. God knew he wasn’t letting Aiden out of his sight until he was twenty-one.

Which was why he’d called for the background checks on the applicants. To keep Aiden safe. Zach’s digital security firm could unearth even more information than Sam’s police computers. It was a sad commentary on the tools available to a public servant these days, but knowing how important this mission was, Sam wanted the best possible intelligence on the four women he was interviewing today.

Background checks on high school girls?

The text flashed across his phone screen, delivering all the snark that Zach would have given the question in person.

Do I need to remind you J. D. Covington was in high school?

Sam typed with one hand and draped a blanket over the playpen with the other. He’d brought Aiden outside for the interviews, wanting to see how the potential sitters might interact with him. Not that ease with a baby was his number one criterion. Sam himself had possessed zero sense of how to handle a kid when his ex-girlfriend had handed Aiden over to him. But Sam had learned fast.

It still floored him that he had a son. The past month had changed his life so drastically that he didn’t even recognize his house with all the baby gear. Plus he walked through his days like a zombie.

But for the privilege of raising his own child? So worth it. He was just glad his ex-girlfriend had brought the boy to him when she was struggling, or he might not have ever known about his existence. His ex was a traveling nurse, and she’d left town without telling him she was pregnant.

She might have had a tough time with it, but for Sam, who’d been raised in foster homes and had little memory of his real parents, being a dad ranked as the most important thing in his world.

Something he never could have predicted after all the years where catching Gabriella’s stalker had been the priority.

Point taken, Zach texted back. Send names when you’re ready.

Sam was inputting the information when an old white Volvo sedan slowed to a stop on Partridge Hill. He could see the vehicle clearly since his backyard ran parallel to the road. For the last two years, he’d been the only one on this end of the rural county route, but now Amy Finley was living in the woods north of his place. He’d thought about her often since they’d spoken.

Her reaction to his questions had accelerated his timetable for finding a sitter for Aiden, in fact. In his own hurt at leaving her that long-ago summer, he’d overlooked her as a potential witness. Something he would remedy as soon as he secured help watching his son. His foster mother had been helping him out while he was working, so he couldn’t ask her to pinch-hit other times.

“Back here.” Sam raised his voice to be heard across the expanse of lawn separating him from the two girls exiting the Volvo. “You can cut across the grass.”

He recognized both of them. Megan Bryer had almost been one of Jeremy’s victims, and her friend Bailey McCord had the misfortune of dating the younger Covington, J.D., who’d acted as his father’s accomplice. Bailey’s mother was also in jail for her role in harassing Megan, although Tiffany’s expensive attorney wouldn’t let her languish there much longer. The request for a bail hearing had been filed last week.

Sam had never thought much of the pushy town councilwoman, although her husband seemed like a decent guy.

“Hello, Sheriff Reyes,” the girls greeted him in unison, voices matching in pitch and cadence.

He tried not to wince. Had he ever been that young?

“Thanks for coming. Which one of you is looking for some extra work?”

“I am.” Bailey McCord stepped forward. Blonde and blue-eyed, she was a pretty girl who—unlike a lot of the teens he saw around town—didn’t rush to flaunt it. She carried a purple binder with a matching pen that had a feather cap.

“Great.” He pointed to the chair at the long wooden table he’d built himself last fall. “Have a seat, and I’ll tell you about the job.”

“Is it okay if Megan stays?” The pink in her cheeks suggested she was nervous.

He knew he had that effect on people, but he’d never developed much of a knack for fixing it.

“I’d be grateful if she did.” A thought occurred to him. “For that matter, I wouldn’t mind hiring you as a team to babysit my son. An eight-week-old is a lot of work.”

He planned to have Aiden watched at his foster mother’s house since she was at home all day and would be nearby if there were any problems. While she’d offered to watch Aiden full-time herself, Sam worried that would be too much for her since she kept the books for the family’s pizza shop and still supervised two foster sons. But he would rest easier knowing there would be someone else in the house.

Bailey frowned. Megan looked interested, though.

“Really?” Megan took a seat beside her friend. Her hands were covered in henna tattoos and...was that a saltshaker around her neck?

“I’d up the pay accordingly.” His savings were fairly substantial, as he’d invested all his early earnings in Zach’s digital security firm, which had gone on to be extremely successful. “Plus, if you shared the duties sometimes and split them other times, it would ensure I’d have at least one of you available more often.” He liked the idea more and more with a big case to investigate and limited hours to devote to it.

Bailey looked interested now, too; the girls exchanged sidelong glances while Sam explained his schedule and Aiden’s.

Something about the silent give-and-take between the girls brought back a memory from his last summer in Heartache. When he’d asked Amy to ditch the last day of school with him, she’d been in the school parking lot with Gabriella. Amy had met Gabby’s eyes. Later, he’d learned that look had meant that Gabby would cover for her with the teachers. Who knew so much could be communicated in a glance?

Lifting the blanket shading one side of the playpen, he showed off his son and took a moment’s satisfaction out of seeing how quickly the boy sealed the deal. The girls were smitten. But then, that only led him to wonder why his son’s mother couldn’t have been equally charmed. He hated that for Aiden.

“This all sounds good, Mr. Reyes.” Bailey straightened from the playpen and bit her lip. “But before you make any decisions, I want to be sure you know that my mother is Tiffany McCord.” She folded her arms tightly, meeting his gaze. “Just in case, you know, that’s a problem.”

Her honesty about something that was obviously painful to admit notched his opinion of her higher.

“It’s not. I could have never become a cop if the mistakes of my birth family were held against me.” He flipped the cover back over the baby’s makeshift bed. “My foster family has taken in a lot of kids over the years, and the first thing they tried to knock into our heads was not to make judgments of each other based on anything other than our actions. Everyone deserves to earn their own reputation.”

“I like that.” Bailey smiled.

“Very cool,” Megan agreed.

He wished he’d won over the other kids at Crestwood High as easily when he’d spoken to the student body last week. Maybe having more interactions with teens would help him figure out how to talk to them. Any one of them might be a potential witness, and he wasn’t going to overlook the chance for evidence again.

Besides, having Megan Bryer and Bailey McCord nearby held appeal for his case. He’d interviewed Megan about the attempted kidnapping last month, but she hadn’t been able to give him many details since her captors hadn’t shown their faces.

Bailey, meanwhile, was someone he’d hoped would come forward with information because she’d dated J.D. But so far she hadn’t offered any insider knowledge about her ex-boyfriend or his jailbird father.

Since Megan had already given her deposition and Bailey seemed not to have any relevant info, he was comfortable employing them. His first priority was Aiden. Heartache wasn’t exactly a thriving metropolis with lots of options for caregivers.

“I’m going to check these references.” He slid the folded sheet of paper Bailey had given him into the breast pocket of his jacket. “Megan, you’re welcome to submit some if you are still interested.”

He watched them do more of the ESP thing, their gazes connecting.

“I am.” Her ponytail bobbed as she nodded. “I can email them to you when I get home.”

“Fair enough.” He reached to shake hands with each of them. “Thank you for stopping by. I’ll get back to you this week.”

As they turned to leave, Sam retrieved his phone to check his messages. He added Megan and Bailey to the list of people for Zach’s background checks, typing their names into an email.

Before he finished, a message flashed across the screen from an app he’d never used before, a program he didn’t recall downloading.

Stop asking for victims to come forward. Your son’s safety is at stake.

He read the message twice, his hand reaching for the top rail of the playpen instinctively. His blood chilled.

What. The. Hell.

Emotions surged, fear and fury leading the charge.

But before he could forward it to Zach for analysis, the message vanished.

Searching every conceivable screen and folder on the phone, Sam used his landline to call Zach.

He picked up right away. “Chance.”

“I just received a threat to Aiden on my cell. The message disappeared after I read it.”

Zach swore. “Don’t touch anything on the phone. I’ll see if I can find it. Want me to pick it up, or are you coming into town?”

“I’ll bring it to you.” He made up his mind as he pocketed the device. “I was going to drop off Aiden at my mother’s, but first I’m going to assign someone to watch her place. I’m not taking any chances with him.”

“Of course. I’ll meet you at the town hall?”

“Yes.” Sam clenched his fist to try to hold back the fury boiling just under his skin.

That was his son they were talking about. A defenseless kid.

He needed to speak to Amy Finley, and sooner rather than later. She might have reasons for keeping the past secret, but nothing was more important than this. Sam was going to learn the truth.

* * *

THE PAN OF brownies called to her. Again. Okay, for the fourth time.

Amy set down her sledgehammer and swiped a hand under her hard hat to mop the dampness from her forehead. She’d removed her first wall in the hunting cabin today, merging two small sleeping spaces into one normal-size bedroom.

Soon she’d work on tearing down the metaphorical walls in her life—the ones that kept her from reuniting with her family. But for now, she felt good to have tackled the literal variety. Plus she hadn’t turned the police scanner on again after a quick listen in the morning. Surely that meant she was getting her feet back under her in this town again.

Besides, eating the brownies her sisters had made didn’t mean she’d forgiven them for leaving her alone with her mother more times than she could count as a teenager. It just meant she liked chocolate and homemade sweets.

Period.

Standing the sledgehammer in one corner of the living room, she brought the pan out onto the small front porch to escape the demolition dust. Outdoors, it smelled like pine and dried leaves, a heady autumn fragrance that she breathed in deeply.

She missed the country only for moments like this—the proximity to nature that had been her best reprieve from the stress of living under the microscope in a small town. She’d always loved the sound of cicadas in late summer or the sight of peach orchards in bloom each spring, turning half the town pink. But fall was her favorite season with the wealth of pumpkins and Indian corn decorating entryways, and the rich, earthy scent of drying leaves.

She took a seat on the swing to devour her treat and enjoy the quiet. She hadn’t eaten two bites when her only neighbor appeared on the hill below the house. Sam Reyes charged toward her with purposeful steps. For a moment, she was able to observe him unaware. Dressed in dark pants and a gray button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, he looked more like a Fed than a local sheriff today. He walked fast, his posture rigid and his gaze downcast.

He was a handsome man. Prominent cheekbones and the straight blade of his nose gave his face character. A full lower lip and moody gray eyes were romantic touches that would make women notice him. He’d definitely turned her head as a teen. And now?

He caught her staring.

“Amy.” He gave a brief nod. No smile. No other greeting.

Had she thought those gray eyes were romantic? Today they had the crystalline sharpness of ice chips. How crazy that she could tell he was upset when she hadn’t seen him in a decade.

“You caught me.” She swallowed her first bite of brownie. “I was just thinking these are so good it’s a crime, and out of the blue, the sheriff appears.” She held out the tray. “Would you consider a bribe?”

“No. Thank you.” Stepping up on the porch, he settled against the wooden railing. “I need to ask you a few questions.”

She lost her appetite. Setting the pan aside, she stood.

“Would you mind if we took a walk?” She hoped the movement would hide her nervousness. “I’ve been cooped up inside since I got here, except for my one outing to the stores a few days ago.”

And, frankly, she didn’t feel comfortable walking through the woods alone. But with Sam, she could at least enjoy the sights and scents while he questioned her. Nerves fluttered as she steeled herself for the conversation she did not want to have.

“Sure.” Nodding, he waited for her to precede him, then followed her onto an overgrown path behind the cabin. Their footsteps crunched pleasantly through dried leaves as they trekked uphill. “I’ve thought a lot about what you said the last time I was here. About you having questions regarding my friendship with Gabriella and the way we left.”

The statement caught her off guard. She’d been bracing for him to start quizzing her about that summer. She hadn’t been expecting answers.

“You left without a word to me.” Her voice sounded brittle, the memory a dull ache.

“I regretted that. But let me explain. A few days before I left, I was at Zach’s house, waiting for him to get home from that nursing home where he worked. He’d had to stay late because one of the patients had fallen ill.”

She remembered. Before Zach Chance became mayor of Heartache, he’d grown up in the town, the son of a wealthy, white-collar criminal who’d scammed millions of people in a pyramid scheme. Zach had done everything he could to separate himself from his crooked parents, taking a job at a senior center where he’d volunteered countless hours.

“Zach was a teenage mayor before he became the real mayor.” When Amy had heard he’d taken over after her father passed away, she thought it made sense.

“Right.” Sam lifted a low branch for her to walk under, his boots a steady thrum of vibration beside her. “He was worried about his sister that summer because she hadn’t taken it well when their father went to jail. I was trying to help keep an eye on her.”

“That was kind of you.” She hopped over a rotted log.

He made the relationship sound more innocent than what she’d imagined. But he sure didn’t need to run away with the Chances to help Zach watch over his sister. He must have had good reason for wanting to leave town with them.

“I owed Zach. He made school bearable for me as a foster kid. Ensured I had friends and wasn’t just the freak of the week from the local foster group home.”

“I didn’t know.” She’d certainly never viewed him that way. But then again, she was younger than him and hadn’t been aware of him until she’d started attending high school.

“Anyway, I was at their house when Gabby told me she was leaving to meet a friend.” He shook his head, eyes on a distant point ahead, lost in a long-ago moment. “And if they’d had normal parents, she probably wouldn’t have been allowed out of the house at that hour on her own. But her dad was in jail, and their mom was grieving like the guy was dead.”

“I’m convinced there’s no such thing as normal parents.” It had been a common refrain between them at one time. “Except you, now that you’re a father, of course.”

He didn’t crack a smile at the playful jab. A bird flew low over her head, landing on a nearby branch.

“Of course. And I had to be the responsible one then, too.”

“You told Gabriella she couldn’t meet her friend?” she guessed, watching the blue jay hop from a maple tree into an evergreen.

“No. I followed her.” Something in his voice changed.

“What happened?” Amy slowed her pace as they neared a rushing stream, not wanting to miss anything.

“She stopped the car on the quarry road and got out like she was going to...” He halted at the water’s edge. “I thought at first she might jump off a cliff or something. It was so deserted out there.”

“She didn’t see you?” Amy hugged her arms around herself, warding off a chill despite the warmth of the late afternoon sun.

“I cut the lights of my own car and parked well behind her, then sprinted through the dark toward her.” He seemed lost in the past, his gaze unfocused. For a long moment, he paused. When he continued, his voice was hard. “But some other guy got to her first.”

“A boyfriend?”

“I think that’s what she expected. I found out later she was meeting a guy she’d been talking to online. He must have been stalking her for some time, looking for the right moment to set up a meeting. But this guy was no teenager—he was masked, but I could tell he was older than we were.” Sam’s hands fisted even now. “He had her on the ground and was on top of her before I could even get close to where they were.”

She gasped, connecting the dots to her own trauma that night. “He hurt her?”

“He tried his damnedest.” His eyes cleared, focusing on her. “But I got there before he could do much physical damage. I lunged at him, but he was bigger than me, and he started to get the upper hand until I got my hands on a log about the size of a baseball bat.”

“A weapon,” she half whispered, knowing she couldn’t change the outcome of a story that was long over, but she still found herself breathless from hoping Sam and Gabby got away.

“I hit him so hard I thought I killed him.” He leaned down to scrape his hand along a scraggly cattail growing near the creek bed. The movement released a cloud of fluffy white into the air. “Gabby had run off, and I left the guy to search for her. Another car came along, and I debated calling for help when it stopped, but I couldn’t see well enough, so I hid instead. When Gabby was safely in my car, I went back to where the body should have been, but it was gone.”

“Meaning he got up and went in the other car?”

“Or else a friend came and took the body away.” He shrugged. “I couldn’t be sure, and I was too scared of getting kicked out of my foster family’s house to go to the cops. Besides, Gabby wanted no part of talking to police. She was hysterical.”

Pieces of the past fell into place, slowly making sense.

“So Zach wanted to take his sister away from a cyberstalker who might still be after her. And you needed to get away from the guy, too, or else not be in Heartache when someone discovered him dead.”

“That’s why I left.” He pointed to a flat rock near the stream, and she followed the unspoken suggestion, taking a seat. He dropped down a few inches away, a strong, masculine presence that tripped a whole chain of sensations inside her she had no business feeling.

She hugged her knees to her chest.

“You didn’t breathe a word to anyone, including me, because you couldn’t afford for anyone to link you to the stalker.” His reasons for leaving—and keeping quiet about it—were so different from what she’d imagined. But Sam had possessed a strong sense of right and wrong even as a teen. Of course he’d made the choice to be noble at all costs.

“Gabriella’s mother didn’t even protest when Zach said he was taking her out to the West Coast when he started college. Hell, I’m not sure Mrs. Chance realized Zach hadn’t even graduated high school yet. She just gave him some money and told him good luck.”

“It definitely helps to have cash when you’re starting over in a new city.” She’d refused all help from her family after she’d left town, not realizing how difficult it would be to make ends meet on her own. “I told my dad I was going to file the paperwork to become an emancipated minor when I left, but he said not to bother. They wouldn’t fight me.”

Or fight for her.

When it came down to it, her parents hadn’t blinked at her departure any more than Mrs. Chance had protested her daughter’s.

“I heard you moved to Atlanta.” He sifted through some tall grasses and pulled up a flat stone. “Zach kept tabs on news from Heartache, always keeping an eye out for info on the man who jumped Gabriella.”

“And now you think Jeremy Covington was the man who lured Gabriella out and assaulted her?” But Gabby wasn’t the only one he’d hurt. This case was bigger than she’d realized.

And while she understood why Sam took this case personally, she would not be able to help. She had her own reasons for needing to stay far away from the man who hurt Gabriella. She wasn’t any more ready to share those reasons now than she had been a decade ago.

“I do. And I want to see his ass in jail for more reasons than I can count.” He whipped the stone side-arm to send it skipping along the water’s surface. “I’ve been working overtime to find more leads and be sure Jeremy Covington is put away for life. But yesterday I got a message on my phone that threatened Aiden if I keep searching for witnesses.”

Amy felt a weight land squarely on her chest. A vision of Aiden’s blue eyes and happy, kicking foot clutched at her.