New Year Heroes: The Sheriff's Secretary / Veiled Intentions / Juror No. 7
“When did the physical abuse start?”
She looked at him in surprise. She hadn’t mentioned anything about physical abuse. Unexpectedly, tears burned at her eyes as she thought of those years with Frank, years of fear and pain and broken dreams.
“About the time I got pregnant with Billy. Frank wasn’t happy about the pregnancy, although initially I thought he’d come to embrace the idea of a child. The first time he laid a hand on me it was just a push … a shove. I fell into the coffee table and got banged up. He was instantly sorry and we put the incident behind us … until the next time.”
“When did he hurt your wrist?”
She flushed and realized she’d been rubbing the ache since she’d begun talking about Frank. “The day I left him. By that time I’d been punched and kicked and slapped enough. I’d already begun to make plans to leave him, but that day he raised his hand to Billy. I stepped between them and he grabbed me by the wrist and twisted. I heard the snap when it broke. He drove me to the hospital, apologizing and telling me how much he loved me. But that snap of my wrist was a defining moment for me and I knew I wasn’t leaving the hospital with him.”
“You pressed charges?”
She nodded and once again wrapped her hands around her coffee cup, needing the warmth to infuse the chill that had taken up residence with the bad memories. “He spent a week in jail, then got out. Billy and I went into a shelter that night and we stayed at the shelter until the divorce was final. That day I packed up and Billy and I got into my car and left Shreveport and Frank Landers behind.”
Lucas picked up his fork and pointed to her plate. “You’d better eat before it gets cold.”
Although the hunger pangs that had gnawed at her had fled with the talk of Frank, she picked up her fork and took a bite. Instead of hunger, what gnawed at her now was a fire of simmering anger. She was angry with herself for falling into the trap of a battered woman, angry with Lucas for maintaining such control on his emotions, for fixing her eggs instead of finding her son.
She knew her emotions were irrational, that the anger she felt at the moment was misplaced, but she couldn’t get a handle on it, and as she attempted to take another bite of her breakfast, it flared out of control.
“You remind me of him,” she said.
He looked at her in surprise. “What are you talking about?”
“You remind me a lot of Frank.” Careless abandon filled her. Her pain rose up inside her, so enormous she wanted to strike out and Lucas was a convenient target. “You treat Jenny a lot like Frank used to treat me.”
He set his fork down and narrowed his dark eyes. “What does that mean? You’re somehow comparing my relationship with my sister to the abusive relationship you had with your husband?”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ve never laid a hand on Jenny, but emotionally you do to her exactly what Frank used to do to me.”
His narrowed eyes flickered with the heat of a burgeoning anger. “I think maybe your own emotional baggage is coloring the way you see things.”
“On the contrary, my emotional baggage makes me see things more clearly.” She wanted an explosion, needed to release not only the tension that balled so tight inside her, but also to diminish the physical attraction she felt for him.
What she wanted more than anything else was for him to reach out to her, to grab her and hold her tight in his arms as he had done the night before in the cemetery.
As crazy as it sounded, she wanted him to take her to bed, to fill her heart with anything other than the agonizing horror that was in there now. And that scared the hell out of her.
“You undermine her confidence, you belittle the choices she makes.” She got up from the table, unable to sit next to him and say the things that threatened to burst from her. “You never let her forget that you have to rescue her, that she isn’t smart enough, isn’t old enough to do things right. That’s abuse, Lucas, whether you recognize it or not, whether you mean it or not, it’s abuse.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw and his eyes were as dark as the night that had just passed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know anything about me or my sister and the relationship we have.”
“I know what I see. Did you know that Jenny wanted to be a teacher? But that’s not what you wanted her to be. So she flunked out of college on purpose, because that’s what you secretly expected of her, because she’d rather disappoint you than stand up to you.” She took a step backward, somewhere in the back of her mind appalled at her audacity, yet unable to stop herself.
“You treat her like she’s stupid and worthless and that’s what she becomes when she’s around you. You’ve stolen her self-esteem. Believe me, I know all about that.” Tears fell down her cheeks and she swiped at them angrily.
“You have no idea what a great woman Jenny is. She would have made an awesome teacher, and my only consolation right now is that Jenny is with Billy wherever he is and I know she’ll do everything in her power to keep him safe.”
She left the kitchen then, horrified by her own words and consumed with the emotion she’d tried so hard to control since the moment she’d realized Billy had been kidnapped.
LUCAS STARED AFTER HER, stunned first by her emotional outburst and secondly by what she’d said to him. As his surprise abated, anger welled up inside him.
Who in the hell did she think she was? How could she possibly compare him to an abuser? She knew nothing about him, nothing about Jenny.
Lucas pushed away from the table and stood, his intention to chase after her, but by the time he reached the living room he decided to give himself a few minutes to cool off.
He returned to the kitchen and cleaned up the dishes, his head whirling with his thoughts.
She was under an enormous amount of stress, he told himself. Surely she didn’t really believe those things about him. He was not abusive to Jenny, he was just trying to save her from turning into the kind of woman who had given them birth.
Mariah didn’t understand him, didn’t understand where he was coming from where Jenny was concerned. And in any case he certainly didn’t owe her any explanations or apologies for how he conducted himself with his sister.
He grabbed his overnight bag, his cell phone and a clean uniform and headed for the bathroom. Maybe beneath a refreshing cool shower some of his anger would dissipate.
It worked. As he stood beneath the spray of water he couldn’t sustain the anger that had momentarily gripped him. Instead, a swell of sorrow filled him for her. He couldn’t imagine being a young woman with a small child and having to run away in fear from the man who had promised to honor and cherish her.
He’d suspected secrets were in her past, and now she’d shared them with him. Was it any wonder she saw imagined abuse in others? She’d been through hell and had survived only to have her son ripped away from her by some unknown perpetrator.
Dammit. He wanted to be a hero for her. Her father had left her, her husband had abused her. She needed a hero. He wanted to bring her son home safe and sound. And he wanted to be a hero for Jenny. He leaned weakly against the shower wall as his head filled with thoughts of her.
He’d refused to allow himself to dwell on her, had instead tried to keep his focus on Billy. But now a rush of fear consumed him, clenching his stomach muscles as he broke into a cold sweat.
Jenny. His heart cried her name. From the time she’d been born, he’d taken care of her, seen to her needs and protected her from the world. And now he couldn’t do any of those things. She was gone, taken for some reason he couldn’t discern by a madman playing a game.
He hadn’t cried when his mother died. He hadn’t shed a tear when his wife had walked out on him, but the thought of never seeing his sister again pulled a deep sob from the very depths of him.
He sucked in a deep breath and stuffed his emotions deep inside. The only way he’d be able to get through this was to keep emotional distance. He wasn’t just one of the victims’ brother, he was the sheriff of Conja Creek and had to be strong, if not for himself, then for Mariah.
Getting out of the shower, he grabbed a towel and quickly dried off, then dressed in his clean clothes. He opened the bathroom door and bumped into Mariah, who had apparently been waiting for him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, obviously tortured. “I was way out of line and I apologize. It’s really none of my business.”
“Apology accepted,” he replied easily. There was nothing to gain by holding on to a grudge, and she obviously felt terrible about what had happened between them.
“I’m scared and I’m angry and you were convenient to vent to,” she continued. She worried a hand through her hair. “I don’t know why I said those things.”
He held up a hand to halt anything else she might say. “We’re under a lot of stress. As far as I’m concerned it’s forgotten.”
“I guess I’m just finding it difficult to think about facing another day,” she said as he stepped out of the bathroom door and into the hallway.
“I know.” He couldn’t fight the impulse to draw her into his embrace. Despite the things she’d said to him, in spite of the fact that he should be angry with her, he felt her need to be held. Or was it his own need?
He pulled her against him, molding her curves against him as her arms wound around his neck. She was soft and warm and yielding.
She buried her face into the front of his shirt as her body trembled. He tightened his arms around her, wishing he could provide a barrier between her and her heartache.
He rubbed his hand down her back and tried to focus on giving comfort instead of the rising desire that filled him with her intimate nearness.
They stood that way for several long minutes, then she raised her head to look at him. He had no intention of kissing her, but as her full, sensual lips parted, he lowered his head and covered them with his own.
He half expected her to pull away, knew somehow that the kiss was out of line, crossing a boundary that shouldn’t be crossed, but she didn’t pull away. Instead, she seemed to move closer to him.
Her mouth opened to him and he deepened the kiss with his tongue as full-blown desire crashed through him. She returned the kiss, her tongue battling with his.
Her hands tangled in his hair at the nape of his neck and a slight moan escaped her, only increasing his need to take her.
Yet in the back of his mind he knew this was wrong. He felt as if he were taking advantage of her, exploiting her vulnerability. Reluctantly he broke the kiss.
She stared up at him and swallowed. “Temporary insanity,” she said, her voice hoarse as she stepped back.
He was saved from making a reply by the ring of his cell phone. He listened to what his deputy had to tell him, then clicked off.
“That was Wally,” he said to Mariah. “He picked up Remy Troulous and has him down at the office for questioning.”
Her features lit with hope. “Surely he’ll tell us if he knows anything about this. Just let me talk to him. I’m sure I can get him to tell us what he knows.”
He didn’t have the heart to tell her that Remy Troulous was a man who wouldn’t be moved by a mother’s pleas. If Remy didn’t want to cooperate, there was nothing on this earth or beyond that would make him do so.
Chapter Seven
Mariah was grateful that he didn’t mention the kiss as they drove to the sheriff’s office. She couldn’t imagine what had possessed her. But more, she couldn’t imagine what had possessed him.
By all rights he should have been livid with her. She’d said terrible things to him, but her bad behavior certainly hadn’t stopped him from kissing her.
Definitely temporary insanity, and it was obviously a state they had both suffered—for just a moment at the exact same time.
She was acutely conscious of him and she couldn’t understand it. She wasn’t even sure she liked him that well, but all she could think about was the heat of his mouth against hers, the memory of his hard body holding her tight.
How easy it was to focus on these things when the only other emotion she had inside her was wrenching, chilling fear. Her need for Lucas was so much simpler than all the other emotions that filled her at the moment.
“Did Wally say where he picked up Remy?” she asked, finally breaking the uncomfortable silence that had ballooned between them.
“He didn’t say, and with Remy it’s hard to tell where Wally might have found him.” Lucas turned onto Main Street.
The sun broke over the horizon, painting the buildings with a burst of gold light and dancing on the flowers that bloomed in pots in front of the shops.
Monday morning. She should be getting Billy out of bed and ready to go to the babysitter so she could go to work. She closed her eyes as she thought of sitting on the side of the bed next to her sleeping son. He always slept on his side, curled up in a warm toasty ball, and he always woke up with a smile.
He’d been a sunny child from the moment he’d been born. The only thing that had been able to put a cloud in his eyes had been his father.
She opened her eyes, consciously willing away the painful memories as Lucas pulled up in front of the sheriff’s office. Please, she prayed. Please let the answer to where Jenny and Billy are rest with Remy Troulous. And please, let him talk to us.
Wally sat at the desk just inside the door and he rose as they entered. “Morning, Sheriff … Mariah.” He nodded to them somberly. “I got him cooling his heels in the interview room. I’ll warn you, he’s not a happy camper.”
Agent Michael Kessler also rose from the desk nearby. He walked over and introduced himself to Mariah. “Nice to meet you, although I’m sorry about the circumstances. I’ve been trying to run down your ex-husband,” he said.
“No luck?”
Michael shook his head. “He hasn’t registered a car in his name for the past two years nor can I find an employment record for him. I’ll keep hunting, and in the meantime I’ve been interviewing locals for information.” He gestured toward the interview room and looked at Lucas. “I’d like to be present when you interview Remy Troulous.”
Lucas nodded, then looked at Mariah. “Initially, I want you to sit and watch outside of the room,” Lucas said to her. “Let me and Agent Kessler have a go at him and see what happens.”
“Before you do that, Louis got some information about Phillip Ribideaux you might find interesting,” Wally said.
“And what’s that?”
“It seems that ne’er-do-well Phillip has been cut off. According to his friends, his daddy got fed up with him and stopped the gravy train. Young Phillip now has to get a job and pay his own expenses.”
Mariah watched the play of emotions on Lucas’s face. He looked slightly dangerous, with a muscle ticking in his jaw and his dark-brown eyes narrowed. It was hard to believe that this was the same man who had minutes earlier held her so tenderly and kissed her with a fire that had momentarily chased away the arctic chill that had possessed her for the past two days.
“Louis is still sitting on him?”
Wally nodded. “But no offense, chief, somebody’s going to have to take over for him so Louis can get some sleep.”
“When Ed comes in this morning, put him on Ribideaux for the next twenty-four hours.” Lucas looked at Mariah. “Maybe this is about a ransom after all. Maybe Ribideaux got desperate when his father financially cut him off.”
“Then why hasn’t he made a ransom demand?” Mariah asked.
Lucas’s eyes were dark as he held her gaze. “Right now the only answer I have is that whoever is holding Billy and Jenny is enjoying the game. Once the ransom demand is made, the game is over.” He took her elbow and nodded to Agent Kessler. “Come on, let’s go see what Remy Troulous has to add to this mix.”
Lucas led her to a closet-size room with a window that looked into the next room. Inside the bigger area was a long conference table, and seated at the table was a handsome dark-haired young man.
He was sprawled in the chair with the arrogance of youth, legs up on the table and a smirk on his full, sensual lips. He wore a pair of worn jeans and a sleeveless shirt and had a large tattoo on his right shoulder. The tattoo was two letters—VP. Mariah guessed it stood for Voodoo Priests.
“I’ll be right back,” Lucas said as he gestured her to a chair.
She sat and stared at the young man, wondering if he had entered her home and somehow tricked Billy and Jenny into going with him, or forced them from the house at gunpoint. Or perhaps he’d encountered them in the park and seen an opportunity.
Although he looked like a punk, he didn’t look evil. She had to remind herself that evil often wore a benign face. True evil could hide behind an easy smile and laughing eyes.
She drew a deep, tremulous breath and stared at the man in front of her. Did the answer to Billy and Jenny’s whereabouts rest with Remy Troulous?
She moved to the edge of the chair as she saw Lucas and Agent Kessler enter the interview room. “Get your feet off the table,” Lucas said to Remy. “You might do that at your house, but you’re in my house now.”
For a moment Remy didn’t move. He stared up at Lucas with insolent challenge, and Mariah could feel the tension between the two even though she wasn’t in the same room.
She released a small sigh as Remy pulled his feet from the table and sat up straighter in the chair. “Why is it that whenever anything goes wrong in this town one of your men hauls me down here?” Remy asked.
“Because when things go wrong, you’re usually in the middle of them.” Lucas remained standing. He looked fierce, like a warrior facing his enemy. “You know my sister is missing?” Kessler stood just inside the door, obviously not intending to be an active participant in the questioning.
Remy laughed. “This is a small town, Sheriff. Somebody coughs in one house and the next-door neighbor calls somebody else to tell about it. Nothing much happens here that everyone doesn’t know about.”
Mariah studied Remy’s face, watching his handsome features for signs of something, anything that would indicate he was behind the kidnapping.
“I don’t know why your deputy dragged me down here,” Remy continued. “I don’t know anything about your sister’s disappearance.”
“One of her friends told me she’d been seeing you.” Lucas took a step closer to where Remy sat.
“That’s crazy,” Remy exclaimed as he broke eye contact with Lucas. “What would somebody like me be doing with the sheriff’s sister? Get real, why don’t you?”
“Where were you on Friday between the hours of ten and five?”
Remy laughed once again, the sound deep and pleasant. “I’m not sure where I was last night. I sure as hell don’t remember where I was on Friday.”
Lucas sat in the chair next to Remy. “I think maybe you need to try harder to remember.”
Remy frowned and rubbed a hand across his forehead. “I don’t know, I was probably hanging out with my boys, that’s what I do most days. You can check with one of them, they’ll vouch for me.”
“You mean they’ll lie for you,” Lucas replied. “When was the last time you saw Jenny?”
“I don’t know. I might have passed her on the street last week sometime. I got me a girl, Sheriff, I’m not interested in Jenny like that.”
“Then why was she seeing you?” Lucas pressed. “What interest did you have in her?”
Remy’s eyes narrowed and he blinked several times. “I told you already I wasn’t seeing your sister, and that’s all I got to say on the matter.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t know where your sister and that little boy are. I don’t have anything to do with them being missing. And unless you’re going to charge me with something, I’m leaving. Are you arresting me?”
Lucas shook his head. “Not at this time.”
“Then I’m out of here,” Remy replied.
Panic shot through Mariah as Remy stood. He was their best lead, and if he walked out, who knew if and when they would get the opportunity to question him again.
Remy headed for the door and Lucas followed him with Agent Kessler trailing behind. Mariah jumped up from her chair and met them in the hallway.
“Mr. Troulous,” she said. “I’m Mariah Harrington and it’s my little boy who is missing with Jenny.” She grabbed his hand and tried to ignore the smell that emanated from him, the odors of stale sweat and cheap beer and swamp. “Please, if you know anything that might help us find them, if you had anything to do with it, please tell me.”
She held his hand tightly, as if it were a rope that held her dangling over an abyss of grief. If she released him, if he walked away, then she was afraid she’d fall and crash into a million pieces.
Remy looked distinctly uncomfortable as he tried to pull his hand from her grasp, but she held on, refusing to allow him to move away from her.
“Billy, that’s my son. He has asthma and if he gets scared or stressed out he’ll have an attack. He’s a smart boy and he loves school and learning about new things. He loves to play baseball and he doesn’t like the dark. He needs his medicine but more than anything he needs to be home with me. I need him home with me.” A sob welled up in her throat.
“Look, lady. I’m sorry for your troubles, but I don’t know anything about it.” Remy looked at Lucas for help.
Lucas stepped closer and placed a hand on Mariah’s shoulder. “Let him go, Mariah,” he said gently.
She didn’t want to let him go. She wanted to hold his hand until he confessed he’d kidnapped Jenny and Billy. She wanted to cling to him until he told them where he had the two stashed and how she and Lucas could bring them home safely. But his dark, heavy-lidded eyes let her know she could squeeze his hand through eternity and he wasn’t going to give her the answers she needed.
Reluctantly she let go and dropped her hand to her side. Remy raced for the exit as Lucas took Mariah by the arm and led her out of the hallway and into the interview room, Kessler following just behind them.
Lucas pulled out a chair and motioned her to sit, as if aware that her trembling legs threatened to give out beneath her. Once she was seated, he left the room then returned with a bottle of water and set it in front of her.
She smiled at him gratefully and uncapped the bottle and took a drink. “You okay?” he asked as he perched on the table next to her chair.
She shrugged. “I guess I was expecting a Perry Mason moment. You know, you lean on him and he breaks and tells us everything we need to know. Stupid, huh.”
“Not stupid,” he protested. “Just maybe a bit naive.”
“I’ll tell you what was smart on your part. Talking about Billy like you did,” Agent Kessler said.
“What do you mean?” She looked at the blond-haired man curiously.
“You said his name, told Remy a little bit about him. You personalized Billy to the man you thought might have him. That’s a smart thing to do. It’s what hostage negotiators do when they’re trying to resolve a situation.”
She sighed wearily. “I don’t understand how two people could seemingly disappear from the face of the earth and nobody knows what happened.” She put the cap back on the bottle of water and fought against the wave of overwhelming despair that threatened to consume her.
“Why don’t you just hang tight right here,” Lucas said. “We need to coordinate with my men.” He stood. “You need anything?”
“The only thing I need is the one thing nobody seems to be able to get for me,” she replied.
They left her then, alone in the interview room with only her faltering hope to keep her company.
THE MEN WERE ALL THERE except Ed, who had taken over sitting on Phillip Ribideaux for Louis. It took almost an hour for them to exchange pertinent information. Wally had been in touch with the phone company, trying to trace the calls that had gone to both Lucas’s cell phone and Mariah’s home number. As Lucas had suspected, other than the call that had come from the pay phone, the calls had been made by disposable cell phones that were almost impossible to trace.