Shattered Secrets (Cold Creek #1)(77)
“You can’t be serious about that—that wrongful, old charge. A b-b-boyhood indiscretion. You—you’re b-blackmailing me?”
“Hardly. I’m keeping you informed, just the way you like. And don’t try to pull Jack Lockwood out of the hat again. Now,” he said, trying not to revel in the moment and wondering if this long shot would ever lead to something useful about the abductions, “although we have a court record, I’d appreciate it if you’d just write out your recollection of the incident between you and the minor named Ginger Pickett, so we can clear you of—”
“Damn you, boy!” he cried, banging his fist on the table between them. “I don’t have anything to do with this, and it’s a big mistake for you to be dragging up erroneous information from another place and time! These kidnappings are a whole different bag from that boyhood infraction. And Tess wasn’t sexually molested, was she? So I bet the others weren’t either, just taken for some other sick, warped reason. But since you’re grasping at straws and you and your daddy never managed to solve this terrible case, I’m going to get a lawyer, one from Columbus, not these parts! You want to read me my rights?”
“You’re not under arrest. You’ve merely been asked to help clear up a possibility, which an innocent man and the longtime leader of his constituency should want to do.”
“Nice try. I’m getting a lawyer. One who will help me have your head for this outrage.”
“Good idea to retain a well-known and well-connected Columbus lawyer,” Gabe said, trying to keep from losing his temper too. “Marva, Jonas and Ann have already retained Lake Azure attorneys. Besides, a lawyer from the state capital will be within better reach of the national media you’ll want to use for interviews. Nice working with you, sir,” Gabe said as Reese rolled out of his chair and, pulling himself up by the table edge, rose to his feet. “I’ll see you at the church service this evening.”
“And you just keep your mouth shut. A couple of words from me and you’ll get thrown right out of office!” Reese shouted.
“It could happen to the best of us up for election next month,” Gabe countered. “I know you’ve been rubber-stamped as mayor for years, but I’ll bet I can find someone to oppose you, especially if you run on your record—your real record.”
He didn’t open the door for Reese this time as the man stormed out of the room. Gabe kept thinking about how those pit bulls at Jonas’s place had rattled their cages. He was like a pit bull now. And he was going to sink his teeth into whoever had hurt those little girls.
*
The town turned out in droves for the church service that evening. Sitting in the second row, Tess stared at the big, hand-painted banner with the words Sandy Kenton: Bring Her Home hanging below the screen with projected photos of the girl. She had now been missing for five days. Tess studied the images, memorizing Sandy’s face, but it almost blended with her own early photos, despite their slightly different coloring. Sandy had blond hair and brown eyes. A wide space between her two front teeth made them look even larger in her small mouth. A shy smile, pert nose. There were pictures of her with her family, at a picnic, at a wedding, at a petting zoo with a fawn, being read to by her mother, playing in a princess costume with a magic wand.
Jill Stillwell’s family sat in the front row along with Pastor Snell and his wife, Jeanie. Tess had spoken with them briefly. And she’d spent a lot of time on the phone with Lindell Kenton, Sandy’s mother. Lindell had asked Tess to say a few words this evening, but they’d compromised that she would do a Bible reading instead. She had to admit she was a bit nervous about it, but she wanted to help—anything to help!
She’d read in one of Miss Etta’s library books that Freud, no less, had defined mental health as the ability “to love and to work.” Tess figured she was doing both, not just in longing to have her own preschool where she could care for kids, but in working on the investigation. She was going to help Gabe by answering his dispatch and office phone during the day for a while. And as fast as everything had happened here in Cold Creek, she was very sure she was falling in love with him.
She sat between Deputy Miller’s wife, Carolyn, and Miss Etta. Mayor Owens and his wife sat with the families of the kidnapped girls. Although Vic was to be her bodyguard this evening, he and Gabe sat at the back to keep an eye on everything.
Lindell Kenton had given Tess a Bible with the short passage to be read clearly marked. Tess held it in her lap, stroking the pebbled leather cover.
“That’s a book people don’t read enough anymore,” Miss Etta whispered to her, reaching over to tap the Bible. Her hand smelled of that sanitizer she always used. “They think the Good Book is in an old, hard language, but there are plenty of modern versions.”
“I thought you might bring your mother tonight,” Tess said.
Miss Etta looked surprised at first, then said with a smile, “Speaking of old versions, you mean? No, I used to bring her to church but not anymore. It’s too hard to get her around. By the way, Sheriff McCord said he wanted to talk to me tomorrow about my antique gun collection. I’m going to look up the very gun that Dane must have used to do himself in. Also, I have a library book for Gabe to read.”
“He’s pretty busy.”
“Yes, of course he is, and should be. But a book about stress on the job, that’s what I’ll recommend to him.”