Chapter Four
Kindred Residence
Tupelo Pike
The coffee had brewed, the rich scent filling the small kitchen.
Chance had been up since before six. He had walked around the property. Checked the tree line. The area was well wooded to be so close to town. Only a few miles up the road was the intersection where his motel was, and near that area, things were far more densely populated with businesses.
He’d found no issues outside. No indication of new trouble.
Nothing except the splats of red that dotted the front of the small house Rory called home.
A good pressure washing would likely take care of that problem.
If he’d been able to locate a water hose, he would have taken care of the mess as soon as he got up.
But there was no water hose or scrub brush or anything else that would help with the task.
They could pick something up when they went out today.
Leaving Rory at home alone was obviously not doable under the circumstances.
They would need to discuss the issue at some point today.
Staying at his motel, even as close as it was, might not be the best option for her safety given the level of animosity directed at her in the space of only a few hours.
He poured a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter.
If she was willing and emotionally up to the challenge, he wanted to visit the crime scene today.
The sooner they got that difficult task behind them, the better.
The agency had rented the cottage where the nightmare took place for the week, so there was plenty of time if today wasn’t good for Rory.
His concern was that the police would suddenly decide to take possession of the property for their own purposes.
With a long draw of his coffee, he considered what others saw when they looked at Rory.
He’d read all the statements and interviews associated with her case.
Some—clearly not friends—had mentioned Rory being called a witch back in school.
Her really dark black hair and incredibly light blue eyes were unusual for sure.
Her skin was inordinately pale, and her build was slight.
Yet her voice was strong. Her determination remarkable.
All those contrasts made for a rare combination.
Add to the mix her bohemian aunt, and Rory had been called many things in her young life—witch was likely the nicest of all those unkind terms.
But as an adult, she’d proven herself by landing a teaching position at a local elementary school and being honored as teacher of the year her second term.
Her involvement with the son of one of the town’s wealthiest and most prominent families had set her life on a different path.
She’d become a respected member of Scottsboro society.
Until the wedding.
Everyone around her—except her brother and aunt—had turned on her.
She’d been fired from her job. Found guilty of murdering her husband and called the most vile name—the Murder Bride.
Some, in their statements, had gone so far as to suggest they had always thought that perhaps she’d set the fire that killed her parents.
Chance had dug up the file on that long-ago house fire.
Arson had never been suspected. The house was an older one with two fireplaces.
One cold spring night, the fire the father had started hadn’t completely died down before they went to bed.
Rory’s parents had awakened to the house in flames.
The smoke and confusion had them searching desperately for their children when they were exactly where they were supposed to be—in their beds.
The father found Rory and carried her out, then went back in for Austin.
When he emerged with the boy, he realized his wife hadn’t come out.
He went back in to find her, and the two never came out.
An elderly neighbor had witnessed the frantic desperation.
What happened had not been anyone’s fault. A simple, deadly mistake.
“Good morning.”
His attention shifted back to the here and now. Rory stood in the doorway. He smiled. “Good morning.” He gestured to the counter. “Coffee’s ready.”
“Thank you.” She walked in his direction. “I hope you slept okay on that lumpy sofa.”
“I slept just fine. Thank you.” The truth was he never slept well when on assignment. Knowing someone else’s safety and future depended on him was always at the forefront of his thoughts, and sound sleep didn’t work well with being on alert for the slightest shift in the environment.
As she poured her coffee, he couldn’t help watching her delicate fingers work. She was like a fine porcelain doll. How had she ever survived prison for two minutes, much less nearly two years?
She settled at the small table in the center of the room. “How do we start?”
He joined her at the table, taking the chair opposite her. “There are certain aspects of the case that we should cover first. The detective reopening the investigation will be moving quickly—if he’s any good at all. If we can prevent it, we don’t need to let him get ahead of us.”
“Makes sense.” She sipped her coffee.
He sure hoped she would understand the necessity of what he was about to propose. “It’s important that our first move is a visit to where the murder happened.”
Her eyes widened with something like disbelief. “We have to do that now? Today?”
“It’s imperative, yes,” he confirmed. “I wouldn’t ask otherwise.
And although the agency has rented the cottage for the week, we can’t be sure at what moment the police will step in and reseal it as a crime scene for the purposes of their investigation.
If that happens, it will be difficult—maybe impossible—to get in. ”
A slow, vague nod, then, “Okay. If that’s what it takes, then I can get through it.”
There was that determination he’d noted in what he’d read about her background. “Good.”
She studied him a moment, her face clouded with uncertainty as if trying to articulate what was on her mind.
Finally, she said, “I don’t want to sound as if I’m doubting your decisions about how to proceed, but it’s been a little over two years.
Really, what do you expect to find? If the police didn’t find any evidence in the days immediately following what happened, how can you expect to at this point? ”
He wasn’t sure his explanation would set her any more at ease. “It’s not as much about what we might find as far as physical evidence as it is about what you might remember by being in the place where it happened.”
She drew back a little. “I told the police everything I remembered. The drug those…men used left me in sort of a brain fog. In and out of consciousness.” She shook her head. “I can’t imagine recalling anything new now.”
The drug, Rohypnol, used the way it was—injected—could have killed them both.
During trial, the prosecutor had gone so far as to suggest Rory had a drug problem and that maybe she had drugged her husband.
It was possible, they had claimed, that it was the drugs that caused the night to turn violent.
The scenario had been presented as if the husband had realized what his wife had done and grown upset, and she may have lashed out more violently than intended.
Not impossible, Chance mused, but highly unlikely.
“But you might,” he countered, shifting his thoughts back to the here and now. “All it takes is one little thing to turn the case around.”
She closed her eyes, drew in a big breath, then let it out. “You—” she opened her eyes once more “—don’t understand. I have dreamed about what happened nearly every night for the past two years. It is always the same…always exactly what I told the police back then.”
“The mind has a way of protecting itself,” he explained.
“Sometimes there are things our brains hold back to prevent the pain we might not be able to tolerate. Other times, that hidden thing only needs a little prompt or a little time to push it out where we can see it. Going there, walking in the room…touching the things you touched that night might trigger a memory you buried so deep that it has never surfaced even in your dreams.”
She held his gaze for a long moment, and he was startled all over again by the barely there shade of blue. “As much as I wish it didn’t,” she admitted, “what you say makes sense.”
“We can grab breakfast en route,” he offered, “if you’re prepared to go now.”
“Sure.” She finished off her coffee and took the cup to the sink.
He checked the back door and secured the dead bolt, while she gathered her phone and went to the front door. He met her there, waited for her to go out first. Once they were down the porch steps, she surveyed the damage to the house.
She winced. “God, that’s pretty awful.”
“We can clean it up when we get back. We’ll need to stop for a few things, but it shouldn’t be that difficult.
” He turned his attention to the window.
“The window will be a little more complicated. We’ll have to find a shop that can cut the glass to the proper size.
A little glazing putty, and that’ll do it. ”
“Sounds like a good plan.” She turned and headed for his car.
She wasn’t convinced that any amount of work would do it, he suspected. Not when it came to her life. He got how she would feel that way. It was really hard to put your life back together when others kept knocking you down. She had been knocked down at every turn after her husband’s murder.
Just maybe, he could change that. For today, he would settle for a single glimmer of tangible hope she could grab on to.
In the end it would take more than hope to turn this situation around. Especially when logic dictated there was no doubt someone out there who didn’t want the story to change.