Chapter Eleven
Bradly Retreat
Billie located the ingredients for making a salad in the fridge.
He’d put most of them away during the transfer of goods from her crashed vehicle so he was aware the needed fixings were handy.
Charly sat at the table staring at the note as if reading it over and over or analyzing it forward and back as well as from all angles would tell her who had left the warning on her door.
But he understood how that felt so he didn’t urge her not to…
It was impossible. When it came to something like this, the mind had a will of its own.
She suddenly pushed back her chair and stood, swayed just a little. Obviously, she was tired. Shaken. Sadly, he couldn’t fix that, either.
“I should be doing that,” she insisted. “You’re my guest.”
They had gone over this once before. She worried that it was his sister who was missing, and that he should sit while she figured out dinner.
She had even offered to order something to be delivered.
Each time he had ushered her back into her chair and told her the same thing he was going to tell her now. “It’s better if I’m focused on a task.”
It was true. The moment he stopped doing something—anything—his mind dragged out the hellish thoughts about his sister and just how bad the trouble she was in might be.
Dozens of questions about who had taken her and why.
Sheer terror that she and Martin were human trafficking victims who, like many others, would never be found or would be horribly abused and injured before being rescued.
He couldn’t endure those thoughts. He gave himself a mental shake to dispel the nightmare snatching at the edges of his mind. It was better to stay busy.
He’d checked his email and there was nothing new from his resources at the agency.
For now, there was little else anyone could do except keep digging for a lead.
Not an easy thing to do with his little sister missing.
He kept remembering the wedding and how happy she had looked.
Martin had been beaming as well. The man was deeply in love with Briana.
She’d made him wait long enough. Billie smiled to himself as he diced a tomato.
“What’re you smiling about?”
Charly’s voice drew him back to the present. He set the knife aside, tossed the tomato cubes onto the two plates where the lettuce waited.
“I was thinking about how happy Briana looked on her wedding day.”
Charly pushed in her chair and went to the fridge, withdrew a bottle of salad dressing and a container of turkey slices. “I’ll bet she looked really beautiful,” she suggested. “Martin must have been counting his blessings.”
Billie laughed. “I know he was. When Briana left for college she swore that no matter what, she was not getting married until she was too old to care about dating anymore.” He picked up a cucumber and started slicing it.
“An age she deemed to be about thirty, which she will turn on her next birthday.”
Charly laughed. “She sounds like a girl who knew what she wanted right from the beginning—to be in charge of her own destiny.”
“She was that for sure—still is,” Billie agreed, pride swelling in his chest. “When Martin asked the big question, she immediately launched into the conditions he needed to agree to before she answered.”
Charly rounded up a bag of croutons. “Did she share her conditions with you or your family?”
“She did. She spelled it all out at Sunday dinner the day after his proposal.” The cucumber slices went on the salads next.
He paused to look directly at Charly. “No children until she was at least thirty-five. No careers taking over their lives—especially after they had children. He had to kiss her and tell her he loved her every morning before they went their separate ways. They could never speak by phone without ending the conversation with I love you. No matter how many years of marriage passed.” He held up a hand.
“Oh yeah, and they could never part or go to sleep angry at each other.”
“Those are good conditions.” Charly nodded. “All married couples should follow those rules.”
Yeah, Billie felt the same way. It was far too easy to allow life to get in the way of enjoying those you loved.
“What about you and Alex?” He opened the container of turkey and prepared a few slices for the salads. “Did you have rules like those?”
“We did, sort of. We never laid them out the way Briana did, but it was sort of an unspoken guide. My parents were firm believers in not allowing the sun to go down on your anger—like in the Bible. My parents were an excellent example of what a good marriage looks like.”
Billie considered what he should ask next. He didn’t want to wade too deeply into sensitive territory but there were things he felt they should talk about. “What happened to your parents,” he began, shook his head, “there was never any real closure for you and your sister.”
The words came out more a statement than a question. Her expression shifted instantly to something distant and sad, no matter that sixteen years had passed. When did a person fully get over something like that? Maybe never.
“It was assumed that the shooter was someone my father had brought to justice at some point in his career—probably more recently than in the distant past. Probably not the perp himself but a friend or family member who actually did the deed.” She reached into a cupboard and withdrew two glasses.
“The investigation appeared to be thorough. I followed interim sheriff at the time Tully Malone’s work closely.
Whether it was to appease a devastated daughter or because he actually cared, he kept me up to speed pretty closely. ”
She said all this in a monotone that told him this was her practiced answer.
“But they never found any evidence. Not even a shell casing at the scene.”
“Nothing. It was fast and clean. I can only assume,” she went on, “that someone pretended to need assistance. Maybe a flat tire or some other car trouble. My dad would have pulled over to help and they were shot where they sat in the vehicle. The coroner estimated they had been shot approximately an hour before someone came along and found them.”
Damn. That was enough for now. “Since we haven’t been digging around in your parents’ case,” he offered, “I’m assuming that warning you received is about Francesca Andrews and the others.”
Charly chewed on her lower lip. The move had him thinking about things he shouldn’t have on his mind at a time like this.
His sister was missing…her new husband was as well.
And this woman was sticking her neck out, possibly making enemies with people she had known her whole life in order to help him.
She needed protecting, too…from him and what he’d come here to do.
“I guess so,” Charly agreed. “My parents’ case hasn’t been looked at in years.
It’s not like Jen and I have forgotten but there comes a time when you have to accept certain things, and not being able to find their killer was one we had to come to terms with or go crazy beating our heads against a wall.
” She hissed out a breath. Shook her head.
“I know how that sounds but for the first five or six years I spent endless hours making calls and bugging Sheriff Malone. My sister and I hired private investigators. We did everything we knew to do and found nothing. So we finally let it go. We had to. But we didn’t give up or forget about them.
We just made the decision to move on with our lives. ”
He reached out, squeezed her arm. “I completely understand. The two of you did the right thing. Your parents would have wanted you to get on with your lives. I’m sure you both realize this.
No matter how painful an event is, there has to come a point when you move beyond it enough to keep on living yourself. ”
She nodded. “You’re right. They wouldn’t have wanted us to live in the past. But I will never forget and I will never give up on finding something so I do a little research now and then.
Whenever there is a case anywhere near here that has similarities to theirs, I look into it.
I follow the social media pages of several people who went to prison because of my father.
” She shrugged. “I watch and I listen. Right now, that’s the best I can do. ”
“I’ll say it again,” he said, smiling, “you missed your calling, Charly Nix.”
She did a little eye roll. “You want tea or water? Or coke? I’m fresh out of beer.”
“How about some of that sweet tea you Southerners love so much?”
“Hey.” She reached into the fridge. “We all have our vices.”
Salads and glasses of tea on the table, they settled and dug in.
For a while they ate without talking. It had been a long day.
Billie thought about that note and tried piecing it into the puzzle he was putting together about Briana’s and Martin’s disappearances.
The note was clearly a warning about digging into the other missing women, which meant that the note was connected…
somehow to Briana and Martin. There was no other conclusion to reach.
“The way I see it,” Charly said after finishing off half her salad, “only one of a very small number of people could have left that warning.”
“Kerrick Rogers,” he suggested.
“Or his mother,” Charly countered. “Sheriff Malone. The only other people we discussed the subject with are Rob Decker and Paul Grant. We’d just left Paul’s home and driven straight here so I don’t think he would have had time to be the one. I can’t see Rob having any reason to be involved.”
“Kerrick could have called whoever he works with—assuming he’s involved with the disappearances,” Billie suggested. “That person may have left the note.”
Charly nodded. “That’s a possibility. I don’t think he would be the primary person running any sort of operation involving…”
She didn’t say the rest but they both recognized what they were talking about.