Chickasaw County Captive

Chapter Six

Tillery Park sat on the outskirts of Gossamer Ridge, Alabama, less a conventional city park than a protected patch of wilderness on the side of the mountain that gave the town its name. A few picnic pavilions dotted the park, as well as an old schoolhouse that dated from the late 1800s.

Beyond the schoolhouse, the land ended abruptly in a bluff overlooking Gossamer Lake and the houses that dotted its shore. A series of long stone benches stretched across the edge, only a few feet from the drop-off. At night, it was a favorite spot of the town’s teens, who considered moonlit walks spiced with the danger of walking the bluff’s edge to be the height of romance.

It was one of Kristen Tandy’s favorite places, too, though not for its romance. Ever since she’d been a young girl, Tillery Park had been her place of escape, first from her troubled home life, then later from the stares and whispers that followed her around town after the murders. Her notoriety never seemed to follow her here to the park, where she was just one of the handful of townsfolk who came here to enjoy the area’s wild beauty. People left her alone to think in peace.

She hadn’t expected to come to Tillery Park today, however. Neck-deep in the Maddy Cooper case, when she got out of bed that morning she’d planned to spend the day with Sam, Maddy and Maddy’s long-lost mother. She should be there now, instead of sitting on the hard stone bench, staring across the treetops below at the sparkling blue jewel of Gossamer Lake.

But that was before Carl’s phone call.

“The administrator at Darden left me a message,” Carl had said, referring to the state’s secure medical facility where her mother resided. “Your mother wants to see you.”

Kristen rubbed the heels of her hands against her burning eyes. Why now? Why, after all these years of blessed silence, did her mother want to see her now?

Her cell phone hummed. Carl again. She sent the call to voice mail and put the phone in her pocket again.

“Do you think that’s going to shut me up?” Carl Madison’s gravelly voice behind her made her jump. Her foster father stood a couple of feet away, holding up his cell phone. He had shed his suit jacket to accommodate the mid-May heat and humidity, exposing the familiar Smith & Wesson 686 Plus revolver tucked into a shoulder holster. He’d never gone to a semiautomatic like most of the younger cops. She hoped crime in Chickasaw County never forced him to choose a different weapon.

“How did you find me?”

He tapped the side of his nose. “Sniffed you out like a good detective. I mean, it’s not like this is your favorite place to run and hide or anything.”

Sighing, she edged over on the stone bench to make room for him. “You always did have an annoying sort of radar.”

He settled beside her, giving her a light nudge with his elbow. “I’m a cop, blue eyes. It’s my job to know where all the delinquents are.”

She managed a smile, though her stomach was twisting and roiling. “I just needed a break from day care duty,” she said, although if she were honest, she’d have to admit that watching out for Maddy was turning out to have pros as well as cons.

“Who’s minding the kid?”

“Her father, her mother and a passel of extended family.” Kristen couldn’t hold back a soft smile. “She has them all wrapped around her finger.”

“She’s a cutie.”

“She’s a sweet kid. Sam’s doing a good job raising her.”

“What did you think of the mother?”

Grateful for the distraction from her own problems, she gave Carl’s question the thought it deserved. “I think she’s very happy with living a sophisticated, high-profile, high-power life. I don’t think she sees Maddy or Sam Cooper as part of that life long-term.”

“What about short-term?”

She told him what she knew about Norah Cabot’s engagement to the Senate candidate. “The timing is interesting.”

“You think her overture to the kid is her way of neutralizing any bad press about having abandoned the girl?”

“You know me. I’m a cynic.”

“If you were really a cynic, you wouldn’t be so affected by the things that happen around you,” Carl said gently.

“You always think the best of me, don’t you?” She couldn’t hide the affection in her voice. Sometimes she wondered why she even tried. Distancing herself from Carl, the closest thing to a real father she’d ever known, hadn’t worked no matter how hard she tried. He always came back for more.

“I expect the best of you,” he corrected gently. “I know what you’re capable of.”

She looked away, feeling shamed and defeated. “You tried so hard to give me a normal life, Carl. But it was just too late.” She ran the pad of her fingers over the knotty scar on the back of her hand. “I’m not a normal person. I’m never going to be a normal person.”

“You’re too hard on yourself, kitten.”

Carl’s use of his favorite endearment for her brought stinging tears to her eyes. She blinked them back, refusing to go soft. Not now, when staying tough was more important than ever. “I’m just honest, Carl. Too much has happened to me, you know? I don’t have anything left to offer anyone.”

The sad look in his eyes hurt her, so she turned away, her gaze settling on the sparkling water of the lake. Cooper Cove Marina was on the park side of the lake, just out of sight beyond the curving point of land barely visible to the east. Sam Cooper and his daughter were probably still in the backyard with Norah, trying to get to know each other again after such a long absence. “I think Norah Cabot’s trying to be a mother to Maddy,” she said aloud, remembering the woman’s tentative overtures to her daughter. “She’s just not good at it.”

“You don’t think her heart’s in it, do you?”

“I’m not sure I’m qualified to judge.”

“Sure you are. You’re a cop.” Carl gave her another gentle nudge. “What does that cop’s gut tell you?”

“That Norah Cabot likes Maddy more than she expected to, but she doesn’t feel like Maddy’s mother. She probably never will.” Kristen toed the dirt in front of the stone bench. “Some things you can never change, even if you want to.”

Carl was silent for a long moment. When he next spoke, it was in a low, serious tone. “I think you should go to Darden to see your mother.”

“YOU WANTED TO TALK TO ME?” Norah settled into one of the armchairs in her room at the Sycamore Inn. Challenge burned in her green eyes as she waved at the seat across from her. “So talk.”

Sam ignored the invitation to sit. “Your fiancé is in a tough Senate primary battle with Halston Stevens. I know Stevens well enough to know he and his handlers will be looking for any dirt they can find on Stilson.”

“Graham is a puritan. There’s nothing to find.”

“What about his fiancée, the woman who abandoned her three-month-old child to pursue her career?”

Norah’s eyes flickered at his hard words, but she shrugged. “It’s not like I dropped her in a Dumpster somewhere.”

This time, he was the one who flinched. “God, Norah.”

“You think I came here to meet Maddy so that when someone asked, I could say, ‘Oh, I was just down in Alabama last week, visiting my adorable little girl. See-this is her latest photo. Doesn’t she look just like me?’” Norah leaned forward. “Does it really matter why I came? Does it change anything?”

“Did you engineer this excuse? Did you hire someone to threaten my daughter?”

“Our daughter.”

“My daughter.” Anger burned at the back of his throat. “Norah, I have never tried to keep Maddy from you. I’ve always said you could see her whenever you want. But so help me, if you had anything to do with what happened the other night-”

Norah’s eyes grew shiny, and her lower lip trembled, catching him off guard. “God, Sam, I know I was a terrible wife and even more useless as a mother, but if you think I could do such a thing-” She stopped short, licking her lips. “I suppose you think that a woman who could turn her back on her child would be capable of anything.”

“I just want to understand why you’re here.”

“Because I was curious, all right?” She looked down at her hands. “When the police called, and then you left a message right behind them, I realized my daughter could have died the other night, and I’d have to live with the fact that I’d never really known her. You know, a three-month-old didn’t even seem like a real person, but a four-year-old-I just-I didn’t want to have regrets.”

Sam stared at her, not sure whether or not he could believe her. There had been a time when he’d thought he knew her better than anyone else in the world.

Clearly, he’d been fooling himself. He was beginning to think he’d never really understood her at all.

“I didn’t do this, Sam. I swear that to you.” Norah leaned toward him, placing her hand on his arm. Her fingers were cool and light. “But I’ve been thinking about it, and I may have an idea who did.”

KRISTEN LOOKED UP AT Carl Madison, horrified. Had he really said she should go see her mother? “No, Carl.”

“You’ve never faced her. Not in all these years.” Though his expression was gentle, his gray eyes were hard, like pieces of flint. “I think it’s time.”

“I don’t owe her anything.”

“You owe it to yourself.”

She shook her head, rising to her feet. “We’re not going to talk about this, Carl. If that’s why you came here-”

“I came here to see about you. Period.” Carl rose and stood in front of her, reaching out one hand to tip her chin up, making her look at him. “I’m on your side, kitten. Always.”

“I don’t want to go see her.”

“Okay.” He let his hand drop to her shoulder and gave her a soft squeeze. “Let me take you to Brightwood for lunch.”

She managed a real smile. “Helen would kill me if I let you step into that diner. Think of your cholesterol, man.”

“She has you trained, I see.” Carl slipped his arm around her shoulder and walked with her to where she’d parked her Impala. He opened the car door for her, lingering as she slipped behind the wheel. His expression grew serious. “Kristen, if you want out of this Maddy Cooper assignment, I’ll arrange it. I shouldn’t have pushed you into it.”

She shook her head. “You were right, Carl. I need to do this. I think I can get a lot accomplished from the inside.”

“Good for you.” He gave her shoulder another squeeze, then stepped back, closing the door. He gave a wave as she put the Impala in gear and backed out of the parking space.

Reaching the highway, she headed south toward the office, remembering Sam’s promise to bring Norah to the station so she could question her alone. But before she was a mile down the road, her cell phone vibrated against her side. She checked the phone and found Sam Cooper’s phone number displayed.

She flipped the phone open. “Tandy.”

“Kristen, it’s Sam Cooper. I’m at the Sycamore Inn in town with Norah. How soon can you get here?” The tension in his voice made her stomach hurt.

“I’m about five minutes away. What’s up?”

“I was just talking to Norah about some of my old cases and I think we may have something.”

He was talking to Norah about old cases? Had he forgotten she was still a suspect? Tamping down her annoyance, she asked, “What kind of something?”

“A damned good motive for someone to use Maddy to hurt me,” Sam answered.

“HIS NAME IS ENRIQUE CALDERON,” Sam told Kristen the minute she entered Norah’s room, eager to get her input. “His son, Carlos, was here on a student visa six years ago when he raped and murdered a fellow student at Georgetown University. Two weeks ago, while serving twenty to life in a Maryland state prison, he was murdered by another inmate.”

He told her about the case, how he’d prosecuted Carlos Calderon despite his father’s multiple attempts to buy off judges and intimidate witnesses.

She listened carefully, her expression darkening. “And since you put Carlos in jail in the first place, you think Calderon wants revenge?”

“Absolutely.”

Kristen glanced at Norah. “Were you around at the time of the trial?”

Norah nodded. “I heard about Carlos Calderon’s death soon after it happened, but since Sam was down here by then, I thought he might not have heard about it.”

“How lucky for him that you had,” Kristen murmured. Sam didn’t miss the skepticism in her voice.

Neither did Norah. “What are you suggesting?”

“It’s a place to look that we didn’t have before,” Sam said firmly, drawing Kristen’s attention back to him.

“You said Enrique Calderon lives in Sanselmo,” Kristen pointed out, shooting another glance at Norah. “That’s quite a long reach.”

“He’s a man with a very long reach,” Sam countered. “Calderon is one of the most powerful criminals in a country with its share of powerful criminals. He’s behind much of the corruption that kept Sanselmo poor and dangerous for decades. He’s probably funding half the terror attacks El Cambio and other rebel groups are carrying out in Sanselmo right now.”

Kristen’s brow furrowed. “And he’s taking time out of trying to destabilize a whole country to kidnap Maddy?”

“Do you have a better theory?” Norah asked coolly.

“Maddy said the assailant was Caucasian,” Kristen added.

“Maddy wouldn’t know the difference between white and Hispanic,” Sam said.

Kristen looked a little annoyed, but she gave a brief nod. “Okay. I’ll look into his current whereabouts.”

“We’ve already got feelers out,” Sam said. “Norah has friends in the State Department.”

Kristen looked up at him. “We’ll go through our own channels,” she insisted. If she was bluffing, it didn’t show. Maybe she really did have her own channels, although he found it hard to believe a small-town Alabama police department could possibly have better intel than Norah’s friends at State.

“Were you the lead prosecutor?” Kristen asked.

“Yes,” he answered.

“So he would be likely to remember you by name, I suppose.”

“And with his son dying just a couple of weeks ago-”

“The timing is interesting,” Kristen conceded. “I’ll go call this in, get the ball rolling.” Tucking the folder under one arm, she pulled her phone from her pocket and walked across the room to make her call.

Sam watched her as she spoke into the phone, her voice too low for him to make out words. She looked tired, he thought, her face a little pale. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath her eyes, bringing to mind her earlier reaction to the phone call she’d received at his parents’ house.

The memory pinged his curiosity. Who had been on the phone? What had she heard to knock her so off-kilter?

He hoped it hadn’t been bad news. She’d had enough bad news in her life.

“Quite the poker face.” Norah’s voice was low and amused.

He drew his gaze away from Kristen to meet Norah’s bright green eyes. “Detective Tandy’s or mine?”

Norah smiled. “The sweet young detective, of course. You’re an open book, my love.” She nodded toward Kristen. “Her own channels? As if a little cop shop like hers could possibly know anything about an international crime lord.”

“You think we don’t have our own share of big-time crime in Alabama?” Sam murmured, not sure why he felt the urge to defend Kristen Tandy when he’d had his own doubts about the usefulness of her connections. “A Mexican drug cartel carried out a series of gang executions south of here not long ago. It’s a global economy, even for the bad guys.”

“That doesn’t mean Elly Mae Clampett over there can make a phone call and find out where Enrique Calderon has been for the last five days,” Norah scoffed. “She just doesn’t want to look like an idiot in front of you. It’s kind of sweet.”

Sam pressed his lips together, irritated by Norah’s constant stream of insults. “Kristen Tandy is not an idiot. She’s got good instincts, and she’s putting herself on the line more ways than you know to protect my daughter-our daughter. There are things you don’t know about her-”

As soon as the words escaped his mouth, he knew he’d made a mistake. Norah’s eyes lit up with wicked interest.

“What things?” she asked.

A knock on the front door saved him from having to answer. He opened the door to his brother Gabe, who was carrying Maddy on his back.

“Jake and Mariah had to take Micah to the doctor, so they left the rug rat in my care,” Gabe said with a grin.

Norah smiled. “Hello, Gabe.”

Gabe’s smile went a little brittle. “Hello, Norah.” He lowered Maddy to the floor.

“Uncle Gabe’s gotta go fishing,” Maddy announced as she reached up to Sam for a hug. Sam gave her a squeeze, shooting a quizzical look at his brother.

“I have a last-minute afternoon guide job,” Gabe said apologetically. “We were in town for ice cream when I got the page. I called Mom to see if she could keep her down at the bait shop, but Miss Priss caught sight of Detective Tandy as we were driving past and demanded to come here instead. I saw your Jeep and figured you must be here with your ex.” He gave a nod in Norah’s direction. “If it’s a problem-”

“No, that’s fine.” Sam shifted Maddy to his hip. “It’s about time I take her home for her nap anyway.”

“No, don’t wanna nap!” Maddy protested.

“If you don’t take a nap now, you’ll have to go to bed early tonight. And I have big plans for tonight, let me tell you.” He made a face at his daughter, knowing she couldn’t resist a tease like that.

Maddy cocked her head, her eyes bright with curiosity. “Like what?”

He lowered his voice. “It’s a secret.”

Maddy gave a long, frustrated growl. “I hate secrets!”

“You love secrets,” he insisted.

She sighed deeply and gave him a look that made his heart curl into a helpless knot. “Okay, Daddy.” She gave him a hug. He hugged her back, trying not to squeeze too tightly.

“I guess I’d better get going then,” Gabe said, nodding politely to Norah, then to Kristen, who’d apparently finished her phone call. He headed out the door.

“Quite the charmer,” Norah said drily.

“You’d be surprised.” Sam looked at Kristen. “Detective Tandy? Were you able to put out any feelers to your contacts?”

Ignoring Norah’s soft huff of skepticism, Kristen lifted her chin and met his gaze steadily. “Foley’s brother is an FBI agent whose area of focus is the identification and interdiction of South American drug cartels trying to set up shop in the states. Foley’s calling him to see if he can figure out Calderon’s movements over the last four days.”

Sam glanced at Norah for her reaction. Her expression was a mixture of disbelief and annoyance.

“Well, I’m going to get Maddy home for her nap. Detective Tandy, didn’t you want to ask Norah some questions?”

“Oh, terrible time for that,” Norah said firmly, grabbing her purse from the writing table. “I’m afraid I made an appointment with Limbaugh Motors just down the street to obtain a rental car while I’m here in town. Give me a call later and I’m sure we can arrange something.” She handed the room key to Sam. “Do lock up for me, Sam. I’ll pick up the key later this afternoon.” She breezed past them on a trail of Chanel No 5.

“Son of a b-” Kristen sputtered.

“Small ears,” Sam warned.

She looked up at him, her eyes ablaze. “I’m not through with that woman,” she warned, pushing past him through the door Norah had left open on her way out. Sam watched her go, enjoying the view of her denim-clad backside a little more than he should.

The next couple of days might turn out to be a lot more complicated than he’d anticipated.