A Box Full of Trouble Read online

  “What are you doing out here?” he asked, moving toward the cat.

  Trouble darted back toward Tammy house, and Aiden followed. He didn’t want to seem like a stalker to Tammy, but he knew she’d want the cat inside. The only way to make that happen was to catch the cat and then ring the doorbell. As Tammy would say, he was 99 percent certain that she would appreciate his efforts. It was the 1 percent possibility that she’d be annoyed at being awakened that he had to risk.

  Trouble darted to the front door and began to claw frantically at the door. He rang the bell and waited. After a minute, he rang again. And again. The longer he waited, the more upset Trouble became. “Something’s not right.”

  He pulled his flashlight from his belt and examined the ground around the front door. When he was near the Hawthorne hedge, he saw the large boot prints that stopped him cold. Someone had been lurking in the hedges outside Tammy house, and from that vantage point, they had a clear view into the house.

  Aiden, too, could see inside. Trouble jumped to the window ledge and frantically began clawing at the window. It was obvious the cat was desperate to get inside, and Aiden feared the reason why.

  “Okay, buddy, I can beg forgiveness later.” He took off his jacket and wrapped his fist. He drew back and slugged the glass window, relieved when a pane shattered. In a moment, he had the house unlocked and the window up. Trouble leaped inside, and he was hot on the cat’s trail.

  Trouble wasted no time going to the den, where Aiden found several throws on the floor. A glass of wine had been knocked over. He recognized Tammy’s lipstick shade on the rim. He picked it up, careful to keep the small amount of liquid that remained in the glass.

  “Tammy!” He yelled her name as he checked each room, finally going upstairs. The house was empty. Completely empty. Yet her car was in the drive.

  Trouble snagged his pants’ leg with sharp claws and started tugging him toward the kitchen. “Where is she?” he asked.

  “Me-ow!” Troubled tugged harder.

  Aiden gave up all resistance and followed the cat from the den to the kitchen. When Trouble began clawing at the pantry door, Aiden opened it and snapped on the light. A cursory glance showed everything in order, but Trouble jumped onto a shelf and began meowing loudly.

  Aiden found a stool and climbed on top of it. When he had a good view of the top shelf, he exhaled. “Damn.” He reached to the back of the shelf and brought forth a small, dark bottle with a dropper cap. “Tincture of opium.” He read the label.

  “Me-ow!” Trouble demanded.

  “Okay, okay,” Aiden said. “We have to find Tammy.” He had no doubt she’d been drugged and abducted. When he had the wine glass and the small amount of wine left in it tested, it would show traces of the tincture, which in the past had been called laudanum. It was once a drug for coughs, pain, and general female troubles. But someone had used it to subdue Tammy. Trouble had all but told him.

  He checked upstairs and found nothing. Tammy’s bed was made. There was no sign she’d been in the room after she’d changed out of her work clothes. Someone had come by to visit, and that someone had to be a person Tammy trusted.

  Benjy/Rafe was in jail. Aiden could mark him off the list of suspects.

  That left Thad Brady.

  Aiden went back outside and examined the ground. He took photographs of the clear boot print, wanting to compare it to the print Tammy had found at the body dump site of Debby Caldwell.

  But first he had to find Tammy. Yet he had no clue where to look for her. Despite the late hour, he called Amelia Weatherford. “Amelia, Tammy isn’t home but Trouble is. Do you know where she might be?”

  “Tammy was here,” Amelia said, worry lacing her voice. “She came by for a holiday tea, and we were so happy when Reverend McNaughton stopped by. Thank you for sending him over. I believe he truly lightened Tammy’s spirit. She seemed worried and depressed.”

  Aiden swallowed. Frasier always seemed to be close when something happened. Lately, he’d paid numerous visits to Tammy’s house. Now he was claiming to be an emissary from Aiden? What was going on with the minister? “He said I sent him?”

  “Yes, to let Tammy know you were tied up with another awful murder. I haven’t been to church in a while, but I’ll make an effort now. Frasier is delightful. He had us laughing so hard we almost cried.”

  “Yes, he can be charming.” Aiden sighed in relief. He was grasping at straws now. It was logical the minister would try to comfort Tammy and Amelia.

  “Do you know where Tammy might have gone when she left you?” He tried to piece together the sequence of events after Frasier had called him to the back-parking lot of the church where Jessica Whiddon’s body was discovered.

  “I assume she went home. She had Trouble with her, and now he’s with you. She must have dropped him off. Is everything okay?”

  “I don’t know. I found Trouble outside and Tammy gone. But I’m sure she’s running a last-minute errand or something of that nature. I’ll track her down.” Aiden bent down to scratch Trouble’s head. The cat had been left at Tammy’s house—unwillingly if Aiden understood what the cat was trying to tell him. “Did Tammy drink anything other than tea?” he asked.

  “I’m not much for hard liquor,” Amelia said. “It was just the way I was raised, so it was only tea here. Is something wrong?”

  “If you hear from Tammy, please ask her to call me. It’s important.”

  “I will. Merry Christmas, Deputy Waters.”

  He returned her wishes but he knew the day was not going to be merry. In fact, he feared it would be the opposite. Unless he found Tammy fast.

  * * *

  Tammy came to with the sense of being on a roller coaster. Shadow and light flashed by like a crazy movie projector on her closed eyelids. Her head pounded and her stomach was queasy. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out where she was or what had happened to her. For a brief moment, she thought she might have drunk too much and was suffering the hangover from hell. But she remembered tea at Amelia’s, and then a single glass of wine in her own den with Frasier.

  “Sorry about the opium.” Frasier’s voice came to her as the sense of motion increased.

  “What? What’s happening?” she asked.

  “I’m tying up loose ends, Tammy. It’s what happens when you poke your nose into things that don’t involve you.”

  She heard him—clearly. But his words didn’t make sense. It was as if he spoke another language. Something that sounded like English but that had different meanings for the words.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I couldn’t risk that you might recognize me,” Frasier said softly. “A shame really. You aren’t my type, you know. Unmarried, no one to really grieve you when you’re gone. You just don’t fit.”

  “What are you talking about, Frasier?” Awareness was coming back to her. She was leaning against the passenger door in Frasier’s white church van. Somehow he’d managed to drug her to the point of unconsciousness, then load her into the van. And he was driving her out of town. She couldn’t see well, slumped against the door. But she didn’t hear the sound of traffic or anything that would indicate they were still within the city limits of Wetumpka. Which meant he was taking her out of town. That surely wasn’t a good sign.

  “Don’t play dumb, Tammy. You’re a lot of things, but not dumb. It’s just bad luck you were up on that ridge when I carried Debby up to dispose of her.”

  She knew better than to pretend she didn’t know what he was saying. “So you killed Debby. And Beverly. And Jessica. And how many more?”

  “Not enough. There’re still more who must die.”

  She forced her body upright. When she looked out the window, she saw woods and small pastures flashing past. She’d grown up in Elmore County, but she couldn’t place where she was. The road they traveled was paved, but there was no center line or other markings to indicate it was a state highway. This was a county road, one that cut through the
isolated areas of the rural area.

  “Why are you doing this, Frasier? Or should I call you something else because you aren’t Frasier McNaughton?”

  “I’ve grown fond of Frasier. Call me that. I have to admit, the disguise of a minister was inspired. I wondered if I could pull it off, but I seem to have a talent for preaching. I grew up learning scripture at my grandmother’s knee. She did love to have me perform for her lady friends.”

  “Where did you grow up?” She tried hard to keep her voice level as she looked out the van window, hoping for any landmark. The road they were on seemed to grow more and more isolated. They hadn’t passed another car since she came to awareness. And the trees seemed to grow closer to the road. They were driving into a canopy that totally blocked out the moonlight.

  “Why do you care where I grew up?”

  “I can’t fathom why you kill these young women. Why you bring such pain to so many.”

  “And you thought learning where I’m from would give you the answer.”

  She shrugged and realized that she wasn’t restrained in any way. That spoke of Frasier’s confidence that he could control her. It was more terrifying than being tied. “It’s a place to start.”

  “I loathe the idea of being psychoanalyzed by a book addict.”

  Her mouth was so dry she didn’t know if she could continue talking, but she had to. “I’ve read a lot of mysteries. This is always the part that readers enjoy most. Learning the motivation of a killer.”

  “And you think knowing that I grew up in Galena, Illinois will help you figure me out. Maybe I was influenced to kill because Ulysses Grant was born there.” Frasier chuckled. “It’s an interesting theory. Maybe I’m possessed by the spirit of a dead soldier, one who lost too much. You never know, do you? Too bad you won’t get to tell anyone about it.”

  “What’s your IQ?” Tammy asked. She had to keep him talking. When he grew silent, she knew he was planning her death. “You’re probably off the charts.”

  “Mensa wouldn’t turn me down.” He glanced over at her. “Was I the high school intellect who was bullied and abused? Is that what drove me to become a killer?”

  “I don’t know. Was that it?”

  “I’m not such a pantywaist that I’d let a little bullying dictate my future.”

  “What broke you?”

  He slowed the car and finally stopped. “Why is it that I’m the one who’s broken? Because I do things others don’t like. Most successful people build their empire on the bones of others. If it’s financial rape or economic murder, no one sees it as a crime. Those people can destroy thousands of lives. Don’t you think that’s a little backward?”

  “Those are two very different things and you know it. And it doesn’t answer my question. Why kill anyone? How does it benefit you?”

  “It reaffirms that nothing good in life is permanent. Love can’t protect anyone.”

  “It’s never been a shield, Frasier.”

  He turned to her, anger showing in the tense muscles of his face. “What do you know? Too afraid to risk loving. I wasn’t! I loved with everything I had. I didn’t hide or run away. And when she was taken, I understood the lesson.”

  She’d tapped into the primal emotion behind his murderous spree, and she wasn’t certain that was smart. Frasier had abandoned the gentle demeanor of the minister she’d grown to like. Now he was edgy and aggressive, gripping the steering wheel and glaring at her.

  “Tell me about her,” she said simply, hoping she was taking the conversation in the right direction.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because if I keep you talking, I get to live a little longer.” She shook her head. “The human animal lives in hope, you know. I hope someone will find me. Someone will come to my rescue. Time is the only thing I have to cling to.”

  “No one is coming, Tammy. But don’t give up hope. That’s the thing I like to watch die in the eyes of the women I kill. It’s the reason I kill.”

  She wanted to cry and scream, but she couldn’t lose control. “So, tell me about her. What was her name?”

  “Belinda,” Frasier said, and an unexpected tenderness touched his voice. “We were engaged.” He looked out the window, and when he looked back, it was as if his soul had fled.

  “You killed all those women because your fiancé died?”

  “Not all of them.” Frasier’s grin was almost angelic. “Some of them my partner picked.”

  Chapter Twelve

  When Aiden returned to the patrol car, Trouble jumped in the front seat and put his paws on the steering wheel. The cat was ready to go, but Aiden had no idea where to start hunting Tammy. It didn’t make sense that she would be with Frasier McNaughton, but since her car was in her driveway, she had to have left with someone.

  Benjy Miller, or Rafe Wilder as he was legally known, was still in a holding cell while the charges against him in Nashville were being sorted. That left only one other suspect that Aiden had identified. Thad Brady. And the boot prints beside the house, the tag of camouflaged material he’d found earlier in the shrubs, those things pointed at Thad as a legitimate suspect.

  Aiden returned to Tammy’s with the intention of leaving Trouble in the house, but the cat jumped from the car and ran to Tammy’s vehicle. When the feline began batting at the driver’s door, Aiden opened it and swung the beam of his flashlight over the interior. Blood was smeared across the floorboard at the door.

  “I’ll radio for Rob.” He didn’t even feel slightly silly telling the cat his plan. Trouble had shown him the blood. The cat was trying to help Tammy.

  In the patrol car, Aiden was reaching for the radio when he heard Alma’s tired voice. “Unit 224, come in. We have another missing woman. The sheriff wants you back at the station pronto.”

  “Alma, tell Rob that Tammy Lynn is missing and there’s blood inside her car.”

  “What the hell is going on in this town?” Alma never swore, but she’d reached the end of her tether. “You have to find Tammy.”

  “I will,” Aiden assured her. “I will.”

  “I’ll call Bruce in to help with the search for Paula Scott.”

  “Paula Scott?” Aiden gripped the radio tighter. “That’s Thad Brady’s girlfriend.”

  “Right. He’s the one who reported her missing. He said he came into town to finish some last minute shopping and when he got back to his cabin, she was gone. Signs of a struggle.”

  “Did Brady happen to say where he’d been?”

  “No, but you can go pick him up and ask him if you think he might know something about Tammy. That’s what the sheriff wanted you to do.”

  “I’ll take care of it.” Aiden had no other leads, and he’d planned to head out to Brady’s place anyway. When he put the radio away, he saw Trouble standing on the sidewalk, tail twitching. He couldn’t leave the cat outside. If something happened to Trouble, Tammy would never forgive him. Besides, the cat was a surprisingly strong ally. “Hop in.” He patted the front seat.

  Trouble leaped over him, landing on the seat and sitting down. Aiden pushed aside any questions about the cat’s remarkable abilities. “I’m just going to accept it,” he said. “Now let’s ride.”

  He hit the lights and siren and headed toward the large stretch of property Tom Wells owned. If Thad Brady had any information about Tammy, he intended to find out what it was. With each mile that rolled under his wheels, Aiden found his certainty growing that Tammy had been taken against her will. Perhaps Frasier too. Had the minister gotten in the way of the SSK, or was it something more sinister.

  The radio crackled and he answered.

  “Aiden, it’s Rob. I have a ballistics report for you.”

  “On the bullet we retrieved from the site where Beverly Wells was dumped?”

  “Yes. The round was fired by a M24.”

  “That’s the weapon of choice for Rangers.”

  “I know. Be careful at Brady’s. If he is the SSK, then he’s got very little to
lose by killing you. I’m on the way to back you up.”

  Aiden turned off the lights and siren. If he was going to try to arrest a sniper, he didn’t want to warn Brady he was on his way. Since the SSK had been dumping bodies around the impact crater, Aiden had made it a point to study the maps showing drivable roads, ATV trails, creeks and bogs, and difficult terrain. He knew exactly where Brady lived near Windy Creek. He also knew that a little used forest trail cut behind the cabin and would give him the element of surprise.

  He turned off the county road, aware that he’d been driving through a tunnel of trees. As he took the even rougher trail, branches and brush beat against the side of the cruiser. When he came to a log across the path, he examined it to find that another vehicle had driven over it.

  Dawn was lighting the sky, and he knew he had to hurry if he hoped for the advantage semi-darkness would give him. He found a clearing off the trail and pulled in deep enough so that anyone driving by couldn’t spot his cruiser. He had no idea who might be coming and going to Thad Brady’s cabin.

  He opened the door and Trouble leaped to the ground. The cat headed back to the trail and walked west, not bothering to see if Aiden followed or not. Sometimes Trouble acted more like royalty than an ordinary cat. He expected Aiden to follow like a loyal serf. The cat definitely had a superiority complex. And he also knew the direction of the cabin. It was like he had some kind of homing device—and Aiden hoped it was leading them both to Tammy.

  As he trudged through the cold woods, he allowed himself a moment to reflect on his feelings for the bookseller. He’d done his best to push down his growing interest in her, to ignore the way she touched his heart. He’d kissed her only once, but it was enough for him to grasp that she staked a claim on his emotions. Given time and encouragement, he could fall deeply in love with her.

  It scalded him that he’d finally acknowledged this just at a time when he might lose her. Day late and a dollar short. That seemed to be his motto in life.