LITMIR.BIZ

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blood trail for Mama to follow.

      She held her breath, lungs aching, and listened. The angry shouts had died away a few minutes ago, the only sounds in the now-still house were the soft thud-thud of footfalls on the kitchen floor above.

      Her mind was filled with images too grotesque, too profane to process. A whimper hammered against her throat but she crushed it ruthlessly, determined to remain soundless.

      She heard Mama’s hoarsened voice from the kitchen above. “Kristy, I know you’re still here. Nobody goes outside today. Come here to Mama.”

      Kristen pressed her forehead to the cold brick wall behind the panel and prayed without words, a mindless, desperate plea for mercy and help.

      The door to the cellar opened.

      Kristen jerked awake, her heart pounding. She scraped her hair back from her sweaty brow and stared at the shadowy shapes in her darkened bedroom, half-afraid one of them would move. But everything remained quiet and still.

      On her bedside table, green glowing numbers on her alarm clock read 5:35 a.m. She’d managed about four hours of sleep. More than she’d expected.

      She switched on the bedside lamp, squinting against the sudden light. Her fingers itched to grab the cell phone lying on the table next to her, but she squelched the urge. Foley wouldn’t appreciate a predawn call, and it wasn’t as if she had anything to tell him anyway.

      As of midnight, when Kristen and Foley called it a night, Cissy Cooper was still unconscious in a Birmingham hospital, her prognosis guarded and uncertain. Sam Cooper and his daughter were spending the next few nights at his parents’ place on Gossamer Lake. The crime scene had offered up plenty for the lab to sift through but no obvious smoking gun. And Kristen had at least two more hours to wait before she could decently start following up on the few leads she and Foley had to work with.

      She’d start with the ex-wife, she decided sleepily as she stepped into the shower and turned the spray on hot and strong. Sam Cooper had seemed certain the former Mrs. Cooper wasn’t a suspect, but Kristen believed in playing the odds. Family members—primarily noncustodial parents—were involved in the majority of child kidnappings. And from what little Cooper had revealed during their brief discussion the night before, Kristen had gleaned that Norah Cabot Cooper hadn’t seen her daughter in nearly three years.

      She was in the middle of dressing around 7:00 a.m. when her cell phone rang. Stepping into a pair of brown trousers, she grabbed the phone. “Tandy.”

      “Sam Cooper here.”

      Her feet got tangled in the trousers and she stumbled onto the bed, hitting it heavily. “Mr. Cooper.” She’d given him her business card, with her cell phone number, but he was the last person she’d expected to hear from this morning. “Has something happened?”

      “I’m not sure,” he said. “Maybe.”

      She tucked the phone between her chin and shoulder and finished pulling on her pants. “Maybe?”

      “My secretary called from my office in Birmingham. She got in early today and found a package for me sitting in front of my office door.”

      “What kind of package?” Visions of mail bombs flitted through her head. Maybe an anthrax letter. Cooper was a county prosecutor, almost as good a target as a judge or a politician.

      “No return address. No postal mark. Right now building security is examining it, and if they think it’s a threat, they’ll call the cops. But I thought you’d want to know.” Sam sounded tired. She doubted he’d managed even as much sleep as she had. “I should probably go into the office, but—”

      “No, stay with your kid. If it turns out to be anything we need to worry about, I’ll handle it.”

      There was a pause on the other end of the phone. “I don’t want this case mucked up by police agencies marking territory.”

      If that was a warning, she could hardly blame him. She’d seen her share of interagency wrangling during her seven years as a police officer. “I’ll call your office when I get to work, and if I think the package is remotely connected to this case, I’ll go to Birmingham and sort it out myself.”

      “Thank you.” After a brief pause he added, “Maddy liked you. You made her feel safer last night when you talked to her. I know that was probably hard on you, considering—you know.”

      Her heart sank. So he did know who she was. Everybody in Gossamer Ridge knew. Oh, well, the brief anonymity had been nice while it lasted. “It’s my job,” she said gruffly.

      “Thank you anyway.” He rang off.

      Kristen closed her phone and released a long breath. He was right. It had been hard dealing with Maddy. Kids in general, really. The psychiatrists had all assured her the prickly, uncomfortable feeling she had around young children would go away eventually, as her memories of that horrible day faded with distance.

      Only they hadn’t faded. The pain had receded, even most of the fear, but not those last, wretched memories of her brothers and sisters.

      Their last moments on earth.

      She arrived at work in a gloomy mood and found Foley sitting at her desk, jotting a note. He looked up with a half smile. “Ah, I was about to leave you a note. One of Sam Cooper’s neighbors called, said she might have seen someone suspicious lurking around the Cooper house earlier in the evening. I thought I’d go hear her out. Let’s go.”

      “Let me make a phone call first.” As she looked up the number for the Jefferson County District Attorney’s office, she told Foley about Sam Cooper’s call. He arched an eyebrow but didn’t speak while she waited for someone to pick up. After several rings, voice mail picked up.

      “Maybe they’ve cleared the building, just in case?”

      Kristen left a brief message, then dialed Sam Cooper’s cell phone number.

      He answered on the first ring. “Detective Tandy?”

      “I got voice mail when I called your office.”

      “I know. I managed to get a colleague on his cell. They’ve evacuated the building and the bomb squad is examining the package. Tim promised to call me back as soon as he knew something more, but this waiting is driving me nuts.”

      “I’ll drive down to Birmingham and check it out for you.”

      “I’ll meet you there.”

      “Shouldn’t you stay with your daughter?”

      “Jake and Gabe took her and my nephew Mike fishing to keep their minds off what’s going on with Cissy. They’ll be out on the lake all morning.”

      “You should’ve gone with them.”

      His soft laugh was humorless. “I’d be on the phone the whole time anyway.”

      “Then why don’t you ride along with me?” Kristen supposed he might be of use to her if the Birmingham Police didn’t want to play nice.

      “Okay,” he agreed. “Do you know where Cooper Marina is?”

      “Yeah. See you in fifteen minutes.”

      KRISTEN TANDY’S CHEVROLET pulled into the marina parking lot with a minute to spare. Sam didn’t wait for her to get out. “Where’s Detective Foley?” he asked as he slid into the passenger seat.

      She cranked the engine. “Talking to a neighbor of yours. Might be a lead.” She didn’t sound convinced.

      “I talked to my colleague again just before you arrived.” Sam buckled in as she headed toward the main highway. “Bomb squad’s still inside. Nobody seems to know anything yet.”

      “Don’t imagine it’s a job you’d want to rush.”

      He slanted a look at her. Her eyes were on the narrow road twisting through the woods from his

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