Page 105 of Silent Threat
Then things went from bad to worse.
Cole remembered another question Ambrose had asked.
What’s your relationship with Annie Murray?
Why was Ambrose interested in Annie?
Cole thought of her stalker, her intruder, the hit-and-run that almost pushed her into the reservoir. And so far the police couldn’t pin any of that on her ex. Last Cole had heard, they were still pushing for a confession from Joey and Big Jim.
Cole held his hand out for the phone. “Find and detain Ambrose,” he told Dolan. “The police can help. I need to find Annie.”
Then Cole was running.
Chapter Twenty-Six
THE MAN WALKEDdown into his basement, holding an empty jar in one hand, a sippy cup in the other.
“Hello, Mother.”
The woman who had abandoned him in his childhood lay on the bed in a short, sleeveless nightgown. He kept the basement warm so she wouldn’t catch a chill.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked, setting the sippy cup on the bedside table.
She shook her head, her blue eyes widening with fear.
“Don’t worry. I’ll help you remember.”
He picked the leeches off her one by one as she shuddered with revulsion, tears leaking out of her eyes.
“Are you feeling better?”
She nodded. He’d trained her to do that, but sometimes she forgot. The curse of Alzheimer’s.
He set aside the jar of leeches, then treated the wounds on her thighs. He’d thought if he re-created the pain of childbirth, maybe she’d remember giving birth to him. She hadn’t. He’d have to try something else in a few weeks, when she fully healed.
Her wounds taken care of, he helped her sit and lifted the sippy cup—a strawberry-flavored protein shake—to her lips. He smiled as she drank.
“Aren’t you glad I found you in that home? It’s so much nicer for family to live together, isn’t it?”
Her straight, patrician nose—which he’d inherited from her—ran. He wiped it.
“I was going to bring someone home to meet you.” He sighed. “But she disappointed me. I’m afraid she won’t be able to join our family after all. Isn’t that a shame?”
Teary-eyed, his mother nodded.
Annie huddled in the garage with her animals while Rupert pounded on the roof. She didn’t want to leave them alone in the storm. Her garage was pretty sturdy, and she felt safe. Right now, the house was more vulnerable since the wind could tear the plywood patch off the back, leaving the inside open to the elements.
The storm raged outside, but Annie was too numb to care. Her heart had been broken into a million pieces that had fallen away like dead leaves from a tree. There was nothing inside her. She was empty.
She was so empty it hurt, with a sharp, pulsating pain.
She moved between the separate animal enclosures in her garage. She petted the llamas, scratched the pig behind the ears, gave the donkey a treat. She thought about opening the gates and bedding down with them, but Dorothy, the pig, had no respect for personal space. And if Dorothy was too aggressive, pushing her snout into the skunks, one might spray.
The garage had a metal roof, and the rain was insanely loud as the fat drops hit. The wind bent the locust tree next to the garage, the branches scraping over the siding. The noise was so bad, she almost didn’t hear when someone knocked on the door.
She could barely make out the dark shape of a man through the glass. Only one person ever came with her to take care of her animals. She hurried to let him in. “Cole.”
But the man who pushed inside wasn’t the man she’d expected.
