Page 124 of The Night Before (Savannah 1)

“I tried a couple of times. Should have pushed it,” Morrisette admitted, frowning and reaching for her cigarettes. She and Montoya lit up, cracking the windows of the Crown Victoria. “I went to the office twice, figured I’d catch him there. Called just yesterday.”

“But he never called back.”

“Nope.”

“Let’s find him. Give him the news that his wife or ex-wife is dead.”

Reed wondered how the guy was involved. If he was involved. The police would find out if a missing persons report had been filed, if Hunt and Wade had been married at the time of her death, if he’d been around before, if there was a will, insurance money or another man or woman involved. He remembered seeing Hunt on the doorstep of Caitlyn Bandeaux’s house, kissing her as if they were lovers. He gave the Crown Vic a little more gas and discussed Adam Hunt and what they were going to do about him all the way back to the city.

He pulled up in front of Caitlyn’s house, where the search was still going strong. Handing the keys to Morrisette, he said, “Check out Hunt. Tell him about Rebecca Wade. Find out what he knows. I’ll catch a ride back with Metzger.” To Montoya he said, “You can go with her if you like . . . make sure she doesn’t get into any trouble.”

“Blow it out your ass!” Morrisette said with a twinkle in her eye. “Make that your big, hairy, effin’ ass.”

One of Montoya’s eyebrows arched.

“Don’t ask. She can tell you all about her deal with her kids on the way over to Hunt’s. It has to do with a kitty-cat bank.”

“Hello Kitty,” she said as Reed climbed out of the car and Morrisette took over the wheel.

“Wear your seat belt,” he advised Montoya, then slapped the side of the car and hurried up the brick walk. From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a news van rolling toward the house. Great. Just what he needed.

Before the reporter could clamber out of the van, Reed was inside the house, the door closed firmly behind him. The detectives had taken the liberty of putting the little dog in his kennel in the laundry room and, according to Landon, “The mutt hasn’t shut up for a minute. Always with the yapping!”

“The owner hasn’t returned?”

“Not yet,” Landon said. He was big, black and beautiful, as they used to say. Tall enough to have played college basketball and smart enough that when the NBA didn’t come knocking, he’d earned himself a B.S. in criminal justice. Landon was taking law classes at night and had his eye firmly on Katherine Okano’s job. He shaved his head these days, sported a soul patch and had one of those sculpted bodies that only came from a military-like dedication to lifting weights. “Good thing we had a no-knock-and-search,” he said now.

Reed agreed. It would have been a pain if they’d been restricted by having to ask for Caitlyn Bandeaux’s permission. “You found anything?”

“No weapon, nothing like that, but come upstairs.” Landon led Reed to the second story. “Take a look here . . .” He pointed to discolorations on the carpet. “And in here. Check out the shower.” He nodded toward the bathroom, where the glass shower door had been cracked, the fissures radiating from a hole in its center. “We think the stain in the bedroom might be blood. We found a few flecks on the baseboard, so we’ve already called the crime scene team. They’re going to go over the place with Luminal.”

“Good. Check it out.” The Luminal test would prove if there had been blood on the carpet or anywhere else in the room. “And find out the type or types.” He was getting a bad feeling about this.

“Looks like a lot of blood,” Landon said. “But the victim was killed elsewhere, right—at his home? Could we have it wrong? Maybe he was killed here and transported.”

“Unlikely from the way the body was found, rigor and the way the blood had settled in his body, but the kicker is that someone took the time to stage his suicide in a clumsy attempt to make everyone think he’d slit his wrists, but there wasn’t enough blood at the scene or in his body to explain it.”

Landon snorted. “You were missing blood?”

“Yep.”

“My guess is you just found it.”

“Hannah?” Caitlyn called, knocking loudly on the door of the old house she’d once called home. She was worried. Hannah hadn’t returned her calls, and Caitlyn had spent most of the day trying to track her down. First in town at the few places she hung out, because she hadn’t answered; then, finally running out of options, she’d left another message saying she was coming to the house and would wait for her baby sister. She didn’t like the idea of Hannah living out here in the middle of nowhere in this old, empty, falling-down mansion. There were rust spots on the down spouts, shutters listing from the windows, mortar crumbling away from the bricks of the wide front porch. Where once this house had held a huge family, it now was nearly empty. Only Hannah remained, and that wasn’t good. No one her age should be tucked away in this old dilapidated museum of a home. When her sister didn’t answer, Caitlyn walked to the back of the house where the table and chairs were positioned on the wide back porch. It had been only days since she’d sat here, her mother in one chair, worried whether Caitlyn would be charged with murdering her husband.

Good Lord what had happened in those few days?

And what about last night? What had happened then? One minute you were kissing Adam, fairly throwing yourself at him, really getting it on, and the next you don’t remember anything, you blacked out again, lost hours . . . hours. How?

She didn’t want to think about the blackouts; they were coming too close together, too often, her life spinning out of control. It was stress, that was it. The police were breathing down her neck, she was guarding this incredible secret about all of the blood she’d found the morning after Josh was killed, her mother had been murdered and now . . . oh, God, now, she was worried about Hannah.

She had a key. One she’d never given back when she’d moved out. Finding it on her key ring, she decided to let herself inside. She pushed the door open and walked into the house. Her heart tightened as she glanced at the table where she’d eaten breakfast with her siblings before school, saw the hooks by the back door where their backpacks and jackets had hung.

The floorboards creaked beneath her feet, and though it was still light outside, the clouds had covered the sun and the broad porches flanking the first floor had cooled the house and shaded the windows, making it seem dark. “Hannah?” she called, but heard nothing. The house felt empty and yet . . . did she hear music or a television on? Playing from somewhere upstairs? “Hannah? Are you home?”

Her cell phone rang and she jumped, then chided herself for her case of nerves. This old manor had been her home; she’d grown up here. And bad things had happened here. Along with the good. You remembered the nights you hid beneath the bed, the menacing footsteps in the hall outside your door, the frightening shadow that would pass, blocking the slice of light under the door as they moved on the other side . . . monster . . . brother . . . Charles with his hot breath and rough hands . . .

She was breathing fast now, adrenalin pumping through her blood. The phone jangled sharply and she gasped, then dug through her purse and dragged it out. “Hello?” she said breathlessly as she hit the talk button. Silence. Oh, no, not now. “Hello?” Nothing. She clicked off quickly. Shut the damned thing off. Whoever had decided to terrorize her knew her cell phone number. How much more? What other intimate details of her private life did they know?

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