Cold Feet

“You used to be a cop, for God’s sake! A good one. I want you to come out here and find her, Caleb.”

Shoving his mouse away, Caleb turned in his new leather office chair to stare out the picture window that revealed a breathtaking view of San Francisco Bay. A panorama of blue-green, undulating ocean dotted with at least twenty colorful sailboats was spread out before him. “I live in California now, Holly.” As if to prove how necessary it was that he remain in his current surroundings, he added, “I have someone coming to lay new carpet next week.”

“This could mean Susan’s life!” Holly cried.

Another over-the-top statement? Given Holly’s penchant for theatrics, he figured it was…. “I’m not a cop anymore. I write true crime books. I don’t know what you think I can do.”

“I know what you can do,” she said. “I married you twice, remember? It’s almost uncanny how you turn up whatever you’re looking for. It’s a talent. You’re…you’re like one of those journalists who’ll stop at nothing to uncover a story.”

Caleb wasn’t sure that was such a positive association, but he let it pass because she was still talking.

“You could come if you wanted to. Lord knows you’ve got the money.”

“Money isn’t the issue,” he replied.

“Then what is?”

His hard-won freedom. He’d had to leave the Seattle area to get far enough away from Holly. He wasn’t about to head back now, even though his parents still lived on Fidalgo Island, where he’d grown up, and he loved the place. “I can’t leave. I’m in the middle of another book.”

She seemed to sense that he wasn’t going for the panicky stuff, and made an effort to rein in her emotions. “What’s this one about?”

“A girl who murdered her stepfather.”

She sniffled again. “Sounds fun.”

At her sarcasm, he felt his lips twist into a wry grin. “It’s a living. Somebody I know hated being a cop’s wife and encouraged me to go for my dream of becoming a writer.”

“And is that so bad? Now you’re rich and famous.”

But still divorced. No matter how much Holly professed to love him, he couldn’t live with her. She was simply too obsessive. He’d married her the first time because he’d thought they could make a life together. He’d married her the second time because his sense of honor demanded it. But beyond their initial few months together, their relationship had been fractious at best, and they’d spent more days apart than they’d ever spent as a couple.

“You should come back here and do some more work on the Sandpoint Strangler,” she said in a pouty voice.

“No, thanks. I’ve learned a bit since the early days.” Caleb started doodling on an empty message pad. “Now I typically write about crimes that have already been solved—by someone else. It’s a hell of a lot easier.”

“You helped the police solve the murder of that one young runaway, then wrote a book about it, remember?”

He remembered. Maria had been the most satisfying project he’d worked on to date, because he felt he’d made a real difference in achieving justice for the victim and everyone involved. “That one happened to work out,” he told Holly. “But it’s always a gamble, and I don’t think my publisher would appreciate the increased risk of having each book languish for years while I search high and low for a satisfying resolution.”

“But you were fascinated by the Sandpoint Strangler.”

He’d probably been more obsessed than fascinated. Even after leaving law enforcement, he’d continued to work the case, pro bono, with the hope of eventually putting it all in a book.

“You’ve said yourself, a hundred times, that working the investigation gave you an insider’s view you simply couldn’t achieve when you were writing about someone else’s case,” she went on. “I know a book about him would really sell. Nobody’s done one yet.”

“There’re still too many unanswered questions to make for interesting reading, Holly. People like a definitive ending when they purchase a true crime book. They like logical sequences and answers. I can’t give them that with the Sandpoint Strangler.”

“Things change.”

“I doubt there’s enough new information to make much of a difference,” he said.

“So you won’t come?”

“Holly—”

“Where does that leave me with Susan, Caleb?” she asked, her veneer of control cracking and giving way to a sob.

Caleb pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn’t want to let Holly’s tears sway him, but her distress and what she’d said were beginning to make him wonder. Susan had been his sister, too, for a while. Although she’d been a real pain in the ass, always getting herself into one scrape or another, he still felt some residual affection for her.

“Have you called the police?” he asked.

“Of course. I’m frantic!”

He could tell. What he didn’t know was whether or not her state of mind was justified. “What’d they say?”

“Nothing. They’re as stumped as I am. There was no forced entry, no sign of a struggle at her apartment, no missing jewelry or credit cards—at least, that we could tell—and no activity on her bank account. I don’t think they have any leads. They don’t even know where to look.”

“What about her car?”

“It’s gone, but I know she didn’t just drive off into the sunset. We would’ve heard from her by now. Unless…”

“Stop imagining the worst,” he said. “There could be a lot of reasons for her disappearance. Maybe she met a rich college boy, and they’re off cruising the Bahamas. It would be like her to show up tomorrow and say, ‘Oh, you were worried? I didn’t even think to call you.’ He rubbed the whiskers on his chin, trying to come up with another plausible explanation. “Or maybe she’s gotten mixed up in drugs. She was always—”

“She left her dogs behind, Caleb,” Holly interrupted. “She wouldn’t leave for days without asking someone to feed them. Not for a trip to the Caribbean. Not for the world’s best party. Not for anything.”

Holly had a point. Susan adored her schnauzers, to the tune of paying a veterinarian six thousand dollars—money she didn’t really have—for extensive surgery when one darted across the street and was hit by a truck.

Caleb rocked back and draped an arm over his eyes. He didn’t want to face it, but this wasn’t sounding good. Even if the Sandpoint Strangler was no longer on the prowl, something had happened to Susan. And the longer she was missing, the tougher it would be to find her.

“When was the last time you saw her?” he asked in resignation.

“Six days ago.”

Six days…Caleb propped his feet on the desk and considered the book he was writing. It wasn’t going very well, anyway. After piecing the whole story together, he was actually feeling more sympathy for the girl who’d committed the crime than the abusive stepfather she’d poisoned.

“All right, I’ll fly out first thing in the morning.” He hung up and looked around his crisp, modern condo. Shit. So much for putting some space between me and Holly.

Somehow she always managed to reel him back in….

M ADISON L IEBERMAN STARED at her father’s photograph for a long time. He gazed back at her with fathomless dark eyes, his complexion as ruddy as a seaman’s, his salt-and-pepper flattop as militarily precise as ever. He’d only been dead about a year, but already he seemed like a stranger to her. Maybe it was because she wondered so often if she’d ever really known him….

“Madison? Did you find it?”

Her mother’s voice, coming from upstairs, pulled her away from the photograph, but she couldn’t help glancing at it again as she hesitantly approached the small door that opened into the crawl space. She’d been raised in this home. The three-foot gap under the house provided additional storage for canned goods, emergency supplies, old baskets, arts and crafts and holiday decorations, among other things.

But it was damp, dark and crowded—perfect for spiders or, worse, rats. Which was one reason Madison generally avoided it. When she was a child, she’d been afraid her father would lock her in. Probably because he’d threatened to do so once, when she was only four years old and he’d caught her digging through the Christmas presents her mother had hidden there.

It wasn’t the fear of spiders or rats, or even the fear of being locked in, that bothered her at age twenty-eight, however. Ever since the police and the media had started following her father around, suspecting him of being involved in the terrible murders near the university only a few blocks away, she’d been terrified of what she might find if she ever really looked….