The Coldest Fear

Bobbie moved from the entry hall with its elegant curving staircase leading up to the second floor to the parlor on the right. She rubbed her arm against her side, pushing the sleeve of her sweatshirt down over her fingers before reaching under the nearest lampshade to switch on the light. The expected sophisticated furnishings were gathered around an equally stylish stone fireplace that spanned the full height of the room—at least twelve feet. She listened again before progressing across the entry hall to the next room, a library. Floor-to-ceiling rows of bookshelves stood where the fireplace would be and distinguished the room from its near mirror image across the hall. No sign of a struggle or that anyone had combed through the space. Other than the open front door, all appeared to be in order.

One by one Bobbie advanced through room after room, calling the owner’s name and bumping a light on with her elbow in each one. Clear.

Since she’d found no sign of foul play or of the homeowner so far, Bobbie suspected Zacharias had in fact gotten the hell out of Dodge. His statement about Weller’s escape had played over and over on every available media outlet the past forty-eight or so hours.

I am shocked and saddened by this turn of events. No one will be safe until Randolph Weller is caught.

“That includes you, Zacharias.”

Bobbie imagined he was well aware of the imminent danger. Under the circumstances, she had known finding him was a long shot but she’d had to try. He hadn’t been answering his phone. No-damned-body had been answering their phones—including you, Bobbie. Her calls to Nick as well as to Special Agent Anthony LeDoux had gone unanswered. Her instincts told her LeDoux was in one way or another up to his eyeballs in this, too.

As much as she wanted to trust LeDoux after what they’d been through together, she couldn’t. The secret the two of them shared was like an open, festering wound deep below the surface where no one else could see. Like cancer, eating them up one inch at a time and at the same time making them dangerously reckless.

Like not calling backup in a situation like this one.

Exiling the warning voice honed by years of investigating homicides, she moved deeper into the house. Just off the kitchen and tucked beyond the family room, she found the attorney’s study. Bookshelves lined one wall. Framed photographs of the family that had abandoned him sat in a neat arrangement on one corner of the desk. The blotter was a clean, crisp expanse of white marred only by the fallen blooms from the floral arrangement that sat next to it, a smaller version of the one in the entry hall. To the right of the desk was a set of French doors.

Open French doors.

Shit. Bobbie’s fingers tightened on her Glock. She executed a three-sixty, scanning the room.

No movement. No sound.

For a moment she considered calling it in, but she had crossed the line coming into the house. There had been no true exigent circumstances. Knowing her chief, he’d put out a BOLO on her and the Atlanta PD would be on the lookout for her already.

Check the files in the study and get the hell out.

Zacharias could very well be on a private jet headed for some tropical island whose laws didn’t include an extradition treaty with the US.

Or Weller had taken him.

With the second set of doors left open, foul play was the more likely of the scenarios. No way two doors in this mansion had faulty locks. Even if Zacharias had been in a hell of a hurry, why leave both doors unlocked and open?

Hold on. She hadn’t been upstairs. Was someone up there stealing his Rolexes and platinum cuff links at this very moment? Zacharias could very well be dead in his bedroom. It was the middle of the night after all. Bobbie braced her back against the nearest wall to ensure no one came up behind her. Too quiet. A thief would have heard her calling out to Zacharias.

A spot on the floor near the desk snagged her attention, then another spot and another. Red wine maybe? Not so lucky.

Blood.

She visually traced the pattern of splatters, a stark crimson on the champagne-colored rug. The blood trail led around the large mahogany desk.

Adrenaline stinging her senses, she followed the path her gaze had taken, glancing over her shoulder repeatedly and taking care not to step in the blood. The amount of blood increased exponentially as she drew closer to the other side of the desk, as if the bleeder had lingered there. At this point the urge to fish out her cell and call 911 was fierce, but she ignored it.

Not yet.

Behind the desk the trail of blood became a series of small puddles. The phone that had been blocked from her view by the floral arrangement had been dragged to the edge of the desk, the handset dangling from its curly cord. Blood was smeared on the keypad; crimson fingerprints encircled the handset.

Holding her breath in an attempt to slow the pounding in her chest, she listened for the slightest noise as her eyes traced the path of blood that continued beyond the desk and out the open French doors.

“I repeat, this is nine-one-one, what is the nature of your emergency?”

Bobbie’s attention snapped back to the phone. What the hell?

“If you can hear me...”

She reached for the handset.

“...we’re sending—”

The dispatcher’s voice silenced mid-sentence.

Bobbie twisted and leveled her Glock on whoever had entered the room.

“What the hell are you doing, Bobbie?”

Special Agent Anthony LeDoux. His fingers still rested on the switch hook in the phone’s cradle, severing the connection.

“What the hell are you doing, LeDoux?”

Better question, how the hell had he sneaked up on her like that? Sleep deprivation is making you sloppy, Bobbie.

The agent held up his hands. “How about you put your weapon away and we’ll talk about the reason we’re both here?”

She glanced at the open doors. “We should be looking for whoever all that blood belongs to, not debating our respective motives for breaking and entering.”

“I’ve already looked around inside and out,” LeDoux said. “No one’s here. I’d be gone, too, except as I headed for the back door I heard someone come inside. I hid in the pantry you walked right past. You’re losing your edge, Detective.”

Anger and frustration seared through Bobbie. “Fuck you. Where’s Zacharias?”

“I can tell you that the illustrious task force assembled to find Weller doesn’t have him.” He shook his head, his face tightening with distaste or something on that order. “I can’t believe the son of a bitch wasn’t under surveillance.”

Bobbie glanced at the open doors again before shifting her attention back to LeDoux, only then realizing her Glock was still aimed at his chest. Deciding she wasn’t ready to surrender the upper hand, she held her bead on the FBI agent. His story was a little too pat for her comfort. He just happened to be going out of the house as she was coming in? The only time she had witnessed timing that perfect was at a Broadway play she and her husband, James, had attended when they’d gone to New York City for Christmas the year before Jamie was born.

LeDoux was lying.

So she asked him again, “If Zacharias is gone, who bled all over the carpet? The blood’s not even dry.” Though she hadn’t touched it, she had seen enough to know the dull, blackness of blood that had been spilled and then sat there for a while. Her gaze narrowed. “Who made that 911 call?”

LeDoux laughed. “I got no idea where the blood came from. As for the call, that was me. The phone was already off the hook, I just selected line one and entered the numbers. I figured it was the least I could do.”

A couple of scenarios elbowed their way into her thoughts, neither of which included his story. She restrained the urge to bombard him with the questions pounding in her brain. “You have no idea where Zacharias would go?”

“If I had a fucking clue where he or Weller might be, we wouldn’t be having this friendly conversation.” He sent a pointed look at her weapon.

Judging by the dark circles under his eyes, he’d had about as much sleep as she. His jeans and sweater were rumpled as if he’d been wearing them a couple of days. He hadn’t shaved recently and those bloodshot eyes provided considerable insight into the sustenance he’d chosen for survival lately.

“Have you heard from Nick?” Jesus Christ, the blood could be Nick’s. Fear spread through Bobbie’s chest like fire through a drought-stricken forest. Nick would no doubt have come to Zacharias looking for answers.

Don’t you dare die on me, Nick Shade. Too many had died already, damn it.