Path Of The Wicked Part 15

After filling their stomachs with eggs, pancakes, sausage, bacon, hash browns, and biscuits, the Sunrise members were too stuffed to even contemplate dessert. They settled their bill and then waddled outside into the crisp evening air. No one had arrived with a clever idea on how to get closer to the Door-2-Door volunteers.

"I'll see you all at Door-2-Door this weekend. Try to talk to the volunteers as much as you can while you work. See how they act with the clients. Watch where they go inside the house if they suddenly separate from you," Savannah advised as she accepted Jake's arm. "I'm hoping to have some information to share with you come Sunday morning as Jake and I are calling on Leo Sat.u.r.day night."

"You're a brave woman," Bryant praised Savannah.

Jake scowled. "Hey. I'm gonna be there, too, remember?"

"With your vanload of pipes!" Trish laughed.

The group exchanged good nights and dispersed to their cars, but Cooper and Nathan lingered behind.

"What's on your mind?" Nathan asked, slipping his arm around Cooper's waist.

Cooper gently pushed him away in order to look into his eyes. "I know what they said about letting the police look for the Civil War stuff in Frank's house is right, but I just can't hand it over without seeing for myself. I want to better understand the man who died. I want to be able to provide some answers to his son." She hesitated and then decided to trust Nathan with her decision. "I'm going over there tonight. To Frank's house."

Nathan didn't speak right away, but his expression showed his internal conflict. His warm brown eyes searched her face for a few moments and then, finally, he nodded. "You aren't going alone."

"We can take my car." Cooper smiled in grat.i.tude. "I've got two flashlights in my toolbox."

They drove to Frank's house without speaking, letting the easy-listening station fill the silence with Celine Dion and Michael Buble's melodic crooning. As they headed east on the Interstate, Cooper noted a bank of ominous thunderclouds in her rearview mirror. She felt a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as the memory of her dream of floating on a rus.h.i.+ng river toward the fearsome storm returned to her with fresh intensity.

Unlike her dream, however, Cooper was moving away from the storm at a rapid pace. Still, she knew that once they reached Frank's house and spent time searching inside for the sword and diary, it wouldn't take long for the cloud ma.s.s to catch up.

Feeling on edge, Cooper gazed out at the blue-black highway, trying not to pay attention to how much the road resembled a meandering river or that the dark trees encroaching toward the shoulder looked awfully similar to the sinister pines from her nightmare.

By the time she brought her truck to a stop two blocks away from the sad white house where Frank Crosby had died, a persistent breeze had sprung to life, carrying with it the scent of rain. Cooper retrieved the flashlights and she and Nathan walked hurriedly toward the house, looking over their shoulders to make sure they weren't being observed. Nathan headed straight for the front door, but Cooper grabbed his arm and shook her head.

"Not that door. Around back."

Nathan followed her through the overgrown strip of gra.s.s bordering the sagging chain-link fence dividing Frank's property from the adjacent house. As they pa.s.sed between the two bungalows, Cooper noted the illuminated window on the side of the next-door neighbor's home. The consistent flickering light and intermittent sounds of canned laughter suggested that its occupants were watching television. Based on the volume of the set, Cooper felt confident that there was little threat that the neighbors would overhear any activity taking place inside Frank's residence.

The warped wooden planks that made up the staircase leading to the back door creaked as Cooper set her work boots upon them. Flinching at the noise, she reached out and turned the flaking, bra.s.s k.n.o.b. It rotated, but the door remained firmly closed.

"Is it locked?" Nathan whispered.

Cooper tried the k.n.o.b again. "I don't think so. I can turn it clockwise as far as it can go, but it's like the door is stuck to the frame-like it was painted shut or something."

"Let me give it a shot."

Stepping back onto the gra.s.s, Cooper watched as Nathan leaned his right shoulder against the door. Holding the k.n.o.b with his left hand, he slammed his weight against the door. "Ow," he muttered and then repeated the motion several times.

Cooper glanced around nervously. To the west, a curtain of lightning set the sky aglow and then quickly disappeared. A fat raindrop fell onto the crown of her head as Nathan paused to rest.

"I've almost got it. Let me try something different." He placed his foot in the center of the door and gave it a mighty kick. The warped wood splintered at the top corner and, being off-balance, Nathan practically fell inside the house.

Stale air rushed from inside as they hustled into the shadowy kitchen. Cooper switched on her flashlight and moved around Frank's metal table and folding chairs, keeping the beam of light pointed at the floor. Even in the minimal brightness it was apparent that every cabinet, drawer, and shelf had been rifled through.

"This place is a mess," Nathan mumbled, stepping over a saucepot. "I'd hate to have the cops search my house."

"They'd probably knock all your action figures out of alphabetical order and damage the original packaging," Cooper replied in a lame attempt at levity. "You'd be in therapy for years."

She led Nathan from the kitchen to the bedroom, frowning as her flashlight revealed an unmade bed covered with crumpled clothes. A sour, putrid odor filled the room, as though none of the fabrics had been washed for years.

"Ugh. Smells like a men's locker room in here," Nathan commented. "I don't see a rocker. Let's go!"

Pulling her s.h.i.+rt up over her mouth and nose, Cooper said, "Not so fast. The Colonel told me that Frank kept the Civil War sword in his closet." She pa.s.sed Nathan the flashlight. "Hold this while I look through these clothes."

As Cooper rooted through soiled garments and mudencrusted shoes, she wished she had thought to bring along the work gloves from her toolbox. Every time she s.h.i.+fted a mound of clothes, the stench of spoiled food and body odor a.s.sailed her nostrils, but her search was in vain. There was no sword hidden on the floor or among the two moth-holed sweaters or the outdated blazer hanging limply from the wooden rod. The single shelf above the rod contained a few s...o...b..xes filled with random objects such as yellowed postcards, clip-on bowties, Christmas tree ornaments, a belt with cracked brown leather, and an a.s.sortment of old magazines.

"The sword is definitely gone." Cooper backed away from the closet and exited the bedroom. She pa.s.sed the only bathroom, relieved that there was no need to search there, and returned to the front room where she had met Frank Crosby for the first and only time.

She stared at the chair where he had taken his last breath and noticed a folded newspaper on the floor beneath the seat's right arm. Bending over, she picked up the page containing the comic strips and word puzzles and saw that the crossword was incomplete. The empty boxes seemed to emphasize the vacant house and the sudden absence of its owner. As she stared at the newspaper in reflective silence, the rain began to patter lightly, almost timidly, against the window and Cooper wished that it would fall with a violence forceful enough to mask her sniffles.

Nathan squeezed her shoulder. "You holding up okay?"

"I'm fine, thanks," she replied without turning toward him.

After wiping her face with her sleeve, Cooper continued toward the television set in the corner of the room. The appliance was positioned on top of a scratched bureau and next to the chest was a chairlike shape covered by a multicolored afghan. Cooper whipped the blanket from the rocker and beckoned for Nathan to bring the light closer.

She pressed her fingertips into the floral fabric, ignoring the dust being coaxed from between the tight st.i.tches as she worked her way across the seat. Finding nothing, she and Nathan upended the rocker and discovered a four-inch piece of brown packing tape covering up the upholstery across the back of the chair. Cooper eased the tape away and slipped her hand inside the rent in the material. As she reached upward, her fingers knocked against a hard edge. Pus.h.i.+ng her hand further into the chair, she winced as the tear in the fabric grew wider, but the damage allowed her to grasp the hidden book and pull it free from its fibrous prison.

"This is it." Cooper exhaled. She examined the parcel, which appeared to be wrapped in a thin, yellow towel.

"That's got to be the only yellow thing in this house," Nathan commented.

Cooper unfolded the old material to reveal the brown leather cover of a small book. She opened to the first page and read the fluid, black script: "The Diary of First Lieutenant Aaron Crosby."

"You did it!" Nathan reached for the book. "Here. I'll put it down my s.h.i.+rt so it doesn't get wet. Now let's get out of this place before the storm hits."

Together, they hastened from the house, closing the back door as firmly as possible. Despite the splintered wood, the door seemed to reinsert itself in its frame as steadfastly as before. For some inexplicable reason, Cooper was rea.s.sured by the fact that Frank's house wouldn't be exposed to the rain or other intrusions for the time being.

The flickering light from behind the next-door neighbor's curtained window echoed the lightning flashes above the roofs. Crouching low, Nathan and Cooper sprinted toward her truck as the rain intensified.

"What the-!" Cooper exclaimed, coming to an abrupt halt in front of the driver's side of her truck.

She stared dumbstruck at the words sprayed onto her door. Even as she processed the meaning of the letters written in fingerpaint, the rain was mutating them, dissolving them, erasing them.

But Cooper had had a chance to read them first.

SEEK & DIE.

And then the rain began to fall, the large droplets thoroughly obliterating the threat scrawled onto the crimson paint of her truck.

Nathan insisted on driving Cooper directly to his house.

"You're in shock," he told her, removing the wet car keys from her hands and leading her to the pa.s.senger door of the truck. "Now get out of the rain and let me drive."

The trip to his downtown row house pa.s.sed in a blur. Vacillating between rage and fear, Cooper couldn't think straight. Her hands were shaking and she would have killed for a cigarette, but she had given up smoking months ago.

Twenty minutes later, she stood mute in Nathan's living room, squeezing moisture from the ends of her hair.

"If we were in a movie, I'd be offering you a gla.s.s of brandy and forcing you to drink it," Nathan opened a small cabinet next to the fireplace. "But my bar's not that well stocked."

Cooper sank down on the couch and listened to the clanking of bottles and the clinking of ice cubes. .h.i.tting gla.s.s. Nathan handed her a tumbler.

"It's whiskey. Just a shot's worth, but it'll make you nice and toasty inside."

Numbly, Cooper swallowed the contents without pausing for breath. The alcohol burned a trail down her throat, warming the pit of her stomach and allowing her to gain control over the tremors moving through her body.

Gently, Nathan pried the tumbler from her hands and pulled her to him. At first, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close, saying nothing, but then he began to stroke her hair. When he kissed her on the smooth skin of her forehead, she raised her lips and captured his in her own.

Nathan's response was light and tender, but Cooper kissed him hungrily, opening her mouth greedily while pressing her body against his chest. Abruptly, she broke her lips away and began to kiss his neck, nibbling the soft flesh beneath his ear. Roughly tugging on his s.h.i.+rt, she slid her eager hands upward along the bare skin of his back, her mouth returning to meet his.

He denied her his lips. Instead, he kissed her in the soft depression between her collarbones as his fingers deftly unb.u.t.toned her uniform s.h.i.+rt. He yanked the fabric free on one side, exposing her shoulder, and she groaned as he traced a slow line with his fingertips from the ridge of her shoulder to the swell of her right breast.

They kissed again, heatedly, discarding their s.h.i.+rts onto the living room floor. Nathan unhooked Cooper's bra and, pulling it free from her body with one hand, cupped the base of her neck with the other in order to crush her torso against his. He lay back on the couch, allowing Cooper to fall on top of him, her hair forming a curtain against the light of the room's single lamp.

Breathing hard, Cooper brushed her fingers against Nathan's belt buckle. As she did so, he broke away. "Are you sure?" he asked her, his voice hoa.r.s.e with desire.

Cooper nodded, but didn't speak.

They stared at one another for a moment and then Cooper looked away, embarra.s.sed by her conflicting emotions. She wanted Nathan, but she knew that having been in such close proximity with a murderer was clouding her judgment.

"I want to do this for the right reasons," Nathan whispered into her ear, his breath sending s.h.i.+vers through her body. "I don't want to have s.e.x with you." He pushed a strand of hair from her face. "I mean, I do, but I want it to be . . . not s.e.x but . . ." He sighed in frustration. "This sounds so corny, but I want us to make love. I don't want to do this as a reaction to what we went through tonight."

Grasping the hand touching her hair, Cooper kissed the inside of Nathan's palm as tears welled in her eyes. "You're amazing," she murmured.

"No, you are." Nathan reached behind his head and, grabbing a chenille throw, used it to cover their exposed upper bodies. "I would have freaked out back at Frank's if you hadn't been so calm. Do you want to talk about it? The message?"

"What's there to say?" Cooper stated wryly, her heart still thudding double-time in her chest. She gazed up at the ceiling, her hand tracing slow, lazy circles across Nathan's chest. "The killer we're supposed to be tracking down knows our every move. We thought we were collecting clues, but this person's probably been one step ahead of us the whole time." She frowned. "How can we stop someone like that?"

Nathan sat up and gazed intently into Cooper's eyes. "For starters, we don't let them get to us. We're not going to put off by some threat written in paint. I'm going to brew some coffee and then we'll check out the diary you found. Tomorrow, you'll turn it over to the police. Whoever wrote that message on your car will be back at Door-2-Door on Sat.u.r.day . . ."

"So we're going to have to find a way to ask all the volunteers where they were tonight and hope we can narrow down the suspect list," Cooper finished his thought.

"Exactly." Nathan collected his s.h.i.+rt from the floor and then handed Cooper her clothes. "As for tonight, I think you should stay here. I don't want you to be alone after what's happened."

Cooper gestured at the balled-up uniform s.h.i.+rt on her lap. "I'll have to put my uniform in the dryer. It's soaked. And I'm going to have to drive home pretty early to change or everyone'll wonder why I'm showing up at Door-2-Door dressed for work!"

"Why don't you take a hot shower? I'll make coffee, start a load of wash, and lay out a pair of my pajamas for you." Nathan smiled. "I'll even make you one of my famous omelets in the morning."

Laughing, Cooper wrapped the blanket around her chest and tossed her s.h.i.+rt at him. "What woman could resist that offer?" Then, more soberly, she added, "I'm so grateful you were with me tonight, Nathan. If you weren't there, I would have been really scared. I feel . . . I feel like nothing bad can happen when you're with me."

"Then I guess I'll have to be with you a lot." He gazed at her tenderly and then jerked his thumb toward the stairs. "Now, go up there and get naked. I've got a lot of work to do."

13.

And in my dismay I said,

"All men are liars."

Psalm 116:11 (NIV) When the Sunrise group gathered in Door-2-Door's kitchen on Sat.u.r.day morning, they were all grateful to be out of the cold and damp. It had been raining since dawn and the precipitation was tinged with a winter's chill that drove all the volunteers directly to the coffee station.

Following Quinton's suggestion, each of the Bible study members made plans to ride with a volunteer they hadn't talked with much. Cooper chose Erik, the retired princ.i.p.al with a penchant for lake fis.h.i.+ng and online gambling.

"Can we take your car? I'm a bit low on gas," Cooper told him once their coolers were packed, flus.h.i.+ng slightly at the lie.

"Sure thing," Erik replied amiably. Even though Cooper was half his age, he insisted on pus.h.i.+ng the cart bearing the coolers and Sunday food boxes down the steep loading ramp.

Outside, the rain pecked at their exposed skin as they filled the back seat of Erik's SUV. As Cooper opened the door to the pa.s.senger side, antic.i.p.ating the dry warmth of the car's interior, she nearly sat on a bouquet of pink carnations arranged in a cus.h.i.+on of purple tissue paper. Luckily, Erik s.n.a.t.c.hed them out from beneath her bottom in the nick of time, laying them down on the floor of the back seat with the deliberate gentleness of a mother placing her newborn in a ba.s.sinet.

"Those flowers are lovely," Cooper commented, hoping to discover who they were intended for, but Erik deflected her question by complaining about the weather and the astronomical price of gas.

"Over three bucks a gallon!" He shook his head in disgust. "Drives up the price of everything else, too. Food. Services. Our heating bills are going to shoot through the roof over the next couple of months." He waved at a driver looking to change lanes. "I remember when my cost of living was half what it is now and I had a salary back then. Now, I've just got my pension."

"Is that enough to live on these days?" Cooper asked as casually as possible.

Erik shrugged. "I do okay. My house is paid off, so I don't have to worry about a mortgage anymore. I'm pretty handy and that keeps me from having to write checks to the repair man." He sighed. "I don't spend a lot on my hobbies, either, but I'll be buying gas for my boat even if it goes to five bucks a gallon."

"I can guess what one of your hobbies is." Cooper gestured out the water-splattered winds.h.i.+eld at the fis.h.i.+ng pole holders strapped to the front of Erik's SUV. "What are the others? I could use some cheap hobbies. I've gotten totally addicted to pedicures."

"Well, I can't say that's one of mine." Erik laughed. "I like to play poker on the Internet. It's free and I wouldn't waste good money on a card game where I can't see the other players' faces, in any case." Erik parked at their first delivery stop. "And I guess Door-2-Door is a hobby. I've been doing this since I retired. Only costs some gas and time, but I've worked for my community my whole life, so it wouldn't feel right to sit around and only see to my own needs now."

"And you seem to really like this route, too," Cooper stated, watching Erik carefully for his reaction. Although he quickly got out of the truck in order to retrieve one of the coolers, he couldn't disguise the rush of blood tingeing his cheeks red.

"Nice folks on this route," he murmured cryptically.

They delivered a meal to a Mrs. Lockhart, who lived in a tidy, one-bedroom apartment off Broad Street. Mrs. Lockhart was in high sprits and informed Erik and Cooper that her son and daughter-in-law were relocating to Richmond and had invited her to live with them.

"I won't be needing Door-2-Door much longer," she told them proudly and then reached out to Erik. "But I'll miss seein' you. You've always been so kind to me. I wish we had gotten to know one another better."

Erik squeezed the old woman's hand and smiled at her tenderly. "I'm glad to lose you to your family. We've got to move on now, ma'am. You take care of yourself, you hear?"

At least that'll be one less client for the Door-2-Door killer to prey on, Cooper thought with relief, hoping that Mrs. Lockhart's son would relocate his mother with alacrity.