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No matter. Abby Conroy had just given Jack the first new lead he’d had in years. Maybe he’d have to say thanks…in person.
Jack’s gaze shifted from the monitor screen to the calendar tacked haphazardly to the wall. Nine days until Christmas.
The calendar illustration consisted of a holiday wreath draped over a cactus, no doubt someone in the Southwest’s idea of holiday cheer.
But the timing of the Don’t Say a Word posting gnawed at Jack.
Melinda, Emma and the other coeds had vanished during a ten-day period leading up to Christmas.
Had Boone Shaw decided to resurrect his own special brand of holiday cheer? And if so, why now? Why wait eleven years?
Granted, the man’s trial had dragged out over the course of two years, but after Shaw had gone free, he’d never so much as been pulled over for a speeding ticket again.
And Jack would know. He’d kept tabs on the man’s every move.
As crazy as the thought of Shaw sending a postcard to a secret confession site seemed, Jack had seen far stranger things during his years on the force.
He’d seen killers tire with getting away with their own crimes. He’d seen men who might never have been caught, commit purposeful acts to gain notoriety.
Who was to say something—or someone—hadn’t motivated Shaw to come forward now?
Jack rocked back in his chair, lifting the hand-carved front legs from the floor as the possibilities wound through his brain.
Truth was he wouldn’t sleep again until he’d held that postcard in his own hand.
He blew out a slow breath.
Christmas.
On the East Coast.
In the cold.
He supposed there were worse things in life. Hell, he knew there were.
He pulled up the Weather Channel Web site and keyed in the zip code for the Don’t Say a Word post office box. Then Jack leaned even closer to the monitor and studied the forecast.
Cold, cold and more cold.
Jack hated the cold.
Almost as much as he hated Christmas.
“Ho, ho, ho,” he muttered as he dialed his chief’s home number.
The senior officer answered on the second ring, and Jack didn’t waste a moment on niceties, clicking back to the image of Melinda Simmons’s smiling, alive face as he spoke.
“I’m going to need some time off.”
ABBY CONROY COVERED the ground between her post office box and the Don’t Say a Word office in record time. The morning air was cold and raw, teasing at the possibility of a white Christmas the region hadn’t seen in years.
“Good morning, Mrs. Hanover,” she called out to an elderly woman walking a pair of toy poodles, each dressed in full holiday outerwear complete with tiny Santa hats and jingle bell collars.
Now there was something worthy of confession.
Abby stifled a laugh and pulled the collar of her wool pea coat tighter around her neck.
The local retail merchants’ association had gone all-out this year in an effort to draw tourists into the Trolley Square section of town from the nearby attractions such as Winterthur, Brandywine Art Museum and Montchanin.
Thanks to their hard work, the Christmas holiday proclaimed its approach from every available storefront, lamppost and street sign.
Good thing Abby loved the holidays—or should she say, had loved the holidays.
This Christmas marked an anniversary she’d just as soon forget, but knew she never would.
Abby shoved the depressing thought far into the recesses of her mind and glanced at the stack of postcards in her hands.
She’d started the Don’t Say a Word online secret confession site just shy of a year earlier, and as the site’s anniversary approached, so had the number of “secrets” shared anonymously by the public each week.
Sure, the profile in People magazine hadn’t hurt. Sadly, it had also drawn the phonies and the cranks out of the woodwork.
Whereas Don’t Say a Word had started small and had grown via word of mouth, helping those who truly needed to share something from their past in order to ease their souls, the recent media attention had drawn confessions above and beyond anything Abby had ever imagined, including last week’s.
She tightened her grip on the mail as she pictured the card featured in this week’s blog. Typically she chose three or four for the blog, but last week she’d chosen only one.
I didn’t mean to kill her.
Anger raised the small hairs at the back of her neck. She’d shown the card to a local police detective before she’d published the photograph—an older black-and-white shot of a young woman sporting a ponytail and huge grin.
Even the officer had shared her first reaction. Someone wanted his or her fifteen minutes of fame and had decided to take the sensational route to get there.
Well, perhaps Abby had made a mistake by giving the so-called confession space on the very public blog, but she’d wanted to call attention to the sender’s callousness.
The site and service were for people who spoke from the heart, not for someone who found sending a card like last week’s feature amusing.
She’d been a bit harsh in her blog, but so what? There were thousands of people out there with secrets, secrets that needed to be told in order to ease the keeper’s heart and mind. Abby wasn’t about to tolerate anyone’s sick humor at the expense of her site or her readers.
Her business partner, Robert Walker, had wanted her to toss the card in the trash, but she hadn’t been able to. Matter of fact, instead of archiving the card in the office files after she’d written her blog, she’d tucked it into her briefcase, where it still sat as a reminder of her commitment to preserve her site’s integrity.
Abby crossed a side street then hopped up onto the sidewalk running alongside her office building. The heels of her well-loved boots clicked against the cobblestone walkway as she headed for the entrance.
She glanced again at the stack of cards in her hand, but instead of flipping through them, she tucked them into her coat pocket. The cold had found its way beneath the heavy wool and under her skin. The only thing she cared about right now was finding the biggest, hottest, strongest cup of coffee she could.
“Good morning, Natalie,” she called out to the receptionist as she entered the building.
The young woman looked up with a grin, her blunt-cut hair swinging against her slender neck. “Cold enough for you?”
Abby faked a shudder as she headed for the office kitchen.
Theirs was a shared space. One receptionist and administrative assistant for several tenants, allowing each company to share basic expenses with several other start-ups. Perfect for the work she did.
A few moments later, she headed toward her office space, steaming cup of coffee in hand, just as she liked it, heavy on the cream, no sugar.
She reached into her pocket to pull out the mail, but stopped in her tracks when she realized someone had reached the office ahead of her.
A broad-shouldered man stood talking to Robert. Based on the look on Robert’s face, the call was anything but social. Robert’s typically laughing eyes were serious and intent, focused on the other man’s every word.
As she approached, Robert ran a hand over his closecropped blond hair and frowned. When he caught sight of Abby he nodded in her direction.
The visitor turned to face her and Abby blinked, stunned momentarily by the intensity of the man’s gaze. She’d never quite understood the term dark and smoldering until that moment. No matter, she wasn’t about to let the man intimidate her, and certainly not because of his looks.
“Abby—” Robert tipped his chin toward the visitor “—this is Jack Grant, a detective from Phoenix, Arizona.”
Detective?
She’d heard stories from other Web site owners such as herself about law enforcement trying to gain access to information on certain postcard senders, but Abby had made a promise to her blog visitors. A secret was a secret. Let the police do their own detective work.
“Detective,” she said as she lowered the coffee to her desk and reached to shake the man’s hand. “Welcome to Delaware.”
He said nothing as he gave her hand a quick shake, all business and confident as could be. The contact sent a tremor through her system.
Attraction? Apprehension?
Abby shook off the thought and shrugged out of her coat, then reached again for her coffee.
“Coffee?” she asked the man.
He shook his head, his gaze never leaving hers.
She fought the urge to swallow, not wanting to provide the man with any clue as to how much he’d unnerved her simply by his appearance.
“I wanted to speak to you about your blog,” he said, his voice a deep rumble of raw masculinity.
“Detective Grant claims he knows the woman from last week’s blog.” Robert thinned his lips as he finished the sentence.
Abby could read Robert’s mind. He’d told her to toss the card in the trash, and when she’d chosen instead to feature the photograph and the caption, he’d been angry with her.
Robert and she had been friends since elementary school and they rarely argued. She supposed there was a first for everything.
“A friend of yours, Detective Grant?” she asked.
He pursed his lips, studying her, his brown eyes going even darker than they’d been a split second earlier. Then the detective shook his head.
“I never had the pleasure of meeting the young lady.”
“No?” Abby took another sip of coffee, trying to guess exactly why the detective had made the trip to Delaware from Arizona. “Old case?”
Grant nodded. “Old case.”
Robert dropped into a chair and ran his fingers through his hair. “I told you to throw it out.”
“I wanted to make a point,” Abby said, her voice climbing.
“I’m glad you didn’t throw it out.” The detective spoke slowly, without emotion. “Matter of fact, I’d like to see it.”
Robert pushed away from his desk. “We keep every card archived. I’ll get the most recent box.”
Abby shook her head. “I never put it in the file.”
Robert turned to face her, a frown creasing his forehead. “Why not?”
She shrugged as she reached for her bag. “I don’t know.”
Abby pulled the card from an inside pocket and handed it to Detective Grant.
He touched the card as if it were a living, breathing thing as he studied the front, the back, the label, the print of the message.
“Anonymous,” he muttered beneath his breath.
“No postmark,” Abby added. “I’m still trying to figure that one out.”
“I don’t suppose the idea of contacting the authorities ever crossed your mind?”
The detective’s dark gaze lifted to hers, and for a brief moment Abby saw far more than an officer of the law out to solve a cold case. She saw the heat of emotion, the hint of…what?
The dark gaze shuttered and dropped before she had a chance to study the detective further.
Abby pulled herself taller. “As a matter of fact, I took the card to the local police, who said there’s no indication this woman is a victim of a violent crime.”
“And they knew this how?”
Abby opened her mouth to speak, then realized the detective was right. A chill slid down her spine.
“You’re here because you think differently?”
He nodded as he pulled a folder from his briefcase.
Abby held her breath as Jack Grant carefully extracted a single photograph from the thick file. A black-and-white portrait of a young, dark-haired woman.
The shot might be different, but the subject was the same.
The girl from Abby’s anonymous postcard.
“Her name was Melinda Simmons.” The detective placed the photograph on Abby’s desk and slid it toward her.
Her name was Melinda Simmons.
The implication of the detective’s phrasing sent Abby’s insides tumbling end over end.
