Orson rocked back in his chair, in his office in the Cold Case Unit, a windowless, stifling nook under the stairs, so distant from any air-conditioning vent that the place was almost hot. It was 1600—4:00 p.m.—and he had just spent forty minutes setting up interviews with several guides who had been on the original SAR, and who were still working for Nell: Stoned Stewart, whose brain had long been fried with drugs and who wasn’t likely to tell him anything new, short of drugged ramblings, Hampton, Harvey, RiverAnn and Turtle Tom. They were people who had known Joseph Stevens, and who might able to shed some light on the man. When the phone rang, he picked it up. “Cold Case Unit. Orson Lennox.”
“You done messed with mine. I told you what I’d do iffen you did.”
Orson dropped his feet to the floor. “PawPaw?” Crap. What was the old man’s name?
“You keep my Nellie and Joseph Junior safe. You know she didn’t kill Joe. You know it in your gut. Now get off your ass and prove it.” The phone went dead.
A slow grin split Orson’s face. “Good idea, old man. I’ll do that.” Slinging his suit coat over a shoulder, Orson left the office nook and trudged up the stairs.
Nell hid out in the house all day, watching TV news and working on the Internet, once again tracking down the mystery man who had been Joseph Stevens. News vans cruised up and down the dirt road all day, sending dust flying, searching for the address of the notorious black-widow killer who had murdered her husband and buried him on the bank of the Cumberland. Or the maligned innocent widow who was being framed for the murder of her husband by her evil brother-in-law who wanted her money. Depending on which news you listened to.
To avoid the media vans, Claire had removed the address numbers from the mailbox; the neighbors followed suit. Nell figured they either preferred the reclusive life to one on TV, or believed the staunch defense raised by Melissa and Jedi Mike and televised nationwide. Their interview had run on CNN and Fox all day, her two friends calling the news reporters stupid and libelous for suggesting Nell was the killer, a super-smart black widow who had then somehow become stupid enough to lead cops to the grave.
Melissa, looking like the healthy, all-American girl, informed the news crew that a police officer had let it slip to her that they had another suspect who they liked a lot better than Nell for the death of Joe Stevens. Melissa leaned into the camera and said almost conspiratorially, “I think they’re following a whole different angle entirely. I think they’re hunting for the money.”
Mike had chimed in, “I think they’re going for the passion angle, an angry fiancée.”
Melissa leaned back in and said, “Nah. The brother-in-law has been trying to get his dead brother’s money for years. I think it’s him.”
The reporters, scenting a juicy story, were now doing some digging themselves, taking the focus off of Nell and Rocking River. The stories emerging about Robert Stevens weren’t pretty. The man was a drunk and a druggie and had lied to the cops about all sorts of things.
By nightfall Nell was feeling a bit euphoric. JJ, who had been driven home by Mike and let out at the road to scamper down the driveway before the news van caught up with them, had had a wonderful day. He informed her that Rocking River had the busiest day on record, even counting Labor Day and Fourth of July in 2006.
In the middle of the mother-son celebrations, Claire walked in and informed them that they were out of groceries, which meant a nighttime trip to Newport, some ten-plus miles away. Nell had thrown on a jean skirt and a T-shirt, and here they were, in an Ingles parking lot at 10:00 p.m., her head on the steering wheel.
“Mama? You got a headache?” JJ asked.
Nell smiled without opening her eyes and put out a hand. JJ took it. “Yes, I got me a headache the size of Montana. But I’ll feel better as soon as we get the groceries and get back home. Come on. Let’s get it done.”
“Git’er done,” JJ said, laughing, copying a comedian. He turned his light saber off, secured it between seat and floor and pushed out of Claire’s car, slamming the door. Nell followed, pulling a hat down over her forehead. Together they strolled the aisles and loaded up a buggy with necessities.
During the summer, fresh produce was purchased or traded for locally, but it was still early in the growing season, and so Nell bought fruit, lettuce, tomatoes, root and vine veggies, and stocked up on meat and oatmeal. One problem with living so far from a city was that if she forgot something, it meant a long drive back or doing without. Clare didn’t make the trip anymore, which meant Nell had to. She consulted the list Claire kept taped on the fridge, and sent JJ scouting for the products he liked: Cap’n Crunch, grape soda, his favorite trail mix, sweets she let him have only rarely but which he adored. It took over an hour, and was near midnight by the time they were done.
Beneath the blue glare of the security lights, Nell loaded the groceries into the trunk, situating the bags so they wouldn’t slide, and putting cold and frozen things in insulated bags she kept in the back just for that purpose. Her eyes were gritty with fatigue, and she had bought a cold Coke from a glass-fronted fridge in Ingles, to give her a caffeine and sugar boost, enough to get her home safely. She hoped.
When she had the groceries loaded, she handed JJ the Coke and the keys. “Okay, monkey. Start the engine and put the drink in the holder.” He crawled in between the seats, and Nell slammed the trunk. Feet dragging, she took the buggy to the cart corral.
Behind her the engine turned over. JJ loved being old enough to start the car, and was already bugging her about being allowed to drive.
Pain slammed into her. Nell lurched, hurled across the buggy. It rammed into her middle. She heard the pained woof as breath shot from her lungs. Time snapped and stretched. Pain thrummed through her. The world tilted. The parking lot rose toward her face. Her hands hit, skidding hard. Instinctively, she bent her elbows. Pushed off with her foot. Rolling. Bare knees scraping on the asphalt.
The buggy landed. Someone fell over it. A silhouette of a body tangling with a buggy.
She sucked air to scream.
A boot came at her. Fast.
The belly kick landed. A one-two punch of pure agony. Air shot from her lungs. She gagged and kept rolling, tucking her legs and arms around her middle. Two forms followed. Boots striking pavement. Male. Backlit by the security lights. Faces and heads covered.
Jackets, in spring.
An alarm went off. No, a horn. Blaring. Headlights and a roaring engine. Again she saw a boot coming. It bounced off her thigh.
A vehicle slammed on brakes, screeching. People were running up. Shouting. Booted feet ran, the sound diminishing. Nell uncovered her face. Time seemed to recede and darkness wove in to form a tunnel.
It was over? What…?
A man knelt to her, his face concerned. “Are you okay?”
It took a moment to make the two visions of him merge into one. “I’m…” She didn’t know what to say. “What happened?” JJ’s arms went around her, squeezing. Hurting her bruised stomach.
But she held him close because he was crying. And so was she. “It’s okay, baby. I’m okay.”
“Can you get up, lady?” the kneeling man said.
“Let her stay down. An ambulance and the police are on the way.” Nell looked up at the second voice, seeing a man. The name badge pinned to his white shirt said Neil. Store Manager.
Sirens sounded in the distance. “Don’t tell the cops, Mama,” JJ whispered in her ear. “They might arrest me. I drove the car at the bad guys and blew the horn. And they ran off.”
“My hero,” Nell whispered, hugging him again and then easing him away, trying to focus on the strangers standing around her. “It’ll be fine, sweetheart. The cops will understand. Honey, will you find my cell phone? I need to call Orson.”
“Why you wanna call him?” JJ said, belligerent. “He’s a sneak and liar. Mike said so.”
“Got your bag, lady.” The man who had knelt beside her first handed her the tiny purse she carried clipped to her belt loop when shopping. It was just big enough for a wallet, keys and cell phone. It was still closed, and she wondered why the muggers hadn’t taken it.
“Orson is a cop, JJ. And even though he’s a sneak and liar, he’s the only cop I know.” She had input his cell number when she hired him, and dialed it quickly. While it rang, she brushed off grit and inspected her knees in the security lights. She had some pretty major raspberries, but nothing was broken.
When Orson answered, Nell told him what had happened. And, God bless him, he said he would be right there.
“Why do you think you knew them?” Orson asked.
The local cops had finished taking her report and the reports of the bystanders, but because she wasn’t hurt badly enough to require hospitalization and nothing had been stolen, they had dispensed with her quickly. Bigger crimes awaited, Nell was sure, crimes with blood and mayhem and police chases down city streets or through vacant lots. Things a lot more interesting than the petty crime that left her disoriented and abraded.
The only thing that had interested the uniforms in the least was her contention that she might know the assailants. But, when she couldn’t say why, the cops had left, leaving her their cards.
“I don’t know,” Nell said. “But they seemed…familiar.” JJ snuggled up in her lap in the front seat of the car, for once not caring if he looked less than the little man, his body pressing against her, seeking comfort. They were in the passenger seat, Orson in the driver’s seat, his body swiveled around to face her, one knee canted out, close enough to touch. The overhead light was on, casting harsh shadows on them.
Nell tightened her arms around her son and breathed JJ in, his little-boy smell rich with the river. He hadn’t taken a shower before they left and the odor of the Pigeon was strong on him. Nell tensed.
“Did they use your name?” Orson asked. “Did they speak at all?”
“No,” Nell said, again breathing in her son’s scent. “That’s it,” she whispered. “The way they smelled.”
“What smell?” Orson said.
It was gonna sound stupid, Nell knew it. But she had to try to make him understand. “Every river has a scent. A smell peculiar to it. Ever noticed?”
Orson shook his head. “No. Can’t say as I have.”
JJ twisted, not moving from his perch to look at the cop. “Mama says the Cumberland smells like iron. The Green smells like wood,” he said. “The Nante smells like shadows and cold and fall. The Pigeon smells clean and smoky, and like gasoline.”
“Ozone,” Nell corrected. “Not gas. But this smelled different. Not like the Pigeon. Or even like the Cumberland. But it was a river smell. And beer.”
“Which river, Mama?”
“I don’t know, baby. But I’ve smelled it before.”
“River guides?” Orson asked.
Nell didn’t want to say it, not in front of JJ. She settled on, “I don’t know. I just don’t know.” But her eyes said, “Yes. River guides.”
Orson looked at the delicate woman with the small boy clutched in her lap. Unreasoning anger steamed up through him at the sight of her bloody hands and knees, an anger that he recognized and tried to force back down. On its heels, twined with the anger, tenderness welled and grew. Damn. It felt suspiciously like he was…Crap. He was falling in love with her.
Orson followed Nell and her son back to Hartford with the intent to help her unload groceries at her home. Instead, she had stopped at Rocking River, while the news vans were elsewhere, to pick up paperwork she needed for the next week.
Deprived of the opportunity to see her safely home, he had checked back into his room at old lady Fremont’s. His stuff was still there. So was the lumpy bed and the small table and chair in front of the window. He opened a few drawers and was pretty sure someone had been through his things. His landlady? Probably. Jedi Mike? Probably, again. In fact, his room and scanty belongings had likely been pawed over by several locals in the last couple of days.
He dropped his laptop on the bed as he stripped out of his suit coat and looked out at the night view of Hartford and the lights in Rocking River. Nell’s vehicle was still there. Even from here, he could see a human form moving in the security light, bending once and rising. Nell cleaning up trash from the lot? She did everything for the small business, so it shouldn’t surprise him to see her picking up trash at nearly 1:00 a.m.
He pushed open the window, the wood stiff and dragging. The tire and engine roar of the I-40 was a soft white noise overlaid with the stutter of Jake-brakes on the big rigs. He imagined he could hear the soft babble of the Pigeon over the sound of modern life, although there was no way the river-voice could compete with eighteen-wheelers.
Orson sat at the table, night breezes brushing him, staring at his clasped hands. A faint tan had darkened his pallid, sallow skin. He made a fist, feeling the muscles in his arm contract.
The tan was because of Nell. Getting more physically fit was because of Nell. Getting back on rivers and out of his depression was because of Nell. Finding his joy of investigating cold cases was because of Nell. Hell, everything seemed to come back to her. Especially this case. So why had someone attacked her tonight? Could it be because of the crazy stories Jedi Mike had been dreaming up and planting in the press? Was someone worried about Nell not taking the blame for Joe’s death?
He sighed, the breath easy, moving without pain through his lungs. He froze, staring into the night, almost afraid to breathe deeply again. But his body demanded it, and his rib cage expanded. Painlessly. How long since that happened? To take even one breath without pain?
His physical therapist—the one he walked out on after only two weeks of agonizing exercise—had told him movement and stretching would likely give him complete freedom from pain. Seems the guy had been right. He straightened, thinking.
Orson had a decision to make. Either he was a cop, or he was Nell’s…supporter? Victor? Champion? Boyfriend didn’t work, especially when she had no interest in him. But he was honest enough to admit that his feelings for the woman had changed. What in hell was he supposed to do?
A knock sounded on his door and Orson turned, gripping the butt of his weapon strapped atop his shirt. “Yeah?”
“Your light’s on. Got a minute?” a voiced called through the door.
It was Mike Kren. Orson paused in surprise, looking from the door to the window. He had been here all of ten minutes, and back in Hartford for less than half an hour. His lamp was giving him away, it seemed. “Sure,” he called back.
The door opened and Mike stuck his head in, his braid swinging across his shoulder and dangling. “Three things. First, my pickup is missing.” He extended a slip of paper to Orson. The cop could clearly see the make, model and tag number of the big pickup Mike drove. “Would you call it in?”
“I can do that, but you need to make a report to the sheriff’s office.”
Mike waved the necessity away. “One of the guides probably got toked up and went for a drive. If it ain’t back by morning, I’ll do it tomorrow. Few things you need to know, bro.”
“I’m listening.”
“First, Nell didn’t kill Joe. Girl can’t lie worth crap, you know? She says she didn’t do it, then she didn’t. Second, Harvey was the one who suggested that the guys follow Nell on this last trip to the South Fork. And Harvey never had an original thought in his life. You might want to figure out why he suddenly had an idea all his own. If it was his own. Third?” Mike grinned, showing all his teeth. “Brother Robert was on the water yesterday, too. Don’t know where. But his rental with a kayak rack went missing from his Knoxville-hotel parking lot. And it’s back tonight. A little bird told me Brother Robbie’s been checked in for a week. Sweet dreams, dude.” The door began to close.
“Mike?”
The guide stuck his head back in.
“I believe that Nell didn’t kill Joe.”
“Good. Because I made the mistake of doubting her. One of us should believe she’s innocent all the way.” The door closed and Orson heard soft footsteps as Mike descended the stairs.
Orson wondered how hard it would be for a man like Robert to hire a couple of thugs to attack Nell in an Ingles parking lot. For that matter, how hard would it have been for him to kill his brother? As he sat thinking, considering, his cell phone rang, a tinny, soft buzz of sound. It rang again as Orson looked around the small, dank room. He spotted it on the bed beside his laptop and fell across the bed to answer. “Lennox here,” he said.
“Orson.” The panic in Nell’s voice stabbed at him. “JJ’s missing.”
He made it to Rocking River in less than two minutes, his SUV screeching to a halt on the pavement and skidding across the gravel. PawPaw’s truck with the missing headlight pulled to a stop right behind him. Mike Kren was standing in the pale security light, his hands on Nell’s arms, steadying her, his mountain bike lying on its side, discarded. Orson could hear her sobs over the sound of the interstate and the voice of the river. He gathered the small group and quickly ascertained that Nell had been in the shop, working late, while JJ played around the building. She had heard him laughing about ten minutes past, and the sound of a rubber ball hitting the building. When Mike biked up, moments ago, he was gone.
“Were you outside—” he checked his watch “—twenty, thirty minutes ago, picking up trash or bending over for some reason?”
“No.” Her eyes widened. “Why?”
“I saw someone,” he said. Robert? Did Stevens made good on his threat to take JJ? Orson looked at Mike. “In the parking lot, bending over. Just before you knocked.”
“JJ was gone when I got here,” Mike said. “We’re talking five, maybe ten minutes. They have to be close.”
“I’ll get my dogs,” PawPaw said. “Nellie, I need something ’a JJ’s for them to take a scent.” Nell nodded.
“I’ve called in an Amber Alert,” Orson said. “How long does it take sheriff’s deputies to respond?”
“Damn cops ain’t gone do nothing,” PawPaw snarled, cranking up his truck. “We take care ’a our own around here.” He whipped his old truck around and headed back up the hill.
A wailing siren broke over the sounds of eighteen-wheelers on the interstate. Five minutes. Maybe ten. That’s how long JJ’s been gone. In five minutes, with the I-40 and access to dozens of smaller roads so close, the kidnapper could be miles away already. Cold fear slithered through him.
Orson stepped from the shop and punched in his dad’s cell number.
“Nolan Lennox,” he said, sounding all business.
“I just put out an Amber Alert on JJ Stevens. I need you to issue a BOLO on Robert Stevens. Seems he’s in the area.” Orson gave the rental-car tag number and the hotel Robert frequented. He heard keys clicking and voices in the background and recognized the familiar sounds of his father’s office.
“I see the Amber Alert,” Nolan said. “It just went out statewide. You think Robert took the kid?”
“I don’t know. But I once heard him threaten to take him. And I don’t like to screw around with coincidence.”
“Yeah,” Nolan said. “I’m on the BOLO now. Later.” The connection ended. Orson dialed the sheriff.
Each time she raced up the bank Nell saw PawPaw and his dogs, the hounds on long leashes, noses to the ground. The best tracking dogs in the county, they were sniffing, excited, their ruffs up, visible even in the security lights. But JJ’s scent would be everywhere in the town. There would be no way for the dogs to pick out what was recent. Terror spiked through her like a thousand knives and she moved back to the water. When she called JJ, her voice was breathless, breathy. Desperate.
Heart pounding, Nell crossed the river. She had already searched the side close to the shop. Now she negotiated the shallow flow, her flip-flops sucking at the bottom, sliding over round river rocks, the slight nighttime current washing away sweat, blood and grime, to the other side, which was the bank of an island. The underbrush was thicker here, untouched by tourists, walking more difficult. The heavy-duty flashlight, the kind used by road-construction crews doing graveyard-shift repairs, penetrated to the ground with difficulty. “JJ!” she shouted. “JJ!”
Flashlight bobbing, her heart racing and breath so tight she thought she might pass out, Nell continued searching up and down the riverbank, shouting JJ’s name, while Orson, Mike and PawPaw organized something with more punch. Orson, working with the deputy, had gotten out an Amber Alert, and Mike had rousted the guides from their beds, sending them to help Nell. Within half an hour, ten searchers had joined her along the river, shouting for her son.
She scanned right and left with the big lantern flashlight, pushing through brush, shining the beam over the water and back. Jumping over logs that might hide snakes, she imagined scenario after scenario where JJ had been snake bit; fallen and broken a leg, banged his head, broken an arm, been attacked by a wild boar, pounced on by a mountain lion, slipped and landed in the river, unconscious. Stolen, forced into a trunk, screaming for her. Each scene was vivid and soul stealing.
Mike called her name and Nell crashed back across the river, through brush, finding Mike fast, her breath aching in her chest. Whatever he was going to say evaporated when he saw her. “You’re bleeding, girl,” he said.
Nell looked down. Her arms and hands, and her legs below her denim skirt were gouged and scratched, and the raspberries she had acquired when the mugging took place were bleeding again, trickles down her shins, blood smeared all over from her torn hands. “Later,” she said, sucking in great gulps of air, her voice hoarse. “What?”
“Your mom brought the RV,” he said. “You need water and a break.”
Claire, who hated to drive after dark, had driven the RV down the winding, dangerous, mountain road and parked it in the gravel lot. Nell batted away tears. Her breath was heaving, her body flushed and slick with sweat. “No. Gotta—”
“What you gotta do is take a break. Now.” He took her arm and pulled her up the riverbank to flat ground and into the gravel lot at Rocking River. Nell was too exhausted to resist. She didn’t want to stop, even for a moment, but Mike had a firm grip, and, even in the midst of panic, Nell knew he was right. You didn’t do a SAR without water and breaks. You might miss something.
Mike dragged her to the RV and knocked. Claire opened the door, welcome light spilling into the night. He pulled her inside and sat her down. Claire placed an open bottle of water in her hand, brushed a hand over her sweat-damp hair and dropped a kiss on her head.
Mike accepted a bottle and drank before saying, “I got the guides rousted and searching upstream. PawPaw’s dogs are working the road—”
Nell’s cell phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket and looked at the readout. Unknown Caller. She opened the phone and said, “Nell Stevens.”
“I got your boy.”
Nell froze, her breath blocked off as if a huge hand grabbed her throat.
Terrified, she focused on her mother. Claire’s eyes widened, seeing something in Nell’s face that frightened her. Paling, she pulled her own cell phone and speed-dialed a number.
“I want a hundred thousand dollars dropped off under the I-40 bridge at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow,” the muffled voice continued. “That’ll give you plenty of time to get the money from JJ’s rich uncle. You don’t tell the cops. And don’t move from where you are. I’ll know if you do.”
“What—”
“Mama?” JJ said.
“JJ?”
“Ten a.m.,” the voice said. The phone went silent.
“Hello?” Nell whispered. “You there?” her voice rose. “You there?” she screamed. “You there you there you there you there?”
Claire’s strong arms wrapped around her. Nell fell against her into the warmth of the embrace, her own body so cold she feared she might shatter and break.
Someone had her baby. Someone had JJ.