Scarlet Falls: Hour of Need Part 9

Oh, s.h.i.t. He'd f.u.c.ked up. The kid had lost his parents, and Grant had left him in a frightening situation and put himself at risk. Carson might not fully understand the circ.u.mstances, but he could probably pick up on Hannah's fear and Grant's aggression. Holding the trembling child, Grant realized things were never going to be the same again. It wasn't about him and what he wanted anymore. The kids had to be considered first in each and every decision.

The uniforms came out of the house. "House is clear. The laundry room window was opened. He used a gla.s.s cutter."

"Dust the doork.n.o.bs and window for prints and look for footprints under the window," McNamara said to the uniforms. He turned back to Grant. "You'll have to give us a list of what was taken."

"That's going to be hard. I don't exactly have an inventory." Grant carried Carson inside.

"Burglary is pretty common when-" McNamara stopped and glanced at Carson. "In a situation like this."

"I'll call an alarm system company today." Scanning the rooms as they walked back to the kitchen, Grant shifted Carson in his arms. Kid had a grip. "I don't see anything obvious missing."

"Maybe they heard you coming in, and you scared them off." McNamara returned the knife to its block on the counter.

"It's possible. We weren't exactly quiet," Grant agreed.

Carson lifted his head and sniffled. "My pictures are gone."

Grant stared at the refrigerator. "They were probably knocked to the floor. I'll move the fridge and check later, OK?"

Carson shrugged. "I can draw new ones." He squirmed, and Grant set him down. The boy knelt on a chair at the kitchen table and pulled out his paper and crayons.

"We'll find them," Grant said and then turned back to the cop.

"We'll have a patrol unit drive by tonight," McNamara said. "Hopefully, this was just someone who saw the news and was looking for some easy cash, but I'd push to get an alarm system installed ASAP."

"I'll call them as soon as we're through. Do you have any recommendations?"

"I can give you a few names," McNamara said, turning as noise came through the open door.

Hannah schlepped the baby and diaper bag into the kitchen. Faith was sleeping. Hannah set the car seat in the far corner. AnnaBelle brought McNamara a tennis ball.

The cop patted the dog's head. "I don't suppose she's much of a watchdog."

"AnnaBelle isn't much of a threat to anyone, but she barks," Grant said.

"Better than nothing I suppose. I'll go check out the damage." McNamara went into the laundry room.

AnnaBelle moved with the cop. Grant grabbed the dog's collar. "You better hang with us."

Holding on to the dog, he looked over Carson's shoulder. He was drawing another crying man. Was that supposed to be Grant? He hadn't cried in front of the boy. Maybe Carson was simply expressing that he knew Grant was sad. Should Grant have cried? He scrubbed a hand down the center of his face. He had no clue what he was doing. With a sense that he was missing something, he handed the dog off to his sister and started making a mental list of items that might be missing.

Something was wrong with the entire situation. Something that went beyond his brother and Kate being robbed or car-jacked. Grant scanned the adjoining family room. An e-book reader sat on a shelf, next to the TV and DVD player.

"I'll be right back." He tousled Carson's hair and went upstairs to his room. His bag was unzipped and obviously searched. He pulled out his electronic tablet. In the master bedroom, in addition to the open drawers, a few shirts and a pair of slacks had fallen off their hangers to puddle on the floor of the closet. Someone had swept the clothing from side to side. Grant crossed the wall-to-wall carpet to the dresser. He opened Kate's jewelry box. She wasn't much of a bling girl, but Grant recognized the pearl earrings that had belonged to his mother. Lee had given them to Kate the first Christmas after they were married.

Suspicions confirmed, Grant returned downstairs to talk to McNamara. This wasn't a robbery. The house had been thoroughly searched and valuables ignored. Faith was already crying in the kitchen, and Grant could hear Hannah's voice. He headed toward the laundry room, intent on talking to the cops, but Carson met him at the bottom of the stairs. How was he going to communicate his discovery with the cops and take care of Carson at the same time? Grant picked up the child.

AnnaBelle barked, drawing Grant's attention to the living room window. Ellie's daughter, Julia, was walking up her driveway.

He opened the door and called out, "Julia?"

She stopped and waved at him.

"Would you like to babysit for an hour?" Please say yes.

"Sure!" She smiled, and her step lightened. "Give me five minutes to dump my stuff."

In ten, the experienced teen was in the kitchen holding Faith in one arm and playing Candy Land with Carson with her free hand. All three seemed content.

The detective came back into the kitchen and Grant took them into the office, where Hannah joined them. Grant shut the door. The s.p.a.ce was cramped, but at least Carson couldn't hear the discussion. The kid was scared enough.

Clearly still juiced from the incident, Hannah paced. Grant, who hadn't slept in days, took the desk chair. "I don't think this was a robbery. Too many things were disturbed and not stolen."

"There are other possibilities." McNamara looked at Hannah and gestured toward a Windsor chair that was old enough to be an antique. Once painted black, the finish had been worn down to shiny dark wood in the seat and arms. "We're taking a cast of a footprint in the flower bed. We're going to try and match it to one we took from the scene of your brother's murder."

"No, thank you." Hannah said, continuing to walk even though she only had room to take two steps in each direction. "You have a footprint?"

McNamara eased into the chair as if he wasn't certain it would support his weight. It creaked but the structure held. "We found a clear print in the snow where your brother and his wife were killed. That's a public street. It might not be the killer's print, but if it matches the one under the window, then I'll be convinced it's a solid lead."

Hannah stopped and faced the cop. "Do you have any evidence besides a footprint?"

"Unfortunately nothing concrete enough to share at this time." McNamara propped his elbows on the armrests and intertwined his fingers.

"Really?" Hannah's brow arched. "Are you any closer to finding out what happened to my brother and sister-in-law? It's been five days since they were killed."

"I really can't give you unsubstantiated details, ma'am. I'm sorry." McNamara didn't react to Hannah's sharp tone, which Grant knew would p.i.s.s her off more than yelling.

"What can you tell me, Detective?" Hannah tapped a frustrated toe on the floorboards.

McNamara didn't blink. "We have a cast of the footprint in the snow at the murder scene. We'll try to match it to the one in the flower bed. If we're lucky, we might be able to tell what size and type of boot the culprit was wearing. We didn't find any usable fingerprints here or at the other scene. We have no witnesses, but we have recovered the bullets, so if we recover a weapon, ballistics will know if it's the gun used in the murder."

Hannah's body was immobile, but her eyes flinched. Grant tried to keep the image out of his head, but he knew what a bullet to the head looked like up close.

"Grant told me you had copies of their calendar and contact information from the phone company. Did those yield any clues?" Hannah leaned a shoulder on the wall, her casual posture a ruse.

McNamara rubbed an eye. "I've gone over every entry. They all seemed very straightforward and normal. I didn't see anything out of their ordinary daily patterns. But I'd like to give you a copy of that information to read over in case we missed something. You might have more intimate knowledge of your brother and sister-in-law's lives. One of the entries could have a special meaning."

"Have any of their credit cards been used?"

"No," McNamara said.

"And you still haven't located the car?" she asked.

"No." McNamara's voice tightened with each answer.

"Do you have a single suspect?" Hannah pierced the cop with an icy blue stare.

"The investigation is still in process, Ms. Barrett. I really can't speculate." The cop was doing his best to not react. At this point, it looked like work.

"I'll take that as a no," Hannah said. "How do a small-town lawyer and a skating coach get murdered without any suspects?"

McNamara's mouth tightened. "I never said we didn't have any suspects. I just can't tell you who they are. I wouldn't want to cast public suspicion on innocent people."

Grant watched Hannah digest his statement. His sister was struggling with Lee's death. Like Grant, she preferred to channel emotions into action. The inability to take the offensive bottled her nerves. At some point, she was bound to explode. Grant could empathize.

He interrupted the stare down between Hannah and the cop. "When can you bring the calendar and contact information, Detective?"

"I'll bring the papers by later today," McNamara said, rising. "You'll let me know if you see anything strange?"

"I will," Grant said.

Grant walked the cop to his car.

"I don't understand why someone would need to search my brother's house," Grant said.

McNamara shook his head. "I went through the whole house the day after the murders. I didn't find anything of interest."

"I've looked, too." But Grant was going to keep searching. The cop pulled away, and Grant went back to the house. Someone thought Lee had something to hide.

Chapter Twelve.

Ellie hurried up the walk to her front porch. She stamped her feet on the cement and shook a few snowflakes from her head. Heavy gray clouds on the horizon appeared ready to burst, matching her mood. She breathed in and out. Hold it together. Nan's and Julia's lives depended on her keeping her cool and finding that file. The clock was ticking.

She unlocked the front door and went inside. "Julia? Nan?"

Silence greeted her. Oh, no.

Ellie rushed back to the kitchen. A piece of notepaper on the counter caught her attention. She s.n.a.t.c.hed it.

Julie and I went next door.

Relief almost made her giddy. They were fine. Clammy and sweating, she opened her wool coat. After a long day at the law office, she preferred to take out her frustrations on her renovation project. But not tonight. She went upstairs and changed into jeans and a sweater. She grabbed a jacket on her way out the door. The note from Nan provided the perfect excuse to pay Grant a visit and start snooping. She hadn't been given a deadline, but if the man from last night contacted her again, she intended to have that file.

On the Barretts' front porch, she knocked, though AnnaBelle had already announced her presence with frenzied barking.

What if she didn't find the file? Her stomach churned with possibilities. a.s.suming he even kept his end of the bargain. With people who threatened to kill, there were no guarantees.

Grant opened the door. Faith was draped over one broad shoulder. Blocking the dog with a knee, he moved back. "Ellie, please come in. I'm glad you came over. I want to ask you some questions."

"Hi, Grant. h.e.l.lo, Faith." Ellie patted the baby's shoulder. She walked into the warm foyer and greeted the whining dog.

"Let me see if I can p.a.w.n this baby off on someone so we can talk." He led the way back to the kitchen.

"Hi, Mom." Julia sat at the kitchen table with Carson. A Candy Land board lay open in front of them.

The little boy forked macaroni and cheese into his mouth. "Hi, Ms. Ross," he mumbled around the food. He picked a card and looked at it, then moved his piece.

"Hi, Carson." Ellie walked over and folded him into a long hug. Still eating, he returned the gesture with one arm.

Nan was at the kitchen counter slicing pound cake. Seeing her daughter and grandmother safe eased the panic scurrying inside Ellie's chest.

Grant leaned close to her ear. His breath drifted across her cheek. She stilled the urge to lean closer.

"Your grandmother brought us baked macaroni and cheese. It's the first thing Carson's eaten all day. I can't thank her enough."

"When Julia watched Carson in the afternoon, Nan liked to hang out with them, too. She gets bored when the house is empty."

"I haven't seen Carson since last May. I'm happy for all the guidance I can get. Are you hungry?" Grant shifted Faith to his other shoulder. "She made enough to feed a platoon."

His arm touched Ellie's, hard as iron. Tempted to press against his solid body and absorb some of his strength, she resisted. She needed to act normal.

"Tons is the only quant.i.ty she knows how to make." Ellie watched the little boy move his plastic game piece on the colorful board. He seemed quiet, but almost normal. Maybe he was going to be all right.

Her gaze snapped back to Grant. He was a take-charge sort of man, ready to tackle domestic problems with the same determination he likely put into his military career. He obviously cared about his brother's children. But what would happen when he went back to Afghanistan? A battle-hardened army officer could hardly be satisfied playing house for the next eighteen years.

What if she told him about the threat to her family? She remembered Kate telling her how worried Lee was about his brother, the conditions he'd fought under, his combat injuries. Lee had shown her Grant's Purple Heart. If anyone could handle the man who'd threatened her, it might be Grant. But would he help? Would he keep her secret or would he insist on calling the police? The man had been clear about not involving the law. Unfortunately, she didn't know Grant well enough to trust him, and she couldn't take the risk. With no clues as to the ident.i.ty of Hoodie Man, she was on her own.

She forced a smile onto the stiff muscles of her face. "No worries, though. Carson would eat mac and cheese for every meal if you let him."

"I've been picking your grandmother and daughter's brains for the last hour and taking notes. Let me find my sister to take Faith. Do you have a few minutes now?" Grant watched her with intent eyes that narrowed in suspicion.

She needed to improve her game face. Grant would not be easy to fool.

"Sure." Ellie nodded, trying to appear casual when she wanted to race through the house searching for the file.

Grant turned to Nan and raised his voice. "Mrs. Ross? Have you seen my sister?"

"I told you to call me Nan like everyone else." Her grandmother slid the wide blade of the knife under a slice of cake and lifted it onto a plate. She pointed to the back door with the knife. "Hannah is outside on her phone."

Grant went to the window. Through the gla.s.s, Ellie could see a slim, blond woman pacing the back patio, coatless, arms curled around her middle as if she were freezing. Grant knocked on the gla.s.s and pointed to the baby. Hannah shook her head and pointed to her phone.

"I'll take little Faith." Nan held out her arms.

"Are you sure?" Grant hesitated. "If you stop moving, she starts screaming."

"She is not the first colicky baby I've walked." Nan tossed a clean dish towel over her shoulder.

Grant handed Faith over. Nan took her with expert arms. "You two go have a nice talk."

Ellie followed Grant to the home office. He closed the door. The small room was set up to make full use of little s.p.a.ce. The desk and hutch were pushed against the far wall. To the right of the door, a credenza held a printer and a stack of law books and periodicals. Grant gestured toward a wooden schoolhouse chair next to the desk. Ellie perched on the edge of the seat, her gaze searching for files. It wasn't here. Or at least it wasn't in plain sight. She needed to get a look inside the credenza and desk.

Grant swiveled the office chair to face her and eased into it.