Ann Voss Peterson - Vow To Protect

“I imagine you’ve heard about this morning’s accident. The one involving your father.”

“I heard.” Since he’d learned Kane was his father, he’d followed stories of the serial killer in the local news. He’d heard how Kane had controlled another serial killer from his prison cell like a puppet master. He’d heard how, even though locked behind bars, he’d tried to kill his daughter Diana—Cord’s half sister and McCaskey’s wife. And of course, there was the accident. “It’s been all over the news.”

Detective Valducci shifted in her chair with the impatience of an attack dog pulling at her chain. “When is the last time you saw Eddie Trauten?”

A wave of heat washed through Cord. He kept his expression carefully frozen.

McCaskey gave his cover-girl partner an approving glance before narrowing his eyes on Cord. “Recognize the name? Or did he go by a nickname at Waupun?”

If he could, he’d pretend he’d never heard of Eddie Trauten. But after sharing a cell with the whiney little skinhead for six years of his sentence, it might be a little hard to pull off the lie. “What the hell does Eddie have to do with this?”

“Your cellie drove the stolen pickup that slammed into the motorcade transferring Kane. His truck went into the water along with the cage van. The Banes County sheriff fished his body out of the water this morning.”

“And Kane? Have they found his body yet?”

“You know they haven’t.”

Somehow he knew McCaskey would say that. This morning just got better with each passing minute. “I don’t know where Kane is. I didn’t have anything to do with Eddie breaking him out.”

McCaskey gave him a humorless smile. “Somehow I’m not inclined to believe you.”

“I don’t care what you’re inclined to do, it’s the truth.”

“The truth? I’ll bet. You ex-cons wouldn’t know truth if it bit you.” Valducci smiled showing the teeth she’d no doubt like to do a little biting with.

He was over his head. So far over, he was drowning. “I need to talk to my lawyer.”

McCaskey offered a casual shrug of one shoulder. “You sure you want to do that?”

“Why? Are you going to give me the same line as the last detective?”

McCaskey raised a brow. “Line?”

“Yeah. The old chestnut about helping you so you’ll help me. You know, that if I want Melanie and Ethan Frist protected, I’ll have to confess to whatever you want me to confess to?”

“Is that what Perreth said to you?”

“Pretty much.”

That muscle started working again. Apparently there was more bad blood between McCaskey and Perreth than a simple pissing match could explain.

McCaskey leaned forward, elbows on tabletop, fists clasped at chin level. “Melanie Frist and her son are in protective custody, and they’re going to stay there. The only skin you have to worry about saving is your own.”

“Okay. Then I’d like my lawyer to help me save it.”

“Meredith Unger, right?”

He’d told McCaskey and Valducci to call his attorney when the detectives suspected he was the copycat serial killer. “You have her number in one of those files?” He nodded at the stack looming on the table.

McCaskey kept his eyes riveted to Cord’s. “There’s one thing you might want to be aware of before you have a heart-to-heart with Meredith Unger.”

“And what’s that?”

“She has a conflict-of-interest problem you might want to consider.”

What kind of game was McCaskey trying to play this time? “I’ll bite. What’s the problem?”

McCaskey’s black eyes drilled into him, as if watching for his reaction, eager to see how he’d take the punch line. “Meredith Unger is your father’s attorney. She represents Dryden Kane.”

In prison, when an inmate needed a weapon he could make disappear fast, he filled a sock with something heavy, a handful of batteries, a can of beans. One good swing, and the weapon, known as a slock, could level a man. The revelation that Cord was sharing his attorney with Dryden Kane hit him like a slock to the dome.

One corner of McCaskey’s lips lifted in something only a hair short of a smile. “You still want to call your lawyer?”

“I’ll pass.” When he’d seen Kane’s reference to Melanie in the note, he’d wondered where the serial killer had learned of their history. And although he couldn’t prove anything, he didn’t wonder any longer. “You can’t think I had anything to do with Kane’s escape. I’ve never met the man.”

“But your attorney has.”

Cord wiped a hand across his forehead. Sweat already dampened his cropped hair. A sign of nerves that McCaskey would no doubt interpret as guilt. “I haven’t talked to Meredith Unger for ten years.”

“There are a lot of coincidences here, Turner. Coincidences I’m having a hard time swallowing. Meredith Unger. Eddie Trauten.”

Cord let out a breath. He couldn’t deny the apparent connection between him and Kane through his attorney. He couldn’t deny his own connection to Eddie Trauten. But maybe he didn’t have to. Maybe those connections were the point. “I don’t know what you think of me, McCaskey, but I’m not a stupid man.”

McCaskey narrowed his eyes. “Go on.”

“If I wanted to help someone like Dryden Kane escape from prison, I wouldn’t set up my own cellie to do it. The prison yard is a big place. There are a lot of punks I could recruit for the job. Punks that would force you cops to at least break a sweat before you tied them to me.”

“I’m listening.”

“I don’t want Dryden Kane out. The only thing he is to me is a threat. A danger to Melanie. And a danger to my son.”

McCaskey watched him with sharp, nearly black eyes. A slow, agonizing minute ticked by before he finally pushed back from the table, the legs of his chair screeching across the linoleum tile. He glanced at Detective Valducci and then back to Cord. “We’ll be back.” He stood and walked out, Valducci in his wake, letting the door thunk closed behind him.

Cord forced a breath of stale air into his lungs. He was probably over his head on this one. Hell, he’d been over his head since before he was born. Unfortunately, unlike the gang bangers he’d hung out with as a kid and the cons he’d done time with, he was smart enough to recognize the fact that he was drowning in sewage.

Just not smart enough to do anything about it.

The door opened and McCaskey entered alone. “I just heard from the officers searching your apartment.”

He let silence lie between them as if waiting for Cord to acknowledge something incriminating they’d found in an effort to explain it away.

Too bad nothing like that existed. “They found the invitation I told you about?”

“They did.”

“And the note threatening Melanie Frist?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve looked through my apartment. I’ve told you everything I know. So am I under arrest?”

“No. You can go.”

Cord nodded but he didn’t let himself feel relief. Not yet. “Will Melanie and Ethan be protected?”

McCaskey drilled into him with that black gaze. “You have my word.”

Cord slumped against the back of his chair. A trickle of sweat ran over his temple and wound around his ear.

McCaskey might have thrown him a life preserver this time, but Cord had the feeling this ordeal was far from over.

CORD STOOD IN THE OPEN DOOR of his apartment and looked at the mess the cops had made of his place. In the joint, the inmates were obsessed with receiving respect. The smallest slight, like one of the dawgs failing to say “what up?” in the yard was an affront to one’s manhood. It was times like this that made Cord grateful he didn’t have that respect/disrespect hangup. Life as a con and an ex-con was easier once you acknowledged you didn’t much respect yourself. At least then it wasn’t a bitter pill when others didn’t respect you, either. “Cord Turner?”