Shirlee McCoy - Cold Case Murder

*The Sinclair Brothers

*The Sinclair Brothers

Harrison spoke quietly, but there was a steel edge to his voice, and she turned to face him again, her breath catching as she met his eyes. Eyes that looked deep into hers and seemed to see all the secrets she tried hard to keep hidden. The insecurity. The fear. The feeling she’d gotten on the wrong path.

“Yeah?” she asked.

“Whatever you know, whatever you’re hiding, you’re going to have to tell me eventually.”

“Maybe, but not today.” Not a lie, but not quite the truth either. Telling Harrison would mean admitting that she was scared. More scared than she’d been in a long time.

Harrison stared her down for a moment, his eyes searching her face. “Fair enough, but you may as well know that there are very few secrets the dead can hide from me. I’m not too shabby about getting the truth from the living either. If what’s bothering you has something to do with this case, you won’t be able to keep it from me for long.”

WITHOUT A TRACE: Will a young mother’s disappearance bring a bayou town together…or tear it apart?

What Sarah Saw—Margaret Daley, January 2009

Framed!—Robin Caroll, February 2009

Cold Case Murder—Shirlee McCoy, March 2009

A Cloud of Suspicion—Patricia Davids, April 2009

Deadly Competition—Roxanne Rustand, May 2009

Her Last Chance—Terri Reed, June 2009

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has always loved making up stories. As a child, she daydreamed elaborate tales in which she was the heroine—gutsy, strong and invincible. Though she soon grew out of her superhero fantasies, her love for storytelling never diminished. She knew early that she wanted to write inspirational fiction, and began writing her first novel when she was a teenager. Still, it wasn’t until her third son was born that she truly began pursuing her dream of being published. Three years later she sold her first book. Now a busy mother of four, Shirlee is a homeschool mom by day and an inspirational author by night. She and her husband and children live in Washington State and share their house with a dog and a guinea pig. You can visit her Web site at www.shirleemccoy.com.

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Shirlee McCoy for her contribution to the Without a Trace miniseries.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

—Galatians 5:1

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

EPILOGUE

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

New Orleans, Louisiana

FBI Headquarters, Missing Persons Unit

At night, if she dreamed at all, Jodie Gilmore dreamed of Loomis, Louisiana—the thick, ugly scent of the swamp in summer heat, the shadowy gloom of stately manor homes gone to ruin, the tension that shrouded the little town. There were secrets there. And demons. Not the made-up kind. The real-life, haunt-you-forever kind. The kind that came from loss and heartache and loneliness. It didn’t matter that she’d left town the day she’d turned eighteen or that ten years had passed since then, Jodie still shuddered every time she thought of the place. The day she had gotten into her beat-up Mustang and headed for wherever the road would take her, she promised she’d never return.

It seemed she was about to break that promise.

“Well? What are your thoughts?” Miles Jordan’s voice held a note of impatience, and Jodie scanned the contents of the missing person’s file for the second time since she’d walked into her supervisor’s office, hoping that this time the words would stick.

Leah Farley. Twenty-eight. Widowed mother of a three-year-old girl. Went missing two weeks after her husband was found dead. Last seen in Loomis, Louisiana.

Jodie set the file down and met her supervisor’s emotionless gray eyes. “It looks pretty straightforward. The woman killed her husband, tried to make it look like a suicide and ran when the investigation revealed the truth.”

“Don’t be so quick to jump to conclusions, Agent Gilmore. As the file indicates, Leah Farley’s shoe was found on the grounds of a house out by the swamplands near a boarded-up tunnel on the porch of a house that once served as part of the Underground Railroad. There was blood on it.”

Jodie didn’t ask what house. She didn’t need to. She knew. Just as she knew every nook and cranny of the town she’d grown up in. What she didn’t know was why her mother had run from it twenty-five years ago. “The blood is probably her husband’s.”

“Like I said, let’s not jump to conclusions.” Miles steepled his fingers beneath his chin and eyed her from across the table. “There’s been a lot going on in Loomis. A couple of murders, an attempted kidnapping. The local PD is investigating, and we’re working in conjunction with them, assuming the incidents aren’t simply a succession of unrelated crimes.”

“Sam Pierce is the lead on this?”

“Right. He’s feeling like the locals would be more comfortable with someone they know. Maybe with you there, they’ll open up and talk a little more.”

“People in Loomis don’t talk. Not even to each other.” The words escaped, and Miles’s lips tightened into a hard line.

“Agent Gilmore, your assignment is to work as liaison between our team and the people of Loomis. Do you have a problem with that?”

“Of course not, sir.” Only six months into her FBI career and still on probation, Jodie couldn’t afford to get a reputation for balking at assignments. Not when she’d worked so hard to get where she was.

“Good. Go home. Pack your things and head out.”

“Now?” That was a million years too soon.

“Yes. Good luck, agent.” His curt nod was a dismissal Jodie couldn’t ignore, and she stepped blindly out the office door. The die had been cast. The decision made. There was absolutely nothing she could do about it. She was going back to Loomis whether she liked it or not.

And she didn’t like it.

She didn’t like it at all.

Loomis, Louisiana

Early March

Even with the windows of her car rolled up, Jodie could smell the bayou. Heavy moist air with a bite of decay to it. Not as bad as it got in the heat of the summer but bad enough to make her nose wrinkle. Or maybe it was disgust that was doing that. There were plenty of places she’d imagined the FBI might send her, but back to Loomis wasn’t one of them. Here she was, returning to the one place she’d been determined never to visit again.