Debra Webb - The Coldest Fear

As true as it was that both Bobbie and Nick had suffered some seriously fucked-up heartbreak, the big difference between them was that she’d at least had a real family who cared about her. Nick had never had anything real. The people who should have taken care of him had let him down.

I will not let you down, Nick.

Bobbie forced her full attention to the here and now. “Where the hell are you, Zacharias?”

There was always the possibility that the feds had been watching the attorney and were even now following him to see if he would lead them to Weller.

The truth was she hadn’t driven all this way simply to see Zacharias. She didn’t even care if he’d taken his millions and fled. Speaking to him wasn’t actually necessary. All she wanted was to find any files on Weller that Zacharias might have in his home office before those files and any other notes were confiscated by the task force on his trail. Zacharias was a brilliant attorney. He had endless connections in Fulton County. The man would know all the ways, including attorney-client privilege, to challenge any attempts to seize his files or warrants to pilfer through his home or his phone records.

“But you can’t outmaneuver the feds forever,” Bobbie murmured. Which was exactly why the man would disappear very soon if he hadn’t already.

She glanced around the cavernous entry hall. She was here, the door was unlocked and the place appeared deserted—might as well have a look around. Zacharias had called her to Atlanta less than two weeks ago. No one could prove she hadn’t been in his house previously if her prints were found.

There could be security cameras.

After bumping three switches with her elbow, the giant chandelier spilled light over the marble floors. The cool gray paint on the walls spread out to meet the gleaming white trim and lent a cold feel to the space. A massive painting of Zacharias and his family, obviously commissioned a dozen or more years ago, served as the focal point. A round table of mirrored glass sat in the center of the hall, directly beneath the chandelier. The large vase stationed there was filled with cut flowers. The once lush and richly colored petals had browned and now littered the tabletop. A man of means living in a house like this one would certainly have a cleaning staff.

Had he sent them all away before he took his own leave?

Bobbie surveyed the room again. No sign of cameras. In Zacharias’s shoes she would have been far better prepared with a surveillance camera in every damned room as well as around the perimeter of the house. On the other hand, an attorney willing to interact with such depraved murderers probably harbored a serious God complex and didn’t want any electronic documentation of his movements or those of his visitors. With his most notorious monster no longer in chains behind those drab prison walls, Zacharias might not be feeling so high and mighty now.

“Mr. Zacharias? Are you home?”

Bobbie moved from the entry hall with its elegant curving staircase leading up to the second floor to the parlor on the right. She rubbed her arm against her side, pushing the sleeve of her sweatshirt down over her fingers before reaching under the nearest lampshade to switch on the light. The expected sophisticated furnishings were gathered around an equally stylish stone fireplace that spanned the full height of the room—at least twelve feet. She listened again before progressing across the entry hall to the next room, a library. Floor-to-ceiling rows of bookshelves stood where the fireplace would be and distinguished the room from its near mirror image across the hall. No sign of a struggle or that anyone had combed through the space. Other than the open front door, all appeared to be in order.

One by one Bobbie advanced through room after room, calling the owner’s name and bumping a light on with her elbow in each one. Clear.

Since she’d found no sign of foul play or of the homeowner so far, Bobbie suspected Zacharias had in fact gotten the hell out of Dodge. His statement about Weller’s escape had played over and over on every available media outlet the past forty-eight or so hours.

I am shocked and saddened by this turn of events. No one will be safe until Randolph Weller is caught.

“That includes you, Zacharias.”

Bobbie imagined he was well aware of the imminent danger. Under the circumstances, she had known finding him was a long shot but she’d had to try. He hadn’t been answering his phone. No-damned-body had been answering their phones—including you, Bobbie. Her calls to Nick as well as to Special Agent Anthony LeDoux had gone unanswered. Her instincts told her LeDoux was in one way or another up to his eyeballs in this, too.

As much as she wanted to trust LeDoux after what they’d been through together, she couldn’t. The secret the two of them shared was like an open, festering wound deep below the surface where no one else could see. Like cancer, eating them up one inch at a time and at the same time making them dangerously reckless.

Like not calling backup in a situation like this one.

Exiling the warning voice honed by years of investigating homicides, she moved deeper into the house. Just off the kitchen and tucked beyond the family room, she found the attorney’s study. Bookshelves lined one wall. Framed photographs of the family that had abandoned him sat in a neat arrangement on one corner of the desk. The blotter was a clean, crisp expanse of white marred only by the fallen blooms from the floral arrangement that sat next to it, a smaller version of the one in the entry hall. To the right of the desk was a set of French doors.

Open French doors.

Shit. Bobbie’s fingers tightened on her Glock. She executed a three-sixty, scanning the room.

No movement. No sound.

For a moment she considered calling it in, but she had crossed the line coming into the house. There had been no true exigent circumstances. Knowing her chief, he’d put out a BOLO on her and the Atlanta PD would be on the lookout for her already.

Check the files in the study and get the hell out.

Zacharias could very well be on a private jet headed for some tropical island whose laws didn’t include an extradition treaty with the US.

Or Weller had taken him.

With the second set of doors left open, foul play was the more likely of the scenarios. No way two doors in this mansion had faulty locks. Even if Zacharias had been in a hell of a hurry, why leave both doors unlocked and open?

Hold on. She hadn’t been upstairs. Was someone up there stealing his Rolexes and platinum cuff links at this very moment? Zacharias could very well be dead in his bedroom. It was the middle of the night after all. Bobbie braced her back against the nearest wall to ensure no one came up behind her. Too quiet. A thief would have heard her calling out to Zacharias.

A spot on the floor near the desk snagged her attention, then another spot and another. Red wine maybe? Not so lucky.

Blood.

She visually traced the pattern of splatters, a stark crimson on the champagne-colored rug. The blood trail led around the large mahogany desk.

Adrenaline stinging her senses, she followed the path her gaze had taken, glancing over her shoulder repeatedly and taking care not to step in the blood. The amount of blood increased exponentially as she drew closer to the other side of the desk, as if the bleeder had lingered there. At this point the urge to fish out her cell and call 911 was fierce, but she ignored it.

Not yet.

Behind the desk the trail of blood became a series of small puddles. The phone that had been blocked from her view by the floral arrangement had been dragged to the edge of the desk, the handset dangling from its curly cord. Blood was smeared on the keypad; crimson fingerprints encircled the handset.