Cold Woods Read online

  Linda chuckled. “You forgot what winters are like around here.”

  “I guess I did,” she said.

  Her mother looked her over. “You going to be okay?”

  Trisha nodded. “I’ll be fine.”

  In the next minute, a black sedan rolled to a stop in front of the house, like Trisha knew it would.

  “I’ll see you later,” she said to both women and got into the car.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Parker hung up the phone, shook his head at Geena, signaling that the call that had come in on the tip line wasn’t anything they needed to follow up on. They’d taken a couple of calls in the last several hours, but nothing that had given them any new leads.

  Something Carlyn had said stuck out in Parker’s mind. She’d mentioned seeing bruises on Sharon Haines’s neck. He’d read somewhere in cases of domestic abuse that when the violence escalated to choking the victim, the next step had often led to killing them.

  He thought back to the first time he’d met Trisha in her mother’s living room. She’d kept her right arm close to her side, as though she’d been protecting her ribs. He hadn’t realized it then, but the reason she’d sat so still was because it must have hurt to move. He’d dismissed the marks on her neck as shadows. Now he wondered if they’d been bruises. It was enough to get him to dig further into Sid Whitehouse. He learned he was in town. Parker supposed that wasn’t so unusual, given his wife was here.

  Geena got up from her desk, picked up her keys and phone. “I’m heading to Benny’s. I could use a drink,” she said. “You coming?”

  “I’ll meet you there,” he said.

  Parker met Geena at Benny’s, a local pub the guys in their troop frequented. He used the bathroom, then sat at the bar. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do. He’d texted Becca, but she’d replied she was working late at the clinic. The thought of going home, sleeping, only to toss and turn in a nightmarish frenzy, wasn’t appealing.

  Geena saddled up next to him. She took her hair out of the ponytail. The long blonde waves cascaded down her back. Her hair smelled good: something sweet, like strawberries. For the first time, he wondered what her life was like outside of the job. He didn’t know if she had a boyfriend, a roommate, hobbies.

  “Don’t you have any plans tonight?” he asked.

  “Like a date?”

  “I guess. Yeah,” he said.

  “I don’t have much of a social life.”

  “No one at home waiting for you?” he asked and immediately regretted it. It sounded cheesy, like a pickup line. It wasn’t his intention.

  “No one at home,” she said. “You?”

  “She’s working tonight.”

  “What does she do?” she asked.

  “Veterinarian.”

  “Cool job,” she said, then motioned to Benny. “Two drafts. And keep them coming.”

  Benny set two cold ones on the bar. “Never knew you to drink beer,” he said to Parker.

  Parker hadn’t touched a drink in years, not since he’d graduated college. It was a choice. He just didn’t like who he was when he was drinking. He didn’t like the way it made him feel as though he’d given up some of his control over his decision-making ability. But he didn’t think a beer or two tonight could hurt. Maybe it would help him sleep, knock the nightmares right out of him. He was willing to give it a try. Nothing else seemed to be working, short of taking pills, and he wasn’t there yet.

  But after a while, two beers had turned into three, then four. The hockey game that had been blaring from the television had ended. Most of the guys, other cops, had gone home. A few stragglers sat around a table in the back, a couple of detectives from headquarters. Geena got up, strolled to their table, joined them. They were working a fresh case that had turned up two days ago. A body of a young woman had been discovered in a ditch on the side of the road in Allentown, her corpse burned beyond recognition. Her car had been dumped not three miles from where she’d been found. It was a major case. It had attracted the local news media. It had demanded urgent attention.

  Parker and Geena hadn’t been asked to help with it, not since they’d been handling the cold woods on their own. Even the media had left them alone. No one was interested in a thirty-year-old case when the victim had reportedly been a lowlife.

  Rick Smith, the retired detective who’d helped Parker on his first case as lead, sat on the stool next to him. Rick was in jeans and a sweatshirt. His hair was clipped short. He may have been retired for a few years, but it was hard to shed the look of a cop. It was the kind of job that was ingrained in your skin, a permanent part of your core.

  “Surprised to see that beer in your hand,” Rick said.

  “Me too,” Parker said, burped into his fist.

  “I’ve been watching you put them away since you got here. Everything okay?”

  “Just one of those days.”

  “You want to talk about it?” he asked and drank from his own beer.

  “Nope. I heard you were getting into the PI business,” Parker said.

  “You heard right. I’m picking and choosing which jobs I take at the moment. Nothing too involved. You ever need something from me, you let me know.”

  “Will do,” Parker said.

  Rick looked over his shoulder at Geena; then he turned to Parker and kept his voice low. “Your new partner is easy on the eyes. Not many guys would want to work with someone that good looking. Could complicate things. I don’t imagine too many wives or girlfriends would be happy about it either. I hear that’s why Albert partnered up with her. He was old enough to be her father. I was surprised to hear he retired. Guess we’re all getting old.”

  Parker only nodded, stared straight ahead at the rows of bottles on the shelf behind the bar. This was precisely the reason he hadn’t told Becca about his new partner. Before Becca and Parker had gotten together, the guy she’d been living with had cheated on her. Her father had cheated on her mother. She had trust issues. And since her and Parker’s relationship had recently moved from friendship into something more, he didn’t want to say or do anything to derail it.

  Geena walked up to them. “Nice to see you again, Smith,” she said to Rick.

  “Hear anything from Albert?” Rick asked.

  “He’s enjoying working in his garden,” she said, smiling, shaking her head as though it were hard to believe.

  “Tell him I said hi next time you talk to him,” Rick said and stood. He headed to the back table.

  Geena leaned over Parker, touched his shoulder as she signaled Benny for another round.

  “Parker.”

  Both Parker and Geena turned when they heard his name.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Trisha looked around the crowded floor of the casino. It was similar to Vegas casinos but smaller, this one built on land that was once owned by Bethlehem Steel. She’d walked through security not five minutes ago. They’d checked her ID for her age, which was laughable. “Standard procedure,” the guard had said. When he saw her name, he looked her up and down as though she weren’t anything like what he’d expected. He was right. But she nodded anyway, affirmed she was who the VIP ID had said she was. Another guard approached. “This way, Mrs. Whitehouse,” he said and escorted her to the tables in the back, where the casino’s special guests received preferential treatment.

  She stood off to the side, near the corner where Sid could see her but far enough away where she couldn’t interact with him or anyone, for that matter. He glanced in her direction, but otherwise he didn’t seem to pay much attention to her. Was it possible he didn’t recognize her? She hid a smile and took a drink off the tray of a young waitress with a tight skirt and tattoos on her fingers. A live band played at the front of the casino, where the general public overpaid for drinks at the bar. The music thrummed through Trisha’s chest, a cover band, a song she didn’t recognize. Smoke from cigars and cigarettes filled the room.

  Sid looked in her direction again some ten
minutes later. A kind of realization spread across his face as he locked onto her. She was wearing her winter coat, the shabby sweater, faux fur–lined boots. He would expect three-inch heels, a designer cocktail dress, salon-styled hair, and makeup.

  Not the middle-aged woman in cheap clothes.

  He rearranged his face to disguise his surprise at her appearance. He returned his focus to the cards on the table. He could be winning or losing. It was impossible to tell from the stacks of chips in front of him. A tall blonde appeared, clung to his arm. She was half Trisha’s age, a third of Sid’s age. If Trisha could, she’d beg the young blonde to steal him away. Please, take him. He’s yours. Become his pet, his caged animal. Trisha was done. Overdone. But she couldn’t bring herself to let that happen to an innocent woman, even a stupid, gold-digging, prostituting one.

  She stood in one place, lifted the vodka to her lips, washed her self-loathing down, one swallow at a time. Whenever the waitress passed by, she replaced her empty glass with a full one. The minutes ticked by. She swayed on her feet, but at least her skin had stopped prickling. She was comfortably numb, waiting for her punishment, not knowing when it would come.

  And it would come. Perhaps not tonight. But it would come.

  Knowing Sid the way she did, he would want to draw it out, let her terror take a firm hold. There was nothing more satisfying to him than seeing fear in her eyes.

  It was close to midnight by the time Sid got up from the table. Heinrik, his henchman, gathered the chips and held on to the arm of the young blonde. Later, while Sid cashed in his winnings, Heinrik would show the girl to one of the suites, where she would wait for Sid and eventually perform the most degrading acts with an old man.

  She would do it for money or the promise of money, expensive clothes, jewelry, fine dining, trips around the world. Sid would promise all these things, with no intention of keeping any of them.

  Everything Sid had was meant solely for him. Trisha knew it, lived it, breathed it. She’d been one of those girls many years ago.

  Sid made his way through a throng of people. He stood in front of Trisha in his black pin-striped suit, starched white shirt, and polished shoes. “Well, I never expected this,” he said and flicked the faux fur on her hood.

  “Winters are cold in Pennsylvania.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I never liked the cold.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Still.” He looked her over. “There’s something about this hillbilly look on you.”

  When she didn’t respond a second time, he asked, “Did you miss me?”

  “Yes,” she said and turned her head away. She couldn’t look at him, and not because she was lying but because that sick part of herself was telling the truth.

  He stepped closer, so close his stale breath was warm in her face. He closed his eyes, breathed her in. He’d told her once that her scent, her skin, was like a drug to him.

  “How did you find me?” she asked.

  “You’re a drunk, Trisha. You don’t remember everything you say.”

  He was right, of course. How could she have been so stupid? She’d probably told him herself, how she’d escape from him one day, where she’d go when she did. He’d probably laughed out loud when he’d found her gone from the penthouse suite six days ago. He’d known all along where to find her. It was her own fault, everything that would happen to her from here on out, or so he’d convince her. She was her own worst enemy. She’d created the situation she was in. She deserved whatever she got. Eventually, you heard these things about yourself often enough that you began to believe they were true.

  “Do you know why I came home?” she asked.

  “It has something to do with your stepfather.”

  She stared at a spot over his shoulder. The music was muffled, the chatter at the tables subdued. “I was instructed by the police not to leave town.” A lie, but one she knew he’d believe.

  He smiled, but not the kind of smile that reached his eyes. “Did you do it?”

  “No. I’m innocent.” Her voice was flat. Deadpan.

  “There is nothing innocent about you.” He looked around the room. “I guess I could stay for a while. I don’t have to be anywhere anytime soon. This place could grow on me, as long as I have my luck.”

  She didn’t say anything. Of course he wouldn’t fly back to Vegas without her.

  “Will you stay with me?” he asked. “Here at the casino.”

  “No,” she said. She wouldn’t stay with him willingly. If he wanted her, he’d have to drag her kicking and clawing.

  He nodded, leaned in, whispered in her ear, “You’re going to pay for this.”

  God, she knew she would.

  He laughed. “You’re such a tease,” he said, lifted her chin with his finger. “Go and play with your cop friends.” He started walking away but stopped, turned back around. “I’m never going to let you go. You know that, right?”

  She held her breath and didn’t release it until he was gone, Heinrik and the blonde two steps behind him.

  When she was sure he wasn’t coming back, she searched the crowded room, found an artificial tree in the corner, retched into the pot.

  Sid’s driver dropped Trisha off in front of her mother’s semiattached house. The street was dark. The Christmas lights that had lit up the porches and windows had been turned off, most likely when the neighbors had gone to sleep hours ago. A light snow was falling. The driver waited as he was instructed to do, the engine idling, until she went into the house and closed the door behind her. The kitchen light was turned on in the back room. She found her mother sitting at the table smoking a cigarette. A pink lighter sat next to the ashtray. Her mother had a thing for cheap pink lighters.

  “How’d it go?” her mother asked. “You don’t look any worse for the wear.”

  Trisha paused at the bottom of the stairs, her head down. “Why do you care? Why now?” she asked. “When I was a kid and I needed you, where were you? Where were you when I relied on you to protect me?”

  “I’ve always cared. Always. You have to believe me. I just didn’t know. I didn’t know until after he was already gone.”

  “How could you not have known? It was happening right under your nose.” But even as she said it, she understood sometimes a person couldn’t see beyond their own circumstances, even if it involved their own daughter. And what she finally realized was that her mother hadn’t been able to see past the bills, the bruises, her own pain.

  “I swear I didn’t know,” her mother cried. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I was a kid. I was scared and ashamed. I thought it was my fault.”

  “It wasn’t.” Tears rolled down her mother’s cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah,” she said and headed up the stairs, whispering, “that makes two of us.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  After hearing his name, Parker turned on the barstool where he was sitting at Benny’s to find Becca standing behind him. He opened his mouth, mumbled something that sounded like “Hey.” Geena stuck out her hand.

  “Geena Brassard,” she said.

  “Becca Kingsley.” She looked at Parker, her expression indecipherable. He used to be able to read her eyes, the twist of her mouth, to know what she was thinking. He no longer understood the woman in front of him. She looked beautiful, even though he was a little drunk and her features blurred.

  Geena picked up the beer Benny had topped off. “He’s all yours,” she said to Becca and walked away.

  Becca waved to Rick across the room.

  “He called you?” Parker asked.

  “He’s worried about you,” she said.

  Parker looked her in the eye. “What did he say to you?” he asked, noticed Geena had rejoined Rick and the others.

  “Not much,” Becca said. “Other than you might need a ride home.”

  Parker supposed this was Rick’s way of looking out for him, making sure he didn’t do anything stupid tonight like go home w
ith his partner. It had never crossed Parker’s mind. He picked up his mug to take another drink, but Becca gently put her hand on his arm, stopped him before it reached his lips.

  “Why don’t you let me take you home?” she said.

  His stomach was full, his head fuzzy. The room was hazy. She was probably right. He shouldn’t be driving.

  “You can get your car tomorrow,” she said.

  He followed her out to her Jeep. They drove with the windows cracked, the icy air sobering him up a bit. Next to him, Becca shivered. She was a runner, her body lean, taut. What she needed was some fat on her bones to keep her warm.

  He rolled up his window so she wouldn’t be cold. The heat from the dashboard vents blew in his face. The winding, bouncing roads made him feel sick. His tongue was slick, the taste bitter. He forced it down.

  “She’s my new partner,” he said, not knowing how else to explain Geena’s presence with him at the bar. He wanted to put Becca’s mind at ease. He didn’t want her to think there was something going on between him and his partner.

  “Oh” was all she said.

  They were quiet on the rest of the ride to his place. He closed his eyes and didn’t open them again until Becca had pulled into his driveway.

  She helped him into his cabin, walked him straight into his bedroom. He might be a bachelor, but he kept his place tidy. Rustic chic, Becca had called his style, with his gourmet kitchen, barnwood floors, flat-screen TV. Behind the cabin the river flowed. His place was too far away from Dead Man’s Curve to hear the raging rapids. The stretch of water off his dock was as calm as a lake. He fumbled with the buttons on his shirt.

  “Let me help you,” she said.

  She was a lot shorter than he was; her head barely reached his shoulders. She smelled nice, citrusy. Her cold fingers brushed his chest. He tried to get her to look up at him. He bent down to kiss her. She moved away. He tried again, but she turned her head a second time, stepped back, put too much distance between them.

  She watched him closely.