grumbled, but didn’t get out of the way until forced off the bed. As soon as his paws hit the wood floor, though, Bax was on the move, bounding back onto the mattress and heading for the warm spot vacated by Rick.
Having finally located the phone among the pile of law magazines, Rick took a few more seconds to clear his head. He ran a hand over his face and squinted at the caller ID.
“PRIVATE.”
The phone rang a fourth time. He hit the talk button. “Rick Brady.”
“Detective Nate Langley with the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office.”
The name wasn’t one Rick recalled from his years on the force.
Propped against the headboard now, he did a quick mental scan of his current client list but came up empty. Not because those that he represented were incapable of murder, but because most of them were already behind bars for that particular felony. That was the up side of handling death-penalty appeals. Rick always knew where to find his clients. Unless…
Had one of them escaped?
“I know it’s late,” Langley said.
“What can I do for you, Detective? I assume this has something to do with one of my clients.”
There was a pause. “No. I’m actually looking for some help with a case.”
Rick remained silent, waiting for the detective to go on.
It took several seconds for Langley to take the hint. “Eight years ago your father was the lead detective on a case. The Midnight Run Murders.”
“Go on.”
“Is it true that even after his retirement, he continued to investigate? And that since his death, you’ve been doing the same?”
“Where is this conversation headed?” Rick abruptly swung his legs over the side of the bed and dragged the sheet across his lap. “And why call me at—” he eyed the clock “—two in the morning to ask?”
“There’s been another incident.”
Incident? It was an odd word choice. Especially when used in the same conversation with the Midnight Run Murders. His father had been obsessed with the case.
“And you think there’s a connection?” It had been over six years since the official investigation of the Midnight Run Murders had ground to a halt and the case had gone cold for everyone but his father.
“I wouldn’t be calling you if I didn’t think there was a connection.”
Hearing the irritation in Langley’s voice, Rick found it more difficult to hold on to his own. “Any survivors?”
“One. She managed to escape. The rest appear to be headed south.”
A witness? The last time there had been one, too. Unfortunately, she hadn’t lived long enough to tell the cops anything.
Rick crossed to where he’d left his jeans hanging over a chair back. “Can she talk?” Holding the phone between his ear and his shoulder, he kicked his way into his jeans.
“Yes.”
“Did she get a look at her kidnapper?”
“Make that plural, and yes.”
There was a slamming sound on the other end of the line, like a car door being closed. Then the sounds of shouting in the background, of wind briefly hitting Langley’s cell. “Hold on.” The cell’s receiver was momentarily covered as if Langley talked to someone, then he was back on the line. “Are you still there?”
“When did it happen?” Rick fastened his jeans.
“Around midnight. Listen, Brady. I don’t usually
contact civilians, but given your background…” He paused for several seconds, as if uncomfortable with what he was about to say. “Right now I’ll take help from anywhere I can get it.”
“What kind are you looking for?”
“I’d like to get copies of everything you have. Any notes your father produced after he left the department. Anything you’ve turned up since your father’s death.”
He rarely discussed his interest in one of Charleston’s most notorious murders—mostly because he believed that it was that same interest that had gotten his father killed. And while Rick wanted to find those responsible for his father’s murder, he wanted to live long enough to do something about it.
“I can send a patrol officer by to get them,” Langley offered.
If there hadn’t been lives on the line, Rick might have refused Langley’s request. For more than twenty-five years, Rick’s father had been a cop with the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office. When he’d needed his fellow officers the most, they’d let him down. Men he’d worked side by side with hadn’t hesitated to accept that Jim Brady, suffering from cancer, had put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
Rick knew better. Jim Brady had never been a quitter. For nearly sixteen months Rick had been trying to get the investigation reopened.
Maybe now someone would be willing to listen to him.
Rick grabbed the sweatshirt from the chair back. “Don’t bother sending anyone by. Where do you want me to deliver them?”
“The station.”
Tuesday, 2:42 a.m.
AFTER HANGING UP with Langley, Rick had reconsidered what he’d just agreed to and decided the deal was too one-sided. Langley got copies of nearly eight years of investigation notes while giving up nothing in return. The way Rick figured it, a little reciprocity was in order.
Which was why he’d decided to drive out to the scene and deliver the records directly to Langley. Even if that hadn’t been the case, though, once he’d made a call to one of his contacts at the sheriff’s, and learned where the crime had occurred, there was no keeping him away.
As Rick’s SUV coasted to a stop behind a line of police vehicles, he saw the rack lights of a single patrol car strobe through the trees off to the left.
Two black-and-whites passed him going fifty or sixty, heading north, their lights flashing, their tires turning the moisture on the road into a fine mist that trailed behind. There was no traffic at this time of night, which wasn’t surprising since this narrow secondary road saw limited use even during daylight hours.
Most of the properties out this way were relics of the pre–Civil War South, plantations that had once been capable of supporting their owners. The reverse was true now. It was the owners who supported these white elephants. Or didn’t. Many of the properties were vacant, their titles held by corporations, land speculators who gambled that when the last of South Carolina’s coastline was built up, developers would look inland.
As soon as Rick climbed out of the sedan, a heavy wind gust forced his sweatshirt against his chest. The storm that had been sitting stationary out in the Atlantic for days had suddenly decided to make its move.
Closing the car door, Rick aimed the flashlight at a historic marker across the road. Ravenel Cemetery. His father’s body had been found less than a quarter of a mile from where he now stood. Rick didn’t believe in that kind of coincidence.
The Midnight Run Murders had haunted Rick’s father. Just as his murder now haunted Rick. What had brought Jim Brady out here the last night of his life? Had he been following some new lead, or had he been lured out to this remote area? Rick knew he’d never be able to answer that question with any certainty. Just as he knew that no matter how much time passed, he would continue to hunt his father’s killer.
Turning, he walked up the line of cars, crossing in front of the first in the group, a marked cruiser. Crime-scene tape had been wrapped around a century oak next to the dirt drive and then strung across to what was left of a stone pillar. The loose ends whipped in the breeze,