Page 699 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

“Look, I’ll make a deal with you,” he said. He came around, opened her door, and practically placed her in his truck.

Well, that was a first. He’d never opened her door before.

“You ride with me, and if you still feel the same way when you get there, then I’ll bring you back.”

She searched his face, trying to decide if she could trust him to really bring her back. “All right,” she said. She got in and he closed the door.

Not two minutesafter Sydney walked out the front door, her phone rang and Ginger’s voice came across the answering machine. “Sydney, it’s me … hello? If you’re there, pick up. This is really important.” There was a pause, followed by a deep breath. “I really wish I could tell you this in person. Anyway, Mark finally got ahold of Dustin Akin, his friend from The Woodlands. Get this: He’s never heard of Sean O’Conner. He gave Mark the name of some other guy who was the starting quarterback. He even asked some of his former teammates to make sure that he wasn’t missing something. None of them had ever heard of Sean O’Conner either. Something’s fishy here, Syd. Mark’s really worried about it and so am I. I have a bad feeling about this. You need to stay as far away from Sean O’Conner as possible. Call me as soon as you get this message. I’ll try your cell.”

A stony silencesettled over Sydney and Kendall on their way to the dock. Sydney kept running the strange phone call over and over in her mind. She tried to place the husky voice. What was it about it that was so familiar?

It was when her cell phone rang, causing her to jump, that she realized that her nerves were raw. She reached in her purse to retrieve it and saw that it was Ginger. She looked at it for a moment, trying to decide if she was going to answer it. There were no short conversations with Ginger. And Ginger had an uncanny way of sensing when something was wrong. She would be asking questions that Sydney couldn’t answer—not with Kendall sitting next to her.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?”

She shook her head. “No, it’s a friend of mine from Texas. I’ll call her back later.”

Tuesday rinsedoff the last plate and watched the sudsy water slide down the drain. The voices of her two teenage grandsons drifted into the kitchen.

“Momaw, the game’s about to start!”

“I’m almost finished.” She reached for her oven mitt and took the pan of hot cookies out of the oven. She breathed in the familiar aroma and listened to her grandsons laughing in the next room.

“Come on, Momaw!”

Tuesday hurried into the room, carrying a plate heaped with chocolate chip cookies just as the pre-game ceremony began. She stopped in her tracks. All thoughts of the game fled. There it was right in front of her—the very thing she’d been racking her brain to remember.

“What’s wrong?”

Tuesday looked down and realized she was gripping the plate. “Boys, y’all go on without me. I’ll be right back. I’ve got to make a phone call.”

By the timeshe reached the dock, Sydney’s pulse bumped up a notch. In her mind she formulated her excuse for not going on the boat. Her one consolation was knowing that Walter would back her up. He of all people would understand her reasons for not wanting to go. In fact, it seemed strange that he would even suggest such a thing. This time Kendall didn’t open her door.Heexited the truck so quickly that he was halfway down the pier by the time she got out. She shook her head. What was it with him, anyway?

A blast of cold air slapped Sydney in the face when she got out of the truck. She pulled her coat tighter around her. She glanced up at the sun that was shining in the thin sky. It was one of those deceptive days where you see the sun and think it’ll be warm until the wind hits.

She gazed over the sparkling water and breathed in the faint fishy smell. It was all so familiar—too familiar. Her thigh began to ache and a wave of nausea engulfed her. Her time with Judith had been a buffer to the pain, but standing here, almost in the same spot she’d stood all those years ago, her world seemed to contract, as if she were living it all over again. She had to get a grip. She was safe here with Walter and Kendall, and she wasn’t getting on the boat. She was going to have a conversation with Walter, and then Kendall would take her home.

It was a short walk on the pier to the boat, but it seemed like the longest of her life. If Walter had owned a sailboat, the similarity might have been too much to bear. Thankfully, what Kendall had referred to asWalter’s boatwas in actuality a petite yacht. Walter was moving around on the deck and performing what she knew were last-minute checks before leaving the dock. The radio was turned up full blast, and she recognized the garbled sounds of a football game. Any other time, she would have smiled. Of course: Alabama was playing today. Walter would never miss that. The band was playing their fight song, “Yea Alabama.” Walter whistled along. Her childhood floated to the surface of her mind and she remembered going to Walter’s house with Avery on countless occasions to watch the game. Walter was always whistling that tune.

Walter’s back was facing her as she approached. Kendall was already on the boat beside him. Would it have hurt Kendall towait a minute for her? She moved to the edge of the pier and Kendall extended his hand. Atleast he had the decency to do that.

Rather than taking hold of it,she stepped back. Kendall gave her a questioning look, which she ignored. The trick was how to talk to Walter about the phone call with Kendall right beside him. She cleared her throat. “Walter, I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to go on the boat today. I just came to apologize.”

A look passed between Walter and Kendall. Before she could continue, her cell phone rang again. She reached in her purse and retrieved it. The caller ID read Tuesday Phillips. “Excuse me for a minute,” she said. Walter nodded.

“Hello?”

“Sydney, I’m so glad I caught you. Do you remember when you asked me about Buford’s death?”

“Yes.”

“Well, remember how I told you that Buford was mixed up with somethin’ illegal with the guys at the mill?”

“I remember.”

“That tune that kept coming to me. I just realized what song it was: Yea Alabama. You’re probably not familiar with that, but it’s the theme song for the University of Alabama. I just heard it on the television.”

For a moment Sydney felt like she was having an out-of-body experience. White lights exploded in her head. Hot prickles covered her as it all came together. The husky voice on the phone that had sounded so familiar was Maurene’s. Images of Maurene clicked through her mind. Maurene standing on the landing. Maurene’s eyes boring into her at the football game. Was the call some twisted way to try to warn her? Was she trying to ease her own guilt but lacked the courage? She fought hard to stave off the look of horror that was sure to form on her face. How could she have been so blind? She thought of her most recentconversation with Walter. His words rose like a mocking banner. “If something had been going on at my sawmill, you can bet your bottom dollar I would’ve known about it.” Of course he would have known about it. Walter did know about it. Like a dot-to-dot picture, her mind ran through all the evidence and connected it. An image of Hazel on the back porch flashed in her mind. The mean brother who drowned the kitten. All of the color drained from her face. She looked at Walter and Kendall and realized they were studying her intently. Her head started spinning.