Page 2

CHAPTER 2

Later that night

Her phone’s persistent buzz from the bedside table had Suzanne fumbling for it. The bedside clock showed it was almost midnight. Someone was gonna get an earful. She hit accept, and growled, “Whoever this is, you’ve got a rotten sense of timing.”

“Su-Suze?” The whispered question came from an all too familiar voice, pulling Suzanne upright and into complete awareness. The young, always confident voice was a raspy stutter, and her pulse hammered against her skin. The voice’s owner never stuttered. David. Mercy’s son.

“David? What’s wrong?” Mercy never let David use his Snoopy-Woodstock phone after nine o’clock and he had yet to even try to break that rule. Unless it was an emergency…

“There’s someone in the house,” he whispered again, and she heard the terror in the boy’s voice. “I think they’re hurting my mom. She’s crying.”

“David, hang up and call 9-1-1 right now.” Keeping the phone to her ear, Suzanne rolled out of bed, grabbed her sweatshirt and pants from the chair, pulled them on over her sleep shirt and slid her stockinged feet into loafers. “Get under your bed, OK? David?”

His silence sent terror spiraling over her, and she dialed 9-1-1 to give Mercy’s address and report a break-in with a child in the house. Shoving her phone and keys into her jeans pocket, she bolted downstairs, grabbed her coat from the back of the kitchen door leading to the garage. The garage door slid closed and damning the consequences of a ticket, she sped from her home in northwest Knoxville to Mercy’s house in the Island Home area. She made the trip in fifteen minutes, thanking God for all the green lights and no snow.

Flashing blue lights were punching holes in the darkness when Suzanne pulled to a stop beside the two patrol cars in Mercy’s circular driveway. Through the open front door, she could see the large Christmas tree she helped decorate Thanksgiving weekend. Climbing out, she hurried up the front porch steps, but a female police officer stopped her from entering.

“You can’t go in there, ma’am,” she said. “This is a crime scene.”

“I’m the one who called 9-1-1,” Suzanne snapped. “Are Mercy and her son David alright?”

“Suzanne?” Sgt. Grant Miller of the KPD stepped out on the porch. Suzanne knew him from volunteering at a local food bank, and he often ate lunch at Daisy’s. But instead of relief, his presence drove her already thundering heart into overdrive.

“What’s happened?” she demanded. “Where are Mercy and David?”

Anger had turned his handsome features into a grim mask. “I’m sorry, Suzanne,” he said. “Mercy Phillips is dead. It looks as if someone strangled her.”

Her knees gave way, and he caught her before she reached the ground. “No,” she whispered. “Where’s David? Her son?”

“There’s no one else in the house,” Miller told her, leading her inside. “We’re waiting for the coroner and CSI to get here.”

“Oh, my God.” Suzanne sank into one of the matching wing-backed chairs before the empty fireplace. They snatched my kids, Suzanne. “They’ve got David, haven’t they?”

“Who’s got him?” Miller demanded. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” Suzanne amended hastily. “I mean, could whoever killed Mercy have taken–” She choked back her disbelief. Mercy dead? Not possible.

And where was David?

“We won’t know anything until later today at the soonest,” Miller said. “How did you know about this?”

She described David’s call but left out what Mercy told her about the Campbell girls vanishing. If the Taylors called the police, he might already know that. Besides, the two couldn’t possibly be connected. The thought was crazy. Or was it?

“He called me ‘Suze’” she said woodenly. “It was a signal that if he called me that, something was wrong. He said someone was hurting his mother.” She choked back a sob before adding, “Then he hung up.”

“Does David have a cell phone?” Miller asked.

“No.” Suzanne choked back a sob. “Only that Snoopy and Woodstock phone in his room.”

“Is that him?” Miller pointed at a framed photo on the mantle of a smiling David and Mercy, both looking as if they hadn’t a care or fear in the world.

“Yes.” Fighting the nausea churning in her stomach, Suzanne got to her feet. “I need to go.”

After refusing Miller’s offer of an officer escort, Suzanne drove home, thoughts tumbling like autumn leaves. As she turned into the driveway, she remembered she’d forgotten to put the new garage door opener in the car and the old one worked when it wanted. Thankfully the door opened, but no matter how she pressed the opener’s button, it stayed up. The wall switch didn’t work either.

She unlocked the kitchen door and recalled the ceiling lights were burned out too. At least the light over the stove was on. Where was the new garage opener?

The smell of sweat and beer assaulted her nostrils as a strong hand clamped over her mouth and an equally strong arm wrapped around her chest. She pushed back but her visitor only tightened his grip.

“I wouldn’t move if I were you,” his clipped English-accented voice advised. “We’re going to have a little chat.”

Remembering a trick she’d learned from a self-defense class, Suzanne went limp, and the man’s grip loosened enough for her to slip free, take the pepper spray from her coat pocket and spray it into her masked attacker’s eyes.

“Bitch”! he screamed, staggering backwards.

“I’ll show you bitch!” Suzanne shouted, spraying him again, keeping her head down.

His shove sent her into the kitchen island. In the seconds it took her to regain her footing, he stumbled through the still open door, into the garage and out into the night. Right behind him, Suzanne slammed and locked the door, and sank to the floor, her breathing coming in short, rapid bursts. Taking out her phone, she called 9-1-1. Within minutes, she heard in the distance the blessed sound of approaching sirens. Grant Miller must have sent someone to be sure she got home.

As the sirens’ wail grew closer, she called her friend and supervisor Elaine Prescott at Families United to ask her about Brotherhood Protectors.