“Burton. Dutch Burton.”
“Right. Isn’t there a story there?”
“He was formerly with Atlanta PD,” Hoot explained. “Outstanding homicide detective. Commendations. Flawless record. Then he went round the bend, started drinking heavily.”
“How come?”
“Family problems, I believe.”
“Whatever, he got his ass fired. I remember now.” Begley had been gathering up personal items, including his cell phone, the framed photograph of his wife of thirty years and their three children, and his Bible. He yanked his overcoat from the coat tree and pulled it on.
“Bring all that with you.” He indicated the case files stacked in Hoot’s lap. “I’ll read them on the way while you drive.”
Hoot stood up and cast a wary glance out the window, where darkness was closing in over the city. “You mean you want . . . We’re going tonight?”
“We’re going right fucking now.”
“But, sir, the forecast.”
He got the undiluted, full-out nutcracker treatment.
He didn’t cringe, but he cleared his throat before continuing. “They’re predicting record freezing temperatures, ice and snow and blizzard conditions, especially in that part of the state. We’d be driving straight into it.”
Begley pointed to the corkboard. “Do you want to venture a guess as to what happened to those ladies, Hoot? What sort of sicko torture do you think this jerk-off puts them through before he kills them?
“I know, I know, we don’t know with absolute certainty that they’re dead, because no bodies have turned up yet. I’d like to think we’ll find them alive and intact, but I’ve had thirty-plus years of dealing with this kind of shit.
“Let’s face it, Hoot, the odds are good that we’re going to locate bones, and that’ll be all that’s left of those ladies who had futures, dreams, and people who loved them. Now, can you look at the faces in those pictures and still whine about a little bad weather? Hmm?”
“No, sir.”
Begley turned and strode out the door, saying as he went, “I didn’t think so.”
• • •
Tierney had pulled the watch cap from his head in one swift motion. Lilly had been standing by with a towel. That had been fifteen minutes ago, and his scalp wound was still bleeding. The towel was almost saturated. “Scalp wounds always bleed a lot,” he said when she expressed concern. “All those capillaries up there.”
“Here’s a fresh towel.” As she passed it to him, she reached for the bloody one.
He withheld it. “You don’t have to touch that. I’ll take it into the bathroom. I assume it’s through there?” He indicated the door leading into the bedroom.
“To your right.”
“I’m going to wash the blood out of my hair. Maybe the cold water will help stanch the bleeding.” As unsteady as a drunk, he walked toward the bedroom, where he braced himself against the doorjamb and turned back. “Keep filling up every available container with water. Pipes will freeze soon. We’ll need drinking water.”
He disappeared into the room, and the light in there came on. He’d left a smear of blood on the doorjamb, she noticed.
When he’d said, “Praise be. I’m back to being Tierney,” he’d smiled in the relaxed, easy fashion that she remembered from last summer. It had dispelled her rash of awkwardness, which seemed rather silly and juvenile now.
She didn’t know much about him, but he wasn’t a total stranger. She’d spent an entire day with him. They’d talked. They’d laughed. Since then she’d read his articles and had learned that he was a well-respected writer who was published often.
So why had she acted like such a dolt?
Well, for one thing, this was a bizarre situation. Misadventures such as this happened to other people. One heard about remarkable survival experiences in the media. They did not happen to Lilly Martin.
Yet here she was, scrounging through a kitchen that no longer belonged to her, searching for containers to fill with life-sustaining water for her and a man she barely knew, with whom she could be marooned in very close quarters for several days.
And, she had to admit that, if Tierney weren’t quite so attractive, so vitally masculine, she probably wouldn’t be this jittery about being isolated with him. If they hadn’t shared that day on the river last summer, being confined in close quarters might actually be less awkward.