Nichols turned all the way around, her eyes wide, her big wool coat swallowing just about all of her but those eyes. “He came this way.”She pointed to the water and nodded with complete certainty. Then she stilled. Her head started to wag back and forth. “He didn’t bring them here.” Her gaze settled on Addy. “But he was here ...” She gave her head another good shake. “Don’t know why, but he came here for something. Or maybe he passed this way going where he was going.”
“A lot of these waterways intersect,” Womack suggested. “He may have used a canoe, moved about that way with his victims.”
Wyatt heaved a disgusted breath. “Yeah. We’ll keep searching until dark.” Scarcely a few minutes more. There was nothing else to do at this point. “Tomorrow we’ll take another sector and do the same. We’ll just keep doing it until we find them.”
Pain tightened in Addy’s face. She offered her arm to the older woman. “Come on, Ms. Nichols, I’ll walk you back to the command post. From there one of the deputies will give you a ride home.”
Wyatt started to argue, but Sullenger jumped in. “I’ll go with you, Detective Cooper.” She smiled at Wyatt. “Better to move about in pairs, right, sir?”
Addy rolled her eyes but didn’t argue.
Wyatt checked in with the team leaders. He knew damned well that if any of them had made a discovery he would have known about it within seconds. Still, it was something to do until Addy was back at his side. He’d sworn he wasn’t letting her out of his sight. But they weren’t that far from the temporary command post and Sullenger was with her, both were armed. If he didn’t give her some breathing room, she would revolt.
He shook his head. So far they hadn’t found a damned thing and Nichols had just insisted the women weren’t anywhere near here. Of course, she could be wrong. But she’d been right about a hell of a lot so far.
Damn it.
What the hell was wrong with him? One minute he thought the woman being involved was a waste of time, the next he’d done an about-face.
He seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. Wyatt shoved his phone back into the holster on his belt. If this thing hadn’t happened, Addy likely would never have come back home. Selfishly, he was glad she was back. But every minute that this crazed bastard was on the loose, her life was threatened.
Damn it. He felt helpless. Just plain damned helpless.
“This guy’s a true psycho, don’t you think?” Womack asked. “What he did to his wife is unthinkable.”
“Yeah.” Wyatt had read about the children of killers and how sometimes they ended up following that same path, but he’d never worked a case where the perp fell into that category. Well, there were the Cooper boys, Gage and Clay. But, to his knowledge, neither one had resorted to murder. If Cyrus had ever committed a homicide, he’d kept it under wraps. No way to be certain with a man like that.
Womack scanned the woods all around them; the trees and underbrush grew right up to the riverbank. “I’m scared to death we’re going to be too late for those women.” He settled his attention on Wyatt. “No harm in a man admitting fear, especially in a situation like this.”
“None at all,” Wyatt agreed. “We hope for the best and brace for the worst. Then we do all we can.”It may already be too late.Wyatt exiled that truth.
Every county from here to just north of Laurel and all the way west to Picayune was looking for those women and the damned man who had taken them. He couldn’t be that good.
Wyatt turned to stare in the direction Addy had gone with Nichols and Sullenger. He shouldn’t have let her out of his sight. How many times had he said that and gone on to let her have her way? He started in the direction of the command post. Womack called out to him, but Wyatt just kept walking.
He had to get to Addy and this time she wasn’t getting more than two feet from him.
40
“Thanks for your help, Ms. Nichols.” Adeline assisted her into the back of the county cruiser.
“You be careful now,” the lady urged. She searched Adeline’s face. “He’s watching you real close. Almost as close as he’s watching his boy.”
Adeline resisted the urge to look over her shoulder. “Don’t worry about me, ma’am. I’m watching for him.” Ms. Nichols grabbed her hand before Adeline could close the door. “Stay away from your kin, Detective. You can’t trust none of ’em.”
Adeline promised she would as she extracted her hand from the old lady’s surprisingly strong grip. She closed the door and banged the top of the car with the flat of her hand to give the deputy the go-ahead to get moving.
Nichols had picked up on the fact that the man they were looking for was her biological brother. And that he had a son. No way to ignore she had some sort of gift.
The whole thing gave Adeline the willies.
At least she’d kept her mind occupied and off her mother. Images of her lying in that hospital bed ached through Adeline. It was so hard to believe her mother was gone. Forever.
“That old woman is one strange lady,” Sullenger commented as she watched the cruiser roll down the dirt road, leaving a faint cloud of dust in its wake.
Adeline blinked the images away. “Very strange.”
Her attention settled on Sullenger. She really was attractive, despite the long nose. Seemed like a good deputy. Had Sullenger and Wyatt dated? Or just flirted at the office? Her gaze narrowed on Sullenger.Jealousy never looks good on anyone.That was what her mother would say. A renewed ache deep in her chest took her breath.