The Truth About Comfort Cove

“Yes, it was. And if I’d had any doubts about that, the look in my mother’s eyes when I saw her the next morning dissipated every last one of them. They’d given me explicit orders not to leave my sister. I disobeyed them.”

“I’m sure your mother doesn’t blame you.”

“I’m sure she does. With good cause.”

“Have you talked to her about it?”

“No. Mom’s in the beginning stages of dementia—though, to my knowledge, there’s been no official diagnosis. I’m sure it’s been brought on by depression.”

“What happened to Tom’s sister?”

“I married her.”

“Marsha was Tom’s sister?”

“Yeah. We clung to each other that first year or two after Diane and Tom died. She felt as responsible as I did. The party was at the home of a friend of hers. Tom was her younger brother. She was the reason we’d left the house to begin with.”

“All of which was perfectly normal behavior for a girl and boy your ages.”

“It was also wrong.”

“Diane was a big girl, Ramsey. She told you to go. She chose to take the pills.”

“She had no idea what she was taking.”

“I understand. It was a horrible, ghastly thing that happened. And I get that you wish you’d done things differently. All I’m saying is that you couldn’t possibly have known what was going to happen. You didn’t do anything that any other boy your age wouldn’t have done. And…well…I’d trust you with my life. Personally or otherwise.”

She had her answer. She understood why Ramsey spent his life trying to save lives. To protect and serve. He was trying to buy himself back from hell. To earn back his own self-respect.

His eyes glistened. He didn’t say a word. So she did.

“You said your folks are still in Vienna. Do you see them often?”

“No. I went home regularly for a while, but every time I go it sets Mom back and my father is left there alone to deal with her.”

She reached for his hand, whether it was the right thing to do or not. “I guess we both know how much a woman suffers when she loses a daughter, don’t we?”

Ramsey gave a short nod.

And they went back to work.

T he experiment hadn’t worked. Satisfying his curiosity had not in any way lessened Ramsey’s desire for Lucy. To the contrary. Every time she moved, a hand to pick up a folder, a tilt of her head, his body responded. He hadn’t found distance. He’d become connected to her so that every part of her felt as though it was part of him, too.

This wasn’t good. It didn’t affect the work, though. As long as she wasn’t moving.

Ramsey was on his computer, logged in to the Comfort Cove P.D. when he saw a message come through.

“Hey,” he said. “We got an answer back on one of the numbers in Colton’s phone records. It’s one of those prepaid cells.”

“Which makes it untraceable. Why would someone be calling him on a number that can’t be traced?”

“Could be someone who can’t afford a regular cell phone, but it’s curious, isn’t it?” He went back to the phone records to check when the first call came in from the number in question. “He received his first call from that number last Tuesday, at 2:55 p.m.”

“Right after we were at UC asking about him.”

His blood was racing in a way that was familiar to him. He was on to something big. The break in the case was coming.

“Someone we talked to notified Jack.”