A Place to Hide, page 4
The sound of her little boy’s voice had her smiling as she moved toward the dining room. Liam was already entertaining whoever had decided to pop in for lunch. All the way from Seattle was Henry Brower, sixtyish, with salt-and-pepper hair and kind eyes, who sat at the far end of the table. He was laughing at something Liam had said or done. Cara sat next to Liam. Their other guest, Joe Pierce, from Los Angeles, had not come inside, yet Grace hoped he would put in an appearance. She enjoyed chatting with her guests. To Grace, part of the draw of inns and bed-and-breakfasts was the gathering for meals. She had altered her appearance enough to do so without worry of being recognized. That too was something she had worried about in the beginning. But in two years no one had recognized her, so she’d begun to relax...until last night.
Henry smiled in Grace’s direction when she picked up a plate at the serving buffet. With effort, she returned the smile before surveying the lovely meal Diane had prepared. An array of sandwiches and a very tasty-looking salad. Grace had baked a variety of cookies. Chocolate with walnuts and drizzled with white icing, cherry almond with sprinkles, and lemon with white chocolate. Diane had arranged them beautifully on a vintage tray. Grace was thankful for the vintage dinnerware and serving pieces. It felt important to the atmosphere she wanted to create—something she and the previous owners shared. Guests frequently complimented the choices.
Funny how a small compliment could go so far after all she’d been through these past few years. In her old life, she had been an accountant. She’d worked for a large firm with an enviable salary and great benefits. But the environment had been cold and austere. It had been nothing like owning and operating an inn.
Grace moved to the table and sat down beside her little boy. He was busy telling Mr. Brower all about last night’s excitement. Grace bit back the urge to hush him. It was too late anyway.
“Was this a ghost you saw?” Brower asked, his eyes big with feigned concern.
Liam moved his head somberly from side to side. “No. It was a scary man.”
Grace patted Liam on the back. “But he’s gone now,” she assured him.
Liam nodded and took another bite of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He pointed a finger at Brower. “Mommy says he’s neber coming back.”
“I am so glad to hear that,” Brower affirmed.
Cara looked to Grace. She kept a smile in place for her assistant. Cara had seemed inordinately worried about Grace when they talked this morning. Cara often voiced her concerns about Grace and Liam being here alone at night when there were no guests. The closest neighbors were nearly a mile down the lane. But Grace hadn’t worried—at least, not until last night. Still, she wasn’t sharing that worry with Cara.
The memory of Liam describing the man’s eyes as being like his had her quivering deep inside where no one could see.
Liam had his father’s eyes.
Grace pushed away the thought.
“Mr. Brower, what brings you to our mountain?” Cara asked.
Brower sipped his iced tea. “I’m here for a mini conference in Chattanooga. I prefer the peace and quiet of a small community like this rather than staying downtown amid the hustle and bustle.”
“We appreciate your choosing our inn,” Grace said.
The middle set of French doors that led onto the terrace opened and Mr. Pierce appeared, aiming straight for the serving buffet. He was perhaps midfifties, with a shaved head that contrasted sharply with his long beard. He’d arrived this morning. Grace was always unsettled when a guest from California arrived. She wasn’t sure she would ever get past worrying if that person had seen her ex-husband in person...or perhaps had seen Grace. She’d gone to great lengths to avoid being recognized. She wore her hair longer now, and darker. She worked diligently to keep her blond roots covered.
Changing hers and Liam’s names had been the most difficult part. Finding the right sort of help—someone who did foolproof work—to pull off new IDs wasn’t as easy as the movies made it seem. When she’d started her business here at the inn, she had taken the sole proprietorship route—far less complicated. Thankfully, her son had been only an infant when they’d had to disappear. With her father’s death, there was no one left behind to consider. Her few close friends and old acquaintances likely no longer missed her. He had ensured she’d distanced herself from basically everyone during those final months together. She’d had no idea how much he’d controlled her life until it was too late.
Sadly, that had been a mistake, as was every other decision she had made after meeting Adam Locke.
She glanced down at her precious son. Except for sweet Liam. She could never regret him or the nightmare she had survived to have him.
“I should get back to work.” Cara rose from her chair, plate and glass in hand, and hurried from the dining room.
“Mr. Pierce,” Grace said, acknowledging the new arrival despite her reservations, “I hope your cabin is satisfactory.”
He settled at the table, directly across from her. “It’s great. Everything is great.” He said the last with a lingering glance at Liam.
“This is my son,” she said, “Liam.” She smiled when Liam looked up. “Liam, this is Mr. Pierce.”
Liam gave a salute. This was something new he’d picked up from his most beloved cartoon.
Pierce gave an indifferent nod before turning his attention to his salad.
When Liam had lost interest in the remainder of his lunch, Grace ushered him from the table, gathering their plates and glasses.
“Have a nice afternoon, gentlemen,” she offered. “Please let me know if you need anything.”
Liam skipped along beside her until they reached the kitchen. Diane had left already since she also taught an afternoon yoga class. She would be back in time to take care of dinner. Judging by the delicious scent filling the room, Grace suspected there was a roast in the oven. No one made a better or more tender roast than Diane.
While Liam created a Lego tower on the rug, Grace inventoried the pantry and refrigerator. She added the items that needed to be restocked to the list Diane had made for the upcoming week’s meals. Grace placed the order online, and Diane would pick it up on her way back to the inn this evening. Now that the guests had left the dining room, Grace cleared the lunch service and settled the glass dome back over the cookies. Those would stay handy in the event a guest needed a snack.
Once Grace had loaded the dishwasher, she and Liam retired to their space for his nap. She generally used the time for catching up on paperwork. As she settled on the sofa, she heard the vacuum running in the lobby. Paula Wilborn, the housekeeper, had arrived. She’d needed the morning off for an appointment. With Paula here, her husband would be about, clearing pathways or raking leaves. The couple was very good at their work and needed no direction, something Grace was grateful for.
Liam took a few extra minutes to settle. Last night’s excitement still had him wound up. When he’d finally fallen asleep, Grace dared to start the search she’d been dreading. She’d resisted the idea last night, this morning as well. It was easy to pretend she was too busy to take a moment. But the truth was, she was terrified at what she would find.
Stop. Adam was in jail. His trial had started at the beginning of the month. Or at least that was the last information she’d found. Trial dates were subject to numerous sorts of changes. The original trial date had been set only months after his arrest—two years ago. But then there had been countless delays. Scheduling issues with attorneys. There was discovery and depositions and much preparation that led to many requests for continuances. On and on it had gone. Once the trial actually started, it was expected to take several weeks, perhaps a couple of months, just because of the sheer number of witnesses and the mountain of evidence.
Grace’s statement had been videotaped. She did not have to testify again. At least, that was the promise. Didn’t matter now. After her father’s sudden death, she had made the decision to disappear. No one knew where she was or how to contact her. She might not have made the decision if not for the fact that her testimony was barely a sliver of what the DA had against the bastard. If for some unforeseeable reason they wanted her to make an appearance and couldn’t reach her, it wouldn’t make or break the case.
The evidence actually spoke for itself.
Nothing could change Adam’s destiny now.
She stalled, fingers poised on the keyboard. Every time she thought about him and about the trial, she found herself back in that crazy loop of fear and self-loathing. How had she lived in that house for all those months and not known what Adam had in his secret basement room?
The hot, sour taste that rose in her mouth had her lunch threatening to make a reappearance. She closed her eyes, swallowed back the bitterness and forced herself to calm. She was away from him now. He would never see his son...would never touch his son.
But what if the blue-eyed man from last night had been him?
No. No. No. It couldn’t have been. There had to be a reasonable explanation.
Gathering her resolve, she opened her eyes and forced herself to type the name.
Adam Locke.
Grace held her breath while the search results populated her screen.
Locke Case Thrown Out on Technicality...police must start from scratch...
For several seconds her brain refused to absorb the meaning behind the words.
She swallowed back the lump in her throat and compelled herself to continue reading.
The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office had been hiding a secret—the warrant used to obtain the majority of the evidence against the Sweetheart Killer, Adam Locke, contained a fatal flaw. The warrant authorizing lead investigator Detective Lance Gibbons to search the suspect’s home was not obtained until after the forced entry into the Locke residence. Since exigent circumstances could not be proved, the search of the Locke property was unlawful. The judge’s decision suppresses all evidence found in the unlawful search of the home.
Ice filling her veins, Grace’s gaze zoomed back up to the top of the article to see when it was released.
Friday.
Which meant Adam could have been here last night.
Fear tightened her chest, wrapped around her throat like bony fingers.
This couldn’t be right. No. Not possible.
Okay, okay. He was out. There was no denying this. The words were right in front of her. Still, wouldn’t the investigation resume? Wouldn’t he be under house arrest or something like that under the circumstances? The man was definitely a flight risk.
And even if for some reason he had ditched the house arrest ankle bracelet or whatever, how would he have known where to find her?
The same way you escaped with a new, fake ID.
Anything was possible if a person was willing to pay the price.
Hands shaking, Grace closed the search box. No, she refused to live in fear again. He couldn’t possibly know where she was. Finding her wouldn’t have been that easy. But he had... To deny it was ridiculous. Still, how had he managed the feat in less than forty-eight hours?
Unless he’d had someone looking for her all this time.
She shook her head. Stood on shaky legs. She’d been too careful. So, so careful.
Grace hurried, her feet tripping over each other, to the bedroom to see her son. He slept like an angel in the middle of the big down comforter. Her heart ached at the idea that her child would never be free if that bastard was out there.
Her heart stumbled, flailed like a wounded bird. Adam would do all in his power to kill her. She was the reason he had been caught. She was the one who’d told Detective Gibbons about the room in the basement. She was the one to release his final victim, and still the woman had somehow managed to get murdered. If that last victim had lived, she could have testified about what Adam had done.
Grace should have done more...should have found a way to save her.
She lowered herself onto the side of the bed. She hadn’t witnessed her husband kidnapping or harming anyone. He’d been so charming, so good to her. She would never have known about any of it if she hadn’t found that room.
How had she not sensed the evil in him?
After what she’d found, she had gone straight to her father in Lake Tahoe. Together they had come up with a plan that would best protect Grace and the child she carried. She had called the hotline for the Sweetheart Killer. Instantly she had been connected with the lead detective—Lance Gibbons. She’d told him everything she knew. All the police had to do was go to Adam’s place of employment and take him in for questioning, obtain a search warrant for their home, and voilà—he would spend the rest of his life in prison because of what he’d done.
Adam Locke—her husband, her son’s father—had been a serial killer.
Grace inhaled a deep breath, then another to slow her runaway heart. She had to think clearly—something she hadn’t done then.
Her husband had come home that evening and discovered his house had been invaded by the San Francisco Police Department, so he’d driven right on by and gone straight to her father’s house. The bastard had known that if the police had found him there was only one person to blame. And he’d known exactly where she’d gone.
He had driven the two hundred miles from San Francisco to Lake Tahoe. She and her father had no idea the police had not taken him into custody. No one bothered to call with the warning. This, she now realized, was where the detectives had jumped the gun. Rather than going to Adam’s workplace and arresting him, they’d gone to the house and burst through the door to get their hands on the evidence first. They had claimed she told them there could be a victim in jeopardy in the basement. And she had, sort of. She’d released the victim she’d found, but certainly her husband could have brought in another as soon as Grace left. It wasn’t like she had set out to mislead the police. How was she supposed to have known what his schedule was like? She hadn’t even known he was a killer. Damn it.
Not to mention she had been confused and terrified...out of her mind, really.
But she hadn’t claimed with any certainty that there was another victim in the basement and some ambitious clerk had zeroed in on that discrepancy in her statement during the latest deep dig into the evidence. After all those months of preparation for trial, it was all for naught because of one five-letter word.
Might.
In her answer to the question of whether or not there may have been yet another victim stashed somewhere in the house, she had stated there might be. Because like everyone else in the tristate area, she’d been aware that another woman fitting the profile of his victims had recently gone missing. Bella Watts. To Grace’s knowledge, she was never found.
While the police had conducted what was now considered an illegal search and seizure, Adam had broken into her father’s home to get to her. He’d left her father unconscious on the floor and chased her through the snowy woods behind the family cabin. Her water had broken during the chase, and she’d thought for certain both she and her baby were dead. After he’d found her waving for help on the side of the road, she rushed back into the woods and he’d abandoned the car and followed. He’d had her on the ground, choking her, when her hand found that rock. She’d slammed it into his head. When he toppled off her, she scrambled up and ran. She had hoped the blow killed him. Later, at the hospital, after Liam was born, she and her father had learned that his body had not been found.
Adam Locke was gone.
Two days later, sitting in a chair next to her hospital bed, her father had suffered a fatal heart attack in his sleep.
She’d named her son after him, William James. Weeks later, with her husband finally arrested in an attempt to get to her and Liam, she had made up her mind that the police would never be able to keep her safe. She’d taken her father’s insurance money and savings and disappeared.
She hadn’t cared if the police believed her dead—that was all the better. Adam Locke had not just fans but followers, Gibbons had told her, who looked up to him. Any one of them would have loved to see her dead. She suspected he had told her this to keep her pliable, but all he’d done was make her more determined and given her all the more reason to disappear.
Grace forced the horrible memories away. She checked the windows before leaving the room but didn’t close the door. If a sound came from where her son lay sleeping, she wanted to know.
Her fingers itched to pick up the phone and call Detective Gibbons. He could tell her what was really happening. But she couldn’t risk her call being traced. He would want her to return to San Francisco. Though he had her videotaped testimony, he would no doubt feel that an in-person statement would serve the case better.
She couldn’t do it. Not and risk Liam’s life. Not for anything.
The best thing to do was to stay calm. No one here knew she was Gianna Locke. Liam’s California birth certificate carried the name Aidan Reinhart Locke—the name she and Adam had chosen. She had only used that name in an attempt to prevent him from ever knowing the real name she intended to give her son, William James Myers. She had gone way back in her mother’s family history to find the name Myers. Grace was an easy decision since it was no doubt by the grace of God that she and Liam had escaped the bastard.
A rap on the door of their private quarters had her hurrying there. She needed Liam’s nap to last long enough for her to consider what steps she might need to take.
She opened the door to find Cara.
“I’m sorry, but I need to leave early today. Is that a problem?”
“Go ahead.” Grace took a deep breath. “I can monitor the lobby from here until Liam wakes up.” Her door had a direct view into the lobby.
Cara smiled. “Thanks. I appreciate it. My grandmother has an appointment with her heart specialist, and she failed to tell me until a few minutes ago.”
