“Yep. All clear. No one else is home. There are men’s clothes in the closet in the master bedroom, but only one side of the bed appears to have been slept in. There’s another bedroom. Looks as if it belongs to a teenage boy. Slew of baseball trophies on some cluttered shelves and a poster of the Atlanta Falcon cheerleaders on the wall. Dirty clothes piled on the floor. Bed hasn’t been slept in.”
A boy who’d come home soon to find his mother had been brutally murdered.
A surge of unwanted memories bombarded Wyatt. Events replayed in his mind in slow motion. Staring at his mother’s brutally slain body, the pain inside him so intense he’d had to fight to breathe. The panic. The fear. The smell of burning peas. To this day he couldn’t stomach the sight or smell of peas.
“Who called the police?” Alyssa asked.
“A neighbor. He said he heard what sounded like gunshots from the Whiting home, but that the alarm system hadn’t gone off. When we got here we found the back door wide open, so we came in that way and then unlocked the front door for you guys.”
“Have you talked to the neighbor?” Wyatt asked.
“We figured Homicide would want to be the first to do that,” Bower said.
The front door banged shut. Either the wind had caught it or someone had joined them. Wyatt’s hand instinctively flew to the butt of his weapon.
“Mother.”
The voice coming from the foyer was youthful, male and shaky with panic.
Wyatt and Alyssa rushed to the hallway.
“What’s wrong?” the boy asked. “Where’s my mother?”
The boy looked to be twelve or thirteen, the same age Wyatt had been when his world had exploded. A man in a blue flannel robe stood beside him, his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Has something happened?”
Alyssa flashed her badge. “Alyssa Lancaster, Atlanta P.D. Are you Derrick Whiting?”
“No. My name’s Culver. Andy Culver. I live across the street and a few doors down. Josh, here, was spending the night with my son Eric. He woke up and saw the squad cars in front of his house. Was there an accident?”
“There’s a problem,” Alyssa admitted. “Josh, do you know where your dad is?”
“He’s out of town on business.”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” Wyatt asked.
“No.”
“Any other relatives who live nearby? Grandparents or maybe an aunt?”
“My grandparents live in Peachtree City. Why? What happened to my mother?” His voice had turned husky, as if he were fighting back tears.
“Why don’t we step out on the porch while I explain the situation,” Alyssa said.
Explain? As if they were talking about the boy’s math homework instead of the end of life as he’d known it. Thankfully, Alyssa was better at talking to the family of a victim than Wyatt was, especially when they were kids.
Wyatt could handle the cold, hard facts of the crime, but he needed the sharp edges of personal boundaries to keep distracting emotions in check.
“Where’s my mother?” Josh’s voice had become almost a wail.
“I’m sorry, Josh.” Alyssa stepped toward him.
Josh broke loose from the cluster and made a run for the living area where his mother’s lifeless body lay drenched in blood. Wyatt grabbed for him as he scurried past, but Josh went in for the slide as if he were stealing home. By the time Wyatt reached him, the boy was standing over the body, his face a ghostly white.
Josh trembled, but he wasn’t crying yet. That would come later. Now he was in a state of semishock, consumed by the nightmare and ghastly images his mind wouldn’t let him accept.
“Mom’s dead, isn’t she?” His voice broke.
Alyssa slipped an arm around his shoulders as Wyatt took a position that hid the worst of the scene from the boy’s line of vision. But nothing either of them could say or do could protect Josh from the horror or the agony that would follow. No one knew that better than Wyatt.
The best Wyatt could do was to apprehend the killer and see that justice was served for Josh’s mother. That was a hell of a lot more than anyone had done for Helene Ledger.
Chapter One
Three months later
“The chief wants to see you in his office.”
Wyatt looked up at the young clerk who had just stuck her head inside his cubicle. “Did he say why?”
“No, just that he wants to see you.”
Wyatt shoved the letter he’d been sweating over into a folder and pushed his squeaky swivel chair back from a desk piled high with case files. He picked up the folder for the Whiting case. He hadn’t even finished his written report yet, but he was sure last night’s developments would be the topic of the chief’s discussion.
He wouldn’t be thrilled that Derrick Whiting would not be standing trial for the murder of his wife. But neither would he be walking the streets a free man, with insurance money in the bank and the sexy mistress in his bed.
Whiting had shot himself last night when Wyatt and Alyssa had shown up at his door, arrest warrant in hand. Fortunately, Josh was not there to witness the event. He’d moved in with his grandparents over a month ago.
Alyssa caught up with Wyatt just before he reached the chief’s door. “So you were summoned, too.”
“Yeah.”
“Think Dixon’s pissed that we couldn’t stop the sick bastard from killing himself?” she asked.
“I’m sure he’d have preferred to have the guy stand trial, but it is what it is.”
The door was open. Martin Dixon waved them both inside. He stood and moved away from his desk to welcome them. He wasn’t exactly smiling. He never did. But his eyes and stance said it all. He was glad this was over.
“Hell of a job! Both of you. I wish we could have brought Whiting in to stand trial, but I can see why he took care of his own death sentence. And if he hadn’t, the evidence you’ve collected would have guaranteed a conviction. No juror in his right mind would have let him off.”
“It’s the jurors not in their right minds I always worry about,” Alyssa said. “But thanks for the kudos.”
“The mayor called this morning,” the chief continued. “Said to tell both of you how grateful he is for the way you handled the investigation. He wanted to congratulate you himself, but he’s getting ready for a joint press conference he’s giving with me in about an hour.”
Wyatt grimaced.
