Taken to the Edge Read online

  “Thanks, Calvin, I will.”

  Calvin gave Ford a suspicious once-over, but didn’t ask about him. Poor Ford. He’d probably never gotten so much as a parking ticket and suddenly everyone was looking at him like he was some kind of serial killer.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  FORD PULLED UP TO THE CURB in front of Heather Brinks’s home, and for a few moments he and Robyn studied it silently.

  It had taken them almost three hours to get to the small town of Ardmore, Louisiana. Since Robyn had confessed to skipping lunch, they had made only a brief stop for fast food. Ford had meant what he said about keeping their strength up. Already he could see that this fight was taking a toll on Robyn. He’d had to remind her several times to finish her hamburger.During most of the trip, she’d sat in the passenger seat, tense and silent. Every once in a while she had shifted in her seat, curling one or the other leg under her as if she couldn’t get comfortable.

  He was relieved they’d finally arrived at their destination.

  Heather Boone Brinks was married to the minister of a Lutheran church. She’d changed her name even before marrying, however. According to her high school friend, after leaving Green Prairie, Heather had sought refuge with one of her mother’s former boyfriends and had started using his last name.

  Robyn finally broke the silence. “I guess Heather did pretty well for herself.” She sounded both pleased and maybe a little resentful.

  Ford still wasn’t sure he’d made the right decision, bringing Robyn along. Just the sight of her—the ex-wife of the man with whom she’d been having an affair—might cause Heather to clam up. On the other hand, Heather and Robyn had once shared a rapport. Robyn was perhaps one of the first people to show a real interest in the girl, to encourage her.

  Heather’s large ranch-style house screamed conservative respectability, right down to the neutral paint colors and the white picket fence. She had cardinals painted on her mailbox, and a welcome wreath complete with little geese nailed to the front door.

  “What was she like before?” Ford realized he should have questioned Robyn earlier.

  “A mess,” Robyn answered. “She was in the first art class I ever taught at the high school. Too pretty for her own good, big hair and big boobs, too much makeup. Lots of boyfriends.”

  “Promiscuous?”

  “Ohhh, yeah.”

  “Good art student?”

  Robyn laughed. “No. She could barely draw a stick figure. But she liked me okay. I’d been like her, in a way, when I was her age. Low self-esteem. Problems at home. Discipline issues her whole life. Looking for love in all the wrong places. I tried to reach out to her, and she seemed to respond. She poured herself into every art project, and even though the results weren’t too good, I gave her an A.

  “I used to go home and tell Eldon all about her. I thought I was making a difference.”

  “You were. Seems Heather landed on her feet.”

  “Yeah, after she had an affair with a married man. It still shocks me—not that Heather would sleep with an older, wealthy married man, but that Eldon would have sex with her when he knew how potentially damaging it would be to a fragile girl like her.”

  “Fragile?”

  “Definitely. She was so caught up in what people thought of her. She once burst into tears when I gave her some instruction. You know, constructive stuff, like how to get a more realistic texture in the tree she was painting. Something really innocuous. I had to walk on eggshells around her.”

  That was bad news. If Heather Boone still cared a lot about what people thought of her, she would never admit to an illicit affair with a convicted child murderer.

  Still, Robyn’s presence here might be useful. She might be able to spot inconsistencies in her former student’s story—if they could get her to tell any kind of story at all.

  “I hope she’s toughened up a little. Because Heather could bust this case wide open.”

  Robyn didn’t seem convinced. “She’ll make Eldon look like a liar. And everyone will see he was a philanderer.”

  “If she backs up Eldon’s story, all of that won’t matter. The police think Eldon killed Justin, then spent hours disposing of the body and setting up the fake kidnapping. But if Heather saw the child alive and well only minutes before his disappearance, the police would have to come up with a new theory. Eldon would have had less than ten minutes to kill the child and dispose of his body before—oh, God, Robyn, I’m sorry.”

  Robyn had flinched and turned away, covering her face with her hands.

  Ford couldn’t believe what a jerk he was. “I got caught up in the moment,” he said, knowing it wouldn’t help. “I forgot who I was talking to.” He’d been thinking of Robyn as a colleague, an ally. He’d forgotten she was also the mother of a murdered little boy.

  He couldn’t imagine what she must have gone through. To nurture a child for more than two years, to have held him and hugged him and loved him, to have watched his first steps and heard his first words. And then to have him snatched away so cruelly…

  Ford was no stranger to grief. His loss hadn’t been as horrifying as Robyn’s, true. But he should be able to at least relate to Robyn’s grief. He shouldn’t have been so careless.

  “Robyn.” He felt an alien urge to gather her in his arms and hold her, to kiss away her pain, pain that he had caused. He settled instead for smoothing a strand of her blond hair behind her ear. She’d worn it loose. When she’d ducked into the girls’ bathroom at school to change her clothes, she’d also taken down her hair and brushed it until it gleamed like burnished gold.

  He liked it that way.

  She didn’t shy away from his touch, at least.

  “I’m sorry. My ex-wife always said I was a callous bastard, and I guess she was right. I’ll try to be a little more sensitive.”

  She dashed away a tear. “It’s okay, really. It’s nothing I haven’t heard a zillion times. It’s just that I thought I’d recovered. That I’d moved on. But seeing Eldon and remembering that awful night, that phone call at three o’clock in the morning…well, it’s just all come rushing back.”

  “Why don’t you wait in the car while I talk to Heather,” he said, unwilling to submit her to any more painful reminders.

  “I want to be there. I know I can get through to her. Please, Ford.”

  She was leaving the decision up to him. He deliberated another moment or two before giving in. “All right. But follow my lead, okay? I’m good at this.”

  She nodded her agreement.

  “You know, we can’t discount Heather as a suspect. If she had mur—if she were guilty of a crime, would Eldon protect her?”

  “Ford, please, don’t guard your words. I’m okay now. Would Eldon protect her if she had killed his child? Absolutely not. But she could have snatched Justin out of the car. No one saw her that night after…after it happened, including Eldon. She could have driven him anyplace and…well, you know. The fact that she left town and changed her name is suspicious.”

  Ford nodded. “Maybe Heather saw herself as the next Mrs. Jasperson, but she didn’t fancy being a stepmother. Eldon said she wasn’t comfortable around Justin.”

  “Exactly. Let’s go get her.”

  Robyn stood a bit to the side on the front porch as Ford rang the bell. He didn’t want Heather to see her until she’d opened the door.

  The door opened after a few moments, and a young woman spoke to them through the screen door. “Yes?”

  Ford had to squint to be sure. The woman looked very little like her old driver’s license picture. But this was indeed Heather Boone. Her long, wavy, bleached-blond hair was now a medium brown, cut into a neat, short cap. Instead of a load of black eyeliner and long, dangly earrings, her face was clean of makeup, and she wore tiny gold studs on her earlobes.

  Her dress looked as if it had been sewn out of someone’s flowered curtains. High-necked, with puffy sleeves and a white collar, it looked like something his mother would have worn.
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br />   “Hello, ma’am,” Ford said, ultrapolite. “My name is Ford Hyatt, and I need to talk to you about a matter of some urgency. You are Heather Boone, is that correct?”

  Her eyes widened slightly at the mention of her real maiden name, but she quickly covered the reaction. “I don’t need any insurance,” she said primly, starting to close the door.

  “Wait. I’m not selling anything. I’m here to talk about Eldon Jasperson. I think you might have some information that can save his life.”

  At the mention of Eldon’s name, the door stopped moving. “I don’t know any Eldon Jasperson,” she said cautiously.

  “Well, now, I’m sure that if you think back, you’ll remember him. One of the richest men from your hometown? Green Prairie, Texas?”

  “I’ve never…been—I haven’t heard of it.”

  “You were born there, Heather.” Robyn stepped into view, obviously unable to stand in the shadows another moment. “You spent the first eighteen years of your life there.”

  Heather’s eyes widened in alarm.

  “Please,” Robyn said, “we aren’t here to cause trouble for you. You have some information that might prove Eldon’s innocence. You might not even know you have it.”

  Heather shook her head. “I don’t know anything. Please leave.”

  “Why? Are you afraid the neighbors will see us and ask questions?” Ford asked. “Are you afraid we’ll spoil whatever little fiction you’ve concocted about your past? Does your husband know about the drugs, and all those men back in—”

  “Shh!” Heather hissed. “My son is in the next room.”

  Ford didn’t lower his voice at all. “Well, if you don’t want your son to know you were a slut and a drug addict, you’ll talk to us.”

  “Ford!” Robyn objected, but he gave her a warning look that quelled any further outbursts. He knew his tactics were harsh sometimes, but he’d learned to get results. Anyway, Heather was lying and he didn’t like liars—or people who covered their own asses without regard to anyone else.

  “All right, fine,” Heather said. “I’ll give you five minutes. But this is ridiculous. I don’t know anything.” She quickly scanned the street before ushering them inside, probably wondering if any neighbors were peeking out their windows.

  Small towns were like that. Everybody had to know everybody else’s business. He’d been relieved when he’d moved out of Green Prairie to Houston and could live in relative anonymity.

  Once inside the house, he could see what he hadn’t discerned through the screen: Heather was pregnant, close to term if he was any judge.

  She showed them into a formal living room, furnished in stiff brocade furniture, about as inviting as a funeral home.

  Just as they sat down, a little boy appeared in the doorway, staring curiously. He was about three, with thick, tousled hair and a juice mustache. A ragged stuffed animal of unidentifiable species dangled from one hand. “Mommy, who that?”

  Robyn stared at the child with a yearning so palpable it filled the room. Damn it! This kid wasn’t much older than Justin had been when he disappeared. Did the woman need any more reminders?

  Heather quickly scooped up her son. “No one you need to worry about,” she muttered as she swept him out of the room.

  Ford couldn’t look at Robyn. He wanted to say something but didn’t dare, positive he’d say exactly the wrong thing. He wasn’t good at warm fuzzies.

  Heather returned a short time later. She settled into a tufted, velvet-upholstered chair: a large, imposing marble-top table separated her from Ford and Robyn on the hard sofa.

  “Would you like something to drink?” she said, a good Southern hostess despite everything.

  “No, thank you,” Ford and Robyn said together.

  “Heather, don’t waste our time with more lies, okay? We know exactly where you were the night Justin Jasperson was kidnapped. We need to hear your side of the story.”

  “As I said, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was a kid when that happened.”

  “So where were you?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t remember. Probably home, asleep.”

  “Okay then, let me ask you this. What kind of pizza do you like?”

  The question rattled her for a moment, but she quickly composed herself. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

  “Humor me.”

  “We don’t eat much pizza. Brad, my husband, considers it junk food. I prepare most of our meals at home.”

  “But you must have eaten pizza when you were in high school. What high school kid doesn’t? So what kind did you like?”

  “I don’t remember. Sausage.”

  “Not pepperoni and black olive?”

  Heather schooled her face into a neutral expression. “I don’t know—”

  “Damn it, Heather, are you so wrapped up in your new life with your respectable husband and your perfect children that you would let an innocent man die to protect your lie?”

  “I’m not lying!”

  “So you weren’t having sex with a married man while his wife was out of town?”

  “No! I don’t know Eldon Jasperson. Never met the man.”

  “Heather,” Robyn said quietly, “that’s a lie. You met him when you were my student. He came to the Arts Fair at the school. He bought one of your paintings.”

  “If he did, I don’t remember.”

  Robyn glanced over at Ford and shook her head slightly.

  “I know, you don’t owe me anything,” Ford continued. “But what about Mrs. Jasperson? She had faith in you when no one else did. She helped you through some tough times. She saw you as a person, instead of someone to be used and tossed aside. And yet you won’t lift a finger to help her.

  “So long as Eldon Jasperson sits in jail, the person who stole her son from her remains free to commit more crimes.”

  “Obviously I would help if I could,” Heather said flatly.

  Ford had to do something to shake Heather out of her deep pattern of denial.

  “Heather,” Ford said quietly, “it’s not just that Eldon claims you were with him that night. He has security cameras all over his house. He has footage of you arriving at his house that night.” Ford made up the story as he went along. “He put it on a CD and stored it in a safe-deposit box. He never intended to use it unless he had no other choice.”

  It was a stupid story. If such evidence existed, it would have been found long before now. But Heather didn’t think it through. Her face registered alarm, then panic.

  “I want you out of this house right now. You leave, or I’ll call the police.”

  Robyn scrambled to her feet, but Ford sat right where he was, wanting to show Heather that her threats didn’t scare him. “Okay. You sit here in your pretty little house and let everyone keep believing you’re a pious, God-fearing woman who goes to church and gives to charity and volunteers at the nursing home. But you must have a heart of stone if you can kiss your little boy good-night and not think about Ms. Jasperson, and the fact that she doesn’t have a little boy anymore. That someone killed him and you’re letting him walk around free.”

  Now Ford stood, but only so he could get in Heather’s face. “What if it were your child? What if someone took your son—”

  Robyn grabbed her purse and fled the room. Moments later the front door slammed.

  Heather’s face crumpled, and for a moment, he thought he had her. But then she seemed to firm up her resolve. “Will you get out, please? I have heard quite enough.”

  “Sure. Say a prayer for me in church, okay? And better yet say one for yourself, too, because God doesn’t let unrepentant liars into heaven.”

  ROBYN WAS STILL TREMBLING with outrage by the time Ford joined her in the car.

  “You okay?” he asked as he started the engine.“No, I’m not okay.” She was perilously close to tears. One too many reminders of her loss had assaulted her today. Her nerves were so close to the surface, she was going to have a meltdo
wn if Ford so much as hit a bump in the road.

  “Want to go someplace, get some coffee or something?”

  Caffeine. That was all she needed. “How could you do that?” she asked. “How could you use that woman’s child against her? You don’t have children, do you?”

  “No.”

  “Then you have no idea how it feels. When you’re a mother, you worry all the time. You worry when you’re pregnant that the child will have something wrong when it’s born. You worry that it won’t survive your lack of parenting skills. Then you worry if someone else is taking care of him.

  “And most of all, you worry someone will hurt him. Maybe even someone he loves and trusts. To have someone thrust that fear right in your face—you were practically threatening her!”

  “I was using accepted interrogation techniques—”

  “On a pregnant woman, with her child in the next room. She had no lawyer present, no one she could call for help. That was unconscionable.”

  “Robyn, look, I’m sorry if I upset you. But I am all about getting results. That woman is lying through her teeth.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I can see it! You caught her in a blatant lie yourself.”

  “But she might be telling the truth about Eldon. We know Eldon—”

  “She’s not. She just doesn’t want her husband to know about her sordid past.”

  “You cops—you’re always so damn sure. You sounded just like the detectives who questioned me after Justin disappeared. They cornered me in that stinking interrogation room for hours and they hammered me and hammered me. They came up with every sordid way I could have murdered my child, my heart, my flesh and blood for whom I would have gladly lain down and died a thousand times—”

  Now, she did cry. The storm that had been brewing for days burst out of her. She’d never told anyone this, not even her closest friends. She’d felt she had to be strong, for Justin’s sake.