The Coldest Fear. Debra Webb

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СКАЧАТЬ the tabletop. A man of means living in a house like this one would certainly have a cleaning staff.

      Had he sent them all away before he took his own leave?

      Bobbie surveyed the room again. No sign of cameras. In Zacharias’s shoes she would have been far better prepared with a surveillance camera in every damned room as well as around the perimeter of the house. On the other hand, an attorney willing to interact with such depraved murderers probably harbored a serious God complex and didn’t want any electronic documentation of his movements or those of his visitors. With his most notorious monster no longer in chains behind those drab prison walls, Zacharias might not be feeling so high and mighty now.

      “Mr. Zacharias? Are you home?”

      Bobbie moved from the entry hall with its elegant curving staircase leading up to the second floor to the parlor on the right. She rubbed her arm against her side, pushing the sleeve of her sweatshirt down over her fingers before reaching under the nearest lampshade to switch on the light. The expected sophisticated furnishings were gathered around an equally stylish stone fireplace that spanned the full height of the room—at least twelve feet. She listened again before progressing across the entry hall to the next room, a library. Floor-to-ceiling rows of bookshelves stood where the fireplace would be and distinguished the room from its near mirror image across the hall. No sign of a struggle or that anyone had combed through the space. Other than the open front door, all appeared to be in order.

      One by one Bobbie advanced through room after room, calling the owner’s name and bumping a light on with her elbow in each one. Clear.

      Since she’d found no sign of foul play or of the homeowner so far, Bobbie suspected Zacharias had in fact gotten the hell out of Dodge. His statement about Weller’s escape had played over and over on every available media outlet the past forty-eight or so hours.

      I am shocked and saddened by this turn of events. No one will be safe until Randolph Weller is caught.

      “That includes you, Zacharias.”

      Bobbie imagined he was well aware of the imminent danger. Under the circumstances, she had known finding him was a long shot but she’d had to try. He hadn’t been answering his phone. No-damned-body had been answering their phones—including you, Bobbie. Her calls to Nick as well as to Special Agent Anthony LeDoux had gone unanswered. Her instincts told her LeDoux was in one way or another up to his eyeballs in this, too.

      As much as she wanted to trust LeDoux after what they’d been through together, she couldn’t. The secret the two of them shared was like an open, festering wound deep below the surface where no one else could see. Like cancer, eating them up one inch at a time and at the same time making them dangerously reckless.

      Like not calling backup in a situation like this one.

      Exiling the warning voice honed by years of investigating homicides, she moved deeper into the house. Just off the kitchen and tucked beyond the family room, she found the attorney’s study. Bookshelves lined one wall. Framed photographs of the family that had abandoned him sat in a neat arrangement on one corner of the desk. The blotter was a clean, crisp expanse of white marred only by the fallen blooms from the floral arrangement that sat next to it, a smaller version of the one in the entry hall. To the right of the desk was a set of French doors.

      Open French doors.

      Shit. Bobbie’s fingers tightened on her Glock. She executed a three-sixty, scanning the room.

      No movement. No sound.

      For a moment she considered calling it in, but she had crossed the line coming into the house. There had been no true exigent circumstances. Knowing her chief, he’d put out a BOLO on her and the Atlanta PD would be on the lookout for her already.

      Check the files in the study and get the hell out.

      Zacharias could very well be on a private jet headed for some tropical island whose laws didn’t include an extradition treaty with the US.

      Or Weller had taken him.

      With the second set of doors left open, foul play was the more likely of the scenarios. No way two doors in this mansion had faulty locks. Even if Zacharias had been in a hell of a hurry, why leave both doors unlocked and open?

      Hold on. She hadn’t been upstairs. Was someone up there stealing his Rolexes and platinum cuff links at this very moment? Zacharias could very well be dead in his bedroom. It was the middle of the night after all. Bobbie braced her back against the nearest wall to ensure no one came up behind her. Too quiet. A thief would have heard her calling out to Zacharias.

      A spot on the floor near the desk snagged her attention, then another spot and another. Red wine maybe? Not so lucky.

      Blood.

      She visually traced the pattern of splatters, a stark crimson on the champagne-colored rug. The blood trail led around the large mahogany desk.

      Adrenaline stinging her senses, she followed the path her gaze had taken, glancing over her shoulder repeatedly and taking care not to step in the blood. The amount of blood increased exponentially as she drew closer to the other side of the desk, as if the bleeder had lingered there. At this point the urge to fish out her cell and call 911 was fierce, but she ignored it.

      Not yet.

      Behind the desk the trail of blood became a series of small puddles. The phone that had been blocked from her view by the floral arrangement had been dragged to the edge of the desk, the handset dangling from its curly cord. Blood was smeared on the keypad; crimson fingerprints encircled the handset.

      Holding her breath in an attempt to slow the pounding in her chest, she listened for the slightest noise as her eyes traced the path of blood that continued beyond the desk and out the open French doors.

      “I repeat, this is nine-one-one, what is the nature of your emergency?”

      Bobbie’s attention snapped back to the phone. What the hell?

      “If you can hear me...”

      She reached for the handset.

      “...we’re sending—”

      The dispatcher’s voice silenced mid-sentence.

      Bobbie twisted and leveled her Glock on whoever had entered the room.

      “What the hell are you doing, Bobbie?”

      Special Agent Anthony LeDoux. His fingers still rested on the switch hook in the phone’s cradle, severing the connection.

      “What the hell are you doing, LeDoux?”

      Better question, how the hell had he sneaked up on her like that? Sleep deprivation is making you sloppy, Bobbie.

      The agent held up his hands. “How about you put your weapon away and we’ll talk about the reason we’re both here?”

      She glanced at the open doors. “We should be looking for whoever all that blood belongs to, not debating our respective motives for breaking and entering.”

      “I’ve already looked around inside and out,” LeDoux said. “No one’s here. I’d be gone, too, except as I headed for the back door I heard СКАЧАТЬ