Beneath Blackwater River Leslie Wolfe (me reader txt) 📖

air got sucked out of her lungs when she landed face down on a large cypress rooted between two boulders, her feet close to the wall, her head above the abyss, the only thing holding her a flexing, knotted branch that was crackling and moaning under her weight.

She wrapped her legs around the branch and held her breath until the cypress settled and stopped moving. She grasped tight with both hands, the only direction she could look being down, at the bottom of the ravine, where the coyotes gnawed on bones, snarled, and yipped, looking up, waiting for her.

Nothing else would break her fall if she lost her grip again. Nothing else lined the wall of the ravine but moss and bird droppings.

Petrified, she cried, “Help me, please!” She waited a moment, her muscles trembling with effort as she held on to the branch. “Please! I’ll do whatever you want!”

The man laughed, his voice echoing inside the darkness for a moment after he’d already left, silencing the animals circling below.

Then the coyotes started howling.

47Odds

Kay and Elliot had almost reached the ground floor, climbing down the stairs quickly, their footfalls muted by the thick, plush, burgundy carpet. The visit with Evangeline Caldwell had brought answers and a new theory, a potential explanation as to how Rose Harrelson had replaced Alyssa Caldwell and grown up taking her name and her role in the family.

It hadn’t answered the question why.

If Alyssa had died of her illness at age three, why did Bill resort to such an elaborate scheme to replace his legitimate daughter with the illegitimate child? What could possibly have been the reason for that? A man his age could’ve easily fathered countless other children, even if he wanted to stay married to Evangeline. Why risk jail by kidnapping a child instead?

Carole Caldwell was waiting for them at the foot of the stairs. She wore a black turtleneck with three strings of pearls, just like she had the day before. Both the pearls and the garment were different, and both gave her an air of austere dignity, of somber propriety.

After she locked steely eyes with Kay, she spoke, her words icy cold, their finality searing. “Please don’t speak with anyone else in this family without our attorneys present.”

Kay exchanged a brief look with Elliot. They had expected that reaction. If anything, Kay wondered why it had taken so long to be asked to leave.

“Your housekeeper can attest we were invited in,” Kay stated. “Where is she?”

“On the unemployment line,” Carole replied dryly. “Please leave.”

“Do you have something to hide?” Kay asked, knowing well enough there was nothing she could do the moment Carole had mentioned lawyers. Legally, she couldn’t ask one more question, yet she had.

Carole’s lip curled in a grimace filled with disdain. She gestured them to the door, and crossed her arms at her chest. “Wealthy families have a lot to lose from simple misunderstandings. It’s my job to make sure there are none.”

Elliot held the door for Kay, then closed it gently behind them. She stopped on the front porch, looking absentmindedly at the house.

“She really fired that woman for letting us talk to Evangeline?” Elliot asked, then whistled.

“Probably,” Kay replied. “She has strong reasons why she doesn’t want us anywhere near her family.” She turned to leave, wondering where they could find Bill. By the time they figured that out, he would be aware of their visit, and of their conversation with Evangeline. He might’ve already been in the wind. “This family has a lot of secrets to hide.”

The sound of an approaching car drew their attention. They turned in time to see a gray Lincoln Continental pull up at the door.

“What are the odds?” Elliot whispered close to Kay’s ear.

“Uh-huh,” she replied, just as Bill Caldwell climbed out of the vehicle, leaving the door open for a young valet to take the car and park it elsewhere.

Beyond the edge of the driveway, landscapers planted roses in a wavy flower bed they had reclaimed from the perfectly trimmed lawn, moving quickly, digging the holes, and pouring water from a hose, before putting each plant into the ground, before gathering the soil, and patting it around the roots with their bare hands. They watched Kay, Elliot, and Bill like any bored worker would watch any entertainment readily available while doing his work.

Completely ignoring the landscapers, Bill turned to the two detectives. His brow creased, and his eyes darkened when he saw Kay. He seemed to give more than a moment’s attention to the sling Kay wore on her arm, the sight of it creasing his brow for some reason. He approached them with a bounce in his step and stopped squarely in front of Kay. “Anything new in my daughter’s murder? Did you catch the bastard who did this to her?”

“Not yet,” Kay replied calmly, “but we have a few more questions, if you don’t mind.”

The door opened and Carole stood in the doorway. She held her phone as if she’d just finished summoning her attorneys, her knuckles pale under her withered skin. “You were warned. Not without our legal team present. Not one word, Bill,” she commanded, “this ends here.”

“Why?” he reacted, turning toward her angrily. “Because you said so?” His raised voice made the landscapers peek curiously from behind the rose bushes. “I don’t know about you, Mother, but I’d like to know who killed my daughter. So, let them ask their damn questions.”

“William Earnest Caldwell, I am warning you,” Carole said, hissing the words at her son.

He didn’t blink. Instead, he turned to Kay and said, “Shoot.”

Kay drew air and asked the question that had been at the center of her mind for the past day or so, knowing bluntness might work in her favor. “Mr. Caldwell, did you kidnap Rose Harrelson fourteen years ago, to replace your dead daughter?”

Carole gasped, the sound of her strangled voice covered by the clattering of the phone she’d dropped, as it broke into pieces against the marble patio.