Authors: Ingrid Weaver

Tags: #mobi, #Romantic Suspense, #Paranormal Romance, #Fiction, #Shadow, #epub

Delaney's Shadow (23 page)

BOOK: Delaney's Shadow

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“I saw it on my walk yesterday. It’s . . . intriguing. The second story is nearly all glass.”

“Actually, it’s Plexiglas. John had to replace the regular glass a few years ago after someone threw rocks through the windows one Halloween.”

“That’s awful.”

“It’s shameful behavior. The kids have made him into the local boogeyman.” She glanced at Delaney. “I imagine Phoebe told you he’d been to prison?”

“She said he’d tried to kill his mother. Is that true?”

Her expression tightened. “Partly. It was his stepfather who got the worst of the beating when he tried to defend her. He was in a coma for months. I followed the story quite closely when John was arrested. It must be going on twenty years ago now. The crime shocked the entire town.”

“It’s hard to believe anything like that could have happened here.”

“I found it hard to believe myself. He was only a teenager. We don’t want to think that someone so young could be capable of such violence, but there was no mistake. His trial ended when he changed his plea to guilty.”

Delaney had been hoping her grandmother would deny what Phoebe had said. Instead, she’d made it worse.

But they weren’t talking about Max. It shouldn’t matter. “What happened to his mother?”

“I don’t know. Apparently, she and her husband moved away after he got out of the hospital. John was in prison by then. It was a real tragedy.”

“You called him John,” she said. “Have you met him?”

“Yes, we met a few times shortly after he moved in, but I don’t know him well. He’s a bit of a recluse, which is understandable, considering the opposition he faced when he decided to settle here. People can be such asses.” She clicked her tongue. “Including me. I shouldn’t be gossiping. What’s this? Another Bible pamphlet. That’s the third one this week. And will you look at all these bills?”

Helen shuffled the envelopes she was carrying and launched into a complaint about the latest tax levy. The subject of her notorious neighbor was obviously closed.

That was for the best, Delaney decided as they returned to the house. She wasn’t sure why she was still carrying Harrison’s picture around. She understood that his resemblance to Max was arbitrary—her subconscious could have snagged someone else’s face just as easily as it had latched onto the artist’s. If she was going to carry anyone’s picture, it should be Stanford’s. That was who she should be thinking about.

Delaney retrieved her plastic bucket with the spent petunias as the front door closed behind Helen. She was about to toss the envelope from Leo onto one of the wicker veranda chairs so she could get back to her gardening when the label on the front caught her eye. It bore only her name and address, no return address, unlike the standard mailing labels from Leo’s law firm. She had assumed it was from him, but now that she considered it, it was odd that he would use the regular mail. When he’d sent documents to her in the past, he’d always sent them by courier.

Curious, she set the bucket down and opened the envelope.

It wasn’t filled with papers as she’d expected. It contained glossy sheets that appeared to be enlarged photographs. Why would Leo send her photos? She pulled the lip of the envelope wider so that she could get a better look. The top picture seemed to be merely random blobs of black and dark red.

She drew out the photographs, and the blobs suddenly assumed the pattern of a face.

Or more accurately, a skull. Blackened lumps sat where the eyes should have been. Shriveled, ragged lips bared a death’s-head’s eerie grin. Shreds of charred skin and bloody flesh clung to the jawbone like the leftovers of a barbecued steak . . .

Delaney dropped the pictures and pressed her fingertips to her mouth.

No! I don’t want to remember this part. Dear God, I can’t see this again.

But the images she saw weren’t in her nightmare.

They were in eight-by-ten glossy prints that fanned out around her feet.

FIFTEEN

DELANEY TIGHTENED HER GRIP ON THE WHEEL AS SHE fixed her gaze on the car in front of her. The buildings that lined Willowbank’s downtown streets had been constructed during the same era as the Wainright House. The facades had been zealously protected from development by the local historical committee, which meant the streets hadn’t been widened past two lanes. As a result, midsummer traffic often moved at a crawl.

Leo adjusted his seat belt to give himself more slack across his stomach. In deference to the warmth of the afternoon, he’d replaced his trademark tweed jacket with a rumpled linen vest. Its sides didn’t quite meet, so he’d left it unbuttoned. “You didn’t have to do this, Delaney.”

“Yes, I did, Leo.”

“But this is difficult for you.”

“My hands are much better than they were when I first came home, so there’s no reason why I shouldn’t go to the station in person.”

“That’s not what I meant. You could have let me drive.”

“You don’t know the town.”

“I do follow directions.”

Delaney slowed to a stop at a red light and dried her palms on her skirt. Since the night of the accident, she had rarely been behind the wheel of a vehicle, as Leo knew full well. For the first three months of the year, she’d been confined to hospital rooms. Once her body had mended enough for her to be ambulatory, her hands hadn’t been in any shape to grip a wheel, so she’d been transferred from place to place by ambulance and later by limo. The car she’d leased when she’d come home hadn’t seen much use so far because she’d had nowhere she’d wanted to go. And to be honest, she’d also kept her outings to a minimum because she’d been afraid that the act of driving could stir up her nightmare.

But evidently, someone else had wanted to do just that.

Not simply
someone
. Elizabeth. Although Delaney had no proof the envelope of photographs had come from her stepdaughter, there was no one else who would have had a motive to torment her like this. Leo had agreed. In fact, he’d been so incensed when she’d phoned to tell him what had happened, he’d been barely coherent. If anyone else had heard his rant against Elizabeth, they certainly wouldn’t be mistaking him for a mild-mannered college professor.

“I can’t keep avoiding things just because they’re unpleasant,” she said. “But I appreciate your concern. You’re really a good friend.”

“It’s what I endeavor to be,” he replied, as he had the last time he’d come to Willowbank. “Of course, I will be adding this trip to your bill.”

She was too tense to give him the laugh he expected. She eased the car forward as the light changed. “I’m not as emotionally fragile as people think, you know.”

“I’ve never considered you fragile, Delaney.”

“Elizabeth does. She must have expected me to fall apart.”

“I’m not sure what she hoped to accomplish by sending those pictures. She must have known we would guess who did it. That doesn’t seem to be the action of a rational mind.”

Rather than reply, Delaney concentrated on her driving. She was the last person who should speculate about someone else’s mental state. She waited for a break in the oncoming stream of cars, then turned onto a side street that would take them around the bottleneck. A few minutes later, she pulled into a vacant parking spot half a block from the police station.

The Willowbank police station was housed in a century-old redbrick building with a deep cornice running along the edge of the roof and tall, arched windows. Wrought iron railings flanked the staircase that rose to a set of imposing oak doors. Worn wooden floors inside the entrance gave off the smell of age. She and Leo were shown to a second-story room of old-fashioned frosted glass set into pale green half walls. It was the detectives’ office, but there weren’t many desks—the town wasn’t large enough to merit more than a handful of detectives on the police force.

A middle-aged man stood when they entered. He had a tired face that was dominated by a nose that appeared to have been broken and flattened sometime in the past. Like the other men in the room, he wore a white shirt and a tie. A brown suit jacket was draped over the back of his chair. “I’m Detective Toffelmire,” he said, gesturing them forward. “I understand you have a complaint?”

Leo stopped beside Toffelmire’s desk and placed his briefcase on the edge to open it. He withdrew the paper bag where Delaney had put the photos and the envelope that had contained them. “My client received this in yesterday’s mail.”

Toffelmire pulled the edges of the bag apart and peered inside.

“Those are police photos of my late husband,” Delaney said. She heard a tremor in her voice and cleared her throat. “They were taken at the scene of the accident that killed him.”

The detective rolled one of the vacant chairs closer and indicated that she should sit, then resumed his own seat as Leo brought over a third chair. He tipped the bag to let the photos slide onto the desktop and studied them one by one, using the eraser end of a pencil to slide them apart. “Don’t think me insensitive, Mrs. Graye, but there doesn’t appear to be much to identify here.”

“They’re of my husband,” she stated. “I’m positive of that.”

“Whether they are or not is immaterial,” Leo said. “They’re disturbing photographs, and they were obviously sent to harass Mrs. Graye.”

Toffelmire pushed them back into a pile and turned his attention to the envelope. “Was there anything else inside? A note?”

“Nothing,” Delaney replied. “Only the pictures.”

“Have you received other harassing mail? Any specific threats?”

“No.”

“Threatening phone calls?”

“No.”

“Perhaps these pictures were sent to you by mistake.”

“Do you get many cases where people receive photos like these in error, Detective?” Leo demanded. “My client was clearly targeted.”

“Do you suspect anyone in particular?”

“Elizabeth Graye, the daughter of Mrs. Graye’s late husband.”

“She’s my stepdaughter,” Delaney offered. “We have a . . . difficult relationship.”

“Why would she want to send you such grisly photos of her own father?”

“She’s currently suing me for the wrongful death of my husband. It’s clear that she wants to hurt me.”

Toffelmire pulled a spiral notepad from a drawer in the desk and turned to a fresh page. “I’m going to need more details.”

Leo gave him a summary of the circumstances of the accident and the results of the recent inquiry. The detective jotted notes as he listened, then turned to question Delaney further on her relationship with her stepdaughter. She kept her replies as objective as possible. The interview wasn’t as painful as she’d expected, since it was Elizabeth’s behavior that was the issue, not the accident itself. Still, it was hard to admit how badly their relationship had deteriorated. She’d always wished things could have been different.

Leo took a folded sheet of paper from his briefcase. “I’ve listed Elizabeth Graye’s home address and phone number here, as well as the address and phone number of Grayecorp. Her title there is vice president, although she has assumed the management of the company since her father’s death.”

“I’ll make some inquiries,” Toffelmire said. “For starters, I’d like to know who has access to these pictures.”

“Miss Graye would, since her lawyer has copies of them,” Leo said. “They would be evidence in her lawsuit.”

“Do you have copies as well, Mr. Throop?”

Leo’s chair creaked as he drew himself up. “I’m not sure I like what you’re implying.”

“I’m not implying anything; I’m simply trying to get all the facts. It’s standard procedure.”

“During the course of the accident inquiry I obtained copies of all the pertinent evidence, including those photos. That would be part of my standard procedure.”

Toffelmire made a note and directed his next question to Delaney. “Is there anyone else who might have done this?”

“Not that I know of,” she said.

“I trust you’ll be processing those pictures for fingerprints?” Leo asked.

BOOK: Delaney's Shadow

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