Harrison spoke quietly, but there was a steel edge to his voice, and she turned to face him again, her breath catching as she met his eyes. Eyes that looked deep into hers and seemed to see all the secrets she tried hard to keep hidden. The insecurity. The fear. The feeling sheâd gotten on the wrong path.
âYeah?â she asked.
âWhatever you know, whatever youâre hiding, youâre going to have to tell me eventually.â
âMaybe, but not today.â Not a lie, but not quite the truth either. Telling Harrison would mean admitting that she was scared. More scared than sheâd been in a long time.
Harrison stared her down for a moment, his eyes searching her face. âFair enough, but you may as well know that there are very few secrets the dead can hide from me. Iâm not too shabby about getting the truth from the living either. If whatâs bothering you has something to do with this case, you wonât be able to keep it from me for long.â
WITHOUT A TRACE: Will a young motherâs disappearance bring a bayou town togetherâ¦or tear it apart?
What Sarah SawâMargaret Daley, January 2009
Framed!âRobin Caroll, February 2009
Cold Case MurderâShirlee McCoy, March 2009
A Cloud of SuspicionâPatricia Davids, April 2009
Deadly CompetitionâRoxanne Rustand, May 2009
Her Last ChanceâTerri Reed, June 2009
has always loved making up stories. As a child, she daydreamed elaborate tales in which she was the heroineâgutsy, strong and invincible. Though she soon grew out of her superhero fantasies, her love for storytelling never diminished. She knew early that she wanted to write inspirational fiction, and began writing her first novel when she was a teenager. Still, it wasnât until her third son was born that she truly began pursuing her dream of being published. Three years later she sold her first book. Now a busy mother of four, Shirlee is a homeschool mom by day and an inspirational author by night. She and her husband and children live in Washington State and share their house with a dog and a guinea pig. You can visit her Web site at www.shirleemccoy.com.
Cold Case Murder
Shirlee McCoy
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Shirlee McCoy for her contribution to the Without a Trace miniseries.
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
âGalatians 5:1
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
EPILOGUE
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
New Orleans, Louisiana
FBI Headquarters, Missing Persons Unit
At night, if she dreamed at all, Jodie Gilmore dreamed of Loomis, Louisianaâthe thick, ugly scent of the swamp in summer heat, the shadowy gloom of stately manor homes gone to ruin, the tension that shrouded the little town. There were secrets there. And demons. Not the made-up kind. The real-life, haunt-you-forever kind. The kind that came from loss and heartache and loneliness. It didnât matter that sheâd left town the day sheâd turned eighteen or that ten years had passed since then, Jodie still shuddered every time she thought of the place. The day she had gotten into her beat-up Mustang and headed for wherever the road would take her, she promised sheâd never return.
It seemed she was about to break that promise.
âWell? What are your thoughts?â Miles Jordanâs voice held a note of impatience, and Jodie scanned the contents of the missing personâs file for the second time since sheâd walked into her supervisorâs office, hoping that this time the words would stick.
Leah Farley. Twenty-eight. Widowed mother of a three-year-old girl. Went missing two weeks after her husband was found dead. Last seen in Loomis, Louisiana.
Jodie set the file down and met her supervisorâs emotionless gray eyes. âIt looks pretty straightforward. The woman killed her husband, tried to make it look like a suicide and ran when the investigation revealed the truth.â
âDonât be so quick to jump to conclusions, Agent Gilmore. As the file indicates, Leah Farleyâs shoe was found on the grounds of a house out by the swamplands near a boarded-up tunnel on the porch of a house that once served as part of the Underground Railroad. There was blood on it.â
Jodie didnât ask what house. She didnât need to. She knew. Just as she knew every nook and cranny of the town sheâd grown up in. What she didnât know was why her mother had run from it twenty-five years ago. âThe blood is probably her husbandâs.â
âLike I said, letâs not jump to conclusions.â Miles steepled his fingers beneath his chin and eyed her from across the table. âThereâs been a lot going on in Loomis. A couple of murders, an attempted kidnapping. The local PD is investigating, and weâre working in conjunction with them, assuming the incidents arenât simply a succession of unrelated crimes.â