Table of Contents
Introductions seem to be in order...
Even as Rory was jumping up from the couch, she was taking aim at the man in the chair. In spite of her trembling hands, she managed to keep him firmly in her sights. How could the shadowy product of her imagination actually exist in the harsh glare of the lamp? The bogeyman was never in the closet when you finally built up the courage to look. And the monster was never really under the bed, even if you were sure you could hear it breathing. So why hadnt this shadow simply evaporated in the light, leaving her to laugh at her own foolishness? But there he was in her crosshairs, and what made it even worse, he seemed perfectly relaxed and comfortable in spite of her obvious advantage over him. In fact, she thought she detected a bit of a smile on his lips as if he were just fine with the way things were going.
Rory felt anger quickly overtaking shock. Who the hell are you? she demanded, her voice strong and steady even though her insides were quivering.
Ezekiel Drummond, he said, in a drawl that was a mixture of southern and something else she couldnt immediately place. Pleased to make your acquaintance, maam.
A police artist matches wits with the ghost of an Old West marshal as they work together to solve a double homicide, but its the chemistry between this modern woman and crusty cowboy that will draw readers in to Sketch Me If You Can. A spirited debut!
Cleo Coyle, national bestselling author of the Haunted Bookshop Mysteries
For Jason and Lauren,
children of my heart and soul,
this child of my mind.
Acknowledgments
A loving thank-you to my family for their help brainstorming plot issues.
Special thanks go to Vivian Sanzeri, dearest of friends. Your advice is always invaluable, your instincts always dead-on.
Id also like to thank Suffolk County Detective John S. Majoribanks (Ret.) for kindly fielding my questions.
Any inaccuracies in the depiction of police procedure should be attributed solely to the author.
Prologue
It was over in less than three minutes. The intruders went about their work with the spare efficiency of professionals. The taller man held the flashlight at exactly the right angle while his shorter companion applied the cloth steeped in chloroform to the victims nose and mouth. He held it there just long enough to prevent the man from awakening and resisting their ministrations. Then he placed the cloth in a zippered plastic bag and withdrew a hypodermic needle. The taller man refocused the flashlight, synchronizing it to his partners needs as if they worked with one mind. No high-wire act was more practiced, more seamless in its performance.
To ensure that the puncture mark would be virtually undetectable, the shorter man dispensed the contents of the needle into the underside of the victims tongue. Then he placed all the evidence of their visit back into the small duffel bag on the floor between them. The taller man turned off the flashlight and picked up the duffel.
As the two drew back from the bed, the clock radio on the nightstand crashed to the floor, startling them. After a hurried discussion they decided that one of them must have stepped on the wire, pulling the radio down. They continued on to the bedroom door where they planned to watch the results of their handiwork. But as they waited for the next act to unfold, the security alarm started wailing. Both men had the same thoughtthe system had not been engaged when theyd picked the lock and entered the premises. Of course, it didnt matter how the alarm had become activated. All that mattered was that they would have to leave before seeing the grand finale.
They were already making their way down the stairs when their victim bolted upright in bed. His breathing was shallow and labored, his eyes wide with terror. He clutched at his chest with one hand and with the other grabbed frantically for the telephone on the nightstand. He managed to punch in 911 before losing consciousness. In the darkness of the room, he never saw the darker shape standing at the foot of the bed.
Chapter 1
It was six oclock by the time Rory finished with the elderly couple whod come into Suffolk County Police Headquarters to report the theft of the womans purse. Rory should have been able to produce a reason-purse. Rory should have been able to produce a reasonable likeness of the thief in fifteen minutes, tops. Unfortunately, though, they werent able to agree on any of the details, from the length of the mans hair, to the shape of his eyes, to the pattern of his shirt and endlessly on down to the type of shoes he was wearing. By the time shed ushered them out the door, almost two hours had passed.
She made a few final adjustments to the sketch and dropped it off with Detective Leah Russell, who agreed to distribute it in-house and fax it to the other precincts. Then Rory dug her purse out of the deep lower drawer of her desk and grabbed her linen blazer off the back of her chair. On her way out, she took a minute to stop in the ladies room and freshen up for her meeting with Lou Friedlander, Macs attorney.
When she checked her image in the mirror, she was grateful that her hairdresser had talked her into going short so that her auburn hair framed her face and required little effort to maintain. There was no need to fix her makeup since she didnt wear any. The hazel eyes that peered back at her were wide and canted up ever so slightly at the outer edges, a narrow, black line ringing the irises like the outlines in a childs coloring book. At twenty-eight the only distinguishing mark on her face was the single dimple that notched into one side of her mouth when she smiled. The asymmetry gave her a disarmingly unfinished look, as if shed been snatched away a moment too soon from the gifted artist who had created her. In Rorys opinion, it just made her smile appear lopsided.
She splashed some cold water onto her cheeks, blotted it off with a piece of paper towel from the dispenser and headed for the door. If rush-hour traffic wasnt too bad on the Long Island Expressway and no eighteen-wheelers had jackknifed from going seventy miles an hour two feet from the car ahead of them, she might still make the six thirty appointment.
The one benefit of having spent the last two hours trying to wrest a description from the elderly couple was that Rory hadnt been able to dwell on the reason why she was going to see the attorney. Her uncle Macs death a week ago had been so sudden that even now it didnt seem entirely real. One moment life was clicking along at its normal, often tedious pace, and the next, without any warning, the world dropped out of its orbit and started freefalling through space. How could a heart just stop? Shouldnt there be a pain, an ache, a skipped beat necessitating tests, worried phone calls between family members, conferences with specialists, anxious decisions about the best course of action to take? Shouldnt there be time for prayers? Time to say good-bye? A heart pumps for fifty-two years as reliably as the sun rises and sets, and then one day it just stops?
Uncle Mac had been so much more than her fathers brother and her favorite uncle. Hed been her friend, her mentor, her ice skating buddy, her sand-castle-building engineer, her partner in crime who would come to babysit and take her out to have a banana split at ten oclock at night. Hed always seemed so much younger than her parents, although there were only five years between him and her dad. Somehow he lived bigger, acted younger.
Once, after she and Mac had been busted returning home too late from one of their ice cream forays, her parents banned him from babysitting for a month. Mac had suffered his punishment with quiet equanimity, promising Rory that hed plan a special day for their reunion. But for six-year-old Rory, it was the longest month of her life.
