Don't Cry Part 44

He stood beside the chair as he always did and listened to her sing.

"He's still crying. He won't stop because he's in so much pain." Her captor bent and picked up something from the floor and then handed it to her. "Do what you have to do, Mommy. Do what's best for Cody so he won't suffer anymore."

She grasped the small baby pillow he had placed in her hand, but she couldn't move, could barely breathe. Her entire body stiffened. He reached down, took her hand holding the pillow, and laid it over the skeleton's little face.

"You know it's the right thing to do, the only thing that will end Cody's pain and suffering."

Her hand moved of its own volition. She pressed the pillow down on the skull and held it there.

In her mind, she was screaming. Screaming loud enough to be heard for miles away.

J.D. followed the sound of voices. A man talking. A woman singing. The open door to the bas.e.m.e.nt hung precariously on rusted hinges. He paused at the top of the stairs and shone his flashlight over the rickety wooden steps.

Will Brannock stood behind J.D. in the church's vestibule, his Glock drawn and ready. J.D. motioned to him, letting Will know that he was going down into the bas.e.m.e.nt, and then signaled for him to wait there. Will nodded agreement. Knowing instinctively that the steps would moan under his weight, J.D. placed his foot on the first rung. Only a soft, barely audible moan followed. One by one, slowly and cautiously, he began his descent. Halfway down, the steps creaked. He stopped. Waited. He could hear Porter talking, apparently still unaware that he and his captive were not alone. The woman kept singing, her voice actually growing louder.

When J.D. reached the end of the stairs and his feet touched the concrete floor of the bas.e.m.e.nt, he found the area totally dark except for a dim glow against the back wall. Light from a lone lantern cast a pale light into the darkness. After turning off his flashlight, he moved toward what appeared to be a door in the wall, a door situated between two shelves that had been pushed aside.

As he made his way across the room, he pulled his Smith & Wesson 9mm from its hip holster before he reached the gaping entrance to what appeared to be a secret room.

"He's at peace now," the male voice said. Porter Bryant's voice, oddly soft and kind.

J.D. slipped quietly through the doorway and into the large, semidark area, hidden behind the shelving. He paused when he saw Porter standing behind a figure in a rocking chair, her long, dark hair cascading over her shoulders. Porter reached down and lifted something over the woman's head. It took J.D. a few seconds to figure out that the small square object Porter held was a pillow.

The woman continued singing, the words vaguely familiar to J.D. The song was a lullaby, about diamond rings turning bra.s.s and mocking birds that wouldn't sing.

"You can stop singing now, Mommy," Porter said. "Cody can't hear you anymore. He's gone to heaven."

He had called the woman Mommy Mommy. Did he actually believe his captive was Regina Bennett? Was Porter that far gone that he couldn't tell the difference between reality and fantasy?

The woman that J.D. a.s.sumed was Somer Ellis stopped singing.

"Now, I'm going to keep my promise. Tonight, you will be with Cody. You will be able to hold him in your arms forever."

Porter brought the pillow down very slowly over the woman's head. "I love you, Mommy."

The woman in the rocking chair struggled. She lifted her hands in an effort to fight, her m.u.f.fled screams filtered through the pillow.

Porter was trying to suffocate her.

J.D. had to act fast.

"Move away from her," J.D. said.

Porter drew in a sharp, startled breath. His entire body stiffened, but he didn't turn to face J.D.

"Put the pillow down and move away from her," J.D. told him.

"I can't do that. I have to finish it tonight. I have to keep my promise."

"I have a gun in my hand, and if you don't drop the pillow and move away from her, I'll be forced to shoot you." J.D. moved closer, one cautious step at a time. "Do it now."

Somer continued struggling, her hands clawing at the pillow.

"d.a.m.n it, Bryant, don't make me shoot you!"

But he paid no attention to J.D.

Should he just shoot Porter Bryant or should he tackle him?

J.D. wanted to shoot the son of a b.i.t.c.h, wanted him dead. But he holstered his weapon, rushed forward, and jumped the man who was engrossed in smothering the woman in the rocking chair. The moment J.D. grabbed Porter and jerked him backward, Somer Ellis gasped for breath.

Porter dropped the pillow as he scuffled with J.D., trying to free himself from J.D.'s powerful grip. As Porter struggled against being subdued, J.D. wrestled him to the floor. When Porter swung at him, J.D. grabbed both of his wrists and straddled him.

"Need some help?" Will Brannock asked as he entered the secret room.

"Help me get him cuffed," J.D. said, "before I beat the h.e.l.l out of him."

Together Will and J.D. dragged Porter Bryant to his feet, shoved him face forward against the wall, and handcuffed him. "I've got him," J.D. said. "Go see about her." He inclined his head toward the woman now weeping hysterically.

"It's all right, Mommy, Don't Cry," Porter said. "Please, Don't Cry."

With all the fight gone out of him, a dazed look in his eyes and a peculiar softness to his expression, Porter resembled a pitiful child. A lost, lonely little boy crying out for his mother.

Will dropped to his haunches in front of Somer Ellis. "It's all right, Mrs. Ellis. You're safe now. I'm Special Agent Brannock with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation."

She lifted the bundle in her arms. "Please, take it away. Please..."

Will took the blanket-wrapped skeleton, laid it carefully on the floor, and then reached out and untied Somer's bound ankles. He lifted her to her feet, and when he realized she could barely stand, he picked her up and carried her out of the dark, secret room inside the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Chapter 35

Within an hour after Porter Bryant's arrest, the small, dilapidated church hidden in the woods five miles from the Chaney farm became the center of an in-depth investigation, the entire area swarming with law enforcement officers and crime scene personnel. Porter had been taken into custody and was on his way to jail. Somer Ellis had been whisked away and taken by ambulance to the hospital, where her husband was waiting for her.

In order to keep the secret room and its contents preserved so as not to compromise any evidence, the people allowed inside were kept to a minimum. And each person wore protective coveralls to avoid cross-contamination. J.D., Will, and Tam waited upstairs inside the church while the highly trained CSI crew went over the secret room with a fine-tooth comb. Garth had been pacing restlessly, going outside periodically and then returning to continue pacing.

When ME Pete Tipton arrived, he took possession of the shawl-wrapped toddler skeleton. After placing the child's remains in a body bag and turning it over to his a.s.sistant, Pete waited with the rest of them. n.o.body said much, just an occasional comment about what a complete shock it had been to discover that Porter Bryant was the Rocking Chair Killer. They each knew Porter and all agreed that the man had appeared to be perfectly normal.

Garth said the least, mostly just nodding, adding an occasional yes or no to the limited conversation. He seemed distracted, as if his thoughts were on something else entirely.

J.D. couldn't imagine how Garth felt knowing the little skeleton coc.o.o.ned in the body bag belonged to his missing nephew, Blake Sherrod. When the child had been brought up from the bas.e.m.e.nt, J.D. had expected Garth to at the very least look at the skeleton, but he hadn't. Maybe even the thought of it had been too painful.

An hour and a half later, Jada Irby, a member of the CSI team, came upstairs and walked straight to J.D. "I thought you'd want a preliminary report," she told him.

"Thanks. We appreciate that," J.D. said.

"We found five wooden boxes," Jada told him. "There are fragments of what appear to be blue cloth of some kind in each of the boxes."

"Baby blankets?" J.D. asked.

"Possibly the remnants of shawls or blankets."

"Are the boxes empty?" Tam asked.

"Yes." Jada looked at Tam. "We can't know for sure at this point, but we suspect that the boxes were used as coffins."

J.D. recounted in his head. Including Cody Bennett, there were six toddlers in all: Cody, Keith Lawson, Chase Wilc.o.x, Devin Kelly, Blake Sherrod, and Shane Douglas. It was possible that Regina had not placed her son here in the church with the other toddlers and that was the reason there were only five boxes. "Did you say there were only five?"

"Yes, only five."

"And you didn't find any other skeletons? Just the one Somer Ellis had been holding?"

"Yes, just the one."

"Something doesn't add up," J.D. said. "If Regina Bennett killed her son and five of the six toddlers she kidnapped, there should be six boxes."

"Unless she buried Cody or hid his body somewhere else." Tam stared at J.D. "If that's the case, then there would be only five coffin-type boxes down there, which there are."

"Five boxes, but only four bodies," J.D. reminded her.

"Oh, that's right. So, where is the fifth toddler?" Tam asked.

"Excellent question."

"One that we'll be asking Porter Bryant."

"Do you think he'll tell us anything? He seemed really out of it when y'all brought him up from the bas.e.m.e.nt," Tam said. "He looked at me as if he had no idea who I was. And he kept mumbling something about keeping a promise to his mother."

"Once he's been examined by a physician and a psychiatrist, we'll have a better idea if he'll be capable of cooperating with us." J.D. couldn't shake the feeling that the fact there was one less toddler skeleton than there should have been was somehow significant. How or why, he wasn't sure. But he had learned long ago never to ignore his gut instincts.

J.D. had been up all night. He not only looked like h.e.l.l, but he felt like h.e.l.l. Phil Hayes, accompanied by Chief Mullins, Commander Nicholson, and the county sheriff, would be holding a 6:00 A.M. news conference to announce the capture of the Rocking Chair Killer and the rescue of his fourth victim, Somer Ellis.

When J.D. had asked Tam to let him be the one to tell Audrey about Porter Bryant, she had given him a hard, scrutinizing glare. "I'm her best friend. I should tell her and be there with her when the announcement is made."

"Maybe that's the reason I should be the one to talk to her...because you're too close to-"

"Bull. Don't give me that c.r.a.p. What's really going on with you? With you and Audrey?"

He had started to lie, to deny that anything was going on between him and Audrey. "I can't explain it. Let's just say that I know I should be the one there with her, that I should be the one to tell her that the killer was Porter Bryant."

Tam had studied his face for a full minute, and then said, "All right. You have until the press conference. I'll be on Audrey's doorstep at five minutes till six."

J.D. called Audrey when he was en route, apparently waking her. He told her only that he would be there shortly and that he had important information about the Rocking Chair Killer.

He arrived at her town house at ten till five, and just as he stepped onto her front porch, she opened the door.

"My G.o.d, you look awful," she said. "Have you been up all night?"

"Yeah, I have."

After moving aside to give him room to enter, she closed the door behind him and said, "Go on into the living room and sit down. I put on a pot of coffee right after you called."

"Let's just go straight to the kitchen. I could use that coffee as soon as possible."

He looked at her and saw the tension in her body and the uncertainty in her eyes. Then he scanned her quickly from head to toe. Her hair hung loosely about her shoulders, her delicate face was devoid of makeup, and the belt on her silk robe hadn't been tied, leaving it open to reveal the sheer silk pajamas beneath. He wanted to reach out and grab her, hold her close, and protect her. The last thing he wanted was to tell her that the man she had been dating for months was a mentally unbalanced serial killer.

He eased his open palm beneath her elbow and guided her into the kitchen. Working together, they poured coffee into two mugs, and Audrey doctored hers while he took his black. They pulled out chairs and sat at the kitchen table. J.D. took a sip of the fresh, hot coffee, then set his mug on the table and scooted his chair until he was beside Audrey, close enough to touch her.

"Whatever it is, it's bad, isn't it?" She looked into his eyes.

He reached out and grasped her, his hands locking around her upper arms, his fingers tightening halfway between her shoulders and her elbows.

"Oh, G.o.d, J.D., you're scaring me."

"Don't be afraid, honey. You're safe with me." He hated knowing how much what he had to tell her would hurt her. "We caught the Rocking Chair Killer last night. We got there in time to save Somer Ellis."

"Oh, J.D., thank G.o.d...thank G.o.d."

"There's more, Audrey, other things you have to know."

A fine sheen of moisture glistened in her gold-and green-flecked brown eyes. "You found Blake's body...his skeleton, didn't you?"

"We found a toddler skeleton, yes. And DNA test results will prove his ident.i.ty."

She pulled one arm free, lifted her hand, and caressed his cheek. "I'm so thankful that y'all were able to stop him before he killed another woman. How did it happen? How were you able to-?"

"It's a long, complicated story." He covered her hand with his, drew it away from his face, and then grasped both of her hands in his. "And later, when there's more time, I'll explain everything, tell you whatever you want to know, but for now, I'll give you the condensed version."

Her hands trembled. He squeezed them tenderly.

"You're scaring me again," she told him.

He lifted her hands to his mouth and rubbed each set of knuckles slowly across his mouth, the gesture one of care and comfort.