Read Cold Case at Cobra Creek for Free Online

too many times already.”
    He cradled her hand in his and squeezed it, ignoring the heat that shot through him at her touch. “I promise, Sage.”
    Hell, he wanted to promise more.
    But he hurried down the steps to keep himself from becoming like Lewis and telling her what she wanted to hear instead of the truth.
    Because the truth was that he had no idea what answers he would find.
    * * *
    S AGE WATCHED D UGAN LEAVE, a sense of trepidation filling her.
    At least he was willing to help her look for the answers. But the phony drivers’ licenses had shocked her to the core.
    How could she have been so gullible when Ron was obviously a professional liar? And now that she knew Ron Lewis wasn’t his real name, who was he?
    Had he planned to marry her and take care of her and Benji?
    No...everything about the man was probably false. He’d obviously fabricated a story to fit his agenda.
    But why use her? To worm his way into the town and make residents believe he cared about them, that he was part of them?
    Devious. But it made sense in a twisted kind of way.
    She straightened the flooring in the closet, then went to Benji’s room. Benji had loved jungle animals, so she’d painted a mural of a jungle scene on one wall and painted the other walls a bright blue. She walked over to the shelf above his bed and ran her finger over each of his stuffed animals. His friends, he’d called them.
    At night he’d pile them all in bed around him, so she could barely find him when she went to tuck him in. His blankie, the one she’d crocheted before he was born, was folded neatly on his pillow, still waiting for his return.
    Where was her son? If he’d survived, was he being taken care of? Had someone given him a blanket to sleep with at night and animal friends to comfort him in bed?
    She thought she’d cried all her tears, but more slipped down her cheeks, her emotions as raw as they were the day she’d discovered that Benji was gone.
    The news usually ran stories about missing children. For a few weeks after the car crash, they carried the story about Ron and her son. Although the implication was that both had died in the fire, a request had been made for any information regarding the accident. They’d hoped to find a witness who’d seen the wreck, someone who could tell them if another car had been involved.
    But no word had come and eventually other stories had replaced Benji’s on the front page. With this new development, maybe she could arouse the media’s interest again.
    She hurried downstairs to the kitchen and retrieved the scrapbook with clippings she’d morbidly kept of the crash and the coverage afterward. Why she’d kept them, she didn’t know. Maybe she’d hoped one day she’d find something in them that might explain what had happened to Benji.
    The small town of Cobra Creek wasn’t big enough for a newspaper, but a reporter from Laredo had interviewed her and covered the investigation. At least, what little investigation Sheriff Gandt had instigated.
    She noted the reporter’s name on the story. Ashlynn Fontaine.
    Hoping that the reporter might revive the story and the public’s interest, now that Ron’s body had been found and that his death was considered a homicide, she decided to call the paper the next morning and speak to Ashlynn.
    * * *
    D UGAN DROVE TO the bank the next day to speak with George Bates, the president. One woman sat at a desk to the left, and a teller was perched behind her station, at a computer.
    He paused by the first woman and asked for Bates, and she escorted him to an office down a hallway. A tall, middle-aged man with wiry hair and a suit that looked ten years old shook his hand. “George Bates. You here to open an account?”
    Dugan shook his head. “No, sir, I need to ask you some questions about Ron Lewis.”
    Bates’s pudgy face broke into a scowl. “What about him? He’s been dead for two years.”
    “True,” Dugan said. “I don’t know if you heard, but his