Wednesday's Child. Gayle Wilson

      PROLOGUE

      WORKING FOR an almost artistic perfection, he draped the body over the steering wheel, carefully aligning the top of the head with the starred crack he’d created in the wind-shield. He was almost finished. And as soon as he was—

      There was a rustling from the bushes behind him. He backed out of the car so quickly he slammed his head into the top of the door frame. Stifling a curse, he peered into the darkness, hardly daring to breathe. For endless seconds he waited, but there was no repetition of whatever he’d heard.

      Coon, he thought. Or maybe a beaver, although he hadn’t heard the distinctive slap and glide into the river. Something that wasn’t human, in any case. And humans were the only witnesses he cared about.

      He eased back through the open door of the SUV, being careful this time to duck below its frame. He tried to position the corpse higher over the wheel, but its dead weight and the angle he was working from made that impossible.

      It doesn’t matter, he told himself. This body wasn’t going to be found. Trying to place it so the location of the head wound made some kind of sense was simply a precaution.

      But then, he was a careful man by nature. Nothing left to chance. Nothing forgotten.

      He took one last look around the interior of the car, his eyes searching with the aid of the bright moonlight for anything he might have overlooked. That, too, was unnecessary. He’d gone over the car with a fine-tooth comb. And he’d found what he’d been sent to retrieve. The river would take care of any other evidence. Just as it would take care of the marks on the body. And even if it were found—

      But it wouldn’t be. He intended to make sure of that.

      He reached across the driver’s seat, leaning in behind the corpse, to locate by feel the lever of the emergency brake. His fingers closed around it as his thumb depressed the release. Despite the angle at which it was parked, the car didn’t move.

      His cheeks puffed slightly with the breath of relief he released. So far so good.

      Satisfied that everything was going as planned, he withdrew his torso from the vehicle to take one more slow survey of his surroundings, evaluating the stillness. He’d been out here long enough that the normal night sounds along the river had resumed. Tree frogs and crickets. The occasional plop of a fish jumping. From the distance came the throaty call of an owl.

      Satisfied, he eased the door closed, pushing hard enough at the last to make sure the latch caught. Again he listened, but other than a slight hesitation in the nocturnal symphony, there had been no reaction to the noise.

      He’d driven the SUV off the bridge entrance and parked it on the reinforced slope leading down to the river. If he had left the headlights on—as he’d thought about doing in order to monitor its descent—they would now be shining down into the swift, rain-swollen current. All he needed was a little luck. And if he got it, the car would never be seen again.

      As he walked up the incline toward the rear of the vehicle, his eyes once more searched the woods and the two-lane blacktop that led to the bridge. It was an automatic precaution. There was no traffic. Not here. And especially not now. Nobody was going to be out in Linton at 3:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning.

      Taking a deep breath, he put his hands against the back of the SUV and pushed as hard as he could. Despite the incline and the fact that he had left the car out of gear, nothing happened.

      He fought the urge to open the door and check that the brake was off and that it was indeed in neutral. Instead, he put his shoulder against the rear door, trying to rock the heavy vehicle to get it started. Still it didn’t move.

      The first curl of panic fluttered in his stomach. In desperation he bent his knees, trying to bring the muscles of his buttocks and thighs to bear on the task. The soles of his shoes slipped against the concrete, making it hard to get traction. And then, like a miracle, he felt the SUV shift.

      That small indication of success was enough to intensify his efforts. With a grunt of exertion, he threw his body against the metal again, feet churning, as they had when he’d butted the practice dummy on the high-school football field.

      Just as that seemingly immovable object had eventually given in to his determination, this one did, too. The car moved so suddenly that he fell to his hands and knees as it slowly rolled away from him.

      He scrambled up, slipping and sliding down the incline in time to watch the front tires enter the water. Eyes straining to follow the car’s path through the darkness, he felt a sense of vindication as the current caught it.

      As he’d anticipated, the car was too heavy to be carried downriver, but the rushing water turned the SUV as it began to sink, aligning it so it was parallel to the base of the bridge.

      Then, as if on command, the car began to nose downward into the exact resting place he’d designed for it, directly beneath the old concrete supports. Exhilaration filled his chest.

      Suddenly, by a bizarre trick of moonlight, the rear window seemed to be illuminated. He could see straight through it and into the back seat of the car that was by now more than half submerged. He watched, unable to pull his eyes away, as water covered the infant seat that had been strapped into the back. He didn’t look away until the SUV and all it contained had disappeared forever beneath the surface of the river.

      CHAPTER ONE

      Seven Years Later

      “MRS. KAISER?” The masculine voice on the other end of the phone sounded hesitant. Almost uncertain.

      Wrong number, Susan Chandler thought as she considered how to respond. A telemarketer. Some kind of survey. Nothing to get excited about, despite how he’d addressed her.

      “Who is this, please?”

      “Wayne Adams with the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department, ma’am. I’m trying to get in touch with a Mrs. Richard Kaiser.”

      Despite the fact that by now she had realized this might be the call she’d waited for for so long, Susan knew she still couldn’t afford to let down the emotional barriers she’d struggled so hard to put into place. Not yet. Not until she was sure this was somehow connected to Emma.

      She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath before she repeated, her voice sounding remarkably steady, “Johnson County? And where is that, please?”

      “Mississippi. Johnson County, Mississippi. Sorry, ma’am. You get used to folks you’re calling knowing that, I guess.” A hint of amusement, clearly self-directed, colored the words.

      Amusement. Then in all probability…

      “What’s your call in relation to, Mr. Adams?”

      “Sheriff Adams,” the caller corrected a little pompously. “You are Mrs. Kaiser, then? Mrs. Richard Kaiser?”

      “That’s right.”

      She didn’t bother to explain the divorce she had finally obtained four years ago, granted on the grounds of desertion. If she mentioned she was no longer Mrs. Kaiser, there was always the possibility he might hang up without giving her whatever information he had.

      She needed to hear what he had to say, but she also needed to maintain a tight rein on her emotions until she had. Too many times in the past she’d anticipated being told something positive, only to be devastated when that didn’t occur.

      “Then…I’m afraid I have some bad news, ma’am.”

      “Bad news” wasn’t one of the phrases she’d been preparing for. Not after his previous tone. Her heart rate accelerated, its too-rapid beating filling her throat and sending blood rushing to her brain until she was almost light-headed.

      “What kind of bad news?”

      “There’s been