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 assistant, Pete waited with the rest of them. Nobody 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 cocooned in the body bag belonged to his missing nephew, Blake Sherrod. When the child had been brought up from the basement, 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 Wilcox, 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 basement,” 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 hell, but he felt like hell. 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 crap. 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 God, 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, God, 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 God…thank God.”

“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 identity.”

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.

“We’ve been working on a couple of leads, one concerning the car an eyewitness saw at the antique store where the last body was found,” J.D. said. “And the other lead took us on a search for a boy named Corey Bennett, Regina Bennett’s son and Cody Bennett’s twin, who had been adopted twenty-three years ago.” When Audrey’s mouth fell open on a surprised gasp, he didn’t pause, but kept talking, wanting to get it all out as quickly as possible. “Once we learned his identity, we put him under surveillance, and last night, he led us straight to where he was keeping Somer Ellis, where he had kept and killed three other women.”

Audrey’s eyes widened, her gaze fixed to his, her breath caught in her throat.

“Honey…Audrey…damn! Corey Bennett was adopted by Morris and Lynn Bryant when he was nine years old.”

Audrey stared at him, her eyes expressing her thoughts. Puzzlement. Doubt. Disbelief. Reluctant acceptance. “Porter Bryant is the Rocking Chair Killer.”