Mariah Stewart

Cold Truth

The first book in the Truth series, 2005

Prologue

Under the hot lights of the television studio, Regan Landry shifted uncomfortably in her chair even as she reminded herself that her appearance today on This Morning, USA, the daily show that followed the network morning news program, was business, and therefore need not be pleasurable.

This would be her final televised spot on the tour promoting In His Shoes, the last book she’d co-authored with her father, Josh Landry, before his death eight months earlier. She didn’t have to be comfortable; she merely had to be good, good enough to do justice to her father and their work.

In the past, it had been Josh who’d done the book tours, the television appearances, the magazine and radio interviews. Regan had always watched from the wings as he captivated every audience with his wit and easy charm, mesmerizing them with the gritty details of his research into the minds of some of society’s most loathsome killers. Josh’s own murder had changed all that.

While Regan was not as comfortable in the spotlight as her father had been, she felt she owed it to him-and to his many fans-to keep the schedule that their publisher had arranged before Josh died. For years, her father had returned for book signings at many of the same bookstores across the country, some of whose patrons had never missed a visit. Some readers had become so familiar, he’d known them by name. Regan believed he looked forward to the signings as much as his faithful fans looked forward to seeing him and hearing him talk about the research he’d done to prepare for each new book.

Regan had been tempted, but she couldn’t bring herself to back out of the tour, and in retrospect was glad she had not. She’d come to look upon the past few weeks as a sort of pilgrimage, following in her father’s footsteps, accepting the sympathy of his longtime readers, many of whom had pressed letters or cards into her hands. Their thoughtful words of condolence and remembrance had given her great comfort; at each bookstore, there had been moments when she’d truly felt her father’s presence. The book tour which she had dreaded and had hoped to avoid had become a journey that, in the end, had brought her the first peace she’d known since the day Josh had died.

“Are you all set there?” Heather Cannon, the perky morning hostess-dubbed “ America ’s kid sister” by the media-took a seat in the chair opposite the one in which Regan sat, and smoothed her skirt with one hand and her hair with the other.

“Fine, yes. Thanks.” Regan nodded somewhat stiffly.

As a regular morning viewer, Regan had watched hundreds of celebrities-movie and television stars, athletes, musicians-sit in this very seat. It suddenly occurred to her that perhaps some of those same people might be sitting at home watching her.

It was a thought she wished she had not had.

She pressed sweating palms against her thighs and tried to force calming breaths into her lungs. So far, it hadn’t worked.

“Can we get you some water?” the hostess asked. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“Everyone gets a little stage fright here.” Heather flashed her most reassuring smile. “Once the cameras begin to roll, and we start to chat, you’ll be fine.”

“I am fine,” Regan insisted.

“Not too late for a little water,” Heather offered again.

“Thanks, but no.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.” Heather nodded to someone behind Regan. “We’re a go whenever you are. Regan, watch the red light on the monitor…”

For a moment, Regan couldn’t remember where the monitor was, but she followed the lead of her hostess.

Sorry, Dad. I’d hoped to have made a better showing.

“For over twenty years, Josh Landry was the gold standard when it came to writing true crime bestsellers,” Heather began. “He made a highly respected career out of investigating old, unsolved murders with the intent of cracking them, and then told the story in one of his many books, the last few with the assistance of his daughter, Regan. Tragically, Josh Landry was murdered last year at his farm outside of Princeton, New Jersey, by a man named Archer Lowell, who had targeted Landry as part of a bizarre murder-triangle that had, for several months, stumped even the FBI. Regan Landry is here with me today to talk about the last book that she and her father wrote together.”

Heather reached across the spare distance and touched Regan lightly on the arm. “Regan, how hard has it been to carry on in your father’s footsteps?”

“No one could fill my dad’s shoes, but I couldn’t not go on this tour. He was very, very proud of this book, and I felt obligated to go on with the schedule. Dad always looked forward to seeing his readers, and I felt I owed it to them-and to him-to take this last trip.”

“Do you think it will be the last trip?” Heather leaned closer. “You’re not thinking about continuing your father’s work?”

Regan hesitated for a long moment.

“I hadn’t planned on it. My intention was to finish out this tour for him, then move on to something else with my life. But before I left last month, I’d started cleaning out my dad’s house with an eye toward getting it ready to put on the market. In the course of going through his files, I came across some notes that he’d made regarding different cases he’d looked into over the years-books he’d planned on writing in the future-and I have to admit, some of those cases are stories just begging to be told.”

“Ah, so there might yet be more Landry true crime?”

“Possibly. I have to give it a bit more thought, but my dad left some pretty interesting notes and interviews, even some correspondence from people who may or may not have been involved in violent crimes.”

“Correspondence? From killers?”

“Some, claiming to be. It’s pretty scary reading, actually.”

“Your father didn’t turn these letters over to the police?”

“In some cases, apparently, he did, and only kept photocopies for his file. In others, I can’t really tell, because I don’t know if the files contain all his notes. Sometimes he’d remove material if he was working on something and forget to put it back in the file, or just as often, he’d stuff papers into an otherwise empty file, so I never know where I will find things. His housekeeping was notoriously poor-notes pop up in the darnedest places. I’m still trying to sort things out and organize the files. To answer your question, I can’t tell what’s been handed over to law enforcement because I don’t know what the files originally contained. And others, well, it’s hard to know which letters were from real criminals.”

“Because some of the letters might be from people who just got a charge out of writing to him and saying they had committed certain acts, to get his attention?”

“To be sure, there was some of that. He’d mentioned several times that he’d get letters from one state or another, describing killings or whatever, but when he’d contact the local police, he’d be told there were no bodies buried where the letter said there’d be, that sort of thing.”