I rose too but hesitated before turning away. “Are you okay? Is there someone we can call?”
Josh shook his head. Connor was walking out. Even so, I stepped forward and rested a hand on Josh’s shoulder. “There’s still time to save her,” I said. “Remember that tonight.” Then I hurried after Connor.
He started the car. “We’ll follow this up tomorrow.”
I was going to argue, but the dashboard clock said it was past midnight, and Connor looked more drained than I’d ever witnessed. If there was one thing I’d learned about him, it was that he took personal responsibility for the safety of those around him. And Dana was a long way from safe.
I was seeing the vulnerability in all the men around me tonight.
We left the silence undisturbed as he drove me home. I tried not to wonder whether my presence had hindered his work on the case. Whether Dana would’ve had a better chance if I’d never come to LA.
Connor pulled the car to a stop outside my apartment and left it idling as he opened my door for me. “Night, Isobel.”
I kissed him on the cheek. For the paparazzi. “Good night, Connor.”
It was refreshing to walk up the stairs and squeeze past Etta’s sofa without keeping an eye out for the menacing bulk of Mr. Black. But I should’ve been looking out for the spindly outline of Mr. Alstrom.
He reached the stair landing seconds after I did, while I was digging through my bag for keys. “I’ve missed you, sweet cheeks.”
I stifled a shriek. “Albert? What are you doing here?”
His long fingers stroked my jawline. “It’s okay. Connor left. It’s just us.”
This was not good news. I surreptitiously reached for my pepper spray. As much as I’d have liked to spray the bastard, it was better to stay in character if I could.
He stepped closer. “I’ve been thinking about you. Every minute we’ve been apart. I need to have you.” His hand trailed down my arm, then snaked around to the small of my back.
I gripped the canister tighter and pried my tongue off from where it was stuck to the roof of my mouth. “Um. Albert. I’ve been thinking about you too.”
He licked his lips.
“But Connor just left to get a bottle of wine. He’ll be back any minute.” I didn’t have to fake the urgency in my voice.
Albert’s eyes switched from cloudy with lust to furious in less than a second. He swore, grabbed my head with both hands, and shoved his lips against mine. “This isn’t over,” he vowed, before whirling around and striding down the stairs.
I stared after him and prayed he was wrong.
I locked the door behind me with shaking hands. They really ought to make locks that are easier to use when you’re panicky.
Meow stood watch as I placed my pepper spray and Taser on the bathroom sink and took a long shower to wash the Albert off of me. Then I fed her and downed a hot chocolate in the hopes of soothing my nerves before climbing into bed.
It didn’t work.
I wished Oliver would come home so I wasn’t alone. Even Meow had left me, choosing to stake out Oliver’s bed before he could crawl into it. I got up one last time to check the lock on the front door and transfer my Taser and pepper spray to my bedside table. I’d put Kate’s feather there too.
I finally made it under the sheets, but suspected I had about as much chance of falling asleep as I did of figuring out who was behind the attempted murder.
Fourteen hours. If the doctor’s estimate was correct. How could I spend any of that sleeping?
A useless hour later, once I’d gone through every clue we’d uncovered and every possible scenario I could summon up with my exhausted brain, my thoughts drifted. How tragic that an accident at the age of eighteen had tormented Josh his entire life. It had taken away his best friend, built walls that kept him at arm’s length from everyone else, and trapped him in constant fear that his secret might be exposed. Yes, he’d been recklessly speeding, but who hasn’t done something dumb at least once? The difference was most people didn’t end up paying for their moment of foolishness for the rest of their lives.
Okay, I was still paying for my own moment of foolishness in marrying Steve. Maybe that’s why I could sympathize so much. But at least mine didn’t end in the death of my best friend. I might have killed a tree or two with all the overdue notices, though.
I rolled over and tried to think of something else. My mind chose Kate. She was probably fast asleep, with no clue her one and only daughter was about to die. It was all so wrong. But there was nothing I could do for any of them until my brain had rested. Maybe not even then.
My brain wouldn’t take the hint, and I found myself pondering Dana’s choices. Why hadn’t she gone back to her mum if she’d left in a teenage huff? And why hadn’t she told Josh she was his daughter? She did seem to be cautious and private to the point of mild paranoia, like her dad, in retrospect. She must have wanted to get to know him before saying anything. She might have been planning to go back to her mum too but put it on the back burner in the everyday business of life. After all, she’d have assumed she had plenty of time.
A lot more than thirteen hours.
When my sheets became so entangled with my legs that I could no longer toss and turn, I pulled out the hate mail again. I made it through the remaining pile of the snail mail variety before crawling back into bed.
This time, with the Taser tucked under my pillow and my brain too tired to form coherent thoughts, I finally managed to get a few hours’ sleep.
21
Connor arrived at seven-thirty in the morning looking like he’d had an equally rough night. Somehow his fatigue lent an attractive, rugged air to his handsome features.
Mine made me look like someone had poured molasses down my lower eyelids and aged me ten years overnight.
I was out on the landing, Taser and pepper spray on standby, trying to use my untapped mind powers to turn my cup of tea into coffee. He came up the stairs and trailed his hand along my arm. “Your cactus is dying,” he pointed out.
I stared at it in shock. How did I manage to kill a damn cactus?
“I have news,” he said. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”
I was impatient and might’ve argued we could talk right there if Etta’s curtain hadn’t just twitched.
We headed out for breakfast, and Connor let me pick the place. Maria had packed him a thermos, so I was even allowed to choose an eatery that only made espresso coffees. I didn’t know whether to kiss him or Maria. Maybe both. I couldn’t remember the last time I needed a coffee this bad.
I chose a tiny café in Mar Vista that served crepes and good-quality espresso. Importantly, it was only a few minutes’ drive from my apartment and had fast service. Efficiency was my first priority today, after caffeine.
Once we’d squeezed ourselves into the cramped al fresco area and given our orders to the pretty waitress, Connor filled me in. “I’ve done some research into Henry’s surviving family. His mother died a year after his death. Reading between the lines, it’s likely she committed suicide. That gives Henry’s father or sister a pretty good motive if they found out Josh was driving. The father has been charged a bunch of times with public intoxication since then. The sister is clean. Of course, we couldn’t access either of their medical records to find out if one of them has an Ambience prescription, but the sister’s a nurse so she’d have more familiarity with drugs than the average person.”
My double shot short black arrived, and I savored the first sip. “How do we question them without making them suspicious? Especially if they don’t know what really happened.”
“We don’t. I’m not about to drag them through Henry’s death again unless we have hard evidence suggesting they did it. I’ve asked the research team to prioritize searching for any links between the Smythe family and the people we know had access to Josh’s home during the window of opportunity. We should hear back within the hour. In the meantime, let’s have a chat with Patrick.”
“I can’t see them having the contacts to get a good contract killer. The initial indicators on their finances suggest they couldn’t afford one either, but the team will take a closer look.”
“So, how do we find Patrick?”
“Let’s see if there’s a Patrick MacCallum on Facebook who went to the same school.”
There was, and his profile information said he worked at Angels Elementary School in Downtown LA. I had an inkling that this kind of thing was the real reason Dana wasn’t on Facebook.
Our food arrived. I tasted Connor’s crepes and started on mine while he called the school.
“We’re in luck,” he said when he hung up. “Patrick has the first period off today, so we can talk to him right away.”
Connor downed his banana and honey crepe in three bites, I chugged the last bit of my coffee, and we were back in the car within two minutes. Our speed slowed considerably as we joined the traffic crawling toward Central LA. Connor weaved through the cars in an attempt to save time, but it still took us forty-five minutes to get there. It was nine o’ clock.
Six and a half hours to go.
Angels Elementary consisted of a few unimaginative brick buildings and a playground, surrounded by a tall cyclone fence.
The receptionist took a break from painting her nails to direct us to MacCallum’s classroom. We found the right building and headed for 6B through the muffled sounds of children being educated. Shrieks of laughter. High-pitched voices. An adult voice calling for attention. Little angels indeed.
We found 6B and knocked.
Mr. MacCallum was a startlingly tall man. Tall enough, that when he opened the door to his classroom, his nose upward was obscured by the door frame. I looked at his tie instead, seeing it was at my eye level. It featured cartoon tigers with oversized mallets chasing cheerful bunnies around a forest.
His face, when the entirety of it was revealed, was stretched thin like the rest of him, but softened by the laughter lines around his mouth and the sparkle in his brown eyes. I was amused that such a tall person would choose to work with the shortest people around. Then again, all adults seem like giants to small children, so maybe there was method to his madness.
“Mr. Stiles and Ms. Avery, I presume? Come on in.”
The walls were bright with the organized clutter of children’s creations, interspersed with a few educational posters about the alphabet and seasons. He gestured at the vacant, child-sized plastic chairs. “Sorry about the seating options, but please feel free to sit.”
I pulled one out from behind a desk and sat on it. Connor chose to stand. Connor wasn’t wearing heels.
MacCallum sat too, and waited for us to begin.
“You attended Porterville High, is that correct?” asked Connor.
MacCallum nodded. “That’s right.” He’d picked up a pen and was doodling absentmindedly as he answered.
“How many kids went there back then?”
“A couple hundred, I guess.”
“Did you know Henry Smythe?”
The doodling paused for a second. “I knew of him. Everyone did after the accident. He was a grade above me, but his sister, Caroline, was in my grade.”
“So, you didn’t know him before he died?”
“Well, I could’ve picked him out of a lineup, but I’m not sure we ever spoke. Still, in a school that size, everyone pretty much knows everyone.”
“Were you close to Caroline?”
“No. She was one of the popular kids. Me?” He smiled without resentment and waved the pen over his beanstalk frame. “Not so much.”
“Did you see how she reacted to his death?”
“Only from afar. She was devastated by all accounts, and then her mom committed suicide a year after. Poor girl.”
“Sorry to ask, but do you know how her mother did it?”
I couldn’t understand why we needed to know that. From the hesitation on MacCallum’s face, neither could he.
“Your information could help save someone’s life.”
MacCallum put down the pen. “It was an overdose, I believe.”
“Of painkillers, sleeping pills, insulin, or what?”
“The rumor mill said sleeping pills. That she saved up her prescription drugs and took them all at once. I don’t know if that’s true.”
Oh. If Henry or Caroline was the wannabe killer, that could explain the choice of Ambience. Forcing Josh to “sleep” forever might seem like justice.
“Have you seen anyone from Porterville High recently?” Connor asked.
“Are you joking?”
Connor’s humorless expression must have answered him.
“We had the twenty-five-year school reunion last month. I’ve seen almost everyone in my graduating class recently.”
“Including Caroline?”
“Yeah, we chatted for a while actually. I guess the high school cliques don’t apply a quarter of a century later.” He favored us with a wide smile, guileless as a child, and I smiled back.
Connor’s face remained impassive.
“Tell us about that conversation.”
MacCallum looked back and forth between us before shrugging. “I dunno. She seemed like a nice woman. I’m not sure she remembered who I was, but she pretended to out of kindness. We swapped the abridged versions of what we’d been doing since high school. She was amused I was still in school. Told me she was a nurse. I asked if she had kids, and she said nope, one tragic, dysfunctional family was all she could handle. I wasn’t going to ask, but she went on as if I had. She was a bit drunk by that stage of the night. Said her whole family fell apart when Henry died and, despite knowing better, she used to feel like her parents must have wished it was her, since they stopped trying after that.” MacCallum’s eyes had wandered away while he’d been remembering, but now they flicked back to Connor, then me. “She’s not in any trouble is she?”
“We hope not. Did you talk about the night of his death?”
“Yeah, a bit. I was at the same party he was, would you believe?” His cheeks gained a faint rosy tinge. “I’d, um, kind of snuck in uninvited because the girl I had a crush on was going.”
“Did you see Henry there?”
He frowned. “Funny. Caroline asked me the same thing.”
“And what did you tell her?”
“That it was over a quarter of a century ago. I have a vague recollection of seeing him leave and that’s it.”
I bit my tongue to keep it from asking outright whether he’d seen who hopped in the driver’s seat. If he had, we couldn’t afford to draw his attention to it.
Connor leaned forward and offered his hand. “Thank you for your time and cooperation, Mr. MacCallum. You’ve been very helpful.”
MacCallum unfolded himself from the chair, and I had to crane my head upward to see his face. I wondered if any of the kids who sat in the front row complained of sore necks.
He shook Connor’s hand. “If you say so. Good luck with whatever it is you’re investigating. I hope you manage to save that life you mentioned.”
I stood up to prevent my head from popping off like my old doll’s did when you pushed it back too far, and MacCallum shook my hand too. As we left the classroom behind, I wondered how many times he’d smacked his head on that particular doorframe over the years. Maybe I should buy him a hard hat. If I had any money.
We were walking down the corridor when two boys, about seven years old, came out of room 5F and headed toward us. One was pale and freckled and looked worried, and the other was Latino with the kind of big brown eyes a person couldn’t say no to. They stopped in front of us. “Excuse me, sir—”
I peeked at Connor. Kids don’t tend to mix well with someone who just likes order. Connor’s face was deadpan.
Of course it was.
“Do you know if Ms. Hillier is in the nurse’s office?” It was the Latino doing the talking. The pale kid was looking even more worried.
&
nbsp; “I don’t know. Sorry,” Connor said.
The pale kid put his hands over his mouth.
Unfortunately, it didn’t stop the puke from spilling out between his fingers and onto Connor’s black leather shoes.
“S—sorry!” said the poor kid, more vomit dripping from his hands onto the floor.
“Yes, sorry about that, sir,” the other chimed in. There was a sparkle of excitement in his eyes that belied his words.
Connor’s face was still expressionless.
They rushed off to the nurse’s office. Connor bent down and removed his shoes.
“Uh, do you want me to find a bathroom and clean them for you?”
“That won’t be necessary.” He strode down the corridor in his socks, carrying the shoes just far enough away to prevent any drips landing on his clothes. I hurried after him, wondering what he was planning to do. We couldn’t spare the time to go back to Beverly Hills and change, but I couldn’t see him interviewing anyone in just his socks, either.
We passed a garbage can as we were escaping the bounds of the cyclone fence, and Connor dropped the shoes into it without slowing down. The shoes that were probably worth more than my first paycheck.
I was too gobsmacked to say anything. Or to grab them out of the garbage to clean up and sell on eBay.
When we arrived at the SUV, he opened up the back and pulled out another pair of black leather shoes. Puke-free. It was like a bloody magic trick.
“Does this kind of thing happen often?” I asked, as he bent down to put them on.
“More often than I’d like.”
We were in our seats a minute later. Connor’s phone rang before he could turn the key. “Yes?” he answered. “Uh-huh… Right… Do you have a picture? Yeah, message it through. Thanks.” He hung up and looked at me. “That was the research team. Remember the nurse who dropped Juan’s sister home?”
“Yes.”
“What was her name?”
“Caroline, I think?”
Eat, Pray, Die Mystery Box Set Page 19
