Molly rolled her eyes. “It’s the middle of the day. They’re walking around town. I’m sure they’re fine.”
“I’m going to make sure they’re fine.” Zander grabbed his coat from the back of his desk chair. “Eric is right. Harper needs to be watched. She’s still in shock from Quinn’s return. She doesn’t understand what’s really going on.”
“And what’s going on?” Molly challenged. “As far as I can tell, all this guy wants is to talk to her. Shame on him!” She wagged her finger for emphasis. “That clearly means he’s evil.”
“I can’t even look at you.” Zander turned on his heel. “You two hold down the fort. I’m going to save my best friend from evil. If you don’t hear from me in an hour, assume Quinn killed me and ran off with my best friend. Call the National Guard if that happens.”
Zander paused by the door, his hand on the bar. “Also, if that happens, I want a big statue erected in the town square honoring me for my sacrifice. I want it to say ‘died for friendship’ and make sure you get someone good at sculptures so I look hot.”
Eric bit back a smirk. “We’ll get right on that.”
“Good. Don’t let my sacrifice be in vain.”
“Never.”
Nine
With the new information backing them, Mel and Jared had no trouble tracking down Patty Lange, their victim’s mother. She lived in one of those transitional homes for people of a certain age — she was only in her sixties but apparently needed help — and she was eating Jell-O and watching Family Feud when the police detectives knocked on her door.
“What did Judy do now?”
Patty asked the question the second Mel flashed his badge. She seemed resigned.
“Can we come in, Mrs. Lange?” Mel asked, his face immovable.
Patty glanced between the men for a beat before opening the door wider and taking a step back. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“Unfortunately, ma’am, I don’t think so.” Jared pressed his lips together in an approximation of a weak smile as he followed Patty to the small living room in her condominium unit. “Can we get you something to drink, ma’am?”
The look Patty shot Jared was full of suspicion ... and then defeat. It was as if she recognized the Whisper Cove police detectives were going to upend her life. “What happened?”
“Mrs. Lange, we regret to inform you that your daughter died in Whisper Cove General Hospital yesterday,” Mel volunteered, opting not to drag things out. “We’re very sorry for your loss.”
Patty clutched her hands together as she sank to the couch. “How?”
“We’re trying to ascertain that, ma’am.”
Patty’s annoyance came out to play as she tugged on her limited patience. “You have no idea how my daughter turned up in the hospital, huh? Are you going to stick to that story? You’re detectives. I saw your badges. You’re here because you think Judy was murdered. There’s no sense in denying it.”
“We know she was murdered, ma’am.” Jared chose his words carefully. “We’re trying to figure out who had motive to carry out an attack on her.”
“Well, if you’re looking for people who want to hurt Judy, the list is long and sundry.” Even though she was clearly upset, Patty held it together. “Why don’t you start by telling me what happened, huh? After that, I don’t know if I’ll be any help, but I’ll answer any questions you have.”
“Of course.” Mel launched into the tale. He kept things succinct, his voice calm, and never broke eye contact. “We didn’t realize that Vicky Thompson wasn’t a real person until we found the second purse in the trunk. Otherwise we would’ve notified you of her passing yesterday. We apologize.”
Patty made a dismissive motion with her hands as she absorbed the words. “How could you have known? She had identification stating otherwise, right?”
“She did,” Jared confirmed. “Since it was a single-car accident, though, we opted against issuing a ticket. She was banged up a bit after the rollover, a little frazzled, but we assumed she would be fine.”
“How did someone get inside the hospital to poison her?” Patty asked.
“It’s a small facility, only one duty nurse on each floor during the overnight hours,” Mel explained. “Whoever it was waited until the nurse was doing her rounds and secluded around a corner so she couldn’t see Judy’s room.”
“It sounds like it was well planned.” Patty tapped her bottom lip. “I’m sure you ran my daughter’s real name when you found the second purse and discovered she’s been ... um ... busy.”
“We noticed she was active in the area when she was younger,” Jared confirmed. “We also noted she had outstanding arrest warrants in multiple states.”
Patty’s eyebrows winged up. “Are you kidding? I didn’t know that.”
“I’m afraid we’re not kidding,” Mel replied. “She had quite the colorful reputation. Everything we managed to pull shows that she was ... a unique individual.”
Patty barked out a laugh, but the sound was wan and utterly humorless. “You don’t have to sugarcoat things for me, or walk on eggshells. I’m well aware of the type of person my daughter was. She learned it from her father. He was a grifter, too.”
“She was still your daughter,” Jared pointed out. “You obviously loved her.”
“I did love her,” Patty confirmed, taking on a far-off expression. “I was a terrible mother, though. I didn’t have the energy to give her the attention she wanted. I have Lupus, you see, and that made me chronically tired when she was a kid. I couldn’t keep up, and she was needy and desperate for attention.
“As she got older, she started looking for that attention from other people,” she continued. “Her father was a loser to the hundredth degree, and he spent all of her childhood in and out of jail. It was mostly county lockup stuff, petty and ridiculous thievery, but whenever he would get out he would come around looking for money.
“Because Judy didn’t think I was giving her the attention she deserved, she loved it when her father deigned to visit because he doted on her,” she said. “He made a big show of pretending she was the center of his world ... and then he asked her to go through my purse and steal money for him.”
Jared’s stomach twisted at Patty’s matter-of-fact delivery. “I’m sorry.”
“I knew when she was a teenager that she was going to be trouble,” Patty said. “I wanted to help her, make things better, but it was already too late. Patty was set on her future path. She didn’t believe in work, always wanted something for nothing. I’m going to guarantee that almost every warrant that’s been issued for her had something to do with bilking people out of money.”
“Pretty much,” Mel confirmed. “May I ask what she was doing here? According to the information we found in her file, she hadn’t been in the area for at least ten years. Or, well, at least arrested in this area.”
“Not so much as a visit,” Patty confirmed. “She showed up out of nowhere about two weeks ago. It might have been three. I apologize. My days run together in this place.”
“That’s okay.” Jared offered a charming smile. “Just tell us what you remember.”
“She showed up out of the blue, acted like it hadn’t been a decade since I last saw her, and wanted to chat about a few things,” Patty responded. “The thing is, I knew the second I saw her that she was running on fumes. She seemed tired, stretched. She didn’t want to admit that, though, and she made up grand stories about doing great and all these investment opportunities she had going.”
“She wanted you to give her money,” Mel surmised.
Patty bobbed her head. “She did. She wasn’t happy when I explained I didn’t have any money to give. The bulk of my disability and Social Security goes to this place. I pay for my room and then we make shopping lists, and the facility has people pick up those items for us. I don’t have a lot left over at the end of the month.”
“Did that upset Judy?”
“Yes, but she did her best to
cover for it,” Patty replied. “She made a big show of saying she was going to get a house we could both live in and make amends for past wrongs, but I knew she was blowing smoke. Besides that, I can’t leave this place. They keep my medication regulated and I’m not always clear enough to do that myself. I could’ve never trusted Judy to pick up the slack, not on something that important.”
“Do you have any idea who your daughter was currently working with?” Mel queried. “She must’ve had ties to someone in the area.”
“I’m sure she did. She didn’t tell me, though. You’ll have to pull her police reports for lists of victims and associates. I honestly can’t remember. She made a lot of enemies, some who visited my house looking for her at times. You’re probably going to spend a lot of time chasing these people down.”
“Well, we’ll do our best.” Jared awkwardly patted the woman’s wrist. “We’ll find answers for you.”
“Thank you.” Patty smiled, but it didn’t make it all the way to her eyes. “I appreciate you guys being so diligent. Most people would ignore what happened to Judy because of her history. She’d be a throwaway to them.”
“We’re not most people. We’ll be in touch.”
HARPER WAS QUIET as she matched Quinn’s pace, the brisk air turning her cheeks pink as the duo made their way to the beachfront property where they previously spent a lot of time together.
“Don’t you want to say something?” Quinn asked finally, breaking the silence. “You haven’t said a word in five minutes.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Harper admitted, her smile rueful. “It’s just so ... surreal.”
“It is,” Quinn agreed, leaning against a large rock and folding his arms over his chest. “We’ve talked about me. I monopolized the entire conversation yesterday, and then I got dragged away before I could ask about you.”
Harper widened her eyes. “You want to talk about me? My life is ridiculously boring.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s true.”
“I still want to hear about it,” Quinn said gently. “It must have been difficult for you when I disappeared.”
Harper swallowed hard as she stared into his eyes. They were familiar, and yet different. It was a weird dichotomy. “I thought you were dead.”
“Technically I am dead. It’s going to be difficult convincing the government I’m not if I expect to reclaim my Social Security number and bank accounts.”
“The accident was ... bad,” Harper volunteered. “I went out to the scene once Mel called Zander to tell us what they found. At first, they were hopeful you would be found. They figured you couldn’t have gone far. Although ... .” She trailed off.
“They thought they would find a body,” Quinn supplied. “They told you I was dead and you believed them.”
“It’s not just that,” Harper offered hurriedly. “Blood was found at the scene. A lot of blood.”
“That must have been from the chest injury.” Quinn absently touched the spot where his scar rested. “I wonder how it happened.”
“I honestly don’t know.” Harper was earnest. “Mel warned me that the amount of blood you lost was enough to make you weak. If you passed out and your wounds weren’t treated, well, the odds of survival weren’t good.
“Still, for the first few hours at least, I was hopeful,” she continued. “The state police brought in dogs. They found your scent and followed it to the woods. Somehow, though, they lost the trail and you disappeared.
“I remember being lost when I returned to my apartment that night,” she said, her expression cloudy due to dark memories. “I was upset at the thought of you being out there alone. Zander was waiting for me, though, and he refused to leave me even though I wanted to wallow.”
“You didn’t want to wallow,” Quinn countered. “You wanted to sneak back out to the woods to look for me yourself. No, don’t bother denying it. Zander recognized your plan and refused to let you go. That was smart of him.”
“I might have found you, though.”
“We’ll never know that,” Quinn said. “There’s no way of knowing where I was at that point. I can’t remember. I wish I could, at least to give you peace of mind, but I can’t.”
“Yeah.” Harper licked her lips as she regarded him, a wave of amazement washing over her. “I can’t believe you’re here. I honestly spent so much time looking for you that I lost track of myself for a bit. Zander pulled me back from the precipice, ordered me to stop searching the woods every single day, and then insisted we move in together.
“Those first few months, I was kind of like a zombie,” she continued. “I gave up thinking we would find you alive a few days into things. I never stopped looking for your ghost, though. Not really.”
“Oh.” Realization washed over Quinn’s features. “You wanted to put me to rest.”
“I couldn’t stand the idea of you wandering around the woods, lost, and never finding peace.”
“Well, now I’m sad.” Quinn’s lips curved as he sheepishly shook his head. “I don’t like the idea of you searching for a ghost that didn’t exist.”
“I guess we both have a few issues, huh?” Harper giggled as she dragged a hand through her shoulder-length hair. “I can’t believe everything that has happened in such a short amount of time. It’s so weird that you’re here now. In some ways, it’s as if no time has passed.”
“Oh, now, that’s not the world we live in,” Quinn chided, shifting from one foot to the other. “We’ve lost years. There’s no going back.”
“Definitely not,” Harper agreed readily. “I wouldn’t want to go back, not even if it could save both of us some heartbreak. The fact that you’re here is a miracle. I can’t ask for more than that.”
“Me either.” Quinn instinctively reached out his fingers, as if he was going to touch Harper’s face, but he let his hand drop when he saw the surprise register on her features. “Sorry. Old habit.”
“Yeah, well ... .” Harper was clearly uncomfortable. “You know I’m with Jared, right?” She felt stupid asking the question. It was only now, under the bright light of day, that she realized how jumbled things got the previous afternoon. Emotions and greetings overlapped to the point where she could barely remember what came out publicly ... and what didn’t.
“I know you’re with the police officer who dragged me down to the station for questioning yesterday,” Quinn said dryly. “I saw the way you interacted when he showed up. You instantly went to him, and he’s been a little ... territorial ... with me.”
Harper couldn’t hide her surprise. “Jared doesn’t get territorial.”
“Probably not in front of you,” Quinn conceded. “When it’s just the boys, though, he has to mark his territory.”
For some reason — and Harper recognized the comment was made in jest and yet she couldn’t separate herself from the momentary jolt of annoyance coursing through her — the blond ghost hunter didn’t like Quinn’s tone.
“Jared is doing his job,” Harper argued. “When you disappeared, it was a big deal. You were all over the news cycles and people brought search dogs from other states to help. It was a media circus.”
Quinn held up his hands in a placating manner. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t upset me,” Harper lied. “It’s just ... Jared is a good man. He had no choice but to question you.”
“He came back this morning to question me a second time,” Quinn volunteered. “He thinks I had something to do with some woman dying after an accident or something.”
The admission caught Harper off guard. “Vicky Thompson? The woman from the rollover accident.”
Quinn nodded. “I was there the day of the accident. I hadn’t yet worked up the courage to visit you, so I thought heading back out to the scene might jog my memory. I saw what happened and ran over to help, but once the woman was safely out of her vehicle I started to panic.”
“How come?”
“Becaus
e the only Whisper Cove police officer I ever knew was Mel,” Quinn answered. “I knew the second I saw him, he would recognize me. I didn’t have a problem answering questions, mind you, but I wanted to see you before that was necessary. It only seemed fair that I would be the one to break the news to you.”
“So you left the scene of an accident?”
“I panicked. It was a terrible decision. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I don’t either,” Harper hedged. “Was Jared mad when he visited you?”
“We had breakfast together actually.” Quinn turned rueful. “He seemed nice enough, maybe a little tired. He clearly had a lot on his mind.”
“We don’t get a lot of murders in Whisper Cove.”
Quinn’s lips curved, reflecting genuine amusement. “I wasn’t talking about that. I was talking about my return. It can’t be easy for him. I mean ... we were together at the time of my disappearance. He probably can’t help himself from worrying that you’ll be torn between us or something.”
Instead of reacting with earnest emotion, Harper barked out a laugh. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous.” Her mirth bubbled up. “Jared knows he has absolutely nothing to worry about. He’s not the sort of guy to dwell on things like that. Don’t even get yourself worked up about it. Jared is fine.”
Quinn searched Harper’s face for a long beat, his expression unreadable. “So ... you’re happy, huh?”
Harper realized her reaction could be misconstrued as dismissive after the fact and quickly collected herself. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s just ... Jared and I have been through a lot. There’s nothing that can separate us.”
“Not even a back-from-the-dead boyfriend, huh?”
“No.” Harper opted for honesty. “I don’t mean that to hurt you, but it’s been a long time. I’m not the same person you dated years ago. I’m more sure of myself now, strong. Jared and I fit together. I’ll always be fond of you because you’re part of my past but ... it was a different time.”
“Right.” Quinn pressed his lips together. “Just tell me you’re happy.”
Ghostly Despair (A Harper Harlow Mystery Book 10) Page 9
