Death Comes Knocking (The Thea Kozak Mystery Series, Book 10)

by Kate Flora

  I sighed again. I needed to think some happier thoughts. Between my work and Andre’s, MOC was going to be born a pessimistic depressive unless the kid was surrounded by more positive examples. How did someone who grew up in a tense and difficult household raise their child differently? Was it possible not to revert to the patterns I’d known?

  Andre’s family was more tight-knit. Nosy, quarrelsome, religious. Very certain that their way was the right way and unselfconscious about imposing their views on others. His sister Aimee had too many out-of-control children, and none of the women were ambitious.

  Ugh. I did not want to think about families and how much could go wrong. I wanted to think happy thoughts. As I sat in my bright kitchen, child-to-be acting like a Kung Fu fighter, husband unreachable, and a badly beaten man slumbering or unconscious in the next room, I couldn’t find any happy thoughts.

  Wait. There was Jonetta on my horizon. What she dealt with every day put my pity party in perspective. Wow. There was a line: Putting pity parties in perspective. That, at least, made me smile.

  I forced myself to work. Work could always fill my time. When the clock said nine and Andre still hadn’t called back, I realized that I’d once again skipped a meal, and that just because he wasn’t here didn’t mean I wasn’t supposed to eat. I got out the chicken salad, filled a bowl, and started to eat.

  There were stumbling steps from the hall, and a pale and shaky Malcolm Kinsman appeared in the doorway.

  “You really don’t need that gun,” he said.

  His eyes fell to my salad. “And would you mind if I had some of that?”

  Like everything here was perfectly normal.

  Twenty-Three

  He limped to a chair at the table and kind of fell into it. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said.

  “The way to hell is paved with good intentions,” I said. “You’re welcome to the salad, but I also have some lasagna, if you’d rather. I could warm it up and it’s easy to eat? And maybe a cup of tea?”

  “Tea,” he said. “The universal panacea. Be better if you had some whiskey.”

  “Jack Daniels okay?” I asked, like I was an ordinary hostess and he was an ordinary guest. This wasn’t nearly as frightening as trying to feed a hungry child in a room full of angry militia.

  “Please,” he said. “And lasagna would be fabulous. Salad…” He started to raise a hand, then dropped it. “All that chewing? Maybe too much?”

  I took out a pan of lasagna, cut a big chunk, and put it in the microwave. Then I poured him a generous slug of Jack. “Ice?”

  “No. Thanks.”

  I set it on the table beside him. Got a fork and a knife and a napkin and set them on the table. This all felt surreal. Why was I tending and feeding this scary stranger who’d barged into my house?

  As if he’d read my mind, he said, “I’m sorry. I seem to keep getting it wrong with you, don’t I?”

  I didn’t bother to answer.

  The microwave beeped and I took out his food. Set it on the table. Retreated to the kitchen island where my gun was.

  His smile was lopsided and small as he said, “I know ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t cut it. You need to know what the hell is going on. It’s…I…I’m not in the habit of sharing my business with civilians.”

  “I think you’ve already made this my business, on the plane and now. Just as your sister did by knocking on my door. You can’t hide behind that ‘us vs. them’ wall anymore. So tell me. What’s going on with Charity’s husband, David Peckham? Who do you work for? Who is a danger to Charity, and why?”

  “That’s a lot of questions,” he said. “You got all night?”

  Like what? I’d back down if it was going to take time? “I’ve got as long as it takes. And by the way, we had a visit from a couple of government agents last night. Their IDs said Marshals Service. Alice and Fred. I know. Sounds like a couple from a TV sitcom. Are you working with them?”

  The lasagna had disappeared. So had the whiskey. This man was more efficient than a vacuum cleaner.

  “More?” I said. I have a caretaking problem when it comes to wounded, hungry men, even, it seems, unwanted ones who barge into my house uninvited.

  “Please.”

  I put more lasagna in the microwave and retreated to my island. “So? Some answers?”

  Andre, blue lights blazing, flew up the driveway and rocked to a stop. I quickly unlocked the kitchen door so he didn’t knock it down. My husband in impulsive protection mode is something to behold.

  He burst through the door, immediately taking in the gun on the counter and Kinsman at the table. Ignoring me, he focused on Kinsman and said a single word. “Explain.”

  Kinsman half rose and stuck out a shaky hand. “Malcolm Kinsman. Charity’s brother.”

  Andre, a quick reader of situations, decided despite my gun on the counter that if I was feeding Kinsman, he might be okay. He shook the offered hand and repeated that single word. “Explain.”

  Kinsman sank back into his chair.

  And Andre waited for answers.

  I took the lasagna from the microwave, gave it to Kinsman, and cut a piece for Andre. Chicken salad wasn’t going to do it under these circumstances. They might be stationary instead of circling each other and growling, but there was plenty of alpha male stuff going on.

  Kinsman, who was definitely subpar right now, gave up the fight pretty quickly. “Just trying to find my sister,” he said.

  “Before someone else does,” Andre said.

  “Yes.”

  “Who wants to find her, and why?”

  The central question here. I put some silverware and a napkin down across from Kinsman. Andre sat without taking his eyes off the man.

  I poured more Jack for Kinsman and some for Andre, wishing I could have some myself. With Andre fed, I retreated to my island again. I can get a bit huffy when men are doing their thing and I feel like I’m being relegated to “little woman” status, but right now, I was hors d’combat. Willing to let the guys sort it out while MOC danced and I watched Kinsman figure out how much he could share about secret government operations, even to a cop who might be able to help.

  “David and I are special forces. We were coming back from Mexico. Part of a task force working with the DEA, doing surveillance on a cartel. We had a couple hours in a Texas airport before our connecting flight. David went to the restroom and…uh…he didn’t come back. Two of us went to check. Found his gear and a smear of blood in one of the stalls and a janitor so scared he couldn’t talk. We’re looking for him…the team…uh…and…uh…we immediately were concerned about Charity since…David would never reveal operational details—the who, what, where, and what our intel is. But if…if they had his pregnant wife? If they threatened her and the baby? The leverage is huge.”

  “Why did Charity come here?” Andre asked.

  “Some pointy-headed bureaucrat decided Maine would be safe,” Kinsman said.

  “If they were trying to keep her location secret, how did you find her?”

  “Charity…uh…she knew she wasn’t supposed to, but she was so worried about David. No one would tell her anything. She kind of got in touch.”

  I wondered how someone kind of got in touch? Message in the hollow oak? Cryptic ad? Maybe there was a secret code, some message the person was supposed to post on Facebook?

  Andre asked my question. “How did she ‘kinda’ get in touch? Was that what got Jessica Whitlow killed?”

  Kinsman slumped in his chair. “Jess was a friend.”

  Which wasn’t really an answer. It was clear he would share as little as possible. Never mind that Andre had two murders to investigate and Kinsman presumably wanted our help finding Charity. I should know, from my years living with Andre, that people in secretive lines of work struggle to reveal any information. Kinsman was the operative, tough, secretive, used to everything about his work being clandestine. I wondered if he’d tell us anything that might help.

  While Kinsm
an wrestled with that, Andre had another question. “Any idea how a Boston detective would have found her? Or who he was working for?”

  Kinsman sighed. “Someone was careless. Though he may not have known it, and he may have thought he was simply working a domestic, looking for someone’s wife who was hiding out, he was working for the cartel.”

  The thought of a Mexican cartel operating in my town, even through proxies like the rude, arrogant, and not-too-careful Nathaniel Davenport, was terrifying. We’ve all read in the papers about how ruthless they are. No compunction about hurting or killing women or children. I glanced around my bright kitchen and briefly wished we’d moved into a fortress instead of a house. Despite our longing for MOC and our excitement about the kid’s pending debut, I sometimes wondered how anyone could make the decision to bring a child into this crazy world.

  We still didn’t know about the man Davenport had with him. He’d never been identified.

  Once this thing was over, we were adding doorbell cameras to our renovations list. Also motion-activated lights, a moat, and a portcullis.

  Right now, I had a question of my own. “You’re not here with a team?” I asked. “You’re doing this on your own?”

  “The rest of my team is looking for David,” he said.

  “But Jessica Whitlow really does…did work for the Marshals Service?”

  He nodded.

  “With them or on her own?”

  I looked at Andre. “Do you know whether the Marshals Service has people here looking for Charity? I mean, I guess I mean, are Fred and Alice for real?” I really needed to know that he’d looked into this.

  “There are agents by those names,” he said. “I’ve asked them for pictures. They aren’t excited about cooperating, but they will.” He sighed. “In their own time.”

  Because we were just a podunk Maine town and he was just a podunk Maine detective? I remembered what Albie had said at the library. “Albie says there was a man snooping around the house today.”

  Andre was wearing his “I’m going to lock you up in a tower” look. “Was that you?” he asked Kinsman.

  Kinsman said, “No.”

  “Albie—he’s that boy whose bike broke while he was out collecting bottles—said the man was tall and strong-looking,” I said. “Big shoulders. Dark hair. Dark skin or a deep tan. Gray suit. Sunglasses. And he was wearing cowboy boots.” The man who’d been with Davenport.

  Andre glared at Kinsman. “You know who that is?”

  Kinsman said, “Oh fuck.” Eloquent shorthand for concern and despair. “Not who, but what.”

  Andre looked around our bright, fishbowl kitchen. If there was someone out there looking for Kinsman, we might as well have put him under a spotlight. He grabbed Kinsman by the elbow and pulled him to his feet. More dragged than led him into the hall and up the stairs where I heard him clomping around in the guestroom, pulling shades, and then the rumble of voices as he extracted the reasons for Kinsman’s reaction.

  I’ve never liked being shut out of the action, but the situation sounded dangerous. Sounded? Was. Kinsman’s condition, plus two murders and Charity’s disappearance, made the danger quite clear. Another time, another me, the headstrong, independent Thea I’d been before the advent of MOC, I would have charged up the stairs and demanded to be part of the conversation. Instead, I stayed in the kitchen, anxious and uneasy, waiting for Andre to reappear and tell me what the heck was going on. That anxiety was choking me, and I was ridiculously close to tears. I didn’t want to be involved in this, but there was no way out. Bad enough when Andre’s work or mine brought troubles. These damned people had brought their own troubles to our doorstep and made them ours.

  I put dishes in the dishwasher and wiped down the counters. Stared longingly at the bottle of Jack. Put it away and made myself a cup of tea. The jury is still out on whether an expectant mother can drink at all. I wasn’t taking any chances. Yes. It was pathetic to look for comfort in a bottle, but I wasn’t finding it anywhere else, and besides, I tough it out plenty. Wasn’t I entitled to let down now and then?

  The work spread out on the counter reminded me that whatever craziness was going on here, inside this house and in this town, my work life went on as usual. I finished with Eastern Shore’s honor code and started on a client’s crisis management plan, thinking that it looked like the Kozak-Lemieux household needed a crisis management plan of its own.

  I sipped tea, listening to the rumble of men’s voices upstairs. Tea couldn’t soothe me. This business with Charity and strangers and murders across the street was unleashing too many bad memories. I didn’t know how Andre and his colleagues did it, dealing with people’s awfulness over and over. I’d seen enough to give me four lifetimes of PTSD, and I was just a consultant.

  I practiced my breathing exercises. Not the prenatal ones that were supposed to get me through childbirth, these were the ones my therapist had taught me. They were supposed to calm me and help me send those memories away. They were supposed to help me focus on the here and now. Be able to plan and act in a clear and coherent way. Tonight they didn’t help. Against the backdrop of those droning voices, every creak of the house and every small noise outside made me jump.

  I closed my eyes, tried to shut out my surroundings, and thought back to my conversations with Charity. Had she said anything or had I noticed anything that would help me find her now? And fast on the heels of that came the question: Did I want to find her? If people, presumably some of them with bad intentions, were focused on me to help them find her, wasn’t my best course of action to do nothing that might lead them to her? Had I been the world’s biggest fool today, driving around looking at places she might go?

  But I was sure no one had followed me.

  Then, because I’d been so focused on this town, I wondered—why did I think she’d stay around if the bad guys had found her here? What if they already had her and all this speculation was just that? I had no way of knowing whether whoever killed Nathaniel Davenport and Jessica Whitlow had taken Charity at the same time. Was the fact that I’d seen her loading things into a Volvo a clue? What about the absence of the baby things we’d bought from the cottage? Was there anything at the crime scene that gave any clues? I wouldn’t know, but Andre would.

  I climbed down from my stool and headed upstairs. Voices still rumbled behind the closed guest room door. I opened it and went in.

  Kinsman drooped in the pretty upholstered blue armchair I’d bought to match the duvet cover and carpet. He looked ghastly, a handkerchief pressed against the wound on his forehead. Andre stood over him, close and menacing.

  My husband turned as I came in and gave me the look he might give to an underling, an upstart baby detective who was interrupting an interrogation at a critical moment.

  “Not now, Thea,” he said.

  He should have known better. “Just one question,” I said, “and I’ll leave. Kinsman, have you heard from your sister Charity since her handler, Jessica Whitlow, and the private detective, were killed at her house?”

  Andre hissed in exasperation.

  I waited.

  Kinsman said, “Yes.”

  Which meant I had a second question and likely the wrath of my husband. “Did she say she planned to stay around here? Anything about her plans or where she’d go? You must believe she’s still around, or you wouldn’t be here, going around town asking questions about me. Going around pointing a big red arrow at me.”

  I hadn’t realized I was so mad.

  There was the crunch of tires on the driveway.

  Andre hit the light, said, “Stay,” to Kinsman, and pulled me out of the room.

  Twenty-Four

  It was late. My watch said ten-thirty. Not an appropriate time for visitors. Outside the guestroom, Andre pulled me against him and wrapped his arms protectively around me. “Damn the man,” he said. “He’s so mission-driven he didn’t see the harm he was doing.” He unwrapped and said, “You get ready for bed. I’ll handle this
.”

  “Shouldn’t we send Kinsman to the attic?” I said.

  “Whoever this is, they’re not coming upstairs,” he said. “You’re here.”

  Last night he’d been okay with that, or hadn’t fought it. I understood that this was different. Maybe instead of assuming I was fine—like I was always reassuring him I was—he sensed my fear. The threat was increasing. And we had Kinsman in the house. I remembered that I’d left my gun sitting on the counter. “My gun,” I said.

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “But…” I got all my sense of being unsafe into that one word.

  “Trust me, Thea,” he said. Then, hesitating at the top of the stairs, he said, “I’ll bring it up to you.”

  That shook me to the core. Yes, Andre made me learn to shoot, and yes, that training had come in handy in the past, but he knows I hate guns. He wouldn’t offer to get it for me if he didn’t think there was a chance I might need it, even though we had no idea who our late night visitors might be.

  He pounded down the stairs and was back in seconds, handing me that damned gun. The gun and I retreated into my bedroom, but I didn’t undress and get ready for bed. A nightgown isn’t the best outfit for a gunfight, nor for a retreat if that became necessary.

  Instead, I swapped my flip flops for sneakers. Pulled on yoga pants and a black jacket. Tied back my hair. Geared up, I crept to the top of the stairs and sat down to listen. I heard a male voice and a female one, unless it was another guy with a high voice, talking with Andre in the kitchen. His back was to me, so I couldn’t hear anything beyond a rumble. Even at a rumble, I could tell Andre was angry and not interested in whatever our visitors had to say.