by Dan Padavona
“Didn’t the school step in and suspend Tina?”
“Wade and Harding always backed up Tina’s stories. They had the principals in the palms of their hands. And poor Kendra probably never turned them in, figuring Tina would hurt her worse next time.”
“Whatever happened to Kendra?”
Brynn lifted a shoulder. “She fell off the edge of the world after high school. I haven’t heard Kendra’s name in over a decade.”
“She didn’t attend the reunion?”
“God, no. And can you blame her? She didn’t have a single friend in high school.”
Chelsey turned Kendra’s name over in her mind. Was Kendra the mystery stalker? Brynn’s description didn’t match the sexy redhead at Wade Tenny’s house.
As Chelsey pocketed her notepad, Brynn’s phone buzzed with a received message. “That’s my cousin. I need to drive her to the airport in two hours.”
“I won’t keep you.” Chelsey stood and shook the woman’s hand. “Thank you so much for coming.” Reaching into her wallet, Chelsey handed Brynn her card. “If you think of anything else, please call me.”
Brynn threw the bag strap over her shoulder. As the wind pulled dust from the parking lot, the woman’s face paled.
“Ms. Byrd?”
“Yes?”
“Am I in danger?”
41
Squeezed between a pickup truck and a minivan, Kaylee watched from her car as the private investigator met with a strangely familiar woman.
“Brynn Ortega,” Kaylee whispered from the front seat of the Alpha Romeo. “I forgot you existed.”
Kaylee never harbored ill thoughts about Brynn. During high school, Brynn was the shy girl who played in the orchestra, hardly an ice queen like Tina Garraway. Brynn probably dealt with her share of bullying at Treman Mills High. Because of that, Kaylee once felt a kinship for Brynn.
But the bitch had turned on Kaylee and run straight to the PI to blab about the murders. Brynn might as well have knelt before Tina, Harding, Wade, and Georgia, and kissed their feet. The sellout.
Kaylee had a bigger problem now. The PI, Chelsey Byrd, was sleeping with Sheriff Shepherd. In a matter of moments, Byrd would call Shepherd. Then the truth would come out. They’d link the murders back to Kaylee.
She needed to leave the country. Yes, that idea might work. Thanks to Grandpa, she possessed enough money to purchase a plane ticket anywhere. The sheriff wouldn’t search for Kaylee in another country.
Kaylee’s fingers curled around the steering wheel and squeezed. She wanted them dead. All of them. The sheriff, the PI, Brynn Ortega, Georgia Sims, and everyone who stood in Kaylee’s way. At the picnic table, the two women rose and shook hands. The PI tossed her trash in the garbage can, while Brynn hustled through the grass as if she had somewhere important to go.
Someone would pay the price. Brynn deserved to have her throat slit for talking to the PI.
Then again, getting rid of Chelsey Byrd made sense. Kill the whore before she blabbed to the sheriff and ruined Kaylee’s plans.
Brynn climbed into her car and started the engine. Across the parking lot, Chelsey Byrd punched a number into her phone and slid behind the wheel of an orange Honda Civic. As Kaylee tapped her nails against the steering wheel, the two vehicles turned out of the lot, their drivers unaware of the cold-blooded killer hiding in the shadows.
Which one would Kaylee kill?
She twisted the key in the ignition and smiled when the Alpha Romeo rumbled to life. Kaylee pulled out of the parking space.
She made her choice.
42
Chelsey pressed the phone to her ear and hustled up the steps to her home in Wolf Lake. Jutting out of the lawn near the sidewalk, the for-sale sign rocked in the wind. A fallen branch lay across the steps. Chelsey picked it up and tossed it into the grass.
“Brynn Ortega says the girl’s name is Kendra Harmon,” Chelsey told Thomas over the phone.
“That’s interesting because I’m thinking the person on the bedroom security camera is a woman. Kendra Harmon, you said?”
“Right.”
“I’ll throw her name into the computer and see what pops up.”
Chelsey fumbled with the key before she unlocked the door.
“You sound like you’re in a rush.”
“After I finished my interview with Brynn Ortega, a neighbor called and told me a woman knocked on my door and wanted to tour the house. Says she’s desperate to buy and wants to make an offer. Apparently, she’s stopping by in fifteen minutes. Who needs a real estate agency?”
“That’s terrific news.” Thomas hesitated as Chelsey stumbled into the entryway. “This woman wouldn’t be a beautiful redhead, right?”
“There you go, talking about hot redheads again. Tara says the woman had short black hair. So no, it’s not Wade Tenny’s mystery girlfriend.”
“Do me a favor and keep your eyes open. And call me as soon as you finish.”
“I will.”
Chelsey closed the door behind her. This was the first time she’d been inside the house in two weeks. The quiet hit like a hammer. She stood for a long time with her back against the door, her breathing shallow as her eyes traveled over the bare living room, the dining room, the shadowed staircase to the second level. Outside, a young boy shouted as he rode past on his bike.
Chelsey twirled the keyring around her finger and forced herself to move. If she didn’t, the next owner might find her frozen to the floor. Not wanting to spook the visitor, Chelsey tugged a windbreaker out of the closet and threw it on so the jacket covered the holstered gun.
In the kitchen, she spied what appeared to be black granules on the counter. Mouse droppings. Every house had a mouse problem. The little monsters always found a way inside. But mouse excrement would kill any hope of making a positive impression on the prospective buyer.
She ripped off a paper towel and ran it under the water. As she wiped the mess off the counter, the doorbell rang.
Chelsey searched for somewhere to toss the towel. There was a garbage can beneath the sink. She threw the paper towel into the can and cleaned her hands with soap and water. The bell rang again.
“Coming! Just a second.”
Drying her hands on her shirt, Chelsey rushed to the door, half-expecting Thomas’s alluring redhead to lunge through the entryway with a knife. Instead, she found a slender woman with short black hair that reminded Chelsey of someone. A singer? No, a character in a movie. The woman looked like Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction.
“Hi, you must be the woman who inquired about the house.”
“Kay Harper,” the woman said, offering her hand.
“Chelsey Byrd.”
“Your home is beautiful from the outside. The photos online don’t do it justice.”
Rolling her eyes, Chelsey held the door open for Kay. “That’s a long story. Come in and I’ll show you around.”
As they traveled from one room to the next, Kay listened with rapt attention, her hands clasped behind her back and a polite smile glued to her face.
“I just love the hardwood floors,” Kay said, admiring the dining room floor and not caring about the long scratches from when Chelsey moved the table by herself. “They have character.”
Chelsey opened the cabinets in the kitchen, then showed off the pantry. “You wouldn’t guess the kitchen has this much storage space, but it does.”
“Why on earth do you want to sell?”
Heat rose in Chelsey’s cheeks. “I’m consolidating. My boyfriend has a beautiful home by the lake.”
“He must be special.”
“What is it you do for a living, Ms. Harper? That is, if you don’t mind me asking.”
“Architecture,” the woman said, running her eyes over the ceiling and walls. “What about you, Ms. Byrd?”
“I own a firm in town.”
“A law firm?”
“A private investigation firm, actually.”
“How devilishly wonderful. You
must have amazing stories. So, who are you investigating now?”
“Nobody but bad guys.”
“Aren’t there bad girls, too?”
Chelsey cleared her throat. “Would you like to see the upstairs?”
“Oh, yes. I can hardly wait.”
The purr in the woman’s voice gave Chelsey pause. Kay Harper seemed eccentric, but Chelsey brushed the oddness off. She’d sell her house to the devil himself if he wrote her a check.
Still, Chelsey felt uncomfortable with Kay hovering behind her on their way up the stairs. Close enough for the woman’s breath to warm the back of Chelsey’s neck.
“So the upstairs has three bedrooms. I converted one bedroom into a study. The neighborhood is quiet if you plan to work from home.” She pushed the bathroom door open. “You saw the half-bath off the kitchen. This is a full bath. The insert covering the tub is only four-years-old, and I replaced the sink last year.”
“How about the plumbing?”
“I changed out the pipes when they installed the bath insert.”
Their eyes locked in the mirror. Kay stared into the glass over Chelsey’s shoulder, and for a heartbeat, Chelsey swore the woman reached for something in her pocket and pulled back at the last second. A quiver moved through Chelsey’s body. She suddenly didn’t want Kay behind her.
“I hate to be rude,” Chelsey said, “but I have an appointment in an hour. If you’d prefer a thorough tour, contact my agent. I have her number.”
“No need. I’ve seen enough to decide.”
There was that twitch again: the woman’s hand dropping toward her pocket. Chelsey jumped when a car horn honked outside.
“Nervous, Ms. Byrd?”
“I had trouble sleeping last night.”
“Must be difficult being a private investigator, with so many dangerous people out there. Well, I’ll get out of your hair.”
Without another word, Kay strolled into the hallway. Chelsey didn’t like Kay wandering out of view. She brushed a reassuring hand over the weapon concealed beneath her jacket.
She turned the corner. And there was Kay, grinning with maniacal eyes.
“I so enjoyed meeting you, Chelsey Byrd.” A moment passed where neither woman spoke. Kay’s eyes fell to the bulge on Chelsey’s hip beneath the windbreaker. “So sorry we couldn’t chat longer.”
“You’ll contact my agent if you’re interested in the house?”
“I will. Ta-ta, Investigator Byrd.”
Chelsey followed Kay to the door. Her skin crawled as she observed the woman disappearing down the sidewalk. Where was her car?
Before Chelsey left for the station, she ensured she’d locked all the doors and windows. The last thing she wanted was the odd woman sneaking inside.
When she drove out of her driveway, there was no sign of Kay Harper.
43
Chelsey repeated Brynn Ortega’s story after she arrived at the Nightshade County Sheriff’s Department. As Thomas scribbled notes, Deputy Aguilar searched for anyone in Nightshade County named Kendra Harmon. The search came up empty.
“I left a message on Georgia Sims’s phone,” Thomas said. “Doesn’t she work nights at Ascend?”
“Georgia works the swing shift. I’m curious if she remembers Kendra Harmon. Perhaps they ran into each other after high school.”
Thomas found the contact information for the Ascend battered women’s shelter and placed a call. The security guard confirmed Georgia Sims was safe inside the building and counseling one of the women.
Behind them, Aguilar blew out a frustrated breath. “There’s nobody named Kendra Harmon in Nightshade County. I got two hits in New York State, but one is an eighty-three-year-old woman and the other a fourteen-year-old girl.”
Thomas typed the name into Google and couldn’t find a match in Nightshade County. “We might be on a wild goose chase. Kendra Harmon was a bullying victim, but that’s all we have.”
“But you’re convinced the person on the security camera is a woman,” Chelsey said. “Do we have a photograph of Kendra Harmon from high school?”
Aguilar’s fingers flew across the keyboard. “Should be easy to find. We already have the link to the online yearbook, thanks to Scout Mourning.”
They gathered around Aguilar’s terminal as she scrolled through Georgia Sims’s graduating class.
“Go back a page,” Thomas said, leaning over Aguilar’s shoulder. “I think we missed her.”
Aguilar clicked the mouse. A dozen color photographs filled the screen. Kendra Harmon’s picture lay in the center.
The deputy shook her head. “This is no good. Kendra Martin has straight black hair. She must weigh one-hundred-sixty pounds in this photo. The woman who visited Wade Tenny was described as lean.”
“And she had red hair,” Thomas added. “Maybe this isn’t our stalker.”
Aguilar zoomed in on the picture. A chill rippled through Chelsey. There was something about Kendra’s eyes.
“You all right?” Thomas asked.
Chelsey swallowed. “You said Georgia Sims made it to work?”
“Security confirmed she did. What’s on your mind?”
Chelsey slid into a chair and furrowed her brow. “Kendra Harmon went through hell during her teenage years. Bullied, harassed. If we assume she’s our killer, she must have had a mental breakdown after graduation.”
“A fair assumption. What are you getting at?”
“Somebody in Kendra’s position would go to extremes to turn her life around before she sought revenge on her tormentors. What if Kendra Harmon changed everything about herself after school? Like she shed the fat, colored her hair, and became a new person.”
Aguilar spun in her chair and pointed at Chelsey. “Not just a new person, but a new identity.”
“A name change,” Thomas said.
Aguilar called up another database. After a minute of typing, she angled the monitor to face Thomas and Chelsey. “Kendra Harmon legally changed her name to Kaylee Holmes.”
“Where is Kaylee Holmes now?”
The deputy scanned the screen. “Twelve Orchard Street in Kane Grove.”
“That’s a short drive to Treman Mills and Barton Falls.”
Aguilar pulled up the driver’s license photograph for Kaylee Holmes. Chelsey froze and covered her mouth. Now she knew why the girl’s eyes had affected her in the high school photograph.
“I think I just met Kaylee Holmes,” Chelsey said.
Thomas touched her shoulder. “When?”
“The woman who visited my house. That was her. Either she changed her hairstyle again, or she wore a wig. But I’m positive it was Kaylee Holmes.” The realization that she’d invited a murderer into her home took Chelsey’s breath away. “My business card.”
“What about it?”
“Georgia Sims left my card beside her bed the night she reported the intruder. Kaylee must have read the card and realized Georgia had hired me to catch her stalker.”
Thomas dialed Kane Grove PD and alerted them about Kaylee Holmes. After a brief discussion, the detective agreed to wait until Thomas arrived before visiting Kaylee’s house.
“Call Raven and make sure she knows what’s going on. Does anyone know where LeVar is?”
“Searching for Osmond Bourn.”
Thomas set his chin on his fist. “Bourn is supposed to visit Jesse Fairbanks at Level 13 tonight.”
“I want that collar,” Aguilar said. “Send me in with Lambert and a handful of local PD in plainclothes, and we’ll take Bourn down.”
“He’s yours.” Thomas turned to Chelsey. “I’ll want someone to dust your home for prints. Did she touch anything? The doorknob, kitchen counter, a chair?”
“Not that I recall,” Chelsey said.
“Kaylee Holmes targeted you. That means you’re in danger. Call Darren and have him meet you at Naomi and Scout’s house.”
“Why there?”
“Because I don’t want anyone alone until we find Kaylee Holmes.”
“Georgia Sims is my responsibility.”
“You found Georgia’s stalker. Let me take it from here.”
44
The sun was one hour from setting when Thomas pulled into the Kane Grove PD parking lot. He met Detective Presley in the lobby. Tall and thin, Presley wore her almond hair in an angled bob. She dressed in a charcoal pantsuit and moved with determined efficiency as she crossed the hallway to greet him.
“Seems we’re always meeting under less-than-ideal circumstances,” Presley said, offering her hand as an officer moved to her side.
“Good to see you again, Detective.”
“You remember Officer Stanton from the Gardner Raimi investigation?”
“I do,” Thomas said, touching the tip of his hat.
Gardner Raimi had murdered two people in Barton Falls before Thomas and Detective Presley stopped the teenager.
“Brief me on Kaylee Holmes while we walk.”
As Presley took long strides through the doorway, Thomas gave Presley the background story on Kaylee Holmes.
Presley scowled. “Why do kids treat each other so badly? It’s criminal. What else?”
“Holmes quit her job last week. Interesting because she purchased a red Alpha Romeo and paid cash.”
Stanton whistled. “Those don’t come cheap. How is it she quit her job and still had enough money to buy a high-end vehicle?”
“My lead deputy dug a little deeper and discovered Holmes inherited a large sum of money from her grandfather. The grandfather’s death might be the trigger that set her off.”
“Three classmates dead, and a fourth has a stalker,” said Presley, removing the keys from her pocket.
“Classic escalation.”
“I couldn’t get a search warrant.”
“That’s not a problem. All we’re doing is driving out to Kaylee Holmes’s place to ask a few questions.” Thomas tapped the top of his cruiser. “I’ll follow you out to the house.”
