Roadkill

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  Needing a moment to decide what to do about the dead woman I’d found inside of a house I’d entered without permission, I backed out of the room and leaned against the wall in the hallway. I pushed my hands into my knees and breathed. I heard movement on the stairs. Someone was coming. I aimed my gun toward the top of the stairs and waited until a man’s head came into view. “Stop right there. Don’t move.”

  Startled but undeterred, he rested a hand on the wood railing and grinned. “There’s no need to point a gun. This is my house. You’re the one who’s trespassing.”

  “You’re Max, aren’t you?”

  He nodded. “And you must be Raine. I assume you came here to talk, which I’m willing to do once you put your gun down.”

  I put my finger on the trigger. “You’ll talk either way.”

  He reached inside his pocket, and I fired. The bullet buried itself into the wall behind him. I’d intended to graze him and missed, my misstep allowing him the time he needed to pull his own gun on me.

  “Back against the wall,” he said.

  I shook my head, prepared to fire again.

  “Don’t,” he said, “unless you want to die. Unlike your failed attempt, I never miss.”

  If I did what he wanted, I was dead anyway.

  Before I had the chance to squeeze another one out, a sharp pain tore through me. I glanced over. I’d been hit just above my right breast. Blood seeped through my shirt.

  “That was a warning,” he said. “Drop the gun, or I’ll fire again.”

  “You’ll fire either way. If I keep my gun on you, at least I have a fighting chance.”

  He laughed like he found me amusing. “It is nice to meet you finally. You remind me so much of your sister.”

  “The sister you killed?”

  “I didn’t kill her.”

  “You may not have driven the car that ran her off the road, but you have something to do with what happened.”

  “I loved Juliette.”

  “I doubt it. Juliette, Jonas Parr, Kimberly Crosby—all dead. I don’t believe a man like you has any idea what love is.”

  Although I’d missed the first time, I thought if I could steady my nerves, I’d make up for it when I fired again. Under most circumstances, I was an excellent shot. Even if we both pulled the trigger at the same time, I had a decent chance of hitting him exactly where I wanted to in the crossfire.

  “You have five seconds to put your gun on the floor,” he said. “I won’t lie to you. I won’t promise you’ll live. I will answer your questions. That’s what you’re after, isn’t it?”

  I stared into his eyes, thinking, and then I opened my hand, allowing the gun to slip out. He smirked like he’d known I would succumb in the end. And why wouldn’t he? A man like him was used to getting what he wanted.

  “Kick the gun away across the hall,” he said.

  I did what he asked.

  He walked toward me. “Good. Now, what can I do for you?”

  I removed the jewelry box lid with his inscription on it from my pocket and tossed it in his direction. It hit his chest and then fell to the floor. He squatted down and picked it up, rubbing a thumb over the words he’d written.

  “Did you give this to my sister?”

  “I did.”

  “Why did you kill her?”

  “She saw something she wasn’t supposed to see.”

  “And you decided she had to die because of it?”

  “I tried making it right. I know it’s hard for you to believe, but I wanted to make a life with her. She was warned to keep quiet about what she saw. I also told her not to run. She did anyway, and it left me with no choice.”

  “You had a choice. There’s always a choice.”

  He nodded. “Different morals, I suppose. Go ahead and see me as a killer if it makes you feel better.”

  I lifted my arm, exposing the hair ribbon wrapped around my wrist. “Where’s Nora?”

  He smiled. “It must be so disappointing.”

  “Which part?”

  “You breaking into my house to save your niece, only to discover she’s not even here.”

  “The door was open when I got here.”

  He shook his head. He didn’t believe me. “It could not have been open. I’ve just arrived, and it is always locked in my absence.”

  “Where’s Ford?”

  “Who?”

  “Detective Ford.”

  He shrugged. “How should I know?”

  So much for answering my questions.

  “Is Nora alive?”

  He nodded.

  It was the admission I’d been looking for—the words I thought I’d never hear. “Where is she?”

  “Not here. She’s spending the day with my sister.”

  His sister. “When’s the last time you talked to her?”

  “Who?”

  “Your sister.”

  My question troubled him. “Why do you ask?”

  “Does she have a one-inch birthmark beneath her left ear?”

  He approached me, wrapped his fingers around my arm, jerked me away from the wall, and then slammed me back into it again. “What are you getting at?”

  I reached out, pushing the bedroom door open. He leaned around me, the color draining from his face when the dead woman came into view. I put my lips to his ear and said, “It looks like your sister is here, after all. But what I want to know is ... if she’s here, where’s Nora?”

  CHAPTER 52

  As if he no longer cared about what had transpired between us, Max rushed to his sister’s side and knelt on the floor, cradling her in his arms. Stunned with the realization of his sister’s death, he’d forgotten about me just long enough for me to retrieve my gun, which I now pointed at his head.

  “I’ll kill you for this!” he yelled.

  It occurred to me he was blaming me for his sister’s death. He thought I had shot her.

  “I don’t have anything to do with this. She was already dead when I arrived. But I have no problem killing you.”

  He glanced back. “Where’s Nora? What have you done with her?”

  “If I had her, do you think I’d still be here, asking you where she is?”

  Panic gripped me. The look on his face told me he was telling the truth. If he didn’t have Nora, who did?

  “Don’t play games,” he said. “You wanted to even the score. I killed your sister, so you killed mine.”

  “You have it all wrong. I didn’t even know you had a sister.”

  “Yes, you did. And then you waited ... waited for me to come home so you could see the look on my face when I saw what you’d done.”

  I canvassed the room, seeing something I failed to notice before. A small white piece of paper was folded in half on the pillow. I pointed at it. “It looks like someone might have left you a note.”

  “What the hell are you talking—” He turned and snatched the paper, reading what was written there, his face a mixture of trepidation and rage. “It can’t be ... he wouldn’t.”

  “Read it,” I said. “Out loud.”

  “No. This is something I have to deal with alone.”

  “I said read it, or I’ll shoot you right now.”

  He shook his head. “No, you won’t. If you shoot me, you’ll never see your niece again.”

  CHAPTER 53

  Ford thundered up the stairs. He reached the bedroom, and I said, “Where have you been?”

  “In the basement.” His attention shifted from the dead woman, to Max, to my bloodstained shirt, and then to the gun I held in my hand. He bent his head toward my shirt and said, “Were you hit? Let me see.”

  “I lifted my shirt.”

  He leaned in. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded. “It’s nothing. I’ll live.”

  “What in the hell is going on here?”

  I looked at Max. “He confessed to having my sister killed and kidnapping Nora. She was here, with his sister. Now Nora’s gone. I don’t know where she is
, or who has her. He won’t tell me.”

  “And the dead woman? Who is she?”

  “His sister.”

  “Did you—”

  I shook my head. “She was already dead when I got here.”

  Max tried to speak, stopping when Ford said, “Shut up. I’ll get to you in a minute.”

  “You’ll get to me—”

  “I said shut ... up.”

  “Nora is alive,” I said. “We have to find her.”

  Ford reached over, yanking Max’s gun from his hand. Then he turned back toward me. “We’ll find her, but right now I need you to lower your weapon.”

  I didn’t want to stand down. I wanted to fire at Max until every bullet was spent.

  “Raine, I need you to listen to me,” Ford said. “He’ll get what he deserves. I promise.”

  He promised. Over time, I’d learned to loathe the word. No matter how well intended, promises had a way of consistently letting me down in the end.

  Hands shaking, I kept the gun on Max. “No, he won’t get what he deserves. Even if he’s convicted, he’ll live.”

  “Listen to the man,” Max said.

  I pointed at Max’s leg and fired. He curled over, gritting his teeth in pain. Seeing him struggle satisfied me. It just didn’t satisfy me enough.

  “Dammit, Raine!” Ford yelled.

  He reached for my gun. I lowered it.

  “I won’t shoot him again unless I have no choice,” I said.

  Ford made a call, requesting backup. When he finished, he said, “Did you examine his sister’s body?”

  “Just for a minute.”

  “And? What can you tell me?”

  “She’s in algor mortis.”

  “How long?”

  “I’d estimate her death probably occurred within the last hour or two.”

  “All right. Anything else?”

  “There was a note left on the bed.” I pointed to Max. “He has it.”

  Ford snapped his fingers at Max. “Hand it over.”

  Max balled the note in his hand and tossed it on the ground. “You shouldn’t be dealing with this. It will only make things worse. The only way to get Nora back is by letting me handle it myself.”

  Ford opened the note and read aloud: “Five million dollars. Eleven p.m. behind Carlotta’s Diner. If you don’t show, the brat dies. Don’t test me. V.” He looked at Max. “Who’s V?”

  Max stared at the ground, refusing to answer.

  Ford drove his fist into Max’s face. “This isn’t the time to keep your mouth shut. Answer the question.”

  Max spit a mouthful of blood onto the floor. He said nothing.

  “I’ll put a bullet in you if I have to, but you will tell me.”

  Max laughed. “You’re funny, Detective. The first time we met I thought, here’s a man with morals and decency. A man who would uphold the law even if he’s forced to sit and watch every single member of his family die right in front of his eyes. Now I see a bully. A bully who’s no different than any other crooked cop I’ve ever known.”

  Ford got in Max’s face. “Why is Nora worth so much money to you? Why did you take her in the first place? And where’s Seth? Did you take him? Did you kill him too? Whatever this is or was—whatever you have going on here—it’s over now.”

  “Neither one of you seem to get it. Every minute you spend jerking off instead of going after this guy wastes time. I know him, and I can tell you this: he meant what he said in the note. He’ll kill her if he hasn’t already. And I don’t think any of us want that to happen.”

  “You’re the one who doesn’t ‘get it.’ Whitaker called me this morning. One of your associates, Adam Chase, is in police custody right now. Seems when he was doing your dirty work at Kimberly Crosby’s home, he left his DNA behind. Your entire crew is unraveling.”

  “You’re lying. I’m not falling for it.”

  Ford shrugged. “Fine by me. When the police get here in a few minutes and you’re arrested, you’ll find out he’s turned on you to save his own ass, and you’ll change your mind.”

  CHAPTER 54

  Adam was in serious trouble. After killing Kim a few nights before, he’d grabbed Nora from the bedroom, and in his haste to keep her quiet, he’d smacked his head against the railing on the bedpost, not realizing the pain he’d felt wasn’t just the impact of hitting the railing—several strands of hair had come out in the process. Now he found himself at the police station, facing charges for Kim’s death while also being grilled on what he knew about the whereabouts of Nora and Seth. They’d never find Kim’s body, of course, but the fact that they had proof he’d been at the house was unnerving.

  What else did they know?

  Unsure of where to turn, he faced a decision he never thought he’d have to make. Max was his idol. Betraying him made Adam a coward, a traitor with no backbone. But what choice did he have? Max was like the father Adam never had—the one who’d kept him from committing suicide after his dishonorable discharge from the Army had left him broken, feeling worthless and without the will to live.

  A forensics expert followed the police into the room, a man they called Atwood. He said, “Hair collected at Kim Crosby’s crime scene contained follicular tissue, which allowed me to create a unique DNA profile. When we test it against the strands we collected from you today, we’re confident it will be a match.”

  And that wasn’t all they had on him.

  A surveillance camera at the community’s entrance caught a fuzzy image of Adam and the cleaner carrying what appeared to be a lumpy blanket to a car shortly after Kimberly’s murder took place, a gross oversight on Adam’s part. He’d disabled one camera but failed to notice the other. He didn’t make mistakes like that, and he blamed it on stress and the fact that everything had snowballed since Juliette’s death.

  “We’re not interested in you,” Whitaker said. “And I’m sure you know that already. You’re the small fish. What we want is the big one.”

  “Meaning?”

  “You fill in the missing gaps, and we’ll offer you a deal.” Whitaker leaned in close, the stench of his stale coffee-breath blowing into Adam’s face. “Refuse, and I’ll find a way to charge you for every murder that’s happened this week, body or no body.”

  Adam wanted to believe Max wouldn’t allow it to happen. But Max was losing his cool, making rash decisions, allowing his own personal feelings to cloud his otherwise impeccable judgment.

  Two of Adam’s coworkers had been killed in less than a month, which caused him to question his boss’s loyalty.

  “What’s it going to be?” Whitaker said.

  “I’m not talking.”

  “All right, then. I’ll let you mull my offer over while we talk about something else.” Whitaker tossed a Ziploc bag in Adam’s direction. The bag contained a black card. “We found this business card in your possession when we picked you up. We’d like you to explain it.”

  Adam shrugged.

  “You know what’s interesting?” Whitaker said. “Jonas Parr had a small stack of these same business cards tucked in a hidden compartment beneath the seat of his car.”

  “It doesn’t mean anything. We worked together. We have the same cards.”

  “Oh, I know you do. What I don’t know is what else the two of you were involved in. You see, I called the number on the card. Want to know what happened? A man answered. He didn’t say hello or ask how to direct my call. He asked me to give him the password. Password? I thought. What’s this guy talking about? And you know what happened? When I failed to produce it within a few seconds, he hung up. I called again five minutes later, and the number had been disconnected, like it had never been in service. Odd, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Adam shrugged. “Not really.”

  “Your boss’s world is collapsing around him, and if you don’t talk, he’ll take you and everyone else who works for him along for the ride. And you know something? Most rides don’t last long in prison. A few slip through the crac
ks, but most get their one-way tickets punched permanently. Maybe you’ll get lucky, and you’ll wind up dead. Are you a gambler, Mr. Chase?”

  Adam leaned back in his chair. “I know how this works. Everything is fine with Max. I talked to him this morning. Nice try, though.”

  “How long has it been since that phone call?”

  “Why?”

  “His sister was found dead inside his home this morning.”

  He’s bluffing. There’s no way it’s true.

  “Someone shot her,” Whitaker continued. “And you know what else? The Granger girl, Nora, the one everyone assumed Jonas Parr had buried somewhere—it turns out she may be alive, after all.”

  “What makes you think she’s alive?”

  “For starters, when you abducted her from Kimberly Crosby’s home, which I assume you did, you missed something—Nora’s stuffed animal under the bed. Explain to me how her stuffed animal ended up in Kimberly Crosby’s condo. A condo you’ve been in.”

  “Maybe Jonas kept it, took it over to the Crosby woman’s house, and left it there.”

  “Good theory, except for one thing. Today in the room where your boss’s sister was found, a ransom note was left on the bed—money in exchange for the girl. Why would someone demand payment for the child if she wasn’t alive?”

  Adam tried to swallow and found his tongue desiccated, unable to produce the saliva required.

  Whitaker grinned like he was pleased with himself. “Can I get you something? Water? Soda? Coffee? Lie detector test?”

  Funny. “What else did the ransom note say?”

  “Max is to meet tonight behind Carlotta’s Diner with five million dollars. If he doesn’t show, Nora dies.”

  “Who took her from his house?”

  “The note was signed with a single initial. V.”

  Victor.

  Adam hung his head, raking his fingers through his hair. How did something so good go so wrong?

  “We’re running out of time to save this girl, Adam. Decide, or I’ll pull my offer right now.”