by Karen Rose
‘Yes. I did. And then I saw the motorcycle helmet on his back seat.’
‘Ooh.’ There was a wince in Gwyn’s voice. ‘Maybe it’s somebody else’s?’
‘He said it was his. And not just any helmet. Motocross.’
‘Mmm,’ Gwyn hummed. ‘Can I have him if you don’t want him?’
‘Gwyn,’ she snapped, ‘this is serious.’
‘It certainly is. So put on your dress and get out of the morgue. Thorne will follow you over. He’ll meet you next to your car. His car, I mean. The one he’s loaning you.’
‘Thanks,’ Lucy said. ‘You guys are the best.’
‘All for one, babe.’
Baltimore, Monday, May 3, 9.45 P.M.
JD drained the last of the stale coffee from his cup and grimaced. The caffeine jab better be worth the bad taste that now filled his mouth. It had been the last cup in the pot and God only knew how long it had been there. The homicide bullpen was deserted and he didn’t plan to stay long enough to warrant making a fresh pot.
He scrubbed his palms over his face, starting when his cell buzzed in his pocket. Lucy must have read those tests, he thought, then saw the call was from Stevie.
‘So is our girl all graduated from kindergarten?’ he asked and Stevie laughed.
‘Graduated and high on sugar from the ice cream we had afterward. My mom’s trying to get her to sleep now. Cordelia loved your locket. JD, that was the sweetest gift. Thank you.’
JD shifted, uncomfortable with her praise. ‘I’m glad. Did you get my message?’
‘I did. Sounds like you had some excitement at the Bennetts’. What happened?’
He gave her the details and she whistled softly.
‘And Lucy didn’t see the connection between Edwards and Bennett? Her brother’s been dead a long time, but she is the one who was set up to find Bennett’s body.’
‘I don’t think she wanted to see it,’ JD said. ‘That Westcott woman did a real number on her. And Mr Bennett didn’t help.’
‘She’ll come around. She might just need to sleep on it. How did her brother die?’
He wasn’t so sure Lucy would come around so quickly. He could still see the overly bright smile she’d pasted on her face as she’d waved goodbye. His helmet had sent her running away as fast as that damn skinny skirt would allow. But at least he knew why.
The first thing he’d done on returning to his desk was a search on her brother’s death. The terms ‘Trask’, ‘accident’, ‘death’, ‘Anderson Ferry’, and ‘survived by Lucy’ had brought up her brother’s obituary, and he’d seen his hunch had been right.
‘Motorcycle accident. I sent you an email with a link to his obituary,’ JD said.
‘I’m not at my computer. What does it say?’
JD clicked the window on his screen and winced once again at the headline. ‘He was known as Buck, but his real name was Linus.’
Stevie coughed. ‘Her parents named them Lucy and Linus? Really?’
‘Yeah.’ And I thought my real name was bad, he thought. Well, it still was, but for different reasons. ‘Linus died in a motorcycle accident twenty-one years ago. He was survived by his parents, Ron and Kathy, and his sister, Lucy. Lucy was fourteen.’
Which explained a bit. She’d been catapulted rather rudely into her past tonight. Seeing his helmet in the back seat was probably the icing on the cake.
‘So he wasn’t murdered,’ Stevie mused. ‘Seems like a long shot now that the three are connected, but it’s something to go on. What do we know about Edwards?’
‘Just what I’ve found online. The Edwardses were a society couple, active in the community. I found pictures of them at trendy events.’ JD riffled through the pages he’d printed out. ‘Edwards was a golfer, did all the charity tournaments. He was also a yachter. Competed on a team. His name’s listed a lot on the local yacht club’s website for placing in one race or another. But all the events seemed to stop a year ago.’
‘Maybe that’s when he was diagnosed with cancer.’
‘Probably. A year ago his name started popping up linked to donations. Big donations.’ He pulled those printouts to the top of the pile. ‘Here’s one for a half-mil to the cancer society. Another half-mil to fight domestic abuse. And that’s just what I found with a few clicks. I have a dozen more news stories to look through.’
‘More donations?’
‘Mostly.’ JD started clicking on the links in his results screen, then frowned. ‘Here’s another news story.’ He skimmed the first paragraph and his pulse kicked up. ‘Stevie, Malcolm Edwards’ bank account was cleaned out.’
She was quiet a moment. ‘Just like Bennett’s. That’s why Helen Bennett thought we were there this afternoon, because she’d filed a fraud report.’
‘Exactly. This says that the money was wired out electronically. The police traced it to an offshore company and the trail stopped.’
‘Does it list a contact?’ she asked, excitement in her voice.
‘No. Just Delaware State Police.’
‘Let’s call first thing in the morning then. Now we have a real connection.’
‘And a number two,’ JD murmured.
‘What?’
‘If this Edwards is connected, he’d have been number one and Bennett would have been number two.’
‘You’re right. So why burn a “I” into Bennett’s back?’
‘And why drag Lucy into all of this?’
‘Right again. I’m surprised you aren’t with her now.’
‘I dropped her off at the morgue to check some tests. She’s supposed to call me when she’s done, but I think I’ll head over there now, just to be sure.’
‘Call if you need me. I’ll see you tomorrow before Hyatt’s oh-eight.’
‘I’ll be there.’ JD began shutting down windows on his computer screen. Why target Lucy? Her only connection was a brother who’d died more than twenty years ago. He started to close the final open article on his screen, then froze when a detail jumped out at him. He bent closer, squinting. What the hell?
The article was Linus Trask’s death announcement. He re-read the address listed for Linus at the time of his death. The street was the same as the Bennetts’, which wasn’t too big a surprise. Lucy had said they were neighbors. But the house number was only two off the Bennetts’. They’d been next-door neighbors.
JD thought about the eyes he’d seen watching them as they’d gotten into his car. Who lived in that house? He brought up the county tax website and typed in Linus’s last address, then sat back, frowning at the result.
The house was still owned by Ron and Kathy Trask. Lucy had said her parents were dead. Hadn’t she? No. She’d said she had no family. Yet that was her parents’ house and likely had been her parents watching them.
JD gathered the printouts and tossed them in his briefcase. He’d finish reading the articles after he saw Lucy safely to Gwyn’s. For now he wanted to know why she’d walked past her parents’ house and never indicated she’d known them.
And why, when they saw their own daughter, they hadn’t come out to speak to her.
Mrs Westcott had called her an ‘undesirable.’ Said her mother would be ashamed. And in her anger, Lucy had replied that that would be nothing new.
Hyatt was right. Lucy was keeping secrets. JD wanted answers. Now.
Monday, May 3, 9.45 P.M.
‘You’ve been driving around for a half-hour,’ Susie complained. ‘You could have just dropped me off back at the restaurant.’
‘So you can rip off another mark?’ he asked, amused. He’d been looking for the best place to dump her body. Oh, and a public telephone booth. Not necessarily in that order. ‘What kind of cop would I be if I dropped you back off at your hunting ground?’
‘Hopefully the kind that’ll give me cab fare back,’ she grumbled.
‘Yeah, right.’ He spotted a deserted alley with a large dumpster. It’ll do. He pulled up next to the dumpster. ‘Get out.’
‘Here
?’ she cried. ‘This is a bad neighborhood. You can’t leave me here.’
He went around to her side of the car and yanked her out by her hair. ‘I said, get out.’
She paled, flinching. ‘Okay, okay. But you can’t just leave me here.’ Her eyes darted side to side. ‘They’ll slit my throat before I walk two blocks.’
‘No they won’t,’ he said, dragging her around to the trunk. ‘But I will.’
‘Stop it! Let go of me!’ She struggled to get free and he slapped her, hard. Dazed, she staggered, her knees buckling. Then he popped the trunk open and she gasped at the sight of Janet Gordon’s body, completely ignoring the extra-sharp filleting knife he grabbed from the wheel well. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered, her horrified gaze fixed on Janet. ‘You . . . she . . . she’s dead. Oh my God.’
Susie drew a chest full of air to scream but the sound never made it out of her throat. But a lot of blood did. He laughed as it spurted, spraying the brick alley wall as he’d had the presence of mind to spin her around before he’d sliced her from ear to ear. He was getting a lot better at slitting throats. Now he knew to aim the body away.
It was a lot less messy that way. Still, he had her blood on his hands and his face. He looked down with a scowl. And his new clothes.
Luckily he’d brought a change of clothes for later. He hadn’t planned to wear these nice new clothes while moving Janet’s body to where she’d be found by Lucy Trask. He tossed Susie’s body in the dumpster, then shrugged out of his shirt and used it to clean his blade. The blade he carefully stored back in the wheel well with his other tools. There were a few fishing reels in there too, in case he was ever stopped.
Nobody would think twice about him carrying a filleting knife next to reels. Of course they might if they were in the same trunk as a dead body, which was why he had to get rid of said body soon. No use in tempting fate. It’d be just his luck to get stopped for a routine traffic violation while carrying dead Janet Gordon in his trunk.
He balled up the shirt and shoved it next to Janet’s body. He’d find a place to dump the shirt, far away from here. No use in giving the police clues.
Well, unless it suited him. Which was why he needed to find a pay phone. He checked his watch. Lucy would be on soon. He had to get Janet set up.
Monday, May 3, 10.10 P.M.
It was a short drive to the morgue. JD pulled into the same slot in which he’d parked earlier. Since he hadn’t yet heard from Lucy, he’d go inside and wait for her.
He’d walked past two cars when the door leading to the elevator bays opened and two people came out. JD had to blink, not believing his eyes at first.
There was a security guard pulling a suitcase. Next to him walked Lucy. But not as JD had left her. Gone was the long, skinny, prim blue skirt. Now she wore a white lab coat that hit her legs mid-thigh. Her very bare legs. He scowled. What the hell is she wearing under that lab coat? From where he stood, it didn’t look like much of anything.
She led the guard to slot 62 and a sleek Mercedes. That must be Thorne’s ‘extra’ car, he thought, annoyed. She’d had a security guard walk her out. She hadn’t called.
She’s avoiding me. And then something she’d said earlier made sense. When he’d asked her what her involvement with him would depend on, she’d told him it would depend on how exciting he was. He’d thought she craved excitement, but he’d been wrong. The thought of his racing must have brought back a lot of old memories of her brother’s death. She’d wanted him to be unexciting.
Boring, like she’d claimed to be. He narrowed his eyes at her long bare legs. But obviously was not. At least he’d been right about that from the beginning. Lucy Trask was not boring.
He’d stepped forward to let her know he was there when the door to the black SUV parked in slot 63 opened. His hand was on his gun when Thomas Thorne emerged. Lucy didn’t look surprised to see him. In fact she looked relieved.
She’d called Thorne. And not me.
Thorne took her suitcase and put it in the car’s trunk while the security guard gave the lawyer a visual inspection with a suspicious eye. The guard turned to Lucy for confirmation and she nodded, sending the guard on his way.
Thorne had opened the Mercedes’ doors and was shining a flashlight throughout the interior while Lucy stood by the trunk, rummaging in her suitcase. They appeared to be arguing now. JD could hear their tone, but not the words. They were too far away and the garage echoed every noise. But they didn’t appear to be . . . together.
She’d denied being romantically involved with Thorne. Over the day she’d omitted some truths but had not told an outright lie. He’d believe her on this, until he had better reason not to. She also said she’d call you.
Then Lucy toed off the sensible pumps she wore and took off the lab coat and JD nearly choked on his tongue. She was wearing a . . . dress. No, not a dress. He wasn’t sure what it qualified as, but it was black and leather and bared all of her shoulders and most of her midriff. And it had studs. Lots of silver studs.
She bent to slip on a pair of five-inch stiletto heels and JD stifled a groan. The dress left very, very little to the imagination. And he had a damn good imagination.
He let out a breath that he was sure they could hear, but they were too busy arguing to pay attention to him. Thorne checked the car’s interior once more before helping Lucy in and closing her door, his expression forbidding. He got in his SUV and waited until she had pulled out of her parking place, then followed her out.
Without giving it another thought, JD got in his own car and followed them both.
Monday, May 3, 10.20 P.M.
‘Goddamn it, Thorne,’ Lucy muttered, looking in her rear-view. The man was crawling up her ass in his SUV. The bully.
Commanding me not to go to the club tonight. She’d feel a lot safer in a room full of people she knew than sitting alone in Gwyn’s apartment waiting for the boogeyman to come snatch her. Thorne had been annoyed that she hadn’t listened to him. Sometimes he treated her like she was stupid. And that pisses me off.
But he’d come when she’d asked him. Thorne always came when she asked him. They’d forged a friendship. Having a life-altering event in common tended to do that.
You’ve got a life-altering event in common with JD Fitzpatrick, too. They’d both lost loves. Then she thought of the helmet in his back seat. She had a lot more in common with Fitzpatrick than was comfortable or wise.
You said you’d call him. He’d be angry that she’d gone without him. Get it over with. At the next red light she reached for her cell and dialed his number from memory.
‘Fitzpatrick,’ he answered on the first ring.
She pursed her lips. Just hearing his voice made her body throb in all the most unwise places. ‘It’s Lucy.’
‘You ready for me to pick you up?’
He sounded tense. Aloof. Well, you did run away from him like a lunatic. What did you expect? The light changed and she started driving. ‘No. You don’t need to do that. Thorne was in the neighborhood and he’s going to see me to Gwyn’s place.’
There was a half-beat of silence. ‘Thorne?’ Another half-beat. ‘Okay.’
He was hurt. Goddammit, she’d hurt him and that was the last thing she’d wanted. But, she had to admit, it was what she had intended. Push him away. Far away.
‘It’s not what you think,’ she said quietly.
‘What do I think, Lucy?’ he asked and her chest got tight.
‘That I’m a tease. That I lied about Thorne and me just being friends.’
‘Did you lie?’
There was a sober note to the question that had her frowning. ‘No.’
Once again, that beat of silence. ‘Call me when you get home. From a landline. I’d like to be sure you’re safe. On a cell you could be calling me from anywhere.’
‘You sound like Mulhauser,’ she grumbled. ‘Calling from a damn landline.’
‘Bennett’s killer let him call his ex-wife from his cell phone to tell her
he wasn’t going to make their kid’s recital,’ JD said sharply, ‘because Bennett’s killer didn’t want anyone missing him for a while. You could call me from anywhere and I wouldn’t know you were in trouble until you showed up missing. Or slumped over a chess table.’
Lucy drew a breath. ‘I get your point. I’ll call you from Gwyn’s home phone.’ She hesitated. ‘I’m not going straight there. I’ve got something I need to take care of first.’
‘Is Thorne still with you?’
She looked in her rear-view and rolled her eyes. ‘Thorne’s practically crawling up my bumper, so I’m safe. I’ll be careful. I promise.’
‘And tomorrow morning? How will you get to work? You shouldn’t drive alone.’
Her mind spun. She hated to ask Thorne to accompany her again. She’d put him to a lot of trouble today. ‘Maybe . . . maybe you and Stevie could come by. Together.’
This time the silence stretched on.
‘Are you still there?’ she asked.
‘Yeah. Call when you get to Gwyn’s, it doesn’t matter how late.’ He hung up.
And what did you expect? You kissed him back. Twice. Told him you wanted him.
I do. But it didn’t matter. She didn’t always get what she wanted.
She hoped the music would be really loud tonight. She needed it to drown out the voice in her head that was telling her she’d just made a huge mistake.
Chapter Twelve
Monday, May 3, 10.40 P.M.
JD once again had to fight to keep from choking on his own tongue. Lucy was getting out of her car, aided by Thorne. She put her purse in her duffle bag, zipped it up, and handed it to Thorne. But JD wasn’t looking at Thorne. He could only stare at Lucy.
She’d changed her appearance still further, and if he hadn’t seen her take off that lab coat back in the garage, he never would have recognized the woman who walked confidently into the club on five-inch stilettos, Thorne at her side.
Her eyes were lined in black, her lips a rich wine. Her golden-red hair fell to her shoulders and around her throat she wore a choker. With spikes. I should be disturbed. Instead he found himself intrigued. Painfully aroused. And totally confused. She’d freaked over his helmet, yet walked into a club looking like some . . . dominatrix.
