Jake’s laughter thrummed down through her, filling her body like the beat of a good song. Sabrina got in her car to head back and meet Brian and Murphy. She sat now with the motor running and the air conditioning full blast as she listened to Jake’s sultry voice.
“No bad dreams?” he asked, with genuine concern after his laughter had died.
“No. I’m okay, Jake. Don’t worry, I promise not to simper like all your old girlfriends.”
“What? I never dated any simpering women…” he said, then added, “Well, maybe just that one.”
“Oh, and naming yourself after the alligator wrestler on TV was brilliant.”
“Who have you been talking to?”
“Who do you think? You said it wouldn’t be weird having me work with Brian. He was in a sharing mood today.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot about him being such a big mouth. Remind me to beat him up later.”
“Yeah, I’ll warn him. I’m sure he’ll cry like a girl at the thought.”
A siren sounded in the background of the phone line in Sabrina’s ear. “Got to go. See you in two days, babe.”
“Okay. Can’t wait,” she said to a dial tone. Be safe, Jake. Maybe I’ll have some big news for you tomorrow. Then what would happen? He would want to get married in the next breath after she told him. Did she want to get married? Did she need to be thinking about this? No. Back to work.
* * * *
Sabrina met Brian and Murphy back at the office. They were going over the records yet again to see if there were any other witness accounts they’d missed from the previous search. Surely, Sabrina thought hopefully, there was a record somewhere of the restaurants’ incoming and outgoing calls in the files. If not it would take awhile to dig them up again. It always looked so easy to get phone records on the television police shows. It wasn’t. It was practically an act of Congress.
“I don’t see them,” Sabrina said with a sigh, after two hours of searching.
“Is there a record, or notation of a record, that states they were accessed?” Brian asked.
“You’re kidding, right?” Murphy laughed mirthlessly.
“Okay, someone get the paperwork and we’ll get started on the request. Surely it will only take a week at most to get them. Right?” Sabrina groused.
“I say we keep looking. I think I see a box I only went through twice,” Murphy said, grabbing a box with file folders in it.
“Here it is,” Brian said, another hour later. “It was misfiled. What are the odds of that?”
“Well, it lists all the incoming and outgoing calls, but no one ever checked to see who they belonged to at the time. The last two incoming calls were ten minutes apart. The final one being about the same minute the bomb exploded,” Murphy said, watching Sabrina closely. She felt the usually stabbing feeling to her heart when she thought about the explosion, but ignored it.
“Great. Wonder how long it will take to find twenty-three-year-old phone books and cross-reference the addresses to wherever these people are now, if they are even alive?”
“Almost as long as starting over,” Sabrina mumbled. “Let’s try the obvious. Dial them right now and see if they’re still in service.”
Sabrina tried calling both numbers and both times got the annoying three-toned screeching beep and the message, ‘The number you have dialed is no longer in service, please dial again or check to see if you’re an idiot and just fat fingered the wrong number.’ That isn’t what it really said at the end, but it was the way Sabrina always felt after she got that particular message. She hung the phone up and closed her eyes.
“Now what?” Brian asked.
“I’m thinking,” Sabrina said as a thought crossed her mind. She then popped her eyes open, picked up her phone, and dialed again. “Raquel? I have a question. Do you have access to phone numbers that might cross-reference to names and addresses from twenty-three years ago?”
Sabrina heard a long-suffering sigh over the phone. “If I say yes, are you going to force me to find them tonight? Because I have a hot date tonight, and I’m not willing to give it up. He’s a rich, fairly attractive stock broker and he might take me away from all this if I play my cards right.” Sabrina could hear Raquel clicking away as she spoke. Another mystery. Talking on the phone and typing at the same time. Sabrina would be typing the phone conversation if she attempted it.
“I could wait as late as tomorrow morning so you could try and snag your rich stock broker, but you better not elope tonight and leave me hanging.”
“Fine, but now you owe me so much, I should never have to buy lunch again, and if the stock broker doesn’t work out you have to introduce me to some firefighters.”
“How do you know about that?” Sabrina stopped and gave Murphy a heated look that caused him to raise his eyebrows, in question.
“Oh please, everyone knows about that. There was a pool on which day you would dump him that first week. No one else thought it would last longer than seven days. I won because I’m a hopeless romantic and put down that you wouldn’t dump him at all. I thought you had finally found someone good for you. Was I right?”
“Yeah, and since you won the pool I don’t owe you anymore,” Sabrina said tartly. “When can I bring the information?”
“Leave it on my desk before you go tonight. I’ll tackle it first thing in the morning. Okay?”
“Okay. Thanks Raquel.”
“Sure. I’ll call you tomorrow. Bye,” Raquel said and hung up.
Sabrina told them it would be tomorrow morning, so they called it a night and went home. On some primal, nervous level she had expected to hear from the bomber today, but if it was Hollingsworth, he was quiet. She sensed he wouldn’t wait for long, though. If it was him, and the more she thought about it the more certain she became, she needed to have her guard up. She needed to tell Suzanne to have her guard up as well. ‘The little pumpkin knows why this has to happen.’ Sabrina remembered the phrase from the note left behind at the second bombsite. If she was the little pumpkin in question, how was a three-year-old supposed to know why it had to happen? The mad bomber was obviously…well mad. Insane.
Sabrina’s one big question was why. If it was Hollingsworth, what was his motivation? Why was she such a big threat to him? Why did she need to be dead? Did he think she’d seen something as a three-year-old at the Fireside Inn? Was there something buried in her subconscious?
Thoughts of the explosion made her think of her parents. She reached in her pocket and fingered the envelope with the pictures of them she’d received unexpectedly today from Alice Henderson. She couldn’t wait to show them to Suzanne. Snapshots in time from long ago of their parents. A tear slipped down her face. Her girly emotional side would no longer be kicked down.
* * * *
Sabrina sat bolt upright in bed, a scream ready to erupt from her lips. She stifled the sound and opened her eyes. She looked around. Where was she? Guest bedroom. Suzanne’s house. She blew out a huge breath and looked at the clock. Three-twenty-nine a.m. Great. She had been on the verge of dreaming about the explosion at the Fireside Inn again. In her dream, Sabrina had looked into the shine of her shoes, taken the hand of the someone who loved her, and then forced herself to wake up.
It was the first time she’d ever been able to stop it. Perhaps out of fear. She didn’t need to scream the walls down here at her sister’s house. Suzanne was already acting a little strange. Sabrina hadn’t gotten the expected reaction to the now treasured photos she’d shared with her sister. Earlier after a quiet dinner of bland food finished with animal crackers and tea for them both for dessert, Sabrina had reverently pulled out the pictures she’s gotten from Alice Henderson.
Suzanne had looked at them thoughtfully, and smiled lightly with the same interest as someone looking at an acquaintance’s family pictures. Sabrina noticed she didn’t cry or seem to have any emotional response at all. Sabrina had been disappointed at her response. Of course, Suzanne didn’t have any memory of these people. Not
the same memories Sabrina had anyway, but she’d been surprised at Suzanne’s dismissal. She’s smiled and handed them back as if they were merely pictures of no one important. Perhaps she was experiencing her own moody pregnancy and her reaction didn’t have anything to do with Sabrina’s newfound family pictures.
Soon after, the conversation had become stilted and almost uncomfortable. Sabrina wondered at the time if she had perhaps unknowingly rendered an insulting social faux pas. They didn’t talk much more after the sharing of pictures. Sabrina thought Suzanne had seemed a little distracted at the time, but then blew it off. She probably had a lot on her mind too. Suzanne had excused herself to go to bed shortly there after. She made some mumbled excuse about being extra tired from the baby and then smiled quietly and told Sabrina she’d feel the same way soon.
Sabrina had retired, also hoping she hadn’t upset her sister. She decided to broach the subject in the morning and apologize if she’d been a social clod. Then she’d quickly slipped into a fitful slumber, but now in the wee hours of the morning, she was wide awake. There was no Jake to soothe her back to sleep tonight. Her mind wandered to the possibility of having big news to tell him soon. The thought actually made her smile.
Sabrina stared at the ceiling and thought about tomorrow. When she got ‘the call’ from the doctor’s office her life might totally change. By this same time tomorrow, she would know for certain if she was carrying Jake’s child. As if entranced, she ran her hand over her stomach and closed her eyes. If she wasn’t pregnant…well… She couldn’t stop the tears which ran down her face at the prospect of bad news. She had let Suzanne’s enthusiasm infect her. Deep down, she was already preparing for the devastation if it weren’t true. She tried to shake off the dismal thought of finding out, as she suspected, that she was just getting the flu. She pushed the evil thoughts away and got out of bed. She was too restless to sleep, so she tip-toed out to the kitchen for something to drink. Suzanne had said to make herself at home, so she did. She sipped a glass of orange juice as she strolled around the tidy little kitchen.
Sabrina stepped up to the small desk in the little dining room next to the kitchen. She saw some photos of Suzanne and Ray pinned to a small corkboard on the wall and bent closer to take a look. She didn’t mean to snoop, but just happened to look down at some correspondence on the desk. Something caught her eye. An envelope. Sabrina zeroed in on the return address, not believing what she saw. It was the pumpkin logo.
Sabrina reached out and picked up the envelope with the pre-printed pumpkin logo from Linden House Canning on the from label. It was addressed to Suzanne.
Chapter Seventeen
Sabrina reeled from finding a letter from the Linden House Canning company in her sister’s house. Suzanne couldn’t have known about the connection; Sabrina hadn’t known until yesterday. She hadn’t said anything to her sister about the investigation. She looked around the kitchen before slipping the tri-folded sheet of paper out of its business sized envelope and unfolding it as quietly as she could. It was a type-written letter from Margaret Linden to Suzanne, dated the day after the apartment bomb explosion. Sabrina hunkered down next to a night-light plugged into a wall socket on the floor to read the letter. She scanned it quickly, looking around several times as if she were a spy in her sister’s home.
It was a letter in response to an inquiry Suzanne had made regarding possibly being related to the Linden family. What? Where had that come from? She read further and there was some mention of a letter Suzanne had found in Maggie Morgan’s diary, which referenced the possibility of a relationship to the Lindens. What letter? Suzanne hadn’t given them a letter with the diary.
Margaret Linden stated in the final paragraph of the missive that she was on her way out of the country, but upon her return she would look into the possibility and contact her at that time.
Sabrina couldn’t help but think Margaret Linden was a cold woman with this form letter-like approach to finding out about a possible long-lost family member…especially a close tie. If Maggie Morgan was related to the Lindens…then so was Suzanne…and so was Sabrina herself. Whoa. She needed to see the letter that Suzanne had found in the diary. She stood and went back to the kitchen desk where she’d discovered the Linden House letter.
Sabrina rifled through the correspondence there, but didn’t find anything else. She couldn’t help the feeling of betrayal as a finger of doubt crept into her mind at Suzanne’s deception. Suzanne had been acting a little secretive tonight, hadn’t she? Or was Sabrina’s imagination running away with her? Why hadn’t Suzanne shared all the information she had? Why would she hide a possible relationship between herself and Linden House Canning? Why would she keep a secret letter from the investigation? Was she after a family history or was she after an inheritance? Combined with the earlier cool indifferent attitude at the pictures Sabrina showed her, all this made for a disturbing suspicion. Was Suzanne involved in some way with Hollingsworth? Was that why she was at all the sites?
The realization that Suzanne would in any way be involved with John Everett Hollingsworth the Third or Linden House Canning, made tears of anger well up in Sabrina’s eyes. She trusted Suzanne…didn’t she? Or was it foolish to trust a blood relation she’d only known a short time? Suzanne was a stranger. She was merely a stranger who shared similar DNA and that didn’t make her trustworthy. Sabrina needed to escape. She wanted to get out of her sister’s house. Run away. Right now. No, calm down. Think rationally. Why was rational thinking so difficult in the wee hours of the morning?
Sabrina looked at the clock again, taking note it was only a little after four in the morning. She knew she couldn’t face Suzanne once she woke up and not grill her. She didn’t want to pick a fight. Or maybe she didn’t want to find out what Suzanne was hiding. Perhaps Sabrina should have asked her early on if she’d had any bomb-making classes in college. She rolled her eyes at the foolish thought and clamped down on her rising panic. Sabrina willed herself to calm down again. It was too early in this relationship to make the kind of accusations that were thriving inside her vivid imagination.
Sabrina needed some time alone to think and there was only one place she could think of to go. She hurried back to the guest room, dressed quickly, and left Suzanne a cryptic message about a work-related emergency. Sneaking out of the house thirty minutes later, she drove back to her own abandoned little house, parking one street over from her front door. She cut through her backyard neighbor’s lawn to reach her back door and snuck inside her house in case anyone…okay, Hollingsworth, was watching.
Trepidation stayed at the forefront of her mind as she looked around her even more sterile abode. Sabrina hated sneaking around her own place, especially with fear lodged in her soul that around every corner a madman waited to kill her. She felt marginally better after she had checked every room and found herself indeed all alone. She showered with the door locked until the water ran icy cold. Then she got out and sat on the floor of the bathroom thinking through the ramifications of everything she’d just learned. What do I think I know?
Sabrina knew it was going to be hard to ask Suzanne for a letter she should have already turned over to the authorities. Especially after gaining the information of the secret document by rifling through her sister’s private correspondence.
At the bottom of Sabrina’s regret was that the faith in her sister had been tarnished in this clandestine little matter. Maybe this was how Jake felt when she blind-sided him with her secrets.
Sabrina would have to confront Suzanne. She’d have to bring her in for questioning, at the very least, for concealing evidence. Was Suzanne involved with Hollingsworth? That made Sabrina even more sick to her stomach. Enough so that she hunkered over the toilet to retch.
Her cell phone trilled, making her jump and grab her stomach again. Morning sickness sucked. Sabrina looked down at the number. It was Suzanne. A tendril of uneasy emotion snaked its way down her body and landed in her empty unhappy stomach. Nope. She was so
not ready to talk to her sister, yet. She ignored the ringing and slumped again on the floor of her bathroom. Sabrina decided she should to talk to Murphy and Brian first before confronting Suzanne. They were more impartial about Suzanne.
Sabrina looked up at the clock in her bathroom, surprised to see it was much later than she thought. Almost seven-thirty. She must have been cowering on the floor now for over an hour.
The cell phone trilled again in her hand. She checked the number debating on whether she was ready to talk to Suzanne this time, but it was another number.
“Yes?”
“Ms. Morgan?”
“Yes.” Sabrina held her breath.
“This is the Heathton Women’s Center. I have your results.”
“Okay.” Sabrina closed her eyes and put a hand to her stomach without thinking.
“The results are positive. I’d like to schedule you for an initial exam and you need to start taking prenatal vitamins, if you aren’t already. When would be a good time?”
Sabrina couldn’t speak. Tears ran down her face unheeded. “I…I…” and then she sobbed once.
“Are you okay, Ms. Morgan?” the nurse inquired before sighing deeply, as if waiting for Sabrina to get over her emotional response so she could keep her rigorous schedule intact. Sabrina wondered briefly how much time might be allowed for miraculous information such as unexpected pregnancy to be digested and considered.
Sabrina sniffed once and found her voice. “I didn’t think I could get pregnant.”
“Well, you can and you obviously did,” she said in a very matter-of-fact tone of voice. The nurse was probably less awestruck at the fact that Sabrina was knocked up. She sighed again as if her time efficiencies were in extreme jeopardy if Sabrina didn’t pull herself together.
Blonde Bomb Tech Page 30
