Trace of Doubt

by DiAnn Mills

  I twisted the knob. Locked.

  Mike and I kicked in the door, much like some of our antics when we were younger.

  A quick sweep showed an empty penthouse. Why hadn’t I followed my gut and stopped Shelby from playing a hero? Where were they?

  81

  SHELBY

  Within ten minutes, the helicopter landed atop a parking garage. Two vehicles sped to the chopper’s side. A black SUV and a cream-colored Lexus. Both had dark-tinted windows.

  Marissa lifted her purse onto her shoulder. “Shelby, you and Aria get into the back seat of the SUV. Eli’s driving.”

  No point in arguing. I nodded at Aria, and we climbed out of the chopper and into the vehicle. Marissa slid into the front passenger side. Her door closed and both vehicles bolted toward the garage’s exit ramp. The chopper rose to the sky and navigated northwest.

  How would anyone find us?

  “Where to now?” I said.

  “None of your business. I’m putting my gun here beside me. I won’t hesitate to use it. Understand?” When we nodded, she laid the firearm within her reach. “Want to know how I found out you’d drugged our drinks?”

  “I assume a camera in an area I missed.”

  She smiled. “Right above the refrigerator. I have them everywhere. Even in the bathrooms and closets.”

  “Everything’s been a game?”

  “Precisely. You were a worthy opponent until you came to Miami. I tried the suicide route, but you outmaneuvered me. I thought I could mold you into a solid partner. Looked like you’d gotten smarter in prison, but I couldn’t be sure. Once you were here, I had my eyes everywhere.” She cursed. “You sold me out. The clincher was the FBI’s release when I set you up to take the fall for Rudder. Your rear should still be in jail, which proves your agent boyfriend thinks more of you than his job. Doesn’t matter. Having you and Aria as hostages keeps my plan in motion.”

  I’d viewed my sister in various moods, and I hadn’t discerned which one was the deadliest. What simmered below the surface kept her in a leadership position to bring in more money and eliminate opposition. Had she calculated every step since before Travis’s murder, possibly with Eli’s help? Poor Aria. If she survived this, her emotional and mental health might take a lifetime to restore.

  My breathing came in short gasps, and my chest ached. Marissa pulled my inhaler from her purse. “Use it but give it back to me. In case you have any thoughts about trying something stupid.”

  I took two puffs and returned it. What else was in her arsenal? “Really, Marissa? Am I to take the blame for another crime? Do you plan to put me and Aria in the middle of a firefight?”

  “I’ve worked hard to build my operation, and no one will take it from me.”

  I listened, reaching deep for restraint. “What’s your strategy?”

  “Considering tomorrow is Aria’s birthday, I thought we’d enjoy some girl time before I leave the country.”

  Eli whirled to Marissa. “Tomorrow is Aria’s birthday?”

  “Are you stupid? Didn’t you hear me?”

  He pulled onto the expressway and drove northwest. “Don’t call me stupid when I’m the one who taught you the business. I’ve protected you for a lot of years, and most of the time you’ve treated me like dirt.” He banged the steering wheel with his palm. “Just did the math, and Aria’s mine, not your dead husband’s.”

  I reached across the seat and took Aria’s hand. What I suspected held credibility.

  “You’re a fool, Eli.” Marissa spat the words. “This is not the time to discuss Aria’s paternity.”

  “Explain how we were together for the weekend, and you have a kid nine months later.”

  “Took you a lot of years to figure it out.”

  “Please!” Aria shrieked. “Is Eli my dad?”

  Marissa twisted her body and slapped Aria’s cheek. “Not one more word. In fact, all of you keep your mouths shut.”

  “Don’t you ever lay a hand on her again.” Eli’s words seemed to blow the roof off the car.

  “Since when did you start caring about one of your kids?”

  “For the record, you promised me a whole lot if I gave up my other three.”

  “Worked, didn’t it?” She aimed her firearm at him. “Drive. I have someplace to be.”

  We stopped at a gas station with an accompanying McDonald’s long enough to switch the SUV for a Toyota and fill it up with gas. I begged for a bathroom break, and Marissa insisted Aria go with us. Made me wonder if Eli might set her free. Inside, I looked for anything to write on or with, a way to let Denton know our location. Verbally alerting anyone invited Marissa to open fire.

  Nothing.

  In the restroom, Marissa watched Aria wash her hands. “Hurry up.”

  Aria stuck her hands under the air dryer. My sister kept her hand positioned inside her shoulder bag. No doubt her forefinger rested on the trigger.

  An employee entered the restroom, and Marissa kept her focus on Aria. I caught the young woman’s attention and mouthed help. The girl rolled her eyes and entered a stall. Hope shattered. How would Denton and Mike find us?

  If at all.

  Or alive.

  Marissa ordered us back to the car. Except Eli was nowhere in sight. She visually swept the area and cursed. “Coward. He always runs when he’s mad. But I’m not in the mood for his games.” She slid into the driver’s seat of the Toyota and pressed the engine to life.

  Eli had abandoned us with the keys in the ignition.

  82

  DENTON

  Radar surveillance and security cameras confirmed the helicopter had landed on the roof of a northwest Miami parking garage, obscuring the view of two fleeing cars: an SUV and a Lexus sedan. The camera footage showed Melissa, Shelby, and Aria had been on board the chopper, but we didn’t know which car or cars they’d entered before escaping the scene. The two bodyguards had disappeared . . . finding them could provide the info we needed.

  Hours later, roadblocks were in place, but both vehicles had been found in opposite directions. One was abandoned near Coral Springs and the other south near Sweetwater. No cameras were in either area. An intentional and preplanned effort. We had no option but to rely on the public taking notice of a BOLO, which listed Shelby Pearce and Aria Stover as kidnap victims. We added Marissa Stover and possibly Eli Chandler and Feng Liu as armed-and-dangerous suspects.

  The BOLO expanded to surrounding states, including public and private airports.

  I paced the Miami FBI office. “Where’s Feng Liu?”

  “In the wind.”

  “True. My guess he’s in on this, and he and Marissa could have plans to leave the country together. Shelby and Aria serve as hostages, but what happens when their usefulness disappears? And where does Eli Chandler fit?”

  “Denton, we know the answers. Marissa doesn’t leave survivors. Why are they traveling by car? Marissa could have left the country by now and is over international waters.”

  Midafternoon, a call from the sheriff’s department from the western coast of northern Florida gave us a lead on a Toyota Camry. A McDonald’s employee claimed she saw two women and a teen in the ladies’ restroom who fit the description of the BOLO. One of the women had mouthed help. The employee’s manager had shared with the morning shift about a manhunt underway in the state, and the employee realized she might have encountered them. Police reviewed camera footage and spotted Eli pumping gas and the three women leaving the McDonald’s, then taking off in the Toyota. We had a partial on the license plate, but why had Chandler walked away leaving Marissa to drive?

  Within twenty minutes, we’d boarded a helicopter and followed the license plate number. All the things I wanted to tell Shelby swirled through my mind. More than swirled but slammed against every cell of my tormented body.

  Shelby would seize opportunities to free Aria, sacrifice herself if necessary. She’d look to Jesus for strength and try to persuade Marissa to give herself up. From what I’d discovere
d about Marissa, she’d murder repeatedly until someone stopped her, and I doubted Shelby could manage the task.

  “Be prepared we might not find them,” Mike said. “Or they aren’t alive.”

  “I can’t think about that. We’ll find them in time.”

  Mike flashed a worried glance my way. Losing my fiancée was tough, but I wouldn’t survive losing Shelby.

  83

  SHELBY

  Marissa took a single dirt road that led to a small, weed-infested landing strip. Obviously it was seldom ever used.

  “Feng picking you up?” I said.

  “For a better tomorrow.” She pressed in a number, and I gathered he’d been late leaving Miami. “Okay, honey, see you in twenty minutes or less. I’ll be looking for your plane.”

  Dear God, help me find the right way to stop this.

  “I’m ready for the truth,” I said. “Why set me up to take the blame for Travis’s murder?”

  “We have time for a five-minute chat.” Marissa didn’t need prodding to talk about herself. “Think about it. I always got what I wanted by giving you ideas to feed your wild ways and by playing the good girl. I had everything before you came along. I chose to get even. I set you up time and time again, and you fell for it . . . Remember our sister games? When Travis took over a charity for African orphans, I saw my chance to hack into the account and invest the money overseas.”

  “What happened?”

  She swore. “I didn’t expect to get pregnant. An abortion made sense, but I figured out how to use the situation to my advantage—more trips away to rest and take care of business. Eli often joined me. He helped me devise a plan to leave the baby with Travis and lose myself in Europe.”

  “But why shoot Travis?”

  “He found out I’d been embezzling his poor orphans’ money. His accusation threatened to ruin my future, and while I aimed a gun at him, my mind danced with how to cover it up with my grandest scheme ever—a glorious means to keep my good-girl facade.”

  “And I fell right into it.”

  “You became my scapegoat, my sweet rebellious sister. You swallowed a pregnant woman’s desperation, and the rest paved my golden road to millions.”

  “After my prison release, you sent your dogs after me. Why, after I paid your debt? I honored the request to stay away from all of you.”

  “Couldn’t risk losing all I’d built. I needed your death to permanently lock away the past so I could make my escape.”

  I hid my anger and grief. “Whose handwriting was on the sympathy card?”

  “Eli found a maid from a Miami hotel.”

  “And what of Aria?” My lungs warred against me. I struggled to keep my strength and sucked in air.

  She sneered at me. “Do I look like I want to be chained to a fifteen-year-old? She makes me crazy. Transforming Dad into a Shelby-hater took time. He denied your guilt for a few years.” She clenched her jaw. “Aria and Mom were at church every time the door opened. I went to keep up the facade. Utterly disgusting.” She laughed, a hysterical high pitch. “Aria looks and acts like you. You should see yourself. You can’t mask your revulsion of me. And I worked so hard all those years to teach you how to hide your body language.”

  “My hatred is for what happened to you as a child.”

  “Marissa,” Aria said. “I’m sorry I stood in your way.”

  “Shut up. You and Shelby make me sick.”

  “Are you going to kill us?” Aria whispered.

  “You had doubts? I don’t deal with liabilities.”

  The sound of an approaching vehicle seized Marissa’s attention.

  84

  Eli sped to the side of the car in a battered pickup and stepped out, gun in hand. “Marissa, we need to talk.”

  She opened the car door and aimed her gun, sending a bullet into his left shoulder directly above his heart. Eli fell back and didn’t move. “Another problem resolved.” She whirled to us. “Out of the car. Time’s running out, and I don’t need anyone reporting gunfire.”

  We exited the car, and she gestured to the front of it. A gust of wind blew, and droplets of rain hit my face . . . like the day I was released from prison. Then it was morning, now we faced sunset.

  “Leave Aria out of this. Do this one good thing. She deserves a full life.” I softened my voice. “I know you want your daughter free of the hurt you’ve felt all these years.”

  “Fat chance.”

  The whir of helicopter blades sounded. Marissa had specifically said a plane was coming. The helicopter hovered closer over the landing strip. A bullhorn sounded.

  “Marissa Stover, this is the FBI. Lay your weapon down now.”

  Denton. Hope fluttered inside me.

  “How did they find us?” Marissa’s anger erupted in a shriek. She stared at the car and quickly searched the sky. “They won’t shoot up the place as long as I have you two.” She pointed the gun at Aria and me. “Besides, I won’t go down alone.”

  Aria and I knew where we’d spend our eternity. “Marissa, God doesn’t want you miserable. He—”

  “Preaching to me is a waste. I know God wants me happy. I’m blessed. I have money tucked away all over the world. Even here.”

  Aria trembled. I’d do anything to save my niece.

  She aimed the gun at Aria, and I stepped between them.

  “Marissa.” Eli stood, grasping his gun and staggering. Blood soaked the left side of his shirt. “I told you never to lay a hand on Aria again.”

  Fury etched on my sister’s face. She faced the man and the gun aimed at her. Denton, Mike, and two more men hurried from the chopper, their firearms drawn.

  “I . . . loved you,” Eli managed. “For seventeen years, I catered to your every whim. Didn’t protest when you slept around, thinking it was for the good of the business. I believed your lies.” He raised the gun higher. “I still love you, but I won’t let you murder my daughter.”

  “Eli, we can talk—”

  He fired into her left chest.

  Marissa fell.

  Aria screamed.

  Heat flooded me. Was my reaction terror? Relief? I rushed to Marissa and bent beside her still body. I gingerly turned her over and lifted her head into my lap. The light in her blue eyes had vanished. Sobs met my ears, but it seemed as though the sound came from someone else. I kissed her cheek and closed her eyes.

  “You didn’t have to walk the future alone,” I whispered. “I wouldn’t have abandoned you.”

  “Mom,” Aria whispered. “I’m sorry.” She peered at Eli, who’d fallen, and moved to his side. I didn’t hear her words other than “thank you.”

  A hand touched my shoulder, and I sensed Denton beside me. “You can’t do anything to help your sister.”

  I swallowed the acid rising in my throat. My lungs ached to breathe. I was drowning in a whirlpool of grief. “I want to make it right between us. She needs to know I love her.”

  He knelt beside me. “Tell her how you feel. We’re not in any hurry. An ambulance is on its way.”

  I attempted to wipe some of the blood from Marissa’s face. I kissed her cheek again. “Will you make sure they take good care of my sister?”

  “I promise,” he said.

  “It’s hard to say goodbye, Denton. I loved her so much. Nothing could ever change how I feel.”

  He wrapped his arm around my waist. “I love you, Shelby.”

  My chin quivered. “And I love you.”

  “I’m staying right here. You won’t take this journey alone.”

  EPILOGUE

  THREE MONTHS LATER

  Not a day went by that I didn’t think about Marissa and how I could have done more to stop her tragic end. The loss was immeasurable, and depression still took a bite out of my heart. I knew the path of sorrow took time, and I pray through each debilitating moment. I’d never know why she’d been so eager for me to join her in Miami, and I’d never be convinced my presence with Aria was her insurance. She needed me . . . maybe one last d
esperate plea for help. My sister’s behavior would remain a mystery, but I truly believed she fought to remain in full control of her life to the very end, and I must try to make peace with her decisions.

  The FBI arrested Feng Liu at the landing strip. He and Marissa were headed to Hong Kong in his private plane. Liu had powerful attorneys who’d probably get him released on a technicality. Marissa’s bodyguards hadn’t been located. My guess was they left the country when the fire threatened to burn them.

  After Eli had pulled the trigger on Marissa, he bled out. I didn’t think he had a will to live. Aria witnessed both her parents’ deaths, and the nightmare culminating in horror pushed her into shock. She still met with Pastor Emory five days a week for counseling. She adored him. Mrs. Emory had homeschooled her the last month of school with her own children. Although Aria was enrolled in the local high school for fall, she hadn’t decided if facing a new environment and the possibility of other kids viewing her as a freak made sense. I understood her reservations—the past stalked me fiercely.

  Pastor Emory counseled me weekly, and Dad had taken advantage too. One trait about myself had risen to the surface, and Pastor Emory termed it arrested development.

  The State of Texas presented me with a full pardon, a bright spot in my life. A Hollywood producer wanted to do a movie about my life, but I refused unless he wrote my faith into the script with a focus on forgiveness. We were still discussing it.

  The FBI had found four hundred thousand dollars in Marissa’s shoulder bag. As of yet, the authorities couldn’t determine where it had originated, so for now it sat in a trust account for Aria.

  Each day drew me closer to healing, thanks to God, my dear Denton, and my beloved family and friends. I glanced around Amy-Jo’s busy café, taking in the sights, smells, and sounds of normalcy. Customers filled the booths and tables, and servers jotted down and delivered lunch orders. Not much call for pastries until dessert time. Simply Shelby had done well, thanks to Edie’s help with my business model.