“Is Drew out here? He never came back from that phone call and I’m starting to get a little worried. He’s been drinking quite a bit tonight.”
Because she was so close to Zach she could instantly feel the tensing of his body. His hand fell away and she felt bereft as he took a step backward, putting space between them.
“We’ll help you find him,” Zach replied. “Where have you checked so far?”
Chapter Ten
‡
The party was over. Guests were filtering out one by one until there were only about two dozen of them left. Drew wasn’t among them.
Leann’s gaze ran over the ballroom. “The last time I saw him was when he left after our champagne toast. That was quite a while ago.”
Jenna’s front teeth worried her lower lip. “That’s the last time I saw him too, but I thought he was just having fun with the guys. I wonder if he left and went back to work.”
“Would he do that?” Leann asked, craning her neck to see over the crowd.
Jenna groaned and checked her phone. “When work calls, Drew jumps but he’d let me know and there are no messages. He has to be here.”
“I don’t see him,” Zach said, “But there are several other conference rooms in this part of the hotel. Maybe Drew and a few buddies found an empty one and are talking about the old days? I can go check.”
“Me too,” Leann, offered seeing how worried Jenna was and rightfully so. Drew had been drinking quite a bit earlier. Not as much as Darrell, but still a lot.
“We’ll all go,” Jenna replied, whirling on her high heel. “If he’s really drunk I may need some help getting him to the car. Tomorrow morning I’m going to have the kids practice their band instruments.”
Giggling, Leann let Zach lead the way. “That should teach him to drink too much.”
Jenna rolled her eyes. “He never learns. He did this at the company Christmas party last year too.”
Zach’s hand came up to cup Leann’s elbow. “Stick with me. I don’t want to let you out of my sight.”
She didn’t question him, simply following his lead. The easy smile he’d been wearing earlier was gone and his expression had sobered. It was fascinating how quickly his moods changed.
The convention center area of the hotel was a labyrinth of hallways and doors that seem to lead to nowhere and then suddenly Leann was back where she started. Or maybe not. The beige carpeting and ubiquitous walls all looked exactly the same. If Drew was back here drunk, she could completely understand how he might not have been able to find his way out.
Leann pointed to the long hallway. “Have we checked this one yet?”
Zach turned and looked at the door behind them. “I don’t think so. I don’t think we’ve been in this hallway. I don’t remember that emergency fire alarm.”
Jenna nodded. “I think you’re right. There are only three doors here and then we’re done.”
“I doubt we’re going to find anything,” Jenna said with a sigh, heading down the hall to the third door. “It’s really quiet back here. If Drew were in one of these rooms I’d guess he’d be whooping it up with his friends. We’d hear it for sure.”
Not if Drew was passed out from too much to drink.
Leann stuck her head into the conference room and flipped on the light. Empty but for a large table and several chairs. Perhaps Drew was outside? Passed out in the car or on a bench? Maybe he’d booked a room so he didn’t have to drive home?
Leann turned to Zach who was shaking his head. He hadn’t found anything either. “I don’t see him. Should we check with the front–”
A scream ripped through the silence and then Jenna backed out of the conference room, falling backward onto the carpet. Her hands were over her face and she was repeating Drew’s name over and over like a mantra. Leann quickly fell to her knees beside her best friend. She wrapped her arms around the crying and shaking woman as Zach ducked into the room Jenna had just vacated to see what had her in hysterics.
“Jenna, what’s going on? You need to calm down for a second and tell me what’s wrong.”
Zach’s hand on her shoulder pulled Leann’s attention to him. She looked up and her stomach twisted into a knot at the bleak expression on his face.
“He’s dead.”
Jenna was rocking back and forth, weeping uncontrollably and Leann tried to keep her own voice calm even as panic flared inside of her. Zach looked serious.
“Drew?” Leann asked in a hushed tone. “Are you sure?”
Zach nodded, his face pale as he retrieved his phone from his front pocket and handed it to Leann. “Call the police while I secure the scene. It’s going to be a long night.”
* * *
The cops had cordoned off the remaining guests at the reunion into a conference room while they combed the crime scene and the ballroom for evidence.
Leann was trying to comfort Jenna while Zach patiently asked the woman several questions, mostly getting tears as a response. He felt great sympathy for Jenna, especially since she had been the one to find her husband’s dead body – that was something no spouse should have to endure – but he also needed a few answers. The first twenty-four hours after a crime were the most important while leads were still fresh.
“Tell me a little about the relationship of Drew and Troy,” Zach tried again, taking a different path. “It appeared that they were arguing about you.”
Jenna flushed and nodded.
“Was that the first time punches were thrown? Have they fought before?”
“In high school.” Jenna’s reply was soft. “But that was so long ago. We haven’t seen Troy in years.”
Zach scribbled a few notes. “You haven’t spoken with him in all that time?”
She shook her head, a fresh round of tears starting. “No, I haven’t even thought about him since graduation. Is he still here? Have you talked to him?”
“Not yet but I will,” Zach promised, his attention captured by a movement out of the corner of his eye. The shift leader of the crime scene unit had arrived. “Could you excuse me for a moment?”
“Can I take her home?” Leann asked, her gaze pleading. “She’s in no condition to answer any more questions.”
Zach wasn’t getting anywhere so he might as well let Jenna go home and get some rest. Leann, however, was another story all together. He beckoned to Leann and they stepped away out of Jenna’s hearing.
“Jenna can go but I will have more questions tomorrow. Both of you need to be under police protection. I’ll send officers home with you and Jenna since I need to stay here. In the morning we need to discuss security arrangements in more detail.”
Leann looked about as thrilled at that news as he’d expected.
“It would be futile to argue, I assume?” she asked. “I can’t imagine why someone would want me dead, Zach.”
She was incredibly naive or maybe she was just playing innocent. “You can’t? Are you sure, Leann? Because you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth and grew up practically the princess of this little town. You can’t imagine how someone might be envious of that?”
Zach hadn’t meant for it to come out that coarsely but from her pale face he could tell she’d listened. She had to know that she was a target.
She crossed her arms over her chest in a protective gesture. “I guess I can see that.”
“I didn’t mean to–”
She held up her hand. “No, I get it. It’s just not something I think about much. My family is just my family. We’re not royalty.”
“You’re local royalty,” Zach pressed. “You’ve been lucky and other people might resent that. We need to be cautious. I can’t let anything happen to you.”
She nodded but didn’t say anything else, simple walking back to Jenna and placing an arm around her friend’s shoulders.
“I’m going to have an officer escort both of you back to your residences,” Zach said, knowing he’d be here all night. He’d have to trust someone else to look after
Leann, at least for a few hours, and he didn’t like that at all.
Jenna gave him a look of alarm. “Do you think we’re in danger?”
“I think we need to be overly protective until we know more,” Zach replied in his best soothing voice that he’d perfected after many years in personal security. “Tomorrow we’ll talk again.”
Leann picked up her purse from the chair. “Are you ready to go, Jenna?”
Her friend nodded. “Let me just run to the ladies room for a second. I’ll be right back.”
Turning to Zach when Jenna was out of earshot, Leann’s eyes teared up and a sob escaped her throat.
“This has been the most horrible night. I don’t know what to say to Jenna to make this any better.”
“There is nothing you can say, Leann. Just be there for her, which you’re already doing. She’s going to need the love and support of her family and friends.”
“She has mine and so many others as well.” She bit her lip and wiped away a stray tear from her cheek. “How could no one have heard anything? That’s what I don’t understand.”
“That’s not surprising. The conference room is quite a ways from the ballroom,” Zach pointed out. “Also the music was loud, and with all the people talking and laughing, they would have had to make quite the ruckus to have attracted anyone’s attention.”
“How…how…did he die?”
Leann hadn’t actually seen inside the conference room, which as far as Zach was concerned was an extremely good thing. It had been a grisly scene.
“I’m not telling you anything that won’t be in the papers tomorrow. The medical examiner will need to do an autopsy but the preliminary report is that Drew Marshall died by exsanguination. His carotid artery was severed with what we think was a broken champagne bottle but we don’t know for sure yet.”
Zach had seen the bottle next to the body and at first he’d simply thought Drew had dropped it when he’d been killed. But then he’d seen the blood on the jagged edge… It had been the murder weapon, he was sure of it.
Leann’s face had turn a nasty shade of gray. “Darrell had an entire bottle of champagne tucked under his arm when he left the ballroom. He was pretty drunk, too.”
“We’ll be talking to him,” Zach said grimly. “But we’ll also get the pieces of bottle fingerprinted. If he touched it, we’ll know.”
“And Troy too?”
“Troy as well. I need to account for everyone’s whereabouts at the time of death.”
Jenna exited the ladies room but hovered near the doorway, seemingly eager to leave. Leann nodded to her friend and then turned back to Zach.
“I should get her home. I’m hoping Jenna can get a little rest tonight.”
“I’ll be by to talk to her again tomorrow. You too. I’ll need to get your statement.”
She smiled slightly. “My statement is your statement. We were together pretty much the entire evening.”
“True, but you might have noticed something I didn’t.” The uniformed officer that was going to follow the women home hurried into the room. “Harn, thanks for helping with this. I need you to follow Ms. Anderson and Mrs. Marshall home and make sure they get there safely, okay?”
The young cop nodded eagerly. “Will do. Should I come back here after?”
“No, you are to stay outside of Mrs. Marshall’s house until another officer comes to relieve you.” He placed his hand on Leann’s shoulder. “I’ll send a unit to your friend’s house as well for you. See you in the morning.”
Leann murmured her goodbye and Zach watched as she and Jenna left, escorted by Harn. This entire case was taking a strange turn. The victimology had started out straightforward. Two popular girls who might have ostracized someone back in high school. But now the captain of the football team was dead. An up close and personal kind of death. Cutting wasn’t a detached method of killing. From the look of the crime scene, this person had a lot of rage inside of them. More than with the other two murders. What did it all mean?
Shoving the small notebook into his jacket pocket, Zach went in search of the medical examiner and the crime scene crew. So many questions and hardly any answers.
Chapter Eleven
‡
The young female assistant ushered Zach into his brother-in-law Mayor West Anderson’s office. Zach’s appearance wasn’t a surprise as West had asked him to stop by on his way back to the station.
“Come in.”
Zach pushed open the heavy oak door and stepped into West’s office. Anderson was all business normally but he did have a photo of his wife Gigi – Zach’s sister – and their new baby son on the desk. The new daddy looked like he could use some extra sleep.
To Zach’s surprise, Jason Anderson was sitting on the edge of his little brother’s desk. A cup of coffee was in one hand and a file folder in the other.
“Come in,” West said again. “Help yourself to some coffee, although I should warn you that I made it. My assistant is a tea drinker and hers is even worse.”
Helping himself to the coffee, Zach added plenty of cream and sugar. Just in case it really was bad. “It can’t be any worse than what we have at the office. That stuff will strip the varnish from your furniture.”
Laughing, Jason took another sip of his own coffee. “Bad coffee is part of law enforcement. It’s practically a tradition.”
Zach settled into the chair across from West. “So you wanted to see me?”
Jason rolled his eyes at Zach’s tone. “West wanted an update and I thought it would be easier for you to update me and him all at once.”
“I appreciate that.” Zach rubbed at his tired eyes. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
Actually he’d slept zero hours.
Folding his hands on the desk in front of him, West’s expression was somber. “I don’t like murder in Tremont and I like a killer on the loose even less. Do we have any suspects?”
“A bunch of them. Too many, in fact. Pretty much everyone at the reunion last night, although luckily most of the guests had left before the estimated time of death. It should make things a little easier. I’m headed back to the office now to start putting together a report of everyone’s whereabouts—the ones I have, anyway. There are still several people to be accounted for.”
Jason picked up a piece of paper with handwriting on it. “Troy Wallace and Darrell Madison are the main suspects, correct? Have you talked to them yet?”
Zach had a feeling Jason already knew the answer to that. Who had done the talking? The medical examiner? A patrolman? “We can’t find them. We have a BOLO out for both. We’ll get them and bring them in. However, I think we need to act cautiously here. While they are suspects for Drew’s death, they don’t have much connection to Carole or Bitty.”
“But you’re looking for one?” West asked.
Rubbing his chin, Zach nodded. “Yes, but it’s early in the investigation. Things can change quickly as you know.”
West sat back in the oversized leather chair. “That’s true. Have we heard anything from the lab?”
“The lab is working on the broken champagne bottle and if there are prints, that should point us in the right direction.”
Jason pulled out his phone and began typing into it. “The state lab can take a long time to get you those results. I’ll see what pressure I can put on them.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
There was more West wanted to say. Zach could see it in the other man’s eyes. What was holding him back? Something was definitely going on.
Fiddling with a pencil, West took his time before speaking. “My sister was there last night.”
Ah, this is about Leann.
“She was,” Zach confirmed, instantly wary. He didn’t know where West was going with this line of questioning but he was smart enough to know this meeting wasn’t a casual sit down about Drew Marshall’s death. It was much more.
“Jenna is a good friend of Leann’s.”
Zach could o
nly agree. Again. “That was apparent from how they interacted.”
“I’m sure she’s devastated for Jenna.”
West was playing Captain Obvious this morning and Zach hadn’t had a wink of sleep. He wasn’t in tip-top shape to play this game but he could make vague, obvious statements too.
“She is, of course.”
West nodded. “It’s just that…well…Jason and I were talking…”
The older brother’s head popped up and he grinned, shaking his head. “No, you don’t. Do not drag me into this with you. This is all your show. I’m staying out of it.”
Was Zach about to get the “stay away from my sister” speech? No one knew the “guy code” better than he did. Leann was the little sister and that meant she was off limits. End of story. That’s why he’d been staying as far away from her as possible despite his growing attraction. She wasn’t just gorgeous, she was also smart and funny too.
“We don’t have to do this,” Zach said. “I get it. Leann’s out of bounds.”
West’s cheeks turned pink and he shifted in his seat. “It’s not that we don’t like you, Zach. We do. Shit, you’re family, man. This isn’t a lecture about keeping your grubby paws off of our sister.”
But that’s exactly what it was.
“But I need to do that.”
Apparently Jason had had enough of his brother’s fumbling. “As far as I’m concerned, all you need to do is keep Leann safe. Anything else is between you and her.”
West scowled at Jason. “Of course you need to stick close to Leann and keep her safe, but not too close, if you know what I mean.”
Zach kind of enjoyed West’s discomfiture. “You mean close like you are with Gigi? My sister? Like that close?”
Laughing, Jason stood and refilled his coffee. “He’s got you there, little brother. You’re doing all manner of things to his sister.”
“We’re married,” West sputtered, the color on his cheeks deepening to red. “It’s different.”
Reunited With Danger (Danger Incorporated Book 6) Page 7
