Evidence of Desire

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Evidence of Desire Page 28

by Lexi Blake


  “Cancel?” There was a pause on the line. “I’m sorry, honey. Did we have plans tonight?”

  “Amber asked me to come out to the stadium. She wanted to go over some of the memorial plans and said we would have dinner afterward.”

  A long-suffering sigh filled her ear. “That damn memorial. I’ll deal with it, Isla. I’ve already had two calls from Portia’s sister. You have to know that Amber is trying to do something good.”

  At least he understood. She had a shot at getting Amber to let go if she had Carey on her side. “I do. She’s trying to do something nice for a woman who was nice to her. I get it, but Cressida has the right to control this. I would appreciate it if you would talk to her.”

  “I will. And I’m sorry you couldn’t make it tonight. She didn’t mention it to me, but she knew I was free so I suppose that’s all right. She’s busy. She’s in the city today. I’ll give her a call.”

  “Thanks. And I’ll talk to you soon. Maybe we can have lunch.”

  “Absolutely not,” he said in a firm tone. “You’ll have dinner with me next week and bring that young man of yours out here. And, Isla?”

  “Yes?”

  “I love you, sweetheart. I know my boy was stubborn and he didn’t want you to be a widow, but in my heart, you’ll always be my daughter-in-law,” he said, his voice filled with gruff emotion.

  Tears pierced her eyes. “And you’ll always be my second dad.”

  “You don’t ever forget it.”

  The line went dead and she sniffled a bit. She’d gotten too involved in work. What did she want out of life? If she wasn’t careful, she would look up one day and all she’d have would be a fabulous list of clients and a fat stack of cash, and that didn’t seem like a complete life.

  She wanted David. She wanted him more than she wanted her next breath. She wanted a life with him, a family with him. It was time and she was ready to take the chance again.

  Was he?

  He was right. They had a whole lot to talk about. From Portia’s day planner to whatever Trey had said to where they went after all this was over. It would be a long night.

  She called in a couple of orders for later in the evening and then contacted the front desk so they would know she had people coming up. They would unlock the private elevator and make things easy for a few hours. After all, no one knew where she was staying with the exception of the people closest to her. Well, except Oscar, and his butt was in jail. Damn. She was putting on a good front, but she was still angry with the young man she’d cared for like a brother.

  After the deliveries were made, she’d put everything back on lockdown.

  Perhaps some of his favorite Scotch would help the situation. She’d noticed how much he enjoyed a good single malt and he seemed to prefer one over all the rest. And some of the best Thai he’d ever had. Booze and noodles. And a low-cut blouse. That was her plan of attack. She still had an hour or so until the deliveries would come. She could clean up both the living room and herself.

  Isla started stacking the journals back in the box, when the doorbell chimed indicating someone was coming up.

  That was fast.

  The elevator doors opened and Miranda stepped out, her face blotchy from crying. Maybe she shouldn’t have told even the people she was closest to where she was staying.

  Yes, it was going to be a very long night.

  FOURTEEN

  “What exactly are we looking for?” Henry asked as David pushed through the police station double doors.

  “A couple of things,” he said, nodding to the sergeant at the front desk. “Could you please let Detective Campbell know David Cormack and Henry Garrison are here to see him?”

  The woman stared for a moment before picking up her phone and calling for Campbell. It wasn’t more than a moment before someone walked out.

  “Gentlemen, what can I do for you?” The man standing in front of them wasn’t Campbell. Royce Osborne stared at them through the gate that led to the squad room. He made absolutely no move to open it.

  The last person he wanted to deal with was Osborne. “You can allow us to speak with Detective Campbell.”

  “He’s busy. He’s got criminals to put in jail. He doesn’t have time to deal with people who actively work against him,” Osborne replied.

  “We need access to the crime scene photos and the inventory the police took of Portia Adams’s closet.” He wasn’t going to argue with the asshole. He had rights as the defense attorney.

  “Then place a proper request through the proper channels and we’ll see what happens,” Royce replied.

  “I need to see those photos,” David insisted.

  “Unless you want us to go to the press and explain that you’ve already bungled this once and now you’ve arrested a second person with very little evidence.” Henry stared the man down.

  “I didn’t ever actually arrest Trey Adams for murder,” Osborne pointed out. “That was all about reckless endangerment.”

  Henry shrugged. “That probably won’t come up.”

  “Talk away, Garrison,” Osborne said, a smirk on his face. “Oddly enough, I don’t think the public is going to sympathize with an overprivileged brat of a kid who’s had everything in life handed to him. I understand that Trey Adams is a hero to many in the community, and that is exactly why the DA’s office took its time investigating. It’s why we treated Mr. Adams with such careful concern. See, I can play the game, too.”

  Bastard. “You’re not looking at this reasonably. You found one tiny piece of evidence and you’re ignoring the rest. If Oscar killed his mother, why leave his father alive? Oscar had problems with his father, not his mom.”

  It was obvious from the nonchalant sigh that Osborne didn’t care. “I’ve got a couple of people who tell a different story. Don’t ask me who. I’m not doing your job for you.”

  The ADA obviously wasn’t thinking. “Where are the tracks? That scene was bloody. I want to know where the tracks are. Whoever killed Portia Adams had to have walked back out of that room. Are you telling me someone could have done that kind of damage and not gotten blood on his shoes, on his clothes?”

  “So he cleaned up,” Osborne replied. “Or he took off his shoes.”

  “The carpet was soaked.” Henry backed him up. “And we now have reason to believe the killer was in the kitchen when Isla was there.”

  Osborne’s eyes rolled. “Good luck selling that one to a jury.”

  “Come on,” David cajoled. “You’re going to have to give it to us at some point. I want an inventory. The police took one, right? They inventoried everything in that closet to match it against the insurance.”

  There was a loud buzz and the gate opened. Osborne glared over at the sergeant. “I didn’t tell you to let them in.”

  “You don’t actually work here,” she replied with a shake of her head. “And I know damn well Campbell is still working on this case. I was one of the officers who helped inventory that closet. There were some beautiful things in there. And a couple of things that didn’t fit. Check out the shoes, Counselor.”

  “What are you doing?” Osborne asked.

  “I am an officer, not a politician,” she replied. “No cop wants the wrong person in jail. None of us. So I don’t play sides and neither do my detectives. Campbell will be more than happy to talk to you boys.”

  “I’ll have your job,” Osborne vowed.

  “You can certainly try,” she said. “Campbell’s in the back.”

  David strode through, ignoring the fact that Royce was hard on his heels.

  “You can’t think a judge is going to allow Isla to change her story,” the ADA said. “She never said she was there when the killer was still in the penthouse.”

  “She recently remembered. But I don’t think I’m going to have to bring Isla into it at all,” David said with some conf
idence. The sergeant had seen something out of place. She’d likely said something about it but was ignored because it didn’t fit with the DA’s theory of the crime. “I think this is about to turn into a Cinderella story.”

  “You think?” Henry asked, his eyes lighting the way they always did when he thought he’d caught a thread he could pull.

  “I think this is going to come down to who fits the shoe.” It was what had struck him when he talked to Trey. There were some bloodstains from the downstairs going up to the bedroom, likely as Portia had tried to flee her attacker. But nothing coming down. The killer hadn’t cleaned up the footprints going toward Portia’s room. That made David think all those were made by Portia herself, having been attacked but only lightly, not enough to make her bleed out, but enough to send her fleeing, looking for a place to hide. And not enough to get on the killer’s feet.

  But that bedroom was a completely different story. No one could have walked in and out without bloodstains. Isla had them on the bottoms of her feet but they’d discounted those.

  So how had the killer avoided leaving tracks behind?

  “You think the killer took off his shoes, or her shoes,” Henry said, catching up.

  “That’s ridiculous.” Osborne stalked behind them as they turned down the hallway that led to the detectives’ desks. “You can’t think the killer took off his shoes and left them there.”

  “It might have been easier than cleaning up.” The idea had been humming in his head the whole way back from Rikers. “If Trey isn’t the killer, there should be some evidence that the killer left. The killer would have to have cleaned up the shoes or left them, or gone back and cleaned up the path from the kitchen to Portia’s bedroom.”

  “But if he did that, why not clean up the evidence that was left there? They left the same way they came in,” Henry said.

  “There was a mop,” Osborne said. “It hadn’t been used. Damn it. How would he have kept his feet clean?”

  David stopped in front of Campbell’s desk.

  The detective looked up and peered at the ADA. “One of the many questions I felt we hadn’t answered, but you pressured me to arrest the kid.”

  “And I stand behind that choice,” Osborne insisted. “His fingerprints are on the murder weapon. The ME matched the chef’s knife in their kitchen to the wounds on the victim.”

  “We gave you a plausible explanation for that.” Campbell sat back in his chair, looking over his glasses at David. “You have something new?”

  “He thinks the killer might have left his shoes behind,” Osborne explained.

  “There were over sixty pairs of shoes in that closet,” Campbell said with a shake of his head. “I thought it was odd that they were tossed around the room. Ms. Adams was a very organized woman. Her shoes were boxed and in those bags high-end shoes get stored in.”

  “Dust bags,” Henry offered.

  “I’m looking for anything out of the ordinary. If the killer was worried about time because he was looking for something, he might have slipped his shoes off and then been forced to leave them behind when Isla showed up. Or when he heard Trey moving around. Were there any men’s shoes found in Portia’s closet or her room?” He was onto something. He knew it. Some instinct deep inside told him this was the thread that would lead them where they needed to go.

  Every killer made mistakes. Some big. Some infinitesimally small, but the key to solving a murder was to locate the mistake.

  The killer might have thought chaos was his friend, but if the cops had been careful enough, they could still find the mistake.

  Campbell shook his head. “If I’d found a man’s shoe, I would have been all over that. I assure you there was nothing like that. I’ll pull up the inventory. We were careful about taking pictures of everything.”

  “See, you’re wrong,” Osborne insisted. “A man’s shoe would stick out like a sore thumb.”

  “Then our killer is a woman.” Shit. He’d been thinking of an angry husband or lover or son. But there were women in Portia’s life who could be just as angry as any man. “Did we put sizes in the inventory?”

  Campbell sat up, his attention suddenly caught. “My team is thorough. When we inventory clothes, we describe each by color, size, and label, if we have one. Hold on.”

  “A woman? You think it’s the daughter,” Osborne said. “Damn it. I didn’t consider the daughter because she fucking called it in.”

  “Killers often come to the scene of the crime,” Campbell was saying as he typed on his keyboard.

  “So she finds out about the will, kills her mother, goes to look for the will, and when she can’t find it, she takes the laptop and phone and flees the scene.” Osborne had picked up on the argument.

  It was a plausible scenario, but he wasn’t sure he believed it. Although, Miranda had gone on the girls’ trips with her mom. She had access to Kristoff Paloma. But he would not offer up any theories beyond trying to find that shoe.

  He glanced over and Henry’s jaw was tight. He would rather do this back at the office, but the ADA was right about one thing. They would have to jump through some hoops to get copies of the inventory, and he needed to know now. He needed to see it for himself.

  “Here’s the shoes.” Campbell pulled the file up on the screen. “Who needs so many shoes? And what’s a Louboutin anyway? I think our victim must have been that company’s biggest investor.”

  “I’m fairly certain that’s my wife,” Henry grumbled.

  There it was. Halfway down the page. “Women’s thirty-six. Louboutin ballet flat, black with ribbon detailing. Portia wore a forty.”

  “In American that’s a six and a ten, right?” Osborne asked. “So we’re looking for someone smaller than the victim. Where’s her daughter?”

  Campbell shook his head. “No. You are not having me arrest another member of that family until I’ve got some serious evidence. I’m calling my partner and a forensics team and we’re going back over there. We’re going to examine that shoe and figure out who the hell it belongs to. And then we’ll talk about another arrest. Now you boys take this fight somewhere else and let me do my job.”

  Henry drew David back. “I’m going to get the paperwork started to get that list ourselves.”

  “You know this doesn’t mean Oscar is innocent. Perhaps he stood outside the killing zone or he was busy looking for the will,” Osborne said stubbornly. “It merely means Miranda might be in on it, too.”

  “Or some other woman altogether did it,” David shot back. Isla would have his hide if he got Miranda shoved in jail alongside her brother.

  But, then, of course he had to consider what would happen if she had done it.

  “Well, we’ll see, won’t we?” Osborne stepped back. “Looks like I have more work to do. And if you want to see our evidence again, I suggest you do it through proper channels.”

  David stepped back. “See you in court.”

  “Yes, we’ll start there,” Osborne promised.

  “Damn it.” Henry pulled out his phone. “I didn’t think about Miranda.”

  “Neither did I,” David said. “But we need to take another look at her. I’m going to break the news to Isla.”

  Those shoes were too small for Portia’s sister. Cressida mirrored her sister. If she couldn’t wear Portia’s shoes, he would eat his briefs. Of course, there was one other woman he’d met who might fit the shoe. But she wouldn’t have a reason. He racked his brain trying to come up with some kind of motive. There was nothing.

  Unless Portia had known something she shouldn’t.

  He hailed a cab and hoped Isla had some answers for him.

  * * *

  • • •

  Miranda stepped off the elevator, tears in her eyes. “Did you get to see him?”

  “No, I didn’t. He wouldn’t see anyone except for David. I’m sorry.�
� She held a hand out. Talking to Carey had reminded her that she had to be there for these kids. Even when they didn’t want her. Even when she was angry with one of them.

  Miranda had never had the problems Oscar had. Miranda had always been open and friendly, even as a teen. She went straight in for a full-body hug. “I can’t believe he won’t see us at all. Does he even know about Oscar? I know he’s a dick sometimes, but I can’t believe he would kill Mom.”

  She hugged her back. She’d known Miranda since the kid was about ten, and she’d always wanted a little sister. “I’m pretty sure your dad has been told about Oscar’s arrest. I don’t believe he did it either.”

  Her head came up. “You don’t?”

  Isla shook her head. “Not for a second. I still think the killer is someone outside the family. Cressida wouldn’t risk breaking a nail.”

  Miranda huffed out a bitter laugh. “No, she wouldn’t. And she passes out when someone gets a paper cut. She’s truly incapable of being around blood.”

  “David is going to handle Oscar’s bail hearing and he’s working on getting your dad moved to a private facility, but don’t expect him to come home anytime soon. Because of what happened with the police, he’ll probably be in the hospital for a while.” She wondered if he would ever be allowed out again. The fight over Trey might be moot.

  “They’re saying terrible things about our family.” Miranda stepped back and glanced around.

  Isla got her a box of tissues. “You have to stay strong and not react. I know that is the hardest thing in the world to do. Your mother loved you and she would want you to be strong, but in the right way. She wouldn’t want you watching those shows.”

  Miranda brushed back her hair, looking so young and vulnerable. “People at my school are talking about us, too.”

 

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