by Alexa Grace
"He has my camera in his pocket," said Frankie as she pointed toward his front jeans pocket.
"Sounds like theft. Do you want me to call it in?"
"Not sure."
"Let me up, you bitch, or you'll regret it." Richards squirmed and tried to roll over.
"Shut up!" Both Lane and Frankie barked in unison.
Lane pulled her to him with his arm around her waist and started picking leaves and sticks out of her hair.
"Do you mind?" she asked as she backed up. The close proximity of his body to hers was unsettling and made her stupid heart skip a beat.
He headed back to his SUV and returned with a first aid kit.
"Hold still or we can go back to my hotel to do this."
The thought of being with Lane in his hotel room caused an electric volt of lust that sent a shock through Frankie’s system. Getting turned on at this particular moment was beyond inappropriate. Besides, this was Lane Hansen, the guy who dumped her six months before.
He placed the first aid kit on her trunk, and then leaned her back against her car. He pulled out some antiseptic swabs, ripped open the foil, and wiped at a cut near her lips.
"Ouch. That stings!" She slapped at his hand.
"Sorry, sweetheart." He kissed her forehead.
"You're not sorry and stop calling me sweetheart." She pushed at him, but he was as immobile as a boulder, all hard muscle pressing against her.
"I'm sorry it hurts, but you don't want an infection, do you?"
"Right, like you're concerned. I think you're getting turned on playing doctor." She pushed at him again but he refused to move away from her.
"Sweetheart, everything you do turns me on." He leaned dangerously close to her mouth and she stomped angrily on his foot, sending him back a step.
She was beyond pissed. Was he serious? He'd stayed away from her for months. Obviously, everything about her did not turn him on. What kind of sick game was he playing with her anyway? She moved toward Jerry Richards intent on getting her camera back. He was cursing and flopping on the ground like a fish out of water so she pressed her knee on his back to stabilize him so she could pull her camera out of his front pocket.
"Frankie, if you want I'll stay here with him until back-up arrives," said Lane.
She got in her car and shot out of the parking lot. The sooner she could put some distance between Lane Hansen and herself the better. Richards, she could deal with. The feelings she still had for Lane, she could not.
Lane watched her car until it disappeared in the distance. Then he pulled Jerry Richards into a standing position. Lane walked him back to his SUV where his emergency lights blinked wildly. He pushed Richards so hard against the vehicle that his head knocked against the doorframe.
"I'm going to offer you the deal of a lifetime, asshole."
"What's that?" Sweat beaded across Richards’s forehead and dripped down his cheeks as he had to look up to see Lane's face.
"You don't ever come in contact with the blonde that just kicked your ass and I won't use you for a punching bag. Understand?" Lane shoved him against the SUV again. He leaned in so close to Richard's face he could smell his breath. Lane used his most intimidating glare, the kind that worked on gang bangers and drug dealers.
"Yes, sir." Richards’s body trembled.
"I don't want to even think about what I'll do to you if you ever hurt her. I'd hunt you down and when I caught you..."
"I agree. I won't go near the blonde. Hell, I don't even know who she is."
Lane jerked him around, unlocked the handcuffs, and then pushed him toward the restaurant. Lane watched Richards as he bounded like a rabbit to the building and scurried inside.
He got in his SUV, slammed his hands against the steering wheel, and thought about what a major screw-up he was. He'd give anything for a do-over with Frankie. What was he thinking trapping Frankie against the car like that and trying to kiss her? All he'd accomplished was to make her angrier and now he'd have to work that much harder to get her back.
The apartment house where Billy James lived was a converted gray Victorian with white shuttered windows and a porch that wrapped around the front. Lane had liked old houses since his parents fixed up a Craftsman cottage years ago. He liked the beauty of the woodwork inside and out as well as the small design details that were missing in modern homes.
According to the mailboxes inside the entry way, Billy lived in 2B on the second floor. As apartment houses go, especially those near a college campus, this one was very quiet. There was no loud music with the bass pounding through the walls. Lane slipped up the stairs and knocked on Billy's door. No answer. He put his ear near the door and thought he heard music or a television. He knocked again. Still no answer. Just as he placed his hand on the doorknob and twisted, the door jerked open. A young, raven-haired woman in a pink t-shirt and cotton sleep pants appeared holding a flat iron.
"May I help you?" She looked him up and down. “Can you make it fast? I’m getting ready to go to class.”
"Yes, my name is Detective Lane Hansen and I'm looking for Billy James." He pulled his suit jacket back to show her his badge.
"He's my boyfriend. Has he done something wrong?"
"Is he here?"
"Yes, he's sleeping. I'll get him." She headed toward the back of the apartment.
Although she didn't invite him in, Lane followed her into the living room. While she disappeared into what he guessed was a bedroom in the back, Lane took the opportunity to look around. There was a flat screen TV hanging on the wall, and white sheets, instead of curtains, covered the windows. A worn sofa and chair sat next to a small bookcase filled with textbooks and CDs. A few framed photos featured the young woman with Billy James in various happy poses for the camera. Nowhere in sight were any photos of Billy James with Mandy Morris. A stack of letters lay on the coffee table and Lane leafed through them — bills, letter from an aunt, and junk mail. Footsteps came down the hall toward him. He dropped the mail back on the table and turned to see a disheveled Billy wearing a wrinkled white t-shirt and jeans walk into the room.
"Hello, Billy. My name is Lane Hansen. I'm a detective and I'm here to talk to you about Mandy Morris.”
When Billy heard the name Mandy Morris, a flash of panic crossed his face as he glanced at his girlfriend.
“Marianne, aren’t you late for class?”
"Mind if I sit down?" Not waiting for his answer, Lane claimed a spot on the sofa and sat down. Billy sat on a nearby chair.
Marianne looked at her watch and ran into the bedroom. Moments later she reappeared dressed and clutching a stack of books to her chest. She kissed Billy on the cheek then rushed out the door and down the stairs.
"I take it you didn't want your friend to overhear our conversation?"
"She's my fiancée. We're getting married in June."
"Fiancée? Really? I bet she wasn't too happy last year when you told her about Mandy Morris being pregnant."
"She can't know about that." There was an urgency in Billy’s voice.
"Interesting. So she doesn't know." This could be good leverage if Billy decided not to cooperate.
"Listen, I'll answer your questions and tell you anything you want to know, but don't tell Marianne about Mandy and me."
"Well, that depends on how honest you are with me. Doesn't it?"
"So what's going on? Is Mandy trying to say I'm the father and going for child support?"
Lane leaned back in his chair and stared at Billy for a long moment. It's curious how just a stare, if timed correctly, makes people very damned uncomfortable.
"Mandy Morris was murdered and her body was dumped in a wooded area near Kramer."
"No way. Seriously? Mandy can't be dead."
"Someone put a bullet through her head."
"Oh, my God," said Billy as he put his head in his hands. Lane watched him carefully. He looked upset, but Lane had seen subjects give Academy Award winning performances before to escape detection.
> "Ever been to Kramer?"
"Where? Hell, no. Never heard of it."
"Tell me about your relationship with Mandy."
"She was in one of my classes and helped me with a term paper. We just sort of hooked up. She was lonely and Marianne hadn't started school here yet. The thing with Mandy just sort of happened. Before I knew it, she was staying here more than at her dorm."
"Were you in love with her? Did you have a relationship with Mandy?"
"No way. I didn't tell her about Marianne and I never told her we were in love or in any kind of big relationship either. I couldn't believe the idiot got pregnant. I thought she was on birth control."
"So you weren't very happy about the pregnancy?" Lane frowned at the kid and thought about what a colossal asshole he was.
"Hell, no. I didn't want to be the father of Mandy Morris's kid. She was a freak. Everyone I know made fun of her. I told her I'd pay to get an abortion, but she said it was too late. I told her I didn't care what she did as long as she left me out of it. I just wanted her out of my apartment and my life before she screwed things up with Marianne and me."
Lane scowled and leaned as close to Billy's face as he could get. By now his fingers had formed a fist and he tried to control the urge to hit him. "Did you want her out of your life enough to kill her?"
"No way. I did not kill her. I couldn't do that."
"Do you own a firearm, Billy?"
"Yeah. My dad got me a Glock 21 for Christmas last year. He was worried about me living in the apartment without protection."
"May I see it?" Lane watched as Billy headed for one of the back rooms for the gun. He didn't like Billy one bit. But that didn't mean the kid was a killer. In a murder like this one, the baby-daddy is usually the prime suspect. But something didn't feel right about accusing Billy of the crime yet.
He was hoping the gun was something other than a Glock; a gun that was capable of shooting a .38 hollow point bullet like the one found in Mandy Morris's skull. Billy returned with a shoe box that he handed to Lane, who pulled out a black Glock 21. Lane examined the gun and discovered it not only hadn't been shot recently, but had never been shot, period.
He handed the gun in the shoe box back to Billy. “Do you know anyone who might have wanted to hurt Mandy?”
Billy shook his head. “She was kind of a loner. Not many friends.”
Lane slipped one of his cards out of his pocket and handed it to Billy. “Call me if you remember anything that might help.”
Later, he sat outside Billy's apartment house. His gut told him that Billy James didn't kill Mandy Morris. But if Billy didn't kill her, who did? And if she'd moved out of Billy's apartment and her dorm, where did she go?
Lane sat at the small round table in his hotel room with the contents of Mandy Morris's investigative file folder strewn across the table and taped on a nearby wall. His heart clenched as he glanced at the photo he'd enlarged from her university identification card. She was so damn young and full of promise. She wasn't beautiful, but she wasn't ugly either. She had the girl-next-door look with pale skin and a scattering of freckles, large green eyes, and a strong, determined jaw. She was a young, smart woman who didn't deserve the lack of respect or love in her life. That someone extinguished this girl like the way one would ground out a cigarette butt was reprehensible to him and made him that much more determined to get her justice.
He pulled out her cell phone records again, hoping they'd provide a clue as to where Mandy went after she moved out of her boyfriend's apartment and her dormitory. Where could she have gone? She had no family to rely on. He used a yellow highlighter to mark the calls she'd made to the Pizza King delivery then dialed their number. The kid who answered the phone was clueless so he identified himself and asked for the manager. He waited a good ten minutes before the manager sifted through his records. It was worth the wait. The manager gave him an address on East 19th Street near the Memorial Stadium. His call to the Chinese restaurant revealed the same address.
He slipped his notepad back in his pocket, grabbed his jacket and left for his car. He turned onto East 19th Street and noticed a bus stop. Since Mandy didn’t have a car, this must be the bus stop where she waited for the bus. He pulled up in front of a newer looking brick apartment building and noticed a woman with a pronounced baby bump pulling a shopping cart filled with packages into the building.
As he approached, he noticed the building was much larger than it initially appeared, housing at least ten or more apartments. Mandy Morris' apartment was listed as 3B so he headed up the staircase. A very pregnant, but tiny woman answered the door. She couldn't have been more than five feet tall. She moved back to let him in after he showed her his badge. She introduced herself as Connie and led him to a small living room where he sat on the sofa. She slowly lowered herself to a chair nearby and looked very uncomfortable.
"What do you want to know about Mandy?"
"Did Mandy live here?"
"Yes, Mandy was already living here when I moved in. She was farther along in her pregnancy than me. Why are you asking questions about her?"
Lane paused for a second, unsure whether to tell the woman bad news like her roommate's murder. He didn’t want to shock some poor woman into giving birth on the spot. The last thing he needed was to be the one to deliver the baby.
"I'm afraid I have bad news. Mandy Morris was murdered and I need your help to find her killer."
"That's terrible." She paled a little but didn't overreact like he feared she would.
"I'd like to ask you some questions about Mandy."
"Sure, anything I can do to help."
"Did Mandy have any visitors?"
"No. It was so sad. I don't think she had any family or friends. She talked a lot about her boyfriend. She seemed to think he would show up any day and rescue her. Of course, the bastard never did."
"So he didn't visit her?" Dumb question. Of course, the little self-involved asshole never visited. He wanted Mandy out of his life.
"No."
"Did Mandy socialize with any of your other neighbors?"
"Sure. We had occasional pizza parties and she'd talk with the other girls who live in the building."
"When was the last time you saw Mandy?" He quirked his eyebrow questioningly.
"She stayed here after the baby was born. I didn't tell the agency."
"What agency?"
"The Forever Home Adoption Agency — F.H.A.A."
"Why would it be their business?"
"They pay our rent until the baby is born, and then we have to find another place to live. Mandy was so alone that I didn't have the heart to ask her to leave. I didn't think she had any place to go."
"Did she say anything about her plans?"
"It worried me when she decided she wanted her baby back." She paused for a second. "I told her I didn't think that was going to happen because she signed some papers. Besides, with all the money the agency spends on rent, food, and prenatal care. It's not likely they'd let her have the baby back."
"Do you know if she talked to anyone at the agency about it?"
"I don't know. I woke up one morning and she was gone. She left her clothes and everything. I've got them boxed in the other room if you want to see them. A new roommate from the agency is moving in soon and I have to get rid of them."
Lane sifted through the few things Mandy Morris owned but found nothing of interest. As he left the apartment, he almost bumped into a pregnant girl with long, blonde hair tied back with a ribbon and about the same age as Mandy Morris. She was carrying a box and looked like she was moving in.
Lane went from apartment to apartment trying to get information about Mandy from her former neighbors.
A brown-haired woman answered the door at the next apartment. She looked like she was eighteen years old if a day. She was tall with a baby bump that barely showed.
Lane pulled out his badge and introduced himself. “I’m Detective Lane Hansen and I’d like to ask you some quest
ions about Mandy Morris.”
“Why are you asking questions about Mandy?”
“I’m in charge of her homicide investigation.”
“Homicide? Mandy’s dead?”
Lane watched her carefully for her reaction. She reached out to grip the door knob as the shock of Mandy’s murder hit her full force.
“When did this happen?”
“Six weeks after she gave birth.”
“Oh my God. I am so sorry to hear this.” She sounded sincere enough.
“Did you know Mandy confided in a nurse at the hospital that she wanted to keep her baby?”
