CHAPTER 34
At four o’clock the next morning, I woke to find Nick sitting on my bed, his hands gripping my arms, shaking me awake. The lamp on my nightstand had been switched on, the light beaming so brightly I stuck a hand out in front of me to shield my eyes. “What’s going on? Did something happen? Is Maddie okay?”
“She’s fine. She’s asleep.”
“Why are you in here then?”
“Your cell phone keeps ringing.”
I looked at my phone. It wasn’t lit up. “I don’t think it was my phone. I would have heard it. Maybe it was something else?”
“It’s your phone, Sloane. I know your ring tone. Honestly, I don’t know how you slept through it. I could hear it from the living room.”
Odd.
“Really?”
He nodded.
I sat up, rubbed my eyes. “I ... I’m sorry. I took something to help me sleep.”
“Geez, whatever it was, it must have been strong. You were completely out.”
After spending so many restless nights tossing and turning, unable to still my mind long enough to get the rest I needed to think straight, I’d had enough. I blinked my eyes a few times, trying to kick-start my engine. It didn’t help. Every cell in my body begged me to return to sleep.
I grabbed my phone and clicked it on. Nick was right. I had three missed calls, all of them within the last ten minutes.
“Who has been calling you?” Nick asked.
“Annie.”
“Who’s Annie?”
“My gran’s next door neighbor.”
“Cordelia’s neighbor?”
I nodded. “She’s in her eighties, close to Gran’s age, I think.”
“How’s Cordelia been? Must be about five years or so since I saw her last.”
“She’s the same spunky, high-strung woman you remember. Still has more energy than I do too.”
“Is she still living in Park City?”
I nodded. “I usually drive down one weekend a month and we have brunch together. I’d leave on a Saturday, stop in and see Shelby, and then go stay the night at Gran’s, and we’d go to Sunday brunch.”
“It doesn’t make sense that her neighbor would be calling you at such a late hour. You better call and see what’s going on.”
My limit for receiving bad news had reached max capacity. Annie wouldn’t call unless she had a good reason. I put the phone on speaker and dialed. It rang a few times, and then Annie said, “Sloane, I’m so glad I reached you. I apologize for the late hour.”
“It’s all right, Annie. What’s going on? Where’s Gran? Is she okay?”
“Well, I don’t know. I think so.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t get in touch with her just now. She’s in Las Vegas, you see. I’ve tried calling several times, but she’s not picking up. You know how she is when she gets around a blackjack table—she can go all night, and she always switches her phone off.”
I had a vague memory of Gran telling me about an upcoming trip to Vegas. With all of the recent events happening in rapid succession over the last week, it had slipped my mind.
“When is she coming back?”
“I talked to her yesterday. She said she was leaving this morning, but she wouldn’t be driving this early.”
“I’m sorry, Annie. I still don’t understand. Why is it so important for you to reach Gran right now?”
“Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. It was the strangest thing. About an hour ago, I woke up completely parched. I went to the kitchen to get a glass of water, and I noticed there was a light on at Cordelia’s house.”
“In which room? Is it possible she left a light on and you’re just noticing?”
“No, no. This was an outside light. One of those motion-detector things, you know? I went to the window and looked out, and that’s when I saw him.”
“Saw whom?” I asked.
“A hoodlum, lurking outside of Cordelia’s house. He had his hands cupped over his eyes like he was looking through binoculars, and he was staring through her window. I think he was planning on robbing the place and was checking to see if she was there.”
My hands were sweaty, shaking, making it a struggle for me to hold the phone.
Nick reached out, taking it from me. “Here, let me help,” he said as he put the phone on speaker.
“Who’s talking?” Annie asked. “Is it Cade? Sloane, are you still there? Are you listening?”
“I’m here,” I said. “When you saw the man next door, did you call the police?”
“Not at first. I figured he’d be in and out of her place before anyone could get here, and I wasn’t about to let him get away.”
“What did you do?”
“As you know, my husband Jerrold died last year.”
To keep her from embarking on one of her longwinded stories, I cut in before she had the chance to continue. “I know, and I’m sorry about Jerrold, Annie, but I need you to tell me what happened after you saw the intruder.”
“Yes, well, if you would have allowed me to finish ... Cordelia bought me a .38 Special after Jerrold died. It’s a pretty little thing too. I keep it in the glove box in my car. I went out to the garage to get it, and, well, wouldn’t you know it, I realized I’d forgotten to take my car keys with me, so I went back into the house to get them.”
Nick and I exchanged a discouraged glance, hoping she was nearing the point of her story.
“I opened my front door,” she continued, “pointed the gun, and yelled at the man. I told him he had ten seconds to get off her property or I’d shoot.”
“What did he do?”
“Nothing, at first. He just stood there like a big fat dummy. Well, guess he wasn’t fat. Didn’t seem like it to me, but anyway, it was cold outside, and I wasn’t going to stand there all night, half-dressed, and try to have a conversation with a halfwit, so I started counting down from ten.”
“And then?”
“Once I reached five, his right hand started to come up, and I could see he was holding a gun too.”
“If it was dark outside, how could you be sure it was a gun?” I asked.
“When he tripped the motion detector, the exterior light stayed on, and he was standing right beneath it. I saw that gun in his hand, and I told him if he even so much as lifted it another inch in my direction, I’d blow his brains right out the backside of his head. And would you believe it? He started laughing! It unnerved me to see some idiot with shit for brains standing there mocking me, so I showed him.”
She showed him?
I could only imagine what was coming next.
“I put a bullet in his shoulder, and while he was bent over in pain, I said I used to be a police officer and went to the shooting range once a week. It’s a lie, of course—well, the police officer part is—but I do go to the range with Cordelia all the time, and I’m a damn good shot.”
“What happened after you shot him?” I asked.
“He ran off.”
“Where?”
“Down the street.”
“Did you see where he went?”
“He got into a car parked about five houses down.”
“What kind of car?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t have my glasses on. The main thing is, he’s gone now.”
While she laughed into the phone, proud of her achievement, my heart sank.
He’d gotten away—again.
And he’d be back—again.
“Annie, did you ever call the police?”
“Sure, I did.”
“And have they arrived yet?”
“They just walked in the door right before you called.”
“Are they there now, in your house?”
She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Most of them are checking out Cordelia’s property. Brought some fancy lights in so they could get a look at her yard. I asked why they bothered with such things. I mean the man’s only an intruder, righ
t? They refuse to give me any information. It looks like an alien ship landed over there. All of the neighbors on my street are awake, wondering what’s going on. You’re a private investigator. What do you think they’re doing?”
For now, the less she knew the better. “Are any of the men from the police department in your house with you?”
“Yeah, one. And between us, he’s getting on my last nerve. Smells funny too. Stinking up my house as we speak. And I don’t care for his attitude either.”
“Is his name Cooper?”
She paused and then said, “Yoo-hoo, policeman, what’s your name, please? Hello?”
“Annie, did he answer?”
“Not yet. I think he mentioned his name when he arrived, but I was in a state, and now I can’t recall. He’s talking to somebody else. Gave me a lecture about all of the things I did wrong and what I should have done. I kept Cordelia’s house safe, but does he care about that? Noooo.”
“I’d like to speak with him,” I said.
“Whatever for? I just told you what happened.”
“Please, Annie, just put him on the phone.”
“All right, fine.”
I heard her walk over to him and say, “Excuse me, I have Sloane Monroe on the phone. She’s Cordelia’s granddaughter. She wants to talk to you.”
“Tell her I need to speak with Nick,” Coop said. “And I need privacy.”
“Says he wants to talk to someone called Nick,” Annie said. “Does that make any sense to you?”
“It does. Hand him the phone.”
Nick took the phone off speaker, spoke to Coop for a minute, and then handed it to me.
“I want you back here,” Coop said. “We need to get this mess figured out.”
I sighed. “Cade’s going to be in the hospital for a while. I haven’t even been able to see him yet, and I’m worried about leaving before I have the chance to—”
“Now, Sloane. He has a long road to recovery. He’ll still be there when this is all over. You can spend time with him then.”
He was right, but it didn’t stop me from feeling like a yo-yo being tossed back and forth from one state to the other. I was tired of coming and going, tired of chasing dead ends. I was just ... tired.
“You listening?” Coop asked.
“Yeah.”
“How soon can you leave?”
“Couple hours.”
“Make it one.”
Ordinarily I was too feisty to be told what to do and when to do it, but my confidence tank was depleted. And he was right. In my current state, I stood a better chance at finding the killer with Coop by my side. “Okay, fine.”
I ended the call, pulled my knees to my chest, and buried my head between them. I needed to think, but even more importantly, I needed to accept the horrible truth in front of me. I had assumed someone was around, watching me, keeping tabs on me and those close to me. I hadn’t considered Gran might be a target. It was a mistake. A big mistake.
Nick sat on the bed next to me. “Sloane, hey, it’s going to be all right.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Look at me, please.”
I raised my head.
“It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault.”
He said the same thing Bonnie had said, but he was wrong. They both were.
“The truth has been right in front of me this entire time,” I said. “And I didn’t want to believe it. This was never about Shelby, and it was never about Cade. It was about me. It’s been about me all along.”
Shelby.
Cade.
Maddie.
Gran.
All victims. All have one person in common. Me.
They were targets because of something I’d done to offend someone else. I drank in the moment, let it all sink in, reflecting on the times in my life where two little words had sometimes crossed my mind: What if?
What if my line of work put those I loved in jeopardy?
Now it had.
Shelby was dead because of me. Cade was fighting for his life because of me. Maddie was shot because of me. And now Gran. I only hoped we found her before ... I wouldn’t allow myself to think it.
CHAPTER 35
I stood by Cade’s bedside, watching him sleep. He looked battered and worn, thin—so thin and emaciated. It was like he was withering away. I leaned down and kissed his brow.
Nick poked a head around the corner. “Hey, Coop’s asking if we’re on the road yet. You ready?”
“I just need one more minute.”
He nodded and left the room.
I’d hoped to have the chance to speak to Cade before I left, but I didn’t want to wake him, so I leaned in and whispered, “I’m sorry about what happened to Shelby, and for what happened to you. If I had known being with me would have caused all of this, that I would have been the reason Shelby was killed, I would have given you up before anything happened between us.”
“Is it true, what you said?” I turned, coming face to face with Wendy. “You’re the reason my kid is dead? This psycho running around shooting people, it’s all because of you?”
“I mean, we haven’t caught him yet, so I don’t really—”
She reached out, slapping me across the face. “Is it true? Well, is it? Answer me!”
Before she could hit me a second time, Nick stepped between us, shoving her against the wall and using his arm to restrain her.
“Nick, I’m okay,” I said. “It’s okay. We need to talk for a minute.”
He stepped back, but remained between the two of us.
“I don’t know if it’s true yet,” I said. “It looks that way.”
She wagged a finger in the air. “I knew from the moment I met you that you were trouble. Tried to tell Cade too. He wouldn’t listen. He was blinded by you just like everyone else. Not me though. You’re nothin’ but a stupid—”
Nick grabbed Wendy, shoving her toward the door. “You’re finished.”
“Not even close. This is between the two of us, not you. Mind your business.”
“I’ll put you in my car right now and drop you at the police station. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind drug-testing you to see how much you’ve pumped into your system.”
She stamped a foot onto the ground, huffing like a bull ready to charge.
“Get out of here,” Nick said. “Go get yourself cleaned up.”
Wendy flipped her middle finger and marched out of the room.
Nick turned toward me. “Enough of this, Sloane. I’m not going to stand here and watch you beat yourself up anymore.”
“I deserve it though, Nick.”
He shook his head. “This isn’t like you. You’re better than this. Tougher. Smarter. What would your sister say if she saw you like this right now?”
“This has nothing to do with her.”
“Sure it does. Sam Reids murdered your sister. Then he came after you, came after your friends, targeting innocent women along the way. You found him and you stopped him. If you really want to help Cade and his family right now, let’s catch this guy.”
I couldn’t save Shelby. She was already gone. I was weak, but I was also strong, the pain I felt quickly turning into something else—anger.
CHAPTER 36
I set a plastic file box down in front of Coop and popped the lid open. “All of my major cases are in here. They’re arranged by year, and then in alphabetical order.”
I expected the gesture to whet Coop’s appetite and thought he would dive right in, but he didn’t. He just sat there, staring at the files with an odd look on his face.
“Did you hear what I said?” I asked. “What’s going on with you?”
He cleared his throat, grabbed a plastic cup full of water, swallowed it down, and handed the cup to Nick. “Would you get me a refill?”
Nick grabbed the cup, looked at me like he was just as confused as I was, and walked out of the room.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” I asked
.
“You know earlier, when you were on your way back from Wyoming, and I told you we’d found your grandmother and she’s okay?”
“Yeah?”
“Thing is, I needed you back here, not going rogue on me like you always do in these situations.”
What was he saying?
“Where is she? Where’s Gran?”
“We found her car. It was abandoned. Looks like she made it to Fillmore, stopped to get gas, and then ... well, we’re unsure of the rest. We searched the car. Her bags were still there, her purse, her phone. We’re processing it now.”
Even though I’d braced for the impact his words would have on me, it was like he was speaking in slow motion, every syllable of every word fighting to come through.
“Any witnesses? Did anyone see her?”
“The store clerk said she came in this morning, used the restroom, bought a bag of chips, and an iced tea. They had a short conversation, and she seemed fine. Surveillance shows her walking in and out of the store alone, and there was no sign of anyone suspicious lurking around.”
Nick entered the room, placed the cup of water in front of Coop, and sat down. “What did I miss?”
Coop brushed a hand across his forehead and filled him in.
“What about the—”
“Playing card? A King of Hearts was taped to the steering wheel.”
“What was written on it?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing at all. The good thing is our shooter has been killing on the spot. He didn’t this time. I’m assuming he abducted her, which means he has a reason for keeping her alive.”
“The good thing?” I said. “There’s nothing good about this situation, Coop. You told me she was all right! You lied to me!”
“Directing your anger toward me isn’t going to change the sequence of events. Wherever she is, I’ll still find her, and I’ll find him.”
Gone Daddy Gone (Sloane Monroe Book 7) Page 13
