Liar

by Campbell, Jamie

  “Come on, we need to get you back to the car,” Simmons soothed her. “Are you hurt?”

  “No, I just need to know Leo is okay,” Amelia lied. She heard her own truth ring in her ears – her whole body ached with fatigue and the strain.

  Simmons helped walk her back to his waiting vehicle, the lights still flashing blue and red. He took a knife from his dashboard and cut the zip tie around her wrists. The relief was instant as the blood started to flow freely into her hands again. She moved them, rubbing at the tender spots. They were going to take a long time to heal.

  “Do you need to go to the hospital?” Simmons asked, trying to visually assess her medical status. Besides the bruises around her wrists and ankles, she didn’t look in too bad of a state.

  “I need to go to the bakery,” Amelia replied with stoic resolution. “I need to make sure Leo is okay.”

  “Get in.” He nodded at the passenger side door. She did as she was told, grateful she didn’t have to beg. She figured he was probably desperate to know the same thing as her. After all, they were Leo’s comrades, probably friends too, he needed to know the detective was okay just as much as anyone.

  CHAPTER 28

  The scene at the old bakery was like something out of a movie. Amelia sat in the car as strictly instructed and watched the police as they moved in formation inside the building. Somewhere along the line they had called for backup. She could count at least eight officers and knew there was more out of sight on the other side.

  The gunshot she had heard while running away was still echoing in her mind. She felt the pain of it as if it had pierced her own heart. She prayed and hoped with everything she had it hadn’t been Leo to take the bullet. She would never forgive herself if that was the case. She shouldn’t have listened to him and run off, leaving him to fight alone. She should have stayed to help, she would have found a way. If Lou didn’t kill her, then the guilt would.

  Her eyes flicked to the clock on the dashboard every few seconds. She looked from the door to the dashboard and back again, an endless loop of worrying as the minutes ticked by. She had no idea how long the police should have been inside the building, but every moment told her it was too long. They needed to get medical help for Leo, they had to make sure he survived.

  Finally, there was movement. One of the officers left the building, his gun holstered. She sighed, that was a good sign, right? She hoped so.

  He went to his car and used the radio. Amelia had to fight her body to remain in the vehicle. She wanted to storm over to him and demand answers but she knew it wouldn’t get her anywhere except banned from the scene.

  She watched as another officer exited, followed by another. She studied their faces for a reaction, some sign about what happened inside the building. Perhaps Pace took Leo and left? Maybe they just found Leo’s dead body by itself? Perhaps Pace talked his way out of it? Not knowing was killing her.

  Another few officers came out, one was limping slightly. Amelia’s heart leapt when she realized it was Leo. This time, she wasn’t going to fight her urge to disobey orders. She ran from the car and headed straight for him.

  “Leo, you’re okay.” She flung her arms around him, not caring about what was appropriate. “Thank God.”

  “I could say the same about you.” He managed a grin through his split and swollen lip. She let him go and took a good look at him. He was covered in bruises, a deep gash to his cheek that had already stopped oozing blood.

  “What happened to Pace?” At seeing him alive, she had to ask the other burning question on her mind.

  “Look for yourself.” Leo pointed to the front door of the bakery as Shawshank and Simmons frog marched a very angry Commissioner Pace down the few steps to the car. “I knocked him out and called for backup. It took quite a lot of convincing for the rest of the squad to believe that I needed to arrest our boss.”

  Amelia made a face – it would have been difficult. “Is he going to jail?”

  Leo nodded slowly, as much as his injuries allowed. “For life, I hope. Now, let’s get far away from here. I don’t know about you, but I could do with a drink.”

  “Me too,” Amelia quickly agreed.

  * * *

  Sharing a drink was still a long way away as Leo and Amelia sat in the police station meeting room. They were fed and given a cup of coffee to calm their nerves but nothing stronger. They needed to fill in Deputy Commissioner Vega so they could file charges on Pace. Leo didn’t want him only going down for assault, he needed the arrest warrant to state double murder too.

  “How did you work it out?” Vega asked, the voice recorder sitting on the table between them.

  “It was a little old lady that did it, actually,” Leo admitted. He told the story of how Violet Stream had taken a photograph of the rich woman off the television.

  Leo had recognized the woman as Megan Pace, the commissioner’s wife. At first he assumed she had met with Renee to offer her help and condolences. That explained the flowers but it didn’t explain the argument she had with Renee outside her house. It was the odd thing out that Leo couldn’t make fit.

  Megan Pace kept flowing into his mind, bothering him. He needed to understand how she fit in so he thought about all the reasons she could have for arguing with Renee White. In the end, the only scenario that became clear was that she knew something which made her very angry. Finding out your husband had an illegitimate child would definitely do that.

  The moment Leo came to that conclusion, everything had fallen into place. He recalled the regular blood donations the commissioner made, doing it at least once a month. He never missed an appointment with the blood bank, claiming it was his community service. However, to someone with Hemochromatosis, it was a lifesaving necessity.

  The recordings on Renee’s cell phone cemented it. Leo could clearly recognize the man threatening her as Commissioner Pace. He’d put up with that voice every day for years in the station, he would know it anywhere.

  From there, Leo struggled to find a connection between Pace and Master Lou. He knew he had to figure out how they worked together or he wouldn’t be able to connect all the pieces. Leo knew Lou was involved through Blake Turner, if he didn’t find the missing piece, his case would be dead in the water.

  Working on nothing but a hunch, Leo contacted the gentlemen’s club and pretended he was making an enquiry on behalf of the commissioner. When the receptionist assisted, Leo found his connection – Pace was also a member. It was him who Lou had met with the previous Sunday.

  Coming to the realization that Commissioner Pace was up to his eyeballs in the murders of Jordan and Renee, Leo’s mind spun with the information. He knew he would have to take the same action as Renee did – he would have to go straight to the district attorney with the information. At the very least, she would get the internal investigation going within the police force so she could build her case.

  When Pace turned up at the old bakery building, Leo was actually happy. If he could get him to admit guilt, it would be much easier for him to convince everyone else. It had been tough fighting with the large man, but Leo would do it all again in a heartbeat.

  “So Pace is Jordan White’s father?” Vega shook his head, confusion beaming from every pore on his face.

  “He is. Pace went to visit with Renee to discuss the drugs she was getting for him. She took Jordan with him as a bargaining tool, trying to get him to leave her alone. She thought he would gain sympathy, remind Pace they once shared something.”

  “And he just killed him?”

  Leo nodded. “I don’t think he meant to, he said he placed his hand over the kid’s face when he started crying and he suffocated him. Pace must have slapped Renee around and the kid got upset. He then went about leaving the body in the dumpster behind the pharmacy, but it took him a few days to have the opportunity to do it.”

  “We searched for two full days for Jordan and Renee knew where he was all that time? Why didn’t she tell us what happened?” Vega was st
ill trying to settle it in his mind. Amelia was too, even though she had already worked it out.

  “Because she was scared of Pace. If she said anything, he would have killed her. She knew Jordan was dead but couldn’t tell anyone. Renee wouldn’t have been able to explain his absence, especially not to her husband. So she staged the kidnapping so someone would find his body and it would look like some random person killed him.”

  “Two days she had us running around looking for him.” Vega shook his head in disbelief. “Two days. She’s a good actress.”

  “She was desperate,” Leo corrected him.

  “But he killed her anyway.”

  “Pace knew Renee didn’t have anything else to lose. She had gathered all her evidence and hidden it, she was ready to go to the media and the D.A. If he let her live any longer, he would have lost everything,” Leo said, trying to imagine how scared Renee must have been. She wouldn’t have been able to trust the people that were supposed to protect her. It would have been a nightmare. “He called her repeatedly, probably threatening her.”

  “That was the private number!” Amelia exclaimed, relieved to finally know who it belonged to.

  “All of Pace’s numbers are private,” Leo replied.

  “So he injected her with insulin and made it look like a suicide?” Vega asked.

  “He hired Master Lou to do the dirty work. He didn’t want to risk being connected to Renee,” he clarified. “He also hired him to pay Blake Turner to take the fall for Jordan’s death. I suspect Lou has been on Pace’s payroll for quite some time but he only just got the big payout for the deaths. He quit his job because he didn’t need the money anymore.”

  Amelia interjected. “Pace also got Lou to repaint his car after Jordan’s death so it couldn’t be identified by the witness. He took it to Smith & Son’s Mechanical Repairs if you need to follow it up.”

  “Thanks.” Vega nodded before turning to Leo again. “You couldn’t have just gone on vacation during your suspension like a normal person?”

  Leo grinned. “I almost wish I did.”

  “I’m going to go check on the paperwork. You’ll be alright here for a while?” Deputy Commissioner Vega stood, turning off the voice recorder. He waited for the confirming nods before leaving them alone.

  Amelia turned her attention to Leo. “I still don’t understand what was in Renee’s storage locker. Did you have any revelations about that too?”

  “Renee had more evidence. The documents you found in the gym were the tip of the iceberg. I found a note in her phone that explained it all,” Leo explained. “She thought Pace might have her followed and take what she had so she moved some to the gym locker as insurance.”

  “She was a smart woman.”

  “And right. Pace had Lou stalk her. He found out about the storage locker, had a key made, and stole everything that was inside. But he never found the gym, only you did.”

  Amelia shivered with the memory of being following for that information. “I take it the guys who ran me off the road and kidnapped me were also on Pace’s payroll?”

  “They were. They, along with Master Lou, are all in police custody now.”

  Amelia nodded, taking it in. “I’m guessing Pace was also the one who bugged Bree Rowland?”

  “Yep. He discovered Renee went to her and wanted to make sure a story never got out about him. He was listening in to make sure Bree wasn’t working on anything that would expose him. He signed the bugs out against another case so they wouldn’t be missed.”

  Silence lingered over them, letting their bruised bodies do all the screaming. Neither was ready to move, it felt too good to be finally sitting down in safety.

  “So, I’m guessing the fact Turner was a patient of Renee’s at the hospital was just a coincidence?” Amelia asked.

  “Yeah, I think so,” the detective replied. “I can’t find any other connection. I bet neither of them realized at the time how their lives would interweave later.”

  Amelia shook her head. “That was probably a good thing.”

  “You know, there is one thing I still can’t work out,” Leo started.

  “And what’s that?”

  “Renee’s bank account. She had thousands of dollars stashed away. Pace was paying her for the drugs, her silence, and for Jordan and she just squirreled away the money. Why?”

  “I can answer that one.” Amelia managed a grin. “It was her escape fund. Now, before you put on that disbelieving face, hear me out. She was probably planning on escaping from Pace, not her husband. If she saved enough, she could take Kale and Jordan and just disappear. That required money and I’d bet that’s what she was saving up for.”

  Leo returned her grin. “I think you’re right, it was an escape fund. I guess Kale can use it now to start over. Maybe somewhere else where there isn’t so many bad memories.”

  “I hope so,” she replied.

  The silence returned, the only sounds coming from the busy reception desk on the other side of the wall. Amelia remembered the first time she had been in the break room, only ten days earlier. She should have run then. Or perhaps not.

  “So how are you doing?” Leo asked, noticing how quiet she had become.

  “I’m glad to be alive,” she confessed. “I thought for sure one of us wouldn’t make it, if not both of us.”

  “I knew we’d get through it.” He smiled. She knew he was telling the truth. She returned his grin, realizing how special he really was. Never before had she met anyone that had so much conviction in his optimism.

  She also realized she had never put such faith, belief, and trust in another person before. She had entrusted Leo with her life and he had kept her alive. Perhaps having a little faith wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

  In her next thought, she remembered how she had been lying ever since meeting the detective. She couldn’t do it any longer. “I have to tell you something.”

  She waited while he stared at her inquisitively. His face was so open, so honest, it was almost breaking her heart knowing she had kept something so big from him. She had outright lied to his face, not just once but repeatedly. He didn’t deserve it.

  She took a deep breath. “I’m not psychic. I can’t predict the future and I certainly can’t feel things from the past. I’m so sorry I lied.” She waited for the onslaught of anger that she deserved.

  “I know.”

  Amelia wasn’t sure whether she had heard correctly. “What did you just say?”

  “I know you’re not psychic,” Leo repeated gently. “I’ve known for a few days.”

  “But… how?”

  “You kept dodging my questions. Either your psychic ability was failing or you weren’t being entirely honest with me,” he said, trying to reassure her he wasn’t chastising her. “What I couldn’t figure out is how you did know things you shouldn’t have. So you’re either very observant or a good guesser?”

  “You’re not going to believe me if I tell you.”

  “Try me. I’m very open minded,” he teased.

  Amelia didn’t hesitate this time. “People can’t lie to me, I hear the truth even if they don’t say it out loud.”

  The statement hung in the air like an oppressive cloud. Long enough for Amelia to be certain she was making a fool of herself. Of course he wasn’t going to believe her, who would? She sounded like a psychopath, a lying psychopath. She had broken her golden rule of never telling anyone and it was going to backfire on her.

  “It’s okay, you don’t have to believe me. Forget I said anything,” she said, feeling her face go red from embarrassment. “I should go home.”

  She stood to go, feeling a fool. Suddenly, Leo placed his hand on her arm to stop her. “I believe you.”

  Amelia looked at him, to make sure he wasn’t joking or being sarcastic. His eyes were as earnest as they always were. She waited to hear the truth but he wasn’t lying. He really did believe her.

  “You do?”

  “Yeah, I believe you. There
’s more to this world than what we know. If people can’t lie to you, then they can’t lie to you,” Leo replied as she resumed her seat. “It’s how you knew Turner didn’t kill Jordan, isn’t it?”

  She nodded. “I saw him confess on the news and I heard him say he didn’t do it.”

  “And you didn’t want an innocent man to go to jail.”

  “No, it’s not that, I didn’t care about him. If he was stupid enough to confess, then he deserved to be in jail. I didn’t want the real murderer to get away with it.”

  Leo chuckled, he actually found her intolerance of the human race endearing. “So what are you going to do now?”

  Amelia shrugged. “Go home. Break up with Lane if he’s still there. Go back to work.”

  “Are you sure you want to make such a big decision after going through an ordeal like we just have?”

  “I already decided on it before all this.” Amelia gestured to the statement in front of them, the one that explained exactly how she was kidnapped earlier that day. “I don’t want to settle anymore. Perhaps I was wrong about the way people work. Maybe there is a chance for me to find love yet.”

  A smile spread across Leo’s lips, painful when it hit the red raw split. “I’m glad to hear it. You deserve to be happy.”

  “I think I do too,” she grinned.

  Never in her wildest dreams did Amelia think it was possible to find a person she actually liked and not just tolerated. She had immersed herself into the investigation to ease her conscience, never believing she might solve her own problems at the same time.

  “What are you going to go?” She asked, trying to turn the heat away from herself.

  “Well, I heard the job for Police Commissioner is up for grabs. I thought I might throw my hat into the ring,” he teased, although it did have a ring of truth to it and Amelia knew it without having to hear any lie.

  “I think you’d make a great commissioner. You really should consider it.”