“Don’t tell me you were thinking cheeseburger and fries,” he said in mock horror.
“No.” She studied him through half-closed eyes, pretending to size him up. “More like grilled chicken on whole wheat. With coleslaw.” She was well aware that her tone was flirtatious, and she didn’t try to rein it in.
He grinned at her. “Well, that’s a favorite of mine too.” He leaned forward. “At least you never took me for a killer. I appreciate that.”
“To be honest, Sam, there were moments I wasn’t convinced you weren’t. It’s just that I never actually believed you were.”
“Well, that’s something, I guess.”
The waitress brought their drink orders. When she left, Hannah said, “You were right. It’s Eva, not Andrea, we arrested.” She paused. “Your wife is dead, Sam. I’m sorry.”
“Why did Eva tell me she was Andrea?”
“To save her own skin. You are her husband, so there’s a limit as to what you could testify about. There’s also the issue of Eric Vance and the mob.”
“Eva is really connected?”
“Maybe. But Eric clearly was. And she can identify his killers. I think she thought she was safer being Andrea than Eva.”
“The man who broke into my house, he was mob connected too?”
“We don’t know who it was, but I’d guess that’s the case. Someone who followed Eva here.”
“What about the rest of her story?”
“Well, it’s taken a while to sort it out—Ira and Eva are so busy pointing the finger at each other, we’re still not sure about some of the details. Most of what she told you is true, in essence. But the particulars are very different.”
Hannah hesitated. Sam had to know, but she hated to be the one to tell him. “It was Andrea who killed Lisa. The Boston cops were able to match her prints to those lifted from the soda cans at your house when Lisa disappeared.”
He looked as though he’d been stabbed. “My wife killed Lisa?”
Hannah nodded. “For all the reasons Eva told you. Andrea grew up poor, with a mother who wasn’t much of a mother. Then she discovered she had a twin, someone who by pure luck had been given a golden life. She was jealous and bitter because it could have been her instead of Eva who’d been adopted out.”
“So she took it out on Lisa?” Sam’s voice cracked.
“Andrea wanted to be part of a family. The Pattersons rejected her. That’s how she saw it anyway. Lisa’s offering her money to go away was the last straw. Andrea flew into a rage and killed her.”
Sam’s eyes were hollow.
“Andrea tried to make sure you weren’t convicted,” Hannah said. “That part is true. She did her best to influence one of the jurors.”
“And then she married me.”
Their sandwiches arrived. Sam only stared at his. Hannah took a small bite before continuing.
“Eva says Andrea married you with the best of intentions. I believe that. It was the life she’d wanted all along, remember. But the reality didn’t quite live up to the fantasy.”
“So she faked her kidnapping in the hopes of getting her hands on Molly’s trust money.”
“She wanted out of the marriage, and she wanted money. Eva’s timing in coming to visit couldn’t have been worse. Andrea and Ira had their plan in place. It worked well because Molly was going to be at Heather’s sleepover that Saturday night. They didn’t want to risk putting it off.”
“But murder ...”
Hannah brushed bread crumbs from her lap. “I don’t think murder was part of the original plan, but it worked well for them. Andrea would get her share of the money with no need to go through the pain of a divorce, and Ira would get the medical practice. It apparently riled him that he spent all those years working with your father, and you waltzed back in and got half the business.”
“Andrea was the one who ended up dead though.”
“Eva claims she killed Andrea in self-defense, but that will be up to a jury to decide. Myself, I don’t buy it.”
“Did Ira know?”
“He says he helped move the body but that he had nothing to do with the murder itself. Didn’t even know about it until after the fact.” Hannah paused. “He also claims he was under the impression that it was Eva who was killed, and the only reason he went along with keeping it quiet was because he thought he was protecting Andrea, his co-conspirator.”
Sam looked forlorn. His face was slack, like a balloon that had lost most of its air. “Ira and I have been friends since grammar school. How could he do this?”
“Money. Ira has a lot of gambling debts. And resentment about the medical practice. It was a double whammy.”
“I feel utterly betrayed. I can’t even remember what it felt like to love my wife.”
“I know the feeling.” Hannah laced her fingers around her iced-tea glass. “I loved my husband. I was devastated when he died. But when I found out about the affair ...” She bit her lip. “I can’t remember what love felt like either,” she said softly.
Their eyes met and held. Then Hannah looked away. Until recently, she’d been sure she’d never know love again. Now she was beginning to think maybe she did have it in her, after all.
“Why did Andrea use Maureen’s name?” Sam asked. “Did Eva explain that to you?”
Hannah nodded. “She was afraid to use her own name because Hal Patterson would recognize it. Or recognize Wycoff at any rate. And she’d heard Eva talk about Maureen. It was an easy identity for her to assume.”
Sam ate in silence. “I should be happy. I’m no longer a suspect in my wife’s death, and I am cleared of Lisa’s murder. I don’t feel happy though.”
“No, I imagine not. I do have one bit of actual good news for you though.”
“What’s that?”
“We recovered the ransom money. Most of it, at any rate.”
“Hey.” He offered a forced smile.
“It will get better, Sam. You have Molly, and your father and brother. You aren’t alone.”
“You were? After your husband, I mean.”
“My mother tried. But mostly she wanted me to forgive Claire and move on.”
“And you couldn’t do that?”
“Well, I have moved on with my life, I guess.” It was true, she realized. She’d sworn off one-night stands and cigarettes. She’d planted petunias, made peace with Dallas, begun to create a real home here in Monte Vista. “Maybe one day I’ll get around to forgiveness too.”
“No children, though?”
Hannah hesitated. She’d never told anyone but Malcolm. “I was three months pregnant when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I wanted to wait until the baby was born to start treatment, but the doctors recommended against it.”
“You had an abortion?”
Hannah nodded. Tears stung her eyes. “The chemo would have killed the baby anyway. But I keep wondering if maybe I should have waited until after it was born.” Maybe if she had, Malcolm and Claire would never have happened. She sometimes wondered if Malcolm hadn’t been secretly punishing her. On the other hand, if she’d waited, maybe the cancer would have spread, and she’d be dead.
Sam peeled her hand from the glass she was gripping and held it in his own. “Isn’t there a saying that life isn’t so much about beginnings and endings as it is about muddling through the middle? I guess in a sense that’s what we’re all doing.”
Hannah smiled to herself. She’d certainly muddled through the last few years. But she had an inkling that might be changing.
“I think there’s also a saying,” she told him, “about endings being new beginnings.”
“Sort of like today being the first day of the rest of your life?”
“Sort of.”
He grinned. “Well, having lunch with you is a good start.”
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A body count that’s rising. A lone witness on the run. A killer who’ll do anything to buy silence. It’s the most dangerous case of attorney Kali O’Brien’s career—and it’s hitting way too close to home.
The last time Kali spoke to her brother, John, he was desperate to tell her something but too drunk to get it out. Now he’s dead, an apparent suicide by overdose. That would be shocking enough, but the cops have more bad news: John was also the lead suspect in the recent double homicide of two women in Tucson. The victims include the wealthy heiress of the corporation John worked for and Olivia Perez, a pretty college coed whose family is determined to make someone pay for the crime, and Kali’s at the top of their list—if she can’t clear his name first. It’s a tricky case that’s about to get even trickier.
Kali didn’t know her brother very well, and in death, the only clue he’s left behind is as damning as it is mysterious. Hidden in the pages of his dictionary is a photo of three attractive young women. One is Olivia Perez. One is a street-tough runaway named Crystal. The third woman—a strip club dancer and porn actress—has just been found in a ditch, the victim of a brutal slaying. As shocking as the woman’s death is her connection to Kali’s brother. How did they know each other? What was John trying to tell Kali the night he died? And would someone kill to keep him from saying it? Suddenly her brother’s suicide is starting to look a lot like murder.
Kali’s only hope for solving the case lies in finding the last girl in the picture—a witness who knows far more than she should, maybe too much to live—and Kali has to get to her before the killer does. It’s a search that will plunge her into the secrets and lies of her own family and deep into the sex industry’s hidden underworld of going-nowhere-fast girls looking for easy money, where fantasies can be had for a price, blackmail is deadly, and silence can be bought with blood. And if Kali isn’t careful, she could lead a cunning killer straight to the last target while putting herself in line to be the next victim... .
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CHAPTER 1
The call came a little after two in the morning and pulled Erling from a particularly pleasant dream. As a homicide detective with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, he was used to being awakened at odd hours, but engaging his brain was always a struggle. He remained blurry-eyed, clinging to the remnants of sleep, until the dispatcher read off the address of the crime scene—one that was painfully etched in Erling’s memory.
Instantly, he was fully alert.
His pulse quickened and an involuntary cry escaped from his lips, waking Deena, who had long ago learned to sleep through the intrusion of middle-of-the-night calls. She shot him an inquiring look, which he pretended not to see.
“Sorry, honey,” he said instead. “I’ve got to go.”
“What is it?”
“Just work.”
“Figures.” Deena sighed and rolled over, turning her back to him.
A shaft of moonlight illuminated her form and Erling took a moment to study the familiar curves of her body, the splash of auburn hair streaked with gray. There were times he could still see in her the playful and sexy woman he’d married twenty years earlier. What he saw more often though, or rather felt, was an aloofness tinged with reproach. It had been that way for four years—since their eleven-year-old son, Danny, had died in a skateboarding accident. Erling could never decide whether the tragedy had caused the problems in their marriage or simply exacerbated existing ones he’d been blind to at the time.
Erling headed for the bathroom, where he showered quickly before pulling on slacks and a collared knit shirt. Before leaving the house he gently shook Deena.
“Don’t forget, Mindy needs to be up by seven in order to study for her sociology test.” At eighteen, their daughter still had trouble getting out of bed on her own.
“I’ll make sure she’s up.”
He kissed Deena on the cheek. “Have a good day.”
“I’d tell you the same but I guess a dead body kind of precludes that.”
Especially given the address, Erling thought with an ache in his gut.
There was no mistaking that the large, tile-roofed house on Canyon View Drive was a crime scene. Half a dozen patrol cars were parked in front. The coroner’s van and mobile crime tech unit sat in the driveway. Yellow police tape cordoned off the house entrance and part of the yard. Already, a news helicopter was circling over head.
As he passed under the tape and through the front door, Erling felt a tremor of longing and sadness. Please, he whispered silently, don’t let it be her.
Inside, the evidence of carnage was everywhere. A blue hand-blown glass vase had been knocked from the library table, one of the floor lamps had been overturned, and the rocking chair lay on its side. Bits of flesh and brain matter were splattered against the cherry cabinets. Dark, sticky blood pooled on the terra cotta tile floor. Erling had trouble breathing.
Across the room, he could see a female form crumpled against the wall. Olive-toned skin. Wavy black hair, long enough to fall below the shoulders. Erling felt a surge of relief. Definitely not Sloane.
“Other one’s over there,” the uniformed officer told him, pointing in the direction of the fieldstone fireplace. An image flashed in Erling’s mind—Sloane in front of a blazing fire, facing him and slowly unbuttoning her blue silk blouse. Don’t think about it, he told himself. Stay cool and don’t think.
“It’s pretty awful,” the uniform warned. “I couldn’t do more than take a peek myself.”
Erling glanced over and saw a woman’s leg and sandaled foot protruding from behind the sofa. Female also, but fair. He didn’t recognize the shoes but that didn’t mean anything. He hadn’t seen Sloane in five months.
He said a silent prayer as he moved closer. The body was sprawled on the floor, arms and legs akimbo, the face largely blown away. Erling’s gut rumbled and churned.
It might not be her. No way to know for sure without a formal ID.
But in his heart, he knew. The curve of the neck, the mole on her shoulder, the jade-and-silver ring on her right hand. Swallowing hard against the bile that threatened to rise in his throat, he crammed his shaking hands into his jacket pockets, hoping no one would notice, and closed his mind to the memories.
Erling experienced a familiar tug of anger and sadness at the senseless loss of life. The feelings came with the job, he supposed. Only this time the glaze of professional distance failed him. This wasn’t just another victim, this was a woman he’d held and kissed, and laughed and loved with. This was Sloane.
Michelle Parker, his partner of six months—a younger detective with the tenacity of a bulldog—had been talking to the responding officers when he arrived. Now, notebook still in hand, she crossed from the wall of windows in the living room to join Erling by the kitchen archway.
Michelle brushed a wisp of chestnut brown hair from her forehead. “What a way to start the day, huh?”
“It’s what we do,” he snapped. His chest was so tight he could barely breathe.
Michelle’s face registered surprise at the curt response. A moment of hollow silence followed while she regarded him thoughtfully. “Some of us do it in better humor than others,” she said finally.
The sudden, if subtle, hint of tension in the air jolted him like the snap of a rubber band against his skin. Get a grip, Shafer. You want the whole damn world to know?
“So, what’ve we got?” he asked, more hospitably.
Michelle glanced at her notebook. “Call came in just after midnight. A neighbor noticed the lights had been on all day and the morning paper hadn’t been picked up. She called the house and when no one answered, came over and rang the bell. Then she went around the side and peeked in the window. She saw a body on the floo
r and called 9-1-1.”
“Do we have an ID on the victims?”
“Nothing positive. Best guess is that the older one is Sloane Winslow. This is her home.”
Older one. Erling cringed. Sloane was only forty-one, two years younger than himself, and much too lovely to be called older.
“Her maiden name was Logan.” Michelle paused. “As in Logan Foods.”
When he didn’t respond right away, she added, “The grocery chain.”
Erling whistled softly. It bought him a moment’s time. “You know anything about the family?”
“I didn’t even know it was a family business until the neighbor filled me in. Do you?”
The moment of truth.
Or not.
Erling knew he should remove himself from the investigation. He had personal connections to one of the victims. Emotional connections. Big-time emotional connections. Department policy dictated he step aside and let someone else handle it.
But he couldn’t do that. Not without explaining. Word would get around. Eventually it would get back to Deena. His stomach clenched. He couldn’t. He simply couldn’t take that chance. Not after Danny.
Besides, he wanted to personally nail the creep who’d done this. He needed to do it—for Sloane even more than for himself.
Michelle gave him that curious look again. She was still waiting for an answer.
“Only what I read in the papers,” Erling said. The lie burned his tongue. Maybe, just maybe, they’d find the killer and wrap this up quickly.
“So, tell me.”
“The grandfather started the business right here in Tucson. Sloane Winslow and her brother, Reed Logan, have controlling interest, though it’s Reed who actually runs the company. Winslow lived in L.A. with her husband. It wasn’t until she divorced and returned to Tucson a few years ago that she got involved in the business at all.”
The Only Suspect Page 37
