Fatal Jeopardy

by Marie Force

  “Gotcha. I’ve got plenty still to do here anyway. There’re three more in the back bedroom.”

  “More?” Sam said with a gasp.

  “Back here,” Gonzo said grimly, leading Sam to a bedroom where another couple had been stabbed, possibly midcoitus. The young man was sprawled on top of a female victim whose throat had been slashed, their bloodied bodies twisted together grotesquely.

  Based on the description of Todd Brantley, she decided that he was the male victim. “So there’re eight all together?”

  “Nine.” He pointed to another naked girl on the floor at the foot of the bed.

  “And the rest of the house has been checked?”

  “Yes, the incident appears to have been confined to the basement.”

  “Do you have any gloves?”

  Gonzo pulled a set of latex gloves from his coat pocket and handed them to her.

  After Sam gloved up she went around to the other side of the bed, stepping over the body of the ninth victim as she went. She raised the comforter and took note of the fact that there was only one white sheet on the bed—the fitted one that covered the mattress. The flat sheet was missing, and the comforter was hanging off the bed as if someone had pulled hard on it.

  She told herself that none of this meant the sheet from this bed had been the one wrapped around Brooke. All she knew for sure after her inspection was that there wasn’t a second sheet on the bed.

  “What do we have in the way of identification for the victims?” she asked Gonzo, who had watched her inspection of the bed without comment.

  “Crime scene has found several wallets and cell phones.” He gestured to the pool table where evidence bags were accumulating.

  Her heart pounding with fear and dread, Sam went to the pool table and took a look at the bags. Would she recognize a purse, wallet or phone that belonged to her niece? Probably not. Like most girls her age, Brooke had all kinds of bags and phone cases and other such accessories.

  “Have you kept a list of victims’ names and addresses?”

  Gonzo handed her a notebook with a list of nine names and nine addresses.

  Sam scanned the list, relieved not to see any names she recognized. “Good work. Where are we with notifications?”

  “Carlucci and Dominguez are handling that.”

  “What does it say about me as their lieutenant that my first thought upon hearing that is, thank God I don’t have to do it?”

  “Their sergeant had the same thought. What does it say about both of us?”

  “That we’ve been there and done that often enough that we don’t mind letting someone else do it this time.”

  “I hate this shit all the time, but when it’s kids...”

  “It’s so much worse.”

  “How’s Brooke?”

  “Not great.” Sam kept her voice down. “She’s in the ICU.”

  “God, Sam. What the hell happened?”

  “I don’t know, but she was hopped up on Molly, GHB and booze. And she’d had rough sex with at least one guy.” The idea that there could’ve been more than one was something Sam didn’t want to allow into her racing mind. She zeroed in on the body Lindsey was bagging—a naked female, maybe sixteen or seventeen, with dark hair and skin. Several vicious blows to the neck had ended the life of the exceptionally beautiful girl. “Have you found anything to indicate that Brooke was here?”

  “No, but if she was, it’ll turn up in the DNA.”

  “I don’t know what to do, Gonzo. Do I tell Malone I think she might’ve been here and bring her into it before we know anything, or do I wait until we know more?”

  “You have to tell them now. If you wait and it turns out she was here, it’ll look like you were trying to protect her by keeping it quiet.”

  “I don’t want to tell them. I don’t want to bring that down on her if it’s not necessary.”

  “I know, but if you don’t...”

  “I could do her more harm than good.”

  “Not to mention what you could do to your own career. It’s a sucky situation no matter how you look at it.”

  “Don’t you have to be in court this morning?”

  “Not for another couple of hours.” He shook his head, his face set in a grim expression. “I look at these kids, doing drugs, drinking, having sex...I think, what if that’s my kid someday? What if I give him everything I’ve got and something like this happens to him?”

  “It won’t, Gonzo. You’re going to raise him better than these kids were raised. He’s going to make good choices.”

  “Brooke was raised right.”

  “Yes, but she’s always been a tough one. While this whole incident is totally shocking to all of us and way beyond anything we could’ve imagined her getting into, the trouble itself isn’t entirely unexpected.”

  Freddie came down the stairs into the basement. “Mrs. Chastain is on her way home, and we’ve got other company.” He gestured to Captain Malone and Chief Farnsworth, who were behind him.

  “Who can report on what we have so far?” Farnsworth asked. Even though his voice was gruff, Sam could see he was as affected by the scene as the rest of them had been.

  “I can, sir,” Gonzo said. “We received a nine-one-one call from the maid, a Ms. Edna Chan, at eleven forty-five. She’d returned home from a social gathering to loud music coming from the basement. She went downstairs, turned on the lights and saw Hugo Springer, son of the home owners, William and Marissa Springer, dead of multiple stab wounds. With him were five other young adults—two males and three females. Upon further inspection of the basement and a full search of the upper floors of the house, it was determined that three more victims were in a basement bedroom—one male and two females. In addition to the bodies, drug paraphernalia, including pills and several pipes, and numerous bottles of liquor and beer were found.

  “The home owner, William Springer, was with his wife in Aspen for a long weekend. Detectives Carlucci and Dominguez contacted them, and they are in transit home. They believed their son was staying at the home of Michael Chastain, who is another victim.”

  “I’ve spoken with Chastain’s mother,” Sam said. “She was told her son was spending the night here, but was unaware the Springers were out of town.”

  “So we’ve got two teenage boys who apparently played the parents to score some adult-free time to party and screw,” Farnsworth said. “Where did they think the live-in maid would be?”

  “Ms. Chan had planned to visit her sister’s family in New Jersey for the holiday week, but the trip was canceled at the last minute because her sister’s children contracted the stomach flu,” Gonzo said.

  “And Mrs. Springer never checked with Mrs. Chastain to make sure it was okay for her son to stay there while she was out of town?” Malone asked.

  “Apparently, it was a rare oversight,” Sam said, “but the two families have been friends for years, so it’s possible Hugo convinced his mom that he’d talked to Michael’s mom, and it was fine with her if he spent the weekend with them. We’ll know more when the Springers get home.”

  “Bill Springer is going to raise holy hell and dig into every corner of this investigation,” Farnsworth said. “I want every I dotted and T crossed.”

  “Yes, sir,” Gonzo said. “Carlucci and Dominguez are handling the notifications of the other parents.”

  “I don’t envy them that task,” Farnsworth said. To Malone, he added, “Let’s arrange for some counselors at HQ later if anyone needs to talk it out.”

  Malone nodded in agreement.

  “Anything else?” Farnsworth asked. When no one replied, he said, “I want to be kept aware of every development as it happens.”

  Gonzo sent a look of inquiry to Sam.

  She cleared her throat. “There is one other thing.”r />
  “What’s that?”

  “I believe it’s possible my niece, Brooke Hogan, was here at some point last night.”

  The chief’s eyes widened with shock. “Tracy’s Brooke?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you say that?” Malone asked.

  Sam went through the whole thing, from the moment she and Nick arrived home until she left Brooke at the ICU to come to the crime scene.

  “Is she going to be okay?” Farnsworth asked.

  “Yes, they expect her to be fine—eventually.”

  The chief expelled a deep breath before he addressed her directly. “Lieutenant, due to the potential for conflict of interest, I’m removing you from command of this scene and putting Detective Sergeant Gonzales in charge.”

  “But, sir—”

  “No ifs, ands or buts about it,” Farnsworth said. “If it turns out your niece was either a victim or a perpetrator here, you will need to be far, far away from it. You are to have absolutely nothing at all to do with the investigation. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes. Sir.” Sam wished she could take back the last ten minutes of her life. She should’ve kept her damned mouth shut. Most of the time, she was able to cajole the man she used to call Uncle Joe into letting her do things her way, but that wasn’t going to happen this time.

  “Go home to your family, and give Tracy my love.”

  “I will, sir. Thank you.”

  “I, um...I’m fine with leading the investigation,” Gonzo said with a hesitant glance at Sam, “but I’m due in court at nine for a hearing about Alex’s custody.”

  “I’ll cover for you until you get back,” Freddie said. “First shift will be arriving soon, and we’ll stay on it.”

  “I’ll stay too,” Malone said.

  “Good, then it’s all resolved,” Farnsworth said. “Sergeant, good luck at the hearing. I hope you know we’re all pulling for you.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Lieutenant,” the chief said. “May I offer you a ride home?”

  Chapter Four

  After the fight with Sam, Nick was awake all night. He’d walked away from her without telling her he loved her or making sure she was careful on the job—two things he always said to her because he wanted them to be his last words to her should his worst fears ever come to pass.

  He was superstitious that way. He never wanted her to wonder where she stood with him, so leaving those things unsaid as she plunged into yet another case didn’t sit well with him. Although he didn’t regret making an issue out of the way she’d totally blown off their long-planned and much-needed vacation.

  And then he remembered they’d also invited both their families and many friends to have Thanksgiving dinner at their house. How would they pull that off with their assistant, Shelby, out of town visiting her own family, and Sam working like crazy once again? It would all fall to him—a thought that only further exhausted him. Sam liked to joke that he made it look easy to keep multiple balls in the air at all times, but even he got tired of juggling after months of endless obligation.

  The campaign had kicked his ass, and he still didn’t feel like he’d completely recovered from that, which was why he’d probably had no business playing hockey last night.

  At six in the morning, he gave up on sleeping and got up to take a shower. Moving slowly due to the impressive pain in his side that was reminiscent of the injury last winter, he went downstairs to the kitchen for a pain pill that he chased with coffee.

  He was sitting at the kitchen table, attempting to read the morning paper two hours later, when his phone beeped with a text. Hoping against hope that it might be from Sam, he smiled when he saw Scotty’s name on the screen.

  Are you up? Can I come home?

  Sure, buddy. Come on over. Make sure you tell Skip or Celia you’re leaving and say thanks for the sleepover.

  I will.

  Nick knew he didn’t need to remind Scotty to be polite. Mrs. Littlefield, his former guardian at the state home in Virginia, had instilled beautiful manners in the boy, which was one of the first things Nick had noticed about him when they met last winter. He went to the front door to watch for his son. So much had changed for all of them since that fortuitous meeting. As he watched Scotty come down the ramp from Skip’s house and walk the short distance on the sidewalk to the ramp that led to their home, Nick’s heart was filled with love.

  “How’re you feeling?” Scotty asked as he came up the ramp.

  “Sore but okay. Nothing’s broken.”

  “Good.”

  Nick had come to know the boy so well that he couldn’t help but notice his usual exuberance was dampened this morning. “Everything okay?” he asked as he closed the door and pointed to the closet, expecting Scotty to hang his coat where it belonged, rather than toss it on the sofa the way Sam would have.

  Scotty hung up his coat and shut the closet door. He turned to Nick, seeming hesitant.

  “Scotty? What’s wrong?”

  “You always tell me I can talk to you about anything, right?”

  “Of course you can. Come sit.” Nick sat carefully on the sofa and patted the seat next to him. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Last night, after you guys left, I was really worried that you were hurt worse than you said.”

  “I wasn’t. I told you that.”

  “Still. I was worried.”

  “I’m sorry, buddy. I hate that you were upset about it.”

  “I kept looking out to see if your car was back yet, and I saw someone out here. They went up the ramp with something white and then they ran down the ramp and got in a car that was waiting for them.”

  Nick’s heart nearly stopped beating when he realized Scotty had witnessed Brooke being delivered to their house.

  “And then this morning, I woke up really early, and there was nothing to do, so I went on the computer. Celia lets us use the computer in the office. I knew she wouldn’t care. I went on Facebook and Instagram, and I saw...I saw...”

  “What? What did you see?”

  Scotty glanced at Nick, seeming embarrassed and afraid at the same time. “Brooke.”

  Nick’s stomach dropped. “What about her?”

  “She... She was naked, and there were guys. Doing stuff.”

  Nick closed his eyes as he absorbed the blow. “Oh, no.” He took a deep breath that caused him considerable pain. “Show me.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “Log me in to your accounts. I’ll take it from there.”

  Scotty got up and went to the room Sam and Nick used as an office and sat at the computer to log in to his accounts. “The stuff I saw was on Brooke’s page.”

  Leaning over his shoulder, Nick said, “How do I find that?”

  “Here.” Scotty clicked on the links and opened the pages, which Nick immediately minimized when he caught the gist with a quick glance at what was there.

  “What’s going on, Nick? I thought she was at school until today. That’s why Abby and Ethan stayed over last night. Because their parents are leaving this morning to go get Brooke for Thanksgiving.”

  Nick stood up straight as Scotty turned in the desk chair to face him. A fierce internal debate ran through Nick’s mind as he tried to figure out what he should tell Scotty about what happened last night. The boy was almost thirteen and incredibly perceptive. He’d also witnessed a potential crime, and the implications of that hit Nick like a punch to the gut.

  “I’m going to tell you the truth, okay?”

  Scotty swallowed hard and nodded, his eyes wide with what might’ve been fear.

  Nick explained about how they’d come home to find Brooke wrapped in a sheet at their front door and the long night they’d spent with her at the hospital.


  “Why would she do drugs? She knows better than that.”

  “I don’t know, buddy. Everyone is really upset about that and the fact that she was badly injured, but there’s more. A bunch of teens were stabbed to death in a basement last night, and it’s possible Brooke might’ve been there at some point. She had blood all over her that wasn’t hers. No one really knows what happened. The police are trying to figure it out.”

  “Is that where Sam is?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought she was supposed to be off this week.”

  “So did I—and so did she.”

  “She’ll want to know what happened to Brooke.”

  “Yes.”

  Scotty looked up at him. “Are you mad with her?”

  “If I say yes, I look like a selfish jerk, but I’m disappointed that the vacation isn’t going to happen now. I was looking forward to it.”

  “So was she.”

  “You’re on her side, huh?”

  At that, Scotty finally cracked a small smile. “She must be really upset. And Tracy and Mike too.”

  “Everyone is really upset, and they’re going to be more upset when they hear about the pictures online.”

  “Poor Brooke. No one deserves that.”

  “You’re right. I need to call Sam and tell her about this. Are you okay?”

  “I’m upset that Brooke got hurt and everything, but I’m okay.”

  They went to the kitchen where Nick had left his phone. As he put through a call to Sam and waited for her to pick up, he got out Scotty’s favorite box of cereal and put it on the table with a bowl, spoon and milk. He was relieved when the boy showed some enthusiasm for breakfast.

  “Hey,” Sam said. “What’s up?”

  Nick filled her in on what Scotty had seen the night before and the pictures that had cropped up on the social media sites.

  “I’m on my way home,” she said, surprising him with her lack of response to what he’d told her when he’d expected shock at the very least. “I’ll take care of it when I get there.”