HER SISTER'S KILLER an absolutely gripping killer thriller full of twists

by MICHELLE S. SMITH

  Victoria’s eyes dropped from the scenery outside to her hands. “I get the feeling he might be interested in more.”

  “And you?”

  “I don’t know. Something’s holding me back. I’m not ready, I think. Maybe that’s it. When I’m with him, my brain turns to mush, but when I gain perspective again, I know it’s crazy. During the time he was in Hancock while I was a teen, having him as a friend kind of kept me together. And somehow, I felt protected when Becky and I were hanging out with him.”

  “From your dad?” Janet asked.

  Victoria nodded. “I was terrified he’d come back after the divorce. He’d run away before the police could investigate further and then got himself killed in that freak accident.” She buried her face in her hands. “I was so relieved when he died,” she muttered. “Is that terrible?”

  Janet glanced at her. “No, not at all,” she replied. She turned into a driveway. “Here we are,” she said. “And by the way, in case you’re wondering, neither your mom nor Steve is an option right now. You’re staying with me.”

  * * *

  At twilight, the beggar shuffled down the road, a heavy bag over his shoulder, one hand fingering the piece of paper in his pocket. Although his gait was like that of an old man, when he sat by the roadside to lay down his bag and lift up his shoulders, his face was much younger. He might have been in his mid-forties, with shifting, slightly vague eyes, and a mouth that twitched when he was nervous. It was getting late, and he wasn’t too sure where he was going. He pulled a bottle out of his bag and unscrewed the lid with fumbling fingers.

  “Enough, Todd, enough,” he muttered to himself, pushing the brandy back into the bag. He was trying to stop, but the thought made his hands tremble. The bottle neck was still sticking out of the worn plastic shoulder-bag. Something was keeping it from being tucked neatly away. He peered inside. Some soft material was pooled at the bottom of the bag. He tugged at it and got a shock as the multicolored scarf wove its rainbow pattern over his fingers. Quickly glancing left and right to check no one had seen him, he shoved it back into his bag as far as it could go.

  “Forgot I had that scarf,” he muttered to himself, shaking his head at the brandy bottle. The last couple of nights hadn’t been that clear in his mind. And the couple before that too. Ever since . . . With fingers shaking more than ever, he reached for the bottle again and drank until his nerves steadied. A thin rivulet of brandy ran from the corner of his mouth. All of a sudden, he got up, took out the crumpled paper he’d been carrying in his pocket, and held it close to his nose.

  His eyes were not that strong, and he had trouble sometimes making out faces in the dark, but there was just enough light for him to read the address on it.

  “Hancock Inn,” he muttered. “Main Street.”

  Not far to go. He shrugged his bag onto his back and headed up the road.

  Chapter 13

  Monday morning saw Steve up at dawn. He smiled, a somewhat humorless and enigmatic smile, as he pulled on his work clothes over his lean frame. He paused to grab an apple from the fruit bowl, then hurried out the door, heading for John Gardner’s veterinary practice.

  “Hey, Claire,” he greeted the receptionist, recognizing Karen Timms’s daughter. She blushed and found herself tongue-tied but lifted a hand in greeting. “Is John here?”

  “Dr Gardner?” she asked. “Yes, but he’s busy at the moment, operating. Would you rather see his partner?”

  “No, it’s Dr Gardner I have to see.” He flashed her a smile that would leave her daydreaming for the rest of Monday. “Is it through here?”

  “Yes, but—” The gentle brunette rose and placed a hand on the door. “You can’t go through there now, Steve — I mean, Detective McCade.”

  “Steve is good enough for me,” he replied. “And this won’t wait, I’m afraid.”

  He hurried through the double doors and to the room on the right, where John was operating.

  As the swing-door opened, John glanced up from where he was bent over the operating table. He straightened immediately and rounded the table. A small dog lay unconscious there, beside what looked like bloodied cotton balls.

  “Get out,” John said, his eyes holding those of Steve.

  “Or what?” Steve replied. “You’ll deck me again like you did the other day?”

  “I’m busy,” John said. “Otherwise, yeah, I probably would.”

  The two men, equally tall and of similar build, watched each other closely.

  “You told Detective Wharton you and Rebecca were only friends,” Steve said, his voice taut.

  “Detective W—? Oh, Victoria.” John nodded to himself. “I didn’t realize you were on such formal terms.” Steve gritted his teeth. John stripped off his surgical gloves. “And what I told her about her sister happens to be the truth.”

  Steve laughed derisively at that and glanced at the sleeping dog. “Good to see you’re not squeamish. What are you doing to that poor mutt?”

  “Cleaning his teeth,” John replied. “It’s a bloody job, especially when they’re in such bad shape.”

  Steve slammed his hand onto the operating table, stirring the dog slightly so that it whimpered. “Let me tell you something, Gardner,” he said. “It is you who will end up in bad shape if you don’t come clean. What do you know about what happened to Rebecca Wharton? I suggest you tell me. Because she is dead, and if you know something, you need to spit it out. Otherwise, whoever killed her might just decide to come after you, and you wouldn’t look nearly as good as that dog if you were lying covered in blood on a steel table.”

  John was silent.

  Something in Steve snapped, and he rammed John up against the wall, his face inches from his.

  “What’s it to you, McCade?” John panted, straining his muscles to break free. He wrenched himself away and sent Steve hurtling backwards. His back crashed into the operating table just as Victoria and Claire burst in, followed by St. Patrick, who growled menacingly at Steve.

  “What do you think you are doing?” Victoria shouted, stepping between the two men. “We can hear you from the waiting room! No, get back!”

  Steve shook off her hand, his chest heaving. “I’m going, but I’m not finished with you, Gardner,” he said. He turned to Victoria. “You ask this guy about his relationship with your sister and see if you still think he is genuine.”

  Chapter 14

  “What was going on this morning?” Karen Timms demanded when she saw Victoria at the police station. “Claire said Steve and John were fighting.”

  Victoria sat down on the chair opposite Karen and shook her head in disgust. “Don’t ask me,” she replied. “Steve and I agreed that I would talk to John this morning. He was supposed to be working on the Jenkins angle. Instead, when I got there, I found John Gardner shoving Steve around and the two of them about to go for each other’s throats. Afterwards, John had to rush off to an emergency, and I never got to talk to him.”

  “Apparently John went for Steve the other day too,” said Karen. “Steve almost had his nose broken, and John ended up getting stitches. You’ve seen his scar.”

  “Steve did that?”

  Karen nodded.

  “Could John have been harassing my sister?”

  “No!”

  A bitter laugh sounded at the door, and the women turned to see young Gavin Jenkins, the teenage son of Megan, standing at the doorway.

  “You want to know the truth?” he asked, “You want to know what really happened that day John got that scar? Because I saw it.”

  He ran a hand through his greasy hair and pushed his fringe from his eyes self-importantly.

  “They were fighting because John thought Detective McCade was someone else and he was trying to protect Rebecca.”

  “What do you mean? Who did he think he was?” asked Karen.

  “My honorable father,” he replied.

  Karen blinked. “Your father?”

  “Come sit down and tell us,” Victoria o
rdered. “I’m getting a crick in my neck staring up at you like this.”

  Gavin sat down, reveling in his self-importance. “See, my dad is middle-aged,” he said. He pulled a piece of gum out of his pocket and shoved it in his mouth. “And he has everything he ever wanted. Big property, good little wife, money, you name it. His son is a bit of a disappointment,” he added with a sneer, “but other than that, life has been good for the old man.” He shook his head. “And then his mom-in-law, my grandmother, gets sick and winds up in hospital, and he suddenly realizes he may not be immortal.”

  He blew a bubble and waited until it popped before continuing. “I don’t know what garbage they told you about her. The truth is that she needed an operation and was too damn scared, so she kept insisting on doing other stuff than what the doctors said.”

  “And ended up with gangrene?”

  He shuddered. “Yeah.”

  He was silent while he blew another bubble.

  “No one should die like she did.” He grimaced. “But it was her own fault. She was stupid. Just like my dad.”

  “What was your dad stupid about?” asked Victoria. She made eye contact with him to try to keep him focused.

  “What about?” he laughed. “About your sister, of course. Darling little Rebecca.”

  “Don’t talk about my sister like that,” Victoria snapped, and he smiled as though he was enjoying her anger.

  “Sorry,” he said unrepentantly, his jaws still chewing. “Anyway, Rebecca was always there at the hospital in her cute little nurse’s uniform, and middle-aged Dad suddenly discovered something — someone — he couldn’t have.”

  He leaned back, putting his hands behind his head. “It was pathetic, disgusting, to watch,” he said. “Dad would try anything to get her attention. Flowers. Gifts. Always under the pretext of visiting his mother-in-law. And Mom thought his devotion to Gran was so touching. I knew of course. I saw him hurrying out the side door with packages under his arm on the days he went without Mom. I saw him coming out the florist with flowers that we never saw at home. So I followed him to the hospital and discovered his dirty little secret.”

  “And Rebecca?” asked Karen. “How did she respond?”

  “I think she was scared,” he said. “I went to visit Gran once on my own and saw Dad trying to get close to her, when he thought they were alone.”

  “So where does the lawsuit fit into all of this?” demanded Victoria.

  “I told Mom what was going on. She didn’t take it well,” Gavin muttered. “She confronted Dad and told him she was leaving him.” He laughed out loud. “I’ve never seen him so frightened. He claimed it was all the nurse’s fault. That Rebecca had been after him, harassing him all the time, neglecting my gran. Mom believed him. Wanted to believe him. So when Gran died, he egged her on to file a lawsuit against the hospital. There wasn’t really enough evidence to put anything specifically on Rebecca, so they just went generally for the hospital, but Rebecca was implicated. If the hospital lost, she could have ended up without a job.”

  Victoria glared. “And your father was happy to encourage this lawsuit?”

  “Of course. It redirected Mom’s anger toward a guilty party she could cope with. If Mom divorced him, he could lose one hell of a lot. His money. His status. Maybe even his home. One pretty little nurse wasn’t worth that.”

  Victoria gritted her teeth, reminding herself that she could not hit him. “And so he left my sister alone?”

  Gavin grinned, removing the gum from his mouth to pick his teeth. “You don’t know my father, do you?” he said. “He didn’t give up. Just became better at hiding what he was doing. He found out where she lived, which is not that difficult when you live in Hancock.”

  “How do you know all this?” demanded Karen, giving him a dirty look.

  “Me? I tracked him,” said Gavin with a wave of his hand. “I downloaded an app onto his phone. The same one they downloaded onto mine when I was younger. I didn’t even need to leave the house. And then when I saw where he kept going, I went there myself one evening, and it was where I suspected — the home of Rebecca Wharton.”

  “Why would your father persist in pursuing a relationship that my sister clearly didn’t want?” asked Victoria.

  He shrugged. “He’s a powerful man. He’s never heard the word ‘no’ before, or if he has, he’s seen it as a challenge. When he wants something, he goes for it. Doesn’t matter who gets hurt.”

  “But what does this have to do with John and Steve?”

  “Right. Sorry, I got sidetracked.” He returned the gum to his mouth, and blew another bubble, taking his time and enjoying the impatient irritation of his watchers. “So I went down to the nurse’s house again about a week later to see if I could catch Dad out. He didn’t have his phone with him, so I wasn’t sure where he was. Turns out he wasn’t there that night, but John was. And so was Steve. Steve was hammering on Rebecca’s door and kept knocking. It was dark outside, and John was inside. John opened the door and shouted at Steve to go away. It sounded like he mistook him for my dad in the dark and then he punched him. Almost knocked him out before he’d realized his mistake, and by that time, Steve was so angry he was ready to kill John too.”

  “You realize that what you’ve told us incriminates your father,” Victoria said. “He could have become violent when Rebecca kept refusing him.”

  “Or my mother did.” Gavin shrugged. “Had a fit of jealous rage. Either of them could have lost it actually.” He leaned back, blew another large bubble, then sat up, smiling, and looked at the two women.

  “So,” he said. “What do you think? Which one of my parents killed Rebecca Wharton?”

  Chapter 15

  Victoria just needed to get away. No working after hours today. She headed to the Hancock Inn at 5 p.m. and sank down onto a chair outside on the patio, under the shade of an old tree overlooking the lawns. The tranquility and quietness of the greenery helped slow the adrenaline that had been keeping her going over the past while.

  Her phone rang, and she answered, her pulse racing. “Steve. Hi.”

  “Hey, where are you?”

  She told him and rang off.

  When the server returned a little later with the cocktail Victoria had ordered, the girl suddenly said, “Hey, weren’t you staying here?”

  Victoria smiled. “For a few days.”

  “Wait a minute . . . A guy left this for you.”

  Victoria took the note warily. The paper was folded and dirtied as though it had been carried around for some time.

  “Vicky,” a voice called, and she glanced up quickly and down again to hide the flush that was spreading from her neck up to her cheeks.

  “Steve,” she replied casually, turning the note in her fingers.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  She opened it, frowning. For a moment, she sat still, absorbing the crude message in front of her, then shoved it across the table to him.

  The letters had been cut out of a newspaper and sprawled across the battered page, a mixture of upper and lower case: LeAVE nOw If yOu DoNT wanT to DiE liKE yr SISteR.

  Steve stared at her intently. “Where did this come from?”

  “The server said a man brought it,” Victoria replied numbly, watching in detached fashion as Steve called the girl over, the threatening words echoing themselves in her head.

  “An old beggar brought it,” the waitress said, in response to Steve’s question. “I quite often see him around.”

  “The war vet,” muttered Steve. “He’s finally turned up.” He turned to Victoria and placed a hand on her arm. His fingers felt warm and strong. Comforting but at the same time, uncomfortably strong. Confused about how she felt, she withdrew, but only after she had allowed his hand to rest on her arm for a moment.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I guess.” She felt dazed and sick but didn’t want to show it.

  He frowned. “Whoever wrote this was serious,” he said.

  Sh
e lowered her head into her hands, trying to process the threat. Hancock was so small that everyone living here probably knew she had been staying at the inn, though it seemed unlikely that a wanderer like the war vet would have. Someone must have given him the note.

  Someone wanted her gone. Someone was trying to scare her. But who?

  Out of the blue, sickeningly, a flashback from her high school days rose up in her mind. She saw a scrawny, pimply teenager from her past, gawky and awkward, with an intense stare that set her skin crawling as he watched her sister across the classroom.

  “Whatever happened to Joe Evans?” she exclaimed to Steve suddenly.

  She could tell from Steve’s reaction that he immediately recalled who she was referring to.

  “Became an academic,” he said. “Went to some major university and got a PhD.”

  “So he’s no longer in Hancock?” Victoria didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

  “Actually, he’s back.” Steve nodded, his eyes narrowing as he followed her train of thought. “He’s doing research on the environment or something. I never see him without wishing I’d beaten him to a pulp.”

  “For frightening Becky? You pretty well did beat him to a pulp. Don’t you remember? You were shouting ‘I’m gonna kill you,’ and you hit him so hard his nose wouldn’t stop bleeding. Have you spoken to him about my sister’s murder? Interviewed him?”

  “No reason. There’s nothing to link him to the case.”

  “What about his history with my sister? The way he always used to follow her around, trying to carry her bags?” Victoria stood up. “I’m going to track him down and find out if he’s involved.”

  Steve rose too. “Do you want me to come for some protection?” he asked. He was close to her, breathlessly close, and she recalled the brief kiss of the other day.

  “Stop it,” she muttered to herself, putting herself on the other side of her chair to maintain her distance from him.

  “Pardon?” said Steve, startled. A spark lit his eyes in a disturbing way, and she couldn’t figure out if it was anger or the intensity of the moment that made him look that way.