Poison Candy - Book 2: Behind Closed Doors Series

by H. H. Fowler

  Should she tell Anwar’s parents the truth of what she’d heard? That their son could possibly be dead and that his body may never be found? The thought rattled Dallis so much that she was tempted to pull her car back onto the street and head back home. But why contact me, Anwar? Why put me in the middle of this? I was going along fine until I met you…and if you’re dead, you’ve just made it that much worse. Dallis swatted at the tears in her eyes – surprised that she couldn’t gain control of her emotions.

  She didn’t know Anwar that well, yet she could remember every vivid detail of their conversations and that lopsided grin that never seemed to reach his hazel eyes. Even now, his words from their first meeting pounded her thoughts, imagining what could have been between them had the relationship had time to develop. “By the way you look after yourself, I should have guessed that you are a swimmer,” he had told her. He extended his hand with his gaze directly on her. “You’re very pretty by the way…I’m Anwar Daxon.”

  How could she forget how confident Anwar had been that day? She loved that in a man, but she was always too shy to express her feelings. It made her uncomfortable, especially the way Anwar would stare at her and compliment her body. But in retrospect, she wondered if she had been too harsh with her retorts, and unknowingly pushed Anwar away. Probably that was part of the reason why he’d stood her up at the restaurant, because Dallis was convinced that no man who was truly interested in a woman would make a mistake like that. But she had resigned in herself that maybe she and Anwar weren’t meant to be. The Lord knew what was best for her life.

  Sighing deeply, Dallis turned off the car engine and made ready to exit the driver’s side. She casually glanced in the rearview mirror to check her features. But in doing so, she suddenly caught a glimpse of a black limo parked on the side of the road. It looked out of place because they were in St. Elmo’s Valley, which was one of the poorest parishes in Bliss Haven. Black limos just weren’t seen in these parts. Why hadn’t she noticed it when she’d pulled up several minutes ago? Could she have been so enmeshed in her thoughts that it had unconsciously escaped her scrutiny? She so badly wanted to dismiss it as paranoia, but her gut was screaming that it was possible she’d been followed.

  Dallis gave in to her panic. How could she be so stupid? It was obvious the person who’d fired the shots at Anwar knew he was talking to her. Anwar had mentioned her name repeatedly. It wouldn’t take a genius to connect the dots that she was the daughter of a prominent bishop. She should have gone to the police instead of taking the chance to come here to St. Elmo’s Valley. Now her life could be in danger. Bewildered, Dallis spun the ignition to a hard right and then stomped her foot on the accelerator. The small car jerked violently onto the asphalt and shot down the two-way lane. I shouldn’t have done that. I’ve made it look so obvious.

  Dallis looked back in her rearview mirror to confirm her fears, but the limo hadn’t moved an inch. She was quickly putting distance between them, and soon she began to wonder if she had misread the signs. But she refused to ease her foot from the accelerator. Her deceased grandmother had once told her that it was better to err on the side of caution than to be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. At this point, her safest bet was to head straight to the police station.

  ****

  Karissa stirred just in time to see the black limo moving onto the asphalt. From six that morning they’d been parked across the street in an unmarked police car – hoping to catch a glimpse of Anwar sneaking into his house. They’d been scoping out the Daxon’s home for the last three days, but without much activity. The hours were long and in an effort to manage the boredom, the detectives alternated between the watch. It had been Karissa’s turn, but after sitting still for so long, her lids began to dip. Now she was afraid that they had missed the chance they’d been waiting for.

  “Wake up, Richard and let’s go!”

  Richard jumped up and instinctively followed Karissa’s gaze to a black limo that had pulled out in front of them.

  “Didn’t Mr. Beaufort’s daughter report seeing a black limo leaving the scene of Jorge’s murder?” Karissa queried. “What are the chances that this could be the same one?”

  “Was the limo parked in front of the Daxon’s home?”

  “I don’t know, Richard, but we’re letting too much time go by just sitting here.”

  “You’re right, but we stay under the radar until I say differently.”

  Karissa shrugged. “It’s your call.”

  ****

  Dallis picked up her cell phone from the passenger seat and called her father. It gave her one of the most comforting thoughts, even though she’d questioned her father’s reaction when Anwar was first introduced to him at the Bliss Haven Swim Complex. They’d clicked instantly, and Dallis was hoping this favorable exchange would be enough to enlist her father’s help. When Gregory spoke into the phone, Dallis greeted him without preamble.

  “Daddy, I need you to meet me at the police station.”

  “At the police station?” Gregory parroted. “What’s going on?”

  “I can’t explain everything to you now, but I think something terrible has happened to Anwar.” Several beats of silence passed and Dallis assumed the call had been dropped. “Daddy, did you hear what I said?”

  “Is this the one who recently joined your swim team?”

  “Yes.”

  “What led you to believe that something has happened to him?”

  “He called me yesterday and he was very frenetic. I spoke to him for less than two minutes, the next thing I heard were several gunshots in the background and then the phone went dead.”

  “Why didn’t you come to me about this yesterday?”

  “I don’t know…I was unsure of how you would react.” Dallis looked in the rearview mirror, but did a double take when she noticed the black limo was gaining speed behind her. Her heart almost fell out of her chest. “Daddy, I’m being followed…it’s a black limo that I believe followed me all the way to St. Elmo’s Valley.”

  Black limo? Gregory wondered if it was his men. They had sworn that they hadn’t anything to do with Jorge’s murder, or with the shooting at his wife’s art gallery, but Gregory wasn’t buying it. Viola could be as evasive as she wanted to be, Gregory knew she was the mastermind behind this mess. He wasn’t about to sit back and act passively about this. Maybe it was time that he risked everything and reveal all to Richard.

  “Dallis, listen to me. Keep driving until you get to the police station. Don’t stop for anything. You hear me? I will meet you there.”

  “Daddy, I’m scared. Supposed I’m bumped off the road or something? My car is too small to outrun whoever it is behind me.”

  Gregory closed his eyes in anger and cursed Viola for taking her wrath out on his family. How the hell she expected him to remain loyal to the organization while doing stupid things like this was beyond him.

  “Stay focused, honey,” Gregory told Dallis. “Keep driving and I will meet you at the police station as quickly as I can.”

  “I love you, Daddy.”

  “Don’t make it sound so final. Everything’s going to be alright.”

  Dallis tossed the cell phone back in the passenger seat and applied pressure to the accelerator. The needle hovered between seventy and eighty miles an hour. Tears began to sting Dallis’ eyes as she thought about the predicament she was in, but she stayed the course. The police station was just under ten minutes away. With the traffic being so scarce, she thought she may reach there even sooner. She kept looking in the rearview mirror and it appeared each time she looked, the limo had closed in the distance between them.

  Her cell phone rang, causing her to take her eyes off the road for a second. Thinking it may be her father, Dallis reached over to the passenger seat and grabbed it up. In shock, she stared at Anwar’s number appearing on the caller ID. In the milieu of her subconscious, Dallis heard blaring horns, blasting incessantly to get her attention. When she finally looked up,
she suddenly realized her car had swayed over to the wrong lane and was precipitously gliding toward a flatbed tow truck.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Carnage was everywhere – unlike it had ever been seen before in Bliss Haven. At least that was the news headline Dallis saw in a fleeting vision before she’d violently swerved back into her lane. Heart thundering in her chest, she looked back at what could have been the end of her. She wanted to pull to the side of the road to collect her composure and utter sincere gratitude to her Lord, but the limo behind her had not been shaken from its mission. It powered on, looking as if it was preparing to pull next to her. The only thing blocking that from happening was a stream of cars that were now flowing in the opposite lane. The limo couldn’t even hit her from behind now because two cars had somehow slipped in between them.

  It had to be God intervening on her behalf, Dallis thought. If He could keep the limo at bay for another five minutes, she would make it safely to the police station. But in the midst of her fear, Dallis couldn’t help but wonder about the phone call she had just received. Unquestionably, it was Anwar’s name that appeared on the caller ID. That could only mean one of two things, Dallis thought. Anwar was still alive and was trying to reach out to her or his attacker had taken possession of his phone and was trying to trace the last person Anwar had spoken with. The latter made Dallis change her mind about returning the call.

  Anwar and his craziness. Several weeks leading up to this moment, Dallis had repeatedly questioned Anwar’s evasiveness. He’d stopped coming to swim practice when he had practically begged her to get Coach Erin to put him on the team. They would make plans to hang out, but he would find excuses to back out at the last minute. The last straw was when he had stood her up in a restaurant at the Quad.

  Dallis suspected that something big was going on behind the scenes – something Anwar was into and didn’t want anyone to find out about. Why else was this limo following her? There had to be something of value they wanted. At first, when Anwar told her that he knew who killed his friend, Dallis allowed that tidbit of information to go without proper scrutiny. But when she thought of the recent murders in Bliss Haven – particularly that of Jorge Bentley, and then thought of how Jorge was from St. Elmo’s Valley, things began to click.

  It was possible that this friend Anwar that was referring to could be Jorge Bentley. And if by some chance she was right, it would be hard for Dallis to understand why Anwar would want to keep his connection to Jorge a secret, unless her suspicions were on point: Anwar had something to hide. Maybe Anwar had killed Jorge and was trying to cover it up? The thought sent a cold chill down Dallis’ spine. It would certainly explain why it seemed as if Anwar was on the run. His actions would make perfect sense. Guilty people did weird things. But two questions still gnawed at the back of Dallis’ mind. Why would Anwar kill his friend and what did this black limo have to do with it?

  With her confusion increasing, Dallis began to feel a sense of detachment. Should she even be concerned about Anwar, knowing being involved with him could destroy her life? She looked in her rearview mirror one last time, her foot still pressing firmly on the accelerator. To her surprise, the limo had pulled to the side of the road. Another car was parked behind it with a small red and blue light flashing on top of the roof. Dallis could only assumed it was an off-duty officer who was about to give the limo driver a speeding ticket. Relieved, Dallis grinned. She made a left turn at the traffic light, thanking her Lord for making a way of escape.

  ****

  Richard turned off the portable siren and then stepped cautiously out of the unmarked police car. Karissa followed closely behind. Richard’s career started on the streets, where he and his partner back then would patrol the highly criminalized areas of Bliss Haven. So, even though he’d long been elevated through the ranks to detective, that gutsy part of him remained firmly intact. However, the Bliss Haven Police Force rarely used unmarked police cars to perform traffic stops – for the simple reason of public safety. Criminals posing as police officers were known to pull motorists off the road in cars the motorists assumed were legit.

  Even though Richard knew the policy of the police department, he deemed this as a necessary traffic stop. This vehicle could be the same one used in the murder of Jorge Bentley. The only thing Richard was really concerned about was his and Karissa’s safety. Stopping a high-end vehicle with tints could turn out to be deadly. St. Elmo’s Valley was known as the spot where drugs and illegal immigrants thrived. They’d followed this limo out of that parish. There was no telling what the occupants had been up to. Gun drawn, he stepped ahead cautiously.

  “I’ll take cover,” Karissa told Richard. “Just be careful going in.”

  Richard nodded his response. However, before Richard could spit out any commands, the window of the driver side of the limo eased down and a familiar face peered out, flashing a lopsided grin.

  “Hello, Detective Shelby. What are you doing in these parts?”

  Richard kept his gun drawn, even though he knew the face that had greeted him cordially. He’d learned in his profession a long time ago not to trust any car he’d pulled over to the side. “Don’t you think that should be my question to you?” he asked in feigned humor. “I did not know the bishop had business in St. Elmo’s Valley.”

  Gregory’s men were always calm and calculating – traits they’d picked up from their malevolent boss, Ms. V. The one in the driver’s seat kept that cordial smile going when he responded, “The bishop is well-known throughout all the parishes. But even if we weren’t on any assignment from the bishop, I was not aware that being in St. Elmo’s Valley was a crime.”

  Depends on what you were doing, Richard wanted to say, but instead, he said, “Actually, I stopped you because you were going forty miles over the speed limit. That’s a five-hundred-dollar ticket.”

  “Oh, that…” the driver said dismissively and began reaching for his wallet. “Five hundred? That’s it? We can pay that right now. We were rushing to make an appointment.”

  Richard hated the dry sarcasm coming from this arrogant chap. He would have told them to step out of the limo and then given them a hard time if it was left up to his vindictive side. But Richard was a smart man and he knew these types of men were only about manipulating a situation. They had the look of coldblooded killers in their eyes, which made Richard wonder why Gregory kept such men around him – especially being the prominent bishop that he was. Unless Gregory and his men were of the same soil.

  Observing the men and their Grinch-looking smiles, Richard suddenly experienced a light bulb moment. He could almost believe Asia’s story about her father being involved with Jorge’s murder and it would not be hard to convince him that these men had been assigned to do the dirty job. But how would he go about proving it? Normally, when Richard had a light bulb moment, his hunches weren’t that far away from the truth.

  “I don’t believe you were in St. Elmo’s Valley on the bishop’s bidding,” Richard said, lowering his gun. “But I’ve had a long day and I’m gonna take it easy on you guys.”

  “Wow, detective, you would do that for us? I’ll be certain to tell the bishop about your act of kindness.”

  Richard changed his mind. He would have let the men go without paying, but their smugness had pushed his annoyance over the edge. “Don’t get too excited. Wait here until I return.”

  “By all means…by all means.”

  As he wrote up the ticket, he mumbled more to himself than for Karissa’s benefit. “It’s all making sense to me.”

  Karissa smirked and then stated, “You had another one of those light bulb moments. What is it this time?”

  “Those men belong to Bishop Beaufort and they were not speeding without a purpose,” Richard said. “They told me they were in a rush to meet an appointment, but I don’t believe it. Maybe they were in hot pursuit of someone coming out of St. Elmo’s Valley.” He stared Karissa dead in the eyes. “It was your watch. Tell me exactly what you saw?
”

  Karissa froze in her answer. She had fallen asleep for a few minutes and may have missed that vital piece of information. But should she confess and tell Richard?

  “Richard,” she started, but was waved away by Richard’s active imagination.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Do you still have that license plate number you’d written down?”

  Karissa smiled, relieved that she had been saved from lying to her partner. “I told you that it could turn out to be a pertinent piece of evidence.”

  “Even though it’s Gregory’s men behind the wheel, I will see if it is a match,” Richard said as he took the writing pad from Karissa. “This limo looks slightly newer than the one we saw parked in front of the gate.”

  Richard returned with a smile on his face. “The license plate numbers didn’t match,” he said, handing Karissa back her writing pad. “Run both of those plates through the system and see what you come up with.”

  “If the numbers didn’t match, why are you smiling?”

  “I don’t know,” Richard replied. “I just have an inkling that I’m on to something. Are you certain that was the plate number of the limo that was parked in front of the Beaufort’s gate?”

  “As sure as the sky is blue,” Karissa said. “Give me a minute.”

  While Karissa sat in the passenger’s seat of the unmarked police car to get the requested information, Richard allowed his thoughts to briefly mull over his list of suspects, which was very short at the moment. He did not need to be told that Gregory was hiding something. Asia seemed to think it had something to do with her boyfriend’s murder. Richard had no way of substantiating Asia’s claim until this black limo serendipitously appeared in front of them. The actions of the men looked suspicious, which could be just what he needed to fully pursue Asia’s lead. Karissa appeared before him with a bemused expression.