I didn’t know what I expected, but more than this, for sure.
I glanced at the clock. “It’s already past ten. It’s going to feel really early when I have to get up for work tomorrow.”
“Tell me about it.” She frowned, her expression barely visible except for the parking lot light overhead that scattered just enough brightness through the dark. “Are you sorry we came?”
I thought about it a moment, weighing my response and plunging into those gray areas of contemplation. “No. I want to know the truth . . . I think. It’s confusing.”
“Just remember that you still don’t have the truth. You’re operating under assumptions right now.”
“And now I have to live with this knowledge until Chase returns home in a week and a half.” I shook my head, beyond flabbergasted with myself. “I should have just let this go from the start. That’s what normal people would do. I’ve propelled myself into the upper echelons of psychos and obsessive, clingy women.”
“I know you don’t belong there.”
“No one thinks they belong there. That’s what makes them unstable.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Jamie brushed off my neurotic rant. “You’re the most stable person I know.”
“Then what am I doing here? This is the kind of thing that ends up on those Forensic Files type of shows. And this is precisely why it’s a bad idea to be led by emotion. I’m everything I counsel people not to be.”
“You’re going overboard.” She nudged me, her gaze fixated on something in the distance. “Check out that van.”
I followed her gaze and saw a black van with tinted windows creeping through the apartment lot. Something seemed off about the vehicle. I couldn’t pinpoint what exactly.
Maybe it was the van’s pace. Maybe it was the dents and dirt. Maybe it was the way it seemed out of place in the sea of foreign vehicles parked at the upper-class complex. Besides, wasn’t there always something creepy about old panel vans with no windows in the back?
“It’s stopping by Chase’s Jeep.” I sat up straighter and unable to believe my eyes. This whole situation was getting stranger by the moment.
I really should have kept my nose out of this. That was becoming staggeringly clear.
I gripped the seat as I waited for whatever might happen next.
A man hopped out of the passenger seat. He wore black, all the way from his feet to the knit hat on his head. The darkness prevented me from making out any of his features. I was 95 percent sure he was white and around six feet tall.
He squatted beside Chase’s Jeep, just out of sight.
“What’s he doing?” Jamie craned her neck, trying to get a better look.
“If I had to guess—something not good,” I mumbled, my eyes glued to the scene.
A couple of moments later, the man rushed back to the van, hopped inside, and pulled away. Well, kind of pulled away.
The driver actually backed in at the rear of the lot, near the woods surrounding the complex. The van stayed there for several minutes. But nothing happened. No one opened the side doors.
Was the driver waiting to see something play out? The scenario didn’t add up in my head.
“What in the world are they doing?” Jamie asked.
I shook my head. “It’s almost like they want front-row seats for something.”
Did it tie in with whatever they’d been doing by Chase’s Jeep?
I couldn’t see the van well. It was directly in front of me, so I really only had a view of the vehicle’s front bumper. The tinted windows blocked whatever was happening inside from my sight.
Finally, a couple of minutes later, the van slowly pulled away.
I glanced at Jamie, unsure of exactly what had just happened. Her nose and forehead were scrunched, mirroring my own confusion.
“That was weird,” she muttered. “Should we follow them?”
“It’s unclear at the moment.”
She tapped her fingers against the steering wheel, her forehead still wrinkled. “I’m more concerned with making sure that Chase doesn’t get in his Jeep.”
That Chase doesn’t get in his Jeep? It took me a moment before I realized her implications and gasped. “You think it’s a bomb?”
“I have no idea, but those guys were up to something no good.”
In a movie, I could see a bomb being planted in a situation like this. But in real life that scenario seemed so dramatic and unlikely.
I pressed my lips together in contemplation. I had to take action here. “I should call Chase and admit everything.”
“Only if you want him to think you’re a crazy stalker. And that you have no manners.”
Jamie knew how to hit me where it hurt. No manners? I had some pride left.
I scowled. “What’s your idea, Ms. Smarty Pants?”
“We call the police. Anonymously. Then we wait here and make sure Chase doesn’t try to get inside his Jeep before the cops get here.”
That seemed so drastic. Maybe we were reading too much into things, and there was some kind of alternative here. A happy medium between the extremes.
“Maybe we should go check Chase’s Jeep first,” I said. “I mean, what if it’s a . . . puppy or something.”
“A puppy?” Jamie gave me the stupid stare. “Really?”
I threw my hands in the air, knowing good and well I was having a rose-colored-glasses moment. “I don’t know. I’m just trying to look at all the possibilities. If it’s a . . . puppy—”
Jamie gave me the stupid look again.
I ignored her. “We walk away. But if it’s anything remotely dangerous, we call the police. Deal?”
Jamie nodded. “Deal.”
My hands trembled as I pushed the door open. Puppies were much nicer to think about than bombs. The truth was whatever had been left was probably something in between a puppy and a bomb—something like a note or flyer.
Or maybe nothing had been left at all. Maybe the tires had been slashed or the man had messed with the brake line. The nefarious possibilities seemed endless.
Staying low, we hurried through the parking lot. My legs strained from rushing forward in a hunched position, but I couldn’t risk being seen. As we neared Chase’s Jeep, I glanced behind me in time to see Chase emerge from the building.
I gulped.
He was far enough away that he probably hadn’t spotted us. But he was walking toward his Jeep. Toward us.
“Chase is coming out.” I pointed to his figure in the distance before grabbing Jamie’s hand. With more strength than I realized I possessed, I tugged her. Panic nearly engulfed me. “Come on!”
We rushed toward the woods just beyond the parking lot. I ducked low, desperate not to be seen. Jamie’s van would have been a better choice for us to stay concealed, but it was too far away.
I was also desperate for Chase not to get into his Jeep, just in case those men had done something.
Puppy. Please let it be a puppy.
“What now?” Jamie asked. “He’s going to his Jeep. Tick tick tick tick.”
“It’s not a bomb.” I said each word slowly, carefully, desperate to believe them myself.
“This is where some Navy SEAL training would help.”
“What is it with you and Navy SEALs today?”
“I watched American Sniper, and I’m fascinated. What can I say?”
I needed a plan, and I needed it five minutes ago. I looked at the ground, careful to stay behind the tree. A rock caught my eye. Scooping it up, I threw it across the parking lot. I held my breath until I heard the stone ding against a hubcap in the distance.
Chase paused midstep and turned. He surveyed the dark parking lot a moment before starting to walk again. I found another rock and threw it also.
He stopped again.
“You’re better at this spy thing than I thought,” Jamie whispered.
“I had to distract him. What else am I supposed to do?”
Chase studied his surroundings, his stan
ce stiff and on guard. “Who’s there? Is it you, Larry?”
Larry? Who was Larry?
He started walking away from us, toward the sound, then paused. He turned in our direction.
He suspected someone was trying to redirect him! Of course. He wasn’t a dummy.
Heat tinged my skin as panic rose in me. Thankfully, just at that moment, a car pulled to a stop near Chase. A single light was atop it, whirling silently.
An unmarked police cruiser, I presumed.
Chase gave one last look in our direction before turning toward the person who stepped out from the driver’s seat. I could barely make out a man of medium build and height. He appeared to be mostly bald with pricks of shaved hair along the edge of his head. His plain clothes led me to believe he was a detective.
“Chase Dexter?” the man said. “It’s been a long time.”
Chase squinted. “Victor Rollins? No way. It has been a long time. I didn’t think you were around here anymore.”
“Well, I turned things around and got me a job here, not far from our old stomping grounds. I figured if you could do a 360, anyone could.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Chase said. “Our mistakes are nothing if not an example for others of what not to do.”
His words didn’t sound full of guilt or regret. I didn’t have time to analyze it at the moment, though.
“So what brings you out this way tonight?” Chase continued. “Everything okay?”
“Someone reported a weapon under a Jeep in this parking lot. It might be nothing, but I was in the area, so I told patrol I’d check it out.”
Chase squinted. “A Jeep? I drive a Jeep.”
Those men had planted a gun by Chase’s Jeep and then called in a tip to the police. Someone was trying to set Chase up. But why? I had so many questions.
The detective ducked before rising again. He dangled a gun on his index finger.
Something unseen caused tension to pinch at my spine. Something internal sent warning alarms through my system, and I had no idea why.
I had that feeling people got while watching horror movies when the heroine thought she was safe, not realizing the killer was hiding right behind her, just waiting to strike.
That was crazy. There was no killer here.
Right?
With a stiff neck, I glanced over my shoulder, just to make sure.
I sucked in a breath.
There was a man there.
Only he wasn’t about to kill me.
He was already dead.
Chapter Four
I held back my scream and took a step back, nearly toppling as my knees turned to jelly.
“What—” Jamie started to scold when her gaze followed mine. She gasped and grabbed the tree beside her. “Oh my goodness.”
That was what the men in the van had been doing. First they’d left the gun they used to kill this man by Chase’s Jeep in order to implicate him. Then they’d dumped his body.
Nausea gurgled in me again, though I tried to hold it at bay. Something messed up was going on.
As I stared down at the man, shock set in. He wasn’t that old—maybe in his midtwenties. He wore a flannel shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. But a huge red blotch stained his shirt.
Dear Lord, please be with this man’s family. Comfort them when they hear this news.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Jamie whispered, grabbing my forearm.
Her fingernails dug into my skin, snapping me out of my stupor. I swallowed hard, not knowing if that was the best plan or not. But I knew I had to get away from this corpse before I purged the contents of my stomach all over him.
I turned around and glanced at Chase. He still talked with the officer. Their conversation seemed calm, like they were two colleagues discussing that gun. Good. They seemed distracted enough that they probably wouldn’t notice us. Still, we’d need to remain out of sight as much as possible.
“Do you think there are security cameras on those light poles?” I asked, nodding toward the lights in the parking lots as we carefully maneuvered through the woods.
“An apartment complex this nice? Probably.”
“Then the police will see us on the feed.”
“But they’ll know we didn’t drop this body off. They’ll see the van.”
I swallowed harder. “Do you think they’ll see our faces?”
“We’re concealed back here in the woods. The ground is hard, so we’re not leaving any footprints. All I know is that we need to move. Stay at the edge of the woods and out of sight. We’re only disturbing the crime scene here. We’ve got to get back to my van.”
I nodded, still feeling numb. Slowly, I wove behind the trees. My hands trembled uncontrollably.
Another dead body. I’d seen my fair share in my lifetime. I’d be okay if I never saw another one.
What had happened to that poor man? He probably had a family, a life, people who cared about him. Soon they’d receive bad news. They’d mourn. The police would investigate.
Someone had decided to play God and determine when a person’s time on earth should end. Life was unrelenting at times. I’d felt it before, too many times to count.
I took another step and heard a snap. The sound echoed. A stick. My foot had landed on a stick. I froze.
Jamie’s eyes widened, and neither of us dared to move.
Chase and the detective went silent. They’d heard it too, hadn’t they?
How would I explain this to Chase if he caught me here, hiding in the woods only a few feet from him? The hole I’d dug was getting deeper by the second.
Dear Lord, what am I going to do? I’m good at fixing things, but I’m also really good at making messes.
“Probably a squirrel,” the detective said.
I released my breath.
That was right. A squirrel had made the sound. Not two women who should know better than to play spy.
Jamie and I exchanged another glance before continuing our escape. Something nagged at the back of my mind, telling me that this wasn’t a great idea. Regardless of that, I kept moving. I’d arrived at fight or flight, and I’d made my choice.
I’d make this right. Somehow. Someway. But not by stepping into the limelight right now.
Finally we reached the edge of the woods. Jamie’s van was only a few feet away.
Jamie put her finger to her lips, as if I needed to be reminded that we should stay quiet. Together, we darted toward the van, careful to remain concealed by the other cars. Quietly, we climbed inside.
I barely closed the door. I wasn’t 100 percent sure it even latched. But I didn’t care. I remained hunched, biding my time until we could get out of here.
We were far enough away now that I doubted either Chase or the detective could see us. The tricky part would be driving away without drawing attention to ourselves.
As a car pulled into the parking lot at the opposite end, Jamie started her van and slowly cruised away.
I didn’t release the air from my lungs until I could no longer see the apartment complex behind us.
A few minutes later, Jamie stopped in front of an old grocery store and put the car in park. Neither of us looked at each other.
“I’m a terrible person,” I whispered, staring out the windshield.
“I should have never suggested that we come here. It was one of my worst ideas ever. Almost as bad as your idea to break into people’s houses and clean them.”
I couldn’t argue with that. “We’ve got to call the police.”
“And tell them who we are? They’ll want us to come in.”
“But it’s the right thing to do.”
“I have a better idea.” Jamie reached into her glove compartment and pulled out a phone.
“You got a new cell?” I asked, not recognizing the plastic flip phone.
“No, this is a burner.”
My eyebrows shot up. “A burner phone? Why in the world do you have a burner phone?”
“I thought one
of them might come in handy sometime. They always do in the movies. And see? I was right.”
I shook my head, at a loss for what to say. I should probably be giving her a high five. “So we call the police and leave an anonymous tip about the body?”
“Exactly. If we use one of our phones, the police might trace it. We can’t let that happen because we look as guilty as a jockey with an electric shocker in his hands.”
I had no better ideas. Besides, our identity wasn’t as important as the information we could share.
Jamie thrust the phone into my hands. “You do it.”
I didn’t argue. This situation was my doing. Sure, Jamie had persuaded me to come, but it hadn’t taken that much convincing. Actions had consequences. I preached that to my clients all the time as a social worker. I needed to remember that myself also.
I dialed 911 and an operator answered. I explained to her what happened—everything from the men with the van, to the gun, and the dead body. I basically told her everything except who I was.
As I spoke, I tried to speed the conversation along as much as I could. I wasn’t an expert on these things, but I figured the longer I was on the line, the better the chance that police could find us.
As soon as I’d shared everything I knew, I hung up. Jamie took the phone from me and pulled the battery out.
“Just so they can’t trace the pings.” She put the van in drive. “We’ve done our civic duty. The police know the body is there, and that a panel van dropped it off, along with a gun. There’s nothing else we can do. Now let’s get out of here.”
I didn’t argue. I was ready to put all of this behind us.
Chapter Five
I couldn’t concentrate at work the next morning. Instead, I stared at the pile of work on my desk while my thoughts remained elsewhere. Mainly on the dead body Jamie and I had discovered last night.
I’d been working for the past several months as a constituent aide for my brother, Ralph, who was a state senator. I liked my job. I did. I prayed I was making a difference in people’s lives and bringing change to a political system that sometimes seemed stuck and unwilling to budge. But I still wasn’t accustomed to being behind a desk instead of out in the field. I missed being hands-on in the community.
Random Acts of Malice (Holly Anna Paladin Mysteries Book 3) Page 3
