Armed With Steele

by Kyra Jacobs

“Aw, come on Grace. This is no time to go and get all stubborn on me.”

  She answered me with nothing.

  I spent the next half-hour trying to get her to wake up. I asked, begged, and pleaded. Even tried guilting her into it, but nothing seemed to work. She offered no changes in her facial expression, nor sound of any kind. Not anything at all, except the slow rise and fall of her chest with each breath.

  The continued silence pained me, and I found myself filling it in with my own mundane ramblings. What I’d had for breakfast, who I’d seen in the lobby, what the weather was like outside. But eventually even I ran out of things to say and so, admitting defeat, I sat down and resolved to just quietly be there for my best friend.

  In the silence, my mind drifted back to the state of her purse. I tried to come up with possible scenarios for why it’d ended up in its current messy state. And no matter what angle I started from, I kept coming back to the same sneaking suspicion that someone other than Grace and Officer Steele had been in that bag.

  But why? What had they been after? And had they found what they were looking for?

  I hugged my knees to my chest and looked back over at my peaceful, battered roommate. “I swear, I will get to the bottom of this.”

  * * * *

  Grace’s parents returned an hour later.

  “We bumped into Officer Steele when we were downstairs,” Sharon said as she stepped around the curtain once more.

  “Oh? Is he on his way up?”

  “No,” Norm replied. “He was on his way out. He’d been dispatched to some accident nearby. Asked us to relay his apologies.”

  My germaphobia stretched to its limits, and my main reason for an extended visit gone, I decided it was time to head out. I gave Grace’s had a tiny squeeze and promised to come back the next day. Or sooner, I told her parents, if her condition changed. Sharon hugged me good-bye, and Norm made me promise to drive safely. I said I’d do my best.

  But as I steered my car out of the parking garage, my thoughts weren’t on the road—they were on Grace and the prior day’s accident. Preoccupied, I missed my turn off East State. Passed through the intersection of North Coliseum Blvd. and kept right on going. I zoned everything out until I came to the turn off for Maysville Road and saw a slew of caution tape wrapped around a damaged pole ahead of me on the left.

  But it wasn’t just any damaged utility pole, it was the damaged utility pole.

  My breathing quickened as I drove past the accident site, made a careful U turn at the next neighborhood entrance, and then maneuvered my car onto what little shoulder the road offered. The first break in traffic, I scrambled out of my car to take a look around.

  There was a path worn into the grass not far from where I stood, presumably from foot traffic the day before. The image of what it must have looked like, with first responders rushing back and forth from ambulance to car with their supplies and gurney, was almost too much for me to bear. But curiosity soon won out over grief, and I found myself headed down the footpath.

  While the slope of the embankment wasn’t un-navigable, it wasn’t an easy walk, either. I stumbled along as best I could, choosing each footstep carefully. I sure as hell didn’t want to end up in the hospital room next to Grace.

  A few feet back from the infamous, door-jamming pole, I stopped. The grass all around it seemed to glow, lit up by the scattering of tiny glass fragments twinkling in the afternoon sun. I looked back up to the roadway, and tried to picture her car careening off the road, rolling down the hill, and landing against the pole before me. All that careening and rolling had my breakfast threatening to make an encore appearance. I took several quick gulps of fresh air and pleaded with my stomach to settle.

  Nauseous or not, after another minute or two of self-inflicted torture, I’d had enough. I turned back and headed for the car, no longer bothering to stick to the path. I reached the top of the hill, and continued along the shoulder toward my Civic.

  But halfway back, something in the grass a short way down the hill caught my eye. Something outside the well-worn path. I carefully made my way back down the slope and squatted down to take a better look.

  At first glance, I thought it might be some sort of gold-colored trinket. And judging by its semi-brilliant sheen, I suspected whatever it was hadn’t been there long. I reached down with a shaking hand and retrieved it from its grassy lair. The golden object weighed next to nothing. Three tiny chain links dangled from one end.

  “Huh. Just a broken key chain.” I turned the trinket over in my hand and brushed away a fine layer of dust that covered its other side. My eyes widened as a company logo came into view.

  Maxwell Office Solutions.

  Chapter 4

  “I’m telling you, something is not adding up.” I paced back and forth across the living room floor, cell phone jammed to my ear with one hand, the trinket in the other.

  “So you found a key chain? Heck, it could have been Grace’s. Probably flew out of her car when it rolled down the embankment.”

  “No, it wasn’t hers. I’ve never seen this key chain before.”

  “Maybe because she’d just gotten it yesterday?”

  “Matt, this thing has 24K stamped on its back. No one at that company gets a gold key chain for reaching their five-month mark.”

  “Well, I don’t know, Jess.” Frustration crept into his voice. “So the key chain was there? Maybe it belonged to someone else. Why are you so up in arms over it?”

  I thumped a fist to my forehead. “Because! It proves someone from her work was at the scene of the accident.”

  “Lots of people were there!”

  “Okay. And where were all these people standing?”

  “Back by the road. Look, maybe the person who lost their key chain recognized her car and pulled over to see if she was okay.”

  “Sounds logical. Only, I found this key chain stomped into the ground well away from the edge of the road.” Matt remained silent, so I pushed on. “But that’s not the only thing that worries me. Last night, after I got home, I took another look inside Grace’s purse. And you know what I found?”

  “No,” he said, his tone flat, “but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

  “Grace’s notepad, with a sliver of paper tucked in its binding.”

  “Tucked in its binding,” he echoed. “And that would be suspicious because...”

  “You know how meticulous Grace is with everything she touches! In all the years I’ve known her, I have never, ever seen Grace tear off a piece of paper and not make sure that she got every last little bit of it free from its binding. It…it just doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Okay, I finally agree with you on something.”

  My chest swelled with hope. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. That it doesn’t make sense. Any of it. Why can’t you just accept that this whole thing was a fluke accident and let it go?”

  I could feel my blood pressure rise. “Because I know it wasn’t.”

  “Look, I love you to pieces, but this is crazy talk. And even if your ideas had a sliver of truth to them, who’s gonna believe you?”

  I stopped pacing. “S-so you’re not going to help me?”

  “Help you do what?”

  “Find out what really happened.”

  “Sorry, but I’m having a hard enough time dealing with this whole thing as it is. Until Grace wakes up and tell us in her own words what happened, to me this was just a freak accident.”

  I hung up, sprawled out on the couch, and glared at the ceiling. Why wasn’t Matt jumping at the chance to help me figure out what, or who, had caused Grace’s accident? Of all the times for him to go and get stuck in the quagmire of denial…

  Matt or no Matt, I sure as hell wasn’t going to sit around and wait for her to wake up. If he wasn’t going to help me, then I’d have to find someone else who could. And I knew just the person to call.

  I sat up, retrieved a certain business card from my back jeans pocket, and flipped
my phone back open to dial the number listed. It rang four times before going to voicemail.

  “Hello, Officer Steele? It’s Jessica Hartley. I’m calling to see if you might have some time to discuss the Sullivan case tomorrow.”

  * * * *

  I was halfway across the living room with a laundry basket full of dirty clothes Sunday afternoon when the doorbell rang. “Coming over to apologize for being an insensitive ass, are we?” I headed for the door and shifted the basket to my hip. But when I pulled the front door open, it was Officer Steele standing on our front porch, not Matt.

  “Officer Steele! I, uh, take it you got my message?” Would have been nice to know.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Hartley. I did. And since this is on my way home, I thought I’d swing by and see if you were available. Have I—” His gaze shifted to the laundry basket. “Caught you at a good time?”

  “Oh, yeah, just doing some laundry,” I said with a dismissive wave. That’s when I caught sight of the purple, lace-trimmed panties perched atop the pile. Mortified, I not-so-subtly shoved them further down into the basket.

  “Really, if you’re busy—”

  “No!” I’d waited a day and a half to talk with him. If I had to wait much longer, I’d likely self-implode. “No, now is fine. Come on in.”

  He graced me with one of his award-winning smiles and stepped inside. “Thank you.”

  I reached around him to close the door. He was taller than I’d remembered, and broader. I led him to the living room, and motioned toward the nearby couch.

  “Please, have a seat while I go set this down.” I continued on toward the laundry room, eager to put some space between me and that alluring cologne of his. Once I was safely out of sight, I cast another quick glance down at my laundry basket. Was relieved not to see any more embarrassing undergarments in plain sight.

  I set the basket on the washer and then crossed back through the kitchen. “Can I get you anything?”

  “Oh no, I’m fine, thank you.”

  “You sure? I made up a batch of killer cookies yesterday.” I grimaced at my poor choice of adjectives.

  He chuckled. “Oh, well in that case...”

  A sigh of relief escaped me. “Milk?”

  “That depends,” he called. “Will there be any chocolate involved?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then sure, I’d love a small glass.”

  A man after my own heart…

  I gathered up plates, napkins, drinks and cookies, then made my way back to the living room. Seeing him sitting there, blue eyes shining and biceps gleaming, had my stomach in knots. Grace. Remember, he’s here to talk about Grace.

  I arranged everything on our coffee table, and handed him an empty plate. “Please, help yourself.”

  “Thanks.” He grabbed a cookie. Studied it for a moment, then cast a wary look at me. “You haven’t laced these with anything, have you?”

  I met his gaze in surprise. “Goodness, no! That’d be a terrible waste of chocolate, don’t you think?” I snatched one from the plate and took a bite to prove it.

  He laughed, and I found myself liking that sound a little too well. Then he took a tentative bite and savored it for a moment. “Damn, these are good.”

  “Thanks.” I lowered myself onto the love seat adjacent to him. “I like to bake, and these are my favorites. Grace’s too.” I could feel the smile slip from my face.

  Officer Steele took that as his cue. He popped the rest of his cookie into his mouth, then washed it down with quick drink of milk. “So, your message said you had some information you wanted to share about the accident. Did you think of something you’d forgotten to tell me on Friday, or did this come up after the fact?”

  “A little of both, I suppose.”

  He reached down, retrieved the leather-bound notepad from his belt, and flipped it open. “Okay, whattcha got?”

  I took a deep breath and hoped he was prepared to talk about more than speed this time. “Alright. So, when you were talking to me and Matt on Friday—”

  “Matt Harris? Miss Sullivan’s boyfriend?”

  “Yes. You told us that Grace’s car doors were unlocked when you got there.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Well, that can’t be right.”

  His brows furrowed. “If I remember correctly, you brought this up on Friday, and I verified it in my notes.”

  “I know, and I’m not saying you’re wrong,” I added quickly. “I’m just saying that can’t be right. There are two things Grace always does before she puts her car into gear. The first, is put on her seatbelt. And the second, is to lock the doors.”

  “Maybe she forgot?”

  I shook my head. “No. Listen, Grace is a typical, fun-loving twenty-five-year-old. But she also has her fair share of quirks. We all do, I suppose.”

  A grin stole across Officer Steele’s face. “And locking her doors is one of these quirks?”

  “Yes. And even if for some bizarre reason she’d forgotten to do it that one time, her car automatically locks its doors once it shifts out of park.”

  “Hmm.” He slid a pen out from the notepad’s spiral binding and scribbled something down. “Anything else?”

  “Her purse.”

  His eyes narrowed in concentration. “The large, black shoulder bag I retrieved from her car?”

  “Yep, that’s the one. Okay, two things. First, it was unzipped. Did you happen to look inside it for her ID or something?”

  Officer Steele nodded. “Yes, I did. It was sitting beside her on the front passenger seat. But it was already unzipped. I remember seeing her wallet from the window—it was pink, right?”

  I nodded.

  “So I reached in, checked her ID, then set the wallet back in her purse. When they had her loaded into the ambulance, I handed the bag to Mr. Harris.”

  “Then there’re a few more clues.”

  He threw me a puzzled look.

  I counted them off on my fingers. “First, her purse was unzipped.”

  “Let me guess—another quirk?”

  “Yes—you’ve got to trust me on this. She never drove off with her purse unzipped. It’s a girl thing.”

  “Yeah, seems like I’ve heard that somewhere before.”

  I smirked. Take that, Matt…

  “Okay, purse unzipped,” he said as he jotted it down.

  “Second, there’s the whole issue of where you found her purse. Are you sure it was sitting on her front passenger seat?”

  Officer Steele put the pen between his teeth and flipped back through his notes. I found myself studying the way his lips curved around the pen and reached for another cookie to distract myself. After scanning a page or two, he reached up to retrieve his writing utensil. “Yes, that’s where I found it.”

  I set the cookie on my plate and leaned forward. “Officer, I’m no expert on car crashes, but doesn’t that seem a little odd? Her car veers off the road, rolls, slams into a pole, and somehow her purse manages to end up on the front passenger seat?”

  Officer Steele’s gaze met mine. “Maybe.”

  “And if the purse was in fact unzipped before you ever touched it, might some of its contents have spilled in the process?”

  His eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Possibly.”

  “So, do you remember seeing anything lying scattered around on the floor or seats?”

  He glanced back down at his notepad. “Not that I can recall.”

  “Then would it be reasonable to assume that when the accident occurred, the purse was likely still zipped?”

  He looked up, down right glaring at me now. “I never assume anything at an accident scene, Miss Hartley.”

  Apparently Officer Steele didn’t like to be second-guessed. But if he thought one dirty look would shut me up, he was sadly mistaken. “Well, seeing as Grace was unconscious when you found her, I kinda doubt that when her car stopped rolling she reached around, found her purse, set it on the seat next to her, unzipped
it, and then proceeded to slip into a coma.”

  “Are you accusing me of doing a sloppy investiga—”

  “Of course not!” I hadn’t expected him to go on the defensive. I scrambled to think of a way to break back down the mental wall he’d just erected. In a gamble, I reached out and set a hand on his knee. “I’ve just had a lot of time this weekend to do nothing but think this over,” I said in a soft voice and batted my eyes—nothing like a little flirting and ego-stroking to tame the wild beast. “But I called you because I knew you would have all the answers.”

  The scowl faded from Officer Steele’s face. “Oh. Well, I obviously don’t have all the answers. But I did promise to hear you out.” He watched as I pulled my hand back from his knee. “So you’re suggesting someone came along while she was unconscious and got into her bag? Hmm. Have you checked—”

  “Nothing’s missing from her wallet. Money and credit card are all still in tact.”

  He grabbed another cookie. “Good.”

  “In fact, everything I would expect to see in her purse—”

  A strange look came over his face.

  “We’re roommates, dude, and we’re female. We share everything. Anyway, everything I’d expect to see in there is still there. But one item did catch my eye.” I lifted her day planner off the end table nearest me and pointed to the pad of paper tucked inside. “This.”

  “A blank notepad?”

  “Yes, but look.” I slid to the edge of my seat and flicked the spiral binding.

  “And…you lost me. What am I supposed to be looking at?”

  “The paper, left in the spiral binding.”

  “Let me guess. Another quirk.”

  “I know what you’re thinking. I’m crazy, right? But I swear it’s true! Grace hated having any sort of jagged edges left on her notepads. I’ve seen her waste thirty minutes in one sitting, picking away at their remains before. I don’t even know if she’s aware she does it, but I’m telling you, she does.”

  Officer Steele took a long drink from his glass, then set it down with a light thunk. “Okay, the car door locks are definitely something to be considered. Her window’s already busted out, someone reaches in, flips the switch to unlock the passenger side door, and retrieves her purse. But you say nothing’s missing from her purse—not her wallet, money, credit cards. In fact, the only thing suspect is a tiny piece of paper stuck in a spiral binding.”