Christina Freeburn - Faith Hunter 03 - Embellished to Death

by Christina Freeburn

  Phone. Take pictures. My brain and body went into action. Bending over, keeping my upper body low, I moved forward so the driver didn’t see me in the rearview mirror. I snapped pictures, focusing on the license plate.

  The car continued onto the road, making a sharp turn as a woman stepped out from between a grove of trees. The woman jerked back, tumbling to the ground and items in her oversized bag spilled onto the grass. The driver was getting away.

  “Get the license plate!”

  The woman sitting, legs outstretched on the asphalt, stared after the car. She scrambled to her feet and raced toward the hit-and-run victim.

  Pauline and Ellie huddled together, crying.

  “I’ll take care of the injured woman,” Bob said. “Go back to Steve.”

  I ran back.

  “Paramedics are on the way.” An employee scooted over so I had the prime space beside Steve.

  I knelt and touched his shoulder. “Steve. You okay?”

  I wanted—needed—him to say something. Tears slipped down my cheeks.

  Steve groaned. I restrained myself from flattening my body on top of him and placing kisses all over his face. I didn’t want to add to his injuries.

  “Steve?”

  He opened one eye and peered at me in confusion. “Faith? Why are people screaming?”

  “The car…”

  Grimacing, he pushed himself into a sitting position. “It almost hit you. Are you all right?”

  I nodded as Steve reached out and cupped my cheek in his hand. “You got me out of the way. You hit your head kind of hard. You were out for a little bit.”

  Steve frowned. “What’s going on over there?”

  “The car hit a woman walking toward the conference center.”

  “Is she okay?” He scrambled to his feet.

  I popped up to make sure I became Steve’s support if he needed it. “I don’t know.”

  “Did anyone get the car’s information?” Steve wrapped an arm around me.

  “I might have.” I scrolled through the pictures on my phone. None of them showed the entire license plate. One had a partial plate, the last two digits, but I didn’t think it’d do much good. I hadn’t taken time to aim the camera, and there was some kind of coating over the license plate. “Darn it. None of them came out.”

  “Let’s ask around.” Steve scanned the parking lot filled with employees and croppers. “Someone had to have gotten a description.”

  “There weren’t many people around. Me. You. Bob. Ellie. Pauline. The employees didn’t come out until after. And her.” I pointed at the disheveled blonde woman helping Bob tend to the victim. “She was near the entrance when the car got out of the lot.”

  “You go talk to her. I’ll speak with the other ladies.” Steve limped toward Ellie and Pauline. The friends had their arms wrapped around each other.

  Steve’s insistence on getting involved in a criminal matter was new for me. Usually, he lectured me about staying out of police business. Either the knock to his head had him behaving contrary to his usual self, or the lack of police presence had the prosecutor in him needing to secure the scene and get information so the criminal faced justice.

  “Did anyone see what car she arrived in?” Bob called out. “There’s no ID on her.”

  “No,” Ellie said.

  Pauline shook her head.

  Cars entered into the parking lot. An employee directed the traffic away from Bob, the blonde, and the injured woman.

  While Steve questioned the few witnesses, I set about collecting and noting any potential evidence. Bob would get information from the blonde woman.

  Sirens filled the air. An ambulance and police were nearing the resort. I quickly prayed for the injured woman and Steve. He appeared all right, but it never hurt to send up a request for aid.

  Using my cell phone, I photographed where I’d been standing and then the woman and Bob. If the paramedics came first, I doubted they’d wait on the police arriving to get an overview of the accident scene before they transported her to the hospital.

  Placing a hand on a parked car, I leaned over and peered under it. Something was under there. I knelt down. A plastic prescription bottle had rolled to a stop by the back tire. I snapped a picture before zooming in to look at the label.

  No name, just a warning stating “Causes drowsiness. Be careful when operating a motor vehicle or other machinery.”

  I shimmied under the car, focusing my phone on the bottle. I snapped a picture. With the flash I could see a partial name: Ma. I crawled out as I didn’t want to move the bottle by accident as I tried to read the full name.

  “What are you doing?” An angry male voice asked.

  I had a bad feeling about this. I looked up.

  A large man glared down at me. His sunglasses were clipped to a lanyard which held a police badge. A tablet was tucked against his side.

  Definitely not good. I stood and dusted small bits of gravel and dust from my clothes. “There’s a pill bottle under the car.”

  “Unless it’s yours, or you’re a police officer, I don’t understand why you’re trying to retrieve it.”

  I didn’t think the detective really wanted an answer to the question so I remained silent.

  Paramedics attended to the victim. One began chest compressions while the other put an oxygen mask on her. My body grew cold even though the sun beat down. The paramedic stopped compressions and nodded at his partner. The woman was placed on a stretcher.

  I released a small breath of relief. She was okay. For now.

  Bob headed over to us. “Is there a problem?”

  The detective directed his gaze to Bob. Anger flowed across the detective’s face. He pointed at me then the car. “Did you have anything to do with this, Roget? A private investigator’s license isn’t the same as a police badge.”

  “We were trying to help, Detective Bell.”

  Detective Bell held up a hand and silenced him. “Save it, Roget. I’m tired of you and your kind worming your way into investigations. I thought with your brother gone, I wouldn’t have to deal with you anymore.”

  His kind? What did that mean? “Do you have a problem with people in general or just Bob?”

  “I have a problem with people who tamper with a crime scene.” Detective Bell crossed his arms and scowled.

  The man had a scarier expression than Ted.

  “I was trying to help. A car almost ran me over. If it wasn’t for my boyfriend yanking me to safety, I’d have been hit. And then the car continued speeding and ran over that poor woman.” I pointed at the stretcher being loaded into an ambulance.

  “And with your expertise in criminal matters, you decided you should investigate the scene and gather up evidence.” He glared at Bob. “Let me guess, one of your students.”

  “No, she’s a friend,” Bob said, avoiding my eyes.

  Student? Did Bob teach classes on private investigating? Maybe… no, what I was thinking. There was no way I wanted to do this for a living, and no way Ted’s head wouldn’t explode over this. Or Steve. Or my grandmothers’ for that matter.

  “Miss…” The detective waited on me to supply my name.

  “Hunter. Faith Hunter.”

  “All right, Miss Hunter, can you tell me what you saw?” Detective Bell poised a stylus over the screen of a tablet.

  “Like I said, I was going over to talk to Bob and this car sped through the parking lot. I would’ve been struck if my boyfriend hadn’t—”

  In the background, one of the paramedics leapt into the back of the ambulance and began chest compressions again on the victim.

  “His name?” Bell’s stylus flew over the mid-size screen as he typed away. “Miss Hunter, his name.”

  I tore my attention away f
rom the ambulance. “Steve Davis. He pulled me to safety and got injured in the process.”

  “Good thing he was looking out for you.” Bell focused on his tablet. “Color of car? Make? Model? License plate?”

  “It was beige. A gold color. Four door. Sedan-ish.”

  Bell’s gaze left the screen for a moment to settle a “you got to be kidding” look on me. “Ford? Chevrolet?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not a car person.”

  “Roget? Can you fill in any details?”

  “Four door. Shorter body with a good size trunk.”

  Bell nodded. “That gives me a little more to go on. Anything else?”

  “The car hit the victim head on. She rolled off the hood.”

  “Did you get a look at the driver?” Hope gleamed in Bell’s eyes.

  “No. I faced the passenger side of the car. All I remember is the look on the woman’s face when the car struck her.” I wrapped my arms around myself.

  “Can you describe it to me?” Bell shifted closer to me, his voice soft. He placed a gentle hand under my elbow. “I know this was a traumatic event to witness, but it might help.”

  I replayed the moment in my mind, blinking back tears. “Surprised. Like she couldn’t believe it was happening. She was so wrapped up in something in her head, she never saw or heard us or the car until it was too late.”

  Bob frowned. “Surprised how?”

  “I don’t know.” I felt so inadequate. I wanted to give the detective the information he needed to find the driver, but knew almost nothing. “The blonde woman by the ambulance was at the corner when the car sped out.”

  Bell nodded, the stylus jumping around the screen. “I’ll talk to her next.”

  “Detective Bell!” An officer standing near the resort door waved at him.

  “There was no identification on the victim,” Bob said. “Do you know who she is?”

  “Stay out of this case, Roget. The only one asking questions will be me. I expect both of you to mind your business.” Detective Bell knocked into Bob as he headed toward the resort. “Excuse me.”

  “He did that on purpose.” I took a step after the rude detective.

  Bob caught hold of my hand and pulled me back. “Leave it, Faith. He has a problem with me—”

  “Because you’re—”

  “About a year ago, I solved a case he’d been working on for two months. I tried sharing the information I had with him but he ignored it. I gave it to another officer and that detective got the credit for solving it.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Even more so when the guy who used the information is now your supervisor.”

  “Maybe he should listen to people more.”

  A smile tugged at Bob’s mouth. “I’m surprised that’s the advice you’d give. According to Ted—”

  I held up my hand. “I know. I know. Listening isn’t a skill I have.”

  “You’re going to need to improve that skill real fast.” Bob led me to a quieter spot in the parking lot. “I need you to keep an ear out for anything weird going on this weekend.”

  “Weird as in…” I trailed off.

  “I don’t know. That’s the problem I’m hoping you can help me with. I don’t know what would be out of the ordinary at a crop.”

  I stared at the ambulance. “You think she was run over deliberately? Is the woman in there the identity thief?”

  “The woman I’m looking for isn’t known for being dangerous, but the people looking for her are,” Bob said.

  “So, the hit-and run might not be an accident but an attempted murder.”

  “I’ll know more once I find out who she is. No one knows.”

  “Or Detective Bell doesn’t want you to know,” I said.

  “That’s in the realm of possibility.”

  “It’s a good thing we have our own evidence since Detective Bell most likely won’t share.”

  “Our own evidence?” Bob frowned.

  I turned my phone around and scrolled through the pictures. “See? I have location photos of where Steve was almost hit and where the woman was run down. And this is the pill bottle I saw under the car. I couldn’t get a picture of the entire name on it.”

  “May I get a closer look?” Bob held out his hand.

  “Sure.” I handed over the phone.

  He looked my phone over, smiled, then tapped it to his. With a couple of taps on my cell phone’s screen, the pictures were deleted.

  “Hey!” I snatched my phone back. “Those pictures were my property.”

  “Those photos were trouble for you.” Bob pocketed his cell phone. “I want you to just listen and take notes, not chase down a criminal. Let me handle that part. The car accident might not have anything to do with my case.”

  “But it might.”

  “True. But, I can’t leave the women at the retreat exposed to an identity thief while I go find out. And, if I tracked her here, so might’ve the other people looking for her.”

  A knot in my throat made it hard to speak. “That wouldn’t be good.”

  “No. When one is stealing identities, it’s best to make sure it doesn’t belong to a criminal.”

  “I’ll do whatever I can.”

  “Not whatever. Listen. Watch. Report to me. Don’t engage them.” Bob borrowed my phone and programmed in his number.

  Steve approached us, looking pale.

  There was no way I’d say more with Steve standing nearby. The last thing Steve needed was worrying about me getting involved in something I shouldn’t. I’d put the man through enough anxiety during the last year with my sleuthing.

  Steve draped an arm around my shoulders. “What’s going on over here?”

  I knew Steve wouldn’t believe me if I said “nothing” so I went with the partial truth, a new habit of mine. “Bob is telling me I’m not an investigator and should leave the car accident to him and the police.”

  “I agree with him.” Steve grimaced and closed his eyes. “That detective isn’t going to give you the leeway Detective Roget does.”

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “The lights are getting to me.”

  The lights on the cruisers spun, flashing red in a constant pattern. He flinched and averted his gaze to the ground.

  I wrapped an arm around his waist. “Let’s go. You should go rest for a little bit.”

  “No, I’m fine.” Steve tried stepping away from me but I tightened my grip. “We still need to set up the store. It’s too much for you to do alone.”

  “Bob will help me. Right?” I fixed a pleading gaze on Bob.

  “Absolutely. I just need to make a few calls and I’ll meet you inside.”

  I watched the ambulance pull out of the parking lot. Sirens silent, which probably meant the victim had died. A shudder raced through me. “She died. We can’t let the person get away with it.”

  Bell turned and fixed a hard gaze on me.

  Steve tucked me into his side. “On second thought, I might not be as fine as I thought. I’d like you to help me to my room. Maybe if you’re watching over me, it’ll keep you out of trouble.” I leaned into him, needing his support as much as he needed mine.

  THREE

  I shivered in the air-conditioning and moved closer to Steve, needing not only some warmth but knowledge he was okay. The steadiness of his arm was comforting.

  “We need a list of the guests.” A uniformed officer drummed his fingers on the counter.

  Detective Bell approached the desk, transferring his phone from one hand to the other.

  “Do you have a warrant?” The clerk wrapped her arms around the computer screen.

  I admired the clerk’s show of protecting the information. Of course, turning off the scre
en would’ve worked, though less dramatic.

  “No.” The officer looked over his shoulder at Detective Bell.

  I schooled my features into boredom, not wanting Steve to know the conversation piqued my interest, and squeezed my heart. A poor woman died—was killed—and no one knew her name.

  Detective Bell sighed and rested his arm on the counter. “I can get one. It’ll take me a few hours. If the press shows up, I’ll make sure to tell them the resort is slowing me down in identifying the victim of a hit-and-run.”

  “I don’t have the authority.” The clerk’s voice wobbled along with the computer monitor she hugged.

  “Then get me the person who has the authority.” Bell’s voice was hard like overcooked brittle.

  The clerk pivoted to the left and shooed another clerk from the back office. “We’ll track the manager down for you. He’s had a couple of emergencies, beside the one in the parking lot, to deal with today.”

  “While a staff member looks for him, I’ll make a few calls. Maybe the media can get the word out about a poor woman struck down and killed in the parking lot of Eagle Mountain Estate Resorts and the employees of said resort will not cooperate with police.” Bell pressed a button on the side of his cell. The screen lit up. “What’s your name?”

  “Can he do that?” I whispered to Steve.

  Steve hooked his arm through mine. “Let’s unload. We’ll check in later.”

  “You should rest.” I stood my ground in line behind Bell.

  “And the detective told you to mind your business,” Steve said.

  As if in a slow motion movie sequence, Detective Bell turned. “Why am I not surprised that eavesdropping is part of your repertoire? Officer Dunbar, may I have your handcuffs?”

  My eyes widened.

  Steve tucked me behind him. “Faith is forcing me to check-in.”

  “You were knocked out cold.” I wiggled out to confront Steve face-to-face. “If you won’t go to the hospital, you should at least take it easy.”

  “She’s right.” Bell ushered us to the front. “Why don’t you check this nice couple in early? Mr. Davis really should have a quiet place to rest since he risked his life to save one of your guests. Also gives you some extra time to track down the manager.”