by Lisa Jackson
All tax free.
But it felt wrong.
She just couldn’t see Leonard Sperry as the mastermind to take out his wife.
At least not yet.
Blowing on her cup so that the coffee would cool, she made her way to her desk, a neat and tidy space, not one picture resting on it nor pinned to the padded sides of the cubicle. Kayleigh liked to keep her work space clean and impersonal, almost sterile.
Quickly she scrolled through her e-mail. With any luck, today some footage from cameras in the area surrounding the Sperry home would come in soon. And Violet Sperry’s gun. Where the hell was it? Part of the robbery, the only object taken? Seemed unlikely. Violet’s laptop, money in her dresser—those valuables had been left behind. Only the gun was missing, according to the husband.
In her mind’s eye Kayleigh imagined Violet hearing a noise, maybe the dogs alerting her, and grabbing her gun, going to investigate, and ending up confronting the intruder. In the ensuing struggle, the gun went off and the killer tossed her over the rail, then left in a panic that things had not gone as planned.
So what had been the plan?
And why the tape over her eyes?
Had he slapped it there and intended to kidnap or rape her, but she drew the gun and he was forced to kill her by pushing her over the railing?
She bit her lip, replaying the scene over and over in her mind.
Why was the tape placed over her eyes? Why not over her mouth, to cut off her screams?
Had the killer entered the bedroom, caught her unaware, and taped her eyes shut so she couldn’t identify him later? Then somehow she grabbed her gun . . . but the dogs . . . and she would have woken.... No.
The struggle had happened outside the bedroom; that much seemed clear by the damage to the railing. Kayleigh only hoped that Violet had fought hard to fend off her attacker and that if she had, she’d managed to claw at him, collecting hair or skin beneath her fingernails. If so, the scrapings could be analyzed for DNA.
“And then we’ll get you,” she said, as if the killer could hear her.
A hand slapped her desk and she jumped, nearly spilling what was left of her coffee.
“Mornin’, sunshine,” Jerome Biggs said, and she realized she’d been at her desk for over an hour; the day shift was clocking in, voices and laughter breaking what had been near silence.
“Don’t feel like sunshine.”
“Rough weekend?” He smiled, a big, toothy grin that flashed white against his dark skin. Once a basketball player, now a detective, Jerome was her partner who had been on vacation the past week.
“Busy,” she said, and for a second she remembered the weight of Travis McVey’s body lying naked and sweating atop hers.
Oh. Good. Lord.
“Let me guess, workin’ your tail off down here. Sperry murder.”
“I worked from home, but yeah. Since you were off having the time of your life on vacation last week, let me catch you up.”
“I don’t know if painting the house in this weather counts as ‘having the time of my life,’ but yeah, I heard we caught the case. Bring me up to speed.”
So as he leaned a hip against her desk, Kayleigh told him all the details with one exclusion.
She didn’t mention that she’d called Cade Ryder to the scene.
She didn’t need the lecture about jurisdiction, or crossing all kinds of lines, both professional and personal. Biggs would find out soon enough.
But for now, she kept that bit of information to herself.
* * *
Hands shaking, Rachel stared at the bottle of Xanax tablets and wondered if it was worth it to finally relax and get some sleep. She put the bottle on the shelf in the medicine cabinet, pressed her palms to her chest, and tried to take a deep breath.
She had to get a grip.
The last two nights had begun okay but disintegrated into night terrors that kept her from falling back to sleep. Now here she was on Monday morning, a basket case when she should be online looking to send out a new wave of job applications or, at the very least, drumming up customers for her freelance business.
She would be relieved to have the kids back this afternoon, grateful for the company and the routine of corralling them. Last night had been particularly bad as she’d been pulled from another nightmare by the frantic barking of the dog, who’d been pawing at the bedroom door to get out.
“Reno, stop!” she’d ordered, pushing back the covers in a mixture of annoyance and alarm. She hadn’t wanted to get out of bed, but usually the dog didn’t go off unless something was wrong.
Groaning, Rachel had forced herself to her feet and found her slippers, knowing she’d have to check the house from top to bottom. As soon as she opened the bedroom door, the dog disappeared down the stairs, as if honing in on a target.
Oh, God. Was someone in the house?
Pausing to grip the banister at the top of the staircase, Rachel had listened cautiously but heard only the staccato bark of the frantic dog. Pulse thrumming in her ears, muscles taut, she had hurried down.
“What’s wrong with you?” she’d called as she found the dog pacing at the front door, sniffing at the threshold.
Was someone there?
Biting back fear, she’d ignored her accelerating heartbeat and reached for the door handle to ensure the bolt had caught. It was locked, thank God, but that didn’t stop the dog from letting out a new string of guttural barks.
Reno was on alert. Nose to the door, he was ready to bolt outside. His flesh quivered, the fur on the back of his neck stood at attention, and he let out a high, nasal whine when she refused to open the door.
As if he’d scented a squirrel or raccoon or some other night creature daring to cross his yard.
“Oh, geez.” She let out a sigh. “Stop it.”
But the dog wasn’t about to give up and started scratching frantically at the door, ready to bolt outside and scare off or kill the invader.
“You’re being ridiculous. Stop it! Now,” she’d ordered and stood on her tiptoes to peer through one of the three small windows that ran across the top of the door. She half expected to see a coyote scurrying through the shadows. Instead she caught a glimpse of a smallish dog hurrying past, a man in dark clothes, cap over his ears, holding the animal’s leash in one hand, and something else—a bag of some kind—in the other.
Just a guy walking his dog.
At three in the morning?
Who walked their dog in the middle of the night?
She felt a frisson of fear scuttle down her spine as she watched the man glance back at the house, then hustle his dog into a white sedan parked three houses down. Within seconds he was driving off, taillights disappearing as he rounded the corner.
“It’s nothing,” she’d told the dog, but didn’t believe it for an instant.
It was odd.
Out of the ordinary.
What had her father said about things that seemed out of sync? That if something seemed wrong or out of place, it usually was.
She heard his advice as if he were standing next to her: “Pay attention, Rach. It’s the little inconsistencies, something a bit unusual, a tiny detail that a person remembers that often is the start to cracking a case.”
Her calves had begun to ache from the strain of standing on her tiptoes, so she’d lowered herself and tried to twist the knob and open the door. It didn’t budge. Locked securely. She started her security ritual, heading down to the basement to double-check that every lock was engaged, every dead bolt thrown, every window unmoving until she was certain the house couldn’t be breached. Although she knew the house was secure, she didn’t feel safe. Not tonight.
“We’ll be fine,” she’d told the dog as she’d settled into bed again.
But she’d known it was a lie.
Now, her body was riddled with exhaustion, jacked with stress.
Anxiety was nothing to sneeze at; nothing to ignore. Rachel knew it. But as she stared at the pills in her
medicine cabinet, she couldn’t get herself to pop one. She’d been off the Xanax for weeks now and taking the medication seemed like a step backward. Even though she realized that wasn’t the case, she didn’t want to lean on any more medication. She palmed the bottle, counted the pills, making certain no more had gone missing. All accounted for, but maybe she should have pushed the kids harder. Was she too loose with them? A bad parent. Well, she’d have a look in their rooms today, before they got home. A parent’s prerogative.
She recapped the bottle and threw on running clothes, snapped on Reno’s leash, and headed out.
Her nerves were still jangled from lack of sleep, and throughout the weekend she’d felt a trepidation about her solo runs in the early morning, but she refused to be intimidated. Couldn’t allow it. With her dog by her side and pepper spray in her pocket, she headed out the back door and pushed through the gate into the street. Reno kept pace as she ran downhill toward town, where a lingering mist still clung to the river. The air was crisp, the sky a promising, bold blue, and she suspected the mist would burn off by noon.
The cool air should have cleared her head, but instead the text floated through her mind.
I forgive you.
Received twenty years from the day of Luke’s death.
Of course she’d first thought of her brother; he was the one person whom she’d so horribly wronged, but he was long dead and she didn’t think St. Peter was handing out cell phones at the pearly gates. Nope. The text was from a living, breathing person, either a mistake or a prank.
And she was leaning toward the idea that it was sent in error. She avoided a puddle and kept running, thinking of anyone who might have sent it. One of the people at the reunion meeting? Someone close to Luke?
Lila, who’d been left to deal with having his baby?
Mercedes, who was hell-bent to write her series about his death and was pissed that Rachel hadn’t agreed to an interview?
Nate, his best friend, who had seemed so untethered after Luke’s death?
Her own mother?
No, no. Not Melinda!
His father then? Out of prison recently.
What about a half dozen others . . . friends who were close to him?
But why wait all these years and then suddenly now try to freak her out?
Who hated her that much?
She passed by the cannery, didn’t stop, just circled back and ran directly home. She smiled as Reno trotted the familiar path to the side gate and back door. Sliding the lock closed, she pushed off her sneakers, let Reno off his leash, then reached for a mug.
After coffee, a shower, and a cup of yogurt, she sat at her computer for a while, going over responses to her resumes. Two. One that, should she get the job, would require relocation to Seattle.
No thanks. Not until Dylan had graduated. If then.
The other with a note that the position she’d inquired about had been filled.
“Two strikes,” she said. Lapsing back to her former worries, she wondered about telling Cade about the text message. As a cop he could make inquiries.
It wasn’t a threat.
Just forget it.
She had work to do. The kids were gone. Wouldn’t be home until after school, so despite all of her lectures about privacy, she braced herself for the invasion of her kids’ rooms. Determined to get to the bottom of whatever her son was hiding, she ignored all the crime scene tape and “Do Not Enter” warnings posted over Dylan’s door and started searching.
She didn’t know what she was looking for.
She hated to think what she might find. A cache of some kind of contraband? Drugs? Weapons?
She felt like a thief slipping into a house that was still occupied.
Ludicrous as it was, her heart was pounding and she was jumpy, though she had every right to search his room. This was her house and, more importantly, he was her son; she was responsible for his health and welfare.
She did worry that he had probably set up cameras in the room and even now could be watching her on his phone.
Tough.
The room was a sty, but that would be something he’d have to do himself once he was home. She was laying down the law.
So she didn’t pick up the cans and plates and trash on the floor. Nor did she change his bed or even straighten the covers, even though she’d checked between the mattress and box springs, then under the bed. Years of dust had gathered there, along with more cans, bottles, and dirty paper plates that had been stashed out of sight. She viewed the bottom side of the box springs.
Nothing.
She opened the vent from the furnace.
All she found was a fork that had slipped through the slatted cover.
His bookcase was cluttered, but hid nothing. His nightstand drawer was stuffed with a box of Band-Aids, a half-finished assignment for a class he took in grade school, a TV remote, lip balm, a pack of tissues, a bag of cough drops, and various game controllers. The area around his computers showed nothing out of the ordinary and, of course, the computers were all password protected so she couldn’t check what he’d been doing online.
His chest of drawers held folded clothes, nothing hidden beneath or behind.
In the closet his hamper was full of dirty, wrinkled clothes, and there were boxes of old toys and treasures that, she assumed, he no longer noticed. Some shirts were draped on hangers. There were a few small, empty boxes. Overall, nothing out of the ordinary.
She saw that his shoes were kicked into a corner and that’s when she noticed a slight bulge in the carpet, just inside the bifold closet door, a little lump no bigger than a mouse. She bent down and ran her hand over the bump.
Thankfully it didn’t move. Didn’t appear to be alive.
With a little more inspecting, she saw that the carpet wasn’t tacked down just inside the door. Instead it was taped, and within? A sock containing a thick roll of money: ones, fives, tens, and twenties. Eight hundred and thirteen dollars. Even though he supposedly owed a hundred dollars to that bully Schmidt for some kind of computer bet and acted as if he couldn’t pay it, the kid was willing to work off a loan with Rachel.
“Not good,” she said aloud, her dread mounting. She tucked the sock and money in the back pocket of her jeans, then continued searching the closet, half expecting to find a stash of weed, pills—God knew what kind of drugs—in the toes of his shoes or pocket of a jacket. She thought of the pills from her own bottle of Xanax, pills that she’d thought had gone missing, and the way Harper had shown her disdain.
We didn’t steal your damned drugs. What do you think we’d do with them? . . . Sell them at school?
Dylan had appeared stunned, as if it had never crossed his mind. Or had she misread his guilt?
She went over his room again, locating nothing more, then wracked her brain for other possible hiding spots.
The back porch where he kept his bike? She quickly made a check, but it turned out to be clean.
The shed next to the carport, where his skis and skateboard and camping gear were tucked away?
Nothing there either.
She stood for a second in the drive, as sunlight pierced the high, slow-moving clouds and a crow cawed from the house’s eave.
Maybe he was hiding something at Cade’s? Would he dare mess with a cop’s instincts and leave anything under his father’s nose?
No—primarily because whatever it was wouldn’t be handy.
This business with Dylan was bad, but she sensed there was a lot more going on with her daughter.
Harper was seventeen; nearly on her own. Rachel felt worse about searching through her things, but did anyway, in both Harper’s bedroom and bathroom. She didn’t find anything unexpected. No weed. No cigarettes. No hidden half-drunk bottle of booze. No unexplained stash of money. No contraceptives, which, considering how things were playing out, might not be such a bad idea.
So they were destined to have one of those mother/child talks both kids hated once they got home. In the
meantime, she had a website to update and a job search to continue.
She walked to the kitchen to grab her phone, and just as she was about to grab it from its charger, it started vibrating on the counter. She picked it up and noticed the phone number on the small display was unfamiliar, no name attached to it. She thought of the text she’d received, but that was a different cell number completely; she knew—she’d memorized the digits.
“Hello?”
“Hi. This is Rachel, right? Rachel Ryder?” a woman asked, then didn’t wait for an answer. “I thought I should call you.”
“Sorry, who is this?”
“Oh. My. It’s Ella Dickerson. From across the street. Jim’s wife.”
Rachel’s heart sank as she pictured her neighbor, a white-haired woman pushing eighty who was always working in her yard and complaining about one thing or another. There was her arthritis, her children, or her husband, whose latest offense, or at least the most recent one Rachel had heard about, was purchasing a seventy-two-inch flat-screen, “to watch more sports, if you can imagine. I swear they’re on twenty-four/seven!” Ella was the neighborhood busybody who knew everything about everybody on the street.
“Your front door,” Ella was explaining. “I mean, have you seen it? Oh, dear. You’d best take a look. I assume it was vandalized and I thought you should know if you hadn’t seen it, but if you have, then—”
“What are you talking about?” Rachel asked, already walking through the house.
“I was afraid you hadn’t seen it. I said so to Jim. I saw it when I went to pick up the paper this morning. I told Jim that you couldn’t possibly know—”
“I don’t get what you mean.” Rachel unbolted the door and flung it open to find out what the nosy neighbor was talking about.
She took one step onto the porch, then stopped, her heart plummeting as she saw the single word, scrawled in red paint on her black door:
KILLER
CHAPTER 17
Cade pushed the speed limit on his way to Rachel’s house. When she’d called he’d immediately heard the strain in her voice, the edge to it. “I think you’d better come over here.” She’d sounded wound tight.
