Paranoid

by Lisa Jackson

  “Sunday?”

  “Yeah.” She nodded. “Pretty sure.”

  “A boy?”

  “Or man . . . maybe even a tall woman.”

  “Could you identify them?” Rachel asked, her pulse jumping as she stared at her own house with its discolored door, the horrid word illegible, but the mismatched paint a scar. Tomorrow, she’d repaint the entire thing.

  “Don’t think so. It was dark, not foggy like today, but deep night. Anyway, all kids look alike these days—boys and girls in those oversized hooded sweatshirts and jeans with holes in the knees. It could even have been your son. Never saw the face, y’know.”

  She didn’t know, but one of her children had used a window to sneak out, so it wasn’t too hard to believe that her son, too, might have been going in and out of the house at will. She thought of all the nights she’d thought she’d seen someone lurking in the backyard, the times that Reno had acted as if someone was out there. She’d thought she was going out of her mind, when really . . . her own kids might have caused all her trauma.

  “Say, did you know that woman who was killed?” Ella asked. “I watched the noon news. She was about your age and they said she’d grown up around here.”

  “She was a classmate.”

  “And the other one, too. The one who was murdered last week?”

  “They both graduated with me.”

  “What do you think happened?” The older woman’s eyes gleamed at the prospect of gossip and Rachel didn’t want to get into it.

  “I don’t know,” she said, then added, “I have to get back. The kids are home and I have to make sure they’re doing their homework. Thanks!” Before the older woman could ask another question, she tugged on Reno’s leash and they crossed the street to go inside and confront her children, one or both of whom were still lying to her.

  CHAPTER 30

  Cade had driven back to the crime scene for one last look and then spied his father’s Mercedes parked in the lot next door. He let himself into the office and with a quick wave to Doris, Chuck’s receptionist and secretary, he headed straight to his father’s office.

  “Oh, Cade, please wait.” Doris snapped the headset from her perfectly coiffured gray hair.

  “It’s okay, Doris. I’ve got this.” A fixture who had been with Chuck since Cade was a teen, she looked positively stricken that he wasn’t waiting as commanded in the small reception area.

  Instead he strode into Chuck’s office. Charles Ryder was now the lone attorney in the building, his partner having retired several years earlier.

  Cade found his father dressed in slacks and a white dress shirt, sleeves rolled up. His face was perpetually tanned, his graying hair thinning, and lately he had been wearing glasses, but he was still fit, his body the lanky shape of a long-distance runner’s. He was putting, hitting a golf ball across a long green mat laid over the carpet to a hole complete with auto return. The ball hit the right spot and the device shot it back down the length of the mat to where Chuck stood still in putting stance. He captured the ball with the head of his putter and lined up again, barely glancing up, not wanting to break his concentration.

  “Busy day?”

  “Just wrapped up with my last client ten minutes ago. Thought I’d hone my short game before I headed home. And, to tell you the truth, I figured you’d be showing up,” he said, and with a short, sharp stroke hit the golf ball to send it rolling dead center to the return device. It popped back and this time Chuck straightened, cupped the ball with the head of his putter, tossed it into the air, and caught it deftly with his free hand. He rested the putter against the bookcase and dropped the ball into a dish holding several others.

  “You expect me to believe that you were waiting for me?”

  “Oh, no, no.” He swatted the air as if he could dismiss the idea. “Of course not. But I’m not surprised you’re here considering that a homicide happened right next door. I’ll cut to the chase. Of course I don’t know anything about what happened at the property next door last night.” He sat on the overstuffed arm of a leather couch that had been in the office for as long as Cade could remember. “But before we get into that, how’s Harper?” His face creased with genuine concern.

  “Dealing.”

  “Is she?” Sucking in a breath through his teeth, he shook his head. “Pretty tough. And she shouldn’t have been there. It’s Xander’s fault she was even here in the first place.” He scowled darkly. “You give a kid a break—a part-time job and a place to live when he’s here—and what does he do? Brings your seventeen-year-old granddaughter up to it in the middle of the damned night!”

  He slapped his knees, stood, then walked to his desk, rolled back his chair, and dropped into it. “Sit, sit,” he said, waving Cade into one of the side chairs. “Drink?”

  “Still on duty.”

  “I’m your father.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Well, hell, I’m having one.” He reached behind him to the liquor cabinet, found a decanter of scotch, and poured himself a healthy shot into one of the short glasses that were on display. “Anyway, I sent Vale packing. Told him that I’d give him decent references but that he had to find another job.” He took a swallow from his glass. “I’m sure Harper’s going to be upset, but hell, I can’t have that.” Another long swallow. “So did I cover everything you needed to know?”

  “Just about. But have you seen anyone coming or going at the property next door?”

  “Just people from Bell-Cooper, and that’s a pisser, let me tell you. I had been trying to buy that property for years but got nowhere with the archdiocese, and then this yahoo from Seattle comes down here and starts buying up everything. You know he’s got a deal for Reacher’s farm and the old Galloway sawmill, even that damned cannery—Sea View—and God knows what else? The whole thing has had Lila tied in knots. You know she didn’t get the listings to begin with, nor did Annessa, who was supposed to be a friend of hers, use her to do the purchasing?” Pointing a finger at Cade, he said, “Lila’s a helluva real estate agent, as you know. She should have had those sales and boy was she mad when she didn’t get a one! I don’t blame her. Some friend.” He clucked his tongue. “Well, I guess that’s neither here nor there now. The poor woman’s dead. I just can’t imagine.”

  “You never saw a silver Toyota? A RAV4 hybrid. 2019?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t really pay all that much attention, but no, I don’t think so. Let me ask Doris.” He pushed a button on an antiquated intercom. “Doris, would you mind coming in here a second?”

  “I’ll be right there,” was the metallic response, and true to her word, she appeared in the doorway. As ever, she was dressed in a pantsuit, this one black, with a pink blouse and a scarf in hues of gray.

  Cade posed the same question to her and her face pulled into a wrinkled knot of concentration. “I don’t think so, but my desk doesn’t face that direction, and even if it did, there aren’t any windows on that side of the building, at least not downstairs. You have to be on the upper floor to really see much because of the fence.” She shrugged. “Sorry.”

  “No worries.”

  “Anything else?” she asked Chuck. “If not, I’m going to take off. The kids and grandkids are coming over tonight. Pinochle, you know.” She brightened at the mention of her family.

  “God, that’s right. It’s Tuesday, isn’t it? Sure. Go, go. That’s fine. I’m about out of here, too. I’ll lock up. Thanks, Doris.”

  “Good night,” she said to her boss, then gave a nod to Cade and bustled out of the office.

  “She’s retiring next year,” Chuck said thoughtfully. “She’ll be hard to replace.”

  “You’ll figure it out.”

  “Guess so.” He finished his drink. “What about Rachel?” he asked. “Lila said she’s looking and I think she worked for an attorney in Astoria.”

  “Years ago.”

  “She’s good with computers.”

  Cade wasn’t going t
o douse Rachel’s chances but it seemed more than a little incestuous to have his ex-wife working for his father.

  “I’d see the grandkids more.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Worth a shot.”

  “Give her a call,” Cade said, but didn’t expect Rachel would jump at the chance to work for her ex-father-in-law and Lila’s husband.

  “Got anything else on your mind?” Chuck asked. “If not, I’d better get going, too. It’s family night at our house as well, but with Lila’s mood, it won’t be all that fun, let me tell you. And then there’s Lucas.” He pushed himself to his feet. “If it were up to me, I’d see that he went off to a four-year university, just like you and your brothers did, but Lila won’t hear of it and I don’t suppose the kid could get in on his grades.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I really thought Vale was a good influence on him. Too bad about that.”

  “Yeah. Probably for the best. Let me know if you think of anything that you might have seen that’s out of the ordinary.”

  “Will do,” his father promised, and as Cade walked to the door, he saw his father pour himself another drink and then reach for his putter again. In no hurry to go home.

  * * *

  Kayleigh was frustrated. Seated at her desk in the office, scrolling through the reports on her computer screen, only vaguely aware of the noise and activity of the station around her, she reread the interviews of everyone who knew, lived by, or was related to Violet Sperry. Nothing. She also studied the preliminary autopsy report, and found nothing new, nothing to work with.

  The investigation was heading for a standstill.

  She could feel it in her bones.

  The neighbors had seen nothing. The victim, according to everyone, had no enemies. Her husband, Leonard, had an airtight alibi and no greedy children were around to be on the suspect list. Violet’s handgun was still missing, no one in the area had cameras that might have viewed a suspicious vehicle being driven or parked in the area, and so far there was no physical evidence collected at the crime scene—no blood that didn’t match the victim, no latent fingerprints, no discarded cigarette butt or gloves left in the bushes—and no evidence of any affair. No texts or phone calls to an unknown number.

  All they had so far was the damned painter’s tape.

  And, oh, another dead body, too, whose eyes had been taped over until the kids had come and tried to save her. Xander Vale’s prints were all over the wad of blue tape left at the scene, but he’d tried to rescue Annessa Cooper rather than kill her.

  The two crimes had to be connected, the killer the same, but while Violet Sperry’s body had been left in a pool of her own blood from the fall that had broken her neck and cracked her skull, ribs, pelvis, both of her ulnae and radii, as well as her right fibula, Annessa Cooper had been carried and dragged from the spot where the attack had taken place near the doors of the school to the bell tower of the old chapel and hung from the long-forgotten ropes.

  Why?

  Why one and not the other?

  Violet’s death had been fairly quick after a struggle. It could be the killer had planned to take her somewhere else, to display her as he had Annessa, to not murder her quickly, but let her suffer until she was found, but the fight had turned violent and deadly.

  Annessa had been at the school to meet her lover, it seemed, according to the texts in her phone. The conversation had been with Nate Moretti, a classmate who had known both women, though he seemed to have no connection to Violet Sperry other than having gone to school with her way back when.

  She bit her lip and thought, hearing some commotion in the hallway and a deputy swear about having to go and deal with traffic as someone had hit an elk. “Highway thirty, about six miles out of town, the animal died at the scene, the driver is okay, rescue on its way, traffic backing up. Shit.” It sounded like Claire Donahue had taken the call. “I hate this part of the job,” she was saying as her footsteps pounded a quick beat down the hallway. “Azure, are you coming with me? For the love of Mother Mary, I don’t know why that damned herd doesn’t stay down in Gearhart where it belongs!”

  “I’m in,” Trace Azure said, his voice a deep baritone and sounding faintly amused at his partner’s frustration. “Let’s roll.”

  Donahue muttered loud enough for anyone within fifteen feet to hear, “Effin’ elk.”

  “So where do you think you are? Effin’ New York City? Deal with it, Donahue,” Azure said, making a point. Chinook was a large county, primarily rural, with a few small towns in its boundaries, Edgewater being included. Their voices faded and the backdrop of ringing phones, low conversations, and shuffling footsteps returned to its usual dull cacophony.

  Kayleigh tried to get back into work, still going over the reports, hoping for something, any damned thing she might have missed on her first quick scans.

  Cade had called and reported Moretti was MIA.

  Great.

  Kayleigh’s first thought had been the wronged husband might have sought out his vengeance on his wife’s younger lover, but it turned out Clint Cooper, too, had an iron-clad alibi. He hadn’t even been in the state. And, once more, no fortune-hungry kids were waiting for her to die. Annessa Cooper’s stepchildren by Clint’s first and second marriages wouldn’t get a dime until Clint himself kicked off.

  She drummed her fingers on her desk, then caught herself and stopped, only to pick up a pencil and twirl it nervously. She was antsy because of too little sleep and too many unanswered questions. Where the hell was Moretti? Had he been scared off last night? Was he in hiding, in fear for his life after what he’d seen, the attack at the school? But why then not call 911 or try to break up the assault himself?

  So what was the connection?

  And why the staging? Why leave her alive? Had the killer been scared off? Had he been confronted by Nate Moretti?

  She came back to the same thought over and over again: the victims graduated together from Edgewater High twenty years earlier and they both had been at the abandoned fish-packing plant when Luke Hollander had died. They’d both been witnesses on Rachel Gaston Ryder’s behalf.

  But that seemed far-fetched.

  Who would care after all these years?

  Nate Moretti? Reportedly Luke Hollander’s best friend? Why would he suddenly go homicidally berserk? Because of the articles in the paper? She snorted at that thought. Because of the twentieth anniversary of the homicide or was it because of his upcoming high school reunion? She almost smiled. A lot of people hated reunions and didn’t want to be reminded of high school, but killing classmates seemed a little on the extreme side.

  She wondered about Harper. Poor kid. No teenager should have to witness the horrifying death of another at such a young age. Well, never, of course, but death happened, often at the hands of another person. Seeing the girl at the scene, so young and broken, beyond upset, clinging to Cade, had gotten to Kayleigh. Watching the interplay between father and daughter had only confirmed to Kayleigh that her decision had been right, that breaking it off with Cade before it had ever really gotten started had proved to be the only path to have taken.

  But it was still hard. Painful.

  Observing him comforting his daughter had torn at Kayleigh’s heart, had caused her to want Cade Ryder even more than she had before. Why?

  Because you’re an effin’ cretin when it comes to Cade Ryder.

  She tossed her pencil onto her desk in disgust and watched it slowly roll to the floor, then picked it up and stuffed it back into the mug of writing utensils she kept near her monitor.

  She needed to do something. Get out of the office. Away from the desk. Clear her mind. Get a fresh perspective. She was tired from lack of sleep the night before and nothing was happening here. Her phone buzzed and she saw it was Travis McVey. For a second, in her mind’s eye, she saw his bare chest and ropey arm muscles, remembered how it felt to have him turn her easily in the bed and run his hand down her spine and over her rump. She felt a little shiver of desire
deep inside but quickly shut it down. “Not now,” she said and let the call go to voice mail. Then added a silent: Not ever.

  CHAPTER 31

  At 4:47, Cade was done waiting.

  Still at his desk in the office, he put in another call to Dr. Richard Moretti’s office and was told that “Doctor” wasn’t returning. Yes, the receptionist had assured Cade she’d handed him the message, but mentioned that the doctor had been called to the hospital. She assured Cade that Moretti had his number.

  “Tell him it’s important,” Cade said and heard a pat, if distracted, “Of course,” as she disconnected.

  Frustrated, he called the medical supply store Moretti owned.

  The phone was picked up by a bored woman who sounded as if she was chewing gum as she said bluntly, “He ain’t here. Ya wanna leave a message?”

  “Already did.” And he explained.

  “Okay. Got it,” she said and hung up.

  “Strike two.” He glanced at his desk, noted the faded manila file folder on Luke Hollander’s death, and wondered why it still bothered him, why he thought it was important in the recent murders. Yeah, the two victims had been at the cannery the night Hollander was killed, along with a lot of others. Their connection was that they’d both testified for Rachel.

  Did that mean anything?

  He couldn’t see how.

  He flipped open the file again, rifled through the statements until he came to those of the people he knew.

  Lila Kostas, now his stepmother, had sworn she was at the other end of the cannery at the time of the shots, though she’d admitted she’d been searching for Luke, her then boyfriend.

  Nate Moretti, Luke’s best friend, had been smoking near a broken window and had seen the cops approach. He swore he hadn’t heard the report of a gun, nor seen its flash, but he was too far from his friend.

  Reva Augustus, now Santiago, had been “near the chute” where the unused fish guts and scraps had been tossed during the cannery’s operation. But she, too, had a link to Luke. She was the girl he’d tossed over for Lila and, according to all reports, had been bitter about it. But she’d done well for herself, become an attorney.