The Scarlett Bell FBI Series

by Dan Padavona

  “Oh, this isn’t good.”

  Cheri swung her feet onto Gwen’s desk and sat back.

  “Depends on how you handle the situation. Me? I’m hopping into the car and driving to Atlanta. At least I intend to if the big boss woman lets me leave early. There’s nothing better than a hurricane party with no hurricane to deal with.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Gwen said distractedly, refreshing the screen as if doing so would change the forecast. “Of course, you can leave early.”

  Cheri, whose short blonde hair was styled into a bob, reminded Gwen of Gwyneth Paltrow. Cheri was the firm’s best designer, even better than Gwen when she set her mind to her work. But she was easily distracted, changed discussion topics and boyfriends as often as she did shoes.

  “And what are you planning to do, my friend? Please tell me you don’t intend to ride out a killer hurricane.”

  Gwen had considered exactly that, except the beach house wasn’t an ideal place to hole up in a storm this strong.

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  Cheri swung her legs off the desk and scooted forward with the chair, resting her head in her hands.

  “You know, you could come with?”

  “Sounds dangerous.”

  “Think about it. You and me together. The Atlanta club scene would never be the same.”

  Gwen’s lips curled up. A few days with Cheri in Atlanta sounded a ton better than the alternative.

  “Let me think on it.”

  “Okay, but don’t think for too long. If we want to beat the traffic off the island, we need to get going.”

  Rain slapped against the window and made Gwen jump. The storm decided her. It was too risky to stay.

  Gwen grabbed her keys and stuffed them into her bag.

  “You sold me.”

  “Yay!”

  “But I’m not leaving without Oscar.”

  “Gwen, cats are smarter than people. He’ll find shelter. Don’t worry.”

  Gwen looked out the window, considering. Already she observed a line of cars massing at the bridge. The traffic would only worsen with each passing minute.

  “I can go home and be back in an hour.”

  “That’s too long.”

  Gwen sighed.

  “Look, either I grab Oscar and leave in an hour, or I ride it out. I couldn’t live with myself if something bad happened.”

  “Fine.”

  The disappointment was clear on Cheri’s face.

  “Tell you what. If I’m not back in an hour, go without me. I’ll meet you in Atlanta.”

  Cheri squinted doubtfully.

  “I don’t know about this. Doesn’t sound like a smart plan.”

  “I promise I’ll be fine. Even if I get stuck in traffic, I’ll make it off the island before the storm hits. Besides, storms always miss us. You’ll see.”

  Cheri dragged her feet and slumped her shoulders as they walked out of the office. When they reached the elevator, Gwen felt a pang of worry. What if lightning struck and the power went out while they were inside? The doors opened and Cheri entered. The woman turned and faced Gwen, who stood undecided at the threshold.

  “Well, are you coming?”

  Gwen entered before she could talk herself out of it.

  The elevator descended two floors and chimed at the main level. When the doors slid apart, Gwen clutched her bag and hurried out as if fleeing from a haunted house. Cheri quickened her pace to keep up.

  There was a bald man wearing a gray janitor’s uniform in the lobby. He faced away from them and stared down at the trash receptacle as if uncertain how to remove the bag. Gwen didn’t recall seeing the man before, but the firm which owned the office building recently changed cleaning services.

  “Is that the new guy?” Cheri asked.

  “I’m not sure.”

  Something about the man was familiar. She tried to recall where she’d seen him, but her head throbbed and urged her to escape the lobby lights.

  The wind nearly threw Gwen down when they stepped onto the sidewalk. Commerce Street, usually overrun with traffic at midday, was an empty tomb. Cheri bent low and turned her head as a spray of rain caught them.

  “I’m parked in the garage,” Cheri said, shouting over the wind and pointing across the street. “Meet me at the Sunoco next to the bridge. One hour, Gwen.”

  Gwen nodded and clutched her bag to her body. The storm groped at her, tried to lift Gwen off her feet.

  She was halfway down the sidewalk when she looked back at the office building. The janitor, the man she swore she recognized, was staring at her through the window.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The wipers slice through the waterfall streaming down his windshield, and more water replaces the flow. Longo hunches over the steering wheel and peers into the storm. He can barely discern the development, but last night’s memory pulls him through and tells him where to turn before the street signs become visible.

  Gwen Devereux’s Volvo is parked in the driveway when he stops along the curb. He sits inside his truck for a moment and watches. The lights are on in the living room. He watches her shadow pass over the curtains and swerve toward the back of the house. She will leave soon, he knows. He overheard her discussion with the blonde woman about leaving the island. As expected, nobody gave him a second glance when he arrived dressed as a janitor. Then the news about the hurricane broke, and the office building cleared out and left him alone with the women.

  The storm whips at him when he steps from the truck. It shrieks over the ocean and unleashes an army of waves against the unsuspecting beach. Besides Devereux, he is the only living soul in the development. Everyone else in town flees. As he moves into a stand of trees and watches from the shadows, another wish comes to him unbidden. What if the blonde woman comes to the Devereux’s home? He never considered killing two women at the same time. The idea excites him.

  Longo touches the knife inside his jacket pocket. Runs his thumb down the blade and feels a trickle of blood warm his hand.

  He surveys the surroundings, taking nothing for granted, and confirms no one watches. Then he slides the knife from his pocket. Curls his fingers around the hilt and squeezes.

  Movement in the shadows catches his eye before he steps into the yard. The woman’s cat has found him again. Remembering Longo, the animal is no longer cautious. The cat rubs against his shin and purrs, innocent eyes glancing in expectation.

  But he has other ideas for the cat.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Gwen Devereux’s travel bag lay open on the bed as she rushed back-and-forth in the bedroom. Convinced she’d packed enough clothes for three days, she zipped the bag shut and cursed. Toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant. In her haste, she’d forgotten them.

  Rain sprayed the bedroom window. Beyond the pane, whitecaps turned the sea into a frothy monster. It was halfway up the beach. She’d never seen it rise this far.

  As she rushed to the bathroom cabinet she heard a truck motor. Odd. She thought nobody was left in the development. Then the motor vanished under the storm, and she wondered if she’d imagined the sound.

  After packing the toiletries, she hurried to the back door and threw it open. The salty ocean spray met her immediately and soaked her front. Calling for Oscar with growing desperation, she glanced around the beach. An impenetrable haze swallowed everything, making it impossible to see. Braving the storm, she stepped onto the deck and called again. Oscar would find shelter, she tried to convince herself. Maybe Cheri was right about cats being smarter than humans when it came to evading Mother Nature. Was she willing to get herself killed over the cat? A part of Gwen begged her to stay. She couldn’t live with herself if Oscar was terrified and pawing at the back door minutes after she fled the development.

  Her eyes drifted over the windows as she turned toward the door. No chance the glass would hold up, even if the storm surge didn’t crash through the kitchen. The supplies for boarding the windows sat in the garage, planks she never tho
ught she’d need. It was too late now.

  She threw the door shut and battled against the wind until it clicked into place. The phone rang as she toweled her hair dry. It was Cheri.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m almost ready to leave.”

  “Did you find Oscar?”

  Gwen slid into a kitchen chair and rubbed her temples.

  “No. I’m still looking.”

  “You have to leave now. We’re under a state of emergency with mandatory evacuations along the coast. That means you.”

  “I know. Let me try one more time.”

  “Gwen.”

  “I swear I’ll leave right after. Wait for me at the Sunoco. I’m coming.”

  Cheri’s protests cut off. Nothing but silence on the other end.

  “Cheri?”

  Bursts of truncated conversation came through the receiver as the connection wavered. Gwen caught syllables she couldn’t make sense out of. Then the line went dead. Great. Ana had taken down a cell tower.

  Gwen clicked the phone off and sat with her head between her knees. Damn this migraine. Were it not for the storm she would have driven to the emergency room and demand a shot of Sumatriptan.

  The memory hit her when she stood up. She knew where she’d seen the janitor. Stacking shelves at the Island Mart last night. She’d caught him staring at her. It was an odd coincidence, to say the least, but not strange a person needed to work two low-paying jobs to make ends meet. And maybe that was the reason he’d stared at her through the window. Recognition. She felt a little foolish for getting the creeps.

  Gwen put the thought aside and went to the front door.

  She was about to call for Oscar again when she saw something sticking out of the ground in the front yard. The rain pulled a veil across her vision. Hands cupped to elbows, she edged down the stoop and saw the cat’s head and paws jutting out of the ground. Its neck lolled to one side, swollen and distended, tongue snaking between open fangs. She bit down on her hand and sobbed as her brain slowly processed the horrific scene.

  Then she saw him standing in the rain. She knew who he was as soon as she saw the gray janitor’s uniform.

  He strode across the lawn as she screamed and turned for the house. A moment after she threw the lock, his body collided with the front door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Detective McKenna was already on scene with two additional officers when Bell and Gardy arrived at the Island Mart. The officers wore navy blue Sunset Island PD rain slickers beaded with water droplets. A woman Bell guessed was the store manager stood among the officers, her dirty-blonde hair unkempt and frizzy as if she’d recently run in from the rain. The woman’s clothes stunk of cigarette smoke.

  Gardy nodded at McKenna.

  “What have we got?”

  McKenna walked into the store as he spoke, the others following.

  “About three hours ago, a shopper found a lunch box in the snack aisle. The box was pushed toward the back of the shelves as if it had been forgotten. He figured it belonged to a worker, so he turned it in at the customer service desk.”

  “Do we know who the lunch box belongs to?”

  “A local guy named Derek Longo. He works the overnight shift.”

  “Worked the overnight shift,” the manager said. “I fired him this morning.”

  “By the way, this is the store manager, Dolores Storey. She found the finger.”

  Storey nodded, folding her arms as if she couldn’t shake the gooseflesh bubbling off her skin.

  “I didn’t open the box until an hour ago. Had no reason to, but it was…leaking water and smelled bad. As soon as I saw what was inside I phoned the police.”

  McKenna stepped around a woman hustling bottled water into a cart.

  “So here’s what we know. Derek Longo abandoned his shift sometime after midnight this morning. Didn’t say a word to anyone, just walked off the job. The Island Mart only had one cashier working at that time of night.”

  “Renee Wood,” Storey added.

  “Right. Wood wouldn’t have noticed except she heard Longo’s truck start. Guy drives a 1998 F-150, black. It makes a lot of noise, so it was next to impossible not to hear him leave. Nobody saw Longo for the rest of the night. But get this. Two hours ago, one of the stock boys claims Longo was inside the store and acting strangely.”

  Bell swerved around two men arguing over a loaf of bread.

  “Acting strange how?”

  “Says Longo had a paranoid look on his face and ran over some woman outside of the bakery. Then he sprinted through the front entrance and knocked one of the automatic doors off its hinges.”

  “He was after the lunch box.”

  “That’s my guess. By then it was already at the customer service desk.”

  McKenna pushed open a pair of double doors at the back of the store. Walking beside Gardy, Bell saw a small warehouse with crates and boxes upon pallets. McKenna and the manager took a sharp right down a dark hallway and into the security office. A thin, mustached man with greasy hair sat before a row of monitors. He wore a blue security uniform with a radio affixed to his hip but didn’t carry a weapon.

  “This is the head of security, Evan Thames.”

  By way of McKenna’s introduction, Thames shook Gardy’s hand, then Bell’s. His palms were moist and scabby.

  Bell wiped her hand on her pant leg and gestured at the gray lunch box next to the video console.

  “I take it the finger is our vic’s?”

  “We sent it to the lab for testing, but I think we all know where the finger came from. In the meantime, we sent two cars to Longo’s address on Edgewood Boulevard. He wasn’t home, but our guys entered the premises and found blood splatter in the basement. It’ll take time to match the blood to Clarice Hopkins.”

  Bell looked sympathetically at the store manager.

  “Mrs. Storey, what can you tell us about Derek Longo?”

  Storey dropped onto a metal folding chair and stared down at her lap.

  “Derek worked with us for about seven months. He preferred the night shift from eight-until-four. I was the one who read his application and made the call to hire him.”

  “Do you know if he has family in the area? Friends he might stay with? A girlfriend?”

  Storey shrugged.

  “Can’t imagine Derek with a girlfriend. If you even glance at him, his face breaks out and his neck turns red. He's a strange one.”

  “Breaks out. As in hives?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Derek seemed uncomfortable around people, which is probably why he wanted to work overnights. As the detective pointed out, we have one cashier, an assistant manager on the night shift, and one person to stock the shelves. That was Derek. For what it’s worth, I always made a point to invite him to store picnics, to make him more comfortable around his coworkers, but he never came.”

  Gardy, who remained quiet until now, leaned against the video console, tapping his phone against his chin.

  “The question I have is why Longo suddenly abandoned his shift in the middle of the night. Something set him off.”

  Bell glanced at Gardy.

  “We need to view the security footage from Longo’s shift.”

  Thames slid his rolling chair in front of the controls and folded his arms.

  “They can’t force you to show them the footage, Mrs. Storey. Not without a warrant.”

  The store manager hissed through her teeth.

  “This isn’t the time to worry about warrants, Evan. Show them the footage.”

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “Just do it.”

  Thames spun around in a huff, shaking his head.

  “Derek was on shift for over four hours. How much do you really need to see?”

  “Start ten minutes before midnight,” said Gardy.

  “Fine.”

  Thames typed the information into the computer, and the monitors flickered. It took a moment for Bell to realize the footage, whi
ch displayed multiple views of the store over several monitors, wasn’t live. The only discernible difference was the lack of people inside the store on the replay.

  Gardy leaned over the security guard’s shoulder and pointed at the monitor.

  “Does the system play the footage back at a faster speed?”

  “Sure, I can choose multiple speeds.”

  When Thames clicked the mouse the footage appeared the same, then Bell noticed shadows in the lower portion of the frame moving unusually fast. Several seconds later, Longo entered the screen pushing a shopping cart. He disappeared from one screen and reappeared in another as the various views followed his progress through the Island Mart.

  “Pause it there,” Bell said, kneeling beside Gardy.

  Gardy nodded.

  “Check out the shopping cart. You can see the lunch box. Start it again.”

  McKenna squinted at the monitor as Longo removed the lunch box and ran his fingers along the side, almost caressing it. The video advanced and Longo shoved the lunch box onto the shelf while he stocked the snack aisle.

  “He’ll risk getting caught to keep the trophy with him at all times. What would make him forget the lunch box? It doesn’t seem possible.”

  Longo restocked the shelves at triple-speed. Bell was about to tell Thames to speed up the footage when Longo suddenly stopped and crept to the end cap.

  “There,” Gardy said, pointing at the monitor. “He notices someone. Who’s he looking at? The cashier? Pause it.”

  Thames froze the footage, and Bell’s eyes traveled over the monitors until she saw the woman. She was mid-stride near the bread aisle and angling toward the back of the store.

  “Detective, do you have a photograph of Clarice Hopkins on you?”

  McKenna opened his iPad and swiped a finger across the screen.

  “Right here,” McKenna said, enlarging the picture of the first murder victim.

  Bell glanced between the photograph and the video monitor.

  “The resemblance is undeniable.”

  McKenna tilted the iPad so Gardy could compare.