Harlequin Intrigue May 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Carol Ericson

  “That’s dedication.” Jake didn’t sound like such a horrible dad to her. She took a deep breath to ask him more about his childhood, only knowing his dad had been a cop, too, but Jake whistled and gestured out the window.

  “We’re going to start heading into the nice area now.”

  “The whole area looks nice to me.”

  “Wait until we go past the Huntington Library toward Lacy Park. That’s where the Behrs are.”

  “Leave it to Wexler to cultivate friends in high places.” She didn’t need her client Monica Wexler to tell her about the mayor’s ambition, which was one of the sticky points in their marriage. Everyone in LA knew the mayor had his sights set on bigger and better prizes.

  As Jake turned down the Behrs’ street, Kyra wrinkled her nose at the stately mansions a discreet distance from each other, sporting golf-course-worthy lawns with velvety-green grass even at the end of one of the hottest summers on record.

  “I don’t know. In the realm of multimillion-dollar homes, I prefer yours and Quinn’s to these show-offs.”

  Jake gave a short bark of a laugh that sounded very much like Quinn’s. “Neither Quinn’s nor my house can compare with these.”

  “Maybe not pricewise, but your houses have these beat in character.”

  Jake pulled into the circular driveway of a white mansion, the blandness of it relieved by a riot of colorful flowers bordering the house and running up either side of a long walkway that cut through the grass. It all looked too cheerful for the visit.

  When Jake cut the engine, Kyra put a hand on his arm. “Remember, they aren’t suspects. This isn’t a typical interview.”

  “Got it.” He pinched her knee. “Have I told you I’m glad you’re here?”

  Kyra tried to wipe the smile off her face as they walked up the two steps to the double doors. The doorbell they pressed rang deep inside the house. Kyra almost expected a butler in tails to answer its call.

  When a petite woman with fluffy blond hair opened the heavy door, Kyra blinked at her.

  Straightening his jacket, Jake said, “Mrs. Behr?”

  A smile touched her lips and she dabbed her red nose with a tissue. “That’s right. You must be Detective McAllister, and you’re Kyra Chase.”

  Jake stiffened beside Kyra, and she held her breath, hoping that Mrs. Behr wouldn’t blurt out how she knew her name.

  “That’s right. I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am.”

  “Thank you, Detective.” She stepped to the side and widened the door. “Please come in and join us on the patio. You can remove your jacket, Detective. It’s cool enough in the back, but it feels like we’re having one of those extended summers, doesn’t it?”

  “It sure does, ma’am, especially with the Santa Ana winds last month and those wildfires blazing.”

  Mrs. Behr, looking crisp in white capris, a blue-and-white polka-dot blouse and white sandals, led them through a great room that opened onto the patio. A pocket wall had been fully retracted so that there was no division at all between the inside of the house and the outside except for a track on the floor that separated the wood of the great room from the pavers on the patio.

  Okay, maybe this was a little nicer than Quinn’s beach cottage on the Venice canals.

  As they stepped onto the patio, Mr. Behr rose from a chair, shunting his laptop to the side and running a hand through his thinning hair, where the salt was beginning to take over the pepper.

  “Darling, this is Detective McAllister and Kyra Chase. She’s the—”

  Mr. Behr interrupted his wife. “I know who she is. I’m Michael Behr. Thank you for coming.”

  Jake shook Mr. Behr’s hand. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Behr. We’re doing everything we can to catch Mindy’s killer.”

  A jagged sob escaped from Mrs. Behr’s lips, and Kyra launched forward and took her arm. “Let’s sit down.”

  Mr. Behr motioned Jake into a chair.

  “We don’t want special treatment, you know. That was the mayor’s idea. There were two other victims before Mindy, and I’m sure you didn’t make personal visits to their homes.” He peered up at Jake from his clasped hands.

  “We’re always available to talk to all of the victims’ families, and Kyra is part of the task force and on call if anyone, even the detectives, needs to talk.”

  “Th-that’s nice.” Mrs. Behr crumpled her tissues in her fingers. “Really, we just want an overview of the investigation. Surely, that’s something you can share with all the families, can’t you?”

  She shot her husband a look from beneath wet lashes, and he set his jaw.

  It was clear who had arranged for this meeting. Mrs. Behr may have even gotten the idea from Monica Wexler, who in turn encouraged her husband to reach out.

  Jake sat forward in his chair. “We can absolutely tell you the status of the investigation—up to a point. Certain things we keep from the press and even the families, if we feel those things will help us solve the case faster. Does that make sense?”

  “It does,” Mr. Behr answered as he waved his hand at someone in the great room.

  A short Latina with worried eyes and her own tissue crumpled in her hand scurried out to the patio. “Yes, Mr. Michael?”

  “Elena, could you please bring us some drinks?” Mr. Behr’s gaze darted between Jake and Kyra. “Lemonade, iced tea, both?”

  Kyra smiled at Elena. “I’ll take a lemonade, please.”

  “Same, thank you.” Jake nodded at Elena, who didn’t ask what Mr. and Mrs. Behr wanted.

  This kind of money secured you workers who probably knew your needs before you did.

  When Elena disappeared, Jake launched into an overview of where the LAPD stood on the case. He included the detail of the playing card between the lips, but left off the severed finger. The families would learn about that indignity later when they got back their loved ones’ bodies for burial or cremation.

  Jake did a good job of sanitizing the descriptions, and he trailed off when Elena came back with a tray of four tall glasses filled with pale yellow liquid with ice tinkling inside like delicate wind chimes.

  When he resumed his narrative, punctuated by questions from the Behrs, Kyra noticed he also declined to mention the latest development with the video. Didn’t want to give false hope or just didn’t want news getting out yet.

  When he wound up, Kyra started her job. She asked the Behrs questions about Mindy and encouraged them to talk about her—not to help the investigation but to help themselves. They hadn’t had two seconds to grieve, and they needed to start that process.

  Mrs. Behr was the one who ended the meeting by putting her glass aside and shifting in her seat. “We appreciate your visit so much, don’t we, Michael?”

  Jake’s thorough discussion of the investigation had brought Mr. Behr around, and he also seemed to understand how important it was for his wife.

  By the time she and Jake got back to his car, Kyra felt drained, as if she’d just facilitated a two-hour group session. She collapsed in the passenger seat, leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “I’m exhausted.”

  Jake tapped her shoulder, and she opened one eye, focusing on the phone he held out to her. “What?”

  “Too tired to drive out to Santa Monica and talk to Yolanda?”

  She bolted upright in her seat and scrambled for her own cell phone. “Inez called you?”

  “Almost right after we sat down with the Behrs and I turned off my phone.” He squinted at it now. “About two hours ago. Said Yolanda was at the library.”

  Kyra’s fingers closed around her phone, and she pulled it free from her purse. “She texted me, too. Same thing. Let’s hurry. We might catch her in the library.”

  Jake put on the speed, but traffic wouldn’t cooperate. Kyra had put in a call to Inez, who hadn’t responded yet.

 
As they got off the freeway and veered onto Lincoln, Inez returned Kyra’s call. “I’m sorry. Yolanda just left. I sent you and the detective texts as soon as I saw her here.”

  Kyra made a face at Jake. “Thank you for that. Do you know which direction she was headed? Do you know where she stays at night?”

  “I think she stays at the women-only shelter in downtown LA sometimes, but not always. When she leaves the library she sometimes goes down to the pier to get food from the restaurants there.”

  “Thanks, Inez. We’ll try that, or we can catch her another day.”

  “She hasn’t done anything wrong, has she?”

  “Not at all. We just want to talk to her about someone she might have met. Have you ever seen her talking to a man in the library?”

  “Yolanda will talk to anyone who talks to her, but I’ve never noticed anyone in particular.”

  “Okay, I’ll let you know if you need to keep a lookout tomorrow, too.”

  Jake idled at a stop sign. “Let’s try for another day. We’re so close to your place. If you don’t need anything from the station, I can just drop you off at home and take you back in the morning.”

  Kyra turned her head to look at his slightly flushed face. Did he mean he’d drive all the way back to his place in West Hollywood after dropping her off and then come back in the morning to pick her up? Or did he mean he’d spend the night and the two of them would go into the station together?

  She broke off as the wail of a siren swooped down on them from behind.

  “Whoa.” Jake rolled forward a little bit and veered to the right to clear the way for the ambulance and cop car.

  Kyra stared at a crowd of people up ahead on the corner of Ocean, across the street from the pier, and her heart pounded in her chest. “Inez mentioned that Yolanda sometimes went to the pier after the library to scrounge for food. Let’s look there first before giving up today.”

  “Okay, but in case you haven’t noticed, it’s kind of a mess up there.” His hands resting on top of the steering wheel, Jake pointed at the clutch of people and emergency vehicles.

  “You’re in your LAPD car. When have you ever shied away from parking this thing illegally?” She waved a finger at a red curb in a bus lane ahead and to the right. “Stop over there. I want to see what’s going on. I have a bad feeling about this.”

  “About this?” He nodded at the scene on the corner.

  “Yeah. Just humor me.”

  The sedan lurched forward into the intersection and cruised to a stop on the red curb that would give anyone else a ticket in a minute flat.

  Before Jake even cut the engine, Kyra had the door open and was scrambling from the car. As Jake called after her, she broke into a jog and hung on the edge of the crowd clumped around an accident scene in the street.

  Her breath catching in her throat, she asked everyone and no one in particular, “What happened?”

  “Car versus pedestrian.”

  “Hit and run.”

  “Some homeless lady.”

  “Think she’s dead.”

  With her head swimming and the blood pounding against her temples, Kyra shimmied and ducked through the lookie-loos until she staggered to the front, bordering the street.

  A body, already covered with a white sheet, lay in the street. One edge of the sheet had flipped back, and in the revolving red and blue lights, Kyra could make out the logo for Santa Monica College on the dirty gray sweatshirt.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Jake ran to catch up with Kyra and, peering over the crowd, could see her blond head. What the hell was she doing gaping at the scene of a hit and run?

  He cupped his hand around his mouth and yelled, “Kyra!”

  He had to try a second time before her head whipped around, and he staggered back at eyes as big as saucers on her face and her mouth open in a perfect O. She looked like she’d seen a ghost.

  She turned her body in his direction and battled the crowd to reach him.

  She fell against him heavily. He wrapped one arm around her and pulled her close to his chest, where he felt her heart hammering against him.

  “What is it? What happened?”

  She planted her hands against his chest and looked up into his face, whispering, “It’s her.”

  He glanced at the uniforms doing crowd control and the ambulance parked at an angle in the middle of the street. “Yolanda? You’re telling me that the hit-and-run victim is Yolanda?”

  “Yes.” She grabbed the front of his shirt, nearly ripping it off his body. “He did it. I know he did it. He took care of Matt, too. Think about it.”

  “Slow down a minute.” He had to practically drag her away from the scene. Amid the chaos, nobody even noticed their drama. “Sit here.”

  He’d pushed her into a plastic chair at a fast-food restaurant’s outdoor patio. A number of patrons had already abandoned their food and tables to get a look at the accident scene.

  “How do you know that’s Yolanda? As far as I could see, the body had already been covered.”

  “Not completely. The sheet had hitched up on one side and I saw her clothing.”

  “You recognized the clothing of a homeless person you saw once?” He didn’t want to believe her, didn’t want to face the consequences of her truth, and was throwing everything he had at her.

  “It was distinctive.” She grabbed the straw stuck in a drink and, with her lips puckered, pulled it toward her until he slid the cup away from her.

  “That’s not your drink.”

  She blinked and released the straw. “She was wearing a gray sweatshirt from Santa Monica College. I noticed it because I teach classes there sometimes. Yolanda went on about working in the fashion world, so, of course, I checked out her clothes. The woman lying dead in the street is wearing the same sweatshirt.”

  The corner of Jake’s eye started twitching, and he smacked himself on the side of the head to stop it. “You think La Prey had something to do with Yolanda’s death.”

  It wasn’t even a question. Of course Kyra thought that. Didn’t he?

  Ignoring her tilted head and pursed lips, he plowed on. “What were you saying about Matt?”

  “When you set up that meeting with Matt at the motorcycle shop in Van Nuys, he was going to tell you who paid him off to plant the cards for me, wasn’t he?” She folded her hands, trapping her fidgety fingers.

  “I think he was also planning to tell me that you’d killed Buck Harmon. I mentioned he had dirt on you. I didn’t suspect you of killing Matt.”

  “Didn’t you?” She raised her eyebrows at him and then grabbed a French fry.

  He slapped her hand. “Those aren’t yours.”

  “Ugh.” She pushed the half-eaten food away from her. “Matt is about to reveal information to you about La Prey and he dies of a drug overdose, which is not a surprising way for him to go out. Yolanda might tell us who paid her to send me that email and she dies in a hit-and-run accident, which wouldn’t seem too suspicious for a transient to meet her end that way. Quinn always told me...”

  They recited together, “There are no coincidences in police work.”

  Holding up his hand, Jake said, “But was Yolanda going to tell us anything? And how would La Prey know if she was?”

  “Stop being such a...detective.” She flailed her hands in the air. “How does he know anything, Jake? He just does.”

  He got up from the uncomfortable chair and aimed a finger at Kyra. “You stay here—and don’t eat or drink anything from this table. It’s not yours.”

  He stalked back to the accident scene, clutching his badge in his hand, and found the Santa Monica PD sergeant in charge, Campos. As way of introduction, he said, “Jake McAllister, LAPD Robbery-Homicide, Sergeant Campos. Is the victim a homeless person named Yolanda?”

  The sergeant puffed up his pump
ed-up chest until Jake thought the buttons would pop off his uniform. “What’s your interest here?”

  Jake sucked a breath into his mouth and expelled it from his nose, briefly closing his eyes behind his sunglasses, grateful to the late sunsets that he still needed them. He didn’t feel like getting into some kind of contest with this guy.

  “I’m not interested in stepping on your turf. I had a few questions I wanted to ask Yolanda related to a homicide I’m investigating. If you could verify for me that Yolanda is the victim and give me anything you got on witnesses or the car, I’ll be on my way.”

  This de-escalation stuff really worked. Campos seemed to deflate and ducked in toward Jake until he could smell the sergeant’s cheesy cologne.

  Campos replied, “No positive ID yet, but we’ve heard a few names and Yolanda is one of them. The car was a white SUV. We got the plates, called it in immediately, and the owner reported it stolen earlier today. Probably why the guy took off after the accident.”

  “Probably.” Jake pressed his card into Campos’s hand and said, “Impressive work. Call me if you have any more information.”

  Campos nodded and strode off to the call of one of his officers.

  Car theft, murder. La Prey was more than a stalker. Was he a serial killer, too? No. He’d been taunting Kyra during the Copycat Player killings, and that serial killer had turned out to be barista Jordy Lee Cannon, a geek who lived at home with his mother.

  When he got back to the patio of the fast-food place, a couple was sitting at the table munching their food.

  “Psst.” Kyra waved at him from the other side of the patio. When he joined her, she thrust a soda in his hand. “They kicked me off their table.”

  “They probably would’ve done worse if you’d eaten all their food.” He sucked down some soda. “Thanks.”

  “What did you discover?”

  “They haven’t ID’d the victim yet, but the name Yolanda is floating around. They did ID the car already. A witness got the plates, and it’s a stolen car.”

  She shook the ice in her cup. “I can’t believe it. No, I can believe it. He’s not going to get caught that easily, is he? Poor Yolanda. I wonder how he figured out she was going to rat on him.”