Literally Murder (A Pepper Brooks Cozy Mystery Book 2)

by Eryn Scott

Isaac's eyes cut back toward the front door for a moment before meeting mine again. "I didn't notice it until after they were killed, but..." Isaac swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.

  I nodded, urging him to go on.

  "He stared at her."

  "Katie or Mindy?" I asked. "Or Heidi?"

  "All of them, now that I think about it." Isaac dipped his head in acknowledgment. "He must've spent hours staring and scratching stuff down in his notebook both times." Isaac's jaw tightened. "Same thing last night, too. Staring and scribbling." Isaac tightened his hand around mine. "The way he stares at you—I think you should be really careful."

  My heartbeat was through the roof from the warning. Pulling it away from Isaac, I shot him a reassuring smile and said, "Reuben? Oh, he's..."

  I laughed and stepped back, running into a chair and stumbling for a moment before catching my balance again.

  "I promise I'll be careful, but don't worry about me." I gave Isaac a wave and glanced at Reuben to make sure he hadn't heard any of that. He was thankfully sucked into his novel, and I didn't think he'd heard any of our conversation.

  I continued over to Liv. She and the guys were in the middle of what looked to be a lively round of impressions of their business professors. She leaned back when I approached the table.

  "I'm feeling a little tired, think I might head home," I told her.

  One of the guys snorted. "It's only nine."

  Hand on my hip, I was about to tell him off when Liv came to my rescue, shooting him a glare. "Shut it, Clark. You fell asleep in Roberts' class last week." She looked back to me. "Okay, I think I'll stay a bit."

  Leaving her alone worried me. Liv fit the exact description of the other victims. Eyeing her companions carefully, I pursed my lips in thought. Maybe I should stay.

  She must've read my mind because she added, "Carson's going to be here soon to meet the guys and hang out for a bit. He'll take me home. Don't worry."

  That made me feel much better. I nodded. "Okay. See you at home."

  "You be safe, too," she said.

  "I'll be fine." I tugged on my auburn ponytail. "I've got the right color hair."

  Eyeing me, Liv said, "Three makes a pattern, but not a rule, Peps. Be careful."

  I nodded and then headed home. I should've spent the walk thinking of a plan for tomorrow and how to find out if Nick had killed Heidi or not. Instead, my thoughts kept drifting to Isaac's eerie warning about Reuben.

  19

  When I got home, Hammy and I took a leisurely walk through the cool night, hitting all her favorite spots. Walks always had a way of making the thoughts in my head line up, and tonight was no exception. The pile of warnings, worries, creepy statements, and clues began to break down, to clear up.

  Usually, the things I figured out on my walks made me feel better. But that wasn't the case this time. By the time I’d arrived back at the apartment and plunked myself down on the couch, I was feeling downright awful.

  Isaacs warning about Reuben had been bothering me for good reason. It was something I hadn't seen, hadn't even considered, but now that it was in front of me, I couldn't seem to deny it.

  I'd chosen to share my theory with Reuben because he was the one who knew the most about Hemingway, but what if he was the exact person I shouldn't have shared with?

  What if I was looking for a motive in all the wrong places? Usually motive was all about love or hate, money, power. But what if those women had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time? What if their only mistake was being too close to something which reminded a literary lunatic of a Hemingway short?

  The room spun as I remembered divulging all of the evidence to Reuben. He knew that I knew. His comments about the murders being art, the admiration in his voice as he'd talked about the killer, all of it swirled around me.

  Omigosh. Reuben had done it, he'd killed those women out of some sick need to pay tribute to his idol. My heart sank as I remembered that he was still at the bar, with Liv. Blond Liv. And I'd called her the bull.

  My mind reeled. Hemingway was obsessed with matadors, bullfights and—oh no—The Faithful Bull was a Hemingway short about… It felt like cotton lined my throat as I remembered the bull's vicious death.

  I'd handed Reuben the justification he needed for his next murder and then left my best friend there with him.

  My fingers shook as I grabbed my phone and texted Liv.

  "Please tell me Carson is there with you!!!"

  I tapped my fingernails on the plastic case of my phone in beat with my racing heart while I waited. Just when I thought I might burst a blood vessel in my brain, a text came through.

  "He just got here. Staying for last call."

  My pulse slowed, pounding uncomfortably in my cheeks. I pulled in a deep breath. Okay, Liv was with Carson. She was safe. If I remembered right, last call was at 9:40, so they would be home soon.

  Having scooted to the edge of my seat in my worry, I slumped back in relief. Granted, there was still an uncomfortable coldness moving up the backs of my arms at the thought of Reuben being the killer, but I wasn't feeling like Liv's life was in danger anymore.

  My text messages still open, I decided it was time to let Alex know.

  I need to talk to you. It's urgent. Can you come here? Can I meet you?

  I went over the evidence in my head while I waited for a response. Alex would need evidence. If he believed me at all, that was.

  Reuben's intense love for all-things-Hemingway could be a motive. I mean—it was crazy—but that wasn't unusual. Serial killers didn't operate by the same rules as regular one-time killers. I did have to admit it was difficult to picture Reuben, with his smallish and gangly frame, choking three women to death, but Isaac's insistence he'd been at the bar each night before they'd died, watching them, was too strange to look past.

  I mean I'd seen him myself, perched creepily in the corner on the night Heidi had been killed. Isaac had said he'd seen him watching Mindy and Katie. It was strange they'd all visited the bar the night right before each of them died.

  The word "night" felt stuck in my mind for some reason, though. Why did that word feel important? Nighttime would've made it easier to follow and kill each woman in the dark, true. But that seemed like a given. I wasn't even blond and I'd felt worried walking home alone tonight.

  Suddenly, it hit me. Nights. Reuben worked nights. I'd learned that fact about him last Monday night, when he and I had been in the library together. Monday night, the night Katie had been killed. I'd been with him up until ten, which was when the bar closed.

  Isaac had told me Reuben had been there that night, he was sure of it. But I knew he hadn't. Which meant Isaac had lied or he'd mistaken someone else for Reuben. It wasn't outside the realm of possibilities.

  Alex picked that moment to text me back.

  "Sorry, I'm out. I can leave and come to you."

  Ugh. Of course he could come now that I was no longer sure about Reuben's guilt. I shook my head out of frustration. The fact that Reuben had an alibi also meant I must've been wrong about the Hemingway connection. I cringed as I typed out a response to Alex.

  "If you're busy, there's no rush. Sorry."

  I sighed. It was back to the suspect list.

  Sam seemed to be the only one left, though. I mean, the guy had threatened me and the bruise around my wrist was a pretty clear match for the victim's necks. The doubts I felt about Reuben's ability to strangle someone were nonexistent as I thought about Sam.

  I'd simply let myself get distracted with the Hemingway clues, that was all. What I should've been doing was looking into Sam. Maybe there was evidence about Sam's past assaults online I could bring in to prove to Detective Valdez Sam could've committed these crimes. I opened my internet browser. It was still open to the articles about Isaac's mom.

  Curiosity guided my finger as I clicked on the one of them.

  I blinked at the screen as I scanned through the text, forehead wrinkling more the further I
read. A pit formed in my stomach. This all sounded vaguely familiar. Terrifyingly familiar. My eyes swept over the page. Page after page.

  Isaac's mom Kendall had been drowned in her late twenties. Her husband, Tyler Breen was the main suspect, but Isaac's testimony had helped keep Tyler out of jail. Tyler had been the key suspect because evidence showed that Kendall had been having an affair with a past professor. So when she had shown up drowned, her windpipe crushed, bruises encircling her delicate throat, her husband was an obvious suspect.

  The locals were distraught when the jury settled on a "not guilty" verdict, having been convinced of Tyler's guilt. "He got away with it," one man had said after the trial, continuing to add, "I can't even imagine what he must've done to get that boy to testify in his favor..."

  A gasp escaped my lips. No. No, no, no, no.

  Isaac's father had drowned his mother. And they wouldn't have had him testify against his father unless he'd seen something. A four-year-old watching his mother die had to mess him up, a lot.

  So much so that...

  Everything started to come together at the same moment, a puzzle clicking together.

  Blondes. Strangled. Drowned. Hemingway. Affairs. The Select. Isaac. The Marlin. The Old Man and the Sea. The matador posters lining the walls of the bar. Isaac's bar. Hemingway murders.

  My throat went dry. It was Isaac.

  Just then, my phone buzzed with a text from Alex.

  "But you said it was urgent. I'm just hanging with Carson. I can come over, really it's no big deal."

  Alex was at The Select with Liv and Carson? Fear gripped my throat. I immediately dialed his number. He picked up on the first ring.

  "Alex, you've got to get out of there. I think Isaac might be the killer." My warning wheezed out, my words strangled with fear.

  There was a silence on the other end of the line. "Get out of where?" he asked slowly. "Carson's apartment?"

  Relief washed over me. "Oh, good. You guys didn't end up staying." I exhaled and nodded. "I'll come to you, so stay put. Oh, and I think you should call your dad. Tell Liv I'm borrowing her car. I'll be there soon."

  I was about to hang up when Alex said, "Liv? Why would I tell her?"

  "I'm not going to text her when she's right there with you. Grow up and talk t—"

  "Pepper," Alex interrupted me, his voice icy cold. "Liv's not here."

  My stomach dropped. Liv wasn't with them? But she'd said Carson was at the bar with her. Unless that hadn't been her—

  Fear rose in my throat through waves of heat. "Alex," I gasped out his name. "She's there. He's going to kill her." My voice was frantic. "We have to go save her."

  "Pepper, I really think you're over react—"

  Interrupting him, I said, "Liv texted me saying Carson was with her, but he's obviously not. Alex." His name was a plea. I needed him to believe me.

  I heard a shuffle on Alex's end, some muffled swearing, and him saying, "Carson, I think Liv might be in trouble," before he addressed me again. "We're on our way. If you get there first, Pepper, do not go in on your own."

  Unable to think, let alone respond to that, I hung up. I tucked my phone in my back pocket and grabbed Liv's car keys along with my purse. I scrambled out the front door and into her old sedan, peeling out of the apartment complex parking lot.

  I drove like a maniac, trying not to cry while going at least twenty over the neighborhood speed limits. I didn't care that Alex didn't believe me. I could feel I was right in my gut.

  I had to get to Liv.

  Screeching the car to a halt in front of the bar, I threw it into park and jumped out. A cold sensation trickled down my back at the sight of the dark bar. It was closed. Racing forward, I pulled on the handle, only to feel the door catch. Locked.

  I stood there and waited for all of two seconds, but I couldn't give Alex and Carson anymore time than that. Searching frantically in the darkness, I spotted the alley to the right and sprinted to it, skidding down the uneven concrete until I reached a back door. Also locked. I wanted to scream.

  Instead, I tried to breathe and think rationally. There was only one light at the end of the alley, so I couldn't see much more than large shadows. Pulling out my phone, I clicked on the flashlight and the alley was illuminated.

  The door I'd already tried was the only exit. The small, rectangular window about seven feet off the ground up to my right looked closed, too. But when I shined the light up, my eyes caught on three large windows on the second floor. It must've been some kind of office upstairs from the bar.

  And one of the windows was open a crack.

  The only way up there that I could see was a precarious pipe running down the side of the building from the roof to the ground. Liv's words from our attempted break in to Howard Hall echoed in my head, "Peps, you and I are not really climbers." Tonight, I had to be. For Liv.

  I put my phone in my mouth and scrambled over to the dumpster pushed up against the building. Shining the light down so I could find my footing, I pulled myself up onto the dumpster. My feet slipped three times on one-can-only-guess-what, but I finally made it to the top, keeping my feet on the edges so I wouldn't possibly fall through the lid. My stomach rolled at the smell of decomposing garbage below me and I stopped breathing in through my nose so I wouldn't be sick. I angled the light so I could see the pipe and my hands grasped it while I anchored my feet on a bracket connecting it to the building.

  And I started to climb.

  The brackets were separated by several feet, which meant I had to shinny up without much footing until I reached the next one. I slid, slipping down a few feet before catching myself at one point, but I finally made it up, level with the second-story windows.

  I pulled air in and out of my nose and open mouth like an animal, clenching my phone between my teeth. This wasn't working. Bracing myself with one arm, I took my phone out of my mouth and tucked it into my back pocket. The light from the phone flashed about the alley wildly, but I didn't have time to turn it off now.

  My arms shook, fingers aching as they gripped the metal and scraped against the concrete. Clawing the screen off the window, I flinched as I heard it crash to the alley floor dozens of feet below me. My right arm shook as I used my left to shove the window all the way open. My wrist, still bruised and sore from Sam's threatening grip screamed in pain. Then I leveraged my foot onto the sill and threw my body forward, arms flailing grabbing onto anything I could.

  Panting, I hung there for a moment, clutching the window frame. I'd made it. I pulled in a deep breath and poked my head inside.

  The room was dark and quiet. Once inside, I pulled my phone out from my back pocket and turned off the flashlight, not wanting to alert Isaac to my presence before I had to.

  If he was even here.

  The thought that he could be somewhere dumping Liv's body made a nauseous wave roll through me.

  Scanning my surroundings, I found a small room with a couch, bed, television, and kitchenette. I realized I must be in Isaac's apartment. He'd probably converted the office that was once here into a living space. It was small, sterile, and there wasn't a soul in sight. I crept over to the staircase, holding my breath as I descended, pausing with a grimace every time the old wood creaked under my weight.

  There was a door at the bottom and I opened it carefully, sending a silent "thank you" out into the universe as it opened smoothly. I slipped through the back hallway, past the restrooms and the kitchen. Now in the familiar territory of The Select, my eyes began to adjust even though the lights were all off, save for the eerie illuminations set up around the mirrored shelves of the expansive bar.

  Creeping through the empty tables, chairs flipped upside down on top of them, the only sound I could hear was my heart pounding in my ears. A sob threatened to burst from my too-tight throat as I looked around, even checking behind the bar. It was empty.

  The whole bar was empty.

  My mind raced. He's left already. He's taken her somewhere, I thought fran
tically, trying to figure out where. Or I've got it all wrong. The thought encompassed me in doubt.

  My heart ached. All I wanted was Liv to be safe. All I wanted was to find her. Alex and Carson should be here soon. I glanced over at the front door. I was about to go over and unlock it, to wait for them outside, when I heard a creaking sound echo through the empty building. It sounded like it came from the wall behind the bar.

  I recognized the sound immediately, having experienced it on my way down here. Someone was on the staircase.

  20

  I raced back, retracing my careful steps, this time without an ounce of stealth. If Isaac was creeping around, he already knew I was here.

  I grasped the stairway door and threw it open. Ducking, looked up the stairs, but didn't see anyone. My feet flew, stomping up the wooden steps, skipping as many of them as my burning thighs would allow.

  There was a figure in the middle of the small room, tall and broad shouldered. I glanced to my right and reached toward the wall, flicking on the light switch. Issac whirled around, surprise written on his familiar features. He had a baseball bat in his hands, pulled back, ready to strike.

  "Pepper? What in the—what are you doing here? You scared me to death. I thought you were an intruder." He let the bat fall to the ground by his side, taking a step toward me.

  My head whipped from side to side as I searched the room. Couch, kitchen, television, tidy bed in the corner. No Liv. Confusion clouded my frantic thoughts.

  "I—Liv—she never..." I stammered, taking a step back, shaking my head. "I thought she might—" My throat closed, unable to finish the sentence. She wasn't here. He wasn't the killer. I'd been wrong after all.

  But that didn't change the fact that Liv was still missing.

  "Liv?" He stepped forward. "She was just here with those guys. Left right at closing." Concern marred his handsome face and his hand settled on my upper arm.

  I wanted to cry. I wanted to curl up in a ball. I wanted to punch the wall in frustration. Who was it? Where was Liv if she wasn't here with Isaac? Had I been wrong about Reuben? Could he still have done it? Or was it Sam?