Love Inspired Suspense April 2015 #1

by Terri Reed

“I would have thought, though, that a man like Seth would have made up his own mind. I’m sure he’s kicking himself now for being an idiot.”

  “Yeah, well, he can kick himself all he wants. I’m still not getting back together with him.”

  Jace stopped. “He wants to get back together with you?”

  Warning bells went off in her mind at his stiff tone. Uh-oh. As unbelievable as it might seem, it appeared that Jace was uncomfortable with Seth’s renewed interest. Jealousy? She flicked a casual glance his way then bit her lips to keep them from curling up at the corners. A scowl as dark as a thundercloud sat upon his brow. Yep. It sure looked like jealousy to her. It was probably petty of her, but she rather enjoyed the possibility.

  It was the last urge she had to smile for hours.

  *

  The morning dragged by. The first three jurors they visited all denied receiving any kinds of threats. They also claimed that they still believed Melanie to be guilty. Whether they really believed this or just needed to soothe their consciences was irrelevant. The fourth juror on the list was deceased. He had died after a short battle with cancer over a year ago.

  The day wore on. Around lunchtime, they approached a house that was owned by a Maggie Slade, a young woman of about twenty-five. Jace gave her door a brisk knock, but Mel wasn’t surprised when no one answered. The newspaper box was overflowing, a pile of rolled-up papers scattered on the porch. The yard had a lonely, neglected feel to it.

  “She didn’t stop her paper delivery, but her mailbox is empty. My guess is that she took the time to put a hold on that.”

  “Why wouldn’t she stop her paper delivery if she was going away?” Mel queried, although she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer.

  “Good question. My guess is that she was in a hurry. Maybe panicked. I’ll see if I can get a warrant to check this place out. In the meantime, we have more people to visit.”

  The next two jurors were both males—one older, one about Melanie’s age. The old man was adamant that he believed, then and now, that Mel was guilty.

  “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. That’s what I always say.” He grunted, then spit a stream of tobacco juice out of the corner of his mouth. Mel sidestepped so it wouldn’t hit her shoes. Somehow, she didn’t think his atrocious aim was accidental.

  The young man didn’t seem to care one way or another if Melanie was guilty or innocent. He had gone along with the crowd. “I figured they must know what they were talking about. Besides, the cops can’t arrest you if they don’t have any evidence. Right?” He looked Melanie up and down. “But you’re kinda cute. Hey, now that you’re out, ya know, are you free for dinner sometime?”

  Jace snorted in disgust. Melanie agreed. Without a word, she went to wait for Jace in the truck.

  The next juror, an older woman, patted Mel’s cheek and told her she had always wondered if she had been innocent. When Jace inquired what made her vote guilty, the woman looked sad and ashamed.

  “I was weak. The others were adamant that I was wrong to doubt the evidence. I gave in. For that I apologize.”

  “I accept your apology. And I don’t hold it against you.” Mel kissed her cheek. Then they moved on. Next they learned that another juror, a young man named Steven Scott, had been killed in a car accident about two months ago. They both were feeling fatigued by that time. By three o’clock, they had seen seven jurors. That was when Paul called them into the department. He had had the last juror from their list flown in.

  As soon as they entered the room, Mel knew that this was the woman that Alayna had told her aunt about—the other juror who admitted to being threatened. Her movements, her expressions, all spoke of extreme anxiety. When she turned and faced Melanie, her face turned ashen. She cried out and sank weakly in her chair. Melanie felt sorry for her. She was young and pretty. She looked like she should be out having fun, dating and dreaming of babies. Instead, she was here, terrified.

  “You know, don’t you?” she sobbed.

  Paul made the introductions. “This is Miss Emily Keith. May I see you in the hall, Lieutenant Tucker?” Jace nodded and followed him out. Melanie left the room behind him. She wanted to know what was going on, so until told otherwise, she would stick like glue to Jace. Paul barely looked at her when she closed the door behind her. “She’s the final juror, I understand?”

  “Yes, sir. Except for the one who’s missing. I’m still waiting for a warrant to go search her property.” Jace turned his steady blue eyes on the distraught woman sitting in the interview room. “From what she has already said, I think we can assume she was the one who was threatened.”

  “Be careful with this one. The US marshals are standing by to escort her to a safe house. Hopefully, we’ll be able to find whoever is behind this. Then she will be needed to testify. Until then, she and her family will need to be protected.”

  “Understood, sir.” Jace put his hand on the door. “Mel, you need to remain out here for this one.”

  The urge to argue was nearly overwhelming, but Mel fought it and held her tongue. It would be selfish to allow her feelings to interfere with the investigation. Jace had already allowed her to participate more than he should have. She had to trust him now.

  Easier said than done. She bit back a protest as he walked through the door. Patting her shoulder in understanding, Paul accompanied Jace into the room. Folding her arms, anchoring her cold hands in the warmth of her underarms, she rocked slightly back and forth as she stepped up to the window. And watched as Jace disappeared, and Lieutenant Tucker approached the table—a formidable ally, and an equally daunting opponent.

  *

  Jace could feel Melanie’s stare boring into his back as he marched with authority to the table. He forced himself to focus 100 percent on the shaking woman before him and not think of the woman who was depending upon him to clear her name and quite possibly save her life.

  “Miss Keith, another juror came forward and revealed that she had been threatened to cast a guilty vote. New evidence has been found that suggests that Miss Swanson was not guilty. Can you help us? Were you threatened, as well?”

  Emily leaped from her chair.

  “My family! They threatened to hurt my parents!”

  Paul interjected, his voice commanding. “They? Do you have any idea who they might have been?”

  “No! Please! My mom and dad. And my kid brother!” Emily grabbed on to Paul’s arms, shaking him in her desperation. Paul calmly patted her hand, then removed himself from her grasp.

  “No one is going to hurt your family, Miss Keith. They were all removed from their home by US marshals this morning. Even as we speak, they are in a safe location. They will be protected, and so will you, for as long as necessary.”

  Emily, relieved of her fear for her family, answered their questions, her voice wavering every now and then. When the first threat had arrived in a letter, she had tried to resist it. She had listened at the trial and had even argued with a couple of jurors about what she had felt were inconsistencies in the case. When she had arrived home that evening, her beloved dog was lying dead on her doorstep. A letter was left that stated clearly that her own family would be next if she didn’t comply. She folded. And the next day, she had meekly gone along with the other jurors.

  Jace and Paul took turns questioning her, rephrasing the same questions, searching for clues, any hint to the identity of the person behind the threats. Finally satisfied that they had everything, Paul rose and went to the door, motioning to a tall man in a dark suit. The quintessential US marshal.

  There was something else, though. As she got ready to leave, Emily gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. “How could I have forgotten?”

  “What?” Jace and Paul said together.

  “There was a man on the jury…Steve Scott.”

  “Yes, we know. He was killed in a car accident two months ago,” Jace informed her. He wasn’t trying to be cold, he was just getting impatient.

  “Oh, no! I wondered wh
y he had stopped emailing. We dated a few times after the trial.”

  Jace was slightly amused by that. Only slightly.

  Paul and Jace both motioned for Emily to continue. She blushed.

  “About six months ago, Steve started hinting that he felt bad about the trial. I had been trying to forget about it, it was such a horrible experience. Anyway, one night…oh, about four months ago, we were talking on the phone, and I broke down and told him about the threats. He admitted that he had received a threat, too.”

  That got their attention.

  “Why didn’t you say that in the first place?”

  Emily cringed from the anger in Jace’s voice. Her voice was wobbly when she spoke again. “He said he didn’t feel bad about going along with it because he thought she was guilty, anyways. The threat didn’t change his mind. At the time. But later he started to have second thoughts. Felt like he needed to go to the police.”

  “Well?” Paul demanded. “Did he? Did he go to the police?”

  Emily lifted her hands. “I don’t know. That was the last time I talked to him. I texted him about a month ago, and I guess I thought he was busy or no longer interested. It never occurred to me that something bad had happened to him.”

  The woman dissolved into sobs. The marshal escorted her out to take her to her family. Paul flipped a switch so that anyone outside the room would not be able to hear their conversation.

  “I didn’t have a chance to tell you this earlier. I did some checking on that juror you couldn’t find, Maggie Slade. Well, I think she is probably dead. She made an appointment to talk with a lieutenant. She wouldn’t say what she wanted to talk about, just that it was about the trial.”

  “Let me guess,” Jace picked up the conversation. “She never showed, did she?”

  “You got it.”

  “Who was she supposed to see?”

  “Dan Willis.” Paul pursed his lips and raised his brows. “I think that’s mighty interesting, don’t you?”

  Jace laughed. The sound was hollow. He threw his own bomb. “Melanie told me her ex approached her this morning. Said he thinks his old man pulled some strings to get the judge to rush through the trial before he came home from Europe. Old political buddies, or something like that.”

  Paul whistled. “Man, this case just keeps getting more involved. The judge will be out of town until tomorrow afternoon. Means you won’t have a warrant for the juror’s house until then. Tomorrow I want you to go to Pittsburgh. See if you can’t nose around and find out anything more about what happened to Steven Scott.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll start at their police department…see what they have. I have my doubts that his car accident was truly an accident. Too coincidental.”

  “I agree. Today, though, you need some downtime.” Paul held up one hand when Jace started to protest. “This is not open for debate, Lieutenant Tucker. Miss Swanson is about done in. She has held her own, but these past couple of days have been extremely stressful.”

  Well, he couldn’t argue with that. The more he considered it, the more he realized that Paul was right. The last thing he wanted was for Mel to collapse on him. Not that she would. That girl might appear frail, but he was beginning to understand that she had some steel in her soul.

  They left the police station in silence. The day was unseasonably warm. Mel leaned her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes.

  “Hey, are you awake?”

  She opened one eye and gave Jace a sleepy smile. “Sort of.”

  Maneuvering the truck onto the interstate, Jace headed north toward Erie. He clicked the radio on low, and they listened as the sounds of Beethoven filled the cab.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  Jace threw her a smile that barely lifted his lips. She was adorable, her voice sleepy and kind of husky. She had a large red mark on her forehead from sleeping against the window. “I need to stretch my legs. Why don’t we head to the mall and just walk around inside?”

  “Won’t we be kinda out in the open there?”

  He could hear the worry in her voice.

  “No one knows that we’re going. And there are tons of people there. Security cameras. It’s not like we’re going to be walking along a secluded trail. I have my gun and the chief’s orders.”

  She tilted her head and scrunched up her cute little nose. Why had he never noticed she had freckles? He could see her weighing the idea in her mind, so he threw in an extra incentive. “I’ll buy you ice cream.”

  Her eyes lit up like a Christmas tree.

  “I haven’t had ice cream in four years. Yes, let’s go.”

  They spent the next hour at the mall. Jace hid a smile as Mel ate her chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. She ended up with a dot of ice cream on her nose. He pointed it out to her, and she wiped it off. He was almost sorry. She had reminded him of a kid.

  Unfortunately, they eventually needed to leave to find her a hotel room. As he unlocked the truck’s passenger door for her, she glanced around, her face regretful. He knew the feeling. For a short time, they were able to be two people enjoying a spring afternoon. Now, all the events of the past few days were rushing back, as well as all the reasons he needed to keep his distance from her. It was harder than it should be. She stepped up to the truck, brushing close to him as he opened the door for her. The urge to kiss her overwhelmed him. Remember Ellie. Don’t get too close.

  Jace realized that Mel was waiting for him to shut the door, her forehead scrunched as she watched him. Shutting the door with a shrug, he jogged around to his side of the truck. Within minutes, they were zipping up I-79. Whistling, he kept a constant vigil on his mirrors as he maneuvered through the light traffic. His eyebrows drew together and he stopped whistling midsong.

  “The car behind us is too close,” Jace observed. He tried tapping his brakes to warn the driver off. No effect. “I didn’t think it would be that easy.”

  “What do you mean?” Mel questioned.

  “I mean that whoever is behind us is driving too close on purpose.”

  Experimentally, he maneuvered into the left lane and sped up. The car behind him followed suit. He pushed the pedal down even more and passed three cars, before pulling behind a semi. Sure enough, the SUV pulled in behind him.

  Mel swiveled her head and looked out the back window. “Whoa. Jace, that guy is wearing a ski mask. Who wears ski masks in spring? Creepy.”

  “Mel, grab my phone and hit two. That’s the police station. Tell ’em we require backup.”

  Mel snatched the phone made the call. The operator dispatched a unit to intercept them.

  “Are you able to see the license plate number?” the operator asked.

  Mel shook her head, then realized the woman couldn’t see her. “No. We can only see the front of the car.”

  Without warning, the driver swerved to the left lane. Jace hoped he was moving away. That thought disappeared when he whipped out a gun and pointed it toward them. Mel screamed when the first shot rang out. Jace evaded the bullet, but whoever was behind the wheel was a skilled driver. Added to the fact that the little sedan he was driving was faster and more maneuverable than Jace’s beat-up pickup truck.

  “Hang on!” Jace yelled. He shifted gears and attempted to escape, weaving back and forth so as not to give the shooter an easy target. But he kept up with them. Another shot rang out, and the truck started to go out of control. A bullet must have hit a back wheel. Another shot, and the windshield shattered. A third shot hit the front driver’s side wheel, and the truck spun out. It careered off the road and landed in a ditch. The other car slowed as if it would stop, then sped up and raced away.

  *

  Jace lifted his head from the steering wheel with a groan. He was going to need to see a doctor. He was pretty sure he had a concussion. He slowly turned his head toward the passenger seat. Mel was leaning against the passenger door, clearly in pain. But alert. Gratitude filled his heart when he saw that she was mostly all right, jus
t a little roughed up. His eyes sharpened on her right shoulder. Her shirt had torn, and her skin was bleeding. Probably from the glass that lay around her. But he could still see that the skin that should have been smooth was puckered in an angry-looking scar.

  “Mel,” he said, his voice deceptively soft. “What happened to your shoulder, honey?”

  Mel looked down in confusion. When she saws the exposed scar, she grimaced. “It’s an old injury. It happened when I was a kid. Nothing to worry about.”

  Jace disagreed. He had been in the police force long enough to have seen a variety of wounds and the scars they leave, and he knew that was a stab wound.

  TEN

  It was almost an hour before Melanie was able to stop shaking. The memory of that man in the ski mask as he casually aimed a gun at them was sure to haunt her dreams for a long time.

  The backup unit arrived to pick them up and bring them back to the station. Jace had filed his reports and they gave their statements. Now they were on their way out the door. Jace’s truck was out of commission, so they got into his cruiser.

  He sighed. When she raised her eyebrows, he shook his head slightly.

  “I miss my truck.” Men.

  Soon they were on their way. On their way where? Well, that was a question Jace had yet to answer.

  He apparently had something else on his mind. She soon knew what.

  “So, the stab wound? Wanna tell me about that?”

  She wanted to shrug it off as nothing, but the stubborn set of his jaw told her that wasn’t going to work. She sighed. Brushed her hair back from her face with an impatient gesture. She was stalling, and she knew it. When she cut her eyes in his direction, his raised eyebrow told her that he knew it, as well.

  “Fine. When I was ten, my father got roaring drunk. I had set the table for dinner and had given him a knife that hadn’t come completely clean in the dishwasher. He got angry with me.”

  Jace looked appalled. “So he stabbed you? Didn’t you go to the hospital?”

  “Yeah, and he told them some tale about me being klutzy while handling the knife. He was such a charmer, such a well-known figure in the community, they never questioned him.” She tried to ignore the pity warring with disbelief on his face. “Anyway, not long after that he and my mom died, and I went to live with Aunt Sarah.”