Girl in the Shadows (Cozy Mystery) (Diamond Files Mysteries Book 1)

by Angela Pepper

  He smiled. “Clark, you are nothing if not a master of suspense. Tell me before I send Chewie after you.”

  “Two drink tumblers,” she said. “We pulled good prints off both of them, and one matches the deceased, Brock Kensington.”

  “Glasses,” Derek said, nodding. “Okay. I thought it was going to be the weapon—whatever smacked him on the head—but this is better.”

  “What about the other one?” I asked. “The killer's prints?”

  “No match in the system,” Clark said. “But we'll canvas, and I know we'll get this one closed, thanks to you two.”

  “You're welcome,” Derek said.

  “We couldn't have done it without you,” she said.

  He glanced over at me and started pushing his chair back. “That's great to hear. I guess we'll be on our way before you start piling unsolved cases on my lap.”

  “Hey, now there's an idea,” she said, rubbing her hands. “What's your availability?”

  “That's not up to me,” he said with a sly smile. He set Chewie on the ground and started walking around the table toward the door. I jumped up and followed after him.

  We said goodbye to the other officers we'd met throughout the week.

  Ten minutes later, we were back in the rental car again, with me in the driver's seat.

  I stared at the keys in my hand.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “We type up the reports.” He fastened his seat belt. “You should be done by five, just like your contract for the week says.”

  “But what about looking the killer in the eyes when you make the bust?”

  “They don't all go that way,” he said. “I had to hand it off to the police. I couldn't exactly get access to the Kensington house again, much less break into their safe. I mean, I could, but it would break chain of custody for the evidence.”

  I could feel my lower lip trying to jut out in a pout. Grow up, Abby. “This is just so anticlimactic,” I said.

  “Typing reports can be fun,” he said. “We'll order pizza again.”

  I tossed the keys onto the dashboard. “No,” I said.

  “Fine. We'll get sushi, or Chinese, or whatever you want.”

  “I mean no, I'm not doing any more work until you answer some questions.”

  “One question,” he said. “You've been a very capable assistant this week. I'll write you a letter of recommendation, and I'll answer one question.”

  “Who are we working for?”

  “We work for Diamond. Diamond Investigations.”

  I turned to him and gave him my most serious look—the same one I'd given Owen that morning when I'd walked. “You said you'd answer one question. Are you not a man of your word?”

  He winced. “Diamond Investigations is a division of DiamondCorp. I'll save you the trouble of googling it. DiamondCorp is a conglomerate of corporations that includes a large, international insurance company. The fact that my last name is Diamond is actually a coincidence.”

  “You're an insurance investigator?”

  “When I'm working a case related to insurance, yes. Please don't call me that, though. It sounds... so boring.” He made a gagging face. With a wimpy voice, he said, “Hi, I'm Derek and I'm an insurance investigator.”

  “Someone had a big life insurance policy on Brock Kensington?”

  “More like three big policies,” he said. “The bank had one in relation to his house, but that wasn't through us. Our concern was the policy put in place by Avamar International, and the family policy that had Mitzi as the beneficiary.”

  “That explains a lot.” In a softer voice, I added, “Can you say how much money's involved?”

  “Over ten million dollars,” he said. “So, you can see why I had some money to throw around for things like investing in some new clothes for my assistant.”

  I breathed in deeply. Ten million dollars. “I should have bought the more expensive suit.”

  “You did well this week,” he said. “I'll see what else I can throw your way in the form of a bonus.”

  I held my hand up. “No need. I'm not a charity case, and I'm done taking handouts.”

  “So be it.” He glanced at the keys on the dash. “We should get to those reports if you want to be finished by five.”

  I grabbed the keys and started the car.

  Derek muttered about his phone ringing, and took a call.

  I drove toward my apartment, distracted by fears that Owen had done something stupid after I'd left that morning, such as throw out all my belongings.

  Derek said something that cut through my imaginary disaster scenarios. “Yes, I have some handcuffs in my kit.”

  I kept my eyes on the road and my ears on his conversation. He made a series of one-grunt answers, and finished with, “Detective Clark, you know you can count on me.”

  After he ended the call, I gave him a minute before asking, “Something wrong?”

  “There's good news and bad news. Since you're a bad-news-first gal, I'll start there. One of the suspects is on the run. The good news is, we might get that face-to-face confrontation we're both hungry for.”

  “What should we do? Who is it?”

  “It's the one you like as the killer.”

  I fist-pumped the air next to the steering wheel. “I knew it.”

  “Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Detective Clark suggested we check the cottage owned by Avamar International, up the coast. It's a remote place to hide out while preparing to flee the country.” He turned to check the back seat, which was empty except for Chewie's round bed and dog supplies. “The address is in the files, which are in the trunk. You'll have to pull over.”

  “No need.” I checked my mirrors, hit the brakes, and made a U-turn on the road. “The address is 357 Spinnaker Drive, just off Freemason Road.”

  “How the devil did you do that? Have you got one of those Rain Man brains? I mean, really. I can't for the life of me even remember what a spinnaker is.”

  “A spinnaker is a three-cornered sail, set forward of the main sail of a yacht, and yes. I've got one of those Rain Man brains. But I don't count cards, and I won't set foot in a casino, so don't even ask.”

  He went quiet, not commenting further. We drove for ten minutes in silence. I silently cursed myself for being so harsh. So what if everyone who ever learned of my memory abilities compared me to a character in a movie that had been made before I was even born? Why couldn't I take comfort in how predictable people were and just roll with it?

  Finally, he said, “Why are you temping?”

  “Because I'm not sure what I want to do with my life. I can't decide.”

  “What's the most fun at a job you've ever had?”

  “This last week.”

  “Then you're a detective. Or you will be, if we survive this next bit.”

  * * *

  It was nearing four o'clock on Friday when we reached the cottage owned by Avamar International Shipping Corporation. The remote house was used as a vacation property by the executives at Avamar and their families.

  “Keep driving,” Derek said in a hushed voice. “We'll park up the road and double back.”

  “Yes, boss,” I said, also in a hushed voice. There was no way the suspect could hear us inside the rental car, but my nerves were so jangled. Speaking softly had to be instinctual, a holdover from human days before the invention of cars.

  We parked away from the cottage, stepped out of the car, and closed our doors softly.

  Derek opened the trunk of the car and unlocked a briefcase I hadn't seen him open before. Inside was a sight that made me gasp: a handgun, gun holster, bullets, handcuffs, and some other items that looked deadly.

  “You can wait here in the car,” Derek said as he slipped off his blazer and pulled the holster onto his tall, broad frame.

  My voice trembling, I said, “And miss all the fun? No way.”

  He turned to face me, both hands hidden behind his back. “Pick a hand,” he said.

&
nbsp; “Do I get a gun?”

  He grinned and repeated, “Pick a hand.”

  I touched his left elbow. He nodded and held out a chunky bar of metal with round holes. “Brass knuckles,” he said. “The other hand is bear spray. Wanna swap your choice?”

  I shook my head and took the brass knuckles. I tried them on, practiced punching the inside of my palm lightly, and then slipped the metal bar into a pocket.

  “If things go smoothly, you won't need to use that,” he said. “But if things don't go smoothly, I'd still rather you don't use that. Save yourself. Start running and don't stop. The world doesn't need another dead hero.” He gave me a grave look as he pulled his blazer back on over the gun harness. “Don't be a dead hero.”

  “I'll run,” I said. “I'm good at that.”

  “Stay calm and focus on being my witness.” He pulled from the suitcase a small device that looked like the hands-free earpiece for a phone. He fiddled with it before looping it over his ear. “This unit will be recording everything, but it has a limited field of view.”

  I nodded. “I'll have my eyes and ears open.”

  He tapped his temple. “Use that great memory of yours. Make sure your Rain Man brain is switched on.”

  “It's never off,” I said.

  He paused and stared at me. A light summer breeze rustled through the nearby trees. All was calm—the calm before the storm.

  “What's that like?” he asked. “Having a powerful memory?”

  I looked off at the lush trees. “It's hard to forgive when you can't forget.”

  I turned back to see him blink twice, like I was coming into focus for the very first time, and then he turned and led the way to the front door of the cottage.

  On the porch, he immediately tapped on the door three times and adopted a deep voice with a casual tone. “Hey-hey in there! Delivery! Come on, man. I got ice cream meltin' out here.”

  A woman's voice replied, “Wrong house! We didn't order anything.”

  Derek shuffled his feet loudly on the wooden porch and swore. I hadn't heard him curse before, but this was a new character. He rapped on the door again. “Hey lady, can I use your phone? Come on. You want some ice cream?” He swore again and stomped both feet impatiently.

  The door swung open. A patchy-faced Megan Kensington was staring back at us, her tiny blue eyes rimmed in red. She gasped and immediately tried to shut the door again, but Derek's foot was blocking the door open. He pushed forward, slipping into the cottage like a shadow.

  Gravel scraped behind me on the driveway. I wheeled around to see Megan's mother, Mitzi Kensington, jumping out of her vehicle. She hadn't turned off the engine or put it into park, so the car continued to roll forward, stopping only when the bumper hit a bench made from driftwood. The car's computer chimed and played its recorded voice alert, Driver's side door is ajar. Driver's side door is ajar.

  Mitzi flew up the steps like a ghost. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, glaring at me. Her hands were raised in fists.

  I slipped my hand into my pocket and pushed my fingers through the holes in the brass knuckles. “I'm just a secretary,” I said. “Derek's inside.”

  Mitzi pushed past me, into the house. She rushed to her daughter, and they hugged.

  Derek shot me a meaningful look. “Megan says she's alone.” He pointed to two takeout coffee containers on the table in the cottage's small sitting room.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  He looked pointedly at my lumpy pocket and said, “Stand down. Now we talk.”

  I eased my sweating fingers out of the chunk of metal and shook out my hand.

  To the Kensington women, he said, “Since we're all here, let's have a chat.”

  Mitzi and Megan hit him with a barrage of verbal outrage. How dare he interrupt their vacation! After everything he'd put them through! He waited it out, repeatedly saying he wasn't going anywhere, but they were free to call the police at any time. They didn't like that option much.

  After ten minutes of arguing, they agreed to talk. Derek took a tall-backed chair in the corner of the sitting room, facing the front door. Chewie sat quietly at his feet, her eyes watchful as she sniffed the air. I sat on the edge of a daybed, and the two blondes sat next to each other on the sofa, Mitzi with her arm protectively around her daughter.

  Derek said, “When you arrived home from your shopping trip at nine o'clock on April fifth, what room was Brock Kensington in?”

  The blondes exchanged a look. Mitzi said, “The kitchen. Just like I told the police.”

  “No,” Derek drawled slowly. “He was not in the kitchen, not where he was when the police arrived. You moved him and staged the scene.”

  Mitzi shook her head. “I did no such thing.”

  “The drive from the airport at that time of day is only fifteen minutes. We know what time your plane landed, and what time Chad drove out of the paid parking lot. Unless traffic had been heavier than usual, you were home for a good twenty minutes before you called 9-1-1.”

  Mitzi glanced at her daughter. “Traffic was bad that night, right?”

  Megan swallowed but didn't say anything.

  “There was no traffic,” Derek said. “The Admirals weren't playing at the Scope that night. No concerts, either. No accidents. Your drive home was as clean as a whistle. You got home and you staged the burglary.”

  Megan shifted away from her mother on the couch. “So what if we had?” she asked plaintively. “I'm just asking as a purely hypothetical question.”

  Mitzi whipped her arm out, lightning fast, and slapped her daughter across the cheek. Megan whimpered and moved to the edge of the sofa. Mitzi lifted her arm to strike her daughter again.

  The room blurred.

  I launched myself at Mitzi and grabbed her by the shoulders. I growled, “Don't you dare.” My face was so close to hers, our noses were touching. I could smell the alcohol on her breath.

  Derek grabbed my upper arms with a surprising amount of strength and hauled me back. He set me back on the edge of the daybed and murmured in my ear, “That's your adrenaline running the show. You need to get a hold of yourself, or you can go wait in the car.”

  “I'm okay,” I said hoarsely. “I'll be good.”

  Across the small sitting room, Mitzi gave me a weirdly smug smile. It reminded me of the kids in school who delighted in getting others in trouble. I gave her the same smile back. I wasn't in nearly as much trouble as she was.

  We all stared at each other in silence as a full two minutes passed.

  Derek reached into his blazer for something. I tensed. The women on the couch watched him warily. He didn't pull out his gun, though. He turned to me and asked, “Where are those diamonds?”

  “You gave them to Detective Clark,” I said.

  “Right.” He frowned. “I would have liked to have had them to throw onto the coffee table right about now, but I guess I'll make do.” To Megan, he said, “Someone stole a pair of diamond earrings from your bedroom, but you didn't report it to the police after the burglary because you didn't even check your jewelry that night. You knew it wasn't a robbery. We have proof you knew. Now, enough with the hypothetical questions. Make things easier for yourself and tell us what happened when you and your mother got home from the airport.”

  Another minute passed before Megan broke the silence. “One of Dad's whore girlfriends killed him. She tied him to the bed and left him there for us to find.”

  Derek looked at Mitzi. “Is this true?”

  Mitzi remained stiffly upright and mimed zipping her lips shut.

  “Which room?” he asked.

  “Mom and Dad's bedroom,” she said.

  With that admission, Mitzi seemed to crumble like someone had removed the pins holding her upright. She leaned limply to the side, resting her elbow on the arm of the sofa. She said to her daughter dully, “You don't know what you're doing. Now everyone will feast on our humiliation.”

  Megan gave me a pleading look. “Am I in a lot of
trouble? It was all my mother's idea to move the body and make it look like somebody broke in.”

  Derek kept his gaze locked on Mitzi. “Poor little Mitzi Kensington. So worried about what the other rich ladies will think. And now it's going to cost you five million dollars.”

  Mitzi straightened up immediately. “Shut up,” she spat. “That money's mine. I didn't kill him. Sure, that whore did me a favor, and I was happy to let her get away with it, but I'm innocent.”

  Derek gave her a taunting smile. “But you aided in the homicide, even if it was after the fact. That violates your agreement with the insurance carrier.” He made a tsk-tsk sound. “Mitzi, you should have read all the boring fine print of your contract before you aided in the murder of your husband.” He leaned forward and tented his fingers. “Now, which whore do you think it was?”

  She spat a volley of curse words at him, finishing with, “How should I know?”

  Megan interjected, “We don't know. I swear. We don't know who did it, but she smeared my mother's lipstick all over his face. What kind of a sick person does that?”

  “A very sick person,” Derek said. “What if Brock Kensington was killed by someone who didn't have any lipstick of their own?” He got up, paced the living room once, and chose a different seat, closer to the door and facing the window.

  “Who?” Megan asked.

  Derek turned to me. “Abby, what were the words Brock's business associate, Mr. Harris, used to describe his relationship with his son, Chad Harris?”

  “His exact words were 'My son hasn't looked up to me since he was five. He latches on to anyone but me. I swear he only started dating that sickly gerbil Megan so he could get himself into a new family. Chad loves the Kensingtons. He says they're everything our family isn't.'“

  Megan tilted her head to the side. “Max called me a sickly gerbil?”

  “You're missing the big picture,” Derek told her.

  Megan sniffed. “What?”

  “Love is a powerful emotion,” Derek said. “Most enemies are former friends. Nobody but someone who loved you once can be bothered to make the effort to hate. And Chad loved Brock.”

  “Oh, no,” Mitzi gasped. “Not Chad. Not him. Anyone but him.”

  Derek continued, “Chad told you he didn't get your message about the plane being delayed. He told you he showed up at the airport at seven and decided to hang out in the lounge for two hours rather than drive home and back again two hours later. He told the police the same thing, and they believed him, based on nothing more than a parking lot receipt. But when young Chad took a ticket from the dispenser at quarter to seven, Brock Kensington was tied up—either tied to a bed, or trussed up in that exercise equipment you dismantled not long after his death.”