“So when Dutch Erickson called the office on the day of her wedding rehearsal, you assigned Felicia to him because then you’d know exactly where she was. You waited for her outside that three-story townhouse. And when her showing was over, you followed her, didn’t you, Mr. Shaw?”
His mouth opened, but no words came out. Only a hissing sound escaped his throat.
“And then you killed her, took her jewelry, her purse, and her keys and dumped her body in the park to make it look like a mugging. Didn’t you?” Johanna’s heart was pounding a mile a minute and her limbs pulsed from the pumping adrenaline.
His brows lowered then as he scoffed at her. “Like anyone in the world would believe a cockamamie story like that?”
“Oh, trust me. I have proof. They’ll believe it alright.” Johanna glanced over her shoulder at the door, wishing like mad Mitch were there to see the police roll in and arrest Mr. Tim Shaw. All she had to do was go tell Roz to call 911 and it would be over.
But when she turned to face Tim again, this time, there was a gun pointed at her face. “Oh, I’m sorry, Ms. Hughes, but I don’t think you’re going to be around long enough to show anyone that proof.” He flicked the end of the gun towards the ceiling, motioning for her to stand. “Get up.”
36
P ulling up to the realty office, Mitch felt unease settle into the depths of his belly. The first thing he caught sight of was Rocky sitting unattended outside the front door with Esmerelda suspended inside a canvas tote hanging around his neck.
He navigated his car towards the curb. “Where’s Jo?” he murmured, his heart thumping in his chest. He pulled the car to a stop, double-parking but unfazed by the likelihood of getting ticketed. He didn’t have time to hunt down parking. Jo could be in danger.
He threw open the door and rushed around the car to Rocky’s side. “Rocky! Where’s Jo?”
“Woof!” said Rocky excitedly, happy to see Mitch and unaware of his concern for Jo.
Mitch patted his head. “She went inside without me, didn’t she?” He squatted down to unfasten Rocky’s leash from the pole he was tethered to. Esmerelda poked her head back out of the bag she hung in, and Mitch gave her a little scratch behind the ears. “Jo’s got you cat sitting, huh, Rock?”
Rocky put a big heavy paw on one of Mitch’s shoulders. He shook it and then stood up. “No time to play today, buddy. We gotta find Jo. Let’s go.” He led Rocky in by the leash, allowing Esmerelda to continue hanging around his neck. Inside, the secretary was busy typing on the computer.
“Hello, may I help you?” she said without taking her eyes off of the computer screen.
“I’m Mitch Connelly. I was supposed to meet Johanna Hughes here a little while ago, but I’m running late.”
Roz nodded. “She’s in with Mr. Shaw right now. I’ll just give him a quick call to let him know you’re here before I send you back.” She picked up the phone and pressed a button. While it rang, Roz pointed at Rocky. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave him outside. Pets aren’t allowed. It’s an old rule, but Mr. Shaw said I have to enforce it now.”
Mitch looked at Rocky. “Ah, so that’s why Jo left you outside.” He felt his body relax only slightly.
Roz’s brows furrowed. “Mr. Shaw’s not answering his phone. They should be in there.”
“How long ago did Ms. Hughes get here?”
“Maybe about fifteen minutes ago?”
“Did they leave together?”
“No. I didn’t see them go,” said Roz. “I haven’t left my desk since she got here. I’ll try ringing him again.”
Mitch shook his head. Something didn’t feel right. “I’m sorry, Roz, I don’t have time to wait.” He barged past the woman with Rocky close by his heels and went straight for Tim Shaw’s office.
He could hear Roz behind them. “Wait, Mr. Connelly. Your dog can’t go back there!”
He threw open Tim’s door, unsure at what he was going to find, but was surprised to find the room empty.
Roz was right behind him. “Mr. Connelly, your dog can’t…” She stopped talking when she entered the room and discovered that it was empty.
“Where are they?” asked Mitch, pointing at the empty room.
Roz’s brows furrowed and a look of confusion covered her face. “I have no idea. They were just in here.”
Rocky sat on the floor in Tim’s office while Mitch ran back out into the hallway. “Do you have a conference room or something?”
Roz nodded and went to a door at the end of the hallway and poked her head in. “The lights are off. It’s empty.”
“Check all the rest of the offices,” commanded Mitch authoritatively, suddenly extremely worried about what had happened to Johanna.
Roz narrowed her eyes. “Is there something wrong, Mr. Connelly?”
Mitch shook his head. He didn’t have time for questions. He had to find Jo. When she didn’t immediately do what he’d requested, he took it upon himself to walk up and down the hallway, opening doors and poking his head into offices. Most of the rooms were empty, except one. Jimmy, the slick realtor he’d seen the other day, was in one of them with a client. “Excuse me,” Mitch interrupted. “Have you seen Mr. Shaw or a woman with brown hair?”
Jimmy looked confused but shook his head. “Not in the last few minutes. I saw Tim this morning.”
Mitch slammed the door. Roz followed him back into Tim’s office. Rocky was howling then.
“You’re sure you didn’t see them leave?”
Roz shook her head. “I swear. I didn’t see anything. Mr. Connelly, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know what’s going on. I just have a really bad feeling.”
Rocky circled Mitch and then stopped underneath his hand. “Woof woof!”
Roz looked down at Rocky. “Mr. Connelly, I’m going to have to ask you to take your dog outside.”
“I just need to find Jo, and then I’ll take the dog outside.”
Rocky barked again. This time Mitch looked down at him curiously. “What, Rocky? Do you know where Jo is?”
Rocky put his head down and walked over to the desk, sniffing at something dark on the floor hidden beneath a chair.
Mitch squatted down and looked at it curiously. “It’s a mini recorder.” He looked up at Rocky. “Rocky, is that Jo’s?” He hit rewind and listened to the last thirty seconds of the recording.
“Mr. Shaw, I don’t need your assurances.”
“It’s Jo voice!” said Mitch, looking up at Roz.
“I think I have a pretty good idea of the kind of work environment you run around here. I bet if I went out and visited with Roz, she might give me a pretty good idea of what kind of boss you are to work for.”
“Ms. Hughes, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Mr. Shaw, isn’t it true that you were the one creating the hostile work environment that both Amy and Felicia Marshall complained to Dean Klatworthy about?”
“Ms. Hughes, I don’t appreciate what you’re insinuating.”
“Mr. Shaw, I’m not insinuating anything. Felicia Marshall shut down your advances, and you didn’t like it. Eventually your harassment turned into threats and she became scared of you. Yet, despite your threats, you were still infatuated with her, and you were jealous about the fact that she’d met someone so easily and agreed to marry him without even hardly knowing him. It drove you mad, didn’t it?”
“That’s not even remotely—”
With his pulse racing wildly now, Mitch fast-forwarded the tape a few seconds.
“And then you killed her, took her jewelry, her purse, and her keys and put her body at the park to make it look like a mugging. Didn’t you?”
“Like anyone in the world would believe a cockamamie story like that?”
“Oh, trust me. I have proof. They’ll believe it alright.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Ms. Hughes, but I don’t think you’re going to be around long enough to show anyone that proof. Get up.”
Roz blinked several times as the words she’d just heard sunk in. “I—I don’t…”
“You have to tell me. Johanna’s life might be at stake right now.”
“I mean, Mr. Shaw…” Her voice trailed off and she refused to make eye contact with Mitch.
Mitch stood up. “You can tell me, Roz.”
“He can be kind of scary,” she admitted weakly. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone.” She swallowed hard. “He said he’d hurt my kids.”
“Dammit!” snarled Mitch. “Is there another way out of this building?”
Roz pointed with a trembling finger towards the hallway. “Back door.”
Mitch raced back out of the building and down the hallway, where he found an exit sign. He threw open the door and realized it was an alley exit. Jo was nowhere to be seen. He raced back inside. “I need Tim Shaw’s home address. Immediately.”
“B-but I could get in trouble…”
“Roz. A woman’s life is at stake. You need to give me his address, and then I need you to call 911.”
Mitch led Rocky and Esmerelda to the front office when Roz clicked through her computer screens and found Tim’s personal address. She wrote it down on a sticky note and handed it to Mitch.
“Now, call 911 and send them to that address. Tell them Tim Shaw is the person who killed Felicia Marshall back in 2011 and he’s at that address. It wasn’t a mugging after all. And he’s kidnapped Johanna Hughes!”
Wild tears streamed down Johanna’s face as she struggled to free herself from the duct tape that bound her wrists behind her. Now that there was no doubt in Johanna’s mind that Tim Shaw had been the person who’d killed Felicia Marshall, she realized that she was about to be his next victim.
Johanna closed her eyes and struggled to relax her body for a moment. She needed to clear the panic that clouded her mind and focus if she was going to get out of the situation she was in.
She had to assess her environment. She looked around the room. From her wooden chair in the middle of a kitchen, she could see one small window over the sink, and she could almost see the back door from where she sat. She had to get to that door.
Johanna had no idea what part of the city she was in. When Tim Shaw had taken her, he’d led her out of the realty office’s back door and forced her down the alley to the parking garage where his car was parked. He’d dealt her a blow to the head with the gun, and the next thing Johanna knew, he was unloading her out of his trunk in an alley and forcing her up a short flight of stairs. Within minutes of their arrival, Tim had Johanna bound to a wooden chair, securing her wrists behind her and her ankles to the chair. He’d stuffed a rag in her mouth and then wrapped tape around her head to keep her from screaming. Then he’d disappeared into the house, mumbling something under his breath.
Now she could hear him upstairs, walking around. She heard a door slam and then his heavy footsteps again. He could be back any minute. Johanna had to work fast!
She set about working on the tape binding her wrists. She had to tear it or cut it. There had to be a way to get her hands free. As she worked, breathing from her nose, she kept a close eye on the sliver of light she could see streaming in through the back door. She had to get to it.
With the pads of her feet, she gave herself a little push and tipped her chair backwards slightly, rocking on the two back chair legs, trying to get a better look at the alleyway. Was anyone out there? Something moving outside caused a brief change in the light. Johanna’s heart thumped wildly in her chest. She had to get back there. People were out there. They could help her!
Giving herself another little push with her feet, she rocked back on her chair again. This time, she gave herself too much of a push and she tipped backwards, making a loud boom as she and the chair smacked down onto the hardwood floor. Both panic and pain rippled through her body. Had he heard that? Would he be back now?
She tried to slow her breathing and her choked sobs so she could listen for his footsteps on the ceiling above, but she couldn’t hear anything. Petrified, she fought with all of her strength to roll onto her side with the chair still attached, and she began to wiggle her body, inching towards the door.
Then she heard him again. The footsteps rushing down the stairs. Panic filled her once again, and with her eyes trained on the door, she fought with everything she had to get to it. But the footsteps were getting closer and closer. Before she knew it, he had her by the hair. He dragged her back the few inches she’d moved and set her upright.
“Going somewhere?” he sneered, his chubby face beet red and sweating.
Johanna’s muffled screams came out as a high-pitched nasal sound.
He grinned at her wickedly. “That’s what I thought.” He slapped her across the face. “I thought I told you to be a good girl?”
Where his hand struck her cheekbone, Johann’s face felt like it might explode. She felt her world spinning then. Oh, my God. This is it! This is where my life ends. Just as it finally felt like it was beginning again. Now it’s over.
“If only you’d been good, I might have considered keeping you alive for a little while. Then you and I could have had a little bit of fun together before I had to kill you.” He pulled his gun out of the back of his pants and aimed it at her. “But you had to go and be naughty. Just like Felicia Marshall was naughty.”
Johanna huffed into her muzzle, her eyes frantic, her heart throbbing out of control.
“Yeah, see, no one can hear you,” he jeered. “No sense in wasting your energy trying to scream.” He hit her across the head with the back of the gun.
Johanna’s mind dizzied, and just before she passed out, she thought she heard the sound of Rocky’s bark. Rocky.
37
“T he destination is on your left,” said the robotic woman’s voice on Mitch’s phone.
Pulling up to the curb in front of the two-story brick house, Mitch glanced out the window. His pulse pounded wildly in his ears. He didn’t even have the car in park yet when he threw open the door and Rocky burst out over his lap. He slid the gear shifter into park and jumped out to follow the dog to the front door.
Rocky barked anxiously as they approached the quiet-looking house on the unassuming street. It was as if Rocky knew Johanna’s life was in danger. Mitch tried the handle, but it was locked. He peered inside but couldn’t see anything. He took a few steps back to look up at the house and realized they were next to an alley. “Let’s try the back. Come on, buddy.”
With Rocky hot on his heels, Mitch ran around to the back door to discover that it was unlocked. Mitch sucked up his breath and pulled the door open. Rocky barged in first, barking wildly. Mitch hollered into the house. “Johanna!”
A split second later, the sound of a gun firing rang out as a bullet blazed passed him. Missing his shoulder by a narrow inch, it buried itself into the wall next to him. As he pulled back behind a dividing wall, Rocky lunged forward into the house, barking.
Another gunshot went off.
Mitch’s adrenaline raced as he envisioned Johanna dead in the house. But he couldn’t think about that right now. He had to focus on finding her.
Tim screamed as Rocky tore into him.
He heard a loud clack and prayed it was the sound of Tim’s gun hitting the floor.
Keeping low, Mitch duck-walked around the dividing wall to find a splattering of blood drizzled across the kitchen floor. “Oh God, Rocky!” he breathed. His eyes swept across the trail of blood to witness Rocky on top of Tim Shaw. He had him by the jugular.
And then he saw her.
Gagged and bound to a wooden chair, Johanna wasn’t moving.
In that moment, his heart stopped beating. He wanted to die, seeing her like that. “Jo!”
As muc
h as he wanted to go to her, he had to help Rocky secure Tim, or they’d all be dead. The gun, which had clattered to the floor when Rocky lunged and toppled the man over, was next to the kitchen table. Mitch clambered over to it and picked it up, holding it on Tim. “Don’t move,” he shouted at him.
Tim flinched, causing Rocky to clamp down harder on his throat, a low, menacing growl emanated from the dog’s throat.
Tim’s eyes were wide, terrified of the grip Rocky had on his neck.
“Good boy, Rocky.” Mitch noticed blood draining from Rocky’s hindquarter. “Oh jeez, Rocky. You’ve been hit! We gotta get you help!”
Suddenly, sirens sounded. Still holding the gun on Tim, Mitch rushed to Johanna’s side. “Jo!” he said, cupping her face with his free hand. She didn’t respond. Scared that Tim had already killed her, he checked her for a pulse.
Feeling the little throb in her veins against his finger was everything. “Oh, thank God! You’re alive, Jo!”
He checked her body for any signs of gunshot wounds, but didn’t see anything. “Jo!” he said again, patting her face gently.
He heard the police banging at the front door. “Police! Open up!”
“Around the back!” he hollered. He looked down at Johanna, praying for her to wake up. Suddenly, he heard a thump and then Rocky’s whine. And in the blink of an eye, Tim was on top of Mitch, lunging for the gun.
Mitch fell to the ground with the gun still in hand. Tim surged forward over the top of him and dealt him a blow to the head. Then Rocky was on Tim’s back and there were officers at the back door.
“Police!”
“Help!” hollered Mitch, as he and Rocky fought Tim.
And then the police were inside with guns drawn. “Police! Freeze!” Officers swarmed the kitchen, dragging Tim off Mitch and fighting to hold Rocky at bay.
Mitch’s mind swirled with fear as he panted on the ground. “You’ve gotta help her.” He pointed at Johanna’s limp body. “She needs an ambulance. He tried to kill her! That man killed Felicia Marshall.”
Snow Cold Case: A Mystic Snow Globe Romantic Mystery (The Mystic Snow Globe Mystery Series Book 1) Page 29
