by Dale Mayer
“I’m not the kind to have a breakdown,” she said, jutting out her jaw firmly. “And don’t even make me sound like some weak-willed woman who needs to see a shrink.”
He snorted. “Weak you are not,” he said, going for a smile. “No way I’d make that mistake.”
Just then was a knock on the door.
She groaned and said, “What is this? Grand Central Station?”
He patted her knee as he stood and walked to the front door. Sure enough, it was the detective, just as he expected. Letting him in, he directed him to the living room. As the man walked through, Taylor caught the dismay on her face before she quickly managed to school the look. He understood how she felt, but the sooner they knew everything there was to know, the faster the investigators could get on with it. Taylor introduced Butler to Colton and Troy.
The detective was gentle with her, asking as many questions as he had in their last interview. By the time he was done, Taylor could see her energy was gone as well. He let the detective out, realizing it had only been a forty-five minute visit this time. Taylor turned to find her curled up in the corner of the couch, her head on the pillow and the blanket wrapped around her again. He went to the fridge and pulled out three beers this time. As he carried them into the living room, he could hear her deep and rhythmic breathing, and he realized she had fallen deeply asleep. The men stood and walked onto the balcony, and this time he closed the door, so she wouldn’t hear their conversation. Popping the tops off the beers, the three men sat in silence.
Finally Troy said, “This is the damnedest thing.”
“Isn’t it though?” Taylor replied. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Colton looked up from his phone. “The base has been placed on full lockdown, by the way. They have no suspects at this time, according to all the newscasts.”
“I forgot to ask the detective if they checked the video feed from the records building. There should be images on both ends.” He sent the detective a text. The answer came back almost immediately. “Feeds were damaged in both,” he read aloud. “No information to be had.”
Street cams? Taylor texted back.
We’re on it, the detective sent back. It’ll take time.
But Taylor was chomping at the bit. “Does anybody else around here have access to cameras? Somebody who could see who might have left my apartment building in that first hour when I got home? Or who had been at the records office when she was gone that one hour for lunch?”
“The street cams should definitely show us something,” Colton said as he pulled out his phone and began to make a call. Soon it was evident that the call was to Mason.
Taylor brightened at that, saying, “If Mason could get us access, that would be great.”
Troy said, “The police detectives are completely overwhelmed and probably don’t have the manpower they need for a deal like this. But you know it’ll take an official assignment in order to get all that, and you’re not allowed because you’re too close to the scene. For all we know, you’re on the suspect list.”
“I already thought of that,” Taylor said humorously. “But the last thing I’d ever do is shoot some guy in a woman’s bed.”
“Right?” Troy said. “Ridiculous.”
Taylor thought about it long and hard and said, “The question is, why would someone shoot the boss?”
“Because either he was in on this from the beginning and wanted out,” Troy said, “or he was in their way.”
“Or,” Taylor added, “somebody hated his guts and wanted revenge.”
Troy inclined his head. “Or that,” he said. “Some real shit is going down on this base lately. And I don’t like this trend. It used to be that we saw the bad guys overseas. Now it seems like we’re finding them everywhere we turn.”
“I know,” Taylor said. “The thing is, this time we’re not even on a mission. I just got back from Baja with Nelson, what was it, yesterday? And now look at me.”
“We’re supposed to be going out next week,” Troy said. “Elizabeth is apparently getting a chance to do her thing in the delivery system for the new warheads.”
“So what are we doing with them?” Taylor asked with interest. “Although I think we’re about due for more diving practice. That would be very nice. I’d like to get back to something that’s halfway normal.”
“Nothing’s normal about this,” Colton said. “Mason says the IT group is looking not only at the hack job, but they’re also looking at the cameras. And they were deliberately sabotaged.”
Taylor shrugged. “But we already knew that. What we really need is to follow the traffic cams further out, those not disabled, to see who came and went from both places during those hours.”
“Mason said the military police are on that.”
Taylor glared at him. “I hate having my hands tied like this. Too much bureaucracy is involved here.”
“There’s always bureaucracy,” Troy said mildly. “We do what we can do within the law. And, when we can’t, sometimes we just have to go our own way.”
Taylor wasn’t sure if a suggestion was in there or not, but he was interested in anything Troy had to say that would get them through this. “If anybody has any idea how to proceed, I’m all ears,” he said. “Because, right now, I can’t see anything except the reality that Midge is the first one on the detective’s list of suspects. And the next one on the murderer’s hit list.”
“If that was the case,” Troy said, “the shooter would have waited for her at the office.”
Taylor nodded. “I thought of that too, and I’m not sure why she wasn’t taken out. Unless they still need her for something.”
“But what?” Colton asked. “She has no higher security clearance than anybody else and no better access than the others.”
“Say they need her to be the fall guy,” Taylor said slowly. “They need somebody to be guilty. So it looks like it was her boyfriend in her apartment. Then she went into work and shot her boss. What do you want to bet her own personnel file was altered to show confrontations, a bad attitude and threatening behavior at work? Showing a history of suspensions and anything else somebody can plant to make it look like she was predisposed to do this?”
Silence.
Then Colton finally spoke. “Well, that would be really shitty if that’s the case. Because then somebody is deliberately laying breadcrumbs pointing at her, setting her up. And you’re right. If she’s alive, she makes the perfect patsy for this. But who hates her so damn much they would kill all the others to make her look guilty?”
“I don’t think they killed the others to make her look guilty,” Troy said. “I agree this has a very personal touch to it. But I think all those other people had to have played a part in this too. What we really need—and could work on ourselves—is the connection between all four of these dead people.”
“All four?” Taylor said, rolling the idea around in his head. But then he nodded. “You’re right. We assumed killing the old couple was to get the key to Midge’s apartment, but we don’t know that for sure. For all we know, a much bigger connection is here.” He grinned and said, “Did you guys bring your laptops?”
Troy held up his phone. “I don’t need any more than this.”
Colton said, “I’ve got mine.”
Taylor tiptoed back into the living room and checked on Midge. She still slept soundly, so he took his laptop and brought Colton’s outside too. “Are you guys okay to work out here?” he asked and left the question open.
Both men nodded. “Particularly if you’ve got more beer,” Troy said conversationally. “I can guarantee I’ll stay until it’s gone.”
Colton chuckled. “Don’t listen to him. He says the weirdest shit, but really he’s all heart.”
“I know what he is,” Taylor said. “He’s a big old teddy bear.”
Troy glared at him. “Don’t pull that shit on me,” he said. “I’m as big and as tough as the rest of you.” Settling into his chair, he hooke
d his feet up on the end of the railing and started working on his phone. Taylor chuckled as he opened up his search menus and typed in names. “So we’ve got one elderly couple, one young man, and another man at least a decade older. What’s the chance they’re all related?”
It didn’t take Taylor long to start making bridges between them, and he whistled. “So the guy in her bed is connected to her boss? Uncle and nephew.”
“No shit?” Colton said, raising his gaze to look at Taylor. “That’s a connection the cops need to know about.”
Taylor answered, lifting his gaze to stare ahead of him. “The boss was really ugly today. Like really mean. If he was like that all the time, I can’t imagine she’d have stayed.”
“If he just found out his nephew was murdered, that would make anybody pretty ugly,” Troy added.
“And,” Taylor continued, “if you were in a plot involved with your nephew, and suddenly he’s been murdered, you might start wondering about yourself. If the plan from the beginning was to blame Midge, then you’ll be very angry when your own nephew is the one who’s been murdered. It would also explain why Shorts didn’t want Midge to leave at lunchtime. Maybe the killer was supposed to take care of her, and, when he found out she wasn’t there anymore, took care of the boss instead.”
Chapter 10
Waking up slowly, Midge felt the aches in her body from her strange position. She was still curled in a tight ball on Taylor’s couch and, with that, came the flood of memories of everything that had happened. She closed her eyes again, letting the images wash over her. So many people had been murdered and without any plausible reason or explanation. That just blew her away. Since her boss had been killed, Midge worried she had been the intended victim, and, when they couldn’t find her, they had killed him instead. Unless the killer was just so angry that he was ready to take out anybody in his path as an outlet.
What if she hadn’t gone out for lunch? Would her boss still be alive? Or would she be dead too? She had no decent answers. The never-ending circle of questions was overwhelming.
“Hey,” Taylor said quietly. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been bludgeoned, not my boss,” she said sadly, noting Colton and Troy were gone now. “I’ll admit. I didn’t like the man. But I never would have wished this on him.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, “and I’m doubly sorry you had to be the one who found him. It’s one thing to know somebody who was murdered, but it’s another thing when it’s you who comes across the body.”
She nodded slowly. “At least I didn’t have to see Mr. and Mrs. Parkins. There was just something almost artificial about seeing my boss like that. It was surreal, like I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. I guess it was shock and disbelief that it could be the truth.”
“I think that’s a normal reaction,” he said. “I didn’t want you to sleep too long. Hopefully you can go to bed and get some real sleep tonight.”
She gave a broken laugh. “It’s not even close to bedtime, is it?”
He shook his head. “Actually, it’s not. But I was hoping we could get some food into you.”
She stared at him, and then a stupid thought hit her. “I didn’t bring the leftover sandwich home.”
“That’s okay,” Taylor said with a half smile. “It certainly lends credence to your tale about having gone out for lunch with me.”
She stared at him blankly for a moment. “I guess they’ll probably even question that, won’t they?”
“The cops have to,” he said, his tone almost apologetic. “They can’t leave anything unturned.”
She straightened and winced at her sore muscles. “Man was not intended to sleep like a pretzel.”
“Nor as a tiny ball,” he said with a chuckle.
She took several steps around the coffee table and headed for the bathroom. There she stared at her tear-streaked face and the shock still present in her eyes. The disbelief at how completely sideways everything had flipped. She washed her face and, using the hand towel, patted it dry. When she stepped out, Taylor was in the kitchen. Her stomach rumbled as she sniffed.
“That’s a good sign,” he said. “At least in my world, if you’ve got an appetite, it means you’re dealing with things.”
“I guess if you’re really in shock, you’re not even interested, are you?”
He shook his head. “Not usually. I don’t have a ton here, and I don’t think it’s wise to go out shopping with you, much less leave you behind all alone, but, if you’re up for a simple meal like chicken Caesar salads, I think I can make this stretch.”
“If you can make a chicken Caesar salad,” she said, “you’re way the hell ahead of me. And I happen to love that, by the way.”
“Good,” he said. “I’ve got two chicken breasts, but one is on the small side.”
“Perfect,” she said in a dry tone. “I’m on the small side myself.” Then she stopped. “You’d eat both of them usually, wouldn’t you?”
He flashed her a wicked grin. “I’m not on the small side, so the answer there is definitely a yes. However, I’m more than willing to share.”
But she worried. “What if you’re still hungry?”
“Don’t you worry about me,” he said. “If so, I’ve got other food.”
She looked at the chicken breasts and saw the small one was about half the size. She nodded. “Okay, let’s do that. May I help?”
He nodded and took several items out of the fridge. One of them was a big head of romaine which he put in the sink. “If you want to wash that, then we’ll be good to go. I’ll light the barbecue, and we’ll toss on the chicken.”
Watching him work in the kitchen was a wonder. Perhaps partly because she had never developed much of a rhythm in the kitchen herself. Not that she wasn’t willing to try, she just hadn’t bothered so far. As she ripped up the lettuce, Taylor pulled together a dressing in his blender. She smiled as he held out a taste on a spoon. “That is delicious,” she said in amazement. And she looked at it and frowned. “So you don’t even buy a bottle of dressing?”
“No point in buying a bottle when you can make twice as much for half the price, and it’s way better,” he said.
She snorted. “You maybe, but not me. I probably would have forgotten to put the lid on that sucker and had dressing all over the kitchen.”
“That’s how I learned to put the lid on,” he said with a chuckle. “That’s exactly what happened to me.”
The chicken breasts took longer to cook than she expected, but, by the time he brought them in from the barbecue pit, complete with beautiful grill marks, the aroma had her appetite working overtime. “I can’t believe how hungry I am,” she said. “Smelling that chicken brought it on.”
“That’s a good sign,” he said with a smile. He served up two large bowls of salad, already tossed with his homemade dressing, sprinkled them both with parmesan and then spread the chicken, now diced, over the top. Then he handed her a fork and carried the large bowls to the table. She sat down and tasted it, then moaned in delight. “Oh, my God,” she said and then didn’t talk much as she was too busy eating. Before she knew it, she stared at her empty bowl in amazement. Looking at him, she saw him frowning, first studying his bowl and then hers. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re not getting enough to eat, are you?”
“I was just thinking the same thing about you,” he said. “You inhaled that.”
She nodded and laughed. “I did. It was fantastic. Thank you.”
“Do you need some of mine?” he asked, nudging his bowl closer.
“I definitely appreciate the gesture,” she said with a teasing smile, “but I’m fine. It’s all yours.”
“Hey, I offered,” he said. As if giving her another chance, he nudged it a little closer. “Going once. Going twice.”
She pushed the bowl back toward him firmly. “It’s all yours. Now eat it,” she said in a firm voice.
He shrugged and proceeded to finish it while she sat back a
nd watched him.
“It’s really a joy to see somebody eat well,” she said.
Surprisingly, he agreed. “I hate taking somebody out for a meal at a restaurant only to have her pick at her food. Too much fat, too many carbs, but the worst is when she leaves three-quarters on the plate and says, ‘I’m dieting.’”
Midge laughed out loud at that. “Not me. I’m always hungry,” she admitted. “I don’t eat a whole lot because of my size, but it seems like I go through it fairly quickly.”
“Also due to your size,” he said. “You obviously have a very high metabolism to stay so slim if you aren’t doing anything to work on it.”
“Maybe if I was getting proper meals all the time,” she said, “I wouldn’t be quite so slim.”
“We’ll have to see what we can do about that,” he said with a teasing tone.
“You’d hate it if I was chubby,” she said.
“Ha,” he said. “I think you’d look adorable with a little extra weight on you.”
“What? So I’m not adorable now?” she challenged in a mocking tone. But he knew she was teasing. Once he was done, she got up, grabbed his bowl and hers and started to wash the dishes.
“Hey, you’re my guest,” he said. “You don’t have to clean up.”
“You cooked,” she said, “so I can certainly clean up. And it was an excellent meal, so thank you for preparing it.”
With the dishes done, he led her to the small balcony, where he sat her down and said, “I hate to offer you more coffee,” he said, “because you’ve already had a fair bit.”
“I know,” she said, “but I would like something warm. I’d have said something cold, but every time I think about what’s going on, I get chilled.”
“I’ll put on the teakettle,” he said, “though I’m not sure what I have for tea.”
“I’m sure we can find something,” she said, “even if it’s just hot lemon.”
He disappeared and then came back a little later.
