Jayden Roe Mystery 02-The Final Lie

by Lily Campbell

  Ms. Carmichael’s eyes darted to Dave as if in plea to back her up, but Dave only tilted his head to the side, silently reiterating the question.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said stubbornly. “And I will—”

  “You will what?” Jay asked, his tone and expression unyielding. “I’m sure you’re in on this from the very beginning so don’t start now.”

  Ms. Carmichael’s wide eyes gave Jay a half smile. Her reaction made him know he had hit the nail on the head.

  “Why not rather tell me who you planned this with so that I can get out of your face and make sure you don’t go down as an accessory to murder?”

  With no help forthcoming, she turned her head slowly to meet Jay’s hard gaze full on.

  “Fine. But only after you sign this.” She pulled out a sheet of paper from a drawer and laid it on the table for him.

  He looked at the contract and smiled. Once he was officially hired, the game would well and truly be underway. Jay read quickly and, finding nothing to trouble him, signed and passed it over to Dave. He didn’t bother reading and signed too.

  Jay kept his focus on Ms. Carmichael. “There you go. Start talking.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Bridgette Carmichael had spent the first twenty minutes explaining exactly why she had snapped. Why her tolerance for Miranda’s careless lifestyle had reached an end.

  “Nothing had worked. She just didn’t seem to care. She believed her money would buy her out of every situation.”

  Jay said nothing, nor did he move back. Ms. Carmichael cast him a half frightened look and moved on quickly.

  “At first, it was just meant to scare her. To make her believe that some people wouldn’t care how much she could offer.”

  Jayden clicked his tongue as she seemed about to plow into another twenty minute tale with little bearing on their needs. “Look, Ms. Carmichael, I know you want to seem redeemable to us, but that is neither here nor there. All I want is how you initially found the person you dealt with and then everything you know about them.”

  “And I need you to understand why,” she countered, seeming to find a sliver of defiance from somewhere.

  Jay’s eyes fell into a chilling dark gray as he bent over. “I have no interest in your motives, Ms. Carmichael. I have told you what I want. Give it to me quickly or I swear if your delay brings Stella to harm, I will do anything to ensure you have the worst life possible.”

  Carmichael went a sickly greenish color under her growing pallor. Even Dave seemed taken aback by his sudden threat, but the man looked more impressed than scared.

  “What shall it be, Ms. Carmichael?”

  She sighed. “Fine, but don’t blame me if you feel short-changed.”

  He gave her a fleeting half smile and straightened, waiting.

  “I started receiving emails about two months ago. I can give you the address, but I already had my people track it and it leads nowhere. The person in them seemed to know a great deal about Miranda's many mishaps and her impending disaster. They said that if I was tired of cleaning up her messes, they could help.”

  Jay raised an eyebrow. “And you accepted?”

  “Of course not,” she said, her tone biting. “I am not Miranda. I looked into the email, found nothing, and blocked them. A week later, the first letter arrived.” She reached into her desk and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “Read them and you’ll understand.”

  Jay took the pages but didn’t read. “So you followed these instead?”

  “After I had a meeting with the sender. And before you ask, no, I can’t tell you anything about them. They dressed head-to-toe in some kind of body suit. They never spoke, writing their questions or answers on a tablet. I can’t even tell you their gender.”

  Jay had frozen. Her description matched Stan’s perfectly. “What did they want with Miranda?”

  Ms. Carmichael shrugged. “Revenge. They said they’d been badly handled by both Miranda and Stella. That they would kidnap them both, keep them for a terrifying week so they’d never forget, then release them near the estate again.” Jay felt his hands clenched into fists, and Ms. Carmichael spoke quickly. “I refused to play along. I didn't give them any information. I even said that Stella was likely going to drop Miranda as her father wanted.”

  “Then why start all this by giving us reasons to excuse your behavior?” Dave asked.

  Jay answered for her, watching her face to see if he was right. “Because she met with that person here in this house.. She gave them not only the opportunity to learn the layout of the land, but also access to hints about Miranda’s upcoming events. They knew exactly when and where Ms. Williams and Stella were going to meet.”

  Ms. Carmichael let out a long breath and nodded, confirming his guess.

  ***

  Dave was watching him with a look that seemed to toe the line of fanboy adoration as they walked back to the inn.

  Finally unable to keep a straight face, Jay turned to Dave. “Is there something you’d like to say or is your look enough?”

  Dave snapped out of whatever dreamworld he had been inhabiting and looked away. Jay looked the other way too. However, in that direction, Jay spotted a slight figure darting around the corner of a connecting side street and froze.

  “Sorry, Jay,” Dave said, stopping a pace ahead and running a hand over his hair. “It is just, well, hearing about you was one thing. Watching you in action was something else entirely.”

  “I’ll catch up with you at the inn later,” Jay told him quickly. “You can start writing up the report of our work today and make sure to add the list she gave us. If you have the time, start going through it.”

  Dave turned back as Jay sprinted away. “Wait, where are you going?”

  “No time. Just do it.”

  He left Dave standing there and took off after the figure he had seen. She had a massive head start, and he also knew that if she did not wish to be found, she would not be able to be found.

  He walked slowly, paying attention to every little thing and every deep shadow he passed. It was around lunch hour and the streets were busy, but he still caught another two glimpses of a thin, small woman, dressed all in black flitting through the throng like a ghost. She glanced back once, meeting his eye dead on as if she had known exactly where he was. Those too big, dark eyes were the last factor. There was no doubt now that he was indeed tailing Ruby.

  He felt a remembered pang from the last time he had spoken to her. She had hated him, justifiably so, but had also still wanted, or hoped, to be able to forgive him one day.

  He kept following the glimpses of her as he took each turn. He knew he was being led to a place of her choosing. Jay took a little heart from the fact that she clearly wanted to speak to him. She would have otherwise simply vanished in the lunch hour crowds, and he would have had nothing to go on in order to track her.

  He saw a flash of her dark red hair vanish around a corner and started moving through the throng, having a lot more trouble than his wraith-like guide. He stepped out of the crowds and glaring sunlight into a dim alleyway.

  Jayden blinked a few times trying to see into the darker shadows up ahead, but there was no sign now of Ruby. He stifled the urge to call out to her. If she was watching him because she knew something, then perhaps she was aware of Stella’s case.

  He moved up the alley slowly. He’s unwilling to mess this up by missing some small gap she may have used to slip into one of the buildings on either side. He came to what looked like a small service tunnel. It was pitch black inside, but he could just about make out the small semi-circle of light at the other end. He stepped into the darkness. It reeked of vomit and other excrement. Jay pulled out his phone for the flashlight.

  “Put that away.” Her voice was still so familiar, even after four years of silence.

  Jay glanced up and saw her slight figure in the far distance, framed by the semi-circle of sunlight. “I don’t want to step in anything,” he began.


  “Power it off and put it away,” she repeated. “Stay in line with me and you won’t step in anything.”

  Jay tilted his head to the side but did as she asked, pointing the screen towards her so she could see that he had, in fact, powered it off.

  He pocketed his phone and began to walk towards her, keeping her directly ahead. He felt his gut settle into a cold vice. This Ruby was not the one he had left behind. While he was glad that she wasn’t a broken heap, he felt a sickening rise of suspicion. Could it be possible that she was here for him, for revenge? If so, he would have to make her see that he needed to find Stella first. Or did she blame them both?

  Jay watched her step out to the side as he reached the part where the sunlight could reach and quickened his pace. The light was blinding after the dark stretch of tunnel. Jay shut his eyes automatically and never saw the bat that flew at his head. He did feel the explosion of pain as it connected with the side of his skull a moment before all sensations receded into nothingness.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Jayden felt his senses return but remained perfectly still. He took stock of the dull ache on the side of his head, but he seemed to have sustained no other injuries worth mentioning. He tried to tell if he was bound or not, but it was hard without moving.

  “If you keep feigning unconsciousness, I’m just going to leave.”

  Jay’s eyes flashed open as adrenaline laced his blood. The voice had not been the one he was expecting. He scanned the dingy room that looked like it belonged in some run down motel and then shifted his eyes to the man speaking.

  Frank Morty had changed a fair amount outwardly in the four years since he had last seen him. He was beefier and now sported a short beard. His hair was no longer a messy mop, but was short-shaved on the sides..

  “Did you hit me with that bat?” Jay snapped, jabbing a finger toward the door where a wooden baseball bat rested.

  Frank’s instinctual fear for Jay flashed through his eyes even though he only shrugged. “Wasn’t my idea, but yeah.”

  “Ruby,” Jay muttered under his breath, pushing himself up so that he was sitting on the bed. “Where is she?”

  Frank gave a short, humorless chuckle. “Just because she wants to help find Stella, doesn’t mean that she is ready to actually talk to you face to face.”

  Jayden felt the barb hit his chest but only sighed. “Well, thank her for me later then, for all this.”

  Frank’s dark eyebrow rose slightly. “You’re thanking her for having me kidnap you?”

  “In a way. I think whoever took Stella is still watching to see who might be coming after her. This way, you’ll seem like enemies, not friends.”

  “Ruby said the same thing.”

  Jay felt his eyes tighten at the edges and then go wider as his expression became serious. “Tell me everything. Please.”

  Frank half smiled. “Looks like prison made you more polite. Or is it the guilt?”

  Jayden stood and then smirked as Frank recoiled automatically. “You done playing the tough guy standing up for his girl?”

  He looked away and shrugged.

  Jay sighed. “I get it, I do. But this shouldn’t have anything to do with me, or Ruby, or even you. We all made choices back then, we’ve all paid for them. Ruby reached out to me. Even if it was just because this is Stella’s safety on the line, it doesn’t matter. I will gratefully accept whatever my two best sneaks have to offer me.”

  Frank’s face ended up at some strange halfway point between a smile and a grimace. “Is that enough, Ruby?”

  Jay spun towards the bathroom, where Ruby Wei was now emerging. She, too, had some marked differences to her familiar features. Her dark eyes, though still seeming too big, were no longer like fathomless pools. They had a focus now, an intention. Her hair was still wine red and cut to just brush her shoulders, but it was more artfully draped than its previous disarray. Her entire appearance was neater, as if reflecting the inner progress Stella had claimed she had been making.

  “Hello, Jay,” she greeted softly. Her hands twitched as if she wanted to throw her arms around his waist like old times.

  “Hey, Ru.”

  Something shifted behind her eyes, and it made the coldness in them seem less severe. Silence filled the room for a long moment as she and Jay didn’t look away from one another. Eventually, Frank broke it by clearing his throat loudly.

  “Not that telepathic reconnections aren’t great, but we’re on a clock.”

  Ruby glanced at him and smiled. The tiny motion transforming her whole face. Jay felt a surge of his own joy at the clear bond they had.

  He glanced back at Frank with a half smile. “He’s right.”

  Ruby looked back at him then pointed to the rickety chair in the corner. “Sit.”

  Jay obeyed, and she and Frank sat together on the bed.

  “He says—”

  Ruby held up a hand stopping him. “This isn’t going to be one of your question and answer digs. I’ll tell you what I know. You, in turn, will put your mind to finding Stella. But first, I need your word that our,” she amended, glancing sidelong at Frank, “assistance will not be noted anywhere. You’ll make no notes, leave no trail. If our information proves useful, you must lie as to how you came about it.”

  Jay tilted his head to the side. “Why? I mean, I can agree to all that, but I am curious.”

  Ruby raised her eyes to his. “Because you are wrong.”

  Jay cocked an eyebrow. “Wrong?”

  “You told Frank that this had nothing to do with you. I think you are wrong. I think you are the target.”

  Jay drew in a deep breath. He had considered this, but it had only been one of several possible motives. “Okay. I promise. What do you know?”

  Ruby watched him for a long moment then nodded. “Four years ago, when you were convicted, your life became public. Everything you had done, all the other investigators you had shamed, your underhanded tactics, all of it fell into the public forum.”

  “You’re saying someone I shamed is behind all this?”

  Ruby shook her head. “I don’t know. But I do know that about three months after you began serving your sentence, Frank and I started receiving emails, asking about you, about our relationship with you, wanting to know if we were still close despite everything.”

  “What makes you think the emails and Stella’s disappearance are linked?”

  Ruby gave him a glare. “I said no questions.”

  “Sorry. Habit.”

  Frank rolled his eyes as she continued. “At first, we assumed it was some nutty journalist trying to get an angle no one had tried yet. But then the emails were joined by texts and eventually physical letters.”

  Jay shifted forward in his seat. He knew that Ruby’s contact email would have been on the legal record of his trial. Her phone number might be explained by a similar hack, into police records, rather than lawyer’s. But her address had been kept as her grandmother’s plot at the park. The house she and Frank should have moved to had once been Jay’s.

  She had watched the process and shook her head before he spoke. “We weren’t at your place anymore. We had moved just after your trial.”

  “Was this the sender?” Jay asked, scribbling an email on a notepad by the phone.

  Ruby read it and glanced at Frank. They both nodded, and Jay felt his heart sink. “What happened next?”

  “The attempts at contact continued for over a year. Sometimes I would think there was someone outside the house at night. After a little more than a year, they all just stopped. The last message claimed that we weren’t who they thought and they apologized and vanished.”

  Jay tried hard to think back and felt his already weak stomach lurch. He tried to fight off the assault by the wave of fear-driven nausea.

  “I gave Stella a bracelet for her birthday. The same bracelet has now been left as a threat or clue.”

  Frank frowned. “I don’t remember Stella saying anything about receiving strange message
s though.”

  Ruby nodded. “She didn’t. But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t just trying to placate me. She could probably see how unsettled I was.”

  “But she didn’t say anything to me either.”

  Ruby gave him a pitying look. “You think she’d tell you something that would make you worry?”

  Jay heaved a despairing sigh. Ruby was right.

  “I stayed out of it, but when Stella went missing, I started to look into things. She had done what she always does, throwing herself into her work,” Ruby continued. “She had been making plans for you, while darting around for Miranda Williams and trying to steer clear of her father’s henchmen. But you probably already know all that.”

  Jay met her eyes and tensed automatically for a blow, seeing from her expression that whoever had done this had stayed safe.

  “Once I realized you were onto her trail straight away, I came here. I have learned a thing or two from you. If my suspicions that this was all because of you were correct, then perhaps someone would show up to lay the stage. But I came up with nothing.” She threw him a tiny smile that gave him a fragile hope. “I did, however, see Stella’s father meet with his man this morning, while you were still in the mansion.”

  Jay nearly fell from the chair as he shifted forward hastily. “And?”

  “And it is Gary Peters.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “Gary Peters.” Jay repeated the name once more. Once, a good decade ago now, he had been an apprentice under Gary. Passing him as an investigator was his greatest embarrassment. Gary had been one of the investigators Jay had learned from who had not been willing to simply let him leave when he had outgrown them. Jay had offered each of those investigators the same kind of compromise. They’d take on the same case, work separately, and whoever solved it first would get what they wanted. As Gary’s one had been a touch more public than the others, the burn was greater.

  Jay stood and headed for the door.