Complete Mia Kazmaroff Romantic Suspense Series, 1-4

by Kiernan-Lewis, Susan

  Must have lost his appetite.

  Mia glanced at the password scrawled on the pad. Honeys. A thrill of triumph pierced her. But it wasn’t the password that made her feel like she’d done good work today.

  It was the fact that Cargill had written it with his left hand.

  *****

  Jack’s car wasn’t in the parking lot but she hadn’t expected it to be. It was after six. He was probably full swing into the first course of prepping whatever culinary feast he was creating tonight.

  Mia rolled her head to ease the tension in her neck. She pulled a beer out of the fridge and settled down on the couch with Daisy and the case file folder, her phone and a notepad. As far as she was concerned, Cook and Cargill were neck and neck for most likely suspect for the murder. Cook had motive plus he was there, tromping around the crime scene, but Cargill had motive and he was left-handed, unlike Cook. Obviously, the cops went with the forensic evidence as the easier case to prove.

  She jotted down the names—Cook, Cargill, Derek, Turner—and stared at them. Derek had a different kind of motive but he had one nonetheless. And Mia didn’t know where he was that night. Turner, on the other hand, wasn’t an obvious suspect but Mia had picked up on a strong vein of guilt in his manner. She scolded herself for not being more aggressive in touching him. They didn’t even shake hands and she could certainly have pushed that.

  A text from Jack chimed on her phone.

 

  She typed a response.

 

  Mia caught her breath and typed him back.

  Feeling her world click back into place, Mia hopped up to find the dish he’d left for her in the refrigerator. She heated it the oven and then fed Daisy. This was her opportunity to show Jack they were a unit and that she believed in him. Jack would open up to her about his case if she stopped reminding him that the emperor was buck naked.

  She brought her hot mac and cheese to the couch and settled down with her notes again. Peterson had given her a complete copy of Victoria’s diary. Mia was only a few weeks into the entries and felt guilty every time she picked it up for invading the dead woman’s privacy. But if Mia knew anything, she knew the only way she was going to get traction on this case was by going down the roads the cops couldn’t be bothered to.

  Maxwell’s words continued to come back to her: not enough resources, time or money to check everything out.

  That’s where Mia came in. She turned to a recent entry in the diary.

  Tuesday, November 15. Why does every holiday remind me of D? You’d think I’d eventually get over that, move on. After everything that’s happened.

  Mia picked up a highlighter and circled the letter D. Could she be referring to Derek?

  Alice called me again today. Wish someone would put her on a leash. She says D wants to know why I don’t write him. Is she serious? Ten years ago she would’ve hunted me down with a blowtorch if I’d sent him so much as a postcard. Am I ever going to be done with those people? I try to imagine what J would say if he knew.

  Daisy barked and Mia jumped.

  “Way to scare the crap out of me,” she said to the dog.

  So now who the hell was J? She wrote down the initial on her list of suspects. Maybe something in the files would match up with it. And who’s Alice? And what is she afraid of J knowing? Something about “those people.”

  Mia glanced at the clock. A little after ten. Jack wouldn’t be home for another four hours. She closed the file folder and picked up the remote control. She’d gotten in the habit of watching the ten o’clock news most nights. There were a few bites left of her dinner that she let Daisy deal with. As she was cranking up the volume on the TV, a loud thump resounded at her front door. Nearly choking when she heard the noise, Daisy let out a strangled bark and flung herself off the couch.

  Mia got up cautiously and followed the dog, who was now barking at the closed door. She reached to the shelving that flanked the door and picked up her Glock, wondering for a moment how normal people answered the door at ten o’clock at night.

  She peered through the security peephole but saw nothing. Daisy’s barking evolved into a steady string of growls, making it impossible to hear any sounds coming from the hallway. She wiped the perspiration that had formed on her hand before unlocking the latch and pulling the door open.

  There was no one there. Mia felt the staccato pounding heartbeat in her throat begin to ease. She took a step into the hall and looked both ways. Daisy’s growls escalated and Mia snapped her head back to find the little dog threatening a package on Mia’s doormat.

  A package that was bleeding.

  Chapter 8

  The package held two dolls—identical in every way—and naked, drenched in what looked like blood. Mia didn’t have time to drop it off at a lab to see for sure—or the time to wait the three weeks necessary for getting an answer back. Nor did she want to alert Jack to the fact that the nasty thing had been delivered to her. It was enough that the message had been sent and received.

  The question of who sent it vibrated through Mia the rest of the night and into the morning. She wrapped the grisly package and stashed it in the top shelf of her closet, then showered and changed the sheets in Jack’s room. She slept fitfully, the little dog beside her, until Jack came into the room and slipped into bed with her, drawing her close to him, and, after a murmured I love you fell asleep immediately.

  She woke to the sounds of vomiting in the adjoining bathroom.

  “Jack?” Mia ran to the bathroom door and laid her cheek against it.

  “I’m fine,” he rasped. “Didn’t get my flu shot. Just the cherry on my crap week.” He opened the door and smiled wanly at her. His hair was tousled and even in the dim morning light, he looked pale.

  “You’re sick,” Mia said. “Go back to bed.”

  “On my way. Afraid our makeup sex will have to wait.”

  “Oh, you’re not off the hook for that, my friend,” Mia said, pulling him back to bed and pushing him onto it.

  “Very funny,” he groaned.

  “What can I get you? Toast? Tea?”

  “Nothing. I’m sorry, Mia.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, tucking the covers around him. “Just feel better. Will Daisy bother you if I let her stay?”

  He shook his head, his eyes already closed. Mia hesitated to kiss him. No sense in both of them getting sick.

  As she drove to Lawrenceville, Mia’s mind was abuzz with everything that had happened in the last few hours. While she hated that Jack was sick, a small part of her was glad he’d be out of action for a bit. She could put his case—and what did or didn’t happen and whose fault that was—on the back burner for long enough to get some traction on her own case.

  And first and foremost with that was who the hell sent her the bloody, naked dolls? If it was a warning to her, did that mean she was getting close? Of her four suspects—Cook, Derek, Cargill and Turner—only Cook was in the clear. And something about Turner made her believe the gesture was a little too crass for him. But was it believable that portly Barry Cargill would come huffing and puffing up Mia’s stairs to leave the package? To what end? He’d been extremely upset to know Mia was reopening the possibility that someone else besides Cook had killed Victoria, but this effort seemed way too energetic for him.

  That left Derek. But what lowlife would send naked dolls representing his own sisters? That was taking twisted to a whole new level.

  Mia crested Spaghetti Junction, heading northeast toward Lawrenceville, thirty-five miles from Atlanta. She left I-85 at Gwinnett Place Mall and exited onto University Parkway, which took her into the heart of the town. On her list today was a couple who had used Victoria to babysit their kids years ago. Unfortunately, Rhonda Kilpatrick had called the police after Mia’s visit to request no one else bother her family again. The police notified Peterson, who’d emailed the message to Mia the previous afternoo
n.

  She knew, technically, that trying to talk to the twins again could get her in major trouble—if she were caught—but she also knew she wasn’t done with them. They were the treasure trove—even beyond Victoria’s diary—that would help Mia find out what was going on with Victoria beyond the scam.

  Checking her GPS, Mia quickly found the address she was looking for. It was a small town after all. Debbie and Robert Olds had lived next door to Victoria’s family for fifteen years. While Mia had neglected to mention to Mrs. Olds when she called yesterday that she was interviewing them on behalf of the sexual pervert in custody for Victoria’s death, she didn’t feel guilty about it.

  It all comes down to nailing the guy who killed Victoria. We’re on the same team. I’m just playing on a different field.

  Victoria’s old neighborhood was blue-collar, but tidy. The homes were built at least forty years ago and the landscaping was mature and lush. Mia parked her car at the front curb in front of the Olds’ house and checked her watch. She was early.

  Debbie Olds opened the front door before Mia cleared the first step on the porch. She was extremely fat, so much so that her arms stuck out as if they were too small for her body. An image of a T-Rex came unbidden to Mia’s mind. Mrs. Olds smiled broadly and gestured for Mia to enter.

  “Hello, Mrs. Olds,” Mia said, stepping inside. The smell of bacon and fried food seemed to waft visibly in the air around her and for a moment Mia’s stomach twisted.

  “Come in, come in, darlin,’” Mrs. Olds said. “Bob will be out shortly. I’ve got tea out on the back deck. It’s warm enough, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, it’s lovely,” Mia said, her eyes darting to the dark interior of the living room as they passed. She saw a drab collection of old furniture; it looked like it hadn’t been updated since the couple first moved in.

  “I know you want to hear all about Vickie,” Mrs. Olds said. “My goodness, I can’t tell you how upset the whole town was to hear about everything she had gotten up to. We certainly never knew. That wasn’t our Vickie.”

  Unspoken message: that’s what comes from moving to Atlanta.

  The deck overlooked a small backyard bordered on three sides by a thick wood. It was just warm enough to see a few dogwood trees starting to blossom—the advent of the famous Atlanta spring. Mia saw a few of the telltale flowering trees tucked away in the deepest part of the backyard woods.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said as she sat on a hard wooden chair.

  “Thank you,” Debbie Olds said. “I hope you like your tea sweet.”

  “Of course,” Mia said. Nothing got you labeled a Yankee faster than asking for unsweetened iced tea. “Again, let me thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

  “Child, Bob and I don’t have anything else to do. You could’ve called up an hour ago and we’d still be sitting right here like we are now.”

  “Well, I’m grateful. Do you mind my asking some questions now?”

  “Fire away. Will the story be running in the Atlanta Journal? If it does, I know the Lawrenceville paper will pick it up. They’ve run a lot on Vickie the last three months but I’d like to see something that doesn’t paint our girl as a trollop. You know what I mean?”

  “Yes, I do,” Mia said, reminding herself that she never told the Olds that she was a journalist. Was it her fault that that’s the first conclusion they jumped to?

  “You knew Victoria when her family lived next door,” Mia prodded.

  “Fifteen years they lived there. And Vickie, of course, too.”

  “What happened to them? They moved away?”

  Debbie Olds hesitated and then broke into a smile as her husband opened the door from the kitchen and entered onto the deck.

  “Here’s my Bob,” she said. “This nice young lady was just asking why the Baskervilles moved away,” she said to him.

  Robert Olds was the physical opposite of his heavyset wife, with loose jowls and flaccid skin in his face that gave him a bloodhound look, also a perennially unhappy expression. Mia wondered if it was even possible for the man to smile with all that flesh dragging downward against his chin.

  “Mark Baskerville left as soon as they moved in,” he said as he seated himself across from Mia in a rocking chair.

  “Oh, that’s right, he did,” Debbie said. She turned to Mia. “We never really knew him. It was Vickie’s mother who bought the house. She worked down at the elementary school as the school nurse. Although I don’t think she was real nurse. In those days, just having a good head on your shoulders could get you a job as a school nurse.”

  “I see,” Mia said. “And did Victoria have brothers and sisters?” Mia knew the answer but was hoping to get the pair talking about Victoria’s family life without having to lead them too much.

  “No, it was just Vickie and her mom, Slyvie,” Debbie said.

  “How old was Vickie when they moved in?”

  “About ten?” She turned to her husband who confirmed with a nod.

  “And she babysat y’all’s kids?”

  “Well, not right away,” Debbie said with a laugh. “What kind of a babysitter would be ten years old?”

  “But she wasn’t much older than that,” Bob said, frowning at his wife.

  “But she was older,” Debbie said firmly.

  “Your kids have all flown the nest, I guess?”

  “Oh my, yes. Our oldest girl is married with two little ones of her own. Lives in Dacula. Our boy is twenty and has a very good job at the Gwinnett Mall.”

  Mia tapped her pen against her notepad. This was going to be delicate, and she hated to start asking the questions that were going to wipe the welcoming smiles off their faces, but she was here to get information she couldn’t read in Victoria’s file. And for that, she needed to push the edge a little.

  “So, I suppose your family knows the Kilpatricks?”

  Sure enough, at the mention of the twins the pair stiffened in unison.

  “Rhonda Kilpatrick is an unfortunate creature,” Debbie said, clasping her hands in her lap as if her proclamation was all that needed to be said on the subject.

  “Unfortunate in that she was too loose with her kids?” Mia prompted.

  Debbie caught the eye of her husband and he seemed to wake up.

  “The Kilpatricks are not our kind of people,” he said. “Rhonda’s boy was constantly in trouble and, well, the twins have been in the paper for three months now as I reckon you already know.”

  “She wasn’t trying to suggest that Vickie ever wanted to get Andy and Bryanna involved in anything like that,” Debbie said. But she looked at Mia when she said it and she didn’t smile.

  “Of course not,” Bob said. “Our two have a hell of a lot more sense than that.”

  “Plus, they were raised right,” Debbie said. “Church every Sunday. After-school sports. And a strong sense of duty to family and country.”

  “I heard a rumor that Victoria and Derek used to date,” Mia said. “Is that true?”

  “That’s a good question” Debbie said, clearly happy she had somehow slipped off the hot seat in place of Derek. “I don’t know how long they were together but I’m sure it was always more in Derek’s head. I’m not even absolutely positive it’s true.”

  “Was there anybody else special in her life growing up?”

  “Well, of course there was Drew.”

  Bingo. The mysterious D.

  “Her boyfriend?”

  “All through school. The two of them were hotter than a jalapeño while it lasted. It was heartbreaking how it ended. Even you have to agree to that,” she said to her husband, who shrugged.

  “What happened?”

  “Vickie got caught, you know, with a baby. We went to the same church, did I mention that?”

  Mia shook her head.

  “She wanted to keep it, and now that I see how things turned out I’m not sorry she didn’t, but at the time she was devastated.”

  “How?”

  “Dr
ew’s mama didn’t like Vickie. At all. When she found out Vickie was PG, Alice did everything in her power to keep the two apart. Drew’s weak. I’ll say that and it’s the only positive thing I can think to say about him. He did listen to his mama.”

  “A lot of good it did him,” her husband said.

  So Alice was Victoria’s ex-boyfriend’s mother.

  “What happened?”

  “Drew broke up with her. And broke her heart in the process. Our pastor convinced her that the best thing for the baby—and for her too—would be to give it up. Vickie knew what it was like not to have a daddy.”

  “Tell her the rest of the story,” Bob said gruffly.

  Debbie frowned and then her brow cleared. “Oh!” she said. “Six months after the baby was born, Drew went away for felony murder. Twenty years to life.”

  Mia whistled. “That’s steep.”

  “The manager of the convenience store died during the robbery.”

  Mia tried to imagine the kind of life Victoria had come from—losing her father, her first love, her baby. She already knew from the file Peterson gave her that her grades were good enough to qualify for the state scholarship. The University of Georgia wasn’t twenty miles away and it was a good state school. But there was no record of her having even applied to it.

  “You never said why Victoria and her family moved away,” Mia said.

  “Oh, that was sad, too. Poor Slyvie got breast cancer. Vickie nursed her until she died, then graduated high school and sold the house without a backward glance, didn’t she, Bob?”

  Bob didn’t answer.

  “And moved to Atlanta?”

  “We never knew where she’d gone off to. It wasn’t until the papers started printing pictures of her that we even knew the Internet Hussy was our Vickie.”

  “Let me ask you, Drew’s mother’s name was Alice?”

  “That’s right. Alice Smith.”

  “Is she still around?”

  “We see her at church now and then. She’s not in regular attendance if you know what I mean. What with all this happening to Vickie, she’s certainly been louder than ever.”