Half Empty

by Catherine Bybee

  Trina was on her phone. “How long?”

  Jeb took off. It appeared that Trina had already told him they were going to the airport.

  “Okay. Do we know anything else about the person who did this?”

  Wade started to draw a picture in his head.

  Trina hung her head and sniffed. “I knew we should have had Reed bring in a bodyguard. She was taking stuff to the auction houses . . . No, watches and pens. I don’t know, Sam. Expensive crap. Nothing worth hurting Avery over.”

  Wade placed his hand on Trina’s thigh in an effort to comfort her.

  “Of course this is my fault. She wouldn’t have been there if I had just walked away from that house and let someone else deal with it.”

  Trina looked up and out the window, unshed tears in her eyes. “How long until we get to the airport?” she asked Jeb.

  “Thirty minutes.”

  Trina told the person on the phone her timeline. “I’ll be there.”

  She hung up the phone and punched the seat beside her.

  Wade didn’t ask, he just waited for her to talk.

  “She was found in a parking garage, dragged between two cars. They beat her up, Wade.” Trina started to cry.

  He pulled her into his arms. “It’s okay, honey. We’re getting there as fast as we can.”

  She cried on his shoulder. “Sam is sending a plane. Just get me to the airport. You don’t have to—”

  “We’re not having this conversation. I’m going. Jeb?” he asked, even though it was understood that where Wade went, Jeb went, unless otherwise arranged.

  Jeb caught his eyes in the rearview mirror with a look of Are you kidding?

  “You don’t—”

  Best way to get a woman to stop arguing was to get her talking about something else. “Tell me everything you know.”

  She sucked back a breath and started at the beginning.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A car waited for them at LaGuardia. She tucked into the back of the limousine with Wade while Jeb took the front seat, next to the driver. It was late and traffic was light. They arrived at the hospital well after visiting hours, but that never mattered when you knew someone in the ICU. Trina walked into the waiting room to find Lori and Reed.

  Trina fell into Lori’s embrace. “My fault.”

  “Stop.”

  “She was there because of me.” Guilt would sit in Trina’s soul for eternity.

  “Avery has never done anything she didn’t want to do. So stop!”

  Trina pushed back the darkness inside. “How is she?”

  “She woke up.”

  The fact that she hadn’t been awake all this time wasn’t lost on Trina.

  “And she’s talking . . .”

  Chills. God, please.

  “She’s going to be okay, Trina.”

  Trina shook as she broke down.

  Lori embraced her until the sobs ebbed.

  Slowly . . . ever so slowly, the room came into focus.

  Reed and Wade stood side by side.

  “Can I see her?”

  “For ten minutes at the top of the hour. Hospital rules.”

  Trina looked at the clock on the wall. They had half an hour to wait.

  The door to the waiting room opened and Jeb walked in.

  Wade turned to Reed and extended his hand. “I’m Wade.”

  “I’m sorry,” Trina said.

  “It’s okay, Trina,” Lori told her.

  Trina sat beside Lori, and Wade made himself comfortable opposite the two of them. Jeb hovered by the door and watched the other people in the waiting room.

  “Do the police have any leads?” Wade asked quietly, once they were sitting down.

  Reed answered, “No. They’re getting the surveillance tapes of the garage as we speak. Hopefully by morning we’ll have some information.”

  “Has Avery said anything about her attacker?”

  Lori placed her hand over Trina’s. “They’re able to wake her, but she’s sedated now.”

  Reed sat forward. “Do you know where exactly she was going?”

  “Christie’s, I think. The other one I don’t know. Avery had found Fedor’s pens after I’d left for Texas, the expensive kind. She was all excited about them, said they were worth a ton of money.” Trina swallowed hard. “I was going to give her a percentage of what was sold at auction.” She turned to Lori. “Avery’s burned through a lot of money this year and wanted a job. I thought, perfect. She knows all about high-end stuff that I’m clueless about. She was excited.”

  “Did she take the stuff to New York with her?” Lori asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “At least we have a motive,” Reed said with relief.

  “What do you mean?” Trina asked.

  “Burglary. Her purse was dumped out, but whoever did this didn’t bother to take her wallet. There weren’t any watches or pens on her either, so they must have taken those.”

  Trina shook her head and brought her purse to her lap. “I don’t think she had any of it on her. Here, this text came through before all of yours. I didn’t notice it until we were on the plane.”

  Trina turned the phone over to Reed, and he read it out loud. I know you’re in the middle of the big party, just dropping a note to say that everything in NY went well. Fedor liked really expensive things. En route to the house so call if you need to talk. Texting and driving in NY is just asking for trouble.

  Reed ran a hand through his hair. “Oh, shit.”

  “What?”

  “We need to find out what she had on her, if anything.”

  “I don’t care about the stuff—”

  “This is about motive. Someone mugging her for a purse, a wallet, a fifty-thousand-dollar watch . . . that makes sense. Someone beating her up for nothing . . . and then dragging her behind a car so she wasn’t quickly found by the first person to walk by . . . that feels too calculated for me. Or worse, they wanted her dead and were interrupted before finishing the job.”

  “You don’t think this was random?” Wade asked.

  “I used to be a cop. So no. I never think anything is random. But the motive of a thief is a hell of a lot easier to sleep on than a motive of someone wanting to harm Avery just to see her battered and bruised.”

  “Who would want to hurt Avery? She makes friends, not enemies.” Trina looked at Lori.

  “Someone wasn’t happy with her.”

  The door leading into the patient rooms opened and a nurse peeked into the waiting room. Trina sat taller and gave the woman her full attention.

  “Ms. Cumberland?”

  Lori and Trina both stood at the same time.

  “She’s asking for you.” The nurse looked around the room. “Three visitors at a time,” she said to all of them.

  Trina looked over her shoulder at Wade.

  “Go, I’ll stay out here.”

  Reed, Lori, and Trina followed the nurse back. In complete contrast to the waiting room, the ICU was lit up like it was one in the afternoon and not one in the morning. Nurses walked in different directions, the machines beeped and moaned, and the smell of human suffering oozed from the walls. The scent was unique to a place that saw the body in all stages of decay and trauma but was kept sanitary by antiseptic soaps and cleaning solutions. Trina hated it.

  Lori squeezed Trina’s hand. “She looks really bad. Try not to react with her watching.”

  The nurse led them into Avery’s room and pulled back the curtain.

  Trina bit her lip to keep from crying out.

  Avery’s head was completely bandaged, her face covered in gauze with the exception of her eyes, mouth, and chin. All of which were swollen and bruised to the point that Trina wouldn’t have recognized Avery if she didn’t know it was her. Her right arm was in a splint and her right leg was sitting outside the blanket and elevated on a pillow. It, too, was covered in some kind of wrap.

  “Hey . . . ,” Lori said softly, and Avery opened her eyes.

&nbs
p; Avery licked her lips like it took serious effort to do so.

  Trina stood at the end of the bed, not trusting herself to speak.

  Lori took the chair on the side and pulled it closer to the bed.

  “W-what happened?” Avery asked.

  Lori looked at the nurse.

  “You don’t remember?”

  Avery moaned.

  The nurse spoke up. “She’s amnesic to the event. The concussion isn’t letting her remember anything you tell her. She’ll ask the same questions over and over.”

  Trina squeezed her hands into fists. “Is that going to go away?”

  Reed placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “Most of the time it does. It’s early. Try not to worry. Just answer her questions.”

  “Trina?” Avery pulled her drugged gaze toward her.

  “Hey, honey.”

  “Weren’t you gone?” Avery asked slowly.

  The fact that she remembered gave Trina hope. “Yes, I was.”

  Avery closed her eyes and asked again, “What happened?”

  Lori cleared her throat. “You were mugged in the parking garage.”

  “I was?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m in the hospital?” Avery opened her left eye, which seemed to be the less swollen of the two.

  “You are.”

  “Avery, do you remember why you were in New York?” Reed asked.

  Her gaze floated over to them again. “Hi, Reed.” She moaned. “My head hurts.”

  Reed shook his head. “You rest and get better.”

  They all stood there staring for five minutes. Avery opened her eyes again. “What happened?”

  Wade stood when Trina and her friends returned.

  Trina had lost a year off her life in the span of ten minutes. She was white as a sheet and holding back the pain that screamed through her eyes.

  Wade opened his arms and she fell into them.

  “She doesn’t remember anything. I’m not sure she will by morning either,” Reed told him.

  “If ever,” Lori said.

  “Might be for the best,” Jeb said.

  Trina lifted her head from Wade’s shoulder and turned around. “We were keeping a list of contacts on a spreadsheet at the house. She would have written down who she was seeing and where. I should go and get it so we can make calls when everyone opens in the morning.”

  Reed nodded. “Good idea, only I’ll go. You stay here for Avery.”

  “You shouldn’t go alone,” Lori told him. “We’ve been up for hours. It’s a long drive.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Lori’s stare said Don’t argue.

  “I’ll go with you,” Wade said. He glanced over his shoulder. “I’m drawing a little attention.” He’d noticed the stealth selfie followed by two more people that arrived and didn’t stop staring.

  “Okay, but someone needs to stay with the girls.”

  “Oh, please,” Lori said.

  “Not negotiable, Lori. If this wasn’t random . . .”

  Lori stopped smiling.

  “I’ll stay,” Jeb offered.

  Reed sized Jeb up and down. “Okay.” He turned back to Trina. “Where exactly was this spreadsheet?”

  “Do you really think Avery was targeted?” Wade asked once they were alone in the rental car.

  “I hope I’m wrong about that.”

  Wade watched the lights of the opposing cars as they drove by. “According to Trina, Avery’s the flirty, fun girl. In my experience, the only people that have a hard time with that are other women, and only if a man is involved.”

  “Avery probably has many of those enemies, but I doubt a woman did that to her.” Reed concentrated on the road.

  “How bad is she?”

  “Broken wrist due to a size twelve kicking her. It appears that she tried to block multiple blows to her face. She didn’t do a good job, however, as evidenced by the broken nose that they will operate on later, when she’s stable. Sprained ankle from the fall, maybe. The hit to the head left her out of it for hours, and whether the hits to her face continued after she was out, or before, we won’t know unless she tells us. For Avery’s sake, I hope she never remembers it.”

  Wade noticed Reed’s knuckles turning white on the steering wheel. “Who does that to a woman?”

  “I don’t know. But I will find out.”

  “I’m glad we left Jeb behind.”

  “Me too.”

  They drove in silence for several miles.

  Reed glanced over with a slight smile. The only one Wade had seen on the man since they met. “You’re Wade Thomas.”

  “Yes sirree.”

  “I saw you in concert in Vegas a couple years ago.”

  That surprised him. “At Caesars?”

  “Yup. That was a fun night.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it.” Wade had lived with his fame long enough to know how to accept a compliment without getting his ego in his armpits.

  “I have a question,” Reed started.

  “Shoot.” Wade leaned his head back, thankful he wasn’t driving. The day had wiped him out.

  “I’ve always wanted to know if the band makes money on the concessions.”

  Wade smiled. “Yeah. We do.”

  Reed nodded a couple of times. “Well, then . . . you owe me a beer.”

  It felt good to laugh. “You got it.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  According to the navigation, they were fifteen minutes out from the house Trina had shared with her late husband. The closer they were, the stranger Wade felt about being there. How odd was it for him to be going there at all?

  “Did you know Trina’s husband?”

  “No. I met the women after his death.”

  “The women?”

  “Yeah, Lori, Trina, Avery . . . have you met Shannon?”

  “Tall, thin, brunette?”

  “Yup, that’s her. No. I never met Fedor. I haven’t formally met Fedor’s father either.”

  “Why would you?”

  Reed stole a glance, then turned back to the road. “Trina hasn’t told you about Ruslan?”

  “If that’s the father-in-law, then no. Should she have?”

  Reed shrugged. “You guys just started dating, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then no. I guess she didn’t see the need.”

  “Is there an issue with Ruslan?”

  “Not lately.”

  Wade turned in his seat. “Are you trying to be cryptic? If so, you’re really good at it.”

  “None of it is for me to tell.” Apparently that was all Reed was going to say on the subject.

  He pulled off the main road and into a neighborhood of big yards and even larger houses. Reed drove up to a gate and put in the code.

  The two-story house was dark, as any house should be at two in the morning. Even the porch light wasn’t glowing. They both stepped out of the car at the same time and walked up the steps together. Reed used Trina’s key to let them in.

  Wade searched for the hallway light switch that every home seemed to have and turned it on.

  The foyer looked as if the occupants were moving. Things were taken off the walls and placed in piles, and the two tables that Wade could see were home to unsealed boxes. Wade moved to close the door and Reed stopped him.

  “What is it?”

  Reed looked as if he were listening to the silence. “The alarm isn’t set.”

  He walked to what looked like a home alarm system and looked but didn’t touch it.

  “Maybe Avery forgot.”

  “No, you heard Trina, they were both concerned about the contents of the house and had been setting the alarm, even when they were home at night.”

  Reed reached into his jacket and came out with a handgun.

  “Whoa . . . I thought you said you were a retired cop.”

  He put a finger to his lips and shut Wade up. “Stay close,” he said in a whisper.

  Holy shi
t. This was far outside of his spectrum. Wade had shot a gun or two in his time, but mainly shotguns on his property. Handguns were home to men like Jeb, not Wade.

  Wade followed Reed through the house and kept an eye behind them as they moved room by room. They swept the house and came up empty. Once Reed holstered his gun, Wade took a deep breath.

  “Maybe Avery was in a hurry,” Wade suggested.

  Reed didn’t look convinced.

  Wade looked on the counter in the kitchen, where Trina said he’d find the spreadsheet.

  It wasn’t there.

  Reed opened drawers until he found the one that held all the crap a junk drawer housed but that didn’t belong in a kitchen. He shuffled through the pens and papers before slamming it shut.

  “Should we call Trina?” Wade asked.

  “No, Avery might have moved it. Let’s keep searching.”

  They did, and nothing.

  “Didn’t Trina say something about a back office?”

  Reed looked around and started toward the back door of the house. He switched on a light, and they both walked in the late night air to what looked like a smaller version of the house on the other side of the yard.

  Reed stopped Wade midstride with a hand to his chest.

  The door to the office was open an inch.

  Reed crouched down, and Wade followed his behavior. With a lift of his hand, Reed told him to stay back.

  Reed took a deep breath, paused, and kicked open the door before hiding back behind the exterior of the office.

  Silence.

  He started low and swung back into the room.

  Nothing.

  He turned on a light and Wade risked a look.

  “Oh, shit.”

  Wade stood there and stared while Reed moved through the room, careful not to touch anything. He kicked open a door, ducked in, came back out. Then he put his gun away.

  Everything was completely askew. From the desk to the chairs, the lamps. Papers were everywhere, pictures were off the walls and lying on the floor.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Reed said as he reached for his cell phone.

  Wade had seen this in a movie but never in real life. To say he was spooked was an understatement.

  “Hey, Neil. Yeah, I know what time it is. Someone ransacked Fedor’s office. No, I called you first . . . because nothing in the house was touched, just the office.” Reed walked over to a crooked painting on the wall, and using his jacket instead of his fingertips, he moved it aside. There was a safe behind the picture. Reed tapped on it with the same covered finger. “No. It appears they were looking for something. We’ll have to wait for Trina to get here to see if anything is missing. But the safe hasn’t been opened. Check with the guys and find out if the alarm was ever set this morning, and if it was, when it was disengaged. Got it. Yeah, I’ll call it in now.”