“No.”
“Do it. Tell them you got up and went out to get your car while you were shopping at the Jubilee Market on Orange Street. You left the car near the park there. When you went back to get it, the car was gone.” Heath helped her into the taxi and climbed in after her.
The young driver turned around and took one earbud out. “Where to, mon?”
“Jubilee Market.”
“Sure, sure. Have you dere in just a minute, mon.” The driver replaced the earbud, bobbed his head in time with the music and pulled out into traffic.
Heath continued talking calmly. “The police will probably want to talk to you. I know I would if I was investigating this mess. All you have to do is tell them the same story.” He looked at her. “Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“If you can’t, we’re going to get busted. They can’t do anything to us in the long run because they can’t prove that we did anything wrong, but they can send us home.” Heath paused. “Unless you’re ready to go home.”
“No.”
Heath threw an arm around her and gave her a hug. The driver looked at them in the rearview mirror and smiled, then went back to his music.
“Do you have the car keys?”
Lauren was surprised that she’d thought to get them in all the excitement, but she had. She showed him the keys.
“You can’t have those.” Heath took them from her, then separated them from the ring and began dropping them out the open window as the taxi raced along the street and sirens sounded behind them.
* * *
The taxi driver let them out on Orange Street, and Heath walked with her for a short distance. “I’m going to be around, but I don’t want our names entered on the same report, okay?”
Lauren nodded.
“You were here, shopping, alone.”
“Then where are the things I’ve been buying?”
Heath pulled her to one side where a small group of street artists were selling paintings. “Buy from people like this.” He pointed at a painting with seahorses and held up twenty dollars. “People that just take cash and don’t do printout receipts. You’re looking for vendors surrounded by a crowd of tourists. Make small purchases. Knickknacks. Don’t buy big and don’t spend a lot of money, and you won’t even be remembered.” He looked at her and smiled. “At least, not by these people.”
“Are you flirting with me?” Lauren was surprised at how calm she felt moving through the tourist crowd jamming the market. And she understood about the buying, too. It was all misdirection for whatever audience they drew.
His grin grew bigger. “Maybe a little. Breaking the law and getting away with it kind of makes me reckless.”
“I thought you were a law enforcer, not a lawbreaker.”
“You don’t know everything about me.”
A young woman in island dress nodded, took his twenty dollars and handed him the seahorse painting. Heath gave it to Lauren, who took it and crossed over to another booth that was selling small, colorful purses. She bought one and kept moving.
“Do you have enough money?” Heath kept pace with her.
“Are you offering to give me more?”
“Well, I did get you shot at this morning.”
“You still have to pay me for that suit, mister. I don’t want you claiming poverty later.” Lauren moved quickly, seeking out other tables and wares.
Heath chuckled. “You’re awfully calm.”
“This is a performance. I do performances.”
“Are you going to be okay with the police?”
Lauren stopped at a table that sold shell jewelry. She didn’t know who she was going to give the necklace and bracelet to when she returned home, but she bought them anyway and quickly moved on. “They’re not sending me home, I can tell you that.” No matter what it took, no matter what she had to do or how many times she was going to have to risk her life, she wasn’t going to let Gibson get away with killing Megan. That wasn’t happening.
Chapter 16
Thirty-seven minutes later, Lauren sat on a bench in the shade while sipping a strawberry juice drink when Inspector Wallace Myton came strolling up in an ill-fitting suit. Two uniformed patrolmen trailed at his heels.
“Ah, Miss Cooper, I hear that you have suffered misfortune.” The inspector was shorter than Lauren, in his early fifties, and had warm, coffee skin. The unmistakable accent of the island echoed in his speech. He was balding and kept the sides shaved to salt-and-pepper stubble, and his neat mustache matched the color. In spite of his small stature, he had a long neck that had always put Lauren in the mind of a turkey during her dealings with him. He wore a light blue suit.
“Inspector Myton.” Lauren looked up at him. “I’m surprised to see you.”
“Are you?” Myton tapped a cigarette against the back of his hand.
“I just called in about my car being stolen.” Lauren’s heart beat faster and she struggled to remain calm. It’s just a performance. If you blow this one, they’re going to send you home, and Megan’s killer may never be found. Thinking about her sister steadied her, gave her purpose and direction. She wasn’t going to fail. She refused.
“So I heard. The rental agency called the police department, you see.”
“I thought you only worked homicide investigations.”
“I do.” The inspector put the cigarette between his lips, then lit it with a book of matches. He inhaled, then let out a long stream of smoke. “Sometimes I work very hard to prevent them.”
“Are you here to take my report, because there isn’t much to tell, actually. When I went to the parking lot with my purchases, my car was gone. So were my keys. They were in my purse.”
“A tragedy.”
“I’m just glad it wasn’t my car. The rental company said they’ll send me another one.”
Myton waved at the bench. “May I sit?”
Lauren put some of the bags onto the ground and made a place for the inspector. The two patrolmen continued to stand nearby.
Myton sat and started poking around in the bags. “My wife often comes out here. She likes little things like these. They bring her joy, but I fear we are running out of places to put these things.”
Lauren started to worry that she’d gone overboard in buying. Heath had helped, and they’d ended up with quite a haul.
The inspector looked at her. “I hadn’t taken you for a collector of amateur arts and handcrafts.”
“I’m not.” Lauren smiled. Performance. “And I have a small apartment. Most of what you see here is going to be given to people I grew up with in foster homes. When you move around like that, you end up with a lot of brothers and sisters.”
Myton smiled. “Yes, I suppose you would.” He gestured with his cigarette. “And you are close to these other brothers and sisters?”
“Yes.”
“Like you were with Megan?”
Lauren let the smile disappear from her face. “No. Not as close as I was with Megan.” She gave the inspector a hard look. “Why would you ask something like that?”
“Forgive me. Perhaps sometimes I am insensitive. I am a very inquisitive man. In part, it is what makes me good at my job.”
Unable to reel in the anger that the inspector had ignited, Lauren lashed back. “If you’re so good at your job, Inspector Myton, why haven’t you found the person that killed my sister?”
“I have touched a nerve.”
“Yes, you have.”
Myton shrugged. “Such is the nature of this business that I do. Sometimes I must ask the hard questions. Like, would it surprise you to know that your stolen vehicle was involved in a shootout at a hotel only a short time ago and later burned in an alley?”
“After hearing how my sister died, I’m not much surprised by anything these days.” Lauren kept her face unreadable.
“Then you deny that you were involved?”
Lauren waved at the bags of purchases. “I’ve been shopping. I noticed the car was
missing. I checked for my keys. They were also missing. I was told the market was notorious for pickpockets.”
“So it is.” Myton took another hit off his cigarette and expelled smoke. “These thieves who took your keys, I think they must have been very lucky to find your vehicle in all those that are parked around here.”
“Not if they saw me leave it and decided to take my keys.”
“So you were a prospect targeted by these people?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because I have to ask myself, why would a thief take your car, then go to a hotel and start shooting?”
“Maybe he didn’t have cab fare.”
Myton laughed at that, and the sound was genuine. He pointed his cigarette at her. “That is a very funny answer.”
“Who was shot at?”
“Alas, that is also a question to which I do not have an answer at present. But soon, perhaps. I am still working on things.” Myton stood and brushed ashes from his suit coat. “I am a very patient man, Miss Cooper. Eventually all answers come to me. I’ll bid you good day, and I hope that your next experience with a rented vehicle goes much smoother than your first.”
“Thank you.”
Myton started to walk away, then he stopped and looked at her. “You know, you have never said what you are doing back in Kingston.”
“Vacation.”
“I would think, given the circumstances, there would be better places to vacation.”
“Not at the moment.”
Myton dropped his cigarette to the pavement and crushed it out underfoot. “Have you seen Detective Heath Sawyer since you’ve been back?”
Lauren thought about that for only a second. There was no right answer, and she thought it was better to go with the lie than an admission at this point. “No. Why?”
“Because he is still here, too. I thought it wouldn’t be too much to presume that the two of you might run into each other.”
Lauren didn’t say anything. A midsize car glided to a stop in front of the bench. The driver wore a cap that advertised the rental agency Lauren was using. He got out with a clipboard and searched the surroundings till he spotted Lauren.
“Miss Cooper.” The driver smiled and waved the clipboard. “I have your car.”
Lauren got up, grabbed some of the bags, and headed for the car. The driver opened the trunk, then scurried over to help her. Myton gestured to the two uniformed patrolmen. They stepped in and helped transfer purchases, as well.
Once she’d signed the rental form, the driver told her that he would take a taxi back to the agency. Myton came over to hold the door open to allow Lauren to slide behind the steering wheel, then he closed the door.
“Have a good day, Miss Cooper. Please be safe.”
“Thank you, Inspector.” Lauren put the car in gear and pulled into traffic. Her cell rang almost immediately.
“Hey.” Heath’s voice sounded laconic, as if getting shot at and burning cars was an everyday thing. Maybe back in Atlanta it was.
“Hey.” Lauren’s clenched stomach relaxed a little when she heard him.
“Good performance. Very nice.”
“So what do we do now?”
“Standard police work.” Heath didn’t sound happy about that. “We watch, we learn, we hope we catch a break. Gibson is rattled now. He’s trying to manage his situation because I’m making him uncomfortable. With your help, though he doesn’t know that. What I’d like to do is find out who the new players are and what they’re doing here.”
“You said you didn’t recognize any of them.”
“I didn’t, but you’re not the only one that can pick up things that don’t belong to you. I picked up the weapon the maid used at the hotel. I’m going to run her fingerprints, see if we get a hit. She was an ice-cold pro. Somebody will know her.”
“Do I need to circle around and pick you up?”
“No. I’m in the taxi four cars behind you.”
Lauren glanced in the rearview mirror and counted back cars till she spotted the taxi. Knowing he was there made her feel safer, not as alone.
“I’ll meet you at your hotel. Wait for me in the lobby.”
* * *
Heath sat at the desk in Lauren’s hotel room and worked on the captured pistol. He’d gotten some mechanical pencil lead from the gift store in the hotel lobby, chopped it fine with a razor blade purchased from the same place, and turned it into a fine powder. A brush from a small cosmetic kit, also bought for an unconscionable price, allowed him to dust the graphite onto the pistol’s surface.
The natural lighting from the balcony door provided plenty of illumination to see the latent friction ridges on the weapon. Using transparent tape, he lifted the prints, then affixed them to a sheet of typing paper that the gift shop had carried.
“Who knew the gift shop was one-stop shopping for your own CSI lab?” Lauren sat in the nearby wingback chair and watched the proceedings with avid interest.
Heath went in search of another print, this one off the magazine. “A very pitiful excuse for a CSI lab.”
“It seems to be getting the job done.”
“I hope. And I hope she has a file.”
Lauren kept working on her iPad. Heath didn’t know what she was doing, but when she wasn’t watching him, she was very intent on the device. She looked up again. “You’re different than I expected.”
“How so?” Carefully, Heath extracted one of the bullets from the magazine. When he dusted it, nothing came up. He hadn’t expected to net any results because brass could get lost during a shooting. Keeping up with ejected casings could be too problematic. The woman had been a professional. She would have used gloves to load her weapon. Dusting the bullet had been to confirm his impression, and it had.
“I knew you were a tough cop. I could tell that from the first time I met you.”
“During which time you were thinking I was a morgue attendant.”
She frowned at him.
“Okay, maybe that’s too soon. Blame it on tiredness.”
“You slept later than I did.”
“True.”
“No, I knew you were tough.”
“Had a lot of experience with tough cops, have you?”
A ghost of a smile turned up her lips, and for a moment he could see the little girl she might have been. “I grew up in foster care for half my life. Of course I knew tough cops.”
“Any outstanding juvenile warrants?” Heath affixed another print to the paper. He had eight of them so far, which he thought was a good number.
“All of them have aged out, Detective.”
“Then you’re safe.” Heath reached down into his equipment bag and took out the camera he’d brought with him. He took several hi-res photographs of the prints, then sent the images to Jackson Portman’s email at the P.D. Whoever had broken into his hotel room had stolen his computer, but the camera was Wi-Fi capable. “So how am I different?”
“You’re more thorough than I thought you would be. And you know a lot about your job.”
“I have to know a lot about my job. It’s what I do.” He looked at her while waiting for the uploads to cycle. “How many coin tricks do you know?”
“Disappear? Appear? Change? What kind of coin?”
Heath grinned. “I guess neither of us learns just one trick, do we?”
“I suppose not.”
Heath glanced at his watch. It was after two. “We missed lunch, and breakfast was too long ago. It’s going to take my partner a while to run down these prints, if he’s able to. Let’s assume the restaurant in this hotel is adequate. Do we do room service or dine there?”
Lauren thought for just a moment. “Let’s eat in the dining room.”
The decision was disappointing. Heath enjoyed his time alone with Lauren, probably more than he should have. He stood, wiped the graphite from his hands and picked up his jacket.
She smiled at him. “It’ll give you another chance to show off your new wardrobe.
”
“A limited wardrobe, it seems, since recovering my other clothing is going to require me talking to Inspector Myton and his people.”
“Maybe you can go shopping with me this time.”
“I’d rather have a root canal.”
* * *
Only a few people were in the dining room when Lauren and Heath arrived. They took a booth in one corner and looked at the menu for a while.
Lauren didn’t know what Heath was thinking. His face didn’t give away much about what was going on inside his head. She watched him over the top of her menu, and for just a short time, she imagined what it might be like to actually be out for a meal with him.
He was attractive, and it wasn’t just the physical aspect. Not just the tough cop, or even the thorough cop. He was...attentive. He watched things, really saw them. And he saw people, too. She knew that she aggravated him. He didn’t like the fact that she didn’t listen to him, but he respected it. When the situation was bad, he trusted her, too. Even when it was circumstances that he knew Lauren had never been involved with.
Not a lot of men would do that. Especially not rugged, tough, thorough homicide detectives. She decided that maybe she’d been wrong about him in the beginning, except that she knew she was right. Under prevailing circumstances, Heath Sawyer could be a complete jerk. That was just how he’d been made. It was going to take a woman with a lot of patience to put up with him. Lauren had never been patient for anybody outside of herself and her family.
He looked up at her without warning, and their eyes met. He smiled inquisitively.
Lauren broke the awkward silence quickly. “What are you having?”
“They have steak. They have potatoes. I’m a happy guy.”
She laid her menu aside. “Aren’t you going to ask what I’m going to have?”
“Sure. What are you going to have?”
“Maybe you should guess.”
“Nope.”
“Why?”
“Because, even if I get it right, you’ll just say that’s not what you’re having and tell me you’re having something else.”
Despite herself, Lauren grinned. She knew she would have done exactly that.
* * *
“This lady has been busy.” Jackson Portman spoke over speaker function while Heath’s phone sat on the desk. Lauren’s iPad sat beside the phone. Jackson had sent his findings to a Dropbox account Heath had activated to receive the file.
No Escape Page 16
