Biloxi Blue (The Biloxi Series Book 2)

by Jerri Ledford

  He was mulling over the things about her that could be the same or different when his phone rang.

  “Maestro,” he said by way of greeting.

  “You have not updated me.” Maestro wasn’t one for small talk. He was a planner. An orchestrator. As his name, Javier Ramon Maestre, implied he was the master of his world, and he preferred to be acknowledged as such.

  “I needed sleep.” He was careful to keep his tone even, despite the irritation that clawed at his nerves. “I have arranged a meeting with La Raza for this evening. Tonight, I’ll find out all that Ms. Martin was involved in. What our stakes are. But I wanted to observe the police for myself before speaking with him.” Francisco La Raza took over when John Juarez was killed.

  “Hmm.” Silence hung between them for a beat. “Good plan. I expect you’ll be reporting to me once you’ve spoken to La Raza. You’ll have a plan to find out who killed her and deal with John’s murder, as well?”

  “Of course, Maestro. I expect no difficulties. La Raza knows his place. We will have this whole matter handled within a few days. I anticipate no delays in our shipments.”

  “That remains to be seen,” Maestro’s voice tightened. “Do what needs to be done.”

  The line went dead. Maestro kept his words to a premium, but there was never a doubt as to their meaning. People in his employ did as they were told, when they were told. The only other option was death.

  La Raza had taken the same stance since Juarez’s death. His first move had been to clean house. Surprisingly, the body count wasn’t as high as expected. Everything seemed to be under control until Beth Martin was found dead. Now, that control was in question and Maestro didn’t like unanswered questions.

  Lights illuminated the interior of the Monte Carlo. Ryan sunk deeper into the shadows. He was certain no one could see him. Tinted windows combined with the spot he’d chosen to park the car provided good cover, but as the Charger pulled into a spot, he had to fight the urge to open his door and go talk to Kate.

  She pushed out of the car, grabbed a bag from the back seat and trudged across the parking lot. She looked tired. He wondered what weighed on her. Was it the investigation? Something else? Why was she carrying a suitcase? Where had she come from?

  Questions crowded into his brain. He gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles screamed. He could not talk to her now. Maybe when this was all done, but not now. He just wanted to see her again. Until today, he didn’t realize how much he missed her. Or how much he hated the betrayal he’d perpetrated. Not for the first time, he wondered at the cost of his past decisions.

  As Kate reached the base of the stairs, another car swung into the lot, gunned forward, and squealed to a stop in front of her breezeway. Kate turned back and spoke to whoever was in the car. Then she dropped her bag onto the sidewalk and waited as the car pulled around the lot and parked just a few spaces away from the Monte Carlo.

  A man stepped out and strode across the lot. Boyfriend? He watched as the man approached Kate. She didn’t seem happy to see him. If anything, her shoulders hunched more and she seemed more weighed down than before. As he approached her, they didn’t hug. He didn’t even pick up her bag. Not a boyfriend. Or if he was, there were problems between them. It made his heart clench. She deserved to be treated like a lady.

  He caught the look on the man’s face as he fell into step behind her going up a flight of stairs. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. Who was this man and why was he following Kate into her apartment?

  FIFTEEN

  Kate jammed the key into the brass knob. What was Caleb doing here? All he’d said to her downstairs was to wait while he parked the car. He needed to talk to her. What if she didn’t want to talk to him? And she didn’t. What she wanted more than anything was to sit alone in her apartment and wallow in her own misery.

  Inside, she dropped the suitcase by the front door and moved just far enough away that Caleb could come in and allow the door to close behind him. “What’s so important that you had to come to my home?” Her own voice sounded sharp, but she didn’t care. “And how do you know where I live?”

  Caleb held his hands in front of him. “Hey, hang on now.” His voice was calm but it did nothing for Kate’s raw nerves. “We need to talk. And Jack told me where to find you.”

  “Jack?” Figures. Of course, Jack called Caleb. He wouldn’t come over here on his own. He knew she was angry. After his second call, she turned her phone off. She didn’t want to talk to him. She wasn’t ready to figure out what the events on his front porch meant for their relationship.

  Kate stared back at Caleb, fists propped on her hips. “Why?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. You need to hear what I have to say.” Caleb moved past Kate, brushing against her shoulder. Electricity zapped the nerve endings where he made a connection and then zigzagged its way through her body. She reached for something to steady herself but her hand found empty air so she stood still, waiting for the sensation to pass.

  Where had that come from? She shook her head. She was emotionally wrecked right now. She couldn’t even fathom why her body reacted the way it did, and frankly, she didn’t care. She just wanted to be alone right now.

  Caleb dropped onto the center cushion of the couch and as she turned around, he motioned for her to come sit next to him.

  Kate stared for a moment, then chose a chair facing the couch. “What does Jack want that’s so important that he would send you to my house?”

  “He tried to call you.” Caleb let the statement hang in the air, waiting for her to explain why she didn’t answer.

  Kate stared at him, willing him to leave.

  “Okay.” Caleb leaned toward Kate and propped his elbows on his knees. “Jack got a call. There’s a cleaner for the Locos Mamoncetes in town. He’s here to deal with whoever killed John Juarez.” Caleb paused, then lifted his eyebrows when she didn’t respond. “That’s you, Kate.”

  Kate nodded. She just couldn’t put words to the thoughts swirling through her brain right now. Someone from Mamoncetes had come looking for her? She felt Caleb’s gaze on her. Was he waiting for a response?

  She looked up to find him, hands clasped in front of him, staring intently at her. Their gazes locked and before Kate could pull hers away, it felt as if Caleb had reached into her soul. She looked down at her hands.

  “I have no idea what to say. What to think.” She drew in a deep breath, held it for a beat and then exhaled. “What does Jack want me to do?”

  “He didn’t say. He wanted me to come tell you, but he didn’t give any instructions about what you should do once you knew.” Caleb edged forward in the seat.

  Kate’s chest tightened until she felt like she couldn’t breathe. He hadn’t said he wanted her to come back. Even if he had, would she go back? The question gnawed at her. She pushed up from the chair and grabbed her phone from where she had tossed it on the table. She held the power button until the screen lit up and then sat the phone back down and carried her bag into the bedroom.

  Caleb. She’d left him sitting on the couch. She left the suitcase in the middle of the bedroom floor, walked back into the kitchen, and then asked through the pass-through window, “Do you want something to drink?”

  “Nah,” Caleb was already in front of the window. “I’m gonna use the facilities, though.”

  Kate nodded. Grateful that Caleb wasn’t trying to smother her or act like a protector. She didn’t need a protector. She needed time to think.

  When she heard the bathroom door shut, she picked her phone up from the counter and thumbed on the screen. Her notifications sounded. One text from Jack. She read it, and her heart thudded inside her chest. She took short, shallow breaths trying to stop the tears from coming. She didn’t know if she wanted to be with him, but she wanted him to want her there. Where he could protect her.

  As hard as she tried, she couldn’t stop the tears. She dropped her head forward and let them fall onto the kitchen
floor. She had no idea what she wanted and that made her feel even more out of control. Sobs shook her shoulders.

  She had no idea how long she stood crying, but when Caleb’s arms slid around her, for a second, all she wanted to do was lay her head on his chest and let him console her. Then her brain kicked in.

  She pushed away. When had he come out of the bathroom? She didn’t even hear him. She wiped at the tears and turned to the coffee maker. It had been so long since she was last in her apartment, she wasn’t sure it would work, but she pushed a pod into the receptacle and dumped a cup-full of water into the back of the machine. It spit and sputtered, but within seconds, rich brown liquid was pouring into the cup. The warm aroma of coffee washed over her raw nerves.

  After she’d prepared the coffee and took the first sip, she turned back to find Caleb leaned on the kitchen doorframe watching her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. She wanted to go and ball herself up into her favorite chair in the living room, but with Caleb leaned in her doorway, she wasn’t even going to attempt to pass. Her head was muddled enough without having to think about the way her body reacted when he touched her.

  “It’s all good, Cher.” Caleb’s voice was smooth. He didn’t push her for details. He probably assumed that she was freaking out over this Mamoncete cleaner. If he did, he was wrong.

  “So…” Kate’s voice trailed off. She wanted to tell him to leave, but she didn’t want to be rude. He’d made a trip over here. She cleared her throat. “Do you know who this cleaner is?” Maybe if she let him say whatever was clearly on his mind he would leave.

  “We don’t know. I’m sure Jack is working on it, but I doubt we’ll have any idea tonight.” Caleb looked back down the hallway toward her bedroom. “I checked the windows in the bedroom. They’re all locked. I’m going to check the living room. You’re on the second floor, but it never hurts to be careful.”

  He’d been in her bedroom? Kate felt heat rise into her face. She tried to remember what it looked like when she went in to leave her suitcase, but she couldn’t recall. Had she even made the bed the last time she was home? When exactly had that been?

  Before the shooting. True. Jack had been the only person in the apartment since she was shot. She held back a groan.

  Caleb laughed as he walked the short hallway into the living room. “Don’t worry, Cher. There’s nothing in there to embarrass you.”

  The heat in Kate’s face intensified and she sat the cup down on the countertop harder than she had intended as she followed him.

  In the living room, Caleb had the blinds up checking the locks on her large double windows. When he finished, he dropped the blinds again, making sure they were completely down and shut. “Where’s your gun?”

  Gun? Kate froze. Did she even bring her gun from Jack’s house?

  Without answering, she rushed into the bedroom to check her suitcase and nearly started crying again when she saw it. She might be emotionally out of her mind right now, but evidently some instincts stay with you.

  “It’s here,” she called to Caleb as she walked back toward the living room. She checked the safety, slid a round into the chamber, and clicked on the safety. “And it’s loaded.”

  “Good girl.” Caleb grinned at her. “You’re a sight, woman. Standing there like you lost your puppy with a loaded gun in your hand. I need to remember this about you. You’ve got number ten rebar for a spine.”

  Kate stared at Caleb for a beat before a smile pulled at the corner of her mouth. She could just imagine what she might look like. Eyes red-rimmed from crying, loaded gun held at her side. She probably looked like some psycho Daisy Duke.

  The thought made her giggle, and before she could stop, it was a full-blown laugh. She laid the gun carefully on the pass-through window.

  “I needed that,” she said as she wiped tears from her eyes again. Her laughter was borderline hysterical, but it released some of the tension that had squeezed at the back of her neck. When she calmed down, she could think more clearly.

  “Okay. Now that’s out of the way,” she walked to the front door. “Thank you for delivering the message, but I’m fine. You don’t have to hang around here.”

  A cloud passed over Caleb’s features. “You don’t need to be alone right now. We don’t know who or where this man is. Someone should be with you.” His words grew tighter, more forceful as he spoke.

  Kate stood for a moment watching Caleb, but his features settled back into the concerned expression he’d worn before. He probably was worried about her, but he had no cause to be. She was perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

  “Caleb, I appreciate that you think I need protection, but you don’t know me. I can take care of myself.” She pulled open the front door. “I promise you, if I need anything, I’ll call. But I won’t. I’m going to lock the door, finish my coffee and go to bed. It’s been a terrible day, and honestly, I just want to be alone.”

  She held her back ramrod straight and stared pointedly at Caleb.

  He stared back but didn’t move.

  “Really, Caleb. Go.”

  “Alright. Whatever you want,” he smiled but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. He walked through the door without even glancing back at her. “Hard-headed and unconcerned, Kate, are two traits that are very unbecoming on a woman.”

  SIXTEEN

  The office was unusually quiet on Tuesday morning. Jenna had been sitting at her desk since seven a.m. She told Michael she came in early because she needed to get caught up after being on vacation for the past week, but she wasn’t working. She was trying to figure out what Beth had found, and why she was digging around deep in the company servers to start with. What did those shipments she was tracking have to do with her activities on the server and in the office after hours?

  It would be easier to track what Beth accessed, what she downloaded, and whether she uploaded anything from her office computer. Except the computer wasn’t there.

  The yellow crime scene tape still marked off nearly half of the office. Overnight, a crew had come in and cordoned off the area with black visqueen, hung from the ceiling. It put the death scene out of sight, but accentuated that something terrible had happened in the office. Jenna wondered how long it would be before the police released the scene. When they did, would they return the computer? And what kind of shape would it be in?

  Beth’s computer was the key. If Jenna accessed it, she could find the trail that would lead to answers. Frustrated, she had even risked sliding past the black plastic hanging from the ceiling to poke around in Beth’s desk before anyone else came into the office. Nothing. She was careful not to touch anything with her bare hands, but she’d pulled out drawers and poked around stacks of paper the crime scene investigators had left behind.

  Then it occurred to her to check the printer. Sometimes, digital printers store the last print job in their memory until another print job is started. Jenna punched in the management code and tried to access the last print job. It had been wiped from the printer’s memory.

  That left one last option. She needed to find out what Greg Harrington knew, but she had to wait until he came into the office. Greg wasn’t known for being punctual, and by the time he arrived, Jenna felt as if she was sitting on tacks. Twice after he’d trudged into his office, she’d started toward his office to see him. Both times, someone else beat her to his door. The second time, she had to bit her tongue to keep from screaming.

  Now, she watched his office, a big glass room with windows on one side that looked out over the parking lot and the fountain beyond it. On the other side, a wall of windows allowed him to see everything going on in the office, but also gave him an option for privacy if he closed his door and shut the blinds. He rarely exercised that option. The room always reminded Jenna of a fishbowl. Greg could always see out, but everyone else could also see in.

  Greg dropped his phone handset into its cradle and turned back toward his computer screen. He did at least have the common sens
e to place the computer screen so that the back of it was toward the office. If the light was just right, you could see the reflection of the screen perfectly on the windows behind it, but that wasn’t consistent enough to be reliable. Jenna knew, she watched it closely this morning to see if he pulled up anything related to the companies that she took her bonuses from.

  She wasn’t having much luck. What she could see, she couldn’t see clearly enough to know which company the screens belong to. How much did Beth know? What had she shared with Greg?

  The unanswered questions were making Jenna anxious. Glancing around the office, she saw no one walking in the direction of Greg’s office, so she grabbed a notebook and a pen, pasted a somber expression on her face, and walked toward his door with long, quick strides.

  Greg didn’t even look up when she approached. Usually, he was nosey about what went on in the office, but today his focus had bounced from a stack of papers on his desk to his computer screen, and out the window. Everywhere but inside the office. Even when other people spoke to him, his body language suggested he wasn’t paying attention.

  Because of Beth.

  The thought sent irritation clawing up Jenna’s spine.

  She rapped lightly on the steel door frame. “Greg, you got a minute?”

  Greg looked up from his computer screen, but it took a few seconds for his gaze to focus. His eyes were rimmed red, and Jenna suspected he’d been bawling like everyone else in the office this morning.

  She didn’t understand why everyone was so devastated. As far as Jenna knew, few of the people in the office interacted with Beth. The woman had been a standoffish, loner-type personality. She rarely talked to anyone around her. Almost never visited the breakroom. Only showed up at one company event in the last year. The Christmas party. She stayed long enough to collect her annual bonus and then was gone.