Sentinel Rising: The Reardon Files #1

by Andrea Drew

  Tonight, with the music playing and the lights low, he watched her as she tenderly fed their son in between eating herself. Her brown hair fell across her forehead in waves, and her smooth skin begged to be touched. He reached across with and caressed her left cheek with his fingers. She turned her head away from feeding Mark and faced him.

  "You really are beautiful."

  She smiled. "So, what do you need help with tonight then?"

  She had deflected yet another compliment, but he was onto her game.

  Warmth surged in his chest. He knew from the shine in her eyes and the slow smile spreading across her face that he just might win her over.

  "Nothing, other than you."

  "You need help with me? What?"

  "All I want is you, Gypsy."

  "You stole that from the song, honey."

  "Marry me."

  She moved closer to him, her face just inches from his. "I already said yes, remember?"

  Then her soft delicious lips were on his. He luxuriated in their kiss, before Mark started yelling for attention. After a few more seconds, she pulled away.

  "I better feed him then put him to bed," she murmured.

  "Good idea," he said. "Let's talk when he's tucked in. The sooner, the better"

  He stood up, scraping back his chair, and walked toward the office. He could look over the timeline of events while Gypsy settled Mark for the night.

  Sitting down in his desk chair, he took the file and opened it. If the killer wasn't Whitehouse or Fraser, the someone else lurked within these pages.

  He thought about the claims Jarrod Whitehouse made about an affair. If Lauren Whitehouse had an affair, could her lover be the killer? But why?

  He had to face the fact that the dreams may have been a message from Lauren Whitehouse herself. If she was pregnant before she died, who was the father and why did he kill her? Maybe he wanted a termination and she didn't or vice versa?

  Would that be a motivation for murder? Something else?

  He grabbed his pen and wrote a list of possible motivations:

  - Pregnancy

  - Jealousy

  - Wouldn't leave husband

  - Money? What angle?

  Who and where was this faceless lover? From work?

  An interview of colleagues and friends was next, particularly if Jarrod Whitehouse or Hugh Fraser couldn't be prosecuted.

  Gypsy's footsteps rang out on the stairs, and left his work to go into the living room and talk.

  She fell onto the couch, out of breath.

  He sat beside her. "How did you go?"

  "Yeah, okay. I still don't understand why he resists sleep so much. I'd love to be in bed before 8pm."

  He shuffled across the couch so that his leg rested against hers. "We need to talk about getting married."

  She turned to look at him, her face inches from his. "We don't have the money to get married, we covered this."

  "We don't need to have a grand wedding, just you and me at the registry office. Ryan and Christie could be witnesses."

  Gypsy smiled at him, rubbing his leg with her left hand. "I like your thinking, but something we need to clear up first."

  "I'm listening?"

  "The psychic stuff, is it fully resolved for you? I understand why you insisted on me stopping that side of things, dampening it down, but surely now you see it makes no sense?"

  "I love you, the family needs you. We almost lost you"

  "I know that, I get that, but don't you see? If we're going to get married, we need to move on. That bloke, Reeves, could have killed you. Whether I act on our visions or not, makes no difference. Either one of us could get attacked because of the work we do, psychic or not."

  "Yeah, I see your point, but what does any of this have to do with getting married?"

  "Because you can't ask me to be something I'm not. You've asked me not to act on my visions and I haven't, but do you think that means miraculously they stopped? I can't shut off that side of my life forever. It's coming between us."

  "If we go back to the way we were before the shooting, will you marry me?"

  "I thought we covered that. Of course, I'll marry you, but at the right time. Getting married isn't cheap."

  "Like I said, we do low key. You, me, a couple of witnesses, and the registry office." He moved closer to her, his lips inches from hers.

  "When?"

  "Next weekend."

  "Next weekend? That's crazy talk. I need a dress, there's stuff to organise."

  "You, me, someone to marry us, and that's it. he rest is all a bonus," he said as he leaned across to kiss her. She responded, and he wrapped his arms around her before pulling away. "Let's continue this in our room."

  He took her by the hand and led her to their bedroom.

  As he undressed for bed, he became aware of streams of energy—powerful energy—beams headed directly for his son. He knew what their intention was: to take over a young body, to inhabit it, a challenge but possible nonetheless. His first instinct was to dart to Mark’s room, to stop them in their tracks, but he knew that being physically present would alert whoever was doing this that he was onto them.

  He lay down on the bed to tune into his abilities, concentrating on a fixed point, directly above the ceiling where Mark’s bedroom was, through and up into it.

  There were three of them in there, playing with Mark, attempting to distract him. It wouldn't work, not if Connor had anything to do with.

  He gained access to the connection, emanating from the leader, a cocky and arrogant being, confident in the success of his mission. He'd put out a beam of energy, intense and powerful. Connor scanned it, seeing a visual of multi coloured light, blue and silver, drawing Mark in, attempting to draw him toward the source.

  Once Connor locked onto the connection, he snapped it, feeling it with an almost physical force. The being stopped, surprised that it had been intercepted.

  Take that, and don't ever, ever mess with my son again.

  The being shrank momentarily, and Connor capitalised on the hesitation, pushing the spirit out of the room. The being zoomed away from the room, the less powerful followers right behind it.

  Connor scanned the room, ensuring no other spirits had their sights on his son.

  He wondered if that would be the end of angry spirits for now or whether Lauren would come back to him and finally reveal her murderer.

  #

  Chapter 9

  The woman's blonde hair hung lank around her distressed face. She stood before him, and the mascara ran down, pooling in the deep depressions of her eyes. She held the tiny baby within the light blue blanket close to her chest.

  The wall of blackness behind her gave no indication of her location.

  Her mouth opened, calling to Connor but he couldn't hear a word. He strained forward to hear her, gesturing with his right hand for her to speak. He said her name, but she barely reacted.

  She continued with her plea, clutching the baby, her cries indecipherable.

  "What?" Connor said. "What is it?"

  He attempted to say more, but the words remained silent. She held the baby and turned ninety degrees, an attempt to gesture at a point in the distance behind her.

  He narrowed his eyes. Lauren was back, not quite so happy this time. She took a step backwards and an object appeared behind her. Dark grey in colour, the thin steel tower almost reached her head. The tears began to flow again and she shook her head, gently sliding her left hand from underneath the bundle. She held onto it tightly, rocking it up and down gently as if to soothe the baby to sleep.

  The dark grey object consisted of four square drawers.

  A filing cabinet.

  He attempted to walk toward it to get a closer look, but his viewpoint didn't change.

  "What is it? Tell me, please," he tried to say, but the words remained unspoken. He gave up speaking in that moment, she wasn’t interested in what he had to say, he knew in that moment she had an important message to
get across to him.

  She pointed at the top of the cabinet and her mouth opened fully. Her head moved back as she wailed silently.

  On top of the cabinet lay a small object, what appeared to be a tiny black square.

  "What is it?" he said again.

  She pointed, her mouth a grimace.

  He focussed on the object, and it slowly came into focus. A tiny black stamp with a white head on it. A Penny Black.

  His stomach rolled and a chill moved up his back. He struggled to breathe.

  He opened his eyes and pushed up from the bed to sit up, the fresh gasps of breath coming in huge gulps. The numbers on the alarm clock screamed at him, 7.12am.

  He needed to make urgent phone calls. He flung back the bed covers and lurched toward the drawers. He yanked out his clothes.

  When he'd dressed, he reached for his phone charging on the table beside the bed. Gypsy turned in bed, mumbling under her breath. Her alarm would go off soon, anyway.

  "Babe.," he called out quietly. Despite the urgency, he didn't want to wake her up suddenly. "Gypsy"

  Her eyes opened. "Huh?"

  "It’s ten past seven, your alarm'll go off soon, anyway. I'm off early."

  "How come?"

  "Lauren's killer. I've got him."

  "Who?"

  "I'll call you. I need to confirm with Ryan first."

  "Be careful," she said, as she got up out of bed and gave him a sleepy hug. "Always," he said. kissing the top of her head.

  She shuffled away toward the bathroom. He swiped the phone and searched his contacts for the number for Katrina, Elizabeth Metcalfe's only living sister.

  It rang six times before it answered.

  Her voice was heavy with sleep. "Hello?"

  "Katrina, it's Connor Reardon the investigator. Sorry to ring so early but it’s urgent. A matter of life and death, in fact."

  "What the hell..."

  "How’s Elizabeth going?"

  "Still sedated. With a bit of luck, she slept properly last night."

  "What about Leigh? Is he working, or has he taken time off to be with her?"

  "Apparently, he got a week’s compassionate leave."

  "Are they at home, or the holiday house?"

  "The holiday house, why?"

  "You're there with them?"

  "Yeah, Leigh decided to be a good husband and take Elizabeth to the holiday house. I went with them. Family needs to stick together. I might be her sister in law, but a loss is a loss. Did you skip the sensitivity classes when you got your license? What is this, twenty questions?"

  He ignored her comment. "What I'm about to ask you may sound offensive, but please, I need your help. I may have identified the killer."

  "Who? I'd love just five minutes with that bastard, I swear..."

  "I'll get to that. I need to know, Elizabeth and Leigh, did they have problems in their marriage?"

  She blew out a breath. "Listen, I know you said it’s important, but can I call you back? It's seven o’ clock in the freakin' morning and I'm on leave."

  "Did they have problems?"

  "Jeez what marriage doesn't? Why do you think I'm still single?"

  "I mean fertility problems. They don't have children?"

  "Who told you?"

  "No one did. I do treat all info I get as confidential. Bear with me, it's a process of elimination. Were they infertile?"

  "Yeah. They nearly split up according to what Liz said. At first, they thought they'd try IVF, then ..."

  "Elizabeth had some issues."

  Katrina paused. "They talked about adopting. A couple months ago, she said they'd try fostering, so many kids in need and all that. She was trying to get Leigh to come along to the next training session."

  "So, it’s just the three of you at the holiday house?"

  "Yeah. Listen, what's going on?"

  "I can't say yet, but please, this is vital, listen carefully. Don't tell anyone I called. Not Elizabeth or Leigh. I should be there by nine o’ clock at the latest. Keep it cool and casual. But I need all three of you there this morning. We'll sit down and talk, I promise"

  "Why can't you tell me now?"

  "Like I said, it's vital. Just between you and me. All three of you be there. It's only a couple of hours."

  "What do I do if Leigh or Elizabeth want to go out?"

  "Just tell them you want to talk. Tell them you've scheduled a meeting with a counsellor or something. Please, I'll be there as soon as I can. I'll leave in the next few minutes if it all comes together."

  She hesitated. "Okay, see you soon."

  He hung up, almost missing the button as his hands shook. He paused as he headed for the doorway. Backtracking, he moved toward the wooden wardrobe door, opened it and flicked the interior light upward. His gun, long forgotten, hung on its holster at the back. He rifled through the clothing jammed in to near capacity, tugging on the leather strap, and took it in his hands, feeling its weight.

  He stood shifting his weight from side to side. His ability to use it under the law was limited as a private investigator, no longer a permanent fixture strapped to his body under his jacket. Reassured by its weight, once his constant companion, he pulled it closer to him.

  If he took the weapon the only legal way he could use it would be if the suspect made a run for it, and even then, shooting a suspect in the leg could be questionable, at best.

  Yet this worm had remained hidden for too long, assured that the focus would remain on Lauren's husband, Jarrod Whitehouse.

  He strapped the holster over his shoulder, the restriction of his torso an almost foreign experience after so long.

  The shoulder of the London fog jacket caught his eye. He'd always associated it with being on the beat, yet somehow this case had brought him the closest he'd ever been to being an active sworn member of the force.

  He ripped the jacket off the hanger, and slid one arm in and then the other. The long-forgotten kick arse attitude washed over him. He wondered if that was how women felt after putting on make-up, a mask to face the world.

  He'd need more than a mask, though, facing a murderer.

  He moved through the doorway toward the front door, absorbing the silence of the early hour.

  After checking for wallet, keys, and phone, he headed for the car. His muscles tensed as his stared the car. He hoped traffic wouldn't be too bad and he'd hit the freeway in around ten minutes, all being well. Thank god the black charger held some serious grunt under the hood. He needed every force known to mankind to go his way right now.

  As bright filtered light pierced the windscreen, he pressed the blue tooth button and pushed the down arrow for Ryan's mobile.

  After four rings, Ryan answered. "What's up?"

  "Look, I know you can't give out information, but I reckon you could give me yes or no answers."

  Ryan's voice swung downward. "Yeah...maybe. Ask away, I can't guarantee you'll get an answer."

  "Shit, mate, don't go all 'I can't lose my job' on me now. Just yes or no will do."

  "No harm in asking."

  "Was Lauren pregnant?"

  A pause. A few seconds at first, but then it seemed to stretch into oblivion.

  At length, Ryan cleared his throat. "Why do you ask?"

  "I've been looking in the wrong place, and the worm that did this was pretty damn confident no one would identify him. I need to confirm a suspicion."

  "What type of suspicion?"

  "A yes or no answer, then I'll answer that. You really want to play this game when the murderer is out there living his middle-class life like nothing ever damn well happened?"

  Another pause.

  Ryan's voice deepened. "Okay go for it."

  "How many weeks? 10? 12? Longer?"

  "Yes."

  "Yes what?"

  Ryan must have held the phone close to his face, because the breath shot into the speaker, rippling and rustling and almost bursting Connor’s eardrum.

  "Don't push it." Said Ryan, biting o
ut the words.

  Connor decided to leave that one for now, choosing to accept a small victory with the first confirmation.

  "Can DNA be done on the pregnancy?"

  "I guess. I could follow up."

  "Do that. Just a hunch. If Whitehouse had a vasectomy, then that DNA could be the key evidence once I arrest this piece of shit." The seed of a thought had sprouted. During her visit, last night, her desperation to hold on to the baby and the emotion she’d pushed into his mind told him, this was a baby she thought she’d never have.

  "Arrest? What do you mean arrest?"

  "A citizen's arrest. Don't worry, I'm not stupid. I'm hoping he runs. Without that, I can't touch him but once he heads for the hills..."

  Connor had reached the freeway. The sun burned orange and white in the sky. The irony of such beauty amongst the activity that was arresting a murderer while the people of Melbourne headed to work wasn't lost on him.

  "Okay. So, we've wasted precious hours questioning Tweedle-dee and Tweedledum,” Ryan said. “If it isn't Whitehouse or Fraser, who is it?"

  "What do you mean wasted? What about fraud? The money was used for blackmail, not renovations. There’s fraud and deception right there."

  "Whitehouse called in the rep and dug his heels in. Fraser came close, but without Whitehouse or the Police Prosecutor on board, it's an uphill battle. Apparently, it’s closer to a civil case with the bank than anything."

  Connor wiped his palm down his pants from thigh to knee. "Second, was there a foreign substance found in the head wound?"

  "Foreign substance?"

  "I don't see a parrot on my shoulder."

  "Funny guy."

  "Well, was there? It would be rare, not found commonly, like the glue or a trace of a rare stamp."

  "I'll have to check."

  "Do that, urgently. I'm on my way there."

  "On your way where?"

  "Sorrento, the Metcalfe holiday house."

  "The suspect is your client? Or the other sister..."

  "No, Einstein, the quiet, unassuming stuffed shirt. The rare stamp collecting brother-in-law hidden off the radar, while you and I run around like chickens with their heads cut off."

  "Holy shit."