by Brenda Novak
“When you were little,” she said, soothing Megan’s hair as she cradled her head against her shoulder, “and you got angry or upset and felt out of control, you used to put yourself in time out.”
Lucy could feel Megan’s smile against her shoulder. “I’d go into my room and tear it apart. Dad used to call me Hurricane Megan.”
They separated, faced each other. Lucy was glad to see Megan’s color return to normal. “Remember that time when I told you to clean up the mess after one of your tantrums?”
“It was the middle of winter but I opened all the windows and threw everything out into the snow.” She said it with a hint of stubborn pride.
“I came in and found you sitting on your naked mattress reading a comic book wearing nothing but your underwear.” Lucy smiled at the memory, although at the time she’d been tempted to resort to her own mother’s tactic of a wooden spoon judiciously applied to a bottom.
“Then Dad came in and said you had no right to complain because I was just like you. Always finding a way around the rules to do what you wanted.”
Lucy smoothed Megan’s hair back away from her face. “Yeah. Some days I think you got the worst of me and the best of him.”
Megan considered that and Lucy braced herself for a rebuttal. But instead of the retort Lucy was expecting, Megan ducked her head down and shrugged. “Guess that’s not so bad,” she said, looking at the ground. “Better than what a lot of kids have.”
She glanced up again, meeting Lucy’s eyes with a challenge. “So what are we going to do to help Mateo?”
Lucy looked past Megan at the parking lot and realized what was bothering her even more than the crime scene and evidence. “Get in the car.”
Megan rolled her eyes—oh, how Lucy hated it when she did that—but plopped down into the passenger seat and slammed the door.
The parking lot was silent. Lucy had worked multi-jurisdiction cases before, some of them in towns smaller and less equipped than Harbinger Cove. They were always a nightmare requiring coordination between agencies that didn’t use the same radio codes, a mountain of paperwork and logistical support, and a command center where the troops could regroup and redeploy.
Yet, now, on the day of what she was certain was the biggest high-profile crime Harbinger Cover had ever seen, the only vehicles here belonged to Lucy, Mateo’s family, Hayden and Gant’s official vehicles, and one nondescript Buick. No representatives from the sheriff’s department or state law enforcement, no crime scene techs securing and documenting evidence—in fact, the evidence had been laid out in the bull pen as if on display for Lucy’s benefit.
What if… everything had been for Lucy’s benefit? Every good crime scene analysis told a story… maybe there was a story behind this one.
Lucy hesitated. Surely her preposterous theory couldn’t be right. She was torn between taking Megan back to the hotel—but no, that facility wasn’t secure and she didn’t want to leave Megan alone—and testing her hypothesis. There was one person who might confirm her crazy idea.
True to his word, Nick had texted Don Burroughs’ number to Megan’s phone. It was Sunday night, hopefully the Pittsburgh detective would be at home with his wife and two sons rather than working a case. Lucy moved to the back of the Subaru as if getting something from the trunk to hide her movements from anyone inside the station as she dialed.
“Burroughs.”
“Don, it’s Lucy Guardino. Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“Nope, just finished dinner.” Lucy’s stomach grumbled at his words—she wished she’d been able to convince Megan to grab some supper; she was starved. “What’s up?”
“Need some expert advice about insulin pumps.” She filled him in on the case and explained how Fleming’s pump had been found empty. She gave him the manufacturer and model number. “Same as yours, right?“
“Yeah, so?”
“So our victim would have lost it no more than an hour or two before we found it, given our timeline. Shouldn’t it have had insulin left in it? Or would it have all drained out when it was removed from Fleming?”
“Nope, if it’s like mine, it automatically stops when it’s disconnected.”
“So it should have had half a day’s worth of insulin in it, right?”
“Depending on what time of day your victim fills his reservoir. But most folks do it first thing in the morning or before bed, so yeah, it should have had plenty left.” He paused. “You’re not talking like you think this guy really is a victim. Do you think the pump was planted?”
“I’m thinking a lot of things about this scene don’t add up—unless it was staged. Which means maybe Fleming isn’t a victim but someone who wanted to disappear.”
He made a grunting noise of agreement. “And make it look like someone else was doing the disappearing. If he uses a pump, good bet he has a duplicate with him now—once you get used to them, you never want to go back to multiple injections. I’d check that first, I was you. Plus, he must be a fairly brittle diabetic to need a specialized pump like mine.”
That piqued her curiosity—special was good when tracking a missing person or a fugitive. Anything that made them stand out could create a trail to follow. “What’s so special about it?”
“It’s got the newest tech—monitors your blood sugar, calculates insulin dosing, sends all the info to your phone, your computer, even your doctor’s office if you want. And it’s designed for high-risk patients with a special safety feature. One that might let you track your guy if he hasn’t inactivated it.”
“Please tell me it has GPS tracking.” Lucy was practically bouncing with enthusiasm.
“Yep. It’s designed so if a patient hits the danger zone and doesn’t respond to the pump’s alarms, it sends your location to a special emergency operator. But even if he’s turned off the alarm, I’ll bet your tech guys could still access the GPS signal.”
“I could kiss you! Lunch is on me when I get home.”
“Give ’em hell, Lucy.”
“Always do.” She hung up, uncertain of the safest way to use Burroughs’ information. Squinting at the police station and its curious lack of activity, she thought again about the incestuous relationship small town police could have with the people they were sworn to serve and protect. Sometimes that protection came at a cost—law and order sacrificed in the name of the “greater good” of the community.
She needed an outside agency, someone she could trust. And she needed to make sure Megan was safe.
Leave? Why not? She could park Megan in an anonymous hotel back on the mainland. There was nothing in their room that was irreplaceable or valuable, except maybe Lucy’s phone left drying on the bathroom counter.
“Let’s go,” she said, joining Megan in the Subaru.
“We can’t. We have to give our statements.”
“We’ll come back in the morning. When they’re less busy.”
Megan frowned and looked back at the station. “What was that call about? You know something. Why don’t you want the police and Mateo’s family to know?”
Chapter 16
As Lucy turned out of the police station, she did a quick mental inventory of what was in the Subaru’s trunk—it was one of the reasons why she’d gotten the Legacy after wrecking her Forrester, the ability to keep items secured and out of sight. Most of their neighbors carried normal Pennsylvania-winter supplies: a small shovel, kitty litter, blanket, boots, warm socks.
Lucy’s trunk had all that along with a lock box containing spare ammo for her service weapons, along with a pump action Remington 870, ballistic vest, night vision thermal/infrared monocular (a gift from some friends at the DEA, latest tech from the battlefield), handcuffs, zip ties, and combat medic kit. Stashed beside it was a go-bag with survival basics. Not much room left over for luggage, but since this was the first vacation she’d taken in years, that was the least of her concerns.
She came to the intersection with the main road that divided the island into ocean side
and sound side. Turn left and she’d head north, winding across three other barrier islands and four bridges until reaching the mainland over twenty miles away. Turn right and ten minutes later, they’d be at the far end of the island where their hotel stood.
She hit the blinker to turn left.
“Mom, what are you doing?” Megan protested. Nothing got past her—often to Lucy’s regret.
“I need to get you off this island. I can come back for our things later.”
“That’s crazy. We can’t leave. Not now.”
“It’s not your decision.” There was no traffic on the road. Lucy turned left.
Megan twisted in her seat to face her. “Pull over.”
“We can discuss this later.” Lucy was distracted watching all her mirrors and running tactical scenarios through her mind—hard to do when you didn’t know the lay of the land as well as your opponent.
And when you weren’t certain who your opponent actually was.
“No.” Megan’s tone was sharp. “All my life you’ve trained me and dad to do what you tell us to do if it’s a dangerous situation. I understand that. But there’s no danger now. No need to panic.”
“I’m not panicking. And this isn’t PTSD,” Lucy added, before Megan could humiliate her by asking. “You need to trust me.”
“You mean trust your gut.”
“Well, yes.”
Megan twisted, checking the rear window. No headlights anywhere in sight as the road curved between Spanish moss laden trees. The occasional driveway or residential lane interrupted the tree line but no human activity. “Pull in there,” she indicated a narrow street that had only a few large houses, none of them with lights on. “We’ll be hidden from view and you can explain what’s going on.”
“I’ll explain once I have you safe on the mainland.”
“No, Mom. Do it now. If you’re going to ask me to abandon Mateo and his family, if you truly want me to be the kind of person who would betray a friend like that, then I need to understand why.”
Lucy sucked in her breath, slowed the car and backed them into the street, turning the headlights off. She hated it when Megan out-reasoned her. One of the many pitfalls of having a child smarter than she was—smarter than Nick as well, which was saying a lot.
“Dad calls it tactical awareness,” Megan continued. “Like when a soldier feels there’s something wrong so he steps left instead of right and misses an IED. He says it’s the sum of sensory perceptions and pattern recognition combining to create a quick-action reflex, instead of processing every decision step by step. But I need to understand, so take me through it the slow way, okay?”
Lucy took a deep breath and held it, looking inward, gauging her bodily responses. She wasn’t panicked. Urgency, yes, she felt that, but also the same calm she usually felt before entering a field of action during an operation.
Could she trust that? She’d read accounts of soldiers with PTSD suffering paranoid delusions where they’d acted with calm certainty that they were the only ones who saw the danger clearly. Could she have fallen into that trap without even knowing it?
If she had—and dragged Megan down with her—it was even more reason to get off this island as quickly as possible. Bottom line: if she couldn’t trust her judgment, she shouldn’t be carrying a gun.
“Okay,” Lucy finally said. “Here’s what I see. They have Mateo’s prints in Pastor Fleming’s blood on the knife, a full palm print on a piece of paper with the safe combination, and on the insulin pump. That pretty much makes Mateo one of the world’s most incompetent criminals, not even smart enough to wear gloves, so dumb he left the paper with his palm print and the safe combination there at the scene.”
“Mateo’s being framed—I’ve been telling you that all along.”
“Right. But the real question is: by who? Who stands to gain most?”
“Mateo’s family said it was a lot of cash—Pastor Fleming was getting ready to pay people who’d made loans to third world ministries. Maybe he was trying to fake his death so he could steal the money but Mateo walked in on it?”
Cash loans funneled through a church? That needed looking into. Had all the makings of a Ponzi scheme. Lucy added it to her list. But first priority was getting Megan to safety.
“I still don’t understand why we need to suddenly leave,” Megan continued. “It’ll take fifteen minutes to go grab our stuff from the hotel. How much danger could we be in if it was Pastor Fleming behind all this? He must be on the boat guarding Mateo, right?”
Good girl, filling in most of the blanks. Except the most important one. “When I was in Chief Hayden’s office, she had a photo of her and Shelly Fleming. That’s when I realized that I’d seen Chief Hayden in other photos—the Flemings’ wedding pictures in their house. And family photos from when they were young. I think she’s Shelly Fleming’s sister. Or at the very least, a close friend.”
“If the Chief of Police is involved, then we can’t trust anyone.” Megan shook her head. “I don’t buy it. All those other police are also here—the sheriff’s department and the crime scene techs from the state. The Coast Guard out searching for the boat.”
“Except I don’t think they are. I don’t think she actually called anyone.”
“There’s one way to tell for sure. Let’s go back to the Flemings’ house. You said yourself that crime scene would take days to process—that means the techs should still be there working.”
It went against Lucy’s instincts, but Megan had a point—there was little chance of anything happening, not in a public area. The most they’d lose would be some time. Still, if Megan hadn’t made her stop and talk this out, they’d be halfway to the mainland by now.
“If there’s no one there,” Megan continued, “then you can call the state police yourself.”
Except she couldn’t. “I have no standing here and can’t invite them into an investigation outside of their jurisdiction.” Lucy sighed. “Best I can do is plant the idea. It will take hours, maybe days to find someone to listen and take action.”
“Time Mateo doesn’t have.”
Lucy nodded, wishing she had a better answer for Megan. They sat in silence for a moment.
“I trust your instincts, Mom,” Megan finally said. “But I can’t just abandon Mateo and his family without concrete proof. And you’ll need something to get the state police to take action. If there’s no one at the Flemings, we can go—you can do what you need to do and I promise I’ll wait in a hotel room or whatever, you won’t need to worry about me.”
Best deal Lucy was going to get. She started the car again and headed south toward the Fleming crime scene.
Chapter 17
Megan saw the way her mom’s jaw clenched as she turned the car toward their hotel and the Flemings’ house. Lucy was being paranoid—suspecting everyone and everything came with her job, sure, but even if Chief Hayden was involved, that didn’t mean Megan and Lucy were in danger. In fact, it might mean the opposite.
“If the chief and Shelly are working with Pastor Fleming, then Mateo ruined their plan, right?” she said, trying out her theory. “So they’re scrambling, trying to cover their tracks. There’s no way they’d target us—it’s too risky. They need us to back them up. In a way, we’re their alibis. We’re part of the story they’re trying to sell.”
Lucy’s frown didn’t ease. “If they feel desperate, backed into a corner, who knows what they might do.”
“That’s true of anyone. But Chief Hayden didn’t seem desperate to me. And using Mateo in that video…” She thought for a moment. “Wait. Do you think the entire police force could be in on it?”
“You’ve been watching too many movies. My guess is that Plan A was to steal the money, make it look like a robbery gone bad leaving Fleming presumed dead—”
“Where’d all that blood come from?” Megan asked.
“Actually, the way it was spread out like that, it probably wasn’t an extreme amount if you added it all up. It could
have been diluted. Maybe Fleming was having his blood drawn and saving it up, who knows?”
“So it was all part of selling the idea that he was killed, his body taken?”
“Right. And Mateo was meant to find the crime scene, probably to establish a timeline where Shelly had an alibi.”
“But Mateo showed up early.”
“So they went with Plan B—setting Mateo up as a fall guy. Now they’re trying to get even more money from Fleming’s congregation while they’re planting more evidence against Mateo.”
“Wait.” Megan felt her stomach squeeze tight as if someone was choking her. “Mom, for that to work—”
“They need to stage a scenario where they kill Mateo during a dramatic hostage rescue. The money will have mysteriously vanished and life will go back to normal for the Flemings.”
“But not for Mateo or his family. We have to stop them.”
Lucy glanced over at her. “We have no proof,” she warned. “This is just a wild-assed theory. But it’s the only theory I can make fit all the facts.”
They were almost to the Flemings’ house. This section of the island with the shopping center and marina was better lit than the residential area they’d just driven through. Despite the fact that it should have been a hub of activity, the Flemings’ house was dark. There was crime scene tape strung across the gate and a police cruiser parked there, but no sign of a police officer.
“Damn,” Lucy muttered. “That’s it. We’re leaving.”
“Let’s at least grab our stuff from the room. We’re here already.”
Lucy didn’t answer, but instead of pulling into the hotel’s drive, she turned into the shopping center parking lot entrance, made an immediate U-turn, and headed back out on the main road heading away from their hotel. Before Megan could protest, her phone rang. Unknown caller.
“Hello?”
“Is this Megan? It’s Chief Hayden. Can I please speak with your mother?”
“Uh, sure. Hang on.” Megan turned the speakerphone on and held it up to Lucy. “It’s the chief.”
