Dead of Night (Sloane Monroe)

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  I was angry.

  And bitter.

  And hurt.

  Too hurt to talk about my feelings in a rational way, so I didn’t make an appointment. Instead I considered what Elodie would say if I was in her office at this very moment. She’d listen, even if it meant my constant jabbering took up the entire hour. Then she’d ask a few questions to get at the real root of the problem, which, in the end, would not be about Cade but about myself and my own sensitivity about what was happening. Then I’d put myself in his place, try to see things from his point of view. Hurt and anger was a two-way street, and if I was being honest, really honest, we both had cause to feel the way we did.

  Cade had never been angry with me before. Not like this. In the past, the way I handled disgruntled men was either to avoid them or run. I cared too much for Cade to do either. So I returned home, but I didn’t go in. I sat in front of the house in my car, trying to find a way past what was happening.

  I believed Wren was innocent.

  I also believed if I kept pursuing it, I might end up with a vacancy in the boyfriend department.

  The front door opened and closed. Shelby, who had been peeking out the kitchen window every five minutes for the past half hour, walked to the passenger side of my car and got in.

  “So … how’s it going?” she asked.

  “It’s … going.”

  “You comin’ in sometime, or …?”

  “Eventually. I’m just trying to sort a few things out first.”

  “Right. Well, my dad’s doing that too.”

  I faced her. “How can you tell?”

  “He talks to himself when he’s frustrated. He thinks I can’t hear him rambling on, but I can.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “You shouldn’t have to be involved in this, in what’s going on with us.”

  A tear splashed down her cheek. Embarrassed, she wiped it away.

  I took her hand in mine. “Hey, don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “I don’t want you to leave.”

  “Leave? I’m not going anywhere.”

  She smiled. “You’re like a mother to me, Sloane. I mean, my mother wasn’t really ever a mother, so …”

  The first time I met Shelby, she’d run away from home and broken into my house after a feud she’d had with her father. Since that time, she’d gone from rebellious teen to the beginnings of what I was certain would become an outstanding young woman.

  “No matter what happens between your dad and me, I will always be here for you.”

  “Wait, are you guys breaking up?”

  More tears.

  Open mouth, insert foot.

  “We’re fine, Shelby. I love your father.”

  It was the first time I’d said the words aloud. Not only did it shock me, it had blown her mind too, judging by the way her eyes had expanded when she heard the words.

  “Good. You two should get married.”

  I laughed. “Married? Slow down. One thing at a time, okay?”

  She crossed her arms in front of her. “I’m glad you’re helping Mrs. Bancroft.”

  “How do you know about that? Did your dad tell you?”

  I couldn’t imagine he had, especially since it seemed like he was trying hard to keep my involvement under wraps. Telling a teenager was like telling the whole town, even if said teenager was his own daughter.

  “I … uhh … may have heard him talking on the phone just now. Mrs. Bancroft isn’t a murderer. You know that, right?”

  “I do. At least, I think I do. Your dad might not share my same feelings though.”

  “Yeah, he does.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “He was on the phone with Hooker a few minutes ago, talking to him about some book he wanted to bring in for him to look at. He said if there was a way to prove Wren’s innocence, he wanted to make sure it happened.”

  Quaid Hooker was the local coroner and a long-time friend of Cade’s. He was also the person I planned on taking the book to myself before Cade snatched it from me.

  The front door opened again, and this time, Cade walked out. He pretended not to see us having a powwow in in my car and headed straight for his own vehicle. Three quarters of the way there, he changed his mind and pivoted, heading in my direction. From the short distance between us, I could see the outline of the book tucked beneath his shirt.

  Nice try.

  I put the window down.

  He looked past me at Shelby. “I’ve got an errand. I’ll be back soon. Why don’t you order some pizzas or somethin’ so neither of you have to cook tonight?”

  Shelby nodded. “Okay, Dad. Cool.”

  He stuck his hand through the window, handed her a fifty-dollar bill.

  “Sweet! Can I keep the change?”

  “Don’t push it.”

  He turned, tipping his cowboy hat to me like he was saying adios to one of his buddies, and then got in his truck and drove away.

  “Well,” Shelby said. “That was weird.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Three hours and two cold pizzas later, Cade finally returned home from his errand. Shelby had left to go to the movies with some friends, and I was sitting on the bed wearing one of Cade’s T-shirts with my hair wrapped in a towel, Googling the address of the man Wren said June had been secretly dating. Cade entered the room, and we stared at each other, neither one of us willing to break the impenetrable sound barrier and be the first one to speak.

  I’d spent the last hour rehearsing all the things I wanted to say, but now, seeing him in the flesh, my brain reset and all the rational, memorized commentary dissipated, like a magic eraser had scrubbed my mind. It was, at present, hollow and empty.

  Cade paused for a minute at the bedroom door. He seemed to sense my inward struggle and looked as if he was trying to give me time to decide whether I was actually going to talk to him or not. When I didn’t, he crossed in front of me without saying a word. He walked into the bathroom, grabbed his towel off the rack behind the door, and turned the shower on.

  I remained on the bed, vulnerable and ashamed. He was pained. It was obvious on his face. And I was the cause of it. It wasn’t the first time either.

  The tough girl tucked deep within my soul screamed for me to get up, go to him.

  I didn’t though.

  I’d never been any good at relationship confrontation.

  My phone buzzed, and I realized I’d forgotten to remove it from the bathroom after I showered. Cade had left the door partly ajar, so I reached in. Before I could snatch the phone from the counter, Cade grabbed my arm, yanking me inside the shower with him.

  “What are you doing?!” I yelled.

  He tossed the soggy towel on my head to the ground with one hand while lifting my sopping wet shirt off my body with the other. I opened my mouth in protest again. He closed it by pressing his lips against mine, pushing me backward until my bare flesh collided with the tile wall behind me.

  “I don’t ever want what happened between us today to happen again,” he said. “You mean everything to me, Sloane. What we have is more important to me than anything else.”

  I cupped his face in my hands. “It’s me who needs to apologize, not you. This is your first big case since you took the job. Everyone’s looking at you, judging you. I should have been more sensitive. I’m sorry, Cade. I’m really sorry.”

  He smiled then wrapped his arms around me. “No job is worth losing you. A job is just a job. You’re my life.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Thirty minutes later, I finally understood what my friend Maddie described once as the best sex of her life. Make-up sex. In all my years, I’d never experienced it before. I’d always been too proud to simmer down enough during an argument to ever get to the fired-up, passionate part.

  My phone buzzed again.

  A half-asleep Cade said, “Don’t answer it.”

  Earlier it had been nothing, just a message f
rom Shelby asking me to ask Cade if she could stay the night at her friend’s house. I attempted to grab the phone. Cade coiled his arms around me, making it impossible for me to reach.

  “No one calls me this late unless it’s important,” I said. “What if it’s Shelby?”

  He released me. I glanced at the name lighting up my phone. Will. I answered it. Before I could get any words out, a long, screeching noise came from the opposite end of the line.

  “Hello, Will?”

  No words were spoken. The noise continued.

  “Will, can you hear me?”

  Cade sat up. “What’s goin’ on?”

  “I don’t know. He won’t say anything.”

  I placed the call on speaker. Tried a third time. “Will, are you there? It’s Sloane. Did you mean to call me?”

  “Sloane … it’s … it’s happening again.”

  The voice wasn’t Will’s. It was Wren’s.

  “What’s happening?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t … I can’t …”

  “Wren, take a deep breath and then tell me what’s going on.”

  I listened while she exhaled then said, “Help me! I need help!”

  Cade shot out of bed, pulled his jeans on.

  “Wren, please. If you want me to help you, tell me what’s going on.”

  “It’s Will,” she cried. “He’s dead!”

  CHAPTER 12

  I sat at the edge of the bed for a moment, absorbing what Wren had just told me. Cade slid his boots on and nudged my shoulder.

  “Hey, get dressed,” he said, “and let’s get over there.”

  He was taking me with him. I didn’t question it. I got up, got ready to go. He made a couple calls, and within five minutes, several of us were en route. The first to arrive, we entered the house, finding Wren covered in blood, sitting on the kitchen floor, cradling Will in her arms, their faces pressed together. She was sobbing.

  I glanced around. What I assumed to be Will’s blood was smeared everywhere—on the wood floor, the cabinets, the leg of a chair tipped on its side. Even on the cell phone resting on the floor next to her.

  “Wren,” Cade said, “can you tell us what happened here tonight?”

  Her head bobbed from side to side. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to tell us. It was that she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  I crouched down next to her. “Listen to me. Any second, the ambulance will be here, the lieutenant will be here, and the chance you have to tell us what happened before everyone else questions you will be gone. I know it’s hard. But try. Please.”

  Face stained with tears, she detached herself from Will and looked up. “I don’t know what happened. I found him like this.”

  Cade bent down next to me. “What were you doing before you found him?”

  “I … we … had dinner together. I was still having trouble sleeping, so Will gave me some sleeping pills. We finished dinner, and I went to bed.”

  “What time?”

  “Around seven.”

  “What was Will doing when you went to bed?”

  “He said he was going to run to the store and pick up a few things.”

  “And did he?”

  “One of the last things I remember before I fell asleep was Will’s SUV pulling out of the garage, so yes. A few minutes later, I was out. I slept for a few hours. When I woke up again, my throat was dry. I needed water. I called for Will. He didn’t answer. I shouted his name again. Same thing.”

  Outside, sirens wailed along the sleepy street. Cade looked at me. We didn’t have much time.

  “When he didn’t answer you, what did you do?” Cade asked.

  “I got up, checked his office. He wasn’t there. Checked the bathroom and the living room. He wasn’t there either. I walked into the kitchen and saw him hunched over on the floor. I yelled to him. He didn’t move. I reached down and rolled him over, and that’s when I saw it.”

  “Saw what?” Cade asked.

  Wren bent Will to the side.

  The handle of a knife was protruding from his chest.

  CHAPTER 13

  Although Shorty and a couple others eyed me like they wondered what I was doing at the crime scene, none of them questioned it, at least not in front of me anyway. And I made myself look as inconspicuous as possible, sitting inside Cade’s truck while the area was cordoned off and processed. I felt bad for leaving Wren alone after what she’d just endured, but for now, it was how it had to be, and I’d serve her best if I flew under the radar.

  An hour later, Cade walked to the truck, got inside, started the engine.

  “I wondered where you got off to,” he said.

  “I thought it best to stay out of the way.”

  “Hooker’s inside getting Will ready for transport to the morgue. We won’t know too

  much more until he does the autopsy.”

  “What about Wren? She hasn’t been arrested again, has she?”

  “Her mother’s on her way from Montana. I’m allowing her to stay at the house for now. I have officers stationed at her door until we can figure out what the hell is going on.”

  “Did anyone ask you why I was with you?”

  “Shorty did. I’m not surprised. He’s the most brazen one of the bunch. I suspect the others put him up to it.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said it was none of his damned business.” He reached over, gave my ribcage a squeeze. “I figure you’re already involved, so this is how we play it. I’ll tell you what I know. You tell me what you know. We’ve always been best at solvin’ things when we work together, right?”

  “You’re willing to share information with me?”

  “I trust you. Besides, any of my men who says he doesn’t go home and talk to his woman is a liar.”

  “What about your position? I don’t want to get you in any trouble.”

  “You won’t. We’ll keep to ourselves about it unless there’s a reason not to.”

  He leaned his head back, sighed.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Somethin’s been eatin’ me from day one. There was a picture in a frame sitting on an end table in June’s living room. The entire pane of glass was cracked. It had either fallen over or been knocked over, and someone set it back up again.”

  Or it never fell and someone busted it on purpose.

  Or it busted when the killer was climbing through the living room window.

  “Who was in the picture?”

  “June, Wren, and Will. Looked like it was taken at Wren and Will’s wedding.” He paused. “I went to see Will’s sister Patty this mornin’. She said Wren and June didn’t get along. June wedged herself between Will and Wren to the point that Wren threatened to move to a different state if she didn’t back off and give them some space. She said Wren could never commit murder though.”

  It was hard to believe June was so involved, considering she had kept herself busy with another man whom none of her children knew about. Then again, it would explain why she started seeing someone in the first place. “Wedged herself meaning June was possessive of Will?”

  “I got the impression it was more like June doted on him. Even after all this time, she had a hard time acceptin’ another woman had taken her place.”

  “Even if we believed Wren had the ability to murder June, which we don’t, it doesn’t explain why she would kill her mother-in-law just to turn around and kill her husband.”

  “I spoke to Simon too. Simon was hung up on some co-worker of Wren’s Will said was getting too close to her.”

  “Did he give you a name?”

  “Gabriel Mendez. He teaches history.”

  “Did he say why Will thought they were getting close?”

  Cade shrugged. “Don’t know. He only said Will mentioned it at dinner on Sunday night.”

  “In front of everyone, or only to Simon?”

  “Only to him, I believe. This whole thing just doesn’t feel right, you
know?”

  “I know,” I said. “It doesn’t feel right to me either.”

  CHAPTER 14

  The following morning, I flew to California to meet Sebastian Ayres in the flesh. From what Cade had been told, Seal Beach PD had been unsuccessful in its efforts to bring Sebastian in for questioning. I wanted to know why.

  Sebastian lived about a minute’s walk from the beach in a white house with canary blue shutters. Terra cotta pots stuffed with flowers lined each of the three front porch steps, and the lawn was littered with half a dozen whirly-gigs in various shapes and sizes.

  The scenery spoke volumes.

  But what it didn’t say was “bachelor pad.”

  I climbed the porch steps, knocked on the door. The curtain inside the house was pulled to the side, and a woman looked out, squinting when she didn’t recognize me. The curtains closed. Seconds later, the door opened.

  The woman blinking at me was at least ten years older than I was, about my height, and stocky, but she had a pleasant, rosy face. And very round, like a Tootsie Pop.

  “Can I help you?” the woman asked.

  “I hope so. I’m looking for Sebastian Ayres.”

  “Oh, okay. Just one minute.”

  Her melodic voice called out to him.

  He didn’t come to the door. He yelled, “What is it?”

  “There’s a woman here to see you,” she said.

  “I just sat down. Let her inside.”

  The woman smiled at me and let me pass.

  “How do you know Sebastian?” she asked.

  “We have a mutual friend. How do you know him?”

  She smiled like she found the question amusing. “I’m his wife.”

  His wife?

  I had a feeling things were about to get interesting.

  Sebastian didn’t look up when I entered the room, instead choosing to concentrate on the ham-and-cheese parked on the center of a plate on his lap. He took a bite and set the sandwich back down, wiping a good-size dollop of mustard off his lips with the side of his arm. He was bald and had an oversized head, which matched perfectly with his ample belly.