Dead For Good Book 1

by Stacy Claflin

  Brad picked back up his knife and looked around, trying to remember if he had another Valderdorf in the room.

  No, he didn’t. They didn’t use the company’s weapons on their marks. It was too dangerous.

  He left the office and quickly changed his lock code.

  Hadley entered the hall, rubbing her eyes. “What’s going on with the doorbell so early?”

  Brad held up the knife. “The police are here to collect all of our Valderdorfs.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “Go back to bed.” He headed for his bedroom, where he had two older knives sealed in boxes to maintain their value. So much for that if the idiot police opened them.

  Hadley was still standing in the hall when he returned, juggling everything.

  “Aren’t you going back to bed?”

  “You aren’t in trouble, are you?”

  “No, because I didn’t kill Duke. These will prove it.”

  She swallowed, gave him an apologetic look, then disappeared into her room.

  Brad made his way downstairs and handed off his prized Valderdorfs. “As you can see, two are sealed. They’re an older model and worth far more unopened. I’d appreciate it if you keep them that way.”

  Stewart arched a brow. “You sure they’re factory sealed?”

  “Of course they are. Why would I open a collector’s item? When will I get these back?”

  “When we’re done with them. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  Brad grumbled as he let them out.

  Of course, they were going to open the boxes.

  By the time he returned to his room, his alarm was actually going off. He turned it off and slunk on the bed. It was already the perfect day to call in sick.

  “They took all the Valderdorfs?” Faye asked.

  He nodded, deep in thought. “We need to find out everything we can about the kids’ involvement with Duke. Probably should find out if Luna is hiding anything about him, too.”

  “Luna?” Faye exclaimed. “Would you listen to yourself?”

  “Think about it. Everyone else in this house has been hiding something about Duke. It makes sense that she would, too.”

  “She’s seven!”

  “Did you expect our seventeen-year-old and our fourteen-year-old to have secret relationships with him?”

  She frowned. “No.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Looks like we all have something in common — except that you aren’t coming clean.”

  He stared at her. “About what?”

  “The blood behind your ear!”

  He would never miss a spot of blood again. How could such a stupid oversight lead to his undoing?

  “Well?” Faye looked at him expectantly.

  His mind raced. “Rose and I were—”

  “Rose? What were you doing with her?” Faye scowled. “You said everything was platonic!”

  “If you’d let me finish what I was saying—”

  Ding-dong!

  He swore.

  Ding-dong!

  Faye looked at her phone’s screen. “It’s the cops again.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “What were you going to say about Rose? What were you two doing together?”

  Ding-dong!

  “I’ll tell you after I get rid of them.” He hurried downstairs.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  By the time Faye got downstairs, the cops were already inside.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  The detective looked at her. “Our testing kit found blood on one of the knives.”

  “Do you know if it’s human?” Brad demanded.

  “We’ll be the ones asking questions.” Detective Stewart glared at him. “You’ll need to come down to the station for questioning.”

  Faye ran to Brad’s side, her heart hammering. “Is he under arrest?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then question him here.”

  “We need him down at the station.”

  Her mind raced. “But you already know we were on a date. His coworkers saw us. He couldn’t have done it!”

  The officer stepped forward. “We’ve heard a conflicting story that we need to look into.”

  She and Brad exchanged worried looks.

  “From whom?” she asked. “What did they say?”

  And did it have anything to do with what Brad was about to say upstairs? He had started to say he’d been doing something with Rose.

  The woman whose lipstick had been on his face at the bar. The woman who had been hanging on him at the Super Bowl party. Whispering in his ear. She’d managed to get him to eat sushi when he’d refused to try it with Faye for years.

  “We’ll be the ones asking questions,” Detective Stewart repeated.

  Faye turned to her husband. “What about—?”

  Stewart stood between them. “Do you wish to change your story, ma’am?”

  Her mind went blank. What did the cops know? Was it something about Brad, or had someone seen Duke come over right before being killed?

  Could she be a suspect instead of Brad? Or what about Hadley? Did they know she’d been seeing him? Or did Rose somehow play into this? Maybe Brad found out about Hadley and Duke, then talked his lover into killing him?

  She choked on the thought. Pleaded with her eyes for a response from Brad. “Rose—”

  The detective cleared her throat and stepped between them, looking at Faye. “A neighbor saw you talking with Duke the night he was killed.”

  Brad’s mouth fell open. “Faye won’t even harm a spider!”

  The detective looked at Brad. “So, you admit that you two weren’t on a date?”

  “I was covering for her,” he admitted. “Faye is innocent, but I knew that it looked bad, her seeing him so close to the time of death.”

  “You’d have been better off with the truth, Mr. Morris.”

  He nodded. “I realize that now.”

  “We’re going to have to take you both in to the station.”

  “Neither of us is guilty. Faye never left the house that night. Our house cameras can prove it. Duke came, he left, but Faye stayed here. I’ve seen the footage.”

  “Why lie?”

  “To protect her!” Spittle flew from his mouth.

  “What about you? We’ve got your bloody knife and plenty of people who think you had more than enough reason to kill the man. So where were you?”

  “I was out of town.”

  “And we should believe you why?”

  Brad tugged on his hair.

  Faye wanted to jump to his defense, but at the same time, she wanted to know where her husband had been. Besides “getting bloody at a convention.”

  Stewart glared at him. “Are you going to come willingly or not? We need you to explain the blood on—”

  “If I can prove I wasn’t even in town at the time, will you leave? You’re probably going to find cow blood on that knife. We had roast beef a week ago. There’s zero chance that even a drop of that blood belongs to Duke.”

  Faye’s breath hitched. Where was he going with this? Had he been with Rose? Lying to Faye all this time?

  He turned to her, clearly trying to communicate with his eyes, but she couldn’t tell what her husband wanted to say.

  “You weren’t on a date with your wife?” Stewart traded a look with the officer.

  Faye studied Brad.

  His expression was a brick wall.

  “Brad?” Her voice wavered.

  “You killed Duke, didn’t you?” asked the detective, staring him down.

  His hands shook, but the rest of him remained steady. He glanced to Faye and mouthed I love you before turning to Stewart. “I couldn’t have killed Duke because I was with Rose.”

  Faye gasped and clutched her heart. The world seemed to crumble around her.

  He had been having an affair.

  And she’d been stupid enough to believe his lies. She tried to speak. Nothing would come. Th
ere was no air in her lungs.

  Brad dug into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. Handed a receipt to Stewart. “Here’s your proof. Two desserts purchased at La Isla’s” —he turned to Faye, widening his eyes — “near the Space Needle. I was in Seattle. Check the date and time. No way I could’ve killed that bastard.”

  “Bastard?”

  “No, I didn’t like him. Not one bit — but I never did anything to harm him. Nothing!” He gave Faye a pleading expression, but she turned away, unable to look at him.

  In fact, she couldn’t face anyone.

  She ran upstairs and locked the bedroom door.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Brad had barely locked the front door before he bolted upstairs to their bedroom. He banged on the locked door. “Faye! We need to talk!”

  No response.

  “I know you’re in there! You need to hear me out!”

  “Go away!”

  He pounded again. “Please!”

  Nothing.

  Brad swore. “You need to hear the truth!”

  “I’ve heard enough. Leave me alone!”

  He knocked some more until he finally surrendered. When she was like this, it was best to just give her time to think. Then he could explain himself. Or maybe she would assemble all of the pieces to reach the truth herself.

  Or maybe she would never hear him out.

  Brad looked in Luna’s room. Empty. Probably watching cartoons downstairs. He found Hadley in the bathroom, straightening her hair.

  She started to close the door.

  But he blocked it with his foot. “I need to know everything about your relationship with Duke.”

  Her face reddened. “You don’t want to know everything.”

  Brad hesitated. “You know what I mean.”

  “Not really.” She set her flat iron on the sink. “What’s going on? Why were you yelling at Mom?”

  “I wasn’t yelling. I was talking through a closed door.”

  “Whatever.” Hadley began to apply her mascara.

  “Was Duke good to you?”

  “The best.”

  “He never hurt you?”

  “No.”

  “You never had any reason to want to hurt him? Or worse?”

  She spun around, tears shining in her eyes. “Stop!”

  “I need to know.”

  “He never did anything bad to me. And I would never hurt him. I didn’t kill him, so you need to stop implying that—”

  “Do you have any idea who did?”

  “The only person that makes any sense is you.”

  Brad stumbled back. “Me?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Who else? He was always upstaging you, and you have to be number one. If you found out about him and me, that’s serious motive.”

  “You think I could kill him?”

  “Didn’t you say you’d kill him yourself if he was alive?”

  He blinked a few times. Hadn’t he said to that Faye in private?

  Hadley turned her back to him, still applying her makeup. “Why are you trying to pin this on me?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Then leave me alone. His death has destroyed me. If I had any idea who did it, I would have told the police.”

  He froze. “What did you tell them?”

  “Not much.”

  “Do they know about your relationship with him?”

  “Dad, go away.”

  “I need to know!”

  “Let them do their job. You should be worried about Mom.” She closed the door, and the lock clicked.

  He found Zeke downstairs, scarfing down a brightly colored cereal.

  “Everything okay?” Zeke asked.

  “How close were you to Duke?”

  “You aren’t going to yell at me again, are you?”

  “I didn’t yell at you before.”

  Zeke gave him a knowing look before shoving a spoonful in his mouth.

  “Look, the police aren’t getting anywhere. They’re focused on me, but I didn’t do it. If you know anything, I really need you to tell me.”

  Zeke sighed. “I just talked to him about bullies once in a while. Wasn’t like it was every day or anything.”

  “He never mentioned anything about bullies that he might be dealing with?”

  His son looked deep in thought for a moment. “He had some online trolls harassing him. Kids from when he was in middle school. But that was it. He definitely never said anything about someone wanting to kill him.”

  Brad frowned. His whole family knew Duke better than they’d let on, but none of them knew enough to point him toward the killer.

  He could only hope the receipt to the dessert place would be enough to keep the detective away from him. Looking into it, they would likely discover that he bought the two desserts alone and left with them.

  Not that the alibi would even help, seeing as Brad was killing someone else while Duke was sucking on his final few breaths.

  And Kurt wasn’t helping.

  He was screwed if he didn’t find the real killer. This was all on him.

  “I’m telling the truth,” Zeke said.

  Brad blinked a few times. He’d been so lost in thought he’d forgotten where he was. “Okay. If you do think of anything, let me know right away.”

  “Sure.”

  Brad needed to find out if Luna knew anything. Given the way things were going, he wouldn’t have been surprised if she did. He went to the living room, but she wasn’t there, and the TV was off. He returned to the kitchen. “Have you seen Luna?”

  Zeke shook his head.

  Brad hurried up the stairs. Her bedroom was empty. She wasn’t in the playroom. Or anywhere upstairs.

  He knocked on his bedroom door. “Is Luna in there?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “Did you check the front room?”

  The one place he hadn’t looked. “No.”

  Brad hurried downstairs, trying to imagine what kind of friendship his seven-year-old could have possibly struck up with Duke.

  The front room was empty.

  He hurried through the downstairs, checking everywhere, including the laundry room.

  Then he re-checked all the rooms upstairs. Looked in all the closets and her favorite hiding spots when they played hide-and-seek.

  But Luna was nowhere.

  Had she gone outside?

  The backyard was empty, including her hiding places. So was the front yard, but she knew better than to go out there alone.

  Brad’s heart threatened to explode.

  His daughter was gone.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Brad’s phone buzzed with a text. Relief washed through him with hope that it might be Luna. Then he realized what a stupid thought that was. His youngest child didn’t even have a phone.

  The message was from Rose: Come next door. Luna’s here. Enter through the back.

  He stared at the message in disbelief.

  She’s with you?

  Hurry!

  Brad slid the phone into his pocket and raced outside, almost forgetting to type in the alarm code before opening the door. He raced to his neighbor’s, starting for the front before remembering that Rose had ordered him in through the back.

  Maybe she’d discovered something about the killer. Though really, the only thing he cared about was bringing Luna back home. He’d nearly had a heart attack at the thought of her disappearing. Thank goodness she was just with Rose.

  He fiddled with the latch, then opened the gate and found his way to the back door.

  Unlocked.

  Brad stepped inside. “Hello? Rose?”

  “In here.”

  He hurried through the living room to the kitchen.

  Rose sat at the table, sipping a mug with Duke’s MLM company logo.

  “Where’s Luna?”

  “She’s fine. Sit.” Rose nudged the seat across from her.

  “I need to get my daughte
r.”

  Rose slammed the cup down. “I said sit.”

  “What the hell?” Brad looked around and called out, “Luna?”

  “She’s upstairs. Now sit!”

  Brad ignored her and headed for the stairs. “Luna?”

  “Daddy?” His little girl’s voice sounded tiny, thin, and far away.

  “Come down here, honey.”

  Rose stepped in front of him, blocking the way. “She’s a little tied up at the moment. Sit.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Daddy!”

  Brad darted around Rose.

  She pulled out a Valderdorf. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  He skidded to a stop. “What are you doing?”

  “What should’ve been done on Friday.”

  The blood drained from his skull. “Friday?”

  Her brows furrowed. “If I’d been the one to jump you, you’d have never gotten away. Instead, I had to kill your loser neighbor.”

  The room spun around him as pieces fell into place. “You framed me for Duke’s murder?”

  “Damn straight.” She held the curved blade toward his neck. “Now sit.”

  “Are you okay, Luna?” he called.

  “Help me, Daddy!”

  Brad’s heart shattered into a million pieces. He shoved Rose aside and lunged for the stairs.

  She shoved the knife to his throat. Pain pricked where it pierced his flesh. “If you don’t follow directions, you both die.”

  He turned around. Felt his neck. A speck of blood stained his finger.

  “Now, Bradley.”

  He reached for his pocketknife.

  “Not so fast!” Rose jammed her blade back to his throat. “Hand everything over.”

  “What?”

  “Now!”

  “Sure. Let’s talk about this. I’m sure we can reach an agreement.” He dug into his pocket and whipped out his knife, flipping it, so the blade sprang out. It wasn’t nearly as impressive as her Valderdorf, but it was all he had. That and brute strength.

  She’d made a mistake turning on him.

  Rose blocked his arm. “Put it down.”

  “Ladies first.” He nodded toward her weapon.

  “You’re such a chauvinist. I’ve always hated that about you.” Her face contorted in disgust.

  “What? No, I’m not.”