Random Acts of Murder: A Holly Anna Paladin Mystery, Book 1 (Holly Anna Paladin Mysteries)

by Christy Barritt

  I had some damage control to do.

  My eyes stopped at an email from Doris. “I heard the news. Why don’t you take some medical leave? You’ve got it coming. I think it would be best for everyone’s sakes.”

  My jaw dropped open. I was pretty sure she was just looking for a way to get me out of the door.

  Impulsively, I emailed back. “That sounds like a great idea, Doris. I think I will take some time off. Indefinitely. I’ll talk to Helen about this as soon as possible.”

  Life was too short to deal with people like Doris. I’d find another way to help those families.

  I got ready for my day, not feeling at all optimistic. Just as Peggy Lee started singing “Is That All There Is,” the doorbell rang.

  Who now? I prayed it wasn’t the press. Knowing my luck, that’s exactly who it would be.

  When I opened the door, I was surprised to see Jamie standing there.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately, Holly,” she started.

  “What are you talking about?”

  She shook her head. “Can I come in?”

  “Of course.” I opened the door wider. “How’d you know I was here?”

  “Your cell is going straight to voice mail. I called Chase instead.”

  “How do you have Chase’s number?”

  She shrugged. “He gave it to me when my brother disappeared. Of course. Did you think I was stalking him or something?”

  “Just curious.” I closed the door and ushered her to the couch. “What’s going on?”

  She hit her hands against her hips and sighed. “I don’t know why I’m letting my insecurities get the best of me, Holly. It’s like the old, fat me who didn’t believe in herself still pushes to the surface sometimes. I automatically think the worst of people. Something about being around Rex brought that out in me.”

  I swung my head back and forth, regret gripping me. “I should have told you about John. I just didn’t know what to do. He made me promise and—”

  “You were between a rock and a hard place. I should have tried harder to understand. I just . . . I just feel like you’re leaving me, and I’m trying to hold on and control everything else in my life.” Tears glimmered in her eyes.

  “How’s that working for you?” I whispered.

  “Terribly.” She sniffled before letting out a weak chuckle.

  My heart ached with loss. “I’m sorry, Jamie. I really hate messing up. Like, really hate it.”

  She nodded. “Girlfriend, I know.”

  We hugged each other.

  Part of me wanted to jump in and tell her everything: Did you see the news story about Rex? About Ralph? Chase and I could be getting married.

  Instead, I stayed quiet.

  “There’s something else I need to tell you.” Jamie’s lips pulled into a tight, trepid line.

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  “But I need to wait until Chase gets here.”

  “Chase is coming?” It was the first I’d heard of it. My apprehension deepened.

  She nodded and glanced at her phone. “He should be here any minute—”

  Just then, the doorbell rang again.

  “I’ve got it,” I insisted.

  Sure enough, Chase stood on the porch. He stepped inside, gave me a quick kiss, and nodded at Jamie in the background.

  “I saw the news,” he muttered.

  I frowned. “Yeah, we’re trying to get to the bottom of it. I don’t know how Brian found out.”

  “What a way for your family to hear, huh?” His voice sounded low, sympathetic.

  “I’ve been doing damage control all morning. My whole family will be here this evening so we can talk. My mom’s even coming back early from her trip.”

  “Do you want me to be here with you?”

  Some of my tension melted away. “Yeah, I’d really like that.”

  “Something you two want to tell me?” Jamie asked behind me.

  I turned around, pulling my hand from Chase’s chest. I hadn’t even realized it was there. I pointed back and forth between the two of us. “We’re kind of . . .”

  “Together,” Chase finished, wrapping an arm around my waist.

  Jamie’s eyebrows shot up. “Nice. I like that news.”

  “Me, too.” Chase straightened. “Now, what’s going on, Jamie? You said you needed me to stop by?”

  She nodded, any of her delight from just seconds ago disappearing from her features. “Can we sit at the table?”

  “Of course,” I told her.

  We all settled at the round table, watching as Jamie pulled out her laptop. She started typing, her frown deepening with each keystroke.

  “So, I was working on some of those after-election articles,” she began. “I started doing a piece on Rex’s high school days. I justified it, thinking as long as we weren’t officially dating that there was no breach of ethics. Anyway, I thought it would be cool to talk to some of his old teachers and classmates. His English teacher lives in Pittsburgh now, so I called her.”

  I nodded, anxious to find out where she was going with this. “Okay.”

  “Well, she said all of these nice things about Rex. He was charismatic, had a hard upbringing, rose above all of it. Then she started telling me that she’d just gone through some old papers and she found one he’d written. He was apparently obsessed with Roman times.”

  “What are you getting at, Jamie?” Chase asked.

  Uncertainty wavered in her eyes as she met Chase’s gaze. “The paper he’d written was on Caligula and how he was misunderstood.”

  Cold washed over my entire body. “You mean, you think Rex is Caligula?”

  “I don’t know what I mean, Holly. I just know that something doesn’t feel right.” Concern tightened her features.

  “Why would Rex risk everything for this?” I shook my head, trying to gather my thoughts. “I remember a couple of weeks ago Brian said that his campaign was in serious financial trouble. They didn’t have enough money. Would he have gone this far?”

  “What about Orion? The evidence against him is pretty incriminating,” Chase said. “It’s hard to refute.”

  “What if Orion was set up?” I asked. “You said the chief was anxious to put a lid on this case. Maybe the chief isn’t covering up anything, but what if he inadvertently helped Rex?”

  “Rex’s schedule gave him the perfect alibi, though,” Chase said.

  “Good point,” I said.

  Chase’s phone beeped. “You guys, I have to get this. It’s T.J.”

  I nodded.

  Chase rose and paced into the kitchen to answer. The next thing I heard was “What are you talking about? Why are you still on this witch hunt?”

  Jamie and I glanced at each other.

  Finally, Chase hung up. He paced over to me, a knot between his eyebrows. “That was T.J. He just said someone reported an anonymous tip. They said you were at Dewayne’s house on the night he died.”

  The blood drained from my face. “Someone reported that?”

  Chase nodded. “That’s crazy, isn’t it?”

  Jamie and I exchanged another look.

  “What are you saying, Holly?” Chase stared at me, confusion in his gaze.

  I desperately wanted to make that look—that brief moment of doubt—disappear from his gaze. But I couldn’t lie. Not anymore.

  “I tried to tell you,” I started. My throat went dry and I felt queasy all over.

  His eyes widened, and he took a step back. “Wait. Are you about to say that you were there?”

  “I—”

  He held up a finger, tension straining his features. “How . . .? Why didn’t you . . .? What were you doing . . .? You know what—don’t tell me anything. I don’t want to have to lie to my captain.”

  “But—” I started again.

  “Really. Don’t say anything.” His gaze held mine, leaving no room for argument. I saw the disappointment there. Maybe even distrust.

  I sighed, feeling
defeated. I’d ruined everything, hadn’t I? “What does this mean?”

  Chase locked his jaw. He closed his eyes and shook his head, as if still trying to reconcile his image of me with this new information. “It means that T.J.’s looking for you, Holly. I told him you weren’t at home. He wants to bring you in.”

  Adrenaline surged in me. “We’ve got to find the evidence to nail Rex first.”

  “I’m glad that’s your biggest concern and not spending the rest of your life in jail.” Chase raked a hand through his hair and started pacing. “It’s bad enough that I’m going to lose you to cancer. But to this?”

  I stood, desperately wishing I could rewind my life. “Chase . . .”

  He didn’t say anything, just pulled me into a hug. Some of my tension melted, but I had the pressing urge to cry.

  “I’ll give you guys a minute,” Jamie started.

  I stepped back, keeping one hand on Chase’s arm and drawing on every last ounce of my strength. “We don’t have a minute, guys. We’ve only got a little bit of time to figure this out.”

  Chase’s jaw hardened again. “No one has seen this guy, this Caligula, so that makes it hard to identify him. Just knowing Rex wrote a paper on him isn’t enough evidence to do anything with.”

  “So we find something that is,” I said. “He framed Orion somehow.”

  “Maybe Orion will sell him out,” Jamie offered.

  “My guess is that Orion has a really big secret he’s hiding, and Rex knows it and is blackmailing him,” I said, pacing as I tried to sort my thoughts.

  “I can go talk to Orion,” Chase said. “I’ll see what I can get out of him. You two keep digging around online.”

  I nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

  Chase kissed my cheek. “And stay away from T.J.”

  He hurried toward the door. When he opened it, a figure was already standing there.

  CHAPTER 43

  “T.J.,” Chase started. He moved in front of the doorway, blocking it. “What are you doing here?”

  “Did you forget that all the police sedans are equipped with GPS? It let me track down exactly where you were. I figured you’d be with your little girlfriend.”

  Dread pooled in my stomach. I stood, partly wanting to back away and partly wanting to show T.J. he couldn’t bully me.

  I chose to stand up for myself. I charged toward the door, unwilling to let Chase take the fall for this. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Then why have you been hiding the truth?” T.J. asked.

  “T.J., you have no right to be here.” Chase started to push himself in front of me, but I stood my ground.

  T.J. continued to stare at me. “You’re blinded by love, my friend. I think Orion had an accomplice this whole time. Holly was his ‘inside woman’ who told him about the families’ schedules, who helped him get in and out.”

  “Why would I do that?” My voice somehow remained even.

  “You tell me.” T.J. gave me the death glare.

  “I’d have no reason to do that. It would gain me nothing.”

  T.J. didn’t back down. “Maybe he coerced you into helping.”

  “Again, he has nothing to hold over me.” I held his gaze.

  “No one’s that squeaky clean,” T.J. insisted.

  “Back off.” Chase shoved him away.

  I could see the fire in Chase’s eyes, and I knew I had to turn this around before things got out of control. “I do think you got the wrong guy, though.”

  T.J.’s attention snapped toward me. “What are you talking about?”

  “I think the real perpetrator was right in front of your eyes the whole time. Your former partner. Rex Harrison.”

  He let out a short, hard laugh. “You think Rex is behind these murders? You’re crazier than I thought.”

  “He wrote about Caligula in high school,” Jamie added.

  “A high school paper doesn’t prove anything,” T.J. insisted. “Rex would never be behind something like this.”

  “Not even if his campaign was in trouble? If he needed more money?” I asked.

  “He got Orion to invest in him.”

  Another thought struck. “What if his brother left this formula for Cena and Rex decided to finish out his work?”

  T.J. flinched.

  “There’s one other thing I didn’t have a chance to tell everyone,” Jamie said. “Apparently, Rex consistently takes forty-five minutes to himself at each of his campaign events. People always said it was to help him find his center, some kind of New Age–sounding mumbo jumbo. But, based on where his events took place on the nights of the crimes, that would be just enough time for him to slip away and do the deeds.”

  “Conjecture. It still doesn’t prove anything,” T.J. insisted.

  “Do me a favor.” I looked at Chase and T.J. “Talk to Orion. See what he’s hiding. There’s got to be a reason he’s hiding it. I think he made a deal with Rex and then Rex sold him out. Just see what you can find out.”

  T.J. shook his head and backed up. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to go talk to the chief right now. All of you will be in jail by the end of the day. Mark my words. Even you, Chase.”

  ***

  “You should go,” I told Chase. “Disengage yourself from all of this. I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

  “But you want to get me in trouble?” Jamie called in the distance.

  I ignored her for a second. I’d have time to talk to her in a moment.

  “I’m not leaving you, Holly,” Chase said.

  “You just got this job. You just got back on your feet. I’m not going to take that from you.”

  “How about me?” Jamie quipped.

  “Jamie, you’ll be applauded for your journalistic skills and determination. That’s the difference between a journalist and a detective. Detectives have more rules to abide by.”

  “True that.” She leaned back in the chair and kept tapping away at the computer.

  Chase squeezed my arm. “Holly, I appreciate your concern, but I’m a big boy. I’ll make my own choices. Right now, I’m staying with you.”

  I smiled as relief filled me. Spontaneously, I leaned forward and planted a kiss on his cheek.

  “Thank you, Chase.” I walked back over to Jamie. “Jamie, that day at the Serpentine Wall, you told me that Rex had a brother who committed suicide, right?”

  She nodded.

  “What kind of a career did he work again?”

  “He was an engineer of some sort. Why?”

  “Can you find out what kind?” I asked.

  “Of course.” She typed something. “Why are you asking?”

  “Because if Rex is behind all of this, how did he get his hands on the drug? Did he confiscate it from someone he arrested? Did he stumble upon it somehow?” I shook my head. “I’m not sure.”

  “You guys, check this out.” Jamie turned the computer toward us. “His brother was a chemical engineer. Rex just happened to be working in Cincinnati when the suicide happened.”

  “What are you getting at?” Chase asked.

  “Well, his brother lived in Cincinnati. What are the chances that Rex covered up something?” Jamie shrugged. “I also just hacked into the police records—”

  Chase ran a hand through his hair and closed his eyes. “Please don’t say stuff like that in front of me.”

  “It turns out his brother had a gambling problem.”

  “That’s not a crime,” I pointed out.

  “No, but it is when you’re engaged in illegal gambling operations. Apparently, Rex wasn’t able to wipe everything off of his brother’s records. But it wouldn’t surprise me if there was something he was covering up.”

  ***

  “I’ve got to go take some pain medicine,” I told Chase and Jamie. “I’m feeling a little sore.”

  Neither of them questioned me when I left the room. But I had to execute my next move quickly. Quietly, I grabbed my keys and I walked out the b
ack door.

  I remembered the talk I’d heard Rex give at the youth center. He’d mentioned something about his brother owning a big house with lots of land.

  It sounded like the perfect place for some secret operations.

  Someone had to find evidence to nail Rex.

  Since I was the one with mere months to live, I made the most sense. I couldn’t stand the thought of anything happening to either Chase or Jamie. I knew they’d try to talk me out of this or insist that they come also. I couldn’t let that happen.

  What I was about to do was illegal and iffy. I wouldn’t let them get any more mixed up in this.

  I rushed to my car, cranked the engine, and pulled out of the driveway. My heart raced as I sped down the road.

  I had the address of Rex’s brother on my phone. I looked down at it now. It wasn’t too far away. Thank goodness. It was a long shot, but this was the only plan of action that made any sense to me.

  I had to face the fact that I could be arrested soon. Because of my actions, Chase could lose his job. I didn’t have any time to lose.

  It only took forty minutes to pull up to the house. There were no cars there. I pulled around to the back of the building, just in case.

  My limbs trembled as I stepped out. I checked the doors. They were all locked. But that wasn’t a problem.

  I reached into my purse and pulled out my lock picking kit.

  It was too bad going to jail wasn’t on my bucket list. I’d be well on my way, since I now had a long list of offenses to my name.

  The door clicked. I’d done it. I quickly put away my kit and turned the knob. “Here goes nothing,” I muttered to myself.

  I stepped inside the house. It was all dark and all quiet. I’d seen the low windows outside the house and knew there was a basement here. That was the first place I’d check; it made the most sense.

  I tiptoed through the kitchen, holding my breath in the dead silence of the space. I spotted a doorway and pulled it open.

  Just a closet.

  My heart still pounded in my ears. I tried another doorway.

  It led to a staircase.

  Bingo!

  Slowly, carefully, I lowered myself onto the first step.