Killer Romances

by Dana Delamar, Talullah Grace, Sandy Loyd, Kristine Mason, Dale Mayer, Nina Pierce Chantel Rhondeau, K. T. Roberts, H. D. Thomson, Susan Vaughan

  Janelle was quiet as she munched on her snack. "It's fine by me. Why?"

  Meg wanted to prevaricate but that wasn't the best way to move forward. "I have thought a lot of about my relationship with Pete and decided that the best thing would be some time apart."

  Instead of the happy reaction she'd expected, Janelle frowned. "Have you broken up with him?"

  "Not yet. He went away for a few days to consider our relationship and I decided that I wanted to be gone before he came back."

  "And is he going to be mad at us?" Janelle asked, her eyes narrowed, her voice cautious.

  "I'm not sure." Meg smiled. "Maybe he'll be relieved."

  "Did you leave him a note or something so he knows where we are?" Janelle's voice rose in fear.

  Meg tilted her head. "You are concerned about him?"

  At that, Janelle dropped her gaze to her apple. Meg caught her breath. "No. You're worried about him being angry?"

  Janelle lifted her face slowly, uncertainty shining in her beautiful eyes. Then she gave a faint nod.

  Right. That fear factor again. "Ah, honey, Pete might get angry sometimes, but he's not dangerous." She hoped. Meg walked over and wrapped her arms around her in a comforting hug. "Not to worry. I'll be speaking with him about our future soon. But as the condo is Pete's, I felt this was the best interim home we could have, as long as it doesn't bother you."

  Janelle glanced around. "No. It won't. Dad and I didn't live here very long anyway." She spun around. "It's bigger than the condo and I can have my old room back. It still has some of my stuff in it."

  "Right. I've brought everything – at least, I hope I have everything – from the condo. Go on up and take a look. Set about organizing your stuff and I'll start dinner."

  At that Janelle took off.

  Meg sagged against the kitchen counter and dropped her head backwards, before slowly rotating it to ease the knots that had been building up all day. Why had she thought this step was going to be a hugely difficult deal? It had been easy.

  She'd expected endless questions and instead there'd been essentially nothing. That didn't mean the questions weren't still coming, but for now conflict had been averted

  She still had a few more loose ends to tie up, like the security system needed a second look, but that could be tomorrow's job.

  Tonight they'd be fine. Besides, no one knew where they were anyway.

  ***

  Stephanie woke alone, cold and scared. The sun was up and reaching into the back alley. God, she was still alive.

  She wasn't sure she deserved to be. And she wasn't sure she wanted to be. The place reeked with vomit and urine...and something else she didn't want to think about. But this is what she had to deal with. She straightened, hating the pain in her back, the agony of an empty belly yet again. She didn't dare go home, but that's where she wanted to go.

  And damn her for being such a fool as to lose her cell phone. She couldn't even remember where her car was at this point or even where she was in relation to it, for that matter.

  God, Stephanie, you're such a loser.

  Then she remembered being followed. And ducking out of sight and then running for her life. Had she shaken him off?

  Or was he on the street waiting for her. Shit!

  CHAPTER 13

  Chad left the office late, frustrated and depressed.

  With Daniel, they'd opened the boxes, gone through all the evidence and every statement, and then set up a new board with position locators indicating where everyone had been at the time of Cia's disappearance. Then they set up a timeline of events.

  It had been a futile exercise. He'd bet the new material they'd worked up would be exactly the same as what he had at home. He was counting on it. But he would spend the evening checking it out. He'd taken copies of what he could photocopy and had taken pictures of the rest.

  The answers had to be here.

  Somewhere.

  Once at his apartment, he cleared off his dining room table and unloaded the work he'd brought home. Then, with the same precision he'd used at the office, he reopened and set up the case files he'd kept at home.

  He had just sat down to work when his phone rang. Josh.

  "Who killed her?" Josh began without preamble, a hard edge to his voice. When Chad didn't answer fast enough, Josh's voice rose. "Damn it, Chad, who fucking killed her?"

  "Easy, Josh. I don't know who killed her." He cleared his throat, knowing Josh needed answers as badly as he did. "It's too early to say yet. We don't know anything at this stage."

  "Damn it."

  There was a dark silence, then Josh growled, "Is it her? Tell me that much at least."

  That much he could give him. "We think so. Right height, age, location. But DNA will be weeks before confirming." He waited.

  "How could we not have found her?" The pain in Josh's voice made Chad wince. "We searched for days."

  "I don't know about you but I went back several weekends, hoping to find her. Or something that would explain what had happened to her."

  "So did I, over several weekends as well. I couldn't forget about her. Who could? Damn it. When I heard the news I knew it had to be her."

  "Me too. Meg found her you know."

  "Meg who?"

  "Margaret. Mags. She goes by Meg now. She's an anthropologist. Has a mess of degrees. Like a lot of us, she switched her name to one the media didn't know so well. She went on with her life and became someone."

  Josh gave a harsh laugh. "Glad someone did. I sure as hell didn't."

  "That's not true, Josh. You might not be an engineer but you're doing something you love. "

  "Surveying for a company that is given contracts by engineers is not the future I had envisioned for myself. We were both planning on engineering, but..."

  Chad didn't to get into that discussion. Too many years had passed to worry about a change in education paths now. "It's also not doing drugs and curled up in a back alley somewhere."

  "Stephanie is a great way to put my life in perspective." Josh sighed. "I wished I'd done things differently, though."

  "Don't we all?"

  "Do you? Do you wish you hadn't gone into law enforcement? You've spent every day trying to hunt down the killer."

  "I know and since we found Cia's remains, I'd like to think we have a chance now to find out what happened. So that—"

  "So that we can get on with the rest of our lives? Oh, don't worry. I've thought the same thing. But what's our future? We've lived with this hanging over our heads for so long. I didn't do it, you didn't do it – but we might as well have, because of how we've let it affect our lives. It's been criminal, that's what it is. But we aren't criminals."

  "No, we aren't." Chad tried to ease the conversation down, but Josh was just gearing up.

  "But that's how we've been treated. Since then, I feel like I'm always being watched. That if I don't pay a parking ticket as soon as I get it, I'm going to go to jail for life. It's as if I slipped through on that one transgression and now the law is looking for another way to nail my hide and throw me in jail, as if that's where I should have been all this time."

  "He—"

  "Do you realize that if we'd actually been convicted of accidentally killing Cia, we'd be out by now?" He snorted. "Instead, we did nothing but got a life sentence anyway."

  "Stephanie is missing." Chad finally managed to say. There was no easy way to say it.

  Silence.

  "Missing – how?"

  "That's just it, I don't know. She sent me a text asking for help. Just the one word: Help. Nothing else and nothing since. She's not at home and hasn't been home since then. No one has seen her since she left in secret to meet a 'friend.'"

  "Shit. You think something has happened to her?"

  "I don't know." Chad stared out the window. "But I'm afraid something might have."

  "She could just be meeting her dealer. After quitting her drug-taking, any meeting with him makes him a 'secret' now. Had you fou
nd out you'd be pissed at her, same for anyone else in her circle. She always was a drama queen."

  "And a nervy one. I know. But I can't get the timing out of my head."

  "That Cia's remains have been found and Stephanie has gone missing? You don't think she had anything to do with Cia's death, do you?"

  "No, I don't, or Meg, for that matter. But what if she didn't tell all the truth back then? What if she knows something or the killer thinks she knows something?"

  Josh laughed. "That's your cop's instincts getting to you. Chances are she's shacked up with someone and her cell phone battery has died. How many times over the years has she called you to get her a place to sleep at night? Help with getting her out of jail. Help with finding her rehab assistance. She has even called you to help her rent an apartment because she had no references. She'd only rented the flop by the hour before then."

  "I remember." Talk about memories Chad would like not to resurrect. "She had no one else."

  "Hell, of course she didn't. Even Bruce finally had enough and she had him on speed dial for years. Hell, he's still sweet on her. But he still walked away. Hell, we all walked away once we realized she was on a downward slide and looking to take everyone down with her."

  "And I walked away too." Chad groaned softly, hating the rush of painful memories.

  "Hey man, don't hold yourself to blame for that. At some point there is no helping those that won't help themselves, at least not if they aren't interested."

  "I know." Chad stared at the wall with all the case information. "She's been doing so much better these last few years. I'd like to think she's turned a corner. She's called several times since the word got out."

  "She'll have it rough if the media find her." Josh sighed. "That would send her into hiding."

  There was silence. Chad had nothing to add. Josh was right.

  "Funny about Mags, though."

  "Meg," Chad corrected automatically. "What's funny?"

  "Look at what she does for a living and then she's the one that finds the remains." He snorted. "Almost like it was meant to be."

  "Merely a coincidence."

  Josh smirked. "I thought you didn't believe in those."

  "It was Meg's first time back in the area since that weekend. She was staying at one of the cabins down a ways. It was a fluke she even found it. And for all she'd be better prepared than most people at finding remains, it still hit her hard when she put it all together."

  "Yeah, I imagine. How is she doing?" Josh's voice changed, deepened, making Chad wonder if he still carried any lingering emotions for Meg. "I presume you've talked to her since?"

  "Yes, I have and she's holding. She's good people."

  "I know. She always was."

  There was that odd twinge in his friend's voice. "You aren't still hung up on her, are you? I thought you got over her a long time ago." Like before she started going out with me but he didn't say that last bit. There was no point.

  "I did! I was just wondering what she's like now. Look at how Stephanie turned out. It seems like Meg went in the opposite direction. She chose something so focused and demanding that it's like she has to be in control, ready in case of a repeat event."

  "That's because she blames herself. If she'd only kept a closer eye on Cia, she would have known what had happened to her, that kind of stuff."

  "No one could keep an eye on that girl. You know, I always wondered if she'd crept off on her own to meet someone. She was my girl, but I knew it was over. She was already looking for her next mark. In a way, I was too. It was more so for my ego than anything else." He gave a self-deprecating laugh. "Now, I'm used to getting dumped."

  Chad sighed. "Oh no, did Kim leave?"

  "Sure did. The minute the news hit the wire and the phone calls started, she bailed, saying she hadn't signed up to live with a murder suspect."

  Shit. "I'm sorry, man." If anyone had been dogged by the bad press, it had been Josh. Another prime suspect from that weekend, when things got rough with his relationships, they'd always brought up the fact that a prior girlfriend had disappeared. And then the women usually left after that.

  "Anto was the lucky one, dying like that. A head on collision and, boom, no more suspicion, threats or lingering doubts from supposed family and friends."

  "Yeah, except that he's dead."

  "And safely out of everyone's suspicious eyes. I don't know about you, but dying was the easy way out. Staying alive and dealing with this shit has not been fun."

  Depression had always been an issue for Josh ever since that weekend and every time he came up against another hurdle, he seemed to drop down further and further. So far, he'd always managed to pull up again and, maybe this time, they could solve Cia's case and that would stop the vicious cycle. They all needed a break from their pasts, Josh more than most.

  Then there was Stephanie.

  Chad was afraid it was all too much for Stephanie. She might never survive this – regardless of her reason for disappearing. He wasn't sure he could help her any more if she'd gone off the deep end yet again.

  ***

  Meg waited until Janelle went to sleep, a chatterbox right up to the end, before slowly walking back to her new bedroom. She sat on the bed and stared around. She'd put her clothes away and stored as much of the other stuff as she could in the bottom of the closet. She kinda felt like she had at Pete's place.

  And that had felt wrong. But she was too tired to change it now; maybe on the weekend.

  She collapsed on the bed with her arms above her head and tried to relax. Today could have been so much worse. Thankfully, it had gone relatively smoothly. At the lab, she'd observed so intently that Stacy had laughed at her a couple of times, saying it felt like she was back under examination by her toughest profs.

  Meg hadn't meant to be that intense but sometimes she didn't dare have anything go wrong, or having anything important get missed.

  And nothing had been. Sadly, there hadn't been much to see. Meg was convinced they'd found Cia, but outside of cause of death being confirmed, Stacy had found nothing new. She'd pulled DNA that would be tested against that of Cia's father, but after having gone through the bones and having the rest of the soil sifted and looked at for evidence, they hadn't found anything new. That hadn't made her happy, but it was what she'd expected.

  She wanted to tell Chad. But there were many reasons to not call. She groaned and reached for her phone. There were just as many reasons to call. Besides it would be nice just to connect. She had been feeling a little disconnected all day and she'd expected to hear from Pete by now. That meant he was staying away longer than planned or had come home and found her gone and hadn't come after her.

  He'd likely know where she'd gone. It's not like she had any number of places to go to. This choice made sense but he might not see it that way. And did she care if he hadn't come after her? No? She would be relieved when that first conversation was over. Until then, she was waiting. And that was uncomfortable.

  First things first; she dialed Chad's number, trying to ignore the fact that she'd called Chad instead of Pete.

  "Meg, I heard you were busy today?"

  That surprised her. "Did Stacy call you?"

  "No, Daniel and Mack spoke with her."

  "Oh, Mack." Damn, just hearing that man's name was enough to send the willies down her spine. "I thought he got kicked off the case."

  "Yeah, it's technically Daniel's case. But you know he's never going to stay out of it..."

  "Yeah, I remember him – built like a crushed cement truck and with an attitude to match."

  He started laughing. "That sounds like him but I've come to respect the work he does."

  "Bet that wasn't easy." She thought it might have been damn difficult. "He was an asshole to us."

  "Yeah, but then he figured one of us had killed Cia."

  "I suppose. Still, doesn't make him a nice guy." She remembered how terrified she'd been of the detective. The hard look in his eyes had given her
nightmares for months.

  "Well, not sure he is now either, but he's good at what he does."

  "Except that he couldn't find Cia's killer, either."

  "True. First, did you find out anything on the bones? I tried calling several times today, but your phone went to voice mail." He gave a short laugh. "And I drove past your place today. The media were all over there."

  "Yes, I barely avoided them this morning. I haven't been back there since." She groaned. "I should have mentioned it before as the damn media could make it look like I skipped town." Quickly, she filled him in on her night and day. Toward the end, she yawned, then yawned again. "Sorry. I'm exhausted."

  "With good reason. Sounds like you need a good night's sleep."

  "Or two or three. I just wanted to see if you had anything new." She hated the hopeful note in her voice. But damn it, one of them should have found something.

  "Nothing. We're going back to the beginning and taking a fresh look at everything. We will have to come around and speak with everyone again."

  "Oh, fun."

  "I know; it's not what we want either. I have other cases to work on too, and this is Daniel's case, not mine. So expect a call from him soon."

  "Thanks for that positive note." She didn't want to speak to anyone again. "I so don't want to remember the details from back then again."

  "We have your statement. But expect to be double questioned to see if there is anything you want to change or add."

  "There isn't," she said tiredly. "I gave as clear an accounting as I could back then. Nothing has changed in my head, just that I am 17 years older, wiser and more cynical."

  "Aren't we all?" He paused. "Have you eaten?"

  She smiled and ran a hand through her hair. "Yes, I have Janelle to maintain some semblance of normality for. I really don't want her affected by this."

  "You know she will be. As much as we'd like to avoid it, the families are always affected."

  "I know. Doesn't mean I like it. She knows I found a set of remains, but she doesn't know anything about whose remains they may be or how they are connected to me."

  "You might want to tell her. It's not a good thing for her to find out from someone else."