Ready, Aim, Under Fire (Lexi Graves Mysteries, 10)

by Camilla Chafer

  Ready, Aim, Under Fire

  Lexi Graves Mysteries, 10

  Camilla Chafer

  Ready, Aim, Under Fire

  Copyright: Camilla Chafer

  Published: May 2017

  Publisher: Audacious

  ISBN: 978-1-909577-13-8

  The right of Camilla Chafer to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  Visit the author online at www.camillachafer.com to sign up to her newsletter and for more information on other titles.

  ALSO BY CAMILLA CHAFER

  Lexi Graves Mysteries:

  Armed & Fabulous

  Who Glares Wins

  Command Indecision

  Shock and Awesome

  Weapons of Mass Distraction

  Laugh or Death

  Kissing in Action

  Trigger Snappy

  A Few Good Women

  Ready, Aim, Under Fire

  Deadlines Mysteries:

  Deadlines

  Dead to the World

  Stella Mayweather Series (Urban Fantasy):

  Illicit Magic

  Unruly Magic

  Devious Magic

  Magic Rising

  Arcane Magic

  Endless Magic

  Contents

  Copyright

  Synopsis

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Deadlines

  Ready, Aim, Under Fire

  When Private Investigator Lexi Graves’ police lieutenant brother, Garrett, asks her for help on a missing persons cold case he’s been instructed to close, she’s happy to poke around. After all, it won’t take long to prove if the woman he’s checking up on is an impostor or the real deal.

  Garrett isn’t convinced that Debby Patterson, who skipped town ten years ago, is the same happy, family-conscious woman who has finally returned home. Her parents are thrilled to welcome her back so there is no reason to think she isn’t. But just as Lexi begins her investigation, a friend of the family approaches her with some suspicions. Before Lexi can find out what is worrying her, the woman is murdered. Coincidence? Or something more dangerous?

  Solving a murder and proving a missing person’s identity, Lexi must put everything she’s learned to the test. Perhaps, by solving one crime, she can solve the other and determine, once and for all, who is the real Debby.

  Chapter One

  “Solved it!” I chirped before tossing the manila file onto the desk. My brother, Garrett, otherwise known as Lieutenant Graves of MPD’s homicide division, sat across from me. His face was grim but I suspected that was more because of his youngest son’s latest prank than the case he just handed to me. The evidence was there: two black rings around his eyes. I was pretty sure Garrett knew about the rings but neither of us had mentioned them yet. That didn’t stop me from darting surreptitious glances at his face and biting the insides of my cheeks so I wouldn’t laugh.

  “You did not,” he said. Folding his arms across his chest, he relaxed into the chair, waiting for me to speak.

  “Did too.”

  He gave me a shallow smile, clearly unsure whether to believe me or not. “Tell me how the crime was committed.”

  “It wasn’t the boyfriend. I remember that night and not just because of the murder splashed across the front page of the Montgomery Gazette the next day. After the spate of burglaries, since he’d only been out of prison three weeks – he was inside for burglary, since you didn’t ask – and even though he didn’t want to give an alibi, he definitely had one. Focusing the investigation on him meant not looking too closely at her brother and his drug habit. He was sleeping on her couch after losing his apartment and owed a lot of money to the wrong people. They came looking for him and shot her instead. It was either meant as a message to him, or they intended to shoot anyone, whomever was with him. Purely good luck for the brother that he wasn’t there. It was a horrible, senseless murder. But you knew all that, so why are asking me to solve a case you’ve already solved?” I sat back and steepled my fingers under my chin, hoping to evoke a professional look. In reality, I was doing that so I could check out the engagement ring that had recently made its home on my finger. It sparkled as the sun caught it and I couldn’t help smiling. Only a week ago, Solomon threw us the most beautiful engagement party.

  “How did you know all that from the file?”

  “I didn’t. I remember a bunch of details from when it was headline news nine years ago,” I admitted.

  Garrett narrowed his eyebrows. “What details? What made that case stick in your head?”

  I narrowed my eyebrows right back at him. “I don’t want to talk about it.” That’s because I couldn’t. What happened that night could have gotten me and my best friend, now sister-in-law, Lily, arrested. I didn’t want Garrett digging into why I remembered that case specifically. It was just lucky for me that he asked me to solve a case of which I was already familiar with the details. All he had to do was remove a couple of reports from the file before he handed it to me.

  “What are you really here for? I know for a fact it’s not because of this case,” I told him as I released my previously steepled fingers and tapped my forefinger on the file for added effect. “Plus, since when are you in the market for a PI?”

  The PI was me, Lexi Graves. Unlike my brother — and a large segment of my family — my background isn’t in law enforcement and I just sort of fell into the PI game. By falling, I mean, stumbling over a dead body and landing myself in the middle of a nasty case of fraud and murder — two crimes I helped solve — and also acquiring a very enticing job offer from the man I now planned to marry.

  Back then, marriage wasn’t at the top of my list of reasons to join the Solomon Detective Agency, in fact, it was nowhere on the list. Solomon observed something in me that motivated him to ask me to join his company. I didn’t have to wonder too hard at what he managed to see: he made that clear. I was so perky and cute that no one ever suspected me of investigating anyone about anything. He was right. Fortunately for him, I lived up to his initial assessment most days of the week, including today. This day, however, involved jeans so tight, I shouldn’t really have been sitting, and a pink blouse with little, gold buttons and the cutest pair of pink leather pumps. Why conform with my co-workers and wear a drab uniform of jeans, t-shirts, and boots with my weapons securely strapped in conceal-‘n’-carry holsters? Especially when I could stand out like a rare beacon of pink joy?

  “Okay, you got me. I wanted to know how you’d examine a cold case and if you could see something I missed. So I pulled this one from archives.”

  “That begs another question. What’s the real cold case?”

  “That�
�s the issue. It is and isn’t a cold case. I’m not even sure what it is.”

  That grabbed my interest. “Go on.”

  Garrett reached into his bag and extracted another file, this one thinner and dog-eared, like he’d thumbed through it many times. Perhaps he even kept it on his desk along with other cases that evaded but still troubled him. From my prior knowledge of his office at MPD, the stack was at least a foot high. He placed the file on the table but didn’t open it. Instead, he tapped his forefinger on top of it, like it was his turn for finger-tapping amusement.

  “This was a case, then it became a cold case, and two weeks ago, it was officially closed. Something about it keeps bothering me. Something’s wrong.”

  “Go on.”

  “Ten years ago, a missing persons report was filed on Deborah Patterson, or Debby, as everyone knows her. MPD did a cursory check. She hadn’t been to her apartment in a couple weeks and didn’t show up for work. Nothing alarming was found at either place. No signs of a struggle, nothing obviously stolen or missing. No signs of foul play at all. Following procedure, her family were interviewed but even they weren’t worried. They said Debby took off sometimes but she always turned up.”

  “Wait… her family didn’t report her missing?” I asked, sure he must have omitted a key piece of information in his opening assessment.

  “No, it was her landlord.” Garrett nodded at the look I gave him. “We found that strange too.”

  “Why would her landlord report her missing and not her family?”

  “That’s what we asked. The landlord said he only noticed she was missing after she was two weeks past due on her rent. When he discovered she hadn’t been home at all, he filed a report.”

  “That’s a conscientious landlord.”

  “At the time, we thought he might have had a thing for her but it seems he was just a nice guy looking out for his tenants.”

  “And his rent,” I pointed out.

  “That too. You can read the interview in the file along with the rest of the report. He couldn’t tell if anything was missing but he said skipping rent wasn’t her usual behavior. She hadn’t been late with a payment in two years.”

  “Okay, so far, so interesting. How did he know she hadn’t been home?”

  “Mail had piled up in her box dating back two weeks. There was also a quart of sour milk and some other items in the fridge that were all expired a week prior to his call.”

  “Could you whittle the disappearance down to an exact date? Sounds like she could have disappeared anytime over a period of several days?”

  “We narrowed it down to a window of three days. The last time she was seen at work was on Friday. Then it was the weekend and no one saw her, and there was mail from the previous Thursday but she didn’t return to work on Monday.

  “That leaves Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday,” I mused out loud, making a quick calculation. More than forty-eight hours. Not a huge amount of time, but someone could travel to the other side of the world in less time.

  “That was our assessment too.”

  “What haven’t you told me?” I asked, sensing Garrett was holding something back.

  “We hit a dead end. Her apartment didn’t have any security cameras and there weren’t any nearby that covered her apartment so we could never pinpoint when she came in or left home. Her cards were never used. Her face didn’t show up anywhere and there were no sightings by anyone. Without any leads, we couldn’t proceed with the case. Then something strange happened.”

  “Go on.”

  “Two months after Debby disappeared, and after we’d interviewed everyone we could associate with her, her family got a postcard. They brought it into the station.”

  “Who was it from?”

  “It was signed Debby. Came from somewhere overseas, and was in her handwriting. Not much of a message but enough to say she was fine and intended to do some traveling.”

  “What did you make of that?”

  “We tossed around the idea that it could have been fake. We thought maybe the family invented it to keep the case open, or else, someone was messing with them. We told them we’d look into it. I made a couple of calls to the local police where the postcard originated but by then, there was no trace of her. Truthfully, I’m not even sure they looked any further.”

  “That must have been disappointing.”

  “A little but it happens a lot. People think they’re helping us by giving false information but ultimately, they just cause more hurt. We told the Pattersons to come back if they got anymore correspondence. A month later, they did. Another postcard. Then another.”

  “Did her parents believe they were from her?”

  “Yes, there were a couple of comments that only their daughter could have made. Some reference to an old family trip, I think. Anyway, without a return address or phone number, there was no way for them to contact Debby but still enough questions to call into doubt that she was actually missing.”

  I frowned. “So she wasn’t missing?”

  “Officially, she remained a missing person. The occasional email or postcard turning up may have appeased her family but we could never verify if they were really from her and we had to do that in order to close the case. Without anything else to go on, we had to move onto other cases. MPD just didn’t have the manpower back then to keep looking for her. We still don’t. I always had a funny feeling about this case, so the file remained on my desk for nearly ten years.”

  “So what changed? Why was the case suddenly closed?”

  “Because two weeks ago, she came back.”

  “That’s great!” I watched Garrett’s face. “That’s not great?”

  “It’s freaking weird. She and her parents turned up on my day off. I jumped into my car and drove to the station as soon as I got the call that she had returned. I didn’t get the chance to speak with her, just her parents briefly, but I saw her leaving the station after the interview and something hit my gut.”

  “MPD cafeteria food?”

  “Ha-ha. No. I can’t tell you what it was that got me but I don’t think Debby Patterson is really Debby Patterson.”

  ~

  “Where are you with your case?” Solomon asked.

  The six-person-strong team that made up the PI division of the Solomon agency sat around the long table in the boardroom beside the shared office space. Tony Delgado, Steve Fletcher and Matt Flaherty were all ex-law enforcement of various positions. Both Fletcher and Flaherty had taken bullets while in the line of duty, which, no doubt, played a part in prompting their exits from their prior professions. Lucas, on the other hand, was an ex-criminal whom Solomon had taken under his wing. Solomon was an enigma and I was the most recent addition. I didn’t come from the same professional background. My family is comprised of serving and retired police; however my only brush with serving my nation came from an ill-thought-out decision to join the Army. Then I went on to fail boot camp. Solomon hired me for numerous reasons, however, predominantly it was for my appearance. Few suspected the innocent-looking chick of trying to extract information, and whoever investigated anything in pink pants and heels? Me! That’s who.

  A large box of fresh donuts lay open in front of us. With the thoughts of wedding gowns currently occupying my head, I was trying to resist all temptation. My resolve weakened with every sugary bite my colleague, Fletcher, took along with the amused grin that played on his lips. He popped the last bite into his mouth, chewing it up before licking the grains of sugar off his sweet lips. “Mmm,” he murmured, his eyes rolling with unmitigated satisfaction.

  “I’d say in the case of who ate the last jelly donut, the culprit is—” Lucas, our resident tech genius, began drumming his fingers against the table then gestured excitedly at Fletcher. “He did it!”

  “Guilty as charged,” said Fletcher, holding up one hand and bowing his head.

  “And back to the world where the grown-ups live,” sighed Solomon. “Where are you with your case, Fletch?�
��

  “I wrapped it up. The neighbor did it, just like I said when we first met the client,” replied Fletcher. He licked a sugary finger and I narrowed my eyes at him some more. “The report is right here.” He pushed a file across the desk and Solomon opened it, quickly scanning the material inside. While Solomon’s eyes were averted, he plucked another donut from the box.

  “Good work,” Solomon said finally. “I have a new case for you. A contact in New York needs some help with a gang thing.”

  “Oooh!” I perked up. “New York?” That sounded perfect for me. I could even squeeze in the time to see the sights: Bloomingdales, Macy’s, Century 21, and Saks Fifth Avenue.

  “Can you masquerade as a biker?”

  I slumped in my chair. Perky got me into a lot of places but unfortunately, not everywhere. “I’ll get back to you after I grow a goatee.”

  “Guess I’ll take it,” said Fletcher. He finished his donut before leaning in and peering at the remaining donut.

  “Flaherty, you’re going too,” said Solomon, turning to the former cop. “You’ll need to work as a tag team.”

  “I am so disappointed,” I said to no one in particular.

  “You could be a biker chick if you like,” said Flaherty.

  “No,” said Solomon before I opened my mouth.

  “I hope you have something interesting for me because I’ve always harbored a secret ambition to be a biker chick involved in crime.”

  “Really?” asked Lucas.

  I ignored him, thinking about the time that Lily and I suggestively danced on the tables of a biker bar on the outskirts of our home town of Montgomery. It was enormous fun until the bar fight broke out around us and we had to crawl out on our hands and knees to avoid all the glass bottles and fists flying above us. I was pretty sure Solomon didn’t want to hear about that. Anyway, those days were long gone. Lily was a married mom now and I was a professional PI who absolutely did not dance on table tops in bars on any day between Sunday and Thursday.