Tampered

by Stella Bixby

  “How about we go on a date tonight? It’s been a while since we’ve been out together, just the two of us.” He reached across the center console and grabbed my hand, rubbing a thumb over the diamond ring. “I miss you.”

  My frustrations slipped away. “I miss you too.”

  “Then it’s settled.” His smile could melt the polar ice cap. “I’ll take you home so you can get ready. I’ll go to my last meeting, then I’ll pick you up at seven.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said.

  That would give me time to go through the photos on my phone.

  He dropped me off at my apartment with a kiss.

  “I love you,” he said as I stepped out of the car.

  “I love you too,” I said. I still felt like a middle schooler when I told him I loved him.

  When I got to my apartment door, I was about to slip the key inside the lock, but I could hear Shayla on the other side speaking loudly with someone—presumably on the phone, because I could only hear her side of the conversation.

  “Yes, we all think it was Jacob,” she said. “No. Cedric is not a suspect.” She paused. “Because he’s not.”

  She didn’t think Cedric could have done it? Maybe she didn’t know about the gun he carried.

  “I know about the loose dirt. How do you know about the loose dirt?”

  Loose dirt? Was that a police metaphor?

  “Of course, they would tell you. You’re not even on the force anymore, and you’re still getting information.”

  Ah, she was speaking with her mother. Probably the only person she’d speak to about the case who wasn’t on the force.

  “Look, I have to go.” There was a pause. “I know what’s on the line. I’ve been briefed.”

  I almost fell over when Shayla threw open the door.

  “Hey,” she said, dropping her phone to her side. She was holding Fizzy’s leash with a very excited dog at the end. “How long have you been out here?”

  “I just got here,” I said. “Why?”

  She looked down at her phone. “No reason.”

  Guilt settled deep in my stomach. “I can take Fizzy.”

  “Why don’t we go together?” she asked. “Then you can tell me about your car.”

  I bristled at the fact that she didn’t want to give me any information, but she wanted me to spill everything to her.

  “Sorry I had to be in the room while you were being questioned,” she said as we made our way down the block. Fizzy hopped along happily next to us, stopping at almost every tree to mark his territory. “They thought if you saw a familiar face, you’d tell them what you know.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I wasn’t upset with you.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  I shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Please don’t get mad, I just want to know.”

  That didn’t sound good. “Okay.”

  “Do you think maybe you’re throwing yourself into this case because you’re trying to avoid what’s happening in your own life?”

  Her words hit me like a ton of bricks. “What do you mean? What’s going on in my own life?”

  “I mean the whole thing with you and Garrett. I know it hasn’t been easy picking up the pieces after Christmas.”

  “We’re doing fine,” I said. “He’s forgiven me, and we’re moving forward.”

  “Have you set a wedding date?”

  My eye twitched. “Not yet. We haven’t had a lot of time to work on wedding plans.”

  “Exactly my point,” Shayla said. Her voice was gentle, but her words grated on my nerves. “You’ve made yourself pretty busy with Selena’s case. Do you think maybe subconsciously you’re doing it to escape your own issues?”

  “No. I’m doing it because the police can’t get their shit together and solve this damn case. Selena deserves better. She had a shit life growing up, a shit life with Jacob and the cancer, and then she ends up murdered and no one but her brother—who is now dead too—seems to give a damn.”

  We walked in silence for a while, my words hanging in the air like a blanket of smog.

  “I hear your car is in bad shape,” she finally said.

  “I almost cried.”

  “Why do you think they targeted you?”

  “They were looking for something.”

  She stopped and studied me. “How do you know?”

  “I got a recording of the entire thing.”

  “How did you get a recording? Did you know something like this might happen?”

  “No.” My voice sounded way more defensive than necessary. “I had the recording going when Jacob was in the car with me.”

  “Did you give the recording to Detective Bryant?”

  “He listened to it with me. And then I sent it to him.”

  “Good.” She began walking again. “What do you think they were looking for?”

  “Beats me.”

  I’d gone through it a dozen times in my mind since I’d heard the recording. But there wasn’t anything related to this case that I would have had in my car. Other than the photos on my phone and the check.

  “Maybe it was just a random break-in?”

  “It was definitely related. Bryant said Desmond had a similar note in his house as the one they left for me.”

  “They left you a note?”

  We both stopped to let Fizzy do his number two.

  “More of a message. In spray paint.”

  “What did it say?”

  “It just said stop.”

  “And what did Desmond’s say?”

  I gave her a look.

  “Detective Bryant probably didn’t tell you, right?”

  “He hasn’t told me anything.” Fizzy finished his business, and I picked it up with a poop bag. “And he gets mad at me for not being a team player.”

  “To be fair, he doesn’t have to be a team player. You’re not really on the team.”

  “Exactly,” I said, my bitterness seeping out. “But if he doesn’t have to be a team player, then neither do I.” I knew I sounded like a child, but I couldn’t help it.

  “Aren’t you even a little bit worried that what happened to Desmond could happen to you?”

  “Why should I be?” I turned and headed back toward the apartment. Shayla followed. “If the police are right, they’ve locked up Desmond’s killer.”

  “But Jacob couldn’t have done those things to your car. He was already in custody.”

  “You’re right. He was. So do you—do the police—think more than one person wanted to kill Desmond?”

  “I think more than one person was angry with Desmond. Probably for different reasons, though.”

  “Why would anyone want him to stop looking into Selena’s disappearance if they weren’t the killer?”

  Shayla pondered this for a moment. “Just because Jacob didn’t destroy your car himself, doesn’t mean he wasn’t responsible.”

  “That might be true,” I said. “But I still don’t think Jacob’s responsible for Selena’s murder. Not directly, anyway.”

  “What do you mean, not directly?”

  I pulled out my phone and played the recording.

  “So he was abusive,” Shayla said. “Desmond was right.”

  “You talked to Desmond?” We walked up the stairs to the apartment.

  “He came to the station once or twice. Trying to make his case mostly. He thought Jacob did it.” She unlocked the door. “Maybe Desmond was right about that too. Maybe Jacob did kill Selena, and when Jacob found out Desmond knew, he killed Desmond to shut him up.”

  “But Desmond didn’t think Selena was dead.”

  “Maybe not when you talked to him, but some of the evidence we found in his apartment indicates differently.”

  There had to be more on the board than I’d initially seen.

  “What about Cedric?” I unsnapped Fizzy’s leash, and he did his crazy run around the apartment. “Why doesn’t anyone think he’s a suspect? He did pull
a gun on me this morning. Maybe he shot Desmond.”

  “Cedric pulled a gun on you?” She looked at me, horrified.

  “He thought I was attacking Jacob, but Jacob was attacking me.” I waved a hand. “It’s nothing. We sorted it out. But Cedric did have a gun.”

  “We haven’t been able to find Cedric,” Shayla said. “He’s been MIA since we took Jacob into custody.”

  “Maybe the family killed him.”

  “What family?”

  “His family—Jacob’s family. They’re related, you know.”

  Shayla frowned. “I don’t know that I did.”

  “Cedric mentioned it in passing.” I shrugged. “He said he couldn’t let anything happen to Jacob or else.”

  “Or else what?”

  “I don’t know, but it didn’t sound good.”

  Shayla pulled off her shoes and hung her coat on the pegs by the door. “You know, if you have something that would clear Jacob’s name, you should turn it in to the police.”

  The problem was, the only information I had was a gut feeling and a shoe under a dead man’s bed.

  19

  I went through the pictures of Desmond’s board over and over again and didn’t find much that meant anything to me.

  Photographs of Cedric, Jacob, and Elodie were all connected by red strings to one of Selena. From the looks of things, Desmond believed they were all suspects, but Jacob’s name was circled five times in red marker. Whether that meant he thought Jacob killed Selena was beyond me.

  He had also circled a few words: Shadow Trail Reservoir, Florida, and Gala.

  Obviously, Shadow Trail was where the arm and shoe were found. And Gala was where she was headed the night she disappeared. But Florida? What was that about?

  I’d looked at the photos so many times my eyes were starting to cross. The one the police most needed to see was the one of the shoe under the bed. There was something about the shoe that didn’t settle right with me.

  Maybe it was that it was the main piece of evidence that could clear Jacob and make Desmond the prime suspect in Selena’s murder. But if I gave it away, the police would know the depth of my interference.

  They’d find it eventually and come to the same conclusion I had.

  When the doorbell rang, I realized I’d spent my entire afternoon going over the case. I was starting to feel as crazy as Desmond and was getting just about as far as he had.

  “You’re wearing the same clothes you were earlier,” Garrett said, glancing at my dirty jeans and t-shirt. I ran a hand over my ponytailed hair to smooth down the fly-aways.

  Garrett, on the other hand, looked smoking hot. He had gelled his hair and trimmed up his beard. His outfit—dark gray slacks and a light blue button-down under a light gray sweater and a dark blue sport coat—probably cost more than one of my car payments. Just the thought of Cherry Anne brought tears to my eyes.

  “Don’t cry,” he said, pulling me in for a hug. “I didn’t mean you don’t look beautiful. You do. We’re just going somewhere a bit fancier tonight. If that’s okay, I mean. If you don’t want to, we can go wherever you want.”

  I pulled back. “I’ll go change. Give me ten minutes.”

  Garrett looked at his watch. “We will still be able to make our reservations.”

  I left him in the living room with Fizzy and ran back to my bedroom.

  The disappointment on Garrett’s face when he saw me unprepared for our date made my heart ache. I was letting him down. Maybe Shayla was right. Maybe I was using this case to distract me. I needed to give Garrett more of my attention. I wasn’t getting anywhere with the case anyway.

  I reached into the back of my closet and pulled out my sexiest little black dress. It was an off the shoulder, three quarter sleeved mini-dress that hugged my curves in all the right places. I wrapped my hair into a chignon and added about three pounds of mascara. For a final touch, I put in the earrings Garrett had gotten me for our six-month anniversary.

  Next to the earrings in my jewelry box was a necklace I had only worn once even though it was beautiful.

  I could have worn it. The tiny Denver Broncos logo surrounded by what I assumed were fake diamonds—though they sparkled like real ones—would have finished the outfit with a tiny bit of classy flair. Garrett wouldn’t know it had been a gift from Antonio. But I did. And it felt wrong.

  I closed the lid on the necklace and checked to make sure I looked okay in the mirror hung on the wall. I slipped on a pair of black heels and did my sexiest walk out of my bedroom, spinning in front of where Garrett sat on the couch.

  “Damn, you’re hot,” he said, standing. “Maybe we should just stay in.”

  I looked at the time. “Ten minutes on the dot. We better head out so we don’t miss our reservations.”

  I grabbed Garrett’s hand and pulled him out the door before I gave in to his attempts at keeping me in the house. Not that I would have minded if it weren’t for my growling stomach.

  “Have you thought much about the wedding,” Garrett asked? “We should probably decide on a date, at least.”

  “We will,” I said, the twitch in my eye returning. “I’m sorry I’ve just been distracted.”

  “I know. You must really care about Selena to go to such lengths to find her killer.”

  It was like he could finally see me. “I do care. I don’t know why, but I do.”

  “Your ability to care so deeply for people is one of your most endearing qualities.”

  I smiled. “Thanks, babe.”

  “So about that wedding date? What do you think about this summer? We could even have it on a beach somewhere.”

  This summer was so close. “I don’t know that I’d have enough time to plan something so quickly.”

  “Fall then? The trees are so pretty in the mountains when they change color.”

  “But you can’t plan a wedding on the trees. There’s usually only one or two good weekends, and they’re completely dependent upon the weather. Miss it by one week, and you have bare brown trees. Not so pretty.”

  He laughed. “Winter then?”

  I had nothing—no reason to refute winter. Honestly, I’d always thought I’d get married in the winter. “Winter might work,” I finally said.

  He squeezed my hand. “You’d make a beautiful winter bride.”

  Thankfully, we arrived at one of the newest and fanciest Italian restaurants in Denver.

  “Lisa from work had nothing but good things to say about this place.”

  I frowned. I’d never heard him talk about specific women from work. Something about another woman giving him ideas on where to take me on a date left a bitter taste in my mouth.

  “She came here with her husband,” he said, noticing my silence.

  “I don’t care. I mean, I know you work with women.” I laughed nervously.

  He walked around to the other side of the car and opened my door for me. “You have nothing to worry about.” He looked me up and down.

  I smiled and laced my arm through his to steady myself on my heels. The weather was starting to warm up, which meant mud. My shoes might not have been designer like Selena’s, but I still didn’t want to have to scrape dried mud off them.

  I shook my head to clear my thoughts. I wasn’t going to worry about the case tonight.

  “You okay?” Garrett asked.

  “I’m great.” I squeezed his arm. “I’m glad we get to have a date tonight.”

  “Me too.”

  The restaurant was so packed it was hard to get to the hostess station.

  “I’ll go tell them we’re here for our reservations,” Garrett said with a smile.

  I stayed back and watched the people around me. Couples huddled close. Groups of friends laughed.

  I checked my phone. Not that I was about to hear from anyone. A pang shot through me knowing that Desmond would never text me—or anyone else—ever again.

  No.

  I couldn’t think about that. I needed to be fully pres
ent for Garrett. He deserved my attention. And I had to prove to myself that I wasn’t using the case to put distance between us.

  “Hey babe,” Garrett said from behind me. “I want to introduce you to someone.”

  I turned to find Garrett standing next to Cedric.

  “This is Cedric Kinney,” Garret said. “My college roommate.”

  I hesitated. Cedric hesitated.

  Neither of us was going to make a move.

  He was one of the people responsible for killing Cherry Anne and possibly two humans as well. He had pulled a gun on me less than twenty-four hours ago.

  But Garrett knew none of this. And when I met his eye, he looked confused by the standoff.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” I gathered up all my nerve and held a hand out. “Cedric, was it?”

  Cedric clutched my hand. “I’ve heard so much about you, Rylie.”

  I pulled my hand away and resisted the urge to rub Cedric’s murderous germs onto my dress. “You two talk a lot then, huh?”

  “All the time,” Garrett said.

  “Funny,” I said. “I’ve never heard you talk about a Cedric.”

  Garrett looked at Cedric apologetically. “That’s because we called him Ace.”

  “This is Ace?” I asked. As in the guy who got top honors in accounting? The guy Garrett practically idolized?

  Cedric stood a bit taller. He didn’t look like an accountant.

  “The one and only,” Garrett said.

  “Are you still an accountant?” I asked.

  “Yep,” Cedric said. “I work for a non-profit called Neleas.” His glare dared me to mention his other job. Obviously, Garrett didn’t know this was the guy who did Jacob Marquez’s dirty work. Had he known who I was all along?

  “Never heard of it,” I said with a shrug.

  “That’s because they’re primarily based in Florida,” Garrett said.

  My gaze leaped from Garrett to Cedric.

  Florida?

  Cedric looked confused and shifted his huge takeout bag from one hand to the other.

  Florida was one of the words Desmond had circled on his board. Could this be the link?

  “Oh, there’s our buzzer,” Garrett said, oblivious to the fact that he might have just solved part of a murder case for me. “It was great seeing you, Ace.”