Tampered

by Stella Bixby

  “You too,” Cedric said.

  “We’ll have to have you over when you’re back in town.”

  Cedric winced. So, he was going out of town? Probably to Florida. I’d have to ask Garrett later.

  “That sounds like fun,” Cedric said, then turned and walked out of the restaurant.

  “Please follow me,” the hostess said when Garrett handed her the buzzer.

  “You said he’s headed out of town. Is he going to Florida?” I asked, trying to keep my tone neutral.

  “Yeah, he goes every month. Has to check on some things with the non-profit.”

  We sat at a cozy little booth in the back where the noise level was significantly quieter than in the lobby.

  “What kind of non-profit is it?”

  “It’s a shelter for battered women,” he said. “A friend of his was killed at the hands of her husband, so he set it up to honor her.”

  Sounded like a familiar story.

  “And that’s his full-time job?” I asked. “How does he make money doing that?”

  “His full-time job is as an accountant,” Garrett said. “Why the interest?”

  “Just intrigued, I guess. I’ve always wondered how people make money running non-profits.”

  “They have donors. People leave money to them in their wills. That kind of stuff. I’d guess he gets a salary, not that he needs it.” Garrett was looking at his menu, trying to decide on what to eat.

  “What do you mean? Is he from a wealthy family?”

  “Something like that.” He turned the page to the entrees. “He was always tight-lipped about it. Like he didn’t want to be treated differently than anyone else. For all I know, he could be related to the Queen.”

  I laughed. Cedric could not be related to the Queen. He was a murderer. He told his friends that Jacob killed his wife without using Jacob’s name.

  Or maybe Jacob had killed Selena, and I had it all wrong. Either way, I needed to know more about Neleas. Maybe it was some sort of shell company. Maybe it—

  “Earth to Rylie.” Garrett waved his hand in front of my face with a laugh. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said with a smile.

  “Good. What are you going to have for dinner?” He nudged the menu toward me. “I hear the fish is to die for.”

  I opened the menu and took a peek. I definitely didn’t want fish. “I think the gnocchi sounds good.”

  “Gnocchi sounds delicious.”

  “This week has been crazy, and some comfort food seems like it might be just the trick.”

  “I saw on the news before I came over that the police arrested Jacob Marquez for the murders of Selena and Desmond.”

  “You did?” I asked. I hadn’t realized it had gone public.

  “You don’t look happy,” he said. “I thought this was a good thing. It meant the case was over.”

  “My car was destroyed after they took Jacob into custody,” I said.

  “So you think—”

  “It was someone else.”

  He ran a hand down the side of his face. “And you’re not going to give up until you know, are you?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t want to get into this.

  “Either way,” he said. “I ordered you a rental car. I’m sure your insurance will pay for it, but if not, I can. It should be delivered to your apartment by tomorrow morning.”

  My heart swelled. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

  He reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “I do have to do that. You may think you have to save the world, but you’re my world, and I want to be your hero.”

  His words brought tears to my eyes. After everything with Antonio and investigating these crazy cases, he still wanted me—wanted to be my hero.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” the waitress asked, shattering our love bubble.

  “I’d like a beer,” I said. “Any beer.”

  “I’ll take a margarita,” Garrett said. “And I think we’re ready to order as well. I’ll take the fish, please.”

  “And I would like the gnocchi,” I said.

  “Good choice,” the waitress said to me. “We’re famous for our gnocchi.”

  “How’s work?” I asked when the waitress had gone. Garrett was one of the lead accountants for the Denver Broncos. “I feel like it’s been a while since we’ve talked about how life is going with you.”

  “Work is fine. Busy as usual. I got box seats for us at the home opener.”

  “What?” I nearly jumped out of my seat. “You can’t just say that as if it’s nothing.”

  “I wanted to surprise you.”

  “You definitely surprised me.” I could have squealed, but the restaurant was too fancy for that. “I can’t believe we’re going to be sitting in box seats.”

  “I guess I’ve been doing well lately, so they gave me a bonus. I had my choice of this or cash. I figured you’d like this better.”

  He chose to watch a Broncos game over cash? Even though he worked for the Broncos, he wasn’t the biggest football fan.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” He smiled like he had on our second date. The date he later told me was when he knew he was in love with me.

  20

  After Garrett dropped me off at my apartment, I changed back into my jeans, a black hoodie, and boots, and called an Uber to pick me up.

  I needed to speak with Elodie. I was almost one hundred percent sure Cedric had taken her dinner, and if he told her about me knowing about Florida, she might leave.

  On the way, I Googled Neleas.

  It looked legit. There was no mention of Selena by name, but her story was told in a roundabout way. If Cedric headed all of this up, he must have cared for Selena. And if he found out that Desmond was responsible for Selena’s murder, he might have gone after Desmond. But how did Elodie fit? Why would she be involved in anything that glorified her husband’s ex?

  Either way, Cedric was on my do-not-mess-with list. He was the one who put the warning on my car. And he was the reason I stopped at the sporting goods store on my way to pick up a can of bear spray.

  When the driver approached the Marquez residence, I realized going there might have been a mistake. News crews sat idly in their vans—cameras pointed at the gates. If I tried to go in, they’d record every second. It already sucked enough that I was suspended from my job, but I didn’t want it to become permanent.

  “Can you take me around the block?” I asked.

  The driver waved a tattooed hand as if she didn’t care.

  We drove around the block. Fences separated the houses in the back. To get to the back door of the Marquez house, I’d have to sneak into another person’s yard and climb the fence.

  “You can leave me here. Thanks.”

  She stopped the car, and I got out. The house that backed up to the Marquez’s was completely dark. Hopefully, that meant they were either gone or in a deep sleep.

  I did my best to be quiet as I made my way up the driveway. The gate wasn’t even closed. I let out a sigh of relief.

  Now, I just had to get through the yard and over the fence.

  But as I stepped through the gate, a motion detection light turned on, blinding me momentarily.

  A dog inside the house started barking. It sounded big.

  Without thinking, I took off running across the back yard. Toys were all over the place, some partially buried in the snow.

  I was mere feet from the fence when I heard them let the dog out.

  The barking grew louder and more vicious.

  I was almost to the fence.

  The Marquez’s mansion was in full view.

  Then my foot twisted in a hole beneath the snow.

  The frozen ground was unforgiving.

  I went down hard.

  The dog was too close. It was going to bite me.

  I tried to stand, but my leg gave out. I silently hoped for a twist and not a break.

  The dog was on me no
w.

  His teeth bare.

  I pulled out the can of bear spray and pointed it at the dog. Just as I was about to hit the trigger, the dog started humping my stuck leg.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I whispered. “Get off me.”

  The dog—a sheepdog—didn’t care what I had to say.

  I tried to stand up again, and this time was nearly successful, but the dog had its legs wrapped around my stuck leg.

  I plopped back on my butt. I couldn’t shoot the dog with bear spray when he wasn’t hurting me. I shoved it back in my pocket.

  Voices shouted for the dog as a flashlight beam landed on us.

  I stood up—ignoring the pain—and pulled myself over the fence.

  “Stop,” a male voice said from the yard with the dog. “I’m calling the police.”

  Yeah, like that would make me want to stop.

  I turned and hobbled toward the Marquez house.

  I had no idea what I might say to Elodie when I reached the house, or if I’d even make it inside, but I had to try.

  The man from the other yard was now at the fence, shining his flashlight my way. I pulled the hood over my hair and kept run-limping.

  Motion sensor lights didn’t come on. Even when I was so near the house, I could smell what they’d had for dinner—fish.

  I was almost to the door when the ground fell out from beneath me.

  My nose filled with water. Ice cold water.

  I tried to swim, but my jeans and hoodie were saturated, pulling me down.

  Another light hit my face as I got to the surface and took a breath.

  “Don’t move,” a man said, pointing a flashlight and a gun at my face.

  I didn’t have a choice. I was back under water.

  A strong hand grabbed the hood of my sweatshirt and pulled me to the surface.

  “Let go of me,” I screamed. It was a good thing the neighbor had called the cops.

  “Shut your mouth,” the man whispered in my ear as he pulled me to the side of the pool.

  I held on, unable to pull myself up with all the weight.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I need to speak to Elodie.”

  “Are you a reporter?”

  “I’m a park ranger,” I said. And then a thought popped into my head. “Tell her it’s Rylie Cooper, and I have what she was looking for.”

  21

  “Everything okay over there?” the man from the dog side of the fence yelled.

  “Yes,” the big man who still had a gun pointed at me said. “I’ve got it under control. No need to call the police.”

  I didn’t know if that was good for me or bad.

  “Okay,” the man with the dog said. “Goodnight.”

  The neighbor probably knew how much power the Marquez’s had. I wondered how many other things the neighbor had turned a blind eye to.

  “Get out of the pool,” the man said.

  I tried but failed. “My clothes are drenched. Are there stairs? A ladder?”

  He took my hood with his free hand and pulled me like a dog on a leash. I shuffled my hands along the side of the pool until I came to a ladder.

  My ankle crumpled when I took the first step. If he hadn’t still been holding onto my hood, I would have gone back under.

  I tried again with my other foot first, then used my arms to hoist myself up.

  I folded onto the concrete and pulled myself the rest of the way.

  “Graceful,” I heard the guy mutter.

  “I want to see you break your ankle, get humped by a horny dog, jump a fence, fall in an ice-cold pool fully-clothed, and then get out gracefully.”

  He let out a small laugh.

  “Yeah, really funny,” I said. “Are you going to shoot me, or can you put that thing away?”

  He put the gun back into a holster under his jacket and helped me to my feet.

  “Who did you say you were?” he asked.

  “Rylie Cooper,” I said through chattering teeth. “I’m a park ranger, and I have what Elodie is looking for.”

  “You better not be making this up. Mrs. Marquez doesn’t like to be disturbed.”

  Mrs. Marquez? I’d have to ask her about that.

  He led me inside the warm house, where I proceeded to drip all over the marble floors.

  “I’ll go talk to Elodie.” He grabbed a pool towel out of a cabinet. “Dry yourself off. And the floor too.”

  I wrapped up in one of the towels and grabbed another from the closet to put under my feet.

  From where I stood, I could see all the way through the house to the entry where a huge mahogany door stood between two large potted trees. To my right was the large kitchen—no takeout bags were visible, though Cedric could have eaten anywhere—and to my left was a sitting room. Photographs lined the walls. Most of them of Elodie and Jacob. Some of the people I didn’t recognize.

  But one caught my eye.

  A picture of Selena standing in front of the mahogany door.

  The top portion of the photograph had been distributed to all the news sources the night she’d gone missing—it was the one they’d flashed on the screen every chance they got. But this one showed her entire body from her long brown hair—probably a wig—all the way down to her red shoes.

  Those damned shoes.

  Except.

  When I looked closer, something was off.

  I was no shoe expert, but the red shoes she had on and the one I’d found at the reservoir and under Desmond’s bed weren’t the same.

  The ones on her feet in the photograph were sexier with straps that crisscrossed across the top of the foot. The others were simple red pumps.

  “What can I do for you?” I heard a cold voice from behind me. I couldn’t tell if it was the same voice from the recording or not.

  “I wanted to talk to you about Jacob,” I blurted out.

  “Are you having an affair with him?” She pulled a checkbook from a drawer in the kitchen. “Do you want hush money?”

  “What is it with you people paying people to be quiet?” I took another look at the photograph. “I’m not having an affair with your husband—or rather—boyfriend.”

  When I looked back at her, her face was angry. “We’re practically married.”

  “Is that why you call yourself Mrs. Marquez?”

  “Jacob doesn’t seem to mind.”

  I seriously doubted that. “Why aren’t you married? Is he still hooked on Selena?” I pointed at the picture.

  “He only keeps that photo up to remind himself to be better.”

  “Be better how?”

  “Do you see the mark on her cheek?” She came to stand next to me. “He put it there.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “You do?”

  “Jacob told me.” I turned to her. “If you love him so much, why did you take back your statements confirming his alibis?”

  “It wouldn’t be right for me to lie anymore,” she said, examining her beautifully manicured nails.

  The guard who had brought me in looked down at his feet.

  “I agree.” I turned my attention from him to Elodie. “It wouldn’t be right to lie.”

  She shifted from one foot to another. “Can we sit down? Nine months of pregnancy has made me quite tired, and my massage today will be for nothing.”

  We sat at a small table overlooking the back yard.

  “Did you get your nails done today too?” I asked.

  She smiled. “I did. I needed one last spa day before the baby came.”

  “What else does a spa day entail?” I asked. If she was at the spa all day, she wouldn’t have been the one who destroyed my car with Cedric.

  “Massage, facial, manicure, pedicure, you know, the works.”

  “Sounds like a fun day. Long, but fun.”

  “Definitely long and much needed after finding out my husband killed his first wife.”

  I frowned. She wasn’t a good actress. The police had to have
seen right through her when she took back her alibi.

  “I hear you have what I’m looking for,” Elodie said.

  I smiled. “I do.” Now I knew she was bluffing—just saying whatever she could to get what I had. What she didn’t realize was that I didn’t have anything. I almost laughed.

  “Is it with you?”

  “I’m not that stupid,” I said. “And it’s a good thing I don’t since I fell in your pool.”

  “Right, because it would have been damaged.”

  Her acting skills definitely sucked.

  “But I don’t appreciate you destroying my car to find it. You could have just asked.”

  “And you would have turned it over to me?” She stared at me.

  “Maybe.” I shrugged.

  “When can you get it to me?”

  “When will you stop lying to the police?”

  “Why do you care so much about Jacob if you’re not having an affair?”

  “Why don’t you?” I asked. “You’re the one having his baby.”

  She ran a hand over her belly, her eyes glazing over with tears.

  “You’d think that’d afford me some privileges, wouldn’t you?” Her face transitioned from sadness to anger. “But no. Since he doesn’t hit me, I don’t get his name. I don’t get the apology gifts. Trust me, I’d take a slap across the face every now and then for a pair of the custom shoes he bought her.”

  “That’s messed up,” I said. “He’s trying to be a better man.”

  “Yeah, like when he announced to everyone that we were having a boy when I hadn’t even told my family yet?”

  “He made a mistake,” I said.

  “Like how he killed his first wife.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Do you really think he killed her?”

  She didn’t respond.

  “That’s what I thought.” I stood up. “But you realize when they find out Jacob didn’t kill Selena and Desmond, you won’t have an alibi either. You’ll be the next suspect.”

  She crossed her arms across her chest. “Why would I have killed them?”

  “Selena’s easy. I’m sure you killed her so you could have Jacob all to yourself—apology gifts and all.”

  “He was going to leave her.”

  “Was he though?” I asked. “I bet if somehow she was still alive and came back, Jacob would drop you in a second.”