by LENA DIAZ,
But he’d ignored her, because he’d wanted to hurt her like she’d hurt him. And the one thing he knew she couldn’t stand was silence. Predictably, the more he ignored her, the more she talked.
And the madder she got.
When he’d turned the spitfire over, Braedon had actually blushed at the curses coming out of Madison’s mouth.
Pierce didn’t even know his brother could blush.
He turned down another street in the historic district on his way to the bed-and-breakfast. Madison’s parting shout was still ringing in his ears, ordering him to make sure he got her make-up from the b-and-b’s bathroom. Only God knew why he was doing her bidding. It certainly wasn’t because of the pleasure of her company. Not when she was yelling like a shrew.
His phone rang as he stopped at a traffic light. When he saw it was Casey, a sinking feeling settled into his stomach.
“Please tell me this is good news this time,” Pierce said when he answered the phone.
“Sorry. I told you that you’d stirred up a hornet’s nest with Hamilton. He’s on a rampage. He convinced a judge to give him a very broad search warrant. His men are at Madison’s house right now, turning the place upside down. They’re not stopping at computers and printers this time.”
“Do me a favor. Call Alex. I think Madison is going to need a lawyer.”
“Already did. He took Austin to some doctor. Said he’ll be back in a few hours.”
“Thanks.” He snapped the phone shut and gunned the engine, hurrying back to East Gaston Street.
Madison’s side yard was full of police cars and evidence tech vans.
Pierce yanked the car door open and headed across the lawn and through the open front door. A policeman in the foyer with a clipboard stopped him.
“Badge, please,” he said.
“Special Agent Pierce Buchanan,” he said, holding out his badge.
“Sorry sir. This is a crime scene. Only Savannah-Chatham Metro PD allowed in at this time.”
“Let him in, officer.” Lieutenant Hamilton stepped forward. “Pull any stunts like you did earlier at the station, and I’ll have you in cuffs.”
Pierce nodded and offered his hand. “I’m sorry about that. Mrs. McKinley tends to make me forget my manners.”
Hamilton shook his hand, giving him a stiff nod. “You’re here to see the warrant I suppose. Is Mrs. McKinley with you?” Hamilton looked past him.
“No.”
“Where is she?”
“The warrant?” Pierce held out his hand.
Hamilton dug it out of his pocket and handed to him.
Pierce frowned as he read it. “What game are you playing now?”
Hamilton motioned toward the front room and led Pierce over toward the window to get out of the way of the techs crawling all over the house. “We’ve had a couple of developments today. Remember the printer we took out of this room?”
“Yes.”
“Seems that’s the same printer that the so-called threatening notes were printed from. The ones she said were from her stalker.”
A sick feeling flashed through Pierce’s gut. “Same brand?”
“Same printer. The exact same machine. The techs said there’s something called metadata they can use to identify the exact machine that printed out the note. Mrs. McKinley’s printer is a match. And that’s not all we found.”
“You know that doesn’t make sense that she’d print out the notes. Someone else, the same person who abducted her, had to have had access to the house and used her printer.”
“Why would they risk discovery by sneaking into her house to print something?”
“I haven’t figured that part out yet. What else did you find?”
“Out techs were able to recover several interesting files from Mrs. McKinley’s hard drive, files she thought she’d deleted. That’s why we have a warrant. Turns out, Mrs. McKinley performed several Internet searches and kept files about a certain toxic substance called Maxiodarone and how it can simulate a heart attack. We looked into her past and lo and behold, her daddy died of a heart attack. The same father who left her millions. I also got a warrant to exhume her father’s body to see if he really died of a heart attack. His body is already on its way to the New York City OCME.
Office of the Chief Medical Examiner—OCME. The sick feeling in Pierce’s stomach grew. This was so much worse than anything he’d imagined might happen. “I know Mrs. McKinley, and her family. She’s not a murderer. And her father had a history of heart disease.”
“Okay, I’m a reasonable man. Give me a theory that makes sense. Give me something I can sink my teeth into. What explains those files? What explains the printer? The bodies in the backyard?”
Those infamous puzzle pieces Logan was always talking about started clicking into place. “I know it sounds crazy, but I think Damon is trying to frame his former wife. For some reason, he wants her in jail.”
“Why would he want her in jail?”
“I don’t have all the answers yet.”
“Well, until you do, I have to go with what matches the evidence. Right now, all the evidence is telling me that the woman you’re working so hard to protect is a black widow.”
“What? Where did that come from?”
“She searches for how to fake a heart attack and her father dies of a heart attack and leaves her a fortune. Her husband dies in a car crash a week later and leaves her a million dollars. Do the math.”
“Where does the stalker fit in to all this? If he’s not Damon, then who is he?”
“The only evidence I have about a stalker is a couple of notes printed on Mrs. McKinley’s printer. The shooting was self-defense, unrelated, as far as I can tell. I’ve got no evidence to tell me otherwise.”
“And the abduction just never happened, is that your stance?”
“The lab results came back from the blood the EMT drew after Mrs. McKinley’s abduction. Want to guess whether they came back negative for chloroform?”
Pierce narrowed his eyes. “There are other drugs equally capable of knocking her out, fast-acting drugs that could have been out of her blood by the time the sample was drawn.”
“True,” Hamilton agreed. “But we’ve all seen the photos from the motel. Mrs. McKinley is having an affair with someone, probably a married man who doesn’t want anyone to know about it. She had to lie when she returned, because the police were here, and she couldn’t let her lover’s identity get out.”
Pierce shut his eyes and drew a deep breath before opening them again. “Everything you said can be explained without marking Mrs. McKinley as a suspect in any crime.”
Hamilton shrugged. “That’s how circumstantial evidence works. Each piece, by itself, can be explained away. But put them all together and you have a mountain of evidence that points to only one logical conclusion. Mrs. McKinley has been lying to the police all along, and could very well have murdered both her father and her husband. And once I get the medical examiner’s report on those bodies in the backyard, we can add two more murders to the charges against her.”
“Charges? You’re actually going to arrest her?”
“Not yet, not until I have some physical evidence to back up my theories. I’m not an unreasonable man, Agent Buchanan.”
Since Pierce knew Madison hadn’t killed anyone, he relaxed, if only a bit.
One of the technicians stepped into the room, holding a clear plastic bag. “Lieutenant?”
Hamilton waved him over, and even before the tech showed Hamilton the bag, Pierce knew things had just gone from bad to worse.
Hamilton read the label on the pill bottle inside the baggie. “Maxiodarone, the same drug that came back on several of Mrs. McKinley’s searches on how to make a death look like a heart attack.” He handed the baggie back to the technician.
“Where is Mrs. McKinley?”
MADISON HELD HER hands down on the glass plate while the scanner read her fingerprints. “Hey, at least I won’t get any ink on my fi
ngers this way.”
The policewoman taking her prints didn’t even crack a smile.
Madison took a deep breath, trying to still the tremors that kept going through her. She felt like her insides were shaking so hard her teeth would start rattling any minute.
Other than the day her father died, this had to qualify as the worst day of her life. And the way things were going, she was worried the coming days might even top this one.
“Step over here, please. Face the camera. Don’t smile.”
Smiling hadn’t even occurred to Madison, not when she was being arrested and processed for murder.
The policewoman clicked the camera sitting on the tripod. “Turn to your right please.” Click. “Now to your left.” Click.
“Follow me please.”
She swallowed hard and followed the policewoman down a narrow hall. The officer stopped in front of a door with a thick glass inset and slid a card through a card reader. The door buzzed and clicked open.
“Step inside, please.”
Madison’s heart was pounding so loud she felt light headed. She moved into the tiny cell, then jumped at the sound of the door buzzing closed behind her. Alone, in a six-by-eight room with no windows, she gingerly sat down on the tiny cot attached to the wall and drew her knees up to her chest.
She still hadn’t seen Pierce and didn’t even know if he knew she’d been arrested. An hour after he’d left her with his brothers, two police cars had roared up the driveway with lights flashing. She hadn’t even been given a phone call yet.
Trapped. The walls felt like they were closing in. Panic bloomed in her chest. The feeling of being locked up, no windows, no way out, reminded her of how she’d felt when she’d been abducted.
She closed her eyes and tried to block out everything around her. She pictured Pierce, handsome and smiling in his gray Italian suit, her favorite—exactly the way he’d looked the first time she’d met him.
Before she’d hurt him so badly that he could no longer stand the sight of her and he’d dumped her at Alex’s house.
THE BUZZER SOUNDED on the door, startling Madison. She looked up as the door opened.
Pierce.
She jumped up and launched herself at him. He caught her against his chest and wrapped his arms around her.
“I’m so glad you’re here.” She hugged him tight, then belatedly remembered his bruised ribs and pulled back. “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”
He tightened his arms, pulling her back against him as he kissed the top of her head. “I’m fine.” He eased her back and anchored her against his side. It was then that she noticed who he’d brought with him.
Alex Buchanan.
He looked far more serious and grim than when he’d threatened her on the back deck of his house the night she’d met him.
“Why is he here?” she asked.
“Pierce,” Alex said, motioning toward Madison, “give Mrs. McKinley a dollar.”
Pierce pulled out his wallet, extracted a dollar, and handed it to Madison.
She blinked at the money in her hand. “What is this for?”
Alex held out his hand. “Give me the dollar, please.”
She frowned in confusion, but handed him the money.
He shoved it into his pants pocket. “Congratulations. You just hired yourself a lawyer.”
“You? Why would you want to help me? You don’t even like me.”
“Madison—” Pierce said.
Alex held up his hand. “She has a valid question, and a valid point.” He lowered his hand. “I don’t trust you, but Pierce does. He thinks you’re innocent, and he wants me to help you. That’s good enough for me.”
“Do you . . . think you can help me?”
“That depends.”
“On?”
“On whether you tell the truth.” He turned and opened the door, then stepped out into the hallway.
“Come on.” Pierce put his hand on the small of her back.
“Am I getting out of here?”
“We’re just going to a conference room. As for getting you out of jail entirely, that depends on the answers you give us, and how many strings we can pull.”
“We?”
“Alex, Casey, and me. Alex isn’t the only one with influence in this town. Casey has his share, and I worked a few cases back in my time that left me with some pretty hefty favors to call in. Between us three, we have dirt on half the judges in Savannah.”
“WE NEED MADISON’S computer.” Pierce rested his crossed arms on the conference room table. “Hamilton has it in evidence. Madison said she has files on there she copied from her husband’s computer. We need to look at those. And Casey has some fake contracts Damon apparently created. I can get you those.”
Alex shook his head. “None of that does us any good unless Damon McKinley is really alive and involved in all of this somehow.”
“He’s alive, and he’s most definitely involved,” Madison said.
Alex didn’t respond to that. He sifted through the folder of notes sitting on the conference room table. “They’ve already identified the woman’s body that was buried in your yard. Her name was Leslie O’Neil. She’s from New York. Ever heard of her?”
Pierce watched her closely to gauge her reaction.
She shook her head. “No, the name isn’t familiar.”
She seemed to be telling the truth. “How did they identify her?” Pierce asked.
“She had a pacemaker. The police traced it through its serial number. Looks like Miss O’Neil was divorced, estranged from her family, so no one ever reported her missing.”
“Just like the yardman,” Pierce said. “Was she wealthy?”
“No, although she did have a fairly healthy bank account, at one time. She was a career woman. Started out in computers, then later became a pharmacist. Her ex-husband said she’d been laid off from her job shortly before the last time he saw her. He assumed she’d moved somewhere else for a job opportunity and never thought anything of the fact that he didn’t see her again.”
“She had a healthy bank account at one time?” Madison asked.
“There were substantial withdrawals over a period of about twelve months, beginning almost a year and a half ago and stopping right around the time of her death—which has been placed as about four months ago.”
Pierce glanced at Madison. “The same time you purchased your house.”
She nodded, wrinkling her brow in confusion. “What does this mean?”
“My guess,” Pierce said, “Is that when Damon disappeared he took up with Miss O’Neil to use her as his meal ticket. It probably took him a few months to get in good with her, and then she opened her bank account to him. When the money started running out, he began to resent that you had inherited so much money and he was probably close to being broke. He eliminated Miss O’Neil because she had no more value to him. He may have been keeping tabs on you, maybe in the hopes he could get some of his money back someday. When you bought that house, and didn’t move in, he might have seen an opportunity. He was living there, maybe to make it look like he was upper crust in Savannah, so he could blend in with the wealthy.”
Her eyes widened. “He was looking for another target? Someone else to con so he could get their money?”
Pierce nodded. “Makes sense.”
“But when I moved here, he was forced to leave the house.”
“Right, and his entrée into society. You ruined his get-rich-again-quick plan. He probably thought he could make your life difficult so you’d leave rather than face the problems. Then he could go back to his original plan, find a new rich person to con, and his money problems would be solved.”
She winced at his “leave rather than face the problems” statement. He took her hand in his and gave her a reassuring squeeze.
Alex flipped the paper over. “Those are decent theories to pursue. But why wouldn’t your husband just kill you if he wanted your money, rather than try to scare you away?”
“I don’t know.”
“The police have already exhumed your father’s body and should have lab results any time.”
She blinked and held her hand to her chest. “They dug up my father’s body?” Her voice was a shocked whisper.
“You didn’t tell her?” Alex asked Pierce.
“I haven’t had a chance yet.” He watched her closely. The blood had drained from her face, leaving her deathly pale.
He got out of his chair and crouched down beside her. He gently pushed her dark hair back from her face. “Are you okay?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “This is a nightmare.”
“We’ll get through it.” He squeezed her hand again. “I’m not going to let you go to prison for something you didn’t do. Okay?”
She nodded, but he could tell she didn’t believe him.
She tugged her hand away. “I’ll be okay. Let’s get this over with. Tell me everything.”
Pierce sat back down in his chair next to her, across the table from Alex.
“The chief medical examiner in New York is reviewing your father’s case right now,” Alex said. “Your father had congestive heart failure. He was on Digoxin?”
“Yes.”
“The medical examiner said your father’s EKG from the hospital had a specific pattern called torsade de pointes. He said that’s something he’d expect to see if there was some kind of drug interaction.”
Her brow wrinkled in confusion. “Wait . . . that’s not . . . are you saying my father’s doctor made some kind of mistake? He gave my father medicine that caused his heart attack?”
“I’m not saying that at all. I’m just stating what the report says. The medical examiner is reviewing the records and performing tests on your father’s body. We’ll find out more once he’s finished with his review.” He flipped a page. “Now, onto the next item. Metro PD has some fairly damning circumstantial evidence against you, but as long as the medical examiner rules your father’s death was indeed by natural causes, you have nothing to worry about, at least as far as that particular charge goes.”
Pierce studied Madison’s every reaction, paying close attention to her body language. There was no sign of relief in her expression. If anything, she looked more worried than she had a moment ago. This was not the look of a woman who just heard that the medical examiner’s ruling would clear her of a murder charge.
