She clenched her hands in her lap. “Meanwhile, that grinning, worthless piece of garbage goes on killing.”
Chris put his hand on top of hers for a moment, giving them a squeeze. “We’ll build fast,” he said. “C’mon, I’ll buy you breakfast and then we’ll start building. Deal?”
“Deal,” she agreed grudgingly. “But make the breakfast to go.”
He laughed. “You always have to have the final word, don’t you?”
A glimmer of a smile slipped over her lips. “Is there any other kind?”
He laughed again. “Not when it comes to you.”
*
Suzie ate at her desk, absently taking a bite every now and then, completely focused on going through the list of dead women they had previously put together. She was searching for connections beyond the obvious: that the victims all resembled one another enough to have been sisters.
Right now she was looking for one thing in particular—Warren Eldridge’s whereabouts during the time of each murder.
“Take a break, Suzie Q,” Chris finally said several hours later. Her French toast—there was more than half left—had gone soggy. He cleared it away and saw that she didn’t even notice. “You’ve been at this for hours now. Any longer and I’m worried that you might forget how to walk.”
“I think I’ve got something,” Suzie announced suddenly, looking up.
Chris thought better of the snappy wisecrack that rose to his lips, and merely said, “Go ahead.”
“I plotted a chart for each one of these murder victims, listing their approximate time of death,” she began.
He heard the excitement in her voice. She was building up to something. He really hoped that it could stand up in court.
“And?”
The look of triumph on her face was impossible to miss. “And guess who was in town each and every time one of these women was murdered?”
“Offhand, I’d say probably several hundred people,” Chris answered.
“Did I mention every one of the murders?” Suzie asked.
She wasn’t going to let go of this, was she? Chris had to admit that he was growing somewhat concerned. “Okay,” he amended, “a handful.”
She wished he was more supportive. Still, she supposed she could see his side of it. His family made up the skeletal structure of the police department and one misstep could be blown completely out of proportion, causing a lot of them a great deal of trouble.
But then again, this wasn’t a misstep, she silently insisted.
She laid it out for him. “Each and every time one of these bodies was found, Warren Eldridge was in the same city, either attending a fund-raiser or dedicating a scholarship to a local university, or at some award ceremony given in his honor.”
“Makes it hard to sneak out,” Chris said.
“With enough people milling around one of these places, he could easily slip out,” Suzie contradicted. “And then slip back in. Who would really notice?”
Chris shook his head. “Still a coincidence.”
“Oh, come on,” Suzie cried. “Twice is a coincidence. Eleven times is definitely something else.”
He’d hoped that they would find something definitely incriminating. “All right, if it makes you feel better, we’ll go talk to him again now.”
She shut off her computer and pushed her chair away from the desk. “What would make me feel better is nailing his butt to the wall.”
Chris was already on his feet. “I don’t think they make a tool for that.”
“I’ll improvise,” she told him fiercely as they walked out of the office.
*
Warren Eldridge’s assistant led them to the CEO’s office, all the while telling them that they were going to have to state their business quickly.
“His flight is due out,” the assistant informed them coldly just before he exited.
The first thing they saw were two suitcases, flanking what appeared to be an old-fashioned steamer trunk whimsically covered with aged, yellowed travel stickers. It seemed completely out of keeping with the image the man usually conveyed.
Eldridge was clearly a man in a hurry. But that didn’t keep him from giving them a little time.
“Ah, Detectives. Have you come to tell me that you’ve caught that awful person who killed that poor, unfortunate girl?” he asked. “The one you found in the wake of the bash I attended?” he added, when neither answered his question.
Chris put his hand on Suzie’s wrist, indicating that he was fielding the questions. He didn’t want her saying anything for the time being.
“Not yet,” he said. He waved a hand at the luggage. “Are you going somewhere?”
“I’m always going somewhere,” Eldridge informed him with an easy laugh. “But specifically, I’m about to fly to New York. Ribbon-cutting ceremony,” he explained. “They’re opening a new cancer wing at Manhattan Hospital. Since I underwrote most of it, they insisted on dedicating it to the memory of my mother, Jacquelyn Eldridge. They’ve asked me to attend. So naturally, I said yes, but I have to leave within the half hour. Perforce, I’m afraid our visit is going to have to be short,” he informed them. “So, did you catch him?”
“No, but there’s been another murder,” Chris told the man.
Eldridge looked properly appalled. “Really, Detectives, you have got to catch this heinous person,” he exclaimed.
The man really irritated the hell out of her. Every word out of his mouth was like fingernails going down a chalkboard.
“You need to get your designations straight, Mr. Eldridge,” Suzie informed him. “Detective O’Bannon is a detective. I, on the other hand, am a crime scene investigator.”
Eldridge looked at her innocently. “Well, isn’t investigating a crime scene, by definition, acting like a detective?” he asked.
“To get to the point,” Chris said, cutting in before Suzie started hurling accusations at the man, “were you in Quail Hill recently?”
Eldridge didn’t even pause to think. “You know I was, Detective,” he replied, with deliberate emphasis, “or you wouldn’t be here with your crime scene investigator.”
“Do you have someone who could account for your whereabouts on—”
Eldridge cut him short. “I have any of a number of administrative assistants trailing after me at all hours, so I dare say that I could—” A ring tone coming from Chris’s phone interrupted what the billionaire was about to say next. He waved a hand. “I’ll wait if you want to get that.”
Chris frowned as he pulled out his phone. Ordinarily, he’d ignore the ring tone. It was the one that alerted him a text was coming in. But since it might be something about the current case, he paused to look at the screen.
He read the words that had just appeared along the top, and everything around him seemed to freeze. Chris swiped his thumb along the lower edge of his phone, opening it. He read the rest of the text.
Suzie saw the look on his face and knew something was horribly wrong. “What is it?”
Numb, he raised his eyes to hers. “It’s from Shayla,” he said, referring to one of his sisters. “My mother’s been in an accident.”
Suzie’s mouth dropped open. “You need to go,” she told him. She saw Chris look at the man they were questioning, and knew what he was thinking. “Don’t worry, I’ll take it from here,” she said. “You just go to your mother, make sure she’s all right. Take the car,” she added. She could see he was about to protest. “I’ll get a ride when I finish with Mr. Eldridge here.”
“She’s right, Detective. You need to go see about your mother,” Eldridge urged kindly.
Suzie saw the man glance at a wall where photographs of an incredibly beautiful woman were hung. For the first time, Suzie noticed that there was a small boy standing in the background in all of them.
“We only get one mom. I can drop your partner off at the precinct. It’s on my way to my private airport,” the man offered.
Chris clearly appeared torn. Takin
g his arm, Suzie ushered him to one side, out of Eldridge’s earshot. “He’s leaving town. This might be the only chance we’ll get to question him, otherwise I’d go with you. Don’t worry about me, I’ll catch up when I can—and I promise I won’t slug him,” she added, in case that was Chris’s concern. “But right now, he still has questions to answer. Go. Go,” she urged, all but pushing Chris out the door. “You’re not going to do either one of us any good here. Your mind’s not going to be on this, anyway.”
Chris hesitated for a moment longer, but his concern got the better of him. “Call me the second you’ve finished questioning him,” he told her.
“And you call me as soon as you see your mother. I know she’s fine,” Suzie added, knowing it was what he needed to hear.
Chris was gone in an instant.
Turning back to face Eldridge, she saw an odd expression on the man’s face. For the life of her, she couldn’t quite read it.
“It’s touching to see such family devotion in this day and age. You don’t often see it anymore,” he told her.
The man made her blood run cold. She didn’t care what Chris said about evidence; she knew she was right. She just had to prove it.
“They’re an unusual family,” she replied, never taking her eyes off Eldridge. Despite all the accolades she’d read about him, he still made her think of a reptile.
“That they are,” he agreed, moving closer to her. “All such dedicated public servants, as well. Maybe a little too dedicated, perhaps,” he suggested. “I would think that Detective O’Bannon would have gotten his mother to retire by now instead of still driving that ambulance around.”
Suzie remembered Chris correcting her when she’d said that. “His mother doesn’t drive an ambulance, she oversees—” Suzie stopped abruptly. Something was off. “How do you know what she does?”
“I always do my homework when it comes to the people I interact with.” His eyes pinned hers. She had the distinct impression that she was looking into the gaze of a cobra. “Just like I knew about what your father did. And how your mother thought that the only way to get away from that shame was to commit suicide. I like finding out people’s secrets. Everyone has secrets, Susannah.” He kept advancing. “For instance, my mother’s secret was that she pretended she was a religious, devoted mother, when nothing could have been further from the truth.”
For every step he took toward her, Suzie took one step back, all the while making sure she was moving toward the door.
“And what’s your secret, Mr. Eldridge?” she challenged.
The smile on his lips almost made her heart stop. And all the while he kept coming closer. “Oh, I think you already know.”
Pivoting on her heel, Suzie turned to run. She nearly made it to the door.
Her hand was on the doorknob when she felt it. Felt this strange pricking sensation at the side of her neck.
Her legs suddenly turned to lead.
And just before she fell to the floor, everything turned pitch-black.
Chapter 19
His mother had never had an accident, not so much as a fender bender or even a dent, in all the years she’d been driving, and that included when she drove an ambulance full-time for a living.
As far as he knew, she hadn’t even had an accident when she was a teenager. If she had, his uncles would have been more than happy to rag on her and tell him.
It didn’t make any sense.
Neither did the fact that she had been driving an ambulance at all. What kind of circumstances had to have transpired to get his mother behind the wheel of an ambulance again?
Maeve O’Bannon didn’t drive ambulances anymore; she hadn’t for years now. She was in charge of a fleet of four ambulances that were contracted to the city’s fire department. She liked being a manager, liked it far better than jockeying through local traffic, half the time racing against the clock to get an injured person to the ER.
Now she was the injured person.
Maybe something had happened and his mother had wound up being a driver short. He knew his mom. If enough calls came in, she wouldn’t reroute the call. She’d step up and drive the rig herself.
He couldn’t allow his imagination to get carried away. He wasn’t going to overthink this. His mother was fine, just fine. She was pretty damn close to invincible. Had been for as far back as he could remember.
Chris clutched the steering wheel, his knuckles white.
Damn it, how had this happened?
“And where the hell are you driving?” he asked himself out loud. Shayla’s text hadn’t told him which hospital his mother had been taken to.
Fumbling, Chris hit one of the top numbers that was programmed into his cell, then put his phone on speaker so he wouldn’t have to strain to hear once the call was picked up.
The sound of ringing began to irritate him.
He counted off the number of rings. One, two, three, four—
Damn it, where was she? Why wasn’t his sister answering? Shayla had just texted him less than five minutes ago. So why wasn’t she picking up her phone?
Did that mean that—?
Hearing a noise over the line, Chris instantly became alert.
“This is Shay and you guessed it, I’m away, so leave your name and number and if you’re lucky, I’ll give you a call back.”
Damn, he hated answering machines, he thought angrily. “Pick up, Shay! This is no time to play games. Pick up or so help me—”
This time, he heard an actual person picking up.
“Wow, wake up on the wrong side of the cave this morning, big brother?” his sister asked. His anger was all but vibrating through the cell.
Chris didn’t waste any time telling her that he thought she was being callously flippant. He was afraid that every second counted. “Where is she?”
There was silence on the other end before Shayla finally asked, “Where’s who?”
He blew out an angry breath. Was she being deliberately obtuse?
“The hospital—give me the name of the hospital.” He swerved at the last moment, nearly hitting a minivan that was going way too slowly. “I’m en route and I need the name of the hospital she’s in.”
“What are you talking about?” Shayla cried. “What hospital?”
He was beginning to think his sister was in shock—either that, or in denial. Chris ground out each word. “The one they took Ma to.”
“They took Mom to the hospital?” she asked in surprise. “When? Who?” She shot the questions out like gunfire, instantly concerned.
What was wrong with her? His sister was acting as if she didn’t know anything about it. “You’re the one who texted me about the accident,” he cried.
“No, I didn’t. I didn’t even know she was in an accident.” And then suddenly, some of the fear left her voice, to be replaced by genuine anger. “Chris, I swear, if this is some kind of an idiotic prank you’re playing, it’s not funny—”
“You didn’t text me?” he demanded. He could feel his stomach seizing up as his hands turned icy cold.
“No, I didn’t text you!” Shayla cried. “Was Mom in an accident?” she asked, obviously at a loss as to what to think.
Grabbing the wheel with both hands, Chris made a screeching U-turn in the middle of the block. His mind raced as he struggled to put together a plausible scenario of what was happening.
Only one thing occurred to him.
“Suzie.”
Shayla was doing her best to follow him. “That CSI agent you brought with you to Uncle Andrew’s?”
He didn’t bother to answer. There was something far more urgent on his mind. “I’m going to need to have backup sent to Simpson’s Airport right away.”
“That’s a private airport, isn’t it?” Shayla questioned.
Again, he didn’t reply. There was no time for a conversation or explanations. Right now he was too busy weaving in and out of traffic as cut-off, angered drivers leaned on their horns, blaring them at him.
> “Listen very carefully, Shay. I need to have Warren Eldridge’s private jet grounded,” he told his sister. “He can’t be allowed to take off. Understand?”
“The billionaire?” she asked. “You want me to keep his plane grounded? Hey, I’m good, but I’m not a miracle worker.”
“Learn!” he ordered. “Do whatever you have to. Call the tower. But it can’t take off until I get there!”
With that, he terminated the call and pressed down even harder on the accelerator.
*
Suzie came to.
She thought she could hear a voice somewhere in the distance. An indistinct voice.
She tried to focus, but she couldn’t make out what the voice was saying. Everything was still spinning around in her head and she ached all over. Especially her head. She didn’t remember getting hit. Just this strange, hot, stinging sensation at the side of her neck.
Coming to, Suzie gradually became aware of her surroundings.
There weren’t any.
She was in some sort of an enclosed, confined space. A very small space.
Her adrenaline was rising at an alarming rate. She didn’t like small, tight spaces. Really didn’t like them.
Perspiration formed along the crown of her head and she could hear her breathing growing shallow. She couldn’t make herself stop.
It’s just a space. The walls aren’t closing in around you, she silently argued. You’re going to be okay.
This was just temporary. She was going to get out of it, Suzie assured herself, doing her best not to panic. She was claustrophobic and there was a time when she couldn’t even get on an elevator. She’d worked hard to get past that and she had, but now she felt waves of the fear coming back, wrapping around her.
She could feel her breathing growing labored.
Where was she?
She tried to yell and found that she couldn’t. There was some sort of adhesive tape over her mouth—duct tape?—and even though her hands weren’t bound, she still couldn’t move them. She’d been stuffed into some kind of a box and her arms were bent behind her so that she wasn’t able to do anything with her hands. Wasn’t able to use them to make any sort of a sound.
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