Dying to Kill (Angel Delaney Mysteries Book #2)

by Patricia H. Rushford

  She bit into her lower lip. “Thanks for the reminder.”

  The door opened to Callen’s house, and Mutt shot out, followed by the redhead. She was even prettier up close. The beautiful woman who had given her so much grief was his sister. Angel felt ridiculous, glad she hadn’t made a complete fool out of herself by confronting Callen about his mysterious woman.

  “Mutt, you come back here.” Kath ran after him.

  Her command fell on deaf ears as Mutt made a beeline for Angel.

  “Hey, boy,” Angel crooned down at him. “Did you miss me?”

  “Obviously.” Kath sidled up to the car and scooped the dog into her arms. “I’m Kath. It’s so nice to meet you.” She stepped back. “Wish it were under different circumstances, though.”

  “Nice to meet you too,” Angel managed to say.

  “Let’s get you inside.” Callen slid his arms around Angel’s back and under her legs, lifting her out of the car and into his arms.

  “I can walk.”

  “You’re weak. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

  Angel didn’t argue. Truth be told, she doubted her legs would hold out for more than a few seconds.

  Callen deposited her on the bed in his room. “Kath’s using the guest room. I’m sleeping on the couch,” he said before she could even protest.

  “This isn’t necessary. I can just go home.”

  “Yes, it is. You can’t be home alone. You can’t stay at your mother’s. She’s in no condition to help you. Kath volunteered to help me take care of you and—”

  “That’s that.” Kath squeezed in front of her brother. “No arguments, young lady.” She turned around and poked a finger in Callen’s chest. “You, go back to work. Catch that killer before he abducts another victim.”

  “But—”

  “Angel will be fine.”

  Callen frowned. “I’m sorry, Angel. She’s right. I have to get back to the body shop and finish interviewing those guys.” He moved in front of his sister and kissed Angel’s forehead. “You’d better do as she says or she’ll beat you up.” He grinned and ducked away as Kath punched his shoulder. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  When he’d gone, Kath tucked Angel in and brought her a glass of water with a straw. “I’ll let you sleep for a while and bring you something to eat when you’re up to it.”

  “Hmm.” Angel relaxed against the pillows. Mutt jumped up on the bed, circled once, and sat down, resting his chin on her leg.

  “Come on, Mutt. Leave her alone.” Kath reached for the dog.

  “He’s fine.” Angel smiled. “Probably worried about me.”

  “I’m sure he is.” She stroked his head. “From what Callen has told me, you’ve been through a lot. Losing your father and now this.” Kath stood there a moment watching her. “My brother really cares about you.”

  “I know.”

  “I mean, he really cares.”

  If there was a hidden meaning behind her words and the protective expression on her face, it was probably something like, I hope you’re worth it.

  Angel slept for what seemed like two minutes; the clock indicated it had been two hours. She awoke to see her mother clucking over her and thanking Kath. Anna seemed to be moving her arm more freely and showed Angel a bright blue cast that ran from just above the elbow to the middle of her hand. “This is my fault, Angel. I shouldn’t have sent you looking for Douglas. I should have told Debra you were too busy.”

  “Ma.” Angel sighed and lifted her uninjured arm to grasp her mother’s good hand. “It’s not your fault or Debra’s. The only person to blame is the guy who shot me.”

  Kath brought in a cup of chicken broth with a straw. “Thought you might want this. Your mother brought it.”

  “Ma, you’ve got a broken arm—what are you doing in the kitchen?”

  “I took it from the freezer,” she said. “I always make extra and store it just for times like this.”

  Angel moved to sit up when an unexpected wave of nausea washed over her. “I don’t think I’d better eat anything right now.” She leaned back into the pillows. “Maybe later.” Mutt whimpered as if feeling her discomfort and snuggled a bit closer.

  Anna questioned Kath about the pain medication and asked her to bring in a basin in case Angel needed to throw up. Kath let her know she had everything covered. Angel just closed her eyes again and waited for the nausea to pass.

  Kath and Angel were alone the next time Angel woke up. She groggily made her way to the bathroom with Kath holding on to her good arm. From there she insisted on going into the living room. “I can’t believe a flesh wound could cause so much trouble. It hardly even hurts.”

  “I imagine the pain medication is making you woozy. I could make you a piece of toast.”

  Angel nodded. “That sounds good. I’d better try some of my mom’s soup too.”

  Angel managed to eat and felt better but was too tired to stay up. “Good thing I didn’t try to go home by myself.”

  Kath smiled. “Somehow I don’t think your family or Callen would have let that happen.”

  Angel yawned and with Kath’s help made her way back to bed. Kath adjusted the pillows and headed out of the room.

  “Would you mind staying for a while?” Angel asked.

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “No, I mean here. Talk to me.” She moved her legs to give Kath room to sit down.

  “What about?”

  “Tell me about you and Callen and your family.”

  Kath did. Angel liked hearing her voice as she told of her husband and teenage daughters and how they’d given her the gift of a week at the beach with Callen. How she was Callen’s older sister and often felt more like a mother. How their own parents had been into drugs and alcohol and how they’d lived most of their lives with their grandparents.

  Kath talked about Callen’s marriage and how hard he’d taken Karen’s death. All in all, she painted Callen as the caring, sensitive, loving man Angel knew him to be. Not the angry man she’d caught a glimpse of Friday night.

  The following morning, Angel awoke to the tantalizing smell and the sizzling sound of bacon. Voices coming from the kitchen reminded her that she was still in Callen’s house.

  “Did you get anywhere with your interviews yesterday?” Kath asked her brother.

  “Right now I’m just weeding out the people who didn’t kill Christy. The car’s owner has an ironclad alibi. He was here in Sunset Cove the entire time. Same goes for his employees. Looks like none of them did it. I’m still looking at Mitch’s two youngest sons.”

  Angel grimaced with pain as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed.

  “Better see if our guest is ready to eat,” Callen said. “I think I hear her stirring around in there.”

  Kath appeared in the doorway. “Need some help?”

  “Maybe.” Angel stood still for a moment, waiting for the room to sway, and when it didn’t she ventured forward. “I think I’m okay.”

  “How’s the arm?”

  “Hurts some, but I’m sticking with Tylenol today. The stuff the doctor gave me makes me feel like I’ve been rolling around the ocean in a storm.”

  “I know what you mean.” Kath walked with her to the bathroom and waited outside while Angel used the facilities and washed her hands. Lifting her good arm, Angel finger combed her hair. Not that it did much good. A gray complexion didn’t do much for her appearance either. Kath had loaned her a pair of pajamas with legs that trailed along on the floor behind her. She tried rolling up the cuffs with one hand and gave up. They’d just have to drag.

  Callen and Mutt appeared at the sliding glass door just when Angel got to the table. “You’re looking good this morning.” He dropped a kiss on her cheek and hung up Mutt’s leash.

  “Liar.”

  “Compared to yesterday.” He washed his hands and dished up breakfast. “Did you sleep well?”

  She nodded. “I’m ready to go home.”

  He lo
oked disappointed. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Why don’t you hang around here for another day. Kath could use the company and—”

  “Callen.” Kath gave her brother a look of warning and turned to Angel. “Tell you what. Have breakfast with us, then shower and get dressed. Once you do that you’ll have a better idea of what you can handle.”

  “Sounds fair enough,” Angel agreed. “And if I feel good enough to go home?”

  “I’ll take you, of course.” Kath poured orange juice into three glasses. “And we’ll have to figure out a way to get your car home.”

  “Your car’s taken care of,” Callen said. “Your brothers took it over to your folks’ place.” He frowned. “I’m not sure that going to your apartment is a good idea. Not just because of your arm.”

  “You think whoever shot at me will come back?” Angel hadn’t really been awake enough since the shooting to think much about the shooter or his motives.

  “That would be my main concern, yes.”

  She replayed the fourth email message in her head. “I doubt it. Dragonslayer didn’t want to hurt me, remember? He just wanted to get me out of the way for a while, and he certainly did that.”

  Callen didn’t seem convinced, but he didn’t argue either.

  “I overheard you mention that you’d cleared Mitch and his employees and that you were still looking at the sons?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “The youngest one is still in high school. I didn’t mention this the other night, but I think he drove Gracie out to the farm the day Jenkins was killed. She said she had to go out to get some papers and insists Phillip was alive when they left.” Angel nibbled at a piece of multigrain hazelnut toast. “That’s why Candace confessed. She knew Gracie had been out there.”

  “That’s a pretty important piece of information.” Callen didn’t seem too pleased.

  “Yeah, well, what I’m trying to say is that he couldn’t have been in Florence. He was here.”

  “Jenkins was killed on Tuesday, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Well,” Callen went on, “we found the car that day and we figure the victim had been dead for a couple days at that point. The guy had a head start on us. We think he left the area on Sunday.”

  “Oh.” Angel felt sick. “I left a message for Nick about the Bailey kid. It’ll be easy to check him out since he goes to the high school. In fact, that was on my agenda today—to talk to him about his trip out to the Jenkins’s farm that day. Do you really think Justin stole his dad’s car and killed that girl?”

  “He’s been in some trouble lately,” Callen said. “Skipping school, partying. I’ll be taking a hard look at him.” Callen didn’t say the words out loud, but Angel knew he didn’t want her anywhere near Justin Bailey.

  She wasn’t too crazy about meeting Justin either, especially if he’d been the one to kill Christy. “I’m having trouble connecting the dots between Jenkins and the Grant girl. Do you really think there’s a connection? It doesn’t seem feasible that Justin would kill her and then show up at the farm the same day Jenkins was killed.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” Callen finished off a glass of milk.

  “Hmm. I just had a thought. Remember what I said about the women in the support group hiring a hit man?” She reached for a jam jar.

  His eyes narrowed as he tried to follow her line of thought.

  “What if Gracie hired Justin to kill Phillip? Maybe she knew about Christy.” Angel had trouble believing her own suggestion. She’d suspected Gracie all along but couldn’t imagine her condoning the death of a girl her own age. Gracie just didn’t seem that hateful.

  Callen rubbed the back of his neck. “Tell you what. I’ll question him about Jenkins at the same time. Find out exactly what he’s been up to for the past two weeks.”

  Angel managed a smile. “And you’ll tell me, right?”

  “If you promise to stay out of trouble.”

  “I have no intention of getting into trouble.” And she didn’t. Unfortunately, though, she had no way of knowing that trouble would find her.

  Callen left as soon as he finished eating. Kath secured plastic wrap around Angel’s dressing, sealing it in a waterproof cocoon. By the time Angel had showered and gotten dressed, she was too exhausted to do anything but go back to bed.

  “You knew this would happen, didn’t you?” she said to Kath.

  Kath smiled. “I had a hunch.”

  Angel awoke at around 1:00 in the afternoon. The house was oddly quiet. Angel used the bathroom and ventured into the living room. Kath and Mutt were gone. A note on the table told Angel that they’d gone exploring at the northern end of the beach in the tide pools and that if Angel wanted lunch, Kath had made a chicken salad sandwich for her.

  Angel devoured the sandwich and, feeling much better, decided to walk over to her parents’ place to pick up her car. “Gone home,” she wrote on the bottom of Kath’s note. “Thanks for everything. Angel.”

  No one was home at the Delaney house, so Angel secured her keys from the table near the front entrance and drove back to her apartment.

  The activity left her feeling exhausted, and she headed for the bedroom to take another nap. Her cell phone rang, and Angel retrieved it from its pocket in her bag.

  “Hello?” The caller sounded out of breath. “Angel?”

  “Yes, it is. Who is this?”

  “Gracie.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “No. I think I know who killed that cheerleader in Florence. I need to talk to you. Please meet me . . . at the school. Hurry. I’m afraid he might . . . I gotta go.”

  The line went dead. Any residual weariness fled. Angel grabbed her keys and arrived in front of Sunset Cove High School five minutes later.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Callen pulled into the lot of Mitch’s Auto Body. As he’d told Angel, he felt the owner and his employees were telling the truth; their alibis had checked out. Now he wanted to focus on Mitch’s two boys.

  “Detective Riley.” The man was cordial enough, but Callen could tell that underneath the smile and proffered hand, the man clearly didn’t want him there. Callen didn’t blame him. He was there to talk about the man’s sons.

  “Come on into my office, detective. What can I do for you?”

  The office was a small cubbyhole smelling of grease and looking like it might have looked fifty years ago. There was a current calendar on the wall, next to a picture of a pinup girl from the fifties.

  “I have a few questions.” Callen eased onto the plastic chair that had seen its share of grime.

  The day before, Mitch had indicated he’d noticed the car missing on Saturday before last. Christy hadn’t come home Friday night. Callen reminded him of that and asked, “Do you know where your sons were at that time?”

  “I wish I could tell you. Justin said something about going to the track meet, but I don’t know that he did. I’m thinking if he had, he’d have taken his pickup. When I first noticed the car was missing, I thought maybe one of my boys took it, but neither one of them owns up to it. Best I can tell you is that some stranger came along, saw the keys in it, and took off.”

  “Let’s back up a minute. You first thought one of your kids might have taken it?”

  “At first. Justin uses it sometimes when his truck is in the shop. He’s getting ready to paint it. Jimmy has used it too.”

  “Jimmy?”

  “The middle boy. He’s twenty now. Jimmy comes and goes pretty much as he pleases. I got to where I don’t pay him no mind. Wanted to throw the bum out two years ago, but the wife says to leave him be. He ain’t a bad kid.” Bailey poked his tongue into his cheek to dislodge a wad of chewing tobacco, which he spit into a can at the side of the desk. “Turns out Jimmy hadn’t used the car either.”

  Or he wasn’t admitting to it. But then who would? “When did you talk to Jimmy?”

  “Last night. He’d been in Portland visiting a friend and just came home.”

 
“What’s the friend’s name?”

  Mitch shrugged. “Probably Rob McKenzie.”

  Callen wrote the name down. It was very possible that Jimmy had taken the car and been forced to come back to Sunset Cove without it. After all, he couldn’t very well bring back a car in which he’d stowed the body of the missing girl.

  “I just hope he was telling the truth, you know, about not taking the car. Jimmy might be a rabble-rouser, but he ain’t no killer. He has plenty of girls running after him. He didn’t have to . . . you know . . . take that girl.”

  “Did Jimmy say anything about how he got to Portland?” Callen asked.

  “Says he hitched a ride. He’d planned on taking the car, but it was gone. I wish I could be more specific. Best I can tell you after talking to the boys is that someone must’ve taken it during the night.”

  “I’d like to talk to your boys myself. Can you tell me where to find them?”

  “Justin would be in school. Jimmy’s working today. I saw him out in the shop just before lunch.”

  Callen talked to Jimmy and collected a DNA sample via a mouth swab. Jimmy swore he had nothing to do with the Florence girl’s disappearance. He brushed long hair out of his eyes. “I was in Portland. You can call my buds. They’ll verify it.”

  “Okay, I’ll do that.”

  “I haven’t been anywhere near Florence,” Jimmy said again.

  Callen nodded and thanked him for his time. The kid was a drug user, and Callen doubted his alibi would hold up. Still, he would call the Portland office and ask to have a uniform trooper check out the names and phone numbers Jimmy had given him. “We’ll check out your alibi, and in the meantime, I’d like you to take a polygraph test.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know about that. Those things are kind of scary.”

  “Nothing to worry about, Jim. So long as you’re telling the truth.”

  “I guess that would be okay, then. When do you want me to take it?”

  “I’ll set something up in the next day or so. I have to bring a specialist in from our Salem office. Mitch, just to be sure, I’d like your younger son to take one too. I’m not suggesting they had anything to do with the crime, just whittling down the list of possible suspects.”