Love Inspired Suspense April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Laura Scott

  “Look at it from my perspective,” the detective said. “You just brought this to us, and now you want us to jump on it when, in your own words, you have no proof.”

  “Nothing else makes sense.”

  “Accidents happen all the time. To all sorts of people. Why not to a few of the survivors of this accident you keep going on about? Statistically speaking, it’s unlikely to happen so close together, but it’s not out of reason.”

  “Three in six weeks strains the law of averages, doesn’t it?”

  “I don’t know. Does it?” The detective left the question standing. He gave a pointed glance toward the clock, then slid the thick folder back across his desk to Liam. “You’ve put together quite a file here. Three deaths. Three attempts on your life. What I don’t see is any similarity between the attacks. Murderers usually stick to a script once they find one that works. These killings, if that’s what they are, are all over the place.”

  “The fact that they are made to look like accidents is the pattern,” Paige pointed out.

  The detective made an impatient gesture. “I get that. Tell me why,” he said, directing a hard stare at first Paige and then Liam, “these accidents are occurring now.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw.

  “That’s what we haven’t figured out,” Liam admitted. “The only thing that’s changed in the last six weeks is that one of my friends died, this time of natural causes.” He explained about Sam Newley passing away from leukemia.

  Reineke shoved a hand through thinning salt-and-pepper hair that was already standing on end. “I don’t see the connection.”

  “Neither do we.” Liam’s admission came after a long breath.

  “I’m willing to believe there is a connection. I’m just having a hard time seeing it. I wasn’t here when the accident happened, but I know about it. Way I heard it, it was about the biggest thing to ever happen in Willow Springs.” He turned to Paige. “Ms. Walker, what do you think?”

  “I trust Liam’s instincts.”

  Liam flashed her a grateful smile.

  “We’ll do a deep run on Newley,” Reineke said. “See what we can find out. Let’s go back to the beginning. You say fifteen years have gone by since the bus accident. That’s a long time to hold a grudge.”

  “I’m guessing by your accent that you’re not from around here,” Paige said, raising a surprised expression on the detective’s face.

  His voice with its distinctive Northeastern inflection and hard consonants stuck out. “Yeah. What about it?” He didn’t give them the opportunity to answer. “Boston. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “This is the South,” Paige said. “Fifteen years is nothing.” She snapped her fingers. “It’s less than nothing. Memories tend to run long here.”

  “So I’m learning.” Impatience was now replaced with frustration. The detective looked at his notes before rubbing a hand over the bald spot on his head. So agitated was the motion that Liam wondered if he’d rubbed the hair right off at some earlier time. “Can I keep this folder? I assume you’ve made copies.”

  Liam nodded.

  “I have your contact information. The two of you, try to stay out of trouble.”

  To Liam’s ear, the words held more warning than concern. “We didn’t go looking for it.” He stood and let his ramrod posture answer the implied warning. “But I’m not walking away from it.”

  Silence stretched between the two men, along with a hard look. Soldier to cop.

  A heavy sigh caused Reineke’s chest to heave. “Didn’t think you would. But I had to say it.”

  “I’m not dropping this,” Liam emphasized.

  “For your own safety...” Reineke flushed as he pulled out words that were reminiscent of old television cop shows.

  “For my own safety, I have to keep at it. No offense, Detective, but for you, this is just another case. For me, it’s my life and my child’s life. You could say that I’ve got a vested interest in seeing this through.”

  “I can’t stop you, but I can warn you not to step on anyone’s toes.”

  “We’re going to be doing a lot more than stepping on toes by the time this is done.” Liam turned on his heel and walked out the door.

  He’d do what he had to do. Nothing more. Nothing less.

  * * *

  Outside, Paige struggled to keep up with Liam as he walked off his mad. His long legs ate up the sidewalk with angry strides.

  She’d recognized the signals he was giving off in the police station—the straightened spine, the tension rolling off him in almost palpable waves, the rigid line of his shoulders.

  “Hey, hold up,” she called when he gave no indication of slowing down.

  He paused, waited while she caught up. “Sorry.” He kept walking, albeit at a slower pace.

  Sensing his need to think things through, she remained silent until he started talking.

  “For a little while there, I thought we were getting somewhere,” he muttered. “A few days ago, they wouldn’t give me the time of day, shook me off like I was some kind of crackpot conspiracy theorist. Now Reineke says he’s going to look into it, but he still doesn’t really believe that the accidents are connected. My guess? He’ll just go through the motions.”

  “Maybe in going through the motions, he’ll turn up something we’ve missed.”

  “Not unless he starts seeing this for what it is. Revenge killings. It can’t be anything else.”

  He was right. The police seemed reluctant to connect the attempts on Liam’s life with the three so-called accidents and with the bus accident of all those years ago. She supposed the police had to be cautious in jumping to conclusions, but, for her, the time for caution had passed. People had died and more were likely to unless she and Liam found out who was behind this.

  “I don’t think we’re making friends in the police department,” she said. “Of course, that’s just me.”

  His lips quirked. “Yeah. I got that impression, too.”

  “When this is over, I’m going to have to make some amends. S&J likes to keep a good relationship with the police. It comes in handy.”

  “When this is over, I’ll help you. But right now, I’m more interested in finding out who’s trying to kill me and the others.” Regret showed in his eyes. “And now I’ve gotten you involved in it. You didn’t sign up to ride in a hacked car, dangle from a cliff and almost get blown up all within a day. If you want to cut me loose, I wouldn’t blame you.”

  “Not my style,” she said, repeating his words of a short while ago. “I’m with you.”

  He gave her a long look that had her wanting to squirm beneath its intensity. “Thanks. That means a lot.” Then, as though that shared moment had never happened, he said, “Let’s head to my place. I want to show you something.”

  Paige looked down at her torn and bloody clothes. She hadn’t taken the time to change after the explosion. “I’ll meet you there. I want to go home and get cleaned up.” She made a face. “Hanging around with you is hard on a girl’s wardrobe.”

  Liam glanced down at his own clothes. “An hour sound okay?”

  “Perfect.”

  As Paige drove home, she received a call from the IT specialist at S&J. Though Liam’s car’s operating system had clearly been hacked, there was no way to trace it. So much for that lead.

  At home, she showered and dressed in fresh clothes. There was nothing like a hot shower and clean clothes to make a woman feel better. She tossed the clothes she’d worn in the trash. There was no way they could be salvaged. She decided she didn’t need the sling anymore and tossed it, as well.

  She dried her hair, touched her lips with gloss and decided she’d do. Liam hadn’t hired a glamorous model. He’d hired a trained operative, and that’s what he’d get.

  Head in the game was what she needed. Anything else was off the
table.

  * * *

  Liam studied the two whiteboards he had been keeping for the last month. On it were pictures of the victims, the survivors and the bus driver, with family members of each. Notes were scrawled beneath each picture with arrows connecting individuals to each other.

  Above each picture was a label. Accidental. Natural. Homicide. Living. A map was taped to a second board, detailing where the victims had died, complete with names, dates and times. A drowning death at a beach. A short circuit resulting in a house fire. A fall from an apartment balcony. Three very different kinds of deaths, ruled accidents by the authorities.

  But he knew better.

  When he found proof, those labels would switch to homicide. Even if the police didn’t buy in to the theory, he knew it. He felt it in his gut, and he trusted it just as he had while leading his unit in Afghanistan. Call it instinct or intuition or whatever—it had never let him down.

  Should he remove the pictures of the survivors’ family members? No way would they be involved in the deaths. They understood just how precious those lives were.

  He shook his head in answer to his question. Those families were part of the whole, and if he was going to understand what was going on, he needed to see the whole of it.

  Maybe if he mixed up the pictures, moved those of the victims and interspersed them with the remaining survivors?

  He put thought to action, but the new juxtaposition didn’t shake anything loose. What wasn’t he seeing? He knew it was there, if only he were smart enough to make sense of it.

  He and Paige had stumbled onto something yesterday. The killer was no longer trying to make it look like an accident.

  Mentally he retraced their steps. First to Danny’s parents. There was open hostility from Mr. Howard, but Liam didn’t peg him as the killer. Grief over his son and then his wife had clouded his mind, but he wasn’t a murderer.

  Nothing there.

  Then...what?

  It couldn’t go on. It wasn’t just his life, but those of the other survivors. It occurred to him that there were now two classifications of survivors—those of the original accident and those remaining after three had recently died. Four, he corrected himself. Sam Newley, too, was one of the original survivors.

  What was Sam’s place in this? Logic said he didn’t have one. He’d died before the first accident/murder took place.

  Liam had put up a picture of Sam, anyway. As an afterthought, he’d included Sam’s younger brother. It wouldn’t hurt to pay him a visit. Maybe Sam had said something to his brother before his death that would jog a memory loose in Liam’s mind. At this point, he was willing to try anything.

  Though he’d talked with most of the other survivors about whether anyone had been following them or had tried to harm them, he’d come up empty and had only succeeded in scaring them. He couldn’t regret it, though. They were right to be scared. Maybe that would cause them to take extra precautions.

  The pictures started to blur. His thoughts cycled over and over, a loop he seemed unable to break. What wasn’t he seeing?

  The question tormented him until he turned his back to the board and pressed his fingers to his temples. The right piece in the right place would explain everything, only he wasn’t seeing it.

  If only he could remember something, anything, to make sense of what was happening. He pulled out a notebook and pen from his desk. Computers were great, but sometimes writing things out helped to clarify them. He’d done the same when he was faced with a problem while serving in Delta.

  He started with the morning of the accident. Methodically, he went through the events of getting ready. Having the breakfast he didn’t want but that his mother insisted he eat. Driving to school. Attending the pep rally before the game. Exchanging high fives with the players and other students. Eating lunch in the cafeteria because there wasn’t time to go off campus. And then the bus ride to the game.

  What had he been wearing? Oh yeah. His letterman sweater. That was a given, even though it had been far too hot for the heavy garment on a day where the humidity and the temperature each topped eighty-five. Khakis. An off-brand pair of sneakers because his parents couldn’t afford a name brand and refused to buy him a pair despite his claims that everyone was wearing them. That had been a sore spot between them.

  Looking back, he wondered why it had been so important that he wear a trendy pair of sneakers. Remembered shame filled him as he recalled the hot words he’d shouted to his mother and father for not giving in to his demands. He’d been unbearably arrogant and now marveled they’d ever put up with him.

  Nothing was too small to overlook, so he recorded everything, even his capitulation on removing his sweater, acknowledging that it really was too hot.

  He described each of the kids on the bus in as much detail as he could summon. Snippets of conversation appeared in his mind, and he transcribed them to paper as accurately as he could.

  He shook his head as he called up the foolish dialogue that went on between his teammates and the cheerleaders. Light flirting mixed with some bruised feelings when a warm smile wasn’t returned or a coy flip of the hair was ignored. The players were full of themselves, and the girls responded to the bravado of boys feeling their way toward manhood.

  Harmless fun. Nothing more.

  He continued with his note taking, including the locker room chatter, the good-natured ribbing between the boys about who would score the most points on the field, the game itself, the after-game blow-by-blow account.

  And then the ride home.

  The excitement of winning the final game of the season. More high fives of buddies congratulating each other and themselves. The excited hum of the cheerleaders, just as thrilled over the score as the players. The promise of a celebratory dinner for just Marie and him.

  Everything had been so normal.

  Until the bus ran off the bridge and his world had changed forever.

  “What am I missing?” The question, directed to the empty room, remained without an answer.

  Paige was due to arrive in a few minutes. He’d invite her in, show her the boards, get her take on them. She had a good eye. Maybe she would see what he was missing.

  The thought of Paige had his lips curving in a smile. Brett’s little sister had grown up into a beautiful woman.

  Liam pushed back the thought. He needed to get his head in the game and off Paige Walker. His life and those of others depended on him doing just that.

  FIVE

  Paige arrived and was let in by a distracted Liam.

  “Come on back.”

  A family room, kitchen and dining area combined to make a great room that had Paige envious of the space and the air of casual comfort it promised. Put-your-feet-up furniture and practical hardwood floors said the home was designed for living, not just for show.

  Family pictures and what must be the art projects of a five-year-old covered every surface and most of the walls. She wanted to linger over the pictures to absorb the obvious love that existed between Liam and his son, who was blond-haired and looked seriously adorable with an off-center dimple in his chin.

  A brightly colored poster caught her attention. A mother bird watched over her babies with the caption What if I fall? Oh, but, my darling, what if you fly? The gentle encouragement in the words caused a pang to settle in her chest as she thought of her relationship with her own parents. They hadn’t so much discouraged her as they had forgotten her. That was somehow worse.

  The hurt no longer crippled her as it once had. Now it was only a sore place in her heart, one that had healed but remained tender in the harsh light of examination. She doubted Liam’s son ever felt discouraged or forgotten.

  The sense of home here, the comfort and coziness of it, wrapped her in a warm blanket—one she longed to snuggle up in and close out the cares of the day.

  Her two-bedro
om apartment, littered with moving boxes yet to be unpacked and nothing personal but for a single African violet on a windowsill, looked cold and sterile by comparison. She’d lived there for over a year and had made only half-hearted inroads into settling in.

  She had reasons—legitimate reasons, she told herself—why she hadn’t done more than the minimal amount of unpacking. She’d dug through a few boxes as she’d needed items, but aside from a few feeble attempts, she’d done little to turn the apartment into anything but a place to sleep and change clothes.

  Work came first. And when she returned home from work, she was exhausted, far too tired to tackle the chore of opening boxes and deciding where to put things.

  Also, she wasn’t sure she was going to keep the apartment for very long. Why bother unpacking only to go through the whole process again? she asked herself, conveniently ignoring the fact that she’d been there well over a year now. She recognized the reasons for the excuses they were. In truth, she hadn’t done more because the apartment wasn’t home and never would be.

  She’d worked hard to make a home in her condo in Virginia, where she’d been based with the ATF, as she and Ethan had planned to live there after they were married. After he’d died, she knew she couldn’t stay. She’d sold the condo, resigned from her job, and moved to Atlanta for a new job and a new life. She had the job, but her life was in a holding pattern she felt powerless to break.

  Liam looked at her strangely. “You okay?”

  Startled, she realized she’d lost herself in the past. “What? Oh yeah. Fine. I was just admiring your home. It’s beautiful.”

  He glanced around as though seeing the room for the first time. “Hardly beautiful. But it suits Jonah and me.” He gestured to the sofa, where dents in the cushions bore evidence of it being well used. “I’m not much of a decorator. My ex-wife wanted everything perfect, but I’m more of the lived-in style.”