Trust No One (Devlin & Falco), page 34
“Stay close to your husband, Suzanne. The next twenty-four hours are crucial to getting through this.”
She rolled her eyes. “You should be babysitting Theo. The two of you are the reason this all started.” She had other things to do, like see after T. R.
“You have my word. By lunch tomorrow, this will all be behind us.”
“How the hell do you know when this will end? If you had paid better attention, you could have ended this before it started.” Fool.
“I’m meeting her at the cabin in the morning at nine sharp,” Lewis insisted. “She’s told me what she wants. We’re going to end this. Just the two of us.”
Suzanne laughed. “I’d be careful if I were you, Lewis. She’s a cunning little bitch.”
“Trust me, Suz. I’ve got this. I’ll be waiting when she arrives, and when it’s done, I’ll expect a very nice bonus for cleaning up this enormous clusterfuck.”
She ended the call. T. R. was right. Lewis York greatly overestimated his worth.
Speaking of T. R., where the hell was he? “T. R.? It’s late. Where are you?”
Once she reached the far side of the great room, she stalled. The french doors were open. There were no exterior lights on. Had he gone outside? What was he doing out there? She stepped through the door and onto the patio.
Suddenly the exterior lights blared to life.
An excavator still stood next to the pool. Rubble lay in massive piles.
The air trapped in her throat. She’d thought they had this under control.
“Fuck.”
Someone had dug up the pool. “What the hell?”
She ventured across the patio and to the edge of the former pool. Some pieces still lay in the pit that had once been her mother’s beloved oasis. Another piece of equipment sat next to the excavator. It wasn’t so large and looked like a metal barrel on legs.
“T. R.?”
She should call the police. Something was very wrong.
The lights went out.
Suzanne jumped. Dropped her phone and her purse. Damn it! She couldn’t see a thing. She reached down and scratched around on the ground. Where was her phone? Couldn’t find it.
“T. R.! What the hell is going on?” She straightened and peered into the darkness, willing her eyes to adjust faster.
Something slammed into the back of her head. Pain shattered through her skull. The blow sent her pitching forward. She twisted to grab on to something, but there was nothing except air. She fell into the pool, landing on her back atop a pile of rubble. Pain exploded in her body. Her head throbbed and spun. Her eyes wouldn’t focus.
She . . . she . . .
“Hello, Suzanne.”
The bright beam of a flashlight shone in her eyes. She blinked. Wanted to shield her eyes from the brightness but couldn’t seem to initiate the necessary action.
Who . . . ? The voice sounded familiar.
“Isn’t it amazing what the right contractor will do for the right price? It was so easy to hire him to show up this afternoon and rip out this lovely pool your mother built for your children to use when they visited her.” She laughed. “If she was anything like you, she needed some sort of bribe to woo them here.” She sighed. “Anyway, I digress. The contractor even left his nifty concrete mixer loaded with the dry mix I would require. All I have to do is add water.”
Suzanne tried to get up. Why couldn’t she move? The sound of water pouring into metal brushed her dulling senses. Something started to hum. The hum soon became a growl. Fear shattered in her chest. She needed to move, but she couldn’t. Her body would not cooperate.
The pain was overwhelming. She couldn’t keep her thoughts together.
“There we go.” The growling stopped. “I think we’re ready now.”
The organ in Suzanne’s chest flopped wildly. Sela Abbott. The voice belonged to that disgusting gold digger. “What . . . what the hell are you doing?”
Suzanne’s words sounded strange. Her voice was frail, and her head was spinning again. “What’ve you done to T. R.?”
“Oh, I’m afraid he’s going to have to drop out of the race for governor.”
“You will not get away with this,” Suzanne said with as much force as she could muster. Her body began to shudder and quake, and she couldn’t stop it.
She needed help. “H-help me.”
“I know everything, Suzanne,” Sela warned. “T. R. told me what you did to my sister. If you want my help with the pain, you only need tell me one thing first.”
Suzanne tried to scream, but her throat wouldn’t form the sound. She couldn’t stop shaking. “An-anything.”
“Who killed my husband?”
60
11:45 p.m.
Neal watched for headlights in the darkness.
Suzanne had ordered him to meet her. Keith Bellemont was hounding him. The police had put out an APB on his vehicle. At this point, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could make himself available, period.
Amelia was MIA. He hadn’t been able to reach her in days.
His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. He had a bad, bad feeling.
The police didn’t have anything on him. He’d cleaned up too carefully behind himself. He smirked. None of it had been complicated. Marcella Gibbons had been an easy target. She’d spent years mooning over her boss only to watch him marry and start a family with someone else. Neal had used her neediness to achieve his goal. The code to the Abbott home and a copy of the key. On his last visit to her place, he’d removed his bugs. Then he’d moved on to the Abbott home. He’d planted nearly a dozen cameras and listening devices in the big house. He’d known every move they’d made for weeks. He had known where Sela had hidden the weapon she’d bought. When he’d finished with it that fateful morning, he’d tucked it right back where she’d hidden it.
Too bad the cops hadn’t found it, or this might have all been over days ago. At this point, he had no idea where the gun was. He’d dared to go back into the house on Wednesday, but it was gone. Either the police were holding back the find, or that bitch had found a way to get her hands on it. He couldn’t see her going into the house to get it. She wouldn’t risk coming out of hiding.
If the police had done their job, he wouldn’t have had to endure Bellemont ranting that everything had gone to shit. The man needn’t worry. Neal had most of his assignment under control. Amelia was the only variable, and she had disappeared. Not that he would be worried if she reappeared. She knew nothing about him or what he’d done that Bellemont hadn’t already told the police.
Chances were, Amelia was the one who’d sneaked into the house and taken the gun for her friend. Naive kid.
Headlights bobbed into his rearview mirror.
He waited until Suzanne had pulled to the curb in front of him. When the headlights darkened, he got out of his car.
As he moved toward the front of his car, he wondered why she had turned the headlights off but not the engine. She generally did both. Then again it was muggy as hell tonight. Knowing how vain she was, she wouldn’t want to shut off the air-conditioning even for a few moments. He would join her in the car and learn the reason for this hastily scheduled rendezvous.
He cut between their vehicles.
Backup lights flickered, and the engine roared. What the . . . ?
The rear bumper of her car rammed into him, pinning him to the front of his own.
Pain seared through him, stealing his breath. He needed to . . . he tried to reach his gun. He always carried his gun, but his right hand was trapped between his body and the hood. He attempted to reach into the shoulder holster with his left.
Her car accelerated.
His own vehicle rocked with the force of her car pressing into it.
A new flood of pain exploded, racing through him. Was excruciating. He had to . . .
His upper body fell forward. His face pressed into the warm metal of her trunk.
And then he felt nothing at all.
61
TODAY
Saturday, June 16
8:30 a.m.
“Go ahead. Shoot me.”
The bastard had called her bluff. He’d lunged at her . . . they’d struggled.
Her weapon had fired.
He was dead.
Kerri had left him there—lying on the floor—and driven away from that damned cabin. Hurrying to the crime scene Falco had called about, she’d missed a curve and spun off the road, slamming into the mountainside. She’d had to climb out the passenger’s-side door. Pain throbbed in her skull from where he had banged her head against the floor over and over. She touched the left side above her temple and the new ache hammering there. She had apparently hit the driver’s-side door window during the crash.
She leaned against the rear bumper of her Wagoneer and squeezed her eyes shut. She had killed him. All she’d wanted was the truth. Where was Amelia? Where was Sela Abbott . . . had she been the one who died in that fire?
“Shit!”
Her scream echoed around her, bouncing off the snaky highway that uncoiled down this godforsaken mountain. She opened her eyes. Squinted at the bright sun. She wished she had her sunglasses, but the idea of climbing back into her wrecked vehicle to search for them was more than she could handle at the moment.
She should have called Falco when she’d followed the son of a bitch from his home to the cabin. Going on her own was stupid. Truly stupid.
Too late now.
She was in way over her head, and she still had no idea if Amelia was okay. Damn it!
Holding an unsteady hand over her eyes, she scanned the road. As much as she hadn’t wanted to involve her partner in this, she’d had no choice. Asking him to come get her had been her only option. He would have questions she couldn’t answer.
He had been at the new crime scene when she’d called. Another body had been found. Possibly female. Wasn’t that what he’d said?
At Whisper Lake Circle.
“Oh God.” If it was her . . . the pounding in Kerri’s skull had her stomach churning. She felt confused and unsteady.
What the hell had she done?
Her throat thickened, and nausea roiled in her gut.
How had she let something so damned irresponsible happen? She should have realized he wouldn’t be bullied into telling her anything. What she hadn’t expected was him charging toward her and the weapon she’d held.
If she’d had any question at all of his guilt, there was certainly none now. An innocent man would never have charged someone holding a loaded weapon—especially someone trained to use that weapon.
Guilty or innocent, dead was dead.
She squeezed her eyes shut again as the world around her started to twirl like a drunken ballerina. She should have called it in instead of driving away.
The sound of Falco’s Charger forced her eyes to open. He pulled over to the side of the road and climbed out.
“What the hell happened, Devlin?”
“I was reaching for my cell, and I missed the curve.”
The long assessment that followed warned he wasn’t convinced of her explanation.
He checked the driver’s side, where she feared there might be substantial damage. “Doesn’t look too bad. I’ll call a wrecker.”
Kerri wanted to feel relieved, but what she felt was ill. “Thanks.”
Falco looked her up and down. “So what really happened, Devlin?” He glanced up the road. “And what the hell are you doing here? I thought we agreed to—”
“He came here. I followed him. That’s what I was supposed to do, right? What about you?” She turned the question on him. “Weren’t you supposed to be keeping an eye on—”
“Dispatch called me because they couldn’t reach you. We have a body, Devlin. That takes priority over our surveillance plans. And I seem to recall we were supposed to notify each other if something came up.”
He stared at her. She couldn’t hold his gaze. Her head hurt too damned bad. And the guilt . . .
She looked away.
“What is it you’re not telling me?”
She struggled to gather her wits about her. “We can talk about it later; let’s go. Like you said, we have a body.”
“Okay, okay,” he allowed.
Kerri forced herself to meet his suspicious glare once more. “Is it her?”
“The vic hasn’t been ID’d yet. I did hear back from the lab on the bracelet. Blood type matches Sela Abbott’s.”
Not what she’d hoped for. “What are we waiting for?” The energy required to make the demand weakened her knees. “Let’s go.”
For a moment she worried that he would interrogate her further, and she didn’t have it in her to hold up to any more questions.
“We’ll come back to this,” he warned.
Kerri followed him to his car, her mind reeling with another shocking reality. Yes, she was glad the bastard was dead, but if she was charged with murder and went to prison . . .
Her daughter needed her.
She collapsed into the passenger seat of Falco’s car.
What the hell was she going to do?
Whisper Lake Circle
Kerri’s head throbbed relentlessly. She felt as if she might throw up any second. Her mouth was dry, and she was craving water, but she didn’t dare take a swallow for fear of setting off a nasty chain of events.
She had killed a man. She stared at her swollen hand.
An unarmed man.
No matter that the piece of shit had deserved something worse than death.
She should have let Falco watch York last night . . . she should have taken Thompson. Then she wouldn’t have ended up following the bastard to that damned cabin this morning. And he wouldn’t have caught her sneaking a look through the window to see what the hell he was doing.
She pushed the thoughts aside and scanned the area as Falco parked in front of the house, joining the array of other official vehicles. The ME’s van and two other BPD cruisers along with the van sporting the department’s crime scene logo. Yellow tape swung in the slight breeze, warning that something bad had happened here.
She climbed out of the car and trailed after Falco. She had been so certain she could end this—force the son of a bitch to give her what she needed, and maybe, just maybe, he would tell her where Amelia was.
Not at all how things had turned out.
Falco led the way around to the back of the house. An excavator still stood near the pool—or where it had been. The pool was now nothing more than a big gaping hole and a number of piles of rubble. The ME’s gurney sat next to . . . she squinted . . . a cement mixer. What the hell?
She wanted to ask Falco what had happened, but her stomach roiled, and she barely restrained the urge to puke. She couldn’t remember when she’d last gotten sick at a crime scene.
But this wasn’t about this scene. This was about the one she’d left on that mountain.
Dr. Moore appeared from behind the cement mixer. “Detective Devlin,” he said to Kerri, his knowing gaze roving over her. “You feeling all right this morning?”
“Not particularly,” she admitted. “Have you ID’d this victim?”
He shook his head. “Female, we think, based on the nail polish and the shoes we found.” He pointed to a single stiletto pump in a brazen red color abandoned on the ground. “The fingernails of the one visible hand are a similar red,” Moore went on.
A memory of red nails flashed in Kerri’s aching brain. “Where’s the body?”
“Down there.” The ME pointed into the area that had been the deep end of a luxurious pool.
As she stared into the hole, Kerri swayed. A firm hand gripped her arm and steadied her. Falco was standing next to her.
“We’re assuming,” her partner explained, “the vic was pushed from about where we stand; then freshly mixed concrete was dumped on top of her. The only part of the body visible is the one hand.”
Kerri stared at the hand that extended out of the hardened concrete, as if reaching for help. The nails weren’t particularly long, but they were that deep red.
Did Sela Abbott wear nail polish? Kerri tried to call to mind the numerous pictures of the woman she had seen. If this was her, then who was the victim in the house that had burned?
Kerri swayed again. God, her head was pounding. The likelihood that she had a concussion was becoming clearer and clearer. Damn it.
“I need to sit down,” she admitted.
Kerri pushed away Falco’s attempt to help and staggered from the pool. She left him with the ME and moved toward the steps that led down to a lower terrace with the intention of sitting down.
She didn’t make it.
Before she could stop herself, she had fallen to her hands and knees, and vomit spewed from her mouth.
“You okay, Detective?” one of the crime scene investigators called out.
She couldn’t answer. Didn’t want to look up. The idea that the unis and the crime scene investigators were witnessing her crash and burn had her heaving even harder.
And there was no way to escape what was coming.
That memory of red nails flashed again, and then she remembered. She closed her eyes. Oh hell.
Falco’s boots appeared in her line of sight. He crouched down. “There’s something I need to show you, Devlin.”
She struggled to her feet and dusted off her knees and hands, then swiped at her mouth. “I think the woman in the concrete is Suzanne Thompson. She wore nail polish like that.”
“I’ll let the ME know, but there’s someplace we need to go right now.”
“Have you heard from Jen?” She’d stopped returning Kerri’s texts about three this morning. The last one had said she still hadn’t reached Theo.
Falco shook his head. “I tried calling her but got her voice mail. We’ll deal with that in a minute. There’s something we have to do first.”
Thirty-Third Avenue West
The car stopped moving, and Kerri opened her eyes.
The small house that had stood in this spot was nothing but charred rubble now. A few bricks and cinder blocks. But if all that charred rubble could talk, the tales it would tell. This house was connected to decades of pain and at least one murder.
