Bleeding Through: A Rachel Goddard Mystery (Rachel Goddard Mysteries) (24 page)

“I don’t know what to do,” Michelle said. “I can’t hide here forever. I have a career, I have patients. And you have your own life.”

“Give Tom and Dennis a chance to help.”

“They have more important matters to deal with.” Michelle pushed back a strand of hair that had fallen across one eye. “It isn’t fair to ask you and Tom to put up with things that are aimed at me.”

“Listen.” Rachel gripped her sister’s shoulders. “This mess tonight could be totally unrelated to you. Tom’s investigating a murder, he’s getting under people’s skins. Somebody could have decided to get back at him.”

Did she really believe that? Rachel was no longer certain what she believed. All she knew was that she would go crazy worrying if her sister were out of sight, hundreds of miles away.

Michelle looked doubtful. “I’ll sleep on it.”

“Good. Don’t rush to do anything. Don’t make a decision because of what happened tonight.”

Chapter Twenty-three

Flashing lights up ahead. A light bar on a Sheriff’s Department cruiser parked on the road in front of the house.

“Aw, god, no,” Tom muttered. Tightening his fingers on the steering wheel, he sped up. When he drew closer he saw a second cruiser parked on the roadside, its lights off. Probably Brandon’s vehicle. But two cruisers meant trouble. Tom barely slowed as he passed the cars and swung into the driveway.

He slammed the door behind him and jogged to the house, where Brandon waited at the bottom of the steps. Before Tom could speak, Brandon held up both hands to stop him. “You don’t want to go in this way, Captain.”

“What’s going on here?” Tom could smell it. Blood, rank and faintly metallic. What had happened since he’d phoned Rachel from the road ninety minutes ago? “Where’s Rachel? Is she hurt?”

“I’m right here,” Rachel called from the doorway, standing behind the screened door. “We’re all okay. Nobody got hurt.”

The clutch of dread around Tom’s chest eased a little, and he was able to take a deep breath again. He peered at the porch. Light from the fixture above the door glinted off a dark crimson pool three feet wide. “Who did this?” he asked Brandon.

“I don’t know.” Brandon shook his head. “I didn’t see anything or hear anything.”

“Are you telling me somebody came right up to the house while all these lights were on, and threw, what, a gallon of blood on the porch, and you didn’t see a thing?”

“I was inside, where you said you wanted me to be.” Brandon sounded a little defensive. He’d argued in favor of staying outside the house all evening. “I made the rounds over and over, looking out all the windows. This happened while I was checking the back yard from the kitchen.”

Tom dialed back his anger. He wasn’t being fair to Brandon, who had followed orders. “Nobody got in the house, that’s the important thing.” And blood on the porch was minor compared to what could have happened. He glanced toward the door again, reassuring himself that she was really there, unhurt. Michelle stood beside her, an arm linked with Rachel’s, looking like she’d been zapped by a stun gun.

“I saw somebody running away.” Rachel pointed across the road. “He disappeared into the woods.”

“Keith Blackwood’s over there now, looking around,” Brandon said. “We had a couple of cars on the other side of the woods pretty soon after it happened, but they didn’t see anything. I guess he got to his car fast and he was long gone by the time our guys showed up. Rachel was the only one who saw him—”

“And I didn’t get a good look,” Rachel said. “I can’t even say for sure it was a man.”

“All right, I’m here now. Brandon, why don’t you go and see if Keith’s found anything? But I doubt the guy dropped any evidence for us to trip over. Look around for a while, then give me a call and go on home.”

“Will do, boss.”

As Brandon started off toward the woods, Tom surveyed the porch again, infuriated by his own helplessness as much as the thought of someone defiling the home he shared with Rachel. Was this the work of Michelle’s stalker, or was somebody trying to warn him away from the Beecher case? “I’ll come in through the back door,” he said.

Rachel waited for him there, and she stepped into his embrace. “I’m so glad you’re home,” she whispered.

Tom pulled her close and pressed his face against her silky hair.

Rachel’s voice was muffled against his shoulder. “If you hold me any tighter you’re going to break a rib.”

“Sorry.” Tom pulled back to look into her face. Smoothing her auburn hair off her brow, he said, “You’d better tell me what you saw while it’s still fresh in your mind.”

“I think this night will be fresh in my mind for a long time.”

When they moved to sit at the kitchen table Tom noticed Michelle in the doorway from the hall. She looked haggard, her hair hanging in disheveled strands, her blue eyes haunted. “Hey,” he said. “You all right?”

“I was telling Rachel right before you got here that I think I should go home. I’m so sorry I brought all this on the two of you.”

“We don’t know that this was meant for you. It could be connected to the murder case I’m investigating.” Tom paused. “Would you feel safer in Bethesda?”

He thought Michelle’s departure was the best idea he’d heard in a long time, and he hoped she would say yes. But she dropped her gaze and shook her head.

“Then stop talking about leaving,” Rachel told her. “I’m sure nothing else will happen tonight. Go back to bed and try to get some sleep.”

Silently Michelle turned away and disappeared down the hall toward the stairs.

Tom closed the door, sat down again. Speaking quietly, he said, “She ought to be with her husband.”

“He won’t help her,” Rachel said, her voice low and furious.

“You can’t fix this for her,” Tom said. “She’s got money. She can hire security.”

Rachel’s mouth dropped open. “That’s your solution? Hire a bodyguard? For how long? The rest of her life?”

“She has to go back to the Montgomery County police with this. I’ll give them a report on what’s been happening here. I’ll get them to take it seriously.”

“Can you get her husband to take it seriously?”

“He knows this is real. He knows you heard the stalker on the phone.”

“But he still went home and left her here.”

“And we know why. She didn’t want him to stay.”

Rachel leaned closer over the table to whisper. “They’re having problems. Aside from this stalker stuff. He’s not going to make her feel safe. He makes her feel even more vulnerable.”

Tom scrubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin. He was worn out. He wanted to take a hot shower and fall into bed. “Okay, let’s put that aside for now. Tell me what you saw tonight.”

Rachel described the figure she’d glimpsed sprinting toward the woods. “Like I said, I don’t know if it was a man or a woman. From the height and the way he was running, long strides, I’d say it was probably a man. But a lot of women are tall and powerful runners, so I can’t swear to it. Slender build, I’m sure about that. Average, really. Not skinny, not overweight.”

“You couldn’t see the face or hair?”

“No.” Rachel paused a moment, examining the brief memory. “I don’t believe I saw any skin, now that I think about it. The hair was covered. I’m sure of that. Dark clothing, head to toe, and a hood over the hair.”

Tom sighed. “Great.”

“I watched until he, she, ran into the woods, but altogether it wasn’t more than a few seconds.” Rachel spread her hands. “Sorry. That’s all I can tell you.”

“That’s a lot better than nothing. If this is the same person who’s been harassing Michelle, it’s a man.”

“He called again this afternoon.” Rachel repeated what the caller had said:
Our time is coming, Michelle. We’ll be together very, very soon. Be ready for something special.
“There’s one more thing you need to know about. I was going to wait until morning to tell you, so you could get some rest first, but that seems pointless now that we’ve got blood all over the front porch.”

A chill ran through Tom. “What is it?”

He listened with growing apprehension as Rachel told him about finding a dead rat, its throat and belly slashed open, inside a cabinet in her office. “Jesus Christ. He’s escalating, Rachel. This is a dangerous situation. I’m starting to think Michelle ought to get away someplace where he can’t follow her.”

“Go into hiding?” Conflicting emotions flitted across Rachel’s face. “How would that help you catch him?”

She was right about that. He needed to lure the stalker into revealing himself, and that wouldn’t happen if the guy lost sight of his quarry. “Dennis will keep trying to track down the calls and the e-mails. We’re getting the word out that we want to know about any strangers who’ve shown up in the county lately, even if it’s just somebody who stopped at a gas station to tank up. That might help us with the Beecher case too. Let me think about this a little more when I’m not so beat.”

“You do look a little tired.” Rachel smiled at him, one of those soft smiles so filled with love that Tom had no doubt about how lucky he was to have her in his life. “Did you make any progress today?”

“Some, I think. I didn’t want to believe it at first, but everything I’ve heard makes me think Shelley was murdered because she was looking into Brian Hadley’s murder.”

Rachel frowned. “Do you think it’s possible the wrong man was arrested and convicted? That would mean your father made a colossal mistake.”

“I don’t care,” Tom said. “I can’t put on blinders because my dad was the cop on the case. If Vance Lankford didn’t kill Brian Hadley, the real killer is still free, and he had a strong motive for killing Shelley. I don’t think I can solve Shelley’s murder unless I take another look at the Hadley case.”

Chapter Twenty-four

Tom halted in the doorway of the conference room, taking in the six bulging cardboard file boxes on the table. “Oh, man,” he said to Dennis. “I didn’t think it was going to be this much of a slog.”

From the far side of the table Dennis surveyed the material with a bemused expression. “It was an open and shut case, but Vance Lankford kept saying he didn’t kill Brian, so your dad talked to just about everybody in the county to make sure he didn’t miss anything. The clerk’s office is printing out the trial transcript for us. Are you real sure we need to look at all this stuff again?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” Tom stripped off his uniform jacket and draped it over the back of a chair. “By the way, I’m sending a bottle of blood to Roanoke for analysis. As soon as the report comes in, I want to know about it, even if you have to track me down.”

Dennis was staring at him. “Back up a little, will you? A bottle of blood?”

“It’s evidence, but I don’t know whether it has to do with the Beecher case or Michelle Goddard’s stalker.” Tom pulled out a chair and sat down. Dennis sat across from him and listened without questions as Tom described what he’d returned home to the night before. “I’m telling the lab that it’s evidence in the Beecher case, so they’ll get to it faster. I want to know what kind of animal it came from. If it turns out to be cow blood or pig blood, that could narrow down the source.”

“But if it’s deer blood,” Dennis pointed out, “almost anybody with a hunting rifle could have collected it.”

“Right. That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Rachel told you about the rat, I guess.” Dennis pulled off his glasses and rubbed one lens on the sleeve of his uniform shirt. “I put it in the fridge in the break room in case you want to take a look. You think the same person’s responsible for the blood on your porch? Could be somebody trying to scare you off the Beecher case.”

“He’d have to be an idiot to think it would work. But I don’t know who’s doing what.” Tom shook his head. “I don’t like this kind of thing getting so close to home. Close to Rachel. The stalker’s after her sister, not her, but when Rachel’s with Michelle she’s going to get sideswiped by anything he does. God, I wish Michelle would go back to Bethesda, but Rachel wants her to stay here.”

“How’s the guy getting into the animal hospital without leaving any sign of a break-in?” Dennis slid his glasses back on.

“Good question. The tumbler locks could be picked, but not the deadbolts.”

“Maybe one of the employees is forgetting to turn the deadbolt,” Dennis suggested. “Don’t some of them go in after hours, to walk any dogs that are being boarded or check on animals recovering from surgery? Somebody leaves a deadbolt unsecured, the stalker comes along, testing the locks, finds a door that’s easy to get open.”

Tom nodded. “That occurred to me too. I want to question the employees myself, but Rachel says no, she has to do it.”

“Nobody’s going to admit to it.” Dennis pulled one of the file boxes closer and removed the lid. “They don’t want to get fired.”

“But if that really is the problem, just talking to them ought to take care of it, and the guy won’t get into the building again.” Tom half-rose to reach for another of the boxes and dragged it over. “He’ll keep up the phone calls and e-mails, though, and he might try something at the house again. Following Michelle here was pretty extreme behavior. I think he’s got more in mind than just scaring her.”