Death Vetoes The Chairman (Lizzie Crenshaw Mysteries Book 7) (27 page)

Chapter 36

The three of them were so focused on talking to each other, they didn’t notice me pick up my laptop and go to my office. Thanks to a new wireless printer, I was able to make a copy of everything on the flash drive. Digging around in the closet, I pulled out a corkboard and propped it against a wall. I separated out the papers, pinned them to the board, then sat down in my chair and studied them.

“What are you doing in here?” T.J. said from the doorway.

“You guys were giving me a headache.” I looked at the time. “It only took you thirty minutes to notice I wasn’t in the room.”

“Sorry.” He pointed at the corkboard. “What’s all this?”

“I printed everything out. Each pile is a different city and identity. This covers the last five to six years.”

“Persistent, isn’t she?”

“No kidding. I can’t help but wonder what’s happened to make her abandon all this.”

“Maybe it’s like you suggested earlier: Edward found out what she’s been up to, and arranged to have her kidnapped.”

“Then why trash the apartment?”

“Maybe they were looking for her copy of the birth certificate?”

“Assuming he knew about it in the first place.”

“True,” T.J. said. “You know, something about this is starting to bother me.”

“Get in line. This has been bothering me for a while.”

“I mean, the whole thing at the apartment today.”

“What about it?”

“It was too neat.”

“Too neat?” I said. “You’ve got to be kidding. “That living room looked like something from Longfellow’s
The Wreck of the Hesperus
.”

“Don’t throw your English degree at me. I mean that it was an organized mess.”

“This,” I said, pointing at my desk, “is an organized mess. What we saw this morning was chaos.”

T.J. shook his head. “I don’t think so. If you think about it, the mess was only located in the living room.”

“There certainly wasn’t much of a mess in the bedroom,” I replied. “Just a few things tossed around.”

He scratched his left jaw. “I don’t think this is what it appears to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I think it was staged.”

“By who? Barbara?”

“It’s possible.”

“That’s crazy.”

He pointed at the corkboard. “Does this look like the work of a sane person?”

“More like a very calculated woman.” I rubbed my forehead. “We need to talk to Jake.”

“Well, I certainly didn’t expect that,” Jake said when I called him with the news. His voice sounded a little tinny because he was on speakerphone.

“I wonder if he knows,” I said.

“Knowing Kass, she not only told him, she made sure he paid child support. Wait…what do you mean ‘knows’?”

I glanced at T.J., who shrugged before nodding. “I…um…well, there’s something I need to tell you, and you aren’t going to believe me when I do.”

“You’re pregnant.”

“Oh, ha ha, very funny.”

“I thought it was. Who’s the father?”

“Keep it up, laughing boy, and I’m going to hang up without telling you anything else.”

“All right, all right, I’m sorry,” he snickered.

“Ethan’s alive.”

Jake stopped laughing. “Excuse me?”

“Ethan’s alive.”

“T.J., has she been drinking wine or something? Did you give her scotch?”

“She hasn’t had anything to drink, Jake,” T.J. told him.

“You’re serious? You aren’t making this up?”

“We saw him. Lizzie even punched him.”

“Holy crap,” Jake said. “Start at the beginning.” It took a few minutes for us to tell him what we knew. “I always had a sneaking suspicion about Edward, but I never imagined anything on this scale.”

“I can’t believe Ethan has enough of a conscience to turn his father in,” I replied.

“Let’s stop for a minute,” Jake said. “Ethan rats his father out to the Feds, who decide to put him into protective custody. Barbara is after Ethan because she believes he killed her half-sister, Jessica. But it was Edward, not Ethan, who killed her, but Barbara doesn’t know that. So where does Kass figure into all this?”

“Maybe she and Barbara are in this together?” I suggested.

“That’s assuming they’ve been in contact,” T.J. said.

“Well, why don’t you use that shiny badge of yours and get the phone records?” Jake said.

“Because that takes a court order, and my shiny deputy sheriff’s badge isn’t going to get that.”

“No, but a federal badge would.”

“Hopkins already left,” T.J. said, “but I’ll give him a call, see what I can do.” He left the room.

“So, I understand they finally kicked you out of the hospital before the nurses went on strike.”

“I wasn’t that bad.”

“That’s not what Garth said.”

“Well, he lied. After watching what you went through with Ethan, I behaved myself like a perfect gentleman.”

“If we could change the subject from you to Barbara…”

“From my favorite subject to my least favorite.”

“What do you remember about Barbara from high school?”

“She thought Jessica hung the moon. Whenever she had some free time, Jessica spent as much time with her as she could.”

“And when Jessica died, what happened?”

“Total rebellion. In and out of trouble because of drugs and alcohol. We were all surprised she managed to graduate.”

“What about after graduation?”

“She disappeared. Nobody knows where she went.”

Sighing, I glanced at the corkboard again. “She’s managed to keep track of Ethan, wherever she’s been. We need to talk to your friend Kass.”

“Why don’t I give her a call, see if I can get her to come over? Then I’ll call you back, and we can double team her.”

“Can’t you talk to her by yourself?” I asked as T.J. came back in the office.

“Yes, I could,” he conceded, “but you have more information than I have, and I may not ask the right questions.”

“Come on, Jake,” T.J. said, “that’s a load of bull, and you know it.”

“I’m just trying to make things easier.”

“Fine, whatever. When she gets there, call me. I’m going to lay down for a while.” I hung up on him.

“What’s wrong?” T.J. asked.

“I’m just tired, that’s all,” I said, standing up. “I’ll be in my room.”

It felt good to lay down for a while. I felt like I was on information overload. Unfortunately, the dream I had did nothing to help me relax. There was Edward, wearing a crown and sitting on a throne, while Ethan flirted with all of the ladies in waiting. Suddenly, an arrow came shooting into the throne room, lodging itself in Ethan’s shoulder. I looked around, trying to find the shooter, when I thought I saw Barbara in the window. But she disappeared, and I couldn’t find her.

The women in the room converged around Ethan, shooting him repeatedly. But he just sat there and laughed. Meanwhile, Edward seemed to be acting like a puppet master, manipulating several people in the crowd, and occasionally laughing when one of his “puppets” fell down. I kept getting glimpses of women wearing different colored wigs, but all with dimples, and tilting their heads to the same side.

Suddenly, a tall woman appeared behind Edward, a long broadsword in her hand. Without a word, she rammed the sword into his back. He gasped, fell to his knees, and then face down on the floor. The strings he had been holding disappeared, and all the women around Ethan backed away, leaving him full of holes, but seemingly unscathed.

Disgusted, I leave, going down a long hallway. There are footsteps behind me, and I turn around to find Ethan, who’s grinning lecherously at me. My long gown gets tangled around my legs, and I stumbled backwards. Seeing his chance, he grabs me, shoving me against the wall. I starting beating against his chest with my fists, but he grabbed my wrists and pinned them over my head.

“Lizzie, wake up. It’s me, T.J. Wake up!”

I opened my eyes to see him bending over me, a worried look on his face. My legs were tangled up in the blanket, and he was gently holding my wrists in his hands. “Sorry,” I mumbled, pulling my arms back.

He unwrapped the blanket so I could swing my legs over the side of the bed. “It’s all right,” he assured me. “Jake mentioned that you had been having more vivid nightmares lately. What was this one about?”

“You don’t want to know. How long have I been asleep?”

“About an hour.”

“Any word from Jake yet?”

“Yeah, he just called. He said to tell you she’s gone.”

“Gone? Gone where?”

“No idea.”

“Is Garth still here?”

“Trixie brought the dogs over; she and Garth are in the backyard with them.”

I got up and stretched. “I ache all over.”

“Mind if I give you a hug?”

I smiled at him. “Sure,” I said, stepping into his arms, which he wrapped around me. Standing like this, I felt safe. There was no one trying to make my life miserable; it was just the two of us.

“While this is very nice, and while I’d like to stay this way for a while, I could also use some four-legged therapy, too.”

We went outside, where I was imnmediately attacked by Mittens, who jumped in my arms, wiggling, barking and licking my face. Babe was in her usual place under the tree, looking bored as usual. That’s about as warm of a greeting as I was going to get from her.

“Lizzie, it’s so good to see you!” Trixie said, coming over and giving me a hug.

“You make it sound like it’s been three months since you saw me, when it was just last night.”

“Your bruises look more colorful in sunlight than they do in the darkness.”

“Oh thanks, I feel so much better now,” I said, putting Mittens down. “I see you’ve met Garth.”

“Yes, I have, and I think I’m in love.”

“Have you told him you run a gentlemen’s club yet?”

“What did you expect me to do? Walk up and say ‘Hi, I’m Trixie Greene, and I run a gentlemen’s club for husbands who are tired of being nagged to death by their wives.’?”

“That’s what you usually do.”

“I’m trying a different approach.”

T.J. and Garth joined us. “Why don’t we run to the store and pick up some steaks or something to grill?”

“I can’t leave,” Garth said. “I’m under orders to stay here with Lizzie.”

“I’ll go with you, T.J.,” Trixie said. “Someone has to make sure you pick up the right stuff for dessert.”

“You do realize we just ate a couple of hours ago?” I pointed out to the guys.

“What’s your point?” T.J. replied. “By the time we go to the store, get the food, come back and cook, it will be time for supper.”

“All right, all right, just go,” I laughed.

After the two of them left, I went over and sat down next to Babe under the tree. “You look tired for someone who just had a nap,” Garth said as he sat down on the other side of Babe.

“I don’t get much sleep lately. More like cat naps.”

“Can you say that in front of your dog?”

“Does it look like she cares?”

We didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes. “How’s Jake?” he said.

“He sounded fine. Did T.J. tell you that Jake said Kassandra Sherwood is gone?”

“Yeah, he told me.”

I thought about my dream. “Do you get the feeling that we’re just running around in circles?”

“Like the old magician’s trick: they get you to pay attention to the right hand so you can’t see what the left one’s doing.”

“I don’t think I’ve heard of that before.”

I ran my fingers through my hair. “It’s like setting up a decoy in one place, while you’ve got the original in a different place.”

“That I understand,” he nodded. “But what makes you think something devious is going on?”

“One: Barbara stalking Ethan. Two: Edward is being investigated by the Feds, who have a star witness in federal custody. Three: for some unknown reason, Kassandra Sherwood has disappeared; so has Barbara. Four: Edward hired someone to deliberately run Jake and I off the road.”

“Do you think Barbara and Kassandra are working together?”

“Both of them certainly have good reason to hate Ethan, but as far as they know, he’s dead.”

“Which would mean they would have no reason to keep doing whatever they’ve been doing.”

“What if Edward found out what they had been doing?” Garth said.

“Jake and I think it was Kassandra that told Edward about our conversation with Ruthdale Simpkins. It’s safe to assume that she’s working for him.”

“She could be working both sides.”

“That would be pretty gutsy. She knows what kind of person Edward is. She has to know what he will do to her if he finds out about her duplicity.”