Expert Witness: A Romantic Suspense Novel (29 page)

Chase approached the house. “Hey!” he yelled to be heard over the crashing of the waves.

The figure waved at him but made no move to get up.

“Can I ask you a question?” He was standing right in front of the support beams of the house now. Being closer, he could just make out the profile of a man overhead.
 

The man walked toward him, carrying a bottle in one hand. “What can I help you with?” The dude sounded friendly enough, considering Chase was a complete stranger who’d wandered up from the beach.

“I was wondering if you’ve seen a woman walking this way? I’m not sure what time, but it would’ve been in the late afternoon or evening. Long, dark hair.” As Chase asked the question, he realized how ridiculous he sounded. Even though it wasn’t peak tourist season in the fall, there was no telling how many women walked down this part of the beach on an average day.

He guy took a swig from his bottle and looked back down at him. “I’ve seen quite a few today. The girl you’re talking about not from around here?”

“No, she’s not.” Chase let out a breath. He had so little to go on. He had no idea what she was wearing, if she was alone or with Derek, exactly when she’d left.

“Rockin’ body, blue eyes but kind of purple too, and pretty smart?”

Chase almost fell over in the sand. “That sounds just like her.”

“Yeah, well, you’re in luck, then. She’s the only one I talked to today. Wanted information on the state park farther up the beach.”

“Is that where she was heading when you talked to her?” He straightened his shoulders. A burst of momentum shot through him now that he had something to go on.

“Yeah. I told her about the jetties that way and one of the lakes—Gator Lake. If you keep going in the direction you were heading, it isn’t very far. You’ll know you’re there when the beach curves around and you see a line of large rocks jutting out into the water. You shouldn’t have any problems spotting them, but the park’s officially been closed since sundown.”

Chase’s stomach turned as he digested that last bit of information. If Jordan was at that park alone with Derek, there wouldn’t be a lot of help around. “Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”
 

“No problem. Some friendly advice though?”

Chase nodded, knowing he was going to hear it either way.
 

“Try not to lose her again. Girl like that, you want to keep close.” He raised his beer in a mock toast.
 

“Don’t I know it.” He chuckled, but there was little real humor in it. He didn’t need the guy’s words of wisdom to realize that when he found Jordan this time, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to let her walk out of the room without him.
 

He started jogging to pick up his speed. Right now, he needed to focus on the finding-her part first.
 

§

“Derek!” Jordan exclaimed as the waitress set another drink in front of her. “I thought you said the second round was it?”
 

“I know we’d said we’d leave, but I figured a couple more minutes wouldn’t hurt. The band is going to take a break in fifteen. I heard them talking. We might as well stick around until then. Come on. You need this as much as I do.”

Jordan relented. Though she’d been ready to call it a night for almost an hour, it was apparent Derek was enjoying himself. She had nowhere else to be, so it wouldn’t hurt her to stay a little longer. The band did sound great, and listening to them was making the time fly by. “Okay. But this is the last round. I don’t want to go back to work Monday feeling like I need a vacation from my vacation.”

 
“I promise this is it.” He held his drink up. “To the beach, good music, new friends, and just endings.”

Jordan took a small sip of her cocktail. She had no intentions of finishing this one. “New friends? I never think of it that way. I guess because you kind of fit in with us so easily from the beginning.”

“Yeah, sometimes I feel like I’ve known you for a lot longer than the time we’ve worked together. It’s something how everything seemed to fall into place when I started with the practice.”

Jordan smiled. “It’s pretty cool how that happened. And you wouldn’t believe the number of applicants we got when we advertised for your position. Not that they were all good.” She cringed, reflecting back on some of those interviews. “But when you showed up, we could all tell you’d really researched the practice and knew what we were about. It demonstrated a lot of initiative. You definitely stood out.”

“Probably because there was no other place I wanted to be. It felt kind of like fate intervened then.”

“Fate, huh? And here we thought we were lucky to have found you after a week of interviewing.” She scooted her chair closer to the table to make room for a large group trying to walk by. “So, why fate? What made you want to start with us? You weren’t even living in Orlando.”

Derek squinted at her. “Are you interviewing me again? ‘Cause if you are, you should’ve asked the questions before the drinks.” He lifted his cup and drained it.
 

Jordan hadn’t noticed the slight slur in his speech until then. She needed to get them out of there before he got much worse. “No, I’m definitely not doing any more interviews for a very long time,” she answered blithely. “Curious, that’s all. Remember, the three of us have known each other for years, but as you said, you’re new.”

He smiled at her. “I’m just joking with you.” Then he playfully shook her forearm. “It was fate because I’d read about a case you worked back when I had some big decisions to make about where I was going in life. Reading that back then, well…it gave me some clarity.”

She furrowed her brow. Though she’d had cases get media coverage, she couldn’t think of any that stood out as particularly inspiring. Reading about her cases tended to make most people cringe. The details of the crimes revealed in them could sometimes be gruesome. “Do you remember which case it was?”

The band jumped into an older classic rock song, and his lips moved but no sound was audible.
 

“I can’t hear you!” she shouted back at him, shaking her head and pointing to the stage.
 

He pushed his chair back from the table and motioned toward the door.

She’d have to remember to ask him about it again later. As she followed him out, her thoughts drifted back to Derek’s disclosure about the death of his brother and the therapist he’d gotten to know then. Were the big decisions he’d mentioned part of that difficult time in his life?

Not far from the condo now, they walked further up on the beach, closer to the buildings. The sand was deeper and she felt the difference in her calves. Derek swayed on his feet, so she kept her strides short. She was thankful she’d stopped drinking before he had. Nursing a hangover wasn’t how she intended to spend the rest of her weekend.
 

A surge of relief engulfed her when they entered the lower level of the condo.
 

“What floor are you on?” she asked Derek as they stepped into the elevator.
 

“I’ll walk you up. I’m only a couple of floors above you.”

“You don’t have to do that. I’m fine now. Remember? No more bodyguards necessary.” She laughed lightly.
 

Because of his glassy eyes, she thought maybe she should walk him up though. He must have drunk more than she’d realized in the hours they were at the bar.

“Well, humor me, then? It seems ungentlemanly of me to let you walk to your room alone.”
 

“You’re too much.” She shook her head. “It’s entirely up to you. I’m okay either way.”

“Thank you.” From the way he spoke, it was clear that he’d be getting off on her floor.
 

She led the way and turned to him after she’d entered the code and had the door propped open with her foot. “I had a good time tonight. It was nice catching up after being away. But now, I think you need to get some sleep.”
 

“Yeah. You’re right.” He turned to go but stopped midstride. “Oh geez, I hate to ask, but do you have any coffee? I didn’t get anything yet, and I have a feeling I’m going to need it in the morning.”

Jordan pushed the door open. “Sure. Come on in, and I’ll see what all we have here.”

Derek followed her into the room. While she made her way to the kitchen area, he fingered the flowers that had been delivered earlier. “Did you like the flowers?” he asked casually.

“They’re beautiful. Thank you.” She rummaged through the cabinet, trying to find a container to separate some coffee grounds into. “Though, when the delivery came, it gave Chase and me both a start. We weren’t expecting anyone and hadn’t heard about the outcome of the adjudication yet.”
 

“I didn’t think of that. Must’ve been scary. Knowing this guy was after you and hell-bent on revenge.” He spoke matter-of-factly, but there was an underlying bitterness in his tone. “Did you ever worry he might not get caught in time?”

Jordan paused for a beat. Something was off. While Chase had often gotten angry when she’d been threatened, his anger was never directed at her. The animosity in Derek’s tone made it sound more like he was angry not at Buckman, but at her. She kept her voice neutral as she tried to discern where he was going with this. “I guess the thought was probably in the back of my mind somewhere, but I tried to stay logical about it. You and I both know these guys mess up sooner or later.”

“Do you ever think you mess up, too?”
 

She spun away from the cabinet to face him. “What do you mean, Derek? What are you getting at?”

“What about when you’re wrong?” he asked, his eyes devoid of any emotion.
 

“Then I guess I’m wrong. No one is right all the time.” In that moment, Jordan understood that she didn’t know this man as well as she’d presumed. She tried to recall what he’d said about getting to know the therapist who’d inspired him to pursue psychology…but he’d said something similar tonight about one of her cases being a motivator to him.
 

Which was it? Her intuition told her that it mattered, but she didn’t know why.

“So, you’d risk throwing someone’s life away without a second thought to the fact that you could be wrong?” Though it was a question, the scorn embedded in his words made it clear he wasn’t looking for an answer. He already had it.
 

This was crazy. She needed to find a way to get out of the condo or get him out. But he was blocking her exit from the kitchen. If she could keep him distracted while she got past…
 

“Derek, I thought you meant in general. If you’re talking about work, you know how it is. What we do is scientific. Any conclusions I give are based on that. It’s the most objective approach we’ve got.”

“Objective?” he seethed, narrowing his eyes at her. “Why don’t you tell that to the people you’ve killed? Innocent people like my brother.” He stepped closer to her.
 

Jordan let out a breath. There was no way she could walk past him now. Her pulse raced as he stood before her, but she tried to make sure her fear wasn’t reflected on the outside. Who was his brother? Clearly, he was related to one of her cases.
Murdered?
Was he deeming her responsible for a death sentence? She hadn’t had many death penalty cases, and even then, the appeals process took years…

It came to her in a flash. It was one of those cases that would always stay with her. The torture the victim had undergone. The video the man had taken so he could later relive the experience. The cold indifference he’d demonstrated as he’d drained the last breath from her body. In her mind, never had a penalty been more deserved. He’d have done it all again and again if sheer luck hadn’t led law enforcement to his arrest.
 

She peered closer at Derek, trying to see any outer resemblance to the psychopath she’d evaluated back then—she didn’t need a psych profile to know that the underlying personality traits they shared were all too similar. And he’d fooled them all. No one had looked for the fox in the henhouse. They’d all thought the perpetrator was someone from the outside while he’d orchestrated his plan from within, as one of them.
 

Derek eyed her with a calculating expression, more like she was a specimen he was studying rather than a person. “I can see you’ve finally figured it out. I must say, I wasn’t expecting you to take this long. If I hadn’t have led you to it, you would’ve never even made the connection. Same last name, even. Not as bright as you seem to get credit for,” he scoffed.

She stalled for time as she plotted a way to escape. “Smith is a common name. And I didn’t anticipate a new colleague would be related to a death penalty case from the past.”

“No, I guess you wouldn’t. That was part of the fun. Watching you every day. You were like the rats we used in the university labs. I had complete control, and all you could do was run around in your little world and react to whatever I chose to do. It was perfect. I wanted to make sure you felt the same fear he had. Knowing that death was lurking right around you, but you had no escape. Having to wake up every day and live with that.”

She could taste bile rising in her throat as she listened to him. “If that’s true, why did you stop Rigdon then? He would have done it all for you.”