Little Belle Gone (13 page)

Stepping through the open door, the stench of death nearly gagged him. He could feel Elizabeth tense with revulsion and his fingers pressed comfortingly against her. “Sorry folks, you can’t be here, this is an active crime scene.” Matthew turned to find what he assumed was the detective he was told would be here. Flashing the man his badge met with a terse nod. Holding out his arm, the other man led them further into the house. As they walked, he began to tell them the incidentals of the case. “This house has been on the market for nearly two years now. The previous owners lost it to foreclosure when the economy tanked, but we don’t have a name on them yet. The realty company says they haven’t been out to the property in months. The only reason we found the bodies was because of the Robertson’s dog. They walk it down this street every morning and this morning the thing started freaking out, managed to get away from them and ran up onto the porch. When they came after it, well, I’m sure you can smell that, and so could they. They called us, then we called you. Tom, over there, was the first officer on the scene. He swears he didn’t touch anything. Honestly, I don’t think he was in here more than two seconds. When I got here he was puking in the bushes out front. We don’t see a lot of this around here as you can imagine. My name is Bill. If you need anything just give me a call.”

They were now standing in what Matt guessed was a library. The house was completely devoid of furniture, but the walls of this room were covered in darkly stained built-in wooden shelving. There, in the center of the room was a sickeningly familiar sight. Two bodies, bound and stabbed in the back. The scene came complete with the sadistic scrawl only this time it was on the wall in front of them like the original scene pictured in her parents file. The stench of decay made his stomach churn. Turning away from the horror of it, he looked after Bill who was hastily leaving the scene. “Wait, aren’t you staying? This is your jurisdiction after all.”

“That maybe true, but this is your case and frankly, I’m glad to give it up. The sooner your people get this crap out of my jurisdiction the better.” With a grimace on his face, Bill disappeared around the corner, his tread moving quickly toward the front door. Matt sighed.
No one wants a case like this
. Elizabeth, on the other hand, was drawing closer to the scene. She was bending down to get a better look at the bodies, her handkerchief covering her nose and mouth from the smell. She was studying the disfigured faces when he joined her.

“It’s no use, Matt. They’re too badly decomposed to tell if I know them.” Her voice sounded like a mixture of fear and relief. Standing, she turned to him, still covering her face against the overpowering stench of old blood and decay, and said, “I guess we should talk to, what’s his name, Tom? And then the Robertsons. After that, I have a few people downtown that might be able to tell us something.” She was stronger than he had given her credit for and it shamed him to think that on some level he might have doubted her. Following her lead, they met with Tom, but aside from his continual description of the horrible smell, he had no real information to give. The door had been unlocked, no signs of forced entry, and it stank was all he could tell them. The Robertsons had even less information as they had not gone any farther than the front stoop. Dead ends on all sides.

Elizabeth guided him to Main Street, where a line of small boutique shops spanned both sides of the street for about three blocks. They were walking down the sidewalk, toward the bookstore, when someone popped out of the doors next to her, almost knocking her over. Matt’s strong arms had been the only thing keeping her from falling to the ground. Spinning to face the culprit, she nearly squealed. There, facing her, was her best friend from high school. Even though they hadn’t seen each other in almost three months, there was no mistaking Alex’s wild blond hair and delightful smile. It appeared that she recognized Elizabeth just as easily as they suddenly embraced. She could feel the confusion radiating from Matt like heat. To his credit, he stood quietly and just listened as they chattered for a second before Elizabeth managed an introduction.

“Alex, this is my partner, Matthew Barrow, Matt, meet Alexandra Smart, a friend from high school.” As Alex and Matt shook hands, her smile turned wicked.

“Partners, huh? I bet.” Her eyes flicked back and forth between them and Elizabeth couldn’t help the telling blush that it caused. “Well, It’s about time! I swear, Matt, I tried like hell to get her to date in high school and did nothing but fail, miserably, over and over again. I thought it was my duty as her
best
friend to break her out of that shell of hers, but that damn thing was pretty solid. You must be some, uh-huh, partner, to have managed it. She looks positively satisfied!” Her all too knowing smile turned Matt a wonderfully tempting shade of fuchsia and Elizabeth felt her guts tense as she tried, and failed, not to match it.

“Alex, stop it!” Elizabeth couldn’t help but giggle as Alex flitted her hand and slid her arms around both their elbows, pulling them along her sides to walk them down the street. It had been too long. Alex had been her first friend when she had moved here and, despite her distant and cold nature, the bubbly, intelligent, and somewhat naughty blond had been unwilling to give up on her. “Hey Alex, what do you know about the abandoned house on Sanders?” Alex knew every one and every thing about this town.

“Ugh, you’re talking about that nasty business, aren’t you?” She sighed. “All I really know is what I heard from Charlie at the pharmacy. That house is a foreclosure and the previous owners are dead. He said old age got ‘em. Heard they found two corpses inside. So gross!” She shook her head. Elizabeth knew she didn’t want to talk about it anymore, but she had one more question.

“Alex, I have to ask one more question, then, I promise, no more murder talk. Do you know if anybody in town went missing about two, maybe three, weeks ago? Anyone we knew in high school or that we saw a lot of in town?” Elizabeth’s stomach tightened as she tried to prepare for the answer. Alex looked thoughtful for a moment, then shook her head.

“Most people we went to high school with are gone, moved away like you did. As far as I know, no one’s missing. Liz you know good and well that if anything that interesting had happened you would know already, being the only cop I care to associate with. No offense Matt, but I just met you. Best person to ask is Claire.” Elizabeth nodded.

“And who is Claire?” His confused smile was adorable and Elizabeth was caught by Alex blushing, yet again. Alex’s quick, encouraging, squeeze of her elbow came just before she slipped from her grasp. Taking their hands, she folded them together and smiled.

“The bookstore owner. Now, you two have fun, and you,” focusing her eyes on Elizabeth, “had better come and see me soon, you know, when there’s not some dead body to talk about.” After another winning smile, her oldest and best friend turned lightly on her heels and sauntered back the way they had come. She left them, holding hands, directly in front of Claire’s bookstore.

“Oh, I like her.” Matt’s sly smile deepened as he squeezed her hand and pulled her a little closer to him. “So, you didn’t date in high school, huh?” His face bent temptingly close to hers as his tone deepened seductively. Elizabeth felt herself lifting up onto her toes, inching closer to him.

“Or in college, truth be told.” The surprise on his face was broken as the bookstore door burst open with the ring of bells.

“Liz Cord, is that you?!” Claire, A large figured woman of at least fifty, came barreling out of her store front. Elizabeth barely had time to release Matt’s hand before she was hauled into a bone crushing bear hug by the overly excited woman. “You look so good! I can’t wait to tell everyone that I saw you today! And who is this tall drink of water? Everyone will just be so relieved to learn that our lonely little Liz has finally found herself a man!” Elizabeth couldn’t help but turn beat red, and the shocked laughter rumbling from Matthew didn’t help.

It took longer than it should have to free herself from Claire’s surprisingly strong grip, and even longer to answer her myriad of questions, most of which succeeded in making her turn that horribly awkward red color over and over again. Much to her chagrin, Matt seemed far too amused to jump in and help her. He just laughed and smiled at her slyly as he enjoyed every squirm and blush she let slip. When it was finally Elizabeth’s turn to ask the questions, Claire had far less information to offer than she had hoped. Claire was positive that no one in town was missing and that, as far as she knew, nothing suspicious had been seen in town in at least a month, much less the last two weeks. Considering Claire’s infinite reputation as a busy body, Elizabeth had to take her opinions as facts. Thanking her for her time, they left, no closer to finding the identity of their two deceased victims. At least she could rest easy that she probably didn’t know them at all.

As they made their way back to the car, Matt kept giving her the sneakiest grin, squeezing her fingers adoringly. It was almost more than she could handle. Claire had done it now. She had managed to share every embarrassing moment Elizabeth had ever had. Matt knew far too much about her and it made her hum inside that he still seemed to want to be close to her. In fact, it almost felt like he wanted to be closer to her now more than ever.

Opening her door, he asked, “Are we headed back to the city now?” He was completely unable to wipe the smile from his face. This visit had provided him with so much more about her than he could have hoped. He knew about how smart and awkward she had been in high school, what trouble Alex had managed to get her into, in spite of what a good girl she was, and her scholarship to New York State University. With every new revelation, his feelings for her had deepened, growing more urgent that he cared to admit. He had promised himself that he would slow down, take it nice and easy with her, but now that seemed like a pipe dream. Given the opportunity, he knew he would fall on her like a man starved.

“Not just yet, there’s one more stop I want to make if you don’t mind, a personal visit.” She pursed her lips at the goofy smile he couldn’t stop giving her. “Quit grinning at me like that! It’s not fair that you know more about me than I know about you!” Pulling her door closed, she stuck her tongue out at him, turned and, pouting, crossed her arms over her chest in a huff. He knew she was just teasing him, and it was working. As always, her being playful was just as sexy as her being serious. His desire growled in his chest as he climbed into the drivers seat. Pulling her firmly into his arms, he kissed her. She fell into him like a woman on fire and he quite nearly lost control. Then, just to torture him, she pushed him back roughly. “No! I’m mad at you remember.” She grinned at him wickedly and he groaned.

“You are going to kill me, you know that?” Cranking the car, he backed out onto the road and pulled away. “So where are we going now?” He would take her anywhere she wanted to go if it meant getting more juicy tid-bits of her past. He followed her directions out of town and into the surrounding hills. As they turned down a very high class, and well manicured, street he became aware of the stiff incline in the property values. They were now driving past multimillion dollar mansions and estates, each gated and walled in like little mini kingdoms. His shirt collar started to grow tighter, wondering exactly where they were really headed.

As per her orders, he turned into a rather formidable looking cobblestone driveway and up to a large set of cast iron gates. “Punch in 2-3-7-9-1-pound.” Assuming she knew what she was doing, he leaned out and punched in the numbers, but nothing happened. He tried again with the same result. Turning back to her, he shrugged. Before he knew what was happening, she had unfastened her seat-belt and was climbing across his lap. He nearly died as he watched her lean torso spread out temptingly in front of him. His eyes devoured every seductive inch of her far-too-near body.

Clearing his throat heavily, he said, “Uh...Liz, remember what I said about you trying to kill me...” He couldn’t help himself. His hand ran across her back and found the firm curve of her bottom, giving it a squeeze and a lustful smack.

“Stop it you,” she whispered as he ran his hand back and forth over her butt. “They must have changed the code so I need to use the intercom.” Turning to glare at him indignantly, her resolve faltered and she ended up smiling at him slyly instead. He was far too interested in appreciating her body to care at the moment. As she buzzed the house and talked to the voice on the intercom, an exchange he completely ignored, he found the in-sweep of the small of her back, and the lovely swell of her beasts, soft and responsive. When the gate started to open, and she was retracting her body back to her seat, deep disappointment settled on his face.

Looking at her dejectedly, he sighed,”Aw, but I was having fun!” She smacked his arm playfully and called him a rather rude name. Laughing, he put the car back in drive and started up the now open driveway. He needed to adjust himself, it seemed like lately he was constantly needing to adjust himself. Coming around another bend, a huge, English Manor style mansion loomed into view. Build out of dark tan stone and covered in thick ivy, it reminded him of sets from some of his movies, specifically horror movies, centering around haunted mansions and murder. Why had she brought him here? Now he was wishing he had paid attention to her conversation with the intercom instead of fondling her luscious body. The second that thought crossed his mind he snickered to himself at how untrue it was. There was nothing better than her body.

Pulling to a stop in front of an ominous looking front door, he leaned forward over the steering wheel and swallowed hard. She did not share his hesitation. She very nearly jumped out of the car, moving quickly toward the door that opened for her as she drew near. Reaching the top step she turned to look back at him. Her smile was broad and bright, and when she beckoned him with a slow curl of her finger. He got out of the car reluctantly and joined her. Standing in the door was a kind looking older gentlemen, dressed impeccably in a butler’s suit. “Matt, this is George. George, this is my partner, Detective Matthew Barrow.” She smiled at the older man and hugged him lightly. “It’s good to see you, George.”