Love Inspired Suspense January 2014 (35 page)

David headed for the front door and was met by the housekeeper, who handed him his jacket. As he shrugged into it, a colorful brochure on an antique refectory table caught his eye. Moran & Connor. Cremation. Burial. Pre-Planning. Live Well. Leave Well. Another piece of useless information. Or was it?

He paused as brisk November air welcomed him to the outdoors. Obituaries commonly listed details from the life of the deceased. If the arrangements were being finalized this afternoon, perhaps by this evening he might find an obituary published on the mortuary's website.

A smile tilted David's lips. Fresh anticipation flickered as he strode toward the cobblestone drive, where his SUV was hidden behind a hedge of tall shrubs. He stepped through the archway built into the hedge and collided with another body.

“Oooph!” The exclamation left David's lips as he staggered backward. The young man he'd run into also staggered, but to the accompaniment of vivid profanity.

“Watch where you're going, dimbo.” Gil's younger mirror image peered up at David. “Oh, I thought you were dad's dweeb of a chauffeur. Who are you?”

David frowned. This must be Grant, beloved and only offspring of the lord of the manor. The kid's facial features were his father's, but his body build was lean like his murdered aunt's.

“I'm an acquaintance of your father's here to offer condolences,” David said. “You have my sympathy also. It must be hard to believe you might be getting a mother and then to have her snatched away under such awful circumstances.”

“Ms. Eldon?” Grant's face reddened as he snorted and called the woman a foul name. “She was never going to be my mother.”

The young man barged around him and disappeared up the walk. A chill swept over David that had nothing to do with the fall weather.

Didn't Laurel mention that the breath of the prowler who knocked her into the bushes several days ago smelled of nacho chips? David had caught a whiff of the same on Grant's breath, and the boy's height and build fit the rest of the description Laurel had given, too.

And hadn't Gil said he'd gotten Melissa Eldon a job at the school where his son attended? Since a penchant for nacho chips wasn't exactly uncommon among teenagers, David's hunch wasn't ironclad, but Grant could be the rich man's son who was pestering Caroline to go out with him. Gil certainly fit the criteria of someone who could virtually fund a private school.

This encounter with Grant Montel revealed the boy as bitter, angry and arrogant. If he really was the one Caroline had described, then no wonder she didn't want to hang around with him. The girl had good sense and better taste. But no surprise that she was intimidated by the situation. Even though David's deduction was unverified, he couldn't keep silent. Grant Montel was potentially dangerous.

Dangerous enough to kill his teacher in order to prevent her from becoming his stepmother? Vengeful enough to dump her body where suspicion would fall on the girl who'd spurned his interest? Maybe he was leaping to conclusions, but he wanted to share this information with Laurel. Her and Caroline's safety was at stake. If there was a chance that Grant was involved, then who knew what the kid might pull next?

Darkness settled over David's spirits even as he buckled himself into the driver's seat of his SUV. If Grant was the culprit, what became of his hopes that the victims were connected by the tattoos in a manner that led to their deaths? Hope evaporated, that's what.

But if this hunch panned out then, while he might have to go on living under the onus of suspicion, Laurel and Caroline would be free. He would have to find comfort in that knowledge and disappear from their lives forever. His insides went numb. The pain would come later.

No one answered the door at Janice's house, but a contractor's van parked at the curb gave David a clue that Laurel and Caroline might have gone home. He went next door, and Laurel answered the doorbell. Her smile held warmth, as if she might be glad to see him.

“Has Caroline spoken with you about an issue with a boy at school?” he asked without preamble.

The smile faded and she nodded. “She's offered a little information. I'm on hold for more.”

“I think we need to pin her down now. I've just had a disturbing encounter.”

Eyes widening, Laurel motioned him inside and called for Caroline. The girl trotted into the foyer. Her eyes lit up when they landed on him, but then her expression sobered as she gazed from him to her mother and back again.

“What's up?”

“Is Grant Montel the young man who's been bothering you at school?” he asked.

Caroline's gaze fell to her toes. Silence spoke louder than the noise of a drill deeper inside the house. Slowly, Caroline nodded.

David looked toward Laurel. “Your daughter hasn't exaggerated this kid's creepiness. And he's got nacho breath.”

Laurel's mouth formed an
O
as color receded from her face. “He was the one outside our house, the one who knocked me over? He's been
stalking
her?”

“It's possible.”

Caroline sniffled. “I didn't
do
anything to make him like me.”

Laurel embraced her daughter. “It's not your fault, sweetheart.” Her tone was fierce.

She gazed at David across her daughter's shoulder. “Thank you for sharing this with us. I
am
going to take the matter to the police. I don't care how much money his daddy has, or even if I have to pull Caroline out of that school.”

“Good decision.” David nodded. “You might be interested to know Grant didn't like Ms. Eldon any better than your daughter did, and his father was getting ready to marry her.”

Laurel inhaled a sharp breath and released Caroline. “She was engaged? I didn't notice a ring on her finger when we found the body, but then I wasn't coherent enough to take in details.”

“She had one,” Caroline spoke up. “Got it the week before Thanksgiving vacation. A great big rock, and she flaunted it. Stared at it for minutes at a time—like it was some crystal ball—while we worked on assignments. I told you she was a head case, Mom.”

“How come you didn't tell me your teacher was engaged?”

“I was afraid if I started talking about Ms. Eldon and Mr. Montel, I'd get carried away, and the whole mess with his son liking me would come out. I knew how much it meant to you for me to attend that school. If I told you what was going on and you made a fuss, I was the one more likely to get expelled than Grant Montel. Besides, a guy with Mr. Montel's influence could make trouble for you and SPC. He's one of your best contributors, right?”

Laurel groaned. “Honey, I'm glad I raised a thoughtful daughter, but I'm sorry I made you leery of standing up to bullies with money and power. The opposite was my intention.”

“I'm not scared to stand up to them. I turned Grant down, didn't I?”

“You certainly did. I'm proud of your good sense.”

Caroline beamed. “I kept hoping he'd develop a crush on someone else. Maybe over the holiday break he'd—”

“A crush is one thing,” David said. “Stalking is quite another.”

He refrained from adding the possibility of murder to eliminate the threat of an unwanted stepmother. Laurel's knowing gaze met his. She was under no illusion as to what this scenario might mean. Perhaps the police already knew about Grant's dislike for his father's fiancée, but providing motive for the young man to place her body in Laurel's trunk might spur a deeper investigation.

“Thank you, David, for bringing all this to our attention. How did you happen to find these things out?”

He summarized his brief history with Gilbert Montel, and his conversations at the man's house today.

“Can you stay for supper?” Laurel asked when he finished. Her eyes gleamed gratitude.

If only she knew how deeply her invitation tempted him, but continued interaction could only lead to more pain later—for him anyway—when the inevitable goodbye-for-good needed to be said. Best he say it now.

“I can't. I need to head home to Texas.”

Caroline made a sound of disappointment.

The light in Laurel's eyes faded. “Tonight?”

“As soon as possible.”

“I see. We've kept you in Denver long enough. We appreciate everything you've done for us. Don't we, Caroline?”

“Sure, Mr. Greene. Are you coming back soon?”

Laurel gave her daughter The Look, and Caroline subsided with a frown.

David's heart tore, but he pasted on a smile. “I can't say I have immediate plans to return to Denver, squirt, but you never know.” He offered a breezy wave and stepped onto the porch.

Laurel followed, hugging herself against the chill. “Just a minute, David. Please send me the bill for the man from the security service. I noticed he was outside in the van again last night. You can call him off now. We're in our own home, the locks are being changed as we speak and the home security system will be upgraded early next week.”

“I could have him stand down, but don't give the bill a second thought. The whole thing was my idea anyway.”

“But—”

David lifted a hand to forestall the protest. “It's been great to know you.” How heartfelt those words were he could never let her guess. “You'd better get back inside now before you turn into an icicle.”

“Goodbye, David. Thanks again.”

Was he mistaken, or did pain shadow her expressive brown eyes? He'd never know, and he couldn't afford to torment himself with the question.

David drove back to his hotel, taking a small detour through a fast-food drive-through. In his room, he picked at the burger and fries. He really wasn't in a big hurry to face the long drive back to Texas. He'd probably take off in the morning.

His lead with the Montel boy looked promising, but it wasn't a sure thing. Until an arrest was made, Laurel would have to be okay with him not calling off the personal bodyguard during the nighttime hours. Maybe she'd get riled enough to call him and chew on his ear. David smiled at the prospect of talking to her again.

Of course, he could be talking to her now if he'd accepted the offer to stay for dinner. He knew he'd made the right decision, but the night ahead of him stretched out long and empty.

He logged in to his computer, eager to find something to occupy his thoughts. Might as well check out that obituary for Melissa Eldon.

Ten minutes later, he was tossing things willy-nilly into his suitcase and talking on the phone with the night-duty receptionist at an air charter business at the same time. Forget driving back to Texas. He was flying to San Antonio on a private plane as quickly as one could be gassed up and ready.

Ms. Eldon got her master's degree in biology from Villanova University of Philadelphia, hence the wildcat emblem on the T-shirt her apartment neighbor had spotted. But she received her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Texas at San Antonio. The year of graduation would have put Melissa there as a freshman the same year as Alicia.

Did that mean the women had known each other? Maybe, maybe not. And even if they had known each other and shared a taste in tattoo designs, the convergence of their lives didn't mean their murders were related.

But it didn't mean they weren't.

TWELVE

“W
hat do you mean this information is irrelevant to the murder investigation?” Laurel demanded of Detective Iceberg, as she'd mentally dubbed him. Her lawyer laid a hand on her arm, and she subsided.

It was Monday morning following the Thanksgiving holiday, and she perched on the edge of an uncomfortable chair across from the detective in a conference room at the police station. Darren Chantler, her lawyer, sat on one side of her and Caroline on the other. She'd hated to expose her daughter to this stress, but she'd assumed the police would need her daughter's statement in regard to Grant's behavior. The sterile cubicle of bare gray walls, dull linoleum floor and timeworn table meshed with the odor of stale sweat in a way that set Laurel's teeth on edge. The environment was probably planned with that effect in mind.

Berg's impassive blue eyes didn't blink before her outrage. “We were aware that Grant Montel didn't favor his father's remarriage. That's not an uncommon attitude among children of another parent. However, when we investigated his whereabouts at the time the victim was killed, we eliminated him as a suspect. He was out of town at a relative's, a fact that we have verified.”

Laurel's insides deflated, and Caroline let out a small whimper.

Chantler hummed. “Perhaps that is the case, but apparently young Mr. Montel has been harassing and stalking one of my clients. That allegation is hardly irrelevant.”

Berg frowned. “The police department takes stalking seriously. I'll refer you to an officer who investigates such charges. She'll take the young lady's statement.” The detective rose.

“When exactly
did
Ms. Eldon die?” The question spurted from Laurel's lips, and her lawyer shot her an alarmed stare. She ignored him. “And where? She certainly didn't expire in my trunk. And how? If I'd done it, I'd know the answers to all these questions, but I don't.”

Berg regarded her soberly. “How do you think she died?”

“Don't answer that,” Chantler said briskly.

But Laurel rose and leaned toward the detective. “If you think my mind has been playing with all sorts of scenarios of what could have happened to the woman, you'd be right. That's normal for anyone thrust into a horrifying situation and left to cope without a scrap of information that could dispel confusion and fear. I don't appreciate being stonewalled and treated like a suspect when I know—I
know—
that Caroline and I are victims.”

A smile formed on the detective's lips. “You're good. I can see why you make a fine living as a public speaker.” He left the room and closed the door behind him.

“You go, Mom!” Caroline pumped a fist.

At the moment, Laurel wouldn't have minded planting one of those squarely on Detective Iceberg's smug grin. She urgently needed to get a leash on her emotions. But how? The promise of another suspect for the police to consider had turned out bankrupt. Hot air gushed through her nose as she sank into her seat.

Chantler, a petite middle-aged man with shrewd hazel eyes, regarded her kindly. “I agree with your daughter. You expressed yourself well, but you would do better to allow me to deal with the authorities.”

“But they're convinced we're guilty.”

The lawyer pursed his lips. “Perhaps. Or perhaps they're still fishing. One thing I know, if they had sufficient proof, you wouldn't be free to walk out of here after Caroline gives her statement.”

“At least there's that silver lining.”

David had brought them what he thought was a ray of hope. Now that hope was gone—and so was he. She and Caroline were on their own. Isn't that how she'd lived her life until now? Why wasn't she pleased to return to status quo? Her heart whispered answers that her mind refused to hear.

An hour later, they left the police station. Their lawyer took off in his little blue sports car, and Laurel and Caroline settled into the rental they'd been using since last Friday.

“Mo-o-om, I don't want to go to school today.” Caroline slumped in her seat. “Grant will be there, and all the kids will have heard about Ms. Eldon being found in our trunk. I don't think I can handle the stares and the whispers and the questions.”

“I know how you feel, honey.” Laurel started the car. “Walter wants me to sit this week out of the office and work from home. Give the media attention time to die down.” So far, such phone calls and doorbell rings had been answered with no comment, and the calls had diminished considerably already. “How about I have the school send your work home for this week, and then next week we can both return to business as usual with our heads held high?”

“You rock, Mom!” Caroline grinned, and Laurel's spirits lifted.

The day dragged by as if each hour wore a ball and chain. Laurel attempted to accomplish paperwork online, but couldn't concentrate properly. Caroline stuck to her room for most of the day, but showed up at Laurel's office door toward the end of the afternoon.

“Could we call David and ask if he knows someone who can clean the piano keyboard? It's still full of dried goop.”

Laurel sent her a sympathetic smile. After the fiasco with the police this morning, she'd had a tough time not punching in a certain number on her phone also. But their problems shouldn't be David's, and she wouldn't burden him when he clearly wanted to return to his own life.

“We don't need to call David for that. He's not from the Denver area. Do some research for me online or in the Yellow Pages, okay? We can make contacts ourselves.”

Caroline nodded and wandered away, shoulders drooping. Laurel's throat tightened, but she pushed away the threat of tears. Heartache had visited her many times before, but had eventually packed its bags and slunk out the door. She had to believe this visit would prove temporary also.

But what if she or Caroline, or both of them, ended up behind bars? Could she bear that?

Eyes closed, she bowed her head. “God, we're in Your hands. I can only cling to trust that You're at work to save us.”

She didn't add the obvious—that she saw no evidence of such grace operating in the situation. Over the years she'd noticed how frequently God worked in secret until the eleventh hour. There were times—like now—when Laurel wished it weren't so, but faith often had to be blind.

* * *

“Nope. Sorry, I've never done a tat like that. Or seen one either.” From the opposite side of a sales counter, a grizzled tattoo artist shook his head at the smartphone photo David was showing him.

“Thanks for your time,” David said, swallowing a rush of bitter stomach acid.

A guy could get an ulcer from this much disappointment. He'd heard similar answers all weekend while he dodged the frenzy of partiers as he went from parlor to parlor all over the city. He was running out of businesses to check out.

David trudged from the tattoo parlor onto the sidewalk. Foot and vehicle traffic was sluggish this Monday evening in a San Antonio nightclub district. Neon lights and meaty, spicy scents from surrounding restaurants greeted him. The savory odors didn't stimulate so much as a drop of saliva on his taste buds.

With a long groan, he climbed into his rental car and scanned his dwindling list of unvisited tattoo parlors. Of course, in the past decade the one he needed to find might have closed its doors. His chances of locating the right parlor might be slim to none.

The phone at his belt played Pachelbel, and the screen lit with Laurel's number. David's heart jumped. Had the Montel boy been arrested? Were Laurel and Caroline in the clear?

“David here.”

“Why is that security van still lurking across the street from my house?”

“Good evening to you, too. Did you just notice that little detail?”

Laurel let out an exasperated noise. “I turned in early the past few nights and didn't look outside. Tonight I did, and there sat the van. I appreciate your care for us, David. I really do, but I thought you said you would call the bodyguard off.”

“I said I could. I didn't say I would. I didn't feel comfortable backing off until an arrest had been made. Has that happened?”

Several beats of silence ended in a soft sigh. “Not yet. The most likely arrest remains Caroline or me or both of us. Apparently, Grant Montel wasn't in town at the time Melissa Eldon met her demise.”

“When was that?”

“My question exactly, among a number of others, but Detective Iceberg wasn't forthcoming.”

David chuckled. “Iceberg. Appropriate moniker.” He liked this woman's sense of humor.

“Caroline gave a statement to a female staff sergeant about the harassment and stalking, but I don't hold out large hope that much will come of it since Grant hasn't yet done anything actionable that we can prove. We were told to refer the matter to the school administration.”

“Are you going to follow through with that suggestion?”

“Of course. We have an appointment with the principal next Monday.”

“You don't sound very hopeful.”

“I'm ninety-nine percent certain that we're opening a can of worms that won't end well for us. I may have to find a different school for Caroline. But I can't live with my conscience if I don't speak out about unacceptable behavior. So many bullies get away with their tactics for years and harass innocent victims who might have been spared if people along the way hadn't let fear stop them from making a stand.”

“I'm proud of you...and Caroline. Tell her David said to hang tough.”

“I'll do that. But I'm sure you're happy to be out of range of our problems. You've done a great deal. Please don't feel any further obligation to us.”

“Obligation isn't my motivation.”

“Then what is?”

There it was—the point blank question. What did he dare tell her?
The truth, buddy.
His conscience spoke loud and clear.

What exactly was the truth? There was such a muddle of factors. Like his natural instinct to defend the defenseless. Were his mother around, she could testify under oath about the many times he'd come home from school with a black eye or cut lip because he jumped into some fray not his own. And then there was the thorny issue of his growing attraction to Laurel as a woman and his affection for spunky Caroline. Laurel wouldn't be interested in those unquantifiable motives. There was only one reason she'd care to hear—and it was one he was overdue sharing with her.

“Melissa Eldon had a tattoo almost identical to my dead girlfriend's. They may have known each other in college ten years ago. I'm—”

“That's it? Tattoos obtained on some undergraduate whim?” Laurel's tone was incredulous.

“The design was unique. Not your run-of-the-mill flower or butterfly.”

“If you think the coincidence of similar tattoos is important in finding whoever is responsible for their deaths, don't you think the police might be interested in that information?”

“Sure, but I figured their first assumption would be that I had something to do with Melissa's death, too. Before I speak up, I need to know if there's significance to the commonality—beyond some random fluke.”

“Because you know you didn't kill Melissa, so if by some wild chance the tattoos connect the two murders, then you didn't kill Alicia either.”

Laurel's words flowed without intonation as David sat speechless with his mouth open. She got it. Did that mean she would forgive him for not sharing this information sooner?

“You're not angry with me for keeping this to myself?”

“I'm steaming like Old Faithful ready to erupt, Mr. Greene, but I understand your desperation. I sensed you were keeping something from us—at least it wasn't something sinister. For that small mercy I'm relieved. Good night, Mr. Greene. Call off that bodyguard. No semantic gymnastics to get off the hook this time.”

The connection closed, and David rammed his head back against the headrest. She was angry all right. She'd addressed him formally twice in one string of sentences. What had he expected Laurel's reaction would be? She'd understood his thinking about the possible connection that the tattoos suggested between the two women, but then she'd called him desperate.

She was right about that. He was probably grasping for ashes in the wind. Maybe he should head home and put his feet up. Flip on the boob tube and watch sitcom reruns. Forget about Melissa and Alicia...and Laurel and Caroline, too.

No! His teeth clamped together. He couldn't abandon this long-shot lead without wringing every drop of possibility from it.

But if Laurel felt so strongly about having the watchdog stand down, he'd comply...reluctantly. He punched up the number of the business's central office and waited while it rang through. The desk clerk would notify the operative that the assignment was cancelled.

“Safety and Security Services,” a pleasant female voice singsonged.

David told her what he wanted.

“Very well, sir. I'll place a call to— Just a moment, sir. The operative's emergency light just went red. I'll have to let you go so I can call the police.”