Murder at Castle Rock (15 page)

Laura rose from behind the bar and met my gaze with remorseful blue eyes. She grabbed a knife and came to stand near me as she sliced lime garnishes. As if reading my mind, she said, "I didn't know about Kat and Parker. I swear, Ame—I just found out this morning." Laura gulped. "I know she'll never forgive me–and Reese won't either, but I honestly don't know how it happened."

"So, what—did you trip and land on Parker's lips?" The remark came out before I could stop it. "Sorry," I said when Laura gave me a wounded look. "I just can't believe you'd wrong Reese like that."

 "That's what I'm trying to tell you," Laura said in a low voice. She glanced around to make sure no one could hear us. "Parker found me in the hall when I was going to fetch drinks for Bobby and the band. He said needed to see me, that he needed my help with something. Then he grabbed my hand and led me to his office."

I arched a brow. "He just grabbed you and pulled you into his office with no warning or explanation?" I asked, disbelieving.

Laura ignored my skeptical tone. "Yeah." She nodded. "I figured he just wanted to give me some extra supplies to unload at the bar or something. But before he'd even shut the door, he pressed me against the wall and started kissing me." Her voice shook. "I tried to fight him off, but he put a hand over my mouth and told me not to freak out. He said someone was watching us, and he needed me to play along." Laura bit her lip. "He said it was a matter of life and death."

I frowned.
A matter of life and death?
Parker had used a lot of cheesy pick-up lines in his time, but this one took the cake.
Except…Parker
had
died. Had he known something was going to happen? Had someone really been watching him?

"I would never cheat on Reese," Laura continued, sniffling. "But I know he never believe me if I told him the truth." She looked at me, her expression miserable. "You probably don't believe me either."

I stared at her for several long moments. If someone was really watching Parker that day, then he or she had stuck around to finish him off during Bobby's set. You could only get to the tower from backstage and through the employee hallway—there weren't too many people who had access to it that night…And everyone that did would be here again tonight.
The killer will be here tonight.

"I think I might actually believe you," I said quietly.

"Y-you do?" Laura stammered, sounding surprised.

I nodded. I glanced up to see Tony approaching us from the front hallway and leaned closer to Laura. "Do me a favor. Don't mention this to anyone else—not even Reese. Not just yet. Got it?"

"Okay." Laura eyed me warily. "So does that mean you'll help me set things right with Reese and Kat?"

"I will," I promised.

I ordered drinks for Tony and me as he rejoined me at the bar. He shook himself slightly to dispel some of the rain droplets that were rolling down his arms. "It's really coming down out there."

"Mmhmm." I nodded. We were alone at the bar. Bobby and the band had wrapped up their sound check and moved backstage with Shawn to scarf down their catered dinner. Tim had wandered out front to grab his credentials from Bronwyn at the box office. I fidgeted nervously with my watchband as I wracked my brain for a new topic of conversation. I was the queen of awkward silence.

"I had fun last night." Tony scooted his barstool closer to mine. "Although I still want a rematch of our pool game." His eyes twinkled, and he gave me a flirty nudge. He was persistent—and I liked it.

I gave him a wry smile. "Just name a time and place. I'll show up and beat you all over again." Laura brought us our drinks, and I leaned back against the bar, sipping on my Jack and Diet. Tony played around with his cell phone for a few minutes and then casually slid his arm around me.

We sat in more comfortable silence after that, with me grinning like an idiot as Tony lightly rubbed my shoulders. My giddiness faded when Shawn emerged from the backstage area, speaking into his phone in a low voice. "I don't trust that guy," I mumbled.

"Why not?" Tony gave me a sideways glance.

I shrugged. "I don't know. Something about him just seems…off. Then there's the fact that on the night Parker fell, I saw him arguing with Shawn in the hallway. Stone was griping about a deal—part of Bobby's contract, maybe. But it almost sounded like he was threatening him. "I thought about what Laura told me before, about someone watching Parker. Stone had been insistent on visiting Parker's office and had even barged in later that afternoon.
What in Parker's office could be worth killing for?
There was only one way to find out.
"
I need to get into Parker's office," I said out loud.

"Then let's go check it out," Tony offered.

I shook my head. "We can't. Sergeant Sinclair sealed off Parker's office as part of the investigation. It's off limits to all of the staff—including Kat and me. Plus," I added sheepishly, "it's locked." I had tried opening his office when I arrived earlier this afternoon, thinking maybe I could sneak in and grab a few folders out of his cabinet. The door had been blocked off with yellow caution tape and was locked. The APD had possession of both Parker's key and his only back-up copy.

Tony was quiet for a few moments while he mulled this over. "Alright," he said finally. "How about this? Once the show gets underway, why don't we sneak over to Parker's office and see if we can pick the lock?"

I blinked at him. "You want to sneak into a sealed-off crime scene when there are a ton of people around? Are you crazy?"

"Maybe." He flashed me another boyish grin. "Think about it—with the crowd focused on Bobby and the band onstage, who's gonna notice that we're gone? We'll sneak down the hall. If the coast is clear, we can jimmy the lock and take a quick look around. We'll be back in the crowd for the encore, and nobody will ever know we were gone."

I considered his plan. My gut said it was a bad idea, but he had a point. With the house lights dimmed and the room crowded with people, nobody would know for sure that we weren't down in the Dungeon enjoying the show. Since Parker's door was locked, there wasn't a cop guarding it. We could easily sneak in and take a look around—just a quick peek through his files. Then we could run back into the crowd before anyone noticed we were gone. Easy peasy.

"Fine," I caved. "We'll just take a quick look around—no more than five minutes. If we can't find anything, we're out of there. Got it?"

"Got it, doll face." Tony put his arm back around me. "And now, we wait."

*  *  *

Forty-five minutes later, Bobby was rocking the socks off of the crowd with one of his number one hits, "Loopy Lucy." Tony and I were dancing and carrying on like we'd known each other for years. "I heard he wrote this about Lucille Ball," I yelled over the loud music.

"Well, I heard he wrote it about an ex-girlfriend of his who did acid," Tony shouted back.

"Could be the same person." I grinned.

Not missing a beat, he replied, "She was always kinda loopy."

I giggled and glanced at my watch. Nine forty-five. Bobby was almost halfway through his set now. We had decided to wait until the show had been underway for a while before trying to make our exit. I nudged Tony and pointed to my watch. "Ready?"

"Ready."

Tony and I pushed our way through the crowd toward the side entrance into the employee hallway. We crept down the hall. I peeked through Kat's open door as we quietly edged past. I frowned. Her desk chair was empty. "Kat's not in her office," I whispered. "We're going to need to be quick about this, or she might see us when she comes back." I knew Kat wouldn't turn us in, but I didn't want to involve her in our little caper unless it was absolutely necessary. She had enough to worry about.

My nostrils flared as a sickly sweet odor reached my nose. It seemed to be wafting out of her open doorway.
She really needs to dial it back on the air fresheners in there,
I thought, crinkling my nose.

Tony pulled his pocketknife from his jeans and raised it. A sudden panic swelled in my chest. "We can't do this," I hissed, backing away from the door.

Tony frowned. "Why not?"

"I've just got a bad feeling about this. What if we get cau—"

My words were drowned out as a scream pierced the air. "What the hell?" Tony dropped his pocketknife. His eyes darted up and down the hallway in alarm as he stooped to retrieve it.

The shrieking continued. It sounded like it was coming from out back. "This way!" I sprinted down the hallway toward the back door, nearly slipping on a wet patch on the floor. Tony hooked an arm around me to keep me upright until I regained my footing. Together we burst through the back exit of Castle Rock, nearly slamming into Kat.

She was on her knees in the rain, huddled next to the venue's dumpster. Alarmed, I rushed to her side and tried to check her for any signs of injury. The cold rain pelted down on us as Kat continued to scream. She shook my arm away and pointed a trembling finger toward the dumpster. I stooped down beside her in the dark, trying to make out the shapes on the ground in front of us. Several garbage bags lay just in front of the bin, sagging as they became waterlogged from the downpour. I shoved them aside and gasped in horror as I stared down at Laura Holly's crumpled body.

The patrolman guarding High Court must have heard the commotion. He pushed through the back door less than a minute after Tony and me. Kat and I were huddled in the rain screaming, and Tony was standing behind us, wearing a shocked expression. He realized he was still holding his knife, and I saw him shove it hastily back into his pocket before the officer registered that he had a weapon. "What's going on out here?" the cop demanded. The color drained from his face when he spotted the body half-buried in the soggy garbage bags. "Good God Almighty…" He sank to his knees and shoved us out of the way as he pressed two fingers to Laura's neck, checking for a pulse. "Shit!" He pulled the bags off her and studied her for a moment. He pressed a button on his radio. "Dispatch," he barked. "This is Simpson requesting an ambulance at the Castle Rock music venue at 78 North Avenue. We've got a gunshot victim here—white female in her mid-twenties with a bullet wound to the chest. She's got a faint pulse, and it's getting weaker, so step on it."

"Roger that, Simpson. An ambulance and back-up are on their way," a response crackled over the receiver.

Until that moment, I'd assumed Laura was dead. There was a horrible ashen tint to her cold skin, and there was so much blood. Looking more closely at her, I could now see the slight rise and fall of her chest. Simpson's words rang in my head…
Gunshot wound
…
God, someone shot Laur
a. Could it have been Parker's killer? The only way to find out who shot her was to keep her alive. I could already hear sirens approaching in the distance, and I hoped they could get her to the hospital in time.

My nose wrinkled again. An odd scent lingered in the air around us, growing fainter by the second in the pouring rain. It wasn't acrid like gun smoke, or sour like the garbage in the dumpster next to us. I recognized it—the same scent I'd picked up as I passed Kat's office.

Officer Simpson crouched beside Laura, applying pressure to her wound to try and stop the bleeding. He looked up and considered the three of us: Kat was still huddled on the ground, hugging her knees and sobbing. I had sat back against a garbage bag and was staring wide-eyed at Laura. Tony moved to my side and absently patted my shoulder as he watched the officer. "Can one of you explain what happened here?" Simpson asked, glaring.

It was Kat who answered him. "I found her," she said, her voice shaking. "I left my cell phone in my car and ran out to the back parking lot to get it. No one was back here when I came outside, and I was only over there for a few minutes. I never heard a gunshot or anything, but I was so far away, and the rain was coming down so hard I couldn't hear much of anything other than the storm. When I came back to the door, Laura was here on the ground."

Simpson narrowed his eyes, and he shifted his gaze back to Tony and me. "And what about you two?" he asked, his tone suspicious.

Shit
. We hadn't thought of an excuse for why we were in the hallway. As I wracked my brain for something to say, Tony saved the day by answering for me. "Amelia and I were headed to her office, just down this hallway," he said, pointing to the back door.

"That's right," I chimed in, thinking fast. "We were in the Dungeon for Bobby's show, and I told Tony I'd get him some passes for this Friday out of my desk to give his mother. She's a huge fan."

"Mom's birthday is next week, and I wanted to surprise her—but the show sold out so quickly that I missed out on buying tickets. Ame mentioned she had saved a few extras in her desk and said she'd give me a pair," Tony said easily. I wondered if his mother's birthday was really the following week, or if he was just that good at lying on the fly. I was relieved that I actually did have few pairs of extra tickets in my desk drawer—in case Simpson wanted proof. Tony and I made a pretty good team.

"We had just gotten to my office door when we heard Kat scream," I finished our alibi. Simpson shifted his gaze back and forth from Tony to me a few times, looking for any sign that we were lying to him. I tried to keep my facial expression blank.

"You three step inside and wait for me," Simpson said. "I'll need to take down your official statements." At that moment, an ambulance came screeching around the corner and pulled to a halt next to Castle Rock. Two EMTs hurriedly unloaded a gurney from the back and began pushing it through the rain toward Laura. Tony and I pulled Kat to her feet and ushered her inside to her office.

Once seated on her leather couch, Kat ceased crying and became eerily calm. She absently tucked her wet hair behind her ears and stared down at the floor for several minutes. I thought she might be in shock. I picked up the blanket that was draped over the back of her office couch and wrapped it around her shoulders when her teeth began to chatter. "I know what it looks like," she said finally, not looking up. "But I didn't do it."