The Thrill of the Chase (Mystery & Adventure) (14 page)

"Assuming I don't give him one, right?" I asked jokingly. She didn't laugh, but that didn't deter me; I was used to people not laughing at my jokes. "Thanks, Lieutenant – I appreciate it. I'll be speaking to you."

She said, "Buh–bye," and as I hung up, the weight remaining on my chest lifted. I knew she hadn't forgiven me entirely, but that would come with time – when she had reason to trust me again.

Maybe the shrinks had it right after all: talking did seem to make things better.

Jill walked in with the finished cup of coffee as I dropped the phone back onto the receiver. She smiled when I looked up at her. "Getting important things done?"

I chuckled, coming out from behind the desk to meet her halfway. "Yeah. Lots. But then…" I spread my arms with a majestic flourish, like the curtains opening on the first act of a play. "Clouds part, brilliant light, accompanying fanfare… and
you
enter, making my day that much brighter."

I had intended it to be a joke, or something along those lines, but I'm not quite sure just how Jill took it. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure exactly
what
happened in that next moment. Had there been some sort of time freeze, or a slow–mo Hollywood moment, things might have made more sense.

But in real life, there are no easy explanations.

At any rate – all of a sudden – Jill had either let go of the mug in pain, or it had slipped from her fingers. Whatever the cause, my sperm whale mug fell toward the floor and one inevitable fate. Ceramic shattered, splashing hot coffee all over the rug. I stepped back and managed to avoid getting any on myself, but the carpet took the brunt of the assault.

Jill remained frozen in place for a moment, then hung her head like she'd just been caught red–handed committing a horrendous crime. "Oh, God, Chance, I'm so sorry..."

I tried to make an angry face but it melted immediately into a disarming smile. "Jill, seriously? What were you thinking?"

She was smiling too, embarrassed. "Shut up. I burned myself."

"Aw, let me take a look," I said, extending my lower lip in a ridiculous pout. I took her small hand in mine before she could snatch it away and examined her palm as though I was a goddamned hand model scout.

I made a serious face. "We're going to have to operate."

"Shut up," she said again, still embarrassed but playing along.

It was only then that I noticed how close I was standing to her. I certainly hadn't intended for that to happen. It had just…
happened
.

Fate. Coincidence. I don't know.

What I
did
know was that all of a sudden, I could smell the sweet scent of her hair and that enticing perfume. I could count every freckle on that graceful nose and see deep into her green eyes as she looked up at me, cheeks still hot with embarrassment.

The first time I, Chance Stikup, had fallen in love had been millions of years ago – back in 6th grade. Some might call me a romantic for that reason – that I'd "found love" in elementary school – but there was nothing in my past to really suggest that I was a ladies' man. Sure, I'd gone on plenty of dates in my past, some of them with truly spectacular women, but most of those nights had ended far too early and not been succeeded by morning–after calls. Any extended relationships I'd entertained weren't much to talk about either, which left me the lonely bachelor that I was – kind of a Han Solo character. That roguish, rough–around–the–edges type of hero.

At least I don't have a gigantic Muppet following me around all the time.

I'd kind of unconsciously given up on love after hitting thirty. I had no complaints, however. I wasn't exactly lonely and I had plenty to be thankful for. Yet, at thirty–three years of age, on December the 2nd, 1993, something happened, something electric, and it was in that moment when I held Jill's hand.

Sure, I'd always been attracted to Jill – it wasn't like I didn't notice women anymore – but I'd never actually considered the possibility of
us
. The facts were blatant and undeniable, and for the most part, I'm one to operate on fact.

Jill was an eyeful and I certainly wasn't. Jill had an open future and I didn't. Jill was personable and I was a self–absorbed jerk. Jill had character traits I could only dream of. Jill was a real quality woman, and I was just average.

Sub
–average.

She opened her mouth and started to say something, her eyes boring holes through mine.

And the telephone rang.

I blinked, damning all modern appliances to hell and tried to say something to save the moment, something to salvage the ground I had unintentionally gained –

Too late.

Jill pulled away and left the room in a rush, leaving me to stare after her. All of a sudden, I felt deflated, as though I'd just broken a promise or let someone down. And I had: I'd just screwed up everything, both for Jill and myself. As a matter of fact, I had just destroyed the best opportunity I'd had in almost a decade.

Hell, I wasn't unlucky at love. I was just plain bad at it. Abysmal.

Oh yeah. The telephone.

I whirled on my heel and snatched up the receiver. "
What
?" I demanded in a decidedly harsher voice than I would normally have used.

"Is this Detective Stikup?" The voice was masculine and familiar, but over the phone I couldn't place it.

"Who else would I be?"

The man cleared his throat in what could possibly have been indignation. "This is Robert Mendoza, Detective."

I had to think for a moment to remember who that was. Coming to the realization that I was
working
for Robert Mendoza, I sighed heavily, calming myself almost reluctantly. "Oh. How are you, Mr. Mendoza?"

"Fine, fine," he said with swagger, and now that I knew who it was, I easily recognized his characteristic growl of a voice. And now that I thought about it, he sounded remarkably like Kevin Slyder. "I was just calling to see if you had any
leads
as to the whereabouts of my car yet. I've been paying two-fifty a day to ride the bus to work."

I sighed, annoyed, and rubbed my eyes. "No, no – nothing new. Things are very complicated right now, and I really don't know anything. I need to find a few more puzzle pieces before I can take action."

"Oh," he grunted. "Have the thieves been giving you any more trouble?"

There was something strange about his question, but I couldn't identify it. "Yeah, they hit another place last night. I don't know much, though. Made one arrest, but he couldn't give me much info. So, I'm pretty much still at the beginning of the maze."

"I see." Mendoza's tone had taken on a disappointed air, and I guess that was understandable. But what had he expected – a miracle? "Well, I'm sorry to bother you."

I almost told him that I hoped he was, but I held my tongue and forced my lips into a painful smile. Not that he could see it anyway. "Don't worry about it. I'll call to inform you if and when I get anything new."

"Okay." And he hung up without another word.

I dropped the phone on the receiver and sighed, utterly drained. Alas: another disappointed customer. It was a good thing my agency didn't run on positive reviews, because I couldn't honestly say that I'd gotten many of those recently.

It took me a several minutes to rein in my irritation and stop grinding my teeth. I scrubbed my face with my hands for good measure and then got up and began sponging coffee from the carpet with a mass of paper towels. However, my head wasn't in the chore. My head was down the hall, where a certain secretary was tapping away determinedly at her typewriter, wondering just how I was going to speak to her again after the last moment we'd spent together.

Chapter Seven

The crime scene was unchanged.

From the crumpled throw rug in the entrance hall to the picture shattered on the steps, nothing had been moved in the Daniels household. It had been perfectly preserved for the investigation, just the way a crime scene should be. In a way, it was eerie – as though time had frozen within the household as an act of preservation, to prevent any further corruption from sinking into the young foundation. If it hadn't been for the telltale signs of violence and struggle, it would have been peaceful, comfortable – the way a home should be.

But any sense of sanctuary was destroyed by the knowledge that just up the stairs, in the first room on the right, an innocent woman's life had been stolen in the most obscene way. Her restless spirit would forever haunt the place – perhaps not literally, but in the sense that someone would always remember her, Mrs. Daniels
would
live on posthumously.

The dead are always with us, after all.

It was 10:03 in the morning. I'd arrived at the scene of the crime bare minutes prior and had lost no time flashing my badge and copy of the search warrant at the South Harrison cops stationed across the street in order to gain access to the Daniels household. Now, it was time to get to work.

I began my investigation in the master bedroom, in which Mrs. Daniels had been murdered. The body, of course, had been removed for the autopsy, and Madley's people had taken the pillow, the unlikely murder weapon, along with the shredded robe that the victim had been wearing prior to her death. All that remained of her now was the chalk outline on the floor.

I've always liked working with company.

Pulling on a pair of disposable gloves, I began poking around the room. I rooted through desk drawers, bookshelves, and the closet where Sheldon had hidden, examining any possible object that he or the other perps might have touched, only to come up with – as I had anticipated – absolutely nothing. But looking for fingerprints really wasn't my priority anymore. Even if Sheldon hadn't given us the real names of his partners, Slyder could still run a search on the aliases "Harris" and "Thawyer" in the cop database and most likely still find information on them – assuming they were repeat offenders. There was also the likelihood of getting forensics off the body. If we struck gold in either of those categories, we would suddenly find ourselves with more information than our case demanded.

What I was looking for wasn't going to be anywhere in the Daniels' bedroom. What I needed now was a tip as to where the goons were
now
and who this "boss" character was that was directing their actions. I needed motive and reasonable suspicion for arrest. But there was nothing in the house that could possibly give me any of those things. I could only hope that the information Slyder was working to procure would give me some hint as to where the perps' hideout was located, and hopefully that in turn could grant us some insight as to who and where their leader was.

If I'd learned one thing about the perps, it was that they certainly knew their way around Gloucester County: they had out–driven Slyder's
and
Seth Chauncey's boys on two separate occasions. It was possible that they'd grown up in the area, or perhaps just lived in the vicinity long enough to know the back roads.

That, or they're good with road maps and they get lucky with the lights.

I thrust my hands deep into my trench coat pockets and looked around the destroyed room. Sunlight was pouring in through the window, illuminating the empty chalk woman on the floor. I studied the impression for a moment, wondering what it was that possessed man to kill and destroy.

Pride bordering on utter indifference for the rest of humanity? Uncontrollable greed? Hatred?

Self–indulgence.

Sin.

The phone rang from somewhere downstairs, muffled but distinct, a voice from another lifetime.

I turned to face the doorway, listening. A moment later, it rang again, proving to be more than a mere figment of my imagination, so I hurried down the steps to the first floor and entered the kitchen, looking for the source. The answering machine kicked in the moment I had located the phone – on the bar counter – so I leaned on the back of one of the stools to listen.

*
beep
*

"Hi, you've reached Jeff and Ruby. We can't pick up right now, so if you'll leave a message, we'll call you back ASAP. Thanks."

Mr. Daniels – still unaccounted for at the present time – stopped speaking, and then began again after the beep. Only, now he sounded agitated, and in the background, I could hear the noise of a crowd.

"Ruby, you're scaring me. Why aren't you answering the phone? Are you there? Listen, I'm stuck here at the airport and I need –"

He continued, rambling about the terminal being a nightmare, wondering why she hadn't been there four hours earlier as planned, wondering if he should call a cab, wondering where the hell she was. After a moment of initial hesitation, I reached over and carefully picked up the receiver, cutting him off in the middle of of a sentence.

"Mr. Daniels?"

There was a long silence over the line as Daniels train of thought shifted from the commuter rails to the express. I could almost hear the clicking, the frenzy of helter skelter thoughts clamoring for precedence.