TICK TOCK RUN (Romantic Mystery Suspense) (23 page)

“They sent me a pre-paid mobile the other day.”

“Ah!  So that was the parcel you collected in town?  Did you recognise the voice?”

She moved out of my arms, grabbed a tissue and blew her nose.  “No, it was muffled.  They text as well.” 

Laura’s eyes shone with a traumatising brilliance.  She stood, revealing a crumpled form in front of me. Someone had taken it upon themselves to be both jury and executioner of a girl who’d been stricken with grief all year.

I rose to my feet and stroked her arm.  “So why kill Daryl?”

Her eyelids blinked over her glassy eyes.  “It was an accident.”

“How do you know that for sure?” 

Laura’s now overly-wide eyes suggested she thought me slow on the uptake.  “I know blackmail is bad… but murder!  Come on, Chelsea.  That’s a whole different category.”

“But Daryl received the emails, too.  Well, at least one.  I saw it with my own eyes.”

“I think Lee set that up.”

“Call me stupid, but Daryl didn’t receive any more emails after he died.  Lee says that means something.”

Laura shocked me by nodding.  “Yes.  It means there’s no point pretending to blackmail someone who is dead.”  She wiped her nose, then squeezed my shoulders.  “Look.  Daryl once told me that Lee was very loyal, the protective sort.  He spoke with pride when he said ‘get on Lee’s good side and you have a friend for life, someone who will always watch your back, but wrong him or those he cares about, and you’d better have eyes in the back of your head.’  Know what I mean?”

I nibbled my bottom lip while nodding.

“Lee wants me to suffer for dumping his brother before he died.  He’s trying to make out that Daryl was blackmailed then murdered, and that you’re next, to scare me into paying up.  It throws suspicion off him.  No one would think he did all that to his own brother.  He’s just using you as a means to threaten me.”

“No.  No way!”

“Lee probably sent that email to Daryl’s account
after
he died, to make you think that Daryl was being blackmailed, too.  It keeps Lee from looking guilty.  He must know Daryl’s password, or hacked that account, too.  Or maybe it’s Lee’s own email account, but you didn’t notice.”

I tried to picture other messages listed in the inbox, and the email address, but couldn’t.

“People can do strange things while grieving.  I should know.  This is a slam dunk.  Pay up, and Lee will go away.  He just wants someone to feel his pain.  Me.”

“I don’t know what to believe.”  My head began spinning. 

“Come on, Chelsea.  You must have watched a few detective movies in your time.  You know, when the guilty ones put themselves in the centre of the investigation.”

I tapped my hands together.  “Please, just to be on the safe side, admit Daryl’s death being linked... murdered... is a possibility, because I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.  Or me.”  I stared straight at her, my eyes feeling ready to burst from anxiety.

Laura drew a deep breath.  “Okay.  It’s a
small
possibility.”

I felt relieved to at least get her considering this point.

We sat down again.

There was no doubt that she hurt like hell inside.  With a story like that, her tears were probably drops of acid.  Only three options came to mind, pay up, find the blackmailer or...  I leaned forward to reach for my phone.  “This is too big for us to handle.  We have to get the police onto it straight away.”

She pressed me back against the sofa.  “Absolutely not.  The blackmailer has threatened to tell Paul about the affair if I contact the police - money or no money.  Please, don’t make me kiss my life with Paul goodbye by phoning them.”

“But the police will be discreet.  We’ll force them to be.  How will anyone know you’ve told them?”

“I can’t risk it.”

“You’re crazy not to tell the police.”

“Look, I know it’s messy, but I don’t want you to get involved any further, Chelsea.  I’ve tried my best to keep you out of this.  You’ve got nothing to feel guilty about.  Walk away.”

“I’m already involved and I’m not leaving you to deal with this alone.”  I struggled to decide on the right thing to do.  I felt like my hands were bound by guilt and friendship, and my mouth was being zipped shut.  I wanted to open a window, stick my head outside, and scream the truth at the top of my lungs.  However, the dark fear that Laura might do something stupid to herself if her life crumbled again, was a big, in fact, monstrous reason to delay involving the police.  Besides, I owed her, big time.  “Okay,” I said.  “The deadline is on Saturday, your wedding day.  So, we’ve got time to do some digging.  If we can’t end this by Friday night, then we need to inform the police.  Agreed?”

Although Laura nodded, she didn’t look me in the eyes.  “Actually, the money drop is tomorrow morning,” Laura said.  “I’ve already agreed.  I’ll receive instructions by text message.  In return I’ll get the video footage.”

“In the morning?  That soon?”  This left zero time to figure it all out.  I jumped to my feet and paced in front of her.  “Well, maybe we could phone around, call our friends.  Perhaps someone’s been asking questions about you, and our friends thought nothing of it at the time.”

“It’s too late, Chelsea.  Anyway, I’ve already tried that, bought the t-shirt.  It didn’t work, and besides, it was tricky because I didn’t want to start rumours flying around town.”

I wrung my hands together.  “I wish I could do something.  It’s someone who’s techy, maybe someone who’s lost their job and needs fast cash.  What about places you used to meet Daryl?  I mean, perhaps it’s someone who lives in that area and saw you regularly.”

“There is one thing you could do.”  Laura paused to glare up at me.

“Anything.  Tell me and I’ll do it.”

“Confront Lee.”

I slumped onto the sofa and sighed.  I should have chosen my words more carefully.  “Jeez!  Not this again.”

She shuffled around to face me.  “Look, Chelsea.  He’s the most obvious suspect.  You’re either on my side or his.  Which is it?”

I glared into her eyes.  “How dare you ask me to choose!”

“The main suspect is right under our flamin’ noses.”

“Shut up!  I’m sick of hearing it.”

“I’m sick of being blackmailed.”  She thumbed towards the hall.  “Lee’s probably sat at home right now, laughing at how he’s twisted you around his little finger and deciding how he’ll spend my cash.”

Anger boiled deep in my gut.  Protecting Laura dominated my thoughts, but underneath, I wanted a suspect other than the man who put fizz into my heart, and a bounce into my stride.  “You’ve got him all wrong.”

She set her hand on my knee.  “Just one call, Chelsea, and we might end this thing tonight.  If he’s innocent, then he should understand and forgive you.” 

“Yeah, right,” I muttered, rolling my eyes.

Laura pursed her lips.  Lines of worry dented her silky complexion like deep scars.  A chilling judder moved through my body.  I never wanted to see this horrific look on her face again.  It wasn’t hard to see how desperately she was trying to pull herself out of the dark pit that swallowed her almost whole. 

I wanted the old Laura back. 

“It’s just one, quick phone call to warn him off.”

I covered my face with my hands.  “That simple, huh?”

“Will you do it?” she asked.  “He’ll probably listen to you.  If you won’t, then give me his number and I’ll phone him.”

The silence after her question ended when her shoe scraped the floor.  “What’s it to be?” 

I parted my fingers and stared at her distressing face. 

She crossed her legs towards me.

“This is insane.  You’re so wrong.”  Something was seriously plucking at my heart strings.  “But, okay.  I’ll do it.”

She stood up to get my mobile.  Knowing that Lee might never forgive me for wrongly accusing him again, caused a riot in my stomach, and tears to tingle behind my eyes.  Before I talked myself out of it, I grabbed my mobile from her, and quite literally punched the dial button with my fingertip.  I reminded myself that I’d known Lee for less than a week, and Laura for an eternity.  Her safety and sanity had to take precedence over my desires.

“Hey, Chelsea.”  Lee sounded shocked but happy to hear from me.  “I’m worried about you.  Have you seen the time?  Why did you disappear?”

I looked away from Laura’s pained face in order to think straight.  “How long had Daryl had that email account, Lee?”

“I don’t know.  A while.”

“Why didn’t you show me any of his other messages?”

“There weren’t any.  None linked to this.”

Laura nudged me, and my heart lurched.  Once I spoke there was no going back.  I took a deep breath.  “Lee.  We’ve sussed you out.  We know it’s you and can prove it.  This ends now.”  Every syllable stung.

“Chelsea?”

Laura angled her head to listen in.

“Let’s stop pretending,” I said, forcing a firm voice.  “One more call, one more text, one more sick, freakin’ message or demand, and I’ll get the police onto you.  There’ll be no wriggling out of this one.  I swear it.  Get me?”

“What the hell are you…”

“Save your bullshit!”  I touched my face, felt a tear.  I had to speed up my words before I could no longer get any more out.  “You make one more move and you’ll go to the hole for this.  We’re not keeping quiet any more.  It’s Daryl who’s at fault.  He took advantage.”  I hung up, mentally tortured.  I hurled my phone onto the sofa and couldn’t stop tears raining down my cheeks. 
No.  It isn’t him.  It can’t be.
  If Laura’s theory about Lee was correct, then I’d just made a thirty-five thousand pound phone call. 

“Oh, Jeez!”  Laura gasped, and her hand slapped over her mouth. 

“Jeez, what?”

“You’ve already fallen for him, haven’t you?”

I stopped myself saying she was right.  “Don’t be daft.” 

If threatening him was the right thing, then why did it hurt so damn much? 

CHAPTER 20

I
jumped out of bed with renewed vigour and flew downstairs.  No messages or calls.  It was a quarter to eight.  I logged into my email account to check for messages.  My stomach seemed to drop down my body like an escalator, when I spotted the word ‘urgent’ on a subject line.  I clicked on the email and discovered it to be an advert for viagra. 

While eating breakfast, I punched a quick message to Laura asking if anyone had made contact, then stared at the phone in my jam-sticky hand.  I knew that involving the police was the right thing to do, but once I made the call, there would be no reversing it.  Contacting the cops felt like pushing Laura off a building.  Going against her would mean throwing our friendship clean away.  I stopped staring at the phone, licked my fingers, took the plunge and dialled Officer Baines. 

When his answer service came on, doubt flew back in.  With my head buzzing, my loyalty to Laura won over.  “Hi, it’s Chelsea Denham.  I’m fine.  The emails were a misunderstanding, turned out to be...”  I looked at the computer.  “Viagra adverts.  Crazy, isn’t it?  And the writing in my bathroom, well, it was just a prank.  One of my friends got drunk and... you know.  Anyway, sorry to waste your time.  I feel terrible about it.”  I hung up and swore at myself.  I’d promised Laura I’d not say a word to the police until Friday.