Читать книгу Memory of Murder - Ramona Richards - Страница 12

THREE

In the flash of a second following her scream, Lindsey both recognized the man standing in her living room and found herself staring at Jeff’s back as he burst from behind her, blocking her from the intruder, gun drawn.

“Wait!” Her voice squeaked, barely audible, but Jeff had already realized that the abruptly terrified man in front of them posed no threat.

He lowered his gun. “Max, what are you doing in here?”

Ray shoved in behind them on full alert, only to have the same reaction. “Maxwell, we could have shot you.”

Maxwell Carpenter, “Max” to everyone who’d known him for more than five minutes, stood with his arms in the air, wagging his hands furiously and rocking from one foot to the other. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” His glasses had slid down his nose, and he stared at them over the top of the black frames. “I was just worried about Lindsey. I heard the ruckus on the scanner. The door was open, so I thought she was home, then realized it was all dark.”

Lindsey shuddered as she noticed the two officers straighten.

“The door was open?” Jeff asked.

Max nodded, his hands still quivering in the air.

“Gage, clear the house,” the sheriff ordered. “Max, put your arms down.”

Jeff moved through the four small rooms of the house quickly, checking closets and under the bed.

His hands dropping to his side as if he’d held up barbells too long, Max focused on Lindsey. “You’re hurt.”

She smiled weakly. “Nothing serious. You really don’t have to worry.”

He shrugged one shoulder, causing a shock of dark hair to flop down over his forehead. He raked it back, his hands still shaking. “You’re my favorite tenant, and I’m a dad. You’re my Ashley’s age. It’s not exactly a habit that’s easy to break.”

Since moving into the small rental home, Lindsey’s affection for Max grew almost daily. Max Carpenter bore not even a remote resemblance to her own father, but she began to see why some women could view their dads so fondly. She reached toward the older man as if to comfort him. “Max—”

“You should have called us.” Ray Taylor apparently didn’t totally accept Max’s explanation. “You know better. You don’t just walk in on your single female tenants alone, and if the door is open but no one’s home, you call us. One could get you sued; the other could get you killed.”

“Actually, both could get you killed,” muttered Jeff as he returned to the living room, “given how many women in this county have carry permits.” He glanced at Max, then at Ray. “All clear. Back door was still locked from the inside.”

Ray nodded. “Lindsey, take a look around, see if anything is missing.”

Max pushed his glasses up on his nose. “I didn’t notice anything out of—”

“Lindsey.” Ray’s narrowed eyes stayed on Max, and his tone ended the conversation.

“Okay.” Lindsey adjusted the crutch under her arm and limped past Ray, a little annoyed at her brother-in-law. Max had been good to her, and he’d never entered the house without giving her advance warning. In fact, Max had been her business mentor since she’d arrived here. Ray had no reason to be so...official. Still, she looked around the living room slowly, then shook her head. “Everything in here looks fine.” She headed for her office, and Jeff followed.

The tiny home, with its living room, kitchen, two bedrooms and one bathroom, sat on a dead-end street along with eleven other identical houses, each one owned and rented by Max. The rents made up the bulk of his income, along with a small courier service he ran out of the converted house next door to Lindsey’s restaurant. Lindsey used one of the bedrooms as an office, and now she paused, glancing over the paperwork on her desk. “Why is Ray suspicious of Max?”

Jeff hesitated and glanced over his shoulder. “I’m not sure.”

“Max’s been great to me. He even helped me with the business plan for the restaurant, especially with the stuff relating to Bell County and all the forms and regulations for the state.” She turned and headed for the second door in the office. The house had no hallway, with each room directly adjacent to two others. The living room led to the office, which led to the bedroom. A walk-through bathroom separated the bedroom from the kitchen at the back of the house. An arch between the kitchen and living room made the area look bigger than it actually was.

Lindsey glanced around the bedroom and shook her head. “Nothing’s been touched.” A flicker of light outside the window caught her eye, and she limped over. Her next-door neighbor was RuthAnn Crenshaw, who worked with her. Barely visible in the golden light of her windows, the older woman sat on her front stoop, her knees drawn up to her chest and one arm wrapped around her legs. A red spot glowed and faded as RuthAnn took a draw on a cigarette.

Lindsey scowled, and Jeff touched her elbow lightly. “What’s wrong?”

“RuthAnn. She’s never up this late. She’s watching my house.”

“You think she saw something?”

“Don’t know. As far as I can tell, there was nothing to see. Nothing’s been touched in here. I probably woke her up when I screamed. Or she was still awake because of her trip to her mother’s. Her mom must be doing okay, or she wouldn’t be back here.”

As they watched, RuthAnn flicked the cigarette out in the yard, stood and went into her house. A second later, all the lights went off.

“I’ll tell Ray—”

Lindsey turned. “Please don’t bother her.” She touched his arm. “I doubt RuthAnn saw anything. I probably just didn’t latch the door firmly this morning. Sometimes I leave in such a hurry I don’t check. When I do, the wind will pop it open.”

“Lindsey—”

“Please. Her mom lives all the way over in Portland. She must be exhausted.”

Jeff clinched his jaw, and Lindsey could see he struggled with her request. “I’ll talk to her in the morning. I promise. If she saw anything, I’ll call you.”

He still scowled but finally relented, nodding just once. Satisfied, they finished the rest of her survey and returned to the living room, where Ray still held Max in his gaze, reminding Lindsey of a cobra captivating a bird.

The three men left, and Lindsey locked her front door and double-checked the back door dead bolt. She finished her nighttime routine, checking each of the windows one last time. A second cruiser sat next to Ray’s, and Jeff got into it, letting her know Ray had changed his mind about leaving her alone for even a minute. Max, who lived with his family a couple of blocks away, was nowhere in sight.

Lindsey sighed. Although she didn’t spend much time here, her cottage had become her refuge, her place of safety, where she recharged and prepared herself for another day. She’d filled it with inexpensive but comfortable furniture and decorated it with special touches of her own. A table runner that had belonged to her mother covered the top of the bookcase in the living room. After her mother’s death, she’d gone into foster care. The comforter on her bed had been a gift from her foster mom when she’d headed off to culinary school.

Tonight, the cottage felt a little less safe, but despite the tension and trauma of the evening, Lindsey sank into bed, settling her ankle carefully and cherishing the soft embrace of her covers. Yet, even as tired as she was, she wouldn’t relax without finishing her day the same way she had since she was a child. She plumped the pillows behind her, then turned to her bedside table, where she kept her Bible and music box side by side. Together with her mother’s diary, which she kept tucked into a secret compartment of the music box, these made up the sole surviving mementos of her childhood. The Bible had belonged to her grandmother, and contained a treasure trove of family stories, sermon notes and memorabilia nestled in its pages.

Every night Lindsey read a passage from each one, then prayed about what she’d read and the events of the day. Now she muttered, “Lord, I hope you’re ready for an earful tonight.”

Never, baby girl, never hesitate to tell the good Lord everything. He already knows it, just as He knows every hair on your head. But He’ll want you to tell Him all the same. He wants to hear your heart.

Lindsey leaned back against the pillows, the voice of her mother echoing in her mind. As a child, she’d heard her mother pray, talking to God as if He were her best friend. Maybe He was... She didn’t seem to have many others. So what’s in my heart tonight, other than people who want to kill me, hospitals and old GTOs?

Jeff.

Lindsey opened her eyes and let out a deep sigh. She shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose with two fingers. “No,” she whispered. “I can’t.”

But she couldn’t shake the way he’d looked at her at the police station, his expression determined and concerned, his touch gentle. The rich brown of his eyes had seemed to grow ever darker as she’d talked. One lock of his black hair always fell down over his forehead, and he pushed it back without thinking. Except for tonight. As he’d watched her, he hadn’t seemed to notice his own injuries, and he’d never touched that strand of hair.

“But I’m just another case, right? Just one more citizen of the county he loves so much?” Jeff did adore living in Bell County, and he often spoke of the people here as if he were personally charged with their welfare. And, maybe, in a way, he was. But even to her reluctant heart, the words sounded hollow.

“I just can’t,” she whispered to her walls. “I can’t be more.” She shook her head, trying to clear it of the image of the young deputy. “I need to stay focused. Dreams only come true with work.” And right now, a relationship was not part of her dreams.

She sat a little straighter and reached for her Bible. Then she paused, her hand hovering over the black leather cover. Every night, Lindsey reached for the Bible in the same way, her hand clasping it just so. Tonight, however, the Bible was not the way she’d left it last night. She pulled back her hand, and a slight chill ran up her spine.

Nothing in the house had been touched. Except her grandmother’s Bible.

* * *

Jeff waved one more time as the cruiser backed out of his driveway. After the warmth of the car, the post-midnight air gave him a slight chill. His head still throbbed, and every muscle felt as if it were on the edge of twitching, but there was a familiar comfort from just being at home. As he watched the taillights disappear over a low rise, a soft whimper made him turn and look down. He smiled. “Hey, buddy. Miss me?”

The golden Lab mix waited patiently on the bottom step of the staircase leading up to his over-the-garage apartment. At the sound of Jeff’s voice, Charley’s tail thumped wildly against the side of the garage.

“Yeah, me, too.” Jeff rubbed Charley’s head playfully, wincing from his injuries as he dropped down on the step next to his dog. He glanced toward his parents’ house and, as he expected, their low ranch home lay still and silent. Darkness filled each window, although a dusk-to-dawn light bathed most of the yard in a harsh lavender-white light. Alan wouldn’t get home for another couple of hours. Since her last bout with cancer, his mom always turned in early, and even though she’d been a nurse at one time, both Alan and Jeff were careful not to let their work intrude too much into her life these days.

Jeff hated to see how weak she’d become; his childhood memories were of a woman so vibrant and strong he thought she could take on the world. Alan had been a great stepdad, and when Alan was diagnosed with cancer, Jeff had come home from Los Angeles where he’d been working. He hadn’t wanted to come back, but now he hoped he never had to leave. After he and Alan had converted the garage loft to a cozy studio, he’d settled in for good.

Jeff let out a long sigh and clutched Charley’s ruff again. “I guess I’ve turned into a cliché, Charley-boy. The thirty-year-old man still living with his folks.”

Charley obviously didn’t mind. The huge fenced yard gave him plenty of running room, and the food and water were steady. Plus, he loved the occasional ride in the truck.

Jeff knew he should go upstairs, but as the painkillers from the hospital wore off, his head cleared. Despite the lingering headache, his memory had started to return with more details than he could recall earlier. He knew he should take more pills and rest, but at the moment, his thoughts bounced around in his head, going over the events of the night, seeing how many more details he could fill in.

Jeff remained amazed at how fast everything had happened—how his life, and Lindsey’s, had changed almost in an instant. At just before eight o’clock, Jeff had checked on Lindsey, to see if she was ready to head for the bank. As usual, she was, and he waited for her outside. Less than thirty minutes later, Lindsey lay trapped in a wrecked GTO and he struggled to recover from being stunned twice in one night. Both stun-gun burns ached and itched, but he refused to rub them. Not many officers he knew had ever been stunned twice, much less during the same attack. One attack, two assailants. One scared and high, the other cruel and efficient.

Jeff stilled, resting his hand on Charley’s back. Twice. The deep baritone of his second attacker’s voice resonated in his head. A stranger’s voice, one he’d never heard. Yet the man had addressed Jeff, talked about Lindsey, as if they were intimate friends. How do you know us? How do you...

...how did you know how to turn off the alarm?

Jeff stiffened. Lindsey had set off the alarm, yet it had been silent during the second attack. Turned off. Jeff looked down at Charley. “He knew the code. Wonder how many people have that code?”

Charley licked the excess drool off his lips and returned to panting, his eyes bright.

He made a mental note to ask Lindsey, grimacing again as he thought about her swollen jaw and twisted ankle. “She has no idea how lucky she was.” Her account of the accident horrified him. She’d taken a desperate, risky chance, one that could easily have killed her. She took it, knowing that if the guy got to his destination, she’d be dead anyway.

The second attacker must have been on his way to that destination when he left Jeff. That’s why he came on the wreck first, checking to see what happened. According to Lindsey’s statement, he stole the paper from the boy, then groped for the glove compartment before the first responders chased him off.

The glove compartment...

Jeff looked down at Charley. “Wanna go for a ride?”

Charley heard the word “ride” and jumped from the steps with a soft woof. Jeff pushed up, ignoring his aches, and headed to the first door of the three-car garage. He punched a code into the keypad next to the door, and the middle door slid open with a low rumble. He opened the door of his pickup, and Charley hopped in as if it were the middle of the day. He settled into the passenger seat and let out another low bark.

“Yeah, I know it’s late.” Jeff reached for a jacket from behind the seat, knowing that Charley would want the window down. Plus, Troy’s garage would be as cold, if not colder, than the air outside. He zipped it up, then got in and fastened his seat belt. “But I thought you might want to visit with Niki and Nora.”

Charley wagged his tail, then pushed his nose against the window.

“Okay.” Jeff started the truck’s engine, then lowered the passenger window, grinning as it made Charley one happy, windblown dog.

The ride to the garage didn’t take nearly as long as Charley would have liked. Although Alan and Elizabeth Gage lived on the far outskirts of town, everything in Bell’s Springs was still pretty close together, unlike the two other, more spread out, small towns in the county. Fifteen minutes after he pulled out of the drive, he pulled up at the former gas station that was the front of Troy’s garage. Troy had knocked out a wall and attached a Quonset hut to the back of the building, giving the place the oddest architecture in the county. It also meant the building was a mini–echo chamber, making sneaking up on Troy’s two guard dogs impossible.

Jeff knew where Troy kept the building’s spare key hidden, but a light from the office at the front of the building told him he might not need it. “Can’t believe he’s still at work,” Jeff mumbled to Charley.

They got out of the truck, and Jeff rapped sharply on the front door. The resulting canine explosion from within told him that at least Niki and Nora were awake. So, apparently, was Troy, whose bass voice shortly joined those of the twin Rottweilers. “This had better be good, if you know what’s good for you!”

Jeff watched through the grease-coated front window as the big man emerged from the office and crossed the small waiting area. The wooden front door flew open, and Troy stared at Jeff through the screen door with a resigned expression. “Yeah, I had a feeling I’d be seeing you tonight.” He glanced down at Charley. “You’re going to turn these two into pets yet.”

Jeff grinned. On either side of Troy, Niki and Nora wagged their tails and whined with pleasure.

“Well, come on in.” Troy pushed open the screen and the three dogs rushed together in a tumble of playfulness, then dashed deeper into the building. An ominous crash sounded somewhere in the depths, but Troy shrugged it off. “I fix things for a living.” He motioned with his head, and Jeff followed him into the office.

“I’m guessing Ray told you to stay away from here tonight, which is why it’s so late.” Troy settled into an ancient office chair, which groaned and creaked from the three hundred pounds on his six-foot-five frame. “Took you a while to argue yourself into it.”

“What are you doing up anyway?” Jeff sat on a straight chair on the other side of Troy’s desk. He inhaled deeply, taking in the familiar smell of the garage—a combination of oil, grease, rubber and something indefinable that might have been sweat.

Troy winced. “Jen’s sister and mother are in town. Thought I’d sleep here tonight.”

“I thought you liked your mother-in-law.”

“One on one, she’s okay. But the three of them together are like something out of Shakespeare. ‘Double, double, toil and trouble. Fire, burn, and cauldron’...whatever.”

Jeff grinned. Troy liked to keep the facade of the redneck mechanic for his customers, but Jeff couldn’t talk to him for long without being reminded that Troy had been an English teacher when he inherited the garage from his dad.

Troy went on. “Besides, with all the ruckus tonight, I figured either you or Ray would show up late to check out that GTO. Neither one of you can let something lie once you get your teeth into it.” He shrugged again. “Gave me a chance to get caught up on some of my parts ordering.”

“How’s the GTO look?”

Troy hesitated, watching Jeff closely. “You know they had to use the Jaws of Life to get her out, right?”

Jeff paused. He hadn’t. In fact, he hadn’t wanted to think too much about the wreck itself. Just seeing Lindsey’s injuries had been hard enough.

Troy apparently saw the conflict in Jeff’s face. He nodded. “Got it. Just wanted you to know that not all the damage to the car was from the accident. I know you’ve seen a lot of wrecked cars, but it’s always different when it’s someone you care about.”

Jeff took a deep breath. “Where is it?”

Troy stood. “In the back bay. That’s the most secure. Farthest from the door and the closest to the dogs’ bed.”

Troy led the way back through the waiting area and through what had been the original garage for the gas station. The smells of grease and oil grew stronger as they passed under two SUVs up on lifts and through double swinging doors into the Quonset hut. This was where most of the bodywork took place, and five of the six bays held vehicles in for insurance repairs. On the far side of a van that looked as if it had gotten up close and personal with a tree sat the orange GTO, its roof half peeled back and the passenger door missing. The shattered and crushed front end had compressed the big engine back toward the firewall, and blood spatters were all over the spiderwebbed windshield and twisted steering wheel.

Jeff’s stomach lurched. He had seen hundreds of accident scenes, but Troy had been right. It was different when someone you care about had been inside that much destruction. To think of Lindsey shoved into that tiny space beneath the dash...

“From what the guys said at the site, the blood’s mostly the boy’s, not Lindsey’s.”

Jeff didn’t respond at first, then turned to look over his shoulder as another flurry of barking came from the front of the shop.

“Now what?” Troy turned and headed back to the front of the shop, leaving Jeff to stare at the ruined GTO. He knew he shouldn’t touch it without gloves, but the urge to reach out to the ripped metal was irresistible. He hesitated, feeling one more time the ache of failure. If he’d done his job, she wouldn’t have gone through this.

“Man,” he mumbled to himself, “you’ve messed up with women before, but this time you fouled up with her and everyone else. She won’t look at you twice now. She shouldn’t.”

“Is this what you call doing things by the book, Deputy Gage?”

Jeff swung around, coming face-to-face with Sheriff Ray Taylor. At his side, leaning hard on her crutch, stood Lindsey.