by Layla Reyne
“And?”
“No one’s home. From a peek inside her windows, Jaylen said it looks like she left in a hurry. I told him to sit on it until we got there with a warrant.”
“I’ll call in the APB,” Charlie said. “Get started on that warrant.”
“Let me know when you have the warrant ready,” Marsh interjected. “Judge Abernathy was the JAG on base where I was stationed. I’ll get it expedited.”
“Will do,” Diego said.
“Thank you,” Charlie added.
“Sure thing,” he said with a wink as Sean handed his cup to Trevor and walked around the table to Marsh’s other side.
“You better get going,” he told him. “They’re reading the will at ten.”
“Keep me posted.”
“Of course.” Sean squeezed his shoulder. “You need anything, call me.”
Curiosity tickled Charlie’s senses again, but now wasn’t the time to ask or interfere. Marsh—and by extension Sean—had enough on their minds. As Sean walked Marsh out, Charlie grabbed her coffee and took a seat, beckoning Trevor to do the same.
He remained standing, glaring at his coffee cup. “This is empty.”
“Blame that one,” she said, gesturing to Sean, who was on his way back across the bullpen.
“Thief!” He growled playfully as Sean reentered the room. “What’s going on with Beth Martin?”
“You know her?” Sean asked around a smile.
“Personally, no, but I’ve passed her on campus from time to time. She teaches French. I do know she was on that list I made yesterday.” He tossed the empty cup at Sean, then claimed the seat next to Charlie. “Is she missing now? Is she a suspect?”
Sean pitched the cup into the trash can and lowered himself into the chair on the other side of Trevor. “Maybe let us do some more digging first.”
“Just tell me.”
Charlie took a deep breath and lowered the hammer. “We think Tracy might be involved.”
“Clear,” Jaylen called from one side of Beth Martin’s cottage.
“Clear,” Diego returned from the living room on the other side.
“Clear,” Charlie confirmed from where she stood in the kitchen at the rear of the house.
“Bedroom drawers are tossed.” Jaylen entered the compact kitchen, ducking his head to avoid the over-door transom. “Clothes are half gone, the rest falling off hangers. She packed in a hurry.”
“Any hits on the APB?” she asked Diego, who’d followed Jaylen into the kitchen.
Shorter than Jaylen, he didn’t have to duck, but he did have to turn his broad shoulders sideways to get through the narrow door. “Nothing yet, but Rachel’s alerted the highway patrol in all surrounding counties and states.”
“The alarm by her bed was set for six this morning,” Jaylen said. “It was switched off, so either she never turned it on, or she turned it off this morning before she left. If she didn’t leave until this morning, then she can’t be more than a state or two away by now.”
“Charlie!” Sean shouted from outside. “Get out here!”
She exited the back door off the kitchen, Diego and Jaylen behind her, and found Sean standing by the trash bins.
He held open the black trash can lid with a gloved hand. “Take a look.”
She peered inside, seeing only white trash bags at first, but upon closer inspection, she spied a red plastic bag sticking out from beneath the top white one. There was an imprint on it, partially obscured, but she’d bet Sean’s Harley it was a biohazard symbol.
She called Diego over. “Get in here and take pictures before I pull the bags out.” She stood beside Jaylen as Diego snapped pictures with his phone.
“Clear,” Diego said after a minute, trading places with her again.
Charlie pulled out the first white trash bag and exposed the red biohazard bag. She nodded to Diego, who took another round of pictures, before she removed the bag and set it on the trash can lid. She carefully unsealed it and held open the flaps.
Sean whistled over her shoulder. “Jackpot.”
Indeed. The bag contained several used syringes and empty Diprivan vials.
“Diego, snap a few more pictures, then get this inside.” She ripped off her gloves and moved out of the way. “Jaylen, call the station and get CSU down here. I want a full sweep.”
Once Diego and Jaylen were finished, she asked Sean, “Did you check the other bins?”
He shook his head. “Got lucky on the first one.”
“You take blue. I’ll take green.”
He moved to the recycle bin as she lifted the lid on the compost. Her breath caught and she released the lid as if she’d been burned.
“Nothing here,” Sean called.
“Here either,” she lied.
“CSU will be here in ten,” Diego shouted from the window.
Sean took her elbow in his hand. “You okay?”
She nodded sharply.
“You’re lying.” His fingers tightened on her elbow. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Her eyes cut to the compost bin, and Sean’s other hand followed, lifting the lid. He peered inside, then lowered the lid slowly.
“Beth could’ve had those for any number of reasons.”
“I know that,” she said, voice flat, though the tremor in her limbs likely gave her away.
“There’s little reason to think this case has anything to do with your family beyond the connection to Trevor.”
Except it could if someone else knew the truth about her mother’s death. A cover-up. And their killer was letting Charlie know they were in on the secret by leaving behind a bouquet of red roses, her mother’s favorite flowers. The ones Charlie regularly took to the cemetery, that she’d tossed into her father’s and brother’s graves.
“Charlie, what aren’t you telling me?”
She was saved from answering by a text alert. Shrugging out of Sean’s grasp, she retrieved her phone and read the message from Abel. “Tracy finishes her shift at two. We need to get back to the station.”
“Charlie,” Sean said, his eyes searching, full of concern.
“I’m fine.” She mustered as calm a stare as possible, which he either bought or decided not to question. Following him to the door, she glanced once more at the compost bin. They had the evidence to close the case today, but something told her it wasn’t the full story.
Chapter Sixteen
On his way back from the restroom, Sean checked the conference room for Tracy. Not seeing her there yet, he continued across the bullpen to Charlie’s office and watched from the open doorway as she moved the same file to three different stacks on her desk, opened and closed a different file three times, and clicked her pen at least twenty times. Only one reason he could figure for those jitters. “You’re still spooked about what you found at Beth’s place.”
Charlie froze for a half second, then carried on arranging files on her desk. “Sorry?”
He stepped the rest of the way into her office and sank into a visitor chair. “Those roses spooked you. You let go of that compost bin lid like it bit you, and you were restless the entire drive back to the station, missing gears and compulsively checking your rearview mirror.”
When she didn’t respond, he leaned forward and reached out, ceasing the futile rearranging. “It’s probably just a coincidence,” he lied.
“Does anything about this case feel like a coincidence to you?”
He didn’t lie to her a second time. “Did you know Beth Martin?”
She shook her head. “I also checked Dad’s and Cal’s old files. There’s nothing in there that mentions Beth.”
He squeezed her arm. “We’ll figure this out.”
“What if this isn’t just about Trevor?” She finally looked up and the fear in her eyes was unmistakable. “What if it goes further? What if it’s about my family? If Annie or Trevor…” Her voice wavered and cracked. “I can’t lose any more of my family, Sean.”
“It’s going
to be fine.” He stretched to wipe away a renegade tear that had escaped her eye. He hadn’t stopped to think how much that tear cost her, how much she was holding in.
A soft knock on the door interrupted them, and Sean turned in his seat to find a blushing Rachel in the doorway. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, the blush intensifying. “Tracy’s here. In the conference room.”
Charlie cleared her throat. “We’ll be right there,” she said, voice free of its earlier trembling. She stood and circled the desk, but before she reached the door, Sean lightly took her wrist and turned her toward him. “It’s going to be fine.” He wiped away another tear.
“How can you know that?”
He curled his fingers around hers. “Because I’m going to do whatever it takes to make it that way.”
Sean and Charlie entered the conference room, and Tracy’s gaze shot to them. “Why am I here?”
She looked like hell. Elbow on the table, head in hand, her fingers drummed a quick rhythm against her unwashed hair. It wasn’t the skittish eyes, wringing hands, or nervous fidgeting Sean typically saw with guilty suspects. It was the tired, on edge, has-a-million-other-things-to-do fidgeting that he’d expect from an overworked wife who found her cheating husband brutally murdered.
His first clue they had the wrong woman.
Charlie approached with measured steps. “We need to ask you some questions.”
Tracy’s eyes blazed with barely contained fury. “I don’t have time for this. We’re short-staffed at the hospital, so I’m still working fourteen-hour shifts and trying to plan my husband’s funeral without the damn body because you haven’t released it yet, and I haven’t slept since—”
“You’re having trouble sleeping?” Sean asked.
Her incensed glare shot to him. “Of course I’m having trouble sleeping. What kind of a stupid question is that? Our house is a crime scene, I’m sleeping at the hospital, and every time I close my eyes, all I see is my husband butchered in our bed.”
Our.
Not my. Not his.
She hadn’t fully processed Julian’s death despite being the one who’d found the body. Not the language of a murderer.
His second clue they had the wrong woman.
He glanced at Charlie, and judging by the deepening divot between her brows, she’d caught the tell too. With a subtle double tap of his right toe, something they’d practiced in police academy, he indicated he wanted to take the lead. Charlie nodded, a small smile turning up one corner of her mouth. She retreated to the windowsill while he took the chair across from Tracy.
“Do you know Beth Martin?” he asked.
Tracy’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah. Why? Did that nosy bitch have something to do with this?”
“Nosy?”
“She volunteers at the hospital. She’s always in everyone’s business. Gossips like an old bitty.”
The highlighted phone record appeared over his shoulder. He took the paper from Charlie and pushed it across the table. “She called you a number of times over the past couple weeks.”
“That’s right. She got my number from one of the nurses.”
“Why did she call you?”
Tracy leaned forward and answered matter-of-factly, “To tell me my husband was having an affair with a student. She’d confiscated the girl’s phone and had pictures.”
“You weren’t surprised?”
“I’d already had one unfaithful husband.” She fired a scathing glare over his shoulder at Charlie. “I knew the signs.”
Charlie was at his side the next instant, her hands braced against the edge of the table. “Trevor was never unfaithful to you. You cheated on him.”
Tracy’s ice-cold laugh sent a shiver racing up Sean’s spine. Attempting to diffuse the mounting tension, he shifted forward, refocusing Tracy’s attention on him. “Did you say anything to Julian about the affair?”
Her gaze drifted back to his, regarding him coolly. “We were in a nice, big, refurbished house, and Julian was good to me. I knew the kind of man he was when I married him. I knew there would be other women. He didn’t promise to love only me and then force me to sit across the table from the object of his affection every week at Sunday dinner.”
“You’ve got some nerve,” Charlie said.
Sean didn’t disagree—Trevor was the last person who would ever cheat—but they couldn’t afford to get mad. They needed more information on Beth, and they weren’t going to get it if Tracy shut down. He grasped Charlie’s thigh beneath the table and turned his face to her. “Check it” he mouthed and held her stare until the tension eased from her arms and she retreated.
Once she’d resumed her perch on the windowsill, he turned back to Tracy. “As a volunteer at the hospital, did Beth have access to needles and meds?”
“Directly, no, but I wouldn’t put it past her to swipe someone’s keys to the surgical carts or storage room.”
“Could she have accessed those unnoticed?”
“It’s possible. Most of us actively ignored her to avoid the gossipmongering.”
“Beth called you twice the night Julian was murdered. What did she say?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Charlie asked from behind him.
“Nothing,” Tracy repeated. “The first time, she had the desk nurse pull me out of surgery, claiming it was an emergency, but when I got to the phone the line was dead.”
“What about the second call?”
“I let it go to voicemail, and when I checked it, there was no message.” She straightened in her chair. “Do you think Beth had something to do with Julian’s death?”
Not for Sean to disclose. He dodged her question with another. “Do you know if Beth had any connection to Jefferson Marshall?”
“She told me he convinced the tenure committee to turn her down. I guess she thought I was still harboring some resentment for him doing the same to Trevor.”
“You weren’t?” Sean asked.
An ugly sneer marred her face. “I would have given Professor Marshall a medal if I’d ever met him. I didn’t want Trevor to get tenure. I wanted out of this town, and him not getting tenure was the surest bet to making that happen.”
Charlie was back at Sean’s side before he could blink, betrayal and outrage coloring her rising voice. “But then you married Julian, a dean at HU.”
Tracy shrugged, keeping her icy glare on him but aiming her spiteful retort at Charlie. “Like I said, I knew what I was getting and what I wasn’t.”
Charlie leaned forward, her temper on full blast. “Trevor loved you.”
Tracy lurched to her feet and slapped her palms on the table, mirroring Charlie’s attack posture. “Not as much as he loved you.”
“Maybe if you’d supported him—”
“Like he’d notice. He was too busy supporting you and your family.”
“Enough!” Trevor barked from the doorway, drawing everyone’s attention. “The whole station can hear you.” He looked back and forth between the two women, seemingly unsurprised, and Sean got the impression this was not the first scene of the sort he’d broken up. “Sean”—he nodded toward Charlie—“get her out of here.”
“No need.” Charlie backed off herself. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.” But she didn’t let Tracy have the last word. “My best friend loved you. He would have made you happy and given you a good life. We would have welcomed you into our family. I’m sorry you didn’t give him or us a chance.”
Maybe Charlie’s words would sink in eventually, but today was not that day, not with Tracy already on the defensive. “It would have just delayed the inevitable.” Sean was surprised when Tracy’s gaze swung to him. “You’re back.” Followed by a snide remark aimed at Trevor. “You can have your happily ever after now.”
“You never got it, did you?” Trevor shook his head, then looked to Sean and Charlie. “Give us the room, please.”
Charlie exited in front of Sean, making a beeline for the stairs. He pa
used in the doorway, catching Trevor’s tired hazel eyes. He wasn’t looking forward to this conversation, but the determined set of his shoulders and spine indicated to Sean he was going to have it, regardless. It was long overdue. Sean waited for his nod, then followed Charlie out.
Abel was waiting for him at the top of the stairs. “Tracy’s not involved,” Sean told him. He glanced around the chief at Jaylen and Diego waiting in his office.
“Go,” Abel said. “I’ll fill them in.”
Raised voices from the conference room drew his gaze back that direction. “Maybe I should help Trev.”
Abel’s line of sight followed his. “That blow-up’s been comin’ for years. Might as well let ’em have it out here where we’ve got the means to contain it. Go.” He jutted his chin toward the stairs. “Make sure Charlie’s okay. I’ll send Trevor your way when he’s done.”
Confident Abel could manage, Sean nodded and followed his concern for Charlie down the stairs. “Charlie?” he called at the bottom, not sure if she went the direction of the gym, the locker room, the morgue, or the holding cell.
“In here,” came her voice from the locker room directly across the hallway.
He pushed open the cracked door and stepped into the dimly lit room. And smiled at the trail she’d left on the floor. Red pumps on their sides just inside the door. Black blazer in the open area near the sinks. The claw clip that had held up her hair in the aisle between the lockers. He picked up the discarded items as he made his way to where she sat, midway down the second-row bench, elbows to her knees, cradling one hand in the other. A quick scan of the surrounding lockers revealed the unfortunate victim of her pent-up anger—a crumpled metal door in the back corner.
He leaned against the locker across from her. “You couldn’t hit a bag instead.”
She glared up at him through a thick fall of dark hair. It had been a month since he’d run his hands through the rich brown locks, a month since he’d twirled his fingers around an errant lock like he used to do in bed—and right then his fingers itched to reacquaint themselves with the sensation.