by Layla Reyne
Charlie inched back, distancing herself from Beth’s gossipy tone. Why someone would willingly insert themselves into such a sordid mess when they had no personal stake in it was beyond her.
Sean, who’d pushed his chair back even farther, redirected. “We also understand Jefferson Marshall vetoed your tenure.”
“See?” She threw up her hands, right back to panicked. “This is why I ran. I knew this would all come back to bite me in the ass. I was just trying to help them out.”
“Them?” Sean queried.
“Sarah and Tracy. Girl power and all that. I couldn’t care less about Professor Marshall. Being denied tenure at HU was the best thing that ever happened to me. I guest lectured at UGA last year, met my fiancé, and UGA offered me a tenure-track position. I’m out of here at the end of this summer, assuming my offer isn’t yanked after all this.” She placed her hand on Aaron’s arm again as she pulled out her phone with the other. “I need you and Daniel to call your contacts at UGA while I reschedule the appointment with my real estate agent.”
“Beth,” Charlie said, zeroing in on her phone. “Tracy Hirsch’s phone records indicate you called her the morning Julian was killed, once at three and again at nine.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Then how do you explain the calls?” Sean asked.
“My phone went missing last week. I searched everywhere for it, then found it in my desk drawer Monday morning. I thought I’d lost it in a pile of papers, but maybe…” She looked at her phone as if it might bite her and tossed it on the table. “Maybe someone took it or cloned it or something. That always happens in the movies.”
“Beth,” Charlie said, “can anyone verify your whereabouts between the hours of two and five on Monday morning?”
She nodded. “I was home alone, but I was online, chatting with friends.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“I was in a video chat room, live-streaming a K-Pop concert.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Sean asked, bewilderment tingeing his voice.
“I’ll explain—”
Aaron thankfully silenced her. “Give them the names, Beth.”
“They’re all on there,” she said, chin jutting toward the phone. “Under the group name K-Pop Fangirls.”
Beside her, Sean spun his chair to the credenza, withdrew gloves and an evidence bag, then gloves on, picked up the phone and dropped it into the bag.
“And where were you Friday night?” Charlie asked.
“In Georgia with my fiancé.”
“His info on the phone as well?”
“Yes, Daniel Goldstein. He had a hearing this morning, but he’s on his way here now.”
“If you have no further questions…” Aaron moved to stand, but Charlie halted him with a raised hand.
She was ninety-five percent certain Beth wasn’t involved, but she needed to lock down the final five percent. She withdrew her own phone and opened a picture of Trevor. “Do you know this man?”
A quick glance down, then Beth fluttered her lashes coyly. “Everyone at HU knows Trevor Caldwell, though we’ve never formally met. He’s the hottest professor on campus, but I’m taken.” She wiggled her ring finger with its massive rock. “And well taken care of, thank you very much.”
Her future brother-in-law half chuckled, half groaned. “Any further questions?”
“That’s all we have at this time,” Charlie replied.
Beth’s eyes lit with relief. “I don’t have to stay in police custody any longer?”
“Just stay local for the next few days,” Charlie said as they all rose. “In case anything comes up.”
As Sean ushered them out, she signaled Jaylen over with a tilt of her head. She grabbed the bagged phone off the table and handed it to him. “Take this down to CSU. Ask them to run it for prints, pull the contacts off, and email me the numbers.”
“On it, Deputy.”
She waited in the conference room for Sean, who closed the door behind himself when he returned. “Beth Martin’s a busybody,” he said, “but she’s no murderer.” The same conclusions Charlie had reached. “Ten to one her alibis check out.”
“And Tracy was on shift at the hospital the night of all three murders,” Charlie said, addressing their other prime suspect. “Any luck with the roses?”
Sean shook his head. “Florist took in a delivery last night for a wedding. They were gone this morning. Lock picked on the backdoor. No surveillance on the shop or entrances.”
“Fuck, we’re back to square one.” Twenty-four hours ago they’d had this case solved, and now their two prime suspects were in the clear. “We’ve got nothing.”
“Not nothing. We’ve got a pattern with one victim left.”
“Lady Macbeth.” She kicked off her heels and began to pace. “The actually guilty one.”
Sean rested against the table’s edge, out of her way. “She’s ambitious, manipulative, and goads Macbeth, among others, into murder.”
“Given our killer’s MO, I don’t think they’d flip their script and kill someone innocent. That doesn’t make their point, doesn’t satisfy some wrong.”
“Agreed, but given Lady Macbeth’s actual guilt, I don’t think the victim is necessarily a man this time.”
“Makes sense.” She continued to pace as she put together the pieces of their last victim’s profile. “So if the pattern holds, we’re looking for a person the killer perceives as power hungry, as an accessory to murder, is connected to my family and maybe the night of my mother’s death, and somehow did Trevor wrong.”
Sean’s lack of a rejoinder brought her to a halt in front of him. She startled at the haunted look in his eyes.
“Sean?”
“Charlie, sit down.” His voice was quiet, tight, laced with dread.
Slowly, she lowered herself into the chair beside him. When he didn’t sit or explain, she laid a hand on his thigh. “Sean, you’re scaring me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
He covered her hand with his. “I see two possible victims, and you will too if you stop and think for a minute.”
It didn’t take her a minute. It took her less than ten seconds to connect the dots, and when she did, her stomach hit the floor and her breath caught in her throat. Leaning forward, she rested her forehead on their clasped hands and whispered the horrible realization.
“You… and me.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
From his perch on Charlie’s office windowsill, Trevor futilely scanned Main Street below. “I don’t like this. Why couldn’t I go with her?”
“She wanted you safe,” Abel said. “Here at the station.”
Trevor turned to the man he considered an uncle too. “That’s not all of it. She and Sean were wired when they came out of the conference room. And then for some reason it’s good for the three of us to go off in separate directions? Her to Annie’s and Sean to the natatorium. How does that make sense?”
“There’s a patrol car on Charlie. Wally’s already at Annie’s. Marsh is with Sean. It’s safer this way.”
Trevor exploded off the windowsill, all the pent-up fear and anger going nuclear. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Abel held his ground, one of the few people who was bigger than Trevor and also someone who had known Trevor at his scrawny middle school worst. Had saved him a time or twenty from his parents’ brawls. “You and she seem to be at the center of this thing,” he said. “Maybe Sean too. Each of you is guarded, safe but separate. Better than having you all in one place like sitting ducks.”
Or put another way… “We’re all sitting ducks in separate places instead. Waiting to see which of us the killer comes for.”
Abel sank into Charlie’s desk chair, head in his hands. “That too. Their plan, not mine. And I’m as worried as you are.” He pointedly eyed the visitor chair across from him and Trevor begrudgingly took a seat. “She’s the deputy chief of police. She’s armed and well trained, not to mention known t
o everyone in town. All the prior murders happened at night. It’s four o’clock in the afternoon in broad daylight. She’ll be fine.” He picked up the stack of papers on Charlie’s desk—the ones Trevor was supposed to be reviewing—and held them out to him. “Now, let’s get back to these and see if we can help identify a suspect.”
Fuming, Trevor snatched the papers and a highlighter. He was on the second page when a sharp rap sounded against the door behind him. He twisted in his seat and was on his feet the next second. So was Abel. One look at Rachel, trembling and white as a ghost, and they both knew something was seriously wrong.
“Rachel,” Abel said as he lightly grasped her elbow.
Trevor moved in to steady her from the other side. “What’s wrong?”
“I went downstairs to get something out of my locker, and they were there.”
“What were there?” Trevor asked.
Her frightened eyes bounced between them. “Roses. A vase of red roses.”
Trevor was halfway to the stairs before she finished her sentence. Taking them three at a time, ignoring the pounding of Abel’s feet behind him, he cleared the bottom step in seconds. He darted across the hall to the locker room, slammed open the swinging door, and skidded to a halt in front of the bench where he, Charlie, and Sean had talked yesterday.
In the exact spot where Charlie had been, now sat an elegant crystal vase, a blood-red ribbon tied around its middle, and a dozen red roses spilling out the top. Their ploy had worked, but not in the way they’d anticipated.
Trevor moved to step closer, but Abel’s hand around his upper arm stopped him. “Trevor, wait! We don’t want to contaminate any evidence.” He hollered down the hall. “Mags, gloves.”
Every wasted second ticked in Trevor’s head like a time bomb. Charlie was the target; he was certain of that now. And if Sean was right and the killer was doing this in some part for him… Trevor turned and covered his mouth, choking back the threatening sickness.
“What’s with all the—” Maggie stepped past him, next to Abel. “Whoa.”
Trevor listened as they went through the motions behind him—snapping on gloves, taking pictures, opening an envelope. A card tucked in among the roses.
“Trevor, you need to see this,” Abel said. “There’s a note.”
He took a deep breath, steeling himself, then rotated back to Maggie and Abel. Approaching, he clasped his hands behind his back to avoid touching anything, and Abel held the note out in front of him. Same paper, same red ink, same block-style letters.
#4 – OUT DAMNED SPOT. OUT.
“It’s Macbeth.”
Abel dropped the envelope and note into the plastic evidence bag Maggie held open. “Did you see anyone go in or out of here in the last hour?”
“No.” Maggie sealed the bag. “But I just got back from another crime scene over in Supply. Their coroner is out this week, so I’m pulling double duty.”
“The rear entrance door,” Trevor thought aloud. He’d come in and out of it numerous times that week, always after someone opened it for him. “It’s always locked, right?”
“That’s right,” Abel said. “Only those who work for the department have keys.”
“That should narrow things down.” He thought further about the hallway. “Security cameras?”
Abel shook his head. “Only after hours.”
“Fuck!” He left the others in the locker room and stepped into the hall, making a three-sixty rotation, his eyes searching for anything they might have missed. Nothing. Fucking nothing. The killer had been right under their noses, and they’d missed them completely.
What if Charlie had been in that locker room? Would Rachel have found her body instead of a vase of roses? His breathing grew ragged, and he spun for the wall, bracing his forearms and leaning his forehead against the cool plaster.
A small, warm hand smoothed across his back. “Breathe, Trevor.” Maggie spoke softly at his side. “Nothing’s going to happen to Charlie. We’ll find her.”
He opened his eyes and held her steady gaze, letting Maggie’s calm confidence settle his panicked mind. Letting Abel’s issuing of orders calm him more.
To Maggie: “Have CSU run the vase and note for prints.”
To Diego, who had followed the commotion downstairs: “Coordinate with Jaylen to cross-check the lists Charlie made against anyone who’s worked here, past or present, who had keys.”
“Someone needs to check on Rachel,” Trevor said. “She was pretty unsteady.”
“Unsteady?” Diego said. “She seemed fine upstairs just now. She said she had an early dinner with her sister at the hospital.”
“Fuck, she’s a surgical nurse, isn’t she?” Trevor asked Maggie, who nodded.
“Trevor, you can’t think—” Abel started, but Trevor didn’t hear the rest of what he said, his mind already connecting the dots.
Rachel knew what Craig did to Charlie in high school. She’d dated Trevor. She had the means to get her hands on Diprivan and she had keys to the station. And by virtue of her job, she knew everything going on in Hanover.
The person who’d told them about the roses downstairs.
Because she’d put them there.
Abel must have reached the same conclusion. “Put out an APB on Rachel Hawkins,” he told Diego.
The detective hesitated, no doubt reluctant to consider his colleague a murderer or to incur his wife’s ire for putting out an APB on her best friend.
“Do it,” Maggie seconded.
As Diego hustled up the stairs and Maggie hustled to the lab to grab a tech, Trevor turned to Abel. “It all fits, except Rachel doesn’t know about Alice.” Abel lowered his chin, noticeably deflating, and goose bumps rose on Trevor’s skin. “Abel, she doesn’t know, does she?”
The chief glanced up, guilt swirling in his dark eyes. “I told her.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
They’d been scouring the natatorium for twenty minutes when Sean’s phone vibrated with an incoming call. He backed out from under the bleachers, yanked off his gloves, and withdrew the device from his pocket, Trevor’s name lighting up the screen.
“Hey, Trev—”
“You need to get to Charlie!”
Sean’s pulse kicked at the sheer panic in Trevor’s voice. And at the sirens he heard blaring in the background. “What’s going on?”
“It’s Rachel! Rachel’s the killer!”
Sean flailed a hand for the nearest solid surface, not believing his ears.
Marsh was by his side the next instant, a wall of steady. “What’s happened?”
Sean clicked the phone over to speaker. “Run that by us again.”
Abel’s voice was a touch steadier, but only just. “A vase of red roses was found in the locker room.”
Trevor cut back in. “Right where we were sitting yesterday, Sean.”
“And Rachel put them there?” he asked.
“We were in Charlie’s office when she told us about them,” Abel clarified. “Looked mighty frightened. But Maggie doesn’t think she heard anyone else come or go, and now she’s in the wind. Said she had dinner with her sister, but she was a no-show.”
“I ran a background search on her,” Marsh said. “Clean, nothing pinged. Owns her house and her car. She’s active in the community, organizes all the department events, and babysits her sister’s kids a lot if the frequency of Chuck E. Cheese charges on her debit card are any indication.”
“Her sister is a nurse at HU,” Trevor said. “We also dated in high school, she knew about Craig’s misdeeds—both times—and she apparently knows about Alice because she and Abel are a thing and he told her.”
“What?” he and Marsh squawked together.
“We’ve been keeping it real quiet,” Abel said. “Didn’t want to upset anyone with all that was going on. She found me drunk at Pearl’s the night after Mitch and Cal were killed. I told her then. I needed to tell someone.”
Sean roughly ran a hand over the back of his ne
ck and cursed. “Fucking hell.”
“We’re headed to Annie’s now,” Abel said.
“Did you call Charlie?”
“She’s not picking up,” Trevor said, voice trembling. “Neither is Wally, who was also supposed to be at Annie’s.”
“Fuck, we’re on our way.” He hung up the phone and shoved it in his pocket. When he dug into the other for the keys to the borrowed cruiser, he came up empty. He patted himself down frantically. “Fuck, where are my keys?”
Marsh clasped his shoulders. “Easy, Hale.”
He caught Marsh’s dark eyes, similar to Charlie’s, and the case began spinning through his brain again. He shook his head. “A lot of the pieces line up, but I’m not buying it.”
“Maybe you don’t want to believe your friend is capable of murder.”
“Would you?”
Marsh shot him a sympathetic look, then lowered his hands. “She’s in the wind, Sean. It doesn’t look good.”
“I know,” he said. “But so was Beth Martin, and she turned out to be innocent.”
“All we can do is get out of here and find out. Now where might your keys be?”
Calmer now, he retraced his steps. “Maybe under the bleachers.” He turned back in that direction, and sure enough, a glimmer of metal caught the shifting reflection off the water.
And so did something else.
“You find them?” Marsh asked behind him.
“Yeah, but there’s something else under here.” He snagged the keys, then pulled his phone back out and hit the flashlight. And gasped. “I need a new pair of gloves,” he called to Marsh as he inched closer to snap a photo of the lone red rose at the edge of the shadows.
Knuckles tapped his leg and Sean traded Marsh the phone for the gloves. He tugged them on, carefully picked up the rose, then backed out from under the bleachers. He sat on the bleacher beside Marsh and examined the rose. Something shiny reflected in the center of the bloom. Probably what had caught his eye. “You see that?” He tilted the rose toward Marsh.