Divorced, Desperate and Daring
Page 7
“Could Ricky have found out about your last-time thing with Mr. Brown?”
“No. He was out of town on business. I’m telling you, I think it’s Amy. Tell me you’re going to arrest her?”
“We’ll look into it,” Danny said. “But we’re probably going to need to speak with your fiancé.”
“And tell him what?” she spit out the question as if they were the adultery police.
“Only that someone was looking into hiring a hit man to take out a Sheri Thompson,” Danny assured her.
She frowned. “Don’t ruin this for me. This one actually holds down a job.”
Nothing like high expectations. “We’ll try not to,” Danny said. “But until we look into everything, you should take precautions. Do you have someone you could stay with for a couple of days?”
“Ricky,” she said.
Danny ran his hand over his chin and offered a suggestion. “Maybe someone who doesn’t have a reason to kill you.”
Chapter Six
Five minutes later, they walked the woman out. Cary looked at him. “I’m putting a twenty spot on her being the right Sheri Thompson and her fiancé being our culprit.”
Danny considered it. “I don’t know. Ten thousand for the hit and a risk at prison. You really think she’s worth it?”
Cary sighed. “Good point. Thank God they aren’t all like that.”
Danny frowned. “Yeah.”
Danny and Cary went ahead and put all of their Sheri’s old boyfriends into the system to see if any had priors.
Kevin Vey came up clean. Mark Taylor wasn’t so lucky. The man had been involved in a couple of domestic disputes, and his ex put out a restraining order on him. Danny definitely planned on dropping by and having a chat with Mark.
Then, just to be cautious, he also did a check on Patrick Owens. He wasn’t squeaky clean either. The man had been arrested on possession of marijuana and was still waiting for a court date. That probably explained his “this isn’t my place” comment.
• • •
“Here’s to better days,” Sheri said, clinking her wine glass against Chloe’s.
“Hey, it wasn’t all bad,” Chloe said. “When do you get to pepper spray a guy who screwed you over?”
Sheri slumped down in her chair. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“I know, that’s what makes it all that much sweeter,” Chloe said. “So are you gonna tell me what he did?”
Sheri set her glass down. “It’s not worth talking about.”
“He hurt you. I can tell by the way you avoid making eye contact with him. So just tell me.”
Sheri turned her glass, gazing into the burgundy liquid. “After the reception, he asked to buy me a drink. We talked for hours and . . . ended up getting a hotel room. I know it was stupid, and I know you told me what he was like, but . . . I—”
“You’ve had a thing for him since you first met him.”
“No. I mean, yes, but that’s not . . . He charmed me. I told myself you had him all wrong.”
“And . . . ?” Chloe asked.
“I’ll bet it was five before we turned out the light. Not that we were . . . We only did it once.”
Chloe lifted a brow.
“Okay, twice. Afterward, we just talked. And that was even better than the sex. He mentioned his ex had done a number on him. I told him about Kevin getting engaged. But it wasn’t even all personal stuff, just . . . things like how I started my business. Our favorite movies. Foods. We both agreed pizza is in our top three. And we both admitted we were crazy about pineapple and Canadian bacon.” She sighed. “He called room service. The kitchen was closed, but he pleaded with the guy to get us a pizza. I don’t know how he pulled it off, but at three in the morning, we were in bed eating pizza. It was so . . . good.”
“The pizza?” Chloe asked and lifted a brow again.
Sheri made a face. “Yeah.”
“So sooner or later, you’re going to get to the bad part, right?”
Sheri swallowed. “When I woke up, around six, he was gone.”
“Jerkwad!” Chloe muttered.
Sheri hesitated to finish but then decided what the hell. “I was so sure we had something and even surer that he was just . . . afraid. I wasn’t going to let him run from it. So I got dressed and went to his place.”
“You knew where he lived?” Chloe asked.
“I helped fill out the invitations, remember?”
Chloe nodded.
“I was going to be the bigger person. Like in some romance novel, I was going to force him to admit how special the night had been.”
“And he didn’t see it your way?” Chloe asked, her tone almost deadly.
“I’m not sure how he saw it. It never happened. I pulled up at his place, but before I ever got out of my car, he walked out with a girl on his arm. I mean, just leaving me in a hotel room was bad, but . . . having left to be with someone else. That was a kick in the stomach.”
“What did you say to him?” Chloe leaned forward.
“Nothing. Like I said, it didn’t happen. I left without him seeing me. I was embarrassed I even thought we had something.”
Chloe leaned back in her chair. “Do you have any pepper spray left? I’ll hit him with it next.”
“No,” Sheri said. “It’s my fault. I should have listened to you. I was . . .” lonely, let down, looking for someone to love, “stupid.”
“No. You were just Sheri. Someone who always gives people the benefit of the doubt.”
“Yeah. I gotta quit doing that, don’t I?”
“No . . . there’s nothing wrong with you. It’s him. I just don’t get it. How do guys get off doing something like that and not even apologizing? They are just dogs!”
Sheri frowned. “He apologized.”
“He did?” Chloe asked.
Sheri nodded. “Twenty-two times. Forty if you count his voicemails. They started coming in that same afternoon. I didn’t answer them. Three days later, he showed up at my door with flowers.” The memory made the ache in her heart swell up to her throat. “Mark was there. Our first date.”
“This just gets better and better. What did you do?”
“I was hurt. I wanted to hurt him like he hurt me. So I told Danny I’d already gotten from him what I wanted and it wasn’t that good. But that I had a date waiting inside who I thought was going to be better.”
Chloe bit down on her lip but chuckled. “First Mark and then he walks in with you and Patrick. At least he doesn’t think you’re stuck on him or anything.”
“Right.” Sheri took a sip of wine.
“You’re not, are you?” Chloe asked.
“What?”
“Still stuck on him?”
“No.” If she said it enough times, maybe she’d believe it herself.
She could tell from the look on her friend’s face that she wasn’t fooling anyone.
• • •
While Danny and Cary waited for some of the info to come back from the second Sheri Thompson, Danny made sure he had all the suspects of both Sheris written down.
“I think I’ll call our Sheri and give her an update,” Danny said.
“I can do that.” Cary went for his phone.
“That’s okay,” Danny said and bit back a few words. “I got it.”
Cary made a groaning sound. “No, stop. What do you really want with her?”
Danny felt his muscles in his shoulders tighten. He didn’t like having his intentions questioned, but maybe it was time to put it out there. “A second chance, maybe?”
“Maybe?” Cary asked, as if that one word said more than the first three.
“Okay . . . A second chance. Not maybe.”
“If you liked her all this time, what happened to your first chance? What did you do to screw it up?”
Danny ran a hand over his face. “I got scared. It was . . . She was perfect. She fell asleep and . . . I lay there watching her. And it hit. Do you know how scary perfect can
be after . . . a divorce?” He’d never talked about Tanya with Cary. It wasn’t guy talk.
“Yeah, I do. But it’s taken you six months to realize this?”
“No. More like five or six hours. I called her, and I texted her. More than once. Like dozens of times. I finally ran her through the system and went to see her. That’s how I knew about all the other Sheri Thompsons.”
“So she wouldn’t hear you out?”
“She was busy,” Danny said, the hurt of it returning. Not that for one minute did he believe what she’d said about him not satisfying her. He knew a happy woman when he held her in his arms, and she’d been happy that night six months ago. “She had a date there.”
“Ouch,” Cary said. “Not that you didn’t deserve it.”
“I know. I screwed up. I went to every one of your damn parties, hoping she’d be there and might hear me out. Even that damn couples’ shower. But nope, she stayed away. Then this guy names Sheri Thompson as someone with a hit out on her, and I freaked out. I get there today, and she’s with boyfriend number two.”
Cary chuckled. “That has to sting.”
Danny glared at him. “It does. And it’s not funny.”
“Sorry.” Cary held up his hands. “Okay, so here’s the thing. You want a second chance, but what’s gonna stop you from wigging out the second time?”
The question was one he’d asked himself as well. He told Cary what he’d told himself. “The fact that six months has passed and I still regret it. I think I learned my lesson.”
Cary lifted one accusing brow and leaned in, using the interrogation stance Danny had seen him use for years. “You think? So you don’t know for certain.”
“Whoa. What are you? Her father? I’m not trying to screw her over.”
“No, I’m the husband of her best friend. And you’ve already screwed her over once.”
Danny frowned. “Since when are you so high and mighty? If I remember correctly, you screwed up with Chloe, too.”
“That was different.”
That was the second time someone told him that today, and it pissed Danny off. “Yeah, your mistake involved your fuck buddy coming over and leaving panties with Chloe,” Danny said. “That’s completely different.”
If the look on Cary’s face was any indication, Danny had finally brought home his point. He ran a hand over the back of his head. “I’m going to go call Sheri. So get over it,” Danny said.
He popped up and left the room.
• • •
Danny moved into Manning’s office to make the call. Would she answer this time? He held his breath when it started ringing. Once. Twice.
Damn it!
“Hello?” Her voice, a little uncertain, played in his ear. A vision of her flashed in his mind. Her smiling. Her naked. Her sleeping.
Air leaked out of his lungs, making his chest feel instantly lighter and yet somehow tighter. “Sheri, it’s me. Danny.” It was a stupid thing to find hope in her taking his call, but considering all the calls she hadn’t accepted of his, the hope seemed validated.
He dropped down in Manning’s chair. It let out a groan.
“Did you find the real Sheri Thompson with a hit on her?”
“Not yet, but we’ve spoken to one and . . . I have leads to check out. I’m almost headed out to work on a few now. I just . . . wanted to let you know.”
The line fell quiet for a few seconds. “Thanks.” It came out a little weak but earnest. And he’d take what he could get.
His chest felt even lighter. “You’re welcome.” His mind raced. “I’m going to send you a picture of the sketch that was done from James Perkins’ description. It may or may not be accurate. Look at it, and call me if you recognize the guy.”
“Can I just text you?”
A call would have been a hell of a lot better. More promising. More hope. “Yeah. But I’ll give you a call and let you know what I find later.” The silence on the line made him fear the worse. “Will you answer?” He held his breath.
She took her sweet time answering. “Yeah.”
He inhaled. The air tasted fresh. “You doing okay? Not freaking out or anything?”
“No. I’m . . . okay.”
“Good.” Damn, if he didn’t feel like thirteen, hanging on to a phone, and a girl’s every word. And then . . . “Thanks.”
“For what?” she asked.
He hesitated. “For answering my call now and . . . later. I’ll talk to you in a while.” He hit the off button and smiled. Her taking his call and the “thanks” might not mean shit, but he chose to believe they did.
Chose to believe he had a chance.
Chose to believe he wouldn’t fuck up this time.
Leaning forward to get up out of the chair, he saw an open file with part of a photograph showing a foot but mostly hidden behind some paperwork. Pushing the paper to the side, he saw a partially clothed woman. Dead. Her body left between a couple sacks of garbage.
The thought of his Sheri, or for that matter any Sheri, ending up in a file on some cop’s desk had his gut twisting. He was going to solve this case.
• • •
Sheri texted him that she didn’t recognize the sketch. Not that it surprised Danny. He left a message with Perkins’ lawyer, telling him the deal was off unless his scumbag of a client came in for another sketch. Then Danny used his phone to map out the leads he needed to follow up on. Due to location, Kevin Vey, Sheri’s ex-fiancé, or rather D.K. Enterprise, an outfit that sold oil field tools, would be his first stop.
Twelve minutes later, at four fifteen, he walked into the two-story building. A receptionist, a pretty blonde, sitting at a front desk met his gaze. “May I help you?”
“Yes.” Danny walked up to her desk. “I need to talk to a Kevin Vey.”
She picked up the phone. “May I tell him who’s here?”
“Dan Henderson,” he said.
She cradled the phone to her ear, ready to punch in a number. “And you’re with . . . ?”
“Detective Dan Henderson.” He pulled his jacket back and showed her his badge. “Glencoe Police.”
“Oh.” Her light green eyes widened. “Is something wrong?”
“Not really,” he offered in lieu of it’s not your business.
When he didn’t elaborate, she hit a few buttons. “Kevin, a Dan Henderson with Glencoe Police is here to see you.” She paused. “I don’t know. He didn’t say.” She cut her eyes back up at him. “Okay. I’ll send him back.”
She pointed behind her desk. “Through the door to the left. He’ll meet you outside his office.”
“Thank you,” he said.
As soon as he walked through the entrance, a sandy-haired man wearing Dockers and a light blue button-down dress shirt stepped out of a door. Recognition hit. Danny had met him before. Where? Probably at one of Luke Hunter’s parties, which is where he’d met Sheri for the first time.
He hadn’t associated the two as a couple at the time. Then again, maybe subconsciously he had. He remembered he hadn’t cared for the man very much when they’d met. And from the first time Danny had been introduced to Sheri, he’d had her on his radar. The only thing that stopped him from pursuing her then had been the ring on her finger.
“Mr. Henderson?” Kevin asked.
“Detective Henderson.” Danny remembered what Sheri had said about her ex on their night. The man had been transferred and was working out of town. He kept postponing their wedding, and finally he just called it off. The thing that hurt Sheri the most was that two months later, he announced his engagement to someone who worked with him at the new job. Which lead Sheri to the conclusion that Kevin had been cheating on her.
Danny could still hear the pain in her voice. Nope, he really didn’t like this guy.
Kevin gave him a puzzled look as if he might recognize him, too, then motioned to a door right down the hall. “My office.” As he walked, he talked. “I’m a little shocked. I can’t imagine what you might need.”
“Don’t we . . . You’re Danny? Friend of . . . of that lady who owns a flower shop. I can’t think of her name.”
Danny nodded. “Kathy Hunter. She’s married to a friend of mine, Luke Hunter.”
“Right. But this isn’t a social call, is it?” Kevin’s tightened brow appeared more from puzzlement than concern. Either the man wasn’t guilty, or he was a damn good actor.
“No. I’m working a case.”
“What . . . kind of case?” Kevin leaned forward.
“Someone approached a local gang member to do a hit.”
Kevin’s brows knotted a little tighter. “How does this involve me?”
“The hit was on a Sheri Thompson.”
“Sheri?” Shock and maybe concern had the guy’s green eyes growing larger. It appeared real, but Danny had been fooled before. “Is she okay?” His tone edged on panic.
“She is. There are three Sheri Thompsons in the area. We’re not even sure it’s your ex, but we’re looking into acquaintances of all of them.”
Kevin sat there, worry etching his brow. “Wait. You don’t think that I . . . Oh, hell. She gave you my name. She thinks I did this? She’s knows me better than that. We were going to get married. She . . . meant the world to me.”
But you still hurt her. “No. It’s customary for us to check out ex-boyfriends. A breakup can lead to quite a bit of hostility.”
“But our breakup was . . . sort of mutual.”
Sort of must have been his cheating on her. “Is a breakup ever really mutual?” Danny asked, baiting the man just a bit.
Kevin looked a little taken aback. “I’m a suspect?”
“We just have to cover all the bases.”
“So I’m a base?” The man frowned. “I would never hurt Sheri. I loved . . . love her. And she’s precious. I’ve never . . . hurt or raised my fist to any woman.”
“That’s good to know.”