Maple Syrup Mysteries Box Set 2: Books 4-6

by Emily James

  His gaze touched on the two men, and an expression that looked suspiciously like relief flashed across his face. The paranoid part of me screamed that she’d died and he was worried I’d faint when he told me. The more rational side knew it was more likely because I’d been spouting theories about poisons as soon as we reached the hospital in the ambulance. I hadn’t been able to come up with any other plausible explanation for her collapse.

  The doctor shook hands and reintroduced himself. He stayed standing, which seemed like a good sign. Surely if he’d had bad news that would require a long explanation, he would have taken a seat alongside us.

  “She’s going to be fine. All the tests on her heart came back clear. It looks like this was a simple panic attack, so I’ve given her something to calm her down. You can go in to see her now if you’d like. We’ll be keeping her overnight just in case.”

  There was nothing simple about it, I wanted to blurt out. I’d had mild to moderate anxiety attacks before, but I’d never seen or experienced anything like this.

  But I didn’t say any of that. Geoff already looked on the verge of a panic attack himself. Instead I thanked the doctor and followed Geoff and Mark into her room.

  Ahanti wore the same drowsy expression she’d had when I brought her home from the dentist after she had her wisdom teeth out. That was back when she and Geoff were only newly dating and she hadn’t wanted him to see her drooling on herself.

  Geoff sank into the chair next to her bed and held her hand, but Ahanti reached out her other hand to me.

  “I’m so sorry. I feel like an idiot.”

  I could remind her about the half-dozen much stupider things I’d done intentionally just in the past year. She’d had no control over this. “It wasn’t your fault. There’s no reason to feel embarrassed. Especially with all the stress you’ve been under.”

  She shook her head against the pillow. “It was seeing Jana there when she shouldn’t have known where I live. I know she can’t be my stalker. She’s a woman, and she would have been a kid when this all started. But I started thinking that maybe she was and how I couldn’t trust anyone.” She shook her head again. “It was too much, and then I couldn’t breathe.”

  It probably also wouldn’t serve any purpose to tell her that her stalker could be a woman. We had no solid proof it was a man. A woman could be romantically obsessed with her as easily as a man could.

  But I did agree that Jana wasn’t a suspect.

  Tears slid down Ahanti’s cheeks. “I can’t live like this.”

  Geoff leaned over, and she sobbed into his chest. Tears pressed against the back of my eyes, but I wouldn’t join her. I couldn’t.

  Clearly this couldn’t keep going on the way it had been. The police were investigating Cary’s murder, but there was no telling how long that would take.

  The very least I could do was make sure her apartment was secure—and camera-free—before she left the hospital. Eddie meant well, but he’d admitted that he hadn’t been working in his field long. We needed the very best.

  That meant calling my parents.

  According to Mark, my mom planned to head to the gym when they parted. Her phone went straight to voicemail.

  “Do you know what gym your mom goes to?” Mark asked as we sat in the car in the hospital parking lot. “We could try to track her down.”

  I shook my head. It wasn’t like my mom and I ever worked out together. I’d had a stationary bike in my apartment for the winter, and I biked outside in the summer. “She goes someplace that offers yoga classes. She says it helps her stay calm.”

  “That’s probably about half the gyms in the city.”

  I could wait and hope to reach her soon enough that we could still get someone out to Ahanti’s apartment today or tomorrow, but it was already getting late in the day. On a Sunday, our chances of finding someone willing to come in were already slim and got worse by the hour.

  Once again, I’d have to call my dad.

  As much as I’d been wishing earlier that he would come in and make this whole mess go away, I still didn’t want it to look like I needed his help. I didn’t want to reinforce his opinion that I wasn’t capable.

  But Ahanti mattered more than my pride, and last time, he had eventually agreed to assign a private investigator to her. Too bad we hadn’t also given him Terrance’s picture when we’d given him Cary’s. This whole thing might already be over if we had. At the time, though, Terrance hadn’t even been someone we considered.

  My dad didn’t answer his phone, either.

  Unlike my mom, I did know where my dad would be on a Sunday afternoon. It was too late in the day for golf, which meant he’d either be at my parents’ apartment or at their office. Since he’d taken so much time off the past couple of days, the office seemed most likely.

  I put the address into our car’s GPS for Mark’s sake, and we easily found a parking space. My parents’ office was in a business complex that housed doctor’s offices and a bank, so everything else was closed today.

  “Want me to come with you?” Mark asked.

  Maybe it was silly—not to mention cowardly—but I did. My dad would at least have to speak to me and be civil with Mark around or risk losing face. If Edward Dawes feared anything, it was a stain on his reputation.

  The escalators in the building didn’t run on weekends, so we took the stairs. By the time we reached the office, I was out of breath. Only part of it was due to the hike.

  My dad answered the door, wearing a polo shirt and khakis. It was about as casual as he ever got. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d put on a suit to come down here, just in case.

  “Shouldn’t you be at some church service?”

  To anyone else, even to Mark, it probably sounded like an innocent question. I knew better. My dad used to belittle my Uncle Stan for his faith for years before Uncle Stan’s career change from cardiologist to maple syrup farmer completely dissolved their relationship. Uncle Stan used to debate with him for hours, trying to show him how logical Christianity actually was. I don’t think my dad ever listened. Even though it was years ago, from what I remembered of it, Uncle Stan calmly reasoned and my dad mocked and talked over him. To him, needing to believe in a higher power was a sign of weakness.

  I wasn’t about to rise to his bait. “We went this morning, but then this afternoon, Ahanti ended up in the hospital.”

  I mentally kicked myself and prayed my dad wouldn’t ask why. Succumbing to a panic attack wouldn’t earn her his sympathy. Hopefully he’d assume her stalker made a move that injured her.

  I wouldn’t give him time to ask. I plowed forward with, “I’m going to need to keep using the investigator you assigned to this to watch a new suspect, and I need a referral to a security firm as well.”

  The handwriting expert I could add in later. If I tacked it on now, it’d be too big an ask, and he’d be sure to deny something, simply to make it clear that he was in control. Right now, I was only technically asking for one additional thing, and it was the one I needed most to keep Ahanti safe. Until we were sure her apartment wasn’t under surveillance, she’d never be comfortable there.

  My dad leaned back on his heels and crossed his arms, and the floor felt like it dropped out from underneath me. He was going to turn me down. I should have waited to talk to my mom. I could still do that and go around him, but not without further damaging our tenuous relationship.

  “You can’t keep expecting to use firm resources when you refuse to be a part of this practice,” he said.

  I wobbled slightly. It felt like I’d been shoved.

  Mark’s hand brushed my back as if he saw it and wanted me to know that he had my back. Or maybe it was his way of trying to tell me not to back away from this, metaphorically or physically. Or maybe he was just afraid I might drop from all the strain of the past week.

  Whatever his reason, something deep inside my chest felt like it hardened. Mark had known me for less than a year, yet he’d been by my s
ide through every crazy thing I’d done. How much more should my dad be there for me when I asked him?

  This was not how we were going to play this. My father did not get to leverage Ahanti’s safety to force me into doing what he wanted. He might not agree with or like my choices, but they were my choices. If they were mistakes, they’d be my mistakes. I’d learn from them and be stronger for them.

  I mimicked his pose, arms over my chest. My father only respected strength. I could give in, take his job offer, and get what I wanted for Ahanti. But he’d never respect me, and nothing about our relationship would ever get better.

  No. I’d been busy and happy in Fair Haven, and even if Mark and I moved back to DC, it wasn’t a given that I’d simply come crawling back to my old job. “You can’t expect me to even consider returning to the firm here when you haven’t given me a reason to. I don’t need your job. The way I see it, you want me back much more than I want to come back.” I stretched a hand in Mark’s direction. “When that’s the case, you woo the candidate. I’m not a penitent prodigal begging for you to take me back”—I might have taken a bit too much pleasure in the Biblical reference given his earlier jab—“so if you want me to even consider your job offer, you need to show me what’s in it for me.”

  I planted my hands back on my hips. When I did that, it made me look a bit more like my mom, the one person in the world that my dad truly respected. My rant would either make him furious or finally earn a little of that same respect for me. Regardless, I wasn’t going to be weak because he saw me as weak. I’d grown a lot in my time away. I knew my flaws, but I had a lot of good strengths, too. I was worth being wooed.

  His stance didn’t shift, but his eyes crinkled at the corners a touch. “I suppose I can start by showing you all the resources you’d have at your disposal as an attorney with our firm.” He moved out of the doorway. “Come inside.”

  My dad arranged for the firm’s security expert to be at Ahanti’s apartment the next morning. It turned out I’d been right about how often they needed him. Between the death threats they received personally and the ones their clients often received as well, they practically had a firm on retainer.

  I got keys from Geoff and delivered them to the security guy.

  I spent the next morning with Mark, finally taking him to some of the tourist spots I’d promised. We rode up the Washington Monument and visited the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and walked hand-in-hand along the Tidal Basin. If we were going to make this decision together, I wanted him to have as much knowledge of the area as possible. I hadn’t hated living here. It definitely had advantages in the way of museums, art galleries, and cultural events that Fair Haven didn’t.

  Mark was buying us lunch at a food truck when my phone rang. Ahanti’s name and picture appeared on my screen.

  It was earlier than I’d expected. I’d hoped to have her apartment swept and prepped before she was ready to go home, but I hadn’t received a call from the security firm yet. They had warned me that the process would take hours. When they were done, though, Ahanti would have monitored alarms on her windows as well as her door, a new lock, and she’d be able to speak and shower, secure in the knowledge that no one was watching her.

  “Hey, are they discharging you now? My surprise isn’t ready yet.”

  “Not yet.” Her voice sounded tentative. “But I got a visitor.”

  Oh crap. What if it was Terrance? Would she be able to sound so calm if that were the case? I had told her that she needed to play along with her stalker if he ever outed himself as such. “Are you in trouble?”

  “He said I’m not a suspect in Cary’s death anymore, so I don’t think so, but I know you’ve always told me police are allowed to lie. I thought it’d be better if you were here for any questions he wanted to ask me, just in case.” It almost sounded like there was a smile in her voice, as if she were smiling at someone in the room with her.

  Based on what she’d said, it had to be Detective DeGoey.

  I waved to Mark. “No problem. We were just grabbing lunch. I’ll be right there.”

  By the time we arrived, DeGoey and Ahanti almost had the air of old friends. He vacated the chair next to her bed for me. Mark indicated that he’d wait in the hall.

  DeGoey clearly hadn’t been her only visitor. The bedside table had a vase of flowers, presumably from Geoff, and two cards. I peeked inside one and saw her sister Anaya’s name at the bottom. Three balloons were tied to her bedrail—one covered in tiny hearts, one covered in tiny presents, and one with a giant smiley face and the words Get Well Soon.

  Ahanti must have noticed where I’d been looking. She grinned. “Busy day. Geoff, Eddie, Anaya, and Jana have already been by. I gave Jana a little lecture about not becoming a stalker, and we compromised on me designing a beautiful small piece for her ankle. If she handles the pain and loves the tattoo, I’ve promised to give her the sleeve she wants once she turns twenty-one.”

  DeGoey cringed. “Your friend was telling me about some of the strange things people have tattooed on their body. And where.” He brought a hand up to his chest. “I got my little girl’s name and birth date tattooed here, but that’s as crazy as I get.”

  The part of my brain that my parents had trained said he could be working to build rapport so that Ahanti would let her guard down, but I didn’t think that was the case this time. He’d seemed to be genuinely enjoying her company. Not surprising really. Ahanti was one of those people who could make anyone immediately feel like a valued close friend.

  DeGoey pulled out a pen and notebook. “Thanks to the box of cards and letters you let us look through, we’ve crossed Ms. Tenali and her fiancé off our list of suspects in the murder. It seems you were right in thinking whoever is stalking her is also the man we’re looking for. In the work you’ve been doing to locate him, have you come up with any viable leads?”

  Thankfully Mark and I had eliminated Geoff. This would have been the worst possible time to drop that on Ahanti.

  We didn’t have much on Terrance, but it wouldn’t help Ahanti’s situation or the police’s investigation to hold that back now. “We don’t have any solid leads, though we do have a suspicion. Did you find any evidence that her home was entered by force?”

  “No sign that the lock had been picked that we could tell. All the windows were locked. The alarm company reports an entry, but the proper code was entered.”

  I glanced at Ahanti.

  She gave the tiniest nod. “Only four people have a key to my apartment—me, Geoff, the building superintendent, and my co-worker Terrance. He takes care of my plants when I’m away.”

  DeGoey scribbled in his notebook. “You’ve said that at least some of the communication by your stalker had to have been delivered by hand. It didn’t all come in the mail. Has your building’s super ever come by your place of business?”

  Ahanti shook her head. “Besides, he’s in his sixties and devoted to his wife.”

  She gave DeGoey his name anyway. Seems she was done taking chances with who it might be.

  DeGoey took his leave at the same time as the doctor came in. My cell phone vibrated in my purse, and I pointed my finger toward the hall to let Ahanti know I’d take the call out there so as not to be disruptive.

  I didn’t recognize the number. The man on the other end introduced himself as belonging to the security company my dad set me up with.

  “No problem putting the additional sensors on the windows, but our sweep did turn up a device you should be aware of.”

  I braced my hand against the wall behind me. Ahanti’s guess at how her stalker was learning about her private conversations had been reasonable, but I’d still been hoping she’d been wrong. “What kind of device?”

  “Her smoke detector was swapped for one that contains a camera and microphone. Based on the location and angle, it looks like he would have been able to see her table.”

  That was a relief at least. He hadn’t been acting as a peeping Tom and w
atching her in the shower. As long as she changed near her dresser, he wouldn’t have been able to see that, either. It also explained how he knew things he shouldn’t have been able to. Ahanti had always said that using her laptop on the couch made her back hurt, so she used her kitchen table when she wanted to work on her computer. The scary part of that was that it was yet another sign that the stalker knew her well. Somewhere along the line, she’d had to have told him that for him to know where to put his camera.

  “Remote feed, I’m assuming?”

  “Yeah. We’ll try to trace the source, but if he’s dumping it to an online storage solution, you’ll need to give all this to the police and hope they can get a warrant for the account holder. Want me to try to trace it anyway or leave that for the cops?”

  A private contractor would likely get answers faster than an overworked police force. “Get me the source, then I’ll hand it over to the police.”

  Since the camera alone didn’t give us anything new on the identity of her stalker, I decided to wait until they’d traced it back before updating DeGoey. On the drive to Ahanti’s apartment, though, I filled her in on what we’d done to make her home safer.

  One thing that’d been bothering me since the break-in was how the perpetrator got in without her alarm system going off. One theory was the windows since they weren’t linked to the alarm. The other was that the stalker already had the code. The alarm company had now confirmed that the system triggered, but someone turned it off.

  “The security firm recommend changing your alarm code every week,” I said. “Has it been changed since you installed it?”

  She shook her head. “Terrance has the code,” she said softly. “But my super doesn’t. If I know he’s coming, I leave the alarm off. I should have told the detective that, but I forgot.”

  “I’ll call him later and let him know.”

  She accepted that without question. I also needed to still tell her about the worst of it. I waited until Mark went to get us dinner. She went through a similar range of emotions to what I had in being relieved the guy hadn’t been taping a more private area of her home but also upset that someone had managed to set up a recording device in the first place.