Threads of Suspicion

by Dee Henderson

  Battery-operated lights switched on automatically. On trembling limbs she slid to the floor, sucked in a deep breath. She was in a fortress of steel in an unreachable space. David had drilled the need for speed into her, and she had never been so grateful for something she’d only halfheartedly listened to at the time.

  Someone has broken into my home—someone is inside. Bradley was on the grounds, local security would already have the alert, and the notification system in the safe room was linked directly to the police. A lot of responding officers would be helping out Bradley within minutes. Security cameras would already be showing them the intruder—who, how many, where they were.

  She rubbed a shaking hand over her face. Her chest hurt. She forced a calming breath, and another, treating the panic attack as if simply stressing out before a concert—gaining control of her breathing and heart rate from long practice. She pressed her hands into the carpet, fisted them into the fibers.

  How would someone know this is my home? That was so closely held information, it was virtually inaccessible. How many intruders were inside? What did they want? Were they after money? The lights were off downstairs, making it look like no one was at home. Break in, grab valuables, leave before the cops arrive. Not that much by way of furnishings had arrived yet. She wasn’t one to collect coins or stamps or six-figure paintings. Probably a garden-variety burglar in an upscale neighborhood. It was easier for her to settle on that generic outcome than the possibility an irrational fan had found her.

  Many in the music scene knew she’d left New York for Chicago. But today’s internet made it possible for resourceful people to find out what they wanted. If this intruder knew it was her home, it could be an unhinged person who either hated her music or loved it too much. Both obsessions came with large numbers of people, some of them just plain nuts. Maggie gave a shaky laugh and wiped her eyes. “Some people are just nuts,” she said aloud.

  The deep quiet was almost as unsettling as the crashes had been. She couldn’t see what was going on outside, couldn’t make a call out. She understood why it was designed that way, but now the silence she could feel was thoroughly creeping her out. No phone. No video. Just a hidden fortress.

  The security firm would have alerted David—it was set in stone with him. Anything happened, he was first in the loop. He’d probably be the one opening the door in a couple of hours. He’d warned her on that time delay, and now she hated that too.

  Yet he wouldn’t be quick to open the door, not until the threat had been dealt with, neutralized, cops were off the immediate scene, and a plan was in place to safely and securely move her out and away. And the press would likely assemble in droves, attracted to the commotion, then rumors it was her home. David would want her to remain in her fortress so police or security weren’t hounding her with questions, complicating matters. He would make sure if and when she did give a statement, it would be at a neutral location, probably the home of a friend. She had understood it. Appreciated it. And now felt imprisoned by it.

  She looked up and to her left. If she flipped the cover on that side panel and pressed the red button, David would respond instantly and get her out of this room. It was there to signal she was physically injured, needed immediate help.

  She bit her lip, shook off the last of the panic, and carefully got to her feet. She turned to the back wall, lifted the cover mounted there, and pressed the green button. She watched it light, signaling she was inside and okay. “Do what you need to do, then come let me out ASAP,” she whispered, trying for a smile.

  Whoever was in her house, however many, and their reasons for breaking in, none of it particularly mattered. Nobody could get inside the safe room except David. “Come get me, David.” Just saying his name helped to calm her further. Whatever was happening, it was on the outside of this room, and for now it wasn’t her problem . . . couldn’t be her problem if she wanted to keep her sanity.

  Maggie looked at the shelves, turned on the battery-operated CD player, and surrounded herself with the soothing sounds of a Beethoven sonata. She pulled out a deck of cards, dropped two pillows to the floor for more comfortable seating, and settled in for a game of solitaire. Her hands shook as she turned the cards, adrenaline still rippling through her body.

  Think about something else. Anything else . . .

  She was looking for an idea for a new album cover. She needed to decide on a birthday gift for David.

  She felt like throwing up. She glanced over at the trash can. No, it’s not going to get that bad. Think about the cards, listen to the music. This was the worst kind of stress—not knowing, sitting atop panic that faded far too slowly.

  I should have come to believe like David and married him years ago. She laughed softly at the unexpected thought, but felt more than a little comfort in it too. She occasionally wondered if initially it was the danger in David’s job making faith easier for him than unbelief. It had to be comforting for him to know he was never alone. So is that true, that he’s never alone? She could use some of that comfort right now.

  Jesus, if you’re real, please become real to me. I’m tired of this wondering, trying to get my mind around the question. I want to go to the side of the decision that is true, and I’m in the dark right now. She looked up at the light above her as it flickered once, twice, then steadied. She pulled in a deep breath and slowly let it out. The light burned on brightly. She was going to be okay. Everyone was going to be okay. David would be here soon. She reached over for a flashlight on the shelf, tested it, and left it on the floor beside her knee.

  “Jesus, you could start by keeping the lights on,” she whispered, and felt for the first time as though someone was listening.

  David Marshal

  David saw the blood first. A path on the carpet, the brightness of it under the lights, the destruction trailing toward the stairs and up, Maggie’s framed record albums knocked from the wall, photos smashed where they impacted the railing. He looked at John Key.

  “It’s bad,” John told him simply. “He’s upstairs, dead.”

  “Maggie?”

  “Inside the safe room. The green light came on about three minutes after the door closed and sealed. As far as we can tell, she’s fine. And, thankfully, she didn’t see any of this. Security feeds snapped on with the alarm—she’d been sitting on the bedroom floor, working on song lyrics. You see her look toward the window as the crashes happen, then back to the bedroom door when the patio glass shattered. She heard that and bolted.”

  “Thank you, God, for small blessings,” David prayed, forced his heartbeat to settle. “He had help getting through the gate.”

  “It looks like three other guys. The dump truck struck first, the Caterpillar hauler second. We think our intruder was in the high-wheel truck that made it into the driveway and up to the garage. All we have on the first two drivers are black hoods, black sweats, black shoes—picked up by a dark blue or black Charger. Cameras that would have captured clear pictures for us got jarred out of position by the impacts—a fact we’ll be correcting for the future. We learned that lesson the hard way.”

  “Bradley?”

  “Got himself slightly clipped by the third vehicle and is on the way to the hospital with a banged-up shoulder. He would have stopped Number Three on his own, but we’d already seen the safe room door close by then and the area patrol was arriving on scene. I held Bradley in place so we didn’t run up against possibly losing him in a situation that was becoming contained. They cleared the house as a group, found Number Three dead upstairs.”

  “Thanks, John. Maggie’s going to have a hard enough time with this without one of her own getting killed.” He examined the smashed patio door and the trail of blood caused by the flying glass, which probably sliced open his arm. “We need to know how he found her address.”

  “I’ve got a sinking feeling I already know,” John replied. “We haven’t been able to contact an assistant hairdresser Amy hired last week. Her phone isn’t picking up. Her nei
ghbor thinks she’s out for dinner with her boyfriend.”

  “You’ll let me know?”

  “We’ve already pulled in some Chicago cops on it.”

  David looked over at Evie on the bench inside the front door, boots off, and now pulling on crime-scene booties. “Come up with me, Evie.”

  She knew what this was going to look like as well as he did. One of the good guys hadn’t killed their intruder, meaning he’d done it himself.

  They found the body in Maggie’s bedroom, stretched out on her bed. The slice across the throat showed a self-inflicted angle—the knife still rested against his shoulder.

  “It’s hard to kill yourself that way,” John said quietly. “Your hand wants to stop.”

  David looked over at John, noting the reflective way he said it, saw the man’s military assessment along with the security guy who’d seen just about everything in his career.

  Thank you, God was all he could think right then. That could have been Maggie.

  “We’ve got it on video, not that the scene is going to need that much confirmation,” John said. “Got a name for him?”

  “Andrew Timmets, out of Indiana.”

  John glanced at Evie. “Is this the one who killed your college student?”

  “He’s linked to three murders; the chosen method was smothering. We hope he’s also linked to Jenna. They were working on a search warrant for his home when the alarm here tripped.”

  “Any idea why he ended it like this?”

  “Only a guess. I would have expected to see some kind of message if this was a suicide plan,” Evie said, looking around.

  “There’s no obvious one. Video shows him rushing in, realized from the scattered materials that Maggie had been here just moments before, looks in the closet, the bathroom, starts to leave the room to search the rest of this floor, and abruptly comes back to the closet. There’s no audio, but you can tell when he realizes he’s dealing with a safe room. He’s prying up the panel for it when he hears the security group arrive downstairs. He’s looking around, considering a confrontation, barricading himself in here. Then his body obscures the gesture, but he probably gives Maggie the finger and drops back on the bed where he does what you see here.”

  David deliberately looked away to take in the rest of the room, seeing what Maggie had been working on when this happened. “We passed a lot of cops outside. How’d you keep them out there?”

  “An understanding. The man in charge has been up to see the scene. They’re now watching live video. We don’t touch or move anything, we just figure out how to get Maggie out of this room without adding to the trauma she’s going to deal with. I’m all for leaving her in there until the scene’s clear, but they’re saying it’s going to be four hours minimum before they’re ready to move the body.”

  “We’ll keep it simple. You hold a sheet up between us and him, and I make sure she doesn’t turn her head when she smells the blood, sees what’s splattered on that wall. Even better, we use a blindfold to override her instinct to look.”

  John nodded. “Good. Let me see if we can get the stairwell debris cleared. It shouldn’t take their photographer that long to document the chaos. We escort her out and straight down to my SUV.”

  “Where to from there?” David asked. John would have some options.

  “I gave Bryce a call. She can stay with Charlotte and Bryce this evening, at least through the police statement. If she wants to go somewhere else after that, we’ll figure it out then. I had her travel bags cleared to take with her, as they were still packed downstairs. She’ll be comfortable for a few days.”

  “Thanks, John.”

  He left the room to make arrangements for her departure.

  David sighed, considered the room again, avoided looking at the body. He wondered if Maggie would ever be able to live again in this home, and very much doubted it. “Evie, check the hall closet for sheets. If there’s a pillowcase, a towel, we can use that as a blindfold.”

  She nodded and left.

  There was no way to signal to Maggie he was opening the door. The front surface was air-gapped to prevent sound transmission. He stepped into the master closet and looked down. The blood on the floor by the access panel was the worst of it. He could block what Maggie saw in the first few seconds by how he moved into the safe room, hopefully get her turned so she couldn’t see directly into the bedroom. The smell of blood couldn’t be covered, so he’d have to deal with that question quickly.

  Evie returned with a sheet and a lightweight towel. David folded it into thirds, the idea to wrap it across Maggie’s eyes. Evie offered the clip from her hair to fasten the towel in back.

  John returned, and with Evie’s help they held the sheet up in front of the bed.

  David took a final look, nodded. “That’s going to work. I’ll come out with her and go straight down to the vehicle. Evie, if you could act as front guard, catch the doors for me—and John, if you could bring blankets from the safe room since she won’t have a coat or any shoes. The car’s going to have a chill to it. And if you could take a quick look around to see if there’s anything she might have been writing on in the safe room she would want brought out with her, we then can leave the place to the cops.”

  “I’ll do that,” John agreed.

  “Smile, David,” Evie reminded him. “She needs to see all is well in that first glance.”

  He took a deep breath, let it out, smiled. “A good suggestion.” He stepped into the closet and punched in the code known only to three people. The mechanism released, and the door smoothly moved to the side. Maggie was sitting on the floor, a deck of cards in hand. She’d been eating chocolate. A smudge of it was at one corner of her mouth.

  “Hey,” she said, her smile wobbly.

  He made sure she couldn’t see past him as he lowered himself to her level. “Hey back.”

  “You’re early. It’s been only an hour.”

  Her eyes shifted over his shoulder, tension rapidly returning to her posture.

  “Someone died, Maggie.” His hand covered hers. “We think we know who he is, a very bad guy from Indiana. We’re going to get you out now so the cops can do their job.”

  “I didn’t hear gunfire,” she whispered.

  “You wouldn’t have heard even that in here. When we know for certain who he is and why he was here, I’ll tell you.”

  He held up the blindfold. “I don’t want you having this image in your mind. And I’ll carry you out to the car since there’s broken glass lying around.”

  She closed his hand around the fabric. “I’ll keep my eyes closed.” She stood with him and kept her eyes fastened on his face. “It’s no big deal, the decision about knowing.”

  “Then let’s get out of here, Maggie.”

  He lifted her easily into his arms. She wrapped her arms around him tightly, tucked her head against his neck and closed her eyes. “Promise me something, David?”

  “What’s that?” He stepped out of the safe room, then out of the closet. He picked his way carefully across the room to avoid the blood.

  “Let’s restock with something other than chocolate. I’m sick of it.”

  He dropped a light kiss on her hair. “We’ll do that, my Maggie.”

  Twenty-Four

  David Marshal

  Maggie was nearly asleep, David’s hand gently stroking the back of hers. Only when her breathing had turned deep and slow did he lift his hand and whisper, “Sleep calm, Maggie.” He dropped a soft kiss on her forehead and eased away from the bedside, leaving the adjoining bathroom light on with the door cracked an inch.

  He stepped into the hall where he could still see her, watched for any signs she might be falling into a difficult dream. Her thumb twitched occasionally. He hoped she was going to get at least a few hours of sleep. Charlotte and Bryce had a lovely home, quiet, peaceful, exactly what Maggie needed.

  That Evie was leaning against the hallway wall quietly waiting—had been for more than forty minutes
—didn’t surprise him. She could be empathetic in a profound way when the situation required it. That Evie had also been working by phone and text, he didn’t need to ask. “Tell me what else we’ve learned,” he asked in a low voice without moving his gaze from Maggie just yet.

  “First, Sharon wanted me to pass on her relief that Maggie got to the safe room in time. Sharon, Theo, and Taylor are available for anything you need—anything, anytime. They’re just staying off your phone, as you’re already drowning in more pressing priorities.”

  David felt himself relaxing as the bigger world settled itself around him. “Give my thanks to them when you can, Evie.”

  “Paul is at the scene to divert press attention toward his FBI team tracking down Andrew Timmets, avoiding headlines like Maggie’s boyfriend confronts Maggie’s killer.”

  David smiled at the description. “I’ve got to appreciate friends who step in to take the bullets for me. I’m going to owe Paul at least a nice steak for standing in front of the media storm tonight. They’ll have that headline or one like it before long, if there’s a decent investigative journalist putting together the names of the smothered college students.”

  “It’s more a counteroffensive. Give the press something to write about with quotable sound bites, so that the more expansive story takes a few days to coalesce. The scene itself, with the vehicles smashing through the gate and wall, gives them dramatic visuals. They’ll run with the stolen-vehicles angle as part of the lead.”

  The humor in her faded, and David knew why, simply nodded. “I appreciate the light touch, but it’s okay. I know much of what happened to get us to this point. Lay out for me what’s known.”