Love Inspired Suspense May 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: Trail of EvidenceGone MissingLethal Exposure

by Lynette Eason

  Clay’s first instinct was to run. His past had conditioned him to steer clear of the cops. But he couldn’t help Fiona if he was being pursued by the authorities for something that was pure self-defense.

  Then again, he couldn’t help Fiona if he was in jail, either.

  Joslyn was looking at him, worry in her amber-colored eyes. She was probably remembering Phoenix and the problems they’d had there. He didn’t want to drag her into any more trouble. And even if he was in jail, she’d continue to look for Fiona.

  Clay sighed, then nodded. “Let’s go. I guess it’s better than waiting for the police to come looking for us.”

  “Nothing will happen to you,” Liam said quietly. “We’ll make sure of that.”

  Clay should have been suspicious of his reassurance, but somehow the way he said it made Clay feel he could trust him. He’d had to survive on his instincts, both in Chicago and in prison, and so he trusted them now, too.

  “Before we go to the Sonoma police station, can we stop at my apartment first?” Joslyn said. “We got pictures of the two men in Phoenix. I want to run them through that facial-recognition program I’ve been working on with Jane Lawton.”

  “You can give that to Detective Carter to run through their own similar program,” Liam said.

  “But mine crawls through the web to find photos of subjects on social media, news and blogs. I can find information on them that the police may not have. The process will take a while so I want to start it as soon as possible.”

  “We may be at the station for some time,” Elisabeth said thoughtfully. “Maybe it would be good to start the program running now.”

  “What about my rental car?” Joslyn asked.

  “My wife and I will pick it up from the BART station and return it for you,” Shaun said.

  “And don’t think I’ve forgotten that you still need to debrief me on what’s been going on,” Liam said affectionately to Joslyn. He gave her a brotherly hug—the kind that made her groan in pain—as he lifted her off the ground. “All the stuff you left out of our phone conversations because you didn’t want to worry us.”

  “I think I’d rather talk to the police,” Joslyn groused, but Liam and Elisabeth were smiling.

  They drove to a new development outside of Sonoma, Clay and Joslyn with Elisabeth in the Cherokee, and Liam with his brother in a Suburban. Clay scanned the cars around them the entire time. He knew he was probably being paranoid, but he’d rather be safe than sorry. Joslyn’s apartment complex was across the street from a small lake park. There were several buildings, each holding four to six units, with lots of walkways and trees in between.

  Joslyn’s apartment was on the second floor of a four-unit building. As Joslyn, Clay and Elisabeth walked up the wooden flight of stairs, Clay could clearly hear Joslyn’s neighbor through an open window. “Hello? Naomi? Naomi?” The elderly woman’s voice was high-pitched. “I can’t hear you. Take me off speakerphone. Haven’t you learned to use your phone yet?”

  “Mrs. Zachariah,” Joslyn explained. “She’s a little hard of hearing.”

  Clay leaned against the wall next to Joslyn’s front door while she dug out her key. “Where are Liam and Shaun?” Clay asked Elisabeth.

  “Waiting in the car.” Elisabeth rolled her eyes. “Probably listening to a game on the radio.”

  “Naomi, what’s all that noise in the background?” Mrs. Zachariah said. “It sounds like a truck driving through your living room.”

  “Here it is.” Joslyn found her key and unlocked her door.

  The old woman continued, “I swear, it’s as bad as that ruckus I heard earlier this morning.”

  Clay reacted purely on instinct. He had no reason to think the noise Mrs. Zachariah had heard had anything to do with Joslyn’s apartment, but his arm whipped out to wrap around her even as he put his body in between her and her front door, which she’d pushed open a crack.

  He heard the roar of the explosion, then nothing. The door flew at them and he raised his arm to protect his head.

  Pain shattered his left arm, stabbing up his shoulder. Stars rained across his vision, and then everything went dark.

  EIGHT

  She would be dead if not for him.

  Joslyn stood next to the window in Clay’s hospital room, letting the spring sunshine warm her. She was too cold.

  She’d felt cold ever since waking up on the floor of the hallway outside her apartment, Clay’s body sprawled on top of her, splinters of her door all around them, plaster raining on her head. She hadn’t been able to hear a thing, and white smoke had misted everything in front of her dazed vision.

  She’d rolled Clay over, shouted at him even though she could barely hear her own voice. He’d been unconscious but breathing. Elisabeth had been thrown a few feet away and had sustained a cut across her cheek.

  Another bomb, like the one at Fiona’s house. When the men realized she was going to Sonoma, they must have gone straight to her apartment to rig it to explode.

  She shivered. Too much had happened in the past day and a half. She felt as if she was going to fly apart.

  Not yet. She couldn’t go to pieces yet. Fiona was still out there. These men wouldn’t stop trying to hurt them. She had to focus.

  She felt too helpless, too frustrated, too out of control. She wanted to know what she should do to make all this stop, to find Fiona. Maybe she should have suspected a bomb at her apartment and been more cautious—after all, someone had rigged Fiona’s house. She felt she should have been able to predict more of their opponents’ moves than she had.

  And here she was, watching over an unconscious man who had thrown himself on top of her to shield her from the blast, unable to do anything else besides wait for him to wake up.

  She pulled out her wallet, a new one she’d bought at the mall in Arizona, where she’d put the little bachelor’s button flower that he’d tucked into her hair. It seemed stupid to save it, pressed between two dollar bills, but she hadn’t wanted to toss it. She remembered the tenderness of his fingers as they touched her face.

  She closed the wallet and put it away, glancing at Clay’s still form. She felt useless. She’d been almost panicked when she saw he’d been knocked unconscious. There hadn’t been anything she could do. She and Elisabeth had waited beside Clay for the ambulance while Liam and Shaun had helped her neighbors, including Mrs. Zachariah, who had been injured when part of the wall exploded into her living room. How had he known about the bomb? Or maybe God had somehow tipped him off, protecting them all. Thank You, Lord. She hadn’t stopped praying that since they’d gotten to the hospital.

  “Hey, beautiful.” Clay’s voice was a raspy whisper, but Joslyn was glad to hear it at all.

  She moved to the chair beside his bed. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I was in an explosion.”

  “Don’t be a wise guy.”

  “I know a girl who’d shoot me if I was ever that.” He smiled weakly at her. Part of the door had clocked him across his brow and he had a magnificent black eye. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” Just a few minor cuts and bruises. “You’re the one with the broken arm and the shiner the size of a grapefruit.”

  “Really? I want to see.” He looked around for a mirror.

  “There’s no way I can carry you to the bathroom just to look at your black eye.”

  He suddenly sobered. “Was anyone else hurt?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Elisabeth has a minor concussion, and my neighbors had some injuries, but the doctor says they’ll all be okay.”

  He frowned. “I should have predicted their next move. I should have guessed about the bomb.”

  “I was just telling myself the same thing.”

  His eyes bored into hers. “But I worked with guys like that for years. I got to know how they think, how they work. I should have been smarter.”

  “You saved my life,” she said softly, and took his hand.

  He squeezed her
hand tightly, his eyes intent, his face pale. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

  His fingers had calluses, probably from working out at his gym, and his hand was warm compared to hers. His touch was reassuring and strong, as if he could give her part of his strength and make her into a more confident, capable person. She realized he did that to her just by being near her. She wanted to sit here, holding his hand, for another few years.

  There was a knock at the open door, and Liam and Detective Carter came into the room. “Good, you’re awake,” Liam said. “Clay, this is Detective Horatio Carter.”

  Detective Carter shook Clay’s hand. “Thank you for saving our girl, here.”

  Joslyn rolled her eyes. “I feel like I have a million uncles. I’m twenty-five, not twelve.”

  Liam leaned over and said in a mock whisper to Clay, “She’ll be grateful, eventually.”

  “I am very grateful,” Joslyn said. “You, Liam O’Neill, are being annoying.”

  “Be nice to me. I’m your boss.”

  “So fire me. Elisabeth will simply hire me back.”

  Liam frowned at her. “It irritates me when you’re right.”

  Detective Carter cleared his throat. “Children…”

  Joslyn smiled at him. She had gotten to know him very well when she first came to Sonoma, and while the detective had a gravelly voice and steel-gray eyes that could be very intimidating, he was a softie at heart and he really did care about her.

  “How are you feeling?” Liam asked Clay.

  He opened his mouth, eyed Joslyn, then said, “Fine. Relatively speaking.”

  “Arm hurt too much?”

  His left forearm had been put into a splint and then immobilized against his body in a sling. He shrugged. “It’s okay. Timing could be better,” he added with a grimace.

  “When is it ever a good time to break an arm?” she said.

  His eyes were serious. “I don’t like being sidelined just when it seems the danger’s getting worse for us.”

  They had to do something. They had to find Fiona and stop this threat. She didn’t want to think about how she’d feel if he were more gravely injured.

  “Did you bring Elisabeth’s computer?” she asked Liam.

  He unslung his backpack and handed her a laptop. “Why this one?”

  “It’s one of the only computers that can access my encrypted cloud drive.” Her desktop had been destroyed in the explosion.

  “What encrypted cloud drive?” Detective Carter asked.

  “All my computer files are backed up onto a secure cloud server. I learned that trick from Elisabeth,” Joslyn said. “But I did one better and made it so that only certain computers can access the drive. Elisabeth’s laptop is one of them.”

  “You’re going to run that facial-recognition program?” Clay asked.

  “That’s already running on one of Elisabeth’s computers at her apartment,” she said. “We set that up while we were waiting for you to get your beauty rest.”

  Clay gave her a sour look.

  “I’m guessing that whoever rigged my apartment tried to break into my computer, but I have a security program that turns on the camera and starts shooting video. The video file is saved on my cloud drive.”

  “Are you saying you may have gotten a video of the people who rigged your apartment?” Detective Carter’s red-gold brows rose toward his thinning hairline.

  “Maybe. I’ll have to access the drive to find out.”

  “I’ll have a chat with Mr. Ashton while you’re doing that,” the detective said.

  “I’ll check on Elisabeth.” Liam nodded to all of them and left to go to her room, which was on the floor below.

  Joslyn had built an extensive security protocol to log into her cloud drive, so it took her a few minutes. Detective Carter talked to Clay not only about the explosion but also about the events on the BART platform.

  He nodded as he finished taking notes.

  “Did the video show what happened to the two guys?”

  Detective Carter shook his head. “We’ve sent out a general request to ask for any other video that was shot, but it’ll take a few days if we do get anything. And Joslyn gave us the gun you took off the guy with the jacket, so we’re in the process of tracing that now.”

  “We can give you the pictures of the two guys in Phoenix, too.”

  “I got those from Joslyn already,” the detective said.

  “I’ve got even better pictures of them,” Joslyn said.

  “You do? Where?” Clay asked.

  She swiveled the laptop around so Clay and the detective could see the video she’d pulled up from her cloud drive. As she suspected, someone had tried to access her computer and failed, but not before it shot a few minutes of video as they tried to break her login code.

  The video showed the man named Met from the Mexican restaurant parking lot, his curly head bent over her computer keyboard. He was snacking as he typed, and Joslyn would have been appalled at the potato chip crumbs on her desk if she hadn’t known her computer would be incinerated in a few hours.

  Behind him, the man named G was walking back and forth, carrying various things apparently to the front door, although that wasn’t visible in the angle from the camera. At one point he turned to Met and said, “Aren’t you done yet?”

  The camera captured high definition video, so it got a good shot of his face as he turned directly to the computer screen.

  “It’s not as easy as you think,” Met grumbled. He upended his bag of chips, which was empty, and tossed it to the ground. Then he grabbed another bag of treats from his pocket and ripped it open with his teeth before reaching in with his mouth to grab a snack. Joslyn recognized it. It was lemon peel candy, and the bag was from Kandie’s, a Chinese candy store in Los Angeles that Fiona had often gone to. She’d always brought a bag to class, but Joslyn didn’t care for Chinese candy and hadn’t eaten any when she’d offered.

  After a few moments, Met gave a disgusted noise. “Forget it, I can’t get into this. Are you done yet?”

  “Another minute.”

  Met left the computer, and after a few seconds of showing Joslyn’s empty chair, the video ended.

  Detective Carter frowned. “Could I get a copy of that?”

  “Sure. I’ll share it on my public cloud drive and email you the link.”

  He nodded. “I’ll also request the report of the explosion from the Arizona police. Maybe there’s something to link the two explosions.”

  “Thanks, Detective.”

  He smiled and cupped her cheek in his weathered hand. “I’m just glad you’re all right.” He then reached out to clasp Clay’s shoulder. “Both of you.”

  Clay seemed a bit embarrassed by the gesture, but bemused, as well. What had it been like to grow up with a stepfather like Martin? Had their relationship always been this bad?

  The detective’s cell phone rang. “Sorry, I have to take this.” He rose and left the room.

  “Could you play the video again?” Clay asked. “What was that candy he was eating?”

  So he’d noticed that, too. She played the video and stopped it on a good shot of the bag.

  “That’s lemon peel,” Clay said.

  “Did Fiona buy Chinese candies in Chicago, too?”

  “There were a couple stores in the city that sold the kinds she liked.”

  “I know that store.” Joslyn nodded to the bag. “It’s in Los Angeles. Fiona always brought candy to class. Her favorite was—”

  “—Li hing mui.” A smile hovered around Clay’s mouth. “I thought it was okay but it wasn’t my favorite.”

  Joslyn made a face. “I didn’t like it at all.” It had been a combination of salty and extremely sour with an unusual spice mixed in that didn’t appeal to her.

  “Does the store have a website?”

  Joslyn went online. Kandie’s was a small family-run store near Chinatown.

  Something about that was wrong. Joslyn pulled up a map of Los Angel
es and figured out why. “I always assumed Kandie’s was near Fiona’s home, but that’s nowhere near the place she rented.” She pointed to the location on the map where Fiona’s home had been, which was miles away, with heavy traffic areas in between.

  Clay suddenly frowned fiercely. “That store is less than a block away from Martin’s office building.”

  Surprised, Joslyn was silent a moment, trying to make that fact compute. “Are you sure?”

  “It’s right here.” Clay pointed on the map.

  “I know she was close with her father, but I didn’t know she visited him at his office that often. She opened a new bag of candy every day. When she talked to me about meeting up with him, it was usually for dinner about once a month. Maybe she stocked up.”

  “Is the store even open in the evenings?” Clay asked.

  Joslyn checked and found that the store closed at five. “We usually had class until five or six. Sometimes later if there was a lab.”

  “So Joslyn was visiting Martin during the day?”

  “And she never mentioned it to me.” That was unusual. Fiona had always seemed so open about her life. It hadn’t seemed as though she was keeping secrets. But then again, she’d been sad and stressed the last few months before she left Los Angeles. She’d told Joslyn it was school, but what if it was something else, something she’d been hiding? Like her visits to her father during the day.

  “Maybe that was just her favorite store for Chinese candy,” Clay said. “She had one favorite store that was clear across Chicago, and she’d go once a month.”

  “No, she told me her favorite store was Garth’s, which is in San Bernadino. Sometimes she’d show up with candy from there, but usually it was from Kandie’s. I always assumed Kandie’s was closer to her home and more convenient for her.”

  “So this store, near Martin’s office, was convenient for her? No. I can’t believe she’d be involved in anything with Martin.”

  “It may have been something perfectly legitimate.” Except that Fiona had kept the visits from Joslyn for some reason. That made it seem less likely that they were aboveboard.