by Jane Blythe
Then as his body grew sleepy, his struggles slowly ceased. Beside him, Simone’s head drooped limply down to rest against her bound chest.
He realized then that he had been wrong.
There had been someone else. Someone other than his wife who had known just what a terrible person he really was.
The last thing he saw before his eyes fluttered closed was Isabella waving good-bye to him.
AUGUST 18th
8:58 A.M.
“Here we are, sir. Home,” Edmund announced.
“About time,” Logan snapped from the back seat where he had been taking a nap.
Sofia wished she could nap. She was exhausted. Hadn't slept more than a few fitful minutes at a time in the last twenty-four hours. She was angry with Ryan. And angry with herself for being angry at Ryan when he was doing nothing more than his job. But even though she knew she was being unfair she couldn’t seem to let go of her anger. “Father,” she reprimanded. “It’s not Edmund’s fault that the police arrested you.”
“No, it’s not Edmund’s fault,” her father agreed snidely. “It’s yours.”
“Mine?” She turned in her seat to stare incredulously at him. “How is it my fault?”
“You’re the one who got them suspicious of me in the first place. Carrying on about how you think Isabella is mine and Brooke’s daughter. Telling them about this manuscript that Brooke supposedly wrote. Telling them that Gloria thought I was responsible for her son’s death.”
“What?” It had never occurred to her that Logan III’s death had been anything other than the accident it had been described to her. “I never told them that. I never even knew Gloria thought you killed him.”
“Well, then who told them?”
All three pondered this in silence then pronounced together, “Alan Payne.”
“What do you know about Alan Payne?” her father raised an eyebrow and looked at her suspiciously.
“He was having an affair with Gloria,” she replied.
“How did you know?”
“Isabella told me,” Sofia explained. “If Gloria suspected you, she must have told him.”
“That Isabella sees too much,” Logan muttered.
“How did you convince the police that you didn’t kill Brooke?” Sofia asked, probably for the twentieth time. “You know I could just ask Detective Xander or Detective Hood,” she wheedled.
“I gave them my alibi,” he said through gritted teeth
She waited for her father to say more, and when he didn’t, she wiggled around in her seat once more to shoot him a disapproving frown. “You were with a woman.”
The judge’s glower confirmed that indeed he had been.
“Who?” For some reason, it was important to her to know who her father had been with when this nightmare began. “Who?” she repeated when he didn’t reply.
“Mary-Anne,” he answered tightly.
“Mary-Anne Letcher?” Sure it couldn’t be. Her father wouldn’t do that to her.
“So what if it was?” her father shot back with a sullen growl.
Hot tears burned the backs of her eyes. “How could you? She was one of my best friends. You promised you wouldn’t do my friends anymore, after last time.” She had been fifteen when she’d walked into her bedroom one day to find her father and her friend going at it on her bed.
“Mary-Anne was hot,” her father shrugged unapologetically. “Well, whatever, I just want to go inside, have a hot shower, some sleep in my own bed, and forget that all of this ever happened.” The judge climbed from the car and began to stalk toward the front door.
“Forget this ever happened until another one of us ends up dead,” Sofia uttered wearily, dragging herself from the car and swiping at the tears trickling down her cheeks.
“I’m not going to let anyone hurt you, Sofia,” Edmund took her arm to steady her. “And neither is Detective Xander,” he added gently.
“Don’t, Edmund,” she warned her friend, not in the least in the mood to hear another lecture about how unfair she was being to Ryan.
“I think you should talk to him,” Edmund insisted as he helped her up the front steps. “At least hear him out.”
“I don’t want to,” Sofia objected. All she wanted was some good, uninterrupted sleep that wasn’t haunted by nightmares, and from which she wouldn’t awaken to learn of another dead family member.
“Then you're not going to like this,” his gaze shifted to something behind her.
Following her friend’s gaze, Sofia turned to see Ryan parking his car beside Edmund’s. He climbed out and paused, watching her carefully.
Groaning, Sofia pulled her arm free from Edmund’s grip and headed as quickly as she could for the door. Footsteps pounded behind her, and then Ryan was grabbing her shoulder and spinning her around. His bright blue eyes were like magnets, drawing her own gray eyes to his, his so sad that she had to look away.
“I just want to talk,” he implored.
“I don’t want to talk to you right now.”
Hope lit up his face, “So you will talk to me later?”
“I didn’t say that,” Sofia hated for people to put words in her mouth.
“Sofia, please . . .” he began to beg.
Not in the mood to listen, “You arrested my father, Ryan. You can't expect me not to be upset about that. And you lied to me. You promised that you would stay with me, but when I woke up from a nightmare you were gone . . .”
“I'm sorry,” Ryan interrupted, staring at her so pitifully that she almost screamed.
“Stop saying that to me,” she exploded. “I don’t want you to be sorry, I want you to be gone. I don’t need another person in my life who wants to make decisions for me. I am more than capable of making my own choices.” She waved him quiet when he opened his mouth to defend himself, “No, no, I can guess what you're going to say. I've been through a lot, I'm not well, you didn’t want to wake me because I needed the sleep. I've heard it all before, Ryan. I thought you were different. I told you how much I hate it when people treat me like that. I thought you understood. But you don’t. You were just pretending. And I don’t need another liar in my life.” With that, she began to storm toward the front door, wishing that it wasn’t so far away. She was so tired, her head was spinning, her chest aching, her eyes watering, all she wanted was to lie down quietly.
“Sofia, just talk to him,” Edmund caught up to her and grabbed her arm, holding her in place.
Yanking free, “No.”
“Stop being stubborn,” Edmund reached for her again.
Dodging out of reach, Sofia almost lost her balance, her wobbly legs buckling. Ryan caught her before she hit the ground. For a moment, pressed against his chest, she felt her heart melt. Sofia didn’t want to be mad at him, she wanted to let his strong arms make her feel safe. But that didn’t change the fact that he had lied to her and manipulated her.
Wearily, she extricated herself from his grip. “You want to do something for me, Ryan, then just find this killer before I end up like the rest of my family.” This time neither of the men followed her as she headed for the house.
“I’ll talk to her,” Edmund assured Ryan.
“I'm only making things worse for her,” Ryan protested.
“No, you’re good for her,” Edmund contradicted. “Something else is bothering her. I’ll get to the bottom of it.”
Blocking out their voices, Sofia hated for people to discuss her like she wasn’t there, but right now she was too tired to bother about it. She wanted to hold her tears in until she was inside, away from Ryan’s prying eyes, but as she reached the door she froze. Her father stood there. Calmly watching her. Had probably stood there calmly watching the entire exchange between herself and Ryan. Bursting into tears, she rushed as quickly as she could for the stairs, leaning heavily against the banister to help drag herself up.
Pausing halfway up the stairs when she heard Ryan’s voice, “I need to see her.”
“No. Absolute
ly not,” her father told him.
“Please, Judge Everette.”
Twisting, Sofia saw the judge blocking the doorway so Ryan couldn’t enter. As angry as she was with her father, at this moment she was glad that he was there, stopping Ryan from following her.
“She’s sick, she’s stressed, and the last thing she needs right now is the man who arrested her father stalking her. Now get off my property and leave my daughter alone.”
Leaving her father to deal with Ryan, Sofia dropped to her knees, too exhausted to remain on her feet any longer, and crawled the rest of the way up the stairs. Reaching the second floor, and with no energy left, she lay her head down against the carpet and curled herself into a tight ball, letting her tears flow freely.
A hand grasping her shoulder made her jump.
“Sofia? Are you okay?”
Bushing away tears, Sofia opened her eyes to see Isabella crouching beside her. The sight of her baby sister, the only member of her family that she trusted, that she knew actually cared about her, that actually loved her, made her sobs start all over again.
“What's wrong?” Isabella asked, but Sofia was crying too hard to answer.
Allowing her sister to wrap an arm around her shoulders and lift her to her feet, Sofia barely made it to her old bedroom, where Isabella turned down the covers and helped her lie down. “I just want this nightmare to be over,” she whispered, sleep already had her eyes falling closed.
“Soon, it will be. I promise.”
Sofia had time to wonder how her sister could be so sure before her drained mind and body gave out and she drifted off to sleep.
* * * * *
10:30 A.M.
“You’re almost late. Again.”
“But I'm not,” Ryan snapped at his partner. Lifting his wrist to show her his watch, “In fact I'm right on time.”
She sighed, “How did it go?” Paige asked.
“Not well,” Ryan replied, glaring at her.
“She still won't talk to you?”
“No,” he said through gritted teeth. He was angry. Furious, might be a better word. Ryan had wanted to yell at Sofia that she was being unreasonable. Unfair. She wasn’t close with her father. In fact, he was pretty sure she only loved him in a ‘he’s my father so I have to’ sort of way. She couldn’t be this upset about the judge being arrested. And even if she was, it was hardly his fault. He was only doing his job. He had wanted to yell at Sofia that she wasn’t being fair, but he hadn't. He’d held it in. Bitten his tongue.
He hadn't been able to speak openly with her, and that was bothering him. He did believe that Sofia would get over her anger at him. She was in shock which, given everything she was going through right now, was completely understandable. But if he and Sofia were going to have a real relationship, then they would have to be honest with each other. He wanted a real relationship. One like his parents had. One like his younger brother had. He wanted the real thing. And he thought he might have found it with Sofia. But if he couldn’t bring himself to talk openly with her then they would never be able to have it. Sofia was right. He was afraid of her. Afraid of hurting her. And he knew why. He was going to have to finally deal with what had happened with Katrina so he could move forward.
“She’ll get over it, just give her a little time for all of this to sink in,” Paige comforted.
He shook his head, “No, I don’t think she will. I made her cry.” The picture of Sofia fleeing him for her front door, barely able to stand, crying hysterically, was haunting him.
Paige gave his shoulder a reassuring pat. “She really will get over it. Right now the best thing you can do for her is catch this guy.”
“Sofia said that,” he murmured.
“She’s right, this is your priority right now, you have the whole rest of your life to fix things up with Sofia.”
“Ryan, Paige.”
They turned as one toward Belinda, who was waving at them from the door of the conference room. Ryan trudged past the messy desks that cluttered the dingy space, as he walked through the door his gaze was drawn immediately to the photos lining the top of the bulletin board. Sofia’s mother, brothers, sisters-in-law. All dead. Sobering, he couldn’t let Sofia end up like the rest of her family.
“Okay,” Belinda began wearily, dropping down into a seat at the table. “Anything from last night’s crime scene?”
Shrugging fitfully, “The usual,” Stephanie replied. “I'm sure the only fingerprints we’ve collected are from the Everette family and employees. Other than that, nothing.”
“Carbon monoxide poisoning cause of death?” Belinda directed the rhetorical question to Frankie.
“Yeah,” she nodded tiredly, they had all been working around the clock on this case, the killer was relentless, taking another victim with each passing night, and the strain was beginning to wear them all down.
“I thought cars are meant to be built to make suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning difficult?” Belinda asked tersely.
“They are,” Frankie agreed. “But unluckily for Logan and Simone Everette they drive a classic car. Older cars don’t have all the emission controls that newer cars are made with these days.”
“Well, talking of luck,” Paige’s brown brows were raised in disbelief. “Logan couldn’t have been luckier that the security guard turned up when he did.”
Logan had been barely alive when the guard patrolling the Everette estate had found him tied with duct tape to his car seat. He had been rushed to the hospital, and when Ryan and Paige had talked with his doctors, they’d been told that Logan would have had only minutes left to live if he hadn't been found. Ryan didn’t like Sofia’s oldest brother, so he didn’t really think it was lucky Logan had survived. Unless of course he was able to identify the killer for them. So far his condition had not been stable and they had been unable to speak with him.
“All right,” Belinda rubbed at her dark eyes. “So where are we on a suspect? The judge is out?”
“His alibi checked out,” Paige made a face. “Although watching the recording of what he’d been up to was not fun.”
Ryan couldn’t help but laugh at his partner’s expression. Suffice it to say, watching hours of footage of the seventy-two-year-old judge and his twenty-eight-year-old girlfriend dressed up in a range of costumes as they had round after round of wild sex had not been a fun viewing experience.
“The judge was definitely otherwise occupied while Brooke Mariano was killed, so he didn’t do it. And he was here in our police station when Simone died. Although,” Ryan pondered, “I guess it doesn’t necessarily count out the fact that he could have hired someone to do it. Or that he committed the other murders.”
“I don’t think he hired someone,” Paige considered. “Brooke’s murder was too personal. Plus, the baby. I don’t think a hit man would take the baby in that manner.”
“Maybe he saw an opportunity with the baby and took it to sell on the black market,” Belinda suggested.
“Then why cut it out of Brooke while she was still alive? That was too personal for a stranger,” Paige reminded him.
“Granted,” Belinda acknowledged. The lieutenant was about to say more when her phone began to ring. Waving them all silent she answered. “Yes,” Belinda snapped. Eyes growing wide. “When?” Listening to the response. “And no one saw anything?” A deep frown developed on her face as she heard the answer. “Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous,” she growled. “All right, I’ll send someone over to run the crime scene . . .”
Ryan’s blood ran cold at the word crime scene. Surely there couldn’t be another murder already. So far the killer had stuck to his schedule of a kill a night. But perhaps he was getting desperate. Perhaps he felt as though the police were closing in on him.
“What happened?” he demanded the second Belinda hung up her phone.
“Relax,” Belinda shot him a knowing glance. “Nothing happened to Sofia. She’s fine. Her security detail is checking in regularly. It’s Logan, th
e son,” she added, “he disappeared.”
“From the hospital?” Paige looked surprised.
“Yep.”
“And no one saw anything?” Paige asked
“Nope.”
“How do you disappear from a crowded hospital without anyone noticing?” Paige was sounding as frustrated as Belinda looked.
“Exactly,” Belinda nodded fiercely. “Stephanie, can you head over there? I don’t think you’ll find anything, but I want you to check anyway.”
“Sure,” Stephanie dragged herself to her feet. “I'm going to call my kid first. I haven’t seen Cindy in days.”
“Given that he’s disappeared do we think Logan could be the killer?” Belinda surveyed them all from tired eyes.
“Both Logans were suspects from the beginning,” Paige reminded her.
“If Brooke had already run a paternity test and told Logan Junior he wasn’t the father, I guess he could have freaked out and killed her, then taken the baby to punish his father,” Ryan suggested.
“Could Logan have faked his attempted murder, Frankie?” Belinda asked the medical examiner.
“Mmm,” Frankie considered this, brown eyes thoughtful. “I would say yes, he could have restrained Simone, then turned on the engine, closed the garage door, and put himself in the car. It would have been risky. If the security guard had been delayed, even a couple of minutes, then he could have died. But I'm not sure he could have put the tape on himself the way he was found. It’s hard to tell, though. The guard who found him wasn’t concerned with preserving evidence when he cut off the tape, just in getting Logan out and into the fresh air as quickly as possible. We’ll run some tests with the tape and see if it would be possible and get back to you.”
“All right, so, summarize what we know about Logan Everette IV,” Belinda commanded.
“Well, from all accounts he doesn’t seem too intelligent,” Paige began. “He doesn’t seem to be held in very high esteem by his family. He has been pretty open about his affairs, and didn’t seem to care if his wife knew or not.”