Before She Dies

by Mary Burton

  Beyond,

  Where r you? I need advice! Should I marry him or not?

  All of CelticLove2’s other messages were much the same. She wanted love advice.

  SmithAB was next in line, so he opened the last message sent. He seemed to be searching for financial advice. He needed stock tips and advice about dealing with his mother. And Wolf-Woman Six was trying to decide if she could take a new job. All everyday questions that required thought and common sense, not a card reader.

  His grandmother had once said many young girls would come to her with silly questions about love and marriage, and his grandmother always advised them to look at the facts. Make a list of pros and cons, so to speak. The most frequent e-mailers could have benefited from this advice.

  None of the most frequent e-mailers’ messages sounded threatening or dangerous. And none mentioned the carnival. The computer expert would have to dig through his haystack of leads and hope there was a needle of evidence.

  Mariah and Grace huddled in the bed together, staring out the trailer window at the crystal blue sky.

  “I’ve never seen a stomach so big.” Mariah smoothed her hand over the taut belly.

  Grace smiled, her gaze a mixture of sadness and fear. “Kinda gross if you think about it. Like Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

  A kick fluttered under Mariah’s hand. “It moves a lot.”

  “Yeah.”

  Mariah kept her gaze on the stars. She’d never been good at speaking her mind and didn’t know how to voice all her thoughts and fears now. “I’m scared.”

  “Me, too.”

  Charlotte startled awake and for an instant didn’t recognize her surroundings. She blinked and searched for familiarity. Slowly, the elements in the room made sense: robe over the edge of her blue comforter, wide oval mirror over a dresser filled with cosmetics, and teacup on a glass table by the chaise. This was her bedroom and she was lying on her chaise by the window. Around her were rows of boxes, some fully packed and others still empty and waiting for her attention.

  Files strewn on her lap, she rubbed her eyes and glanced at the clock beside her bed. One forty-one. The last thing she remembered was that it was midnight and she’d been proofing briefs. She must have drifted asleep.

  She’d not dreamed of Mariah for years and in the last week she’d dreamed of her twice. The first time she’d been screaming for help. And this second time they’d been talking about the baby. Carnival. Grady. Sooner. All had invaded her life and she supposed dreams of Mariah would be natural.

  Charlotte swung her bare feet off the chaise and pushed her papers off her lap. Standing, she glanced out the picture window that looked out over the river. She would dearly miss this view, which offered her a sense of peace on the endless nights when sleep avoided her. This sweeping vista of the Potomac had been the reason she’d bought the condo.

  And next week, she would lose it forever.

  She’d gotten another voice mail from Robert today, and he’d told her he’d lined up a carpenter to fix the few minor annoyances the buyer wanted repaired. She wasn’t keen on having a stranger in her apartment, but Robert had assured her that the man was very reputable.

  Charlotte glanced up at the sky and let her gaze settle on the North Star. She’d wished on that star as a kid. Then her wishes had more to do with her mother’s outbursts. But no matter how much Grace had wished, begged, or pleaded with the heavens, her mother had never improved. In fact, she’d gotten worse.

  By the time Grace left the carnival for good, she’d learned that wishes were for fools. And if she wanted something to happen, she had to get out in the world and hustle for it.

  Seeing Sooner today had been jarring. Over the years she’d thought about the girl and wondered what she looked like, how she wore her hair, and how her voice sounded. But staring at her today had been a shock to her senses. It had been like staring at a ghost.

  It shamed Charlotte that she’d not told Sooner the entire truth. The girl had a right to know. They were blood. And Charlotte had denied her.

  “Tell me again what we are doing here?” Sinclair rubbed gloved hands together as she glanced around the dark, deserted parking lot.

  Rokov opened the trunk of his car and glanced at the heavy cloth bag filled with sand. “When we saw the crime scene this morning, it was in daylight.”

  She burrowed her chin deeper into the black scarf wound around her neck. “What’s wrong with daylight?”

  “The killer would have seen this place at night.” Rokov set the one-hundred-and-twenty-pound bag by the car. “We walked up those stairs. But he lugged up one hundred and twenty pounds of dead weight plus some kind of bag to hold all his goodies.” He retrieved a backpack.

  She glanced at his running shoes. Paulie, based on the shoe impression he collected, guessed that the killer had worn a narrow running or cross training shoe. “You’re going to walk in the killer’s shoes.”

  “That’s right.” He slammed the trunk closed.

  “Do you really think you’ll learn something?”

  “Won’t know until I try.” He slung the backpack up on his back and hefted the bag of sand. “You talked to the property manager of this place?”

  “I did. And I asked him about the lock on the top floor. He said it was dead bolted when he checked it four days ago.”

  “So the killer picked the lock last night or sometime in the last four days.”

  “Exactly.” He glanced at the stairs.

  “You want me to follow?”

  “No. Use that camcorder and tape me. Who knows what we’ll see.”

  She nodded, scanning the lot. “We know that the first-floor door was secured so the only way to the second floor was by the exterior staircase. And the upper door was bolted shut.”

  With the weight on his shoulder, Rokov moved toward the stairs. Sinclair hit record. He tested the weight on the old stairs and took his first step. The stairs moaned painfully under the added weight of the “body,” and his own body shifted. He grabbed for the railing to steady himself before continuing to climb.

  In the dark, maneuvering the shaky steps wasn’t as easy, and his pace was much slower than it had been that morning. The slower pace coupled with the weight left him winded whereas the morning’s climb had been effortless. The old staircase kept moaning and groaning, and several more times he had to readjust the “body” to maintain his balance. Halfway up he paused on the first landing to catch a breath or two. He considered himself fit, but the added dead weight was taxing. From here, he had a clear view of the river and the moon, which dripped light on the calm waters. Had the killer been winded? Had he stopped?

  He continued the climb to the top floor and paused at the door. The door had been dead bolted and so to open it now would require setting the body down and then working on the lock. But a search around the small landing made that theory improbable. There was little room to move around let alone stash a body and then pick the lock. The killer must have been here before. He’d come within the four-day window and broken into the building.

  Rokov opened the door and moved inside the main room. The moon was nearly full tonight as it had been last night. Weather conditions were similar so he could trust that the light he saw now was similar to what the killer saw. Moonlight streamed into the room, illuminating the spot where they’d found the body, now marked by the red crime scene tape.

  Rokov moved to the spot and laid his weight down. His shoulders were stiff and his back ached. This kind of work was not an old man’s game. If the killer weren’t young, he’d have to be incredibly fit to maneuver the shifting stairs with such a weighty burden.

  From his backpack he pulled out a candle, and he lit it as he imagined the killer did. He placed it at the body’s head just as they’d found the original. Then he dug out a flashlight and photos of the body. The killer had taken great time with the body, so he’d not felt rushed, as if he knew exactly what he was doing. Lay the body down. Fix her hair. Straighten her s
kirt. Stretch her hands and feet out. Stake them to the ground. Sprinkle the ring of salt.

  Paulie had found footprints by the window. Rokov moved to the window. It was a nice view. The water. The lights on the Maryland side of the Potomac. The boats in the water. Had he first spotted his location from the water? Maybe the shoes weren’t cross-trainers but boating shoes.

  Strong. A locksmith. A boater.

  He checked his watch. It had taken him fifteen minutes to scale the side, enter the room, and lay his body down. He returned to the body and imagined the killer pulling stakes and salt from the backpack. The bar owner had seen the candle flickering about twelve thirty.

  The killer would easily have been here an hour. “You weren’t in a rush at all, were you?” He rose from the salt circle. “This is all a part of the ritual of death, isn’t it?”

  He squatted and studied the scene. It would talk to him eventually. When it was ready, it would tell him what happened. His cell phone rang. “Rokov.”

  “What gives?” Sinclair said. “You see anything?”

  “What am I missing?” He glanced around the scene, absorbing what the killer saw. Talk to me. But the room remained stubbornly silent.

  “I don’t know. Yet.”

  Chapter 7

  Wednesday, October 20, 7:01 a.m.

  Grady let the cigarette smoke trickle from his mouth and nose as he leaned back against the seat of his pickup truck. He stared across the street at the offices of Wellington and James, feeling a surge of resentment. His girl Grace had done right well for herself and made good on all the teenage proclamations he’d discounted. He’d always figured she’d grow tired of fighting, trade on her looks, and sell herself to a rich husband.

  But she’d not sold herself to the highest bidder. No, his smart-mouthed girl had gotten herself a fancy education and built herself a fine business. “You got more grit than I imagined.”

  When she and her sister had been little, he’d kept a close eye on them, knowing the young bucks in the carnival would have used them up good. He’d kept them away from those hounds because he’d considered them special. Turns out he’d failed both his girls.

  Despite his failures, he’d kept tabs on Charlotte all these years. He might have let her leave, but he’d made it a point to know where she lived, whom she dated, and where she worked. He’d always figured she’d leave this area as soon as she could, but she never had. He reckoned that had more to do with Mariah and Sooner. Alexandria was the last place she’d seen both, and maybe deep in her gut, she figured if she stayed, she’d see them both again.

  Grace always had been his sentimental one.

  It didn’t take a genius to see the way her lips curled with disgust yesterday when she’d first laid eyes on him.

  Well, she might have thought that she’d left the carnival behind, but she’d not. She was as much a part of the Family today as she was as a kid. No breaking that link.

  He took another drag on the cigarette and savored the way the smoke burned his lungs and nose. This time when he exhaled, it triggered a coughing fit that overtook him for nearly a minute. When he finally got a hold of himself, he stared at the glowing tip, annoyed.

  She might not want anything to do with him but that was just too damn bad.

  Grady cupped the filtered tip between his lips and let the smoke rise around him. This time he avoided inhaling deeply as he checked his watch. “Come on, girl, I ain’t got all day.”

  The carnival sales numbers had been brisk last night, and he’d been pleased to see they’d break even. Folks were anxious to see the carnival, knowing it would be its last season.

  His lips curled. Last season. The ploy had boosted ticket sales in city after city and proved that there was one born every minute. And announcing to the press that Sooner could solve murders had been a stroke of genius. No matter what town they had visited, he’d found an unsolved crime and claimed Sooner could close the case. The local cops hadn’t appreciated it, but it had pulled in the customers.

  Grady spotted the stock of auburn hair and immediately sat up a little straighter. He jammed the butt in the ashtray and got out of his car. He waited until the door to the law offices opened before he called out her name, “Grace.”

  Her shoulders stiffened and tensed. It pleased him to know he could still rattle her cage. It was important that she remember her roots and who had been there for her when she was young.

  Slowly, she turned. She wore all black and a string of pearls around her neck. In the last seventeen years she’d slimmed down, and he realized the words fancy or uptown did not do her justice.

  “You remind me of your mama when I first met her. Full of fire and spunk, she never shied from a fight. Course, the years robbed her of that spunk.”

  If he’d hit his mark, she showed no sign of it. “What do you want, Grady?”

  “I came to talk to you.”

  “We talked yesterday. Aunt Charlotte helped Sooner, and she won’t be going to jail. We have nothing more to discuss so get the hell off my property.”

  God, but she could still piss him off faster than anyone. “We got a lot to talk about.”

  She jammed her key in the lock and opened her front door. “Leave.”

  “Or what, baby girl? You gonna call the police on your uncle Grady? Be a shame to do that, wouldn’t it? Then I’d have to tell them about all the money you stole from the till.”

  Her lips flattened and she stilled.

  He’d gotten her with that tidbit. “You think I’d forget how you stole that money from me before you ran away? When I saw that empty till, I was fit to be tied. I nearly chased you down.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “’Cause I had a carnival to run and Baby Sooner to raise.”

  Her face paled with fury. “I left the carnival because Mariah was dead and you swore Sooner would have a real family.”

  “I gave you a choice. Go without her. Stay with her. Nobody gets their cake and eats it, too.”

  That barb triggered the wince he’d wanted. She stepped over her threshold and held the door open for him. “Come inside.”

  He was about to make another crack when another woman walked into the reception area from the back. She was blond, tall, and well dressed. He wouldn’t call her stunning, but she was a fine-looking woman that he’d never have refused.

  “Charlotte?” the woman said.

  Grace straightened her shoulders. “Angie, this is Grady Tate. He had a few questions for me.” She kept her gaze away from him as she said, “Grady this is my associate, Angie Carlson.”

  Grace’s words were refined and polite enough, but her rigid stance all but shouted, Fuck Off. And it also wasn’t lost on him that she’d not told Angie about their relationship. Uppity girl was ashamed of him.

  “How you do, Ms. Angie.” He wiped his right hand on his jeans and then extended it to her.

  To Angie’s credit, she accepted his hand, but the gesture did not lesson the wariness in her gaze. “And who are you, Mr. Tate?”

  “Back in the day, I was married to her mama before she passed. God rest her soul.” He grinned. “Charlotte’s not one for remembering her roots, so I reckon she’s not mentioned me.”

  Angie glanced to Grace, but said nothing. Grace made no move to deny or add to his comment, but he supposed if she’d had a gun right now, he’d have a bullet between his eyes. “No, she has not mentioned you.”

  “Grady,” Grace said. “We don’t need to hold Angie up. Come back to my office, so we can talk in private.”

  “Sure, baby girl. Sure.” He followed her down a hallway of plush carpet and fancy paintings. The deeper he went into her world, the more he felt out of his element. She was doing a fine job of making him feel second-rate. “So you’ve never told anyone about your past?”

  “No.” She set her briefcase on her desk. “And I want to keep it that way.”

  “You’re ashamed of your past.”

  Her lips lowered into a thin smile. �
��Let’s just say, it wasn’t the best of beginnings.”

  “It wasn’t all that bad. You never went hungry. I did well by you.”

  “I guess in your mind you did.”

  “You’re pissed because my place wasn’t fancy.”

  “That’s not why I hated living with you and you know it. Now tell me what you want, or you can tell it to the police. I’m tired and irritated and quite happy to share a few dirty secrets with the cops.”

  Grady grinned, holding up his hands in surrender. “No need to get nasty, baby girl. I just came by to thank you for helping Sooner.”

  “You did that by text yesterday.”

  “That kind of favor deserves a personal thank-you.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Due diligence done. Now go.”

  “Aren’t you curious at all about the girl? Seems to me after a night to rest on it, you’d have lots. You was always one for questions.”

  She hesitated. “If I have questions, I’ll ask Sooner.”

  “She looks like Mariah but she’s wired like you.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Just thought you’d like to know.”

  “Really? Or maybe you see a chance to hurt me. As I remember, you liked hurting people when life wasn’t going your way.” Acid dripped from the words.

  “You should be nice to me, baby girl.”

  “Or what, Grady? You’ll go to the police about the money I stole. Try making that charge stick, old man.”

  “I came with hat in hand, hoping things could be different between us.”

  “Oh, it’s different all right. If it’s possible, I hate you more.”

  His gaze narrowed. “You’re gonna be sorry you treated me so poorly today.”

  “I’ll take my chances. Now get the hell out of my life.”