Absolute Liability

by Jennifer Becton

  God, poor Amber. She had suffered.

  “Was Amber killed here?” I asked.

  “Based on the amount of blood at the scene, we believe that the victim was shot here, probably yesterday. She hasn’t been dead long.”

  “Have you found any evidence that she was held here?” Vincent asked.

  “None so far. You?”

  “No.”

  Amber had been brought here to die.

  Tears pooled in my eyes, but I held them back as Tripp dusted off a cement block, put a file folder on it, and took a seat in front of us. “Why don’t you fill me in on how you found the body?”

  We told Tripp about the suspected arson complaint against McKade, explaining that he had confessed to his masseuse. We also told him about the planned meeting with the arson inspector.

  “Who else knew you were coming here this morning?”

  “Ted Insley at the DOI, but the date was written in my planner, which was taken along with Amber. The abductor would have known I was coming here.”

  Tripp finished writing notes and looked at me. “I hate to say it, Jules, but this psycho was definitely after you.”

  I swallowed hard and nodded quickly. I looked away as Vincent added, “And if we don’t find him soon, he’ll come after you again.”

  When would the news break?

  The waiting would kill him, surely. He was shaking as if he’d mainlined caffeine all morning, and his heart refused to stop racing.

  He’d gotten no work done because he’d been too busy checking the local news sites. But still, the discovery of Amber Willis’s body hadn’t hit the web.

  He knew the investigators would be there at 11 AM. It was now past noon. How long could it take to process a crime scene?

  Would the media suppress the story for some reason? How could they benefit from that?

  It would happen soon enough, he assured himself, and then they would start taking a closer look at Roger McKade.

  And when the murder weapon was discovered, it would only solidify McKade as the killer.

  He and his idiot partner were home free.

  How should a gently reared Southern lady react when she’s convinced her life is in danger?

  I was pretty sure Emily Post never covered that topic.

  I knew what finding Amber’s body at the site of one of my fraud investigations meant—and it certainly wasn’t good for me—but denial is a powerful force, and it had a powerful hold on me. I blinked at Vincent and then at Tripp, hoping my confused façade would induce one of them to tell me the situation meant anything other than what I thought it did.

  Someone had wanted me dead. And still did.

  Worse, Amber had suffered and died in my place.

  I’d been willing myself to view Amber as a victim, and I tried to be cool and detached, but I was failing. Guilt and responsibility landed on my chest like a thousand-pound vulture, eating away at my soul. The image of Amber’s body seared itself into my mind, and each time I blinked, I saw it there against my eyelids.

  Even though I knew I had done nothing to cause Amber’s death, I still felt culpable.

  In the insurance world, it’s called absolute liability, or liability without fault. A manufacturer can be held liable if their merchandise resulted in injury or death of consumers even if the manufacturer had not been intentional or negligent in creating the product.

  As far as I was concerned, I was absolutely liable for Amber’s death. I’d done nothing to cause it, but I couldn’t deny all the connections to me: my complaint, my investigation, my arson site. These were all my responsibilities. Shouldn’t I have known one of my complaints involved a murdering psychopath? I’d studied criminology. I’d served seven years on a police force. I should have been able to see the signs, shouldn’t I?

  But I hadn’t, and Amber should not have been made to suffer for my oversight.

  I tried to control my emotions with deep, even breathing. But my breaths came as shuddering gulps.

  Somehow, it always seemed to come down to me. I was just leading my life, doing the best I could, and then something happened to someone else that should have happened to me.

  There was no way to get around it. I was absolutely liable for Amber’s death—just as I was absolutely liable for Tricia’s rape.

  If I had not asked Tricia to drop me off at home after the football game that night, she would not have been raped. And if I hadn’t gone out for coffee, Amber would still be alive.

  But I might be dead.

  I shook my head to dispel these thoughts and looked up at Tripp and Vincent. “Okay,” I said with a shaking voice, “what happens next?”

  “You need protection,” Vincent said. His level of certainty alarmed me.

  Tripp nodded. “Yes, afraid so.”

  I glanced between them, and I wondered if they expected me to protest. A TV heroine might proclaim that she was perfectly capable of protecting herself. And I actually was capable of protecting myself. I had been trained in self-defense. I knew how to handle a weapon. There was no doubt in my mind that I could protect myself.

  But I’m also no fool.

  If one person with a gun could get the job done, two people with guns were even better. A whole police force was exponentially better.

  But here’s where it gets tricky. I know that police are not bodyguards. It’s impossible for them to provide personal protection for every citizen who may or may not be in the process of being stalked or threatened. As sad as it may seem, the police are more valuable after the fact.

  “So who’s going to help me protect myself?” I asked.

  “You can stay with me,” Tripp said.

  “I appreciate the offer,” I said as I looked pointedly toward the crime scene, “but we both know that won’t work. You’ll be up for the next forty-eight hours straight processing this scene. I’d be in a safer location, but I’d still be alone. I might as well stay at my own house. Home field advantage.”

  “Unacceptable,” Vincent said, his gaze hard and unwavering.

  “Yeah, Jules,” Tripp agreed. “You can’t just stay home. You’d be an easy target. You’ve got to go somewhere safe. Your dad’s?”

  “You want me to go hide out with my father?”

  He shrugged.

  “Besides, any person with a grain of intelligence will guess that I’m staying with family. My dad’s in the book. They’ll find me.” I tried to take a deep breath, but another truth hit me. “My family. All their addresses are in my planner. I have to….” My voice trailed off. I didn’t know what I had to do to protect them. I didn’t know what to do to protect myself. I didn’t even know who I was protecting myself from. “I’ll figure something out.”

  Tripp glanced at Vincent, as if deciding whether or not to try to make my decision for me. To handle me. I didn’t like being handled. “I know what you’re thinking, Tripp, and you’d better not say it.”

  “Jules, I know how hard this is for you, but I’m worried. Really worried.” He came across the room and knelt in front of me. Though Vincent remained seated beside me, Tripp did not spare him a look. His eyes bore into me, showing me the full force of his fear. “That could have been you in there, and all evidence shows that it was supposed to be you. I may not be able to protect you personally, but I can’t let you go home and wait for the killer to try again. I’m not going to do that.”

  His intense gaze held mine, and for a moment, I was transported back to another time when Tripp had been my knight in shining armor. I remembered how he had held me, supported me, and loved me after my family fell apart. I’d thought we’d be together forever.

  How I had clung to him back then. He’d been my single source of joy in a crumbling world. As one of those lucky few who could remain happy and positive in the face of even the worst circumstances, Tripp could make the right gestures at the right times and ease the tensions of everyone with him. If Tripp hadn’t been a cop, I thought he would make a dandy diplomat. He could enter a room f
ull of warring Jews and Palestinians, and before they realized what had happened, they would agree to a peace treaty. And they wouldn’t want to disappoint Tripp by violating it.

  Voila. Peace in the Middle East.

  Maybe that’s why I had gone to him after my sister’s rape tore my family apart. He’d worked his magic on me. He was better than the family therapist we’d consulted those first few months.

  Yup, Tripp had been at his best back then, but he was even better now. It would be easy to do as he suggested, forget logic, and stay at his place anyway. I could cling to the past and hide away with Tripp as I had before.

  But that was not to be.

  We both knew he was speaking as a friend.

  I blinked and refocused on the present.

  What choices did I have? I could not allow myself to go to Tripp’s, and I would not just hide at my dad’s and let the MPD take care of everything.

  And I certainly didn’t plan to sit on my butt while some nut was out there with his sights trained on me, and maybe my family.

  “Vincent,” I said, turning to him sharply, “didn’t you say you had experience with personal protection? Do you have any suggestions?”

  He ran his hands through his hair and frowned in thought. “First, we’ve got to remove some variables. Take away potential targets. We need to move your family. Send them to a hotel at the beach for the week. Something.”

  “Fine. I can make that happen.”

  “And second, we’ve got to secure you.”

  “How?”

  “As Tripp said, you can’t just go home. That’s for sure. That’ll be the first place this guy will look. No work either. The DOI building isn’t safe.”

  “I don’t suppose I could just check into a hotel too. Use a fake name?”

  “Bad tactical idea. A hotel room’s got only one way out.”

  I nodded. He was right. Most hotels had one door and a window that didn’t open. It was a good place to get trapped. Not much cover in a hotel either.

  Good God. I was sitting here considering firefight exit strategies.

  “Got any friends you could visit?”

  “And risk luring a murderer to their house? I have some good friends, and I don’t want to get anyone else…” My voice cracked. I cleared my throat, hoping that would cover my emotions. “I don’t want anyone else to be killed.”

  Vincent seemed to consider my situation, and then he said something I didn’t expect. “There’s a couch at my place.”

  I don’t think I did a good job of hiding my surprise. I blinked at him. I opened my mouth, closed it, opened it again.

  I was about to speak when an officer came to the door and summoned Tripp to the murder scene. He stood and then looked between Vincent and me. I knew he was torn between doing his job and seeing to my safety. “Can I consider this handled?” he asked, directing this question more to Vincent than to me.

  Vincent nodded.

  Tripp narrowed his eyes at him. “Just make sure you let me know where she is.”

  I scowled. “I’m so glad you boys think you’ve got this all figured out,” I said, suddenly angry at being handled so carefully by these two men. “I have a say in this. I’ll let you know what I decide to do.”

  My shrill tone indicated that perhaps I did need to be handled at that precise moment, so I snapped my mouth shut.

  “You’ll have your hands full,” Tripp said to Vincent, but he winked at me. “I’ll send an officer in to set up a time to take your official statement.”

  Then, with another wink, he disappeared.

  After taking a few moments to calm myself, I turned to Vincent and said, “I thought you lived in Atlanta.”

  “I do, but I’ve got a little place on Lake Montclair.”

  Lake Montclair was about an hour northeast of Mercer. The power company had built it in the 1960s to cool a coal-fired power plant that serviced the Middle Georgia area. People from all over the state came to fish, ski, and drink beer.

  I had a difficult time picturing Vincent with a fishing pole in his hands, but I guess I was going to get the opportunity to witness it.

  I jabbed a finger at him. “This doesn’t mean I’m going to hide out there until this is over. I am still going to investigate.”

  “Hey, don’t aim that thing at me!”

  We laughed, but then his face grew sober. “I don’t expect you to hide, but I do think you should be cautious.” There was a pause as he seemed to consider something. It was the first time I’d seen him hesitate about anything. Then he said, “You should know my kid will be there.”

  Another surprise. Even bigger than the first. Mark Vincent had a child.

  “Your kid?” I stood up and attempted to pace around the reception area. I only ended up tripping over debris, so I stopped. “I can’t risk bringing a murderer to your house if you have a kid.”

  Vincent remained reclined against the sooty wall and stretched out one long leg. “My son will be fine. Precautions will be taken. I’ve served on hundreds of protection details. We haven’t worked together long enough to make people suspect you’d stay with me. Best to change up your patterns completely.”

  What he said made marginal sense to me. Few people knew about his advent to the Mercer field office or his role in the investigation of Amber’s disappearance.

  I flinched and corrected myself.

  Amber’s murder.

  But he had been with me when I’d investigated what had turned out to be the three prime murder suspects. That was hardly what I’d call covert. Vincent might not be a completely unknown quantity, but I agreed it was unlikely that anyone would suspect I’d hide out with him.

  And Vincent did have experience with personal protection.

  His proposal seemed logical.

  Still, I couldn’t get past the idea of bringing danger anywhere near his son.

  “I appreciate the offer, but I just wouldn’t feel right.”

  Vincent hauled himself out of the debris. “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t believe my son would be safe. But I did ask, so you can stop worrying and do the logical thing.”

  Though I wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, I felt relieved.

  A few minutes of attempted pacing later, Officer Washington returned. “Detective Carver said to come in to take your preliminary statement and set up a time to talk with you further.” He took his notebook out of his pocket, pulled the pencil out of the metal ring, and flipped it open. “Usually, we ask witnesses to come in to the station, but since you are LEOs, we will make it easy on you. I could come to you. Do you have a time and place in mind?”

  I glanced at Vincent. I knew what he was thinking because I was thinking it too.

  My stint in the Mark Vincent witness relocation program was about to begin. It simply wouldn’t do to have a police car—even an unmarked one—hanging around his place, and it was probably not a good idea to do the interview in a public setting, either—even a noisy one.

  I felt paranoid thinking that anyone would bother to follow random police cars around town looking for me, but I guess if anyone had a right to be mistrustful, it was me.

  “Why don’t we just come to the station?” I looked from Vincent to Officer Washington. “It’ll be the easiest on everyone.”

  Vincent nodded. We set up a time, and then Washington took our statements.

  When we finished, the officer slapped his notebook closed. “We will see you tomorrow then. Detective Carver said you’re free to go.”

  I was more than happy to leave the warehouse. If I had my way, I would never go back again. Now if only I could gouge out my mind’s eye so I wouldn’t be able to remember Amber’s body slumped against that cement wall.

  Vincent and I walked outside. I squinted up into the blue, cloudless sky as a hot breeze blew around us. The sun was well past its peak overhead. We had been in the warehouse a long time.

  Instinctively, I headed to my car while Vincent went to his.

  We both st
opped with our hands on our door handles. He dropped his arm to his side and strode toward me with a serious look.

  “I need to go home,” I said. “Get some things. Take care of my cat.”

  He was standing close to me now. “What you need to do is disappear as soon as possible.”

  Anger washed over me with overwhelming suddenness. Dammit, I was starting to feel totally helpless, and I hated that feeling.

  “Fine,” I said. I resisted the urge to do something stupid, like kick a door panel or slam my fist onto the roof. Instead, I jerked the door open so hard it almost slammed itself shut again. “Fine.”

  I took a deep breath and tried to get myself together, but it wasn’t easy. It had been a hell of a day. I raised apologetic eyes at Vincent. “Do you mind following me home?”

  He nodded. “Would have done it anyway. We could be observed even now.”

  Crap. I glanced around at the old buildings that surrounded the warehouse. The MPD was canvassing the area, but there were still plenty of places for a whack job to hide around here.

  A whack job who had murdered Amber in my place. Or had it been a message to me to halt my investigation?

  Well, that was not going to happen.

  My back straightened, and I felt true resolve, probably for the first time since the whole disastrous string of events had begun. Sure, I was well aware that I was in danger, and yes, my resolve was partially motivated by a healthy dose of self-preservation. But Amber had died for me. I would make things as right as I could possibly make them.

  And that meant catching the son of a bitch who killed her.

  I didn’t want to hide out. I wanted to search every warehouse for the killer and make sure justice was done. Whether that meant a ride straight to prison or a one-way ticket to hell, I didn’t much care.

  Vincent seemed to read my mind. “We’ll arrest the murderer, no question. Just have to be smart about it.”

  I nodded, trying to feel as confident as he sounded. We got into our vehicles, and I paid rapt attention to the road. Every car could hold the murderer. Every passerby could be him.