A stunned Paul said, “I don’t follow.”
“Don’t you?”
They locked eyes, and she grinned, savoring the moment. She crossed one leg over the other and reclined back on the sofa. “I suppose now is as good a time as any to let you know it’s over between us. Evidence of your affair has been given to my lawyer.”
“Let’s talk about this, honey,” Paul said. “It’s not what you think. So we talked on the phone a bunch of times. Big deal. It meant nothing—not to me. She probably left the photo on the car to cause problems between us. She wanted a relationship, and I wouldn’t give her one. I was flattered, of course, but I told her it wasn’t possible. I loved my wife.”
Elise tossed her head back and laughed. “She’s dead, Paul. She’s not here to defend herself. And you’re a liar. Save your breath for your lawyer.”
“Oh, come on, Elise. You’re just angry. I don’t need a lawyer.”
“You will. I’ve retained Katerina Smirnoff.”
“Katerina who?”
“The lawyer everyone refers to as The Barracuda.”
Paul dropped to his knees, reaching for Elise. “Please, Elise. Don’t do this. I’ll do anything to make it up to you. Anything you want.”
Elise glanced at Cade and then me. “We have some talking to do that isn’t your business. It’s time for you two to go.”
“I’m not finished,” Cade said. “I still have questions.”
“We’re not responsible for what happened to your daughter,” Elise said. “Deep down I believe you know that. Paul was here with me at the time she died. I have no reason to be dishonest. If I could put him in prison, believe me, I would, but he’s not the guy you’re after.”
Paul’s eyes flooded with tears, although I believed it had more to do with the money he stood to lose than any sentiment he felt for Elise or Shelby. “You can’t do this. You can’t divorce me. I’m begging you, honey. Please.”
“I can,” Elise said “And don’t you worry, I’ll make sure you leave this marriage with everything you had when you came into it—absolutely nothing.”
Cade joined me at the door.
His life in ruins, Paul remained on his knees, his head buried in his hands.
Elise walked us out.
“I feel there’s something I should tell you before I leave,” I said.
She raised a brow. “What is it?”
“I believe whoever left you the note was telling the truth about you being in danger.”
“How so?”
“Last night, one of Shelby’s friends said Paul was willing to have you killed so he could be with Shelby without losing your money. I have no idea how credible this friend is, but I thought you should know.”
Elise swished a hand through the air. “You see him in there, groveling on the floor like an infant? He’s weak. He’s no killer.”
“Just be careful,” Cade said. “I’ve seen my share of men like him before. Don’t underestimate what he’s capable of, ma’am.”
She reeled back. “Thanks for your concern, but I’m capable of handling myself. I’d like to know the name of Shelby’s friend. My lawyer will want to talk to her.”
“We don’t know her name,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“I’d rather not go into details right now. Allow me some time to find her again, and I’ll see what I can arrange.”
“Fair enough.” She turned, winking at Cade. “In the spirit of sharing, I never called the police. When you attacked Paul, I’d considered it, but for my own selfish reasons, I suppose I wanted to see him get roughed up. I figured he wasn’t in real danger. You pointed your gun, but you never cocked it.”
Cade frowned. “I ... uhh ... I shouldn’t have ... I didn’t mean to scare you. I shouldn’t have entered your house like I did. It’s not who I am, believe me.”
“Mr. McCoy, it’s all right. There’s no need to say anything more.”
She turned and walked back to the house. Cade slid his hand inside mine and gave it a squeeze. He opened the truck door, and I started to climb in, but halted when a bloodcurdling scream reverberated behind me.
A woman’s scream.
Elise.
We made it halfway back before we heard gunshots coming from inside the house.
One pop.
Then two.
Cade jerked his gun out of the holster, barreling through the front door.
“Elise!” I yelled. “Are you okay? Where are you?”
There was no reply, just a frightening quiet.
We sprinted through room after room, searching, finding nothing and no one. Then we heard Paul lashing out, his voice crazy, from somewhere upstairs. He sounded enraged and hysterical, a different man than the one I’d witnessed moments before.
“You’re not going to take everything from me!” Paul said. “Oh no. Not going to take it from me now, are ya? Say it!”
“I’m not ... I’m not going to take it, Paul,” Elise said. “I’m sorry. I was angry. I didn’t mean it. Please, put the gun down.”
Cade ascended the stairs. I followed, the sound of Elise’s desperate cries penetrating through the other side of a closed door.
“That’s right, you bitch,” Paul said. “That’s right! You think you’ll have the last laugh now? Huh? Do ya?”
Elise was sobbing. “Stop it, Paul! Stop it!”
Cade twisted the knob on the door. It was locked. Gunfire rang out again. Cade hammered his boot into the door, and it broke open. Inside the room was Elise, face down in a pool of blood, and Paul sitting in front of her, waving the gun above his head, laughing.
CHAPTER 13
I dialed 9-1-1 and gave Paul’s address to the operator. She repeated it back to me and gave me the usual spiel about remaining on the line, but I didn’t. I hung up. I had another, much more worrisome, call to make.
Coop answered with, “You better have a good reason for calling this early. What is it?”
“I’m at 3742 Arrowhead Lane in Draper.”
“Yeah, and? Am I supposed to know whose house that is?”
“Paul and Elise Armstrong. He just killed his wife. You should probably get over here.”
He sighed. “Why are you there?”
“Paul knew Shelby McCoy. The easiest way to explain it would be to say they were having an affair, but it’s a little more complicated.”
“And you know this how?”
“It’s too much to tell you over the phone. I’ll fill you in on all the details when you get here.”
“No, you’ll fill me in now,” he grunted.
For the second time in five minutes, I abruptly ended a call. Coop called back, and I didn’t answer, a decision I knew I’d pay for later. He had a habit of keeping a running tally of everything I’d ever done wrong. Hanging up on him added a significant number of points to his Sloane Shit List. In another hour I imagined the amount would soar even higher. Much, much higher.
I sent Bonnie and Hank away, leaving Maddie, Cade, and me to deal with Coop when he arrived. We discussed our stories, knowing the importance of them all matching up. Aside from Elise’s dead body, we had an additional problem. Paul had finger-shaped bruises on the right side of his neck—bruises too large to be made by anyone else’s hand but Cade’s. They wouldn’t go unnoticed.
Cade had stuck Paul in a kitchen chair, securing his wrists with some duct tape he found in a drawer. Paul had been spouting gibberish since the last gunshot, most of it too hard to understand. It was like murdering his wife had flipped a switch in his brain, and he’d had a psychotic break. I wasn’t so sure though. He seemed to be faking, his outburst nothing more than the act of a man planning to plead insanity.
Coop arrived before the paramedics, accompanied by two police officers he called Fassbender and Sheraton. He walked into the kitchen, slid a chair out from the table, and sat in front of Paul. “You kill your wife?”
“I have a wife. Her name is Elise.”
“Corr
ection. You had a wife. She’s dead. You shot her this morning. Remember?”
“I wouldn’t kill my wife. I love her.” He glanced upstairs. “Elise, can you come down here? We have visitors.”
I had to fist my hands to keep myself from clapping at his impeccable acting skills.
Coop’s nostrils flared along with his lack of patience. “So you’re telling me you don’t remember pointing a gun at your wife’s head and pulling the trigger?”
“I ... no.”
Coop leaned forward. “You shot your wife, Paul. She’s dead.”
Paul shook his head repeatedly. “No. No. No. She’ll be coming downstairs in a minute. You’ll see.”
“You’re right. She will be coming downstairs, only it will be inside of a body bag.”
Paul sat still for a time and then he enacted phase two: waterworks. “Why are you saying this to me? Why are you telling me I murdered my wife? How could you be so cruel?”
Coop leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms. “All right. You want to stick to your story, fine. We’ll save it for later and change topics. Did you know Shelby McCoy?”
“Shelby? Yeah, she’s a nice girl.”
“She’s dead too.”
Paul attempted to rock back and forth, but the hand restraints only allowed for limited mobility. “Oh, yes. I remember now. I saw it on the news today.”
“Did you have anything to do with Shelby McCoy’s death?”
Paul’s eyes shifted from Coop to Cade, and for a split second, he grinned before craning his neck, exposing the finger marks. “My neck hurts.”
Asshole.
He was faking it.
Coop leaned in, pulling down the collar of Paul’s pajama shirt. He inspected the bruises and then jerked his head toward Cade. Cade offered no explanation, which was explanation enough for Coop, who scooted the chair back and stood.
“Fassbender, I’m tagging out,” Coop said. “See if you can get this idiot to stop talking nonsense. Sheraton, take McCoy into the living room and get his story. Be sure to ask about the bruises. Maddie and Sloane, you’re with me. Where’s the woman?”
Maddie pointed upstairs.
“Well, let’s have a look at her,” he said.
We followed Coop to the bedroom. He crouched down in front of Elise, inspecting the bullet hole in her forehead. “She died right away, then?”
“She did,” I said.
He stood back up, canvassing the room, his eyes coming to rest on the gun. “That where he was standing when he shot her?”
“Yes,” I said. “We’ve been careful not to move or touch anything since it happened.”
“Sloane, why is it every time you’re involved in any case of mine, someone winds up getting killed? You’re like a death magnet.”
“I had nothing to do with Paul’s decision to murder his wife.”
“You were here when it happened. You had something to do with it.”
“We were outside the first time he fired the gun.”
He raised a brow. “Outside doing what?”
“Leaving.”
He slid a hand down his face. “Give me the details, start to finish. And don’t leave anything out.”
I told him about the girl who came to the house, and how Cade had reacted upon learning about his daughter’s line of work, and of Shelby and Paul’s relationship.
“Cade only came here to talk,” I said. “He just wanted answers.”
“Answers, huh? That why the guy’s neck looks like it’s been branded?”
I shrugged. “So the guy has a sensitive neck. He’ll live.”
“Tell me about Paul shooting his wife. Why did he do it?”
“Cade confronted Paul about his affair with Shelby. Turns out his wife already knew about it. She chose this morning to tell him she had filed for divorce. Since they had a prenup, if they divorced, he left the marriage with nothing. He begged her to call off the divorce, and she refused.”
“And then?”
“She asked us to leave. We were on our way out, heard two shots, and ran back into the house. They were here, in this room, with the door locked. She was still alive. He was trying to get her to say she wouldn’t go through with the divorce. When she finally agreed, he shot her anyway. Cade kicked the door in, but it was too late. She was already dead.”
Fassbender poked his head into the room. “Chief, I need a minute.”
Coop left the room, and the paramedics arrived. Downstairs I heard Coop and Cade talking downstairs.
“This is stupid,” Cade said. “You know it is.”
“I warned you,” Coop replied. “I told you to stay away from the investigation, to let my guys do the police work. If you wouldn’t have barged in here like some hothead and assaulted the guy, maybe the woman would still be alive.”
“I had nothin’ to do with what happened to her.”
“Save it,” Coop said. “I don’t care.”
I headed downstairs and watched Paul being escorted out the front door. Cade was in the kitchen, his wrists zip-tied behind his back like he was a criminal.
“What the hell are you doing, Coop?” I asked.
“You want to join him? Keep talking.”
Fine. I will.
“You don’t need to do this,” I said.
Coop squinted. “You should have asked me for help instead of allowing him to go off halfcocked this morning.” He looked at Fassbender. “Take him to the station.”
“And do what with him?” Fassbender asked.
Coop made eye contact with me and said, “I haven’t decided yet. Just take him there.”
He hadn’t decided? It wasn’t like Coop to offer leniency. What was he up to, and why?
“Come on, Coop,” I said. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“It’s all right, Sloane,” Cade said. “I’ll go. Everything will be fine.”
Fassbender walked Cade out the front door, and Coop turned his attention on me. “You two girls get out of here. And Sloane, the same thing I said to Cade goes for you too. Back off this case. This is your last warning.”
It had been a rough couple of days. I hadn’t slept. Whatever filter I had on occasion no longer existed, and I wasn’t leaving without getting my digs in. “Don’t threaten me. I still have a license to practice here. That girl last night—she didn’t come to you, she came to me.”
“And look at the disaster it turned out to be.”
Before I had the chance to make matters worse, Maddie leaned in and whispered, “Come on, let’s go. None of this will help you find out what happened to Shelby.”
For once, I listened.
CHAPTER 14
I was about to retain The Barracuda’s services on Cade’s behalf when I found out it was no longer necessary. Coop had released Cade on one condition—Cade had to return to Wyoming until the investigation was over. If he refused, he would be charged with breaking and entering and aggravated assault, two items a chief of police didn’t need on public record.
Hank picked up Cade, and I met with Bonnie, who had asked for some alone time with me before they all returned to Wyoming.
I found Bonnie hunched over the fireplace in the lobby of the hotel where she’d been staying, nibbling on a chocolate chip cookie. I stripped my coat off, folded it over a leather chair, and joined her. “You wanted to see me?”
She smiled, the wrinkles on her face seeming more prominent today than before. “It’s a good thing we’re going back. Cade will need my help with the funeral arrangements, and besides, it feels like we’re all in the way down here.”
“I’m worried about him, Bonnie. I need to stay, but I feel like I’m abandoning him. Without me around to help him through all of this—”
She squeezed my shoulder. “We’ll make sure he’s not alone. He has us, and he understands. You should remain here. Knowing you’re going to continue looking for answers will make it easier for him to leave.”
In a way, I agreed. In another, I didn’t. He’d wo
rry, not just about whether or not the police would find Shelby’s killer, but also about the risks of me going after the killer.
“We want you to stay until Shelby’s murder is solved,” she said. “I watched you work the Tate case, and then I watched you get baby Finn back for Jack. The way you figure things out, the way you solve things, it’s unique. You’re not like everyone else, Sloane. You’re different. And right now I believe different is what we need.”
Different.
I supposed I was, except it wasn’t the kind of different that made me feel cool or special. I’d always felt like more of an outcast, the woman who stood in a room full of people, listening to a keynote address everyone understood but me. I saw above the speaker’s message, beyond it. Where others found understanding, I found holes and gaps. Questions, so many questions, swirling, and festering, and solving—my mind an endless wanderer that never shut off.
“I’ll keep you informed on what I find out and drive back for the funeral,” I said.
She turned away from the fire and stuck a hand inside her purse, pulling out an envelope. She handed it to me. “This is for you.”
I stood there, staring at it, knowing what it was and why she was giving it to me. “No, Bonnie, I can’t. Keep it.”
“You can. Go on. I’m hiring you to solve Shelby’s murder. I have just as much right to hire you as anyone else.”
I pushed the envelope away, rejecting it. “No, Bonnie. I don’t want it. Shelby was my family too. I don’t want the money.”
She slid it into my hand, and I dropped it back into her purse like it was a hot potato. She grimaced, pulled it back out, folded it, and stuffed it into the pocket of my coat.
“Take it whether you want to or not. Cade’s unable to help you, and even if he was, he doesn’t have the ability to think clearly. And this Coop fellow has my insides all knotted up. The thought of that man heading up the search for Shelby’s killer doesn’t sit well with me. The man’s a horse’s ass from what I hear.”
It was a fitting, accurate description, but not entirely fair.
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