by Mary Maxwell
When I reached the small cement pad outside the kitchen door, I repeated the process to ensure that I wasn’t stepping on anything that might be a helpful clue if I needed to call the Crescent Creek Police.
“If,” I said. “If they need to get involved.”
As I shifted the bakery boxes in my arms and leaned toward the window in the backdoor, my mind raced with a few innocent explanations. Maybe she was cooking something that involved red meat. That could be blood from a roast. Or maybe it isn’t even blood. Maybe it’s strawberry jam. Or beet juice.
Despite the hopeful and optimistic speculation, my gut was telling me something entirely different. If it wasn’t a household accident caused by a sharp knife or broken glass, the relatively fresh blood on the backdoor was more likely the result of a wound caused by some type of violence.
“Please let it be okay,” I said in a hushed, trembling voice.
But as I peered through the pristine glass, I saw instantly that it wasn’t going to be okay.
On the far side of the kitchen, two legs extended into the room from the hallway that ran through the center of the house. They were dressed in Tipper’s favorite pair of bleach-spattered jeans, accessorized with fur-lined moccasins and the zebra print trench coat that she bought at Becca Hancock’s vintage clothing store a few weeks earlier.
“Oh, Tipper…”
I quickly leaned down and put the Sky High boxes on the ground. Then I used my elbow to ease open the door.
“Tipper?” My voice split the frosty silence. “Are you okay, hon?”
I glanced down at the white tiled floor. A zigzag trail of crimson drops led from the doorway to where Tipper was sprawled on her back. As I stepped carefully around the reddish spots, I reached into my purse and found my phone. After pausing long enough to dial the three digits, I crossed the expansive kitchen.
“Police Dispatch,” a man said calmly when the call connected. “What’s the exact location of your emergency?”
“This is Kate Reed,” I said. “I’m at Tipper Hedge’s place on Hanover. I’m not sure what’s happened, but she’s on the kitchen floor…and there’s…quite a lot of blood.”
“Is she breathing?”
“I don’t know yet,” I answered.
“Okay, when you’ve checked, let me know.”
I didn’t say anything as I took the last few steps. The kitchen counters, usually immaculate expanses of lustrous white marble, were littered with beer cans, potato chips, bloody wads of paper towels and what looked like mud.
“Ma’am?”
“Yes?”
“Is she breathing?”
“Let me check,” I answered. “Is the ambulance on the way?”
“They are,” the emergency operator said. “And they should be there in about two and a half minutes.”
Tipper suddenly groaned from where she was sprawled on the floor. I noticed a pool of blood on her left side, radiating out in a crimson arc. She was wearing her long strand of faux pearls, and the end of the necklace had rolled into the slowly expanding puddle of blood. A pair of wraparound sunglasses and tangled locks of hair partially obscured her face, but her chest was rising and falling with a series of shallow breaths.
“She’s still alive!” I told the operator before leaving my phone on the marble countertop and kneeling down to check for the strength of her pulse.
“Tipper?” I reached for her wrist. “Sweetheart, can you hear me?”
There was another muffled groan and her legs twitched slightly. She was still warm to the touch, but the beat of her heart was weak. I carefully put her arm to one side and grabbed my phone.
“She’s bleeding profusely,” I said, glancing at the blood on the white linoleum. “But I don’t see—”
Tipper moaned.
“—where it’s coming from.”
The phone crackled with static. “…just turned onto Hanover from Garrison,” the man was saying when the line cleared. “They’ll be there in less than a minute.”
“Okay,” I said. “Please make sure they know to come around back. We’re in the kitchen.”
I held the phone to my ear and leaned forward to brush the hair from Tipper’s face.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” I said, carefully removing the sunglasses. “I’m with you. And help is—”
I felt another surge of adrenaline as I discovered that the woman on the floor wasn’t Tipper Hedge.
It was someone that I’d never seen before.
And she was staring right at me as two paramedics and three police officers scrambled into the kitchen.
CHAPTER 7
“You’ve never seen her before?”
I slowly shifted my gaze from the tepid cup of coffee in my hands to Trent Walsh, the Deputy Chief of Police for the Crescent Creek PD.
“I’m positive,” I said. “I don’t know her. I thought it was Tipper, but…”
We were sitting in Trent’s SUV at the end of Tipper’s driveway. An hour had passed since the woman with the gunshot wound had been rushed to the regional medical center. The time had passed in cloudy fragments of chaos and noise: the metallic clatter of walkie-talkies, the paramedic’s monotone as he calmly related what he discovered to the police officers, the screech of sirens on the street outside.
When Trent arrived, I was standing in one corner of the kitchen, my eyes pinned to the woman’s face as she was lifted onto a stretcher. She looked to be in her early twenties, with full lips, a heart-shaped face and a small rose tattooed on the inside of one wrist. I was struck by how much she resembled Tipper. They had the same hair color, nearly identical cheekbones and comparable body shapes. Since she’d been wearing the sunglasses, jeans and zebra print coat, I’d assumed it was my friend when I first came through the door. But the shock of realizing that someone else had been shot in Tipper’s house had sent my mind reeling.
“Kate?”
I glanced down as Trent wrapped one hand around my wrist.
“Hmmm?”
“You okay?”
I nodded, blinking away the misty images in my mind. “Sorry…” I smiled, but it was fleeting. “I’m sorry, Trent. What did you say?”
“I wasn’t saying anything,” he answered, removing his hand. “You were beginning to tell me why you thought it was Tipper.”
I narrowed my gaze. “Didn’t I already do that?”
“Yeah, but it seemed like…” He checked the notes he’d taken a few minutes earlier. “So, you were coming to deliver something. Tipper didn’t answer the door. You went around back and saw someone on the floor, figuring it was Tipper because she was—”
“Yeah, right,” I cut in. “Because of the clothes. Those are Tipper’s jeans and nobody else in town has a zebra trench coat.”
He started to say something. I could tell it was going to be one of his thickheaded attempts at humor, so I was glad he stopped himself. Instead of making a snide remark, Trent asked about the last time I saw Tipper.
“Yesterday. She came by just after six.”
He scribbled a note. “What for?”
“She wanted something from Sky High,” I explained. “For Blanche Speltzer.”
Trent looked over. “What’s wrong with Blanche?”
“Nothing. She’d invited a few people to her house. Tipper wanted to take a hostess gift.”
“Okay, so…” He grinned. “Tipper came by…” The smile quivered as he bit the end of his ballpoint. “A what kind of gift?”
I wasn’t surprised by the conversational detour; I’d known Trent for years and he was always jumping from one subject to another without warning. He and I had dated in high school, but our brief romance ended one night when he dumped me for Dina Kincaid. Although they married after graduation, the union didn’t last long. Despite the divorce, they’d forged a unique friendship that allowed them to work in perfect harmony at the Crescent Creek PD, where he was deputy chief and she was the lead detective.
“A hostess gift. It’s a way to thank som
eone for their hospitality when they invite you over for dinner.”
“Gotcha.” He rolled his eyes. “Although I don’t see why just saying it in English isn’t good enough.”
I clenched my teeth. After the disturbing discovery in Tipper’s kitchen, I wasn’t in the mood for Trent’s opinions about etiquette. Or, for that matter, anything else. The adrenaline that had slammed through my body was beginning to dissolve, leaving me feeling drained and achy.
“Do you mind if I head home?” I asked.
He shrugged. “And miss all the excitement?”
I gritted my teeth even more. “Yep. I’ll leave that to you, Deputy Chief Walsh.”
“Well, well,” he said. “If we’re going to be all formal about—”
“Trent!” I steamed. “Would you please stop?”
His eyes were wide with surprise and his mouth gaped open.
“Somebody was shot here today,” I said. “It wasn’t Tipper, but it could’ve been.” I took a breath. “And where is she anyway? Has anyone spotted her in town?”
Trent swallowed hard. “Uh…”
“I’m sorry that was so harsh,” I said, feeling my cheeks burn. “I just think we should have some respect.”
His shoulders softened and he sagged forward in the seat. “You’re right, Katie. I didn’t mean to…” He sat up and looked over. “I’ve been awake for two days straight, so I guess maybe I’m not thinking as clearly as I should.”
“Well, I just…” The shift in tone had left my throat tight. “You know what? It’s okay. Unless you need me for something else, I’m going home to pour a glass of wine and soak in a hot bath.”
He managed a weak smile. “Couple more questions?”
I nodded.
“Does the name Kyle Gallagher mean anything to you?”
I thought for a moment. With a steady stream of tourists coming through Sky High Pies every day, I met quite a few people once and then never again. But I didn’t recognize the name.
“Who’s Kyle Gallagher?”
Trent checked his notes. “According to Tipper’s neighbor, Kyle is the guy that she’s been dating for…” His eyes returned to the pad. “…uh, for the past few weeks or so. I guess they met at some kind of art gallery thing.”
As he recited the statement made by Tipper’s neighbor, I remembered Blanche Speltzer’s comments from the night before.
“I think he was with the DEA,” I said.
“Right,” Trent agreed. “He was a field agent out of Denver until about a year ago.”
“Do you think he had something to do with…” I glanced at the front of Tipper’s house. “I mean, why are you asking me about him?”
“Following a lead, Katie.”
“Involving Kyle Gallagher?”
“We found his wallet in the hallway a few feet from the shooting victim,” Trent answered. “And we’re waiting to see if he’s a match for the prints on the backdoor.”
A series of scattershot images flashed through my mind: blood on the brass handle, smudged fingerprints, bleached jeans, a widening crimson pool on the white kitchen floor.
“Maybe he and Tipper were abducted,” I suggested.
Trent pursed his lips. “Maybe.”
“What else?” I asked.
“Do you know what Tipper drove?”
“A black BMW,” I answered, suddenly realizing that the car was no longer parked near the garage. “And I’m guessing that Kyle drives the old pickup that Zack and I saw last night in the driveway.”
Trent shook his head. “Not according to the DMV. They’ve got Gallagher as the owner of a Jeep Grand Cherokee.” He tapped his ballpoint against the steering wheel. “The very same one that’s in Tipper’s garage right now along with a Ford F-150 bearing New Mexico plates.”
CHAPTER 8
The air hummed with tension as my imagination skittered in every direction at once. Tipper had been kidnapped. Her car was missing. A woman had been shot in her kitchen and—
“Katie?” Trent sounded faraway and hazy. “You still with me?”
I nodded, but the questions and fractured images kept coming. Who was the woman in the kitchen? Blood on the doorknob. Was Tipper already dead? More blood on the white tile floor. Where was Kyle Gallagher? Did he do this? Tipper’s face last night as she was leaving Sky High: happy, flighty, beautiful, animated.
“…whether or not he did,” Trent was saying as I pushed aside the frantic questions. “I left a message for my buddy Pete Swann at the DEA. Did you ever meet him?”
I shook my head.
“Well, you’ll like him if you do,” Trent continued. “Funny as hell. He’s got a really sweet wife, too. Becky. Bonnie. Something like that. Cute blonde with—”
“Tipper’s BMW?” I asked.
Trent nodded. “Gone. I’ve got a BOLO out, of course. Freddy Morrow’s checking security cameras around town. And a couple of houses down the block have them, too. We’re talking to those neighbors as we speak to see if they captured anything useful.”
I swiveled in the seat to get a clear view of the driveway. The spot where I’d seen Tipper’s car earlier was now occupied by a Crescent Creek PD patrol car.
“The BMW was right over there,” I said.
“When?”
“When I arrived. Last night, it was parked behind the F-150. And this afternoon, like, literally when I got here, it was right there.” I glanced back at the driveway again. “So, between the time that I went around back and when the first responders arrived, someone drove away in Tipper’s car.”
Trent pursed his lips. “Maybe it was her.”
The suggestion seemed absurd, so I told him as much.
“Is that right?” His voice bristled slightly. “You think it’s ridiculous?”
I nodded. “Yes, I do. Why on earth would Tipper drive away when my car...” I stopped, reconsidering the scenario. “That’s not even the point, Trent. Why would Tipper leave if someone had been shot in her kitchen?”
He shrugged.
“And how’d that happen anyway?” My pulse began to spiral again as I thought about the woman that I’d discovered earlier. “Tipper doesn’t own a gun. She and I had that conversation a few weeks ago after there was another school shooting.”
Trent held my gaze before reaching over and taking my hand. “Katie? Do you want me to have someone drive you home?”
I shook my head.
“You sure about that?” His tone was softer and slower. “You seem kind of rattled by this one.”
“It was just…well, it was a shock, you know? But I’ll be okay.”
He pulsed his fingers around my hand a few times before letting it go. “I know you’ll be okay. That’s never been a question. I just thought maybe since it was Tipper. And with you guys being such good—” A walkie-talkie squelched somewhere nearby. “—friends and all, maybe this hit you a little harder or something.”
I swept one hand across my face. “No, I’m okay. I’m fine. I’m just…” I paused, taking a quick breath and straightening my back. “Did you check the hospitals? Maybe she’s been admitted or...”
Trent shook his head. “We’ve checked already; neither Tipper nor Kyle Gallagher have been treated or admitted.”
I processed the information slowly, thinking about cases I’d worked as a PI in Chicago. Then I remembered Trent’s comment earlier about someone with the DEA.
“And your friend Pete? He knows Kyle Gallagher?”
“I’m sure they’ve met,” Trent answered. “But I won’t find out how well Pete knows the guy until he calls me back. Pete’s been in the Denver office for about eight months. Before that he was in Houston. I’m just hoping he either knows Gallagher well enough to help or can put us in touch with someone who does.”
“I can talk to Blanche,” I suggested. “She met Kyle one day at the store. If I’m remembering the conversation correctly, Blanche said the guy was polite and sweet.”
Trent grunted. “Kinda like me, huh?”
I ignored the remark. “Maybe there was more to their conversation,” I said. “Blanche is pretty astute for someone her age.”
He smirked. “Again,” he said. “Like me?”
“Trent?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Drop the clown act,” I said. “I know you’re trying to make me smile, but this is serious.”
“I know it’s serious, Katie. But you’ve got that look on your face again.”
“What look?”
“Like you’re going down a rabbit hole to try and save the day.”
I swatted at him with one hand. “No, I don’t. If I have any type of look on my face it’s one of concern for my friend.”
He stopped smirking. “I know that,” he said quietly. “But you also know that we’ll do everything possible to find her.”
We sat without talking for a few minutes. Voices drifted down from the house; two uniformed officers talking about the weather as they stood near the front door. Trent’s phone buzzed again. He checked the display, but put it on the dashboard without answering.
“Has there been a call?” I asked finally.
“You mean somebody asking for ransom?”
I nodded. “Lots of people know about Tipper’s mother,” I said. “It’s public knowledge that she’s a very wealthy woman after the divorce from her second husband.”
“Nothing so far,” Trent said. “At this point, we’re going to handle it like a home invasion that went sideways. I remember one case a couple of years ago that—”
His phone vibrated on the dash. He scooped it up, answered the call and exhaled loudly as the person on the other end spoke. I could hear the woman’s voice, but couldn’t understand anything she was telling Trent. While they talked, I turned to face Tipper’s house again. Amanda Crane and Denny Santiago, two Crescent Creek PD officers, were searching the front yard with slow, precise movements. One of the CSI techs stood in the driveway beside a white panel van. And a small group of neighbors hovered at the edge of the yard, staring silently at the unfolding scene.