Particles of Murder (A Shadow of Death Romantic Suspense Series Book 1)

by Charlotte Raine

  "No," he says. "I really do have a girlfriend. I just like to flirt and she doesn't mind. But I'm two hundred percent faithful. I would never cheat on her. I love her."

  His words seem genuine, but that means my whole plan is out the window.

  "Well," I say, jumping off the bed. "Maybe we can just jump straight to the point. I've heard there's a more exclusive group within all of the fraternities, and you're in it."

  He blinks several times. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "I'm talking about the fact that I found a hair that belongs to you at this gathering for the Eternal Brotherhood,” I lie. I’m not going to rat out my brother to people who could be homicidal maniacs. “You realize how pretentious of a name that is, right? Eternal. It's like you guys think you're God."

  "There's no way you could have known that's my hair."

  "I grabbed some DNA from a glass you were using here," I bluff. "It's a match. It was you and I'm absolutely certain of it. If we find out that this cartel of yours is doing something wrong--like, I don't know, making and selling drugs--a jury will be very interested to see that you're the one person we can absolutely say was involved."

  He clenches his teeth and turns away from me. I hear him take several deep breaths. He turns back around to face me.

  "You wouldn't be the one coming here if you actually wanted to hurt the Brotherhood, so what do you want?" he asks. "Money?"

  I shake my head. "That's tempting, but no. I want to know about Everett Pine, who you pretended to not know. He had been taking drugs that you sold. Could somebody--maybe even you--have put something in the drugs he was taking?"

  "No," he says. "And that part has nothing to do with me. You should ask the editor of The Noise, Dave Barnard--"

  "I already have," I say. "Now, I want you to tell me things. There has to be something you know, Alex, or else you wouldn't have pretended that you didn't know he was the one who died."

  "I didn't want you to know that I knew who he was because I didn't know him," he says. "I barely do anything within the Brotherhood--I occasionally help out making the drugs, but I have a busy schedule. The only reason I'm part of the Brotherhood is because my father is a lawyer. There were fears early in the year that someone could find out about us, so they picked a few people who had powerful parents. Someone else’s father is the police union chief."

  I shake my head. "Why should I believe you? Everett Pine is dead and the only cause I can find is those drugs. What about Victoria? Did you ever sell her drugs? She had to be in this house all of the time."

  "Victoria didn't do drugs," he says. "You can ask anyone. She was--she was a saint. I don't know. I seriously don't know. Are you just going to keep accusing people of murder until someone confesses? I don't think it's any of my fraternity brothers, and I doubt it's anyone in the Brotherhood. They have no motive to kill both of them."

  "Give me something, Alex," I say. "You knew both of them.”

  “Barely,” he says. “Dominic would have been pissed if I had been caught talking to Tori too much and Everett was just…a guy who enjoyed drugs a little too much. It’s not like I was friends with either of them. I don’t even have their phone numbers. But…I can tell you something that might help you…as long as you don’t tell anyone that I am involved with any drugs.”

  “If your information is factual and leads me to something useful.”

  “I didn’t want to say anything the last couple of times you’ve been here, because I didn’t know if you were just…I don’t know, pretending to investigate. But I was moving some…product…across campus from the chemistry building the morning that Tori died. I saw someone leaving the building. And I heard about his alibi, so he shouldn’t have been there.”

  “How do you know that this person had an alibi?”

  “Because it was in the newspaper,” he says.

  “Who was it?”

  He hesitates. “Dr. Zimmer.”

  “No matches,” Ed Bunt mutters, sitting in front of the lab’s computer. “No fucking matches.”

  “On the senator’s case?” I ask.

  “Yes. I feel like I’ve checked every person this guy knew,” he says. “We have this perfect fingerprint that was left on the guy’s neck from being restrained, and nothing matches it. We’ve checked his family, his political opponents, his old military buddies—no matches.”

  “What about the mistress?”

  “What mistress?”

  “There’s always a mistress,” I say. “A lot of people go into politics to make their town, state, or country better, but they stay in it for the power. Those kinds of people have mistresses.”

  “Isn’t that a bit cynical?” he asks.

  “No. I just know my political history.”

  Detective Stolz walks into the office and straight over to me.

  “Tell me something,” she says, dropping a surveillance photo in front of me. “When were you going to tell me that you were having drinks with one of our suspects and then left the bar with him?”

  The photo shows John handing me my jacket as we walk out the door. It’s from the night we slept together.

  “We bumped into each other,” I say, focusing my attention on the photographs in front of me from Senator Holden’s murder. “I had already had a lot to drink and I thought the case was going to be closed. It was a mistake.”

  “What is it with you fucking people involved with my cases?” she hisses.

  “I don’t know,” I admit. “Maybe you should try it sometime.”

  She sneers at me. “You can throw all your snark at me. I don’t care. Because I already talked to the Captain. You’re done.”

  I stare at her. “You can’t fire me over this.”

  “Over this? No, I can’t, but adding everything up—John Zimmer, Andre, investigating a closed case…the Captain certainly thought it was worthy to fire you.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I ask. “I was right about Victoria’s case being a murder and you’re including that in the reason I should be punished?”

  “Mira. It’s truly nothing personal,” she says. “I just can’t have you on these cases when you could be endangering yourself and the cases…and I can’t trust that you won’t get close to a suspect and give them information from the cases that could cause them to flee or retaliate.”

  “You think I’d be that stupid?”

  “I think when a person falls in love, they make dumb decisions.”

  “I’m not in love with John Zimmer,” I say.

  “But you were with Andre and that almost ruined the case and got you killed,” she says. “Grab your things and go. There’s no point in drawing this out or trying to justify your actions to me. The Captain has already decided and he’s not the kind of man who changes his mind.”

  “You’re making a mistake.”

  “I made a decision,” she corrects. “One based on what I thought was best for the whole team. I’m sorry. This wasn’t an easy choice.”

  I want to accuse her of having it out for me, but I know that’s not true. She and I may never see eye to eye, but I know her whole life is this job and she does see me as a potential threat to her cases.

  “Fine,” I say, grabbing my jacket off the back of my chair. I’m gulping in air, trying to keep it together. I’m not going to cry or freak out—it would be so un-Mira-like. “Just don’t go making assumptions that a death was natural when you can’t determine the cause of death.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  There are so many places I want to run to as I leave the lab, but there’s only one person I feel like I can truly talk to right now. He may be my biggest regret, but he’s also the only person who I trusted with my whole truth and because of that, he knows me enough to give me what I need.

  “…yes, Sonia,” Andre’s voice murmurs. “Sonia Solano.”

  I stop at the top of the stairway and peek around the corner. Andre is on the phone, fumbling for his keys. My sister has been dead
for two decades, and he’s talking about her.

  Why?

  “I know,” he says. “But I’ve heard that you know things. I don’t…I just need to know if you know who—okay. Okay. Let me get a piece of paper and a pen. Wait one minute. Please.”

  I take several steps closer toward Andre, but he closes the door before I can reach him. I press my ear against the door, trying to hear what he's saying, but it sounds like I'm trying to hear through water. I can hear his footsteps and his voice, but I can't make sense of the words.

  I knock on the door.

  Andre's voice goes silent. I don't hear him approaching the door.

  I knock again. His footsteps come toward the door. I take a step back, but the door doesn't open. I wait.

  "One minute," he calls out, but his voice sounds closer than it had been when he stopped talking. He must have checked the peephole in the door and seen it was me.

  I wait. My chest feels like there's a cobra wrapping around my lungs, making it hard to breathe and pushing the rest of my organs so close together that it feels like I can feel every one of them pulsate with the beat of my heart.

  What the hell is going on?

  The door jerks open. Andre has a smile pasted on his face.

  "Hey," he says. "What's going on? Did you need a body guard again? I thought you didn't want me around because of the last time."

  I need to be tactful about this. Andre may be reckless, but he's not stupid.

  "Who were you talking to on the phone?" Well, I needed to be tactful, but I need a lot of things right now that aren't going to happen.

  "What?" he asks. "On the phone? Oh. It was...a telemarketer. They were selling alarm systems."

  "And you were talking about my sister?"

  "Um, I may have mentioned she was kidnapped and...maybe an alarm system could have prevented that."

  "You're a terrible liar," I say.

  "Only around you," he says. "Okay, I'll tell you. Just come in and we can--"

  "No," I say. "I'm not going to come in. Just tell me why you're talking about my sister to someone."

  "Look, I had some...connections to people that know a lot of criminals. You could call them businessmen for criminals," he says. "One of them sells cars with fake license plates, another is an arms trafficker, and I know a guy that makes the most amazing fake IDs while also using his hacking skills to ensure that these people have a record--"

  "Get to the point," I interrupt.

  "So I know it always bothered you that your killer wasn't found," he says. "And by bouncing around from person to person, I think I've found a guy who could eventually tell me who it was. Or tell me a person who will know who it was."

  "How could anyone know?" I ask. "The guy worked alone. He wasn't doing it for any criminal organization. He was just some pervert who wanted my sister for some twisted reason."

  "How do you think he evaded the police so long?" Andre asks. "My contact thinks there may have been someone paid off in the police force while the FBI was investigating, feeding them false information."

  "And you trust this source?"

  "Absolutely," he says. "This guy is rock solid. I know your probably think all criminals are bad--no honor among thieves and all--but these kinds of criminals are businessmen and it wouldn't be good for business if they didn't give me what I need."

  I cross my arms over my chest. "I didn't ask you to do this."

  He shrugs. "After things ended badly between us, I knew I had to make it up to you. So I started this a couple weeks after you stopped seeing me."

  I let out a slow breath. "I'm not going to have some enforcer knocking on my door one day, angry about you not paying them or something, right?"

  "Absolutely not," he says.

  "This doesn't change anything about our relationship."

  "I didn't expect it to," he says. "Like I said, I knew I had to make things right with you. This is my way of apologizing. I wanted to surprise you. I have a way to make sure this guy gets prison time for what he did and I thought it would make you happy if you saw him behind bars."

  "It would," I confess. "I need something like that right now."

  "Is something wrong?" he asks.

  "Stolz fired me."

  His eyebrows shoot up. "What? Why? It's not because someone saw you with me, is it?"

  I shake my head. "I made too many mistakes. Don't worry about it."

  "I know you hate when I blatantly ignore what you tell me what to do, but of course I'm going to worry." He steps aside and gestures into his apartment. "Why don't you come in? I promise I won't try anything sneaky...unless you want that."

  "I just want some hard liquor," I say, stepping inside.

  He closes the door behind me.

  "I understand--intellectually--the reason I was fired. It was the logical choice," I say, stretching out on Andre's deep red couch with a bottle of beer. "But I've been good at my job for a long time. That should count for something. What am I supposed to do now?"

  "I don't know. What do you want to do?" he asks. "What else do you like to do?"

  "Eat," I say. "Drink. Sleep."

  "When we were together, you used to make up these stories about what our future would be like," he says. "Maybe you should tell stories for a living."

  "You just want me to continue thinking about our future."

  "Well, I want you to think happy thoughts, so, yes," he says. "Maybe I do want you to think about our future."

  "Well, stop," I say. "You were willing to screw me over for profit. You don't get a second chance after that."

  "I was willing to at one point, but I fell in love with you and I didn't," he says. "That has to mean something."

  "You still have no idea what you did wrong."

  "I know perfectly well what I did wrong," he says. "Your department was investigating Tom Blackman. I flirted with you, got you to trust me by setting up a scenario where you were attacked by an asshole, but it was an act because my boss had told me to get close to you in order to figure out how far along the murder case was--or, at least, it was an act for the first few days. I fell in love with you, Mira. I don't know what else I could do to prove it to you."

  When he talks about it like that, just a recounting of the facts, it doesn’t make me angry anymore. Not like it used to. It makes me sad. "I understand what you're saying and I feel that on some level it's true," I say. "But I can't let you back into my life like that. I mean, you're still undercover--"

  "Speaking of that, I began helping the police because I felt so bad about hurting you," he interjects. "It's not exactly my lifelong dream to be a confidential informant."

  "...and I can't trust you again," I say. "How could I ever be sure that you aren't double-crossing the police? And if I can't ever be sure, how could we have a stable relationship?"

  "I assumed that love conquered all."

  "Well, you assumed wrong," I say. "The only thing that love conquers is...erectile dysfunction."

  He chuckles. "Maybe. Are you sure I can't change your mind?"

  I shake my head. "I've thought about this for a long time. I know this is the right decision."

  "But you keep coming back around here."

  "Maybe I like your apartment," I say. "It reminds me of a stripper joint that's trying to be a corporate office."

  "That is exactly what I told my interior decorator I wanted," he jokes. "I'm glad that she did so well."

  I set my beer bottle on his end table and pull a small pillow shaped like a football under my head.

  "Are you going to sleep?" he asks. "It's only six o'clock."

  "Well, I'd like to sleep for the next year," I say. "So, time is a bit irrelevant."

  “I’ve got some errands to run, but you can stay here,” he says.

  I nod, truly just wanting to sleep the rest of the day away. I’ll need to find an actual job soon, but I have enough money stashed away that I can pay next month’s rent and buy enough food to survive.

  But that�
�s not all survival is about. I’ve spent most of my life with my career pushing me forward and now I don’t have a purpose. Now I’m just a woman who sleeps before darkness falls.

  Everything feels so surreal as I linger outside of John’s office. He’s sitting in his desk chair, but he’s staring at the place where Victoria died. His head jerks up as he notices me.

  “Hey, Mira,” he says. “I heard there about the shooting on Main Street. I thought you would have been there.”

  “Really?” I ask. “You thought about me?”

  He shrugs. “You are my crime solving partner.”

  I sit down across from him and cup my chin in my hand as I lean on the armrest. “I was fired.”

  He takes in a sharp breath. “What? Why? What happened?”

  “I made enough mistakes that they didn’t think I was worth keeping,” I say. “But I need to know something right now and I need to know the truth. I’m not kidding around. If you lie to me, I’m not going to be happy.”

  “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” he says, showing his hands in a gesture of openness.

  “Why did you lie about your alibi?”

  “I didn’t,” he says. “I had a doctor’s appointment.”

  “Bullshit,” I say, standing up, feeling heat rush up to my face. I lost my damn job to this man. “I have a witness that places you here.”

  “I wasn’t here,” he insists. “I don’t have the most distinguishing features. Maybe they mistook me for someone else.”

  “Oh, please,” I say. “Come on. You’re young, blond, with that haircut—anybody would recognize you from a distance.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” he says. “I was at the appointment. It was a check-up with Dr. Wallace. You can ask him or the receptionist.”

  “Why?” I ask. “For all I know, you charmed them too. Did you purposefully get close to me because you knew you could pump me for information? Is there a sign on my back that says I’m easy to manipulate?”

  “No,” he says. “That’s not what happened. I thought you were beautiful, funny, and intriguing…and then I knew you could help me with the case. It’s two separate emotions.”