by anna snow
I watched silently as the guard led Kelly out of the interrogation room. I'd never seen her look so defeated. A part of me wanted to smack the guard over the head, grab Kelly, and run out of there as fast as our legs would carry us. Thankfully, my responsible, law-abiding side defeated my rebellious side, and I stayed rooted to the floor until the door closed.
"Are you all right?" Tyler asked quietly and wrapped his arm around my shoulders.
I nodded yes even though I felt anything but all right and leaned against him.
"Hopefully, we'll have the results from the tox screen back in a couple of days," he said.
"And if the test comes back that she was drugged? Then what?" I asked as we opened the heavy metal door and crossed the lobby to the elevator.
"I don't know," he answered as we stepped onto the elevator. He pressed the button, and the doors slid closed. "It all depends on whether the drug is a common one or not. Let's just hope the blood on her hands wasn't Mark's, and the attorney you're hiring can do something to get her out, at least on bail if she's charged."
The elevator doors dinged opened, and Tyler led me through the garage to his SUV and helped me inside. Then he got in and started the ignition.
"At this point all you have is circumstantial evidence," I said to Tyler and drummed my fingers on my pant leg. "If you don't find hard evidence indicating that she did in fact kill Mark, you'll have to drop her as a suspect. What I need before then to ensure her release is solid evidence that she's innocent. An alibi, a murder weapon with someone else's prints on it, another suspect."
But how to get the evidence we needed? Where was I even supposed to start?
I bit my bottom lip and stared out the car window. My mind was everywhere and nowhere all at the same time. Someone had killed Mark and set Kelly up to take the fall. I was sure of it, and now it was my job to figure out who was trying to hurt my friend and put the scum behind bars before it was too late.
"Barb, I know you're going to look into this," Tyler said as he pulled out of the underground garage and onto the main road. "There's no reason for me to even attempt to talk you out of it because I know it won't do a bit of good, but I am going to ask you to be careful," Tyler said gently and squeezed my hand. "Everything is going to be all right. The medical examiner has orders to contact me the moment the autopsy is finished. It's my hope he'll find something that will help rule Kelly out as the killer."
I tried to smile at him but couldn't. I had too much on my mind, so instead I squeezed his hand and leaned my head back against the leather headrest on the seat.
I had to believe everything would be all right. That I would find the scumbag who killed Mark and framed Kelly and put him behind bars for the rest of his miserable life. Because if I let my thoughts fall down the rabbit hole, my optimism that I could get Kelly out of this situation would go down with them.
I took a deep breath, smiled wanly at Tyler, and started making a plan.
Operation Free Kelly was officially underway.
CHAPTER TWO
"Oh, this isn't good," Mandy said as she handed me a cup of coffee then took a seat on the opposite end of the sofa from me while I told her all I knew about Kelly's situation. Which admittedly wasn't much. "This is so not good," she repeated and took a sip of her coffee.
The day was winding down, and darkness would soon fall. The lights of the city would light up the night sky with their colors, and couples would roam the streets hand in hand while I wracked my brain coming up with a plan to get my friend out of jail.
Tyler had dropped me off at Mandy's after leaving the station. He had assured me he would move my car to a legal parking area, and it would be fine seeing as there were cops watching the place until the rabid fans dispersed. And parking was free, unlike many other parts of the city. I'd decided I would just call a cab or catch a ride with Mandy to pick it up in a few hours when hopefully things were a little bit calmer outside Mark's building.
"I know," I said. "And it'll be days, possibly longer, before Tyler gets the results of the drug test back, and even then, the results aren't a guarantee she won't be charged. She was the last person seen leaving the apartment building. That alone is enough to make her a person of interest. If someone really is trying to frame her like I think they are, then I'm certain they made sure to cover all of their bases. If that's the case, then the blood on her hands is more than likely Mark's, and that will guarantee she gets hit with a murder charge."
"I was kind of thinking the same thing," Mandy said reluctantly and set her mug down on the coffee table in front of her.
"Tell me more about this attorney you hired for her. Does Mona trust the guy?" I asked and took a drink of my coffee.
Mandy nodded. "Mona highly recommended him. His name is Sherman Lopez. I did a little research on him, and Mona was right. He has twenty years of experience and some serious cases under his belt, including more than ten high-profile murder cases within the last five years. If anyone can get Kelly out of this, it's him, but he came with a huge price tag." She cringed.
"It's okay. Attorneys aren't cheap, especially good ones, and he sounds like he's great at what he does. I have some money saved up from our last big case. Not to mention we have quite a few more cases lined up over the next few months. We'll be fine," I assured her.
She nodded with relief. "I know. It's just such an exorbitant amount of money."
"You let me worry about that."
"Mr. Lopez said he's going to the jail to see Kelly first thing in the morning. He sounded confident he could get her out before the forty-eight-hour hold is up because the cops don't have any solid evidence." She looked hopeful then asked, "Could the autopsy possibly tell us anything that could clear Kelly's name?" She picked up the mug and sipped her coffee again.
"I don't know," I admitted. "Tyler said Mark's manner of death was pretty apparent. He was shot in the back of the head. He'll most likely be able to tell us what type of gun was used, but I don't know what else he could find," I admitted.
"This is a complete and total mess." Mandy shook her head. "How can this be happening?"
"I wish I knew." I took a drink of my coffee.
"So what are we going to do?" Mandy asked. "You and I both know that Kelly didn't kill Mark."
"Tyler doesn't believe she did either," I replied. "He felt horrible about having to take her in, but he was just doing his job. It's not like there wasn't enough for the police to want to question her."
Mandy nodded. "Well, we need to figure this out. We can't let Kelly go to prison. This is Texas. We use the death penalty like icing on a birthday cake down here." She shook her head then ran her fingers through her hair with frustration.
I sat my mug down and tapped the rim with the tip of my finger as I thought.
"Who would want Mark dead?" I asked absently. "That's the first thing we need to figure out."
Mandy scoffed. "You're kidding, right? You met the guy. He was the biggest jerk I've ever met. He was rude, sarcastic, selfish, and a complete and total liar. Kelly told me that even his band didn't like him. I think our list would be a lot shorter if we wrote down who didn't want him dead—or at least maimed."
My eyes widened with surprise. Mandy never talked down to or about anyone, which told me she was really stressed-out over the entire situation to start doing so now.
She caught my expression and sighed. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be so hateful. This whole ordeal has me on edge."
I nodded with understanding. That made two of us, but Mandy was right. I couldn't think of a single person who knew Mark personally, besides Kelly, who actually liked the guy, and I wasn't sure Kelly really even liked him. I thought she was just used to him after being with him for so long. I might not have wished him dead, but there were several times over the years after Kelly had come to me crying that I'd fantasized about holding a pillow over his face until just before the last second.
I ran through all the possibilities of where the best place to start o
ur investigation was then sat my cup on the coffee table. "We need to do whatever we can to figure out who's trying to frame Kelly, and we have to move fast. First things first, we need to find out who could have wanted Mark dead, and why."
Mandy perked up. For a moment I thought she was going to start clapping and bouncing up and down in her seat. She looked so excited.
"Where do we start?"
I was a little taken aback by her question. Mandy didn't work in the field. Ever. The one and only time I'd sent her out as a decoy she'd become so nervous she'd thrown up on our target's shoes, dropped one of our business cards out of her purse while yakking on said shoes, and had completely blown the case.
After that little fiasco, we had all decided, including Mandy, that the best place for her was in the office doing what she did best. We'd saved the lives of countless shoes thanks to our decision.
"You, I mean," Mandy corrected herself. "If I couldn't even bust a cheater, I sure as heck wouldn't be of any use in the field trying to take down a murderer." She grinned then became serious once again. "But I don't like the idea of you out there investigating a murder alone. I have confidence that you know what you're doing, but I still worry about you."
Mandy was the mother hen of the office, always worrying about everyone more than herself. But this time, she was right. With my wingwoman in jail, I'd be in the field alone, which wasn't necessarily a terrible thing. I'd dug into countless cases on my own in the past, but an extra set of eyes and ears could be useful, especially in such an important case. Many times Kelly had caught something I'd missed and vice versa.
I looked out the window at the fading light and rolled everything that had happened over the past day around in my head. It wasn't long before I was hit with what I considered a brilliant idea, but Tyler might disagree.
I hopped up off the sofa. "We'll get started first thing in the morning."
"What do you need me to do?"
"I'm going to need the names of everyone in Mark's band and if you can get them, their current addresses and phone numbers, along with the name of their manager and his or her contact information."
Whom was I kidding? Of course she could get the info I needed. She was a genius when it came to her job.
"I'm going to question the band members first and go from there. If anyone would know who wanted to kill Mark, it would be one of them." I hurried toward the door and grabbed my purse off the side table as I grasped the doorknob.
"Um, okay." Mandy got to her feet and hurried toward me with a look of confusion. "But, Barb—"
I opened the front door and headed out onto the porch and down the steps to the front yard.
"I'll meet you at the office in the morning." I was halfway across the yard, ideas of how to save Kelly's behind rolling through my mind before I realized my car was still back at Mark's.
* * *
Once Mandy caught up with me on her front lawn, she gave me a ride back to Mark's apartment building. The crowd of fans had thinned, but those still lingering were buzzing with talk of his death. I wasn't sure if the news that Kelly was a suspect had gone public yet or not, and I wasn't sticking around to find out, so I hurried to my car and sped away. Mandy trailed along behind me.
Mandy and I both lived in the smaller Dallas neighborhood of Lake Highlands near the Richardson School District. Mandy's street was full of young, hip new parents and newlyweds. It seemed like a newlywed couple or a dozen new kids popped up on the block every day, which made sense with the school so close by. Mandy loved it as she was a total people person and loved kids. I, on the other hand, lived about ten minutes away in a quieter neighborhood that was still finding its footing. My block was still full of new, mostly empty houses. My closest neighbors, two empty-nester couples who always seemed to be on vacation in their recreational vehicles and three elderlies, lived directly next door and across the street.
The neighborhood was quiet, calm, and my favorite neighbor, one of the elderlies who lived next door, Mrs. Grady, baked me a tamale casserole every Wednesday night in exchange for my help with the newspaper's weekly crossword puzzle. All in all, I thought it was a good deal. I got a tasty meal without burning down my kitchen (again), and she got a twelve-letter word for number five down without her blood pressure getting too high.
The way I saw things, it was a win-win situation.
The sun had already set, and fireflies were blinking their little green bottoms in the air over my front lawn when I finally pulled into my driveway. I killed the ignition and leaned back in my seat. I glanced over and noticed that Mrs. Grady's porch light was still on, which either meant she was still up watching a rerun of CSI or she'd fallen asleep and had forgotten to turn it off again. My guess was that she'd fallen asleep. I turned in my seat, scanned the neighborhood, and caught a glimpse of Mr. Kasmire, who lived diagonally across the street from me, peeking out of his mini blinds the way he always did when I finally dragged myself home at the end of a long workday.
Mr. Ernie Kasmire was a crotchety old geezer with thinning white hair, big bushy white eyebrows, and a permanent scowl etched on his face. He had taken it upon himself to try his best to make my life a living hell since the day I'd moved into the neighborhood a little more than six months ago.
His ancient dog, a small Chihuahua (At least I thought it was a Chihuahua. The little thing very well could've been a rat for all I knew, as it didn't always have all of its hair and often camped out in my trash can when the garbage men didn't set it back up properly. I just couldn't be sure.) named Buster, peeked out of the window beside him with the same disgruntled expression as his master. The pair really were meant for each other.
My first run-in with Buster and Mr. Kasmire hadn't exactly gone well. Mr. Kasmire and Buster had met me on my new front lawn while I was carrying in boxes. He'd given me the stink eye and tossed out some snarky comment about me living alone at thirty years old. Apparently, women were supposed to be married before they hit thirty. Who knew? A minute later Buster had taken it upon himself to pee on the brand-new sky blue Converse tennis shoes Mona had given me for my birthday. In return, I'd threatened to sneak him off to the pound when Mr. Kasmire wasn't looking. Needless to say, after that single moment we weren't each other's biggest fans.
Mr. Kasmire realized I had spotted him staring and snapped the mini blinds shut. That old man was a handful, but he was harmless. A small chuckle escaped me, and I shook my head and stepped out of the car. I hit the button on my key fob to lock my car doors and then jogged up the front porch steps of my small house.
Wishing I'd taken a page out of Mrs. Grady's handbook and left the porch light on, after a few fumbling attempts to get the key into the lock, I unlocked the door and stepped inside then reclosed and locked the door behind me. The little red blinking light on the alarm system panel started flashing, so I keyed in the pin number and waited until the light turned green. Once the light stopped flashing, I tossed my purse on the floor at the end of the sofa and headed to the kitchen.
I hated the idea of having an alarm system, but I'd kind of been kidnapped a few months earlier while working a case for my shifty ex-fiancé. Now, Tyler and my Aunt Mona, insisted I have an alarm and that it be armed at all times. It was easier to just do as they asked on this one. They were both as stubborn as mules when they thought they were right, which was practically all the time.
Pick your battles. That's what I always said. Especially when it came to those two.
I spotted my grumpy old black cat, Mickey, lounging on the back of the sofa as I passed by. He'd been my best friend and confidant since the day I adopted him more than a decade ago. I thanked the Almighty every day that he couldn't talk. Because if he could, I'd be in deep trouble the first time he got mad at me.
Mickey raised his head, blinked at me sleepily then lay back down, and closed his eyes.
"Nice to see you too." I greeted him sarcastically as I kicked off my shoes, left them where they fell, and closed the short distance to the ki
tchen. My stomach let out a rumble that would put a T. rex to shame. I hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast at the office with Mandy. It was now late evening, and after the day I'd just had, I was starving. The cool hardwood floor felt good beneath the soles of my tired feet as I padded into the kitchen and headed straight for the refrigerator and the leftover Chinese food waiting for me on the top shelf.
The paper takeout container made a quiet scuffing sound as I removed it from the fridge, slid it into the microwave, and hit the power button. Mickey's food and water dishes were empty, so I refilled them before he got it into his fuzzy little head that I was trying to starve him to death and took it upon himself to poop in my favorite shoes.
After replacing his dishes back on his skull-and-crossbones place mat by the cabinet, I washed and dried my hands. While my food popped and sizzled, making it sound like a war was going on inside my microwave, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked for any calls I might have missed. I wasn't surprised when I saw that the display was empty.
Tyler was undoubtedly hard at work on Mark's murder investigation, so I didn't expect to hear from him for the next couple of days unless there was a major break in the case before then. He was as determined as I was to prove Kelly's innocence.
The coolness of the counter seeped into my lower back as I leaned against the edge and crossed my arms over my chest. As much as I hated to admit it, Tyler was right. Kelly was looking like their main suspect.
What we needed to save Kelly was a miracle, but all we had was me.
Big difference.
Mickey wandered into the kitchen and stuck his head in his food dish, completely oblivious to my distress over my current situation. I stared down at my furry pal and smiled anyway.
One thing was for certain. Mandy was right. This case would be so much easier to solve with an extra set of eyes and ears at my disposal. But with my regular sidekick sitting in jail and Mandy being as useless as boobs on a guy when she worked in the field, I was left with only one other option.