by KaLyn Cooper
From three different angles, an average sized man wearing dark slacks and a dark windbreaker walked down the sidewalk then turned toward the Davis’s house. His hair was covered in a baseball cap, pulled low over his eyes which were covered by sunglasses. None of the videos showed the front door. The timestamp on all three was exactly the same.
“We know that this man approached the house, but we have no idea if he knocked or simply walked in. I’m not sure if you’re aware, or if Mrs. Davis even knew, but her entire security system had been compromised. For instance, the front door didn’t lock all the time.”
“What the hell?” Teagan shook her head. “No. Marsha and I had a arrangement. I’d wait at the door until I heard the three chirps which meant system was armed. It became second nature to us after Gabe left. She was very afraid of being in the house alone.”
“Oh, it beeps, but the locks don’t always slide into place. Inside the house, it would have seemed as though she’d armed the system. When the code actually locked the doors, those times were recorded by the security company and the backup system inside the house. Then, as though by magic, certain doors would unlock. It happened while we were working in the house. We thought there was a fault within the system.” He went on to explain, “Several of the men I work with are experts in installing and maintaining residential security systems and initially they were baffled. When they started tracing individual lines, they discovered the entire house could be unlocked remotely.”
“Was that something Gabe set up so that he could come and go as he pleased?” Micah suggested.
“Doubtful.” Tony took what looked like a key fob for an electronic start car and clicked it. Everyone heard the deadbolt slide. “Unlocking this door didn’t record anywhere, not with the security company nor on the internal system.”
This seemed to greatly interest Matthew. “What you’re saying is that somebody with knowledge of the Davis’ security system unlocked the door and simply walked in.”
“Yes.” He pointed toward the closed garage doors. “With the big doors down, no one can see whether there’s a car parked in there or not. Even if someone walked around to the man door on the far side, it’s so dark in there, and Marsha’s car is navy blue, the intruder may not have realized that she was in the house. “
“So, you’re not thinking premeditated murder.” Matthew crossed his powerful arms over his chest.
“No. I’m not. I don’t believe the intruder came here to murder her.” Alvarez man opened the door. “Here’s why.”
They all stepped into the foyer.
Tony pointed up the steps. “Marsha is on the second floor all the way back in the master bedroom, in and out of the closet.” He pulled a picture of the master bedroom out of his black backpack. “As you can see, several bags are already filled with men’s clothes. It looked as though she was in the process of filling this one. Notice the haphazard way the suit is laying on the bed. We believe she tossed it there. I’m going to circle back to this in a minute.”
“Our intruder had disabled the system. No code was entered according to the records. We think he believes he’s alone in the house. The intruder has been here before and knows the layout.” Tony headed down the hall and everyone followed him into the office. He pulled several large photographs from the backpack. “At some point, the safe gets open. In our opinion, the intruder opened the safe.”
“What makes you think the intruder didn’t go find Marsha and force her to open it?” Logan asked.
“Two things jumped out. First, the keypad on the safe had been wiped down. Why wipe her fingerprints off the buttons? Law enforcement would expect to find them there. Second, the 1911 gun. Had she opened the safe, she would have instantly grabbed for her gun, which by the way, has a bullet in the chamber and her fingerprints on it, although it had been cleaned since it was last shot.” He spread several photographs across the cherry cabinets that ran along the left-hand side under the bookshelves that reached to the ceiling. Other than the new carpet, it was the only flat surface left in the empty room.
Teagan quit breathing. All she could do was stare at the lifeless body that had once been her roommate, her best friend. She had been Marsha’s maid of honor. She’d introduced Marsha to Gabriel.
“It’s all my fault,” Teagan mumbled as a ton of invisible bricks fell on her.
Logan whipped her around so she couldn’t look at the pictures. He cupped her face with his large hands and forced her to look up into whiskey colored eyes. “Breathe,” he insisted.
She tried but could only manage small sips.
“Dig deep. Find that cold-blooded pilot called Ice-T.” Logan didn’t blink. “Where’s that woman who flew into a hot zone, guns blazing to push back the enemy, allowing that SEAL team to drag two injured sailors into her chopper? Find that woman.”
Yeah, that had been her and the greatest damn crew on the fucking planet. There was no way in hell she was going to let that radical cell continue to wound any more good men. She’d known exactly what her helicopter could do, if pushed. And that night she’d pushed it to its limits to save those seven men.
Logan held her gaze captive. “Breathe in.”
She had already buried Marsha. She could do this. She managed half a lungful.
“Now out slowly.” Logan’s words were kind and tender.
Teagan obeyed. Without his command, she filled her lungs. And again. As her blood soaked with oxygen, she refilled her courage. Her determination grew proportionately. In a combat zone, she’d been fearless. She would do whatever it took to succeed, especially when it came to helping others. What she needed to do now, was help find Marsha’s killer.
She saw her resolve reflected in Logan’s eyes. She’d pulled her shit together and he knew it.
Logan smiled. “There’s my girl.”
Before she could protest that she wasn’t his girl, he laid his lips on hers in a soft, sweet kiss.
What was I going to say? Her mind was suddenly blank.
Logan no longer filled her vision. “You can do this.” His voice sounded so far away, as though it were just an echo in her mind.
“Would you feel better sitting in the car and waiting for me there?” Logan asked.
That was all it took. Anger and determination shot through her veins.
“I’m not some recalcitrant child to be sent to the car. I had a minor shock seeing my best friend for over two decades lying dead with a bullet hole in her head.” She slammed her fists on her hips. “Forgive me. It took me a few minutes to wrap my head around the situation. Now, let’s continue with the briefing.”
“That’s the Ice-T we all know and love.” Micah stepped over and gave her a one-armed hug. “Nice to have you back.”
“Ma’am, I’m terribly sorry for your loss.” Tony looked embarrassed. “I thought…everyone else here had been to the murder scene.”
Teagan absolutely hated being the center of attention. The only thing that was worse, was being pitied. “Okay, Tony, let’s just proceed. You left off where someone was in this office and had opened the safe.”
“Yes.” The owner of the Alvarez agency picked up a picture of the master bedroom. “It’s our belief that Marsha heard something downstairs and went to check it out.” He pointed to the ceiling. “Their bedroom is directly above this office. We believe she discovered someone in here. She must have recognized him, and that’s why he killed her. He must not have known that she shot left-handed.
“That may have been his biggest mistake,” Logan pointed out.
“No.” Tony dragged out the word. “He may have made an even bigger mistake, but I’ll come back to that one.”
He tapped on his tablet for a minute then showed the video of the man exiting. “He was in this house for exactly twelve minutes, forty-two seconds.”
“He didn’t run,” Micah noted. “I’d say he tried to look as casual as possible and succeeded.”
“He’s a pro,” Matthew suggested.
�
�We agree.” Tony ran the video again. “He was very careful to look away so none of the cameras got a good shot. We’ve enhanced this video several times, several different ways, and can’t get any facial features. All I can tell you is that he is approximately five feet, eleven inches, and wears a size ten shoe.”
“Okay, he did several things right.” Logan cocked his head to one side. “What’s the big mistake he made?”
Tony’s gaze went directly to Teagan. “When was the last time Ashley Helms visited her sister?”
“Months.” Then Teagan thought again. “Hell, it may have been over a year ago. Marsha and Gabe used to fight about Ashley. She’d show up here at the house with some very unsavory men claiming she owed them money. Marsha would give her money, then Ashley and the man, or men, would leave. Gabe didn’t like the fact that these men knew they kept cash in the house.”
Teagan tried to put dates to the occurrences. “The last straw came when Ashley showed up on their doorstep, beat to hell. They took her in and about two days later, while Marsha was taking the children to school, Gabe watched on his phone as Ashley took several expensive items and walked out. Gabriel was still living here then, so that had to be at least eleven months ago, probably even longer than that.”
She looked at the private detective. “Why do you ask?”
He pulled a close-up picture of a handprint on the corner of the desk. “We found Ashley Helms’ full handprint on the desk and several of her fingerprints inside the safe.” He then picked up the tablet and five seconds later showed them video of Ashley moving quickly up the walkway to the house, looking nervously side-to-side. The timestamp showed this was two minutes after the mystery man left.
“So, Ashley may have seen him?” Teagan was shocked. “And that little bitch didn’t call the cops after she found her sister dead?”
“Given what I found, that might actually have been a good thing. I had plenty of time to take pictures on my own before the locals showed up.” Matthew hit the button to show the next video. They watched her sprinting across the lawn toward the neighbor on the right, stop at the hedge separating the two homes, and throwing up.
“She actually got sick the first-time off camera. My team thought that perhaps one of the uniformed cops had thrown up in the bushes at the bottom of the steps, but upon further investigation, we’re quite sure it was Ashley.” He stopped the video. “She has something in her right hand as she left. She came in empty-handed.”
“Any idea what it is?” Micah asked.
“We’re working on that.” Tony reassured everyone. “Fingerprints from her left hand were on the shelf below the stacks of money. Our best guess is that she took at least one stack of bills. Given that the others were in one thousand-dollar packets of mixed denominations, we figure she walked away with at least a thousand dollars.”
“I thought she was supposed to be in rehab?” Logan mentioned.
“She was,” Teagan agreed. “Her parents even thought she was there. I guess she didn’t care enough about her sister to show up for the funeral.”
“According to the records at the rehabilitation center, she had checked herself out the morning of the murder.” Tony looked intently at Teagan. “Do you think Ashley is capable of murder? Could she have shot her sister and stage it as a suicide?”
“I never met the woman,” Teagan confessed. “Marsha talked about her quite often, but I personally never met her. I would say that’s a question for her counselors at the rehab center.”
“That’s on our list of possible leads.” Tony said. “Would she have known that Ashley shot left-handed?”
“I doubt it.” Teagan shook her head. “Marsha and I started shooting together while in flight school. It wasn’t until we helped with a class for women at a local range about five years ago that she discovered she was left eye dominant. The instructor took some time after the class to give each of us some personal coaching.”
“Do you know where Ashley is now?” Micah asked.
“Yes. She’s back in the same rehabilitation center that she left the day of the murder. She checked herself back in about ten days ago.” Tony looked chagrined. “We haven’t been able to talk to her. We did, though, turn over all our findings to Defective, I mean Detective Russo.”
Everyone snickered.
“I’m sorry,” Tony grimaced. “Freudian slip.”
“No problems, brother, we feel the same way about him.” Logan smacked Tony on the back. “Now you know why we hired you.”
“Dickhead or not, he has the authority to get past the privacy bullshit and question her.”
Teagan snorted. “Do you think he’s going to do that?”
Tony grinned. “Yep.” He looked directly at Matthew. “When someone as high up in the CIA as Gabriel Davis is murdered by a terrorist, then his wife is murdered days later, the local police department gets a lot of heat. Since you guys hired us, we’ve been providing Detective Russo with loads of information. Thankfully, he’s agreed to share his findings with us.”
Teagan’s phone buzzed with the text. “The real estate agent will be here in five minutes.”
“Do you have anything else for us?” Logan asked.
“No. I’ve given you everything we have so far. Be assured, we’re still pulling on several threads.” Tony slid his tablet into the backpack. “We’re working this one hard. We’ll all keep in touch.”
“Could you forward those video clips to me, please” Matthew grinned. “I’ll have Clarence, my computer geek, run them through a few of our programs.”
Tony gave him a knowing grin. “Check your email in ten minutes. I’m sure you’ll share anything you discover.”
“Of course.” Matthew agreed.
Teagan, Micah, and Matthew shook Tony’s hand on his way past and thanked him.
“I’ll walk you out.” Logan put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “When this is over, you’ll have to bring Sherrie and that new baby boy down to Topsail Island and hang out on the beach with us for a few days.”
“We’ll be sure to do that.” Their voices faded down the hallway.
“Do you think the sniper who shot Gabe did this?” Micah stared at the photographs.
“Possibly.” Matthew said. “He came here looking for something. I think I agree with Tony, Marsha surprised him and recognized him. She was collateral damage.” He looked at Teagan. “Have you had a chance to go through the contents of the office and the safe deposit boxes?”
“Yeah, and I didn’t find anything that I would consider a clue.” She took them one at a time. “The safe deposit box he had the longest, contained coin collections. Several of the coins were from the eighteen hundreds, so I photographed them and sent them to a collector recommended by an old friend. He’s still evaluating them. In the next one, I found a bag of diamonds. I took those to a local GIA certified jeweler who appraised them right there in front of me. I wasn’t going to let those diamonds out of my sight. He said they were all of the highest quality, FL grade, and natural diamonds. Wholesale they’re worth $1.3 million.”
She remembered the day that she and Logan had entered the bank in Jacksonville together to get a new safe deposit box. He had an account there since the first time he was assigned to Force Recon as a fresh-faced Marine second lieutenant. They’d received several side glances from the women who worked behind the tall counter, especially when Logan reaffirmed, twice, that he and Teagan were neither engaged, nor married. Just friends. They couldn’t understand why they would want a joint safe deposit box. In truth, it wasn’t any of their fucking business.
“Lots of covert operators prefer diamonds to cash or investments.” Matthew continued to explain, “They’re easily transportable, rarely ever in history have natural diamonds lost their value, and nobody keeps track of them, yet they can be quickly traded on the black market.”
“You’re just going to hold onto them for the kids?” Micah asked.
Teagan nodded. “For now.” She continued with the in
ventory. “In Gabriel’s third safe deposit box, were the passports that I have for you in the car, Matthew.”
He didn’t bother looking guilty. “We provide all of our agents several means of escaping countries.” He grinned. “I’ve been a citizen of a dozen countries, according to my passport at that time”
She continued, “We’re going to hang onto the cash from the various countries. As you said, Matt, you never know when it might come in handy. As for Marsha’s safe deposit box, it contained her’s and the children’s passports, their birth certificates, which were necessary for us to register them from school, vehicle titles, a copy of her previous will, and that’s about it.”
“What about the contents of the desk?” Micah asked.
Logan answered as he walked back into the room. “I checked through all of that. I forwarded a few things on the Matthew, but there wasn’t much.”
“Same with the computer that sat on the desk in this room,” Matthew reported. “Clarence was never able to figure out where the suicide message originated, just that it wasn’t typed on that keyboard but sent in from an outside source. Everything else on that computer was standard shit we all keep. He had nothing work related.”
The doorbell rang.
Logan quickly pulled up the security app on his phone and saw the person on the porch. “It’s the realtor.”
“I need to get back to work,” Matthew said as he headed out the office door. “I’ll see you two back at the house tonight.”
“I need to check in with my office,” Micah said as he followed Matthew. “I heard Elizabeth was cooking so I’ll see you at supper.”
Chapter Fifteen
Logan slid behind the wheel. “Well, that’s good news. At least the house will be up for sale by this time next week.”
“Good to know this is a highly sought-after neighborhood,” Teagan added. “I hope it sells quickly. Her suggestion of painting and new carpet sounded like a great idea.” She reached over and touched his forearm. “I’m so glad you were there. I had no idea about painting and carpet costs.”