“Abigail—”
“Leave, Axel,” she said in a very low voice. But her chin was shaking, tears creating a fine sheen over her beautiful eyes. “Just go.”
He nodded, pulling himself up with the IV pole.
“Take care of yourself,” he said as he paused in the doorway.
She wouldn’t even look at him.
Chapter 28
Springfield, Illinois
Mastiff Security
It had been a long night coordinating with the police down in Virden. They were small-town cops, just a sheriff and his one deputy, but they seemed to know what they were doing. They wanted in on the man hunt; Durango didn’t think that would be much of a problem. How much trouble could a small-town sheriff make?
He had a dozen men in the area, searching for the hitman. But from what Axel had told him, he was pretty sure the guy was long gone. He’d probably been picked up by friends, just as Axel had been. The guy who stayed behind was hit from behind while facing the still unconscious perp. It had to be the guy’s handlers.
Durango didn’t think they would see that man again. But caution told him to keep Ms. Rains in a safe house for the next week or so, just to give his men time to come to the same conclusion.
To give Axel a little peace of mind.
And then Durango got home to find the disaster the cops had left. The door was unlocked, most of the drawers and shelves were wiped clean of the few things he’d managed to get in them. He was almost grateful he’d never fully moved in here—or anywhere, really, since Sarah’s death—because it would have given the cops more satisfaction in destroying his things. But it was messy enough. He spent half the night putting things to right, trying not to think about Kyle. Then he took a few of the pills his doctor had prescribed for him to help him sleep after Sarah. He didn’t take them often, but they helped when he did.
* * *
He drove to the office the next morning in a mood, not sure he was up for the reception that would be waiting for him. Kyle’s murder had opened the nightly news on all the local stations. And her picture was front and center on the front page of the local paper. Local business woman murdered, the headline read. There was no way anyone could miss that.
Local business woman. Kyle was so much more than that.
Up until the moment he parked his car in the garage under the building, Durango wasn’t sure he wanted to go to work. But the idea of sitting alone at home with nothing to do but obsess over Kyle’s death was just as unpleasant.
He could feel the change of atmosphere the moment the elevator opened on the top floor, the executive floor. The receptionist was blowing her nose, her eyes reddened by her tears. He bowed his head in her direction before going down the hall, trying to avoid anyone else. But they were all standing out in the hall, talking in shocked whispers. The whispers stopped as they spotted him. They turned and moved back against the walls to watch him pass. The whispers began again as soon as he passed.
Just like old times.
A dark-haired woman was sitting at the desk outside his office, typing furiously on the computer. Durango didn’t remember hiring a new assistant, but it was a relief to see he wouldn’t have to handle any interviews today.
“There’s a Detective Hyde and Detective Fedor in your office, Mr. Masters.”
He paused outside the door. Now he understood the whispers a little better.
With a deep breath, he walked into his own office, his sanctuary that had been invaded by these fools who thought he would be capable of murdering Kyle.
“What can I do for you, Detectives?”
“We’re here to speak with your employees,” Detective Hyde said almost apologetically. But Detective Fedor had this big smile on his face. “We’ve come by your office as a courtesy.”
“Talk to anyone you want. My employees will be more than happy to cooperate.”
“We’d also like access to Ms. Peters’ office.”
Durango had suspected that was the true reason for this visit. He’d also known it would be a request that would come sooner or later.
“The keys seem to be missing,” Fedor added. “We spoke to the janitor downstairs and checked in with human resources. We also checked Ms. Peters’ personal things and no keys. You wouldn’t happen to know where they are, would you?”
Durango shrugged. “She had to have them with her if the door’s locked. Have you checked her car?”
“We have,” Hyde said. “Everything.”
“I don’t know what to tell you.”
Fedor rolled his eyes, clearly having decided that Durango had the keys. He did. But he had no intention of handing them over until he had a chance to look around her office himself.
“We can get the fire department in here with a hatchet,” Fedor said.
Durango nodded slowly, burying his fingers in the front pockets of his slacks as he did. “You could. I can have my lawyers sue the department for harassment. And if you touch me after that, so much as come within a half mile of me, you’ll have to explain yourself to a judge.”
Fedor’s eyes darkened. He stepped toward Durango, but Hyde touched his arm, pulling him back.
“If you could look for the keys, we’d appreciate it. Otherwise, we’ll have to get a warrant and come back with a locksmith.”
“I understand.”
There was a knock on the door before anything else could be said, especially the venom that was clearly on Fedor’s tongue. He was a lot like Detective Petrovich, the guy who’d been hell bent on railroading Durango after Sarah’s murder. Fedor had already decided Durango was guilty, and he was going to make damn sure he paid the price.
“Mr. Masters?”
Durango turned, not happy to see Gracie standing in the doorway. Her eyes moved from him to the two detectives, concern burning in her slightly magnified, pretty eyes.
“Have I come at a bad time?”
“And you are?” Fedor demanded.
“She’s Gracie Colson. She works in human resources,” Durango answered for her.
Hyde stepped forward, a gentle smile on her face. She was a chameleon, changing her expression to fit her needs. Gracie returned the smile hesitantly as she pulled the files she was carrying close to her chest.
“I’m Detective Donna Hyde, Ms. Colson. My partner, Detective John Fedor, and I are investigating the death of Kyle Peters.”
Gracie nodded, her bottom lip trembling slightly. “I heard about that last night.”
“It’s tragic,” Hyde agreed. “If I could just ask you a few questions? Would that be all right?”
Gracie shot a look at Durango, trying unsuccessfully to hide it behind the gesture of pushing her glasses higher up on her nose.
“Don’t look to him for permission,” Fedor barked. “We can compel you to answer questions even if he tells you differently.”
“It’s okay, Gracie,” Durango said, moving back away from her. “It’s routine.”
He perched on the edge of his desk and watched, wondering what the hell Gracie might tell them.
“Have you ever seen Ms. Peters and Mr. Masters arguing?”
Fuck!
Gracie walked right into this office on Saturday night and heard the tail end of his argument with Kyle. If she told them what she heard, it would look bad. Especially since Durango had no real alibi for the murder that took place less than five hours after that argument.
Gracie didn’t even look at him as she answered. “No. Never.”
“Seriously?” Fedor asked.
“They always got along. Better than any boss I’ve ever had. I worked for this one guy who yelled at—”
“We don’t need to know your work history.”
Hyde glanced at her grumpy partner, gesturing subtly with her head. He immediately turned away, moving behind Durango’s desk to look out the expansive window there.
“When was the last time you saw Ms. Peters,” Hyde asked Gracie.
“Saturday night.”
�
��Where?”
“Here.” She glanced at Durango then. “I came up to give Mr. Masters a list of potential applicants for his assistant opening.”
“He has an assistant sitting out there,” Fedor pointed out.
“Yes, well, after everything that happened this weekend, I thought it would be best to hire a temp to help Mr. Masters with any extra work he might have today.” Tears made Gracie’s eyes glisten. “I imagined Ms. Peters . . . her being gone would create issues.”
“That’s thoughtful,” Fedor said, but it was clear he wasn’t saying it as a compliment.
“When you brought the list to Mr. Masters, Ms. Peters was here?” Hyde asked, pulling the conversation back on track. “Were they arguing?”
“No.”
“Did you hear what they were talking about?”
“A gala on Friday night that Ms. Peters attended. She was explaining to Mr. Masters why attending those parties is important.”
“But she wasn’t angry?”
“No.” Gracie brushed a piece of hair from her face to wipe away a tear without bringing attention to the movement. But Durango didn’t miss it. “It was a normal conversation. No raised voices. And they were teasing each other. They have that kind of relationship.” She paused, her face crumbling a little. “Had.”
Hyde touched her arm lightly. “I understand that this is difficult. Just a few more questions.”
Gracie nodded.
“Did you see Ms. Peters leave Saturday night?”
“Yes. Right after I came into the office.”
“What time was that?”
She shrugged. “Around six, six-thirty.”
“Do you often work that late on a Saturday?” Fedor demanded.
“No. But Mr. Masters is notorious for losing assistants, and it’s my job to find appropriate applicants. That’s what I was doing.”
“What was Ms. Peters mood when she left that night?” Hyde continued. “Was she upset? Did she say where she was going?”
“No and no. She was like always: happy. I assumed she was going home to be with her girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend?”
Gracie tilted her head to one side. “She had a live-in girlfriend. Leslie.”
“They broke up,” Durango informed everyone. “She told me Friday.”
“That’s too bad,” Gracie said softly.
An awkward silence fell over the room. Both detectives seemed a little out of their comfort zone. Did they not know Kyle was a lesbian? Isn’t that something they should have known?
Gracie cleared her throat. “I should get back downstairs. My supervisor will wonder where I am.” She held up the files she’d been holding this whole time. “More potential applicants, Mr. Masters.”
Durango pushed away from the desk and went to her, his fingers brushing hers as he took the files. “Thank you, Gracie.”
She looked up at him, her eyes still filled with tears. She studied his face, those glasses making her eyes seem so big, so beautiful. He had this sudden urge to caress her pale cheek, to take away some of the grief he saw in her eyes. But he couldn’t, not in front of these detectives.
Any show of weakness would increase the detectives’ attention, would give them a lead they would chase until it completely unraveled. He couldn’t allow them to do that to Gracie.
He couldn’t allow them to do that to him.
“Thank you, Ms. Colson,” Detective Hyde said as Gracie headed for the door. Gracie didn’t respond but kept walking until she’d disappeared behind the office door.
“If you’re done with me, I need to get to work as well,” Durango said, turning to face Fedor.
“We’ll be around.” Fedor assured him.
“No problem.”
Durango watched them leave, counting to ten as they moved out of his line of vision. Then, as calmly as he could manage, he walked around the desk and took the key to Kyle’s office out. Now was as good a time as any.
His temp looked up at him as he walked by her desk, but didn’t seem to have anything to say to him. He walked around to the back corridor so that he wouldn’t run into the whispering mourners. Kyle’s office was on the opposite side of the floor from him. She’d wanted it that way because she thought they would just distract each other if their offices were too close to each other’s.
“I just can’t resist you, babe,” she’d told him with one of those flirty smiles.
God, he was going to miss her!
He checked the corridor, looking for any witnesses before unlocking the door. He stepped inside and pulled the door closed behind him, enveloped by Kyle’s smell. It was like a kick in the balls. He had to take a couple of deep breaths before he could pull himself together enough to do what he needed to do.
Durango began with her desk, searching the drawers for anything and everything. If Kyle knew her killer, the evidence would be here. This office was her whole world. She spent more time here than at home or with her parents. And if she knew her killer, he needed to find the evidence before the police so that he could follow up on it. He wanted to find the killer before they did.
He had business with this guy.
Kyle kept almost everything on her computer—her appointments and important phone numbers—but he did find little scraps of paper here and there that she’d scribbled notes on before inputting the information into her phone or computer. A few phone numbers, a note about the gala this past Friday. Something with a bunch of initials that he didn’t have time to decipher. Durango shoved every piece of paper he thought might have value into his pockets.
He moved quickly, afraid that if the detectives caught him they would assume it was an admission of his guilt. It wasn’t. He wanted to find the killer and end this once and for all. This man had taken everything that mattered to Durango. And he was trying to do it again. There was no way in hell he was going to allow that to happen.
He searched everything he could think of, but all he found was those scraps of paper. He was about to leave when he saw something sticking out from the corner of the bookshelf. Curious, he walked over and dug through the books until he was able to snag the item between his fingers. It was a picture she’d probably meant to put into a frame but had put aside and forgotten. But he knew the moment he saw it would have been important to her.
It was from about six months ago, a picture taken at a charity event that Durango had managed to drag himself to. Billy, his stepbrother, had been visiting and agreed to go even though it would mean a circus of press and everything else that came with his fame. The picture was just before they left for the party, all of them dressed in their best, their arms around each other and laughter brightening their expressions. He remembered that night vividly. It was one of the most enjoyable nights he’d had since . . . well, since the Harrison Strangler burst into his life.
He slid the picture into his pocket and took that with him, too.
Maybe there’d be something among the scraps of paper that would mean something to him. Maybe . . . he needed to find this killer.
He walked cautiously back to his office, carefully closing the door behind him. All the computers here at Mastiff were connected—Kyle’s idea—so he could remotely log into Kyle’s, and she was always able to do the same with his, which was probably why she constantly complained that he didn’t put anything on the hard drive beyond the reports that required uploading. He quickly downloaded her calendar events and everything else he thought might be pertinent. The police would confiscate her computer, but they had to get a warrant to confiscate his.
Durango tried to think of anything else he needed to do before the cops did their damage. It wasn’t that hard to move back into that frame of mind, the logical one that had propelled his police career up through the ranks with impressive speed. But emotions were still clogging the mechanism.
He couldn’t let his emotions get in the way this time. It brought him down before. He wasn’t going to allow it to do it this time.
He was goi
ng to get this man if it was the last thing he ever did.
Chapter 29
Springfield, Illinois
Lincoln Medical Center
Abigail was beyond exhausted. She couldn’t sleep. Her body hurt everywhere. And she couldn’t stop thinking about Axel.
It was Tuesday morning now. It seemed odd to realize that all these things—the call from Mrs. Philips, the trek to the barn, the hitman—had all happened in such a small window of time. She’d been in this damn hospital longer than she’d been with Axel, running from the killer. But it felt like a lifetime.
She pulled herself up and scratched around the edges of the bandage on her thigh. It itched like crazy where the wound was, but they kept telling her if she scratched at it, she would tear the stitches and that would require more time in this hospital bed. They assured her the wound wasn’t as bad as it had originally appeared. There’d been a lot of bleeding, suggesting a major blood vessel had been nicked. But it turned out that she was just a bleeder. The bullet was right near the surface and it didn’t take but a minute for the surgeon to find it and remove it.
She was going to have a nice scar, on her thigh and her forehead, but her life had never been in serious danger.
That was easy for them to say! They hadn’t been out there, hadn’t heard that man’s voice, hadn’t seen the insane look in his eyes.
Her thoughts were such a jumble she wasn’t sure she would ever have a coherent thought again. She’d wanted to call Ali and apologize for what had happened during dinner, wanted to apologize for the truck. She wanted to call Karen and ask her to check on the animals for her if she could. She wanted . . . there were so many things she needed to do, but she couldn’t. First, there was no phone in her room. Second, her thoughts were so full of Axel that she couldn’t think of much more.
How could he speak to her the way he had? She saw the concern in his eyes, knew that he was truly worried about her. But then he gave her this line about how they can’t be together. What the hell was that? Was he kidding her? Talk about bad timing, let alone the insult of suggesting she’d taken his behavior to mean something it wasn’t. If it wasn’t what she thought it was, then what the hell was it? When had he ever suggested he wasn’t interested in something a little long-term?
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