“You can’t talk me out of it, Colin. It’s the only way I know of to catch the killer and get her to stop shooting at me.”
“Sheesh, Emily. You are the most stubborn woman I’ve ever known.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said with her usual bit of sarcasm.
“When and where is this shindig going down?” he asked. She could hear the concern that lined his voice.
“Seven o’clock at Evan’s office.”
“I’ll meet you there at six-thirty. I’m not letting you do this alone.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
Chapter 26
Emily entered the office around six o’clock. She purposely showed up early, figuring since she was going to be down there anyway, she might as well take the extra time to search through Evan’s things—something she had put off far too long. Colin had kindly offered to do this chore for her next week, but she had time and incentive so she kicked off her shoes and slipped them under the desk, ready to begin.
The orange glow of the setting sun was beginning to color the sky and soon it would be dark, but Emily left the lights off, not wanting to expose herself as a sitting duck. Being shot at twice in one week was more than enough for her liking.
As she got comfortable in the desk chair, facing the door, she glanced around the room. Maybe she should make this her office now. Could she live with the memory of Evan’s murder in this place? If she solved this case, surely there would be others that would come her way if she decided to promote herself as a private eye.
She grasped a drawer handle, and sucked in a big breath, ready to go through his old metal desk. She hadn’t wanted to do that after he died. She hadn’t wanted to be anywhere near that office, actually. But now that she was here, maybe she might find something that could be a clue to his death, something Tolliver had overlooked. Maybe she could find answers—closure.
Pulling all the drawers out one at a time, she snaked her hand all the way back, feeling around in the rear corners. Then she ran her hand along the edges and underside of the drawers. She was coming up empty handed.
Emily slumped in the chair, defeated. A part of her had been desperate to believe there would be something—anything—that had been missed during the initial search. She leaned back further and crossed her legs under the desk. “What the—”
She reached under the center pencil drawer and felt a hard object. Emily traced the shape of it with her fingertips. It felt like a gun strapped to the bottom with some type of heavy tape. She got down on her knees to get a better look and pull it free. Evan must have kept it under there as backup in an emergency.
She was about to begin working to un-tape the gun when it occurred to her that she should probably show it to Colin just the way she found it. As she eased up from under the desk, headlights flashed across the windows. That must be Colin. Emily checked the time. He’s early.
He didn’t want her doing this alone, he had said, in his protective vibrato. Evan used to sound that way too, Emily remembered, but Colin had more reason. Emily had never felt her life was in danger before, but in retrospect, maybe Evan knew something she didn’t—what with all the secrets he was keeping from her.
The sun had now sunk below the horizon, no more fiery orange to light the room. The office was almost dark, lit only by a small sliver of moonlight shining through the windows. Emily perched back in the desk chair to wait for Colin. She heard the main door to the building squeak open and then shut.
The opaque glass in the door revealed a shadowy figure out in the dimly lit hallway. It approached the door and stopped.
“Colin?”
The figure stood there, unmoving. What is he doing? The doorknob rattled and squeaked as it turned.
“Stop playing around and come in.” Emily tried to keep her voice light, convincing herself it was Colin’s idea of a bad joke, still she kept her eyes riveted on the door.
A tiny strip of yellow light cut the darkness as the door opened just a crack.
“Colin?”
Emily’s thudding heart threatened to drown out all other sounds in the room. “This isn’t funny,” she whispered to herself, “you’re scaring me.”
The door slowly swung all the way open and then quickly shut as someone walked through. Emily’s eyes did not have a chance to focus with the short burst of light from the single incandescent bulb out in the hall and now it was too dark to make out who was there.
It was too short to be Colin, she knew that much. She squinted and stared harder. It looked like a woman with dark hair that hung around her shoulders. Anna or Delia? She couldn’t be sure. Colin, where are you?
“Where’s the evidence?” the woman said gruffly.
The voice didn’t belong to Anna or Delia—familiar, but she couldn’t place it.
“What evidence?” Emily replied with an innocent lilt, stalling for time. Come on, Colin. Hurry!
“Don’t get smart with me!” the shadowy woman snapped back.
A quick flash of light caught Emily’s attention and she blinked and squinted. It was moonlight glinting off a pistol the woman wagged. Her heart skipped in rapid succession as her mind flew to the gun taped under the desk drawer. Surely it had to be loaded. She couldn’t imagine Evan would leave it there empty. What would be the point? She had to keep this person talking, to buy time to dislodge the gun.
“I, I’m not—I just,” Emily stammered as her fingers worked at the heavy tape, but time had only strengthened the adhesive.
The woman stepped forward, and by the streak of moonlight, Emily could tell her gun was aimed right at her. “Get it now!”
With the distance between them closed, Emily could make out the woman’s face. She gasped in surprise. “You murdered Ricardo?”
“I said get it!”
“But why, Marcela? Why would you kill Ricardo? I don’t understand.” Emily continued to work at the tape.
“I guess there’s no harm in telling you now.”
The iciness in Marcela’s voice sent chills up Emily’s spine as she realized that Marcela’s willingness to talk meant she planned to kill her. It was also likely she was the one who had shot at her the day before. She’d already stabbed Ricardo to death, what did she have to lose now? In fact, she stood to gain by Emily’s death—she believed that Emily was the only one that had seen the supposed DNA evidence, and with that and Emily gone, Marcela would be safe. No one so much as suspected her. Delia would go to prison and the maid would get away with murder—twice.
Emily picked furiously at the tape, trying not to alert her assailant to her actions, all the while praying for Colin to arrive.
“Ricardo and I were having an affair,” Marcela said.
“I thought he was having an affair with Anna Petrova?” Emily interjected, trying to distract her and keep her talking.
“At the time, I didn’t know about that other woman. Ricardo always said he wanted to be with me.”
Emily heard the tightness in Marcela’s throat as her voice cracked with emotion, but then the harsh edginess she had come in with returned. “Once his wife was out of the way, we would be together, he said.”
“Out of the way?” Had Ricardo shared his plan to have his wife killed?
“You know—dead.” Marcela spoke without emotion.
So Marcela knew about Ricardo’s plan, but she clearly didn’t realize he considered her expendable as well. Emily decided to keep that revelation to herself. This certainly was not the time to say something that would push this woman over the edge she was clinging to.
“But Delia told me that you and Ricardo hardly spoke to each other.”
“Well, not in front of her. It was our little game, so she wouldn’t know. But when she was gone on business trips, we’d have the house all to ourselves. There probably wasn’t a single room in that house that we hadn’t made love in.”
“So why did you stab him, if you loved him as much as you say?”
“I told you.
I didn’t know about the other woman he was seeing. When I found out he was cheating on me—and she was pregnant! I went loca.”
“That must have been very difficult to hear, Marcela.”
“I know what you’re trying to do!” Wagging the gun in Emily’s face, Marcela seemed to refocus on why she had come. “Now you stop talking and get me the evidence so we can get this over with.”
“I don’t have it,” Emily admitted, “at least not here.” The gun was refusing to come loose from the drawer. What if she wasn’t able to keep stalling until Colin arrived? Emily shuddered.
“What do you mean?” Marcela asked, her voice rising. “You said you had evidence that would prove who the killer was!”
“I did say that.”
“Then where is it?” Marcela looked around manically.
“Standing right in front of me. You are the proof, Marcela.”
Her face took on a look of surprise, the moonlight reflecting in the whites of Marcela’s eyes. She stepped closer, forcing the gun right up to Emily’s chest. “Are you trying to make a fool out of me?” Marcela snapped. “We’re done talking.”
“Don’t do this, Marcela,” Emily pleaded. “The police are on their way. You’ll never get away with it.”
“It’s too late! You know who I am, what I’ve done. I’m not going to jail again!”
“Again?”
“I’m sorry I have to do this. You seem like a nice lady. Say hello to your husband for me.” Marcela tilted her gun ever so slightly and a loud gunshot split the air between them.
She stood motionless, then, seemingly in slow motion, her gaze dropped down, a look of shock and horror spreading across her face as the red stain spread across her clothing.
“You shot me!” Blood was streaming from a hole in her thigh. “You bitch! You shot me.”
Emily bolted out of her chair with Evan’s gun in her hand, drawing it up to defend herself. She had managed to work the weapon loose and had shot Marcela in the leg right under the opening of the desk.
Marcela staggered backward, her leg a wounded mess with even more blood spurting from the exit wound. With much effort she raised her gun.
Emily fortified her stance and steeled her grip on her own weapon, ready to shoot.
“Drop it,” Colin burst through the door and stuck the steely nose of his handgun against the back of Marcela’s skull, “if you want to keep breathing.”
Marcela lowered her gun weakly and he snatched it out of her hand.
“Hit the floor, hands behind your back,” he ordered.
She did as she was told and only then did Colin re-holster his weapon and shove hers in the waist of his pants. He grabbed his handcuffs and secured her hands behind her back. As he clicked the cuffs shut, he turned to Emily.“Are you all right there, Emily?”
Emily dropped down onto the chair. “Yeah, I think so.” She set the gun on the desk and heaved a sigh of relief.
“Throw me that scarf over there, Emily,” Colin said with urgency.
Emily turned to see the cashmere scarf she had given Evan on his last birthday before he was killed. She retrieved it from the hook and handed it to Colin.
Just then Officer Ernie appeared in the doorway. “Hey, Ernie. Can you call for a paramedic to take this suspect to the hospital? Gunshot wound to the leg. While you’re at it, book her for the murder of Ricardo Vega.”
“This little gal is your murderer? Well, I’ll be. Isn’t she the housekeeper?” Ernie asked.
“She is.” Colin quickly tied a tourniquet around Marcela’s thigh.
“Ouch, that hurts,” she hollered.
“I can’t have you dying on me, Miss Montoya. This will help stop the bleeding until the paramedics get here.”
“Boy, she had me fooled,” Ernie said, scratching his head.
“Don’t feel bad, she had us all fooled.” Colin hoisted her to her feet and handed her over to Ernie. “I’ll be along after a bit to question her.”
“Marcela,” Emily said.
The suspect turned and glared back at her.
“Why did you do it?”
Marcela’s face hardened and her eyes narrowed. “Because that woman was carrying his child and he told her that I was nobody. He said I was just the help.” She lowered her head and Ernie led her out.
* * *
Colin put his arm around Emily’s shoulders and they stood in silence, staring out the window. They watched the paramedics put Marcela in the back of the ambulance and drive off with Ernie’s police cruiser following behind.
“What were you thinking?” There was harshness in Colin’s question. “Don’t you know you could have been killed?”
“I didn’t expect her to show up early.”
“And who’s gun did you use to shoot her?” he asked, looking down at the gun on the desk. “That’s not the one from target practice.”
“Evan’s. I found it taped under the center drawer of the desk right before she came in. I worked it loose from the tape just in time.”
“I’ll say—just in time.” He pulled her into a full embrace. “I don’t think I could go through that again, Emily.”
She knew what he meant—because she had lost someone she loved too—but she was not going to live her life in fear. As terrified as she was, facing down a killer, she learned something about herself. She could keep a level head in the midst of danger. She decided she was cut out to be a PI after all.
Emily looked into Colin’s eyes and saw them full of both affection and concern. “I know what you’re thinking, and as much as I’d like to tell you I won’t ever put myself in danger again, I can’t do it.” She laid her head against his chest and listened to the hard and fast beat of his heart.
“But if something ever happened to you—”
“Then maybe we shouldn’t move forward with this relationship.” She hid her face from him as she said it. It wasn’t what she wanted, but perhaps they needed to be with other people—after the kind of loss both of them had experienced.
“Oh Emily, you can’t mean that.” He placed a gentle finger under her chin and slowly raised her head. She looked up into his face and read his glistening eyes.
“I only meant—”
He covered her mouth with his warm and passionate lips, kissing her so deeply and thoroughly that her head began to spin and her knees went weak. He must have felt her body begin to slip, for he pulled her up into his arms, her bare feet no longer touching the floor.
“Now tell me you don’t want to move forward,” he said.
Chapter 27
Emily stood in her roomy walk-in closet, dressing for dinner with her friends. They would be celebrating solving the Ricardo Vega murder case. With Evan’s things packed up and gone, her clothes took over both sides of the closet. There was so much still to learn about his secrets, and his death, but tonight was for celebrating and she wasn’t going to let thinking about him spoil this wonderful evening.
She and Colin were meeting their friends at Chandlers, the most expensive restaurant in the area and she wanted to look her best. With her curly golden hair piled up in a stylish twist, she zipped up the back of her little black dress and put on her pearl drop earrings. As she picked up her tube of smoky rose lipstick, her phone began to vibrate a reminder, showing there was a voicemail.
She called in for her message—someone must have left it while she was in the shower. It was from Colin, saying a man by the name of Mr. Hamden called him from The Diamond Store and asked if Emily could please give him a call back as soon as possible.
The Diamond Store? What is he up to? She dialed the number he left and waited anxiously while it rang.
“The Diamond Store,” a young woman cheerfully answered.
“May I speak to Mr. Hamden?”
“Certainly. May I tell him who’s calling?”
“Emily Parker.”
After a short while, the man came on the line. “Mrs. Parker?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“Mrs. Parker, this is Alan Hamden. Are you the Mrs. Parker whose husband’s name was Evan?”
“Yes.” She felt suddenly uncomfortable, wondering where this was leading. “What can I do for you, Mr. Hamden?”
“I have to apologize, ma’am, but we have your diamond ring at our store. Your husband dropped it off to be cleaned and tightened, but he didn’t come back for it.”
“Mr. Hamden, my husband died six months ago.”
“Sorry, ma’am, I just found that out today. I want you to know we did try to reach Mr. Parker when he didn’t come back after a few weeks. We called the number he left us, but the recording said it had been disconnected. We figured someone would eventually come back for it. With a stone this size, we didn’t think he would simply leave it.”
“How did you find me?” Emily asked guardedly.
“I saw your name and picture in the newspaper with a police detective—the article about the Vega murder.”
“Yes, I know which one you’re talking about,” she said, grimacing at the unwanted publicity. Next time, she needed to make sure she stayed out of the press. Colin was careful to turn his face away from the camera, but it had happened so fast that Emily hadn’t thought about it until after the shot was taken. At least the photo may have gotten her the missing diamond ring back, and the knowledge that Evan had not stolen it from her, but rather he was doing a kind and loving thing.
“I just took a chance, hoping you were the right Parker, so I called the Paradise Valley Police and spoke with the detective a little while ago, explained the situation. He confirmed it and said he would have you call me.”
“Thank you for tracking me down. I’ll be in first thing tomorrow to pick it up. How much do I owe you for your work?”
“You don’t owe me anything, ma’am. After all this time, I’m just glad I found you. I recall your husband telling me he wanted the work done to surprise you for your wedding anniversary.”
Surprise.
“Thank you for calling. I’ll be in tomorrow. Bye now.”
The Scent of Lies Page 21