LUCY: The Complete Lucy Kendall Series with Bonus Content (The Lucy Kendall Series Book 5)

by Stacy Green

  Preacher rolled down easily. I stood watch while Chris slid down the hill and pried the body bag off him. He covered Preacher with snow and icicles and fallen dead branches. He worked efficiently, moving with ease among the cold, dead things. I admired his ability to cope and wished I’d handled Brian Harrison’s death as well as Chris had Preacher’s.

  Then again, he hadn’t administered it. And just two weeks ago at an accident call, he’d pulled a dead teenager out of a pickup truck. Surely this had to be easier.

  He returned sooner than I expected, and we used more fallen branches to maneuver the heavy snow over our messy tracks.

  “That’s the best we can do.” Chris’s fair skin was pink. His lips looked like he’d applied gloss. “With any luck, he’ll be under until spring.”

  “The bears will do their jobs.”

  “You did clean him off before I zipped up the bag, right?”

  “Wiped him down completely.”

  He led the way back to the ambulance. We rode in silence once again until Chris turned into the county landfill. I dumped the body bag and everything that had touched Preacher’s body into a black bag, and we paid in cash to have it tossed into the burning pile at the landfill.

  “Good idea,” I said. “Getting rid of that in the city would have been a pain in the ass.”

  “Thanks.” He drove several miles before speaking again. “So you know what I’d like to know? Where’s Sarah’s mother?”

  “What?”

  “Preacher said her mother gave Sarah that locket. But both Kelly and Todd say there’s no next of kin for her. Nothing anywhere. No one to even claim the body. So where’s Mom?”

  I hadn’t even thought about the implication. I retrieved the locket from my bag. Small and delicate, it was a simple square shape with an ‘S’ engraved in the fourteen karat gold. It opened easily, but the inside was bare except for the serial number.

  “Preacher’s boss told him to mention Sam,” I said. “When he did, Sarah became totally compliant. What does that tell you?”

  Chris glanced at the locket. “There’s more to her past than anyone’s digging up. What now?”

  “Riley,” I said. “She knows everything we need to.”

  “What about Todd? You going to tell him about Dietz? If he had the guy’s name, maybe he could start looking for proof of this affair. Something to play ball with at least.”

  My biggest dilemma of the day. I didn’t want to leave Todd out of the loop, not after what he’d done for me. But I was afraid he would simply be steamrolled by Dietz. “Not yet. I think I need to go to the Senator first. He’s the only person who might have more pull than the U.S. Attorney. But first, to Riley.”

  Chris’s phone vibrated on the plastic dash, startling us both. He snatched it up. “Hello?”

  My eyelids began to droop, and I yawned wide enough to make my jaw hurt.

  “I see.” Chris’s voice sounded guarded. “I’m not sure I can help you.”

  I forced my eyes open. “What?”

  The ambulance swerved as he mouthed, “Do you know a John with Senator Coleman’s office?”

  Nodding, I snatched the phone from him before he wrecked us. “Hello?”

  “Lucy.” John didn’t sound any more enthused than he had the last time we spoke. “The Senator would like to speak with you right away. I’ll give you directions to his private retreat outside of King of Prussia. And don’t worry, the police aren’t involved.”

  28

  Chris wanted to go with me, and since John had his phone number, I figured he was already involved. We traded the ambulance for the shiny Audi, and I brushed my teeth in the ladies room of a gas station just north of King of Prussia. Senator Coleman’s place was about ten miles north of that, and John waited for us at the top of the winding drive.

  Shuttered from the cold by an impressive thatch of evergreen trees, the Cape Cod-style house looked cozy and warm, the perfect place for a mild mannered politician with a noble crusade.

  Who just might be the big bad general I’m after.

  We followed John into the bright foyer. Signs of a woman’s touch were everywhere: flowers and soft pastels, strategically placed candles, delicate lace tablecloths. Coleman waited in his office, a large room that overlooked the frozen lake.

  “Lucy,” he shook my hand and then turned to Chris. “You must be Mr. Hale. I know your uncle. He speaks highly of you.”

  “That must be how you got my cell number.” Chris grudgingly returned the shake.

  “Oh no,” Coleman said. “I have other resources.” He sat down, switching off the droning National Public Radio station emitting from the computer’s weak speakers. Chris and I took the other two chairs in the room, while John lingered near the door. I suddenly felt like we’d entered the mob’s lair.

  “So what’s going on?” Exhaustion robbed my patience.

  “I hear the police are looking for you regarding Sarah Jones’s murder.”

  “Looking for is a nice way to put it,” I said. “They want to charge me. And I’m trusting you by coming here. Did I make a mistake?”

  “No,” Coleman said. “Quite the opposite. I believe I can help clear your name.”

  I recognized the tone of an exchange. Coleman certainly had interesting timing. “What’s the catch?”

  “You leave the human trafficking investigation to us,” he said. “Go back to your normal cases. My office is more equipped, we can operate within legal parameters, and we’ve got a lot more reach.”

  “I thought you wanted my help.”

  “You’ve got a bit of a tainted history,” he said. “It’s come to my attention that in recent months, Detective Beckett posed the theory you murdered two brothers, both convicted child molesters, after their release. He doesn’t have the evidence to prove it, I gather. But it’s not something I want associated with our task force.”

  There was more to it than that, but I kept my mouth shut. Let the Senator believe he had the upper hand.

  “Did you get this information from the same U.S. Attorney who wants me convicted of Sarah’s murder? A murder I didn’t commit?”

  If the Senator noticed I didn’t deny the Harrisons’ murders, he didn’t show it. “Mr. Dietz. Yes, he’s a very imposing man with quite an influence on the investigation.”

  Showing any part of my hand was dangerous, but the Senator liked his information. He wasn’t going to help unless he was sure I’d given him everything I knew. He’d get about ninety percent. “Dietz and Sarah were having an affair,” I said. “He’s got money and a reputation to lose, and because I took the phone, he thinks I’ve got proof. What I can’t figure out is why he hasn’t just confronted me. Why go to all these lengths?”

  “Because Dietz is dirty in more ways than the marital bed.” The Senator was about to spill his secret. I recognized his tone, the way he sort of hunched down in his big chair–all signs of a man preparing to divulge something he really doesn’t want to.

  “Sarah and Attorney Dietz were having an affair,” he confirmed. “And yes, his wife is very rich and there is a prenup. But Sarah was smart. She collected information like other people collect change. In this life, she never knew what might keep her alive.”

  “You knew her.” I hadn’t expected this. Why was he telling me this part? So I’d back off and he could soak up all the glory of bringing down the traffickers, or because he was the man I was really after?

  “She’s my wife’s cousin by marriage.”

  “So you knew she was running kids?” Chris spoke up. I’d nearly forgotten he was there.

  Coleman held up his hand. “Let me explain. Sarah had a boyfriend that was, quite frankly, crazy. After they broke up, he stalked her for months. Slashed her tires, broke windows. Nothing the police did helped, and they couldn’t get hard proof it was him. But she was terrified when the threatening messages came in, and she asked my wife for help. I brought her to Philadelphia from Ohio, helped arrange for a new identity. She used all her
savings to start the salon under an assumed surname.”

  “His name was Sam,” I said. Preacher’s ramblings made sense.

  “Yes.” The Senator raised an eyebrow. “Sam Townsend. How did you know?”

  “I have my resources.” I smirked. “But I didn’t know what the name meant until now.”

  “Well,” he continued, “somehow, whoever Preacher works for found her. Knew she was vulnerable, and you know the rest.”

  “Blackmailed her with the threat of telling Sam where she was,” Chris said. That’s the piece I’d been missing. It had been about much more than money.

  “Right.” Coleman sounded tired. “But as I said, Sarah was smart, and her experience with Sam taught her to write down everything. So she did, and her information collecting became almost obsessive. She knew I had the task force, and as soon as she felt it was safe, she came to me.”

  “You guys were working together to bring down Preacher and his boss.”

  He nodded. “Whoever employs Preacher is very good. Sarah hoped she could get close enough to him to find out a name, but in the end, she didn’t believe Preacher knew who he worked for.”

  I didn’t tell him he was correct. I could tell him about the Candy Market site, give him all the information his task force would need. But something held me back. Perhaps I just wanted to kill all the sick bastards myself. Or I didn’t think the task force could move fast enough. And then there was the matter that while she was giving the Senator the information, Sarah was still actively sex trafficking and collecting a paycheck from it.

  But what really bothered me was Sam Townsend. How did Preacher’s boss get the name if the Senator was the only person in the area who knew? More importantly, what had turned the boss onto Sarah in the first place? How had he known she was vulnerable?

  I stared at the Senator with fresh eyes. If he really were the boss, his task force was the perfect cover. And he’d kept Sarah running in circles until she became too much of a liability. “So if she trusted you, why didn’t Sarah call you after I threatened her with the phone, before we met at Maisy’s?”

  “She did.” He sounded torn. “She left me a message saying she had an urgent problem. I was in committee meetings all day and didn’t return the call until very late. She never answered.”

  “Did she ever wonder how Preacher and his boss found out about Sam in the first place?” Chris asked.

  “Of course she did. We’ve had many conversations on it. She told no one the name, but she did attend a support group for stalking victims. I can only assume she was spotted there and marked as a potential target.”

  Maybe. Men were stalked too. But very few of them felt the need for any sort of counseling. “I think there are other lieutenants.” I used John’s labeling system. “Maybe one of them picked her out.”

  “That was our theory as well,” Coleman said.

  “So what about this Dietz?” Chris asked.

  “As I said, Sarah was sleeping with him. But she had her reasons. She believed he or someone in his office might be Preacher’s employer, or at the very least, funding part of the operation.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because she followed Preacher and saw him having dinner with U.S. Attorney Dietz at a restaurant called Ward 8. She waited around outside and saw money exchange hands.”

  And you were there too, I wanted to say. I could just as easily substitute your name for the U.S. Attorney’s.

  “Preacher was–is–a pimp,” Chris corrected himself. “Dietz could have been ordering a high-class escort.”

  “And Sarah suspected that,” Coleman said. “But there was a lot of cash, and she wanted to know more. When she came to me, I told her Dietz was known for running around on his wife, and we devised the plan.”

  “You used her,” Chris said.

  “She agreed to it.”

  So the Senator was a pimp himself, except he didn’t acquire money. His profit was information he could use to further his cause. I admired him.

  “So back to the phone and why Dietz–”

  “Because Sarah told him,” Coleman interrupted me. “Two nights before you stole her private phone, she and Dietz got in a terrible fight. Sarah had been drinking, and she told him she knew his secrets. That he had business dealings with a known pimp and more girls on the side. She threatened to sell them to the press if he didn’t give her what she wanted.”

  “Which was?” Chris asked.

  “Sam charged with stalking. She believed he’d crossed state lines to find her. She swore she’d seen him in the city. And she wanted Dietz to use his influence as a United States Attorney to make her safe.”

  “I don’t blame her,” I said. “Sounds like it was the least he could do.”

  “Agreed,” Coleman said. “She told him the information was on her phone, and he’d never find it as she didn’t carry it with her. He promised to try with Sam.”

  “But the police, and therefore Dietz, know that your people erased the phone,” I said. “So what’s his issue?”

  “Again,” the Senator said “it’s you. You have a reputation in the department, and he’s heard it. He’s likely convinced that you made a copy of the information before you gave it to me.”

  “I couldn’t even get to it!”

  “But I did,” John said. I jumped. I had forgotten about the informant standing at the door. I swiveled in my chair. “You didn’t erase the SIM card?”

  “I did, after I got the information off it.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the police?” Chris demanded. “Lucy might not be a suspect if you had.”

  “There’s nothing in that phone that will clear her. It’s all code, and it’s not even clear to me,” John said. “But what is clear is that Dietz and Sarah had many lustful email conversations. She also had pictures of him entering motels and prostitutes following soon after.”

  “Was Preacher in any of them?” I asked.

  “No,” John sounded disappointed. “But both of them frequented Ward 8, so who knows?”

  “Was Dietz messing with kids?” Chris asked.

  “It doesn’t look like it,” Coleman said. “Which is why, when I spoke to him this morning, his agreement he will stop pressuring the police in this case was accepted.”

  “So you blackmailed him. Awesome,” I said. “But the police are still after me.” And his sudden eagerness to help me still didn’t make sense.

  “Not after I call the District Attorney’s office,” the Senator said. “You see, the district attorney handling Sarah’s case is hoping to run for governor next fall.”

  “And that’s why he’s been so easily pressured,” Chris said. “The help of a U.S. Attorney would go a long way.”

  “Exactly,” Coleman nodded. “I plan on telling the district attorney both you and Sarah worked for me, that she was infiltrated in the ring in an effort to bring them down. I’ll give them information on Preacher and his nasty habits. And I’ll also let them know who Sarah was and that she believed her ex was back in town.”

  “That might not be enough to make them back off,” I said.

  “Did I mention it will be a conference call with U.S. Attorney Dietz?” Coleman’s smile made me feel dirty. “He will claim that in light of this information, the ADA needs to withdraw the charges and pursue a new investigative tract.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Why are you helping me?”

  “I’m helping Sarah,” Coleman said. “I don’t believe you killed her. She had many enemies, and for all I know, Dietz could have had it done. John’s going to look into that for me. Whatever her flaws, she did not deserve this, and I want her real killer brought to justice.”

  Sounded great, except he’d already lied to both me and to the police. No reason to believe he wasn’t doing it now. Still, this could work to my advantage. “And all I have to do is leave the trafficking ring to you?”

  “Exactly. Don’t taint our efforts.”

  “Or steal your thunder for your own r
e-election,” Chris said.

  The Senator’s smile was brittle.

  “I agree,” I said. “On one condition.”

  “I don’t believe you’re in the position to be making conditions, my dear,” Coleman said.

  “No, I’m not. This is more of a favor. And not for me.”

  “For whom, then?”

  “Detective Todd Beckett,” I said. “He started out as the lead investigator on the case, and he’s just as invested in finding the real killer as you are. Please bring him in on the phone call. Do whatever it takes to get him reassigned.”

  “Isn’t he the same one who believes you are, in fact, a killer?”

  “The very one.”

  The Senator stroked his chin. “You’re an enigma, Lucy Kendall. But all right. In fairness to Detective Beckett, I’ll do what I can.”

  “Thank you.” Chris and I rose to leave.

  “Remember our deal,” Coleman said. “Leave the sex traffickers to me.”

  I nodded and followed Chris out of the posh house.

  “You didn’t tell him about the website Kelly found,” Chris said.

  “Nope.”

  “So you don’t plan on keeping your end of the bargain.”

  “I haven’t decided.” I fastened my seatbelt. “I’m not convinced the Senator is telling us everything, and I want to talk to Riley before I show my last good card.”

  29

  “You’re waiting in the car.” I told Chris as he parked the Audi in the Motel–North’s pothole-filled lot.

  He glared at me. “Why?”

  “First, you really want to leave the car unattended in this place? Second, she remembers you as the pretty boy who threatened her.”

  “If I recall, didn’t you scare the shit out of her last time you saw her?”

  I knew telling him about my weak point with Riley was a mistake. But Chris had a way of sucking the truth out of me. “More like scared myself. I can handle her.”

  “What are you going to say? She’s not going to believe Preacher just up and told you his life story.”