The Body Counter
Page 26
That information was followed by an address.
Jude wasn’t sure if she responded before running straight for the demolition excavator, waving her arms and shouting. The foreman stepped in front of her with a What the hell look on his face.
“Stop!” she said. “Now!”
With a scowl, the foreman pulled out a walkie-talkie. He passed instructions to the man in the cab, and the diesel engine idled.
“You gave us permission to proceed,” the foreman told Jude. His voice wasn’t jolly now.
“I need to go inside the building.”
He shook his head. “Too late. The structure’s been compromised. That’s why we have you sign off on it. It’s a done deal.”
“Are you sure you checked the entire house?” she asked.
“Yep.”
“The basement?”
“Yep.”
“The cell in the basement?”
“Yep.”
“You personally?”
“No. One of my crew—”
She strode past him. He made the mistake of snatching her wrist. In one swift motion and without conscious thought, she put her self-defense classes into play, seized his hand, pulled, and twisted, bringing him to his knees. She let go as a cheer went up behind her.
The foreman pushed himself off the ground. He wasn’t hurt, just humiliated.
“I don’t like to be touched,” she said in a half apology, picking up her dropped phone as Uriah appeared next to her.
“He had it coming,” he said.
She had to give Uriah credit for no longer jumping to the reasonable conclusion of her shaky mental health. “Elliot might be in the house,” she told him.
“That seems unlikely.”
“Only if you trust someone to do their job in a competent and professional way.” She ran for the back steps, Uriah beside her. “His car was impounded in the alley behind this property,” she explained. “And I’m not confident someone checked the building thoroughly.”
She kicked the door open with a crash. They both recoiled at the odor, then ducked inside. In unison, they activated flashlight apps, the beams reflecting off floating demolition dust. Above their heads, sunlight poured through the roof, and compromised beams creaked. The path to the basement was clear. Before Jude reached the concrete floor, she noted that the cell door was locked with the set of three deadbolts. She pounded down the steps, slid the bolts free, and pulled the door open. And discovered the source of the odor.
A man tumbled out.
Elliot.
While Uriah made gagging noises, Jude dragged Elliot’s body from the cell. “It’s too dark.”
A beam of light wobbled closer. She glanced over her shoulder. Uriah was turned away, the back of his hand against his face as he held the light in Jude’s general direction. She pressed two fingers to an ice-cold neck, felt a faint flutter, then looked up. “Call an ambulance.”
The light vanished and Uriah made the call.
Jude pieced together the simple events that had led to this. Clementine had followed Elliot from the funeral to the house, where he’d come to take photos. She took his camera, locked him inside the cell, and left him to die. Like Jude, he’d used the corner for a toilet. Then, later, when he was delirious from dehydration, he’d slept in his own excrement.
“You’re going to be okay,” Jude told him, unsure if he was aware of anything.
“Ambulance is on the way,” Uriah said.
Elliot’s lips moved slightly and Jude leaned closer.
It seemed like a superhuman feat, but he managed to whisper two words through cracked lips. “My . . . cat?”
CHAPTER 55
Elliot lay in bed, petting the purring cat on his stomach. A week had passed since he’d almost gotten buried in the demolition of Jude’s house, longer since the girl named Clementine had left him to die. Turned out, she’d been squatting there sometimes. He’d walked right into her lair. Now he was back in his apartment, and Jude was upstairs after her stint in a hotel. It was late, a little after one a.m., and he was talking to his mother on the phone.
“How are you doing?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine now.” He’d come around pretty quickly after the fluid IV. It had taken less time to feel humiliated by the way Jude and her partner had found him, lying in his own shit. He couldn’t face her. He tried to avoid the public spaces of their building, and if he did run into her, he mumbled hello and kept his eyes averted.
“Honey, you scared me to death,” his mother said. “But I didn’t give up hope, and I never thought you were dead.”
No, she wouldn’t have.
“Do you feel well enough to talk about it? About her?”
“She’s not as bad as you think.”
“Don’t let her find out who you really are, or your life could be in danger again.”
“She saved my life.” He patted the cat on the head. “I like her.”
“You’ve been brainwashed.”
There would be no winning the argument, so he didn’t try. “I need more time to figure things out. I’m thinking of sticking around and maybe opening a private-investigator service.”
“Your father sent you to college to study journalism and photography.”
“Both of those helped with the case. My photos were instrumental in solving it. You could move here. Minneapolis isn’t a bad town.” He didn’t mention the high crime. “You can stay with me. We’ll get home health care just like you have in Texas.”
“And live in the same building with that woman? Not going to happen.”
“I think you’d like her.”
“I’ll never like the person who shot your father dead in the middle of the interstate.”
Elliot had believed his mother’s theory for a while, that Jude was evil and had framed and killed both his father and half brother so she could inherit millions. But Elliot didn’t think that anymore. Jude was a puzzle, she was messed up, but she was a good person. And now Elliot wondered about his mother’s story. Worse, was it possible she’d been abducted by Jude’s father, Phillip Schilling, like he’d abducted so many other women, and he’d let her go for some reason? Maybe after she found out she was pregnant. Maybe Elliot himself had been some form of leverage. He didn’t know if he wanted to discover that he was the result of rape, and that his benefactor was every bit as evil as Jude believed him to be.
He’d been in touch with the person handling his father’s estate. Through the attorney’s urging, Elliot had taken a DNA test. When a recent email confirmed the match, he’d requested that the results be kept a secret for now. He didn’t care about an inheritance, but his mother was getting older, and she’d had a tough life. Money could help. She deserved something.
“What’s that?” she asked. “It sounds like someone screaming.”
“Just the TV. Bye, Mom. I love you.”
“Bye.”
They disconnected. With a sigh, Elliot grabbed the broom and banged the handle against the ceiling.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2012 Sharyn Morrow
Anne Frasier is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. Her award-winning books span the genres of suspense, mystery, thriller, romantic suspense, paranormal, and memoir. The Body Reader received the 2017 Thriller Award for Best Paperback Original Novel from International Thriller Writers. Other honors include a RITA for romantic suspense and a Daphne du Maurier Award for paranormal romance. Her thrillers have hit the USA Today bestseller list and have been featured in Mystery Guild, Literary Guild, and Book of the Month Club. Her memoir The Orchard was an O, The Oprah Magazine Fall Pick; a One Book, One Community read; a B+ review in Entertainment Weekly; and one of the Librarians’ Best Books of 2011. She divides her time between the city of Saint Paul, Minnesota, and her writing studio in rural Wisconsin.
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