Chapter Eighteen
Nick grabbed the extra change of clothes he kept in his car and rushed toward the back entrance of the Riverview West building. The apartment he had leased for Jeri was closer than his own, so he had stopped by there to shower and change. Okay, if he were honest with himself, he hoped that she would be there.
A million thoughts were zooming and careening through his tired mind. He had too much on his plate. A vacation. That’s what he needed.
The whole world was going nuts. What was wrong with people? He’d gone over to Sophia Cannon’s apartment with the intention of pushing her to reveal what she knew about Audrey St. Clair’s disappearance. Nick had arrived at her apartment and found his prime suspect in the case already there. So much for interviewing Sophia without Dylan Hunter around. It seemed her ex-boyfriend was now her current boyfriend. At least, that’s the way it looked to Nick. Dylan had left Sophia and moved in with Audrey, and then, Audrey had disappeared. Now, Dylan and Sophia were on again. Had the two of them murdered Audrey together? Their behavior raised so many red flags.
When he had arrived at her apartment, he’d found Sophia gagging from dozens and dozens of Gardenia bouquets that someone, who looked a lot like the man who claimed to be Les Wakefield, had left in her apartment.
All of Nick’s questions for Sophia about Audrey’s disappearance had flown right out of his head. He’d learned nothing new about the old case and had developed more questions about the Les Wakefield case, a case that had started out as his ex-partner’s problem and was beginning to look like it was going to be his problem.
Nick had ended up with nothing but the stench of Gardenias all over his clothes. If he had shown up at the squad room with that noxious smell on him, there would have been no end to the teasing he would have received, most of it from his snarky, skinny, sinusitis-afflicted cousin Riley Fontenot. What was Ed thinking? His captain, his Uncle Ed, was pushing the limits of nepotism by having two of his nephews under his command. Sooner or later, someone was going to notice and demand that Ed break up the family reunion.
Nick used his key to enter the apartment. “Jeri? Are you here?”
He had the feeling that someone had been in the apartment, although no one was present. Glancing around the place, he couldn’t spot anything out of the ordinary. No evidence that the apartment had been tossed. No evidence that someone had broken in.
His heart sank to his feet. His last argument with Jeri swam around in his head. Why had he been so harsh with her?
Nick released a long sigh. Thinking about her wasn’t getting the job done because when he stopped to think about her, he stopped everything, all forward movement. Shaking off the feeling that he’d screwed up wasn’t easy, but he had to do it. He couldn’t waste any more time bemoaning the fact that she was gone. True, he needed to find her, but he also needed to prevent the killer from coming back for her. The best way to protect her was to put the guy behind bars. He had to find Jackson Deville first.
The shower diminished the stench of the flowers but didn’t make the putrid smell completely go away. He wrinkled his nose. The fragrance of a bazillion Gardenia blossoms had been overpowering and not the least bit pleasant. In fact, the strong scent reminded him of his grandmother’s house. Maw Maw had been fond of a Gardenia-scented body powder. Grief for his loss swept over him, as it sometimes did when he least expected it.
He stuffed his dirty clothes into the duffel bag he’d left on the bed and glanced around the room. The things Jeri had left on the dresser drew his attention. A brush. A pot of black creamy stuff, probably the color she put on her lips. A wadded up bunch of ponytail elastics, most of them with turquoise blue hairs still knotted around them. For a woman who loved things complicated, Jeri lived simply.
He opened a drawer and nudged her clothes, mostly black. With only a small twang of conscience, he lifted a t-shirt and sniffed. The fabric held her scent. Indescribable, yet recognizable. He’d only gotten close enough to her a couple or three times to get a good whiff of her. That had been enough for her scent to linger in his memory.
With a grunt of disgust at his sentimentality, Nick shoved the shirt back into the drawer. If she came in and found him sniffing her clothes, there was no telling what she’d do to him.
Would she come back? He hoped so. If she didn’t return… The thought smacked him hard. He felt as though losing her would be like losing something sweet and fine before he’d ever had the good fortune of enjoying what he’d found.
Nick had a crush on Jeri, a big, awful, undeniable, heart-mangling crush. Ed had warned him not to get personally involved with her. It was too late. He was too exhausted to deny what was happening to him. He’d been distracted since he’d met her, distracted by her. His involvement in her life had been instantaneous.
He ran his fingers through his still wet hair. Nick shook off the introspective, sentimental mood because he had no other choice if he was going to be able to function. Heather Mancuso’s parents had been located, and they had flown in to claim her body. They were probably already at the station waiting for him to interview them. Surely, there was an explanation why the woman was in New Orleans. Despite another detective’s efforts to piece together Mancuso’s movements since she had landed in New Orleans, Nick still didn’t know how Heather had ended up dead on the floor of Johnny J’s bar. Maybe if he asked the right questions her parents could tell him if she knew Jackson Deville. Nick still believed it was too much coincidence that the woman had died so close to his prime suspect in Alison Ardoin’s murder.
Before he left for the station house, he made one more visual pass over the apartment. Finally, his gaze stopped on Jeri’s complicated collection. He tilted his head and stared at the new object gleaming on the shelf. A second chalice, just like the first one, had been added to the collection.
So Jeri had returned to the apartment. That meant she hadn’t disappeared.
Then, another harder thought raced through his mind. What if Jackson Deville had managed to get into the building and the apartment? What if the photographer had left the new chalice on the shelf? What if he’d taken Jeri? No, that hadn’t happened. There was no evidence of a struggle, and Jeri would have put up one hell of a fight. He instinctively knew this about her.
He found a scrap of paper and scribbled a note.
Jeri,
I’m sorry
He erased the apologetic wording and began again.
Please call me when you get back.
He sighed, sucked up his pride, and finished the note with a dab of truth and the offer of a truce of sorts.
I’m worried about you. You don’t have to do this alone.
Nick
He left the note on the cocktail table in the living room, grabbed his bag off the bed, and rushed out the door before he could change his mind and destroy the note.
As he exited the elevator on the ground floor, he noticed security cameras had been bolted onto braces in each corner of the lobby. First chance he had, he would request copies of the CCTV footage…just in case the person who had left the chalice in Jeri’s apartment wasn’t Jeri.
****
Nick finally had enough probable cause to arrest Brandon Wakefield for identity theft. Fingerprints lifted from Sophia’s apartment matched the prints he’d collected from Wakefield’s discarded soda can. Now, he just had to find the man.
He had gone over to Dylan Hunter’s condo to tell him that he’d identified who had stolen Les Wakefield’s name and inheritance, and he’d found Sophia with Hunter. She’d been spooked enough by the gardenia incident to move in with her ex-boyfriend turned new boyfriend.
Nick thought the woman was slap dab crazy. If Hunter had murdered her ex-best friend and Hunter’s ex-girlfriend, then moving in with him was dangerous. If she had helped him murder Audrey St. Clair, then the two of them were acting pretty cocky. That’s how Nick usually ended up catching people like them; at some point, they thought they could get by with anything.
So he had spent the last couple of hours watching Hunter’s condo and waiting for Wakefield to show up. If the man were truly obsessed with her, then he would make an appearance.
While he had waited, the sun had begun its descent into the western horizon. Nick rubbed his tired eyes. Once he apprehended Wakefield, his workday wouldn’t be over. He craved sleep, but he still needed to locate Jerilyn for his own peace of mind as well as her wellbeing. She’d picked a bad time to get all huffy and go off on her own. The Wakefield case had caught fire, and he’d had no time to deal with Jeri’s disappearing act.
After getting sentimental about the woman, he’d shaken off his mood and reassessed the situation. Jeri was acting a bit immature. She didn’t have to avoid him. Whatever she was doing, she could have asked him for help. He might not have liked what she wanted him to do, but he would have done it. He would have done anything short of something grossly illegal. He hoped she wasn’t getting herself into even more trouble, but she probably was.
He adjusted his binoculars and leaned forward, as if leaning toward Hunter’s condo would make things more clear. From the shadows, Wakefield emerged. The man glanced over her shoulder, seemed to scan the area, and then peered into the front window of the condo. Wakefield jiggled the screen, probably to see if it was loose.
Nick called Hunter, a number he had on speed dial, and lifted the phone to his ear.
Hunter’s snarl stabbed Nick in the ear. “What do you want?”
He ignored the man’s rudeness, something Nick often had to do to protect and serve those that made protecting and serving them even more difficult than it had to be. “Is everything all right?”
Hunter responded with only minimally less hostility. “Yes. Why do you ask?”
“I’m across the street and—”
“A psycho is stalking Sophia. Why aren’t you out looking for him?”
Nick paused long enough to calm his rising irritation. “Because I can see him parked outside your place.”
Solving your problem isn’t the only thing I have on my plate right now, jerk.
“Were you following him or watching me?”
What difference did it make who Nick was following? He was there, and he had Wakefield in his sights. Nick answered the stupid question anyway, but only because he would need Hunter’s cooperation if he were going to catch Wakefield in the act of committing a crime. “I followed Sophia.” Not exactly true, but Nick was in the mood to be contrary.
“Why are you following her?”
He adopted his most patient attitude. “Wakefield didn’t return to his office and hasn’t shown up at his house. If the guy is stalking her, what better way to find him? Even you can see the logic in that, Hunter.”
“So you’ve found him. Why aren’t you arresting him?”
Such condescension from someone being investigated for murder. Just a little too pushy. A little too indignant. Hunter’s attitude only made Nick like him more for Audrey St. Clair’s murder. If he could just find the woman’s remains, he might be able to tie Hunter to the murder. If he were lucky, there would still be evidence on her, despite the fact she was probably fully decomposed.
“If I could arrest a man simply because I think he’s a criminal, then you’d be behind bars. I have to wait until he makes a move on Sophia. Then, I can arrest him.”
“Sophia just got a text from him. I was going to tell you he was probably watching us, but it seems you already know that.”
Damn, the man wasn’t going to give up his hostility, and he was wasting their time with his sarcastic insinuations.
Nick focused on what was necessary and important instead of Hunter’s confrontational attitude. “What did the text say?”
“He accused her of sleeping with me.” Hunter’s anger crawled all over his response. Why would that make the man angry?
“Well?” He asked the single word question just to gouge a bit into the man’s pompous indignation.
Hunter snapped his answer. “Well, what?”
“Aren’t you?”
Hunter’s answer exploded in Nick’s ear, almost bursting his eardrum with its sharpness. “We aren’t sleeping together. She hates my guts. I don’t think that’s ever going to change. Okay? I offered her a place to stay because it appeared that you weren’t going to do anything to protect her from this nut job that has a fixation on her.”
The woman had declared she would rather have Hunter’s protection than his. Nick had let her have her way. He couldn’t force his unwanted offer on her.
Nick kept his tone calm and crisp. “I never said I wouldn’t protect her.”
“Yeah, you did. You were there for the conversation, Moreau. Is your memory failing?”
Enough was enough. Nick adopted an authoritarian tone. “He can see your front window is dark. Turn on a lamp. Stand in front of the window with your arms around her. Maybe that will be enough to make him act.”
“Are you nuts? If I suggested that, she’d slug me.”
Nick smiled to himself. He enjoyed that visual.
Sophia whispered angrily in the background of the call.
For a moment, Nick believed Hunter would disconnect the call. Finally, Hunter agreed to his half-hearted suggestion. “Okay, we’ll do it.”
Nick lifted the binoculars to his eyes again. Sure enough, the silhouette of a man and a woman broke the glow of the light coming from the window. Even from a distance, he could see Wakefield’s body jerk when he first noticed the couple kissing in the window. If Sophia and Dylan were acting, they deserved an Oscar.
Wakefield rushed to the front door, so that meant it was time for Nick to rush Wakefield. He came up from behind the man and roared his command. “Wakefield, put your hands up.”
Damn, that sounded so cliché.
Wakefield continued to twist and jiggle the doorknob as if he hadn’t heard Nick bellow at him. The man pounded and kicked the door, ignoring Nick’s presence right behind him.
“I’m warning you, Wakefield. Let go of the door and put your hands up.”
The man had other plans. Wakefield twisted on his heel and plowed straight into him. Nick’s service weapon popped out of his hand. Before he could recover, the two men engaged in a fistfight, both of them on the ground, punching, scrambling, and clawing for the gun. A slam to his gut winded Nick just long enough to slow his reactions. Wakefield’s fingers wrapped around the gun. The barrel swung around toward Nick’s chest. So close. Too close. Nick lurched sideways to avoid the shot, and for a while, he thought he’d dodged the bullet, but then, a searing pain ripped through his arm right near the shoulder joint. He pressed his trembling fingers to the wound and winced. His eyes met Wakefield’s.
The other man stood over him, watching him, seemingly enjoying his pain. The swish of a door opening. Wakefield moving out of his line of sight. Pounding of footsteps. Nick’s eyesight blurred. Hunter’s voice barely penetrated the buzzing in his head.
Chapter Nineteen
She needed answers, so she had returned. Jeri stood in the alley behind the building on Dauphine, staring up at the third floor. Had Sheldon also stared up at the window of the apartment where Alison had died? Had he felt the same pulse of electrical energy surge through him that she was now experiencing?
The first time she had stared up at the front façade of the building, she had thought she’d seen a face in the window. Maybe she had. Maybe Jackson Deville had been in the apartment staring down at her. Surely, he had known then who she was.
She had no illusions about her biological father. He wasn’t going to race downstairs to throw his arms around her and embrace his long-lost daughter. Jackson didn’t want to know her. He’d said he didn’t want to kill, but he would if he had to. The man sounded as if he lacked empathy, a sure sign of a sociopath. If he thought in his twisted mind that he had to kill her, he wouldn’t hesitate just because she was his flesh and blood.
Jeri slipped her hand into her pocket and reassured herself that the can of mace s
he’d just purchased was still there. Just in case. She’d had a vision. She was going to end up trapped inside a closet again. Could she prevent the inevitability? Was the ability to change the future within her newfound power? Was that the part of the gift that Sheldon had squandered?
One day, she might have to ponder the ethical considerations of altering the future for someone, maybe even herself. Before she could do any of that, she had to understand the gift, so she needed to find where Sheldon had lived. Maybe, just maybe, a bit of his life force had remained behind to guide her toward the answers she needed.
She’d already wandered up and down the alley, from one end of the block to the other. She’d poked around cardboard boxes and peeked into crevasses between buildings, stared through street-level windows. If Sheldon had a squat near the building on Dauphine, she hadn’t been able to find it. She might have to expand her search into the alleys in adjoining blocks on Dauphine.
“Where were you living, Sheldon?” Her voice rattled with the first hints of desperation, a feeling that she hated and rejected.
As if the sun had angled just right to shine down between the buildings into the thin strip of alley, a beam of light illuminated the shadows and highlighted a door that she hadn’t noticed before. The door was half the height of a normal entrance, more of a trap door than a real door. Her heart raced. This was it. This had to be Sheldon’s place.
When she twisted the knob, the door opened with ease. She pulled a flashlight out of her backpack and pushed inside the cramped space. The ceiling hung low, and even as short as Jeri was, her hair brushed the plaster above her head.
It was a small, small room, just big enough for a stained mattress, a crate with a hot plate on top, a beat-up cooler, and an old-style steamer trunk. A coat and a plaid flannel shirt hung on a peg stuck into the wall by the door. That was it. All there was. The few things that remained of Sheldon’s life.
Second Sight (Prescience Series Book 1) Page 17