Cold Dawn

by Carla Neggers

  He decided to get it over with: “Beth’s with me.”

  “My sister? Beth? Why? Is she okay? Where is she?”

  “She’s in the kitchen calling 911. She’s a pro. She’s my driver.”

  “Grit, what the hell were you thinking?”

  “She was bored. I can drive okay with the leg, but I don’t have a car.” He returned to the kitchen. Beth was still speaking with the dispatcher. Grit glanced again at the dead woman. Were her family and friends looking for her? Did they have any idea she was here?

  “Grit,” Jo said.

  “Your people are going to get involved, aren’t they?”

  “Describe the woman.”

  “Long, straight black hair. Pretty. Light brown skin. Probably about thirty.”

  “I don’t recognize the description.”

  “So she wasn’t in Trent Stevens’s life when Marissa Neal came under the care of the Secret Service?”

  No response from Agent Harper.

  “The woman was mopping the kitchen floor when she was electrocuted,” Grit said. “A lot of aspiring actors do odd jobs to make ends meet while auditioning. House-cleaning, for instance.”

  “Not your problem, Grit,” Jo said sharply. “Don’t touch anything. You and Beth are observing crime scene protocols, aren’t you?”

  Grit could feel the photo in his pocket. “Sure. As best we can.”

  “Did you break in?”

  “Door was unlocked.”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “There was a plant that needed water and the distinct smell of death. We felt compelled to see if anyone was in distress and needed our assistance.”

  “Dead people aren’t in distress. They’re dead.”

  “Could have been someone else alive in here.” Grit scratched the side of his mouth. “I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do.”

  “I’m about to. Damn it, Grit.” Jo sighed, but she seemed less irritated. “My boss was just starting to like you. How was this woman electrocuted?”

  “Someone rigged the electric kettle. Once she grabbed it to make herself a cup of tea, she was done. She probably never knew what happened. She’s here in the kitchen, mop and bucket right beside her.”

  “Any guess how long she’s been dead? Ask Beth.”

  Grit didn’t need to. “At least two days. Maybe longer. We’re in the right place, Jo. There are photos of the actor everywhere.”

  “Everywhere? Grit, what the hell? Did you search the place?”

  “As I said, I was concerned there might be someone in distress. Your sister’s a paramedic. If someone was injured on the bathroom floor, she could help.”

  “Trying out that line on me before the homicide detectives get there? Grit, a killer could have been hiding in the closet.”

  “Even better,” he said.

  “My sister isn’t a SEAL.”

  “She was never in danger. I’m right here with her. I’d have protected her, but I didn’t have to.”

  “Did she see you help yourself to a photo of the tenant?”

  “What makes you think I did that?”

  “Elijah would. You would, and did.”

  “He’s good-looking. The tenant. We’re not saying his name in case your boss or any bad guys have tapped this place or your phone, right?”

  “Describe him.”

  Grit eased the three-by-three photo out of his pocket and held it in his palm. “It bothers me that I’m predictable.”

  “You couldn’t care less, Grit, and you know it. What does he look like? I want to be sure it’s the same guy.”

  “Blond hair, green eyes—hazel, maybe. Slight cleft chin. Straight nose. He’s wearing a suit. Tie and everything. Your guy?”

  “Probably, yes,” Jo said. “Do you recognize him? Have you run into him in the past few months? In Black Falls, here in D.C. Anywhere?”

  “No. He’s good-looking but he’s sort of an everyman.” But Grit knew what Jo was asking. “If I’d seen him in D.C. or Vermont, or anywhere near my genius teenage protégé, I’d remember.”

  “Beth?”

  He glanced at Beth, who was off the phone now. She had the back door open and was pale but composed as she stared out at the wilted flowers. “I don’t think so,” Grit said. “She’s more out there than you, Jo. She’s not used to keeping secrets. She didn’t recognize the dead woman or this guy. This guy’s got his own pictures are all over the refrigerator, too.”

  “Actors,” Jo said, as if that explained Trent Stevens’s apparent self-absorption. “Your young friend in D.C. is going to run with this.”

  “Maybe you should let him.”

  “If he finds a way to be in touch, you let me know. Understood?”

  “You or the Secret Service?”

  “We’re one and the same.”

  “I’ll let you know.” Grit slipped the photo back in his pocket. “Jo, whatever’s going on, you need to find this guy. He could be dangerous, or in danger himself.”

  “We’ll take care of what we need to on our end.”

  Meaning he should butt out and let the Secret Service do their job. They’d keep the vice president’s family safe. “Do you want me to put your sister on?”

  “I want you to get her out of there and sit her by Sean’s pool with a mojito. Tell her to have one for me. And you,” Jo said. “No more bodies.”

  “Aye-aye, Special Agent Harper.”

  She ignored him and disconnected. He heard a buzz in his ear, and for a split second thought she’d found a way to zap him from D.C., then realized it was another call coming in.

  He checked the screen. Elijah. Great.

  Grit took the call. “You didn’t find a body on Myrtle’s patio, did you?”

  “No. What are you talking about?”

  His friend didn’t know yet about the dead woman.

  “Never mind,” Grit said. “What’s up?”

  A half beat’s pause. “Something’s happened, hasn’t it? That explains it. Charlie just called. He said to tell you he’s checking for aliases. That you’d know what he meant.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Study his calculus.”

  “That’s the problem. He doesn’t need to study. He knows the answer before the question’s asked.” Grit watched Beth stiffen by the door and then heard sirens. “I have to go. Talk to your fiancée.”

  “Jo? What’s she got to do with—”

  Grit pretended not to hear and clicked off his phone and slid it back in his pocket. He felt a sharp arrow of pain in his left foot, but not even for a split second did he think he still had a left foot.

  By then, the police were descending.

  Ninety minutes after Beth had walked into the small apartment, she and Grit were standing in the parking lot in the Southern California sun. She had a tight grip on her emotions. Either Grit did, too, or he wasn’t all that bothered by the scene they’d come upon, which she didn’t believe. He just had the ability to take one thing at a time.

  She could see the muscles in her wrists and forearms tighten as she crossed her arms over her chest and eyed the array of law enforcement vehicles that had gathered at the scene.

  The police she’d expected. The FBI and Secret Service agents had unnerved her.

  The victim was identified as Portia Martinez. She’d worked part-time as a sound technician and cleaned houses for actor friends for extra cash. She didn’t live in the apartment. She and the tenant, Trent Stevens, apparently were friends. Stevens didn’t look as if he had the money for a housekeeper, but, on the other hand, he didn’t look as if he were someone who’d clean his own house. He’d get someone else to do it and exchange favors or run up his credit cards.

  Beth glanced back at a stern FBI agent standing under the wilted flower basket. “We’re cleared to go, you know.”

  Grit put a hand out to her. “I’ll drive.”

  She started to protest but dropped the keys into his palm. She wasn’t in the mood to arg
ue.

  An unmarked black SUV backed out of the way so they could leave. Grit got behind the wheel. Beth, feeling surly, slid into the passenger seat. “Have you even driven a car since you got your leg blown off?”

  Grit seemed to take no offense at her rudeness. “I drove around Vermont, seeing the mountain vistas.”

  “Vermont isn’t Los Angeles.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  He remembered the way back to Sean’s house, which was good because Beth didn’t. She sat looking out her window as Beverly Hills slid past her.

  When they pulled into Sean’s driveway, she turned to Grit. “I’m sorry about the crack about your leg.”

  “What crack? It was blown off. No one came and stole it while I was sleeping.”

  She scowled at him. “Are you ever serious?”

  “I was serious just now.”

  He parked, and Beth flung herself out of the car. Hannah and Sean came out to the driveway. They’d already heard the difficult news and were expecting them.

  Grit got out of the car and tossed Beth the keys but was focused on Sean. “I want to see where Jasper Vanderhorn was killed. I want you to tell me about that day.”

  Sean nodded. “Now?”

  “Yeah. Now.”

  “All right. Let’s go.”

  Beth headed inside, slamming the door behind her. She went straight out to the pool and stared at the clear, turquoise water. She’d reached for her cell phone a dozen times to call Scott. He’d want to know about the dead woman, if only from a professional point of view. From a personal one, Portia Martinez’s murder would just be another sign to Scott that he’d fallen for the wrong woman.

  Beth was too close to the violence of the past year.

  “You served the Whittakers muffins,” he’d yelled at her, utterly irrational.

  Muffins? As if she’d had any choice. As if she’d known Lowell Whittaker was a killer and his wife an abusive lunatic who’d leave Bowie O’Rourke, an innocent man, to burn up in a fire so that she could avoid the embarrassment of having her husband’s murderous activities come to light.

  Beth had irritably countered that Three Sisters Café had also served the two paid assassins who’d left Drew Cameron to die in a snowstorm, run down an ambassador, poisoned a Russian diplomat and nearly killed two teenagers.

  That was when Scott had packed up and gone back to Vermont.

  Hannah opened a French door and came out onto the patio. “Beth?”

  “I’m good. Please don’t worry.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. She felt terrible, and alone. “I’m ruining your time with Sean. Grit never should have come. He said so himself.”

  “Don’t start with that. He and Sean have gone out to the canyon where that arson investigator was killed. His death’s been weighing on Sean’s mind. Nick’s, too.” Hannah stood next to Beth at the edge of the pool. “It’s good that you and Grit found that woman, Beth. Her family and friends must have been looking for her and had no idea she was there.”

  “Assuming they even realized she was missing. Sometimes people don’t, not for a while. If she was new in town, if she…”

  “It must have been awful,” Hannah said.

  “It wasn’t great.”

  “What can I do?”

  Beth turned to her friend. “Tell me if I should call Scott.”

  “Beth—”

  “I know you can’t,” she whispered. “I know it wouldn’t help if you could.”

  “I’m sure of one thing. Scott wouldn’t want you to be afraid and hurt right now.”

  “No,” Beth said, “my dear, uptight Trooper Thorne would want me hiding under a rock for the rest of my life, so I wouldn’t do anything or have anything happen to me that might interfere with his next promotion. I don’t even blame him.”

  “We’ve all had a run of bad luck.”

  “Not bad luck, Hannah. We’ve been targeted by a bunch of murdering sons of bitches. I’d like to haul Lowell Whittaker out of his jail cell and make him tell us who electrocuted that poor woman.”

  “He might not know. So much of his work was done anonymously. His killers weren’t even aware he was the one arranging their hits. It’s possible he didn’t know the identities of all of them, either.”

  Beth raised her eyebrows at her friend. “I see your prosecutor’s mind hasn’t been baked by the California sun.”

  Hannah gave a small smile. “I’ll make us sandwiches. We can sit by the pool, and you can tell me everything. In the meantime, call Scott, will you?”

  “Hey, I thought you weren’t going to interfere.”

  Hannah was already through the door, and Beth pulled out her cell phone and flipped it open, debating what to do—and there was a text message, already, from Scott: Call me. Tell me you’re okay.

  The feds would have been in touch with him, maybe even her sister.

  Beth stared at the message, seeing Scott right here by Sean’s pool just a few days ago, pacing, tense, unable to articulate what he was feeling. She hadn’t done any better. Neither of them was particularly introspective, but the past few months of their lives demanded at least some insight and understanding.

  She dialed his number but got his voice mail. “I’m okay,” she said. “Thank you for calling. I—” She almost said she loved him, but stopped short. “Call me anytime. I’m here.”

  When Hannah returned with the sandwiches, Beth opened an umbrella at one of the tables at the edge of the pool and sat down, keeping her phone close in case Scott—or anyone else—called.

  Fifteen

  Black Falls, Vermont

  Rose fingered squares of the soft, old fabric left over from the quilt that she’d helped stitch over the past month. She was at a riverside table at the café, which had just closed for the night. She remembered how she and Hannah had discovered the fabric, which seemed to be from the 1940s, neatly stacked inside the nineteenth-century trunk up they’d hauled up from the cellar. Hannah had given the trunk to Dominique to refurbish for the house she was renovating in the village.

  Nick was down in the cellar now. He’d already checked out the struggling gallery next door, with its offerings from New England artists. Rose knew he was giving her a chance to regroup. There’d been no news of Robert Feehan. For all anyone knew, last night had been an outburst—a frightened, nervous man caught off guard and overreacting.

  The square Rose held in her hand now was obviously from a man’s blue oxford-cloth shirt, much worn in its day before being cut up. Some of the pieces hadn’t survived decades in the trunk, but enough had for a simple, authentic, beautiful quilt. Rose welcomed the distraction after talking with Beth Harper in Beverly Hills, the impact of her discovery of the murdered woman evident in the strain in her voice.

  “I’m glad Hannah didn’t find a murder victim in January,” Beth had said. “That’s one thing, anyway, don’t you think, Rose? You and I have more experience with injuries and death because of our work.”

  Rose hadn’t known how to answer. Hannah had almost become a murder victim herself. Was that any better? But Rose understood that Beth had been grasping for something positive to hang on to—some reason she’d been with Grit Taylor that morning and found a woman dead.

  Was Portia Martinez’s murder connected to Derek’s death and Nick’s presence in Vermont?

  How?

  Rose knew she’d be better off contemplating leftover quilting pieces than speculating.

  Myrtle Smith came out from behind the glass case and joined Rose at her table. “Are you thinking about starting your own quilt?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. There’s enough fabric here for a pillow or a wall hanging, anyway.” Rose set her square back on the table. “My mother loved to quilt.”

  “Mine, too.” Myrtle plucked a blue calico square from the pile and held it to the fading afternoon light in the window. “I swear this could be from one of her dresses. My mother, my sister and I would sit under a pecan tree in summer, with a pitcher of tea and a plate of
pimento cheese sandwiches. Granny would be there when she wasn’t coughing up a lung in the back room. She lived with us until she died.”

  Rose smiled. “I can just see you. Where are your sister and mother now?”

  “Still in South Carolina. Mother’s in assisted living. Gorgeous place.”

  “Do they still quilt?”

  “I doubt it. Mother has arthritis in her hands, and my sister’s a high school principal with four kids—two in high school, two in college. Husband’s a doctor. They’re on the go all the time.”

  “But you’re the one who left home,” Rose said.

  “I am. No husband, no kids. No house these days, either. Well, it’s still there but I’m not. Grit and Elijah are minding things for me. A SEAL and a Special Forces soldier.” Her lavender eyes sparked with unexpected humor. “Couple of macho guys, the two of them.”

  “I don’t think of Elijah that way.”

  “Of course not. He’s your brother. Maybe he and Grit will change the chi in the house. I tried burning sandal-wood incense. That’s supposed to help, but it just reminded me of the fire. I’d have burned up if Grit hadn’t rescued me. I don’t like to admit that. I was in shock. Stunned. Frozen in place.” Myrtle carefully placed the calico square back on the pile. “Classic, huh? I never thought I’d be like that, completely useless.”

  “You don’t know what you’d have done if Grit hadn’t come along,” Rose said. “There’s no reason to be embarrassed about getting rescued by a Navy SEAL. You’re a reporter. Grit would probably freeze in place if he had to interview someone.”

  “I don’t think Grit freezes in place for any reason.”

  “He’s a Southerner, too.”

  “I don’t get the impression he ever wants to go back.”

  “Do you?”

  Myrtle seemed startled by the question, although Rose couldn’t imagine she hadn’t considered it before now. “Washington’s far enough south for me.”

  “It’s home,” Rose said.

  “I didn’t say it’s home. I said it’s south enough. You’ve never lived anywhere else but here. If you did, wouldn’t Black Falls still be home?”

  “I guess it would be, but I’m almost thirty. How old were you when you left South Carolina?”