Dead in Her Tracks
Page 1
ALSO BY KENDRA ELLIOT
Bone Secrets Novels
Hidden
Chilled
Buried
Alone
“Veiled” (A Short Story)
Known
Callahan & McLane Part of the Bone Secrets World
Vanished
Bridged
Spiraled
Rogue River Novellas
On Her Father’s Grave
Her Grave Secrets
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2015 Kendra Elliot
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
e-ISBN: 9781503947535
Cover design by Marc J. Cohen
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
The young woman appeared to be asleep.
But the dark bruising around her neck told Solitude police officer Stevie Taylor otherwise. That, and the fact that the woman didn’t stir as four cops tramped through the motel room.
The Wayward Motel was straight out of a bad movie, and Stevie wouldn’t have recommended it to her worst enemy. It catered to the truckers at the adjacent truck stop, and apparently the truckers didn’t generate enough revenue for the motel to patch the holes in the walls or replace the rusted sinks. When Stevie was in high school, it had been rumored that the Wayward would rent rooms to students for a few hours. Her boyfriends had never suggested it. Looking around now, she was glad she’d seen only the backseats of their cars.
“Damn it,” muttered Zane Duncan, Solitude’s police chief. “That makes two murdered women within a few days.”
“Merry Christmas,” whispered Stevie. Two hours earlier she and Zane had been celebrating at her mother’s home, giving thanks that her brother Bruce had survived a near-fatal car accident and that her sister, Carly, and Carly’s daughter, Brianna, hadn’t been hurt in a carjacking.
Charlie, the hotel manager, leaned into the room, his toes squarely behind the door frame. Three times Stevie had asked him to stay out of the way. He’d already admitted he’d lifted the floral bedspread to look at the woman after entering the room. He’d told Stevie and Zane his maid had unlocked the door and immediately called him. The sobbing maid currently sat in the lobby, giving a statement to Kenny.
The smell of decay hung heavily in the room, easily overpowering a faint scent of bleach. The girl had been dead for several days. Her stomach was bloated, and the shape of her face was distorted. Flies buzzed, happy they’d been allowed in the room. Stevie fought the urge to take Zane’s hand and absorb some of his strength to help her handle the sight.
“I thought you said the room was cleaned yesterday,” said Stevie, raising a brow at Charlie. He had managed the motel for as long as she could remember. When she was in junior high, she’d thought he was old, but now she knew he was, and he still looked exactly the same. Impossibly scrawny limbs and a beer gut. A graying comb-over and smoker’s lines around his mouth.
“It was. Rosa checked it off the list and noted that she didn’t change out the towels.”
“This woman didn’t die last night,” Stevie pointed out.
Charlie shrugged. “Then someone moved her here. I don’t think Rosa would have missed a body.”
Stevie moved closer to the girl and the bleach odor grew stronger.
“She’s been cleaned,” said Zane quietly, voicing Stevie’s thought. He took three steps to poke his head in the tiny bathroom and took a big sniff. “Didn’t happen in there,” he said as he returned to Stevie’s side. “The bathroom hasn’t seen bleach in decades.”
“We need to stop meeting like this,” Hank, the Rogue County medical examiner, said to Zane as he stepped inside the room, causing Charlie to glower as he moved out of the way. Hank slid on a pair of glasses and clucked his tongue in sympathy as he studied the woman in the bed. “Got yourself another young one.” His nostrils flared. “Bleach, eh?”
“We were just talking about that,” said Stevie. She liked Hank. His laid-back country attitude contrasted with his sharp eyes that didn’t miss a detail.
He looked at Stevie and Zane for the first time. “What’s the story?”
“Maid found her this morning. She checked in on the twenty-first. Vanessa Phillips. Age twenty-five. Lives in Eugene. The maid said there was no one in the room when she cleaned it yesterday or the day before.”
“Hmmmm,” said Hank. He slipped on a pair of gloves, pulled back the bedspread a few feet, and rotated the woman’s head so she faced the ceiling. “Rigor’s come and gone. Someone gave her a bleach rinse and then moved her here. She didn’t die in the bed.” He glanced around the room. “You found the murder scene?”
“Not yet,” said Zane. “We’ve been here ten minutes. The bathtub is dry. Definitely no bleach odor in there.”
“Was she on her side like this when you found her?” Hank included Charlie in the question with a look over his shoulder.
“Yeah, I didn’t touch her! Neither did Rosa . . . at least she said she didn’t. I can’t imagine she wanted to get too close to that. Rosa was hysterical when she came to pound on my office door.” He pulled up on his belt. “I checked her”—he nodded at the bed—“into the motel four days ago. I didn’t see her around after that, but she was supposed to check out this morning. She told me she planned to surprise her parents by showing up on Christmas Day.”
“How long do you think she’s been dead, Hank?” Stevie asked in a low voice.
Hank shook his head. “Depends where she’s been. If she was outdoors for a while, the cold will have slowed down the decaying process. But if Charlie is positive he saw her four days ago, then I suspect she was killed within twenty-four hours after that. I’ll know more after I run some tests. But if I were you, I’d be looking for a scene from two to three days ago.” Hank studied her features. “Looks like she was a pretty girl. And about the same age as Amber Lynn.” He peered at Stevie and Zane over his glasses. “Maybe you’re already holding her killer in a Solitude police cell.”
“Bob Fletcher,” stated Zane as the name echoed in Stevie’s head.
“Bob admitted he lost his temper when he killed Amber Lynn,” said Stevie. “We didn’t lock up Bob until three p.m. yesterday, so he could have brought her here after the maid checked the room. Charlie, what time did Rosa check this room yesterday?”
“Her log says ten a.m.”
“That’s enough time,” said Zane. “It’s a bit of a tight window if he was waiting for no one to be around, but it’s possible. Wait a second—could this be the woman on Travis’s flash drive?”
The thought had struck Stevie at the same moment.
“What flash drive?” a
sked Hank.
Stevie looked over her shoulder at Charlie, who’d stepped inside the room, clearly interested in their discussion. “Charlie, could you go see if Kenny is done talking to Rosa?”
Disappointment crossed his face, but he left.
“Amber Lynn was murdered for footage on a flash drive,” said Zane. “Her ex-boyfriend Travis White filmed Bob Fletcher putting a female in the back of his SUV and hid the device in Amber Lynn’s bag. Bob was trying to cover his tracks when he killed Amber Lynn.”
All three of them studied the victim’s long, wavy blonde hair. “Was the woman blonde?” asked Hank.
“I’m not sure. The video quality was pretty bad. All we could see was that her hair was long,” said Stevie. “And it didn’t give a good view of her face. We couldn’t even tell if she was alive.”
“When was the video made?” Hank asked.
“On the evening of the twenty-first,” answered Stevie.
Hank tipped his head from side to side, frowning at the body. He lifted Vanessa’s arm and pressed in several places on her abdomen.
Stevie looked away. The woman was naked, and decomposition had firmly taken hold of her body.
“I don’t think she’s been dead that long. You said you couldn’t tell if she was dead on the video? Maybe she was killed later. Like I said, I’ll have a better window of time for you after some tests.”
“What about the bleach odor?” asked Zane. “If someone scrubbed her down, will that ruin any evidence?”
Hank gave a big grin. “Depends what they’re trying to hide. I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”
“I think we need to have a talk with Bob Fletcher,” said Stevie. “He’s already admitted to Amber Lynn’s murder. What’s one more?”
“Let’s go see if he has a Christmas gift for us,” agreed Zane.
Zane had just steered his SUV into a spot on Main Street in front of the Solitude Police Station when his cell phone rang. Please, no more bad news.
“Not another body,” muttered Stevie in the seat beside him. “It’s Christmas. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be in this town. I moved back here to spend time with my family on holidays, not smell decomp.”
Zane understood. The sight of the abandoned woman in the hotel room on Christmas Day had upset him too. “This morning was the best Christmas I can remember,” he told her. She smiled at him and his heart skipped a beat.
How’d I get so lucky?
“I missed my dad,” Stevie said. “But I’m glad Bruce is all right. That could have ended badly.” Her voice cracked, and Zane breathed a sigh of relief that Stevie’s brother had been found in the icy weather in time. He saw her swallow hard. “Are you going to answer that?” she asked.
Zane realized he’d pulled out his phone but hadn’t answered. It’d continued to ring in his hand, but he’d been distracted by his woman. She’d been doing nothing but sitting next to him and he couldn’t pull his gaze from her. Stevie Taylor had been in his life for about seven months, and now he wondered how he’d functioned before.
“It’s Sheila,” he said, finally looking at his phone and recognizing the receptionist’s phone number. “She was going to stop in at the station and give Kenny some company for a bit since he drew duty today. I told her she didn’t need to, since it’s a holiday.”
“She goes above and beyond her job,” agreed Stevie. “She’s probably cleaning the break room since Kenny is still at the motel.”
Zane nodded. “She can’t sit still.” He answered the phone. “Merry Christmas, Sheila.”
“Zane?” Sheila practically shouted. “You need to get down to the station right now!”
He stiffened and yanked on the door handle of his vehicle. “I just pulled up outside. What’s wrong?”
Stevie glanced at him and was out of the vehicle, dashing toward the station.
“It’s Bob Fletcher,” squeaked Sheila. “He’s dead!”
CHAPTER TWO
Sheila blew her nose again. “This can’t be happening on Christmas.”
Zane agreed.
“I’ve known Bob for twenty years,” Sheila said in her chair across from Zane’s desk. “He was a lowlife and usually an asshole, but when my old Ford went into the ditch during an ice storm in ninety-six, he pulled me out. I’ll never forget it.” She looked hard at Zane. “There’s a tiny bit of good in everyone. Even killers.”
Zane nodded and held out the tissue box. Any soft spot he had for Bob Fletcher had vanished when the man admitted he’d killed Amber Lynn, but Zane wasn’t going to argue the point with Sheila. He knew he’d lose.
Did Bob kill Vanessa Phillips too?
“Tell me again what happened when you got here,” he said to Sheila. Stevie leaned against the door frame of his office, looking very un-cop-like in her boots, jeans, and reindeer sweater. She’d held her fingertips to her lips and then touched them to the photo of her father on the office wall. Big Bill Taylor deserved his place of honor, and Zane had a visual reminder to be the best possible police chief.
“Kenny left the door unlocked,” Sheila said with a stern look. “I’ve told him over and over, if he’s the last one out the door, he needs to lock it.”
“I suspect he was a bit distracted when he got the call about the death from the motel,” said Zane. “You know Kenny.”
Sheila sighed. “I do.” Her Christmas-light necklace twinkled nonstop, and Zane struggled to keep eye contact.
“Anyway, I knew Kenny wasn’t in the building . . . his patrol car was missing. So I came in and put a plate of cookies on his desk and started a fresh pot of coffee. I was about to put away the files left in the break room when I decided to say hello to Bob back in holding. It is Christmas.”
“You have a good heart,” said Stevie. “That was very kind of you.”
“I slid open the little peekaboo window in the door and saw he was on the floor in the cell.” She paused and took a deep breath. “There was blood everywhere. My first instinct was to rush in, but I stopped myself and yelled his name instead.” She wiped her eyes. “He didn’t move and so I called you.”
“You did the right thing,” said Zane.
“Maybe I could have stopped the bleeding if I’d gone right in.” Sheila blinked rapidly, holding back more tears. Her green eye shadow was the exact color of a ribbon he’d torn off a Christmas package that morning.
The medical examiner stepped in the room. “Nope,” Hank said. “Nothing you could have done. There’s no way that boy could have survived beyond a minute. Both his carotid arteries were sliced wide open.”
“Thank you, Hank.” Sheila stood and hugged the medical examiner. “That helps put my mind at ease.”
Hank’s face reddened as he patted her awkwardly on the back. He met Zane’s gaze, and Zane bit his cheek. He’d never seen the examiner at a loss for words.
“Sorry to keep you so busy on a holiday, Hank,” said Stevie. She squeezed Sheila’s hand as the thin woman excused herself and left the room, taking Zane’s Kleenex box with her.
“Can’t say I’ve ever had a holiday quite like this one,” admitted Hank, as he sat heavily in the chair that had been vacated by Sheila. “A long time ago Luke Jemmings shot his ex-wife and then turned the gun on himself on a Valentine’s Day. But I don’t consider that a real holiday.”
“Did Bob kill himself?” asked Zane. He hadn’t seen anything in the holding cell that Bob could have used to commit suicide, but he asked anyway, hoping Hank would answer in the positive, because Zane’s stomach churned when he considered the other option.
There was a second killer in Solitude.
Hank looked at him sharply. “That was no suicide. His neck was sliced from one side to another, and it was damned deep. You think someone could do that to himself? It takes a nasty-edged blade with a lot of strength behind it to cut through those tissues.”
“We’d hoped that he’d somehow done it himself,” said Stevie, leaving her post against the wall to sit on the edge of Zane’s desk and face the medical examiner. “This means that someone got into the holding cell and murdered him right under our noses.”
“No weapon left behind?” Hank asked.
“We haven’t found one,” said Stevie.
“What about cameras in here?” asked Hank.
Zane shook his head. “If we had cameras, I’d have nonstop footage of Sheila typing and answering the phone. Nothing ever happens inside here. Until today. Kenny was on duty this morning, but he got called out to the Wayward Motel when Vanessa Phillips was found.”
“Kenny called in a few minutes ago,” Stevie said. “The morgue wagon finally arrived at the motel to remove Vanessa, so he should be here soon.”
“Well, someone got in, took care of Bob, and left with the knife,” stated Hank. “I heard Sheila say the front door was unlocked. I suppose Kenny’s going to get some tough questions from you, Zane.” Hank pushed out of his seat. “I need to get moving. I’ll take a closer look at your two victims tomorrow morning, but first I need to get out to the county hospital.”
“Everything all right?” asked Stevie.
“Yep, every year I play Santa for the kids who are stuck there over the holidays. I better get moving before I’m too late.”
Zane blinked. How does the man go from seeing two murder victims to handing out gifts to children?
Hank met his gaze and gave a half smile. “I’ve gotten used to it,” he said, as if reading Zane’s thoughts. “I leave my work at the office or else I have no life. Seeing those happy faces is something I look forward to every Christmas. It’s good for my old, cranky soul.”
“Bless you, Hank.” Stevie’s eyes were damp.
Zane stood and held out his hand, unable to speak past the lump in his throat. Hank shook it and vanished.