They said nothing for a while and Nick wasn't even sure why he was there.
He sighed, running a hand over his face. "Hey." He cleared his throat. "Thanks for helping out back there. I mean, thanks for pulling me off Darlington."
Mark grinned. "And for looking the other way while you got some 'answers' from him?"
Nick felt the corners of his own mouth quirk up. "Yeah. But I probably would have done a lot worse if you hadn't been there."
"The bastard had a knife, Nick. He would have killed you if you'd done any less."
The moment felt less difficult all of a sudden. Nick walked over to the window and looked down at the parking lot. His truck was gone. If Helen had taken the highway, she'd be home by now.
"Mark," he said, "sorry about trying to get info on Helen's past out of you. She told me everything."
"It's okay. I would have done the same."
He turned and indicated to Mills. "Did he decide to talk yet?"
"Not without a lawyer. He must have overheard Darlington's confession. He won't say a thing. The nurse gave him a sedative."
Nick resisted the nearly overwhelming temptation to shake the man awake. Instead he stared at the monitors, willing them to somehow heal the man.
Globatech?
He peered at the labels on each of the machines. The logo sticker practically glowed at the back of the IV monitor. Globatech had made that piece of equipment.
He'd seen that same sticker on the back of a laptop at the station in Lower Cove.
The chief's laptop.
His gaze flew to Mark's face. "When you were acting chief this spring, did you see any requisitions for laptop computers?"
Mark laughed. "Are you kidding? With Supply and Services now going through the mayor's office? They'd laugh us right out of the town hall." He sobered. "Why? Because the chief had one? Forget it, it's a cheap one. I don't know why he bought it. It's always crashing. He hates it."
Really? Dennis Hunt cursed computers one day and was toting a laptop the next? Then he was back to cursing them?
"But maybe he decided to finally learn something about them, since we were getting a whole new system in the office, anyway," Mark suggested.
"Wait." Nick held up his hand. "Wasn't Jones the one who set up our new computers?"
Mark shrugged. "Sure. We shared the contract for them with Saint John because it was cheaper. Jones set up all the systems. He's a real whiz at them."
"How is he at removing reports?"
"What are you talking about?" Mark then rolled his eyes. "Aw, Nick, the autopsy reports? Your corrupt officials theory?"
"Yeah."
Mark shot him a disbelieving look. "Nick, why would he steal the autopsy report? There were other copies available. He could have taken Saint John's copy, if he wanted one so badly."
That was true. Grimacing, Nick rubbed his face. It didn't make any sense, but he decided to run with the idea anyway. "Listen. What if he only wanted to read it and since it didn't tell him anything of interest, do you think he would check out the ballistic report instead?"
Mark swore as he yanked out his cell phone. He punched out a few numbers, all the while glaring with skepticism at Nick. Then he spoke sharply. A minute later, he hung up, even more grim than before. "I called Sandra. She says the ballistic reports have now disappeared. She found that out when she tried to file her new copy of the autopsy."
"Reports?"
"For both DiPetri and Cooms. The chief asked for a copy of Cooms's because I was still part of the op. And that's not all. Sandra says she called Saint John and they noticed that the bullets have walked out of the evidence room, as well."
Nick swore. The slugs the coroner had dug out of Cooms and DiPetri had been sent for testing. It was standard procedure and everyone expected the findings to tell them that they'd been fired from the same weapon. Only the lab could tell them if they matched, but he wagered even the lab's copies would be missing as well. And with no evidence or reports…
Someone had a lesser chance of being prosecuted.
Mark broke into his thoughts. "Do you think Jones took them?"
"No. I was just running with the idea." He shot his ex-partner a short smile. "I should have been using logic instead of my instinct." He dug through his jacket and pulled out a wad of folded printouts. "Here are the printouts Jones made for me from the video clip we found on Helen's tape. At least we still have them." He spread them out at the foot of the bed, ignoring the unconscious Mills. "Mind you, Jones printed out a picture of everyone who was at the party that night. He also admitted he had to clean up some of the stills so we could see them clearly. Helen said that Cooms had hinted to her that there was more than one crooked cop involved. If Jones had seen his own face on the video, wouldn't he have 'cleaned' it up so much, we wouldn't recognize it? Or eliminated it entirely?"
Mark shoved the bed table out of the way and peered at the printouts. "But how will we be able to tell? Assuming he had the time to do it."
"We have a printout of the party as a whole. Let's start comparing pictures to see if we have everyone." Nick pulled out a pen and began to mark off the obvious ones. Helen, Cooms, Darlington—
His hand froze over the next one he picked up. A trail of icy cold whipped up his arms as the short hairs stood on end. It seemed as if his breath was suck from his lungs just as every hair on his body stood at rigid attention.
The blowup was grainy at best and didn't show more than a quarter of the man's heavy features. But the shape of the head, the ruddy complexion, the heavy jowls prevalent in middle-aged men who were big-boned and heavyset. How had he missed him before in his truck?
Nick glanced up at Mills, who was still oblivious to the world. Mills was thin and small-boned. He looked gaunt and drawn in the bed, his thin, sloping shoulders not at all like the ones of the man whose silhouette he'd seen against the streetlights the night Helen was nearly hit.
He swore. His hand shook as he handed the paper to Mark. "Recognize him?"
Mark's curse was fouler.
The chief.
Nick grabbed the cell phone from where Mark had laid it and punched out his home number.
One ring. Two rings. Three rings. She should have been there by now. Where could she be? Where did she go?
"Who are you calling?"
"Helen. She isn't there." He disconnected and dialed the Lower Cove Police Department. Sandra answered.
Nick was going to ask her to send a patrol car to his house, but he caught the order before it reached his lips. "Sandra? Where's the chief?"
She sighed. "He said he wasn't feeling well right after Mark called. Since it was quiet here, he decided to go home to lie down. I had to call in the auxiliary officers. Good thing, they're all out at the tavern answering a noise complaint."
Nick's stomach lurched. No! No! Pivoting sharply, he raced to the door and flung it open, only to skid to a stop. Damn! He didn't have his truck!
The guard outside the room looked at him questioningly. Nick shoved the cell phone into his pocket and grabbed the man's shoulder. "Do you have a car here?"
"Sure. One of the new ones from the compound."
"Quick! Give me the keys!"
The guard glanced over Nick's shoulder to Mark, who nodded. Nick grabbed the keys as soon as they were produced and bolted toward the stairs.
The chief! Nick's mind raced as he reached for the handrail in the stairwell. It seemed impossible and yet…
Yet it all made sense.
On the ground floor, Nick roared for the front doors. Outside, ignoring the steady rain that had begun to fall, he snapped his head from one side to another to orient himself.
There! He spotted the cruiser and leapt out in front of a parked ambulance to race to it.
Keep her safe, he prayed, slamming into the hood of the cruiser in his haste to whip around to the driver's door. Keep her safe! Please!
He roared out of the parking lot, cutting off two small cars and getting sharp, ang
ry honks for his effort.
Once out on the highway, he pulled out Mark's cell phone. He had one more suspicion to confirm. He punched out the city's jail number.
The corrections officer told him Darlington had two visitors, apart from his lawyer and parole officer. His mother and Dennis Hunt.
Someone had told Darlington to kill Helen, and Nick was guessing it wasn't the guy's mother.
The windshield wipers beat a rhythmic slapping against the window, swishing away the downpour. Nick gripped the steering wheel to stare past them. Dennis Hunt had suggested that they start the undercover investigation at the local seasonal fishing industry. It was an obvious point to start, so no one, even Nick who'd had his doubts, had said any different. But it had also been designed to thwart the investigation from the start. Then Nick had suggested to move the investigation closer to Cooms, Hunt must have become nervous. When DiPetri was murdered, he used that excuse to suspend Nick, afraid he was getting closer to the truth.
Helen had said, quite absently, that she thought the reason was picky, but she had suggested he was merely protecting Nick's butt.
In a way, Helen had been right. Only the chief had been protecting his own butt.
Nick fished out a coin from his jacket for the bridge toll, cursing the fact he was wasting precious seconds. Once past that and cruising westward, with lights flashing, Nick grabbed the cell phone again and dialed his home number.
Still no one answered.
* * *
Helen gaped at Dennis Hunt. Why was he here? The man stepped over the threshold and turned to close the door. The sounds of the steady rain died into the soft click of the door being locked.
"What's wrong?" she croaked out. Please let it not be Nick.
The chief walked into the living room, not bothering to remove his wet shoes. Helen glared down at the shiny footprints he was leaving on Nick's clean, wood floor.
"Nick called me to ask if I would come by. He said he needed someone to keep an eye on you."
"But Clive has been caught and…" She trailed off, wondering if it was a good idea to mention that even though Clive had ratted out Mills, she didn't believe him. "And Nick sent me back here."
"Caught?" Chief Hunt turned to face her, his expression clouded with confusion.
"Yes, he tried to sneak in and stab Mills."
Hunt glanced around the semilit room. Helen could smell the dampness of his uniform over the comforting smells of Nick's house. Outside, the sky seemed grayer and darker than a midwinter's twilight. A gust from the bay slashed a sheet of heavy rain against the window beyond the wood stove and Helen half expected to hear a peal of thunder in the distance.
She rubbed her arms. "Well, thanks for checking up on me, but I'm fine."
"I don't think so. You opened the door without checking who it was."
Helen studied his frown. "I thought you were Nick. You're right, though. I'll be more careful." She made a movement toward the door.
"You should be. Not even a cop's home is necessarily safe. You're lucky Nick asked me to stop by."
Something wasn't right. Helen reached the door and stood staring out the door's window at the rain-drenched driveway. Nick trusted the chief? She doubted that. He didn't even trust his own feelings, his own heart. She shifted her gaze from the middle distance beyond the door glass and focused on the faint, blurry reflection of the chief behind her.
She squinted. His face. She'd seen his face before.
Then it came to her.
At the party Jamie had found so necessary to tape.
She whirled around. "You're him! You're the crooked cop that Jamie had hinted about. You were at the party that night. The one Jamie videotaped."
"Clever girl. Keep up the good work. And thank you for telling me exactly what evidence Cooms had on me." He whipped out a gun and pointed it at her. "And since Darlington is in custody, I think it's time I finished the job." He shook his head. "If you want something done right…"
Helen felt her breath coming out in short, dry gasps. She couldn't take her eyes off the gun. Never in her life had she even seen one this close, let alone pointed at her.
"Oh, I knew you would recognize me sooner or later," Hunt said, matter-of-factly continuing the conversation. "You really should have disappeared. I would have found what Jamie Cooms had on me and destroyed it. And you'd have been too scared to show your face in this province again. Not that you would have, after faking your own suicide. That's a criminal offense here."
She gaped at him. Then slowly, like the way daylight was seeping from the landscape, she truly, truly understood. She tried to swallow, but her throat hurt. She had to somehow slow down her thoughts, get control, and find a way to stop this crazy nightmare.
She backed up toward the door. "Jamie was blackmailing you, wasn't he? But why would he blackmail you when you could turn him in? Unless you were selling drugs? Or were you taking protection money from him?"
Her words sounded garbled to her ears. She wasn't even sure she was making sense.
"I'm six months away from retirement and Cooms was a greedy bastard. He paid me to keep him safe and then found a way to get the money back."
It was all sinking in too fast to make any sense. "You didn't know about the videotape he'd taken from my apartment?"
"Keep talking. It'll save me having to bring Mark in for a full report. Damn shame I have to rely on a civilian for information."
Helen's hand reached back to touch the doorknob. It was cold, even in her already cold hand. She'd seen the chief shut it and lock it. She'd never get it open before he could leap on her. And he stood between her and the rest of the house, filling the far end of the entranceway with his heavyset frame.
She didn't want to keep talking, to let slip to this horrible man something that could jeopardize Nick's life, but if she lapsed into silence, what would he do? Finish off what he came here to do?
"You tried to run me down."
"No, William Townsend did." He chuckled.
Anger leapt inside of her. "William Townsend doesn't exist. And Nick knows that, too."
Hunt nodded. "He's always been a good cop. He likes to have his own way, but he's smart."
"Why do all of this, anyway? You said you were near retirement. It seems like an awful risk to take."
"I have six months left as a police officer. And I'm to retire to what? A small pension in a small town out in the middle of nowhere? Not even able to afford to go south for the winter while people like Cooms are just drowning in money?"
"He got rich on the backs of poor addicts. Hardly something to be envied." Even the thought of it all sickened her.
"Ah, yes, I remember when I had those ideals. But you can't stop crime. It'll always be here, and people like Cooms will always win. My whole career would have been for nothing and I'd retire with a pittance."
But he had gone south. Nick had told her he'd taken his wife on a second honeymoon. "Is that why you went to the Caribbean? To set up a bank account to launder your money?"
He laughed. "You've been watching too much TV. Banks don't launder money, per se. Besides, I prefer to call it putting a little away for a rainy day. Like this one."
The phone began to ring. Both of them jumped slightly.
"Ignore it," Hunt growled.
"We both know that's Nick. He's expecting me to answer it. He's given me enough time to get home."
"Too bad."
Helen swallowed to relieve her dry throat. That had to be Nick, which would mean he must still be at the hospital. At least twenty minutes away. She glanced at Hunt, past the gun pointed at her, all the way up to his face. "What are you going to do?"
His ruddy features cracked into a cold smile. "I'm going to make your suicide real."
Chapter 16
The car slid on the wet pavement as Nick yanked the steering wheel to the left. Immediately, the tires bit into the packed dirt and peppered gravel into the wheel wells before lurching forward.
He slammed
the gas pedal to the floor, cursing his long driveway. He took the last curve on two wheels.
Ahead was the house, his truck. And one of Lower Cove's police cruisers.
The one that didn't have a light bar. The one Hunt preferred.
He slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop behind the cruiser. Ahead of him, the house looked dark and cold. And empty.
He leapt out, ignoring the pelting rain as he took the porch steps two at a time
"Helen!" he called as he threw open the front door. "Get down!"
Only the silence answered him, mocking him for pretending to have a weapon.
Where was she? He raced from room to room, galloping up the stairs to check his bedroom.
Empty. He tore back down the stairs, leaping over the last few before sprinting out the door. What had the chief done with her?
His gaze fell to the ground. Rainwater had already begun to fill two sets footprints.
One a big set, the other, much smaller. The smaller prints were smudged and twisted, like the owner had been dancing around the bigger person.
Not dancing. Fighting.
Nick looked up. The rim of his cove rose in steep, pale gray rocks. Wind and rain lashed at the spruce, contorting the short branches. He squinted, focusing on the very outer rim of the cliff, the edge where he'd seen Helen standing.
Nothing.
Looking back down at the footprints, he followed them with his eyes, all the way to the path that led to the cliff.
Beside him was the police cruiser and he automatically reached out to touch the wet hood.
It was warm. The chief had just gotten here.
Nick bolted up the trail. Wet, prickly branches slapped at him, taunting him to run faster, to catch Hunt. He stumbled over a slick root, as if the damn thing had sprung up just to trip him.
The trail seemed twice as long as it ever had been before. He tried to call out to Helen, to tell her to keep fighting, but nothing but a gasp spewed from his mouth.
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