Harlequin Romantic Suspense January 2021

by Marie Ferrarella, Regan Black, Karen Whiddon

  Her eyes widened for just a moment before she averted her gaze. “Melissa didn’t say it in those words, but I think she agrees with you.”

  He wisely withheld comment on that. “Mrs. McPherson was quite desperate for the chief’s attention.”

  “Clearly,” Desiree said. “There’s another reason I came by. You were there and, well…” She pressed her lips together. “I’d like the DA to drop the case against Mrs. McPherson.”

  Antonio stopped moving and the toddler strained against his hold. An orchid, swaying in a nearby floral arrangement, had captured his attention. It was just out of reach, but he was determined to touch it.

  Antonio took a step away and the toddler fussed. He tickled his round tummy, effectively distracting him. “Maybe we should discuss this privately,” Antonio suggested.

  “That’s not necessary.” Desiree looked around the mostly empty lobby. “I just wanted your opinion. Do you think that sweet old grandmother should go to jail for taking Danny?”

  “She committed a crime. You’re part of the GGPD,” he pointed out.

  “Part-time sketch artist,” she said. “Full-time mom. My son’s never been accused of a crime and let’s hope it stays that way. But if I knew he was innocent? Well…”

  “What exactly are you asking?” Antonio queried.

  “I thought maybe if we both wrote to the DA she would consider dropping the charges.”

  Antonio was astounded by this woman’s capacity for forgiveness. In her shoes he was sure he would want to throw the book at the kidnapper, no matter how benign the appearances. “That may not be the best precedent,” he cautioned. “Or even the right thing for the city as a whole. As I told your cousin, I’m prepared to testify to what I saw and heard at Hannah McPherson’s home. The hotel has already received an official request for the security footage of any suspected instances of her on the property.”

  “You have to turn that over,” Desiree said, nodding. “I’m not asking you to impede the investigation or anything.” She sighed, then smiled when her son blew her a kiss. “I should be angry.”

  “I imagine you would be still if we hadn’t found him so quickly.”

  They neared the fountain and the boy wanted to scamper. “So much energy,” Desiree said. The three of them walked the circle, Antonio making sure Danny couldn’t dash away, and Desiree close enough to be sure he wouldn’t find a way into the water.

  “Melissa assured me Mrs. McPherson’s fate is up to the DA. But,” he added when Desiree started to protest, “I will add my support to your request for leniency. In my opinion, the woman was not happy that she caused you stress.”

  “She just didn’t feel like there was another way,” Desiree said. Danny leaned on her legs and she picked him up.

  “We could both be wrong,” Antonio pointed out. “Melissa is being cautious about looking into the Emerson case. She can’t afford to be seen condoning this method of bullying the police department.”

  “Oh, trust me, I heard it all from my brother,” Desiree said. “Part of me feels like a traitor for feeling sorry for Hannah.”

  “You have a good heart, Ms. Colton. And a beautiful son.”

  “Thank you.” She brushed her nose to Danny’s.

  The tender moment melted through him, right up to the cold ball of fear that protected his heart. Everything had turned out all right for these two, and though Hannah McPherson was in jail right now, her concerns were being addressed. Someone needed to find justice for all parties involved. Justice beyond the obvious legalities.

  “We’ll let you get back to work,” Desiree said, smiling up at him. “Again, Danny and I will always be grateful.”

  He gave her a friendly smile and send-off, unable to find a more personal sentiment. The outpouring of gratitude shook him more than he wanted to admit, even to himself. For the better part of two decades he’d focused his energy on building his business. There was nothing else for him after losing Karen and the baby.

  Heading back up the stairs, he knew he’d done the right thing on Saturday night. Eventually the emotional upheaval would quiet down again. He caught himself rubbing his sternum as he walked into his office. A man didn’t make it to forty-two without a few regrets. There was nothing he could do about the past except allow the painful memories to fade away again.

  A distraction was in order, and what better option than helping the police figure out where Orr was hiding?

  What could possibly have brought Orr back to the city now? Antonio had been sure he was working a new angle on investors in Chicago. The possibilities whipped through his mind. After almost falling for Orr’s con, he’d spoken with friends and investors, letting them know his opinion on Orr had changed and why. He refused to let people he trusted and respected be pulled into Orr’s shady net.

  No way to know how much had that cost him. Could Melissa be right that Orr was targeting him and not her? She had to prioritize the Emerson case since Everleigh Emerson was on trial. But maybe he could give the police something more to go on when she could take another look at the Paxton murder.

  The text that had come through just before the fire wouldn’t help much. It didn’t offer a location or even confirmation that it was actually Orr behind the threat.

  Sitting down at his desk, he opened the archived file with the communications and notes he’d taken while planning a project with Orr. There had to be something in here the police could use to show a pattern of behavior.

  The old emails creeped him out in hindsight. The golf outings, double dates, regional charity events. Antonio stopped skimming emails and retrieved his journals from those same months. He’d been so focused on the business potential, had he overlooked something worrisome about Orr’s personal nature?

  Everyone made mistakes, but this was a big one, letting himself be fooled. Well, if there had been anything obvious, he would’ve parted ways with Orr sooner. Other than an awkward argument between Orr and Wendy during a double date, Antonio hadn’t noticed any red flags. He needed to give Melissa something more substantial than an easily dismissed personal account and a few random moments of intuition.

  He called the firm that provided security for the hotel and asked them to run down anything they could on Drew Orr, past and present. The company had built a file for him, the same as they did for any person or business he planned to partner with. It hadn’t raised any red flags back then. Hopefully, this time around they would find an issue the GGPD could build a case on.

  It gave Antonio chills to read through his journal entries of those first meetings with Orr. This time, he saw it as the setup Orr had intended. The man was good, but by killing Wendy, even getting away with it this long, he’d burned his bridges with Antonio and Grave Gulch. It made no sense for him to come back.

  Discouraged that he was letting down Melissa, Antonio tossed aside the journals and turned his attention to current news and websites that discussed markets and investors.

  When he saw a headline, he swore, having completely forgotten about his call with a friend in San Antonio last month. They’d discussed a joint venture that involved the restoration of a sizeable segment of the River Walk. They’d been approached by a third company, new to both of them, that was eager to jump on board. To make the numbers work, the corporation needed three buildings but had a hard cap on the purchase price. The seller hadn’t wanted to accept their offer and the new company had offered to make up the difference just to push the deal through. Orr’s name hadn’t shown up in the background search Antonio had ordered at the time, only a list of lawyers representing a real-estate group.

  It was a stretch, but still possible, that Drew Orr was behind that company. If Antonio had inadvertently botched another deal for Orr, that would certainly explain the man storming back into Grave Gulch for revenge. He sent the real-estate-group information on to the security company. If they could connect the dots
, it could put a quick end to this pervasive sense of danger.

  The thought of spending time with Melissa without looking over his shoulder for Orr sent a zip of anticipation through his veins. He needed to know she was safe, but more than that, he wanted to see those blue eyes sparkle with curiosity as they worked toward a common goal of justice for Wendy Paxton.

  Better yet, he was looking forward to teasing a smile out of her. One that had nothing to with a case and everything to do with just the two of them.

  CHAPTER 8

  Following her chat with Ian, Melissa had to put out a few bureaucratic fires that included calls from the mayor and the DA about Hannah McPherson. Since there was nothing concrete to share on the case, she could only listen, and it wasn’t fun. With still no response from Bowe, she had no choice but to ask the state police to send her a forensic scientist to review the evidence.

  When she finally escaped her office at a quarter past nine, she went straight to Troy’s desk, pleased to catch him. “Sun’s out. Can you take a walk with me?” She often did better thinking when she was on the move. She’d been stuck in her office all morning and she didn’t want to be interrupted again.

  He squinted toward the window. “Sure?”

  “Thanks.” She went back for her coat and gloves, and then caught up with him in the break room. Shrugging into her coat, she was surprised to miss Antonio holding it for her. She had a problem where he was concerned, a problem that had nothing to do with police work. It had taken her all of five minutes to appreciate his thoughtful manners. Less time than that to lose herself in his dark gaze. She wanted to keep thinking of him as oil to her water. They would never mix…and yet she really wanted to try.

  “Are we just out here for the sake of frostbite?” Troy asked, dragging her back from the brink of those dangerous thoughts.

  “No. I need a fresh viewpoint and some scenery before I tackle a delicate interview.”

  “All right, I’m listening.”

  “What do you recall about the body we found in the park in July?”

  “Paxton?”

  She nodded. “That’s the one.”

  “It was memorable in the lack of details. The crime scene didn’t give us much to go on.”

  “Body location,” Melissa muttered.

  “What?”

  “Oh, I said ‘crime scene’ when talking to Ian about it this morning.”

  Troy laughed. “And he corrected you.” He chuckled again when she nodded. “He was the first to propose it was only a dump site, but we were all thinking it. Not enough blood for two gunshot wounds.”

  “Ian told me about processing the scene, finding the victim’s blood in another location.”

  “Right. Blood and nothing else. Nothing much to go on except her tie to the boyfriend, Drew Orr. We cleared him, despite Ruiz’s concerns, and then cleared Ruiz, too, after Orr pointed the finger at him.”

  “And that was okay with you?” she queried.

  “Not at all. Orr was squirrely. But the evidence…” His voice trailed off. “Man, do you remember that blowup Ian and Bowe had over the evidence?”

  She couldn’t recall a fight like that. “What do you mean? Where was I?”

  Troy squinted, thinking back. “Probably at Danny’s birthday party,” Troy said. “I got over there just in time for the cake. And before you get all guilty about it, you don’t take enough time off as it is. There was no need to call you in over a personnel dispute. Especially not for those two.”

  Troy was right. Bowe and Ian had frequently butted heads since Bowe had come to Grave Gulch three years ago. Two know-it-alls in one lab didn’t always make for a peaceful environment. Ian hadn’t mentioned a fight, though he had been indignant and upset earlier when she’d told him his pictures and report weren’t included as he’d filed them.

  “What if it was more than the typical fight?”

  “Over what?” Troy countered. “Ian and Bowe get on each other’s nerves. You know how Ian is.”

  “Randall Bowe isn’t much better,” she commented.

  “No, but he has the last word since he’s in charge.”

  Melissa prompted Troy for the details on the fight.

  “Ian asked about the results on a fingerprint he’d seen in the blood. Bowe said the print was smudged, unusable. Ian yelled about photographs, Bowe showed him the body. There were insults and insinuations about who smudged the print and how the angle of the only photo that had been uploaded rendered it useless for identification. They nearly came to blows.”

  She had a moment envisioning how that fight might look. Both men were slim, but Ian was taller, giving him an advantage on reach. “How did you separate them?”

  “Carefully,” Troy said, joking. “Took two of us to haul Ian out of the lab. He’s tougher than he looks when he’s having a tantrum.”

  She turned all of that over in her mind. Would it have changed anything if she’d known this at the time? Probably not. They couldn’t process evidence they didn’t have. Had the fingerprint been smudged on purpose? If so, why?

  “Wait a minute. Ian railed about having photos of the print and told me he’d uploaded all of that properly. Where did those photographs end up?” Her stomach knotted at the mere thought of anyone in her department tampering with evidence. She trusted her people. But something was off in these two murder cases.

  “No one found a connection between Paxton and Ian or Randall, right?”

  “No,” he replied slowly. “I didn’t look for a connection to Orr.” Troy looked at her as if her brain had frozen. “What are you thinking?”

  She stopped, her gaze scanning her town, fully aware that there were eyes on them from every angle. “Clarke found discrepancies in the evidence against Everleigh Emerson. After a man, identified by Mr. Ruiz as Drew Orr, shot at Mr. Ruiz and myself, I think there is reason to believe evidence is off in that case, too.”

  Her stomach rolled and the chill on the back of her neck had nothing to do with the bitter-cold January wind. No matter how she studied the cases, it came down to serious trouble in the forensics department.

  “The fingerprint.” He stared at her, horrified. “Melissa, you have to be careful.”

  “I’m aware.” She pressed the toe of her boot to the snow gathered at the edge of the sidewalk. The grid pattern of the sole reminded her of the mullioned arched windows at Antonio’s home. Not where her mind should be. “For the life of me I can’t come up with a motive. I don’t want to alienate good people, but we have to get to the bottom of this. Will you come with me to talk to Bowe?”

  “Absolutely. It won’t be fun, but it could be entertaining.”

  She tried to laugh, but couldn’t quite make it work. She might as well be walking across thin ice, but the only way to the truth, to real justice, was to keep going.

  “And, of course,” she added as they started back, “you can’t breathe a word of this to anyone.”

  He lifted his chin toward the central intersection where a dozen people were milling about in front of the station with Free Granny signs. “Anyone other than them? They were listening when you said you’d take a second look at the Emerson case. They’re counting on you to keep them updated until McPherson is free.”

  He was right. “So let’s go find something worth an update.”

  “You know if we do reveal an error in the evidence, defense attorneys will be filing appeals right and left.”

  “They do that anyway,” she said, wishing she felt as cavalier as her tone implied. “The only way to know if we managed to get it right the first time is to look again.”

  Melissa and Troy deftly avoided the milling protestors, entering the basement lab directly at the rear of the building. They found Randall Bowe, GGPD forensic scientist, in his office. The slender man was a few inches shorter than Troy, with brown hair brushed back off his forehead a
nd brown eyes currently glowering at his computer monitor.

  Maybe he didn’t appreciate the email she had sent last night on top of her other calls and voice mail messages, asking him to see her as soon as he came in today.

  Or possibly he was aggravated by the media coverage following Saturday night’s events and the implications made by Hannah McPherson’s new attorney. More than one outlet had picked up the story and #FreeGranny had become the social-media hashtag of the moment. Several writers and bloggers were happily pointing fingers at the ineptitude of the GGPD. It was discouraging to have lost the community’s faith, but it only made her more determined to set things right.

  “I got your messages. I went upstairs but you were out,” Bowe said. “Of course, you’d interrupt me now when I’m in the middle of a new report.” He switched off the monitor and tucked his hands into the pockets of his lab coat.

  “We won’t take much of your time,” Troy assured him.

  Melissa kept her opinion on the timing to herself, letting Troy’s cool demeanor lead the way.

  “Could we discuss your report on the Emerson case?” Troy asked. “We need to be sure everything lines up.”

  “It’s all in the database,” Bowe snapped. “Go on and dig around. Look all you like. There’s nothing to discuss. I processed the evidence delivered to me, no thanks to the rookie CSI.”

  Melissa swallowed an automatic defense of Jillian. Her cousin hadn’t worked the scene alone and Billy had backed up her report, though she had yet to find that record in the database.

  His arrogance had always irked her, but she’d done her best to take the high road. The man had an excellent reputation in his field and she’d put that above the challenges of communicating with him. “We’re here because of discrepancies between the reports on the evidence gathered and your findings. The DA wants us to confirm the details before the trial resumes tomorrow.”

  Bowe pursed his thin lips together until they all but disappeared. “As if I don’t see the great Colton family uniting against me. Look in the mirror, Chief. It was one of your precious relatives who screwed up at the Emerson crime scene.