by Hinze, Vicki
Still no answer.
Reaching into her purse, Gabby pulled out her pepper spray then reached for the wall switch and turned on the overhead light. The lamp stood undisturbed in its place on the entry table. Maybe the bulb had just burned out. Chiding herself for overreacting, she stepped inside.
Light from the entry streaked across the carpeted floor and she got a view of the living room. Total disarray. Gabby clicked on the light and scanned the mayhem. Every sofa cushion lay askew, shredded. The glass-topped tables had been turned upside down, legs up in the air, the sculptures once atop them haphazardly littered the floor. Even the wall paintings hadn’t escaped. Every framed canvas hung crooked, as if someone shoved at them to peek behind. What had happened here? Had her father suffered an adverse reaction to a medication and gone into a rage? Had he driven Lucy over the edge?
The dining room was in the same shape as the living room. Gabby called out again, headed into the kitchen. “Lucy?”
Every cabinet door stood open. Flour and sugar dusted the floor, the empty bags discarded near the table. Broken plates and glasses had been left on the granite countertops; shards spilled over onto the planked-wooden floor. The spice rack stood empty, all its jars in a broken heap on the floor. The stovetop was bare. Whatever happened had happened before Lucy began preparing dinner.
Gabby stilled, listened, her heart beating faster and faster, echoing in her ears, throbbing in her temples. Eerie silence. No sounds except the dull drone of the refrigerator, the quiet whir of the central heating.
Her pepper spray ready to discharge, she edged room to room, scraping her back against the dimple-textured wall, turning on lights and visually scanning every inch of destruction. In the laundry room, half-dry towels draped across the open dryer door and the strong scent of chemicals hung in the dead air. Bottles of cleaning supplies had been dumped; the empties tossed into the laundry sink. Otherwise the room was clear. Lucy’s bedroom and bath. Tussled, but clear.
In the hallway, Gabby turned back to the far side of the house. Her throat felt too dry to swallow. His office. She hadn’t checked his office. Or upstairs. No way was she going up there alone.
At the French doors to his office, a funny feeling swam through her. Gabby stopped and flipped on the light switch. The room flooded with light and, instinctively, she gasped and recoiled.
The office was a worse disaster than the kitchen. Papers strewn everywhere; all his files dumped from the cabinets. Everything moveable had been kicked over, shoved or slung. His chair cushions had been slashed, the back of the leather wingchair he favored, marred with jagged, gashed cuts. Stuffing poked and pulled out.
But the smell was a hundred times worse than the sight. Iron, like her hands when she’d emptied her piggybank and rolled all those old coins.
Blood.
The roof of her mouth tingled, and her palms sweated. She stiffened all over, bracing herself, then stepped around the splintered remnants of a banker’s bookcase, and looked behind the desk.
Face down on the floor lay her father.
Lucy lay crumpled beside him.
Burnished blood stained their backs—the source of the awful smell. And a butcher knife with a long black handle protruded from Lucy’s wound.
Stunned, doubting her eyes, Gabby couldn’t move or look away. A scream burned her throat. One that came from so deep within, if she let it out, she’d never be able to stop it. To bar its escape, she clasped her hand over her mouth. Stuff it down! Stuff it down! Shaking so hard she feared convulsing, Gabby forced herself to breathe, to bend, to check for signs of life.
There were none.
Get out of the house, Gabby. The killer could still be here. Get out!
She’d heard no sounds, sensed no presence, but that meant nothing. Quickly, she hurried to the front door and then down the sidewalk to the driveway, back to her Mustang. Fumbling her keys, she jerked open the car door and then checked inside. Empty. Scrambling in, she slammed and locked the doors. Think, Gabby. Think.
She needed help.
Now.
Finally gripping her phone, she dialed 911.
An operator answered. “Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”
“My father and his caretaker have been murdered.” Gabby darted her gaze to the house, across the lawn, and down the street. Quiet. Still. Nothing seemed odd or out of place. She answered the operator’s questions, reciting the address and her name.
“Where are you now, Gabby? Are you still in the house?”
“Locked in my car.”
“Good. You stay there. Officers are on the way. Don’t you open the car-door for anyone else.”
“Okay. Okay, thank you.” Gabby hung up, hearing too late the operator instructing her to stay on the line. But she didn’t call back; she needed her phone to text Shadow Watcher.
“My father was right. Just got home from work and found him and Lucy murdered. Police on the way.” Gabby hit Send.
“Stuff it down, GK. First things first. Are you safe?” Shadow Watcher’s words filled the screen on her phone.
He was there. Thank you, God. Thank you. “Locked in my car. Pepper spray in hand.”
“How did it happen?”
“Stabbed. Lucy for sure, and my father, I think. No blood spray. No smell of gunfire. Just blood, and the knife in Lucy’s back. Looking for something. Tore up everything.”
“No signs of anyone else in the house now?”
“Didn’t hear or see anyone. Everything is wrecked, SW. An elephant could be in there and I might not have seen it. I didn’t go upstairs at all.”
“Where did you find them?”
“In his office.” Why was he out of bed? Downstairs? Why was he in his office?
“Together?”
“Yes.”
“Clearly, Lucy wasn’t a plant.”
“Is that what you thought?”
“It is. But if so, she was double-crossed.”
They texted back and forth a few more times, him getting as many details down as she could recall. Then Shadow Watcher asked, “What was missing?”
“Who knows? I told you, the entire place was trashed.”
“What about his computer? Was it there?”
She stilled. Clients. Computer. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Summoning her frantic memories of what she’d seen in his office, she mentally scanned his desk. “No. It was gone. His external hard drive, too. He used it to store backups.”
“Do you know what was on it?”
“Not a clue. He was going to show me some of his work tonight.”
“You didn’t have his password?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“And you didn’t peek in—? “
“Hack my father? Absolutely not.”
Sirens sounded in the distance and drew near. Gabby looked back over her shoulder and saw two police cars pull to the curb and stop. A third one joined them and then an unmarked car.
“Police are here. I have to go.”
“I’ll be close. Keep me posted.”
“Thanks.” She wished he were not close but with her. Still, if she’d had to wait alone . . . Her dry eyes burned. Tears hadn’t yet come. They would. Of course, they would. But not now. Now, she had to hold herself together.
Her father had known this would happen. He’d known someone would murder him. Had he known that person would murder Lucy, too?
A rap sounded on her car window. “Miss Blake?”
A police officer in uniform, his badge clearly visible. Opening the door, she stepped out of the car. “Officer, my father is dead.” Tears spilled down her cheeks. “He and Lucy, his caretaker, are both dead.”
Chapter Five
Monday, December 7, 4:30 p.m.
“GK, are you there?”
Sitting at her kitchen bar, Gabby read the text message from Shadow Watcher and asked herself the same question. Was she?
She’d dealt with the police the night of the murder, spoken with Detective Jam
es Marsh, who’d been assigned the homicide case, and with Special Agent Andrew Bain, the FBI agent assigned, though no one had yet explained to her why the FBI was involved in the double-homicide case.
The potential Medros connection created priority status on processing the scene and in the coroner’s office. Gabby had arranged for a graveside service for her father, which only she and two of his former co-workers had attended, and she had gone to Lucy Mason’s funeral. Hundreds were there; her family devastated, ravaged by grief.
The contrast in the two services was stark and unnerving. And it made Gabby wonder. If she died, beyond an empty desk at her office, would anyone notice?
That inevitably led to her spending a lot of time thinking. Asking herself questions she maybe should have asked long ago. The one plaguing her now was particularly rough. Her insides felt clawed and shredded, ripped apart and trapped in the merciless clenches of regret and grief. If she’d been a different kind of daughter, would Adian Blake have been a different kind of father?
In the hours since returning home to her apartment, Gabby’s mind tumbled as if caught up in a tornado’s twisting winds. She doubted everything—her faith, her priorities, even herself. But sometime between three and four, totally overwhelmed and a breath from breaking down, she put all her fears and insecurities and regrets and wishes in God’s hands. His vision was 20/20 on everything. Hers was too cloudy to trust at all, and she was flawed and rattled to the core. Staring at the phone screen, she repeated Shadow Watcher’s question to her in her mind. Was she there?
She was. What there was of her and, at the moment, she just couldn’t be sure exactly what that included. As odd as her grief might be, it definitely made everything seem worse.
Settled, she lifted her phone and answered Shadow Watcher’s text. “I’m here.”
“The funerals go okay?”
“About like funerals go,” she texted back. “I’m glad they are done.”
“I wish you had let me come with you.”
He had offered. Multiple times. And she’d refused. Facing the funerals on her own, she could do it. She had faced everything in her life alone. But if he had been there with her, she would have leaned hard on him. Maybe. Probably, as messed up as she was right now. What would have happened then? She might have fallen apart. That was the thing about depending on someone else for anything. It made you weak and vulnerable. Then, when he drew back from her, where would she be? Alone again. Only this time, she’d know what she was missing. Know what it was like to have someone to lean on. No. No, she couldn’t do it. She’d be a fool to put herself through that.
“You doing all right?”
How did she answer that? Was anyone who’d lost a parent on Friday all right on Monday? Okay, so they had been distant, nearly strangers. He had never been a dad. He hadn’t wanted to be in her life or wanted her in his life. But they’d had a chance to bond—well, the start of a chance to bond—and now that was gone and so was he.
Being orphaned at any age is hard. When death robs you of your one chance to prove your worth, it’s merciless. Constantly hammering your heart. “Yeah, I’m all right,” she responded. Whether or not that was true, it was all she was capable of at the moment. “Agent Bain called. He’s coming over with an update.”
“Today? Are you up to that right now?”
Concerned. She felt Shadow Watcher’s worry. “Considering the murderer is still out there, and I don’t want to keep looking over my shoulder every second, yeah, I am fine with him coming now. The sooner, the better.”
“Troop Search and Rescue sends its condolences, GK. Anything you need, anything at all, you just say the word. We’re all on stand-by for you.”
“Thanks.” Moved, her throat thickened, and her chest tightened. “Settling his affairs won’t be difficult. His lawyer’s already been in touch and everything is in order. He did a full legal review a few months ago.”
“Why?”
“Isn’t that an interesting question? I can’t answer it. Unfortunately, neither could his attorney.”
“Fits in with your father’s expectation someone would kill him, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” she admitted, then went on, grateful the words could be typed and certain she could never speak them. “It also confirms the stroke had nothing to do with the reason he felt that fear.”
“Agreed. He’s apparently worried about it for months, having the legal review. Are you thinking the stroke was induced?”
“Aren’t you?” she whispered aloud while keying in her response.
The doorbell rang.
“Agent Bain has arrived. Will get back to you after he leaves.” Her fingertip hovered above the Send button. Debating, she added, “Thanks for caring, SW.”
“My privilege, GK. I’ll be waiting.”
Feeling a little less alone and despondent, Gabby stuffed her phone in the back pocket of her jeans on her way to the front door. She’d intended to change clothes before Agent Bain arrived, but messaging with Shadow Watcher had done her a lot more good. Suck it up and stuff it down, Gabby.
She checked the peephole and recognized the agent standing just beyond her door. He’d been with the NOPD homicide detective, James Marsh, the night of the murder at her father’s house. Typical FBI black suit, white shirt and tie. Early forties, brown hair and nondescript, forgettable features. An asset in his line of work, she supposed. He’d removed his dark sunglasses, so she could easily identify him through the peephole.
Gabby twisted the deadbolt and then opened the door. “Agent Bain.”
“Miss Blake.” When she stepped back, he walked inside. “I’m sorry to intrude, especially with the funerals being today.”
Funerals. Plural. He knew she’d attended Lucy Mason’s funeral as well as her father’s. Gabby thought she’d seen him and Detective Marsh there, but honestly, she’d been absorbing so much in the stark difference between her father’s funeral and Lucy Mason’s, it was all a bit of a blur. Add her guilt about Lucy’s murder, earned or not, and all the heartbroken grievers mourning Lucy, Gabby had been an internal wreck. But she had gotten through it all upright. That wasn’t much, but it’s what she had, so she held onto it tightly. “Come in and have a seat,” she told Bain. “Can I get you something hot to drink?” It had been a chillingly cold day and the night had turned frigid.
“No, thank you.” He walked over to the sofa but waited for her to sit down in her comfy chair before sitting. “I wanted to wait at least until tomorrow to get in touch, but there’s been a development that made waiting imprudent.”
Surprise rose and Gabby stiffened. “You've arrested the killer?”
“No, no. Sorry. We’re still working on that,” he told her. “Detective Marsh called with new information from a credible source, a confidential informant he’s worked with for a good while.”
The term was familiar to her. Troop Search and Rescue had used it for as long as she had been with them. “What did the CI report?”
“I can’t independently confirm this, but Detective Marsh said word on the street is George Medros put out the contract on your father.” The skin between Bain’s thick brows bunched. “You know who he is, right?”
“Organized crime. Everyone in New Orleans knows who he is. What we don’t know is why he isn’t in prison.”
“I’ve wondered the same thing, Miss Blake. It isn’t for a lack of trying.”
That, she understood. People like Medros had layers and layers of protection between them and their crimes. “And Lucy? Was she contracted, too?” Gabby couldn’t imagine it, but confirmation was warranted.
Bain’s mouth twisted but his voice remained level. “Collateral damage.”
Collateral damage? Anger simmered in Gabby, threatening to boil over. Lucy had been such a good woman, beloved by her family and friends, and these thugs had reduced her to collateral damage? She’d had dreams and purpose and a life.
Guilt swam through Gabby. If only she hadn’t hired Lucy. If only
she’d taken a leave of absence from work and been there herself, Lucy would still be alive. Gabby squeezed her eyes shut a long moment, struggled to get a grip on her emotions. Stuff it down! “How . . . tragic.”
“Yes.” The agent nodded his agreement, then laced his fingers atop his knee. “We suspect Medros feared his secrets wouldn’t remain secret because of your father’s mental condition.”
“So, he mitigated his risks.” Gabby absorbed and processed that. The stroke definitely had not been a stroke. It’d been a botched assassination attempt. “His people tossed my father’s house, looking for Medros’s information to make sure it didn’t end up in your hands. Is that right?”
Bain’s face turned red. “That’s our suspicion.” When she stared silently at him, he added, “Which the detective’s CI affirmed.”
Gabby followed Bain’s line of thinking. “The computer and hard drive being taken substantiates your theory.” Alone, it could also substantiate a muddied home invasion.
“It does, but it’s not enough.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Bain rubbed at the back of his neck. “Why would they toss the whole house? What else could they have been looking for?”
Gabby shrugged. “I have no idea. As I’ve explained, my father and I were not close. I know next to nothing of his affairs and even less about his business practices.”
Bain’s facial expression remained passive, but determination hardened the look in his eyes. “When you were living at home, did he have friends who dropped by regularly?”
“No. He was very much a loner.” She hadn’t thought a thing of that at the time. It was just normal.
“No women in his life?”
“Not to my knowledge.” Gabby never had seen one.
“Ever?”
“Ever.”
“Strange.” Bain focused on something beyond the far wall. “He was a young man when your mother passed. It’s odd that he’d cut himself off from friends or companions like that.”