I wiggle to get down out of her arms. When she puts me down, I track Phillip, sniffing at his pants, and listening to every word he says as he explains how, why, and when he let himself into Abby’s house. I know it all for a lie, but keep quiet. I’ve learned police officers rarely care to hear my opinions.
While one officer grills Phillip, another searches through the house, and a third separates Abby and questions her.
I’m getting positively bored by the whole thing by the time the young detective arrives.
In short order, Abby brings Lucas Kelly up to date. He nods a lot and takes a few notes. He asks her for the fourteenth time if anything has been stolen and she says for the fourteenth time she doesn’t know because it’s all such a mess. He asks if he can wander around through the house and she agrees. After giving Phillip what I construe as a nasty look, the detective suggests that Abby and Phillip wait outside.
Though Abby calls me to her, I prance off after Lucas. He stops to pet me and tell me what a good-looking fellow I am and I return the compliment. This friendliness also tells me he doesn’t know I’m the one behind the siren and the unlocked doors in Rizzo’s vehicle. Lucas heads to Layla’s room, with me at his heel.
Once inside, he looks around at the havoc. Rather than add to the mess with his own plundering, he pulls out his cell phone. He punches a number, and then without even a greeting, says, “You’ll never believe who’s here with Abby. Phillip Draper.”
The voice on the other end yells out, “Well, keep him there. I’ll be right over. I’ve got the warrant.”
Lucas puts his phone away, rubs me under my chin, and I reward him with a purr. I start to explain about Phillip hiding in Layla’s room and lying, and as I meow the whole story, Lucas nods as if he understands.
But, of course, he doesn’t.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Am I under arrest or not, Detective Kelly?” Victor sat on a hard metal chair in a tiny room, where he’d been sitting for what seemed like most of the night.
“Not sure about that myself,” the young detective said. “Might be we ought to consider that a possibility.” He pulled up another chair and sat down.
“Would you at least verify my identification to the arresting detective?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve done that. We even found your wallet. Interesting where we found it.” Lucas’ face had something almost like a grin on it.
Victor knew he was supposed to ask where they found the wallet. But he figured he already knew. “Can I get a Coke or something? I’ve got a righteous headache from being hit and knocked out.”
Lucas stood up and stepped outside. A few minutes later he came back with a can of Coke and a bottle of Advil. “We’ll take you to the ER in a few minutes.”
Victor swallowed the Advil with a long, cold gulp of the Coke. “Don’t think the ER is necessary.”
“Well, can’t have you suing us.” Lucas gave Victor a crooked grin. “So, okay, you didn’t ask, but your wallet was found under the dead man.”
“Of course it was,” Victor said. “Part of the set-up.”
“You want to tell me more about that?”
“Not a very good frame, you ask me.” Victor ran his fingers through his hair, feeling the lump on his head. “First, no way I lie there unconscious and unnoticed for the twenty-four hours or so that man was dead. Second, I’d be covered in blood if I’d cut that man’s throat with my switchblade.”
“Blood splatters.” Lucas said the word slowly like he was thinking on something deep.
“Blood splatters,” Victor repeated. He’d seen them countless times in the Navy and knew a good bit about the science, but what he was remembering now was the blood splatter in the bathroom at the law school. Victor saw a glint in Lucas’ expression which said that Lucas knew something important that he himself didn’t.
But suddenly Victor could guess. “It wasn’t Layla’s blood. I mean, at the law school, in the bathroom. It was the homeless guy’s, right? The way his neck was sliced.”
Lucas nodded. “We’re still running the DNA, but right now we can say this much—the blood in the bathroom was the same type as the dead man’s. And not the same as Layla’s.”
Victor let out a sigh of relief. If Layla hadn’t been cut, she might still be alive. He jumped up. “Layla’s alive and we have to find her before she dies without her insulin.”
“Yep.” Lucas nodded. “How ‘bout this. I drive you over to the ER and on the way, you tell me what you know and what you think you know since you’ve been sniffing around.”
Victor studied the young detective’s face. Was he setting some kind of trap? From the first, Rizzo and Lucas had acted like Victor was their lead suspect, and now the man was being almost friendly.
Curbing his suspicions for the moment, Victor nodded. “Deal. But first, did the dead man in the dumpster have cat scratches on his face?”
“Yes. He did.”
“He’s the one who mugged Layla by the back of the law firm.” Victor said it as an established fact, not a question.
“Way we’re figuring it too.”
As Victor stood there, he added it up—somebody tried to burn Layla’s apartment, hired a homeless man to mug her and steal her backpack, and that someone killed the homeless man, probably in the law library basement bathroom, and then he—or she—kidnapped Layla.
And it had something to do with oil and gas exploration.
“Come on, let’s get you checked out at the ER.” Lucas put out a hand as if to guide Victor.
As they left the interrogation room, Lucas steered him down a hallway toward an exit door. Before they left the police station, Detective Rizzo crossed in Victor’s line of vision, his arm on Phillip Draper’s as he led him. Phillip had handcuffs on his wrists and a deer-in-the-headlights look on his face. Victor skidded to a stop as Phillip and Rizzo passed. Phillip looked up at Victor and without missing a step said, “I did not hurt that girl.”
“Oh, yeah,” Lucas paused, flicking his eyes back and forth between Victor and Philip. “I reckon I should tell you about earlier tonight. Somebody broke into your friend Abby’s house and wrecked it. Searching for something. We caught Phillip there, red-handed, with Abby.”
“Abby? Is she hurt?” Victor’s heart thumped in his chest.
“She’s fine. Nobody was hurt except her fish.”
“You sure she’s all right?” Then, he felt a pang for Abby because he knew she treasured the fish.
“Saw her myself. She’s shook up but not harmed.”
Victor nodded, his fear for Abby relieved as he walked beside Lucas. He felt terrible about Abby’s fish. The whole aquarium, he wondered? He started to ask, but Lucas had his chin thrust out and his lips were a taut, narrow line in his face. Victor figured the young detective was probably not in the mood to discuss tropical fish.
As Victor stepped along toward the fresh, hot outside air, suddenly he wanted to be with Abby more than he wanted his head to stop hurting. He needed to be sure that she was all right and to comfort her, to hold her, to protect her.
And, damn it all, he wanted to kiss her.
He inhaled deeply, making Lucas glance at him with a tired, yet puzzled look. Victor stopped walking as that understanding hit him like a hard-thrown football in the chest—he wanted Abby.
It wasn’t just how darn cute she was. He’d seen her character clearly in the last two days and knew she was a strong, loving woman. And smart. And loyal.
He almost laughed out loud at himself. What a hell of time to start falling in love—a dead man, a bloody bathroom, and his best friend kidnapped or murdered. But there you had it, he had to admit. He’d fallen for the pretty redhead.
Fallen hard.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I purr and try to comfort her, but to little avail. Poor Abby. She’s trying hard not to cry, but I can see how upset she is. She pets me, wipes her eyes, and stands up from the restored aquarium—minus those little black fish she inexplicably a
dored.
“What a mess.” Abby picks up a few scattered things in the living room, but it doesn’t really make any improvement.
I glance over at the clock on the mantel. It’s an hour past midnight, and she should go to bed and sleep. It’s been hours since that young detective and the old grumpy one arrested Phillip and hauled him out of her house. She’d promptly called somebody called Delphine and told her about Phillip’s arrest, and then ran randomly about trying to clean up the disarray in her house. She simply will not try to rest. I meow at her and pad toward the bedroom, but when I turn around, she’s still standing in the living room.
“Phillip would never hurt Layla. I don’t care what those detectives think.” Abby looks right at me when she says that as if seeking my agreement. But I don’t know. I can’t trust the man. It’s not just his aftershave scent that I recognized from the backyard spying my first day, but the fact he was lurking around inside Abby’s house without being invited in.
Given my own suspicions, I wasn’t surprised at all when that rude, older detective came and arrested Phillip—though I first thought it was just for breaking and entering, not for murder or kidnapping.
“Delphine can help Phillip. She’ll get him out.”
I can only guess she is talking to me, though she is now staring out in space, her voice worried. As she walks, she staggers. Drunk with fatigue is not just a biped expression; it’s a very real state of being.
In my most persuasive voice, I tell her she needs to rest and once more try to lead her to her bedroom.
But she heads to the kitchen.
I follow. A midnight nosh—oh, okay, a wee-hours-of-the-morning snack—might be a good idea after all. But Abby digs around in the back of a cabinet and pulls out a bottle of vodka. She pours a stiff drink and gulps a big mouthful, sputtering and spitting most of it out. She tries again, with a smaller, slower sip.
Though I’ve learned bipeds are not usually eager for me to dance around on cabinet tops in kitchens, I jump up and rub against the bottle and meow a warning at Abby. Getting drunk is not going to clean up her house or find Layla.
We need sleep. Both of us.
Failing that, we need sustenance. A nice piece of cod or salmon would make us both think more clearly.
Abby doesn’t fuss at me for hopping on the counter. She puts the glass of vodka down, making a face at it. I leap down and race for the refrigerator. She follows me with her eyes, sighs, and shakes her head, making her red hair fluff about her face.
“I don’t know what to do, Trouble. How can I help Layla?”
I rub against the refrigerator door.
Abby pushes herself off the cabinet and opens the refrigerator. I stick my nose in to see if any of her broiled salmon is in there, but I do a double take. Layla’s store of insulin, which she kept in a blue plastic container in the cheese drawer of the refrigerator, is not there.
I stare at the spot it used to be. Every time Layla or Abby opened the refrigerator to feed me, with my keen observation I had spotted it. I even watched Layla as she removed the blue plastic box a couple of times.
For a moment, I can’t remember if her insulin was there when I pushed the refrigerator door shut after finding it open and the kitchen a mess. A lapse, certainly, in my keen observational skills but I should be forgiven under the circumstances.
The important thing now is to alert Abby, who is pulling out some wrapped leftovers and hasn’t noticed Layla’s insulin is gone.
Risking rebuke yet again, I rise up on my back legs and stick my nose in the refrigerator and meow in a distinctive “look at this” voice as I claw at the cheese drawer. But Abby doesn’t scold me for practically hopping into her refrigerator. She’s looking where I’m pawing. She understands me. I can tell from her expression.
“Somebody took Layla’s insulin,” she says as if I were not the one who pointed this out. “I’ve got to call Lucas.”
To her credit, she plops down a clump of cold salmon in a dish for me before she digs out her cell phone and a little card with Detective Lucas Kelly’s private number.
A moment later, she breathlessly speaks into her cell phone. “This is Abby…no, listen, this is important. I’m sorry to call so late…yes, yes. But listen, somebody took Layla’s insulin from the fridge. They wouldn’t do that, would they, unless she’s alive?”
My thought exactly. I meow loud in support of Abby’s keen deductive reasoning.
I press up to Abby to hear Lucas’s response. He’s asking her when she noticed, and she says just now. Then she apologizes again for calling so late.
“Not a bother.” This time Lucas’s voice comes through the cell phone loud and clear. “I’m about two minutes from your front door. Don’t touch anything in the refrigerator and I’ll be right there.”
Abby ends the call and starts a little dance. “Layla is alive, Layla is alive. I know it.”
I dance around with her, tangling in her legs.
Layla is alive. Kidnapped, but alive.
Now we just have to find her.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Abby answered the door the moment Lucas knocked. Once he stepped inside, she was surprised to see Victor trudge in after him.
“What are you doing here?” Abby stared at Victor, taking in his grubby clothes, the bandage on his head, and catching a whiff of beer and something vaguely stinky.
Victor didn’t answer. Instead, he swept Abby into his arms and hugged her.
For a moment Abby gave in to the embrace. Victor’s arms felt strong and protective, and he stroked her hair with tender touches. She wanted to cry and take comfort from him, but as he continued to hold her, she also felt the strange, unbidden urge to kiss him. She thought of Layla and jerked out of Victor’s arms.
“Are you all right?” Victor asked.
“I’m okay.” But Abby felt a strange trembling in her legs as she stood next to Victor. So, weak in the knees wasn’t just a cliché after all. She couldn’t take her eyes off him.
Trouble rubbed up against him and purred.
“The blood isn’t Layla’s.” Victor said it in a rush, as if he were afraid Lucas might order him to be quiet. “In the FSU bathroom, I mean. All that blood wasn’t her blood type.”
“She’s alive. I know it.” This time it was Abby who hugged Victor, but she dropped out of the embrace quickly. “Somebody took her insulin from the refrigerator. Whoever has her, wants her alive.”
Before Victor could react, Lucas pushed in between them. “I’ve called an evidence tech to come and fingerprint inside the refrigerator. When they were here earlier, they only fingerprinted the outside of the fridge and around in the kitchen. While we wait, let’s have a seat and a long discussion.”
“Can I offer you some coffee, or some—” Abby stepped toward the kitchen.
“Stay out of the kitchen, ma’am, please.”
She jolted to a stop. “I might have already messed up any fingerprints. I mean, I didn’t know…I’ve taken stuff out of the fridge.”
“We’ll get your prints for elimination purposes, but don’t make it worse. Now, let’s sit.” Lucas moved toward the living room and glanced around as if looking for a spot to sit.
Abby knocked off some piles of things from the couch. No one sat down, so she did. As soon as she settled into the deep softness of the couch, Victor eased down beside her, his thigh rubbing against hers.
Lucas cleared off a chair in front of them and sat. “We need to talk. You two need to tell me whatever it is you haven’t told me. Now.”
Abby didn’t care for the man’s bossy tone. He was acting more like Rizzo. But she also wanted to help Layla. And, she wanted to know whatever it was Lucas and Victor could tell her, including why Victor looked like a drunk and had a bandage on his head. She glanced at Victor, but he sat tight-lipped.
“What’s going on?” Abby felt frustrated. The two men knew a good deal more than she did. “And why have you got that bandage on your head?”
&n
bsp; “Nope, your turn.” Lucas gave Abby a hard look. “Spill it.”
“I’m not keeping any secrets.” Abby shot a hard look right back at Lucas. “Phillip wouldn’t kidnap Layla. He adores her. He’s friends with her parents from way back. He told me that today.” Abby’s tone was emphatic, even though she’d told Lucas and Rizzo that same thing earlier when they arrested Phillip.
“Ma’am, I appreciate that you’re loyal to your boss,” Lucas said. “But he used his FSU access card to enter the library basement at midnight, and again at 2:35 a.m. the night Layla disappeared. A bottle of Valium with his name on it was found under the study carrel where you were sleeping. We found residual Valium in both of the tea bottles left in your carrel. And we found bits of Layla’s busted laptop in his trash can.”
Victor shook his head. “Damn. No wonder I conked out. I drank one of those teas.”
Abby gasped. Someone had drugged her. That’s why she had slept so thoroughly, hearing nothing during the night in the library. But Phillip wouldn’t drug her. And if he had, he most assuredly wouldn’t leave the empty Valium bottle under her feet, and toss Layla’s laptop in his own trash. The man was not stupid.
“It’s a frame.” Abby spoke with absolute conviction. “Phillip Draper is an acutely intelligent man and he would never be so unwise as to use his own ID—twice—to commit a crime and leave evidence behind.”
“Smart people panic and do stupid stuff all the time.” Lucas sounded smug and satisfied. “Besides, looks like the others all have pretty good alibis for most of the night. Emmett’s roommates agree he came in around eleven and stayed put. The professor’s neighbors all claim they saw his car parked right in front of his townhouse from around ten, all night till he left for FSU in the morning. And Delphine—” Lucas paused, a tiny glimmer of a grin on his mouth. “Let’s just say somebody vouched for her all night too.”
Abby had a fleeting moment of curiosity as to who Delphine’s alibi was, but Victor started talking, bringing her back to focus.
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