Parker Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  “No. Not specifically. But this... this is probably that same person who killed Cecily Barrett, and those other two people, right?”

  “The investigation is ongoing, so it’s still too early to say,” Detective Ford said. “But... it’s likely, yes. Craig had mentioned you are also well-known on social media.”

  “Yes.”

  “It might not be a bad idea to take precaution, then.”

  “I did have a bodyguard for a little while. After I found out what happened with Cecily.”

  “Did you know her as well?” Detective Atherton asked.

  “Only online. We had never met in real life.”

  They exchanged yet another glance, as if this somehow incriminated me. I was getting a bad feeling, even though I knew I had done nothing wrong.

  “Well, thank you, Miss Kelly,” Detective Atherton said. “We’re trying to talk to anyone who might have any information.”

  I needed to talk to Ben. But just as I was about to call him, a text came through from a number I didn’t have in my phone. I almost didn’t even read it but then the name caught my eye.

  Hey Teagan, it’s David Barrett. My in-laws have taken the kids up to the Discovery Museum, so I’ve got some free time. I know it’s short notice, but if you would like to meet for coffee, that’d be great.

  I knew I should talk to Ben before doing anything else, but I started to write back to David. I told him I would meet him. Obviously these killings were connected; whoever had killed Meredith had also killed Cecily. And David knew that it hadn’t been me. It could only work to prove my innocence, I reasoned, if I met up with David.

  ***

  I wasn’t sure if I’d recognize him, but of course I did, because Cecily had posted photos of him before, and he looked exactly the same—tall, lanky, with chestnut-colored hair and wire-rimmed glasses resting on his long, straight nose. He looked well, which I was glad to see, though I knew just because he outwardly appeared fine didn’t mean that inside still wasn’t complete turmoil.

  He stood up when he saw me; it was clear he had seen my picture at some point; maybe Cecily had shown him; maybe she told him that she was going to meet up with me one day, when the time was right. I felt a twinge of sadness thread through my chest and I wondered if he had heard about Meredith. I wondered if I should tell him that the police had just been over at my apartment, had been questioning me about it.

  “Thanks so much for meeting me,” he said.

  “I’m more than happy to. I wish it wasn’t under these circumstances, of course.”

  “I’ll be honest,” he said. “It still doesn’t feel real. It still feels like she’s going to walk in the door at any point, and we’ll all be so relieved to see her and things will go back to normal.”

  “I can’t even imagine,” I said. “It’s probably not going to feel normal to you for a long time. Or ever again.”

  “No, you’re right. But we’ve been trying to establish a new normal, and I have to say, the kids have been far better about it than I have. Of course I try to be strong for them, but they’re young; they’re mostly able to just be in the moment. Which isn’t to say that they don’t miss their mom, because they do, but they’re somehow able to experience that grief and that set it aside and carry on, which I know is exactly what Cecily would want. I know she’d be disappointed in the way that sometimes I feel like I can’t get out of bed.”

  “But you do get out of bed,” I said. “Right? I mean, you’re sitting here across from me now.”

  “It’s all because of the kids. If it weren’t for them, I don’t know how I’d be handling it. I probably would be wallowing in bed, feeling sorry for myself. But the kids need me, and for that I am grateful. Would you... would you like to see a picture of them?”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  He got his phone out and scrolled through his photos. I saw snapshots of a well-lived, happy life, and it made my heart ache knowing that things would never be like that for them again. It just wasn’t fair, and it made me mad. It made me mad for Meredith, too, who had been a bitch to me, but still didn’t deserve to be killed like that. I took a deep breath and wiped at my eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” David said. “I can stop.”

  “No, no, don’t. I like seeing these pictures. It’s just... I just hate that things had to happen this way.”

  He swiped to the next photo.

  It was Cecily and the kids, in the car, Cecily’s Subaru Forester. Mrs. Doubtfire. It surprised me that he would want to keep it, after Cecily had been killed getting out of it, but maybe he just couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it. She had loved that car. It was the last place she had been.

  “What?” David asked. “You just made a face.”

  “Oh. No, nothing. I... It’s just... the car. Mrs. Doubtfire.” That didn’t really answer his question, but I didn’t want to tell him that I found it surprising they would want to still have that car around.

  David looked down at the phone, a fond smile on his face. “I know it’s stupid,” he said, “but there was a part of me that thought if Cecily hadn’t taken my car that day and had driven Mrs. Doubtfire instead, none of this would’ve happened. It’s not like Mrs. Doubtfire was bullet-proof, though.”

  As I looked at the picture, I realized that something was bothering me, though at first I wasn’t sure what it was. It was like one of those moments when you have first woken up and you’re trying to recall whatever dream it was you just had, and it would be right there in the periphery of your mind, but if you tried too hard to remember it, it would simply slip away. So instead of trying too hard, I sat there and let David swipe through and show me a few more photographs. It had surprised me when he’d said that Cecily had been driving his car. But why? I was so certain she had been driving Mrs. Doubtfire, not just because it was her car, but because... because—

  Elliott had said so.

  I couldn’t remember exactly what he had said, but it had definitely been something about her getting shot as she was getting out of the Volvo. I looked at David.

  “What kind of car did you drive?” I asked. “I mean, what kind of car was Cecily driving when it happened?”

  “A Volvo,” he said.

  A chill went through me as the pieces felt like they were falling into place. Still, part of my mind tried to rationalize it, tried to insist that there must be some sort of plausible explanation. Or that maybe I was remembering it incorrectly.

  But no. He had said Volvo.

  No. You’re wrong.

  “Is... is everything okay?” David asked.

  “Um...” I grabbed my phone. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’ve got to go. I... I know this must seem abrupt, but I completely forgot... I have this thing... I’m sorry.” The words came out of my mouth in a jumble; there was no way I was going to be able to say anything that would make any sense to him.

  “Oh, sure, sure,” he said, and I could tell he was confused but that he was trying to hide it. “Of course. I... I didn’t mean to hold you up.”

  “It’s not your fault at all.”

  I bolted out of there, nearly running into two people who were coming in as I was leaving. I had an overwhelming sense of vertigo, and I reached out and steadied myself against the side of the building, trying to remind myself to breathe. My mind was in overdrive. I knew the smart thing to do would be to call the police, call either one of the detectives that had questioned me over Meredith. But there was still that tiny part of me that was insisting I was wrong, that there was some other explanation for all of this, that no way it could be Elliott. Why? It just didn’t make sense.

  I called him. Without thinking, I scrolled through my call list, found his name, and called him. He picked up after the second ring.

  “Teagan,” he said. “Nice to hear from you. I just got to Herringbone; why don’t you meet me? It’s not that busy.”

  “Okay,” I heard myself say. Herringbone was a restaurant not too far from here, actually, and I
could probably walk there in under ten minutes. “Sure.” I hoped my voice sounded normal.

  If I called Ben and told him what I was doing, he would insist that I didn’t, and I knew I would probably listen. I also hadn’t talked to him before I’d met up with David, so there was a chance he didn’t even know about Meredith. I sent him a text.

  ***

  Am on my way to Herringbone to meet up with Elliott. Learned something when I was with David Barrett that makes me think Elliott is the one behind the shootings. But want to talk with him about it first. I know it probably sounds foolish, but I’m taking a chance and we’ll be in a public place, so I think it’ll be okay.

  It was foolish, but I was running on pure adrenaline now, and maybe also denial, because I simply couldn’t believe that Elliott would be behind this. There had to be some sort of plausible explanation. There had to be... something. He would tell me. He would straighten this all out. And it was also true that we were going to meet in a public place, so I highly doubted that he was going to pull out a gun and try to shoot me in the middle of a restaurant. If it was him in the first place. Which I couldn’t really believe was the case.

  “You look upset,” Elliott said when I got to the restaurant. “Is this about Meredith? I just read about it this morning.” He shook his head. “Seems like it’s getting closer and closer to home.”

  “It does,” I said slowly, trying to gauge his reaction. Nothing seemed different; there were no clues to suggest that he was actually the one who had done this. I could hear my phone vibrating in my purse, but I ignored it. “And I am upset about that. I know that Meredith and I weren’t getting along at the moment, but she didn’t deserve to die.”

  “Didn’t she, though?”

  I stared at him. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re not... I don’t know, relieved? Glad?”

  “That she’s dead? No. Just because we weren’t getting along doesn’t mean that I wanted her dead.”

  “I know. That was harsh of me to say. She’s just one of those people who’s always looking out for herself. Can’t seem to be bothered to take anyone else into account, unless, of course, she thinks she can get something from them. I can’t stand people like that.”

  I stared at him. “Did you do it?” I blurted out.

  He stared back at me, and then his face broke out into a smile. “Me? Are you asking me if I killed Meredith? Really?” He shook his head. “Teagan, you are tapped, did you know that? Seriously tapped.”

  “I met up with David Barrett,” I said. “Cecily’s husband. He showed me a picture of Cecily and the kids in her car, Mrs. Doubtfire.”

  “Okay,” Elliott said slowly. “I’m not following.”

  “And it surprised me that he would keep the car that she had been killed in. But he said that she hadn’t been driving that car that day; she’d been driving his Volvo. And you told me that she had been killed when she was getting back into her Volvo. You knew what car she was in, even though that wasn’t the car she usually drove. How could you know that unless you’d been there?”

  He set his fork down but didn’t say anything, just continued to chew, slowly and methodically.

  “Oh, my God,” I whispered, his silence confirming everything that I needed to know. “It really was you.”

  “I could’ve read that online,” he said. “That she was getting out of a Volvo. That doesn’t mean anything.”

  But the look in his eyes had changed; he was nervous. He swallowed. I was about to ask him why when suddenly Ben was there, breathing hard like he had just run the whole way.

  “Teagan!” he yelled. “Why haven’t you picked up your phone?”

  In the split second that I looked away from Elliott to Ben there was a flurry of commotion. The table tipped forward and the plate and glasses slid off. Elliott was scrambling to get past us and he shoved me, sent me sprawling, but Ben grabbed him and the two of them fell to the ground. I scrambled back as the other patrons in the restaurant stopped eating and stood up to see what was happening.

  The two of them were all over the place, knocking into tables, chairs. It was hard to tell what was happening, who was getting the better of whom.

  “I called the cops!” someone yelled.

  “Stop it, Elliott!” I shrieked as he and Ben continued to fight. It looked to me like Ben had the upper hand in this, though it was hard to tell for sure, because every time I thought this, it seemed like Elliott would somehow get an arm or leg free and try to get back up. But then Ben somehow got hold of Elliott’s right arm, and for a terrifying moment I thought that Elliott was about to break free, but then I realized he couldn’t because of the way Ben had his arm, applying pressure to it right at the elbow joint. Elliott continued to struggle but Ben’s grip was just too strong as he continued to bend Elliott’s arm the wrong way. It was painful to watch, and it made my stomach turn so I looked away, but not before Ben applied just the right amount of pressure and Elliott’s arm broke.

  “The police are on their way,” Ben said through gritted teeth. “Your arm is broken. I suggest that you just chill out until they get here, or I’m going to have to take more drastic action.”

  Elliott was breathing hard and sweat poured off his face. “You broke my fucking arm,” he snarled. He shot an infuriated look at me. “You’re such a bitch, Teagan—do you know that? This is all your fault. Every single part of this is your fault.”

  The people in the restaurant, including the wait staff and the people working in the kitchen, had formed a circle around us, everyone staring intently at Elliott.

  “How can you say that? What did I do to you?”

  He stared at me as he cradled his injured arm against himself. “Are you seriously asking me that? You have no idea? That’s so typical. Well, let’s see. You broke my fucking heart, for starters. I was going to ask you to marry me right before you broke up with me. I had it all planned out, had even enlisted your mom to help me. You would’ve loved it.”

  It was possible that he was just saying this, trying to think of anything to give me pause, but I had a feeling he was telling me the truth. “I didn’t know that,” I said quietly.

  “No, of course you wouldn’t, because you broke up with me before I had the chance. Broke up with me after we had what I thought was one of the greatest weeks together—do you remember that? I even said something to you and you agreed. Do you remember?”

  “No.”

  “Of course you don’t.”

  “I’m sorry, Elliott. I had no idea. But... that still isn’t a reason to do this. To kill people. You should’ve talked to me. This had nothing to do with anyone else, and they didn’t deserve it.”

  “You’re right; they didn’t,” he said mildly. I was still having a difficult time reconciling the fact that this was true—that it had been Elliott all along. Even though he was there in front of me telling me that it was him, there was a part of my brain that simply did not want to believe it. Couldn’t believe it. Because if he had done this, then he was clearly very mentally unbalanced, which was something I would’ve hoped I would have picked up on before. “But did I deserve what you did to me, Teagan? No, I didn’t, either. So I guess the lesson in all of this is: sometimes things happen to people that they don’t deserve.”

  “That might be true, but that doesn’t mean what you did is okay. You were mad at me. You should have talked to me. You didn’t have to kill those other people. They had families. They had their own lives. They did nothing to you. How could you do that?” That was really the part that I couldn’t get over.

  “Diversion,” he said. “They did nothing. Well, that’s not the case for Meredith, but she deserved it. You can at least be on board with that, Teagan, can’t you?”

  “No,” I said. “No, I cannot. No one deserves to die like that. Because... because... what? You’re mad at me? That I broke up with you? That’s not normal, Elliott. People get broken up with all the time. That doesn’t mean it’s okay to go out and start ki
lling people.”

  “You think that I want to go to prison because of you? No. You were going to be the next one, and then, after that, the killings would mysteriously stop. It would be one of those stories you’d see years from now about how every lead the police got turned up cold. I killed those other people so when I killed you, it would look like it had just been yet another death of a self-entitled social media star. Simple as that.”

  I stared at him. He was so calm as he spoke, even though his face was still twisted in a grimace of pain. I could hear sirens approaching. If I hadn’t talked to Elliott that day after Cecily’s death, if he hadn’t slipped up and said Volvo, if I hadn’t met up with David and learned that Cecily had been driving his car... there was a very good chance that I would have been dead soon, too.

  “All because we broke up?” I still couldn’t believe that.

  “Maybe if you hadn’t completely used me, hadn’t totally and utterly just used me as a stepping stone to be discarded once you couldn’t get anything more from me, then yeah, Teagan, we probably could’ve just ended our relationship and gone our separate ways. But that’s not who you are, is it? You want to act like you’re this naïve little girl who just happened to stumble upon Internet stardom, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. You used me, and then you decided you were done with me.”

  “I used you? In what way?”

  “If it hadn’t been for me, would you have started posting photos from around your apartment? Who was the one who gave you the idea? Who introduced you to James and Meredith? Who would tell you, Hey, the lighting is perfect right now—you should definitely take a picture? I know you’d never admit it, Teagan, but you wouldn’t be the success you are today if it wasn’t for me. That’s the simple truth of it, and I was always happy that I could be that person for you, until it became clear that you were just going to use me to get where you wanted to be and then try to get rid of me as quickly as possible. For the longest time, I didn’t want to believe that was you, didn’t want to think that you could be so selfish, but there’s no denying the truth. I can see you for who you really are.”