Playing Dead pb-3

by Allison Brennan

  She blinked back tears. More lies from her father. “After I talked to Maddox, I did a little research. I’m good at that. He’s just a law student, not even an attorney. Doesn’t even work for the Western Innocence Project-he was an intern last summer. They were never going to take up your case.”

  Her father shook his head. “That’s not true. Oliver planned on meeting me the week before the earthquake. He said he had information about Lydia’s lover, Chase Taverton. Evidence that he was the primary target. Taverton was a prosecutor. If he was the target, that opens an entire pool of suspects, and the detectives barely looked at that possibility.”

  “You’re grasping at straws-”

  “Oliver has even more information,” he continued quickly, “but he never showed for our meeting, and I couldn’t reach him. The next day, I was transferred into the general prison population.”

  “They don’t put cops in with the general population.”

  “Something happened. Someone got to him-”

  “I haven’t spoken to Oliver Maddox since I kicked him out of my house months ago when I found out he’d lied to me. He lied to me, and he lied to you. He was just a kid jerking your chain, he didn’t have the Project behind him, and he probably didn’t know anything that would help you unless he made it up. You were a cop once. You should know how many killers claim they’re innocent.”

  “I am!”

  “So who did it? In the twenty minutes between when I left the house and called you and you walked in, who broke into our house and killed them? And why? You know, Dad, usually the most obvious answer is the correct one.”

  “I’m so sorry, Claire, but you have to believe me. The only reason I care about proving my innocence is to prove it to you. I don’t want you looking at me the way you are right now. I want my little girl back.”

  “I’m not a little girl.” She found it hard to catch her breath. She couldn’t think, she just wanted him to disappear.

  “I know.” His voice quivered. “Please, Claire, I’m risking everything coming to you. I need your help. I can’t do this on my own. I went to the campus, his house, couldn’t find him. I couldn’t ask more questions without drawing attention. I need to find out where he went and exactly what he knew, get him to tell the truth no matter who threatened him. Working for Rogan-Caruso Protective Services, you have access to far more information and resources than I do.”

  “Why would I help you? I could lose everything I’ve built since you went to prison,” she said. “My career, my PI license, my home. I don’t want to go to jail.”

  “Claire. Please.”

  The quiet plea twisted her heart. “Go away. Leave me alone.”

  “I don’t have anyone else,” he whispered.

  She spoke equally quietly. “Well, then, you don’t have anyone, Dad.”

  A truck turned onto the road heading for the warehouse.

  “Think about this, Claire. Think about me. I’m not a killer. You know that in your heart.”

  To prevent her from pursuing him, he pushed her down. “I’m sorry,” he called as he ran in the opposite direction of the approaching truck.

  Claire slowly pulled herself up. She might have been able to chase after and catch her father, but what would she do? Shoot him in the back?

  Instead she put her hands on her knees and fought to regain some semblance of control over her emotions. To try and forget the pain in her father’s eyes. To try and forget the pain twisting in her heart.

  The truck belonged to the arson investigator, Pete Jackson. He got out, looked at Claire with a frown. “You okay, Ms. O’Brien?”

  She faked a half smile as she stretched. “Fine. The sooty air just got to me.”

  “I told you not to go in until I got here.”

  “Sorry. Why don’t you walk me through it?”

  “You must already have your own conclusion.”

  “I need you to prove it.”

  “Lucky for you I already have the proof your company needs. Found the hot spot and identified the accelerant. The burn pattern indicates not only arson, but an amateur.”

  “Too cheap to fork over for a professional,” Claire muttered.

  As she followed Pete Jackson into the warehouse, she glanced over her shoulder, looking for her father. Tom O’Brien was nowhere to be seen.

  That didn’t mean he wasn’t around.

  The Feds had made it perfectly clear to Claire that she needed to report any contact from her father, or be considered an accomplice. They’d threatened her-jail time, loss of her private investigator’s license, her concealed-carry weapons permit. Her dad said that the Feds were still watching her. Agent Donovan had come around a couple times, but it was routine. She’d answered his questions and told him to get lost each visit. She didn’t think they had someone on her 24/7 after the first two weeks since the quake, but maybe she was wrong. Maybe she’d been so preoccupied with trying to forget about her father, she’d missed the obvious.

  Remembering the look on her father’s face gave her pause. And his words had sounded. . truthful. But he’d had fifteen years to perfect his act. How could she believe him now when she hadn’t believed him then?

  But what if he was telling the truth?

  For fifteen years she believed, she knew, that he was guilty. After the trial she learned to block everything out to prevent the nightmares from creeping in. If it hadn’t been for Detective Bill Kamanski and his son Dave, a young street cop who had been her dad’s friend, she would have probably turned to drugs or worse. They taught her to be strong, to accept what had happened and move on. She’d almost changed her name to forget who her father was. But in the end, she’d realized that if she changed everything about herself, she’d be living a lie. So she remained Claire Elizabeth O’Brien, accepting the truth, at the same time forcing that horrific day and the trial from her memory. Most of the time it worked.

  Seeing her dad again after so long, especially with the panic in his face and voice, made her question everything she believed. Stop that. She knew her father was guilty. There could be no other explanation. Her mother was having an affair and her father snapped. It happened all the time throughout the world.

  But would it hurt to find Oliver Maddox? Talk to him? Learn what he knew? Maybe the kid had proof of her father’s guilt, and that’s why he hadn’t shown up. If that was the case, Claire would call the Feds and set up a meeting to put her father back in prison.

  At least then she could tell her father he had nothing to hold on to. Maybe she could get him to turn himself in. She didn’t want him to die, gunned down by an overzealous cop.

  Who was she kidding? His execution date was six weeks away. If not for the earthquake, his days would have been numbered anyway. Why had he foolishly returned to Sacramento when he’d managed to stay under the radar successfully for the last four months? He should have kept on hiding. He was obviously good at it.

  Still. Oliver Maddox had told her father he knew something about her mother’s lover Chase Taverton. Taverton had been a Sacramento County prosecutor who, from what Claire remembered from the trial, was successful, charismatic, and well liked. Still, prosecutors acquired enemies-criminals they put in prison, victims who didn’t get the justice they deserved. Or maybe it was personal.

  Her heart twisted at the thought of turning in her father, and she doubled her focus on Pete Jackson’s comments as they walked through the burned-out warehouse.

  Why couldn’t you have just stayed away, Dad?

  TWO

  Tom O’Brien was grateful when Nelia didn’t say anything on the drive back to the motel. He needed the time to think.

  He’d unintentionally manhandled Claire. Though she hid her fear well behind those suspicious blue eyes, he’d scared her.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, the hot burn of unshed tears reminding him of everything he’d lost on that horrific day fifteen years ago.

  “I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” Tom whispered. If Nelia heard him, she didn�
�t comment, her eyes focused on driving in morning commuter traffic, knuckles white as she gripped the steering wheel. He’d tell her everything-they had no secrets-but now, he had to regain control over his past, over his emotions.

  Fifteen years was a long time, but when you lived day in and day out remembering every minute of the hour that destroyed your life, you didn’t forget a detail.

  He remembered exactly what he had felt when Claire called him that day about Lydia and Taverton. Pain. Anger. And a deep, soul-shattering sadness that his marriage was, in fact, over.

  But he’d never imagined Lydia dead.

  It wasn’t the first time Lydia had cheated on him. Tom had learned of another affair five years before. That time she’d been screwing another cop. From his own division. He’d told Lydia he could forgive her if she promised never to stray again.

  “If you don’t love me, tell me,” he’d said. Divorce was foreign to him-his parents had been happily married for forty years before his dad died-but he wouldn’t live in a loveless house. He wouldn’t keep her trapped just because they had a life together, a child together.

  That first time, Lydia had cried and begged for Tom’s forgiveness. She’d met the cop at the hospital where she worked as an emergency-room nurse. It was the adrenaline of the moment, she claimed, she didn’t know why she had let it continue. Tom forgave her. Lydia had seemed so sincere.

  But that horrible day, knowing she was in his bed with another man, the insidious self-loathing returned. That voice that said, “You’re a sucker. She cheated on you once, Tommy Boy, you knew she’d do it again.”

  Was she fucking another cop? How many had there been? Had everyone been laughing at him behind his back? Poor Tom O’Brien, his wife was a whore.

  He went to the house that day not only to confront her, but to see the truth for himself. That his wife had spat on their wedding vows again, that they meant nothing to her, that his forgiveness had meant nothing, that their eighteen years of marriage meant nothing.

  Maybe if Tom was the only one who knew of Lydia’s infidelity, he could have lived the lie until Claire went off to college. Quietly gotten a divorce. But their fourteen-year-old daughter knew. Had known for weeks. It had all spilled out when Claire called him in tears.

  “I’ve seen the car before, two months ago. I asked Mom who was at the house and she said just a friend, and then I saw her kissing a man at the park last month. Mom didn’t see me. I wanted to tell her to stop, but. .” Claire’s voice trailed off. “I saw the same blue car then.”

  Tom was ill with the thought that Claire had been living with this knowledge, that it hurt her.

  “Mom brought him home today,” Claire sobbed into the phone to her dad.

  “Why aren’t you in school?” he’d asked.

  “Missy and I came home for lunch.”

  He’d learned later that was a half-truth. Claire and Missy had come home during lunch, but had planned on cutting classes the rest of the day.

  “Daddy, I hate her!”

  Claire didn’t hate her mother. It had been a statement born of anger and frustration. Nor did Tom hate Lydia, but any love he’d had was a diminishing memory. Tom told Claire to stay at Missy’s house and he’d talk to her after he spoke to Lydia. “Don’t worry,” he’d said. “Everything is going to be fine.”

  He didn’t believe it. Claire didn’t, either.

  He parked his police-issue motorcycle down the street from their bungalow in South Land Park, not wanting the copulating occupants to hear the sound of his bike. He walked up to the front door rather than using the garage-door opener. An unfamiliar blue car-an older-model BMW-was parked in the narrow drive.

  Tom inserted his key, but locked instead of unlocked the door. Claire hadn’t said whether she’d gone into the house, only that she recognized the man’s car. Why would the door be unlocked? Had Claire seen more than she wanted to admit?

  Tom turned the key again and went inside, knowing instantly that something was very wrong.

  He reached for his gun, its weight comforting as fear-laced adrenaline rushed through his veins. It was the acrid smell-not of sex, but of death. Blood mixed with the lingering scent of gunpowder.

  His rubber-soled boots made no sound on the worn wood floor of the narrow hall. The mirror over the living room mantel reflected his profile-hard, chiseled, tough. A cop. If he dared look at his eyes, they would have been a wild, fearful blue.

  Every door was closed. The bathroom. Claire’s room. The linen closet. The small guest room that Lydia used as an office. And the door at the end of the hall. Their bedroom.

  Not closed, he noticed while approaching, but ajar. Pushing it open with his shoulder, Tom stepped over the threshold.

  The queen-size bed, lit by the midafternoon sun oddly filtering through the half-closed blinds, was in disarray from a rowdy session of sex. Both victims were naked, the male lying facedown on top of the female. Both bloody, the attack so quick and efficient that the male victim didn’t have time even to think about a defense.

  Lydia was on the bottom-had she seen the killer? No-she always made love with her eyes closed. At least she had with her husband.

  Her dead lover was sprawled on top of her. Four bullets in his back, one in the back of his head. He certainly hadn’t seen the killer. Tom hadn’t seen so much blood since he’d been the first responder at a brutal Korean gang shootout in Del Paso Heights. Lydia was drenched in it. His and hers. The killer had placed a single bullet in Lydia’s head. Why? Wouldn’t he have known the bullets penetrated the man’s body?

  Of course, Tom realized with sick knowledge. He had wanted to make sure Lydia was dead. Just in case.

  Tom had to leave. Call for help. Do something, dammit, anything but stand here and look at his wife dead and naked in the bloody arms of another man. He was a cop, he knew to leave the scene undisturbed. But he had a burning question. He had to know who. What man had Lydia turned to because Tom wasn’t good enough? What man had slept with his wife? Did he know him? Was he a friend? Another cop?

  Tom’s eyes were dry, but his throat constricted as the brutal slaying of his wife hit him. She didn’t deserve this, didn’t deserve to die an adulteress.

  Tom didn’t touch anything. The man’s face was turned away from the door. Barely breathing, Tom walked around the bed to look at his face. Pent-up rage ate at his gut. He would have yelled at Lydia had she been alive. He’d been prepared to confront her and her lover. Throw her out of the house. Now? Guilt and anger battled with a surreal sense that this could not be happening.

  Tom stared at the dead man, one eye full of blood from the bullet behind it. But Tom recognized him-a man he’d never met personally but had seen in action in the courtroom. A prosecutor, Chase Taverton.

  He turned to leave, to call in the murder, to give himself five minutes of fresh air before he told Claire her mother was dead.

  Then he saw it. His personal firearm, a Smith amp; Wesson.357. On the nightstand, not in the drawer. He always stored it in the nightstand on his side of the bed.

  It was on top of the nightstand, on Lydia’s side of the bed.

  His gun.

  His wife.

  Her lover.

  This wasn’t right. His gun was in the wrong place. Had someone used his gun to kill them? His feet were like lead as he stared, trying to make sense of what had happened in his bedroom.

  He heard the front door slam. “Daddy?”

  Claire.

  He couldn’t let her see her mother like this.

  He quickly left the bedroom, pulling the door closed behind him. “Claire, don’t-”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We need to leave.” Get her out of the house, protect the crime scene. Protect Claire.

  “Is Mom gone? What happened? What-” Tom’s little girl stared at the gun in his hand.

  Fear crossed her young, pretty face. Was she afraid of him? No, not his Claire Beth. He’d walked into a nightmare.

  “Claire
, I came home and found her. She’s dead, honey.”

  “Dead? Who? What happened?” She said the words, but confused and scared, hadn’t comprehended what he meant.

  His own gun had killed his wife. The shock hit him and he realized he was in serious trouble. He didn’t want Claire to know but the truth was certain to come out.

  “Claire Beth, we have to leave now. Your mother-God, I wish I didn’t have to tell you like this-she’s dead, honey. Someone killed her and Taverton. They’re both dead.”

  Claire shook her head, her eyes wild, her jaw clenched in denial. “No. No! I don’t believe you!”

  Tom hadn’t been holding her tightly enough and she broke free, stumbled around him, bumped against the wall, ran to the end of the hall.

  Sirens sounded in the distance. A neighbor must have heard the shots and called the police. How long ago?

  Tom followed his daughter, reached for her as she flung open his bedroom door. She stared.

  “Claire-”

  She screamed.

  Tom grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to him. “We have to leave.”

  “Daddy-what happened? What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  Tears streamed down Claire’s cheeks. There was doubt in her blue eyes. She didn’t believe him. She didn’t believe her own father.

  “I would never do anything to hurt you.”

  “But-” She looked at the gun in his hand, her entire body trembling.

  “I didn’t kill your mother.”

  The sirens were closer. On their street. “We have to talk to the police. Tell them everything. The truth.”

  Claire’s bottom lip quivered. She pushed away from him and ran from the house. Through the open front door Tom saw two patrol cars pull up. One cop-a rookie named Adam Parks-jumped out and ran to Claire, pulling her to safety behind the car, peppering the distraught girl with questions.

  Tom holstered his service weapon and stepped from the house, hands in front of him, palms up. He was in uniform of course. He was on duty. Parks looked at him quizzically. “O’Brien?”