Seconds to Live (Scarlet Falls)

by Melinda Leigh

  “Is that you, Stella?” Grandpa’s voice came from the back of the house. “I have the kids outside. They’ve been cooped up too much with all this rain.”

  She went onto the deck, motioning Mac to follow. Snoozer’s high-pitched, raspy bark sounded from the yard. A deck spanned the rear of the house. Below it, a long expanse of Ireland-green lawn sloped toward the water. A hundred feet away, the current rushed high and swift from the heavy rains. Just on the other side of the deck, Morgan’s three girls and Snoozer chased bubbles. A picket fence surrounded the play area, keeping the kids and dog away from the water.

  Stella shielded her eyes. The girls ran in circles, oblivious to their arrival.

  Grandpa leaned on the railing and gave Mac a careful dose of scrutiny. Grandpa was critical of any male in Stella’s presence, but considering she hadn’t come home the night before, his attention would be dialed to high.

  “Grandpa, this is Mac Barrett.” She gestured between them. “Mac, Art Dane.”

  Mac held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Dane.”

  “Call me Art.” Grandpa angled his body to keep the kids and Mac all in his line of sight. He took supervision of Morgan’s little girls very seriously. His gaze darted to Stella. His lips pursed with concern. “You’re all right?”

  “Fine. Just wet,” Stella said. “I’m going inside to shower and change.”

  “Give me your handgun. I’ll clean it and your rifle while you shower.” Mac held out his hand, and Stella handed him her weapon.

  “I’ll make sure he does it right.” Grandpa crossed his arms over his chest.

  She smiled at him. “Be nice. No interrogating.”

  Grandpa smiled back, but she could see his teeth as he turned to Mac. “What is Mac short for?”

  “I’ll be right back. I promise.” Stella hurried to her room. Grandpa looked sweet and innocent, but she knew better. Once a cop, always a cop. The same went for being a grandfather.

  She stripped down and showered. Twisting a towel around her hair, she stepped into a clean pair of black slacks and a white button-down. She glanced in the full-length mirror on the back of her closet door. Maybe she should pick a different colored blouse. She looked like a waiter or a Men in Black extra.

  Who cares? This was work, not a date. She didn’t have to impress him.

  But she wanted to.

  Gah.

  This was why she didn’t date much. There was too much effort required when involved with a member of the opposite sex, energy she could funnel more productively into her career, which balanced on a precarious brink. Had she let her emotions rule this case? God knew she didn’t have much control where Mac was concerned. Maybe her impulsiveness had spilled over.

  A vision of Dena Miller’s body flashed into her head. Then Missy’s. Her duty was to them, not Horner.

  “So who’s the hottie out back with Grandpa?” Morgan stood in the hall. A red power suit hugged her tall frame. Totally put together, from her nude pumps to her pearl necklace, her older sister always made Stella feel like the tomboy she’d been in grammar school. While Morgan had jumped rope and practiced her cheers, Stella had played kickball in the street.

  “Mac Barrett. I’m sort of working with him.” Stella shook her hair out. “Did you get Gianna to the station?”

  “No. She wasn’t at the dialysis center when I got there.” Morgan leaned on the doorframe.

  Alarmed, Stella froze. “She’s always there.”

  “I was there early and I waited outside until fifteen minutes after you said she’d be done. I went inside. The waiting area was empty, and the nurse behind the counter refused to talk to me.”

  “Damn it.” Stella moved faster now, maneuvering around Morgan and speeding to the bathroom. She coiled her damp hair in front of the mirror. “She was hesitant last night when I asked her. I should have known she’d be skittish.”

  “You could hardly plan for a flood. Let me do that.” Morgan took over the bun-making. They were polar opposites. Morgan, with her refined silks and polished locks, had always known how to wear a scarf and which earrings complemented each outfit, while Stella was far happier in jeans.

  “I’ll swing by her apartment on my way to the station.” Stella reached for her toothbrush.

  Morgan did some twisty thing and pinned it into place.

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing fancy. A simple chignon.” Morgan tucked a lock into place. “It’s no harder than that same old bun you wear every day.”

  “I’m a detective, not a cover model. No one, including me, cares how my hair looks, only that it’s neat and out of my way.”

  Morgan’s exhale was filled with disgust. “But honey, that man is really hot.”

  “I’ve been working with him for days. He knows what I look like.” After last night, he knew every inch of her.

  Morgan sighed. “You’re hopeless.”

  “You’re bossy.” Stella echoed their childhood.

  “I’m the older sister. I’m supposed to be bossy.” Morgan flashed a quick grin.

  Since her husband died, Morgan’s smiles were rare.

  “How was the job interview?” Stella waited for an answer. Swigging some mouthwash, Stella studied her sister in the mirror.

  “This is Saturday. It wasn’t an interview. It was lunch.” Morgan shrugged.

  Stella spit in the sink. “With a guy who wants to hire you. You’re not exactly dressed for running errands.”

  “It was a nice restaurant.” Morgan said, but her voice lacked conviction. “And I’m not even sure I want the job. He kept talking about his win of the Simmons case.”

  “The news anchor who killed a family of six while he was under the influence?” Stella remembered the case. Simmons had been a local celebrity. The accident had closed down the highway that led into Scarlet Falls for half a day. She’d been off duty, but two of the responding officers had taken several weeks off afterward. Four small children had been in the car. Simmons had battled addiction for years.

  “I guess he finally lost the fight.” Morgan sighed, moving from behind Stella to stand next to her. “I don’t know if I can handle cases like that anymore, Stella. That’s why I left the DA’s office in Albany.”

  “Putting Simmons away might prevent more senseless deaths.” Stella rubbed her sister’s shoulder.

  “But it won’t bring that family back to life.” Grief filled Morgan’s eyes.

  “No it won’t.” Stella caught her sister’s eye in the mirror, hating the doubt and sadness she saw there. “Addicts don’t just hurt themselves.”

  Morgan’s smile was sad but she swallowed. “Now that I’ve played Debbie Downer, let’s go see your hottie.”

  Stella stopped in her bedroom and put on a thin blazer to conceal her weapon.

  Morgan lifted the hem. “Your gun is wearing a hole in the fabric. My seamstress can reinforce the inside panel of your blazers so that won’t happen.”

  Leave it to Morgan to think of her clothing.

  They walked down the hall to the family room. They could see Mac and Grandpa cleaning guns on the patio table.

  “Holy hell. He looks even better up close.” Morgan sucked in a breath and leaned close to Stella. “I assume that is what kept you out all night.”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s your relationship with the hunk?”

  “I don’t know,” Stella said.

  “Well if you don’t want him . . .” Despite her teasing, the interest in Morgan’s eyes was mild. She wasn’t even ready for a job yet, let alone a man.

  “Dibs.” Stella played along. Her sister wasn’t anywhere near ready to date, but humor was a big step forward. When she’d first moved back home, she’d spent too many nights sitting on the deck alone in the dark, crying.

  “That’s what I thought.” Morgan steered Stella out onto the deck. Then her sister went down the steps to the yard to hug her girls.

  At the table, Mac was reassembling her AR-15 with pra
cticed movements.

  “You should see how fast he fieldstrips a weapon.” Grandpa tossed the gun oil into the cleaning kit. “Where did you learn how to do that?”

  Mac wiped the exterior of the gun with a clean rag. “My father was an army colonel. Other families had family game night. We fieldstripped weapons.” He handed her the rifle. “Ready?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Stella took it. “Do you want me to clean your wound? Your shirt was soaked.”

  “It’s fine,” Mac said. “What does the rest of your day look like?”

  “I need to stop at Gianna’s on the way to the station.” Stella picked up her clean Glock from the table and put it in her holster. “I have to call the ME.” She took out her phone and called. Frank wasn’t available. Instead of leaving a message, Stella chose to be connected with his secretary, who told her that Dena’s autopsy was finished. She ended the call. “I have to go to the medical examiner’s office.”

  “Do you want me to find Gianna?” Mac offered.

  “Would you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you want to borrow my car?” Stella asked.

  “No. I don’t want it recognized. I can take my bike.”

  “What if it rains again?”

  “I’ll survive.” Mac was definitely a survivor.

  “He can borrow my car.” Grandpa offered Mac a set of keys. “You might not mind a motorcycle in the rain, but that sick girl would.”

  Mac took the keys. “Thank you.”

  Morgan came back up the steps. “Stella, is this yours?”

  Stella’s gaze dropped to her sister’s hands. The pale blue scarf sent fear rippling cold across her skin. “Where did you get that?”

  He knew where she lived. He’d been to her home.

  Near her family.

  Morgan held it out. “The girls found it outside tied to a tree.”

  “What’s wrong?” Grandpa stepped forward, his eyes sharpening.

  Stella lowered her voice. “We’ve held back this fact from the media, but both dead women wore pale blue scarves.”

  “No.” Morgan’s gaze darted between the scarf and her girls.

  “I’m getting my gun,” Grandpa said.

  Panic bloomed hot in Stella’s chest as she took the scarf and held it by the corner. She reached for her phone to call the chief and Brody. “It looks like you’re going to get that surveillance camera.”

  Fighting the urge to stay and protect her family, Stella drove to the ME’s office. She’d left forensics at her house, but they wouldn’t be there long. The scarf had been left outside so it was unlikely that fingerprints, tracks, or trace evidence had survived the storm. The chief had sent a patrol car to sit in the driveway. Still, Stella didn’t want to leave, but she knew the only way to neutralize the threat was to find the killer.

  She wavered between terror and fury. How dare this creep violate her home, threaten her family. She wasn’t going to rest until she’d stopped him.

  She went inside the ME’s office. At the secretary’s direction, she headed for the locker room. She checked her phone for messages even though she knew it was too soon for Mac to have found Gianna. Shoving her purse into a locker, she donned a protective gown, booties, and face shield and pushed through the doors into the autopsy suite.

  Dena Miller was on the table, her nude body icy white against the stainless steel. Large ugly stitches across her torso said Frank had been busy.

  He motioned Stella to the lightboard and pointed at rows of X-rays. “This is the victim’s right hand. As you saw at the scene, all of her fingers were broken. With the damage to the skin and the way the bone is impacted, I suspect he used a hammer.”

  Stella felt sick.

  The next X-ray showed Dena’s skull and neck. “I found the vertebrae fracture her husband told you about.” He waved at the board, where images of Dena’s bones were displayed. “I found four more recently broken and healed bones: one wrist, an elbow, and several ribs. The Scarlet Falls hospital only has records showing Dena’s neck injury, so I had my assistant check with the three other hospitals in the area. Dena had records at all of them. Each emergency room treated her once. Each time she claimed to have fallen down the stairs.”

  “Classic abuse history.”

  “Repeat visits to the same ER would spark suspicion,” Frank agreed. “She was careful not to use hospitals in the same network to avoid the possibility of digital records automatically cross-referencing.”

  Poor Dena.

  Stella put aside her anger and sadness. Justice was all she could offer Dena now. “What else did you find?”

  “She’d been recently washed and her fingernails were clipped.” Frank tossed the file back on his desk. “There was no sign of sexual assault. Tox screens are being rushed. The lab has promised to get Missy Green’s done by Monday morning as well.”

  Stella left the medical examiner and hurried across the lot to the forensics lab. She still didn’t have enough to convince anyone that Adam Miller was a killer. The fact that his wife had multiple broken bones didn’t prove he murdered her.

  Darcy Stevens, the county latent fingerprint analyst, leaned over her desk. Her coffee-colored skin looked too smooth for her to be a grandmother.

  “How’s your grandson?” Stella picked up a framed snapshot of a two-toothed baby.

  “Perfect.” Darcy smiled, then sobered. “I have something for you.”

  “Is it going to make me happy?”

  “I think so,” Darcy said in her rich, deep voice.

  Stella dropped into a chair facing her desk.

  “I found several sets of fingerprints on the envelope of cash you found in Missy Green’s apartment.” Darcy opened a file on her computer. She pointed to the envelope, encased in a protective plastic sleeve. “Missy Green’s matched right away. That was easy. But then I had an idea, and I pulled Dena Miller’s prints. Perfect match.”

  “You matched prints from Dena Miller and Missy Green?”

  “I did.”

  “You are a genius.”

  Darcy rubbed her fingernails on her black suit jacket. “I know.”

  Dena was keeping cash at Missy’s house.

  “Do you know if Vinnie’s in?” Stella asked.

  “He was. I saw him at the coffeepot an hour ago.” Crime didn’t adhere to a weekday schedule, and Saturday was often a time for playing catch-up.

  Stella’s steps were quick as she went down the hall to Vinnie’s office. The swarthy forensic tech looked like a Godfather extra.

  Vinnie was holding a paper evidence envelope. “You’re just in time. The tech just came back from your house.”

  “Did he find anything besides the scarf?”

  “Nothing interesting. The rain destroyed the scene.” With gloved hands Vinnie opened the envelope and looked inside. “This scarf looks like the ones found on the dead girls.”

  “What do you know about them?”

  “Polyester. The tags were removed.”

  “Not Hermes?” Something high end would be easier to trace.

  “No. Sorry. These are fairly generic.” Vinnie set the envelope on the desk. “I don’t like that he left this at your house.”

  “That makes all of us,” Stella said. “What about Dena Miller’s crime scene?”

  “Opposite problem. The scope of the scene gave us a lot of evidence to sort through. My team barely got the evidence bagged, tagged, and locked up yesterday. I called in two techs to work overtime, but it’s still going to take a while.”

  “Thanks, Vinnie.”

  Spivak was in jail, but Stella had no idea when the scarf had been tied to the tree, so that didn’t eliminate him. The tree wasn’t visible from the driveway, mailbox, or front windows. It could have been there for a few days. Could everyone else be right and Spivak be the killer? It felt too easy, and Frank’s suspicion that Dena Miller was a victim of domestic abuse made Stella doubt Adam Miller’s alibi further. She knew he was violent—and lying.


  Chapter Thirty

  Mac parked Art’s silver Lincoln Town Car in front of Gianna’s apartment, then he banged on her door. No one answered. The windows were dark. He cupped his hands over his eyes and peered into the kitchen. No Gianna. Mac knocked on the doors to the left and right of Gianna’s. Silence was his answer.

  Where was she?

  Except for the apartment complex, the neighborhood was mostly businesses. No nosy old women sitting on porches or watchful young mothers pushing strollers.

  Mac leaned close to the lock. Tiny scratches marred the brass, but the lock was old. Hard to say which scratches were new.

  A neighbor came out of the apartment next door. A brittle blond, she was probably in her forties but a deep tan had aged her skin twenty years. She sucked deeply on a cigarette, giving Mac a serious once over. Her eyes lit with appreciation. “Never mind. You can bang on anything you like.”

  Mac grinned wide and stepped out into the light. If a little charm got him answers, he saw no harm in trying. “I’m looking for Gianna. Have you seen her?”

  She shook her head. “Not since yesterday.”

  “You wouldn’t by any chance have a key to her apartment?” he asked.

  “No, sorry.” She stepped back into her own unit. “This isn’t that kind of neighborhood.”

  The door closed before he could ask any other questions.

  Mac sized up the entry. He didn’t want to pick the lock in case the police needed to dust it for prints. He went to the kitchen window. Pulling out his knife, he popped the window lock and slid open the sash.

  The apartment complex clearly didn’t spend much on security.

  He sheathed his knife and hoisted himself through the window. He swung his legs around and slid off the tiny kitchen counter next to the sink.

  The apartment looked much the same as when they’d visited on Thursday. One glance verified that the kitchen and adjoining living area were empty. He headed for the short hall that led to the bedroom and bath.