Grain of Truth (Innocence Unit Book 1)

by V. J. Chambers

  No, she wouldn’t think of him. She wouldn’t think of the case, and she wouldn’t think of Felix.

  Instead, she began rinsing spinach in the sink. She rinsed each leaf and then went hunting for her salad spinner. She hadn’t unpacked it yet, which meant it was in one of the boxes marked “kitchen stuff,” of which there were three. She found it in the second box, and then spun out the spinach.

  It was quiet right now. Maybe she should put on some music.

  Strangely, as if on cue, there was a noise. A kind of scraping, creaking noise, like a door opening.

  She stiffened, looking around. Where had that noise come from?

  She felt cold all over now.

  She strode across the room and checked her door, making sure all the locks and deadbolts were engaged. Then she moved a bunch of boxes in front of the door to make a barricade again.

  There.

  That was safe enough.

  She went back to the kitchen. She got out her cutting board and chopped up the onion. Then she got out two skillets. In one skillet, she started to cook the onions. In the other, she put in some Italian sausage to brown.

  Now to start on that filo dough. She needed to melt butter first, so she went to the refrigerator.

  Hand on the fridge handle, she had another thought. She wondered if the noise hadn’t come from outside her apartment.

  What if someone was in her apartment already? She’d been gone all day, and she couldn’t barricade the door when she was gone. The person who’d gotten in before had already shown himself adept at picking locks. He could have gotten in when she was away, and he could be hiding somewhere.

  She swallowed.

  She looked around the kitchen for a weapon of some kind.

  There. Knife. She slid her biggest, scariest knife out of the knife block on her counter. Brandishing it like a killer in a slasher movie, she crept out of the kitchen.

  She surveyed the living room. There was a closet down by the door. He could be hiding there. Everything else was out in the open.

  She tiptoed over to it, not wanting to let him know she was coming.

  She put her hand on the door to the closet. The door was on a track, and it slid open, folding at the same time. She decided to open the door as quickly as possible. Surprise him.

  She jerked it open.

  Nothing in there.

  She let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

  Okay, maybe she was being silly. Maybe there was no one in her apartment. That noise? It could have been anything.

  But she couldn’t deny what had happened today. Iain’s girlfriend had been captured and terrorized. She hadn’t been hurt, but maybe the guy was escalating toward that. Scaring them hadn’t worked, maybe now he would hurt them.

  She tightened her grip on the knife and turned away from the closet.

  Then, nervous, she turned back. Just to be sure, she ruffled through the two coats that were hanging inside. She nudged the boxes on the floor with her foot. Empty. Really and truly empty.

  Okay. Okay.

  Calm down, Elke, she told herself.

  But her pulse was starting to race.

  She crept across the living room to the hallway that led to the bedrooms. There were two back there, one that would be her office/exercise room and the other where she slept. There was nothing in the office yet except some boxes. She never went in there.

  But she did now.

  She pushed the door open. It made a squeaky noise as its hinges ground against each other. Was that the sound? And had she just let the intruder know she was coming?

  She winced.

  She flicked on the light.

  The light bulb came on and then popped out, burning out.

  Right at this second you do that? she thought, the edge of hysteria starting to lap at her consciousness.

  Now the room was dark, and she couldn’t see anything. She could go and get another light bulb, but she’d have to get up on a chair to change it. And she could just imagine how that would go. She’d be up on the chair, unscrewing the light bulb. A shadow would move in the corner. The man would come forward, and she’d only be able to make out his eyes under the ski mask. Maybe his teeth, too, because he would be baring them as he came for her.

  Something monstrous in the darkness, ready to hurt her.

  She slammed the door to the office, letting out a whimper.

  From the kitchen, the sounds of sizzling.

  Hell, she was burning her spinach pie.

  She slid down the wall, sobbing, clutching the knife. Now, she was facing her bathroom, the guest bathroom, and it was dark inside.

  Suddenly, something burst out of the bathroom door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  She struggled to her feet, trying to bring up the knife.

  It was a figure clad in black, wearing a ski mask.

  Her fingers fumbled, she lost purchase. The knife fell, thudding softly into the carpet.

  The masked man was on top of her. He tackled her and she felt backwards onto the floor.

  He put a hand on her neck, holding her in place.

  She screamed.

  “Let it be,” he rasped. “Stop investigating the case.”

  She reached up with one hand and grasped at his mask.

  He punched her in the stomach.

  She grunted, letting go of him.

  He leaped off of her and ran.

  She got to her feet, feeling for the knife on the floor. She ran after him, bringing the knife along.

  He was in the living room, throwing boxes out of the way to get to the door.

  “Who are you?” she yelled.

  He didn’t even look at her.

  She ran for him, slashing the air with the knife.

  He toppled the final box and began to work at the locks.

  She caught up to him, still slashing the air.

  He ducked out of the way, feeling for the doorknob.

  She advanced.

  The door opened.

  He fell out in to the hallway.

  “Who are you?” she yelled again.

  He got to his feet and ran.

  She watched him go and then tugged the door closed. Her throat hurt.

  Smoke was pouring out of her kitchen.

  She set down the knife and buried her head in her hands for a second. Then she rushed into the kitchen and turned off all of the burners on the stove. The onions were black. The sausage was burnt and spatters of grease had gone all over the surface of her stove and the back splash behind it.

  Damn.

  There was her phone, sitting on the counter. She seized it and called the police.

  * * *

  “You’re kidding me,” said Iain when she met him in the office the next day. “He was in your apartment? Waiting there the whole time?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, apparently so. I don’t know what to do. I don’t feel safe there anymore. I need some kind of lock that can’t be picked, but I did a lot of googling last night at the hotel, since I wasn’t staying at my place overnight, and I don’t think that exists.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I figure anything that was supposed to be unpickable would just be a challenge to people who do that sort of thing.”

  She rubbed her face. “This can’t go on.”

  “Are the police offering you anything?”

  “They said that they can’t give me a uniform on my door twenty-four/seven and I understand that.”

  “Bullshit,” said Iain. “They’re just being asses because they don’t like us looking into the Mukherjee case.”

  “But someone is supposed to be checking on my place periodically.”

  “Oh, well that’ll make sure no one can get in again.” He was sarcastic.

  “You don’t think this could be the cops, do you?”

  He massaged the bridge of his nose. “I really don’t know at this point.”

  She hugged herself.

  “You sure you’re in any shape t
o go and see Wheeler and Chapman today?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I want to make some progress on this case. I want this over. I can’t stand it anymore.”

  “Right,” he said.

  “How about you? Were you up all night changing the locks on your girlfriend’s doors?”

  “I was,” he said, “but I’m fine. I’m sharp. And she’s not really my girlfriend.”

  Elke laughed. “Okay. Sure. I’m not trying to pry.”

  “When do you want to go? Now?”

  She blew out a huff of air. “No, let’s settle in and have coffee at least. Work our way up to it.”

  “All right,” he said.

  She looked around the office. “Where are Hart and Amos?” Actually, she was probably supposed to meet Amos at the door. Damn it, was he down there waiting for her?

  “I don’t know,” said Iain, shrugging.

  She grabbed her coat. “I’ll be back.” She shrugged into it as she went for the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Frankie stopped into Rory Gutierrez’s office on the way into work that day. She figured she might as well meet with the woman again, see if she could use what she knew about Rory’s drug problem to shake anything loose.

  “You again,” said Rory when she saw her. “What do you want today? You here to lie to me and tell me you’re my friend again?”

  “I don’t think I said that last time,” said Frankie. She sat down in front of Rory’s desk. “Listen, we’ve talked to Seth Long.”

  Rory licked her lips. “What did you want to talk to him for?”

  “Well, you told the police twenty-five years ago that he was your boyfriend. We wanted to know if he was connected.”

  “I’ve told you, I had nothing to do with the Mukherjee murders,” said Rory.

  “Yes, but you’re hiding something.” Frankie leaned forward. “Maybe it wasn’t about the grade or about graduating. Maybe it was about money. Maybe you decided to get back at Dr. Mukherjee by going to his house and shaking him down for cash. Maybe things got out of hand. I don’t think you meant to kill him—”

  “I never went to that house.”

  “Did Seth? Did you send him there? Did he do it for you?”

  “What?” Rory was flabbergasted. “That’s ridiculous. I mean, first of all, Seth never did anything for me. I did favors for him, not the other way around.”

  “What are you hiding, Rory? Until you tell me, I can’t let this go.”

  “I wasn’t there. That night, I was somewhere else.”

  “Where were you?”

  “I don’t want to tell you that.”

  “It’s your alibi. I need your alibi to rule you out.”

  “Isn’t there some rule that you don’t have to speak if it’s going to incriminate you? Pleading the fourth or something.”

  “The fifth,” said Frankie. “And that only works on the stand in a courtroom.”

  Rory groaned. “But if I tell you this, then am I going to get arrested?”

  “Are you going to confess murder to me? If so, I can’t make any guarantees.”

  “No, I didn’t kill anyone. I never hurt anybody.”

  “Then what did you do?”

  Rory sat back in her chair and became very interested in her knuckles. “At first, it seemed like it was nothing, you know? Like, I wanted the drugs, and I also hung out with this crowd of guys who had drugs. We’d all get high together and stuff would sometimes happen, but it was just… I didn’t have feelings for them or anything and they didn’t have feelings for me, but it felt good, and we were all adults.” She laughed softly. “I mean, we weren’t really adults. I guess we thought we were adults, but we were still kids. I was a kid.”

  “I’m not sure I’m following you,” said Frankie. “What ‘stuff’ happened?”

  “Like sex,” said Rory, and then raised her gaze to Frankie. “Okay? Like that.”

  “Okay.” Frankie furrowed her brow. She’d thought Rory was going to confess to a crime.

  “So, at first, it all seemed normal. Not a big deal. I hooked up with Seth a few times casually like that. And then one time, I didn’t have any money, and he sort of intimated there might be other things I could do if I wanted to get the drugs.”

  “Seth did?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “But it was someone else, this guy named Ray, who started sending me out to his friends.”

  Frankie’s lips parted.

  “I didn’t put it all together at first, because I thought I was just getting this sweet deal. Like all I had to do was spread my legs for people I would have screwed anyway, and then I got free product. But eventually, Ray started getting… violent, and then it became kind of obvious that he was a pimp and I was…” She shook her head.

  “Oh,” said Frankie. Prostitution? All this time, that was what Rory was trying to hide?

  “I’m not proud of it,” said Rory. “Actually, you have no idea how deep my shame goes about it. Eventually, I got into rehab, and I got help, and I turned my life around. But that’s always this dark spot in my past. I never wanted anyone to know about it.”

  * * *

  Elke had been downstairs for nearly ten minutes looking around for Amos and Frankie. She couldn’t find either of them anywhere, but she had managed to scare up a text from Frankie, who told her she’d been interviewing Rory Gutierrez. Fine. That took care of her. But Amos was nowhere to be found, and he wasn’t answering his phone.

  She remembered that his door had a big hole in it, and that he couldn’t lock himself in.

  She wondered if Dick had left her place and gone to Amos’s.

  Of course, Amos had said he was going to stay with a friend. Maybe he’d done that, and maybe he hadn’t charged his phone. Maybe that was why she couldn’t get through to him, and why he hadn’t gotten up. He probably would have had to rely on an alarm on his phone if he wasn’t sleeping at home.

  That explained it all well enough, but she was worried.

  She thought maybe she should call the police, see if someone could go in and check on him. She dialed the phone as she rode the elevator back up to the office.

  She explained what was going on on the ride up. By the time she’d gotten back up there, the conversation was basically done.

  They were going to send a uniform by his place, but they didn’t seem too concerned. They said she was probably overreacting and that he’d overslept. She hoped they were right.

  Iain met her at the door. “I’ve figured it out,” he said.

  “Amos isn’t here, and he’s not answering his phone,” she said.

  “The bruises,” said Iain. “I know what they’re from.”

  “I called the police, but they didn’t seem very concerned. Do you think we should go over there ourselves? I can find his address in the personnel files.”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.” Iain shoved the crime scene photos in her face. “It’s so incredibly obvious.”

  “Iain, this is Amos we’re talking about.”

  “No way is it Rory Gutierrez. She wouldn’t have been strong enough to press the barrels into their skin and leave a bruise.”

  “Barrels?” In spite of herself, Elke was interested in the bruises. She snatched the photos away from Iain and squinted at them.

  “A gun,” said Iain. He gestured on himself, pointing his finger under his jaw. “Right here. Barrel of a gun, right under the chin. They were both forcefully taken to the living room at gunpoint. Those are the bruises. They were made by having a gun pressed into their throats.”

  “The bruises are from guns?”

  “Yeah,” said Iain. “I think so.”

  “So what does this mean?”

  “It means there were more guns in play than the one in the safe, I think,” said Iain. “Because how could they have gotten the gun in the safe away from Dr. Mukherjee otherwise? And it strongly points to two gunmen, who used the guns to manipulate the victims before they killed them.”


  “Wheeler and Chapman,” said Elke.

  “Yes.”

  “Good thing we’re going to see them today, then,” she said.

  “We have to get that DNA sample,” said Iain. “We have to nail them.”

  Elke shook her head. “You said they’d never give it to us.”

  “I know.” He ran a hand through his hair, turning away from her. “We need to convince them…”

  “How?”

  He turned to her. “I don’t know. You’re the one who’s good with that kind of stuff. I’m crap with people. Can you figure out something?”

  Elke sucked in a deep breath. “I’ll do my best.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “Well,” said Frankie, coming into the conference room, where Elke and Iain had their heads together, bracing their arms on the table. “I found out what Rory Gutierrez was hiding.”

  Neither looked up.

  “She was a prostitute,” said Frankie. “She had sex for drugs. She says she had a pimp named Ray.”

  She waited.

  Elke finally turned to look at her. “We figured out the bruises. We’re pretty sure Wheeler and Chapman are the killers.”

  “Great,” said Frankie. “What are the bruises?”

  Elke gestured to her chin with one finger. “Gun barrels right here.”

  “Oh, of course,” said Frankie. “How did we miss that?”

  Iain peered around Elke. “I know, right? I mean, I should have seen it right away.”

  “How does that rule out Rory?” said Frankie.

  “We figure she wouldn’t have been strong enough to leave bruises,” said Elke.

  “What about Seth Long?” said Frankie. “I mean, not that it matters, because I believe Rory. I think she was just trying to hide something shameful from her past. I don’t think she killed the Mukherjees.”

  Elke furrowed her brow. “I guess it could have been Seth Long? Hudson?”

  “Anything’s possible,” said Iain. “That’s why we need DNA.”

  “Yes,” said Elke, “but I’m building this whole interrogation approach around the idea that they’re guilty, and if they’re not, it’s not going to work, and we’re going to be back at square one.”