“I’m okay,” I said, taking a deep breath and getting to my feet. “I just . . . it’s . . .” I couldn’t even put into words my disbelief over the fact that Dave, of all people, had tried to murder an innocent man. Nothing from what I knew about my friend, either anecdotally or intuitively, made logic out of that.
“I know,” Dutch said, his expression a little anguished. “I can’t make sense of it either.”
“Come on, guys,” Candice said gently, motioning to us from the doorway. “We’ve got to get down there and talk to Grayson before she leaves.”
• • •
We arrived at the scene about twenty minutes later.
Chris Wixom’s house had been the last stop before Candice and I had driven to the Roswells’ residence. It’d been the one that’d had all the blinds drawn and no cars in the driveway.
The fact that Wixom’s house was hit made some sense; if they’d discussed the security code, then Dave would’ve had it fresh in his notes, whereas he might’ve long forgotten the security codes of many of the other clients of Safe Chambers. I could see how suspicious it was that Dave had arrived Saturday to take measurements and talk about the panic room with Wixom. They could’ve talked about the security system already in place, about what time Wixom activated it each day or night, and where Chris’s valuables were stored. Dave could’ve tweezed all sorts of secure information out of Wixom without the homeowner ever being the wiser. It made me shudder to think how vulnerable we all were because of what Dave appeared to be up to. Barring another explanation, which I was at a loss to come up with, this current crime spree of Dave’s would ruin all four of us, both financially and emotionally. We’d be sued into the ground, and I couldn’t imagine that Brice and Dutch would survive with the bureau after a criminal investigation into the business practices of Safe Chambers was launched. I had no doubt that would follow too, because the people being targeted were the kinds of powerful folks with even more powerful political friends, and they all protected their own.
The ride over had been dead silent, as I’m sure the same thoughts were ricocheting around in everyone else’s minds. When we pulled up to Wixom’s street, it was awash in red and white strobe lights that danced and bounced across the surrounding area, lending the scene an extra dose of urgency.
We parked behind a patrol car and walked up to the yellow tape strung across the road where an officer was standing guard. Brice and Dutch flashed their badges and we were allowed to pass.
Grayson was squatting in the doorway of Wixom’s front entrance, eyeing a red swath of fresh blood on the slate next to her feet. She held a flashlight in one hand, and a small notepad in the other.
Dutch called out to her and without looking up, she said, “I figured I’d see you four here sooner or later.”
“We want to help,” Brice said, stopping at the walkway.
Grayson eyed him slyly. “I’ll bet.”
“Is there any word on Wixom?” I asked, because I was very concerned about him. I remembered speaking to him the week before, and he’d sounded like a nice man. I hated that he’d been targeted like this.
“He’s in surgery,” Grayson said, getting to her feet and stepping carefully across the blood trail. She walked to us then, and I could tell she was mentally calculating how to get the most information out of us while appearing to fill us in on what’d happened.
“I saw your number on Wixom’s landline caller ID, Abby. I tried calling you a couple of times and when I couldn’t reach you, I called your husband.”
I had a moment of panic as I searched my purse for my phone; then I remembered that I’d left it on my desk back at the office. It’d been nearly out of its charge, so I’d plugged it in and obviously hadn’t heard it when Grayson had called me. “My phone is back at the office.”
Grayson turned to look at the house. “You called right in the middle of all of this going down,” she said. “Weird timing, don’t you think?”
I felt my shoulders tense. Did she think we had something to do with this?
“We were calling Wixom to warn him about McKenzie,” Brice said. “We realized too late that if Dave really was responsible for the murders at the Roswells’, our other clients were also vulnerable.”
Grayson turned to Brice. “I’d say so.”
Brice cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Can you run us through what happened?”
“Sure,” the detective said. “About seven thirty this evening, Wixom says, his doorbell rang. He checked through the peephole and saw Dave McKenzie standing on his front steps. Because he recognized McKenzie, he opened the door and that’s when he got a gun shoved in his face. He says McKenzie was with another male, and the pair pushed their way in and ordered Wixom to get down on the ground with his hands behind his head. As Wixom was crouching, about to get on the floor, his landline rang—that was your call, Abby—and when McKenzie and his partner turned their heads in the direction of the ringing landline in the kitchen, Wixom started to bolt toward the front door, when he was popped twice in the back. The first bullet went through and through; the other’s still inside him. He fell in the front foyer and blacked out. He thinks McKenzie left him for dead, and went on to rob the place. At some point Wixom woke back up, somehow managed to get to his feet, and stumbled down his driveway to the neighbor across the street. They were the ones who called it in.”
I glanced at Dutch. His face was expressionless, but the vein at his temple was throbbing. Hearing what Dave had done to Chris Wixom was killing him.
I reached for his hand and found his fist clenched, but he relaxed it when he felt my fingers and looped his around mine. “What’d they get away with?” he asked Grayson.
The detective glanced at her notepad. “Looks like a lot of cash and a few valuables. Wixom collected expensive watches. His whole collection seems to be missing. We’ll get a better idea of what they took off with when he comes out of surgery. Assuming his wound isn’t fatal.”
“Was he shot with the same caliber as the Roswells?” Brice asked next.
“No,” Grayson said. “He was shot with a thirty-eight. We think that’s the only reason he survived the shooting. The AR-fifteen at close range would’ve ripped a hole in him too big to plug.”
“Did you talk to him?” Candice asked the detective.
“Wixom?”
“Yes.”
“I was the first detective on scene,” she said. “In fact, it was a tie between me and one of the patrols.”
“How’d you get here so fast?” Candice asked curiously.
“I was down the road at the Roswells’ place, going over that crime scene one more time, and heard the home invasion call come in through dispatch.”
“Weird timing,” I said to her, just to be snarky.
Her mouth quirked slightly. “We’re on the same team, you know,” she said.
“I do,” I agreed. “I just wanted to make sure you knew it too.”
Grayson crossed her arms. “I have no reason to suspect any of you had anything to do with either the murders at the Roswell residence or what happened here tonight. But I am a little worried you’ve been trying to protect your friend Mr. McKenzie, and I’m also worried that even after tonight, you might not fully cooperate with our efforts to locate him.”
I made sure to look Grayson right in the eye when I said, “Nikki, I want nothing more than to find Dave. And Gwen while we’re at it. Please trust me on that. And if you guys find them first, then I’m okay with it. In fact, if there’s any way we can help you locate Dave before he gets himself killed, then just say the word. We’ll do whatever you need us to.”
She squinted at me for a half second before offering a congenial nod. “Okay, Abby. I believe you.”
“Can we take a look inside?” Brice asked.
Grayson frowned. “No way,” she said. “I can’t. There’s too much of a conf
lict of interest here given that McKenzie works for your company, Agent Harrison. And don’t even start with the Roswell-foreign-espionage angle—there’s no way that applies here, or even over there anymore, really.”
Candice pointed to Grayson’s cell phone, which was clipped to her waist. “Can we at least look at the photos you took of the scene inside?”
Grayson’s mouth quirked again. “What makes you think I took photos of the scene inside?”
Candice smiled back at her. “Because you’re a damn good detective, Grayson, and that’s what I’d do if I was in your shoes.”
Grayson chuckled softly and unclipped her phone. “I can show you a couple of the photos,” she said. “But when I show you, your own cell phones need to be in your pockets. No taking shots of my shots, got it?”
Candice pocketed her cell, and Brice and Dutch did the same. Satisfied, Grayson called up several of the interior images of the home, which was brightly lit and sparsely furnished.
One particular series of photos was of Wixom’s bedroom, which had obviously been ravaged. Clothes and dresser drawers lay strewn on the floor, and the closet door was open to reveal an area in the wall about three feet wide and two feet high that was nothing more than a large gaping hole. “Wall safe,” Grayson said, pointing to the hole. “We think they pulled it out with the use of an ax or maybe a sledgehammer. They took it with them, and they’ll probably get it open one way or another.”
“How much was in the safe?” Candice asked.
Grayson turned the phone back to click off the pictures. “That was the last question I asked Wixom before he was taken away in the ambulance. He says he had close to a hundred thousand in cash, his mother’s engagement ring, and some bonds in there.”
“What’s with these people hiding so much money in their homes?” Candice muttered.
I was with her on that one. Dutch and I weren’t superrich, but we were well-off, thanks to the profits from his security business, and at the very most, we kept only about a grand in the house at any given time.
Candice too kept a reserve of petty cash at her place, but it was only about five thousand, and I knew that because I’d seen her get paid that in cash for a job once and she’d stuffed the money inside the small floor safe in her condo, where she kept her valuables; I knew the cash was still there, as I’d seen her open that same safe a few times since.
For the most part we all put our serious money where it belonged—in the bank.
“Wixom’s positive it was Dave, though?” Dutch asked.
“He is,” Grayson said. “He told me at least three times it was McKenzie.”
“Any idea who his partner was?” Brice said.
“No,” she said. “He blacked out as I was asking.”
I looked anxiously toward the front door of Wixom’s house again. I badly wanted to go inside and get a feel of the ether in there. Something was way off about all of this. It was like I was looking at all the pieces to a puzzle that everyone was saying was a zebra, but all I could see in the image was a polar bear. The pieces were identifiable, but the picture wasn’t.
“Nikki,” I said softly. “I know you don’t want your crime scene compromised, but, please. I need to get in there and feel out the energy.”
Detective Grayson considered me for a long moment before answering, and I could see how torn she was about the decision. If Dave was in fact responsible, and the defense found out that I’d been inside the house after the crime went down, they could throw serious shade at any evidence collected, suggesting that I’d compromised the scene to protect myself and my husband’s business from any civil suit brought. “It’s out of the question tonight, Abby,” Grayson said, and my hopes fell. “But meet me at the APD substation tomorrow morning at nine, and I’ll bring you two out here to walk you through the house. If you let on to anybody that I allowed you inside, though, I’ll have the prosecution treat you as a hostile witness and you’ll never make your way onto any APD crime scene again. Got it?”
“I do,” I said, relieved. “And I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”
Grayson looked meaningfully at Brice, Dutch, and Candice too, and they each held up their hands in surrender. We all understood the stakes.
“Good,” Grayson said when she was satisfied. “Now get the hell off my crime scene, and if you hear anything from or about McKenzie, you call me immediately.”
• • •
Brice dropped Dutch and me off at our car and Dutch drove us home in somber silence. After greeting the pups and getting them watered and fed, he pointed me to the master suite and told me to take a bath while he warmed up some leftovers for us.
He didn’t have to tell me twice, and I sat in the huge garden tub while it filled with hot, soothing water and created some terrific suds as my favorite scented candles infused the air with jasmine. Leaning my head back in a contented sigh, I powered up some soft music on my earphones and calmed my nerves with a big ol’ goblet filled with red wine that I’d nicknamed Big Mike. I’m not sure how long Big Mike and I were alone together, but at some point the bathwater was disturbed by another guy nicknamed Big, who made me forget all about Mike.
Twenty minutes later I lay against Dutch’s chest with a soapy-dopey, satisfied smile on my face. “I think I’m hungry, but I’m not sure I care about eating.”
“I warmed up some leftovers for us,” Dutch said lazily. “They’re probably cold again.”
My soapy-dopey smile grew bigger. “I’ve got something you can warm up a second time.”
He chuckled, low and deep. I think Dutch’s laugh is the sexiest thing on the planet. It sends a shiver of pleasure right down to my hoo-ha every time. “Again?” he said. “You’re insatiable.”
I inched up his chest and wrapped my arms around his neck. “Lucky man.”
“Don’t I know it,” he said, leaning forward to kiss me slow and deep.
Forty minutes later my soapy-dopey smile was a full-on perma grin, and I didn’t even care that the water had cooled. Dutch got gingerly out of the tub and reached for a towel before lifting me out with ease.
For the record, there’s nothing sexier than being lifted out of the tub by a big, strong, sexy man. Okay, so maybe being lifted out of the tub by a big, strong, sexy man with a throaty chuckle is sexier. . . . Uh, oh. There goes my hoo-ha again.
Anyway, Dutch finally got me to stand on my own wobbly legs while he wrapped a towel around me and led me to the kitchen. We ate the leftovers cold, and no, we didn’t even mind. Then we went to bed, but neither one of us could sleep.
In spite of our romantic time in the tub together, what was going on with Dave had crept back into the front of our thoughts and we needed to talk it out with each other. “Are you worried about Safe Chambers getting sued?” I asked Dutch.
“Very,” he admitted. “I don’t see how it’ll be able to survive this mess, Edgar. The business is finished.”
The ether was filled with all sorts of terrible possibilities. None of them felt set yet, but there were so many roads that led to rough financial waters for us that I didn’t have any faith that we’d be able to survive it either.
“How bad could it get for us?” I asked, almost afraid of his answer.
He hugged me a little tighter. “Bad,” he said. “Robin Roswell’s sister and Chris Wixom could come after us personally if our liability insurance won’t settle the case to their satisfaction.”
“What’ll we do?”
Dutch sighed. “Ride it through. What’s going to be will be.”
We were both quiet for a bit before Dutch said, “I’m less worried about the money and more worried about Dave and Gwen, though. Especially Gwen.”
My radar pinged with urgency. “I’m really worried about her too.”
“You think she’s still in danger?”
“I do. And Dave’s in danger as well. I have a
terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach about what they’re both up against right now. I suppose the only good thing is that I very much feel that they’re both still alive.”
Dutch scratched at the stubble on the side of his face. “I can’t understand what would make Dave shoot Wixom. I mean, what the hell, right?”
I shook my head, which was awkward, because it was resting on Dutch’s chest. “It’s so completely out of character. I want to say he was forced to do it, but hearing Grayson recite Wixom’s account of how it went down, it doesn’t sound like Dave was forced to do anything.”
“I want to know where he’s hiding,” Dutch said. “Both our guys and APD have been combing through security footage from all the traffic cams and toll roads, and there’s no sign of Dave’s truck. I don’t understand how he’s getting around.”
“Grayson said he was with someone else. Maybe they ditched the truck and are driving something new.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Dutch said. We were quiet for a long time and I began to fall asleep when Dutch whispered, “I’m not gonna rest until we find them, dollface. One way or another, I’m bringing Dave and Gwen home.”
• • •
Candice and I met Detective Grayson at her cubicle located at the North APD substation off Lamplight Village Avenue. It’s typical for a publicly owned and funded building: lots of concrete and the personality of a discarded refrigerator box, but everyone inside is friendly enough. Well, unless you’re on the wrong side of the law. Or had ever been on the wrong side of the law.
Candice and I made sure to step lightly.
“Morning,” Grayson said when she walked in, wearing a slim-cut charcoal suit and a bright raspberry silk top that made her skin tone pop.
I noticed that she seemed to have taken special care with her makeup, and her hair was down and styled. A sly smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. “Hot date tonight?” I asked with a little bounce to my eyebrows.
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