Her Alibi

by Carol Ericson

  Connor crouched next to Letty, his gaze darting from the gun in her hand to the gaping wound at her temple. “She killed herself?”

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  “Or that’s what someone wants it to look like.” He jabbed a finger in the air over the body. “What were you doing when I walked in here?”

  Savannah swallowed. “I—I was looking for the evidence she had. I know it sounds sick, but that’s what I came here to get.”

  Connor’s jaw tightened and her stomach sank. She plucked at the material of her skirt. “I realize it sounds awful, but I spent several minutes in shock just staring at Letty, and several more minutes trying not to be sick.”

  “And then several minutes searching her pockets.”

  She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. “That’s what we came here for, Connor. We were willing to hand her five hundred grand for whatever she has. Just because she...killed herself, I’m not going to leave without it.”

  “You don’t really believe she killed herself, do you? She was just about to score an easy five hundred thou.”

  “But if she didn’t—” Savannah flattened a hand against her belly, afraid this time she really would hurl “—who did kill her and why?”

  “To stop the blackmail plan.”

  “Who’d want to do that...except me?” She swept her arm to encompass the warehouse. “And I just got here.”

  “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “I found nothing.” She poked at an empty duffel bag with the tip of her sandal. “Except this. You were right. She was ready to collect the money.”

  “Did you look in her car?”

  “No. Should we?”

  “We’re not going to do a search, but let’s take a look before we get out of here.”

  Savannah hoisted the bag with Connor’s cash, and he took it from her.

  “You didn’t leave anything in here?”

  “No. I walked in with the bag, saw Letty, rushed over and dropped the bag. I was very careful with what I touched and how I touched it, and I didn’t lay a finger on the gun in her hand.”

  “Okay, you’re getting to be an expert at this.”

  Savannah convulsively clenched her hands at her sides. Connor had no idea how right he was.

  He pushed the warehouse door wide with his toe and slipped into the night. She followed.

  With his T-shirt over his hand, Connor opened Letty’s unlocked car door and did a quick scan of the front and back seats. “I don’t see anything. Either she was lying...or someone took it.”

  The blood rushed to Savannah’s head and she swayed, grabbing Connor’s belt loop to steady herself. “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s get out of here.” He tipped his head back and studied the outside of the building. “I’m guessing these warehouses are too old and too dilapidated to have any kind of security or camera system.”

  “I can’t imagine why they would, and I doubt Letty would’ve picked this place if she thought our meeting could be caught on CCTV.”

  “You drive.” He gave her a little nudge toward his car. “Let’s go.”

  She slid into the driver’s seat and squeezed the steering wheel with her hands to keep them from shaking. She drove out the way she’d come in, neither of them saying one word until she hit the freeway.

  Then she turned on him. “Why would someone kill Letty and then take the evidence she had against me?”

  “To have the evidence against you.”

  She licked her dry lips. “Do you think I’m going to get another blackmail demand?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Or worse? Someone wanted Letty’s evidence to continue my setup.”

  “We don’t even know what Letty had and if it was damning enough to send the detectives your way.” He smacked the dashboard. “Who knew about this meeting? Do you think she told someone? Does she have a family?”

  “She has a husband and some adult children. I doubt her husband knows anything about the blackmail scheme.” Savannah shifted her gaze to the rearview mirror. “Do you think someone could be following me?”

  “How? You said yourself nobody followed you down here. I know for a fact nobody tailed us to the warehouse. Maybe someone is following Letty. Whoever killed her got to the warehouse before you did. How long do you think Letty had been dead?”

  “I have no idea. I didn’t touch her, and I wouldn’t have known what to look for if I had.”

  “Did you smell gunpowder in the warehouse? I detected a faint whiff, but it can hang in the air for a while.”

  “I didn’t notice any gunpowder smell—don’t even know what it smells like. The warehouse smelled oily to me anyway. It could’ve been gunpowder.”

  “You weren’t late.” Connor drummed his fingers on his knee. “How did someone beat you there and kill Letty before you got there?”

  “You’re still assuming someone killed Letty.” She lifted her stiff shoulders. “Maybe it was a suicide. How do we know what’s going through anyone’s mind? Maybe she even killed Niles and was regretting everything.”

  “A few hours ago, you assured me Letty couldn’t have killed Niles.”

  “What do I know?” She pinched the bridge of her nose.

  “Not much of anything. You don’t even know what happened that night.”

  She cranked her head slowly to the right and stared at his profile. “Are we back to that? I know I didn’t kill Niles. I would’ve had blood on my clothes, and if you’re going to suggest I murdered him while I was naked, I checked the bathroom for signs of a shower. Hell, I even sniffed my own armpits for evidence I’d cleaned up—and I hadn’t.”

  “Look.” He placed a hand on her thigh. “Don’t you think you should see a therapist to get to the bottom of it?”

  His hand felt heavy through the thin material of her skirt, and she tensed her leg muscles. “I didn’t black out from any suppressed memory from a traumatic event. I was drugged. There’s no coming back from that. No memories are going to return from a drugged state.”

  “You sound so sure. You have no proof of any drugs. You would’ve had to have been drugged in the bar, and that’s unlikely. I think we agree Niles didn’t drug you.”

  She tapped her fingers on the top of the steering wheel. “Maybe he did.”

  “You also told me before he had no reason to knock you out, as he wasn’t interested in getting you into bed.”

  “He could’ve had a different motive.”

  “A killer is either waiting for Niles or breaks into his house, finds you conked out, murders Niles and proceeds to strip you of your clothes and put you to bed?”

  “To set me up.” She flung her hand at the windshield. “Just like this thing with Letty.”

  Connor shook his head. “We need to take a step back from the speculation and focus on Letty’s death back there. Assuming she didn’t kill herself, how did her killer know about her meeting?”

  “My head hurts.” Savannah massaged her right temple. “She must’ve told someone.”

  “Maybe she’s working with someone and that person double-crossed her.”

  “This is going to look weird, isn’t it? The fact that Letty’s employer is murdered and then she’s murdered? What are the chances?”

  Connor held up his index finger. “But Letty’s death was made to look like a suicide. The gun’s in her hand, a single gunshot to the head. Unless the killer left some evidence or Letty has some defensive wounds, this might go down as a suicide. The detectives might think she had something to do with Niles’s death.”

  Savannah closed her eyes briefly and then focused on the white lines skimming by outside the windshield. She hoped Letty’s death was ruled a suicide, to give them a little breathing room. She needed room to breathe.

  Later, as Savannah t
urned down the road leading to Connor’s house, she asked, “Those detectives are going to want to talk to me about Letty, too, aren’t they, whether or not they deem it a suicide?”

  “I’m sure they will.”

  “If they’re going to be looking at her phone records, I’d better tell the cops that Letty called me today to discuss Niles’s murder.”

  “Be as truthful as you can.”

  Whipping her head around, she said, “I’m not telling them I was there that night, Connor. It’s too late for that anyway. I could be charged for...for leaving the scene of a crime, not reporting a murder or whatever they can dig up. That’s not happening.”

  “I said as truthful as you can be.”

  As she brought the car to a slow roll in his driveway, Connor unsnapped his seat belt. “Park to the right of the truck.”

  Several minutes later, when they were in the house with the door locked behind them, Connor grabbed his phone from the counter, studied the display and held it up to his ear to listen to a message.

  Savannah paced, twisting her fingers, and when he put the phone down, asked, “What was that about?”

  “Don’t worry. Just the fire chief letting me know they were reporting the fire as arson for the purposes of my insurance claim.”

  Savannah dropped to the couch and aimed the remote at the TV. She regretted it immediately when Niles’s handsome face and slick smile filled the screen. “Story’s exploded.”

  Connor walked up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “We knew it would. No surprises.”

  “Yeah, the surprise is going to be when someone discovers Letty’s body.”

  “I wonder when that’s going to happen.” He squeezed her shoulder briefly before releasing it. “Those warehouses look like they haven’t been used in years.”

  “Her family will report her missing.” Savannah pressed her fingers against her lips. “Why did she get involved in blackmail? She’d be alive right now, home with her husband, if she hadn’t got greedy.”

  “Did you notice if she had a phone on her?”

  “She didn’t. Was there one in the car?”

  “Not on a charger or anywhere else I could see.”

  She muted the TV as the news shifted to another story. “Maybe she’s playing the same game we are—leave your phone home so the police can’t trace it.”

  “Her family’s not going to be able to trace her, either, if she didn’t have her phone with her. Unless she told someone where she was going, which is unlikely, her body might be there until someone looking at the warehouses sees her car and discovers her.”

  Savannah dug her fingers into her scalp. “That’s horrible. I can’t bear to think about it.”

  “And yet—” Connor folded his tall frame into the chair across from her “—you were willing to leave Niles at his house, dead.”

  “That’s different.” She slipped out of her sandals and wedged her bare feet against the coffee table. “Niles was at his home. I knew someone would be discovering him, and that someone happened to be Letty—bad luck for her as it turns out.”

  “She sealed her own fate by taking something she thought incriminated you and then trying to sell it back to you.”

  Savannah rubbed her upper arms, where a trail of goose bumps had sprung up. “So you do believe that’s why Letty was murdered and now someone else has that evidence.”

  “Maybe.” He hunched forward, driving his elbows into his knees. “We just have to wait for the other shoe to drop.”

  “That’s encouraging, thanks.”

  “Or...”

  Her head popped up. “Or?”

  “We do a little investigating of our own. I still have some connections and a little know-how. You’re familiar with the players and have more money than you know what to do with. Let’s launch our own investigation, independent of the police.”

  “If it can help me out of this mess, I’m all for it.”

  “We’ll start a list of...suspects tomorrow morning.”

  “Suspects? I don’t know anyone who’d want to kill Niles.”

  “C’mon, Savannah. The guy must’ve had enemies. He cheated on you with other women. Do you think he changed his behavior?”

  “I’m sure he hadn’t.” She drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs. “Niles was the kind of guy who was geeky throughout high school and college, and then became attractive all of a sudden when he made millions.”

  “That’s understandable, but the dude was married—to you.” Pushing out of the chair, Connor snorted, “Crazy bastard.”

  Savannah’s cheeks warmed and a smile tugged at one corner of her mouth. She was glad Connor still felt that way, even though she’d done a number on his head.

  He pivoted and leveled a finger at her. “I have one condition.”

  “Shoot.”

  “You make an appointment with a therapist and see if you can remember anything about that night.”

  Savannah swallowed a lump in her throat. “Really?”

  “I mean it, Savannah. You lost several hours of your life, and you owe it to yourself to get those back.”

  “I’d have to admit to the therapist that I was there, in that room with Niles’s dead body.”

  “They’re bound by confidentiality, and I can refer you to someone, someone you can trust.” Connor folded his arms. “That’s the condition.”

  “All right, but I don’t think it’s going to do any good. Those memories are gone for good.” Just like those other memories buried in her past.

  “Okay, then. Investigation starts tomorrow.” He swept her cell phone from the counter and held it out to her. “I think it’s safe to turn this on now.”

  She rose from the couch and took the phone from him. “I’m sure it needs to be charged again. I wasn’t lying when I said the thing dies all the time.”

  He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “The sheets are clean in the guest room. Remember to make the bed every day so nobody gets suspicious that you’re sleeping here as a guest. I’m going to see if there are pillows in there.”

  She watched through narrowed eyes as he headed for the back rooms. Maybe she hadn’t expected him to sweep her off her feet and carry her to his room...but she sure wanted it.

  Sighing, she hopped up to sit on the stool at the counter and attached her phone to the charger. It buzzed in her hand, and she glanced at a stream of text messages filling up her screen.

  A glimpse at the first message told her the news of Niles’s death had spread like a cancer. She dutifully tapped each text, reading the messages of shock and condolence, her tongue wedged in the corner of her mouth. Even Mom had sent her a text—a cryptic one, of course.

  One of the last messages, one from an unknown number, had a picture attached to it. Savannah tapped it and swept her fingers over the picture to enlarge it.

  Her gut twisted and she dropped the phone.

  “Savannah, what’s wrong?”

  She turned toward Connor, gripping the edge of the counter as her world tilted. “Someone sent me a picture of a button.”

  “A button?” Connor’s brows snapped over his nose.

  “It’s the evidence—Letty’s evidence against me.”

  Chapter Eight

  Connor ate up the space between him and Savannah in two long strides and caught her by the shoulders as she listed to the side. He smoothed a hand down her rigid spine.

  “Let me see.” He reached over her and scooped up the phone, the picture of a colorful button still enlarged on the display. “This is your button? Do you even know if it’s missing?”

  Nodding, she cleared her throat. “When I got dressed at Niles’s, I noticed the button on my blouse was gone. It’s pretty distinctive, so I got down on my hands and knees to search for it and found it beneath the dresser. I—I thought I
dropped it in the pocket of my slacks.”

  “You haven’t seen it since?”

  “I forgot about it. I stuffed my slacks in the laundry basket in my closet when I got home after I left Niles’s place.” She bowed her head, tugging at the roots of her hair.

  “If you never looked for the button, it could still be in your pocket.”

  Her head shot up, and then the light died from her violet eyes, turning them into dark pools. “You think Letty or someone else planted that button in Niles’s bedroom? It’s too unique. I bought that blouse in Paris. There’s no way somebody found a duplicate for that button.”

  “Okay, okay. It’s the same one.” He wedged his hands against the counter, dropping his head between his arms.

  The fact that Savannah had been careless enough to let the button fall out of her pocket gave him a glimmer of hope. She’d been so cold-bloodedly precise about everything else—her phone, her car’s license plates, her fingerprints. This detail finally pointed to a woman frantic and caught off guard by the murder of her ex-husband.

  “There’s no text accompanying the picture? No demands?” He brought the phone close to his face and backtracked to the message with no words. “The number says Unknown. I suppose Letty’s killer wouldn’t be dumb enough to call you from his...or her real phone.”

  “If he’s not blackmailing me, what does he want?”

  “What he didn’t want is for you to have that button back.” Connor placed the phone on the counter and rubbed his chin. “But how did he know about that meeting? How did he know Letty had the button?”

  “Maybe he’s working with her and decided to keep all the ransom money for himself.”

  “Husband?”

  “No way.”

  He cocked an eyebrow in her direction. “Spouses have murdered each other for a lot less than five hundred grand.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you’re right.” She pushed off the stool and stumbled. “It has to be someone she told, because only you and I knew about the meeting with Letty. Nobody followed us. Nobody followed me down here.”