“That isn’t an answer,” she said. “That’s a deflection. I didn’t mean to imply any malice on your part, but if I’m missing something, you’re going to have to tell me what it is. Because if you’re waiting on me to figure it out, then you don’t know me very well at all.”
His mouth opened and closed a couple of times, like he couldn’t force the words out of his mouth.
“Oh, good grief, Adam. What is it? Spit it out.”
“I—”
Flashing lights and the blip of a siren cut off his words. A campus security car pulled up beside them and a security officer stepped out of the car. “Everything okay, Dr. Fleming?”
“Fine. Thank you.”
“You sure?” His concerned expression turned into a glare when he looked at Adam. Then his gaze dropped to Adam’s waist, where his badge and gun were in full view.
Adam stuck out his hand. “Good evening. Adam Campbell.”
The security officer didn’t speak.
“I’m with the Carrington County Sheriff’s Office. And you are?” Adam prompted.
“Tyler Vance, campus security.” Tyler finally shook Adam’s hand.
“Nice to meet you.” Adam’s southern charm was on full display. “I appreciate the way you checked on Dr. Fleming.”
“Just doing my job,” Tyler said.
“And doing it well. Thank you.”
Tyler looked back at Sabrina. “If you need anything at all, Dr. Fleming, just holler.”
“I will.”
Tyler returned to his car, but instead of driving away, he started talking into his radio.
Adam rolled his eyes. “He’s going to stall until we leave.”
“Why?”
Adam chuckled. “Tyler has a crush on you.”
What? She glanced at Tyler. How could he have a crush on her? She’d never spoken to him before tonight. “I think you’re mistaken.”
“Trust me.”
Tyler continued to have a conversation with someone and made no move to leave.
“What makes you so sure?”
“Did you not see the way he was looking at you? The desire to rip me limb from limb simmering behind his eyes? The delayed, then overly firm, handshake? He was trying very hard to stake a claim.”
“I don’t even know him!”
“He’s probably been waiting for a chance to make a good impression.”
“This makes no sense. If he wanted to talk to me, why not say hello? What’s hard about that? And men say women are complicated.”
Adam opened her car door for her and she settled into the driver’s seat. “He hasn’t talked to you because he’s scared of rejection. He probably thinks very highly of you and isn’t sure you’d be interested. And if he told you how he feels and you didn’t reciprocate those feelings, then things would be awkward between you.”
“Like they aren’t awkward now?”
She couldn’t make any sense of the look he gave her. Was he agreeing with her? Disagreeing? He was kind of smiling but kind of looked sad at the same time. “I’m following you home.” He closed her door gently, and from the rearview mirror she saw him give Tyler a jaunty salute before climbing behind the wheel.
She was pulling out of the parking lot before it occurred to her that maybe Adam hadn’t been talking about Tyler at all.
4
The ringtone Sabrina had assigned to Adam broke into her thoughts.
“Hey,” she said.
“I got another call from Gabe.”
Uh-oh.
“I’m going to head over to the victim’s house. He has a deputy on the way. Once he intercepts us, he’ll follow you home.”
“What happened?” The silence on the other end of the line told her it was bad. “Adam?”
“Gabe didn’t give me a lot of details. But it turns out Lisa Palmer was the accountant for several prominent businessmen in town.”
“Let me guess. Someone’s been up to no good.”
“It’s unclear. We’re going to need a forensic accountant to go through everything. She left a note, but Gabe thinks it’s fake.” He let out a frustrated groan. “It’s too soon to know anything. We don’t even have an exact cause or time of death. But it’s unlikely her death was a suicide, and it’s more likely she knew something—something dark enough that someone killed her for it. And I’m guessing it’s what she wanted to talk to me about last week.”
Sabrina took a moment to process his words. “But we already suspected that. Why does Gabe need you to come tonight?”
“He wants me to see the place. He thinks someone’s been through everything.”
“Someone tossed her house?”
“No. They didn’t. On the surface, nothing obvious is missing. But Gabe is convinced someone’s been looking for something. Carefully and methodically. Probably most of last night. He wants another set of eyes.”
Sabrina pulled to a stop at a red light. A marked police car flashed its lights to her right. “I’m guessing that’s my escort?”
“It is,” Adam said. “I’m sorry to have to rush off. Pete will take good care of you.”
“It’s not a problem. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She disconnected the call. The police car followed her, and in her rearview mirror she saw Adam turn left.
She reached the driveway to her house ten minutes later and punched in the access code on the keypad. The gates swung open and the deputy pulled in close behind her. When she parked, he hopped out of his car and jogged to her door, motioning for her to roll the window down.
“Yes?”
“Hi, Dr. Fleming. I’m Pete. Adam wants me to check everything out before you go inside. He insisted.”
Adam did have a chivalrous streak. It was unnecessary, but she knew him well enough to know he couldn’t help it. It was part of his DNA.
And the truth was, she rather liked it.
“No problem.” She handed the keys to Pete.
“Do you mind staying in the car?” he asked.
“Sure.”
He was back in three minutes. “Cute house, Dr. Fleming. I’ve seen these tiny houses on TV, but I’ve never been inside one. Doesn’t take long to check out, that’s for sure. But everything looks good.”
“Thank you.”
Pete opened her car door and waited as she grabbed her bag. He handed her a card. “That has my direct number on it. I’m going to be in the area tonight. If you need anything, let me know.”
“I appreciate it, Pete. That’s very kind of you.”
“Um . . . Adam asked me to wait until you put my number into your phone.”
Oh, good grief. “I’ll do him one better.” She punched in the number and Pete’s phone rang. “There. Now it’s in my phone and it’s my most recently dialed number.”
Pete grinned. “Thanks, Dr. Fleming.”
“It’s Sabrina.” She extended her hand and he shook it.
“Thanks, Sabrina. I’ll stay until you’re inside.”
“Did he tell you he’s going overboard with this? That I’m in no danger at all? The laptop is in my lab, not here.”
Pete shrugged. “Your house is in my patrol area, ma’am. I don’t know that it’s overboard to want you to have a quick way to reach me. You live out here all alone. Might be nice to have my number handy.”
“Okay. I get it. You’re as bad as he is. But that’s okay. I appreciate it. Have a good night, Pete.”
“Thank you. I hope you do too.” Pete leaned against his patrol car and watched her until she entered the door. As she turned the deadbolt, she heard his car door close.
She glanced around her small space. Nothing obvious was out of place. She opened her tiny fridge and selected last night’s leftover pad Thai. While it spun in the microwave, she pulled her laptop from her bag and ran a quick search on the victim. She’d start with the basics—social media and regular internet searches. But there was so much more information available online than most people realized. Of course, it helped if you knew where to loo
k. And she did.
“Lisa Palmer, what have you been up to?”
An hour later she still had questions, but she also had a lot of answers. Lisa Palmer was forty-three years old even though she looked a decade older. Single. Never married. Not a local. She’d graduated from the University of Georgia and worked as a CPA in Atlanta for ten years before moving to Carrington to start her own business. Her largest client was Zinzer Hospitality Group. They provided contract services for the hospitality industry all over the Southeast. They offered housekeeping, janitorial, groundskeeping, and facility maintenance services. She’d worked out of their offices for five years before she cut ties with them. It wasn’t clear why. At that point her clientele became even more elite. Fewer businesses and more wealthy individuals. At some point after that she began working with Sabrina’s father.
How had her dad found this woman? Had she had any idea what kind of man he was? Or what he had done? Sabrina had never been able to get an answer from her dad. Well, not an answer she could make sense of.
Sabrina chewed on her lip. On paper, everything looked legitimate, but something felt off. Stop it. You’ve spent too much time looking for the bad guys and now you see them everywhere. Lisa Palmer may very well have been innocent and gotten caught up in something she didn’t understand.
Sabrina kept digging. Lisa Palmer had a dog until about five years ago, when he died of an accidental poisoning. Her parents still lived in Georgia, her sister in Tennessee. She had two nieces who smiled toothy grins in every picture.
She dropped her head. Oh, Father, be with them. So much pain was headed into their world.
Her phone rang. A different ringtone. Sabrina glanced at her clock—9:28 p.m. A bit late for Martine to be calling. “Hello,” she said.
“Hi, Sabrina. You doing okay tonight?”
“I’m good, Martine, thanks.” Martine Roberts ran a local anti–human trafficking group that Sabrina volunteered for called FreedomForAll.
“Great. Listen, I was wondering if you might be available to help with the Campbell Christmas Charity Gala this year. Since they have so graciously made us the primary beneficiary of the gala, we’ve volunteered to help make reminder calls to the guests and then be there a little early to welcome people as they come in.”
Sabrina set her glasses on the table and rubbed her eyes. “I’m sorry, Martine. Galas aren’t my area of expertise. And I’m afraid I’m in the middle of a big project right now and it’s taking most of my time. I’m not going to be able to—”
“Oh, it wouldn’t take much time,” Martine said. “The gala committee has everything lined up. It would just be a few phone calls and then helping on the day of.”
Sabrina fought the annoyance spreading through her mind like a virus. Martine was passionate about ending modern-day slavery, and Sabrina appreciated that about her.
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” she said in her firmest professorial tone. “I can’t take on anything else right now.”
“Well, I’ll pencil you in as a maybe,” Martine said. “If you finish up your project, you can let me know, okay?”
This woman would be the death of her.
“Martine, I’m going to have to go. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Okay. Thank you!”
Sabrina set the phone on the table and put her head in her hands. She’d specifically said no and somehow Martine decided it was okay to pencil her in? Really?
Sabrina pushed the aggravation from her mind and focused on typing her notes about Lisa Palmer. When she was finished, she emailed the file to her secure email account and to Adam’s. Maybe the digging she’d done tonight would save him some time tomorrow.
She ran another search. This time for Rosita Garcia. It was the same basic search she ran every night. And again, the results were the same.
A big fat zero.
Sabrina needed to find Rosita. She needed to know for sure what had happened. Lives weren’t like hard drives. She could never wipe the slate clean. But if it was as bad as she feared, she needed to do everything she could to make reparations for the things her dad had done.
Her phone rang again. This time she cringed when she recognized the ringtone. “Hello, Mother.” She tried to keep her tone respectful.
“Hello. I only have a few moments. I’m meeting a client for dinner and then catching a red-eye from Seattle to Dulles.”
“Okay.”
“I was wondering if you’ve given any more thought to selling the house.”
Her mom was never one to beat around the bush.
“I told you I talked to my lawyer. It makes sense to wait until I’m thirty. Everything will be much easier then. We don’t need the money. It isn’t hurting anything. I check on it every week.”
“I don’t understand why you don’t move into the house if you won’t sell it. It makes no sense to live like a pauper in a tin can on the property.”
Sabrina didn’t bother responding.
“You could at least stay in the guesthouse.”
The guesthouse was two thousand square feet. “I don’t need that kind of space, Mother.”
“Everyone needs that kind of space,” her mother said. “I have never understood you.”
The feeling was mutual.
Her mother made a sound of displeasure. “My car is early. Why can’t people show up when they say they will? Anyway, there’s a chance I’ll be in your area sometime in the next week or two, but nothing is definite yet. I’ll let you know.”
“Okay.”
The only response was dead air.
At 6:00 a.m. Sabrina’s alarm jolted her to awareness. Her dreams had been troubled. Nothing specific, but everything was dark and angry. That’s what she got for digging up the past.
She guzzled a glass of water, dressed, chose some music, and slid her phone into the zipper pocket on the leg of her jogging pants. She stepped outside and secured a wireless earbud in each ear. With sunrise still an hour away, stars twinkled and the moon shone brightly as she jogged down the long driveway toward her father’s house. She’d turned the corner by the pond when her earbuds died. Awesome. Now she’d be stuck with nothing but her thoughts for the rest of her run.
She eyed the large home visible in the distance past the pond. She’d never lived in it. Never wanted to live in it. Never understood why he’d bought the monstrosity in the first place.
But he’d been adamant that he would not go to any sort of assisted living facility. Said he didn’t want anyone’s sympathy. Lined up all his own caregivers before his mind completely deserted him.
She stretched out her legs and tried to lose herself in the feeling of her feet hitting the pavement, the crisp air stinging her ears and nose, the air whooshing in and out of her lungs.
But the memories came anyway.
It was one afternoon while she was sitting with her father that he’d said the words that had turned everything on edge. “Rosita, where have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I’m sorry.”
Over the next few months, he mentioned Rosita from time to time and called her Rosita more than once.
She’d tried to make sense of the rambling, but—
She slammed into a large mass. One earbud fell from her ear as she crashed to the ground on her right hip.
Her leg throbbed as she tried to scramble to her feet, but something hard shoved her back to the ground. The other earbud fell and she heard heavy breathing. A dark shape rose in front of her.
She rolled to her right, mind racing. She pushed back the panic rising in her. She had to think. Fight back or run?
She was fast, but not faster than a bullet. But it was dark enough that she wouldn’t be an easy target. If she could get this guy on his back, she could make a dash for the trees. She’d never lived in the house, but she’d spent hours exploring the grounds around it. If she could get away, she might stand a chance.
Desperation clawed through her mind as he moved toward her. It was now or neve
r.
She made a swipe for the legs she could barely make out in the fading moonlight. The bulky form stumbled back a step but then recovered and lunged at her.
Pain splintered through her head.
And everything went dark.
Monday morning came way too early. Adam parked his unmarked sedan in the sheriff’s office parking lot before seven. He checked his phone as he climbed out—no messages from Sabrina. Pete was going to make a final pass near her house before his shift ended in a few minutes.
A brief blast from a horn startled him. He glanced around until he found the culprit. Ryan Parker laughed as he got out of the car and started walking toward him. “Gotcha.”
Adam didn’t bother to respond.
“Wow. You’re cheery this morning,” Ryan said as they entered the building.
Even Ryan’s sarcasm was upbeat. It took longer than it should have to register why that might be. “Wait a minute,” Adam said. “Did you propose to Leigh?”
A Texas-wide grin spread across Ryan’s face. “Yep.”
“That’s awesome.” He clapped Ryan on the back. “Congratulations.” They entered the elevator that would take them to their offices on the third floor.
“Thanks, man, but you’re assuming she said yes.”
“That was a foregone conclusion. And even if I had a smidgen of doubt, your excessive happiness would have made it pretty clear how things went.”
The elevator doors opened.
“I’m not excessively happy.”
Gabe glared at the two of them from the coffee station. “Yes, you are. Congratulations.”
He stalked toward the homicide offices without a backward glance. “Campbell. I have information for you when you’re ready.”
“This is going to be a fun day.” Ryan didn’t sound convinced of his own words.
Gabe poked his head out the door. “Ryan, you come too. I want to bounce a few things off you.” He disappeared, then reemerged a few moments later. “I don’t suppose Leigh made cookies or anything?”
Ryan held up a lunchbox. “Two dozen.”
The elevator doors opened again and Anissa Bell stepped out.
“I love her,” Gabe said.
“Who?” Anissa looked around the room.
In Too Deep Page 5