But as soon as he opened the door, he gasped at the sight of what he had done to his beautiful Paige. “Oh God,” he croaked, unable to find his normal voice when he saw the puddle of blood leaching out everywhere. “Paige, honey, I’m so sorry,” he cried out, running to her in a panic. Bending to his knees, he checked her pulse and found her still alive. “Baby, please forgive me,” he begged.
There was no way he could finish her off. He just couldn’t. He decided to make an anonymous call. But when he tried using his cell to call for help, the solid cinder-blocked walls prevented a signal. He climbed back up to the twelfth floor and went out into the hallway.
He had his finger on the button to call 911. Then doubt set it. If Paige survived, he’d be arrested for murder. He just needed to leave her there. She would bleed out and then she’d die.
Leaving his one true love behind, he rode the elevator down and exited on the lobby level. Peering down toward the guard’s desk – his father’s desk – he noted he was still gone on the wild goose chase David had sent him on. Keeping tight to the wall to make sure he stayed out of the lobby camera’s view, he dashed down to the security booth and leaned the bat against the control desk. Thankfully, he had conversed generally with Edward several times, allowing David an insight as to how the operation was set up. With his computer training, he quickly looped over the twelfth-floor video, along with his prior entry into the lobby from when he first entered carrying the bat inside.
Mission accomplished, he reached for the bat, noticing there was blood all over one side. He must have dropped it in a puddle of Paige’s blood. Just then, he heard the ding of the elevator and feared it might be Edward returning to his stand.
The love of his life was dying in the stairwell and he was standing at the security booth with a bloody bat. Fear exploded in his stomach and beads of sweat popped across his forehead. He couldn’t be caught with a bloody weapon. Not to mention, he had all those incriminating photos of Paige on his phone. He would look like a stalker … and a murderer. And he certainly didn’t think Edward, his unknowing birth father, would cover for him. He imagined the scenario: Dad, I’m your son. Will you cover this murder for me?
In a split second, he darted down the side hallway toward the restrooms. On his way, he realized the elevator arrival was Paige crawling off the lift. “Shit,” he muttered, quickly ducking inside the men’s room. He needed to think this through. His mother depended on him. He couldn’t go to jail. He just couldn’t. First things first, he needed to get rid of the blood. He scrubbed the hell out of the aluminum surface and then dried it with a dispenser towel. Now he needed to get the bat back to his car, but he couldn’t go through the lobby.
For what seemed like a long time, he paced back and forth across the tiled floor, trying to conjure up a way to get past security with a bat in his hand.
“Of course, the freight elevator,” he said, snapping his fingers as the answer came to him. Located in the back of the building, it would provide him with an escape route where no one would see him leaving with a potential murder weapon.
When he exited the restroom, he headed down the hallway toward the freight hoist. As he stepped into the elevator corridor, he noticed Paige was now lying on the floor and some guy was hovering over her.
“Shit,” he muttered, quickly ducking back down the hall.
Suddenly voices sounded from everywhere and he knew the police and medical personnel must have arrived. His heart rate kicked into hyper mode. He made a mad dash back for the men’s room, but before he could get there, they were taking Paige out on a stretcher and the only thing he had time to do was duck behind a fake plant and blend himself into the wall.
Sweat poured down his face as he waited for them to pass by. He stood, firmly planted in place until the noises quieted. He knew the police would soon be scouring the hallways, bathrooms, stairwell, and everything in between. He had to get out now, as fast as he could. He slithered past the plant and made his way back to the elevator corridor. It was all he could do to inch his neck around the corner to see if the coast was clear. Two officers boarded an elevator and three other ones headed into the stairwell.
It was now or never.
He darted across the hallway and silently ran to the freight lift. He hammered on the call button with all his might. When it arrived, he bailed on and signaled for the garage level, repeatedly pounding on the “close door” activator. When the doors split apart, he ran to his car, tossing the bat in his backseat. He exited the garage and mashed the accelerator in an increased effort to get home.
David couldn’t think straight after his arrival at home. What if Paige was okay? What if she told the police what he did? He worried himself sick over it. In the middle of the night, he had risen from his bed and gone to the hospital to find out her condition. He had sneaked into her room and stood there in silent darkness. She was behind a curtain, but he could hear her sleeping pants.
Just put a pillow over her head, he thought.
Suddenly, he clumsily bumped into the bathroom door and she woke up. She began asking who was there and calling for the nurse. David almost fainted before he managed to sneak into a patient’s room next door, only seconds before the nurse had a chance to get from the nurses’ station to Paige’s room. He spent over an hour in a reclining chair, pretending to be a concerned relative of Mr. Martin, some old man asleep in a hospital bed. Finally, he worked up his nerve to leave.
“David! Are you going to change lanes, or what?” his mother shrieked.
“What?” David jumped a mile high, snapping out of his reverie.
“I knew it! You haven’t been listening to a thing I’ve said for miles on end.” His mother turned sideways and glared at him. Her face was pinched up like a prune. Then her head snapped the other direction as she watched the exit go by. “You missed the dang exit.” She squinted, looking forward down the road. “Maybe there’s a place up ahead. Get over and get off so we can see. Otherwise, I’m peeing right here.”
“Okay. Sorry Momma,” David responded, thinking maybe he could kill her after all.
Chapter Seventy-Three
While I was still going over the stairwell incident with Detective Sutton, Detective Andrews poked his head in the door. “There’s more information.” He didn’t wait to be invited in, he just crossed the room and dropped a file on Detective Sutton’s desk. He gestured at the paperwork. “Those are copies of closing papers … David Ross signed them earlier this morning at the title company. He’s up and sold the house. And it looks like he and his mother have left for good. He may have pulled a fast one on us.”
“At the party, he told me he had accepted another job.” I groaned, realizing David had duped me too. “He offered his two-week notice and I told him since you guys still had his computer, and under the circumstances, Mr. Harrington would probably dispense with the notice. Obviously, he never meant to hang around.”
“Did he tell you where his new job was?” Detective Sutton inquired.
“No, and I didn’t ask. Frankly, I was so thrown by his appearance at the party, I wasn’t thinking straight.”
Detective Sutton twisted his gaze to his partner. “Andrews, get down to forensics and see if the analysts have found anything on his hard drive that might lead to where he’s going.”
In no time at all, Detective Andrews returned with a smile on his face. “The tech guys said his computer was filled with coarse material for earning a computer science degree. There were a few emails from Amazon where he’d applied for a job in Seattle. Maybe he got a job there.”
“Excellent,” Detective Sutton commended. He immediately jumped on the phone and began making calls to Amazon headquarters. He was transferred and transferred and transferred, until finally, he was transferred to the right person. After identifying himself as a police detective and explaining the urgency of the call, he asked, “Can you please tell me if your company has recently hired someone by the name of David Wayne Ross?” When he received a �
��no”, he asked about David Ratcliff, Wayne Ross, and Wayne Ratcliff. Running out of options, he asked about any new hires. Sympathetic to the detective’s situation and not forcing a subpoena, the Hiring Manager in Human Resources, rattled off Sally Myers, Barbara Woodson and Jonathan McNeal. “Okay. Thank you so much for your assistance,” he said, placing the phone back in its cradle. “Nothing,” he sadly reported.
“I might have a lead,” I submitted. “This morning Mr. Harrington showed me a dropped note from after the party. It was found near where David would have been seated. Written on it was: DEN to MIA, flight #4120, 8:10 p.m., today’s date. Do you think he might have purposely left the information on Amazon to make us think he went there … but be intending to fly from Denver to Miami?”
“Good Lord,” Detective Sutton said, screwing up his face. “Why wouldn’t he just leave the trail to Seattle, but instead fly to Miami from DFW? Why drive clear across the country? All it took was a simple phone call to find out he didn’t get a job at Amazon. That doesn’t make a lick of sense.”
“Maybe he thought we’d check the flights out of DFW right away, but never consider checking flights out of Denver. Plus, he may have thought Amazon wouldn’t disclose the names of their employees without a subpoena, and by the time we figured it out he’d be long gone,” Detective Andrews posed. “Heck, for all we know, Miami is a layover for some other destination. He may think he’s giving us the slip by crisscrossing all over the country.”
A gasp escaped my mouth. “I haven’t been at work most of the day. And I didn’t come in yesterday since it was Sunday. What if David went in and transferred more of the company’s funds? What if Miami is a connecting flight to the Caymans? He may be going back for more money … and this time under his own name, or his mother’s.” The thought had me reeling.
“Call Mr. Harrington. Have him check the bank accounts.” Detective Sutton requested.
When I called Mr. Harrington and explained our concerns, his labored breathing into the phone line had me thinking he was having a heart attack. “That asshole better not have taken another dime of this company’s money,” he bellowed. His fingers slapped against the keyboard with loud, pounding clacks while we all waited on pins and needles.
“I’ll call Denver authorities and have them scope out that flight … just in case,” Detective Andrews said. “We have the pictures from his phone and computer. I’ll send them one of David and his mother.”
Several long minutes later, Mr. Harrington came back on the line. “No, nothing is missing,” he said in a relieved breath. “To make sure, I’ll go over to the bank and alert them. If a transfer of funds is floating, I’ll put a stop payment on it. If there is, I’ll let you know.”
“Thank you. I’ll keep you informed on my end.”
Moments later, one of the tech guys rapped on the door. “We’ve been going through a box of files we obtained from the house. We found a note with this name and number written on it.” He passed it over to Detective Sutton.
“Thank you,” Detective Sutton said, taking the information and dialing the number. After speaking with someone, he hung up the phone and frowned. “David sold his car to this guy.” He tossed the slip of paper to the side of his desk and cussed a few times. “We don’t even know what vehicle to put out a BOLO on.” He turned his head from side to side, causing a popping noise, then he pushed back into the headrest. “David and his mother have up and disappeared.”
“What if I just simply phone him?” I suggested.
Detective Sutton shook his head. “No, we still have his phone. That won’t work.”
“Did you take his mother’s phone?” I asked.
“No, the warrant only applied to David’s possessions.”
“Then, I’ll try his mother’s number,” I suggested. “I’ve never called her before and maybe David has forgotten about her being in the data base as an emergency contact.”
After realizing David’s number matched a call that I had received from someone who didn’t say anything, I had entered his number into my contacts. Thinking it was a good idea to have readily accessible information for each of the employees, I had gone back in and added each of their numbers, as well as emergency contacts into my phone.
Detective Sutton pulled himself upright in his chair. “Good idea. And at this point, I’ll take whatever leads we can get.”
Chapter Seventy-Four
David Ross
“There’s a McDonald’s,” David pointed out.
“No, I don’t like that special crap they put on their burgers,” his mother protested. She craned her neck, looking down a busy side street. “Oh, oh, there’s a Braum’s. I love their fries. Let’s go there.”
“Figures,” David complained, having to wait for oncoming traffic, cross two lanes, and then wheel a sharp left turn into a busy parking lot. “Happy now?” he grunted.
“Well, I will be … once I’ve peed and got some of those delicious fries. Get me the cheeseburger with the bacon. I think it’s the combo number five. With a chocolate shake. I’ll be in the ladies’ room.” She crawled out of the passenger door and wobbled toward the diner. David watched her, thinking about the bat he had in the trunk of his car. Could he do it?
By the time he ordered the food and had it spread out on the table, his mother arrived. “I should complain to management,” she grumped. “Toilet paper was all over the floor and there weren’t any towels to dry my hands. This place is nasty.” She looked down at the food. “Oh goody, fries.”
David rolled his eyes and bit into his burger. “Just eat, Momma. We’ve got a long way to go. And those kids over there are bothering me.” He eyed a booth adjacent to them with three kids making a mess with their ketchup. Their oblivious mother was busy on the phone. A shriek from one of them sent a pounding sensation piercing through his head.
“Where are we going again?” she asked for the hundredth time.
He bit his tongue and forced a smile. “Momma, Silicon Valley. Don’t you remember me telling you before?”
“Well I do now. Now that you’ve reminded me. Sometimes I just forget stuff.” She smirked at him. “It’ll happen to you too … when you get old.”
“Yes, Momma, I know,” he placated.
They wolfed down their food. His mother patted her stomach. “I believe I have room for a fudge sundae. Go get me one, David.”
“Momma, you just had a chocolate shake. Let’s get back on the road.”
His mother didn’t move a muscle and crossed her arms. “Get it, David. Shoo, go on now.” She motioned with her hand for him to return to the counter.
David grudgingly climbed out of the booth. He hovered over her with an angry expression shooting at her. “Eat it fast. And I mean it.”
“You know you can’t eat ice cream fast. For Pete’s sake, it’ll freeze my brain.”
Freeze her brain. David wanted to bash her brain. His hands twitched, thinking about his trusty bat. He passed by the hellions, giving them a scorned look. Making his second trip to the counter, he purchased what he considered to be his mother’s last request. Returning with the frozen dessert, he plopped the plastic dish in front of her. “I’m going to take a shit. You be ready when I get back.”
Elizabeth watched her son as he walked down a narrow hall off to one side of the restaurant. As soon as he was out of sight, she immediately dug her phone from her purse and turned it on. All of David’s electronics had been confiscated by the police, so David had purchased a new phone for himself, with a new number. She had wondered why the police were taking everything and it had crossed her mind that David might be in trouble. He had assured her that all his fellow employees were going through the same thing … something about someone taking money. She wasn’t quite sure, as David had been very vague.
The police had allowed her to keep her phone since the warrant didn’t include her personal possessions. David had insisted she keep it turned off, but she didn’t understand the reasons why. She found it irrit
ating because she loved playing games on it, and it would’ve whiled away the hours she’d spent looking out the window at the boring countryside. West Texas wasn’t exactly a botanical garden.
She’d just powered up the unit and got her word scrabble game going when her phone rang. It startled her to the point she almost dropped it in her ice cream. “Hello,” she answered, feeling a bit apprehensive considering her phone rarely ever rang. Not even from salespeople like David often received.
“Mrs. Ross … is this Mrs. Ross?” a female voice called to her from the other end.
“Yes, who is this?”
“This is Paige, Paige Davis … from David’s work.”
“Oh, you’re my son’s girlfriend, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am. I was trying to get hold of David, but the police told me they still have his phone. I thought I’d try you instead.”
“I’m so sorry I didn’t get to meet you before David uprooted us. He talks about you all the time. You sound like such a lovely girl.”
“Where are you going?”
“Silicon Valley. I remember this time because David just reminded me a little bit ago.”
“David forgot his last paycheck. How far away are you?”
“We’re in Amarillo … at the Braum’s. David’s in the men’s room. He’s going to be beside himself when he finds out you’re calling him.”
“Please don’t tell David I called. If you’ll let me know when you guys are settled, I’ll surprise him just by showing up on his doorstep. I’ll bring his check with me when I do. Will you please keep my secret?”
“Yes, yes. Oh, this is so exciting. I can’t wait to meet you.”
“David told me he was selling his car and purchasing a new one. What did he end up getting?”
“Well, it’s certainly not a new one,” Elizabeth grumped. “This jalopy is older than dirt, and it’s burning oil. David says it’s just to get us there, but I’m not sure the clunker is going to make it.”
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