Her Deadly Secrets

by Griffin, Laura

  She muttered something and looked away.

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re being paranoid. And anyway, you are my security detail right now. I should go where you go.”

  “I’ll drop you off with Erik at the hotel.”

  She huffed out a breath and looked away.

  Jeremy let her fume and didn’t say anything as he pulled into the Metropolitan Hotel’s long, tree-lined driveway. They reached the grand entrance, where several uniformed valets were parking luxury cars. Jeremy pulled over behind a white Mercedes.

  Kira dug into her bag. Without comment, she handed over a key.

  “I’m looking for an actual Rolodex?” he asked. “Not something digital?”

  “Yes.” She still sounded annoyed. “Ollie was totally old school. He kept his contacts on paper.”

  “Okay, I’ll bring it back.”

  Right on cue, Erik appeared beside the truck. Kira pushed open her door before he could open it for her and slid out without saying goodbye. Erik ducked his head in to look at Jeremy.

  “Everything all right?”

  “Keep an eye on her,” Jeremy told him.

  Erik nodded. “Roger that.”

  Ollie’s office looked as bad as the last time Jeremy had seen it and smelled worse. Even before the spilled fish tank, the place had been a dump, and Jeremy wasn’t surprised the landlord hadn’t been in here yet with a cleaning crew. The stench was strong enough to overpower the smell of grilling meat from the Korean restaurant below.

  Jeremy swept his flashlight around the room, illuminating trash and paperwork and tufts of sofa stuffing. He kept the lights off so as not to attract attention from the street as he picked his way through the debris to the overturned drawers around Ollie’s desk. No Rolodex in sight. Jeremy poked through a heap of office supplies. He found a stack of business cards bound with a rubber band and also a pair of keys attached to a pocketknife keychain. The smaller key looked like a safe-deposit key or possibly a PO box. Maybe Ollie’s daughter would know, and Kira could ask. Jeremy tucked the keychain and the stack of business cards into his pocket and stood up to look around.

  On the credenza, he spotted it: an old-fashioned Rolodex, just as Kira described. It was fatter than he’d expected. Ollie had a lot of contacts, evidently. Jeremy flipped through the “H” section but didn’t see anything with a first initial L. Still, he grabbed the Rolodex and dropped it into the plastic trash bag he’d brought from his truck. Glancing around, he tried to imagine what else Kira might want if she were here.

  The smell got worse as Jeremy picked his way across the room, and he tried to ignore it. The only thing that had made the place bearable last time was Kira, and he missed having her alongside him with her running commentary. But bringing her would have been an unnecessary risk, and he wasn’t sorry he’d dropped her off.

  Jeremy beamed his flashlight over the mess, cursing himself. He’d developed a thing for a woman who rode a bike to work. And hated guns. And rescued fish.

  She was totally not his type, except for the attitude. That he loved. Kira had guts. She wasn’t afraid to go toe to toe with a veteran trial attorney. Or argue with a homicide detective. Or talk to a grieving family. Plus, she was observant—which was something they had in common.

  And besides that, she was incredibly sexy. Ever since Friday night in his truck, Jeremy had been thinking about that kiss. He’d been thinking about her plump mouth and her tight breasts. He’d been picturing that long dark hair fanned across his pillow. He’d been thinking about all that and more, and he needed to stop.

  His flashlight beam landed on a white envelope tucked beneath an accordion file. Jeremy moved the file with his foot and picked up the envelope, squinting at the scrawl. “Lorraine.” Inside was a pair of tickets to an upcoming baseball game, Astros versus Red Sox.

  Thunk.

  Jeremy switched off his flashlight. The noise came from outside on the stairwell. Jeremy eased closer to the window and looked out. He could only see the base of the stairwell, but it was empty.

  Jeremy surveyed the half dozen vehicles that had been parked along the block when he pulled up. He’d taken an empty metered space in front of a dry cleaner two buildings down.

  A dark green pickup eased down the street. The taillights glowed red as the truck slowed for a stoplight. Jeremy waited a full, silent minute before grabbing his trash bag and creeping to the door. He exited the office and silently locked up and tucked the key into his pocket. For a moment, he listened. Nothing suspicious. Scanning the area around the building, he walked down the outdoor staircase, taking care to keep his boots quiet on the metal stairs. When he reached the bottom, a blur of movement caught his eye.

  A dark figure sprinted down the alley. Jeremy dropped the trash bag and took off after him. The man darted around the corner of the dry cleaner.

  Jeremy’s boots smacked against the pavement as he raced down the alley, which smelled of garbage and cooking oil. The man glanced over his shoulder, then tripped and fell, catching himself against a dumpster before grabbing a wooden pallet and heaving it into the path behind him. Then he darted around the corner.

  Adrenaline fired through Jeremy’s veins. He hurdled the pallet and ran around the corner. The man was three buildings away now, sprinting along a narrow sidewalk behind the buildings, passing the occasional parked car, and Jeremy took in details about the subject: tall, medium-build, fast. He wore a baseball cap, so Jeremy couldn’t see his hair.

  Another glance over his shoulder, and then the man darted sideways and slid over the hood of a low-slung convertible before racing across the street. Jeremy kept after him. The man was in the open now, running down a narrow strip of grass between the street and a chain-link fence. On the other side was a wide easement and a set of railroad tracks.

  Jeremy turned on the speed, pumping his arms and legs hard as he closed in. He gripped his SIG, ready to take a shot if needed, but the subject was empty-handed.

  A faint rumble in the distance caught Jeremy’s attention. He ran faster as a pinprick of light grew steadily bigger. The noise increased until it was a thunderous roar, and the man he was chasing was a long silhouette against the blazing white. He kept glancing to the side, and Jeremy knew what he was thinking. Suddenly, the man turned and leaped onto the chain-link fence, clawing his way up, pausing at the top to yank his shirt free.

  Jeremy darted right, grabbing the fence with both hands and scaling it in two moves. Up ahead, the guy leaped down from the fence and scrambled to his feet. Jeremy jumped and rolled, then sprang to his feet and took off again.

  Jeremy was gaining, shrinking the distance. The train sped closer and closer, so loud Jeremy felt the ground vibrating through the soles of his boots. He pounded after his target, heart hammering as he steadily closed the gap. The man was trapped. He’d locked himself in between a fence and a freight train. Jeremy estimated four seconds until he was close enough to tackle him.

  Up ahead, Jeremy spied a tall streetlight at the top of the rise. Bells clanged as a pair of arms swung down, blocking nonexistent traffic from crossing the tracks.

  The subject looked back, and Jeremy caught a glimpse of his face. Only a glimpse, but he could read the panic. The man turned again, and Jeremy spotted the gun in his hand.

  Pop!

  Jeremy hit the ground with a flash of pain, then lifted his SIG and returned fire. The figure lurched sideways, and Jeremy cursed his crappy shot as the man sprang back up and kept running. The guy darted a look at the train tracks, and Jeremy understood the move the instant before it happened.

  The man lunged right, scrambling up the rise and over the tracks, a small black blur before the blinding white light. Jeremy started after him but halted as the man vanished from view and a wall of shrieking metal rushed by him.

  Jeremy stood there, chest heaving. He tipped his head back, then leaned forward, planting his palms on his knees as he gulped down oxygen. The deafening noise reverberated through his body as
the seconds and minutes ticked by. His arm burned. His body ached. Finally, he stood and watched with fury as the final cars rushed by.

  When the train was gone, he stared across the tracks at an empty field between himself and some abandoned warehouses. His ears rang, and the vibrations seemed to linger in his chest. Gradually, the noise faded until there was only the distant clang of bells again as the arms lifted at the railroad crossing.

  Cursing, Jeremy tucked his pistol away. Frustration burned in his gut as he started walking back.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  CHARLOTTE SPOTTED the patrol car parked along the lonely strip of road paralleling the train tracks. She pulled in behind it and dropped her phone into the pocket of her blazer before getting out.

  Jeremy Owen leaned against the back of a pickup truck, arms crossed, talking to an officer who looked up from his clipboard as Charlotte approached. She vaguely recognized the officer, but he seemed to know her.

  “Detective Spears.” He gave a crisp nod. “We’re about wrapped up here. Mind if I make a few calls?”

  “Not at all.” He returned to his patrol unit and opened the door, and Charlotte turned her attention to Jeremy. “You keep showing up at crime scenes.”

  He didn’t comment. This man didn’t talk much, she’d noticed, but he seemed wise beyond his thirty-three years. Combat would do that to you. Charlotte worked with enough veterans to know.

  She nodded at his elbow, which was wrapped in a T-shirt. “What happened to your arm?”

  “He nicked me.”

  “He nicked you? Why didn’t you mention that over the phone?”

  “Didn’t seem relevant.”

  Charlotte stared at him.

  Over the past two days, she’d had a chance to research Jeremy Owen, and what she’d learned impressed her. The former Marine had a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, not to mention a five-year tenure with one of the top private security firms in the country. So maybe she shouldn’t be surprised that when he’d called her to report scaring off a potential burglar at Oliver Kovak’s office, he’d neglected to mention being shot by the guy.

  “Run me through what happened,” she told him.

  “Like I said over the phone, I arrived here at approximately eight fifty to pick up some items from Kovak’s office.”

  “What items?”

  “An address book. Kira needs it for work.”

  Charlotte crossed her arms. “Okay, then what?”

  “As I was leaving, I heard a noise on the outside stairwell. When I went to look, the guy took off down the street at a dead run, which made me think he’d been planning to break in.”

  “Makes me think that, too. Then what happened?”

  “I went after him. He jumped that chain-link fence there. I followed. He turned and took a shot at me with a black pistol.”

  “Suppressor?”

  “No. Then he darted across the tracks there right before the train came, and I lost him.”

  “He ran in front of a train,” Charlotte stated.

  “That’s correct.”

  She closed her eyes. “Jesus.” She shuddered to think how close she’d come to having another gruesome crime scene on her hands this weekend.

  When she looked at Jeremy again, he was checking his makeshift bandage where the blood had seeped through.

  “You need to get that looked at.”

  He gave a noncommittal nod.

  “You stated over the phone you think it’s our suspect,” she said. “Why do you think that?”

  “The face, the build.”

  “You got a look at him?”

  “Yes.”

  She glanced around the area, but it was dark and desolate. Oliver Kovak’s office was on the periphery of downtown—not exactly a happening neighborhood at this hour on a Sunday night.

  She looked at Jeremy. “How sure are you about this ID?”

  “Very. He closely resembled the suspect sketch.”

  “But it was dark, and you were running. How can you be sure?”

  He just lifted his eyebrows.

  Charlotte looked out over the train tracks to the row of warehouses beyond. The suspect could be anywhere by now.

  “It’s unclear how he got here,” Jeremy added. “Before the officer showed, I did a few laps around the block, looking for a black BMW.”

  “And?”

  “Didn’t see one. There was a dark green pickup in the vicinity that I noticed from the window of the office, but I don’t know if it’s related.”

  She sighed. “Would have been good to have a vehicle.”

  “Yep.”

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky and a surveillance cam picked him up. What do you think he wanted at Kovak’s office?”

  “No idea. Documents? Photos? Maybe something he was looking for at Logan’s house but didn’t find on the night of the murder.”

  She looked at the bodyguard, who stood there stoically talking to her, as though he hadn’t been shot at an hour ago. He was calm and composed, offering detailed observations. Yet another person who would have made a good cop if he hadn’t been lured away by the private sector.

  “So no license plate,” she said. “Guess that would be too lucky, huh?”

  “We’ve got a print, though.”

  “A print?”

  “A palm print.” He glanced across the street and nodded. “When I was chasing him, he planted his hand on the hood of that black Mustang and slid over it.”

  “What Mustang?” She turned and looked across the street, spotting a black Mustang parked along the curb. It was a GT, same as hers, only about ten years older.

  Charlotte’s pulse picked up. “He touched the hood of that car? You’re sure?”

  “I saw him do it.”

  “Show me.”

  Kira sat on the floor of her hotel suite, her laptop in front of her on the coffee table, alongside the box of leftover pizza from last night. She nibbled on a slice as she scoured the Web for anything linking Andre Markov to Gavin Quinn or his murdered wife.

  There had to be something. Ollie was a good PI. The best in town. He’d been sure he was onto something big on the day of his death. But again, what was the link between a two-year-old assault outside a bar and the murder of a prominent doctor’s wife?

  Kira went back to her copy of Markov’s trial transcript. As she finished off her pizza slice, she thumbed through the thick sheaf of papers. Then she slid it aside and took out the backup materials. Once again, she scanned the witness list from Markov’s defense team. This time, she got hung up on a name: Craig Collins. He was subpoenaed to testify, but it looked like he never actually got called to the stand, which happened sometimes.

  Collins. Collins. She’d seen that name somewhere earlier today.

  She reached for her accordion file on the Ava Quinn murder, which she’d been building ever since Brock had hired her. She flipped through the original police report, the autopsy report, several news clippings from the Houston Chronicle. She came upon the obituary.

  Ava Collins Quinn, beloved wife, daughter, and sister, died on Thursday evening . . .

  Kira’s breath caught. Could that be it? She skimmed to the bottom of the obit. She is survived by her parents, Michael and Margaret Collins of Houston; her brother, Craig Collins . . .

  Craig Collins. She’d seen him on the news with Ava’s parents and Gavin. Kira scrambled to her feet. She snatched her key card off the counter, then rushed out of the room, startling the guard stationed in the hallway between her suite and Brock’s.

  “Is he in there?” she asked Joel, striding down the hallway.

  “Who, Mr. Logan?”

  Not waiting for an answer, she rapped on the door.

  Brock answered the door. He wore jeans and an untucked white shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

  “Hey. What’s up?”

  “I found it.” She brushed past him into his suite. It was a mess, with legal pads and files blanketing the coffee table. A roo
m-service cart loaded with the remnants of a steak dinner sat beside the desk.

  “Found what?” Brock asked. With his uninjured arm, he reached for the TV remote and muted the baseball game.

  “The link between Markov and Ava Quinn.” She waved the obituary. “It’s right here in the obit. Ava Collins Quinn, survived by her parents and her brother, Craig Collins.”

  Brock’s brows arched. “So?”

  “So it’s in the trial materials. Craig Collins is on the witness list for Markov’s trial! He was supposed to testify for the defense, but he never got called to the stand. But his name on the wit list means he was probably at that bar that night when Markov assaulted the guy with the beer bottle, which means he and Craig are friends, which means—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Brock held up his hand. “Slow down. You’re saying Ava Quinn’s brother knows Markov?”

  “Yes.” Kira’s heart was thrumming now. She had that adrenaline rush that always accompanied a break in a case. It was the same adrenaline rush that had put a spark in Ollie’s eyes on the night of his murder.

  “With all his sketchy business dealings, the last thing Andre Markov wants is investigators linking him to a murder suspect. Or looking at him as a murder suspect.”

  Brock rubbed his jaw. “You’re saying Markov was worried that the Quinn trial might put heat on him?”

  “Yes. I mean, imagine it. If Gavin’s defense team casts suspicion on Ava’s brother, and Ava’s brother is a known associate of a character like Markov, police might suddenly take a long, hard look at the Markov family business.”

  Brock took the obituary from her and frowned as he read it. “You know, I met Craig before at Gavin’s house one time.”

  “You did?”

  “He looks just like his sister.” He handed back the obituary and sauntered to the minibar. “Want a drink?”

  “I’m good. Listen, are you understanding how big this is?”

  Brock opened an ice bucket and dropped some cubes into a glass he already had going. He poured bourbon over the ice. “No, I get it.”