The police didn’t have anything on him. He’d cleaned up too carefully behind himself. He smirked. None of it had been complicated. Marcella Gibbons had been an easy target. She’d spent years mooning over her boss only to watch him marry and start a family with someone else. Neal had used her neediness to achieve his goal. The code to the Abbott home and a copy of the key. On his last visit to her place, he’d removed his bugs. Then he’d moved on to the Abbott home. He’d planted nearly a dozen cameras and listening devices in the big house. He’d known every move they’d made for weeks. He had known where Sela had hidden the weapon she’d bought. When he’d finished with it that fateful morning, he’d tucked it right back where she’d hidden it.
Too bad the cops hadn’t found it, or this might have all been over days ago. At this point, he had no idea where the gun was. He’d dared to go back into the house on Wednesday, but it was gone. Either the police were holding back the find, or that bitch had found a way to get her hands on it. He couldn’t see her going into the house to get it. She wouldn’t risk coming out of hiding.
If the police had done their job, he wouldn’t have had to endure Bellemont ranting that everything had gone to shit. The man needn’t worry. Neal had most of his assignment under control. Amelia was the only variable, and she had disappeared. Not that he would be worried if she reappeared. She knew nothing about him or what he’d done that Bellemont hadn’t already told the police.
Chances were, Amelia was the one who’d sneaked into the house and taken the gun for her friend. Naive kid.
Headlights bobbed into his rearview mirror.
He waited until Suzanne had pulled to the curb in front of him. When the headlights darkened, he got out of his car.
As he moved toward the front of his car, he wondered why she had turned the headlights off but not the engine. She generally did both. Then again it was muggy as hell tonight. Knowing how vain she was, she wouldn’t want to shut off the air-conditioning even for a few moments. He would join her in the car and learn the reason for this hastily scheduled rendezvous.
He cut between their vehicles.
Backup lights flickered, and the engine roared. What the . . . ?
The rear bumper of her car rammed into him, pinning him to the front of his own.
Pain seared through him, stealing his breath. He needed to . . . he tried to reach his gun. He always carried his gun, but his right hand was trapped between his body and the hood. He attempted to reach into the shoulder holster with his left.
Her car accelerated.
His own vehicle rocked with the force of her car pressing into it.
A new flood of pain exploded, racing through him. Was excruciating. He had to . . .
His upper body fell forward. His face pressed into the warm metal of her trunk.
And then he felt nothing at all.
61
TODAY
Saturday, June 16
8:30 a.m.
“Go ahead. Shoot me.”
The bastard had called her bluff. He’d lunged at her . . . they’d struggled.
Her weapon had fired.
He was dead.
Kerri had left him there—lying on the floor—and driven away from that damned cabin. Hurrying to the crime scene Falco had called about, she’d missed a curve and spun off the road, slamming into the mountainside. She’d had to climb out the passenger’s-side door. Pain throbbed in her skull from where he had banged her head against the floor over and over. She touched the left side above her temple and the new ache hammering there. She had apparently hit the driver’s-side door window during the crash.
She leaned against the rear bumper of her Wagoneer and squeezed her eyes shut. She had killed him. All she’d wanted was the truth. Where was Amelia? Where was Sela Abbott . . . had she been the one who died in that fire?
“Shit!”
Her scream echoed around her, bouncing off the snaky highway that uncoiled down this godforsaken mountain. She opened her eyes. Squinted at the bright sun. She wished she had her sunglasses, but the idea of climbing back into her wrecked vehicle to search for them was more than she could handle at the moment.
She should have called Falco when she’d followed the son of a bitch from his home to the cabin. Going on her own was stupid. Truly stupid.
Too late now.
She was in way over her head, and she still had no idea if Amelia was okay. Damn it!
Holding an unsteady hand over her eyes, she scanned the road. As much as she hadn’t wanted to involve her partner in this, she’d had no choice. Asking him to come get her had been her only option. He would have questions she couldn’t answer.
He had been at the new crime scene when she’d called. Another body had been found. Possibly female. Wasn’t that what he’d said?
At Whisper Lake Circle.
“Oh God.” If it was her . . . the pounding in Kerri’s skull had her stomach churning. She felt confused and unsteady.
What the hell had she done?
Her throat thickened, and nausea roiled in her gut.
How had she let something so damned irresponsible happen? She should have realized he wouldn’t be bullied into telling her anything. What she hadn’t expected was him charging toward her and the weapon she’d held.
If she’d had any question at all of his guilt, there was certainly none now. An innocent man would never have charged someone holding a loaded weapon—especially someone trained to use that weapon.
Guilty or innocent, dead was dead.
She squeezed her eyes shut again as the world around her started to twirl like a drunken ballerina. She should have called it in instead of driving away.
The sound of Falco’s Charger forced her eyes to open. He pulled over to the side of the road and climbed out.
“What the hell happened, Devlin?”
“I was reaching for my cell, and I missed the curve.”
The long assessment that followed warned he wasn’t convinced of her explanation.
He checked the driver’s side, where she feared there might be substantial damage. “Doesn’t look too bad. I’ll call a wrecker.”
Kerri wanted to feel relieved, but what she felt was ill. “Thanks.”
Falco looked her up and down. “So what really happened, Devlin?” He glanced up the road. “And what the hell are you doing here? I thought we agreed to—”
“He came here. I followed him. That’s what I was supposed to do, right? What about you?” She turned the question on him. “Weren’t you supposed to be keeping an eye on—”
“Dispatch called me because they couldn’t reach you. We have a body, Devlin. That takes priority over our surveillance plans. And I seem to recall we were supposed to notify each other if something came up.”
He stared at her. She couldn’t hold his gaze. Her head hurt too damned bad. And the guilt . . .
She looked away.
“What is it you’re not telling me?”
She struggled to gather her wits about her. “We can talk about it later; let’s go. Like you said, we have a body.”
“Okay, okay,” he allowed.
Kerri forced herself to meet his suspicious glare once more. “Is it her?”
“The vic hasn’t been ID’d yet. I did hear back from the lab on the bracelet. Blood type matches Sela Abbott’s.”
Not what she’d hoped for. “What are we waiting for?” The energy required to make the demand weakened her knees. “Let’s go.”
For a moment she worried that he would interrogate her further, and she didn’t have it in her to hold up to any more questions.
“We’ll come back to this,” he warned.
Kerri followed him to his car, her mind reeling with another shocking reality. Yes, she was glad the bastard was dead, but if she was charged with murder and went to prison . . .
Her daughter needed her.
She collapsed into the passenger seat of Falco’s car.
What the hell was she going to do?
Whisper Lake Circle
Kerri’s head throbbed relentlessly. She felt as if she might throw up any second. Her mouth was dry, and she was craving water, but she didn’t dare take a swallow for fear of setting off a nasty chain of events.
She had killed a man. She stared at her swollen hand.
An unarmed man.
No matter that the piece of shit had deserved something worse than death.
She should have let Falco watch York last night . . . she should have taken Thompson. Then she wouldn’t have ended up following the bastard to that damned cabin this morning. And he wouldn’t have caught her sneaking a look through the window to see what the hell he was doing.
She pushed the thoughts aside and scanned the area as Falco parked in front of the house, joining the array of other official vehicles. The ME’s van and two other BPD cruisers along with the van sporting the department’s crime scene logo. Yellow tape swung in the slight breeze, warning that something bad had happened here.
She climbed out of the car and trailed after Falco. She had been so certain she could end this—force the son of a bitch to give her what she needed, and maybe, just maybe, he would tell her where Amelia was.
Not at all how things had turned out.
Falco led the way around to the back of the house. An excavator still stood near the pool—or where it had been. The pool was now nothing more than a big gaping hole and a number of piles of rubble. The ME’s gurney sat next to . . . she squinted . . . a cement mixer. What the hell?
She wanted to ask Falco what had happened, but her stomach roiled, and she barely restrained the urge to puke. She couldn’t remember when she’d last gotten sick at a crime scene.
But this wasn’t about this scene. This was about the one she’d left on that mountain.
Dr. Moore appeared from behind the cement mixer. “Detective Devlin,” he said to Kerri, his knowing gaze roving over her. “You feeling all right this morning?”