The Murder That Never Was

“I get your strategy up to this point,” Marc said. “But once your signal strength reaches maximum potential, how exactly do you plan on finding some faceless guy in a thriving town?”

  “Easy. He isn’t faceless.” Ryan pulled into the last remaining metered parking spot on the street. “I hacked into the DMV records when I was digging up information on Miles Parker. Got the photo of him on file.”

  “Of course you did. Why did I ask such a stupid question?”

  Ryan smiled, shifting the van into park and facing Marc. “So, are you ready for some human reconnaissance?”

  “My specialty.” Marc tucked his pistol into the waistband of his pants. “I doubt I’ll need this. But just in case Parker is violent, I’ll be ready.”

  Glancing in his side-view mirror to make sure he could hop out, Ryan turned off the ignition. “I’ve seen you bring a murderous hulk to tears with your Special Ops training alone. A gun is overkill for you.”

  “I’ve needed it in the past—and used it. So, let’s say I’m prepared.” Marc opened the passenger-side door. “Let’s go.”

  Ryan got out, locked up, and took care of the parking meter. He switched to the Wi-Fi app on his iPhone, keying in on TheMysteryMachine’s signal strength as he began walking around. Marc strode along beside him. None of the passersby seemed to notice what Ryan was doing. They assumed he was texting someone, just like everyone else.

  They approached a narrow alley nestled between a line of low-level apartments and a cluster of stores—a coffee shop, a jewelry shop, a trendy clothing store, and a gym. The gym was closest to them, directly facing Bellevue Avenue, and Marc and Ryan could hear the thump-thump of music emanating from inside.

  “The signal seems strongest here,” Ryan said. “It’s coming either from the apartments or the stores. An alley is good. It gives us some privacy. We won’t have a crowd of people staring at Bee.” Ryan glanced up at the sky. “It’s also overcast. That’ll work in our favor. Even so, we’ll only have a few chances for Bee to do his thing before we become a spectacle.”

  “That sucks. Then we’ll have to come back another time.”

  “Exactly. And we don’t want that. C’mon.”

  Ryan led Marc back to the van. Opening the door, he picked up Bee from the front-seat console, detached the charging cable, and then grabbed the control he’d built to maneuver Bee in his flight.

  “All set. Back we go,” he told Marc.

  They returned to the alley, where Ryan placed Bee on the ground.

  “It’s time for you to see Bee in action,” he announced to Marc.

  He activated the drone with a touch of the controls and watched proudly as his homemade gizmo whirred to life. With it hovering five feet off the ground, Ryan checked the video feed on his iPhone. All good. Then he deftly moved the controls, sending Bee skyward, aiming the camera toward the row of apartment windows that faced the alley and then in and out between the stores.

  “Very cool,” Marc noted.

  “Watch.” Ryan pressed another button, and colored neon lights began flashing on Bee. Red. Blue. Green. “Now that’s cool. You should see the display at night.”

  “Right now it’s going to alert half of Upper Montclair to Bee’s presence,” Marc said, grabbing Ryan’s arm. “We’re keeping a low profile, remember? Now turn those damned lights off.”

  Ryan scowled but did as Marc demanded, knowing he was right. “Another minute wouldn’t have made a difference. But fine.” He manipulated the controls again. “Time for Bee to make a return trip, just to make sure he captured everything we need on video.”

  As Bee doubled back, sending video that covered as much territory as possible, Marc frowned. “How are we going to make out anything specific? There are dozens of people in these buildings.”

  “Oh, ye of little faith. I’ll blow up all the images when we’re back in the van with my laptop, and we can study the video scenes. Right now, I have to pay attention to maneuvering Bee, or else he’ll crash into one of the buildings.”

  “Hey, cool toy.” A little kid of about seven was standing at the alleyway opening, licking an ice cream cone and staring up at Bee. “Can he do tricks? Can he fly upside down? Does he have a pilot? Can you talk to him? Does he answer?”

  “Handle this,” Ryan muttered to Marc, scrutinizing Bee as he maneuvered the drone toward them.

  “We want him to do all kinds of cool tricks, but he’s still not working right,” Marc told the little boy. “We’re taking him home to fix him up.”

  The little boy’s face fell, just as his mother rushed over and took his hand. “I’m sorry if he’s bothering you,” she apologized to Marc. “But he ran off as soon as he saw your little helicopter.” She gave her son’s hand a tug. “C’mon, Robbie. It’s time to go home.”

  “Can I buy one of those in the toy store?” the boy asked, pointing down the street, ice cream dripping down the cone and onto his jacket sleeve.

  “Hopefully, someday, once we get him working right,” Marc said. He gave the child’s mother a friendly smile. “No problem. I have a niece who’s younger and more inquisitive than your son. It’s a sign of intelligence.”

  “It’s also the reason I need midafternoon naps.” Laughing, Robbie’s mother took some napkins out of her purse and wiped up her son’s face and jacket sleeve. She then wrapped another napkin around the now-soggy ice cream cone and put the cone back into her son’s hand.

  “Go hang out with your mom, Robbie,” Marc told him. “I’ll bet if you check the toy store in a few months, you’ll see a cool surprise there.” He gave the boy a wink.

  Brightening up, the little boy nodded. “Okay!”

  With that, he trotted off with his mother.

  “I’m glad you can handle kids,” Ryan said. “I suck at it. Bee’s my idea of a play pal.”

  “Well, I’m going to have a lot more than one curious kid to give explanations to if you don’t get that thing back here and out of sight.”

  “Consider it done.” With a few more maneuvers and a slight increase in speed, Ryan brought Bee home to rest. The little drone landed at his feet, that shit-eating grin on its yellow face. The rotors went still as Ryan turned off the controls.

  He snatched Bee up and followed Marc, who was already headed back to the van.

  Sitting in back of the van, Ryan popped out the micro SD card from Bee’s abdomen and inserted it into the slot on his laptop so that he and Marc could review the video footage that Bee had captured on his flight. Most of the apartments he’d scanned were vacant or showed people sleeping in their beds.

  “Doesn’t anyone work?” Marc muttered.

  “Not on Saturdays, they don’t. Saturday is sleep-in day for the nine-to-fivers.”

  “That sure as hell doesn’t include us,” Marc replied.

  “Nope.”

  Next, they viewed the insides of the stores. Most of the stores were geared toward and occupied by women. The coffee shop was a maze of people, sitting down at the tables or waiting for takeout.

  “When it comes to the coffee shop, we’ll have to go in and check the place out by foot,” Ryan murmured. “It’s a zoo.” He continued to view the footage.

  Next came the gym, which had a scripted sign outside, labeled Excalibur.

  Ryan intently studied the gym’s interior, moving from machine to machine, person to person. Abruptly, he stopped, his spine going rigid. “That’s him,” he said, pointing to a guy in his late-twenties with a mop of light brown hair, who was sitting at a wide steel desk, working on a computer that was catty-cornered in the gym’s rear area.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.” Ryan gave Marc a high five.

  “Let’s get moving.” Marc was already opening the van’s rear door. “After all this, we’re interrogating the hell out of this guy.”

>   Excalibur was hopping when Ryan and Marc walked in. Cycling, weight lifting, cardio work—it was all in full swing.

  “Wow, look at this place.” Ryan’s gym-rat eye was roving the room. “High tech. Great stuff.” His gaze found the lanky, rumpled-haired guy who was leaning forward, his stare fixed on the computer. His brows were knit in an expression that Ryan recognized all too well. Something was stumping him. And he wasn’t going to walk away until he figured it out.

  “I hope Miles Parker’s not a killer,” Ryan murmured to Marc. “He’s pretty talented on that baby.”

  “Coming from the master, that’s quite a compliment.” Marc ambled along beside Ryan, simultaneously looking around as if he were a potential customer. No point in going all military and scaring off their suspect.

  They reached the back of the gym and walked up to the steel desk.

  “Hey,” Marc greeted Miles as they reached the desk. “I don’t see anyone up front. Are you in charge?”

  Milo tore his gaze away from the screen and looked up at them, his eyes faraway in techno-land. “What?”

  “Do you run this place?”

  “Oh.” Miles finally caught on and snapped into regular-person mode. “No. That would be Julie, the owner. She just ran out to the coffee shop to get me a caffeine fix. She’ll be back in a minute.”

  As always, Marc kept his game face on. But that wasn’t Ryan’s forte.

  He did a double take. “Who did you say owns this place?”

  “Julie. Julie Forman.” Miles sounded cautious. “Why?”

  “We’ve heard her name from friends who said she’s an amazing trainer.” Marc jumped in to lie—and to give his teammate time to compose himself. “We knew she worked somewhere in New Jersey. We just didn’t know it was here.”

  Time for a question to shift things in a different direction—one that would take Miles out of guard-dog status.

  “So she not only works here, she owns the place?” Marc asked.

  “Yeah.” Relief flooded Miles’ face. “And your friends were right. Julie’s the best.” He gestured around the room. “Help yourself to a tour. She’ll explain the machines, the membership, everything, to you when she gets back. It’s an awesome gym.”

  “It looks that way.” By now, Ryan had gotten himself in check. Not to mention he’d spotted the TRX suspension systems in the small turf room. Very cool. And the gym had tons of space, plus all the machines were state-of-the-art. Maybe they should have Marc’s bachelor party here. There were plenty of cool clubs in Montclair—which was an essential, since Ryan was determined for Marc to get that lap dance, like it or not—and they could hire a limo for the night, since they’d all be wasted on the way home.

  By now, Miles was shifting impatiently in his chair. “Is there anything else? Because I really need to get this backup server working, or Julie’s going to be in deep shit.”

  “I hear you.” Ryan snapped back to the matter at hand. He was about to make Miles’ server problem look like a walk in the park compared to his exposed identity problem.

  Walking around behind the desk, Ryan leaned forward to gaze over a startled Miles’ shoulder. “Yup.” Ryan gave a sage nod. “I can see you have your work cut out for you.”

  “You know computers?”

  “Better than you can imagine. For example, I just finished playing a long game of `Scooby-Dooby-Doo, where are you?,’ and I’ve finally reached my end goal. Success. Nice to meet you, Scooby.”

  Miles nearly shot up off the chair. He scrambled to his feet, whipping around to face Ryan. His face was white as a sheet.

  “Who are you?”

  “AdrenoJunkie,” Ryan answered without batting a lash. “Or, in real life, Ryan McKay.” Ryan extended his hand. “Great to finally match a screen name to a person, Miles.”

  Miles stared at Ryan’s hand as if it were an alien. “How did you find me?”

  “Pure genius. And now I need to talk to you.”

  Wildly, Miles looked around, searching for somewhere to run even as he clearly realized there was no way to get to the door and escape—especially given the “make-my-day”-looking guy who AdrenoJunkie had brought with him.

  At that exact frozen second in time, a feminine voice sounded from the front of the gym, accompanied by footsteps that said she was headed their way.

  “I’m back, Milo.” A breathless young woman hurried over, carrying two cups of steaming coffee. “Sorry I was gone so long. The place was a madhouse. But the good news is that I brought you renewed energy.”

  As she spoke, Ryan and Marc turned in her direction, ready to take on their second quarry.

  “Hi,” the woman said. “Can I help you?”

  Ryan did his second double take of the day. He stared, his eyes narrowing on her face as his mind searched, found, and connected the unexpected dots.

  “Shit.” He exhaled sharply, still staring at her, an incredulous expression on his face. “Julie Forman, my ass. You’re Lisa Barnes.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  With a soft cry, Julie dropped the two cups of coffee on the floor and took a step backward, fear filling her eyes. Hot, black liquid shot out everywhere, but she was oblivious to it, even as it splattered her workout gear, doubtlessly burning her. She looked like a terrified bird, and, instinctively, her gaze darted to Milo.

  She saw the ashen expression on his face and fell apart.

  “I don’t… I never meant… It’s not what you think…”

  “Julie, shut up.” Realizing she was about to spill her guts, Miles snapped into survival mode. Surviving, and protecting his best friend, trumped all else—just as it always had.

  His jaw tightened, and he repressed any signs of upset or fear. “Are you cops?” he asked Ryan and Marc.

  “Nope,” Marc replied. “Just concerned citizens helping out a friend.”

  “A friend? What friend?”

  “That’s irrelevant. Your elaborate pretense is what’s relevant.” Marc took a few menacing steps forward. “Care to share?”

  “Nothing to share.” Milo jammed his hands into his pockets. “I don’t know who you’re working for or what you’re after, but we have nothing to say to you. If you’re looking for someone named Lisa Barnes, we don’t know her. She doesn’t work here. So you’ve reached a dead end. Now I suggest you go back where you came from. And tell your friend to leave us alone.”

  Ryan arched a brow. “After all the time I took figuring out why you needed a permanent escape plan? I don’t think so. In my experience, the only people who want to fall off the map are either scared or guilty. Which is it, Scooby?”

  Before Miles could reply, Julie jumped to his aid. “Miles did nothing. As for me, I’m not Lisa…”

  Ryan waved his arm, cutting her off at the pass. “You can forget taking the Fifth. I enhanced photos of Lisa Barnes myself. I also checked out photos of Julie Forman. You sure as hell resemble each other. And I see you made a few decent changes to your appearance to play that up. But not enough to hide your real identity. So skip the denials.”

  Julie—Lisa—began trembling from head to toe. Tears started streaming down her cheeks. Clearly, she’d reached her breaking point.

  “Please leave us alone,” she begged. “We’re just living our lives. We’re not hurting anyone.”

  “But have you hurt anyone?” Marc demanded. “That’s what we’re really interested in hearing about.” He pressed on, capitalizing on her current emotional weakness. “We originally thought that Julie Forman might have joined forces with your friend Miles here to do away with Lisa. Now it turns out that it’s Julie Forman who’s dead. That opens up a whole new realm of whys.”

  “It also makes a lot more sense,” Ryan added. “Given how close Lisa and Miles were through eighteen years of shared foster care, why would he ever kill h
er? But Julie Forman, a relative stranger who might have had something on them? Or maybe someone with an inheritance that was ripe for the taking? That’s another story entirely.”

  Spotting Miles’ start of surprise, Ryan said, “Oh, did you think I hadn’t done my homework on Julie Forman? You should know better. I know all the details of the real Julie’s life, including that tidy little inheritance her parents left her.” A quick scan of the gym. “I can see you’ve put it to good use.”

  “Stop it!” Julie—Lisa—was bordering on hysteria. “Please, I don’t know what you plan to do to us, but can we at least go into my office and talk first?”

  “No talking,” Milo responded, a warning gleam in his eye. “We have nothing to say.”

  “Please, Milo.” The woman standing there, shaking, had obviously taken all she could. “I have to know who’s after us. I’m scared.”

  “There’s nothing to be scared about. We’ve done nothing wrong. And no one is going to hurt us. So just go clean up and teach your next class. I’ll show these guys out.”

  After a long moment of hesitation, Julie turned away, numbly heading for the ladies’ room.

  Miles swallowed, looking at the floor as he spoke, much of his bravado gone. “I’m not stupid. You busted your ass to find me—to find us. That means whoever you’re working for wants us pretty badly. We don’t know anything. We’re not a threat. Please make sure they know that.” He raised his head. “And please, tell them to leave Julie and me alone.”

  Marc shot Ryan a sidelong look. Murderers? These were no offenders. These were victims—two frightened children with nowhere to turn.

  Somewhere out there was a killer. And Miles and Lisa were right in the line of fire.

  Ryan returned Marc’s look with a quick nod of agreement and then reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card.

  “Like I said, my name is Ryan McKay,” he told Miles, handing over the card. “This is Marc Devereaux. We work for an investigative firm called Forensic Instincts. Look it up. We’re the good guys. With an awesome track record. Clearly, there are bad guys out there who you think are looking for you. Talk to Lisa. Then give us a call. We can help.”