Deadly Forecast

  She moved to the hall closet and retrieved a sharp-looking scarf. “Here,” she said, winding it around my neck. “It’ll dress you up a bit.”

  We made our way to Simon’s and parked in front of his house, nibbling on pumpkin spice muffins and sipping more Starbucks coffee. The air was crisp and the sky was gloomy—perfect weather for Halloween, and decidedly imperfect for a wedding. It was like the universe was trying to tell me something.

  Salisbury didn’t show up at all, and around noon we decided to head back to the office to see if anything else had come up. Brice was in his office with Gaston and the chief of police along with a stern-looking man in a black suit and shiny gold tie. I assumed he was part of Homeland Security.

  My phone buzzed. It was Cat. For once I took the call. “Abby,” she began, in that voice that said, “I will kill you if you say no….”

  “Hi, Cat,” I said, trying to muster up that same enthusiasm that I’d been lacking for weeks.

  “I need to take your final measurements, and you have yet to sit with the hairstylist! The makeup artist also needs to settle on a palette for you, and if I know you, you have yet to get yourself a manicure and pedicure. And I need you to pick out which headpiece you’re going to wear. You keep putting all these things off, and you’re making me so stressed-out!”

  Cat’s voice broke with emotion and I felt myself stiffen. I knew I drove her crazy, but I hadn’t realized I was actually making her break down. “I can come right over,” I told her.

  Candice turned her head to look at me, her brow raised.

  Cat sniffled. “I need Candice too. She has to go through a dry run with the stylist and makeup artist.”

  “We’re on our way,” I said, reaching for Candice’s arm. Her eyes widened and she began to shake her head, so I clamped my hand firmly on to her elbow. “We’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”

  We arrived at Cat’s offices and were met at the elevator by Jenny. She was holding a basket and when we stepped off the elevator, she pushed the basket forward and said, “Mrs. Cooper-Masters would like you to place your cell phones in here.”

  Candice laughed. Not nicely. Sort of evilly. That worried me. “Of course!” I said, immediately dumping my phone into the basket.

  Candice crossed her arms in a move that said, “I double-dog-dare you to take away my phone.”

  Jenny gulped, but the young woman held her ground, continuing to hold the basket out expectantly.

  I nudged Candice with my shoulder. “Come on, Cassidy. It’s only for an hour or two.”

  “What if there’s a break in the case?” she said.

  “Then there are a hundred agents and police who can act on it.”

  Candice took in a deep breath and let it out slow, all the while glaring hard at Jenny Makeanote. Still, Cat’s assistant stood her ground, and I gave her huge props for that. Maybe she didn’t know that Candice had a black belt in judo. And maybe she didn’t know that my partner had also trained with the merchant marines. And maybe she didn’t know that Candice’s hands were registered with the FBI as lethal weapons.

  …Okay, so I made that last part up, but seriously, Candice wasn’t someone you stood up to if you knew how formidable (deadly) she could be. And yet, Candice at last handed over her phone, and when she did, I saw the slightest hint of approval in her eyes for little Miss Makeanote.

  We walked to the back of the suite, and this time I was definitely convinced that Cat had hired more people. She was building up her Austin office really quickly. Too quickly for my taste. I loved Cat, but I loved to love her at a distance…say, the distance between Austin and Boston.

  The minute we walked through the door of the conference room, we were pretty much assaulted. There was the hairstylist, dress stylist, seamstress, makeup artist, manicurist, aesthetician, and of course my sister acting like the ringmaster at Ringling Bros.

  She deftly issued orders, talked on the phone, and constantly checked the weather reports for the weekend—which held a small ray of hope. “We might get a bit of clearing skies by midafternoon,” she said. “Which means we’ll want to photograph you and Dutch after the ceremony rather than before. You might be a little late to the reception, but a good wedding photo is worth making the guests wait a bit.”

  Cat kept us for the entire day. At one point, Candice and I simply glanced at each other across the room and dissolved into laughter. We were both so tired, anxious, and worried about solving the case that Cat and her circus were actually the perfect ridiculous distraction.

  Around six o’clock Cat released us, and Jenny returned our phones. We both immediately checked our screens—not a single message for either of us. Candice called Brice from the car and put him on speaker. He sounded worn down to the nub. “We’ve still got a big fat nothing,” he said. “Unless you count the four hundred phone calls that’ve poured into the tip line in the past two hours.”

  “Whoa!” I said. “Four hundred tips? What the freak?”

  “APD released Haley’s sketch to the local news, hoping it’d generate a lead. I fought hard against the idea, because that damn sketch looks more like Charlie Brown than a real person.”

  I glanced at the clock. The six o’clock news would just be airing, which meant another round of calls was about to roll in.

  “Did you want us to come there and field calls?” Candice asked. I held in a groan. There was nothing worse than fielding calls from a tip line. The vast majority of them were a complete waste of time.

  “Nah,” Brice said. “You two were working some other lead, right?”

  “Simon Salisbury,” Candice reminded him. “Abs thinks there’s a connection between him and the unsub.”

  “Yeah? Do you think the bomb was really meant for Salisbury and his studio?”

  I blinked. I hadn’t connected that very important dot, but hearing Brice say it out loud confirmed it in my gut. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, I think that’s exactly who the target was.”

  “Our explosives expert says that the device strapped to Debbie didn’t go off early. He says the timer ran out and she was trying to get out of the harness when it detonated.”

  “Any footage from security cameras?” I asked hopefully.

  “None,” Brice said. “The cameras that would’ve caught anything were connected to the FedEx store and it burned to the ground.”

  “Has the coroner confirmed that it was Debbie?” I asked next.

  “About an hour ago. It took a while to track down her next of kin and her dentist.” Brice then changed tacks again and asked, “Have you already talked to Salisbury?”

  “Not yet,” Candice said, without going into detail about how we’d spent our afternoon. “We’ve been running by his house, but nobody’s home.”

  “Okay, well, keep on that,” Brice said, sounding distracted. “On line three?” we heard him say. “Okay, tell him I’ll be right there. Babe, I gotta go. The director’s on the other line.”

  We clicked off with Brice and headed back over to Salisbury’s place. The house was dark and leaves were beginning to pile up in front of his door from the large red oak on his front lawn. There was no garage, just a carport, and no car in sight of the house either on the street or in the carport. “Where the hell could he be?” Candice asked, opening his file again to skim the pages.

  “My guess is that he’s gone into hiding. I mean a guy with a record like that…the last thing he needs is for the FBI to start poking around in his life.”

  “Or he’s hiding because he knows that he was really the target,” she countered.

  I nodded. “Exactly. We have to find him, Candice. This unsub’s gotta know he missed his target. Salisbury could still be in danger.”

  Candice closed the file and set it down. Then she reclined her seat a little and laid her head tiredly against the headrest. “We’ll wait here a while, and if he doesn’t show, then I’ll call his parole officer in the morning and see if there’s someplace else Salisbury goes in his off time.”
br />   “Like where?”

  Candice shrugged. “A girlfriend’s or a relative’s. Or a buddy’s house.”

  We sat in silence for a while, but something kept niggling at me. I picked up the file and clicked on the overhead light to read it. “The question I have is, why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why Salisbury? I mean, what connection would he have to Mimi?”

  “What connection did the beauty shop have to her? Or the dress shop at the mall for that matter?” Candice said, laying her head back and closing her eyes.

  I tapped the back of the folder with my finger and the answer suddenly came to me. At almost the exact same moment, I saw Candice sit straight up and turn to me. “Wedding vendors!”

  I nodded. “Yes!”

  Candice turned her head to look out the front window again. “Do you think Buzz picked them randomly? Or do you think that he picked them because they were the ones he used for his own wedding?”

  I sighed. Besides Buzz himself, there were only four people who could’ve answered that, and three of them were dead. “Since we can’t ask Mimi, Rita Watson, or Carly Threadgill, the only person left who can tell us is Salisbury.”

  Candice nodded. “We gotta find him,” she said, moving her seat back to upright again, and looking more alert than I’d seen her all night.

  All that alert energy was to no avail, however. By ten thirty, with no sign of Salisbury we called it a night. On the way home, Candice called Brice and put him on speakerphone. We let him in on our theory. He said he’d try to get a warrant in the morning and send Cox and Rodriguez over to Salisbury’s studio to look through the photographer’s customer records. He then asked us if we needed help finding Salisbury, and I knew that Candice wasn’t going to just hand over our lead to him. “We got it, babe,” she said sweetly. “You guys have your hands full working all those tips. If we don’t find Salisbury by the end of the day tomorrow, we’ll ask for help.”

  I took a long shower when we got back to Candice’s, wanting very much to clean the ugly feeling of this case off me. When I emerged, Candice held up a bowl of ice cream and pointed to my phone. “Dutch called,” she said. “And I dished you out some comfort food.”

  I smiled and took a seat on the couch next to her, going first for the phone. I listened to Dutch’s sweet message, wishing me a good night’s sleep and hoping that I wasn’t working too hard.

  “You okay?” Candice asked when I wiped at my eyes.

  “Fine,” I told her, clearing my throat. “Thanks.” Candice rubbed my arm sympathetically and it helped to have her company and her understanding.

  I tried calling Dutch back, but the phone went straight to voice mail. It was well past eleven; he’d obviously gone to sleep. I drowned my sorrows in the Ben & Jerry’s my BFF had dished out for me, and a short time later was fast asleep.

  I woke up the next morning to the smell of coffee and toast. “Morning,” Brice said when I sat up.

  “Hey, there, boss man.” Brice looked terrible. Like, haggard and gray from lack of sleep and stress. I could only imagine the tremendous pressure he must be under from his own bosses and the community at large to solve this case. “What time did you get in?”

  Brice lifted his wrist, only to see it bare, so he turned to look at the clock on the microwave. “About three hours ago.”

  “Yikes. I think you need to go back to bed.”

  “No time for that,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee only to make a face and stare into his mug. “Damn.”

  “What?”

  Brice lifted the lid of the coffeemaker. “I forgot to put the grounds in.”

  I pressed my lips together to keep from chuckling and got up to help him with the coffee. When I came around the counter, I noticed that the toast was a bit crispy too, and by crispy I mean black and burnt.

  I pointed to the couch. “Sit. I’ll make your coffee and a decent breakfast.”

  Brice nodded dully and shuffled over to the kitchen table. While I was chopping up some veggies to put in his omelet, he nodded off. Candice came out of the bedroom, looking pretty exhausted herself. “How long’s he been like that?” she asked, pouring herself a cup of joe.

  “You mean asleep-asleep? Or just asleep on his feet? ’Cause if you’re talking the former, about ten minutes. If you’re talking the latter—at least the past three days.”

  Candice sighed and moved to the couch to retrieve the afghan I’d slept with. She fitted it around Brice’s shoulders and kissed him sweetly on the cheek. “Thank God he’ll be forced to take tomorrow off.”

  I was distracted with the vegetables, which might explain why I replied with, “Why? What’s tomorrow?”

  I didn’t hear her answer, so I picked my head up to look at her. She was staring at me with a bit of bewildered alarm. “Your wedding.”

  I felt my cheeks heat. “Oh! Yeah…” I laughed and tried to make a joke of it. “I was just testing you.”

  Candice came to the kitchen counter and pulled up a barstool. “You okay?”

  I was gently tossing garlic, peppers, spinach, and mushrooms into a hot pan. “Sure. Why?”

  “You don’t sound so keen on this idea of getting married.”

  I felt my shoulders stiffen. “Well, of course I am!” I made sure to keep my face averted from her. “I mean, tomorrow I’ll become Mrs. Dutch Rivers! Who wouldn’t want that?”

  Several seconds went by before Candice spoke again. “Abs?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why’re you crying?”

  I hadn’t realized she’d heard my sniffles. “I’m not.”

  “Abs…”

  “It’s fine! Everything’s fine!”

  “Sundance…”

  “Please, Candice?”

  I heard her sigh, but she didn’t continue to press it, and I discreetly wiped my eyes and concentrated on making Brice the best damn omelet ever created.

  Candice woke him when it was time to eat, and while she and Brice sat at the table, I made two more omelets for her and me. Brice left just as I was plating my own breakfast, thanking me for the coffee and eggs and promising to see me later at the restaurant.

  I’d forgotten about the rehearsal dinner. Doing my best to hide my worry from Candice, I tucked into my meal, but I wasn’t really hungry. She in turn pretended to ignore my distress and talked about our agenda for the day. “I need to go to our office,” she said. “I want to dig into Salisbury’s life a little and see if he’s got any relatives living in the area.”

  “You think he might be hiding out somewhere close?”

  “I do. I think, if he isn’t legally keeping his nose clean, then he’ll be looking for a way to stay close to his drug clients, especially with his studio shut down.”

  “How long do you think the strip mall will be off-limits to the store owners?”

  “They’ll probably release the crime scene late today, after Cox and Rodriguez have a chance to look through Salisbury’s records,” Candice said.

  “And who knows when Salisbury will show up to open his shop again?” I said. “I mean, even if there is a customer record on file in Salisbury’s studio, would we know who to look for, since Buzz is simply a nickname?”

  Candice sighed. “That’s why you and I have to track him down today, Abs.”

  I nodded. “Let’s hope we can find him, Candice, because he could be the last hope we have of trying to find this unsub.”

  “I did have another thought that I wanted to go through with you,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Well, I keep wondering about Banes. Why would our unsub contact him of all people?”

  “When we interviewed him, he swore he didn’t recognize the voice on his answering machine.”

  “Yes. But the voice could have been disguised in some way. I mean, you heard it, Abs. The unsub could have used a program on his phone to disguise his voice.”

  “There’s an app for that?”

  “There is. In fact ther
e’re a couple.”

  I made a face. “Figures.”

  “Anyway, I called Banes’s nurse this morning,” she continued. “You were right about him. He did have a stroke, a pretty massive one too. His condition is grave, he’s in a coma, and his nurse doesn’t think he’s got a lot of time, so there’s no way to interview him. I want to dig around in his case files and see if there’s a connection to Mimi.”

  My brow lifted. “I hadn’t thought of him having a connection to her.”

  “There might be none, but I thought it’d be worth checking on just to rule it out.”

  I nodded. “Good idea. We’ll run as many leads down today as we can before time runs out.” I felt a shudder go through me, and goose bumps formed along my arms.

  Candice cocked her head. “You okay, Sundance?”

  I stood up. “Fine. But I better hit the shower and get ready.”

  * * *

  Candice and I arrived at our office a little after eight thirty, and she got right to work searching through Salisbury’s info for a relative nearby where he might be hiding out.

  I straightened up my own side of the suite for a bit, but started to feel a little helpless. Also, I missed Dutch terribly after not seeing much of him in the past five days. Thinking up a pretty good excuse, I called him. “Morning, dollface,” he said with a gravelly voice.

  “You’re still in bed?” I was surprised. Between us, Dutch was usually the early riser.

  “The brothers took me out last night for an impromptu bachelor party.”

  “Ah. How was it?”

  Dutch yawned. “It was terrible. But don’t tell them that. I spent most of the night missing you.”

  I squeezed the receiver. “I know, cowboy. Me too.”

  “You’re gonna stay away tonight again, huh?”

  I opened my mouth to tell him to hell with tradition, that I’d be home in the next hour, but what came out was, “Yeah. Don’t want to tempt fate by seeing you before the wedding on our special day.”