“It’s the kind of case a homicide cop dreads, the one that you can’t fully wrap up. Did they identify the shooter?”
“They had some solid suspicions, but nothing they could prove. I doubt Mandy ever suspected her accountant boyfriend had some less-than-reputable clients. She was trusting that way, always assuming the best. She ended up at the wrong place at the wrong time. The guy they think probably hired the hit went to jail two years ago on an unrelated murder charge. I’d like more justice for Mandy, but it’s not going to bring her back. And that’s the hardest part to live with.”
He carefully set the photo down. “I really am sorry for your loss.”
“I’d have hated to tell Mandy she’s just my half sister. We’ve been sisters all our life. Today would have been incredibly rough on her.”
Connor shook his head. “Today wouldn’t have changed anything; you’re always family.” He tugged out a card and wrote two numbers on the back. “Anything bothers you in the next few weeks, even a cat walking on the fire escape, give me a call. Marsh or I will be around.”
“I appreciate it, Connor.” She slid the card into her pocket.
“Show me out, Marie, lock up, and then get ready to meet Daniel. I’ll give him a call before then with a list of items I think need dealt with. You’ll like Granger; he’s a good police chief. And if he suggests anything else tonight, take his advice.”
“I’ll do that.” Marie saw the clock as she turned off the office light. Connor had been with her almost two hours. He was doing quite a favor for a friend.
Connor stepped outside and zipped his jacket, then turned to walk back to join her again. “Would you mind terribly if you heard Marsh proposed to Tracey?”
She blinked, then smiled. “I wouldn’t mind at all.”
Connor smiled back. “Good.”
“You know something, don’t you?”
He stepped away, pulling on gloves. “Nope. I swear. But my mom calls me a touch of a romantic. Let’s just say I had hopes for this weekend before today arrived.”
“I did too.”
“Did you?” He grinned. “I’ll see you around, Marie.”
Connor shoved the door closed to the police chief’s office with his foot and searched for the item in the thick file he remembered. “Chief, I don’t know what to think.” Granger had canceled two appointments on the strength of his request for half an hour of his time as soon as possible, and Connor wasn’t one to shy away from giving his boss a gut reaction to events, not when it was this serious.
“There are three sisters, not two: Mandy, Tracey, and Marie. The oldest everyone thinks is dead, murdered in New York eight years ago. Daniel thinks it, the two sisters do, the New York cops, the investigator the family had work the case. But I swear, Chief, I picked up the family photo on Marie’s desk, and I was looking at a younger photo of someone I recognized.”
Connor found the photo he sought and felt a punch in his gut; reality was even more vivid than his memory. He set it on the desk. “I will swear on my grandmother’s grave that lady is the oldest sister, Mandy, and she was very much alive as of three years ago.”
Connor watched the chief shift the photo over to his side of the desk and pick it up. He was quiet for an unusually long time. “The sisters, Marie and Tracey, their last name is Griffin? Daniel didn’t say.”
“Yeah.”
The chief tapped the photo. “Meet Amanda Griffin; Amy to her friends, Mandy to her family.”
Connor dropped into a chair. “I was hoping I wasn’t right. The sister was staying in this town under the name Kelly Brown, while her sisters thought she was dead? What kind of oldest sister is that?”
“One afraid they’d be dead if she showed up alive.”
That simple statement on the chief’s part told Connor a whole lot of case was out there he’d never even had a clue existed. “I stepped into something I shouldn’t have, didn’t I?”
Luke smiled. “Well, for what it’s worth, you caught a wrinkle others had missed.” He nodded to the photo he held. “Kelly Brown, Ann Walsh—she’s used those and probably quite a few more names over the years. The sisters believe she’s dead?”
“They’re absolutely convinced of it. They think she was murdered in New York eight years ago, and either the cops that worked the case did a really good snow job for some reason or they think she’s dead as well. Marie said she’d even hired a private investigator to look at it, and he also concluded the sister was dead. Her body was never found.”
“Then, Connor, you and Marsh are about to have a tough reality, because for now Amy is dead. And you two never saw the photo of Kelly Brown. Clear?”
“I can handle that part. So can Marsh. But she’s got two sisters about to be seriously rich. And I can tell you for a fact it’s not going to take long before Marie and Tracey are posting a major reward for information about their sister to try to find the body and get some closure. Marie calls it an open wound, the fact they never were able to have a funeral.”
“Okay. I’ve got some calls to make.” The chief looked at his watch. “And I’ve got a meeting with Daniel in just under two hours, and he’s bringing Marie with him. What’s she like?”
Connor smiled. “Nice. Pretty.” He thought about the last few hours, about the impression he’d been left with. “She’s a little like a pretty tiger shark. A little wary on the initial read, pretty determined on what she wants, and eyes that make you want to look back a second and third time to figure out what she’s really thinking.”
Luke chuckled. “Interesting choice of comparison, but I know what you mean. Amy was like that too. Confident, but preferring to swim alone. Keep your phone on tonight. I’ll be in touch, probably very late. You’ve got a number for Marsh?”
“Yes.”
“Call and tell him quietly to do the same.”
“Trouble’s coming?”
“Trouble’s already here. Thanks, Connor.”
“Anytime, Boss.”
Luke’s home office was quiet, and he didn’t bother to turn on the radio or sit and check e-mail as he would have normally done. He unlocked the private safe and tugged out a folder. He shifted his coffee to the side and picked up the phone. He had wondered at the reason Amy had been in his town, staying under the radar screen in such an odd place as Brentwood. She’d had family here to watch out for, family to protect from Richard Wise trying to use them to locate her.
He should have seen it. The detective working for him should have seen it. Sam Chapel—Sam would have put it together, and he’d never said a word. Luke’s eyes narrowed. Amy had turned to Sam. It was the only thing that made sense. Sam had been working for Amy either from the very first or from sometime after Luke had hired him, but one way or the other, Sam had been feeding him misleading information. Sam had never lied; he’d just stopped short of passing on all he knew. And odds were good the investigator Marie had hired to deal with the New York cops had also been Sam Chapel. Brentwood was a big town but not that big when it came to well-respected detective agencies. Sam had convinced the sisters Amy was dead—to protect them? to protect Amy? This was a big town, but still … the lady had been taking a risk working at a mall even on the other side of town.
While Luke waited for the phone to be answered, he looked again at Amy’s photo. She was still pretty, still clear in his mind even after three years. Meeting Amy’s sister tonight was going to be an interesting experience, if difficult, given the information he’d not be able to tell her.
The phone was finally answered. “Chapel.”
“Sam; Granger. I’m meeting Marie Griffin in twenty minutes. I think you and I need to talk, don’t you?”
His words were met by a puff of exhaled breath, and then the answering voice hammered back, “It’s about time you called me. Ever since Henry died I’ve been waiting to get waylaid some evening and have the stuffing pounded out of me.”
“You’ve been running on the wrong side of the street for too long: I’ll just yank
your investigator’s license and stuff your gun permit down the shredder. Ten o’clock tonight, my place?”
“I’m in Texas, so it will have to be tomorrow night, but I’ll be there. There’s a lot more than you’ve figured out so far.”
“I already figured as much. You were sourcing Amy the IDs, weren’t you?”
“Among other things. Tomorrow, Luke. And think kind thoughts between now and then, would you? I dated the woman once upon a blue moon ago, and it was kind of hard to tell her no.”
“When did you last talk with her?”
“That’s one of the problems. She went cold twenty months ago.”
“Bring everything you have.”
“You’ve got my word. You ought to know now—Silver’s in on it too.”
“I should have seen that coming.” Jonathan Silver of Silver Security, Inc. had been friends with Sam back to the days the men had been in grade school. This kind of job, Sam would have kept it tight to the vest when he needed help.
“Jonathan’s got Silver Security guys sitting on both sisters at the moment, so you might want to tell Marsh not to get spooked and take an aversion to the guy watching his and Tracey’s backs. Your cop is not the kind of guy to ask questions until after he’s snuck up and crowned the guy watching them first.”
“I’ll pass the word on,” Luke promised. “Tomorrow, Sam.” He hung up the phone and rubbed a hand across his face.
Jonathan Silver knowing was probably a good thing, for the man had security resources that could be put on the task of watching for trouble without having to figure out how to budget such a thing into city resources.
Amy hadn’t been heard from in the last twenty months; that was not good news. She should have already turned in the books and the account numbers by now. She’d said at the time he met her she thought that would be done in another year, and that was three years ago. He knew Richard Wise was in jail on an unrelated murder charge. Part of him had hoped Amy was safely past the trouble. But if she had went cold twenty months ago—that said trouble had found her. There would have been no reason for Richard Wise not to kill her once the money had been turned in.
Your sister was alive, Marie; she didn’t die in New York, only she was killed twenty months or so ago by the man who was hunting for her.… And the guy who did it wants his money back, and he’ll take it out of you and Tracey since he couldn’t get it back from Amy—Luke winced at the worst-case thought for what he might have to tell Marie. There was not a good solution to this quagmire.
God, just don’t let Amy be dead. I can handle about any of it but Amy staying lost out there somewhere, dead. He finally had the lead he had prayed for years to find, and it wasn’t all that good of news.
“Luke?”
Startled, he looked around toward the door to see his sister standing there, his two dogs winding their way around her knees. They were his dogs until she came over, and their loyalty transferred in an instant.
“Everything okay?”
He sighed. “It will be.”
“You were talking with Sam.”
Susan didn’t know what had absorbed him so much over the last years, but she knew the edges of it. “The trouble’s contained for now at least. How are the steaks?”
“Ready for the grill anytime.”
He heard the doorbell ring. “That will be our guests.”
He rose and joined his sister and went to meet Daniel and Amy’s sister Marie.
Chapter Six
WHAT WAS SHE SUPPOSED TO WEAR to a press conference? Marie knew she was stalling getting ready, but the rebellious part of her wanted an excuse to avoid today. This sunny Friday had one huge obstacle in her path.
“I’ve got a sister who it turns out is only my half sister, a father I met but didn’t know was my dad, a cousin who has read private-detective reports on me … it gets mind-boggling how this day is ending compared to how it began, Luke.”
Her words last night to the chief of police still echoed in her mind. She’d had the nerve to call the man Luke. He’d asked her to, but still… two days ago she would have demurred the invitation and left it at Mr. Granger if she’d dared even go beyond sir. She’d gone a bit mad yesterday: there was no other explanation for just about flirting with a cop who stopped by to check security or finding the nerve to call the chief of police by his first name. There was a reason her gallery was in the recovering part of downtown—she didn’t like the wealthy and powerful as a rule; they made her nervous. Yesterday the nerves had been gone, numbed under the unexpected weight of what had happened. Today the nerves were back to normal and out in full force.
“Mandy, I wish you were here.”
She whispered the words as she chose a dress to wear. If she was going down blushing and stammering before the cameras, at least it would be in one of her best outfits. Mandy had been a natural with crowds, with people, fearless and bold. Tracey would do fine at a news conference too—she liked public speaking. But Marie was glad Tracey was still skiing; there were going to be too many people seeing this news conference for comfort. She couldn’t protect her sister like Mandy could have done, but she would do her best.
God, give me courage. I need to be able to get through this day some-how without falling apart and embarrassing my family. The whispered words were a plea, one of many since last night, but at least a reassurance she wasn’t facing this entirely alone. She’d thought losing Mandy would destroy her, and for years her relationship with God had been more anger and tears and pain than conversation, but slowly the relationship was rebuilding. God was still with her, even after the losses of the last years. That mattered enough to trust Him as these new events slammed into her. She didn’t know yet what to think of it all—whether this was a good turn or one that she would come to regret in the days ahead.
She brushed out her hair a final time and conceded it was the best she could look. She slipped on her long coat and made a point of locking the apartment door behind her before walking downstairs. Daniel had offered to pick her up, but it was just not in her to be focused and smiling and on as soon as she walked out her front door today. She wanted at least that drive time to get a handle on her nerves.
The street bustled with people on their way to work, several carrying hot coffee cups steaming in the cool air, and she thought about stopping at the deli for a bagel and coffee for herself but changed her mind when her stomach again rebelled at the idea of food. Maybe saltines would stay down. She could stop in at the corner store on the way to her car.
“You look quite lovely this morning.”
Her turn was too fast to be elegant, and her blush already too high in her face to avoid showing her embarrassment. She smiled at Connor because she didn’t have words and wildly wondered what he was doing standing outside her building helping hold up the wall.
He held up keys as he pushed himself away from the wall. “Even if you want to drive yourself to the press conference, there’s no way you’re going to want to drive yourself back. So keep smiling and say yes when I offer to take you.”
She didn’t keep smiling, but she did shift her weight on her moderate high heels and let pleasure take the place of panic. “That’s thoughtful of you, Connor.” He looked good this morning, casually dressed in jeans and a button-down checked shirt. There was less fatigue in his face, she thought, noticing the small changes in a face she still thought she might like to paint. The wind was blowing his dark hair across his forehead and adding another wave to those already naturally there.
“So say yes.”
“I’m supposed to meet the contractor coordinating the security changes at nine-thirty first. Daniel arranged it.”
“I know. Peter Towns; he does good work. I just sent him off to get me a coffee. Got extra keys for him? And a list of anything else you thought of?”
She pulled a key ring out of her pocket. “Gallery, apartment, storage rooms—the works. And the list Daniel faxed me this morning was already breathtaking. Is there anything y
ou didn’t recommend changing?”
“I really liked that doorbell you’ve got—the screaming screech. That isn’t changing.”
“It does that because it’s broken; it has been for as long as I’ve lived here.”
“So maybe we’ll compromise, and he can just fix it.” Connor slipped his hand under her arm and turned her without making a big deal of it toward the deli. “We’ll drop the keys off in passing. I’m parked that way anyway. You’ll have new keys for everything tonight, by the way, and a couple extra sets.”
“The contractors will be done today?”
“Sounds like it. The toughest job is the windows, but Peter brought along a full crew of guys. Four hours, five if the doorframes turn out to need to be rebuilt, and you’ll have both security and comfort. No more getting surprised to find a guy lurking outside your front door.”
She laughed at that, because the thought of a cop lurking struck her as funny. Anything would strike her as funny this morning, but he smiled with her laugh, and she let herself relax a bit more. “Is that the only reason you’re picking me up this morning, because I might not want to drive myself home later?”
“Granger did mention he thought you might like someone absolutely normal around today. And I can do a really good bad-cop routine when the occasion demands it if the reporters should happen to get pushy.”
He opened the door to the deli. “Peter’s the guy in the red jacket. He likes to stand out in a crowd.”
The man in the red jacket stepped away from the counter carrying a tray. “I’m not hard of hearing yet, Connor, stand out in a crowd indeed. I had them put skim milk in yours; you’ve been gaining weight again.”
Marie met a man close to being her grandfather’s age as he handed the cop with her the second coffee on the tray. “For you, Marie, I got hot chocolate. Even if you don’t want to drink it, holding something warm will mean he can’t go reaching for your hand like a young courting man.”