Dying to Please Read online

  “Then what's your theory on the guy in the picture?” Wester asked.

  “It's simple. They're working together. Has to be. She goes inside and gets all the information, the alarm codes, the keys, whatever is needed. I don't know how they'd decide when—I mean, she worked for Judge Roberts for almost three years, so why wait so long to off him? Then she's with the Lankfords only a little over a week and they get offed. Maybe it's whenever they need the money. Who knows? But she makes sure she has an alibi, and he waltzes in and does the job. They never even know he's in the house until he walks up on them and pulls the trigger. He has no known connection to the victims, so it's essentially a stranger killing, and they're damn hard to solve.”

  “Do you have an alarm system in your house?” Cahill asked.

  “Yeah, it's called a dog.”

  “Well, the victims would hear the killer come in. In both houses, whenever an outside door or window was opened, an alert is beeped. If you weren't expecting anyone to be there, you'd check it out, right? You wouldn't sit in your recliner and wait.”

  “Unless they thought it was Stevens.”

  “In the Lankfords' case, they knew she was gone until Tuesday morning.”

  Wester frowned. “You're saying in both cases the victims knew the killer.”

  “Looks like it to me.”

  “And the killer in both cases is the same guy.”

  They all looked at one another.

  “We're still missing something,” Ahern said. “Motive.”

  “I keep telling you, it's the money,” said Nolan.

  “And I keep telling you,” Cahill said impatiently, “the only way money makes sense is if Sarah is doing the killing.”

  “Or is having it done.”

  “But the victims knew the killer, who is very probably the man who made the calls from the pay phone. You yourself said her so-called partner wouldn't have any connection to the victims, so it can't be both ways. They either knew him, or they didn't. If they didn't know him, why did they let him in the house? Why did Judge Roberts sit down to talk to him? The killer was an acquaintance of both Roberts and the Lankfords.”

  “Well, shit.” Nolan frowned at the surface of the table, thinking hard.

  “So our guy is someone they knew in business, or moved in the same circles. My guess is business,” Cahill said. “Judge Roberts was in his mid-eighties, and he didn't do the party circuit. He had his circle of poker-playing cronies, and that was it. But he still had business concerns that he stayed on top of, and Sonny Lankford had more irons in the fire than a blacksmith.”

  “Looking at it that way, the motive may be money after all,” said Ahern. “We need to find out what business ventures or financial concerns they had in common, some deal that went bad but they came out of okay, while someone else lost his shirt.”

  “But then it would be sheer coincidence that Sarah Stevens happened to be working for both Roberts and the Lankfords when each was murdered,” Wester said. “That's bullshit. Coincidences like that don't happen.”

  “Maybe it's not as far-fetched as you'd think,” Ahern said, doodling furiously on his legal pad as he chased his thoughts. “How many people can afford a butler, especially one who makes in the range that Sarah Stevens makes? Not many. It would be a small circle, even in Mountain Brook. Most people here work like hell to pay the property taxes and their mortgages, and keep their kids in school. But these rich folks who can afford her, they probably all know one another, through business if not socially. They had to get rich somehow, didn't they? I say business dealings are the link.”

  “A lot of companies have had problems this past year. It's possible someone took a soaking and is holding a grudge about it.” Wester considered the scenario. So far, it made more sense than any other theory they'd considered. “Okay, I'll take this to the captain. We'll put out some statement that's vague enough it won't spook this guy. He's already killed three people, and he may have started liking it. We don't want any more bodies in this town.”

  He looked at Ahern. “You can release Miss Stevens, have someone collect some clothes for her and drive her to a motel. And, no, she can't stay at your house,” he said pointedly to Cahill. “I want you to stay away from her for the time being. The press is going to be all over us for turning her loose, and if one of those guys follows her and finds out she's living with a Mountain Brook detective, our collective asses will go up in flames. Is that clear?”

  Cahill saw the wisdom of Sarah's not living in his house. Staying away from her, though, wasn't in the cards. He had some major bridge repair to do, and he wasn't going to wait until they broke this case to do it. All day it had been burning in his gut, the way she'd cried when she said she needed him. She had walked in on a horror this morning, made all the worse by being a repeat of the scene with Judge Roberts. She'd been a walking basket case, and he hadn't gone to her, hadn't held her. She'd been alone all day, slowly rocking back and forth, hugging herself. Even worse, she knew he'd thought she was the killer.

  This wasn't merely doing his job; this was a lack of trust so gargantuan he didn't know if he'd be able to regain his lost ground. He'd die trying, though. If he had to crawl to her on his hands and knees, literally as well as figuratively, to get her forgiveness, then he'd wear out the knees in every pair of pants he owned if that was what it took.

  She was in a fragile state right now. He remembered that when the Judge was killed she hadn't been able to eat; today she certainly hadn't had anything since breakfast, which was at least a thousand years ago from the way he felt. They had offered her food, but she had refused it with a silent shake of her head. She was usually the strong one, the go-to person in a crisis, but now she needed someone to take care of her.

  The first order of business was to get her things from the bungalow and get her checked into a hotel under an assumed name so she could rest. Ahern would take care of that.

  There was no way in hell, though, that Cahill intended to let her leave without apologizing, for whatever good that would do.

  He walked down the short hall and opened the door to the interview room. She looked up, then quickly averted her gaze when she recognized him. She was still pale, her face drawn and her dark eyes dull. Coming so soon after the Judge's murder, this had knocked her flat.

  He stepped inside and closed the door. The ceiling-mounted camera wasn't on right now; they were private. If she wanted to slap his face, he'd take it. If she wanted to kick him in the balls, he guessed he'd take that, too. He'd take anything from her if she would forgive him afterward. But she didn't move, even when he crouched beside the chair so he could see her face.

  “Ahern is going to take you to a hotel so you can rest,” he said quietly. “We'll pick up your clothes and bring them to you. Let him check you in; you'll be under an assumed name, so the press can't find you.”

  “I'm not being arrested?” she asked, her voice thin and colorless.

  “Sarah . . . we know you didn't do it.”

  “Why? Did some evidence turn up today? You thought I was guilty this morning.” There was no accusation, no heat in the words, just a statement of fact. He felt as if she had put miles of mental distance between them, between herself and everyone else. It was the only way she could cope.

  “I was wrong,” he said simply. “I'm sorry. God, I can't tell you how sorry I am. The coincidence slapped me in the face, and all I could think was that you'd gone out last night after I left on the call.”

  “I understand.”

  The lack of inflection in her voice made him wince. “Do you forgive, too?”

  “No.”

  “Sarah—” He reached out, and she pulled back, her expression frantic.

  “Don't touch me.”

  He dropped his hand. “All right. For now. I know I fucked up big time, but I won't let you go. We think we're getting this thing figured out, and—”

  “It isn't up to you,” she interrupted.

  “What? What isn't up to me?