Kill and Run (A Thorny Rose Mystery Book 1) (6 page)

Murphy was cruising down Route 7 toward the concrete metropolis of Tyson’s Corners when the barrage of signage leading up to the mall reminded him that he had not eaten lunch. His breakfast had consisted of a power smoothie. With the time approaching two o’clock, his stomach growled.

The early afternoon traffic was still congested with workers who filled the surrounding office buildings returning from their midday meals. Bracing himself, Murphy flipped on his left turn signal and checked over his shoulder before easing in to the upcoming left turn lane to get onto the access road to the galleria’s parking lot. The hybrid behind him slowed down to allow Murphy’s black SUV to cross over.

Murphy was halfway into the lane when a horn blasted behind him. With a jump, he checked his rearview mirror to see if he had accidentally cut someone off. Behind him, he saw a man with a bad toupee in a white Corvette convertible flip off a woman with maroon-colored hair in a green Volkswagen turbo. She had jumped across two lanes to cut off the Corvette.

Glad not to be her.

Murphy turned his SUV into the parking lot. Without bothering to circle the lanes near the entrance in search of an empty spot, he instead traveled to the empty lanes furthest away. It was his habit to grab whatever exercise he could and enjoy the trot in the mild, spring weather.

As a Phantom, he was still honing his observational skills.
Always look around. Be aware of your surroundings. Who is nearby?

Kicking himself, he remembered how easily he had let his guard down during the exercise to allow Tawkeel Said to shoot him. The burka made him assume the hostage was a woman, therefore, she was worthless according to the ISIS culture—therefore, she was not a threat to him … or so Murphy had assumed.
What happens when you assume? You make an ass of you and me.

Like Tawkeel and Major Monroe had said, that’s the point of training exercises
. If I had been in the field, I’d be dead now, my body mutilated and dumped somewhere, and Jessie would be a widow. You need to keep aware, Thornton. Never let your guard down.

Instead of looking down at his feet, Murphy made a point of making a sweep of the parking lot to take in every person rushing in and out of the galleria entrance. He noticed the maroon-haired woman leaning against her Volkswagen while texting on her phone. Among the horde of customers hurrying to get back to their desks in time, the woman’s relaxed demeanor was out of place. Between her stance, and her hair color that bordered on reddish purple, she was hard for Murphy to not notice.

Must not have a job to run back to.

Taking note that her casual texting in such a place and time was “suspicious,” he made an exercise of noting the license plate of the green Volkswagen. It was personalized, easy to remember: ANTIWAR

In the diverse region of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, Murphy never had difficulty finding an eating spot that met his dietary requirements.

On the first level of the galleria, near Macy’s, Murphy found that Sweetgreen satisfied him with an Umami grain bowl, which was vegetarian, organic, and fast.

Grabbing his bottled water, he turned around to almost body slam the woman staring at the menu from behind him. “Excuse me,” Murphy blurted out before recognizing her as the young maroon-haired woman texting next to the green Volkwagen with the ANTIWAR license plate. The same one who had cut off the Corvette while changing lanes to fall in behind him. Now, here she was in the same restaurant as he was.

Her fair face turned pale. Her mouth dropped open. “Ex-excuse me!” she said with a gasp.

“I can help the next customer in line,” the cashier behind the counter announced.

Instead of stepping forward to place her order, she continued to stare at Murphy with wide green eyes. An impatient young man in khaki slacks brushed past her to step up to the counter to place his order.

“Can I help you?” Murphy finally asked her.

Spinning on her heels, she turned and fled from the restaurant. Unsure if he should follow her or not, Murphy watched her disappear among the throng of mall customers.

Maybe she was hoping that I was single and just followed me to get up the nerve to hit on me,
Murphy thought with a coy grin until he became aware of a hand lightly touching his arm. A young woman in a business suit and pumps smiled broadly at him. “You are certainly welcome to help me … anytime … day or
night.”

Chapter Six

“How are you doing?” Joshua took his hand off the steering wheel and reached across to rub Cameron’s leg.

Ever since they had left Ashtabula, she had been staring straight ahead. Her brown eyes, specked with green, were directed unblinking and unseeing through the windshield. She was in deep thought—lost in the past—once again grieving the loss of her first husband.

This is what it feels like to reopen an old wound—make it bleed all over again.

After a silence—long enough to make Joshua think she hadn’t heard him, she responded in a soft voice. “I can’t believe I forgot all about Jane Doe. That death really got to Nick. I remember it … vaguely … but I can’t remember anything specific about the case. . . only him telling me that she kept saying, ‘She’s safe.’ He held her while she died—grateful that she, whoever
she
was, was safe. That’d get to anyone.”

Joshua said, “When we get back home, call your chief and ask for a copy of the report on the case. I’m sure once you see it, everything Nick told you will come back. We don’t know for certain that her death is connected to Nick’s murder.”

“Maybe she was a mob boss’s mistress who knew too much.” Her forehead creased with frustration, Cameron turned to him. “It’s not like me to forget things. Why didn’t I jump on that when Nick was murdered? I let him down. All these years—”

“
Everyone
assumed it was a hit and run accident by a drunk driver,” Joshua said.

“Nick was upset about her,” she said. “How she died. That no one claimed her body. She had bruises around her wrists, proving that she had been tied up and, obviously, she was so desperate that she jumped out of a moving vehicle on the turnpike. She had to know that was going to kill her. Nick didn’t want her buried alone without her family knowing what had happened to her. It was important to him. How could I have not followed up on that? How could I have forgotten?”

Attempting to comfort her as best he could while keeping the SUV on the road, Joshua squeezed her hand. “When Valerie died, our pastor’s wife told me that it would take a full year, if not two, to start healing from the loss,” he said. “Both she and her husband advised me not to make the decision to leave the navy and uproot my kids from their home in Oakland, California, to come back to Chester. She told me to wait a full six months before making any major decisions. I didn’t listen. I knew I was hurting, but I
thought
I was strong enough and smart enough and had it together enough to know what I was doing.”

“Are you saying you made a mistake?”

“Looking back …” Keeping his eyes on the road, Joshua shrugged his shoulders. “One of the things I needed to do in preparation for moving was to get a law office to set up my private practice. This was before I decided to run for prosecuting attorney. Well, my grandfather had owned an office building in East Liverpool, Ohio. He had left the property to my grandmother, and I assumed it was left to me when she passed about five years before Valerie died. My great-uncle, Tad’s father, had been the executor of my grandmother’s estate and, in the midst of my hurting over losing Valerie, I called my cousin Tad, since his father had passed away since settling the estate. I wanted to know about renovating space in that building for my office.”

Confused, Cameron studied his profile. “What does this—”

“The building was gone.” Joshua plunged on. “Tad claimed that I had instructed his father to sell it and set up a college fund for my kids with the money from the sale. I swore I hadn’t. Not being the executor, Tad could only go by what his dad had told him. He insisted that his dad didn’t lie. I said his father had robbed me. Of course, Tad didn’t take that lying down. We got into a big fight and didn’t speak to each other for two months.” He held up two fingers to show her.

Knowing the close relationship between the two cousins—Dr. Tad MacMillan even lived next door to them, Cameron was surprised to learn that they had once fought so severely that they didn’t speak for months.

Joshua went on, “Eventually, Tad called to apologize and offered an olive branch. I accepted it because I did miss him. We never spoke of it again—until a couple of years ago, when Tad was buying the house next door.” He glanced over at her. “Now here’s the kicker. To this day, I have no memory of any of that. Not the argument, asking about that building, accusing Tad’s dad of being a thief—none of it. I remember plain and clear authorizing him to sell the building, but I still have no memory of fighting with Tad and not talking to him.”

“Because …”

“Now,” Joshua said, “when I think back to that period, the first fifteen months after Valerie died, leaving the navy, the move, the renovation of our house where my grandmother had raised me—all of that—I remember it like being in a fog. I even solved two major murder cases and was elected county prosecutor and I barely remember any of it.”

“Your memory was clouded with grief,” she said. “It’s the way I remember my journey into alcoholism. I thought it was all the booze that my brain had soaked up.”

“Maybe that played a part in it for you,” Joshua said. “I wasn’t thinking right because I was in so much pain.”

Her eyes narrowed, she cocked her head at him. “What would you have done differently if you had to do it all over again?”

Joshua shrugged. “Things turned out good. My kids turned out better than okay.”

“You were lucky,” she said. “I didn’t turn out so well.”

He shot her a grin. “You turned out fine.”

“I practically ruined my police career,” she said. “If I hadn’t bottomed out when I did and gotten help, I could have died.”

“But you came back like a champ,” Joshua said. “You got help, sobered up, and now you’re one of Pennsylvania’s finest.”

She squeezed his hand. “And I was able to love again … both of us were.”

“That, too.”

Worry crossed her face. “I wonder if I can make it through all this again.”

“Sure you will,” Joshua said. “Because this time, you aren’t going through it alone.” He shot her a smile.

Reassured, she brushed his hand across her lips, kissing his fingers softly.

As Lieutenant Wu had predicted, Hillary Koch blew her top when she learned from NCIS’s medical examiner that the bodies of five women were being transported to the navy’s morgue on orders of Lieutenant Murphy Thornton.

During Murphy’s short time assigned to the staff, Hillary Koch had made no attempt to hide her dislike for the navy officer with snide remarks or agitated facial expressions—not the least of which included juvenile eye rolls—about or even directed right at his “precious” United States Navy. Every attempt she made to bait him into a debate went without so much as a nibble. After months of her lust for blood going without satisfaction, she was itching for battle. All she needed was an excuse.

The news from the medical examiner gave her that excuse.

As soon as Murphy stepped through the security door leading into the NCIS staff, Hillary initiated her ambush from the doorway of her office.

After letting loose with a long string of swear words, which included her favorite obscenity—the f-word, or variations and synonyms of it—with an occasional upping of the ante by preceding it with “mother”—inserted at every possible interjection, she arrived to the catalyst for her fit:

“Who the hell do you think you are, Lieutenant Thornton, taking on a multiple murder case involving five women—four who aren’t connected to the navy or marines?”

As if the cursing that had preceded her outburst was not enough to communicate her fury, she let loose with another stream of profanity.

Usually, when such battles broke out, the agents would scurry for cover, not wanting to further humiliate Hillary Koch’s latest victim with an audience to the annihilation. This time, the intensity and the one on the receiving end—the navy’s golden boy of the hour—made it just too juicy to ignore sneaking a peek.

Without uttering a word in his defense, Murphy sauntered across the outer office to where Hillary Koch stood with her hands on her expansive hips. Between her blazing temper and extensive use of oxygen in her fit, her doughy face was red. Her nostrils flared.

Wordlessly, he regarded her. While every agent, clerk, and assistant held his or her breath, he studied her unattractive face with his blue eyes. Finally, he responded in a voice so low and smooth that it melted in the mouth of every woman on the staff. “As flattered as I am that you want to have sex with me—it ain’t gonna happen.”

Knocking over her soft drink, Wendy jumped up from behind her desk and scrambled for paper towels to mop up the mess.

Bursting into laughter, Special Agent Susan Archer covered her mouth and ducked into her cubicle.

Hillary Koch’s eyes bugged.

“I mean,” Murphy continued with surprising calm, “a woman as well educated as yourself should know that the definition for the f-word is sexual intercourse. Clearly, you must know it
very
well since you’ve directed it and variations of it at me twenty-four times since I entered the office less than one minute ago.”

Her mouth dropped open.

The corners of his lips curling, Murphy winked at her. “I’m sure you heard of Sigmund Freud and his hypothesis about the human subconscious. The ‘Freudian slip.’ Obviously, you’ve gotten so hot and heavy for my body that you couldn’t stand it anymore and had to scream all the way across this office your intention to have sex with me.”

Hillary’s chest was heaving.

“Unfortunately for you,” he said, “one,—” he held up his left hand to show off his wedding band. “I’m married. Two,” The grin on his face dropped, “I’d rather spend an evening being water boarded by ISIS than touch you.”

Seemingly oblivious to the audience, Murphy moved in closer to Hillary Koch. “As far as the case goes, when you get a grip and are ready to discuss it like an adult, I’ll be in a meeting with Deputy Chief Hamilton and agents Archer and Latimore.”

Over his shoulder, Murphy gestured at Boris Hamilton and the two agents. “My office in five minutes. We have the murders of five women to solve.”

To Hillary Koch’s surprise, her deputy chief and the two agents didn’t wait. They immediately fell in behind Murphy.

“You have no authority!” she screamed.

“Oh yes, I do.” His back to her, Murphy grinned at her anger. “My CO is waiting for your call to report this conversation, at which time she’ll confirm her approval of my taking the lead in this case.”

He paused at his office door to shoot another smile, framed by his deep dimples. If she liked him, she would have found it charming. Instead, she found it annoying.

“I highly recommend you think through what you’re going to say before you call her,” he said. “If you accuse
her
of having sex with
her
mother, she’ll make a special trip out here to the Pentagon to kick your butt, which I have no doubt that she can do.”

After they filed into the office, Boris Hamilton closed the door—shutting her out.

Her eyes wide, Hillary Koch turned from the closed office door to where her assistant Wendy stood motionless with fear at her desk. She clutched an armload of dripping paper towels to her bosom.

Hillary stormed into her office and slammed the door so hard, the picture of the President of the United States hanging on the wall outside dropped to the floor with a crash.