“Are there people at the town house now? Can you call and find out that Hershey’s okay?”
“I was there earlier. The dog’s fine.” His eyes held hers. “Someone from the department took her outside and walked her, then put her in a kennel, but she’s fine.” When she started to protest, he added, “Really.”
“Okay, okay. This is all just so…weird. Disturbing. Do you have any idea who did this?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
“So where was he, you said you were processing his apartment, did someone break in?”
Her head was pounding with a million questions and she felt disengaged from her body, as if this were a bad dream, and through it all, she sensed the detective scrutinizing her; as if she had something to hide. His eyes never left her face. Well, let him look all he wanted. “Let’s sit down.”
She nodded, and though her legs were rubbery, she managed to lead him the few steps to the living room, where she sank into her favorite chair, a rocker her grandmother had left her. Abby had positioned the chair in the corner near the window and often retreated to it whenever she wanted to think. She would rock for hours, staring out the window at the wildlife, or into the blackness of the night.
Now, though, the rocker remained motionless. She bit her lip and observed the detective with his jaded, I’ve-seen-it-all eyes; tense, razor-sharp lips; and straight white teeth. His nose was long, a little crooked, and she guessed it had been broken at least once, probably a couple of times. His hands were big, like an athlete’s, his shirtsleeves pushed up over his elbows to show off golden skin with a dusting of black hair.
He was handsome, no doubt about it, and he probably knew it. There was something about him that suggested he used that innate sexiness to his advantage, as a tool.
Not your typical detective in pushed-up sleeves, jeans, and an earring.
Not on a typical mission.
So why would she even notice?
“Could I get you a glass of water or something,” he offered and she shook her head.
“I’ll be fine.” That was a lie and they both knew it, but she added, “Now, tell me, Detective, what happened to Luke?”
He took a seat in the corner of her couch and sketched out a story of finding Luke in an isolated cabin in a swamp about ten miles from Abby’s house. Some fisherman had noticed that the place wasn’t locked properly, went in to investigate, and found Luke dead.
“…the thing is,” Montoya went on, hands clasped between his knees, “your husband wasn’t—”
“Ex-husband,” she clarified quickly, though the scene was surreal, Montoya’s words sounding far away, as if she were in a cave.
Montoya cleared his throat, and if anything, his gaze became more intense, more focused. “Your ex wasn’t alone. There was another body in the cabin.”
“What?” she asked, staring at him. “
Two
people were killed?”
“Yes.” He nodded curtly.
Her insides froze. More bad news was on the way. “
Another
person was murdered, too?”
He hesitated. “It looks that way.”
“How?”
“We’re not exactly certain how it went down. Still working on it. The scene was staged, we think, made to look like a murder-suicide. At this point it appears to be a double murder, that the victims were taken to a small cabin in the woods about fifteen miles out of town.”
“You don’t know?”
“Not yet, no. Until we go through all the evidence, we’ll be exploring all possibilities.”
She was floored. “So…what do you think happened?”
“As I said, we’re not completely cer—”
“I know what you said, Detective, but you’ve got a gut feeling, don’t you? Isn’t that what everyone talks about? Hunches? A policeman who’s been around a lot of crime scenes and murder investigations usually has some idea of what went down.”
“We’ll know soon.”
“This is unbelievable,” she whispered, feeling a chill run through her bones despite the warm temperature. Bracing herself, she asked, “Who was the other person?” Was she about to hear that someone else she knew, someone she was close to, had been murdered as well? Her fingers gripped the arms of the rocker so hard her knuckles showed white.
“An eighteen-year-old woman by the name of Courtney LaBelle.” He paused a second, near-black eyes searching her face for some kind of reaction. “She was a student, a freshman, at All Saints College in Baton Rouge.”
Courtney LaBelle?
Had she heard the name before? Something about it teased her mind, but she couldn’t remember why.
“Do you know her?”
“No.” Abby shook her head slowly, rolling the name around in her brain and coming up with nothing.
Eighteen? The girl was barely an adult? Oh, Luke…You stupid idiot!
“Did she know your ex-husband?”
“I don’t know.” Abby was thinking hard, trying to come up with a name and face that matched, a girl they’d both known, or she’d been introduced at parties, but that was impossible…the girl was just too young. “I’m sorry. Luke and I have been divorced for over a year. I don’t keep up with whom he’s dating…or…or even seeing as a friend or acquaintance. He has a girlfriend, Nia Something-or-other.”
“Nia Penne,” he responded without checking his notes. “She appears to be an ex-girlfriend. She’s in Toronto. Has been for the last week.”
She thought back to the phone call from Maury. So that’s what he’d been going to say to her. Luke and Nia had broken up. She grimaced, remembering the panic in Luke’s friend’s voice and how she’d blown him off, certain Luke was involved in some kind of sick publicity stunt.
Abby shook her head, trying to make sense of it. “Maury didn’t tell me when he called yesterday. Maury Taylor works with Luke. He was looking for him.”
“Any particular reason he thought Luke would contact you?”
“I have no idea. He must’ve already talked to all of Luke’s friends…but I’m not sure of that. You’ll have to ask him.”
“I will.”
Abby didn’t doubt it. From the glint of determination in Montoya’s eyes, she was certain he was going to get to the bottom of Luke’s death.
“Did your ex-husband have any enemies?” he asked, and she looked at him as if he’d sprouted horns.
She almost laughed. “He made enemies for a living, Detective. You know that. I’m sure if you check with the station manager or producer of the show, they’ll have a list a mile long of people who have complained about him.”
“What about personal enemies?”
She shrugged and tried to concentrate, but the fact that Luke was dead, that someone had killed him, made it impossible to think. “Probably. I…I can’t think of anyone in particular. Not now.” And even if she had, she wasn’t certain that she would tell him. There was something about Montoya that put her on edge; something that seemed relentless and suspicious; something slightly dangerous, that suggested he knew what it meant to be on both sides of the law; and something sensual and dark, as if he might be able to guess just what made her tick. As a woman. As a suspect. And she didn’t kid herself. Ex-wives made damned good suspects. She warned herself to tread gently, say the truth, but be careful.
It was almost as if staring at her so intently, he was searching for signs of deception, and in the pauses in the conversation, she thought he expected her to fill the space, to say something she might later regret.
Or was she just imagining things? Had the shock of Luke’s death put her over the edge?
“I really think we should call someone to be with you. A friend? Relative? Maybe a neighbor.”
She thought of Vanessa Pomeroy next door, or her sister in Seattle, or Alicia on the West Coast, or her father, or Tanisha, the student who worked part-time in Abby’s studio in the city. “No. I’ll be fine. Really. It’s not as if I was still in love with him.”
One of his dark eyebrows quirked and she regretted her words immediately. She felt compelled to explain herself. “Listen, Detective, just because he left me for another woman, one quite a bit younger, doesn’t mean that I’m still pining for him or that I’ll break into a million pieces once you leave. What I’d felt for Luke died a long time ago. Sad, but true.” She looked down at her hands and gnawed at her lower lip a second. The lag in the conversation made the sounds of the house, the creaking timbers, a squirrel scampering across the roof, the steady gurgle of rain washing through the gutters, more noticeable. “The marriage was probably over before we moved here from Seattle. We were trying to make a second stab at it, but we failed.” She nodded as if to herself and the confession of her true feelings felt good. “Nonetheless, I just can’t believe he’s dead.” It was her turn to stare at him. “You’re certain of this, right? When I first heard he was missing, I thought it was a publicity stunt.”
“If it is, it went seriously wrong. Luke Gierman is dead. Trust me.”
A deep sadness welled inside her. As much as she and Luke had been at odds, she hated the thought that he’d been killed, his life snuffed before he reached forty.
Montoya rose and reached into his back pocket for his wallet. She watched his movement, noticed how his jeans hugged his butt, then looked quickly away. Geez, what was wrong with her? Yeah, the guy’s hips were right in her line of vision, but so what? Had Luke’s violent death kicked in her libido? How sick was that? What was she thinking, looking at the detective’s buttocks?
That was the problem, she wasn’t thinking. Hadn’t been. Despite all her protests of being okay with the news of her ex-husband’s death, she was still in shock.
So she’d noticed the detective was sexy. So what? It wasn’t a big deal. She also knew that she couldn’t trust him within an inch of her life.
He scribbled something on the back of a card, and if he’d caught her checking him out, he had the decency not to show it. “My cell phone number,” he explained. “If you think of anything else, contact me.”
“You, too.” She stood and took the white business card he handed her before a horrifying thought struck her. “Please tell me I don’t have to go to the morgue and identify the body,” she asked, suddenly weak in the knees again.
“No. His parents are coming into town.”
She nodded, didn’t want to think about her former in-laws and the grief they were enduring.
“So…I saw the
FOR SALE
sign out front. Are you getting ready to move?”
“After I sell this, yes,” she said and wondered why she felt defensive about it, as if the question was one he might ask a suspect. She half expected him to wink at her and advise her not to leave town, but he dropped the subject, only asking once again if he could call someone to be with her and, when she declined, promising to return with her dog.
She walked him to the door. The rain had stopped, leaving puddles in the drive and only a few drops still dripping from the trees. From the porch she watched as he folded his muscular frame behind the steering wheel of his cruiser, his black hair shining like ebony in the dismal rays from a cloud-covered sun. He backed the vehicle out of her long drive, his tires splashing in the water that had collected, then he nosed the cruiser onto the road.
As he drove out of sight, she collapsed onto the porch, dissolving into tears that streaked down her face. It was stupid, really, she didn’t love Luke, hadn’t for a long, long time, but still, knowing that he’d been murdered, that he was gone forever, left a hole in her life.
Who had murdered him? Had he known his attacker? Had the woman pulled the trigger? Or had someone decided to kill them both?
Montoya had been a little vague about the details of the slayings, and now, after some of the shock had dissipated, she had questions, lots of them. Who had killed Luke? Granted he had dozens, maybe hundreds, of enemies, but who had been so outraged, so deadly furious, as to have shot him?
And why the girl?
Unless they were involved romantically. Sexually.
Sick as it was, she could imagine Luke being fascinated by a coed with her bright, innocent smile and young, supple body. He’d always had a thing for young women and now it may have cost him his life. How had someone overpowered him? Where had he been abducted? And why?
Slapping the stupid tears away, she forced herself to her feet and into the house.
Get a grip, Abby. Pull yourself together! He was no longer your husband, and face it, sometimes you didn’t even like the guy!
With a twist of the deadbolt, she locked the front door and headed for the shower. She had to focus. There was nothing more she could do. She checked her watch. She had just enough time to clean up, swab out the tub, then face the single guy who had expressed an interest in seeing her house.
Peeling off her clothes, she headed for the bathroom. Her heart was heavy, but she gritted her teeth and told herself life went on. As bad as she felt, she wasn’t going to change her plans.
Not this time.
Her father’s mantra started all over again.
When the going gets tough…
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she said as she twisted on the faucets and the shower spat and coughed before thin needles of hot water started spraying over her body, washing away the sweat, the tears, the shock. Adjusting the temperature, she let the water pour over her body and reached for the bottle of shampoo. For the moment she would push all thoughts about Luke and his murder out of her head.
T
here was something about Abby Chastain that didn’t ring true, Montoya thought as he drove into the city. Worse yet, she was sexy as hell and didn’t seem to know it. Even without a trace of makeup, her hair scraped away from her face, exertion evidenced in the sweat that had stained her T-shirt, she pulled at his senses.
He hadn’t liked the awareness that had built within him as he’d watched raindrops shimmer in her hair, then plaster her shirt against her body. He’d caught a glimpse of her cleavage in the V-necked T-shirt, seen a raindrop drizzle its way between her breasts, noticed how her wet hair, slick and pulled back, framed a heart-shaped face, and he’d thought, stupidly and dangerously, of what she might look like coming out of a shower.
Shit.
His thoughts, though fleeting, had been totally unprofessional.
Completely out of line.
He’d been too long without a woman, that was it. Ever since Marta’s death…Instantly his gut clenched and his fingers curled around the steering wheel. Flipping on his siren and lights, he stomped on the accelerator, as if he could outrun his thoughts, his grief.
It had been nearly two years since Marta had been killed and it was time to get over it. Maybe his interest in the ex–Mrs. Gierman was a good thing, a signal that he was back to his old self.
And yet, he had to watch his step.
Abby Chastain Gierman was off-limits. Way off-limits. Even though the evidence pointed to a man being at the scene of the crime, that didn’t mean she couldn’t be involved; if not actually having set up the crime, then a behind-the-scenes player. It didn’t seem that way, but until all the evidence was in, he wasn’t crossing anyone off the suspect list. Especially an ex-wife.
Who knew what kind of personal ax Abby Chastain had to grind?
Angry at himself, Montoya forced himself to decelerate. He switched off his lights. Hell! What had he been thinking?
As he drove into the Garden District, his police band crackled, the windshield wipers slapping time at the fitful rain. Checking his rearview mirror, he saw the irritation in the narrowing of his eyes. He didn’t think Abby had out-and-out lied. She seemed too smart for that. But she’d known more than she was saying. Even if he gave her a break for the shock of learning that her ex-husband was dead, she still hadn’t come clean. He could feel it.
And it bugged the hell out of him.
He slowed for a stoplight on St. Charles Avenue. Drumming the tips of his fingers on the steering wheel, he saw the raindrops reflect red from the signal, the only illumination in this gray, soggy afternoon. As he waited for the light to change, he watched as pedestrians with umbrellas and hats climbed off the street car and made a mad dash across the street to the cobblestoned, tree-lined sidewalks.
Students on their way to classes at Tulane and Loyola, two old universities resting side by side facing St. Charles Avenue, crossed in groups. Laughing, talking, carrying paper coffee cups and wearing backpacks, they hurried onto the paths and broad lawns of the universities that were within minutes of Courtney LaBelle’s home. If she’d decided to attend classes at Loyola, the red brick Catholic college with its turrets and crenels that resembled a medieval castle, would she be alive today? Set here in the Garden District, Loyola was within walking distance of her family. Of safety.
Seeing other young students blissfully unaware of what had happened to Courtney LaBelle, he ground his back teeth. Man, this case was a pisser.
What he needed was a smoke. Just to take the edge off his nerves. He considered stopping at the next convenience store for a pack of Marlboros. Shit, he’d love to draw in a lungful of nicotine about now. Quitting the habit was harder than he’d imagined and he remembered giving Bentz a hard time about giving up smoking a few years back. He’d accused him of being a wuss for leaning on gum or the patch or anything Montoya had considered a crutch.
Now, he understood.
Hell.
It was times like this, when he really wanted to think, to mull over his recent conversation with a witness, that he felt the urge to light up.
The traffic light turned green. The crosswalk was clear. He trod on the gas, water spraying from the Crown Vic’s tires as he hit puddles from the recent shower. His mind wandered to Abby Chastain again.
Seeing her had hit him hard.
Where it counted.
If she hadn’t been out-and-out lying, then she’d been holding something back. There was a mystery in her gold eyes, some kind of secret. She hadn’t been coy, seemed straightforward, but something was off. Or maybe he’d been distracted, surprised at how she’d affected him. He’d expected to walk up to her house, give her the bad news, watch her reaction, and find someone to stay with her, to help her get over the shock.
But that’s not what had happened.
The woman had gotten to him.
And he, blind-sided, had let her.
Petite, packed tight, curves in all the right places.
He flipped on the radio and told himself he had to stop thinking about Abby Chastain’s body. Jesus, hadn’t he learned anything in the last five years? His jaw tightened as he slowed for a corner. He’d always been accused of being a player and it was true enough that he enjoyed women, a variety of women. The one time he’d thought of settling down, the situation had gone from bad to worse.
His guts twisted as he thought of Marta again…God, she’d been beautiful, with a sharp tongue and flashing dark eyes that had held him captive.
He’d thought she was the one, if there was such a thing. He hadn’t believed it before and he didn’t believe it now, but for that one short period of his life, he’d been certain that he’d wanted Marta Vasquez for his bride.
“Son of a bitch!” he growled as a guy in a red Mazda RX7 cut in front of him. Montoya slammed on the brakes. As the driver glanced in his mirror and obviously realized he’d nearly collided with a cop car, he shifted down, slowing to the speed limit, and immediately became Mr. Good Citizen, the epitome of the perfect driver. “Yeah, right,” Montoya muttered. If he had any balls, he would pull the guy over and read him the riot act, maybe scare the bejeezus out of him by slamming him up against the side of the car and pulling out his cuffs before slapping him with a ticket and a fine that would make the guy’s eyes bulge.
Montoya smiled at the thought, then checked his watch as it began to rain again.
No time to spare.
“Next time, buddy,” Montoya said as the sports car turned into a bank parking lot.
With a sigh, he forced himself to concentrate on the task ahead: informing Mr. and Mrs. Clyde LaBelle that their daughter wasn’t ever coming home. “Damn it all to hell.”
This was the part of his job he detested the most.
“…I don’t know,” Sean Erwin said as he walked slowly through Abby’s house. Behind sleek black-framed glasses, his eyes darted from one side of the living room to the other as he and Abby walked toward the dining area. It was the third pass through and Sean, a tall, lean man with spiky hair, patrician nose, and thin black brows over expressive eyes, wasn’t happy. Yet he wasn’t going away. “I just don’t think this is big enough.” Tapping one long finger against his mouth, he frowned, pursing his lips as if he’d just sucked on a lemon. “I have a lot of oversized pieces. An armoire from my grandmother, an overstuffed couch, a small piano…and my bed is a king.” He strode quickly down the short hallway where the bathroom separated the two bedrooms. He poked his head into Abby’s room again. “No. Don’t think so. Your bedroom doesn’t look like it could accommodate my bed, the two night tables,
and
my dresser.” Sighing dramatically, he pulled a small tape measure from his pocket. “I’d better take some measurements.”
“Go ahead. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.” It was all Abby could do to keep her cool. While this art dealer from the city walked through her house as if he already owned it, and didn’t like what he saw, she was thinking of Luke’s murder. Somehow Sean Erwin’s furniture arrangement didn’t seem so important today. The couple who’d stopped by an hour earlier had wandered through for the second time, but hadn’t seemed all that interested either. They’d left without asking any more questions.
The phone rang and she picked up in the kitchen where Ansel was cowering under one of the chairs.
“Hello?”
“Oh my God. Tell me it’s not true!” Zoey’s voice shrilled through the wires. “Tell me Luke’s okay!”
“I can’t.”
“He was murdered? He and some girl?”
Abby nodded, though her sister couldn’t see her. “I found out, less than two hours ago. A detective from the police department came by.”
“Are you all right?”
“No, but then who would be?” Abby said, trying to keep her voice low as she heard Erwin in the bathroom, opening closet doors and closing them. “How did you find out?”
“I work in the news business, remember.”
“But you’re on the West Coast.”
“Seattle isn’t exactly Timbuktu and we do get feeds, you know, running streams of news from all over the world. I just happened to see information about a double homicide or maybe homicide-suicide in New Orleans and then…then I called a local station. They said the next of kin were just being notified, but someone at the station has a contact in the department. He let the identities out. Officially, the police aren’t releasing information about who was killed until the next of kin have been notified, but I figured that was you and Luke’s parents.” She exhaled shakily. “I just can’t believe it.”
“You and me both,” Abby said.
“So how’re you holding up?”
“Still in shock, but I’ll be okay.”
“You’re sure?” Zoey’s voice was filled with worry.
“Of course I am,” Abby said a little hotly. Her feelings for Luke were ambivalent, but to deny that she had any was ridiculous. She heard Erwin walk out of the bathroom and test the cupboard door in the hallway, the one that always squeaked. “Look, I’ve got to go. I’ve got someone looking at the house right now. I’ll call you back.”
“You’d better give Dad a ring. He’ll want to know. He always liked Luke.”
One of the few in the family,
Abby thought, gritting her teeth. “I will,” she promised just as Sean Erwin poked his gelled head into the kitchen. Tape measure at the ready, forehead creased, he eyed the doorway to the back porch. “You don’t have a pantry, do you?” he asked, oblivious to the fact that she was still on the phone.
“I’ll call you back,” she said to her sister and Erwin finally saw the receiver.
His head ducked back into his shoulders like a scared turtle. “Sorry,” he mouthed, but she was already hanging up.
“No problem.”
Oh, Abby, you’re such a liar.
She was irritated and couldn’t help saying, “And no, I don’t have a pantry. Nor a piano, so space for one isn’t really a concern for me and my smaller bed works out just fine.”
He blinked as if shocked, and she decided it was a good thing that she made her living in photography rather than by trying to sell real estate. But she was steamed and Erwin’s questions seemed not just curious but kind of pointedly snarky.
“I understand,” he said, stung, “but I’m just trying to work with what you’ve got here.”
“Then go for it. But there’s only so much space unless you want to add on, or connect the main house to the studio.” She walked to the back door and opened it. Ansel streaked outside like a shot. “It’s unlocked if you want to see it, just on the other side of this porch.”
“I will. Thanks.” He hurried out of the kitchen and Abby wished he’d just go away. As much as she wanted to sell the house, today was not the day.
“…oh, God, no. No! No! No! Not Mary. Please, please, you must be wrong!” Virginia LaBelle was trembling, her blue eyes wide, her head shaking violently from side to side as she stood next to her husband. Her face had turned white, her legs wobbled, and if not for the steady arm of her husband, she, no doubt, would have crumpled into a heap onto the glossy marble floor of her three-storied Victorian home. Tears rained from her eyes. “Not my baby,” she cried and Montoya’s guts twisted as he looked up the curved wooden staircase to the landing, where a huge gold-framed picture of a vibrant, beautiful girl had been hung. Bright blue eyes, gold hair that curled past her shoulders, dimples visible around a radiant smile. A beautiful girl. In his mind’s eye he saw the female victim with her bloated face and waxy complexion and felt sick.
“I’m sorry,” Montoya said and he meant it. This was the worst part of his job. The worst. Dealing with the dead was preferable to informing the living of the loss of a loved one. Especially a child. “Her identification said Courtney.”
“She goes by Mary. Has from the time she was old enough to decide, somewhere around the fourth or fifth grade, I think,” the father, Clyde, said. Tall, with a large frame, ruddy cheeks over a short-cropped silver beard that matched his thinning hair, Clyde LaBelle aged before Montoya’s eyes. His shoulders drooped beneath his tan sport coat, the color washed away from his skin, leaving his complexion pasty, and his blue eyes, behind gold-rimmed spectacles, seemed to fade.
“Third. She had Sister Penelope for a teacher,” Virginia said, still blinking against her tears, denial etched on her face.
“You’re certain this is our child?” Clyde asked softly.
“Yes, but I’ll need someone to identify the body.”
Another piercing wail from Courtney’s mother as she lost control of herself.
“There has to be a mistake.”
“I’ll do it.” A muscle tightened in Clyde’s jaw and Montoya witnessed him physically stiffening his spine.
“It can’t be, it just can’t be,” Virginia muttered.
“Shh…honey…shh.” He pressed his lips into her hair but he didn’t say the obvious lie of
everything’s going to be all right.
Because it wouldn’t be. For the rest of their lives this well-to-do couple would mourn their daughter and nothing else would matter. Everything they’d worked for, dreamed of having—this stately old house, the tended grounds, the silver Cadillac parked in the driveway—would be meaningless.