TICK TOCK RUN (Romantic Mystery Suspense) (41 page)

We came together in the middle of the drive and I blocked her way.  I hooked her arm like I would a best friend, and slyly steered her in a half-circle until her back faced the house.  “Laura doesn’t want any visitors.  She’s having an early night.  Hell!  She’s even kicked me out!  I think we should leave her to it, don’t you?  Give her some ‘me’ time.  She’s probably in the bath by now.”

“I just want to talk to her.”  She tried to push my hand away but prodded me. 

“Ow!  Careful,” I said.

“I’ve done something stupid.”

A heady whiff of alcohol blew onto my face.  “Then don’t do anything else that’s stupid.  Go home and sleep it off.”  I winked.  “I won’t tell Laura, if you don’t.”

“I’ve brought her a gift.”  Carol waved a white lace garter under my nose.  “Every bride needs one of these to get the groom’s juices flowing.”

Oh my Lord!  I struggled to imagine a more embarrassing type of relative.  If Laura even made it to the wedding reception, I’d have to conjure up a plan to keep Carol off the dance floor before she started swinging from chandeliers.  “It’s a pretty garter.  Just what she needs.  But give it to her in the morning.”  I closed Carol’s palm around the garter and walked her down the drive.

“I’ll pop over again later,” she said.  “When she’s out of the bath.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Yes, I will.”

“No!  You bloody won’t!  Go home.  Drink coffee.  Sleep.  Don’t come back until tomorrow!”  I shoved her off the drive.  I felt incredibly rude, but letting her get more sloshed in front of Laura, today of all days, would be another bitter lump we could do without.  After she wobbled, clearly offended, out of sight to walk home, I unlocked the garage, raced to the cupboard and lifted out the rucksack. 

Back in the dining room, my heart beating fast, I set the bag on the table.  The zip rasped when I slid it along.  My hand shook, scared of what I’d find inside, and scared of what I wouldn’t. 

Laura tiptoed into the room and pushed the door shut.  “So, what have you found?”

 “Let’s see.”  I upturned the bag and shook it.  A handful of cash, a disposable razor, knickers, red rose petals, my missing eighth steak knife and a creased photo tumbled onto the wooden table. 

Laura flattened the crumpled photo with her palm, then staggered back.  “Jesus!  That’s a picture of me and Daryl.”

I traced my finger along the bumpy photograph.  Among the many creases, there was a cut in the paper across Daryl’s head.  But it was clearly him.

“Lee was right.”  I stared at the red petals, thought about the roses which Mark had sent to Laura the other day.  “Mark really is the one doing this.”

“Where’s the rest of the cash?  The coins?”

I roughly counted the money.  Little more than five hundred in notes lay on the table.  Loose change from thirty-five thousand.

“This could be a down payment.”  I tried to make sense of it.  “We didn’t give him much time to return the money.”

 “So this proves it really is Mark who’s blackmailing me.”  Laura smiled, punched the air, then squashed my cheeks together and kissed my face.  “You did it, Chelsea.  You’re amazing.  That photo with the doll did the trick!”

Far less animated, I said, “It was Lee actually, but anyway, let’s think about how to handle this.”  I didn’t feel amazing.  In fact, I couldn’t believe it, but knew it must be true.  Two people I’d dated since the end of last year had caused whopping great problems in Laura’s life.  Carl and the car crash, Mark and blackmail.  Me plus a man, any man, equalled trouble.  End of.

Laura danced up and down.  “It’s over, Chelsea.  I can’t believe it.  Let’s drag Mark in here and confront him.  Jeez!  I really thought he was a nice guy.  I can’t believe I’ve been so blind.”

Laura continued celebrating, bobbing on the spot and grinning.  After I caved in and gave her a high five, she stopped jumping and looked at the table.  Her eyebrows shot up.  “Holy cow!  Are those my knickers?”  She checked the label. 

I stared at the black, Agent Provocateur panties with my mouth agape. “Perhaps it’s more than a crush.  Mark’s a pervert with some obsessive jealousy.  Even Paul agrees he’s got the hots for you.  He came to my house a few days ago and asked my opinion.”

Laura clamped her cheeks between her palms.  “Paul knows that Mark likes me?”

“Yes.”

“Christ!”  Laura shuddered then looked down at the table.  “Oh, I can’t the bear the thought of Mark fingering my underwear or going through my drawers.  What a sleazebag.”

I snatched the knickers, intending to hide them behind my back to make her focus on me, but caught the photo as I whisked them off the table.  The picture floated down to the floor.  It landed on the reverse side, revealing the hotmail address ‘no fool,’ written in black, scrawny handwriting, and the words ‘tick tock’ smeared in what looked like blood.  I stuffed the knickers in my back pocket and picked up the photo.  

“What have you seen, Chelsea?”

I flipped the photo around.

Laura squealed.  “Yikes!  Is that blood?”

It stained my finger when I rubbed it.  “It’s sort of greasy.  Lipstick.”

“Who wrote the email address?” Laura asked. 

Her answer left no reason to ask if she recognised the child-like handwriting.

I placed the photo on the table, then fingered through the bag contents again.  “It’s like a collection of clues pointing to himself.  Why would Mark do something so stupid?”

“Mark’s crazy.”

“Cash is one thing, but this…  He may as well just sign a confession.”

“Again, Mark’s crazy.  He must be.”   Laura pulled out a dining chair and plonked herself down on it. 

I tapped my lips with a finger.  “Did you phone Mark’s office to ask if he was at work when we dropped the money off?”

“Yes.  The receptionist said he was in meetings all morning, and finished work around lunch time.”

I glared at Laura.  Mark had an alibi.  “So how could he be in two places at once?”

She shrugged.  “He must have an accomplice.  Whatever, Chelsea.  Come on.”  She tugged my sleeve.  “Let’s get this over with and confront him.”

The feeling that something else was wrong, circled me like a faint smell of gas when I hadn’t yet realized someone was about to strike a match.  “Something’s off.”

Laura narrowed her eyes.  “I don’t like the way you said that.”

 “I was sitting in the kitchen, in clear view of the hall after I threatened Mark with that photo, right?”

She nodded.

“But Mark didn’t go out the front door.  So how did he stash this bag in the garage?”

Laura dragged both hands down her face.  “I don’t know.  Perhaps he put it there earlier.  Who cares?”

“No.  That means he put it there before we threatened him.”  I scratched my forehead.  “Something else is confusing me,” I said.

“What now?”

“Mark shouldn’t care about deleting the photos from my mobile.  If he’s left this evidence for us, he should have realised his mistake.  These items could send him down for blackmail.”  I locked my questioning gaze on Laura.  “And why would he steal
your
phone?  How can he communicate about the next money drop?”

“He was probably too pissed at us to care which phone was which.  Maybe he thinks I won’t dare take this bag of evidence to the police, in case Paul finds out what I did.”

“So he doesn’t care about the money anymore and he’s playing another game?  Giving you the option to convict him, but at the expense of losing Paul?”

Laura’s lips jutted out.  “Perhaps.”

Confusion tensed my muscles.  “No.  I don’t buy it.  Mark looked genuinely shocked by my blackmailing him with that photo, didn’t he?”

“Most people would be.  You’ve turned the tables on him.  So what?” 

“So,” I shot back at her.  “Why would he be shocked?  Surely he’d expect us to make some sort of move?  After all, he knows us pretty darn well.”

“True.”

I had missed something, taken the wrong turn somewhere and ended up stuck in a ditch of confusion.  “Mark’s played us well… until now.”  I paced between the table and conservatory door.  “So why let us find these items that could send him to the slammer?  And if he’s got the hots for you so badly, why blow his chances with you, by letting you know it’s him?”

“Maybe he doesn’t realise you’ve found the bag?”

I was trying to wrap my head around my questions when a shiver crawled up my back.  Well, a shiver would have been a huge understatement.  It was more like a long slithery creature had borrowed my spine to use as a ladder. 

“I texted him.  Mark definitely knows I found this bag,” I said with conviction.  “So surely, by now, he’s realised he’s screwed up.”

“I guess so.”

I waved the rucksack in the air.  “Then why isn’t he panicking?  Why isn’t he running round your house, tearing it apart like a madman who’s got a live firework in his pocket, searching for
this,
rather than that photo?”  I dropped the bag on the table, grabbed a few of the items and waved them at Laura.  As I let go, a blemish on the photograph of Daryl caught my eye.  The photo was creased and slit, but one of the lines on the left side was not a crease, but a scratch, like a line on an antique photo. 

I’d seen that somewhere before.

CHAPTER 31

I
’d been so busy keeping the problem under wraps, that I’d failed to notice the obvious.  “This rucksack was placed in the garage in order to be found.”  I lowered my voice.  “But not yet.”

She leaned into me, parking her nose at the side of my face.  “Chelsea, what are you saying?  You’re scaring me.”

It was as if I’d just looked at the clues through a high-density flat screen.  Everything became instantly sharper, clearer in all its sordid glory.  “I know who it is.”

She gasped.  “Who?”

I’d gotten Mark all wrong.  His only fault was being in love with Laura.  I hesitated to say the unthinkable.  “It’s not Mark.”

“Oh!  Thank goodness for that!  Because he’s such a great guy and if it wasn’t for Paul then maybe—”

“It’s Paul!”

“Say what?”  Laura jerked away from me.  “Shut your mouth, Chelsea!  It’s not.  It’s not.”  She grunted, grabbed the rucksack and tried to rip it in half.  A second later, she launched it across the room, and then kicked a chair onto its side.  Her burning stare made her look ready to tear strips off me next.  “What the fuck did you say that for?” 

I stood my ground.  “Because it’s true.”  I should have guessed she’d go nuts. 

Paul’s name fit snugly in the puzzle, like picking the correct jigsaw piece to complete it. 

She shoved the petals up to my face.  “News flash.  Mark admitted to sending the flowers.”

I chewed my lip.  “That camera Jayne used to take photos on your hen night.  You told me it was Paul’s.  How come you gave his camera to her?”

“It looked like the sort a reporter would use.  So what?”

 “There’s a scratch on the photo in my purse.  A photo taken using that camera on Saturday night, and—”

“And what?”

“And the same scratch is on this one, too.  Look.  And the photo that was pushed through my letterbox had been trimmed to a square.  I bet it was cut to rid of the scratch on the edge.”