Particles of Murder (A Shadow of Death Romantic Suspense Series Book 1) (12 page)

I shake my head. "Why should I believe you? Everett Pine is dead and the only cause I can find is those drugs. What about Victoria? Did you ever sell her drugs? She had to be in this house all of the time."

"Victoria didn't do drugs," he says. "You can ask anyone. She was--she was a saint. I don't know. I seriously don't know. Are you just going to keep accusing people of murder until someone confesses? I don't think it's any of my fraternity brothers, and I doubt it's anyone in the Brotherhood. They have no motive to kill both of them."

"Give me something, Alex," I say. "You knew both of them.”

“Barely,” he says. “Dominic would have been pissed if I had been caught talking to Tori too much and Everett was just…a guy who enjoyed drugs a little too much. It’s not like I was friends with either of them. I don’t even have their phone numbers. But…I can tell you something that might help you…as long as you don’t tell anyone that I am involved with any drugs.”

“If your information is factual and leads me to something useful.”

“I didn’t want to say anything the last couple of times you’ve been here, because I didn’t know if you were just…I don’t know, pretending to investigate. But I was moving some…product…across campus from the chemistry building the morning that Tori died. I saw someone leaving the building. And I heard about his alibi, so he shouldn’t have been there.”

“How do you know that this person had an alibi?”

“Because it was in the newspaper,” he says.

“Who was it?”

He hesitates. “Dr. Zimmer.”

* * *

“
N
o matches
,” Ed Bunt mutters, sitting in front of the lab’s computer. “No fucking matches.”

“On the senator’s case?” I ask.

“Yes. I feel like I’ve checked every person this guy knew,” he says. “We have this perfect fingerprint that was left on the guy’s neck from being restrained, and nothing matches it. We’ve checked his family, his political opponents, his old military buddies—no matches.”

“What about the mistress?”

“What mistress?”

“There’s always a mistress,” I say. “A lot of people go into politics to make their town, state, or country better, but they stay in it for the power. Those kinds of people have mistresses.”

“Isn’t that a bit cynical?” he asks.

“No. I just know my political history.”

Detective Stolz walks into the office and straight over to me.

“Tell me something,” she says, dropping a surveillance photo in front of me. “When were you going to tell me that you were having drinks with one of our suspects and then left the bar with him?”

The photo shows John handing me my jacket as we walk out the door. It’s from the night we slept together.

“We bumped into each other,” I say, focusing my attention on the photographs in front of me from Senator Holden’s murder. “I had already had a lot to drink and I thought the case was going to be closed. It was a mistake.”

“What is it with you fucking people involved with my cases?” she hisses.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “Maybe you should try it sometime.”

She sneers at me. “You can throw all your snark at me. I don’t care. Because I already talked to the Captain. You’re done.”

I stare at her. “You can’t fire me over this.”

“Over this? No, I can’t, but adding everything up—John Zimmer, Andre, investigating a closed case…the Captain certainly thought it was worthy to fire you.”

“Are you kidding me?” I ask. “I was right about Victoria’s case being a murder and you’re including that in the reason I should be punished?”

“Mira. It’s truly nothing personal,” she says. “I just can’t have you on these cases when you could be endangering yourself and the cases…and I can’t trust that you won’t get close to a suspect and give them information from the cases that could cause them to flee or retaliate.”

“You think I’d be that stupid?”

“I think when a person falls in love, they make dumb decisions.”

“I’m not in love with John Zimmer,” I say.

“But you were with Andre and that almost ruined the case and got you killed,” she says. “Grab your things and go. There’s no point in drawing this out or trying to justify your actions to me. The Captain has already decided and he’s not the kind of man who changes his mind.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“I made a decision,” she corrects. “One based on what I thought was best for the whole team. I’m sorry. This wasn’t an easy choice.”

I want to accuse her of having it out for me, but I know that’s not true. She and I may never see eye to eye, but I know her whole life is this job and she does see me as a potential threat to her cases.

“Fine,” I say, grabbing my jacket off the back of my chair. I’m gulping in air, trying to keep it together. I’m not going to cry or freak out—it would be so un-Mira-like. “Just don’t go making assumptions that a death was natural when you can’t determine the cause of death.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

There are so many places I want to run to as I leave the lab, but there’s only one person I feel like I can truly talk to right now. He may be my biggest regret, but he’s also the only person who I trusted with my whole truth and because of that, he knows me enough to give me what I need.

* * *

“…
y
es
, Sonia,” Andre’s voice murmurs. “Sonia Solano.”

I stop at the top of the stairway and peek around the corner. Andre is on the phone, fumbling for his keys. My sister has been dead for two decades, and he’s talking about her.

Why?

“I know,” he says. “But I’ve heard that you know things. I don’t…I just need to know if you know who—okay. Okay. Let me get a piece of paper and a pen. Wait one minute. Please.”

I take several steps closer toward Andre, but he closes the door before I can reach him. I press my ear against the door, trying to hear what he's saying, but it sounds like I'm trying to hear through water. I can hear his footsteps and his voice, but I can't make sense of the words.

I knock on the door.

Andre's voice goes silent. I don't hear him approaching the door.

I knock again. His footsteps come toward the door. I take a step back, but the door doesn't open. I wait.

"One minute," he calls out, but his voice sounds closer than it had been when he stopped talking. He must have checked the peephole in the door and seen it was me.

I wait. My chest feels like there's a cobra wrapping around my lungs, making it hard to breathe and pushing the rest of my organs so close together that it feels like I can feel every one of them pulsate with the beat of my heart.

What the hell is going on?

The door jerks open. Andre has a smile pasted on his face.

"Hey," he says. "What's going on? Did you need a body guard again? I thought you didn't want me around because of the last time."

I need to be tactful about this. Andre may be reckless, but he's not stupid.

"Who were you talking to on the phone?" Well, I needed to be tactful, but I need a lot of things right now that aren't going to happen.

"What?" he asks. "On the phone? Oh. It was...a telemarketer. They were selling alarm systems."

"And you were talking about my sister?"

"Um, I may have mentioned she was kidnapped and...maybe an alarm system could have prevented that."

"You're a terrible liar," I say.

"Only around you," he says. "Okay, I'll tell you. Just come in and we can--"

"No," I say. "I'm not going to come in. Just tell me why you're talking about my sister to someone."

"Look, I had some...connections to people that know a lot of criminals. You could call them businessmen for criminals," he says. "One of them sells cars with fake license plates, another is an arms trafficker, and I know a guy that makes the most amazing fake IDs while also using his hacking skills to ensure that these people have a record--"

"Get to the point," I interrupt.

"So I know it always bothered you that your killer wasn't found," he says. "And by bouncing around from person to person, I think I've found a guy who could eventually tell me who it was. Or tell me a person who will know who it was."

"How could anyone know?" I ask. "The guy worked alone. He wasn't doing it for any criminal organization. He was just some pervert who wanted my sister for some twisted reason."

"How do you think he evaded the police so long?" Andre asks. "My contact thinks there may have been someone paid off in the police force while the FBI was investigating, feeding them false information."

"And you trust this source?"

"Absolutely," he says. "This guy is rock solid. I know your probably think all criminals are bad--no honor among thieves and all--but these kinds of criminals are businessmen and it wouldn't be good for business if they didn't give me what I need."

I cross my arms over my chest. "I didn't ask you to do this."

He shrugs. "After things ended badly between us, I knew I had to make it up to you. So I started this a couple weeks after you stopped seeing me."

I let out a slow breath. "I'm not going to have some enforcer knocking on my door one day, angry about you not paying them or something, right?"

"Absolutely not," he says.

"This doesn't change anything about our relationship."

"I didn't expect it to," he says. "Like I said, I knew I had to make things right with you. This is my way of apologizing. I wanted to surprise you. I have a way to make sure this guy gets prison time for what he did and I thought it would make you happy if you saw him behind bars."

"It would," I confess. "I need something like that right now."

"Is something wrong?" he asks.

"Stolz fired me."

His eyebrows shoot up. "What? Why? It's not because someone saw you with me, is it?"

I shake my head. "I made too many mistakes. Don't worry about it."

"I know you hate when I blatantly ignore what you tell me what to do, but of course I'm going to worry." He steps aside and gestures into his apartment. "Why don't you come in? I promise I won't try anything sneaky...unless you want that."

"I just want some hard liquor," I say, stepping inside.

He closes the door behind me.

* * *

"
I
understand--intellectually
--the reason I was fired. It was the logical choice," I say, stretching out on Andre's deep red couch with a bottle of beer. "But I've been good at my job for a long time. That should count for something. What am I supposed to do now?"

"I don't know. What do you want to do?" he asks. "What else do you like to do?"

"Eat," I say. "Drink. Sleep."

"When we were together, you used to make up these stories about what our future would be like," he says. "Maybe you should tell stories for a living."

"You just want me to continue thinking about our future."

"Well, I want you to think happy thoughts, so, yes," he says. "Maybe I do want you to think about our future."

"Well, stop," I say. "You were willing to screw me over for profit. You don't get a second chance after that."

"I was willing to at one point, but I fell in love with you and I didn't," he says. "That has to mean something."