Page 17 of Accidental Murder
Works by Peter hung on every wall. The one of Ashley lying on a chaise, her face serene, was Kayla’s favorite. The painting of a sad-faced saxophonist at the San Francisco Jazz Festival came in a close second.
Peter. If he was here, he would help her through this. Where could she reach him? She’d rummaged in Ashley’s tote and hadn’t hit upon a name or number of the hotel where he was staying. No note was affixed to the refrigerator or the corkboard in the kitchen. Ashley hadn’t added an international number in the contact for him on her cell phone.
Kayla trudged to the black desk in the corner of the bedroom where Ashley had set up her mini-office. The blotter was aligned, its edges parallel with the perimeter of the desk. A stack of thank you notes, their envelopes already stamped, were squared up on the blotter’s right. Ashley’s datebook, on the left. She skimmed the datebook for Peter’s current info and came up empty. She didn’t bother turning on Ashley’s laptop. Her sister wouldn’t have recorded Peter’s information on it. She’d used the device to access the Internet and to read and send e-mail. That was all.
A bittersweet smile tugged at the corners of Kayla’s mouth when she remembered the day she’d set up the system. Ashley had resisted transitioning into the technological age.Forget computer-literate, she’d say.I’m barely cell phone-literate. Give me a pen and paper any day. Face it, I’m not you.
The echo of her sister’s final words dealt Kayla a hammerlike blow. She grabbed Ashley’s datebook from the desk and hurled it across the room. Pages fluttered to the floor.
Before she could sink deeper into despair, she sat at the desk and did her best to piece together her recollections of the murder scene. The invitation. It must have come in the afternoon mail. Had Dennis Wald sent it? She urged herself to be impartial. IfDennis wasn’t a suspect, who else might have wanted her dead? She pictured the files lying on the office floor. The smashed computer screen. The shattered laptop. Had the killer been looking for something?
Why start a fire? To remove evidence.
Had she stumbled upon a governmental secret while working on her ex-CIA client’s computer? Was the potion Jacob Feinstein and GLU planned to offer to the world illegal? Did he worry that Kayla would steal or sell the formula?
Alphabetically, going by their surnames, she mulled over her roster of clients. There was nothing covert in Mary Dorman’s life. Mary swam, ate, and studied. The archaeologist, Timothy Jenkins who lived in Arizona, had published each discovery he’d made. TheNational Enquirerhad aired every secret there was to know about the celebrity actor who lived in Idaho, including his diet and sexual preferences. The insurance startup guy was an open book. The woman with the organizing business was as uncomplicated as butter.
When Kayla reached theSnames, she paused. Why hadn’t Sara Simmons returned her call? Why had she gone radio silent? Could she be the killer?
No. Ashley said:He wanted you. Ahewas the killer, not ashe.
Kayla swept her fingers across the tops of the dust-free family photographs on Ashley’s dresser. In one, Ashley looked put together. Kayla had been a wreck. Their mother had taken the photo after Kayla had made mud pies in the yard. Another picture, prior to attending the high school prom with the Johnson twins, was a study in contrasts—Ashley dressed in a sleek gown, Kayla sporting an ill-fitting fluffy dress. How she’d wanted to wear jeans. Her father had refused.
The landline phone next to Ashley’s bed jangled. Kayla let it go to voicemail.
“Ash, darling, it’s Margaret,” the caller said. Margaret Thornton was Ashley’s agent and had insisted Ashley have a landline installed because cell phones could be unreliable. “I’m sorry about your sister. It’s all over the news. Call me.” She disconnected.
Kayla noticed the red blinking light on the machine, and her thoughts zoomed back to the crime scene. Three of her computers had been switched on. Had the police turned them off? Had they confiscated them? If not, could she access her information via Ashley’s laptop? She’d set up a share network with her sister a month ago when Ashley’s computer had been having storage issues.
Quickly, she booted it up and launched the browser. She tapped in the numbers of the VPN connecting her to her home computer. In a moment, a message came into view:No connection. She remembered seeing haloes of police flashlights roaming her townhouse. What if they’d shut off the electricity because of the fire but hadn’t confiscated anything? She could?—
She yawned.
No, no, no. Stay awake. Fight sleep.
She had too much to do. Plus she was afraid of the form her misery would take. The nightmares following her mother’s and brother’s deaths had been horrible, perhaps because she’d been an impressionable teenager and hadn’t been able to decipher real from imaginary. In the wake of her father’s car crash, she’d been plagued with shivering fits that had caused her to shed pounds she could ill afford to lose. She’d met with a therapist, but therapy, she’d known at the outset, would never be able to erase the fact that no one had been arrested for either incident. The police had failed. Therein lay the root of her nightmares.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Fitz eyedthe new clients sitting on the other side of his desk at Bledsoe. A husband and wife. They were reviewing the non-disclosure agreement before them. After a long deliberation, the husband signed the NDA and shifted it to his wife. She added her signature and pushed the paper to Fitz. He twirled it so he could add his bold autograph.
At the same time, the door flew open. Lee entered. “Sir, you have a call.”
“I gave specific instructions that I was not to be?—”
“It’s urgent.”
A light was blinking on the desk telephone.
The husband rose and thrust out a hand. “It’s all right. Our business is concluded. Thank you for meeting with us so late in the day.” He offered a hand to his wife. She rose to her feet.
Lee followed them out and closed the door.
Fitz snatched up the phone and pressed the call-waiting button. Immediately, his colleague offered a lame justification for the call. “Don’tsirme!” Fitz snapped. The sole reason this guy was on board was because he had sworn loyalty to the project. “Listen up and listen good. You’d better hope Kayla Macintyre didn’t share anything with anyone before you killedher. Not one iota, do you hear me? If the public gets wind of what we’re doing?—”
“They won’t.”
“Sing it to the choir.” He slammed the receiver into its cradle. Balancing his time between a respectable career and the laboratory was taking its toll on him. Typically, he didn’t need much sleep, but he had to admit he’d been looking bad lately. He rubbed his face to stimulate blood flow and wandered to the window. He gazed out. A shooting star sailed across the sky.
