Page 88 of Accidental Murder
“He’s to go with you on any leg of your investigation. Treat it like a ride-along.” The chief hung up, brokering no argument.
Swell. Megan glowered at Vaughn. His father must have yanked the chief’s chain but good. “Isn’t this peachy?” she said with a bite. “I seem to have acquired a pet.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
Navigatingthe Suzuki through soupy fog on the Golden Gate Bridge, Kayla felt like she was trapped in a metaphor for her own personal hell. Everyone she had ever loved was dead. And what about Eve? Had Troy and his thugs gotten hold of her? Was she alive?
Despite the heavy leather jacket Kayla wore, a chill enveloped her. She needed to wash. To regenerate.
Once she passed the tollbooth—thankfully her assailant hadn’t possessed the foresight to steal the wad of cash from her pocket—the fog lifted. Gripping the handles of the bike tighter, she forged ahead, rehashing the conversation with her uncle. He said,He was here.The man responsible. Her uncle hadn’t put a name to the face, but Kayla felt certain he wasn’t referring to Blond Guy. He wasn’t a leader. No, the man who had known about her uncle’s botched operation and blackmailed him to keep quiet had to be someone else. Someone higher up the food chain. Was it the person who owned the Jaguar? A superior at Wilkerson Hospital? A friend? Nolan Trask, ex-CIA operative, experienced in undercover work? Dennis might fit that bill. He’d sought her uncle’s input when she’d wanted to end their relationship.
But it couldn’t be him. Otherwise, her uncle would have uttered his name.
She felt the urgent need to locate Bledsoe Research Institute. An onsite inspection was in order. Traveling along 19thStreet, she wondered whether Bledsoe might be an acronym, likeGDDS. If taken apart, theBcould stand for Jacob’s doppelganger partner Baker, andLEDfor another partner Leonard Hoffman, nicknamed Leddy. TheSOEcould signify the three silent partners, although that should have beenSBE, meaning silent but equal. And where were Jacob’s initials in the acronym? Had the others duped him?
Kayla swerved out of the way of an errant driver as an idea formulated. Was it possible one of the silent partners was the guy who had reminded her of G.I. Joe? Could another be Richard Troy? Neither of them was a leader, but they might make decent followers.
Something niggled at the back of her brain. She tried to pluck the detail from its hiding place but failed. Her stomach grumbled, but the concept of food was abhorrent. Even so, when she spotted an In and Out Burger, she decided to order a milkshake to coat her roiling insides.
She parked in the fast food’s parking lot, entered the bathroom, removed the helmet from her head, and studied her image in the mirror. Hollow eyes. Grimy skin. In a word, frightening. She squirted liquid soap into her palms, slathered it on her face, and rinsed it off. The cold water acted like a baptismal wash. When she looked at herself in the mirror again, she mustered a new resolve.
Back on the Suzuki, she merged into the drive-thru lane and ordered via the speaker. Waiting with feet planted on either side of the bike, she caught the scent of coffee and jolted, knowing an important element was within her grasp.
Think, Kayla. Think.
It wasn’t the odor of coffee. It was another smell.
Tobacco. When she’d burst into her uncle’s cabin, she’d detected the aroma of tobacco.
He was here,David had said.
Dennis smoked cigarettes and cigars—cheap cigars with a bitter odor. Not the scent she was remembering. The aroma had come from a more expensive brand. Sweet and woodsy. The cigar Trask smoked had smelled of cedar and molasses. Jacob had smoked cigars, too, though he’d preferred cigarettes.
“Your milkshake,” the In and Out server said.
Kayla paid, took her purchase, and pulled into a parking spot to the right. While removing the wrapping from the straw, she remembered where she’d smelled a sweet, woodsy aroma. On her visit to Bioethics Coalition. Confirmed when the office manager found a discarded Starbuck’s cup with a cigar dumped into the dregs. Possibly left there by Sara’s husband.
In her conversation with her uncle he said,Simmons said. He’d faltered and added,Sara said.At the time, she’d presumed David was referring to Sara by her surname. What if he’d meantTaylor Simmons said Sara said. . .
Sara’s husband had planned to remove his wife’s files from Wilkerson. He had already confiscated them from Bioethics Coalition, but he hadn’t been able to appropriate the ancient computer because it belonged to the coalition. Had he or a person who’d accompanied him erased Sara’s files?
No. Her reasoning was flimsy. Taylor Simmons did not kill his wife. The man had been distraught over her death. He’d asked Kayla to go to survivor therapy with him. He’d saved her when William Norton nearly ran her off the road.
Or had he? Was it possible he was the one who’d planted the tracer on her car? He’d appeared seconds after she’d entered the gas station’s mini mart.
Out of the blue, the brand of the cigar she’d smelled at the cabin came to her—Davidoff. Her father had smoked one the night he’d closed his big deal for Hunt House. She recalled seeing an open cigar tube containing two Davidoffs lying on Taylor Simmons’s desk the day she’d picked up the check for services rendered. Had he visited her uncle? Did he drive a Jaguar? Was he at the root of this?
Yes. Yes, he had to be. Otherwise, he ought to be dead because the killer would have assumed whatever Sara had blabbed to Kayla aboutGDDSshe’d have told her husband.
Kayla remembered something else Sara had said in passing. About her husband’s younger brother. He had suffered from a rare genetic disorder. Had his sibling’s illness prompted Taylor Simmons to seek a genetic solution? One long since abandoned by Wilkerson Hospital?
Eager for answers, she tossed her milkshake into a nearby garbage can and switched on the Suzuki. No longer would she be the prey. Now, she was the hunter.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
Megan openedthe car window and presented the required identification to the Mill Valley police officer. The smell of wet ashes and smoke made her throat swell. The officer handed her ID back and signaled for her to continue on. The glare of portable area lights illuminating what was left of David Macintyre’s cabin glinted off the windshield. The vision of the charred wooden shell shook her more than she could imagine.
“Are you okay?” Vaughn asked from the passenger seat.
