Текст книги "Thread of Innocence"

Автор книги: Jeff Shelby

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

FORTY TWO

I walked outside and the car I’d seen earlier was now parked behind mine on the street.

I walked over to it.

Mike Lorenzo was sitting behind the wheel, his window down.

The second call I’d made on the way back from Brawley had been to him. I’d told him what I’d learned, what I was planning to do, that I was going to confront Bazer and I wasn’t sure what the outcome was going to be. I told him that I wanted him to listen to what went on through my phone, which was why I’d tapped the phone and dialed him from Bazer’s front porch. He never voiced an objection and when he didn’t stop me before I went, I took it that he was implicitly implying that he was good with what I was doing.

“You heard it all?” I asked.

He nodded.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “It’s recorded, too.”

He waved the phone away. “I recorded it on my end, but we don’t want to use that anyway. It’ll bring up too many questions that will be too hard for you to explain.” He exhaled. “Okay. I need to call it in. You ready for that?”

I nodded.

“Should be fine,” Mike said, leaning back in the seat. “I heard it live. I can vouch. I’ll say I came in at the end and saw it. He confessed. I’ll tie it together. Was self-defense.” He paused. “Am I gonna find Farvar to confirm his part?”

“The lady in Phoenix is named Janine Bandencoop,” I said, not answering the question. “She’s the one who sold Elizabeth to the Corzines in Minnesota. I can get you an address, but I guarantee she’s not there anymore.”

He stared at me, chewed on his bottom lip. “Farvar’s place clean?”

I shrugged.

Mike’s mouth twisted into something ugly for a moment. “Alright. I’ll cover Farvar. We can leave his name out of it, anyway. If I gotta bring it in, I know a guy out there.” He paused. “It’ll be okay.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I’m gonna have to call Blundell, too,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “I’m ready.”

He nodded, staring at the steering wheel. “This is good, Joe. Good for Elizabeth. She’s safe now. It’s completely over.” He looked up at me. “That’s a good thing.”

“I’m sorry, Mike,” I said, knowing that I’d permanently damaged our friendship. “I just didn’t know. I got all fucked up. And I just didn’t know. About anyone. If it’s worth anything, Bazer fed me a couple of lies about you, just to throw me off. You heard him say it in there. But I know that doesn’t fix things.” I grimaced. “So I’m truly sorry.”

He turned his phone over in his hands a couple of times, his eyes focused on that. Finally, he looked at me, his eyes empty, and I couldn’t read him.

“I’m gonna call it in,” he said.

FORTY THREE

My knee was bouncing up and down as I sat in the airport, glancing at the screen that flashed all of the incoming flights.

Elizabeth and Lauren would be landing in five minutes.

I hadn’t slept. I’d stayed at Bazer’s house for several hours, answering questions, repeating my story over and over. I’d gone to confront Bazer. I’d called Mike, but hadn’t waited for him to get there. Bazer had pulled the gun out. I’d shot him in self-defense.

Blundell showed up and clearly didn’t believe a word I’d said. She’d come at me hard with a bunch of questions, asking them in different ways.

I didn’t say more than I had to and I stuck to my story.

Mike backed me up, noting that I’d called him prior to arriving at Bazer’s home and that he’d come in at the end, heard enough to implicate Bazer and witnessed the shooting, that it was self-defense on my part.

Blundell ended up stalking away from us, red-faced, shaking her head.

After several hours, there were no more questions to answer. I’d held my own. There’d be follow up, but as long as Mike backed me up, I’d be fine. Because the truth was I had shot Bazer in self-defense. I knew he wouldn’t kill himself and I’d sensed as soon as I’d gotten there that he was going to give up. He wasn’t going to deny anything and he’d made a half-hearted attempt on me so I’d be justified in shooting him. Maybe it was his way of apologizing, of giving me the last word. I wasn’t sure. But I was glad that he was dead.

I glanced up at the screen.

Two minutes.

I’d gone home from Bazer’s, stripped off my clothes and stood in the shower for an hour, as if the hot water would cleanse me of everything. I knew it wouldn’t but I stayed in there until the water ran cold. I’d gotten out, toweled off and laid on the bed, closing my eyes.

Sleep was nowhere to be found.

But I’d stayed on the bed, finally breathing normally for the first time in what seemed like a decade, until it was time to get up and get to the airport.

The box next to their flight told me they’d landed and I stood from the chair, pacing back and forth, looking out the windows at the planes that were pulling in and out of Lindbergh Field. I watched the people streaming down the corridor from behind the secure area. I knew they weren’t in the group coming out, but I looked anyway. A sea of faces that weren’t familiar.

I walked away, taking a deep breath.

I was going to tell Lauren the truth. I wasn’t going to hold anything back. I didn’t know how she’d react, but I wasn’t going to keep it from her. I was going to have to tell Lasko, too, if only because he’d gotten me further than I’d have ever gotten without him. I owed him the truth and I hoped he’d understand. I wasn’t sure that he would. But then again, I wasn’t sure I understood.

I pivoted and walked back toward the bridge that connected the terminal to the gates. Another wave of people emerged, their eyes scanning the area, looking either for friends or baggage or ground transportation.

And then I saw them.

They were at the tail end of the group. Lauren was in jeans and a heavy gray sweater, her hair down, a small smile on her face, her eyes glancing at her daughter. Elizabeth wore black leggings and a white hooded sweatshirt that looked one size too big for her. Her hair was pulled back in a high ponytail and she was smiling back at her mother.

My heart caught. For just a moment, it was like nothing had ever happened. Like Elizabeth had never been gone. Like Lauren and I had never divorced. As if they were coming back from a long weekend and I was just there to pick them up. Like I’d never missed a day.

I knew the moment was fleeting. I knew it would dissolve and we’d have to go back to dealing with the present. Life didn’t let you tie a nice little bow on things in that way.

But, for a moment, it was nice to pretend.

Lauren reached me first. She dropped her bag and hugged me.

“Hi,” she whispered.

“Hi.”

She pulled back from me, but kept her arms around my neck, her eyes showing concern. “Are you okay?”

I nodded. “Fine.”

“Joe?”

“Fine,” I said, pulling away from her gently.

She let go, but her eyes stayed on me.

Elizabeth set her backpack down and we stood there awkwardly for a moment. Then she stepped forward and hugged me.

I wrapped my arms around her and shut my eyes.

“Did you run today?” she asked.

Her hair smelled like lemons and soap.

“No,” I said. “Not yet.”

“Maybe we can go tonight then?” she asked.

I held onto her, felt my heart catching again.

Like life hadn’t gone off the rails for so long.

“Sure,” I said. “Whatever you want.”

I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but I’d do my best to give her whatever she wanted. I wasn’t naïve enough to think we were out of the woods yet, just because she and Lauren were getting along and she’d wanted to come back to Coronado. There was still a long road in front of us.

I opened my eyes, still hugging her tightly. My vision was blurred through the tears and I looked at Lauren.

“Are you alright?” Elizabeth asked. “Your voice sounds funny.”

I laughed and kept my arms around her.

I smiled at Lauren.

“I’m fine,” I said.

THE END

AUTHOR’S NOTE

After I wrote the third book in the series, THREAD OF BETRAYAL, the number one question I received was, “Will there be a fourth book in the series???”

The obvious answer, if you’ve read this far, is yes, because you just read it.

(And, by the way – thank you. A myriad of folks turned down the first book in the series, THREAD OF HOPE, for a myriad of reasons. My wife, because she is brilliant, told me they were wrong. As usual, she was right and THREAD OF HOPE is, by far, the most widely read book I’ve ever written. So thank you for reading the books and supporting the series.)

And I assume that now, even though all of the questions asked in the first book have been answered, the number one question I’ll be receiving is, “Will there be a fifth book in the series?”

I’m happy to tell you YES.

THREAD OF FEAR will be available in December of 2014.

You can sign up for my monthly newsletter if you’d like to make sure you hear about all my upcoming releases. I promise to never use your email for any other reason or to sell it to anyone else.

And, if you’ll, keep reading, I’ve included a description and excerpt from THE MURDER PIT, the first book in a brand new humorous cozy mystery series I’ve started.

Here’s a description and excerpt from THE MURDER PIT, the first book in a brand new humorous cozy mystery series by Jeff Shelby.

THE MURDER PIT

 

Daisy Savage finally has everything she wants. A new husband. A bunch of kids. A charming old house.

              What she doesn’t want is a dead body.

              When a frozen pipe in the basement of her century-old home leads her and her husband downstairs into a newly discovered crawl space, they find a coal chute they didn’t know they had. And a corpse inside of it.

              Things become complicated when Daisy realizes she knew the victim. And things get even worse when it becomes increasingly clear that the body was placed there to make Daisy look like the killer.

              Against her husband’s advice and her own common sense, Daisy makes it her mission to prove to the denizens of Moose River that she is innocent. But doing so may be more dangerous than she planned.

ONE

I wanted an old house.

I did not want an old house with a dead body in it.

“Move the light a little,” Jake said.

It actually seemed more like his butt said it because at the moment, he was on his hands and knees, trying to fit into an elevated, three-and-a-half foot crawlspace that appeared to not have been entered in close to 150 years. Given that he was a little over six feet and two hundred pounds, he was…struggling.

And being stubborn.

“Why don’t you just let me get up there?” I said, trying to move the light to wherever he wanted it. “I’m half your size.”

“More to the left,” his butt said. “Because we have no idea what the hell is up here.”

“Well, we know there’s a frozen pipe up there,” I said.

He grunted, which I knew was his way of telling me that he didn’t think I was funny.

I got that a lot.

My husband of six months was in the crawlspace of our 150-year-old home for a couple of reasons:

The aforementioned frozen pipe, which is more or less a regular thing when you have to deal with Minnesota winters.

And because we owned a 150 year old home.

When I got divorced, I also divorced myself of the 5,000 square foot modern monstrosity that had been forced upon me by first husband. I’d made mistakes in both husband and house choosing. So when we finally cut the cord, I decided I wanted a house with character. It took me two years to find the right house and during that time, I’d also found the right husband. Jake, the one boy I’d truly loved in high school had found his way back into my life and we’d picked up right where we’d left off twenty years earlier. And right before our wedding and merging our families, I’d found my house with character.

A century and a half old. (Have I mentioned that already?) Right next to the railroad tracks. One bathroom. A dilapidated garage. Doors that didn’t close properly. A hole in the roof. Bats in the attic. A much-rumored ghost.

Jake stood outside with the realtor the first time he saw it and said, “This might have…too much character, Daisy.”

But it didn’t. I’d fallen in love with the original wood floors and the narrow staircase and the small rooms and the stories that were lurking in the walls. I wanted it and when he saw how much I wanted it, he relented with a smile and a shake of his head.

And now he was trying to get a hairdryer close enough to a frozen pipe to thaw it out. I couldn’t see his face, but I was fairly certain there was no smile.

“I can’t reach it,” he said.

“Which is why I should be up there,” I reminded him.

He muttered something and slid himself backwards, his feet coming out first. He lowered himself down to the ground, easing his way over the concrete ledge that made up the floor of the crawl space. I tightened the elastic wrapped in my hair, tugging the ponytail to make sure it was tight.

“You look like one of those people,” I said to him.

He surveyed his dirt and dust covered body. “A coal miner?”

“No, one of those people in Pompeii. The ancient massive volcano?”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“I know,” I said, taking the hair dryer from him. “But I still love you. Now boost me up.”

He lifted me up and I slithered into the dirty, concrete space. Spider webs clogged the wooden beams above my head and the dust lifted up into my eyes and mouth. I coughed and wiped at my eyes.

“Having fun yet?” Jake asked.

Pretty sure he was smiling now.

I ignored him and crawled forward on my elbows, trying to get to the back wall where the offending pipe from the kitchen was located. He angled the flashlight for me and I saw the pipe up above me and next to the brick wall. I reached out to touch it and was glad my fingers weren’t wet. Because it was so icy cold, I was certain my flesh would have stuck permanently to the frozen metal. And there wasn’t enough room for Jake to come up and help me. I looked down, squinting in the darkened space, trying to locate the hairdryer. I saw it, the pearly gray barrel blending in seamlessly with the layer of dust and dirt.

But I saw something else, too.

“Did you see this?” I asked, my eyes zeroing in on the floor.

“See what?” he said. “My eyes were full of dirt.”

“This door. Did you see it?”

“Nooo. I was looking for the pipe.”

“There’s a door,” I told him. “Like, a wooden door. That opens up.”

“Excellent. Can you get the hair dryer up there now so the pipe doesn’t burst?”

But I was enamored with the door. It was about three feet by three feet, made of several two by fours. I used my hand to clear the dust from it. A splinter sliced into my palm and I winced but even that couldn’t deter me.

“There’s a hole,” I said. “To pull it up and open it.”

“Daisy,” he said sternly. “The pipe.”

“Just a second,” I said. I stuck my fingers into the hole and tried to lift it out, but it was too heavy. “Do you have a screwdriver?”

“No.”

“Liar. There’s one right there on the table.”

He sighed and a moment later, slid the screwdriver into the space. I reached back with my hand, grabbed it and brought it over to the door.

“If that pipe bursts…”

“Oh, please,” I said. “It’ll be fine. It’s been frozen for hours; a few more minutes isn’t going to hurt. Did you know there was a door here? Where would it go?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “To someplace beneath the crawl space?”

I’d never even thought about the crawl space actually being above something. It was just sort of…there, this elevated concrete space in our basement that, after studying for about half a second, I’d decided would be good for storing things. To me, it was like a bonus shelf, four feet off the basement floor. I’d already thought of putting valuables up there, off the floor that I’d been warned by our home inspector might be susceptible to flooding.

But the area underneath, the concrete tomb that the crawl space created? My mind was already spinning. I was thinking of secret tunnels and buried treasure and mementos left by previous residents. I didn’t want to see what was down there; I needed to see.

I wedged the screwdriver into the hole, set my elbow against the concrete and lifted the door up out of the ground. It lifted easily and I used my other hand to get it out of the square and slid it to the side.

“I got it!” I yelled. “It’s off!”

“Do not fall in, Daisy,” Jake said.

“Throw me the flashlight,” I said.

“You have one minute,” Jake said, rolling the flashlight toward me. “And then I want that hair dryer on the pipe before this basement fills with water and drains our bank account. Well, what’s left of our bank account.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said, grabbing the light.

I propped myself up on my elbows and angled the light down into the now-open door. The drop down was about twelve feet and the walls were made entirely of metal. I felt a twinge of disappointment. It looked like an old coal chute. I did not see a tunnel. I did not see treasure.

“Daisy?” Jake asked. “What do you see?”

I angled the light again, searching every crevice of the space. The light flickered over something and my hand stilled before it began to tremble. I tried to steady the beam of light, to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. I swallowed hard and wiped at the cobwebs clinging to my face.

“I see…a pair of shoes,” I said.

“Shoes?” Jake asked.

“Yeah.” I swallowed again. “And someone’s in them.”

THE MURDER PIT by Jeff Shelby is now available at all ebook retailers!

Table of Contents

Copyright

Books by Jeff Shelby

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY ONE

TWENTY TWO

TWENTY THREE

TWENTY FOUR

TWENTY FIVE

TWENTY SIX

TWENTY SEVEN

TWENTY EIGHT

TWENTY NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY ONE

THIRTY TWO

THIRTY THREE

THIRTY FOUR

THIRTY FIVE

THIRTY SIX

THIRTY SEVEN

THIRTY EIGHT

THIRTY NINE

FORTY

FORTY ONE

FORTY TWO

FORTY THREE

AUTHOR'S NOTE