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  Mel gave her head a shake. “I thought you might want to stay with me. They cleared my house right before yours. Didn’t find anything.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I understand the necessity, but I’m not accustomed to having my privacy violated.”

  “I understand. I would stay with you, but I need to face this. You go try and get some sleep.”

  “Right.” Melanie nodded. “’Night.” She lifted her hand, and I watched her until she disappeared inside her home.

  An owl hooted in the distance, and the wind rustled the trees; the smell of pine needles permeated the air. I dug through my bag for my keys as a car pulled into the space across from Mel’s. I watched from the shadows of my front stoop as the man crossed the street and went inside a three-bedroom unit. I exhaled.

  I put my key in the door and unlocked it. The door swung open. The smell of a strong disinfectant accosted me. I thought of Carol lying inert on the floor. The terror she must have experienced. I shivered.

  My cell rang, and I glanced at my watch. I didn’t recognize the number and clicked “Decline.” Those telemarketers were working late tonight. I reached inside the doorway and flipped on the light. The room looked like it always had. Beige walls, a white bar with my wicker stools. The floor where Carol had been in the dreadful suitcase. Walking into my house proved more difficult than I’d anticipated.

  My watch pinged as a text came through. Absently, I glanced down to read, and I did a double take. My breath caught in my throat.

  I’m looking for Jane Doe. Are you Jane Doe?

  I gripped the doorframe and took a couple of deep breaths. I looked to my right and then my left. Alone. I remained on this stoop alone. Calvin said Carol had received texts before she died. Was it related? Or some sick joke? A poke at the book club? I glanced next door to see if Mel came running out. Had she received a text?

  As the seconds ticked on, my heart rate slowed when nothing happened. I stepped inside and turned to close the door and nearly leaped out of my skin. Through the small window of the catty-cornered building next to mine, someone stared at me through the blinds of a low-lit living room. A man. Kevin. Our gazes locked as he emerged from the front door carrying two large garbage bags. I was ashamed to say I felt better seeing a familiar face than I would closing the door and being alone with the text. As if transfixed, I stood frozen, holding the door with one hand as he made his way to my townhouse, wearing low-slung jeans and a thermal-style burgundy shirt. He was barefoot. His disheveled appearance and the wrinkle on the left side of his face alluded to the fact he’d been sleeping.

  He momentarily lifted his free hand. “Hey, you okay?” His tone sounded gruff as he ran his free hand through his thick sandy-blond hair. “I thought about calling, but …” He shrugged.

  I nodded. “I thought about calling too. You alright?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I stared down the driveway.

  “You want me to take your trash down to the street for you?”

  I’d forgotten this week’s trash pickup had been rescheduled to Saturday morning. Our family-run sanitation provider had sent out a notice last week. I shook my head, glad to be discussing something normal. “That’s okay. There’s not much in it.” I left the door cracked, retrieved the garbage, and wheeled my small black container down to the end of the street. Kevin walked alongside me. Silence seemed to stretch for miles as I debated telling him about my scary message.

  His receptacle, already at the street, was full of moving boxes and plastic bags. Of course, Ellen wouldn’t concern herself about the planet by participating in the ongoing green movement. I’d seen her at the grocery store with her shopping cart full of environment-ruining plastic. She’d even been caught throwing her drive-through trash out her windows, and fined twice for littering. Ellen acted as if the world was her personal garbage dump. I shook my head, unsure of why I focused on that now.

  He glanced over in my direction. “Since yours is empty, may I?”

  “What?”

  “Throw these bags in there?”

  I could clearly read his uneasiness under my scrutiny, and yet there was something else swimming within his hazel gaze. Something odd, and I began to feel a little uneasy.

  “Yeah, sure.” I scratched my arm and let out a sigh.

  He sighed too. Right now, our complicated past wasn’t the most important thing in either of our lives, and it shouldn’t matter that he’d decided to date my cousin, probably out of spite, and move right near me. It would again but for the moment, we had a truce of sorts.

  “I hate what happened to Carol. And I hate that you’re going through this.” He enunciated the word “hate.”

  “Was it horrible?” He sounded much like the man I’d once been so close to. Kind, considerate, caring. I guessed it was true what they said about past relationships, like the one he and I’d had, the love/hate lines were sometimes hard to distinguish.

  I swallowed. “So horrible. Every time I close my eyes, I see her.”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  I shivered and ran my hand through my hair. “How are you holding up?”

  He shook his head and shoved his free hand into his pocket. “When I found out, I sat on the couch, stunned for hours. I had no idea what to do or who to call. Her mom’s gone, and Carol wasn’t close to her mom’s new husband, the one she married after Dad.”

  “She didn’t deserve this. She was one of the most genuine people I’ve ever known.”

  He stared at his bare feet. “We argued, and I said some horrible things to her. Horrible.”

  I kept my voice low. “About the inheritance?”

  He nodded and scrubbed his face with his hands. “I was pissed because Grandpa Jim was my biological grandfather, and he chose to leave the bulk of his estate to Carol. And I made some poor investment choices and was counting on the money to float me until I get my portfolio straightened out. When I received my copy of the will, I flipped.”

  I had no idea the grandparent Val referred to was Kevin’s paternal grandfather. He lived on Long Island and never visited much. I saw him once five years ago, right before Kevin’s dad died of stomach cancer. I had no idea he and Carol had been so close.

  “Oh.” I groped for words.

  He shook his head and groaned. “I apologized, and we worked things out. I can take solace in knowing that. I loved her, and she knew I did. How’s Melanie dealing? I heard about the police escort to the station.”

  “She’s struggling.” I hesitated as my voice caught in my throat. “We all are.”

  He nodded. “I’m sorry.” He reached out and stroked his fingers down my arm to my hand. “I wish it hadn’t been you that found her.”

  I focused on his face. He clearly had reservations regarding my fortitude. “No one should find a body that way, Kev. And God, Carol is the real victim here.”

  He held on to my fingers. “I know. I didn’t mean to imply anything different.” He shook his head as if regretting his earlier words. “I can’t even imagine what that was like for you. Have you heard anything?”

  I studied him. “Not really. I know there will be an autopsy.”

  He nodded. “Is there anything I can do? Anything you need, I hope you know you can always come to me.”

  “Kevin,” I said, pulling my fingers free of his grasp, “I’m sorry for your loss. And not that I don’t appreciate the sentiment, but we can’t be close anymore.” I lifted the lid and exposed a nearly empty can.

  He dropped his bags inside, and they rested near the top. “I just thought we could comfort each other. We both loved her.”

  “We did.” I gave him a small smile.

  He hesitated. “Do the police know who did it? Do they have any suspects yet? I mean, like I said, I heard they escorted Melanie in for questioning, but that’s absurd.”

  I studied him, feeling a little warier, yet at the same time the question wasn’t out of left field. Anyone would want to know those things. He’d admitted
to arguing with her, and I still didn’t believe he had anything to do with Carol’s death. Why did I get a weird vibe?

  “Val said you’re going into the police department tomorrow?”

  “Yeah.” He stepped closer, running his fingers over the arm of my sweater. “Quinn isn’t exactly my biggest fan. That’s why I—”

  A door slammed, and a clip-clop sound echoed. Kevin jerked his head toward the sound. Ellen stood a few feet away. Her arms were crossed as she narrowed her eyes. Her face was flushed. The scene was almost laughable. My friend and Kevin’s stepsister had died, and she thought I was trying to reconnect with her man. When she moved in, had she envisioned Kevin and I would never interact alone?

  “Hi, hon. Just throwing out the trash and checking in on Lyla.” Kevin retreated to her side.

  Ellen wrapped an arm around his waist and glared at me. “Isn’t he the sweetest? I’m so lucky.”

  “Oh yeah, you’re one lucky woman,” I said dryly.

  She pulled his head down and slanted her mouth over his for my benefit. It was loud and awkward and completely uncouth.

  The leaves rustled as the wind kicked up. One stray brown leaf swirled around and dropped at my feet. I had no idea their make-out session had ended until Ellen called out, “’Night, cuz. I’m going to get this poor grieving baby back inside.”

  I threw a hand up as the two of them walked back to their house. Kevin’s shoulders were slumped forward, and where I could see he actually was grieving, Val had read Ellen incorrectly. She didn’t appear the least bit bothered.

  Alone in the coolness of the night, my mind went back to the text. The urgency to get inside rushed back. I closed the lid, and the side of the bag caught on something, tearing at the edge. I pulled the lid a little in an attempt to free the edge and tore the bag wide open. Papers spilled to the ground. “Terrific.” I picked up the old grocery receipts and lifted the lid again and froze. Inside the bag was the camo baseball cap I’d seen the man in the car with Carol wearing. Well, it probably wasn’t the cap. But he’d asked about the police and their suspects. The creepy Jane Doe text had come through while he watched me from the window.

  I reached for the bag, then hesitated. My heart hammered in my ears. I glanced around. No one was out here or watching that I could tell. I snatched the bag out of the can and walked briskly toward the front door. A cat cried in the distance, and I stumbled over my own feet, and the bag flew from my grasp. I righted myself just in the nick of time, saving me from sprawling out onto the concrete walkway. The contents of the bag littered the ground. I went to my knees and began gathering everything up in my makeshift basket, with the hem of my shirt, as I’d done as a child. I carefully used a receipt as a barrier between my fingers and the cap. Once I’d collected everything, I hustled inside my house, closing the door and locking it. And just like that, the fear of being inside my home alone vanished. I feared what was outside way more.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I dreamed of skulls, leaves, and damp earth. On the mountainside, I ran. Branches were slapping me in the face as I fled from a man in a camouflage baseball cap. His face was a black void. One second he was far behind me, and the next, his ice-cold fingers gripped my shoulders. He shoved me hard. I fell, arms and legs flailing as I attempted to scream. Not the slightest sound flew from my lips. A whoosh of air left my lungs as I hit the ground. Everything hurt. My extremities felt numb, and terror had a viselike grip on me. When I rolled to my side, I saw Carol’s lifeless eyes staring back at me.

  A scream retched from my raw throat, and I sat straight up in my bed, drenched in sweat, with damp tangles of hair about my face. A nightmare. Only a nightmare—all the Jane Doe descriptions I’d been reading intermingled with Carol’s murder, I reminded myself. I got up and padded to the bathroom, splashing my face with water, then patting it dry with a towel. Sleep no longer an option, a cup of tea would be in order.

  My thoughts went back to what I’d discovered in Kevin’s garbage bag. Did I really believe he could be involved? He could’ve been tossing out the cap because Ellen hated it, or maybe it’d been a gift and it wasn’t his style. He’d never dressed in anything camo while we’d been dating. He’d openly admitted he and Carol had argued, and spoken about his troubling financial situation.

  Then there was the text. I looked over it again. I put the number into Google search to no avail. What if Carol had discovered the identity of the Jane Doe killer? How, I was uncertain, unless she knew the person.

  A pounding on my front door caused me to drop the hand towel. When I checked the peep hole, I spied a disheveled Mel. “Lyla! Are you okay?”

  I flung open the door. Mel’s eyes were wild, her phone gripped in her fist. She rushed in and hugged me.

  “I’m fine. Sorry. Just a nightmare.” I closed the door and locked up tight after she released me.

  “I nearly had a heart attack when I heard you scream.” Mel put her hand over her heart. Then paused, staring down at the floor.

  “Go into the living room, and I’ll make us a cup of chamomile tea.”

  Mel and I were on the sofa, our teas now finished. She was digesting everything I told her about the text I’d received. Mel sucked in a breath as I filled her in on my interaction with Kevin.

  “The text is spooky as hell. And we should definitely take that to the police.” She gripped the blanket tighter. “But you would know if the man in the car with Carol was Kevin, right?”

  My shoulders rose, then fell. “Normally, I would say yes. But I don’t know.” I shook my head. “I mean, I don’t believe it could be Kevin. But—”

  “The inheritance,” Melanie supplied.

  “Exactly.”

  “Why would his grandfather leave the bulk of his estate to Carol?” Mel’s brows drew together. “Spite?”

  “Maybe. Who knows why families do what they do? Though, she was his stepsister. He wouldn’t kill her. He’s a jerk, but I just can’t believe Kevin is capable of such a thing.” I shivered at the thought. “I am glad the judge made the police aware of the conflict. They will investigate him for sure.” I rested my arm on the back of the sofa, propping my head against my hand. “It does make you wonder where he was when Carol went missing. Was he at work? Packing with Ellen?”

  “Well, as for alibis, look at me. I did find the proof I was at the liquor store. It was right there in my transaction history. Tim was pretty drunk, but it pisses me off how he all but threw me under the bus.” Melanie tucked the blanket under her legs. “I mean, seriously, I could have been charged with murder for God’s sake.”

  I shook my head. “Tim’s a jerk. He never deserved you. I’ll go down there with you tomorrow. From what I’ve gathered online, Amelia was absolutely correct. The way Carol was delivered to my house in a suitcase should have the department seeking outside help. A profiler or something. It’s not your average offender who does something like that. I mean, the suitcase by itself should rule you out. Think of what type of deranged person they’d have to be in order to do something like that. Seriously, I get they must speak to everyone, and with the suitcase belonging to you it makes sense but come on. You’re the gentlest person on the planet without even a single traffic violation.”

  Mel nodded emphatically, “Right! It’s stupid. But I’d go through all the turmoil again to help Carol.”

  We sat for a few moments in silence, remembering our friend.

  “If you’re interested, I compiled a file.” I pulled up the dumping grounds doc on my tablet and moved closer to Mel.

  On the scene, Brad Jones is optimistic someone will be able to identify Jane Doe by the few remnants of clothing and her jewelry. Once the woman is identified, the investigators can move forward with victimology.

  Half a mile off Interstate 85, off a service road, a short trek through the knee-high grass and thorn-ridden weeds, the remains of a likely Caucasian female, 18–25 years old and between 5’0 and 5’4”, were found behind an abandoned country church. Most of her bone
s were recovered, along with a denim Gap jacket, a blue dress, Keds tennis shoes, a scarf, and her jewelry.

  “This is the one Carol thought she could identify?” Mel’s eyes were wide.

  I nodded.

  We took a look at the pictures. Skeletal remains in a mountain of detritus. The remnants of what might’ve been a blue dress. I zoomed in on the images of her scarf, necklace, and ring. The pictures weren’t the best quality. The necklace looked to be a bit mangled, as if it’d been run over. The scarf had me squinting at the screen. The years spent outdoors in the elements had faded out the colors, and there were visible holes, but—

  “Is that?”

  “It could be Sweet Mountain High colors. Yes!” They’d given each member of the majorettes a scarf at the alumnae bonfire for our ten-year reunion. I stared at the image, unable to make out if it had our school’s crest. Could the Jane Doe be a Sweet Mountain alumna? Someone we knew?

  “I don’t recall any missing person cases from our area. In fact, I’m not sure if Sweet Mountain has ever had such a case. I’ll see what I can find when I get to the office.”

  Mel followed my glance over at the cap on the dining room table.

  What kind of monster could be in our midst?

  Chapter Fourteen

  The second I entered the office, my phone chimed. I had several messages from Mother. I’d placed my phone on “Silent” when I went to bed, hoping to get a couple more hours of sleep. I had finally, waking with a start at the realization of how late it was. They were essentially the same message, containing her rambling concerns. I disappointed her; I got it. My cell lit up with my uptown funk ring tone, and Gran’s smiling face flashed on the screen.

  “Hi, Gran. I’m at the office. What’s up?”

  Gran’s tone sounded tight and lacked her usual cheerful jolliness. “The police took James! I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid they’re going to ask me questions, and I might crack. I know too much.”

  I sat upright in the chair. “What?”