Due or Die (6 page)

She and Carrie watched him leave with a good-natured wave.

“What was that about?” Carrie asked.

“I’m not sure, but I suspect Edmund wants Bill to get back into the good graces of the Friends and he’s trying to facilitate a reconciliation.”

“Yeah, or he’s warm for your form,” Carrie said and gave her a teasing close-lipped smile.

“Why that’s just, well, silly,” Lindsey spluttered. There was no denying the warmth that heated her cheeks, however. She turned and headed for her office. “I’ll call you if I hear from him.”

“You mean when you hear from him,” Carrie said. She laughed at Lindsey’s chagrin and left the building with a wave.

Lindsey ushered her staff out the back door and hurriedly set the alarm. As the large steel door swung shut behind her, she waved good night to her staff. The evening air was bitterly cold, and it felt as if it pierced her lungs on the inhale. As she circled the building to where her bike was kept, she was not at all surprised to find Sully there waiting for her.

“No Beth tonight?” he asked. His pickup truck was parked at the curb, and she wondered if he’d been waiting long.

She had a sudden pang of conscience for agreeing to
lunch with Edmund Sint, which was ridiculous since, as far as she knew, she and Sully were just friends.

“No, she’s off today because she’s working Saturday,” she said.

“Ah,” he said and he grinned at her. Dimples bracketed his smile, making him even more handsome than usual, which was impressive, given that Sully could trip up most of the female population without even trying.

Lindsey felt her insides do the flip-flop thing. After her fiancé had cheated on her, she hadn’t thought she’d ever feel that kind of sizzle-and-zip attraction for a man, at least not for a very long while. But Sully sure was making her change her mind about that, and suddenly she had no interest in having lunch with Edmund Sint, even if it did include a tour of the Sint estate, which she had been dead curious about since she’d moved to Briar Creek.

She found herself watching Sully as he loaded up her bike. She realized she hadn’t bundled up as much as she usually did. Her scarf was loose around her neck and she wore her hat back on her head. She hadn’t jammed up all of her hair under it either. She wondered if this had been an unconscious decision because she had hoped she’d be seeing Sully or if she’d just been rushing and forgot.

She decided she really didn’t want to know. If anyone asked, she’d been rushing. Yep, that was her story and she was sticking to it.

She glanced away from Sully and noticed a lone car out in the parking lot. Standing beside it was Carrie Rushton. Lindsey remembered she’d been late to the meeting because of car trouble. She wondered if Carrie was stuck.

She told Sully she’d
be right back and hurried across the dark lot to make sure her friend was okay.

“Carrie, are you all right?”

Carrie looked at her and then quickly away, wiping at her face with her mitten as she did so, but not before Lindsey saw the trace of tears in the glow of the overhead streetlight on Carrie’s face.

“Carrie, what’s wrong?” she asked.

Carrie took a long shuddering inhale, and said, “My car won’t start.”

“Oh, no wonder you’re upset.” Lindsey glanced over her shoulder to see Sully headed toward them. “Don’t worry, we’ll help you.”

“I keep turning the key, but nothing happens,” Carrie said. She gestured at her tears with a mitten. “I’m not normally this much of a baby, but I think the stress of the day is getting to me. I was so stressed about the meeting tonight, frankly, my nerves are shot.”

“It’s understandable,” Lindsey said. “Don’t feel bad. Sometimes you just have to let it out. I cried the other day when I realized I’d left my wash in the washing machine for two days and accidentally felted my favorite wool sweater.”

“Bummer,” Carrie said with a big sniff.

“Big one.”

“Carrie, is everything all right?” Sully joined them beside her car.

“Her car won’t start,” Lindsey said.

“Mind if I have a look?” he asked.

“No, please do,” Carrie said, and she moved aside so
Sully could sit in the driver’s seat. Lindsey saw him turn the key. Nothing happened. He frowned.

“I’m no expert, but I think it’s your starter,” he said. “It’ll probably need to be towed to Bruce’s garage over on Tyler Street.”

Carrie closed her eyes and Lindsey was afraid she might cry again, so she said, “Do you want to call your husband?”

“I already did,” Carrie said. She opened her eyes, and her face under the parking lot lights looked pale. “He’s not answering.”

Lindsey wasn’t terribly surprised. If he was as lazy as he seemed, he’d probably tell his wife to walk home.

“Don’t worry. We can give you a lift,” Sully said. “And Bruce can come and collect your car tomorrow.”

“See? This will work out,” Lindsey said. “Now, is there anything you need to take with you?”

“Well, I have two boxes of donated books that I don’t want to leave in the car,” Carrie said. “Warren said he’d take them out to Friends’ shed at the Drury Street storage facility this weekend.”

She opened the trunk, and both Lindsey and Sully took a box and started carrying it to his truck. Carrie locked up her car and followed.

“I really can’t thank you enough,” she said. “I don’t know what I would have done if you two hadn’t happened along.”

“You’d have managed, but I’m glad we’re here to help,” Lindsey said.

Sully put his box of books into the back of his truck and then turned to take Lindsey’s.

They all piled into the toasty-warm cab of the truck, and Carrie gave Sully directions to her house. She lived a few miles inland in a small development of raised ranch houses built in the seventies with the standard two-car garages and big bay windows.

Carrie’s house was at the end of a short cul-de-sac; it was white with black trim and a bright red front door. It looked well kept and cozy, with an outside light on and a yellow glow shining from its main window above.

Carrie hopped out of the truck and fished her keys out of her purse. Sully and Lindsey climbed out of the truck too and retrieved her boxes for her.

“Oh, no, you don’t have to,” she protested. “I can carry them.”

“It’s no trouble,” Lindsey said as they followed her up the walkway. “Just tell us where you want them.”

Carrie unlocked her front door and held it open for them. From the foyer, a short staircase led up while another went down. Carrie pointed to the top of the stairs and said, “Would you mind just putting them in the closet up there? I’m going to check on Markus.”

She went down the stairs to the lower half of the house while Sully started up. Lindsey watched him shoulder his box as if it were no heavier than a sack of groceries.

Admirable but also very annoying as she tried not to grunt and groan under the weight of her own box.

The closet door was on the right at the top of the stairs, and Sully put his box on the floor and then turned around to take hers. Lindsey was more than happy to relinquish it.

He had just taken her box when a blood-curdling scream sounded from the basement.

Lindsey met Sully’s
startled look and then spun around and raced down the stairs. Behind her, she could hear Sully drop the box and pound down the stairs after her. At the bottom of the lower staircase, a hallway led to a couple of bedrooms and a bath in one direction and a large family room in the other. She went toward the family room.

She stepped into the doorway and saw Carrie slumped against the far wall. Her eyes were wide and her face was etched with a look of horror. As Lindsey rushed to her side to see what was wrong, she noticed that Carrie’s hands were covered in blood.

“C
arrie, what’s wrong? What’s happened?” Lindsey asked as she knelt beside her.

She glanced around the room. A sporting event was on the big-screen TV, and in one of the two recliners facing them was the limp form of Markus Rushton.

At least, Lindsey assumed it was him. Given that she’d only met him once and he’d been bundled from head to toe, it was hard to say for sure, but the circumstances made it likely.

“What happened?” Sully asked as he crossed the room to help Lindsey get Carrie to her feet.

Carrie started to sob; her voice was choked with emotion as she said, “He’s dead. Markus…he’s been shot.”

Carrie trembled and Lindsey put an arm around her shoulders, bracing her as Sully turned to examine Markus. He checked his wrist for a pulse and then moved his hand
to the spot beneath his jaw. He dropped his hand and Lindsey knew he’d found no sign of a pulse.

“It’s a ballistic trauma,” Carrie said in nurse speak. “One entry point right through his heart. I thought I could stop the blood loss but I…it…was too late.”

Her knees gave out and Lindsey caught her before she slid to the floor.

“Sully!” she cried, and he rushed forward to scoop Carrie up. She hadn’t fainted but she looked on the verge.

“Let’s get her upstairs,” Lindsey said.

Sully lifted Carrie up and led the way. Lindsey followed, pausing by the recliner. Whatever crazy hope she harbored that both Sully and Carrie had somehow misread the situation and that Markus was not dead quickly dissipated in light of the grim scene before her.

It took her only a second to assess the situation. Markus Rushton had been shot in the heart. A large, dark stain saturated his flannel shirtfront, which covered the chest that no longer rose or fell with breath.

Feeling queasy, Lindsey stumbled after Sully as he went up the stairs to the living room above.

“Sit with her,” he said as he set Carrie down on the sofa in the front room. “I’ll call the police.”

Lindsey went to hold Carrie’s hand, but it was icy cold and sticky with blood. She didn’t know if there was a protocol that said a person couldn’t clean up when they found a dead body, but she wasn’t going to let Carrie just sit there with her husband’s blood drying on her hands.

She went into the kitchen and dampened a paper towel with warm water. Carrie paid her no mind as she gently wiped the blood off her hands. When she was finished, she
left the paper towel on the counter by the sink. If anyone asked, she had no problem saying what she had done.

Silent tears were running down Carrie’s face, and Lindsey suspected the shock was just beginning to wear off. She wrapped an arm around her shoulders and rocked her, trying to soothe her.

She heard Sully’s footsteps on the stairs before he appeared. He looked grim. “The police should be here in a few minutes.”

“I just—I don’t…” Carrie’s voice trailed off.

“There’s a hole in the sliding glass door down there,” Sully said. “Was that there before?”

Carrie’s eyebrows lowered in confusion. “No, why?”

“Well, from what I know of bullets and their trajectory, I’m thinking the shot that got Markus in the chest came through the window.”

Carrie turned a sickly shade of green and hunched forward as if she might be sick.

Lindsey rubbed her back. Sully had been in the navy for fifteen years. Lindsey was sure his assessment of the situation was probably right.

But who would have shot Markus Rushton in his own home? And why?

“Do you get any hunters out here in Briar Creek?” she asked, hoping it might all be just a tragic mistake.

“No.” Sully shook his head. “It’s too residential.”

A flashing strobe light sliced through the room in staccato bursts of blue, and Sully rose to let the police in. Lindsey wondered who was on duty tonight. She and Chief Daniels had gotten off to a rocky start the first time they’d met, and they’d never really put it behind them.

Lindsey’s
first night on the job locking up the library, Ms. Cole had neglected to tell her that the alarm would sound within fifteen seconds, bringing in the local police. Lindsey had stepped out the back door and found herselfnose to gun barrel, with the chief on the other end of the gun; it was hard to recover from an introduction like that.

“Hi, Emma, come on in,” Sully said at the door.

Lindsey breathed a sigh of relief. It was Officer Emma Plewicki who had answered the call. Lindsey felt certain she would have a better manner with Carrie than Chief Daniels, and she was grateful, given that Carrie was still trembling, the tears still damp on her face.

The attractive brunette followed Sully upstairs into the room. She wore a fleece-lined, navy blue police-issued jacket over her uniform, which was the standard pale blue shirt over navy pants. She took in the sight of Lindsey and Carrie and raised her eyebrows.

“Lindsey and I gave Carrie a ride home from the library because her car wouldn’t start,” Sully explained. “When we got here, we found Markus.”

“Are you all right, Carrie, Mrs. Rushton?” Emma asked.

Carrie nodded and then shook her head and then shrugged. Her distress was palpable.

“Listen, I’m going to go check on your husband and I’ll be right back. Can you hang on until then?” Emma asked. Carrie nodded again and Emma turned to Sully and said, “Show me.”

Lindsey watched as Emma pulled on a pair of blue latex gloves and disappeared down the stairwell behind Sully.

“They’re going to think I did it,” Carrie said. Her voice
sounded odd and Lindsey realized her teeth were chattering. She wondered if Carrie was going into shock.

“No, they won’t think that,” Lindsey said and she pulled a fluffy ecru afghan, crocheted in a pineapple pattern, off the back of the couch and wrapped it around Carrie’s shoulders. “You were in a meeting all evening. It couldn’t possibly have been you.”

Carrie said nothing, but Lindsey noticed her shaking got worse.

Emma must have called for backup, because before she came back upstairs with Sully, Chief Daniels arrived. An abrupt knock announced his presence, but before Lindsey could answer the door, he let himself in.

He huffed and puffed his way up the stairs, hitching up his waistband as he climbed as if afraid his pants were going to make a break for his ankles. Lindsey wondered why he just didn’t give in and buy a pair of suspenders, maybe he wasn’t ready to admit that his gut now protruded past the point of no return.