Never Happened (10 page)

“Let's get this straight, Blake. You stay away from me. Stay away from my home and my car. I don't play well with bullies.”

With that warning, she turned on her wedge heels and strode deliberately to the driver's side door of her vehicle. Screw this guy. She was out of here.

“Someone came into your home?”

She almost climbed into the 4Runner and drove away, but some subtle shift in his tone gave her pause. She spun to face him. “Like you don't know that already. You let the air out of my tire.”

He didn't look the slightest bit abashed. “You have to admit it was a great conversation starter.”

“Back off,” she told him again. “I don't have whatever the hell it is you're looking for.”

On some level she understood that the contact lens was all she had. The only connection to what really happened to Henson. She wasn't about to turn it over to anyone until she had some answers.

Taking her warning literally, he moved back two steps. He said nothing, but that blue gaze burned right through her, telling her far more than she wanted to know. This guy would not give up.

She opened the door and scooted behind the wheel. The sooner she was away from him the sooner she could think straight.

“One last question, Alex.”

Again he'd startled her, walking around to her side of the vehicle. Damn him. She hesitated before closing her door, shouldn't have but she couldn't resist that he might give her some useful information.

“Who else has to die before you realize I'm the only one who can help you?”

Three beats passed before she could slam the door against the words that kept echoing in her head. She drove away, didn't look back.

Had that been a blatant threat? Against her? Against her mother or her friends?

Alex drove faster than she should have, mainly
because she was fiercely pissed off. How dare he threaten her!

Damn. Realization slowed her rate of speed. She hadn't checked her tires or the spot where she'd parked for any drained fluids. She pressed her brake lightly just to make sure it still worked.

Relief flooded her when the vehicle reacted as expected.

For the fifteen minutes it took her to maneuver morning rush hour traffic and get to the office, she steamed. Her fury, fueled by the idea that this guy thought he could control her, built steadily.

“Better men have tried,” she muttered.

She didn't care what Patton believed. She didn't care how smart Blake thought he was. No one pushed Alex Jackson around. And she never, ever let down her friends. Henson had been a friend. She would find out what happened to him.

Brown and the Professor were already out on her calls when Alex arrived at the office. Marg was on the phone talking to a local who's who magazine about doing a write-up on Never Happened. God love her. Alex was convinced that a large portion of the company's success was because of Margie Jackson and her persuasive personality. Keep the booze and
men away from her and she was amazing. Get her tied up in a physical relationship and she dived back into the bottle…headfirst.

One look at Shannon's face and Alex knew the day was only going to get worse.

“What happened?”

Shannon gave her one of those looks that said this was bad, very bad. “The Professor is on his way back here. He got to the dead veggie scene and almost crashed through the building.”

Alex felt her brow furrow with the precursor to tomorrow's wrinkles. “What do you mean? Was he hurt?”

“No, he's fine, but the brakes in the truck aren't. They failed, Alex. The Professor almost crashed because of it. The mechanic who came and towed the truck away just called. Some brake line was damaged and slowly leaked out all the fluid causing the failure.”

A chill sank all the way to Alex's bones. “Have that mechanic check out all of our vehicles, one by one. I want to be sure this doesn't happen again.”

Shannon nodded and reached for the phone.

As Alex headed for her office, over her shoulder she called, “When the Professor gets here I need to talk to the two of you. Get Marg to man the phones.”

The next half hour Alex spent taking a stab at catching up. Wasn't going to happen, but she kept promising herself she'd get all those reports done eventually. Eventually being the key word.

She hated trying to catch up but it kept her mind off what had happened with the truck. God, it could have been so much worse. Timothy O'Neill's warning echoed in her brain.
You should disappear, Alex. Or you could end up dead, too.

Thankfully the Professor arrived and he and Shannon rescued her from diving into that reality alone.

Alex shored up her courage with a bolstering breath. “O'Neill turned himself in to the police.” The next two minutes were spent bringing the Professor up to speed on what had taken place during the past forty-eight hours. “No one is going to consider Henson's death a murder unless I can prove that O'Neill's original story is the real story. O'Neill warned me that I could be in danger and now we know he was right.” The idea that the Professor could have been killed in that truck twisted her guts into knots.

“Let's take a step back,” the Professor suggested, his demeanor remaining calm despite his adventure this morning.

Alex gave him her undivided attention. God knew she wasn't sure what to do from here.

“This began with a suicide. Charles Crane. That is where you should begin.”

“I went back to his place,” she said, only just realizing that she hadn't told either of them about what she'd found. Shannon's eyes grew rounder as Alex shared what she'd discovered at Crane's place.

“A cover life.”

Both she and Shannon stared at the Professor questioningly.

“Spies, undercover agents, men and women in those professions often live a shadow life to accomplish their mission. It's not who they really are, sometimes they scarcely scratch the surface of living it. But this other life serves a purpose, usually as a protection of their true identity. Clearly Charles Crane was not who he appeared to be. Just as nothing that has occurred since his death has turned out to be what it appears.”

“That's how it felt,” Alex agreed, thinking back on what she'd seen. “The house looked as if it was being lived in, but it was all for show.”

“This could be dangerous. We can't prove someone tampered with the Professor's brake line,
but under the circumstances I'd say that's a damned likely possibility,” Shannon tossed out. “Alex isn't a cop or a spy. She could be getting herself into something that could get her killed. It could get all of us killed.”

Alex shuddered at the idea that this whole crazy situation had already endangered her friends.

The Professor nodded. “That's why she must do the last thing they would expect.”

Alex didn't even try to speculate what he meant.

“Allow Blake to believe you're cooperating. Since he's the only contact you have, we'll start with him. Meanwhile we figure out who Charlie Crane was and why he died. Once we know who he was, things may become much more apparent. At the very least we'll have gained some leverage.”

Alex looked from her lifelong friend to her newer but equally cherished friend. “Henson is dead. O'Neill was almost killed. You,” she said to the Professor, “could have been killed this morning. Are you two sure you want to be involved in this thing?”

“I resent that you would even ask,” Shannon snipped.

“I, as well,” the Professor seconded.

As much as she worried that this investigation
would bring harm to them, it felt damned good to have someone on her side in this.

“So I should contact Blake and lead him to believe I'm ready to cooperate?”

“There's an old saying, Alex,” the Professor offered sagely. “Keep your friends close—”

“And your enemies closer,” she finished for him.

She thought about the man, Austin Blake. Keeping him close wouldn't be such a hardship.

As long as it didn't get her killed.

Alex
missed lunch again.

She'd gotten a call from a lady who needed an estimate on getting an unsightly mess cleaned up ASAP. She indicated there was blood and other things but hedged whenever Alex asked for additional details. She insisted she would pay a bonus if the job could be completed today.

Alex's suspicions automatically kicked into high gear. Anyone who avoided the details and offered to pay a bonus usually had something to hide. Not that it was necessarily a criminal act. Might have been totally unintentional.

People did that sometimes. Accidentally killed a loved one—it sounded unlikely she knew but it did happen—and then they were afraid to call the police. Alex would end up having to make the call for him or her while he or she sobbed hysterically about how
he or she hadn't meant to hurt anyone. Most of the time she chose to believe the story. The explanations were too bizarre to be made up.

Alex felt reasonably certain this one would fall into that category considering the amount of blood the woman talked about. She hadn't sounded hysterical but there had been an odd tension simmering beneath her calm. Only one way to find out. The woman clearly needed assistance of some sort.

The temperature in her 4Runner—she meticulously checked the tires and undercarriage before heading out—took forever to cool down. The midday sun had turned the closed-up interior into an oven. If there was a body at this scene she hoped the house was air-conditioned.

She made the necessary turns and then cruised along the specified street, watching for the house number of her potential client. Kids played in the yards, toys cluttering what was otherwise a neatly trimmed landscape surrounding equally neat cookie-cutter houses.

The home of the woman who'd called was a different story, however. Chipped, peeling paint that screamed for attention. A tangle of overgrown grass, more brown than green as a result of the heat and
continued negligence. The dented garage door was closed, the driveway was cracked and crumbling. Not exactly home sweet home.

A middle-aged woman came out onto the porch as Alex climbed out of her SUV. She waved a hello. “I'm Alex Jackson of Never Happened.” Alex gestured to her vehicle. “I have to grab a few things but I'll be right in.”

“I don't want you to do anything until I have an estimate,” the woman, who was hopefully Janet Bell, reminded.

Alex nodded her understanding and went around to the cargo door to prepare for entering the house. Since she didn't know what to expect outside blood, she pulled on shoe covers and gloves.

“You're Mrs. Bell?” Alex asked as she climbed the steps leading to the porch.

“Yes.” Janet dragged in a heavy breath. “Prepare yourself, Miss Jackson, this is not a pretty sight.”

Alex gifted her with a comforting smile. “Trust me, Mrs. Bell, it won't be anything I haven't seen before.”

Mrs. Bell managed a tight smile. “This way.”

Alex followed her inside. Air-conditioned. Good. But even the coolness of the interior couldn't disguise the smell of blood. Coppery, goose-bump inspiring.

No matter how often she walked into a scene and encountered the same bodily fluids, there was something about blood that made her shiver.

They passed through the living room and moved down the dimly lit hall. Mrs. Bell hesitated outside what was probably a bedroom door. “I apologize in advance for this immoral image. Please don't associate what you're about to see with me.” She moved her head solemnly from side to side. “This has nothing to do with me.”

Alex kept that smile of reassurance tacked in place. “Why don't you stay out here while I have a look? There's no reason for you to go in again.”

Mrs. Bell nodded jerkily.

Alex reached for the door but hesitated. As sorry as she felt for the lady there was one thing she had to know. “Mrs. Bell.” She turned to look at the poor woman. “Is there anything in here that merits calling the police? I wouldn't want to contaminate a crime scene.”

Her eyes rounded like saucers. “Oh, I couldn't have the police coming in and seeing this. I'll call them as soon as you've taken care of…” She motioned toward the still unopened door. “When you've done what you have to do, I'll call whomever I need to.” Her shoul
ders squared with determination. “I couldn't possibly bear the humiliation of having the media vultures get wind of this. If the police are called, the media, as you know, will come, too.”

This was not good. Evidently this woman understood that whatever was in this room required the participation of the police. Alex couldn't make her call, but, once she'd viewed the scene, she could damn sure call herself.

Alex opened the door and a blast of metallic odor—coagulated blood—hit her in the face. Her empty stomach roiled in protest. Not even the smell she hated could detract from the stark amazement at what she saw.

A man, fifty-five or sixty she guessed, was hanging from the ceiling fan in the middle of the room. There wasn't more than two inches of space between the tip of his toes and the worn blue fabric from the chair directly behind him that he had apparently stepped off.

At first glance it looked as if the man had committed suicide. Not only had he hung himself, he'd somehow managed to cut an artery in his neck. But then the other details came into focus. Like the careful padding around the rope's noose and the loose
way his hands were bound in front of him by the silk scarf. Both the noose's padding and the scarf were soaked in blood.

The straight razor with which he'd attempted to cut the noose had fallen onto the floor near an open magazine. At least he'd died happy it seemed, considering the sultry vixen so vividly exposed on the magazine's centerfold.

For a few seconds more Alex tried to figure out why he hadn't just kicked around until his toes found the chair? Then he certainly could have reached above his head and held on to the rope to take the pressure off his neck. Maybe cutting himself loose was another part of the excitement. She'd heard how some folks got off on the whole danger element of asphyxiation, but the knife was over the top. Most claimed that asphyxia made the orgasm better, out of this world even. Some sexual partners strangled each other to achieve the effect.

Personally Alex preferred her orgasms the old-fashioned way. Not that she was a prude or anything. She was happy to try new techniques, as long as they didn't involve a close encounter with death.

No matter how embarrassing the situation, Alex had no choice but to bring in the police. From what
she saw she'd stake her reputation that the guy's death was accidental, but she wasn't the official who could make that call.

She backed out of the room and closed the door, removed her gloves and turned to face the dead man's wife. “Mrs. Bell, I'm sorry but the police will have to be called first. This is an unattended death and to clean it up before they've had a look would be breaking the law.”

Horror laid claim to the woman's expression. “But I don't understand. He's done this a hundred times and lived to laugh about it. How could he be so stupid?”

The idea that she knew what her husband was up to wasn't as startling as the idea that his death didn't appear to be paramount just now.

“I'm sorry for your loss, Mrs. Bell. I'm sure you're suffering from shock. Losing a spouse is particularly shattering. Why don't you—”

“A spouse!” She looked even more mortified if that was possible. “He's not my husband. He's my brother! I can't have this getting out.”

Well, no wonder she was so pissed off. It was bad enough when a spouse dragged his or her better half into an ugly situation, but a brother should keep something like this to himself.

As the woman said, the dumb bastard had probably done this hundreds of times without a glitch. Most likely he'd gotten a little too confident about his skill at escaping death. Maybe he'd added the knife to ensure the same rush. Like a drug addict, he may have wanted to add another layer of danger.

“I tell you what,” Alex heard herself say, “you sit with me in the living room and I'll call a detective friend of mine. He'll come over without calling it in right away.” The media vultures, as Janet called them, kept their ears peeled on all police frequencies. If the event were called in, the media would come.

“Thank you so much, Miss Jackson.”

Alex patted the woman's arm. “Not a problem.”

Why the hell did men not think about the ramifications of their actions before they went totally stupid? And who usually ended up cleaning up the mess and facing the music afterward? Women.

Thank God she'd stayed single. Thank God her mother hadn't had any other children, she added as an afterthought.

She didn't have to worry about some guy doing this to her.

Alex entered the number for Patton's mobile. He
didn't exactly owe her a favor but he would come if she asked.

She realized something about her interaction with the male species. She liked men a lot. A whole lot. But her favorite interactions with men were the ones that resulted in friendship, no matter how they'd started out. Look at her friend Cody at the morgue. They'd had a great physical thing going for a while and stayed friends. That was good. Even Henson. A pang of regret she couldn't totally dismiss sliced through her. He had made a difference in her life, had an impact. But anything more than the few dates they'd shared had been beyond what she wanted.

What was so wrong with that? Did that make her damaged somehow?

The way she saw it, a woman didn't have to stick with the same guy or marry anyone to be happy over the long haul. She had lots of companions. Just not one who lived in her house or told her what to do.

That last thought prompted an image of Austin Blake. He was exactly the type who liked to be the boss, who liked the power of having a woman answer to him.

Not her type at all.

Men like Blake were good for one thing only: an all-nighter—just once. Lots of hot, steamy sex for
however many hours he could hold out and then walk away. No strings, no regrets.

Unless, of course, he proved to be a killer as well as handsome.

If Blake killed her friend, he was definitely going to regret it. He might not know it yet, since he thought he owned the world. But he would know. Very soon.

 

Alex dropped by her house after waiting with Janet Bell until Detective Patton had arrived. She had promised to return for cleanup the moment the police released the scene.

She probably should have gone back to the office but she felt the need to shower and change. No doubt Janet had felt the same upon walking in to find her brother hanging from the ceiling fan.

While they'd waited for Patton to arrive, Janet had told Alex about how she checked on her brother regularly. He'd never married and she worried that his sex fetishes had likely held him back. Alex didn't comment. She'd bet the same. In her experience guys who needed those kinds of extreme measures to get off were never satisfied with normal physical intimacies.

Alex shuddered as she peeled off her clothes. If she were a shrink she'd want to delve into the guy's past
to find out what had caused him to feel the need for a near-death experience every time he ejaculated. But she wasn't a shrink. She did, however, feel sorry for the guy's sister.

She stood very still for a moment. He was just like the other victims she'd encountered lately…alone. If his sister hadn't checked up on him, how long would it have been before anyone missed him?

Did choosing to live alone mean she'd end up that way? Discovered dead in the bathtub or in bed by some friend or neighbor?

She suddenly wondered who had discovered Henson? Had he lain dead or dying in his car for hours before anyone noticed?

Why was it that being alone suddenly felt so lonesome?

Alex's cell rang and she jerked at the unexpected sound. She turned on the shower so the water would warm up, then grabbed her phone.

“Alex Jackson.”

“We have a problem, Alex Jackson.”

Her free hand struggling with the clasp of her bra, Alex stilled. She didn't recognize the voice but that wasn't what sent the chill through her. It was the innately cruel tone that instantly made her under
stand this was not a former customer calling to complain.

“Who is this?” She reached for a robe, abruptly feeling exposed.

“A friend of Charlie Crane's.”

She held the phone back from her ear to see if a number showed on the caller ID display. Too late. The only thing it showed right now was
talk.

Resting the phone against her ear once more, she cautiously resumed the conversation. “I'm afraid you'll need to call Detective Jimmy Patton of Miami Beach PD or the morgue for any information regarding the body of your late friend.”

Silence.

Alex licked her lips and held her breath just to make sure he didn't pick up on any unsteadiness in her.

“It's not the body I'm looking for, Miss Jackson. I think you know that.”

She initiated a long, slow breath before responding. “Any personal effects left behind can be obtained from—”

“Miss Jackson, let's not play games.”

“What do you want?” she demanded, allowing him to hear the annoyance that flared. His irritating monotone was getting on her nerves. Who the hell
was this jerk? Obviously someone who wanted the lens. Maybe one of Blake's cronies?

“You have something that belonged to Mr. Crane,” he said with total confidence. “I must have it.”

“Look, buddy”—no way was she admitting a damned thing—“I don't know what the hell you're talking about and I'm just about sick of you guys throwing your weight around.”

“Ah. You've met Mr. Blake, I presume.”

Well, duh. “I've made his acquaintance.”

“Watch your back with Mr. Blake, Miss Jackson. He's a very dangerous man. You wouldn't like him if you knew all the facts.”