Particles of Obsession (A Shadow of Death Romantic Suspense Book 2) (12 page)

The news switches back to the weather.

I get up. I pull out a few wadded dollar bills I had leftover in my jeans. As I leave the diner, I can feel eyes on me, but nobody makes a move. Somebody will have called the police. I need to get as far away from this place as possible.

Yet I have nowhere to go. I only had one place to go last time and now it’s an active crime scene.

Or is it?

We have thoroughly gone through Dr. Zimmer’s house. We’ve gone through every inch.

Macmillan was going out of his way to say that the house was done being investigated and he normally doesn’t talk during announcements.

Did he want me to go to John’s house?

He knew I wanted to investigate this on my own.

I might as well check it out. I need to get out of the public eye.

* * *

T
here’s
nobody around John’s house except a teenager walking a poodle, a Great Dane, and a Yorkshire terrier. I can be fairly certain she’s not involved with the police because she can’t spy on John’s house for more than a few seconds before the leashes get tangled up or the Yorkshire terrier begins growling at the poodle.

I find his key under the lamp with the rock base, where it’s always been. I wonder if the forensic team had thought to look outside the house—if they found the broken glass from when I broke into his house through the basement window, or if it even matters. Probably not.

I unlock the front door and step in. After closing the door, I find relief in being somewhere familiar. After being held captive and wandering around with no place to go, it’s nice to be in a place where I had felt safe before.

As I’m almost to his living room, Macmillan steps out from the kitchen.

“Jesus,” I mutter.
“What the fuck. Did you know I’d show up here?”

“I was hoping you would.”

“So, you were setting a trap. That’s as clever as I’ve ever seen you.”

He frowns. “No, it wasn’t a trap. I figured you’d want to investigate and I thought I’d help you. I made sure that nobody else would come here today. I’m glad you got the message. I wasn’t sure what you were going to do if you never saw the announcement.”

“I would probably still have come here at some point as a last resort,” I say. “Aren’t you mad at me? I stole your handcuff key.”

“Yeah, I realized once I got into the elevator,” he says. “But, I figured…I think you’re innocent, and if you can save an innocent life, that’s all good. But if you get caught, I’m going to say I wasn’t involved at all.”

“Fair enough,” I say. “Did forensics find anything interesting other than perfume bottles filled with blood?”

“Well, it is your blood and there is evidence that you slept here, so I guess you were telling the truth before,” he says.

“That’s not interesting to me,” I say. “I know that I was telling the truth.”

“While I was waiting for you to show up, I found something that could be a hint or could be nothing.”

He leads me to the living room. The sticky notes and index cards are all there, but as he indicates the lower left corner, I notice all of the index cards are neon yellow.

I pick off the index cards—four of them in all.

C
ard 1
:

Strong/athletic—on a Tuskmirth sports team? Most likely: basketball, swimming, track and field, cross country, softball, gymnastics.

C
ard 2
:

Who was in my classes that was also in athletics? How do I find out? Yearbook.

Basketball: Jodi Pugh, Jennifer Frost, Camila Gómez, Tara Hindley, Maiko Kimura

Swimming: Keisha Bonner, Rachel Terrios

Track and field/Cross country: Jacqueline McLoughlin, Lakshmi Misra, Kate Millington, Samantha Campbell, Ramira Cuevas

Softball: Sarah Sanders

Gymnastics: Anna Hartley, Jillian Irving

C
ard 3
:

Eliminate suspects—who seemed mentally unstable?

Abusive parents: Jodi, Jacqueline, Anna, and Sarah (maybe? Made a remark about past violence, but didn’t elaborate).

Drug abuse: Rachel

PTSD: Keisha served in military—didn’t exhibit any symptoms, but possible

Maiko—possibly raped?

C
ard 4
:

Who was attached to me? I worked with Jodi, Camila, Tara, Rachel, Kate, Ramira, and Anna all one-on-one multiple times. Worked with Jodi, Camila, and Ramira the most.

I don’t think Jacqueline or Keisha liked me at all. Anna dropped out before her last year. Rachel and Sarah failed one of my classes.

“
W
ow
,” Macmillan says, reading the notes over my shoulder. “These students are messed-up. You’re certain she’s female?”

“Well, she’s either female or it’s a man with a feminine voice who likes to wear Victorian mourning dresses,” I say.

He shrugs. “It’s possible.”

“He did good work here,” I say. “Do you think you can look up these people’s driver’s license? The killer was a couple inches shorter than me. I’m 5’5”, so she would be around 5’3”.”

“Sure,” he says. “But you know people lie about their height on their driver licenses all of the time, right?”

“I didn’t lie on mine.”

“I said I was 5’11.” I’m 5’9” on my toes,” he says. “But, yeah, I’m sure we can eliminate some of these people. I’m sure most of the basketball players are tall.”

“I need you to do something else, but this favor needs to stay as hidden as possible,” I say.

“What?”

“There’s this man with pale blond hair, a stocky guy…he had helped Andre get information in the past. I feel like he could help us locate John. I was a bit preoccupied the last time I saw him, but I’ve been thinking about it and he’s our best bet. He has resources everywhere.”

“The police also have plenty of resources,” he says.

“Well, this guy and his friends don’t always do things legally, so—”

“Got it,” Macmillan says, cutting me off. “I’ll look for a big blond guy that was associated with Andre. I’m sure Stolz has the information somewhere since she was his contact. So, uh, how are you dealing with that? I know you two used to be close, and you must have gotten reacquainted with him if he was involved—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I interrupt. “We need to find John. That should be our only focus right now. If we can find the killer, there’s a bigger chance we can find out where she is or where she’s heading.”

He nods. “I’ll call here once I have any information.”

“Thank you, James.”

As he leaves, I remember how I had always assumed he was an extremely moral person that wouldn’t ever break the rules. But maybe he has a higher sense of morality over his authoritarian personality. Maybe under extraordinary circumstances, we find out what’s in the heart of every man.

* * *

I
pull
my hoodie up as I walk into the hospital. I keep my eyes down in case any police officers are wandering the halls, but I remain vigilant. Macmillan said that the blond man is most likely Henryk Kamiński, who doesn’t live in the place he listed as a permanent residence. His grandmother was currently in Tuskmirth hospital, though. Macmillan also said five of the students that John had listed were shorter than me: Kate Millington, Rachel Terrios, Maiko Kimura, Anna Hartley, and Jillian Irving.

I stop at the desk in the main lobby where a woman with short black hair perks up as I approach her.

“Hi,” I say, leaning against the desk. She eyes my hood, so I pull it off. “I’m looking for Berta Kamiński.”

“Are you a member of her family?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Can I see some ID then?” she asks.

This is when it would have been nice to have a detective with me. “I don’t have it on me.”

“Maybe you should call her then,” she says, “and she can tell us who you are.”

“Uh, I’ll just wait for my mother to come around,” I say, stepping away from the desk.

As I pass by a blond man, I realize I recognize him. I double back, grabbing his arm.

“You’re Andre’s contact,” I say. “Henryk.”

“Yes.” He raises his eyebrow. “Last time I saw you, you were trying to hurt me. Did you actually put someone in the hospital? If it’s your sister’s killer, it’s not my fault if you got in trouble for hurting him. All I do is give information.”

I shake my head. “No. I didn’t hurt—or, I didn’t kill anybody. Listen. You’re good at tracking people down, aren’t you?”

“Me? No. Half the time, I can’t find my grandmother. I’m good at extracting information,” he says. “I know a group of people who are pros at tracking people down though. It costs a lot of money to hire them. More than someone like you can afford. And if I’m getting involved, it costs even more.”

“Can you tell me where to find this group?”

“No,” he says. “I don’t earn a living by giving away information. All right. Since I’m feeling generous, tell me who you want to find, I’ll reach out to them, and we can figure out a payment plan.”

“I’m not going to get involved with loan sharks,” I say, though I know that I will to find John.

“I won’t let anyone hurt you,” he says. “The payments will work through me. We can say that I’m doing it for Andre. He was a good man and if he was going to get murdered—which, over time, that likelihood was increasing—it should have been in a blaze of glory. Since he seemed fond of you, I’m willing to be a bit more lenient. Who do you need to find? I’m assuming if you’re reaching out to me, then it’s an emergency, so I wouldn’t drag your feet.”

“His name is Dr. John Zimmer,” I say. “He’s been taken by a woman. I have a few names of who the woman could be, but I can’t be sure which one it is…or if it’s any of them.”

“Names?”

“Kate Millington, Rachel Terrios, Maiko Kimura, Anna Hartley, and Jillian Irving,” I recite.

He pulls out a cell phone and types into it. I hear the swooshing sound of a text being sent.

“Can I get your number, so I can text you when I have some information?”

“I’ll just wait with you,” I say. “I really need this info as soon as possible…and I don’t have a cellphone on me.”

He rolls his eyes. “Let me guess—the police are trying to track you down?”

I shrug. “Maybe.”

“Well, then, you’re going to have to follow me to my grandma’s room. She tried to start a fight with a bartender and ended up cutting herself on a bottle that she broke.”

A few weeks ago, a story like this would have surprised me—I may have even questioned its legitimacy, but now it seems like just another shattered piece in the world.

* * *

H
enryk Kamiński
—who still hasn’t introduced himself to me and he doesn’t seem to want to—keeps glaring at my hand as I keep thrumming my nails against my thigh. He and his grandma have been talking in some other language—Polish, I think—but I don’t care because I can’t take my eyes off his cell phone. It’s vibrated a few times, but he’s reassured me that it’s not the people he texted for me.

“So, Miss Solano,” Henryk’s grandmother says. “Henryk keeps telling me that you two aren’t dating, but you have to be reaching an age when it’s hard to settle down.”