Random Acts of Murder: A Holly Anna Paladin Mystery, Book 1 (Holly Anna Paladin Mysteries) (26 page)

He didn’t say anything, just pulled me into a hug.
Some of my tension melted, but I had the pressing urge to cry.

“I’ll give you guys a minute,” Jamie started.

I stepped back, keeping one hand on Chase’s arm and drawing on every last ounce of my strength. “We don’t have a minute, guys. We’ve only got a little bit of time to figure this out.”

Chase’s jaw hardened again.
“No one has seen this guy, this Caligula, so that makes it hard to identify him. Just knowing Rex wrote a paper on him isn’t enough evidence to do anything with.”

“So we find something that
is,” I said. “He framed Orion somehow.”

“Maybe Orion will sell him out,” Jamie offered.

“My guess is that Orion has a really big secret he’s hiding, and Rex knows it and is blackmailing him,” I said, pacing as I tried to sort my thoughts.

“I can go talk to Orion,” Chase said. “I’ll see what I can get out of him. You two keep digging around online.”

I nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

Chase kissed my cheek. “And stay away from T.J.”

He hurried toward the door. When he opened it, a figure was already standing there.

CHAPTER 43

“T.J.,” Chase started.
He moved in front of the doorway, blocking it. “What are you doing here?”

“Did you forget that all the police
sedans are equipped with GPS? It let me track down exactly where you were. I figured you’d be with your little girlfriend.”

Dread pooled in my stomach. I stood, partly wanting to back away and partly wanting to show T.J. he couldn’t bully me.

I chose to stand up for myself. I charged toward the door, unwilling to let Chase take the fall for this. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then why have you been hiding the truth?” T.J. asked.

“T.J., you have no right to be here.” Chase started to push himself in front of me, but I stood my ground.

T.J. continued to stare at me. “You’re blinded by love, my friend. I think Orion had an accomplice this whole time. Holly was his ‘inside woman’ who told him
about the families’ schedules, who helped him get in and out.”

“W
hy would I do that?” My voice somehow remained even.

“You tell me.”
T.J. gave me the death glare.

“I’d
have no reason to do that. It would gain me nothing.”

T.J. didn’t back down.
“Maybe he coerced you into helping.”

“Again, he has nothing to hold over me.”
I held his gaze.

“No one’s that squeaky clean,” T.J. insisted.

“Back off.” Chase shoved him away.

I could see the fire in
Chase’s eyes, and I knew I had to turn this around before things got out of control. “I do think you got the wrong guy, though.”

T.J.’s attention snapped toward me. “What are you talking about?”

“I think the real perpetrator was right in front of your eyes the whole time. Your former partner. Rex Harrison.”

He let out a short, hard laugh. “You think Rex is behind these murders? You’re crazier than I thought.”

“He wrote about Caligula in high school,” Jamie added.

“A high school paper doesn’t prove anything,” T.J. insisted. “Rex would never be behind something like this.”

“Not even if his campaign was in trouble? If he needed more money?” I asked.

“He got Orion to invest in him.”

Another thought struck. “What if his brother left this formula for Cena and Rex decided to finish out his work?”

T.J.
flinched.

“There’s one other thing I didn’t have a chance to tell everyone,”
Jamie said. “Apparently, Rex consistently takes forty-five minutes to himself at each of his campaign events. People always said it was to help him find his center, some kind of New Age–sounding mumbo jumbo. But, based on where his events took place on the nights of the crimes, that would be just enough time for him to slip away and do the deeds.”

“
Conjecture. It still doesn’t prove anything,” T.J. insisted.

“Do me a favor.” I looked at Chase and T.J. “Talk to Orion. See what he’s hiding. There’s got to be a reason he’s hiding it. I think he made a deal with Rex
and then Rex sold him out. Just see what you can find out.”

T.J. shook his head and backed up. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to go talk to the chief right now. All of you will b
e in jail by the end of the day. Mark my words. Even you, Chase.”

***

“You should go,” I told Chase. “Disengage yourself from all of this. I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“But you want to get me in trouble?” Jamie called in the distance.

I ignored her for a second. I’d have time to talk to her in a moment.

“I’m not leaving you, Holly,” Chase said.

“You just got this job. You just got back on your feet. I’m not going to take that from you.”

“How about me?”
Jamie quipped.

“Jamie, you’ll be applauded for your journalistic skills and determination. That’s the difference between a journalist and
a detective. Detectives have more rules to abide by.”

“True that.” She leaned back in the chair and kept tapping away at the computer.

Chase squeezed my arm. “Holly, I appreciate your concern, but I’m a big boy. I’ll make my own choices. Right now, I’m staying with you.”

I smiled as relief filled me. Spontaneously, I leaned forward and planted a kiss on his cheek.

“Thank you, Chase.” I walked back over to Jamie. “Jamie, that day at the Serpentine Wall, you told me that Rex had a brother who committed suicide, right?”

She nodded.

“What kind of a career did he work again?”

“He was an engineer of some sort. Why?”

“Can you find out what kind?” I asked.

“Of course.” She typed something.
“Why are you asking?”

“Because if Rex is behind all of this, how did he get his hands on the drug?
Did he confiscate it from someone he arrested? Did he stumble upon it somehow?” I shook my head. “I’m not sure.”

“You guys, check this out.” Jamie turned the computer toward us. “His brother was a chemical engineer. Rex just happened to be working in
Cincinnati when the suicide happened.”

“What are you getting at?”
Chase asked.

“Well, his brother lived in
Cincinnati. What are the chances that Rex covered up something?” Jamie shrugged. “I also just hacked into the police records—”

Chase ran a hand through his hair and closed his eyes. “Please don’t say stuff like that in front of me.”

“It turns out his brother had a gambling problem.”

“That’s not a crime,” I pointed out.

“No, but it is when you’re engaged in illegal gambling operations. Apparently, Rex wasn’t able to wipe everything off of his brother’s records. But it wouldn’t surprise me if there was something he was covering up.”

***

“I’ve got to go take some pain medicine,” I told Chase and Jamie. “I’m feeling a little sore.”

Neither of them questioned me when I left the room. But I
had to execute my next move quickly. Quietly, I grabbed my keys and I walked out the back door.

I remembered the talk I’d heard Rex give at the
youth center. He’d mentioned something about his brother owning a big house with lots of land.

It sounded like the perfect place for some secret operations.

Someone had to find evidence to nail Rex.

Since I was the one with mere months to live,
I made the most sense. I couldn’t stand the thought of anything happening to either Chase or Jamie. I knew they’d try to talk me out of this or insist that they come also. I couldn’t let that happen.

What I was about to do was illegal and iffy. I wouldn’t let them get any more mixed up in this.

I rushed to my car, cranked the engine, and pulled out of the driveway. My heart raced as I sped down the road.

I had the address of Rex’s brother on my phone. I looked down at it now. It wasn’t too far away. Thank goodness.
It was a long shot, but this was the only plan of action that made any sense to me.

I had to face the fact that I could be arrested soon. Because of my actions, Chase could lose his job. I didn’t have any time to lose.

It only took forty minutes to pull up to the house. There were no cars there. I pulled around to the back of the building, just in case.

My limbs trembled as I stepped out. I checked the doors. They were all locked. But that wasn’t a problem.

I reached into my purse and pulled out my lock picking kit.

It was too bad going to jail wasn’t on my bucket list. I
’d be well on my way, since I now had a long list of offenses to my name.

The
door clicked. I’d done it. I quickly put away my kit and turned the knob. “Here goes nothing,” I muttered to myself.

I stepped inside the house. It
was all dark and all quiet. I’d seen the low windows outside the house and knew there was a basement here. That was the first place I’d check; it made the most sense.

I
tiptoed through the kitchen, holding my breath in the dead silence of the space. I spotted a doorway and pulled it open.

Just a closet.

My heart still pounded in my ears. I tried another doorway.

It
led to a staircase.

Bingo!

Slowly, carefully, I lowered myself onto the first step.

There was so much that could
go wrong here. Fear coursed through me. I had to just get this over with. Do what I needed to do and get out of here.

When
I reached the bottom of the stairs, I turned on the light.

What I saw blew my mind.

Before me were tables with various kinds of lab equipment. There were flasks and burners and beakers. In the corner, boxes were stacked high.

Moving quickly, I
hurried across the room and peeked inside. I pulled out a bag filled with a white powder. Cena.

My theory was right.

Rex’s brother had come up with a formula for these wildly popular synthetic drugs. He’d sold them to pay off his gambling debts, an addiction he never got over.

The man probably
had
killed himself, but I wondered if it was a planned action or if he’d overdosed. I bet Rex was first on the scene. He’d discovered his brother’s body; he’d discovered his brother’s creations.

And he’d seen the opportunity to make money. A lot of money. Enough money to
eventually fund his campaign.

He’
d covered up the crime, reported his brother’s death as a suicide, and then set to work on his own evil plan. This had been years in the making.

I pulled out my phone and snapped some pictures—just the evidence we needed—and emailed them to Chase and Jamie. This was the proof we’d been looking for.

“I can’t believe you’d stoop this low,” someone said behind me.

I turned and saw T.J.,
his gun raised and pointed at me.

I gasped, wondering if I’d
had the wrong bad guy all along.

CHAPTER 44

“What do you think you’re doing?” T.J. demanded.

“I’m discovering the evidence you failed to find.” I looked behind him, swallowing hard. He blocked my only way out of the room.

T.J. glanced around the room. “This is quite the operation.”

“I would have never guessed you were behind it,” I muttered. “I knew you were a jerk, but I didn’t think you were a criminal.”

He
tightened his face in surprise. “You think I’m the guilty one?”

“I know you bought a mop and bucket.”

He squinted. “I was confirming that you’d purchased them at that very store.”

“Why didn’t you tell Chase
, then?” I asked.

“Because I didn’t think I could trust him. I thought he could be working with you.”

I took another step back, still not totally believing his story. “But you’re here now. This is your headquarters, isn’t it?”

“
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never been here before in my life.”

“Why are you here now
, then? With your gun raised?” I asked. Just then, my cell phone vibrated in my purse. Had Chase and Jamie gotten my messages?

“Because I follow
ed you,” he snarled. “My gun is raised because I’m still not sure what side of the law you’re on. You just broke into someone’s house. Someone else’s house.”

“This is Rex’s brother’s house.”

Some of the arrogance left his face. “His brother is dead.”

“Exactly. This is Rex’s now. It’s also the focal point
of drug operations. Orion was just a cover-up. Rex is the real bad guy.”

He shook his head
, rebellion in his gaze, a refusal to see the truth. “I don’t believe that. Rex was a good cop.”

“Rex knows how to charm people,” I said.

T.J. still didn’t budge. “I’ve called in backup. They’ll be here soon to arrest you.”

“I think you’re both trespassing,” a new voice added.

My head jerked upward. Rex slowly, confidently made his way down the stairs, a gun in his hands.

T.J. turned toward
the sound, his weapon still aimed. “Rex.”

I held my breath, waiting to see how things would play out.

Rex, looking cool and unruffled, reached the bottom level and stared at me. “I underestimated you. I should have offed you while I had the chance.”

“Tell me this isn’t true, Rex,” T.J. pleaded.

I could see the truth washing over his features.

“There are people
trespassing on my property. I can’t have that happen,” Rex said. “I have the right to defend my property.”

“Is that right, Caligula?” I said, trying to keep him talking, trying to buy some time.

He smiled, and my bones suddenly felt brittle. I was looking at pure evil. This man didn’t seem to have a soul.

“No one sees Caligula and lives. No one,” he muttered, pacing the room.

“Tell me this isn’t true, Rex. Tell me you’re not behind all of this,” T.J. said.

He sighed.
“I’ll have to make sure your body isn’t found until after tomorrow’s election. Can’t have your brother getting the sympathy vote. Now, out to the woods. Both of you.”

“Rex, don’t do this,” T.J. urged. “I don’t want to take you down.”

“You won’t have to.” Rex suddenly pulled the trigger. Three times.

T.J. dropped to the ground.

I gasped in horror, disbelief filling me. Rex had just shot his friend. There was no doubt he’d do the same for me.

“Now, you
. Get outside. I was really hoping not to have to do that in here. It’s much harder to move the body.”

“
I’m going,” I mumbled. I started up the steps, my hands raised.

My mind raced. Visions of the future filled my head. Images of a future with Chase. Of a full, happy life.

Those pictures were followed by smiling portraits of all of the kids I’d helped so far in my career. All the families I still had to help. I had to fight, I realized.

Rex shoved me through the kitchen, to
ward the back door. My chances of escape were diminishing quickly.

“You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” Rex muttered.

“I just can’t believe you’re such a hypocrite. Preaching the evil of drugs while manufacturing them.”

“You know what’s not fair? Losing an election because you don’t have the funding. The rich can’t always win. It’s not fair for the rest of us.”

“You framed the one person who helped you with funding. Sounds like a dumb move on your part.”

“He had it coming. Orion
was so twisted he had no hope.”

“Let me guess
—you caught him doing something illegal, then held it over him as leverage.”

He snorted. “You’re a smart one, Holly Anna. Not entirely the optimist I’d hoped you’d be.”

I turned to face him, praying he’d see me as a person. “You’ll never get away with this.”

“Wrong. When I’m in office, I’ll have even more power to bury this whole thing.”

“You obviously don’t know my family that well. Besides, I already sent the evidence that implicates you to the media. You’re done, Rex. You’re never winning this election.”

The first real sign of emotion flashed across his face. Anger.

“Outside. Now!” He shoved me out the door.

“One more question,” I started, desperate to buy time. “How’d you know about the secret cubbyhole in my attic? You left the buckets and mops at my house and then stole them again.”

“Oh, that’s easy. When I left the buckets there, I installed a camera so I could see how you reacted. I also saw where you hid them, which worked out quite nicely, wouldn’t you say?”

“Why do I have a feeling you didn’t do any of that? You had your people do the work for you, didn’t you?”

“Only the minor stuff, like breaking and entering, switching out bath salts, shooting at you and framing that poor Frank Jenkins. There was only one person I could trust with the major tasks, and that was myself.”

We reached the woods. I tried to slow my steps, but he kept pushing me along. “
Your connection to the city and therefore the police station was Evan,” I muttered. “Who works for the mayor.”

He chuckled. “Very good. I got
Evan to schmooze with Katrina. She was starting to ask too many questions and needed a distraction. They started dating. He let her use his very nice car, gave her a necklace. Women can be bought, I don’t care what anyone says.”

I nearly stumbled over a root, but he pulled me back up by my hair. I yelped in pain, but tried to rein myself in. “Jamie couldn’t be bought. Sorry you were so wrong about her.”

“She is quite beautiful and also easy to charm. I wanted an inside scoop on you—for both underworld and political reasons.”

I was about to chide him for being so shallow. Before I could
, someone rushed from around the oak tree in front of us, tackling Rex. They both fell onto the ground.

Chase. It was Chase.

“You should have stayed out of this,” Rex muttered.

Chase
swung at Rex’s gun, trying to knock it out of his hands.

A bang ripped through the air
.

Pain
sliced into my shoulder.

And it was with complete clarity that I realized I didn’t want to die. From a gunshot wound or cancer.

I had way too much to fight for.

But just as the thought entered my mind—just as I saw Chase pin Rex to the ground—I blacked out.