Sympathy For The Devil (18 page)

Then
she thought about the next thing she had to do, which was explain to Adam why she was dropping his case. She had, quite literally, slept with the enemy. And if she was being honest, she didn’t think he was a killer. Clearly she was the wrong person to be doing this—she’d have to return his money, find a gentle way of explaining it that would probably leave him hating her and straining things with Dani.

After that...after that, she didn’t know. Whether she’d see Archer again or not. Maybe she could continue to investigate on her own. Even if he wasn’t the killer,
someone
had murdered Walker, and Chelsea before her. Someone who had never been caught, who the police likely weren’t even looking at since they were so focused on Devin. She could continue poking around, to see what came of it.

“You keep following me, you come around my house again, and I won’t be so gentle next time.”

She wasn’t entirely certain anymore if she
did
want gentle.

She jogged down a different path than usual, though eventually found her way heading south, away from the downtown and into the fields. Stirling Falls was waking and she spotted another pair of women jogging in the distance. The sky remained cloudy, the temperature cooler than it had been, thankfully. Clouds seemed to press down on her, ready to burst, and the smell of fresh rain clung to the air.

Just as the drizzle started, she ducked into the woods, following a well-worn path. Rain battered the leaves overhead, the odd drop finding its way down to strike the top of her head. A good soaking would help the lands, though—too many fields had gone yellow, weak grass drying.

The path wound through the underbrush and then the trees broke where the creek ran, leading to a bridge. The water level had risen already, creeping up the banks. Tash picked up her speed and raced for the bridge, bracing as she left the safety of the trees. Cold rainwater slicked her hair, rolling down her neck and into her tank top.

She tried to focus ahead as she crossed the bridge, eyes on the trees where she’d find shelter again, but movement snagged her attention. On a whim she glanced to her right as she passed over the creek.

Then her steps stopped.

Something was moving on the water, floating west along the creek. Rain beat against slick plastic and the human-shaped, wrapped item bobbed through the rushing water.

Her heart raced and for a moment she simply stared, frozen in place. It couldn’t be—couldn’t. She’d had too much on her mind, hadn’t been sleeping, and maybe she was seeing things...

Tash blinked hard, shook her head, but there it remained. And if she kept standing there, it would disappear completely.

She doubled back over the bridge, ran along the bank, slipping in mud and loose rocks as she fumbled with her cell phone. Immediately she dialed 911, though the call tripped up, taking a moment to connect with the weak signal.

The plastic-wrapped body was just six feet away now.

“911, do you need police or an ambulance?” said the woman on the other line.

“Both!” Tash barked. “I’m at Hastings Creek, southwest of Stirling Falls, and there’s a body in the water. Get Deputy Chief Perry on the line
now
.” She trudged into the water while she was briefly put on hold. Surely there was proper procedure to retrieve the body, but the longer it was in the water, the more trace evidence would be lost—she knew
that
much.

“You better not be joking,” Perry growled on the line.

“The GPS is on my phone, get your asses down here
now
.” She pinched the phone between her ear and her shoulder as she waded into the water. The creek had gone icy, creeping up her thighs. “I was out for a jog, dragging her out of the water now.”

“Do
not
touch anything—”

“Then get the hell down here—” Her phone slipped plunging in the water.

Tash let out a string of expletives as it disappeared into the rushing creek. At the moment, there was no sense looking—the thing was probably too badly damaged anyway. Instead she reached out, blinking past the water rolling in her eyes, and got a hold of the plastic edges near the woman’s head. There was no chance she was still alive, so Tash didn’t even bother checking—both Chelsea and Walker had been killed before going in the water. She grasped the plastic with both hands and hauled the body as she stepped backwards. Stones rocked beneath her sneakers and she fought against the current. Twice she slipped, nearly submerging her shorts entirely, though they were already nearly soaked from the rain. Eventually she stepped on solid ground, mud sliding her under feet. She dragged the body onto the bank, out of danger of slipping back into the creek.

She stood straight, her back aching, heart hammering almost painfully in her chest, and stared down. Though the victim’s face was covered with plastic, her hair spilled out, dark with water and mud. Nothing particularly identifiable from this vantage.

Nosy she may be, and an occasional lawbreaker, but Tash wasn’t about to mess with an obvious crime scene. She stepped back farther from the creek, found a spot under the protection of trees, and sat to wait for the cops to arrive.

****

Keisha tucked a warm, dry blanket around Natasha’s shoulders as she sat in the back of an ambulance. A paramedic bandaged up an entirely unimportant pair of scratches on her left leg that must’ve happened while she was in the water. She’d argued but then with all the emergency personnel milling about, he had some time to clean up the wound and it wasn’t like he could do anything about the dead girl at the moment.

He finished pressing down the last of the bandages and set about putting his supplies away. Tash wiggled off the end of the vehicle, holding the blanket tight around her, and stood next to Keish, who looked over the unfolding scene.

“Of course you of all people would find the body,” her cousin said.

“I wasn’t looking.”

“Still.”

Briefly Tash’s gaze flitted over the water in the distance beyond the trees. “Any sign of my phone?”

“Not in this current.”

At least she had everything backed up on her cloud drive. If the phone did turn up, she hoped it was damaged enough nothing could be retrieved from it. Her personal data ending up with just anyone made her uncomfortable. Instead of worrying about it, she returned her attention to the crime scene.

The police had peeled back the plastic and cameras snapped, lights flashing as they documented every part of the process. The rain hadn’t abated, and they’d set up a large tent over the scene. She couldn’t see much past the police moving about.

Leo walked over, notebook in hand. His hair was plastered down, water dripping in his eyes and down his raincoat even after he stepped into the shelter of the trees. “You’ll have to make a formal statement at the station but I want to get what you remember now.”

There wasn’t much
to
remember. “I didn’t see anything exciting,” Tash said. “I was out for a run, saw the body, ran in the creek, and dialed 911.”

“You’re
sure
you didn’t touch anything else?”

Tash rolled her eyes. “You think I unwrapped the body, did my own autopsy, and then put it together again like sneaking a present under the Christmas trees? Seriously, Leo?”

He shrugged. “I gotta ask.”

And she knew that, but it was insulting nonetheless. “No, I didn’t touch anything.”

“See anything else? Any other people?”

Just the two joggers, which she described, though that was well before she got to the creek and they’d been in the opposite direction from where the current flowed.

“Do you know who she is yet?” Tash asked. She had, after all, actually
assisted
on this case more than once—the least they could do was give her some info.

“No ID but this one is partially dressed.”

“Can I see?”

He hesitated and then relented, waving her over as he turned back to the scene.

She kept the blanket up around her neck and hanging down her shoulders to her waist, shivering against the chill the water brought. Her wet hair clung to her head and neck. Leo brought her just to the edge of the scene, not far enough to disturb anyone but able to glimpse between the officers working. The plastic was parted, exposing the victim’s face, chest, and lower torso. Clear stab wounds covered her stomach though the creek had washed away the blood. Rather than mostly naked like the others, she wore a pink half shirt that nearly bared her braless breasts.

Tash’s eyes narrowed, sweeping up to study the woman’s lifeless face, her blonde hair.

Oh God.

“I need to go to the police station to make a formal statement,” she said.

“Yeah, I told you that already,” Leo said.

“No, I mean I
really
need to go.”
Shit, shit, shit, shit.
“Because I recognize her and I was probably among the last people to see her before she was murdered.”

Chapter Eighteen

The police drove her home long enough for her to change into dry clothes. An officer waited just inside her apartment, and Tash resented it. She wasn’t the criminal here, she was a witness coming forward. But soon they’d be scrutinizing her even more when it came to explaining what she knew.

Changed and far more comfortable, she headed back out and to the police station, where she waited in an interrogation room until Perry arrived.

He sat calmly across from her, back rigid and eyes hard. His mustache twitched. “Explain.”

Tash took a deep breath and launched into her explanation of being at The Box on Wednesday night. She didn’t go into great detail about
why
she was there, but then a private investigator who trailed cheating spouses probably seemed to have very good reason to be at a sex club.

“And the victim was there Wednesday night?” he said.

“Yes. I saw her between eleven-thirty and midnight, I’d say. Not afterward. She was wearing that shirt.”

Since Perry wasn’t taking notes, she guessed others watched her through the two-way glass, recording what she said.

“Did she speak to you?” he asked.

“No.”

“Did you see her speak to anyone else?”

She hesitated. Couldn’t help it—she
knew
how this would sound...

“Whitaker,” he said sharply.

She let out a breath and said his name in a rush. “Devin Archer.”

Perry leaned back and his expression said it all—he’d already proclaimed the man guilty.

“She came onto him at the bar but he turned her away, and that was it,” Tash said quickly. “He was there until after one and went straight home—I followed him.”

“You were following Archer.”

And now she had to finally explain herself. “Adam Cooper—”

“Of course,” Perry grumbled, leaning forward and folding his arms on the table between them. “Of course.”

“He hired me to tail Archer and that’s what I’ve been doing. He went straight home,
alone
, Wednesday night.”

“And you sat on his house all night?”

“Well...”
Shit
. “No. I went home.”

“So he could’ve gone back out.”

“Yeah, but it’s like thirty-forty minutes away. Why would he drive all the way back just to leave again?”

“To gather supplies? To lose his tail?”

She was about to point out that Archer didn’t know she was following him that night, but maybe he did. Maybe he’d always known. “But things wind down at the club late at night—check with the staff there,
someone
would’ve seen him reenter. There’s a bouncer at the door.”

“Maybe he waited in the parking lot. Offered her a ride, suggested they go back to her place.”

This was just spinning far too out of control. She grasped at anything she could think of, coming up short with a way to prove his innocence other than that she believed him. “He didn’t do this.”

“The body was wrapped in plastic again. Would he have access to that?”

She scowled at the cop. “He’s renovating his house—you know damn well that he does.”

“And the plastic had flecks of dried paint on it.”

Her stomach churned. “Why don’t you just head to the hardware store and arrest everyone painting their homes?”

Perry leaned forward, shaking his finger at her. “You listen to me here, Whitaker. You watch that goddamn smart mouth of yours before I start thinking you’re an accomplice. I know you don’t want to think that you’re so stupid this guy’s been killing right under your nose, but another woman’s dead and I don’t give a damn about your pride. Now, you’ve been following Archer: tell me where he’s been since Wednesday. Break down a timeline for me.”

She went over what she could remember, but most of the details she’d kept on her now-missing phone. But there were too many gaps for Perry’s liking, she knew—she couldn’t account for Archer’s whereabouts for most of Thursday while she was helping out in Hastings, and there was the space of two hours on Friday when she’d been with Dani.

The more he pushed her to repeat herself, especially regarding Archer’s whereabouts during the day, the more she started to sense there was something he looked for that he
hadn’t
told her. She listened, tried to read between the lines and see what he was getting at.

At last it occurred to her, the pieces sliding into place. “Why don’t you tell me where you
think
he’s been?” she snapped. “The more you keep from me, the less I know what I should be looking for.”

Perry studied her, drumming his long, spindly fingers on the tabletop. “Walker was killed the night she was grabbed. Preliminary reports are suggesting the new victim was killed eight to twelve hours ago.”

And she was wearing the same outfit Tash had seen on Wednesday. “You think she was held for two days?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she wore the same outfit twice. We still don’t know who she is, as no one matching her description has turned up missing. So we’re left with where she might’ve been—where Archer goes that isn’t his house, assuming she isn’t being kept in his basement.”