Kansas City Cover-Up (8 page)

“You mean the flash drive?” She swung her light up to the cobwebs hanging like Spanish moss from the second-story catwalk and stair railings, and the triangular ceiling joists holding up most of the roof. “I’m not sure what we’re looking for. Hopefully, something here will tell us why the killer came in. Or better yet, who the killer is.”

Gabe nodded beside her. “So where do we start?”

Windows on both levels had been boarded up. Some of the glass was intact, some had been broken by vandals using them for target practice, some had receded from their desiccated putty and fallen from their frames to shatter into dusty bits of shine on the concrete floor. The weight of a giant iron hook and heavy chains hanging from a winch near the dockside doors had pulled support timbers from the roof and peeled open several holes in the corrugated metal overhead. The openings in the roof let in enough sunlight to reflect off the dust motes floating through the stale air, and cast the interior in dim shadows. Olivia swung her light around at ground level, the extra illumination transforming hulking blobs in the corners into piles of wood pallets and cube-shaped stacks of old boxes.

“We start closest to the door. If our perp came in here to hide, he’d be looking for the first spot he could find.” They went to the first pallet, where several rows of dust-shrouded cardboard boxes were stacked like bricks.

Gabe wiped off the top layer of dust to reveal the faded blue logo of Morton & Sons Tile. He lifted a box from the top to get a closer look, but the cardboard collapsed in his hands. He held it away from his body as sand and chips of broken tiles poured out onto the floor, sending a fresh plume of dust into the air that they both had to turn their eyes and noses from. Once the box was empty, he tossed it onto the pile of tile and grit. “Looks like old stock left over from when Morton & Sons went out of business. Age and moisture have turned the clay back to dust.”

“Gabe.” Olivia’s attention had already moved on to the next pallet. Although the second stack of tiles was as perfectly cube shaped as the first one, something was out of place. “Look at that. Everything else is symmetrical here. Why is there an extra box sitting on top?”

Reaching over the top of the stack beside her, Gabe touched his fingers to a depression there. “This looks like a sinkhole. The boxes underneath must be caving in.”

“Why?” she whispered, feeling that spark of anticipation again. She was on the verge of finding answers.

The urgency in Gabe’s voice meant he could sense it, too. “Because there’s an empty space beneath it.”

“Where that box used to be.” Retreating a step, Olivia ran her light over the stack again, stopping at a box three down from the top, about waist-high for her. “It’s backward. The logo doesn’t match up with the rest of the boxes in this stack.” An idea, just as clear as a crime scene marker, flashed through her head. “Hold this.”

After handing off the flashlight, she snapped a picture of the boxes with her phone. Then she hunched down to work her fingers into the seams between the boxes and pull the backward one out of the pile, as though removing a plank from a Jenga puzzle. Only, she was certain whatever she was about to find wasn’t any game.

She waited for a line of sandy grit to stop spilling through the seam in the bottom before turning the box around. “Look.”

Faint brown spots, five in the pattern of fingertips gripping the box to pull it from the stack, peeked out beneath the layers of dust.

“Is that blood?”

Olivia nodded and set the remnants of the box on top, snapping another photo. “I’ll take that to the lab for analysis.”

“So our killer who couldn’t get Dani’s blood off his hand pulled that box out. Why?”

“Your sink hole.” Olivia tugged the sleeves of her jacket and blouse up her arm and flexed her fingers at the opening. “If anything in the rodent family runs up my arm, I
will
be screaming, and I’ll have to shoot you if you tell anyone.”

Gabe moved behind her to shine the flashlight into the empty cavity. “Good to know you have a weakness, Detective. Your secret’s safe with me.”

Slowly, she thrust her hand into the void. Up to her wrist. Up to her elbow. She stretched her fingers, hoping she’d find anything except a clump of fur and a wormlike tail. “You’re sure it won’t show up on the front page of the
Journal?
Do you have any idea how many mice and creepy-crawly things three brothers can find and bring into the—”

The iron door slammed shut and Olivia yelped. She jerked her hand back as if she’d been bitten.

“Easy.” Gabe’s firm hand closed over her shoulder, steadying her as the light in the warehouse dimmed and he looked across to the doors. “I don’t think a rat did that. I wasn’t sure that wood was going to hold, anyway. Do you want me to find something sturdier to prop the door open with?”

“That’s okay. There’s still enough light in here.”

The warmth of Gabe’s hand remained on her shoulder as she reached inside the empty cavity again. But her startled heart rate didn’t seem to be slowing any as her fingertips brushed against stiff, nubby material. “I’ve got something.” She stretched half an inch farther and felt several hard, small items poke her through the dusty cloth. “If I could just reach... Got it.”

Olivia closed her fingertips around a bunch of long threads and pulled out the hidden treasure. The threads turned out to be the fringe on a long green scarf. A cloud of dust stung her eyes and made them water when it plopped into her hand. She coughed the irritation from her throat and set the wad of material on top of the boxes to unfold it. “Is this Dani’s?”

Gabe’s shoulder brushed against hers as he moved in beside her to shine the light on their newly discovered treasure. “She liked to wear scarves. And I know she had one on that night. But I couldn’t say for sure.”

Olivia tugged at the material, stiff with mold and damp clay, untying several knots. “There’s something tied up inside.”

The flashlight beam wavered. “Did you hear that?”

She hadn’t heard a thing beyond the rattle of whatever was inside the scarf clinking together. “Probably the building settling or some critter I don’t want to know about running up the stairs.” She blew a cloud of dust off the material and coughed again. “I need the light.”

Gabe’s focus was on their prize again. “Looks like more blood.”

“The killer probably wiped his hands on it before stashing it in its hiding place.” Olivia hesitated, glancing up at the grim shadows on Gabe’s expression. “Maybe you shouldn’t be here. I’m looking at things objectively, but it’s all personal for you, isn’t it?”

“I’m okay. Open it. I want to see what he took from her.”

After loosening the last knot, Olivia flipped back the material. The light glinted off the sparkle of diamond facets and polished gold.

Gabe swore a guttural curse. “That’s the ring I gave Dani.”

“I recognize it from the photo.” She pushed his hand away when he reached for the marquise solitaire. “I’m sorry. In case there’s any kind of print or DNA left on it.”

He shrugged off her sympathy. “What else is there?”

She took one more picture before pulling an ink pen from her pocket to scoot aside the other items that had been bundled up for six years. “Earrings and a watch. No sign of a billfold or ID.” His gasp of hope deflated along with her own. “And no flash drive. I suppose that would be too easy. Wait a sec.” Gripping the pen between her fingers, she stuck her arm back inside the opening, extending her reach. “I felt something else in there.”

“Olivia?” The wary suspicion in Gabe’s tone barely registered as her pen tapped against something hard.

With her cheek smooshed against the dusty boxes, she could barely hear him, anyway. “Maybe it’s just a broken tile. I can touch it, but I can’t grab it. Wait a minute. That’s metal on metal. What if that’s a gun? It could be the murder weapon.” This cold case was heating up. But not if she couldn’t retrieve the evidence. She pulled her hand back out. She slid the scarf to one side and lifted the box on top. “I’m going to have to dig it out.”

“Olivia!”

She looked up at his sharp tone. Looked beyond him to the front doors where the beam of the flashlight danced off a gray, swirling haze that grew thicker by the second. “What is that?”

“Smoke.”

Chapter Seven

A bright ball of flame bloomed at the base of the old timber beam beside the front door as though a giant matchstick had just been struck. The fire ebbed in its initial intensity, but the shower of sparks drifting through the smoke found purchase on the rotted wood. Each glowing ember ignited a tiny new fire of its own. In a matter of seconds, the flames branched out along the crosspieces above the door frame and climbed any available path toward the ceiling.

“We need to go,” Gabe urged.

Olivia wrapped up the scarf and its contents and zipped it inside her jacket. The more the fire consumed, the brighter it burned and the faster it seemed to spread. But she wasn’t going anywhere without that gun, if that was, indeed, what she suspected was hidden inside. She flipped the top box off the pallet and reached for the next one. “I need to retrieve everything in here.”

Gabe’s hand clamped over her arm, pulling her away. He thrust his arm inside the collapsing stack and pulled out the small caliber weapon along with a snowy cascade of dust and grit. “Ah, hell. Do you think this...?”

He didn’t need to finish that choked-off question. Yes. Chances were that was the gun that had killed his fiancée.

Olivia plucked the small semiautomatic from his hand and stuffed it into the back of her belt. With flames shooting up to the second story now, there wasn’t time to worry about trading compassion or compromising potential evidence. She grabbed the box with the bloody fingerprints and tucked it beneath her arm. “We need to go
now.
”

With a curt nod, Gabe fell into stride beside her and they ran to the iron doors. By the time they reached them, she’d dialed 9-1-1.

“This is Detective Olivia Watson. I’m reporting a structure fire at the old Morton & Sons Tile Works on—”

“Wait!” Gabe shot his arm out in front of her and stopped her from touching the iron door. He held his hand out about five inches from their only unlocked, unbarricaded exit before quickly snatching it back. Then he leaned forward and spit on the door. Even through the mask of smoke, she could hear the moisture sizzling on the hot iron surface and they both retreated. “It’s too hot. We need to find another way out.”

“We must have created a spark when the door slammed shut.”

“I don’t think so.” He nudged the one-by-one on the floor with his shoe. It had a swirl of char marks at one end while the rest of the wood glowed like an ember and was turning to ash. “That’s a pour pattern from an accelerant. I saw that at a trio of arson fires I covered a few years back.”

“This was deliberate? Why? A stupid prank? Do you think they knew we were in here?” Olivia blinked at the gritty air irritating her eyes and sinuses, and followed the swing of Gabe’s flashlight as he searched for another exit. She finished her call to Dispatch, warning them of the two people inside and possible arson before giving up on escaping through the fire and smoke and scalding temperature at the front doors.

“We answer questions later, Liv. Come on.” Gabe slapped his hand into hers and pulled her into a run beside him. The flames seemed to chase them across the ceiling joists overhead. When they reached the back iron doors that opened onto the loading dock and river below, he released her hand, tossed her the flashlight and pulled the pry bar from the rear pocket of his jeans. He wedged the tip between the double iron doors.

But even with Olivia setting down the box and pushing her shoulder to the door, and Gabe putting his full weight on the pry bar, they couldn’t open more than a crack between them. Matching guttural roars marked the physical exertion and frustration that could quickly give way to fear. A glimpse of shiny silver through the centimeter-wide opening gave them the bad news. “It’s padlocked from the outside.”

Gabe didn’t waste time maneuvering to find an impossible angle to pop the hasp the way he had the front door. Instead, he hurried to the window at the right side of the door. With more shared muscle they pushed it open and attacked the boards nailed to the outside. But the splashes below warned them that this avenue of escape wasn’t much more promising.

The exposed timbers behind them popped and crackled, cheering at the new source of oxygen they’d let in. Gabe started out the window, but dropped back to his feet. His mouth hung open as he fought to breathe in a gasp of fresh air. But his eyes were hard. “Can you swim?”

Brushing away the tears of irritation that dribbled over her cheeks, Olivia stuck her head out the window and looked straight down two stories to the river. The dock had been built up for boats to unload their goods, but the only thing below their position was a few feet of rocky bank and the muddy green of the Missouri. Full with spring rains falling upriver, the water eddied and swelled and blustered on past the dock pylons.

“Not that well. But I can try.” She just prayed they missed the rocks, hit deep enough water and didn’t get caught in any currents that would drown them before they ever made it to shore.

Olivia inhaled one breath, two, psyching herself up for the long, dangerous plunge. On the third breath, the toxic air scraped her throat and she coughed. “We have to...” She braced her hands on her knees as the coughing fit worsened. “We have to go,” she wheezed.

“Easy.” Gabe splayed a warm, soothing hand against her back. “We can do this.”

“Of course I can do this.”

“I didn’t say
I.
I said
we.
We’re a team now, remember?”

The massage and the urge to argue stopped at the yawing sound of metal heating and stretching. The noise skittered up her spine like the scurrying steps of unseen vermin scattered through the walls. Instinctively, Olivia moved closer to Gabe, curling her fingers into the lapel of his jacket as they both lifted their gaze. The crossbeams linking the outer walls were bowing. Flames crawled above their heads toward the heavy winch and hook anchored above them. That contraption could crush them or bring down the entire roof if it fell.

Gabe swore against her ear. “I know why they condemned this place.”

But looking up had given Olivia an idea.

She pushed away, grabbing the box with the bloody prints as she pointed the flashlight into the rafters. “Up there!”

Spotting the chipped red-and-white exit sign beside an oversize window on the catwalk level, they moved at a crouching run to the grated metal stairs and climbed toward the second-floor fire escape. Each step took them into heavier smoke and hotter air, making it more difficult to breathe and see. Each step made Olivia more and more aware of just how brittle this aging structure had become. The stairs shifted and sagged the higher they climbed, unused to any weight, and weakened by the rising temperature, perhaps.

Olivia’s boot hit the next step and the whole stairwell lurched, taking a thirty-degree tilt to the right. Her leg slid from beneath her and she clutched at the left railing. She lost her grip on the box and flashlight and they plunged into the pallets burning below her. With her balance off-center, her palm slipped and she tumbled beneath the right railing toward the fiery abyss.

But the long, strong fingers of a sure hand clamped over her wrist, catching her as she fell over the side. “Olivia!”

Pain snapped through her shoulder and rib muscles at the abrupt stop to her momentum. Her jacket slid up her torso as she swung out, and the knotted scarf dropped from its cache and plummeted into the fire.

“The evidence!”

“Forget it! It doesn’t do us any good if we don’t get out of here. Grab on!” Gabe shouted, his voice hoarse with smoke. “I’ve got you.”

The ache in her side robbed her of breath but also renewed her will to escape and survive. When she swung back like a pendulum, she caught the edge of the stair with her right hand, curling her fingers through the grate and hanging on. With one hand on the left railing and his feet braced on the wonky stairs, Gabe pulled at her sore arm, lifting her inch by inch until she could latch on to the metal with both hands. He shifted his grasp to her belt and pulled her onto the stairs and onto her feet before pushing her up the last few steps to the catwalk.

“We’re almost there,” he gasped against her ear. With his hands on her waist, he was half lifting, half guiding her along the catwalk.

Although her vision was blurred and her breathing was shallow, Olivia could feel the metal vibrating beneath her feet. The strain of the broken steps pulling at it, combined with the heat making the metal expand, meant they had only minutes, seconds, perhaps, before the whole structure collapsed. “We have to hurry.”

“I know. Stay put.”

When he tried to lean her against the brick wall beside the window, she swatted his hands away. “I’m all right,” she lied, clutching her arm to her side. She was light-headed and coughing again, and the wrench of muscles from that fall made every breath a sharp stab in her side. But she was damned if she was going to play the little woman needing to be rescued. She pulled the pry bar from Gabe’s back pocket. “Just break the glass.”

“Turn your head away,” he warned, bringing the heavy metal tool back and smashing the window glass.

The building moaned, as if the new influx of oxygen was more than it could take. The catwalk trembled in earnest. Billowing black smoke snaked toward them and up through the holes in the roof, gathering like a storm cloud in the rafters because it couldn’t get free quickly enough.

As Olivia broke off shards of glass at the base of the window, Gabe pried off one board, then two. After he’d shoved the third board off onto the top of the fire escape, he tossed the pry bar through the window and his hands were at her waist again. “Can you get through?”

With a nod and a boost, Olivia climbed onto the sash and crawled outside. Gabe’s shoulders and chest were a tighter fit. She tugged at the next board and then at the collar of his jacket to help pull him through.

With Olivia on her rump and Gabe on his hands and knees atop the metal grating of the fire escape, they spared a few precious seconds to cough soot from their lungs and breathe in fresh air. But the smoke pouring out behind him was a reminder that they weren’t out of danger yet.

“I’m sorry about losing the engagement ring and scarf,” she apologized. “Even if we recover it later, the fire will have destroyed any DNA or trace. And that box with the fingerprints is already toast.”

Gabe shook his head, pushing to his feet. “I don’t care.”

“I thought that was going to be our big break on the case.” She patted the gun wedged behind her back. “At least I’ve still got this. And the pictures on my phone. We can go back in after the firefighters clear—”

“I said I don’t care,” he snapped at her. He thrust a sooty, grimy, nicked-up hand in front of her face. “This place took Dani from me. I’m not about to let it take you, too.”

Olivia tilted her stinging eyes to his hard, unreadable gaze and let him pull her to her feet. “I’m not going anywhere.”

As if a fire in an old deathtrap or his blunt opinions could make her quit this case.

The standoff ended with the warning pop of rivets separating the fire escape from the crumbling brickwork. They both turned their heads at the frighteningly familiar vibration of old metal battling to endure beneath unexpected weight and the forces of the infrastructure shifting on the other side of that wall.

They both swore a choice word and raced down to the first-floor platform. When they tried to release that ladder, though, it wouldn’t budge. “Looks like it’s been soldered together so trespassers won’t climb on it.” Olivia shook the stationary ladder in frustration, instantly regretting the flash of temper when it aggravated the pulled muscles in her side. She hugged her elbow to her ribs once more. “That’s another twelve feet or more to the ground.”

“It’s not that far for me.” Gabe wasted no time swinging his leg over the edge of the railing and hanging from the bottom rung of the ladder before dropping the last few feet to the sidewalk below. He stretched his arms up toward her. “Jump.” Sparks sailed out the window above and drifted through the air around them. Another bolt broke free of the mortar and the whole thing jerked. Olivia cried out, startled, but Gabe stood his ground beneath her. “I’m not going anywhere, either, Liv. You have to trust me.”

“No, I don’t.” Going back into that fire would be easier than giving another man her blind trust. But little these past few months and days had been easy. “I hate when people say that,” she muttered as she climbed over the edge of the railing. “Trust shouldn’t be automatic—”

“Jump, Detective!” he ordered.

Bracing for the jolt through sore muscles, Olivia released her grip. She slammed into Gabe’s chest, knocking him off his feet. Strong arms circled around her as they tumbled to the ground. A sheltering hand cradled her head against his neck as the impact jolted through both of them, and they rolled several feet to avoid the chips of brick and mortar pinging down around them.

Gabe and Olivia came to a stop in a side lot, lying side by side, their legs tangled together, her arms clutched between them. By unspoken mutual consent, they each exhaled an exhausted breath and lay there for several seconds without moving.

Olivia appreciated the cool surface of the shaded concrete more than she expected, and relished not having to come up with any more strength or resolve or courage for the moment. They lay there, beyond the reach of falling debris, long enough for all the aches and bruises on her battered body to register. The shallow, slowing puffs of Gabe’s breath stirring her hair, along with the low-pitched rumble of laughter in his chest beneath her ear registered, too.

“Is every day always this exciting with you?” he wheezed against her ear, his sarcasm as evident as the muscular thigh wedged between hers.

Olivia’s fingers tangled in the collar of his shirt and a breathless laugh of her own joined his. “I thought it was your fault.”

Gabe’s hold on her shifted and he rolled onto his back, bringing her halfway on top of him. “You are one tough lady, aren’t you.”

Olivia raised up on her elbow as his strong hands that had saved her more than once today framed her cheeks and jaw. She was ensnared by cobalt eyes that studied her face, then widened, as if he’d discovered her real secret.