Read Criminal Intent (MIRA) Online
Authors: Laurie Breton
Criminal Intent (MIRA)
“Breton keeps the readers guessing from the first page to the last…a great read.”
—
Romantic Times BOOKclub
on
Final Exit
“Gritty and realistic,
Mortal Sin
is a powerfully written story…a truly exceptional book on many levels.”
—
Romantic Times BOOKclub
“Breton’s way with characters—and her knack for giving her tales a twist—elevates this story above most.”
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Romantic Times BOOKclub
on
Lethal Lies
LETHAL LIES
MORTAL SIN
FINAL EXIT
CRIMINAL INTENT
For my sister Jean, for all the support and encouragement you’ve given me over the years. Thanks, Sis!
Thanks, as always, to my agent, Ethan Ellenberg, and my editor, Valerie Gray. Thanks also to all the people at MIRA whose hard work and dedication help make each of my books the best it can be. You guys rock!
A special thank-you to all those English teachers who put up with me over the years while encouraging my love of the written word.
And as always, thanks to Paul for helping me maintain my sanity, for keeping me fed and for taking over birdcage duty during deadline madness. You are extraordinary.
Mid-January
Atchawalla, Mississippi
H
urry, hurry, hurry.
The
Friday-afternoon line of cars moved through the bank’s drive-up window at the speed of a sloth. Outside the car, a drenching rain fell, blurring and bloodying the pavement behind a half-dozen sets of brake lights. Her wipers slapped across the windshield in a hypnotic rhythm that matched the thudding of her heart, echoing in her ears like the pounding of some primitive tribal drum.
Don’t act nervous. Don’t do anything out of the ordinary. It’s just another day.
Beyond the sluggish line of cars, a police cruiser circled the parking lot. Her breath caught in her chest as the county cruiser slowed and the deputy inside craned his neck to look more closely at the line of cars. It was raining too hard to see who he was. Wade Pickett, maybe. Or Tommy Lee Gatcomb. Men she’d known all her life. Men she’d gone to grade school with. Was this a routine patrol, or was he following her? There
was no way of knowing who was or wasn’t involved, no way of telling how many of Sheriff Luke Brogan’s deputies had been poisoned by his particular brand of evil.
The cruiser continued out of the parking lot and onto the highway, and Robin exhaled a ragged breath. This couldn’t be happening. This was like the script of a bad TV movie, or one of those suspense novels her mother used to be addicted to. In the real world, people’s lives didn’t spiral out of control overnight. In the real world, ordinary women like Robin Spinney, high school guidance counselor and soccer mom, weren’t marked for murder.
The news had spread like wildfire through the high school after Katey Northrup had been abruptly removed from her French class just before lunch. Deputy Boyd Northrup, Katey’s dad, was dead. Shot in the head. And the hideous, shocking word was whispered up and down the school corridors:
suicide…suicide…suicide.
Gripping the steering wheel as she moved one car length ahead in line, Robin tried to wrap her mind around the concept that Boyd was dead, but the truth was impossible to comprehend. How could he be dead when she’d seen him, talked to him, less than twenty-four hours ago? Boyd Northrup had two kids and a pregnant wife. How was she supposed to explain to Peggy Northrup what had really happened to her husband?
It’s all my fault that your unborn baby will never know its father.
How was she supposed to explain to a ten-year-old boy that his daddy really hadn’t shoved the muzzle of his service revolver into his mouth and pulled the trigger?
Somebody else did it. The same somebody who killed your Uncle Mac.
All because of a manila envelope. All because Robin’s husband hadn’t been able to leave well enough alone. Mac Spinney’s obsession had cost him his life. Now, Boyd Northrup had paid the same ultimate price. He was dead because
Robin had stumbled across something she was never intended to see, and hadn’t been able to keep her mouth shut about it. Boyd, whose heart was bigger than his brain, must have confronted Brogan after she told him what she’d learned. And Brogan had taken care of him. Or, more likely, he’d had somebody else do his dirty work for him. Somebody who’d cleverly managed to make Boyd’s death look like suicide. That was more Brogan’s style. But she wasn’t fooled. Boyd Northrup hadn’t killed himself. Not that it really mattered at this point how it had happened. Dead was dead, and in the end, she was as responsible for Boyd’s death as if she’d been the one who pulled the trigger.
Overnight, she’d become a liability. Eventually, Brogan would have to eradicate that liability. He’d already killed twice. Three times, if you went all the way back to the beginning, to Timmy Rivers, who’d been left to die on a deserted Mississippi highway. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill again. This afternoon, while she counseled delinquent and apathetic teenagers, somebody had carefully and thoroughly searched her house. They hadn’t found what they were looking for. She wasn’t a fool. As long as she was the only person who knew where the envelope was, Brogan and his henchmen weren’t likely to kill her.
But they could harass her. Squeeze her. Force her hand by threatening what she valued most in life—her daughter. If they laid a finger on Sophie, she would kill them barehanded. She couldn’t take the chance. No matter how much she wanted to bring Brogan down, her daughter’s safety had to come first. There was only one real way to ensure that safety: she and Sophie would have to disappear. Thoroughly, suddenly, and most likely, permanently.
Brogan’s day would come. All this time—two goddamn years—she’d believed Mac’s death was an accident. His patrol car had gone off the road and into a ravine, where it had rolled
three or four times before bursting into flames. The accident investigation had been thorough, or so she’d been led to believe. The cause was eventually listed as driver inattention. That hadn’t sounded like Mac, who’d been so meticulous about everything in his life, and she’d told Brogan so. But that particular stretch of highway, Brogan had reminded her, teemed with wildlife. If a deer had run out in front of her husband’s car and he swerved to avoid a collision…well, that was all it would take.
She’d believed him. Why shouldn’t she? There was no reason to think anybody might have meant Mac harm. Certainly not somebody he’d considered a friend. Luke Brogan might not be the most likable man she’d ever met, but he was a cop, and in her experience, cops told the truth. They were supposed to be the good guys, weren’t they?
The silver Camry ahead of her inched forward. She was next in line. Robin took a deep breath to compose herself. This was just a routine transaction. Nothing out of the ordinary, a perfectly legitimate request. If the teller questioned her, she had a story already made up about an elderly aunt in Arkansas with a broken hip. It was what she’d told Marv Sampson, the high school principal, when she requested emergency leave. It amazed her how easily the lying came to her. She’d felt only a twinge of guilt as she spun a tale of her eighty-six-year-old aunt Emily, a spinster who had nobody but Robin to look after her during her convalescence. Marv had bought her lies without question, reassuring her that he could find somebody to fill in while she was gone. If her boss had accepted her story that easily, surely nobody else would question it.
The Camry pulled away from the window, and it was her turn. Robin pulled up in front of the speaker and lowered her window. Kelly Hardison, who’d grown up just down the street from Robin’s split-level ranch, beamed from behind shatter-resistant
glass. “Hi, Mrs. Spinney,” the pretty brunette said. “Some weather we’re having.”
“If it rains any harder,” Robin agreed, sliding her paycheck into the metal drawer, “I may have to start building an ark.”
Kelly pulled in the drawer. “Cash your paycheck as usual?”
“Yes.” With deliberate casualness, Robin added, “And I’d like to withdraw five thousand dollars from my savings.”
“Oh, geez, Mrs. Spinney.” Kelly’s eyes widened in distress. “I’m sorry, but we have a five-hundred-dollar cash withdrawal limit at the drive-up. It’s bank policy. If you want five thousand, you’ll have to come inside the bank.”
The clock on the wall behind Kelly’s head read 4:57. Robin’s left index finger, wrapped tightly around the steering wheel, began to twitch. “It’s almost five now,” she said, “and I’m running late to pick up Sophie. We’re going away for a while…a family emergency…my great-aunt Emily broke her hip and I have to take care of her while she recuperates. To top it off, I’ve misplaced my debit card.” Robin rolled her eyes as if unable to believe in her own stupidity. “I’m sure it’s in my purse somewhere, but I don’t dare to head for Arkansas without a substantial sum of cash. God knows how long we’ll be gone, and I don’t know if I can access Aunt Emily’s bank account for her. I may need to use my own money to keep the household running until she’s back on her feet.” She hesitated before bestowing Kelly with an ingratiating smile. “I don’t suppose you could make an exception for me?”
“I’m really not supposed to.” Kelly glanced at the line of cars still waiting behind Robin, looked at her watch, and caved. “I suppose I could bend the rules, just this once. I mean, it’s not like I don’t know you.” Sternly, she added, “But remember, it’s a one-time thing. Because you’re a regular customer, and I’ve known you like forever.”
“Thanks, Kel. You’re
a lifesaver.”
The girl’s worried expression morphed into a wide grin. “Hang on,” she said. “It’ll take me a minute.”
Robin waited an interminable time while rain drummed on the pavement and a plethora of nightmare scenarios raced through her head: Kelly had to get special permission from Hoyt Whitman, the bank president, to disburse that much cash; Hoyt was even now on the phone to the sheriff’s office, asking them to send someone over to question why Robin Spinney was withdrawing such a large sum of money; the bank’s computer was down, so they couldn’t verify the balance in her savings account.
“Mrs. Spinney?”
The tinny voice coming from the speaker startled her.
Oh, God.
They weren’t going to give her the money. “What?” she said in a Minnie Mouse squeak.
“You forgot to sign your paycheck.”
“Oh.” Her body went limp with relief as Kelly pushed the drawer back out. With trembling hand, Robin picked up the cheap ballpoint pen and scribbled her name on the back of the check.
Kelly quickly counted out Robin’s biweekly pay. She tucked it into a white bank envelope along with the cash withdrawal and dropped it into the drawer. Sliding the drawer back out, she said, “Here you go. Have a safe trip. And if you haven’t found that debit card by Monday, you should call us and have it cancelled.”
“I will. Thanks, Kel.” Robin took the time to tuck the envelope, thick with crisp, new bills, into her purse before she rolled her window back up and pulled away from the drive-through.
A drop of sweat trickled down her spine. She’d done it. She’d pulled it off. If she was careful, if she was frugal, the money would keep them afloat until she could figure out what
to do next. Mac’s life insurance had been kind to her. It had paid off the mortgage and the car, and had left her with a healthy nest egg. She had to believe it was his way of taking care of them from beyond the grave. But accessing that nest egg would leave a paper trail, and that was the last thing she wanted to do. Somehow, she would have to come up with another solution.
Oh, Mac. I’m so scared.
But she didn’t have time to indulge her fear. It was five o’clock. Rush hour, or as close to rush hour as it ever got in Atchawalla, Mississippi. As she drove across town, Robin kept one eye on the rearview mirror, searching for some sign of Brogan or his men. But she saw nothing. They were probably waiting to catch her off guard. The joke was on them. By the time they came calling, Robin Spinney would be long gone.
At the middle school, Sophie waited at the entryway with a group of her friends. The girls called out farewells as Sophie dashed for the car, head down, leaping over puddles as she ran. She climbed into the car and tossed her backpack on the floor. Shoving a strand of wet hair away from her face, she said, “Is it true? What they’re saying about Uncle Boyd? Everybody at school was talking about it. They said he killed himself.”
Sophie’s blue eyes, so like her father’s, bored into Robin’s face, and her mother’s heart contracted at the vulnerability she saw there. Boyd Northrup, Mac’s best friend and fellow deputy, had been a fixture in Sophie’s life since birth. Losing him was like losing her father all over again.
“Well?” Sophie demanded when Robin said nothing. “Is it true?”
Robin put the car into gear and pulled away from the school. She wasn’t ready to tell her daughter the truth. Not just yet. “I really don’t believe he killed himself, sweetheart,” she said. “It was probably just a terrible accident.”
Sophie’s
eyes glistened with unshed tears. “That’s what I kept telling people. Mom, he was at our house just last night. He was fine then.”
“I know, honey.”
“I just can’t believe it. What will Katey and Matt do? And Aunt Peggy? She’s due to have the baby any day. This is so awful.”
And it was about to get worse. Poor Sophie. This was so unfair to her, tearing her away from her school, her friends, her home. She’d already been through hell when Mac died. If there was any other way…but there wasn’t. If they stayed in Atchawalla, Brogan would find a way to kill them.
Downtown traffic was a nightmare, snarled in every direction. Wondering what the hold up was, Robin peered through the rain. Creeping along with the stop-and-go traffic, she was halfway down Main Street when she saw the blue lights ahead.
Fear sent adrenaline racing through her body. Her throat went dry, and her hands, grasping the wheel so tightly that her knuckles went white, trembled visibly. Brogan was after her. She wasn’t going to make it out of town alive. In spite of her careful planning, she and Sophie were going to lose everything after all.
Stop it!
she told herself.
You’re acting paranoid. If you blow it now, Sophie could end up dead. You both could end up dead.
She took a deep breath. After Mac died, she’d stopped going to church, but these were dire circumstances, and she needed all the help she could get. So she tacked on a silent prayer:
Please God, take care of us. If not for me, then for Sophie. She had nothing to do with any of this.
At the intersection of Main Street and Gaskell, a deputy in a yellow slicker had blocked the road with his cruiser and was detouring traffic. Her heart thumping so loudly she feared he
would hear it, Robin pulled up to him and rolled down her window. “What’s going on?” she asked in a tone that she hoped projected casual curiosity.
The deputy leaned down to speak to her. He was young and clean-cut, blond-haired and blue-eyed—a stranger. “Road’s closed ahead, ma’am,” he said politely. “There’s an accident on West Main Street.”
She’d planned to take West Main out of town. Willing her hands to remain steady, Robin said, “Anybody hurt?”