Lethal Legacy: A Novel (Guardians of Justice) (20 page)

And that she could very well become his next victim.

As Kelly collapsed at his feet, Alan massaged his knuckles and fought back the crushing panic paralyzing his lungs.

Kelly wasn’t supposed to be here. No one was supposed to be here. Running into someone inside the house hadn’t even been a risk he’d factored into the equation. He had no Plan B for this scenario.

But he had to come up with one.

Fast.

Because it wouldn’t take Warren’s daughter long to recover from that clip on the jaw.

Alan stepped over her prone body and paced the length of the small hall, keeping one eye on her for any sign of returning consciousness. Kelly Warren had been a problem from day one. She’d fought him every step of the way on his suicide conclusion, then reappeared with that stupid tulip note. She’d pushed, prodded, and persevered until she’d riled a mob boss—and put not only his future, but his neck, on the line.

And now that Little Miss Buttinski had pulled off his night-vision goggles and recognized him, he had a huge complication. If she hadn’t done that, he could have shoved her aside and disappeared, a shadowy intruder melting into the mist. He’d have gone home and figured out some other plan to get the letter into her hands.

But that was no longer an option.

Now, she had to be silenced.

He stopped beside her, fists clenched, hate churning in his gut as he looked down. The peanut incident had already raised suspicions. A second “accident” would too. And considering Taylor’s personal interest in this case, he would dig deep, searching for proof of foul play.

Alan nudged Kelly none-too-gently with his toe. She was still limp as a dishrag. Good. He needed some quiet time to work out the details of an accident that would be so plausible and so clean no one—not even Romeo Taylor—would be able to find a single hole.

And before he left this house, he’d also plant the letter. No need to break the window now, though. He’d just slide the letter behind the desk for someone to find while the house was being cleaned out following the tragic deaths of both father and daughter. When that happened, he’d point out that the window had been open the night of Warren’s death and suggest the letter had blown behind the desk. Since Kelly wouldn’t be around to say if she’d searched there, everyone would assume she’d missed it. And the Crime Scene Unit wouldn’t have pulled furniture out from walls in the man’s office when the death was obviously a suicide.

Okay. That was reasonable. It would work.

Now he had to come up with a plan to dispose of Kelly.

He started to pace again. He’d done a lot of research on her and her father over the course of the past few months, and even more on
her
after the tulip note arrived. Including surveillance. That’s what had given him the information he’d needed to plan the coffee shop incident so perfectly. That, and the intel he’d gotten during their conversations after her father’s death. He knew her habits, her allergies, her job . . .

Alan stopped.

Her job.

A slow smile chased away his frown as an idea began to gel. A
brilliant
idea. A perfect synergy between what he knew about her and his own expertise.

It would take planning, though, and careful timing. He needed to think this through thoroughly. Work it out step by step. The next couple of hours would be crucial, and he didn’t like being rushed. But he could pull this off. He was obsessive about details. He wouldn’t miss anything.

And by the time Thanksgiving morning dawned, Kelly Warren and her father would be reunited—
if
the faith that was so important to her was right, and there
was
such a thing as heaven.

A happy ending. Nice. He liked that spin.

After one more toe nudge, he headed to the linen closet at the end of the hall to gather up what he needed for phase one of his plan.

“Feeling more awake now?” Mitch grinned at Cole across the table in the all-night diner they’d stumbled upon as they left the airport.

“Not much. I need some of that high-octane stuff we have at work. Or the sludge Alison brews.”

“Maybe some food would help.”

“At four in the morning?”

“It’s almost five.”

“Eastern time. I’m still on central.”

“Mind if I order a burger and some fries?”

“At four in the morning?” Cole suddenly felt queasy.

“You already said that.” Mitch grinned and signaled to the waitress. “But remember—unlike you and Jake,
I
drink Alison’s coffee.”

“Proof you have an iron stomach.”

“I won’t tell her you said that.”

“Thanks.”

While Mitch placed his order, Cole stifled another yawn. Once the waitress departed, his partner for the day turned to him. “By the way, I ran into Alan at the copy machine yesterday. I got the feeling he wasn’t happy about being left out of the loop on this.”

Cole shrugged. “Sarge wanted some fresh eyes on the case. Besides, Alan’s got enough on his plate with the homicide. He was probably just tired and stressed. I can relate.” He took another sip of coffee, waiting for the jolt of caffeine to kick in.

“All I know is he wasn’t too friendly.”

“Hey . . . if he’s put out, he’ll get over it. In the meantime, he’s got plenty of other distractions. Trust me, the last thing he’s thinking about right now is the John Warren case.”

Why did her jaw hurt? Could she be getting a toothache?

Why was she shivering? Her favorite sleep sweats always kept her warm, even if the fleece was worn and the fabric was beginning to shed.

And why was it so hard to wake up? She couldn’t even raise her eyelids.

Kelly shifted her head, and pain exploded on the side of her face, radiating up to her temple. She moaned and pried open her eyes, trying to orient herself in the darkness. This wasn’t her old bedroom at her father’s house. She was in his living room. On the couch. That’s why the fabric against her cheek felt nubby rather than smooth. But why . . .

“So you decided to wake up.”

As a shadowy figure appeared at the edge of her vision, she gasped and struggled to sit up.

That’s when she realized her hands and feet were bound.

The figure moved closer. Squatted beside her.

Alan Carlson.

Her father’s murderer.

“It was you.” Even as she said the words, she struggled to accept them. He was a law enforcement officer. A respected detective. Cole’s colleague. The man assigned to investigate her father’s death.

And also the perpetrator.

No wonder he’d closed the case so quickly.

“You never had to know that, Kelly. And you wouldn’t have, if you hadn’t kept pushing. Now we have a little problem.”

She watched his eyes. In the shadowy darkness, it was difficult to see much. But one thing was clear. The initial panic and desperation she’d glimpsed in them in the moment before he’d slugged her had hardened into cold, ruthless calculation. He’d already decided what he was going to do about their “little problem.”

He was going to get rid of it.

Of her.

Terror sucked the breath from her lungs and jolted her heart into overdrive. Her skin grew clammy, and she shivered.

“Cold, Kelly?”

“No.” She hated the shakiness in her voice. Hated giving this murderer the satisfaction of seeing how frightened she was. To compensate, she lifted her chin and stared him straight in the eye, her gaze unwavering.

His lips curved into a humorless smile. “You’ve got spunk, I’ll give you that.”

As he started to walk away, she jockeyed herself upright and swung her legs to the floor, trying to ignore the excruciating pain in her jaw.

At the sound, he turned. “We’re not going anywhere for a while. You might as well make yourself comfortable.”

Thanks to the adrenaline rush, her mind was now firing on all cylinders. She needed information. As much as possible. It would be difficult to thwart him if she didn’t know his plans. And difficult even if she did, considering how incapacitated she was. But she stifled that last disheartening thought. She needed to maintain a positive attitude.

“Why did you do it?” Her voice was stronger now.

He lifted one shoulder. “I needed money to pay off some gambling debts. Your father was dying anyway. I just hurried the process along. It was a no-brainer.”

At his cavalier attitude, bile rose in her throat. She swallowed past it, determined to disengage her emotions as much as possible—as Carlson had. “How did you make it look like suicide?”

A smile tugged at his lips. “I pulled that off well, didn’t I?”

The touch of pride in his voice sickened her. But she did her best to mask her revulsion. “How?”

A smirk twisted his features. “It was almost too easy.”

And then he told how he’d won her father’s confidence under the guise of his badge. How he’d drugged him and left him to die in the garage. How he’d made sure he was assigned to the case.

As he recounted his reprehensible plan, Kelly’s terror morphed to an anger as cold as Carlson’s heart.

“Next to that, setting you up for anaphylactic shock with a couple of ground peanuts was a piece of cake.”

She blinked, jolted by his concluding statement. “You were the old man in the coffee shop?”

A smile toyed with his lips. Genuine, this time. “I learned a lot about disguises as an undercover detective, and I’m trained to observe. To notice details. To listen. I used all those skills during the investigation after your father’s death. I learned about your allergy. I learned you carried an auto-injector. I learned the security at your house was pathetic—and I’m very familiar with breaking and entering techniques. It was easy to slip in one night, take your injector out of your purse, go outside, and rap it against a rock. They’re very susceptible to leakage under stress, as my wife discovered.”

He’d been in her house while she slept.

She stifled the shiver threatening to ripple through her. “What if I hadn’t gone for coffee that Saturday?”

He made a dismissive gesture. “There was always the next Saturday. I studied your habits, and you’re very predictable. As for getting into your father’s house tonight, I watched you enter the security code several times during our investigation of your father’s death, and I memorized it. But I didn’t expect to find you here. That was an unpleasant surprise—for both of us. Where’s your car?”

“In the garage.”

“You always park in the driveway.”

He
had
done his homework. She hadn’t been in her father’s garage since the night he’d died.

“I was afraid it might get damaged by blowing limbs or hail.”

“So in protecting your car, you put yourself at risk. Too bad.”

He turned toward the kitchen, ending the conversation. But she hadn’t learned enough about his plans yet.

“What are you going to do with me?”

He pivoted back toward her. “I think we both know the answer to that.”

She swallowed. “Then why are you waiting?”

“Because this isn’t the time or place. And I have things to do first.”

He crossed the dark kitchen. She heard the basement door open. A few seconds later he came back, walked to the couch, and leaned toward her.