Chapter Twenty
Sarah’s first reaction was a trained reflex, learned from the first aid and mountain rescue classes she’d taken. Her fingers went to his throat to feel for a pulse. His cold, damp flesh repulsed her, but she kept feeling. Her heart pounded so furiously that, for a moment, she thought she felt a response from Alvardo. She pressed harder, hoping against the inevitable that he was still alive. The logs underneath him shifted, and his body moved along with them.
She yanked her hand away. She wanted to run, but her feet rooted to the floor. A roaring inside her head grew louder and louder, threatened to overwhelm her consciousness. Her knees trembled. She was about to collapse.
“Sarah?” William Reuben called to her. “Are you okay?”
She lowered the lid on the storage bin, not wanting to expose William to this horrible death. “Come up here. I need you.”
Standing at the top of the staircase, William shined his flashlight at her. “What’s wrong?”
She held up her hand to deflect the beam. The light distracted her and fed into her confusion. Her usual decisive attitude was gone. Truly, she didn’t know what to do. “Stay with me, William. I need to think.”
There was nothing she could do for Alvardo. He was already gone. If she told the others that he’d been murdered, she didn’t know what would happen. Blake had said that he didn’t want to force the hand of the person who had been threatening them—the murderer.
Clumsily, William patted her shoulder. “I can tell you’re upset. It’s going to be okay.”
His unknowing reassurances helped. Somehow, everything would be okay. She had to believe that. “I need to talk to Blake. Do you know how I can find him?”
“He and Jeremy have the walkie-talkies. If anybody knows where Blake is, it’s Jeremy.”
And Jeremy was in the front room with everybody else. Seeing him meant seeing all of them. Knowing that one of them was a murderer, how could she be in the same room with them? She shuddered, remembering the feel of the cold skin at Alvardo’s throat.
Hold yourself together. Be strong.
She gasped, trying to catch her breath. Her chin lifted and her backbone stiffened. “I want you to come with me, William. Then we need to send someone down to the basement to guard your brother while he works on the box.”
“Maddox,” William said. “He’s been hanging around with us for a couple of days, and he’s a good guy.”
“Yes, Maddox.”
She lurched forward, concentrating on each step so she wouldn’t topple and fall. She made it through the kitchen, responding to questions from Slim Ramirez without really knowing what she’d said.
In the front room, she found Jeremy keeping watch as most of the crowd sat around the dining room table and ate the elegantly prepared food off paper plates. Their conversations were quiet, and the occasional laughter had a nervous edge. Ollie was stretched out on the sofa with his injured leg elevated on pillows.
She clutched Jeremy’s arm and pulled him off to one side. “I need to talk to Blake. Where is he?”
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “I can help.”
In her mind, there was only one possible course of action. She needed Blake. “Please, just tell me.”
“He’s searching the whole house. Right now, he’s on the third floor in the dormitory area.”
William stepped up and did her talking for her. “I’m going to take Sarah up there. She wanted you to send Maddox down to the basement to keep an eye on my brother. Is that okay?”
“I’ll take care of it,” Jeremy said. “How’s the repair going?”
“Pretty good,” William said. “My brother is good at rigging stuff together.”
She looked toward the central staircase. Now that she knew where Blake was, she was anxious to find him. Jeremy caught hold of her arm. “Is that blood on your sleeve?”
“I cut myself while I was helping with the repairs,” she lied. “No big deal.”
With William accompanying her, she went to the staircase and began to climb. The more she moved, the better she felt. She hadn’t recovered from the shock of finding the body.... She might never recover. But she was no longer on the verge of fainting.
At the top of the stairs on the third floor, Blake and Hank were waiting for them with flashlights aimed in their direction.
“You promised to stay put,” Blake growled.
“I couldn’t.”
“Sarah, you have to be careful.”
She stumbled into his arms and clung to him. The floodgates burst and she sobbed into his shoulder. Sarah held nothing back. Her body heaved and trembled with each deep moan. Tears poured down her cheeks.
Unable to maintain the strength to stand, she slipped down his body toward the floor. Blake caught her under the armpits and carried her to one of the dormitory-style beds. When he lay her down, she reached for him. “Don’t leave me.”
Sitting on the bed beside her, he held her against him. “Tell me what happened, princess.”
Looking past his shoulder, she saw the worried faces of William and Hank. Could she share this information with them? Was she making a mistake? It didn’t matter. She was here with Blake, and she believed in him. He would make this right.
“Alvardo,” she said. “He’s dead, murdered. I found his body in the wood bin in the mudroom.”
Her head ached from the tears and the sobs, but it felt good to talk. She needed to tell him everything that she could remember. “He was stabbed in the chest with a hunting knife, I think. The hilt is sticking out. He has on a white sweater and it’s covered in blood. His eyes...his eyes are open.”
“Did you tell anyone else?” Blake asked.
“No, I came right here.”
“You did the right thing, Sarah.”
She inhaled the first real breath since finding the body. Leaning against Blake’s broad chest, she waited for her mind to clear.
* * *
B
LAKE
WISHED
HE
had as much faith in himself as Sarah had in him. He’d been thinking of Alvardo as the threat. Instead, he was a victim. And there was a murderer loose in the house with them.
Though he continued to hold Sarah, he was talking to Hank and William. “We need to be careful. The murderer is capable of killing without mercy. If we set him off, he might attack. More people would be hurt.”
“Who do you think it is?” William asked.
“Let’s take a look at the facts,” Hank said. The calm tone of his voice told Blake that this was a man accustomed to dealing with crisis. “Alvardo must have been killed during the blackout. I’d guess that there were five to seven minutes of confusion when everybody was running around like chickens with their heads cut off. His body was found in the mudroom, which is outside the kitchen.”
“The caterers were in the kitchen,” William said. “They were close by. It could be one of them.”
“Or else,” Hank said, “Alvardo might have arranged to meet the killer in that particular place.”
Blake liked the way their logic was playing out. “We can eliminate a couple of suspects. Maddox immediately went to the general’s room to protect him. That clears both of them.”
“That’s good,” William said, “because Maddox is in the basement alone with my brother.”
Blake summarized, “That leaves the other two musicians, the caterers, Skip Waverly-Smythe and Honey Buxom. Hank, what can you tell us about your speechwriter?”
“He comes from a wealthy family in Los Angeles. They’re old money, commercial real estate. Skip has a master’s degree in journalism from Stanford. He tried investigative reporting but preferred writing opinion pieces.”
“Was he in the Middle East?” Blake asked, thinking of the ring they’d found in Alvardo’s room.
My Beloved Daughter, Salima.
He had a feeling that when they found out about Salima, they would know their killer.
“Skip was embedded in Iraq,” Hank said. “He’s been on my team for almost a year. For what it’s worth, I never would have suspected him of committing a violent crime.”
Blake needed more information from Sarah. Lightly, he stroked her hair. “How are you feeling? Can you talk?”
“Much better,” she said.
“I have a couple of questions for you, and I want you to think before you answer.” Her breathing had returned to a normal level, but he didn’t want to get her worked up again. “You said he was stabbed in the chest. Was there much blood?”
“A huge stain on the front of his sweater.”
“Stabbed more than once?”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t say for sure, but I don’t think so.”
A single puncture wound leaving the weapon in place limited the blood splatter. Slicing wounds were messy. The killer would have been covered in blood.
“Could you tell how Alvardo got into the wood bin? Was he dragged across the floor? Or carried?”
“I didn’t see a blood trail but—like you said—the light wasn’t good.” She paused for a moment to think. “I suppose, if he was leaning back against the bin, the killer could have flipped open the lid and pushed him over the edge.”
That was the information Blake wanted. Carrying the body would have limited the suspects to men. But if Alvardo was shoved, a woman could have done it. The ridiculously named Honey Buxom could be their murderer.
Hank cleared his throat. “I don’t like the way this is working out. I need to be downstairs with my wife and daughter.”
“Can you go back down there and not say anything?”
He nodded vigorously. “I don’t like secrets, Blake, but I get it. There are times when it’s necessary to conceal information.”
The senator had an interesting set of ethics, one that bended to suit his needs. Not that Blake was any better. Sometimes you had to lie to reach the greater truth.
“Here’s how this is going to work,” Blake said. “You and William go downstairs and blend in with the others, don’t raise any alarms. I want to take a few more minutes with Sarah until she’s feeling better, then we’ll join you.”
“Maybe we should put Sarah in her room to sleep,” Hank suggested.
“Nobody goes anywhere alone.” That was how people got picked off. “We stay in a group. Or go with a buddy.”
“Fine,” Hank said. “What next?”
“When I come downstairs, I want to put our suspects into different rooms, supposedly for questioning. The Ramirez family goes in one room. The musicians in another. Then Honey. Then Skip. The murderer will slip up. It might be blood on their clothes. Or an inability to account for those minutes in the blackout.” When he had the suspects alone, he intended to show them the ring. “We’ll take the killer into custody. Nobody gets hurt.”
As if to emphasize the simple clarity of his plan, the lights came back on. Without a slight flicker, the overhead track lighting that ran the length of the dormitory brightly illuminated the row of single beds along one wall.
Electricity felt like a miracle. Finally, things were going their way.
William gave a whoop. “I knew John could do it.”
“He’s a genius,” Blake said.
“He’s MacGyver,” said Sarah as she applauded. “John fixed the fuse box using a minimum of equipment and supplies.”
She was already looking better. When she’d first stumbled into the room with her skin as white as parchment and her dark eyes looking like she’d faced the demons of hell, he’d been scared for her. Seeing the victim of violent death changed a person. He still remembered his first time, the day he’d engaged in battle and lost his innocence.
When Hank and William left, he hugged her close. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”
“Me, too.” Her arms weren’t as strong as usual, but she managed to hug him back. “All I kept thinking was that I had to find you. You’d make everything all right.”
“I want you to keep thinking that. Never stop trusting me.” He gave her a small grin. “Maybe, someday, you’ll actually listen when I tell you to do something.”
“Probably not.”
There was more he needed to say. They’d only known each other for a brief time, but he had deep feelings for this woman. He might even love her. “I’d like to have the chance to find out how well we fit together.”
“Are you talking about that trip to New Orleans?”
“Maybe,” he said. “After I’m done with my final deployment in about six months, I want to come back here.”
“For a visit?”
“I’d come for a longer stay than that. I think mountain rescue would be a good second career for me. It’s active. I’m helping people. And I’m not stuck behind a desk.”
“And you want to stay here with me while you’re training?”
He gazed directly into her strong yet delicate face. “Are you trying to make this hard for me?”
“I’m being specific.” She pushed her hair off her forehead and smiled. “If I want a clear definition, I need to ask questions, lots of questions. I know you’re not proposing a long-term commitment. We’re both too grown-up to make that kind of leap without looking.”
“You’re right.” But he felt like leaping. He wanted to tell her that he loved her. Too soon, it was way too soon.
“But there’s a bond between us. I can’t explain it.”
“We’ll have time to figure it out,” he said. “I’d like to book a room for the next two weeks.”
“I’ll have to check my reservation book.”
“Actually, I’d like to book
your
bedroom. The space beside you on
your
bed.”
She leaned forward and gave him a peck on the cheek. “I’ve been saving the space for you.”
“That’s what I was waiting to hear.”
She wiggled around on the bed until her legs were dangling over the side. “All that crying took a lot out of me. I’ve never sobbed like that before.”
He slung an arm around her slender shoulders. “It’s okay.”
“I should get up and move around before we go downstairs and put your plan into effect. I want to get this over with before anyone else gets hurt.”
Holding his hand, she slowly walked the length of the room and back again. He could feel her strength and her confidence returning.
Abruptly, she came to a halt. Her eyes widened as she stared at an object that was partially tucked behind the head of one of the beds. “Is that what I think it is?”
He looked past her and saw the seemingly innocent object. Something that could be purchased in any department store. He knew exactly what it was. The design and color matched the backpack Franks had been carrying—the backpack filled with explosives.