Chapter 24
The next morning Blake parked on the street in front of Bea’s house. “Who’s taking the lead on this one?”
“I am,” Drew said from the back seat. “This shouldn’t take long. We just want to know if the sheriff ever saw that yellow
car the week before the murders.”
Paradise twisted around in the front seat to face her brother. “Be gentle with her, Drew. She was terrified when we were here
last.”
“I’ll be kind. We aren’t accusing her of anything—we need to know more about that yellow car. I suspect our mother might have
called Gerald.” Drew shoved open the door and got out of the truck.
Blake followed him and Paradise to the front door. Drew started to press the doorbell, then dropped his hand. “The door is
ajar. Maybe she’s outside.”
“Go ahead and ring the bell. Maybe she didn’t get it latched when she came in,” Paradise said.
Drew pressed the button and the chime inside pealed.
He sniffed the air. “It smells like burning bacon.” He pushed the door open with his foot.
“Don’t touch the doorjamb or anything else.
” He poked his head inside. “Mrs. Davis? It’s Detective Bartley, Paradise’s brother.
” There was no answer, and he stepped through into the foyer.
“Stay here. I think something is wrong.”
“I’m a paramedic,” Blake reminded him. “If she’s been injured I can help.” Without waiting for an answer, he followed Drew
inside. He knew not to waste his breath telling Paradise to stay behind.
Black smoke billowed from the kitchen, and he coughed at the stench of burned bacon. Drew ran toward the kitchen with Blake
on his heels. Flames erupted from an iron skillet, and Blake looked under the sink for a fire extinguisher. Paradise grabbed
a hand towel and held it to her face. He could barely see her through the smoke.
He spotted the extinguisher behind the cleaning supplies and pulled it out. “Stand back.”
Drew stepped away, and Blake aimed the nozzle at the fire. He had it out in less than a minute. Paradise went to the window
and shoved it open. The smoke began to dissipate.
“Bea?” Paradise called.
“Stay near us,” Drew said. “I don’t like this. We’d better call it in.”
Paradise pulled out her phone. “I’ll call Rod.” She turned her back to the men and placed the call.
Blake listened to her explain the situation to Rod as he poked around in the kitchen and dining room. “Maybe she’s outside
and forgot the bacon.”
“Maybe.” Drew didn’t sound convinced. “I’ll check the garage and see if her car is here.
” He went to the door on the other side of the dining room and peered into the garage.
“Her car’s there.” He disappeared through the doorway and came back a few moments later.
“No one’s in the car and the garage door is down.
” He shut the door. “I’ll check outside while you take the bedrooms and bathroom. ”
Blake nodded and began to search the house. Something bad had happened here, and he prayed he’d find Bea alive and well. The
bedroom doors all stood open. The rooms were neat with the beds made. He made sure to check the main bedroom well, even under
the bed. Nothing seemed out of place.
Her face pale, Paradise appeared in the doorway to the main bedroom. “Rod is sending someone out.”
“Good.” Blake moved toward the door to the connecting bathroom, which stood partially ajar. As he approached he saw a slipper-clad
foot, and his gut clenched. “Get Drew, babe, and call for an ambulance.” Please be alive. He pushed the door the rest of the way open.
Bea lay on her side on the floor beside the shower.
She wore a pink terry bathrobe and one slipper. The other lay over by the toilet. Her curly salt-and-pepper hair still dripped
water, and she faced away from him toward the back of the room.
Blood pooled under her head. A lot of blood.
A coppery stench mingled with that of gunpowder, and beveling circled the wound where a slug had entered her head.
He knelt and felt for her pulse. It was faint but there. He grabbed a hand towel from the sink and folded it up to press against
the head wound, which was still pumping blood. “Bea, can you hear me?” She groaned and flung out one arm. “Don’t move. Help
is coming.”
He feared it would be too late. Her skin was pale and clammy, and her erratic pulse was weak and thready.
The blood loss was slowing, but he wasn’t convinced it was because of his attention.
It might be because she was fading. “Hang on,” he whispered.
Where was the ambulance? He prayed to hear the siren’s warble heading this way.
Drew appeared in the doorway with Paradise behind him. “Sis called the ambulance. What’s her condition?”
“Bad. Gunshot wound to the head. I don’t see an exit wound either, and she’s lost a lot of blood.”
Drew let him care for Bea while he examined the room. “Don’t touch anything if you can help it,” he told Paradise.
She nodded and knelt on Bea’s other side. “Bea, it’s Paradise. Hang on. Blake is taking care of you.”
Bea made a sound and tried to move her head.
“Don’t move,” Blake said. “I know it hurts, but try to stay still.”
A moan slipped out of Bea’s mouth. “Doris,” she whispered.
“Maybe she means Doris Martinez who lived next door to us,” Paradise said. “She’s on our list to talk to.”
“Doris,” Bea said again. Her lids fluttered and she sighed out a long breath.
Blake held his breath to see if she would take the next breath. He couldn’t find her pulse under his fingertips for several
moments until it resumed its fluttery rhythm. Bea inhaled so softly he nearly missed it. She was still alive, but only barely.
Paradise stood close to Blake and leaned against him as they watched the ambulance tear off toward the hospital with lights
flashing and siren blaring. It was lunchtime, but she wouldn’t be able to eat a thing, and she doubted the men would either.
The ambulance turned the corner out of sight, and she blinked back tears. “I don’t think she’s going to make it.”
Blake’s embrace around her waist tightened. “She’s in bad shape, babe.”
Drew exited the house. “Rod says we can go. He may want us to come down to the station to go over our statements again, but
we didn’t see an intruder.”
Paradise’s sense of urgency rose. “Someone tried to kill Bea—and they might have succeeded. What was she hiding from us? I
think we should try talking to Doris Martinez. There has to be a reason Bea mentioned her.”
“Not necessarily,” Blake said. “When people are semiconscious, they don’t always make sense or have a reason for the things
they say. But sure, I’m game to go see her. She’s just over in Pelican Harbor.”
They piled in the truck, and Paradise pulled up her phone’s Notes app to see what other lines of investigation they might
pursue. “Doris is just one possible source of information. We haven’t talked to all of Mom’s coworkers yet, just Mr. Phillips
and Greta Welch.”
Drew bent over his phone and started tapping. “I put in a request to get a copy of the files on Pamela’s and my father’s deaths.
There might be something in them that will help us.”
“We haven’t talked to my dad’s employer or any of his coworkers either. Maybe he had a good friend at work he might have confided
in. He returned unexpectedly that day, and it’s possible he told someone why.”
Drew lifted his head. “I read the case notes. One of his coworkers said Granger got a call from the sheriff. I think Gerald
warned him to get home after Pamela died.”
If only she could remember more. Some memories had come back, but not all. And what she remembered felt covered in cobwebs.
“Blake, your mom mentioned she knew Doris too. Jenna offered to be interrogated, but we haven’t followed up on that.”
“You’re right. We can do it tonight after dinner.”
They reached the outskirts of Pelican Harbor, and she pointed out the independent-living place on the left as they entered
the city limits. “I probably should have called to make sure it was all right to come by. Since she’s at Harmony Haven, she
has to be pretty spry. They take residents on outings, and they aren’t patients who need care. Back when I was a kid, she
seemed ancient. Her husband had died, but Doris emotionally adopted all of the neighborhood children. When I got sent to foster
care, she came to see me a few times, but the Adams family wasn’t very welcoming, and those visits ebbed.”
A clear vision of a round woman with her hair in a curly mop on her head came to her. She wished she’d thought of Doris before
now.
Blake parked, and they trooped inside where Paradise asked to see her.
The nurse pointed down the right hall. “She’s in room 114. It’s on the left. Doris doesn’t get much company, but she adores
visitors. We love her around here. Are you family?”
“She used to be a neighbor when I was a kid. I thought I’d come find her now that I’m back in the area.”
“She’ll be so glad. Sign in here.” The nurse pointed to the digital screen that recorded visitors’ names.
Paradise entered all their names. Her pulse throbbed in her throat at the thought of seeing Doris. Why was she afraid? She’d
loved the woman when she was a child, but trepidation slowed her steps and dried her mouth. It made no sense. She knocked
on the door.
“Come in,” a familiar voice called. It was scratchier and frailer than Paradise remembered.
Paradise’s hand shook as she twisted the knob and opened the door.
Doris’s apartment here smelled just like the house where she’d lived all those years—a mixture of lemon furniture polish and vanilla from the candles she always burned.
The first picture she spotted on the wall was one of Paradise with five other neighborhood kids.
They were eating cookies and chocolate smeared their faces.
Paradise’s mother was smiling in the background.
Paradise didn’t think she’d ever seen this picture.
She gripped Blake’s hand and blinked away the tears that gathered in her eyes. “Doris?”
Doris rose from the blue-and-yellow plaid sofa and smiled her way. The woman’s curly hair was mostly white now, but her blue
eyes still twinkled, and her skin looked soft and almost translucent. Her smile faltered. “Becky?”
Paradise took a step toward her. “It’s Paradise, Becky’s daughter.”
“I knew you’d come eventually.” And Doris promptly fainted back onto the sofa.