Chapter Five #2
She hurried through the house until she was out the back door. Her stomach churned with the need to evacuate its contents. Deep breath. Two, three more deep breaths later, and the nausea settled down.
For a while she paced. There were so many things she wanted to ask, but who would have the answers?
Not her top-notch private investigator, not Isla’s mother and certainly not Detective Lambert.
How could they? No one was here. Neither Isla nor Raymond were at the places they lived or worked. Isla’s mother had not heard from her.
This was…unbelievable. Beyond bizarre.
Owen sat down on the bench that stood next to the back door. Above his head was a sign that said Welcome. To what? Leah mused. Hell? She collapsed next to him.
“Isla would have called already if she was okay.” Her gaze collided with his. “She’s not, and I’m terrified that the blood in there confirms it.”
“I want you to think carefully, Leah,” Owen said with infinite calmness and a sense of reassurance she wanted desperately to latch on to. “When was the last time you were in contact with Isla?”
Leah closed her eyes and ordered her mind to stop twisting with scary thoughts.
“We were both home most of the day Saturday. We were just relaxing and reading. Later that evening—about seven, I think—she left for work. I dressed for the date that will go down in infamy as the world’s absolute worst blind date. ”
He smiled sadly. “You haven’t heard from her since around seven on Saturday evening.”
Leah nodded. Three days, basically. There was no denying it now. Even without the blood, Isla would never be out of contact for that length of time. Especially with her mother. Isla often said that she was all her mother had since her brother never seemed to have time for either of them.
She and Isla were both the single support systems for their mothers. Not that Isla’s mother wasn’t able to take care of herself like Leah’s mother, but when she needed something, Isla was her go-to person. Just as Leah had been for her mother since her father died.
That familiar old pain arced through her, amplified by the dread knotting in her gut. Who would want to hurt Isla?
Why? She was such a good person.
“When Detective Lambert arrives,” Owen said, interrupting her troubling thoughts, “he’ll have a lot of questions.
I want you to take your time and think carefully before you answer.
If during his questioning I interrupt whatever you’re about to say, stop immediately and say nothing more. All right?”
She nodded but didn’t really comprehend why it was necessary to be so careful. “I don’t understand. Is there some reason I should be worried about what he might think of what I say?”
Of course there was. Leah didn’t want to believe it, but this was bad, and somehow she was connected to it.
“Sometimes our words can be misconstrued or taken out of context—especially when we’re emotional,” Owen explained. “It’s obvious to me that someone is setting you up. We just need to proceed with caution until Lambert understands that as well.”
The bottom dropped out of her stomach right after the words someone is setting you up.
Who would do that? She had friends. But only one close friend, and that was Isla.
There was no way Isla would be setting her up.
Besides, Leah had no real money or other marketable assets that anyone might want.
She had a job, but she barely made enough to keep her head above water.
She owned nothing except a few odd pieces of furniture, and she had no social life.
She’d just appropriated the better part of her savings to figure out this insane mess.
“Why?” She searched his eyes in hopes of finding the answer there. “Why would anyone pick me for this, whatever it is?”
“Two reasons, as far as I can see,” he said. “You have a record—however distant—of being involved with unsavory types.”
Leah groaned. “I’m a model human for most of my life, and no one notices. I screw up once and get involved with a thug, and I’m a suspected criminal forevermore.”
Owen shrugged. “Look at it like getting hacked on social media. It’s the people who would never dream of or even know how to hack an account who get hacked.
It’s the same people who want to believe the best in everyone they meet.
Those who trust maybe more than they should.
Sometimes we just don’t see what’s right in front of us. ”
“You believe this comes down to Isla.” He didn’t have to say it outright. She got it. At this point, even she was admittedly having difficulty denying the possibility. But why would her friend do all this? What did she have to gain?
“It’s the most logical possibility, given what we know at this time,” he confirmed.
“But remember, we’re going on only a small amount of knowledge.
There is still a lot we haven’t figured out.
Many things can happen in seventy-two hours.
We are only aware of a few of those events.
This entire situation could change direction at any moment. ”
He didn’t say change for the worse, but she understood that was what he meant.
This could get exponentially worse.
JUST OVER AN hour later, a dark sedan arrived at the lake house. Not the black car that had been following her; Leah hadn’t seen it since arriving at the safe house. Owen had made sure the driver was unable to follow. The man had evasive driving tactics down to a science.
While she watched, Detective Lambert emerged from the sedan.
Before he’d closed the door, a white van sporting the Chicago PD logo arrived, and an official police cruiser as well.
Leah wondered if this location was still in Lambert’s jurisdiction.
Maybe it didn’t matter, since the situation was related to his ongoing case. Or so it would seem.
“Ms. Gerard,” he said as he approached her, “this isn’t an address I had associated with you.”
“This lake house belongs to Isla’s family.”
“You’ve been here before,” Lambert suggested. A reasonable assumption.
Before Leah could answer, Owen explained, “We visited Mrs. Morris this morning to see if she has heard from her daughter. She has not. She suggested we look here. She gave us the location of the house and the key to go inside. As soon as we discovered the blood, we called you and came outside.”
“Had you been here before?” Lambert asked Leah again.
“No.” She shook her head. “Mrs. Morris seems to think I have. She said Isla told her on several occasions that she was coming to the lake house with me, but that isn’t true. I’ve never been here before today.”
“We suspect,” Owen said, “that Isla was giving her mother Leah’s name to conceal the identity of the person she was actually bringing here.”
“Any motive you’re aware of that would prompt her to take such a step?”
“We have found no motive as of yet,” Owen admitted.
“How long will it take,” Leah asked, “to figure out whose blood that is?” Her heart squeezed. Someone would have to talk to Mrs. Morris. She needed to be aware of what was happening. What a nightmare this would be for her until she knew what had actually happened.
“It’s difficult to say,” Lambert conceded.
“We’ll need to find out her blood type, as well as that of Raymond Douglas, and then we’ll do DNA testing using Isla’s mother and, I suppose, one of Douglas’s children, assuming all involved will cooperate.
If not, we have other ways. Hair from a brush or comb they used. A toothbrush.”
The worry would eat Leah alive before then. “Can your forensic people determine how long the blood has been in that room?”
She had seen both Isla and Raymond on Saturday evening.
“That, we can do, and fairly quickly.” Lambert hitched his head toward the house. “I should get inside and see what we have.” He hesitated. “If you would wait here, I’m sure I will have more questions.”
Oh yeah. Leah was confident he would have plenty more questions. Questions she could not answer.
As she and Owen sat in the quiet of the outdoors for a few moments, she thought about what she had seen in that room besides the blood. Handcuffs. Someone had presumably kept Isla or Raymond against their will. Or it was a part of some sex game gone wrong.
Either possibility made her feel sick. Worse, it was possible he or she had been tortured—she thought of the blood—and killed.
Leah wished there was a way to protect Isla’s mother from all this until they knew more. She would be devastated. And then, if the blood turned out to be Raymond’s…
Then what? Isla was still missing. Something had happened to her, whether it was in this house or elsewhere.
She was missing. The police needed to be looking for her.
Yet somehow, this all felt as if it were moving in slow motion.
Yes, the detective was here, but nothing seemed to be getting done. No answers appeared to have been found.
The weight of it all settled on Leah’s shoulders, and she desperately wished she could shake it off. But that was impossible.
Owen leaned forward, braced his forearms on his knees and turned his face to hers.
“Isla set you up on a blind date with Raymond Douglas. When Douglas disappeared, Isla disappeared. If one of the two set this up, Leah—and I can’t see any way around that possibility—they set you up to take the fall for whatever the finale is to be.
But the real questions are, which one and for what reason? ”
“I can give you a reason—five million of them, as a matter of fact.”
Leah and Owen turned to the detective who had just walked out the back door.
“What?” Leah demanded.
Owen put his hand on her arm and said to the detective, “We’re listening.”
“The ex-wife, Louise, is the one who first told me about the insurance policy. When I spoke with the insurance company, I learned there was not one but two beneficiaries—who would receive five million each.”
Leah remembered him saying there was an insurance policy, but he’d only mentioned the ex-wife.
“The sole beneficiary was Louise until just a few months ago. Douglas changed his policy at that time. Half of the proceeds go to his ex-wife, and the other half goes to you, Leah.”
“What?” She shook her head. “No.” That was absurd. She shook her head again. “Why would he leave me anything? We hardly know each other. We’d never even met before two weeks ago.”
“That, Ms. Gerard, is the five-million-dollar question,” Lambert said.
No, no, no. This simply could not be right. It was completely ridiculous. Outrageous.
This situation grew more inexplicable by the day. It was as if, once the momentum started, there was no stopping it. The absurdities just kept piling up.
Leah turned to Owen. “I do not know Raymond Douglas. Not like that. There is no way he would want to leave me anything. This is all wrong.”
But how would she make anyone believe her?