Chapter 13
13
B uddy went to unlock his front door when he noticed a slight split in the wood. He gently pushed the door, and it popped open an inch.
“Duncan, we’ve got a problem,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. Duncan was still at the truck, retrieving the breakfast they had purchased from their favorite diner on the way home from the station after a grueling twenty-four-hour shift. Between working Keith’s arson case and the three-alarm call in the middle of the night, Buddy wasn’t in the mood for more drama.
“What’s up?”
Quietly, Buddy made his way across the front path toward his vehicle. “Front door is open, and it looks damaged.”
“Damaged how?”
“Kicked in,” Buddy said as he reached into the glove box, finding his weapon. The neighborhood had its share of break-ins. Usually, kids walk by and see someone’s purse or wallet by the door. But most of the crimes were things stolen from cars and the occasional domestic dispute.
“Shit.” Duncan tossed the take-out boxes on top of the cargo bed cover before snagging his overnight bag, where he kept his gun. Neither one ever left home without one. “I’ll take the back.”
“Meet me in the middle,” Buddy said. Their rental had two entrances. One off the back patio near the kitchen and the front door with a small foyer next to the family room. They’d scan the main living areas before the bedrooms. Buddy doubted anyone was still inside, but better safe than sorry.
With his weapon at the ready, he pushed back the door, scanning the room. He noted nothing out of place. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Duncan down the hallway in the kitchen.
Duncan raised his hand under his neck, waving it back and forth, giving the ‘nothing’ signal.
Together, they made their way down the hallway toward the bedrooms. The first one on the right was Buddy’s room.
“Shit,” he said. “Look.” He pointed to his dresser. Two drawers were hanging open, clothes haphazardly dangling out. Everyone teased Buddy about his obsessive neatness. Nothing out of place and his bed was always perfectly made.
This time, not so much. Buddy hadn’t slept in it since he met Kaelie, and he knew he’d left the corners tucked neatly like his mother had taught him, not falling out under the comforter.
“Let me check my room,” Duncan said as he stepped by and pushed open the second door on the right. “Nothing touched in here.”
Buddy turned, staring at the open door of the third bedroom that they used as a shared office of sorts. “We always keep that door closed.”
“I shut it when we left yesterday morning,” Duncan whispered.
“I haven’t been in that room in three days.” Buddy raised his weapon.
“Yeah, you haven’t been home since the pretty investigator moved in across the street. I’m starting to feel like you don’t love me anymore.”
“I don’t,” Buddy teased, but his voice was strained with worry.
He sucked in a breath, pointing his weapon into the room as he stepped across the threshold and made a quick scan.
No one was in there, but his gun cabinet, which he always kept locked, had been damaged, and someone had managed to open it.
“Two of my guns are gone.”
“That’s not good,” Duncan said, holstering his weapon.
“Worse, your guns are untouched,” Buddy said, pointing to a similar cabinet with the lock still firmly in place.
“Fuck,” Duncan muttered.
“I have a bad feeling about this.” Ever since Buddy left the station an hour ago, he felt like he had to keep glancing over his shoulder, waiting for Edwin or Keith to appear out of nowhere. He certainly didn’t like that Kaelie had spent the night alone. She could be in danger if the two men were in cahoots, regardless of her independence and tough exterior. He had texted her throughout the night while he was at the station. Most times, she responded within minutes, since she said she’d be up late working, but when he knew she was sound asleep, those wee hours of the morning drove him crazy with worry.
“I’ll call the locals, and you can call your girlfriend.”
“Let’s call Kaelie first.”
“Dude, your guns were stolen; we need to report that,” Duncan said, glaring at him.
“Give me two minutes.” He whipped out his phone. “Hey, Siri, call Kaelie S.”
“Kaelie S?” Duncan questioned with a quiet laugh.
Buddy shrugged. “I was lazy when I put in her contact info.”
“Hey, Buddy.” The sound of Kaelie’s voice sliced through the tension, easing his tight neck muscles. “Are you home?”
“Just pulled in,” he admitted. “But I’ve got a problem.”
“What kind of problem?” she asked.
“My house was broken into sometime in the last twenty-four hours, and two of my guns are missing. One is an older Marlon 795 that my dad bought me years ago, and the other is a Ruger semi-automatic.”
“Fuck, that’s not good. Have you called it in?” she asked.
“No. I wanted to talk with you first. I don’t believe in coincidences, and my gut is telling me this is related to Keith and Edwin.” Buddy turned and stepped out of the office. He didn’t want to disturb anything more than he already had.
“Did Keith know about your gun collection?” Kaelie asked.
“Oh yeah. He used to want to brag about how his collection was the best around. Hell, that night we got into a fight, he wanted me to show him mine.”
“Did you?” Kaelie asked.
“I don’t do pissing contests. I told him to fuck off. He went into the house and about fifteen minutes later, he came out with a beer and started in on Chastity.” Buddy followed Duncan out of the house and back toward the driveway, where he leaned against the hood of his truck.
“That’s when you asked him to leave.”
“Yep. He didn’t, and I did a dumb thing,” Buddy said. “Do you want me to call the locals?”
“I’ll send Louis over. Once he gets there, yes, call it in.”
“All right.” In the background, he heard the sound of a horn. “Where are you?”
“In the car heading to a lead.”
“What kind of lead?” he asked.
“I’ll let you know if it pans out. I gotta go.”
“Hey, Kaelie?” His chest tightened like it did the first time he’d heard about a fire that his sister had been called to and two firefighters had been injured. He’d been home on leave, and he and his mom paced in the living room until the dreaded call came in.
His sister had indeed been injured, though not badly, but still, that feeling had unsettled him in a way he prayed he never had to deal with again.
“Yeah?” she responded softly.
“Be safe out there and text me every once in a while.”
“I will. You do the same.”
He wanted to say something sweet and romantic, but he wouldn’t do that in front of Duncan. Not while the man had a shit-eating grin on his face.
“Bye,” Buddy said as he tapped the off button. “Louis is on the way over, then we’ll call the locals.”
“Damn, man, you’re falling faster and harder than Kent did for Dixie.”
“That’s impossible.” Only Buddy knew, his heart would never belong to anyone but Kaelie.
The last thing Kaelie needed was Buddy freaking out on her, which is why she opted not to tell him where she was going or what she was doing.
She flashed her badge to a local sheriff as she entered the motel room in one of the shadier sides of town. It smelled like a combination of mold and urine. A detective stood at the end of the bed. He wore a dark-blue sport coat, and his badge hung around his neck. He waved her over.
“You must be Kaelie Star,” the man said.
“I am.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Cash.”
Kaelie covered her mouth and stared down at the lifeless body sprawled out on a yellow-white comforter that looked like it might not have been washed for months.
“That’s definitely Edwin Gladstone.” She planted her hands on her hips and scanned the room. A few papers were scattered across the floor near the desk, which had been pushed up under a window with thick soot, making it difficult to see out of. Gladstone had just been given three hundred grand. Why the hell was he staying in a two-star motel that was often rented by the hour to sex workers?
“Tell me what you know,” she said, releasing a long breath. Three days on the job and she had two dead bodies, a woman who had been beaten nearly to death, and a firefighter who was missing.
“The desk clerk said this man checked in late last night. According to the clerk, the victim appeared nervous and agitated. At about seven this morning, the same clerk saw a dark pickup truck pull up in front of the unit, and a man got out and knocked on the door.” Cash turned, nodding toward the entrance. “Then the clerk said he started to prepare for shift change and went into the back room. That’s when he thought he heard rapid gunfire.”
“Rapid, as in an assault rifle?” She examined the walls, the bed, and the body for bullet wounds.
“No, more like semi, but that’s not what the clerk said. He described it as seven or so pow, pow, pows. As if there was a break in between.”
“So, maybe a semi,” she said more to herself.
“I’ll get to the weapon in a second.” Cash planted his hands on his hips. “The clerk said he fell to the ground, not knowing how far away the shots were. He said about a ten-minute silence followed, but he was too scared to move until he heard the truck leave.”
“How’d he know it was the truck?” she asked.
“That’s where it gets weird. As in, he didn’t know until he went back to the office and called the police. But the sex worker and her john in the room next door said they never saw a pickup, and after the gunshots, which they described the same way, they looked out the window and saw a nondescript four-door sedan peel out of the parking lot.”
“I take it you questioned the clerk again,” she said as a statement not a question.
“My partner did, while I took a look around the lobby. But while standing behind the clerk, I saw two fresh one-hundred-dollar bills in his back pocket. He’s amended his story, now saying he was paid by some man, medium to tall build, with blue eyes and dark hair to tell us he saw a pickup.”
Kaelie’s heart thumped to her throat. “Before or after the shots were fired?”
“Before,” Cash said.
“Where is the clerk now?” Kaelie struggled to keep her hands from trembling.
Cash pointed to the door again. “In the office. My partner is with him, making sure he doesn’t leave.”
“I want to question him, but before I do that, you said something about getting to the murder weapon in a minute.”
“We found a Ruger semi-automatic in the dumpster.”
She cocked her head while her pulse raced out of control. She knew Keith was behind this and wanted desperately to pin it on Buddy. But why? “What made you look in the dumpster?”
“The clerk said he saw the man who paid him toss something in there.”
“I need to talk to this clerk.” She followed Cash out of the motel room and across the parking lot with grass and wild weeds growing up through significant cracks in the pavement. Inside the musty lobby was one of those fish things that sings an Elvis tune whenever anyone walks by hanging over a sofa across from the lobby desk. A scrawny young man, maybe in his mid-twenties, sat on the sofa. Thankfully the fish didn’t sing when she stepped in front of him.
She pulled out her phone, bringing up an image of Keith, and held it out. “Is this the man who paid you to give the police false information? The man who walked into that room and shot and killed someone?”
“I didn’t see no one get shot,” the clerk said with a shaky voice.
“Did the man have a rifle in his hands when he entered the room?”
The clerk nodded.
“Then you heard gunshots.”
The clerk nodded again.
She pushed the phone closer. “Is this the man?”
“Yes. That’s him.”
“Thank you,” she said, showing the image to Cash. “This is firefighter Keith Jones. He’s gone missing. I’m putting out an official statement and would appreciate your cooperation.”
“I’ll put out an APB now,” Cash said with a frown. “It’s hard when one of our own turns on us. You can count on my department to assist in any way.”
“Thanks. If you don’t mind, I’m going to send my forensics team out here. We can split the workload based on which one of us will get faster results.”
“Works for me.”
“Do you mind staying here and seeing this through? I need to go warn the firefighter that Keith is trying to set up. I think he’ll go after him next.”
“It will be my pleasure.”
She shook Cash’s hand and made a beeline for her car. “Hey, Siri, call Buddy West.”
The phone went straight to voicemail.
“Fuck,” she muttered as she punched the gas. “Hey, Siri, call Buddy West.”
Same thing.
“Hey, Siri, text Buddy West. Where are you?”
Her heart raced as she sped through the streets. She gripped the steering wheel so tight her knuckles turned white.
Five minutes passed and finally a response.
“Hey, Siri, read my texts.”
“You have one new text from Buddy West. I’m at your house.”
“Thank God. Hey, Siri, send a text to Buddy West. I’m on my way.”