Chapter Sixteen #2
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I just found out that my best friend was murdered. I’m tired, Robert. I’m going to get a bath and go to bed.”
“We know what Jack Marshall did. Baby, he’s got all that money, and I’m betting he’d do just about anything to keep his secret. All we have to do—”
“Blackmail? Have you lost your mind? Robert, I don’t want to hear this.
Good night, and don’t call me back when you’re even drunker.
I’m shutting off my phone.” She disconnected, thinking it was so like her husband to try to make money out of this tragedy.
As it was, he’d never really liked Whitney to start with.
Turning off her phone, she made herself another drink and took it into the bathroom.
As the tub filled, she thought about her friend.
That she and Whitney had even met had been a fluke.
Or fate. They’d ended up roommates after Liz had put up an ad on a bulletin board at college.
She’d needed money and the freshman Whitney Clark had needed a place to live.
From the moment they met, even with Whitney being so much younger, they’d become fast friends.
Both being sisterless, they had longed for one.
Liz shut off the water in the tub, finished her drink and stripped down to climb in. She’d failed her little sister and now Whitney was gone forever and her murderer would go free unless someone stopped him.
Russ felt hog-tied. He needed Jack Marshall’s phone records for the week before and after the murder.
He also needed to know which private planes had flown to and from Great Falls and Billings the night of the murder.
Both required a warrant, which there was no chance the chief would authorize.
He also really could have used a cadaver dog before any more construction was done at the subdivision where Amy Sue had seen Jack Marshall kill that woman.
He’d already called a friend who worked at the airport. “How long would it take to fly a small personal plane to Great Falls from Billings?” he asked.
“Hour and a half.”
Too much time. “How about one of these jets you say fly in and out all the time?”
“Fifty minutes. You taking a trip?” his friend asked.
“I wish.” After he hung up, he knew that had to be the way Marshall had managed it the night of the murder.
Fifty minutes if the jet was waiting. He gets dropped off at the airport where he’s left his car.
There would be a record of him leaving it, taking it out and returning it that night. Unless he used dealer plates and cash.
Russ felt as if he were spinning his wheels. He thought he’d figured out how Marshall could have done it. But he still couldn’t prove it.
Rubbing his neck, he knew contacting Marshall wasn’t going to get the answers he needed. He felt stymied. But he kept trying even knowing that when the chief got wind of it, he’d be gone. At least tonight he was still a detective with the Billings Police Department. Tomorrow, he might not be.
He thought of Amy Sue. He recalled the terror in her eyes that first night. He couldn’t give up.
Amy Sue shot a glance in her rearview mirror not for the first time tonight.
Since leaving Liz Baker’s house, she hadn’t been able to shake off the feeling that someone was following her.
It was impossible with all the traffic to tell if she was being tailed, yet the hair rose on the back of her neck as she drove.
The night was dark, much like the night of the murder.
It wasn’t that far to the hotel, but with the traffic, it seemed to take forever.
All she could think about was getting to her room and locking herself inside. Earlier with the detective she’d felt so safe. It was her own feelings that had felt dangerous. After her first and only experience falling in love had ended so disastrously, she’d thought she’d never feel that way again.
But soft-spoken Russell with his warm brown eyes and his smile had gotten past the walls she’d built around her heart. He’d made her realize that she could love again, although the timing couldn’t have been worse.
When she’d started this, she’d known it would be dangerous. She hadn’t cared. She’d felt like a shell of a person. But now, she was afraid because she didn’t want to die. She wanted to live, and she didn’t want to miss a minute of it.
A horn honked behind her. Her gaze shot to her rearview mirror again. The driver of a large truck honked again, and she realized the light had changed. Hurriedly, she got her SUV going, promising herself she would pay more attention to the road.
She checked her mirror again. A large black SUV was now behind her, the driver in shadow as the glare of the streetlights swept past. When she looked again, the SUV was gone. A pickup had taken its place behind her.
As she neared the hotel, she tried to relax. She couldn’t let her feelings for Russ make her forget what she was doing here. The two of them were going to see that justice was done.
The parking lot was full. The only spot was some distance from the entrance. As she pulled in, a vehicle passed behind her, someone also looking for a parking spot? Turning off the engine, she sat for a moment. The night seemed darker, the tall lights illuminating the lot dim and distant.
Grabbing her purse, she opened her door and stepped out, hesitating for a moment to listen. She could hear traffic on the nearby street but little else. Her cell rang. It was her sister.
“Josie,” she said as she locked the car and headed through the parked cars toward the hotel entrance. It was such a relief to hear her sister’s voice. Just the sound of it made her feel safer. “How’s the trial going?”
“I’d rather talk about how you’re doing.”
“I got the name of the woman I saw murdered.”
“Amy Sue, how in the world did you do that?”
“It’s a long story, and I can’t get into it right now.”
“Where are you?”
“I just got to the hotel. I’m in the parking lot.
” Before Josie spoke, she heard footfalls behind her and turned to see a man headed in her direction.
He was large and bundled up even though the night wasn’t that cold.
She began to walk faster as she listened to her sister warn her about parking lots.
“There’s someone following me,” she said into the phone. “I might have to run.”
“Don’t hang up. Run!”
She took off running hard toward the lights of the hotel lobby glowing in the distance. She didn’t dare look behind her for fear he would soon be breathing down her neck or worse. A car pulled into the lot, the headlights blinding her, forcing her to slow and move to the side as it passed.
She looked back. There was no sign of the man. Her pulse thundered in her ears. Had he cut through the cars? She couldn’t see him, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t there waiting to grab her and haul her back into the nest of large SUVs in the lot.
“What’s happening?” Josie demanded.
Unable to speak, she ran the rest of the way to the hotel entrance, slowing as she mounted the steps before turning to look back. At first, she didn’t see him. Then he moved out of the edge of the darkness before he turned and disappeared into the parked vehicles.
“Was it Marshall?” her sister asked.
“He was wearing a hoodie and jeans and stayed in the shadows, and it was too dark to see his face, but who else?”
“Hang up and call Detective Tate. Then call me back.”