Beautiful Storm (Lightning Strikes Book 1) (25 page)

"And a run a day does that for you?" she asked doubtfully. "I guess I've never run far enough or fast enough to get those endorphins everyone raves about. I usually find running to be somewhat dull, but then I mostly do it on a treadmill."

"You have to get out in nature. Did you bring any sneakers with you? We could go out later."

"Sorry, no sneakers. I wasn't planning on a workout."

"Too bad. We could always get you some."

"I'd just hold you back. I'm sure you would be a lot faster than me."

"I can go slow—when it matters." He gave her a look that took her right back to the night before when he had been painstakingly slow and attentive as he'd kissed his way across every inch of her body.

"Yes, you can," she murmured as his fingers curled around hers. "You know, I can't remember the last time I held hands with anyone and just took a walk. I might have been twelve."

"So do you like it?" He lifted their locked hands and brought hers to his mouth where he gave her knuckles a quick kiss.

A tingle shot through her body. "It's not bad."

"It's better than not bad."

"Maybe."

"So tell me about your friends, Alicia. Who do you hang with in Miami?"

"Well, there's Jeff—he's the weather guy at Channel 2 News."

Michael laughed. "So he's like your dealer. He gives you your weather fix."

She made a face at him. "It's not like that, well, not
exactly
like that. He does tell me when there's lightning headed my way. I also spend time with some of the women at the paper. One of the reporters is a good friend, and I had a roommate when I first moved to Miami who I still see. She got married last year, so her life has gone in a different direction." As she spoke, she realized she could count her good friends on probably one hand.

Turning to Michael, she said, "What about you? Who are your friends?"

"I have some college friends that I spend time with. There's often a bar or a sporting event involved."

"But you live alone?"

"For the last five years yes. Before that, I had some roommates, but I got tired of the keg scene. I prefer being on my own."

"So do I. I can just be myself."

He gave her a funny look.

"What?" she asked warily.

"Just thinking how often you feel like you can't be yourself when other people are around."

"Well, that's probably because I have a hobby most people think is ridiculous. I get judged a lot."

"Or maybe you're judging yourself."

His suggestion hit a little too close to home.

"If you like what you do, then own it," he said. "Be whoever you want to be. The worst thing is trying to be someone you're not."

"I think that's easier to say than to do."

He stopped walking, his pause drawing her gaze to his. "You're not a woman who's afraid of difficult challenges, Alicia."

"I'm not as brave as you think I am."

"Yes, you are."

"How do you know that?"

"For one thing, you'd probably be on a plane home right now if you were the kind of person to get scared off. But you're not. You just have to believe in what I already see."

His words touched her deeply. He seemed to believe in her more than anyone else in her life. "Thanks."

"Just speaking the truth, babe."

They finished walking around the pond and then made their way into the picnic area about twenty minutes later. Alicia was glad they'd taken the time to walk off some of the tension of the day. She felt more ready to dive into the pile of information.

They sat down across from each other. Michael opened the large envelope and pulled out two folders that were filled with papers. He handed one to her and kept the other for himself.

"These look like court transcripts," she said.

He nodded. "Yeah, and I've also got notes from counsel in my batch."

She felt energized by the thick stack of papers, each one of which could serve up a potential clue. They'd been operating on so little information, she felt like she'd just gotten a huge gift. "There has to be something in here," she said excitedly.

"Let's hope so. But remember, Alicia, the police have already looked at this information. It's not likely we're going to find a clue they missed."

"You never know."

Eighteen

For over an hour, they read through the files that Lieutenant Hodges had sent over. Alicia jotted down notes on her phone as she was going through the papers so she wouldn't forget what she wanted to talk to Michael about. By the time she'd finished the file, she had a much better feel for the facts of the double homicide, the witness testimony, and the grounds for appeal.

What she didn't have was a clearer picture of who might have been the murderer if Bryer's wife was indeed innocent.

Michael had been silent during his read-through, although his expression had gotten more serious with each flip of the page.

"Should we compare notes?" she asked when he looked up from his file.

"All right. You go first. What have you got?"

"More questions than answers. In no particular order, here goes: I think we should talk to Melissa Bryer's sister, Cheryl Alton. In her trial testimony, she spoke out quite vehemently about the fact that her brother-in-law was not having an affair. It's possible she lied because she felt that was the best strategy to protect her sister, but my gut tells me she believed what she was saying."

"But she had no proof that he wasn't having an affair," Michael returned. "She might have believed it because she needed to believe it. That said, I agree that we should talk to her. She has the best knowledge of the key players, which would be Melissa and the professor."

"She works at Bella Beauty Salon downtown as a hairstylist. Maybe she's there today. We should check that out next."

"Okay, what else?"

"I thought it was interesting how little information there was on Connie Randolph, otherwise known as the other woman. While there was extensive background on the Bryers and their personal and work lives, Connie's bio was sketchy. She worked as an engineer at MDT. She was an attractive, thirty-two-year-old woman who divorced her husband about a year before she was killed. Her coworkers said she was hardworking and dedicated to her job and often worked late into the night, but no one socialized with her. She lived alone in a one-bedroom apartment in a building that housed thirty-two units. Her neighbor said they'd never exchanged more than a word or two in greeting in the year that Connie had lived there."

She paused for a moment, thinking that she'd been living a life very similar to Connie's for the past few years. She wondered if something had happened to her if anyone would be able to piece together the real story of her life.

Her frown drew Michael's attention. "What?" he asked.

"Just thinking that I live my life very much like Connie did. You asked me about friends earlier, and I could only come up with a couple. I'm a friendly person. I don't know how I became so isolated." Actually, that wasn't completely true. She'd started distancing herself from people after her father died and somewhere along the way it had just become a habit to keep to herself, to not get too involved, to not put her heart on the line.

She'd broken that habit last night though. Liliana's disappearance hadn't just changed Michael's life; it had also changed hers.

"You're not Connie," Michael said. "You have to keep some emotional distance here, Alicia."

"I know that. It just struck me for a moment, that's all. Anyway, no one seemed to have any idea that Connie was sleeping with Bryer. Everyone who worked with her expressed surprise that she'd been found in his bed."

"Not everyone was surprised," Michael said, glancing down at his notes. "Bryer's housekeeper stated that she'd seen Connie at the professor's house two days earlier. And a teaching assistant at the university—not TJ—said that he'd seen Thomas and Connie having drinks at a bar called the Flight Deck. I didn't see TJ interviewed about the case at all."

"I noticed that. The Flight Deck did come up a few times in the material I read. Bryer met Connie there at least four times in the month preceding their deaths. They also went to Burger Bob's, which is apparently one of Bryer's favorite places. We were just there yesterday." It felt a little unsettling to think they'd inadvertently gone to one of the couple's meeting places without knowing it.

"Just because they ate together or had drinks together doesn't mean they were more than friends and colleagues," Michael said.

"Don't forget the text messages and emails exchanged between the two of them. Those indicated they were having a personal relationship of some nature."

"I don't know," he said, shaking his head. "I read the texts provided in court." He flipped through the pages. "Here they are:
It's important we speak tonight. I need to see you. When can we get together? Are you working late again? When is your wife coming back to town?
" He lifted his gaze to hers. "You could spin those texts but if you just look at them objectively, they don't sound that damning. It's not like they were sexting or sending naked photos to each other.

He had a point. "Well that would support Cheryl's claim that they weren't involved in an affair. But I did read that a bartender at the Flight Deck reported overhearing a loud fight between Professor Bryer and his wife a couple of days before the murder. What were they fighting about?"

"Could have been anything. That same witness—Kayla Robbins—said she'd personally served Connie and the professor at least twice in the weeks preceding the murder and that she wasn't surprised that they'd been found in bed together."

She groaned. "We're going around in circles, Michael. Were they or weren't they? How will we ever know?"

"Good question. I will say that the manner of death felt very cold-blooded and somewhat deliberate. Both were killed with one bullet. Bryer took it in the head; Connie got it in the heart. It felt like a message was being delivered."

"Which played into the prosecutor's case that the scorned wife, who was an excellent marksman, killed them both. But I don't get why she'd kill them in her house or stick around, call 911, and cooperate with the police. She was questioned for an hour before she requested an attorney," Alicia said.

"She could have been trying to prove how innocent she was. She could have thought she was smart enough to beat them. Did you find anyone else with a motive?"

"I wondered about the housekeeper's son, Joey Martinez." She riffled through some papers and pulled out the one with his statement. "He went to the house with his mother the morning after the two were killed. He said he was just dropping her off for work as usual, and they hadn't heard the news until they arrived and saw the crime scene tape."

She paused, turning to the next page. "He told the police his mother had worked for the family for two years and that they hadn't treated her all that well. They often asked her to work late to accommodate their schedules but didn't pay her much." She glanced over at Michael. "That matches what Liliana had in her notes that the son said the professor was cheap. Do you still have Liliana's notes?"

"Yeah, but they're in the pocket of the jeans I wore last night, which are in the car. Should I get them now?"

"We can look at them again later. Was there anything else in your batch of papers that jumped out at you?"

"Yes. Paul Sandbury, Connie Randolph's coworker."

"I read his testimony. What bothered you about it?"

Michael thought for a moment. "It seemed incomplete, as if Sandbury had something to say, but no one was asking him the right questions. He mentioned that Connie and Thomas argued in the office, but he didn't think it was of a personal nature. He thought it was about work. Unfortunately, he didn't hear the conversation, just the tone. He also mentioned that Connie's ex-husband also had an altercation with Connie several months earlier. It got so heated that the ex-husband was escorted out of the building."

"Yes, but Brian Randolph had an airtight alibi. He was giving a seminar at a conference attended by hundreds of people."

"That doesn't mean he couldn't have set up the murder," Michael said. "We need more information, Alicia. We need to get it from someone who knew the professor well."

"Or Connie. I think we need to put together a list, start at the top and work our way down. Speculation isn't getting us anywhere."

"All right. Let's do it."

As she put the papers back into her file, her phone rang. The flashing number surprised her. "It's TJ."

"Great," Michael said with excitement. "Put it on speaker so I can hear."

"Hello? TJ?"

"Alicia Monroe?"

"Yes, thanks for calling me back. I don't know if you remember me, but I'm Jake's youngest sister."

"Sure, I remember you. If this is about my mother, then I know what you're going to say, the house is a disaster. You have to understand that I have someone coming in once a week to clean, but I can't afford to make it more frequent, and my mother makes a mess ten minutes after the housekeeper leaves. My mother has trouble staying focused on whatever task she's doing. She had a mini-stroke several months ago. She's getting better, and I'm checking on her as often as I can, but I have to work, and she absolutely refuses to have anyone else come into the house."

She heard the frustration and anger in his voice. "What about the neighbors? Or other family members?"

"Katherine is busy at the hospital and is never around. The neighbors haven't been helpful."

"Well, I spoke to my mother. She's going to check in on Debbie today. She said she'd try to pull some people together."

"Really? That would be amazingly helpful," he said with relief.

"Good. I hope your mother gets better quickly. But it wasn't just your mom's situation that I was calling about. I need to talk to you about Professor Bryer's murder. Did you work in his department at the time that he was killed?"

Silence followed her words.

"TJ?" she prodded.

"Why are you asking me about that? I thought you were a photographer living in Miami."