Blood Lies (10 page)

Shivering, I switched on the portable bike headlight and checked my watch: 9:05
P.M.
Night had fallen. I navigated my way out of Discovery Park with the light held low to the ground and turned on only when necessary.

I emerged onto Emerson Street and hurried across the busy road, seeking the shelter of a quieter side street. Conscious of every streetlamp I walked under, I wove the nine blocks through the streets until I reached Alex’s green cedar-sided house on Thirty-fifth Avenue.

I was relieved to see no sign of her husband Marcus’s black Mercedes in the long driveway. I circled the block twice to ensure that no one was watching. With one more confirmatory glance, I rushed up the stone walkway, rang the doorbell, but then ducked around the corner and hid behind a hedge. Peeking around the edge, I watched as the door opened. Hair loose around her shoulders and wearing jeans and a T-shirt, Alex stood at the doorstep, glancing irritably from side to side.

“Kenny and Davy Paris!” she called out. “Don’t you make me call your parents again!”

Before I could grab her attention, the door slammed shut. I slid out from behind the bush and walked up to the door. I rang the bell and stayed put this time.

The door whooshed open. Hands on her hips, Alex’s scowl gave way to surprise. “Ben?”

“Is Marcus home?”

She shook her head.

“Your dad?”

“He’s gone back to Spokane. It’s just Talie and me, and she’s asleep.”

I nodded my relief. “Can I come in?”

“Of course.” She stepped out of the way to let me pass.

As soon as I walked into the spacious foyer, I bent down and untied my shoes. It was too late. Alex spotted the cycling shoes. “Did you ride over?”

Shoes off, I stood up. “Not exactly.”

Alex leaned close enough to give me a whiff of mint-flavored toothpaste. “What’s going on, Ben?”

“Can I trouble you for a beer?”

Alex turned and headed for the kitchen. I followed her into the huge open kitchen with combined great room. She opened the Sub-Zero fridge and dug out a bottle of Dutch beer. “Marcus only drinks the imported stuff. Need a glass?”

“This is fine.” I took the bottle from her, twisted off its cap, and took one long icy gulp.

Concern darkened Alex’s brown eyes. “What’s going on?”

I had another sip before putting the bottle down. “They came for me.”

“The police?”

“Yes.”

Alex’s color drained. Her jaw dropped. “And you…
ran
?”

I nodded, reaching for the bottle again.

“Ben, have you lost your mind?” she said in a half whisper.

“Maybe,” I said. “But I didn’t know what else to do. They must’ve matched my DNA to the blood on Emily’s wall.” I met her stare. “Alex, I didn’t do it.”

“I thought you had a defense attorney to handle this.”

“I’m not ready to trust my life to him yet.”

Her mouth closed and her lips formed a stoic smile. “So what are you going to do?”

“I have to get out of Seattle,” I sighed.

“And then?”

“Find Aaron.”

“Aaron?” she gasped. “You think his body was dumped in Vancouver?”

I sucked the last drop of beer from the bottle. “I’ve been over it a thousand times, Alex. If it’s not my blood on the wall, it has to be Aaron’s.”

Alex sat down on a barstool. “Are you saying that your missing-and-presumed-dead brother murdered Emily?” she asked in a monotone.

“No!” I shook my head vehemently. “Aaron wouldn’t have done that. He had—has—no violence in him,” I said, remembering the day he absorbed my punches without even trying to protect himself.

“What then?”

“I think someone either coerced his involvement or, possibly, got a hold of a sample of his blood and sprayed it on the wall.”

“Blood that was over two years old?” Alex asked skeptically.

“We both know you can’t keep blood that long without incredibly sophisticated equipment.”

“Do you honestly think Aaron is still alive?”

“Or he was up until very close to the night of Emily’s murder.”

Alex’s eyes fell to the countertop. “What about the burned-out car with all his blood in the trunk. How do you explain that?”

“Not easily,” I said. “The trunk was saturated in blood. Well over four liters, according to the CSI guys.”

“Which would have been three quarters of Aaron’s total blood supply. That’s not compatible with life.”

“I know, but the trunk was burned with gasoline. There’s no way to know how much of that fluid was blood.”

She arched an eyebrow in disbelief.

“Alex, you know those old men that come into the ER bleeding from their prostate? Their urine is so red it could pass for blood, but we both know there’s usually not much blood in the pee. A couple of tablespoons are enough to turn the pee blood color.”

She sighed. “You think someone deliberately diluted the blood found in that trunk?”

“It might work.”

“
Work?
To accomplish what?” She shook her head. “Fake his death?”

I nodded.

“Who would want do that?”

“Maybe Aaron.”

“Why?”

“From what my cousin Kyle tells me, Aaron was involved with some scary people. Maybe faking his death was his only escape.” I pulled back the barstool beside Alex and plunked into the seat. “God, I know how this all must sound.”

“It’s a bit of a stretch.” Then her face filled with resolve. “But I know you didn’t kill Emily. So there has to be another explanation.”

Affection welled inside me, and the pressure eased off my chest. I smiled. “Thank you.”

She snapped her fingers. “Maybe Aaron didn’t need to dilute his blood. He could have collected it a little at a time over months, if he’d frozen it!”

“That would work, too.” Despite his lack of medical training, I knew Aaron would be capable of pulling off a ploy like that.

Her expression turned businesslike. “So where do we go from here?”

“
We?
” I shook my head. “I had no right to involve you even this far. I was just hoping to just buy a few hours here to regroup. And then I’m getting the hell out of your hair.”

“And going where?”

“Vancouver,” I said. “That’s where Aaron was living when he disappeared. I’m guessing that’s where the whispered Canadian phone calls originate. Somehow, it’s all tied in.”

Alex viewed me with a trace of impatience. “And how do you plan to get across the border as a fugitive?”

Fugitive
. The word stung like a slap. “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

“Let’s say you make it across, how will you support yourself in Canada?” Her voice rose slightly. “Surely they’ll freeze your accounts. What will you do for food and clothing?”

“I am going to go see my cousin Kyle.”

“Can you trust him?”

“I don’t have much choice.” I hadn’t considered the question before. “But I think I can.”

Alex pushed herself up from the counter. “I’m changing the plans.”

“What do you mean?” For a panicky moment, I thought Alex might turn me in for what she deemed to be my own good.

Alex stood across from me with her arms folded across her chest. “You’re going to stay here in my basement until we’ve figured out a more concrete strategy,” she said definitively.

I reached out and gently gripped her bare elbow. “That’s crazier than my plan.”

“Why?”

“For starters, what about your dad?”

“He’s staying in Spokane until at least the end of the month.”

“And Marcus?”

Alex hesitated. She looked away and cleared her throat. “He’s stuck back east for a while longer.”

Her evasiveness was uncharacteristic. I squeezed her elbow. “Alex?”

She stared at the countertop. “Marcus moved out a few weeks ago. I was going to tell you, but you’ve had so much on your plate, it didn’t seem fair.”

“Fair?” I let go of my grip. Wrapping an arm around her, I pulled her into a hug. “You’ve listened to my problems nonstop for the last few weeks and all this time—”

“All this time what, Uncle Benjamin?” a small voice asked from behind us.

Alex broke free of the hug. I hopped off the stool to face Talie. “Hi, sweetie,” I said, trying to recover my mental balance. “How’s the third-tallest Talie I know?”

“Oh, Ben,” she said, sounding just like her mother. “You don’t know any other Talies!” She giggled and wrapped her arms around me.

“I know fourteen of them, and you’re the third-tallest.” I hoisted Talie in the air. I took a step or two away from the kitchen’s island and swung her airplane-style in my arms.

Alex pulled Talie out of my arms. “Come on, babe. Bedtime was yesterday.”

Wrapped in Alex’s small arms, Talie seemed bigger than I remembered. She looked over her mother’s shoulder at me with an impish grin and brown eyes that matched Alex’s. “Are you staying tonight, Uncle Benjamin?”

“No, sweetie, Ben was just about to leave,” Alex said.

I sat on the bed in the comfortable basement room where Alex’s father lived much of the year. A few of his heavy wool suits (“from the old country”) hung in the open closet. A photo of Alex’s mother stood on the dresser beside a black-and-white wedding shot of both parents. Her mom had died young, and Alex rarely spoke of her. They shared a strong likeness—not so much in the features (Alex had more of her father’s dark coloring and angular face) as in the same playful expression and clear willfulness that communicated through the camera’s lens.

I stood up and walked over to the small pile of Marcus’s clothes that Alex had brought down to me. I lifted the navy blue long-sleeved Hugo Boss shirt from the top of the pile and slipped it on over my head. As Alex had predicted, it was a perfect fit.

I wandered over to the bathroom mirror. The silky shirt wouldn’t have been my choice. I thought I looked oily in it. I know Marcus did. I remembered he’d worn the same shirt to one of the ER group’s winter social functions. Our exchange that evening was still vivid in my mind.

I was talking to one of the young wide-eyed residents in our department when a hand clapped my shoulder. Even before I saw or heard him, I recognized Marcus Lindquist from the firm gesture and the smell of his expensive cologne. Excusing myself from my conversation, I turned to face him.

With brown hair gelled as perfectly as ever, blue eyes, straight nose, and a cleft in the chin, Marcus wore his usual movie-star-in-search-of-a-camera smile. “What’s my second-favorite ER doc drinking?” he asked warmly.

I held up my clear glass. “Sprite.”

“Sprite?” He laughed. “Are you out of your mind, Ben? Have you noticed how boring this party is?”

“I’m enjoying myself. Besides, I’m squeezing in an early-morning ride before work.”

Marcus rolled his eyes. “Come at least watch someone drink a real drink.”

With an arm still around my shoulder, he guided me to the self-serve bar set up in the corner of the room. He poured three fingers of scotch into his empty tumbler and took a generous sip. “Emasculating, always being the dumb spouse at these functions,” he said.

“You were smart enough to get out of medicine,” I said, referring to his career jump from hematologist to vice president of a company involved in umbilical cord blood storage.

“Don’t kid yourself,” Marcus said with a rare hint of self-parody. “Selling your soul isn’t always more rewarding than saving lives.”

I grinned. “Still, you got yourself a nice car in trade.”

“Yeah, I do love my toys,” he said. “I’ve got my eyes on a red convertible 911 for the spring.”

“A Porsche? You getting a head start on your midlife crisis?”

“No head start required. I’m forty-four already.”

With his life-of-the-party attitude, I tended to forget that he was ten years older than Alex and me.

Marcus pointed his empty tumbler across the room at his wife. Locked in a conversation with two older male colleagues, Alex threw her head back in a fit of laughter. “She’s painfully beautiful, isn’t she?”

In a simple black dress with her hair tied back, she was. “Hmmm,” I had to agree.

Marcus reached for the scotch bottle and refilled his tumbler. “Must make it very difficult for you.”

I turned to him with a frown. “Difficult?”

“The chemistry between you two isn’t exactly subtle.”

I stiffened. “We’ve worked together for over six years. We’ve been good friends almost as long.”

“I know,” he said affably. On the way to his lips, his full glass gave me the once-over. “But look at you. A handsome, available ER doc. The women should be hanging off you. Ben, it’s almost weird that I haven’t seen you with another woman since…” He paused. “Emily, was it?”

Anger rising, I simply nodded.

“She was gorgeous, that one.” Marcus sighed a laugh. “I wouldn’t have kicked her out of bed for leaving crumbs the size of toaster ovens.”

“Maybe you should slow down on the scotch, Marcus.”

“Hell, I know what it’s like,” Marcus said, ignoring my remark. “I’m on the road a lot. I get my share of attention from women.”

“And you’re just restraint personified, aren’t you, Marcus?
’
I said quietly.