Concrete Evidence (24 page)

W
HAT THE HELL WAS TAKING
Erica so long?

Lee set the laptop on the driver’s seat and climbed out of the car. He stared at the house for a moment. The house had two exterior doors that weren’t visible from where he’d sat in the car, and Novak knew they were coming here after their meeting with Riversong. Lee broke into a jog, remembering the man had swept Erica with a possessive leer.

He pushed open the door and stepped inside. “Erica?”

“Lee! Help!” Her voice came from the basement.

He raced through the living room to the kitchen and tried the basement doorknob. “What’s going on?” The knob wouldn’t move. He studied the mechanism. There was no lock.

“Help! I’m trapped!” Her voice was laced with hysteria, and she began to cough.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he said, hoping to soothe her. “The latch must be stuck, but I’ll get you out.” She must be afraid, being trapped in the dark. He didn’t blame her; that basement was rancid.

“Hurry! The basement—” Her words were cut off by more violent coughing.

“I’ll just run out to the car and grab the tools in your dig kit.”

“No! Don’t leave!” she screamed between coughs. He could hear her gasping for air. “The basement is full of carbon monoxide.” Her voice dropped. “And I’m feeling sick and dizzy.”

Adrenaline shot through him. “Move back from the door!”

He kicked next to the knob once, twice, three times, then took a few steps backward and used momentum to put force behind his heel.

The wood cracked. Another kick and half the door swung out over the stairs. The other half splintered and fell.

Erica clung to the railing several steps below, coughing and shielding her face from the raining wood fragments. He ran down the stairs, scooped her into his arms, then carried her up and outside the house.

He dropped to his knees on the lawn while cradling her against his chest.

She sucked in great, gasping breaths of air, then leaned away from him and vomited.

He yanked his cell phone from his pocket and dialed 911.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
S
IX

T
HE AMBULANCE PULLED AWAY
with sirens blaring. A helicopter was waiting on the fire station landing pad to airlift Erica to a Baltimore hospital equipped with a hyperbaric pressure chamber. A paramedic told Lee her prognosis was good, but the faster she got to the hyperbaric chamber, the better her chances for full recovery.

He didn’t ask, and the paramedic didn’t mention it, but he knew there was a chance Erica could have permanent brain damage.

Twenty minutes before she’d been trapped in the basement, Jake Novak had looked at her with predation. Lee wanted to kill the man with his bare hands.

He swiveled and faced the Menanichoch police officer who was investigating the incident. He was the same cop who had interviewed him the night Tommy Riversong was murdered. “Check Jake Novak’s alibi.”

The man cocked his head to the side. “You don’t think this was an accident?”

“Of course not. Someone jammed the door and turned the generator so it vented through the window.”

“The door is old and could have merely stuck, and the plumbers could have made a mistake when they positioned the generator.”

The plumbers were called, and the younger one Lee had met last week returned to the scene twenty minutes later. The man studied the position of the generator. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I don’t think we would have set it up this way, but I can’t be certain. I wasn’t thinking about the exhaust. I was more concerned with the hose, which was barely long enough.”

“What happened to the pump you installed last week?” Lee asked.

The man looked from Lee to the cop, clearly wondering if he had to answer the question.

The cop shrugged. “Tell us.”

“We did a good install last week, but the electrical system failed and fried the pump and the fuse box at the same time. The wiring is old.”

“Why did the basement flood again?” Lee asked. “It hasn’t rained in over a week.”

“The main water line to the house had been shut off for months—maybe years. While we were here, we opened the valve to test the rest of the plumbing. Near as I can tell, late last week a damn pipe burst and might be what caused the electrical to go out in the first place.”

No wonder he wasn’t eager to answer Lee’s questions. He might have caused both the flooding and the electrical damage.

“Did you run the generator while you were in the basement?” the cop asked.

The man shook his head. “We checked to make sure the pump was working; then we left. An electrician is supposed to fix the wiring tomorrow; then we’re going to reinstall the sump.”

Lee left the cop to finish the interview and stepped back inside the house. He stood at the top of the stairs, studying the broken door. How had it been jammed?

He circled the kitchen, and something on the floor caught his eye. A penny. The old dorm room prank came to mind, and he suddenly understood.

“What the hell are you doing messing with my crime scene?” the cop asked.

Lee turned to face him. “I thought you didn’t think this was a crime.”

“I’m examining every possibility. Now get out of there.”

He pointed to the penny. “That’s how the door was jammed. She was pennied in.”

“What?”

“Pennies were jammed into the frame until the latch was so tight against the metal plate it wouldn’t retract.”

The cop looked down at the penny. “With one penny?”

“I bet you’ll find more in the basement. When I kicked the door in, they must’ve gone flying.”

He studied Lee, and his eyes took on a hard edge. “You’re full of answers. I think I should take you in for questioning.”

“I’m the one who saved her.”

“Hoping she’ll be grateful to her hero?”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“You were with her the night Tommy was killed. Were you jealous of the poor kid?”

Lee’s frustration reached new heights. First the man wanted to write this off; now he considered Lee a suspect. “I don’t have time for this. I’m going to the hospital. If you need to know anything else, you can call me.”

“I don’t think so, Mr. Scott. I’d like to interview you back at the station.”

E
RICA BARELY REMEMBERED
the helicopter ride to the hospital. She didn’t fully come to awareness of her surroundings until she’d been in the hyperbaric pressure chamber for what she assumed was a long time. She felt pressure in her ears, had a pounding headache, and fought nausea, but the sweet, cool air soothed her raw and aching lungs.

She lay in the chamber, a long, coffin-like glass tube, and tried to think about her father and a time when her life had been simple and happy. It was getting harder and harder to recall his face. But she saw his eyes every time she looked into the mirror and knew she had his smile.

She and her mother had both worshipped him, and when he died, her mother didn’t just fall apart, she shattered. They then suffered an abrupt and astonishing role reversal, and their relationship never recovered. She never forgave her mother for being weak, and her mother never forgave her for looking and being so much like the man she’d loved and lost.

Was that why her mother had stolen her identity? To punish her? To destroy her one remaining connection with her father, her pursuit of a PhD in archaeology, just like dad?

Erica had learned to walk and talk on archaeological sites. Literally. Pictures of her first steps showed Yosemite Valley in the background, and her first word was “dirt.” Her father finished his PhD at the same time she started kindergarten, and from that point he left academia behind and established his own business in the emerging discipline known as cultural resource management.

Dr. Peter Kesling was a respected man in his field, known mostly for his efforts to establish ethical standards for CRM archaeologists. And she’d violated those very same ethics, placing a black mark next to the Kesling name.

A nurse came in to check on her. The chamber was equipped with an intercom. “How much longer will I be in here?” Erica asked.

“You’re halfway finished. You’ve got two more hours.”

She nodded and closed her eyes. She had plenty of time to think. Too much time.

Jake had destroyed everything she’d worked for, and now he’d tried to kill her.

And he’d come damn close to succeeding.

L
EE WATCHED THE GRAINY
footage from the casino’s security camera. He easily recognized himself as he stepped out of the building a few minutes prior to Tommy’s death and returned seven minutes later. He probably should have demanded to have a lawyer present for this interview but didn’t want to waste time. He needed to get to the hospital. “I told you then the same thing I’m telling you now. I stepped outside to make a phone call. It was too loud on the casino floor.”

“Who did you call?”

Lee looked the officer in the eye. “JT Talon.”

The man looked slightly taken aback. Only two names were more powerful in this tiny nation within Maryland’s borders: Joseph Talon and Sam Riversong. “Can you prove it?”

“Of course.” Lee pulled out his cell phone, speed-dialed JT, and handed the phone to the cop.

The man asked JT several questions, then hung up. “Mr. Talon is on his way here.”

“I gathered as much.”

After JT arrived, Lee was free to go, but the officer was still suspicious. “I just hope he puts this much effort into nailing Novak for trying to kill Erica,” Lee said to JT.

“I made some calls on my way here. Novak’s got an airtight alibi.”

“Who?”

“Sam Riversong.”

He swore and climbed into JT’s ridiculously expensive Lotus. “Still driving the midlife-crisis mobile, I see.”

“Fuck you.”

“How many days after Alexandra called off the wedding did you buy this piece of crap?”

JT’s mouth was a rigid line. “Two.”

“Next time get a puppy. You’ll pick up just as many women but get fewer speeding tickets.” The seat was so small his knees were practically next to his ears. “Take me to Erica’s car.”

Ten minutes later, he was in the driver’s seat of Erica’s old Honda and finally on his way to the hospital. He tightened his fingers on the wheel, thinking of the crease she got just above her nose when she drove through stop-and-go traffic. The woman didn’t have an ounce of patience.

She could have died.

A well of fear opened up inside him, the one he’d kept locked tight for the last two hours as he dealt with the cops.

He was falling for her. He couldn’t lie to himself about that any longer. Somewhere in this ridiculous charade, he’d let real emotions develop to supplement the fake ones he’d been using to manipulate her.

And now he was afraid those emotions would manipulate him.

When JT recruited him for this job, Erica Kesling was just a name. He’d tried to find out everything he could about her, but reading her résumé and hacking into her college transcripts and applications didn’t prepare him for the woman she was.

Erica, whose stare could form frost in the midst of a summer heat wave. Erica, who had a sharp mind, a strong sense of loyalty, and a desperation for affection that blew him away. Erica, who had a sultry beauty she kept hidden behind an icy façade, burned like fire in his arms, and who aroused a protectiveness he didn’t want to feel.