DEAD BY WEDNESDAY (11 page)

“Tell Alexa that I love her,” she said. Then she closed the door.

Chapter Twelve

Frank Sage worked at a factory that was fifteen minutes from his house. On the way there, Robert passed the coffee shop where Carmen had met Alexa that morning. Sage had been nearly out of control that day. Robert had hoped he might settle down, but if he wasn’t going to, then Robert was just going to settle his ass down for him.

When he got to the factory, they refused to let him see Sage until he showed them his badge. Then they got significantly more cooperative and stuffed him in a small conference room with a round table and four chairs.

Robert didn’t sit.

When Sage came in, he didn’t, either.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Sage asked, taking the offensive.

Robert rubbed his chin. “I told you I’d be watching you.”

Sage didn’t answer. He just crossed his arms over his broad chest.

Robert decided to get to it because he was fast losing the battle with his inner self, who wanted to beat the crap out of Sage’s smug face. “I want to know where you were between the hours of eight last night and nine this morning.”

“I was home the whole night. Watched the nine o’clock news and then I went to bed. My wife can verify that.”

Great.

“I got up this morning, stopped for coffee on my way to work at my usual place, and got here at twenty minutes before seven. I punched in and I’ve been working ever since. My supervisor could verify that. He’s a jerk who watches his employees like a hawk. He’d know if I was gone.”

Supervisor was probably hoping the guy would make a break for it. “That should be easy enough to verify and trust me, I will.”

Sage shrugged. “Why the questions?”

“Carmen Jimenez’s car was vandalized either late last night or early this morning.”

Sage’s face showed no reaction. “I don’t care. About her, her car, her anything. She’s nothing.”

Robert forced himself to breathe deep. “I want you to know that if I find out that you had anything to do with it, I will arrest you so fast that your head will be spinning. Stay away from her and stay away from your daughter.”

“I don’t have a daughter,” Sage said. He opened up the door and left the room.

Before Robert left, he did exactly what he’d promised Sage. He asked the receptionist to get the supervisor.

He was a young guy, maybe thirty. He had a pencil stuck behind one ear and he was carrying his phone in his hand. His name was Hank Riser.

“What can I do for you, Detective?” he asked.

“Mr. Riser, I’m investigating some vandalism that occurred either late last night or early this morning. I’m trying to verify what time Frank Sage arrived at work this morning and whether he’s been at work the entire time.”

The man pushed a button on his phone. “Frank is usually in before me but I can check his time-card punch.” He used his index finger to scroll through a couple screens. “Yes, he was here when his shift began at seven and I saw him probably a half hour later. He’s been here all morning.” The man looked up from his phone. “What’s this about, Detective?”

“Just trying to put some pieces together,” Robert said. “What your general impression of Frank Sage?”

“Stays mostly to himself at work. Gets here on time. Leaves the minute he can.”

“You ever have any trouble with him getting along with others?”

The man took a deep breath. “Not that’s documented. But I’ve had a couple of the women in the shop tell me that they aren’t comfortable working next to him. It’s nothing he says or does, it’s just a feeling they get. So I move them to another area and we get past it.”

It’s just a feeling they get.
He understood that. Maybe they wanted to push Sage’s face into a brick wall, too.

Robert shook the man’s hand. “Thank you for your time.”

He walked back to his car and kicked his tire for the hell of it. He didn’t have enough evidence to bring Sage in.

He got in, started the vehicle, and texted Sawyer.
On my way back. Be there in fifteen.

He was five minutes away from his destination when he saw the jewelry store. He’d shopped there a few times over the years. A necklace here. Some earrings there. They did a nice job with wrapping birthday and Christmas gifts.

There was an empty parking spot in front of the store.

He took that as a sign.

“Can I help you, sir?” the young woman behind the counter asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, you can.”

* * *

W
HEN
R
OBERT
SAT
down at his desk, Sawyer looked up.

“I expected you forty-five minutes ago,” he said. “I was getting worried.”

“I had to make a stop.”

Sawyer nodded.

“You going to ask me where?” Robert challenged.

Sawyer cocked his head. “Well, I guess I could. If you’d like me to.”

“You don’t have to,” Robert said.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Robert. Talk.”

Robert looked over both shoulders. There were other people in the room but nobody was paying them any attention. Tasha was not at her desk.

“I was at the jewelry store.”

“You’re getting your tongue pierced?” Sawyer asked.

Robert rolled his eyes. “Right. Just as soon as I do yours.” He stopped. “I went in thinking I might get a necklace, maybe some matching earrings. Carmen was upset about her car. I thought it might cheer her up.”

“Did you find anything?”

Robert tapped his pen on his metal desk. “I got a ring.”

“Okay,” Sawyer said.

“An engagement ring,” Robert clarified. He sat back in his chair and waited for the inquisition to start.

Sawyer didn’t say anything, and that made Robert crazy. “Well?” he prompted his friend.

“Congratulations,” Sawyer said. “I guess I didn’t realize it had gotten to this stage.”

“We haven’t actually talked about it,” Robert admitted.

“What have you talked about?”

“Oh, you know. Favorite ice cream flavors, best movies of the year, spring soaps.”

Sawyer raised an eyebrow.

“Never mind. Am I crazy?” Robert asked. “I feel crazy. I feel crazy and light-headed and totally out of control. I swear to God I wasn’t planning on buying a diamond ring. It was just a day ago that I was reflecting upon why I’d never get married.”

“Marriage is wonderful,” Sawyer said.

Robert shook his head. “You’ve met my mother.”

“Yeah, and I like her. Here’s a news flash, Robert. You’re not your mother.”

Robert cupped his chin in his hand. “I know that. But I’ve spent my whole life determined not to follow in her footsteps. And then suddenly I was inside that jewelry store and it was as if the diamond rings were calling my name. It sounded sort of like, ‘Hey, dumb-ass.’”

“You answer to that?”

Robert frowned at him. “Not usually. You know, I was this close to beating the hell out of Frank Sage this morning. Just because I thought he might have painted a white stripe on Carmen’s car.”

“So that’s why you bought a ring?”

Robert shook his head. “I bought a ring because she was sad the other day and I don’t want her to ever be sad again. I don’t want her to be cold or hungry or to ever worry about money. I want to wrap her in cotton and keep her safe from idiots like Sage. I want...I want to come home to her at night and talk about our days. I want to hold hands at the movies and eat off each other’s ice cream spoons.” Robert stopped. “I’m losing my mind, aren’t I?”

Sawyer smiled. “I knew something was different last night. Tara was doing everything but stand on her head to get your attention and you just looked uncomfortable. I’ve never seen that before. Not interested, certainly. But never uncomfortable. I thought to myself, where is the cool, calm and collected Robert Hanson who can manage a string of women?”

Robert rolled his eyes. “He got caught in his own fishing line and he’s choking.”

This time Sawyer laughed. “If it makes you feel any better, you’ll be over this in forty or fifty years,” he said. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. Happens to the best of us.”

“I love her,” Robert said. “But here’s the thing. I don’t know how to be a husband and I sure as hell don’t know how to be a father. My mother had a parade of men, but none of them were very good at either job. I don’t have any role models other than you. And unfortunately, the techniques you’re using on Catherine probably aren’t the same ones that will be effective with a surly fifteen-year-old boy.”

“You’re worrying about nothing. You know everything you need to know.”

“I hope you’re right,” Robert said, shaking his head.

“When are you going to pop the question?”

“I have no idea.”

“Good plan.”

* * *

C
ARMEN
STOOD
IN
Liz’s doorway and buttoned her coat. “Have a good night,” she said to her friend. “Are you getting out of here soon?”

“Yes. I just called Catherine’s sitter and told her I’d be there in about fifteen minutes. What about you?”

“My late appointment canceled so I’m almost done. Just need to stop by Montgomery High School. There’s a counselor there who wants to talk with me. She’s got a potential referral. I told her I’d stop by on my way home from work.”

“You should try to get home before it gets too late. I’m a little freaked out about your car getting vandalized. I know you told me that you don’t think Frank Sage had anything to do with it, but the timing is sort of suspect, isn’t it?”

Carmen tied her scarf around her neck. “That’s certainly the path that Robert seems intent upon following.”

Liz smiled. “Yes, Robert. What started with a little pizza at my house seems to be flourishing into something more. You know every time you say his name, your cheeks get pink and there’s this look in your eyes that I’ve never seen before.”

Carmen unwound the scarf that she’d just tied. Just thinking about Robert made her warm. “I don’t know what’s going on,” she said honestly. “I am so out of my league here.”

“No, you’re not,” Liz said, waving her hand. “Just let it go where it’s going to go. Relax.”

“He kissed me,” Carmen said.

“I figured as much,” Liz said, her tone guarded.

Carmen knew Liz would never ask for details. She was way too classy for that. But then why did she have an adolescent need to give her some?

“It wasn’t like a
hey, good friend, nice to see you again
kiss. It was...something. My neighbor saw us in the hallway and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to look her in the eye again.”

“Mrs. Curtiss?”

“Yes. I forgot that you’d met her.”

“You probably made her day. She’s cool now so she was probably really cool when she was your age.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve never been cool. I’m a twenty-nine-year-old woman with the dating skills of a fourteen-year-old.”

Liz got up from her desk and walked over to Carmen. She hugged her. “I am so happy for you,” she said. “Robert is a great guy. A wonderful friend. What could be better than two of my best friends getting together?”

Carmen shook her head. “There’s no hooking up going on here,” she said, deliberately using the term that their clients used.

“Well, maybe there should be,” Liz said. “Multiple, explosive hookups.”

“You’re no help,” Carmen said, shaking her head in mock disgust. “I have to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Carmen walked out of OCM and across the street to the parking lot where staff parked. While it wasn’t yet dark, the streetlights were on, making the white stripe against the dark paint stand out. The backseat window was covered with duct tape. All in all, it looked pretty bad.

She’d tried to convince Robert that it was random. And she hadn’t been blowing smoke. It had to be. Because the idea that somebody disliked her so much that they felt the need to publicly proclaim it was too distasteful.

She’d call tomorrow and see if she could get her car in to get the paint job repaired and the window fixed. It would mean relying on public transportation for a few days, but anything was better than driving this. It looked like an injured skunk on wheels.

Carmen unlocked her door and slid into the cold vehicle. She started the car and shivered while the heater struggled to warm the space. After a couple minutes, she put the car in Drive and pulled out of the lot.

Montgomery School was ten minutes away and then her apartment another ten. She was grateful that no fresh snow had fallen during the day. For once, the streets were pretty good and the traffic not too heavy.

She accelerated toward the green light at the bottom of the hill, only to tap her brakes when it turned yellow.

The pedal went to the floor.

Her brakes were gone. And her car was picking up speed. The light turned red.

She saw the large delivery truck coming from the left, barreling toward the intersection, and knew there was no way they weren’t going to collide.

* * *

R
OBERT
WAS
PORING
through the reports on all the evidence that had been gathered at the scenes where the dead kids had been found, looking for some connection, when his cell phone rang. “Hanson,” he answered.

“This is Officer Smith. We met yesterday.”

At Carmen’s. Good. Maybe they had found some shred of evidence. “What can I help you with?” Robert asked.

“Well, nothing, I guess. I just had some information that I thought you might be interested in.”

“Okay.”

“The car that was vandalized, well, it was just in an accident. When the responding officer entered the license plate, my name came up. He gave me a call.”

Robert shoved back his chair and grabbed his coat. “Where?”

“Corner of Pecan Street and Webster Avenue. Pretty big mess,” he added.

“Fatalities?” Robert forced himself to ask.

“No, but the female driver was transported to Mercy Memorial.”

Chapter Thirteen

When Robert got to the emergency room, nobody would tell him anything. He pulled his badge and demanded information.

“I’ll get a charge nurse,” the woman at the desk told him. “I’m not authorized to provide any information.”

“Just tell me that she’s alive,” he said, leaning over the counter.

Either he scared her or she felt sorry for him because she entered a few clicks on her computer. “Alive and stable upon arrival. That’s all I can tell you.”

It was enough. Carmen was alive. Stable didn’t mean that there weren’t injuries, even serious ones. But stable was better than all kinds of other potential descriptors that were making his knees weak.

What the hell had happened? He pulled out his cell phone and in minutes had the responding officer on the phone. “This is Detective Hanson. I’m looking for information on the accident that you just processed at the corner of Pecan Street and Webster Avenue. What happened?”

“Female driver, C. Jimenez, driving a dark 2010 Honda blew through the intersection. Back end was clipped by a delivery truck that managed to swerve, or the damage and the injuries would have been significantly worse.”

“How badly was she hurt?”

“I don’t know. Paramedics were worried about internal injuries. She was conscious, though. Told me that her brakes failed. The lack of skid marks at the scene supports that.”

Failed brakes. It happened. But rarely.

Had someone tampered with her car? Deliberately put her at risk? “Where’s the vehicle now?”

“It wasn’t drivable. We arranged to have it towed to our impound lot so that one of our guys could take a look at it.”

“Push it up on the list,” Robert instructed. Screw it. Let his boss scream and yell about the importance of not appearing too personally interested in a case.

He wanted blood.

“Will do. Seems like a nice woman, Detective. Kept apologizing for the accident, for causing so many people to have to come out into the cold. Wouldn’t get in the ambulance until she’d talked to the driver of the truck, just to make sure he was okay.”

Carmen Jimenez was as nice as they came. And she could have easily have been killed today. “Call me the minute you have results.”

Robert disconnected and punched Sawyer’s number.

“What’s up?” Sawyer answered.

“Carmen was in an accident this afternoon. Her brakes failed. She’s at Mercy Memorial hospital. Stable condition. I haven’t seen her yet.”

“Damn,” Sawyer hissed.

Robert understood. He knew that Sawyer thought the world of Carmen and that he’d be worried about how Liz would take the news. He also knew that Sawyer wouldn’t like the proximity of the danger. If someone was threatening Carmen, then Liz could potentially get caught in the cross fire.

He put his hand into his pocket and ran his fingers across the flat sterling-silver case that held the diamond ring. “I need your help,” Robert said.

“Anything.”

“Do you know where Carmen parks her car?”

“Yeah. There’s a small lot just east of OCM. That’s where they all park.”

“Okay. Get out there. See if there’s anything to suggest that somebody tampered with her car.”

“Done.”

“I need you to do something else, too. Go find Frank Sage. If he can’t account for every minute of his time, arrest him.” Yeah, he didn’t even know for sure if Carmen’s brakes had been tampered with, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t going to give Sage time to think of an alibi.

“Anything else?”

“Yeah. Tell Liz that I’ll call her with an update on Carmen’s condition just as soon as I know something.” Robert disconnected.

Robert thought about what he should do next. Should he find Raoul? School was out but the kid was probably at band practice. Robert decided to wait. He’d spent the day being pretty irritated with the kid, but there was no doubt that Raoul thought the world of his sister. There was no need to worry him needlessly.

Oh, God, he hoped it would be needless worry. Hoped that somebody would walk out of those doors right now and tell him that everything was
fine.
Just fine.

He went up to the desk again. “I’m still waiting for information on Carmen Jimenez.”

The clerk shook her head. “Hang on,” she said. She pushed her chair back and walked away. She was back in about two minutes with another woman, ten years older, in blue scrubs with a white lab coat.

“I’m Chelsea Andrews,” the woman said. “I’m in charge today. I understand that you’re interested in an update on Carmen Jimenez. Is she under arrest, Detective?”

Police business generally took precedence over personal business. “Miss Jimenez is a material witness to a very important ongoing investigation,” he said. “I need to talk to her. Now.”

“Come with me,” she said. “But for what it’s worth, the woman has had a hell of a day. I would think the cops would cut her a little slack.”

She led him past six closed doors. At the seventh, she stopped and knocked briefly before opening the door.

The exam room was small, with a bed taking up most of the space. Carmen was in a faded blue-and-white gown, in a bed, propped up by two or three pillows.

She had airbag burns across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks. Under her eyes, the skin was red and bruised and he suspected she might have a black eye in a day or two.

She’d still be beautiful. “Hi,” he said.

She smiled at him. “I’m not even going to ask how you knew I was here.”

He shrugged. “How are you?”

“I’m okay. Lucky,” she said, looking at the charge nurse who continued to stand in the doorway. “That’s what everybody is telling me.”

He reached for her hand. Her skin was warm and he felt himself relax for the first time since he’d received the awful phone call. “Do you have to stay here?” he asked.

“At least until they read the results of the abdominal CT scan. Then I’m hoping to go home.”

Robert looked over his shoulder. The charge nurse was frowning at him. “Material witness?” she said, letting her gaze rest on their linked hands.

Robert shrugged and the woman shook her head, turned and left. She closed the door behind her.

Robert leaned over the bed and kissed Carmen. Gently. Sweetly. “I’m so sorry that you’re hurt.”

“I’m going to be okay,” she said, her voice a mere whisper. “It was so scary,” she added.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I know that I was driving and I saw the light turn yellow. I pushed on the brake and the pedal went to the floor. I knew something was terribly wrong but by then, I was so close to the intersection. There are businesses on both sides. I didn’t see anywhere to go.” She swallowed hard.

“Then I saw the truck and I really, really thought I was going to die. I pulled my emergency brake and my car went sideways. Then the truck hit me, my air bag went off, and I think I might have blacked out for a minute because the next thing I knew, there was somebody at my door, telling me to just sit tight, that help was coming. I kept asking if anyone else had been hurt and nobody would tell me anything.”

“Everybody else is okay,” he said. “Don’t worry about that.” He hated seeing the look of despair in her pretty brown eyes.

She shook her head. “I just feel horrible. I always maintain my car. I had no idea my brakes were bad. That poor man driving the truck. I finally got to talk to him and he said he was fine but it could have been so much worse and it would have been all my fault.”

“Where was your car today?”

“Where it is every day. We park next to the dry cleaner’s.”

“Any cameras in the lot?”

“I have no idea. There could be, I suppose, but it’s a really small lot. Probably only space for six or eight cars.” She pushed herself up in the bed. She winced, and he absolutely hated that she was in pain.

“Should I get a nurse?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’m just a little sore,” she said. “I think I got tossed around a little when my car was spinning. Why the questions about where I park?”

He hated that they had to have this conversation, but she needed to understand that the situation had changed today. Until he knew otherwise, he was going to assume that somebody had deliberately tried to harm Carmen. That meant that she needed to be on high alert, cautious of everything and everybody. “Brakes can fail on a car, Carmen. They can. But when brakes go bad, it’s usually more of a gradual loss, they get sort of spongy. What you’re describing, where there is a total loss of responsiveness, makes me think that there’s something else going on here.”

“You think somebody messed with my brakes?” She spoke so fast that her words were almost clipped.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But we will know. Your car got towed to one of our impound lots. I’ve already talked to somebody about getting it looked at, to figure out what happened.”

“This is crazy,” she said.

He couldn’t argue that. “Sawyer is going to go talk to Frank Sage.”

“But—”

He shook his head, stopping her. “And if we find out that someone messed with your car and he can’t account for every damn minute of his day, we’re going to arrest him.”

She didn’t try to protest again. He figured that was as good an indication as anything that the past hour had taken a toll on her.

“Why don’t you just rest for a few minutes?” he suggested.

She nodded and closed her eyes. He sat by her bed, continuing to gently hold her hand. After a few minutes, her eyes opened again. “Why didn’t you go see Frank Sage?” she asked.

He considered what he should tell her and decided to go with the truth. “Because I need to be here. Close enough to touch you, to feel your warm skin, to see the pulse in your neck beat, to hear your breath, to know that you’re really okay.”

Her eyes widened. He’d surprised her.

He wanted to say more, to explain that he realized it had been just a few days that they’d been spending time together, but that he knew that
this
was something different. Something that he’d never had or felt before.

He wanted to pull the ring out of his pocket, get down on one knee and beg her to marry him.

But he didn’t want to have that conversation with her lying in a hospital bed, in a room that anybody could walk into at any minute.

Fortunately, she didn’t press. She simply closed her eyes and within a few minutes, her breathing was such that he was pretty sure she’d drifted off to sleep.

He continued to hold her hand, tracing the shape of the delicate bones with the pad of this thumb. It was forty-five minutes before the door opened again. It was the charge nurse. She ignored Robert and gently roused Carmen.

“Ms. Jimenez,” she said. “The results of your CT came back normal. No internal injuries.”

Carmen smiled, and Robert felt the relief flood his body. She was okay.

“Your ribs are probably going to be sore for a few days so I’d suggest you take it easy. Take some ibuprofen. It’s best to try to stay ahead of the pain.”

“I can go home?” Carmen asked.

“I’ll go get your discharge paperwork ready,” the nurse said.

“Thank you,” Carmen said. “Everyone here has just been wonderful.”

“You’re welcome,” the nurse said. “I’ll be back within fifteen minutes.” She left the room.

Carmen smiled at Robert. “Good news,” she said.

“Great news,” he corrected.

“Yeah.” With her free hand, she plucked at the thin sheet that covered her legs. “Time marches on,” she said.

“I suppose it does,” he said, not sure where she was going.

“Where do you live?” she asked.

He hadn’t seen that one coming. “I’ve got an apartment in one of the high-rises on Lake Shore Drive.”

She smiled, a little half smile. “Does it face the lake?”

“It does. On a clear day, I can see fifteen miles out onto Lake Michigan.”

“I’ll bet that’s pretty. Even when it’s all iced up, I’ll bet it’s nice. You know, I used to ice-skate when I was younger.”

He got nervous. The CT of the abdomen may have been fine, but maybe they’d missed something. She thought that she’d blacked out for a minute. Was it possible that she’d hit her head? He leaned close and looked at her eyes. Both pupils were the same size.

“I used to do a lot of things. And then I stopped. I got cautious. Told myself that Raoul had lost so much already, that he shouldn’t have to lose anything else.”

“Honey, I’m not sure—”

“But I think I was just kidding myself. You ever do that, Robert? Kid yourself?”

He was still holding her hand and as unobtrusively as possible, he shifted his hold, then rested his thumb on the inside of her wrist, testing for her pulse. He counted and watched the second hand on the clock for fifteen seconds and multiplied by four. Seventy-two and steady. Skin was warm but not hot. Still, he was just about to call for the nurse to come back. “I’m not sure I’m following you.”

“I’d like to see it.”

“What?”

“Your apartment.”

“Okay,” he assured her. “We can make that happen sometime.”

“Tonight. Now.”

He let go of her hand. “I’m not sure I understand.”

She smiled at him. “I’d like to get dressed, get out of here, go to your apartment and finish what we started in the hallway yesterday morning.”

He gripped the bed rail. Her pulse was fine, but his was bucking and heaving. “You’ve just been in a car accident,” he said. “You need to go home and rest. Have some chicken noodle soup. Take a warm bath.”

She shook her head.

“What about Raoul?” he asked. Lord, he wanted what she was offering with a vengeance, but the last thing he wanted to face was morning-after regrets.

“He knows nothing about this. He was already expecting me to be home late tonight because I thought I had late clients. I called him a little while ago and told him that I’d be a little later than I expected. He’s home, safe, and expects to see me around ten. I’m not planning on spending the night with you, Robert. I thought a couple hours might do it.”

He was wound so tight that a couple minutes might take care of it.

“You’ve thought of just about everything, haven’t you?” His voice cracked at the end.