Distortion Control (A Makayla Rose Mystery Book 3) (15 page)

“Did you talk to Pattie about her?” Ash asked.

“Yes, she went out about noon the day before.”

I thought about it. “Maybe she got a message from you, too.”

Everyone went silent. The prospect that the killer had been manipulating us sent a chill of fear down my spine. I couldn’t be sure if the next call I received would be from a real friend or a dangerous enemy.

My hand still lay on Spencer’s, and he flipped his over to grasp mine. His expression said he would do everything he could to protect me. I believed he would try. Spencer dialed Pete to request phone records. I couldn’t help being amused that he still spoke to the man as if he were his boss. Pete wouldn’t like that, and Spencer didn’t recognize that he did it.

“What number did the call come from?” Spencer asked when he got off the phone with Pete.

“I don’t know. My phone was off at the time. I got the message later, and my voicemail didn’t tell me the number just the message.”

He frowned. “We can get it easy enough.”

When everyone finished eating, Spencer picked up the check, but David nabbed it from his fingers and whisked a gold card into the waiter’s hand. “We should go to Makayla’s place to continue figuring this thing out.”

Spencer scowled at him. “You have nothing to do with this.”

“You’re not the sheriff right now, buddy. I’m helping whether you like it or not. For Makayla’s sake.”

“David, you’re a sweetheart.” I stood and walked to him to give him a hug.

Ash thumped his brother’s arm. “Bet you’re loving this, huh? Not being in charge?”

“Be quiet,” Spencer barked in a low tone, but Ash just chuckled.

We left the restaurant and headed over to my apartment as David suggested. David took drink orders as if he were host, tapping into my chilled wine, and Spencer hovered above me like the killer lurked in the corners of my place waiting to pounce. I had always enjoyed people around me, so I didn’t mind everyone making themselves at home.

Spencer’s cell phone rang, and he signaled for us all to quiet down. I was surprised but glad he put the call on speaker, and Pete’s voice echoed into the room, full of resentment. “I don’t know why I’m reporting any of this to you.”

“I’m building evidence to clear my name,” Spencer said. “It’s not unreasonable.”

“Isn’t that for your attorney to do?”

“Do you have information or not?”

I squeezed Spencer’s arm and mouthed, “Be nice.”

He raised an eyebrow at me.

“I got the records.”

“Go on,” Spencer encouraged him.

“The call came from inside your house.”

Spencer pushed a hand through his hair and paced.

“This isn’t looking good for you, Spencer,” Pete said.

“It’s possible someone either got into my brother’s house or rerouted the call some way,” Ash put in.

“Yeah, well he had motive. None of this changes things. He only added more evidence for his guilt.”

“Why are you so convinced I’m guilty, Pete? Are you that desperate to keep my job?”

I gasped, and Pete dropped a few choice words before the line went dead. “Spencer, you’re not doing yourself any favors by alienating him.”

“He wants to believe I’m guilty.”

I looked at him. “Why would he want that?”

“Because the respect he showed me after I came was all an act.”

“What?” I refused to believe it. “Pete’s a good person. He would never—”

“He didn’t just run away to elope, Makayla.”

“What do you mean?”

His gaze met mine, and then he looked at the others. I imagined he wondered if he should share police business outside of the other officers. Spencer was not a gossiper. “Pete left to take another position as a detective.”

“You’re kidding!”

“No, I’m not. One of the motivators was that he had put in for the position of sheriff and had been turned down. Instead they brought me in from out of state. He applied for and got a new job in a smaller county. It turned out to not be what he expected—neither for him nor for them.”

“When it didn’t work out he came crawling back to you, I guess.” Ash smirked. “Now he thinks he can be sheriff even if he didn’t earn the position. He might even be able to stay in it if you’re found guilty.”

Cold dread rolled over me. “You don’t think he would falsify…”

“No, I don’t think he’ll go that far. Like you said, he’s generally a good person, but he’s young. He’s ambitious, and he might even have his new wife in his ear, encouraging him.”

I hugged myself, and Spencer sat down beside me to draw me closer. I didn’t resist even with the others there because everything seemed so out of control.

“Don’t worry. We’ll get him.” His voice sounded confident, but I wasn’t so sure.

Ash set his glass of wine down and stood. “Well, I guess we’re going over to your house, bro.”

I looked at Spencer. He hitched his shoulders. “You’re right. To be on the safe side, I want to search again to see if there’s evidence of a break-in.”

I admitted only to myself I didn’t want to go. Instead, I quietly trailed after them, riding with Spencer while David and Ash rode together in David’s car. When we arrived, I rushed onto the porch and waited by the front door. A creepy feeling of being watched came over me, and I turned to look into the trees. At one time, I had loved Spencer’s home, feeling the tranquility of the secluded property. Now it seemed more accessible by my stalker.

When Spencer unlocked the door, I hurried inside, and David swept up beside me to take my arm as he surveyed the entrance area. “Your boyfriend’s got pretty good taste, honey. I like it. A little bachelor-esque, but you can fix that.”

“David.” I tried shushing him, but he moved from room to room, arm hooked with mine, as we followed Spencer. Ash disappeared somewhere else inside the house, and a short while later, we all met in Spencer’s study.

“Anything?” Ash asked.

“Nothing.” Spencer unlocked a desk drawer and drew out several folders. He tossed a few to Ash. “These are my old case files going back a few years.”

“You’ve still got them?” I grabbed one, but Spencer removed it from my hands.

“They’re my notes. I like to learn from my past successes and mistakes. It helps me to do a better job.”

“There aren’t as many as I would have thought,” I observed, annoyed he wouldn’t let me see. I was about to protest and demand my own stack when Spencer’s cell phone dinged again. He checked the display, frowned, and booted up his laptop. We all waited in silence. A few clicks, and he made sharp sound. Ash walked around the desk to Spencer’s side, and David chewed his lip.

I swallowed. “What is it?”

“This is him,” Spencer said. “I’m sure of it.”

He swiveled the laptop to face me and tapped the screen.

“Holden Montgomery. Do you recognize him, Makayla?”

Chapter Fifteen

The eyes, I thought. Those dark, angry eyes were the ones that haunted my dreams. I realized only looking into them now that I had seen them if not the rest of his features. My fears had put up the mental wall that stopped me from recognizing him. Even as I stared at Holden Montgomery, I was sure I had seen him in Briney Creek—since the abduction.

“Who is he?” I asked Spencer.

“As soon as I was released, I made a call back home and had some people checking into a few things. I never thought of Montgomery because he wasn’t actually a case I had ever dealt with. Not as an arresting officer.”

Ash snapped his fingers. “Wait, I knew I’d heard the name. Montgomery. Didn’t a Montgomery attend the academy with you?”

I blinked. “You two remember everyone who attended with you?”

“There weren’t that many,” Spencer said, “but no, he didn’t. Well, he did for a little while, but I caused him to be thrown out before we finished.”

“How?” I asked.

He shifted his shoulders. “He beat up his girlfriend on a weekend off. I reported it.”

I covered my mouth.

“Even then, my brother had a hero complex,” Ash explained.

“I did what I thought was right. He would have killed her if I didn’t stop him. She posted his bail afterward.”

“These young girls.” I thought of Inna’s foolish and devastating decisions. Not necessarily for a man, but their reasoning was so suspect.

“The incident was enough to get Montgomery tossed out of the academy.”

“But that was years ago,” I said. “Surely, he’s not holding a grudge until now, and he must have found a different career.”

I didn’t tell him I was already sure Montgomery was the killer. Rather I had kept silent to hear the story of their association.

“Two years later, he was sentenced to prison for voluntary manslaughter.”

I slapped a hand over my mouth again and then took it down slowly. “The girlfriend?”

He shook his head. “No.”

I dipped my chin to my chest and shut my eyes. Spencer went on.

“Montgomery served five years.”

“So he’s out?” Ash asked.

“Yeah, he’s out. The information I have here says he’s been keeping his nose clean and has never missed an appointment with his parole officer.”

Ash grunted. “My problem, like I said before, is he could easily do that and get here as often as he wanted.”

“True.” Spencer looked at me. I had since first seeing the picture, turned away from it, and I refused to look again now. Concern darkened Spencer’s gaze as he watched me. “Makayla?”

“I’m sure that’s him,” I said. “I’ve seen him.”

David hugged my shoulders. “Of course you have, honey, and the sooner he’s caught the better.”

“No, David.” I shook my head and drew in a deep breath before blowing it out. My fingers hurt, I clutched them together so tightly. “I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him around Briney Creek, Spencer. After it happened.”

“Where?” Spencer had sat down in his desk chair, but at my words, he surged to his feet.

“I don’t know.” I put a hand to my forehead. “I know the eyes. They seem etched in my memory, now that I think about it. He looks different now than he does in that picture. Different hair, different face shape. Maybe…”

“Easy,” he encouraged me. “It’ll come back to you.”

I didn’t want it to. I knew it would and we needed to know, but seriously, I wanted to forget. That might be why I had in the first place. I was at a loss, and if I didn’t get the mental juices flowing soon, it might be too late
. Think, Makayla.

“Are you sure it’s him?” Ash asked, talking to Spencer rather than to me.

“This case has the earmarks of revenge. Besides, he said it himself. He wants to make me pay.”

David spoke up, his words flippant, but I heard the line of nerves. He was worried about me, and I would bet anything he was recalling the last months as well. “They talk about a woman scorned, but honey, it’s the men that do the damage and hold on to a grudge.”

“How did you know where to find me, Spencer?” I thought I would have to explain where my thinking was going, but he followed right away. That was Spencer for you.

“I didn’t,” he said. “I left the station because I was worried and I would have ripped off someone’s head if they approached me. When I came home, I saw my basement door was open. I don’t use it, so I knew right away someone had been inside my house.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Yes, it was rather dusty down there.”

He frowned, apparently not appreciating my teasing. “I was too distracted and not paying attention to the fact that Pete and the others were on my heels. By the time I untied you, I knew what was happening. I was being framed.”

“He wanted you to find us.”

“He wanted you alive so you would lose faith in me,” Spencer countered.

I had never considered this. The entire time, we had been thinking the killer hadn’t gotten around to finishing me off, but Spencer had thought through the man’s motivation in an instant and pieced together his reasons and actions. What I didn’t know is if he’d been thinking it all now or when he was locked up.

“Do you think he knew about my background?” I asked.

Spencer’s gaze cut to the others and back to me. “Maybe, but he didn’t have to know it to produce the result he desired.”

“What background?” David asked, but I noticed Ash didn’t. He too was a cop and probably had already checked into it for himself. I felt like my mistakes were on display for others to sift through. Yet, if Ash had known it, he hadn’t treated me like he knew and been disgusted. He was hardly in a position to, I supposed.

I ignored David’s question and asked Spencer, “Why did the police follow you? Why did they even suspect you?”

“Logical,” he said. “And I’ll bet they got an ‘anonymous’ tip. While I was stuck at the station, I asked Pete, but he refused to say. The red face and anger was enough to convince me my theory is correct.”

Ash slammed a hand against the wall where he leaned. “It should have also been enough to get him to see there’s more going on here than what’s on the surface!”

“Dial it down,” Spencer growled.

Pete was handling this whole thing wrong. He was letting his personal feelings get in the way. Well, I for one wasn’t going to let him get away with it. Even if I had to shame him into following up on that tip. Spencer deserved better from the police department, and so help me, he would get it.

When we determined there was nothing else we could learn that night, Spencer ordered the others out. We were alone, and he ran his hands over my arms. “Stay the night,” he encouraged me.

I shook my head. “I want to be in my own apartment.”

He sighed and took me home then walked me to my door. “I could stay here.”

“No, thank you.”

“Makayla.”

“I’ll put a chair under the doorknob so it won’t even open, and I’ll sleep with my cell phone in bed with me. How’s that?”

He frowned. “When this is over, we need to talk.”

“Fair enough. Good night.”

He turned away with reluctance in his bearing. “Good night.”

* * * *

I was in a vehicle, and it rocked side to side until my stomach roiled. The interior was so dark, but I saw pinholes of light at the back. I lay curled on a hard metal surface with the stench of something terrible in my nostrils. The vehicle came to a stop, and then light flooded the space. The man stood before me, and I flinched at the sight of him.

I shook my head, wanting to beg him to let me go, but my words were muffled. He reached into the van with a hand that seemed as big as my head, but it might have been my fear blowing it up several sizes.

“At last,” he said, grinning. “You two are going to help me. He ruined my life, but he’s going to pay.”

Two, I thought, and I turned my head. Penelope lay beside me. I thought at first she was dead, but her chest rose and fell. She was drugged, and when I felt the pinch in my neck, I knew he had drugged me again.

Montgomery dragged me to the end of the van in preparation of lifting me over his shoulder. That’s when I saw it, the color of the van. Dull gray. A memory niggled at the edge of my mind, and I was pretty certain if Spencer and I drove around Briney Creek, I would recall where to find Montgomery.

I woke grinning and sat up in bed. That dream was the most revealing of all, and this time fear didn’t overwhelm me. The stronger sensation was triumph. Wait until I told Spencer. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind he could help me get the last pieces together and put this madness behind us.

I thrust the covers aside and climbed out of bed. After a bit of searching, I came upon my cell phone, finding it beneath a pillow. I had kept my word to Spencer and had taken it to bed with me. However, before I could dial him, my cell rang. I answered, intending to get rid of the caller quickly.

“Makayla?”

Worry tightened the muscles of my belly at Pattie’s voice. “Pattie? What’s wrong?”

“It was me, Makayla.”

I hesitated. “It was you, what, sweetheart?”

“I caused Spencer to be arrested. I feel so guilty.”

“Oh, Pattie.” My heart broke. I had been thinking it was the killer who had given the tip, and here was Pattie saying she had done it. Why would she ever do such a thing? We weren’t friends, but neither had Spencer nor I done anything to her. Unless Penelope, having stayed at her inn, had pulled her into the scheme of kidnapping her? That was a possibility. “Just tell me why, Pattie.”

“Will you come over?
Please.
”

I hesitated, but what could it hurt if I gave Spencer more to go on so together we could figure out all of Montgomery’s plans? While I spoke to Pattie, I might even recall more about that last clue that hovered on the edge of my mind.

“All right. Just let me get dressed. I’ll be right over.”

A sigh sounded over the line, and then it went dead. Annoyance ran through me that she was trying to assuage her feelings of guilt more than being concerned about Spencer. She should have come forward sooner if she thought maybe Spencer could be freed of all suspicion. Too often we as human beings think only of our own inconveniences and not how it will impact others and their livelihoods.

Okay, Makayla. Get off your own high horse and get moving!

As I showered and dressed, I wondered who in town might be new. Spencer and I had come around the same time, but we stuck out immediately. I recalled that day I found the first body. Everyone seemed to know who the sheriff was and what he looked like. Then I met Spencer. I was sure others had also known Zoe was new to the area, even though I personally hadn’t heard about her. Wouldn’t they know about Montgomery?

Leaving my apartment a short while later, I determined to ask Pattie. She was local and had grown up in Briney Creek. She might know about any new faces. If she didn’t, I would ask Louisa or someone at Zekey’s. I couldn’t imagine Pete or one of his men not asking, but one never knew.

Montgomery did look different now than he had years ago when Spencer knew him, but not as if he had had plastic surgery. Everyone changed with age, put on weight or lost it. They grew their hair out, dyed it, or cut it. Spencer would recognize Montgomery should he walk about town. Now that I had stopped blocking his face from memory, so would I.

I drew into the inn’s parking lot and paused to text Spencer.
“Visiting with Pattie, but I need to talk to you later. Important.”

The reply came back immediately.
“About?”

“Later,”
I repeated and chuckled, thinking of his irritation. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so cryptic.

“I’ll be there. I don’t want you going anywhere alone.”

I smiled and didn’t answer. He was being overprotective as usual. One hardly expected trouble at nine forty-five in the morning.

As I entered the inn, ignoring everything around me, which probably wasn’t a good idea, I considered who could come and go without a second glance. Who wouldn’t stick out even in Briney Creek? That was a feat given the nosiness of the citizens. Everyone loved to know everyone else’s business. Even I had fallen prey to it all, admitting if only to myself that I liked learning about my friends and neighbors. People like Talia and Ollie, Edna and Peony delighted me with their mere existence.

I tugged the front door of the inn open and stepped inside. A rush of warm air engulfed me, and I wriggled my shoulders to shake off the chill of the morning. Pattie’s inn had given me a cozy sensation the last time I visited, but today, I squinted in the low lighting, wondering why she wasn’t nearby to greet me.

“Pattie?” I called.

The lobby was empty of activity. She didn’t have many guests this month, but I had expected someone to be lingering in the dining room at this hour. I walked through to the kitchen, calling for her. Still no answer. Had she gone out to make a quick run?

Walking back to the front, I pulled my cell phone from my pocket, figuring I would give her a call. Maybe she had gone up to her bedroom and didn’t hear me. Before I pressed the button, I pushed the front door open again to check the parking lot. One or two cars were parked there that I hadn’t paid attention to, and at the side of the building, not visible from the road driving up because of heavy bush coverage on both sides of the property—the gray van. My blood ran cold.