Double Cross (3 page)
As we got next to the garage, the sound of the car engine became obvious. Kacey rapped on the garage door. “Elise!”
Car exhaust seeped from beneath the door, and I covered my nose and mouth with my hand. “Surely she’s not in there,” I said through my fingers. I pounded the door with my fist. “Elise! It’s Taylor and Kacey. Let us in!”
Kacey folded her arms. “Maybe she ran back into the house to get something.”
“And left the car running? She may be weird, but she’s not stupid.”
“Then what do you think?”
“Let’s listen for a second.” I put my ear to the garage door. There was no sound but the car engine. I set my purse down on the driveway and walked over to the gate. It was unlocked. I opened it and jogged to the deck, where I peered through one of the picture windows into the back of the house. The light was on over the breakfast table, but there was no sign of Elise. I tried the back door. It was locked. I pounded on it. No response.
Kacey came through the gate and hurried across the deck toward me. “I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.”
I took off my jacket and wrapped it around my hand.
She raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing?”
I balled my hand into a fist and pulled back my arm. “Hopefully, not ruining a good jacket. I’m going to pop the glass.”
“What? You can’t break into her house.”
“What do you think the chances are that she’s in that car?”
“Pretty good.”
“That’s what I think, too.” I stepped forward and punched the door pane. Glass fell on both sides of the door. I waited for an alarm or a scream or both, but there was no sound. Reaching through the hole in the glass, I knocked away the shards with my jacket, doing my best not to tear the suede on the jagged edges. When I felt the dead bolt, I turned it. “You stay out here until I get the garage door open,” I said over my shoulder. “I don’t want you getting asphyxiated.”
Kacey moved in close behind me. “No way! I’m coming with you.” Her voice rose with each word. Her cheeks glowed and her eyes moved quickly left and right, scanning the family room through the hole in the glass. It was obvious that she thought this was exciting. We really should have been sisters.
I wagged a finger. “Okay, but take a deep breath and hold it, and cover your nose and mouth with your sleeve.” I swung the door open and sprinted diagonally through the family room. I could hear Kacey’s footsteps slapping the tile behind me. A short hallway led past the laundry room. In front of me was a door that appeared to lead to the garage. Throwing it open, I felt around the corner for the light switch, hit it, and then searched the wall near the door for the garage opener button. When I found it, I punched it. The door cranked open.
As daylight filled the garage, we got a look through the windshield of Elise’s Nissan. It was empty. My eyes already stung from the exhaust. I motioned for Kacey to follow me. We ran past the car and out the garage door into the light. When we were ten feet into the driveway I stopped and inhaled.
Kacey did the same, her hands on her hips. “If she’s not in the car, where do you think she is?”
“I don’t know. Wherever she is, though, she’s not going to be happy with me about the back door.”
“I’ll be sure to let her know that I begged you not to break it.”
“Thanks a bunch.”
“No problem. I’ve always got your back.”
“Right.” I looked back toward the garage, which was empty except for Elise’s car. The concrete floor had been sealed, and practically sparkled. Her garage was cleaner than our kitchen.
“I’d better turn off the car.” I took a few deep breaths.
Kacey moved past me. “Let me get it.”
I smiled. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”
Her dark eyes were shining. “It was a blast.”
“Look, Kace, I can see this sort of thing gets your blood pumping, and that’s okay. I don’t want you to get the idea, though, that this is a—” Before I could finish my speech, she took a breath and ran back into the garage. When she reached the car, she lowered her head and yanked open the driver’s side door.
She jumped back and screamed.
I took a breath and ran into the garage. When I reached Kacey, I grabbed her arm and spun her toward the driveway. “Get out of here and get some air!”
I turned to the open car door. Elise was slumped sideways across the console in a white terry cloth bathrobe. Her head rested on the passenger seat with one hand tucked beneath her cheek, as if she were napping. Her face and hands were bright red.
I reached around the steering wheel and pushed the ignition button, killing the engine. Then I nudged Elise in the side. “Elise!” No response. I grabbed her arm and tugged. It was locked stiff, and the movement twisted her whole body in the seat. Rigor mortis; she’d been dead for hours.
My eyes watered from the exhaust. Just before I backed out of the car, I noticed Elise’s key fob in the cup holder beneath her arm. Attached to the key ring was a computer flash drive. I had to get out of there, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the flash drive. It might contain information stored from her computer. I turned my head and looked at Kacey out in the driveway. She was bent over at the waist, vomiting. I reached back into the car and slipped the flash drive off the key ring, leaving the fob in the cup holder. I shoved the flash drive in my pocket and ran out of the garage.
When I got to the driveway, I locked my fingers behind my head and gulped air. After a few moments I took Kacey’s arm and pulled her farther from the garage. Her face was pale. Her breathing was short and quick. “Stay back here,” I said. “I don’t want you getting poisoned, too. Sit down on the driveway if you need to.”
After a few more deep breaths, I ran back into the garage. When I got to the car I grabbed Elise around the waist to pull her out. She was frozen in a nearly fetal position. If I pulled her into the driveway and sat her up, she would tip over like a grotesque piece of yard art. I leaned into the car and studied her more closely. Her eyes were closed, and her eyelashes contrasted like delicate black stitching against the bright red of her cheeks and eyelids. Beneath her robe she wore pink wool pajamas with red hearts. On her feet were fuzzy pink slippers.
Despite the unnaturally twisted pose of her lower body, from the shoulders up she appeared as peaceful as I had ever seen her; much different than when she was alive. She was a woman who had always fought an unsuccessful battle to be included. At that moment I desperately wished I hadn’t called her a rat. A curly lock of blonde hair dangled over her left eye. I reached across her and brushed it back, my fingers grazing her clammy forehead. There was no reason to disturb her now. I left her where she was and jogged back out to the driveway.
As I approached Kacey, she wiped her mouth with her sleeve. “Is she dead?”
I nodded. “She’s been dead for quite a while. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Sorry, it was the shock that got me. I just wasn’t expecting—”
I touched her arm. “Kacey, there’s a dead person in there. I’d be concerned about you if you weren’t upset.”
“It never occurred to me that she’d do this. I feel awful. Maybe if we had handled it differently.”
I placed my hand on her back. “Look, we didn’t steal the money, she did. It’s sad that she’s dead, and I’m sure we’ll feel even worse about this later, when we have a chance to think. But we didn’t do anything, and we don’t have any reason to feel guilty. So don’t do that to yourself.”
She nodded.
I walked over and picked up my purse from where I had left it on the driveway. I pulled out my phone.
“Why is she so red?” Kacey said. “It’s awful.”
“Carbon monoxide. That’s what it does.” I dialed 9-1-1.
When the operator answered, I said what seemed obvious: “I want to report a suicide.”
CHAPTER
THREE
WITHIN FIVE MINUTES A white-and-blue Lewisville police SUV rolled into the driveway, lights flashing, and made a U-turn so it was facing the open garage door. A bowlegged, mustached officer stepped out onto the pavement from the passenger side. He held up a hand to shade his eyes against the sun, which had risen above the roof of the house. His partner, a heavyset woman with a dark, round face and remarkably large eyes, walked around the front of the SUV from the driver’s side.
It quickly became apparent that the bowlegged one was in charge. “Hello, ladies. Did one of you place a 9-1-1 call about a suicide?”
I raised my hand. “I did.”
“I’m Officer Ferrell. This is my partner, Sandra Jackson. Where is the victim?”
“In the car, there.” I pointed toward the garage.
“Carbon monoxide?”
“Yes.”
“Have you been in there?”
I nodded.
“Did you check for a pulse?” He took a step toward the garage.
“Rigor has already set in.”
He turned back to me. “You a doctor?”
“I’m a security consultant. I’ve seen dead people before.”
He put his hands on his hips and looked us up and down, but mostly up, since Kacey and I were both taller than he was. “Are you relatives of the victim?”
“Business associates,” I said. “We were supposed to meet her at eight o’clock. When we got here, she didn’t answer the doorbell. We came around back and heard the car running.”
“Was the garage door open?”
“No. We opened it.”
“How did you do that?”
I pointed toward the back gate. “We heard the car running in the garage and went into the backyard to look through the windows. We figured that she must be in the car, so I busted the backdoor glass. We went through the house to the garage.”
He squinted at the vomit on the driveway. “Where’d that come from?”
Kacey, who by that time had color in her face again, lowered her head. “That was me. Sorry.”
I nudged her with my elbow. “Would you please stop apologizing?”
Ferrell frowned at Kacey. “Were you in the garage, too?”
“Yes.”
“You may have carbon monoxide poisoning. You’d better sit down until the paramedics get here.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t breathe when I was in there. I just haven’t seen as many dead people as she has.” She gave me a weak smile.
He turned back to me and cocked his head. “I recognize you from somewhere. Are you on TV?”
“I’m a security consultant.”
He scratched behind his ear. “Yeah, you said that. I guess you must look like someone.” He turned toward the garage. “I’m gonna take a look. Was the car turned off when you got here?”
“I turned it off.” I moved my hand toward my pocket where I’d put Elise’s flash drive, but I stopped myself.
“How long has the garage door been open?”
Kacey checked her watch. “Fifteen minutes or so.”
Ferrell looked over his shoulder at a row of live oaks in the backyard near the lake. The tops of the trees swayed. “There’s a lot of air movement around here. It’s probably okay. Sandra, you stay out here and keep an eye on me. If you see me acting funny, hold your breath and come and get me.”
“I think it would be smarter to wait for the paramedics to get here,” Sandra said. “If there’s already rigor mortis, she’s been dead for hours. Let’s let them check the air out first.”
Ferrell frowned. “We’ve got a job to do here, Sandra. Just watch me, okay?” He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. “You ladies better move back there a bit. I don’t want any more casualties.” He walked to the edge of the garage, leaned in, and sniffed.
“Carbon monoxide is odorless,” Sandra said.
Ferrell straightened up and hitched his belt. “I know that, but we don’t have any idea what else was going on in there.”
I couldn’t figure out what he had in mind. The garage was empty except for the car. It was not as if Elise had been running a meth lab.
Apparently Sandra couldn’t figure it out either. She pulled a notepad out of her back pocket, flipped it open, and began writing something. “Whatever you say, Ed,” she said, without looking up.
Ferrell took a couple of steps into the garage, stopped, and inhaled. He waited where he was for a few moments. Then he took a few more steps and breathed again. “It seems to be okay,” he said over his shoulder. “Remember to keep an eye on me, Sandra.”
Sandra sighed, softly enough that Ed couldn’t have heard it. “Don’t worry, I’m riveted.” I had a hunch I had been wrong in my initial assessment of who was in charge.
Ferrell arrived at the open car door and leaned in. A few moments later he backed his head out again. “It’s carbon monoxide, all right. She’s red as a cherry.”
“How are you feeling, Ed?” Sandra still didn’t look up from her notepad, and I almost expected her to yawn.
“I’m fine. The air seems to be okay.” He stuck his head back in the car.
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