Alana Candler, Marked for Murder (29 page)

The first picture was an angled view of the victim’s feet. In the background was a man’s hand stuffing evidence from the carpeted floor into one of the evidence bags. A golden wedding ring glinted in the camera flash.

Probably Vernon. He’d been married only five months.

She picked up the second picture and compared it with the first. It was the same picture, but from a different angle. The thing that confused her was the man’s hand in the background. It was also picking up evidence, but the hand was different. There was no ring on this man’s left hand.

She shook her head. Something wasn’t right. She knew enough about Brad’s procedures to know he only allowed one person gathering evidence in each grid of a crime scene. No one was allowed back in an area that was swept unless there was a question later in the investigation or if there were problems with some of the evidence.

She stared at the second picture until the solution jumped out and struck raw nerves.

Bingo!

For some reason a second person entered that grid. But who? And why? And what were they stuffing into the evidence bag? In the first picture, the tweezers held what looked like a piece of lint, but the evidence in the second picture was a piece of something small and white.

“Lord, please help me figure this out.”

She stared carefully at the second picture and tried to make out what the man held in his hand. Was it a piece of paper? A matchbook? It could be a cigarette butt. Without a magnifying glass or enlarging that section of the picture, it was hard to tell.

She ran her hands through her tangled hair.

A break was what she needed.

Picking up the two questionable pictures, she walked out the door. As she passed Jaydn’s office, she heard him speaking to someone on the phone.

Probably his office.

She was grateful he could handle some of his work while away from the office, but each day he stayed with her, the concern he might be fired increased.

She headed toward the kitchen, where Naomi was finishing the dishes from supper.

“Would you like some hot chocolate, honey?”

“No, but I would love one of those muffins we had for breakfast, if there are any left, and maybe some coffee.” She sniffed the coffee with a deep, appreciative breath.

Naomi pulled a bowl from the refrigerator and handed her a plate. “About twenty seconds in the microwave makes them taste like fresh baked.”

Alana put two miniature muffins on the plate and stuck it into the microwave. She poured herself a cup of hot, black liquid, then took a seat facing Naomi and laid the pictures in front of her on the table.

“Jaydn’s working hard today, isn’t he?” she said absentmindedly as she sipped the soothing liquid. “I hope he doesn’t get into trouble at work for being here.”

Naomi grinned again. “Don’t you worry, honey. Jaydn knows what he’s doing.”

FIFTY-EIGHT

JAYDN SAT AT THE DESK
in the cabin’s roomy office, staring at the wind blowing through the leaves in the oak tree outside his window.

There was only one way to fix this problem. He would call Steve about reversing the eviction order for the orphanage. If he continued his plans and Alana learned the truth, she would never forgive him for uprooting and dismantling the orphanage. She would hate him when she found out it was him—the big-time executive, forcing them to move.

He even hated himself.

“But I’m not that man anymore,” he reasoned. “Surely if God can forgive the man I was, Alana should be able to forgive me as well.”

He picked up the Bible sitting on the edge of his desk and opened it to the concordance in the back. Somewhere he’d read about becoming a new creature after giving your life to Christ.

Here it was: Second Corinthians, chapter five, verse seventeen.

He fumbled through the pages of the Bible until he found the verse he wanted and read it aloud.

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

That means I’m a new creature, Lord. There has to be some way to fix what I’ve already done.

He picked up the phone and dialed his office. A hard, nasal sounding voice answered the call.

“Jaydn Holbrook’s office. Bobbie speaking.”

“Bobbie, this is Jaydn Holbrook. Can you please give me the number of Steve Reynolds’ cell phone?”

“I’m sorry, sir. We’re not allowed to give personal numbers over the phone.”

“Look, Bobbie . . . oh, never mind. Just give me his work number.”

It seemed to take Bobbie forever to find the number. Jaydn wrote it down as she dictated, then called Steve’s office. His secretary informed him that Steve was out of the country and wouldn’t be back until late tomorrow.

Tomorrow. One more day wouldn’t make a difference. Steve would reverse the damage he’d done to the orphanage, and Alana would never know—
if
he could keep it from her until everything was straightened out.

He’d been working in his office all morning, but hiding away from their uncertain relationship and pretending she was nowhere around wasn’t working.

His inability to be honest with her about owning a successful company was frustrating, but more than anything, he missed her smile. She had worked her way under his skin—a dangerous place to be when there were doubts about their future together. Their future could be brighter if he could find the person stalking her.

He sat back and thought about the clues. Alana’s attack at the hotel. Her apartment was trashed and bombed, yet nothing was stolen. Her attack at the apartment pool seemed to indicate that whoever this was wanted her dead, but why? Something she saw?
Someone
she saw? Was it related to the sheet murders, or had she made someone mad enough for revenge? Could it be Martin—trying to get payback? And, what about the last clue—the black hair?

Picking up the phone, he dialed Brad’s number and was surprised to hear him answer so quickly.

“Jaydn?”

“Alana’s fine, Brad. I just wondered if you’ve had any luck with that black hair you found in the ring of the last murdered woman.”

“We know the black hair at the murder scene has the same DNA patterns as the DNA left at the hotel elevator, but we don’t yet know who the DNA belongs to. We’re in the process of taking samples from all the employees and guests who were registered the week before her attack. The problem is that a couple of them live out of state. We have to get the local police to contact them, take the sample, and send it to our lab. That takes time. Something we’re short of.”

Jaydn tried to keep the excitement from coloring his words. “That’s good news, though. Isn’t it? Have you told Alana?”

“Not yet. I’d rather wait until we know for sure that the two are connected. If we find a DNA match from someone at the hotel, it’ll prove they’re involved with the murders. It will also give us a hint why Alana has been targeted. If the two scenes are connected, her being targeted probably has something to do with the murder scene she photographed.

“But . . . it could have been someone else following her from Landeville for a totally different reason. In that case, none of the DNA samples will match.

“There’s something else I need to tell you, Jaydn. I’m worried there might be a leak in my department. The crooks seem to be one step ahead of me in this investigation. The hotel room where Alana was attacked was cleaned out and everything was replaced before my team got there. We put out an APB on Chet’s neighbor, and he’d already disappeared before the alert was even announced. And of course, someone found out Alana was at your apartment in Ross. We still haven’t been able to find the man washing his car outside her apartment building, but if he’s legit, the only other person who knew where she was at that time was Bo. He said he mentioned it to several people working the murder cases, so most of the department knew she’d been moved. That means it has to be someone connected with the department. Only someone in the department could have known all these things to stay one step ahead of us.”

Jaydn groaned. “No wonder you’re having such a hard time.”

“Just don’t mention it to anyone until I let you know. There’s one more thing—I wanted to go with Alana to the orphanage, but I really need to finish collecting these samples and get them to the lab. We haven’t told anyone when she’s going, so I think the risk is minimal. But, I’d feel better knowing you were there to keep an eye on her.”

“Sure, Brad. You know how I feel about her—even though she may never feel the same way about me. You know I’d protect her with my life.”

“Thanks, buddy. It means a lot. And listen, before you stop at the orphanage, take Alana by the Bishop police station. I’d like her to look at the mug shots of Gene Hollister to see if she recognizes him from the hotel.”

When Jaydn hung up the phone, he sat back in his chair. He had a feeling his life would never be normal again—if there was such a thing as normal any more, now that Alana completely captured his body, mind, and soul.

FIFTY-NINE

ALANA WAS ABOUT TO SWALLOW
a bite of her muffin when Jaydn burst into the room.

“I found something different in these two pictures.” He laid two pictures on the table, identical to the ones Alana was studying. Glancing at her two photos, he added, “Looks like we both noticed the same thing.” He leaned over her shoulder to study the four photographs.

She nodded and looked up. That was a mistake.

His face was only inches from hers. Her gaze was captured by his eyes, as blue as the sky in the evening sunset. She caught her breath as they brightened to an even deeper blue. Words that were on the tip of her tongue caught in her throat. All she could think was
Wow, he looks good!

“Alana?”

She cleared her throat and looked around the room, anywhere but at those eyes.

“I’m sorry, Jaydn. What were you saying?”

“I said it looks like we both have questions about the same two photographs.”

Alana nodded, forcing her gaze from his rugged features to look at the pictures. Trying to pull her raveling thoughts into coherent sentences was almost impossible. She concentrated on the pictures to clear her head.

“I know. It’s odd. Brad never allows anyone back in an area that’s already been swept. It’s strange that a second man would be picking up evidence in the same grid, and at a different time, too, according to the digital time the camera recorded.”

Jaydn studied the four pictures. “Do you recognize either of the two men in the pictures?”

“The one with the wedding ring might be Vernon. He was just married, and the ring in this picture looks new. But, I don’t know who the other man is. There’s no ring or anything to tell us who it might be.”

Naomi slammed the back door as she took the mop outside to shake it out and hang it up to dry on the wooden deck.

Jaydn leaned over farther to pick up two of the pictures and study them closer, his head just inches from hers.

The musky smell of his aftershave gave Alana’s heart a jolt, and she wanted to close her eyes and enjoy the way it made her feel. The stubble of a day’s growth of beard covered his square jaw, and she traced its lines with her eyes, swallowing hard when she reached his lips.

Her heart refused to beat its next turn, and she raised her gaze to those blue lagoon eyes. He glanced from the photos to her, and the yearning she saw there almost took away her next breath. She was hypnotized by the longing conveyed in his eyes. Their heads moved closer together until there was only a breath between them.

Alana’s brain yelled at her.
Stop
!
This won’t work. He doesn’t feel the same attraction you do.
But, her heart could only think about the smell of his aftershave and the lips she tasted before . . . so close.

The back door broke the trance as Naomi returned from outside and closed the door. Jaydn lowered himself into a seat slowly and cleared his throat. Alana jumped when he spoke—his voice cracking with emotion.

“Can you ask Brad about who was supposed to be searching that area?”

Alana nodded automatically, not wanting to admit she had no idea what he just asked. She tried to pull his last sentence from her short-term memory.

“Uh, yeah. I’ll check that picture out.”

Jaydn stood up suddenly and smiled shakily. He walked to the door, then turned around and frowned. “I guess I need to get everything ready for the trip tomorrow. Are you sure we can’t talk you out of visiting the orphanage?”

Alana wanted to agree to anything he asked just to see him smile again, but the faces of disappointed children won the argument. She shook her head, a determined look on her face.

SIXTY

JAYDN GLANCED AT ALANA AS
they sat in his car outside the Bishop City Police Department. She took a deep breath and bit her lip. Jaydn knew Brad didn’t realize, when he asked her to look at the picture of Gene Hollister, how hard it would be for her to look into the face of the man who might have attacked her in the hotel bathroom. She’d mentioned how those dark eyes had haunted her dreams and would for a long time.