Alana Candler, Marked for Murder (6 page)

Bo ran his fingers through his hair and opened and closed his mouth.

“Spit it out, Bo. Did you or didn’t you?”

“I don’t know how to tell you this, buddy, but nothing at the hotel checked out like Alana said.”

Brad’s jaw tightened. “What do you mean it didn’t check out?”

“It all differed from what she described, man. There was no room three-thirteen.”

“Bo, you know Alana wouldn’t lie, and I know she didn’t make up all that stuff about the weird picture and being attacked in the bathroom.”

“I know Brad, but did you hear what I said? There . . . was . . . no . . . room . . . three-thirteen.”

Brad stood stunned for a moment. “Maybe they changed the number on the door.”

Bo shook his head. “Even if they did, the room she described didn’t look anything like what I saw. The picture in the last room on that floor next to the elevator is a waterfall in the mountains, not a country farmhouse with weird colors. The walls and carpets are gray, and the lamps are blue, not yellow like Alana said. None of the things she mentioned last night were there.”

Frustration combined with weariness from lack of sleep took over. Brad slammed his open hand against the wall. “This is crazy. Someone must have changed the room.”

“The color of the walls? And the carpet? Come on, Brad, you know that can’t be. There wasn’t even a key card programmed with the number three-thirteen.”

A nurse in a white uniform passed them with a tray of medicine. The sharp, pungent smell of disinfectant followed her footsteps down the hall, and Brad scrunched his face and watched her pass.

“Man, I hate this place,” he whispered. “My parents were in this hospital after the wreck. For hours, we thought they’d make it . . . then suddenly, they were both gone. I remember the waiting . . . and the smells.” He dropped his head.

Bo’s shift in position drew Brad’s attention, and he looked up to see Bo—hands on his hips and staring at Alana’s open door.

“I need to say something, Brad.”

“What?”

Bo scrubbed his face with his hands and then stopped and leveled his gaze at his friend. “I think maybe . . . I mean, maybe Alana . . .”

“Maybe Alana . . . what?”

“Maybe . . . maybe she dreamed the whole thing after she ran off the road. Maybe the concussion caused her to hallucinate.” His words came out on a puff of air.

Brad paced back and forth across the hallway. He clenched and unclenched his hands. His anger was almost to the boiling point as the words spewed out of his mouth.

“Are you crazy? No way! You know how detailed she was about everything. There’s no way she could have dreamed something so fantastic.”

A tinge of anger flushed Bo’s face, and his tone grew louder. “Look man, you’re not thinking straight. She’s your sister, and you’re not looking at this logically. Admit that it could happen. Admit that.”

The hair on Brad’s forehead jerked as he shook his head back and forth. “Never! I’ll never admit to such an absurd idea. There has to be another explanation. We need to dig deeper.”

The red hair hanging on Bo’s forehead drew attention to the white spots of anger on his face. He raised his shoulders in resignation and walked off toward the elevators.

Kent, looking flustered at the anger filling the hall, nodded at Brad and followed Bo to the elevator.

Brad ran his fingers through his hair and tried to calm down before going back in to see Alana. How was he going to tell her this news? She’d flip if she thought he even considered the possibility she’d dreamed the whole thing up. He took several calming breaths and gently pushed open the smooth wood of her hospital door.

NINE

THE RAISED VOICES OUTSIDE THE
hospital door surprised Alana. When she realized it was Brad’s voice spewing anger, premonition twisted her heart into knots.

Something was wrong.

That feeling was confirmed when Brad walked into the room and she saw the tight lines on his face.

“What is it, Brad? What’s wrong?”

Brad sat on the side of the bed and touched her arm. Alana stared at him—waiting for him to speak.

“Bo said there was no room three-thirteen at the hotel on the Ross highway.”

When she finally spoke, her words were barely above a whisper. “That can’t be. I was there, Brad. I saw the room number. They must have changed the number on the door.”

Brad shook his head. “It’s not just the door number, Alana. The pictures on the wall . . . the color of the room . . . it all differed from what you described.”

“Are you saying I’m making it all up?” Her voice was tight.

Brad leaned forward to her and held her gaze—his voice strong and deliberate. “No. I’m not. I’m saying someone went to a lot of trouble to cover up the fact that you were there.”

“But, I don’t understand. Why would someone do this? If he wanted money, he would have taken my wallet, my camera. If he didn’t steal anything, then what did he want?”

Brad’s back stiffened, but he didn’t look away.

“If he didn’t want to rob me, then he wanted to . . . what? Make sure yesterday was my last day on earth?” She stared at Brad, her expression begging him to tell her it wasn’t true. “Why, Brad?”

“I’m sorry, honey. I can’t answer that. Think carefully. Have you had any threatening calls lately, or anyone angry enough to want revenge for something you might have done?”

Alana rubbed her forehead, laid her head back on the downy pillow, and closed her eyes.

“No.”

Then she sat up in bed and cringed when her temples pounded and the bruises on her chest knotted.

“Wait a minute. There was an SUV following me all the way from Landeville last night. I thought it was just my imagination until later. I saw him pull into the hotel parking lot as I was going to my room.”

“Did you see the person driving? Man or woman?”

“A man . . . at least, I think it was a man. I couldn’t see his face very well, and he was gone by the time I got into my room.”

Brad pulled out a notebook. “Describe the vehicle.”

“Dark blue or black. It was raining and hard to see, but I think it was a Ford.”

“Was it an Escape?”

Alana knew he was trying to make her smile. Her mouth straight-lined, and she looked at Brad through her lashes. “Funny, funny! No . . . it looked like . . . an Expedition maybe?—boxier and bigger than the Escape.”

Brad scribbled in his notebook and looked up. “We’ll find him, Lane. I promise.”

Alana looked at the determination radiating from Brad’s eyes and nodded. Her voice became a whisper. “I guess my camera’s ruined, isn’t it?”

Brad nodded. “Was it the one Mom and Dad gave you for Christmas?”

Alana bit her lip and nodded. Tears blurred her vision and threatened to fall. She could see anger and frustration bubbling in Brad’s eyes like lava in a volcano. He knew how much that camera meant to her. It was a special gift. Their parents saved for a year to buy it and gave it to her a week before they died.

When he spoke, his voice was soft with emotion. “It’s okay, Lane. Things can be replaced—you can’t. I’m glad
you’re
okay.”

Alana slumped down further in the bed, turning her head slightly away as the tears rolled down her cheeks. “This doesn’t make sense, Brad. Why did somebody do this?”

“I don’t know, Lane, but if we follow every lead—even something we think might not be important—we’ll catch him. Our best forensic team’s checking out your car—somebody had to drive it to the lake. Hopefully he left DNA somewhere inside. We dusted the hotel room for prints.” He paused, then continued softy. “If you were there, maybe we’ll get lucky and find one of your prints somewhere in the room.”

She felt the blood drain from her face, and she searched his eyes.

“
If
, Brad?
If
I was there?”

Tears of distress rolled down her checks again. She pulled tightly on his sleeve as she buried her face in his shirt.

Brad’s arms wrapped around her and rubbed her head softly. “I believe you, Lane. We just have to find a way to prove it.”

He held her and let her cry before he raised her head gently with his hands. “There’s so much to be thankful for, munchkin,” he said softly. “God took care of you, didn’t He? A lot worse could have happened.”

Alana nodded and straightened her shoulders. Brad was right. There was still much to be thankful for. She wiped her eyes with the tissue he offered her from the bedside table and made an attempt at a grin through a sea of tears.

“I guess if you can be thankful you have to put up with me a little longer, I can be thankful too.”

Brad laughed and leaned down to kiss her on the cheek.

As he opened his mouth to change the subject, Alana suddenly sat up straight.

“Oh no!”

“What’s the matter, Lane? Did you think of something?”

“My computer!”

“It can be replaced, Lane.”

“No! It had all the pictures I’ve been taking of the orphanage kids. I hadn’t backed up those files yet. Now I’ll have to start all over.”

“Oh, that reminds me. I talked to Shirley. She said not to worry about missing this week’s photo shoot. She’ll be happy to dress the kids up again, maybe next week. She’s just glad you’re okay.”

More tears filled her eyes. Going to the orphanage was the highlight of her week. Besides weekly trips to play with the kids and cook them a special meal, she’d been taking a small group aside each week and taking pictures of them. Then, as a special gift, she would edit each image into a caricature of the subject’s favorite book character. About half of the children had their own framed caricatures now, but she had been working on the next group with the pictures she’d taken the week before.

Shirley and Darrell Hamlin, the “parents” of all the kids at the orphanage, had such a challenging responsibility—keeping the bills paid on time and providing each child with clothes that fit. Sometimes fun activities were placed on the bottom of the list. Alana’s gift to the children—a framed picture of their own face in the funny body of a book character—was something Shirley and Darrell both appreciated.

Brad leaned over to give her a hug, and there was another knock on the door. Her doctor came into the room, followed by one of the nurses.

Alana rested back on the bed, listening while her brother and the doctor discussed the importance of her resting for the next few days and concentrating on the future—not the past.

As the doctor’s words blurred into one long speech, a nagging wariness filled the back of her thoughts. The future was hers for the making, but the past was full of black, sinister eyes that appeared before her now. Her blood chilled with the anger she saw in them. No matter how hard she tried to forget the past, she had a feeling it would somehow influence her future. And there might be nothing she could do about it.

TEN

JAYDN STOOD AT HIS OFFICE
window, watching the skyline of the city as the sun rose over the peaks of the distant mountains and cast a pink glow on the rooftops of downtown. It was early, and the city was just waking up to truck horns and shops opening for the day. Already, smells of hot pavement and sweet bread cooking at the bakery on the corner wafted up on heat waves and slid through the crevices of the window.

He breathed a deep sigh of relief when he laid the phone back in its cradle. According to a friend at the hospital, the young woman he pulled from the lake would recover completely. She was being released today.

A satisfying warmth spread through his body as an image of the unconscious girl appeared before him. Even in the chaos of the rescue, he had sensed that she was beautiful. Knowing he had saved her life gave him an inner peace like the warmth of the sun rising over the city.

A knock on the door interrupted his musings, and he turned. “Come in.”

A short balding man in a creased white shirt sauntered into the room. He threw his suit jacket over the arm of the sofa and draped his rather oversized frame onto the chair in front of the massive desk. As a high-powered lawyer, Steve Reynolds had been employed by Jaydn’s company for many years and felt at home in Jaydn’s office.

“You sent for me?” His statement came out on a yawn.

Jaydn laughed. “Sorry to get you up so early. I forget you’re a night-owl and barely out of bed before ten in the morning.”

Steve laughed and glanced at him sideways. “Since you’re paying my salary, I can’t complain.”

Jaydn laughed again. “I have a sticky problem for you to solve.”

The older man sat up quickly in his seat and leaned forward. Steve loved a challenge and was always up for a fight. Jaydn hid a smile before he continued.

“The city council of Bishop wants us to build a parking garage for city use in downtown Bishop. I believe we have property there that’s rented at the moment, but I want you to talk with the tenants and see if they’d be interested in moving. See what you can do to get them out of there—nothing illegal, but I’d like them moved to another location.”