Chasing The Dead (An Alex Stone Thriller) (28 page)

She tried to cry out, but the sound died in her throat as her assailant pressed a knee into the base of her spine, tugging at her fanny pack and unzipping it. From the corner of her eye, she saw an object sail through the air, knowing it was her cell phone, feeling as helpless and untethered as if she’d been cast adrift in outer space. And then she was alone.

One hand braced against the stone base of the statue, she pulled herself up to her knees, clawing with both hands to get to her feet. Gingerly, she reached behind her, wincing as she found two wounds, uncertain whether there were more. Wiping blood on her leg, she staggered away from the statue, aiming herself toward where she thought her phone had landed, knowing she had little chance of finding it and even less chance of not bleeding to death if she didn’t.

She counted her steps as a way of maintaining her focus, telling herself that it was only a little farther, just another step, anyone can take one more step. Anyone. And then she couldn’t, her legs crumbling beneath her, the cool wet grass coming up to meet her. She lay still for a moment, eyes closed, opening them when she heard her phone ringing. Lifting her head, she saw it glowing ten feet away. She dragged herself to her knees, crawling to the phone, throwing herself the final distance and pulling it toward her. She rolled onto her back, fumbling with the touch screen until it opened.

“Alex? Alex? Are you there?” Bonnie asked.

Staring at the starlit sky, she said, “I’m sorry,” and then the world went black.

When she woke up, she was on a gurney surrounded by people wearing hospital scrubs as they rolled her into the emergency room at Truman Medical Center. She smiled when she heard Bonnie shout orders and closed her eyes again.

Four hours later, she was sitting up in bed, Bonnie at her side.

“How did you find me?”

“I called 911 and they traced your cell phone.”

She ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth and Bonnie gave her glass of water. She took a sip, marveling at how good it tasted.

“I was stabbed. Twice, I think.”

“Three times. You were very lucky. The wounds weren’t deep. Just soft tissue and some muscle damage. You’ve got enough stitches for some very lovely scars, and you’re going to be pretty sore for a while, but that’s it.”

Neither said anything, the silence awkward until Alex broke it.

“I was going to come home today.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I got as far as our street and I saw Rossi’s car in the driveway. I didn’t know what to think.”

“So now you know. We’re having an affair and he was fucking my brains out.”

Alex laughed, flinching at the pain. “Don’t do that. It hurts. What was I supposed to think?”

“What did you think?”

Alex looked away, her face flushed. “That either he was harassing you or that you were giving me up.”

“You know I would never do that. And he wasn’t harassing me. If anything, it was the other way around.”

Bonnie explained the scam she’d run on Rossi, threatening him with a lawsuit.

“I don’t think a lawsuit is going to scare Rossi. You think it will work?”

“We’ll see, but it wasn’t so much about the lawsuit. I gave him credit for being human and feeling guiltier about the men he’d killed than he’d like to admit. I wanted him to walk in your shoes and think about spending the next five years having people call him a murderer.”

Alex nodded, studying her, feeling badly that she’d so underestimated Bonnie, whose face was drawn and lined with worry. Her scrubs were splattered with bloodstains. Alex reached out, touching one.

“Mine?”

Bonnie took her hand, pressing it against her. “Yeah.”

They sniffled in unison until a nurse came in the room.

“There’s a Detective Rossi wanting to speak to your patient.”

Bonnie said to Alex, “Maybe we’re about to find out if he bought it.” Then to the nurse, “Send him in.”

Rossi stood in the doorway. “I hear you had a close call.”

Alex shrugged. “Yeah, but I’m okay.”

“That right, Dr. Long?”

“Yes. She’ll be fine as long as she’s left alone.”

Rossi eyed Bonnie, ducking his chin for an instant, not taking the bait. “Alex, I need to ask you a few questions.”

“I’ll make it easy on both of us. I left my room at the Residence Inn a little after nine and went for a run. I did a loop down Main, onto Pershing, and back south on West Pennway. I cut across the park heading toward the Scout, and just as I got there, I heard someone coming up behind me. I don’t know if he followed me or was just hiding in the dark waiting for someone to come by. I turned to look behind me, saw someone wearing a runner’s mask, and the next thing I knew I’d been stabbed and was on the ground. It had to have been some random asshole.”

Rossi nodded. “Or not.”

Bonnie stood, squeezing Alex’s hand, looking back and forth at the two of them. She guessed Rossi’s meaning.

“Oh my God! This is about Robin’s phone call.”

Rossi looked at Alex. “You told her about that?”

“I told her everything.”

“And you still think it was some random asshole who just happened to follow you into the park, stab you, and throw your cell phone away so you’d bleed to death before anyone could find you?”

“Until you can prove it wasn’t.”

“Who knew about the phone call?”

Alex thought for a moment. “I mentioned it to Judge West last week. And yesterday, at the memorial for Robin, he said something about it to Judge Steele and his wife. But I didn’t tell any of them what was on the message.”

Rossi shook his head and sighed. “Perfect. I’ll arrest all three of them and see which one flips first. When can she go home, Doc?”

“You know hospitals these days. No one stays overnight unless they’re never leaving. I’ll take her home.”

“There’ll be a patrol car outside your house the rest of the night just in case the random asshole shows up again.”

“Thank you, Detective.”

Rossi turned to go, stopping for a moment. “One last thing, Alex. You said you left your room at the Residence Inn a little after nine to go for a run. What were you doing staying at a hotel fifteen minutes from your house?”

Alex looked at Bonnie. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

Chapter Forty-Nine

LATE WEDNESDAY MORNING, Alex sat in bed, thinking about Meg Adler’s proposal that she take over the Kansas City public defender’s office. Though she loved being in the courtroom, she felt tainted by everything that had happened. Running the office might be a welcome change. She’d never managed people before, never run anything that wasn’t a race, but she thought she could learn. She wouldn’t decide without talking to Bonnie.

Her cell phone rang, the sound jangling her frayed nerves. Between the pain from her wounds and worrying about whether the attack had been random or intentional, she’d hardly slept. She’d put on a brave face for Bonnie, insisting that she was fine and that there was no cause for concern, empty assurances that didn’t make either of them feel any better.

The call was from an unidentified private number. The last anonymous call she’d gotten had been from Judge West. He’d called her burner phone, but this call was to her regular cell phone. That didn’t make her any more willing to answer it without knowing who was calling. She let it ring, waiting to see if the caller would leave a message.

The ringing stopped, and a moment later, the phone chirped, announcing that she had a message. She opened the phone and played it.

“Ms. Stone, this is Judge Steele. After we spoke yesterday I remembered the young woman you asked me about. I’d be happy to visit with you if you’d like to stop by my chambers this morning. No need to return my call.”

Before Bonnie left for the hospital, she gave Alex strict instructions to take it easy for the next few days. Alex promised to do as she was told, but she couldn’t ignore Judge Steele’s message, certain why he had called. It was one thing to deny remembering Joanie. It was another to deny it knowing that Alex was going to get medical records that identified him as the one who’d paid for Joanie’s treatment at Fresh Start. Better to come clean than to invite more questions. And volunteering would buy him credibility for any other denials. Alex could have called him back and let him tell her over the phone, but she wanted to hear it in person to better evaluate whether he was telling the truth.

She had another reason for going. Staying in bed, cooped up in the house, made her feel more trapped than safe. If someone wanted to kill her, she liked her chances better in Judge Steele’s chambers than as a sitting duck at home.

She eased herself out of bed and into her clothes, each movement launching a jolt of pain through her midback. She dug through her T-shirt drawer, slipping into one with a favorite marines saying on the front—
Pain is only weakness leaving the body
. Repeating it out loud made her feel better already.

Judge Steele sat on the Missouri Court of Appeals for the Western District of Missouri. It was the only intermediate appellate court in Missouri that had its own courthouse. Located at Thirteenth and Oak in the shadow of the Sprint Center, it was the southernmost of the trio of courthouses on Oak that included the Federal Courthouse at Ninth and the Jackson County Courthouse at Twelfth.

The judge’s secretary ushered Alex into his chambers. It was twice the size of Judge West’s, a beautiful Oriental rug covering the center of the hardwood floor, two chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, and walls lined with mahogany bookshelves jammed with case reporters and statutes. State and federal flags stood behind the judge’s desk, draped floor-to-ceiling windows completing the backdrop.

Judge Steele sat at an oval table on one side of the room, wearing khakis, a long-sleeved polo shirt, and deck shoes without socks, one shoe off and dangling from his toes. He looked up from the brief he was reading, his glasses partway down his nose.

“Come on in, Alex. You’re awfully pale. Are you all right? Have a seat, please.”

She held one hand over her wounds, grimacing as she slid onto the chair, not wanting to talk about what happened.

“Sort of threw my back out yesterday.”

“Believe me, I’ve been there with the way my wife makes me work out. She’s a fitness buff and I suffer for it.”

Alex was surprised at his informality, since formality was one of a judge’s strongest assets. Lawyers called them by their honorific title as if using their given names was forbidden. Rules against ex parte communications stifled casual conversation. Their black robes and elevated courtroom benches were a reminder of their exalted status. On the few occasions she’d run into judges on a weekend, dressed like civilians and running errands like ordinary folks, she’d almost failed to recognize them. But here was Judge Steele, dressed down and kicking back.

“I didn’t know the Court of Appeals had adopted a casual dress code.”

“If you had gotten here an hour ago, you’d have caught me in my workout clothes,” he said, chuckling and pointing to the duffel bag on the floor. “One of the little-known perks of being an appellate judge is that I can wear whatever I want as long as we don’t have any oral arguments scheduled. And if there’s an emergency hearing of some kind, I just put on my robe and no one can tell what I’m wearing underneath. It’s kind of like the TV anchorman who reads the news wearing a shirt, jacket, tie, boxers, and nothing else.”

Alex smiled. Not taking himself too seriously was part of the judge’s charm.

“Your message said that you remembered Joanie Sutherland.”

“Yes, but not at first. You mentioned something about Fresh Start, and later on, when I was telling my wife, she said that Joanie was probably one of the people whose treatment we had paid for over the years. I went back and checked our records, and, sure enough, that’s what happened.”

Alex arched her eyebrows. “You and your wife pay for other people’s treatment at Fresh Start?”

“Well, not personally. My parents were wealthy—quite wealthy, actually. That’s why I can afford to be a judge. They set up the Steele Family Foundation for their charitable work. I had an older brother who died of a drug overdose when he was only twenty-five. My parents blamed themselves for not recognizing what bad shape he was in and doing something to save him. So, they made prevention and treatment of substance abuse one of the foundation’s priorities, including paying for the treatment of low-income people who wouldn’t otherwise get the quality of care that Fresh Start provides.”

“How did Joanie Sutherland get on that list?”

“COMBAT, Jackson County’s drug abuse prevention program, referred her.”

“We’re you personally involved in approving payment for her?”

“I’m certain I was. Since my parents died, I’m in charge of the foundation, and those applications come across my desk for approval.”

Alex was deflated. She’d thought she’d gotten lucky with a long shot. Judge Steele’s explanation made sense, and since it was easily verifiable, he had no reason to lie. Still, she decided to press.

“Did you or the foundation provide any other financial support to Joanie?”

“Not that I’m aware of, at least not directly. We don’t make grants to people like Joanie because there’s too much risk that the money won’t be well spent. We support organizations and programs that help people like her and she may have benefited from one of those, though the foundation doesn’t keep records of the people who use those services.”

It was the answer Alex expected. “Well, that explains that. Thank you for your time, Your Honor.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, why were you so interested in knowing who paid her medical bills?”

“Because lending a helping hand can get pretty expensive if someone asks for too much help.”

“Ah, I see. And you think Ms. Sutherland may have been such a person and that may have gotten her killed.”

“It’s possible.”

He leaned back in his chair, hands clasped in his lap and smiled. “Which means you thought, to be blunt, that I might have killed her because she was blackmailing me.”

Alex blushed. “I’m sorry, Your Honor, I . . .”