Health, Wealth, and Murder (17 page)

Jane bowed her head again, but looked to the left and right. If it wasn’t her imagination, no one was moving.

Then a heavy hand fell on her shoulder and a voice whispered in her ear, “I’ve been watching you.”

She held her breath and kept her head down. Fear had such a tight grip on her gut that it took every ounce of effort not to puke.

“So I came forward. I don’t know what you suspected.” This time the speaker was louder, and his deep-voiced slight southern drawl familiar instead of terrifying. “But right now, I’m guessing you’re right.”

She turned fast.

“No, keep your head down. There are other cops here too, and we’ve all got our eye on Christiana. If someone is going to try something, we’ll catch them. I came to keep an eye on you and your cousin.”

On his last word the lights and the sound died again, this time with an electric sputter of sparks and noise. The crowd at the altar jolted forward.

Jane lunged for Christiana.

She knocked her down, landing on top of her, their weight echoing on the hollow stage with a deep, reverberating thud. “Christiana, it’s Jane, the maid. Lie low.”

Christiana didn’t lie low. She rolled and clawed at Jane’s face. “Get off of me!” she hissed.

“I want to protect you!” Jane pressed her knee to the ground and pushed Christiana off of her, but gripped her arm. “Stay low, please. Someone is going to try and hurt you.”

“
You
are hurting me.” Christiana twisted her arm in Jane’s grip but couldn’t get free. She dragged Jane towards the back of the stage.

“Were the power outages planned?” Jane’s knees burned as she tried to keep Christiana in one spot, but the preacher was strong.

“No, of course not. This is an old building.”

The beam of a high-powered light flashed across Christiana and Jane. “Okay, everyone, calm down!” The voice was amplified, as though it had been mic’d, and very confident. “Everyone take your seats. It’s just a power outage.” More flashlight beams crisscrossed the room, and the crowd began to settle back down.

Jane looked around for the source of the voice but got the beam of light in her eyes instead.

“You there, hands up.”

Jane dropped Christiana’s arm and held her hands up. She looked left and right for Detective Bryce but could see nothing.

“Come with me.” The man with the flashlight held out his hand to Jane, but she was still blinded from the flashlight he trained on her face.

She took his hand and let him help her up, since it was likely he was with the police.

From behind her, Christiana screamed, like nails on a chalkboard.

Jane spun, but the cop grabbed her.

The crowd sprang to life again, with wailing, crying, and the sound of feet pounding everywhere.

“You, come with me.” The cop tugged Jane away from Christiana, not violently, but leaving no doubt that she had to move.

The room was still intensely dark, but the officer detaining Jane shone his flashlight on Christiana, prone on the floor, with a uniformed police officer bending over her.

“You’ve got to find Lucas, the guy from the sound booth,” Jane said. “He’s behind this, and Josiah’s murder. I just know it.”

“You’re the only one we saw lay hands on the woman.” The officer shoved her to the side of the stage. “Hands on the wall.”

She placed her shaking hands on the wall and let the officer pat her down.

“Okay, everyone, let’s try something new here,” the amplified voice said. “Let’s all pray the lights come back on, okay? Everyone, let’s bow our heads…” He had a bit of a chuckle to his voice, but the crowd began to quiet down. “Okay, thank you, folks. If you can all stay where you are, maybe in silent prayer, for just a few more minutes…” As he started to give instructions, the lights came back on.

Jane jerked her head around.

“Face to the wall.” The officer in charge of her wasn’t messing around.

She couldn’t see what was happening, but someone tapped a microphone. “Everyone? Everyone?” It was Lucas, his voice unsure and almost awed. “Look what your prayers achieved!”

The crowd responded with a nervous chuckle.

“If we could all sit down, and allow the officers to make sure everything is okay…” Lucas looked behind him. “Christiana had a panic attack, and has gone to the other room with a paramedic. Praise God there was a paramedic in the crowd tonight, am I right?”

Amen
s echoed.

The cop tapped Jane’s shoulder. “Come along with me.”

She followed him wordlessly, looking around for Jake, or Bryce, Gemma, or Francine—any ally at all—as she was led outside.

The cop parked her on a bench by the door. “Why did you attack Christiana Malachi as soon as the lights went out?”

Jane took a deep breath, but it did nothing to stop her from shaking. “I wanted to cover her, in case someone tried to hurt her.” She closed her mouth, but her teeth clattered.

The cop narrowed his eyes.

“I was afraid for her.” Jane wrapped her arms around herself.

“So you’re a big fan of the Malachis, then?” The cop did not speak sympathetically.

Jane contemplated the question and hoped her pause wouldn’t count against her. “I’m her housecleaner.”

“So…more like a friend than a fan.”

“Yeah, something like that.” Jane blinked the tears away, and bit her tongue to try and center herself.

“Why don’t you and I go back inside and see if Christiana is ready to talk about what happened.”

Jane nodded silently and followed him.

As the door swung shut, she heard sirens in the distance.

They went past the meeting room, but Jane glanced in the window and saw Lucas preaching, just as she had suspected.

The officer led her to the kitchen. Christiana was laid out on the floor, her eyes closed and her breathing ragged.

“What happened here?” the cop asked.

“She was stabbed in the side, like Josiah.” The paramedic who had sprung up from the crowd was a young woman with black hair hanging in her eyes. Her face was pale despite her olive skin. “She was having a panic attack, but I was sure she was fine. I helped her in here, and then called for an ambulance. When I came back…” She waved her hand at Christiana. A huge knife stuck out of her side. “It looks like an amateur job. A killer would have gone for her heart, or her back.” The paramedic shook her head sadly. “She’s in a lot of pain, but I won’t touch it until…”

As she spoke, the paramedics from the ambulance that had pulled in came streaming into the kitchen. Jane and the cop were pushed aside as they swarmed the injured woman.

Jane wavered, but a hand steadied her from behind.

“I’ve got you, babe,” Jake said.

Jane spun around and pressed her face into Jake’s shoulder. He patted her back. “Chin up. They’ll save her.”

Jane took a deep breath and let go of her boyfriend. “Yes, of course.” She wiped the tears that had sprung from her eyes at the sound of his voice, and then looked around the room to assess the situation. In the far corner she spotted the glossy black hair of her cousin, who leaned on the arm of Detective Bryce in a very familiar way. Jane was glad to see that she was safe, and somehow not at all surprised by the sight.

Interviews were exhausting. The fact that she had thrown herself on top of the injured woman as soon as the lights went out was rehashed several times, but as Christiana had been stabbed while Jane was technically in police custody, they eventually let her leave.

Jake drove her back to his place first, but turned around in the driveway and headed back to her apartment. “Sorry. Habit. I want to bring you home and shelter you. Keep you safe from all this craziness, but it’s not my right yet.”

Jane shrugged, and gave him a half smile. “I guess not, but right now, it’s the one thing I want, too.”

Jake laced his fingers through her hand. “One day I will make a big romantic gesture, and you will have to say yes, but, if you wanted to say yes today, I would totally ask you to marry me in an unassuming, quiet manner.”

Jane squeezed his hand. “Very tempting.”

When they got to the apartment, they found Gemma and Detective Bryce on the couch, in what could only be called a “compromising” position. They untangled quickly, though, and Jane was pleased to note that all buttons seemed to be firmly in place and only Gemma’s hair was ruffled.

Jake broke the awkward silence first. “Hey.”

“Hey.” The detective was quick to respond, and to scoot even a little further away from Gemma.

“So…” Jane lifted her eyebrow.

“Yeah…” Gemma blushed.

“What happened back there?” Jake asked.

Detective Bryce—though Jane thought she had better start thinking of him as Grant, after all—threw his arm across the back of the sofa. “Best as I could tell, a whirlwind of crazy. I came because Jane was pretty persistent in thinking something was going to happen there. Once she said that she and Gemma were definitely going to be at the event, I had to be there.”

“Word,” Jake said.

“I had my eye on both of them, but when I saw Jane lead the crowd to the front of the stage, I knew she was going to do something stupid.”

“Thanks so much.” Jane poured herself a glass of cold water, and wished she had given Jake a different answer back in the car.

“Well, you did. But I couldn’t do anything about it because once the flashlights started roving, I spotted Gemma here doing something even stupider.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jake took Jane’s glass and drained it.

“Jane told me that she was suspicious about Lucas and Tiffany, so…”

“So she tipped over Tiffany’s wheelchair.”

“What?” Jane and Jake asked in unison.

“You’re lucky she didn’t press charges.”

“You said she could walk just fine, or that you thought she could. I saw her start to roll her chair away, and I just, I don’t know. I just tipped it. I wanted to stop her from getting wherever she was going, so I tipped her over. I didn’t think anyone saw.”

“Was she hurt? What happened?” Jane leaned heavily on the counter. Her cousin could have just made everything so much worse. It was like her good intentions and her good sense hadn’t ever been introduced.

“Stacy saw me and grabbed me and started yelling, and then Grant showed up and pulled me away from her.”

“What did Tiffany do?” Jane asked.

“Good question. By the time I had a chance to see if I had even stalled her, both she and the chair were gone.”

“How many people were in wheelchairs there?” Jake asked.

“I only saw Tiffany. I did see a lady in a power chair,” Jane said.

“I saw a guy in a power chair,” Gemma added.

“Well, I saw a wheelchair folded against the wall in the foyer when we left. Think it was Tiffany’s?” Jake asked.

“Impossible to say now.”

“While Lucas was preaching and I was getting interviewed outside, and Gemma was getting hauled away by Grant, and Tiffany was MIA,
someone
snuck into the kitchen and stabbed Christiana Malachi.” Jane pondered it. Was it wrong to accuse an orphaned woman in a wheelchair of murder? It felt wrong, but all of the pieces fit together so well. She acted worse off than she was. She played on sympathy. Her husband wanted power. She was able to do her deed because of all of the diversions with the power, which her husband controlled.

“Do you think she’ll be okay?’ Gemma asked.

“Christiana?” Grant pulled Gemma into his arms. “Yeah. She’ll hurt for a while, but it didn’t look like she’d die from the injury.”

“So she’ll be able to ID the person who did it.” Jane was relieved. The pressure of figuring out who killed Josiah would be off of her shoulders.

Grant shook his head. “Not if she was stabbed from behind. But we’ll know whatever she knows, soon enough. Until then, all we can do is wait.”

The next day Jane had to play responsible student and part-time maid despite the overwhelming fear that coursed through her.

The second day after the camp revival, Jane went to the Malachi rental house uninvited. Just pushing the door open gave her an immense sense of relief, but the house was cold, dark, and empty.

Of course it was.

Christiana was still at the hospital. Theo was still missing, Nick had been staying at the hotel with the task force, and no one else lived there. She took advantage of the quiet and rummaged through the office.

The desk was full of paperwork for the camp revival and the third Portland area event, a “prayer revival” at a Foursquare church on the way to the beach. She was glad, for the sake of that church and everyone who worshipped there, that the false teachers wouldn’t be coming after all.

Or would they?

If Lucas and Tiffany had orchestrated this all to take over a successful and well-paid ministry, they would most likely show up for the next event as though nothing had happened.

Jane picked up the phone and scrolled through the caller ID, not sure what she was looking for, but a feeling of desperation crept up her spine nonetheless. They had managed to take out Josiah, Theo, and Christiana. Nick couldn’t possibly be safe.

Evelyn’s name popped up on the caller ID, so Jane wrote it down. She called her from her own cell phone. “Evelyn, this is Jane, the maid. I was at last night’s event, and I’m scared to death for Nick.”

“Slow down, sweetheart.” Evelyn’s rough voice was calm, and somehow soothing. “What are you scared about?”

“Whoever killed Josiah tried to kill Christiana last night. And Theo’s still missing.” Her words were tumbling out. There was that motherly touch to Evelyn, that solid, down-home feeling to her voice, that drew out all of Jane’s fears and made her lay them on the table, though she would have preferred to be calm and professional right now.

“I’m worried for Nick, too. But let me tell you: I am not letting him out of my sight. We’re staying at the hotel today. Eating our meals together and lying low. I owe it to my brother to keep my eye on his boy.” She cleared her throat. “Trust me, I won’t let anything happen to him.”

Jane’s heart rate slowed down. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Thank you.”

“Is there something else you need to tell me?”

Jane thought about spilling the beans on her whole enterprise: being paid to find the killer, attempting to protect Christiana and failing…all of it. But then she remembered the way Evelyn had talked everyone out of calling the cops on Theo’s behalf, and she stopped. “No, that’s it.” While she didn’t think Evelyn was behind the murder, she wasn’t ready to confess all yet.

“Okay, dear. Please call me if you hear anything.”

“Of course.” Jane ended the call.

Call if you hear anything?
So Evelyn knew about her investigations? And she was still willing to claim responsibility for Nick’s safety.

Jane went upstairs to snoop in Christiana’s room. A diary, a notebook, some kind of journal…if Christiana had been putting her personal thoughts down on paper, now was the time to dig them up. If she had any fears about her team, any theories on what had happened to her husband, Jane needed to know them.

But the bedroom turned up nothing. The drawers at the bedside were empty. The closet had clothes in it, nothing more.

Jane sat on the edge of the bed and stared out the window. She couldn’t be the only one suspicious of Lucas and Tiffany. Not considering how closely these people all lived together.

In the distance a cat crossed the yard. Not Haven’s cat, though.

Theo had been suspicious. For the last four years he had doubted everything. Maybe he had been keeping notes.

His room had stayed clean—she had made sure of it. So she didn’t need to do an archeological dig through garbage this time. His desk drawers were fairly empty, though, and his closet only as illuminating as his mother’s had been.

Haven’s cat slept on his bed, so Jane sat next to her and ran her hand down the silky fur.

She toyed with the cat’s collar and wondered why it was there. Surely that cat had been chipped. Theo wasn’t about to lose this animal.

The cat had a bulky tag hanging from her collar. Jane gave it a closer look. It was a rectangle charm of sorts, about the size of a USB plug.

Could it be?

Jane undid the cat collar and pocketed it.

If Theo had been storing data on the cat’s collar…it explained his deep affection for the animal, and was exactly the thing she needed to find.

But she didn’t dare try it out while in their house.

On her way out she stopped by the den to wipe her fingerprints off of the telephone. She could touch most anything in the house and look unsuspicious, but there wasn’t a single reason not related to snooping for her to be checking out the Malachis’ caller ID.

Back at her apartment she hid away in her bedroom with her laptop. She tried to slide the plastic charm so that a USB plug would pop out. She slid her fingernail around the seam of the plastic case, and it popped off.

She was right. It was a USB plug with a three-millimeter chunk of plastic on the end…apparently just enough room for the smallest possible circuit board. Jane ran her fingernail around the other side to expose the whole plug.

The thin plastic cover popped off, taking the plastic chunk that probably had the circuit board off with it.

Jane stared at the plug.

She tried to press the parts back together, but it didn’t seem to work like Legos.

Whatever Theo had been hiding was…gone.

She grabbed her phone and called Ben, the only guy she knew who really knew his way around computer stuff.

Jenny, his wife, answered. “Ben’s phone.”

“Hey! This is Jane Adler, Gemma’s cousin, you know?”

“Sure.” Jenny sounded cautious.

“I have a problem that maybe Ben can help me with.”

“Is it about your murder investigation?’ Jenny’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

“Um…”

“I take that as a yes.”

“I really need an expert.” Jane looked away from the evidence she had destroyed.

“What a pity. We’re in Seattle all day on a job. We won’t be home until very late tonight.” She paused. “If at all.”

“Could you just tell him to call me?” Desperation flooded Jane.

“He’s pretty busy, but I’ll let him know.”

Jane doubted that was true. “Thanks.” Her own words fell flat. She ended the call and stared at the broken memory drive. She should bring it to the police. They would know what to do with it. She stood up with a heavy sigh, sick of not doing her job right.