Runs Deep (18 page)

CHAPTER 43

S
teve spent the night enjoying the Spartan accommodations of the Millners Kill Police Department. Keith had interrogated him when they’d arrived but he hadn’t learned anything—unsurprisingly, seeing as there was nothing to learn.

For a while, Steve was surprised to find that he was able to take the interrogation in stride. Knowing Micah was safe was all he cared about. But his anger started to boil when he realized Keith wasn’t going to look for the actual assailant. As far as Keith was concerned, he already had his man.

He’d spent the rest of the night on a hard bench in a jail cell that reeked of body odor. It was just before five a.m. when Russ arrived to unlock Steve’s cell door. “You’re free to go.”

Steve passed right by him without a word.

Russ put out a hand to stop him. “I’m real sorry about this.”

Steve looked at him. Russ’s eyes were filled with remorse.

Steve sighed, knowing there was nothing else Russ could have done—short of quitting the force, anyway. And then the chief would have just had one of his other deputies arrest him instead. “Not your fault, man.”

A hint of anger crept into Russ’s voice. “They should be thanking you, not locking you up.”

Steve clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Keith’s never going to change. Did you look in the woods? Find any sign of the guy who grabbed Micah?”

Russ looked dejected. “I tried to follow his trail, but with the weather…” He shrugged. “The chief won’t like it, but I’ll canvass the neighborhood and see if there were any witnesses. I don’t want to get your hopes up, though. There’s just not much to go on.”

Steve knew Russ was right. “Well, I’ve got to go. I’m due at Mel’s in a few minutes.”

“Need a lift?”

Steve shook his head. “Thanks, but after last night, I think I want to stretch my legs. But could you call Jack? Have him run over and check on Gran?”

“I’ll run by. I’ll tell her I picked you up early this morning.”

“Thanks.”

They crossed through the doors leading into the front foyer. The rain was slamming against the front windows as the wind added gusto to the downpour. Russ looked over at Steve, his eyebrows raised. “You
sure
you don’t want a ride?”

Steve had no doubts. He needed to walk. He needed the reminder that he was still a free man, even if it meant walking through a monsoon.

He pulled the hood up on his jacket. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

CHAPTER 44

A
h, Steve, Always the good kid, doing the right thing. Saved two lives yesterday and another last night
. His face darkened when he thought of Steve tackling him in the woods.

His anger afterward had been unrelenting. But then he’d found an outlet for all that anger. He hadn’t planned on moving on this one so quickly, but Steve had forced his hand. Why hadn’t he just let him take Micah?

Oh well. It was not what he had wanted, but it should do the trick—especially coming on the heels of the attack on Micah.

He pulled up his hood and quickly got out of the car. Ducking into the coffee shop, he pulled back his hood and shook himself out. He smiled at the barista behind the counter. “I’m glad you guys are still open.”

The young man smiled back at him. “Well, with the bridge, boss thought people might need a little something. Your usual?”

He smiled. “Yes, please.”

CHAPTER 45

S
teve ducked his chin and squinted against the pelting rain. He was only a block from the police station and already soaked through. His hair was plastered to his face. He’d stopped fighting the wind over his hood only a few feet from the police station. It was just a measure in futility.

Maybe I was a bit hasty turning down Russ’s offer.

Mel’s Diner was just up ahead. Mel had called Steve last night before everything and asked if Steve would mind coming in to help out—said he’d decided to open for those who needed to get out of the house. Steve had been happy to take the shift, though he was doubtful Mel was going to get any customers. Sure, people were stuck in town now, but with this weather, only the idiots would leave their houses. Which apparently meant him and Mel.

And once word spreads about the attack on Micah, everyone will be staying close to home.

A heavy wind gusted across the parking lot—so strong it pushed Steve backward. He pressed through it to the diner’s front door. The “open” sign wasn’t on yet, but the door was thankfully unlocked, and Steve stumbled through. Shaking out his hair, he wiped at his eyes. “Hey, Mel. It’s me. It’s really getting crazy out there.”

He walked around the counter. “Don’t think we’re going to get many—”

His foot bumped against something. He looked down.

He went still as his breath left him. For a few precious seconds, his mind couldn’t process what he was seeing. Then the horror of it slammed into him, and he stumbled back against the counter.

Mel lay face down on the floor in a pool of blood. A knife stuck out of his back, and his shirt was shredded and soaked in blood. His head was turned to the side, and a line of dried blood ran down from his mouth. His unblinking eyes were large, staring, lifeless. A larger pool of blood spread from around him, already beginning to dry.

Steve was frozen in place by disbelief. “Mel?”

It was the knife that pulled him back to reality. It was one of the diner’s thick steak knives. Even the handle was covered in blood.

Steve had seen stabbings before. Prison hadn’t exactly been a pleasure cruise. But this was different. This wasn’t the result of a gang fight or a territory dispute; this was senseless. Cruel.

Steve’s mind was suddenly filled with memories of Mel teaching him to cook, coming to his soccer games, and a thousand other moments. Until Mel, no one had even begun to fill the void left after his dad had disappeared. When Steve’s mom had died, Mel had been the one who had stepped up, looked after him, and helped his grandmother out. How could someone do this to him?

Tears threatened to spill, but Steve choked them down. There’d be time for that later.

He went down to the opposite end of the counter and pulled out the old phone. He hit the number nine and then stopped.
Wait a minute
. There was no way Keith was going to believe this wasn’t him. Look at how the chief had reacted last night after he’d saved Micah.

Automatically he felt guilty at the thought. He should be focused on Mel now. But the reality was, Keith would never really investigate this murder. He’d never follow up on any leads that didn’t point directly to Steve. And the killer would go free.

Steve scrambled to form a plan. He was no PI, but the least he could do was examine the scene. Maybe if he identified something useful, he could pass that info to Russ or Declan.

Slipping out of his shoes, he walked back to the other end of the counter.

Mel’s hands were splayed out. Coffee cups and a sugar holder were smashed to the floor in front of him. Steve didn’t move Mel, but he was pretty sure if he did there’d be more shards.

On the counter beside him, the sugar container was tipped over, along with the pepper. The salt shaker had rolled farther down the counter. So, Mel had been taken by surprise. He’d grabbed the counter, knocking stuff off as he fell.

Steve crouched down as close to the body as he could get, careful to stay clear of the pooled blood. There were no bruises on Mel’s hands, no cuts on his forearms. The poor man hadn’t seen the attack coming, hadn’t had a chance to defend himself.

Sick bastard.
Anger and nausea warred inside Steve. Whoever had done this had come up from behind, stabbed Mel in the back, and then kept stabbing. There were at least two dozen stab wounds.

Steve paused.
Wait a minute.
He looked around. Blood was splashed along the cups and saucers stored under the counter and along the back shelves. Whoever did this had been in a mad frenzy. They would have been covered in blood.

Steve looked back to the door and then toward the kitchen. So why was there no blood trail? Did the killer just stop and clean up after himself? People didn’t do that.

Steve felt cold.
But this guy did
.

Steve had seen a guy in prison like that. He’d walked calmly up to this neo-Nazi that had been saying some not so nice things about him, and with a smile on his face, he’d plunged a shank into the guy’s neck, again and again. He’d been dripping in the guy’s blood.

Then he’d stopped, wiped his knife off on the guy’s shirt, and strolled away with that same calm smile on his face. He’d even whistled as the blood dripped off him, leaving a trail in his wake. Steve had recognized the tune—the theme song from
Gilligan’s Island
.

The guy had been put in the hole for thirty days. And when he got out, everyone gave him a wide berth. No one wanted to mess with that kind of crazy.

Was that the kind of guy he was dealing with here?

Another thought hit Steve like a punch to the stomach. Mel was always cautious. He wouldn’t turn his back to a stranger, and he would never let a stranger in after closing. Which meant that whomever Mel had let in, it was someone he knew. Someone he trusted.

And that person had literally stabbed him in the back.

Steve blew out a breath. He needed to call someone. People would learn he was on schedule to come in this morning. If he didn’t call, it would look suspicious. And if he did, he would have to be the one that discovered the body.

The thought brought him up short. Was that part of the plan? To make sure that
he
was the one who found Mel? After all, it’s not like Keith was going to look any further once Steve Kane was involved.

Steve debated in his mind for a minute, looking for any other possible course of action. “Shit.”

He walked back to the phone and picked it up. At least there was one small way he could make it easier. He dialed.

“Declan? It’s Steve. I need you to come to Mel’s Diner. Mel’s been killed.”

CHAPTER 46

D
eclan drove down the road, struggling to keep from pressing the gas pedal to the floor. Tension made his shoulders and hands ache as he held the steering wheel in a death grip. The windshield wipers beat furiously at the driving rain, but to little effect.

Steve hadn’t gone into detail, but his words had chilled Declan to the bone:
Mel’s been killed.

Declan had thrown on his clothes and sprinted out of the house, scrawling a hasty note to his sister and father. He’d turned off the scanner last night, needing to get a good night’s sleep. When he checked his cell, he saw he’d missed a bunch of messages from Russ. Not much detail, but someone had tried to grab Micah Donaldson last night. And apparently Steve and Julie Granger had saved him.

And now Mel was dead. What the hell was going on? Declan knew how much Steve cared about Mel. He couldn’t have done something to him, could he?

Automatically, he felt guilty at the thought.

Declan pushed the pedal a little more and the back of his car hydroplaned. He slowed down.
Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.
He needed to get to the diner before Keith. He needed to take control of the scene.

Turning onto Main Street, he saw the diner’s sign up ahead, although it was still off and the diner itself was dark. He let out a breath at the empty parking lot. Well, at least he had that working for him.

He pulled to a stop in front of the diner. He reached over and grabbed his plastic booties and gloves from the glove box. Throwing open the door, he dashed for the door of the diner. Steve held it open for him.

Although it was only a short distance from his car to the door of the diner, Declan was still soaked when he stepped inside. He stood dripping on the welcome mat and looked at Steve. “Steve? Are you all right?”

Steve gave him a jerky nod. “Mel’s this way.”

Declan put out a hand to stop him. “I’ll go. You stay here.”

Steve nodded, looking around, clenching his hands. He didn’t have any blood on him or any other signs of violence. Declan felt a small measure of relief at that.

Declan shrugged off his coat and hung it up on the coat rack by the door. He’d prefer to do all this outside, but the weather was making that impossible. He flipped on the switch by the door, bathing the room in light. “Did you touch the body?”

Steve blinked a few times and shook his head. “No. I found him and then used the phone under the counter to call you.”

Declan looked at the footprints leading around the counter. He couldn’t see any sign of Mel. He nodded to the footprints. “Those yours?”

Steve nodded. “I didn’t realize—I took my shoes off after. I didn’t want to mess up anything left behind.”

Declan noted Steve’s stocking feet and that Steve seemed to be slipping into shock. He pulled his keys out of his pocket. “I want you to go sit in my car. Put the heat on.”

Steve shook his head. “I don’t want to leave Mel.”

Declan looked him in the eyes. “I’ll take care of Mel for now. Okay? Go ahead. You can leave him with me.”

Steve’s chin trembled. “I didn’t know… I just walked in… I didn’t know.”

Declan pressed his keys into Steve’s hands. “Go wait in my car.”

Steve nodded, all expression slipping from his face. He retrieved his shoes, put them on, and walked out. Declan watched him go with a heavy heart.
The kid doesn’t need this now.

Letting out a breath, Declan turned around, put his booties on over his shoes, and pulled on his gloves with a snap. Then he headed toward the counter, walking slowly, checking the ground to make sure he didn’t step on any blood splatter or other evidence. He saw his first spot of blood at the edge of the counter, only two inches from it. He’d let the forensics team sort that out.

He groaned when he realized he probably
was
the forensics team. What Keith knew about crime scene investigation could fit in a thimble with room to spare.

Then he moved around the side of the counter and saw Mel. The man’s back had been ripped to shreds by the stab wounds. The murder weapon was still there, plunged into the center of Mel’s back up to the hilt. Declan closed his eyes for a moment, letting the grief and shock roll over him.
I’m sorry, Mel. You didn’t deserve this.

Taking a breath, he shoved his feelings aside. They’d only get in the way.

He focused on the wounds on Mel’s back. They looked deep.
Someone with some muscle
, Declan thought. He pictured Steve’s arms, and then blocked out the image.

He noted the shards and the pool of blood. From where he was standing, it didn’t look like Mel had put up much of a fight.
Just like Elise. And Simone.
In all three cases, the victims had known their attacker. Which meant the murderer—if these crimes were all committed by the same person—most likely lived in Millners Kill. The thought did not sit well with him.

While his mind whirled through possible suspects and tried to stay away from placing Steve on that list, he pulled out his phone and snapped pictures of the counter, Mel’s back and face, and the knife. He had a better camera in the trunk of his car, but he didn’t know how much time he’d have before the scene was pulled away from him, so he wanted to capture as much as he could as quickly as he could.

He crouched down, careful not to disturb anything. “You didn’t see it coming, did you?” he whispered.

He noted the dried blood. He took more shots of the wounds and Mel’s hands. This wasn’t recent. He’d need to check to confirm, but he was guessing at least six or seven hours. Mel wasn’t in full rigor yet, which meant he’d been dead less than eight hours.

If Steve had just gotten here, he couldn’t have done it—unless he was here earlier, too. Declan let out a breath.
But I never really believed he could have done it
, he told himself. Although he wasn’t sure if he was confirming something in his mind or just reassuring himself.

Standing, he walked carefully around Mel and into the kitchen. The blood splatter ended at the door. The kitchen itself looked undisturbed. Declan walked through the kitchen and to the back door. He pushed on it. Locked. And it could only be locked from the inside.

Killer must have gone out the front.
He’d have to ask Steve if the door had been locked or unlocked.

Sirens sounded from the front of the diner, startling him.
Son of a bitch.
Declan made his way back to the front, careful once again not to disturb the scene. He could already hear yelling from the parking lot.

He’d just reached the counter when the front door blew in. A deputy held the door open while Keith made his way in. Leaves and rain blew through and into the diner. Keith stomped in, soaking the floor and tromping across it in his big boots.

“Stop!” Declan yelled.

Keith hesitated.

Declan stared at him. “Now back up, stepping in your same footprints. You are contaminating the scene.” He glared at the deputy. “And close the damn door.”

The deputy stepped inside and let the door fall shut behind him. But before it closed, Declan saw Steve being dragged from his car and manhandled to the ground. Steve didn’t appear to be resisting.

Keith sneered but stayed where he was. “This is
my
crime scene, not the state’s. And seeing as we already caught the perpetrator red-handed outside, I don’t think it’ll be much of a trial.”

Declan ground his teeth. “So your theory is Steve killed Mel, called me, and then calmly sat outside waiting to be arrested?”

“Never said he was bright.”

Declan stared at him in disbelief.
What an—

“Wait a minute,” he said. “How did you know about Mel’s death?”

“Got a 911 call.”

“From who?”

Keith shrugged. “Didn’t leave his name.”

“What exactly did he say?”

“That Mel was dead.”

Declan looked around the diner. None of the windows offered a view behind the counter. “How did the caller know that?”

“I don’t know. They probably walked in, saw him, and left to call.”

“When did this call come in?”

“Five minutes ago.”

Declan supposed it was possible that someone had come in before Steve. But why? Everyone knew Mel’s didn’t open until six. And it’s not like there were a lot of people out this morning. “You have that call taped?”

“Of course.”

“Good. We’ll need it.”

Keith took a step toward Declan. “Maybe you didn’t hear me before. This is my crime scene.”

Through the window, Declan saw Steve being shoved into the back of a squad car, none too gently. Declan was torn. He wanted to go with Steve, but he knew the real answers were here. He put up his hands.

“Okay—your crime scene. But I have more experience with them. How about you leave me a deputy and I’ll process the scene for you?”

Keith shook his head, but before he could speak Declan plowed on. “After all, it always looks good when you take advantage of the resources at hand. Constituents really love that. Besides, you have Steve to interrogate.”

Keith seemed to consider Declan’s words. “I still need to see the crime scene.”

Declan held up his phone. “I’ve already taken pictures. I can send them to you. We can button this up nice and quick. I’m sure you have a lot of other important duties to see to today with the storm coming in.”

“Damn right I do.” He grunted. “All right, you do the scut work and I’ll interview Kane. Send me those pictures.” He turned on his heel and headed for the door. The deputy jumped to attention, pulling open the door for him.

Declan quickly pulled out his phone and dialed. “Pick up. Come on, pick up,” he murmured.

“Hello?” came the sleepy reply.

“Jack. You need to get down to the police station. Steve’s in trouble.”