Shadow of Death (24 page)

“Oh, my gosh! You're a mole, aren't you?” Heidi exclaimed. “Now it all makes sense. You were sent from corporate to do a quality check. Will's not really out of town, is he? This whole week has been a test to see if we employees would follow procedure when no one's looking. By the way, that sexy thing you tried was a nice touch. If I didn't already have someone willing to eventually put a ring on it, I—”

“I'm not from corporate!” Troy yelled. “I'm a detective investigating a case, like I said.”

“Riiight.
Well, detective,” she used air quotes, “Like
I
said, it's against company policy to release personal details about our members. However, if you're in need of a deejay, I would strongly suggest that you check out the bulletin board. A lot of our members advertise their services there. Excuse me, will you? I have to run to the ladies room. Nice talking to you, Mr. I'm-not-from-corporate.” Heidi winked and giggled as she walked away.

It took a second for it to dawn on Troy what Heidi had done. When it did, he bolted to the board where he found a bright yellow flier offering the disc jockey services of one DJ Rio! Troy tore off one of the frayed edges with the guy's number as a man burst through the front door. He and Troy made eye contact. Troy had seen this dude before. It was the same bald white man with a baseball cap who'd been staring at his family last weekend when they were at the Commons!

“Come with me!” The man charged at him.

“Who are you?”

“Listen, Troy. There are a bunch of cops outside sniffing around your truck. My guess is that they'll find something that links you to Cheryl's murder. I'm here to help you because I know you're innocent. You can either go with them or come with me.”

“That's bull!” Troy went to take a look. Sure enough, there was a whole army of cop cars in the parking lot and officers surrounding his truck. Fear permeated through his veins and he looked to his strange new friend for an explanation.

“My offer to help expires in thirty seconds. What's it gonna be?”

Troy made his choice when he ran, following behind as the man led him through the women's locker room where they nearly trampled Heidi as she came from a stall. She shouted something after them, but Troy's adrenaline blocked him from hearing what it was. His feet didn't stop moving until he'd gone out of the emergency exit and into the black Acura that was running and waiting. As the guy sped off and Troy attempted to catch his breath, he realized that this was the same car he'd spotted on the security cameras outside of his house.

“Who are you and why have you been stalking me?” Troy demanded to know, pulling out his piece.

“I'm Lloyd Hunter; and I prefer the term ‘following' as opposed to ‘stalking.' Now will you put that thing away so no one gets hurt?”

“I saw you at the Commons and outside of my home. What do you want from me?” Troy checked over his shoulder to see if anyone was hiding on the back floor. Satisfied that he wasn't being set up to be drugged again, he lowered his weapon.

“Not trying to be rude, Troy, but can we delay the small talk for a few minutes? At least until I know we're safely away from the gym.” The man whipped through several back streets before finally jumping on the freeway opposite the direction Troy would normally go to get home. “Don't answer that!” he commanded when Troy's cell phone rang.

It was Shay. When Troy let the call go to voicemail, she sent a text asking what was going on. She'd just gotten to the gym and the “PoPo” were all over the place asking about him. Shay wrote in her message that she was scared. Troy thought about having her share their suspicions about Will with the police, but there was nothing concrete to go on except hunches. He also didn't want to keep putting her in the middle of things so he didn't respond at all. Will had already killed once. Troy thought of Natalie and how concerned she would be about him once she got wind of what had happened. “I need to call my wife.”

“No, that's the last thing you need to do. Your home is the first place the cops are going and the less she knows, the better. As a matter of fact, if you don't turn it off, I'll be happy to let you out on the side of the road while you wait for the police to trace your signal.”

Troy hated the condescending manner in which Lloyd spoke, but Troy knew he was right. He couldn't bring himself to leave Natalie with a bunch of uncertainties without first reaching out to her. Before turning off the device, Troy sent a text to his wife.
“No matter what, don't worry. I'm okay. I love you.”

“That's a nice phone you got, man. What kind is it?”

“It's the newest Samsung Galaxy.”

“Can I see it?” Troy handed Lloyd his cell only for him to throw it out of the driver's side window.

“What the—”

“It's better that you not have it with you at all. It would be too tempting not to contact anyone. In the words of Adrian Monk, ‘you'll thank me later.' ”

Troy found little comfort in Lloyd's use of the signature line of a fictional television detective. He still held DJ Rio's number tightly in hand along with his gun and decided to secure them both—the pistol at his waist, the number in his side pocket next to Cheryl's fake diary. “Where are you taking me?”

“To my place.” Lloyd must have seen the caution written on Troy's face. “Relax, I'm not going to harm you in any way. I'm actually trying to help you. I know you've been set up for Cheryl's murder.”

Troy stared at Lloyd and a new revelation hit him as he envisioned Lloyd without the baseball cap and twenty years younger. Troy had seen a photo of him last night when he was at Cheryl's house. “You're her husband!”

“Ex
-husband, technically.”

“But, Cheryl told me that you were—”

“Dead. Yeah, I've heard that she sometimes kills me off in her world. How'd she tell you I died?”

“In a car accident.”

“Humph. That's pretty simplistic. I've heard all kinds of stories. I've been shot by drug dealers in retaliation for a case she'd worked, killed in a boating accident, and I think the most creative one is that I died from a rare genetic disorder. I guess it all sounds better than the truth.”

“Which is?”

“We divorced because she let her sister talk her into believing horrible things about me that weren't true.”

“Her sister?”

“You didn't know she had a sister?”

“Yeah, but I didn't know Cheryl had found her.”

“Oh, Cheryl didn't find Chyanne. Chyanne found her about eight or nine years ago, and ever since that psychopath has been in Cheryl's life, she's done nothing except manipulate and use Cheryl until the point that my wife unraveled. I heard from a mutual friend that Cheryl got fired from the FBI after repeated misuse of her government credit cards. When she and I were married, she was always so conscientious about doing things by the book. Personally, I think Cheryl may have always had some psychological or emotional issues as a result of her childhood that somehow went undetected by the agency, but Chyanne definitely brought out the worst in Cheryl by playing with her need to belong and be loved. I know she's the one setting you up, but like Denzel said in
Training Day,
‘it's not what you know; it's what you can prove.' ”

“Why would she do this? I don't know her.”

“Ah, but I bet she knows you through the stories Cheryl has shared. You were Cheryl's first love; the one who did irreparable damage to her heart and forever changed the course of her future. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't erase the damage that had been done to her as a result of the relationship she had with you. I nurtured her; Chyanne used the information to hurt her and you.”

Troy was so sick of hearing how he'd broken Cheryl's heart. Nugent reminded him, it was in Cheryl's diary, and now Lloyd was making way more of their relationship than it needed to be. “I don't get how I became such a major player in the destruction of Cheryl's life. We dated a long time ago for like a year and it seems like everyone has made more of our time together than what it really was. She wanted to get married; I didn't. How did that become the end of her world?”

“You really don't know, do you?”

“Know
what?”

“At the time you broke up with Cheryl, she was pregnant.”

The news hit Troy as hard as the elbow James Harden took from Metta World Peace, aka Ron Artest, during the 2012 basketball game between the Lakers and Oklahoma City Thunder. Troy was scared to know, but the question needed to be asked: “What happened to the baby?”

“She aborted it and, unfortunately, there was severe damage to her uterus, which resulted in her having a hysterectomy. I met Cheryl through a mutual friend about a month after it all went down. She was crushed. I tried to encourage her to see a therapist, but she was afraid of how it would look on her application to the FBI. I think we connected so well because we were both wounded souls on the rebound, in search for someone to mend our broken hearts. But, only one of us healed. That baby with you was the only chance she had of having a real family since hers had been murdered, and Cheryl was never able to get over the emptiness she felt. When Chyanne came into her life, Cheryl became someone I didn't recognize and that relationship took precedence over everything…her career, her marriage, and now, apparently even her life.”

“What was it that her sister talked her into believing about you?”

Lloyd's jaw line clenched. “I prefer not to talk about it.”

T
roy didn't say another word as they rode to Lloyd's cabin-like home, which was located on the northern outskirts of town on a country road surrounded by trees. Its long gravel driveway led to a brick house protected by a secured privacy fence. Inside, the living room walls extended to the roof, which contained solar panels. The stairs to the right led to a loft on the second story where Troy saw all kinds of weapon images lined amidst camouflage prints and government paraphernalia. “Who are you?”

He gave a wry grin. “Lloyd Hunter.” Troy frowned. “Okay, it's not the time for jokes. I get it. Simply put, I'm an independent contractor who designs weapons for the military. I bet your next question is why I would risk such a good gig to help you. Despite our marriage ending, I never stopped loving Cheryl. Long story short, I want the person responsible for taking her life to pay.” Lloyd told Troy that he'd received a call early last Saturday morning saying that she feared for her life. The story she'd told Lloyd was similar to the one Troy had read in her diary about how he and Cheryl were involved in an affair and when she said she'd tell Natalie, he'd threatened to kill her. “That was the first time Cheryl contacted me in years, so I was both skeptical and curious. She sounded so convincing that I wanted to check you out for myself. That's why I followed you to the Commons.”

“How'd you find me?”

“I have friends in high places,” Lloyd said with that same clever grin. “When I saw you with your family, I didn't peg you as an adulterer or killer. I had a gut feeling that Cheryl was lying and I didn't think anything else about it until after she went missing. Now that she's been murdered, I don't want to see you go down for something you didn't do.”

“What makes you so certain that I didn't kill her? Did you?”

“No. I told you; I think Chyanne did. Cheryl called me again last week from a private number after she was supposedly abducted.”

“What did she say?”

“She said to remember she was alive as long as no one found her body. I knew then that she had a vendetta against you and when I tried to get her to turn herself in, she hung up on me. A few days later, I received this in the mail.” Lloyd threw an envelope at him and began to explain its contents as Troy opened it. “When Cheryl and I first married, we took out million-dollar life insurance policies on each other—”

“Why so much?” A million dollars sounded like a motive for murder. Troy watched Lloyd carefully for his response.

He shrugged. “Because we could. We were two lonely hearts who figured that if one of us died, the other should at least have a right to live worry-free financially. For the twelve years we were married, our policies were well-funded, so the cash values were high. We both changed beneficiaries when we divorced. Apparently, she made Chyanne hers, but look.” Troy drew his attention back to the papers Lloyd had handed him. “Cheryl recently cashed out her policy. After twenty years of paying into it, the cash value was well over a half million.”

“Okay, so she took the money out and gave it to Chyanne? And?”

“That's the point. I don't think she gave it to Chyanne. I think she hid it somewhere because this key came with it.” Lloyd pulled out a gold key that he held close enough for Troy to see, but far enough that he couldn't grab it if he'd wanted to. “In her last phone call, Cheryl told me that as long as no one found her body, she was alive.” Lloyd spun his theory of how he believed Cheryl and Chyanne had planned to fake her death together and live off the insurance money, but he believed somehow Cheryl became suspicious of Chyanne and closed the policy. “Insurance companies are reluctant to pay when there's no concrete proof of death, and it could have taken years for Cheryl to be declared legally dead with no body. I bet Cheryl hid the money without Chyanne's know-ledge in the event that her sister double-crossed her in order to cash in early.”

“You said yourself that you hadn't spoken with Cheryl in years; why would she send you the key of all people?”

“If I had to guess, I would say it's because deep down she knew she could trust me. I didn't leave Cheryl; she left me and I think there's part of her that always knew I'd come running if she truly needed me.”