Paranoid(50)

They hadn’t had children and the only sibling either of them had was Leonard’s estranged brother in Arizona, outside of Phoenix. Neither he nor their parents were mentioned in the wills, as both Violet and Leonard had assumed they would outlive them. Sperry had supplied copies of their life insurance policies, two on Violet’s life to the tune of over three hundred thousand dollars, enough for Leonard to buy out his parents, or take a world cruise or whatever.

In the lunchroom, where Drummond, a wiry deputy with a flat-top haircut straight out of the fifties, was leaning over the sports page at one of the round tables, she listened to the hiss of the Keurig machine as it spat out her single cup. As she added cream to her coffee, she made a mental note to double-check that Leonard didn’t have a girlfriend tucked away somewhere. He didn’t seem the type and had appeared convincingly grief stricken and horrified at his wife’s murder, but really, who knew what went on behind the closed doors of a marriage? Theoretically it was possible Sperry could have hired a killer to do his dirty work, pay the murderer off out of the insurance proceeds, and still pocket a lot of cash.

All tax free.

But it felt wrong.

She just couldn’t see Leonard Sperry as the mastermind to take out his wife.

At least not yet.

Blowing on her cup so that the coffee would cool, she made her way to her desk, a neat and tidy space, not one picture resting on it nor pinned to the padded sides of the cubicle. Kayleigh liked to keep her work space clean and impersonal, almost sterile.

Quickly she scrolled through her e-mail. With any luck, today some footage from cameras in the area surrounding the Sperry home would come in soon. And Violet Sperry’s gun. Where the hell was it? Part of the robbery, the only object taken? Seemed unlikely. Violet’s laptop, money in her dresser—those valuables had been left behind. Only the gun was missing, according to the husband.

In her mind’s eye Kayleigh imagined Violet hearing a noise, maybe the dogs alerting her, and grabbing her gun, going to investigate, and ending up confronting the intruder. In the ensuing struggle, the gun went off and the killer tossed her over the rail, then left in a panic that things had not gone as planned.

So what had been the plan?

And why the tape over her eyes?

Had he slapped it there and intended to kidnap or rape her, but she drew the gun and he was forced to kill her by pushing her over the railing?

She bit her lip, replaying the scene over and over in her mind.

Why was the tape placed over her eyes? Why not over her mouth, to cut off her screams?

Had the killer entered the bedroom, caught her unaware, and taped her eyes shut so she couldn’t identify him later? Then somehow she grabbed her gun . . . but the dogs . . . and she would have woken.... No.

The struggle had happened outside the bedroom; that much seemed clear by the damage to the railing. Kayleigh only hoped that Violet had fought hard to fend off her attacker and that if she had, she’d managed to claw at him, collecting hair or skin beneath her fingernails. If so, the scrapings could be analyzed for DNA.

“And then we’ll get you,” she said, as if the killer could hear her.

A hand slapped her desk and she jumped, nearly spilling what was left of her coffee.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” Jerome Biggs said, and she realized she’d been at her desk for over an hour; the day shift was clocking in, voices and laughter breaking what had been near silence.

“Don’t feel like sunshine.”

“Rough weekend?” He smiled, a big, toothy grin that flashed white against his dark skin. Once a basketball player, now a detective, Jerome was her partner who had been on vacation the past week.

“Busy,” she said, and for a second she remembered the weight of Travis McVey’s body lying naked and sweating atop hers.

Oh. Good. Lord.

“Let me guess, workin’ your tail off down here. Sperry murder.”

“I worked from home, but yeah. Since you were off having the time of your life on vacation last week, let me catch you up.”

“I don’t know if painting the house in this weather counts as ‘having the time of my life,’ but yeah, I heard we caught the case. Bring me up to speed.”

So as he leaned a hip against her desk, Kayleigh told him all the details with one exclusion.

She didn’t mention that she’d called Cade Ryder to the scene.

She didn’t need the lecture about jurisdiction, or crossing all kinds of lines, both professional and personal. Biggs would find out soon enough.

But for now, she kept that bit of information to herself.

*

Hands shaking, Rachel stared at the bottle of Xanax tablets and wondered if it was worth it to finally relax and get some sleep. She put the bottle on the shelf in the medicine cabinet, pressed her palms to her chest, and tried to take a deep breath.

She had to get a grip.

The last two nights had begun okay but disintegrated into night terrors that kept her from falling back to sleep. Now here she was on Monday morning, a basket case when she should be online looking to send out a new wave of job applications or, at the very least, drumming up customers for her freelance business.

She would be relieved to have the kids back this afternoon, grateful for the company and the routine of corralling them. Last night had been particularly bad as she’d been pulled from another nightmare by the frantic barking of the dog, who’d been pawing at the bedroom door to get out.