Burning Proof (27 page)

LUKE CALLED FAYE
as he and Woody were leaving Tehachapi. He’d been so busy the day before, he’d not been able to call but knew that Molly’s mother had already relayed the good news.

“Oh, Luke! I’ve been on cloud nine since I heard from Julia. You and Woody are knights in shining armor.”

“We just followed the lead.” He smiled, glad she couldn’t see him blush and happy at the joy in her voice.

“No, you did so much more. I confess, even though I knew you both were competent, I had my doubts. I really thought this case was too cold and too tough. Thank God you proved me wrong. I’m on my way to Tehachapi as soon as I post my blog update. Can I buy you lunch?”

“Uh, that would have been nice, but we’re heading back to Long Beach today. Something has come up there about another cold case.”

“Does it have anything to do with the body they found in that backyard?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact it does. Are you clairvoyant?”

“I saw that on the news.”

Luke explained to her what had been found.

“Oh, my goodness! Poor Detective Hart. This must be hard for her.”

“Hard?” Luke frowned. “I think this will answer a lot of questions.”

“Maybe it will, but coming face-to-face with your father’s murder would not be easy. I still would like to take you to dinner
 
—you and Woody. Please, let me do that. Okay?”

Luke cleared his throat. “I’ll talk to Woody and get back to you. Fair?”

“Fair. Thank you both, again.”

Luke disconnected and realized he liked the idea of seeing Faye again, even as he worried about how hard reliving her father’s murder would be for Abby.

Bill was waiting in front of the house on Granada with Luke and Woody when Abby arrived.

“Luke filled me in on the letter,” her partner said. “I sure wish it was a smoking gun.”

“Me too,” Abby said. “Can I go back and take a look?”

“Sure. Even though evidence collection is finished, the homeowners agreed to let us keep everything secure until after you came by.” Bill led them to the backyard, through a gate, and under police tape.

It was a big yard for Belmont Shore. Abby could see why the owners wanted to put in a pool. Most of the yard had been pressed concrete. A beautiful design had once been there from what Abby could see of what was left. A huge part had been
broken up and removed, and in the center was a large hole where the dirt had been scooped out, uncovering her father’s remains.

Abby’s chest felt tight. She’d thought she was ready for this, ready to stay cop blank and strong. But it was emotional as the full import hit her hard. Her father died here. She wiped her eyes and felt Luke at her shoulder.

“You okay?”

She nodded, unable to speak at the moment. The words from Dad’s letter replayed in her mind. Three times her dad had expressed concern for his daughter. All he wanted was to be certain that his daughter was safe. How was it he ended up wrapped in plastic and buried under inches of concrete?

The guys let her have a minute of quiet before Bill spoke. “Twenty-seven years ago this house belonged to
 
—”

“Kelsey Cox,” Abby finished for him.

“I remember her talking about putting a pool in.”

Everyone looked at Woody.

“She was going to put a pool in?” Luke asked.

“It’s a vague memory. She and Gavin were engaged. They lived together
 
—I guess here; I was never close with them. We were at a graduation party and she was crowing about having a pool and spa to spend her honeymoon in.”

“So it was before the Triple Seven burned?” Bill asked.

Woody grimaced. “Must have been, but my memory is foggy. She obviously changed her mind about it.”

“Probably because she needed a place to hide my father’s body,” Abby said and the guys all looked at her. Her legs were back; she was solid again and working on figuring out how to confront Kelsey Cox.

“I’m done here, Bill.” She turned to leave.

“What are you planning?” Luke asked as he and Woody fell into step with her.

“Not sure. Maybe the direct approach: just walking up and asking the woman.”

They walked out to the front of the house, and Abby noted an SUV driving by. It was familiar but didn’t register right away. Then she locked eyes with the driver. Time slowed and the realization hit like a kick to the gut. The vehicle accelerated away.

That was Kelsey’s SUV, and she was the woman behind the wheel with a deer-in-the-headlights expression on her face.

“That’s her!” Abby sprinted around to the driver’s side.

“Who?” Luke asked.

“Cox. I’m going to confront her right now.” Abby was in the car starting the engine before anyone could stop her. She didn’t even hear what they were yelling as she peeled away from the curb.

ABBY POUNDED ON THE ACCELERATOR
as soon as the engine caught. She saw Kelsey’s taillights three blocks away as they disappeared to the right at the corner. She was heading north. Abby bet she was going home. The woman had a town house in North Long Beach. Abby knew that because from time to time she had read in the LBPD daily log of officers being dispatched there to pick up paperwork when Cox was a deputy chief.

Squealing tires and narrowly avoiding a collision with an unsuspecting motorist, Abby made the same right the fleeing woman had and saw nothing. She was forced to cool her heels at a red light. Tapping the steering wheel while she tried to calm down and think clearly, Abby prayed she was right and it was the townhome Cox was headed to.

She floored it when the light changed and drove for the Bixby Knolls area of North Long Beach. When she turned onto the main street that ran along the town house complex, she slowed until she saw Cox’s car parked illegally at a fire hydrant red curb.

Abby yanked the wheel and parked in front of Kelsey’s
vehicle, half on the sidewalk. As she lurched from her car, her phone began to ring. Guessing that it was Luke or Woody probably trying to calm her, she ignored it and, taking only her gun, sprinted for Kelsey’s home.

In the middle of the complex, all the units looked alike. Abby paused to get her bearings, trying to remember the number. She wandered, the minutes ticking, frustration growing. Then she recognized the address and charged toward it.

The door was unlocked, and she shoved it open. Stopping at the threshold, she tried to calm her breathing and racing heart.

“Kelsey?” she called out and listened. She heard a rustling of papers and smelled smoke. Had she set her own place on fire?

Gun up in a two-handed grip, Abby peered inside. “There’s no way out. Just come clean. I know you weren’t the ringleader in all of this.”

Tiptoeing forward, Abby entered a small, tiled entryway. Straight ahead was the living room; to the left a kitchen and to the right a staircase. The smell of smoke was in the air, and Abby felt a nudge of urgency, but which way?

The floor creaked upstairs, and Abby made her decision and quickened her gait, gun extended in front of her as she climbed the stairway. The smell of smoke was stronger here, and she heard the whirr of a bathroom fan. The sound of rustling paper was louder.

At the top of the stairs to the right was the master bedroom, and Abby slowly moved that way. A tendril of smoke curled from the top of a doorway inside the bedroom and ran along the ceiling.

Abby inched into the bathroom and brought her gun on target. Kelsey Cox was feeding pieces of paper into the bathtub,
where a fire greedily devoured them. The bathroom fan was on, but it was not successfully removing all of the smoke.

“Stop!”

“Or what? You’ll shoot?” Cox pointed a gun of her own but kept dropping paper in the fire. “I don’t think so. I should have started this so much sooner. I just don’t trust a shredder to do the job.”

Rage welled up in Abby as she realized she was once again going to be denied proof of the truth. Her finger tightened on the trigger, knowing the shot would be justified.

But killing Cox would solve nothing. Her anger cooled.

Gritting her teeth, she lifted her finger from the trigger and placed it along the frame but kept the gun on target. “You killed my father?”

Cox laughed and sounded a little hysterical. “Yeah, I did. He threatened to expose Gavin as the Triple Seven killer. Wouldn’t you kill to protect the man you loved?” More papers fell onto the fire.

“Why not just take him to jail? He killed Shea. He wouldn’t have been a credible witness against Gavin.”

“I did what was necessary at the time. I made the hard choice. I’m good at that, always have been.”

For a second her attention was distracted as the fire flared, and Abby stepped toward her.

“Not so fast!” The gun swung around. Kelsey dumped the rest of the papers from the counter into the tub.

The fire sputtered and then flared again, and the flames shot up. Cox coughed, and Abby herself felt the sting in her eyes and the burn in her throat. Then the plastic shower curtain caught, and pungent black smoke filled the air.

The fire kindled the beginning of fear inside Abby, and the sudden screech of the smoke alarm in the bedroom almost made her squeeze the trigger.

She backed out of the bathroom, coughing, a headache starting because of the smoke.

Kelsey followed, wiping one eye and keeping her gun trained on Abby.

What was her endgame? Abby wondered and almost asked.

But Kelsey started talking. “I had no problem with your parents; neither did Gavin. We were planning on having our wedding reception at the Triple Seven.”

She swung her gun up and smashed the smoke alarm, mercifully ending the screech while the smoke got blacker and thicker. Abby had no chance to react. Cox quickly had the gun pointed at her again.

It doesn’t matter,
Abby thought. She could already hear sirens in the distance. She retreated from the bedroom, wanting relief from the smoke. “Gavin killed my mom. I know Alyssa ordered it.”

That surprised Cox, knocked her back a step.

“How’d you know it was Alyssa? She drove Gavin and Piper to the restaurant that day, and she was the reason it all went bad. They were just supposed to scare your folks into quitting the buyout talk. But your mom was intractable. She threatened Alyssa with throwing a wrench into Lowell’s career. Gavin told me that she claimed to know something that would end any political dream Alyssa and Lowell had. And that was what got her killed. You don’t threaten Alyssa.”

More smoke, and another alarm went off in a different part of the condo.

“My dad left a letter. He said it was all Alyssa. He could have stopped her then. Why did you kill him?” Abby repeated the question; suddenly the answer was so important. She was at the top of the stairs now, wanting to take Kelsey into custody, get the gun out of her hand, but how?

“Your dad showed up at my house on Granada a couple days after the fire. He’d been told to disappear permanently, but as usual, he didn’t listen. Gavin was still limping around with his leg injury. Buck wanted to take him to the station and get the whole story out, tell the investigators what really happened. He hoped that he could prove self-defense in the killing of Piper Shea, and get you back. But he knew Gavin would have to be arrested for your mother’s death. That was the only way all the truth would come out.” Harsh coughing interrupted Cox briefly. “What a sap your dad was. He truly believed that if Gavin went to jail, Lowell would finally see what a manipulator his wife was.”

The smoke thickened and the harsh hacking worsened, but Cox kept her gun up. “They were arguing. He didn’t see me come in behind him. I hit him with a shovel.”

Abby felt numb and she tightened her grip on her gun. The dense smoke made it difficult to see, to breathe, to think.

“Just so happens we were putting in a pool. There was a grave ready and waiting for your father. Imagine the pool company’s surprise the next day when we told them we’d changed our mind and now we wanted a concrete patio instead of a pool. I never imagined anyone would dig that backyard up ever again.”

Cox collapsed in a coughing fit as the pop of breaking glass sounded from the bedroom.

Abby flinched and fought the urge to turn and run down the stairs and out of the burning town house.

“You better let me go,” Cox said, voice harsh and raspy, “or we’ll both die here.”

“You’re not going anywhere but prison.” Except Abby was already weakening, the smoke close to incapacitating her. She knew she had to do something.

Before she could move, the carpet caught fire behind Kelsey, and she screamed. She dropped her gun and dove forward, tackling Abby and knocking the gun from her hand. Chest burning, Abby tried to stay on her feet but couldn’t. She and Kelsey fell in a tangle down the stairway.

They stopped when Abby’s head hit the tile floor at the bottom, hard. The last thing she thought before losing consciousness was that she was going to burn to death with the woman who killed her father.

LUKE DROVE AS FAST
as he could to North Long Beach. Woody was certain that Kelsey was heading home with Abby on her tail. Luke prayed he was right because they had no plan B. Woody knew Kelsey’s address, and Luke worked hard to stay calm as he drove, praying they would arrive in time to keep Abby safe.

“There, there!” Woody pointed, and Luke saw Abby’s car.

He stomped the brakes, and his car squealed to a stop next to Abby’s. He was out of the car in a rush. Woody had told him the number to look for, and he took only a second to get his bearings and was off in the direction indicated on a directory sign.

He could hear sirens, and as he neared the unit, he saw why. Smoke was pouring out an upstairs window. Neighbors were gathered on the ground nearby, several on cell phones.

Luke didn’t waste time asking them anything. He burst into the townhome. “Abby!”

The smoke and the heat stung his eyes. Luke saw the two women in a tangled heap at the bottom of the stairs, neither one moving. His heart stopped when he saw the blood. Fire greedily
descended the carpeted staircase toward the women. Dropping to his knees, he gently moved Kelsey off Abby.

“Abby!”

She moaned and coughed. She was alive. He scooped her up, intending to come back for Kelsey, but as he stood, two firefighters appeared at his shoulder. He thanked God as one of them helped him and the other tended to Kelsey.

All Luke could do was nod as the firefighter led him out of the smoky entryway with Abby limp in his arms.

Abby came to, coughing and sputtering in the oxygen mask paramedics had affixed to her face. She recognized that she was on an ambulance gurney.

“Cox . . . she started the fire . . . burned her papers.” She tried to say more but collapsed in coughing. Strong hands gripped her shoulders, holding her until the fit passed. When it did, she looked up into Luke’s worried eyes.

“She’s being tended; medics are working on her. She cut her head, but it looks like she’ll be okay. Relax.” Luke pointed.

Abby followed his gaze and saw that paramedics were treating Kelsey and getting ready to transport. Her head was wrapped, and when Abby looked down and saw blood on her own shirt, she realized it was Kelsey’s.

“She’s not going anywhere but to the hospital, and Bill is on his way. I’ll tell him what you said. It all will be sorted out, I promise.” His hand brushed her face as he replaced the mask that had moved with her coughing fit. “You took in a lot of smoke.”

Abby nodded and thought better than to try to speak again.
She took deep breaths from the mask, hoping to clear her lungs and ease the burning in her throat. She was conscious of Luke’s hand holding hers, and she squeezed it, loving the rough, warm strength there. His very presence made her feel safe and secure.

But the back of her mind niggled with the thought of Ethan and the fact that she’d never returned his calls.

“We’re ready to go.” A paramedic stepped around to her even as Kelsey’s ambulance pulled away.

Abby started to protest that she didn’t need to go to the hospital when another coughing fit struck.

“Calm down, kid.” Woody stepped up. “Let them look you over. You were out cold when Luke picked you up. We’ll be right behind to take you home when it’s time.”

“Listen to your training officer,” Luke said, letting go of her hand.

Abby relaxed, hoping by the time she got to the hospital, she’d be able to speak without coughing.

Besides the smoke inhalation, Abby had a slight concussion. She was cleared to go home after a couple of hours in the emergency room. By that time, aside from a raw throat and a slight headache, she felt okay. Luke, Bill, and Woody joined her in the emergency room, and she learned a little about Kelsey as they chatted and waited for the doctor to sign her release. In a hoarse voice Abby told Bill what happened in the town house and what Kelsey had said.

“She said she killed my father; she hit him with a shovel.” She felt better now, stronger.

Bill nodded. “I just got a preliminary report from the coroner
on the body we dug up. That would fit with the probable cause of death. The skull was fractured. In any event, Cox has a lot to explain. The bomb squad was called out. After the fire was knocked down, firefighters checking for hot spots found a bag of C-4 explosive in her garage, along with a wallet and ID card. I ran a check on the ID; it belongs to a man who works for Lowell Rollins, part of his protection team.”

“Well, Kelsey works for him as well,” Abby said. “That doesn’t surprise me, but explosives?” Unease nagged at her about the situation, but her thinking was still foggy, smoky. One glance at Luke and Woody, and the concern she saw in their faces made her decide to shelve questions and worries for the time being.

“Like I said, she has a lot to explain, but she’s not talking,” Bill continued. “Her injuries are minor, but she’ll be in the hospital at least overnight. I’m working on getting a warrant issued for when she’s released medically. I’ll charge her with starting the fire and possession of explosives.” Bill checked his phone and said, “I’m glad to see that you’re okay, but I’ve got a lot of work to do.” He left them just before the doctor came in and signed her out.

“I’ll go get the car,” Woody said, leaving Luke to help Abby out.

Abby looked at Luke. His hazel-brown eyes warmed her, but at the same time she saw a distraction there, like his mind was elsewhere, and she remembered Faye. She realized her mind should be elsewhere as well, with Ethan, not Luke.

“We have all the answers now,” he said, “don’t we?”

She thought before responding. Yes, they did have answers, answers she’d spent most of her life trying to find.

Turning her attention back to him, she said, “Answers but no solutions.”

“By ‘no solutions,’ you mean because the responsible parties have not all been held accountable.”

She nodded, and he cocked his head knowingly, holding out his hand to steady her as she slid off the exam table.

“They will be eventually, I know,” Abby said. “But part of me wants it now.”

“Well, let’s see how all this shakes out. After you feel better, maybe we’ll find an opening, a way to have justice now. What say we hold off closing any doors until we hear definitively what kind of story Kelsey will tell?”

Peering into Luke’s sharp, clear eyes, she held his gaze. “Might be a long wait.”

He shrugged. “Used to that. Anyway, I’ll keep busy. It’s time to concentrate on other people’s cold cases.”

They walked out to the curb to wait for Woody, and Abby let her mind wander. She doubted Kelsey would say a word. The woman had been caught burning evidence; she wasn’t ready to step up and do the right thing.

On the other hand Abby thanked God that she had her father’s letter. But she was disappointed that she would never know why Lucy hadn’t gone to the police with it right after her father disappeared. Still even there Abby could see God’s hand in things. It was possible Lucy might have trusted the wrong cop back then, someone like Kelsey Cox, and the letter would have been destroyed. Perhaps Lucy might have been collateral damage. As it was, Abby now had the letter and would keep it safe, if for no other reason than because it was like hearing her father speak, and that was special to Abby.

And Luke was right about waiting right now for things to shake out. Maybe Kelsey would decide to come forward with everything she knew.

Abby could be patient; at least at the moment she was too tired to think about anything else.