Deadly Overtures: A Music Lover's Mystery (24 page)

My headache had dwindled to a dull pain, thankfully, but when I tried to sit up, I discovered that my dizziness hadn’t abated completely. Lying back down against the pillow, I stared up at the ceiling, thinking over the events that had landed me here in the hospital.

Had Harold really meant to kill me? Or did he simply want to scare me?

I suspected it was the former, but either way he’d endangered my life. It still bothered me that he hadn’t had an opportunity to kill Pavlina, but maybe he was in cahoots with someone who’d done that for him. Who though? Olivia?

I had no information to make me think that might really be the case.

Pushing the problem aside for the moment, I considered Harold’s motives. If he’d killed Tiffany—as I now suspected he had—perhaps Pavlina and Ethan had known that to be the case, or had come to believe it. But if that was true, why would Harold wait three years to eliminate them? It didn’t make sense.

Maybe I was wrong about everything. That wasn’t a comforting thought.

Confused and frustrated, I rubbed my eyes, but quickly stopped with a sharp intake of breath. My face was still sore to the touch.

Was I certain Harold was the person who’d run me off the road?

No. It seemed the most likely possibility since he’d watched me as I left the parking lot, but I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure he was to blame.

If it wasn’t him, who else could it have been?

The second most likely person in my mind was Jeb, but as I’d said earlier, my MINI Cooper had been hit by a car rather than a truck. While it was possible that he’d used another vehicle, that seemed like a bit of a stretch.

Who else would have wanted me out of the way?

I thought back to the threatening note I’d received. I wasn’t sure if Harold was responsible for it. I figured it was my research into Tiffany’s death that had worried him, and I’d delved into that after I’d received the note. Although he could have overheard me bring up Tiffany’s name when I was talking to Jeb.

My other suspects were Olivia and Sasha. They’d both had the opportunity to kill Pavlina and Ethan, but were they connected to Tiffany Alphonse in any way?

Try as I might, I couldn’t connect Sasha or Olivia to Tiffany. As far as I knew, they weren’t present at the music retreat.

I sighed with frustration and shut my eyes. They flew open a second later. I finally knew what had been bothering me earlier when my mind was foggy. I sat up—too quickly—and had to wait a few seconds for my dizziness to subside. Once it had, connections formed rapidly in my head.

Tiffany’s brother had been adamant that his sister was murdered, blaming Pavlina and Ethan. I still thought Harold had done the deed—although I didn’t know his motive—but none of that interfered with the theory I now subscribed to. As long as Tiffany’s brother believed that Pavlina and Ethan had killed his sister, that was enough motive for him to want them dead.

I didn’t know how I hadn’t made the connection earlier. I’d never once suspected that Tiffany’s brother was in our midst. But now it seemed so clear.

Ethan had recognized someone—Tiffany’s brother—who’d attempted to disguise himself.

Alexander Alphonse.

There were several nicknames for Alexander. Alex, Lex, Xander . . . and Sasha.

Why Sasha had waited three years to avenge his sister’s death, I didn’t know, but at the moment that didn’t matter to me. Whoever had murdered Tiffany, I knew now that Sasha was responsible for killing Pavlina and Ethan.

I glanced at the empty chair next to my bed, wishing I hadn’t suggested that JT go home. Snatching my phone off the bedside table, I sent him a text message.

I don’t think it was Harold who ran me off the road. I think it was Sasha. He’s the brother of the girl who was killed at the music retreat years ago. And he’s still on the loose!

I sent him another message.
I’ll get in touch with Salnikova
.

Now that I’d checked my phone, I knew it wasn’t quite four-thirty in the morning. Even if she’d tried to question Harold that night, the detective could be in bed by now, sleeping soundly. Still, I needed to try to get in touch with her. Although Sasha had been questioned initially along with the rest of us, I didn’t know if he was on the detectives’ radar anymore, especially since I’d focused their attention on Harold.

As I scrolled through my list of contacts, searching for Salnikova’s name and number, quiet footsteps came across the ward toward me. The curtain blocked my view, but a man’s hand grabbed it and swept it aside.

“JT?” I said hopefully, but as soon as the name was out of my mouth, my hope shattered and my mouth went dry.

Sasha stood at the foot of my bed, a pillow in one hand.

I opened my mouth to scream as he lunged toward me. I barely managed to make a sound before he slammed the pillow into my face, knocking me down against the bed. Panic coursed through me like an electric shock and alarm bells rang in my head, shrill and frantic.

Sasha was smothering me.

I couldn’t breathe.

I fought and struggled, trying to push the pillow off my face, trying to pound my fists against Sasha.

He kept the pillow firmly against my face.

My flailing limbs grew sluggish. The alarm bells in my head faded.

As consciousness slipped out of my grasp, I heard a scream.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

S
HOUTS SEEPED INTO
my limited, hazy sphere of awareness.

I drew in a deep breath and the darkness obscuring my thoughts leaked away. It took me a second or two to realize that I was breathing, that I was alive, the pillow no longer smooshed against my sore face.

“What’s going on in here?” a female voice asked sharply.

“He was trying to smother Midori. Is she breathing?”

That was JT’s voice, underscored by fear. I opened my eyes to find a female nurse hovering over me.

“I’m okay,” I said.

I’d meant to say it loudly, but it came out as a whisper.

“She’s all right,” the nurse told JT as she checked me over.

Another nurse appeared and the first one called out, “Get security in here!”

The second nurse took off at a run.

Ignoring the fact that the first nurse was trying to take my pulse, I sat up. I hadn’t seen JT at first, but now I spotted him on the floor, holding Sasha pinned down, face-first.

“JT?” I said, still a bit dazed. “I thought you’d gone home.”

“I was just stretching my legs. When I heard a scream, I came running. You’re really okay?”

“I am,” I assured him.

I was about to ask who’d screamed when my elderly neighbor piped up.

“Oh, he’s a naughty boy. A very naughty boy!”

The nurse at my side turned her attention to my neighbor. “Yes, Mrs. Dixon. No need to worry.”

“Creeping into my bedroom in the middle of the night!” Mrs. Dixon tsk-tsked.

“You’re in the hospital, remember?” the nurse said in a soothing tone.

Mrs. Dixon’s voice faded into incoherent mumbling.

On the floor, Sasha struggled to free himself, but JT held him firmly in place. Moments later, two security personnel showed up. They took charge of Sasha as JT and the nurse explained the situation.

“We’ll get the police here,” one of the security officers said.

Sasha sent a chilling glare my way as the officers led him off out of sight.

I sagged back against my pillow and closed my eyes with relief. I was safe.

“Dori?” JT took my hand.

I opened my eyes and smiled at him. “What a night, huh?”

The concerned furrow across his forehead smoothed out and he grinned at me. “I wouldn’t mind a little less drama next time.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

He gave my hand a squeeze and settled into the chair by my bed. I explained about Sasha, expanding on the information I’d sent in the text message he hadn’t seen, and recounting how I’d only realized that Sasha was Alexander in the seconds before he appeared at the foot of my bed. As I finished telling him everything, uniformed police officers showed up, and I had to go through the story all over again.

Salnikova also appeared eventually, but I allowed her colleagues and JT to fill her in. Now that I’d recovered from my panic and the hullabaloo that had followed Sasha’s attack, exhaustion had me in a firm grip. I answered a few questions when prodded, but I soon drifted off. Aside from a groggy moment when a nurse checked on me, I didn’t wake up again until after ten o’clock in the morning. The police had disappeared long ago, but JT was still by my side.

After a visit from Dr. Tremaine, I was declared fit to go home. JT drove me to my apartment and only left after I’d assured him several times over that I was fine and that all I wanted to do was rest. I canceled all my violin lessons for the next two days and watched TV for a couple of hours, but then I crawled into bed and fell asleep, not waking until the next morning.

While I nibbled at some toast, I responded to a text message JT had sent me an hour earlier, checking in to see if I was okay. I told him I was fine and still resting, and then I texted Mikayla, giving her a bare outline of what had transpired after I’d left the theater the other night. Shortly after I’d finished my breakfast, my phone rang. As soon as I saw Detective Salnikova’s name on the screen, I snatched up the device and answered the call.

I spoke to the detective for close to twenty minutes, pummeling her with questions over the phone line. Once she’d patiently answered all my queries about the investigation, I changed subjects.

“Is there any word on how Detective Van den Broek’s daughter is doing?” I asked.

“She had surgery yesterday,” Salnikova replied. “She’s not out of the woods yet, but we’re all hoping she’ll be okay.”

“So am I.” My gaze fell on the brand-new teddy bear sitting on a shelf across the room. I’d bought it from the hospital’s gift shop after I was discharged. “I have a present for her. If I drop it off at the station tomorrow, would it be possible to have it passed on to Detective Van den Broek?”

“Yes, of course. That’s kind of you.”

“I’m afraid I judged him unfairly.”

“Don’t worry too much about that. You couldn’t have known about his personal circumstances. And like I said before, he’s not exactly Mr. Congeniality at the best of times.”

That made me feel a bit better, but not a whole lot. We exchanged a few more words before ending the phone call. Minutes later, I received a text message from Mikayla.

I need details. Can I come by after work?

Sure!
I wrote back.

I got dressed, but then flopped across my bed and fell asleep again. My apartment buzzer jolted me awake hours later.

Groggily, I left my bedroom and answered the buzzer. Mikayla had arrived, and a minute later she appeared at my door.

“Oh my God,” she said, her eyes going straight to the stitches near my hairline. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Positive.” I stepped back to let her into my apartment.

“It was really Olivia’s assistant who ran you off the road and tried to smother you at the hospital?”

“Yep.”

“That’s crazy.”

“You can say that again.”

I made us a pot of tea and we settled into armchairs in my living area.

“I had no idea he was a killer,” Mikayla said, with a shake of her head. “I thought he was just a cute hipster.”

“I know. But that was part of his disguise, along with using the nickname Sasha. Apparently he normally goes by Alex and doesn’t wear glasses. He typically looks much scruffier too.”

“But he was the brother of Pavlina’s best friend. She never recognized him? I know glasses work for Superman but . . .”

I shrugged. “Maybe she did before she died, but maybe not. Ethan recognized him, though. Eventually, anyway.”

“So he was avenging his sister’s death?”

“That’s what he thought.”

“But why now? Why not years ago?”

“Apparently he was in jail for a couple of years on drug charges. I guess once he was free he decided to track down Pavlina and Ethan.” I took a sip of my tea before continuing. “He was always convinced that Tiffany was murdered. She was terrified of water, and all along he insisted that she never would have gone into the lake of her own accord. But she was drunk at the time, so the police didn’t take his concerns too seriously.”

“But he was right.”

“About the murder, yes,” I said. “But not about who’d killed her.”

“So it wasn’t Pavlina and Ethan?” Mikayla said, surprised.

My text message hadn’t covered that part of the story.

“Nope. I’m pretty sure it was Harold Dempsey, and the police think so too now. Apparently his wife went to the music retreat with him, skiing while he worked with the musicians. When the police originally looked into Tiffany’s death, there was a rumor that she might have been with a mystery man that night. Harold and his wife both claimed they were together in their hotel room the entire evening, but now she’s come forward to say that wasn’t the case.”

“Why now after all this time?”

“Apparently she recently found out that he’s been having an affair. Now she believes he was also having an affair with Tiffany back then. At the time of Tiffany’s death, he asked his wife to lie about his whereabouts, supposedly because he was out for a nighttime jog and wanted an alibi to avoid any bother or rumors. But now she thinks there was more to it. Tiffany tried to approach her at one point during the retreat, but Harold intercepted her. His wife believes Tiffany was going to tell her about their affair, and that’s why Harold killed her. According to Detective Salnikova, his wife is filing for divorce. And the police are reopening Tiffany’s case, so it sounds like he’s in trouble on more than one front.”

Mikayla took a moment to absorb that information. “So Sasha . . . Alex . . . whatever his name is—he didn’t end up avenging his sister’s murder after all.”

“Nope. Pavlina and Ethan had nothing to do with it.”

“Wow.” Mikayla paused to take a drink of her tea. “And then he tried to kill you. Twice. Talk about scary.”

“Terrifying,” I agreed. “He didn’t like that I was asking questions, checking out his alibi, and snooping into things.”

Apparently he’d ranted to the police about my nosiness, a tirade that had lasted several minutes, but I didn’t bother to mention that part.

“I thought maybe Sasha had left me a threatening note that I found in my bag, but it turns out Harold did that. He probably overheard me talking to Jeb about Tiffany and got nervous. But I kept looking into the past after I found the note, and he knew that. If Sasha hadn’t tried to kill me, Harold might have given it a go.”

I shuddered at that thought, glad that both men were now behind bars. It still terrified me to think about what would have happened if Mrs. Dixon hadn’t screamed about a strange man on our ward, bringing JT running.

“Pavlina had a charm bracelet that Sasha took from her after he killed her,” I continued. “It was a gift from Tiffany, and Sasha didn’t think she deserved it, since he thought she’d betrayed Tiffany by killing her.”

Mikayla shook her head as she absorbed the story, and we both sipped at our tea in silence for a moment.

“How are you doing?” I asked eventually, ready to change the subject.

“Pretty well, actually,” Mikayla said. “I’m sad that things didn’t work out with Dave, of course, but I also feel kind of relieved. We really weren’t happy together in the end. I wish things could have worked out differently, but they didn’t.”

“Relationships can be so tough,” I said, thinking about my own dilemma with JT.

“They can,” Mikayla agreed, “but I don’t regret giving it a go with Dave.”

“No?”

“No. There was a chance we could have had something great and that chance was worth the risk, no matter the outcome.”

I considered her words as we continued to chat, wondering if they applied as much to me as to her. I didn’t come up with a firm answer.

Once Mikayla had left, I thought about watching television or reading for a while, but then I remembered the flash drive JT had given me. I searched through the items scattered across my coffee table until I found the flash drive under a library book. Then I settled into an armchair with my laptop.

When the computer had finished booting up, I plugged the flash drive into a USB port and opened the folder. It contained fifteen tracks. I scanned down the list of titles, recognizing most of them. When I came to the last track on the list, I froze, my eyes fixed on the title.

My heart fluttered and I forced myself to move, clicking on the track. Familiar music floated from my laptop’s speakers. Even though the computer didn’t provide the best quality of sound, the song was still beautiful, entrancing. I listened to it twice and then stared at the title again.

Snatching up my phone, I tapped out a quick text message, sending it to JT.

Are you home?

I listened to the song again as I waited for a response. When I next checked my phone, JT had replied.

Yes. You want me to come by?

Not at the moment
, I wrote back.

Shoving my phone into my purse, I pulled on my boots and coat, grabbing gloves and my slouchy hat on my way out the door. My poor car had been towed from the scene of the accident to a garage, and it would have to stay there for a while. Luckily it wasn’t totaled, but both bumpers needed to be replaced and some scratches repaired. I’d been without a car for many years before I’d bought the MINI Cooper off my cousin, though, and I didn’t mind using public transportation.

I fidgeted on the bus, unable to sit still, and I bounced up off my seat as the bus approached my stop. Fortunately, I no longer suffered from any dizziness, so the abrupt movement didn’t bother me. From the bus stop, I walked the remaining distance to JT’s house at a brisk pace. I jogged up the front steps and knocked on the door, digging through my purse for my keys, so anxious to get inside that I couldn’t bring myself to wait for JT to open the door. But as I was about to insert my key into the lock, the door opened.

“Dori? Did you walk here? I could have come and picked you up.”

“It was nice to get some fresh air,” I said, giving Finnegan’s head a scratch as I stepped into the foyer. “Sorry I didn’t tell you I was coming. I wanted to get here as quickly as I could.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

I held up the flash drive so he could see it. Understanding showed in his eyes.

“Did you really name your new song after me?” I asked.

He hesitated, but only for a second. “Yes. That song . . . It’s how you make me feel.”

My heart swelled with such elation that I thought it might burst. “I make you feel float-away-happy?”

His eyes didn’t move from mine. “Yes.”

I recalled the song’s melancholy moments. My heart sank. “And sad? I make you feel sad?”

“Only when I think about being without you.”

Joy bubbled through me, bringing a smile to my face. Barely aware of Finnegan bouncing around us, I threw my arms around JT and kissed him.

He kissed me back and I forgot about the world around us, my recent brushes with death, everything other than me and JT. I only pulled back when Finnegan gave a bark, vying for our attention. Giving him a distracted pat on the head, I met JT’s brown eyes and smiled again, this time so brightly it probably could have been seen from outer space.

“That’s the sweetest, most amazing, most perfect thing ever.”