Out of the Shadow (19 page)

An hour later, she heard the Code Blue announcement. Two doctors and a bevy of nurses rushed past her into the ICU. With hammering heart, she trailed the last one in, where she watched from a distance while they tried to resuscitate Angela. Even from her vantage point, she could observe resignation on the doctors’ faces. The doctor working on Angela finally stepped aside, and a nurse draped a sheet over her head.

A cry escaped Becca’s lips, calling attention to her. A nearby nurse rushed over to comfort her, and led her to a seat by the nurses’ station. With a box of tissues placed at her side, Becca leaned into the kind woman’s side, and wept until there were few tears left.

The nurse removed the arm that encircled her and asked if Becca wanted to say goodbye to Angela before the orderly came to remove her from the unit. Between sobs, Becca confirmed she’d like that, and allowed the nurse to support her as she hobbled over to Angela’s side.

She cautiously folded down the sheet to look upon Angela’s pale face and a new round of tears began. The face before her bore little resemblance to the Angela she knew - the Angela with wise eyes and a radiant smile. It lacked everything that made Angela who she was.

Becca reached out and touched Angela’s cheek. "I love you..." she managed to croak out before more tears choked her words.

When the nurse at last came over to tell her the orderlies had arrived, Becca needed help out of the ICU. Angela’s death, on top of David’s loss a mere six months earlier, was too much to bear. She had said her final farewell to Angela, and would never see her again! Emptiness and despair engulfed her. 

She made her way with help to her car, consumed with thoughts about Angela and all they had been through together. She knew deep down inside, she could never, ever replace her dearest friend, or her joy when Angela was around, or her sense of innocence and open-hearted faith in others.

Angela’s murder cemented the suspicions she had been harboring for months. Someone was out to damage and destroy. No one could be trusted. She would have to be on the alert from now on ,until she could figure out how to protect herself and those she loved from harm.

Chapter Thirteen

Every once in a while, something in our life proves to be a major tipping point. It could be a connection. A correction. A revelation. An idea or an event. For Mecca, that event was Angela’s death, followed by a call days later from Sally Mills reporting the results of Angela’s toxicology report. The cause of death was confirmed: Pesticide poisoning. Although Becca had undergone her own trauma months earlier, it had only solidified her coping mechanisms. Angela’s murder, on the other hand, shocked her out of any remaining apathy.

Becca arrived at her next therapy session depressed, but strangely energized. I sat across from a different woman. A woman of determination. A woman with a mission. Her face set in a hard mask of misery and steely resolve, her muscles tensed like a runner at the starting line. She leveled her gaze upon me.

"I’m certain whoever killed Angela is the same person who murdered David."

I looked up from my notes. "What makes you so sure of that?"

She stared beyond me to a corner of the room. "The Aramis, in part...but it’s more than that..."

She stood, walked over to the picture window overlooking the Philadelphia Parkway with an unobstructed view of the Rodin Museum, the sculpture of The Thinker in front. I had often gazed out at the statue myself and wondered what he was thinking. Now I asked myself the same question of Becca.

Her back to me, she said, "It’s more than a gut feeling. It’s something in the marrow of my bones. A deep down knowing. Even the police think there’s an association between the two murders, but they believe it’s me. Maybe it is..." she mumbled.

Surprised ,I asked, "In what way?"

She swivelled around to face me. "I seem to be the one constant in this equation." 

I walked over to stand with her by the window. "Is it possible whoever did this is trying to frame you, or at least get to you?"

"Perhaps..."

"How does that make you feel?"

The look in her eyes was sheer panic. "Like the walls are closing in on me and I can’t escape. As if I’m stuck in one of my unrelenting nightmares."

"What do you plan to do about it?"

When I’ve asked her this question in the past, she often dipped her head in defeat. This day, she raised her chin in a defiant gesture. "I can’t take the pain and uncertainty any longer. If the police won’t do their job and protect me, I might have to do it myself."

I had to give her credit for her spirit, but I needed to temper my admiration with a hearty dose of reality. "Being proactive instead of waiting for others to do the job is admirable, but dangerous. Please, please, please be careful. A killer's out there who might not be far away—
 might even be in your life. It’s important for you to take care of yourself. You still have the key to the safe house, don’t you?"

She nodded. "I’ll take care all right. But I’ll also take care of business. I’m sick and tired of living in dread all the time. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder— or under my bed. I’ve weathered enough intimidation."

I glanced over at Becca and all I could see was a slightly-built youthful-looking twenty-nine year old woman at risk. My stomach cramped at the notion someone in the world had Becca on his list of lives to destroy. I feared for her safety, but there was nothing anyone could do to insulate her. I did the only thing I could do - I quietly sent off a wish to the Universe for her well-being.

To take her mind off her troubles, Becca propped her feet up on the coffee table and channel-surfed the Sunday evening television shows. After flipping from NCIS to Desperate Housewives, she checked the time on the channel identification screen. 8:25. The dryer cycle would be winding down on her whites and she would have to go downstairs to the laundry room to remove and replace them with a load of colored clothes.

In her only clean sweats and a pair of flip-flops, she descended the backstairs of the building to the laundry room. The fresh odor of newly laundered clothes accosted her senses the moment she entered. A smell she adored, it made her feel clean, and something she rarely felt nowadays, in control. She removed her load from the dryer, placing pale yellow towels and floral print underwear on a work table, then busied herself folding towels and linens and stacking them on the table top.

Next, she turned to her underwear, but had barely begun to separate out panties before a sense something was missing arrested her. She counted the underpants, but couldn’t believe her eyes. She had placed a week’s worth of underwear in the hamper, but only five pairs remained. What had happened to the other two? She scrutinized the laundry basket, then searched the washer and dryer, but came up empty handed. Perhaps she had dropped them on her way down the first trip, but it was hard to believe she wouldn’t have spotted them on the second.

She resisted the idea someone might have gotten into her laundry and taken her most intimate possessions. But how? And whom? Suddenly scared, she inspected the hall and stairwell for an intruder. With no one in sight, she hoisted the laundry basket and carried it upstairs.

Once inside the apartment, she marched into the bathroom to investigate whether she had left anything behind in the hamper, but found nothing. No clothes remained on the bed, not one item had fallen to the floor. Damn. It became more and more certain someone had been in her laundry.

Beside herself with yet another violation of her privacy, she returned to the living room where she double-checked windows and door to make sure they were locked before reclaiming her seat on the sofa. This intimidation had to stop. The thought of a stranger having her underwear—  and God knows what he was doing with them— made her sick to her stomach. A taste of bile filled her throat and she swallowed down her indigestion.

She'd had it with the constant harassment. She wouldn’t allow whoever was doing these things to get away with them any longer. The police hadn’t been any help whatsoever. They seemed intent on believing she was making these incidents up to throw them off her trail. She couldn't tell her parents, because if they knew what was going on, they’d insist she move back in with them. And she was no longer sure she could trust anyone else—even Evan.

The only person she could rely on was herself. Even if she wasn’t absolutely certain she was up to the challenge, what choice did she have? She folded her hands over her stomach, but the pressure did little to ease the churning in her gut. She had to figure out who was harassing her—if it was the last thing she did. And that thought scared her half to death.

Detective Sally Mills sat across the desk from Becca, a smile plastered on her lovely face. "I have good news and I have bad news. I’ll begin with the good news."

Becca leaned forward silently praying for a reprieve, but knowing her prayers might prove as futile as any attempt she could make to bring Angela back to life.

"The hairs you handed me the other day matched the hairs on the bloody rag."

Not surprised, she sat back. "What does that mean?"

Mills combed her hair back from her forehead and out of her eye. "Only that you have hair from the same person who’s a suspect in your husband’s murder. Where did you say you found that hair?"

Becca didn’t like her tone. "I told you already. I took them from a comb in Angela’s bedside table."

"What comb? There was no comb, no toothbrush and no cologne. We found the sleeping pills you mentioned, but nothing else."

Bingo. The shadow had been real. It had stripped any evidence from the apartment. Interesting. She was on to something. "I’m not surprised."

"Why’s that?"

"I told you the murderer would be back to get his things. That’s why I took the hair to begin with."

Mills looked skeptical, equally as skeptical as Becca was scared. Everything added up to trouble for her. "Perhaps, but it doesn’t let you off the hook. You could have planted the hair yourself, or had an accomplice for all we know."

Becca’s saliva soured. No matter what happened, the trail always led back to her. Convinced she was involved, the police interpreted every piece of evidence as further proof of her culpability.

"By the way, we looked into that doctor you mentioned, but we can’t locate anyone by that name. There’s no Dr. Elliot Schneider at Hahnemann, none in private practice and the only Elliot Schneider we found in all of Philadelphia died a few months ago of old age. Even the phone number was a dud. Seems it was one of those prepaid numbers and the contract was signed using a fake ID. We’ve tried tracing it down, but we keep coming up empty handed. So far we’ve run into a dead-end."

Damn, then her suspicions about Elliot were probably true.

She glanced up in time to see Mills studying her through narrowed eyes. "Do you have any idea why your friend would have emptied out both her savings and checking accounts the day before she was poisoned? Did she mention anything about it to you?"

Becca was stunned. Maybe in this case only the shadow knew. "No...nothing..."

"And do you have any idea what she did with the money? There’s no trace of it at the apartment or on her."

"How could I? I didn’t know anything about it."

Mills cocked a brow. "You were the last person in the apartment as far as we know."

"Look, I didn’t take anything from there except the hair sample and some toiletries. What do I have to do to prove my innocence to you?"

"Find the real killer for starters."

"I thought that was your job, not mine. But you’re not doing it. How about if I were to take a lie detector test and pass?"

Mills eyed her. "That might help, but I wouldn’t recommend you do it without the advice of your attorney, who, by the way, called me the other day. Why isn’t she here now?"

"She didn’t want to waste my meager funds because I’m not officially a suspect. Isn’t that true?"

Mills didn’t answer. Instead she slapped a couple of her cards on the desk in front of Becca. "Have her call me again and we’ll talk. In the meantime, sit tight. We’ll be in touch."

Becca rolled her eyes. "I didn’t expect anything else. You’re becoming my closest and most consistent acquaintance."

Mills shrugged. "The way things are going, we might become a whole lot closer."

Becca’s stomach cramped. The last thing she needed was the police on her back any more than they already were, but she couldn’t shake them without better evidence. And she wasn’t sure where to find it.

Drew raised his glass. "Since it’s taken me weeks to entice you into going out, I’d like to toast our first dinner together."

Becca tapped his glass with hers. It had taken weeks because she had needed time to recover from the shock of Angela’s death. Angela’s family had returned from Erie to Philadelphia to bury Angela, and Becca had been busy helping them out and meeting with the police. The family had left only a week earlier, and things had finally settled down enough for Becca to make other plans.

"You’ve picked a great place to celebrate."

She glanced around the restaurant.
Salt
. Great name. Upscale decor. She admired the hanging art-glass lamp above their table, the modern metal wall sculpture over Drew’s head. Decorations, lighting, and table settings had all been chosen with care and an eye for art and elegance. She only hoped the dinner lived up to the decor.

"Do you come here often?"

"Only on special occasions." He smiled, but his gaze remained steady and fully focused on her.

"It’s lovely," she said, fingering the bone china plate and using it as an excuse to shift her gaze. "Truly lovely..."

"Like you."

At his words she looked up and met the full force of interest in his eyes.

"You’ve been so busy lately. What’s going on with you?"

After taking a moment to consider how much to tell him, she gave him a sketchy outline of her legal troubles. He listened intently and asked her the appropriate questions, looking both intrigued and concerned. This was all the encouragement she needed to pour more of her problems out to him.

She began to babble on about the two murders in detail, until sensing the inappropriateness of what she was saying, she stopped herself. Even though his parents were best friends with hers, how much did she really know about him? How did she know she could trust him? At the moment, she didn’t know who to trust.

"This conversation isn’t exactly uplifting. Mind if I change the subject?"

"Whatever you wish." He watched her over the rim of his wine glass. "I have something I’ve wanted to ask you. There's a terrific Seurat exhibit at the Museum of Art. Have you been to see it?"

She appreciated his smooth segue into a less threatening topic. "I’ve been too busy these last few weeks. What did you think of it?"

"It’s amazing. The curator did a smashing job of showing Seurat’s development as an artist. You should go."

"Is Seurat a favorite of yours?"

Drew made a face. "I’m more of a fan of modern art. Mondrian, Marcel DuChamp, Jean Miro. How about you?"

Suddenly self-conscious, she played with her glass. "To be honest, I don’t know much about art beyond Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso."