“I’m up,” he said, and she knew he would soon crawl out of bed, get dressed, and appear in the kitchen, ready for breakfast before trudging off to school.
She went downstairs to the kitchen, stood at the sink, and gazed out on the fresh new morning. The early sun shone down from a cloudless sky, promising another beautiful day. She didn’t want to waste it by staying inside, but work waited in the office. After breakfast, there were some urgent background checks to do for a client.
Jake came down the stairs, said good morning again, and then went to the basement. His vigorous workout routine would take him a half hour, then after a shower, he would be starving and waiting eagerly for something to eat.
As she started breakfast for herself and her guys, she thought about a phone call she had received the day before. A woman was adamant her husband was having an affair and she didn’t know where to turn. Annie had told the woman she’d call back the next day. Jake wasn’t too keen on stakeouts, but she wanted to run it by him before she made a decision.
After breakfast was out of the way, Jake helped Annie wash up the dishes while Matty got ready for school. North Richmond Public was only two blocks away, and Matty usually walked there with his best friend from next door. Kyle was a year younger than he, an inch shorter, and the son of Annie’s good friend, Chrissy.
Kyle banged on the back door, Matty let him in and the two boys ran upstairs. They would have a while to hang out before they needed to leave for school.
Jake was making a pot of coffee. Annie dried her hands on a towel and left the kitchen. She poked her head back in. “I might have a job for you,” she said and left again.
“Be there in a minute,” he called.
Annie went into the small office off the living room and booted up the iMac. While she waited, she slid over a file folder and flipped it open.
The woman who suspected her husband of cheating had sounded heartbroken on the phone, positive she knew who her husband’s lover was. If true, that knowledge might make this case a whole lot easier to take care of. Besides, there was nothing urgent for Jake to do at the moment.
The name of the woman was Crystal McKinley, a part-time retail clerk. Her husband was Jeffrey, a criminal defense lawyer.
Jake walked slowly into the office, balancing two cups of coffee filled to the brim. He set one in front of Annie, took a seat in the guest chair, and sipped at his hot drink.
Annie flipped the folder around and slid it toward him. “How would you like to catch a cheating spouse?”
Jake took another sip, set his coffee on the desk, and picked up the folder. He opened it and scanned the single page inside. “Names. Addresses. Everything’s here.” He looked at Annie. “What does she need us for?”
“She needs proof,” Annie said with a shrug. “They always want proof.”
Jake nodded slowly. “Okay, I’ll get it for her.” He closed the folder and tossed it onto the desk. “Should we go see her first?”
“So, we’ll take the case?” Annie asked.
“We’ll take the case.”
Annie picked up the phone and called Mrs. McKinley, drumming her fingers on the desktop while she waited. Three rings later, a woman answered.
“Crystal McKinley?” Annie asked.
“Yes.”
“It’s Annie Lincoln.”
There was silence on the phone, then a whispered voice said, “My husband is still home.”
“May we drop by and see you this morning about nine thirty?”
“Yes, that’s fine,” the hushed voice said, and then the line went dead.
Annie hung up. “Her husband’s still home. She can’t talk, but nine thirty is good.”
Matty poked his head into the office. “We’re going to school now.”
“Have a great day,” she called, and he was gone. Annie heard the front door open and then close a moment later.
She looked at her watch. They still had plenty of time before their appointment with Crystal McKinley. In the meantime, she would get a few small tasks out of the way.
Chapter 3
Tuesday, 8:25 a.m.
JASON PUTTWATER was only a lowly substitute teacher, always ready to fill in when the regular teacher didn’t show. Whether their absences were because of real illness or feigned, Jason didn’t ask or care. He was there. He loved kids and planned to be a full-time teacher someday soon. He had all the qualifications—he was a hard worker who had tons of degrees and the desire to teach.
His ambition, to put it the way he’d been taught in teacher’s college, was to ensure today’s students become the productive, well-adjusted adults of tomorrow.
At any rate, he was young and determined to shoot for what he deemed to be a worthy goal.
He pulled into the school driveway and waved at the principal, who was climbing down from his Range Rover, parked in a preferred spot by the front door. The principal paid him no mind, brushing an invisible fleck of dust from the front fender of his machine. He buffed it with his sleeve and strode the other way, swinging his black leather Gucci briefcase.
Being a substitute teacher, Jason didn’t qualify for any of the half-dozen parking spots by the front door. No, he had to park all the way at the back of the lot beside the office staff and the handful of other substitutes.
He didn’t care all that much, anyway. It gave him something to gripe and complain about when there was nothing else to gripe and complain about. Not that he liked to gripe and complain, but sometimes you had to let it all out. No use allowing it to build up inside. Not that it ever did.
Jason liked to arrive early for no good reason. He just did. He usually parked along the back row and was inside the school before anyone else, but today, as he gazed toward the back of the lot, he saw another vehicle in his favorite spot, right underneath an overhanging oak, stealing all the shade.
It also appeared someone had dumped a bag of garbage on the lot not far from the back fence. People had a habit of doing that sometimes. He would drag it over to the utility door on his walk to the school and dump it into the chute. If he didn’t do it, nobody else would. He didn’t mind.
The only thing was, as he drove closer, it started not to look like a bag of garbage at all, but rather had the shape of a human body. As he bumped along in his ten-year-old Honda, he leaned forward and peered through the windshield. His eyes grew wider and wider, finally bulging almost as large as his gaping mouth when he drew closer to the object.
He touched the brakes hard, his mouth still open, his breathing stopped, and he stared in disbelief.
He shook his head, threw the car in park, and swung from the vehicle. He approached the body slowly, glancing around several times at nothing in particular, and finally stopped five feet from the bloody spectacle.
He breathed now, a lot of breaths, rapid and shallow ones. His throat felt constricted, but he couldn’t turn his eyes away from the horrendous sight on the asphalt in front of him.
It was a woman, he was pretty sure of that. At least, it had long dark hair and high heels. Well, one high heel. The other one was missing, the remaining one only halfway on the stockinged foot. The dark hair had streaks and patches of red in it, and Jason knew it wasn’t professionally done like a lot of women seemed to be doing these days. Nope. Those streaks were blood, and it wasn’t just in her hair, but all over her clothes and the surrounding pavement.
The face was nose-down to the asphalt, the long, bloody hair fanning in all directions. One arm and both legs were twisted in awkward positions, perhaps snapped in more than one place.
Jason hadn’t seen such a bloody mess since he was twelve years old and used to blow the crap out of groundhogs and rabbits with his father’s old shotgun.
But what caught Jason’s bulging eyes was a strange pattern of blood by the woman’s right hand. To him, it looked like she’d tried to use a finger to write something in her own blood. He moved around the mangled body, crouched down, and cocked his head.