The Murder That Never Was: A Forensic Instincts Novel Page 3

  But who?

  Julie doubted it was Martha. She was known as a crackerjack businesswoman. She made a ton of money owning and running this place. And she wasn’t stupid enough to get involved in something as dirty as this, something that could blow up in her face and send her to jail. No. Whoever Jim was reporting to had to be someone on the outside, someone shrewd who was running a more widespread operation bigger than just one dealer, one Olympic hopeful, one state-of-the-art training center.

  But Jim was Julie’s starting point.

  She took the ledger and the stickered reports from Jim’s cabinet.

  Nudging the copy machine out of sleep mode, she scanned page after page, in rapid fire, until she’d compiled a ton of information. Then, she put the ledger and the files back where she’d found them and shut the file cabinet drawers. She pulled out the plastic supermarket bag she’d stuffed in her tote, putting the stack of copies she’d made inside.

  Slipping out of the office, she peeked up and down the hall to make sure she was alone.

  All clear.

  She left the same way she’d come in.

  “There she is,” Vitaliy said, poking Alexei.

  “Yeah, I see her.” Alexei lit up another cigarette, watching Julie Forman wave to the guard and head out. “I also see the bag she’s carrying. She didn’t have it going in.”

  “Nope.” Vitaliy watched Julie’s progress. She’d reached the sidewalk and turned left. “She’s going back to the bus stop.” Vitaliy, who was behind the wheel, turned over the ignition.

  “Slava’s going to want whatever’s in that bag.” Alexei pulled out his gun and snapped a magazine into it. “Drive to her house. We’ll get her near there. The bus stop’s too public.”

  Vitaliy gave a quick nod and then steered the car, turning onto the main street.

  He drove right past Julie as she walked straight to her own execution.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Tribeca, New York

  Offices of Forensic Instincts

  May 18th

  Emma Stirling couldn’t believe how quickly her luck had changed.

  She was staring at her pink-and-purple Forensic Instincts business cards—the complete antithesis of the navy-and-white traditional cards that the rest of the investigative team had. They’d given in to her on this one request, just because they got her and because they were great. These cards were awesome, and they made her feel the same.

  It had only been six months since she’d conned her way into this job. Now, she was not only a receptionist, she was a real and recognized part of the FI team.

  Many people had started their careers in the mailroom and made it to the boardroom. Emma planned on that happening to her. After all, she was only twenty-two. Plenty of time to get there.

  Forensic Instincts was the private investigation firm with the reputation that brought clients in by the droves. Most of their clients were affluent and dubious about law enforcement’s abilities to help them. But some of them were just average people with anything but average problems. Casey Woods—the president and founder of FI—never turned someone away because of financial circumstances. The company was successful enough to adjust their fees according to the client’s ability to pay. It was always a team decision as to whether or not a client was taken on, and they always got it right.

  Emma regarded the FI team as her family, especially since she had no other. They were brilliant, they were diverse, and they were the best. The media couldn’t get enough of them. And Emma was lucky enough to be here, especially since her life before FI had been shit.

  This morning had started out quietly, giving Emma time to get everything in order for the workday and to catch up on her own social media network. Maybe today she’d take a look at what was going on in Chicago, where she’d been born and lived until she was seven. Chicago held her only happy childhood memories, along with being the only real home she’d had before FI.

  When she was seven, her parents had relocated to New York. A year later, they’d died in a plane crash, and she’d been turned over to foster care, being bounced from one home to another. But she remembered Chicago—especially the deep-dish pizza. And it was always cool to see who had been voted the best pizzeria of the week. New York had great Sicilian, but it wasn’t the same.

  Rather than hopping on Twitter and scrolling through her usual feed of the people she followed—from friends to celebrities to cool magazines to fashion trends—she went straight to the Chicago Sun-Times web page. She was just about to navigate to the food and dining section when a news clip caught her eye: “Tragic End to a Tragic Life.”

  She clicked on the article, feeling sick as she read:

  Lisa Barnes, a twenty-nine-year-old woman, was found shot to death in the middle of a residential street in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. Currently, she’d been working as a gal Friday at Designer Fitness, a high-end gym five miles from the shooting. As she was a former foster child with a police record, no one has come forward to ID her body. Police believe the murder to be a drug crime.

  End of article.

  End of a life.

  Emma felt a surge of anger. A former foster child with a criminal record—probably for stealing a pack of gum that could have dated back ten or even fifteen years. But that didn’t matter. They had to call it drug-related. Foster kids were always druggies, even as adults, right? No one claimed her, so she was discarded like the trash they assumed she was.

  Nothing in life. Nothing in death.

  The whole thing made Emma furious.

  She was still seething when the front door of Forensic Instincts swung open, and Ryan McKay—the team’s techno-whiz and the hottest hunk going—walked in. Too bad he’d just celebrated the big three-oh and was way too old for Emma’s tastes. To her, Ryan was a smartass big brother. To the rest of the female population? He was a Peter Luger steak waiting to be devoured. Those smoldering Black-Irish good looks and rock-hard body combined with his air of casual deference was the magic combination.

  Too bad all those drooling women were shit outta luck. Whether or not Ryan admitted it to himself, he was pretty much taken, and by one of Forensic Instincts’ very own: Claire Hedgleigh. Claire was the FI team’s claircognizant—or, to quote the vernacular, their psychic. She and Ryan were polar opposites, so the sparks flew like crazy when they were around each other. That applied at the office and, as the whole team knew, in the bedroom.

  Now Ryan marched up to Emma’s desk, clearly in a whole different mindset than Emma.

  “Hey, brat,” he greeted her. “I just came from the gym. Look what I bought.” He pulled open a bag and flourished what looked to be a complicated set of yellow bands, with straps and handles and God knew what else.

  “Uh… that’s cool—I think,” Emma said, her attention temporarily diverted from the article she’d been reading. “What is it? Some kind of sex toy?”

  Ryan frowned. “No, and you’re way too young to know what those are.”

  “I’m twenty-two.”

  “Barely out of diapers. Anyway, this is a TRX Suspension Trainer—a portable performance training tool. You can use it anywhere. It leverages gravity and body weight—in this case, mine—so I can do hundreds of exercises right here at the brownstone.”

  “Why were you shopping at the gym? I thought you and Aidan were planning Marc’s bachelor party?”

  Marc Devereaux, Casey’s right-hand guy at FI—former Navy SEAL, former agent for the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit—had reunited with the love of his life, and they were tying the knot. Love? Marc? No one ever thought it would happen.

  But it had. And now, Ryan and Aidan, Marc’s older brother, couldn’t get enough shots in ribbing him about it.

  “We’re planning the rager, don’t worry,” Ryan replied with a grin. “We bought Marc a TRX, too. He’ll be thrilled. It was invented by a Navy SEAL. He’ll immediately think it’s a superior device.”

  “And the party?” Emma prompted.

&nb
sp; “Oh, yeah, that. It’s all set. It’ll be me, Aidan, and three of Marc’s buddies. We’re hitting the gym for a hard-core circuit training competition. After that, we’ll be drinking ourselves into oblivion at that new bar one block over.”

  “That’s a bachelor party?”

  Ryan’s grin widened. “In Marc’s eyes, yes. He specifically said no strippers.”

  “And you listened?”

  “Sure we did.” Ryan winked. “But we never promised anything about lap dancers. See you later.” He scooped up his new exercise equipment and headed downstairs to his man cave, or his lair, as everyone called it, to try out the TRX.

  Emma’s smile vanished as her gaze drifted back to her computer screen. There was something about this murder that just got to her. Maybe because it was so unfair. Maybe because it hit too damn close to home.

  But it was going to take time for her to put it out of her mind.

  Amtrak Lake Shore Limited, somewhere between Chicago and New York

  May 19th

  Lisa leaned back in her seat, staring blankly out the window as the train sped along to its destination.

  It had been two days since Julie was killed, and she was still a trembling wreck. She’d never get that image out of her head—Julie lying on the ground, crumpled, blood pouring out of her head.

  Dead.

  “Concentrate on the book for a while, and turn your nightmares off.” Miles Parker, who was sitting across from Lisa, clicking away on his laptop, leaned forward and tapped on the textbook. “You’ve got to get that whole ACE Personal Trainer Manual down pat and be ready to take the test by the time we hit Manhattan and jump on that train to Upper Montclair.”

  “You know I can do it, no problem.” Lisa turned her head to look at her oldest and closest friend with tortured eyes. “We’ve both seen a lot of stuff, Milo, but seeing someone murdered right in front of me? That was something I’ll never get over.”

  “Shh,” Milo said, glancing quickly around. “I know. And you will get through it. I’m here now to make sure of that. But we can’t talk about this in public, remember?”

  “I remember.” Lisa glanced down at the manual on her lap.

  “Good girl…Julie.”

  Julie.

  Milo had worked fast and hard to transform Lisa’s identity in a mere forty-eight hours.

  He’d waited until the crime scene had been cleared away. Then, he’d taken the house key that Julie had given to Lisa and casually let himself in. He’d brought a cardboard box with him and gathered only the things he needed—Julie’s laptop, checkbook, a bunch of photos and personal papers, the ACE manual, some personal trainer books, and a few personal items, such as costume jewelry and three new Lycra workout outfits to start Lisa out.

  Beforehand, he’d rifled through the stuff Lisa had taken off Julie’s body. Her cell phone had all her contacts in it. Her wallet was pay dirt. It contained her driver’s license, social security card, credit cards, and ATM card. As a lucky bonus, Julie had kept a cheat sheet with all of her passwords to every account. Milo could have found a way to get that information—eventually—but this way it meant they could get away faster and without tedious hacking work.

  God bless Milo. He’d been Lisa’s protector since they were kids in the foster care system. They’d always been close, whether or not they were living in the same home. Although being separated didn’t happen often. They’d always fought to be a “package deal” as they’d moved from foster home to foster home—and more times than not they were successful. Lisa was a brat, and Milo was always her sidekick, not to mention intervening whenever she was being punished, so he was far from a favored child. Letting him go was a no-brainer if it meant getting rid of Lisa.

  As an adult, Milo still was a loner. Most people thought he was odd, and maybe he was. With a genius mentality that translated into being socially awkward, and interests in advanced scientific theory and children’s cartoons, he walked to the beat of his own drum. Add to that a mop of unruly light brown hair that always looked unbrushed and a perpetual attire of jeans and oversized graphic T-shirts that swallowed up his lanky frame—well, let’s say he never really fit in.

  Except with Lisa.

  She’d always recognized how gentle and kindhearted Milo was, understood him on a level no one else seemed able to, and fully got how brilliant he was. He’d find the right answer to every problem. He’d certainly found one to this catastrophe.

  He had a computer brain from the get-go.

  He’d always found part-time jobs throughout high school, helping people troubleshoot and fix their laptops. He also could hack into anything to get whatever information he needed.

  And now, as an adult, he had a good, solid job with Dell computers as an online tech support guy—where he could deal with people without actually being in their presence.

  Even though both Lisa and Milo had agreed to test their independence by renting separate places to live in, Lisa had run straight to Milo after the shooting, and he’d stashed her away in his tiny studio apartment. He’d held her while she sobbed, made her something to eat even when she wasn’t hungry, and given her his bed while he camped out in his sleeping bag. He knew what was at stake, who Lisa was afraid of and why. And he knew that she had good reason to be.

  When she was calm enough, he’d given her instructions, which she’d followed to a tee. She’d taken the cash that was in Julie’s wallet and gone to a salon on the other side of town, where she’d gotten a haircut and highlights. She’d then picked up colored contacts to change her eye color from hazel to golden brown.

  It was enough. She looked startlingly like Julie.

  Milo had done the rest. He’d searched the Internet, exploring dozens of cities and towns across the country, until he’d found exactly what they needed: a small local gym that was rent-to-buy in Upper Montclair, New Jersey.

  The woman who needed to unload it was moving to Europe and required an instant transaction. So she’d settled for a modest monthly rental with the hopes that Julie would be purchasing the popular gym in no time. It was in the heart of a yuppie area, near mass transit to Manhattan, and included in the deal all the newest and most extensive array of training equipment.

  So Milo and Lisa were on their way to a new life.

  “Thank you,” Lisa murmured now. “For everything.”

  “I’ll take some home-cooking as my payback.” Milo winked, his gaze returning to his computer. “Plus, it’s a cool opportunity for me. I’ve never been to the Big Apple or to New Jersey. And my job is certainly transportable—as am I.”

  “Where are we living?”

  “Right on Bellevue Avenue in Upper Montclair, one block from your gym. I rented us an apartment with one and a half bedrooms, a living room, a bathroom, and a galley kitchen. I’ll use the half bedroom as a combo bedroom and computer station. We’ll be fine.” “Wasn’t that expensive?”

  “Not too bad. Plus, we have my income, your inheritance, and the gold mine of a gym you’re about to launch.”

  “Does the landlord allow pets?”

  Milo grinned. “Still dead set on getting that dog, I see. Well, you’ll have your wish. Pets are allowed. But I’m not cleaning up turds, so the training’s on you.”

  “Fair enough.” Lisa glanced at Milo’s keyboard, which he was now pounding on again. “What are you doing?”

  “A whole bunch of things, Julie.” He kept using her new name so it would sink in and become her own. “I logged on as you. I’m now emailing your landlord, telling him you got a sudden out-of-town job and had to relocate ASAP. I told him to charge your credit card for the duration of your lease so he’s appeased and doesn’t raise any red flags. I know the rental house was furnished, but I’m letting him know that he can sell everything else, donate it to charity, whatever, and to keep the proceeds for his trouble.”

  “Oh.” Lisa was trying to process everything Milo was saying.

  “I’m also emailing your two gym bosses, Kristen and Nora, a
nd explaining that you’re leaving town. I scanned an article from the Sun-Times reporting Lisa’s death, and I’m attaching it to the emails. I’m saying that, after living with someone who was shot to death right in front of your house, you’re too freaked out to work. That you’ve got to get out of Chicago. I’m sending your apologies for the lack of notice and any inconvenience it causes them, and asking them to email any unemployment paperwork. Blah, blah, blah.”

  Milo paused and gave a baffled shrug. “Kristen and Nora are both females. Statistics say that females are far more motivated by feelings than males are; I’ve read that in several reliable sources. So, they’ll understand where you’re coming from and forgive you. I don’t get it, but that’s how it will go down.”

  “I guess.” Lisa tucked her hair behind her ear. She was still getting used to this new angled style, although she’d really admired it on Julie.

  The old Julie. The dead Julie.

  She shuddered. “Milo, do you really think we’ll be able to pull this off? I mean, I can memorize anything and pass any test. But becoming another person…” She broke off, glancing quickly around as she recalled what Milo had said about talking about this among people.

  “Not a doubt, Julie,” he replied. “You’re going to create a gym that everyone will want to join. Just read your book, do your magic memorizing thing, and the suburban women will be breaking down your doors to sign up for the diamond package.”

  His brow creased as he began pounding into the computer again. “In the meantime, I’m getting us a backdoor exit, a way to vanish if something unforeseen blows up in our face.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Milo leaned forward and stabbed at her book with his forefinger. “Read. Do what you do best. Leave the rest to me.”