Save Me, page 31
He started at the sound of Alexis’s voice.
She wrapped her arms around him from behind and dropped a kiss on his neck that sent a shiver through him. “I called your name twice. What are you reading so intently?”
“Just thinking about our next steps.” He raised his head and did a quarter turn in the chair, pulling her into his lap. He captured her lips in a searing good morning kiss that left them both panting for breath by the time they pulled away from each other. They held each other for several moments.
“Good morning,” he finally said.
“Good morning.” Alexis beamed.
The coffee maker beeped it was ready. Alexis dropped another quick kiss on his lips before pushing to her feet. “I could use a cup. Should I pour you one too?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
“I’m planning to whip up omelets for breakfast if that’s alright with you?” She grabbed two coffee mugs from an overhead cabinet.
She carried two mugs of coffee to the table and sat across from him. “Umm...should we talk about what happened last night?”
“Last night was amazing,” he said, looking directly into her eyes. “But I don’t want to give you the wrong idea. I’m still the man who can’t give you what you want.”
“I don’t believe that and I don’t believe you do either.”
He tore his gaze away from her and looked into his coffee. “Let’s just focus on finding answers for Mark now, okay?”
His phone rang, cutting off her answer.
“Roman.”
“Mr. Roman, this is Detective Chellel. I have to ask you and Ms. Douglas to come down to the station for some questioning immediately.”
The detective’s tone wasn’t out-and-out hostile, but it wasn’t polite either.
“Questioning about what?” TJ pressed.
“It would be better if I explained once you were here.”
TJ shot a glance at Alexis, who’d paused her quest for coffee and was watching him intently now.
“Then we’re at an impasse. I assume since you’re making this call, you can’t compel our appearance at the station and neither Alexis nor I are willing to walk into questioning without knowing what this is about and whether we should bring our lawyers with us.”
He could almost feel the frustration and annoyance emanating from the detective on the other end of the phone.
“Jessica Castaldo was found deceased in her apartment early this morning. I believe you and Miss Douglas were the last two people to see her alive. Now, will you come in voluntarily, or do I send a patrol car?”
* * *
TJ DROVE HIMSELF and Alexis to the police station. They were led to separate interrogation rooms the moment they arrived. He was brought to a bland interview room that smelled vaguely of stale beer and vomit. The uniformed officer who led him to the room offered coffee. TJ declined.
He’d also declined to bring a lawyer with him, although he’d called Shawn on the way to the station. Shawn had cautioned them both not to speak to Detective Chellel without representation and had offered to arrange for an attorney to meet them, but Alexis countered that they had nothing to hide. While he agreed that they didn’t have anything to hide, Jessica had been alive and well when they left her apartment. He knew that innocence didn’t always carry the day. Still, he figured it couldn’t hurt to speak to the detective and get a sense of what had happened after they’d left Jessica’s apartment the night before.
But he was getting annoyed at the detective’s tactics. He’d been waiting in the interrogation room for more than forty minutes.
Finally, the door opened and Detective Chellel walked in. She slapped a file folder on the table between them and sat, giving TJ a long look. “What were you doing at Jessica Castaldo’s apartment yesterday?”
“Alexis and I wanted to find out what she knew about Mark’s death.”
Chellel scowled. “I told you I’d handle things from here on out. I told you to stay out of my investigation.”
TJ leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on his lap. “You have your job, Detective, and I have mine.”
“Does your job include murder?”
He couldn’t see any benefit in antagonizing the detective. At least, not at the moment.
“It does not and whatever happened to Jessica, neither Alexis nor I had any hand in it.”
“You snuck into her building.”
“We did no such thing.”
Chellel snatched a sheet of paper from the file and slapped it down on the table in front of him. “The building sign-in sheet doesn’t have you or Ms. Douglas signing in, and the security tapes show you rushing toward the elevators while the doorman was away from his post.”
“I wouldn’t call that sneaking in. You said it yourself, the doorman wasn’t at his post.”
Chellel eyed him with open derision. “Why don’t you start from the beginning? What time did you arrive at Ms. Castaldo’s apartment?”
He took the detective through the details of his and Alexis’s talk with Jessica the night before. The detective let him tell the story the first time through without interruption before asking him to repeat it from the beginning. The second time through, it felt like she stopped him every ten seconds or so to ask a question or drill down on some minute detail. It didn’t matter, though. The story wasn’t going to change, no matter how many ways she asked the same question.
“So you’re saying Jessica admitted to stealing Mark Douglas’s employee ID and passing it along to someone who you think then used it to download the Nimbus program?”
“Exactly.”
Chellel shook her head. “And I’ve only got your word about this confession.”
“You have Alexis’s too. I’m sure she’s told you, or she will, the same things I have. We confronted Jessica, and she told us about her role in the theft. And there’s your motive for why someone might want her dead.”
Chellel’s brow arched. “Someone like Alexis Douglas, for instance.”
Now TJ shook his head. “No. Alexis doesn’t have a motive. She needed Jessica alive and willing to testify to her part in the theft.”
“Or,” Chellel dragged out the word. “She saw Jessica’s actions as having contributed to her brother’s death and she sought retribution.”
“Or, since we’re positing theories here, the man Jessica gave Mark’s ID to got spooked and decided to eliminate a potential witness.”
“I wonder what could have spooked this hypothetical killer. Maybe you and Ms. Douglas mucking around in my case, perhaps?”
It was a possibility. One he couldn’t help feeling a little bit of guilt over. It was entirely possible his and Alexis’s visit to Jessica’s apartment had led to her death, but the only thing they could do about it now was to help find her killer.
Chellel sifted through the papers in the file. “You’re licensed to carry a gun, correct?”
“Correct.”
“We’d like to run ballistics on your gun.”
“So Jessica was shot?”
Chellel didn’t answer.
“You’re welcome to run whatever test you’d like. Obviously, I didn’t bring a gun into the police station.”
“I can have a uniformed officer follow you to wherever you’re staying. Which is where?”
TJ smiled. He wasn’t about to reveal the location of the safe house. “No need. My sidearm is locked in the glove box.”
Chellel frowned. “Then I’ll have an officer retrieve it.”
TJ didn’t love that idea either. No doubt the officer assigned would also be told to snoop around in the car, but he didn’t see a way around it. He handed the keys to the rental to the detective.
She rose and left the room for several minutes before returning. “Thank you for being so cooperative. It will take a couple of days for the ballistics guys to do their work. I’ll get your weapon back to you as soon as possible.”
It annoyed him to be without his favorite gun, but he’d brought several others along for the trip in his go bag. “Not a problem. Can I ask one question, though?”
“You can ask whatever you want. I won’t promise to answer.”
“Fair enough. What time was Jessica killed?”
Chellel shook her head. “I can’t share that information with you.”
“Fine.” TJ held up his hands. “But if the lobby security recordings show Alexis and I going up to Jessica’s apartment, they must show us leaving as well. You know Alexis and I didn’t have anything to do with her death.”
“I don’t know any such thing,” the detective said. “There are security cameras in the lobby, but not at the back door to the building or in the stairwells. You or Ms. Douglas could have been scoping out the building and then come back later in the evening.”
“Come on, detective,” TJ said incredulously. “We were smart enough to scope out the building but dumb enough to let ourselves get caught on tape the day Jessica was killed? That makes no sense.”
Detective Chellel’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Murder never makes sense, Mr. Roman. I’ll be in touch.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
A uniformed officer escorted him as far as the reception area of the police department. Alexis rose from her seat and hurried toward him as soon as he entered.
“Are you alright?” she asked, wrapping her arms around him.
Relief and something else, a feeling as if his world had been righted the moment she stepped into his arms, washed over him.
He pulled her close. “I’m fine. How about you?”
Alexis pulled back enough to look at his face. “Fine. Detective Chellel was a pit bull, but I just told her the truth. We spoke to Jessica. She told us about stealing Mark’s ID and fob. We left.”
“Same here. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
They walked to the car, arms still wrapped around each other.
“Where are we going?” Alexis asked once they were inside.
“First, back to the safe house. I need to pick up another weapon. Or two. Detective Chellel took the gun I had in the car for testing.”
Alexis shook her head in disgust. “She can’t really believe you or I killed Jessica. That’s insane.”
“I don’t think she does,” TJ said, steering them in the direction of the safe house. “But she has to do her job.”
Alexis frowned but let it go. “You said first to the safe house. Where to second?”
“I thought we’d talk to Lenora Kenda again. I’m convinced there was something she wasn’t telling us. If I’m right, she and her daughters could be in real danger.”
Alexis looked at him with wide eyes. “You think the guy with the snake tattoo killed Jessica and now he might go after Lenora?”
That’s exactly what he thought. “It’s as good a theory as any. Killing Jessica strikes me as a cleaning house move. If Lenora is somehow a part of this too, she could be next on this guy’s list.”
After a quick stop at the safe house where he grabbed his backup weapon, they headed for Lenora Kenda’s home.
As TJ turned the car onto Lenora’s street, he saw the woman hustling a girl who looked like a younger version of the teenager they’d seen at Lenora’s house a day earlier from the front door to the minivan parked in the driveway in front of the house. TJ stopped the car at the corner, a safe distance away, but close enough for him and Alexis to have a good view of Lenora’s house.
“What is she doing?” Alexis asked.
“Running,” TJ answered.
The younger girl had a pink backpack slung over her shoulder and dragged her purple suitcase on wheels behind her.
“Running from what?”
“That is a very good question. And exactly what we need to know.”
If there’d been any doubt in his mind before, Lenora’s current actions would have erased them all. She was hiding something, and TJ could feel that they were running out of time to convince her to tell them what it was.
He and Alexis watched as Lenora threw her daughter’s purple suitcase in the trunk and slammed it closed. She shooed her daughter into the backseat and slammed the back door closed before heading for the driver’s side door.
Lenora paused, her hand gripping the door handle, and scanned the street. For one brief moment, TJ thought she’d seen them.
Alexis must’ve thought the same. She slid down a bit in her seat and cast a glance over at him. “Did she see us?”
“I don’t think so.” He was sure they weren’t close enough for Lenora to see them. At least not to see who was inside the car. He may not have extensive experience investigating the big complex cases that West Investigations usually took on, but he knew how to track and follow. It was the bread and butter of his work. Lenora might wonder about the unusual car parked on a street, but she couldn’t know they were inside.
After a moment, Lenora opened the door and hopped into the driver’s side of the minivan. She backed out of the driveway and headed down the street, away from where they were parked.
TJ shifted the car back into Drive and followed.
Alexis looked at him with a mixture of excitement and curiosity swimming across her face. “We’re following her?”
“Unless you have a better idea. We might get more information seeing where she’s headed, than we would trying to force her to answer our questions.”
Alexis grinned. “You’re the expert.”
He finally felt like he knew what he was doing, at least when it came to this type of investigation. He knew exactly how far back to stay so that Lenora wouldn’t see them, but so that he wouldn’t lose her either. He could finally put all the hours he’d spent following cheating husbands and wives to use helping Alexis.
Lenora made a series of turns probably trying to spot if someone was tailing her. He kept following, giving her a long enough tether that he was sure she didn’t realize they were behind her.
TJ’s cell phone rang.
Alexis peered at the screen. “It’s Shawn.” She pressed the button to answer the call.
“Shawn, I’ve got you on speaker. Alexis and I are in the car tailing Lenora Kenda.”
“Tailing her? Why?”
“Actually, we just wanted to talk to her, but when we got to her street, we saw her racing from her house to the car with her youngest daughter in tow.”
“So what’s your plan?”
TJ shot a glance across the car at Alexis. She shrugged her shoulders.
“We don’t really have one. It looked kind of suspicious, so we decided to see where Lenora was headed. There’s a fifty-fifty chance we’re wasting our time. But Lenora is our best lead so far.”
“You got good instincts,” Shawn said. “I trust them. Think you’ll need backup?”
TJ frowned. “You trust my instincts?”
“I do,” Shawn said quickly. “But I told you I’ve got your back, and I meant it. I can hop on a plane and be there in a few hours. You just give the order.”
TJ wasn’t sure how he felt about Shawn offering to race to his rescue. A bit irritated. A bit relieved to have the offer of backup if he needed it. It had only been a few hours since he noted that the danger factor in this investigation had notched up considerably. And now here he was, going God knows where, and taking Alexis with him. Backup didn’t seem like such a terrible idea. But he knew Alexis wouldn’t want to wait hours. And neither did he.
“Thanks for the offer but, we don’t know where Lenora is going and if we have any chance of getting her to talk to us, it would probably be better if just Alexis and I confronted her. She already knows us.”
“Whatever you say,” Shawn said. “Just know I’m here for you if you need me. And make sure the GPS on your phone is enabled.”
“Copy that.” TJ ended the call.
Lenora made a left turn up ahead, and TJ followed several seconds later. Lenora parked the minivan in a driveway belonging to a large redbrick colonial with black shutters and overgrown hedges lining the front of the house. The back door of the minivan opened and Lenora’s daughter flew out of the car as the front door of the colonial opened and a man stepped onto the front porch.
The man swept the little girl into his arms and swung her around while Lenora hauled the purple suitcase and the pink backpack from the minivan.
“It looks like she’s just dropping her youngest daughter off with her father.” Alexis’s voice sounded a note of defeat.
“Maybe.” TJ wasn’t so sure. Everything about Lenora’s countenance said she was scared. And if this was just a visitation drop-off, where was her oldest daughter Annie? Something about the situation just felt off.
Lenora made her way up the paved walkway, stopping in front of the man who put the little girl down to take the suitcase and backpack from her.
Lenora and the man spoke briefly before Lenora turned and hurried back to the minivan. The man gave an awkward wave, a curious look on his face, as Lenora peeled out of the driveway and back down the street.
“Where is she going now?” Alexis asked.
“Let’s keep following and see.” TJ put the car in gear and fell in behind Lenora again.
Chapter Twenty-Four
TJ continued to follow Lenora Kenda at a distance as she drove away from the more populated areas of town and into a decidedly more rural landscape. Alexis was amazed at how far back he could hang without losing her trail.
“Where is she going?” Alexis asked, peering out the windshield at the back of Lenora’s minivan.
“I have no idea,” TJ responded. “But wherever it is, we can safely say it’s off the beaten path.”
The wrinkles in TJ’s forehead deepened the longer they followed Lenora. Alexis was more than a little worried herself. But she believed they were on the right track following her. Something was definitely up with the woman, and they needed to find out what it was.
She wrapped her arms around him from behind and dropped a kiss on his neck that sent a shiver through him. “I called your name twice. What are you reading so intently?”
“Just thinking about our next steps.” He raised his head and did a quarter turn in the chair, pulling her into his lap. He captured her lips in a searing good morning kiss that left them both panting for breath by the time they pulled away from each other. They held each other for several moments.
“Good morning,” he finally said.
“Good morning.” Alexis beamed.
The coffee maker beeped it was ready. Alexis dropped another quick kiss on his lips before pushing to her feet. “I could use a cup. Should I pour you one too?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
“I’m planning to whip up omelets for breakfast if that’s alright with you?” She grabbed two coffee mugs from an overhead cabinet.
She carried two mugs of coffee to the table and sat across from him. “Umm...should we talk about what happened last night?”
“Last night was amazing,” he said, looking directly into her eyes. “But I don’t want to give you the wrong idea. I’m still the man who can’t give you what you want.”
“I don’t believe that and I don’t believe you do either.”
He tore his gaze away from her and looked into his coffee. “Let’s just focus on finding answers for Mark now, okay?”
His phone rang, cutting off her answer.
“Roman.”
“Mr. Roman, this is Detective Chellel. I have to ask you and Ms. Douglas to come down to the station for some questioning immediately.”
The detective’s tone wasn’t out-and-out hostile, but it wasn’t polite either.
“Questioning about what?” TJ pressed.
“It would be better if I explained once you were here.”
TJ shot a glance at Alexis, who’d paused her quest for coffee and was watching him intently now.
“Then we’re at an impasse. I assume since you’re making this call, you can’t compel our appearance at the station and neither Alexis nor I are willing to walk into questioning without knowing what this is about and whether we should bring our lawyers with us.”
He could almost feel the frustration and annoyance emanating from the detective on the other end of the phone.
“Jessica Castaldo was found deceased in her apartment early this morning. I believe you and Miss Douglas were the last two people to see her alive. Now, will you come in voluntarily, or do I send a patrol car?”
* * *
TJ DROVE HIMSELF and Alexis to the police station. They were led to separate interrogation rooms the moment they arrived. He was brought to a bland interview room that smelled vaguely of stale beer and vomit. The uniformed officer who led him to the room offered coffee. TJ declined.
He’d also declined to bring a lawyer with him, although he’d called Shawn on the way to the station. Shawn had cautioned them both not to speak to Detective Chellel without representation and had offered to arrange for an attorney to meet them, but Alexis countered that they had nothing to hide. While he agreed that they didn’t have anything to hide, Jessica had been alive and well when they left her apartment. He knew that innocence didn’t always carry the day. Still, he figured it couldn’t hurt to speak to the detective and get a sense of what had happened after they’d left Jessica’s apartment the night before.
But he was getting annoyed at the detective’s tactics. He’d been waiting in the interrogation room for more than forty minutes.
Finally, the door opened and Detective Chellel walked in. She slapped a file folder on the table between them and sat, giving TJ a long look. “What were you doing at Jessica Castaldo’s apartment yesterday?”
“Alexis and I wanted to find out what she knew about Mark’s death.”
Chellel scowled. “I told you I’d handle things from here on out. I told you to stay out of my investigation.”
TJ leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on his lap. “You have your job, Detective, and I have mine.”
“Does your job include murder?”
He couldn’t see any benefit in antagonizing the detective. At least, not at the moment.
“It does not and whatever happened to Jessica, neither Alexis nor I had any hand in it.”
“You snuck into her building.”
“We did no such thing.”
Chellel snatched a sheet of paper from the file and slapped it down on the table in front of him. “The building sign-in sheet doesn’t have you or Ms. Douglas signing in, and the security tapes show you rushing toward the elevators while the doorman was away from his post.”
“I wouldn’t call that sneaking in. You said it yourself, the doorman wasn’t at his post.”
Chellel eyed him with open derision. “Why don’t you start from the beginning? What time did you arrive at Ms. Castaldo’s apartment?”
He took the detective through the details of his and Alexis’s talk with Jessica the night before. The detective let him tell the story the first time through without interruption before asking him to repeat it from the beginning. The second time through, it felt like she stopped him every ten seconds or so to ask a question or drill down on some minute detail. It didn’t matter, though. The story wasn’t going to change, no matter how many ways she asked the same question.
“So you’re saying Jessica admitted to stealing Mark Douglas’s employee ID and passing it along to someone who you think then used it to download the Nimbus program?”
“Exactly.”
Chellel shook her head. “And I’ve only got your word about this confession.”
“You have Alexis’s too. I’m sure she’s told you, or she will, the same things I have. We confronted Jessica, and she told us about her role in the theft. And there’s your motive for why someone might want her dead.”
Chellel’s brow arched. “Someone like Alexis Douglas, for instance.”
Now TJ shook his head. “No. Alexis doesn’t have a motive. She needed Jessica alive and willing to testify to her part in the theft.”
“Or,” Chellel dragged out the word. “She saw Jessica’s actions as having contributed to her brother’s death and she sought retribution.”
“Or, since we’re positing theories here, the man Jessica gave Mark’s ID to got spooked and decided to eliminate a potential witness.”
“I wonder what could have spooked this hypothetical killer. Maybe you and Ms. Douglas mucking around in my case, perhaps?”
It was a possibility. One he couldn’t help feeling a little bit of guilt over. It was entirely possible his and Alexis’s visit to Jessica’s apartment had led to her death, but the only thing they could do about it now was to help find her killer.
Chellel sifted through the papers in the file. “You’re licensed to carry a gun, correct?”
“Correct.”
“We’d like to run ballistics on your gun.”
“So Jessica was shot?”
Chellel didn’t answer.
“You’re welcome to run whatever test you’d like. Obviously, I didn’t bring a gun into the police station.”
“I can have a uniformed officer follow you to wherever you’re staying. Which is where?”
TJ smiled. He wasn’t about to reveal the location of the safe house. “No need. My sidearm is locked in the glove box.”
Chellel frowned. “Then I’ll have an officer retrieve it.”
TJ didn’t love that idea either. No doubt the officer assigned would also be told to snoop around in the car, but he didn’t see a way around it. He handed the keys to the rental to the detective.
She rose and left the room for several minutes before returning. “Thank you for being so cooperative. It will take a couple of days for the ballistics guys to do their work. I’ll get your weapon back to you as soon as possible.”
It annoyed him to be without his favorite gun, but he’d brought several others along for the trip in his go bag. “Not a problem. Can I ask one question, though?”
“You can ask whatever you want. I won’t promise to answer.”
“Fair enough. What time was Jessica killed?”
Chellel shook her head. “I can’t share that information with you.”
“Fine.” TJ held up his hands. “But if the lobby security recordings show Alexis and I going up to Jessica’s apartment, they must show us leaving as well. You know Alexis and I didn’t have anything to do with her death.”
“I don’t know any such thing,” the detective said. “There are security cameras in the lobby, but not at the back door to the building or in the stairwells. You or Ms. Douglas could have been scoping out the building and then come back later in the evening.”
“Come on, detective,” TJ said incredulously. “We were smart enough to scope out the building but dumb enough to let ourselves get caught on tape the day Jessica was killed? That makes no sense.”
Detective Chellel’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Murder never makes sense, Mr. Roman. I’ll be in touch.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
A uniformed officer escorted him as far as the reception area of the police department. Alexis rose from her seat and hurried toward him as soon as he entered.
“Are you alright?” she asked, wrapping her arms around him.
Relief and something else, a feeling as if his world had been righted the moment she stepped into his arms, washed over him.
He pulled her close. “I’m fine. How about you?”
Alexis pulled back enough to look at his face. “Fine. Detective Chellel was a pit bull, but I just told her the truth. We spoke to Jessica. She told us about stealing Mark’s ID and fob. We left.”
“Same here. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
They walked to the car, arms still wrapped around each other.
“Where are we going?” Alexis asked once they were inside.
“First, back to the safe house. I need to pick up another weapon. Or two. Detective Chellel took the gun I had in the car for testing.”
Alexis shook her head in disgust. “She can’t really believe you or I killed Jessica. That’s insane.”
“I don’t think she does,” TJ said, steering them in the direction of the safe house. “But she has to do her job.”
Alexis frowned but let it go. “You said first to the safe house. Where to second?”
“I thought we’d talk to Lenora Kenda again. I’m convinced there was something she wasn’t telling us. If I’m right, she and her daughters could be in real danger.”
Alexis looked at him with wide eyes. “You think the guy with the snake tattoo killed Jessica and now he might go after Lenora?”
That’s exactly what he thought. “It’s as good a theory as any. Killing Jessica strikes me as a cleaning house move. If Lenora is somehow a part of this too, she could be next on this guy’s list.”
After a quick stop at the safe house where he grabbed his backup weapon, they headed for Lenora Kenda’s home.
As TJ turned the car onto Lenora’s street, he saw the woman hustling a girl who looked like a younger version of the teenager they’d seen at Lenora’s house a day earlier from the front door to the minivan parked in the driveway in front of the house. TJ stopped the car at the corner, a safe distance away, but close enough for him and Alexis to have a good view of Lenora’s house.
“What is she doing?” Alexis asked.
“Running,” TJ answered.
The younger girl had a pink backpack slung over her shoulder and dragged her purple suitcase on wheels behind her.
“Running from what?”
“That is a very good question. And exactly what we need to know.”
If there’d been any doubt in his mind before, Lenora’s current actions would have erased them all. She was hiding something, and TJ could feel that they were running out of time to convince her to tell them what it was.
He and Alexis watched as Lenora threw her daughter’s purple suitcase in the trunk and slammed it closed. She shooed her daughter into the backseat and slammed the back door closed before heading for the driver’s side door.
Lenora paused, her hand gripping the door handle, and scanned the street. For one brief moment, TJ thought she’d seen them.
Alexis must’ve thought the same. She slid down a bit in her seat and cast a glance over at him. “Did she see us?”
“I don’t think so.” He was sure they weren’t close enough for Lenora to see them. At least not to see who was inside the car. He may not have extensive experience investigating the big complex cases that West Investigations usually took on, but he knew how to track and follow. It was the bread and butter of his work. Lenora might wonder about the unusual car parked on a street, but she couldn’t know they were inside.
After a moment, Lenora opened the door and hopped into the driver’s side of the minivan. She backed out of the driveway and headed down the street, away from where they were parked.
TJ shifted the car back into Drive and followed.
Alexis looked at him with a mixture of excitement and curiosity swimming across her face. “We’re following her?”
“Unless you have a better idea. We might get more information seeing where she’s headed, than we would trying to force her to answer our questions.”
Alexis grinned. “You’re the expert.”
He finally felt like he knew what he was doing, at least when it came to this type of investigation. He knew exactly how far back to stay so that Lenora wouldn’t see them, but so that he wouldn’t lose her either. He could finally put all the hours he’d spent following cheating husbands and wives to use helping Alexis.
Lenora made a series of turns probably trying to spot if someone was tailing her. He kept following, giving her a long enough tether that he was sure she didn’t realize they were behind her.
TJ’s cell phone rang.
Alexis peered at the screen. “It’s Shawn.” She pressed the button to answer the call.
“Shawn, I’ve got you on speaker. Alexis and I are in the car tailing Lenora Kenda.”
“Tailing her? Why?”
“Actually, we just wanted to talk to her, but when we got to her street, we saw her racing from her house to the car with her youngest daughter in tow.”
“So what’s your plan?”
TJ shot a glance across the car at Alexis. She shrugged her shoulders.
“We don’t really have one. It looked kind of suspicious, so we decided to see where Lenora was headed. There’s a fifty-fifty chance we’re wasting our time. But Lenora is our best lead so far.”
“You got good instincts,” Shawn said. “I trust them. Think you’ll need backup?”
TJ frowned. “You trust my instincts?”
“I do,” Shawn said quickly. “But I told you I’ve got your back, and I meant it. I can hop on a plane and be there in a few hours. You just give the order.”
TJ wasn’t sure how he felt about Shawn offering to race to his rescue. A bit irritated. A bit relieved to have the offer of backup if he needed it. It had only been a few hours since he noted that the danger factor in this investigation had notched up considerably. And now here he was, going God knows where, and taking Alexis with him. Backup didn’t seem like such a terrible idea. But he knew Alexis wouldn’t want to wait hours. And neither did he.
“Thanks for the offer but, we don’t know where Lenora is going and if we have any chance of getting her to talk to us, it would probably be better if just Alexis and I confronted her. She already knows us.”
“Whatever you say,” Shawn said. “Just know I’m here for you if you need me. And make sure the GPS on your phone is enabled.”
“Copy that.” TJ ended the call.
Lenora made a left turn up ahead, and TJ followed several seconds later. Lenora parked the minivan in a driveway belonging to a large redbrick colonial with black shutters and overgrown hedges lining the front of the house. The back door of the minivan opened and Lenora’s daughter flew out of the car as the front door of the colonial opened and a man stepped onto the front porch.
The man swept the little girl into his arms and swung her around while Lenora hauled the purple suitcase and the pink backpack from the minivan.
“It looks like she’s just dropping her youngest daughter off with her father.” Alexis’s voice sounded a note of defeat.
“Maybe.” TJ wasn’t so sure. Everything about Lenora’s countenance said she was scared. And if this was just a visitation drop-off, where was her oldest daughter Annie? Something about the situation just felt off.
Lenora made her way up the paved walkway, stopping in front of the man who put the little girl down to take the suitcase and backpack from her.
Lenora and the man spoke briefly before Lenora turned and hurried back to the minivan. The man gave an awkward wave, a curious look on his face, as Lenora peeled out of the driveway and back down the street.
“Where is she going now?” Alexis asked.
“Let’s keep following and see.” TJ put the car in gear and fell in behind Lenora again.
Chapter Twenty-Four
TJ continued to follow Lenora Kenda at a distance as she drove away from the more populated areas of town and into a decidedly more rural landscape. Alexis was amazed at how far back he could hang without losing her trail.
“Where is she going?” Alexis asked, peering out the windshield at the back of Lenora’s minivan.
“I have no idea,” TJ responded. “But wherever it is, we can safely say it’s off the beaten path.”
The wrinkles in TJ’s forehead deepened the longer they followed Lenora. Alexis was more than a little worried herself. But she believed they were on the right track following her. Something was definitely up with the woman, and they needed to find out what it was.
