Dead Wood - By Dani Amore Page 0,70

hurt. And hurt badly.”

“Someone else may be fucking with Teddy Armbruster. And it isn’t me.”

• • •

By the time I got back to my office, it was late. The only people more tired than me were the guys at the Chinese restaurant in charge of replenishing the buffet.

I checked my watch. Nearly five o’clock. I checked the mail for a package from Molly but no dice. Most courier services finished up by six. I had a bad feeling in my gut and it was only partially from watching Nate ingest the caloric equivalent of a small family.

Whatever Molly had intended to send me should have been here by now. I wondered about the interruption. Had the man heard Molly? Was she in trouble?

I weighed the pros and cons of waiting. It didn’t take long. There were no cons. Sitting around waiting for a courier made little sense. I thought about calling, but that didn’t seem like a good idea, either. She was constantly in someone’s presence. Someone who was always listening. It would be better just to show up. Be the asshole P.I. who needed to be dealt with. That chore would fall to the lowly personal assistant.

Besides, with a sinking feeling in the pit of my guts I wondered, what if the courier never comes?

The drive back to Shannon Sparrow’s temporary compound took less than five minutes, but as I pulled closer, I saw that someone had gotten there ahead of me.

Blue and red flashing lights pulled me closer. Please, God, no, I thought. Don’t let this happen.

The driveway was choked with police cars. I pulled over into the grass next to the driveway and jogged toward the door. A cop stopped me, a thick-necked bull with a shiny black crewcut. I didn’t recognize him and I didn’t see Ellen around.

I looked past him and saw Erma and Freda being questioned by two detectives.

And on the floor was a body.

Even from here I could see that it was a small body. Swimming in a large pool of blood.

Molly.

Forty

“How did you manage to get here before me?” a voice asked. I turned and Ellen walked toward me, her thumbs hooked in her gunbelt.

I was staring out at Lake St. Clair. The water was smooth and green, waiting for a giant freighter to plow through the center of its body.

I couldn’t stop thinking about how another life had been taken and how Molly had tried to get in touch with me. I should have done more. I should have driven to see her immediately after her call was interrupted. Goddamnit, I thought.

“John,” my sister said.

“I should have known,” I said.

“Just start at the beginning,” she said. So I did. I detailed my conversation with Molly, the note with the phone number, waiting for a courier that never showed up and the decision to drive over here on my own.

Ellen didn’t respond when I finished.

“So what’s your best guess?” she said.

“Honestly,” I said. “I have no clue.”

“You don’t know what she was trying to get to you?”

I shook my head. Ellen turned and looked out at the lake.

“Her neck was broken,” she said. “Apparently.”

“Ah, Jesus.”

“They’re saying she fell down the stairs.”

That brought me off the car. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me. Fell down the stairs? I don’t think so.”

“No other signs of injury. Two witnesses say they saw it happen.”

“The pork queens? Erma and Freda?”

“They heard a loud crash,” Ellen said. “Rushed in and found the victim at the foot of the steps.” I could tell Ellen wasn’t buying it either, she was just laying out the official story so far.

“Oh my God,” I said. “What total bullshit.”

“It isn’t bullshit until it’s proven to be bullshit.” I heard what she was saying.

“If it’s the last goddamned thing I do,” I said.

I kept thinking of Molly. Of her crisp way of speaking, her little daily planner clutched to her chest. So in control. And then the vision of her sprawled out at the base of the stairs.

“We did a quick search on the vic,” Ellen said. “She looks clean as a whistle. No record, not even a speeding ticket.”

I thought about my interaction with Molly. Precise. Efficient. Maybe a tad on the cold side. But that was her job. To protect her boss.

It looked now like she should have been a little more worried about protecting herself. Whatever it was she’d found, she was trying to get to me. But why me? If it had something to do with the murder of