Mariah Stewart - Dead End

“It may lead nowhere.”

“Or it may lead to your killer.” She sat up and wrapped the sheet around her.

“Will you be here when I get back?”

“Actually, I probably will not. I need to talk to Grady, and I don’t think a phone call is the way to do that.”

“Want me to go with you? It’s Saturday. I could drive down with you later this afternoon, we could go see Grady, then I can drive back tomorrow night.”

“I would love to have you come home with me. But I think I’ll get more out of Grady if I’m alone. I don’t think he’ll tell me anything if you’re there.”

“Okay.” He leaned over to kiss her. “But I can still drive down later today, if you want.”

“Why don’t you wait and see how many names you come up with, and see how many are willing to talk to you. If I know you, you’ll be up to your neck in this for the rest of the day.”

“God, I hope I can get a break.” He looked under the chair for his shoes, then remembered he’d left them downstairs. “I need something solid on this.”

“So go for it.”

“You’re sure you don’t mind?” He hovered over her, studying her face.

“Go.” She glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was 4:30 in the morning. “Actually, I think I’ll get up now, too. The earlier I get back to Virginia, the sooner I’ll be able to sit down with Grady and see if I can get some of the truth about his relationship with Melissa.”

“Good luck, babe.” Evan kissed her one last time. “Maybe I’ll see you later tonight…”

“And maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and be my longed-for height of five-eight,” she murmured as he went down the steps. “Neither is likely, but one can always hope…”

____________________

Annie stood in the vestibule of the building that housed Grady’s condo, along with five others, all of which had mailboxes lined up along the wall to the left of the front door. Junk mail overflowed from the black box bearing a label that read, G. Shields, 2B.

Interesting he hasn’t picked up his mail in a few days, she thought as she rang the bell for his unit, but his car is in the parking lot. She went outside and looked up at his apartment. There were air conditioners in two of the three front windows, and she could hear their faint humming. She went back into the vestibule and rang the doorbell again. She rang it over and over, until finally, she got a response.

“What.” It wasn’t so much a question as an expression of exasperation.

“It’s Annie, Grady.”

“Not now, Annie.”

“I’m not leaving until I talk to you.”

“You’re talking to me now.”

“Let me come up, Grady. We need to talk about Melissa.”

“I did not kill her. And I don’t know who did. What else do you need to know?”

“Do you really want me to go into that right here, right now, where anyone could come along and-”

He buzzed her through the locked front door, and she crossed the lobby to the stairwell that rose directly in front of her. She climbed the steps and found Grady waiting for her in the doorway of his apartment. From his appearance, she guessed that the mail had been piling up in the box because he hadn’t left the apartment in several days. It had certainly been that long since he’d shaved.

He stepped aside and motioned for her to come in, then closed the door behind her.

“So tell me what it is you’re looking for, then you can go and I can get back to the business of getting myself good and drunk.” He walked into the living room, and she followed.

“Looks like you’ve made some progress there.” She noted the empty bottles of wine that formed a circle on top of the coffee table. “Odd choice, though. Most men drink themselves into a stupor on beer or hard liquor. Merlot doesn’t seem to fit.”

“What is it you want?” He flopped onto the sofa but did not offer her a seat.

She pushed some newspapers onto the floor and sat anyway.

“Why were you so secretive about your relationship with Melissa Lowery?”

He appeared to be trying to formulate a response.

“Come on, Grady, just say it.”

He still searched for words.

“All right, let’s try this approach. Why did Melissa change her name and move to Montana?”

“Free country.” He picked up the nearest bottle and checked its contents. Finding it empty, he moved on to the next one and refilled his glass.

“Cut the bullshit,” she said softly. “We both know she was afraid of something. Or someone. Was it you?”

“Me?” The question took him off guard. “God, no.”

“What was your relationship with her?”

“She was… my best girl.” His eyes filled with tears. “She was… my wife.”

“Your…?”

He nodded slowly. “We were married in Reno eight months ago.”

“Why all the secrecy? Why was she hiding, Grady?”

He exhaled slowly, a long breath fraught with pain.

“Someone scared her.”

“Who?”

“Now, don’t you think if I knew that, I’d have dealt with it?” He lifted his head and met her eyes, and she understood exactly how he would have dealt.

“She gave you no information, she never told you why-”

“Yeah. That much I know. She was on a job, she saw someone who shouldn’t have been there, and included his name in her report.”

“Who wasn’t she supposed to have seen?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t even know who it was. All I know is that after she wrote the report, someone contacted her by phone and told her she was to forget that she had been there, forget who else she’d seen there, and to destroy any copies of her notes. He left a bag with a lot of cash-a whole lot of cash-on her doorstep and suggested she resign from the Bureau and take the first train out of Dodge.”

“Or…?”

“Or he’d kill her.”

“Why didn’t she go to someone at the Bureau?”

“Who would do what, Annie? Protect her from someone she couldn’t even identify? Someone who obviously works for the Bureau?” He got up and ran a hand through his dark hair. “Believe me, we went through all of this. Whoever was threatening her works for the Bureau. He’s supposed to be one of the good guys. He could have been anyone. How do you even begin to figure out who you can trust?”

“Well, what about the job she’d been on, start with that. Look at the people who were there, figure out-” She stopped short, staring at him. “Grady…”

“Annie, please don’t even ask.”

“Tell me it wasn’t the job where Dylan was killed.”

He was agitated and drunk. He swayed when he stood, then sat slowly back down.

“And that’s why Melissa’s report was missing, because someone took it deliberately and made sure she wouldn’t replicate it?”

“Yes.”

Annie digested the information.

“I’m sorry, Annie. I’m really sorry.”

She waved away his apology, past that now. “Why,” she asked, “didn’t he just kill her?”

“I don’t know.” He took a long swallow of wine, this one straight from the bottle. “I’ve asked myself that same question a dozen times. Why didn’t he just kill her.”

He wiped tears from his face with the hem of his shirt.

“I guess the question really is, why did he kill her now?”

“I have a call in to the sheriff in Montana. As soon as I’ve heard about cause of death, I’ll let you know.”

He cleared his throat. “Appreciate it.”

“In the meantime, why not put the wine away? Take a shower, get something to eat. Get some sleep.”

“Merlot was the only thing she ever drank.” He held up the bottle and studied the label as if it held some weighty truth.

“Grady, I am so sorry about Melissa. I don’t know what to say.” She swallowed hard. “I’m more sorry than I can say, if my looking for her, for her report, was the catalyst-”