Харлан Кобен - Run Away

“So Gorse was shot first?”

“We’re pretty sure, yeah.” Nap tilted his head. “Is that important?”

She didn’t reply.

He sighed. “Right. Preconceptions.”

“How many shooters?” Elena asked.

“We don’t know. But initial ballistics indicate the same gun killed both victims.”

“So maybe there was only one.”

“Hard to say, but it feels that way.”

Elena took in the scene. She looked at the back of the building and then up toward the sky. “No security cameras in the parking lot?”

“None.”

“How about inside?”

“Also none. Just a routine ADT alarm with a panic button and motion detector.”

“I assume the business takes cash.”

“Yes.”

“What do they do with it?”

“One of the two owners — and Gorse was one of them — takes the cash home every night and stores it in their safe.”

“Their safe?”

“Pardon?”

“You said their safe. The two owners share a safe?”

“They live together, yeah. And to answer your next question, Gorse was robbed. The cash, his wallet, some of his jewelry were gone.”

“So you’re thinking robbery?”

Nap gave her a crooked smile. Again like Joel’s. Damn. “Well, I was,” he said.

The implication was clear: I was — until you showed up.

“So where’s the co-owner?” she asked.

“On his way from the airport. He should be here any minute.”

“Airport?”

“His name is Neil Raff. He was on vacation in Miami.”

“Is he a suspect?”

“A business partner taking a trip during the time of a murder?”

“Right,” she said. “So of course he is.”

“Like I said, it’s early.”

“Any idea how much cash Gorse had on him?”

“Not yet, no. Some days, we’ve been told, it could be as high as a few thousand dollars — some days it could be next to nothing. Depends obviously on how business was that day and how many people used plastic.”

There was no chalk drawing of a body or any of that stuff, but Nap had crime scene photographs. Elena studied them for a moment.

“Do you think the perp robbed Gorse first and then shot him,” Elena began, “or shot him first and then robbed him?”

“Shot him first,” Nap said.

“You seem pretty certain.”

“Look at Gorse’s pocket in the photograph.”

She did, nodding. “Turned inside out.”

“Also the shirt untucked, one ring left on like it’s been too difficult to get off — or someone interrupted him.”

Elena saw it now. “Where was the shooter standing?”

Nap showed her. “The first cops on the scene figured that the shooter had just driven in and fired from his car or that maybe he’d parked and waited.”

“You’re not buying that?”

“It could be,” Nap said. “But my bet is the shooter came out from the woods. Look at this angle.”

Elena nodded.

“It’s possible,” Nap continued, “that the killer could have driven in earlier, parked, and then hidden in the woods. But I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Because there was only one other person here at the time of the shooting — the second victim, Ryan Bailey. Bailey doesn’t own a car. He takes the bus from the mall and walks.”

She glanced around, subtracted out the cop cars both marked and unmarked. “So when the first responders got here, were any cars in the lot other than Gorse’s?”

“None,” Nap said. “The lot was empty.”

Elena stood back up. “So if someone — say, the killer — drove in and parked in the lot, Gorse would have noticed it when he left.”

“Agree,” Nap said. “Damien Gorse is the owner. It’s closing time. If a strange car is in his lot, I think he’d walk over and check it out. Unless there was a getaway driver.”

Elena frowned. “Getaway driver?”

“I use all the cool cop lingo. Either way, we will go through all relevant nearby CCTV footage.”

“I understand one of the two victims called nine-one-one.”

“Ryan Bailey. The second victim.”

“What did he say on the call?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

Nap explained his working theory. The shooter kills Damien Gorse by the Ford Fusion. The shooter starts going through the dead man’s pockets; takes the money, the watch, the wallet; and he is pulling off Gorse’s jewelry when the door opens and Ryan Bailey comes out. Bailey sees what’s happening, runs back inside, hits the alarm, and hides in the closet.

Elena frowned.

“What?” Nap asked.

“Bailey sets off an alarm inside the tattoo parlor?”

Nap nodded. “The panic button is right near the back door.”

“Is it a silent alarm?” she asked.

“No.”

“Loud?”

“The alarm? Yeah. Really loud.”

Elena frowned again.

“What?”

“Show me,” she said.

“Show you what?”

“Inside. The closet where Ryan Bailey hid.”

Nap studied her for a moment. Then he handed her a pair of crime-scene gloves. She snapped them on. He did the same. They walked toward the back entrance.

“Full garbage bag,” Nap said, pointing to one lying split on the ground. “We figured Bailey came out to throw it in the dumpster.”

“And that was when he interrupted the robbery?”

“That’s our theory.”

Except it didn’t make sense.

Another cop handed them each a white crime-scene suit with footies. Elena slipped hers on over her suit. All white — they both looked like giant sperms. There were more white-covered lab guys inside. The closet was adjacent to the back door.

Elena frowned again.

“What?”

“It doesn’t add up.”

“Why not?”

“You figure Ryan Bailey came outside to throw away the garbage.”

“Right.”

“He spots our killer looting Gorse’s body.”

“Right.”

“So our perp didn’t know the kid was inside. That’s most likely.”

“I don’t know, probably. So what?”

“So Ryan Bailey goes outside. He spots the killer. He runs back in and hits the alarm. Then he hides in the closet.”

“Right.”

“And our killer is in hot pursuit, right?”

“Right.”

“So our killer follows him inside. The killer searches for him. All the while, this alarm is blaring.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Why?” she asked.

“What do you mean, why? Ryan Bailey had spotted the killer. He could identify him.”

“So our killer wanted to silence him?”

“Yes.”

“So that sort of rules out a professional hit job,” Elena said.

“How so?”

“Do you know any pro that wouldn’t have been wearing a ski mask or some kind of disguise? A pro would have run when the alarm went off. Because what could the kid tell us? A man wearing a ski mask killed his boss? That’s it. The only reason the killer would follow him in and kill him is that Ryan Bailey could identify him.”

Nap nodded. “Or maybe it was someone they both knew.”

“Either way,” Elena said, “I don’t think it fits in with my case. My guy would be a pro. He’d use a mask.”

“So what is your case?”

And then she spotted the computer on top of the counter. She didn’t know who Henry Thorpe had been in touch with — just that the communications came from an IP address and Wi-Fi located in this building.

Elena turned to Nap. “Can I take a look at that computer?”

Enid Corval and Simon were comfortably ensconced on the ripped fabric of a corner booth in this “private club.”

Simon had already put most of it together. Not about Aaron’s mother. He had no idea about that. But about this club. They were selling something out back. Drugs probably. This wasn’t a pub or bar. It was a private club. Different regulations. The inn was her front, her legitimacy, and probably where she laundered a lot of the money from here.