Karen Harper - Chasing Shadows

Police pushed everyone back, wound some police tape between a courthouse pillar and two royal palms. He watched the second rescue squad bend over the dead man, feel for a pulse, then stand, whispering, shaking their heads. One guy got on his cell, probably to the ME. A police officer of the growing number of them covered Fred Myron with a body bag, but they didn’t move him yet.

They were getting ready to move her already, Claire Fowler Britten, the sharp little expert who had done his case in with her clever questioning of Sorento’s family and her steady testimony he couldn’t shake. He wanted her for that.

He let Sean carry his briefcase and started dazedly toward the parking garage before he saw that was being cordoned off, too. He got only a few steps before one of the officers hurried up and asked, “Did you see the shooter, counselor? Anything that would help?”

“Nothing. I was going to talk to her—the forensic psychologist. Tell her she’d done a good job. I—I was looking at her. I saw her go down from the shot, tried to help her.”

“You did. They’re taking her to the hospital downtown.”

“Did they say she’ll be okay?”

“We’ll know soon. We’ve got to notify Mr. Myron’s next of kin, then notify hers. It’s bad when NOK learn things from the media, and they’re all over here.”

“You know I’m available if you have more questions,” Nick said.

He had already checked out where Claire lived, an attached villa in the Lakewood area, evidently so she could be near her younger sister, Darcy, who did her daughter’s child care. He’d researched Claire’s family, education, marital status. Divorced for a year with a four-year-old daughter. Her ex, Jason “Jace” Britten, was an international airline co-pilot living in Los Angeles and sometimes Singapore, though he kept an apartment here in Naples. Nick had wanted to move on his plan—on her, but this was sure screwing up his schedule. Claire Fowler Britten might have gotten the best of him in the courtroom, but he had to get the best out of her and soon.

* * *

Jace Britten yawned and stretched out in the backseat of the taxi as it pulled away from Changi Airport where he’d just left the Airbus after an eighteen-and-one-half-hour flight from LAX. A great airport here, a great destination where he spent his time when he wasn’t in LA or making a quick trip home to see Lexi. Smooth flight as usual with a pilot he liked, but, as first officer, he was always itching to get into the captain’s seat.

He glanced down at the three stripes circling the sleeves of his uniform jacket on the seat beside him, and thought about Claire. When he’d gotten this promotion, the two of them had celebrated at Stoney’s Restaurant, and the next day at McDonald’s with Lexi. Slender, like her mother, that little kid could put food away but never seemed to gain weight. He hoped like hell that was all his girl had inherited from Claire.

He tried to put his past life—and past wife—out of his thoughts. She’d betrayed him, though not by being unfaithful. A woman with a career exposing liars had lied to him, hid things, and he couldn’t take that. Absolutely unacceptable. He’d have tried to take Lexi if the child hadn’t been so close to her mother and her aunt Darcy, if he hadn’t always had wanderlust for exotic places and Claire had argued that Singapore or even LA wasn’t the place to rear a child. Hell, Singapore was just a foreign version of Naples: heat and humidity, tourism, traffic, beaches, great restaurants, crocs instead of gators—that’s all, if you ignored the mosques and Buddhist temples.

“Very nice day,” his taxi driver said. “No monsoons yet in ‘Garden City.’”

“I like the nickname ‘fine city’ for this place,” Jace told him, partly to head off the next punch line he figured was coming. “A six-hundred-dollar fine for littering, a twelve-hundred-dollar fine for speeding.”

“I not speeding. No, sir.”

So much for that conversation. English might be the main language here, but the place was a real scramble of people, just like the mix of skyscrapers and sampans they drove past right now.

At his favorite, familiar hotel on busy Orchard Road, he paid his fare, hefted his small bag and walked past the gorgeous garden with flowers and a fountain. Under the spray of water was a statue of the so-called merlion, the mythical beast that was the symbol of the tourism industry here. Its top half was a lion and the bottom half a fish. A couple of years ago, when he’d taken a stuffed merlion home to Lexi, she’d insisted on calling it Lion King Little Mermaid from her two favorite Disney movies at that time.

Ginger at the desk saw him coming, smiled and winked, then handed him a key card and a note. Call Darcy, it read.

His stomach flip-flopped, especially when he remembered he hadn’t even taken his phone out of airplane mode after the flight. What if something was wrong—really wrong?

He hurried to his usual room and linked into the hotel Wi-Fi. He looked at his list of numbers, Claire’s at the top. Once a week, he Skyped with Lexi and Claire just to keep in touch with Lexi. He hit the line with his former sister-in-law’s cell number. Darcy answered right away.

“Darcy, it’s Jace in Singapore. What’s up? Everyone okay?”

“I thought you should know Claire had an accident so they won’t be Skyping with you tonight.”

His voice rose with his pulse rate. “An accident with Lexi in the car?”

“No, not exactly an accident. Someone shot her in the arm, coming out of the courthouse after that trial which she—they—won. I still have Lexi, so don’t worry. It’s just that it got a lot of publicity here, and I thought you might stumble on it in the news somehow.”

Claire hurt. That hit him so hard it scared him.

“In the arm. Is she okay? How bad is it?”

“I don’t really know yet, but not life-threatening. Just a day or two in Naples Hospital. They want to be sure infection doesn’t set in. And they haven’t found the shooter, who killed her boss—you know, from that insurance company—and they aren’t yet sure who was the intended victim.”

Jace swore under his breath. Just like Darcy to hold back the worst news. Claire’s boss was shot to death? Why did Claire insist on being in this type of business? Why didn’t she just stick to online consulting? She was just looking for trouble, hanging around shady characters like frauds and liars. Damn, it took one to know one, so no wonder she was good at that.

“Jace, are you there?”

“Yeah. So they didn’t get the shooter?”

“Escaped. The theory is it was a member of that Italian Sorento family that won’t be getting the millions in death benefits. They’re thick as thieves.”

“Did Claire ask you to call me?”

“Yes. Yes, she did. And I told Lexi a version of events. Steve took her and our two to get ice cream so she’s not here right now.”

“I’m not scheduled to fly back to LA for two days this time. I’ll check in, though, try to change off. Maybe I can get a jump seat back sooner.”

“I’ll take good care of Lexi. It’s not a crisis. Claire’s done with that case. Nothing dangerous on the horizon, and this was just that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Yeah,” he said, fighting to keep his voice level. “Tell the little mermaid I love her, okay?”

“Sure. She misses you, Jace, wants you back.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” he said and ended the call. Though he fought it hard, as hurt and angry as he still was, he wished she’d said that about Claire.

2

Claire’s wounded arm hardly hurt at all, that is, until she tried to move it or her shoulder. Then, too, she was on pain pills. Despite this accident—this assault—she was blessed it wasn’t worse.