Mayes, Casey - A Deadly Row

“Then Zach had better get started. But there’s one condition, or we’re going straight home.”

“This used to be your home,” Grady said.

“That was before.”

“It wasn’t that long ago.”

“Trust me, it feels like a lifetime, and I don’t have any interest in ever coming back.”

He sat there and mulled it over, and then finally asked, “What’s the condition?”

“You have to take this seriously.”

“Okay.”

I looked closely at him. “What’s going on? We both know you don’t give up that easily.”

Grady shrugged. “Not unless it’s a battle I don’t want to win. I’ll ask Davis for protection, but it’s not going to be around the clock.”

“Then I’m sorry we couldn’t help.”

As I got up, he did, too. “Are you serious, Savannah? You’d just walk out on an old friend when he needs you the most?”

“I don’t have much choice. If you aren’t going to take steps to protect yourself, it puts even more pressure on Zach to figure out who your killer is, and it’s going to be hard enough for him to do without worrying about you.”

“Okay, I didn’t think of it that way.”

“Brighten up,” I said. “That’s why I’m here. Now, let’s go find my husband so we can tell him the good news.”

“I didn’t have a chance, did I?” Grady asked me as we went to the front door.

“That’s not true at all. You nearly lost us, but you managed to redeem yourself at the last second.”

“What can I say, I’m a clutch player.” He tossed his towel onto the kitchen counter and ran a comb through his hair as I opened the door. Zach was on the porch, in deep conversation with someone.

He held a finger up to us, and then said, “We’ll be right there.”

Before he even looked at Grady, he glanced at me and asked, “Did he agree?”

“Around the clock police protection until you find the killer,” I answered.

“Good enough. Let’s go.”

“Are you ready to go to the hotel?” Grady asked.

“No, there’s been another note from the killer. He put a picture in this one, too.”

If we’d had any chance of a pleasant conversation on the way to the police station, that information ruined it. I didn’t have any facts about the case, or how the killer operated, but then again, it wasn’t my job to solve the case. I was there for moral support, along with a prod every now and then if I thought my husband’s investigation was going off course. I considered myself Zach’s unpaid and extremely unofficial consultant.

And I liked that just fine myself. I had no desire for the limelight, or any credit for solving one of my husband’s cases, any more than I wanted his name on one of my puzzles, even if he did spot mistakes from time to time. Zach liked to solve puzzles, claiming they helped distract him from the cases he worked on, and he was my tester when I wasn’t sure about a puzzle I was ready to submit. Most of them went straight to my publisher, but every now and then I had Zach solve one to make sure I was playing fair. We were a team, both in our professions and in our marriage, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

And now we were going to try to find a killer before he had the chance to strike again.

Chapter 3

“YOU NEED TO SEE THIS,” DAVIS TOLD ZACH WHEN WEwalked into the police station. “It just showed up four minutes ago.”

“What is it?” I asked. Grady had waited around just long enough to be assigned a police officer as a bodyguard, and then he’d taken off for his office. We couldn’t convince him to lay low until Zach caught the killer, but he had to be safer at city hall than in his house, or worse yet, jogging alone on the streets of Charlotte.

“This is official police business,” Davis said.

“Zach’s not a cop anymore, either.”

“It’s different. He’s on the payroll.”

I looked at my husband, who was clearly getting impatient with this particular conversation. Zach just shrugged as he reached into his wallet and handed me a five dollar bill.

“What’s that for? Lunch? You’re not buying me off with a five, you know that, don’t you?”

“Don’t be thick, Savannah. That’s your fee as my assistant. You are now officially on the payroll.”

“Is this all I’m worth to you?” I couldn’t believe he’d handed me just a five. I was worth at least twice that.

“It’s just to cover our bases in case someone asks,” Zach explained.

“The five’s fine, then,” I said as I folded it and tucked it into my jeans. “Would you like a receipt for your tax records?”

“You can mail it to me,” he said as he turned to Davis. “Are you satisfied now?”

“She shouldn’t be involved in this, Zach. It’s too dangerous.”

I was about to reply when I saw my husband bite his lower lip. He was about to handle things just fine without any interference from me. “We’re a matched set, and you don’t break those up. I’ll protect her.”

“Hey, I can protect myself,” I protested.

No one even acknowledged that I had spoken.

“Maybe you’ll think twice about it after you see this,” Davis said.

He pulled a Polaroid snapshot out of his jacket pocket and showed it to Zach. It was safely tucked into a plastic evidence bag, and I steeled myself for whatever grizzly scene it portrayed. I could handle most things, but I still wasn’t thrilled with seeing graphic acts of violence captured on film.

Zach studied it for a long time, and then handed it back to Davis.

“Hey, I want to see that,” I said.

Zach thought about it, and then shrugged. “Show her.”

“I want to go on the record right now. This is not a good idea.”

“She has a right to know,” my husband said. At that point, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see what was in the picture anymore.

“Suit yourself,” Davis said as he handed it to me.

In an instant, I realized why Davis hadn’t wanted me to see the photograph, and my husband had.

It showed me crouching in the back of Grady’s truck, my arm extended through the open sliding window and vanishing behind the seat.

Whoever had taken it had been close enough to reach out and touch me.

WITHOUT REALIZING I’D DONE IT, I DROPPED THE PHOtograph, and it fluttered to the floor.

“Are you okay, Savannah?” Zach said as he wrapped one arm around me. “I should have warned you.”

“I’m fine,” I said, though I clearly wasn’t. I couldn’t shake the belief that I should have seen whoever had taken that snapshot. Why hadn’t I turned to see someone taking it? Could I have identified the killer, if I’d only had the foresight to look?

“Are you sure?”

“Zach, it’s okay. He just wanted to prove that he saw us looking for Grady. It’s not like he’s threatening me. Is it?” Another thought jumped into my head unbidden. Was it possible that whoever had taken that photo knew how close my husband and I were to the mayor? Could it be that he was planning to use our relationship to come after Grady, or was it just a coincidence that he’d captured me on film? Either way, I wasn’t too happy about it.

“How do we know this is from the killer?” I asked Davis.

He flipped the photo, and I saw that someone had carefully lettered “3A” in red magic marker. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“We were hoping your husband would be able to figure it out.”

Zach took the offered photograph again, studied the sequence, and then shook his head. “I don’t have a clue.”

“Why does that not comfort me?” I asked.

“Give me time, Savannah. You’re welcome to go back home until I figure this out. As a matter of fact, it might not be a bad idea. You’d be safer there.”