The Next Victim (Kali O'Brien series) Read online

John O’Brien pulled his Porsche GT3 into the Logan Foods garage and parked in his reserved space, nosing the bumper up to the sign that read executive vice president. The left side of his jaw was still numb from his morning visit to the dentist. He checked in the rearview mirror for drool, then brushed an errant speck of amalgam from his cheek before pulling his briefcase and jacket from the passenger seat.

  With a flicker of irritation, he noted that Reed Logan’s slot was empty. John had raced from the dentist’s to be in time for their one o’clock conference call with Goldman Sachs, and Reed wasn’t even back from lunch. Not surprising really, given Reed’s propensity for being late, but irksome all the same. At least A. J. Nash, their chief counsel, would be on hand for the call and probably better prepped than anyone else there.

  Skirting the main entrance to the building, John took the private, side doorway that led directly to the executive offices, thus saving himself a pro forma smile and cheery good morning to the layers of receptionists and clerical staff stationed along the public approaches. As he neared his office, he saw his secretary, Alicia, of the long scarlet nails, huddled at her desk with Reed’s secretary, whose knockout body made the state of her nails irrelevant. The two women were clutching wads of tissue and dabbing at their eyes. The latest boyfriend fiasco, John decided. There was at least one a month.

  “Oh, Mr. O’Brien,” Alicia wailed. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  Perhaps not a boyfriend problem, after all. A mishap at one of the stores maybe? That would explain Reed’s absence. John felt a knot of tension form in his chest. Things were dicey enough for him already with the board of directors.

  “I told you I’d be late,” John offered, in case Reed or A.J. had been ranting about his absence.

  “You haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “About Mrs. Winslow. It’s been on the news.”

  “Sloane? What about her?”

  Alicia choked back a sob. “She’s dead.”

  John’s mind reeled. It took a moment for the words to register.

  “Murdered,” Alicia explained.

  Reed’s secretary chimed in but John heard none of what she said. Heard nothing but the pounding of his own pulse in his ears. He gripped the edge of the desk to steady himself.

  Sloane, dead. Jesus.

  Suddenly, he realized that the women had stopped talking and were looking at him strangely. “Are you okay, Mr. O’Brien?” Alicia asked. “Maybe you should sit down.”

  “I’m fine.” He swallowed. “Just in shock, is all.”

  “We all are.”

  “How did it happen?” he asked.

  “She was at home. They think it happened sometime Tuesday night. Mr. Logan had to identify her”—Alicia’s eyes welled with tears—“her remains. She was shot in the head.”

  “Tuesday night?”

  Reed’s secretary nodded. “Mr. Logan called from home to tell us. He won’t be coming in today.”

  “No, of course not.” John felt as though the floor at his feet had given way. Mumbling something about canceling the conference call, he bolted for his private office, where he tumbled into his chair, then stared blankly at the wall in front of him.

  Sloane was dead.

  She’d been so alive when he’d left her that night—hotheaded and impatient as usual. A veritable tornado of edicts and complaints. How could she be dead?

  His mind flashed on an image of Sloane at fifteen. His freshman year at USC, John had gone home with Reed for Thanksgiving. Fraternity brothers, roommates, both so full of themselves their heads were the size of weather balloons.

  And Sloane hadn’t been the least impressed. “Strut and show,” she’d told her brother. “You’re a moron and so’s your friend.”

  She’d been a beauty in the making even then, despite the thick glasses, a mouthful of braces, and the perpetual scowl. John could see her, hip jutted to the side, arms crossed, railing against the evils of capitalism and narrow-minded people, which in Sloane’s adolescent mind encompassed ninety-nine percent of the country.

  By eighteen she’d shed the glasses and the braces, and much of the attitude. And John had learned she never scowled in bed.

  She’d more than scowled at him Tuesday, however. He cringed at the memory of their angry exchange. Their last exchange, he realized with horror.

  “Go rot in hell, Sloane.”

  She’d regarded him with her ocean-green eyes and lifted her chin ever so slightly. “Easy for you to say now. But that doesn’t change what is. The real question is, just how much of a bastard are you?”

  John pressed his palms against his eyes and tried not to think about the bombshell that had precipitated their argument. She’d been wrong about him. He wasn’t going to run away this time.

  He sat up straight and glanced at the time. Top of the hour. He flipped on the radio and waited through an excruciating five minutes of national news and weather before the newscaster got to the local headlines.

  “Police are confirming the murder of Sloane Logan Winslow and a second woman at the Winslow home in the Tucson foothills sometime Tuesday night. Mrs. Winslow was the vice-chairman of Logan Foods, a family-owned grocery chain with stores throughout the Southwest, and along with her brother, Reed Logan, held a controlling interest in the company. The identity of the second victim has not yet been released. The police have several leads but have named no suspects to date. With neighbors understandably nervous, police are cautioning vigilance, though they believe the attack may not have been random.”

  That was it. The newscaster moved on to other matters.

  John was numb. He knew he should go to Reed and offer condolences, but first he needed to get a handle on his own emotions. Shock, disbelief, sorrow—they roiled and churned inside him.

  And in the corner of his mind, something else. At first it was just a spark, come and gone before it really registered. Then, like a wildfire fueled by high winds, it consumed him.

  His name was bound to come up.

  He experienced a flutter of uneasiness in his stomach.

  Should he call Kali? His hotshot younger sister was a lawyer in California now. They could hardly be called close, but she wouldn’t turn her back on him. Still, he hated for her to think he’d gotten in touch only because he needed help.

  And he didn’t need help. Not yet.

  Finally, he buzzed Alicia and told her he was going to see Reed.

  <><><>

  Reed’s wife, Linette, answered John’s knock on the door of their sprawling Mediterranean-style home.

  “Am I intruding?” John asked. “I just heard about Sloane.”

  “No. I think it would do Reed good to see you.” Linette Logan stepped back, inviting John into the cool interior. She was in her early thirties, a dozen years younger than her husband, with a delicate face and a sleek cap of coal-black hair. Despite what must have been a difficult morning, she looked as though she’d taken time with her appearance. Her cotton shirt and khaki capris were fresh and crisp, the navy belt, earrings, and sandals well coordinated. Her lipstick was fresh, pink and glossy.

  “How’s he holding up?” John asked. He supposed he should offer Linette some sort of condolence, but truth was, he doubted she really cared that Sloane was dead. She’d never struck him as caring about anyone but herself.

  She made a so-so gesture with her hands. “I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet. Come on,” she said, leading the way. “He’s out back. Staining the gazebo.”

  “Staining the gazebo?”

  “Don’t ask. I think it’s his way of coping.”

  They stepped into the yard and John was taken, as he always was, by the sweeping vistas and the lushness of the landscaping. An English country garden transported to the Arizona desert.

  Reed was on his knees furiously slopping stain on the floorboards with a wide paintbrush. His thinning blond hair was plastered against his forehead and the back of his shirt was wet with perspiration.

&
nbsp; “Honey,” Linette said, “John’s here.” She paused uncertainly. “I’ll leave you two alone. Holler if you need anything.” Then she retreated to the house.

  Reed rocked back on his heels, wiping his brow with his freckled forearm. His long face showed streaks of the pigmented stain that never made it onto the deck. “It’s too damn hot to be working outside.”

  “Yeah, it is.” John cleared his throat. “I just heard the news. I was at the dentist’s this morning. I still can’t believe it.”

  “You and me both,” Reed replied gruffly. “It’s fucking incomprehensible.” Despite his protests about the heat, Reed dipped his brush into the can and continued working.

  John felt helpless. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “You’re here. That says a lot in itself. I mean that.”

  “Do you know what happened?”

  “All I know is some cop showed up here at the crack of dawn this morning. Told me Sloane had been murdered. Her and another woman, whom I suspect was Olivia Perez, the girl who cleaned for Sloane. I had to go down and identify Sloane’s body.” Reed tossed the brush angrily against the corner post and stood up. His tall, angular frame seemed suddenly frail. “It was awful,” he said. “Worse than you can imagine.”

  What John imagined was bad enough. He felt a tremor. “Why did it happen? Do they have any idea? The radio made it sound like it wasn’t part of a burglary.”

  Reed shook his head and shrugged at the same time. “They haven’t shared much with me. A Detective Shafer came by a little bit ago and asked more questions. Was she romantically involved with anyone? Who might have reason to want her dead? Did she do drugs? Was she into anything kinky? That kind of crap. Wouldn’t tell me a damn thing except to say he was sorry for my loss. Like that’s supposed to make me feel better.”

  “I imagine at this point they don’t know a whole lot themselves.”

  Reed sighed, wiping his hands on his pants. “No, I suppose not. Although there was apparently a neighbor who saw a car he didn’t recognize parked at the house that evening.”

  “That’s something, I guess.” John felt a disquieting flutter in his gut.

  “They asked about the business, too,” Reed said hesitantly. He was silent a moment. “I had to tell them Sloane wanted you gone. They were bound to hear about it sooner or later.”

  “It’s hardly a secret that we had different visions for the company’s growth,” John said. Sloane had been outspoken in her lobbying to get him removed, and he knew the cops would see motive written in neon letters. That only fueled the uneasiness churning inside him.

  “Still, I didn’t like having to tell them.”

  John nodded. “We may have been like oil and water, but deep down I loved her like a sister.”

  “Not always like a sister,” Reed pointed out with what, under other circumstances, would have been a laugh. “Come on, let’s move inside, where it’s cool.”

  They settled in the rear-facing family room, and Reed pulled two icy bottles of beer from the wet bar. “Sometimes I wish things had worked out between you two,” he said. “You’d have made a hell of a better brother-in-law than the smartass she married.”

  “We were young,” John offered lamely. Although it was more complicated than that, of course. More complicated than either of them had understood at the time.

  “Ha. You were stupid. Screwing her best friend behind her back. Geez, I still can’t believe you did that.”

  John held up his hands in mock surrender. “I was a cad. I admit it. Sloane deserved better.” And she sure as hell didn’t deserve to be murdered.

  “Remember how she used to go off on tangents?” Reed chuckled. “There was that vegan period, and then the phase where she wouldn’t buy anything that wasn’t used, recycled, or day old.”

  “Don’t forget her crusade to save some damn endangered mouse.” John started to laugh, then caught himself. “God, I can’t believe it.”

  Reed nodded glumly, staring at his beer. “She could be a pain in the butt sometimes. Especially after she moved back to Tucson and decided to get involved in the company. But she was still family. Siblings are funny like that. You can argue till you’re blue in the face, but there’s always a bond.”

  “Maybe in your case.” John and his sisters didn’t fight. They hardly even talked. Well, he and Sabrina talked or, rather, she talked and he listened, getting a word in edgewise when he could. But he and Kali might as well live on different planets. Kali was a lot like Sloane, now that he thought about it. Both of them controlling and critical. Smart and attractive women, good women really, as long as your paths didn’t cross too often. Or maybe the fault was within him. They’d both pointed that out often enough.

  It didn’t used to bother him, but as he’d gotten older he’d come to regret not having closer family ties. He just didn’t know how to bridge the distance, or if, at this point, it was even possible.

  “With you, too,” Reed insisted. “If you needed them, they’d be there.”

  John hoped Reed was right. He might just be approaching an honest-to-God test of the theory.

  “Sloane told me the two of you were going to have dinner Tuesday night,” Reed said.

  So the cops would know about that, too. “It wasn’t a big deal,” John said. “We went out after work. I was home by ten.” After he’d stormed out of the restaurant in anger. John felt that flutter in his belly again. There was sure to be someone who’d witnessed their argument.

  “Funny, you guys having dinner.” Reed started to grin; then his face crumpled. “Ah, shit, John. All the times I wished she’d just go away, and now she has. Forever.”

  Reed leaned forward, forearms on his knees. His shoulders trembled. “I appreciate your coming by but I need to be alone right now.”

  “Sure.” John was never comfortable with physical displays but he felt like something was called for, so he gripped Reed’s upper arm briefly. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

  In the car, John closed his eyes and sighed. Then he pulled out his cell phone and called his sister Kali. It had been much too long since he’d talked to her. Besides, he knew it was only a matter of time before he’d need her help.

  Chapter 3

  Kali O’Brien awoke to sunlight so bright and intense it was blinding, even with her eyes shut. She rolled onto her side, used the top of her sleeping bag as a shield, and gingerly opened one eye. Then she smiled at the beauty of the morning. The sun was just rising over the mountain peaks, illuminating the dew on the meadow and transforming the muted grays of dawn into full color. The crisp morning air was fresh and scented with pine. All around her, the birds welcomed the day with song.

  She leaned over and shook Bryce’s shoulder.

  “Huh? What?” He opened his eyes, then quickly squeezed them shut. “Geez, turn off the light.”

  “It’s the sun, silly. It’s morning.”

  Bryce grunted and glanced at this watch. “Barely. And it’s freezing.”

  He was right about the temperature. Kali’s breath came out in puffs of steam. At 7,500 feet, the late September nights and mornings were chilly even when the days weren’t.

  “Did you sleep well?” Bryce asked.

  “Like a log. How about you?”

  “Ditto. And I’m not finished.” He offered a half smile, then rolled over and buried his head under his pillow.

  Kali gave thought to tickling him awake, which she’d likely have done if they’d been inside in the comfort of a bed instead of outdoors wrapped in separate bags. In truth, she wasn’t eager to brave the nippy air herself.

  Three days into this vacation and she was still trying to figure out if she was enjoying herself. A friend of Bryce’s had offered them use of his rustic, one-room cabin at the edge of the Desolation Wilderness in the California Sierra. She’d been skeptical. No electricity, no running water, no plumbing, no beds—it hadn’t sounded like much of a vacation. And no way was she a fan of desolate. But Bryce had
been so eager, regaling her with stories of Boy Scout camping trips from his youth, that she’d relented. She wasn’t exactly a novice to the out-of-doors, after all. And in the wake of her last big trial and subsequent brush with death, she was desperately in need of time away.

  They’d arrived late Wednesday afternoon and Kali had fallen in love with the place immediately. It was far from desolate. Pine forests, meadows, streams, a jewel of a lake. No motorboats or Jet Skis, only the quiet of canoes, kayaks, and tiny sailboats. The lake and surrounding cabins sat in a basin at the foot of a mountain range whose granite peaks were still dotted, albeit sparsely, with snow. She’d discovered the lack of electricity was a small price to pay for such natural beauty, and that a bucket of well water went a long way.

  It wasn’t the surroundings that gave her pause, but Bryce himself. Kali’s idea of a vacation was having time to unwind. Give her a swimsuit, a body of swimmable water, sunshine, and a good book, and she was in hog heaven. Bryce, it turned out, didn’t know the meaning of the word relax. He’d morphed into a camp director the minute they’d arrived and hadn’t taken a break since. So far, Kali had managed only one quick dip in the lake and two chapters of the mystery novel she’d been saving especially for a stretch of time when she could devour it.

  She was discovering a whole new side to the man, and it didn’t always sit well with her. She’d known from the beginning that they were different. A homicide detective and a defense attorney. A broad-shouldered hunk with a reputedly well-worn “little black book,” and a slender brunette who didn’t know how to trust. A man who was sometimes a bit too brash, who lived a smidgen too close to the edge, and a hard-nosed woman who’d been told more than once that she was rigid and relentless. But the chemistry had been strong enough to overcome the differences. For the most part, it still was, though Kali would have gladly traded a few steamy kisses for an hour or two of lollygagging on the sandy beach.

  Moreover, Bryce’s skills as a woodsman weren’t quite what he remembered. The wood fire that had smoked them out of the cabin the first evening was definite proof.