Price of Innocence Read online

  Landis took the closed photo album out of his hands. Belichek consciously eased his hold to keep from hanging on.

  “Jamison Chancellor is a pile of bones in a box or, actually, in a drawer. This—” Landis hefted the album on one palm. “—is not Jamison Chancellor. And getting hung up on what’s left of her is dangerous.”

  Belichek looked at his partner, unflinching. “I don’t care if you are sharing a bed with that shrink, don’t give me that psycho-babble.”

  “Actually, I’m trying to get out of bed with her. But you didn’t think it was psycho-babble when you told me about your grandfather, and how he got about one case until he was like that guy in the movie who got obsessed with a victim. If you look in the mirror, that’s what’ll stare back at you.”

  “I’m not my grandfather.”

  “Can you honestly tell me you’re not hung up on this victim?”

  “I can tell you I’m hung up on doing my job and that’s all that counts.”

  Landis stared back for another beat. Then he tossed the album about two inches above his palm and pulled his hand out, letting it fall to the floor with a thud. Belichek didn’t blink.

  “Okay.” His partner stood, shifting his hips and slightly flexing his knees so his pants fell into place. “But you can’t do the job this time, because you’re on vacation. So, go get yourself laid.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Belichek picked up a particular journal, feeling an odd reluctance to open it. Knowing it would take him deep into Jamison Chancellor’s childhood and the innocence she’d carried into adulthood.

  In the later journals it was clear to him that her work for the foundation served as a shield against the trauma of her aunt’s murder. In that way, she seemed luckier than Mags or Ally.

  Although meeting Ally today it was hard to tell what came from childhood trauma and what from living with what happened to her husband.

  He opened the journal. Why re-read it now? It wouldn’t tell him who killed Jamie. He flipped to the back, as if he needed to confirm that it brought him to the end of the school year before that fateful summer — that fatal summer for Vivian Frye.

  She’d thought she’d met the love of her life.

  He’d certainly been the last love of her life.

  Impatient, he flipped the bulk of the pages to the right, taking him to the beginning.

  He’d read his way through more than a month, his hand poised to flip to the next page.

  A sound.

  It came from below. Not an old house settling. Too deliberate … connected … for that.

  This was why he’d told Mags to put off changing the locks. On the chance the person with the keys came back.

  He’d hoped…

  But there was something off about this.

  Quiet. Yet not stealthy. Too relaxed. Not Landis.

  Someone coming up the back stairs. At the second floor already.

  Still holding the journal open, he got his gun out. Ready, but out of sight. And checked the time. Two minutes before two a.m.

  Maybe Landis and Palery were right about his needing a vacation if he’d missed hearing someone coming in and starting up these old stairs.

  Then, the person had left the second floor and was ascending the last flight to this level.

  Partway up the flight of stairs, the top of a woman’s head came into view. More. A face. Not looking up, like she would if she suspected or expected someone up here.

  Then, visible from the waist up, a tote in one hand, heavy enough to require her hand on the railing to balance, she looked up, a frown rippling her forehead.

  With him sitting and her on the stairs, they were nearly eye-to-eye across the open space of the landing.

  The world tipped and narrowed. It felt like somebody pumped anesthetic into his bloodstream, like when he had that bullet taken out.

  He’d fought it then, not knowing if he’d come back.

  He fought it now, not knowing if she’d come back.

  “Jamie.”

  Her eyes widened, then she heaved the tote toward him, turned, and ran down the stairs.

  * * * *

  With her head start and needing to detour around the tote, he had to make up ground.

  He almost caught her at the archway to the small room with the antique desk, but he skidded wide and lost time getting his feet back under him.

  She had a phone out.

  She had her phone?

  She punched numbers, shouting, “Police! Police!”

  “I am the police. Jamie! I’m a cop.”

  Manipulating the phone slowed her enough that he caught her left arm, trying to pull her around. She threw a purse at him. Her purse. He ducked and it glanced off the side of his neck, but he didn’t release his hold on her. They spun around in the small space.

  “Stop. I’m the police!”

  With his free hand he dug for his badge.

  She kneed him. Right on target. And hard. Real hard.

  The world didn’t tip this time, it slid, straight into hell. Fire and brimstone rose through his gut into his throat.

  Through the haze he held on, but she dragged him along with her, his hand crashed against the doorframe as she ran into the glassed-in porch, and she used the doorframe edge to peel his fingers away, then locked the door. She’d taken her only exit, but they’d padlocked the porch’s exterior door to the patio and he was between her and access to either the back or front doors. She had no escape.

  Fighting the haze, he saw her rattling the door, expecting it to open, taken aback by the padlock.

  She picked up a wrought iron plant stand, obviously intending to break one of the glass panels.

  The motion sensor light on the patio came on.

  Anyone looking out from the second story of the three neighboring houses could see something was going on. Not a clear view. But even an obstructed view might be enough to recognize Jamison Chancellor.

  He wasn’t working out every step in his head, but he damned well knew he wanted to avoid that.

  “Jamie, I’m a cop! I won’t hurt you!”

  Still partly bent, he dug out his badge and held it up to the glass that separated them.

  She didn’t swing the plant stand, but she didn’t put it down, either. From the far side of the glassed-in porch — which didn’t offer her much protection if he’d broken the glass between them — she looked at the badge.

  “How do I know it’s not a fake?”

  “Call police headquarters. The number’s—”

  “No, I’ll get the number myself.”

  She not only took that precaution, she used the speaker-phone. That left her hands free. She put down the plant stand, but from the top of its twin, she picked up a ceramic pot holding an orange mum.

  It wasn’t a .45, but it wouldn’t do his skull any good if he broke the glass and she used it.

  She called information, and then she had the call put through to the number they gave. He could hear her fine because she was raising her voice for the speaker phone. He did the same so she’d hear him through the glass.

  “Ask for homicide.”

  Her eyes flashed to his, big and startled, but she didn’t argue. “Homicide, please.”

  “Ask for Detective Landis. Ask him if Ford Belichek is a homicide detective.”

  She followed both steps.

  “Yeah,” his partner said. “As of right now he is.”

  Landis’ voice came through a little tinny, but clear enough for Belichek to hear the undercurrent of irritation. He wondered if she heard it. Or if she’d noticed Landis’ wording. Chances were, she wasn’t paying much attention to nuances.

  “Can you give me a description, please?”

  “A description? Listen, lady, I don’t—” The rush of impatient words ended abruptly. There was no click that Belichek could hear.

  “Hello? Mr. Land—”

  “By God, he finally listened to me.”

  “Pardon?”

  �
��So, you met Belichek and he told you he’s a homicide detective and you decided to check it out, huh?” The voice over the phone line had turned teasing and friendly. “Wouldn’t you know Belichek would pick a suspicious one. So, what do you want to know? A description? Let’s see…”

  She showed no reaction to Landis’ assumption of how she’d encountered Belichek. She listened intently to the APB-type description Landis gave, her eyes checking the six-foot height, hundred and ninety-five pounds, brown hair, gray eyes.

  He stood still, as straight as he could, and looked back.

  She looked like her pictures, and nothing like them. Not even the videos had captured her, not all of her. It missed her presence, the full reality of her flesh and bone. The curve of her hip in worn jeans, the jut of her elbow pushing at a pale yellow sleeve.

  Or maybe it had been his own mind that had subtracted something from those images, knowing the person they represented was dead.

  Only she wasn’t.

  She was alive. She was here.

  Jamie.

  “…and when my mother’s describing him to her friends,” Landis wrapped up, “she always mentions he’s got dimples when he’s teasing somebody.”

  “There’s been no occasion to observe that,” Jamie Chancellor said.

  She must be relaxing to say that. Good.

  “As for scars and distinguishing marks,” the telephone voice went on, “he’s got a beaut on his right hip — that’s not something my mother tells her friends, but I thought you might want to be on the lookout.”

  “I doubt that situation will arise, either.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about things arising, I think that’ll take care of itself.”

  The last sound Belichek heard before the line went dead was Landis’ wicked chuckle. Nice to know his partner thought so highly of him.

  Jamison Chancellor let her arms straighten, lowering the pot.

  “You’re really a cop.”

  “I’m really a cop.”

  “You’re a homicide detective.”

  “I’m a homicide detective.”

  She drew in a deep breath. “Okay, so you are who you say you are. What are you doing in my house?”

  “First things first. Let’s get on the same side of the door.” He pulled a key ring from his pocket and selected the right one on the first try.

  She didn’t move forward but she did put down the pot, if only to put her hands on her hips. “If you had the key, why didn’t you open the door?”

  “Because you would have broken the glass and kept running. One of the things a good cop learns is when not to chase.”

  “So what is a good cop — or any cop — doing here? In my house?”

  “Investigating a homicide.”

  “Someone was murdered? Here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “You.”

  She stared at him. Not because she didn’t understand, but because she was looking it over, considering the possibilities. He liked that.

  “You might be a good cop, but you’ve made a huge mistake—”

  He shook his head. “No mistake. I’m investigating your murder. The murder of Jamison Chancellor.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  He deliberately held off on the questions pounding in his head.

  There was a more important factor.

  She shivered, and he handed her the quilted throw from where it was folded on the back of the upholstered chair in the corner of the first-floor office.

  He’d settled her there when he moved her away from the glass porch, in case someone entered the back gate. No one could see her from the front window, either.

  They kept the curtains closed, but he wasn’t risking that someone could see — or photograph — through a crack.

  He finished telling her the bare outlines of the case, an extremely condensed version, in the mode of the driest report he’d ever written. Just enough to get her to cooperate.

  His mind was working hard now, taking him down a path he’d never have believed a day ago.

  Then again, he’d never have believed he’d be looking at a very much alive Jamison Chancellor, either.

  “It goes on the arm,” she said.

  “What?”

  “The throw. It belongs over the arm, not the back.”

  “Sorry. Things get put back after collecting evidence, but doesn’t all get back to the right place.”

  “It’s okay. You had no way of knowing.” She tucked the throw around herself. She’d drawn her legs up on the overstuffed chair, so all that showed of her was from the shoulders up.

  Cold. Delayed reaction, Belichek decided.

  She’d done no crying, showed no sign of hysterics, but he could tell the surge of adrenaline that had carried her flight through the house to the porch had ebbed, leaving numbed shock in its wake.

  He had to ask a few questions to avoid potential landmines.

  “Where were you, Jamie?”

  Her eyelids flickered, maybe at his using her name. Maybe not. “A cabin in North Carolina, writing a book.”

  “North Carolina?” Not Pennsylvania. Where she’d gone the other times. Where Maggie, the people at the Sunshine Foundation, and her parents all said they thought she was.

  “Mmm-hmm. A friend let me use a family cabin.”

  A friend who hadn’t come forward. Or hadn’t mentioned the loan of the cabin when they were questioned.

  Who? But that wasn’t one of the urgent questions yet.

  “How’d you get back here?”

  “My friend’s truck. I drove straight through. Once I started, I wanted to sleep in my own bed.”

  “Did anybody see you when you arrived?”

  “Here? Tonight? I don’t think so. People are in bed by this time. What difference does that make?”

  It could make all the difference. “You didn’t talk to anybody, didn’t see anybody you knew?”

  “No. I got my stuff out of the truck, let myself in and… You.”

  She had faded blue shadows under her eyes. Her shoulders sagged. Her mouth drooped.

  She was beautiful.

  “You have a phone.”

  She brought her hand out from under the throw and looked at the device, as if she’d forgotten she held it. “Yes.”

  “But there’s no SIM card in it.”

  “Sure there is or I couldn’t use it.”

  “We’ve been trying to track your phone.”

  Her eyes flared a second with realization. “You mean my regular phone? I left that here. This is my cabin phone.”

  “Explain that.”

  “I leave my regular phone here and take this one with for emergencies.”

  “Why—?” No, he knew why she left her regular phone at home. To avoid interruptions. He also knew this meant her phone had probably been taken along with the other electronics and silver. That could all wait. “You didn’t contact anybody while you were out of town? Using that phone or any other?”

  “No, I never do on these trips.”

  “No call to family, no text to a friend? Nothing on social media?”

  “No. The whole idea is to cut myself off from all that, from the world, and get work done. If I could do that around my family and friends, I’d stay here. But I don’t have the discipline. This seems the only way to do it.”

  “You’ve done this before?”

  She nodded, the motion slightly jerking. “Three times.”

  “Those other times — same place?” He knew the answer. He wanted to hear it from her.

  “A different cabin the other times. In Pennsylvania.”

  Her eyes went to the built-in bookcase that had once held her TV and more. He stayed silent, waiting for her reaction to the losses, but she was looking at the photo back in its rightful spot.

  “The person who was killed…”

  “A woman.”

  “Oh. But that means… Somebody was in my house? Living here?” She sounded out the wor
ds as if trying to make sense of them. “How did they get in?”

  A damned good question. “We don’t know. To be clear about this, did you give permission to anyone to stay in your house while you were gone?”

  “No.” Her gaze came around to his face. “I would have told you right away if I had, if I thought I knew who…”

  The clothes in the closet, the ones Ally hadn’t recognized, but thought they could be new or Jamie’s work clothes. But if they weren’t…?

  That had to wait, too.

  “Who has your key?”

  “Imogen, my parents, my cousins — Maggie and Ally. That’s—” The recognition of why he asked the question intersected with her own thought process of who might have been in her house. Her mouth gaped with horror. “Ally. My cousin Ally—”

  “It wasn’t her.” He used the tone his grandfather had taught him. Authoritative, no sliver of doubt, yet quiet. “I’ve seen her. Maggie and I have seen her, talked to her. Wasn’t any of the others you mentioned, either. Why would you think it was your cousin Ally?”

  She breathed hard for maybe twenty seconds.

  “Her husband, Chad…”

  “The cop who was shot, in a coma.”

  “Yes. Sometimes … she needs a break. A rest.” Her eyes flickered. “But … but then who was it? Who was killed?”

  “We don’t know. Not anymore. We’ll have to start from zero. Dental records, medical records. Same things we’d tried to get a positive ID it was you.”

  “Oh.” She was grasping details around the edge of the lack of identification, but not the issue at its core. “Oh, dear. How—? But, you can’t.”

  “Your medical records? We know. No hope of a dental match, either.” He slid past that. “We were hoping for the medical records, but there was a fire at your doctor’s and that’s delayed things. DNA’s in progress.”

  “His office called after the fire. My medical records are all gone. I was telling my friends at work about that this summer.”

  She was latching onto things that were part of her previous life. Ordinary things. Things she understood. She didn’t realize the significance of what she’d said, but he did.