Deadly Sins Read online

  Stacy M. Jones

  Deadly Sins

  First published by Stacy M. Jones 2018

  Copyright © 2018 by Stacy M. Jones

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Stacy M. Jones asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  Stacy M. Jones has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

  Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

  First edition

  This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

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  For Mom for her constant support and encouragement

  Contents

  Acknowledgement

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  CHAPTER 71

  CHAPTER 72

  CHAPTER 73

  CHAPTER 74

  CHAPTER 75

  CHAPTER 76

  CHAPTER 77

  CHAPTER 78

  CHAPTER 79

  CHAPTER 80

  CHAPTER 81

  CHAPTER 82

  CHAPTER 83

  CHAPTER 84

  CHAPTER 85

  CHAPTER 86

  CHAPTER 87

  CHAPTER 88

  CHAPTER 89

  CHAPTER 90

  EPILOGUE

  About the Author

  Also by Stacy M. Jones

  Acknowledgement

  Special thanks to my family and friends who were all a source of support and encouragement throughout this process. Thank you to my early readers whose feedback was invaluable. Sharon Aponte, a wonderfully skilled and patient graphic designer, a huge thank you. To the countless detectives, prosecutors, child protective case workers, forensic nurses, and medical examiners I’ve worked cases with over the years, your insight, expertise and experience was my early classroom and on-the-job training that laid the groundwork for this novel even to be written. Any law enforcement procedural mistakes are my own.

  CHAPTER 1

  I SHOULDN’T HAVE COME BACK to Little Rock, Arkansas. It was nothing but a city of unfinished business for me, and this was a fool’s errand. The call that brought me here came three nights ago at two in the morning. On the nightstand next to my bed, my ringing cellphone woke me from sound sleep to awake in seconds flat. I am not a heavy sleeper as it is, and the ringing phone cut through the silence of my slumber. Four words were all it took for me to drop my entire life in New York, pack a bag, leave my yellow lab Dusty at my mother’s, and board a flight to Little Rock.

  I let myself believe I was putting up a good resistance about coming back here, but all he had to say was that he needed my help. A stronger woman wouldn’t have even taken his calls. A simple quick trip were the delusional words I told myself as I drove to the airport and boarded my Southwest flight. Truthfully, there was nothing simple about the man on the other end of the phone that night or his request.

  It was long turbulent flight from New York, and I was happy to have had an easy check-in at the downtown Marriott, formerly the Peabody Hotel. I’d had more than one night of misplaced passion at this place.

  After a refreshing shower, I now stood barefoot with a simple emerald green tee-shirt on and jeans riding low on my ample hips. I blinked several times at my reflection in the hotel’s bathroom mirror while I struggled to tame my long auburn hair and throw on just enough make-up to look presentable. Once finished, I took another good long look at my reflection. Not bad. But I knew I was unprepared, and there wasn’t much I could do about that. As a licensed private investigator, it’s the worst feeling I could have.

  I swiped some tinted lip gloss across my lips just as three loud raps reverberated against the hotel room door. I put the lip gloss back in my makeup bag, gave my reflection one last half-hearted smile and took a deep breath. I walked to the door to let in my visitor. I didn’t even have to look through the peep hole. I knew who was standing there. I also knew there was no turning back.

  “They found a woman’s body, Riley. She’s in the river, right down the road behind the River Market Pavilions,” George Brewer barked as he brushed past me into my room. He had an edge in his voice I had never heard before. He looked awful.

  This was the first I had laid eyes, or anything else, on him in two years. He definitely looked older than his forty years and heavier than when we dated. His face round and belly swollen. At five-ten, he was only three inches taller than I was. The rumpled blue Oxford and pleated khakis he was wearing didn’t do him any favors. His face sported a few days old dark stubble, and the dark hair on his head had thinned.

  Is it wrong that I’m glad he looks like terrible? Isn’t that every woman’s best hope? You get dumped. You see him again, and he looks like dreadful. But most ex-girlfriends aren’t private investigators called into a missing person’s case to find the very woman who was the cause of the aforementioned breakup. As I said, I shouldn’t be here.

  His wife Maime has been missing for fi
ve days. Vanished. Gone. No one has seen or heard from her. The police and her family suspect George, of course. They always do when a wife goes missing. Husbands generally have means, motive and opportunity. I was sure George had all three. When it came to Maime, there were times I had all three. Luckily, I was in New York when she disappeared. George broke our very comfortable two-year silent stalemate to ask me for help. That, in itself, was the act of a desperate man. The last time we had spoken, it hadn’t ended well.

  “I know, George. I got Cooper’s text when I landed,” I said in response to George’s abrupt entrance. Cooper Deagnan, a local private investigator and a great friend, was going to be my saving grace in this situation, running interference between George and me. He just didn’t know it yet.

  “Is it Maime?” George asked as he paced small circles around my room. He always did that when he was nervous.

  I moved from the door, walked past George without touching him, and planted myself in the desk chair at the far end of the room.

  “No, Cooper didn’t seem to think so. Maime’s blonde and this woman had dark brown hair. I believe she’s taller than Maime.”

  George stopped pacing. He let out a long sigh and sat on the edge of the bed. His arms lay limp at his sides. He looked defeated. George looked over at me and made eye contact for the first time since he barged into my room. His dark eye bore into mine. It was a long intense stare. He searched my face for what I don’t know. Pity? Anger? Love? I broke eye contact and looked away.

  When George finally spoke, he said with an edge of annoyance, “Tell me again why Cooper has to be involved.”

  “I have no authority to investigate here,” I explained matter of fact. “My private investigation license is only good in New York. Cooper’s licensed here. He’ll be the primary investigator.”

  I didn’t like having to run my investigations with anyone, but if I had to pick, Cooper would do.

  George stood up and ran a hand down his face. He pointed at me and said with anger in his voice, “I trust you. I don’t trust him.” Then he paused and looked a bit uncertain but said softer, “You know this could get delicate.”

  “Delicate?” I asked with my eyebrows raised.

  “You know, given our history.” George deadpanned, as if I’d forgotten.

  “We went over this. You want me. You got him. I trust him. That’s all that matters.” In our relationship, George was accustomed to getting his own way. I wasn’t in that place anymore.

  “Have you heard anything more? Any signs of her?” I asked.

  Let’s face it, all I really knew of Maime was that she was all drama. Who fights so hard to keep a cheating man? I never understood it.

  “Nothing. The last I saw her or talked to her was Friday morning. We were both headed to work.”

  “George, we both know Maime has taken off before. Did something happen?”

  He stared at me with a blank expression on his face, but I knew he knew exactly what I meant. When Maime found out about me, there was a storm that raged on for weeks. When I found out about her, I walked away.

  But she carried on. She cried, screamed, begged. I even heard things were broken. George called me once, his booming voice taking up space on my voicemail for a full five minutes. He yelled forcefully that I had to leave him alone. That I was nothing but a stalker, and he wasn’t leaving his girlfriend for me. I could hear Maime crying and screaming in the background.

  George called me thirty minutes later and told my voicemail how sorry he was and asked if I was okay. Pretending to tell me off was just something he said he had to do and to call him. I never did. As I said, drama to a whole other level.

  Finally, not meeting my gaze, he said, “Nothing, nothing has happened. Everything was normal.”

  I knew he was lying, but I also knew sometimes it’s just not the right time to push for the truth. “The cops question you again?”

  “Yesterday. They wanted me to run through the timeline again. Nothing has changed in what I’ve said. I know they don’t believe me. Maime’s father thinks I killed her. He’s been asking me to take a leave of absence from the firm.”

  George was a lawyer at LaRue & Associates, a successful high-priced corporate law firm owned by Maime’s father. The firm handled corporate litigation as well as being known for their ferocious lobbying work. They were rarely on the moral side of an issue.

  “Have you taken the leave?”

  “No, I refuse to give the old man the satisfaction.”

  “The break might not be bad for you,” I suggested. When George didn’t respond I added, “You know perception is everything in these cases. You do things to look guilty, you’ll be guilty. I don’t know how you could focus on work anyway.”

  George watched me. The same blank expression on his face. I couldn’t really read him, but I knew he wasn’t going to take the leave of absence no matter what I said.

  George asked, “You think this woman they found today is connected?”

  “Connected how?”

  George shrugged.

  I thought for a few seconds and then said, “I have no reason to believe that. But I haven’t talked to anyone yet. Cooper’s already down there. I was going to let him handle it and then meet him in about an hour for dinner. We were going to get a game plan together and meet with you in the morning.”

  George turned towards the door, exiting just as abruptly as he entered. Clearly, our initial client meeting was over. As he turned the door handle, I said to his back, “I don’t want to ask this, but I have to. Did you have anything to do with Maime’s disappearance?”

  He opened the door and then turned to face me. This expression I could read. He looked angry. For a few seconds, he didn’t say a word, just watched me, but then he asked, “Have you ever thought about what life would be like for us if I never married Maime but married you instead?”

  He didn’t wait for my answer. George walked out as I watched the door shut behind him. He left me sitting there stunned by the question. It was moments later that I realized he never answered mine.

  CHAPTER 2

  IT WAS A WARM CLOUDLESS NIGHT in November. By-standers along President Clinton Avenue in downtown Little Rock stood in eerie silence at the edge of the yellow crime scene tape that blocked the way down to the river. Cooper Deagnan, former Little Rock detective turned private investigator, took in the familiar scene. He watched the police diligently doing their work.

  The crime scene techs made their way through the debris that littered the ground while looking for evidence. A few uniformed officers with notepads and pens in hand jotted down information they gathered from a few of the stunned onlookers who might have heard or seen something suspicious. The area, which was usually filled with tourists and locals visiting the River Market area to shop, dine and take in live music at the amphitheater, was now an active crime scene.

  Cooper got a tip from a Little Rock homicide detective so he ditched out on an insurance fraud surveillance that wasn’t yielding much anyway and drove straight to the scene. He navigated through the throngs of people, took in the scene before him, and then nodded to the officer standing guard as he slid effortlessly under the crime scene tape unbothered. He made a beeline directly to where his long-time friend Detective Lucas “Luke” Morgan stood. Being a former Little Rock detective still had its privileges.

  Cooper watched as three detectives including Luke surrounded the half-naked body, clad only in her bra and underwear. She lay motionless on the cement, already showing signs of bloat. Cooper’s stomach lurched at the sight of her. He had heard she was initially spotted by two women taking a stroll after their dinner. Her body was caught up in old tree limbs and slapped against the retaining wall, driven over and over again by the Arkansas River’s current.

  When Cooper was standing among the crowd, he had heard people saying they could hear the screams pierce through the normally festive downtown streets. Cooper wasn’t surprised. It was a grotesque sight even for a seasoned d
etective. Not so much the condition of her body but the look on her face, eyes wide open and mouth contorted as if she died mid-scream.

  “How long has she been dead?” Cooper asked his friend.

  Luke got up from his crouched position over the body and made his way to Cooper. The two men stood eye to eye both about six foot. Cooper’s messy blond hair and green eyes contrasted against Luke’s darker African-American features. Both thirty-seven years old and single, neither had been short-changed in looks.

  “Medical examiner’s not sure. More than a day less than two is his rough estimation,” Luke responded.

  “You know for sure it’s not Maime LaRue Brewer?” Cooper asked, looking over at the body and back before the nausea set in again.

  “She doesn’t fit the description at all. I haven’t bothered to call her husband or family. No point dragging them down here,” Luke said, looking across the parking lot back the way Cooper had entered. He added, “But with all this attention, I wouldn’t be surprised if they came down anyway.”

  Cooper nodded along in understanding but didn’t offer up anything else. He hadn’t come to the scene just to make small talk. He had a purpose. There was something he had to tell Luke. He knew as soon as he did, his friend’s mood would go from bad to worse. Luke had to hear this from him though.

  Finally, Cooper just asked, “Speaking of that case, you got anything yet?”

  Luke eyed him. “You on the case? I figured the old man would just get one of his in-house investigators.”

  “No, I haven’t been hired by the LaRue family,” Cooper said, shaking his head and pausing a beat too long.

  Luke gestured impatiently with his hand for him to go on.

  Cooper spat the words out in one breath as quickly as he could, “George Brewer hired Riley. She’s here in Little Rock.”

  Cooper barely got the words out when he heard Luke curse under his breath. Cooper couldn’t quite make out what he said. He could only imagine. Luke and Riley had some history. What happened between them was anyone’s guess. Cooper wasn’t privy to the details, but he knew from past conversations Riley was an off-limit topic with Luke. She certainly wasn’t going to be welcomed with open arms and certainly not in the middle of Luke’s investigation.