Murder List

Chapter Eighteen

Her theory was springing leaks. If shields was indeed behind the murder of Sweeney, how did he get hold of her phone? Maybe her theory wasn’t right, after all. She was thinking about that while Detective Buchanan patiently waited for her to tell him how the photo of Sweeney had been taken with her cell phone. She wanted the answer to that question too.

“It is your phone number.”

“Yes,” she said. “But I certainly didn’t take that picture.”

Detective Connelly interrupted. “Plea bargain fell apart,” he called out as he shoved his cell phone into his pocket and headed for the door. “I’ve got ten minutes to get to the courthouse. You want me to get someone over here to help you?”

“No, I’m good,” Alec answered.

“The lieutenant wants to see you in his office as soon as you finish up here,” he added.

That news put Alec in a foul mood. The second the door closed behind Connelly, he gave Regan his full attention. “Okay, tell me about your phone.”

She assumed he wanted to know the model or the style. She didn’t remember either of those things, and so she told him about the capabilities. “It has a built-in camera,” she began. “And an extensive phone book with personal and business e-mail addresses. It’s Internet friendly,” she added with a brief smile.

“And you don’t remember where you lost it?”

She shook her head. “I thought I had left it in the car, but Henry looked, and it wasn’t there. I don’t know what happened to it.”

Henry heard what she said and rushed over to join the conversation. “That’s right. You can check with the guys in the garage. They all saw me, and I told them what I was looking for. They weren’t surprised. I mean, no offense, Regan, but you’re always leaving your phone somewhere. It’s small,” he told Alec. “And it sometimes falls out of her purse. One time I found it wedged between the seat and the console. I couldn’t find it today, though. I searched everywhere inside that car, and it wasn’t there.”

He took a protective step closer to Regan and said, “She isn’t in trouble, is she, just because someone else used her phone? You aren’t going to blame her, are you?”

The kid’s loyalty to his boss was admirable, but at the moment he was also a nuisance. “Last time I checked, losing a cell phone wasn’t a criminal offense. Don’t you have some work to do at your desk?” Alec asked.

Regan waited until Henry was out of earshot and then whispered, “He’s a worrier. He used to be much worse when he first started here. He’s getting better, but he still worries too much.”

Melissa’s loud grunt turned their attention. The woman was certainly in her element. Her fingers continued to whiz across the keyboard in a blur, and every minute or two she would let out a sigh or another crude grunt.

“Should I call and cancel the phone or report it stolen?” Henry asked from the doorway.

“No, don’t do that,” Alec said. “If we’re lucky, maybe he’ll try to contact her again.”

“He’s not going to use her phone again,” Melissa said. “He knows his way around computers, and he surely knows her phone can be tracked. The e-mail was sent five days ago, and he hasn’t sent anything else.” Her fingers suddenly stilled on the keys. “Okay, I’ve sent everything on to my computer, and I’m also printing out the picture of Sweeney to take with me. Until further notice, any e-mails she receives will automatically come to me too. That’s okay, isn’t it? I’m going to assume that’s okay.”

Regan wasn’t paying much attention. She was standing in front of the window looking down at the traffic on Michigan Avenue, her mind racing as she tried to remember the last time she used her cell phone. She knew Detective Buchanan would check with Sprint for the log of calls coming in and going out, but if she could remember now, it would save him valuable time. Since her surgery, however, the days all blended together, and she hadn’t kept track of her appointments in her PDA the way she usually did. The godawful photo of Sweeney was also disrupting concentration. She hadn’t realized a face could become so bloated, so grotesque. That image kept popping into her mind.

She didn’t hear Henry come up behind her. She jumped when he touched her shoulder.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” He glanced over at Detective Buchanan to make sure he was still busy talking with the technician and then said, “I just wanted you to know I checked my computer again.”

“What were you checking?”

“I wanted to see if the photo of that dead man was sent to me,” he whispered. “But it wasn’t. I wish it had been. I wish it had been sent to all the e-mail addresses you had programmed into your phone. It’s not good that it was sent just to you.”

She nodded. “I know.”

“It was clever, the way he sent it,” he said, “making it look like it came from my computer.”

“I never would have opened the attachment if I hadn’t recognized the sender. I guess he didn’t want to take the chance that I’d delete it.”

“I think he’s targeted you for some reason,” Henry said. “But why?”

Alec heard the comment. “That’s what we’re going to find out.”

Alec was digging through his pocket looking for a card to give Regan when his cell phone rang. It was the third call in the past fifteen minutes from the office. Lewis’s assistant kept calling to demand that he get back to the station as soon as possible. The lieutenant was waiting to talk to him. Alec knew why. Lewis had obviously just found out that Alec had gone over his head to the commander to save the job of the young cop who had interrupted the sting operation.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” Regan asked.

“I guess I should.” He flipped the phone open, listened for a minute, and then said, “I’ll get there when I’m finished here.”

Before the assistant could argue with him, he disconnected the call and turned back to Regan. He found one of his cards and handed it to her. She gave him a grateful smile. Gorgeous woman, he thought. And damn, was she sexy. Another time, another place, and he definitely would have asked her out, but he couldn’t now. Not with an investigation pending. Besides, even if he didn’t get the job with the FBI, he was still going to give notice and leave Chicago within the next month or two, so getting involved with any woman was out of the question. Unless the woman was into casual sex. Regan Madison wasn’t. He knew that much about her just by being with her for a half hour.

He mentally shook himself. He had no business thinking such thoughts now. Funny how the mind worked. Guess his brother Dylan was right. He was perverted.

“Detective Wincott is running the investigation into Sweeney’s murder,” he said. “I’m helping him out, but he’s senior man, and he’ll be over to talk to you soon. You’ll want to stay in the hotel.”

“Yes, of course.”

“But in the meantime, if you think of anything else,” he said with a nod toward the card she held in her hand, “there’s my number.”

“I have physical therapy for my knee in an hour, but I can cancel.”

“I thought that scar looked new. It wasn’t there when I ran into you on the street. What happened?”

She was surprised he’d noticed. The incision wasn’t large, but the scar was raw, the skin puckered.

She said what she was thinking. “You noticed it wasn’t there the first time we met? That’s impressive, Detective.”

Not really, he thought. He’d have to be a eunuch not to notice those sexy legs of hers.

“Baseball,” she continued. “I twisted it sliding into third base. It happened last summer.”

“Baseball, huh?” He smiled. He was having trouble picturing her in a uniform with a ball and bat. She seemed too soft for that sport.

“Yes, baseball,” she said. “It was a charily game. Why is that funny?”

He didn’t answer. “You wrenched it last year, and you only just now had the surgery?”

“I was procrastinating, but then I hurt it again…” She suddenly stopped and then blurted, “What an idiot.”

“Excuse me?”

“No, not you,” she said. “Me. I’m the idiot.” In her hurry to explain, her words tripped over one another. “I know who has my phone. At least, I think I know, and I can’t believe it took me so long to remember. You see, I dropped my purse, and that’s when I lost it. I’m sorry I’m not usually so rattled. There was this man. He chased me to my car, and he-”

That statement gained his full attention. He put his hand up. “Whoa,” he said. “Slow down and start at the beginning.”

“Yes, okay,” she said. “It was a week ago Friday night. That’s the last time I used my cell phone. I’m sure of it.”

He pulled out his ragged notepad again and began to search his pockets for his pen. “And where were you?”

“At the reception.”

“You sound like I’m supposed to know about a reception.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I thought I had told you about that when I was explaining the connection between Sweeney and Shields.”

He didn’t look happy with her. “Why don’t you tell me about it now?”

She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten about the man in the parking lot, but then, in her defense, she had been bombarded first by the e-mail and then Detective Buchanan, the technician, and Detective Connelly. And all in the past hour.

She explained as quickly as possible all about the reception she and her friends had attended at Liam House. “Sophie had signed us up for Shields’s weekend seminar, and I know I told you that Shields runs two seminars a year in Chicago.”

“What were you hoping to accomplish?”

“It was apparent to all of us that Detective Sweeney wasn’t going to do anything about Shields, and so we decided…”

“Yes?”

She shrugged. “To do his job for him.”

His frown indicated he didn’t like hearing that. “And how were you going to do his job?”

“We decided we would investigate Shields and hopefully we would get enough evidence to give to the prosecutor. Sophie was doing the investigative work, and Cordie and I went along to be supportive. Actually, we were going to try to find a way to break into his computer so we could get the names of the other women who’d attended past seminars. We thought we could match his deposits with-”

He stopped writing. “You do know that isn’t legal, right?”

“Of course, I know that,” she said. “We didn’t break into his computer. We just wanted to. That was the plan anyway.”

The woman was honest to a fault. “It sounds like a half-baked plan.”

She agreed. “Yes, well, Sophie did come up with it, and she does tend to rush in without thinking things through. She believes things will work out, and the fact is, they usually do.”

Regan folded her arms and began to pace in front of the windows while she thought about that awful night. “I remember I had my cell phone with me. We were late,” she said. “But then whenever Cordie and I go anywhere with Sophie, we’re always late. Anyway, the reception was in full swing by the time we arrived, and Shields was there speaking to the group. He’s such a fraud and very full of himself. I wasn’t impressed, but judging from the reactions of the people around me, they were dazzled by him. There was this exercise he had us do that was absolutely insane.”

“What about your cell phone?” he said, trying to keep her on track.

“I should have remembered to turn it off, because it rang right in the middle of Shield’s talk. I hurried out to the hallway to answer it before one of his bodyguards tried to take it away from me.”

“Bodyguards?”

“Two of them. He calls them his assistants, but they’re his bodyguards. Real musclemen.”

“Okay,” he said. “So you think you left your phone in the conference center?”

“No,” she said. “I’m sure I put it back in my purse. I think it dropped out when I fell.”

Alec was trying to be patient. “And when did that happen?”

“When I went to get the car,” she said. “It was raining, and so I told Cordie to find Sophie and wait by the front door and I would drive up to get them. I was running along the path to my car, and I thought I heard someone calling my name. The wind was up, though, and it was raining hard, so I wasn’t sure. I turned to look behind me, and there was this man…” It all seemed such a long time ago. “Everything happend so fast. When I turned, I wrenched my knee.”

“And you’re just now remembering this?” He was irritated and making sure she knew it.

“I just didn’t think… I didn’t connect. I was lucky I got away from him.”

“He chased you?”

“Yes. You don’t think…”

“Think what?” he asked when she hesitated.

“Maybe Shields hired him. Maybe he was waiting outside the conference center because he knew I was inside, and maybe he was there to scare me, which he certainly did.”

“You’re really hooked on your idea that Shields is behind it all, aren’t you?”

“It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“I’m not going to guess yet because I don’t have enough information to form an opinion, but when I do, I’ll let you know. Now, I want to know exactly what happened from the minute you stepped outside Liam House.”

“I just did tell you everything that happened.”

“Tell me again.”

She went through it again just as he’d instructed. “When I fell, everything spilled out of my purse, but at the time, I thought I’d shoved it all back in. I must have left the phone on the ground. I was desperate to get into my car and lock the doors,” she said. “He was holding up something and yelling at me to stop, but I didn’t. There was something all wrong about him.”

“Like what?”

“His face,” she said. She rubbed her arms to ward off a sudden chill. “It gives me the shivers to think about it. I called the police,” she added. “And I went to the police station nearby to make a report.”

“That was good. Now tell me. What about his face?”

“Rage,” she said. “I’ve never seen rage like that in anyone’s eyes. And then the oddest thing happened.”

“Yes?”

“It might be my imagination. I was in pain because of my knee and soaked from the rain, but when I was inside the car, I looked, and he was standing under the streetlight, still staring at me. I was crying,” she admitted. “And I think he could see me crying. His expression changed.”

He cocked his head. “Changed to what?”

“Sympathy,” she said. “I think he felt sorry for me.”