Shadows of Deceit, Mell Corcoran [free romance novels txt] 📗

almost as soothing as the mug of coffee. The croaking frogs and the first chirps from morning birds intermittently broke the silence but overall the quiet was as thick and cozy to her as her bathrobe. It was a truly welcomed change. Even though Lou had been recovering, the past several weeks had been a whirlwind of activity. Learning everything she possibly could about her new world, her new life, and the critical role she played in it. Looking out into the darkness she thought back again. Back to that chance encounter with a stranger in the hall of the County Morgue. Thinking about it even now made her knees weak, just as it had the moment she first set eyes on him when she passed him in that hall. It was a serious case of love/hate that he had that effect on her. She loved the butterflies, the breathlessness, the pure euphoric sensation she got even simply thinking about him. However, Lou hated how much she wanted the man. She needed to breathe the same air as him. It challenged the very core of her being, her fierce independence. Who knew that this stranger would turn her life upside down in so many ways. Maximilian Augustus Julian.

She looked out into the distance trying peer past the darkness to see the construction site of Max’s home. As promised, they had kept the structure well off in the distance and only partially visible from her vantage point. It was too black to see anything really, but Lou noticed the absolute quiet and that meant they were not working. Strange. Max’s people had gotten special permitting and dispensation from the County as well as the Homeowner’s Association to work at all hours and had been true to their word being very considerate of noise. Usually Lou could hear something. A hum or a buzz of some sort from that direction but there was nothing. The framing looked complete the day before and it was an ongoing joke with Lou and her mother, asking each other every day if the house was finished yet. Maybe they were waiting for some inspection or something. Maybe she would sneak over and take a look at it later, if no one was around. Maybe it was important for her to see where the man that had defrosted her heart would be living. What rooms he would sit and read in. Where he would cook his meals, take his showers, lay and dream. Maybe of her.

The security light below her terrace popped on and snapped Lou back from her musings. She turned her attention just in time to catch sight of a family of raccoons trotting across the lawn. Lou smiled to herself as two babies stopped to wrestle in the dew soaked grass, chortling and grunting. Mom and dad raccoon finally intervened and lead the babes back up into the trees. Lou loved this land.

The McAllister compound was a home that Lou’s step-father, Joe, had built for her mother for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary as a surprise. The twelve-thousand square foot Tuscan Mediterranean home was carefully planned and crafted on it’s majestic ten acres to Joe’s exact specifications and with the express request that Lou live there with them. Family, after all, was the most important thing.

Lou was born in Los Angeles but when she was five, and after a year of Joe’s begging, her mother finally accepted his proposal and moved them to Galveston to live with him. Lou’s father had been killed in the line of duty when she was only two. If truth be told she barely remembered him. Joe had long since become Lou’s dad in every way that mattered to her. Even still, the memories Lou did have of her father were kept strong and vibrant through the stories her mother and uncle would tell her over the years. They made her proud and inspired her to follow in his and her uncle’s footsteps. Lou moved back to L.A. after high school to attend college and applied to the Sheriff’s Department just before graduation. Once accepted, she never looked back. Even though she was only five- feet, four-inches, she earned her reputation as a tough-as-nails cop with a bull-dog investigative style. No one, but no one, other than her mother and uncle called her Tallulah unless they wanted their ass handed to them in a paper bag. Lou’s soft side was reserved solely for animals. As she watched the last baby raccoon waddle behind a huge oak and vanish into the landscape, Lou happily admitted she was a sucker for animals. It was people that she often had issues with. That was true now more than ever since no one was who they appeared to be.

Lou drank the last of her coffee and set the empty mug on the table beside her. The security light below finally shut off and the dark blue aura of morning wrapped all around her. She tucked her hands into the pockets of her robe and snuggled deeper into the chair, closing her eyes and allowing the peace and quiet of the morning to lull her to sleep for a little while longer.

 

Veteran Homicide Detective, Vincenzo DeLuca, pulled his standard department issue sedan up to the crime scene perimeter, shut off the engine and sat quietly for a moment. He looked out the windshield and took in the scene with the multitude of deputies guarding the perimeter and the forensics people ducking back and fourth under the tape. He missed his partner. It had been over a month since Lou had been injured and sidelined. It hit him hard. Life was throwing too many curve balls at him lately. In a little more then seven months he was going to be a father and that scared the crap out of him. As a result of a serious reality check, Vinny concluded that he needed to be around more for his family so he did the responsible thing and had taken and passed the lieutenant’s exam. He knew it was the right thing to do but the thought of not being out in the field was really not settling well with him. He loved being a homicide detective and he loved working with his partner. Lou was his best friend and former partner’s niece. She was his family too. With her recovering, homicide was down a man and with his making lieutenant, things were getting shuffled around more than he would like. Vinny was looking for his successor and it wasn’t going well at all. Lou was tricky to partner with. She had a hard time snapping to in the morning so Vinny usually picked her up for work. She was stubborn as hell and often rubbed people the wrong way if left unchecked. Vinny had to find the right fit before he was even going to think of taking a seat behind a desk and leaving her with a stranger. Lou being out on medical leave had actually provided him the golden opportunity to properly vet the candidates without her considerable two-cents. He hadn’t been the least bit happy with the first seven applicants, none of which even lasted a full day before he sent them packing. Vinny couldn’t give up hope though. He knew it would probably take a dozen tries before he would find someone he felt could truly have Lou’s back and do the job right. He would meet contestant number eight in an hour or so. In the meantime, they had a whopper of a case on their hands and he really wished Lou was with him.

With a heavy sigh, Vinny got out of the car and headed into the trenches. It was a magnificent house even with the onslaught of deputies, investigators and coroner personnel trampling all over the yard. As he approached the front doors he got nods and acknowledgments from the masses. Vinny liked being liked. It was going to come in handy with his transition to management. When he finally reached the front doorway he grabbed a pair of blue paper booties from a box on the ground and pulled them over his loafers then reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of thick latex gloves. With a crisp snap of the latex, he was sufficiently prepared to proceed. Upon entering the home he immediately saw the forensic team at work in the foyer. The cavernous formal entry was brightly lit with both portable lights and the sparkly glow of the giant crystal chandelier hanging directly over the scene. At the center of the room was a large pool of congealed blood that spread out thickly over the highly polished marble floor. There in the middle lay three bodies, snugly placed side by side like sardines in a can. Vinny could only see the lower half of the victims because deputy medical examiner Caroline Devereux was sprawled out on tip toes, hovering, obscuring his view of the upper torsos of the bodies. Even though they were clearly past the two day dead mark, the deceased appeared to be men. High priced suits and even higher priced shoes sagged in the middle of the bloody puddle. When Caroline stood up and twirled around in a move he thought only a ballerina could make, Vinny got the first sight of the fact that the victims had been decapitated. “Riddle me this one Bratman.” Caroline grinned at him. “You happen to see these guys’ heads on your way in?” The cheery southern belle stretched out one leg carefully then tiptoed out of the blood pool towards him and removed her gloves.

“There’s something ya don’t see every day. Mornin’ Doc.” Vinny smiled at Caroline then looked back at the conundrum.

“Morning Vinny. No crash-test dummy today?” Caroline had taken to calling Vinny’s prospective replacements the colorful but ironically accurate term. She snickered as she took a paper cup handed to her by one of the techs and happily sipped.

“Not yet. Got another contestant coming in though. I sent word for them to meet me here. Baptism by fire so to speak.” Vinny smirked.

“Good idea! I’ll slow down so I can get a shot at him. It a him or a

her?” Caroline popped the plastic lid off the paper mug so she could gulp the caffeine.

Vinny looked at her sideways. “You think I would put Lou with a girl? She barely likes you.” He turned his attention back to the matter at hand. “So what have we got here Doc? This looks a little hinky.”

“A little?” Caroline snorted, careful not to choke on her coffee. “We got three males. From left to right we have a Latino, a Caucasian and another Latino. No I.D. on any of them or from the thumb scan but I uploaded the prints to the lab for a full search so I’ll let you know as soon as we get anything.”

Vinny nodded and wished he had his own coffee. “OK, what else?” “Preliminary time of death is about twenty-four to thirty hours ago. Sometime between late Friday night and early Saturday morning.” Caroline stepped away from the scene and carefully removed her blue booties then stuffed them in a bio-hazard bag that was set up next to the front door. “I will be able to narrow that down a bit better once I get them back to the shop and the bugs are processed.”

“So no heads on site huh? Seriously?” He looked at the scene carefully. It took a bit of work to accomplish this.

“Seriously. Your guys are going over the place with a fine tooth comb but from what I have seen so far, there is not one drop of blood outside this circle here. No tissue, no spatter, nothing.”

Vinny had noticed the lack of blood spatter right off. The chandelier was spotless and gleaming, the walls could have passed for freshly painted and the floor outside of the pool itself were polished to a