Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #4: Books 13-16 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [story read aloud .txt] 📗

took me a long time to recover. I had never loved anyone the way I grew to love him. Never… never loved anyone like that since.”

“So the white van was an invention too? A red herring to send the cops off chasing a ghost?”

She was already shaking her head before I had finished. “No, no that was all true. I did have the feeling I was being watched and I did see a white van a couple of times. That is absolutely true and I will swear to that.”

“Any reason I should believe you? All you’ve done since the first time we spoke to you is lie.”

She didn’t meet my eye this time. She just shook her head and said, “No, there is no reason you should believe me. But it’s the truth.”

“Who pays for this apartment now that Jack is dead?”

“He left it to me in his will.”

“How did Helena feel about that?”

“I have no idea.”

“You ever speak to her?”

“No.”

“Can you tell me of anyone who would have a better motive than you to kill Jack Connors in that particular way, and send the head to Helena? Can you think of a single person who would have a better motive?”

“No, I can’t.” She looked out across the rooftops for a long moment, then swiveled her eyes to meet mine. “And that is why I panicked, and that is why I lied.”

“I should arrest you, Penelope. I should take you in and charge you. Your story stinks and you look as guilty as hell. If my partner were here, she’d insist on it.”

“Why don’t you?”

I didn’t answer. I sat for a long while looking at her, wondering what was stopping me. I didn’t believe I had enough for an arrest, but at the same time I knew Dehan and I should be dragging her over the coals and giving her a hard time, trying to find cracks in her story and force a confession.

I stood. “I need you to come in and make a statement, no later than tomorrow morning. At that time I will decide whether to charge you or not. You better pray that Grant confirms your story when I talk to him. Meantime, don’t leave the city. If you try to, I will arrest you and you will be in deep, deep trouble.”

“I’ll come in this afternoon. John, everything I have told you is true. I lied because I panicked, but I am not a liar.”

“There will be an officer watching your block. I’ll expect to see you this afternoon. I’ll see myself out.”

I crossed the living room to the front door of the apartment, wondering at my own behavior and the motivation behind it. I opened the door and stepped out into the red-carpeted landing. The elevators were down on my left. A distorted lozenge of light lay across the carpet where it was beaming in from the passage on the left. I closed the door behind me and walked toward the elevators, still turning over Penelope’s story in my head, and wondering what it was that had made me hold back from taking her in for interrogation.

I stopped in front of the elevator door and reached for the button.

That was when everything went black.

TWELVE

I opened my eyes and saw only blackness. I wondered for a second if I was blind, but noticed patches of blackness that were less dark than others, where amorphous areas of density loomed and pressed in. There was panic inside me. I had no recollection of where I had been before the blackness, no knowledge of how I had gotten there. An impulse made me want to shout, call out for help. But my instincts made me hold back, lie still and quiet, and listen.

Then thoughts started to filter in.

Dehan.

She would be wondering where I was, which led me to wonder how long I had been wherever I was, and how I had gotten there. Where had I been before? What was the last thing in my mind, before the darkness?

Dehan.

Dehan had been mad at me. I could see her face, scowling. What had she been mad about? I hadn’t been sharing my thoughts. That was what usually made her mad, but it hadn’t been that. Not this time. She had been sharing her thoughts, about Jack’s head, about Jack’s murder and the white van…

Penelope.

I tried to sit up and realized for the first time that my body was numb. A couple more attempts gave me pins and needles in my feet and my hands. And when I tried to reach my right hand with my left, it began to dawn on me that my wrists and my ankles were bound tight.

Then there was a moment when I felt real panic in my belly and fought hard with my mind to keep my thinking cool and rational.

Dehan.

I had told Dehan I would be a couple of hours. It must have been that long. I had been roughly half an hour getting to Penelope’s apartment. We had been at least half an hour talking. Then what? Had I left? I struggled to bring back images. She had been crying. I had risen and moved toward the door. And then…

Then nothing.

If I had been clubbed or drugged, it would have taken at least half an hour to get me wherever I was, bind me and leave me to come around. If Dehan was not already aware of my absence, she would be very soon. The only question was, soon enough?

I tried to concentrate on my sense of touch. Absurdly I closed my eyes, then concentrated my attention on my wrists. They were down beside my hips. I turned and twisted them and found they had a little give. They were bound with fine rope, not