Sweetheart Killer: Book 14 in The INNcredibly Sweet Series Read online

  stuck on the fence, his jeans caught on a top wire, and grabbed the would-be fugitive by the belt,

  yanking him into the yard. The man fell on his back, knocking the wind out of him, and Chas knelt

  on his chest, capturing his wrists and pinning them to the ground.

  “Paul Sanchez, I presume,” he said dryly, barely breathing hard after his dash across the barren

  yard.

  “Who wants to know?” the man sneered, his eyes darting wildly about.

  “You got any weapons on you, Paul?”

  Realizing that he was currently helpless, the man sighed. “There’s a knife on my calf,” he admitted

  dully.

  “Sounds painful,” Chas quipped, deftly flipping his captive over and handcuffing his hands behind

  his back.

  “Hey, man, I didn’t do nothing. You can’t handcuff me. I got rights,” Paul panicked.

  “Yes, actually, I can. You just admitted to me that you have a weapon. I’ve handcuffed you to

  keep us both safe while I confiscate the weapon temporarily.”

  With one knee on Paul’s back, Chas lifted both of the captive’s calves, patting them down and

  finding a large hunting knife on the left one.

  “You a hunter, Paul?” the detective asked, putting the knife into the inside pocket of his sport coat.

  “It’s a rough neighborhood, man,” was the muffled answer.

  “Are there any weapons in your house?”

  “My old lady got a gun.”

  “Are there any drugs in the house?”

  “Man, you ain’t got no right to ask me that. You ain’t got no search warrant or no suspicion of

  nothing,” Paul protested.

  Chas leaned his head close to the now-struggling man’s ear. “How about suspicion of murder,

  Paul?”

  Paul Sanchez stilled immediately.

  “We can handle this one of two ways,” Chas knelt on the man’s back and explained calmly. “You

  can either tell your “old lady” to toss your unloaded gun out onto the porch while you answer some

  of my questions, or I can call DEA in here because I smelled something burning in the vicinity of

  your house. Personally, I’m a homicide detective, I won’t get any cred for a drug bust, but we can

  go that route if you want to be difficult and not help me out.”

  “I don’t know nothing about no homicide,” Paul sounded scared.

  “Fine, then I’ll just make that call. Then, while agents are going through everything in your house,

  you’re going to go downtown with me for a nice little interrogation.”

  “Wait! I’ll answer questions!” Paul suddenly changed his tune.

  “Tell your wife to toss the gun,” Chas instructed, pulling Paul up to a kneeling position and

  kneeling behind him so that the captive was between him and the house. If the wife started

  shooting, she’d have to shoot her husband before she could get to Chas.

  “Maria!” he shouted, then unleashed a torrent of Spanish that culminated in a sobbing woman

  throwing a pistol out onto the porch.

  “Got a permit for that thing?” Chas asked.

  “I found it,” Paul growled.

  “Uh-huh. Then it’s coming with me when I leave. Maybe I’ll be able to find its rightful owner.”

  “Whatever, man. What do you want from me?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  * * *

  Tim peeled Stewart Fiskin’s lips back from his teeth, baffled by what he saw. The burns inside,

  covering the deceased’s inner cheeks, tongue and throat made it appear as though he’d gargled

  with gasoline and lit a match, but didn’t have any of the usual blackness of an actual burn.

  “What the heck could’ve done that?” Fiona muttered, peering inside from across the table.

  “I’ll have a better idea once we get inside,” Tim spoke slowly, taking a bit of tissue from Stewart’s

  mouth and putting it in a jar of solution.

  Fiona handed him a scalpel, and he made the main incisions on the torso. Pulling large flaps of

  pallid skin from Stewart’s abdomen, the coroner was not at all surprised to see that there was a

  huge pooling of blood.

  “Thought so,” he murmured, nodding. “Now let’s see where it all came from.”

  “Why is all of that blood in there?” Fiona asked, fascinated.

  “Internal hemorrhaging,” her boss replied, distracted.

  “From what?”

  “Ulcerations in the stomach and colon.”

  A thought struck Tim, and he wiped his gloves down before palpating the neck area of the body.

  “Inflamed lymph nodes,” he nodded, confirming his suspicions.

  “Do you know what caused this?” Fiona gestured at the open abdomen.

  “I have to do a bit more research, but I believe I’m on the right track. I never thought I’d see this,”

  he pursed his lips.

  “What is it?” she prodded.

  “Time will tell. I’ll draw no conclusions before their time.”

  “You’re infuriating,” Fiona frowned at her boss.

  “I’m aware. Let’s proceed,” he picked up his scalpel again.

  **

  Spencer climbed into the kayak, looking forward to spending time in the outdoors, even if he was

  working. He’d booked a private tour, with the same company that Missy and Chas had used, but

  when he specifically requested Sean as a guide, he’d been told that he was unavailable.

  “So, have you been to St. Thomas before?” Ray, the rail-thin stand-in for Sean asked cheerfully as

  they paddled out of the cove.

  “A long time ago, yeah. I enjoyed it so much that I had to come back.”

  “That happens a lot. So how did you hear about our little tour company?”

  “I have some friends who highly recommended you guys. I guess they know Sean. Where is he

  anyway?”

  “No one knows,” Ray shrugged, never losing a stroke with his paddle. “He stopped showing up

  for work last week and no one has been able to get in touch with him.”

  “Wow. Has he ever done that before?”

  “It’s an island thing, it happens sometimes,” Ray chuckled.

  “So you’re not worried?”

  “Nah, Sean can take care of himself. He’ll be back.”

  “Hey, is that a crab down there?” Spencer peered over the side of his kayak, changing the subject.

  “Good eye,” Ray nodded. He stuck his paddle in the water and lifted the creature up for the Marine

  to see, while it waved its heavy claws in protest.

  “Beautiful,” Spencer nodded.

  The two men enjoyed the rest of the afternoon, and the tour of a private wildlife refuge was most

  enlightening. Spencer could hardly wait to get back in cell range so that he could text Chas about

  his discoveries.

  Sean Levian disappeared right after you saw him, and the guide showed me something today that

  may very well provide the answers that we’ve been looking for. We need to find him. I’ll be looking

  into his background and Putu’s – the man just seems to be too good at what he does. Will talk with

  you soon.

  **

  While Spencer was working the case in St. Thomas, Chas was grilling a very unhappy Paul

  Sanchez, whose gun had been secured, along with the knife, inside Chas’s car. He was still

  handcuffed and more than resentful of that fact, but seemed to be begrudgingly cooperating.

  “Who killed your boss, Stewart Fiskin?” Chas pulled no punches with his interrogation.

  “How should I know?” Sanchez muttered. “Everybody hated him. Coulda been anybody.”

  “Even you?�
��

  “No way, man. I’m clean. I keep outta trouble. Don’t exactly want police poking around my place,

  you know?” Paul glared at him.

  “Anybody you know that had a big enough problem with him to kill him?”

  “Psssh…that dude? Probably even his own mother wanted to kill him.”

  Chas took a breath, frustrated, and leaned over to speak very softly and directly to the angry man

  in front of him.

  “Look, you start providing some details and some names, or I’m just gonna have to assume that

  you had something to do with it,” the threat was veiled, but effective.

  “Why me? You ain’t got nothing on me,” Sanchez glowered.

  “Really? Your personnel record disagrees with that statement.”

  “That wasn’t nothing. Okay, so I stored some stuff for a friend in one of the warehouses for a

  while. I didn’t know what he had in the boxes. I didn’t know nothing about no illegal stuff.”

  “If we do an audit of what’s contained in the warehouse right now, are we going to find some

  merchandise that’s not on the lists?” the detective gave him a pointed look.

  Paul clamped his lips together, and his brows knit tightly together over his nose.

  “Looks like I hit a nerve,” Chas observed. “Did Fiskin know about your extra storage?”

  “No.”

  “Was he getting close to discovering it?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Then why kill him?”

  “Maybe he bullied the wrong person,” Paul muttered.

  “You?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then who did he bully, Paul?”

  Sanchez raised his head and smirked. “Everybody.”

  **

  “Wow,” Fiona breathed.

  Tim had suctioned away the excess blood in order to examine Stewart Fiskin’s organs, specifically

  his digestive tract, and what he uncovered was unlike anything that he and Fiona had ever seen.

  “Are they…burned?” she frowned, puzzled, when Tim pointed out several strange looking patches

  in various parts of the digestive system.

  “So it would seem,” her boss nodded.

  “How does that even happen?”

  “There are a few ways. I’m going to take some samples. When you send them to the lab, put a rush

  on them. I need to get this body prepared as soon as possible to prevent potential pathogens, but I

  can’t do that until we know what caused this,” he shook his head.

  Fiona’s heart sped up a bit when she noted something different in her boss’s expression, aside from

  his usual fascination with the autopsy process. For the first time since she’d known him, the

  unflappable Timothy Eckels looked scared.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  * * *

  “How about I hold Jazzy and you frost cupcakes?” Missy suggested.

  She and Echo had resumed their long-standing tradition of having cupcakes and coffee together

  before they both opened up their shops for the day’s business. It gave the best friends time to catch up with each other and have some good quality “girl time” before having to face the rest of the

  world.

  “I suppose,” Echo grinned, handing over the sweet-smelling, pink-clad bundle. “What are these

  anyway?”

  “Pistachio cupcakes with vanilla buttercream,” Missy replied in a sing-song voice, never taking

  her eyes from the tiny face of her goddaughter. “Yes, they are,” she cooed, as Jasmine clasped her

  finger and held on tight. “Oh, I can’t stand it, this girl is so precious!” she grinned down at the

  baby.

  “I know. I nearly tear up every time I look at her. I just can’t believe it. I never thought I’d have a

  baby,” Echo replied, squeezing luscious frosting through a tip onto her first cupcake.

  “And now I don’t have to. I can live vicariously through yours and still get all of my sleep,” Missy

  joked, stroking Jazzy’s soft skin and making her smile.

  “Gee, thanks,” Echo chuckled.

  When the bells over the door announced a new arrival, the two women looked up and greeted their

  visitor, Izzy Gilmore.

  “Oh my gosh, I just came in to drown my sorrows in cupcakes, but now I get to see the baby!” she

  exclaimed. “Congratulations, Echo,” she hugged the redhead from behind while she frosted, then

  knelt down by Missy’s chair to see Jasmine. “Awww…she’s beautiful,” Izzy delicately brushed

  Jasmine’s wild red hair with her fingers.

  “Do you want to hold her?” Missy asked.

  Izzy’s eyes went wide.

  “Oh! I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I was an only child and I don’t have much experience with

  babies. I’d be afraid she’d break or something,” she bit her lip.

  Missy and Echo both laughed.

  “Go sit over there in the chair beside Echo and I’ll hand her to you. It’s a piece of cake,” Missy

  promised.

  “Are you sure?” Izzy looked at Echo, who nodded.

  She sat down in the chair and Missy carefully handed her the delicate bundle. Jasmine looked up

  into Izzy’s eyes and gurgled, causing the young woman to beam with delight.

  “She’s just perfect…and so tiny,” the author marveled, touching the starfish-like fingers grasping

  the satin edge of her blanket.

  “Yeah, I think I’ll keep her,” Echo teased.

  Missy picked up another bag of frosting and started topping the cupcakes.

  “So why are you drowning your sorrows?” Echo asked, focused on her current cupcake.

  “Same reason as always,” Izzy grinned wryly, glad for the cherubic distraction in her arms. “All I

  have is my work, which is sometimes enough, but it gets kind of lonely, even for an introvert like

  me.”

  “You should get out more,” Missy eyed her speculatively. “Join a service organization or

  something. What are you interested in?”

  Izzy stared at her.

  “I’ve never really thought about it. Writing has been my life ever since I can remember.”

  “Looks like you’re good with the little ones,” Missy remarked, smiling as Jasmine cooed at the

  pretty new face above her. “Maybe you could volunteer at the orphanage here in town.”

  Izzy shook her head vehemently.

  “No way, kids scare me. I like babies, but kids…no way.”

  “What about animals?” Echo chimed in.

  “Huh?”

  “Animals. The rescue shelter here in town is always looking for volunteers, and the animals love

  having more humans around.”

  Izzy raised an eyebrow, stared into space for a second and slowly nodded.

  “That could work. I love animals. All animals.”

  “All animals? Really?” Echo was skeptical. “What about rats?”

  “They’re soft, sweet and smart.”

  “Uh –huh…what about pigs?”

  “Cute, pink and friendly.”

  Missy got a devilish gleam in her eye. “What about snakes?”

  Izzy made a face. “Snakes aren’t animals, they’re legless little ghost creatures.”

  Missy and Echo burst into laughter, startling the baby.

  “They don’t have snakes at the rescue, do they?” she asked, bringing Jasmine to her shoulder to

  soothe her.

  “No, I just wanted to see your reaction,” Missy chuckled.

  “Oh my, do all babies smell like this?” Izzy rubbed her cheek against Jasmine’s, prompting the

  infant to start rooting for a food source, her tiny lips moving against Izzy’s skin. “That tickles!

  W
hat is she doing?”

  “She’s looking for her next meal,” Echo grinned, holding her arms out. “I’ll take care of that.”

  The three women looked up as the door opened again, this time admitting Blanche Fiskin.

  “Blanche, come in, please,” Missy stood up and went to give the widow a hug.

  “I don’t want to intrude,” she hovered in the doorway uncertainly.

  “Not at all. Come on in and join us. I might even put you to work,” she teased, then introduced the

  new arrival.

  “Well, I’d better get going, I’m just about to find the psychopath waiting at the bottom of a well,”

  Izzy stood to leave, and her comment caused Blanche’s mouth to hang open in surprise.

  “Izzy is an author,” Missy explained, patting Blanche’s arm.

  “Oh, how nice,” Blanche smiled, not really seeming to understand.

  “Can I get you a cupcake?” Missy asked. “Or some coffee? Both?”

  “I don’t want you to go to any trouble…”

  “Don’t be silly, coffee and cupcakes are what get us through the morning,” Missy stood and went

  behind the counter to select a cupcake for Blanche, and to pour her a cup of coffee. “Do you need

  sugar and cream?”

  “No, black is fine, thank you.”

  Missy set a plate with one of her decadent sea salt caramel cupcakes on it, and a mug of steaming

  coffee in front of the widow.

  “How are you doing, Blanche? Are you okay?”

  “Some times are better than others,” she admitted, taking a small sip of coffee. “It still seems so

  surreal. I really didn’t want to bother you. Do you know if your husband is making any progress

  on Stewie’s case?” she asked, looking hopeful.

  “He’s been working so hard on it that I’ve barely seen him since it happened, so I really don’t

  know,” Missy gave her a rueful smile. “But I do know that Chas is awesome at what he does, and

  he’ll figure out what happened to Stewart.”

  “I’m sure he will,” Blanche nodded sadly. “I’m sorry, I’m not feeling very well, would you mind

  making these to go?” she gestured to the coffee and cupcake.

  “Of course I can. Is there anything else I can do? Do you need help?” Missy was alarmed.