Page 33 of Witness To Murder
CHAPTER NINE
Gerard/Morris Apartment
Chestnut Street, 1:00 p.m.
The press conference hit all the local stations.
Leah had been bursting with the need to do something since leaving the meeting with Detective Lambert. He’d asked her to return to the apartment she had shared with the woman who had called herself Isla Morris, and tomorrow she was to go back to work. She had done as Lambert asked and worked it out with her boss to have the evening shift tomorrow, which would include closing up the library. Bolling, the building manager, had ensured the apartment was ready. It was almost as if the explosion never happened, except every now and then, Leah got a whiff of a smoky odor. She supposed it lingered in places that were difficult to clean.
Lambert had made an official call to Isla’s brother to inform him that his sister was deceased and his mother was missing. But the man hadn’t wanted to hear it. He’d been just as curt and uncaring with the detective as he’d been when Owen called him. Leah wanted to judge him for the behavior, but honestly how could she? After what she’d done to her family, she had no right to judge anyone. No matter that she’d straightened up…she had hurt them badly.
Leah turned off the television and crossed her arms before turning to Owen. “Is waiting all we can do?”
He was so still and quiet sometimes. She couldn’t help wondering what he was thinking. Maybe she didn’t want to know.
“We’ve done a great deal already,” Owen reminded her. He sat on the corner of the sofa back. “We changed the passwords on all your bank, credit card and other personal accounts. Same with the social media accounts. If Jones attempts to gain access to one of your accounts, she’ll have no choice but to come directly to you.”
This was true, but those efforts felt like nothing that was moving the investigation forward. As difficult as it had been to suffer through seventy-two hours of being made to feel as if she had committed some horrible crime, having to wait for the real person responsible for all this insanity to reappear was even harder. Maybe only because Leah had lost her patience already. Her entire life had been turned upside down, and now all she wanted to do was get this behind her. This wasn’t the first time she’d had to right her life, but she sure hoped it would be the last.
“I know.” She exhaled a big breath. “It’s just hard to stand around here and wait.” She had kept her life so carefully organized and in control for the past few years, to live with this uncertainty and total loss of control now was not easy.
She walked over to the window and scanned the street in search of the black sedan. It hadn’t reappeared after Owen had lost it on their last trip to the safe house. And it certainly wasn’t anyone Lambert had scheduled to keep her under surveillance. If the unknown surveillant had seen the detective’s press conference, he would surely expect her to end up back at this apartment.
The Colby Agency was still working on tracking down his identity. The license plate had been traced to a leasing company. The car had been leased by one of Raymond Douglas’sbusinesses, but the driver who’d picked up the vehicle had used a stolen ID. False identities seemed to be a theme in all this.
Leah had called first thing that morning and checked on her mother. She didn’t generally allow three days to go by without talking to her mom, but this had been a week of doing things out of the ordinary, and any and all schedules had gone out the window. But Leah hadn’t mentioned any of that to her mother. No need to worry her. There was nothing she could do, and upsetting her would not have helped.
“She went with me to see my mother once,” Leah said, the memory only then occurring to her. Cold flowed through her veins at the thought. She turned back to the man watching her. “What if this Alyssa goes there and tries to hurt or use my mother in some way?” She should have thought of that possibility before. Her mother had no idea about any of this. Maybe Leah should have warned her about the pretend Isla. All her mother had ever heard was good things about Leah’s roommate.
“We have eyes on the facility,” Owen said as he walked toward her, then surveyed the street beyond the window. “She’s not getting to your mother.”
Relief washed over her, making her knees weak. “Thank you. I really should have considered the possibility as soon as Detective Lambert told us about Isla… Alyssa.” She scrubbed at her forehead. “I don’t know where my brain is.”
“We should get out of here. Go to a restaurant you and your roommate patronized regularly. Maybe later tonight, go to a club or other social gathering spot the two of you frequented. Being seen out will lend credibility to Lambert’s plan.”
He was right. “Okay. That’s a great idea. We should go to Tempo. It’s—wasour favorite place. We’d walk there all the time for pancakes or burgers. I think we’ve probably tried everything on the menu at one time or another.”
“Let’s go, then. It’s a nice day for a drive.”
“Tempo is just up the block and across the street. We can walk.”
He smiled. “Even better.”
As they left the apartment building, Leah couldn’t help feeling as if someone was watching. By the time they were on the sidewalk, she had shaken the feeling off. There was no sign of the black sedan. No reason, she supposed, for the police to still be monitoring her activities. Unless they hoped Alyssa would make a move to interact somehow with Leah. With effort, she forced the thoughts away and focused on the moment.
This tree-lined block was one of the reasons she had been so thrilled when the offer to share the apartment came along. She’d struggled so hard those first two years in Chicago to keep a decent roof over her head. Isla—she gave herself a mental shake; not Isla, Alyssa—had been a godsend. How could someone who had seemed so nice, so helpful, have been such a bad person? How could she be heartless enough to wreck someone else’s life to get what she wanted? Not to mention a cold-blooded killer? It just didn’t fit with the woman Leah knew. Then, on top of that, was the time period. They had been roommates for three years. Had Leah just been in the wrong place at the wrong time on Saturday night? Surely the plan had not been scheduled for three years. Maybe the friendship had been real in the beginning…until Alyssa Jones needed a scapegoat.
Any other idea made no sense. Whatever the case, obviously Alyssa had been instrumental in setting up Saturday night’s fiasco.
Leah drew in a lungful of air, reminding herself to focus on the now. It was a little warm today, but the sun and the light breeze felt great.
“This was a good idea.” She glanced up at Owen. “Thanks for suggesting it.”
“You’ve been cooped up at one place or the other since this thing began. It’s nice to get out.” He smiled. “To think about other things.”
That smile of his made her feel lighter. She focused forward. Getting too attached was a bad idea. Though they’d only been together for a few days, she felt so comfortable with him. More at ease than with any guy she had dated. This was the absolute wrong path for her thoughts. She felt confident his suggestion to think about other things was not that she should be thinking about him. Oh well, she couldn’t turn it off with him right beside her, looking so handsome in his navy trousers and that sky blue shirt that highlighted his eyes. And smelling so…so good.
Maybe the distraction was sheer desperation or necessity, but it felt nice anyway.
