Black Canyon Conspiracy Read online

  Sophie looked up at his approach. “What did you find out?” she asked.

  “Let’s talk over here,” he said, indicating the shade of a tree a few feet away. Lauren didn’t even look up when her sister left her. She had yet to acknowledge Marco’s presence.

  “How is she?” he asked, when Sophie joined him under the tree.

  “I’ve asked one of the doctors here for a sedative. Stress isn’t good for her, and something like this...” She shook her head. “It’s so awful.”

  “Did she say what they were talking about, before he was shot?”

  “No. He asked to speak to her alone and left me here. So it wasn’t an accident?”

  The question had a pleading quality. People wanted things like this to be accidents. As tragic as random violence was, it was easier to deal with than the idea of deliberate evil. “There’s a shooting range behind here, but I don’t think this was an accident.” The shot had been too accurate, a shot that killed quickly.

  “I never even liked him much, but I never wanted him dead. And to die like that, right in front of Lauren...”

  He glanced at the bench again. Lauren was sitting up now, staring into the distance, eyes glazed, her beautiful face a mask of grief. “Did she still love him?” He hadn’t meant to ask the question; her feelings were none of his business. But he held his breath, waiting for the answer.

  “I loved what we used to have together,” Lauren said, her voice husky and low. “I loved the idea of us together, of being married and happy. Of being normal.”

  He moved to sit beside her on the bench, wanting to touch her, but not touching. “I know this is painful,” he said softly. “But I need to know what Phil said to you. What were you talking about before he died?”

  “He told me Alan Milbanks talked to him about Richard.” Her voice grew stronger and she turned toward him, her knees brushing his leg. “The two of them definitely knew each other. I was trying to persuade him to go to the police, to tell them everything he knew. Someone killed him to keep him quiet, I’m sure of it.”

  “Was anyone nearby who could have overheard your conversation?” he asked.

  “No. But Phil said he felt like someone was watching him. He joked that paranoia was a side effect of his treatment, but maybe he was right and someone was watching. Maybe they could read lips or maybe...maybe just seeing the two of us together was enough for them to kill him.” Her voice broke and she bent her head.

  Marco gripped her hand. “This may have had nothing to do with you,” he said. “Someone decided to silence Phil, for whatever reason. It could have been a drug dealer he owed money or something completely unrelated to our case. Don’t waste time blaming yourself.”

  She sniffed and nodded. “You’re right. My falling apart doesn’t help anyone.”

  He squeezed her hand and released it, then stood as a young woman in purple scrubs approached. “Dr. Winstead prescribed this sedative for Ms. Starling.” She held out a small paper cup containing a pill, and a paper cup of water.

  “Thank you, but I don’t need it now.” Lauren stood and pushed her hair back from her face. “I just want to go home.”

  “The local police may want to question you,” Marco said.

  “Detective Cargill spoke with Dr. Winstead and said he would question Ms. Starling later, when she’s feeling better,” the nurse said.

  “Then, I’ll take you home,” Marco said.

  “I can take her.” Sophie put her arm around Lauren.

  “I’ll follow you and make sure you settle in all right,” Marco said.

  “Thank you,” Lauren said. “I’d appreciate that.”

  He would have preferred to have Lauren in the car with him for the drive back to Montrose, but he realized she’d probably be more comfortable with her sister. He had to be content with following their car, observing what he could through the windshield. The two women didn’t seem to be talking much. Was that a good or a bad sign? His impression was that women always talked more, especially when something was bothering them.

  His phone rang. He answered it and Graham’s voice boomed over the line. “What’s going on over there?”

  “Starling died almost instantly, from a single bullet to the heart. He and Lauren were talking in the back garden of the treatment center when he was shot.”

  “Who shot him? Any suspects?”

  “Looks like a sniper. The police are questioning people at a shooting range not far away, but this doesn’t look like an accident to me. I think someone wanted to shut him up.”

  “One of his drug connections?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe Prentice. Lauren said they were talking about Prentice when Phil was shot. He told her Prentice and Alan Milbanks knew each other. She was trying to persuade him to tell the police what he knew.”

  “How is she doing?”

  He studied the back of her head in the car ahead of him. She looked so still—too still. “She’s had a shock,” he said. “A doctor at the center persuaded the local cops to put off their interview until later. I don’t think she’s going to be able to tell them much anyway. She says she didn’t see anything.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Headed to her apartment. She and Sophie are in Sophie’s car, just ahead of me.”

  “Stay as long as you need to. Make sure the place is secure.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He knew he’d be staying awhile when he followed Sophie’s car into the parking lot of their apartment building and found it crowded with vehicles, including two news vans with satellite dishes on their roofs. Reporters lined the walkway leading to the sisters’ apartment.

  His phone rang, and when he answered it he wasn’t surprised to hear Sophie’s voice, agitated. “Marco, what are we going to do? How are we going to get past those vultures?”

  “Is there a back way in?”

  “There’s a sliding door onto a patio, but the gate and the door are locked.”

  “Then, we’ll have to go in the front. Stick close to me and don’t respond to anything, no matter what the reporters ask.”

  They parked as close to the apartment as they could get, behind the news vans. Marco exited his Cruiser, then opened Lauren’s door and helped her out while Sophie came around from the driver’s side. With an arm around each woman, he made his way toward the apartment.

  When the reporters spotted them, they swarmed around. Lauren angled her body toward his and buried her face in his shoulder. “Ms. Starling, what do you have to say about your husband’s shooting?”

  “Are they thinking this is a murder?”

  “What were you doing at the treatment center? Were you and Phil planning a reconciliation?”

  Marco forced his way through the crowd of clamoring men and women, his fierce expression causing more than one of them to stumble back out of the way. He waited while Sophie unlocked the door, then the three of them hurried inside, the reporters’ shouts muffled by the slamming door.

  “That was awful,” Sophie said as she hurried to draw the drapes across the front window.

  “They’re just doing their jobs,” Lauren said. “Trying to get the story.” She moved out of Marco’s arms. He was surprised at how empty he felt when she moved away, cold in the absence of her warmth.

  “I’ll make some tea,” Sophie said, and retreated to the kitchen.

  Lauren sat on the couch and kicked off her shoes, revealing pink-polished toenails. “Thank you,” she said. “We would have had a tougher time getting through that gauntlet without you.”

  He sat in a chair across from her. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  She looked pale, but calmer than before. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I think I’m still in shock.”

  “It was a terrible thing to have to experience.”

  She hugged a pillow to her chest. “Have you ever seen someone shot before?”

  “Yes.”

  “Abby said you were in Special Forces. I guess you’ve seen a lot
of horrible things.”

  “Yes.” Much of his life he’d spent surrounded by violence—in the midst of gang warfare as a child growing up in Los Angeles, as a soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan and as an officer with the DEA.

  “How do you handle it without falling apart?” she asked.

  “You learn to wall off your emotions. To not see everything that’s there.”

  “That sounds like an awful way to live.”

  “Maybe it is.”

  “All my life I’ve been accused of being too emotional,” she said. “Too sensitive. But I’d rather be that way than not feel anything.”

  She looked him in the eye, a piercing gaze that made him feel naked in front of her. Exposed. “I feel things,” he said. He was feeling a lot of things now—a potent mix of lust and admiration and sympathy and the desire to protect her from anything that threatened her. “But I’ve learned not to show my feelings.”

  “I’m the opposite.” She set the pillow aside. “I can never hide my feelings. I don’t know if that’s part of my disease, or just the way I’m wired.”

  “That’s one of the things I like about you,” he said. “You’re honest. I never have to guess your motives.”

  “You think that now, but you haven’t seen me at my worst.”

  “I’ve seen a lot of bad things in my life, but you’re not one of them.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t go there, Marco.”

  “Go where?”

  “Don’t get involved with me. I’m too much trouble. Too unpredictable.”

  “Maybe I like unpredictable.”

  “You might think that, but you wouldn’t. Phil reminded me of some of the things I did while we were married. I see now how hard I made it for him.”

  “That wasn’t you. It was your disease.”

  “They’re one and the same. I can’t separate the two. For better or worse—like a bad marriage. Except there’s no chance of divorce.”

  He leaned toward her, elbows on his knees, hands clasped in front of him. “You won’t convince me you’re a bad person,” he said. “You’re a strong woman, but I’m even stronger. And I like a challenge.”

  “Why do you care so much?” Her voice rose, angry.

  Better anger than despair, he thought. “We have more in common than you think.”

  Her eyes widened. “Don’t tell me you’re bipolar, too.”

  “No. But what you’re going through right now—fighting for your reputation against someone who’s trying to take you down... I’ve been there.”

  She looked skeptical.

  He hadn’t meant to tell her this; he never talked to anyone about what had happened. He searched for the right words to tell his story as briefly and unemotionally as possible. “When I was first in Iraq, I transferred into a new squadron, so I was the new guy,” he said. “For whatever reason, another guy, more senior, decided he didn’t like me. He started spreading rumors about me—that I’d been transferred out of my old unit because I was a coward who put other soldiers in danger because I didn’t back them up on a mission. It’s probably the worst thing you can say about a soldier. Being part of a team means always looking out for the other team members.”

  “You’re not a coward,” she said.

  “None of these people knew me, so they didn’t recognize what the other guy was saying as lies.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I had to prove myself—over and over again. Eventually, the others saw what I was really like, but it took a long time.”

  “That must have been awful,” she said.

  “It was, but I got through it. And you’ll get through this, too.”

  “We’ll all get through this,” Sophie said. She carried a tray into the room and set it on the coffee table between them. She handed Lauren a cup of tea. “There’s tea for you, too, Marco, if you want it. But if you need to leave, I understand. Lauren and I will be all right.”

  “I’m going to stay here tonight, just to be sure,” he said.

  “That really isn’t necessary,” she said.

  “It’s all right,” Lauren said. “I’ll feel better with you here. In the morning, we can talk about what we’re going to do next.”

  * * *

  MARCO SPENT THE NIGHT on the sofa while Lauren took a sleeping pill that knocked her out for six hours. After she forced herself out of bed and into the shower, she joined Sophie and Marco in the kitchen. They had the newspaper spread out in front of them. Sophie jumped up when Lauren came into the room. “Good morning,” she said. “Let me get you some coffee.” As she spoke, she folded the section of the paper she’d been reading, then tried to take Marco’s from him.

  “Leave the paper,” Lauren said. She sat in the chair to Marco’s left. “I want to see what they have to say.”

  Sophie bit her bottom lip, her hand still protectively atop the stack of papers.

  “Let her see,” Marco said. “She needs to know what we’re up against.”

  “I’ll get the coffee,” Sophie said, and hurried away.

  “How are you feeling this morning?” Marco asked, his dark eyes fixed on her. He needed a shave and had slept in his clothes, but the ruggedness only made him look sexier.

  “I’ve felt better,” she said. “But I’ll be okay.” She’d taken her medication and done some of the centering exercises her therapist had given her. At the first sign of anything off-kilter, she would call her doctor. She was determined to stay in control and on top of this.

  He slid a section of paper toward her. “Start here,” he said. “Some of it’s pretty ugly, though.”

  She took a deep breath. “I’m getting used to that.”

  The front page of the Post featured a shot from her wedding, Lauren in a white veil and gown, carrying a bouquet of roses, Phil in a black tux with a white rose boutonniere. He’d been smiling at the camera while she smiled at him. Maybe a foreshadowing of how their marriage would turn out. The headline over the shot proclaimed Actor Murdered in Front of Ex.

  Sophie handed Lauren a cup of coffee and returned to her chair. “The reporter who wrote that article should get a job with the tabloids,” she said. “He manages to include every bit of gossip and innuendo he could find.”

  Lauren scanned the article, which began with the facts—Phil had been shot while standing in the back garden of the treatment center with his ex-wife, who had come to visit him. He was undergoing treatment for drug addiction. Prior to that, he had worked as an actor with a Denver theater company and won several awards for his work. His ex was a popular former Channel 9 news anchor who had a history of mental illness. She had been in the news lately for accusing prominent billionaire Richard Prentice of trying to kill her. The morning of the shooting, a grand jury had failed to indict Prentice for the crimes.

  Okay, nothing here she hadn’t expected, though she would have preferred the reporter be more specific with her diagnosis. She had bipolar disorder, a fairly common, controllable disease. She wasn’t a psychopath, a sociopath, or suffering from any of the other sometimes dangerous disorders that people associated with criminal behavior. She continued reading, but the next sentence made her freeze. “Given her history of erratic behavior, police have not ruled out Ms. Starling as a suspect in her ex-husband’s death.”

  She read the words out loud, her voice breaking on the last syllable. Sophie leaned across the table and covered her hand. “I didn’t want you to see that,” she said.

  “How could anyone think I had anything to do with Phil’s murder?” she asked. “I was standing right there when he was shot—by a sniper who wasn’t anywhere near.”

  “I spoke with Detective Cargill this morning,” Marco said. “Someone at the scene speculated that the crime could have been a murder for hire and apparently the reporter took that and ran with it.”

  “What kind of sicko would hire an assassin, then arrange to be with the intended victim when he died?” Sophie asked.

  “Apparently the kind of sicko
some people think I am.” Lauren pushed the paper away and reached for the coffee with shaking hands. “What else did the police say?”

  “They’re still questioning people at the gun range,” Marco said. “The trajectory of the bullet indicates it was fired from there, or near there.”

  “They don’t really think this was an accident, do they?” Sophie asked.

  He shrugged, an elegant movement of his shoulders that made Lauren think of an exotic wild animal—a cheetah or a panther. Like one of those big cats, he seemed so calm and contained, sitting there beside her. Yet underneath the stillness lay something lethal, poised to unleash itself if the situation called for it.

  “If they think this is an accident, the police might not take the crime as seriously,” Lauren said. “Even if they find the shooter, they won’t look into who might have hired him to do the shooting.”

  “This feels like a professional hit to me,” Marco said. “They won’t find him.”

  “So we’ll never know if Richard Prentice was behind this or not.” The truth of that statement shouldn’t have surprised her. Though the Rangers could link people engaged in everything from prostitution to drug trafficking to Prentice, the billionaire always managed to distance himself. Some pointed to this as proof of his innocence, but having spent six weeks as his prisoner, Lauren could never believe it. He had never mistreated her; he’d pampered her, even. But his determination to make her his own, in spite of her protests, had shown her the twisted soul beneath the tailored suits and calm demeanor.

  “What are we going to do now?” she asked.

  “I don’t want you leaving the house alone.” Marco shifted his gaze to include Sophie. “Either of you.”

  “Why?” Sophie asked. “You don’t really think we’re in danger, do you? The grand jury let Prentice go.”

  “That sniper killed Phil,” Marco said. “But the shooter could just as easily have targeted Lauren.”

  “Richard said he loved me. He wanted me to marry him. In his twisted way, I think he meant what he said. He wants to frighten me into keeping quiet, but I can’t believe he wants me dead. I don’t think he wants me dead.” But the memory of Phil falling at her feet, blood blooming at his chest, sent an icy chill through her, and she had to set aside the coffee. “What am I supposed to do?” she asked. “I can’t hide in here forever.”