CHAPTER ONE
2153 Words
CHAPTER ONE
Stella Fall hurried up the stairs to the meeting room on the hotel’s second floor, pushing back her jacket hood, which she’d pulled down low for anonymity as she’d entered the building. She’d tied her long, dark hair back in a braid. Smoothing her hands over it, she checked around her before opening the door.
At this hour, the conference floor of the hotel felt hushed and quiet. It was seven a.m. Not a usual time for meeting in a conference room. But these were not normal circumstances.
The small room—Conference Suite 4—was occupied by one other person, sitting at the far side of the table and watching the door anxiously.
She jumped to her feet as soon as Stella entered, removing the dark glasses she’d been wearing.
“Viv!” Stella greeted the tall, slender blonde.
“Stella Fall. It’s been a while. Thanks for getting here early.”
“It’s no problem. I’m used to early mornings now that I’m with the FBI,” Stella explained. Her alarm clock was usually set for six a.m., and she’d either head straight to work, or to the gym and then to work, depending on her caseload.
As Viv walked around the table to give her a hug, Stella felt a sense of unreality that she was reconnecting with somebody that she’d first met during her short and disastrous stay with the Marshall family.
Back then, Viv, who’d divorced one of the Marshalls years ago, had been introduced as a family friend. Blond, beautiful, and self-assured, Stella had perceived her as one of that elite clan. Although divorced, she was still part of their inner circle—mostly because she knew their secrets.
Now, as she gave Stella an awkward embrace, Stella was shocked by how she’d changed in the eight months since they’d last seen each other. She’d lost weight and looked stressed. Her face was gaunt, her cheekbones sharply defined. Her skin looked pale and dull. With no make-up, the black coat she wore seemed to leach all the color from her face. Only her blue eyes were as sharp and piercing as Stella remembered them.
“I’m so sorry about what’s happened,” Stella said.
Viv nodded. “It hasn’t been great,” she admitted, and Stella was sure she was thinking back on the chain of events that had led up to this moment.
When Stella had been a murder suspect, estranged from her fiancé’s family and in the worst predicament of her life, Viv had been the one who’d first hinted about the Marshalls’ misdoings, their corrupt and illegal activities, and that their closet was crammed with skeletons.
Stella had told the police, and since then, the Marshalls had been fighting a desperate battle against multiple charges. Ex-senator Gordon Marshall blamed Stella for everything, most recently his wife’s tragic suicide. But in his search for scapegoats, he now suspected Viv had betrayed the family.
Stella knew Viv was in serious danger.
“Where are you staying? You need to go into hiding,” she said, wanting to get to the most important part of the meeting—for her, anyway—which was to ensure Viv’s safety. Stella wasn’t powerless in this regard. She was now an FBI special agent. She could help Viv. She could organize for her to go into a safe house.
But it was clear that Viv didn’t want that. Even as Stella spoke, she was shaking her head.
“No. I can’t hide forever and I’m not going to. I’m back at home but I’m being careful. I’ve tightened up on security. I’ve changed the locks. Installed motion-sensor lights. Put a security door in the corridor leading to my bedroom.”
Stella shook her head, feeling tension coil inside her again. “It’s not enough, Viv. It won’t be enough.”
“I hid away for the charity event, as you advised. I felt terrible about doing it. As if I was letting everyone down. I felt like I was letting my fears get the better of me. I can’t live my life that way.”
“You need to lay low for a while,” Stella entreated, wishing that Viv wasn’t such a strong, brave person, because right now, fear would keep her safer.
They’d already come after Stella. They hadn’t succeeded, but Stella still woke, screaming, from nightmares following the attack. An anonymous man had tried to strangle her while she was on a case, and had almost succeeded. If her case partner hadn’t heard her kicking the wall and burst into her room, she would have died.
And a few days ago, Stella had read about a body discovered on the Greenwich coast, shot three times in the chest. The man—mid-thirties, fit, five-nine—had been in possession of a false ID and his real identity had been linked back to a number of serious crimes.
Stella was sure he’d been the hit man who’d attacked her a few weeks ago. He was the same height and build. And now he was dead. That scared her. Who had killed him? Who would they hire next? There was no limit to the Marshalls’ capacity for revenge.
“I won’t need to lay low for much longer,” Viv said firmly. She smiled at Stella and for a moment, when her face lit up, she looked more like the woman Stella remembered.
“What do you mean?” Stella lowered her voice, scooting her chair closer to Viv’s. Over the smell of carpets and furniture polish in this slightly stuffy room, Stella picked up the faint floral scent of Viv’s shampoo.
“I’ve been doing my own investigation,” Viv told her in a whisper. “I hired a top private investigator from out of state. He’s been working for the past couple of weeks. He’s been able to access phone calls, track movements, follow some financial transactions, even record a couple of conversations. He’s uncovered a lot of evidence so far linking them to the hit man, and other recent crimes also.”
“Seriously?” Stella felt breathless with hope that finally, the Marshalls might be crushed for good.
“Gordon Marshall and Cecilia’s sister, Kathy, will both be heavily implicated.” Viv dropped her voice even lower, breathing the next words. “I told him I need all the evidence. I need this to be rock-solid. I can’t afford for it to break apart. I need Gordon to be jailed, and bail denied, after he’s arrested. Which will be soon,” she added, sounding confident.
“I still think you need to go into hiding until the arrest is made.”
Viv shook her head. “It won’t take long. As soon as I have what I need, I’m going to take it to the police immediately. That’s what I wanted to tell you, Stella. What the Marshalls have done is going to backfire on them. I’m going to make sure of it.”
“Please, please let me get you somewhere safe. Just for two days,” Stella begged.
Viv shook her head. “I don’t want them to know I’m scared, or hiding,” she explained. “There’s still one piece of evidence this investigator is obtaining. I don’t want them to get a heads-up something’s wrong, or he might not be able to get it.”
“Can you ask a cop to stay with you?” she asked, knowing that Viv didn’t trust private security as the Marshalls had links with the local firms.
Viv smiled ruefully. “With what cause? I’ve had no direct threats on my life. Now I must ask an overworked policeman to drop what he’s doing and come and guard me twenty-four hours a day in my already highly secure home? What do you think they’ll say? They’ll tell me to go get private security and stop wasting police resources.”
Stella shook her head, acknowledging Viv’s argument. As a stubborn person herself, she knew when she was up against the same quality in others. Viv wasn’t going to budge. She hoped nothing would go wrong in this short but critical timeframe.
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help,” she said.
“I will. This will all be over soon, I promise you. We’re going to deal them a blow they can’t come back from,” Viv told her, her voice strong and assured.
*
As she drove back to her apartment after the meeting, Stella felt hopeful, but also seriously worried. She hated that Viv was putting herself so badly at risk, even if she was being defiant in the face of danger. And she hated even more that Viv had to expose herself to potential harm, just to try and save herself and Stella.
How was it possible that the toxic, evil, and corrupt Marshalls were not all already in jail?
Stella drove into her apartment’s basement parking garage, where she’d recently booked a bay. Now that it was winter, she needed to be ready to head to the office at a moment’s notice, and couldn’t afford to spend time scraping ice from the windshield or demisting the window glass.
At any rate, that was what Stella told herself, even though she knew the real reason was that having her car parked in a secure basement felt safer than being out on the street. She could drive inside and get out of her car knowing she wasn’t being watched.
But not this time.
After this meeting, her senses were on the highest alert. It was because she was looking closely at her surroundings that she spotted the person standing in a dark corner of the basement.
The figure was dressed in dark jeans and a black hooded jacket, very similar to the gear she’d chosen for the meeting with Viv.
There was something about the way this person was lurking out of sight, in the already gloomy basement, and the way their head turned instantly as they clocked Stella’s car and number plate, that got all her nerves jangling.
Hitting the brakes and taking a closer look, she couldn’t see anything. Whoever was standing there had retreated out of sight behind the pillar.
She would have reversed straight out again, but the automated boom had already lowered. Panic surged inside her as she remembered that life-and-death struggle with the killer.
She had her g*n with her, belted under her jacket. It was uncomfortable when she drove, but she didn’t mind. The discomfort of having it dig into her was more than worth the reassurance of knowing that her weapon was within easy reach.
Stella accelerated through the basement, deciding to drive straight to the exit and get away. She flinched at the looming shadows cast by her headlights. Sick fear welled inside her. She hated feeling powerless and vulnerable, even though she knew that so soon after a nearly-fatal attack this was inevitable.
At the last minute, she changed her mind. She was not going to head out of the basement. She was going to face this person, whoever it was, and confront them.
Wrenching the wheel to the side, she spun the car into her bay. She pushed the door open and leaped out, grabbing her g*n from the holster as she ran to where she’d seen the lurking figure.
But the watcher had gone.
Only shadows remained. With hands that felt cold and shaky, Stella took her phone out and activated the flashlight, banishing the darkness.
Had she imagined this? For a moment she doubted what she’d seen. Perhaps she’d been so spooked after the meeting with Viv that her mind had conjured this up.
But then she saw the evidence. It was a partial footprint, because the person must have stood in the shallow puddle that had blown in through a ventilation grate.
Using her phone, Stella photographed the footprint. The person had been wearing trainers with a distinctive pattern on the sole. There was no heel print, so she couldn’t tell the size. But it was clear proof that someone had been standing here and had vanished as soon as they’d been noticed.
She had no idea who they were. But she feared that this was just the start. They were in her home territory, watching and waiting. She had to watch her back even more carefully now, because the threats against her were only going to stop when Gordon Marshall was in jail for life, or she was dead.
Her phone buzzed in her hand and she jumped, realizing how wound up she was. Checking it, her heart quickening, she saw a text from Roth.
“We have a new murder case just called in. I’m assigning you to it. Please come in asap for your briefing,” it read.
- Writer
