Loe raamatut: «The Adair Affairs»

Chapter 1

An hour ago, Elizabeth Shelton had been driving out of AdAir Corp’s underground parking facility and on her way to her weekend.

It was eight o’clock on a Friday night and the rest of the employees who worked at AdAir Corp, one of the country’s leading cell phone providers, had already left for their weekends. Today the mass exodus had taken place at five o’clock, because that was when the building’s surveillance cameras had all been turned off. They’d had to leave, for safety reasons. A memo had gone out, and everyone knew that the existing system was being upgraded.

Elizabeth had stayed behind in order to catch up on some last-minute work. Work she needed to have prepared and at her fingertips for a meeting she was attending on Monday morning in her boss’s place. Reginald Adair was scheduled to be out of town on a business trip. He should have already left at six to catch his flight.

Preoccupied with something she had just learned earlier in the day—something that was going to completely upend her world once it became public knowledge...and it was going to become public knowledge, because that was the nature of the beast—Elizabeth had neglected to take several very important papers with her when she’d left the office. Without those papers her weekend would be completely unproductive despite the reams of papers she did have in her briefcase.

She’d gotten halfway down the block, reviewing everything she needed to have taken with her, when she realized her mistake. The papers that were the key to the entire presentation were still sitting on her side desk, waiting to be packed up in her briefcase.

Muttering a few choice words under her breath about the state of her mind, Elizabeth had executed a narrow U-turn and driven straight back to the underground parking facility.

Habit had her easing her vehicle into her designated parking space—not that she needed to stick to protocol tonight. There were no other cars on her level—or on any other level, she strongly suspected—because everyone else had gone home, or at least away from here, three hours ago.

She had to get herself under control, Elizabeth had silently lectured as she walked across the parking structure to the private executive elevator that only let out on the sixth floor. Her situation was what it was, and she was not about to do anything drastic to change it. That just wasn’t her way.

In the meantime, she couldn’t allow her dilemma to upset her to the point that she wasn’t able to do her job.

God knew she was going to need the money in the coming months. And besides, work was all she really had. She couldn’t take a chance on losing her job.

She’d laughed at herself then, as she got on the private elevator. Months? Was she kidding herself? It was more like years. She was going to need money—extra money—for years to come. Eighteen at the very least.

Most likely longer than that.

Later. She’d think about it later, she’d told herself. For now she just needed to get those missing papers and go home.

One step at a time, Lizzy. One step at a time will get you there. Wherever there is.

The elevator had come to a stop, its stainless steel doors sliding apart soundlessly. Waiting for her to get off.

Stepping out, Elizabeth hurried toward her office, which was just beyond her boss’s.

The light coming from beneath Reginald Adair’s door registered in her peripheral vision and had caught her attention a beat after she passed it.

It made her stop in her tracks.

Reginald Adair was supposed to be on his way to the airport if not actually aboard the plane by now. Had he left without remembering to shut off the lights?

That wasn’t like him, she thought. The man was nothing if not extremely precise. He believed in leading by example and that meant following all the rules, no matter how small the rule might seem. That included powering down his computer and turning off the lights when he left the office for the night.

Approaching the closed office door, Elizabeth had knocked lightly at first. Receiving no response, she’d knocked a little louder, and this time she’d called out to him so he could hear her through the door.

“Mr. Adair, it’s Elizabeth. Do you need me to take care of anything for you before I leave the office for the weekend?”

She’d looked down at her watch. “Is everything okay? Your flight is leaving soon. Would you like me to call a cab for you?”

She’d leaned her ear against the door to see if she could hear anything and that was when she felt the door move slightly beneath her cheek.

The door had been left unlocked and open.

If he was there, why wasn’t he answering her? And if he wasn’t there, why had he left all the lights on as well as the door unlocked? Perhaps in his rush to get to the airport, he had forgotten? But the man had never been late for anything in the entire five years she had worked for him.

A wave of uneasiness slipped over her.

Something wasn’t making sense.

Bracing herself, Elizabeth had gingerly pushed opened the door with her fingertips. That it gave so easily should have warned her that something was drastically wrong.

But with her own personal dilemma fresh and foremost on her mind, she had completely missed that sign. That in turn had left her completely unprepared to find Reginald Adair sprawled out on the floor of his office the way that she had.

Elizabeth had been even less prepared to be catapulted from her role as the executive assistant to the president of AdAir Corp, to a person of interest in the very same corporate president’s lethal attack.

An aura of disbelief encircled her. It felt as if the whole world around her had transformed into a surreal setting that made absolutely no sense to her, no matter how hard she tried to put the puzzle pieces together.

The first detective on the scene, a fifteen-year veteran named Otis Kramer, lost no time in firing questions at her.

At first she’d just assumed that the questions were routine, but as they kept coming, Elizabeth began to change her mind.

Her uneasiness intensified.

When the detective, who was married to his job, continued interrogating her, Elizabeth couldn’t keep the nausea tamped down any longer.

“I need to use the ladies’ room,” she’d told the slope-shouldered man in the ill-fitting, off-the-rack charcoal-gray suit. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

There wasn’t an ounce of compassion in the man’s thin, nondescript face. “When we’re done,” he’d snapped back.

“Unless you’re okay with having your shoes ruined, now,” she’d countered.

She was certain that if she wasn’t allowed access to the bathroom immediately, she was going to throw up right there, at the crime scene. Thankfully, the man’s eyes widened and he nodded his head slightly. With that, Elizabeth quickly turned on her heel and rushed to Reginald Adair’s private bathroom. The disgruntled-looking detective was right behind her.

Entering the spacious restroom, she began to close the door behind her, only to have the detective put his hand in the way, effectively stopping the door from shutting him out.

Her patience just about worn down to a nub, Elizabeth glared at the rumpled older man. “In case you failed to notice, we are on the sixth floor. I’m not about to crawl out the window.”

He glared back at her for another moment or two, then reluctantly released the door.

Just in time as far as Elizabeth was concerned. Rushing over to the toilet, she sank down on her knees in front of the bowl.

The contents of her stomach from the past few hours made a reappearance in recycled form.

After everything she could have possibly eaten spilled out—and then some—Elizabeth pulled herself up to her feet again. Standing before the marble sink, she gave herself a minute to recover, then turned on the faucet and threw cold water on her face. The face looking back at her in the mirror was almost a ghastly shade of white.

White sheets were darker than she currently was.

Get it together, Lizzy, she told her reflection. You look too guilty. That detective will be all over you like a starving dog on a bone.

Elizabeth gave herself a couple of extra minutes to pull herself together before she opened the door. Kramer was standing right in front of it. She barely avoided walking right into him.

Determined to look as if she was in control, Elizabeth told the detective, “I’m sorry about that. I can answer the rest of your questions now.”

Kramer was obviously annoyed that she had managed to put him off, no matter what the reason. He looked far from friendly.

The next minute, he was gesturing at her to stand over to the side as the gurney carrying Reginald Adair moved past them. Instead of paramedics, the gurney was accompanied by two men from the coroner’s office.

Her heart felt like lead in her chest.

Adair hadn’t made it, Elizabeth realized, startled. Somehow, maybe because the man always seemed larger-than-life to her, she’d expected him to recover no matter what the wound.

Tears sprang to her eyes, threatening to fall. She did what she could to hold them back. Tears weren’t going to help the man now.

Nothing was.

Flat brown eyes took inventory of her, moving from top to bottom. “There’s a lot of blood on you,” the detective finally commented.

Completely oblivious to her appearance, Elizabeth looked down at herself for the first time since she’d found Adair on the floor.

The entire bottom portion of her skirt, as well as large sections of her blouse, was stained with blood. Reginald Adair’s blood.

The realization—not to mention the sight of that blood—brought a chill racing up and down her spine.

“I guess it got all over me when I was trying to revive him,” she told the detective numbly.

“You tried to revive him,” the detective echoed. “Even though he was dead?”

The latter part of the question was all but fired at her. The detective continued staring at her, his eyes nearly boring small holes into her.

“He wasn’t dead at the time,” Elizabeth snapped irritably. Too much had happened in too short of a time frame. She wasn’t up to coping with a rude police detective who seemed to have made up his mind that she was guilty of murdering her boss and had condemned her right from the start. “I detected a faint heartbeat and tried to get his heart to beat harder, stronger.” She blew out a breath as she wrapped her arms around herself, feeling suddenly cold, wishing there was someone else in the room, someone familiar she could turn to for moral support as she suffered through this entire ordeal, even just for a moment or two. “I didn’t succeed,” she ended quietly.

Kramer snorted and looked at her pointedly. “Now there’s an understatement.” The comment was accompanied by a dry, humorless laugh. “What were you doing in the building in the first place?” he wanted to know. “I couldn’t help but notice that the entire building was empty except for you two.”

“Mr. Adair gave the order for everyone to leave by five,” she told him. Maybe this would go faster if she just answered him in simple sentences, she thought, desperate to have this over with. She had calls to make, people to notify of this terrible tragedy.

“Convenient.” Kramer continued to stare at her intently, waiting for her to break or say something out of turn.

“Not really.” She knew her tone sounded defensive, but there was something about the detective that just brought out the worst in her. “Mr. Adair was having the security system overhauled and updated.”

The detective’s face was expressionless. “How many people knew about that?”

Wasn’t he listening? “Everyone,” she answered, trying not to allow her exasperation to poke through. “That’s why they all left at five.”

“Not all.” Kramer looked at her pointedly. “You stayed.”

“I had something to finish. It took longer than I thought,” Elizabeth told him, leaving out the part explaining why it took longer: because she was so preoccupied with this new situation she unwillingly found herself in. “When I finished, I left the building,” she informed him coolly, then added, “It was around eight o’clock.”

“You left,” he echoed. “And yet, you’re here. Why is that?” Kramer asked, keeping his voice deceptively light, almost friendly sounding.

Elizabeth didn’t know if the detective was mocking her or trying to trip her up into making some kind of a confession. In either case, she trod very carefully, knowing that any misstep would have the man pouncing on her with who knew what sort of accusations—not the least of which would be naming her to be Reginald Adair’s killer.

She phrased her explanation about her reappearance as simply as possible. “I realized that I’d left a few pages I was going to need on my desk, so I came back for them.”

Kramer stared at her as if he was x-raying her very bones. “So you were planning on working this weekend.”

His tone was too pleasant. She didn’t trust it. “Yes, I was.”

Kramer circled her slowly, as if taking measure of her from all sides. “An attractive woman like you, staying home all weekend, working—what’s wrong with this picture?” he asked, standing in front of her again.

It was obvious that he didn’t believe her, Elizabeth thought. She was telling him the truth and the detective didn’t believe her.

Was she going to need a lawyer on top of everything else that had happened today?

She knew that if she showed the least bit of fear in the face of this interrogation, she’d be lost.

Raising her chin, she tossed her long blond hair over her shoulder and said defiantly, “Nothing, if that woman wants to get ahead in the company. It takes a great deal of hard work.”

Kramer shrugged, his loose-fitting jacket shifting on his thin shoulders. “Another way might be sleeping with the boss,” he suggested.

That might be the way you’d do it, but I wouldn’t, Elizabeth thought angrily.

For now, the response had to remain solely in her head, since saying anything remotely antagonistic out loud would be asking for trouble and far from wise.

“Mr. Adair is—was,” Elizabeth corrected herself, “a married man with a family,” she pointed out to the detective, hoping that would be the end of his condescending inference.

Even so, she couldn’t deny that she felt guilty—and perhaps even partially responsible—for Adair’s death. Maybe if she’d just stopped by earlier...

Turning, she watched the gurney being guided by the coroner’s men until it disappeared into the private elevator car.

“I should have checked on him,” she murmured to herself.

Kramer’s ears went up on high alert. “What did you say?” he asked, his eyes once more boring into her.

She wanted to shout at the man to leave her alone. Instead, she patiently explained her meaning.

“Before I left the first time, I should have checked on Mr. Adair then. He was supposed to have already left for a business trip—that’s why I came into his office in the first place. I saw the light coming from underneath his door. It should have been off and he should have been at the airport, waiting to take off,” she added mournfully.

And now he never will.

“Looks like he found another way to take off,” Kramer commented, his tone far from friendly or compassionate.

Elizabeth pitied anyone who had to work with this man. “Am I free to go?” she wanted to know. The detective made her very uneasy, not to mention the fact that she desperately wanted to get out of her bloodied clothes and into an accommodating hot shower.

“Sure,” he said magnanimously. But when she turned to leave, he qualified, “When we’re done.” His tone made her blood run cold. “I’ve still got a few more questions for you.”

The smile that slid over his thin lips was completely disembodied from anything remotely personal, warm or sincere.

“Why don’t you come down to the station with me where you can be more comfortable?” he suggested.

“Come into my parlor,” said the spider to the fly, Elizabeth thought with a sense of uneasiness. The old familiar phrase immediately ran through her head.

Who in their right mind thought that a police station was a comfortable place to spend their evening?

“If you don’t mind, why don’t we just go into my office?” Elizabeth suggested instead. “It’s right next to Mr. Adair’s.”

To show the detective how close it was, she pointed to it and then mentally crossed her fingers that he would agree to it.

The last place she wanted to go was a police station. She was tired, upset and she had a number of people to notify. Going to the police station would just needlessly use up more time.

“I do mind,” Kramer replied. His barely open eyes—like the slits of a reptile’s—looked at her for a long moment before the detective told her, “I do better on my own home turf. You understand,” he added loftily.

No, she didn’t, Elizabeth thought as she allowed herself to be escorted out of Reginald Adair’s office. She didn’t understand anything that had transpired today. Not who would have killed Mr. Adair, or why, not to mention how they could have done it without her hearing anything. She was, after all, in the next office. Could they have done it in the short amount of time she was gone from the building?

Most of all, she couldn’t understand why the police detective thought of her as a possible suspect—and he most certainly did think of her that way, judging by the look in his eyes when he was staring at her.

Aside from proximity, which might cover opportunity, the most important factor in a homicide was conspicuously missing in this particular instance.

Namely, she had absolutely no motive to kill her boss.

Adair had never been anything but kind and fair to her in the years that she had worked for him. While she knew that Reginald Adair had his flaws—who didn’t?—whenever he interacted with her, the man had never been anything but upstanding and kind.

She’d found herself admiring Adair’s work ethic and felt that AdAir Corporation was a very good place for her to work. There was an energy here, a zest that promised good things came of efforts that were put forth.

Nowhere within all that was there anything that even distantly resembled a motive.

Rather than just allow herself to be blindly herded out of the building, Elizabeth turned to the detective as they got into the elevator and demanded point-blank, “Am I a suspect?”

She tried not to dwell on the fact that they were riding down in the same private elevator that had just taken away Adair’s lifeless body.

“You catch on fast,” Kramer commented, slanting only a side glance at her.

“Why?” She wanted to know. “Why am I a suspect—other than the fact that I was the one who found the body,” she added.

Kramer nodded and what looked like a smug expression filtered over his face.

“That’ll do it,” he told her, then paused dramatically. “Do you know how many killers actually call in to report their crimes? They like inserting themselves into the crime scene. What better way to do it than to find the body and call it in? It gives them an excuse to hang around.”