Fatal Reaction (Paramedic Anneliese Ashmore Mysteries Book 1) Read online

  ALSO BY BELINDA FRISCH

  Cure (Strandville Zombie Novel: Book One)

  Afterbirth (Strandville Zombie Novel: Book Two)

  Better Left Buried

  The Missing Year

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2015 Belinda Frisch

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477830123

  ISBN-10: 147783012X

  Cover design by Marc Cohen

  Library of Congress Control Number 2014958624

  To my loving husband, Brent, the cornerstone of my life, who supports my talent unconditionally and believes in me even when I don’t believe in myself. I couldn’t do any of this without you.

  In memory of my grandfather, Robert J. Seitz

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  CHAPTER 71

  CHAPTER 72

  CHAPTER 73

  CHAPTER 74

  CHAPTER 75

  CHAPTER 76

  CHAPTER 77

  CHAPTER 78

  CHAPTER 79

  CHAPTER 80

  CHAPTER 81

  CHAPTER 82

  CHAPTER 83

  CHAPTER 84

  CHAPTER 85

  CHAPTER 86

  CHAPTER 87

  CHAPTER 88

  CHAPTER 89

  CHAPTER 90

  CHAPTER 91

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  The neon sign of the Aquarian motel flickered against the dark morning sky. Six inches of fresh snow blanketed the rows of dilapidated cars, making the ill-reputed slum look only slightly less depressing.

  Sergeant Mike Richardson was the second to arrive on the scene. Harold Cooper, whom most people called “Coop,” stood questioning Samuel Roberts, the Aquarian’s manager, under the overhang in front of room 11. The severity in his normally cheerful expression foretold of the bleak scene beyond the door.

  Coop, dressed in the requisite blue uniform and a heavy jacket zippered up to his chin, shivered and jotted down notes. His breath puffed out in white clouds as he spoke. At six foot two and a lean one hundred seventy-five pounds, his body wasn’t built for such extreme cold.

  Samuel, known throughout the department for drug-related incidents and petty theft, wore nothing but a food-stained white tank top and a pair of tattered, acid-washed jeans. A good four inches shorter than Harold and at least forty pounds lighter, Sam couldn’t afford to lose the calories his crack addiction burned. He bounced up and down, scratching at his long, thin neck hard enough to leave raised red trails dotted with blood.

  Mike zippered his coat and warmed his hands in front of the patrol car’s vents, savoring the last bit of heat. The digital clock on the radio said it was 1:15 a.m. Thirty years on the force and as many run-ins with Samuel told him that nothing good happened at this hour, and never at this place. Shutting off the engine, he grabbed a pad and pen from the passenger seat.

  “Hey, Coop.” Mike tucked his face into his collar, and his breath reflected off it, freezing in crystals on his salt-and-pepper beard.

  “Hey,” Coop said.

  Mike, eager to get out of the cold, went immediately to the strung-out man casting back-and-forth glances across the parking lot. “Samuel, how’re you doing?”

  “I’m g-g-good.” Sam brushed a knotted strand of greasy blond hair back from his heavily stubbled face.

  “What happened here?” said Mike.

  “I—I—I don’t know what—what—what happened. I keep tell—tell—tellin’ Officer Cooper, b-b-but he w-w-won’t let me leave.” Sam’s parted lips were turning blue.

  Samuel launched into a string of denial Mike had seen coming before he even started his line of questioning. In all the times Mike had been called to the Aquarian, no one had ever seen anything.

  Mike noted several newly missing teeth and one on the verge of falling out. The few that remained varied as much in color as fall corn, ranging from yellow to brown. Samuel twitched and picked at his skin. Mike knew if he didn’t get him to look at the scene with fresh eyes, he would be unlikely to remember anything later. He set his hand on the doorknob, and Coop grabbed his arm.

  “Wait. There’s something I need to tell you before you go in there.”

  Sam’s bloodshot eyes went wide. “I—I—I don’t want to go b-b-back in there. I—I—I did—did—didn’t see anyone. I swear it. I—I—I just found her. Sh-sh-she was supposed to check out. I’m tellin’ you. I don’t know anything.” He backed away as if getting ready to run. “P-p-please. I—I—I just want to go to the office.”

  “All right, Sam. Take it easy.” Mike took several slow steps toward him and softened his tone. “We won’t go back in there. Tell me what you saw. Did you notice anything out of place?”

  “I—I—I only went in there to clean.”

  “At one in the morning?” Mike raised his eyebrows.

  Sam’s vacant stare fixed on the scab on his arm that he wouldn’t stop picking at.

  Mike drew a deep breath and looked up. Six new security cameras, half rounds with smoked lenses, had been mounted along the motel’s overhang. “Sam, when did you put in surveillance?”

  Samuel’s roving stare moved faster, casting back-and-forth glances across the escalating scene.

  “Sam! When did you get cameras?”

  Samuel refused to answer.

  Two more patrol cars arrived. The sirens and swirling lights drew the inevitable crowd. Men and women, most of whom called the motel home thanks to the county’s Section 8 program, filed out of their rooms. Mike suspected the few doors that remained closed belonged to recent parolees looking to avoid trouble.

  A little girl, wearing a pair of pink blanket sleepers with the feet cut out, rubbed her eyes. Her overweight mother exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke and pulled the girl to her side.

  “What’s goin’ on?” she said. “I got a kid trying to sleep in here.”

  “I’ll be with you in a minute, ma’am.” Coop waved the growing crowd back. “I’m going to need to take statements from all of you, but for now it’s best you go back inside.”

  These people knew the protocol, and Mike expected no more information from them than he had gotten from Samuel.

  Blood welled up from the now-open wound on Samuel’s thin forearm, and he clenched his teeth; Mike guessed he did this involuntarily. Samuel’s big toe wiggled through a hole in his gray-white sock, and his skin glistened with sweat.

  Ronald Graham stepped out of his patrol car, his coat taut over his bulging belly and his plump face buried inside h
is collar.

  Mike waved him over. “Ron, take Samuel to the office. Get him warm, make him some coffee, and get his statement.”

  “Will do. Come on, let’s get you inside,” Ron said to Samuel, and gestured for Mike to look over his shoulder.

  A white van with the Channel 9 logo emblazoned on the side parked in the shadows of a burned-out streetlight. Terri Tate was relentless and, no doubt, had sprung out of bed to scoop the story.

  Mike suspected someone on the force had been tipping her off for years.

  “Coop, deal with that, would you?” Mike turned the doorknob of room 11 before Coop could stop him.

  The scene was quiet and heavy with death. Suicides had a different feel to them, a kind of vacant sadness that sucked its witnesses in. Mike had seen several, and each left him feeling momentarily hopeless.

  He took a minute to adjust.

  An empty pill bottle sat on the bedside table next to a drained bottle of vodka. A jilted, seventies-era orange lamp cast a pale light across the tattered carpet, illuminating the grisly sight of a woman’s lifeless body just feet away. Her long hair draped over most of her face, dried vomit visible at the corners of her mouth. Her left arm faced palm-side up, a teal ribbon tattooed on the inside of her wrist. Mike gasped when he realized what Coop had been trying to tell him. The tattoo was a tribute to Sydney’s recent victory over cancer. Mike had been one of the few people nursing her back to health after her hysterectomy. He fought back the tears. Having no children of his own, he had done his best to step in as a father to Sydney and her younger sister, Ana, when their own father, Mike’s partner on the force for twenty years, and their mother, were killed in a plane crash. Seeing Sydney lying there was as crushing as if she were his daughter.

  Mike, mindful of protocol, pulled on a pair of shoe covers and gloves, and checked Sydney for the pulse he knew wasn’t there. Her body was stiff with rigor mortis, and her skin was cold enough that Mike felt the chill through the latex gloves.

  He briefly considered why Sydney, who lived only a few miles away, would be at a place like the Aquarian. There was no viable explanation. Suicide came quickly off the table, and homicide took its place. Mike formulated mental checklists, sorting scene details and compiling a short list of suspects. Local firefighter Anthony Dowling, whom Sydney was in the process of divorcing, was at the top.

  The motel room door opened, and several of the Aquarian’s more brazen tenants moved in for a closer look.

  “I’m sorry, Mike.” Coop’s condolences were nearly lost in the chatter.

  “Get them back,” Mike said. “Get every single one of them away from here, but no one leaves. You understand me? I don’t care what their excuse is. Everyone gets questioned.”

  Coop nodded. “You heard the sergeant. Everyone get back and line up. I need your names.” He tied a piece of crime-scene tape to a chair near the door and commenced roping off the area.

  Mike radioed back to the station. “This is Sergeant Mike Richardson. I need the coroner at the Aquarian immediately. There’s been a murder.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Paramedic Anneliese Ashmore blasted the heat in the First Responder Jeep and waited at the drive-through window for her fifth cup of black coffee. Working twenty-four hours straight had her fighting exhaustion and the boredom that came with a relatively quiet shift.

  The unpredictable New York winter had settled in, and the temperature was well below freezing. It was snowing—the kind of heavy flakes that made it hard to see past the immediate glow of the headlights, and that cut visibility even more under high beams.

  A gauntly thin clerk, with dyed hair tamed only by her uniform visor, reached through the drive-through window and took two singles from Ana.

  “You can keep the change.” Ana smiled and tucked her auburn hair behind her ears.

  The woman smiled back, handing her a bitter-smelling cup of coffee undoubtedly hours old.

  Ana tossed an empty onto the passenger’s side floor, replacing it with the full one that she fit into the cup holder. The Jeep lurched forward and crushed the freshly fallen snow beneath its tires. A police cruiser sped past her and pulled into the Aquarian motel parking lot, a block down the road. An ambulance from her station followed.

  Ana checked her radio, and, finding it operational, wondered why a call had never come.

  Eager to break the monotony, she went to find out.

  The bitter February cold ripped through Ana’s open uniform jacket as her gloved hand struggled against its stuck zipper. She tucked her chin into the collar of her white turtleneck and reached into the back of the SUV for her medic bag.

  Police cruisers filled the Aquarian’s parking lot. A rectangle of yellow crime-scene tape flapped in the icy wind, quarantining a single motel room. Camera flashes pulsed behind the ratty orange curtains, signaling the collection of evidence. All signs pointed to whatever had happened not being good.

  Ana got out of the Jeep and walked with her head down toward room 11.

  The wind made her brown eyes water. She was halfway through the crowd when the door opened and Sergeant Mike Richardson stepped out into the cold. His face was blotchy red, and he appeared to have been crying. He sniffled, wiped the tip of his slightly crooked nose, and headed toward the rental office.

  “Mike, wait.” Ana waved her hand in the air. Mike seemed too lost in thought to hear her. “Mike, hey.”

  Jim Moore, Ana’s shift supervisor, rushed out of an ambulance parked on the outskirts and headed straight for her. “Ana, stop!” His frantic shouting caught both her and Mike’s attention. “Mike, stop her.” A pair of emergency shears hung from a loop on his uniform and flapped against his leg as he ran. Tufts of sandy blond hair stuck out from beneath his knit cap, and his expression held a mix of urgency and sadness.

  Mike doubled back toward the motel room.

  Ana began to suspect that her not getting the call was intentional. Her heartbeat raced, and her palms grew damp inside her gloves as she waited for either Mike or Jim to explain their panic. When neither did, she said, “What’s wrong?”

  Jim grabbed her right bicep hard enough that she couldn’t easily pull free. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

  “Let her go.” Mike pushed Jim’s hand away. “Let me handle this, please.” He steered Ana down the crumbling sidewalk toward the snowy parking lot. “I told Jim not to call you.”

  “He didn’t,” Ana said. “I saw the cruisers and the ambulance, and since nothing else was happening, I came to help. What’s wrong? Why won’t anyone answer me?”

  Mike steadied his quivering bottom lip. “You have to leave. I’ll explain everything as soon as I can, but you can’t be here now.”

  Ana’s inner voice insisted that here was exactly where she belonged. She looked around the parking lot at the cars, the ambulance, and the approaching coroner’s van. A camera crew struggled to set up its shot in the heavy snow. Terri Tate, Capital News 9’s lead reporter, powdered her face by the van’s dome light. The Aquarian’s sign flickered in Ana’s periphery and drew her attention. There, in the shadows of an overflowing Dumpster, was her sister’s metal-flake blue Honda Civic. A lump rose in her throat, and tears streamed down her wind-burned cheeks.

  “Sydney!” Ana broke for the motel room door, elbowing her way through the crowd and catching Mike off guard enough to get a small lead on him. He rushed after her, but she was through the motel room door before he caught up.

  “Ana, stop!” Mike shouted for Coop to grab her, but the encroaching mob, including the persistent Terri Tate, kept him from doing so.

  Time moved in slow motion as Ana took everything in, ignoring the chatter of those in the crowd outside as they tested the limits of the crime-scene tape.

  Labeled plastic bags held pieces of evidence: an empty vodka bottle and some kind of prescription. Black fingerprinting dust covered every surface, and two investigators worked at collecting samples. A third snapped pictures of a folded piece of paper on the weathered nightstand, its finish bearing ring watermarks from decades of glasses left to sweat upon it.

  Across the room, Julian Blake, a seasoned investigator, jotted down items in a small notebook. He wore jeans, a department sweatshirt, and a navy blue jacket with the name “Blake” embroidered on the right side. His black hair sprouted in patches along the back of his head, and his hazel eyes, red from lack of sleep, indicated he’d been called in from home.