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

  “I don’t think you do.” On a scale of one to ten, four being how pissed off she was at him when he arrived, and ten being a swarm of angry hornets, she hit a solid twenty. “Suicide, Mike? Does that make any sense to you?” Mike shrugged. “The woman fought for her life, enrolled in school to be a grief counselor, to help other depressed people, and you think it’s even plausible she killed herself?”

  “It’s been a tough year. Maybe a lot of what Sydney was doing was self-help. Between separating from Anthony, the surgery, and the cancer, I don’t know what to believe. Less has broken stronger people.”

  “No one was stronger than Syd, and you know it.”

  “I’m not taking anything at face value, but given the scene, nothing looks out of place.”

  “Sydney, at the Aquarian—out of place.” Ana ticked off her argument on her fingers. “Pills and vodka—out of place.” Another finger. “The note—out of place. There wasn’t one goddamned warning sign, Mike, not one. She wasn’t withdrawn, or upset. She was even making peace with what Anthony did to her, the cheating piece of shit. Do you know how hard that is for a woman to overlook?”

  “I know it was hard for her, but she wasn’t one to complain, especially where you were concerned.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “It just means that Sydney was always strong around you. Ever since your parents’ accident, she only ever wanted to be your rock. She wanted children, Ana, and you know damned well that was a big part of the problem between her and Anthony. When she had the hysterectomy,” Mike said with a sigh, “it was all over from there. I’m not condoning or condemning what Anthony did. I’m just saying Sydney suffered silently. It was her way. The note is with a forensic handwriting specialist. If anything’s suspicious, he’ll find it. We fingerprinted the room, but a place like the Aquarian, it’s got a jaded history. We’re getting hits off the prints left and right. Every drug dealer, ex-con, prostitute, pimp, and john who has ever been in that room left at least his fingerprints behind, most of them more.” Ana cringed at the visual. “Is there any reason to believe Sydney would be tied up with anyone with a criminal past?”

  “Really, Mike?” Ana pulled a face.

  “I had to ask.” Mike rolled up to the stoplight and blasted the defroster. “Some things stay between sisters.”

  “If there was something like that, don’t you think I’d have mentioned it?”

  “I’d hope so, but I’m looking for anything to rule out some of these prints.”

  A moment of silence passed between them.

  “Any chance you found Anthony’s?”

  Mike turned and looked at her. “Why do you ask?”

  Ana pointed ahead when the light turned green. “Things got out of hand with the divorce. Sydney wasn’t exactly honest with Anthony, and he’s hurt, enough that he tried laying claim to half of her house.”

  “The house your parents left to both of you.”

  “Yes, but you know I’d never take the place away from her. She loved it. She had a lot more memories with our parents there than I did.”

  “They’re your memories, too.”

  Fresh tears spilled down Ana’s cheeks. “I know, but after giving up everything to stay with me, Sydney deserved to keep her home.”

  “What did you mean Sydney wasn’t honest with Anthony? About what?”

  Revealing Sydney’s secrets had Ana feeling like a traitor, though she knew it was only a matter of time before Anthony told his version. She needed Mike to understand why Sydney did what she did. “It’s no secret that Anthony wanted a stay-at-home wife and a large family. It’s the life he came from. One of nine children, I mean, what can you expect? Sydney just finished taking care of me. She wasn’t ready for children. She wanted them, yes, but Anthony had been hounding her since their honeymoon. Sydney wanted to get her degree. After what she’d been through, Mike, it wasn’t just the cancer that pushed her toward grief counseling. She said no one understood a crisis like people who had faced and beat one. Anthony didn’t agree. He told her to leave the past in the past, and she tried. He actually made her feel bad about her struggle. In a moment of weakness, she agreed to try to get pregnant, well, I mean, agreed to him, but she knew she had made a mistake as soon as she said it. Months went by without her conceiving, and she convinced him that something was wrong. He agreed to let her enroll in school, to be supportive of what she wanted to do, if she’d agree to see a fertility specialist. She did, but found a dozen reasons not to keep her appointments. When Anthony found her birth control pills, it was the beginning of the end.”

  “She was taking them the whole time?”

  “Yep. She said Anthony was suspicious. I told her she was being paranoid.”

  “And that’s when Misty came into the picture?”

  Ana rolled her eyes.

  Misty Harper, a twenty-five-year-old waitress at the R&M Diner on North Main, couldn’t have been more Sydney’s opposite. Misty was too old to get off the dead-end path she was on, and she knew it. She flirted with anyone in uniform, married or not, and saw Anthony as a way out of her situation. Anthony wanted a stay-at-home type, and Misty wanted to be taken care of. He was an easy target.

  “You know Misty attacked Sydney at the preliminary divorce hearing, don’t you?”

  Mike shook his head. “When did you two stop telling me things?”

  The EMS station came into view. Ana’s white Jetta was buried under a foot of fresh snow, but someone, Ethan if she had to guess, had been nice enough to lift her wipers.

  “We didn’t stop telling you everything—only the stuff we figured you didn’t want to hear. The rest of that story was that Syd slapped Misty across the face and got hauled off by a bailiff. It took some amount of pleading to keep him from telling you.”

  Mike parked next to Ana’s car. “And then what happened?”

  “Sydney laughed and said, ‘Bitch had that coming.’” Ana smiled and reached across the seat to give Mike the hug she’d earlier avoided.

  He hugged her back and chuckled. “She wasn’t wrong there.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Anthony Dowling hadn’t been too hard to find. He answered the door of Misty Harper’s one-bedroom apartment, wearing only a pair of nylon shorts and holding a mostly empty bottle of beer. Dark curls covered his broad chest, and hair stuck up in sparse tufts along the back of his toned shoulders. His dark hair had been cut short enough that his scalp was visible, a drastic change from the wavy, gelled-back look Mike was used to seeing on him. Candles flickered in the background, and for as close a friendship as Anthony and Mike once had, the expression on Anthony’s face was anything but welcoming.

  Mike cleared his throat and peered into the dismal apartment. “Am I interrupting something?”

  Anthony glanced over his shoulder. “I’d say it’s pretty obvious, Detective.”

  “Sergeant,” Mike corrected, “but I’m not on duty.” He pointed to his street clothes. “Can we talk?”

  “Look, Mike, whatever Sydney told you, I haven’t done anything wrong. From now on, our lawyers do the talking.”

  At six foot three, Anthony had a good five inches on Mike, who had to crane his neck to make eye contact. It had to be worse for Misty. She stood only to his chest. She was ten years his junior, so Misty and Anthony looked more like father and daughter, or uncle and niece, than a couple.

  Misty appeared behind him, wearing a pair of sweatpants with the legs rolled up and an oversized T-shirt. Her green eyes had the half-dazed look of someone who just woke up, but the bags beneath them said she was exhausted. Faint red marks dotted the skin around her mouth, and she looked frail, as if she’d recently lost weight.

  “Oh God. What now?” She scowled at Mike, keeping her head turned to the side in a posture he’d seen with domestic abuse victims hiding a shiner.

  Anthony wasn’t t
he type, but Mike angled for a better look anyway.

  “You really don’t know?” For as fast as word normally traveled in Marion, somehow, it seemed, neither Anthony nor Misty had heard what happened to Sydney. He hadn’t planned on being the one to break the news.

  “Don’t know what?” Anthony said.

  “It’s better if we sit down. May I come in? I just want to ask you a few questions.”

  Misty shook her head. “You don’t have to let him in, Tony. Tell him to get lost.” No one had ever called Anthony “Tony.” He hated the nickname, and everyone who really knew him, knew it.

  Anthony backed away from the door and gestured for Mike to come in. “Let me grab a shirt, would you?” He blew out the candles and headed toward the bedroom.

  Mike paced the cramped galley kitchen, taking stock of the bleak surroundings and wondering how Anthony could’ve ever thought this was a better situation.

  A pile of laundry overflowed from a plastic hamper in the corner, and the room reeked of smoke. Mike had heard about a big fire in the warehouse district a week earlier, but it seemed a long time to have not done the laundry. Dishes were piled in the kitchen sink, and a dirty apron hung from a nail in the wall. The yellowed name tag heralded too many years spent serving fryer grease-soaked food.

  Misty, who hadn’t said a word since Anthony let Mike in, must have noticed him staring. She huffed out a breath, rolled the apron into a ball, and threw it in the trash.

  “Aren’t you going to need that for work?” Mike said.

  “She doesn’t work anymore.” Anthony came out of the cluttered bedroom, wearing a firehouse sweatshirt, shorts, and a pair of dingy socks with the pink-red hue of having been washed with mixed laundry. He pulled out one of four mismatched chairs at a vintage kitchen table and offered Mike a seat.

  Mike brushed the crumbs off the chair and sat down.

  Misty turned her head into the light and blew a thick curl from in front of her face.

  Mike noticed what looked like scratch marks down her cheek. “What happened there?”

  “She broke up a fight at the diner,” Anthony answered before Misty had a chance to. “You know how it gets in that place late at night when the bars close.”

  Misty uncrossed her arms and tousled her hair. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

  “Big enough deal that you quit, though, right?” Mike said.

  Again, Anthony spoke for her. “She was going to quit anyway, weren’t you, babe?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Misty brushed her hair back from her forehead, and Mike caught the glimmer of a diamond solitaire on her left ring finger.

  “Looks like congratulations are in order.”

  “Not if this divorce isn’t finalized.” Anthony sighed. “You said you had some questions, so shoot. I know this isn’t a social call.”

  “Okay, does Sydney know about the engagement?”

  Anthony shrugged. “If she does, I didn’t tell her. It’s been hard enough trying to reach a divorce agreement without pissing her off worse. Misty and I have been trying to keep things quiet, but, you know how it is.”

  Misty set a pot on the cluttered counter, a mix of clean and dirty dishes, and it slid, knocking a spatula into a pile of crumbs on the dirty linoleum floor. She picked it up and, without so much as brushing it off, put it into a drawer.

  Mike tried not to think about how many times she’d done similar things at the diner he frequented. “I do ‘know how it is,’” he said. “Divorces get nasty, even between the most agreeable couples. Is that why you were going after half of Sydney’s house?”

  Anthony looked over his shoulder at Misty and lowered his voice. “I don’t want the house, Mike. Sydney should know that. It’s a bargaining chip to get the things that do matter to me. She’s not giving an inch. Maybe you can talk to her for me? At this point, I just need this to be over with.”

  There was something going on with Misty that Anthony wasn’t comfortable talking about.

  Mike drew his bottom lip between his teeth and let it out before asking the big question. “Anthony, where were you last night?”

  The color drained from Anthony’s face.

  Misty turned around at the sink, her hands dripping soapy water on the floor. “He was here, with me. Why?”

  “Has something happened to Sydney?” Anthony’s mouth bent into a frown.

  Mike drew a breath and nodded with tears in his eyes. “I’m afraid so. She’s . . . dead.”

  Misty dried her hands on her pants and set them on Anthony’s shoulders.

  He quickly pushed her away.

  “Just give me a goddamn minute, would you?” Anthony started to cry, the kind of genuine tears Mike, himself, had cried for hours after finding Sydney’s body. “What happened?”

  Misty all but threw the rest of the dishes into the cabinets. She’d gone from empathetic to angry in a matter of seconds, as if somehow Anthony’s mourning the loss of his wife said more about his feelings for Sydney than those he had for her.

  “I’m not in a position to share details right now. I’m sorry,” Mike said. “Can you think of anyone who would want to hurt her?”

  “Hurt Sydney?” Anthony cast a glance at Misty. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “I wish I were. The first thing to come into question is usually motive.”

  “What are you getting at, Mike? You think I’m the closest thing Sydney had to an enemy?”

  “I wouldn’t classify you as an enemy, Anthony. I don’t think Sydney would have, either.” Mike turned to Misty. “What can you tell me about the fight at the courthouse?”

  Misty threw her hands up and launched the dish towel across the counter. “All right. That’s it. I’ve had enough.” She flung the apartment door open. “You have to leave. Now.”

  Mike raised his eyebrows at Anthony.

  “Sydney called Misty a whore and a home wrecker. There was a slap-fight and raised voices, but nothing out of the ordinary, considering.” Anthony wiped the tears from his cheeks. “We were here last night, both of us, and neither out of the other’s sight. Misty and Sydney had their history, but a minor scuffle doesn’t equal murder, Mike. Not by a long shot.”

  Mike pushed in his chair and pulled a business card out of his shirt pocket. “If you think of anything at all that might help with the case, call me.”

  “I will,” Anthony said, following Mike into the hallway and out of Misty’s earshot. “Look, I’m sorry about how we reacted. This divorce has things here on edge. I loved Sydney, Mike. You know that. Even after the separation, I tried putting things back together, but sometimes life puts people on different paths, you know?” Mike nodded, at ease that this was the Anthony he’d known and trusted for years. Anthony reached out and shook Mike’s hand. “You’ll tell me as soon as you know something?”

  “I will, thanks, and sorry for ruining your night.”

  Anthony shrugged. “It was ruined before you got here, trust me.” He went back inside and closed the door.

  Misty’s shouting came as soon as the deadbolt latched.

  Mike eavesdropped, and finding no useful information in their argument, headed back into the cold to track down the medical examiner.

  CHAPTER 7

  Ana walked up the flagstone path to her former childhood home, a craftsman-style bungalow on a postage-stamp lot where her parents once lived and where, in their absence, her sister, Sydney, had raised her.

  Snow collected in the nooks and crannies of the stone columns holding the main roof over the expansive front porch. Ice coated the remains of the robin’s nest that she and Sydney had kept a close eye on the previous spring. Two eggs had hatched, and, eventually, the young birds flew safely away. Sydney left the nest intact, hoping some bird might take up residence again the next year.

  There was no indication, even in the throes of a messy divorc
e, that Sydney wouldn’t be there to see it.

  The porch swing creaked in the wind, and Ana closed her eyes, imagining her father’s arms around her and her mother’s sweet voice singing. They rocked, with Ana between them, the night before they left for the twentieth anniversary celebration from which they’d never returned. Sixteen people had died in the plane crash, but to seven-year-old Ana, this loss was the whole world.

  She lingered at the threshold for a moment of silence before salvaging the spare key from under the snow-crusted welcome mat. She turned the lock and opened the front door, nervous to face the memories.

  In twenty years, nothing had changed.

  The living room was arranged exactly the same way their mother had left it. The plaid sofa and love seat, unraveling at the seams, had been repaired more than once. Her father’s afghan hung folded over the back of her mother’s rocking chair where Sydney had read J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan to Ana every night until she moved past the fact their mother had never finished the story. It had taken more than a year, and they read the book a dozen times before she was ready for something else. Ana could still recite her favorite passages.

  Fresh tears ran down her cheeks. She let them fall, unable to stifle her grief.

  She couldn’t imagine how Sydney had lived with the memories, or how she would live with them, now that the house was hers.

  She walked up the stairs to the tiny spare bedroom that had served as Sydney’s office and sat down in the chair behind the desk. A half-empty cup of coffee on top of a coaster bore a faint pink ridge of Sydney’s lipstick. Ana brushed her fingertips along the handle and powered up the computer.

  If there was any explanation of why Sydney had gone to the Aquarian, Ana was determined to find it.

  The blue log-in screen appeared, and Ana typed her full name, “Anneliese,” the only password Sydney had ever used. She double-clicked the envelope icon and, as the messages poured in, looked over her shoulder. Being caught snooping was an irrational fear, but the reality that Sydney was gone hadn’t fully set in, and Ana felt like an intruder. The in-box quickly filled with credit card offers and messages about unclaimed foreign inheritances. Ana deleted the spam and printed bills she knew would have to be paid sooner than later. She reviewed the list of folders in the sidebar and opened one called “Divorce.” Sydney had red flagged an e-mail from Anthony, dated a week earlier. Ana clicked on it. An arrow icon announced that the message had been forwarded to Sydney’s attorney. Ana shook her head, unable to believe how far out of hand the divorce had gotten. Anthony made more of the usual threats, claims about taking the house and things that belonged to their parents if Sydney didn’t cooperate, but by the end, it seemed his temper had burned itself out. He agreed to walk away with nothing if Sydney would settle in the next couple of weeks. Ana wondered what the hurry was. Anthony had e-mailed Sydney almost daily, but whereas the others sounded humble and like he needed forgiveness, this one demanded Sydney’s cooperation and the last line was weighted with threat: