| He also had the tech lock Doris out of Elliot’s email account. It would be more complicated to get to the information she needed now, but it didn’t matter. Doris had a plan. She’d get into Elliot’s office, print out his schedule from the month before he was murdered. Then she would scan his emails, print any that looked unusual. Afterward, she would take everything home and go through it all again, leaving no clue left undiscovered. If there was anything incriminating, depending on what it was, she’d tell Victoria. Doris knew in her gut that Elliot hadn’t done anything illegal, but it was possible whoever murdered him was blackmailing him or framing him for something. Just the week before, Doris had watched an episode of Forensic Files where the poor schlub that was murdered had been framed to take the fall for something he didn’t do. The killer mistakenly thought he would get away with it because the fall guy was dead. Doris wasn’t going to let Elliot be somebody’s fall guy. He had been acting strange lately though. Distant. Elliot had regularly confided in her over the years, but whatever had been bothering him before he was murdered, he’d kept to himself. Doris remembered thinking his elusive behavior was unusual, but she had dismissed it at the time. Had she known the gravity of the situation—that Elliot was about to be killed—she would have pushed him for an explanation. But she hadn’t, and now it was |
it exploded. Fire shot upward and out in a fearsome wave of searing orange. Victoria was knocked off her feet by the shock wave, the heat burning her face. Her ears rang with a muffled silence, and she was disoriented. Then debris rained down in a storm of glass and metal shards that brought her back from the shock. Victoria struggled to sit, pushing herself up from the rough, hot asphalt. With tears already streaking the smudges of soot on her face, she squinted and looked up at the scorched and burning mound of twisted metal where the red Camaro had been. She felt nauseated and coughed. When she finally spoke, the name came out in a quiet but fierce cry of disbelief. “Doris.” Harold Lamken arrived back at the trailer midmorning with a truckload of groceries. Tyler’s car was parked askew to one side. Harold pulled next to it and honked. The kid lived in Harold’s trailer, wore the clothes Harold bought, and ate his food. The least he could do was help unload the stuff. Harold looked toward the door, but there was no sign of Tyler. He got out of the truck, leaned over and honked again, then walked around to the passenger side and jerked open the door. He pulled as many bags out as he could carry and started toward the trailer. Still no Tyler. With his hands full, he struggled with the bags to open the front door, sticking his foot inside and kicking |
