Buch lesen: «Framed For Murder»

ONE

You’re being set up... The moment Agent Liz Ramirez switched on the burner phone and read the text message, her stomach turned to ice.

The number attached had been blocked. The sender wanted to remain anonymous. That it had come through on her burner phone was disturbing enough. No one knew the number except...Michael.

Her fear for his well-being spiraled. It had been growing most of the day.

She thought about her partner, Michael Harris’ earlier depression. When she’d dropped him off at his home after he’d been released from the hospital, she’d sensed something was bothering him even though he refused to talk about it.

Now, standing on his front porch, the same feeling of unease that had followed throughout the day resurfaced.

Liz rang the doorbell. “Michael, are you in there?” she called out when nothing stirred inside.

His car was in the drive. The house looked the same as when she’d left Michael to get some rest, yet the hair standing at full attention on her arms warned her the feeling was neither a figment of her imagination nor a remnant of recent events creeping in.

With the Scorpion team’s latest capture of their top terrorist threat known as the Fox, and the weapons he’d supposedly smuggled into the US still missing, the implication hinted at by his second-in-command still troubled Liz. Was someone else involved in the operation? Someone closer than any of them wanted to believe?

She tried his phone once more. She could hear it ringing inside.

Liz reached for the door handle. It opened freely in her hand. As a member of the CIA’s elite Scorpion team, Michael would know security was critical. The team had been tasked with bringing down some of the most deadly terrorists operating around the world and because of it, they had enemies everywhere. Michael wouldn’t deliberately leave the door unlocked.

With her heart hammering in her chest, she reached for her weapon, eased through the door and into the house.

“Michael, where are you?” The quiet of the house settled around her without answer.

Liz forced herself to breathe as she glanced around the living room. Nothing appeared out of place. His phone lay on the end table as if he’d tossed it there.

“Michael,” she called out as she eased to the bedroom. She touched the unmade bed. It was cold. He hadn’t been here in a while. A quick search of the closet and adjoining rooms proved fruitless.

That left just one more place. The kitchen. Her stomach chewed with tension. Something was wrong; her heartbeat drummed in warning. It felt as if she were walking through cement as she slowly entered the kitchen and saw it. In an instant, her world crumbled and her worst fear became a reality.

Michael lay sprawled facedown on the tile floor. A pool of drying blood framed part of his head.

Her hand flew to cover her mouth. “Michael,” she said in a broken voice then dropped to her knees next to him. He was cold to the touch. Rigor mortis hadn’t yet set in. A single gunshot wound to his right temple confirmed the method of death. But the murder weapon was nowhere in sight.

Bile rose in her throat and she sucked in handfuls of breaths before it finally subsided. She couldn’t wrap her head around the truth staring her in the face. Michael had been murdered.

Tears filled her eyes, spilled over and soaked her jeans, yet she was powerless to stop them. The man who’d become like a brother to her was gone and she couldn’t have felt guiltier.

Since they’d started working together a little more than a year earlier, she and Michael had just clicked. They had the same sense of humor. Liked the same type of action movies, and when they worked in the field, they could almost anticipate each other’s moves. That’s how she’d known something was wrong with her partner. And yet she’d ignored the warning signals.

Aaron. She needed to let Agent Aaron Foster know what had happened. Time was critical. As field commander of the CIA’s elite eight-member Scorpion team, it was Aaron’s job to monitor terrorist activity and prevent the recently stolen weapons from falling into the wrong hands. There was little doubt in Liz’s mind that Michael’s death was related to the Scorpion’s capture of the Fox.

She and Aaron had grown close through the years and Liz trusted him with her life. He was a natural born leader and a good man. She respected him like crazy, even though from time to time, they butted heads.

Aaron answered on first ring. “Liz? Are you okay?” The lateness of the hour was proof enough that she wasn’t calling to chat.

“No, I’m not. It’s Michael...” She stopped when her voice threatened to crack. “Aaron, he’s been murdered.”

The silence that followed her declaration confirmed the magnitude of the news. Aaron was just as shocked as she had been.

“How? When?” His broken questions were heavy with emotion. Aaron loved Michael as well. Everyone on the close-knit team did.

Liz stuffed down her feelings. She needed to do this as a professional. Michael deserved her best.

“A gunshot wound to the head,” she said quietly. “He was killed at close range. From the size of the entry wound, I’d say it was a Glock.”

“Are you in danger?” Aaron asked with his concern for her safety intensifying his voice. Their friendship was just as important to him as it was to her. She struggled to stay focused. “No, he’s been dead for a while. Whomever did this is long gone.”

“I’m on my way. I’ll call in Gavin and Alex. We’ll be there soon.”

She ended the call without answering and stared at the man that she’d shared so many good moments with.

“I’m sorry, Michael. So sorry I wasn’t there for you,” she whispered and meant it as she scrubbed tears from her face and got to her feet.

Michael’s house had now become a crime scene and she had to tread carefully. She’d unknowingly contaminated the door handle by entering the house. It stood to reason that the killer would have touched it at some point. The door had been unlocked.

Using her shirt as protection, she grabbed his phone and checked the outgoing calls. Michael hadn’t called anyone in days. Hers were the only incoming today. Had she been the last person to see him alive until the killer arrived?

She thought about his strange behavior after she’d picked him up at the hospital. Was it all due to his near-death experience? She and Michael had been forced at gunpoint into a chopper by the Fox. They both could have died when it crashed to the ground outside a small town in Pennsylvania two weeks earlier. She’d suffered a fractured wrist, a few bruised ribs and some cuts and scrapes. Her injuries hadn’t been nearly as severe as Michael’s. For a while they weren’t sure Michael would make it.

After he was cleared, the doctor had wanted Michael to go straight home and rest, but Michael had insisted on visiting Sam Lansford in prison first.

It had been unthinkable that someone the team all knew and trusted had turned out to be the Fox. When their chopper had crashed, Sam and several of his men had been captured. The team had immediately transported their prisoners to the Scorpion headquarters outside of Painted Rock, Colorado, for interrogation. The weapons Sam had smuggled into the country were still unaccounted for and they needed to find them as soon as possible.

Still, Liz didn’t understand why Michael had insisted on seeing Sam. Once the two had faced off, there had been no words exchanged between them.

She glanced around the living room, seeing things through different eyes than when she’d first entered. There was no sign of a break-in. Had Michael known his killer?

One of the cushions on the sofa caught her attention. It was visibly out of place as if something were tucked under it. Liz carefully eased it up and found a large manila envelope stuffed there haphazardly. Her name had been hastily scribbled across the front of it in Michael’s handwriting. But it was the next line written there that was the most alarming.

For Your Eyes Only!

Dread wrapped itself snugly around her shoulders. What was Michael trying to tell her that only she could witness? Before she had the chance to open the envelope, headlights flashed across the front of the house.

Liz shoved the envelope in her purse and hurried to the window. She parted the curtains, expecting it to be Aaron. Michael’s place was at the end of a sparsely populated cul-de-sac. A car had pulled into the drive and flipped its lights on bright.

She shielded her eyes and managed to get a better look at the vehicle. It looked like the same car that had Michael spooked earlier when she’d driven him home after that strange visit with Sam.

Once they’d turned onto his street, Liz had caught a glimpse of a car behind them. She didn’t think anything of it until she saw how Michael had reacted. She’d asked if he knew the person, but he’d denied it.

Liz rushed from the house with her weapon drawn as the car quickly reversed and headed down the street picking up speed along the way. The license plate had been removed.

While the shock of realizing it was the same car as before and that someone had gone to great lengths to hide their identity froze her in place, two additional sets of headlights came down the usually quiet street. Liz squinted through the blinding lights and was able to identify Aaron’s SUV. Aaron pulled up beside her. “Did something else happen?” he asked as if reading her thoughts.

She quickly nodded. “I’m pretty sure the car that just passed you was here earlier today when I brought Michael home.”

Aaron got out of the SUV and hurried to the truck behind him. “See if you can catch up with the car we just passed. They might be involved.”

The driver of the truck, Alex Booth, nodded, put the truck in Reverse and made a quick U-turn before flooring the gas.

Aaron came back to her. Liz knew he could see that she was still shaking in reaction to finding Michael and to seeing the suspicious car. “Are you okay?” he asked in that serious Southern drawl of his that was always so charming. Now it was laced with worry.

It was so like Aaron to be concerned about her, especially after she and Michael had barely escaped death. He’d always been there for her whenever she needed to talk. Strong. Caring. A true man of valor. She’d often wondered why someone as handsome and as captivating as Aaron was still single.

He ran a careless hand through his chestnut hair before those intense midnight-blue eyes focused on her and just for a second, she lost her train of thought.

“I’m okay,” she managed.

Aaron had been tasked with heading up the critical investigation into how someone as close to the Scorpions as Sam Lansford could turn out to be the Fox. As a former CIA agent himself, Sam had quit the Agency to go into business for himself as a hostage retrieval agent. On several occasions, Sam had provided the team with useful information that had led to the capture of some very dangerous people. They’d all thought they knew him. They’d been wrong.

The team had been trying to bring down the Fox and his weapons-smuggling activities for more than seven years. No one expected the terrorist to be someone they all knew.

Yet even with the pressure for answers so great and the guns Sam smuggled out of Afghanistan still missing, Aaron had found time to check on her when Liz’s injuries had her sidelined. That was just his way.

He glanced up at the house, his expression solemn. “Take me through what happened. Why are you here so late anyway?” he asked curiously before stepping up on the porch. Was there something accusatory in his tone or was the outcome of the day playing tricks on her?

“I was worried about Michael. I’d been trying to reach him most of the afternoon.” She followed him up the steps to the porch. “Since the accident, he wasn’t himself. I knew something was troubling him, but he didn’t say what.”

Aaron nodded. “I noticed it as well. What did you find when you arrived?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary at first, until I tried the door. It was unlocked. I went inside, searched the place and...” She snatched a much-needed breath. “Found him in the kitchen.”

Aaron took her hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry,” he murmured with sincerity.

From this day forward, they both knew nothing would ever be the same for her. She’d lost someone else she cared about to an unknown enemy. She still mourned the loss of her husband Eric who had been taken from her far too soon. And now Michael was gone. She considered him family.

Liz waited in the living room while Aaron examined the murder scene. A few minutes later, Alex and Gavin returned from the hunt.

Alex Booth and Gavin Dalton had been with the Scorpions since its inception. They were the best of the best and she was glad they were on her side.

“No sign of the car,” Alex told Aaron when he came into the room.

“There’s no murder weapon either, but my guess is it was a Glock. The perp must have taken it with him.” Aaron nodded to Alex. “Search the place. Maybe we’ll get a lead. Call in the local police to canvass the area.” He turned back to Liz. “What’s your theory here? You knew him better than any of us.”

She glanced through to the kitchen where Michael’s body lay and tried to hold back the emotions. “I think he must have known his killer. There’s no sign of a forced entry or a struggle.” She hesitated briefly and then voiced her thoughts aloud. “Aaron, we need to talk to Sam right away. If anyone knows what happened here tonight, it’s the man who almost took Michael’s life once before.”

* * *

Aaron drove to the secure prison inside Scorpion headquarters where Sam Lansford had been held since his release from the hospital. Aaron’s thoughts were working overtime trying to make sense of their fallen comrade’s death.

As much as he wanted to believe Sam was behind Michael’s death, too many things didn’t add up for it to be so. The biggest being how would Sam have managed to order the murder in the first place?

The capture of the Fox was big. The CIA hadn’t taken any chances that Sam might escape. He’d been heavily guarded at the hospital. When he was transferred to his prison cell, a state-of-the-art security system watched his every move twenty-four hours a day. No one got in or out of the compound or the prison without a passkey that was only issued to Scorpion team members.

“What I don’t understand is how did he accomplish the hit?” Aaron asked because he couldn’t make it make sense in his head. As his second-in-command, Liz had a way of cutting through the clutter.

She turned in her seat. “I beg your pardon?” She’d clearly been lost in her own thoughts.

Aaron noticed the exhaustion around her eyes. The way she cradled her fractured wrist close to her body. Even though it had been two weeks since the crash, he could tell it still hurt like crazy. He had no doubt her bruised ribs were giving her grief as well, yet Liz wasn’t one to complain. She’d soldier through the pain, do what needed to be done to solve her partner’s murder.

He smiled gently and asked, “How are you holding up?” He nodded toward her wrist and watched as she swallowed visibly and then quickly dismissed the severity of her injuries.

“I’m fine, Aaron. Don’t worry about me. I want to help.”

He knew her dedication all too well, but that didn’t keep him from worrying about her. She was more than a colleague—she was his friend.

Liz was the kindest and most generous person he knew. It never ceased to amaze him that she hadn’t let her personal tragedy turn her bitter. She’d been devastated when her husband, and fellow CIA agent, had died while on mission five years ago, yet she’d kept going. Fighting the same causes Eric had battled.

“What were you saying earlier?” she prompted in an unsteady voice when he continued to watch her carefully, getting lost in her expressive eyes.

Aaron cleared his throat and focused ahead. “I was just wondering, if Sam did order the hit on Michael, how he made it happen. He’s been guarded since his capture. There have been no visitors.”

She considered it. “But if not Sam then who?” She shook her head. “This has to have something to do with the missing weapons.”

In his mind, there was little doubt. The team may have captured the Fox, but the guns he’d smuggled into the US from Afghanistan were still MIA.

“Maybe Sam’s organization is bigger than we thought. We have no idea how many people work for him.” They’d only just begun to dig into Sam’s background and so far, it was like peeling away the layers of an onion. There were more lies than truths.

Aaron pulled up to the security gate outside the compound and waved his passkey in front of it. Once they’d cleared the gate, he drove the short distance to the prison.

The moment they entered the section where Sam was held, Aaron knew something was dreadfully wrong. Sam’s cell door stood slightly ajar.

He drew his weapon and motioned to the open door. Liz saw and quickly followed his lead.

Aaron pointed to his right and she quietly began searching that section while he did the same.

On this end of the prison, there were only five cells in addition to Sam’s. Aaron eased to the open cell. Sam lay slumped on his cot staring sightless at the ceiling. One arm hanging at an odd angle. There was little doubt, he was dead.

Aaron stared at the lifeless body, trying to grasp the reality of what had happened. He couldn’t believe it. There was no indication that Sam had taken his own life. No real sign of a struggle and yet someone had murdered him. Aaron’s thoughts flew in a dozen different directions. With Sam gone, what did that mean for locating the missing weapons and bringing Michael’s killer to justice? Would they ever know the truth behind any of it?

While he tried to process the scene, Aaron couldn’t understand how someone had gotten into such a secure location in the first place. He recalled the implication from Sam’s second-in-command about someone from the Scorpion team being dirty. Had one of their own team members taken Sam’s life? Impossible. Aaron searched the rest of the empty cells, then stopped next to the ones holding members of Sam’s team who had been captured.

“What happened here tonight?” he demanded of the first prisoner, knowing full well none of the men captured would cooperate. They hadn’t said so much as a handful of words since being taken prisoner.

With nothing but glaring silence coming from the men, frustrated, Aaron went back to Sam’s cell. They needed to find out what happened here quickly because there was no way the two murders weren’t connected.

He looked up expectantly when Liz returned.

She shook her head, confirming what he knew in his heart. “Whoever did this is gone. Just like at Michael’s place. Did Sam’s men give you anything?”

“They’re not talking.” Aaron felt for a pulse, not expecting one. “I’d say he’s been dead several hours. Rigor has just begun to set in.”

There were no signs of an injury. Aaron rolled Sam’s sleeve up. “There’s a needle mark on his arm. He was obviously injected with something deadly,” he confirmed while still reeling from the impossible.

“Both Sam and Michael had to be killed within hours of each other,” Liz pointed out.

Aaron’s gaze locked with hers. “That’s right. There are video cameras in each of the cells. Whoever killed Sam has to be on the tape,” he told her.

They hurried to the command center and Aaron brought up the video for Sam’s cell. The timestamp appeared to be a few hours earlier. The person who entered the prison was heavily disguised. Dressed entirely in black and wearing a heavy jacket and gloves, their face was almost completely covered with a ski mask with the exception of their eyes. He zoomed in closer, but the feed became grainy.

Aaron pulled up the entry log on the computer. It showed every single entry into the compound as well as which secure passkey was used. What he saw there was most alarming.

The passkey used to enter both the compound and the prison before Sam’s death was Liz’s. He stared at her in disbelief, unable to digest what was in plain sight.

Each key had a sensor device in it so that when used, that particular Scorpion member was identified as the user. It couldn’t be faked. There was no mistaking it was Liz’s key. The only question: How?

Her clear emerald-green eyes filled with worry as she shook her head. “No, that’s not possible.” He’d never seen her look so frightened before. He resisted the urge to take her in his arms and reassure her everything was going to be okay. Since his former girlfriend Beth’s betrayal, he hadn’t been able to let himself get too close to another woman. He’d loved Beth so much and yet she’d used him, and in the process she’d destroyed his ability to trust his heart to another. Instead, he kept himself buried in work.

Liz tossed her raven braid off her shoulder. She appeared so vulnerable right now, and yet her fragile beauty was deceiving. As a highly decorated agent, he couldn’t think of anyone else he’d want to have his back.

“It wasn’t me, Aaron,” she said in a shaky voice. “I promise I didn’t do this.”

But if not her, then who? Someone had used her passkey to enter the prison and kill Sam. As much as he wanted to believe her, there was no denying the evidence certainly made her look guilty.

* * *

“I don’t think you killed Sam,” he reassured her because he knew Liz. They’d become close while working together and he’d witnessed time and again that her faith in God was as unshakable as her valor. She didn’t kill Sam or Michael, but clearly someone was trying to make them believe she had.

“When was the last time you used your passkey?” he asked, hoping there was some innocent explanation. Maybe she’d lost it. Had it stolen?

She didn’t hesitate. “This morning when I left the compound with Michael.”

“Where is it now?” he prompted.

“In my purse. Aaron?”

“Go get it,” he interrupted and watched as she flinched at the hard edge in his tone.

She stared at him for a second then hurried away and he regretted the way his words had sounded.

When she came back with her purse, he saw the truth on her face even before she said the words.

“It’s not there,” she said and shook her head. “I have no idea where it is.”

Aaron tried to squash the dread growing inside of him. “I need you to account for your time today, Liz,” he told her and hated that the request sounded like an interrogation.

She never broke eye contact. “After we left here, I took Michael home and made lunch. I hung out with him for a while and then I left him to rest.”

“What time was that? Where did you go afterward?” he asked because they needed to create a timeline before he could her to rule her out as a suspect.

“I left around two. Then I ran some errands and went for a long walk.”

All things that couldn’t be accounted for unless she’d purchased something along the way.

“What type of errands?” he pushed and couldn’t keep the urgency from his tone.

“Aaron, you’re scaring me,” she breathed the words out.

His heart went out to her but he needed answers now. “I know and I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “Answer the question, Liz.”

She struggled to bring her thoughts together. “As I said, I left Michael’s house around two because he insisted. I didn’t want to leave him, but he told me he was tired and wanted to rest. He promised me he’d be okay. He told me he’d call me when he woke up.”

“What did you do first after you left Michael?” he prompted and he watched as she swallowed visibly.

“I went for a drive to clear my head then I stopped by the library in town. After that, I got coffee. Hung out a while, and then drove to the trailhead at the base of Painted Rock Mountain. The view there is beautiful and I go there to think. I was there until late. Then...” She hesitated long enough to capture his full attention. “Then when I didn’t hear from Michael, I went to his house. And you know the rest.”

None of her earlier moves could be documented fully, which meant she could have had time to murder Sam and then Michael. It didn’t look good and he needed to conduct the investigation by the book. He’d have the library and the coffee shop checked. Maybe someone would remember her being there.

“Liz, I need you to go home. Now. You know you can’t be part of this.”

There was no mistaking the hurt written on her face. “Aaron...”

“Like it or not, you’re a suspect because of the passkey and you were the last person to see Michael alive,” he said gently. “Take my SUV. Go home and don’t talk to anyone until you hear from me.” He dug in his pocket and handed her the keys and then walked outside with her.