Kill and Run (A Thorny Rose Mystery Book 1) Read online

  “Izzy’s in there, too,” Murphy said. “I promised that I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her.”

  “Cameron and Jessica will take care of her,” Joshua said. “In the meantime, we need to find out how this happened.” Releasing his grip on Murphy’s elbow, Joshua crossed over the center divide between the southbound and northbound lanes.

  Wanting to be as close to Jessica as possible, Murphy remained on the fringes of the rescuers, watching them work diligently to save the vehicle’s passengers. It took all of his restraint to not jump in to hurry them along.

  Finally, the urge to do something useful won out. If he could not work hands on to save Jessica, Cameron, and Izzy, he could very well find out who was behind this accident. With a new sense of resolve, Murphy climbed over the divider and followed Joshua over to where the FBI agent was being briefed by the trooper in charge.

  “Excuse me,” was all Joshua got out before the agent turned to face him.

  “Captain Thornton.” She offered him her hand. “Special Agent Ripley Vaccaro.” Seeing Murphy, she took his hand in a firm shake. “Lieutenant Murphy Thornton. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “From—”

  “We have mutual acquaintances,” she cut Murphy off before turning back to Joshua. “I was going to call you but then I was interrupted by this.” She shot them a naughty smile partnered with an arched eyebrow. “Since I happened to be in the neighborhood, my supervisors gave me this case.”

  Joshua glanced in Murphy’s direction. The curl in the corner of his father’s lips told him that Agent Ripley Vaccaro had just given them a coded message. Unfortunately, Murphy was more focused on wanting to hold Jessica in his arms again than deciphering coded messages.

  Up close, Murphy saw that the federal agent was actually older than he was—possibly by as much as a decade. It was her slender, athletic build and long dark hair, which was misleading.

  “Can you tell us what happened, Agent Vaccaro?” Joshua asked her.

  “Witnesses said Detective Gates’ cruiser was shot at with a machine gun by someone in a dark van,” Ripley said. “All we know is that it was a dark color, nothing more specific. They pulled up alongside the cruiser, opened their side door, and opened fire.”

  “Was anyone hurt or killed?” Joshua asked.

  “A couple of people had to be taken away by ambulance,” she reported, “but they aren’t life threatening injuries.”

  The sound of the crane tore Murphy’s attention from the conversation. “Dad, they’re pulling them up!” Without waiting for Joshua to join him, he raced over to where the cruiser was being dragged up from over the ledge while the fire department hosed down the spilt gasoline.

  “Five women killed at a Cozy Cook party,” Ripley counted off. “A potential witness gunned down at Starbucks in a major shopping center last night. And now the wives of two Phantoms attacked on the Beltway at the start of rush hour. Sounds like we’re going up against some mighty badass dudes who really don’t care who gets between them and their target.”

  “The assassins taken out last night had ties to the Russian mob,” Joshua said. “Where does the mob figure into all this besides them being the muscle?”

  “Our friend told me the direction you’re going on your end,” she said, “I’ll start digging through FBI records to see if I can find anything on my end.”

  “They may be badass,” Joshua said while watching Murphy elbow his way through the rescuers to get to Jessica, “but they just made a very bad mistake.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They’ve made it personal.”

  Murphy waded through the rescuers to reach the passenger side of the cruiser. Peering through the men between him and the car, he could see Jessica pushing against the crushed door from the inside to free herself, while the workers on the outside were prying it open on their side.

  She’s alive!

  For the first time since he had landed on the freeway, Murphy felt as if he could breathe.

  The door opened with a loud creak of dented metal against metal. Jessica scurried out like she was afraid the cruiser would go back over the edge with her in it.

  A rescuer was reaching for her hand when Murphy pushed him aside to take her into his arms.

  Never had she felt so good. She belonged there.

  “Oh, Murphy,” she gasped into his chest, “you’re here! I was afraid—” She clung to him with both arms.

  “Sshhh.” Murphy kissed her on the forehead before wrapping his arms around her and holding her as tightly as he could. “I just want to hold you.”

  Joshua made it to the driver’s side of the cruiser in time for the rescuers to pry open the door and Cameron to climb out. Taking her into his arms, he could feel her body trembling. “You had me worried,” he whispered into her hair.

  “You think I wasn’t?” She tightened her grip around him. “Hold me,” she said into his neck while an EMT draped a blanket over her to prevent shock.

  “I may never let you go.” He tightened his grip only to have her push him away when they heard sobbing from the back seat of the car.

  “Izzy. I need to be there. I promised—” She turned around in time to gather the girl crawling out of the crumbled cruiser into her arms and hold her tight while she sobbed into Cameron’s shoulder. Jessica and Murphy ran around from the other side of the car to take the girl into a group hug which included emergency workers trying to examine the victims for injuries. With the group huddled around the girl, Joshua couldn’t get a clear look at her, other than to see that her hair was a mass of tight ash-blonde curls.

  “I-I was so sc-scared,” the girl wept while holding on tightly to Cameron. “Why. . .what. . .they were trying to kill—” Shoving Cameron away with both hands, she dropped down onto her knees and threw up—expelling half-digested banana split onto Joshua Thornton’s shiny white shoes.

  “Oh, man,” Murphy groaned into Jessica’s ear. “This is not good. Not good at all.”

  The participants of the group hug jumped back, while an EMT draped the blanket he had been trying to cover Izzy with down across her shoulders. “We need to take her to the hospital to check her out.” With a jerk of his chin at Jessica, who had returned to Murphy’s embrace, and Cameron, he said, “We need to take all three of you into the hospital.”

  Cameron dropped down to the ground where Izzy was clutching her stomach. “We’ll go with you, honey. Josh and I aren’t going to leave you. We’ll stay with you to make sure nothing else happens to you.”

  Izzy turned to look over at Cameron, who was hugging her shoulders. “Who’s Josh?”

  “My husband.” Cameron helped her up to her feet. “He’s right here.”

  Izzy raised her eyes up from the discharged ice cream treat covering the white shoes, up the stark white slacks to the uniform covered with ribbons and medals to the face of the man studying her behind dark sunglasses.

  “This is my husband Joshua Thornton,” Cameron said. “Josh, this is Izzy.”

  Dropping her eyes to his soiled shoes, Izzy said, “Sorry ‘bout barfing on your feet.”

  “That’s okay,” he said. “They’re only shoes.” Grasping her shoulder in a loving grip, he smiled. “Let’s get you ladies checked out and then catch these bad guys.”

  “That poor girl has had such a tough week,” Murphy whispered to Joshua while they stared into their drinks in the hospital waiting room. “First she loses her mother, who ends up not being her mother—which we still haven’t told her about yet. Then she’s put in a group home where a teenaged Al Capone tries to take her iPad in exchange for protection. Then she gets shot at, run off the road, and almost killed.” He took a long drink from the bottled water he had gotten from the vending machine.

  “Cameron’s week isn’t much better.” Joshua fingered the loose label of his soft drink bottle. “Thank God th
ey’re all right. Shaken up, but all right. They didn’t end up on Graham’s hit list.”

  “So you admit—”

  “We’re missing something.” Letting out a breath, Joshua sat up in his seat.

  “What?” The frustration in Murphy’s tone was unmistakable.

  “The connection between Graham and the Russian mob,” Joshua said.

  “He’s made a deal with them,” Murphy said. “He supplies them with illegal arms or information for them to sell to Iran or terrorists or the drug cartels—take your pick—in exchange for the syndicate providing clean-up service after his messes.”

  “I looked at Francine Baxter’s files, son,” Joshua said. “Nowhere do I see any evidence, circumstantial or otherwise of him supplying information or arms to the Russian mob—not even a hint of it.”

  “Then he’s using someone else as a go-between,” Murphy said. “Someone close to him.” A broad grin crossed his face. “Dolly Scanlon.” He snapped his fingers. “She was briefing him about the hit at Starbucks. She gave him the information about the anti-military blogger.”

  “But why come after us?” Cameron came into the waiting room and slipped her arm across Joshua’s shoulders. “I got a blue ribbon for good health. A few bruises here and there, but otherwise clean.” Easing down onto the seat next to him, she kissed Joshua on the lips before continuing, “As for our bad guy, I never talked to General Graham. He had no way of knowing Jessica and I were a threat.”

  “He wanted to get to me,” Murphy said. “What better way to get me out of the way than to go after my wife, who was in your car?”

  “No offense, Murphy,” Joshua said, “but you’re not really a threat. General Graham’s nomination has not been threatened—yet. As far as he knows, he’s not a suspect. He didn’t get where he is being stupid. You’re simply a lieutenant. As far as Graham knows, he can squash you and your investigation like a bug with one phone call to the army’s chief of staff.” He shook his head. “Something else happened to trigger this.”

  Murphy wasn’t paying attention. Upon seeing Jessica coming out of the examination room, he was trotting down the hall to take her into his arms.

  “Colonel Lincoln Clark could have called him,” Cameron told Joshua. “Paige Graham outed Jessica at the Clark place. He threw us out.”

  “Paige Graham?” Joshua looked up at where Jessica and Murphy joined them.

  “General Graham’s wife,” Jessica said. “She leads the army officers’ wives club with an iron fist.”

  “Which means her husband’s reputation is very important to her,” Joshua said.

  “She saw us nosing around at Clark’s place,” Cameron said. “She called her husband, who called out the hitmen.”

  “That’s all speculation,” Joshua said.

  Cameron groaned. “You’re going into lawyer mode again.”

  “The President will not withdraw his nomination without real evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of General Sebastian Graham,” Joshua said. “We can speculate from here to doomsday but without any hard irrefutable proof of anything, General Sebastian Graham is on his way to becoming chief of staff of the army.”

  “Excuse me,” a nurse stepped into the waiting room to break the glaring contest between Joshua and the rest of the group. “Are any of you family members for Isadora Crenshaw?”

  “She has no family,” Murphy said forcibly in Joshua’s direction. “Someone murdered them.”

  Joshua fired back his own glare.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” the nurse replied.

  Seeing that the nurse was embarrassed to have walked into the middle of their emotional debate, Jessica laid her hand on her elbow. “We’re legally responsible for Izzy.”

  “The doctor has finished examining her,” the nurse said. “She’s a little banged up. Some scrapes and bruises, mainly. She’s been shaken up pretty bad.”

  “She threw up,” Cameron said.

  “That was due to the emotional trauma,” the nurse said. “The doctor gave her a very mild sedative. It’s already making her drowsy. You can take her home with you. She’ll probably sleep through the night.”

  After the nurse escorted Cameron down the hallway to the examination room to help Izzy out of her robe and dress to go home, Jessica touched Murphy’s arm to break the glaring contest he was engaging in with his father. “I’ll go hail a cab to take us home.” With the point of her finger, she ordered them, “You two play nice while I’m gone.”

  Too angry to stay with his father, Murphy turned to follow after her only to find Joshua’s hand on his arm—holding him back.

  “I do intend to make sure Graham is held accountable for what he’s done,” Joshua said in a low voice. “But we have to go about it the right way.”

  “How’s that?” Murphy asked.

  “When we get home, I want to hear word for word what you overheard at the Ritz this morning. Maybe we’ll get lucky and you heard more than you thought.”

  As soon as the taxi pulled up in front of the Faraday-Thornton brownstone, Tristan threw open the front door and hurried down the steps to meet them. “Are you sure everyone’s okay?” he asked. “Dad’s called twice and Archie three times. He’s threatening to fly out here.”

  When he saw Joshua Thornton in his naval uniform climb out of the front passenger seat, he jumped to stand at attention even though he had never been in the military. “Mr. Thornton!”

  “You called me Josh at the wedding,” he replied while holding the rear door open for Murphy, whose arms were full with a sleeping Izzy, to climb out. Cameron ran up the steps to go inside to prepare Izzy’s bed.

  “Why are you standing at attention?” Jessica asked Tristan in a low voice after climbing out behind Murphy.

  “Just something about him compels me to.” The cab was pulling away when Tristan turned to her to demand, “Why didn’t you tell me that he was here?” He yanked his cell phone from his pocket. His fingers flew across the screen.

  “Because between closing down the Capital Beltway during rush hour and hanging out in the ER, I’ve been a little busy.” She tried to read the name of the contact he was urgently texting. “Who are you texting? Dad?”

  “No, Sarah.” He was breathing heavily while pacing up and down the sidewalk. “Abort. Abort. Oh, God, I hope she hasn’t left yet.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  While Jessica and Cameron were putting Izzy to bed, Murphy started running a bath for Jessica in the master bathroom. He knew from experience that the shock from the accident would make her sore the next day. Nothing like a hot whirlpool bath and deep massage to ease the soreness.

  Holding the soiled pair of white navy shoes, Joshua was admiring the view from the window seat in the sitting room when Murphy came out of the bathroom. “I have to tell you, this is nothing like the apartment your mother and I started out in when we got married.”

  “What is it Mom used to tell us every time we had to move?” Murphy went to his closet on the other side of the bedroom. “It isn’t how many bedrooms or bathrooms or windows that make a house a home. It’s the occupants.” He knelt down to take pick up a pair of white navy shoes from the shoe rack. Holding them up, he said, “I think you and I have the same size feet.”

  “So you did listen to me about making sure you had a spare uniform.” Joshua took the shoes and checked the label inside for the size. “Thank God you’re not Donny. His feet are two sizes bigger than mine.”

  “Donny has gorilla feet.”

  Tucking the fresh shoes under his arm, Joshua said, “Now let’s see what else you have that fits me. My suitcase is still at the Pentagon and I’d really like to get out of these whites.”

  Stepping aside, Murphy gestured to the interior of the closet. “The store is open. Take whatever you need.”

  While searching through Murphy’s drawers for slacks a
nd a shirt, Joshua said, “I see Cameron has really taken to Izzy.”

  “So has Irving,” Murphy said. “And the dogs. Even Tristan’s spider likes her.”

  Joshua paused in his search. “Monique? She’s met Monique?”

  “Tristan’s townhouse got flooded,” Murphy said. “He’s staying with us while repairs are being made and, apparently, kennels don’t take tarantulas.”

  With a chuckle, Joshua resumed his search. “I half expect Mac Faraday to show up at your door with Gnarly to join the party.”

  “I like Gnarly,” Murphy said. “I don’t like Monique.”

  Having selected his change of clothes, Joshua stepped out of the closet. “The truth is, when you get married, like it or not, you become part of a whole ‘nother family. And you know what they say. You can chose your friends but not your family—even when you marry into it.”

  “I really love the Faradays,” Murphy said. “Mac scares the daylights out of me, but I can get used to that.”

  “Do you think Tristan can get used to me scaring him?” Joshua said with a grin.

  “Him, I’m not so sure.”

  “How long has he been seeing Sarah?”

  “Since the wedding,” Murphy said. “But not in the traditional sense. They have not actually gone out on a real date.”

  “It’s tough to date long distance, especially when you’re attending a military academy,” Joshua said.

  “I think they have a hook up planned for real soon,” Murphy said in a low voice. “But pretend you don’t know about it. It makes things more exciting.”

  “You can be so cruel sometimes,” Joshua replied in a whisper.

  “It’s in my genes.”

  Downstairs, Jessica walked into the kitchen to find Tristan hissing into the phone. “I don’t know what he’s doing here. I didn’t ask. … No, Murphy didn’t blow our cover. He doesn’t know.” Seeing his sister, he said, “Just a minute.” Hitting the mute button, he said, “Sarah is halfway here from Annapolis and everything is at a dead halt because the beltway is still closed due to fuel clean up from your accident.”