The Girl and the Deadly End (Emma Griffin FBI Mystery Book 7) Read online

  “Nice censorship,” Sam mutters.

  “I’m in public.” I let out a sigh. “Martin isn’t Catch Me. I know it.”

  “Why?” Sam frowns. “It all fits together.”

  “Yes, it does. Right up until he disappears right after I end up in the morgue drawer. That doesn’t fit. But none of Martin’s behavior fits in with Catch Me. He’s been playing these twisted games with me, keeping me on my toes and constantly moving. What good would it do him to have me here for two days before he did anything? And what does any of this have to do with my mother? Remember, all this time, everything he’s done has been about my mother. He knows what happened to her, and he’s been trailing me along because he knows I want to know too. Bringing me here to see Greg and then stuffing me in the morgue and leaving me for dead while he traipses off on his own doesn’t fit with everything he’s done. Besides, I bet if you talked to HR, you’d find out that Martin has an exemplary attendance record,” I say.

  “He hasn’t missed the days he’d need to drag you through his sick little circus,” Dean notes.

  “So, Martin isn’t Catch Me. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know him and isn’t helping him,” Sam muses.

  “Or my uncle.”

  Just saying the word still burns on my lips, but I force it out. It’s my reality, and I have to deal with it. Pushing it to the back corners of my mind is just giving him more power. As long as I’m trying to find ways to not associate with him, I’m giving him control, and that’s the last thing he deserves. “He came here. He knew I was here. Catch Me is all about the next step. Everything is a stepping-stone. The bodies, the flowers, the postcard, the link. Everything leads to the next thing. But with Martin, there’s no next thing. He’s just gone. No taunt to chase him. No tiny tidbit of my history to make me want to keep going. No. This isn’t him. He might have brought me here, but my uncle has taken over now.”

  “And you still don’t think they’re working together?” Sam asks.

  “They could be,” I admit, getting up to my feet, “but if they were, we wouldn’t see all this back-and-forth whiplash. It seems almost like they’re working against each other. Catch Me is very precise. Very secretive. Too much of this has been left to chance for them to be the same.”

  I move to head out of Greg’s room. Sam trades a quick look of concern with Bellamy. They think I don’t see it, but I do. “Where are you going?” she asks.

  I roll my eyes. “Oh my god, B, I’m fine. Look, I’m on my feet. No issues.” I spread my arms up and wide to show them I can move. “Now come on. We need to find any cameras in this hospital that might have caught where Martin went when he left. We need to find every camera we can and try to piece together what happened between me getting coffee and Dean pulling me out of the deep freezer,” I explain.

  “There aren’t any on this floor because of the security clearing, but there have to be some somewhere. Most emergency rooms have them. Exits. Maternity wards,” notes Eric.

  We get to the nurse’s station, and Amelia, one of the nurses on duty, looks at me with teary eyes.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I should have known.”

  “You should have known what?” I ask.

  “When Martin was changing the linens, I should have known something was wrong, but I didn’t question it.”

  She starts crying. I walk around the desk and through the gap that leads into the corral-like area where the nurses congregate and work when they aren’t with patients. Crouching down beside her, I wrap my arm around her shoulders.

  “Amelia, I need you to tell me what you’re talking about. What about Martin changing the linens was strange? Isn’t that something he regularly does?”

  “Yes,” she confirms, lifting her head and looking at me through a veil of tears across her almost black eyes. A lock of inky hair slips from the clip at the back of her head and slides down her cheek, making her brush it away. Almost instinctively, she reaches for a bottle of hand sanitizer and rubs it in. “But he only does empty rooms by himself. If there’s still a patient in the room, we make sure their linens are changed while they are getting a bath or participating in therapy outside of the room.”

  “And if they can’t move?” I ask. “Like Greg?”

  “Then he has to have someone help. At least one other person helps maneuver the patient so the linens can be put in place. Earlier today, I was so busy. The entire nursing staff was. When I noticed him going toward Greg’s room with a laundry cart, I asked if he needed my help, but he said he was fine. I had so many other things to do; I just accepted it as a blessing. It would make things so much easier for all of us. He went in, and he came out just a few minutes later. The cart had balled up linens in it like always.”

  “Holy shit,” I gasp, looking over at Sam. “He El Chapo’ed me.”

  “You said you woke up on a gurney.”

  “It was just for a few seconds, but that’s what it felt like. I was lying down on my back and could feel it rolling.”

  “You wouldn’t be able to fit lying down in one of the laundry carts,” Dean points out. “It’s not long enough.”

  “So, Martin stuffed me in the cart, covered me with sheets, then transferred me to the gurney? How could he do that without someone noticing?”

  “Where do the orderlies bring the carts of laundry?” Bellamy asks.

  “Some go to the laundry facility at the bottom of the hospital, and some are shipped out for laundering.”

  “Did you see him again after he left Greg’s room?” I ask.

  “He came back up,” Amelia confirms. “Just like always. Some of the patients are on different eating schedules, and he brought them their meals. Everything seemed completely fine.”

  “Get in touch with security,” I say. “Get feeds from every security camera in the place, especially the elevators. We need to find out how Martin got me away from the room and into the morgue. It’s possible he transferred me over to someone. If he came back up here like he always does, he obviously didn’t take the extra time to go to the morgue.”

  “I can’t say for sure it was the same amount of time,” Amelia tells me. “I just know I saw him again, and he brought the meals.”

  I nod.

  “That’s why we need the footage. If we can trace his movements, we might be able to see something that can help us figure out what happened and find Martin. From there, we can find out why he felt the need to skip a couple of steps and put me right into the cold drawer.”

  Chapter Two

  “Most of the elevators don’t have cameras,” the security officer tells us, pulling up feeds from various sources throughout the building. “Technically, it’s allowed by HIPAA, but a lot of medical facilities choose not to put them in elevators where patients will be for privacy purposes. That’s especially important in places like this where the patients are often public figures. We don’t want someone managing to steal images of a politician or activist in the hospital and releasing it to media sources. But a lot of people, even ones working here, don’t realize there are cameras in certain elevators.”

  “Why those?” I ask.

  “Some elevators are used only by staff, and those are covered by cameras for security purposes. But not everybody who works here even knows they are there. This is one of them. It’s a back elevator that’s usually used to access the lower portions of the hospital.”

  “Like the laundry area,” I say.

  “Exactly,” he nods. “Watch.”

  The footage is fairly grainy, but I’m able to identify Martin pushing a large laundry cart into the elevator. He pushes the button to go down and stands next to the cart, one hand rested on the edge almost defensively. Staring at the contents of the cart, it just looks like piles of sheets, but I know I’m in there. He’s managed to stuff me inside and cover me up without anyone noticing. After a few seconds, the doors open again, and he steps out. Dragging the cart out, he disappears from the frame.

  “Is that it?�
� I ask.

  “Just a second,” the security guard says.

  A moment later, the elevator doors open again, and the cart slides back inside, but without Martin. Just as the doors close, I notice something at the very edge of the frame. I lean towards the screen.

  “Wait, can you go back a few seconds?”

  He stands back, and I stare at the upper corner. I point at something white.

  “What’s that?” Sam asks. “Is that a gurney?”

  “That’s what it looks like to me,” I say. “It’s waiting right there just outside the elevator. Martin prepared for this. He put the stretcher outside the elevator, knowing he’d be able to bring me down in the laundry cart, then transfer me over. At any step of the way, nobody would question what he was doing. If they saw him with the cart, he was just bringing laundry down. Once I was on the stretcher and covered up, he was just making his way to the morgue. I highly doubt there are many people who will stop an orderly and request a peek at the newly deceased. The only risk of getting caught was when he was actually putting me up on the stretcher.”

  “But he’s familiar with that area,” Sam points out. “There are probably routines and schedules in place, so he knows when people will be in that area and when they won’t. If he timed it just right, he could have been down there when he’d have the hallway to himself. Amelia said she was too busy to notice if he was doing anything unusual. If he acted like he was changing the linens in Greg’s room just a few minutes before or after he usually does, nobody would have noticed.”

  “Does it show him go back up?” I ask.

  The security officer nods. He scans forward by a few minutes, and the elevator doors open back up. Martin steps in with an armful of sheets that he stuffs down into the cart before pushing another button.

  “He goes to the floor with the laundry room and brings the cart out. Then he gets back in and heads back up to his usual floor,” he tells me.

  “What about after that? How did he get out of the hospital?” I ask.

  “The next time he shows up on the camera, it’s about twenty minutes later. Here.” He cues up another piece of film on another area of the screen, showing footage from a different camera. “This is a lobby in one of the other wings of the hospital. If you watch that door...” we follow the screen for a few seconds before seeing the door to the staircase open and Martin step out, “there. He crosses the lobby like nothing’s bothering him and heads out the door. He’s carrying a satchel and a coffee cup, which is no different than the vast majority of the staff you see walking out of this place. Flipping over to one of the security cameras in the parking lot, you see him get into a car. A couple seconds later, the car drives away. That’s all.”

  “Let me see the car,” I say. “Maybe I’ll recognize it.”

  He pulls up the footage of the parking lot. The tiny figure of Martin comes out of the building and crosses into the rows of parking spots. He goes far into the back, almost out of range of the cameras, then glances around before turning to a car. He walks over to the driver’s side and ducks in. A few seconds later, the car backs out of the spot and drives out of view.

  “Do you recognize it? “Sam asks.

  “It’s a little champagne-colored nondescript four-door. There are approximately eighty billion of those on the road at any given second. I didn’t see the license plate or anything that made it stand out,” I tell him.

  “Then why do you look like something’s bothering you?”

  “Because it is. There’s something about the way he got in the car.” I look at the security officer. “Can you show us the parking lot?”

  “Emma, you should be resting,” Bellamy argues.

  “I don’t need to rest. I just spent a few hours napping, and you know what they say… cold makes for a deeper sleep. When we got here, I said I wanted the camera left in Greg’s room because I wanted it to be seen. I wanted him to come. It seems he took my invitation. You think I’m just going to let that go?” I look back at the officer. “Show me the parking lot.”

  The route through the hospital to the lot is twisty and convoluted. We go through two floating hallways and up and down elevators and stairwells that make me question the architectural integrity of whoever designed the place.

  “Almost there,” he says.

  “This isn’t exactly the most streamlined of hospitals, is it?” I ask.

  “We actually left the main hospital. That’s the oldest section. Other buildings around it were bought over the years and added onto it, but they couldn’t be directly attached, which is why it ended up with all the different connection points to get from place to place. There are still some areas where you must go outside in order to access that part of it, even though the buildings are attached in some places. It can be really confusing if you don’t know your way around,” he confirms.

  “Which Martin obviously did,” I say.

  “He worked here,” Sam points out.

  “On that specific floor. I highly doubt a hospital that needed to be pieced together from several different buildings has the same orderlies working all the wards. Not only did he park all the way on the other side of the hospital, but he managed to get through this maze without getting seen on any cameras except when he was on his way out. Why would he do that?” I ask.

  “Here we are,” the officer tells us, leading us out of a stairwell into the same lobby Martin had left from.

  We walk out into the parking lot, and I pause, trying to orient myself. The camera caught Martin at a specific angle, and I need to find that angle to ensure I go to the right area of the parking lot.

  “Eric, do you have your car here?” I ask.

  “Yeah, why?” he asks.

  “Because you drive a nondescript four-door. It’s not champagne-colored, but I can deal with blue in this circumstance. Where did you park?”

  “In the parking deck.”

  “Go get it and bring it here,” I tell him. He hesitates, and I glance over at him. “Please.” He leaves, and I look at Dean. “Can you get yours, too?”

  He doesn’t question me but gives a single nod and jogs off. I feel Sam’s eyes on me.

  “What are you up to?”

  “I just need to see something. I don’t think Martin was alone.”

  “How could you tell that? The back window of the car was too dark to see anything through it,” he says.

  “I know. That’s why I need to see the cars. I just want to check.”

  It takes a few minutes for both cars to come into the lot, and I point out the two spots where I want them to park. When everyone gathers near me again, I turn to the security officer.

  “Can you look at the old footage from the camera and the current footage at the same time?” I ask.

  “Sure.”

  “Great. Will you bring Sam and Eric to the office and cue up when Martin went out into the parking lot, then the current feed?”

  “No problem.”

  “Okay. Sam, when you get up there, call me.”

  “I don’t want you out here without me,” he says, stepping closer.

  “I’m not alone,” I point out. “Bellamy and Dean are both going to be here.” He glares at Dean, and I reach up to turn his face toward me. “I’m alive because he found me and got me out of that morgue. Please don’t forget that.”

  Sam sighs and kisses my cheek. “You’re right. Love you.”

  “Love you.”

  Chapter Three

  Emma

  Seventeen years ago …

  “Where is she?” she asked. “Where’s Mama?”

  Her father’s face was the color of campfire logs long after the fire went down. It had been that way for days since that night when the dark suits filled the house, and the stretcher went by covered in the white sheet. Since the night someone sat in the living room watching TV while she cowered at the top of the stairs and waited for everything to go back to the way it was supposed to be, then disappeared before her father came home.
Since the night they sat on the floor and waited.

  “She’s gone, darling,” he told her. “I told you.”

  “But where is she? What happened to her?”

  A gauzy dark purple dress lay across the foot of the bed. It was where she’d slept the night before, but it wasn’t Emma’s bed. It wasn’t comfortable, and the sheets didn’t smell like her mother. But Emma still wasn’t even sure how she got here, or why they were here. This wasn’t Vermont. That’s where they were supposed to be, but they never ended up there. Her father was wearing a black suit. It wasn’t the same type of suit he wore when he worked. His usual white shirt beneath it was black as well.

  “Get dressed, Emma. We’re going to be late,” he told her.

  “Where is she?” she repeated.

  “You’ll see her at the memorial service. That’s where she is,” he told her.

  But she wasn’t. Not really. She knew what a memorial service was supposed to look like. Two years ago, her mother and father had brought her to one. They weren’t there for long. She didn’t really know who it was for, but she could remember what it looked like. This wasn’t it.

  She shouldn’t be here. She should be sitting in the middle of the living room floor, surrounded by jellybeans, spilled like little jewels out of the plastic eggs she found. She and her mother should be choosing flavors and pairing them together to make new ones.

  Instead, she was struggling against the dress that cut too close to her neck and itched against her legs. Her father led her by the hand into the room. It wasn’t like the one from the last memorial service. That was a big room, almost like a hotel, in a building that smelled like flowers. Not the pretty flowers on restaurant tables that Dad brought to Mama on her birthday. These were dense, choking flowers that made her throat feel thick and uncomfortable. When her father brought her to this place, it just looked like a house. There was no one else around. She felt strange walking through the door like they should have stopped when they got onto the porch and knocked before they went in.