Fatal Option by Chris Beakey

Author:Chris Beakey [Beakey, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Post Hill Press
Published: 2016-12-22T16:00:00+00:00

Caruso drove carefully over the slick road that led back up the mountain, his thoughts fixated on the text from Niles, which affirmed that the crime scene was compromised by the weather, the remote location, and the more than two hours it had taken for the tech team to get there.

Which made it all the more crucial to obtain physical evidence, which could include Aidan’s blood, or fibers from his clothing, or flecks of paint that could be matched to Porter’s vehicle.

The sign marked “Rolling Road” was nearly concealed by the heavy snowfall. He slowed and started to make the turn when he saw a white vehicle crest the steep hill a hundred yards ahead. There was a brief moment of eye contact with the driver before the vehicle abruptly slowed. Caruso instinctively did the same.

He then lowered his driver’s side window and stuck his left hand out, his palm forward, motioning for the vehicle to stop.

The driver wore glasses in a tortoiseshell frame, but even from the distance Caruso saw the wariness in her eyes. He responded with what he hoped was a calm, disarming look. Keep it friendly, he thought. As if you’re nothing more than a helpful cop.

As directed, she stopped when they were parallel, and lowered her window. Up close her eyes were bloodshot, as they had been a week before, when Caruso had questioned her for the third time. Her name was April Devon, and she was the woman Lori Porter had planned to meet with on the night she died. The interview, like the one before it, had left him feeling certain that she was holding something back.

He faced her through the open window, feeling momentarily invigorated by the cold air.

“I guess you heard,” he said.

She nodded. “I saw the story on the news this morning. It was a hit and run?”

“Looks that way.” He glanced down at the logo—a stitch in time—on the driver’s side door of her Kia Sorrento, a cross between an SUV and a minivan, suitable for delivering pieces of furniture and fabrics and for navigating the steep mountain terrain. According to what April had told him, and backed up by what he had researched online, she had run the business from her home in Fairfax, Virginia for several years before recently moving to a home on the mountain. She advertised in local circulars and online and did most of her work in the house’s large living room, which had a panoramic view of the valley below the mountain.

That house was less than a mile away.

“I don’t suppose you saw anything,” he said.

“When?”

“Last night. When it happened.”

She lowered her hands from the steering wheel. “No. I was snowed in like everyone else up here.”

His mind skipped through her answers to his previous questions about Lori Porter, who had hired April to make curtains and slipcovers for the Porter home. April had first told him they were merely acquaintances, but her eyes had filled with tears as she recounted her movements on the night Lori died.

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