The 13-Minute Murder Read online

  “Oh, my God.”

  Susan looked alarmed. “What? What is it?”

  “Scott’s wife. Jennifer.”

  “You think she can help you?”

  “No,” Beck said. “Think about it. If they are willing to kill me because I spent a few minutes with Kevin Scott, then what are they going to do about her?”

  “Randall, for God’s sake.”

  “Susan, think about it. If I’m wrong, I’ll go with you to the hospital. Quietly. I’ll get help. But if I’m right, then a woman’s life is at stake, and we’re the only people who can help her right now. They will kill her, Susan.”

  Susan thought about that for a moment. Then she cranked the engine back to life. “Do you have her address?” she asked. Beck didn’t.

  “Look it up on my phone,” she said, tossing it to him, then pulled out into traffic. A horn blared as she cut another driver off. Susan ignored it as the phone began giving them directions to the house of Kevin and Jennifer Scott.

  Susan’s grip was tight on the wheel. For the first time, Beck thought, she looked like she believed him.

  Because she looked scared.

  Chapter 10

  Morrison and Howard were in no mood for bullshit by the time they rolled up to the tiny auto repair shop.

  The last hour had been the most humiliating of their careers.

  First, the firefighters had to use pry bars to open their SUV and free Morrison. A paramedic put his arm in a sling. Then she plucked safety glass from an open wound on Howard’s scalp and stuffed cotton up the other agent’s nose before putting a brace over his face to keep the broken bones in place.

  The agents had to call headquarters for another vehicle, which was delivered along with the tow truck that took away the SUV.

  And while they waited, they had to call the Client and report what had happened.

  There was disbelief and scorn in her voice. “A goddamn psychiatrist got away from you? Are you kidding me?”

  They promised they would make it right.

  “We’ll handle it,” Morrison said.

  “He’d better be in a body bag before the end of the day,” the Client said. “And anyone else he’s talked to. Or I’ll find someone who will put you in one.”

  She hung up. Morrison had winced. Even though their phones were encrypted, you never knew who could be listening.

  Still, Morrison knew she wasn’t threatening. She was promising. He’d worked for her long enough to know.

  Morrison had called a contact at the National Security Agency. He had Beck’s phone, which was as good as having the man’s DNA and fingerprints. He explained that he needed to do a quick and dirty search for a high-value target, and had no time for a warrant or to jump through any other official hoops.

  Morrison’s friend at the NSA was happy to help. Morrison gave him the last phone number Beck had dialed—a person named Susan Carpenter. The NSA had back doors into every major telecommunications carrier in the world. A few keystrokes on a computer, and Morrison’s contact had the data for Susan Carpenter’s phone.

  Sure enough, there was another call to her, right after the time of the wreck, from a mobile phone located a dozen blocks from the scene of the crash.

  This was good news and bad news. It gave them a clue to where Beck was—but it meant he’d talked to someone new. Another loose end to snip.

  The NSA guy said he could track Susan Carpenter’s cell phone for them, but that would likely draw the attention of his supervisor.

  Morrison told him to forget it. They’d take it from there. But he did want the location of the phone Beck had used to call.

  That was easy. The NSA’s coordinates were exact. The phone Beck used had not moved since he called his girlfriend or whoever the hell she was.

  So that was how Morrison and Howard ended up standing in front of Louis as he worked under the hood of an old Ford Taurus.

  They showed him their badges. He didn’t seem too impressed.

  “What can I do for you gentlemen?” he asked, going back to work on the engine.

  “We need to know if you’ve seen a man wearing handcuffs,” Howard asked.

  “You’d think I’d remember something like that,” Louis said, calmly working his wrench into the guts of the car.

  “So you didn’t see him?” Morrison asked. Howard was ready to grab Louis’s collar and pull him out from under the hood, but Morrison shook his head. Not yet.

  “Not that I recall,” Louis said. “What’s he supposed to have done?”

  “He’s wanted in a murder investigation,” Morrison said.

  “Sounds like a bad guy. Wish I could help you.”

  Morrison sighed. Why did people always have to make things so difficult? He nodded at Howard.

  Howard smiled and carefully moved the hood prop out of place, then set it carefully into its clip, using his other hand to keep the hood up.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Louis asked.

  Howard didn’t answer. He grabbed Louis by the neck and kept him from moving back, slamming the hood down on his head.

  Louis screamed. Howard lifted the hood back up, and Morrison hauled him out. He was bleeding freely from his head and cuts on his face where he’d been shoved into the engine block.

  “You’re lying to us,” Morrison said.

  “N-no,” Louis stammered.

  Morrison patted the man down, one-handed. He found his phone in the side pocket of his coveralls.

  “We know he made a call from your phone,” Morrison said.

  Louis looked shocked for a split second—most people think the government is listening to their phone calls, but it’s another thing to know it’s really happened to you—and then shook his head.

  “I—I leave the phone on my desk. Anyone could have used it. I swear!”

  Morrison considered this. As excuses went, it was almost plausible. But it wasn’t convincing. “Then how did it get in your pocket, if you leave it on your desk?”

  Louis looked stunned, and didn’t answer.

  Morrison nodded at Howard, who shoved Louis down and slammed the hood again. Louis shrieked in pain. Howard smiled. He liked this part of the job. Morrison heard something crunch that time.

  Howard pulled Louis back out from under the hood. He had several broken teeth, which explained the crunch. He was drooling blood.

  “You sure you never saw anyone wearing handcuffs?”

  Then it all came spilling out. “I shaw him, I shaw him,” Louis said, his mouth full of mush.

  “Where’d he go?”

  “I doan know,” Louis said, tears rolling down his cheeks now. “I doan know!”

  “You’re not lying to me again, are you?”

  Louis shook his head violently, sending blood drops flying. Morrison flinched back with distaste. “I shwear to Gaa,” Louis said.

  Morrison believed him. He really sold it.

  But it made no difference. He’d seen their faces, and knew they were asking about Beck. They couldn’t take the chance. No loose ends. They’d promised.

  Morrison nodded, and Howard pushed him back into the engine compartment. This time Louis was practically weeping, waiting for the metal to crack his skull one more time.

  But Morrison wasn’t cruel like Howard. He didn’t let the other agent slam the hood down again.

  He just took out his 9mm and put a bullet into the back of Louis’s head.

  They left the body in the garage. Howard stopped at the cash register, opened it, and took out the money inside. In this neighborhood, Metro PD wouldn’t look any further for a motive than that. Case closed.

  They walked back to the car.

  “You should have let me talk to him some more,” Howard said. “He could have told us where Beck went.”

  “He didn’t know,” Morrison replied. “He was telling the truth.”

  “So how are we going to find him?”

  Morrison got behind the wheel. His arm still hurt like hell, but
he had no intention of letting Howard drive. Guy was a maniac.

  “Come on,” Morrison said. “He’s a shrink. How long before he goes running to the police? Where else is he going to go?”

  Chapter 11

  Susan pulled up to the Scotts’ house. It was located in what an optimistic real-estate agent would call “a neighborhood in transition.” There were some decent restaurants nearby mixed with cheap delivery joints and empty storefronts. Most of the windows still had bars on them.

  “So what do we do?” Susan asked.

  Beck sat in the car for a moment. Good question. They hadn’t been able to call Jennifer Scott—her number was in Beck’s notes, back in his office, and it was unlisted. So there was only one thing to do.

  “Let’s go up.”

  Susan hesitated. “You realize that if you’re right, there could be someone waiting there already.”

  Beck had thought of that. But he didn’t see any alternative. “Well,” he said, opening the car door, “let’s hope I really am delusional, then.”

  Beck got out of the car and walked up the sidewalk.

  He started walking toward the Scotts’ house, a crumbling, single-family home.

  Then he had to stop as his head began spinning again. He was sweating. It was warm out, but not that warm. He’d pushed himself too hard today.

  Susan noticed. “You need a minute? Or a doctor?”

  Beck grimaced. “I’ve got you.”

  He expected a sarcastic comeback. Instead, she put her hand on his arm. “Yes,” she said. “You do.”

  Beck caught his breath and touched her hand. His head was still pounding, but he felt better.

  They walked to the Scotts’ front door.

  Beck knocked. The door creaked open at his touch. It was unlocked. It was barely even closed.

  He looked at Susan. She shrugged. Quietly, they walked inside.

  The door opened into a short hallway—only a couple of feet—before a living room and kitchen area. There was another short hallway branching off the living room, probably leading to a bedroom. Beck could see a door at the end of the short hall. It was closed.

  On the inside, the house was tiny and cramped, but spotless. The thin gray carpet was peeling from the floor, but it had recently been vacuumed within an inch of its life. Bargain furniture was placed in front of a flatscreen on the wall, and a laptop computer sat open on a small dining table.

  Beck walked over to the laptop. It was powered on and running a screen saver showing pictures from Kevin Scott’s photos. Beck watched the pictures dissolve, one into another, souvenirs from a life cut short just a couple of hours ago.

  In one photo, Scott was grinning with a group of other men, all in camouflage, gathered for a group shot in the middle of some desert in the Middle East. They all looked young and healthy and unstoppable.

  My patient is dead, Beck thought.

  At that moment, he knew why he was doing this. Why he couldn’t just give up. He hated to lose a patient. It always filled him with equal parts despair and rage. But to have a patient taken from him—that was unacceptable. Even if it was all in his head, Beck had to know why this had happened.

  He tapped the space bar on the keyboard. The photos vanished, replaced by a log-in screen. There was Kevin Scott’s name, followed by a space for a password.

  Beck hit Return. The screen vibrated and reset itself. He’d hoped that Scott hadn’t set a password. No luck. In fact, the screen told him he had only THREE ATTEMPTS REMAINING. Scott must have set a limit on attempts to log in, to keep people from breaking into his computer. Not surprising, considering he used to work top-secret missions.

  Susan was searching the rest of the small room. She was thorough, but there wasn’t much to see. She set down a pile of mail, putting it back in the neat stack on the kitchen counter.

  “Anything?” she asked.

  Beck shook his head. There was nothing here. Maybe he really was losing it. Perhaps this was all in his head. Perhaps he was hallucinating. Perhaps he was becoming paranoid and losing his grip on reality.

  He’d seen it before, in some patients. They were so convinced they were right, even as they babbled on about the shadow government and aliens and conspiracies.

  Was he making all of this up? Did he injure two Secret Service agents just because of his brain tumor? He couldn’t be that crazy, could he? Was that possible? Had his brain really turned on him like that?

  Then he heard a noise from down the hall.

  He looked at Susan. “You heard that, too, right?”

  She nodded.

  Beck went down the hall. Susan followed. He started to open the door, when it whipped open all by itself.

  Beck found himself looking at a woman holding a gun.

  Well. At least I’m not crazy, he thought.

  Chapter 12

  Beck winced, but no gunshot came.

  Instead, the young woman just stood there.

  She was blond and gym-toned, with sharp cheekbones and bright-blue eyes. And she looked terrified.

  “Don’t move,” she said, her voice—and the gun—shaking.

  “Don’t worry,” Beck said. Both he and Susan put up their hands. She quickly slammed the door behind her.

  The woman gestured for them to back up. They did. She backed them down the hall, into the living room.

  Then they stood there. No one seemed to be sure of the next move.

  “Are you Jennifer?” Beck asked.

  She blinked. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Kevin’s doctor,” Beck said. “Dr. Randall Beck. Remember? I’m the one he went to see this morning. This is my colleague, Dr. Susan Carpenter.”

  She blinked again, holding back tears. “Is he—is he all right?” She stopped and put a hand to her mouth and closed her eyes as she choked back a sob.

  The gun remained up, however.

  She doesn’t know, Beck realized. But she was still armed. And afraid. Clearly something was going on here.

  He decided not to tell her about Scott’s death. Not while she was still so agitated and holding a gun, anyway.

  Susan had clearly come to the same conclusion.

  “Please,” Susan said gently. “Put that down. We’re here to help.”

  She stepped forward. Braver than Beck felt, the way that gun was waving around. But Jennifer Scott lowered the weapon, and then let Susan fold her into her arms.

  She took a deep, shuddering breath, and then stood up straight, pushing Susan back.

  “What happened to Kevin?” she said. “He went to see you this morning. He was ranting and crazy and paranoid. I thought he might—might actually hurt me. So I was hiding in the bedroom with his gun. Just in case. And then you two show up. What are you doing here? Is he all right?”

  Beck had delivered bad news to relatives before, both as a med student and when his patients decided they couldn’t take the pain anymore. There was no good way to say it, ever. So he always thought it was best to just say it.

  “He’s dead, Jennifer. I’m so sorry.”

  For a second, her face showed nothing. “What?”

  “He was shot outside my office. We don’t know why. I thought the police would have told you—”

  Then the news seemed to hit her all at once, and she turned away quickly.

  Susan reached out to her again, but she pulled away. “Please. I need a minute,” she said, and hurried down the hall and into the bedroom. The door slammed again.

  Beck let out a long deep breath. None of this made any sense. Where were the police? Why hadn’t they come to see her?

  And something about Jennifer’s story nagged at him, too. Kevin Scott had been angry, but not violent when he arrived at Beck’s office that morning. He didn’t seem like a man who’d just threatened his wife. In fact, the only time he did get angry was when Beck suggested he was having an affair.

  That didn’t necessarily mean anything, of course. Beck had seen domestic abusers who were as cool as ice outside of
the home. But it was just one more thing that didn’t add up.

  Plus, there was just something off about her. He’d seen many people grieve—too many. He knew everyone reacted differently. But there was always a feeling of depth to it—he could always see the impact of the loss, how it almost echoed inside them, like a stone dropped in a well. Jennifer Scott had seemed like she was holding back a sneeze, not like someone holding back tears.

  He said to Susan, “Did it seem like she—”

  Susan interrupted. “Randall,” she said.

  “What?”

  She pointed at the laptop. The screen saver had activated again. It was going through family photos of Kevin Scott. There was a series of pictures from his wedding.

  And the woman in the pictures had dark-brown hair.

  She was not the woman who said she was Jennifer Scott.

  Chapter 13

  The woman’s real name was Natalie Mullen. She made sure that Jennifer Scott’s body was stashed completely behind the bed. She hadn’t had much time to hide it before.

  Killing Jennifer Scott was easy. Mullen had knocked and said a big friendly hello when Jennifer had opened the door earlier—no one ever suspected that a woman might be dangerous, especially not another woman. It was a real asset in her line of work.

  Then before Jennifer could say anything else, Mullen used the butt of her pistol to hit her in the face, knocking her back into the house.

  They’d struggled. Jennifer was badly hurt, but still managed to fight back, which shouldn’t have been too surprising since she was a soldier’s wife.

  Mullen had hit her with the pistol again. She collapsed on the floor. Mullen dragged her to the bedroom and shot her in the face.

  Then she’d heard someone out in the living room.

  She worked herself up into some tears, took the suppressor off her pistol, and then came out of the bedroom crying and shaking.

  Of course they fell for it.

  But now she needed to know what to do about them. She pressed a button on her prepaid burner phone and waited. The Client picked up immediately.

  Mullen started to explain, but when she said the name “Beck,” the Client cut her off.