Roses from My Killer Read online

  Hill sat back in his chair and blew out a breath. “And find him.”

  That was the hard part. But at least now they knew who they were looking for.

  There was a grunt from the end of the table.

  Miranda looked over at Garwood.

  He had his glasses in his hand and was staring at a set of papers before him. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “What’s wrong, Garwood?”

  “You said the name of the shop was Blossom’s Blooms?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I called that shop. It was one of the first on my list. They didn’t mention anything about a man asking for purple roses.”

  “Who did you talk to?”

  Garwood put his glasses back on and consulted his list. “A woman named Denise.”

  “That’s Blossom Daniels’ daughter. She was out when the man stopped by.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Ms. Daniels, the owner.”

  Garwood made a note on his paper. He looked upset he hadn’t double-checked that detail, but it was an easy oversight.

  “Ms. Daniels also said Afton didn’t order anything,” Miranda told the team. “She didn’t have three dozen purple roses in stock, and he didn’t want to wait. He said he’d try somewhere else.”

  “Three dozen?” Smith exclaimed.

  “That’s right.” Miranda could see the apprehension in Smith’s face. There was only one dozen at the crime scene. “He could be saving the other two dozen for his next victims. That’s why we have to find where he did place that order, ASAP. The florist he used would have the address where the roses were delivered. Keep working that list, Garwood.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Right away.”

  She pointed at Deweese. “Can you send out a BOLO with a description of Afton?”

  “Sure can.”

  Hill raised his hand. “Becker might have gotten something from that video by now.”

  Miranda nodded. “Check with him and add whatever he has to the BOLO. And that the suspect may be driving a dark sedan.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She turned to Wesson and Smith. “You two work on the suspect’s background. Find out anything you can about Aaron Connor Afton.”

  “Will do,” they said in unison.

  They were really getting to be a team, weren’t they?

  “Meanwhile Parker and I will visit the local car rental companies. I can’t imagine someone like Afton driving down here from New York. We can stop by the airport, too.” She recalled there was only a small one nearby, but Afton may have flown into it.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Wesson said.

  “Okay, then. I’ll check in with all of you in a couple hours. If anyone finds anything, let me know right away.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Disallowing the jeep and dune buggy places, there were only a few car rentals in the area. They visited each one, and Miranda let Parker do most of the talking. But despite his irresistible charm, no one had rented a Mercedes or an Infiniti or a Mazda lately. Or even had one in stock.

  Their last stop was the tiny local airport in the upper northwest corner of the island. They struck out there, too.

  Back in their own rental, Miranda stared at a single-engine plane coming in for a landing as they rounded a curve. The two-runway county airfield was mostly used by aircraft and helicopters rented out as excursions for tourists to view the gorgeous ocean scenery by air. The airport personnel had confirmed their suspect had not arrived in the area by plane recently.

  She tapped her fingers on her knee. “Maybe Afton bought a car. He certainly had the bucks to do it.”

  “Let’s check out that theory.” Parker sounded as tired and frustrated as she did, but they had to keep going.

  Miranda did a deep search on her phone with some special software Becker had installed recently. After several minutes it spat out every car Aaron Connor Afton had ever owned.

  She let out a low whistle. “This guy’s a collector. He owns a ‘75 Maserati, a ‘59 Cadillac and look here—an old style Mercedes-Benz.” She held up the data on her phone.

  Glancing at it, Parker scowled. “The vehicle in the parking lot video wasn’t vintage.”

  She sighed. “You’re right. Let’s try the local dealerships.”

  Two hours later they had visited every car lot in the area and still had nothing. The sun was starting to go down, and Miranda was getting another tension headache.

  “He probably flew into a neighboring airport and drove in from there, like we did. We’ve been wasting our time.”

  “It’s never a waste to narrow possibilities.”

  Maybe not, but it took too long.

  They were heading back up South Croatan when her cell rang. It was Deweese. “The BOLO’s out,” he told her. “Every officer in the county is looking for Afton now.”

  “Good.” Her hopes rose a tad with that news.

  Another call came in from Wesson. “We think we’ve got something, Steele. We need your input.”

  She sat up, fatigue starting to vanish. “We’re on our way.” Wondering what her dynamic duo had, she turned to Parker. “Back to home base.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Miranda found Wesson and Smith in the meeting room with the white board. She took a seat across the table from the pair while Parker settled into a chair next to her.

  “What have you got?”

  Smith nodded to Wesson.

  “So we did a search on Afton, like you asked us.” Wesson pushed a notepad across the table to Miranda.

  The page was covered with notes.

  Wesson pointed to a line with her pen. “Afton lives in a multimillion dollar apartment in The Plaza in New York City. He works for the Grand Spire Investment Group. It’s on Seventh Avenue, near Rockefeller Center. He’s a top mergers and acquisitions manager. His father and uncle are on the board.”

  No wonder the kindly Mrs. Yearwood had rolled her eyes. “Nice when a little nepotism can work in your favor.”

  “Yeah,” Wesson agreed. She pointed to the next series of notes. “Three months after Josie divorced him, he married the woman he’d been cheating with. Her name is Mia Brown. She was a jewelry store owner who went to school with Josie. Josie introduced them.”

  Miranda huffed out a breath of disgust.

  “I’ve got printouts of the marriage certificate we found online,” Smith added.

  Wesson grinned. “But there’s more than one.”

  “Oh yeah?” This was getting interesting.

  “About a year and a half ago, Mia found her hubby burning up the sheets with a new partner. Catherine Judson. She’s from another wealthy family of investment bankers. Mia divorced him, and he married Catherine a month later.”

  “So he’s a womanizer with three ex-wives.”

  “Uh huh. And guess why wife number three divorced him.”

  Miranda raised a brow. “Caught him cheating with another one?”

  Wesson shook her head. “They had a big fight, and Afton threatened her with a kitchen knife.”

  Miranda sat back in shock. “Really.”

  “Really,” Wesson grinned.

  Smith pulled out another paper from her stack. “I have a copy of the domestic incident report here.”

  “Let me see that,” Parker said.

  Smith slid it across the table toward him.

  He picked it up, and Miranda watched his jaw tighten as he read it over. She knew he was struggling to be objective. They both despised men who cheated on their wives, let alone attacked them. Going after her with a knife was too much like what they’d been through with Leon.

  As he handed the report to her, his chest rumbled with a suppressed growl.

  Miranda glanced over the boxes and dots of the New York PD form. “He cut her on the arm.”

  “Catherine was more worried about a scar than the injury itself,” Wesson said. “But she made him pay. His alimony is steep.”

  Smith slid an
other form across the table. “Here’s the divorce decree.”

  Miranda looked it over. “Took him for all he was worth.”

  “Maybe a third,” Wesson shrugged. “Another thing we learned is that Josie kept her maiden name when she married Afton.”

  “Did she.” Interesting.

  “Guess she was the independent type,” Wesson said.

  “We gathered that about her before.” Miranda glanced up at the photo of Josie Yearwood’s body on the white board and thought about those initials he’d carved into her. Was that why Afton had done that? Because he’d been festering a resentment about her name all these years?

  As she pondered the idea, the door burst open and Hill rushed into the room, his cell phone in hand. “Sorry to interrupt.”

  Miranda turned to him. Was the house of cards starting to fall? “Do you have something to report, Hill?”

  Hill’s face turned grim. “I’ve got good news and bad news.”

  “Okay. Bad news first.” Miranda braced herself.

  Hill looked down at his phone as if he’d just remembered he was carrying it. “I’ve got Becker on the line. I’ll let him tell you.”

  Becker’s Brooklyn accent filled the room. “Hi, Steele.”

  “Hi, Becker. I’ve got Parker, Wesson, and Smith with me here.”

  “Hey, Dave,” Wesson said.

  “Good evening, Dave,” Parker said.

  Smith remained silent.

  “Hey, everybody,” Dave said.

  Enough with the socializing. “So what’s your bad news, Becker?”

  A deep sigh fluttered through the speaker. “I can’t enhance the car in the video from Friday night. The resolution just isn’t high enough.”

  Miranda glanced at Parker.

  “I was afraid of that,” he said.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Parker.”

  “What’s your good news?” Miranda said.

  “I’m so sorry, Steele.”

  “Don’t worry about the video.”

  “No, not that. I’ve been running a probability algorithm I cooked up on the messages from Josie Yearwood’s dating sites. It produces a list of names most likely to get a date with her.”

  “And what’s the problem?”

  “Afton didn’t pop. I didn’t know the name of the ex until Hill told me today.”

  That sounded more like bad news to her. “And so?”

  “Afton contacted Josie on the Love Prospectors dating site two months ago. She didn’t even bother to reply. That’s why I didn’t see his name right away.”

  Miranda sat up. “Josie’s ex contacted her on one of her dating sites?”

  “Yep.”

  “That is good news.”

  “Told you,” Hill said to Becker.

  “It’s something,” Becker said. “Anyway, I just sent his message to your phone, Steele.”

  As soon as his words were out, her cell buzzed. She scrolled to the message.

  “Hey there, Darling. I know we left on bad terms, but I was wondering if we could get together and talk sometime.”

  Some might think Afton was smooth. Miranda thought he was a jerk with a lot of nerve. Apparently Josie did, too. But then she changed her mind.

  “Somewhere between this message and last Friday night, Afton got her to go out with him.” She wished they had Josie’s cell phone. “Thanks, Becker. That helps. Uh, good job. You, too, Hill. Keep working on whatever you can to find this guy.”

  “Sure. Sure thing,” both Hill and Becker said at the same time.

  Then Hill put his phone to his ear and left the room.

  So two months ago, Afton tries to contact his ex-wife through the dating site she was registered with. Then he comes to town and looks for three dozen purple roses. Plenty of time to plan a murder. Or three. Were the other two dozen roses for his other two ex-wives? Were they the “others” in his poem?

  Miranda shuffled through the papers in front of her. “I see how you got the public records. How did you get the personal info?”

  Wesson gave her a sly grin. “I called Afton’s office in Manhattan and pretended to be an old girlfriend.”

  That was gutsy. Wesson could always surprise her. “Did they give you his whereabouts?”

  She shook her head. “His personal assistant was afraid she’d lose her job if she gave that out. But she did tell me about his love life. She’s been with him a long time and knows him pretty well.”

  Miranda drummed her fingers on the table.

  Smith cleared her throat.

  “What is it, Smith?”

  She shifted in her chair.

  “Go ahead,” Wesson prompted her.

  Smith glanced down at the table self-consciously. “Well, after Wesson couldn’t get what we needed, I tried a different angle.”

  “Which was?”

  “I called the firm’s lawyer and said I needed to speak to Mr. Afton on a personal matter. Implying there was an impending lawsuit.”

  Another gutsy move. “And?”

  “He didn’t buy it. He hung up on me.”

  An idea popped into Miranda’s head. “What’s the number?”

  “It’s here.” Wesson pointed to the bottom of her notepad.

  “Got it.” Miranda dialed it.

  The attorney picked up on the first ring. “Roland Weitz. How can I help you?”

  “Is this the Roland Weitz who represented Mr. Aaron Connor Afton in the lawsuit brought by his ex-wife Catherine Judson?”

  “I’m sorry, who is this?” The man sounded annoyed.

  “This is Miranda Steele of the law firm of—” She glanced around the table. “Steele, Wesson, and Smith. My partner called earlier about a matter concerning Mr. Afton.”

  “I’m just leaving the office, Ms. Steele.” She could hear the blare of horns and other traffic noises in the background, confirming his statement. “You’ll have to call back in the morning.”

  “Mr. Weitz. I’m obligated to inform you it’s in your client’s best interest to speak to me right away. This is a highly sensitive matter.”

  “We’ve handled such matters before.”

  Confident guy. “Not like this.”

  A door closed shutting out the traffic sounds. She heard Weitz mumble something to a driver. Soft music began to play. Must have his own private chauffeur.

  “We’re about to file papers, Mr. Weitz,” she added.

  He chuckled, arrogance in his tone. “File your papers, Ms. Steele and we’ll talk then.”

  He was calling her bluff. Oh, no you don’t. “That’s an interesting response.”

  “It’s my standard response to nuisance claims.”

  “Seems your client deals with a lot of them.” She took a wild stab. “I guess he’s used to dealing with the media, too?”

  “The media? Details of Mr. Afton’s private life have never been released to the media.” There was just a hint of anxiety in his tone now.

  “Well, then he’d better get used to dealing with them. My client is scheduled to appear on the news in New York tomorrow morning.”

  There was a long pause. For a moment she thought he’d hung up. Then his voice was in her ear. “I’ll get back to you in a moment, Ms. Steele.”

  “Make it fast.” She hung up.

  Wesson and Smith both gave her a high five, and Parker smiled with sublime pleasure.

  “We’re not out of the woods yet. We have to wait for him to call back.”

  And so they waited. And waited.

  Parker ordered another pizza for the crew, which was consumed in about fifteen minutes after its arrival. Miranda went over Garwood’s list of florists to see if there was anything he’d missed. Then she watched over Deweese’s shoulder as he studied the video from the Bayside Manor parking lot again. While Hill and Becker continued to work on the dating sites, under Parker’s direction, Wesson and Smith tried to figure out whether Afton had used one of the airports within a several hundred mile radius of the area.

  An ho
ur and a half after she hung up with the lawyer, Miranda’s cell rang.

  She had been standing in the meeting room again listening to the keys clicking on Smith’s laptop.

  As she reached into her pocket, all eyes turned to her.

  She cleared her throat and answered. “Miranda Steele.”

  “Ms. Steele, this is Aaron Afton.”

  She nodded to Parker and pressed the Speaker button. “Good evening, Mr. Afton.”

  “I’m calling you against the advice of my attorney. I understand you contacted him earlier today.”

  “That’s correct. I need to discuss a matter with you regarding my client.”

  “Who is your client? What’s this about?”

  “I’d like to discuss it in person. As I told Mr. Weitz, it’s a delicate matter.”

  “Just tell me her name. If it’s money she wants, I’m sure we can come to some sort of agreement without her going to the media.”

  So Weitz had conveyed her message. Evidently it had done the trick. Afton sounded scared.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Afton. I can’t do that until we speak in person.”

  “Can’t you hold off the news appearance scheduled for tomorrow? I’m not even in New York right now.”

  “Oh, where are you?”

  “A remote spot in North Carolina.”

  “The Outer Banks?”

  “How did you know?”

  “We have our sources. As it happens, I’m in the area, as well.”

  There was silence on the other end as no doubt Afton tried to figure out how he’d been followed.

  “Where are you staying?” Miranda said before he had too much time to think.

  He gave her the address and she scribbled it down on Wesson’s notepad. “I’ll meet you there in half an hour.”

  She hung up and pointed to the pad. “We got him. He’s in a place called Mariner Point.”

  Wesson did a fist pump. “Yes.”

  “That’s a private community in Manteo,” Smith said. “It’s one of the priciest developments there.”

  Just where a rich playboy who thought he was above the law would stay.

  Miranda reached for her jacket and started toward the door. “Let’s get over there before Afton realizes who we are and takes off.”

  Chapter Thirty-One