Gemini Rising (Mischievous Malamute Mystery Series Book 1) Page 2

  I continued to rehash the events of that morning and was so engrossed I nearly ran Nicoh head-on into the Greyhound trio—Molly, Maxine and Maybelline. Fortunately, I adjusted my step just in time and nodded to their owner—a man whose name I’ll admit I don’t remember. He nodded in return while the dogs did their usual sniff-and-wag bit.

  Nicoh straightened his stance more than usual—head and ears held high, chest thrust forward—perhaps to compensate for my clumsiness, but certainly not for the affections of the elegant trio. Nope, he had his eye on a she-devil named Pandora, a silver and white Keeshond that lived around the corner with a retired lawyer. Sadly, I didn’t remember his name either, but Pandora managed to find her way into our yard to visit on occasion, so her lawyer and I knew each other by dog and yard. Our little neighborhood was funny that way.

  Situated in east Phoenix on the borders of Scottsdale and Paradise Valley, we were nestled into an area that was older than most, but where the homes and yards were well-maintained, despite their age. Citrus trees and date palms lined the streets, providing a canopy from the blistering Arizona sun without blocking the view of the surrounding mountains. A once highly-coveted neighborhood among the up-and-coming and affluent, the attraction of newer, cookie-cutter neighborhoods farther north had lured residents away over the past ten to fifteen years. While lacking personality, these newer neighborhoods provided many conveniences—high-end outdoor malls, restaurants, theaters, etc.—within a stone’s throw in every direction, converting the congested neighborhoods into mini cities, which appealed to the masses.

  A few diehards, like my parents, stayed on in the old neighborhood, meticulously caring for and upgrading their lovely Ranch-style home with its sprawling yard and manicured gardens until they died unexpectedly two years ago. The house had been left to me—their only child. I could not afford such a house on my freelance earnings alone, but my parents had paid cash for it and then set aside a monthly stipend for maintenance and updates, which was also willed to me. I couldn’t bear to part with it yet. It was the house they loved so much, where I’d grown-up and created many incredible memories. The memories and the house were all I had left of my parents. A lump grew in my throat as I thought of them. Missed them.

  I was jerked to the present by my companion’s annoyed whoo-whoos. We had reached the park. No distractions while on his time, Nicoh reminded me. Doggie translation: Time to get down to business.

  Chapter Five

  Ramirez felt uneasy as he approached the house. He had initially liked the spunky gal. Maybe a bit too much. True, she had been annoyingly abrupt at their first meeting, but he’d also found her direct and brutally honest—traits he admired. Absently, he shook his head. Even though experience and an ever-increasing mound of concrete evidence told him what he was about to do was just, the task before him gave him no pleasure. He exhaled deeply as he knocked on the front door.

  ###

  Nicoh and I had returned from our nightly jaunt around the neighborhood when there was a knock on the door. Strange that the person wouldn’t ring the doorbell, I thought. Nicoh simply huffed at the interruption. It was dinnertime, after all. Some guard dog, I grumbled. So glad someone had his priorities straight. My thoughts on Nicoh’s questionable qualities ceased as I opened the door to a grim-faced detective.

  “Oh, good evening, Detective Ramirez.” I surprised myself by managing to sound halfway put-together, though inside I felt anything but.

  “Good evening, Ms. Jackson,” the Homicide detective replied evenly, though I noticed he was shifting uneasily from one foot to the other. Uh-oh, I thought. This can’t be good.

  “Please, call me AJ,” I reminded him. “I assume you are here about the case? Do you have more questions for me? Have there been any new developments? Has the poor girl been identified? Has her family been notified? Are there any leads?” Ok, I’ll admit it, perhaps babbling nonstop and getting to the point should be mutually-exclusive.

  ###

  Ramirez suppressed a smile when AJ fired-off a series of questions the moment he’d said hello. She had been much the same way the morning she’d found the girl in the dumpster. A casual observer would have thought her a calm, cool and collected customer, undaunted by the tragic circumstances that surrounded her. He had the benefit of training and experience, however, and knew the type well. It was a front, a shell she created to keep everything and everyone at an arm’s length when the world around her was out of control. By presenting the tough exterior, she was able to retain some semblance of that control, even if it was only of herself and her emotions.

  She had proven his point when she declined his offer to call a friend or family member to join her that morning. Even before he’d asked, he’d known she would turn him down. In fact, she seemed to have anticipated the offer when she quickly but graciously declined, as though purposely willing him to move on, to focus his attentions elsewhere. Anywhere, but on her.

  He forced his thoughts back to the present and to the matter at hand. Given her nature, she would expect directness, he decided.

  “Actually, yes, there have been developments, AJ,” he began. “We have identified the victim but not notified the next-of-kin because there are none. We have no suspects—a few persons-of-interest, at most and at this point, only theories on the motive,” he paused, but she looked at him expectantly, so he pressed on. “The victim has been identified as Victoria Winestone, a commercial real estate agent from Los Angeles. Does the name sound familiar to you?”

  “No, I don’t believe so,” she responded firmly, though he could feel a cloud of unease surround her. “Should it?”

  He ignored her question and continued, “I’d like to show you a couple of pictures. One is a copy of Ms. Winestone’s California driver’s license, taken a few years ago, and the other is from her LinkedIn profile, which is more recent.”

  Ramirez removed the pictures from the worn file folder he’d been holding. He placed each photo in front of her, studying her as she peered with interest, first at one, then the other. After a few moments, her expression transformed from one of curiosity to another of surprise and confusion, her mouth forming a tiny “o.”

  “As you can see, AJ, the resemblance is quite remarkable.” Though she didn’t reply, he moved on. “We compared Ms. Winestone’s fingerprints to the ones you had on file from your freelance work with the County. Again, the similarities were remarkable. Finally, we compared Ms. Winestone’s DNA to the sample you graciously provided at the crime scene,” Ramirez paused to catch his breath, collect his thoughts and make sure AJ was still with him. She was, though her expression hadn’t changed.

  He delivered the rest, the part he had been dreading since his arrival, “The thing is, AJ, the DNA samples matched. In fact, they were exact matches.” Ramirez placed a hand firmly on her arm. “Having said that, I have to ask you again. Are you sure you have never met this woman—murdered feet away from your home—who, by all accounts, was your identical twin sister?”

  ###

  I gasped at his words, my mind reeling as I attempted to register their meaning. Though her hair was several shades lighter—a honey blonde compared to my reddish-brown—the girl in the pictures did bear a striking resemblance. Her eyes were the same crystal blue, speckled with a hint of violet. A quirk of a smile played on the left-hand side of her mouth, turning it up ever so slightly, as though amused by something only she was aware of. Perhaps an inside joke meant solely for her? I, too, had that quirk.

  I scoffed. What Detective Ramirez was suggesting was beyond ridiculous. A twin? An identical twin, at that? It wasn’t even possible. I was an only child. If my parents had still been alive, they would have found the conversation laughable.

  Still, the fact remained. A girl had been murdered. Brutally. Her face bashed in, her body broken and disposed of like trash in my alley. How could this have happened? And why?

  Suddenly, the ground felt as though it was shifting as nausea set in and bile threatened the base
of my throat. Oh, no—I was not going to faint. Or hurl. Or cry. Or burst into some other crazy display of emotions. I squeezed my hands into fists and clutched them at my side, willing the feelings to subside. I knew I was being silly. Reactions like this were normal and probably expected, especially given the circumstances. They just weren’t my normal.

  Yet somehow, I knew from that moment on, normal was going to be a thing of the past.

  Nicoh grumbled quietly, as if in agreement.

  Chapter Six

  After that revelation, “no” was all I could manage, as a significant amount of brain-freeze had developed.

  “There’s more,” Ramirez said. This time he would not meet my gaze.

  “What?” I squeaked.

  “Two years ago, your parents, Richard and Eileen Jackson perished when their plane crashed while in transit from Albuquerque to Colorado Springs.”

  I shuddered at the memory but added, “Yes, along with their pilot, Phil Stevens.”

  “According to the official report,” Ramirez nodded toward the thickly-bound document he was holding, “all three passengers were accounted for and identified by their dental records. The investigator ruled the cause of the crash as engine failure, which was consistent with the pilot’s final communication. In the end, it was considered an untimely, albeit tragic accident and the investigation was subsequently closed.” This was not news to me, so I simply nodded in agreement.

  “A couple of days ago, I was in Starbucks getting my morning brew when I was approached by two men who introduced themselves as private investigators from Los Angeles. Although I was skeptical, they indicated they had some information to offer. Typically with PIs, it’s the other way around, so I decided to hear them out.

  “They were searching for a client of theirs who had recently gone missing after heading to Phoenix. That client was Victoria Winestone. Unfortunately, I had to break the news about her death.

  “As it turned out, Victoria had hired them six months earlier to quietly look into your parent’s accident—everything from the events leading up to the crash to the investigation that followed.” Ramirez stopped briefly to let this sink in.

  Frankly, I was dumbfounded. “Why would this girl go to the trouble of hiring PIs to investigate an accidental plane crash? More importantly, why was she even interested in my family in the first place?”

  “According to the PIs, Victoria was convinced the crash was not accidental. She felt bigger forces were at play. Forces that not only affected your family, but her family as well. The thing is, Victoria’s parents recently died, too,” he said solemnly.

  “Wow, that is awful, though I still don’t see the correlation…”

  When I didn’t finish my thought, Ramirez completed it for me, “I know it’s not going to make any sense, but there was a correlation, a connection between all of you. Victoria had proof of it. Proof you were her sister. Proof you were both adopted.” He paused to look at me and for a moment, I wondered what he saw: fear, disbelief, horror?

  Whatever it was, he let pass and continued on, though his voice had grown quiet, “The PIs indicated Victoria had known about you and the adoption for some time, but weren’t sure why she hadn’t made contact. They were surprised when she suddenly left them a voicemail, indicating her plans to travel to Arizona, for you. It was the last time they heard from her. The next day, she was dead.”

  Chapter Seven

  My head was spinning. Had I fallen asleep or been knocked unconscious, left to fend for myself in some sort of bizarro alternate reality? Or, better yet, perhaps I was being punk’d? I was sure Ramirez thought I had lost my marbles as I swiveled my head from side to side, searching for the hidden cameras. Finding none, I took a deep breath and opted to stare at the worn tread on my tennis shoes while I mulled things over.

  “Are you ok, AJ?” Ramirez asked, concern filling his voice.

  After a moment, I looked up at him and nodded absently. “In the last twenty minutes, I’ve found out”—I held my fingers up as I counted—“that one: the girl brutally murdered a few hundred feet away from where we are standing was not only my sister, but my dead twin sister; two: I was adopted, and three: according to this dead twin sister, my parent’s deaths were not the result of an unfortunate cosmic accident, but of some evil force out there killing adoptive parents.” I laughed, perhaps a bit too harshly. “Seriously? This has all the makings of a bad Lifetime movie. Now that you’ve shared, what is it you expect me to do with all this information, Detective?”

  Ramirez nodded in understanding. He had entered her world, basically dumped all over it and then offered nothing in return but confusion and drama. She had every right to question him. He owed her. It was time to come clean.

  “Shortly after Victoria’s body was identified, the local FBI swooped in, debriefed us, rounded up all pertinent files and told us they would take it from there. So officially, we’re off the case.” I started to say something, but he held up his hand. “To make matters worse, every single time those guys take over one of our cases, it conveniently gets filed into their black hole of bureaucracy. In the meantime, any leads there might have been will go cold.

  Unfortunately, this also means Victoria Winestone will end up a statistic—another nameless victim whose justice will never come—and that does not sit right with me. Not one bit.” Ramirez became quiet for a moment, his eyes haunted, before turning to face me.

  “I took a huge risk coming here and telling you all of this, but I had a gut feeling about you—one that told me you would want to know more and the opportunity to do more.”

  I shook my head in disbelief and nearly laughed at the absurdity of that comment.

  “What is it you think I can do, Detective? I am nobody. A photographer with a dog who has bad manners and even worse breath. None of that qualifies me for the starring role as Nancy Drew.”

  Ramirez chuckled. “Dog-related behavioral and hygiene issues aside, you’ve got a lot more going for you than you think. Plus, you’ve got two PIs at your disposal.”

  At my furrowed brow, he quickly added, “Don’t worry. They don’t have your name yet—and I won’t pass it along until you agree—but they’re more than ready to get back to work on this. I’ll admit, while they aren’t saints, they are decent, hard-working guys—guys who don’t like it when their client gets herself killed on their watch. They want to make this right, AJ, and I fully believe you can trust them to do it.”

  “But what if your bosses or the FBI find out? Surely they’ll realize the information about Victoria’s identity was leaked from somewhere?”

  “I will deal with it as it comes.”

  He provided me with the PIs particulars, scratching Nicoh behind the ears before turning to leave. As he pulled the door behind him, he looked at me, his gaze intense.

  “AJ?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Watch your back. My gut also tells me this is far from over.”

  “Is your gut ever wrong, Detective?”

  “Good or bad, there’s a first time for everything.”

  Chapter Eight

  My brain was still swimming from Ramirez’s visit when the front door opened and my best friend, Leah Campbell, popped her head in. Despite the concern crinkling at the corners of her eyes and mouth, I smiled at the sight of her. Tired of the Sunshine Barbie nickname her co-workers at the newspaper had bestowed upon her, Leah recently rebelled by lopping off her long shimmering locks in favor of a shorter, spiky cut—which still made her adorable, but gave her more of an edgy, precocious appearance. Think Meg Ryan in Addicted to Love.

  She offered me one of the iced lattes she was holding, then slipped a doggie treat from her pocket and tossed it into the air. Nicoh inhaled it without chewing, all while giving her one of his famous I-almost-had-to-wait looks. I took a long sip of my beverage before nodding in satisfaction and then proceeded to fill her in on my conversation with Ramirez. She said nothing until I finished, though her usually perky features were g
rim as she listened intently.

  “You ok?” she asked after a long moment, self-consciously attempting to tuck a stray spike behind her ear, only to have it errantly jut in the opposite direction. “It’s a lot to digest for anyone, Ajax. Even you.”

  She used the nickname she had given me years earlier. Not that I liked being compared to cleaning products but she had a point—despite my sometimes outwardly abrasive and direct nature, I always managed to get the job done.

  I shrugged. I certainly didn’t feel like I was living up to my nickname today. I turned to the kitchen counter, where I had spread out the notes for my next photo assignment—a failed attempt at distracting myself from the day’s events.

  “What’s this?” Leah asked, eyeing me carefully. “I thought you were going to take a couple of days off?”

  “I was, but wallowing in self-pity doesn’t pay the bills or feed this gluttonous beast.” I scratched Nicoh behind his massive, downy-soft ears and was rewarded with a low whoo-whoo of approval.

  “Besides,” I continued, “Charlie basically threatened me if I didn’t get the shots of his new Tempe Town Lake condo done.” I waved to the paperwork in front of me. “Apparently, he has a deadline for another hoity-toity magazine.”

  Ahh…Charlie Wilson. My client. Born with a titanium spoon in his mouth. The spoiled grandson of a software magnate. Never worked a day in his life, but notorious for throwing very public, Oscar award-winning—or at the very least, Daytime Emmy award-winning—tantrums. And, to keep up appearances, the tantrums surfaced daily—sometimes even hourly—though thankfully, I hadn’t had the displeasure of being on the receiving end. Yet. I wasn’t inclined to make this the first time, either.