The Kate Nash Series Boxed Set Read online

  Copyright © 2020 by Susan Keene

  Cover Design by Sharon Kizziah-Holmes

  All cover art copyright © 2017

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted or transferred in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system or device, without the permission in writing by the author

  Any resemblance to actual people and events is purely coincidental.

  This is a work of fiction.

  Publishing Coordinator – Sharon Kizziah-Holmes

  Published by Bent Willow Books

  FINDING LIZZY SMITH

  The Kate Nash Series

  Book 1

  DEDICATION

  To Imagination: that allows us to find elephants

  and teddy bears in the clouds.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A special thanks to the writing community of South West Missouri. You are always there when I have a question or concern. You build me up and keep me going.

  CHAPTER 1

  T he red dot lingered a bit too long on my left breast or I wouldn’t have seen it in the morning sun. In one awkward movement, I jumped, ducked, and rolled, ending under the bench where I’d sat a moment ago. A shot rang out, hitting the concrete seat above my head.

  “Breathe, Kate, breathe. You’re a detective, you can handle this,” I told myself.

  My heart beat in my ears. I took a deep breath to calm down. Jeez, I needed to move. The closest tree looked about thirty yards away. The laser sight danced around my knee and lower leg, the only part of me not squished out of sight. As small as I am, I couldn’t maneuver any further under the seat.

  Someone ran toward me from behind. The laser dot disappeared.

  Ryan Meade ducked down behind me. “It’s me. Let’s get out of here.”

  No longer afraid, I let him help me. Together we ran to the nearest tree.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  I tried to catch my breath and still answer him. “Someone shot at me.”

  I saw the look of concern on his face.

  “Any idea who or why?” he asked.

  “No. How far are we from your house?”

  “It’s a quarter of a mile at the most. Think you can make it?”

  “I’m not hurt, just scared.”

  Another shot rang out. It hit the tree below my left hand. The bark exploded and nicked me below my left eye. Whoever the shooter turned out to be, they either didn’t want to kill me or couldn’t handle the gun.

  Ryan took my hand, and we ran full speed. His stride doubled mine so he half-dragged and pulled me along with him. We zigzagged from tree to bush until we got to the house.

  About twenty yards from the garage door, it began to open. He dived under the open door so hard I landed on top of him. He lowered the door. “Did you call the police?”

  “No, I was too busy trying to live.”

  “I need to set the alarms and lock the doors.”

  I had let my body go limp on top of him. Unless I moved, he wasn’t going anywhere. I rolled over on my back, into an empty space and concentrated on calming down. Ryan went into the house. A few minutes later, he walked back into the garage and sat cross-legged on the floor to catch his breath. I moved over and sat up to lean on the truck behind me. “Why were you in the garden?” he asked.

  “At three-fifteen this morning, I received a message from Lizzy. It said to meet her in your garden at eight a.m. The message was marked urgent. I waited an hour and a half, during which time, I called, texted, and left umpteen messages. I didn’t get an answer. I just started to leave when someone shot at me. Why were you there?”

  He looked amused. “It’s my backyard. I run the jogging path every morning.”

  Meade Park was a public garden owned by the Meade Family Trust, which Ryan inherited when his parents died. The park was about forty-five acres. You could enter from Forest Park on the North or Ryan could get to it from his back yard on the south. It was the biggest tract of privately owned land within the St. Louis city limits.

  “Well, Lizzy’s not the type to make you worry unnecessarily. Any idea what’s up?”

  “No, I thought I’d find out this morning when I met with her. You spend more time with her than I do. When did you last speak to her?”

  Ryan rubbed his hand over his handsome square jaw. “A couple of days ago. She’s having a showing at my gallery downtown. We met for dinner to finalize the arrangements. She seemed fine. We were together for hours. I sure didn’t pick up on anything.”

  “Did you see anyone on your run?”

  “No. Most people don’t know about the jogging path and those who do prefer Forest Park. This area is pretty isolated.”

  Ryan, Lizzy, and I had been friends since we attended Northwestern, in Chicago together. Ryan, the orphaned rich kid who treated us like family; Lizzy, the art prodigy; and me, the woman who intended to clean up the streets of St. Louis single-handedly. Funny how things work out.

  Of the original nine friends, there were seven left. My husband, Michael, died three years ago and Roomy Martin, two years ago. Ryan remained close to all of us, but he and Lizzy and he and I spent a lot of time together. Lizzy and I shared a room for three years in college, but we were as different as Alaska and Hawaii.

  “Kate?”

  Hearing my name brought me back. “Huh. Oh, I’m sorry, just trying to figure it all out.”

  “It’s time you called the police.”

  “I’ll call Roger Simon.” Roger and I worked together when I wore a shield. He said he’d take the rookie when I came on the force. For the next six years, we fought crime, rescued people, and locked up the bad guys.

  Roger came quietly, no sirens or flashing lights to announce his arrival. We walked him and a couple of his CSI crew back to the garden. His men spread out. Roger stayed with Ryan and me to take our statements.

  “So your friend emailed you at three this morning?” Roger fished his notebook out of his jacket.

  “She sent a text.”

  “Do you still have that? I’d like to see it.”

  I showed it to him. Ryan walked around, stood behind him, and read over his shoulder. When he handed the phone back, he gave me the same speech I had given scared parents and grieving spouses a thousand times when I worked with him.

  “Kate, it amounts to this: Anyone over the age of eighteen has a right to go anywhere they want with anyone they wish, and they are not obligated to tell anyone about it.”

  “I know, if they haven’t shown up in forty-eight hours the family can report them missing. At that time, they go in a stack with the hundreds of missing persons reports filed every month. Then a detective, who is already overworked, gets the case. Did I cover it all?” I said.

  I found the entire process depressing and counterproductive. To find a missing person, you needed to do it fast. The longer they were missing, the slimmer the chance of finding them unharmed.

  Roger’s men found two .243 casings about two hundred yards from the bench I sat on, and found a slug in the tree we were hiding behind. A .243 was a common hunting rifle with a range of almost a mile if you could figure the angle of the bullet drop, which most decent hunters could. Not much hunting in the city, so this rifle represented something entirely different.

  I kept scanning my body for the little red dot. The sun rode high in the sky now, and a laser sight wouldn’t do anyone much good. It didn’t make me feel any better.

  Roger tried to ease the fact that he couldn’t help by giving us advice. “There aren’t many options right now. You can check her apartment and usual hango
uts, find out who she saw and talked to. If she hasn’t shown in forty-eight hours, I’ll put someone on the case. If you turn something up to make me think this a criminal case, call me. If she turns up, call me. Otherwise, I’ll talk to you on Saturday. Feel free to use any of my resources you might need.

  “As far as who shot at you, it’s hard to tell. We’re in one of the best neighborhoods in the city, but it is only two blocks from one of the worst. It might just be random and have nothing to do with your friend or you. Maybe you looked like a victim sitting alone in a park without a soul around. You know better, Kate.”

  I refused to let him make me feel like a helpless girl. I gave him my best flat-eyed stare--chin on chest, head down, eyes up, unblinking and unfriendly.

  “I’d better head to the office. I’m sure my partner is ready to call out the national guard. Oh, but she couldn’t do that for forty-eight hours, could she?” I turned on my heel and headed to my car. I left it in the parking lot near the handball courts in Forest Park. I immediately felt bad about how I treated Roger. After all, he didn’t make the rules.

  Ryan fell into step beside me. “Wait up, I’ll walk with you. Today I’ll drop by the gallery. Maybe someone has heard from Lizzy, or better yet, seen her. If I learn anything, I’ll call you.”

  “Thanks.” I didn’t have anything to say. In times of stress, I liked to be alone to think. Sometimes things I didn’t realize happened in the moment came to me in the quiet of my office or the car. I felt bad again. After all, Ryan saved my life less than an hour ago. I could, at least, be civil.

  We reached the parking lot, and I looked around. The place didn’t have a parking space left. People were driving around in circles waiting for someone to leave. Was one of them the shooter?

  Ryan broke into my thoughts. “Kate, are you going to ignore me forever? Am I only going to have your attention on days you’re being shot at?”

  “I’m sorry, Ryan, it isn’t you. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but it doesn’t make it any easier,” he answered.

  “Time, Ryan, I need time.”

  CHAPTER 2

  “T here you are.”

  My partner, Amy Perkins, sat at her desk, slender legs resting on her ink blotter, shoes kicked over to the side of her chair. She stopped filing her nails and looked at me over the top of lime-green sequined reading glasses. “Ever heard of calling to say you’ll be late?”

  I raised my hand to stop her. “At first it was too early to call, and after all hell broke out, it was too late.”

  “Is that why you look like you’ve been playing tackle football? What happened?”

  For the first time, I looked down. My jacket no longer had an elbow, my slacks were filthy, and my shoes muddy. It took me nearly ten minutes to relay the events of the morning to Amy. No one had shot at me since I left the police force, and I hadn’t missed it. We had a private investigative service and handpicked our clients. If it sounded like it involved someone with a gun, we didn’t take the case.

  I took off what was left of my blazer. “Any messages? Lizzy didn’t call, did she?”

  She gave me a knowing look. “No, but Ryan Meade did.”

  I waved her off, walked into my office and shut the door only to open it again to tell her I was about to take a shower and change clothes.

  The shower eased my weary muscles and did wonders for my mood. I slipped on a pair of tailored tan slacks, a black silk scoop-necked pullover blouse, and a dark brown hound’s-tooth blazer. Under my coat, as usual, I wore my forty caliber Glock in a shoulder holster.

  Our office had once been a bridal store in a strip mall in Clayton, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. One of its most appealing features was a shower and changing room in the back of what turned out to be my office. Amy and I each kept several changes of clothes there. We showered when we were late for an engagement or, like this morning, when things got out of hand. It happened more than I liked to admit.

  Amy had put a blueberry bagel, cream cheese, and a skinny latte on the desk along with the morning paper. Today the latte was cold and the cream cheese warm. I ate and drank anyway.

  I flipped through the society pages looking for any mention of Lizzy. I found something on page three.

  Lizzy Smith’s new collection of oil paintings will be on display at the Meade gallery, beginning Sunday April fifth, and running through Sunday April fifteenth.

  Widely compared to the late Kay Sage for her use of color and texture. It has been five years since Miss Smith has had a showing in St. Louis.

  The public can view Miss Smith’s work at the gallery on the corner of Third and Collins. Hours are ten a.m. to nine p.m. daily and noon to six on Sunday. Miss Smith will have liberal hours during the event. Please feel free to call the gallery at 555-554-1232 to find out her personal appearance schedule.

  No paintings from this showing are in reserve.

  Lizzy hated the comparison to Kay Sage, who shot herself in the heart after the death of her husband, in 1963. I had to admit, I could see why they did. Both women painted in vivid color and minute detail. Lizzy, like all of us, wanted to be a one-of-a-kind.

  A picture of Lizzy accompanied the article, along with a close-up of a painting, which sold for two hundred and forty thousand dollars, last spring in Amsterdam. Lizzy hadn’t changed much since college--a pretty, thin, quiet woman with a sweet smile. Intelligent and strong, everybody loved her.

  The strange combination of dark hair and transparent blue eyes gave her an exotic look.

  “Where are you, Lizzy?” I said to the picture, as if it would answer me and solve my mystery.

  Butterflies flitted through my stomach.

  Before Michael died three years ago, I didn’t experience fear often, but now I knew the worst thing that could happen: terror lurked in the shadows.

  I shook my head. Maybe Lizzy stayed up late and let the charge run down on her phone or didn’t realize the time. Another call proved her cell phone still went to voice mail.

  “Hey, Liz. Waited for you in the garden. Hope you are okay. Let me know as soon as you get this message.”

  There were infinite possibilities to explain where she was. I just couldn’t come up with any of them. Of course, none of it explained why someone shot at me.

  After folding the newspaper back the way I found it, I pushed everything on my desk out of the way, reached under the blotter, and retrieved a picture. I didn’t want to make a connection between my husband Michael’s death, Roomy Martin’s demise the next year, and Lizzy’s disappearance. However, of the nine people in the photo, those people closest to me, two were murdered and one didn’t make a meeting she initiated. I couldn’t help but wonder.

  We had graduated from college and headed to the South of France for a wonderful month before following our separate career paths and individual dreams. Before we left, Ryan had someone take the picture.

  When we returned, he gave us all a copy, along with his promise to keep us all close and well taken care of.

  He did.

  We might not all be inseparable, most of us were like the cousins I grew up with as a kid. When I saw them, we took up where we left off, but we all had lives of our own. Lizzy, Michael, Ryan, Roomy, Andy James, and I stayed and had our jobs and families within thirty miles of each other in the St. Louis area. We were more like siblings who shared one parent who was hell-bent on keeping us close.

  Ryan had paid for the entire trip to France. At the time, I thought little about it. He had all the money in the world. His parents were dead. We were his family. Those of us left, still were.

  The buzzer on the office phone made its freakish sound. Amy wanted me.

  “Marsha Sloan is here. Remember, her daughter didn’t come home last night, and you know our friends over in Central have the forty-eight-hour rule.”

  “I remember, bring her in.”

  I put the picture back in its resting place and straightened my desk.

  Within seconds, a di
straught redhead with too much makeup and not enough sleep sat across from me. The bags around her eyes were dark, and she didn’t get them from only one sleepless night.

  She sat on the edge of one of the chairs as if she sat too hard, it would break. Amy lounged in the chair next to her, legs crossed at the knees, those green readers resting on the end of her nose.

  “Miss Sloan, I’m Kate Nash.” I extended my hand but didn’t stand. I had a hang-up about my height. I felt people might not think I was capable if they saw me first and talked to me second--poor body image, I guess.

  They said short men have a Napoleon complex. What did you call five-foot, one-inch women who carried a gun and longed to be five inches taller? I didn’t know.

  “What can I do to help you this morning?”

  “Go ahead, Marsha, tell Kate what you told me. I’m sure we can help you.”

  “My girl, Sasha, she didn’t come home from school yesterday. I called everyone I knew. Finally, her friend Marcy told me she saw her get into a red Camaro with a man she’d never seen before.”

  I stopped her long enough to ask a question. “Where was Sasha when she got into the car?”

  “Right outside Normandy High. Marcy said Sasha was laughing and talking to the man in the car. She waved to her friends and then left with him. No one has seen or heard from her since.”

  “Do you think he is a boyfriend?” I began taking notes.

  “I didn’t think so, now I don’t know. I went to the police and they said she had a right to go wherever she wanted because she’s eighteen. This isn’t the first time Sasha has done this. They probably think she will come home because she always has. They said I should wait and see what happens, so I called you.”

  “Does Sasha have a cell phone and a social media presence?

  “Yes, she has both.” Marsha answered. “She doesn’t answer her cell phone. She hasn’t answered any of my texts or voicemails. I checked the computer a couple of times, and she hasn’t posted on Facebook.”