Harlan's Secret (Behind The Crime Book 5) Read online

  LAURA GREENE

  BEHIND

  THE CRIME

  HARLAN’S SECRET

  Copyright © 2020 Laura Greene – All rights Reserved

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Also by Laura Greene

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  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Jessy looks out between the curtains. Night has only just fallen. Fall is in its ascendancy, the bright orange and golden brown leaves of the city muted by a nocturnal blanket. Below her is a street with which she is now too familiar. It is the street where she lives, but it is not home. Jessy no longer knows what home looks like. For the longest time home was away from New Orleans, but now the city has become the place where she belongs. She does not want to give it up, but she knows each day is now a retreat; a regretful surrender from the world she has only just begun to build. For the last few weeks she has been almost exclusively confined to an apartment building on the other side of the city, waiting to be put officially into the witness protection program.

  A soothing hand now rests on her shoulder. It is her husband’s.

  “Are you okay?” he says, his voice soft and low.

  “Danny, how did I ever get us into this mess?” Jessy asks, still looking to the street beneath them.

  “It's not your fault, babe,” he says calmly. “There are bad people in the world; you can't be held responsible for their actions.”

  But Jessy does feel responsible. Garrett is still in the hospital. Thankfully he's out of the woods, but he's had a terrible ordeal after being shot. Six weeks in a coma will do that to even someone as robust as the detective. And then there's Mia. She's moving to another city in a week, also being placed in witness protection. She was reluctant to leave her own life, but the police have advised her that New Orleans is no longer a safe place for her. The men who shot Garrett at the lighthouse are still looking to silence them all. With a little digging, officers loyal to Garrett believe Jessy and Mia are being targeted by New Orleans' criminal underground because of their association with Harlan Mayweather.

  Jessy turns to Danny.

  “Danny, would you still marry me if you knew it would turn out this way?”

  “In a heartbeat. I love you.” He leans down and kisses his wife gently on the lips.

  “You're too good for me.”

  “Only sometimes,” he says with a roguish smile. “Come back to bed.”

  “I will, in a minute. I'm just going to make myself some chamomile tea first.”

  “Okay.” Danny kisses Jessy on the forehead and then leaves the room.

  Jessy listens to him closing the door and then turns her gaze back to the street below. She has watched her life fade away all because of Harlan's case files and her desire to follow them. Now, she is certain that Harlan must have answers for why everything has happened. If she can find him, perhaps he has information that can make it all right. Only then will she be able to reclaim her life, pulling it from the fire before it burns to a cinder. Either way, Harlan is her last shot at protecting her world.

  Thirty minutes pass. Jessy peeks into the bedroom of the apartment. Danny is asleep. His breath quietly rises up and down. How Jessy wishes she could simply curl up beside him to forget her worries. But it is not even their own bed. They have been tossed from that as they have been tossed from their lives. This apartment is devoid of Jessy's belongings. They have been left to gather dust back at their home. But Jessy wants it back; she wants it all back.

  She knows the risks. She knows Danny would never approve and would try to stop her from endangering herself. Quickly, she moves to a closet in the hall from which she retrieves a backpack. Changing clothes, she dresses all in black. The night will be her cover. Moving back to the window, she looks down at the street outside once more. Her gaze is focused on an unmarked police car. Inside it are two officers who were recommended personally by Richard Garrett. They are Tom Stanton and Marvin Murphy. Jessy has interacted with them many times in the last few weeks. She likes them, but right now they are stopping her from doing what she needs to. The two cops watch, carefully, to ensure that she and Danny are safe. She is grateful for that, but it is not what she needs right now.

  Something is moving.

  A woman with bright blonde hair, sunglasses and red lipstick moves along the street towards the unmarked car. She taps on the driver's window and sparks up a conversation with the cops.

  It's now time. Jessy moves silently through the apartment. She exits into the hallway outside, then to the fire escape. Descending the stairs, she counts to herself. She's timed this, knowing exactly how long it will take her to get to where she needs to be. Her plan needs to be executed to the nearest second. Imprecision could be fatal to the outcome.

  Reaching the ground floor, she moves to a locked door. It is the concierge's office. Jessy pulls a key out of her pocket. She took it from the concierge earlier that day without him knowing. She does not perceive the action as stealing because, once she unlocks the door, she leaves the keys on the concierge's empty desk. I only borrowed them, she thinks to herself.

  At the back of the room is a window. Jessy opens it and listens. She can hear the voice of the woman with blonde hair talking on the street with the officers. The officers are not buying it; they tell her to move on. But the woman does not budge.

  It's now or never, thinks Jessy.

  She climbs out the window and ducks down, using a waist-high wall to conceal her movements. She needs to get across to the park on the other side of the road, but the cops are still watching. They are now ignoring the woman with the blonde hair, though she keeps raising her voice to get their attention.

  “Come on,” Jessy whispers under her breath. “One more distraction... Please, God...”

  As if responding to her quiet request, the woman with the blonde wig kicks the side of the unmarked police car. One of the officers gets out and chases her off and, as he does so, Jessy makes for the fence to the park on the other side of the road. Reaching it, she throws her bag over then pulls herself up, shimmying down the other side. Then, she dives straight into a line of bushes as the police officers resume their watch of the building.

  Jessy moves quietly through the park. Usually walking through a park at night would hold trepidation for her, but having been cooped up in the apartment for weeks she finds the night breeze and anonymity of the shadows exhilarating. Running across a wide field, she makes it to a line of trees and, before long, she exits the park onto a quiet street.

  Someone is leaning against a wall on the opposite pavement, bathed in the shadow of a nearby tree. It is a woman; she pulls the blonde wig off of her head and pants a few sentences.

  “I thought we were done
for,” the woman says, breathing deeply after her exertions.

  “Me too. Thanks, Mia. You're the best.” Jessy embraces Mia, who is now running a comb through her own hair to make herself less disheveled and more like the confident woman she normally is.

  “Let's go before someone sees us,” says Mia, now looking into a small beauty mirror while applying a new layer of red lipstick.

  They walk together along the street and get into Mia's red Porsche. Soon they are on the other side of the city, heading for a place called home.

  *

  Mia parks two streets away from Jessy and Danny's house. Jessy hopes no one is there, but they can't take any chances. From here, the two friends walk silently into a small back lane which winds towards the rear of the house, and then enter over a wall into a neighbor's yard. Jessy knows the owner; an elderly gentleman by the name of Wilkes. There's no security light and Wilkes tends to sleep through anything. It's the route least likely to cause them problems. Jessy and Mia walk quietly across Wilkes' darkened lawn before reaching another fence, one all too familiar.

  Climbing over the fence with ease, they finally find themselves in Jessy and Danny's backyard. A solitary sycamore tree and Danny's wooden shed are visible in the darkness, but the planned destination is further in front. Jessy looks at her home; a place filled with secrets and mystery, and a place she will have to say goodbye to if Harlan doesn't have the answers to why people are trying to kill her.

  “Are you sure about carrying on?” Jessy asks Mia. “This is your last chance to turn back. You could skip town and have a peaceful life somewhere else.”

  “Peaceful is boring, honey,” Mia grins. “I just want to end all of this and get us out of this jam. Let's go.”

  There are no lights on in the house and from outside the windows appear dark and lifeless, like the closed eyes of a slumbering creature unaware of their presence. Reaching the back door, Jessy puts her key in the lock and heads inside. Mia closes the door behind them. The air is musty. No one has been here for weeks; such forgotten places often grow stale.

  Mia pulls out a flashlight from her bag.

  “No, Mia, someone will see.”

  “How the heck are we supposed to know where we're going?” Mia whispers in reply.

  Jessy takes her friend's hand.

  “Stick with me.”

  She moves off around a corner, her friend behind her. The quiet of the house is encroaching in her mind more than ever. Floorboards creak beneath Jessy's feet, and she is reminded of the first night she found Harlan's room. A night when she could not sleep and wandered around its darkened rooms, listening to a scratching noise that started this entire mess.

  “I never did find out what that noise was,” she says openly.

  “What?”

  “Never mind... this way.”

  Jessy uses the wall as a guide. She runs her hand along it until she feels a doorway. The connected room appears darker than the others. It is a room of dreams turned to nightmares. In the low light, Jessy can just about make out her design table and an easel across the room. This is where her business was being built again. The possibilities of where that could have led have now evaporated like tears on the wind.

  Jessy feels the wall and then touches something wooden.

  “Found it,” she whispers.

  Running her hands along the frame of a wooden door, she pulls at it. The door creaks open and a cold, mustier-smelling air reaches her. Jessy knows the light from this room should be obscured from the outside. With the flick of a switch, a solitary bulb above bursts into life. It casts a stark and ponderous light over Harlan's room. There are no windows, but the light does shine out and past the doorway momentarily before Jessy closes the door.

  “I never thought I'd be in here again,” whispers Mia.

  “Me neither...” replies Jessy. “We should get what we need and leave.”

  Jessy walks quickly to Harlan's writing desk. It sits there silent like an old friend unable to put anything into words after a traumatic fracture in the friendship. Opening a drawer, there it is – the fifth, and last, case file.

  “Well, are you gonna take it Jessy?”

  Jessy nods. She grabs the file and then thrusts it into her bag. Turning to her friend, she says, “Let's go.”

  “Is there nothing else here you want to take, honey?” asks Mia mournfully. “I mean, this is probably your last time here.”

  “They told us we couldn't take anything that might be used to identify us,” Jessy's voice cracks with emotion. “What have I done, Mia? I've ruined it all...”

  “Doll, you weren't to know Harlan's case files would put you in harm's way.”

  A creak sounds from somewhere in the house. Then another.

  “What was that?” Mia whispers.

  Jessy reacts quickly and turns off the light to Harlan's office, then she pulls Mia into the studio room and closes the door to Harlan's office behind her, once and for all.

  “Listen...” she says under her voice.

  Another creak.

  “Someone is moving through the house,” Jessy points to the way they came from. “Take my hand. I'll get us back to the yard. Stay as quiet as possible.”

  Jessy takes Mia's hand and then heads for the doorway, entering the hall. Slowly, she moves, one hand on the wall to guide her, the other pulling her friend along in her wake. She doesn't speak for fear of giving away their position, but Jessy can now hear something. It is the subtle shifting of someone's weight in the hall behind them. Jessy's heart is racing. Her thoughts turn to getting back to the apartment. The reality of the situation is now making itself forcefully known. I should have stayed at the apartment where it was safe. As she thinks these words, she listens carefully to the sound following them. It is moving faster.

  There is no time for hesitation. Jessy rushes along the hallway, but as she and Mia reach the door to the kitchen, a hand strikes out from the darkness behind them and grabs Mia by the hair. She screams in pain and Jessy instinctively swipes at the dark. She runs her nails across an unseen face in the shadows. The face cries out, letting go of Mia in the process.

  “Come on!” Jessy screams, grabbing her friend by the hand.

  She leads Mia to the back door, opens it, and finally they make it outside. A man emerges from the house behind them, cursing under his breath and gaining on them rapidly. Now able to see the dim shapes of the yard before them Mia and Jessy run, following the route they took before. But their pursuer is too nimble; he is upon them, and there is no escape.

  “Come here!” the man cries, once more catching Mia. This time, he wraps his arms around her waist and throws her to the ground.

  “Mia!” Jessy shouts.

  “Run, Jessy!”

  But Jessy stays. She will not leave her friend.

  The man lunges forward and grabs Jessy with one arm, punching her stomach. She drops to the ground and writhes in pain.

  “I've been watching this stinkin' house for five weeks because of you two!” he says in frustration, placing his foot on Jessy's back and then putting his weight down along her spine. “The boss says it needs done, ladies. So now, it gets done!”

  Raising his foot, he positions it over Jessy's head to stomp on her, but he does not get the chance. Mia, still lying on the lawn next to them, grabs the man by the ankle and then bites down hard into his calf.

  Disorientated and winded, Jessy struggles to her feet as the man shakes Mia off. Jessy knows they are unlikely to win this fight. The man is too big, too powerful. Brain must defeat brawn. Time slows momentarily for Jessy; she looks around the yard and, in the darkness, a plan formulates in her mind.

  “Come get me!” she shouts at her attacker.

  Seething in pain from the bite to his leg, the man runs after Jessy as she heads in one direction and one direction only.

  She sees a dark shape before her. Reaching out she grabs at it, the man not far behind. Her hand touches a wooden handle. It is Danny's garden shed. She wr
enches the door open and dives inside. Her attacker follows, but as he reaches the shed, Jessy closes the door and, with one hand, pulls it shut by a support strut on its rear.

  The man laughs under his breath as he can hear Jessy moving around inside.

  “You think a stupid wooden shed can stop me?”

  “No,” Jessy says, her voice muffled from inside the shed, “but this will.”

  The door flies open and Jessy emerges with something in her hand. She feels her finger on a trigger and pulls it...

  The attacker screams in agony and drops to the ground. As he does, Jessy rushes over to Mia and helps her to her feet. As the attacker lies in the yard and continues to cry out in pain, Jessy and Mia scale the rear fence, rush through Mr. Wilkes' yard and then make it to the sidewalk.