Biloxi Blue (The Biloxi Series Book 2)

  Biloxi Blue

  Jerri Lynn Ledford

  Deep South Press

  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locals is entirely coincidently.

  Biloxi Blue

  First Edition

  Published by Deep South Press

  Copyright © 2016 Jerri Lynn Ledford

  Cover Design: Suzanne Wesley

  Photos: © istock.com / ShutterWorx, amphotora, grandriver, STILLFX.

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

  Discover other titles by Jerri Lynn Ledford at:

  http://www.JerriLynnLedford.com

  For you my love. Our story is a messy one, but it’s ours, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Contents

  Biloxi Blue

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  MORE TITLES FROM JERRI LYNN LEDFORD

  COMING SOON!

  PROLOGUE

  “I knew it,” Beth Martin muttered as she clicked back and forth between files on the company network.

  “You knew what?” Beth was so focused on what she was doing during a brief break in their conversation, she forgot she was even on the phone with her best friend, Tiffany. The soft snick of the mouse button and the whir of the computer fan were the only sounds to keep her company until she’d called Tiffany. The quiet made her jumpy.

  She clicked through the commands to upload the file to an encrypted online storage space and then activated the eraser protocol she’d designed. It would wipe her electronic movements from the company server logs.

  “I’ll explain everything when I get there. I just need to finish uploading this file, Tiff. I’ll be there in about an hour.” Beth Martin barely missed a keystroke as she punched the button on her headset to end the call.

  She opened a new document on her computer and rapidly graphed out what she’d found. Then she converted the graph to a simple list. This was big. Really big. She glanced around the empty office and her stomach twisted. If anyone found her here now...

  No, she was alone. Everyone had gone home for the weekend. And those useless security guards never did their jobs. No one would ever know she was here. It had taken her most of the week to figure out what was going on at Ingram Logistics. Now, she understood and she needed to share everything. She needed to show her best friend. Tiffany Joyner was an account executive at one of Ingram Logistics’ largest suppliers. Tiffany’s company, Stone Mountain, would be very interested in what she’d found. Together Beth and Tiffany could take this to management on Tuesday, before her department head returned from vacation. Beth had already set the meeting up, but she wanted Tiffany to know what was coming. She would need to be prepared, because this whole mess could put her job on the line.

  A faint click somewhere in the building caught her attention. Her fingers stilled on the keyboard. Hairs rose to attention on her forearms. The only sound she heard was the hum of electronics from computers on other desks in the open office area.

  “You’ve spooked yourself, Beth.” She shook her head and her hands went back to work. She was accustomed to being here alone at night. She did a lot of off-books work that needed privacy, but this was different. Someone was stealing millions of dollars from Ingram Logistics and its customers.

  It made sense to be spooked. What she had found could be dangerous, even deadly, if she got caught before she could share the evidence she’d found. She clicked back to the upload screen. Just a few more seconds and she’d have everything she needed.

  *~*~*

  Jenna Langley eased the door closed behind her, forcing a calm she didn’t feel. She wanted to stomp upstairs and tear the accounting department apart. She wanted to find out who was snooping where they shouldn’t. Just how much did they know? Her vacation in Aruba with her husband was interrupted by alarm notifications. Someone was going through her files early in the week. Files she’d purposely hidden deep in the company’s servers.

  The first alert was only mildly concerning. One of those stupid accounting clerks probably stumbled onto it without realizing what they were accessing. Most of them could barely use a computer to do their jobs, much less to find the files that Jenna had squirreled away carefully and masterfully disguised.

  Then she received another alert. Then another. Someone was methodically working their way through her hidden files. Anger threatened Jenna’s control. She stopped in the dim stairwell and took several deep breaths. She couldn’t lose control right now. She had to be calm and rational to deal with this and fix whatever damage had been done.

  The industrial carpet muffled her footsteps as Jenna took the long route to her desk, eyes scanning each cubicle and file cabinet along the way. Everything looked normal for a Friday night. The accounting peons had gone home hours ago.

  She rounded a corner a foot from her desk and froze.

  Almost everyone.

  In the far corner of the office, with her back to Jenna, Beth Martin stood behind the chair at her desk.

  Jenna ducked behind a partition designed to separate each accounting group, then peaked around the corner and watched Beth switch off her computer monitor. Irritation welled in Jenna. She had to force herself to be still and watch.

  Beth gathered a stack of papers from the desktop and another from the printer and shoved them into a computer bag. She tapped the off button on the desk lamp, glanced around the office, and headed for an exit.

  Jenna smirked. Beth was heading for the exit directly in front of where she was hiding. She was relieved that she’d made the last-minute decision to slip a knife into her belt as she climbed out of her car. She wouldn’t usually feel the need, but lurking around here at night m
ade her nervous. The security guards were probably sitting in their office getting stoned. Not that they would be any help if they weren’t. Incompetent. That was the only description Jenna could come up with, and with someone snooping around her personal account files Jenna wanted to be prepared for whatever she might encounter.

  Good call.

  She pulled the knife from her belt and stepped around the partition, but stayed in the shadows. Beth couldn’t see her, but Jenna had a clear view of the nosey accounting clerk.

  Beth moved closer. Only a few feet away. Jenna’s heart pounded like a snare drum in her chest. How could Beth not hear it?

  As if she did, Beth looked up and stopped. Her eyes went wide.

  She took a step back and her bag slipped from her shoulder. “Jenna I thought you were on vacation until next week.” Fear laced her voice.

  Jenna suppressed a smile. Beth should be scared. She’d meddled in something that was none of her business. “I came home early. Thought I'd check on things here in the office and make sure that everything is as I left it.” Jenna drilled Beth with a hard stare. “What are you doing here?”

  “I. Uh…” Beth snapped her lips shut. She looked over her shoulder then around the office. Everywhere but at Jenna. “I got behind, so I was just catching up on a few things.”

  “I see.” Jenna took a step toward Beth.

  Beth stepped back.

  “What exactly were you behind on?” Jenna stepped toward her again.

  “Just um…” Another step back. Beth’s gaze shifted toward the knife Jenna held close to her side. “Verifying some invoices. I, Um…” Her voice trembled.

  “Maybe you stuck your nose where it didn’t belong?” Jenna took two quick steps forward closing the gap between them.

  Beth sucked in a deep gulp of air. She dodged left, trying to get around Jenna, but Jenna snatched a handful of Beth’s long hair and yanked. Beth’s head snapped backward sharply. “Maybe you thought you could dig around in my personal files?”

  Jenna pushed the tip of the knife into the hollow of Beth’s jaw. “Files that are none of your business. Maybe you thought you had what it takes to stop me?”

  Beth tried to move her head, but froze when the knife tip bit into her skin. “I wasn’t. I didn’t. I mean. I won’t tell--” Pathetic tears dripped across her temple and into her hair.

  Jenna hesitated only a second before she pushed the knife deep into the side of Beth’s neck and then pushed it forward, ripping through muscles, arteries, and skin.

  Blood arced across the empty space before landing in thick droplets along the wall, the equipment in the print station, and the carpet.

  Beth sagged against her, pushing her backward. Jenna danced for footing. She finally cleared herself from Beth’s weight and the other woman collapsed on the floor, eyes glazed, and blood pooling around her.

  Jenna snatched the messenger bag from where it lay on the floor. “No Beth. You definitely won’t tell anyone.”

  ONE

  Kate Giveans sat in her car and surveyed the scene in front of her. People loitered around the crime scene tape marking the perimeter of the murder scene. The body was inside the Ingram Logistics offices, but the entire parking lot had been blocked off as crime scene investigators scoured every inch for anything that might be a clue.

  She took a long swallow of tepid coffee, then drew in a deep breath.

  What a way to come back to work.

  It was her first day back on the job since being shot by John Juarez three months ago. She rubbed absently at the shoulder where the bullet had shattered bone and torn muscle. She shook her head, trying to clear the cobwebs of the dream she’d been having when her alarm went off. Her chest tightened at the thought of it. Ryan. He’d been trying to save her from Juarez, but every time she had the dream – and she’d had it a lot over the last three weeks – it ended the same. Ryan, laying in a pool of blood watching her with disappointment as his life drained away.

  Enough.

  She needed to get to work. Her dumb luck that a body had been found before she even made it to the precinct, but at least that would keep her from sitting at her desk stewing over bad dreams and everything that had changed in the last three months.

  Kate approached the squat block building. Several large warehouses rose behind it. Beyond them, the beeps and whistles of heavy machinery loading and unloading cargo ships sounded from the Port of Biloxi. Dozens of ships could be loaded and unloaded on a given day, so the port always bustled with activity, even at night.

  A crowd ringed the entrance of the cinder block building. Yellow crime scene tape wove a wide semi-circle around the entrance and a Dwayne Johnson look-alike dressed in a patrol uniform stood blocking the double doors.

  Kate didn’t recognize him. She flashed her badge to the mountain of a man standing in front of the crime scene tape, his arms crossed like a bouncer at a nightclub. He nodded and lifted the tape. “Upstairs,” he said as she slipped under the yellow barrier.

  Inside the building the musty smell of mildew enveloped her, despite the wave of air that cooled her skin. It was already hot, even though April was still more than a week away. Somewhere a phone rang insistently, contrasting sharply with the otherwise silent hallway. There was no reception desk. Only a hallway that led to several closed doors and a glass-walled conference room. Someone sat inside the conference room. Kate glanced in. Paul Usry, a uniformed police officer, sat with a man dressed in a wrinkled security guard’s uniform. Kate turned back in the other direction. She’d come back to him. First, she wanted to see the scene.

  At the opposite end of the hall was a single elevator and a doorway that led to a set of stairs. She chose the stairs, eyes down, focused on each step as she climbed.

  At the top, Kate pushed through a heavy door. The wide, open room buzzed with activity. Crime scene investigators were scattered around the large open office that occupied most of the top floor of the building. Low cubicle walls separated desks, and clusters of desks were arranged in what she assumed were department groups, each separated by a bank of cabinets. Around the center of the room were open spaces lined by more file cabinets and print stations.

  As Kate looked at the office, she was suddenly glad she didn’t have an administrative job. She had begun to doubt that homicide was right for her, but a cube farm also held no appeal. She wondered what would she do with her future if she decided not to stay in the police department? It was a question she’d turned over in her mind dozens of times while she was out on medical leave. Could she be happy doing something else? She still had no answer.

  “I wondered who they would send.” The medical examiner’s assistant looked up from his position next to the body of a young woman, pulling Kate from her thoughts of a different life.

  “I’m the lucky one. What’s the story?” Kate nodded toward the victim.

  “Female. Age 25. The security guard that found her says it’s Elizabeth Martin. We’ll verify, of course. Cause of death is most likely this wound right here.” He traced a finger through the air just above a gash that went from her right jawbone to the left one, creating a macabre half-smile along the woman’s throat. “This wound, though? It’s strange. It looks like someone pushed the knife in and then forward, effectively ripping her throat out.”

  “Which means?” Kate wondered aloud. She didn’t really expect a response. It was an unusual way to slit someone’s throat. It meant something.

  The ME’s assistant shrugged then lifted one of the woman’s hands and turned it palm up, so Kate could see. “No defensive wounds. Of course, I’ll scrape under her nails, but I can’t see anything obvious under them.”

  Did she know her attacker? Or was she so caught off guard she didn’t have time to react? Kate glanced around the office. Everything looked tidy. Nothing seemed out of place.

  “Estimate on the time of death?” Kate examined the dried blood pooled in the carpet around the victim and then inspected the walls and print station where gra
vity pulled splattered blood toward the floor. The scene looked like something from a suspense movie. There didn’t appear to be any discernible foot prints. But a strange void in the blood pattern caught her eye.

  “What’s this?” She pointed toward the void before the ME’s assistant could even answer her previous question.

  He stared at her for a beat. “Can’t say for sure, yet. Looks like there might have been something in the way there, but I can’t tell you what.”

  “A person?”

  “Like I said,” exasperation colored the ME assistant’s tone. “I can’t say for sure.”

  Of course not.

  Kate struggled to keep from snapping at the man. She knew she was over-sensitive because she hadn’t slept well, but this was the reason she’d taken all the time she could after being shot. She was so tired of being the outcast. Tired of paying for a mistake that should be left in her past. She’d proven herself. Why couldn’t people let what happened with Ryan go?

  The ME’s assistant continued his overview. “She’s been here twenty-four to forty-eight hours at least, based on rigor and hypostasis. I can’t give you anything more exact until I get her into the lab and work my magic.” He placed paper bags over the victim’s hands and taped them in place. “There’s not much more I can tell you right now. The security guard is downstairs in a conference room.”

  She’d been dismissed. Kate muttered, “Thanks,” even though she didn’t feel thankful. She pushed through the doorway back into the stairwell and headed to speak to the security guard she’d seen downstairs.

  The guard, a young man, didn’t look old enough to have graduated from high school yet. His uniform was wrinkled. There were stains on his shirt and his thighs. Blood, from the body upstairs, and oil of some kind. Probably food, if Kate had to guess. His hair was a wild mess that looked like he’d come straight from the bed. He sat, staring at his hands, rocking back and forth in his chair.

  Kate pushed into the conference room and nodded toward Usry. They’d never really had a conversation, but she knew who he was. He didn’t seem like a friendly guy. A least not toward her, which wasn’t surprising. Most people in the department weren’t friendly with her. Even now. Jack Roe, her previous partner and current fiancé, was the one who got along with everyone. Kate often stayed in his shadow when they were partners, content to go unnoticed because as long as no one paid any attention to her, they weren’t judging her for the mistakes of her past. But things were changing. She was on her own now.