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Present Day, Myrtle Beach
Amber came back to herself. She had been staring into her wine and reliving her time in New Orleans. The maniac had left her alone for two years. She was feeling confident and back in control of her life. She was no longer looking over her shoulder. And when Jesse Chunn asked her for a date, she said yes.
She should have known better. Why was this creep still following her? She just did not understand. But she knew when they pulled Jesse’s car up from the cliff that he had found her again. She didn’t wait this time. She left in the middle of the night with just her overnight bag and the evidence she had been collecting over the past four years. She did not take time to pack.
She left a note and money for her landlord to finish the month’s rent. She didn’t go to the hospital, give notice, or collect her check. She just ran.
Amber collected herself, took another sip of wine, and decided to put the past behind her. This time she would go so far, hopefully he wouldn’t find her. She thought about changing her name and just getting lost completely. That would mean cutting Olivia out of her life as well. Could she do that? She wasn’t sure but she might have to. Somehow this guy always knew how to find her.
Amber finished her wine, paid the check, and drove back to the hotel. She had booked the room for three nights. She would rest a little before disappearing completely. She would be careful not to talk to or smile at anyone, but she would enjoy a mini vacation before starting her journey again.
Alone in her room, Amber sat on her balcony and listened to the waves crash on the sand. Tears streaming down her eyes, she lifted the locket her parents had given her, and thought about where she would be now if not for that fatal crash so long ago.
“Oh, mom,” she whispered. “I miss you both so much. I wish you were here with me now. You would know just what to say to make everything all better.”
Amber curled up on the chair and silently cried herself to sleep.
Alone in the next room, Derek listened to Amber move around the room until he heard the sliding glass and knew she was sitting on the balcony. He thought about how he had become involved with this case.
“Hey Derek. I've got a new case for you,” Tom Franks, Derek’s boss, said as he laid a file on his desk. “Seems Mississippi is asking for some help solving an arson investigation.”
“That right,” replied Derek. “Since when do we get involved with arson?”
“Since the attendant on duty at the time was locked in the store room before the explosion,” explained Tom.
Derek whistled low. “That’s cold. Someone locked the guy in then set the fire?”
“Looks that way,” Tom replied as he walked out of Derek’s office. He knew he was handing this case over to one of his best agents and no further explanations or instructions would be necessary. He would leave it in Derek’s capable hands now.
Derek thumbed through the file, made a few phone calls, and then left his office. Running home to grab his overnight bag he always had ready, Derek left his home in Washington, D.C., and drove down to Cleveland, Mississippi, to speak to the authorities involved in the case. What he found led him further than he would have believed.
The local police had found video surveillance of customers coming and going from the convenience store for the past year. After looking at the footage, one woman continued to stand out. She showed up for the first time about six months before the explosion. She seemed standoffish and quiet each time she came in. After about a month, the store clerk was able to get a smile out of her. The routine was the same for the next few months. She would come into the store, make eye contact with no one, but leave smiling when the store clerk said something to her.
They knew about the jokes the clerk liked to tell from other customers. Many said he just enjoyed making people laugh. The police had interviewed all of the regulars except this one woman. She seemed to have disappeared. After showing her picture on the local news, several employees from the local hospital identified her as Amber Curtis.
After talking with the hospital administration, Derek discovered Amber had walked out on her shift at the hospital about the same time the gas station attendant was brought in with severe burns. She was never seen in Cleveland again after that night.
Derek had human resources make a copy of Amber’s application for him to look over. After reading her references, he made inquiries at the other hospitals she had worked. It seemed she had left a notice at the first hospital she worked at and the one in Middleburg, Florida, but had left just as suddenly from the Birmingham hospital as she had left Cleveland. Finding that odd, Derek decided to look into Amber Curtis further.
Making the decision to work backward, Derek drove to Middleburg to see if any other accidents had happened there like the one in Cleveland. He discovered that a male nurse by the name of Josh Stinson had died six months earlier after flipping his car over in a ditch. The car accident coincided with Amber Curtis’ notice to leave the hospital.
Coworkers described her as fun and friendly part of the time she worked with them and cautious and guarded the rest of the time. Whitney Levi, one of the nurses Amber had worked with told him of the day she left and that she had asked about Josh.
Video surveillance showed a pale faced Amber leaving the hospital shortly after hearing the news without stopping to check on Josh. Derek noted this and continued his investigation. He found Josh’s car in an old junk yard and had it towed to Jacksonville to be checked out thoroughly by the crime lab. Josh’s death looked like an accident but he had his suspicions.
Derek continued on to Birmingham to investigate while he waited for the lab to get back to him with their conclusion of the accident that took Josh Stinson’s life. Finding a hotel and settling in for the evening, Derek reviewed the information he had obtained so far. It seemed, everywhere this chic landed, someone had an accident. And there was no doubt it was supposed to look like an accident.
What Derek did not understand was Amber continued to use her real name as she traveled from place to place. Did she think she was that clever that she would never get caught or was she just that stupid? Well, he was on to her now, so if she didn’t change tactics, he would be able to track her easily.
The next morning Derek met with several of Amber’s coworkers from the hospital in Birmingham. All were surprised to find her gone after the day she had run off. One of her coworkers, Michelle Hampton, told Derek about the young man at the club who had danced with Amber then turned up dead the next day. She told him how weird the whole situation seemed to be since Ben did not drink yet he had been found drunk at the scene of the accident.
Derek noted everything Michelle said and then checked in with the police who had investigated the accident. They confirmed Michelle’s story that Ben had been drunk.
“It was just another drunk driver hitting a telephone pole,” the investigating officer explained.
“I’m not so sure,” replied Derek.
He showed the officer his file and what he had discovered so far. “I would like to take a look at the car if possible, have the crime scene techs take a good look at it.”
The officer nodded and told Derek where he could locate the vehicle Ben was driving. Derek had it sent to Jacksonville as well since the other car was already with that lab. He called to see if they had made any progress so far.
“We found some paint transfer from another vehicle on Stinson’s car,” the tech said. “We set up a simulation of what we believe happened from the damage noted on the car. I’ll send you the file so you can see for yourself.”
“Thanks man. I appreciate it,” Derek replied as he hung up the phone.
A few minutes later, Derek’s phone indicated a video message. He opened and watched the simulation the CSI tech had sent. It showed a small black car following a small red car. As the vehicles came to a sharp curve, the black car passed the red car barely tapp
ing the right front fender. The red car braked and swerved missing the curve. This caused the red car to flip over into the steep ditch and the driver to slam his head into the steering wheel. This is what had caused Josh Stinson to lose his life.
Derek shook his head. She was clever alright. The authorities had assumed this was an accident but the paint transfer proved someone had run Josh off the road on purpose.
He still did not understand it. Was she some sort of black widow? If a man got to close did she try to get rid of them by causing accidents? The fire at the gas station had not been an accident. That man had been brutally murdered. Someone had locked the door on purpose. Was she really that cold and calculating?
He had been getting mixed reviews on Amber Curtis. It was almost as if she had two different personalities. Once she warmed up to people she was fun and caring. Patients described her as a wonderful nurse in tune to their every need. Coworkers described her as hard to get to know. But once she let her guard down, that is how they put it, she was friendly and outgoing. None described her as someone who would murder several people in cold blood.
Derek’s next stop was Amber’s hometown of Alma. He was careful here. He did not want to alert anyone that Amber was under investigation. He couldn’t take the chance that someone still kept in touch with her and would let her know he was asking about her.
Derek researched Amber’s records and learned of her parent’s death. He also discovered a straight A student and a hard working nurse whom everyone he came in contact with loved, respected, and missed.
While digging though, Derek also found out about a number of questionable accidents involving many of Amber’s coworkers and friends. None had been serious enough to kill but one car accident had almost taken the life of Amber’s best friend, Olivia Carnes now Olivia Green. Before Olivia recovered enough to leave the hospital, Amber had moved to Birmingham.
Something didn’t add up in Derek’s mind. Why would Amber try to hurt her best friend? Was Amber behind all of these accidents or was someone framing her?
Derek decided to check in with the lab on Ben Harrison’s car to see what they had found.
“Looks like another set up to me, man,” the tech told Derek. “I found unknown DNA on the passenger side of the car and on the steering wheel. There is a possibility someone else was in the car and may have tried to yank the wheel into the telephone pole. I don’t have anything conclusive because the evidence is too old to properly evaluate, but there was definitely a struggle in that vehicle.”
“Alright, thanks,” Derek replied. He sighed as he hung up his cell and put it back in his pocket. The time had come to track down the object of his investigation and see what was really happening.
Derek shook his head. He had been on this case for a year now and she was finally on the run again. It had taken a year for the Mississippi authorities to call in the FBI to investigate, another six months to gather all his notes from the places Amber had been, and two more for him to find her in New Orleans. He had been surprised to learn she had been there over a year and a half with no incidences.
Derek followed her for four more months before she took off again. This time after the man she was dating took a dive off of a cliff. He was still waiting on lab reports from his death. It looked like an accident but he did not believe it for a minute and he had strict instructions for the coroner to be as thorough as possible during the autopsy. They were to treat it as a murder investigation and he had requested full toxicology reports.
It had been less than forty-eight hours since the mangled body of Jesse Chunn had been pulled up the cliff and the blond beauty next door was vacationing on the ocean. Derek didn’t know what to make of that.
He decided to wait until in the morning to call the coroner to check the progress of the autopsy. For now, he would try to get some sleep. The tracking device on Amber’s car assured him she would not get far if she left again.
♥ Chapter 5 ♥