Dead Last Read online

  Praise for Amanda Lamb

  Amanda Lamb has crafted a compelling story… Maddie is definitely not dead last but out front, unearthing clues to the unfolding mystery. Keep digging, Maddie. Keep writing, Amanda!

  –Scott Mason, author and Emmy-award-winning journalist

  Amanda has a gift of taking the reader on a journey of intrigue, laughter, and insight into what can be the wonderful and troubling world of journalism. She opens the mind with a laser beam shot of reality and we are better for it.

  –David Crabtree, award-winning television anchor and journalist.

  I love the way Amanda Lamb plunges into a powerful plot and takes readers for a riveting ride! Dead Last kept me glued to the pages… The writing is crisp and clean. The story is compelling. There's an authenticity in Amanda's prose thanks, in part, to the author's background as a top-notch television journalist covering crime stories. What an awesome debut as a novelist!

  –Bill Leslie, former news anchor for NBC affiliate WRAL-TV

  Amanda Lamb weaves together an intriguing mystery with a behind-the-scenes look at TV news in her debut novel, Dead Last. With 25 years of crime reporting, Lamb spins an authentic, compelling story about a reporter who finds herself in the midst of solving a murder. Readers will love the colorful characters & personal insights that make this mystery a must-read.

  –Sharon O'Donnell, author and award-winning columnist

  Title Page

  Dead Last

  a Maddie Arnette novel

  amanda lamb

  Durham, NC

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2020, by Amanda Lamb

  Dead Last

  Amanda Lamb

  www.alambauthor.com

  [email protected]

  Published 2020, by Light Messages

  www.lightmessages.com

  Durham, NC 27713 USA

  SAN: 920-9298

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-61153-342-2

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61153-329-3

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020931336

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 International Copyright Act, without the prior written permission except in brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Table of Contents

  Praise for Amanda Lamb

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Contents

  Dedication

  1 The Race

  2 Business as Usual

  3 Toes In

  4 Seeking Balance

  5 Pacing

  6 Unspooling

  7 Multiple Meltdowns

  8 Reckoning

  9 Breaking Bread

  10 Revelations

  11 Red Clay

  12 Hot Water

  13 Reunited

  14 On the Record

  15 The Hum

  16 Jury of Her Peers

  17 Silver Linings

  Preview of “Lies that Bind”

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  If you liked Dead Last you’ll love these books

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to the real Maddie.

  I miss you every single day…

  1

  The Race

  As I climbed the hill to the eleven-mile marker, I started feeling light-headed. The combination of needing something to boost my electrolytes and the midmorning heat was making my head throb. It was in the low fifties at the start of the race, but the early spring temperatures had quickly nudged their way into the seventies, making me deeply regret my decision not to wear shorts. I knew better.

  I was lost in my personal reverie of heat exhaustion and the craving for Gatorade, when I noticed a commotion in front of me. A woman was falling. It looked like she was going down in slow motion, her arms and legs floating through the air in cartoon-like gestures that were unlikely to break her fall, in my split-second opinion. She hit the ground multiple times on her way down—knee, elbow, knee, elbow, forehead. In my head, a crescendo of symphony music narrated her fall. It escalated as she descended toward the unforgiving pavement.

  It took a few seconds for me to grasp what was happening. I was just a few feet away from where the woman’s body lay sprawled out on the ground, a mass of bloody, tangled limbs. I had a choice—stop and help her, or move right and keep running, pretending like I didn’t see her. I only had a moment to wrestle with my conscience. I had been training for this half-marathon for months. It was my first long race since my husband, Adam, died, and I was running in his honor. Around my neck I wore the pendant he had given me on our fifth anniversary, a straight golden arrow. He would want me to finish. But wouldn’t he also want me to stop and help this woman?

  I debated both scenarios. After all, what could I really do? I didn’t have any medical training. I didn’t even remember how to do CPR. I had no skills that qualified me to assist. Yet I knew in my heart that I was trying to justify my desire to keep running and temper my guilt. At that moment, my hand instinctively went to my throat and I touched the smooth, flat arrow. Despite the heat radiating from my skin, it felt cool to my touch.

  “You’re straight as an arrow, a straight shooter,” Adam used to say to me. I stopped so quickly that I had to steady myself to keep from tripping and falling on top of the injured woman.

  I wasn’t the only person who stopped. The next few minutes were a dizzying combination of people screaming, running, and yelling into their cell phones, calling for help.

  “There’s a woman who fell. She’s hurt badly. I don’t know. We’re running the road race. I think it’s around mile eleven. I’m not from here. I don’t know the roads,” a middle-aged man in a white tank top that was stuck to his chest with sweat yelled into his phone. He switched hands and wiped his other palm on his red athletic shorts. “Does anybody know what road we’re on?”

  People yelled out where they thought we were.

  “Williams Boulevard?”

  “Near downtown.”

  Another woman said she would drop a pin and send it to 911. She was intensely scrolling through her phone and staring at the screen, wide-eyed. Another man ran across the street to a corner to get a better look at the street sign.

  The injured woman had rolled onto her back and was moaning now, her limbs shaking uncontrollably. Blood thick with pieces of black asphalt chunks trickled from cuts on her limbs and forehead. At least she was conscious. That was the only good thing I could think of as I surveyed her injuries. The situation looked terrible in my non-medical opinion.

  “Park Street, we’re on Park Street,” the sweaty man finally yelled into the phone after the man who had run across the street to look at the sign returned and confirmed the location. As he spoke to the 911 operator, he stared nervously at the woman on the ground.

  I did the only thing I could think of. I got down on the ground next to the woman and knelt on the pavement beside her. I gently cradled her fingertips on the hand closest to me and leaned in close to speak to her as other runners, with towels and water bottles, gathered around to clean her wounds. The road scraped uncomfortably against my knees as I angled to get a better position where she could hear me.

  “It’s going to be okay. We’ll get you help. I promise. Help is on the way,” I said quietly, but firmly in her ear, glancing up at the man who was on the phone with 911. He nodded at me to let me know
I was telling the truth. I could see a group of paramedics elbowing through the crowd of confused runners. Many of the racers were wearing headphones and were in their own little worlds, just like I had been seconds before this woman fell in front of me. It was clear many of them didn’t understand what was happening, because they hadn’t seen it happen. They were caught up in the race fog, the zone where all that mattered was pushing through the next two miles to the finish line. Instead of parting to let the paramedics pass, some of them looked annoyed by the interruption until they noticed the woman on the ground. Then they parted like the Red Sea, giving the emergency responders an even wider berth than they needed.

  “No,” the woman said to me, in between moans. “No, it’s not.”

  “Not what?” I asked gently amidst the swirling chaos.

  “Not going to be okay.” The woman struggled to push the words out of her mouth, bordered by a protruding bottom lip which was swollen to twice the size of a normal lip. I tried not to look alarmed as I concentrated instead on making eye contact with her beneath her fluttering eyelids.

  “Sure, it is,” I said, with forced cheerfulness, wondering if the woman had broken bones. I assumed she was delirious with pain and didn’t really know what she was saying. She probably wouldn’t even remember this conversation.

  “This wasn’t an accident. My husband is trying to kill me.” The woman whimpered and closed her eyes. “I think he may have poisoned me,” she whispered. Her face went slack and her limbs stopped twitching. She was unconscious, and I felt my body being pushed aside by the paramedics. Hands were on my waist and shoulders, shoving me out of the way.

  “Ma’am, you need to move aside,” said a young blue-gloved paramedic in a crisp white uniform with one end of a stretcher in his hands, as he hip-checked me so he could pass.

  I stepped back. Even though my skin was still red and glistening with sweat from the run, I shivered as a chill passed through my body. I was a journalist. People told me things all the time. Crazy things. Very little ruffled me. But in this moment, I wasn’t a television reporter, I was just another runner. Why was this woman telling me something so outrageous? What did she expect me to do with this information? Should I go to the police?

  I stood there, motionless, in the middle of the field of runners moving around me in every direction. Despite my stillness, my brain was moving faster than their feet.

  O

  I watched helplessly as four paramedics worked on the woman. There were flashes of color all around her—blue gloved hands flying, white towels covered in red blood stains. I wasn’t sure what I should be doing. I didn’t know the woman. My job was done. I had comforted her until help arrived. Still, something kept me there. I wanted to call someone for her, but I had no idea who to call. I certainly couldn’t call her husband, given what she had just told me.

  After a few minutes of checking vital signs, putting an oxygen mask on her face, and dressing her wounds, the emergency workers hoisted her onto the white canvas stretcher. A female paramedic ran alongside the stretcher holding the mini-oxygen tank that was attached to a mask on the woman’s face. Two men on either end of the stretcher gripped the metal handles and rushed her into the back of an ambulance waiting a few feet away. The fourth paramedic ran ahead to open the wide panel doors of the vehicle. The runners parted instinctively to let the stretcher through, their eyes darted away. They avoided looking directly at the woman. I suspected they averted their gazes out of pity, respect, or fear of what they might see.

  As the ambulance pulled away, the handful of us who had stopped to help were now left standing there in the middle of the road among a few discarded blue latex gloves and dirty towels. We were strangers who’d stopped to help another stranger. After an awkward moment, the group disbanded, shaking their heads, giving cursory waves, and either walking away or jogging back into the crowd. It was almost as if we felt too guilty resuming the run after what we had witnessed. But what choice did we have? We had to cross the finish line one way or the other.

  Suddenly, a warm gusty breeze spun a piece of paper into the air and dropped it at the toe of my right sneaker. I shuffled closer to step on it and stop it from taking off again. I reached down and gingerly pulled it from beneath the front of my shoe, trying not to rip it. It was a race bib that was stained with what appeared to be a fresh spray of blood. I assumed it belonged to the woman who fell. Safety pins dangled from the corners of the number attached to torn white pieces of her shirt that still clung to them. The paramedics must have ripped the bib off while they were treating her. There were large black numbers across the front and the runner’s name. 5556, Suzanne Parker.

  I turned the paper over and examined it. There was handwritten information on printed lines on the back that are used to identify someone in case of an emergency. I reminded myself that I always failed to fill out the back of my bib as instructed. This was a wake-up call for me not to forget again.

  Suzanne had written her age, 37; her address, 217 Sylvan Lane, Oak City; her phone number and her emergency contact person. It read: Tanner/husband and included his cell phone number next to it.

  Why in the world would she put her husband as her emergency contact person if she thought he was trying to kill her? Everything about the situation screamed: “stay away.” This wasn’t my job anymore. I had given up crime reporting after Adam died. My heart wasn’t in it anymore. After watching someone I loved wither away, the last thing I wanted to do was go to blood-spattered crime scenes and look at gruesome autopsy photos. Stepping back was the best thing I ever did for my sanity and for my family’s well-being. My twins, Blake and Miranda, were now my number one priority. They needed me to be strong. I could never fill the void that losing their father left in their lives, but I owed it to them to try and love them enough for both of us.

  Feature reporting was a big departure from the dark alleys, jails, and courtrooms where I’d honed my skills as a young journalist on the crime beat. But it was time for a change. When my manager came to me after I’d returned from family medical leave and asked me what would make me happy, I jokingly said, “Animal stories!”

  Apparently as my boss was pondering my off-the-cuff remark, our marketing department had uncovered new research that showed the top trending stories on social media were stories about animals. Hence my new franchise was born: Amazing Animal Tales, often referred to by more sarcastic members of the newsroom as “Amazing Animal Tails.” Yet they marveled at my ability to constantly come up with content to fill the tongue-and-cheek segment. There was no shortage of three-legged dogs named Tripod that had survived horrific accidents; cats that had crisscrossed the country, only to find their way home again years later; escaped emus that terrorized small towns; dogs rescuing kids who’d fallen down wells; blind horses that could traverse obstacle courses; and dolphins that could read humans’ minds.

  As I held the race bib, its bloody tattered edges fluttering in the wind, I decided I was not going in search of Suzanne Parker and her paranoid murder accusations. I was not going to rush to the hospital to see if she was still alive and pick her brain for more information. I was done with that life. I had spent years lurking around shadowy corners and fielding calls and text messages from dark people. I had finally clawed my way back into the light after Adam’s death, and I didn’t want anything to take that away from me, not even a woman who might really need my help.

  O

  As I sat in the backseat of the Uber headed toward Chester Hospital, I told myself I was just going to check on Suzanne. I was not going there to get involved in any drama. I was a single mother now to two ten-year-olds. I needed to focus any my spare energy I could muster on them.

  I felt it was only natural for me to want to see if Suzanne was okay. It was, after all, a traumatic experience to see someone fall like that. It was the right thing to do—I would just check on her to make sure she was okay, and then I would be on my way. I might not even talk to her. I might just ask someone in the emergenc
y room what her condition was.

  I had her name, and I could have called the hospital saying I was from the TV station, and asked for a condition update. So that I was sitting in the back of an Uber on my way to the hospital, while my fellow runners were taking photos with their medals and having a beer, was proof that I was already in too deep.

  I just couldn’t get her out of my mind. Not only the fall, but her chilling words: My husband is trying to kill me. She’d said them with conviction. They were hard to ignore and impossible to forget.

  What if she was right and she was poisoned, and didn’t survive? Wouldn’t it then be my responsibility to tell the police what she had told me? I tried to push the frightening thought out of my head. Step one, find Suzanne.

  I was thankful I had brought my phone with me during the race to listen to music because I could call an Uber. I had planned to meet friends at the beer tent at the end of the race, but I texted them that something came up and I had to leave. We rode together, started the race together, and then each ran at our own pace. Normally I would have been one of the first in our group to finish, but not this time. Given what had happened, finishing the race strong wasn’t exactly my priority.

  I half-heartedly ran the last two miles because I figured it would be easier to get an Uber downtown, where the race party was underway, than to try and cut over on some random street and get one. When I crossed the finish line and heard the electronic sensor ding. I didn’t even look up to see my time on the large digital billboard. I knew I was probably one of the last finishers.

  There were only a handful of spectators still milling around. Most people were in the food and drink area, enjoying a well-deserved snack. I quickly exited the racer’s chute after a young female volunteer handed me my medal, with a big “Congratulations!” She clearly felt sorry for me because of my abysmal finish. I could see the pity in her eyes. I grabbed a bottle of water from the near-empty cooler and headed to the nearest street corner to call a myopic Uber.