Cincinnati, Ohio,
Monday 21 December, 1.35 A.M.
Adam broke the silence, his voice low in the darkness. ‘Meredith?’
He’d turned out the bedroom light and they lay together, legs intertwined. She nuzzled her cheek against his shoulder, her fingers petting the hair on his chest. ‘Yeah?’ she asked lazily. She sounded relaxed. Replete. Completely sated.
So of course I’m going to dash all that to hell. But he needed answers.
‘What happened to you around the holidays?’
Her fingers stilled and he immediately missed the petting. But it was a small price to pay for the truth. As long as she started petting him again. Eventually.
‘How much did you overhear yesterday, when Papa and I were talking?’
‘I came in when you were telling him that you were okay with how I’ve dealt with things, so he needed to be too. I heard you ask him to watch videos with you. Of your parents, “On the day.” And he said that he’d need me not to be there since he’d need to drink to watch. Which I appreciated, by the way.’
‘He’s thoughtful that way.’
‘Will you tell me what happened?’ he asked, and she sighed heavily.
‘My parents died in a plane crash three days after Christmas, seven years ago.’
His chest tightened. ‘I’m sorry, honey.’
‘So am I,’ she murmured. ‘My parents were . . . simply the best. I see you and Diesel and Kate and Decker and all the other folks in our group that didn’t have good childhoods and my heart breaks for you. I miss my mom and dad every day. And that’s part of the problem. I miss them and there’s still a piece of me that feels like I don’t have the right.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m the reason they were on that plane,’ she said, with perfect calm. ‘I’m the reason they died.’
Stunned, he pressed back into the pillow, angling to better see her face. She appeared serene, her eyes closed, lashes lying thick and dark against her skin. He wanted to shake that serenity off and see her real face, but he didn’t. He figured that she needed the zen mask right now and he wasn’t going to take that away from her.
He wanted to tell her no, that she wasn’t responsible for a plane crash, but she’d uttered the words with such quiet finality that he knew she believed it.
‘Why?’ he finally asked.
‘I was the perfect child,’ she said. ‘I never rebelled, I got good grades, I was on the track team, I volunteered at the hospital. My parents believed I had my act together.’
‘But you didn’t.’
‘No. I’m good at letting people see what they want to see.’ Her petting of his chest resumed and he let out a relieved breath. She was there with him, even if she still hid behind her unyielding composure. ‘I was driven. Partly because it’s who I was – am. And partly because I hated who I was. Never good enough. Most of my clients have been the victims of some trauma, but not all. Some just don’t like who they are. My job with them is to help them see themselves clearly and then to decide – if they still don’t like what they see – what will they change and how will they change it.’
‘Did anyone do that with you?’
‘Yes, but not until it got so bad that I couldn’t hide it anymore. My cousin Alex came to live with us when she was fifteen. I was seventeen. I’d been a cutter for years by then. Alex’s mom and my mom were twins. We’d always been close, but then Alex’s mother was murdered and when we got to Georgia, where they lived, Alex was in the psych ward. They thought she’d tried to kill herself because she’d discovered her mother’s body.’
‘But she hadn’t?’
‘Not then. But later? Yeah, she tried. We got her from Georgia to our house here, got her settled in her room, then I set myself up as sentry. Because I’d seen her palm a sleeping pill. I took it away from her and watched her until I was sure she wasn’t going to hurt herself.’
‘For how long?’
‘A few months. Alex went into therapy and got . . . better. I kept the pill.’
Adam sucked in a breath. ‘Did you now?’ he said with a calm that was pure BS.
The little huff of breath against his chest told him that she knew his BS for what it was. ‘I did. And I’d look at it sometimes and think, I could get more and swallow them all and then I’d be done. But I never did. Told myself it was because I was in control.’
‘Like an alcoholic who goes to a bar to prove they can say no to booze.’
‘Exactly. And down deep, I didn’t want to hurt myself. Not then.’
He thought of the scars on her arms. Those from the cutting had nearly faded. The longer, deeper scars just above her wrists signified an act far more drastic. ‘When?’
‘When I was twenty. There was no single event. No primary trigger. I just woke up one day and knew that I didn’t have the energy to do it anymore.’
‘Clinical depression,’ he murmured.
‘Yes. But like I said, I was good at letting people only see what they wanted to see.’
‘Who found you?’ he asked, because the scars were remnants of an injury so serious that he doubted she could have dealt with it on her own.
‘My gran. My parents were traveling. Alex was making friends at university and she . . . didn’t really need me anymore. Which makes it sound like I blame her, but I never did. I knew she was doing the healthy thing, experiencing life, while I, Miss Perfect Child, was not. I don’t know why I did it that day or why I did it at Gran’s, other than I knew she’d check on me. I think she always knew what was wrong. Turns out she’d dealt with depression too, but she didn’t tell me until afterward, because people didn’t talk about things like that.’
‘Still don’t.’
‘True, but it is getting better. Anyway, my parents found out because I was hospitalized, but I was able to keep it from Alex for years. Partly because as long as it was my secret, I could still be the strong one and she’d be the one who’d palmed a pill.’
‘What did she say when you told her?’
‘She cried. I cried. We became even closer.’
‘When did you tell her?’
‘Two years after she met Daniel and decided to stay in Atlanta. They wanted a Christmas wedding and she wanted me to be her maid of honor and I . . . couldn’t. It had only been three years since the plane crash. She thought that was the reason and tried to get me to see that it was a tribute to my folks. She’d loved them too, you see, and she really meant that. I told her that I couldn’t be in the wedding if it was at Christmas and she knew something had happened. I had to tell her everything. She’s um, kind of persuasive.’
‘I can’t wait to meet her.’
‘You’ll love her. Everyone does.’ She drew a breath, held it for a few seconds then let it out. Adam had learned this meant that he probably wouldn’t like what came next. ‘She doesn’t have to wear a mask for people to love her. She’s just herself.’
He’d been right. He didn’t like that statement at all. ‘Maybe the mask is just an assistive device for you. Like a hearing aid. I learned years ago that Greg uses his hearing aids to control how much of the world he lets in, and that’s his choice. The mask is your way of controlling the situation around you, of maintaining calm. You aren’t a different person underneath. It’s just how much of yourself you allow out on any given day.’
Her fingers faltered for a few seconds before resuming the petting of his chest. ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way. Maybe you’re right. I hope you are.’
‘So what happened the Christmas that your parents died?’
‘You can’t help asking the questions, can you?’ she asked dryly.
‘Would you want me to?’
‘No. I like the man you are. I always knew he was in there.’ She kissed his collarbone. ‘So. Christmas.’ She was quiet for another moment. ‘I was married.’
He froze where he lay as the fallout from that little bombshell filtered into his brain. Okay. ‘Married,’ he repeated, just to be sure he’d heard correctly.
‘Yes, but not for long.’
Adam felt like he’d been poleaxed, which he did not like. But she’d gone still in his arms and he liked that even less. ‘What happened?’
A sigh. ‘I had this boyfriend. Chris. He worked in my dad’s company. My parents and grandparents weren’t crazy about him, and I think I always knew that there was no future for us, but he made me feel not so lonely. One night I drank too much and we forgot protection and I got pregnant. Chris wasn’t entirely horrible, and he was raised by a single mom. He said we should get married because he didn’t want his kid growing up the same way. So we did. We had a simple service at the end of October and I bought a dress that would camouflage the baby belly. Nobody knew except my parents and grandparents.’
He did not want to think about her with another man. Ever. But she didn’t have a child now, so he knew this was important. ‘Did Alex know?’
‘Not at the time. I was just . . . I didn’t want her to know how stupid I’d been.’
End of October. He swallowed a groan, because this was not about him. ‘When I came to you that first time and we ended up in bed. That was the end of October.’
‘Yeah. I was feeling a little raw myself when you showed up. Don’t think you took advantage or anything. I was lonely and needy too. I slept with you because I wanted you and I wanted what we did. I didn’t want to be alone and neither did you. So it worked.’
He wanted to argue, but to do so was to imply she hadn’t known her own mind, and she definitely did. ‘Did he know about the cutting and the suicide attempt?’
‘Yes. I mean, he figured it out. The scars were more noticeable then. Anyway, we had Christmas that year and my parents left a few days later to go skiing. Dad had his pilot’s license and he’d bought a small plane.’
Oh no. He tipped her chin up so that he could kiss her forehead and then he gently cuddled her close again, ever conscious of the scrape on her cheek. ‘I’m so sorry.’
He felt her throat work as she swallowed hard. ‘I had my practice by then. Working with children who were depressed like I’d been or, like my cousin Alex, had been traumatized by something horrific. Chris didn’t approve. He didn’t want me bringing “all that sadness” home. Told me to get a job doing something else, and after the baby was born, I should quit because I was too fragile to handle the stress of being a working mother and that I didn’t need the money anyway because my parents were loaded.’
Adam bristled. ‘Prince of a guy.’
‘True enough. I didn’t quit, and Chris and I argued. And then one day, the father of one of my youngest clients got out of jail, immediately hunted down his wife and child, and beat them senseless. The child died and I fell apart. My parents weren’t home and Alex was working – she’s an ER nurse – and I needed a shoulder. So I told Chris. He wasn’t happy with me.’
Adam could feel a growl start at the base of his throat. ‘What did he do?’
‘He said if I wouldn’t quit my job, he was walking. That I was being selfish to keep heaping sadness on his head. That his job was too stressful to be burdened with other people’s issues. He wasn’t that nice about it, actually. I refused and he slammed the door on the way out.’
‘He was looking for a reason to leave.’
‘I know that now, but then . . . I was so upset. I actually found a razor. I wasn’t going to attempt suicide again, but I was thinking about cutting. I sat there for hours, just looking at that razor. And then I started to bleed and it had nothing to do with the razor.’
‘You miscarried.’
‘I did.’
‘Did you have anyone to call?’
‘Wendi,’ she said fondly. ‘We’d worked together on a few cases. She was a friend. She took me to an ER that wasn’t Alex’s and called Papa, because she’d met him. Papa called my father and he and Mom dropped everything to come home. Gran had found the razor when she went to get me fresh clothes and she’d told Papa and my parents. They were all worried that I’d try to harm myself again.’
‘But the razor was like the pill,’ he said, his voice raw because his chest hurt too much to breathe. ‘You just wanted to show yourself that you wouldn’t.’
She went very still again, then nodded, rubbing her cheek against his chest. ‘Nobody got that. Not then and not since. Not until you.’
Hearing that loosened the tightness in his chest enough to let him draw a harsh breath. ‘But you didn’t harm yourself.’
‘No. Although I really wanted to later, because Mom and Dad should never have come when they did. There was a storm. But they were so worried about me. They felt so guilty about missing my depression for so long . . .’
He was unsurprised when his chest grew wet with her tears. ‘Their plane crashed,’ he said, able to at least say the words so that she wouldn’t have to.
‘Yes. It was not quick and they did suffer.’
His throat closed on a wave of grief. And anger. ‘Who told you that?’
‘The state trooper who came by my house later that night to give me the news.’
‘Sonofabitch,’ he muttered, unable to stop the curse.
‘Yeah. That’s why when you and Trip lied to Kyle about Tiffany not suffering? I was so on board with that. It wasn’t something that I needed to hear when I was in shock and grieving. So, that’s the story. Christmas is difficult.’
‘Yeah, I can see that.’ He kissed her hair. ‘What happened to the douchebag?’
Her chuckle was watery. ‘Oh, Chris scuttled to his attorney right away to file for divorce. I didn’t fight him. I didn’t want him by that point. Especially when he blamed me for the miscarriage. I’m not sure who was angrier about that, Papa, Gran, or Wendi. I think he was most afraid of Wendi, to tell you the truth.’
‘I believe that. She is fierce when it comes to protecting you. But what she said makes so much sense now. More sense anyway. It made sense when she said it.’
Meredith lifted her head, her eyes wet, her brows scrunched in a frown. ‘What do you mean? She promised me she wouldn’t say anything to you.’
Adam opened his mouth, then closed it. ‘Not going there, Meredith. Wendi scares the bejeezus out of me.’
Meredith’s lips twitched, which had been his intent. ‘That will make her so happy.’
He lifted his head from the pillow enough to kiss her lips chastely. ‘Tell me about the depression. What do I need to know?’
‘Not much, really. I have a shrink.’
‘I know. I heard you tell your grandfather that too. Do you see Dr Lane?’
‘Oh no. She specializes in PTSD and, at least up until yesterday anyway, that wasn’t my issue. Dr Lane and I met at a conference a few years ago. I liked her, and everyone I’ve sent her way likes her too.’
‘I’m going to have to check in with her in a few days,’ Adam said grimly, because PTSD was his issue and this entire weekend had rattled him hard. Which reminded him that he’d promised his sponsor he’d make time for a meeting. He needed to keep that promise. For Meredith. But mostly for me. Putting on the oxygen mask first applied to him as well.
‘No shame in that, Adam.’
‘I know.’ He did, but it still rankled from time to time, that he hadn’t been able to handle it alone. It rankled worse that he had just heard those words in his father’s voice. He shut down the old tapes and refocused on Meredith’s needs. ‘Meds?’
‘Yes. They help. So does yoga and running and playdates with my friends. I nurture myself too. I learned a long time ago to put on my oxygen mask first before helping others. I just needed a refresher tonight. Thank you, by the way. I forgot to say it earlier.’
‘When? When I imparted flight attendant wisdom or when you were coming so hard you saw stars?’
Her snorted laugh was the most ladylike he’d ever heard. ‘Both.’ She sighed. ‘I still have bad cycles,’ she said, very serious now. ‘Sometimes I can pre-plan, like around the holidays. Sometimes they hit me out of the blue and those are the bad times.’
She’d said the words carefully, as if she was afraid they’d make him bolt. ‘I’m not afraid of bad times,’ he said, trying to put all the honesty he felt into his voice. ‘But I’ll have them too, so I need to know what you’re thinking and I’ll do the same. I won’t cut you off again, even if I think it’s for your own good. From now on, it’s full disclosure. Okay?’
‘I can live with that. So, in the spirit of that . . . I need you to be careful when you go out to that used-car lot tomorrow. I finally have you. I don’t want to lose you.’
‘I promise,’ he said seriously. ‘Because I finally have you too.’ He hugged her to him. ‘Go to sleep. It’ll all be there when we wake up. I’ll be here when you wake up.’
She burrowed into his chest. ‘Good night, Adam.’
He drew in her scent, holding on to the moment. Holding on to her. ‘Good night,’ he whispered. And for the first time in longer than he could remember, it was.
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Monday 21 December, 2.05 A.M.
He pulled his SUV into his driveway and switched off the ignition. He’d need to get another vehicle. This one had come from Mike’s lot and he couldn’t have it connected to him. It would be far more difficult to track his vehicles now that he’d burned Mike’s used-car lot to the ground, but he wasn’t taking any chances, especially with Kimble still alive. The man was sniffing too damn close.
Goddamn him. Except he didn’t know who he was cursing more – himself or Adam Kimble or Mike. He was definitely cursing Mike.
For years they’d done so well together. They’d never been a huge enterprise. Never wanted to be. They’d watched others rise higher, only to fall spectacularly over the years.
They’d kept it small, taken advantage of opportunities as they’d come up. Discover a crime in progress? Offer the doer an easy way out – payment in exchange for silence. Sometimes it was a one-time payoff. Give me the drugs you were about to sell, he’d say, and we’ll call this whole arrest a misunderstanding. And then Mike would sell the drugs himself and they’d split the take.
Sometimes the opportunity was too good for a one-time payment. Those were the really juicy crimes, committed by people who had a lot more to lose than a two-bit dealer on the street. Their best clients were the rich elite, with careers, reputations, and fortunes on the line. They were the bread ’n’ butter clients who kept paying, year after year.
And sometimes the perfect victim would emerge and be too tempting to pass up.
Voss had been one of those, a man especially vulnerable to blackmail after becoming an overnight millionaire. Especially vulnerable because of his proclivities.
Voss had liked them young.
Which they’d learned after Voss had answered one of their ads, meeting one of their underage girls in a hotel. Of course there’d been cameras. Mike had wanted to blackmail Voss right away within the first moment of seeing the rich man’s face on camera. Idiot. They’d had a gold mine in the making and Mike would have blown it as a one-off.
He – not Mike – had been the one to tell Jolee to communicate with the girl while Voss was cleaning up in the bathroom, to tell the girl to offer up her friends for a party. Voss had been greedy, setting the next meet for the following weekend in the same hotel.
Voss never considered he’d been recorded. The following weekend’s videos had been the gold mine he’d expected and Voss had been paying through the nose ever since.
Then, no thanks to Mike, he’d tapped the well again. Set up a party with some of his best clients who were not afraid of blackmail. Provided the entertainment – the drugs and barely-eighteen college hookers that would entice Voss without making him fear further entrapment.
He – not Mike – had made sure Jolee approached Voss that night, selling their services so that they’d become Voss’s party service provider of choice. They were milking Voss from the front door and the back, so to speak. Blackmail plus the ‘legit’ services that were still completely illegal. And the man had no clue that he was paying the same people.
Until Voss got stupid and had a party with his kid at home. Asshole.
If he had to pinpoint the moment when it all began to unravel, that would be it.
Which, of course, was bullshit. He’d played Voss so well because he understood the rich man better than anyone else knew. Anyone else still alive, anyway.
Mike had been right about one thing. He hadn’t been able to resist Mallory Martin and he’d never been entirely sure why. Maybe because he’d considered her ‘safe.’ An asset he hadn’t had to personally manage. But more likely because so many on the net had wanted her. And I’d had her. I’d had something those other losers would never have.
Having Mallory had made him want a young thing of his own, spurring him to find Paula, and she’d been such a pretty thing. But Kimble had been getting a little too good at his job in Personal Crimes and needed to be taken down a peg or two. Paula had to be sacrificed and he’d been itchy ever since.
And then Mallory had escaped last summer and turned everything upside down.
‘I should’ve let Mike take care of her,’ he murmured into the quiet of his SUV. He’d thought himself too smart to fuck it all up. And yet he had.
Now he had to figure out how to fix this mess.
Kimble and the others thought they were looking for a cop. So give them a cop. And then get rid of Kimble. The guy was smart. Too smart. Especially now that his brain had dried out from the booze. He was getting too damn close to the truth. Eliminating him would also provide a much-needed distraction. The death of one of their own would demoralize their little joint task force, derailing it long enough to give him time to fix all of Mike’s fuckups so that they couldn’t be traced back to him.
There was still the issue of Linnea, but she hadn’t come forward yet when she could have, nor had she fled town when she should have, so she obviously had an agenda of her own. Probably wants me, he thought with a smile. Little spitfire. She’d surprised him at every turn. He’d use her single-minded focus to draw her in and end her, permanently.
Maybe he should give her an opportunity she couldn’t refuse. She wants me? Come and get me, little girl. But on my terms.
Cheered by the thought, he turned off the engine and got out of the SUV. Only to be assaulted with the smells and sounds of a barnyard. A peek into his neighbor’s backyard revealed a donkey, a cow, and sheep in a pen.
Mr Wainwright had received the permit for his nativity scene. Wonderful, he thought acidly. Except it would make Ariel and Mikey happy, so he’d deal as best he could. It was only for a few more days, anyway.
It was almost Christmas. He knew what he wanted from Santa – Mallory, Linnea, and Kimble . . . gone.
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Monday 21 December, 4.45 A.M.
The throbbing in her hip woke her, but the emptiness in her bed had Meredith fully alert. She ran her hand across the sheet next to her, finding it still a little warm. Adam hadn’t been awake long. I’ll be here when you wake up, he’d said, so she knew he was still in the condo somewhere. He wouldn’t have left without telling her.
She slipped out of bed with a groan. Her hip was yelling at her for lying to the ER doctors about her parking lot injuries, yet in hindsight she regretted nothing. Yes, she might have a prescription for some nifty painkillers, but she’d have missed the hours in Adam’s arms. Totally worth it.
She pulled on the purple PJs he’d pulled off her the day before, sighing contentedly at the feel of silk on her skin. Yes, she was a hedonist and no, she didn’t apologize. It was one of the small things she did to keep herself centered. And because it was cold, she layered with the sweatshirt lying on top of Adam’s open duffel bag. It hung past her hips and it smelled like him.
She heard the music as soon as she opened the bedroom door, something low and bluesy. He was a jazz fan too, which made her ridiculously happy.
She followed Ella Fitzgerald to the kitchen where she found him at the table, frowning at his laptop. Shirtless, hair tousled, the pair of thin gray sweats he’d worn earlier the only thing covering his skin. God, he’s something. No, not just something. Everything. For a moment, she let herself look. And was then busted when he looked up. His frown softened, becoming worry.
‘I didn’t mean to wake you up,’ he said, closing his laptop and turning down the volume on his phone.
‘You didn’t. You don’t have to turn it down.’ She closed the distance between them, dropping a kiss on his upturned face. ‘I like this album.’
His slow smile warmed her. ‘I’m glad. Ella helps me think.’
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said. ‘You want some tea?’
He cupped her cheek and pulled her in for a longer kiss that curled her toes. ‘Yes, please,’ he murmured against her mouth, then released her. ‘Tea would be nice.’
I could get used to this, she thought. Being kissed like this in the middle of the night.
‘I could get used to this,’ he said out loud as she moved about the kitchen, taking comfort from her things. ‘Seeing you like this.’
She smiled over at him. ‘Making tea while swimming in your clothes?’
The look he shot her was positively molten. ‘Doing anything. Wearing anything. Wearing nothing.’
Oh my. A delicious shiver tickled her skin. Then he grinned, his dimple coming out to play, and her heart stuttered in the best of ways. She put the kettle on and took the chair next to his. ‘What are you doing up so early?’ she asked. ‘I thought I’d tired you out.’
His smile faded and her heart sank. ‘I couldn’t sleep either,’ he confessed.
She rested her chin on his hard biceps and looked up at him. Full disclosure. ‘I couldn’t sleep because my hip hurt. I fell harder than I admitted tonight when he threw me off Mallory. Why couldn’t you sleep?’
One side of his mouth twitched up. ‘Spirit of full disclosure, huh?’
‘You’re the one who made that rule,’ she said lightly.
‘Yes, I did. All right then, I had a nightmare. It happens.’
‘I figured. Was it Paula?’
He nodded, eyes troubled. ‘I dream of her often, usually of the moment she dies. But tonight . . .’ He blew out a breath. ‘It was her body, laid out on a bed, throat slit. Eviscerated.’
She swallowed hard, needing to comfort but unsure of what to say. So she kissed the tensed muscle of his biceps instead.
‘And when I woke up I realized I’d never seen her that way. I know those things happened to her, but I didn’t see her body until it turned up in my trunk, burned.’
The thought of him discovering the girl’s body that way . . . It hurt. But on this she could give some perspective, at least. ‘Our dreams aren’t always representative of what we’ve actually seen.’
‘I know. But I realized that I had seen that picture. On the whiteboard tonight.’
The photos of Tiffany Curtis and her mother lying dead in their beds. ‘I couldn’t look at the photos. I’m not that brave.’ Then she understood and reared back, staring at him. ‘Wait. What?’ She shook her head hard, not sure she had actually understood. ‘Are you saying that Paula was killed in the same way as Tiffany and her mother?’
He lifted sardonic brows. ‘Maybe. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?’
‘Yeah, but nothing about this case seems terribly sane, Adam.’
He scrubbed his palms over his face. ‘Ain’t that the truth.’
The kettle whistled, so she got up to make the tea. Setting it on the table, she tapped his laptop. ‘Were you looking at the Chicago crime scene photos?’
He closed his eyes. ‘Yes. And the video.’
‘The Chicago detectives sent you video?’
‘No. I accessed a copy of the recording of Paula’s murder.’
Meredith couldn’t control the flinch, but stopped herself from completely recoiling from the laptop, knowing that it contained the thing that had nearly crushed Adam. She focused on his word choice instead. ‘“Accessed”? Does that mean you had permission, got permission, broke into a server, or that you kept it all along?’
‘The last one. Kind of. I had a DVD of old case videos in the stuff I’d cleaned out of my desk when I went on mental health leave. One was Paula’s murder.’
‘But you kept it? Why?’
‘It was my pill. My razor.’
Oh, Adam. ‘You wanted to know if you could view it without falling apart. Did you?’
He nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he said gruffly. ‘Barely.’
She leaned in to kiss his cheek, his stubble tickling her lips. ‘What did you see?’
He swallowed hard. ‘I closed my eyes after her attacker slit her throat, you know, the first time. When it really happened. I made myself watch the rest later, but my dream always stops at her throat. I kind of willingly blocked out the rest, I guess.’
‘Understandable.’ She had to force herself to ask the question. ‘Paula was cut open, like Tiffany and her mother?’
‘Yeah. It’s all there. He held her up for the camera when he did it. He was big enough that he held her like a doll. His body type is the same as Bruiser’s. Exactly.’
Meredith sat back in her chair, staring up at his face, stunned. ‘I believe you, you know? But I’m having trouble processing all this.’
‘Trust me, so am I.’
She reached across him to turn the volume up on his phone and Ella Fitzgerald’s voice filled the kitchen. ‘So think, Adam. Think and tell me what you see the options to be.’
He set his jaw grimly. ‘Well, option one is that Paula and Tiffany were not killed by the same man and it’s all a grand coincidence.’
‘Possible,’ she murmured. ‘But not that likely. What else?’
‘That the killers were different people, completely unrelated, but that Bruiser knew I was on the case and figured seeing Tiffany’s body would freak me out and I’d be too distracted to investigate properly.’ He drew a breath. ‘Which sounds utterly presumptive and narcissistic of me.’
A shiver clawed across her skin. ‘But someone tried to kill you yesterday.’
‘I know. That’s why I’m sitting here making myself crazy.’
‘What are the other options?’
‘Just one – that the same man killed Paula and Tiffany and her mother. Which means I’m connected on some level. Which makes sense if we’re talking about a cop being responsible. So, I’m leaning toward this last one, as crazy as it sounds.’
‘You’re saying you know this cop. Or this cop knows you. And wants to hurt you.’
‘Well, he wants to hurt Mallory,’ he said grimly. ‘He just wants to fuck with me.’
She shuddered out a breath. ‘It was better when I was the only one in danger.’
He gave her an angry look. ‘Not funny.’
‘Not trying to be. I’m just being honest.’
He closed his eyes again. ‘I’m . . . blown away by this, Meredith. Not gonna lie.’
‘How can we know, one way or the other?’
He tapped a beat on his laptop lid, keeping time with the slow ballad coming from his phone. ‘We connect Bruiser to the man who hurt you all tonight. And then we check all their connections and find out where they cross paths with the cop who raped Mallory.’
‘Okay. That sounds like a place to start.’
His lips curved bitterly. ‘Sure. Except we don’t know Bruiser’s real name, tonight’s gunman got away, and all we know about the cop is that he has a birthmark or a scar on his chest.’ He frowned. ‘And that, if he really is a cop, he had a way to make any records of his interaction with Mallory’s captor disappear.’ He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. ‘And even if we knew more, we don’t know if there are any other players in the mix. What we fucking know is a fucking drop in the fucking ocean.’
Meredith wanted to soothe him. Wanted to assure him it would be all right, but knew that platitudes wouldn’t help. Closing her eyes, she let the music fill her mind, brushing all the frustrations into a corner. Humming with ‘Sentimental Journey’, her thoughts wandered to what she knew, what she had seen and heard, and suddenly little Penny Voss had center stage. Penny’s horror, her sadness, and her frustration as she’d smashed the face of her creation because she couldn’t replicate a person so sick.
Sick and sad and scared and on the run.
‘Linnie knows,’ she said quietly. ‘Linnie’s seen his face.’
A bitter sigh. ‘And she’s in the wind. She’ll never trust us now.’
Meredith opened her eyes, studying his stony profile. ‘But she’ll trust Shane.’
His black lashes lifted and then he was staring at her with a proud wonder that morphed into intense focus. ‘Yeah. She would. I need to get Shane on TV, to get him to make a plea for her to come to us before Andy’s killer gets her.’
She smiled at him. ‘Then do that.’
He cupped her jaw and roughly pulled her to his mouth, kissing her hard. ‘I will.’ He let her go and stood up. ‘We need to go.’
She blinked at him. ‘We do?’
‘Yeah. I have to go home and get some clean clothes, drop you . . . where? Where can I take you where you’ll be safe? I can’t leave you here.’
‘I’m not the target,’ she reminded him, but he shook his head.
‘I don’t care. I won’t be able to think clearly if I don’t know you’re safe.’
‘Then drop me off at the hospital. I’ll sit with Papa.’
‘Okay, that’s good. Isenberg posted an officer between his room and Kate’s. Then I can go into the precinct to—’ He cut himself off. ‘No, I have something else to do before I set up a TV spot for Shane.’ He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. ‘Full disclosure? I promised my sponsor I’d hit a meeting this morning. St Agnes’s has one at six a.m.’
‘Then you should. Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be ready to go.’ She started for the bedroom, but a thought struck her hard and she turned back to Adam. ‘Who knows about that video, Adam? The one of Paula?’
He’d cut the music and had started to dial a number on his phone, but he stopped and frowned at her. ‘Wyatt and Nash. They were standing with me when it went down.’ He grimaced. ‘It was Nash who made me think of this again.’
‘He was looking at the photos before we left the briefing room,’ she said quietly.
Adam’s expression became suddenly unreadable. ‘He couldn’t be . . . No, Meredith. He can’t be involved. Nash’s a good man.’
‘I’m not saying he’s bad. But even if Tiffany and her mother’s murders are only related to upset you and throw you off your game, it means somebody had to know. You need to find out who’s had access to that video. Maybe it was someone you know. Maybe someone you don’t.’ She grabbed his hand and squeezed it. ‘Call your old department. Maybe they’ll have records of who’s viewed it other than Wyatt and Nash.’
He sank back into the chair, looking like he’d been hit with a mallet. ‘Shit.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He shook his head. ‘No, no. You’re right. Of course you’re right. But . . . shit.’ He looked up at her bleakly. ‘I’m just . . . Damn, Meredith, who do I trust?’
‘Isenberg, Deacon, and Scarlett, for starters.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Well, of course I trust Isenberg, Deacon, and Scarlett.’
Meredith considered carefully. ‘And Trip.’
He held her gaze. ‘Because your gut says so? I mean, I’m inclined to agree, but I haven’t known him long enough to be sure.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s not just because I like him, even though I do. I trust Trip. But the fact is, the man who raped Mallory was white. The man who attacked us last night was about seven inches shorter and probably a hundred pounds lighter than Trip. And I happen to know he was still training in Quantico around the time Paula was killed.’ She rose. ‘Call Isenberg. I’ll get your things together while you do.’ She was halfway to the bedroom when he called to her.
‘Meredith? Thank you.’
He looked a little lost, so she retraced her steps to stand behind his chair. Leaning down, she wrapped her arms around his broad, strong shoulders. She pressed her lips to his temple. ‘You’re welcome,’ she murmured in his ear. ‘I’m not going to say it’ll be okay, but I will remind you that you are not alone. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Monday 21 December, 6.15 A.M.
Linnea woke with a start, mind fuzzy, aware she was in a strange place. She slept under soft blankets and her head rested on one that was folded into a pillow. Her hand covered a gun and her stomach was only a little growly.
The Gruber Academy’s little bus. She stretched, wincing when her muscles ached. She’d walked a long way yesterday. But she was still alive and that meant something.
It was dark, so it wasn’t seven yet, which was good because parents started dropping off their kids at seven thirty. It had said so on the school’s website.
Cautiously, she pushed to her knees and peered out the window, relieved to see the parking lot exactly as it had been the night before. She needed to fold the blankets then find somewhere to freshen up.
She was relieved to see she hadn’t bled on their blankets, so Dr Dani’s stitches were holding. The woman might be a terrible person, but she was a decent doctor.
Linnea pocketed the gun, wondering exactly what she’d do when she found little Ariel. She wasn’t going to shoot the child, that much she knew for sure. And she still wasn’t sure that Ariel’s daddy was the man she sought.
But this was her best lead and she had to follow it through.