Chapter Eight
Remi hadn’t meant to eat the entire carton of moo shu pork along with all three pancakes. But Ash had remembered her favorite restaurant and her favorite dish. Plus, he’d even brought her favorite bottle of wine.
No woman could resist such temptation.
As they’d perched in front of the breakfast bar chatting about the challenges of teaching, Remi’s tension from the day had slowly eased.
That was the Marcel gift. All of the brothers had the ability to make people feel relaxed when they were around. She’d often envied their easy charm, watching as they transformed any gathering, no matter how dull, into an entertaining event filled with laughter.
Swallowing the last bite of her fortune cookie, Remi swiveled the high bar chair and slid off.
“I’m going to have to run an extra mile in the morning,” she groaned, wishing she’d changed out of her jeans into her stretchy PJ bottoms.
“We can do that.” Ash flipped a leftover egg roll toward the dog, watching him with adoring eyes. “Right, Buddy?”
Buddy swallowed the egg roll in one gulp and answered with a bark. Remi rolled her eyes. Her dog had already given his heart to Ash. And not just because he snuck him table scraps. The two of them had formed an instant connection.
Her heart fluttered. Not figuratively. It really and truly fluttered, like a butterfly zooming from flower to flower. There was something magical about a man who took the time to earn the trust of her dog.
Of course, she already knew that about Ash . . .
Trying to ignore the dangerous thoughts, Remi quickly cleared away the empty cartons, her movements jerky. “Are you ready to start on the files?” she demanded.
He tilted his head to the side, studying her with a curious expression. “You haven’t told me about your lunch with your mother.”
She grimaced. She didn’t want to discuss her mother. She never did. Their relationship was too complicated. Or maybe it wasn’t complicated. Maybe it was too superficial.
Whatever the reason, she preferred not to dwell on their awkward relationship. It made her heart twist with a painful sense of regret.
She met his gaze squarely. He’d already told her that he’d spent the afternoon at his parents’ house. “Do you want to discuss your lunch with your mother?”
He held up a slender hand. “Touché. My ears are still ringing from the lecture on how a respectful son doesn’t wait three months to visit home, regardless of the fact that I had a full teaching schedule for the semester.”
She reached for the bottle of wine that was half-full. “You grab the glasses.”
He didn’t argue, instead taking a glass in each hand and following her into the living room.
“We make a good team,” he murmured as they settled side by side on the couch.
She poured out the wine, feeling a heat seep through her. She told herself it was the alcohol, but she knew it had far more to do with the hard, male body only an inch away.
“Not really.” She lifted her glass to take a sip, ridiculously trying to deny the awareness that had sizzled between them from the first moment their eyes met. “We still haven’t found anything that could help identify the killer.”
He nodded, his expression one of determination. “True, but detective work is a marathon, not a sprint.”
“That sounds like something my father would say.”
He sent her a wry smile. “It’s something every cop says,” he told her. “A lot.”
Her gaze drifted toward the stacks of manila folders that took up the entire length of her coffee table. Last night, they’d skimmed through the mounds of interviews from the various witnesses, setting aside a handful Ash intended to track down and ask follow-up questions. “I can’t believe these are just your private files.” She gave a shake of her head, unable to imagine how many boxes must be stored at the police station.
“Interviewing hundreds of potential witnesses is part of the marathon.”
She wrinkled her nose, recalling how many times she’d been exasperated with her father when he was late for a school event or missed dinner yet again. In her juvenile mind, she’d leaped to the conclusion that he preferred being with his buddies rather than spending time with her.
“I have a new appreciation for the hours my father spent away from home.”
“It’s a demanding job.”
“But important.”
Ash gave a slow nod, his expression grim. “Especially now.”
She jerked back her gaze toward the stacks of folders, refusing to dwell on Ash’s belief the Butcher was now obsessed with her. She wasn’t sticking her head in the sand. Not entirely. It was simply the realization that she couldn’t concentrate on finding the killer if she was crippled with fear.
“When did you and my father first realize there was a serial killer?”
He leaned back into the couch, absently drinking his wine. She could sense he was dragging up memories he’d kept buried. She didn’t blame him. Being a detective no doubt meant you had to keep all the bad things locked away just to stay sane.
“It was shortly after I became your father’s partner,” he said. “A woman was found in her home with her throat slit. Our first thought was that her husband was responsible. Or a lover. Statistically, that’s the most likely explanation. Then your father noticed the mark on her breast and realized that he’d seen the same mark on an autopsy photo the year before.”
Remi was confused. The Butcher’s carving on the breast was small, but it was unique. It was hard to believe that the detectives had dismissed it as a random cut. “No one had noticed it before?”
Frustration tightened Ash’s features. “The sad truth is that we have too many murders and too few detectives. It wasn’t until we began searching through the old case files that we realized there’d been three other women with the exact same mark.”
“And you never found any connection between the women?”
“They were all young with dark hair.” He deliberately allowed his gaze to skim over her. A silent reminder of the danger that stalked her. “And they were all killed in their homes.”
Remi lifted a hand to touch her temple, reminded of the memories that remained trapped in her mind. Would it have made a difference if the cops had realized from the start that they were dealing with a serial killer? Impossible to know for sure.
“Nothing else?” she asked.
A muscle twitched at the base of Ash’s jaw, and Remi realized she wasn’t the only one recalling her encounter with the Butcher. Hastily, she lowered her hand.
“Not that we could find,” he admitted. “None of the victims appeared to know one another, they had various careers, they shopped at different stores. And none of them chose risky lifestyles.”
She nodded. She’d watched her father pacing the floor at night, his brow furrowed as he tried to piece together the puzzle. Then she was struck by a sudden thought. “Could any of them have answered an ad to become an actress?”
“That’s possible.” Ash’s lack of astonishment at her cleverness proved he’d already considered the notion the Butcher had used the same tricks to lure his victims in the past. “What young man or woman doesn’t dream of becoming a star, no matter what their economic status or career? And for the killer, it would be easy to put an ad in the paper asking for a specific age and physical appearance. A perfect trap.” He deliberately paused. “But it doesn’t include you, unless you went to an audition you didn’t tell me about?”
“No.” She set aside the wineglass, using the motion to hide her expression. “I assumed I was chosen because my father was the lead detective investigating the case.”
“Or because of me,” he breathed, his voice edged with the same awful regret that filled her.
She didn’t blame him. Or her father. She blamed herself.
A brittle silence threatened to settle around them, but with an effort, Remi cleared her throat and motioned toward the folders. The past was done. The future was all that mattered.
“We’ve gone through the witness files,” she said, pointing to the two files Ash had separated from the rest. “What are those?”
Ash leaned forward and set aside his own glass, as if he was as anxious as she to put the dark memories behind them.
“Suspect files.”
She picked up the folders with a lift of her brows. “There weren’t very many suspects.”
“Actually, there were dozens, but those files are still at the precinct.”
“Why didn’t you include these?”
“They were . . .” He hesitated, searching for the right word. “Sensitive.”
“Sensitive?”
He tugged the top file from her fingers, flipping it open. “This one was on Steve Davis.”
“I don’t recognize the name.”
“His family owns a chain of discount tobacco shops.” He shuffled through the papers in the pile, reading the notes he’d made over five years before. “They have the sort of money that could have quashed any investigation. We had to keep it off the books.”
“Why did you suspect him?”
“One of the victims worked as a receptionist at the Davis Tobacco headquarters,” he said, offering her an abbreviated version of his thick stack of notes. “After she was fired, she accused Steve of sexual harassment. She’d even hired an attorney. The night before she was murdered, Steve was heard boasting in a bar that he would kill the bitch before he gave her one penny.”
She made a small sound of disgust. Steve Davis sounded like a pig. “Did you bring him in for questioning?”
“No. Before we got to that point, we discovered he was left-handed.”
“And the killer is right-handed?”
“Yep.”
That seemed like a lame excuse to dismiss a potential suspect. “Couldn’t he have used his right hand to throw off the cops?” she asked.
“The medical examiner was convinced he would know if the killer had tried that particular trick. Plus, we couldn’t find any connection between Davis and the other women.” He closed the file and tossed it back onto the coffee table. “He stayed a suspect, but he moved down the list.”
She opened the file she held in her hand. “What about this one?” She read the label out loud. “R.H.”
“Robert Hutton.” His lips twisted with dislike. “He worked in the district attorney’s office.”
“Bobby?” This time Remi recognized the name. A sound of shock was wrenched from her throat. It had to be a mistake.
Ash’s brows drew together at her childhood name for Robert. “Bobby?”
“We went to the same private high school. We all called him Bobby.”
A wry amusement twisted his lips. “I suppose I should have guessed.”
She ignored his words. The fact that she had a large trust fund had rarely come between them, but Remi had sensed that Ash preferred to forget she’d grown up in a mansion and attended schools that cost more than his parents earned in a year.
“I can’t believe he would be a suspect,” she said.
“Why not?”
“It might be a cliché, but he doesn’t seem the type.”
His jaw tightened. As if he was annoyed by her words. “There is no ‘type’ for a serial killer. It’s impossible to predict what might make someone snap.”
“You’re right. It’s just . . .” She allowed her words to trail away with a shake of her head.
She’d known Bobby Hutton her entire life. He was three years older than her, with the sort of boy-next-door good looks that inspired instant trust in people. That was what made him such a good lawyer. Beneath the façade, however, he was a shallow, egotistical man who was consumed with ambition.
A jerk, yes. But she’d never heard any whispers he was violent toward women.
“How well did you know him?” Ash demanded.
She shrugged. “We dated for a short time.”
“You dated.” His voice was flat. “Why didn’t your dad tell me?”
Remi sent him a puzzled glance. Was he aggravated by the thought she’d dated Bobby or because her father hadn’t told him?
“We only went out a few times during my freshman year of college,” she told him. “It wasn’t like we had a meaningful relationship.”
His expression remained hard. “Why did you break up?”
She heaved a sigh. “I told you, we were never a couple. We had three or four dates and I quickly realized that his interest wasn’t in me.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
A faint color stained her cheeks at his dry tone. He was right. Bobby had been as eager as any other guy to get her in bed. Still, he’d chosen her for her connections, not her body.
“Bobby has always been ambitious,” she insisted. “I think he calculated that my trust fund, combined with my father’s connection to the Chicago Police Department, would benefit his climb up the political ladder.”
“Hmm.” He didn’t look convinced.
Realizing he wasn’t in the mood to listen to her arguments, she turned the conversation to more important matters. “Why did you suspect him?”
His eyes narrowed, but he followed her lead. “The last victim, Tiffany Holloway, made several calls to his private cell phone,” he said.
Tiffany Holloway was the one victim her father and Ash had discussed in her presence. By then, she’d been spending the majority of her free time either at Ash’s apartment or hanging around the precinct. She knew the seventeen-year-old girl had been found in her parents’ living room with her throat slit. There’d been no sign of a forced entry and the cops had assumed she’d known her assailant.
The thought that she’d been calling Bobby’s private number made her stomach clench with unease. “Did he tell you why?”
“He said she was a waitress at his favorite restaurant and he’d shared his private number with her because she wanted his help to get an internship at the DA’s office.”
Internship? Remi shook her head. She could accept that any young person would be eager to land an internship in the DA’s office. It would look great on a college application. But she couldn’t imagine Bobby going out of his way to help anyone, especially a teenager. Not unless there was something in it for himself.
“Did you believe him?”
Ash released a sharp laugh. “No, but he had an airtight alibi the night Tiffany was murdered.”
“What do you mean by airtight?”
“He was at your house.”
She blinked. “My house?”
“Your parents’ estate,” he said with a shrug. “Hutton was meeting with your mother to discuss some charity event they were planning together.”
Ah. That made sense. Bobby was always eager to promote his supposed dedication to the less fortunate, and her mother had a genuine talent for creating sensational charity events. The two had often worked together.
She’d always been sure to make plans to be away from the house when she knew he was coming over. His ego was big enough to assume she was hoping to spend time with him if she happened to be around . . .
Remi’s thoughts were abruptly disrupted as a memory wiggled to the surface. “Wait,” she breathed. “I remember that evening.”
Ash grimaced. “Like I said, airtight.”
Remi’s gaze lowered as she skimmed over the notes in the file. Her heart twisted as she easily recognized her dad’s handwriting. She would chide him that it looked like chicken scratches and he would tell her that his mind worked too fast for his pencil to keep up.
“November twenty-first,” she murmured, lifting her head to meet his curious gaze. “It was a Friday, right?”
He raised his brows in surprise. “Yes.”
“My mother didn’t meet with Bobby that night.”
He stared at her. Was he having trouble processing what she was telling him? Probably. He’d spent years convinced that Bobby had spent the night with her mother.
“Were you there?” he finally demanded.
She shook her head. When her mother had told her that Bobby was coming for dinner, Remi had agreed to join a friend and a few other classmates to cram for a history exam.
“I was supposed to go to a study group, but I felt sick when I got to the library and turned around and drove back home,” she told him.
He tapped his fingers on his knee, silently reorganizing his assumption of what had occurred the night of the murder. He gave a dissatisfied shake of his head. “Did your mother say why Hutton canceled the meeting?”
“She wasn’t there when I got home,” Remi said. She’d been too relieved when she pulled into the driveway to discover the house dark and silent to consider why the dinner had been canceled. She was feeling like crap and in no mood to deal with Bobby. Or her mother. “I took some cold medicine and crawled into bed.”
“Maybe they met somewhere else,” he suggested.
“Maybe, but why would he say they met at the house if they were somewhere else?”
He considered the question, at last giving a sharp shake of his head. “You’re sure it was the same night?”
She shuffled back through her memories. It’d been over five years ago, and she hadn’t had any reason to think about the night since then. Still, she was confident she wasn’t mistaken.
“Yeah. I was feeling rotten when Dad got the call the next morning about Tiffany Holloway,” she said. “He wanted to take me to the doctor, but I told him to go to work.”
Ash continued to tap his fingers against his knee. He was troubled by something. “Surely your dad asked your mother about the meeting?”
She did another scan of the notes. “I don’t see any mention of a different location for the meeting or it being canceled.” She closed the file and handed it to Ash. “Maybe Dad was like you and just assumed Bobby came to dinner, so he never bothered to ask Mother.”
He muttered a low curse, clearly annoyed with himself. As if he should have known that Bobby had lied. “I think I need to have a chat with Hutton.”
“He’s the assistant district attorney now,” she warned.
A hard smile curled his lips. “All the better.”
“Why is that better?”
“He has more to lose.”
About to remind him that a career in the DA’s office also ensured that he had friends in high places, she was distracted as her dog launched himself across the room, barking loud enough to make her ears ring.
Instinctively, her head turned toward the large window, catching a faint movement before it disappeared. With a sharp gasp, she surged off the couch, her hand pressed against her racing heart. “Ash.”
In an instant, he was standing beside her, his arm wrapping around her shoulders. “What is it?”
“Someone was looking in the window,” she rasped.
“Stay here.”
Before she could protest, Ash was grabbing the coat he’d left on a nearby chair and heading out the front door. Remi cursed and hurried to retrieve her phone from the kitchen. She would give Ash five minutes to return. A second longer and she was dialing 911.