Ewan disappeared back into the police station and stood staring at the space where Jorja had waited for him. His hands pushed the panels of his suit jacket back before they settled on his hips. Something had unnerved her, made her run, made her retreat into her shell. Something had triggered her to run out of the station. He had fought for years to gain her trust but always sensed she was holding out on him. Not even when they tried taking their friendship further did she fully open up to him, and he knew she wanted to, was desperate to surrender all she held cooped up inside. It was as if she couldn't. As if trusting someone would penetrate the protective wall she had built around her.
He walked over to the coffee station; saw where she had spilled half her mug of coffee.
A voice behind him startled him.
"Ah, there you are, sir." PC Bennett had come in from the file room and moved to a desk directly behind Ewan.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you, sir." The young police constable dropped a Manila folder on his desk and waited for his superior to respond. When he didn't, he continued talking.
"The first of the crime scene photos came in; they should be there on the printer," he pushed his chin toward the machine next to Ewan. "I've just opened the case file so will start recording what we know so far."
Ewan's eyes lingered on the photos in the machine and instantly knew that was what had scared Jorja. She must have seen them. He snatched the photos from the printing tray, briefly scanned each one, and then handed them to his constable.
"Thanks, make sure no one sees them, Bennett. We cannot leave these things lying around. This is a murder investigation, not a pub brawl."
"Yes, sir, sorry, sir."
Ewan charged into his office, snatched his car keys and cell phone from the desk, then made his way to the exit.
"And make sure every single piece of evidence that comes in is under lock and key, got it?" he shouted over his shoulder as he rushed out.
Once he reached Jorja's house, he parked the car in her driveway then briefly walked round the back of the house to check in with his squad who were still working the crime scene.
"Anything new?" he asked his sergeant, Charlie.
"Not yet, sir. The men are combing the area for evidence, and we're still waiting for forensics to arrive, but we should get a time of death any second now." His eyebrows lifted as his eyes pointed to where the coroner had just inserted a spike into the body.
Ewan stepped closer to the victim's body and waited for the announcement. Please Lord: let it be when she was at Ann's.
"Time of death between midnight and four this morning. Cause of death: a puncture wound to the carotid artery. Most likely from this copper rose. The victim was killed somewhere else then brought here to be discovered. He would have bled out in minutes. There is not enough blood here for this to be where the victim was killed. I'll know more once I examine the body, but I am pretty sure he was brought here."
Ewan rotated in place, scanning the immediate perimeter.
"I don't see any tire tracks."
"Exactly, he was carried here, most likely over someone's shoulder judging by these postmortem bruises that are starting to set in across his abdomen. I would guess about sixty to ninety minutes after he was killed. But, as I said, I'll know more once I inspect the rest of his body."
"Thanks, please keep me posted,” Ewan said and turned to Charlie.
"Send two men to Myles' house to check it out. It might have happened there. Be alert and do not touch anything. Record everything, got it?"
"Copy that, sir."
Ewan turned and walked toward Jorja's house. From the outside, it seemed she was not there. The shutters and curtains were closed. When he reached her front door, he briefly turned to inspect the area behind him, then gently knocked on the door.
Jorja found her mind and body had entered into a state of complete calm as she emptied the contents of the bag onto the floor. It was as if her mind had switched to stealth mode—calm and controlled. Panic and fear had left her and instead, invited laser-sharp focus in their place.
She picked up three bundles of cash, each in a different currency—US dollars, Swiss francs, and Russian rubles. She pushed them to one side and picked up three passports, each matching the country origins of the money. She flipped the first one open with her thumb—United States—and stared down at the picture of the brown-haired woman with black-framed glasses. It was under a different name. She set it down on the carpet and proceeded to the next passport. This time she had long ash-brown hair and bright red lipstick—her Swiss identity. She reached for the last travel document, hesitating as a sudden jolt of nerves hit the pit of her stomach. She thumbed back the cover and took in the photo of the woman with bright red hair that was cropped into spikes atop her head. This was who she’d been when it all happened, when she had risked everything. She looked up at the black leather jacket that hung in the back of her closet—the one she had worn at the time the photo was taken. The one she had always worn back then. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror that was stuck to the inside of the closet door next to her and allowed her eyes to linger over her face. She didn't look anything like any of these women anymore. For one, she had aged at least twenty years, and for another, she had grown her hair out to its natural medium blonde, trimmed into a sophisticated short style that curled in the nape of her neck. Even she would not recognize her now.
Her attention went back to the contents of the bag, as she dropped the Russian passport on top of the others. There were a set of suction pads, a bottle of talcum powder, a stethoscope, two mobile phones, a pager, and a gun—a SIG Sauer P226 semi-automatic pistol. She moved to pick it up, surprised at the flood of excitement that rushed through her veins when her hand closed around the cold steel grip. With experienced precision, she pulled back the slide release with her other hand to reveal that the chamber was empty. Her thumb moved to eject the full cartridge, briefly checking it before she clipped it back into place, and flicked on the safety.
Interrupted by a knock at her front door, her mind snapped back to the present. She stayed seated on the floor, frozen, listening. The knocking grew louder, this time accompanied by Ewan's voice calling out her name. She knew she couldn't ignore him; he was not one to easily give up.
She gathered the items on the floor and scooped them back inside the leather bag. Everything, except the gun, which she pushed to one side while she hastily dropped the bag back into its place under the floor. Ewan knocked again and she moved quickly to hide the gun under her pillow before racing down the staircase to open the door.
Ewan's eyes darted over and around her shoulders when she opened the door to let him in, checking that she wasn't in any danger.
"I'm alone, Ewan." She turned and started toward her kitchen. He followed.
"Is that it? You are just going to pretend nothing is going on here?" he said as he stood in the entrance to the kitchen while she put on the kettle.
"I don't know what you want me to say, Ewan."
"Well, for a start, why did you run? I told you I needed a statement, but you just upped and left. What's going on, Jorgie?"
She walked to the fridge to grab the milk, bringing it to her nose to sniff if it was fresh. From the kitty door behind them, Vincent made himself known and she poured a few drops of milk into his saucer on the floor.
"Jorgie, please don't ignore me. What's going on? I assume you saw the photos in the printer. You should not have seen them, but still, was it enough to cause you to run off like that?"
"Sorry, it upset me, but I'm fine now.” The tone of her voice was unapproachable.
Ewan shook his head as he moved closer to where she had busied herself with the teabags and stood with her back toward him.
"Yeah well, I'm not fine. I have never pushed you to share anything you might not be comfortable sharing. All these years, Jorgie, I have given you space, proved you could trust me. Heck, even when you put the brakes on our relationship I let it go. But I know you, Jorja Rose. You withdraw when things get too close for comfort for you, too close to what brought you to St. Ives all those years ago. Why? What about Myles Brentwood's murder is making you crawl into your shell, huh? What are you not telling me?"