My questioning session lasted less than ten minutes. I supposed the cops had interviewed other witnesses before getting around to me, confirming my alibi and story before asking me to confirm my name, something that made us all laugh.
Everyone in the station knew who I was. My willingness to give my statement before an angel, who confirmed the truth of my words, made things easier on everyone. I classified as a second-tier witness, and I offered to give them copies of my photographs. They refused on the grounds I hadn’t been in the right location and lacked images of the victims.
I’d keep copies of the pictures in case I’d somehow photographed the killer during my time at Park Lane. It annoyed me that the cops didn’t want the potential evidence.
They had no proof I had pictures of the killer, but they lacked proof I didn’t have pictures of the killer.
I scored a few brownie points and a donut for not giving them a hard time on a shit case. After my questioning, I waited for Maxwell so he could live up to his word on buying me a beer. To kill time, I checked over the images, wondering if some secret lurked in plain sight.
“You ready?” Maxwell appeared at my shoulder. “I doubt your phone holds the secrets of the universe.”
“A man can hope, can’t he?”
“The DA is miffed you’re involved, but he changed his tune when he saw the interview recording. He even said if we could nab you to run cases involving kids, our solve rate would skyrocket. He liked you were willing to share your photos.”
“The DA is involved already? It’s early.”
“That’s what I was thinking, too. Mostly. I’ll explain at the bar. How does the place by your apartment sound? I can drop you near your truck, and we can meet there.”
“That works. I think I can handle staggering two blocks home.”
“I’ll make sure you get there. While the DA’s happy with you for a change, don’t test your luck with him on this one.” The way Maxwell arched a brow led me to believe he wanted some unofficial help.
I could do that. “I’ll keep my nose clean.”
“You always do. Why’d you think your photos might be useful?”
“I took pictures of the crowd while investigating. I’ll see what I can find and tip you off if I learn anything important.”
“This is what I like about you. You always do what’s right. I’d be a much different—and better—man had I known back then what I know now. I really hope we find this bastard before he has a chance to go after someone else.”
He would. They always did. Then I thought about it and wondered why Maxwell assumed the killer was a man. “He?” I asked.
“Women are creatures of passion given flesh. If it were a woman, she would’ve gotten in their faces and killed them at point-blank range. No, my gut feeling says a man did it.”
I’d take the sane route and collect evidence. While women were creatures of passion in the flesh, men were as well.
Everyone had the capacity in moments of passion to do the unthinkable, but the mother and child hadn’t died from someone’s unleashed, raw emotions.
They’d been killed in cold blood, and the murderer had left them in a shower of paper confetti, irrefutable evidence of meticulous planning.
Women could be meticulous. Women could be cruel. Women were equally capable of planning murder as men.
I wouldn’t argue with Maxwell over it; it wasn’t worth wasting my breath. “Well, if there’s anything I can do, ask.”
“We’ll talk at the bar,” Maxwell replied.
I wondered what he knew that I didn’t, but I’d find out soon enough. All I could do was hope he wouldn’t ask for something I couldn’t give him.
A rusted-out family car tailed me halfway across Dallas, and I took a few detours to shake off the vehicle. Once satisfied I’d lost the driver, I headed home, grateful my apartment building had an indoor garage. It wouldn’t stop anyone from finding me, but it’d make their work a little harder.
Maxwell waited for me in the bar at a table tucked into the corner. “That took longer than I expected. What held you up?”
“I picked up a tail. I figured I’d give him a tour of Dallas.” Had I worked in any other profession, I might’ve been more worried about it, but I’d dealt with it time and time again, usually in the form of an angry boyfriend, side man, or soon-to-be ex-husband wanting to blame me for his abusive ways. If the tail showed up again, I’d get the plate numbers and report it to the police. If it related to one of my jobs, the incident would become part of the case one way or another.
I needed to fit in some time at the range and start carrying again soon, especially if I kept having to deal with clients like Tom Heatherow.
“Get a look at him?”
I shook my head and sat across from Maxwell. “Not really. No front tags on the vehicle.”
“Welcome to Texas. You worried?”
I shrugged. “Not yet. If I see the junker again, maybe. What do you want to talk about? You obviously want it off the record and on the sly, else we would’ve been in the break room entertaining your badge buddies.”
“Thank you for not calling my co-workers badge bunnies this time.”
I grinned. “I save that for when I’m in the break room and they’ve annoyed me. I also try to wait for Sassy to be around because she enjoys the entertainment.”
“Obviously. That’s because she’s the one who usually gets mouthy with the police. A damned pity she doesn’t have the hybrid form. She’d be a real asset on the force.”
Trying to imagine Sassy as a police officer gave me a headache, and I hadn’t even gotten around to grabbing a beer. “I’m afraid to ask.”
“You’re both smart, you’re both good at getting information, and you both understand the importance of finding the actual truth and not what the DA’s office wants you to find. Or your attorneys, although word down the line is the local firms are still giving you the cold shoulder for finding evidence against a client and turning it over to the police, thus losing the defense the case.”
“It’s right in my contract. It’s not my fault they didn’t read the contract closely enough.”
“I bet the lawyers were not happy when you told them that.”
“Precisely. I think they blacklisted me more for beating them at their own game than exposing their client. As I told them, they hired me to find evidence. I found it. It’s not my fault they didn’t like the evidence I found and that their client was so guilty they had no chance in hell of being able to reduce his sentence.”
Maxwell sighed. “I sometimes believe the law enforcement system and judiciary systems have nothing to do with justice and everything to do with personal prestige.”
I suspected the former politician understood that better than most. “You won’t hear me arguing with you. What do you need that’s important enough for you to cross town to have a beer with me?”
“I’m worried the shooting at Park Lane is just the beginning. In the past few months, we’ve gotten a lot of calls about women being stalked. It’s following the same trend as the killing; every report has involved single mothers with children. Most are only bothered for a week or two before the stalking stops.”
The first thought to come to mind bothered me; when I did work for a client, I usually wrapped up the initial profiling within a week or two unless I needed to uncover deeper, darker secrets. “PI?”
“Doubtful. There’s too much overlap, but it could be a pair of PIs working together. Some of the detectives brought your name up, but when we showed the women your pictures, only two of them recognized you or Sassy, and they confirmed you weren’t the ones stalking them.”
“That’s something. But why involve Sassy?”
“We all know you send her in to do your dirty work if the woman you’re shadowing either likes shoes or is skittish around men.”
Considering Sassy could charm the shoes off other women without much work, I couldn’t blame them for assuming I’d use her like that. Sassy did pick up that role when needed, although she volunteered as often as not. “Are we cleared off the suspect list?”
“You’re clear. You two were cleared early. That said, you’re being monitored, so keep your nose clean. You’ve ticked most attorneys in the area off one way or another. The local prosecutors would love to have your license revoked.”
Of course they would. I’d been a thorn in their side since the day I’d been licensed as a PI. The rare cases I found incriminating evidence against the defense’s client didn’t make up for the number of times I’d put a kink in their cases. I flagged a waitress for a beer to buy myself time and some liquid fortification, which I’d need to get through the conversation. “Same shit, different day. Let me see if I understand this correctly. You want my help while some dicks from the DA’s office want to sink me?”
“That’s right. We’re going to need all the help we can get on this one if the stalking case is connected. So far, we’ve identified at least three PIs involved with the stalking cases, and we have had over a hundred unique reports in three months.”
It’d take a lot more than three PIs to profile over a hundred different single mothers. “How many women total?”
“At last count, one-ten.”
I whistled. The waitress returned with my beer, and as promised, Maxwell paid. Aware I’d be buzzed halfway through the bottle, I sipped with care. “Well, you have my attention. What do you want me to do? I can’t profile that many women even with Sassy’s help.”
“I want to hire you to do what you do best. I want you to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong while staying within the letter of the law. I’ll give you the intel I can. Try to find out what connects these women, why they’re being profiled and stalked, and anything else you can dig up about them. We’re spinning our wheels, and we just don’t have the manpower needed to check them all. I know you have other work, but I’d appreciate however many hours you can give me. We don’t have jack shit about this, and with one of the women who’d reported already dead, we’re worried we’ve been given advance notice of future hits.”
As a general rule, I tried to avoid the police during an investigation; they typically viewed me as an obstruction to their cases, especially when they thought I might find something they’d missed. For Maxwell to want to hire me, he believed something big was going to happen, something that his partners on the force wouldn’t be able to handle alone.
That Maxwell came to me told me one truth I couldn’t ignore: he believed more children would be targeted and killed. We didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, but the cases with kids always worked out the same way.
When kids were involved, I did my best work, and I would toe every line possible to see justice served.
I took a sip of my beer and got ready to make a deal I’d likely regret later. “I’m in. I’ll find out what I can. How do you want me to deliver the intel to you?”
“Use the anonymous hotline. That way, if anyone does come poking around, it’ll take them more work to link us. Technically, what I’m doing isn’t illegal, but it’s toeing some lines I’d rather not people be aware of.”
With Maxwell’s background in ruthless politics, I bet he understood the risks of his actions better than most. “Yeah, your buddies aren’t going to be happy with you if they find out you hired me. The DA’s office would have a conniption, and so would your chief.”
“Nonsense. Despite how often he gets annoyed with you for messing up his investigations, you do good work and have better ethics. He’s just pissed you’re not on the force and choose to play with the defense. Anyway, you haven’t asked me how much I’m paying.”
With kids involved, I would’ve done the work for free and faced Sassy’s wrath for losing us money. I lifted my beer in a salute. “If I don’t ask, you get this one on the house. That bastard killed a kid.”
“Well, you’re getting paid for this one. You’re getting seven thousand, Sassy is getting seven thousand, and I’ll add two more payments each in a few days so the banks don’t hold them for too long. For every solid lead you bag, I’ll add an extra grand.”
I raised both brows. “I couldn’t have possibly heard that right. You’re paying us twenty-one thousand each plus lead bonuses?”
A former politician with a reputation of being good with money had the cash, but he’d never used his personal assets on a case before.
“You heard me right. I want this solved as quickly as possible. You two make a damned good team, especially on the cases involving the kids. You’re motivated, and you won’t sacrifice an innocent to wrap a case faster. You in?”
“I already told you I was in. Sassy’ll jump at the chance to work this one, too.” While lycanthropes often got the short lot, when it came to kids and family, they scored top marks for determination.
“Got your wire details handy?”
I dug out my wallet and retrieved the pair of cards with our payment details on them, which Maxwell photographed with his phone. I waited for him to pocket the device before asking, “Do you have a map of the incidents?”
“I’ll email it to you from a dummy account. Expect it in the morning. I’ll also send over everything else I can.”
“I hope you realize people are going to ask why you hired us later. It’s going to be impossible to hide it forever. It could wreck your reputation in the force,” I warned.
“There’s nothing on the books barring me from hiring you with personal funds. I’d rather pay you than be too slow on the draw. I can handle the heat. You just keep things legal on your side of the fence.”
I’d be earning every penny of my pay and sweating every minute of the job, but some prices were worth paying. “I’ll keep my nose clean. Sassy will, too.” It’d be a little harder for the cheetah; as soon as she found out we were hunting someone killing kids, she’d plunge right into the deep end. Reining in her enthusiasm to solve the case in record time would challenge me in more ways than I cared to think about.
With no other choice, I’d cross that bridge when I got there.
“Good. What do you think about the murders today?”
I wished I could forget the memory of the bodies on the steps while confetti rained down on them. “Someone planned it well,” I admitted. “A professional. The shots were fast and accurate. At first glance, I’d peg it as ex-military. The shops were busy, and the shooter picked the ideal place to wait for them. Just about everyone shopping at Park Lane takes those steps at least once. The public place implies he wanted the bodies found fast. Why? That I can’t tell you. The confetti bothers me.”
“It bothers us, too. I can tell you this much. The pieces were printouts of two types. One had the number one on it. The other had a date with no year: April 10th.”
“Newspaper clippings?”
“Yes. We haven’t been able to identify which paper they came from yet, but the font matched in all the samples we’ve found so far. The paper’s going in for analysis to see if they came from the same newspaper batch or not. Considering the number of pieces, I don’t think the paper will be the same, but it’s possible.”
“Do you think it’s the start of a serial killer spree?” The serial killers who wanted to be remembered left clues and taunted the police. They had an agenda, and they wanted to let the police know they were a step behind at all times.
Maxwell sighed. “If the shoe fits. I think it does. I’m concerned the stalking incidents are the killer looking for ideal victims for his spree.”
“Had the woman killed today filed a stalker report?”
“If so, I haven’t been told yet; another pair is working on that portion of the investigation. But, not everyone reports, and there’s been so many stalking cases, I’m worried that the cases may be connected.”
“Get me as much intel on the woman and her son as you can. In the meantime, I’ll see what I can dig up.”
“Will do. And Aaron?”
“Yeah?”
“Make sure your conceal carry permit is up to date and you’ve gotten in your hours at the range. Don’t take any unnecessary risks. Whoever this guy is, he means business. Try to talk Sassy into wearing a vest while you’re at it. You, too.”
When Maxwell wanted me wearing protection, it meant trouble. I couldn’t tell if he was indulging in paranoia or he knew something he wasn’t telling me yet. It could go either way with him. I sighed. “I’ll talk to her about it.”
“Just be careful. I worry this is only the beginning.”
I left the bar after finishing my beer and took a headache home with me. If I left without delaying, I could contact Sassy and take over the meeting with the swingers and spare her from attending the party. Within minutes, my headache would develop into a migraine, the kind determined to stick around for days. Bracing for the inevitable rush and misery involved with arriving on time, I called her cell.
“The copper shop released you already?”
“They did. I might be able to make it to the hotel on time if I head over now. I’m almost back to my apartment.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve already contacted your lady friend and introduced myself as a friend—one hoping to land you permanently but still willing to share for a while. At least until you’re contagious.” The laughter in her voice promised Sassy knew she’d been fibbing and waited for me to call her out on it.
Sassy didn’t share, not when it came to her men.
“Why do I get the feeling you’ve already discussed my assets?”
“Well, we’ve certainly been discussing your ass.”
I wasn’t sure if I was to interpret that as the cheetah having an actual interest in my ass, a situation I wouldn’t mind in the slightest, or if she was trying her best to sass me straight to a migraine. “What’s this about the contagious commentary?”
“They like the thrill. It took her a few minutes to warm up to me, but when she saw the shoes you’d bought for me today, she relaxed. I told her you had gotten an emergency call at work.”
At least she’d been honest enough about that. “You’re sure you’ll be okay at that party? It’s not really your crowd.”
“It’s more of my crowd than it is your crowd. Remember, cheetah? The males of my species love things like this, especially when there aren’t any women involved. I’m sure. You head on home and try to relax. You sound ready to come unhinged. I’ll check in with you later. Then we can talk about this in-ter-est-ing party you sent me to. In detail.” She added a bit of a growl, and as always, I had no idea if she was yanking my chain because she could, or if she meant to get the payback she was rightfully owed.
I smiled. Lycanthropes. Send the loyal types to a swinger’s party, and it was the end of the world. “I secured us a contract for forty-two thousand dollars today, and it has potential lead bonuses.”
Sassy sucked in a breath. “You have my attention.”
“You won’t get paid if you kill me for sending you to that party.”
Her laughter dulled the edge I’d heard in her voice. “Well played. All right. You win this time. You live. For now.”
“You’re so gracious, Sassy. Whatever would I do without your forgiveness?”
“Be bored, lonelier than you already are, and completely bereft of positive female attention in your life.”
I needed positive female attention from anyone other than Sassy? I supposed having positive attention from my mother might do me some good, but my mother had an issue with lycanthropes and already considered me halfway into my grave from partnering with the feisty cheetah. I smiled and strolled towards my apartment. “Positive female attention isn’t just a myth?”
“You’re an ass.”
“But I’m an ass who got us a big contract. I’m also an ass who bought you two pairs of shoes.”
She sighed, and I imagined her rolling her eyes and praying for patience. “Good job on the contract. I’ll properly appreciate your work tomorrow. Oh, by the way, go into your apartment through the window or you’ll be tarred and feathered.”
Damned cat. “Tarred and feathered? What the hell did you do to my apartment this time?”
“You’ll only step in whipped cream going through the window.”
I wondered how I’d get in through the window without having the ability to land on my feet if I fell during the attempt. “Anything else I should know?”
“Tread with care.”
Sassy must have done some research and discovered what sort of party I’d sent her to in advance, resulting in her paying me back before she’d left for her unwanted date with a group of swingers at a mixer. “Remind me why I gave you a key again?”
“I keep your life interesting. Have fun!” Sassy hung up, and I considered banging my head against the brick wall of my apartment complex. One day, she might remember I lived on the second floor and none of the windows were near the stairwells. Given the choice between being tarred and feathered or falling to my death trying to enter my apartment through the window, I opted for the extra clean-up but higher chances of survival. Taking off my jacket, I set it out of the way and unlocked my door.
All remained quiet.
On most days, I believed peace and quiet to be good things. With Sassy on the prowl, it meant trouble and humiliation.
I cracked my door open and peeked inside, examining the frame, latch, and knob. In true prankster fashion, she’d rigged a bucket overhead designed to fall on the unwitting when they opened the door. I stood on my toes and worked my hand beneath it. If she’d used actual tar, it had cooled, which would’ve resulted in a hard knock to the head but little mess. Unwilling to take any chances, I eased the bucket off the door and lowered it so I could peek inside.
Fluffy cotton candy obscured my view of whatever else might lurk within. To make things more interesting, Sassy had gone through the trouble of lining the inside with plastic wrap. As Sassy took food sanitation with surprising seriousness for a predatory feline who liked her meat bleeding on her plate, I assumed she’d decided to prank me with edibles. I plucked out a pinch of the cotton candy and munched on it.
One treat pleased the cheetah over all other treats: chocolate syrup. I’d bet the entire contract with Maxwell she’d decided to tar me with her favorite treat to maximize my exposure to her favorite food. That mean she had one goal in mind: revenge through tongue bath.
I shook my head, checked it for additional traps, and once satisfied the entry was safe, I retrieved my coat and hung it on the empty rack. I assumed she’d relocated my property to protect it from the tar and feathering I’d rightfully earned.
After I got some payback of my own on the damned cat, I’d thank her for having some common sense. I’d also ask what I’d done to deserve her at her worst. The party had earned me some trouble, but not a complete booby trapping of my apartment. I could think of a few things that might warrant the booby trapping of my apartment.
Actually, I could think of a lot of things that might earn me her at her worst, and not showing up to save her from a miserable date topped the list, with sending her to a swinger’s party coming in a close second. I’d earned the tarring and feathering for saddling her with Miss Gray.
Damn it.
There was only one thing I could do. I texted Sassy and asked her to come by my apartment before she headed home, begged for a ten-minute warning, and to provide her with a reason to make the trip worth her while, I told her I wanted to discuss the new contract.
She confirmed she’d stop over and estimated she’d be at the party for four hours.
Four hours gave me the time I needed to figure out what to do with the cotton candy, a bucket of chocolate syrup, and an obscene amount of whipped cream. The whipped cream would go down the drain; after sitting out in my apartment for an unknown period of time, I wouldn’t feed it to a dog. The rest left me no other choice.
I’d wear it and pretend I had Sassy’s general inability to avoid disaster.