Monday morning, Beck woke to the sound of pans rattling in the kitchen. She pulled on a pair of boxers and a T-shirt and wandered out to Liam’s kitchen to find him adjusting the flame on the gas stovetop. “What is happening?”
“I’m making breakfast.” He pointed to a French press on the counter. “Coffee’s ready. Help yourself.”
Relieved at the sight of the full press, she wandered over, poured a cup, and took a deep swallow. “I was thinking it’s time I start staying at my own place, but then I’d miss you waiting on me.” She held up the cup. “This is delicious.”
“You know you’re welcome here anytime.” He pointed at the coffee. “It’s some new brew a client is trying out. I’m drinking my way through the few pounds they gave me while I figure out ad copy.” He poured some batter onto a griddle and not very artfully changed the subject. “Your new friends are nice.”
Beck went on alert at the seemingly innocuous statement. She’d slept in later than normal, even skipping her usual run, and now she was wishing she was more alert for the question and answer portion of the morning after.
“They aren’t my friends. And why are you making pancakes on a Monday morning?”
“They seemed like they were. And I’m making pancakes because we both had a lot of beer yesterday and I figured we could use something to soak it up.”
She set her coffee mug down and stretched her arms above her head. “You’ve got that right. About the pancakes I mean. As for Harrison and Donna, they’re Macy’s friends.”
“And what’s Macy to you?”
Beck wished he’d finish the damn pancakes so they could stuff their face with something other than this uncomfortable conversation. “Do you have maple syrup? The good kind, not that maple flavored crap.”
He pointed at the cabinet behind her with his spatula. “Second shelf. Brand new bottle.”
She turned to the cabinet and took her time retrieving the syrup because she sensed breakfast was mostly about pumping her for information about what had happened at Pride after he bailed.
When she’d finally used up an irrational amount of time fetching the syrup, she set it on the table and squared off with Liam. “You know if you want to know what’s going on you could’ve stuck around.”
“I was giving you and Macy some alone time,” he replied without missing a beat. “See what a nice guy I am?”
“You’re a pain in the ass is what you are. She’s trying to interview me for the paper. She wants an exclusive. That’s it.” She spun her forefinger in a circle. “All that other crap in your head is make-believe.”
He shoveled pancakes into a perilously high stack on the platter. “I have empirical evidence to suggest otherwise.”
“Here we go.”
“Seriously, Beck.” He pointed to the desk in the corner. “Hand me my phone.”
She strode over the to the desk and retrieved his phone. A moment later, he held it up to show her a series of photos. The first few were of Harrison, Donna, and Macy, enjoying Pride, but smack in the middle were several pictures of her and Macy. Standing close. Sharing a beer. Exchanging whispered conversations. She closed her eyes for a moment and remembered the day. She’d had fun for the first time in a while, and for a few hours, she forgot all about the fact the rest of her life had turned upside down. Despite the crowds and the heat, it had been the best day she’d had in a long time, and looking at the pictures, it did appear she and Macy were getting along fabulously. She grabbed the phone from Liam’s hand. “Don’t believe everything you see.”
“Is that the route you’re going to take? Because I’m thinking it’s antithetical to your well-honed detecting skills. Aren’t you always looking for an eyewitness?”
“They aren’t always reliable.” As she spoke the words, she got the irony. She was in the position she was in because she was certain she’d seen Jack shoot an unarmed victim. But she was a trained observer, not a pedestrian on the street who may have caught a glimpse of something but didn’t note full detail because they hadn’t been expecting to see something go down and weren’t prepared or trained to register all of the details. “In fact, eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable, but they sure are convincing to juries.” She pointed at the phone. “Macy’s nice enough, but it’s business. I promise.”
“She’s cute too.”
Cute wasn’t how she’d describe Macy, but correcting Liam would only give him more reason to tease her. Macy was attractive, but not in a cute and sweet way. Her magnetism came from the fact she was fierce and fiery. If Macy wasn’t a reporter intent on getting her to spill her guts, she might be inclined to ask her out. But the situation was what it was, and business was all it could ever be between them. The casual flirtation at yesterday’s Pride celebration was a fluke and it wasn’t going to be repeated. “Speaking of attraction, Harrison thought you were pretty cute.”
“If I was into guys, I’d totally go for him, but alas I felt nothing more than friendship. He’s pretty cool.”
“I love how you don’t get freaked out when a guy finds you attractive.”
“Why would I? It’s a compliment, right?”
“It is, but you’d be surprised how many gay bashings start exactly that way.”
“That’s shitty. Besides, it could just as easily happen to me.”
“You are the quintessential metrosexual, for sure.”
“I’m definitely taking that as a compliment.”
“Good, because it is. Anyway, I’m glad you’re not an asshole since that would mean I wouldn’t spend any time with you, and I’d sure miss these pancakes.”
He shoved a plate her way. “Eat up.”
She groaned at the first bite. She hadn’t been eating much lately—since the shooting. Every time she did, she thought about how Aldridge would never take another breath, eat another meal. About how Jack’s future was ruined and how hers might be, and her appetite gave way to a wave of nauseous guilt. But not today. Today, she ate a big stack of pancakes and enjoyed every bite, wondering if agreeing to the interview with Macy was the source of her relief. “I decided to give an interview to the paper.”
Liam paused mid-bite and stared her down. “Really? Macy’s paper, I presume?”
“That’s the one.” She took another bite to avoid his penetrating gaze.
“Okay.” He resumed eating but didn’t look away.
“I can tell you have an opinion. Go ahead and dish.”
“It’s really not my business.”
“Since when has that ever stopped you?”
He rolled his eyes. “Fine. It might be awkward dating her if she’s going to write an exposé on your case.”
She set her fork down, her appetite quickly fading. “First off, there is no dating. This is a business arrangement. Second, she’s writing a profile piece, not an exposé.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“What’s the deal, Liam? First, you tell me how great she is and now you’re warning me away from her?”
“Name a journalist that’s not going to seize on a bigger story if there’s one to be had.”
“I can handle myself.”
“Under most circumstances, my money would be all on you.”
“There’s a big but at the end of that sentence.”
“This isn’t most circumstances. Have you talked to your union rep about this?”
“Since when do you know anything about union reps?”
He pushed his plate aside. “You forget, I’m a master in the art of googling. Since you’re not big on sharing details, I did a little research of my own. I guess I’m concerned about any of Jack’s case blowing back on you.”
“It won’t.”
“Are you sure?”
She stared into his big brown, caring eyes and was a little bit touched by his concern, but it still agitated her, and she wasn’t sure why. Yes, she wasn’t big on sharing the nitty-gritty of her job with him, but that had stemmed from a lifetime of shoving her own feelings aside in the name of responsibility. Of all people, he should get that, but for some reason, the death of their mother had affected them in completely opposite ways. She’d become taciturn and he overshared with anyone who’d listen. She wouldn’t change a thing about Liam, but she couldn’t change her own method of coping simply because he’d chosen a different way to deal.
She stared at him and injected as much sincerity as she could muster into her response. “I’m sure.”
He smiled and nodded, but she could tell he didn’t entirely believe her, which was fine because when she thought about Macy’s intense gaze focused completely on her, she wasn’t certain she believed herself.
* * *
Macy stood in front of her fridge as if by continuing to stare at the empty shelves, food would suddenly materialize. Finally, she shut the door and focused her energy on making a coffee in the Nespresso machine Harrison had given her for her birthday last year. She kept a sizable volume of the pods on hand because unlike all the other groceries she bought, they didn’t go bad before she got around to doing anything with them. Good thing she liked her coffee black.
While she waited for the cup to brew, she sent a text to Jerry to let him know she’d be working from home today. She didn’t tell him Beck had agreed to the interview because then he’d give her a hard and fast deadline and be all over her until she turned the story in, but she did tell him she was close to getting what he wanted. Satisfied he was placated enough not to bother her for the rest of the day, she placed a basic grocery order on her phone. She didn’t cook, but it helped to have a few staples on hand for days she chose to work from home. Usually, she skipped breakfast, but she hadn’t had a lot to eat yesterday, and between the heat and the beer, she’d woken up this morning dehydrated and hungry.
When the coffee finished brewing, she wandered to the extra bedroom she’d converted into a home office. Holding her mug in one hand, she inserted a key in the lock and opened the door. As always, she took a moment to look around and make sure everything was exactly the way she’d left it. Silly really, since she kept the room locked, but being cautious had become a habit and she’d worked way too hard to assemble the information contained in this room to risk anything happening to it.
Her desk was covered with scraps of paper—news articles, notes, random other bits of information. Puzzle pieces waiting to be assembled. If only she had a box with the picture on it to go by, but all she had was confidence that the answer was within her grasp which fueled her desire to keep looking.
She set her mug on the table, signed on to her computer, and logged on to the website for Unfrozen. She didn’t care for the name since it sounded like the lesser twin of a Disney movie, but it was the best crowd-sourced network of volunteer sleuths around, and she’d joined up several years ago when it was first formed.
She spent a few minutes reviewing the chat log from the weekend, but there were no new posts related to the Parks and Rec Killer, and no recent hits on her collection of search terms. She pulled up the notes app on her phone and typed in everything she’d learned so far about the body the jogger had discovered at White Rock Lake.
Jody Nelson had celebrated her twenty-second birthday the day before her last bike ride at the lake. According to security camera footage, she’d entered the trail near Richards University around seven on the evening before her body was found. Once she was off campus, the trail of hard evidence ended. According to Detective Hanlon, no one had come forward with any information about having seen Jody while she was riding the trail on the lake. Macy knew Claire would’ve tried hard to find witnesses, but she still found it hard to believe no one had seen Jody on the trail that night, especially since the area where her body had been found was several miles away from where she’d entered the trail. On a summer night in the kind of good weather they’d had that week, there would’ve been dozens of other cyclists, joggers, and walkers on the trail. The police found Jody’s bike in one of the tributaries that fed into the lake about fifty feet from her body, but otherwise it was like she’d vanished off the trail without even a puff of smoke to mark the occasion.
Macy shook her head. Someone had to have seen something relevant to solving the case. She opened up a new chat and typed the subject line: Is the Parks and Rec Killer Back in Action?
Jody Nelson, twenty-two-year-old student at Richards University, was found dead at White Rock Lake over a week ago. Police don’t have any leads, but she was hog-tied and strangled. Sound familiar?
She resisted the urge to type more, to fill in the space on the screen with her own theories. She knew in her gut he was back in action, but better to let the people on this page come to that realization themselves since it would make them more invested in the hunt.
While she waited for a reaction, she stood and walked over to the wall she’d made into a bulletin board. Photos of the Parks and Rec Killer’s known victims lined the top of the board like great-grandparents on a family tree with lines drawn below to connect the specific facts of their case and display any facts they might have in common with the others. This wall represented years of effort, a stark boundary between the past and present, and it had come to define her entire view of the world. This wall was the story, and as soon as she filled in the missing pieces, she could write “the end.”
Which brought her back to Beck. Beck had agreed to the story and whether her consent had been fueled by too much sun or too much beer, she was going to hold Beck to the bargain. Somewhere in those cold case files there was a clue, a sign, a pattern. Something the detectives had missed. But if she had access, she knew she could find answers. She’d been looking at the facts much longer than all the detectives originally assigned to the case had, combined. And she was the only one determined to stay on the case until it was solved.
Her computer dinged to alert her to a message. She strode over to it, tempering her excitement, knowing it was likely nothing more than the barrage of comments that come when someone tossed out a new theory on a case. Lots of noise, little substance. She slid into her chair and enlarged the chat box. The comments were coming in fast and hard:
Guy’s probably dead by now.
More likely a copycat.
I heard there were signs of a struggle. PNRK? Never.
The consensus was she was way off base. And that was the point of these chats, right? Everyone could float their theory and get real time feedback from a bunch of people engaged in the same pursuit—finding the truth. She kept scrolling encountering a combination of questions about her reasoning to comments about her IQ. She was about to sign off when another ding sounded, and a new comment appeared.
I think you’re on to something.
She checked the profile name: Huntsman363. She seen his posts before, and they’d exchanged messages too. Of course, she didn’t know Huntsman363’s gender, but her gut told her he was male. Her fingers hovered over the keys while she mentally composed a reply designed to keep him talking, but he beat her to it.
It’s the ten-year anniversary. Maybe he’s sentimental.
She hadn’t voiced those words, but she’d thought them several times since the morning she’d stood out at White Rock Lake, staring at Jody Nelson’s lifeless body.
It’s not quite the anniversary. We need to stay on guard.
The response came within seconds of her typing the last word.
He needs to be stopped.
He did need to be stopped. Macy flashed to an image of Beck sitting next to her at JR’s. The fun and the beer they’d shared that day had started out as way to suck up to Beck, to get her to agree to the interview for information exchange, but by the end of the evening, her goal had shifted, and as much as anything else, she wanted to hang out with Beck to get to know her. Not just cop her, but all of her. And that was a problem because if her goal was putting away the Parks and Rec Killer, her only focus should be on the ways in which Beck could help her solve these cases, not how Beck made her feel.
Renewing her commitment to finding the killer injected her with a boost of confidence. She read Huntsman363’s last comment and stretched her fingers over the keys.
On it.