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Thursday. Darby
Mark was still yawning when I dragged him into the office the following morning. I tried to hide a laugh but didn’t catch it in time.
He scowled. “Darb, I swear, I will kill you if you get me up at five again tomorrow.”
“You have to tell me going for a run wasn’t worth it.”
“I’ll let you know when my arthritic knee stops screaming.”
I stuck out my tongue.
He shook his head, rolled his eyes, and turned toward the break room. “Coffee?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“Be right back,” he said before breaking into another yawn.
I watched his retreat. I felt a little bad for him, but then again, I didn’t. I was a morning person, and he most definitely was not. He’d known that before insisting I stay at his home.
But if I hadn’t stayed with him, we wouldn’t have cleared the air. Things weren’t perfect between us, but at least we’d had a chance to settle the disagreement we’d had on the plane nearly three weeks ago.
Truth be told, I was looking forward to the coffee. I’d lain awake in his bed into the wee hours of the morning, thinking through everything we’d discussed. It weighed heavily on my mind. He’d managed to break through my defenses last night, and I found myself wondering why we couldn’t try to make something work.
The pain was a definite problem. I had to figure out a way to deal with that.
But I didn’t want to bring Doctor Jacoby in unless it became absolutely necessary.
If Mark and I pursued a romantic relationship, we’d have to figure out what caused the pain. Which would require my primary doctor’s insight.
I shuddered.
I wasn’t ready to show that hand yet, not even to him. He’d be forced to tell the DSHA what was going on...at least, that’s what he’d told me two years ago.
I bit my lip. Maybe we could work something out to keep him from doing so. He’d been wanting to do more testing on me...if I allowed him to do so, would he protect Mark?
Of course, if I told Mark no, that it wasn’t worth the risk, I wondered if he’d be able to set things aside and finally focus on someone besides me.
Two years and then some was a long time to pine away for someone.
Part of that was my fault. I saw that now. I’d led him on for a long time, and it would take some time for him to get over that.
Sure, he’d flirted with other women in that time, including my two closest friends, Priscilla and Genova. But to have a relationship even remotely romantic? That hadn’t happened the whole time we’d been partners.
He might not have told me this one thing, but he told me a lot of other stuff about his personal life. It was kind of the nature of being partners. When you sometimes spent sixteen or twenty hours a day with a person, you talked. I knew about all his nieces and nephews from the one getting ready to graduate college to the youngest one about to start preschool. The fact his mother was dating. When his best friend, Kevin, and his wife were fighting. I’d attended soccer games, softball games, and karate testing for not only the nieces and nephews but Mark’s godchildren.
Surely, if he’d been seeing someone, even casually, Mark would have told me.
Or maybe not.
I looked toward the break room. It was possible he’d seen someone casually and hadn’t said anything. It wasn’t like we shared everything with each other. I’d been adamant early in our partnership: I didn’t want to know about his sex life.
His sisters and his mother had set him up on blind dates countless times the last few years. Those I knew about. But there’d never been a second date.
Now a bit curious, I sent a quick message to my friend Priscilla Cameron. You and Mark have never gotten together when I’m not there, have you?
Call me obsessive, but now I needed to know.
Although somehow, I didn’t see him and Genova together, despite the flirting. Genny had a reputation, and Mark had been so focused on me for the last two years, I didn’t see her going after him.
Still, you could never know for sure.
It wasn’t like he and I were together or anything. He had every right to go out with someone, even my friends.
I shook my head and cleared the getting-to-be-disturbing thoughts out. Focus, Darb.
There was work to do, and it wasn’t going to slim down anytime soon.
I needed my A-game today, and the little diversions about Mark and what he did in his personal time didn’t fit in. It was already Thursday. Prairie had been assuming room temperature for three and a half days. I had maybe that much time again—at the outside—to do what I needed to do to bring her back.
And we still were no closer to finding her killer than we’d been on Monday night.
I skimmed through my e-mail, lifting my face to smile in thanks when Mark set a cup of coffee next to me.
I took a tentative sip; it scalded my tongue, but I drank anyway. “I also want to know more about Pierce. Before we go anywhere.”
Mark cocked his head. “Did I hear you right? You want to look into one of your own?”
“I don’t know him from Adam. He could have been feeding us a load of shit, so we’d look away from something else.”
He stirred his tea. “He came in willingly with your best friend accompanying him. He was forthcoming with some pretty weighty information.”
“Yeah, but how do we verify? All we have is his word and Genova’s. He could be lying to all of us.”
Mark studied his tea. “You got me there. Look how well I’ve trained you?”
“Your training had nothing to do with it. I’ve gotten paranoid.”
“Whatever you say.” There was a brief pause before he added, “Do you think this is really a good idea though? To look into Pierce?”
“Why shouldn’t we question our sources? If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s to question everything. We probably would have had a chance to do it yesterday if my flat hadn’t become ground zero.”
“You know they’re either sleeping with each other or have in the past.”
I rolled my eyes. “Genova takes every other guy she meets for a tumble. Am I surprised she may have done so with Pierce? Not terribly. For all I know, he could be using their intimacy to hide whatever he’s involved in. Maybe he killed Prairie. It’s not going to stop me from looking into him.”
“Even if it hurts your friend?”
I pulled my hands away from the computer. “Mark, she’s my friend. She knows what my job entails. She’ll understand.”
“Are you so sure?”
“I’m not going to forgo doing my job because it could hurt Genova’s feelings. That’s not doing my duty, it’s not finding justice for Prairie’s killer.”
Mark looked down and away. “As long as you’ve thought this through. I don’t want to see the two of you damage your friendship because of a guy.”
I leaned forward. “I don’t go after her guys, and so far, she hasn’t gone after mine, so I think we’re in pretty safe territory.”
He paused a long beat. “But you are going after Pierce, even though you’re not going after him in the sense you suggested. She may take offense.”
“If she does, I’ll put the pieces back together after we’ve got Prairie’s killer behind bars.”
He studied me for a moment, color pinkening his face. “You do that then. I’m, uh, going to go check in with the lab. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Fine.” I watched as he retreated to the lift bank.
Had I said or done something wrong? He’d trained me after all. Couldn’t he see I was trying to cover all the bases? And what was it to him if Genova and I fought over what I was about to do? It wasn’t really any of her business to begin with, especially since Rick was now a source.
Personally, I’d like to prove all of what he’d said and then some.
I pulled up the various search programs I had at my disposal and plugged Rick’s name and approximate age into the search feature. There were over a dozen Richard Pierce entries in the main search application, but all had ID pictures to go along with them.
Richard David Pierce, 34, had been born in a small town outside of Wichita, Kansas, and had entered the superhuman rolls at age fourteen. Pretty average age, maybe even marginally late.
I was really one to talk, though.
He’d stayed out of trouble until his early twenties when he’d been arrested for the first time for disorderly conduct. He’d had two more arrests in five years for the same thing. All were for incidents during protests with the SuperHuman Society and another super organization I was only marginally familiar with. They were more militant, believed in dismantling the DSHA, and some of their membership had openly desired to dissolve the peace accords which had accompanied the signing of the SuperHuman Bill of Rights more than fifty years earlier.
In each of the arrest files, Rick’s attorney of record was Genova. She’d have been barely out of law school, possibly even still in it.
Then again, I’d always assumed she’d followed the traditional path to graduation. Perhaps she’d been a bit of a phenom, and had graduated ahead of her peers.
Regardless, she’d known Rick for a minimum of nine years.
How much of that was exclusively as attorney-client? Or had she come in initially to help her friend?
I chewed on my lip. I should ask her.
None of the arrests had stuck. Genova had been good, even in the early days, when she’d still been with a criminal defense firm.
The last arrest five-plus years earlier had occurred after she’d gone to work with the SHS.
Since he’d managed to keep his nose clean for so long, I wondered if she’d had anything to do with his motivation for not getting arrested again? Or if he’d wised up? Anything was possible.
Or maybe he’d just gotten better at avoiding the spotlight.
The more I dug into Pierce, the more perplexed I became. I’d never met him before, but Genova obviously had a lengthy history with the man. Why, in three years, had I never had occasion to meet Pierce? He knew of me.
Of course, that one’s not hard when my picture gets flashed on the news every time I revive a murder victim, or some state legislator in Kansas or Missouri—my primary stomping grounds—wants to try to restrict my ability to do what I do.
Without more of a criminal background to dig into, not even anything oriented around a sealed juvenile record, I shifted gears.
Mark had long since returned, and he was busy at his desk, making calls and getting up occasionally to make a note on our murder board.
In a way, I felt guilty for pursuing this with Pierce.
But not enough to stop.
He’d dropped a bombshell yesterday; we needed to know if he was for real.
A sweep of news articles had things dating back nearly to the time of his registration. The first several were innocuous enough, having to do with some events he’d participated in while in high school in southeast Kansas.
But after the age of twenty, they got more interesting.
Reports of the protests he’d been involved in.
Legislation he was working against in not only the Kansas Legislature but in Oklahoma and Nebraska too.
Speaking out against a radical group of super-haters who had kidnapped a superhuman girl and gang raped her. I shuddered. Thankfully, they’d been arrested and were serving very long sentences.
It was clear in a lot of the cases to see who the normals were in the reporting. They’d barely skirt the line on being neutral, even in the stories about Rick and the legislation he was working against. With a federal program already in place, why did the states feel they needed to have their own registries, their own departments?
Apparently, some of the reporters couldn’t see that redundancy and added bureaucracy was a disaster in the making. On that point, I did agree with Pierce.
In the last 10 years, there was one reporter in particular who seemed to be on Rick’s side of things.
Although I wasn’t exactly sure she was a reporter. A blogger or independent journalist, definitely. But I couldn’t find Amanda J. O’Flannigan listed anywhere on any traditional news agency site, at least not with a byline. Her name came up a handful of times in editorials, sometimes accompanying Rick’s name, sometimes not.
But when she was the one doing the writing, she had Rick’s back.
Perhaps Genova wasn’t the only one who could play the field?
Out of curiosity, I plugged Amanda’s name into the superhuman databases.
“Finding anything useful?” Mark asked.
I nearly jumped out of my chair and scowled at him.
Mirth danced in his eyes, but he kept his lips flat.
“I’m not sure,” I said, getting up to stretch. A human body is not designed to sit at a desk for hours on end, and neither is a superhuman body. I glanced around, surprised to realize how many of my colleagues had come in while I was so focused. The building was humming. “Maybe?”
Mark lifted his chin. “What do you have?”
I brought him up to speed.
“But you’ve not found anything indicating Pierce is a pathological liar?”
I shook my head as I reached for my coffee. I sipped, frowned. Cold coffee. Blech. “No, but I’ve also not found anything to indicate why he of all people would have this knowledge.”
“Cover story?”
I shrugged and hopped onto the end of my desk to scrutinize the murder board. “I guess anything’s possible, but it feels...hinky.”
“Hinky?” This time, he did laugh. “That’s one way of putting it.” He drank some tea. “Do you think he could be lying to Genova?”
I pursed my lips and stared at Prairie’s image on the display. “Genova still stands for law and justice.”
Mark frowned. “It’s still possible.”
“She’s an empath. She can sense when people are lying.”
“Maybe she didn’t want to know the answer.”
I looked away. My computer beeped, so I got up to check it, my joints creaking a little in protest. Well, that was new.
“Anything good?”
I shook my head. Amanda O’Flannigan wasn’t a superhuman, but it seemed her history with Rick went even deeper than Genova’s. She attended the same private high school and was only a year behind him. It was a small school, so there wasn’t much chance of them having not met.
My curiosity piqued, I put in a search to see if the three of them had ever been noted together in the same article. I know, I was riding the line between personal curiosity and professional relevance, but hey. What good is it being a cop when you can’t occasionally use the tools at your disposal for what may actually be not fully related to your case?
“Who the hell is Amanda O’Flannigan?” Mark asked, standing over my shoulder.
I whirled, surprised at how close he was. “A, uh, blogger it looks like. Someone who seems to know Pierce.”
“A girlfriend?”
“Could be.”
“Darby,” he said. “Do you think Pierce wasn’t sincere?”
“I’m not sure. All he did was come in and tell us what he did. He didn’t provide evidence, and neither did Genova. It makes me wonder.”
He didn’t say anything, but picked up his comm and secured it to his ear. “Xander? Detective Herman. We’re going to come over. Need to speak with you and Nettie inside the secure room. Can you make sure it’s available?” He paused, staring at me hard. “Great. See you in five minutes.”
“Lab?”
“What better place to try to find some evidence?”
I thought for a second. “But if there’s evidence, it’s probably been destroyed already.”
Mark shrugged. “Perhaps. But it would give them something specific to look for.”
I nodded.
“Then, afterwards, I have a long list of Prairie’s friends we’re going to see. Seems more than time to pay them a second visit. Maybe they’ll have thought of something.”
It was half-past nine. Time for more coffee. “Okay, let me get a new cup of java first.”
“Meet you over there?”
“Sounds good.” I smiled, and he smiled back. It felt easier than yesterday. With everything the last few weeks, it was hard to describe how buoyant that made me feel.
I unlocked my drawer and put my gun back on my hip, then waved my screen off and grabbed my travel mug. Mark had given it to me last year for my birthday, and it was sparkly pink with black letters reading “Bad Ass Cop” on the side. It still made me laugh.
I’d just finished filling it when I turned and nearly ran headlong into William.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” I said.
The corners of his eyes crinkled pleasantly. “Maybe I’m keeping an eye out for you.”
“Now, why would you do that?”
“Because you’re a beautiful woman, and I’ve always been a sucker for one.”
I laughed and studied the lid of my cup. “Well, thanks.”
“I’m planning to go to the SHS meeting tonight. I would enjoy it immensely if you would accompany me. We could go out to dinner before.”
“You know, I’d love to go, but—”
“You’re not sure of the SHS?”
I smiled apologetically. “No.”
“Perhaps if you’re with another superhuman, they’ll come around.”
“I think you’ll have to do a hell of a lot more than simply show up.”
He put his hand on me, squeezing my shoulder lightly. “Perhaps. But from what you’ve said, you’ve barely gone to their meetings. Perhaps it’s them who feel snubbed. You’re too good for the likes of regular supers.”
Something about the comment struck me funny, and I nearly vibrated. “You haven’t seen how they treat me.”
“No,” he said, non-plussed at my sudden fury. “But I am trained in understanding these kinds of matters. Perhaps your appearance is one of aloofness, and that’s putting most of them off.”
I took a sip of my coffee to give myself a second to think.
“You think that could be the reason?”
“Well, the likelihood of them all being douche-bags isn’t high.”
I snorted. “I don’t know if my partner will like it.”
“If he is nervous, I can assure him I will make sure you get home safely.”
I bit my lip.
“Say yes, Darby, and make me the happiest man in this building.”
Going out with him tonight—even if it was for a dumb ol’ SHS meeting—sounded pleasant. But how would Mark view it? Sure, I hadn’t said I wouldn’t see anyone else while I mulled over his request.
But I could easily see how one might view it as a slap in the face.
Will squeezed my shoulder tighter. Not a lot, just a tiny bit. It wouldn’t have been noticeable if I wasn’t very sensitive to touch.
We weren’t dating, Mark and me. And this was just dinner and a meeting. Nothing serious. And Will was new in town. Shouldn’t I show him some Kansas City hospitality?
“All right,” I said slowly. “But we’ll take separate cars. I may have to meet you there, depending on what happens with my case.”
He grinned, and before I realized what was happening, he pulled me into a kiss.
I hadn’t been kissed since Trent. That was quite a drought. I hadn’t forgotten how it all worked, and I kissed him back, then pulled away. I couldn’t quite meet his eyes.
Wow, had I invited that? I didn’t think so. I didn’t make a habit of kissing just anybody. Though Will had attempted a similar move yesterday—when Mark had walked in on us.
Maybe Will was just a bit more forward than I was used to in a man.
“I’ll see you tonight then,” he said huskily.
I nodded and scooted away quickly.
Should I tell Mark?