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The mention of Carter Wainwright always conjured painful memories. Even Sam’s promotion to detective—a day she had thought would be the happiest of her life—had been tainted by her department’s Public Enemy No. 1. The killer cult leader had been unstoppable, his undeniable charisma luring lost souls, even at least one within her own department, to his sadistic cause. She wondered if there could be others still looking out for him, keeping hidden in shadow the most despicable and successful murderer her city, and maybe all of the country, had ever seen.
Headlines had compared him to Ted Bundy and the Zodiac Killer, but Wainwright was more like David Koresh or Jim Jones blended with Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and topped off with a healthy helping of Jeffrey Dahmer. His face had been everywhere—on television, in newspapers, and in police files in more than a dozen states—yet he’d changed it like a chameleon. He’d popped up here and there to spread terror across North America with alterations to his appearance each time, like lighter skin pigmentation or a smaller nose. Born to a Liberian minister and an Irish missionary, Wainwright had originally looked as though he hailed from one of the Mediterranean countries. Back when Sam had followed his killing spree, he was like a slightly darker version of a young Fred Rogers right down to the cardigan sweater, except nobody wanted to be his neighbor. She’d never actually crossed paths with the monster herself.
A car honked behind her, and she looked up from her dashboard to see the light had turned green. She crawled into the intersection and hit her left turn signal, which prompted another honk and an angry shout from the car squeezing by on her right. As she waited for a break in the oncoming traffic to complete her turn, Sam’s eyes blurred. She inhaled through her nostrils, steeling herself against the burgeoning grief as she remembered her mentor and friend.
While Wainwright’s killing spree ran rampant through Bristol County, his primary opposition had been two Fall River detectives and partners, Bruce Marklin and Jocelyn Beaudette. Not long after, Special Agent Frank Spinney and the FBI had joined the fray. Wainwright came out way ahead in the war that had ensued, killing two of his adversaries and the career of the third.
Yeah, Wainwright had eventually killed Bruce, but he’d done so spiritually a few years earlier when he’d killed Bruce’s partner. Jocelyn’s death had meant Sam making detective. She cringed at the bitter irony. Jocelyn had been the one who’d recommended her for promotion.
After all these years, Sam could still see Bruce’s face when he’d called her into his office.
***
“SHUT THE DOOR.” DETECTIVE Bruce Marklin didn’t look up at Sam as he spoke. His office, and Sam bet his clothes and breath, reeked of alcohol and cigarette smoke. His wrinkled shirt and bent collar were uneven as though he’d missed a button. One sleeve was rolled up to his elbow, and a light-brown stain flaked off the fabric. The sports coat and loafers that completed his typical California-casual look lay in a heap in the corner. His jet-black hair, usually slicked back, looked matted like the fur of a stray dog. The man looked like a bum.
“Take a seat.” As he stared at Sam, his eyes flashed with that steel glint that unnerved so many of her fellow officers, a flicker of the intellect that should have made him a neurosurgeon or quantum physicist or even president, anything other than an underpaid cop in a city full of crime and criminals.
But Sam would not be shaken, having stood her ground with many men both on and off the force, figuring what was one more. She kept her gaze even as she sat, crossed her legs, then folded her hands on her lap, as confident in her blues as any officer had a right to be. After a moment, Detective Marklin cleared his throat and flipped through a file on the desk in front of him. In that moment, Sam saw just how broken Jocelyn’s death had left him as he shriveled into the old man he’d become.
Her superior officer’s gaze diverted, Sam took the opportunity to acquaint herself better with her surroundings. She’d never been in the office before and was surprised to see that, for a man so anal in his police work, his base of operations was as disheveled as he’d become. Files in manila folders and storage boxes filled the corners, papers jutting out of them as if haphazardly thrown together. His Harvard diploma hung crooked on the wall, its glass frame cracked. An unwrapped grinder sat on his desk, though it didn’t appear to have been touched, its roast beef shimmering with that on-the-verge-of-rotting rainbow hue.
“I suppose you know why I’ve called you in here,” the detective said, flapping a hand as if her mere presence was an annoyance. He didn’t bother to look up from the file.
“I wouldn’t make a very good detective if I didn’t,” Sam answered with a smile, then fearing that came off as glib, added, “sir.”
Detective Marklin did look up then, eyebrow raised. He stared at Sam as if he were looking into her, searching for whether she was made of muscle and bone, grit and smarts, or just a whole lot of stuffing with window dressing. He grunted. “Well, I guess we’ll see about that soon enough, Reilly. You’ve had twice as many arrests as the average officer out there, and I have no doubt you’ve made the masculinity shrivel out of the balls of more than a few of them. But being a detective takes more than nabbing purse-snatchers and breaking up bar fights.”
“I play nice with—”
“Save it, Reilly. I’m submitting the paperwork for your promotion. The chief will, of course, have the final say. And lest you think otherwise, I’m not doing because of your record, your gender, or any other reason that might be going through that young, untested brain of yours.”
He leaned forward, a vein in his forehead pulsating. A steely gaze had returned to his eyes, this time with a glimmer that almost looked maniacal, and he wasn’t backing down. “So, let me make this abundantly clear to you, Reilly... Sam, is it?”
“It’s Samanth—”
“It’s whatever I deem appropriate to call you, if you want to work homicides.” He slammed his palms against the desk. “This is my turf, and we do things my way, which means you do what I say when I tell you to do it.” He sat back in his chair, his boil dying down to a simmer. “How’s that work for you?”
Sam sat up straight and didn’t hesitate. “Works perfectly, sir.”
“You’ve shown great aptitude and probably deserve to make detective, but you weren’t my first choice or even my second. Metcalf and Rogers both have seniority. A dozen others understand precinct politics better than you do. But you don’t go in for that sort of thing, do you, Reilly?”
“I—”
“It was a rhetorical question.” He fixed his terrible glare on her, his mouth set into a scowl. “The truth of the matter is this—I do not want another partner.” He tapped his finger against the desk to emphasize each word. “I’m only recommending you for two reasons. One, Jocelyn—” Detective Marklin’s voice broke on his former partner’s name. He swallowed then cleared his throat. “Detective Beaudette would have wanted me to. She saw potential in you. Me, though, I think you’re an arrogant SOB, kind of like that fucking Fed you’ve probably seen taking up our precinct space with his holier-than-thou attitude.” He muttered something Sam barely caught, “A whole lot of good he’s been.”
She kept her face expressionless even as she considered how many officers in the precinct thought Detective Marklin was an arrogant SOB. Figuring even a modest defense of her character might come off as too proud and offer affirmation to his opinion, she clamped her mouth shut.
“To boot, you’ve got a chip on your shoulder as big as the Rock of Gibraltar. Think the whole damn world owes you something. Well, the world doesn’t owe you or me or any one of us a damn thing.” His eyes glazed over, and he looked past Sam. “Nah. We want something, we’ve got to do what it takes to get it.”
The room fell silent. Sam shifted in her seat, her confidence wavering just a little as she tried to figure out the point of his tirade and how she was meant to respond to it. Deciding no response was probably the best response, she drove the conversation back to its genesis. “And the other thing?”
“Huh?”
“You said you were promoting me for two reasons.”
Detective Marklin glanced over her shoulder at the door, then leaned over his desk but without any of the hostility he’d shown earlier. “Yes. Yes, I did.” He puckered his lips and steepled his fingers like some B-movie criminal mastermind. Apparently catching her eyes on his hands, he cracked his knuckles one at a time before interlocking his fingers.
“We don’t,” he started, then scratched his chin and stared at the ceiling as if the words he wanted to say might be teleprompted up there. “To hell with it.” He sighed. “I don’t take kindly to cop killers, but especially not to one that murdered the best and brightest of us and kidnapped her little boy.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead before offering her the most empty, deadpan look she’d ever seen on anyone living. “I have every intention of bringing in her murderer or taking him out by any means at my disposal, legal or otherwise. Any means necessary. Am I clear?”
Sam felt a slight twitch in her cheek and struggled to keep her poker face. Detective Marklin had always been one of the good guys, the by-the-book guys, the guy who officers went to when they wanted to ensure their actions would hold up in court. What he was saying didn’t comport with the little she knew of him or the lots she’d heard about him. Her own philosophy had been that procedures were well and fine in a textbook setting but flew in the face of common sense when they blocked an officer from executing justice. Rules weren’t only meant to be broken but shitcanned entirely when it meant putting some piece of crap rapist or murderer behind bars where he belonged. She smoothed out her pants, nodded once, then said, “Crystal.”
Detective Marklin’s gaze narrowed. “Given your arrest record, I trust that won’t be a problem?”
Sam did her best not to smile. “No problem at all, sir.”
“Good.” Detective Marklin stood. “Congratulations on your promotion, detective. You’ll be in Major Crimes, but we’ll start you on vice, since with that Billings cocaine bust last month, you’ve already shown a nose for it. No pun intended. Still, I wonder if you have the stomach for it. Prove yourself there, and we’ll bump you up to homicide. Any questions?”
“I’m ready to prove my worth, sir, but...” Sam sighed, her body slumping and for the first time truly projecting something other than confidence. She hated herself for it.
Detective Marklin squinted. “What is it?” He glanced at his watch. “Spit it out.”
“Won’t the men out there see my promotion that way, even if it’s not the real reason? That I was promoted to replace a woman because I am one... sir?”
“Do you care?” Before she could answer, the detective rolled his eyes. “Look, do you want the promotion or not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then screw ‘em. You’re qualified, have taken all the necessary exams and training, and I can easily justify a bypass. Metcalf and Rogers, some of the others, might give you shit, but they suck, and you can tell them I said so.” He sneered. “For some reason, I get the feeling you’re no stranger to adversity. Suck it up.” He leaned forward onto his palms, instantly looking old and small again as if his body had just lost the fight against gravity. Sam could see he was doing his best to maintain his tough exterior, but its interior supports were crumbling.
Without a lash of anger or any trace of insincerity, he said, “Know this—you have some very big shoes to fill. Detective Beaudette was more than just a good detective. She was everything that was good and right about this department. And, she was my friend, which is why I don’t take her recommending you lightly. If she believed in you, then I believe in you.”
After a moment of awkward silence, Detective Marklin recovered his composure. He cleared his throat and offered his hand. “Congratulations again, Detective Reilly. Things will get a whole lot hairier for you from here on out.”
Sam shook his hand, noticing how bony and frail it looked before feeling the strength in its grip. “Thank you, sir.” She couldn’t stop herself from grinning anymore.
“Now, get out of my office. You’ll be notified and reassigned once everything’s official.” Detective Marklin returned to pouring over the files on his desk.
***
SAM HADN’T FAILED ANYONE. Well, no one except Bruce. He’d never let her close to the Wainwright case even as she got closer to him, to the point he’d become like a second father. He always said the Wainwright investigation had gone cold, that all leads had run dry, but Sam suspected he’d just been protecting her or maybe himself, afraid to lose another partner. Had she only been more compassionate back then, less concerned about her ambitions and more about the obvious fractured mind who’d promoted her and taken her under his wing, she might have been able to stop Bruce from going after Wainwright, broken him from his obsession.
“It’s not your fault,” she whispered as she pulled into the precinct, a tear running down her cheek. The dingy stone-gray building with a pale-green roof stood silent and gloomy. It reminded her of a mausoleum and added to her melancholy. It’s not your fault. Wainwright was his Moby Dick.
Enough of this. She parked her Toyota in her usual spot and got out. If she wanted to know about Wainwright, there was only one guy to talk to. Lately, he was always babbling about a mysterious killer club somehow connected to the Suarez gang. Could Wainwright be part of that club or connected to Hector Suarez? She walked through the front doors and through the precinct, grunting in response to the many greetings and welcome backs that dared disturb her thoughts. Not really his mo.
She hurried to her office, a desk sergeant blabbering something into her ear the whole way. So that’s what I’ll do. I’ll talk to him, get him on the line or go out to the Boston office to see him if I have to. If Wainwright is back and someone knows about it, that someone would be—
“Frank?” Sam gaped at the tall, graying federal agent standing in her office, flashing that cocksure smile that, once overconfident, had softened over the years.
“Sam!” Frank’s face brightened as he stepped closer, arms out for a hug. He reeled in his enthusiasm quickly, though, one arm falling and the other settling for a shake as the gap between them had nearly disintegrated. “Welcome back.”
The spark that had blossomed the last time they’d worked together, that undeniable chemistry, had not petered out. Though nothing had come of it, she could tell that he, too, felt it by the redness in his cheeks. Yet, neither of them had been brave enough to make the first move. She supposed it was the age difference holding him back. She couldn’t put a finger on her own reason—
“There’s someone from the FBI waiting for you in your office,” the desk sergeant blurted.
Sam snapped out of her stupor. “Yes, I can see that. Thank you.”
Slowly, the liveliness drained from Frank’s expression, leaving his cheeks sallow and mouth drawn. Any romantic inclinations he might have felt had once again been placed in check. “May I have a seat? We need to talk.”