When Kate finally collapsed into her bed late that night, her mind was spinning so much that she was afraid she wouldn’t sleep. So much was going on. They hadn’t been able to find the muscle car, but they had run the license plate and had a name, though it wouldn’t do them much good because it had been stolen early that morning out of a garage. She closed her eyes, willing everything to disappear.
*
Thursday
Before she knew it, she was sound asleep and waking up to the sound of birds outside her window. She lay in bed for a long moment, wishing the aches and pains in her body would go away before she moved and had them all jumping up and screaming at her. She needed a couple days of downtime, though she didn’t even know what she would do with them. But the thought of staying in bed and doing nothing appealed at the moment.
The cases were always hot and heavy. Though some would go on for months, some would show progress in two days and be solved in three. However, far too many of them were just a terrible twisted mess, like this one. She knew that time was running out for that window of closure, and, once a case lasted for months and months, it became one of those that you worked on the side because new cases were always coming in and taking priority.
She just never caught a break and could put them aside. Always another case and another one came after that, getting in the way. She shook her head and pushed herself into a sitting position, groaning as her body screamed at her. She needed to go for a workout, but several files at her office were calling her; plus she needed to check on her emails to figure out if anybody had found that car.
She groaned and pulled herself upright and, with a final push, stumbled toward the shower. Once in the hot water, she slowly felt her body loosen and her brain start to wake up. Coffee, that was next. Wrapped in a towel, she headed to the kitchen and put on a pot of joe, hoping to get a couple cups down before her phone erupted. She got dressed, then came back out, snagged her first cup of coffee.
She headed for the couch to enjoy the hot brew. She laid the cup down gently and then basically curled up in the corner and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to check her phone. She didn’t want to check the news; she just wanted a moment to recuperate. When her phone buzzed with a text, she just knew it was Simon. She snagged her phone and looked to see a heart, followed by a couple more messages.
Hi.
Good morning.
She smiled and replied. Good morning. Any more nightmares?
When there was no response right away, she felt bad, yet, at the same time, not bad enough. Then a message came in.
Yeah. A bad one last night.
She hit Talk, and, when he answered the phone, she asked, “The same one?”
“Yeah,” he noted. “Except the scream is silent now.”
“Wasn’t it before?”
“Yes, but it’s different.”
She frowned at that, wondering how could it be different. “If you say so,” she muttered. And then yawned.
“Are you just up?”
“I’m tired, worn out, and need a rest.”
“And I’m sure you’ll get it,” he noted.
“Not until I finish this damn case,” she muttered.
“And how close is it? Was interviewing the kid of any value?”
“Well, I hope so, but we still have things to sort out.”
“Good enough,” he replied. “I’m heading out in a few minutes.”
“Off to buy the world?”
He laughed. “Nope, only a couple more buildings.” Then he disconnected their call.
She smiled as she sipped away at her coffee. She needed to check the traffic cams to see if that muscle car showed up anywhere and to figure out why it had located her and was following them. She was hoping that maybe they could pin it on the garage where Rick worked, if somebody had followed him home or something. There was a slight chance that whoever was in that muscle car wasn’t after Rick but was after her or even Simon. She had to admit something about Simon probably pissed people off fairly often, but then money and power had a way of doing that. Simon was very understated, but the wealth and the in-charge attitude were definitely there.
The fact that she saw a more vulnerable side of him made him more human to her, but she knew he hated it. Of course he did. From his perspective, it made him seem weaker. To her, the opposite was true, and it just made him seem stronger. Because anybody who could survive all the shit that he went through on a regular basis was nothing short of a superhero.
Finally she grabbed her holster, shoved the gun into it, grabbed her jacket, and headed out.
She hadn’t had quite enough coffee for her day but would grab some as soon as she got in to the station. She’d driven the kid home last night. His mom had opened the door with tears in her eyes, so happy to see him. Kate had promised to get him home, and he had been a help. It’s just that it wasn’t enough for her to do anything with yet.
They still needed to ask a ton more questions, and the problem with asking questions was not everybody wanted to give you the right answers. As a matter of fact, if they could get away with giving you something that would appease you and get you out of their hair, it was good enough for them. As she walked into her office, the sergeant called out to her. She detoured and headed his way.
He took one look and said, “Sounds like you need coffee first.”
“Sounds like or looks like?” she muttered.
He grinned. “Maybe both.”
She nodded. “Yeah, probably both.”
“Go get coffee and then come on back in.”
She nodded, walked into the station area, grabbed a coffee, and headed back toward Colby’s office. She plunked onto a chair and asked, “What’s up?”
“Does something have to be up?”
She shrugged. “Well, I haven’t done anything wrong that I know of, so I’m not sure why I’m here.”
“I just wanted an update,” he replied, “and to make sure we don’t have anybody doing any maverick moves.”
“No time for maverick moves,” she muttered. “Too busy chasing bad guys.”
He smiled. “I’ve noticed and appreciate it.”
She rotated her neck slowly. “Thanks, but just so many of them are out there.”
He gave her a sharp look. “Is it getting you down?”
“Nah, it’s just frustrating. We put two away, and four more come out of the woodwork.”
He nodded. “I get it. Believe me. I do. It’s just a matter of plugging away, while making sure that you find balance in your life.”
“Balance? What’s that?” she quipped.
He looked up at her. “You’ve also hit some pretty hard and ugly cases recently. Do you need to talk to somebody about it?”
She looked at him in horror. “Hell no.”
He laughed. “I’m not kidding.”
“I know. That’s why I’m so shocked,” she explained. “Because really it’s a hell no. I don’t need to talk to anybody.”
He frowned and looked as if he would argue the point but then shrugged. “Just make sure I don’t see any signs of it getting to you.”
“If it doesn’t get to me,” she replied gently, “I’m in the wrong business.” And, with that, she got up and started out the door.
“That’s a good one-liner,” he noted, “but I mean it. You need to have a life outside of this work.”
She looked at him. “I have a life.”
“So maybe you need to make that more important in your world,” he suggested. “I can’t have you wearing down.”
“I won’t wear down,” she argued. “I do need to take more breaks, and I need to get out a bit more. I was thinking about that last night. But it’s also the nature of the job—the hours we keep, the work we do, and the cases we deal with. The victims, their families, the people who have been incarcerated, and the ones who were incarcerated who didn’t need to be.”
“You’re talking about Rick Lord?”
She nodded. “I don’t think he did the murder that he did the time for.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time an innocent man was convicted,” Colby added, “but I sure hope you’re wrong.”
“I do too. The problem is, if he didn’t do it, who did? Because I don’t even have a lead on that yet.”
“If you believe it,” he noted, “then this one should be enough to help you break the other case apart.”
“Should be, yes, and being shot at yesterday definitely adds to its intrigue.”
“I heard about that,” he stated. “I’m glad nobody was hurt. What the hell was Simon doing in the car with you?”
“He’d been out with me,” she replied, waving a dismissive hand. “We were getting the oil in my car changed. And I recognized the kid at the service station. He was the one handling the oil.”
“And you just happened to be there, right?”
She gave him a flat look. “Of course. I’d never involve a civilian in a case like that.”
He groaned. “I’m not a fool, you know?”
“I know you’re not, sir,” she said in a bright tone. And, with that, she walked out of his office. She could feel his eyes boring into her back as she left. He was a good man and cared about his people, and that mattered. There was always a need for somebody to be at the helm, somebody to steer the ship in the right direction and to bring some order to the chaos because, God knows, it had to be like herding cats. They were all off, immersed in their own projects, their own methodologies, their own ways of solving all these problems. And it didn’t help that each of them was a bit of a maverick, but it came with the territory. It should be part of the job description really.
She headed back to her desk, and she saw Rodney there already.
He looked up, grinned, and said, “You look like shit.”
She rolled her eyes. “One of these days you’ll say I look like a million bucks.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he teased, chuckling. “There’ll have to be a hell of an improvement before that happens.”
She snagged a pen on the desk and threw it at him.
He laughed. “So, with all that excitement yesterday, did you end up with anything that makes you think we’ve got some answers here?”
“Nope,” she replied. “Just one million more questions that we have to find the answers for. To start with, who the hell knew that the parents would be away and that the kid would be off on the streets with his little thug friends?”
Rodney thought for a moment. “Well, anybody who watched the house, I guess. Or somebody who worked with the dad, who might have known they were taking off for the holiday. Any of the neighbors might have known. The parents probably warned them about it and asked them to keep an eye on the place or something.”
“You know what? That’s a good thought.” She sat here, thinking about it. “It takes a pretty shitty person to go after your neighbor’s daughter though.”
“Honestly it just takes somebody who doesn’t give a shit,” Rodney replied. “Not necessarily a shitty person. They just do what they want to do, and they don’t care. This was probably an opportunity they couldn’t let slide.”
She nodded. “So I still want to do a walkthrough of that crime scene in the original house though. We didn’t get that done yet.” She frowned and reached for her phone, but it rang beneath her fingers. When she answered, it was the woman from the building development corporation.
The receptionist said, “I spoke to the boss, and he’s given permission for you to go into the house.”
She flashed a smile over at Rodney. “Good, we’ll be there in the next twenty minutes.”
“How long do you think you need?” the woman asked hesitantly.
“I don’t know,” Kate replied. “I’ll let you know after I’ve been there.” She hung up, bolted to her feet with more energy than she’d had all morning, and told Rodney, “We got the go-ahead to get into the house.”
He looked at her in surprise, slowly getting to his feet. “Seriously?”
She nodded. “Yeah, maybe this will be the break we’re looking for.”
As they walked out, he looked over at her. “Are you and Simon doing okay?”
She nodded, with a shrug. “Sure, why not?”
He frowned. “That’s hardly a good answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
“It’s just hard on relationships—this business, I mean.”
“Is everybody out to warn me to get some balance in my life today?” she snapped.
He looked at her in surprise.
She shook her head. “The sergeant was just on my case about it.”
“Which also means that he’s seen it too.”
“Seen what?” she asked, glaring at him.
“That.”
She slowly sighed. “Look. I’m fine. Simon and I are fine. But this case? It’s getting to me.”
“There’ll always be a case,” he reminded her.
“I know,” she acknowledged.
“But if you have plans to spend a good amount of time in this profession, then you have to pace yourself.”
“I know. I know.” She slowly rotated her head, as they headed out to the parking lot. “I’m just tired today. Listening to Rick talk last night, it—” Her voice broke off.
“Yeah, it’s tough, but don’t be so sympathetic that he fools you.”
“No,” she noted. “I don’t think that’s the case here, but we do need to figure out what happened. What pisses me off is that, by confessing, he completely derailed the original investigation. Nobody looked anywhere else because they already had the right guy. Now we look around, and we see that maybe we don’t have the right guy, and we have literally nothing to go on because so many years have passed.”
“But it’s not all lost,” Rodney stated. “We’re still waiting on forensic evidence on this latest case.”
“Great,” she muttered. “They didn’t find anything last time, so let’s hope they find something this time. But you know what? I wouldn’t put it past them to actually have evidence there that puts this kid in the right place.”
He looked over at her. “But what would his motivation be now, some fifteen years later?”
“I did talk to him about that,” Kate noted. “He wasn’t supposed to be released until this last week. So, in theory, if somebody was just doing the math, they would assume that he was just now out. But anybody who watches the news or TV would know that a lot of these guys get out early. But again, maybe our murderer didn’t know about Rick’s early release. Maybe the killer didn’t look. Maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe that was the timeline that he gave himself permission for, and, when the time was up, he went out and took another life because he wanted to.”
“Imagine”—Rodney shook his head—“just doing something like that because you felt like it.”
“There has to be a motivation for it, and that’s what I don’t get.”
“Well, it seems to be tied up with the kid somehow,” Rodney suggested.
“We’ll find out soon enough. But, if the evidence comes in, pointing to him, it won’t be a slam dunk in my mind that he’s the culprit.”
“Yet you’ll find a lot of other people thinking that it is a slam dunk.”
She nodded. “Oh, I know. It’ll just add to the pressure.”
“Of course,” he agreed, “but that’s what we do, isn’t it?”
She smiled and asked, “You driving?”
“Hell yes, I’m driving,” he replied. “Last time you drove, you got shot at.”
*
Simon walked through the building, studying the repairs that had been done. No flooring was down yet, but drywall had started in multiple rooms. At least they had some sheets up, though nobody had started taping yet, but it would get done before long. He’d had several truckloads of drywall delivered; the forklifts were moving materials up and down the various floors, and the crane was out there putting stuff on the different balconies to move into each of the rooms. Everything scheduled to make it fast and efficient.
But, at the same time, the building had almost a lonely feeling to it. He stepped out on one of the balconies and looked down. It was a beautiful area that had a view of the harbor, and that was worth a lot. In this city it was worth so much more than you would expect, since everybody was after that golden slice of view. He could make a ton of money off this place. Well, at least he could, if things would ever stop going wrong.
At the moment every change order was killing him with upcharges, and there had been too many to count. He headed down to the next floor and walked around, checking on the work being done. His foreman would be here any moment, but, in the meantime, Simon wanted to see for himself. It seemed like the minute he gave over control to somebody else, shit went wrong. He had learned that the hard way and had no intention of ever doing it again.
He stepped into one room and looked around, and the scream caught him in the back of the neck, almost sending him flying forward. It was such a strong sharp noise in his head that it was almost visceral, sending him tumbling into the wall. He couldn’t even cry out in that moment, his body bent over, warding off a blow coming at him from an unexpected source.
And yet, as he rolled and twisted, his martial arts training kicked in, trying to save him from this hidden threat, even though he saw nothing here. But his brain was slow to compute it and didn’t want to acknowledge there was no physical threat because it absolutely knew something was wrong. He lay on the ground, the bare plywood under his back, as he stared up at the ceiling, where wiring was hanging at all angles, waiting for the electricians, who were still working their way around through the building.
He took one slow deep breath.
“I don’t know where the hell you are,” he said out loud, “but you sure as hell need to be found before this kills me.”
The words hit him wrong immediately because it wasn’t his life hanging in the balance; it was hers. He closed his eyes and whispered quietly, “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”
He listened for any sound that would tell him something, but there was always just this scream and nothing else. He thought he heard a noise in the background, something that would jolt him. And then he swore.
He heard a hammer. He sat up slowly, intent on the noise that he could hear, yet the hammer sound seemed to be distant too. He frowned at that, wondering where it could be coming from. It could be at any construction site, and then there were voices.
The woman appeared to be in some zombie zone, probably knocked out from the pain. Another voice in the background spoke, but Simon couldn’t hear. It was as if she was just, well, … like she was not just unconscious but unconscious from the pain. “Tell me something,” he whispered, “anything. I just want to help.”
He heard a shout from down below. Groaning, he pulled himself up to his feet and brushed himself off, just as his foreman stepped around the corner, looking at him quizzically.
“I didn’t know you were here.”
“Just came to check out some of the work,” he noted. “Then I got struck with a really ugly headache.”
“Man, you and those headaches lately.”
“I know, right? They’re such a bitch.” He shook his head gently and tried to refocus.
His foreman turned and noted, “Listen. I’m supposed to be meeting a couple guys and dealing with a few things. If it’s all right, can we meet up in what ten minutes or so, maybe fifteen?”
“Make it fifteen,” Simon replied. “I’ll do a walk around.”
When the foreman disappeared, Simon took another deep, slow breath. “Come on. Talk to me,” he whispered. “I’m almost out of time here. I’ll be surrounded by people, and then I can’t talk at all.”
Even as he said it, he winced, since it wasn’t like she had control of this time frame so he could work with it better. She had whatever moments of living she could actually survive. But he could do absolutely nothing to push that timetable. He took another deep breath and nudged her. “Come on. Talk to me.”
But, when she opened her mouth, it was a scream, a wrenching scream, and, through her eyes, he saw flashes of whatever reality was going on around her, as something snapped at her ankle. And then she blacked out.
He opened his eyes, then quickly sent Kate a message.
He is torturing her again. Her ankle was just broken for fun.