Dutch took out his phone and made a call. While he was talking to whoever his source was, I moved back to the front door, carefully sidestepping the debris again. I stopped in the foyer and studied the scene. The overturned side table kept pulling my attention, and I walked to the front door and studied it, finding it covered in black fingerprint powder. Outside, the patrol officer looked up at me as I played with the door and I nodded at him before imagining Donna opening the door and seeing someone there who surprised her, then turning quickly around and being hit or pushed from behind, which sent her crashing into the table. No. That wasn’t right. I stood there with my free arm outstretched and my eyes closed and really felt the energy in that hallway. I had a sudden sharp buzzing sensation in my lower back, and my legs went weak, forcing me to lean heavily on my cane. The sensation was identical to the one I’d felt at Kendra’s, but now I had a much clearer impression of what’d happened.
My eyes snapped open and I suddenly realized how the two women had been overpowered so quickly. I couldn’t wait to tell Dutch, but then something else that’d been niggling around in my mind bubbled to the surface. Something about this crime scene bugged me, and it was that Donna knew that the guy who killed Kendra was dangerous, so why’d she open the door to him?
“Hey,” said Dutch from right behind me, and I startled, letting out a squeal of surprise. The beat cop looked at me like I was a little weird, and, embarrassed, I rounded on Dutch.
“Dude! Don’t sneak up on the cripple!”
“Sorry,” he said, pointing to his feet. “It’s the booties. They squash your footsteps. What’d you pick up?”
“I think Donna and Kendra were both Tased,” I said, moving to the door again.
“Tased?”
“Yeah,” I said, distracted as I leaned forward to look through the peephole. “They were hit with a Taser from behind directly in their lower backs, and it rendered them almost completely helpless, at least for as long as it took their killer to secure them.”
I couldn’t see a thing out the peephole. It was blurry, like something was smudging the view.
“Makes sense,” my fiancé said. “Didn’t you know that if you hit someone in the lower back with a stun gun it’ll paralyze them for at least ten to fifteen minutes?”
I stepped back to open the door again. “No, Sherlock, I didn’t know that.” Sometimes it irritated me that Dutch was so friggin’ smart about all things crime fighting.
As I looked at the peephole on the outside of the door, I could see something goopy covering it. I squinted and motioned to Dutch. “Hey,” I said. “Come here.”
He did and I pointed to the goop. “Looks like Vaseline,” he said.
“Now look through the peephole.”
He did. “Huh. This guy’s smart. If he’d covered the peephole completely, King probably would’ve thought twice about opening the door, but by making it only look blurry, he knew her curiosity would get the better of her and she’d open up to take a look.”
“He’s freaky smart, this guy,” I muttered. “Cunning even.”
Dutch called out to one of the crime scene techs still in the living room, and when she poked her head out to see what was up, he pointed to the door. “Did you guys tag the peephole?”
She squinted at it. “No. Why?”
“You’ll want to take a swab and call the lead detective,” he said. “It’s covered in Vaseline.”
With that, he bent down, pulled off the booties, helped me with mine, then took my hand and led me out of the house. “We’ll need to go now before they start asking why the FBI is taking such an interest,” he whispered as he walked us straight to the car.
“Good thinking,” I said. “By the way, who’ve you been getting all your info from?”
“One of the junior detectives in homicide,” Dutch said. “The kid’s first day was the day Kendra went missing. I just told him that if he wanted to make a good impression, he needed to be out here when the cadaver dogs arrived, and I also told him about the dirty shovel and that I saw a faint trail, like something had been dragged through the woods from the left side of the yard.”
I gave Dutch a pat on the arm. “You’re pretty smart yourself, cowboy. How’d you meet this junior detective, anyway?”
“At the gym. The kid’s bright and eventually wants to switch to the FBI. I’m giving him a little advice about how to play it.”
“Aw! You’ve got a little protégé!”
“Quit it,” Dutch said, but he was grinning all the same.
I asked Dutch to stop by Candice’s on our way home, but he got a call from the office that he needed to go in, so he dropped me at the house and I had to drive over myself. Brice answered the door, and he looked worse for wear too. “How is she?” I asked when he let me in.
“Still sleeping.” He then eyed me in that way that suggested he was about to ask me a favor.
“Yes,” I said to him.
That took him aback. “I haven’t asked you anything yet.”
“I’m making it easy for you,” I told him, pointing to the door. “Go to the office, Brice. I’ll stay with her.”
He kissed me on the cheek and promised to call in a few hours to see how Candice was doing.
I peeked into her room and saw that she was sleeping, but she still looked awful. While I waited for her to wake up, I picked up the living room and cleaned the dishes in the sink. Candice was a neat freak, and Brice was too, which meant the unusual clutter in their condo was a sign of how sick Candice was and how stressed-out Brice was.
After that, I sat on the couch and channel surfed but soon got bored. Seeing Candice’s cell phone gave me an idea. I opened her recording app and within about ten minutes I’d e-mailed myself all the recordings from all of the interviews we’d done. I knew that Candice would be out of the investigation business for at least the next few days, and while I had nothing going on at the office, I wanted to devote all my time to figuring out who’d killed Kendra and Donna.
As if on cue, my own phone rang, and Dutch said that he’d just gotten a call from his little buddy at homicide. They’d found a woman’s badly decomposed body in the woods behind Donna’s house. “The remains are too old to be King’s,” he said.
“That’s because they’re Kendra’s,” I told him. “Have they figured out a COD?”
“Not yet,” he told me. “Like I said, the body’s in pretty rough shape. All they can tell for sure is that it’s a naked female with brown hair.”
I found it hard to swallow after that. “Okay, well, when they find King’s body, will you call me?”
“Will do.”
My radar binged. “I think she’s a bit farther back than Kendra. They should let the dogs keep looking in the same area but deeper into the woods.”
“I’ll tell him,” Dutch promised. “One thing that bugs me, though, dollface—if the killer buried King in the woods behind her house, why’d he take her car?”
“He’s trying to establish a pattern,” I said. “He’s creating reasonable doubt all over the place. Unless the police find a definitive connection between Kendra and Donna, they may start to think there’s some local Decker Lake serial killer out there randomly selecting women to attack in their homes.”
“I told my homicide buddy about your theory that they needed to check King’s clients.”
“What’d he say?”
“He says that since that’s probably gonna require a lot of sifting through paperwork that it’ll likely fall to him anyway, so he’s going to request the assignment as soon as he gets back to the station. The tricky thing is getting King’s office to give up the records.”
“Why would that be tricky?” I asked.
“Because privilege may still apply. If King had a partner at her firm, I doubt we’ll get the files released without a court order, and that could take time.”
“Well, that sucks,” I grumbled.
“Yeah, but you’re still working the case, so it ain’t all bad.”
My man. So good to me!
“Any closer to figuring out which of your suspects it is?” he asked next.
I sat back on the couch and sighed. “No. But I just sent myself all the interview tapes we’ve done on this case. Maybe going back through them will help me figure out a clue that’ll point me in the right direction.”
Dutch switched topics then. “How’s your partner in crime?”
“Resting comfortably. How’re you two holding up?”
Dutch lowered his voice to barely a whisper. “I’m worried about Brice. The guy looks dead on his feet.”
“Yeah, well, it shocks me that the two of you are still standing,” I told him. “Is there any way you guys can get a little time off for good behavior?”
“It’s got to be Gaston’s idea, cupcake, and he’s so determined to keep this case out of the hands of Homeland Security that he’ll drive us into the ground if he has to.”
I frowned. Why was Gaston so territorial suddenly? “Well, at least make sure you’re eating when you’re supposed to, okay? No more skipping meals and showing up at home thirsty for a bottle of scotch.”
“Still want to be my bartender?” he asked me smoothly.
“I just want you home, cowboy. I really miss you.”
“This can’t last forever,” he promised. “Listen, maybe I can get off on time tonight and you and me can order in and watch a movie or something together. How’s that sound?”
“Pretty damn good,” I told him.
I could almost hear the grin in Dutch’s voice when he said, “I’m gonna let that quarter to the swear jar go, Edgar, just ’cause I love you.”
After I hung up with Dutch, I listened to some of the interviews again, writing notes as I went through the recordings, trying to put this big puzzle together. I still didn’t have a good feel for the killer, and that nagging feeling that I was missing something big wouldn’t leave me.
Candice slept through the entire afternoon, and only when it started to get dark outside did I hear her call out weakly for Brice.
I went to her room armed with a glass of Gatorade, knowing she’d probably been unable to eat or drink anything since getting home from the hospital about ten hours earlier. “How ya doin’, sweetie?” I asked when I sat on her bed.
“Great,” she replied, her voice hoarse and croaky. “Never better.”
I offered her the Gatorade but she made a face and shook her head. “Not yet.”
I smoothed her hair away from her eyes. “Man. You look bad, Cassidy.”
She gave me a faint smile. “What’d you do all day?”
“Hung out here while Brice went to work.”
Candice sank back against her pillows. “Will you stay until he gets home?”
“Duh,” I said, stroking her tangled hair away from her eyes. The poor thing!
Candice closed her lids tiredly. “Thanks, Sundance. I owe you.”
I waited until she was asleep again. I really wanted to tell her about Donna King, but I refused to talk shop when she was so sick.
Dutch called around six to tell me that he and Brice were calling it a night and Brice would be home in about ten minutes. I waited for him to arrive before leaving, and when he came through the door, I was brought up short. He looked dead on his feet. “How is she?” he asked.
“Probably in better shape than you.”
“I’m fine,” he said stubbornly, heading to the bedroom to see his fiancée for himself. He was back in a minute, tugging at his tie. “Thanks, Abby,” he said dully. “I’ve got it from here.”
I raised a skeptical eyebrow, glanced at the clock, then pointed to the couch. “Sit,” I ordered before turning to the kitchen, where I rooted around in the fridge and hauled out a beer and the makings for a sandwich. After taking the beer to Brice, I whipped together two roast beef sandwiches with all the toppings, a side of chips, and another beer—as gourmet a meal as I can make without setting the house on fire. I took the fixings over to Brice, who by now was sitting on the couch staring numbly at the TV. “Eat,” I told him after setting down the sandwiches and beer. I then waited until he actually took a bite before I headed out the door.
When I got home, I found Dutch in much the same condition as his boss. He too was staring numbly at the TV, but he’d managed to find his own beer. I moved right to our kitchen, fed the dogs, and threw together a dinner composed of leftover meatloaf and mashed potatoes. I almost opened a can of corn and heated that up, but all the meals I’d “cooked” that day had turned out well, so why push my luck?
After I set down Dutch’s dinner in front of him, he pulled his attention from the TV long enough to thank me, but he didn’t eat much and by eight o’clock he was snoring on my shoulder. So much for our movie and cuddle time.
I eased Dutch’s head onto a pillow, threw an afghan over him, and went into the study to make a call. “Gaston,” I heard on the other end of the line.
“It’s Abby.”
“Abigail,” he said warmly, but still I could hear the fatigue in his voice too. “What can I do for you?”
I bit my lip, hesitating before I spoke because I knew, deep in my gut, that this was probably gonna cost me. “You’re killing my fiancé and you’re killing Brice too.”
Gaston was silent for so long, I almost thought he’d hung up. “This is a difficult case, Abigail, one I asked you to help us resolve, but I was told you wanted nothing to do with it.”
And there it was. The unspoken ultimatum. Gaston wanted my help, and if he didn’t get it, he’d work Brice and Dutch down to two tired nubs. But I could be tricky too, if I wanted. “Sir, there’s a reason I was adamant about opting out of the investigation.”
“And what reason is that?”
“Because I could see that my involvement was going to somehow cause the case to become muddled. I looked into the ether and I saw you and your team resolving this case successfully, and that you were going to do that without me at your side. It’s important for me in times like that to honor what I can see in the ether, and not risk leading you in the wrong direction.”
Again the silence stretched out between us while Gaston considered his next move. “You won’t help us even identify if this bombing was an isolated incident or the beginnings of something far more sinister?”
Dammit. (Okay, so swearing probably counted here. Put me down for a quarter.) Gaston was feeling around for my input, and I had no idea how much I could give him without mucking it up. But I knew I needed to give him something or he’d continue to push Dutch and Brice to the breaking point. “There will be more,” I said, closing my eyes against the vision of that horrible scene at the mall in College Station from the video he’d shown me. “I know you’re thinking that this could have been a homegrown terrorist cell at work, but, sir, it doesn’t feel like that’s the case, and you’ll need to keep digging. Stop getting distracted by the theory that this was the work of a terrorist, and start focusing on the fact that someone is trying to make a very large statement here.”
“Where do we look?” he asked me, and I seriously wanted to yell at him. The more I looked into this, the more dangerous it became that I’d say something that would delay or throw off the investigation in some way.
“I can’t answer that, sir,” I told him. “And please don’t ask me anything more about it. I promise you that you and your team will be the ones to resolve the case, but I can’t be a part of it, and unless you give Brice and Dutch a little time off, you’re going to miss something big too.”
“Can you just tell me how long before we resolve it?” he asked.
I sighed. Gaston was always pushing. “A few weeks, sir. Two, maybe three at the most.”
Gaston was quiet again, and I crossed my fingers, hoping he’d give me what I wanted. “All right, Abigail,” he said at last.
“All right what, sir?”
“All right, you’ve won your fiancé and Agent Harrison some time off. Please let them know that they may take the we
ekend—but if something important comes up I reserve the right to call them in.”
“Got it. And thank you, sir. I really appreciate it.”
I didn’t know if Gaston was going to call Brice and tell him not to come in, but while I was cleaning up the dishes trying to decide whether to risk a call to tell him, my own phone pinged with an incoming text from Brice. It read:
Gaston just called. Thanks. I owe you one.
“Phew!” I said before going to wake up Dutch, tell him the good news, then get him upstairs to bed. That night he slept like a rock, and I sat up long into the wee hours wishing I could resolve at least one of the cases we were working on.
Chapter Fifteen
The next morning I had an early physical therapy appointment. I left the house without waking Dutch but called him on my way back home. He was just getting up after sleeping nearly fourteen straight hours. “How’d it go?” he asked when I told him where I’d been.
“It went great!” I said, feeling excited about the session for the first time in ages. “I actually took two whole steps without the cane!”
“That’s great, dollface!” he said. “You on your way home now?”
“I am, and I’m ready to spend the whole day with you! So tell me, what would you like to do today?”
When Dutch didn’t immediately reply, I tried to encourage him by suggesting we do something fun. “We should totally go out,” I said. “I mean, when was the last time you and I went on an actual date?”
“It has been a while…”
“It really has. So how about you pick something you really want to do with me today, and I get to pick something tomorrow?” Again Dutch seemed to hesitate, so I added, “Come on, cowboy! I’ll do anything you want, no questions or complaints. You pick and I’ll go along with it.” I had visions of a sports bar with a big plate of hot wings and ice-cold beer, or an action flick with a plate of hot wings and an ice-cold beer, or a bowling alley with a plate of hot wings and an ice-cold beer.
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