Men didn’t generally make me feel feminine or desired, partly because I could play the arrogant, hardened cop as well as any man. Better, because being a girl in a boy job, you needed to be tougher, more resilient, more everything, just to survive. But from the minute I met Gabriel Storm four months ago after he performed stitched up the first victim of the River City Rapist, he’d made me feel wanted and loved.
Which was completely ridiculous.
Except for the fact that we’d been having sex whenever we both had a night off.
Which was rare.
Except that he gave me a key to his condo.
Which I had never used.
Damn, I wanted to.
Business first. Then we could celebrate the victory when I locked Keller in jail.
“When can I talk to her?” I asked. “I brought pictures. She told me she saw him, if she can ID him, then I’ll get the warrant. You can witness her statement, then—”
“Lena, she’s dead.”
I shook my head. “No.” I said it emphatically, as if my denial would change the facts. “No!”
That’s when I saw the sheen of tears in Gabriel’s blood-shot eyes, the blood on his surgical gown, and the fatigue in his posture.
“I did everything I could.” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. I had been to brutal crime scenes. I spent my first two years as a detective in homicide, fighting for the dead; I’d lost victims who I thought would live. But I never took it personally.
Until today.
Gabriel was in the business of saving lives. I was in the business of justice. Yet I felt exactly what he felt.
What more could I have done?
“I should have known something was wrong when I first got on scene. I should have checked her myself—”
He ran his hands up and down my arms. “Don’t. Would ten minutes have helped? Twenty? I don’t know. The damage was to her liver. Most of the bleeding was internal. If it happened here in the hospital, I might have been able to save her. I don’t know.”
He was consoling me, when he was the one in pain. I squeezed his hands. I wasn’t a demonstrative lover. I didn’t like public displays of affection. Inside I’m a bit twisted and a little broken. My past—my choices, my mistakes, my regrets—had hardened me in ways I couldn’t verbalize. They were things I had never shared with anyone, because speaking them made them real. And sometimes, I wanted to believe in the fantasy.
Sometimes, I needed to believe I’d never been raped.
Or that I hadn’t showered after.
Or that I hadn’t reported the crime only to be disbelieved by campus police.
Yet here was this fabulous man, a lifesaver, noble and handsome and good, trying to make me feel better when he suffered as much as I did. What had I done to deserve Gabriel Storm? It must have been something good in a previous existence to have this anchor in my disastrous life.
Come back with a statement from the victim that Mr. Keller is the man who raped her, and I’ll give you your warrant.
Now my victim was dead, and the chance of a warrant nil. Is that why he’d stabbed her? Because he screwed up and let her see him?
All I could think about was losing my only witness. The woman who would nail Keller’s coffin shut. Rage washed through me so suddenly, so violently, I pulled my hands from Gabriel and slammed my fist into the wall. It hurt like hell, but not as much as the icy anger inside that a rapist—a killer—was untouchable.
Gabriel took my injured hand and kissed it, then pulled me away from the main corridor. I never allowed anyone to lead me anywhere, but I didn’t stop Gabriel. I don’t know if I could have. He opened the door of the stairwell and we stepped inside.
He kissed me before I could speak. His kiss was firm, commanding. My back was against the wall, and my hands were around his neck, and I didn’t think. I just kissed him back with the same urgency, the same greedy need to feel something good and right and wanted. Gabriel knew what I needed without me ever speaking a word.
But was it just this case? Maybe I was reading this all wrong. Cops dating nurses and doctors was an old cliché, but there was a fundamental truth in these relationships—violence, pain, suffering, healing, helping—we understood each other.
He stepped back, held my face. “What?”
“Nothing.” I didn’t want to lose this moment in time. I kissed him again, the physical desire cloaking the loss, and obscuring my raw emotions.
“I need you, Lena, but it’s not for sex.”
I raised an eyebrow flirtatiously, while my heart beat with the very real fear that he was going to distance himself from me. Who could blame him? “You mean you haven’t been having fun in bed?”
His eyes narrowed and he kissed me again, his body pressed firmly against mine, every muscle tight. He kissed my jawline, my neck, behind my ear, hot and cold chills running through my nerves until I wanted to get naked and wrap my legs around him.
He whispered in my ear, “I want your body, from the minute I saw you I lusted for you. But I need you. I don’t know how you do your job, every day, facing bastards like Keller. Fighting for victims like Ashley. I admire it. Your strength gives me strength to face the losses, to fight for my patients. To know that there’s someone in this world who understands what I face without me having to explain it. I look at you, Lena…” He stepped back and caught my eye. “I see an amazing, beautiful woman. I touch you…” He put his hand on my neck, behind my hair, his skin so soft but his touch firm. “I touch you and don’t want to let go.” He kissed me lightly. “I could make love to you every night and each time it would be fresh, passionate, freeing. You make me forget the misery of my job, and remind me of the joy.”
“Gabriel—” My voice sounded far away.
“My shift ends at six. You still have my key?”
“Yes. I don’t know when I’ll be done today—”
“Come over any time. But if you’re there by eight, I’ll have dinner for you.”
“Feed my body, feed my soul,” I said.
Over the intercom, a female voice paged Dr. Gabriel Storm. He tensed, stepped back, changing from passionate lover to compassionate doctor. I understood how quickly shields had to be put up—putting on the uniform or the white coat meant other people depended on us.
His eyes held mine. “I have to tell her family,” he said.
“I can—”
He shook his head. “You know who the rapist is. Why can’t you arrest him?” He didn’t say it as an accusation; doctors saw the dark side as well.
Except this case had been under my skin for four months, eating at me.
“He’s a murderer now,” I said. Would Healy be more lenient about the warrant if he knew the River City Rapist had killed? “And my only witness is dead.” I took a deep breath and wrestled my emotions back under control. “I’ll think of something.”
“I know you will.”
V.
When I was in college, pulling an all-nighter didn’t faze me. Now, at thirty-one, I was feeling the effects of no sleep, too much caffeine, and too little food. I grabbed a sandwich and pint of milk on my way back to the station. Joe should be done in court by now, and we needed to go back to the basics.
We had to be missing something, and I wanted to go through each case one by one, talk to Ashley’s friends and colleagues. I’d put in a call to her employer, who hosted the event at the Railroad Museum, asking for a copy of the guest list. It wasn’t on my desk when I walked in, so added a follow-up call to my growing list.
There were no messages about the case, which irritated me. I picked up the phone and called Simone Charles who ran the crime lab.
“I need something,” I said when she answered.
“Good afternoon, Detective Black,” Simone said.
I took a deep breath. “Please. Ashley Young is dead and I have a suspect but no probable cause. What do you have?”
“The morgue is rushing
the autopsy and I’m processing her clothing now.”
“What about the rape kit?”
“She went immediately into surgery. They’ll do it during the autopsy. I talked to Phineas myself. He understands what we’re facing.”
I stared straight ahead, seeing nothing but clouds of people leaving the courthouse on lunch break. Lawyers. Jurors. Defendants. The system working.
So often it failed.
Too often.
“Selena?” Simone said quietly.
“I’m here.”
“We’re all with you on this. You’re good, Selena. You’ll get him. The minute I find anything, I’ll call you.”
Did I sound so needy that I needed praise from my colleagues?
“Thanks. I appreciate it. And I’ll let you know if anything else pops.”
“I have one more thing—we printed Ashley’s phone that the bartender turned over. The only prints on it were the bartender’s.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“The only prints were the bartender’s—Ashley’s weren’t.”
My stomach fluttered in the way it did when I knew I had a key piece of evidence.
“Keller wiped the phone.”
“Someone wiped the phone,” Simone corrected.
I rolled my eyes. She might have to play that game, I didn’t. “That’s good. Thanks.”
I hung up and let out a long sigh. I hadn’t made a lot of friends on the job, so I appreciated the few I did have. Simone Charles was one of my favorite people, a dedicated criminologist with a sharp eye. And Phineas Ward, the lead supervisor at the morgue, was also a friend. Last case I had that ended up in the morgue was a rape victim who killed herself two weeks after the attack. A young college student learned her attacker was getting a pass by the D.A. because there wasn’t enough evidence to support her accusation. Both Phineas and I had gotten written up for bringing the suspect into the morgue to view the girl’s body. I forced her rapist to touch her cold, dead flesh. Told him how her roommate found her bleeding out in the bathtub, too late to save her.
Her death’s on you, asshole.
“You look like shit,” Joe said from behind.
I whirled around in my chair. “Don’t sneak up just to insult me,” I said. But Joe was right. I hadn’t been home since yesterday, and a quick splash of water from the bathroom sink was hardly a shower.
“I talked to Simone. So far, nada.”
“Did you talk to Ramirez?” Sergeant Juan Ramirez was our supervisor.
“No.” I shuffled papers around my desk.
“You’re avoiding his calls.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I waved my right hand, indicating the entire squad room. The corner sex crimes had was semi-private, with eight cubicles in a doorless office. Only six were used, and Joe and I were the only two in right now. No surprise there, considering how many cases we caught in any given week. “He can find me.” I frowned. “He’s going to pull the case now that it’s a homicide.”
“Homicide will let you work the case with them.”
I snorted. “And Ramirez will happily give up one of us for a few days? Weeks? Hardly. He’ll give me time to debrief them then I’m back here.”
“Maybe fresh eyes are just what this case needs.”
“Bullshit. This case needs someone who cares that Keller is getting away with murder. He gave the Robeaux file to Healy, you know he did.”
“Healy’s been around a long time. Old memories and all that. It’s not just Robeaux.”
I fumed. I knew exactly what Joe alluded to, and it angered and upset me. Of all the people to bring up that. “I did the right thing, and I stand by it.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Yes you did.” I’d been paying for doing the right thing for years. Agreeing to work undercover for the FBI didn’t earn me many friends, but the political corruption case had been huge. It wasn’t my department—it was another city I was on “loan” to. The people who went down—three cops and twice as many DAs, judges, and defense attorneys, the whole gamut—were beyond corrupt, thinking they were invincible. They never thought they’d be caught, either because they’d intimidated potential witnesses or because they’d gamed the system. And every cop I worked with knew I’d done the right thing—even if they sneered at me for turning on “my own” people.
Invincible. Just like Greg Keller. Except they weren’t, and he wasn’t, and I was going to get him.
“Selena, I’ve known you for years. You’re smart and close cases. We’ve worked rapes together before, child molestation cases, we’ve seen cases as bad or worse than what the River City Rapist has done. And yeah, you take the case personally, but that makes you good. Until now. You have to step back, get some perspective.”
“I have perspective. Greg Keller thinks he can get away with it because of who he is and who he knows.”
“He’s goading you, and you let him. Like today in Healy’s chambers.”
I was stunned. “I told you I didn’t do or say anything to him. He heard you walk in and acted like I had done something. It’s part of his game.”
“Maybe you’re right, but—”
“Either you believe me or not. There is no maybe.” Joe’s distrust hurt far more than I expected. I liked all the detectives on the sex crimes squad, but Joe had always been my favorite. A friend. But maybe that trust was misplaced. How could he think I was lying?
He said quietly, “Maybe you don’t think you over-stepped, Selena. And I get it—I do. I want him too. But what is it about this case that has you so twisted? It can’t just be because of who he is.”
Except that it was, partly. It was because people in power got away with crimes all the time simply because they were in power.
I sidestepped his question. “Ashley Young is dead. Back to the basics.”
Joe knew I was hedging, and he let me. He sat down at his desk and went to work on the phone. I stared at the computer, but didn’t see much of anything.
Twelve years ago I was a college freshman. I hadn’t been naïve or stupid—I couldn’t have been, being raised by my cop dad and hard-ass brother. But I was stupid when the teaching assistant of a popular professor raped me on a date and I didn’t report it for twenty-four hours. After I showered. After I got drunk. After I tried to make it all disappear, to believe it had never happened.
Except it had, and when I went to the campus police, they talked to the T.A. and he said it was consensual. Then I learned that the T.A. was the son of an alum who’d given enough money to build a half-dozen state-of-the-art buildings. The powerful son of a powerful donor.
I’d said no. I’d told him to stop when he put his hands under my shirt, but I didn’t fight back hard enough. Maybe because I’d had two beers, maybe because I didn’t think he’d actually hurt me. When I realized he was taking off my pants was when I realized he’d drugged me. I couldn’t fight back. I couldn’t use any of my self-defense tactics.
It was my fault for being so naïve, so stupid, and I didn’t want anyone to know.
That’s what I thought then, at nineteen, blaming myself for getting in the bad situation in the first place. Twelve years of training and working this job and I knew I wasn’t to blame. I knew it was all on him, and I hoped and prayed his next victim was stronger and braver than I had been.
I never told my brother the truth about why I dropped out of college. I couldn’t face my own failures. And I joined the police academy, became a cop, and vowed to protect the weak from those who would prey on them.
Just because someone is in authority doesn’t mean they can get away with rape.
Or murder.
VI.
Ashley’s employer wasn’t sending in the guest list from the event at the Railroad Museum.
The information stunned me as much as it made me furious.
“Let me talk to him,” I said to Joe. “Did you explain—”
Joe cut me off. “I know what I’m doing, Selena. They are protecti
ng their donor list. He was very nice about it, just said we’d have to get a warrant. I’ll let homicide know.”
“Ramirez hasn’t even taken us off the case yet.”
“He will, face it. It’s theirs.” Joe slapped his hand on the tall stack of files on my desk. “What about these victims? Don’t they deserve some of your time?”
The verbal slap hurt. I hadn’t neglected any of my other cases, but right now Ashley Young was at the top of my pile. “Doesn’t Ashley deserve more than twenty-four hours?”
“I’m on your side,” Joe said.
Maybe, but not today. Today, Joe had hedged everything from how he responded to Keller this morning to how he was dealing with the investigation now.
“Maybe if you’d been on call last night, you’d understand.”
“I wasn’t on call, but neither were you.” He stared at me, accusing. “Didn’t think I wouldn’t find out? You called in that you were in the area and took the case.”
“I knew it was him.”
“But you didn’t have to go. Why were you out at midnight?”
“Mondays are big event nights downtown. We know his M.O.”
“So that’s why you’ve been so exhausted these last few weeks? You’ve been out hunting him?”
“Hunting? Try tracking.” Keller hunted his prey. I wasn’t the bad guy here. “I need some air.” I left, fearing if the conversation deteriorated any more then Joe and I would never be friends again.
I didn’t know if we would regain the respect.
I sat in my car because I didn’t know what else to do. It was nearly three in the afternoon, which reminded me that I had asked Officer Sampson to keep an eye on him after I found out Ashley was dead. I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep surveillance on him for long—he’d fight it in court if he had to, and my bosses wouldn’t authorize it without some evidence. I had no reason to pull resources into my case, and the free help from cops like Sampson wouldn’t last forever, either.
Keller had surprised me this morning in Healy’s chambers; I’d return the favor. But the surprise would be in him not seeing me. I had one shot; I had to do it right.
Killing Justice Page 10