by Karen Rose
The rage fanned hotter. Another dead before he could mete out his revenge. Still he kept his face calm, slightly disappointed. “I’m sorry to hear that. I’d like to visit Mrs. Young, pay my respects. Do you know where she is?”
“Last I heard, she had to go in a nursing home in -Champaign. I have to go.” She slipped inside. He could see her fingers on the window blinds as she watched him.
He got back in his car. Champaign was less than an hour away.
Chicago, Friday, December 1, 4:20 P.M.
“My eyeballs are going to fall out.” Fatigue and a headache made Mia petulant.
“What did you come up with?” Solliday asked, stifling a yawn.
“Of the twenty-two kids Penny placed with the -Doughertys, three are dead, two in jail and six are still in fos-ter care. Of the others, I’ve got current addresses on two.”
He ran a thumb down the side of his goatee. “Any come from Detroit?”
“Not that any of the birth records show.” She stood and stretched, then dropped her arms to her sides when she saw his eyes following her movements. “Sorry.”
“Quite all right,” he murmured. “Don’t stop on my account.”
She wouldn’t let herself smile. Equal terms. She came around his side of the desk. He’d been checking phone records for the Beacon Inn. “What did you find?”
“The hotel gets a hell of a lot of phone calls. None trace to Hope Center, but I didn’t think they would. I figured if he called for the Doughertys, it would have been on a disposable cell or from a phone locally. These are the numbers I’m still working.”
Mia ran her finger down the list. “This one’s from where Murphy’s searching.”
He typed the number into the reverse lookup screen. “You’ve got a good eye, Mia. It’s a pay phone.” He dialed the hotel and put it on the speaker.
“Beacon Inn, this is Chester. How can I help you?”
“Chester, this is Lieutenant Solliday with the OFI. Detective Mitchell and I are here with another question for you. We’re showing a phone call to your front desk at 4:38 p.m. Tuesday. It may have been someone trying to get the Doughertys’ room number.”
“No one would have given it out,” he said. “It’s against our policy.”
“Chester, this is Detective Mitchell. Can you find out who took the call?”
“Tuesday afternoon would have been Tania Sladerman. You can’t talk to her. She didn’t show up for...” He trailed off. “Oh my God. She didn’t show up for work today.”
Solliday’s glance was sharp. “Give us her address. Now.”
Friday, December 1, 5:35 P.M.
“Hell, Reed.” Mia stood in Tania Sladerman’s bedroom, staring at the dead woman as the ME techs lifted her to the gurney and zipped the bag. “This is ten.”
The assistant manager for the Beacon Inn had been raped, her hands and feet bound. Legs broken. Throat cut. “I hope that’s what he was counting, Mia, because then he’d be done. But I don’t think so.”
“She’s been here since Wednesday morning. Why didn’t anyone miss this woman?” Emotion made her voice unsteady and she cleared her throat. “Check on her?”
He wanted to put his arm around her, but couldn’t. “Let me take you home.”
She straightened her spine. “I’m okay. I’ll get a ride back to the precinct with CSU. You go home, Reed. You’ve got a daughter who wants to see your pretty face.”
He frowned. “I don’t think so. She and I had a pretty big argument yesterday.”
“About what?”
“A party this weekend. Jenny Q’s. I didn’t like her attitude, so I said she couldn’t go.”
“Tough love. Go home, Reed. Spend some time with her. I’ll call you if anything comes up.” He hesitated and she gave him a little push. “I mean it. Go. It would make me feel better to know you and Beth were working things out. She needs her father.”
She started walking toward Tania’s front door and he knew she was dismissing him. He wasn’t ready to go yet. “What about you and Olivia?” he asked, very quietly.
“We’ve been trading voice mails. I think we’re going to try to get together tonight. I’ll call you either way. I -promise.” She leaned a little, teetering on her feet and he wanted -nothing more than to take her in his arms, give her comfort. Take a little comfort back.
He dropped his voice. “I found my key to the other side.” Her eyes flashed with awareness and memory. Satisfied he’d sufficiently enticed her into keeping her promise, in his normal voice he said, “All right. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Friday, December 1, 6:20 P.M.
Aidan was gone when she got back, but Murphy was there, typing his report in his slow hunt-and-peck way. “Reed was right,” Murphy said. “There were three pet stores in the area. Two of them had vet offices either inside or nearby. Petsville was my last stop—and guess what their supply closet was missing?”
“D-turbo-whatever-stuff. Amazon jungle poison,” she said and he grinned.
“You get the prize. After threatening them with a subpoena, I finally got a list of employees and just finished mapping their addresses. These people live in a one-mile radius of where we found the car he abandoned after he killed Brooke and Roxanne. He could have easily walked to any of them.”
“Fourteen households. I should be able to hit five or six still tonight.”
Murphy stood up. “We should.”
“Murphy...”
“Mia... You can’t go alone. What if you find him?”
She thought about the bodies she’d seen this week. “You’re right. If I go alone, I might kill him myself. I should call Solliday, but he’s with his kid.”
“And you and me have no ties.”
She frowned at that. No ties. No strings. “Murphy, do you ever want them?”
He paused in zipping his coat, shot her a grin. “What, ties? Got a closet full of ’em.”
She shook her head, her mouth curving despite herself. “I’m serious.”
He sobered. “It’s starting to get you, isn’t it? All your friends pairing off.”
Abe, Dana, Jack and Aidan. Now it was down to her and Murphy. “Yeah. You?”
He nodded. “Yeah. But I’ve been married before.” He slung a brotherly arm around her shoulders. “And you know what they say. Fool me once, shame on you.”
“Fool me twice, shame on me.”
“Come on. Let’s go.”
Friday, December 1, 6:55 P.M.
The knock at their door broke the silence. His mother looked up, fear in her eyes.
“It’s not him, Mom. He has a key.” That she’d given him. Why, he didn’t understand. But once she had, it had been too late.
She got up, smoothed her hair. And opened the door. “Can I help you?”
“We’re sorry to bother you, ma’am. My name is Detective Mitchell and this is Detective Murphy. We’re searching the neighborhood for this man.”
He sneaked around the corner and peeked. All he could see were legs. A pair of shoes and a pair of boots. Smaller. But he could hear them. The lady sounded... nice.
“Is that the man I saw on TV?” his mother asked, her voice small and scared.
“Yes, ma’am,” the lady detective said. “Have you seen him?”
“No. I’m sorry. We haven’t.”
“Well, if you see him, could you please call this number? And don’t open your door to him. He’s very dangerous.”
I know he’s dangerous. I know. Please, Mom. Please tell them.
But his mother nodded and took the flyer the detective offered. “If I see him, I’ll call,” she said and shut the door. She stood for a minute, still except for her fist that crumpled the paper into a ball. Then she went to the sofa, crumpled herself into a ball and cried.
He went to his room, closed the door, and did the same.
Mia leaned against her car, her eyes on the tidy little house. Murphy leaned beside her. “She knows something,” he said.
“Yes, she
does. And she’s terrified. She’s got a kid.”
“I know. I saw him, peeking around the corner.”
“I did, too.” She blew out a breath. “He could be in there, right now.”
“Looked like the dinner table was only set for two. If he’s there, he’s hiding. She’s a pet store employee, so technically she wouldn’t have had access to the vet’s office. Just a terrified face probably isn’t enough to get us a warrant to search her place.”
“Let’s check the houses on this street. Maybe somebody saw him. If so, that could be enough for a warrant.” She pushed away from the car, when a movement caught her eye. “Murphy, look up at the window.” Little fingers were pulling at the blinds.
“The kid’s watching us.”
Mia smiled warmly and waved. Immediately the little -fingers disappeared and the blinds went flat. Her smile faded. “I want to talk to that kid.”
“Then we need to get inside the house. Let’s start knockin’ on doors.”
Friday, December 1, 7:30 P.M.
“Well?” Murphy asked. “I got bubkes.”
“Nobody’s seen him. Nobody even knew her. One person remembers seeing the kid riding his bike to school. You know, when I was a kid, everybody knew everybody else. You were afraid to do anything bad, scared it would get back to your parents.” Mia jangled her car keys in her pocket. “Okay, now what?”
“Now you go home, sleep. I’ll stay here and watch. I’ll call you if anything pops.”
“I shouldn’t let you do that, but I’m too tired to argue with you.”
“Which says a lot,” Murphy said mildly. “Mia, are you okay?”
They’d been friends a long time. “Not really.” To her mortification, tears stung her eyes and she blinked them away. “I must be more tired than I thought.”
He caught her arm. “If you need me, you know where to find me.”
Her lips quirked up. “Yeah, here, freezing your fool ass off all night. Thanks, Murphy.” Murphy was a good friend. Tonight, she wanted more than a friend. Tonight she -wanted... more. Strings, the voice in her mind taunted. Go ahead and admit it.
Fine. She wanted strings. But God knew she didn’t get everything she wanted.
Friday, December 1, 8:15 P.M.
Mia recognized the car waiting at the curb and wanted to groan. Hell, she wasn’t up for a heart-to-heart with little sister tonight. Olivia met her on the sidewalk in front of Solliday’s duplex, holding a pizza box. “So you found me.”
“I pulled a few strings, got your partner’s address. Hope you don’t mind.”
Yes, I mind, she wanted to scream. Come back when things?.?.?.settle down. But they wouldn’t settle down and Olivia had to go home soon. And Bobby’s other child needed to know the truth. Or some of it anyway.
“No, I don’t mind. Come on in.” Lauren’s place was quiet and dark, but next door she could hear the TV and music. Reed was there. But she’d get through this first.
Reed heard her come in. He’d been sitting in front of the TV, watching something that meant nothing, just waiting for the slam of the door on the other side. Beth was sulking in her room. Lauren was studying. He was alone. And, he admitted, lonely. But Mia was there, on the other side of the wall and even if it was watching her eat leftover meat loaf, he wouldn’t be alone when he was with her.
He grabbed the glass bowl from the oven with mitts and slipped out the back door. Cradling the warm bowl under one arm like a football, he reached for the doorknob and stopped. She wasn’t alone. The other voice belonged to Olivia Sutherland.
He should go home. Give her privacy. But he remembered her eyes as she’d bared her secrets in the night. And how she’d rolled away from him. Alone.
They were two people, wandering through life alone. And he wondered why two intelligent people would insist on making that choice.
Mia led Olivia to the kitchen and took the pizza. “It’s stone cold.”
“I waited awhile.”
Mia sighed. “I’m sorry. This case...”
“I know.” Olivia unzipped her jacket and slipped the scarf from her head, looking a little like an old-time movie actress. -Elegant and a little unsure. And so young.
And unspoiled. A shaft of resentment poked her heart and Mia was ashamed. It wasn’t Olivia’s fault she’d escaped Bobby Mitchell. She slid the pizza onto a pan and into the oven. “So... Minneapolis PD. You’re a detective, too.”
“I earned my shield last year,” she said. “You’ve been doing this longer.”
Mia sat down and nudged the other chair with her foot. “I’m considerably older.”
Olivia sat down, her movements graceful. “You’re not even thirty-five.”
“I feel like seventy today.”
“It’s a bad case, then.”
Ten faces flashed through her mind. “Yeah. But if you don’t mind, I don’t want to think about it for a while.” She looked at Olivia’s hand. “You’re not married.”
“Not yet.” She smiled. “Trying to build my career first.”
“Hmm. Don’t wait too long, okay?”
“Sisterly advice?”
Mia blew out a breath. “Hardly. I did a pretty lousy job of it the first time around.”
“You mean Kelsey.”
Something in Olivia’s eyes made Mia’s hackles go up. “You know about her.”
“I know she’s in prison. Armed robbery.” Her tone was mildly judgmental.
Mia clenched her teeth. “She’s paying her debt.”
“All right.”
But it wasn’t. It wasn’t all right. Nothing was all right today.
“You, on the other hand,” Olivia continued, “are a decorated cop and were engaged to a hunky hockey player.”
Mia blinked “You’ve been watching me?”
“Not until recently. I didn’t even know about you until recently.”
“But you said you hated me all your life.”
“I did. But I didn’t have a name or face to go with you until he died.”
“What did your mother tell you?”
“For years, nothing. We didn’t talk about my father and I kept dreaming he was out there, that he’d come for me. When I was eight, Mama told me the truth, or most of it.”
There was pain there. Mia wondered just how the truth had come out. “Which was?”
“My mother was nineteen when I was born. She met my father in the bar where she waited tables in Chicago. She said that my father was a good man, a policeman. They started talking and one thing led to another. She thought she was in love, then found out she was pregnant. When she told him, he told her he was married. She hadn’t known.”
“I believe that,” Mia said quietly and watched Olivia’s shoulders sag. “You didn’t.”
“I wanted to. I didn’t want to believe my mother would play around with a married man. But knowingly or not, that’s what she did. He said he’d leave his wife, marry her.”
“But he didn’t.”
“No. She said after I was born, he came to her and said he couldn’t leave his wife and daughters. That he was sorry.”
Bobby was sorry she’d been born Olivia and not Oliver, Mia thought, but nodded. “And that’s when your mother took you to Minnesota.”
“Shortly thereafter. She’d burned some bridges with her own parents. They’d wanted her to give me up for adoption, but she kept me. It was a while before I had a relationship with my grandparents, but eventually things smoothed over. I’d come to Chicago on my summer vacations and look at every cop and wonder, was that him?”
“You didn’t know his name?”
“No, not until he died. Mama wouldn’t tell me and nobody else seemed to know.”
“Is your mother still living?”
Pain flashed in Olivia’s blue eyes. “No. She died last year. I thought my father’s identity had died with her, but my mother had told her sister. Aunt Didi called me the day his obituary appeared in the paper. I drove straight from the airport to the ceme
tery.”
She sighed. “And then I saw you, standing next to your mother, in your dress uniform. Your mother gave you his flag, then you saw me. You didn’t know about me.”
“No. It was... quite a shock.”
Olivia looked down. “I imagine it was. The first time I saw your name was in the obituary. It didn’t mention Kelsey.”
“That was my request. The official department obituary had her listed, but I asked them to remove her name. I didn’t want anybody to make the connection.”
“That makes sense. It can’t be good for your career, -having a sister in prison.”
Mia stiffened. “It’s not good for her health having a sister who’s a cop. Don’t judge Kelsey, Olivia. Not until you know her.” Not until you know everything.
“All right. When I saw you, I was shocked. There’s some... family resemblance.”
“I noticed that,” Mia said dryly. “Why didn’t you come and talk to me?”
“I was so shocked at first, I didn’t know what to do. You were the one I’d hated my whole life. You were the one who got a father. Who got a home. A family. Mama and I, we had nothing. No one. And then to see you, dressed as a cop, looking at me. Looking like me. Afterward, I went to Aunt Didi’s house and got on the Internet and found out everything I could about you.” She stood up and checked the pizza. “You forgot to turn on the oven.” She hit the knob impatiently.
“I’m not a culinary kind of person.”
Olivia turned, her eyes now flat. “What kind of person are you?”
“You did the research, kid. You tell me.”
She considered it. “I’ve checked you out thoroughly this week. You’re a cop first.”
“Last and always,” Mia finished, her voice now as flat as Olivia’s eyes.
“But you have compassion. Dedication. The reporters hate you, so you must be doing something right.” Mia huffed a chuckle at that and Olivia’s lips curved. “You have a few close friends, you’re intensely loyal. You’ve had a few boyfriends, and one fiancé. He was hot by the way.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ve just started a relationship with Lieutenant -Solliday and you don’t want anyone to know. But I think most people do.”
Mia frowned. “What do you mean?”