“It can’t be,” he said, frowning. “This can’t be it.”
Joshua caught something then. An expression on Coop’s face. One that said that she had figured out something important. Or that she thought she had, which amounted to the same thing for most people. You can’t tell anyone anything they aren’t willing to hear. Not if you’re hoping they’ll do something about it.
“That’s the real problem here,” she said. “You can’t imagine finally putting this to bed.”
Classic deflection. He was disappointed. He’d come to expect more from Agent Cooper. But what the hell. Maybe he should just let this play out. See where she thought this whole thing was going.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“This guilt… this pain… has been sitting on your shoulders for so long that you can’t bear to have it taken away from you.”
Her words penetrated in a way that he wasn’t expecting. She was so very wrong about so much, but it was possible that she knew what she was talking about on this count. The woman was perceptive when it came to certain things, he had to give her that.
Too bad it didn’t make any difference where it really counted.
“Sure. Whatever. I don’t really care about all of that.” He turned to walk out of the hotel room, but couldn’t resist speaking over his shoulder as he left. “But whether you’re right or wrong about me, deep down you know I’m right about the case.”
Let her chew on that little tidbit for a while.
Joshua was going to go take his puppy for a walk.
* * *
Sariah spent as long as she could going over the scene with the local cops, Reggie there at her side, her presence as helpful as the physical tasks of clearing the scene she was performing. This young woman was a gem in the rough, a real find. Sariah found herself wondering if there was any way she could snag her for the team.
And then she caught sight of Curtis Howse’s body as it was being taken down by the officers. There was no need to attach Reggie to their team. There was no more team. The case was finished.
Her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. She fished it out and looked at the number. It wasn’t one that she recognized, but the area code was the same as Had’s.
“Special Agent Sariah Cooper,” she answered.
“Well it’s about time I got through to someone,” a voice came through the speaker. Sariah recognized the twang immediately. Had’s mother.
“Ms. Hadderly?” she asked, surprised. “How did you get my number?”
“Oh, darlin’, it ain’t hard. All you gotta know is how to sweet talk a few folk here and there.” Then her tone hardened. “But that’s not important. Where’s my boy?”
Sariah thought about it for a moment. “I’m not positive. He went out to check on a lead, but he should be back by now.”
“Well, I tried gettin’ ahold of him about two-and-a-half hours ago, and I’ve been callin’ him straight for the past hour. Keeps goin’ straight through to voicemail.”
That wasn’t good. Had should be back in cell phone range by now. “I’ll check it out, and when I know something, I’ll get back to you.”
“See that you do,” Had’s mother threatened. “You’re responsible for him, and if somethin’ happens, I’m takin’ it out of your hide.” The line clicked as she hung up.
Thing was, Sariah didn’t doubt her for a second. She turned to Reggie.
“Hey, have you heard from Had?”
The young cop dragged her eyes away from the corpse. Sariah could only assume that this was her first suicide. What the hell kind of first experiences was she providing for these inexperienced friends of hers? Maybe she should talk to the BAU about offering post-case therapy for everyone involved.
Especially Joshua. That guy had more baggage than a TSA guard on a rampage.
Reggie finished checking her cell that she had pulled out. “Doesn’t look like I’ve missed any calls or texts from him. Is everything okay?”
“I’m not sure,” Sariah answered. “I haven’t had any contact with him since he let me know he was headed out to Cedar Rapids. But that was over three hours ago.”
“That doesn’t sound like Had,” Reggie muttered to herself. She seemed to think for a minute, then brightened. “Wait a sec. He made me add him on that app that tracks people. I should be able to find out where he is.” She opened up the program and waited for it to give her the information she was looking for.
“So, you guys can know where the other person is at all times?” Sariah asked, thinking that was a bit too intimate for her tastes. Although… there were people she might want to keep closer tabs on. Joshua, for one.
Reggie grinned. “Yeah. If it were anyone other than Had, I never would have done it. He’s just so…” she seemed to grope for the appropriate word, “nice, you know?”
Sariah did know. That was part of what had her so concerned right now. He was nice enough that if he knew he was going to be this late coming back, he would have called or texted to let her know.
Frowning, Reggie shook her phone. “That’s weird.”
“What?”
“He’s not anywhere,” she answered.
“You mean he turned his phone off?” Was it possible that Sariah had misjudged? That Had was off at a strip club or something and didn’t want to be interrupted? She’d certainly been pushing him pretty hard lately. Maybe even Had wanted his privacy from time to time.
“No, he wouldn’t just turn off his phone. That doesn’t sound like Had at all.”
“So what does that mean?”
Reggie looked up at Sariah, her face beginning to show signs of worry. “It means that either his battery ran out, or that he uninstalled the program.”
“Why would he…” she started, then stopped. “He wouldn’t. There’s no reason for him to do it.”
“Could someone else have…?”
That wasn’t possible. The someone else was being carted off to the morgue right now. This had to be some kind of missed connection. Some simple misunderstanding that would be cleared up and they would all end up feeling foolish about it.
Unless they didn’t.
Just how important was it that Sariah be proven right on this?
Not important enough.
“Reggie, call the precinct and check to make sure that he didn’t go back there for some reason,” Sariah directed her. “I’ll go grab Joshua, and we’ll meet back in the workspace.”
It was all going to work out. Had would be back at the police building or hanging out in the hotel. He’d probably just run through some sprinklers again by mistake. This was no big deal. They’d all laugh about it in the morning.
She kept telling herself that until she got back to the hotel. It never got more convincing.
* * *
Joshua wanted to kick Agent Cooper. Or at least hobble her.
She had paced back and forth across the length of the workspace eleven times since they got there, Bella chasing along behind her, thinking it was some kind of a game. Coop’s next circuit of the space was almost done, and then she’d be on to the twelfth. It was like Chinese water torture. Each time her foot landed, it seemed to get louder and louder and louder.
“Stop it!” he barked, then pulled back, pointing at one of the chairs surrounding the table. “Would you sit?” She looked at him, her face a blank slate. “Please?”
“I can’t,” she shot back, and kept pacing. This was going to turn into a very serious situation in a minute.
Right at the moment that Joshua was sure would be his breaking point, Agent Cooper’s phone rang. He pointed at the cell in her hand.
“See? That’s him, right?”
She glanced down at the phone and pursed her lips. “No,” she said, staring at the number on the screen.
“Well, who is it?”
“Someone from the station.”
The cell rang again. Joshua gestured toward the instrument in her hand. “Are you going to answer, or are you
waiting for me to do it?”
She nodded, then held the cell up to her ear. Swallowing, she cleared her throat and spoke into the phone. “Agent Cooper.”
Turning her attention back to the conversation on the phone, Coop’s face went blank, then pale. “What?”
“What is it?” Joshua asked.
She sank into one of the chairs, almost as if she had lost conscious control of her limbs. As she spoke into the phone, it seemed almost an afterthought. Like it was something expected of her that she knew would make nothing better.
“Yes, okay. Thank you.”
She turned to face Joshua.
“That was the results of the mass spec. The diesel fuel wasn’t a match for Curtis’ truck.”
* * *
Sariah’s brain wouldn’t work.
She’d heard people talk about that before, but it had always seemed like such a cop out. Oh, I can’t function, don’t blame me. And yet, here she was, one small step above comatose. Helpless.
Wrong.
She was wrong.
Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she barely noticed. All of her attention was focused on her mistakes. Her mistakes that had cost a man his life.
The information wouldn’t compute. It was shutting down her sensory input, replacing it was random static. Joshua was saying something to her, but it was like he was moving his mouth and no words were coming out.
Finally, like a radio tuning in, his words swirled to the surface of her consciousness. She grasped at their meaning, seeking for understanding.
“… you staring at the wall. Get off your ass and do something about it.”
What was she supposed to do? There was nothing she could do. It was all wrong. Everything was twisted out of shape, and it was all her fault.
She struggled for the words to tell him. “He killed himself.”
“Yes. He did.”
“I made that happen.”
He nodded. “Yes. You did.”
“How?” she pleaded. “How did that happen? I did everything right. I followed the evidence. Played by the rules.”
His next words shocked her into stillness.
“Shut up.”
When it was clear that there had been no misunderstanding, that there was no follow up to be had from the former agent, Sariah prodded him. He was holding something back. Something that was important for her to understand. She could tell.
“What?” she asked.
“Shut. Up.”
That couldn’t be it. There had to be something more. Some jewel of wisdom winnowed from his days of depravity. Some insight that he could share with her.
“I don’t—” she began.
“Yes, you did this,” he cut her off, his tone level but fierce. “You did it all. You were so sure of yourself. So positive that you knew what no one else did. Now a man’s dead for your arrogance.”
“I—”
“I said, shut up!” he barked. “You wanted me to talk? I’m talking.” He moved in close to her, his breath warm against her cheek. “You want me to throw you a pity party? It’s not going to happen.”
She shrank back from him, wanting to call back the words she had spoken that had started this deluge. Wanting to erase the sounds issuing forth from Joshua’s mouth.
He continued, unrelenting. “You did everything right? So what. It’s not fair? No one gives a shit.” He pointed a finger at her. “I had lost my entire family. My wife. My kids. I was reeling from the shock. And what happened? Did someone come to my rescue?”
Sariah wanted to shut off the flood of his words, make them stop somehow or at least hurt less. But they continued to come without pause.
“Oh, no. No. At that very moment, right when I needed the universe to hold out its hand, my parents were killed in a car wreck.”
Wait. Had she known that? It seemed like something that she should have known. His voice droned on, the tragedy of the incident lost in the barrage of sounds he hurled at her head. So much pain. Pain and pain and pain and more pain.
“So don’t go looking for right. Don’t go looking for fair. Just get up and do something.” He backed away from her, all the energy dissipating out of his form, leaving him an empty husk. “Or don’t. I couldn’t care less.”
Sariah opened her mouth, looking for something to say. Anything. But the moment extended, passed her by, and still she had said nothing.
Her phone rang again. This time it was Had’s mother. There was no news of her son, and she couldn’t face Ms. Hadderly right now. She pushed the button to send the call through to voicemail. She’d call her back when there was something to tell her.
And then Reggie rushed in.
“I can’t find Had anywhere.”
Interesting. Now that there was news, Sariah found that she was even less capable of speaking to his mother. She had thought that she couldn’t feel any worse than she did at discovering the man she had pushed into committing suicide was innocent.
Turned out, that was just one more thing she had gotten wrong.
CHAPTER 21
Joshua stared at the murder board, Reggie at his side. Agent Cooper was still huddled in a corner with tears pouring out of her eyes, playing with her fingers, or whatever the hell she was doing over there. Something that didn’t involve helping them figure this whole mess out.
Bella was playing tug-o-war with a piece of cloth she’d found when Joshua had walked over here from the hotel. From the way she was growling and wrestling with the fabric, you’d think there was someone else on the other end of the rag.
There wasn’t.
“We need to start over,” he muttered.
“Absolutely,” Reggie agreed.
“No, I’m not sure you understand.” Joshua walked up to the board, and with one strong movement of his arms, swept off every scrap of evidence they’d accumulated working this case. “I mean start over.”
Reggie stood there, stunned. “But you… I… you…” She cleared her throat, tugging at a strand of her hair before tucking it behind her ear. “You just threw away a butt load of evidence.” She looked down at the pile in front of the board. “Is it wrong that I thought that was kind of hot?”
Joshua thrust that statement and the mental images that came along with them out of his head. He gazed up at the blank canvas of the whiteboard in front of him, trying to ignore the radiant heat signature of the person standing next to him. This case was what was important.
“Okay,” he murmured. “What do we know for sure?”
“Well, we know that the killer’s Humpty,” Reggie answered.
“No, we don’t,” came a voice from behind them. Coop. There were tracks on her cheeks that showed where the tears had been, but for the moment she wasn’t crying. She looked drained, like there was nothing left.
She moved up next to them, hunched over like she’d been punched in the gut, peering at the white surface of the board. Then she turned to face him. “You were right. You kept saying there was something wrong, and I ignored you.” Tears sprang up in her eyes once more.
“Whatever,” he said, gently directing her attention back to the board. “You’ve got to keep it together. What do we know?”
“We know that there’s someone out there who may or may not be Humpty,” Reggie offered, looking like she was trying to redeem herself in his eyes. Dammit. He had to be more careful about what he said and how he said it. It had been a long time since he cared enough about anyone to do that.
“We also know that this someone is a hell of a lot smarter than we gave them credit for,” Joshua added. “He set up Curtis to take the fall.”
“Which is why it looked so perfect,” Reggie said.
“I didn’t see it. I can’t believe I didn’t see it,” Joshua muttered to himself.
“Hey.” Reggie caught his attention. “Time to take your own advice. Shut up. I heard you say so many times that there was something off.”
Okay. He might have deserved that one. Still… “But I
should’ve realized that a set up was a possibility, especially with all the baiting the killer was doing.”
“One more time, Joshua. Shut. Up.”
Bella came up to Joshua’s side, tossing the cloth on his shoe, and then began bouncing around him, her tongue hanging out of her mouth. She wanted to play.
“Later, Bella,” he said, flipping the cloth over to the other side of the room. Bella raced after it, distracted, at least for the moment.
“So, what did you see that was different?” Reggie asked. “What kept making you think this case was off?”
“It was the killer’s whole attitude. Our other guy was older, doing everything he could to stay out of the limelight. But this guy…”
“He practically took out ads in the paper,” Coop said, her voice cracking. It was clear her statement was a blow directed at herself.
“Right.” Joshua paced back and forth in front of the board, filling in the lines and spaces in his mind. “He was taunting us. Stringing us along. He wanted us to chase him.”
“If Had’s really been taken, it has to have been someone that’s pretty close to the investigation,” Reggie added. Bella bounced over to her, once more shaking the rag, looking for a playmate. Reggie grabbed end of the cloth and pulled for a second, before perking back up as Joshua started speaking again.
“He would have done it in a way that we wouldn’t notice it happening. Incorporating himself into the group without…” He paused, making a realization. “Wait. I’m doing it again.”
“What?” Coop asked.
“Making assumptions. I keep saying he.” Joshua swiveled toward Reggie. “When there’s nothing at all to say it couldn’t be a she.”
* * *
Sariah couldn’t take in the information. She turned her head back and forth between Reggie and Joshua. That can’t have been what Joshua meant.
“How could you think—?” she began.
But Joshua’s attention was all on Reggie. “You’ve certainly managed to insinuate yourself into our investigation pretty well.”
“Yeah, but I…” Reggie said. Her face was flushed, and beads of sweat had broken out on her brow.
“You’re young, intelligent,” Joshua continued. “You know the history behind the rail systems that could have been used. You have flexible hours at work, so you could travel.”
Nursery Rhyme Murders Collection_3-4-2017 Page 29