The nearest suit turned toward her. “May I help you?” he asked, peering down a long, hooked nose with an expression that suggested she’d walked into his office without an appointment.
“I’m looking for Sondra Borden. She was supposed to be out here, waiting. She was making a list of Charlotte’s friends for me.”
The man’s sour expression tightened around his lips as he shook his head. “No. No, I’m afraid Mrs. Borden has been called into a meeting.”
“A meeting?” Jamie repeated.
“With Miss Borden’s medical team.”
“And Mr. Borden?”
“Obviously, he would want to be there, too,” the man responded.
Jamie replayed his words in her head. He hadn’t answered her question. “That’s not—”
The attorney’s puckered lips stretched out into a thin line that might have been a cool smile as he drew a phone from his pocket. “Shambliss.” A beat passed. “Yes, Mrs. Borden has requested I handle that in light of the current situation.” With that, Mr. Shambliss walked away.
The current situation was that Mrs. Borden had a child in a coma. Jamie watched him for several seconds. She considered going after him. A few years ago, she would have done it without a second thought, the prick. But she checked her emotion. The mayor had personally requested that the police give the Bordens the highest level of latitude. Not to mention that the suspect had fathered her adopted son. She would be smart not to create a big scene. She had a feeling she would throw one eventually with this crew.
Instead, she headed for the elevator. She would track down Sondra and Gavin after Michael Delman.
“Detective?”
A woman in her early twenties, dressed in a navy pantsuit, clutched her iPad to her chest. She wore simple silver hoop earrings and a necklace with a small pendant in the shape of a circle with a flower at its center. “I’m Tiffany Greene. I work for the Bordens.”
“Inspector Jamie Vail,” Jamie said without offering her hand. Tiffany seemed slightly terrified.
“I overheard you speaking with Mr. Shambliss, and I wanted to let you know that Mrs. Borden is making a list of Charlotte’s friends—or she was until the doctors came out.”
“Do you have that list?”
Tiffany hesitated. “It only has one name on it.”
“What name is that?”
“Amanda Steckler.”
“Steckler.”
Tiffany nodded.
“Is she Dr. Steckler’s daughter?”
Another nod.
Jamie made mental note of the name. “You work with Mrs. Borden?”
“I’m one of her assistants.”
“One of—”
“Well, between the opera and the foundation and, of course, running the house and the girls—Charlotte and her sister, Kitsy—it’s a lot.”
Jamie remembered Charlotte’s father calling her Lotti. “Kitsy?”
“It’s a nickname. Short for Katherine.”
“So, you know the girls well?”
“I pick Kitsy up from school. We’re together most afternoons.”
“Do the Bordens have a nanny as well?”
“No,” Tiffany said. “The girls convinced their mother last year that they were too old for a nanny. Kitsy’s thirteen.”
“How about Lotti? Do you see her at home?”
“Charlotte? No. She’s not around that much.”
Jamie waited.
“I mean, with her activities and everything.”
“What sort of activities?” Jamie asked. She refrained from pulling out her notebook for fear Tiffany would stop talking.
“She plays lacrosse—well, played. She quit the team this year.” Tiffany licked her lips. “And she took art lessons for a long time as well as viola and piano.”
“She still takes lessons?”
Tiffany said nothing. Her tongue made another swipe across her lips.
“Tiffany, the more I know about Charlotte, the better I can understand what happened to her. I want to find out who did this to her, so he doesn’t do it to someone else.”
“I thought you knew who did it. You have him on tape.”
It was Jamie’s turn to fall silent. She always worked every angle to make sure they hadn’t missed anything, but in the attack of Charlotte Borden, she was working extra hard to find another viable suspect. Why was that? Did she really have any loyalty to the sperm that created Zephenaya? “We have one man on film, but he may not be the attacker,” Jamie said carefully. “We need to pursue every angle. Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt Charlotte?”
Tiffany took her lower lip into her teeth.
“This is important, Tiffany.”
Tiffany glanced over her shoulder at Brandon Shambliss. “There was some sort of disagreement about her art teacher.”
“Do you know his or her name?”
“His,” Tiffany said. “Heath something. That’s all I know.”
“Were they arguing?”
“I’m not sure.”
“How did you hear about it?”
Tiffany licked her lips. Shambliss was still talking on the phone. “One of the cleaning people heard the argument. I don’t know who Charlotte was arguing with.”
“She wasn’t fighting with the teacher himself?”
“No,” Tiffany said. “He never came to the house.”
“What is the name of the person who heard the argument?”
Tiffany said nothing.
“I need to talk to the person who heard them.”
“I don’t know her name,” Tiffany said. “It wasn’t the normal cleaning person.”
“But she told you about this argument?” Jamie pressed.
“I overheard it.”
“You overheard it,” Jamie repeated.
“I wasn’t eavesdropping. I was in the kitchen making Kitsy dinner and the two women were speaking Spanish. I don’t think they knew I understood them.”
“Can you describe the woman you saw?”
“It wouldn’t help,” Tiffany said. “She’s not there anymore.”
“I really need to know who Charlotte argued with.”
“She had a small tattoo on her neck—of a turtle.” Tiffany touched the area behind her left ear. “Right about here.”
Behind Tiffany, Shambliss looked their way, his nose tilted into the air as though he were sniffing out people not worthy of his company. Or perhaps he smelled the ones who were asking the wrong questions.
Shambliss walked over to them, put a hand on Tiffany’s shoulder. She jumped slightly at his touch.
Before Shambliss spoke, Jamie handed Tiffany a business card. “If you don’t mind having Mrs. Borden call me to schedule a time to meet, I would appreciate it.”
Tiffany took the card. “Of course, Detective. I wish I had something I could tell you. Mr. Shambliss would know more.”
Jamie watched Tiffany’s face.
“He’s your best point of contact.” Tiffany handed Jamie’s card to Shambliss.
“Great,” Jamie said to Shambliss. “Please contact me if you learn anything that might be useful.”
“You can count on it, Detective,” Shambliss said.
Inspector, Jamie thought, but said nothing. When she walked away, Shambliss’s hand remained pressed on Tiffany’s shoulder.
Jamie passed the elevator and opted for the stairs. What kind of relationship did the two of them have? And what relationship would Shambliss have had with the Bordens’ sixteen-year-old daughter? She’d have to find a way to talk to Tiffany again.
Jamie walked down the stairs, feeling off and out of sorts. There was nothing unusual about this case, she told herself. She’d dealt with rich victims, powerful victims. She’d dealt with people who didn’t want her asking any questions, and she’d seen situations where the obvious suspect had done it and cases where he hadn’t.
All the variables of this case were common enough. What she couldn’t remember was a case where she
’d let the control slip through her fingers so quickly. Letting the Bordens leave without having a chance to fully interview them or get a list of Charlotte’s friends—even Tiffany’s comment about them having caught their rapist—felt like a step away from finding their attacker, not toward it. Her phone buzzed. A text from Tony confirming that he would pick up Z after baseball.
Jamie unlocked her car and sat in the front seat. It was cold, the skies dark, cloudy, and threatening rain. She started the engine and let it run, waiting for the cold air from the vents to warm. She texted Tony back. What would he say if he knew Zephenaya’s father might have raped and beaten a girl at City Academy?
A girl Z went to school with.
Her phone rang. Vich. “Vail.”
“Hey. Wanted to catch you before you left the hospital.”
“I’m still here.”
“You see the victim? How’d it go?”
Jamie ignored that question for the one burning in her own mind. “How did Zephenaya’s biological father meet Charlotte Borden?”
Vich blew out his breath. “Yeah. I thought about that, too. Sounds like the Bordens are pretty wealthy. Wealthy folks tend to keep their kids insulated. Means the most likely place is where she spends most of her time.”
“City Academy High School,” Jamie said.
“And that’s the same school where Zephenaya goes, right?”
Jamie didn’t answer him. Was it possible that Delman had gone there to see Z and Charlotte had caught his attention? But who was the expensive underwear for? Not Michael Delman. God, she prayed not him. Plus, if Zephenaya had seen Delman, he would have told her. Wouldn’t he? She stretched for some logical explanation to the coincidence. God, she hated coincidence. “Do we know what Delman does for work?”
“Odd jobs as of late,” Vich said. “Part-time at a hardware store. Part-time with a construction crew. There any work being done at City Academy?” Vich asked.
“Not that I know of. I can ask Z.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll call over there,” Vich said.
Jamie was relieved.
“I’m over here at the car,” Vich told her.
Jamie scanned the hospital lot. “Which lot?”
“Around back. Looks like he drove her in the Mercedes.”
“That took balls,” Jamie said.
“Indeed,” Vich agreed. “Left a real mess, too.”
“A mess?” she asked.
“Blood.”
“Charlotte had a head wound,” Jamie told him. “She was probably bleeding a lot.”
“A lot of it’s hers,” he said. “She’s O-positive, most common blood type. Just confirmed it with the hospital.”
Jamie cracked the door to the car. “Anything interesting?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
Jamie held the door handle. “You gonna make me beg?”
“I’m old, Vail. We move slower.” Paper rustled in the background. “Here it is. We got two types of blood. Hers and another one, B-negative. And that one is the rarest type. Only one percent of African Americans have type B-negative. Two percent of Caucasians.”
B-negative. Damn it. “You get a warrant on Delman?” Jamie asked.
“Yep. Judge issued a warrant to collect DNA.”
The image of sitting across the interview table from her son’s father made her ill. There was no way he would recognize Jamie, and he wasn’t Z’s parent anymore. She was. “We pick him up?”
“Not yet. Trying to get the landlord to let us into his apartment. I’ve got to watch the video again, but it didn’t look like he was bleeding. Blanchard is trying to figure out how much of the blood is that second type. We can’t confirm the blood is his until we find him.”
Jamie pressed her eyelids shut until the blood rushed across her ears. “Maybe not, but Zephenaya has blood type B-negative and, like you said, it’s pretty rare.”
“Less than one percent,” Vich repeated.
Jamie sighed. “Like you said…”
Chapter 5
He paced the small space. How long had he been at it? Didn’t matter. He was alone and it helped, the pacing. His mother used to complain about it to no end. Scream at him to stop, but he couldn’t. Not when it got bad like this. What he needed was sleep. A shower, a meal. He reeked. Fear. God, he hated that smell. When had he last eaten? Not since it happened. It had been an accident. He’d never intended for her to go down the stairs. Some part of his brain knew that wasn’t exactly true. It had been intentional. Sort of.
He had been angry. There was no denying that. So angry. The anger had gotten so much worse recently. It used to be that he could keep it bottled up, run it off. He had become a professional at pretending that nothing bothered him. He beat the angry man down. He became easygoing.
That’s how everyone knew him—happy-go-lucky. Easy to laugh. He never yelled. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had seen him angry.
The truth was he couldn’t be angry because someone was always watching. They had expected him to fuck it all up. Just a matter of time. For so long, he’d held himself in a fortress that protected him from that reality. He convinced himself that they needed him, that he couldn’t be replaced.
Over the years, the doubt had trickled in. The signs were all there. Hints that he wasn’t as important. Decisions made without him, in spite of him, for him.
The doubt had grown and built until he collapsed under the pressure of it. Her cry. The crack of her head striking the metal railing. The echoing hum of the metal vibrations and the scratchy thrashing as her body was thrown against the cement. The sounds of it played over and over in his brain. It made him sick.
He shouldn’t have left. He should have stayed with her. He pictured her face. Her beautiful face. These were not people to fuck with. They would ruin him. He would never see the light of day again.
He forced himself to sit. He was terrified she wouldn’t wake up. What if he’d killed her? They would never let that rest. They would never give up figuring out what had happened. Dwight Stewart couldn’t talk but someone else would. Maybe that little girl who ran into the street. She could wake up.
Should he have gone back for her, too?
And what if Charlotte woke up? What then? He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyeballs. She had seen his face. She would know it was him. She would tell them. Then what? It was too late to say it was an accident, that he hadn’t meant it. They had to know he wouldn’t hurt her. No, she couldn’t wake up. That would be worse.
He had to bide his time. The longer Charlotte was in a coma, the lower the chance that she would come out of it. And if she did? He thought about killing her. Again.
He cupped his hand over his mouth and tried to silence the rattling of his sobs.
Chapter 6
After ending the call with Vich, Jamie crossed to the rear parking lot, carrying with her the evidence from Charlotte’s exam. She yawned, fighting off fatigue. She’d been up at 6:00 that morning. Tony and Z would be home, getting in bed. That was where she wanted to be. The wind had started up, whipping her hair across her face and stinging the skin on her cheeks and ears. Her heavy coat was at home. April in San Francisco had a way of fooling her every year. It could be beautiful and clear, the wind low, and she’d be sweating in a blouse and slacks at night. A day later, the temperatures would drop into the 30s and the thin windbreaker she kept in her car would offer no protection. Walking outside was like wearing a bathing suit in the Arctic. Today was one of those days and, as darkness set in, it only got worse.
She zipped her wind shell up to her chin and walked around the side of the hospital. The lights created a halo over the scene. Halfway there, she wished she’d driven over.
Now she’d have to walk back, too. She saw Vich first. His back to her, he stood up on the curb in front of the parked Mercedes. Between them was a thick hedge, about chest high, which divided the lot she parked in from the back one. It was beech or Ligustrum or one of those green, s
mall-leafed plants that grew everywhere in the Bay Area. Near her house, someone had carved two of them into bunnies. Maybe for Easter, though it had been there since February.
Crime scene tape blocked off ten or fifteen feet on either side of the Bordens’ Mercedes. Industrial spotlights shined down on the scene, providing light for the techs to work. Outside the tape, three news vans and a small crowd of reporters were being held at bay by a half dozen officers. Standing behind the crime scene tape with his shirtsleeves rolled up and his arms crossed, Vich watched Sydney’s team at work. This was one of the things Jamie liked most about Vich—he didn’t try to get in everybody’s business. He could stand by without commenting while people did their jobs and gave him what he needed to do his. Something Jamie could work on.
Sydney Blanchard was one of two senior criminalists at SFPD. The other senior criminalist was Roger Sampers. Along with a staff of ten or twelve techs, Sydney and Roger managed the collection and processing of evidence from every crime scene in the city. Though Jamie liked them both, Sydney’s high energy was occasionally too much for Jamie. Especially in the morning. And at night, like this. Or pretty much always. Watching Sydney with her slim, athletic build also made Jamie feel like she should go running. Or swimming or biking or anything other than what she did do, which was go home and eat dinner and watch the latest season of Lost with Z and Tony. The fact that Sydney was never anything other than kind to Jamie made it worse.
You’re kind of a monster, she told herself. Yup, no argument here.
The car doors were closed. Most of the work of collecting evidence would happen in the department’s garage bay where the team had all the right tools. Not to mention no audience and better light. Right now, they were searching for things that they might lose in transport—anything on the outside or around the car and anything that might deteriorate before they got the car downtown.
Jamie passed by several reporters with her head down and her hand up. What she called her “no comment” walk. She went to the crime scene truck and checked the rape kit in with one of the techs, Naomi Muir, an attractive woman who looked barely older than Zephenaya. “Thanks, Inspector.”
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