by Mary Burton
Initially, the guilt had chewed on her. He’d begged her to return. Said he loved her. But as much as he pleaded, she understood their marriage was over. There were moments, generally after she’d reached the bottom of her fourth or fifth beer, when she could admit she still loved Tyler. But the next morning, when she woke sober and clear-eyed, she realized the decision to leave had been the right one.
Then he’d started following her. Calling her. Sending flowers. Coming by the station. Generosity gave way to desperation. More than anything, she just wanted him to leave her alone. Stop with the late-night calls. Stop sending her e-mails laced with profanity and threats.
Six weeks ago, he’d completely stepped over the line. He’d approached her while she was in the produce aisle of the grocery store. He’d come up behind her as she filled a plastic bag with apples. He’d scared the shit out of her, and she’d dropped the apples, sending them rolling over the tile floor. When she’d told him to back off, he’d threatened to expose her secret. He had no reason to remain loyal if she didn’t. He’d stalked off, leaving her to pick up the bruised fruit. She’d known then what needed to be done. Tyler would bring her career tumbling down. The threats had to be nullified.
Talking to Leah had hit a nerve. They were more alike than she’d ever want to admit. Yes, she was a cop who wasn’t afraid to go balls to the wall when chasing a suspect, but right now, her world, as Leah’s had been, was a house of cards.
She hated using Leah, but, deep in her gut, she believed that one day she would look at her and know in her heart she’d done the woman solid.
One day. If this little game of Russian roulette didn’t backfire. “Damn.”
She signed the evidence log and grinned at the officer. “Cold enough for you out there?”
“I’m not a fan of winter. I dream of floating down the Cumberland in an inner tube and drinking beer.”
“Oh, man, don’t tease me with those images. I think it’ll be July before I thaw.”
He laughed. “Heard about the bust you did. Ray Murphy is a Grade A bad guy. Nice work.”
“I love what I do.”
“It gets noticed.”
“Nice to know.”
She made her way along the rows of file boxes until she found the one she needed. From her purse, she pulled out an envelope full of worn twenties, tens, and fives and tucked it into the familiar file box. She’d sold her wedding bands and all her mother’s jewelry to raise the cash, and though it stung parting with her mother’s pieces, making the box whole, paying back the money she’d borrowed last week, had been a necessary first step. The second, a more critical step, would come tonight.
She closed the box, locked it, and walked toward the officer as if she didn’t have the sword of Damocles hanging over her head. She dug her keys from her purse. “Here’s to inner tubes and beer.”
“Amen.” He rose and nervously tugged on his belt, glancing around to make sure they were alone. “Someone was checking behind you last week.”
She tightened her grip on her keys. “That so?”
He cleared his throat. “I could get busted if anyone knew this came from me.”
Deidre shook her head slowly, wondering why he placed trust so easily. “No one will ever know.”
“Alex Morgan was poking around.”
“The TBI agent.” Leah’s date.
“That’s right.” The officer wrinkled his nose. “Didn’t say a word, just scanned the times you checked in and out of Evidence.”
A knot clenched in her gut, but she smiled as if she were floating down the Cumberland sipping a cold one. “Ah, he’s just on a fishing expedition. He does that from time to time. Likes to keep people guessing. He say anything?”
“Nope. Quiet as a statue. Kinda unnerving.”
“Thanks for the heads-up.”
“Sure.”
She waved and left the evidence locker. She got in her car and sat for a long moment as she considered this latest twist. What the hell did Alex Morgan want? He was tenacious when on the scent. Never got emotionally attached. Didn’t care who he pissed off.
She started her car and, instead of driving home, drove in the opposite direction, across the Memorial Bridge toward the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation offices.
A few male officers had said she had big balls, and she’d always taken that as a compliment. Now she hoped she could summon those balls.
At the front window, she found a thin older man with graying hair and thick glasses sitting behind the thick glass reception window. She leaned toward the speaker. “I’m here to see Alex Morgan.”
The man nodded. “I’ll call him down.”
“Thanks.” She moved away toward a bank of chairs. She wasn’t sure what Morgan thought he knew, but she needed to figure it out. He was one sharp son of a bitch, and if he smelled trouble, it was only a matter of time before he dug it up.
She considered sitting on the lobby couch but found she was too wired. The ten-mile run this morning should have taken some of the edge off, but she was juggling too many swords right now.
A door opened and closed, and she glanced up to see Agent Morgan exiting an elevator. A subtle tension snaked up her spine as he approached.
A tall, lean man, who moved with a precision some described as robotic. Every muscle twitch, word, or turn was judiciously chosen and parceled with machinelike efficiency.
Morgan wore his dark hair brushed back off his lean face, accentuating blue eyes that reflected a keen intelligence. Dressed in his dark suit, he had the look of the perfect agent. Crisp. Buttoned up. And a legacy from a family of cops. Poster boy for the TBI, she’d once joked.
No doubt he had no pang of conscience, nor did he worry about what it took to get the job done. His world was black and white, and he didn’t worry if the ends justified the means.
He rarely smiled and could be a humorless son of a bitch. Nice enough when it suited him, he could easily turn ruthless as a snake when the situation demanded. She’d gotten a glimpse of his coldness when he’d arrested a cop three weeks earlier. Officer Jim Fellows had been selling drugs. Alex had accumulated the evidence he’d needed and gone in for the arrest a few days after Christmas. She’d heard that Fellows, just months from retirement, had panicked and taken a swing. Alex had ducked, grabbed the man by the hand, and jerked back his wrist until the cop had dropped to his knees. He’d never raised his voice, never sworn, but he’d brought the hulking man down in front of his peers.
Fellows had not only lost his pension but also faced serious jail time. She shuddered when she thought about a cop caged behind bars. Fellows wasn’t a choirboy but, all in all, he’d been a really good cop. That had to count, right?
Time to grab the bull by the horns. “Agent Morgan.”
His gaze shifted toward her. “Detective Jones. What brings you here?”
“I hear you’ve been asking around about me.”
Most would have reacted to the bold move. There’d have been some tell to tip their hand. Alex’s face only registered mild interest and curiosity. “Who told you that?”
“Doesn’t really matter, does it? I know you’re gunning for me, and I want to know why.”
He cocked his head and looked almost amused. “I’m not gunning for you, Detective. Though I’ve heard you’ve been distracted lately. Forgot to issue a subpoena and missed a qualifying test at the shooting range last week. What’s that about?”
Who the fuck had been talking to Morgan about her? “Minor mistakes happen.”
“Not to you. At least not until about five weeks ago.”
The video cameras recorded a visual image but, if she kept her voice low, the audio wouldn’t pick up. She pressed harder. “I saw you at Rudy’s last night with Leah.”
He didn’t respond.
“She’s a friend of mine.”
Silence.
Last night, when she’d seen them talking at Rudy’s, she hadn’t thought too hard about it. But after the evidence officer’s c
omment, she realized it was a critical piece of the puzzle.
He wasn’t going to jump to any bait. And the more she talked, the deeper a trench she dug. “Like I said, doesn’t matter.” She enunciated each word as if she had a right to be outraged. “My point is simple. Dig all you want, but I’m clean.”
“Good to know.”
She rested her hands on her hips. “I know how you operate.”
“How’s that?”
“You’ve got a thing for tearing into good cops. You’re too afraid to work the streets, so you lurk in the shadows and find problems where none exists so you can justify your existence.”
His dark gaze glinted. “That so?”
“You’re not going to ruin my career. You’re not. I’m a good cop.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about.” He waited, as if he expected her to lose her temper and spill her guts. Stupid people spilled their guts. And she sure as shit wasn’t stupid. This ass was not going to ruin her life.
He glanced at the burn phone and pulled up the new text message. Attached was a picture of Leah. She was talking to a man. Laughing. This wasn’t the first text with pictures of Leah attached. They’d started four weeks ago and arrived several times a week. She was always smiling or laughing. In the gym. Enjoying a glass of wine. At the clinic. The message was clear. Her spirit had not been broken.
This not-so-subtle trail of bread crumbs from Officer Deidre Jones was designed to lure and eventually trap. But traps were tricky. If the trapper wasn’t careful, the coil could spring closed unexpectedly and snare the wrong person.
He slid behind the wheel of his truck and lowered the sun visor. Attached to the visor was a picture of his wife. He unclipped it and studied the image, taken on their wedding day. His wife had a bright smile and a spark in her blue gaze.
God, she’d been so damn pretty that day. He traced the line of the white wedding dress that hugged her curves and skimmed her thighs. They’d been through a lot. Weathered a lot of storms. A part of him really wanted to renew their vows and wish all the past darkness away. Start fresh.
He typed a simple message. YOU’VE GOT MY ATTENTION.
WHERE’RE YOU?
IN TOWN.
He barely hesitated before he typed. I WANT TO SEE YOU.
WHY?
OLD TIMES’ SAKE.
Deidre’s visit and her connection to John Doe weighed on Alex’s mind as he entered Exam Room Two for the autopsy of the John Doe found last night in the warehouse.
Standing at the head of the table was Dr. Miriam Heller, a pathologist with the state medical examiner’s office. Tall, thin, she wore scrubs and athletic shoes and her dark hair skimmed back in a smooth ponytail.
As she pulled on rubber gloves, she glanced up. “Agent Morgan,” she said. “It’s been a while since I had the pleasure.”
“Dr. Heller.” Both his brothers had worked with the doctor on multiple homicides, and they respected her work.
“I hear you’ve joined the dark side. Working a homicide.”
“Never a dull moment.” He removed his suit jacket, neatly folded it, and carefully laid it over a chair. He then rolled up his sleeves and donned a gown and rubber gloves.
“And your partner in crime, where is he?”
“Deke’s on his way.”
She moved to the head of the stainless-steel table where the body lay under a white sheet. Dr. Heller’s assistant, a short woman with brown, curly hair, approached the table with a sterile instrument tray and set it on a stand to the doctor’s right. Dr. Heller switched on the overhead light and tugged a hanging microphone closer to her mouth just as Deke pushed through the doors. “Ah, now we can start the party.”
Deke threw off an overcoat and tossed it over a chair. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this, Dr. Heller. People talk.”
She laughed. “Good. Nothing like a little gossip to get us all through this long winter.”
He donned a gown and gloves and joined Alex at the table.
Dr. Heller cleared her throat and switched on the mike. “This is Dr. Miriam Heller, and I’m with Detective Deke Morgan and TBI Agent Alex Morgan. I’m autopsying a John Doe found last night in a warehouse on the East Side of town on the Cumberland River.”
Her assistant picked up a digital camera from the stainless-steel workbench and readied herself to take pictures as Dr. Heller pulled off the sheet.
In the clear light of day, the body took on a grotesqueness that last night’s shadows had softened. The peeling skin was charred black, and what remained of the extremities had curled inward.
Alex took a mental step back from the carnage lying before him and focused on evidence and facts. “Let’s see what he can tell us.”
Dr. Heller winked. “I’m sure he has a few secrets to share.”
She began with a Y incision in the chest cavity and began a step-by-step analysis of the internal organs. She declared all healthy and of normal size until her fingers brushed the heart. As she lifted the enlarged organ from the body, even a layman could see the fatal bullet had shredded the heart. She laid the heart down and carefully dissected it until she exposed the bullet. She grabbed it with a pair of forceps and dropped it in a metal pan.
“This is a male subject who appears to be anywhere from late twenties to late forties. Cause of death was a bullet wound to the heart, which sliced through his left coronary artery. Other than the damage from the bullet, I do notice that several arteries are blocked, which leads me to correct my first assessment of age. I’d say the victim was well into his late thirties and likely older. Lungs indicate he was a heavy smoker.” Her catalogue of his major organs complete, she moved to his arms. She noted the hands had been severed, but the cuts had not been clean. Dismembering had taken several chops to remove the right and then the left hand. The scenario mirrored the removal of the feet and the head.
“Was there a lot of blood at the scene?” Dr. Heller asked.
“No,” Deke said.
“So he was killed and dismembered elsewhere?” she asked.
“Yes,” Deke said. “Where is the million-dollar question.”
With the help of her assistant, Dr. Heller rotated the body on its side and photographed the back, which was covered with tattoos. The fire had so damaged the skin, the images were nearly unrecognizable.
“He liked the ink,” Dr. Heller said. “We might be able to analyze the photos and come up with a tattoo that can be identified, but that will take time.”
Deke frowned. “Whatever you can give us will help.” He glanced at Alex. “See any connections yet?”
Alex thought again about Deidre’s visit today. She’d played it cool, but he’d sensed her nerves jumping. She was hiding something. “Not yet. But I will. Do what you can to reclaim any of the tattoos. They might help identify the victim.”
When Deidre arrived at home, it was dark and cold. She was tired, ready for a glass of wine and an evening with David. A good roll in the sack would take the edge off the nerves banding her neck and shoulders. But sex and wine would have to wait. The nerves humming in her body needed to remain sharp.
As she fished her keys out of her purse, she stepped inside her darkened town house and flipped on an entry light. She dumped her purse and keys on the table and then carefully stepped out of her shoes, avoiding a glance in the hallway mirror that would toss back too many recriminations. Soon, she’d be able to look herself in the eye again.
On the table sat a framed picture of two young girls. The picture of Deidre and her younger sister had been taken over twenty years earlier. When she’d left Tyler, this photograph, along with her computer and clothes, had been the one personal item she’d taken with her. A second image, which she’d brought from the office, sat next to the first. It featured her surrounded by a half-dozen guys. They were all grinning and standing in front of three million dollars of seized cocaine. That had been one hell of a day.
The pictures reminded her of her priorities. Family and the job.
Moving into the kitchen, she reached for a bottle of wine and then stopped herself. Instead, she filled a glass with tap water and took a liberal sip. Wished it were stronger, but knew it wasn’t about what she wanted but what she needed.
Pressing the glass to her temple, she tried to imagine Morgan’s face if she were to explain her plan. He would not approve of the methods, but he would like the end result. Maybe after it was all said and done, she’d tell him. That startled a laugh from her. Likely not.
She’d learned the hard way to keep her own counsel. No exceptions, ever.
Glass in hand, she backtracked into the entryway and reached in her purse for her cell. She dialed Leah’s number. David would have to wait.
Leah answered on the third ring. “Leah, this is Deidre. Wondering if you’d like to grab some dinner tonight?”
“That sounds so nice. But I’m running on empty. That run today plus work wiped me out.”
Deidre glanced at her short fingernails. “You’re not getting soft on me, are you?”
“Ha! I’m the least alpha of the group. Safe to say I’m not getting soft. I am soft.”
A chuckle rumbled in her throat. “I’d like to get together this week to talk. I kind of touched on my divorce stuff and, well, I just got the sense that you understand.”
A heavy silence crackled. “Better than I wish. What’s going on?”
Deidre didn’t have to dig deep on this one. “My soon-to-be ex-husband made me sign over the house to him or he said he wouldn’t sign the divorce papers. I know I’ll never live there again, but it hurts to have it taken away.”
“You don’t want to fight for it?” Irritation edged Leah’s voice.
“I want my freedom more. We sign the final papers in two and a half days.” She dangled the bait, hating it as she reminded herself that the end justified the means.