Deep Dark

by Laura Griffin

  “Will you tell me about it?”

  “Why?”

  He reached up and stroked his thumb over her chin. “Because. I want to know you.”

  She stared up at him silently. Her heart was drumming now as she studied his eyes. His mouth. She couldn’t think of what to say. The moment stretched out, and she could feel his disappointment like a weight, but she couldn’t get the words to come.

  “I don’t like to talk about it.”

  He feathered her hair away from her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. “Someday?”

  She nodded.

  He leaned down and kissed her, and the unbearable sweetness of it made her chest tighten. She felt guilty for all the ways she’d lied to him. And was still lying. By omission, mostly, but it was lying all the same.

  She had a feeling he knew. He was a good detective. Observant. And his cynical streak ran deep. For some crazy reason, she liked that about him, liked that he’d seen things and probably done things. She liked that he wasn’t naive about the world.

  She gazed up at him in the near-darkness. Would he stay or go now?

  It was up to him, she decided. She wasn’t going to ask.

  She turned away, and he pulled her back against him, and she took a deep breath and tried to focus on the warm closeness of him. He started that stroking thing on her arm again, and she let her eyes drift shut. His hands felt so strong and masculine against her skin. This kind of intimacy was new to her, and it scared her how much she liked it. She loved his body, his scent, his voice. She wanted to soak it all up, even though she knew it would only disappear. Everything about the way he touched her felt so impossibly good.

  He shifted, and she felt him checking his watch. He started to sit up.

  “Stay.” She put her hand on his arm. “Please?”

  CHAPTER 27

  Reed awoke to the sound of a phone vibrating on the nightstand. Laney’s, not his.

  She answered it and mumbled something hostile before slipping out of bed and going into the hall.

  Reed cast a groggy look around the room. It was bright, maybe nine o’clock. He sat up and swung his legs out of bed, dislodging the cat.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. He got up and pulled on his pants, and the fat tabby squinted at him from the doorway as he zipped up. He glanced around Laney’s bedroom in the full light of day.

  Bras and jeans were strewn across the chairs, and the closet door stood open to reveal a pile of laundry. No photos or decorative touches anywhere except a framed print hanging over the dresser where most women would have put a mirror. He recognized the picture—it was a black-and-white M. C. Escher drawing of a never-ending staircase.

  Reed’s gaze went to her alarm clock: 9:05. She was still on the phone, so he ducked into the bathroom to grab a shower. He kept it quick, skipping her coconut-­smelling shampoo and opting for soap. When he got out, he rubbed a towel over the mirror and turned to examine a set of parallel scratch marks on his back. He glanced at the door. He wished she’d walk in right now so he could pull her into the shower with him and even lather up with the coconut stuff if she wanted. But she was still on the phone, so instead he got dressed, thinking back through everything and trying to remember exactly when she’d scratched him.

  They’d been up most of the night. Reed hadn’t been able to let her sleep. He couldn’t stop touching her, and she wouldn’t stop letting him. He’d been obsessed.

  He walked into the living room and found the object of his obsession sitting on her futon with a laptop open in front of her. She wore a T-shirt, no bra, and she was deep into a computer problem, judging by the line of concentration between her brows.

  Reed went into the kitchen and started opening cabinets. He found a bag of coffee and dumped about eight scoops’ worth into the machine, then filled the carafe with water while he listened to her conversation. It was mostly jargon, but the tone of her voice put him on alert. As he flipped on the coffeemaker, she ended her call.

  “Who was it?” Reed asked, grabbing the shirt he’d discarded on her counter the night before.

  “A friend who’s been working on something for me at the lab.” She glanced up. “Tell me something. Why’d you ask me yesterday about my gym?”

  Reed sighed, resigned to the fact that she wasn’t going to leave this thing alone, no matter what he did or didn’t tell her. He pulled on his T-shirt and shrugged into his button-down.

  “Turns out April had noticed someone watching her at her gym a few weeks before her murder. We looked through the security tapes, and he may have been driving a seventy-nine VW Beetle.”

  “A seventy-nine?”

  “Yeah, we’ve got a theory he may be a classic-car buff. The murder weapon is a body hammer.”

  Laney stared at him for a long moment. “Any chance the VW had out-of-state plates?”

  “We didn’t get a plate. Why?”

  She carried the laptop over to the bar. Reed nodded at the computer as he buttoned his shirt. “That thing’s a dinosaur. What is that, five years old?”

  “It’s my backup system,” she said. “Here, come take a look at this.”

  He walked around to look over her shoulder. It was a crime-scene photo of a woman sprawled facedown on a floor, her head in a pool of blood. Reed’s hands stilled on his buttons.

  “It’s an unsolved case,” Laney said. “She was bludgeoned in her home with a hammer. The killer used duct tape on her mouth and removed the lightbulb from her back porch.”

  “Where’d this come from?”

  “Michigan.”

  “No, where’d you get it?”

  “ViCAP.”

  He stared at her. “How?”

  She lifted a shoulder.

  “You can’t just hack into the FBI’s computers, Laney.”

  “Actually, you can. I told you, nothing’s unhackable.”

  He felt the blood rushing to his head. “Christ, you could go to jail. You were just in jail, as a matter of fact. Are you out of your mind?”

  She glared at him. “I didn’t do it. Not personally. I just happened to come by the information.”

  “You’re going to get yourself arrested! By the FBI, and it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than a few phone calls from me to get you out.”

  “Do you want this or not?”

  He stared down at the crime-scene photo that looked so much like April Abrams he couldn’t look away.

  “When was this?” he asked.

  “The first one happened eight years ago in Ann Arbor.”

  “There’s more than one?”

  “I’ve got two so far. The first victim was an engineering student at the University of Michigan. The more recent case was six years ago, also in Ann Arbor.” She tapped a few keys, and the crime-scene photo was replaced by what looked like a police report. Reed’s phone buzzed in his pocket, but he ignored it as he read the words.

  “Both victims bludgeoned, injuries to the skull,” she said. “In the first case, the killer gained entry by popping open a sliding glass door. In the second case, he picked the lock. Which doesn’t surprise me.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “The lockpicking. It’s a hobby in some computer circles. You see lock-breaking competitions at conventions and stuff. Defeating a mechanical barrier, that’s a natural extension of what we do.”

  Reed skimmed the page, his gut clenching as he registered all the similarities.

  “Ann Arbor,” Laney muttered. “That’s an interesting parallel.”

  “How?”

  “Well, it’s a college town, like Austin. And the university there has a world-renowned comp-sci department.” She scrolled through a few more screens. “I still haven’t gone through everything yet to see if there might be more.” She glanced up, and there was something evasive in her look. “This, um, this
is just a partial download of what I might be able to get.”

  He tried to decipher that. Did this have something to do with Gantz? Had he hacked into the FBI for her? All along, Reed had suspected that she was protecting the guy.

  “Don’t give me that look,” she said, clearly picking up on his suspicion. “What do you care where the info came from, as long as it’s solid?”

  “How do I know it’s solid?”

  “Because you trust me.”

  He watched her for a long moment.

  “Do you have access to ViCAP?” she asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, you want to write these names down?” She slid a pad of sticky notes in front of him and folded her arms over her chest. “You know, you could pretend to be grateful. This didn’t exactly fall into my lap.”

  He jotted down the name and case number at the top of the report. She clicked into the second file, and he did the same.

  So much for spending the day with Laney. He looked at her and felt a now-familiar combination of frustration and lust.

  “I have to go in,” he said. “I have to follow up.” He couldn’t use all this until he had it confirmed through legit channels.

  “Keep your phone on,” she said. “I’ll call you if I get anything else.”

  He stuffed the note into his pocket. “I’m still pissed at you, Laney.”

  “You’ll get over it.”

  • • •

  Reed returned Jay’s call the second he got into his truck. Eight years ago. They definitely should have had this. The similarities were uncanny.

  Reed’s call kicked to voice mail. Something must have gone down last night. Or this morning. Jay didn’t call him on a Saturday unless it was important.

  He turned out of Laney’s neighborhood and headed for the station, going over the implications as he drove. Two more potentially related murders, both in Michigan. It was a major break in the case, courtesy of his hacker girlfriend.

  Was Laney his girlfriend? She probably wouldn’t like the label, probably didn’t want to be labeled anyone’s anything.

  Reed had meant it when he told her he wanted to know her better. But she didn’t like to talk about herself, so he was going to have to do it through observation.

  Her home told him a lot. She had a bare minimum of furniture, most of it cheap. Evidently, she spent all her money on the place itself, not what was inside. Years before, she’d rented a house in a crime-ridden neighborhood. Now she lived in one of the city’s safest zip codes and had a state-of-the-art alarm system. And then there was the kickboxing.

  Her attack had left scars, both physical and emotional. It had made her distrustful. Paranoid. It had added another hard layer to her protective outer shell.

  The thing was, she wasn’t hard, not on the inside. She was soft. Compassionate. Vulnerable. And he knew instinctively that if he hurt her, there would be no second chances. He wasn’t even sure he had a first chance.

  So that was it, decision made. Whatever impulsive and probably illegal thing Laney had done to score this intel, Reed was going to cover for her and put his job on the line doing it. He couldn’t do anything else, because she was right. This case needed her. He needed her. And the information she’d just handed him was potentially explosive.

  He dialed Jay again.

  “I was just about to call you,” Jay said. “What’s your twenty?”

  “I’m on my way to the station. Something’s come up.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m at Ian Phelps’s place. Reed, we need you over here.”

  • • •

  Veronica surveyed the scene, getting together her game plan. Bedrooms were a good starting point, but this time she’d begin in the kitchen. She set her evidence kit on the counter and selected a fingerprint powder.

  “You get this cell phone already?” she asked the crime-scene photographer. He was new. Tall and skinny, the kid had watery blue eyes and a blond soul patch under his lip. He snapped a picture of the breakfast room and turned around.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “This cell phone,” she repeated. “Did you get it yet? Everything we take with us needs to be photographed first.”

  He turned and snapped some pictures. When he was finished, Veronica took out an evidence envelope and carefully sealed the phone inside. Phones were a treasure trove of digital and biological evidence. Veronica wanted the biological. She’d collect prints and DNA this morning and then hand it off to the computer lab.

  The phone taken care of, she turned her attention to the rest of the kitchen. Ian Phelps’s notebook computer sat open on the table beside a bowl of Froot Loops, now soggy.

  “The computer, too?” the photographer asked.

  “Definitely. Get a couple.” She stepped into the laundry room, where Jordan was poking through a heap of clothes on the floor. “Anything interesting?”

  “Jeans, socks.” Jordan picked up a T-shirt with a gloved hand and gave it a sniff, then made a face. “Workout clothes, I’d say.”

  Veronica opened the washing machine. “Well, well.”

  “What is it?”

  “Sheets.”

  Behind her, the photographer sounded like he was hacking up a lung. Veronica turned around. “Hey, catch your cough.”

  “Sheets are good, I’d think,” Jordan said.

  “Always. Even if they’ve been washed, we might still be able to get DNA.”

  “Detergent doesn’t destroy it?”

  “Not completely. There are tests we can do.”

  Another coughing fit behind her, and Veronica whirled around. “Yo, you mind not spewing phlegm all over my evidence?”

  “I’ve got allergies.” He wiped his nose on his shirttail.

  “Then take a freaking antihistamine. Or better yet”—she stalked over to her evidence kit and grabbed a paper face mask—“put this on.”

  Jordan was watching her from the laundry room. “You all right?” she asked quietly.

  “Fine. Why?”

  “You seem a little . . . stressed today.”

  She meant bitchy, but she was too polite to say it. And she was right. Veronica had been snapping at people all morning.

  She took a deep breath. “I’m fine, just tired.”

  Jordan lifted an eyebrow. “Long night?”

  “Jay came over.”

  She grinned. “Oh, yeah? I thought you had a rule against dating cops.”

  “I do.”

  “So how’d he get you to bend it?”

  She’d bent it because he’d asked again. And because he had kind eyes. It seemed silly now, and Veronica shook her head.

  “Uh-oh.” Jordan’s grin disappeared. “That bad, huh?”

  “Not bad, just . . .” Tense. Awkward. No chemistry whatsoever. Damn it, if only she’d kissed him first before inviting him home, they could have avoided the whole embarrassing fiasco.

  Jordan was still watching her, waiting for an answer.

  “Disappointing,” she finally said.

  “Ahem.”

  Jordan’s gaze darted over her shoulder, and Veronica froze.

  “Hey, Jay. What’s up?” Jordan chirped.

  Crap, crap, crap. Veronica cringed but didn’t turn around.

  “Novak just got here. He wants to talk to you.”

  “Thanks.” Jordan gave her a quick glance and walked out, leaving her alone with Jay. She turned around.

  “You, too, Ronnie.”

  His face looked blank, so maybe he hadn’t overheard. Maybe.

  She followed him across the condo and stepped through the front door into the blazing sunlight. The crime-scene van was parked on the street behind Phelps’s black Saab.

  She hazarded a look at Jay. His expression was hard now, and he wouldn’t make eye contact. Cr
ap.

  She cleared her throat. “Back there with Jordan, what I meant was—”

  “Forget it.” He strode over to the crime-scene van, where Reed and Jordan were standing beside the open cargo doors.

  “What time was that?” Reed was asking the detective.

  “About eight o’clock,” she said. “Dispatch took the call around seven fifteen. A neighbor out walking his dog happened to glance inside the car. Said he’d heard about the Abrams murder on the news and knew Phelps worked at the same company as the victim, so he decided to call it in. A patrol officer came over and did a pass-by on foot, then called the squad room. I showed up a few minutes later, and the Saab was parked here on the street.”

  Reed nodded at the car. “And everything was just sitting there in plain view?”

  “Right in the backseat,” Jordan said. “A bloodstained T-shirt and a bloody hammer.”

  “Where’s the fiancée right now?” Reed asked.

  “I hear she’s out of town for the weekend,” Jay said. “Left yesterday evening.”

  “Okay, so Jordan responded to the scene around eight A.M.” Reed looked at Veronica. “And when did you get here?”

  “About twenty minutes after that. I actually live not too far from here.” She glanced at Jay, who was looking impressively blank again.

  “What about Hall?” Reed asked Jay.

  “He showed up when I did. He wanted to get Phelps down to the station to see if he’d talk to us while we lit a fire under some judge to sign off on the search warrant.”

  “And Phelps went in voluntarily?”

  “No arguments,” Jay said. “We didn’t put him under arrest or anything.”

  “We weren’t drawing attention to his car at that point,” Jordan added. “He was totally cooperative.”

  Veronica watched Reed’s reaction. He looked perplexed, and she didn’t blame him. It was an unusual turn of events, to say the least.

  “So where’s everything now?” Reed looked at her.

  “Here.” She stepped over to the crime-scene van. “The shirt is sealed in an envelope already, but the hammer is in a box.” She grabbed a mask and gloves from a supply kit and handed them to him. “Wear this if you want to look. The last thing we want to do is contaminate anything.”