by Nancy Holder
“The diner won’t be open yet. You need to sleep, Catherine. I can track her…”
“I’ll grab a few hours, and then I’ll go.”
He lay her on her stomach and began a slow massage as he took her clothes off one by one, gentling her like a distressed animal. She sighed and moved her shoulders. “I wonder what time Mars opens.”
“Earth to Catherine. Ssh,” he urged.
She kept seeing the headlights in her rearview mirror. Hearing Tess say, “I think I see a gun.”
“At least lie still,” Vincent insisted.
Next she saw her father in his cell, telling her that he had set Vincent up to keep him from killing her. “Because he will. Beasts only get worse. I know. I helped create them. Don’t be fooled, Catherine. He will kill you.”
“Catherine,” Vincent said gently. “Try to relax.”
His fingertips trailed along her arms like pieces of silk.
He is gentle.
Every day, he’s getting better.
“Ssh,” Vincent said again.
* * *
Tess knocked very softly on J.T.’s door, bargaining with herself that if he didn’t hear her first attempt, she would go home. She didn’t want to wake him up. But the door opened at once, and a fully clothed J.T. practically sagged against the doorjamb with relief.
“You’ve been worrying about me,” she said.
At first he shook his head, but then he looked abashed. “I know you’re a cop. I’ve accepted that. But… yes, I do worry. All the time.”
Her smile was gentle and appreciative. “It’s nice to be worried about.”
“Worried sick,” he said. “DeMarco coming here, and you two zooming off like—like Thelma and Louise—”
“They died.” She decided not to tell him about what had just happened on the way back from Westchester. She was still trying to decide what actually did happen.
Mr. Boston White Sox approached, mewing, and Tess picked him up and cuddled him against her chest. “Are you going to stay up programming? If you don’t mind my staying here, I am about to fall over.”
“Mind,” he echoed. He took her hand and led her toward the bedroom.
“Do you want to know about the case?” she asked him. Except for the scary part?
“Later,” he said.
And opened the bedroom door.
* * *
Breakfast at Mars.
A large part of the cop game was waiting. There was a joke that the surest way to promotion was clocking the most hours in fruitless stakeouts, no-show meetings with confidential informants, and being put on hold. When Cat arrived with the breakfast crowd at the diner, she wasn’t surprised to hear that the texting waitress, whose name was Staci, wasn’t due for another hour. At this rate, someday Catherine Chandler would be the Chief of Police.
She took the time to go on walkabout outside in the cold, showing the pierced kid’s picture to passersby and construction workers. None of them recognized him. Also par for the course in the cop game.
She stopped by the Dumpster, the same one Claudia had been left in. Sometimes Dumpsters were taken in as evidence. Not this time.
“I will get justice for you,” Cat whispered. The dead had to depend on the living for justice. Mercy came from another quarter, or so it was said.
After her toes were completely frozen, she went back into the diner, to find Staci behind the counter, pouring coffee. She glanced up at Cat as if she’d been expecting her, and droplets of the fragrant steaming liquid splashed against the rim of the cup she was filling with a jittery hand.
Cat sat down at the counter. Staci walked over to her. “Hello, Staci,” Cat said. “I’m Detective Chandler.”
“This is about that dead lady in the Dumpster, huh,” Staci said.
“I was wondering if you’ve seen this guy around.” She showed Staci the picture of piercings guy. Staci went pale, and Cat added, “He’s not a suspect. He’s not in any trouble.” Which was a lie, but cops lied to people to solve cases. Even good cops.
“Yeah,” Staci said. “I remember his name because I like poetry. There’s a poet named Emily Dickinson and he’s Paul Dickinson.”
A name. Hallelujah. Cat battled the urge to whoop with joy.
“Has he been in lately? Maybe with someone else?”
Staci nodded. “A guy.”
“Can you describe that guy?” Weird thing on cheek? Creepy, older?
“Yeah. He looked a lot like him. Young, dark hair.”
That caught Cat off guard. She fished in her purse for the eight-by-ten glossy of Angelo. Staci nodded.
“That’s him. They were in a band or something. They were having a fight. Paul told the other guy that he had to pay the studio what he owed or Paul was going to get fired.”
Cat could feel all her nerve endings firing with excitement. She was on the trail. “So Paul worked at the studio.” When she nodded, Cat said, “Did he say the name of the studio?”
She smiled a little, no longer nervous. Cat was being friendly and appreciative of her help.
“It was funny because they were eating pancakes and I thought he was asking me for more maple syrup. I knew they had a container on the table so I thought maybe it was empty or dirty or something. So I brought them more and they were so confused.”
“Maple,” Cat said. “That was the name of the recording studio.”
“Yeah.”
That shifty kid, she thought. Befriending Angelo to get in on a kidnapping, really?
“Do you know either one of them very well? Maybe you’ve texted them or you’ve seen them on your social media, something like that?” “No.” Staci cheeks turned pink. “I kinda hoped but nada.” You are very lucky, Cat thought. She put down a couple of dollars for the coffee she had yet to order and left.
As she walked to her car, her phone rang. It was Captain Ward.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“Just got a call from Agent Hendricks. He said you wanted to have a meeting with him and as it happens, he has some more things he wants to talk to you about.”
Her body buzzed. What things? Is this about the APB on my father?
“I’m on my way in right now. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes but I’m not sure when my union rep can make it,” she said pointedly. But there was no way in hell she was going to wait for him.
“I’ll sit in with you,” he said. “If he’s out of line, we’ll stop.”
Bingo. That was what she wanted. Although she was glad he was finally acting like her captain, she wasn’t reassured. That couldn’t matter right now.
“Okay,” she said.
She called Tess and told her what she’d found out about the diner. And about IA.
Tess said, “If Ward doesn’t back you up you need to do something, Cat. Okay? Seriously.”
“Got it.”
“And Paul Dickinson’s got an employee locker at Maple. I’m thinking we don’t get a warrant because we can’t explain how we know to look at him.”
“Right.” Cat unlocked her car. “Charm the receptionist at the studio like you do. If it’s my friend the career counselor compliment her on her hair.”
“I will. So this is how I see it,” Tess said. “R and G are involved in a crime we haven’t even mentioned, and might not be involved in the one we’ve stopped sharing information with them about. But they still might have tried to kill us last night. Go figure. Let me know what happens at the precinct. Cyanide, while painful, is quick.”
“Happy hunting.”
* * *
Ding.
There was a second hit on the APB and Gabe was certain that any second, an announcement would go out that Reynolds had been apprehended. Gabe was desperate to get to him, but equally anxious about his own safety. Once Reynolds was in custody, he would have to ask him about the attack on the lake house. He wanted to know if he was a target now of the secret society.
If Celeste was.
Gabe drove too fast on the icy roads,
slowing only when the car began to fishtail. He had rarely been so weary but the caffeine and the adrenaline were like a beast serum, fueling his body, keeping him alert.
He drove on.
* * *
“Detective Chandler,” Agent Hendricks said. “We have reviewed your footage and we agree that what was sent to us was tampered with.”
Cat and Captain Ward sat across from Hendricks in the same interview room where her previous interrogation had taken place. The camera was rolling. Beside Hendricks was a box of gloves and a large paper bag with something in it. She was edgy and skittish, wanting to be done with this, sensing that she might have a long session ahead of her. She noted the lack of an apology.
“We believe that the people who took your father doctored the recording in order to confuse us,” he continued.
“Gee, really?” Cat snapped. Captain Ward shifted uncomfortably beside her and she told herself to take it down a notch.
“However, we intercepted a message we believe your father meant to send to you in secret.”
She blinked. “Intercepted? How? Was it a letter…” Her lips parted. “Did you hack my personal email?”
She was not as alarmed as, say, a civilian might be. She and Vincent were extremely careful not to use email, and anything important that she had to share with Tess, she told her face-to-face. Still, it was an outrage.
“That’s illegal,” she said.
“You know that as you are a member of the NYPD, the definition of protected speech is more… elastic in cases like this,” he retorted.
“What did he say? If it was meant for me…”
“We would prefer to hold it for now. However, we would like you to explain this.”
With great ceremony, he put on a pair of gloves. Then he reached into the bag.
There was a bundle of brown paper. He carefully unwrapped it, revealing a white T-shirt splattered with blood. Prisoners wore white T-shirts and boxers underneath their orange jumpsuits, so it likely could have belonged to her father. She swallowed hard, waiting to be told if it meant that her father had been injured, possibly killed.
“DNA test results indicate this is your father’s blood.” He looked at her expectantly. “Have you received other private messages, perhaps demanding money or services in exchange for your father’s safe return? Are you under duress, and is that duress compromising your ability to perform your job?”
“No,” she said. She grabbed the box of gloves and began to pull out a pair, but he shook his head.
“I’ll retain possession of this. Otherwise there’s a break in the chain of custody.”
“Are you kidding?” she said.
“Chandler,” Captain Ward warned.
“Look,” Catherine said, “I arrested my father.”
“Maybe you’ve had a change of heart. Maybe you’ve come to regret your actions.”
“I haven’t,” She bit off. “It’s not my fault that my father is a criminal. It has nothing to do with me.”
“Except… it does. The agents in charge of the DeMarco kidnapping have expressed some concern over these developments.”
How do they even know about these developments?
She saw where this was headed: Robertson and Gonzales wanted to get rid of her and Tess. She shut her eyes to keep from exploding.
And then she realized that the best thing that could happen to the DeMarco case would be if they were released from it. She and Tess were already operating in secret, and the events of last night—and in this interview room—confirmed that they would have to continue to do so. It would be much easier if a clear boundary was established so that they no longer had to decide what information to share and when.
It’s much easier for now. For this case. But what about the rest of my life? My career?
She licked her lips and lifted her chin. “Then my partner and I would like to formally withdraw from this case.”
Captain Ward lifted a brow. “Don’t you think you should talk to Vargas about this?”
“No. I’m speaking for both of us.”
Hendricks said, “I think that’s best. Detective Chandler, we would appreciate being notified if your father contacts you again.”
Cat couldn’t trust herself to speak. She rose and walked stolidly from the room. Captain Ward followed after her.
“We’ll figured this out, Chandler,” he said. “And for the record, I don’t like the DeMarco case and I’m glad we’re free of it.”
“Thank you, sir.” She kept her voice flat and neutral. There was no way in hell she would say anything else, especially on the record. But now she was certain of one thing: whoever had taken her father, they knew about beasts. They hadn’t sent that T-shirt as some kind of threat or warning.
They had sent it so Vincent could try to track Reynolds down.
With as much dignity as she could muster, she walked to her desk and sat down. She opened the bottom drawer of her desk to put in her purse and froze.
Inside the drawer lay a dead rat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
MAPLE RECORDING STUDIOS
Over the entry door hung a vintage sign of a pin-up girl holding a maple leaf, and it reminded Tess of the jeweled fig leaf on the David statue in the DeMarco penthouse. She shot a picture of the sign and took a moment to calm down. Cat had just called her to tell her what had happened with IA, and Tess was infuriated. She figured Cat had grounds for a lawsuit over the theft of her private email and, meanwhile, she had asked J.T. if he could find a way to retrieve it. He was actually pretty hopeful about it, but that did little to lessen her ire.
We are getting screwed over so many ways it’s not funny.
Cat had tossed the dead rat, which was too bad, because Tess could think of so many people who deserved to get it next.
Tess took deep breaths. She had found an address for Paul Dickinson via a reverse-listing for his driver’s license. Since his domicile was on the way to the studio she’d dropped by. Turned out it was one of those cold-water walkups shared by stoners, students, and low-wage earners. She hadn’t wanted to tip her hand that she was a cop with a professional interest in Dickinson, so she hadn’t asked for him specifically. She’d seized on the for rent sign in the apartment next door as her reason for being there and asked them where the landlord was, fell to chatting and listening hard for information about her subject. Turned out Paul had moved out without giving notice and one of the guys had shyly asked her if she’d like to move in. They were pissed off at him because he had split, left half his stuff for them to deal with, and never heard from him again.
After some more chatter they’d urged her to check out the room for rent. She picked up an open notebook from the filthy bedroom floor, in which Paul had sketched himself as a rock star, and among the doodles was a set of numbers and the word work.
Locker combination?
She’d memorized the sequence and, as soon as she had left, telling them that she couldn’t wait for the landlord to show but she’d be back, she had written the numbers on her hand.
Now she was at the studio, and she needed to get into that locker. If she couldn’t make it happen with subterfuge, she and Cat had agreed they would fill Ward in, let the chips fall where they may.
Tess walked in to a foyer decorated in black and white with accents of bright blue, yellow, and red. Music was thumping loudly through the wall. There was a very bored young woman at the desk. Tess had expected Cat’s phone buddy and career counselor, and she hoped this girl would be even easier to manipulate.
“Hi,” Tess said above the noise. “I hope you can help me. My cousin Paul used to work here but, God, he’s so crazy, he just enlisted in the army and he didn’t get all his stuff before he quit.”
“He didn’t even,” the woman yelled back, and Tess blinked. Was the receptionist calling her on her story? Had she just been busted?
“Didn’t even quit,” the woman elaborated. “Just stopped coming in. The jerk.”
“That
guy.” Tess shook her head. “Well, he gave me his combination and if I could just get his stuff…”
“Whatever. Mrs. Myers was going to cut the lock off anyways.”
The receptionist waved a hand toward a door. Tess opened it and went down a hall and into a room with a refrigerator, a microwave, and a row of lockers. One was marked paul. Making sure she was alone, she slipped on some gloves and tried the combination.
Open sesame.
Tess let out a whistle. Inside were a T-shirt, a pair of thick winter mittens and some socks, cans of baked beans and tuna, and quite a few plastic bottles containing different combinations of vitamin supplements as well as a prescription anti-anxiety medication. The patient listed on the label was Paul Dickinson.
And there was a picture of Paul with Angelo and a certain scruffy old man. It was the homeless penny-whistle player Tess and Cat had encountered during the blackout. Tess picked up one of the bottles, wondering if this was the medicine the old man had been talking about. Maybe Angelo had paid for all these things for the old guy and Claudia had supplied them. So then Paul stockpiled them and they took them to the old man every once and a while.
Only now, since Paul had turned into a kidnapper, the old man was going without.
In the break room she found a box of gallon-sized plastic freezer bags, put on fresh gloves, and took everything out of the locker. Then she took the lock and peeled off the Paul sticker from the front of the locker. She kept that too.
She thanked the girl and went outside. Her phone rang just as her feet hit the sidewalk. It was J.T.
“Okay, they didn’t bother to delete-delete Reynolds’ message when they captured it,” J.T. said. “What that means is—”
“I know what that means,” Tess said. “Go on. What did it say?”
“‘It only gets worse.’”
Tess made a face. “Two guesses as to what “it” is.”
“Vincent,” said J.T.
“Yeah, I’m thinking.” Her phone beeped. “Hold on. I have another call.”
“Vargas, where the hell are you?” It was Captain Ward. “Did Chandler tell you that you’re off DeMarco?”