“Her?” Mia blinked. “Samantha?”
“See? Now I can tell you went to Harvard.” Gray took another gulp of his coffee and sat back in his chair. “Smith was Watkinson’s mentor, and now they’re both dead. Shot with the same gun, Mia.” He paused to allow the words to soak in. “You’re the profiler. What do you think of that?”
“I didn’t think it was cartel style to shoot someone,” she said, lowering her voice. “That always bothered me.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. What else?”
She edged closer to rest her long arms on the table as she thought. Gray watched her shoulders loosen and the lines in her forehead relax. She loves puzzles, he thought. Thinking through crime scenes actually puts her in a different state of mind. Fascinating. He folded his hands casually over his stomach and waited to see what she’d come up with.
“Both murders appear to be premeditated and boldly executed, but they’re different. Jake Smith wasn’t stabbed, was he?”
“No, he was just shot.”
“By a low-caliber weapon,” she added. “You’d think if someone wanted the job done...” She paused to wrap her fingers absentmindedly around her mug of cappuccino. “What were the wounds like? Was he shot in the knees?”
“One shot to the right shin. A second to the left thigh.”
“So maybe the shooter wanted to cause him some pain first. Or immobilize him.”
Gray reached for his mug. “My thought was that this was some kind of hit by a shooter who’d watched too many mob movies.”
“You think he was aiming for the knees? He missed his mark. Twice.”
“Hey, no judgment here. I’ve never had to shoot someone in the knees. That may require some practice.”
The corners of her mouth lifted ever so slightly at his attempt at humor. “Inexperienced or not, he—or she—killed Mr. Smith.”
“Nice. I like how you were politically correct there.”
“And,” she continued, ignoring his remark, “that shooter then either decided to take up stabbing or passed the gun along to someone who was a little knife-happy, because the gun wasn’t the murder weapon in Samantha’s case.”
“Correct. The ME concluded she was shot postmortem.”
“The shot was a statement. Whoever killed Samantha wanted us to draw the connection between the two killings.”
She dropped a brown cube of sugar into her cappuccino and dragged a tiny silver spoon through the foam. “You’d think for five dollars a cup, the barista could draw a flower on it or something.”
She took a sip and sat back thoughtfully in her seat. Her upper lip had a little foam on it, and Gray was debating the etiquette of saying something when she slipped her tongue across her lips. His mind went completely blank at the sight.
“They dropped the body by the Charles and left the gun,” she continued, unaware of the inappropriate thoughts spinning through his head. “That gun is important.”
She turned her amber eyes to him expectantly just as a breeze swept pieces of her wavy hair gently into her face. Gray swallowed a knot in his throat. He’d come here this morning to confront Mia and to tell her that she was no longer permitted to work on the Valentine case. Her prints were on a murder weapon. Mia’s continued involvement risked compromising the case if—when—it went to trial. He couldn’t be responsible for capturing Valentine only to allow the creep to walk. But Gray could make lots of great plans in theory and watch them go to hell in reality. When he’d planned to effectively fire Mia, he’d forgotten to factor in his inconvenient attraction to her and the way that attraction made him question whether she was not only blameless in this mess but another victim of it.
He looked away from her. There was vulnerability in that face. He’d seen it before: haunted terror peeking out from beneath a calm demeanor. That kind of vulnerability could make a person feel desperate, and desperation could drive one to terrible places. He rested one hand distractedly against his upper thigh, wondering to what extent he was allowing a pretty girl to make a fool out of him.
The server came with plates of food and a refill of coffee for Gray. His omelet was salty but good, the toast heavily buttered. After raving about the cranberry muffins, Mia picked around the edges of hers and then plucked the cranberries out of the bread to eat them. He watched her with some interest. “Mia, you’re right. The gun is important.” He paused, knowing that the next words could end what little relationship they’d constructed over the past twenty-four hours. “Your fingerprints are all over it.”
If the news surprised her, she didn’t let on. Instead she continued to pick at her muffin, avoiding his gaze. “Mia,” he said, more forcefully this time. “Did you hear me?”
She selected another cranberry and popped it into her mouth. “Uh-huh.”
“Then say something.” He loathed the desperation in his own voice, but she needed to understand how serious this was. For her. For him. “You told me you’d never owned a gun.”
She wiped her fingers on the paper napkin in her lap. “Do I need a lawyer?”
His stomach dropped, and he pushed his plate aside. “You tell me. Are you lying about something?”
“Lawyers aren’t just for liars. You know that.” She folded her napkin carefully, paying a maddening amount of attention to the task. “I’m not lying about anything. I just can’t explain it.”
He pulled his chair closer to her side. “Talk to me. Off the record.” She kept her gaze on her napkin, and he reached forward to wrap his hand around hers. “Mia. Off the record. I promise.”
She lifted her eyes, and the pain and confusion he saw reflected there tore at him. “I know that gun,” she whispered. “I knew it when I saw it.”
Okay, now they were getting somewhere. “All right,” he said.
“But I can’t tell you how I know it or where I’ve seen it.” Her voice trembled. “And I sure as hell can’t tell you when I ever touched it.”
Chapter 5
The night she’d entered Lena’s apartment and seen the blood, Mia had come straight from giving a lecture at a summer session. She’d been wearing a brown A-line skirt and a cream-colored blouse, both brand-new. After that night, she’d put them in her closet and never worn them again. After Lena had been missing for a week, Mia had thrown the clothes in a Goodwill bin. Just the sight of them made her think of the blood.
She’d floated through her days, waiting for news about Lena. She could function on autopilot to some extent, but the everyday tasks had been the most difficult. Her stomach had gripped too tightly for her to eat, and she’d seen little point in showering and applying makeup, but she’d managed. She’d begged Lieutenant Mathieson to allow her some access to the Valentine files. Working through those files, memorizing the police reports and studying the crime scene–reconstruction analyses had kept her sane. Wrapped in a cloud of delusion, she’d believed she was regaining control.
As the days stretched into weeks, she’d told herself that Valentine dumped bodies in places where they would be found, and if Lena hadn’t been found, maybe she was still alive. She remembered all of that as clearly as if it had happened yesterday.
She also remembered blood-boiling rage. On those hot summer nights, she woke from her nightmares in cold sweats, clawing at the sheets the way she’d wanted to claw at the killer’s face. She didn’t want Valentine brought to justice. She wanted him dead. And she wanted to be the one to put him in the ground.
But wanting and acting were different. Fantasy was safe and expected. In those hours when she’d struggled to reconstruct Valentine’s actions and determine his identity, she’d never gone so far as to find a gun and plot her vengeance...right?
No. She would remember something like that. But she couldn’t be sure, and that left her sick to her stomach.
“I don’t remember being attacked,” she told Gray. “I don’t remember what I was doing or who I was with.” She pushed her plate aside. “I suffered a traumatic brain injury, and although I’m doing
much better than I was when I first came out of the coma, I still have some residual effects.”
Gray’s eyes had softened, and he still held her hand. She allowed him the contact. His skin was rough but warm. “What effects, Mia?”
She realized then that she’d been crying, and she grabbed her napkin with her free hand to dab at her eyes. “I have some trouble processing sensory information. I get overwhelmed by crowds. I have this...anxiety.” Now the tears fell freely, and she pulled her hand from his to cover her face. “I’m sorry,” she blubbered. “I’m not usually like this.”
He sat quietly while she struggled to collect herself, no doubt regretting ever coming to breakfast with her. She was a mess, from her streaking makeup to her wild hair to her tearstained linen dress. She reached down into her handbag, grabbed a small packet of tissues and began to swipe at her nose. All the while, Gray was silent.
There goes my credibility. For God’s sake, her fingerprints were on a murder weapon, and she couldn’t begin to explain that one! She lived alone and had kept to herself since the attack. She probably didn’t have an alibi on the night Samantha Watkinson was murdered. If she didn’t wind up in jail, this was certainly the end of her criminal-profiling career. The realization brought the tears back again.
“Were...were my prints the only ones on the gun?”
He hesitated, dropping her hand and leaning back in his seat. “No. There was another set of prints.”
Mia swallowed. “Maybe—and this is just a thought—maybe that other set of prints belongs to the person who attacked me. That’s the only explanation I can think of, because I’ve never handled a gun. Not consciously.”
“No offense, but that’s pretty far-fetched.”
Her eyes widened. “I can’t think of another rational explanation.”
“So just so I’m straight. You think that someone attacked you, and then, while you were lying unconscious, he wrapped your fingers around a gun so that he could drop it at a crime scene almost a year later?”
“Maybe there was a struggle.”
“Your fingerprints are clear and suggest otherwise.”
She leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees. “I wish I could tell you more. I can’t even defend myself.”
“You must have been close to your sister.”
“Of course.”
“If anyone ever hurt my sister, I’d want him dead.” He shifted back in his seat, assuming a casual pose as if they were just two friends having a light discussion. “Maybe you felt the same way.”
Her stomach churned acid. This was a living nightmare. “Did I feel that way? Yes. I remember that, and I still feel it today. But I didn’t act on it, and it still doesn’t explain why I would kill a newspaper reporter. That’s where your revenge theory falls apart.”
He held her gaze steadily but didn’t otherwise respond. Mia broke the silence. “Gray, you’re asking me whether I took steps to kill someone. Maybe you’re asking whether I did kill someone.” Her voice cracked. “Never.”
“But you can’t prove that.”
“I don’t have to prove it,” she said. “It’s your burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I pulled that trigger. And good luck proving anything without more than prints on a gun.” Her throat felt as if it were being squeezed. “Look, I want you to believe me, but I don’t want to have to lie to you to make that happen.”
Silence dragged between them, and Mia locked eyes with Gray, daring him to challenge her. Finally, he said, “You’re right.”
Her heart skipped. “You believe me, then?”
“I didn’t say that, but I don’t think you’re lying.” He leaned forward again. “I’m afraid that’s the best I can do.”
It wasn’t much of a vote of confidence, but then again, Mia hadn’t given him much to work with. She nodded tightly. “All right.”
Her senses were on overdrive again. She was too aware of the clattering of dishes and the laughter coming from the family two tables over. The sunshine was hurting her eyes, and her mind kept flashing images that she wasn’t sure were real: sitting on her couch in her apartment and turning a gun with a white handle over in her hands, marveling at how heavy it was. Setting the gun in a box with a bloody cloth. She closed her eyes to block it all out. Then she heard Gray’s voice. “Mia. Is something wrong?”
“No.” She tried to answer him quietly and to avoid moving her head. No motion, no sound. Nothing but darkness. “I’m just a little overwhelmed right now. It will pass.”
Feeling his hand on her knee, Mia opened her eyes to see Gray leaning forward. He tilted her chin with one finger and brought her eyes to face his. “I’m going to find the son of a bitch who hurt you. I promise.”
The intensity of his steel eyes swept over her, catching her breath in her throat. In the months since she was nearly killed, she’d been met with nothing but dead ends. The police officers working her case took little interest in it, calling the attack random and saying they had no leads. No one had promised her justice, let alone spoken so angrily about the brutality she’d suffered. Impulsively, she clasped his arm between her hands, desperate for contact and relief from the empty loneliness she hadn’t known she was feeling until that moment. Her heart pounded as he slid his hands up her arms to her shoulders as if about to pull her into an embrace.
“More coffee?”
The impatient voice startled Mia out of her thoughts, and she looked up to see the server standing in front of the table with a bored expression on her face, clutching a silver carafe. Mia released her grip on Gray, fumbling to place more distance between them, and quickly.
“No, thanks.” Gray’s tone was flat with an undertone of annoyance. After the server left, he turned back to her. “Mia—”
“Don’t say anything,” she interrupted. She didn’t want to hear an apology or an explanation or, God forbid, an excuse. She had enjoyed the way he made her feel in that moment, and she didn’t want him to screw it up with words.
He nodded and looked down at his cup. “I won’t.”
She finished the remainder of her cappuccino and set the cup on the saucer. “So my fingerprints are on a murder weapon. Where does that leave us with the Valentine investigation?”
She held her breath, waiting for him to tell her she was no longer permitted to work on the file. A pinpoint ache started near her heart and swelled as his silence continued. All she’d wanted was to help her sister, and she could feel the last thread of opportunity sliding through her fingers.
“We need to act quickly,” Gray finally replied. “How much time would you say that girl has? Hours? Days?”
Mia blinked. “There’s no way to know for sure. Valentine kept one victim alive for a week. Another one was killed within two days of her disappearance.”
“Then we need to go.” He drained the last of his coffee and set several bills on the table, tucking them under his plate. “Let’s go.” He rose.
She reached for her handbag. “Go? Where are we going?”
“Dr. McCarthy was supposed to be conducting the autopsy on the boyfriend. I want to speak with him, and I want to start to formulate a plan of attack. And I want you to come with me.”
Mia felt uncertain on her own feet as she stood to follow him. “Gray, is this a good idea? I don’t want to create problems—”
He stopped short and turned to her. “You wanted in on this case, and now you’re arguing with me that you shouldn’t be here? What exactly do you want, Mia?”
His voice was authoritative, his body imposing. Every inch of him screamed “cop” in that moment, and if Mia had been a different person, she might have been intimidated by the show of authority. Instead she lifted her chin and said, “You know exactly what I want. I want justice for my sister. But I’m not going to get it if we aren’t careful to follow protocol, and it seems to me that my involvement is not going to create anything but trouble for you.”
His gaze darted across her face, but he didn’t move. “I t
old you. We need to go.”
As he turned to walk away again, Mia reached out to touch his arm. “Gray,” she said, “I’m taking myself off the case.”
* * *
That touch. It sent heat rippling through him and made him want to sweep her into his arms. He must have been losing his mind, because he couldn’t remember the last time he’d embraced anyone, but in that moment at the café, it seemed that the only response to Mia was to pull her closer so he could shelter her. The heat from her body might have left his skin minutes ago, but the sweet perfume she was wearing still hovered in the air between them, and now her hand was on his arm again and all he could think was that this couldn’t be the end. Not yet.
“It only makes sense,” she continued, apparently oblivious to her effect on him. “I’m no doubt a suspect in the murder of Samantha Watkinson and Jake Smith. If I’m not a suspect now, I will be soon.” Her voice faltered, but it was barely perceptible. “You can’t allow a murder suspect to work a case, especially if I’m suspected of copying the style of the killer I’m investigating.”
“Mia, you and I both know that you didn’t kill anyone. I don’t care what anyone thinks.”
“Yes, but we also know that innocence and guilt don’t matter. It’s the appearance of impropriety that will sink any case you bring to trial.”
Her chin trembled slightly and she looked away, fighting to maintain her composure. This wasn’t easy for her, to pull herself off the Valentine case.
Gray cursed to himself and rubbed out the tension in his forehead. She was right, but that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it. She was a good sounding board, and her experience would have been useful, but she was right. She couldn’t continue on this case.
Not in an official capacity, at least.
“Fine,” he said. “You’re officially fired. But unofficially, I want you to stay on.”
“Wait a minute.” She squinted against the sunlight before raising one hand to shield her eyes. “What does that mean?”
When No One Is Watching Page 7