“No way,” said D’Augostino. “Mia Perez? Who’s she selling information to? A cartel?”
Morrison held up his hands. “I didn’t say that. Anyway, she works with homicide, not drugs. Maybe she’s got some information about certain crimes that she’s been able to sell. I’m just thinking out loud here.”
“Think harder,” Gray warned. His jaw tensed. “Even if you’re right, that doesn’t explain the sister. Who would have reason to kill Lena Perez?”
“How about the professor who was stalking her?” Morrison replied. “She took out a restraining order on him a few months before she disappeared.”
“She also had a fiancé,” Langley noted. “Mark Lewis, that guy who’s developing Eminence Tower.”
“He have a record?” Gray asked.
Langley shook his head. “No, but there’s always a first time for these things.”
“It doesn’t add up,” Morrison continued. “The blood found in Lena’s apartment was type AB, right? In her wallet was a blood donor card. You know what Lena’s blood type was? O positive.”
Gray settled farther back in his chair, turning slightly to look out the window as he thought. “So the blood in Lena Perez’s apartment wasn’t Lena’s?”
“Exactly.”
Gray’s mouth tensed, pulling into a frown. “Look into the professor and the fiancé.”
“Will do,” said D’Augostino with a nod to Morrison and Langley.
Morrison squared his jaw. “I just think someone should ask Dr. Perez about it, that’s all. I can do it. I’ve seen her around, but I barely know her, so it wouldn’t be too awkward.”
Morrison was the kind of cop with something to prove, and he believed that there was no smoke without fire: if someone seemed guilty, they probably were, and he would dig until he turned up the requisite level of proof. For Morrison justice was about demonstrating the state’s ability to crush the individual. For Gray justice required equal measures of strength and compassion. No, he concluded, it wouldn’t be awkward for Morrison to question Mia. It would be pure hell for her.
“I’ll do it myself.” All three men turned to look at Gray, who met their gaze without flinching. “I’ve already asked her about the gun. It makes sense that I’d follow up with other questions.” They each nodded their agreement. “Then it’s settled.” Gray leaned back in his chair again. “Now, let’s talk about Valentine.”
* * *
She didn’t know how she would eat. Not with her stomach knotted like this. Mia stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around her torso and swiped at the condensation on the bathroom mirror. The first time she’d seen her reflection after the attack, she hadn’t recognized her face. Her right eye had been swollen shut, her lip had been split, and her complexion had turned a mottled combination of purple and yellow. She knew who she was, but she’d felt as if she were looking at a monster. Now the reverse was true. She recognized her face, but she wasn’t sure she knew who she was any longer.
She’d recognized the gun when she’d first seen it, but at the time she couldn’t be sure she was truly remembering. The conversation that morning with Gray and the revelation that she’d once touched that gun coaxed more memories to the surface, but they still hovered at the edge of her perception, presenting themselves in bursts and flashes. Opening a box. Unfolding white fabric. Cradling the heavy metal gun in her hands as carefully as if she were holding a paper crane.
What she couldn’t remember was why. Why had she opened the box, and why had she held that gun? What was her plan? The knots in her stomach tightened reflexively. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Mia considered the pill bottle in her medicine cabinet. Her body felt frayed, as if her nervous system was misfiring. She’d managed to convince Gray to give her the benefit of the doubt, but now she felt as though she were in some kind of game where people jumped out of the shadows. A gun she’d handled had been used to kill two people. What else had she forgotten?
She splashed cold water on her face and stood for a long time watching the water run into the drain. Then she turned the faucet and reached for a small towel. No pills. Tonight she needed to be sharp.
She dried her hair, dressed and applied makeup. As she finished applying her mascara, Mia told herself she wasn’t being a fool. Even though she’d taken three times longer than usual to apply it, her makeup wasn’t too much. She might have tried on five different outfits before settling on the flowing emerald dress that brought out the flecks of green in her irises, but that was because she’d recently lost some weight and her clothes fit differently. She’d spent an unusual amount of time on her hair, but with the humidity, what choice did she have? She wanted to look decent, and it was a treat to go out to dinner with someone. It wasn’t as if she’d done any of this to impress Gray.
She dead-bolted the apartment door, once again wishing she had an alarm system. Then she hurried down the stairs to the first floor. Her heart turned when she noticed the figure standing by the entrance. “Gray,” she breathed as she pushed open the glass door. “I thought we were meeting at the restaurant?”
“I thought you might want some company on the walk.”
He held the door and waited for Mia to walk through. Her shoulder brushed against the solid wall of his chest, and she tried not to nervously bubble an apology. She wasn’t on a first date. This wasn’t even a date, although she’d noticed Gray had shaved and freshened his cologne, but that was just what people did when they went out.
“The restaurant isn’t far,” Mia said. Her voice sounded nervous to her ears.
Gray didn’t respond except to nod. Then he grunted, “Nice night.”
It was a nice night, one of those warm early-summer nights where daylight lingered into the late evening. But that wasn’t what he wanted to talk about. “You don’t need to make small talk with me. I know you’re not the type, and neither am I.”
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and nodded. “Fine. Then tell me everything about Lena.”
A startled laugh burst from Mia’s throat. “You’re all business, aren’t you?” She reached up to tuck her hair behind her ears—an anxious habit—and remembered that she’d pulled her hair back tonight. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything.” He looked at her then. “Isn’t that what you said we needed to do? To know all about our victims in order to know their attackers?”
Heat burned her neck at the thought he’d actually internalized her statement from that morning. “Yes. But shouldn’t we talk first about the missing woman? Katherine?”
“We’re on it. Don’t change the subject.”
“You’re on it?” she echoed. “What did you find out?”
He sighed, feigning impatience. “Besides being a student of Renaissance studies, she’s an athlete. She’s completed three Ironman Triathlons, and she teaches spinning at a gym downtown. She spends weekend mornings running or biking through the city before hitting the library. She’d been seeing this boyfriend of hers for about three months and things were getting pretty serious, but Kate wasn’t ready to settle down yet. She likes her independence.”
“Wow. You’ve been doing your homework.”
“My team doesn’t fool around. She went missing early on Saturday evening. She’d made plans to meet a friend after a day of studying, and she never showed.”
“Where was she studying before she went missing?”
“BPL,” he said, using the shorthand for the Boston Public Library.
“It’s possible someone followed her from the library to her apartment. All of Valentine’s victims were students, and all of them would have probably had some occasion to study at the BPL.”
“So what? You think we’re looking for a murderous librarian?”
“Last summer the police were looking for a murderous florist. Is a killer librarian much stranger?” Gray didn’t respond as he seemed to consider this, and Mia continued. “It’s just a thought.”
“We’
re checking the staff, finding out who knows the vic and who she came into contact with on the day she went missing. So far we’re turning up lots of dead ends. She was pleasant with the librarians, but not overly friendly, and no one noticed anything noteworthy. Although it’s hard to say what’s noteworthy.” He paused. “You know these files intimately. What’s your professional opinion? What kind of person is Valentine?”
“Based on what you’ve told me about Kate Haley?” Mia took a breath as she thought. “Kate’s a strong, accomplished woman, like all of his victims. A trophy that confirms his strength and superiority. She lives alone and is set in a routine, from what you’ve told me. That makes her easy to follow. It’s possible he knows her casually. Maybe he serves her lunch at a deli, or he washes towels at the gym where she teaches spinning. He’s probably someone who doesn’t work in a position of authority. He may display signs of aggression or come across as antisocial.” She paused. “I wish I could give you something more concrete than that. My professional training is most useful after a suspect has been identified.”
Gray sighed. “Before I came to this job, I thought I’d be able to recognize evil. I always thought I was a decent judge of character. I figured I’d be able to look at someone and know whether that person had committed a crime.”
“And it’s not that easy,” Mia said, finishing his thought. “That’s what terrifies me, that some of our most vicious criminals masquerade as nice people.” She reached across the space between them to touch him lightly on the arm. “Physical characteristics may help. I think you’re looking for a man of below average height.”
“About five foot five, based on the blood spatter we found at the apartment. You were right about that.” He looked at her. “I knew when I met you that you had good instincts. You should have been a cop.”
“I guess I should return the compliment and tell you that you would have made a great psychologist, but I think you were destined to be a cop.”
“See? Good instincts.”
He caught her gaze. He had a nice smile, one that softened the hard lines of his face and crinkled the edges of his steel-colored eyes and sent a distressing wave of heat across her. She turned her gaze to the sidewalk.
When they arrived at the restaurant, Mia was greeted with a hug from the hostess and the light aromas of garlic, onion and marinara sauce. After they were led to an intimate table in the corner, Gray pulled out her chair and Mia sat and waited for him to take his seat across from her. The table was set with a red candle in a squat wine bottle. Tiers of red wax splashed and froze against the glass. “This is one of my favorite restaurants,” she said after the hostess handed them the menus.
“I can see why.”
“It was named one of the most romantic restaurants in the city. You could bring your girlfriend.”
She was shameless, fishing like that. But she couldn’t deny her attraction to him, and she needed to know. He shook his head. “No girlfriend. I had a wife, but she ended things.” That was apparently all the information Mia was going to get.
They selected their meals but passed on the wine. Gray would be returning to work after dinner. Mia tried to ignore the disappointment that registered at the thought that their night would end with a civil good-night handshake. Not that she was the kind of woman who ended nights with more than that, but if ever there was a time to become that kind of woman, she thought it might be now, and Gray might be the right man. The thought was absurd, and she pushed it aside as quickly as it had entered her mind.
“You ducked my question, by the way.” Gray took a sip of his water. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”
She tilted her head. “Which question was that?”
“I told you to tell me everything about Lena. You changed the subject, and you haven’t returned. That makes me think I asked you a question that you don’t want to answer.”
“Maybe you would have made a good psychologist.” Mia smoothed the white cloth napkin in her lap and folded her hands on the table. “It’s a hard question to answer, that’s all. You want to know everything about a person. That could take hours.”
“Fine. Give me the highlights.”
“You must have seen her photo in the file, so you already know she was beautiful.”
Stunning, really. Whereas Mia had inherited their Irish mother’s dark auburn hair and their Puerto Rican father’s amber eyes, Lena had inherited their father’s black hair and their mother’s green eyes—a contrast that made people stare. Her earliest memory of Lena was of holding her in the hospital, cradling her little head and hearing her father say, “Isn’t she a gorgeous baby?” She was striking, right from the beginning.
Gray smiled patiently. “‘Beautiful’ doesn’t tell me anything.”
“No, it does.” She was aware of her body leaning across the table, desperate to convince him. “It tells you everything. She laughed easily because life was easy. Strangers are kind to beautiful women. She cultivated charm and wit because people assumed she was empty-headed. She tried to be thoughtful because people assumed she was self-absorbed.”
“So,” Gray said, counting on his fingers, “we have beautiful, witty and thoughtful. She sounds perfect.”
He was pressing her, but there were topics Mia didn’t want to touch. Like how quickly their roles had been cemented. Mia was the smart one; Lena was the beautiful one. Mia buried herself in books to escape the comparisons, which were more painful than she wanted to admit. Being recognized for her intelligence was not something Mia should complain about, but a part of her had longed to be recognized as beautiful, too.
There was more to it. There was the way her parents had looked at Lena, and how different it was from the way they’d looked at Mia. If she was the achiever, Lena was the North Star. She was the one who lit up the same room that Mia would have stumbled awkwardly across. Their parents hadn’t known what to do with Mia. When she was accepted to college, they’d sent her away to live with her aunt. She’d never looked back, and she’d rarely returned home.
“Lena wasn’t perfect,” Mia said. “Perfect doesn’t exist. But Lena was stylish and beautiful and...vibrant. She knew what to say. She was smart, too, and worked hard. She was studying chemistry and had considered applying to med school. Thought about becoming a pediatric oncologist. Me, on the other hand? I was the freak who could teach herself languages.”
Gray winced. “Your parents must have valued your intelligence.”
“They did,” she said carefully, “but they took so much pride in Lena, and rightly so. I sound awful, don’t I? The older child complaining about being eclipsed by the younger child. I loved my sister just like everyone else did. My parents loved us both. They just loved us differently.”
Gray kept his eyes fixed on her. It was probably an old interrogation technique, based on how self-conscious Mia felt and how she kept talking to neutralize the discomfort. She didn’t care. Talking to him felt good. “Two children, and we were so different, so it would only make sense that they would compare us and think of us in different terms. That’s understandable.”
He was still staring at her. Mia looked away and brought her hands down to her lap. She could be as stubborn as he was, if that was how he wanted to play things. She was going to sit in her chair like this and not budge an inch until he started responding. There was no need for her to continue to blab her family’s history.
The strategy worked. After a lengthy pause, Gray said, “Do your parents live close by?”
“I don’t know.” She felt so helpless when she said that out loud. “They moved closer when Lena started school here, but they were talking about moving last year, and then with Lena...”
“So you’re estranged from them?”
“Yes. They blame me for Lena’s death.”
Something bubbled up into her throat and stuck there. She reached for her glass and took several sips of icy water. The server stopped by the table with a basket of garlic bread, but Gray and Mia both sat in place,
listening to her confession as it hung in the space between them.
“How could they possibly blame you for something like that?”
That was a question Mia had asked herself many times, but she’d never been able to produce an answer that fully assuaged the ache in her heart. “I’m not being literal, of course. They don’t think I put a hit out on Lena or something.” She laughed awkwardly and began to toy with the edges of her napkin. “They taught me that I’m responsible for my sister’s well-being. It was my job to watch her and to take care of her, and I failed to do either.” She sighed. “Look, they’re dealing with this the only way they know how. It’s not like they broke off communication after Lena’s disappearance. We’ve spoken a few times, but it’s always been awkward enough that I finally stopped reaching out. It’s better that we have a cooling-off period.”
He raised an eyebrow skeptically. “A cooling-off period? You think it’s likely that you’ll ever cool off from something like this?”
She looked away. Now he was getting too personal, and he didn’t need to know that she’d resigned herself to never having a normal relationship with her parents. “I don’t see what my relationship with my parents has to do with Lena.”
He held up his palms. “Fair enough.”
“Enough about me. I’m blabbing about my family, and I don’t even know anything about you.”
“What do you want to know?”
She shrugged. “How about we start with something harmless, like where you grew up? You don’t sound like you’re from the area.”
“No, I’m from the sticks. Upstate Maine. Near Bar Harbor.”
“You’re a long way from home, then. How’d you wind up a cop in Boston?”
He came forward to rest his forearms on the table. “You’re interrogating me now.”
“I’m a psychologist. This is how we socialize.”
She felt a thrill that she’d managed to wring another smile from him. “I went to Boston College on a hockey scholarship.”
Her jaw dropped. “Get out. Seriously?” College hockey was big business in Boston.
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