“Seriously.” He grinned. “I think I’m offended that you seem so surprised.” She started to defend herself, but he raised a hand. “I’m teasing you, Mia. Relax.”
She sat back against her chair. Relaxing was easier said than done. “So you went to BC.”
“And I wasn’t drafted by the big leagues, so I had to figure something else out. I goofed off for a year. Backpacked through Europe, stayed in hostels, slept under the Eiffel Tower. I’m very worldly.”
“I can see that.” A smile escaped her lips. “Then you decided to come back to Boston and go to the police academy?”
“Then my sister died. Then I joined the Marines. Then I decided to become a Boston cop, and they took me even though I’m not Irish.”
His casual quip almost distracted from the tension in his voice. Mia frowned. “I’m sorry about your sister. Was it sudden?”
“Yeah.” He looked down at the table, then met her gaze. “There’s not much more to say than that.”
The pain in his eyes was palpable. “I’m so sorry, Gray.”
“Thank you.” He shrugged, then swallowed a lump in his throat. “She was the good kid in my family. Smart. She was going places. Then she got into a car accident. Nothing major, but she hurt her neck and was prescribed some painkillers. Then she couldn’t get off them.”
“That’s all too common.”
“She got busted for forging a prescription, and that was it. I think that was what did it. Here she was, Miss Honor Society, and she’s hooked on pills. She was humiliated. She thought everyone knew.” He shook his head. “I watched it happen. I watched her life spiral out of control, and I didn’t stop it. I didn’t intervene. I didn’t come to her rescue.”
Mia rested her elbows on the table and cradled her chin in one palm. “She overdosed?”
“Took her own life,” he said. Then he straightened his back. “You don’t need to know all of this.”
“You blame yourself for her death.”
He avoided eye contact. She could see the shame in him as clearly as if it were written on his forehead. Still, the statement surprised him, and for a moment she thought he was going to deny its truth. Then he said, “Yeah. I guess. Because I should’ve told her she needed help. I should’ve driven her to rehab myself. When she was arrested, I should’ve told her that everything was going to be okay. It could have been okay.”
Mia winced at the pain in his voice. “That’s a lot of responsibility for a person to carry.”
“You can’t tell me you don’t understand, Mia,” he said, directing his gaze to meet hers. “You feel something similar.”
His voice wasn’t unkind, but the words struck something that hurt. Didn’t she blame herself every day for Lena’s death, haunted by “if only”? If only she’d arrived at Lena’s apartment an hour earlier. If only she’d been more present in her life last summer. For God’s sake, they’d lived in the same city, and they’d barely seen each other.
“I do understand,” she whispered.
Then he leaned forward across the table, far enough that his breath caught the flame of the candle burning between them and set it flickering. “Here’s where we’re different, though. I blame myself for something that actually happened to my sister. You blame yourself for something you imagine happened to yours.”
“Imagine? Gray, my sister was killed. Just because the police never found her... I saw the blood all over her apartment—”
“Did you know that the blood found in Lena’s apartment was a different blood type than hers?”
It took Mia a few moments to understand the significance of this revelation. “It wasn’t Lena’s blood?” She shook her head as if to dislodge a memory. “For some reason, that seems familiar. Maybe I knew that once.”
“Maybe it’s something you figured out yourself last summer. It’s not mentioned expressly in her file, and one of my officers had to piece that puzzle together himself.”
Mia’s forehead tensed as she thought about last night’s crime scene. “Do you think it’s possible that someone else was in that apartment with Lena? Are we looking for another missing person?”
“That’s one possibility. Do you have any thoughts as to who else could have been in Lena’s apartment that night?”
She felt a familiar guilt come over her as she thought back to the previous summer. She’d been heavily involved with her research project—maybe completely consumed was more apt. Lena had reached out to her several times the month before she vanished, but Mia remembered pushing off their plans, and that was something she regretted. If she were being honest with herself, Mia would have to admit that they’d lost touch.
“I don’t know who could have been in that apartment,” she confessed, her voice barely a whisper. “I was busy last summer, and my research...” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I thought I was too busy and too important to spend much time with my sister, and I don’t know who she was social with. Her fiancé, Mark, of course, but he’s alive.”
“We’ll have to ask around and check our missing-persons files.” Gray reached for a piece of bread. “It’s possible we could run some DNA tests on the blood recovered from the apartment, but that will take weeks. Even then, we need a profile to compare it to.”
Mia nodded lamely. “Sorry I’m not more help.”
“Hey.” He reached forward and clasped her wrist in his hand, touching his thumb gently against her pulse point. “You didn’t hurt Lena.”
She swallowed. “You didn’t hurt your sister, either. But you understand.”
She pulled her wrist out of his grip and folded her hands in front of her. Condensation formed on her water glass and dripped to the table. Mia rested her fingertip against the glass, catching a droplet and rubbing it between her finger and thumb as she thought. “After I was...hurt, I drifted in and out of consciousness for a while. I woke up at one point and saw Lena sitting at my side, holding my hand. She was crying. I remember thinking that she was crying for me, but that’s a strange thing to think, isn’t it? She was hurt so much worse than I was. At least I lived.”
“You think you saw a ghost?”
“I don’t believe in ghosts.” She caught another drop of water, and this time she allowed it to run down her finger. “But I believe the mind is powerful. I see Lena in my dreams all the time. It makes me feel like she’s still close.”
He rested his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers. “Do you have any notes from your investigation last summer? Any impressions? It might be helpful—”
“I don’t take notes. Remember?” She tapped her temple and smiled wryly. “Photographic memory. Except when I’m attacked within an inch of my life. Then my mind doesn’t work as well.”
“What if I told you that I think there’s more going on with your sister’s disappearance than meets the eye? There are inconsistencies in your sister’s case. One, Valentine likes short women, and she was taller than him. Two, the blood found in her apartment wasn’t hers. Three, Valentine dumps bodies in places where they will be found, and her body has never been recovered. She’s the only one of his victims who hasn’t been recovered.”
“That we know of,” Mia said. “She’s the only victim of his that we know of that hasn’t been recovered.”
“Fair enough. But still, it’s interesting.” He leaned forward again, resting his arms on the table and leveling an intense stare in her direction. “Think about her appearance in your hospital room. Doesn’t that make you wonder if Lena is still alive? Maybe you weren’t dreaming it.”
She sighed and lifted her water glass. “I’ve wondered if Lena is still alive every day since she disappeared. But it doesn’t make sense. If she’s alive, why would she stay away like this?” She took a sip and set the glass down again. “Until we find her, I will always wonder what happened to her that night. But I have to be realistic. Thinking that she may still be alive is nothing more than wishful thinking.”
Chapter 7
Gray w
aited until they’d finished their meals before handing Mia the autopsy report on Gregory Stoddard. Katherine Haley’s boyfriend had been stabbed nineteen times, but the wounds were mostly shallow, delivered by a kitchen carving knife. He’d died only after Valentine had managed to subdue him long enough to cut his throat.
Gray draped one arm across the back of the empty chair beside him and watched Mia’s face as she read. She was an expressive reader, a mixture of frowns and intensity, and seemed consumed by the task. Her lower lip jutted out, and every now and then a little huff escaped her mouth as she came across an interesting point. He tapped his fingers lightly against the back of the empty chair, anxious to hear her thoughts. Finally, she set the papers down and looked up at him. “Well?”
“This is Valentine’s worst nightmare,” she said. “He was challenged, and he had to fight off an attacker. I do wonder whether the victory was ultimately empowering to him.”
“Stoddard was over six feet tall. David versus Goliath.”
“Exactly. I do worry that he feels emboldened by the crime. Although he should be worried. He made some mistakes.”
“The partial fingerprint. The leather glove. CSU also found a decent footprint.”
“And the castoff, which gives us Valentine’s height.” Mia took a sip of her coffee. “Those mistakes will sink him.”
She added more cream and a cube of brown sugar to her coffee and stirred it rapidly, creating a little whirlpool with the spoon. Gray realized how much he enjoyed talking to her about his cases. At the police department, if he wasn’t speaking with a sycophant, he was speaking with someone who’d love to topple him, and sometimes they were one and the same. Mia was different. She wanted to find Valentine as badly as he did, but she didn’t come saddled with department politics. She caught him smiling at her, and her eyes widened with confusion. “What?”
“I had a nice time tonight, that’s all.”
She scoffed. “Gray, we talked about missing people, my parents and crime scenes. Thank goodness we’re at a corner table where no one can overhear us, because we’re the most depressing company in the city tonight.”
He grinned. “Like I said, I had a nice time.”
She returned his smile. “Me, too.” She bit her lower lip and then said, “What happened with your wife?”
He nearly groaned out loud. His relationship with Annie wasn’t something he liked to dwell on. They’d been married for almost a year, and then one night he’d come home to see her packing her things into a suitcase. “It’s a long story, but basically, I work too much, and that gave Annie lots of free time that she used to find someone better. I’m married to my job.” Too married to his job to even find the time to fully unpack his apartment. Sometimes he wondered what he was avoiding. “The divorce has been final for almost two years. She’s remarried. It’s ancient history. What about you? No boyfriend?”
She laughed out loud. “Are you serious?”
Yes, he was. “Is that the wrong thing to ask?”
“I have a doctorate and years of experience, and I don’t even turn thirty until October. It’s not easy for someone in my position to find a date.”
Gray silently thanked the apes she’d tried to date for being intimidated by smart, beautiful women. He drained his coffee cup and set it on the table. “I’ve got to get back to work.”
Mia took a few quick sips of her coffee. “I understand. I’m ready to go.”
He waited for her to collect her handbag and walk past him. Then he waited for her to give warm goodbyes to the owner and the hostess before they walked out into the evening. “So you think we should scour libraries for Valentine?”
“Libraries, bookstores, coffeehouses...any place these students would frequent. The first victim went to the BPL on the day she disappeared, but the other victims didn’t. There may not be a connection.”
He’d parked outside of her apartment building, which gave him the perfect excuse to walk her back home. Otherwise, he’d be afraid that she’d refuse his protective gesture. Mia wasn’t about to let anyone help her out of some sense of concern for her well-being.
Their footsteps fell into a rhythm, and Gray noted how easily he could reach beside him and wrap his arm around Mia’s waist. He wouldn’t even have to bend his six-two frame or settle for her shoulders. She was the perfect height to pull her tightly against him and hold her.
He hadn’t realized how loudly his heart was beating until his car came into view. Now was the critical moment: the goodbye. He pressed his palms together just to have something to do with his hands. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted more than anything to pull her into his arms and taste her lips. He realized as they drew closer to her doorway that he’d wanted that from the moment they’d met and he’d given her five minutes on his crime scene.
She wasn’t working on the Valentine case in any official capacity. That removed some of the need to maintain a professional distance. He didn’t believe she was a legitimate suspect in the killing of those two reporters, but that didn’t mean anything when her fingerprints were all over the murder weapon. She was a person of interest.
He didn’t care. He still wanted to kiss her.
They paused at her front steps, and Mia gave him a smile that fanned the desire burning through him. “Thanks for walking me home.”
She turned her face to his, pausing. She doesn’t know what this is, either. A handshake would be too impersonal. He couldn’t deny the electricity that jumped between them, and looking into her light brown eyes, Gray knew that Mia couldn’t, either.
He stepped closer, invading her space. She didn’t retreat. “Mia.” He sighed it against her ear as he leaned forward, wrapping his arms against her back and pulling her to his chest.
She was tense at first, but then she relaxed her body against his. Her hands snaked around his waist, and she cradled her head against his neck. “Thank you,” she said.
He was startled. “For what?”
She pulled her face back to look into his eyes. “For trusting me to help you, even after—”
He smoothed a few loose wisps of auburn hair from her face and rested his palm against her cheek. Then he brought his lips to hers.
Her mouth was warm, her touch gentle, almost hesitant. Gray half expected her to pull back, but he hoped she wouldn’t. Her hands climbed his chest, stopping at the point above the heavy thud of his heart before reaching up behind his neck to draw him closer. Gray’s hands held her waist, but then one broke away and drifted up her back. He wanted to surround her with himself, drape his arms across her and protect her from the world that had hurt her so deeply. Mia sighed. It was the sexiest thing he’d ever heard.
His phone vibrated against her waist. Mia pulled her head back, keeping her arms slung across his torso. “Your phone.”
“It’s nothing. Ignore it.”
He went in for another kiss, but she placed her hand squarely on his chest to stop him. “No. You need to go to work.”
* * *
The spell was broken, and just in time. What were either of them thinking, groping each other on the sidewalk like a couple of teenagers? Getting involved like this was a mistake—a big one. She twisted out of his embrace and smoothed her hair.
“Mia.” His voice was hoarse. “Don’t do this.”
“You should be thanking me.” The kiss left her feeling disheveled, but as she adjusted her dress, she realized there was little actually out of place. She just felt out of order. “You can’t be seen with me, and you definitely can’t be seen kissing me. That’s a great way to end your career.”
“No one’s watching.”
“Someone’s always watching, Gray.” Mia’s gaze darted around self-consciously. She knew he’d taken a bit of a risk having dinner with her, but that could have been explained away. A kiss in front of her apartment, however... “If word gets back to your chief that you’re kissing me—”
“I’m an adult, Mia. I know what I’m doing.” His eyes resembled gatheri
ng storm clouds. “I don’t think for one second that you had anything to do with the deaths of those two reporters.”
She hugged herself, pushing down the hair that rose on her arms at the thought. It was pointless to even try to conceive of a circumstance under which she would have a reason to kill two people, and yet there was a nagging in the corner of her mind. She knew that gun. She knew she had touched it, and she knew she’d thought about using it. She just didn’t know when or why. “It doesn’t matter what you think,” she stammered. “All that matters is that my fingerprints are on that weapon, and I can’t explain it.”
The thought that she’d lost so crucial a memory left Mia feeling sick to her stomach. The reality settled slowly, minute by minute, like snowflakes piling into an avalanche.
Someone is always watching. She’d said those words, but that wasn’t true. Mia had looked in the mirror that morning with horror, wondering who she’d been last summer when no one was watching.
Gray straightened to his full height and looked down his nose at her. A male snubbed, she thought bitterly. So much for friendships and empathy. He was after only one thing, and she’d just denied him. Mia’s heart cleaved with disappointment, not at him but at herself for believing she’d seen something better in him.
“Thanks for dinner,” she mumbled, wanting nothing more than to stumble back to her apartment, lock the door and have a good sob on the couch.
“I messed up.”
She froze. “No, I—”
“I had a nice time at dinner, and I enjoy your company. I feel like I can talk to you.”
She felt the same. If she’d been feeling open at that moment, she would have confessed that she felt as if she’d known him forever, as though they were two old souls who’d found each other after wandering the earth for centuries. As if he was the cold to her warmth. “I feel the same way.”
“I shouldn’t have pushed.” He scratched the back of his neck with one finger in a way that Mia found charming and boyish. “I’m sorry.”
How had he just managed to turn her heart upside down in her chest and tempted her to blurt out an apology of her own? The glimpse of his vulnerability touched her. “Don’t mention it. We’ll forget all about it.”
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