As they left the apartment of a very talkative woman who’d jumped at the chance to have some live company instead of her daily dose of talk show hosts, Rayne glanced in Cole’s direction.
His face betrayed nothing but she could sense the tension inside. They needed a break in the case and they needed it soon.
They’d spent the better part of the day canvassing the area around Kathy Fallon’s garden apartment, talking not just to the neighbors who resided in close proximity, but to anyone who might have had an occasion to pass her apartment. The front faced one of the larger parking areas. Someone had to have heard or seen something useful. But finding that “someone” meant going door to door and talking to a great many of the people living within the two hundred and fifteen units that comprised the complex. Because it was a Tuesday and the middle of the day, not everyone was in.
Rayne kept track of the apartments where someone was in, making notes to which units had not opened their doors to them. By four, they’d made a good-size dent—and still gotten nowhere. No new piece of information surfaced to substantiate Cole’s idea that Kathy had been arguing with someone else the day she’d been killed.
No one responded in the apartment of the man who lived directly above Kathy. They returned three times to check. Each time the knock went unanswered. They needed a lead. Unrealistically, Rayne began pinning her hopes on him. She found herself as caught up in the case as Cole was.
Coming down the stairs after another futile attempt, Rayne stopped in front of Kathy’s apartment. Yellow tape still demarcated the area as a crime scene. She looked at the door for a long moment, fighting with her conscience. Her conscience lost.
“Come on,” she finally announced just as Cole had begun to walk to another group of apartments. Of the six apartments clustered there, they’d only found someone home in two of them so far.
He turned around and crossed back to her. “We’re leaving?”
Rayne took a deep breath. “No, technically, we’re violating a crime scene.” Reaching into the pockets of her coat, she took a pair of thin plastic gloves out of each of them. She held one set out to Cole.
Taking them, he looked at her. “How many pairs do you have there?”
“Just two.” She began slipping her pair on. “I like being prepared.”
And these days, she was, for anything that might come her way. Except, the voice in her head taunted, for a man who looks like the personification of sin.
Rayne cleared her throat, as if that could somehow clear the thought from her brain, as well. “Sometimes one pair has a hole in it.”
Cole glanced down at the pair he was pulling on. “Mine looks okay.”
“Good to know,” she murmured.
Cole had his doubts about this. Though he wanted to prove Eric’s innocence at all costs, he thought of the ramifications of illegally entering a crime scene area. This wasn’t some TV crime show where anything went down. This was real. Everything had to be done by the book to stand up in court where documentation was paramount.
He stopped Rayne before she could move the yellow tape. “Won’t we be disturbing things?”
The crime scene was two weeks old and the tape scheduled to come down soon. Only a shortage of manpower had prevented it from happening already. “The detectives and forensics went over this place with a fine-tooth comb. Everything that needs to be recorded has already been photographed to death.”
He nodded toward the tape stretched out over the door and the banner that was strung up from one wall to the other in front of it, forming a tiny alcove of its own. “Then why’s the tape still up?”
“They haven’t gotten around to taking it down,” she assured him.
He looked around to see if anyone was watching. “Is there any point to us going in?”
“Two more sets of eyes. Fresh perspective,” she enumerated. She looked at him. “You might see something that everyone else missed.” At least, that was what she was hoping.
Unlike Rayne, he doubted they would find anything new. He didn’t know Eric anymore, not in the day-today, mundane sense of the word. Didn’t know his likes, his dislikes or what he did with himself when he wasn’t sitting in a jail cell.
What he did know was the essence of the man. Knew beyond reason that his brother couldn’t kill anyone. But as for being able to spot some kind of glaring inconsistency, Cole sincerely doubted that was going to happen.
But he said nothing, trusting in what he hoped were Rayne’s keen instincts. That and witnesses who hadn’t turned up yet was all he had to base his hope on.
Cole followed her lead, ducking under the first length of yellow tape. As he watched, she carefully broke the seal on the door. There was no way she could reseal it without showing signs of entry.
“Won’t they notice?”
She come prepared for that, too. Digging into her purse, Rayne held up a small roll of yellow tape she’d brought along.
“No,” she replied simply.
Cole shook his head. There was a great deal more to the woman than he’d thought at first. He thought of the reputation she’d had in high school. Back then, no one would have put anything past her. She lived her entire life on a dare.
“There’s still larceny in your soul, isn’t there?”
“Only the good kind.”
The door was locked, but she got around that, too. It wasn’t a difficult lock to pick. Easing open the door, she took two steps into the single-bedroom residence and came to an abrupt halt.
There were dried pools of blood on the beige carpet. A harsh chalk outline was all that was left to remind her that a flesh-and-blood person had died there.
Cole looked over her shoulder. “It’s not going to be easy renting out this place.”
That was where he was wrong. “A little sanitizing, a new carpet, you’d be surprised.” She got her wind back. Death always took it away from her. Maybe because it always made her think of her mother. “Some people,” she went on, “actually like living in a place where a murder was committed.” Turning around, she looked at him. “Makes them feel as if they’re living on the edge.”
He just shook his head. “Crazy world.”
“Amen to that.” Rayne scanned the area quickly. There was no sign of a struggle. If Kathy Fallon had offered resistance, it was minimal. “It was an easy kill. He caught her off guard.” Her eyes came back to rest on Cole’s face. “Like she felt that the person she was talking to couldn’t hurt her.”
“Most people feel that way unless the person they’re with had displayed violent tendencies before.” His mouth curved in an ironic smile. He was thinking of his own days in Bogota. “We’re all pretty much secure in our immortality.”
She wondered if he spoke from experience, or if it was just a philosophy he was tossing around. In either case, it made sense. But, “Maybe,” was all she allowed.
Methodically, Rayne began going through drawers, shelves, bedding, looking for anything that might give them a clue to the man—or woman—who had done this. She noted that Cole followed suit.
“Make sure you leave everything the way you found it.”
“This isn’t my first time.”
Her fingers froze for a moment. “You’ve gone through dead people’s apartments before?”
“Let’s just leave it at what I’ve said.”
He was stirring up questions in her head again, questions about who and what he was beyond the drop-dead gorgeous man in the next room. It occurred to her that she only had his word for his past. Maybe she should have done more than researched his present way of life, maybe she should have gone back over the past ten years before she’d allowed herself to feel comfortable around him.
Who was she kidding? She wasn’t comfortable around him. She felt as if she was just stepping onto a tightrope stretched out over Niagara Falls. One misstep and she would plummet.
The search, like their canvassing, turned up nothing. At least, nothing in their favor. There was a host of love
letters from Eric that Kathy kept in a folder. If you despised the man or were afraid of him, why keep his letters? There was nothing damning in them. They were the sophomoric ramblings of a man in love. A man in love who had no love for grammar.
After reading through several, she stopped and shook her head. “How did they ever let your brother graduate high school? I don’t know which was worse, his grammar or his spelling.”
“Neither was a capital offense the last time I checked.”
His voice was weary, Rayne thought. He obviously felt as discouraged as she did. “Well, at least we know she knew her assailant,” Rayne concluded as she walked out of the bedroom. The room was beyond neat. The whole apartment was. She didn’t trust anyone who was so neat. It spoke of someone who was too controlling. Her own room looked as if it was home to several typhoons. “There’s no sign of forced entry, no breaking and entering.”
“Unlike you.”
Startled, she swung around to see that Longwell was standing in the doorway, his wide features creased with a disapproving frown.
“What are you doing here, Rayne?” he asked. Longwell fixed accusing brown eyes on the man standing next to her. “With him?” It was hard to miss the contempt in his voice.
Cole saw her lift her chin, pulling her shoulders back just a shade. Becoming defensive. For some reason she made him think of the statue of Justice he’d seen outside the courthouse. The word “magnificent” whispered along his brain.
“We’re just looking around,” she told the other policeman.
Longwell’s frowned deepened. He completely ignored Cole’s presence. “You’re violating protocol, you know that? It’s not your case.”
Rayne fell back on a friendship that was once far stronger than it was now. “Oh, c’mon, Longwell, we’re not disturbing anything.” She saw the look entering the man’s eyes as they passed over the area. Things began to fall into place. Because they’d once been close, she wouldn’t allow herself to take umbrage at the implication. “We’re certainly not going to plant anything. I just thought a fresh perspective—”
He cut her off. “You’re not supposed to think, not about this case.” Longwell waved her off. “Go think about your own cases. Just because you made detective faster than anyone in the department doesn’t give you the right to break rules—no matter what kind of bloodlines you have.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here, if you don’t mind my asking?” He’d popped up far too conveniently for her liking.
“The woman in 115 called me.” He nodded vaguely off in the direction of the apartment in question. “Said that there were two police detectives going around, asking questions.” His accusing look rested only briefly on Cole, dismissing him as money and no brains. “She’d already given her statement to me, and then to Rollins and Webber and she thought it a little odd that she was being asked again, so she called me. I’d left my card with her in case she remembered something,” he added.
Just her luck, Rayne thought. “Very efficient of you.”
Longwell laughed shortly. His lips didn’t curve. “You’re not the only one who wants to move up in the ranks.”
Since when had Longwell exhibited any signs of ambition? At the academy he’d preferred coasting to studying. Though bright, he did just enough work to pass and graduate. “I’m not trying to move up, I’m just trying to help a friend.”
“So, he’s a friend now, is he?” As if aware that he’d crossed over a line, Longwell sighed and relented. “You find anything?”
She frowned. “No, we didn’t.”
Longwell indicated the front door. “Then you two had better get out of here before I have to report this.”
His cooperation surprised her. This was more like the Longwell she’d once known. “Then you won’t?”
“No.” He put a condition on it. “Not if the two of you leave now.”
There was no point to remaining in the apartment, although she wanted to continue canvassing the area. But that was something they were going to have to do when Longwell wasn’t around. For now she nodded. “Fair enough.”
Longwell waited until she and Cole were both out before he followed in their wake. Pulling the door shut, he paused to look at the cut yellow barricade.
“I’m going to have to get some new tape—” He stopped as Rayne held up the roll she’d brought with her. “You turn into a Girl Scout?”
She grinned. “Something like that.”
Giving the roll to Longwell, she looked at Cole. The latter nodded his agreement. They’d been at it for close to eight hours, stopping only to grab something to eat at a drive-thru located in the shopping center a mile away. Maybe it was time to call it a day.
Taking her arm, Cole ushered her over to his car. Being around Longwell and the man’s smug attitude got under his skin. He was afraid he’d be tempted to say something.
“I’ll drop you off at your house,” Cole told her as he opened the door on his side. He could see Longwell watching them.
Rayne thought they should come back tomorrow to finish talking to the neighbors. One of them had seen something, even if they didn’t know they had. She was beginning to like Cole’s theory about there being someone else, even though some of the neighbors said that they’d never seen another man entering Kathy’s apartment, other than Eric and the police officer who’d taken Kathy’s statement.
Rayne replayed Cole’s words. He’d left something unsaid. “Where will you go?”
“To see Eric.”
“To question him some more?”
“To comfort him,” he contradicted. He felt sorry for his brother, now more than ever. From everything he’d seen in the apartment, Kathy Fallon had come across as a cold, controlling woman. Eric needed warmth. “He’s got to be down—and scared. I know neither one of my parents has been by and I doubt if any of the people he hung out with have bothered to pay him a visit.” They hadn’t as of the last time he’d spoken to his brother. “Eric didn’t exactly associate with people who knew the meaning of the word friendship.”
She felt too wired to go home yet. “If you’re going to the station, I’ll come with you.”
She saw a wariness enter his eyes. To some degree, she supposed they were still waltzing around distrust. Nobody had ever done anything for Cole without a reason. That went a long way to creating a suspicious adult. She counted herself lucky to have had the up-bringing, the home life that she’d had, even though she hadn’t always been smart enough to appreciate it.
“There’s a couple of things I want to check out. I’ll probably still be at it by the time you leave.” She knew he wouldn’t welcome sitting around, cooling his heels. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to hang around. I can get someone to drop me off.”
He wanted to say that hanging around waiting for her was no hardship, but that would have been revealing too much. And putting himself in a position he had no intentions of occupying.
So he merely nodded and turned the car toward the police station.
The visit with Eric left him more determined than ever to get his brother out of jail. Eric was becoming a nervous wreck, constantly fidgeting, hardly able to sit still for more than a few minutes at a time. Eric wasn’t going to be able to take much more of this. Certainly not an extended period behind bars.
He had to get Eric free.
If this had been a jail cell in Bogota, Cole knew what he would have done. He would have brushed a few palms with the right amount of money, gotten his hands on the fastest vehicle he could and broken Eric out.
But that kind of life was behind him now by more than a couple of years. He much preferred where he was to where he’d been, even though freedom carried rules with it that shackled a person at times.
There had to be a way around that.
Everything he’d learned today from the neighbors confirmed that Eric had been in love with Kathy Fallon, in love probably for the first time in his life, just as he’d said. And the feeling hadn’t been re
turned. One woman told them that, just before Kathy had taken out the restraining order, Eric had actually hired a band to serenade her. Kathy had loudly belittled him and sent the musicians away.
Cole shook his head as he got into his car. Kathy had probably reminded Eric of their mother. Certainly the framed photograph he’d seen on the coffee table in the dead woman’s apartment had sent an eerie chill down his back. There was more than a passing resemblance between Kathy Fallon and the way his mother had looked some twenty years ago.
Poor Eric, he thought as he pulled out of the police station parking lot. Even when he’d finally fallen in love with someone, it was the wrong kind of woman.
At least his brother was drawn to someone. Cole had never felt that magic surge through him that Eric had sadly described tonight. That sense of blessed wonder that filled his soul whenever he was around her.
Hell, the closest he had come to that kind of thing was—
Abruptly, Cole stopped himself.
He wasn’t going to go there. It was just his frustration talking.
And maybe, just maybe, his loneliness.
With the news of the past few days, he’d left chinks of himself open. Chinks that had allowed emotions to slip in and to color his views.
A temporary aberration and nothing more, he silently insisted.
He was fine just the way he was, moving from place to place, doing some good whenever he could. He didn’t need anything different in his life.
Certainly not anyone different in his life.
The rain that had been flirting with the air all day finally decided to fall. A fine mist covered his windshield. Flipping on his wipers, Cole turned his vehicle down the winding road, which eventually led to his hotel.
A car suddenly pulled out just in front of him before darting into the next lane, its turn signal flashing belatedly.
Biting off a curse, Cole slammed on his brakes a moment before the offending vehicle switched lanes. His car didn’t slow down. Didn’t respond at all.
A sense of alarm infiltrated his being.
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