by Mary Calmes
I looked at my partner, daring him to say a word.
“It’s fine,” he mumbled.
The restaurant was one of our favorites, a Greek place close to Centennial Park. We got a booth in the back, and I was going to sit across from Ian and his dad, but Ian shoved me into the booth first and then slid in beside me. His knee bumped mine under the table, but instead of moving away, he stayed close.
“So Miro,” Colin began, having learned my name on the walk over. “What is it you do?”
“I’m a deputy US marshal, sir, like your son.”
“You’re a marshal?” Colin asked Ian.
And he had begrudgingly answered, as well as every question after that. But each one had to be dragged out, until Colin got up to use the bathroom and I rounded on my partner and shoved him out of the booth.
“What the fuck?”
I was on my feet in front of him in seconds, poking him in the chest, which was like trying to prod a piece of granite. “How dare you treat your father that way!”
“It’s none of your fuckin’ business, Miro,” he insisted, his tone icy. “And after what he did to my mother, you—”
“What’d he do?”
“I’m not gonna—”
“Did he beat her?”
“No,” he snapped.
“Drink?”
“I don’t want to get into—”
“Gamble? Cheat on her?”
“Miro, you—”
“Did he hit you?”
“No, he—”
“Abuse you?”
“What’re you trying to—”
“I wanna know what he did.”
“He fuckin’ left!” he whispered harshly instead of yelling, leaning close so only I could hear him clearly. “One minute he was there, the next he was… you don’t even know.”
I studied him.
“What?” he demanded angrily.
“He left you guys.”
“Yes.”
I squinted at him.
“She was never the same. She never laughed again.”
Not even for her son? It sounded infinitely selfish to me. Wasn’t the one parent left over supposed to do the work of two? Wasn’t that how it worked? Not that I had any experience with any kind of family, but that was my understanding.
“Okay,” I said, nodding, sitting back down and sliding into the booth.
After a moment, he joined me, careful the second time not to touch me.
“I bet he’s sorry,” I said slowly, “if you ask him. I bet he is. He seems sad.”
“I don’t care if he’s—”
“You’re back,” I said jovially, greeting Colin, cutting Ian off. “Which is good, ’cause I’m starving and I wanted to order tabouli salad, but I wasn’t sure if you liked it.”
“I’ll try anything,” he said cheerfully, and I saw the furtive glance at Ian. Between that and the way he fiddled with his napkin and bit his bottom lip, I could tell Colin was terribly nervous.
“So where do you live now?” Ian finally asked.
“In Marynook,” he answered. “It’s in Avalon Park.”
The entire lunch conversation was slow and painful and stilted, but we made it through, and when Ian got up to take a phone call, Colin leaned across the table and patted my face.
“Thank you, son,” he said, and since it was the closest I’d ever had to paternal anything, I smiled back.
When Ian returned, he wedged in close to me, no longer perching on the tiny piece of upholstered bench so he didn’t have to touch me. We were plastered together from shoulder to knee.
His father got up to make a call of his own, and as soon as he walked away, I turned to Ian. “You okay?”
He made a noise before he let his head fall forward, a motion he repeated often, the only tell he had that he wanted to be touched. I slid my fingers up the nape of his neck and gently pushed into the short, thick coarse hair.
“You’re doing really well.”
He grunted before he put his forehead down onto his folded arms. I gave his neck a last squeeze and let go.
“Don’t invite him to the game with us,” he directed.
I chuckled. “Okay.”
That day had been an icebreaker, and they weren’t close, but at least they had talked after that, upon occasion. Then when we had busted a large drug-trafficking ring that also dabbled in dog fighting and the wolf/malamute possibly husky hybrid had been discovered in one of the pens, Ian had taken one look at the predator and seen a kindred soul. The problem of what to do with Chickie Baby, as Ian named him, every day had been answered by me. His father was retired, had a huge yard, his wife worked days at a law firm, and the kids were all out of the house. When I suggested it, his father jumped at the chance to do something, anything, for Ian. And it turned out that Chickie was a great big puppy who only wanted love and attention. Unless you were trying to come up fast on Ian or break into his place. I shuddered to imagine the consequences of those two actions.
“Miro?”
“Sorry,” I said quickly, whipped back into the present. “Okay, so I’ll be here as close to six as I can be, sir.”
“You have my number. If anything happens and you can’t get him, call me.”
“I will,” I promised, turning and leaving the porch. Chickie caught me at the gate, stepping around in front of me, the whimper very sweet. “I’ll be back, buddy,” I said, petting him before he shot back to the porch when Colin called him. I waved from the car.
AT THE office, I had just made it to my desk when Kage walked up beside it, looming over me.
“Morning,” I greeted him. “Did Ian call you?”
“His CO called me so I’m clear that he’ll be gone for an indeterminate amount of time.”
I nodded even though that news made my stomach do somersaults.
“And you,” he said. “Where’s your doctor’s clearance?”
“In your inbox, sir,” I apprised him. “I went, I swear.”
He tipped his head at my arm. “And the wrist is good?”
“Cast should be off in six weeks, but it’s fine, really. I mean, I went off a balcony last night, so we know I’m—”
“Perhaps the smart thing might be not reminding me of that.”
It certainly might. “Yessir.”
When he left, I finally took a breath. I missed Ian already.
Chapter 8
SOMETIMES YOU went looking for one thing and found another. For instance, while my partner—the man I was secretly pining for—was away on a mission for the US Army, one of the many things I’d been doing was fugitive transport with my fellow marshals. That Tuesday, six weeks later, I was trailing after Mike Ryan and Jack Dorsey as they, with a whole contingent of state and local police, took Casey Dunn out to Northbrook where his body-dump site was.
Dunn was a cleaner for a Ukrainian arms dealer, took care of all the man’s enemies and put them in the ground under an auto salvage yard. As a stipulation of the agreement before he went into witness protection for rolling on his boss, he had to show the authorities where all the bodies were. They weren’t just interested in the body that Dunn’s brother, who testified against him, had seen him bury the night he followed him from their family home in Schaumburg. They needed a lot of murders to pin on Ivan Tesler; nothing in single digits would do. The thing was, when we arrived at what Dunn said was the second to last of the graves, all of a sudden he started screaming.
“I don’t kill women!” he shouted, and the way he moved, quickly behind me, shivering hard like his skin was crawling with ants, I got the idea that he was seriously freaked out. He had not been expecting to find the lady there.
It took three days after that to clear Dunn, and during that time, they examined the body as well, discovering startling similarities to other crimes committed by a known assailant. The problem was twofold. First, crimes—as in plural, and that was never good. Second, the problem with adding the newest kill to the list of victims of Craig Hartl
ey was that the man himself was locked up and had been for the past four years. The thought process was predictable; there were three possible scenarios: Hartley had a partner, there was a copycat, or he himself was communicating with someone on the outside.
It was not my job to do any of that detective work. But since I was the only one this particular serial killer would speak to, I was on loan to the FBI and met them out at the Elgin Mental Health Center.
I met Special Agents Eric Thompson and Debra Rohl there, along with the local team of agents I already knew headed up by a man I had been working really hard not to see—Cillian Wojno. It was what came of sleeping around. Every now and then, you found yourself in uncomfortable situations with people you used to bang.
We did our best to ignore each other; we didn’t shake hands, just managed the head tip of acknowledgement before he followed the others into the interrogation room and I waited on the other side of the two-way mirror. They wanted to see if Hartley would speak to the new team without me, as it would make their job far easier. I hoped he would, but I wasn’t optimistic. I was, after all, the one who’d saved his life even though he’d shoved a very expensive chef’s knife into my side. The only reason I’d lived was that the tip had slid off one of my ribs on the way in and slowed the entry. I had nearly bled out in his kitchen, but even then had the presence of mind to stay in front of him so my Chicago PD ex-partner Norris Cochran didn’t have a shot. I’d wanted Hartley to pay for what he did to all the women and their families, not die from a gunshot wound to the head.
It was a whole big procedure of manacles and leg shackles when Hartley was finally brought in. It would have been considered overkill, but between his genius IQ, superior strength, and the fact he had been one of the top cardiothoracic surgeons in the country five years prior, they weren’t taking any chances. As always, I watched as the people in the room reacted to him.
He didn’t look like a monster. In fact, at six two, with a golden tan that was his natural skin color, a carved physique, and bright green eyes, you first thought boy next door, not cold and calculating serial killer. That had been everyone’s mistake, and nineteen women had paid with their lives.
As he took a seat, he scanned the room, eyes flicking over everyone before they settled back on the face of Rohl.
“Good morning, Dr. Hartley.”
He quirked his right eyebrow but didn’t speak, and I saw him fold his hands together.
“Will you speak to us?”
Nothing but a slight scowl and a pursing of his lips evidenced his disappointment. He had been expecting to see me and I wasn’t there.
Rohl cleared her throat. “As I know you have access to a television and newspapers, you are no doubt aware that a body was found in Northbrook and that the attack mirrored one of yours in several ways.”
No reaction. Beyond the coldness in his gaze, it would have been hard for anyone to tell he was even listening.
“We were wondering if you had any thoughts on who might have perpetrated the crime.”
Silence.
“We’re prepared to offer you some concessions, privileges, if you could lend us your insight, Dr. Hartley,” Rohl said, smiling at him.
I had been a brand-new police detective when I’d encountered the man who now sat so composed on the opposite side of the table from the agents. It was strange to see him so frigid. At no time, even before I suspected him, had I been treated that way.
“Doctor?”
He smiled, but it didn’t hit his eyes, and he turned to look over his shoulder at the guard standing stoically behind him. “I’m ready to return to my cell.”
Thompson turned to Wojno, who in turn gave a nod to his partner standing beside the mirror. He tapped it, and I walked out of the viewing room to join the guard on this side of the door.
“I’m up,” I told him.
“Sorry about that,” he commiserated.
“Thanks,” I said. He unlocked the door, and I slipped inside, waiting there for either Rohl or Thompson to acknowledge me.
“Miro,” Hartley greeted me, his smile wide, his eyes glinting as he stood.
The guard moved forward fast, hand on Hartley’s shoulder, baton out, ready to make him retake his seat.
“It’s all right,” Rohl rasped, visibly fighting down her fear at having the man looming over her. Her instinctive response had to have been to run. Thompson was so startled that when he’d leapt to his feet, he’d knocked over his chair.
Craig Hartley was a scary man, even more so because of the calm so easily shattered with fierce, decisive movement.
The guard stepped back warily, not replacing the baton, holding it ready instead. Thompson didn’t retake his seat, just stood there watching Hartley as he stared at me like I was the second coming.
“I was hoping you were here somewhere,” he sighed, gesturing for me to come closer like it was a table at some restaurant somewhere and not a maximum security interrogation room at a prison for the criminally insane. “I haven’t seen you in almost two years.”
“Yeah, not since you helped with the Lambert killing,” I said from where I was.
“You were pleased with my observations,” he reminded me, squinting, shifting from one foot to the other. “I read that Christina Lambert’s killer died in prison. Was he raped first?”
I cleared my throat. “I have no idea.”
“It would have been just desserts. There’s no excuse for rape; that’s what seduction is for.”
Hartley had killed first and then mutilated his victims, turning them into what he’d described as art. It had been hard for me to see anything beyond the blood and exposed tissue, muscle, and bone. What had been clear was that Hartley had never caused his victims a moment of pain. Women went from his bed to sleep to death. It was how Norris and I had finally caught him. The recurring description we got from people was that they had seen a beautiful blond man, a gorgeous man, Prince Charming in the flesh. Once we started cross-referencing dates, times, and places, a pattern emerged, and we made daily visits to him, poking, prodding, trying to trip him up. His hubris had allowed it, so certain that neither Norris nor I was as smart as him. But he’d allowed us in the last night, given Norris permission to look around as I watched Hartley cook in the kitchen.
It was my fault; I’d turned my back on him and seen the Tahitian pearl ring with the diamonds sitting in a dish on the ledge above the kitchen sink. It was like being struck by lightning—that moment when I made the connection to why that ring looked familiar and where I’d seen it before.
I knew that particular piece of jewelry, had seen it a hundred times, and had always thought that the expensive bauble looked lovely adorning Kira Lancaster’s ring finger. It had been on prominent display in the photo we were given when she went missing. The token of affection had been an anniversary gift from her husband, and Hartley had taken it as a trophy after he slept with and killed her. He had given the ring to his sister, and it came out later that she had been over the night before. As she was doing dishes, she had slipped the ring off, placed it in the dish, and then forgotten it there. The simple act had unmasked her brother for the monster he was.
I saw the ring, and as I’d turned and looked over my shoulder, he’d rushed forward and pulled the knife from the block beside the sink. His arm went around my neck and I couldn’t pull my gun from that angle. My yell brought Norris, weapon drawn, screaming for Hartley to get his hands off me. Two things came out of that day: I saved a killer and lost a partner. Norris didn’t want to ride with a man who had no concern for his own life, and I decided that there were better ways for me to serve and protect other than being a homicide detective.
“Miro?”
I looked up at Hartley, brought from my memories by his use of my name, which I allowed, much to the chagrin of almost everyone. “Sorry.”
He was charmed, and it was evident by his smile. “Nothing to be sorry for.”
“But I should be paying better attention.”
“I almost killed you and you saved my life anyway. I won’t ever be able to make things right between us until I get out.”
I nodded and grinned at him. “So never, then.”
He took a breath.
“Yes?”
“Never is such a long time,” he said softly, his gaze moving from me to Rohl. What was frightening was how quickly the warmth leeched out of his eyes once they were off me. “Would you mind getting up so I can speak to Marshal Jones?”
She rose quickly, and I moved forward, taking the seat in front of him. Immediately he sat and leaned close, looking me over, finally meeting my gaze.
“You look tired, Miro. Not sleeping well?”
“I’m fine,” I muttered, fiddling with the manila folder Rohl had left in front of me. “Can we talk about the situation in Northbrook?”
“Whatever you want to talk about is fine with me.”
“But it’s your thoughts that we’re interested in.”
He coughed softly. “Did you get the Christmas card I sent?”
“I did, thank you.”
He seemed pleased, his eyes softening, his smile widening. “Go ahead and ask me anything.”
I loosened my tie, which had him riveted. “So we both know you’re way too smart to have an accomplice.”
“It doesn’t seem likely, does it?”
“No,” I said with a smirk. “And the copycat thing?”
He snorted. “Tell me, did he have my clean lines?”
“No, not at all.” I rolled my shoulders, trying to dislodge the familiar tension there. Visiting a man who had shoved a knife into me carried with it a certain amount of stress. “But that brings me to our final question, Doctor.”
“Of course, but first may I ask after Detective Cochran? How is he?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I haven’t spoken to him in a very long time.”
“Because of me,” he almost purred.
I tipped my head back and forth. “Sort of.”
“You chose me over him, that’s why.”
“That’s a bit simplistic, Doctor.”
“Is it?”
“I think so,” I said, tired all of a sudden. “But tell me, do you have an admirer on the outside?”