Chasing Shadows (First Wives Book 3)

by Catherine Bybee

  “Okay, then. I won’t keep you.”

  “We’ll talk soon,” she told him.

  “Good night.”

  “Night.”

  Avery tossed her phone on the bed, opened the notebook she’d been drawing in since she made it to the airport, and continued to sketch.

  “Detective Armstrong.” Avery stared at the uniformed officer. “Or Gray. Either one will do.”

  “You are?”

  “Avery Grant.”

  “Are they expecting you?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll see if they’re available.”

  “It’s important.”

  It was coffee-and-donut early, so Avery banked on them being in.

  The officer lifted the phone to her ear and dialed. “Yes. An Avery Grant is here to see you.”

  Good, they were in.

  “Grant?” the officer asked Avery.

  She nodded.

  “Yes,” the officer said back into the receiver.

  She hung up the phone. “He’ll be out in a minute. If you’ll take a seat.”

  Avery moved away from the desk but didn’t sit.

  She recognized Detective Armstrong when he pushed out the doors leading to the back of the police station. “Ms. Grant.”

  He reached out a hand.

  “Detective.”

  “You look much better than the last time I saw you.”

  “That wouldn’t have taken much.” She’d been black, blue, purple, and green for six weeks.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I need to see the pictures of the man who attacked me again.”

  “The case has been closed.”

  She lifted her chin. “I think you need to reopen it.”

  Armstrong shifted back on his heels, his eyes blank. “Okay, then. Come with me.”

  He walked her behind the reception desk and through the doors he’d emerged from. The noise behind the wall was ten times what it was in the lobby. It might be first thing in the morning on a Wednesday, but apparently that didn’t matter when it came to cops and their work. She walked around several old desks, all of them piled with papers. There was a wild-eyed young man sitting with his hands behind his back, telling an officer he “wasn’t there.” The exhausted officer talking to him wasn’t buying it.

  They rounded the corner to a slightly less populated part of the space and into a semiprivate office.

  “You remember Detective Gray.”

  “Vaguely. I was pretty drugged up when I saw you both last.” They shook hands.

  “Sit.”

  She took the edge of the chair and waited for them to follow.

  “I’ve started remembering things. Details of that day.”

  “What kind of details?” Gray asked as he picked up a pad of paper and held a pen at the ready.

  Avery held her notebook in her hand but closed her eyes in an effort to bring the image back up. “Boots. The work kind. I think they were new, because I remember a spiky edge to the tread coming at me.” She looked beyond the boots in her mind and described the man’s tan pants to them. “New boots and old pants you’d see on a homeless man, the contrast is clear in my head.” She opened her eyes to see the men watching her.

  “The man who attacked you is dead, Ms. Grant.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “No. The man in my memory is not the man in the morgue.”

  The detectives looked at each other.

  “Anything else?” Armstrong asked.

  She nodded and placed her notebook on the desk.

  Opening it to her amateur artwork, she turned the page around and pointed. “He had a tattoo on the inside of his right arm. I saw it when he dragged me around the car. This spider. It covered his skin and was so lifelike . . .” She shivered. “There were bones and hair. The eyes had color. Red.” No wonder she had blacked the image out.

  Avery shifted her gaze between the two detectives and placed both hands on the desk. “I don’t remember this from the pictures you showed me. All I’ve seen in my nightmares is the mug shot of the guy you said did it. All the while I’ve kept thinking it wasn’t right.”

  “Do you remember a face?”

  She shook her head. “No. But I’m remembering details every time I close my eyes. The doctors said the day of the attack might flood back in, and it is. So it’s only a matter of time. I need to see the evidence you have. I need to know if this guy”—she pointed at her drawing—“is still out there.”

  Armstrong sat back in his chair. “We need to pull your files and bring you back in. Where are you staying?”

  “Manhattan.”

  Once again the officers exchanged glances. Their precinct was in Suffolk County, a good hour and fifty minutes outside the city. While her assault case had originated in Manhattan, it had merged with the murder case of Trina’s late husband, who lived in the Hamptons. Officers Armstrong and Gray had the cases combined. Left alone, Avery’s assault case would have gone to the bottom of the page in terms of priority. A murder case of a wealthy man, on the other hand . . .

  Avery turned several pages over in her notebook, took a pen from the desk, and scribbled down her cell phone number. “How long will it take to retrieve the file?”

  “Later today, maybe tomorrow.”

  She tore the paper out and placed it on the desk as she stood. “I remember you saying that you had a video of the man you believe responsible leaving the garage.”

  “I think that’s right,” Gray said.

  “Was there any other evidence linking this scar-faced man to me?”

  “Physical evidence? No. Not that I recall. But one of Petrov’s men turned state’s evidence on the other in the suspicious deaths of your suspect and the housekeeper,” Armstrong told her.

  No evidence. None? “What was the state’s evidence?”

  “That Ruslan Petrov had put a hit out on you. His man hired Scarface, as you call him.”

  “What was the name of the scum that you assumed altered my face forever?”

  “Mason, I think.” Armstrong looked at Gray.

  “Ken Mason. Went by Krueger on the street,” Gray added.

  “As in Freddy?” Avery asked.

  “That’s what his rap sheet told us. A known hit man.”

  “Did this Krueger have spider ink?”

  They were silent.

  “I’d have to look at the photos again,” Armstrong eventually said.

  Avery felt her blood pressure rise. “I will bet my next paycheck he didn’t. The picture of Krueger that you showed me was a man with acne scars and haunting eyes. No ink on his neck from the mug shot. And while I don’t remember the whole conversation, I do think you said something about him liking ink, but he kept it off his neck and arms. Since this Krueger made his living killing people for money, that would make sense. If he had two brain cells to rub together, he would keep any defining marks like this one”—she slapped her hand on her open notebook—“hidden.”

  Armstrong raised both palms in the air. “I understand your frustration. But at the time this was happening, you remembered nothing, and all we had to go on was the evidence we did find and the testimony of those in Petrov’s circle. Now that you’ve remembered something distinctive, we can look into the case again. If Krueger didn’t have this tattoo, we will reopen it.”

  She really wanted to scream. “By reopening it, what does that mean? Put out an APB on a tattoo?”

  “Let’s cross that bridge when we have to.” Gray stood, along with Armstrong. “We need to do our job and get back to you.”

  She felt a brush-off coming.

  “If you remember anything else, call us.” Armstrong handed her a business card.

  Avery started toward the door.

  “Ms. Grant, don’t forget your purse.”

  Avery glanced at the chair she’d just vacated. “I didn’t bring one.” No, she had the rental car key in her front pocket, a pocket wallet on her right hip, and her cell phone on her left.
r />   “Let me walk you out,” Armstrong said.

  They zigzagged through the station and out into the lobby. From there he walked her to the front door and matched her pace down the steps. “Where are all of those bodyguard friends of yours, Ms. Grant? The last time we saw you, you were surrounded by an army.”

  Avery stopped in front of the rental car she didn’t bother locking and opened the door. “You only need an army when you can’t defend yourself.”

  He hiked a brow.

  “Have a nice day, Detective.” Avery slid behind the wheel, started the car, and reversed out of the space.

  Armstrong stood, hands on hips, in her rearview mirror until she drove out of sight.

  They had the wrong guy. She’d seen the looks on their faces, expressions that shadowed doubt on what they remembered about the case.

  They had the wrong fucking guy.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Derrick Armstrong walked back into the station and straight to the office he shared with Gray. His partner was busy clicking behind the computer monitor. “Did you find it yet?”

  “I’m not that fast.”

  They did have to dig a little deeper for archived files. But unlike the days when everything was paper and physical photographs that were stored in remote locations, they didn’t have to leave the station to find what they were looking for.

  Armstrong looked at the chair Ms. Grant had sat in. “A woman without a purse?”

  “Less likely to get mugged,” Gray said.

  “More prepared to fight if she were.”

  Gray glanced up. “She doesn’t look like a fighter.”

  “Looks aren’t always what they seem.”

  “She sure as hell didn’t fight the last time.” Gray went back to the computer.

  “No guarantee she wouldn’t now.” In fact, he would bet his next paycheck she would.

  Thirty minutes later they were both staring at the postmortem pictures of Ken “Krueger” Mason.

  “Well, shit.”

  The man had lots of ink but nothing that looked like a haunting spider crawling on an arm.

  “What about the video we have on him leaving the garage?”

  Gray pulled up the file and they watched the only footage they had of Krueger leaving the scene.

  “Jeans. He’s wearing denim, not tan pants,” Armstrong pointed out.

  “He looks like he’s wearing boots.”

  “Yeah, but that’s the only thing that matches Grant’s description. She said tan pants and a spider tattoo. This guy might have been the one hired to take her out, but he isn’t the one who did it.” Armstrong turned from the desk. “Damn it.”

  “I’m not sure what you think we’re going to do.”

  “We reopen the case.”

  Gray paused. “Okay, fine.” He was the older of the two of them and tended to be more pragmatic about their cases. “But this guy, the one hired to murder Ms. Grant, is dead. And the man who hired him is also dead. Which leaves whoever beat up our victim only guilty of third-degree assault.”

  “Second-degree,” Armstrong corrected. “Broken bones, ICU.”

  “Good luck making that stick. No weapon was used, she’s not a public servant. And there were no long-lasting effects of the attack.”

  Armstrong doubted that.

  “Any wet behind the ears public defender will get the charge dropped to a misdemeanor, and Spider Man will be back on the streets in a few hours.” Gray pushed back from the computer and grabbed his cup of coffee.

  “Unless he has priors.”

  Gray rolled his eyes. “A few days, then. C’mon, man. It’s a low priority.”

  “Not for her.”

  “I understand that. Let’s give her a day and then let her know we’re reopening the case.”

  “Opening and then ignoring.” Armstrong looked at the pile on his desk. They didn’t have a choice.

  “We can find all the ink in the world, but unless there is something else to go with it . . .”

  “I know.” Armstrong released a sigh and went back to his desk.

  Avery shed the rental car as soon as she entered the city. She didn’t fool herself for a minute that she’d find her assailant by looking at arms throughout the streets. Besides, it was fall, and the nip in the air had everyone in long sleeves and sweaters. Then there was the pesky fact that there were one point six million residents in Manhattan. Even if you cut it down by race, that left 56 percent of that one point six falling into the Caucasian category. The arm bearing the spider tattoo had been white. Cut that in half for gender and take out the percentage of children in the mix . . . yeah, Avery had done the math. She was searching for one man in a sea of four hundred thousand. Omit the old, the ones that didn’t have tattoos . . . she’d hated math in school, and she hated it even more now.

  But nothing was going to stop her from looking. Spider, which was the name she used in her head for the guy who attacked her, was out there. He’d haunted her dreams, altered her appearance, and changed her life. She deserved to face him.

  Avery stuffed a few hundred-dollar bills into her wallet and put it into the inside zippered pocket of the parka she wore. No subway pickpocket was getting the drop on her. One of the many things she’d learned from Brenda. The woman was practical to the core and assumed everyone was out to get her. It suited her teachings of krav well.

  Avery left the luxury hotel just after two and started toward the West Village. Once there, she searched out the local college and then a coffee shop. Her stomach reminded her that she’d skipped breakfast and was working her way toward dinner without so much as a piece of toast. After grabbing a coffee and a bagel, Avery sat at the far end of the small café and waited.

  College art students started pouring in and scouting out tables. Avery nibbled on her bagel and watched. Some of the kids sat absorbed in their phones, while others hovered over their textbooks with earbuds blaring music into their brains.

  Avery abandoned her seat and meandered through the room. Two guys and a girl sat closest to the window. On their table were unopened artist sketchbooks and coffee.

  “Which one of you is the budding artist?” Avery asked as she pretended to walk by.

  The three of them stopped talking and looked her way.

  “We all are,” the girl said. She was white, average height, sporting coal black short hair with a streak of red on her bangs.

  “Any of you good?”

  They glanced at each other and smiled. “Lady, we wouldn’t have gotten into the institute if we sucked.” This from the Asian guy.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to offend you. I was looking for someone who might want to make a little cash for a quick sketch.”

  College kids and cash.

  Bait and hook.

  “What kind of sketch?”

  “Can I sit down?”

  The Asian guy stood and offered his chair while snaking one from another table.

  Avery thanked him and removed the picture from her pocket. “I’m Avery, by the way.”

  Their names were Hiraku, Monique, and Emmett.

  “I want someone to do a better job at sketching this.” Avery showed them her paltry scratches.

  “Spiders. Cool,” Emmett said.

  “Is this supposed to be an arm?” Hiraku asked.

  “Yeah. I’m thinking of a tattoo here.” She patted the underside of her right arm.

  Monique leaned back. “That’s all you guys.”

  “Oh?” Avery questioned.

  “I’m all about the face. Hiraku is anatomy and Emmett is still life.”

  Avery looked between the two of them. “Think you can sketch something if I can describe it to you?”

  “What’s in it for us?” Hiraku was the businessman.

  Avery liked that.

  She removed three one-hundred-dollar bills from her wallet and set them on the table.

  Monique snatched up the money.

  The guys looked at her.

  “Wha
t? The rental agreement is in my name. Consider it an advance.”

  The kids shrugged as Hiraku tugged his sketch pad closer. He pulled out some kind of fancy case and removed a few pencils and got to work.

  Avery would guide him once in a while. “More muscular. The veins protruded more. Hairy.” With each instruction, the sketch came to life.

  When Hiraku was done, he sent the page over to Emmett, who had been studying the image she drew.

  “What’s the scale on the arm?”

  “Three-quarters, with the bulk of the body here and the legs spanning around.”

  Hiraku pulled another pad out and started drawing a posterior forearm.

  Avery concentrated on what Emmett was sketching.

  “It was long legged but hairy. You can see the joints. Almost like you’re looking at it through a microscope.”

  “Wicked,” Monique commented.

  “More pointy on the legs,” Avery encouraged.

  Around them, the coffee shop buzzed with movement in and out. As the image in her head slowly came into view on the page, chills ran a path down her spine. But unlike before, this time the chill was laced with excitement. Like she was discovering something for the first time.

  “Like this?” Emmett turned the sketch around for her to see.

  “Yeah, only more lifelike. Dimensional.”

  Emmett shrugged like she had requested ice in her water. He twisted the page around several times, making slash marks on one side of the spider until it looked like it was crawling off the page.

  “That’s it.” She stared at the paper like it was fine art that cost a fortune. Avery didn’t doubt she would see this image in her head for years to come. But right now it was a blessing after months of darkness. This was the hand that hurt her.

  Emmett took the paper back from her and drew over Hiraku’s posterior arm.

  Seeing the tips of the spider legs come to life on the other side of the arm was alarming. Almost like someone was grasping her with sharp nails that she couldn’t krav her way out of.

  “Dude, that’s seriously good,” Monique praised her friend.

  “Spiders are cool. They get such a bad rap,” Emmett said while he continued to add the dimension needed to match the other side of the arm.

  “They run too fast,” Avery said under her breath.