Get up. Get going. Don’t give up. It isn’t over yet.
Jenny?
The heat reached closer, hotter, harder, the trailer engulfed in a ball of flames and thick black smoke. Something pushed at her, made her get up on her knees, onto wobbly legs, long enough to grab hold of Kim’s coat by the collar. She started pulling hard, dragging Jenny’s sister away from the flames, toward the far side of the rental car. Jo fought the gray haze that clouded her eyes and threatened to shut down her thoughts like drawn curtains. Each step was painful, each breath ached, until she couldn’t go another inch.
She dropped down beside Kim as the sky exploded into pitch, and she covered her head and her ears from the noise and the ash that rained around them.
She heard the distant cry of a siren.
It’s okay. You’re all right.
She took Kim’s cold hand and held tight before she slipped into the dark again, far away from the fire.
Hands jostled.
Voices swirled, in and out, out and in.
Out.
Jo awoke to a light in her eyes and a soft voice asking, “Detective Larsen? Nice to have you back with us. I’m Dr. Costa, and you’re in the ICU at Plainfield Memorial. You’ve been unconscious since they brought you in. Can you follow my finger, please?”
She saw two digits first, slowly moving. She blinked until there was one, tried to keep her focus on it until she heard, “Not bad. Pupils are equal and reactive, just slightly dilated.”
She wet her lips. “Which means?”
Was that her voice? It sounded rough as sandpaper.
“It means you’re a lucky woman. Your CT was equivocal, so we just need to keep an eye on you. Can you sit up a bit? I’ve got some dandy pain meds that’ll help.”
Jo grimaced as she struggled to sit upright. Her shoulder screamed as she used her left arm to prop herself up.
Was I in a train wreck?
The dark-skinned woman in the white coat pushed a tiny cup of pills and a larger cup of water at her, but Jo raised a hand, her palm streaked with scratches. “Nothing stronger than aspirin, okay?” She couldn’t do what she had to do, not if she was doped up.
“Detective, please.”
“I’ve got to go.” She swung her legs over the bed, grimaced at how much effort it took.
“Hey, not so fast, partner.” Hank stepped forward and nudged Dr. Costa aside. “Take it easy, okay?” He rested his hands on her knees, and she realized how filthy her pants were, covered with dirt and stains. Turning to the doctor, he said, “Mind if we have a private powwow?”
“I’ll be back with some Tylenol in five.” Costa set the cups down and left them alone in the cubicle, though Jo could still see her—two of her—beyond a large window, looking in.
She squeezed her eyes closed, getting rid of the doctor’s twin, and at the same time, causing a flicker of memory: red on the ground and a pale face streaked with blood. She ignored the noise in her head. “How is she?”
“Jenny’s sister?”
“Yes.” Jo swallowed, afraid from the sober expression on her partner’s face that Kim Parker had been DOA. But she’d had a pulse, hadn’t she?
“She’s in surgery,” he said. “Whoever took her down hit her over the ear.” He tapped his own head, as if to demonstrate. “They said it was an epidural hematoma, something to do with the cerebral artery.”
“Will she be all right?”
He shrugged. “They think so, yeah, but it’s one of those wait-and-see things.”
“Can I visit her?”
“Sounds like it’s gonna take a while for them to work on her, maybe a couple hours. So I’d give it until tomorrow before you drop in.”
“Damn it.”
“Hey, it’s not your fault.”
“Isn’t it?” If Jo hadn’t felt like crap already, that would have done the trick, because it was her fault, stopping where they had, because she’d had one of her gut feelings, a sense of being drawn to the spot because of the sign.
“The trailer,” she said softly, recalling that she’d peered inside, saw a coatrack, thought maybe Jenny’s missing coat was in there, or even the coat of her abductor, or the hat with flaps. She winced as she flashed on orange flames and plumes of black smoke. “Is there anything left?”
“My wife’s cell was DOA. Found the poor thing busted on the gravel. Looks like someone pounded it with a jackhammer. Sort of like your skull.” Frowning, he crossed his arms over his chest. “I didn’t stick around to see the FD hose down the trailer, but it didn’t look like much more than cinder.”
“Crap.” She wanted to remember everything, but pieces were missing. Fallen into holes she couldn’t find. There was something else, something more. “What did you see?”
“I saw you lying on the ground, Larsen, and it scared the holy hell out of me.” He put his hands on his hips, parting his dark jacket, and exposing his sidearm. He shook his head, as if he didn’t know what to say. And he was never short on words, not with her.
“I’m all right,” she assured him. “I’m alive, anyway.”
He turned on her, his eyes angry. “This time.”
No more guilt. She couldn’t take it.
“Did you call Adam and tell him anything?”
“Not yet.”
Thank God for small favors.
“You’re a mess, you know, all scratched up like an alley cat.”
“An alley cat, huh?” Jesus. She remembered then. Jenny’s cat. Where was he? “Ernie,” she said, but Hank waved off the question.
“He’s fine. Dropped him off with the girls in Dispatch, and they’re taking care of him until you get there.”
“Thanks.” She’d already said that a hundred times, hadn’t she?
“Forget it.” Her partner sighed. “What I want to know is who was there, at the property. You didn’t spot a car or see somebody coming at you? Was it Lisa Barton? She never returned to Dielman’s house, not while I was there, though I got a BOLO out on her and took off as soon as I lost you on the cell.”
“I didn’t see anyone, Hank.” She wanted to recall, tried so hard to think, put her hands to her temples and pressed, like that would fix everything. “There was another car in the parking lot,” she said, recalling a smudge of tan rooftop behind Kim’s rental. “It was beige.”
Didn’t Lisa Barton have a beige Acura sedan?
She’d been standing right below on the church steps when Kim had talked about wanting to go to the quarry. She must have overheard them.
Had she been afraid of leaving a loose end? Had she told Patrick they needed more ice for their post-funeral reception, only to hightail it to the trailer? Except when she’d gotten there, she’d found Kim in the parking lot and Jo poking around?
What about Alana Harrison? Her secretary said she was off today. What color was her car? Her husband drove a dark Mercedes, so it wasn’t him. And no way would Jacob Davis have driven out to the boonies to torch the trailer himself. He’d have goons for that, wouldn’t he?
But Alana was a different story. She’d shown up at the church, which didn’t make sense. What if she’d stuck around and followed them? What if she’d panicked, seeing where they’d gone?
“We have to go back, Hank,” she said and swallowed hard, her throat so dry. “We have to find the evidence before it’s all lost.”
“There’s no reason to go back, Jo. I told you, there’s not much left for the arson boys to sift through as it is.”
Orange flames. Black smoke. Ash in the air.
“That can’t be,” she said, under her breath.
“You told me on the phone that you found something,” Hank reminded her. “Jenny’s locket.”
Concentrate, Jo, concentrate.
She saw it then: a silver flash in her mind’s eye.
She reached down, looking for the pocket where she’d put it. “Where’s my coat?” she asked. Her sidearm was gone, too. “My thirty-eight?”
“Hey, hey, don’t pan
ic. I got your gun locked in my trunk. The docs took off your coat in the emergency room, and I picked it up. It’s right here.” He retrieved a folded bundle from the only chair in the cubicle, brought it over, and set it in her lap.
She slid shaky fingers over the wool, dipping down into the right front pocket until she found what she was looking for and held it out to him.
He squinted at the object in her hands.
“It’s Jenny’s. It has to be,” she said. “It was caught in the fence below the steps at the realty office trailer.”
She could see in his face that he understood.
“There was a black button, too. It could have been from her coat. I feel like she was leaving a trail for us to follow,” she said, digging into her pocket again before Hank stopped her.
“Okay,” he said, patting her hand. “Okay.”
“She was there.” Jo curled her fingers around the locket and looked her partner in the eye, thankfully seeing only one of him. “Why would Jenny be at that place, huh? It makes no sense, unless Lisa took Jenny there to wait for Alana. If that was Lisa Barton’s beige Acura I saw . . . what’s their connection? I thought it was Kevin Harrison, but he was in surgery. I even considered Alana’s father, but I can’t imagine he’d want this mess on his hands. He’d work it another way, have Jenny arrested for harassment, or get her committed. This was too personal, too emotional.”
“You think it has a woman’s touch?” he asked, and she didn’t even fault him for being a chauvinist because that was exactly what she thought.
“Lisa and Alana don’t have alibis. We need to pick up both of them, Hank, pit them against each other. Push them hard.”
“We’ll put the fear of God in them, how’s that?”
“Fear’s good.” She started to slowly scoot her way out of bed just as Dr. Costa returned with yet another tiny paper cup and a tan water pitcher.
“Hold on, Detective Larsen. Where do you think you’re going? You need to rest, and we need to monitor you for at least another twenty-four hours.”
“No time to rest.” Jo took Hank’s arm and stood, not daring to show how unsteady she felt on her feet. She clung to him as he helped her into her coat, the locket still clutched in her hand. “We’ve gotta catch us some bad guys.”
“Bad guys? More than one? Or are you still seeing double?” The brown forehead pleated.
Ah, a wiseass doctor. Perfect.
The physician’s well-modulated voice went flat with disapproval. “You’re leaving against medical advice. You realize that, of course?”
“It’s nothing personal, Doc. She never takes my advice either,” Hank offered.
Jo would have rolled her eyes if it didn’t hurt so much.
“At least take these.” Dr. Costa proffered the cup with the nonprescription pills, and Jo leaned heavily on Hank as she tossed them back and chased them with water. “I’ll get a wheelchair and your paperwork. But I wish you’d reconsider.”
“No.”
That one was easy.
The doctor left the room, and Jo saw her approach the nurses’ station, shaking her head and conversing with a pale woman in pink scrubs, who kept glancing over, brows cinched.
“You sure you’re all right?” Hank asked, and Jo feared for a moment he’d side with Dr. Costa, make her stay.
“I’m okay,” she lied.
She wanted out of this place. If she could just keep her head up, keep her eyes open, put one foot in front of the other, she’d be dandy.
After Dr. Costa delivered the discharge papers, which Jo signed in a barely legible scribble, the nurse in pink pushed in a wheelchair, fussing with the footrests and settling Jo in, as if she were a hundred-year-old invalid and not a thirty-five-year-old cop with a splitting headache.
Hank took the handles of the chair and rolled her past the nurses’ station, toward the elevators, and Jo concentrated fiercely on staying alert, focusing ahead, ignoring the hacksaw cutting into her brain because she didn’t have any time to waste. They were so close now, so very, very close.
When the cool air outdoors hit her smack in the face, she breathed it in, sucked it hard into her lungs, until she could feel the energy stir inside her again. It cleared some of the cobwebs from her mind.
Hank left her to sit in front of the building while he brought his car around, and Jo waited, pressing the locket between her palms, needing her connection to Jenny. She squinted into the bank of leaden clouds, hanging so low in the heavens that she feared she’d bang her head on them if she stood too quickly.
The dusty old Ford pulled curbside, and she pocketed the locket, getting out of the wheelchair and using her own two legs to walk to the passenger door alone before Hank had the chance to park and get out.
Her partner settled behind the wheel and called their captain, repeating what Jo had told him about possibly seeing Lisa Barton’s car at the torched trailer and Alana Harrison’s ties to the place. Jo heard the word warrant more than once on Hank’s end.
Search warrants, she figured, hoping by day’s end they’d have enough evidence for arrest warrants, which would be even better.
When Hank set his phone on the seat between them, Jo picked it up and dialed Adam’s cell. She caught him on the first ring.
“It’s me,” she said.
“Where are you?” he fired back instead of hello.
“With Hank,” she said simply, as opposed to telling him she was leaving the hospital ICU after getting her skull cracked.
“Can you get down to the crime lab? I need you to see something. I’ve got Jon Morgan looking over Finn Harrison’s hospital records from the night he died, and the photos you sent.”
“And the T-shirt?”
“Yeah,” he said and hesitated before adding, “It’s too bad no one looked a little closer three years ago.”
Jo’s pulse kicked up a notch. “So it wasn’t an accident?”
“Just get down here, okay?” he told her. “Emma needs to see you, too.”
“We’ll be there as soon as we can.” Jo had nearly hung up when he shot another question at her.
“You never said where you are. You’re not still at the church?”
“No.” She squirmed against the seat belt.
There was no way to avoid telling him, was there?
Hank started the car and let it idle, waiting as she gave Adam a CliffsNotes version of what had happened out near the quarry, hating the silence on the other end almost as much as if he’d gotten on her case about it, as Hank had.
“Oh, Jo.” He sighed when she was through.
How guilty those words made her feel.
“I’m okay,” she promised him, making further reassurances before he’d let her hang up.
Then she asked Hank to drive into Dallas, and she gently set her head back against the vinyl seat, pressing her palms to either temple. She hoped she wouldn’t be sick on her shoes before they got to Parkland Hospital.
The trace-evidence exam room felt airless without windows, no natural light seeping in to discern night from day.
The yellow T-shirt lay atop a crisp, white sheet of paper on a stainless-steel table that smelled of the bleach used to clean it. A man in a white lab coat with blue latex gloves hovered over it all, pinching a pair of forceps to stretch the T-shirt, which had been turned inside out.
Adam stood at the opposite side of the table with his hands crossed over his chest, watching Jo, not the performance of his colleague, Jonathan Morgan, a clean-cut fellow that Jo thought looked more like a banker than a blood-spatter expert.
She could hardly bring herself to look at Adam, not the way he stared at her, surveying the damage from her latest run-in: the scratches on her face and hands, the way she squinted because the light made her head hurt more.
“See, there, below the collar,” Dr. Morgan said, indicating small brown smears visible against the sunny hue of the cloth. “Most of the blood’s on the front underside of the shirt, not the outside. I’m thinking the
boy wasn’t wearing this when he fell, that he was probably redressed. You want to see it under the glass?” He set down the left forceps and swung around the arm of a lighted magnifying lens, fixing it right above the stains.
Jo didn’t need to look. It was clear enough to the naked eye—even with the vague fog at the edge of her vision—but she leaned over the circle of glass and peered through anyway.
Hank followed suit when she was done.
“Notice anything else?” Morgan asked, grasping the sleeves of the T-shirt with gloved fingers. He displayed it like a red flag before a bull, then turned it right side out and held it up again.
Jo could see only wrinkles.
Hank scratched his nose. “It looks pretty clean.”
“Ay, there’s the rub,” the blood expert quipped, giving a half smile, like he was enjoying this. “No trace of any plant material on the shirt, not from a tree or vegetation. I couldn’t even find microscopy of dirt.”
“So the kid didn’t fall?” Hank said, and Jo leaned a gloved hand on the table edge, holding on, waiting.
“I looked at the photos you provided, Detective Larsen, and if the child had fallen from the tree house while climbing that ladder, he would’ve likely landed on his back, which would have put him in the flower bed below. If he’d fallen from the tree house itself, he would have probably hit the grass. There’s just one problem.” He punctuated the air with a tap of his finger. “The only residue I found on the shirt, other than the blood, is mineral, not vegetable.”
“As in what?” Jo said, not in the mood for playing games.
“As in talc,” Morgan finished.
“Like talcum? Baby powder?”
“Exactly like that.”
“Then she yelled at me for ignoring Finn, for taking a phone call when I should’ve been getting him ready for his bath.”
“What else?” Jo asked.
“The glasses.” Adam stepped in, indicating the pair of small gold frames that sat on a separate piece of white paper farther down the table. “They’re not damaged, not even dinged. The boy’s wearing them in the picture, and if he’d had them on during a fall, they would’ve been damaged. No question.”
“She told me that she had dreams about him, that he spoke to her. He wanted her to find the truth. He couldn’t see, she told me, because he wasn’t wearing his glasses.”
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