by Mary Burton
Back in her mom’s kitchen, Holly pulled a couple of mugs out of the cabinet and set the coffeemaker to brew. Tessa sat at the counter and opened the album, unleashing scents of popcorn and lavender, which had once permeated her freshman dorm room. A pressed daisy lay in the crook of the middle pages.
“It’s not like you to travel down memory lane,” Holly said.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about Kara lately.”
Holly’s gaze sharpened. “What brought her up? Her birthday?”
“We had a case in the medical examiner’s office. I didn’t recognize the patient during the autopsy and only found out from one of the agents that she was on my freshman hall. The victim’s name was Diane Emery.”
“Wow. I remember her. I was in middle school when you two were seniors in high school.”
“That’s right.”
“I also remember her from the time Mom and I visited you in your dorm room. She was kind of stuck-up.”
Diane had had no interest in making nice with the thirteen-year-old Holly. “You never forget a detail, do you?”
“That’s what happens when your astrology sign is Cancer and you have an eidetic memory,” she joked. The coffeepot gurgled, so she turned to pour some coffee in a couple of mugs. She pushed a mug toward Tessa and set a carton of milk beside it. “Why couldn’t you recognize her?”
“Her face was covered in tattoos. Which isn’t to be shared. The cops haven’t released the details, so keep it quiet.”
“Understood.” Holly sipped her black coffee. “How does this relate to college pictures?”
“Dakota thinks her death shares similarities with Kara’s death.”
“Dakota. As in Dakota Sharp.” She shook her head. “I’ll be sure to double back to that prickly topic.”
Tessa knew Holly didn’t approve of Dakota any more than Rebecca did. “What do you remember about the time Kara was found dead?”
“She was missing for five days. Found on the side of a country road. Drug overdose. She was wearing a red dress and lots of makeup, but she’d been last seen at a Halloween party.”
“You said she was wearing makeup? I don’t remember much from that time.”
“Head injury and heavy-duty pain meds will do that.”
“But how would you know about the makeup?”
Holly shrugged. “Elena mentioned it at her funeral. Elena and her sister found Kara’s body.”
Tessa searched through the scrambled memories of the funeral. Her aunt had not wanted her to attend, but she’d insisted on leaving the hospital to be there. Tessa picked up the pressed daisy.
“I remember you had a fight with Kara the night she vanished. You called Mom while you were walking home from the party, and you complained to her about the argument. Mom said you were pretty upset.”
“Kara and I had a fight?”
“You barely ended that call with Mom when you were hit by the car.”
“How do you know that?”
“Mom put the timing together when she was talking to the responding deputy who followed your ambulance to the hospital.”
“Why was I fighting with Kara?”
“You were crushing on a boy who was only being nice to you so you’d introduce him to Kara. Wounded pride.”
She flipped through the pictures but found none that were taken the night of the Halloween party.
“Kids get upset over stupid things,” Holly said.
“Yeah. Maybe if we hadn’t fought, she wouldn’t be dead.”
“You can’t play that game.”
“I suppose.”
Tessa turned the page, staring at a picture of herself with Stanford. His thick dark hair skimmed his shoulders, and he looked wild and dangerous. He’d been the boy she’d had a crush on. It was a lifetime ago. The past.
“You’re staring pretty hard at Stanford,” Holly said.
“I guess. I wonder what I ever saw in him.”
“He’s nothing like Sharp,” Holly said.
“That’s a good thing.”
“Is it?” Holly asked. “He’s a different person now. We both know Dakota’s a little crazy when he’s got a murder case, and that’s almost all the time.”
“It’s what he does for a living. He’ll always have a murder case on his desk. And after seeing Diane’s body and this other kid I autopsied the other day, I can see why he does get a little obsessed.”
The pages creaked as they turned. A packet of photos fell out. They were still in the drugstore envelope. “I don’t remember these,” Tessa said.
“They might have been the ones Mom found after you were hit. She was so scared you wouldn’t wake up that first night. She couldn’t sleep, and when she found the camera and film in your backpack, she drove them straight to the drugstore just to keep busy. When she came back to the hospital, you were awake. She tried to give them to you later, but you didn’t want to see them,” Holly said.
Tessa folded back the flap and pulled out the pictures. For a moment, she didn’t speak.
It was an image of Kara, Diane, Elena, and herself, taken by a girl from their dorm hall as they left for the Halloween party. Three of them were dressed as dolls. Kara was wearing her red dress.
“Kara’s not wearing makeup,” Tessa said, more to herself.
“Elena said she was wearing a lot when they found her. Find her. Ask her. I bet that is something she never forgot.”
She looked at Diane’s face and outfit. Her cheeks were stained with a bright blush. Painted freckles dotted her face. And her lips were painted in a bright red.
Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at the image. Dear God. She looked the same as she had days ago in the park.
When Sharp arrived back at his apartment, jazz music echoed from inside.
He glanced into the kitchen and saw the back door was propped open; McLean was standing by a grill. He crossed the room and grabbed a beer from the fridge. Twisting the top off, he took a long pull. “McLean.”
“Heard you pull up,” he said as he drank from his beer and flipped the second of two steaks. “Tossed one on the grill for you. Figured with the case, you aren’t eating.”
The air was cool and the sky so clear, the stars shone bright and crisp.
McLean swigged his beer as he flipped a steak. “You like your steak rare, as I remember.”
“Good memory.” He swirled his bottle as a cold breeze cut across the small fenced-in backyard. “How’d the job interview go today at Shield Security?”
“I bet I have a job offer in a day or two.”
“Always confident.”
“Of course.” McLean turned the steaks again. “Any luck with your tattooed victim?”
“Spoke to the victim’s parents and her ex-boyfriend. Everyone is shocked. No one really picked up on the fact she was missing for weeks.”
“What about friends? Or coworkers?”
“She sent a text to her boss three weeks ago and quit her job.”
“She sent a text? No one spoke to her?”
“Correct. The text did come from her phone, which is no longer pinging off any cell tower, so the battery is either dead or the chip smashed.”
“Whoever this guy is, he thought it out carefully.”
“Yeah. A lot of time and effort.”
The front bell rang. Sharp shook off his frustration, moved to the door, and opened it. To Tessa.
For a split second he stood frozen, questioning, wondering why she was here. He’d left it badly between them today. Pissed, irritated, tired, hurting. All the shit he could handle most days. But it percolated to the surface when she was close. She had a way of shredding his nerves with the slightest look.
Tessa was dressed in jeans, a sweater, and boots. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders. Damn. He wanted to touch her.
“I have pictures.” Her tone was flat, guarded. “You asked for pictures.”
His hand gripped the side of the door. “Right.”
She hande
d him the packet. “These were developed while I was in the hospital after my accident. I didn’t remember them, but found them when I went to my aunt’s house. As you go through them, let me know if you have any questions. I’ll fill in the gaps.”
He set his beer aside and took the envelope. When she turned to leave, he asked, “How about now?”
“What?”
“Fill in the gaps now. My buddy McLean is here. Grilling steaks.” He stepped aside. “Come on in. Maybe you’ll recall some details that will be of use. And I bet you haven’t eaten.”
She tightened her hand on the strap of her purse. “Sure. I’ll stay for a few minutes.”
He released the door and stepped aside so she could pass. As she walked past him, he caught the jasmine scent. “Can I get you a drink?”
“Thanks, but no, I’m fine.”
“Steaks are done,” McLean said. He froze midstep when he saw Tessa. He set the sizzling platter of steaks on the kitchen counter.
Seeing him, she smiled. “Hi, I’m Tessa.”
“Tessa, as in Sharp’s wife.”
She stilled and kept her gaze on McLean. “That’s right.”
“Jacob McLean,” he said, extending his hand as his grin widened.
“McLean interviewed with Shield Security,” Sharp said.
“That’s great,” she said.
McLean clapped his hands. “Tessa doesn’t want to hear about my career. But she looks hungry.”
“No, I really can’t stay,” she said.
“Won’t take no for an answer,” McLean said.
She looked at Sharp, clearly unsure.
“Stay,” Sharp said.
Her fingers tightened again on the purse strap. “Sure.”
McLean turned to Sharp. “Get the lovely lady a beer.”
“Right,” Sharp said.
As he moved into the kitchen to get a beer, he heard McLean say, “Sharp doesn’t bite. At least I don’t think he does.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Friday, October 7, 9:45 p.m.
“What pictures did you bring?” Dakota asked.
Leave it to him to keep the target in his sights. Work came first. But she wasn’t angry. He was who he was. “They’re all taken the night of the Halloween party.”
“What can you recall about that night?” Dakota asked.
“I don’t remember anything. My memory was wiped for the few days leading up to the accident. I wasn’t even sure these pictures still existed until I found them at my aunt’s house tonight.” She dug her fingernail into the label on her beer bottle. “I saw my cousin Holly, and she remembers that Kara and I had a fight. She said I was walking back to the dorm early. A few minutes later, I was tagged by a car.”
He laid his fork and knife down. “I always wondered how you could just step into traffic. You’re one of the most alert people I know.”
“Everyone gets tired, I suppose. And I must have been distracted by the fight.”
“I always assumed you were drunk,” Dakota challenged.
“Thanks a lot.”
“It was college, Tessa. Kids do stupid things.”
“I never got that stupid.”
“Do you think your drink could have been drugged?” McLean asked.
“I never considered that.”
“Why not?” Dakota asked.
“I don’t know. I was at a party with friends. I thought I was in a safe place.”
“Not friends. Acquaintances,” Dakota said. “Were you drinking draft beer?”
“I assume so. But I was never a big drinker.” She and Dakota had talked about the accident before, but never in great detail.
McLean groaned. “It makes sense. I’d bet money someone slipped a roofie in her drink.”
She’d always attributed the car accident to her own distracted thinking. But what if she’d been drugged?
Dakota balled up his napkin and tossed it on the table beside his plate. “Do you remember what Kara was drinking?”
“Beer, I suppose. Like I’ve told you before, I have no memory of the night. The concussion wiped out about three days’ worth of memories.”
“Who gave the party?” Dakota asked.
“My aunt told me later it was at someone’s house near the cemetery. I did go back later when my leg was healing. It was near the graveyard. I suppose that made sense for a Halloween party.”
“Who owned the house?”
“I don’t know. I never asked. But I do remember where it was. It won’t be hard to trace.”
He tapped his finger on the table. When they’d been together and he’d worn his wedding band, the clink, clink of the ring on the table meant a case bothered him. She could tell by the speed and rhythm of the clinks if the case was going well or not.
“I saw Stanford Madison tonight,” he said. “Did you know he was dating Diane Richardson?”
“I did not know that.”
“Tell me about Madison,” Dakota said.
“I had kind of a crush on him in college. I told Kara. She thought it was sweet.” A memory rose out of the shadows. “I remember them at the Halloween party. They were kissing.” She frowned. “That must be why I left.”
Dakota studied her a beat. “Why didn’t you ever talk about him to me?”
“Because he was a college crush and a friend after my accident. He visited me a few times that semester I had to drop out, and then we lost touch.”
McLean rose and moved to the envelope Tessa brought. “Tell us about the pictures?” he asked.
Relieved to look away, she rose and laid the pictures out like playing cards. “They were all taken the night of the Halloween party. Kara wore a red dress. The rest of us were dressed as dolls.”
“Dolls,” Dakota said.
“Yes. It was kind of a lark at the time, but now that I look at them, I get chills.”
Dakota leaned forward and for a long moment stared at the images. “Did you run into anyone that night that you thought might be trouble? Was there anyone interested in Kara, you, or the other girls?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Knox ever interview you?” Dakota asked. “He said he talked to everyone who knew Kara.”
“He did. It was later, though. I was a junior in college, and he caught up to me as I was coming out of the library.”
“What did he ask you about?”
“He wanted to know about that night Kara vanished. I couldn’t tell him anything.”
“What else?”
“Did I notice if anyone was hanging around the dorm in the weeks before the party.”
“And?”
“No one that I remembered. But . . .” A detail long forgotten focused. “Someone did send her flowers.”
“When?”
“A couple of weeks before the party.”
“Who sent them?”
“There wasn’t a card on the flowers. I remember they were purple irises and were in a pretty vase by our dorm room door.”
“How do you know they were for Kara?” McLean asked.
“I just assumed. I didn’t know anyone that would send me flowers.”
Dakota tapped his finger on the pictures, clearly struggling to control his anger over Kara’s unsolved murder.
“The point I need to make, Dakota, is that Holly remembers Elena Hayes at Kara’s funeral. Holly says that Elena and her sister found Kara on the road. They said when they found her, she had makeup on her face.”
“She remembers that specific detail?” Dakota challenged.
“She has a photographic memory. If Holly remembers, it happened.”
Dakota stared at her, his face an unreadable mask.
“If you want more details, talk to Elena Hayes. She was the fourth girl in the picture. She was living abroad for a couple of years, but I saw in one of the alumni magazines that she was back in Richmond. I know the cops interviewed her after Kara was found, as they did me. She might have been afraid to talk more candidly then. Her father was str
ict and would have punished her if he’d known she’d been at a party drinking with a bunch of strangers.”
“I’ll talk to Vargas, and we’ll go see her,” Dakota said. “Anyone strike you as odd at the funeral or in the days leading up to the party?”
“At the funeral, I was on pain meds and couldn’t stay long. I spoke to your mother. She was sweet but so overwhelmed. Your stepfather was also a mess.”
Dakota tapped his index finger on the table, and she sensed he was struggling to remain objective. “Diane’s mother said she was vain. She was convinced she’d never ruin her face.”
“She wasn’t stuck-up about her looks in college, but she was conscious of them. And I agree, unless there was a really drastic change in her mental makeup, she wouldn’t have disfigured herself.”
Tessa stared at the pictures of Kara, Diane, Elena, and herself. Pathologists, like cops, could distance themselves from death so they could effectively analyze the chain of evidence. But she found it nearly impossible now.
Dakota reached for his phone, took snapshots of the images, and sent them off.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Sending them to Garrett Andrews at Shield Security. If anyone can pull a detail out of these, it’s him.”
Fatigue had seeped deep into Tessa’s bones. She’d be no good at work tomorrow if she didn’t get some sleep. “I’ve got to get going,” Tessa said. “I’ve an early call in the morning. Let me know if I can help.”
“Would you be willing to meet with Andrews at Shield?” Dakota asked.
She rose, hitching her purse on her shoulder. “Sure. Whatever you want.”
He followed her to the door, which he reached before her. He gripped the knob but didn’t open it. “Thank you.”
“Sure.”
So close, and yet the distance between them felt endless.
“Why did you kiss me the other day?” he asked suddenly.
“Why?” Good, he’d been thinking about the kiss. “Because I’ve dreamed about it for months. I wanted to see if you tasted like I remembered.”
“Nothing’s changed, Tessa,” he warned. “I can promise you we’d be great in the sack and terrible out of it.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I’m not going to chase you, Dakota. If you want this marriage, you’ll have to meet me halfway. But I’m not going anywhere this time.”