What followed her revelations in middle school and high school was a series of problems—and two arrests—that for Mindy were as impossible to avoid as breathing. But still her father couldn’t see that. Didn’t he think she’d stop if she could? Didn’t he know how she wanted to please him? Why couldn’t he understand?
Hacking was the only thing that made sense to her.
Her phone vibrated and she glanced at it. A picture of her husband materialized on the screen and she smiled fondly at it…and pressed Decline.
Not now, my love. I have work to do.
She picked up the phone and snapped a picture of Jess’s notecard—Jess’s very thoughtful, very timely notecard—and smiled.
Chapter 6
Mia handed her car keys to the body shop manager and picked up the keys to her rental car. It was going to be interesting explaining a broken windshield to Jack. He was clearly in no mood these days to think it wasn’t completely her fault.
What the hell was the deal with Derek? Was he just a psycho? Should she try to question him?
She drove to Midtown, checking her phone to see if Jack had called—he hadn’t—and found the law offices of Bentley & Jamison. It was located in the Midtown Business District, a block away from the Woodruff Arts Center, a landmark building most people thought defined the Atlanta skyline.
Mia just thought it was going to be a major pain in the ass to find a parking spot.
When she finally did—on the ninth floor of the parking garage in the same building—she tucked the parking ticket into her bag, praying they validated, and found her way to the lobby of the famous building. She reached the lobby and spotted George Peterson standing by the security desk waiting for her.
“I hope I’m not late,” she said. She knew she was at least thirty minutes late.
“Not at all,” Peterson said, smiling at her and reaching out to shake hands. “Let’s sit over here, shall we?” To the right of the elevators, he indicated a closed door Mia hadn’t noticed. Inside there was a couch, cocktail table and conference table. Mia went to the sofa and sank into the thick cushions.
“Thank you for taking the case,” Peterson said, handing Mia a long white envelope. “Your retainer.”
Mia tucked the envelope away without opening it. “Thank you.”
“I have a few more files for you and a visitation set up with our client in about five minutes.”
Mia frowned. “Cook is coming here? He’s out?”
“No, it’s a web-based video visitation system.” Peterson opened up the laptop on the coffee table and typed in his password. “I think it will suffice for you getting a read on him. Frankly,” he looked at her and shrugged, “I’m not sure meeting him in any form will benefit you, but then, you’ve already agreed to take the case, haven’t you?”
Not for your client’s sake, I haven’t.
“That’s right,” Mia said.
“Can I ask what made you change your mind?”
“Mostly the money.”
Peterson narrowed his eyes, as if trying to determine if she were joking. Finally, he said, “I heard about your partner. His arrest.”
“Do you know his lawyer?”
Peterson nodded. “Paul Murray. He’s good. He’ll give him good advice. Whether your partner’s smart enough to take it, of course, is another matter.”
“Can I ask you what evidence they have against Cook?”
“I have all that for you,” Peterson said as he handed her a stack of file folders. “Plus a list of the men Ms. Baskerville contacted but whom were not considered suspects.”
He handed her a sheaf of pages stapled together. “Ms. Baskerville’s diary. Nothing obviously incriminating to anyone. Mostly just her thoughts about life.”
Mia took the folders and the notebook and slid them into her shoulder bag.
“As for the evidence, Cook admitted he was at the scene of the crime.”
“He did?”
“Yes. The treads of his sneakers were coated in the victim’s blood. He arrived several hours after she was attacked. He went there hoping to convince her to give him the pictures. You’ll see in his statement that he found the victim’s door wide open.”
“Pretty damning.”
“You’ll also see in the files a statement from our medical expert confirming the wounds were delivered by a left-handed person.”
“Is Cook?”
“He’s right-handed.”
“That wasn’t enough to make the cops fall out of love with him as a suspect?”
“They felt, compared with everything else, it was a minor detail that could be explained away.”
“Meaning it’s your job to make it look like a very big detail to the jury,” Mia said.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t get that far. Oh. He’s logging on now.” Peterson turned back to the laptop.
Mia leaned forward to stare at the screen, which suddenly filled with the seated form of a man wearing an orange jumpsuit. Late thirties, pale ginger hair and facial stubble, and watery blue eyes. He looked into the camera with an arrogance that belied where he was broadcasting from.
“Hello, Josh,” Peterson said to the screen. “I’d like you to meet Mia Kazmaroff, from the detective firm of Burton & Kazmaroff. She’s agreed to help us.” He turned to Mia. “You can ask him anything you like. Isn’t that right, Josh?”
“As long as I can ask her a few things about what she’s wearing under that dumpy T-shirt,” Cook said.
“I thought you only liked kids,” Mia said.
“You can’t say things like that,” Peterson hissed. “This is taped.”
“Yeah, great, Peterson,” Cook said. “Did you hire this bitch from the prosecution side?”
“I’ve seen enough,” Mia said, gathering up the file folder Peterson had set on the couch between them.
“Are…are you sure?” Peterson said.
“Yes. I’ll read the files and call you if I have any questions.”
“Would you like to meet me in person, sweetheart? Because that can be arranged.”
“I’ll be in touch,” Mia said, standing and hurrying toward the door. Peterson stood but didn’t follow her. When she closed the door behind her, before bolting for the elevators and the parking garage, she hesitated, then turned back to the closed door. No sound was audible from the other side. She touched the doorknob and felt… nothing.
Either the lawyer was a cyborg or he really had no strong feelings about the case one way or the other.
Somehow, that made Mia feel worse.
*****
An hour later, Mia was still in Midtown. Hoping to avoid the crush of traffic hemorrhaging out of downtown to the suburban hinterlands, she texted Jack that she would be a no-show for dinner. She grabbed a fast-food burger and found a park bench in Centennial Park. If it had been a touch chillier—or wetter—she would’ve fought the surly knot of homeless for a spot in the Fulton County library off Margaret Mitchell Square, but as it was the weather was still passable.
She spread out the file folder Peterson had given her and ate her dinner while skimming his interviews and notes. When she saw the page on Nathan Turner, the CEO of Atlanta Loves, the online dating service that Victoria used, she punched in the private number listed and was surprised when he picked up.
“I’m a detective hired by the firm defending Joshua Cook,” she said, brushing hamburger bun crumbs from her jeans. “I’m downtown at the moment. Would you happen to have a moment to meet with me? I promise to be quick.”
He hesitated. “May I ask your name?”
“Mia Kazmaroff, of Burton & Kazmaroff Detective Agency.”
“Do you know where I am located?”
“I do.”
“Thirty minutes?”
“That’s great. Thank you.”
The picture of Turner in the file revealed a handsome man in his mid forties. He was smiling into the camera and Mia wondered if this was his online dating profile picture. She couldn’t find any pe
rsonal information on him to show whether he was married, straight or gay.
She shivered at the memory of her meeting with Joshua Cook. It wasn’t that he was more repugnant than she expected. He was right on the money in that regard. It was his surpassing arrogance at the whole situation. Child molesters weren’t treated well in prison if the stories could be believed. Either he was the coolest individual ever created, or he had special reason to believe he would not be going down for Victoria’s murder.
Mia wadded up her trash and headed for the nearest receptacle. It made more sense to walk the five blocks down Peachtree Street to the offices of Atlanta Loves than maneuver her rental car through downtown traffic. It took her ten minutes but she was comfortably warm by the time she punched the elevator button in Nathan Turner’s office building in Colony Square.
A beautiful redhead sat at the receptionist’s desk off the elevator. Mia was surprised support staff would be working this late.
“I’m here to see Nathan Turner,” Mia said, suddenly feeling frumpy and disheveled next to the immaculately dressed young woman.
The receptionist spoke into her headset and then turned to Mia. “He said he’ll meet you halfway.” She nodded toward the hallway and Mia thanked her.
He did a little better than halfway. Before Mia even opened the door to the hall, he was standing there, his hand out to shake hers, a strained smile on his face.
“Ms. Kazmaroff, welcome,” he said, shaking her hand.
“Mr. Turner. Thank you for seeing me so last minute.”
Nathan Turner was very tall and very blond, with a thick mustache giving him a striking appearance that was hard to ignore. She imagined that was the point.
“Not at all,” he said. “Let’s meet in here.” He indicated a room ahead of them. Inside, Mia was impressed with the number of video screens on the wall and on nearly every flat surface in the room.
“I was happy to help the police in this terrible business,” Turner said, holding a chair out for Mia to sit at the conference table. “So I don’t know what more I can answer.”
“Well, my questions might be a little different from theirs,” Mia said, shrugging out of her coat, “since they want to prove my client’s client killed Ms. Baskerville, and my job is to show he didn’t.”
“I see. Of course. Ask away.”
Mia glanced around the room. Several of the wall-mounted screens played video clips of what looked like happy couples on their wedding days, presumably the result of successful matching by Atlanta Loves.
“Can you tell me how the police knew of Mr. Cook’s existence?”
“I’m not a physician or a priest, Ms. Kazmaroff. I have no special protection. The police requested that information from me and since I wanted to help, I gave it.”
“Without a warrant?”
“That’s right.”
“What, exactly, did you give them?”
Turner sighed and ran a hand over his face, as if the answer to that was too monumental to tackle. “I gave them the names of those members with whom Ms. Baskerville had Stage Three contact.”
“Stage Three contact?”
“That means beyond the initial contact. A good number of our male members felt they were a strong match for Ms. Baskerville. She was beautiful and her profile indicated she was open to more…adventurous sorts of romantic liaisons.”
“So let me understand how this works. A woman puts her profile up on your site and waits until a guy sees it and indicates he’s interested?”
“That’s right.”
“She can’t just pluck his profile out of the slush pile and contact him?”
“No, she has to be selected first.”
“Pretty sexist.”
“Our women clients like it that way. Makes them feel more feminine. More Southern.”
“If you say so. Then once she gets notified that some guy is interested in her profile, she’s at Stage One?”
“Correct. Stage Two would be an exchange of some kind between them as they get to know each other in order to decide if they want to take it farther.”
“And the cops were only interested in those men who made it to Stage Three?”
“Yes. Only those men who received a message from Ms. Baskerville, recorded in our system, releasing her phone number or personal email.”
“With the intention of arranging a meeting.”
“Presumably. After that, it’s out of my hands.”
“How many Stage Threes did you have for her?”
“About two hundred.”
Mia whistled. “And they found Cook out of that haystack? Good job, Atlanta PD.”
“Good job assuming they got the right man,” Turner said.
“Which brings us to now. You don’t know how they winnowed the number down from two hundred to Joshua Cook?” Aside from the fact that he was walking around in her blood the day she was murdered.
“I understand they were able to do it through a number of phone interviews. Not all of the men ended up meeting with her so, of course, the police ruled them out until they had just those who agreed to her invitation to meet her two little friends.”
“The underage girls.”
“I had no idea she was doing anything like that.”
“What about the Stage Ones and Twos? Do you have a list of that group in your database?”
Turner frowned. “Of course. But it must be over a thousand men. Maybe more.”
“I’ll need a copy of their names and contact information.”
“Really? Is that legal?”
“Absolutely,” Mia said, not at all sure if it was legal or not. “This case is officially closed, Mr. Turner. The cops have their man.”
“I see.” Turner tapped his pen—an expensive fountain pen from the looks of it—against the conference room table.
“So, all total, you have a thousand men who contacted her. And you’re sure there’s no way of going on to Stage Two without you knowing?
“That is correct.”
“Do you have copies of their communication with Ms. Baskerville?”
“Of course.”
“And the cops never asked you for it?”
“They probably didn’t think it was worth following up on.”
“Well, that’s what I’m counting on anyway.”
“I’m impressed, Ms. Kazmaroff. You must believe strongly in your client’s innocence to wade though the transcripts of one thousand men.”
“Mr. Cook isn’t my client,” Mia said stiffly. “Can I ask you, merely for my own information, what you told the police when they asked for your whereabouts the night Ms. Baskerville was killed?”
“You may,” he said. “But you might not like the answer.”
“They never asked you.”
He shrugged. “The police are extremely busy, Ms. Kazmaroff. You can’t blame them for failing to ask for alibis from non-suspects. That would be a monumental waste of time, don’t you think?”
Something about the way Turner delivered that line made Mia shiver—even in the warm, climate-controlled office building.
*****
Jack stood in the living room of the Atlantic Station condo and stared out the picture window at Atlanta’s skyline. The phone had rung a few times but he’d let it go to voice mail. The file his lawyer sent over sat open on the dining room table.
Jim Martin, age forty-two. The photograph in the file was an employee photo taken the day Martin joined the fire extinguisher company. He was smiling in it. Smiling like he expected good things to come from his new employment. Smiling like he thought it was the beginning of a better life.
The picture was taken less than six months ago.
Jack had killed people before—in the military, and in the line of duty during fourteen years as a police officer. His stomach lurched painfully. He’d never killed anyone with his bare hands. And never in the grip of uncontrollable anger.
Is that what happened? Did my actions bring about Martin’s death?
>
Would the guy still be alive if he hadn’t bumped into Jack that night? Jack ran both hands across his face and felt the horror of the words seep into his shoulders, his neck, and creep up into his brain.
Is this what love does to you? Makes you crazy? Makes you willing to commit murder? Or is this only how love affects me?
He heard Mia’s key in the door and forced himself to move away from the window to greet her. It wasn’t her fault she saw him for exactly who he was.
“Hey,” she said as she dropped her car keys on the table at the door. “Did you get my texts?”
“Yeah, I didn’t cook tonight.” That was partially true. The cooked pork chops were wrapped, in the refrigerator.
“Oh, good. You didn’t answer so I didn’t know.”
“I’ve had a few things on my mind, Mia.”
“I know.” She began peeling off her coat. “Any news?”
“Preliminary hearing is Tuesday.”
“Why so soon? Don’t you get to push it back?”
“I don’t see any point. The guy’s family is mounting a civil suit against me.”
“Shit.” Mia walked to the dining room table and picked up the folder with Martin’s picture. Jack took the file from her.
“If you’re hungry, I can make you a sandwich.”
“Jack, stop it. I don’t want a sandwich. I want us to talk.”
“About your day? Sure. I’m all ears. Have a nice visit with the child molester?”
Her mouth dropped open and he hated the look on her face. He turned away.
“What is your problem?” she said.
“My problem, Mia, is that I’m likely going to prison in a few months for killing a guy whose only crime was making a poor decision at work.”
“Is that what they call holding a knife to my throat?”
“I’m charged with using undue force,” he said, feeling his voice heat up. “And you, yourself, confirm that.”
“Do you really want me to lie to you, Jack? Is that what this relationship needs to survive? Me telling you what you need to hear?”
“No, you’re right. I’d much rather have a relationship with someone who thinks I killed a guy with my bare hands.”
Complete Mia Kazmaroff Romantic Suspense Series, 1-4 Page 66