Lethal Confessions

by V. K. Sykes

  “Luke!” She struggled up on her knees.

  He put down the teddy bear and opened his arms to her. Alicia snuggled against his chest as Luke gently held her, hyper-aware of the fragility of her thin frame. The baby shampoo smell of her hair already seemed imprinted into his memory.

  He reached back with one arm and grabbed the bear, bringing it around to Alicia as she let go of him. It was a bit of a monster—at least three feet tall, with plush blue and white fur and a neat black nose made of soft, pebbled plastic. “You like teddy bears, champ?”

  Her eyes popped wide. “Are you crazy?” she squealed. “I love him! He’s the most beautiful bear I’ve ever seen.”

  He laughed. “Then you’ll have to treat him right. The best bear deserves the best treatment.”

  Alicia, her eyes closing with bliss, hugged the bear so hard that Luke wondered if the stuffing might pop out.

  A twinge of guilt tugged at him. It didn’t exactly seem right to have singled out one patient to get such a special present. But he couldn’t help himself. Alicia’s situation was one of the worst he’d ever come across. Not just her life-threatening illness, but her lack of family. He knew the doctors and nurses and social workers were great with her, but they were no substitute for family. Nor was some state-supported foster home. Again, his throat tightened.

  “How are you feeling, honey?’ he managed, stroking the silky top of her head.

  She sighed. “I’m really tired, so mostly I just sleep or listen to my music.”

  God. Much more of this and he might start bawling. But that was the last thing she needed. “What kind of music do you like?” he asked, forcing a cheerful tone. “We’ve never talked about that.”

  “I like country,” she said. “I was just listening to Carrie Underwood. I love her.”

  More than anything in his life, at that moment Luke wished he could take her to Nashville.

  “You have excellent taste in both music and baseball, Alicia Trent. I’ve got a brilliant idea. I’ve got a pretty decent music collection back at the house. How about I take your iPod overnight and load up some of my stuff for you?”

  She smiled, but then narrowed her eyes. “Okay, but no rap or hip-hop, please,” she said sternly.

  Luke couldn’t help laughing out loud. “Honey, I’m as square as they come. Do I look like a rap guy to you?”

  Alicia giggled and fell back onto the bed. It was a laugh of pure innocence and joy, and it made the world seem a whole lot brighter. It had been a long time since he’d heard anything quite that good.

  * * *

  After his visit with Alicia, Luke headed down to the second floor where the social workers had their offices. Since there was no reception area, he had to stop at each door to check out the name on the magnetic plate underneath the office number. Karen Golden’s office turned out to be the last one.

  Golden peered intently at an open file folder on her desk, one of many stacked haphazardly across the desk’s surface. She hadn’t turned on the overhead lights and the blinds were closed, so it was eerily dark inside for mid-afternoon. The yellow glow of a task light illuminated the desktop, but not much else. Luke rapped softly on the door to capture her attention.

  The woman’s head jerked back just a fraction as she raised her eyes to him. She took off her black-framed glasses and placed them on top of the papers she’d been studying.

  “I’m sorry if I startled you, Ms. Golden,” Luke said from the doorway.

  “Not a problem. Come in, Mr….?”

  “Beckett, Luke Beckett.”

  Her brows arched. “The baseball player?”

  “Former baseball player, ma’am.”

  They shook hands and Luke took one of the chairs in front of her desk.

  Golden gave him a thoughtful once-over. “You’re the player who quit baseball to serve in Afghanistan.”

  “That would be me, yes.”

  “I remember reading about you. That took real guts. And patriotism.”

  “No more so than any of the other men and women who serve in the military. But I appreciate your saying that.”

  Karen Golden looked to be around forty, with soft brown hair, kind eyes, and an engaging smile. The type of woman a kid would feel comfortable talking to. “I’m afraid my husband will divorce me if I don’t get your autograph before you leave.”

  Luke grinned, and after establishing that her husband’s name was Ben, he wrote a short note on a blank piece of paper and handed it back to her.

  “Ms. Golden, I probably should have called for an appointment,” he said, shifting the conversation in the direction he wanted to go, “but I was already here seeing a patient, so I thought I’d take a chance and see if you were in.”

  “What can I help you with, Mr. Beckett?”

  “I’d like to talk to you about Alicia Trent. I understand from Doctor Halperin that she’s all alone and has been in foster care since her parents passed away.”

  Golden furrowed her brow. “Exactly what’s your interest in Alicia’s case, Mr. Beckett?” Her voice had turned cooler. Of course, she didn’t really know him from Adam, and there were rules about patient privacy.

  “Look, Ms. Golden, I’ve gotten to know Alicia pretty well these past few weeks. She’s smart and brave and just all around amazing. But her situation really troubles me.” He leaned forward until his palms were flat on her desk. “I’d like to be able to do more for her. More than just visiting.”

  Her demeanor became almost frosty. “What did you have in mind?”

  He gaped at her for a second, but then it hit him. Of course Golden would be suspicious of a man wanting to talk about a little girl, even a man she recognized. He might be a celebrity, but some celebrities had proven to have truly dark hearts.

  “Obviously, I’m not explaining myself very well,” he said. “Look, I already know she’s got nobody. The one thing I’ve got plenty of is money. More than I’ll ever need. I’d like to be able to help Alicia financially, that’s all. Help out with her medical bills, for example.”

  Golden steepled her hands and stared straight at him. When she didn’t respond, he broke the uncomfortable silence.

  “I was wondering if the cost of her ongoing medical care might be preventing her adoption. I mean, her bills must be astronomical. I know the state covers a lot, but I could pick up everything they don’t. I mean everything, and for as long as it takes. Maybe that way, some family would adopt her.”

  Golden pinched her eyes closed and sighed. What the hell had he said that was so objectionable?

  “Mr. Beckett, Alicia’s medical costs are no doubt a partial issue, though the state would surely come to an arrangement with any adoptive parents. But what makes Alicia virtually unadoptable is the state of her health itself. And her prognosis.”

  He couldn’t help flinching as Golden said virtually unadoptable. “Doctor Halperin wouldn’t discuss her prognosis with me.”

  “Unfortunately, I can’t, either.”

  “Which tells me she’s probably not got very long to live,” he said, feeling sick.

  Golden unbent a bit. “It’s wonderful that you want to help her, but money is not the problem for Alicia.”

  Luke threw up his hands, frustrated and angry as hell. “God, there must be something I can do, isn’t there? The girl needs a real family. She shouldn’t have to spend whatever time she has left bouncing between the hospital and foster care.”

  Golden leaned forward. “Truly, the best thing you can do is to keep giving her your kind attention. That’s doing something. In fact, that’s doing a great deal.”

  She put her glasses back on and picked up her pen. He got the signal—topic closed.

  Luke stood, extending his hand. “Thanks, but I need to be able to do more than that. More than just bringing her teddy bears and playing trivia.”

  Golden gripped his hand. “What Alicia really needs is your time, Mr. Beckett, and knowing that someone deeply cares. So, just keep doing what you’ve be
en doing.”

  He stood to leave. “She’ll get all the time and attention I can give. And that’s a promise.”

  27

  * * *

  Saturday, July 31

  2:20 p.m.

  Amy flinched when Jenn Ryan loudly cracked her knuckles. Horrified, she glanced across the meeting table to see the woman grab her other fist and press out another noisy pop of her joints. To Amy, the sound of bones cracking had always been worse than the proverbial fingernails on a blackboard. Why did every meeting with Ryan have to feel like a line of thunderstorms scudding directly toward her?

  “Jenn, if you’re through playing chiropractor, maybe we could get started,” she said in a weak attempt at humor.

  Both Scarpelli and Washington chuckled, but Ryan rolled her eyes in obvious contempt.

  Repressing a sigh, Amy waited for Poushinsky to finish loading up his coffee and sit down at the table before starting. “I just got a call from Detective Dale. Tyler Rist just got a cut-up photo in the mail. It was taken from their wedding album.”

  She’d been expecting that development with a growing sense of inevitability. The detectives remained silent, their faces as grim as she felt.

  “Okay,” Amy continued, “Adrianna told me you were able to interview some of the Hammerheads before they started for home. Anything useful?”

  Ryan raised her index finger. “I didn’t get much until we were set to leave this morning. Then I was able to grab Jed Fisher, one of their pitchers, on his way out to the team bus. He said his wife had called him yesterday after hearing the news about Ashley Rist. She told him Ashley had invited her and a bunch of other wives to Chester’s bar on Thursday night—apparently to drink to Carrie Noble’s memory. I was able to confirm that directly with Lily Fisher a few minutes ago. Mrs. Fisher didn’t go herself, but assumed some of the others did.”

  Yes! Amy pumped her fist. Her instincts about that bar had been right.

  “Good work, Jenn. That gives us somewhere to start, since Ashley’s husband already told Dale he didn’t have a clue where she was. Did Mrs. Fisher know who else was invited?”

  “She gave me four names, but said she thought Ashley would have invited more than that.” Ryan picked up her notes. “Miranda White, Samantha Goodall, Jody Garrett, Lisa Gonzales.”

  “Great. Follow up with those four, please.”

  Ryan narrowed her eyes as if she might just take offense, but then she nodded.

  Amy looked at Scarpelli, then Washington. “Anything else?” Both shook their heads. “Then you two continue to follow up with the rest of the Hammerheads.”

  “What about the Cardinals?” Poushinsky interjected. “Let’s not forget the Cardinals were in Lakeland at the time of the Shannon murder, and at home here when both Carrie Noble and Ashley Rist were taken.”

  “You’re right,” Amy said, “but I have a hard time getting my head around why a Cardinals player would be running around knocking off the wives of players on other teams. At least now we have two women from the Hammerheads, so we should give that team priority.”

  “I agree,” Scarpelli said.

  Poushinsky shrugged. “Hey, no problem with me. I’m a team player. No pun intended.”

  Amy gave him a reluctant smile. “No, you’ve got a point, Poushinsky. Let’s work on both simultaneously. In fact, you can start on the Cardinals by yourself. I’ll head up to Chester’s and see if the bartenders and servers can tell us anything.”

  Poushinsky rolled his eyes at her. “Oh, sure, Robitaille. We get to do all the legwork while you head for the bar.”

  That got a laugh from everyone, even Ryan.

  “Yeah, it’s good to be lead,” Amy responded sarcastically. That got another round of small chuckles, but this time Ryan didn’t join in. Still, she’d behaved better than Amy would have expected, and for that she was grateful.

  The squad returned to the Floor, and Amy plopped into her chair and fleshed out her notes from the meeting.

  The uptick in her mood faded quickly, though. Every cell in her cop’s body clanged an alarm that the baseball killer would strike again, and soon. As much as she’d tried to convey a sense of calm to the public at the press conference, her insides were twisted into a knot. She knew that when guys started posing bodies and leaving ritual markings on their victims, a tidal wave of shit was about to crash down. And she’d studied serial killers enough to know that their need to kill only got stronger. This maniac might just keep killing one victim a day until they stopped him, and that prospect both sickened and terrified her.

  Added to her growing pile of worries was her sister. M.L. had left another message while Amy was meeting with the other detectives. With everything else on her plate, she didn’t need the added stress of talking to M.L. today. But she couldn’t ignore the call. Not this time. M.L. was probably getting herself good and worked up about the murders, and Amy could hardly blame her. After all, she was having enough trouble keeping her fears about her sister’s safety down to a dull roar.

  “Are you all right?” she asked as soon as M.L. answered the phone.

  “Yeah,” M.L. said tentatively, drawing the word out.

  “No, you’re not,” Amy said.

  M.L.’s sigh sounded like it came all the way up from her shoes. “Justin got a call from the league about an hour ago. They suspended him for two games for his part in the brawl.”

  So much for worrying that M.L. was stressed out about the murders. “That’s a drag,” Amy said, injecting sympathy into her voice. “I guess that ends up costing you guys some money, doesn’t it?”

  “Of course. But that part’s not that big a deal. The worst thing is that Justin is totally bummed, now. He stormed out of the house again as soon as he got the call. When I asked him where he was going and when he’d be back, he gave me the finger. The finger, Amy!”

  Amy’s sympathy died a fast death. “Chère, I know I’m wasting my breath, but I’ll never understand why you keep putting up with that child of a man.”

  “You’re right, Amy—you’ll never understand,” M.L. sniffed. “Not until you decide to let yourself love somebody. Then maybe you’ll finally know what it’s like.”

  Here we go again . Now it was Amy’s turn to sigh. She couldn’t comprehend putting up with that kind of endless crap from a man and loving him in spite of it. She’d never been in love, though, not even close, so she supposed she couldn’t swear on a stack of Bibles that she wouldn’t be just like M.L. if they changed places. But she couldn’t imagine it. How could people have any self-respect when they let somebody treat them like dirt?

  But she’d learned long ago that it was hopeless to preach to M.L., especially about matters of the heart.Anything she’d say right now would sound like a slap-down, so she remained silent. Besides, M.L. could always be counted on to fill any conversational gap.

  “Amy?”

  “I’m still here, Chère.”

  “You were totally awesome at that press conference. Did I tell you that this morning? Well, anyway, you were. You were just so cool and so… professional.”

  Amy cringed. History had shown that when M.L. praised her, a major request usually followed on the heels of the laudatory words.

  “Anyway,” her sister continued with barely a pause for breath, “it gave me a fantastic idea. About something I could do to cheer Justin up and maybe get things back on track for the two of us.”

  Oh, God, no . It didn’t take a genius to figure out what M.L. was up to. She remained silent, waiting for her sister to drop what would no doubt be a spectacularly self-absorbed shoe.

  “Since you’re obviously tight with Luke Beckett…” Her sister paused, as if she were about to spring a glorious surprise on Amy. “Well, I thought you could talk him into coming to dinner at our place. Maybe tomorrow night?” Her voice rose with tentative hope. “Wouldn’t that be fantastic? Could you try, Amy? Please?”

  “Cal—” Amy bit back the string of curses that had welled up inside her as her
sister laid out her horrifying request. “M.L., you really expect me to talk a big shot like Luke Beckett into having dinner at the home of some player he’s probably never even heard of?”

  M.L. heaved a big sigh. “Amy, that’s just not the right way to think about it. You have to use your feminine charms, for God’s sake. Tell him you’re going to your sister’s for dinner, and you’d be thrilled if he came along. Tell him you’re sure he’d enjoy it, because your brother-in-law is a pro ballplayer and a huge fan and they’d have so much to talk about.”

  Amy wanted to pound her head on the desk. Just what she didn’t need—a humiliating social outing with the guy who was already driving her nuts. “You do realize we’re in the middle of a murder investigation here, don’t you?”

  “All the more reason for you to take a breather from all that pressure and relax,” her sister responded in a wheedling voice. “And you both have to eat, right? It’ll just be a few hours. Come on, Amy. It would mean a lot to me. You know how much my marriage needs a boost.”

  Amy shifted her gaze to the small framed photo sitting on her desk. With their stunning good looks and toothpaste commercial smiles, M.L., Justin, and little Cooper Wilson might have been the perfect all-American family.

  Pictures lied.

  Still, it wasn’t be a bad idea to check in with M.L. and Cooper, and at the same time try to impress on Justin the need to stay closer to home until the killer was found. “All right,” she said on a sigh. “I’ll ask Beckett, but don’t get your hopes up. This is a total long shot. I barely even know the guy.”

  “Oh, right. Amy, I saw the way he looked at you when you were standing at the podium this morning. He had that look—like he wanted to do you right there.” M.L. snorted. “But, hey, you’re so clueless about men you probably didn’t even notice all that chemistry.”

  That was vintage M.L. As soon as she’d gotten what she wanted, she could easily slip back into cattiness. Or, when it came to Justin, bitchiness.

  “I’m sorry, but you know it’s true,” her sister continued when Amy didn’t rise to the bait. “You’re so married to that damn job.”