by Karen Rose
“Just a few months ago. It just got to be too much. I also worked ICAC, but I had to get out of that department, too. Wears on you after a while.”
Meredith controlled her shudder, but just barely. The officers in the Internet Crimes Against Children department had to view photos she couldn’t stomach even thinking about.
“I’m sure it does,” she murmured. Providing therapy to the victims wore on her and she was hearing about it only after the fact.
“I figured you’d understand.” Hanson shifted his gaze back to Adam, eyeing him through the window. “How’s he doing?”
She couldn’t hide her surprise. “Please?”
“Adam. I know you’re friends. He’s mentioned you before. You’ve helped in the past. Helped him find his center.”
She said nothing and he glanced back at her. “Sorry,” he said shortly. “I didn’t mean to overstep. I just worry about him every time he gets on a . . . messy case.”
She continued to regard him steadily. “I don’t understand.”
He shrugged uncomfortably. “I was his partner again fifteen months ago. Right before he took his medical leave. I watched him fall apart once. I’m not keen on seeing it happen again.” He met Meredith’s gaze. “I don’t want details. I just want to be sure that he’s all right. I’ve known Adam since we were kids. Our dads are close. He has people who care about him, even if he doesn’t want us to.”
That, at least, made sense, she thought. “Well, he’ll be out soon, so you can ask him.”
The detective gave her a considering look that bordered on admiration. “Well, good. I’m glad he has you in his corner, Dr. Fallon. A lesser person might have blabbed. Thank you for keeping his secrets.”
She smiled at him serenely. She’d been around enough cops to recognize backhanded interrogation techniques and there was no way she was spilling any of what she knew. Mostly because she would never share Adam’s secrets, but partly because she wasn’t sure exactly what those secrets were.
It means that I’m an alcoholic.
She swallowed back the sigh and inclined her head. “Again, saying thank you doesn’t seem appropriate here. But . . . thank you.”
Chuckling, he twisted in the chair, pulling his wallet from his back pocket, taking out a plastic photo keeper that was stuffed full of photos. He searched each little pocket until he made a satisfied sound. He rolled the chair closer to Meredith’s, holding out one of the photos. “That’s us. I’m the one on the left,” he added.
Meredith took the picture, her mouth curving of its own volition. Two boys in baseball uniforms stood, arms over each other’s shoulders. One dark, one light. The boy on the right was clearly Adam Kimble. He had boyish good looks even then. Both wore grass stains on their knees and huge smiles on their faces. “How old were you?”
“He was sixteen. I was almost eighteen. We were only a grade apart, though. Adam was a fair student, but I’d been held back a year in middle school, which I basically hated the world for, but it turned out okay. If I hadn’t been kept back, I would’ve graduated two years ahead of him and we wouldn’t have played for the same team in high school. Those were good days.”
She smiled fondly at the photo. “Did you win?”
“Went to the state playoffs, but lost in the quarterfinals. Adam played another year. That year they went on to win the state championship. Adam ended up getting a baseball scholarship to college, which was good because with his grades? Well, let’s just say it was good he could hit a home run like nobody else, because he was never gonna ace math.”
“Hm,” she said, torn between annoyance at his criticism of Adam and temptation to ask for more details. But she really wanted to hear Adam’s story from Adam, so she handed Hanson back the picture.
“I ran track in high school. Couldn’t hit a ball to save my life,” Meredith admitted. It wasn’t entirely true, but close enough. “I wasn’t good enough for a scholarship, though.”
“Neither was I,” Hanson said ruefully. He put the photo back in his wallet, then returned his gaze to the window with a quiet sigh. “You don’t have to answer this, but . . .” He sighed again. “If he starts to . . . need anyone, can you call me?” He patted his pockets, then rolled his eyes. “I don’t have any cards with me. Do you have any paper?”
She wanted to say no, but Adam had smiled at this man, had looked happy to see him. As happy as Adam ever looked, anyway. If Hanson could be a resource for Adam, far be it from her to deny them. Digging in her purse, she found a small spiral notebook, pulled out a page, and handed it to him, along with the tactical pen she always carried.
It was a stainless steel pen that could puncture a man’s windpipe if it was applied with enough force. Meredith had practiced on dummies at the gym. The weapon doubled as a real pen, camouflaged by its shiny pink color, its surface covered with engraved hearts. It was her favorite pen because she could bring it into controlled environments—like on a plane, or into a courthouse or a police department—without having it taken by security.
Hanson, however, recognized its purpose immediately. He took the pen with another deep chuckle. “I need to get my wife one of these. Where’d you get it?”
Meredith considered denying it, then shrugged. “Amazon.”
“Of course. My number,” he said, handing her the paper and her pen.
She folded the paper and put it, the notebook, and her pen back in her purse, then changed her mind, pulling them back out. Tearing out a clean sheet of paper, she proceeded to sketch a geometric design she could color in, hoping it would be a signal to the man not to ask her anything more.
Cincinnati, Ohio
Sunday, December 20, 5:15 a.m.
“Got ’em back,” Isenberg said, nodding at her laptop with a self-satisfaction that Adam thought would have been almost cute under other circumstances. Not that he would have ever called his boss cute under any circumstances. A straight arrow, both her wit and her tongue were sharper than any blade. Occasionally the humanity she held so closely in check peeked through the crusty shield she showed the world.
Like her pride when she figured out something on the computer that any five-year-old could accomplish blindfolded, like how to reestablish the Skype connection with the Chicago detectives after their call had been inexplicably interrupted.
Or when she viewed the photos and videos Chicago had taken of the crime scene and her first response had been to glance at Adam, to be sure he was all right. Because those photos were . . . difficult to look at. For anyone.
But for me? The slash across Tiffany Curtis’s throat was a definite trigger for him. And all the blood? Both in her room and in her mother’s? There was so much of it, soaking the bed, splattered on the headboard, the nightstand, the carpet. The phone that had slipped from the mother’s hand to land in a pool of her own blood.
He drew a harsh breath. Keeping his mind from drifting back to that day Paula’s throat was slit was taking all the strength he possessed. And knowing that Tiffany and her mother had been killed simply because someone wanted access to Shane Baird because Shane was connected to Andy Gold, who was somehow connected to Meredith.
“Kimble?” Trip rumbled softly, bumping his shoulder. Trip had come in while Isenberg had still been muttering curses at her computer. “We’re live again.”
Adam jerked his attention back to the screen, which showed only a close-up of the knot of a man’s tie. That would be Detective Abe Reagan, nine years with Chicago Homicide. Adam had looked him up while Isenberg had been setting her laptop up for the initial call. Reagan was highly decorated, according to the articles Adam had skimmed. And most of the time the articles used his first and last names because he apparently had a brother who was also a decorated homicide detective, and whose name also started with “A.”
Reagan backed away from the camera, revealing a woman’s boots propped up on the table. Just visibl
e over the boot tips was the top of his partner’s blond head with its tumbled, tangled curls and the edge of what looked like one of the crime scene photos.
“Sorry,” Isenberg said. “My laptop must have lost the connection, but we’re back.” She gestured to Trip. “This is Special Agent Jefferson Triplett. He’s on our joint task force.”
“I’m Detective Reagan.” Reagan sat in his chair and elbowed his partner, who abruptly swung her boots off the table. “This is Detective Mitchell.”
Mitchell was small, sturdy, and, according to Adam’s Google search, also highly decorated, having received a Distinguished Service citation for bringing down a serial arsonist seven years ago. “Hey,” she said. “What do you know, Triplett?”
“About your scene? Not much. Do you mind repeating the high points?”
“No, of course not,” she said, so politely that her irritation was clear. “Although we’re still waiting for your connection to our case.”
“Mia,” Reagan murmured.
Mitchell rolled her eyes. “I know, I know. We play nice, they tell us stuff.”
Reagan’s lips twitched, making Adam’s do the same. “That’s how it works,” Reagan said seriously, then ruined the effect by rolling his eyes.
“Fine,” Mitchell huffed, then sighed heavily. “Okay. The victims are Tiffany Curtis, twenty, and her mother, Ailene Curtis, forty-five. The intruder appeared to come in through the mother’s bedroom window.” Mitchell’s face disappeared from the screen, a photo of a broken window appearing in its place. “The glass was smashed and the lock forced.” The window photo was replaced by the scene of the mother’s body in the bloody bed.
Adam wanted to look away from the hand limply hanging over the bed, the phone in that puddle of blood on the floor. The slit throat. The disemboweled torso. But he forced himself to stare at the screen.
To not think about how that had been Paula. Who’d only been a child. A child he’d been too late to save. He could feel himself mentally scrabbling for purchase. Just thinking about Paula sent him over the edge. So stop it.
He forced himself to focus on this woman who’d lost her life simply because her daughter loaned her car to Kyle Davis, friend of Shane, friend of Andy. Who’d been coerced into attempting to kill Meredith. Shit, he thought viciously.
Trip sighed. “Shit.”
“Yeah,” Mitchell said, echoing Trip’s weary tone. “It was a real mess. The mother had a CPAP machine going.”
“She probably didn’t hear her killer break the glass,” Adam said. He’d missed that the first time because he’d been fighting to keep his control. He was listening now, and didn’t miss the relief in Isenberg’s eyes. He gave her a slight nod. Yeah, yeah, I’m back. “Those machines are loud.”
“Exactly,” Reagan said. The wide-angled photo of the bed changed to a close-up of the body and Adam steeled himself, forcing his gaze not to flick away. To look.
He maintained his focus until Trip sucked in a breath through his nose. “Shit,” Trip said again, this time in a sad whisper.
Adam broke away, finding Meredith through the window. Drinking her in. She was safe and unharmed. He kept telling himself that, over and over, until the wave of panic receded. A movement caught his eye, a figure standing by the desk where she sat, and he had to smile. Wyatt Hanson.
Wyatt was his oldest friend who was not related to him, by red blood, anyway. Adam’s mother and Deacon and Dani’s mother had been sisters, but he and Wyatt were related through blue blood. Their fathers had been patrol partners, once upon a time, and he and Hanson had carried the tradition to the next generation.
Isenberg caught Adam’s stare and leaned around her laptop to follow his gaze. “Ah, Detective Hanson is here. Good.”
“He’s here to see you?” Adam asked, oddly disappointed.
“I asked Narcotics for someone to work with you on the Voss angle. I’ll talk to him when I’m finished with you.”
“Oh.” That made sense, because the Narcotics umbrella covered prostitution and drugs. They might have information on the apparent prostitution ring at the college. He signed to Hanson that he’d be another fifteen minutes and asked him to wait.
The photo on-screen disappeared and the two Chicago detectives were eyeing them with interest. “Voss?” Reagan asked. “Who is this?”
“Broderick Voss,” Isenberg said. “We’ll explain when you’re finished. Apologies for the interruption.”
Mitchell rapidly typed on her phone, then looked up, wide-eyed. “Voss, huh?” She tilted her phone so that her partner could see and he whistled softly.
“This just got even more interesting,” he said.
You have no idea, Adam thought grimly.
“Let’s finish with the crime scene first,” Trip said. “What happened after he slit the mother’s throat?”
Mitchell continued. “We believe the killer thought she was dead and went on to the daughter’s room. We found earbuds still plugged into Tiffany’s laptop, so she didn’t hear him. She’d just been texting to her boyfriend’s phone. The texts were actually between Tiffany and her boyfriend’s friend, Shane Baird. He told her that they were ‘an hour away’ and thanked her for the use of her car. Said she couldn’t know what it meant to him.”
“We’ve talked to Shane Baird and Kyle Davis,” Isenberg said.
The Chicago cops’ faces registered surprise. “When?”
“Right before we called you,” Adam said. “We were talking to them when we got the text from you. If you could go over the girl’s murder again for Trip first, we’ll fill you in.”
Mitchell looked irritated once again at the delay. “Looks like he pushed her to the bed and climbed on top of her. He left bloody boot prints on the bedspread.”
“The mother’s blood?” Adam asked tightly, visualizing it.
“Yeah,” Reagan confirmed with a nod. “It appears that Tiffany fought back, biting his hand in the process. We found a latex glove with faint impressions of teeth that look like hers. They’re the right size, anyway. Lab’s checking it.”
This hadn’t been shared in the first version, Adam was certain. “So he entered the house wearing gloves, but left without one at least? Did you find any prints?”
Mitchell gave Reagan a side-eyed glance. Reagan shrugged. “Go ahead,” he said. “It might end up being nothing.”
Mitchell leaned forward, her eyes sharp. “So this is the thing. At some point she bit his hand and his glove got ripped and slung off. Either on purpose or by accident, but it landed across the room. He continued strangling her bare-handed with the one hand.”
Adam sucked in a breath at the same time that Isenberg and Trip did. “Did you get prints?” Adam asked again.
Mitchell shrugged. “Our CSI leader is working it now. Jack Unger is one of the best, so if it can be done, he’ll do it. We’ll keep you up to speed.”
“That would be huge,” Trip said.
Isenberg looked up at Trip, narrow eyed. “Did you find a print on the bomb?”
“Yes. That’s what the lab wanted to see me about. They found a print, but it belonged to the victim, Andy Gold.”
There was more, Adam thought. The lab could have told him that over the phone.
“Andy Gold,” Reagan said. “That’s the young man who pulled a gun in that restaurant yesterday. Gold was the friend of Baird’s who died?”
“Yes,” Isenberg said. “How did you know that?”
“Tiffany had been texting with her boyfriend, Kyle. He asked to borrow her car because Shane’s friend in Cincinnati had died and they needed to get there ASAP.”
Adam frowned, a detail catching in his mind. “Can you show us the photo of Tiffany’s body again?” Chicago complied and Adam’s gaze lingered on the slash in the woman’s throat for a few seconds before moving to her right hand. Which was missing the forefinger. “I ass
umed you hadn’t found her phone,” he said. “Her killer took her finger.”
Because that would be the way to unlock the girl’s phone and get whatever information he’d come for. Like where her car—carrying Shane and Kyle—had gone.
Reagan gave him a nod. “You’re right, her killer did take her phone. But he didn’t take her iPad, which, luckily for us, wasn’t locked down. It was buzzing like crazy in her nightstand drawer.”
“Thank goodness for iMessage, I guess,” Isenberg murmured.
Reagan nodded again. “She had her messages set to sync up on all her devices, including her laptop, but that was password protected. Kyle kept texting, begging her to call him. And then your office called, Lieutenant, to ask us to check on Tiffany Curtis.”
“I got confirmation that there had been a 911 call made from the Curtis home tonight,” Isenberg said.
“Yes,” Mitchell said. “At one thirty-seven, about two minutes after Tiffany’s final text to Shane.”
Adam thought of the phone in the puddle of the mother’s blood. “The mother managed to dial 911?”
A sad nod from both Chicago detectives. “She never said a word,” Mitchell said. “But the operator could hear crashes and other noises in the background. The killer must have heard the sirens because he stopped strangling Tiffany, slit her throat, sliced her torso, cut off her finger, took her phone, then exited through the mother’s bedroom window.”
“After taking a few seconds to rip his knife through the mother’s abdominal cavity,” Reagan finished, his jaw taut. “He was very angry. The ME says the mother was already dead at the time of the final assault.”
“He has a temper,” Adam murmured. “Might work to our advantage. Since the iPad was unlocked, could you track Tiffany’s phone with the find-my-phone app?”
Mitchell’s nod was grim. “Yeah. He tossed it in the trash can at a gas station in Indiana. We requested local PD get the phone and the security tapes from the gas station. The phone’s on its way to us, but they’ve already sent us a copy of the video file. Unfortunately, the guy kept his body hunched and his collar up to cover the lower half of his face. Baseball cap hid everything else. He looks big, but we can’t give you a specific description.”