by Karen Rose
She’d said the words carefully, as if she was afraid they’d make him bolt. “I’m not afraid of bad times,” he said, trying to put all the honesty he felt into his voice. “But I’ll have them, too, so I need to know what you’re thinking and I’ll do the same. I won’t cut you off again, even if I think it’s for your own good. From now on, it’s full disclosure. Okay?”
“I can live with that. So, in the spirit of that . . . I need you to be careful when you go out to that used-car lot tomorrow. I finally have you. I don’t want to lose you.”
“I promise,” he said seriously. “Because I finally have you, too.” He hugged her to him. “Go to sleep. It’ll all be there when we wake up. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
She burrowed into his chest. “Good night, Adam.”
He drew in her scent, holding on to the moment. Holding on to her. “Good night,” he whispered. And for the first time in longer than he could remember, it was.
Cincinnati, Ohio
Monday, December 21, 2:05 a.m.
He pulled his SUV into his driveway and switched off the ignition. He’d need to get another vehicle. This one had come from Mike’s lot and he couldn’t have it connected to him. It would be far more difficult to track his vehicles now that he’d burned Mike’s used-car lot to the ground, but he wasn’t taking any chances, especially with Kimble still alive. The man was sniffing too damn close.
Goddamn him. Except he didn’t know who he was cursing more—himself or Adam Kimble or Mike. He was definitely cursing Mike.
For years they’d done so well together. They’d never been a huge enterprise. Never wanted to be. They’d watched others rise higher, only to fall spectacularly over the years.
They’d kept it small, taken advantage of opportunities as they’d come up. Discover a crime in progress? Offer the doer an easy way out—payment in exchange for silence. Sometimes it was a onetime payoff. Give me the drugs you were about to sell, he’d say, and we’ll call this whole arrest a misunderstanding. And then Mike would sell the drugs himself and they’d split the take.
Sometimes the opportunity was too good for a onetime payment. Those were the really juicy crimes, committed by people who had a lot more to lose than a two-bit dealer on the street. Their best clients were the rich elite, with careers, reputations, and fortunes on the line. They were the bread-’n’-butter clients who kept paying, year after year.
And sometimes the perfect victim would emerge and be too tempting to pass up.
Voss had been one of those, a man especially vulnerable to blackmail after becoming an overnight millionaire. Especially vulnerable because of his proclivities.
Voss had liked them young.
Which they’d learned after Voss had answered one of their ads, meeting one of their underage girls in a hotel. Of course there’d been cameras. Mike had wanted to blackmail Voss right away within the first moment of seeing the rich man’s face on camera. Idiot. They’d had a gold mine in the making and Mike would have blown it as a one-off.
He—not Mike—had been the one to tell Jolee to communicate with the girl while Voss was cleaning up in the bathroom, to tell the girl to offer up her friends for a party. Voss had been greedy, setting the next meet for the following weekend in the same hotel.
Voss never considered he’d been recorded. The following weekend’s videos had been the gold mine he’d expected and Voss had been paying through the nose ever since.
Then, no thanks to Mike, he’d tapped the well again. Set up a party with some of his best clients who were not afraid of blackmail. Provided the entertainment—the drugs and barely-eighteen college hookers who would entice Voss without making him fear further entrapment.
He—not Mike—had made sure Jolee approached Voss that night, selling their services so that they’d become Voss’s party service provider of choice. They were milking Broderick from the front door and the back, so to speak. Blackmail plus the “legit” services that were still completely illegal. And the man had no clue that he was paying the same people.
Until Voss got stupid and had a party with his kid at home. Asshole.
If he had to pinpoint the moment when it all began to unravel, that would be it.
Which, of course, was bullshit. He’d played Voss so well because he understood the rich man better than anyone else knew. Anyone else still alive, anyway.
Mike had been right about one thing. He hadn’t been able to resist Mallory Martin and he’d never been entirely sure why. Maybe because he’d considered her “safe.” An asset he hadn’t had to personally manage. But more likely because so many on the Net had wanted her. And I’d had her. I’d had something those other losers would never have.
Having Mallory had made him want a young thing of his own, spurring him to find Paula, and she’d been such a pretty thing. But Kimble had been getting a little too good at his job in Personal Crimes and needed to be taken down a peg or two. Paula had to be sacrificed and he’d been itchy ever since.
And then Mallory had escaped last summer and turned everything upside down.
“I should’ve let Mike take care of her,” he murmured into the quiet of his SUV. He’d thought himself too smart to fuck it all up. And yet he had.
Now he had to figure out how to fix this mess.
Kimble and the others thought they were looking for a cop. So give them a cop. And then get rid of Kimble. The guy was smart. Too smart. Especially now that his brain had dried out from the booze. He was getting too damn close to the truth. Eliminating him would also provide a much-needed distraction. The death of one of their own would demoralize their little joint task force, derailing it long enough to give him time to fix all of Mike’s fuckups so that they couldn’t be traced back to him.
There was still the issue of Linnea, but she hadn’t come forward yet when she could have, nor had she fled town when she should have, so she obviously had an agenda of her own. Probably wants me, he thought with a smile. Little spitfire. She’d surprised him at every turn. He’d use her single-minded focus to draw her in and end her, permanently.
Maybe he should give her an opportunity she couldn’t refuse. She wants me? Come and get me, little girl. But on my terms.
Cheered by the thought, he got out of the SUV. Only to be assaulted with the smells and sounds of a barnyard. A peek into his neighbor’s backyard revealed a donkey, a cow, and sheep in a pen.
Mr. Wainwright had received the permit for his nativity scene. Wonderful, he thought acidly. Except it would make Ariel and Mikey happy, so he’d deal as best he could. It was only for a few more days, anyway.
It was almost Christmas. He knew what he wanted from Santa—Mallory, Linnea, and Kimble . . . gone.
Cincinnati, Ohio
Monday, December 21, 4:45 a.m.
The throbbing in her hip woke her, but the emptiness in her bed had Meredith fully alert. She ran her hand across the sheet next to her, finding it still a little warm. Adam hadn’t been awake long. I’ll be here when you wake up, he’d said, so she knew he was still in the condo somewhere. He wouldn’t have left without telling her.
She slipped out of bed with a groan. Her hip was yelling at her for lying to the ER doctors about her parking lot injuries, yet in hindsight she regretted nothing. Yes, she might have a prescription for some nifty painkillers, but she’d have missed the hours in Adam’s arms. Totally worth it.
She pulled on the purple PJs he’d pulled off her the day before, sighing contentedly at the feel of silk on her skin. Yes, she was a hedonist, and no, she didn’t apologize. It was one of the small things she did to keep herself centered. And because it was cold, she layered with the sweatshirt lying on top of Adam’s open duffel bag. It hung past her hips and it smelled like him.
She heard the music as soon as she opened the bedroom door, something low and bluesy. He was a jazz fan, too, which made her ridiculously happy.
&nb
sp; She followed Ella Fitzgerald to the kitchen, where she found him at the table, frowning at his laptop. Shirtless, hair tousled, the pair of thin gray sweats he’d worn earlier the only thing covering his skin. God, he’s something. No, not just something. Everything. For a moment, she let herself look. And was then busted when he looked up. His frown softened, becoming worry.
“I didn’t mean to wake you up,” he said, closing his laptop and turning down the volume on his phone.
“You didn’t. You don’t have to turn it down.” She closed the distance between them, dropping a kiss on his upturned face. “I like this album.”
His slow smile warmed her. “I’m glad. Ella helps me think.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “You want some tea?”
He cupped her cheek and pulled her in for a longer kiss that curled her toes. “Yes, please,” he murmured against her mouth, then released her. “Tea would be nice.”
I could get used to this, she thought. Being kissed like this in the middle of the night.
“I could get used to this,” he said out loud as she moved about the kitchen, taking comfort from her things. “Seeing you like this.”
She smiled over at him. “Making tea while swimming in your clothes?”
The look he shot her was positively molten. “Doing anything. Wearing anything. Wearing nothing.”
Oh my. A delicious shiver tickled her skin. Then he grinned, his dimple coming out to play, and her heart stuttered in the best of ways. She put the kettle on and took the chair next to his. “What are you doing up so early?” she asked. “I thought I’d tired you out.”
His smile faded and her heart sank. “I couldn’t sleep either,” he confessed.
She rested her chin on his hard biceps and looked up at him. Full disclosure. “I couldn’t sleep because my hip hurt. I fell harder than I admitted tonight when he threw me off Mallory. Why couldn’t you sleep?”
One side of his mouth twitched up. “Spirit of full disclosure, huh?”
“You’re the one who made that rule,” she said lightly.
“Yes, I did. All right, then, I had a nightmare. It happens.”
“I figured. Was it Paula?”
He nodded, eyes troubled. “I dream of her often, usually of the moment she dies. But tonight . . .” He blew out a breath. “It was her body, laid out on a bed, throat slit. Eviscerated.”
She swallowed hard, needing to comfort but unsure of what to say. So she kissed the tensed muscle of his biceps instead.
“And when I woke up I realized I’d never seen her that way. I know those things happened to her, but I didn’t see her body until it turned up in my trunk, burned.”
The thought of him discovering the girl’s body that way . . . it hurt. But on this she could give some perspective, at least. “Our dreams aren’t always representative of what we’ve actually seen.”
“I know. But I realized that I had seen that picture. On the whiteboard tonight.”
The photos of Tiffany Curtis and her mother lying dead in their beds. “I couldn’t look at the photos. I’m not that brave.” Then she understood and reared back, staring at him. “Wait. What?” She shook her head hard, not sure she had actually understood. “Are you saying that Paula was killed in the same way as Tiffany and her mother?”
He lifted sardonic brows. “Maybe. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, but nothing about this case seems terribly sane, Adam.”
He scrubbed his palms over his face. “Ain’t that the truth.”
The kettle whistled, so she got up to make the tea. Setting it on the table, she tapped his laptop. “Were you looking at the Chicago crime scene photos?”
He closed his eyes. “Yes. And the video.”
“The Chicago detectives sent you video?”
“No. I accessed a copy of the recording of Paula’s murder.”
Meredith couldn’t control the flinch, but stopped herself from completely recoiling from the laptop, knowing that it contained the thing that had nearly crushed Adam. She focused on his word choice instead. “‘Accessed’? Does that mean you had permission, got permission, broke into a server, or that you kept it all along?”
“The last one. Kind of. I had a DVD of old case videos in the stuff I’d cleaned out of my desk when I went on mental health leave. One was Paula’s murder.”
“But you kept it? Why?”
“It was my pill. My razor.”
Oh, Adam. “You wanted to know if you could view it without falling apart. Did you?”
He nodded. “Yeah,” he said gruffly. “Barely.”
She leaned in to kiss his cheek, his stubble tickling her lips. “What did you see?”
He swallowed hard. “I closed my eyes after her attacker slit her throat, you know, the first time. When it really happened. I made myself watch the rest later, but my dream always stops at her throat. I kind of willingly blocked out the rest, I guess.”
“Understandable.” She had to force herself to ask the question. “Paula was cut open, like Tiffany and her mother?”
“Yeah. It’s all there. He held her up for the camera when he did it. He was big enough that he held her like a doll. His body type is the same as Bruiser’s. Exactly.”
Meredith sat back in her chair, staring up at his face, stunned. “I believe you, you know? But I’m having trouble processing all this.”
“Trust me, so am I.”
She reached across him to turn the volume up on his phone and Ella Fitzgerald’s voice filled the kitchen. “So think, Adam. Think and tell me what you see the options to be.”
He set his jaw grimly. “Well, option one is that Paula and Tiffany were not killed by the same man and it’s all a grand coincidence.”
“Possible,” she murmured. “But not that likely. What else?”
“That the killers were different people, completely unrelated, but that Bruiser knew I was on the case and figured seeing Tiffany’s body would freak me out and I’d be too distracted to investigate properly.” He drew a breath. “Which sounds utterly presumptive and narcissistic of me.”
A shiver clawed across her skin. “But someone tried to kill you yesterday.”
“I know. That’s why I’m sitting here making myself crazy.”
“What are the other options?”
“Just one—that the same man killed Paula and Tiffany and her mother. Which means I’m connected on some level. Which makes sense if we’re talking about a cop being responsible. So, I’m leaning toward this last one, as crazy as it sounds.”
“You’re saying you know this cop. Or this cop knows you. And wants to hurt you.”
“Well, he wants to hurt Mallory,” he said grimly. “He just wants to fuck with me.”
She shuddered out a breath. “It was better when I was the only one in danger.”
He gave her an angry look. “Not funny.”
“Not trying to be. I’m just being honest.”
He closed his eyes again. “I’m . . . blown away by this, Meredith. Not gonna lie.”
“How can we know, one way or the other?”
He tapped a beat on his laptop lid, keeping time with the slow ballad coming from his phone. “We connect Bruiser to the man who hurt you all tonight. And then we check all their connections and find out where they cross paths with the cop who raped Mallory.”
“Okay. That sounds like a place to start.”
His lips curved bitterly. “Sure. Except we don’t know Bruiser’s real name, tonight’s gunman got away, and all we know about the cop is that he has a birthmark or a scar on his chest.” He frowned. “And that, if he really is a cop, he had a way to make any records of his interaction with Mallory’s captor disappear.” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “And even if we knew more, we don’t know if there are any other players in the mix. What
we fucking know is a fucking drop in the fucking ocean.”
Meredith wanted to soothe him. Wanted to assure him it would be all right, but knew that platitudes wouldn’t help. Closing her eyes, she let the music fill her mind, brushing all the frustrations into a corner. Humming with “Sentimental Journey,” her thoughts wandered to what she knew, what she had seen and heard, and suddenly little Penny Voss had center stage. Penny’s horror, her sadness, and her frustration as she’d smashed the face of her creation because she couldn’t replicate a person so sick.
Sick and sad and scared and on the run.
“Linnie knows,” she said quietly. “Linnie’s seen his face.”
A bitter sigh. “And she’s in the wind. She’ll never trust us now.”
Meredith opened her eyes, studying his stony profile. “But she’ll trust Shane.”
His black lashes lifted and then he was staring at her with a proud wonder that morphed into intense focus. “Yeah. She would. I need to get Shane on TV, to get him to make a plea for her to come to us before Andy’s killer gets her.”
She smiled at him. “Then do that.”
He cupped her jaw and roughly pulled her to his mouth, kissing her hard. “I will.” He let her go and stood up. “We need to go.”
She blinked at him. “We do?”
“Yeah. I have to go home and get some clean clothes, drop you . . . where? Where can I take you where you’ll be safe? I can’t leave you here.”
“I’m not the target,” she reminded him, but he shook his head.
“I don’t care. I won’t be able to think clearly if I don’t know you’re safe.”
“Then drop me off at the hospital. I’ll sit with Papa.”
“Okay, that’s good. Isenberg posted an officer between his room and Kate’s. Then I can go into the precinct to—” He cut himself off. “No, I have something else to do before I set up a TV spot for Shane.” He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “Full disclosure? I promised my sponsor I’d hit a meeting this morning. St. Agnes’s has one at six a.m.”