by Kylie Brant
Pleased, Ryne opened the folder, scanned the sheet inside. “Good work.”
“The PR rep I was talking to got real guarded when I wanted to discuss their trial tests, but after some more digging online, I discovered that the clinical tests they’re doing involving TTX are being done at Ketrum’s newest lab facility, in Shelton, Montana. And . . .” She paused dramatically. “You’re going to love this—I cross-checked Ketrum with Reston’s client list.”
“They’re on it?”
Abbie nodded. “Double-checked with their headquarters and was told they’ve used Reston syringes exclusively for the last five years.”
There was a racing in his chest that he recognized as adrenaline. They were on to something here, finally. He could feel it. “You had a lot more productive day than I did.” He needed the identities of the team members working on that clinical trial for Ketrum and to check each of them out. But how . . .
“A-a-a-and . . . I’ve lost you again.” Abbie’s smile was indulgent. “There’s a lot of new developments. Want to discuss the next course of action over dinner?”
He was tempted. The strength of that temptation was nearly overwhelming. He’d like nothing more than to go home with Abbie, bouncing ideas off her while they ate, before eventually giving in to another sort of appetite that was never far away when they were together.
Regretfully, he shook his head. “I’m up to my ass in paperwork, and I have to think this through, be ready with new assignments for tomorrow morning’s meeting. I’ll probably be late.”
“Sure.” She agreed a little too readily, turning away to reach for the ViCAP binder. “I’ll take this with me and continue working on it after I add Larsen’s information to the victimology grid. We can compare notes tomorrow.”
He watched her closely, but she avoided his gaze. He wasn’t willing to admit that he didn’t think he’d get a damn thing accomplished with her seated at the desk next to him. His concentration was already too fractured by the events of the day as it was.
“Abbie.” He waited until she finally looked at him, her smile a little too fixed. “I’ll be late. But I’d like to come over after. If that’s okay.”
Her smile amped up, infused with genuine pleasure. She said only, “That’d be fine.” But that, coupled with her expression, was more than enough.
Abbie’s cell rang as she was crossing the police parking lot to her car, and one glance at the caller ID had her stomach sinking. Because the disloyalty made her feel guilty, she answered with more cheer than she was feeling. “Callie. I’m glad you called. You’re hard to get a hold of.”
She hadn’t spoken to her sister since the night they’d had dinner together, but she’d called her several times, to no avail.
“I’m bored,” Callie announced. “How about I pick up Chinese and head over to your place.”
Reaching her car, Abbie unlocked the driver’s door and slid inside, setting the files she’d hoped to work on beside her on the passenger seat. “Sounds good,” she said with false enthusiasm. “Or I could pick you up if you like.” More than simple curiosity was behind the offer. Seeing where Callie was currently staying might help her glean valuable insight into her sister’s emotional state. Callie’s manic cycles were marked with expensive extravagances and buying sprees, while her depressive states would have her staying in a fleabag hotel with questionable occupants.
But the opportunity didn’t present itself. Callie said merely, “See you in twenty minutes.”
As she drove off the lot, Abbie was grateful for the work that would keep Ryne at his desk for hours yet. She wasn’t especially anxious to have him and Callie in one place again.
The table was littered with half-empty cartons when Callie pushed her chair back and rose to prowl the small home. “How can you stand being cooped up in here?” She went through the doorway into the small living room, and rounded the couch. “I’d go crazy in such a small space.”
Abbie left the mess to trail after her sister as far as the living room doorway. Callie seemed especially brittle this evening. On edge. “I don’t mind. I’m not here that much. Mostly just to sleep.”
“And are you sleeping alone these days, or have you had that hot detective keeping you company in bed?” Callie sent her an arch look as she continued pacing the room, trailing a hand over the mantel, skirting the pictures there.
That was a question she had no intention of answering. Her sister had been just as unforthcoming about some questions Abbie had put to her earlier, uppermost being where she was staying.
That in itself wasn’t cause for alarm. Callie had always been secretive about things that barely mattered, and overly open about things Abbie would rather not hear about.
But pressing her on the subject would divert Callie from the topic of Ryne, one Abbie was eager to steer clear of. “I’d really like to know where you’re staying while in Savannah. In case I have to get in touch with you and can’t reach you by phone.”
“I move around,” Callie said vaguely. “Oh, I have a brilliant idea! We should go out.” She whirled to face her sister, her face bright. “When’s the last time we did the town together?” She gave an impatient wave of her hand as Abbie opened her mouth. “No, I don’t mean for dinner, like the other night. I mean get dressed up and rock this town back on its heels.” Her tone turned wheedling. “C’mon, it’d be fun. I have some people I want you to meet.”
She felt guilty about dampening her sister’s enthusiasm by demurring, even though Abbie would rather chew glass than spend the next several hours in smoky bars watching her sister spin further out of control. “I have to work tomorrow.” She injected a note of regret into the words, could see that her sister didn’t buy it. “I’m well past the age when I can carouse all night and not suffer the effects the next day.”
“That’s because you never got enough practice.” Petulantly, Callie slapped her hand on the mantel, knocking the picture of the two of them to the floor. “Always sensible, capable Abbie. Doing the right thing. Making the right choices. Perfect, perfect Abbie.”
Her chest went tight. “I’m far from perfect.”
“Why, because you’re still afraid of the dark? You can just turn on a light and the darkness is gone, isn’t it? I’ll bet you wish it was as easy to be rid of me.”
“You know better than that,” Abbie said quietly.
“Do I?” There was something wistful about the smile Callie gave her. “I don’t know you at all anymore. Not really. When’s the last time we were close, Abbie? I mean really really close?”
Now wasn’t the time for honesty, that true closeness was never something they’d shared. So Abbie gave her as much sincerity as she could muster, and hoped it’d be enough. “You know I love you. I always will. We’re sisters.”
“We could be close again.” Callie’s eyes were bright, her expression avid. “You know when we were always the closest?” She whirled away from the mantel and approached Abbie rapidly. “When I gave you this. Remember?”
Abbie’s gaze dropped to the object Callie had taken out of her pocket, and felt the breath rush out of her. A razor blade. Still inside its protective paper shield. And the past flooded in with a frigid force that was impossible to avoid.
Here, Abbie. You can throw that piece of glass away. Use this tonight. I’ll know you’re there for me. I’ll know.
“Put that away.” Her throat had closed. The words sounded strangled. And she couldn’t look away from the blade. Couldn’t push aside the memories it elicited.
“I never felt closer to you than when I knew you were bleeding down the hall from me. You felt it, too, didn’t you?” Callie took the blade from its wrapper, held it out. “I know you felt it, too. Don’t you ever miss that pain, Abbie? Aren’t you ever tempted to pick up a blade again, just to see the blood?”
“No.” Abbie tore her gaze away from the razor blade and stared steadily at her sister. Callie needed calm right now, she needed someone to be rational.
&nbs
p; She didn’t need to know that just the sight of the blade had those old scars itching again. Brought the memories hurtling back of that first slice, the burn, followed by a curious numbness. And then the scalding pain that had followed. Pain like her sister had been experiencing just yards away.
“Take it.”
When Callie tried to push the blade into her hand, she stepped away. “We need to get you lined up with a therapist down here, Callie. Someone who can see to your medication. I’ll come with you. I’ll stay with you the whole time.”
But her sister was insistent. “I don’t need therapy, I need this. You need this. Take it. Just one cut. Feel it again, Abbie. Can you feel it?”
“Callie, you and I can—”
“I said feel it!” Callie shrieked, bringing her hand swiftly across his sister’s arm, above the elbow. And then stared, eyes round and horrified, as the slice in the sleeve rapidly soaked with blood.
There was a familiar buzzing in Abbie’s ears, that light-headed feeling of being disconnected from it all. From the pain. The fear. And then air hit the open wound and the numbness was replaced by burning. A burning that would turn to agony with one more slice. And then another.
“Abbie, I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry.” Callie’s face crumpled and she dropped the blade, flinging her arms around her sister. “I didn’t mean it. I never want to see you hurt. You know that, don’t you?”
“It’s all right,” Abbie whispered, staring blindly over her sister’s shoulder. “It’s going to be all right.” Awkwardly, she disengaged herself, spread the rip in her shirt apart to assess the damage.
With a sinking stomach, she realized that the wound wasn’t going to be taken care of with a couple butterfly bandages. “C’mon, Callie, I need to go get this stitched.” She reached out to lift her sister’s chin with one hand, gazed into her stricken face. “And you need to get a new prescription.”
“I’ll drive you.” Callie seemed to pull herself together then, looking frantically around for her purse. “Let me just get you a clean towel to put over your arm.”
Abbie watched her sister bustle around, taking charge, bringing out a dampened washcloth, finding her keys. But when it was time to leave, Abbie remained in place. “I’m not going unless you agree to place a call to Dr. Faulkner. Now. Tonight.”
Something flickered in Callie’s expression and she crossed the room to tug on Abbie’s uninjured arm. “We can discuss it later. C’mon now. Before you bleed all over.”
The blood was seeping between Abbie’s fingers. She could feel it trickling down her arm, dripping to the floor. But she didn’t take her eyes off her sister. “Not until you promise. You call him tonight. I pick up the medication. I watch you take it. Promise, Callie.”
Callie moistened her lips, looking everywhere but at her sister. Then she stared at the hand Abbie had clamped over her wound, where the blood was seeping through her fingers, and her throat worked convulsively.
“I promise.”
Chapter 18
“What can I do you for, Savannah?”
The gravelly voice on the other end of the phone matched the image posted on the department website for Montana’s Elk Run County’s sheriff. Mick Jepperson was a balding, red-faced, burly man, a twenty-two-year veteran of the department. Ryne was hoping the man’s experience matched his capable demeanor.
“I’m working a serial rapist investigation here, and—”
“That so-called Nightmare Rapist? Saw something about that on the news.”
Great. So the media attention had gone national. Ryne pushed the realization aside to be worried over later. “We’ve gotten a recent break on the drug the UNSUB uses to subdue his victims. Something that points to a possible connection with Ketrum Pharmaceuticals.”
“Ketrum?” The sheriff’s voice went guarded. “They’re big business in our parts. Biggest employer in the area. We’re pretty isolated out this way. You can imagine what it means to our tax base to have a fancy new company start up with almost two hundred new jobs.”
“Yeah, I get that.” He gave the man a brief rundown on Han’s findings, finishing with, “I’m checking the pharmaceutical end first. I have a list of other companies working with it, of course, but Ketrum is using it in clinical trials, putting them well ahead of the pack. Not surprisingly, they aren’t releasing the names of the team members working on the trials.”
“Interesting, but I’m still not sure how I can help.”
Ryne could hear the dwindling patience in the man’s tone and abruptly switched gears. “I was wondering if you’ve had any incident reports that stand out. Rapes or assaults where the victim claims to have been drugged.”
“Nope. We have our share of violent crime, but nothing like urban areas. Had us an attempted murder case last night, but I’m thinking we’ll be solving that as soon as we track down the estranged husband.”
His shot in the dark appeared to be going nowhere. “So no sexual assaults?”
He could hear the shrug in the sheriff’s voice. “Sure. But not like what you’re dealing with.” He was silent for a moment. “Had a case eight, ten months ago where a girl was attacked. A runaway, who’d been doing some underage drinking in the bars. Rape kit showed violent intercourse, and she was roughed up pretty good, but she wasn’t much help identifying her attacker, or giving us anything to go on. Kept saying she’d been really out of it during much of the assault.”
Interest sharpening, Ryne asked, “Do you have an address? I’d like to talk to her.”
“An address wouldn’t do you much good. A few weeks after she was delivered back home, she took off again. Far as I know, she hasn’t returned.”
Shoving aside a stab of frustration, Ryne said, “What about her tox screen? Do you still have a copy of it?”
“Sure. It ought to be in the case file. You want a copy? Near as I can remember, it didn’t come up with anything definite.”
“But it can be compared to the victims in my case.” Ryne gave him his fax number. “We’ve got lab priority on this. I’ll be able to get back to you within a few days.” Now that he had the man’s interest, he shifted tactics. “What would be really helpful is the names of the individuals working directly on the TTX trials for Ketrum.”
The man was silent for a moment. Slowly he admitted, “Well, I do have a deputy whose wife works in human resources out there. It’s no secret in these parts that she can talk the ear off a jack mule. If anyone knows what goes on at that facility, it’d be her.”
Squelching a surge of excitement, Ryne elicited the man’s promise to follow up with the deputy’s wife and get back to him tomorrow. Only minutes after ending the call, the fax in the corner of the room began to whir. Giving another look at the empty desk beside him, Ryne got up to collect the tox screen Jepperson had sent.
He hadn’t heard from Abbie since she’d left work last night, and he was starting to worry. Her car had been in the drive but she hadn’t answered the door or her phone when he’d gotten to her place close to midnight last night. He’d figured she’d changed her mind and gone to bed rather than wait up for him and he couldn’t say that he blamed her.
But it had been impossible not to be disappointed.
He scooped up the tox results and started back to his desk. That disappointment should be a wake-up call. He was beginning to rely too much on seeing her at the end of the day; discussing the case with her, or not talking at all, which was even better. There was nothing like mind-blowing sex to ease the normal stress and pressure of the job.
But he’d be lying to himself if he claimed it was just the sex that kept him going back, like a damn homing pigeon to the roost. He liked being near her, liked the feel of her in his arms all night. Liked the look of her, tousled and drowsy in the morning. And he was very much aware of what kind of trouble that meant.
Hell of it was, he’d never been one to walk away from trouble.
He went to the receptionist’s desk. “Marcy, has Phillips called in?”
The blond woman never looked up from her keyboard. “Not since this morning.”
Which had been a short terse message informing him only that she’d be late today. With a shrug, he headed back to his desk, prepared to go through the cases she’d highlighted in the ViCAP file. His cell phone rang before he’d gotten through half a dozen cases.
“It’s Abbie.” Her voice sounded weary. “Something came up with Callie last night. That’s where I’ve been today, too. I’m on my way across town now, though. Thought I’d swing by and start interviewing the neighbors at Larsen’s first address, unless you have something else for me.”
“That sounds fine.” And it was a relief, more than it should have been, just to hear her voice, even if she sounded distracted and impersonal. “Ashley Hornby’s sister is in town. I told her you’d be contacting her.” He gave her the number. “If I’m not here when you get in, give me a call. I want to hear what you come up with.”
After she’d promised to do so, he disconnected, and stared blindly at the binder. She hadn’t gone into details about the events of last night, but that didn’t stop him from wondering. Didn’t stop him from worrying about the effect the antics of her unstable sister might have on her, and what the hell was he supposed to do with that?
Shove it aside, he decided grimly, and forget about it. Abbie didn’t need protecting, and he sure as hell didn’t have the time to spend worrying about something that was none of his business. Four, quite possibly five, rape victims and an offender they still couldn’t ID were more than enough to occupy his mind.
Letting a woman take up residence there was downright dangerous.
Wearily, Abbie nosed her car into the driveway and pulled around to the back. She’d always hated coming home in the dark, but had a small keychain flashlight for nights such as these. Right now she thought she might be just tired enough not to mind the shadows. All she wanted was to fall into bed and sleep for eight straight hours.