by Julie Miller
“As soon as the doctor cleared me to travel, I made the reservations. There wasn’t time to send out invitations.” Max reached over to thump Trent’s shoulder as he pulled out a chair to sit beside him. “At least I took the big guy with us.”
Trent grinned, thinking he’d better join the teasing banter before anyone questioned the tension between him and Katie. “And then you put me on a plane back to KC twenty minutes after the ceremony so you two could get started on the honeymoon.”
Max grinned. “Hey, I’m ugly. Not stupid.”
Olivia was smiling suspiciously, working her cool logic on Max. “Maybe, since you cheated Rosie out of the whole white-wedding thing, she’d like to put on a fancy gown and see you all dressed up for once in your life. I’ve yet to see a man that a tuxedo couldn’t make look good.”
“I’d love to see her in a beautiful dress like that.” Was the old man on the team blushing? Who’d have thought? Still, Max grumbled, “You’re determined to make me miserable, aren’t you?”
Jim Parker grinned and pulled out the chair beside his partner. “Maybe he’s worried you’re going to make him dance with you at the reception, Liv—after Gabe, your dad and your brothers, of course.”
“And Grandpa Seamus,” Olivia added. She pointed to Max. “But you are definitely on my dance card after that.” She wiggled her finger toward Trent. “You, too, big guy. You all agreed to be our ushers, so it’s tuxes and boutonnieres for everyone.”
Max put up his hands in surrender. “There’s only so much froufrou a man can take, Liv.”
Jim propped his elbow on the arm of his chair, leaning over to back up Olivia. “I don’t know, Max. There are few things I like better than slow dancing with my wife. Natalie’s pregnant enough now that when we’re close, I can feel the baby kicking between us.”
Max scrubbed his palm over the top of his military-short hair and muttered a teasing curse. “Okay, Parker. Now you’ve gone too far, buying into all of Liv’s romantic mush.” Knowing full well he was going to eventually buy into it, too, Max turned back to the lady detective. “I thought you were a tomboy.”
Olivia smiled wistfully. “My wedding day will be the exception. I’m the only female in my family. You don’t think those boys all want to throw a big party for me? Dad insists on me wearing the veil of Irish lace that Mom wore at their wedding, and I want to. It’s a way of honoring her memory and making me feel like she’s there with us.” The mood around the entire table quieted out of respect for Olivia’s mother, who had died when she was just a child. But the detective with the short dark hair didn’t let the room get gloomy. “Besides, Gabe looks gorgeous in a tux, and I refuse to have him looking prettier than me.”
“Impossible,” Max teased. “But if you’re going all formal, then I guess I can put on a tie.”
“Thank you for your sacrifice.” Olivia smiled before turning her attention to Trent. “What about you? Will we see you dancing the night away at the reception?” She snapped her fingers as an idea struck. “You should bring Katie.”
The brown ponytail bobbed as Katie’s head popped up from her laptop screen. “Me? Like a date?”
Trent groaned inwardly at the pale cast to her cheeks. Did she have to look as if the possibility of attending a friend’s wedding together was such an out-of-left-field idea?
“If you want.” Olivia chided the low-pitched whistle and sotto voce teasing from Jim and Max before smiling at Katie. “Stop it, children. Believe me, I understand better than most about the department’s no-fraternization policy. But even though we’re part of the same team, technically, you work in two different branches—information technology and law enforcement. Besides, I was thinking practicality. Trent’s an usher and you’re still going to be one of my bridesmaids, right?”
“Of course. I was honored you asked me to be a part of the ceremony, but...” Katie’s apologetic gaze bounced off Trent and back to the bride-to-be. “I was going to bring Tyler as my date.”
Olivia seemed pleased by that answer. “Even better. I’d love to see the little man again. All three of you should come together.”
Even though they hadn’t gone out on a date together in nine years, it seemed as though everyone thought of Trent and Katie as a couple. Maybe the others even took it for granted that they were destined to be a family unit one day. The only people who knew it was never going to happen were Trent and Katie themselves.
Sinking into his chair, Trent took another long swallow of his coffee. He watched the strained expression on Katie’s face relax as the two women talked about Tyler. Her round face and blue eyes animated with excitement as they wagered whether her nine-year-old son would make as much of a fuss about dressing up for the special occasion as Max had. Katie was a different woman when she talked about her son. Her eyes sparkled and the tension around her mouth eased into a genuine smile.
No wonder she’d been so upset about losing track of Tyler last night. Tyler was her joy, her reason for being—her number-one excuse for shunning Trent and any other relationship that threatened to get in the way of taking care of her son. It wasn’t that she didn’t care about Trent as a friend, but she’d given her heart to another male nine years ago.
Max’s fist knocked on Trent’s chair below the edge of the table. Trent took another drink before meeting his partner’s questioning look. “You okay, junior? You’re pretty quiet this morning.”
“You’re loud enough for the both of us.”
Max grinned at the joke as he was meant to, but his astute blue eyes indicated he wasn’t buying the smiles and smart remarks. “There’s that whole tall, dark and silent thing you do, and then there’s stewing over in the corner. You two were duking it out in here before we came in, weren’t you?” His gaze darted over to Katie and back to him. “Seriously, what’s the problem? Is it you? Katie? Is the kid okay?”
Trent swore under his breath. There was no subtlety to Max Krolikowski, no filter on his mouth. When he saw a problem, he fixed it. When he cared about something or someone, he went all in. Hell of a guy to have backing him up in a fight, but best friend or not, Trent wasn’t sure the man he’d been partnered with on the cold case squad was the guy he wanted to confide his frustration and concerns about Katie to. “She basically told me to mind my own business.”
Max dropped his voice to a low-pitched grumble. “You think something’s up?”
Even if Trent wanted to share his suspicions about blackouts and prowlers and threats in the snow, he wouldn’t get the chance to. All conversations around the table stopped as Lieutenant Ginny Rafferty-Taylor rushed into her office. “Are we all here?” The petite blonde officer set her laptop and a stack of papers at the head of the table before going back to shut the door. “Sorry I’m late.”
Trent set down his coffee and turned everyone’s focus to the police work at hand. “Ma’am. Katie said you had an emergency meeting with Chief Taylor?”
The older woman nodded. “Seth Cartwright from Vice and A.J. Rodriguez from the drug unit were there, too. I’ll get right to it since it affects investigations in each of our divisions.”
“What affects us?” Jim asked.
“Leland Asher.”
Trent’s mouth took on a bitter tang at the mention of the alleged mob boss whose name kept popping up in several of their unsolved investigations.
Olivia leaned forward at the familiar name. “What about him? Gabe’s first fiancée was writing a newspaper exposé about Asher when she was killed.” Olivia and Gabe had solved that murder, but they hadn’t been able to prove Asher had hired the man who’d shot the reporter.
Even Katie, who had never dealt with Asher directly, knew who he was. “His name shows up as a person of interest in several investigations in the KCPD database. Has he been arrested for one of those cases?”
“Not likely,” Max said. “He has a grea
t alibi for any recent crimes. He’s currently serving a whopping two years for collusion and illegally influencing Adrian McCoy’s Senate campaign.”
“Not even that, I’m afraid.” Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor shrugged out of her navy blue jacket, hanging it over the back of her chair before sitting. Her back remained ramrod straight. “Asher’s case went to appellate court on a hardship appeal. The chief just got word that Asher is being released from prison early, on parole. That’s what good behavior and a pricey lawyer will do for you.”
A collective groan and a few choice curses filled the room.
“Any chance the judge made a mistake?” Trent asked.
Their team leader shook her head. “It’s the holidays, Trent. I think Judge Livingston was feeling generous. Chief Taylor wanted to alert us that Mr. Asher will be back on the streets, albeit wearing an ankle bracelet and submitting to regular check-ins with his parole officer, sometime tomorrow or Thursday.”
“Well, merry Christmas to us,” Max groused, folding his arms across his chest. “Just what we need, a mob boss heading home to KC for the holidays. I bet the crime rate doubles by New Year’s.”
For a moment, the petite blonde lieutenant sympathized with her senior detective, but then she opened her laptop, signaling she was ready to begin their morning meeting. “I know we believe Leland Asher is the common link to several of the department’s unsolved or ongoing cases. The chief wanted us to be fully informed so we can keep an eye on him. Without our efforts turning into harassment, of course,” the lieutenant cautioned.
“I’m willing to harass him,” Olivia volunteered with a sarcastic tone. Max pointed across the table and nodded, agreeing with the frustration-fueled plan. “What’s the point of solving these old cases if a judge is going to let the perpetrators go with little more than a slap on the wrist?”
Trent could feel the tension in the room getting thicker. Cold case work wasn’t an easy assignment. Sometimes evidence degraded or got lost. Witnesses passed away. Suspects did, too. Memories grew foggy with age. And perps who’d gotten away with murder or other crimes that hadn’t yet reached their statute of limitations grew confident or complacent enough over the years that they weren’t likely to confess. So when the team built a solid enough case to convict someone, it sure would be nice if they’d stay behind bars for a while.
“Are we moving any cases we think Asher might be a part of to our active files?” Trent asked.
The lieutenant nodded. “We should at least give them a cursory glance to see which ones to follow up on. I believe we can use this to our advantage. Katie, will you flag those files and send each of us copies for review?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Katie’s head was down and she was already typing. By the time she looked up to see Trent grinning at her geeky efficiency, she was hitting the send button. She smiled back before turning to the lieutenant. “I just ran a search for Mr. Asher’s name, and all those files should show up on your computers by the time you get back to your desks.”
Trent gave her a thumbs-up before turning back to the others. “It’d be a hell of a lot easier to prove Asher’s connections to those crimes by seeing who he interacts with on the outside.”
Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor nodded to him, probably appreciating how his suggestion cooled the jets of the others in the room, especially his perennial Scrooge of a partner, Max. Then she gestured to Katie at the opposite end of the table. “Speaking of connections, Katie, you said you’ve come up with something we need to look at in your research? Shall we get to work?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Katie shoved her bangs off her forehead and glanced around the table as everyone waited expectantly. Trent winked some encouragement when their gazes met. She smiled her thanks for his support before looking down at her laptop. She highlighted the first picture on the television screen and turned to point to the gathering of mug shots she’d posted there. “Detailed information is in the folder in front of you, but you can follow the gist of what I think might be a significant discovery up on the screen.” As Trent settled in to listen to the presentation, the rest of them did, too.
“As you all know, Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor has had me copying and downloading all of our old print files of unsolved cases into a database and cross-referencing them. There are still more boxes in the archives, but those are cases that are thirty years or older. I’m focusing on more recent crimes where the perpetrator and potential witnesses are likely to still be alive.”
Max whistled. “You’ve already been through thirty years of open and unsolved cases? Hell, you’re making the rest of us look like a bunch of goldbricks.”
“Not a chance, Max.” She laughed at the gruff man’s teasing compliment. “I’ve been doing this pretty steadily since spring. And I didn’t get shot up and have to go on sick leave, either.”
Trent nudged his partner. “Or run off to Vegas to get married before reporting back for active duty.” Katie’s dedication explained a lot of her late nights and the pale shadows under her blue eyes. But was all this unpaid overtime she’d put in the reason she had no time for a relationship? Or was it the thing she chose to do to fill up the empty hours in her life so she wouldn’t miss those relationships? “What did you find out?”
Katie curled a leg beneath her to sit up higher in her chair. “When Olivia was investigating Danielle Reese’s murder last spring, she came up with her Strangers on a Train theory, and it got me to thinking.”
Olivia nodded. “Strangers on a Train, as in the Alfred Hitchcock movie where two people meet and agree to commit murder for the other person.”
Her partner, Jim, continued, “But since they’ve never met before and don’t run in the same social circles, the one with the motive can arrange for an alibi, while the one who actually commits the crime won’t pop as a suspect on the police’s radar because he or she has no motive to kill the victim.”
“That’s why we arrested Stephen March for Dani Reese’s murder.” Olivia braced her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “The evidence says he’s good for it. But he had no motive. I still believe he was blackmailed into doing it, or—”
“He murdered her in exchange for somebody else killing Richard Bratcher,” Max finished. Trent reached over and rested a hand on his partner’s shoulder. March and Bratcher were sensitive subjects for the stocky detective because Stephen March was his wife’s younger brother, and Bratcher had been the bullying fiancé who’d abused Rosie Krolikowski. Max nodded his appreciation at the show of support. “We got Hillary Wells for Bratcher’s murder, even though she barely knew the guy.” He turned his attention back to Katie. “Are you saying that you did your brainy thing and finally found where March and Dr. Wells could have met and set up their murder bargain?”
“Not exactly.”
“What exactly are we talking about, then?” he asked.
“I designed a program to search for commonalities between cases by looking for key words or names or places. What I discovered is a pattern between several crimes that occurred over the last ten years.”
“A pattern?” the lieutenant asked.
Katie nodded. “I haven’t been able to prove that they’re all linked to one particular case, or even to just one person, but I’ve made some interesting connections between these six suspects and—” she swiped her finger across her laptop, changing the images “—these six victims.”
Trent recognized the pictures of both Dani Reese and Richard Bratcher, the victims Stephen March and Hillary Wells had killed. He also recognized the stout cheeks and receding hairline of Leland Asher. “It’s not an exact swap where Suspect A kills Victim B while Suspect B kills Victim A. It’s more as though they’re links in a chain.”
The lieutenant urged her to continue. “Do you have specific examples of those links?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Katie adjusted the display to bring the twelve imag
es up side by side before she twirled her chair to the side and got up to touch the television screen. Her ease in front of an audience reinforced Trent’s suspicion that whatever had had her so flustered earlier had to do with the details about last night, maybe something that she still hadn’t shared with him—not a presentation to her boss and coworkers involving multiple murders. “It’s a painstaking process, but as I put in more information from the reports, I’ve come up with links from unsolved cases to people or events from murders you all have closed earlier this year. Some of these seem pretty random, but in a place the size of Kansas City, the fact that these people may have come into contact with each other at all seems compelling to me.”
Olivia tried to follow Katie’s line of reasoning. “Some of the connections are obvious. Stephen March killed Danielle Reese. Dani was investigating Leland Asher. Hillary Wells murdered Richard Bratcher, and he was the man who was abusing Stephen’s sister, Rosie March.”
Max swore under his breath. “Don’t remind me.”
She pointed to the photo of a distinguished white-haired gentleman. “This is Dr. Lloyd Endicott, Hillary Wells’s former boss and mentor. He died in a suspicious car crash that has yet to be solved. We suspect he’s the man Dr. Wells wanted to have killed, since she took over his company and the millions of dollars that went with it.”
Although Trent sometimes worried that Katie’s knowledge of all these dusty old cases bordered on the obsessive, he couldn’t deny how useful it was to have a walking, talking encyclopedia working on their team. He pointed to the image of a professional woman with short dark hair. “Does Hillary Wells or any of those other suspects or victims connect to Leland Asher?”
Katie nodded. “You might be surprised to know that before she died, she worked out at the same gym Matt Asher does.”
“Leland’s nephew?” Trent shifted his gaze to the image of a young man in a suit and tie who wore glasses and bore a striking resemblance to Leland Asher. “You think the two of them knew each other?”