Without waiting for her response, he jumped to his feet and flung open a closet filled with boxes of equipment. Mumbling to himself, he rummaged through it and then emerged, holding a box with both hands triumphantly.
‘I knew it was in there somewhere.’
He carried the box to the table and pulled out a small camera.
‘This’ll work, Harper,’ he said, reaching for his glasses.
As he began tinkering again, Harper checked her phone.
Still no message from Luke.
But she could do this. She’d be fine. The worst part of it, she’d decided, would be calling Smith. Tricking him into meeting her. If she could get through that, she could do the rest.
All day long, the idea of that call lying ahead of her like a wolf waiting around the next bend turned her stomach to acid. It was a relief when five o’clock finally came and they agreed it was late enough to leave Smith with little room to maneuver, while still giving Miles time to set up.
Outside, the rain was finally ending. Weak evening sun was forcing its light through the clouds when Miles picked up the phone and dialed the main police number. They suspected Smith would refuse a call from her, so they’d decided to get Miles to make the call.
‘Lieutenant Smith, please,’ he told the receptionist. ‘Tell him it’s Miles Jackson.’
Harper sat on the sofa watching him, anxiously biting her thumbnail.
After a moment, he held out the phone.
‘They’re putting me through.’
Letting out a long breath, Harper took it from him.
The hold music was a cheerful cover of some fifteen-year-old pop song she probably would have recognized if she weren’t so terrified.
A click interrupted the song, mid-chorus.
‘Smith.’ The lieutenant’s gravel voice sent her stomach plummeting to her shoes.
She swallowed hard.
‘Lieutenant,’ she said faintly. ‘It’s Harper.’
Silence.
She could imagine Smith in his office – the one he’d wanted so badly – picking up that heavy Montblanc pen, and toying with it as he decided what to say.
‘I’m not entirely certain we should be talking,’ he said at last.
‘Me neither,’ Harper told him. ‘But I’m afraid we have to.’
‘And why is that?’ His tone turned suspicious.
‘My landlord found something at my house – a police ID. I have proof your guys did this.’ She made her voice just angry enough. But not so fierce that he might hang up. ‘Now, I don’t want to take this to Baxter – we both know what she’ll do with it. I don’t want to go to war with your guys. I want to end this. Let’s meet, you and me, and work this out.’
On the sofa across from her, Miles was very still, his eyes fixed on her face.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Harper.’ Smith sounded frosty. ‘I told you the police had nothing to do with the break-in. I believe your imagination’s gotten out of hand this time.’
Harper pressed her fingertips against her forehead. This time, when she spoke, the emotion was real.
‘Oh, Lieutenant. Can we not do this?’
Another long silence followed.
She imagined him sitting in his chair, the cool stream of air conditioning from the vent above his office door. The muffled voices in the busy corridor.
‘Fine.’ Smith sounded curious now, and less prickly. ‘What exactly do you want?’
‘I want to meet,’ Harper said. ‘Tonight. You and me. Let’s see if we can work this out in a way that helps both of us.’
His chair creaked – she guessed he was leaning forward, resting his elbows on his desk.
‘How is that possible?’
‘You want me to stop investigating the Whitney case. I want to put an end to this situation with the break-in so we can both get back to our lives,’ she said. ‘I want to talk about how we can exchange what you want for what I want.’
She held her breath. If he was going to refuse, now was the time when he would tell her he didn’t know what she was talking about. When he accused her of being dramatic.
He did none of that.
‘Where do you want to meet?’
Her heart kicked hard. He was going for it.
She looked at Miles and nodded. His shoulders sank.
‘Meet me at The Watch,’ she said. ‘At midnight.’
‘Midnight?’ Irritation gave an edge to Smith’s tone. ‘Can’t we do it earlier?’
‘It has to be midnight,’ she said firmly.
He was quiet for so long she was sure he was going to refuse. When he spoke again, it was so abrupt she jumped.
‘Fine,’ he snapped. ‘Midnight. The Watch. This is it, though, Harper. No more.’
The dial tone buzzed loud in her ear. He’d hung up.
She looked at Miles.
‘We’re on.’
Chapter Forty-two
The forecasts proved correct, and by the time Harper drove the rented Ford into The Watch a few minutes before midnight, the rain was a distant memory. The night was clear and cool. A nearly full moon hung overhead, illuminating the park with an ethereal shade of blue.
Earlier, Miles had spent an hour out here, setting up a remote-control camera in the oak branches that arched over the crescent-shaped viewpoint.
He’d returned to the loft apartment at eleven, covered in mud up to his knees, looking grimly pleased.
‘Whatever happens,’ he assured her, ‘we’ll get it.’
Now, the Ford bumped and juddered down the rough lane, tires spinning in the mud left behind after two long days of rain.
Putting the brights on, Harper leaned forward peering into the shadows. She was looking for the mark Miles had left her. When she saw the tattered pizza box held in place with a fist-sized rock, she turned toward it.
‘I’m parking on the box,’ she told the empty car.
The cameras had been set up to capture the area immediately around the pizza box. Wherever she stood, she should be on film.
She was wearing Bonnie’s black cotton jacket again. It smelled of her familiar floral perfume. Somehow that made her feel less alone.
There’d been no word from Luke.
She’d called him again this morning, and texted him a few hours ago with the time and the place.
Some part of her knew he wasn’t coming.
Maybe he didn’t have his phone. Maybe he simply didn’t care any more.
Either way, she and Miles were going to have to do this on their own.
Miles had connected a microphone the size of a pencil tip to the jacket’s top buttonhole. The breast pocket held a transmitter no bigger than a deck of cards.
Her phone buzzed as she turned the engine off. It was a text from Miles:
Coming through loud and clear.
Well. At least there was that.
Her hands felt like ice and she rubbed them together, trying to get the blood flowing. When she looked down, her knees were shaking.
Abruptly, she yanked the keys out of the ignition and shoved the door open, jumping out, and slamming the door behind her.
She just wanted to get on with this. Get it over with.
Rain had left the night with a crystalline sheen. Everything seemed to sparkle in the moonlight – the wild length of the tree branches, the broad curve of the river, the graceful metal sails of the bridge in the distance.
All of it looked more beautiful than she could ever remember.
In her heart, she hoped Smith had an explanation. Something simple and honest – I made a mistake. It was only that once …
But no matter how she tried to spin it, no explanation made sense.
In the late-night hush, she heard the car long before it pulled in.
The mechanical purr of the engine grew louder until the headlights danced on the trees, and the silver SUV swung into view, bouncing down the rutted drive.
It was Smith’s personal car, she noted, not
the city-issue four-door all the detectives drove. He wasn’t here as the head of the detectives squad. He was here as Robert Smith.
Whoever that was.
She squared her shoulders.
‘He’s here,’ she told the air.
The vehicle pulled up next to hers and the engine cut out.
In the sudden silence, Harper could hear her heart hammering against her ribs and the sandpaper rasp of her nervous breathing.
She was irrationally convinced Smith would hear it, too, as he opened the door and climbed out, and she tried to calm herself.
‘Harper,’ he growled, shutting the door with a thud that echoed off the trees. ‘Whatever you’ve got to tell me, it better be good.’
He picked his way carefully across the mud, his familiar, lived-in face and intuitive eyes passing in and out of shadow. At his wrists, gold cufflinks glittered in the moonlight. His shirt, of an expensive white fabric, gleamed.
His Italian leather shoes skidded in the muck. Cursing, he stopped to knock a clump of mud off against a tire.
Back when he was on the street, mud wouldn’t have bothered him, Harper thought. Back then he wore cheap shoes, and he believed in his job.
Things were different now.
Straightening, Smith dusted his hands on the legs of his suit with a look of distaste, and met her eyes.
‘What the hell is so important I had to leave my house at midnight and come out here to the back end of beyond?’
‘I told you on the phone, we found something – incriminating evidence.’ Harper was surprised to find her voice was steady. Her hands were trembling so violently she had to shove them in her pockets. ‘But I lied about what we found.’
Smith’s eyes darted up to hers.
‘Explain.’
‘No,’ Harper said flatly. ‘I want you to explain. Explain your relationship with Marie Whitney.’
‘Who?’ Smith’s frown was blank, as if he’d never heard of her. ‘Oh, the murdered woman.’ He gave a small disinterested shrug. ‘I don’t know much about that case, Harper. Talk to Blazer.’
His tone was elaborately unworried, but Harper saw the first signs of uncertainty. His hands clenched and released at his sides. His breathing had gone shallow the second she mentioned Marie’s name. In the moonlight, a fine sheen of sweat glittered on his forehead.
Whatever he’d expected from this meeting, he hadn’t been tense until now.
‘Well, I was going to ask Blazer, but I decided it would be better if I talked to you first.’
With effort, Harper kept her tone casual, unthreatening. She took a step toward him, careful to stay inside the camera shot.
‘I’ve been up at the college lately, talking to her co-workers. They all describe a man she was dating. They thought he was an undercover police officer, but I believe from their description he’s a detective.’ She held Smith’s eyes steadily. ‘They say he’s tall, broad-shouldered, with graying hair.’
‘That’s a pretty vague description.’ Smith gave a dry, sardonic laugh but his eyes darted around, as if he was looking for something in the shadows.
‘Yes, that’s what I thought, too,’ she said. ‘At first.’
In the distance, a car was passing slow and near on the road outside The Watch. Harper froze, instantly alert. She saw Smith look toward the sound.
Had he asked someone to meet him here?
But the car kept going; the sound of its engine fading away.
Smith turned back to her, his jaw set.
‘Look, Harper. I’m not handling the Whitney case,’ he said. ‘I know you’re obsessed with it. But if you want to talk about it, you have to talk to Blazer.’
His tone was dismissive, amused.
‘You keep saying that,’ she snapped. ‘Be careful, or I will.’
Smith went still.
‘What exactly is going on here, Harper?’
She paused, ordering herself to stay calm. She couldn’t get angry and overplay her hand.
Slow and steady – it was all she had.
‘Like I said,’ she continued calmly, ‘I was curious about this man. This detective who dated Whitney. Because there was nothing about him in her file.’
Smith’s eyes darted up to hers.
‘Of course,’ Harper continued, ‘if a detective had been in a relationship with Whitney and did not reveal that to the investigating officers, that is a fairly serious breach of ethics. So, I couldn’t stop wondering who that detective might have been. At first, I thought it was Blazer. But I was wrong.’
She pulled her phone out of her pocket.
‘Lieutenant, I want you to look at something.’
She opened the black-and-white photo of Smith and Whitney on the dance floor at the gala, Whitney laughing up at Smith, his hand easy in the small of her back.
She held her phone up so he could see.
‘Do you recognize the man in this picture?’
The light from the screen of her phone turned his face ghostly white as he leaned forward to look at himself. He stared at the image for a long time before straightening slowly.
‘Lay it out for me, Harper. What are you suggesting?’
His expression was unchanged, but his voice held a new note of icy menace that sent a chill down Harper’s spine.
But now that it was all happening, Harper wasn’t afraid any more. She was hurt. And she was angry.
‘I’m suggesting that you knew Marie Whitney,’ she said. ‘That you had a romantic affair with her. I’m suggesting that she blackmailed you – threatened your job and your marriage. I’m suggesting that you stabbed her to death on her kitchen floor. I’m also suggesting that, when you thought I was getting too close to finding out, you got rid of me.’
She drew a breath.
‘That, Lieutenant, is what I’m suggesting.’
Although her heart was racing, her voice was rock steady. She stood square-shouldered, her eyes locked on his.
Smith blinked before she did.
‘This is insane,’ he growled. ‘Listen to yourself. Are you out of your mind?’
But his voice lacked conviction, and there was a distant, panicked look in his eyes.
All the breath left Harper’s lungs.
Until that moment some part of her had clung to the hope that she was wrong. Now, though, she could see the truth in his face.
Desolation swept her anger away, leaving only loss.
‘Why did you do it, Lieutenant?’ she asked, bewildered. ‘What was she going to take from you? How much was it really worth? You took a life, Lieutenant. You took a life.’
At first he didn’t reply. He stood still, shoulders hunched.
Somewhere on the river below, a chain jangled – a boat shifting with the water. A breeze worried the leaves overhead.
Suddenly, Smith laughed, a cold and desperately unfunny sound.
‘I never thought you’d sink to this,’ he said bitterly. ‘You’ve got no loyalty, Harper McClain. You, of all people.’
He pulled his hands from his pockets. In his right hand he held a 9 mm semi-automatic.
He pointed it squarely at her chest.
Harper recoiled, pressing herself back against the rented Ford.
‘I cared for you.’ His voice rose. ‘I took you into my home. This is how you thank me? You want to destroy everything I’ve built? Everything I’ve fought for? And, for what? For what, Harper?’
She couldn’t take her eyes off the gun. It gleamed black and oily in the moonlight.
‘Lieutenant.’ It came out faintly – a wisp of a word. ‘Please. Put the gun away. I’m not armed.’
‘That was a mistake on your part.’ He twitched the gun.
Harper flinched.
‘You betrayed me,’ he said, and his voice quivered. ‘I should have listened to the others. I should have known not to trust you.’
Harper could hardly hear him. Her eyes were fixed on the pistol.
‘Lieutenant,’ she said. ‘Please.’
‘You pushed and pushed,’ he growled. ‘I gave you so many opportunities to let this go, but you would not stop. And I will never understand why.’
Harper’s mouth was so dry she had to swallow hard before she could form words.
‘That murder scene looked exactly like my mom’s.’ Her voice broke. ‘That was it. That’s all it ever was. I had to understand why.’
She looked at him imploringly. ‘It wasn’t supposed to be you.’
Smith’s face crumpled.
‘You were never supposed to see that murder scene, Harper. Reporters don’t get to see murder scenes. There are rules. Dear God, why don’t you obey the rules? If, just this once, you’d done as you were told, none of this would have happened.’
He sounded desperate. And desperate men with guns are the most dangerous force on earth.
Harper knew she should run, scream … Do something to defuse this situation. But she stood there, her back pressed against the hard metal of the car, eyes burning with unshed tears.
‘Oh, Lieutenant,’ she whispered. ‘You didn’t kill her, did you? You wouldn’t do something like that. I don’t believe it. I don’t.’
This seemed to throw him off balance. For a second the gun went slack.
‘Harper …’
His voice trailed off. Then he straightened and pointed the gun at her again.
‘You should have let go of the case, Harper. You should have walked away. But you didn’t. I’ll regret that fact for the rest of my life.’
Harper stared at the man she’d thought of as a surrogate father, pointing a gun at her chest. In that instant she saw her mother’s body, lying still in a spreading puddle of blood on her kitchen floor. She saw her own blood-covered hands struggling to grasp the phone. She saw Camille Whitney’s tormented brown eyes.
She saw all that they’d lost.
Her heart stopped pounding.
Straightening, she flung out her arms to either side.
‘Just do it,’ she challenged him, her voice ringing out in the quiet. ‘Shoot me and get it over with. If that’s what you want.’
He raised the gun.
That was when a voice rang out from behind her.
The Echo Killing Page 35