by Kylie Brant
He nodded, tossed the younger man an easy grin. “Thanks, Darrell. Your coffee is becoming famous around here.”
“Don’t say that too loudly.” Cooper’s expression was mischievous. “Flo’s on duty.”
The words brought a slight frown to Morales’s face. “You should have been off a couple hours ago, then.”
“I stayed awhile longer so she could go to her son’s track meet.”
“Nice, but don’t let people take advantage of you,” Nate advised, heading to the cart to pour himself a cup. “Seems like you pull extra hours more often than not.”
He shrugged, smiled. “They have families, I don’t. And I can use the cash. The ladies these days have high standards.”
As he backed out of the door, they heard him greet a passing detective. “Barnes, I sent some flowers in your name to your girlfriend. Florist will be sending you the bill.”
“What? I didn’t order any flowers.”
“I know. You should have.”
Morales reached out to swing the door closed, an abashed grin on his face. “Don’t tell Flo, but it’s not only coffee he’s better at. Reminded me of Renee’s birthday last month, too. She would have killed me if I’d forgotten.”
Risa raised a brow. “You did forget.”
“Only until Darrell reminded me. As far as she knows, I remembered. And that’s all that counts.”
“Ah, the complexities of the male brain,” she mocked, as she joined them to refill her cup. “A miracle of nature.”
“Tell it to Renee.” Eduardo hooked a chair leg with his foot and dragged it over. He looked at Nate. “Captain Steiner in Vice is very interested in that information you called in with on Javon Emmons. He’s going to have Crowley picked up, see what sort of other details they can get from him. If they use him to set up a sting, how reliable will he be?”
“Depends on what’s in it for him,” Risa answered bluntly before Nate could fashion an answer. “He’s scared to death of Emmons, and helping build a case against him is going to dry up a nice little revenue stream Crowley’s got coming in.”
“It might take a combination of cash, protection, and immunity to get him to cooperate.” Nate leaned his hips on the front of his desk, facing the two of them, and sipped from his steaming cup. “They’ll want to make it clear he goes down for his activities if he doesn’t help them get Emmons. He’ll cooperate. He’s pretty motivated by self-interest.”
Morales nodded, set his cup on the edge of the cart, and opened the envelope. “Then he’s exactly like ninety-nine percent of the people we get coming through here. Let’s see what IT came up with.” Risa and Nate moved to flank the captain, and he fanned out the top three of the five-by-seven photos.
Risa leaned down to study them more closely. As the IT tech had warned, the pictures were grainy, with some of the resolution lost. Two of the pictures depicted the speaker on the video. Johnny. One was of the man Nate thought was Roland Parker.
“Need to get this photo over to Parker’s widow for a positive ID.”
Nate glanced at his watch. “I’ll run it by there on my way to work tomorrow morning. While I’m there, I’ll ask her about any hobbies her husband had.”
“And anyone he might have known by the name of Johnny.”
Seeing Morales’s quizzical look, Nate quickly filled him in on the information they’d received from Bonnie Christiansen. When he’d finished, the captain looked thoughtful. “Interesting. I wouldn’t pin too much hope on the two Johnny’s being one and the same, though.”
Risa exchanged a quick glance with Nate. “We can presume the offender may be one of the men sitting at that table or the person recording their meeting. If it’s one of the men at the table, the tape was likely supposed to do exactly what we first supposed. Record the crime for the offender to relive later. But if it was left deliberately, the likelihood increases that the offender is the person recording, or someone close to that person. It would help to get a rundown on the location of that scene.”
Morales shuffled the photos until they were looking at a close-up of the corner of the room’s window. There was definitely a street scene outside it, although it was fuzzy. They all surveyed it silently for a moment.
“Well . . .” Risa said doubtfully, cocking her head a bit. “Those two letters still look like a z and a p.”
Nate stabbed a finger at another partial letter. “That could be b. Or maybe an l.”
“Or the tall part of an h, f, or t,” she retorted. “At least this one looks like an e.” She stopped. Squinted. “Possibly a c in that font.”
“Yeah.” Morales seemed more than happy to hand the packet of photos over. “Have fun pinpointing the location.”
“Of a business that existed sometime in the last twenty to thirty years?” Nate’s tone was wry. “No problem.”
The captain stood. “Oh, and the message from IT was that they’re still working on the sound and voice enhancements. I’ll let you know when those come through.”
“Thanks.” Nate rounded the corner of his desk to sit after Morales exited the room. “We’ve got old telephone books in the reference room.”
The information filled her with resignation. The task of combing through three decades of phone books didn’t exactly rank high on her list of plum assignments, but someone needed to do it. “I’ll put together a list of letter combinations to look for.”
He nodded. “Good. Leave it with me and I’ll start Shroot on it tomorrow.”
Brightening at the suggestion, she said with more enthusiasm, “Good idea.”
His eyes glinted. “Glad it met with your approval.”
She knew without asking that he was referring to the partial conversation he’d heard when he entered the room. Turning to face him more fully, she leaned back in her chair. “If you’ve got something to say, Detective, go ahead. Don’t be a girl about it. Put it out there.”
The temper she’d tried to stoke was visible but still held in check. “Nothing to say.” The dangerous gleam in his eye gave lie to the words. “I knew the score going into this. I’m a team player, and I know what it takes to run a task force. So when the brass pulled you in without a full explanation of what exactly you were expected to contribute, I swallowed it. When I was instructed to make sure you were fully apprised of every detail on the investigation, I didn’t question it. You and Morales have a history. I get that. But I didn’t appreciate walking in on your grade report on me or my performance in the case.” His teeth bared in a grim pretense of a smile. “I also know there’s not a damn thing I can do about that either, so I guess I’ll be swallowing that, too. I expect it’ll become an acquired taste.”
She studied him silently for a moment. Risa was all too familiar with the ego massage necessary in instances like these. She’d just never developed a liking for it. The fact that the topic had arisen wasn’t surprising.
Discovering that she cared, more than a little, about his feelings did.
“This is what I do.” Her sweeping gesture included her desk, his office. “Usually Raiker’s agency is hired to send in an investigator to assist law enforcement with high-profile cases.” She lifted a shoulder. “It came about a little differently this time, but regardless, I have a conversation like this, almost verbatim, in seventy-five percent of the cases I’m involved in. Lead detective isn’t happy about me being invited in, and I spend more time than I’d like tiptoeing around sensitive toes to avoid treading on them. Sometimes I have to fight for details the cops want to hide. Other times I have to elbow my way into the inner circle of the investigation. I’ll tell you the same thing I tell all of them.
“You are running this investigation. I consider us partners. Full partners. But ultimately I answer to the administration, those responsible for me being here.” She nodded toward the door Morales had closed behind him. “He’s doing his job. But I don’t need anyone else to run interference for me. If I had a problem with the way you were handling my position on the investiga
tion, I’d tell you about it.”
He regarded her for a moment from those midnight dark eyes. They gave away nothing. The spark of temper she’d seen in them earlier was gone. Or perhaps only hidden.
When the silence stretched, annoyance settled in. She swung her chair back to face her desk. “Was it the adjectives that bothered you? Because I might be able to come up with better than ‘decent’ next time. But there’s no way in hell I’m going with ‘Nate the Great.’ ”
She heard the crumple of paper a moment before it hit her in the back of the head. Bit her lip to keep from smiling. “Aiming for the trash can, McGuire? Remind me to help you with your hook shot.”
“Actually working on my fastball.” And the tone in his voice reassured her that they were back to what passed for normal between them. “And that was definitely within the strike zone.”
It was nearly ten when Risa locked the rental at the curb and headed for the house. Hannah had left more than just the security light on, and that was unusual for her. She was frugal to a fault, and if she could figure out a way to douse the constant gleam from the security light, she’d have done so in the interest of knocking a few cents off her utility bill.
But she’d left a lamp on inside, along with the TV. Risa quickened her step. Her mother being that careless was just as unlikely as her not having gone to work this evening.
But there she was when Risa opened the door, her face arranged in a strained if welcoming smile. “Honey. I didn’t know when to expect you. Do you work this late every night?”
“Sometimes. Mom, what’s wrong? Why didn’t you go to work tonight?”
The older woman skirted her gaze as she smoothed her crisp navy uniform pants. “Oh . . . I didn’t feel just right. A little tired, I guess. I called in sick.”
Risa stopped in her tracks, scanning her mother’s form with growing concern. Hannah Blanchette did not call in sick because she didn’t feel “just right.” She’d gone to work the evening before she’d landed in the hospital with pneumonia three years ago. The only other time in Risa’s memory that she’d missed work was when her scumbag husband had punctured her lung, ruptured her spleen, and left her to die on the kitchen floor.
“I’m feeling better, now.” She sent her daughter a reassuring smile. “Probably should have gone in. I laid down for a while but started to go stir-crazy, so I got up and began a little cleaning. Thought with you still out it’d be a good time to tidy up in your room.”
“Mom.” The word sounded on a note of exasperation. “You don’t have to clean up after me.” She was almost certain there’d been nothing in the room to clean. Hannah’s penchant for tidiness had rubbed off on her daughter.
“Well, I guess I can do a little light dusting in my own house when I want to,” the woman said mildly. She smoothed her hair in a manner she had, checking for loose tendrils that had dared to work loose from the tight bun she wore. As usual there were none. Her appearance was as pin neat as the home she kept.
“I saw that you’d started drawing again.” Hannah picked up the remote to turn the volume on the TV down. “I took a look, hope you don’t mind. You were always so talented.” Her brows drew together in worry. “I just wish you didn’t draw such terrible sights. If you drew flowers and animals, you’d sleep better. I just know it.”
Risa’s throat was tight. She couldn’t have forced out a response if she’d had to. Her gait was jerky as she went to the closet, hung up the jacket that hadn’t been necessary that day. Set her purse on the table next to the TV.
“I always thought that’s what caused your bad dreams, those horrible pictures you sketched.” Her mother’s attention was diverted by the evangelist on TV, thundering about the evils of today’s world. She increased the volume a notch.
“I draw what I dream. Not vice versa.” As soon as she spoke the words, Risa wished them back. Hannah had never understood. Not because she hadn’t tried, but because it was beyond her. Although Risa had never doubted her mother’s love, she’d also realized early on that the woman was limited. Her perspective of the world held none of the shades of gray that Risa’s did.
“A God-given talent like that, you should put it to use,” Hannah tempered the words with a wan smile. “I know I never said so before, but I’ve always wanted you to draw me a picture that I could frame and hang on the wall right here. Something pretty and nice. Something I can look at, when you’re not here, and think of you.”
The sentiment coming from a woman usually lacking in it touched Risa. Neither her artistic talent nor her athletic ability had ever drawn much in the way of notice from her mother. “I’ll work on something for you,” she promised, although she had no idea how. Art had long been nothing but a tool for her. A way to document the torturous dreams that left her drenched with dread. She hadn’t picked up a pencil to sketch anything other than the nightmares that plagued her in longer than she could remember.
“That nice young man next door mowed my lawn today.” Hannah was keeping up the conversational gambit. “You know Eleanor’s son. He said the two of you talked the other day and that you’d gone to high school together. I’d known that but forgotten it somehow. He’s in the film business, you know. He’s directed lots of movies.”
“I thought he said he was a producer,” Risa said.
Hannah looked confused. “Isn’t that the same thing? Anyway Eleanor was awfully proud of him and I can see why. Such a nice young man.”
“I pay a lawn service to mow your lawn.”
At the reminder, her mother replied distractedly, “Well, I’ll cancel them tomorrow. Save you some money.” Her gaze darted away, couldn’t seem to find a place to land.
Risa contemplated the other woman. “What’s really wrong?” Trepidation was pooling in her stomach as she sat down on the old couch beside her mother. Maybe she’d gotten bad news from the doctor, although Risa couldn’t recall the last time the woman had visited one. Or lost her job. Or . . .
“I got this in the mail today.” There was a crinkle of paper as Hannah carefully drew a letter out of the pocket of her plaid and navy uniform top. “It was addressed to me in care of the cleaning service I work for. They sent it on. I’ll admit it shook me up a bit. Silly, I know. But it’s like having the past jump out at me when I least expected it. Gave me a bit of a jolt.”
Risa took the envelope from her mother. Took out the letter and unfolded it, scanning the scrawled writing quickly.
Heat, a white-hot tide of it, surged inside her. Raymond Blanchette, that son of a bitch, had always had more balls than brains. But she didn’t recall him ever having a memory problem before.
And she’d made it very clear the last time she’d spoken to him what would happen if he ever came near her mother again. Ever tried to contact her.
Apparently he needed a reminder.
“Reading that . . . I could almost hear him saying the words. Promises like he used to make me. How things would be different if only I’d give him another chance. He always was a real sweet talker.” Hannah wouldn’t meet her daughter’s eyes. Her fingers plucked nervously at her pant leg.
Comprehension belatedly pricked through fury. She had no idea what her mother felt for the man. As far as she knew, they hadn’t seen each other in eight years. But Hannah had refused to press charges against him the last time he’d put her in the hospital. Had forgiven him a multitude of times prior to that for a whole raft of sins.
Risa chose her words carefully. “Maybe I should speak to him.” She’d thought she’d come on forcefully enough the last time to put the fear of God in him, but time and circumstances might have dimmed his recollection of the scene.
She’d take great enjoyment in jogging his memory.
“No, I ’spect I need to do this myself.”
It was only when Hannah reached over to pat her hand that Risa realized it was balled into a fist. “Don’t worry. I’m not the same woman I was back then.” She waited for Risa’s eyes to meet hers before smiling slight
ly. “I know you didn’t understand what kept me going back after some of the times he and I had. I didn’t understand myself, until after I was out of it. After you moved me here and Eleanor and I became friends.”
It took a moment for Marisa to put it together. Eleanor Dobson, the deceased friend from next door, had once worked in a battered women’s shelter. Apparently the women’s friendship had been healing in more ways than one.
“What will you tell him?”
“Well, I haven’t the words yet but I do have my answer. And knowing Raymond, it’s best to keep it short. More would just encourage him, whatever else I wrote.”
That was true enough. Risa rapidly sifted through options. Although Hannah refused to have anything to do with a cell phone, Risa had arranged for an unlisted landline number. And Raymond didn’t have her address or he wouldn’t have tried to contact her through work. Her checks were automatically deposited, so there was no reason for her mother to go to the office of the cleaning company for anything.
The realization relaxed her. “Okay. If you’re sure you’re up to it.”
“Up to it,” the older woman said with rare spirit. “Well, my goodness, Marisa Lyn, you’re not the only tough broad in the family, I’ll have you know.”
Her mother’s words surprised a laugh from her. They bumped shoulders companionably.
“I guess I had to get it from somewhere.”
It was just four of them tonight. Jonas was on the job. Which was just as well, Johnny figured. The pansy ass would probably freak out at the news.
It had been Hans’s idea to get together again. They needed to compare notes, he’d insisted. Had to keep on top of this thing. And the others deserved to know about Sean and Johnson.
So they sat there at the corner booth, each nursing a beer. Johnny couldn’t help wondering if anyone else had the same thought that was swirling around in his head.
Which one of them would be next to burn.