by Amy Lane
“Mr. Rivers?”
Jackson turned and saw what might have been his type before Ellery. Tall, in half boots with wedge heels, legs in black slacks for miles, she was the kind of ice-blonde goddess he simultaneously wanted and wanted the hell away from. Women like that were stronger than he was—cool, incisive, substantial. Most of the time, he didn’t have time for a relationship.
Until Ellery came along with the masculine brand of cool strength, and Jackson had been melted in the crucible that was the two of them and somehow reformed.
So he was not on the prowl when the woman strode up and shook his hand, but he was impressed.
“Detective…?” He gave her firm grip back and let his gaze flick down her red silk blouse under her black blazer, to the badge she wore at her belt.
“Dakin. Tess Dakin. It’s nice to meet a department legend.”
Jackson heard Ellery’s suppressed snort, and he glanced sideways so they could exchange a brief eye roll. Yeah. They were very aware of what the department thought of Jackson.
“It’s nice to meet a stellar actress,” he said dryly. “Is there anything I can do for you? We have an appointment with Toe-T—Dr. Tagliare.”
She nodded, her wing of chin-length blonde hair barely moving. “I am aware. We were just speaking, actually. Do you have any idea why Dr. Tagliare would think this case would pertain to you? Either of you?” She smiled at Ellery, the wattage dropping just a tad. “I’m sorry. I’m Detective Dakin, and you’re—”
“Ellery Cramer, defense attorney for Pfeist, Langdon, Harrelson, and Cooper.” He stuck his hand out and dared her with his eyes not to shake. “Pleased to meet you.”
Her eyebrows went up as she took his hand. “Why on earth would you bring your defense attorney here, Mr. Rivers? I find that very interesting.”
“He’s here as a friend,” Jackson said, already sick of this shit. “I had a doctor’s appointment anyway, and driving’s not on my list of things to do.” He pointed to his shoulder, where the blood draining from his wound had already seeped through the gauze—and his gray sweatshirt.
Tess’s blonde eyebrows winged right up past her hairline.
“Rough morning, Mr. Rivers?”
Jackson shrugged. Not as bad as the morning he woke up when he was ten and discovered Celia had told the guy she’d gotten coke from the night before that he could feel her son up as he slept as payment. Jackson had elbowed the guy in the throat. He’d gone down, blue, and they’d had to call an ambulance before he choked out and died on their apartment floor. In the resultant mess, Celia had told the cops that Jackson had just attacked the guy, no reason whatsoever, and he’d spent two nights in young offenders detention before Kaden’s mother had shown up to bail him out.
“Some nights are worse than others,” Jackson admitted grimly. “Can we go make the ID now?”
Tess Dakin clenched her jaw. “Normally I’d say no. Most IDs are made through photos. There’s really no need to see the body. I believe you know that already. But this body was found under some… special circumstances.”
Oh God. “Special?” He and Ellery exchanged glances again. “Would you care to elaborate?”
Tess smiled perkily and looked around. “Where are we, Mr. Rivers?”
“The hospital morgue?”
“Why aren’t we at the coroner’s office?”
Jackson blinked and took a deep breath. “Because the decedent presented as alive enough to call an ambulance?”
“That’s right. And when we moved this body, there was a body underneath it. One that had been there about a week.”
“Who?” Jackson asked, hoping, God, it was nobody he’d known.
“A junkie, one who hadn’t been in the life long, we don’t think. Still pretty—a mixed-race girl—blonde, just a little bit of wear on her.”
“Dirty pretty,” Ellery said grimly. “Is there an ID?”
“No, sir—the body is at the coroner’s office now, and I do believe they’re running tests.”
“Mixed-race, blonde—green eyes?” Ellery muttered to himself. He pulled out his phone and started pushing buttons, and Jackson watched him, wondering what was going through his head. Ellery was smart, damned smart, and he forgot nothing.
Something had piqued his interest.
“Do you think the two bodies might be related?” Jackson asked, a familiar sick feeling in his stomach.
“Well, you tell us. Dr. Tagliare still hasn’t told me why he wanted you in for the ID. The logical reason would be that it has to do with a case you’re working on, but he wouldn’t confirm that. Can you tell me why you were called in?”
“Can you tell me why you’re so suspicious?” Jackson retorted. “How do you know I’m not a family member, getting a special favor from a friend?”
Tess Dakin snorted—an unlikely sound, at odds with her ice-queen appearance. “You’re an ex-cop, a private investigator. The department may not like you, but you’ve got a reputation as a ladies’ man. This wasn’t a lady, by any stretch of the imagination. I’m guessing she was an informant you told Toe-Tag to keep an eye open for, but he’s not spilling the beans.”
Jackson laughed humorlessly. “Any other reason you’re here being a presumptive bitch and a pain in my ass?”
Dakin’s eyes narrowed. “Now that wasn’t nice. Here I am, making nice conversation, trying to establish common ground—”
“Sucking up to me in all the wrong ways,” Jackson told her, not even knowing where to start. “Was there anything else that caught your attention?”
Tess ground her teeth grimly. “There was, but I want to wait until you see the body before I comment.”
So she could watch his reaction, screen him, gauge his tells. Unless you were stone cold and a sociopath to boot, looking at grisly death very often provoked a reaction, even if you were ready for it.
Jackson thought he was ready for it. He’d been ready for it for years.
Josh escorted the two of them into the back, where Toby “Toe-Tag” Tagliare bent over a body bag on a stainless steel table. Toe-Tag—a sweet-faced, round little hobbit of a man—dealt with death and despair and sadness all day, and smiled and lived to invite the living to his house for dinner in the evenings. He’d been a good friend to Jackson over the years, and Jackson was grateful to him for his gentle smile now.
“Jackson,” he said, turning around carefully so Jackson couldn’t see the face of the person on the slab. That told Jackson all he needed to know.
“Toby.” Jackson jerked his chin toward the body. “Shouldn’t I—”
“I can identify her for you,” Toby said, casting an unfriendly look at Dakin. “You wouldn’t remember, but I was actually on the floor when Jade and Kaden kicked her out of the hospital.”
Jackson frowned. “I don’t remember—”
Toby scowled. “She was trying to get your death benefits, Jackson. You weren’t out of the woods yet, but you were still breathing.”
Ellery made a sound like a Great Dane getting gut-punched.
“Fucking Celia.” Jackson let out a deep breath of disgust. “Is there any other reason you’re not letting me see the body?”
“It’s… disturbing.” Toby sighed. “You sure you’re up for this? You look like hell.”
Jackson looked at Ellery and drawled, “I would have said I looked like shit. He’s being nice.”
“And I would have said you looked like ass—hole. Jackson, c’mon. Let’s just go—”
“To the office to get that little fucker off so we can bleed him dry,” Jackson said darkly. “I’m not going home.”
“Fine,” Ellery said, his voice taut. “But do we have to—”
Jackson wanted nothing more than to turn and let Ellery hold him. In his whole life, he couldn’t remember wanting another human being’s arms around him more—not even the morning after Toni Cameron had gotten him out of juvie.
He took three steps and gently hip checked Toby out of the way.
“G
ross,” he said with feeling. “What in the holy fucking hell?” His body felt thin and bloodless, brittle, transparent sugar candy, ready to shatter and dissolve.
“The coroner will need to confirm cause of death,” Toby said softly. “There were no signs of struggle, in spite of the trauma. He’s going to need to do a thorough autopsy and tox screen. If I had to guess, I’d say she was drugged or already dead when it happened.”
It.
It happened.
“Do you know what was used?” Jackson asked. “The weapon?”
“Something big—he’d need rib spreaders, and the cut to her abdomen looks as though it was done with one long blade.”
“Jackson?” Ellery said, his voice thin. “Did her killer—”
“Rip out her heart and put it in her… stomach?” Jackson had trouble even looking at it. He’d seen bodies here. He’d seen some awful goddamned stuff. But this took the cake for weirdness, no two ways about it.
“Her womb,” Toe-Tag said softly. “It’s in her womb.”
Jackson swallowed convulsively, closed his eyes, and pretended that when he opened them, he was going to be looking at an oil painting.
It worked. He didn’t throw up. “Tell me about the bodies,” he said. “Where were they placed?”
“Why would you ask that?” Dakin’s voice grew sharp with interest. “What does that have to do with it?”
“I won’t know until you tell me, will I?” Jackson very carefully cataloged details, as coolly and impersonally as though he was looking at a grocery list. Lips blue, face gray, thin, dyed blonde hair lank around the head. Collarbones prominent—she, the victim, would rather do drugs than eat, always had. “There’s a tattoo missing,” he said before he could make himself demand an answer. “The skin was lifted off.”
“Yeah, we don’t know where that went,” Toby said.
“You obviously know this person,” Dakin said, and thank God her voice was anything but gentle. “May I ask how?”
“Where was she found?” Jackson asked harshly.
“Arcade Creek, in a thicket of blackberry bushes near the golf course,” Dakin said. “There was a tarp set up. She doesn’t have a scratch on her.”
“Did the other victim?”
“Decomp too advanced to tell.”
“Where were they in relation?” Jackson asked, thinking… thinking….
“She was lying right on top of the other victim. There was a shallow grave, uncovered, and the victim at the coroner’s office was on the bottom. This one—her blood was still running, by the way—was on the top.”
Jackson felt Ellery’s hand in the small of his back and used it to ground himself. “Who found them?”
“A….” Dakin leafed through her book. “A jogger. A regular, actually—he goes by this spot every night, same time. Saw bloodied pieces of cloth leading to—”
“From,” Jackson said. It was obvious. “From—someone meant for you to find her.”
“Yes.” Dakin closed her book. “That’s what we believe.”
“Not the first one.”
“No.”
“This one, on top of her.”
“Yes, probably.”
“It means something….” Something poetic. Something metaphorical. Her heart in her womb—that was a laugh. Celia’s heart had always been in the party. The things that came from her womb—Jackson, the sister he’d never met—those things were disposable.
He was disposable.
“Jackson, you’re going to pass out,” Ellery said from a long way away. “Or throw up. I’d be fine with either one, but you’re the guy who wants to go kick ass.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Well. Don’t see this every day.”
“Mr. Rivers—how do you know this victim?”
“She was….” Not my mother not my mother not my mother. “We’re related by blood,” he said at last. “She was too young to flush me.”
“Oh God—Jackson—” Ellery shoved at him, actively trying to get him to turn back around.
He was shaking, trying to remember something—anything good about the slab of mutilated meat on the table, anything that would connect him, make him feel human again.
“She used to sing Dolly Parton songs,” he said, not sure if he remembered that or hoped it had been true. “When I was a baby.”
Had there been a time she hadn’t gotten high? There must have been. He hadn’t dealt with any symptoms of fetal drug or alcohol poisoning. Maybe, when he’d been a baby, she’d actually had hope.
“Jackson—now!”
Jackson didn’t have a memory of being herded through the morgue and back into the office, but somehow it happened. Toe-Tag was there with a bottle of water, which he took gratefully.
“You’ve got a good memory,” Jackson said, drinking deep. “That was eight years ago you saw her.”
“It was an… interesting puzzle,” Toby said, sounding bitter.
Jackson managed to focus on his friend’s happy, lined face. “Her? Me?”
“Where you came from. Then I found out you grew up with Jade and Kaden—and it wasn’t a puzzle anymore.”
Ellery snorted.
“Yeah, well, your job is harder than mine,” Toby said dryly.
Jackson managed a smile at that. Ellery’s job was impossible. The whole world knew it but Ellery.
“You knew?” Dakin accused. “Dr. Tagliare? You knew who this person was and you didn’t tell—”
“Jackson deserved first shot,” Toby said staunchly. “You want to write me up for it? Arrest me? Fire me for violating procedure? I dare you.”
“It would have been good to know,” she muttered. “There’s obviously bad blood between them. How do you know having him here doesn’t impede the investigation?”
“How do you know I’m not going to investigate it myself?” Jackson asked. He still had spots dancing in front of his eyes. “I have resources, contacts—”
“What did the other body have to do with it?”
“Jennifer,” Ellery muttered. “Jennifer Ricci.”
“What?” Dakin turned stunned eyes toward him, but Jackson let out a humorless laugh.
“That was, what—two weeks ago?”
“Yeah.” Ellery held up his phone, showcasing the mugshot of a young woman, pretty, high, who had just been arrested for possession and solicitation in Discovery Park. She had blonde hair worn in dreadlocks with tiny curls around her ears and temples, a poignant china doll face much like Celia’s had been in her younger years, and skin colored a delicate brown. “This is Jennifer Ricci, a former client of mine. She was arrested two weeks ago, and the firm assigned her to me. At first I assumed she was pro bono, but then I found out someone was paying her bills.”
“Do you know who?”
Ellery shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I did my best. She was let off as a first-timer with community service. Is this your other victim?”
Toby took the phone from him and looked at it carefully. “It’s hard to make an ID off this,” he admitted, handing the phone to Dakin. “But it could be.”
“If nothing else, this gives us a place to start,” Dakin conceded. “What do you know about her?”
Ellery shrugged, his hand warm against Jackson’s sweat-soaked sweatshirt. God. He’d soaked through his sweatshirt. He wished Ellery would stop touching him. He must be foul.
“I know she was—her words—‘Just out for a good time.’ She liked to laugh. Her giggle was pretty fucking obnoxious, really, but nothing she should have died for.”
“Parents? Contacts?”
“It’s in the docket,” Ellery said. “Give me your card. I’ll have the firm check you out and send you the info.”
Those eyebrows arched again, precise as scalpels. “You don’t trust me?”
“Nope. You’re not telling us everything.” Oh, bless Ellery. He was sharper today, could read her better. Jackson was having a hard time just counting his own breaths.
“Neither are you,” she pointed out
dryly.
“Me?” Ellery smiled with all his pointy teeth, and Jackson was suddenly uncomfortably reminded of Ellery’s mother. Scariest woman on the planet—but by God, she’d flown across the country when she’d thought her son was in danger, hadn’t she. “We’ve been trying to talk to the police for months. I’m all for telling you everything. I’ll turn the whole works over. We might even have phone calls and slumber parties. I’ll braid your hair. I just need a few minutes to run you down and see who you are and why you want this case so bad. And to figure out if we should trust you.”
“We?” Her eyes flicked from Ellery to Jackson.
“We,” Jackson said strongly. No matter how he and Ellery ended up as lovers, in this they needed to be united. He had the feeling the stakes were too damned high for them to play solo. “I’m an investigator at his firm. We’re a team.”
“Interesting,” Dakin said, her eyes growing cooler by the minute. “So, as a team, do you have any idea who might have done this? Who would want to kill these women in this way?”
“Was the other victim mutilated the same way?” Jackson asked, his stomach rebelling.
“No,” Toby said. “But we’re pretty sure she was sexually traumatized—and there were knife wounds on the back.”
Jackson’s brain went blank. Ellery had to ask, “Was Celia Rivers sexually assaulted?”
Toby’s reply was a quick and merciful “No. Whatever else happened to her, that wasn’t it.”
“Thank God,” Ellery muttered. Probably because he knew Jackson’s brain might explode.
“I can’t think.” It could have been the most honest thing he’d said all day.
“And we’re running late,” Ellery said smoothly. “Jackson?”
“Coming.”
Ellery reached out and took the card Dakin was offering, and Jackson all but ran to the elevator. He found himself holding his breath after the doors closed, his chest tight with the need for freedom. When he got into the open air, a crisp, bright blue November day greeted him, and he had to take three deep breaths before he believed he was out in it.