by Mary Burton
One taste of coffee and Bowman had to admit she’d been right. Damn good. He sat across from her in the booth, watching her bite into the doughnut and clearly enjoy it.
“Do you remember hearing anything about the New Orleans girls when you lived there?” Bowman asked.
She plucked two napkins from the dispenser. “No. I had my hands full with personal matters.” She glanced at him, her gaze darkening with annoyance. “Why do you keep pressing a connection to me and this case?”
“The fact that you were a victim of a crime does not take away from your accomplishments.”
A mirthless smile tugged at her lips. “In my line of work, I can’t afford to be a victim. Not once. Not ever.”
He dug between the lines and extracted the meaning lurking in the dark. “What happened to you?”
“Stirring the pot won’t help you at all, and it’ll hurt me a lot. I’ve got a career. A kid. An adoption pending.”
“Why’d you leave New Orleans?”
“Things weren’t good at home. My mother died and my stepfather wasn’t Father Knows Best. I figured out pretty quickly it was better for me to get out of town.”
“You were underage.”
She was reaching for the doughnut again but stopped at his words. “Desperation knows no age.”
“Your stepfather didn’t try to bring you back home?”
“He wanted me back. Came looking for me. Almost found me in a coffee shop the day after I left, but I ducked out.” She shook her head. “I still remember his face when I saw him crossing the street toward the shop. He was pissed.”
“Not concerned?”
“No, definitely angry. I threw one hard punch that last night I was in his home. Connected with his face so hard I thought I broke my hand. His broken nose told me he was hurting.”
“Why’d you hit him?”
She pushed aside the remains of her doughnut. “He wanted to play house.”
He’d suspected as much but hearing her say it triggered cold, deadly contempt. “Did he?”
“No. But he tried and I clocked him.”
“Good for you.”
She flexed the fingers of her right hand, glancing at an index finger that was slightly bent. “I was sorry I didn’t hit him with something harder.”
“What about your biological father?”
“Left when I was two. Haven’t seen him since. His parents are dead. No extended family except for my mother’s great-aunt, but she was old when I was born. I think a lack of extended family was one of the things that appealed to William when he met my mother.”
“Do you have any siblings?”
“No. William was never able to produce a male heir, which always bothered him. In fact, the more years that passed and he didn’t get his son, the more he resented me.” She shook her head as if brushing off a memory.
“So you picked Virginia just like that?”
“Nothing strategic. This is where the bus money ran out.”
“And from there?”
“There’s a man in the area named Duke Spence. He helps runaways. I was lucky. He and his volunteers were at the bus station the day I arrived. He gave me a place to stay and told me to get into school. I did and from there, I took it one step at a time.”
“You mentioned a kid and an adoption. Is that Hanna?”
“She’s seventeen. She was in a dark place when I found her several years ago. I’m offering her a hand like Duke did for me.”
“You’re taking it a step further with an adoption.”
“It means a lot to her. To me.”
In the last five years, he’d thought about Riley several times. He’d never pictured her with a child. A teenager explained the second car in the driveway. “She’s lucky.”
A hint of color warmed her cheeks. “The luck cuts both ways. She’s a great kid.” She reached for her coffee. “Better get back. Dr. Kincaid and Agent Sharp wait for no one.”
“Understood.”
Ten minutes later, she parked in front of the medical examiner’s office. Hands on the steering wheel, she drew in a breath, studied the building, as if she were mulling over a question.
Out of the car, she didn’t hurry inside but stood stiff, staring ahead, her dark glasses obscuring her eyes.
He opened his door and paused, knowing there were moments in the job when silence and patience were critical. “My sole motive is to catch this guy, Riley. I don’t want the Shark to hurt anyone else. Anyone like you or Hanna. You’re a cop. You know how important witnesses are to an investigation.”
“If I had any information, I’d share it.”
Did that mean she was talking? “You can trust me.”
She didn’t speak for a long moment as she absently tightened her grip on her keys. “People get burned in police investigations all the time. We don’t always mean for it to happen, but it does.”
Traffic buzzed past on the busy street, but he sensed she didn’t notice any of it as she glanced up at the building.
“Talk to me, Riley. None of us wants to see another girl like Vicky get killed.”
She flinched as if he’d struck a nerve. “I don’t know you. There was a time I thought I did, but I was wrong.”
“You knew me better than I did myself.”
She moistened her lips while shaking her head. “You were very clear.”
“I was wrong.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“No, it’s not.”
For a long moment she was silent again. “After I ditched my stepfather, I ran to the back of an alley and hid for hours. I wandered for a couple of weeks, trying to stay away from trouble and the cops.” She sighed. “The little money I had ran out, and I remember being so hungry I thought my stomach was going to eat itself. There were offers for me to make money, but I wasn’t taking that road willingly.”
He marveled at her strength. She took it for granted, but it was a rare thing in this world.
“I was drinking a bottled water one minute and the next my vision was blurring. The next thing I knew, I woke up in this fancy room.” Her voice was a ragged whisper, as if speaking each word hurt.
“You were out the entire time?”
“I came around twice. First time there was someone there who seemed to notice I was awake and shoved a needle in my arm. I went right out. The second time I remember the sound of poker chips. A man cursing and then someone grabbing me by the hair and calling me ‘one lucky bitch.’ I passed out and woke up a thousand miles north in a bus station in Richmond, Virginia. There was a bus ticket crammed in my back pocket with the playing cards.”
“What about the bus ride?”
“I stumbled off the bus and like I said, Duke was there. He noticed me and took care of me. If not for him, well, I don’t know what would’ve happened.”
“The Shark never made contact with you?”
“Not one time. Never a note or a call or anything. It was like the whole thing never happened. To keep my sanity, I convinced myself it was a bad dream. The dreams stopped. Life moved on. I thought it was over until I saw Vicky lying in the grass. When I saw the cards in her backpack, the twelve years vanished.”
“What about the yellow dress? Were you wearing one?”
“No. I never saw a yellow dress, but there is so much I don’t remember. All I know is I had cards in my back pocket.”
“Where are they?”
“I told Agent Sharp about the cards and gave them to him. He’s having the forensic lab look at them, but I can tell you like I told Sharp, they were wiped clean. If not for the cards, I have no proof it ever happened.”
“What were the cards?”
“A royal flush. Diamonds.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and fingered the loose change against a small pocketknife. “Doesn’t get much better than that.”
“No, it doesn’t.” She studied him. “What’s the point of the card game?”
“Shield’s contact said this kille
r isn’t motivated by money. He uses it to leverage the other players into finding human poker chips to stake the game.”
“And all these dead girls died because of a turn of the cards.”
“I think so.”
“Damn.”
“Is there anything you remember about the room where you were held?”
“Red and gold colors. Thinking back, I always sensed it must have been a hotel room. I assumed it was going to be about sexual exploitation, but I don’t think that ever happened. Duke had me see a doctor after I arrived at the shelter. Her examination revealed no traces of assault.”
“You never called the cops?”
A wry smile tipped the edge of her lips. “I wasn’t eighteen when I stumbled into town. I was terrified they’d send me back to New Orleans and my stepfather, so no, I didn’t call the cops.”
“What did you do?”
“Whatever happened scared the shit out of me. I realized if I didn’t do something, I would get swallowed up by the streets. Duke offered me a job at his restaurant and I took it. I worked hard and graduated high school. Won a partial scholarship to community college. I juggled school and work until I graduated. There was an opening at the police academy and I jumped at it.”
“That’s an odd choice.”
“How so? The way I saw it, the job had good benefits and I’d be a part of a group that would teach me how to shoot and take care of myself.”
“You’ve done well.”
“I’ve worked my ass off.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to lose the life I’ve created.”
“We’ll catch him.”
She ran a hand over her hair, tossing him a worried look. “Dr. Kincaid is waiting, and I think Kevin Lewis may shed some light.”
Doubt spiked in Riley, jabbing adrenaline through her muscles. After all these years of silence, she thought she’d feel some kind of cathartic relief in telling her story. But she didn’t feel relieved. She felt exposed. As she reminded herself a thousand times before, her past was nothing to be ashamed of, but dragging it back into the light in front of Bowman made it seem pathetic.
Without any more conversation, they made their way inside to the elevators. He stood beside her, his hands clasped in front of him. Though she stared ahead, she sensed his gaze on her.
The doors opened and she kept her sights on the medical examiner’s entryway, hoping this time when the doctor cracked open the victim, she would keep her shit wrapped tighter. Bowman already had her pegged as a victim, a view she found untenable.
They both gowned up and moved into the exam room.
“How many of these have you seen, Riley?” Bowman asked.
A challenge hummed under the question like a rattler ready to strike. “Enough.”
Dr. Kincaid threaded her gloved fingers together, working the latex into a tight fit. “Trooper Tatum is an old pro at this,” she said. “You worry about yourself.”
Old pro. Riley appreciated the doctor’s good word. She hoped the doc was right.
Ken Matthews assisted Dr. Kincaid and pulled back the sheet to reveal Kevin Lewis’s long, lean, and very pale body. Multiple bullet holes stitched along his left side. Her stomach knotted as the scent of decay wafted. Standing a little straighter, she refused to look away, even trying to look a little bored as if she’d seen a thousand of these cadavers.
“Agent Sharp called me,” Dr. Kincaid said. “He’s running late. Said to start without him.” She began with an external exam, detailing the victim’s tattoos: a queen of hearts on his left bicep with the name Susie worked into the design, a snake on his right calf, and in the center of his back, two hands pressed together and pointed upward in prayer.
“Sharp is expecting a search warrant for his hotel room,” Riley said. “Hopefully, he’ll find something.”
“What about Lewis’s financials?” Bowman asked.
“You’ll have to ask Agent Sharp about that. Technically, I’m not a part of this investigation.”
Bowman didn’t seem concerned.
Dr. Kincaid noted dark bruises on the man’s back and ribs. “I’d say he took a beating within a week prior of his death.”
“Broken bones?” Riley asked as her stomach tightened.
“Three cracked ribs on the X-rays.”
“It would hurt like hell, but it didn’t kill him,” Bowman said. “That kind of beating was sending a message to pay up.”
“Maybe the Shark beat him up,” Riley said. “Gave him an ultimatum.”
“Or the beating was the reason for Lewis to risk it all with the Shark.”
Dr. Kincaid concluded the external exam and reached for her scalpel. As she began to cut, Agent Sharp entered.
His frown deepening, he said, “It’s always a party in here.”
Bowman extended his hand. “Clay Bowman.”
Sharp accepted the hand, gripping hard. “My commander told me about you. Said you’d be offering an assist. Worked a similar case with the FBI?”
“Twelve years ago,” Bowman said.
Sharp accepted a set of latex gloves from Matthews along with a gown. The agent wasn’t happy about it but was smart enough to know when his options were limited.
“Mr. Bowman was asking about the victim’s financials,” Riley said.
“Will have something by lunch. Dr. Kincaid, don’t let me hold you up any longer.”
Dr. Kincaid pressed the tip of the scalpel into the victim’s pale skin, and as she sliced, Riley did not have to turn away or catch her breath this time.
By the time the autopsy was completed, they’d confirmed that six bullets had shredded the heart. His lungs had considerable damage from smoking, and his liver was enlarged from alcohol. He was fifty-one, but he had the organs of an old man.
After the autopsy Riley stepped outside and stripped off her gown. Rolling her head from side to side to relieve tension, she glanced at the clock. It was after eleven and she was starting to feel fatigue settling in. When she heard Sharp push open the doors behind her, she drew in a breath, knowing she’d find a second wind somehow.
“Tatum,” Sharp said. “You don’t look as green as the last time.”
The doors opened to Bowman and she shelved whatever ribbing she had readied to fire back. “Thanks again, Agent Sharp.”
“Appreciate the input.” Sharp shifted his attention to Bowman. “Any insights? You think he might be your killer from New Orleans?”
He shook his head, his gaze on Riley. “No. It’s all too easy and too convenient.”
Riley arrived at the forensic department before lunch to find Martin hunched over the clothes that she recognized as Vicky Gilbert’s. With tweezers in hand, the assistant plucked a hair fiber from the fabric and dropped it into a plastic bag.
“I don’t suppose you found a smoking gun yet, Martin?” she asked.
“Not so far, but you never know what kind of gems are waiting for me.” He reached for a legal pad and glanced at his scrawled handwriting. “Medical examiner sent over the semen sample from the Gilbert autopsy. It’s been sent off for testing. And as you know, DNA testing is a beautiful thing, when it gets processed quickly. But with the backlog at the state lab, I doubt I’ll see results until next month.”
“There’s a private security guy who is throwing his weight around, and something tells me you’re going to get your results much sooner.”
“Shield?”
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Sharp said to cooperate fully with Mr. Shield and his man, Bowman. You know anything about these guys?”
“Mr. Shield? The man has influence. His right-hand man, Bowman, is just as capable.” She shifted, rolling her head from side to side. “Anything that caught your eye that I can run down?”
“Gilbert’s clothes were older and well worn. But in the yellow dress I found a clear plastic thread used to attach a price tag to a garment. Someone must have missed it.”
“But no tag?” Riley asked.
“No, bu
t I searched the clothing label online. It’s high-end. There can’t be many shops in the area that carry it. It wouldn’t hurt to check their sales records and see if any of them have security cameras or credit card receipts.”
“I could start checking security footage. Maybe something will pop up.”
“Hell of a coup if we caught this guy,” Martin said.
“So they tell me. Thanks again.”
Riley left Martin in the lab and returned to her car, where she did a search on her computer. She discovered only one shop in a fifty-mile radius that carried this designer. The store was in a high-end hotel in Richmond. She checked her watch. If she discovered information that linked to the investigation, she’d call Sharp.
Thirty minutes later, she parked in front of the tony hotel. It was an older grand hotel with a marble facade and a stone circular drive where valets parked expensive cars. She realized immediately that she was underdressed. She could tell she’d stick out as someone who didn’t belong as she glanced in her mirror. The plain clothes made her look like a cop.
She reached for the pins in the back of her bun and pulled them out, combing her fingers through her long hair until it draped her shoulders. She unfastened the top button of her shirt and moistened her lips. She still didn’t fit, but the look was a bit less formidable.
She walked into the hotel, shoulders back as if she had purpose. A glimpse around the lobby and she spotted the dress shop. Her booted heels clicked on the marble foyer. In the shop she was greeted by floral scents and gentle classical music. The clothes weren’t packed in together as they were in the thrift stores but displayed like fine works of art.
The last time she’d been shopping with her mother, it had been in a shop like this. The clerks had rushed to help them and they’d been served tea. Her mother never once looked at a price tag or wondered if an item was on sale. She simply chose what she liked and pulled out her husband’s credit card. Looking back, Riley saw that spending money was a way for her mother to get back at her stepfather. Judging by the light in the salesclerk’s eyes as she rang up the final tab, her mother must have been furious that day.
Today, the clerk was a man and dressed in a sleek dark suit. When he raised his gaze to her, his smile froze for a split second but he recovered. Smart clerks understood that patrons with money came in all shapes and sizes; he’d play along until he figured out there was no commission in it for him.