“Keller was in there. We might as well forget the damn warrant.”
“You don’t know why he was here.”
I stared at Joe. He’d been on this case from the beginning, why was he cutting Keller slack now?
The clerk stepped in from the hall. “Detectives? Judge Healy is ready for you.”
I didn’t want to go in, but Joe didn’t give me a choice. He led the way.
I sat like a good soldier while Judge Healy read the warrant. It didn’t take long.
Healy closed the folder without expression and crossed his hands on his immaculate desk. “If I understand you correctly,” he said, “Mr. Keller is a suspect only because he was in the vicinity of the crime—at a bar four blocks from the attack.”
“No, sir.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Did I misread your statement?”
I said, “Sir, Mr. Keller was in the vicinity of all five rapes. I have the guest lists of the events where both Mr. Keller and the victim were in attendance. The latest rape victim, who is currently in surgery, said that she didn’t know her attacker but had seen him at Annie’s, the bar where she’d been immediately prior to the attack. I have the surveillance tape that shows—”
Healy cut me off. “As I said, it appears Mr. Keller is a suspect only because he was in the vicinity of the crime.”
“The crimes,” Joe reiterated. “That stretches the bounds of coincidence.”
“You have no prints, no witnesses, no probable cause.”
“We have the rapist’s DNA—we just need to match it to Keller.”
“Why not ask for a warrant for all white men in Sacramento County?” Healy waved his hands. “Have everyone sacrifice their rights on your hunch.”
“Sir—” Joe began, but I barely heard him.
I said, “When we spoke to Keller after the third rape, he was patronizing and uncooperative. If he was innocent, all he had to do was submit to a simple blood test. All I’m asking for are the clothes he was wearing on the security tape, plus a search warrant for his car.”
“That’s all?” Healy mocked.
Healy’s attitude grated on me, and it didn’t help that I hadn’t slept all night. “As soon as the victim is out of surgery, she’ll ID him,” I said.
“Maybe you have a vendetta, Detective Black.”
“I have no vendetta,” I said with restrained anger. What had Keller said to the judge? Why had he been here?
Healy opened his top desk drawer and removed a thick file. “The proof is in the pudding, as my mother used to say.” He slapped his hand on the file. “Do you remember Clive Robeaux?”
Of course I remembered that pervert who went after cheerleaders. He’d walked on a technicality. I’d still be after him if he hadn’t moved to L.A. Last I heard, three cheerleaders down there had been attacked this past year. I’d sent L.A.P.D. everything I had on him, but they hadn’t been able to make anything stick. He was good at covering his tracks, and he played the system like a damn violin—just like Keller.
“It seems Robeaux filed charges against you and the department for abuse of authority, harassment, and false arrest.”
“They were all thrown out, your Honor,” I said.
“His case was thrown out because of lack of evidence.”
“That was because—”
Healy cut me off. “I don’t honestly care why, only the final outcome. There’ve been seven complaints against you in the past three years.”
“By criminals. Every cop in the department has complaints against them. Most have no merit.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” he said, then smiled. “I am the judge. If you come back with an infallible statement from the victim that Greg Keller is the man who raped her, and I’ll give you an airtight arrest warrant. Until then, you’d better watch your step, Detective.”
Chapter Four
I’m not a patient person. And when an impatient person has a badge, you can generally get the answers you need when you want them.
Except in hospitals.
All I knew was that Ashley Young was still in surgery. She’d been in for hours, and no one would tell me why it was taking so long, when they’d be done, or how she was doing. I tried calling Gabriel, who’d been the emergency surgeon on call during two of the first four rapes, but he didn’t answer, either.
I couldn’t sit, so I paced, ignoring the glare of the triage nurse assessing the throng of patients who all claimed to need emergency medical attention. At quick glance, I guessed that ninety percent of them could have taken two aspirin and gone home.
Keller must have given the judge the Robeaux file. It was public information, which made me wonder if Keller was doing a background investigation on me while I was investigating him.
But he couldn’t get everything. Even some records were beyond the reach of the Attorney General’s office.
After what happened in the judge’s chambers, I now knew that Keller had been following the investigation closely. Who had he talked to? He enjoyed my frustration that I couldn’t arrest him. He was playing off his contacts and legal knowledge, plus I suspected that each target and each crime scene were specifically selected to avoid security cameras and the likelihood of a witness, while also being as open and public as he could manage.
Keller thrived on the danger, the thrill of his game with police, as much as the attacks themselves.
“Selena.”
I wasn’t a girly-girl, but my heart fluttered a moment at the sound of Gabriel’s deep baritone. I didn’t need to see Doctor Gabriel Storm to know the ER surgeon was behind me. His quiet, authoritative voice made his presence well known. But maybe I had sensed him a moment before he spoke. He had already gotten inside my heart. How had I let that happen?
I braced myself as I tilted my head up at his too-handsome face, but couldn’t stop the reaction I always had when his dark blue eyes settled on mine—dark butterflies in my stomach, drawing me to him. Lust.
“I didn’t know she’d been stabbed,” I said, the words coming out before I could stop them. “She wouldn’t let anyone near her, and the blanket covered her stomach. I asked her—” The guilt had weighed on me from the moment I saw all that blood. What could I have done differently?
He reached out and squeezed my arm. The gesture was intimate and supportive even in its brevity. For five seconds the power of his confident personality focused completely on me. His eyes reflected my anger and frustration over not being able to stop Greg Keller, over not knowing the seriousness of Ashley Young’s injuries. But no blame, no accusations. His touch supported me, lifted me up to do my job, saying what words couldn’t.
Men didn’t generally make me feel feminine or desired, partly because I could play the arrogant, hardened cop as well as any man. Better, because being a girl in a boy job you needed to be tougher, more resilient, more everything, just to survive. But from the minute I met Gabriel Storm four months ago after he performed stitched up the first victim of the River City Rapist, he’d made me feel wanted and loved.
Which was completely ridiculous.
Except for the fact that we’d been having sex whenever we both had a night off.
Which was rare.
Except that he gave me a key to his condo.
Which I had never used.
Damn, I wanted to.
Business first. Then we could celebrate the victory when I locked Keller in jail.
“When can I talk to her?” I asked. “I brought pictures. She told me she saw him, if she can ID him, then I’ll get the warrant. You can witness her statement, then—”
“Lena, she’s dead.”
I shook my head. “No.” I said it emphatically, as if my denial would change the facts. “No!”
That’s when I saw the sheen of tears in Gabriel’s blood-shot eyes, the blood on his surgical gown, and the fatigue in his posture.
“I did everything I could.” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. I had been to
brutal crime scenes. I spent my first two years as a detective in homicide, fighting for the dead; I’d lost victims who I thought would live. But I never took it personally.
Until today.
Gabriel was in the business of saving lives. I was in the business of justice. Yet I felt exactly what he felt.
What more could I have done?
“I should have known something was wrong when I first got on scene. I should have checked her myself—”
He ran his hands up and down my arms. “Don’t. Would ten minutes have helped? Twenty? I don’t know. The damage was to her liver. Most of the bleeding was internal. If it happened here in the hospital, I might have been able to save her. I don’t know.”
He was consoling me, when he was the one in pain. I squeezed his hands. I wasn’t a demonstrative lover. I didn’t like public displays of affection. Inside I’m a bit twisted and a little broken. My past—my choices, my mistakes, my regrets—had hardened me in ways I couldn’t verbalize. They were things I had never shared with anyone, because speaking them made them real. And sometimes, I wanted to believe in the fantasy.
Sometimes, I needed to believe I’d never been raped.
Or that I hadn’t showered after.
Or that I hadn’t reported the crime only to be disbelieved by campus police.
Yet here was this fabulous man, a lifesaver, noble and handsome and good trying to make me feel better when he suffered as much as I did. What had I done to deserve Gabriel Storm? It must have been something good in a previous existence to have this anchor in my disastrous life.
Come back with a statement from the victim that Mr. Keller is the man who raped her, and I’ll give you your warrant.
Now my victim was dead, and the chance of a warrant nil. Is that why he’d stabbed her? Because he screwed up and let her see him?
All I could think about was losing my only witness. The woman who would nail Keller’s coffin shut. Rage washed through me so suddenly, so violently, I pulled my hands from Gabriel and slammed my fist into the wall. It hurt like hell, but not as much as the icy anger inside that a rapist—a killer—was untouchable.
Gabriel took my injured hand and kissed it, then pulled me away from the main corridor. I never allowed anyone to lead me anywhere, but I didn’t stop Gabriel. I don’t know if I could have. He opened the door of the stairwell and we stepped inside.
He kissed me before I could speak. His kiss was firm, commanding. My back was against the wall, and my hands were around his neck, and I didn’t think. I just kissed him back with the same urgency, the same greedy need to feel something good and right and wanted. Gabriel knew what I needed without me ever speaking a word.
But was it just this case? Maybe I was reading this all wrong. Cops dating nurses and doctors was an old cliché, but there was a fundamental truth in these relationships—violence, pain, suffering, healing, helping—we understood each other.
He stepped back, held my face. “What?”
“Nothing.” I didn’t want to lose this moment in time. I kissed him again, the physical desire cloaking the loss, and obscuring my raw emotions.
“I need you, Lena, but it’s not for sex.”
I raised an eyebrow flirtatiously, while my heart beat with the very real fear that he was going to distance himself from me. Who could blame him? “You mean you haven’t been having fun in bed?”
His eyes narrowed and he kissed me again, his body pressed firmly against mine, every muscle tight. He kissed my jawline, my neck, behind my ear, hot and cold chills running through my nerves until I wanted to get naked and wrap my legs around him.
He whispered in my ear, “I want your body, from the minute I saw you I lusted for you. But I need you. I don’t know how you do your job, every day, facing bastards like Keller. Fighting for victims like Ashley. I admire it. Your strength gives me strength to face the losses, to fight for my patients. To know that there’s someone in this world who understands what I face without me having to explain it. I look at you, Lena”—He stepped back and caught my eye—“and I see an amazing, beautiful woman. I touch you”—He put his hand on my neck, behind my hair, his skin so soft but his touch firm—“and I don’t want to let go.” He kissed me lightly. “I could make love to you every night and each time it would be fresh, passionate, freeing. You make me forget the misery of my job and remind me of the joy.”
“Gabriel—” My voice sounded far away.
“My shift ends at six. You still have my key?”
“Yes. I don’t know when I’ll be done today—”
“Come over any time. But if you’re there by eight, I’ll have dinner for you.”
“Feed my body, feed my soul,” I said.
Over the intercom, a female voice paged Dr. Gabriel Storm. He tensed, stepped back, changing from passionate lover to compassionate doctor. I understood how quickly shields had to be put up—putting on the uniform or the white coat meant other people depended on us.
His eyes held mine. “I have to tell her family,” he said.
“I can—”
He shook his head. “You know who the rapist is. Why can’t you arrest him?” He didn’t say it as an accusation; doctors saw the dark side as well.
Except this case had been under my skin for four months, eating at me.
“He’s a murderer now,” I said. Would Healy be more lenient about the warrant if he knew the River City Rapist had killed? “And my only witness is dead.” I took a deep breath and wrestled my emotions back under control. “I’ll think of something.”
“I know you will.”
Chapter Five
When I was in college, pulling an all-nighter didn’t faze me. Now, at thirty-one, I was feeling the effects of no sleep, too much caffeine, and too little food. I grabbed a sandwich and pint of milk on my way back to the station. Joe should be done in court by now, and we needed to go back to the basics.
We had to be missing something, and I wanted to go through each case one by one, talk to Ashley’s friends and colleagues. I’d put in a call to her employer, who hosted the event at the Railroad Museum, asking for a copy of the guest list. It wasn’t on my desk when I walked in, so added a follow-up call to my growing list.
There were no messages about the case, which irritated me. I picked up the phone and called Simone Charles who ran the crime lab.
“I need something,” I said when she answered.
“Good afternoon, Detective Black,” Simone said.
I took a deep breath. “Please. Ashley Young is dead and I have a suspect but no probable cause. What do you have?”
“The morgue is rushing the autopsy and I’m processing her clothing now.”
“What about the rape kit?”
“She went immediately into surgery. They’ll do it during the autopsy. I talked to Phineas myself. He understands what we’re facing.”
I stared straight ahead, seeing nothing but clouds of people leaving the courthouse on lunch break. Lawyers. Jurors. Defendants. The system working.
So often it failed.
Too often.
“Selena?” Simone said quietly.
“I’m here.”
“We’re all with you on this. You’re good, Selena. You’ll get him. The minute I find anything, I’ll call you.”
Did I sound so needy that I needed praise from my colleagues?
“Thanks. I appreciate it. And I’ll let you know if anything else pops.”
“I have one more thing—we printed Ashley’s phone that the bartender turned over. The only prints on it were the bartender’s.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“The only prints were the bartender’s — Ashley’s weren’t.”
My stomach fluttered in the way it did when I knew I had a key piece of evidence.
“Keller wiped the phone.”
“Someone wiped the phone,” Simone corrected.
I rolled my eyes. She might have to play that game, I didn’t. “That’s good. Thanks.”
> I hung up and let out a long sigh. I hadn’t made a lot of friends on the job, so I appreciated the few I did have. Simone Charles was one of my favorite people, a dedicated criminologist with a sharp eye. And Phineas Ward, the lead supervisor at the morgue, was also a friend. Last case I had that ended up in the morgue was a rape victim who killed herself two weeks after the attack. A young college student learned her attacker was getting a pass by the D.A. because there wasn’t enough evidence to support her accusation. Both Phineas and I had gotten written up for bringing the suspect into the morgue to view the girl’s body. I forced her rapist to touch her cold, dead flesh. Told him how her roommate found her bleeding out in the bathtub, too late to save her.
Her death’s on you, asshole.
“You look like shit,” Joe said from behind.
I whirled around in my chair. “Don’t sneak up just to insult me,” I said. But Joe was right. I hadn’t been home since yesterday, and a quick splash of water from the bathroom sink was hardly a shower.
“I talked to Simone. So far, nada.”
“Did you talk to Ramirez?” Sergeant Juan Ramirez was our supervisor.
“No.” I shuffled papers around my desk.
“You’re avoiding his calls.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I waved my right hand, indicating the entire squad room. The corner sex crimes had was semi-private, eight cubicles in a doorless office. Only six were used, and Joe and I were the only two in right now. No surprise there, considering how many cases we caught in any given week. “He can find me.” I frowned. “He’s going to pull the case now that it’s a homicide.”
“Homicide will let you work the case with them.”
I snorted. “And Ramirez will happily give up one of us for a few days? Weeks? Hardly. He’ll give me time to debrief them then I’m back here.”
“Maybe fresh eyes are just what this case needs.”
“Bullshit. This case needs someone who cares that Keller is getting away with murder. He gave the Robeaux file to Healy, you know he did.”
“Healy’s been around a long time. Old memories and all that. It’s not just Robeaux.”
Guns and Roses Page 14