by Mary Head
“I’m not sure I know anymore,” Jackie murmured.
Eddie shook his head. “Look, I’m just trying to scare her –”
“I think she’s scared enough already,” Jackie said softly.
Eddie was quiet a moment, and then shook his head again. “I’m not going to. Okay?”
Jackie didn’t reply, uncertainty still tugging at him, and Eddie’s eyes hardened.
“Okay?” he said again, taking a step forward.
“Yeah, okay, fine,” Jackie replied, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked away.
Eddie looked at him a moment longer before turning and continuing to the kitchen.
Jackie remained standing, arms still folded tightly, and after a moment Eddie reappeared in the hall, a cup in his hand. He cast an annoyed glance at Jackie as he passed but didn’t speak, continuing back to his bedroom.
Jackie waited until he heard the door close, and stood a few minutes longer to make sure it didn’t open again before he lowered his arms to his sides. He still didn’t feel right, still didn’t trust his brother’s word entirely, and after a minute he sighed, walking to his bedroom to retrieve his pillow and blanket for another night down in the basement.
Chapter 35
Early morning sunlight streamed through the windows of Eddie’s bedroom, and he frowned as he opened his eyes. Normally he slept in on Sundays, the one day he was almost guaranteed to not have to work, but his brain was just too busy.
Memories of Luke and thoughts of Agent Cole swirled in his head, along with the image of the girl locked in the basement, handcuffed to the heater and probably still unconscious. She was the same age Luke would’ve been, just a couple of months older, and Eddie’s jaw clenched as he thought about how unfair it was that she was still alive while his own son was dead and buried. He was going to fix that soon.
He thought about his imposed deadline, three years from the day of Luke’s death. It felt appropriate to him, effectively ending Agent Cole’s life the same day his did, but part of him was starting to get antsy. His only intention had been to kill her, but she was proving to be far more difficult to handle than he thought, and he felt pushed right to the edge every time he was with her. She was too damn smart for her own good, talking back and fighting him, thinking she was better than he was. He didn’t hate women, but they had a place, and she needed to learn hers.
Maybe it was time to just get it over with before she made him really lose control, deadline be damned.
Throwing the covers aside, he sat up and swung his feet to the floor, running a hand through his hair and wincing at the pain in his shoulder. He still couldn’t believe the little bitch had kicked him hard enough to dislocate it, and the surprise, pain, and rage he’d felt had distracted him enough for her to actually get to the door.
Fortunately, he recovered quickly enough to grab her before she could get out, but then she’d elbowed him, amplifying his pain and anger, and he thought it was a miracle he hadn’t killed her right then and there. Maybe taught her a lesson beforehand.
There was a short throb in his right hand, and he scowled as he looked at it. As he had predicted, the spot where she bit him had bruised, and it only served to annoy him more.
Still scowling, he snatched his jeans up off the floor and stood to pull them on, his eyes on his bedside table as he fastened them. He plucked at his shirt where the hem was caught under the waist of his jeans, and then reached forward to tug open the drawer.
Lying between a bottle of aspirin and a tube of muscle cream was a handgun, the muzzle of which rested on a faded envelope shoved towards the back of the drawer. He took the gun in his hand, feeling the weight of it in his palm, and wrapped his fingers around it. He stared at it thoughtfully, turning it in his hand. It wasn’t the first time he’d held a gun, and his finger hovered over the trigger, remembering how it felt when he squeezed it, the sound it made, the way the recoil traveled up his arm.
One shot was all it would take.
After checking to make sure it was loaded, he lowered it to his side and slipped from his bedroom. The TV in the living room was off, the couch unoccupied, and Eddie wondered vaguely where Jackie was. The thought didn’t overly concern him, though, and he continued towards the basement door. He hesitated just outside, his free hand resting on the door knob, the other tightening around the gun, and then he twisted the knob and pushed the door open.
He descended the first couple of steps and then looked up, slowing when he noticed Jackie stretched out on the floor near the workbench, his pillow bunched up under his head. He had a blanket draped over him, and another one over her, and Eddie remembered rather abruptly that the temperature had been forecast to flirt with freezing the night before.
He stepped off the stairs onto the concrete floor and moved carefully forward, trying not to make too much noise so he wouldn’t wake Jackie, and stopped between the two of them.
It didn’t seem like Jackie could possibly be comfortable lying on the hard stone floor, but he seemed to be sleeping fairly soundly, and he shifted as Eddie watched.
Eddie’s gaze turned to the girl and his eyes narrowed a little. She didn’t appear to have moved at all, and he guessed she was still unconscious. The blanket was pulled up to her shoulders, and he watched the steady rise and fall of her chest for a moment before scowling and pulling the blanket from her body, glancing at Jackie as he tossed it into a corner.
Eddie shifted, turning his back to his brother as he moved closer to the girl so that he was standing beside her head. He stared down at her a moment longer, fingers flexing around his gun, and thought about Luke, focused on how empty he felt and how the pain in his heart never really seemed to go away.
Anger surged through him and he pulled in a deep breath through his nose as he raised the gun, his finger coming to rest on the trigger.
Chapter 36
The sound of Chris’s phone startled him awake and he looked at the clock on his bedside table. It was just after nine, and he frowned as he fumbled for his phone, annoyed with himself for sleeping so late.
“Tyler,” he muttered when he pressed the phone to his ear, shifting to sit on the edge of the bed.
“Sir, they’ve found a body.”
Chris froze in the act of rubbing his eyes, and the last vestiges of sleep left him to be replaced by an uncomfortable tight feeling in his gut.
“Female, young, blonde,” Agent Warren continued, “matches, um – Hannah’s general physical description. She’s pretty beat up from what we can tell, but she’s wrapped in a blanket.”
“Nobody’s touched her, have they?” Chris asked urgently, afraid of losing evidence.
“No, sir. Martinez and I were the first ones here, and we’re waiting on Dr. Hartsfield, the SOC team, and you.”
“Good,” Chris muttered, running a hand through his sleep mussed hair. “Where?” he managed to ask, swallowing hard as the tightness moved to his throat.
Warren rattled off a location, a ditch off the side of the highway just inside the Arlington county limits, and Chris’s hand moved to his mouth as he stared blankly at the dresser across from his bed.
“Secure the scene,” he murmured. “I’ll be there in 30.”
He ended the call and sat for a moment, his phone clenched in his hand.
It was much too soon, more than two days too early, but that didn’t mean anything. The kidnapper had made no ransom demands, didn’t seem to want anything at all other than Hannah, and he had that.
Chris stood and wandered into the bathroom to shave and brush his teeth, running on autopilot, his mind a million miles away.
He remembered the first time he met Hannah, at the office Christmas party his first year in D.C.
In the six months he had been there at that point, he had seen her a few times, but hadn’t really met her, and seized the opportunity to introduce himself and talk to her. She had been gorgeous in a red dress, fitted enough to emphasize her curves, but not enough to be indecent, wi
th her hair lying over her shoulders in golden curls. She had listened to him talk, her eyes bright and her expression attentive, and had laughed when he finished his story, her hair falling around her face as her head fell forward.
He thought maybe that was the point when he fell in love with her a little bit, and had entertained the thought of asking her out until some hulking guy approached, a beer in one hand that he kept for himself, and a cup of water in the other that he handed to Hannah. The water had made Chris knock down her age estimation by a year, not that it really mattered; age had never been a deterrent for him, and Hannah had seemed much more mature than 20.
Not that that had mattered either. She had a boyfriend, the large man she had introduced as Seth, and Chris had never pursued anybody already in a relationship, though he couldn’t help noticing how much bigger Seth was than Hannah, and wondered how in the world they worked with the size disparity alone. He had also gotten a vibe from the other man that made him uncomfortable, especially when they walked away and Seth put his arm around her, his hand sliding from her hip to rest possessively on her backside.
Chris knew it had been for him, to let him know who she belonged to, and it had made him uneasy. He had met guys like Seth before, and thought that if things weren’t bad yet, they would get there soon, but he’d only just met Hannah and had no room to warn her, especially when he had no proof beyond the feeling in his gut.
It hadn’t been a great surprise when he found out a few months later that she had broken up with her boyfriend, and when he casually mentioned to David that he wanted to ask her out, David had promptly ripped him a new one.
It wasn’t until he discovered why Hannah had broken up with her boyfriend, discovered that his initial gut feeling about that the other man had been right, that he understood why David had shot him down so aggressively.
The desire to date her never really went away, but though they had shared a slightly drunken kiss at the most recent Christmas party, their relationship was purely platonic, with occasional harmless flirty undertones. He couldn’t deny that he still sometimes thought of her late at night, but most of the time he just saw her as one of his best friends, and felt a fierce desire to want to protect her. The thought that this body could end up being her terrified him more than anything ever had.
After he was done in the bathroom, he moved back into the bedroom to get dressed, and then plucked his watch from the bedside table and slipped it on. As he fumbled with the clasp, he realized his hands were trembling just slightly, and he heaved a loud sigh, just as something caught his eye.
It was the picture of him and Hannah on the corner of his dresser, and he stopped what he was doing as he stared at it. He had his arm around her shoulders and she was leaning into him, smiling in that way that always looked like she was going to start laughing at any moment.
Pain throbbed in his chest as he stared at it, and he tore his gaze away from it as he shoved the watch into his pocket, intending to deal with it later. He gathered the rest of what he needed, and strode from his bedroom and out of the apartment, heading down to his car.
Far too soon he was standing on the side of the freeway, watching the cars pass by in the two unblocked lanes in a determined effort to keep from looking down into the ditch on the other side of the railing.
“Who found her?” he asked Agent Warren.
“That gentleman over there,” the other man replied, pointing to an older man standing beside a patrol car, being questioned by another agent. He appeared to be dressed for church, his brow furrowed in concern, and Chris felt a rush of sympathy as he looked at him.
“Pretty much the definition of Good Samaritan,” Warren continued. “He pulled over to use his cell phone and happened to glance down into the ditch and noticed the girl’s hair sticking out of the blanket. In another flash of brilliance, he called us instead of Arlington PD because he remembered seeing the missing person notice on the news this morning.”
“Give the man a medal,” Chris murmured, sighing as he turned his gaze to the ground, his hand coming to rest on his hip.
The crunch of footsteps behind him made him turn to see the medical examiner, a petite woman in her forties, walking towards him.
“Dr. Hartsfield,” he said by way of greeting when she was within earshot, giving her a nod as he ran a quick hand through his hair. “What’ve you got?”
“Caucasian female, early to mid twenties, blonde. Single GSW to the head. Liver temp and lack of rigor indicate she’s been dead and out here probably less than two hours.”
“Any other signs of trauma?” Chris asked, not sure he wanted to know, but knowing he needed to ask.
“Bruising on her arms and legs, some defensive wounds on her hands. Some possible signs of sexual assault, but I’ll know for sure once I examine her more.” She took a breath, pushing a stray section of dark hair behind her ear. “Extensive bruising on her face; appears to be antemortem, possibly perimortem. Again, I’ll know for sure once I’ve examined her better.”
Chris nodded but didn’t respond, and Dr. Hartsfield looked up at him, her eyebrows lifting slightly.
“Do you think you could ID her here?” she asked.
Chris sighed and glanced down into the ditch before looking away again.
“Probably. I was thinking I’d wait until you took her to the morgue and look there, just so I can be absolutely certain.”
He didn’t add that he was afraid of how he might react if it really was her, and the less people who saw that, the better.
Dr. Hartsfield raised her eyebrows. “Have you called Agent Cole?”
Chris shook his head. “Not yet. If I can’t ID her, then he’ll have to, but for now, I don’t want to dump this on him just yet.”
Dr. Hartsfield nodded. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready to take her.”
Chris gave a quick nod and watched as she climbed back over the railing before his eyes flicked back over the girl in the ditch. She’d been unwrapped from the blanket, revealing her to be completely naked, a fact that made him strongly suspect sexual assault. Her face was turned away from him and her long blonde hair spilled over the worn brown fabric of the blanket.
His gaze moved to her feet and he could see the bright blue nail polish on her toenails. The memory of the last day he saw Hannah rose in his mind, and he thought about how he’d been about to ask what color her toes were before David shoved him from the office. He found her affinity for crazy nail polish colors endearing, and he suddenly missed her so much it hurt.
The pang in his heart grew as he looked at the girl in the ditch. Even if it wasn’t Hannah, it was still some poor girl who had so much life ahead of her, somebody’s daughter, maybe somebody’s girlfriend or wife, somebody who was loved and would be missed.
He sighed and turned away, running a hand down his face.
Sometimes, he hated this job.
Chapter 37
Juliet moved around David’s kitchen, setting coffee to brew and then peering inside the refrigerator for something to make for breakfast.
After Eli had gone home the night before, Juliet had fallen asleep on David’s couch, and had woken up to a blanket spread over her and a pillow under her head. It just served to remind her why she loved him so much.
Her thoughts drifted back to yesterday afternoon, coming over and finding Karen at the house, the two of them on the deck and behaving more civilly than she’d ever seen. While she knew David was right, knew Karen had every right to stick around until her daughter was found, it still didn’t sit right with Juliet that she was here.
It was something she would have to deal with, though, and she sighed as she snapped the refrigerator door shut, contemplating asking David if he wanted to go out for breakfast. It would do him good to get out of the house; he could only clean and brood so much.
The coffee pot beeped that it was ready, and she grabbed a mug from the cabinet just as her phone rang. She frowned, feeling a sharp, stabbing sense of unease as she set
the mug down on the counter and hurried into the living room. She pulled her phone from her purse and stared at the name on the display before answering it.
“Hello?” she said, casting a furtive glance at the stairs as she moved back into the kitchen.
“Hey,” Chris said, and just from that one word Juliet knew something was wrong.
“What’s happened?” she asked.
She heard him take a breath before he spoke again. “We found a body.”
“Shit,” she breathed, gripping the counter as she leaned against it. “Is it – I mean, do you know –”
“Not yet,” he said. “I couldn’t – I couldn’t look there,” he added quietly. “I’m headed to the ME’s office right now.”
“I’ll meet you there,” Juliet said, already moving back into the living room for her shoes.
“You’ll meet who where?”
Juliet looked up, startled, and saw David coming down the stairs, dressed in jeans and a plain black t-shirt, and running a hand through his freshly washed hair, still wet from the shower.
She ended the call and moved around the couch to drop her phone back into her purse.
“Chris, he, uh, wants a progress meeting,” she said, avoiding David’s gaze as she dug in her purse for her keys.
“Why? Did he find something?”
The urgency was evident in his voice, and she winced inwardly as she saw him move closer to her out of the corner of her eye.
“No, he just –”
“Jules.”
She looked up then and saw the hope and fear mingled on his face, and knew she had to tell him. Taking a breath, she stepped towards him, wiping her palms on her jeans.
“They, um – they found a body,” she said quietly.
David’s eyes widened and he swayed a little on his feet, his hand gripping the back of the couch so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
“They don’t know who it is yet,” Juliet continued quickly. “So – so it might not be her. Chris is heading for the ME’s office, and I told him I’d meet him.”