by Dianna Love
When she came fully into focus, Riley felt an unwanted stir at the sight of her that surprised him. Had to be the overwhelming sense of relief he was still experiencing over the possibility that Enrique might still be alive.
Or that he’d simply lost all sense of self-preservation.
This woman could do nothing but cause him more trouble than he was already in. Sure, he had all the freedom of speech rights he could ask for, but the killer had drawn Riley deep into this mess in a way that would be hard to explain soon if they didn’t find the guy. In the meantime, he’d have to tap dance around Kirsten Massey.
She didn’t hiss or show claws when crossed. No, she went for the jugular vein when she rose to a battle. There was something about a woman with fire that spawned his interest. Go figure. Especially since this one would use that fire to incinerate him.
Just proved that the lower half of a man’s body completely disconnected from the brain when introduced to a particular set of female pheromones.
She didn’t change direction to see the corpse first, still pinning that formidable gaze on Riley. A crimson scarf wrapped her neck in a brutal slash of red.
His backup weapon had usually been charm and he needed it now in spades.
“How is it, Walker,” she started before she even reached him. “That you manage to get here so quickly?”
Riley jumped down from the bed, diverting the light so that some still illuminated her face without broiling her skin. He shook his head, warding off the attack. “You wouldn’t have known about this without my tip and we haven’t gone near the body.”
“J. T. told me you got the call again. Did you manage to get through to J. T. right away after the killer called or did your thumb slip and hit the ‘end’ button three times to buy you an extra ten minute head start?” She glared up at Biddy. “Cut that camera off right now unless you want to share a cell with Walker.”
Her demand broke the fragile silence in the cemetery and shifted the macabre mood into business as usual.
“Turn it off, okay?” Riley asked Biddy before his cameraman gave her his ‘freedom of speech’ response.
“That’s crap, but whatever.” Biddy flipped a switch and the light on top of the camera died then he lowered the heavy piece to the truck bed.
Riley turned back to answer her, but she cut him off. “Do not waste my time with your well-constructed time line for calling Detective Turner.” She shoved a hand on each hip. “Do you really think we’re that stupid?”
“I don’t think you’re stupid,” Riley answered in an innocent tone. “And I definitely don’t think Detective Turner’s stupid, so I’m not sure who you’re alluding to with ‘we.’” He figured he was hitting on all cylinders when she paused in silent thought.
Riley followed up with a smile.
Big mistake. That yanked the plug holding back her boiling temper.
“I’m so not in the mood for cute crap,” she snapped. “I want answers, now. No bullshit or I’ll add breaking and entering to your list of transgressions.”
Riley lifted his shoulders. “I called J.T. the minute I got the killer’s call. Gate was open when I got here. Hell, we followed Turner inside. I’m playing by the rules.”
J. T. stalked up to them in time to catch the end of her spiel. He hiked an eyebrow full of doubt at Riley.
No help there.
Right now, Kirsten and J. T. were on the same team that Riley needed to divide for any hope of getting out of this.
As J. T. stepped into their circle of conversation and crossed his arms, listening, Riley asked Kirsten, “You don’t want me to give Detective Turner my report first? I sort of thought J. T. did the initial investigation then sent his reports to you, but hey – ” Riley lifted his hands away from his body in a what-the-hell motion. “If you want to take my statement first, that’s fine.”
J. T.’s dark eyebrows lowered and he opened his mouth to speak. If he appeased the investigator he’d ruin Riley’s division tactic.
But Kirsten jumped in, unwittingly aiding him.
“Of course, not.” The chagrined look she gave J. T. almost made Riley feel bad for putting her on the spot. Almost. “Give him your statement then I want to speak with you.”
She was a spitfire with a straight-laced sense of duty. Didn’t take much to get her ticked off, but she wouldn’t dare cross the lines of protocol.
“In that case, I’ll give my statement to Turner.” Riley cast the detective a look of “do something” like take out a notepad, which Turner did.
“I’m going to take a look.” Kirsten angled her head at the corpse. “Stay here, Walker. I’ll be back as soon as Detective Turner is through with you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Kirsten’s lips tightened with irritation. She wheeled away and marched off.
Riley grinned at the rear shot. All passion and fury. Too bad she was with the DA’s office.
J. T. shook his head and rolled his eyes as if Riley had made a big mistake.
“What?” Riley asked.
“She hates to be called ma’am.”
“Really?” Riley chuckled. He’d tuck that away to use later. J. T. started writing as Riley rattled off his statement. Before finishing he had a question for J. T. “Any luck tracing that last call? He had to be on a cell phone watching us.”
J. T. nodded. “That one was a cell phone.”
“Really?” Hot damn.
“Don’t get excited. They found it in a garbage can. The phone was a prepaid and the number fit a stolen phone report.”
Shit.
When the detective walked away from him to where a cluster of officers now scurried around the site, Riley turned to Biddy. “Can you edit this tape?”
“Sure. Got it all set up in my basement.”
“I’m stuck here until she’s appeased or I’ll end up in jail. J. T. told me last night she’s got a warrant ready to process.”
Biddy gave him an ah-shit sigh. “Told you she was a ball buster.”
“First I’m going to convince her I’m worth more to this investigation free to move around than I am locked up then I’ll see what I can get her to share.” Be easier to open a clam with a toothpick, but he’d cracked hard nuts before. Riley checked his watch. “It’s going on four-thirty. Why don’t we meet at WNUZ at six so I can do the voice over and we’ll offer Lehman a deal he can’t refuse before we jump everyone on the morning news.”
“No problem.” Biddy loaded the equipment in the bag and carried it with the ease of toting a sack of feathers.
Riley waited in the designated spot.
And waited.
Massey ignored him for the next hour and then some, which started cutting him close on reaching the station in time with traffic piling up.
Two other news stations had already packed up and left. A flock of helicopters still filmed from overhead. Photographers traipsed all over the cemetery for shots, but nobody had the film Biddy had taken or the report Riley would voice over.
All he needed was five minutes to make Lehman capitulate. WNUZ’s GM might be a bastard on his best day, but Lehman was serious about rebuilding that station. He wouldn’t refuse a story that would help WNUZ’s bottom line.
When Massey finally looked his way, Riley waved and tapped his watch.
She said something to J. T. who nodded then Miss Investigator Massey strode toward him. Light peeked over the horizon in waves of pink, orange and purple. When Massey finally reached him, Riley was prepared for anything she said except, “I’d like to see your cell phone.”
Refusing her would put him on shaky footing immediately. “Sure.” He fished the phone out of his pocket and handed it over.
“Thank you.” Massey turned around.
“Whoa, wait a minute. I need that phone.”
She looked over her shoulder. “Really?”
What the hell? But he wouldn’t get anywhere by antagonizing her. “There’s just an Unknown ID from the guy’s call. How about taking
a quick look and handing back my phone then if you’re going to be tied up for a while we can meet over breakfast or lunch. My treat.”
“I’ll think about that.” She took another step.
“What? Hey, we both have a job to do, but I’ve got less than thirty minutes to make it to the station.”
Massey turned back around at that and walked straight to Riley.
“You were one of the first witnesses on this scene, and you know about the blanket, so you’re not going anywhere until Detective Turner is ready to take you with him.” She angled her head in a way that said she would not negotiate. “I’ll allow you to remain uncuffed, but you are a person of interest in this case. Take one step away from where you stand and you’ll land in lockup before you can say your name. As a minimum, I can put you in protective custody immediately. And this?” She held up his phone. “Is mine right now. You wanted to be in the middle of this investigation. Consider your wish granted.”
Chapter 30
After an hour observing and talking to forensics while Detective Turner interacted with his men, Kirsten finally caught the detective’s eye and waved him over from where the body was being removed from the headstone. Turner’s teams still scoured the cemetery for evidence.
Was this killing tied to Philomena House, too? A serial killer picking on poor citizens?
Turner strode up to her, his boots crunching through frozen turf. When he got close, his gaze cut sideways then back to her. “What’s Riley still doing here?”
“I told him not to leave. Not unless he wanted to wear handcuffs.” The look that settled on Turner’s face unhinged her confidence. A chill of warning traveled up her spine, that she wanted to attribute to the sub-forty-degree weather, but knew better. “I took his phone until I could confirm he’d called you immediately and isn’t playing some game with this killer.”
“What’d you find out?”
“I contacted his station on the way here. They hadn’t received a call from anyone this morning for Riley, so if he heard from the killer it was most likely on this phone, which is suspect all in itself. There is an unknown caller right before he dialed you, but that would mean the killer has his cell phone number.”
“Actually, he told me last night the killer had called him on his cell phone yesterday.”
She’d been right to hold that lying media dog here. “Yesterday? And he didn’t tell me? That just sealed his fate.”
Turner held up his hand. “Wait a minute. He got the call after you told me not to contact you unless we had a break in the case. Technically, I didn’t see that as a break so I didn’t tell you. What’s going on? You two have history?”
“Not even. I don’t socialize with the media. They’re all a bunch of cold-hearted vultures waiting on any bloody scrap for a story.”
“I tend to agree with you in most cases, but I’m not sure it’s fair to label Riley that way, any more than it would be fair to say everyone with a law degree is a blood sucker with no conscience.” Turner’s tired eyes creased with humor.
He had a point since she didn’t lump herself in with attorneys who preyed on the naïve. Kirsten rubbed her eyes and raked a handful of hair back off her face and sighed. “Point taken, but the media can not be trusted. Especially not someone with his track record from Detroit.”
“Yeah, well...” Turner shoved his fedora back and scratched his forehead. “I did some checking last night after I left Riley. Got ahold of the detective in Detroit that was on the Kindergarten Killer case. He said there’s another side of the story that was never made public.”
Kirsten raised an eyebrow in question. “Why not?”
“I consider this under the rules of confidentiality right now because this can’t get out in public.”
That he had to ask her to keep what he said in confidence stung her pride. She was the last person who would help the media. “I don’t share anything that goes through the DA office or the police department with anyone.”
“This isn’t official business, but it was told to me in confidence. The detective in Detroit said they couldn’t tell the public they were working with Riley to get a shot at tracking the Kindergarten Killer. Not even his station knew Riley had gone to the police with the idea of offering the killer an interview on the air.”
“But the interview was Riley’s idea, right?”
Turner nodded. “True. But, the detective said he warned Walker it was dangerous and Walker told him it was their job as adults to protect children. That it couldn’t be any more dangerous for him than for the kids being grabbed by this nut case. Plus Riley put his job on the line and broke union rules when he went to do the interview because he wouldn’t take a cameraman with him and wouldn’t let the station know the location. That’s why no one backed him from his station when everything went to sh...down the toilet. Not easy to watch someone commit suicide with a handgun in front of you either.”
Discomfort dug into Kirsten’s shoulder blades. She didn’t want to feel bad about what happened to Riley in Detroit, but this put a new look on what she’d believed until now.
Turner added, “And one other thing – he ruined his media credibility by tricking the Kindergarten Killer. A lot of people wouldn’t trust him again to be interviewed in secret. That’s currency in his business.”
“I have to admit I’m surprised.” Shocked would be a better word. Her father would fire someone over that. She mumbled her next thought out loud. “Why would he put his career and life on the line for the child of a stranger?”
The silence that followed her question all but slapped her in the face with Turner’s unspoken reply. Maybe for the same reason law enforcement puts their lives on the line for strangers every day. “Never mind. I know the answer.”
“What’re you going to do about Riley?”
She’d made a grave tactical error. “I don’t know. I may have turned our best hope of help on this case into an enemy.”
“Talk to him. He’s a reasonable person and I think he may have sources we can’t get to.”
She cut her eyes at Walker who leaned against his truck with arms crossed, jaw squared and eyes on the ground. “What about his phone?”
“Give it back to him. I think the killer was watching us this morning, because he called with final instructions right after we arrived. Probably best we leave Riley free to take calls. I believe he contacted me the minute he hung up from the killer’s first call on this body.”
“In that case, wish me luck.” She walked through the throng of officers who still searched the cemetery for evidence and dodged the ME waving the gurney over to load the body. As she got closer to Walker she noticed something she hadn’t seen from a distance. He still leaned against his truck with his arms folded over his chest.
But he was fuming.
He hadn’t stomped around angry or made sniping comments. Daylight had been a suggestion at that point. The sun blazed overhead now, melting pockets in the snow-covered ground, not warming Walker’s disposition one bit.
His stare would back down an armed South American warlord and she had put the venom in that gaze.
But what was she supposed to think when she’d confirmed at four this morning that WNUZ had not received any call for Riley Walker since yesterday? In her mind, there was no way the killer’s call had been forwarded from the station.
Thus, the killer had Walker’s phone number. Those two were in communication. Looked guilty as hell.
Kirsten had come up with the logical conclusion that Riley had withheld information from the police, and her, yesterday. A valid reason to take possession of his cell phone this morning to determine if his story checked out.
She walked toward him, chin up, eyes steady, ignoring the chaos going on in her stomach. She had to make amends, because as much as she might not like the fact – they did need him on this investigation. For the love of St. Bridget, she hated kissing up to a man whose very profession put her teeth on edge.
At arm’s length
away, Kirsten stopped and held out her hand with the phone on her palm, positioned as a peace offering. She could be polite. “Here’s your phone.”
The newsman didn’t move to take his phone, just continued to lean against the side of his truck and lifted that fuck-you stare to meet her gaze.
Crap. What happened to the flirt from earlier? “I’ve confirmed that you contacted Detective Turner immediately after receiving the anonymous call.” She didn’t try a smile since he clearly wasn’t receptive to playing nice. When he still didn’t speak or move, she accepted the obvious. She’d have to suck it up to take one for the team and apologize, but she wouldn’t grovel to a newsman, not even for the team.
“Look, Mr. Walker, I apologize for jumping to the conclusion that you had delayed contacting the police. We’re all under stress here and we all make mistakes.” Give me a break already.
He stood away from the truck, arms still crossed.
She knew how a chipmunk felt sitting too far from protective cover when a hawk zeroed in on it for lunch. But her feet were staying planted.
“You’re sorry about taking my phone?” His voice was so soft and dangerous the skin across her neck rippled. “You took my phone after Biddy left to edit the film then drive it to WNUZ to meet me so that he could sit down there for the past three hours and forty-two minutes pissed off since I didn’t so much as call him as a courtesy to let him know I’d be a no-show. I could have called him on someone else’s phone if you hadn’t instructed every officer to refuse me that one request. But that’s not even why a lame ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t cut it. The damn video was just a simple story.” Riley’s voice picked up volume.
She clenched her jaw to hold back her own frustration, sure that he wouldn’t listen to anything right now. Riley was supposed to be on suspension. How was she to know he’d intended to report this story himself? She continued to hold the phone between them, determined to make him take it.
He unfolded his arms and put his hands on his hips, leaning his head forward until the veins in his neck popped out like thick steel cables under the skin. “I was not breaking a major story. I was not using this to advance my career. I was not jacking up the ratings for the station. But I could have negotiated getting us back on the payroll, which specifically – ” Walker dropped his volume to a harsh whisper only Kirsten heard. “ – would have given Biddy his job back this week since he’s got a pregnant wife who can’t be on her feet at all right now and doesn’t need the stress of her husband being out of work. He needs this job for the insurance alone and you may have just cost him any chance of getting it back.”