Shattered

by Allison Brennan

  “They’ll have to!”

  “They won’t.”

  “But you can,” John said. “You can make them. I’ve read all your books, Max. I know you don’t give up, that you’ll convince the police to listen to you.”

  “You must not have read my work carefully. But that’s beside the point. You can’t expect the police to do anything more than they’ve already done.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” John said. There was a bit of anger there, a bit of fight. Max would need to tap into that before she was through.

  “Honey,” Blair squeezed his hand, then turned to Max. “Whatever you can do, Maxine, we appreciate. But if you can’t—I understand. That you believe in me, in us, means everything to me.”

  When had Max given Blair the impression that she believed in her? Max didn’t know if she was guilty or not. And without access to the evidence or investigation, Max wouldn’t know if Peter’s death was the same as the other three cases.

  “All right,” Max said.

  John and Blair both looked relieved. “Thank you for understanding,” John said. “Will you be covering the trial for NET? You said the other day you didn’t know.”

  “I still don’t know,” she said. But now she wanted to. Something clicked inside, an instinct that had her more than a little curious about what really prompted this impromptu meeting, and she wanted to be here for the trial.

  “Well, if you don’t, we’ll see you after the trial if you decide to come back from New York and help us,” Blair said. “We know your time is valuable, and you might not be able to help, but we understand.”

  “New York?”

  “Yes, I assume you’re returning soon.”

  “No.”

  Blair stared at her. “But you just said—just now—that you weren’t going to pursue this. All the conversation and conflict and stress—”

  “Shh, dear,” John said. “That’s not what she meant. Max has other investigations she’s working on.”

  “I’m going to San Diego tomorrow,” Max said.

  “Why?” Blair asked. “Isn’t that”—she turned to her husband—“John.”

  “Stanton,” he said. “The first little boy who died.”

  Blair looked pained. “You said you weren’t going to pursue these cases!”

  “No, I said that I wasn’t going to investigate Peter’s death. Not now, at any rate. But the other three cases are still just as compelling. Justin Stanton, Tommy Porter, and Chris Donovan. Donovan’s father was convicted of his murder, but the case had serious problems—I’m surprised he hasn’t appealed the conviction.” When Max first read the transcript, she immediately thought that Donovan had the worst representation she’d ever seen in a trial. He should never have been convicted, though he didn’t do much to help himself. Guilt? Grief? Max didn’t know—and she wouldn’t until David talked to him.

  “Why those other cases?” John asked.

  “Because they’re cold cases and that’s what I do.” She sipped her wine. “John, as I explained to you, I don’t get involved with active police investigations. But cold cases—they intrigue me. And these three? I haven’t been this caught up in an investigation in a long, long time. I’m going to solve them. And I promise, if I find anything that can help Blair, I’ll let you know.”

  “This isn’t going to help!” Blair exclaimed. She glanced around, as if she were afraid someone had overheard. But the dining room was almost empty. It was past closing with only a few occupied tables finishing up dessert and coffee.

  “I’m not doing this to help or hurt you, Blair. I’m doing it to give three families closure. To find justice for three little boys who had their lives taken too soon. And honestly—I won’t know if they’re connected until I dig deeper.” Though Max’s gut told her they were. “But I will dig, and I will at a minimum prove whether the boys were killed by the same person. At that point, I’ll turn the information over to law enforcement. If they pursue it, I won’t. If they don’t? Let’s put it this way—I’ve never shied away from the difficult cases.”

  “Max,” John said, “I know you mean well, but I think it would be best if you just went back to New York.”

  “How can my investigation into a twenty-year-old murder affect Blair’s case?” What had Blair said to John that had him doing a complete one-eighty? Something had happened between the time Max had walked through John’s house and now.

  Covering trials wasn’t Max’s favorite part of her job with NET. She found courtroom procedures tedious and uninteresting. But with the trial often came interviews with victims, witnesses, and defendants, and those were far more exciting for Max, who craved to understand the people and world around her.

  But now, after this change of focus with John, there was nothing she wanted to do more than cover Blair Caldwell’s trial. If she was going to write about these cases, she needed to be there—to hear the testimony, see the evidence, and know in both her heart and her head whether Blair Caldwell had killed her son.

  Because right now, she thought the police had the right person. Though for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why.

  This time last year, Max would have flat out told Blair she thought she was guilty just to see how she would react. But if Max had learned anything over her last few investigations, it was that sometimes being blunt didn’t help. If she revealed her thoughts, John would completely cut her out and she wanted access to him. Access to him without Blair in the room.

  “I can’t stop you.” John’s eyes were damp, and Max didn’t think he was faking the emotion. “I just—please—consider how your actions may have a detrimental effect on Blair’s case.”

  She reached out and touched John’s hand, partly because she knew it would irritate his wife. “I promise you, John, I will be discreet. There is nothing I care more about than finding justice for victims, whether the case is a year old or twenty years old.”

  “I know, Max. I know.” He squeezed her hand.

  If Blair was guilty, Max would skewer her.

  Chapter Six

  “Andrew? I’m going to put you on speaker. Sean’s here, too.”

  Rookie FBI Agent Lucy Kincaid Rogan put her cell phone down on the island in the kitchen where she and Sean had been eating a late dinner.

  “Stanton?” Sean mouthed. Lucy nodded. Her former brother-in-law had never directly called her before, and she’d known him her entire life. She was both suspicious and curious. Why would the DA of San Diego reach out to her? Family or work? She’d last seen him more than a year ago during the Christmas holidays, and that hadn’t been under the best of circumstances.

  “Hello, Sean,” Andrew said.

  “Andrew.”

  “I’m sorry to call so late.”

  “Nine isn’t late for us,” Lucy said. “Just tell me that everything’s okay.”

  “Yes—in a manner of speaking. Your family’s fine, as far as I know. They don’t really talk to me anymore.”

  Lucy knew why—her sister Nelia was Andrew’s ex, and Andrew had cheated on Nelia. There was more—a lot more—but Lucy had been so young when they split up that she didn’t truly understand the situation. Andrew had always been kind to her, and when she needed his help last Christmas to get information, he’d come through. She respected that.

  Andrew continued, “I don’t know exactly how to broach this subject, so I’ll get to the point. An investigative reporter is looking into Justin’s murder. She claims that she has compelling evidence that Justin’s death is connected to two or more homicides in the Southwest. She’ll be in San Diego tomorrow.”

  That was the last thing Lucy expected Andrew to say. She didn’t know how to respond—her nephew Justin’s murder had haunted her for nearly twenty years, but she’d put it behind her. She’d been seven, the same age as Justin. They’d been best friends and had grown up together until Justin was kidnapped and murdered. It had torn the family apart.

  “A reporter?” Sean said, his voice edged with anger.
“Why are you calling Lucy?”

  “I think there might be something to this woman’s theory. Lucy, I don’t have a right to ask for your help, but the last time I wanted to revisit Justin’s murder, I ran up against a brick wall known as the Kincaid family.”

  That didn’t surprise Lucy. Her family never wanted to discuss Justin or his death. It had been a dark time in the Kincaid family history. Twenty years was a long time, and most crimes this old would never be solved.

  “I didn’t know you had wanted to reopen Justin’s case.”

  “As an unsolved homicide, it’s never been closed. Eight years ago—you’d just left for Georgetown.” He paused. “I never told you this, and I don’t want to bring up bad memories.”

  “I’m a big girl, Andrew.”

  Sean took her hand, lightly kissed it, and held it. She could feel the tension within him—this was nearly as difficult for him as it was for her. The past. Her past.

  “After your kidnapping—when you came home—I wanted to be there for you, for your family. Even after everything that has happened, and all the mistakes I’ve made, I care about you and all the Kincaids. Your parents have always been cordial, but your brothers and sister never forgave me. Especially Connor and Carina, maybe because they still live here and I work with them. They didn’t want me around, and I walked away. But I thought maybe—if I could put Justin to rest—they could find peace. Not knowing why someone killed my son…” His voice faded away, then he cleared his throat and said, “I approached your father. He was adamant that I stand down. Carina found out I had pulled the case files, and confronted me—it wasn’t pretty. At the time, Patrick was still in a coma, I knew your family was suffering, you’d moved cross-country, Dillon—who has always been the diplomat of the family, and the only one who I know forgave me—was living in D.C. I didn’t have a buffer, so I shelved it.”

  “I didn’t know any of that.” It stunned her. She caught Sean’s eye. He was listening closely to Andrew.

  Sean said, “Why? If you had something new, why would you shelve it?”

  “I didn’t have anything new—I just wanted to look at the case with fresh eyes, time, new technology. But I couldn’t put your family through a new investigation when they had nearly lost you, Lucy, and Patrick’s future was so uncertain.”

  “I understand,” Lucy said, and she did. “But the reporter changed your mind?”

  “Yes, she has. But your family isn’t going to want to go through this, and I don’t want to hurt them.”

  “Then why do it at all?” Sean asked.

  “Because Maxine Revere is going to investigate whether I want her to or not. And honestly, Sean? I want answers. God, I want to know what happened. For years I deferred my pain to your family—Nelia’s family. When every lead dried up, they put it behind them. Not completely—I know Justin haunts them as much as he haunts me. But Nelia moved to Idaho, and that was it. They wanted no part of me, no part of my ideas or talking about what happened. But I’m a prosecutor—having any crime unsolved bothers me, but my own son? It’s fingernails on the chalkboard, every waking minute. I’ve looked into this Revere woman. She has a solid track record solving cold cases.”

  “But what is she going to do after?” Sean asked. He caught Lucy’s eye. She knew exactly what he was thinking. “Lucy and I steer clear of reporters.”

  “She wants my help, and I plan on laying down ground rules. Protecting you is my number one priority, Lucy.”

  “I don’t need your protection, Andrew.” Lucy saw the darkness cross Sean’s face. She took his hand. “What do you want from me? Do you want me to talk to my family? Convince them to cooperate? Talk to this reporter?”

  “Actually, I want you to listen to what Revere has to say. You’re an FBI agent. You have the training and experience to weed through the bullshit and get to the meat. I know you’ve had a rocky start to your career—but I have friends in high places, Lucy. You have closed some extremely difficult cases.”

  True, though she hadn’t been the only agent involved in those complex cases.

  Andrew continued. “In hindsight, I don’t think anyone understood the pain you went through when Justin died. He was as close as a brother to you, we all knew that, but after his death everyone seemed to forget that you were grieving. They shielded you from the investigation, from the truth of what happened that night because you were only seven years old. You’re probably the only Kincaid who doesn’t have a preconceived notion as to what happened. I think you’re the only one who can look at the evidence with an unbiased eye. Who doesn’t blame me.”

  “No one blames you, Andrew.”

  He laughed, but it was filled with anguish and sorrow. “I wish that were true. Connor said it when the truth came out—when your family found out I was having an affair. He said if I’d been there, at home that night and not in bed with my mistress, Justin would be alive. A bit more crudely, but that was his message. There’s not been a day that has passed that I haven’t thought about that, whether it was true. If I am ultimately, even indirectly, to blame.” He took a deep breath. “Nell and I have made peace with each other. I talk to her, once a year, on Justin’s birthday. We made a lot of mistakes, but Justin wasn’t one of them. She’s content now. She has Tom, he’s been good for her, and while I don’t know if she’s happy, I know she’s at peace. I don’t want to hurt her. I will keep her out of this as best I can, but in the end, she may have information that she doesn’t know she has. I know that no one, not even Dillon, will discuss it with her. Except you. I think you would do it.”

  What did that make Lucy? Cruel? Is that what Andrew thought of her, because she had a reputation for being cold?

  “Andrew—”

  “I don’t know that it’ll come to that,” he said, interrupting her. “I’d just like you to hear what this woman has to say. If you tell me there’s nothing, that going down this path will result in no answers and only heartache for your family, I’ll do everything in my power to stop her. But if you see what I see, that we might finally get answers as to why Justin died, that we might find out who killed him … I don’t have anyone else, Lucy.”

  “A moment, Andrew,” Sean said. He put the phone on mute. “It’s your choice, Lucy. Whatever you decide, I’m with you.”

  The grief Lucy had experienced when Justin was killed nearly twenty years ago had been young and immature, but no less painful. She didn’t know what had happened to him, not right away. She didn’t know why her mother cried all the time, why her sister Nelia wouldn’t talk to her, why there were policemen in her house, why Carina needed a lawyer, why no one would let Andrew come over for dinner anymore. All she knew was that Justin, her best friend since birth, was gone. One day he was there, playing catch with her in the backyard, swimming with her at the community pool, teasing her when she lisped after her two front teeth fell out. Her mother watched Justin during the week because Nelia and Andrew both worked so Lucy spent more waking hours with Justin than any other person her age. They’d even been in the same first-grade class together. And that summer was supposed to be the most fun ever. They were going to go to a sleepover camp for the first time for two whole weeks. It was all Justin could talk about, he was so excited.

  But that never happened because he was killed two weeks before they were supposed to leave.

  He was gone. One day there, the next not. She’d been gutted, but she didn’t talk to anyone about it because everyone was so sad and talking about Justin seemed to make them sadder.

  Maybe that was why she’d always kept her emotions deep inside. Partly because of her own kidnapping and rape when she was eighteen … but it had started a long time before then. It had started when she grieved for her best friend and couldn’t talk to anyone about it.

  While she understood death, had faced evil, and knew that bad people did horrific things to innocent people, she didn’t always know why.

  Maybe finding out who killed Justin wasn’t as important as finding out why he w
as killed.

  And if there were other victims of the same killer, did that mean the killer was still out there? After nearly twenty years? Would he kill again? Destroy another family?

  “I have to,” Lucy whispered to Sean.

  He kissed her hand. “I know.”

  She would have smiled if she wasn’t so melancholy. “I love you.”

  He winked. “I know.”

  Now she did smile, because if she didn’t, she might cry. And tears weren’t productive.

  She unmuted the phone. “When is this reporter coming?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon. I don’t have the exact time.”

  “Text me the details. I’ll be there.”

  Chapter Seven

  Danielle Sharpe didn’t like going out with people from work, but it was expected. For every time she declined an invitation, she had to accept one—otherwise people would look at her too closely. She just wanted to do her job and go home, drink a bottle of wine, and try to sleep.

  Try being the operative word. Sleep was a rarity for her. When she felt herself being dragged under from exhaustion, she would take a sleeping pill or three. Her body needed the rest, even if her mind couldn’t.

  There had been a time … more than once … when she considered taking the entire bottle of prescription sleeping pills with a large glass of wine and recline in her bathtub. Just fall asleep. Slip under. Disappear forever.

  But would death end her nightmare? Or would Earth’s cruel God force her to relieve the worst day of her life? Over and over and over …

  Nina Fieldstone poked her head into the bathroom. “Danielle, are you coming?”

  “Just touching up my makeup. Two minutes?”

  Nina smiled. She was a pretty woman, smart, and one of the few in the office with whom Danielle felt a rapport. Nina was technically her supervisor but had never made Danielle feel stupid or unvalued. Because Nina had been the one to ask her to join the group for their “Wine Wednesday,” Danielle had agreed.