Shattered

by Allison Brennan

  It’ll take the whole bottle. You know that.

  She did. But she could control herself. She had to.

  She walked to the second bedroom she used as an office. It was functional, with a computer and printer and bookshelf filled with books she hadn’t read.

  She hadn’t read a book in a long, long time.

  But on the top shelf was a photo album. She took it down, sat at her desk, and opened it.

  She ran her fingers over the first photo. Matthew, only hours after he’d been born. So perfect. So sweet.

  Danielle couldn’t do this. She flipped to the last page and pulled out the large envelope she kept there. She opened it, dumped out the contents. Keys, mostly. A few photos. Notes. Things she didn’t dare leave behind, just in case.

  She grabbed the key chain marked F. Fieldstone. It wasn’t their chain—it wasn’t even their key. She’d made a copy last month when Nina gave her her keys to go to the archive room to retrieve files on a case that was going to appeal.

  As if subconsciously Danielle had known this was the only way.

  She put everything back in the folder, including the Fieldstone security code, which she had long memorized. She’d watched Nina months ago type it in when they’d gone over to the house to prepare for a partner dinner.

  Before Danielle found out the truth about Tony and Lana.

  Maybe she’d always known. Maybe she had a sixth sense about cheating husbands.

  You didn’t know your own husband was screwing his secretary. So cliché. So disgusting.

  Her hand itched to call that bastard and give him a tongue-lashing.

  She put the photo album back and walked down the short hall to the kitchen. Drank half the glass of wine. Retrieved her cell phone. Dialed Richard.

  He didn’t answer. Was he intentionally avoiding her calls?

  “Are you cheating on your wife, Richard? Does she know? Or is she as clueless as I was?”

  She went off on him, going from calm to angry, long after the phone beeped to tell her the recording time was up.

  She stared at the phone and almost called him back, but something tickled in the back of her mind. Something she didn’t quite remember … but it was there.

  Danielle grabbed her new car keys and went back out into the night. It was after eleven. Nina should be home by now. Danielle lived only a few minutes from La Cresenta. She turned down the Fieldstones’ street and slowed when she neared their house.

  Nina’s SUV still wasn’t there.

  On a whim, because of that tickle in the back of her mind, Danielle drove to Grace’s house. She lived in the Burbank Hills, in a beautiful home bought and paid for by Grace’s wealthy ex-husband. Money obviously didn’t buy happiness since Grace had divorced. Had he cheated on her? Probably, Grace never said. But isn’t that what men did? They wanted to screw anything that moved.

  At least, that’s what Danielle’s mom always said, and had been proven right again and again and again.

  Nina’s shiny Escalade was in the driveway … but no one else was at Grace’s. Bunco would have long been over … and Nina was the last one here by hours?

  The lights were off.

  Had she been drinking? Decided not to drive?

  Danielle parked on the street and closed her eyes. She was missing something. But her instincts—well-formed instincts from years of research and following cheating husbands—told her to grab her camera.

  She quietly exited the car and walked up the steep slope of Grace’s driveway.

  She’d been to Grace’s house before. Her daughter had a room upstairs, on the south; Grace’s suite was on the northern ground floor. Spacious, as big as Danielle’s entire house.

  Why did she even work when she had made so much money on her divorce?

  Danielle shook off the thought. She walked around the side of the house; there was a gate. Dammit.

  She tried the latch. It wasn’t locked. She quietly went down the walkway to the back of the house, then stopped.

  Two sets of sliding-glass doors opened into the backyard. This was Grace’s bedroom. Danielle had to tread carefully here. She walked to the far corner of the yard, on the other side of the pool, where palm trees grew up against the Verdugo Mountains. They didn’t belong here; they seemed so out of place. She stood against one thick tree, aimed her camera at the bedroom, hidden by the night.

  She had bought this camera years ago, but it still had some of the best features on the market. She adjusted the lens for the low-light conditions and zoomed into Grace’s bedroom.

  Maybe she wasn’t surprised, but she involuntarily gasped.

  Tony was not the only Fieldstone having an affair.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  SATURDAY

  Lucy dropped Max off at Andrew’s office Saturday morning, then borrowed Max’s rental car to drive to Carina’s house. She had to pass her parents’ to get there.

  She slowed to a stop and sat idling across the street from the small two-story house where she’d been raised. Dillon, Jack, and Nelia had all moved out of the house before Lucy was born—Nelia married to Andrew, Jack in the army, and Dillon in college and living in the room he and their dad had built above the garage. He’d received a full scholarship to UC San Diego where he planned to study sports medicine. He’d almost finished medical school when Justin was killed. He changed his focus to psychiatry, took an extra year of school, and did his residency in a facility for the criminally insane.

  Justin’s murder had touched everyone in her family, not only herself and Dillon. Connor had already been a cop when Justin was killed. Patrick was in his first year of college—a full scholarship to play baseball. While he continued to play, his heart wasn’t in it. He studied computer science and found he had a knack. Graduated, went to the police academy, and created what was now the modern-day cybersquad at SDPD.

  Lucy couldn’t remember what Carina had been studying in college when Justin was murdered. All she remembered was that she’d never gone back and instead joined the police academy. She became a cop, quickly rose in the ranks and earned her detective shield before she was thirty.

  One tragedy had a profound impact on every Kincaid. It was no surprise that it affected Lucy as well.

  No one was out in the yard. For years, the house bustled, people going in and out. Friends came to the Kincaids, and not just because Rosa always had enough food to feed an army. Rosa insisted. She wanted to know everyone’s friends, she wanted the sound of children and laughter and fun. Lucy grew up knowing every one of Patrick’s girlfriends and Carina’s boyfriends; she eavesdropped on adult conversations because most everyone was an adult around her. She understood the world long before most kids her age.

  And then one by one, they all moved out. Justin’s death extinguished the joy for a long time, and while it gradually returned, nothing was ever the same.

  How could it be?

  Lucy put the car back into drive and headed for Carina’s house. Lucy hadn’t slept well last night. The motive of this particular killer was difficult to process. Lucy knew that she was right, and Arthur Ullman had provided another insight Lucy hadn’t considered. But knowing in her heart and mind that she was right about this killer and why she was killing children did nothing to help her understand how anyone could commit such a horrific crime for the sole purpose of creating suffering among the survivors. Because it wasn’t only the mothers and fathers who were shattered by the pain. It was grandparents and aunts and uncles and friends.

  The killer didn’t think about that. She couldn’t think past her own need to inflict as much emotional pain on others as she could. Did it alleviate her own suffering? Did it give her any peace?

  Lucy thought not. If murder had given her peace, she would have stopped. Instead, she continued the cycle of pain.

  Lucy stopped the car in front of Carina’s house. She’d bought it a few years before she met her husband, Nick. Before that, she’d lived with a boyfriend in a beachfront condo, and before that
she’d lived at home. Carina had perhaps been the most affected by being raised an army brat. Lucy wasn’t, she was a toddler when her family settled in San Diego. She didn’t remember anything about that time in her life, only what she heard from her siblings. Part of the reason her father asked for the post in San Diego was because Nelia had married and had the first grandchild, and part of it was because Pat Kincaid had grown up in San Diego. It had always been his home base.

  Carina loved having a permanent home. Her husband Nick had a career in Montana, but when they met and fell in love, he gave it up to be with Carina. Lucy’s parents loved Nick like their own son. Connor and Julia had settled nearby as well.

  But everyone else had left. Jack in the military, with his home base in Texas; Nelia leaving because of Justin’s murder. Then Dillon moved to D.C. in part because he married Kate and in part to give Lucy a home while she was at Georgetown. She’d tried and failed to live successfully in the dorms. At the time, the trauma of her kidnapping and rape was just too much to cope with, along with having a roommate and dealing with parties and classes and gossip. If she hadn’t been able to move in with Dillon and Kate, she didn’t know if she’d have been able to finish school.

  Then Patrick left a few years later, to work with Jack at Rogan Caruso Kincaid. First in Sacramento, then starting up the East Coast office of RCK with Sean Rogan. That’s how Lucy and Sean met, and it had changed her life for the better.

  Lucy hadn’t realized, not until her father’s heart attack when she came home and had a heart-to-heart with Carina, that Carina had been heartbroken at Patrick’s move to the East Coast. She was also a little jealous of Patrick’s relationship with Lucy. For their entire lives, Carina, Patrick, and Connor had been as thick as thieves, three kids born four years apart, going to school together, having friends, sticking together like glue. They’d been best friends, and then everything changed.

  Lucy didn’t know how much of the changes were because of her, how much because of the family, or Patrick himself. She didn’t think that her relationship with Patrick should impact Carina’s relationship with him, but apparently, it had, and no matter how many psych classes she took, she didn’t completely understand.

  Carina stepped out onto the front porch, cup of coffee in hand, and stared at Lucy sitting in the car. Busted, Lucy thought. She’d been not only thinking about the past, but working up the courage to talk to her sister.

  Lucy got out of the car and walked up the short stone path. “Hi,” she said.

  Nick stepped out of the house behind Carina, put his hand on her shoulder. A unified front. Lucy couldn’t blame him; if Sean were here, he would have done the same thing for her.

  “Hi, Nick.”

  “You need to leave, Lucy,” Nick said.

  “I’d like to talk to my sister alone.”

  “No.”

  Carina turned to Nick, whispered something. He didn’t look happy. But he kissed her and went back inside.

  Carina came down the stairs. “Let’s walk.”

  They walked in silence. The neighborhood was older and established. It had been an old neighborhood when the Kincaids moved in twenty-five years ago. Now it was quaint, and many of the homeowners had updated and expanded the small, post-WWII homes. American flags were displayed on more than half the homes, showing that San Diego was still a military town. Especially this neighborhood, which was so close to the naval base.

  They walked in silence for a short while and then Lucy realized that Carina had steered them two blocks away, to where Dillon had once lived. His house had been destroyed by a psychopath—one who had fixated on Lucy. Dillon had nearly died because of it, and Lucy still had a hard time forgiving herself for what happened. It wasn’t her fault—she almost believed that—but it haunted her because she’d lost nearly everything.

  The house had been rebuilt by the new owners, and as Lucy watched a young mother came out with a jogging stroller built for two. A toddler and infant were strapped in, and the mother took off in the opposite direction, pushing the stroller as she ran while listening to music.

  Life and love had replaced death and hate.

  “I read the transcripts from your interview with Don Katella.”

  Carina didn’t say anything, but continued walking past Dillon’s former house. Lucy didn’t comment on the direction—they were heading toward Nelia and Andrew’s old house. They would pass the park where Justin’s body had been found. Everything good and bad in Lucy’s childhood had happened within walking distance from her home.

  “I should have come to you first. Alone. I didn’t fully understand, and that’s on me.”

  Carina still didn’t speak.

  “I projected my own feelings and personality on you. I thought because you were a cop, you would see things the way I see them. But you were also a victim, and every survivor processes trauma differently.”

  “Don’t try to psychoanalyze me,” Carina said.

  “I understand better now.”

  “You can’t possibly understand, Lucy.”

  The comment burned because Lucy understood Carina—she understood everyone in her family—far better than they gave her credit for. It’s why this was so hard for her, because she knew exactly what she was doing, and she knew it was going to hurt people she loved.

  “I am sorry, Carina.”

  “If you were sorry, you wouldn’t be doing this.”

  “I’m not sorry for investigating Justin’s murder. I’m sorry I didn’t come to you from the beginning.”

  Carina frowned, but didn’t comment.

  “I was nine when you graduated from the police academy,” Lucy said. “I thought it was really cool that my big sister was going to be a police officer, just like Connor. Mom and Dad took me to your graduation. I didn’t understand then why they weren’t as excited as I was. Why they didn’t seem happy. Now I do. They thought you’d given up something to become a cop, rather than gained something. Dad said the same thing to me the other night. That he was sad I gave up my dreams for this life.

  “Dreams change. My dreams disappeared after I was raped. I didn’t know if I would ever live for anything again. But I realized that even those dreams weren’t real. They were what I thought I should do, what I thought I should be. I think my path was set when Justin was taken from us. From all of us.” She paused. “But that doesn’t mean my life is less than it could have been, or that your life was ruined because you didn’t do whatever it was you thought you wanted when you were nineteen. We grow up, we change, dreams change.

  “When you graduated, you put your arm around me and said something I have never forgotten. It wasn’t to me, it was to Dad, who was looking both proud and sad at the same time—I know that sounds weird, but that’s how I remember it. You said, ‘Dad, this is what I’m meant to do. Please don’t worry about me.’ And Dad said, ‘Cara, I will worry, and I will always love you. But I see it in your eyes. This is what you should be doing.’”

  Lucy took a deep breath. “Dad has always supported us, except twice. When he disowned Jack, and when I decided to become an FBI agent.”

  “Dad is proud of you.”

  “No. He didn’t come to my graduation, not because he was getting over a cold, but because he was sad for me. I saw the truth the other night. He thinks I’m torturing myself, that I do this solely because of what happened nine years ago. But this is what I’m meant to do. Maybe I didn’t realize it until I was raped. What happened to me didn’t turn me into a cop. It showed me who I was and who I could be. I had the best role model in you—seventeen years ago, when you became a cop, there were a fraction of the women on the force as there are now. Then you became a detective, one of the few female detectives at the time. You closed tough cases, you were strong, you were brave, and you never turned your back on those who needed your help. Never. You risked your life then, you risk your life now, because it’s what you’re meant to do.

  “If I’d come to you first,” Lucy continued, “I’m not
saying I would have been able to convince you to join in this investigation. But I think I would have been better able to explain why I have to do this. Not just to solve Justin’s murder. Not solely to give justice to the other families who have been torn apart. But because there is a killer out there, and she will kill again, and I cannot stand by and wait for another little boy to die.”

  They had reached the Justin Stanton Memorial Park. It was filled with mothers and fathers, children of all ages, because it was a cool but clear Saturday morning. A soccer game was about to begin on the field near the trees where Justin had been buried. The kids were so small—couldn’t have been more than six or seven.

  Lucy was going to suggest they sit on a bench, then she looked at Carina and saw the tears.

  “I’ve never taken J. P. here,” Carina said. “We go to Elm Street instead.”

  “You used to bring Justin and me here all the time.”

  “Mom made me.”

  “I know.”

  Carina turned and started walking back toward her house. Lucy took a last look at Justin’s park, then caught up with her.

  “Did you really read all the Katella transcripts?” Carina asked.

  “Yes.”

  Carina rubbed her eyes. “Connor thinks you’re grasping at straws. He has always believed that Justin’s murder was isolated, a random act of violence.”

  “It’s not.”

  “You sound so sure.”

  “I am.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not going to tell you unless you want to hear the details. You’re a cop, Carina, and that’s all I saw the other night. I didn’t see you as an aunt, a sister, a mother. I am sorry—I never wanted anyone to be hurt because of what I’m doing. That was my own naïveté. I should have known.”

  They again passed Dillon’s old house, and turned the corner to head back to Carina’s. Carina said, “I don’t know if I want the details. I’m not blind to what happened—I’ve read Justin’s files. But tell me this, why are you working with a reporter?”

  “Max found the connection between Justin’s murder and at least two others. And we both know the police don’t have the resources to work these cold cases.”