“What? She’s not still in the hospital, is she? No one told me that.”
Jake held up a hand to calm him. “No, she’s out. She got out the next day, but she’s not really staying here right now.”
“What?”
Jake wasn’t sure what to say. Cho poked his head over the counter and glared at him.
“I wanted to go see her in the hospital, but it wouldn’t have gone over very well. Things are so tense between Rani and me as it is.”
Jake smoothed Tater’s fur.
“Smith told me she almost died?”
Jake nodded.
“How close was it?”
“Close.”
“Did he hurt her any other way?”
“No, well, he banged her head and he shocked her with a taser, but he didn’t...you know…”
“Thank God.”
Cho came out of the kitchen, carrying a coffee cup and passed it to Devan.
“Thank you,” he said, cradling it in both hands.
Cho jerked his head toward Devan again. Jake tried to ignore him.
“So where is she staying if she isn’t here?”
Jake tunneled his hand into Tater’s fur. “She’s with Marco.”
“They working a case?”
Jake glanced up and met Devan’s eyes. “No. I mean she’s with Marco.”
“What?”
“They’re sort of living together now.”
Devan went still.
Cho took a seat on the end of the couch near him. “Dude, you can’t really be surprised by that, can you?”
“Ah, actually, I am.”
“How?” asked Jake. Come on, even he’d heard Devan make comments about Marco to her.
Devan settled the mug on the coffee table, clasping his hands. “I knew she was in love with him, but…”
“Wait. You knew she was in love with him?”
“You didn’t?”
Jake gave a shrug.
“I just never thought he’d be interested in her.”
“How could you figure that?” Shit, this guy was all kinds of stupid. How the hell had he passed the bar?
“Come on. He’s sort of a dog.”
Cho and Jake exchanged confused looks.
“Come again?”
“He was always sleeping around with these bimbos he picked up in bars. Peyton isn’t like that.” He stared at his hands, his expression bleak. “I can’t believe this. Is it serious?”
“Seems that way.”
“Is he serious about her?”
Jake wasn’t going to lie. “Very.”
Devan slumped back in the chair, his hands dangling from the sides.
“Dude, you got a woman at home. Why do you keep coming around here?” asked Cho. The man had balls. Jake had to give him credit.
“I’m in love with her too.” He gave them a sad smile.
“Didn’t you break up with her?” asked Cho.
“I was trying to make her pick me over Marco.”
Cho and Jake gave him bewildered looks.
“In hindsight, it doesn’t seem like a very bright plan.”
“It’s mule ass stupid,” said Jake.
Cho slapped him with the back of his hand. “Did you really think she’d give him up for you?”
Devan exhaled. “I hoped she would.” Then he leaned forward. “Why wouldn’t she? I have money. I’m educated. I have political power. And I’m just as good looking as he is.”
“Well…” said Jake.
“Okay, so I don’t look like an underwear model, but I look a hell of a lot better on paper than he does. He’s a Neanderthal.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Cho, straightening.
“Come on. Did he even graduate high school? He’s a cop and to be honest, he’s lucky he made it that far.”
Cho rose to his feet. Jake slid back into the corner of the couch.
“What are you saying about cops?”
Devan visibly checked himself. “I didn’t mean you.”
“No?” He glared at Jake over his shoulder. “He’s your problem now.” Then he walked toward the bedroom.
Jake stared fixedly at his feet. Yep, Cho was scary as hell sometimes.
“You know what I mean, right?” asked Devan.
Jake glanced up at him. “Honestly, I don’t think you know what you mean. You don’t really know D’Angelo like you think you do. He’s a little deeper than you give him credit for.”
“Really? What does he have that I don’t?”
“He lets her be herself. He’s crazy about her just the way she is.”
Devan went still.
“You wanted to change her into what you wanted.”
He lowered his head.
“Look.” Jake shifted forward on the couch. “It’s over. You’ve got to stop chasing something that’s gone. This thing with Marco is serious and you don’t stand a chance in hell of changing that. But you have a baby on the way. You owe that baby a stable life. Maybe you should try to make things work with the baby’s mother and stop trying to get what would never have been anyway.”
“Are you saying Peyton and I would never have worked?”
“You admitted here that you knew she was in love with Marco. If you love her, even a little bit, then you should want her to be happy. He’s always made her happy, Devan. Leave it alone.”
Devan stared at his clasped hands. “I could provide a much better life for her.”
“Depends on if you think material things are more important than anything else.”
He looked up at Jake.
“Provide that life for Rani and your child. Give them everything you think you want to give Peyton and maybe you’ll find it’s enough.”
Devan nodded, letting out a long sigh. “Guess I better get home.” He rose to his feet and Jake rose with him. “You’re not bad, Ryder,” he said, holding out his hand.
Jake shook it, then guided him to the door.
“When she asked you to live here, I thought she’d lost her mind. I guess she knows better than I do,” he said, then opened the door and stepped outside. “Night.”
“Night,” said Jake, closing the door behind him. He leaned against it and surveyed the room. Yep, things would be a lot less complicated when he moved back to Nebraska. A lot less complicated…and a whole lot more boring.
CHAPTER 14
Dr. Ferguson gripped the pen in both hands, running his fingers along the barrel. Peyton couldn’t count how many times she’d seen him do this. Marco said she had a tell. If she didn’t know better, she’d think this was Ferguson’s tell. He always toyed with his pen when he was trying to decide if Peyton was giving him the complete truth.
“How was your weekend?”
“Fine.”
“What did you do?”
Peyton thought about that before she spoke. She had to be careful what she said about Marco. “Went for drinks with Maria and Cho. Had lunch with my mother.”
“Anything else?”
She shifted in her chair. “I tried to go for a run Sunday, but…”
“But?”
“I couldn’t do it.”
“Why?”
“A guy pulled up to the curb in a car and got out. I felt like I was reliving the abduction all over again.”
Ferguson nodded slowly.
“You keep saying it’ll get better, but it’s not. I’m getting frustrated.”
“It’s been less than a month, Inspector Brooks. You didn’t expect miracles, did you?”
“I expected to sleep the whole night through. I expected to be able to do my job.”
“Have you missed work?”
“No, but…”
“But?”
“My partner is having to cover for me. She’s had to do some of the questioning.”
He used the pen to make some notes on his yellow pad. “How are things with your new partner?”
“She’s not Marco.”
Dr. Ferguson looked up th
rough his glasses. “That’s obvious. Is this a problem?”
“No.”
“No?”
Peyton drew a breath for patience. “I’m thinking of getting my bachelor’s degree,” she said, deliberately changing the subject. If she told him how much she missed Marco, he might guess at what else she was trying to keep to herself.
“Really? Why?”
“Because I need it if I want to progress in my career. I have an appointment tomorrow to talk with a counselor and see how close I might be toward a degree.”
“Good. Very good. You’re thinking ahead. That’s a good sign.”
Peyton met his gaze. “How much longer do I have to keep coming here?”
He settled the pen on his pad. “A while more.”
“Can I have an actual number? I’ll take weeks or months or even years. I’m not picky. I’d just like to schedule my future around our sessions.”
He chuckled. “I can’t give you a number, Inspector Brooks.”
“Why not?”
“Because you aren’t being completely honest with me.”
“How so?”
“I sense you’re holding back. I sense you aren’t telling me everything that’s going on. You give me just enough to placate me, but nothing more.”
She chewed her lower lip. She wasn’t giving him Marco. She wasn’t opening up that topic for his evaluation. She wasn’t going to let him sully the purest part of her life. “I don’t know what you want. I’m telling you everything. I told you about my lack of sleep. I told you about the panic attacks. I even told you about my dreams. Do you know how hard that was for me to admit?”
He just stared at her.
Anger moved through her. She wasn’t giving him Marco. “Sometimes, Dr. Ferguson,” she began, “I get the feeling that you don’t really give a damn about my health. You just want a front seat at the show.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think you enjoy poking at my wounds, watching me bleed. I think you get off on my dysfunction.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew she’d probably bought herself months more of this, or maybe even a formal reprimand from Defino. Even so, she didn’t care.
Dr. Ferguson gave her a smile. “That’s what I mean by holding back.”
“What?”
“This is the first time you’ve shown me anger since the first meeting when you walked out. And I know you’re angry, Inspector Brooks. This is good. You’re starting to process the trauma. You’re moving into the next phase. You’re coming out of your shock.”
She started to say something, but her phone buzzed in her pocket. She fished it out and thumbed it on. A message from Tag blinked across the screen. Janitor struck. Victim in Bart Station. Glen Park. Meet me there ASAP.
Peyton’s fingers closed over the device. Shit. They’d missed another opportunity to stop him and someone else had died.
“Inspector Brooks?”
“I’ve gotta go.”
“Go? Our session isn’t finished yet.”
“It is for today. I’ve got a murder to investigate.”
“A murder? The Janitor?”
Peyton rose to her feet. “Yeah. While we’re sitting here going round and round, he’s out there killing people.”
Dr. Ferguson started to answer, but Peyton turned and headed for the door. All the head shrinking in the world didn’t make up for the fact that another person had died while she was here, pissing around.
* * *
Peyton jogged down the escalator to the boarding deck. A uniform she didn’t recognize blocked the top of the stairs and Holmes and Bartlett covered the bottom. Tag appeared around a corner of the tunnel and came toward her.
Peyton glanced around the ceiling, looking for cameras. “We need to get the video feed from everything down here.”
“On it,” said Holmes, moving to the escalator.
Peyton shifted to face Tag. “What we got?”
“What we don’t have is witnesses. Apparently no one was down here when it happened.”
“Any idea of time?”
“Sometime last night. Rigor’s set in.”
“So, between four to twelve hours?”
“That’s my guess.”
“Did you find a card?”
“Yeah.”
Peyton exhaled and glanced at Bartlett. He shifted uncomfortably.
“Method of execution?” Peyton started walking toward the site with Tag beside her.
“Gunshot to the back of the head.”
Peyton stopped. “You sure?”
“Sure as shit, Fluffy. Blew his damn face off.”
“That doesn’t make sense. It should have been strangulation.”
“Why?”
“That’s the pattern. The next one should have been strangulation.”
“So he’s changing his pattern.”
“Serial killers don’t deviate from pattern. They evolve, they don’t deviate.”
Tag shrugged. “There’s always a first.”
“You said it blew his face off?”
“Pretty much took out the back of his head too.”
“What size bullet are we talking?”
“Big...585? Riffle of some sort.”
Peyton considered that. “He’s always used a handgun.”
“Like I said, he’s switching it up.”
Peyton started walking again. Turning the corner on the platform, she could see a group of cops gathered in a semi-circle. Jake was moving between them, snapping pictures. A little removed from the uniforms was Marco, Simons and Cho.
She walked over to them. “Tag said it was a shooting.”
Cho gave her a grim nod. “Execution like the others.”
“That doesn’t make sense. This one should have been a strangulation.”
Cho and Simons exchanged a look.
“That’s what I said,” offered Simons.
“Serial killers don’t deviate like this.” She glanced back at the circle of cops. “I need to see the body.”
“It’s bad,” said Cho.
She glanced at Marco.
“He’s right.”
“I don’t care. I need to see it.”
Marco nodded, then placed a hand in the small of her back, directing her to the uniforms. They parted and she got her first glimpse of the body. He lay on his belly, arms out flung, ratty knitted gloves on his hands. He wore a huge army coat and he had to be at least 200 pounds. A tattered pair of jeans with frayed cuffs ended in a pair of army issue boots. A bloody mass of tissue, bone, and brain made up the back of his head and Peyton couldn’t bring herself to study the pulp that had become his face.
Jake moved to her side. “This wasn’t done with a handgun,” he said.
“You found a card?”
He reached into the case at his side and pulled out a plastic bag, passing it to her. She took the card and turned it over, studying the front. Sure enough, the words Clean-up Crew had been printed across the front in red lettering.
She held it up to the dim light in the tunnel. “Does this look like the same font as before?”
Jake drew a deep breath and exhaled. “I want to compare it to the others when I get back to the precinct, but it doesn’t look the same to me, Mighty Mouse.”
Peyton nodded, passing it back. Her eyes caught on the out flung arms. Something about the curve of the right hand bothered her. She took a step closer, angling to the side, and hunkered down by the right hand. The edge of something hard poked out of the finger on the glove. She leaned closer, trying to ignore the smell of death.
“Give me a flashlight,” she asked one of the uniforms.
He clipped it off his belt and held it out to her. She shined the flashlight on the hand, peering closer.
“Jake, can you get the glove off without disturbing the body?”
He came to her side, setting the case on the ground, then he pulled on a clean pair of gloves and reached for his tweezers. Carefully he drew the glove off the
hand and held it away.
Peyton closed her eyes and forced herself to take calming breaths.
“What is it?” asked Marco.
“This isn’t a man,” she said, looking up at him. “It’s a woman.”
Suddenly Cho, Simons and Tag were around her.
“We need to make sure,” said Cho.
“Did you get all the pictures you need, Ryder?” asked Marco.
“Yeah.”
“Then back up. We need to turn the body over and verify.”
Peyton and Jake backed up with the other uniforms. Pulling on gloves, Simons, Cho and Marco positioned themselves at the body and carefully turned it over. Peyton looked away, closing her eyes. Jake put his arm around her shoulders for comfort.
She heard fabric rustle, then Marco shook his head.
“We have to be sure.”
“I’ll do it,” said Tag, stepping between the men. She bent over the body and began working on the blood soaked jeans. A moment later, she sat back on her heels, her bloody hands dangling between her knees. “It’s a woman.”
Simons and Cho looked over at Peyton. Marco stood with his hands on his hips, his head lowered.
Peyton gave a nod. “We have a copycat,” she said, her voice echoing in the tunnel ominously.
* * *
“God damn it, it’s that reporter. She caused this!” said Defino, pacing behind the conference room table. “This City is going to go crazy once this gets out.”
“You’re going to have to go public,” said Rosa, sitting at the head of table. “The Mayor’s going to want to shut it down quick. The only way I can see to do that is to go public and ask for witnesses.”
“Did we get the video feed from all of the cameras?” demanded Defino.
“Yeah,” said Peyton. “Jake and Stan are going through them right now, but I don’t think they’ll find anything. It was dark on the platform and the killer didn’t even know he was attacking a woman.”
“When did Abe say he’d get back to you?”
“As soon as he finishes the autopsy. He didn’t have anything else on his schedule today.”
“We can’t go public with this, Captain,” said Marco. “The Janitor hasn’t struck in a few weeks, but this might provoke him.”
“Or provoke another copycat,” said Cho.
“I’m open to suggestions,” said Defino, holding out her hands.
Murder on Treasure Island (Peyton Brooks' Series Book 7) Page 23