“Walk. Definitely. I will not foul the air any more than necessary.”
“Excellent.” Sabrina pointed to the door. “You first.”
26
Adam struggled to keep his eyes open during the new task force meeting. Many of the people present were hearing the information being presented for the first time, and their outrage at the travesties being committed against the men and women in their own community was palpable.
But none of this was new information for him. Nothing earth-shattering had been discovered during the night.
No one confessed in return for a plea deal, although to be fair, it didn’t sound like the prosecutor was offering anything.
And with the evidence from the microSD card, there would be no difficulty getting warrants for files, documents, computers, and records. The forensic accountants would be busier than they’d ever been before.
The meeting lasted two hours.
Gabe had even nodded off once.
The captain hadn’t been pleased that Sabrina hadn’t been in attendance, but no one had told Adam to ask her, and after sitting through it, he was glad. She hadn’t missed anything.
Claire Tollison waved him over. “Hey,” he said. “I’m glad you’re on this. You’ll be a great fit.”
“Thanks. I’m so excited.” She grinned, then frowned. “I mean, it’s awful. Of course.”
“But it’s a fabulous opportunity for you,” Adam said. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
She nodded. “Thanks for understanding.”
“No problem. Any news on our dead guy?” He’d been hoping for some sort of identification. Tox screen. Anything.
Claire shook her head. “Sorry. I can send you the report if you’d like. There’s not much to see. He wasn’t high. Wasn’t drunk. His prints aren’t in the system. We’re running DNA to see if there are any matches, but you know how long that can take.”
Weeks if they were lucky. Months was the more likely time frame.
“He had a couple of pictures, a Breeze transit card, and sixty bucks in his wallet. No change in his pockets. No keys either.” Her frustration was evident. “I’ve reached out to a buddy in Atlanta who is trying to use the Breeze card to see if he can track down where this guy has been in Atlanta. But it’s not like you can use Atlanta’s rail system to get to Carrington. It’s like he just appeared in the dressing room and opened fire.” Her expression lifted a little. “I did get the video from the mall that night. Finally. They sent it over late yesterday, so I’m going to try to find him coming into the mall and see if we can figure out where he came from.”
Solid police work. Sometimes that was all it took.
“Sounds good. Let me know if I can help.”
“Will do.”
Thirty minutes later, Adam finally made it back to his desk.
How was it possible to have over eighty emails in his inbox when he’d cleared it yesterday before going home?
He scanned the list. Most of them could wait. A few from family members or friends who wanted to see if he could give them an inside scoop on the scandal rocking Carrington today.
Nope.
Ah. Sabrina had sent him an email last night. He opened it and read her brief message.
“You don’t look happy.” Anissa stood beside his desk.
“Neither do you.”
“I’m not, but you go first.”
“Okay. I have an email from Sabrina. Her mother was going to stop by for a visit this morning.”
“This would be the same mother we considered to be a suspect in the attempts on Sabrina’s life?”
“The same.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I. Now it’s your turn.” He kept scanning his inbox while he waited. Anissa wasn’t one to overshare. Maybe if he didn’t make eye contact she would spill whatever had her shorts in a twist this morning.
“Ugh. I’m fine. Just tired. I came in to beg the captain to let me help, but he says I’m still on administrative leave.”
“You know his hands are tied. It will only take another couple of days to get you cleared enough to come back to desk duty. Go home and get some more sleep.”
“I will, but the captain told me to take Gabe with me and Gabe won’t leave.”
And there was the problem. He kept scanning through his email, but Anissa was still standing there. What was she expecting him to do? “Where’s Ryan? Between the two of you, I think you should be able to force him to leave. He’s so tired he’s barely functioning as it is.”
He clicked on the email from Claire Tollison. She’d included the autopsy report and the photographs of the contents of their dead guy’s wallet.
That picture . . .
He clicked on the picture.
Opened it to full screen.
Fatigue fled.
He grabbed his phone and dialed Sabrina’s number.
“What are you doing?” Anissa asked.
He held up one hand. “Come on, come on. Pick it up.”
Nothing.
“Adam”—Anissa leaned over and got in his face—“what’s going on?”
He showed Anissa the photograph. “This was in the guy’s wallet.”
“The guy I shot?”
“Yes.”
“So?”
“I’ve seen this picture before.”
“Where?”
“In Sabrina’s living room.”
27
He watched Sabrina and her mom walk out of Sabrina’s house.
The cops never found this spot in the fence. They’d looked everywhere for how Juan had gotten into the gated property to attack Sabrina, but they still hadn’t figured it out.
And how would they?
Unless they took the time to touch every single bar in the fence, they would never notice the one place where two of the iron bars had been replaced with plastic. They wouldn’t be able to see how they twisted right off. They would never know how easy it was to remove them and step through. They would never realize how this spot was out of sight of the security cameras.
This had been one of the first projects he’d taken on when he’d hatched his grand escape plan. He hadn’t known then if he would need it, but he’d been determined to cover all his bases, and making sure he could access Martin’s property had been a high priority.
And thank goodness. He’d thought Juan would be able to take care of that little brat, but Juan was dead and he was freezing his toes off contemplating the best way to make sure everything continued on as planned.
Sabrina and Yvonne paused at the Suburban and Yvonne got her coat. Then they walked toward Martin’s house.
He wasn’t close enough to be sure, but it didn’t look like they were talking. So what were they doing? They could barely stand to be in the same room with each other and now they were going on a winter’s morning stroll?
He stifled a yawn and jammed his fingers deeper into his coat pockets. The only thing keeping him going was the thought of white beaches and hammocks. He could almost feel the rope etching patterns on his back, the sweat on his brow, the weight of his eyelids closing for an afternoon snooze.
But the only way that would happen was if he took matters into his own hands, even though he didn’t want to. It would be messy.
But then it would be over.
Today.
28
They walked to the house in silence.
Sabrina wouldn’t characterize it as companionable silence. More like the silence that falls between total strangers sitting together on an airplane who’ve given up trying to keep the conversation going but can’t get away from each other for two more hours.
She kept a steady stream of silent prayer going. Now? Should I say something? But no nudge forward came.
When the house came into view, her mother paused. “Figures.” She kept walking.
“You know I have no idea what you’re talking about, don’t you?” Sabrina didn’t even try to keep the frustrati
on out of her voice. “If you want to say something about the house, please say it. Otherwise, I’d appreciate it if you would keep your remarks to yourself.”
Her mother looked at her in surprise. “My, my, haven’t we grown sassy.”
“I’ve always been sassy, Mother.”
“Perhaps. Maybe I should say you’ve grown more vocal in your sassiness.”
Perhaps.
“What do you want to know, Sabrina? Your father was a complicated man. My relationship with him was complex. But you’re his daughter and you’re not my therapist. I know I’ve handled most of our”—she pointed between her and Sabrina—“relationship badly, but I don’t feel bad about the things I’ve tried to spare you from. There are things that once you know them, they cannot be unknown. You don’t get to go back to the way things were.”
Was it possible her mother would divulge the information she had been seeking? “I would rather know,” Sabrina said. “What I don’t know is driving me crazy.”
“Just remember, you asked for this.” Her mom pointed to the path that wound around the house. “Does this go all the way around?”
“It does.”
“Then let’s keep walking.”
Sabrina had no complaints and they turned to the right, their feet crunching on the tiny white gravel path.
“I loved your father at one time, Sabrina. Truly. I thought if I could get pregnant, then everything would be okay. And I did. And things seemed to be better during the pregnancy. But I went into premature labor and we lost the baby. I hemorrhaged so much they had to do a hysterectomy to save my life.”
“But . . .”
Her mom looked at her then. “We adopted you, Sabrina. You were a week old when we picked you up at an agency. Your mother was single and unable to take care of you.”
“How is that possible?” Sabrina stared into the eyes of the woman she’d called Mother for almost thirty years. “I’ve seen the records. Your medical records. My own.”
“Your father had a lawyer who said he could make it so there was absolutely no evidence that you weren’t actually ours. People knew I was pregnant and that I’d had a hard time during delivery. We’d requested no one—not even family—come to the hospital. And back then they kept us in the hospital a lot longer than they do now.”
She gave Sabrina a sad smile. “I don’t know where your dad got the idea. But he came to my hospital room and told me he knew about a baby girl. That she was gorgeous. She needed a family. That no one needed to ever know that our baby had died. We would have this baby girl and everyone would assume . . .”
Sabrina was speechless. Her mother didn’t try to explain anymore. They made it back to the front of the house before she could corral her swirling thoughts enough to ask any questions. “But why would it have been so bad to grieve your own baby?”
“It was a different time, and I was so shattered and exhausted, I wasn’t thinking clearly. By the time I was in a more stable frame of mind, you were already ours. It was done. So for the past thirty years, I’ve told people I had one baby and I never mention the one I lost.”
Her mother hadn’t been kidding when she said this was complicated.
“But what about my eyes and my hair. I look just like dad. Everyone says so.”
“Yes, you do.”
29
Adam looked from Anissa back to the photo on his screen. “How on earth would this guy have gotten this picture? And why? It’s not like it’s a current photo to help him know who he was looking for. In fact, you have to look closely to even realize it’s Sabrina. She was a little girl . . .” Adam didn’t like the direction his thoughts were going.
“I’m calling Claire.”
Anissa pushed the speaker button on his phone and paced in a circle around his desk while he dialed.
He didn’t bother with any pleasantries when Claire answered. “The photograph of the young girl and the woman you found in the guy’s pocket. Was there anything on it? Any writing? Any notes on the back?”
“Uh, hello to you too. Hang on a second. Let me look.”
Adam counted to twenty before Claire responded. “There’s something written in Spanish. Mamá y hermana.”
Mom and sister? Was it possible?
“Adam? What’s going on?” Claire asked.
Adam looked at Anissa while he answered Claire. “I think our killer may have been Sabrina’s brother.”
Anissa dropped her head into her hands. “I killed her brother! Are you kidding me? She’s going to hate me.”
Adam pulled her hands away from her face. “You killed the man trying to kill her. If she struggles with this, it won’t be because you killed him. It will be because she’s trying to figure out why on earth he was trying to kill her. I don’t think she even knew he existed.”
He leaned toward the phone. “Hey, Claire, I’m going to need to know anything and everything you can give me on our guy. Anything identifying about him. Tattoos, birthmark. An estimate of age. Nothing is too inconsequential. And I need it yesterday.”
“Got it. I’ll call when I have something.”
After he disconnected the call with Claire, he redialed Sabrina.
“What are you doing?” Anissa asked.
“Trying to call Sabrina again.”
“You can’t tell her something like this over the phone.” Anissa was not handling this well. She looked like she was going to cry.
“I’m not going to tell her anything over the phone. I’m going to tell her I need to talk to her about the case and ask her if she’ll come here. Or offer to go there.”
“Oh. Right.” The fight dissipated from Anissa and she leaned against his desk. “Good idea. Sorry.”
The phone rang.
He put his hand over the speaker. “It’s okay. And you’ll be okay. She won’t hold it against you.”
Anissa huffed. “I hope you’re right, but you’ll forgive me if I don’t hold my breath. People get really funny when you kill their siblings.”
Gabe and Ryan walked up in time to hear Anissa’s final hissed words. Gabe leaned in close and whispered. “Whose sibling was killed?”
“Sabrina’s.” Adam and Anissa answered at the same time.
“She has a sibling?” Ryan shook his head. “What have we missed?”
“Had a sibling,” Anissa corrected him. “A brother. Who tried to kill her, and I shot him.”
“Her brother tried to kill her?” Gabe turned to Ryan. “We’ve missed a lot.”
When his call went to voicemail, Adam disconnected the call and grabbed his cell phone.
Anissa was filling Gabe and Ryan in on the photograph, but Adam wasn’t paying attention. When Sabrina had set up her new phone earlier in the week, they’d both turned on the “find my friends” locator app. She could find him—and he could find her—or least find her phone.
“She’s not answering, but her phone is at her house.”
“Maybe she turned it off so she could sleep. She’s basically been awake for the past week.” Gabe took a sip of coffee.
Anissa took the coffee from Gabe and turned to Ryan. “Why are you letting him drink coffee? He needs to sleep.”
“He won’t listen to me,” Ryan said. “You talk some sense into him.”
Adam was done trying to be nice. He called dispatch. “Can you get me the deputy who is at Dr. Sabrina Fleming’s house?”
He listened in shock as the dispatcher told him there was no one there. “Guys!” The three investigators ended their side conversation. “The captain pulled the deputy who was stationed outside Sabrina’s house. She’s out there alone. I’ve got to get over there.” Adam grabbed his coat and looked for his keys.
“Go,” Anissa said. “We’ll see who is in the area who can drive by. And we’ll get some units headed that way—no sirens, low key, just in case.” Anissa handed Gabe his coffee. “I’m not supposed to be working, so you’re coming with me, because when I say we, I really mean you.”
“Yes,
ma’am.”
Adam found the keys. In his coat pocket, right where he’d left them. Man, he was still not firing on all cylinders. Ryan was the only one still standing by his desk.
“Pray I’m overreacting,” Adam said.
“I will, but I’m going with you.” Ryan followed him as they race-walked to the elevators.
“Why?”
“In case you aren’t.”
30
Sabrina opened the front door. The house smelled stale. She needed to come back later this week and air it out.
Taking care of this place had been a low priority for the past week.
She paused in the foyer as her mother—the woman she’d always known to be her mother—walked around and looked at the place for the first time. Sabrina let her take the lead and followed her as she wandered through the rooms.
“So,” she said, “you think the fact that I look like Dad is just one of those things that happens in a lot of adoptive families?”
Her mother ran a hand over a brass elephant that Sabrina could remember from her youngest days. “I did.”
The implications of those two words were more than Sabrina’s mind wanted to deal with. She sat on the edge of a love seat. She was done. Done being nice. Done playing games. She waited until she had a good view of her mother’s face and then she spoke. “Tell me about Rosita.”
Her mother closed her eyes, almost in slow motion. She pinched her lips together. She took a deep breath and blew it out. But she still didn’t look in Sabrina’s direction. “I hated her.”
“Why?” Sabrina was almost certain she knew, but she didn’t want to guess. She was tired of wondering. “She was wonderful to me. I adored her. Why did you hate her? Why did you send her away?”
That got her an unexpected reaction. “How did you know I was the one who sent her away?”
“Dad was out of town and he knew how much I loved her. He would have at least let me say goodbye. And I heard you fighting later. I didn’t hear every word, but I knew he was angry.”
In Too Deep Page 29