Darker Than Midnight

  “Yeah. And clean up this mess. But I think the most important thing is to figure out who did this.” River sighed. “Maybe you should call Frankie.”

  She shook her head. “Then she’d have the boys out here snooping around. No, I think we’d better keep this to ourselves until we know what’s going on.”

  “You could be in danger,” he said. “If whoever was trying to kill me in the hospital has somehow tracked me down here—”

  “We’re two armed cops, River. Good ones.” Rex lifted a paw and pressed it to her thigh, probably because she’d stopped petting him, but it made her smile. “Sorry, Rex. Make that three. No one’s gonna mess with us. They try and I’ll be happy to rip out their liver.”

  River sighed. “Hell. That orderly’s uniform was in here. And the ID badge. If they found it—”

  “They didn’t.”

  He looked at her, frowning. “How do you know?”

  “I took it, River. Name badge, shoes, everything you were wearing that night. It’s sealed in a plastic bag and stashed off-site. So’s the knife by now.”

  He held her gaze for a moment. “What about the case file?”

  “Hell.” She ran downstairs and checked in the coat closet. Then lowered her head in defeat. She turned, saw him at the top of the stairs, waiting. “It’s gone.”

  “Dammit.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m working the case. My having copies of the file isn’t all that shocking.”

  “You are working the case,” he said as she moved back up the stairs. “You’ve been collecting evidence all along. The knife, the orderly’s clothes…”

  “Still am,” she said. “I may get busted for not turning you in immediately, but they won’t get me for sloppy police work. Not ever.”

  “I believe that.” He moved into the bedroom, began picking things up.

  She joined him, secretly thanking the Fates she’d taken the additional files from Frankie’s private investigation with them tonight. She’d hate to drag her friend into the trouble she might be creating for herself. It was bad enough someone knew she’d brought home copies of the official files.

  When they’d finished restoring the upstairs to order, they moved below. Jax made sure every curtain was drawn and every door locked, though whoever had come in had made short work of the lock on the front door earlier tonight. She’d need new ones, good ones. She made a mental note.

  When they’d finally finished, she brewed a pot of tea, and they sat in front of the fireplace, with Frankie’s files spread out on the floor between them. Rex lay close enough to River that the dog’s head touched his thigh. The big shepherd didn’t like to get too far from his favorite guy. She didn’t blame him, Jax thought.

  She cleared her throat and averted her eyes when River caught them on his face. “You know, the D.A. didn’t even insist on having a second opinion on your case before accepting your insanity plea?”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t you find that unusual? In my sister’s case the state put on three experts to counter Dunkirk’s shrink. The defense put on five in his favor.” She shook her head. “Those five all believed his phony mental illness. Quacks.”

  River sighed. “You don’t like psychiatrists.”

  “Don’t trust ’em,” she said.

  “In my case, I think it helped that Ethan was the chief of psychiatry at the state hospital. And it didn’t hurt that he was a friend of the D.A. Not to mention the governor.”

  She lifted her eyebrows. “He’s that connected?”

  “Victoria’s family is one of the most prominent in the state. She sits on the board of directors at the state hospital.”

  “Hmm, no wonder he’s head shrink there, then.”

  River nodded. “He married very well.”

  She set her folder down, leaned back on her hands and stretched her legs out in front of her. “Tell me about you and Ethan. About your friendship. You were always close?”

  “No, not always. I was a jock. He was…not.”

  “Nerd?”

  “Genius would be the more accurate term. But yeah, he had that bookish thing going on. Hated sports. I think he might have grown to like athletics in time if his father hadn’t pushed so hard.”

  “His father was a jock?”

  “His father was my high school football coach. He was good, too. Played in college, was drafted by New England in his senior year, but he took a bad hit and blew out his knee his first time on the field. He couldn’t play again after that.”

  “That’s heartbreaking. So he turned to coaching.”

  River nodded. “He got himself qualified as a phys ed teacher and coached on the side. That’s how I got to know him. I wasn’t on his team yet, just played for my middle school team. But he took notice of me. My grades were bad, I was in danger of being ineligible to play. He hooked me up with a tutor. His son, Ethan.”

  She nodded. “Doesn’t sound like the beginning of a great friendship.”

  “It wasn’t at first. Hell, I think Ethan was a little jealous of me for a while.”

  “Over his father?”

  River nodded. “Not for long, though. We got close. Really close. We were like brothers. Even before my parents died and his family took me in.”

  He pulled out a folder, looked at it briefly, then closed his eyes and set it on the floor. It was the autopsy report. Jax swallowed the dryness in her throat. She didn’t want to look at the damn thing, but supposed they would have to sooner or later.

  “How did your parents die, River?”

  He looked from the folder to her face. “Car wreck. On their way home from celebrating their twentieth anniversary.”

  “What happened?”

  He shook his head. “Skid marks showed another car met them head-on. They went off the road and rolled over. The other car never stopped. They figured it was a drunk driver, but they never got him.” He lowered his head. “That’s when I decided to become a cop. So I could put people like that away. And I don’t know—maybe I thought someday I’d get the bastard who killed them.”

  “How old were you?”

  “I was twelve.”

  He met her eyes, and she saw in them a perfect reflection of her own childhood grief. Her own tragic loss. The pain that never went away. “At least I still had my parents,” she said softly.

  He turned his hand in hers, and held it. “No you didn’t,” he said. “Not really. But I had Ethan. And Ellen and Joe, his parents. But mostly, Ethan. I don’t know what the hell I’d have done without him.”

  She nodded. “So there was no more jealousy, no competition between you, after that?”

  A little of the grief faded from his eyes. “There was always that. But it was good-natured, you know? Like him daring me with the canoe in the rapids.”

  “That was a dare that almost got you killed, River,” she said softly.

  He nodded. “Yeah, but he couldn’t have known that. You should have seen him. He was more scared than I was. No, our rivalry was more like a running joke. We both knew he had it all over me in every way that mattered.”

  “Did he?”

  River nodded. “Oh, hell yes. He won all the awards, got all the scholarships, graduated valedictorian of our class, and went on to Harvard. Married into one of the most prominent families in the Northeast.” He smiled. “I was just a cop.”

  She nodded. “Do you still stay in touch with his family?”

  River’s grip on her hand tightened. “Not since…” He licked his lips, cleared his throat. “They were as fond of Steph as they were of me. I haven’t heard from any of them since her death. I don’t blame them. They believe I killed her. It’s…”

  “I don’t believe you killed her,” Jax said softly.

  “You don’t want to believe it. You want me to be your chance to right an old wrong. But you know saving me isn’t going to bring Dunkirk back from the dead, or undo what your father did.”

  “You think that’s all this is about? Some k
ind of third-party act of contrition?”

  He took his hand away from hers. “That’s all it can be about.”

  “You don’t know me very well if you believe that.”

  “And you don’t know me at all. Cassandra, I can’t…there can’t be anything between us.”

  The fire snapped, warming her face. She probed his eyes and saw everything she was feeling reflected back at her from their depths. And instead of acknowledging it, she said, “Oh, come on with the melodramatic bullshit. There already is something between us, River. Physical attraction. Nothing scary. Nothing earth-shattering. Just that.”

  He closed his eyes. “I can’t…”

  “Yeah, well. I’m liable to wear you down, you stick around long enough. I can be a real pain in the ass that way.”

  He smiled, letting her teasing humor break the tension. She was pretty sure he knew she was only half-kidding. Then he looked at the file folder again, and his smile died. “Let’s get this over with, huh? We both need some sleep.”

  “Okay.” She moved closer to him on the floor, the better to see inside the folder.

  He braced himself visibly and flipped it open. Autopsy photos. White flesh. Closed eyes. Singed hair. Burns in places, but not to any great extent. Not to the extent that the fire had killed her. The smoke probably got to her first, and Jax thought that was fortunate.

  River was frozen, staring at the photos. Not blinking. Jax reached for them, gathered them up and took them away. She set them facedown on the floor beside her. “River? You okay?”

  He was so still she thought he might have slipped into another blackout. But he drew a sudden breath, nodded once, firmly. “I’m okay.”

  She nodded, too, and then leaned over the folder. They read together in silence. The pages described the condition of Stephanie Corbett’s remains in excruciating detail. Third degree burns to the arms and back and face. A blunt trauma injury to the head, more likely from a blow than a fall. Cause of death had been smoke inhalation, but the means of death was listed as homicide.

  Then came the part about the child she’d been carrying. Approximately twelve weeks gestation. Normal weight and size, apparently healthy, and male.

  River rocked backward, pressing his hands to his head. “It was a boy. They never told me.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  “I couldn’t have done this. I couldn’t have killed my own baby.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “Yeah,” she said softly. “I’m sorry, River, but I’m afraid we do. Look at this.”

  He lowered his hands from his face, and she glimpsed the unshed tears shimmering in his eyes. Blinking them away, he leaned over the paper and read the lines that began near the tip of her finger.

  Then he blinked up at her, looking more confused than she’d ever seen anyone look. “That can’t be right.”

  “I imagine it was double-checked. They wouldn’t put something like that in here without being sure. The child your wife was carrying wasn’t yours, River.”

  Something smashed, and they both jumped to their feet. But it was only a coffee mug someone had left on the windowsill on the constantly cold side of the room. It must have fallen to the floor and broken.

  “Jesus, that scared me,” Jax muttered. Then she patted Rex, because he was snarling and the fur on his back bristled upward as he stared at the wall. “It’s all right, boy, there’s nothing there.”

  River blinked. “Whose coffee mug is that?” he asked.

  Jax frowned, got to her feet and went to pick it up. It was an Asian patterned, rose-colored mug, broken into three neat chunks, and it was as cold as if it had come from the freezer. “I don’t know. Must be one of the hand-me-downs my mother brought over.”

  He was standing beside her, staring at the pieces she held. “It’s just like Stephanie’s favorite set. They were the only ones she’d use for her morning coffee.”

  Jax put a hand on his chest as he stared at the wall. “Don’t start seeing bogeymen in the shadows, River. This is nothing. It’s a coincidence.”

  “Do you feel how cold it is here?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. It’s always cold on this side of the room.”

  “Didn’t used to be,” he said. “This used to be where the entry to the other wing was. Here, and off the far end of the hallway upstairs. Is it cold there, too?”

  “What, are you seeing ghosts now, River? Come on, don’t make me put you back on the damn Haldol.”

  He looked at her, his eyes unsteady.

  “It was nothing. A cup fell off a freaking windowsill. You’ve got enough real problems without making up imaginary ones.”

  He lowered his gaze, nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. Just…the timing. Just when we read that the baby wasn’t mine. God, I can’t believe that.”

  The cop in her knew that the obvious conclusion would be that this was River’s true motive for murdering his wife. But she could see him, see his eyes, the shock and the horror. He hadn’t known about this. He hadn’t had the first clue.

  “Stephanie…was with another man,” he whispered, as if it had just occurred to him.

  “Yeah, it would seem so. I’m sorry, River. You okay?”

  He looked at her, nodded distractedly.

  “Good, because we need to find out who. Next to you, River, he’d be the obvious suspect in her murder.”

  “No.” He shook his head, even as he got to his feet. “No way, there’s no way. It’s a mistake. My wife didn’t cheat on me. She didn’t.” He crossed the room in angry strides, kicked the folder and sent papers flying like a miniature explosion. The act made Jax jump, and even Rex seemed startled. The dog moved to put himself between Jax and River, almost as if he were…protecting her.

  River stood there, looking from the mess he’d made to Jax’s face. He held up his hands, started to say something, then just backed slowly away from her. Finally, he turned and went up the stairs.

  Jax followed but he flung a hand behind him, palm flat and facing her. “Don’t, Cassandra. Just…just don’t.”

  He continued up the stairs, into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

  Cassandra sighed, swallowed and fought with her urge to go after him. It wouldn’t do any good, she thought. Not now.

  So she turned to the papers strewn everywhere, and slowly picked them up and put them back in order. And when she’d finished, she carried them to the kitchen table, sat down and began reading. She didn’t intend to stop until she’d finished, even though she kept feeling as if someone were watching her. Every time she looked up, there was no one there.

  * * *

  Dawn lay in the bed, shivering, and they were standing in the room staring at her. Not saying anything, just staring at her. That woman in scorched white, with the baby. And Mordecai, on the opposite side of her bed. Young again, handsome, with a deep sadness in his brown eyes.

  She’d told them to go away, she’d tried to ignore them and fall to sleep, but she couldn’t get warm, not with the chill they brought into the room penetrating her very bones.

  She couldn’t stand this!

  Finally, she flung back the covers, sprang to her feet and ran out of her bedroom with little shivers chasing themselves up and down her spine until she’d put a hundred feet between herself and that room.

  God, how she hated them.

  She wandered down to the kitchen, thinking a hot cocoa might help relax her, or at least provide a good excuse to keep from going back to bed. But when she stepped into the kitchen, the shrink, Dr. Melrose, was there, sipping a cup of tea and staring pensively out the window.

  He turned, sent her a smile that didn’t cover up whatever else was going on with him. He had a lot on his mind, that guy.

  “You couldn’t sleep, either, huh?”

  “No.” She moved to the stove, set the kettle on the burner.

  “Anything you want to talk about?” he asked.

  She lower
ed her head, not turning around. “You’d have me committed by morning.”

  “No chance of that, Dawn. You’re no danger to yourself, or anyone else. You’re perfectly functional.”

  She turned slowly, looked him up and down. “Do you know who my father was?”

  “No. Should I?”

  She nodded. “Ever hear the name Mordecai Young?”

  His brows went up, that look of horrified recognition she’d grown used to seeing, appearing in his eyes.

  “I see you have,” she said.

  “To be honest, I’ve studied his story to some degree. He’s a fascinating case.”

  “Really,” she said, not surprised. She’d heard there were classes in shrink school devoted to the study of her father. “So what do you make of him? Was he gifted, or just insane?” She turned to the stove, half watching him as she went about putting her cup of cocoa together.

  “I think he might have been a bit of both, actually.” The doctor pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. He was wearing a brown plush robe over blue pajamas, and a pair of corduroy slippers covered his feet. “You know, as a scientist, I’m basically a skeptic. But in your father’s case…” He lowered his head, shaking it slowly. “Well, there seems to be a lot of evidence that he really did possess some sort of…of…well, he knew a lot of things he had no way of knowing.”

  “So you think his gift was genuine?”

  “I think it might have been. I also think he was suffering from a serious mental illness.”

  She tilted her head. “That’s kind of what I thought. But…do you think it was the gift that made him insane? Or the insanity that gave him the gift?”

  “I have no idea.” He tilted his head to one side and studied her. “This is bothering you on a very deep level, isn’t it, Dawn?”

  She nodded. “Deeper than you could probably imagine.”

  His lips pulled into a slight, sympathetic smile. “I don’t see many private patients anymore. But I see a few. I’d be willing to make time if you’d like to come to my office.”

  “Your office?”

  He nodded. “Neutral ground. No one likely to walk in and interrupt. If you’d like to talk about this some more, it might be easier there.”

  She licked her lips and studied him. He seemed sincere. “I’ll think about it. Seriously, I will.”