“Not sure,” he said over his shoulder. “Might go into the office to see what the new team has.”
“Will they let you just come and go like that?”
“I’ll go in the side door, so to speak.”
“You mean, you’ll meet your doctor friend.”
He forced himself not to turn around. The tone was a jealous one and it made his stomach lurch pleasantly to hear it. He wanted her to be jealous. He wanted her to want only him. So why was he standing in the middle of his kitchen facing the other way, forcing himself not to pull her into his arms?
Oh yeah. For every reason he could think of.
“That’s right. I’ll meet her for coffee after I drop you off at your mother’s.”
“I thought you were coming too.”
“I’ll stop in when I pick you up.”
He heard the mug go down on the counter and he turned around.
“I’m ready now,” she said. “I’ll take Daisy out and wait for you in the car.”
“You know, I was thinking you might want to take Daisy permanently. She seems to prefer you.”
“Thanks. I was going to suggest it,” she said, turning to stride to the front door, the little dog at her heels.
An hour later Burton drove her to her mother’s house. Mia got out of the car, the dog in her arms, without saying a word to him. It was pretty clear to her that he’d checked out on the whole investigation—preferring to hear from others what they might or might not uncover. She tried to hide her fury on the ride over but she was never very good at that.
“I’ll call when I’m on my way back,” he said as she shut the car door.
“Great.” She turned away and walked up the drive to the house. She could tell he was watching her walk away. Good. Let him see what he’s missing, she thought, putting a little extra wiggle in her hips.
Her mother met her at the door. “Jack not coming in? Oh, my goodness, who’s this?”
Mia gave her mother a one-sided hug and, still holding the dog in her arm, said, “This is Daisy. She’s Jack’s foundling but we’re going to take care of her for a bit.”
“What’s a bit?” Jess asked, tousling the dog’s topknot.
“Probably forever. I’m starving. Is there any breakfast left?” She put the dog on the floor and moved into the living room where the family computer sat wedged up against a wall.
“I have some biscuits,” Jess said, moving into the kitchen. “They’re cold but still good with the Tupelo honey I found last weekend up in Dillard.”
“Why did you go to Dillard? You went by yourself?”
Jess’s voice came from the kitchen. “I just did a day trip up there,” she said. “It did me a world of good.”
A day trip to the mountain community the family had spent so much time in over the years? How in the world could that have done anyone good?
“Had the leaves changed?” Mia asked as she logged onto the computer.
“It’s early November!” Jess said. “The leaves had changed and fallen.” She came into the living room with a plate of buttered biscuits and a small pot of honey. “I have jam if you’d prefer,” she said, setting the plate down and looking over Mia’s shoulder. “What are you looking for?”
“I’m not sure. For starters, I thought I’d Google some of the people who knew Dave.”
“Whatever for?”
“No reason. You know Burton doesn’t even own a computer?”
“Surely he uses one for his work?”
“Well, I guess he did when he had a job.”
“Who’s that?” Jess pointed to the screen where a shot of Carol Maxwell in a bikini came up.
“She’s married to the deputy chief.”
“Oh, my.”
“Yeah, she’s a piece of work. You should see her in person.”
The next photo showed Carol in high heels standing by her mailbox—totally nude. Mia heard her mother’s sharp intake of breath.
“You know, Mom?” Mia said, turning to her. “A cup of tea would be so perfect with these biscuits.”
“Why would the wife of a deputy chief of police allow that photo on a public site?”
“Yeah, I know, shocking. The tea? Mom? Please?”
Jess moved reluctantly away from Mia’s shoulder toward the kitchen and Mia immediately clicked on the link in the caption of the photo that read “see the video.” It took her to a video-sharing website and the movie file, slated “Three on a Match,” began playing as soon as the page opened.
In the back of her mind, Mia heard her mother put the kettle on and begin to rummage on the counter for the tea bags. She kept her finger hovered over the Pause icon, in case her mother returned, but she needn’t have worried. Although the video was tagged as being five minutes long, she only needed to see the first five seconds to see all she would need to see for now.
She recognized Carol immediately because she’d been expecting to see her. Her stomach dropped when she realized she was looking at the master bedroom in her own condo—Dave’s condo. She heard Dave’s muted laughter before she saw him, nude and backlit against the bathroom door. Carol was on her knees on the bed. When the man having sex with her turned his head to say something to Dave, she saw it was Dave’s best friend Keith.
Mia closed the browser and sat staring at her search engine home page. It wasn’t until a mug of steaming tea was set down in front of her that she noticed her hands resting on the keyboard were shaking.
“Are you all right, darling?” her mother said softly as she pulled up a chair.
Mia reached for her tea and took a long searing sip, not caring that she was burning her tongue, lips and throat, in fact, glad of the pain. To see Dave again, to hear his laugh, his voice…but to hear him like this. Her stomach turned over and she glanced at the waste paper basket next to the desk wondering if she might need to use it. She took another painful swallow of hot tea.
“I’m fine,” she whispered. “Just missing Dave. You know.”
“I know,” Jess said, taking Mia’s hand in hers. “That’s why I went to Dillard yesterday. As much as it hurt to remember happier times there, I still felt like I was with him for a little bit. That kind of pain is better than the plain missing him kind.”
“Yeah,” Mia said hoarsely. She felt an irrational sting of anger at her brother. Why did you do this? Who were you? What kind of life were you living? Did you even deserve our love? She hated herself for that last thought.
“Mia? Dear?”
Mia put the mug down and forced herself to smile at her mother, forced herself to get control.
Fine. So that’s who he was. Good and fine. I’m still not going to let the person who did this get away with it. They don’t get to take our loved one away.
“I need to borrow the car, Mom,” she said.
“Oh. Well…do you want some company? Are you thinking of going to Dillard too?”
“No, I have an errand to run,” Mia said. “Can I borrow it?”
“Of course, dear. But shouldn’t you wait for Jack?”
“Turns out Jack is less helpful than I had hoped,” she said. She stood up, collected the keys as she walked to the front door and then stopped. The little dog was sitting in the foyer, her head cocked questioningly at Mia.
“I’ll be back, girl,” she said. “You stay here. Watch her for me, please, Mom. She’s been abused and needs all the extra love you’ve got.”
Jess walked over to the dog and knelt down to it. “We’ll be fine, Mia,” she said. “You just be careful.”
“I will.” But she was out the door and down the front drive before the words were out of her mouth.
It was pretty clear to her that William Maxwell, aka the cuckold, knew a whole hell of a lot more about Dave’s murder than he was letting on. And if he didn’t, well, he was about to.
***
Karen has definitely bumped it up a notch, Burton couldn’t help notice. An attractive woman by anyone’s standards, it wasn’t always easy to tell covered up
by scrubs or a lab coat. Today she was wearing makeup and heels and the lab coat was open to expose a trim, hip-hugging suit underneath.
It occurred to Burton that Karen might have met someone.
“Hey, you,” he said, after tapping on the outer doorjamb of her office. Normally he only ever saw her in the lab. Her office was outfitted in bright colors with framed photos of her parents and two older brothers as well as her elderly black lab, Cocoa.
She smiled warmly at him but didn’t stand up. “Let me just finish this file,” she said, “and we can grab a coffee.”
He sat in the guest chair opposite her desk. He’d argued with himself the whole way down here that the really smart thing to do would be to take Karen up on her open offer and let everything else cool off. He couldn’t avoid being around Mia while the issue of her safety was still unresolved but he could limit her effect on him. When Karen stood up to tuck the file she’d been working on in a tall filing cabinet by the window, he noted her long, athletic legs and was relieved to notice he liked what he saw.
“So what’s the story on your investigation with Dave’s sister?” she asked as she settled back into her chair.
“Not really much of an investigation,” he said. “We got the case opened back up and now we’re letting the professionals handle it.”
“Very wise, I have to say. There were a few of us here in the office that thought you’d lost your damn mind, Jack, when we heard you’d opened up a private investigations business with her.”
“How did you hear that?”
“You know this place. Everyone hears everything.”
“Yeah, well, she needed to feel involved, you know, in solving Dave’s death as part of the grieving process.”
“So that’s what you were doing? Helping her grieve? Kind of ironic, isn’t it? Considering your relationship with Dave?”
“I guess so. I felt like…like I owed him.”
“You felt guilt.”
“Okay, I did. I never gave the guy a chance. I mean, we were never going to be best buds, but I feel bad about how it ended.”
“You mean with him dead and you screwing his sister.”
“Whoa, Karen. What the hell? Where did that come from? I’m not sleeping with her.” He forced his face to take on a look of indignation which wasn’t easy since he’d been inches from sleeping with Mia just a few hours ago.
“I’m sorry,” Karen said, her face flushing pink. “I don’t know why I said that. Stupid. Especially since I can see why you’d want to do right by Dave after everything between you.”
“Can I ask you why you keep coming back to that?”
Karen looked at him, her eyes round and unsure, and then she hopped up and went to the door and closed it after first glancing down the hall. She came and perched on the corner of the desk nearest to Burton.
“I know you want information on what directions the new detectives are exploring in Dave’s death.”
Burton felt a tingling of foreboding as he watched her face, clearly torn between her allegiances.
“I shouldn’t be saying this…”
“It’s me, isn’t it? I’m their main suspect?”
“Well, they say you had motive—and everyone here has heard you say stuff on the level of why doesn’t that bastard die?—and you don’t have an alibi for that night. Some guys say you and Dave were supposed to get together that night to ‘settle it once and for all.’” She reached out and gave his shoulder a shake. “It’s early days, Jack. They’re only getting started just like they’d be focused on Dave’s wife if he had one—”
“He had a girlfriend.”
“And I understand they’re looking at her, too.”
“Just not as closely as they’re looking at me.”
“And then with you all connected at the hip with Dave’s sister…it just doesn’t look good at all. I don’t suppose you would consider cooling your relationship with her until after the case closes? I’m sure that would help.”
“I don’t have a relationship with her.”
“Well, whatever you call it. Your association with her, then. Your guilt, or why ever you’re hanging out with her and her mother, is not helping, Jack. Because, let’s face it, guilt is exactly what the team is looking for.”
Burton sighed and rubbed a hand across his face. “Is this just a rumor or have they brought it to Maxwell?”
“I have no idea. I’m just hearing whatever gets shunted around in the lunchroom. You are their prime suspect.”
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“No, you shouldn’t. Dave dies and you quit immediately afterward?” Karen shook her head and returned to her desk. “Can you explain why you did that? Because there’s a very real possibility you’re going to have to in front of a grand jury.”
Burton stood up and walked to the window in her office overlooking Spring Street. From here he could see the southern-most loop of the Connector and beyond it the brick Georgia Tech dormitories that were built for the 1996 Olympics. Directly below Karen’s window, a homeless woman sat huddled under a large stained comforter.
“I thought I was unhappy with my job because of Dave,” he said, still looking out the window.
“But you weren’t?”
He shook his head. “No. When he died, it turned out I still hated my job. I guess I didn’t want to think the problem was the job…”
“You had fifteen years invested.”
“Exactly. It was easier to think it was just a personnel clash. Eminently fixable.”
“I’m sorry, Jack. I never knew. It’s hard to believe someone as good as you were didn’t love it.”
He turned to look at her and grinned. “I loved parts of it,” he said. “But these two weeks away have made me realize that maybe Mia is right about my needing to stay in the business. I’m not saying going into partnership with her is a good idea, I’m sure it’s not. But working for myself is a very good idea and I didn’t realize that before.”
“Got any clients yet?”
He laughed. “Not a one. Not yet anyway. Honestly, until we started talking about it right this minute I didn’t even know that’s how I felt.”
“Glad I could help.”
Whatever he might have felt prompted to do or say after that was interrupted by Karen’s desk phone ringing. From her expression, he knew the timing of it frustrated her, too.
“Yes?” She listened for a moment and then looked up at him. “Yes, he’s here now.”
Burton watched her eyes flick away from him to the window. The color began to fade from her cheeks.
“Okay, I’ll tell him,” she said. “Yes, I’m sure he’ll be right there.”
“What is it?”
Karen hung up and made a face like she’d just opened up a can of tuna that had gone bad. “That was Maxwell,” she said. “You need to head over there. He’s just arrested Mia Kazmaroff.”
12
“Get her out of here in the next five minutes and I won’t book her. Give me any lip at all…” Maxwell turned to glare at Mia who was sitting demurely, almost innocently, on the guest chair in his office, her hands cuffed in front of her, “and I’ll make sure you spend the weekend inside.”
Burton ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. “Can I at least know what the charge is or was?” He forced himself not to look at her. In the mood he was in, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t tell Maxwell to keep her for the weekend.
“She came in here, pushed past the receptionist—”
“How’d she get past the front desk sergeant?”
“Said she was Dave Kazmaroff’s sister and had a meeting with Dr. Sanders. There was an incident during check in—”
“Which I had nothing to do with,” Mia said.
“Be quiet,” Burton said tersely, still not looking at her.
“She made it to the Doc’s floor and got some good Samaritan to buzz her in up here. After which, she pushed past Ellie and came right on in. I guess I should be lucky
she wasn’t armed.”
“Give me a break,” Mia said.
“I am giving you a break, Miss Kazmaroff,” Maxwell said to her. “Because you’re Dave’s sister and obviously in distress, I’m giving you a big break.”
“How did a visit from a distraught family member of one of our own end up with the family member in cuffs?” Burton asked.
“She attempted to access my computer after I repeatedly told her to stand back.”
“Your computer?”
“There’s a sex tape online of Dave and Keith Barnes with Carol Maxwell,” Mia said.
“Shut up!” Maxwell barked at her. He took a step in her direction and Burton took a step in his and put his hand up to prevent any more steps.
A sex tape. And she came here to accuse Maxwell of killing her brother. Terrific.
“I called her mother,” Maxwell said, his hands on his hips, glowering at Mia, “who informed me that Detective Burton was looking out for her and she expected you were somewhere in the building. So that’s the whole picture. Now get her out of here before I change my mind.”
Mia stood up and pointed at Maxwell, her hands still pinioned together by the handcuffs. “This is a violation of every civil right in the book,” she said. “I’ll take it to the media. It’s an obvious police conspiracy—”
“Miss Kazmaroff, if I see one word in the AJC that even hints at my involvement in your brother’s death, I will sue you for slander.”
“I think you mean libel and you don’t scare me.”
Burton held his hand out to Maxwell for the cuff keys. “Mia, shut up,” he said.
* * *
Burton drove behind Mia to her mother’s house and waited in the car until she came back, a small backpack of clothes over her arm.
“Where’s Daisy?”
“She’s company for my mom. I didn’t think you’d mind,” Mia said as she climbed into the car. She was glad they had two separate cars for the drive from the police station. She’d heard of Burton’s famous temper from Dave but had never witnessed it first hand—and certainly never imagined it directed at her. She hoped he’d taken the time to calm down because they had a lot of work to do and she was convinced they needed to do it sooner rather than later.
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