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“Whoever the fuck—” he stopped short. “You? What the hell are you doing here?”

  CHAPTER 13

  Colin Elliot left the writer’s group with an unexpected spring in his step. He had gone into the endeavor the way he always did: fearing that he was wasting his time, that he would be better off just writing, while at the same time scared of doing just that. Finishing another novel would mean publishing it, and publishing it meant that he was opening himself up to the reviews of others. Sure, his pen name allowed him some insulation from public scorn, but it still hurt him deeply when someone wrote something negative about one of his books.

  His books, after all, were his babies.

  “You need to extricate yourself from your work,” an old tutor had once told him. But this was in direct contradiction to what he had just instructed the writer’s group: write what you know, write about your experiences, write about your life.

  It wasn’t quite three yet, but he was in such a good mood that he thought he would pick the girls up early from school and take them for ice cream before going home. Juliette and Colby typically finished at three, then had after school program until five.

  Colin was still smiling when he pulled up to Hockley Elementary school. And the smile remained as he walked up to the chubby woman manning the desk just inside the school doors.

  Shivering slightly as he approached, he absently dusted snow from the shoulders of his coat.

  “It’s getting cold out there,” he remarked.

  The woman looked up at him and grinned, her cheeks forming apples.

  “Yeah, and it’s only going to get colder.” The woman replied, squinting as she spoke. “You are… Mr…”

  “Elliot,” Colin confirmed.

  “Yes of course; Juliette and Colby’s father. They’ll be happy to see you. Mrs. Ross mentioned that they both fell asleep during math today.”

  As she reached over with a chubby hand for a walkie on the desk, Colin felt his smile falter.

  Did they hear us fighting the other night? Did we keep them awake?

  He knew that his girls, Colby in particular, was a very light sleeper. It was possible—no, it was likely—that she had heard their fighting and had stayed up listening.

  He hoped to god she hadn’t, but knew deep down that this was just wishful thinking.

  The woman at the desk grunted, and her splayed fingers brushed up against the walkie, but failed to grab hold.

  Colin grasped it and handed it to her.

  “Thank you,” she said. “The cafeteria food seems to be taking its toll.” Her thick thumb pressed the side of the walkie-talkie. “Mrs. Ross? Can you please send Julliette and Colby Elliot to the front? Their father is here to pick them up.”

  She let go of the button and waited. A second later, a staticky voice replied, “Sure thing. They’re just putting on their coats and hats then they’ll be right out.”

  The woman nodded at him and then put the walkie-talkie down. Colin shifted uncomfortably for a moment as he stared at the plump woman.

  Should I say something? I already mentioned the weather… what else can I say to make idle conversation?

  For close to a minute, the two of them just stared at each other. Colin swallowed hard, and then, deciding that he could handle the uncomfortable air for any longer, fell into the role of one of the characters in his books.

  “So,” he said, leaning forward. He tried to put a wry grin on his face, but it fell short and he let it slide. “What are you doing after this?”

  The woman blinked several times in succession.

  “Pardon?”

  “After all of this. You busy? Got a—”

  The woman again blinked her fish-eyes at him, and although the grandiose smile remained on her face, it seemed forced now, as evidenced by further creasing on her otherwise smooth forehead.

  Colin suddenly caught sight of Julliette and Colby running down the hallway toward him, their heavy backpacks causing them to sway back and forth as they did.

  “No running!” Mrs. Ross shouted after them. “No running, girls!”

  Julliette instantly slowed to something that fell between a jog and a walk, but Colby continued running and slid in front of her sister.

  “Hey!” Juliette cried. She moved to one side to try regain the lead, but Colby shifted in that direction and blocked her with her backpack. “Get out of the way, Colby!”

  Colin walked around the desk and waved.

  “Hi girls!” he cried, trying to distract them to pre-emptively stop what was destined to escalate into a spat.

  Colby looked up, and Juliette seized the opportunity to slide in front of her.

  “Na-na!” Juliette teased.

  Colby shoved her sister to one side, and Juliette stumbled, barely keeping her footing.

  “Hey!”

  Colin shook his head as he moved toward them, bending to one knee and holding his arms open.

  Both girls reached him at the same time, and he embraced them awkwardly.

  Then he stood and started toward the door.

  “How was your day, girls?”

  “Fine,” they replied in unison.

  Colin sighed, and offered a parting smile to the woman at the desk as he passed. She blinked at him, but didn’t say a word.

  “Just fine, huh? Well maybe we can change that. Who wants some ice cream?”

  “Me! Me! Me!”

  ~

  “Make sure you lick all the way around. I don’t want you to drip in the car,” Colin said as he sat in the driver’s seat.

  “Yes, dad,” his daughters replied in unison.

  It was only a short drive from Baskin Robbins to their apartment, but during that time Juliette and Colby both managed to break into tears.

  Twice.

  Colin was barely holding it together when he finally put the car into park, any semblance of pride or esteem from his time at the writer’s group having long since fled him.

  “Please, guys. No more fighting. Please. You know how it upsets your mother.”

  There was a pause and he glanced up into the rear view.

  Colby stared back at him, her eyes oddly vacant. Then she turned to Juliette.

  “Gimme a lick.”

  Juliette pulled the ice-cream away from her sister, inadvertently rubbing a multicolored swirl on the inside of the door.

  “No way, you have your own.”

  “Yeah, but I want to try yours!”

  Colin rubbed his temples and got out of the car, hesitating before opening the door for Juliette.

  “No way!” Juliette whined. “And your breath stinks! Eat your own!”

  Juliette jumped from the car, knocking snow across Colin’s running shoes. Colby quickly followed.

  “Alright guys, go on inside.”

  The girls hurried toward the front door, Colby with her tongue out trying to slurp her sister’s ice cream. They were halfway to the door, when Juliette suddenly stopped.

  “Hey,” she said, pointing to a light that was on in the second story window. “Isn’t that your room? You said mommy wasn’t going to be home until later.”

  Colin squinted upward, confirming that the light, one that he had turned off before leaving, was indeed on.

  He shrugged and gestured for them to continue toward the door.

  “That’s what she told me.”

  Once inside, Juliette slipped off her backpack and then sprinted toward the stairs.

  “Mommy! Mommy! Daddy got us ice cream!” she hollered, taking the stairs two at a time.

  “Juliette! Your shoes!” Colin shouted after her. “Take off your shoes! You’re going to track snow through the house!”

  The girl didn’t even look back. Somehow, even the sway of her pony-tail seemed sassy.

  Colby started after her sister, but Colin grabbed her backpack before she could get away.

  “Take off your boots first, Colby.”

  The girl whined and grunted, while at the same time trying to remove her boots witho
ut untying them, using the toe of one to drive against the heel of the other.

  “I can’t! They’re too tight! How come Juliette gets too—”

  Colin dropped to a knee.

  “You have to undo them first. Here, I’ll help you.”

  With numb fingers, he started to untie her first boot. When he was done, she shook it off, flinging snow onto the carpet. He had just started with her second boot when there was a scream from upstairs.

  Colin immediately whipped around and ran toward the stairs.

  “Juliette? Juliette!”

  Colin spotted his daughter in the doorway of his bedroom, her back to him.

  “Juliette? What’s wrong?”

  Walking briskly now, Colin made it to his daughter and grabbed her, trying to spin her around to look at her.

  “Juliette? You okay? What’s wrong?”

  Colin looked at his daughter, trying to figure out what was going on. His first thought was that she had dropped her ice cream, but it was still clutched tightly in one hand, the melted pink and blue liquid coating her fingers.

  “Juliette?” he repeated.

  A sound from the bedroom drew his gaze.

  Colin turned and saw his wife sitting on the side of the bed, a cigarette dangling from her lips. She was wearing only a pair of underwear and a plain gray t-shirt, the outline of her small breasts clearly visible through the thin material. Ryanne clicked her lighter and lit her cigarette.

  After taking several puffs and exhaling a thick gray cloud of smoke, she raised her gaze to Colin.

  “You’re getting the carpet wet,” she said.

  Colin’s eyes went wide and he stumbled into the hallway. If it hadn’t been for his daughter, and the fact that his hand was still on her back, he would have fallen.

  Behind Ryanne, a man stood, his back to Colin. Like his wife, he was in his underwear, and as Colin watched, the man stretched and put on a t-shirt.

  CHAPTER 14

  Sergeant Chase Adams slid into her BMW and waited for FBI Agent Jeremy Stitts to get into the passenger seat before she started it up.

  “Nice ride,” Agent Stitts commented as he lowered himself into the creme-colored seat.

  “Thank you,” Chase said as she reversed out of the precinct parking lot, wondering if she was going to have to explain, as she had to Drake long ago, that she had bought the car from Internet poker earnings.

  And how will that go over with the feds, Chase? Hmm?

  But Agent Stitts’s next question made it clear that he wasn’t pre-occupied with the vehicle.

  “Melissa Green or Tanya Farthing first?”

  Problem was, Chase didn’t know how to answer that either. With the suicide killer, she hadn’t had to speak to the victims’ families; either they couldn’t be located or simply didn’t care, or in the case of Eddie Larringer, Drake had done the honors. But she vividly recalled speaking to Clarissa Smith, and was keenly aware of how awkward and terrible an experience that had been.

  I should speak to her, reach out, she thought suddenly.

  A sense of déjà vu overcame her then, as she realized that she had had this thought before. Only it had been in reference to Drake and not Clarissa Smith.

  It’s happening again. I’m getting obsessed with the job, forgetting the human element.

  “Sergeant Adams?”

  Chase shook her head and looked over at Agent Stitts who was staring back at her, a concerned look on his face. He was handsome, she realized, if a little clean cut for her tastes.

  “Sorry, it’s just that the last few months have been a bit of a whirlwind.”

  Stitts nodded.

  “I’ve read your file. A transplant from Seattle Narc to NYPD Detective, then to first grade in record time. And now Sergeant. You’ve made quite the impression, it seems.”

  Chase tilted her head to one side.

  He’s read the file; that’s good.

  Part of the reason why she had been so quick to get the FBI involved in this case, despite her previous unproductive interactions with them in Seattle, was to get noticed, to get on their radar.

  And, to her surprise, Agent Stitts seemed not only to know what he was doing, but also seemed respectful. He didn’t strike her as the type to flash his badge like his pecker and scream FBI, I’m taking over this case!

  Her thoughts turned to Sergeant Rhodes and how cocky the bald bastard had been before he had gotten in her way.

  “Either that or it’s just good timing; rotten eggs above me, if you catch my drift.”

  Agent Stitts grunted and he turned his attention to the snow that the windshield wipers worked fruitlessly to wick away.

  “Maybe,” he said absently.

  They drove in silence for the next few minutes.

  “Green,” Chase said at last. “Let’s go see Melissa Green first. See if we can figure out how and why the killer targeted her, if she had any enemies, and if she knew Tanya Farthing.”

  Agent Stitts nodded.

  “Sounds good. You want me to lead the discussion or do you want to?”

  Chase pressed her lips together. Although she didn’t share Drake’s extreme revulsion at the idea of breaking terrible news to loved ones, she wasn’t a fan of doing it either. But it was her case, she was the Sergeant, and it was her city, dammit.

  “I’ll do it,” she said without hesitation. “I’ll speak to the family.”

  ~

  The address listed in Melissa’s file—which they had procured from a shoplifting arrest a few years back—was a trailer park at the eastern border of the city. They gained entry to the compound by calling ahead, and the manager, a portly man named Hector, directed them to a trailer toward the back of the compound.

  The trailer itself was old, the corners that rested on cinderblocks starting to rot. Chase noticed that the blinds of the other trailers surrounding Melissa’s were open just a little, and the suspicious eyes that peered out were trained on her. For once, she wished that she hadn’t insisted on driving. She had no idea what Agent Stitts drove, but guessed that it had to be less… expensive… than her BMW.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  Agent Stitts nodded and Chase opened the door and stepped into the cold.

  The screen door to the trailer was torn, and Chase put her fist through the hole to knock on the wood behind it.

  “Comin’,” a husky voice called from within.

  Chase glanced furtively at Stitts and was about to say something when then the door suddenly opened. A woman in her mid-forties sporting a long t-shirt that came to her knees, stood in the doorway. She stared at them with deeply sunken eyes.

  “Yeah? Who are you? What do you want?” she snapped. Her eyes flicked to the BMW behind Chase. “You cops or something? Cuz he ain’t here, if that’s who yer looking for.”

  He? Who’s he?

  “No, ma’am. I’m here with some very upsetting news. May we come in?”

  The woman observed Chase for a good minute, taking several hauls off a hand rolled cigarette during this time. Eventually her eyes narrowed and she repeated her initial query, “You cops or something?”

  Chase nodded.

  “My name is Sergeant Adams and this here is FBI Agent Stitts. Are you related to Melissa Green?”

  The woman put the cigarette between her thin lips and crossed her arms across her chest.

  “I don’t got nothing to say to cops. If Melissa got herself in trouble again, then that’s her problem. I ain’t paying for no bail. I told her that I wasn’t gonna bail her out no more. Didn’t do her no good last time, and it won’t do her no good this time.”

  “Ma’am, it’s not—”

  A toddler wearing only a sagging diaper suddenly appeared beside the woman, and she ushered him away.

  “What’s this about, then?”

  Chase sighed, a cloud of fog forming in front of her face.

  “Please, can we come in?”

  “Nuh-uh, not ‘til you tell me what this’s about.”
>
  A quick glance at Stitts, who raised an eyebrow, and Chase just came out with it.

  “I’m very sorry to tell you this, but Melissa’s dead,” she said flatly.

  CHAPTER 15

  Drake lowered the bat to his side and stared at the man sitting in the chair behind his desk. He was short and unimpressive, and yet every time he saw him, Drake felt unease wash over his soul.

  “What do you want?” Drake snapped, the words coming out more harshly than he had intended.

  Raul stood and Drake felt his hand tighten on the bat.

  “He wants to see you,” he said flatly in a thick Spanish accent.

  “What does he want?”

  Raul said nothing. He simply moved toward Drake and the door.

  “You don’t need that,” Raul instructed, his eyes flicking to the baseball bat.

  Don’t go; tell Raul to fuck off. Tell him to relay the message to Ken Smith that I’m not his errand boy.

  But he couldn’t do that. He owed the man. If it weren’t for him, Suzan would be dead right now, burnt alive by a psychopath hellbent on recreating deaths from Beckett’s forensic pathology exam.

  Drake frowned, the scarred skin on his cheek crumpling uncomfortably. He leaned the bat against the wall by the door and shrugged.

  “Alright, let’s go then.”

  ~

  As expected, Raul said nothing during the drive to Ken Smith’s condo. This, unfortunately, left Drake with time inside his own head, which soon became a messy bog of emotions and memories.

  He was glad that Chase had brought him on the case, even if his position as ‘Special Consultant’ was ambiguous at best. And he was pleased that the harsh feelings that his ex-colleagues in the force had once harbored toward him, seemed to have eased. Yet being back in the fold meant that his memories returned, that Clay was once again front and center in his mind.

  And this made him want to drink again. He hadn’t sworn off the sauce completely, but it was more under control than it had been for as long as he could remember. No drinking in his car parked outside a high school, for instance. But now, in this moment, sitting in Raul’s midnight black Range Rover, he wished that tucked inside his jacket pocket was a miniature of Johnny Walker.