Authors: L. R. Nicolello
Not for her.
That bitch deserved far worse. And she’d get it. When he was good and ready. And he was close.
Those damn reporters questioned if he was done, if the killer had gone to ground or, better yet, left Seattle altogether. He gritted his teeth and brought the viewfinder up to his eye and pressed the shutter again, firing off more photos.
Stupid people. He wasn’t done.
Far from it.
He was merely gearing up for the grand finale.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
L
ATE
THAT
NIGHT
, Derek walked into Marcus’s apartment. Closing the door, he pulled his .45 out, checked the safety and put it on the kitchen counter. He looked around and frowned. “Where’s Evelyn?”
“Sleeping. Where’ve you been?”
“Really?” Derek’s eyebrows arched. “That surprises me.”
“It’s been a long day. She was tired.”
Derek threw his jacket over the back of the sofa, walked into the kitchen and sat. A used tea bag sat on the edge of the sink.
“Marcus, tell me you didn’t.”
“I didn’t.”
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”
“So then say it.”
Derek got up, leaned over and grabbed the tea bag. He let it hang from his forefinger and thumb in front of Marcus’s nose.
“It’s a used tea bag,” Marcus said. “She wanted a cup of tea before bed. And I, being the good man I am, fixed her one.”
Derek swung the tea bag back and forth. “Tell me you didn’t drug Evelyn.”
“Oh, come on, Derek.” Marcus rubbed his hand over his face, then peered up at his brother. “When you say it like that...”
Derek laughed and shook his head. “She’s going to kill you, man. And rightfully so.”
“She’s been having trouble sleeping.” Marcus shrugged. “I’ll take my chances.”
“And I thought I was bad—”
“What? Sitting around studying psychos, desk-bound? Somehow I don’t think—”
Derek tossed the tea bag in the sink and raised his hands. “Easy, tiger. This isn’t a pissing contest. Tuck it back in. Besides, being desk-bound has its perks.”
He opened the fridge and pulled out a Guinness. “Want one?”
“I’ll pass,” Marcus said.
Derek went back to the table and sat. He took a sip of beer and eyed the papers thrown about. “Any progress?”
“Actually, I was just about to call Lex.” Marcus grabbed his phone and dialed. “Here’s to hoping.”
“MK.”
“Talk to me, sweetheart.” He hit a button, then put the phone on the counter in between him and Derek. “I have you on speaker. Derek’s with me.”
“D!”
“Hey-a, gorgeous.” Derek smiled and leaned toward the phone. “We need something to break here, Lex. We’re running on fumes.”
She sighed. “I wish I had better news for you guys, really I do. I’m still combing through files and have all the big mamas working.”
Marcus shook his head. He didn’t know anyone else who gave their supercomputer hacker systems pet names. He rolled his eyes. Derek chuckled.
“Boys,” Alexis said. “Focus.”
“Yes, ma’am,” they said in unison.
“Like I was saying, no hit yet on the print you gave me.”
“Damn.” Marcus tilted his head back and squeezed his eyes shut. He just needed one lousy break. Was that too hard to ask?
“But...” She took a deep breath. “I did, however, find some interesting old case files for you, Derek.”
“What?” Marcus opened his eyes.
“I had her look into Evelyn’s hypothesis.” Derek shrugged, took a sip of his Guinness and grinned. “I trust our guys at the Bureau and at the SPD, but...”
“But he didn’t want to be an old man before he got the information, so he called me,” Alexis said.
“And?” Marcus stared at the phone.
Alexis laughed. “I found a handful of murders around the same time of Evelyn’s family that had a similar MO. I’m doing a multipoint cross examination between those cases and Evelyn’s. I haven’t hit on anything yet, but I can’t shake this gut feeling that I will. Just give me time, gentlemen.”
Marcus slumped onto the chair next to Derek. “Okay. Not the information I hoped to get tonight. Keep digging. And be discreet.”
“When am I not?” She laughed, then hung up.
Marcus grabbed his phone. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“You’ve kinda had your hands full, Marcus. And I assumed that’s why you called me here.” He gave his brother a dirty look. “To help.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
M
ARCUS
AND
E
VELYN
stepped out of the elevator together. She avoided looking at Ryan’s desk. Being back was hard enough on her torn heart. A strange sound slapped off the concrete walls, followed by another. What was that? She froze. Every member of the homicide department stood, clapping. Her heart jumped into her throat as she stared in awe at the standing ovation her team threw her way. Tears sprung to her eyes. She smiled, willing herself to keep it together.
The elevator’s soft chime interrupted the sacred, warm moment. Officer McBride stepped out, then stopped. He glanced over at Evelyn and Marcus, then did a double take.
Evelyn steeled herself for some emotional response from an officer she barely knew. She couldn’t deal with that. Not today. She gritted her teeth, plastered a smile on her face and waited for it.
Instead, McBride stepped next to Marcus.
“Special Agent Moretti, I was going to call you today.”
“You’ve got good news for me?”
The young officer shook his head. “No, sir. We haven’t gotten a hit yet—”
“A hit on what?” Evelyn glanced between the two men.
McBride’s young face flushed.
“On the partial print,” Marcus said.
“Right.” She nodded and smiled at McBride.
“Ma’am. Are you okay? You sure you want to be back here today?”
And there it was.
“Thank you for the concern, McBride. I need to be here. The chief cleared it.”
“Understood. I’ll let you know as soon as we have anything.”
“Thank you.” She smiled, trying to settle the underlying current in the room. “Shall we?”
* * *
M
ARCUS
, E
VELYN
AND
Derek were holed up in the conference room. There were other murders in Seattle that needed to be attended to, so they’d been moved from the bull pen and settled in a more sequestered location. Not that Marcus, or anyone for that matter, minded. With Ryan’s murder, the nature of the case had become more delicate and he’d demanded the privacy. He’d quietly studied Evelyn as she’d gathered the case files from Ryan’s desk. She’d kept the stoic look on her face, but he’d seen the tiny tremble of her lip.
They’d set up their own separate command center and spread out. The murder board took up one whole wall. Photos and notes lined its smooth surface. Derek and Marcus huddled together, talking quietly amongst themselves. Evelyn scanned a stack of crime scene photos, then flipped through them a second time.
She jumped up, a photo in hand, and left without a word.
Derek looked at Marcus. “She okay?”
“Not sure, actually.”
“You need to go after her?”
Marcus thought a moment, then shook his head. “No, if she needs to talk, she will.”
She walked back in, nodded to Marcus, then stood in front of the murder board and stared. She sat and studied the photo in her hand. A few moments later, she let out an exasperated sigh. “Nothing’s popping.”
“Something will,” Derek said. “Always does.”
“Yes, but before he hits again?”
“Something will pop.”
Derek returned to his files. Marcus glanced up from the report in front of him and observed Evelyn. Once again, she looked like a black panther coiled to spring. She tapped the edge of the photo against the table and repeatedly glanced at the murder board. She leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms over her head, then stood. “I need a break. I’m heading to Starbucks for some coffee.”
Marcus and Derek both glanced at her. She stared back at them without blinking, her face set. Marcus knew that look.
“Can’t you get some in the bull pen?” he asked quietly, though he already knew the answer.
She pursed her lips, then shook her head. “
That
is liquid dirt, not coffee. So no, I can’t. Right now, I need some real coffee.”
He tightened his lips and studied her. This was not a fight he would win. She stared back, unmoving. There was something just beyond her veiled eyes that he couldn’t put his finger on. He sighed. This may not be a fight he could win, but he wouldn’t let her go alone. Besides, he needed coffee, too. He stood and reached for his jacket.
She shook her head. “That’s okay. You and Derek are in the middle of something. I’ll be fine. I’ll bring you both back some. I’ll take Fin with me. It’s only a few blocks away.”
Yes, something was definitely not right with this picture.
Derek looked up, his brows scrunched together.
Marcus sat back, crossed his arms over his chest and eyed her suspiciously. Something was undeniably off. He just couldn’t put his finger on it. He glanced from the murder board back to Evelyn. What had she seen? What was he missing? “I don’t know if that’s the—”
She cocked her head. Her eyes were warm and...strangely apprehensive.
“Seriously, Marcus. It’s just a few blocks away. I’ll be fine. Fin’s a good cop.” She walked to the door and pushed it open. “Fin, can you come in here?”
Rookie Benjamin Findley, aka Fin, pointed to himself. “Me?”
Her smile grew, lighting up the entire room, and instantly put Marcus at ease. Maybe she
did
just need some coffee that tasted better than burned dirt. He got that. He nodded his approval—not that she needed it. She’d have gone either way. He smiled at her. The fight in her that he was so terrified had seeped out and gotten lost down the shower drain that first night was back. And it had come roaring in, full force. He liked it.
“Yes, Fin. You. Care to go for a little drive?”
He nodded.
She grabbed her jacket and called over her shoulder as she headed toward the stairs, “Great. Let’s go, then.”
The young rookie stumbled over himself as he followed Evelyn out the door. Marcus chuckled.
Poor kid.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
F
IN
WAS
HERE
to placate Marcus and Derek, nothing more. If it were up to Evelyn—and clearly it wasn’t—she wouldn’t need a babysitter. But they apparently didn’t share her sentiment. So here she was, driving Fin around. She didn’t want to pull him into this. But she’d seen Marcus’s face, seen the way he stared at her, studied her. Probably trying to see past her thinly cloaked desire for coffee. She knew that he’d keep pushing until he landed on the truth. And she was going on pure intuition, nothing more. So she’d returned his stoic look, silently holding her breath. She’d panicked a little when he stood to go with her. He clearly wasn’t about to let her leave on her own, so she’d grasped at straws—or, more accurately, Fin. She needed to get to her house and take a look at something, and fast. Her heart accelerated.
Fin was quiet as she drove.
Good.
She needed silence, not interruptions. She concentrated hard and tried to summon the shadowy memory.
Fin sat up, startled. He twisted in his seat and glanced over his shoulder. “Um, ma’am, you just missed the turn.”
“I’m not going to Starbucks.”
Finn cleared his throat nervously. “With all due respect, Detective, Special Agent Moretti is going to kill us. Where are we going?”
“Home.”
“Oh, no. No way. I was given
strict
instructions to go to Starbucks and Starbucks only. Going to your home was definitely not on the short list of approved movement, ma’am.”
She took the next exit. “I outrank you. And stop calling me
ma’am.
”
The words came out blunt, cold. She didn’t care. There was something in her files at home that wouldn’t leave her alone. Something about the knife wounds in the crime scene photos from the Middletons’ had sparked an old memory, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d seen the same photo before. Only it wasn’t. She shook her head to clear her thoughts. She needed the files at home. She wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
“Yes,” Fin said. “You do. It still doesn’t make this a good idea.”
“Good idea. Bad idea. It doesn’t really matter at this point. We’re going to my house. It’ll be a quick grab and go. You can stay in the car if you’d like. I need to get a file from my home office, and this is most likely the only time where I won’t be under strict supervision.” She cast a sideways glance at him. “No offense.”
His shoulders sagged. “None taken, ma’am.”
But she knew she’d cut him to the core. He was a rookie. She was a detective. She sighed. “I’ll be quick. I promise. And then we’ll go to a drive-thru Starbucks before we head back to the station.”
“So we don’t have to tell anyone we went to your house? Won’t this mysterious file showing up kinda give you away?”
A small smile tugged at her lips. “What file?”
Evelyn pulled into her driveway, then cut the engine. She got out and surveyed the street. As usual, it was quiet. Not that she was expecting anything different. Keys in hand, she walked up the steps, unlocked the door and pushed it open. But before she could enter her home, Fin was beside her. He grabbed her arm.
“You might outrank me, Detective Davis, but I’ll go in first to clear the house.”
“That’s not—”
“Necessary or not, it’s happening. I’ll be right back. Stay.”
Fin went through the front door, gun drawn. Evelyn slowly pulled hers from her holster, flipped the safety off and tucked it by her side. As Fin cleared the first floor, Evelyn looked down the street again, keenly aware of how much she’d missed this place. Home.
“Clear,” Fin called, walking down the stairs.
“See. Nothing here but you, me and the cobwebs. Stay there. I just need to grab something.”
She dashed up the stairs to her office, turned on the light and stared at the wall. Her heart shattered all over again.
How many times can one heart break before it can’t be put back together?
Not wanting Fin to walk in on her, she quickly made her way to the wall and scanned it.
There.
There’s the photo.
She reached up and snatched it off the wall, eyeing it closely. Her heart sank.
The knife pattern was identical to the Middletons’.
It was subtle, but it was there—and as unique as a fingerprint.
Holding the photo, Evelyn started to turn away from the wall when the calendar caught her eye. Seeing the circled date, she sucked in a breath.
How could that have slipped her mind?
Today. The anniversary was today.
A soft thud echoed in her ears. She stopped moving, fully alert. Folding the photo in half, she pocketed it and glided stealthily across the floor. Pushing up against the wall, she raised her .45. “Fin?”
Nothing.
Her pulse jumped.
If that kid’s playing a joke on me, I’ll have his badge.
“Damn it, Fin, answer me.”
Still nothing. She took a deep breath, exhaled, then swung into the hall, gun ready. Out of nowhere, a bolt of lightning ripped through her, 50,000 volts of electricity rendering her useless. She couldn’t talk, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t control her muscles. Pain was everywhere. Another jolt from the Taser tore through her and she collapsed, staring up at the man who bent over her.
“Hello, Evelyn.”
He brought the butt of his gun down. Her face exploded with blinding pain, then she felt nothing.