Blind: Killer Instincts (17 page)

“Emma, please. Ms. Ration sounds like my mother.”

“Emma, then.” He had a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “This way, please? I’m sorry we aren’t having this chat in the conference room, they’re all taken.”

He led her into one of those interrogation type rooms she saw on TV. She hesitated near the doorway, her gut churning. She’d sat in one of these once before, while she’d recounted the story of what had happened the night Daddy chased her away. Lovely memories all around.

She took a deep breath. They wanted to see the collection.

Where was Jacob?

She glanced over her shoulder, but didn’t catch sight of him. Were they a secret? It hadn’t occurred to her that maybe Jacob hadn’t mentioned their involvement. It stung a bit to think he might be keeping her in the closet, but it wasn’t like she was cop-wife material anyway.

“What did you want to see?” Emma pasted on her brightest smile and went to the table.

“Have a seat?” Ryan gestured to the seat facing the door.

She set the box on the table to her right, the one-way glass on her left and tried to keep her focus on the man across from her.

“I wanted to ask you if you knew any of these individuals.” He pulled four eight-by-tens out of a folder and laid them in front of her.

Emma gasped and her stomach clenched. If she’d have eaten, she’d have lost it all in that moment.

They were pictures from crime scenes. Close-ups of the victim’s eyeless faces, their features destroyed to the point they didn’t even look human. She gripped the edge of the table and sucked in deep breaths of air. She’d never seen pictures of the bodies that weren’t heavily blurred. They were the one thing that had been kept from the public, and she could appreciate that now. It would take a lifetime to burn those images from her mind.

“Emma? Emma, do you know who this person is?” Ryan tapped the picture on her left.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I mean, that has to be Harold Espinoza, but I don’t recognize him. Not like that. Oh, God.” She slapped her hand over her mouth.

“How do you know that? Do you know him?”

“Christ.” She flipped the pictures over. “Once, okay. He came to a race. He wanted to do a motocross thing for Pride Week. He liked my pink jersey. Fuck.” She rubbed the heel of her hand over her eye, willing the image out of her mind.

“What about her?” He flipped the second picture back over.

That one was worse. Not only were the eyes gone, but there were tear tracks in the blood and a gag in her mouth. Just looking at her made it hard to breathe.

“No. Fuck. What’s this about?” She shoved the picture across the desk as the desire to deck the smug bastard grew.

“Her name is Laura Winthrop.”

“What?” she shrieked. She couldn’t be more socked if he’d smacked her in the face with a steel pipe.

“Laura Winthrop is the ex-wife of your boss, Simon, correct?”

“Y-yes. She’s dead?” Emma hadn’t known the woman well. When she met Simon their relationship had been fizzling, but she’d liked Laura well enough. She was a ballsy, hardworking woman who wouldn’t take Simon’s crap. They hadn’t been able to make the love last.

“Yes.” He laid another picture out in front of her. In this one, her face was in sharp focus as she pumped gas into Amanda’s car. “Why were you at the scene?”

She opened and closed her mouth. How did she answer that and not implicate Jacob?

“Harold’s neighbors also said you stopped by. Can you tell me why?”

Well shit. This was really bad.

She dug her nails into her palms. The truth was a flimsy foundation in this case. No matter what she said or did, it was going to look bad.

“I wanted to understand, okay?” She flipped the picture of her over as well, stacked the images together and shoved them at the agent. “I didn’t do this, if that’s what you’re trying to say. I’ve lived with this nightmare my whole life, and some sick fuck wants to get his rocks off recreating the murders? I don’t get it. I don’t understand. I thought going there, seeing the crime scenes, might make me understand, but I don’t. I can’t get what makes someone kill another human being.” She was yelling now.

“Do you know who these two are?” He pulled the last two images out of the stack and pushed them back toward her.

Had there been more deaths? Had someone else died? It hadn’t hit the news yet.

“Christ. No. Shit.” She shoved them away and stared at the wall.

“This is Amanda. I believe you’re staying at her house and were driving her car yesterday. And this is Derrick. Am I to understand you broke up with him a few weeks ago?”

“What?” She gaped at the horrid pictures of her best friend and ex. “No, that’s not true. You’re lying.” Her chest hurt. The muscles constricted so tight she couldn’t breathe.

They were dead.

Amanda was gone. It was too much to take in. It couldn’t be true. There was no way Amanda could be gone.

“Emma, where were you the last few nights?”

His words began to register and she stared at him. Was he serious? Did he think she would do something like this?

Fuck.

Jacob turned to the chief and agents lined up, watching Emma getting grilled. He’d been left out of the loop on this plan. Did they know he was involved with her? Were they keeping this suspicion from anyone local?

“Sir?”

“Not now, Payton.” The chief waved him away.

“Sir—”

“Not now. She might be our killer.” His mouth was set into a hard line. And why not? He’d been the arresting officer when Emma was taken into custody for her DUI.

“I didn’t do it.” Emma’s voice was thin and high over the intercom. Everyone was watching, hardly breathing.

He wasn’t going to leave her in there to fend for herself when he knew good and fucking well he’d been with her at the time of at least two of the murders. Three, since the last one was a double.

Jacob stalked around to the door and yanked it open.

Brooks turned, scowling at him. “What’s—”

“She couldn’t have done it,” he said, his gaze locking with Emma’s tortured eyes.

“And that would be why, officer?” Brooks asked.

He could hear Stevenson swearing around the corner. Jacob could kiss this case goodbye.

“She was with me Friday and Saturday night.” He grit his teeth. “I’m asking to be taken off the case. My involvement with Emma compromises my objectivity. Especially if you’re considering her as a suspect, and I am her alibi.”

“Jacob...” Emma stared at him, her beautiful smile nowhere to be seen.

“I’m at a loss for what to think here, Detective.” Brooks spread his hands. “Would you enlighten me?”

“Yes, sir.”

He grabbed a chair from the corner and dragged it to the table, keeping his gaze away from the window. Sure, he couldn’t see the people on the other side, but he knew they were there. He could feel the weight of their stares. To them, he’d made an error of judgment, but he didn’t regret it. There was nothing about his time with her to regret.

He cleared his throat and settled at the corner, near enough to Emma. “Thursday night—”

“This last Thursday? The night Harold was killed?” Brooks asked. His pen hovered over the pad of paper, his gaze locked on Jacob’s face.

“Yes, this last Thursday night I had arranged to meet up with Emma to discuss the original TBK case. Like I told you, she has a number of documents that were never handed over to the police. I wanted to see them so I could get a feel for what had been sent to me and how to gauge the severity of what we might be dealing with. Emma and I had dinner around seven. We were at the restaurant until almost nine. The coroner puts Harold’s death between nine and nine thirty. There is no way Emma could have crossed the city that fast and committed the crime before the time of death, even allowing for a margin of error.”

“What if she drove really fast?”

“Agent, please.” Jacob shook his head. “Emma is a strong woman, but the person we’re looking for has to have more muscle than she does. In order to create the kind of damage to the bodies she’d have to use heavier weapons, not to mention stand on top of something to get the right swing for impact we saw with the blood splatter. At best guess our suspect is around five eleven to six three. Emma, what are you?”

“Five seven,” she replied.

“See? She’s not tall enough.”

“And the last two night’s murders?” Brook’s gaze flicked between the two of them.

Jacob licked his lips. “She was with me. Both nights. We’re...involved.”

“Fuck.” Brooks scrubbed his face.

“I realize that my relationship with Emma has compromised me, and I willingly take myself off the case.” It hurt saying those words, but they needed to be said. The FBI was leaps and bounds ahead of his ability to catch this killer, but his gut said Emma would be involved at some point, if she weren’t already. He didn’t have anything to go on at this point except a feeling.

Someone knocked on the door.

Jade leaned in, her face even paler than normal. “You’re going to want to see this.”

They left the interrogation room, nearly scrambling for the door. One of the other agents had a flat screen turned on, but they weren’t looking at the news coverage. They were getting the direct camera feed from what looked to be the mobile bomb unit’s robot. The arms moved in slow, smooth motions, peeling the brown paper back from a box.

“What happened?” Emma asked.

Jade gestured to the screen. “Someone dropped this box in the courtyard in front of the courthouse. They’ve cleared the area, evacuated the buildings, and sent in both the robot and a bomb tech.”

“When did this happen?” Brooks asked.

“A little bit before she got here.” Jade nodded toward Emma.

“Did they take x-rays? What did they show?” Brooks asked.

“Yeah, the tech had an x-ray machine. Pipes. Some wires. That’s it.” Mullins shrugged.

A killer and now a bomb threat. Just what they needed.

It was a bold, ballsy move.

“What are the chances this is connected?” Brooks asked.

“It would be another alteration in the MO,” Jade said.

“TBK left a victim at the courthouse,” Emma said, and the room stilled. She blinked at the sudden attention, but didn’t cower or try to hide. Instead she stood a little straighter. She knew her shit, and he was proud of the way she pulled herself together.

“Gideon Cross—TBK killed him at his home, but when no one found him in a week, he got the body and dumped it in front of the courthouse with a note nailed to the man’s throat.” She gestured at the screen. “From the newspaper clippings, I’d say it’s about where that box is now.”

“Someone identified his car. That was the lead police needed to figure him out,” Jade chimed in. The two women studied each other. Sizing the other up, maybe?

“This could be TBKiller’s version of Gideon Cross?” Jacob asked.

Emma shook her head. “It’s too soon. There’s at least four more killings between this one and Gideon’s.”

Jade held up her hand, like a kid in class. “His MO is changing. We don’t know exactly what he will do. It’s obvious from the lack of preparation last night that he’s off his plan.”

“Uh, he’ll kill people. That’s what the sick fuck does.” Emma stared at the redhead, and Jade stared back.

“Look.” Mullins elbowed Jade as the package was opened.

Jacob settled his hand at the small of Emma’s back. A small touch, but it put him more at ease. Hell, after the scene this morning he could shut himself up far away from everyone. People were horrible creatures sometimes.

The black and white camera feed showed two unconnected pipes and a coil of wire shoved into the bottom of the box. No charge. No detonator. Not even any explosive material of any kind. This wasn’t a bomb at all.

“Is that paper rolled up in the middle?” Jacob asked. He pointed at the white cylinder on the screen.

“I want to know what it says,” Brooks said. He stalked through the office. Some of the agents followed him, others scattered.

I killed them
, was printed in large, block letters against an image of two people in chairs. The overlaying images were too distorted to make out more. Fuck, he wanted to stay on this case, to understand and really know what was going on.

Emma turned toward him. “What now?”

He shrugged. “I’m off the case.”

“No, you can’t be. If we stop seeing each other—”

“Don’t even say that.” He snapped more than he meant it, but he couldn’t help a surge of possessiveness. She wasn’t about to get rid of him that easy. “Besides, that’s not how this works.”

“Okay, it was an idea. I mean, if we weren’t...whatever we are, you could still be on the case, right?”

“No, it doesn’t work like that. My personal involvement with you skews my objectivity on this whole case.”

“I’m sorry.” She grimaced.

“What for?”

“If I’d told you no, you’d still be on the case.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” He didn’t consider himself off the case. There was more than one way to tackle a problem. Besides, he wasn’t sure he’d do anything differently given the opportunity. Emma was a special kind of woman. The type that didn’t come along too often in a person’s life. His mother had taught him that much growing up. He wasn’t likely to let her walk out of his life.

“But—this is the case your dad worked on.” She gestured to the conference rooms where they could see the boards with the victim’s information and a timeline set up. “It’s important to you.”

“And we’ll still catch him. I won’t be an arresting officer. Do me a favor will you?”

“Hm?”

“Go get your stuff together in the interrogation room. I’m going to stick close to you until they catch him, okay?”

“Why?” She frowned. “Do you still think he might come after me?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe? That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

“Fine.” She frowned, not that he expected her to like his decision.

Jacob followed in the wake of the agents and found Brooks with Stevenson. They had a radio between them. Jacob approached slowly and strained to hear what they were listening to, but it appeared to be over.

“Thanks for that. Bring the letter up here as soon as you clear it,” Stevenson said in reply to whatever they’d been told.