Now that was a legitimate question. She wished she had the answer. If she wanted to ask about Suzanne, this seemed to be a good time.
But it didn’t have the right feel, and she wasn’t up to hearing it if the answer was something she didn’t want to know.
Was he pressing her? No, actually, that was not like him, and it was one of the reasons she felt comfortable in their relationship.
There were a few other reasons she felt uncomfortable too, but probably more her problem than his, and she was not in the mood to address them right now. “Can I answer when this is all over?” she said, and did her best to stifle an unwanted yawn.
“Yeah, because I put you to sleep, or at least tonight I do. What would you do without me?” His voice held a hint of quiet laughter.
“Hey, long day.”
Damn long day.
She was exhausted. Mentally. Physically. The works.
But still … maybe not
too
tired.
Maybe. He wouldn’t push it. That was a nice given.
“A dip in the pool?” She wasn’t really all that interested in swimming, but then again, she was hot and sticky, even in the air-conditioning. “Suits optional?”
His brows shot up. “I’m not going to say no to that sort of invitation.”
She stood, tugging off her top and dropping it on the floor. Then she shimmied out of her shorts. “Bring me a towel, if you don’t mind.”
“Yeah, right, like I’d mind.” He stood, watching her walk to the door in just her bra and underwear. “It might be a little cold in the water since I turned off the heat a few days ago when they came to clean it. Seemed redundant.”
“It sounds perfect, then.” Ellie opened the French doors and walked out. Technically one house behind his could see the backyard if they were upstairs and paying attention, but otherwise, it was pretty private and she was past caring for the most part. It was dark now, and the lights weren’t on. She sat down on the edge of the pool, slipped off her panties, and unfastened her bra before sliding into the water.
Perfect. The air was humid but the water a few degrees below tepid. She dived under, surfaced, shook back her hair, and felt clean for the first time all day. There was no way to do the same thing for her mind, forever contaminated by the memory of the crime scene, but at least she could wash some of it away.
Bryce came out, took in her discarded underwear, and swiftly stripped out of his trunks before making a dive that neatly split the surface of the water. He came up next to her and his arm went around her waist, pulling her close. “You’ve had one hell of a day,” he said, his mouth grazing her temple.
“I know,” she agreed, pressing her body against his. “Make it better.”
“Like this?” His mouth touched hers and she sighed into the kiss. It was good, and the cool water against her bare skin was an aphrodisiac after the meltingly hot day.
His hand smoothed her shoulder and cupped her bare breast. “Hmm. Perfect.”
She couldn’t agree more.
Chapter 15
Reckless is stupid. I’m not stupid, I refuse to believe that … Determined maybe … but that’s softening it. What is it? Driven?
Does that work?
Yes, driven might be it. To be done with it all—there’s some appeal there. I just want to finish. Cross that line, whatever it might be. Not a lot to ask, really. To tidy up the mess, sweep it away, move forward. I’d like to live a normal life. No one would ever know. I believe the creature in the swamp will slowly subside, sliding into the black muck.
Maybe. I could be fooling myself.
There was a problem with heinous monsters. They don’t follow directions often.
Mine is particularly venomous. It doesn’t sleep much, and those are the worst kind.
I shook out a little white tablet into my palm and stared at it. I had more work to do. I’d have to sleep later.
It slid gently back into the bottle.
JULY 8
Carl punched in
the code. The gate opened, his car slid through, and he parked the BMW next to a gorgeous potted plant, delicate pink flowers of some kind spilling in a lush fall over the side. He’d never watered it in his life, but someone had. At that moment it occurred to him he might need more hands-on contact with the people who worked for him, but his phone rang. He dug it out of his pocket and answered. “Grasso.”
“Hear the latest on The Burner?” The chief was way too neutral on the other end of the line.
He could honestly say he had. “You know I have.”
“MacIntosh was on the news last night. Did you have anything to do with that?”
“How would I?” He shut off the alarm and twisted the lock on the front door but he wasn’t nearly as calm as he sounded. Rachel had come through apparently. “What did they say?”
“Just that she was on the case. I thought of you.” Metzger sounded irritated now, but then again, he usually did, so the tone was more familiar than the detachment. “What was the name of that reporter you were involved with?”
“You mean years ago? She’s a professor now. No longer works television.”
“I don’t care. I’m just going to ask flat out. Are you feeding information to the media?”
“Why would I do that?” His tone was careful, subdued, removed. And he wasn’t lying either. Rachel had come through brilliantly, but he hadn’t lied. She wasn’t employed by the station that had broadcast the piece.
“Come on, Carl.”
Metzger never had been a fool, but what he couldn’t prove …
“I want him caught, Joe. He’s really pushing us.”
“Ah, what a surprise, we
are
playing on the same team. Here’s a bulletin, I want him caught too. That’s why I gave you a little latitude. Look, we never had this conversation, understand?” his boss said decisively. “If you interfere with this investigation, I’ll have your badge. I stuck Ellie MacIntosh with Santiago, which is no picnic in the first place. Don’t try to make the pressure so intense she can’t possibly do her job. I know you have sources and I know you can leak details. If you want back in, help, don’t hinder. Someone recognized you in the crowd outside this latest scene, and no, it wasn’t either of the detectives I just mentioned. They had their hands full. I’m pleased you contributed the cold case file. I think you could do a lot for the investigation, but stop the press leaks. Are we clear?”
“You usually have a way of getting your point across, Chief.”
There was a click and he found himself standing there, phone to ear, all alone in a finished conversation.
Despite the wrist slap, he still thought the story was a good idea, and he’d known Metzger would guess it was him. Santiago wasn’t personable enough to court the press and MacIntosh would never do that to herself, so, yeah, him. Before Metzger was promoted to chief, he was a damned good detective.
This would push all of them. MacIntosh to live up to the legend, Santiago to get there first, and as for him, if all he did was contribute the cold file and provide some support and it made the administration happy, fine with him.
Maybe he would take a nice trip to Mexico or the Keys when this was over. He really hated vice. He was born to solve murder cases, not bust teenage girls hooking on corners. The transfer had been a slap in about a dozen different ways, but what really hurt was not being able to do what he wanted and that meant true detective work in his opinion. Sure, vice was important, he didn’t belittle that, it just wasn’t his style.
It was always satisfying to solve a case, but this was a big one and he wanted in the thick of it and for now had to just skirt the edges. But fine, if that was the way it had to be, he could deal. The big house was cool after the inferno outside, the rush of air soothing, but it was also lonely, empty, unsatisfying.
Another murder? Right. The crappy apartment building, the dead lot next to it … yes, he’d gone by, checked out the circus, stood outside with the gawkers.
Everything was really heating up, wasn’t it?
* * *
It was a
very hot morning. What was new about that?
For the first time they had a glimmer. Not much, but a hint of a solution, just a small break.
That was his gift as an investigator if he had one. This …
feeling
. Jason asked as casually as possible. “Tell me again what you saw.”
The woman looked down, looked back up, and then down again. She was stout, and wore a shapeless dress and mules on her feet instead of shoes, and they weren’t all that clean. Gray hair worn short, a smoker’s cough, and cracked nails. “Not much,” she admitted. “Kind of a flash. I don’t know cars. It just looked … I don’t know, out of place. Like not something that we see in our neighborhood.”
He leaned forward. “So … middle of the night, car with lights pulls up to an abandoned building, someone carries out a large object, but you don’t call the police. Do I have that right?”
She twitched the fabric of her dress and must have caught the sarcasm in his tone because she frowned. “That makes it sound bad. It’s sketchy enough around there. No use pissing off the wrong people. I have a rule. If someone is being stabbed or shot in front of me, I call. Anything short of that, I don’t. Try to not give me shit. I’m talking to you right now. Had to take two different buses to get here, but I came. Once I heard about the fire and that someone had been burned inside, I remembered the car.”
Okay, all right, she had a point about doing her civic duty. He wasn’t from the hood but he had worked scary parts of town and usually it was a lot easier to get along with your neighbors if a person kept his mouth shut. “And we appreciate it. Did you see the person who went into the building? Was it a man or a woman? Tall? Short? Skin color?”
She shook her head. “It was dark and the streetlight over there doesn’t work. Can I complain to the city about that while I’m here?”
“Sure you can.” He tried his most affable smile. “I’ll point you in the right direction. Let’s get back to the car then. Any marks or anything else you can tell me about it?”
“Black.”
There might be thousands of black cars in the general metro area, probably tens of thousands. He scratched his temple with a pencil. “Nothing else you can give me?”
She snorted. “If you want the make and model visit the local car dealerships. Let me put it this way, it didn’t
belong
. Black and expensive. A sedan without rust and a thousand dents. An insignia on the front we don’t see too often.”
“Four doors or two?”
Her forehead creased as she gave it some thought, nicotine-stained fingers worrying the material of her dress. “Four, now that you asked. The person went around and opened the back passenger side.”
“And that’s when he or she pulled something from the car? You said you saw them go in. Did they drag it, or carry it?”
“He. I’m pretty sure of that. And carried, I think, but the car was blocking my view, and it was one of those things, you know. I noticed it seemed strange but I wasn’t paying all that much attention. I just got up to go to the bathroom and happened to glance out the window.”
“Gotcha. Thanks for coming in. I’ll point you to city hall if you want to complain about that light.” He wrote down her name and number and politely walked with her when she rose to shuffle off, but his mind was working, sorting it out, taking the measurements, adjusting his perceptions.
An expensive car
.
Or corrected, just not a junker. Old ladies who probably drank gin before breakfast were not the most reliable of witnesses.
On the other hand, she had absolutely no motivation he could think of for coming in and lying to him. That there was a black car didn’t really make bells ring, but maybe that there was a sleek black car could at the end of the day help out …
“Your mother?” Frankton, a junior-grade detective with open aspirations, was sitting with a hip hitched up on his desk when he returned. “Stopping by to deliver cookies?”
“Aunt,” Jason responded blandly, dropping into his chair. “On my mother’s side. I am sure you saw the family resemblance. Can I help you?”
“How’s the case going?” Frankton was thin and whippy, with a well-trimmed beard and wire-rimmed glasses.
“It’s going, I guess. Looks like maybe we have an eyewitness, but she didn’t give me much. I need to tell MacIntosh.”
“You like working with her?”
“Doesn’t matter, does it? I work with her.” He shot the other officer a look. “You are asking … why?”
“Just curious. She’s nice to look at, that has to help. Great ass.”
For whatever reason that annoyed the shit out of him. Jason leaned back and drawled, “I’ve been told I have a pretty nice ass myself, maybe that’s why we’re assigned together. Is there some reason you’re here, Frank?”
“Actually, yeah, there is.” He tossed a piece of paper on the blotter by the computer. “Here’s your tox screen on Matthew Tobias.”
“Finally.” Jason snatched it up and scanned it. “The guy was loaded up on antidepressants and pain meds. His sister did mention he’d had a back injury, but according to this report, his intake was pretty excessive when he jumped.”
“Looks like he decided to dull the pain of man meets concrete.”
“Or he was just fucked up in general.”
Frankton’s beeper went off and he unclipped it, muttered something about having to go, and walked away. Jason wasn’t going to miss him either. He rested his elbow on the desk and thought about burned houses, bodies on tables, and an expensive car in a downtrodden neighborhood.
His cell beeped and he answered on the third ring. Before Ellie could really say anything on the other end, he interrupted, “I’ve got an eyewitness and we need to find out where Tobias was getting his meds.”
“Has it ever occurred to you to offer at least a basic greeting?”
The censure in her voice made him crack a short laugh. “Now you sound like Kate.”
“You’ve mentioned her before. I take it she’s your girlfriend.”
“Was. We recently parted ways and maybe you’re right, it all could have been due to how I answer the phone.” He did his best to sound like he didn’t care, and maybe he didn’t. It hadn’t been long enough for him to decide. Just that morning he’d taken down the rooster clock and shoved it in a hall closet, which had actually given him a sense of satisfaction. “I assume, by the way, you called for a specific reason yourself.”