by Fuller, Levi
After a full week here, the nightmares hadn’t relented, yet it was some comfort to wake from them knowing someone was near, if she needed them. Tonight was no exception. At least she hadn’t screamed this time.
I have fought them so long alone, I feel almost embarrassed to call on anyone.
Kate shrugged out of bed, wrapped herself in her dressing gown and did what had quickly become her habit. She pushed aside her bag that was all unpacked, but hadn’t yet made it to the attic for storage, and settled in front of the small desk. This room had always been the guest room here, and she had spent a lot of time in it over her childhood and earlier adult years, when she’d still come home every holiday. She lit both desk lamps, angled so that they canceled each other’s shadows, and powered on her laptop. As she waited for it to go through an update, she turned to the flip binder she had begun for Kyle’s redemption case.
She passed through the details, covering how the story had ended, effectively rewinding time, until she was in New York, where the police first became aware of the two men that were preying on teenagers and young women.
She looked over everything Kirk had been sending her. The case was really in his hands now, as she could do little from so far away, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t go over his finds and see if she had any questions or suggestions that might ultimately help him along.
He seemed to have come to somewhat of a dead end. The man, one Leslie Brenner, had flitted around with the man Kyle had arrested, all over the states, but they seemed to keep their snatching grounds to bigger cities alone, sometimes going back more than once. On her suggestion, Kirk had been tracking Brenner’s movements, digging up what he could across various connections in police departments from here to New York, and had confirmed that the man did, indeed, return to New York after the killings, surfacing there about three months later.
However, Kirk’s latest email had found that he had vanished six months ago, his trail in New York going cold. The best Kirk had been able to get was that he left, heading south.
She frowned. Kirk was keeping an ear to the ground, but hadn’t yet figured out what drove Brenner to leave. Perhaps it had been too long since his last hunt. Psychopaths were often unable to abstain from their urges for too long.
Kate shook her head. She’d give Jack and Kyle the information tomorrow, but carefully worded. Asheville had certainly been a favorite hunting ground for Brenner and his friend, but it was also the place where his friend got caught. Still, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that he was heading back here, seeking a familiar hunting ground, after so long an absence from the game.
She sighed, and turned to her other tracking case. This one targeting Simon Landers, the private investigator her aunt and uncle had hired after the police labeled her parents’ death a murder-suicide. It was depressingly low on information. She had a tape recording of him refusing the case, yet when she’d spoken briefly to her aunt and uncle on the phone, Uncle Ben had said that Landers had come back, though not the reason why.
“And that was our last conversation,” she said, to the dark ceiling, “with everything going up in flames, including anything they could possibly have had that could have helped.”
Kate leaned back in her chair. The silver lining to all this was that tomorrow she was officially off probation and allowed to work properly on the case.
She bent down to her backpack that she had stowed under the desk and pulled out the little notebook. In it were notes from the Duncans’ case and the questions she had hoped to ask her aunt and uncle; both felt like an age ago, another world. She flipped past these and looked at the new pages she had begun, a list of things she needed to look at herself, things she wanted to compare between the two cases. She knew the link was all in her mind at the moment, but Adams didn’t seem adverse in allowing her to look into it, provided that there was a good enough initial cause. Kate smiled to herself, believing that step to be the easiest of all. In both cases, fire, fueled by an accelerant, had consumed everything, leaving precious little for forensics. In both cases, it appeared that one of the victims had killed the other before killing themselves. In both cases, there seemed to be no good reason for a loving couple to come to that kind of disaster.
Kate froze, staring at the little book in her hands, her smile fading. Not both cases. All three. What she had just laid out could easily have been said about the Duncans. Had it not been for their dog, it was unlikely that she would have been able to track events in the right order that led to the discovery that Mrs. Duncan’s head wound was created neither by a fall, nor by her husband.
Her father’s allergies, a trait shared by his brother, Ben, had meant that neither of her childhood homes had had pets, so a lead like that was out. The only reason she felt a desire to overturn what seemed an obvious conclusion was because she had known all four victims personally and knew that they would never have done such a thing.
“You’re up early. More nightmares?”
Kate jolted in her seat and turned to see Kyle standing in her doorway, hair tousled. “Don’t do that!”
He chuckled and came in. “Sorry. What are you working on?”
She eyed him askance. “Come to berate me for being too slow with your demands?”
Kyle looked at the floor and sat on the edge of her desk. “No. I’m actually impressed with how much you’ve been able to do from so far away.”
Kate knew her face was a perfect picture of disbelief, but chose not to question the suddenly soft and honest version of Kyle that was perched on her desk. “They’re a good bunch. The New York team.”
There was a lengthy silence, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Perhaps it was because it was only four in the morning, the world silent along with them in the breath before dawn. Or maybe it was because in a week of near-constant contact, their old bond was finally winning out over the hard years she had put between them. It seemed to her a small proof that those who were meant to be in your life always would be, no matter what passed.
“Are you happy there? In New York?” Kyle said, although adding the latter had been entirely unnecessary.
Kate felt her lips tilt in a small smile. “Yes. It is always busy. Here, I don’t know—even though it is a city, with a fair share of crimes to solve, always seemed too placid.”
“Wait, wait,” Kyle said, taking his turn to look disbelieving. “You’re telling me that you ran away from here, not because of the terrible past, but because you wanted more pain and devastation?”
Kate stuck out her tongue. “Well, when you say it like that, it obviously sounds utterly insane. No. I left here because of the past, because everyone who would have become my colleague, if I’d returned here after my studies, would only ever see the broken eleven-year-old who lost both her parents on the same night. I chose to stick to bigger cities because I love my job. I enjoy going through tiny fragments, and hoards of finds to spot the truth.”
Kyle huffed, looking out the window. “Sounds like you just wanted to be too busy to remember you had a life before then.”
Kate bit her lip. “I guess that was part of it. I know I function better when I have something to put my mind to. Like now. I had a nightmare; I got up and got to work. The result is that I am calm and focused.”
Kyle looked back down at her, a small smile on his lips. “I get that. That’s what really pushed me over the edge, you know, was being told that I couldn’t do anything anymore. That it was done, over.”
Kate handed him the information. “Well, you can do something now. Your man’s on the move. We don’t know why or to where yet, but we’re doing our best to keep tabs. My boss is well connected; he won’t lose him.”
Kyle grinned. “Good. If he comes here, I want to be the one to take him down. Kirk won’t mind, right?”
“Not if I ask nicely.”
Kyle’s grin broadened. “Did I ever mention how glad I am you didn’t let me swat you away?”
“No,” Kate said, with a grin of her own
. “A few more times, and I might forgive the oversight.”
8
Kate entered the Asheville forensic department with a new urgency to her steps. She’d already laid out the similarities in a careful report for Adams. She hadn’t mentioned the Duncans. Right now, the fact that a crime so similar had happened so far away, so soon before the open case, would hinder her, not help her. Still she couldn’t quite shake the connection from her mind. It was lodged there like a thorn, but she would ignore it for now. Surely there could be no real connection between the fires here in Asheville and the one in New York?
Shaking her head, she put on a small smile and knocked on Adams’s door.
“Come in.”
Kate entered, and Dr. Adams gave her a small congratulatory smile, the wrinkles around her eyes deepening. “Well, you’re in, Summers.”
“Thanks,” Kate said, with a grin. She approached the desk and handed over the folder. “I made something. It lists all the similarities I know of between the two cases.”
Adams arched an eyebrow, took the report and thumbed through it. “Great minds.”
Kate tilted her head to the side at the muttered words. “Sorry?”
Dr. Adams looked up. “This is well done. No, don’t grin yet. Olsen would throw this out in a second if I gave it to him. Do you realize how many house fires could likely be linked by these same criteria, all over the country—or even the world?”
Kate winced, the Duncans’ case still fresh in her mind. “I know, but it is a start, a base I can push off from.”
“That’s why I had said great minds. Here’s what I prepared for you.”
Kate took the offered folder and scanned the papers inside. At first glance, it was a seemingly never-ending list of more menial tasks, like the ones she’d been doing since she arrived. Then she noticed the pattern. Adams wasn’t asking her to verify work already done; she was asking her to do a fresh sweep on particular pieces of evidence. All the things listed would help her either deepen her proof of a connection or erase the possibility.
Great minds think alike.
“I have also gotten out the files from your parents’ case.”
Kate’s eyes snapped up. That had been her next question. She would only know if the proof was growing, more or less, if she had the facts from the other case too.
“Are you ready, as in mentally and emotionally prepared, to delve into your parents’ deaths? From my memory, Ben and Mae kept the truth from you.”
“They did, although I think it was because they didn’t believe it themselves.”
Adams eyed her a moment, then sighed. “Mae didn’t want to ruin your memories. Ben was the one fighting tooth and nail. He’d been the one that introduced your mother to his brother. I think he was hoping to avoid the crushing guilt that the police’s verdict had created.”
Kate felt the folder begin to crumple in her hands and forced her grip to relax, her tension to flow out with a heavy breath. “I forgot that you knew them.”
“The Summers brothers were all the rage when I was in high school,” Adams said, with a vague look of nostalgia, then her sharp eyes darted to the folder, the creases there from it nearly being crushed, and lifted her gaze back to Kate’s. “I need to know now that you can handle this, Summers. Mae was my friend. I won’t tolerate anything less than perfect work.”
Something in the older woman’s gaze made Kate sure that there was more she wasn’t saying, but the steely glare also let her know that now was not the time.
“I’m fine, I promise. Will it be hard sometimes, sure, but I know I can get to the truth of this.”
For a fraction of a second, Adams looked utterly disbelieving, then sighed. “Alright, then listen up. As far as Olsen, and everyone else not currently in my office,” she said, waving her hand around the otherwise empty room. “You are merely being brought up to speed with what we have so far, and being allowed to give us your take on the matter so that we can be one team moving forwards.” She waited for Kate’s nod before continuing. “I, and I alone, am looking through the closed case regarding your parents, simply to ensure that there is, in fact, no connection. This means you will be bringing me your finds, and if I find a link, we will have a meeting to discuss it.”
Kate pressed her lips together. That would take far longer than her simply having access to everything herself, but Adams was right. Olsen didn’t like being made a fool of, and the media had certainly had a field day with a potential connection. He would, no doubt, love an opportunity to take his anger out on her, if she gave him half a reason.
“I understand.”
“Good. Then get to work, Dr. Summers. I look forward to your report this evening.”
****
Kate pushed away from the microscope and back to the table where Uncle Ben’s bones had been carefully arranged. Fire. Such a simple—yet effective—means of erasing hope.
She stood there a moment with her eyes shut. Without the fire, a trace could be run of soft tissue to show what poison had been used, how it killed, what that looked like to an outside party, and how long it would take to have an effect.
She opened her eyes and scanned the partially charred bones. As it was, the best she could say was he was certainly dead by the time the fire hit. None of his bones showed any kind of staining or damage from thrashing around while burning alive. Even unconscious, his body would have thrashed. He had been dead already. But had he died first or second? The theory was obviously first as they were claiming Mae poisoned him and then committed suicide.
She tilted her head to the side, remembering the place he had been found. A few fragments of a book had been there too. As if he had followed his normal routine of tea and a book before bed, but drank poison instead. There was nothing in what they had gathered there to suggest he put up a fight. Ben was a big man. Her petite Aunt Mae would never have been able to move him after the poison took hold.
She snatched up her notebook in frustration, and it slipped from her fingers, landing open on the much-abused pages belonging to the Duncans’ case. Mr. Duncan’s stab wound had been self-inflicted, no matter how she had rearranged the evidence, he had still taken his own life. She had left that to Matt and the others to wrap up, but now her mind used it to make a connection that she doubted she would have seen otherwise. Mrs. Duncan had not died immediately from the head trauma. She would have, without fast medical assistance, and clearly did, but he would not have known that.
Her eyes lost focus of the lab around her, and she saw the floor plans from the Duncans’. They materialized around her, an unfamiliar house still standing, unburned. She heard laughter, voices joined in some happy discussion. Then the dog came out, a bark on its tongue. It died first. Then Mrs. Duncan had come in and been pounced on, the pommel of the hunting dagger denting her skull, but not killing her. She was then dragged back to the kitchen. Mr. Duncan’s face had turned from merriment to horror. His wife was dead. But no: she was still breathing.
The hunting knife had been handed to him with a simple instruction. Stab yourself and 911 will be called. You’ll die, but she’ll survive. Blackmail. He killed himself to save the woman he loved, but she died anyway because the killer is sick. Was this the truth behind all three cases?
“Summers!”
Kate felt her knees hit the floor and looked up to see Dr. Adams watching her, with the strangest look on her face. “Are you alright? Jesus. Maybe Olsen was right.”
“No,” Kate said, scrambling to her feet. “I was just . . . putting some pieces together. I have an eidetic memory; it is a useful tool for adding what I can remember over what is already there.”
“Do you know what I’ve just walked in on?” Adams said, unimpressed. “A young woman, muttering to herself, making no sense whatsoever, reaching out to ghosts and slashing the air with her arms, when she wasn’t scraping them into a bloody mess. Now tell me, exactly, why I should pretend I didn’t see such abnormal behavior?”
Kate glanced down at her ar
ms, where the new marks had appeared, although the writing- like quality of these did not add up to an intelligible word. She breathed a silent sigh of relief for that.
Kate knew Adams was still watching her. She could see both their reflections in the shiny steel table. She met her own eyes then looked up to meet Adams’s, her voice calm once more. “I’m sorry for frightening you, Dr. Adams. I promise, that method is normal for me. Just ask Kirk—he’s walked in on more than one.”
9
“Kate,” Jack said, giving her a big smile, as she stepped into the little doorless office he and Kyle shared. “What brings you back to our neck of the woods?”
Kate glanced over her shoulder as Kyle looked up too. Olsen was at a desk a few paces away, so she pitched her voice low, not wanting to be accused of working on cases that she had not been assigned to.
“Kirk messaged me.” Kyle instantly perked up, and she had to smother a chuckle, the urge to laugh a strange feeling after the week she’d just had. She’d been avoiding Adams ever since their encounter, although she knew the older woman had, indeed, been in contact with Kirk to verify her claim. Kate, herself, had put that notion aside. Not only because it would be very difficult to prove given the state of the remains, but also because it had scared her. She had never seen the Duncans’ house unburned. Nor them and their dog. She had, of course, seen photographs, but her mental image had been so clear. Too clear. She knew this case—her family’s deaths—would put a strain on her, but she couldn’t afford to go nutty.
“Well, are you planning on telling us what Kirk said, or just going to stare at nothing all day?” Kyle grated out, his voice loud and jarring.
Kate gave him a withering look. “Brenner’s here. He crossed into Asheville last night. Kirk says they’re still working on it, but they think they’ve encountered a kill he made before leaving New York. He wants to work with you in seeing if there are any similarities, then hand it over to you to make the arrest, if they get the proof they need.”
