Harlequin Intrigue July 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Carol Ericson

  “You’re closing in on this fourth copycat.” She thudded a fist against her chest. “I feel it here.”

  When Jake’s phone rang in his hand, they both jumped. He answered after the first ring. “How’d it go, Billy?”

  As Billy rambled on the other end of the line, Jake’s face, tense with anticipation, relaxed.

  Kyra sat back in her seat and finished her coffee. It didn’t sound promising from Jake’s side of the conversation, but they’d just gotten started. Evidence had to be hauled back to the lab and examined and tested. When Jake asked Billy about the misplaced glass in the cupboard, she held her breath, but Jake’s face told her nothing.

  When he ended the call, he slammed the lid on his cup. “Not much, as you could probably tell.”

  “Clive got the glass I noticed when we were last there?”

  “He bagged it. I don’t think he dusted any items there except for windows and doors.”

  “Unlike the enterprising Lori.” She grinned, wrinkling her nose. “Stop beating yourself up over that. Just apologize to her, and that’ll go a long way.”

  Jake lifted his empty cup. “Are you ready? Billy and I have a lot to discuss. I have to fill him in on the identification of Tina Valdez and the evidence from her car.”

  “I’m ready.”

  When they got back to the station, Jake and Billy put their heads together, and Kyra sat in front of her computer to follow up on a list of Tina’s friends Remy had given to her. Her cell phone buzzed, and she recognized Dr. Gellman’s number.

  Turning her back to the busy room, she scooted her chair toward the corner. “Hello, this is Kyra Chase.”

  “Kyra, this is Shai Gellman returning your call.”

  “Thank you for calling me back, Dr. Gellman.”

  “Shai, please. How can I help you?”

  In a low voice, she explained she had some traumatic childhood memories she wanted to reclaim. She’d get into the details with him if he accepted her as a patient.

  “Are these memories of events you suspect occurred or ones that you know occurred and can’t recall?”

  “I know they occurred, and I can’t remember them—it. It was one memory in particular. I recall the events surrounding the memory but not that one piece.”

  “Is there someone alive who can verify the memory for you?”

  Only if you count a serial killer who’d rather see me dead than remember. “No.”

  “How old were you, Kyra?”

  “I was eight years old.”

  Shai took a deep breath. “I’m not going to lie to you or pretend I don’t know who you are. I followed your story last month from Sean Hughes’s blog, so I know about your past. I know your mother was a victim of The Player twenty years ago, and I know you killed a foster father in self-defense. Is this memory from one of those two incidents?”

  Kyra bit her lip. “The first. Does that make a difference?”

  “It doesn’t make a difference to me. I just didn’t want you to come in here under false pretenses and then discover later that I knew all about you. We need to have trust between us. You’re in the field, so you understand that.”

  “Thank you for telling me. It doesn’t matter to me, either. Is this something you think you can help me with?” Kyra sucked in her bottom lip and stared at a spot on the wall.

  “I do. I’d like to help you. I can see you as early as tomorrow, as I just had a cancellation. Will eleven o’clock work for you?”

  Her gaze wandered toward Jake’s desk, where he and Billy were still yakking. Jake would never be able to make an afternoon appointment, and she’d promised him he could come along. “Something later in the day would work better, the later the better, actually. I have my work on the LAPD task force and my own clients to see. It doesn’t have to be tomorrow.”

  “Hold on.” Shai clicked on a keyboard as Kyra held her breath. “I’ll tell you what. I can see you at five o’clock tomorrow, if that works.”

  “That’s perfect.” Having notoriety helped in the strangest ways, but she’d take it.

  When she got back to her email, she paused as she noticed a message from an unknown address. Her breath caught in her throat as she clicked on it, and then her breathing returned to normal when she saw the message from a therapist she’d contacted for a family member of one of Mitchell Reed’s victims. The therapist had wanted to let Kyra know that she’d scheduled her first appointment with the client.

  Kyra didn’t know if she should expect any more communication from The Player. During the first three copycat slayings, The Player had been in contact with her, posing as someone else, of course—teasing, tormenting and torturing her about her past. He’d been quiet so far, but she didn’t know if it was because they’d finally identified him as The Player or if he had something else planned for her.

  As Kyra responded to the therapist’s email, Morgan Reppucci, one of the few female officers on the task force, walked by her desk and squeezed her arm. “Lori Del Valle just finished prepping the fingerprint she took from Tina Valdez’s wallet for me to run through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Keep your fingers crossed.”

  “Can I tag along when you pick it up?” Kyra scooted her chair back from her desk and snapped her laptop closed. She didn’t know if Jake had gotten the opportunity to apologize to Lori for making assumptions about her. Not that Kyra was Jake’s apologist, but she didn’t want Lori to have a bad opinion of him. She wanted to see the print, anyway.

  “Come on.” Morgan crooked her finger at Kyra. “I’m excited that J-Mac gave the task to me. Of course, we haven’t had much luck with prints yet. Jake did find that print from Copycat Two, Cyrus Fisher, but we couldn’t match it in the system. What’s weird about that is Fisher must’ve submitted false prints for the secret clearance he held at the aerospace company where he worked. That definitely would’ve come up in AFIS.”

  Kyra followed Morgan into the lab, where a young woman with glasses and dark hair scooped into a low chignon sat at a table. She flushed when she looked up, which made her look younger. Kyra couldn’t blame Jake too much for thinking she might be too green to handle the job.

  Scoping out the room, Kyra asked, “Where’s Clive?”

  Lori pulled her glasses off. “He came back with a ton of prints from Quinn’s house, started working on those and then had to leave for a doctor’s appointment. I know how to prep a print to run through AFIS.”

  Ouch. Did Jake’s dismissal still sting? Kyra smiled. “Obviously—you’re a rock star. Detective McAllister was impressed you took the initiative and dusted that wallet in the field. Who knows? We might still be waiting for Clive to get back from the doctor.”

  “He told me, and he apologized for dismissing me, but I didn’t really take it like that. Clive keeps a tight grip on this department, and I’m sure he’s communicated that to Detective McAllister. Anyway, glad I could help.” Lori hopped off her stool and thrust out her hand. “By the way, I’m Lori Del Valle. You’re Kyra Chase, right? And I know Officer Reppucci.”

  As Kyra shook Lori’s hand, Morgan said, “Call me Morgan. Us ladies have to stick together in this field. Is it ready to go?”

  “You’re emailing the request to AFIS, correct?”

  “I am.” Morgan wandered to the table and peered over Lori’s shoulder. “Nice. It’s pretty clear.”

  “I think it is.” Lori tapped the table next to the prepped print. “I’m going to scan this and email it to you, Morgan. You can use that format for AFIS.”

  Kyra glanced from one woman to the other. “Is it true a match can come back within an hour now?”

  Lori nodded. “If there’s a rush on it, and there’s always a rush for prints from a murder scene, especially a serial killer case like this. I’m sure Detective McAllister already put in the request for this print.”

  “He did.”
Morgan pumped her fist. “Let’s do this.”

  Kyra and Morgan returned to the task force room, where Morgan perched in front of her computer to await Lori’s email, and Kyra looked through the family contacts for Tina Valdez that Remy had sent her. Remy needed as much help as Tina’s family would. Finding Tina’s car and discovering that she’d been murdered had wrecked Remy.

  About forty-five minutes later, a vibration rippled through the room, and Kyra jerked her head up. She narrowed her eyes as she watched Morgan talking to Jake and Billy, her face alight, her shoulders pulled back.

  She’d done it. They had a match.

  Within minutes, Jake and Billy grabbed their jackets. Before he left the war room, Jake winked at her.

  A few other officers had left with the detectives, but Morgan remained at her desk, so Kyra scurried across the room and huddled next to her. “The fingerprint matched one in AFIS?”

  “It did.” Morgan twisted her head around. “It’s not a secret...except from the press, of course. Jake and Billy just went out to surveil the guy—check out his home and workplace. They don’t want to tip him off yet.”

  “Who is he?”

  “His name is Adam Walker. He lives in Glendale, so he’s definitely in the area of the abductions, and he works at an IT help desk.”

  Kyra blew out a breath. You just never know about anyone these days. “Is that where his prints came from? His job?”

  “Not that job. Apparently he used to work in construction and did a job at a school. Most licensed, bonded construction companies fingerprint their workers if they have a project at a school and are around kids. Maybe he forgot his prints were on file for that job.”

  “Or maybe he never intended to leave his prints when he murdered these women.” Kyra held up both of her hands with her fingers crossed. “Let’s hope he’s the guy and the task force can stop him before he commits a fourth murder.”

  Jake and Billy hadn’t returned by the end of the day. They must still have Walker under surveillance. They wouldn’t want to play their hand yet in case Walker led them to more evidence.

  As she walked down the hallway to take the stairs, Captain Castillo called out to her from his office. She poked her head inside, and he waved her into a chair.

  She shut the door behind her. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk to Jake?”

  “I just want to ask you what you’re doing about that information?”

  Did she owe it to Castillo to tell him her plans? He’d kept Quinn’s secret all this time, although for personal reasons, so she supposed she owed him something. She took a deep breath. “I don’t know what Jake’s doing, but I’m going to see a hypnotherapist and try to recover that memory. I don’t know if it’ll work or not, but I need to give it a try.”

  “I think that’s a good idea. I’m not sure it will help the case, but I think it’s something you need to do.” The captain rubbed his chin. “If the rest of it gets out, it’s going to hurt Quinn’s legacy.”

  Kyra held up her hands. “I have nothing to do with that, Captain Castillo.”

  Thankfully, his phone rang and he dismissed her from his office.

  She had no clients, and Quinn’s house was still off limits to her, so she headed to her apartment in Santa Monica when she left the station. Jake’s daughter, Fiona, texted her while she was driving regarding her interview. When Kyra got home, she called her.

  “Hi, Fiona. Do you want to ask me those questions now?”

  “Do you have time?”

  “As long as you don’t mind some answers between chews. I’m going to eat while we talk, if that’s okay.”

  Fiona paused. “Is my dad there?”

  “Your dad is working.”

  “As usual.” Fiona snorted. “I’m going to record our conversation so I can get quotes later. Is that okay?”

  “That’s fine with me.”

  Kyra spent the next half hour eating leftover pasta and answering questions about her career. As Fiona started to wrap up the interview, Kyra asked, “Do you think being a therapist or psychologist is something you’d like?”

  “Sounds interesting.” Fiona paused. “Does listening to people’s problems all day make you depressed?”

  “No, because by talking about their problems, they’re taking the first step toward healing, and that’s exciting. Does that make sense?”

  “I get it. It’s like when my friends are upset over a boy or something and they talk about it, they usually end up laughing about it and plotting their revenge.”

  Kyra choked on her water. “Yeah, something like that.”

  The conversation put a smile on Kyra’s face that didn’t go away as she cleaned the kitchen and fed Spot. Twenty minutes after she ended the conversation with the daughter, the father called her.

  She answered the phone. “Busy afternoon?”

  “Busy and frustrating. We went to the suspect’s work location first and contacted his supervisor, who told us he left early that day for a doctor’s appointment. So we left and did a stakeout at his house, a place he rents alone, but no luck there. His car wasn’t in the driveway, and it didn’t look like anyone was home. The car could be in the garage, but no lights came on in the house, and there was no activity.”

  “Morgan told me his name. Maybe Walker’s sick and went to bed when he got home from the doctor’s visit.”

  “Maybe. Billy and I called it a day, and two other detectives in an unmarked vehicle are taking over the stakeout. We also have an APB on his car, but with instructions to call it in, not to pull it over. Again, we don’t want to tip him off or spook him.”

  “At least if he is holed up in his house and decides to go on any late-night hunting expeditions, he’ll have a tail.”

  “Exactly. Any activity in the war room after we left?”

  “Nope. Seems like everyone got down to business when you and Billy left, doing whatever you instructed them to do.” She cleared her throat. “I did have a conversation with Captain Castillo before I left. I told him about my plan to uncover that memory.”

  “Castillo isn’t going to tell anyone.”

  “He wanted to know what you planned to do.”

  “I don’t even know yet.”

  Kyra told Jake about the interview with his daughter and about the appointment with Shai the following day. He assured her he’d come with her if he wasn’t sitting on Walker.

  The rain started pattering against the window, and Spot yowled at the front door. Kyra swung it open for the mangy cat and said, “You’re getting wimpy in your old age, Spot. What’s a little rain?”

  The cat slipped into the apartment and curled up on the edge of the carpet that led into the living room. Spot wasn’t into naked affection.

  Kyra turned on the TV and settled on the couch with a cup of tea. When a text came through on her phone, she figured it was one of the McAllisters. She swept the phone from the coffee table and read the text from an unknown number, her heart tripping over itself in her chest.

  Do you want to find Walker?

  She responded.

  Who is this?

  The sender answered with an address in Hollywood and a warning.

  No lights and sirens.

  What did that mean? If she called the police, Walker would be gone? Jake had indicated Walker didn’t know they were onto him. He and Billy hadn’t rushed in with guns blazing. They’d wanted to surveil him first, trip him up, gather more evidence. One print on Tina’s wallet wouldn’t convict Walker.

  Why had this anonymous tipster contacted her? How did he know her, her number, or that she even knew about Walker? Chewing on her bottom lip, she studied the texts.

  Only one person had her number and had been contacting her regularly throughout the killing sprees of each copycat. Had The Player surfaced again to give her a heads-up about Walker? Why? W
hy would he want to reveal one of his minions to her?

  She wouldn’t call the police, but if The Player thought she’d come alone, he hadn’t been paying attention. Of course, if she thought Jake would invite her along, she hadn’t been paying attention. She’d have to time this just right.

  She bounced up from the couch, turned off the TV and put her mug of tea in the sink. Then she shimmied out of her flannel pajama bottoms and stepped into a pair of dark jeans. She pulled a T-shirt over her camisole and slipped her feet into some soft-soled sneakers.

  Stepping over Spot, who gave her the evil eye, she grabbed a black jacket with a hood from the hall closet and pocketed her weapon. She nudged Spot with the toe of her shoe. “You, out.”

  The cat stretched and flicked his tail at her, but he followed her and stepped into the drizzle when she opened the door. She locked up and headed for her car—next stop, Hollywood.

  She’d plugged the address the text had given her, ignoring the 15 at the end of it, into her phone’s GPS and followed the directions. Over thirty minutes later, she cruised into Hollywood and obeyed the voice from her phone that took her to a side street off Hollywood Boulevard. Two dilapidated motels occupied one side of the street, and she identified the second one on the right as her destination.

  The number following the directions now made sense; 15 was the number of the motel room. She rolled past the entrance to the small parking lot, overgrown with bougainvillea, the petals from the flowers sticking to the wet pavement. Two palm trees guarded the office, the fronds littering the walkway to the sagging screen door.

  She passed the motel and did a U-turn at the end of the block, heading back toward the lights of the boulevard. She snatched her phone from the outside pocket of her purse. Jake couldn’t keep her away now because she was already here.

  Her phantom texter hadn’t contacted her again. Was he watching her? She pulled her gun from her pocket and placed it on the console. Then she called Jake.