"All right," burst out on a now frustrated breath of air. "You're fucking focused, I'll give you that." His hands went to his hips as he stared down at me, took in the scuffed up jacket, the wet patches on my jeans, and the bandaged foot. "That going to fit in high heels?"
"I'll make it."
His eyes came up to my face. For the first time ever I saw respect, mixed with weary resignation.
"You watch, you don't interact, you get the fuck out of there if you so much as see someone affected by drugs. Remember," he added, voice again fierce, "this could be a waste of our time. We don't know for sure that any thing is going on there, and we sure as hell don't know if it has a connection to these murders. But if it does, we just need to be aware of it. The rest can be obtained by warrant."
It was a good speech. A noble speech. Protecting his staff member, making sure I was as safe as could be. But we both knew, that if there was a roofie problem at Zero Gravity, I'd have to gather evidence then and there for it to stick. A warrant would be too late, they'd hide the drugs before we could even say, "Open up, it's the Police." And any connection to the murders was likely to show in a more visceral way.
Bottom line. Hart knew we had to check this avenue out, cross it from the list. And there was no one else in the department who could do it. Sometimes being the only female in CIB did have its perks.
Hart grunted, gave me one last once over, and then opened the door and barked at Pierce and Michaels to come back in.
As soon as the door shut in Cawfield's face Hart said, "You're on lead," to Pierce.
Silence followed the statement.
"Sir," Pierce started after a long pause. "Detective Keen handled herself extremely well, given the situation. There's no need to remove her from primary."
"You think I was born yesterday, Pierce?" the Inspector growled. "This has nothing to do with Keen's aptitude or lack thereof, and everything to do with the fact that she almost got killed. Twice."
Amusingly relief replaced concern on Pierce's face. No one likes taking over a case from a colleague under strained circumstances.
Still, the demotion, for whatever reason, hurt. Damon offered a small smile, clearly seeing the distress I felt at this turn of events. I looked away before I started doing something pathetic, like tearing up. An emotional officer was the last thing Hart needed to see.
"You're still on for tonight," the Inspector said, directing the statement to Damon.
"Only with Lara," Damon shot back, revealing a little too much of himself in that curt reply.
Pierce smirked, Hart scowled. But no one pulled Damon up on his protectiveness. If anything, it made him look like a real partner, not just a temporary one.
"OK. Get to work. You know what to do," Hart said and then stormed out the door like the whirlwind of immense power that he was.
Cawfield skulked into the room as soon as the Inspector left, Simpson at his back, again eating. The man never stopped.
"What's happening?" Cawfield asked.
Pierce looked at me, giving me a necessary second to prepare.
"I'm lead on the case," he said finally, my back rigid waiting for Cawfield's taunt.
I decided not to give him an opening. "I'll visit with Hennessey, see if he can profile our perp."
"I want you two to continue here for now," Pierce said, following my lead and shutting Cawfield down with that directive. "Then follow up at the morgue and crime lab. Get back to me with the findings as soon as you can. That's it. Let's go."
I rose from my seat, tentatively placing weight on my bandaged foot, feeling the throb ricochet up my shin. I could tell Damon wanted to reach for me, offer an arm to lean on. Thankfully he wasn't that stupid to do it in front of the guys.
I hobbled out of the room, Pierce already talking on his cellphone, Damon a step behind at my back. I didn't make the doorway.
"I'm surprised you're not crying like a sissy, Keen," Cawfield commented, leaning back against the wall. "Can't be easy standing aside for a man."
"Joe," Simpson chastised.
I turned slowly and looked at him, in his too tight t-shirt, hard worked for muscles on display. Cawfield was a peacock. Pretty, but ineffectual.
"Hey, I'm just showing some support. I'd fucking be ropeable if I had to hand my case over to Pierce," Cawfield defended. I was sure he didn't sympathise at all.
I shrugged. "It's just a case, Cawfield."
"Now, that ain't what Carl taught you. He'd stand up for what's his," he drawled.
Maybe it was the mention of Carl, maybe it was the fact that I was feeling pissed off about being side-lined. Or maybe I was just sick and tired of Cawfield's jokes. The heckling had been escalating, on station and off. The man had never actually indicated he had a problem with me being in CIB, he was too good to slip up like that. But something about me irked him enough for him to show his true colours every now and then.
I took two strides towards him, ignoring the sharp stabs of pain in my foot. With my finger poked hard at his chest, managing to push him back a half step - or that could have been the feral look on my face right then, I had him running scared - I asked, "Speaking from experience, Cawfield? How many men have walked over you in the past? Or, hold on, maybe it's not men at all."
"Fuck off, Keen," he growled.
"Got a problem with women, Cawfield? Feel ineffectual around a tight female arse?"
"Keen!" Pierce pulled me back by a firm hand to my shoulder. "Get out of here and cool off," he instructed.
I jerked my shoulder free and scowled at Cawfield, who now wore an irritating smirk.
"Fuck you," I spat and pushed past a stone-faced Simpson, trying to hide my limp as I stalked off down the hall.
I'd made it four feet when I heard the sound of fist meeting flesh, followed by a grunt and then a groan.
Loud shouts sounded out in the room, a scuffle, deep rumbling voices, all indistinct, and then Damon stormed out of the room shaking out his right hand. I raised my face to the ceiling and just breathed, then when he came alongside of me, not reaching out to touch but hovering nearby, I shook my head and slipped out the exit, making my way to the car.
"What the hell were you thinking?" I demanded, once we'd finally made it to my vehicle. "I can handle my own battles. I don't need you riding on in there and making me look weak."
"How did I make you look weak?" he said with a frown, holding my angry glare across the top of the sedan with an impassive one of his own.
"What part of fighting my own battles did you not get?"
"That wasn't for you," he pointed out. Ridiculously.
"Then who the hell was it for?"
"That was because I can't stand chauvinistic men. The world has progressed beyond his type of bigotry."
I snorted, unlocking the car.
"You made a bad situation worse, Damon," I said, sounding a little more defeated than I had meant.
I slipped into the car, buckled up and waited for him to enter before I started it.
"You were just standing up for yourself," he pointed out when he eventually calmed enough to join me.
"I retaliated. I lowered myself to his snide, gutter snipe level. I should have walked away."
"He was out of line," Damon said softly as I navigated the last of the Port and drove out of the ornate red iron gates.
I let a long breath of air out. Feeling the weight of everything that had happened in the past six months catch up with me. I wanted to close my eyes and scrub my face clean, but the lights had turned green and cars were backed up behind me.
There was no escaping my past. No escaping the mistakes I'd made. The things I'd seen. But I should have known better than to add to them with Cawfield. The man did not deserve the sacrifice of my career, should the Inspector get wind of my behaviour in there.
I acted out of line, provoked or not. I was better than this.
"I shouldn't have done it," I said simply, blinking away the memories, wanting desperately to rub at my chest to
ease the heartache within. "I'm better than that," I added.
"Lara," Damon said quietly from the side. "You are so far out of that man's league, you're in the stratosphere. There is no comparison between how he behaved and you."
"I still shouldn't have done it," I countered in a whisper.
And when he reached over to lay a hand on my jeans and opened his mouth to argue, or bolster me up, I shifted. Moved my leg away from his touch.
Silence echoed in the car for several long minutes. My mind, conversely, a noisy jostling of much hated memories. Carl. Damon. The woman I'd caught him with.
One word glued to the tip of my tongue: "Why?" But I didn't say it, I didn't ask what I should have asked all those months ago when I walked away from us. Fear still rode roughshod over me, terror snapping at its heels.
I gripped the steering wheel, watched the blood blanch out of the skin on my knuckles, and turned the car into the driveway of the nondescript house we'd arrived at.
The last time I was here I'd faked my stable mental health easily. Somehow I knew today Dr Hennessey would see through the act within a second of me walking in his door.
If I could just keep the conversation on the killer, I'd be OK.
With single-minded determination I slid from the car and approached the house entrance, a silent and oppressive heat at my back, waves of Damon's anger rolling off him toward me. Had he known what I was thinking? What I was remembering? He'd always been able to read me like a book.
Straightening my shoulders and lifting my chin I walked through the door sure I was heading into one of my recurring nightmares. The one where the shrink tells me it was all my fault.
The one where the guilt catches up and swallows the fear.
Chapter Seventeen
"Do I need to shake some sense into you, Sport?"
There are few things that really scare me. I pretend they don't exist. Denial, as they say, is a beautiful thing. But if I were to be truly honest with myself, open up to that degree, I'd say seeing a psychologist is right up there. Somewhere near the top of the list, next to watching your partner get shot and fall off the side of a cliff, and letting your ex-lover have the chance to explain what really happened back when he tore out your heart.
I'm a fairly simple creature. I live for work. I eat to live. Sleep is a necessity I whittle down to its most abbreviated form. Everything else is categorised as pertinent or irrelevant in the scheme of things.
But Doctor Andrew Hennessey, BPhil, MPsy, DClinPsy scared the shit out of me. Too many letters after your name could not be a good thing. From the moment I first walked through his office door four months ago I was sure the department shrink could see me. All of me.
But I would never let him know it.
"Good of you to see us on such short notice, Doctor," I said, shaking the offered hand he held outstretched.
The room was moderately decorated, four comfortably upholstered chairs surrounded a low square coffee table which housed a box of colourful tissues and a bowl of glass marbles. One wall was full of psychology texts, self help books, and a few the good doctor had penned himself. The window was covered with Venetian blinds, a big leafy tree offering shade in the summer, shelter in winter, could be seen through the slats. A potted palm sat in the corner on a brass stand, a coat rack complemented it to the side. There was one painting on the stretch of wall next to the door. It depicted One Tree Hill. The solitary tree seeming to taunt you with its isolation if you stared at it too long.
Everything was chosen with purpose.
"Detective Keen, I'd be happy to help," Dr Hennessey said in his soft, non-confrontational voice. The man was in his early fifties, blond hair greying nicely, cleanly shaven tanned face, crisp cream button-down shirt over tan casual trousers. He was wearing loafers on his feet. A mix of well-to-do and guy-next-door that was designed to make his diverse clientèle feel at ease.
As if what he wore really mattered once you were in here.
"This in Investigator Michaels from HEAT," I said introducing Damon. Both men shook hands, the doctor not missing a thing.
"HEAT. That would be because of the second murder."
"Yes," I confirmed. "The body in the burned out boot. I see you received the files."
"Received them and read them, Lara," the doctor said, indicating the seats for us to take. I limped across to the farthest, placing my back to the bookshelf, leaving the window and door at my front. Damon sat with his back to the window unperturbed, the doctor watched on passively but didn't say a thing.
"What can you tell us about the perpetrator, Dr Hennessey?" I asked, crossing my legs and realising I'd mirrored the action with my arms. I waited for the doctor to divert his attention to the file in his lap before I corrected my posture.
"He's speaking to you," Hennessey said, without beating about the bush. The guy may have scared the bejeebers out of me, but he was a crack hand at profiling crims.
"To me in particular or to the Police?" I queried.
"Good question," Hennessey acknowledged. "There is no way to be sure with the information on hand, but considering this is your case..."
"Was, I'm no longer lead. Pierce is now." And why the hell did I give the shrink ammunition like that?
"Ah," he murmured, his eyes flicking to Damon and then back down to the file resting on his lap. Damon was my buffer, had he not been here the doctor would have asked the dreaded, "And how does that make you feel?" question.
"You have been the publicised lead detective until today," the doctor went on. "So, let's say the message is most likely for you, not Detective Pierce."
I nodded. "Anything else?"
"A lot, I'm afraid. Take the first murder. He used a knife. He struck quickly and without too much thought. Left to right across his throat, one slashing motion to silence the victim swiftly. There was no hesitation, the wound was deep. He was angry. It was personal. He reacted, not out of fear, but rage. What made him so irate that he struck out with death?"
I shook my head. It was a question I had asked on more than one occasion since then.
"OK, let's move on to the next murder," the doctor said. "We'll come back to that question in due course. The body in the car boot fire. He's been clever with this one, premeditated, whatever had surprised him enough to react on that first killing, does not exist now. He knows why he's killing them."
"Knows why?" Damon asked, leaning forward in his chair as though transfixed by the doctor's words.
"Precisely. The two are connected, not just through the fact that they are former informants of Detective Keen's and Detective Forrester's, but because the murderer has reason to kill them. A reason that became clearer after the first crime. What that reason is, I can't say. But he feels justified. He took the time to measure the correct combination of accelerant. He was prepared. Now, we could ask, why fire? Why not something else? I can't be certain, but I have to wonder if he wanted HEAT involved at this early stage."
I leaned back in my chair, trying to distance myself from the question in Hennessey's eyes.
"It's coincidence," I argued, arms crossed over chest again. I could have cursed myself, but that would have been too obvious.
"Is it though?" the doctor asked and then looked at Damon. "You've known Detective Keen a long time." It wasn't a question, but Damon took it as one.
"Yes."
"You know her well," the doctor added, and Damon's eyes slid to my face. He would be useless at poker.
"What's your point, Doc?" I asked, interrupting before Damon gave it all away.
"Lara," Hennessey said, "I'm joining the dots." He purposely used my phrase, having heard me say it in sessions. I cocked my head and held his gaze. "If I'm wrong, stop me now. But you asked for my professional profile on a case that has become a danger to you. This involves you on multiple levels. I cannot ignore what I know and omit that information from the final evaluation."
"Patient confidentiality," I said, my throat dry.
"Still stands
, I won't ever name names. Or would you prefer I ask Investigator Michaels to leave before I deliver my conclusions?"
My eyes flicked to Damon's, his were narrowed and contemplative, with a hint of concern at the edges. I shook my head when I looked back at the doc.
"Say the killer wanted HEAT involved," I relented. "It didn't necessarily mean Michaels would be the investigator assigned the case. I haven't seen him in months."
Damon cleared his throat. The doctor and I turned to look at him. My heart flopped, my stomach clenched. I think I was going to be sick.
"I knew about the first murder before I was privy to the case files," Damon admitted, voice low and even, so as not to startle the police detective who was teetering on the edge of an emotional ravine.
"How?" I asked. The word a harsh whisper.
"I should have said something," he muttered. "But I wasn't sure how connived it was."
"What was?" I ground out and to hell with my arms being crossed now.
"A newspaper left on my front porch. Not open to any particular page, nothing circled or highlighted. Just rolled up like it had been delivered by mistake to the wrong address. I took it inside, poured my morning coffee and thought, what the hell, I'll read the news. The second page in was an article about the murder, your face was pictured as lead detective." He ran a hand over his mouth. "I hadn't seen a picture of you in months. When the call came in that night for the car boot fire, I jumped at it." He held my gaze, his eyes sad. "I wanted to see if you looked that tired in person. I needed to know."
I felt the blood drain from my face. It was all perfectly reasonable, but definitely orchestrated. And he hadn't approached me after all this time because he needed my help. I wasn't sure how to take that.
Hennessey cleared his throat. "The killer wanted HEAT involved. Specifically Investigator Michaels."
I closed my eyes and let my head roll back on the chair, tipped up to the ceiling. This could not be happening.
"What does it mean?" I asked, still not able to look at either man.
"Obviously he knows you. The killer knows your past." My head dropped forward and my eyes met Damon's. "He knows what Investigator Michaels means to you. Either the fact that he could throw you off your game and cloud your judgement, or because he knows the Investigator would be of some help."
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