Know yourself and you'll get through it in the end.
I connect the dots in my head. I ask questions to elicit the correct answers. I observe, I follow the clues, and I cross reference the evidence to catch the criminal in the end. There's thinking in there, but most of it is doing. I am constantly doing.
Carl had been right when he'd asked me that question. I'd been trying to think my way through the problem. Six weeks working CIB next to Carl Forrester and doing my job, and I had my answer.
My father came home and filed his days away in a mental locked drawer, never to be spoken of again.
I hardly ever came home at all.
Avoidance. Funny how Hennessey hadn't picked up on that one yet. My father and I both avoided the hell out of our issues, but his made him look somewhat normal. While mine was hard to hide.
I watched as Damon flipped the omelet in the frying pan and then pushed off from my lean-to against the kitchen bench and poured us glasses of juice to go with the meal. By the time I was done, he'd halved the dish onto two plates and was bringing them across to the table where I'd placed the drinks. We shoved the file folders and reports out of the way and sat down, eating in silence.
It was good. Damon knew how to cook eggs. Not too rubbery, not too salty, not too watery. Just right.
I decided that was enough avoidance for now.
"I have no idea why I'm being targeted," I said into the silence, the only sound was our cutlery against china as we ate.
Damon chewed his last mouthful thoughtfully.
"Maybe you were on to something when you first started the case," he suggested, once he'd swallowed.
"What was that?" I asked, finishing up and feeling a hell of a lot better for it. Or maybe that was because I'd opened up.
"What cases have you used all four informants on in the past?"
Good point. I leaned back in my chair, sipping the last of my juice and thought about it. Off the top of my head it wasn't foolproof, I'd have to research it a little further by going back through my personal notes over the last four months. Or longer, who knew how far back this went.
"That's hard to say. Maybe one before the DFSA case."
"And before that?"
"They were all Carl's informants. Not mine."
"So, maybe it's that one case prior to the sex club that ties it all together."
"Maybe," I agreed, trying to recall details from memory and coming up blank. I scrubbed at my face, stimulating blood flow, but still nothing jumped out and slapped me. "I'll look into it, once we've gone over this lot with that fine tooth comb I mentioned earlier."
"First things first, eh?"
"I'm methodical. Sue me."
He smiled. "You have an ordered mind."
"No, Damon. I'm a product of my upbringing mixed with a little PTSD."
He held my gaze, realising I'd admitted more than I'd intended. I waited for him to pounce. He didn't. He just looked at me patiently until I was the one to glance away.
Damon tended to put up brick walls. I just got busy.
I reached for the DVD and slipped it into my laptop, which I'd booted up prior to our omelet.
"Let's see what Tank had for dinner," I suggested, picking up the written report from computer forensics while the video loaded. "Quarter Pounder and fries, with a chocolate shake. What a last meal to have," I added morosely.
"He didn't meet anyone?" Damon asked, taking our empty plates and moving them to the sink.
"Doesn't appear to have done so in the restaurant, and they saw no one approach him going in or out. Looks like they've placed the various footage from all available cameras in the area on this disc, just edited to show two minutes before he arrived and two minutes after he left."
"All right, tee it up, let's watch the man eat his last meal," Damon said, sinking into his chair at my side.
We watched Tank eat, a strange sense of foreboding entering my frame as I saw him staring distractedly into his shake. Not long after these images he would be dead.
"He'd already fired the .38 at us outside The Cloud by this stage," I commented, looking at the time stamp on the video.
"Is that guilt on his face?"
"Nah, indigestion." Damon's lips quirked at the edges. "Honestly though," I added, "he looks a little preoccupied."
"Shooting at the authorities can do that to a man," Damon deadpanned.
"Certainly makes you look at your life choices, I suppose."
I clicked the next video footage which showed Tank arriving at the restaurant and parking his car. We watched as he exited the vehicle, locked it and then walked, head down, towards the bright lights and golden arches. I scanned the surrounding area, but nothing stood out. A good five minutes of footage was provided.
"Next," Damon declared.
"Told you this was going to be a waste of time."
"Dot those Is and cross those Ts, Lara. There's a good detective."
I sniggered. Damon had decided playful was on the menu to cheer me up about being wanted dead.
It worked, I could almost ignore the guillotine hanging metaphorically over my head.
We watched as Tank approached the door of the restaurant on the other side of the glass. He walked out, and back across the carpark to his vehicle. Got in and drove off after a few seconds of attempting to start the thing up. No one neared him. No one called out. He didn't talk to a soul, outside or inside McDonald's. And a few hours later he was dead.
I went to click the video off when something caught my eye at the very edge. Just a split second of screen time. Not really enough. But I thought...
"Well, that was a bust," Damon said, standing up with our glasses and returning them to the kitchen bench.
I replayed the last few seconds.
There. Blurry, on the upper right corner. But definitely something. The screen went blank before I could determine what.
"So, what's next?" Damon asked, walking back to the board and staring at my scribbled diagram.
I replayed the last few seconds again, just to be sure.
Trench coat, maybe. Definitely something on his head.
"I suppose we could try to lift fingerprints off that newspaper. I've still got it at home," Damon supplied. "Want me to go get it or is newsprint bad for prints?" He snorted. "Get it? Newsprint bad for prints?"
I replayed the video once more because I didn't like what I couldn't see.
"Lara? Have you got something?"
Nothing. The scene was too short, cut-off before the man turned around. It was a man, wasn't it? Not many women wear trench coats. It was a trench coat, wasn't it? Winter, so I suppose anything goes.
"Lara."
"Hmm?"
"That's the fifth time you've replayed three seconds of footage since I've been watching, and I'd guess you've done it a few times before that."
"Oh."
"What did you see?"
"Nothing." The word was out before I could stop it. It sounded defensive. I pulled my hand back from the laptop and stared at the blank screen.
"It's called a Freudian slip," Damon offered. "An unintentional error regarded as revealing subconscious feelings."
I turned slowly in my chair to look up at him.
"You don't actually think it's nothing. You just want it to be," he clarified further.
"Why would I not want a further clue?" I asked, my voice a little tremulous.
"Love," he said with feeling. "Because you already recognise what you've seen."
No. No, that wasn't true. Because there wasn't enough footage to tell.
Oh, fuck it. All it would take was a request into computer forensics for more footage from this camera angle and I'd see the answer.
But I was wrong. It was nothing. A blurred image of a homeless man at the outer edges of the screen. It was nothing.
A homeless man wearing a fedora hat.
I turned back and looked at the laptop. Still blank. Still taunting me. My hand actually shook when I lifted it up to pre
ss play. At the sight of the tremors, I clenched my fist and stood up abruptly from my chair. I needed to pace.
Damon took my seat and watched the segment I'd tagged. He replayed it, while I paced, and my mind went blank, and my heart thundered in my veins, and my blood pressure sky rocketed. I even started to gnaw of my thumbnail and then thought better of it, clenching my fists at my sides as I managed another pass across the lounge floor.
"Who do you think it is, Lara?" Damon asked, and his voice was firm, steady, demanding.
He was pushing. This was Damon forcing me to admit what my subconscious had recognised on that video.
"We need more footage," I replied, instead of answering the question.
"Yes, we do. Shall I put the call in?" he asked, knowing they wouldn't release it to him, seeing as he'd been officially removed from the case now.
"No, I'll do it," I said, feeling all blood leave my head and settle in my throbbing toe. I limped back to the table and swiped up my cellphone, but didn't sit. I couldn't sit. Despite the ache in my sore foot, I kept pacing.
Pain helped me to focus on anything other than what my brain was insisting I saw.
"Johnson," came the greeting down the line. I sucked in air. "Comp U forensics," the tech added.
I cleared my throat, not looking at the laptop. Or Damon.
"This is Detective Lara Keen." Stick to the facts. "You checked out some security footage at Quay Street for case number five-oh-five dash three-oh-two." I could feel my pulse fluttering at the side of my neck. "Are you able to send me more?"
"Hold on a tick, Detective. Let me bring that up," Johnson replied. Clicking could be heard down the line as the technician got to work.
I kept pacing, head down as I limped, heart in my throat.
I was wrong. This was a coincidence and nothing more.
My stomach clenched as my gut flared with indignation.
"Got it. Which view angle?" the technician asked.
"All of them," I said, my voice shaking. I clenched my free hand into a fist and swallowed repeatedly.
"That'll make a huge file," he pointed out. "Do you want a hard copy sent over?"
"Upload it to Central's server. I'll view it in there." Breathe, Lara. Remember to breathe.
"Did we miss something?" the tech asked.
"No." My voice was a whisper, my throat was closing with a mixture of fear and heartache.
I had to be wrong. And even if I was, this was still going to hurt.
"Oh, OK," he said with obvious relief. "It's all attached to that case file on the secured network now."
"Thanks," I muttered, hanging up as he started to talk again.
I didn't have it in me to be polite, to soothe his ruffled feathers. My gut was telling me this was big. Carl's voice was ominously quiet inside my head. Damon hadn't said a word for several long minutes. And all I had to do, to end this farce, was to turn around and walk back to the table, log-on to the Central Police server and locate that file.
That's all.
I stood in the middle of the lounge and lifted my head to look out of my front windows. They were bay windows, five artfully angled panes of glass surrounded by natural wood. I looked at them for another minute, not seeing through them, or really seeing them either. Just staring at nothing at all.
You can do this, Keen. Come on.
You're a damn good cop, Keen. But stick with me and I'll make you a superstar.
I turned back and walked the short distance to the table. Damon watched me from where he sat. He still didn't speak a word. What he saw on my face could not have been good. I tried not to notice the worry on his.
I sat down carefully onto the chair in front of the laptop - which Damon had vacated at some stage - and placed my cellphone on the table, straightening it up, so it was in line with the keyboard on the computer.
Stalling.
I swiped the touch pad, bringing the screen back to life, ignoring the trembling in my fingers.
Breathe.
Opening up my browser, I located the Auckland Central Police Server bookmark, the cursor hovered for a long moment and then I clicked.
Breathe.
I logged in, searched for the case number. Found it. Then, before I could change my mind, opened up the newly attached video file from computer forensics. Going straight to the last video footage of Tank leaving McDonald's carpark, I queued it up and waited for the video to start.
I'd forgotten to breathe, so I gulped air like a fish out of water while the video began to play.
Damon moved silently to watch over my shoulder. I waited for him to reach out and touch me, but he kept a decent gap between our bodies. I couldn't even feel his warmth.
I was chilled to the bone. Nothing could have warmed me right then. But I wasn't sure if I was grateful for the distance or not.
I need you, Damon. I can't do this alone.
Images of Tank walking back to his car filled the screen. The car eventually started and he drove off to his death.
I can do this. It's just another piece to the puzzle.
And I'm wrong. My subconscious is playing tricks on me. No wonder, I've been under stress, grieving and not getting enough sleep.
My gut is wrong.
I leaned forward when the trench coat wearing man appeared in the upper right corner of the screen. Still so fucking blurry. Just a paler shape on the dark tarseal of the carpark he was in. Tank's car had long gone. This guy, if he was part of the investigation, would have followed him, would have left by now. It was nothing. Just a stranger in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Irrelevant.
And then he turned toward the camera. Looked directly at it, as though in challenge.
Damon swore softly behind me.
No.
His hands came down on my shoulders, gripping tight.
NO!
"Lara," he said, pain lacing his tone. Pain he was feeling for me. Not the figure on the screen. But me.
"No," I whispered, watching the man walk closer to the camera, eyes holding mine, speaking directly to me with that steady, knowing look I knew so well.
Oh, God.
"Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God."
"Lara."
"It's wrong. It's not... It's wrong. No. No."
"Lara, love."
"No."
I realised I was crying as I stumbled up from the table, knocking the chair over into Damon, making him take several steps away as it had bashed him on the shins. My head was shaking from side to side, one hand was clenched down by my thigh, the other covering my mouth. I was going to be sick.
"I'll call Pierce," Damon said softly, as I sank to the floor by the couch and pulled my legs in tight, wrapping my arms around them. Tears streaming down my face as my mind blanked and the ache in my chest, blessedly, numbed.
"He's dead," I whispered, as Damon spoke quietly into his cellphone, his eyes on me. "I watched him die," I whispered, staring into space and a memory.
Come on, Sport. Get with the programme. Read the clues. Follow the leads. The evidence talks, Lara. You just have to listen.
"Why, Old Man?" I whispered. "Why did I ever listen to you?"
Chapter Thirty
"Come on, Sport. Get with the programme. Read the clues. Follow the leads. The evidence talks, Lara. You just have to listen."
Pierce arrived within the quarter hour. Damon had made me a cup of sugary tea, forced me to sit on the couch and drink it. Finally getting some warmth to invade my body, even if I refused all efforts of his to physically comfort me.
The man I had idolised was not dead as I'd thought. As I'd witnessed. He was walking around out there, breathing, eating, drinking, probably fucking, and interfering in a case.
Killing people. His former informants.
And he hadn't even told me he was alive.
Why?
It's a universal constant that detectives ask that question more often than any other.
Why?
But never befo
re had it meant so damn much.
Why?
It's all I could think as I finished the tea, woodenly stood up from the couch to place the empty mug in the sink.
Why?
It's all I could think as I noted that Pierce was pulling his car up outside my front lawn.
Why?
It's all I could think as I decided that I needed to wash my face before I looked into his soft, brown eyes.
Why?
And it's all I could think as I walked down the hall, his knock sounding out on the door, shutting myself in the bathroom.
Throughout it all I kept asking, why?
I stared into the mirror above the sink as deep, muffled voices sounded out, carefully modulated as if we were all at a funeral. A humourless laugh left me. Carl had a wake, a memorial service, because his body was presumed washed out to sea.
King tide. High seas. The rocks, which were normally visible at the bottom of Mellons Bay cliffs, were covered by white tipped foaming waves. Enough to wash a body out to sea, the Coroner had said. I hadn't looked over the edge until the paramedics arrived and relieved me of my duty to Kenny Tyndall. It was pitch black when I did gather enough confidence to peer over that cliff.
All I saw was the moonlit tops of the waves. Nothing else. By the time HEAT Rescue got down there, he was gone.
Why?
I splashed water on my face and blindly dried off with the hand towel. When I looked back in the mirror I was shocked to see how pale I was. How the shadows stood out. How sadness and disillusionment mixed with the blue of my eyes. My hair was a mess. I'd brushed it this morning, I didn't remember running my hands through it to muck it up, but I must have. I searched in a drawer and combed it smooth.
I still looked like a ghost.
Another humourless laugh. I think they might have been starting to sound deranged.
Why, Carl? Why?
Was I supposed to feel indebted? He'd killed those hired to kill me. I couldn't thank him for that. An eye for an eye was not how I was raised.
Why did you do it? Fake your death and stay hidden all this time. Why?
I knew what I was feeling, as I rubbed at my chest and stared blankly at my dull eyes in the mirror.
H.E.A.T. Book Bundle (H.E.A.T. Books 1-3) Page 28
