by Willow Rose
Fowler shook his head. “Wrong. I already have Morales and his team on that one. He investigated the rape back then, and let’s be honest, he’s here on time and attends all the briefings like he’s supposed to.”
I stared at my old friend. “You’re kidding me, right? You’re giving the case to him because he plays by the rules? Murder isn’t solved by detectives who play by the rules. You know I’m perfect for this case. You know I’m the only one around here who can solve it.”
Fowler shrugged. “You can whine all you want. I need someone I can rely on, someone I trust will pick up the phone when I call. The case is his.”
“And what about me? Why did you call me in here if you’re not putting me on the case?” I asked.
He leaned back in his chair. His wife and two kids were staring back at him from a picture next to his computer. I knew them all well; we used to be invited over for dinner all the time before Camille got sick. After that, they just stopped asking.
“Well, my first thought was to fire you, but then again, I felt bad because you’re the detective with the most solved cases around here, and you’re my friend. So, I decided against it.”
“Geez, thanks?”
“You’re welcome.”
“So, what do you have me on?”
He leaned forward and folded his hands on the desk again. “Protection, Harry. I can’t have any more kids turn up dead.” Fowler pulled out a couple of photos of a young kid no more than seventeen or eighteen. He was wearing the same sly smile in all the pictures like he was keeping some deep secret that he knew he’d get away with. Just looking at him made my skin crawl. It was such a cliché…a white, blue-eyed kid from an affluent suburban area getting away with anything, even rape.
“William Covington was the one Lucy named as her rapist, but who was also later acquitted.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“You say that a lot.”
I stared at my old friend, out of words to speak. What the heck was his game? He couldn’t be serious about this. He wanted me to be a bloody bodyguard?
“Tell me you’re joking. You want me to protect some affluent rapist whose parents’ lawyer made sure he could get away with it?”
Fowler nodded. “I don’t need to remind you that he was never convicted of any crime, and in the eyes of the law, he is innocent. So, yes, that is what I’m asking of you. If you do your job well, then you might get back to solving cases again soon. If not, then maybe it’s time for you to find another line of work more suitable for your needs to come and go as you please.”
“You’re…”
“Kidding? No, not at all. I suggest you keep this boy alive. Your future depends on it.”
Chapter 11
I didn’t stay at the department. I slammed the door to Fowler’s office, then stormed out without even a word to any of my colleagues. I jumped back onto my motorcycle, roared it to life and rode it across town while yelling loudly into the warm Florida wind. I drove out to the beach, then parked the bike and went for a long walk, telling God just how unhappy I was right now with how he was managing my life.
“Don’t you see me at all?” I asked, feeling let down. “Between taking care of Camille and Josie, I can’t possibly put in the fifty-hour workweek everyone else is. How am I supposed to do this?”
I sat down in the sand, waiting for my answer, but all I could hear in my mind was me telling myself to stop feeling sorry for myself, to pick up myself and continue.
People need you. Josie needs you more than ever with her teenage years coming up. You can’t allow yourself to wallow in self-pity.
“You can’t be pitiful and powerful at the same time,” I mumbled, repeating my dad’s old mantra. He used to say this to me when I came home from baseball, and we lost or when I got a bad grade, which was pretty often since I wasn’t a very strong student and I hated school.
My dad never lost confidence in me, though. He knew I’d amount to something one day. He kept telling me that there was a path for me, one that no one else could walk and that once I found what God’s plan for me was, what my talent was, I’d be unstoppable. I thought I had found it when I became a detective. Fowler was right. I had been the one who had solved the most cases in the entire department. Even now, when it had been three years since I had solved anything, I was still ahead of the others. It was my path; it was what I was supposed to do.
Why did I keep running into so much resistance, then?
“Why aren’t you making it easier on me if I’m doing what you want?” I asked toward the sky.
I sighed and kept looking at the blue sky above. My dad had been a pastor all my life, and it had seemed so much easier for him. It was like he had this connection with God that I never seemed to be able to find. My dad believed it was because I was still carrying so much anger in me from the time my sister, Reese, was raped when we were teenagers. And he was right about that. I didn’t understand why it had to happen and why God didn’t protect her. He knew how it was going to ruin her life. Was that his plan for her?
I shook my head. No, I couldn’t think like that. I was raised to believe in a good God, and I chose to do so, even with the bad things that happen, even when I didn’t understand why Camille had to end up like she did.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I looked at the display. It was a text from Fowler. It contained an address and a message:
BE THERE AT 7 AM. BE LATE AND YOU’RE OUT.
I sighed and put the phone back in my pocket, then put my helmet back on.
“If that’s how you want to play it, God, then so be it. I’ll be a good boy and do as I’m told, but I am not gonna be happy about it. Just saying.”
Chapter 12
She had worked the evening shift and didn’t come home until after midnight. Jean felt exhausted as she parked her old Toyota on the street outside of her townhouse. She sighed and looked at her neighbor’s house. The lights were out in all the windows.
Jean grabbed her purse, got out, then walked up toward her porch when a sound startled her.
“Hello?”
A face peeked out. It was Harry. He was sitting on the porch swing and waved at her. Jean smiled gently and casually waved back. The sight of him made her heart skip a beat.
“Hi there, neighbor,” Harry said.
“Why are you still up?” she asked, even though she knew perfectly well why. Harry hadn’t slept much since Camille’s overdose.
“Thought I’d enjoy the nice evening outside,” he said. “Lots of stars out tonight.”
She looked up. “Sure are. How’s Camille?”
Jean always felt a pinch in her stomach when mentioning her name. Camille and Jean had been best friends. They had hung out almost every day, going to lunch, drinking coffee, and yet she had no idea the girl was doing drugs again. It filled her with such a deep sense of guilt every time she thought about it, especially when she saw how much Harry and Josie were struggling. If only she had known. She was a nurse for crying out loud. She knew what to look for. Were there signs she had missed? Anything different in the way Camille acted or spoke? Jean had thought about it over and over again, yet found nothing she could put her finger on.
Camille had been the same in the days leading up to it. Heck, Jean had even spoken to her that same morning before it happened. She had given her those chairs back that she had borrowed for her party a few weeks before. They had a cup of coffee and a couple of donuts that Jean had brought. They talked about Harry and how Camille was worried about his job getting him killed one day, and how tough it was to be the wife of a detective. She feared she might lose him one day, and Josie would have no father. Jean remembered thinking her fear seemed more consuming than usual and wondering if there was a real threat to Harry’s life.
Did that drive her back to the drugs? The fear?
No. Camille was happy. She loved her life and her family. It made no sense that she’d suddenly start doing drugs again.
At leas
t not to Jean.
“She’s good,” Harry said.
Jean could tell he was trying to sound cheerful as usual. He didn’t like that she worried.
“She’s sleeping,” he continued. “I sat by her side all evening after Josie went to bed. I just snuck out half an hour ago. How was your day?”
She shrugged. “Busy as usual when working in the ER. Lots of patients coming down with the flu.”
“It is the season,” he said with that handsome smile of his. Harry was one big chunk of man, but handsome as the devil. No one could resist that smile of his, least of all, Jean.
But it could never be them. Not in a million years. He was still married, and Jean was Camille’s best friend.
It could never happen. Ever.
“Anyway, I should…” She pointed at her house with her thumb.
“Yeah, me too,” he said. “I have work to do early in the morning, at seven a.m. New assignment from the boss. My dad will be over to eat breakfast with Josie and make sure she gets to school on time.”
“Then, as your nurse, I’ll recommend you hit the sack,” she said with a chuckle.
Keys in her hand and purse slung over her shoulder, she walked up to the steps leading to her house, sensing how his stare followed her every move. As she was about to walk up, she turned to look at him, then smiled.
“I’ll take care of Camille tomorrow morning. You just worry about your big case or whatever it is you’re doing.”
He exhaled. “I hoped you’d say that. You’re a lifesaver, Jean.”
She nodded. It didn’t feel like much, not since she was unable to save her own best friend’s life.
“Goodnight,” Harry said.
She reached her door, then sent him one last glance. He had already left the porch and was walking inside the house as she whispered with longing in her voice:
“Goodnight, Harry Handsome.”
Chapter 13
I drove up the long driveway to the mansion situated on five acres of oceanfront land and walked up to the front entrance at precisely seven a.m. I wasn’t going to give Fowler the pleasure of firing me for being late. While waiting for someone to open the front door of the Spanish mansion, I took a quick glance around me and saw the tennis court located in the corner of the lot.
As the wooden door slid open, I showed the woman behind the door my badge. “Detective Hunter, Miami PD. I believe I am expected.”
The small—very beautiful—woman mumbled something in a foreign language, then showed me inside, where a tall blonde woman in a tan dress greeted me.
“Mrs. Covington?” I said. “I’m Detective Hunter from Miami PD. I’m here for the protection of your son.”
The woman nodded. She seemed like she was in distress. “Yes, yes, of course,” she said. “Please, come on in.”
“I just need to know a little more about William’s schedule this week,” I said, “so I can make sure to keep him safe.”
She gave me a half-smile. “He has school from nine to three-thirty every day. He has tennis lessons here at the house on Tuesdays and Thursdays from four till six. His teacher comes here to train him. On the weekends, he usually goes golfing or boating with his friends. He also practices his violin on Wednesdays with a private teacher. She comes here.”
I was writing notes on my notepad. “So, he basically only leaves the house to go to school and on the weekends?”
“Yes.”
I nodded. That sounded like a pretty easy task. She gave me a look. “So, is there…is there anything we need to do? I understand that you believe there’s a threat to him? Do we need to keep him home while this is going on?”
I exhaled and ran a hand through my hair. “I think you should just go on the way you usually do. We don’t really know exactly what is going on, or whether your son is in danger or not, but we do know that several other kids from his school were killed, and they were all witnesses in the Lockwood case.”
Mrs. Covington’s lips tightened. “Oh…that. Awful story. I’m glad the judge realized my boy had nothing to do with it.”
I stared at her, scrutinizing her, then realized she fully believed in her son’s innocence. Of course, she did. She was his mother. She had to believe it, right? How else could you go on after something like that? How would you ever be able to look your son in the eyes again, knowing he had raped someone?
Mrs. Covington’s face lit up as someone approached us, coming down the stairs. I recognized him from the pictures in Fowler’s office. He hadn’t changed much since they were taken. His light brown hair fell into his face as he walked, and he ran a hand through it to move it.
“William,” his mother said as she grabbed his arm and pulled him toward me. The boy let her, probably because I was there, then removed his arm from her grip.
“Meet Detective Hunter from Miami PD,” she said. “He’ll be protecting you over the next few days, you know…like we discussed. After what happened to…”
The mother received a look from her son, and she stopped talking. William reached out his hand and looked into my eyes while shaking my hand.
“Detective Hunter, nice to meet you.”
Shaking his hand made my skin crawl, thinking about how those same hands had touched and abused Lucy Lockwood. I was towering above him with my six-foot-eight to his five-foot-eleven. I kept thinking about Reese and how her rapist had gotten away with it, too, how she had to go to school and see him every day, laughing at her. The thought made me want to beat this kid up right here and now.
“We’re glad you’re here, Detective,” Mrs. Covington said. “It’s an awful ordeal with what happened to those kids. William knows them from school and…well…”
“Mom,” William said, annoyed. “I’m capable of taking care of myself. I barely knew those kids.”
“But William, if there’s a killer…if that girl is out there killing…”
He gave her a look. “Mom, stop it, will you? You’re being paranoid. I can easily handle some girl.”
“But…but William…”
“Stop it, Mom.”
William hissed the last part at his mother.
“Anyway,” I said, feeling uncomfortable. It felt like I had landed in the middle of something I had no desire to become a part of. “I’m just going to be parked out on the street, so if you see anything or hear anything, then…” I handed her my card. “My cell phone number is here, or you can just come out to talk to me. I’ll be staying close to William all day, and I’ll wait outside of his school as well.”
Mrs. Covington walked me to the door and held it for me. “Thank you, Detective. We appreciate it immensely.”
I stopped as I reached the door. “Where is Mr. Covington?”
“He…he’s not here.”
I stared at her as her eyes avoided mine. “As in he doesn’t live here anymore?”
She lifted her eyes, and they met mine. “Yes. He moved out. We’re separated.”
“I am sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be,” William said from behind her. Mrs. Covington turned to give him a look. William sent her a sly smile, the very same one I recognized from the photos.
“Don’t mind him,” she said, addressed to me. “He’s angry at us for separating. He blames his father.”
“Are there any siblings, or is William your only child?” I asked. “For safety reasons, I need to know how many people are in the household.”
She shook her head. “No. There’s just William and me here. And Dalisay, of course, the woman who let you in. She takes care of us.”
Chapter 14
When she told people her name was Sophia, they usually assumed it was because of her Spanish heritage, because of her brown skin, but it wasn’t. Sophia was half Jamaican and half German. Her parents had both worked on a cruise ship and ended up loving Miami so much—especially because of the melting pot of diversity that it has—they finally settled there and became naturalized. Today, her dad had his own tech company while he
r mother ran a rather successful investment company. She was one of the only moms in Sophia’s friend group who worked, and that made Sophia proud. She, too, was going to make something of herself one day.
At least that was what she had always told herself while growing up. Now, as she was sitting in class, staring at William Covington’s neck in front of her, she wasn’t sure she’d even make it that far.
Four of the seats in her math class were empty—four seats where Georgiana, Katelyn, Sandra, and Martina usually sat. Sophia couldn’t stop staring at the empty chairs, feeling the chill run down her spine.
Murdered, they had said on TV. Brutally assassinated.
The thought made the hairs on Sophia’s neck stand up. She, too, was supposed to have gone with her friends on that boat that night, only she had decided not to at the last minute because she had to get up early the next day.
There was a fifth victim; they had also said on TV. Lisa Turner. She had been found the week before in a dumpster, stabbed to death. Back then, they had all believed she had met her killer coincidentally…that she was walking the streets when she met her attacker, that it was some drug addict or maybe a crazy homeless person. It had been terrible, yes, awful, of course, but at least it didn’t mean anyone else was in danger. With the four others gone too, that had all changed. She couldn’t help feeling this killer was making his way through her entire friend group. It didn’t seem possible that it was a coincidence anymore.
And you know perfectly well why, don’t you?
Sophia trembled again and looked away from the empty chairs, then shook her head. She almost didn’t come to school this morning, but then realized it was no use. She had to go on as usual, even though she was beyond terrified.
The police had sent someone to her house and spoken to her parents. They had told them to make sure Sophia was at home from nine p.m. until six a.m. They were also going to have a patrol car drive up and down the street several times a day and have one outside of the school. That made her ease up slightly, but it didn’t really make her feel comfortable. Somehow, she had a feeling this killer would get to her, no matter how many police surrounded her.
