by Karen Rose
He looked around with a sneer. Her apartment was a disgusting mess, books and magazines stacked everywhere. The surface of her desk was obscured by the cups of coagulated coffee, Post-it notes, and newspapers that she’d packed around her state-of-the-art computer.
Her clothes were pure nineties, but her computer was brand new. It figured. Nothing but the best for her forays into fantasyland.
He pressed the gun to her temple harder and felt her flinch against him. “I’m going to move my hand. If you scream, I will kill you.”
Sometimes they screamed. Always he killed them.
He slid his hand from her mouth to her throat. “Don’t hurt me,” she whimpered. “Please. I’ll give you my valuables. Take what you want.”
“Oh, I will,” he said quietly. “Desiree.”
She stiffened. “How did you know that?”
“Because I know everything about you, Martha. What you really do for a living. What you love. And what you fear the very most.” Still pressing the gun to her temple, he reached into his coat pocket for the syringe. “I see all. I know all. Up to and including the moment you will die. Which would be tonight.”
Chapter One
Minneapolis, Sunday, February 21, 6:35 p.m.
Homicide detective Noah Webster stared up into the wide, lifeless eyes of Martha Brisbane with a sigh that hung in the freezing air, just as she did. Within him was deep sadness, cold rage, and an awful dread that had his heart plodding hard in his chest.
It should have been an unremarkable crime scene. Martha Brisbane had hung herself in the conventional way. She’d looped a rope over a hook in her bedroom ceiling and tied a very traditional noose. She’d climbed up on an upholstered stool, which she’d then kicked aside. The only thing remotely untraditional was the bedroom window she’d left open and the thermostats she’d turned off. The Minnesota winter had served to preserve her body well. Establishing time of death would be a bitch.
Like many hangers, she was dressed for the occasion, makeup applied with a heavy hand. Her red dress plunged daringly, the skirt frozen around her dangling legs. She’d worn her sexiest five-inch red stilettos, which now lay on the carpet at her feet. One red shoe had fallen on its side while the other stood upright, the heel stuck into the carpet.
It should have been an unremarkable crime scene.
But it wasn’t. And as he stared up into the victim’s empty eyes, a chill that had nothing to do with the near-zero temps in Martha Brisbane’s bedroom went sliding down his spine. They were supposed to believe she’d hung herself. They were supposed to chalk it up to one more depressed, middle-aged single woman. They were supposed to close the case and walk away, without a second thought.
At least that’s what the one who’d hung her here had intended. And why not? That’s exactly what had happened before.
“The neighbor found her,” the first responding officer said. “CSU is on the way. So are the ME techs. Do you need anything else?”
Anything else to close it quickly, was the implication. Noah forced his eyes from the body to look at the officer. “The window, Officer Pratt. Was it open when you got here?”
Pratt frowned slightly. “Yes. Nobody touched anything.”
“The neighbor who called it in,” Noah pressed. “She didn’t open the window?”
“She didn’t enter the apartment. She tried knocking on the door but the victim didn’t answer, so she went around back, planning to bang on the window. She thought the victim would be asleep since she works nights. Instead, she saw this. Why?”
Because I’ve seen this scene before, he thought, déjà vu squeezing his chest so hard he could barely breathe. The body, the stool, the open window. Her dress and shoes, one standing up, one lying on its side. And her eyes.
Noah hadn’t been able to forget the last victim’s eyes, lids glued open, cruelly forced to remain wide and empty. This was going to be very bad. Very bad indeed.
“See if you can find the building manager,” he said. “I’ll wait for CSU and the ME.”
Officer Pratt gave him a sharp look. “And Detective GQ?”
Noah winced. That Jack Phelps wasn’t here yet was not, unfortunately, unusual. His partner had been distracted recently. Which was the polite way of saying he’d dropped the ball more than a few times.
“Detective Phelps is on his way,” he said, with more confidence than he felt.
Pratt grunted as he left in search of the manager and Noah felt a twinge of sympathy for Jack. Officers who’d never met Jack disrespected him. Thanks to that magazine. A recent article on the homicide squad had portrayed them as supermen. But Jack had borne the brunt, his face adorning the damn cover.
But Jack’s rep as a party-loving lightweight started long before the magazine hit the stands three weeks before and it was a shame. Focused, Jack Phelps was a good cop. Noah knew his partner had a quick mind, seeing connections others passed over.
Noah looked up into Martha Brisbane’s empty eyes. They were going to need all the quick minds they could get.
His cell buzzed. Jack. But it was his cousin Brock, from whose dinner table Noah had been called. Brock and his wife, Trina, were cops, they’d taken it in stride. In a family of cops, it was a rare Sunday dinner when one of them wasn’t called away.
“I’m tied up,” Noah answered, bypassing greeting.
“So is your partner,” Brock responded. Brock had been headed to Sal’s Bar to watch the game. Which meant that Jack was at Sal’s, too. Damn him.
“I’ve called him twice,” Noah gritted. Both calls had gone to Jack’s voicemail.
“He’s having drinks with his newest blonde. You want me to talk to him?”
Noah looked up at Martha Brisbane’s lifeless eyes and his anger bubbled tightly. It wasn’t the first time Jack had blown off his duty, but by God, it would be his last. “No. I’m going to get the first responder back in here and come down there myself.”
Sunday, February 21, 6:55 p.m.
“Come on, Eve, it’s just a little magazine quiz.”
Eve Wilson glanced across the bar at her friend with an exasperated shake of her head before returning her eyes to the beer tap. “I get enough quizzes at school.”
“But this one is fun,” Callie insisted, “unlike that psycho research project that has you tied up in knots. Don’t worry. You always get the best grade in class. Just one question.”
If only it was the grade. A few months ago, getting A’s was at the top of Eve’s mind. A few months ago the participants in her thesis research had been nameless, faceless numbers on a page. The mug filled, she replaced it with the next. The bar was busy tonight. She’d hoped to numb her mind with work, but the worry was always there.
Because a few months ago Eve never would have entertained the possibility of breaking university rules, of compromising her own ethics. But she’d done both of those things. Because now the test subjects were more than numbers on a page. Desiree and Gwenivere and the others were real people, in serious trouble.
Desiree had been missing for more than a week. I should do something. But what? She wasn’t supposed to know that Desiree existed, much less that she was Martha Brisbane in real life. Test subjects were assured their privacy.
But Eve did know, because she’d broken the rules. And I’ll have to pay for that.
Across the bar, Callie cleared her throat dramatically, taking Eve’s silence for assent. “Question one. Have you ever gone on a romantic dinner to—”
“I’m busy,” Eve interrupted. For the next few hours there was nothing she could do about Martha and her other test subjects, but Callie’s quiz was not welcome respite. Do you believe in love at first sight, my ass. I hate those quizzes. Which, of course, was the reason Callie insisted on reading them. “Look, Cal, I took your shift so you could party.”
Callie shrugged the shoulders her cocktail dress left bare. “Nice try. I had somebody to cover for me. You should be studying, but you’re here, procrastinating.”
&nbs
p; It was fair. Grasping three mug handles in each fist, Eve clenched her teeth against the pain that speared through her right hand. But until last year that hand couldn’t hold a coffee cup, so a little pain seemed a small price to pay for mobility. And independence.
She lifted the mugs into the waiting hands of one of her most regular regulars, quirking the responsive side of her mouth in the three-cornered smile that, after years of practice, appeared normal. “Normal” was right up there with mobility and independence.
“You’ve been buying all night, Jeff,” she said, surreptitiously flexing her fingers, “and haven’t had a drop yourself.” Which was so not normal. “You lose a bet?”
Officer Jeff Betz was a big guy with a sweet grin. “Don’t tell my wife. She’ll kill me.”
Eve nodded sagely. “Bartenders never tell. It’s part of the oath.”
He met her eyes, gratitude in his. “I know,” he said, then turned to Callie. “Hot date?”
“You betcha.” Callie nodded, comfortable with the scrutiny she’d received since gliding into Sal’s on ridiculously high heels. Her tiny dress would earn her significantly better tips were she to wear it next time she tended bar. Not that she needed any help.
Clerking for the county prosecutor was Callie’s primary means of putting herself through law school, but she’d recently started picking up extra cash working at Sal’s on weekends, her tip jar consistently filled to the brim. That dress combined with Callie’s substantial cleavage would send her cup running over, so to speak.
Hopefully Callie’s dress wouldn’t give their boss any ideas, Eve thought darkly. Because there’s no way in hell I’m wearing anything like that, tips or no.
So to speak. Eve squashed the envy. Never pompous, Callie was a beautiful woman comfortable in her own skin, something that Eve had not been in a long time.
Eve made her voice light. “Her date’s taking her to Chez León.”
Jeff whistled. “Spendy.” Then he frowned. “Do we know this guy?”
The “we” was understood—it included every cop that hung at Sal’s. Eighty percent of Sal’s customers were police, which made the bar one of the safest places in town. An ex-cop, Sal was one of their own, and by extension so was everyone on Sal’s payroll. It was like having a hundred big brothers. Which was pretty nice, Eve thought.
“I don’t think so,” Callie demurred. Her date was a defense attorney, which earned him poor opinion among their cops. Callie agreed, which was precisely why she’d accepted the date. Callie’s constant challenge of her own worldview was something Eve had always admired. “But he’s late, so I’m trying to get Eve to take this little quiz.”
“Is that that MSP rag with Jack Phelps on the cover?” Jeff asked, his lip curled.
MSP was the women’s magazine that juggled Minneapolis–St. Paul gossip, culture, and local concerns. Their recent exposé on the homicide squad had made instant, if temporary, celebrities of Sal’s regulars. It was a decent piece, although it did make their cops into white knights, a fact that had embarrassed the hell out of the detectives.
Jeff gave Eve a pitying look. “My wife made me take that damn quiz.”
Eve’s lips twitched. “Did you pass?”
“Of course. A man can’t stay happily married without knowing how to BS his way through one of those things.” With a parting wink, he carried the beer back to his waiting friends, all off-duty cops who made Sal’s their home away from home.
Callie rolled her eyes when Jeff was gone. “If he spent half the time he’s here with his wife, he wouldn’t have had to BS his way through this ‘damn quiz,’ ” she muttered.
“Don’t judge,” Eve murmured, dumping two shots of gin over ice. “Jeff’s wife works second shift at the hospital. When he’s on days, he hangs here, then takes her home.”
Callie frowned. “What about their kids? Who’s watching them?”
“No kids.” But not from lack of trying, Jeff had confided one night when the bar was empty and he’d had a little too much to drink. The stress had nearly torn his marriage apart. Eve understood his pain far more than Jeff had realized. Far more than she’d ever let anyone see. Even Callie. “I guess his house is kind of quiet.”
Callie sighed. “What else should I know so I don’t put my foot in my mouth again?”
Eve tried to think of something she could share without breaking a confidence. She wouldn’t tell Callie about the cop at Jeff’s table who was worried his wife was leaving him, or the policewoman at the end of the bar, just diagnosed with breast cancer.
So many secrets, Eve thought. Listening, keeping their secrets, was a way she could help them while she worked on her master’s in counseling. If she ever made it through her damn thesis she’d be a therapist, trading one listening career for another.
But I’ll miss this place. She’d miss Sal and his wife, Josie, who’d given her a chance to work, to support herself in the new life she’d started in Minneapolis. She’d miss Jeff and all the regulars, who’d become more like friends than customers.
Some she’d miss more than others, she admitted. The one she’d miss most never came in on Sundays, but that didn’t stop her eyes from straying to the door every time the bell jingled. Watching Noah Webster come through the door still caught her breath, every time. Tall, dark. Powerful. Look, but don’t touch. Not anymore. Probably not ever again.
