He needed to get her off the case. He needed to recuse himself too. This was bullshit, staying on. They couldn’t possibly be objective, not about all this. But did it matter?
Say Hawk was guilty. The man had no money to his name. He wasn’t going to hire some fancy lawyer who’d make a bunch of sophisticated arguments about the mistakes in the police investigation.
No, it’d probably be a public defender and he’d be cutting some kind of deal, maybe to get out of the death penalty. Although, no. Because there were bodies in West Virginia and Maryland, but none in Virginia, and of the three states in the tri-state covered by the task force, only Virginia had the death penalty.
Huh.
Had that been done by design?
The door to the car banged open and Wren climbed back inside.
She was crying, sucking in noisy breaths and sniffling. She wiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand.
“Hey, Wren,” he said. “Hey, are you—”
“Don’t.” She pushed at him. “Don’t, please.” She slammed something down on the dashboard.
It was a pregnancy test.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Reilly wasn’t sure what to do or say. He didn’t think it was appropriate to pick up the pregnancy test and look at it. Anyway, it was kind of gross to do that. Of course, it was also gross for it to be on the dashboard of his car. Should he say something to her about that?
Yeah, um, what would he say?
He started the car and pulled it back on the road.
They drove.
Wren was still sniffling. She was making little hiccuping noises.
“I take it it’s positive,” Reilly finally said.
“No,” said Wren, and her voice broke. “It’s negative.” She started to sob—loud sobs that shook the interior of the car, as if her heart was broken.
He didn’t know what to do or how to respond, and as he was thinking of what to say, she started talking.
“I don’t know why I’m crying,” she said. “I wanted it to be negative. I’m so relieved that it’s negative. It’s a good thing.”
He reached across the car and seized her hand. He squeezed it.
They drove.
He took her home, and he insisted on letting him walk her inside. She didn’t like it, but he wouldn’t let her argue with him. He looked around the house, too, because Hawk could be there. Hawk could come looking for her. Reilly made her lock up the place.
“All the windows too,” he said. “Make sure they’re shut up tight.”
“I can handle Hawk if he shows back up.”
“If all his murdering has been about you, then it’s probably not a great idea,” said Reilly.
“I’ll be fine. You go now. I’m going to rest.”
“Okay,” he said. “You’re right. It’s been a hell of a day for you.” He started toward the front door. Then he stopped. “You know, I could stay. What if he shows up or something?”
“I told you, I can handle him.”
“Yeah, but I have a gun.”
“I need to get a gun,” she said.
“Probably wouldn’t be a bad idea,” he said. “You could get a permit to carry concealed if you wanted.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Guess it’s a good thing you never reported the fact that I killed Kyler Morris.”
“You were protecting yourself,” said Reilly. “Speaking of which, I still have more sessions I need to make it to with the shrink.”
“Well, go do that now, then.”
“I can’t do it right now,” said Reilly.
“If I wasn’t so wrecked, I’d say we should go out into the woods and look for Hawk,” she said. “But there’s no way we’d find him.”
“We’ll make a plan tomorrow,” said Reilly.
“What if he’s not in the woods? What if he’s halfway to the other side of the country by now?”
“Let’s hope that’s not the case. It’d be tough to find him then.” He hesitated. “You sure you’re going to be all right?”
“I’m sure,” she said. “Come on, give me some credit, okay? You’re acting all weird around me because I cried. I didn’t mean to.”
“That’s not why,” he said. “After everything you’ve been through, anyone would cry.”
She laughed a little.
“Okay, okay. I’m leaving.” He started towards the door.
“Hey, Reilly?” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For, you know… dealing with me today.”
“You don’t have to thank me for that,” he said. “We’re friends, okay? This is what we do.”
* * *
“So, what do you think?” said Reilly, lounging on the couch in Maliah’s living room.
“I think that she needs to test again in the morning,” said Maliah. “Because those pregnancy tests can give false negatives, especially in the beginning. A girlfriend of mine, she took a test, it was negative, and then she went out and got wasted drunk. Next morning, she tested again. Boom. Positive. The kid turned out okay despite all the drinking she did, though. Luckily. Oh, God, can you imagine Wren Delacroix with a child?”
“Not about that,” said Reilly. “I’m sorry I told you about that. I was just reeling from everything today. I mean, about getting Major out of jail for a day pass, like she said. That’s crazy, isn’t it?”
“It’s… unconventional,” said Maliah. “It’ll probably take a ridiculous amount of paperwork, which I bet you’ll want me to file.”
“You think we should try it?”
“You obviously want to,” said Maliah.
“I don’t want to if it’s pointless,” he said. “Wren wanted me to try.”
“Oh, well, if Wren wanted you to,” said Maliah.
“Hey,” he said. “You’re not going to be like that about it, are you?”
“Like what?”
“Look, she’s been going through a lot, don’t you think? So, I just feel like whatever I can do to make it easier for her, I should do that.”
“Do you.” She gazed at him evenly.
“What the hell, Maliah?” He threw up his hands.
She just stared at him.
“Okay, do you think we should try to file paperwork to get Major out or not?”
“I think you probably need to talk to Lopez about it,” said Maliah. “Because he’s the person who’ll go to bat for us and make it happen. If he doesn’t think that we can do it, then we probably can’t.”
“Yeah, okay, that makes sense.” He nodded. “Probably wait forty minutes or so. Don’t want to catch him during dinner. He’s pissy when that happens.”
“All right,” said Maliah. “Since you’re here, you want to grab dinner together somewhere? I don’t have anything in the house.”
“Sure,” he said. “Where are you thinking?”
“Let’s just go to Billy’s,” said Maliah. “We can get a beer too. You look like you could use one.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” said Reilly.
* * *
Billy’s was primarily a bar, so they didn’t have a lot of food, and what they did have was of the non-healthy variety. They served burgers and fries and they also had appetizer stuff like jalapeno poppers.
Reilly and Maliah snagged a table in one of the corners. Billy’s wasn’t the kind of place with waitresses, however. Reilly found out what Maliah wanted, and then he went up to the counter to order their drinks and their food. He got the beers right away. The food would be brought out to them later.
Reilly went back to the table with the beer, and as he was walking, the door opened, and Wren walked in.
She looked up and saw him and then pointedly looked away. She walked past him, up to the bar.
Reilly went over to the table and set down Maliah’s beer.
“You are not going over to talk to her,” said Maliah, glaring at him. “Not while I am sitting right here.”
“For fuck’s sake, Maliah, I need to catch her before she orders something. The last thing she should be doing right now is drinking. She needs to go home and rest.”
“I thought you said the test was negative.”
“That’s not why she shouldn’t be drinking. She’s been through a lot. She needs to sleep. She needs to be good to herself. Drinking is only going to make her feel worse.”
“If you leave me alone at this table and go after another woman, I am getting up and walking out of this bar.”
His lips parted. “Jesus, Maliah.”
Maliah sighed. “You know what? I’ll see you at work tomorrow. Send me a text if you talk to Lopez and he says we should start paperwork for Major.”
“Are you kidding me? You’re leaving anyway? I’m still here. With you.”
She got up out of her seat. She hesitated. Then she sat back down. “You know what? It’s not even about her.”
“It sounds like it’s about her, and there is nothing—”
“It’s not even about you.”
“So, then, what? It’s about nothing?”
She picked at her thumbnail. “It’s like I said before. Maybe we’ll never be able to trust each other after the way that we got together. Maybe it’s just not possible.”
He ran a hand over his chin.
She stood up again. “If you hurry up there, maybe you can cancel my burger before they make it.”
“Right.” Reilly shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Or maybe you can give it to Delacroix.”
“Hey, come on, Maliah.”
She shook her head and then picked up her purse. Swinging it over her shoulder, she walked out.
He gazed after her. They’d brought separate cars. Hadn’t discussed it, just did it, probably out of force of habit. So, he didn’t have to worry about getting home. Still. Maybe he should go after her.
Did she want him to go after her?
He turned back to look at Wren.
He went to her instead. It didn’t mean anything, no matter what Maliah wanted to think about it. Hell, maybe it was better this way. He was barely out of his divorce with Janessa. Did he really need to get enmeshed with someone else already? Maybe he and Maliah should call it quits.
Wren looked up at him under hooded eyes. She’d already been drinking at home, he realized. It was the alcohol in her system that had given her the courage to come out in the first place. She was nursing a whiskey on ice. She turned back to it. She sucked liquid through the little stirrer straw in her drink. “What?” she croaked.
“You should be at home,” he said.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do,” said Wren.
He nodded slowly. “Yeah, okay. You’re right. You’re nobody’s business but your own. I’m not trying to order you around. But I think if you get some sleep, you’re going to feel better than if you drink the night away.”
“It’s too early to sleep.”
“It’s also too early to be as drunk as you are.”
She gave him the finger.
He leaned across the bar and asked the bartender to wrap up the food he’d ordered.
“What are you doing, Reilly?” she said.
“Taking you back to your house and making sure you get some food in you.”
“Maybe that’s not what I want.”
“You’ll thank me in the morning,” he said.
And when the food arrived in takeout boxes, she didn’t resist. Maybe it smelled good. Maybe she didn’t have as much fight in her as she was trying to make out. She hadn’t driven here, so that was a good thing. They got in his car, and went back to her place, and they ate their food at her table in her kitchen.
“You gotta think I’m such an idiot,” she said to Reilly.
“I don’t think that.”
“How could I have fallen for it?” she said.
“You mean Hawk?” said Reilly. “We both did. Everyone did.”
“Shouldn’t you be with Maliah?” she said.
“Probably,” he said.
“Great,” muttered Wren. “Like she needs more reasons to hate me.”
* * *
“Let me get this straight,” Lopez was saying over the phone. “You’re telling me that the guy you arrested? The guy who you had all that evidence for? You don’t think he did it, and you want me to let you get him out of jail to go on a trip through the woods to look for the guy who you do think did it?”
“Um, yeah,” said Reilly. “That’s what I’m saying.”
“That’s insane.”
“I kind of thought you might say that,” said Reilly. “But I thought maybe if we filled out the right forms and talked to the right people—”
“You can get favors like this when you’re riding high and closing cases, sure.”
“Well, we did, didn’t we? The Adams case, that was probably one of the fastest closed serial cases—”
“Yeah, but if you were wrong, that looks bad. And you’re admitting you were wrong.”
“Well, I mean, the guy confessed,” said Reilly. “We thought we were right.”
“You’re not sure either way, are you? You think maybe it’s this Marner guy, but you aren’t sure it’s not Hill.”
“We’re not a hundred percent, no.”
“So, you want me to release a serial killer into custody—”
“He’s probably not a serial killer.”
“Probably,” said Lopez. He sighed. “I don’t even know why you’re coming to me with this. I don’t have Major Hill locked up. He’s in West Virginia.”
“No, I know that, but we thought that if anyone could help us get it done, it would be you. Maliah said I should talk to you first before I tried anything else.”
“Here’s what I think, Reilly. Try something else. This isn’t going to happen. No way, no how.”
“Right,” muttered Reilly. “Right.” He hung up the phone and got out of his car. He’d been having the conversation in the driveway to Maliah’s house. He wasn’t even sure why he’d driven here. He had done it almost by rote, as if not of his own volition.
He knocked on her door.
She answered it a few moments later, a robe wrapped around her pajamas. “Cai.”
“Hey,” he said.
“You came by after you tucked her in?”
“I…” He hung his head.
“You got to figure your shit out, Cai.”
“There’s nothing to figure out,” he said. “You’re jealous, because I cheated on my wife with you. You don’t trust me. It makes sense. But I’m not that kind of a man. I’m not habitual about my infidelity. I never cheated on Janessa before you. I never will again. I’ve seen how destructive it is and how much pain it causes. Nothing is worth that.”
“I want to believe you,” she said. “But I just can’t.”
“Sure, you can. You’re not trying.”
“No, it’s not about trying. It’s about something else. Something inside me, something that can’t help but feel it. I don’t know.”
“So, what are you saying?”
“Am I stuttering? Am I speaking in a dialect you don’t understand?”
“Are you saying this can’t work? Are you saying you want this to be over?”
“Is that what you want?”
“No,” he said.
“You sure?’
He threw his hands up in the air. “I don’t know why I’m bothering to talk to you about this.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “Really? That’s your response?”
“I’m going home,” he said, turning away from her.
“Yeah, go, sure,” she said. “Or go back and check on Delacroix. I’m sure she’d appreciate that.”
He turned back around. “Wren is trying to deal with the fact that Hawk is a killer. And I’m trying to be her friend. If there were something more than that going on at this moment, it would be obscene. How can you even think that?”
“Did I say
I thought something else was going on?”
“You implied it.”
“Did I? Or was that just where your mind was focused, Cai?”
He turned back around. “Forget it. I’m leaving. I can’t talk to you right now.”
“Sure, go. Run off. That’s great,” she yelled after him. “That’s perfect.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Morning,” said Wren, looking up from the counter at the Daily Bean to see Reilly coming in. She felt like death warmed over, because she’d polished off the rest of a bottle at her place before going out to Billy’s. But Reilly had intervened before it got worse, and going to bed after she’d eaten something had helped a lot. She should thank him, but she’d been sentimental enough last night. She wasn’t a touchy-feely type. She just waved.
“Morning,” said Reilly.
“I ordered your latte,” said Wren.
“Yep,” chirped Angela from the other side of the counter. “Working on it now.”
“Great,” said Reilly. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Uh, how are you doing?”
“Fine,” said Wren. “Great. Good. Excellent. Where are we with Major?”
“He’s not getting out of jail to show us around in the woods any time soon,” said Reilly. “Lopez pretty much shut that down when I floated it past him.”
She should have figured. “Yeah, that was a long shot.”
“I did, however, get a BOLO set up for Hawk,” said Reilly, “but there hasn’t been any activity on that. No one’s seen him.” BOLO stood for ‘be on the look-out.’
“That’s because he’s in the woods,” said Wren. “We just need to figure out where.”
“Well, maybe we can get together some kind of team to comb the woods. It’s a big space out there, but it’s not impossible to search. If someone was out there, lost, hurt, we could rally a good search party. In this case, it’s someone dangerous, who might hurt someone. Now that he’s changed his MO, he could hurt anyone.”
“But to rally people, that would involve starting a public panic,” said Wren.
“You got a better idea?”
“Let’s go talk to Major again,” she said.
* * *
“No, I told you,” Major said, hands flat on the table in the interrogation room, “I’m not telling you anything. You get me out of here, and I’ll show you.”
Wren Delacroix Series Box Set Page 49
