“And you’re probably right.” Kelsey gave her a long look. “What did Jonah think? I’m guessing he wasn’t too happy about you sharing your accomplice sighting with the media?”
Sophie remembered the look on his face when he’d met her at the gym. “You guessed right. I think I may have ticked off the whole department.”
Kelsey waved her off. “I wouldn’t worry about it. They’re probably just embarrassed you caught something they missed. Jonah will probably be thanking you someday for having the guts to come forward.”
Sophie snorted. “I don’t know about that. Last time I saw him, he looked ready to wring my neck.”
•••
The 1976 Volkswagen Beetle arrived at the Delphi Center in a moving van, and Allison couldn’t help thinking that if the lawsuits didn’t bankrupt her department, the bill from this crime lab could certainly do the trick. She stood inside the large enclosed garage and watched as the driver of the van completed his delivery. The truck began to hiss and groan.
“What’s that sound?”
“Hydraulics,” said the tracer who was standing by to take the vehicle’s interior apart in search of evidence.
Allison looked at him to elaborate, but then looked away. With his athletic build, sun-bronzed skin, and faded baseball cap, Roland Delgado was quickly dispelling her notion of a lab geek. If not for his Tyvek coveralls, she would have thought he was a kayaking instructor, not a scientist.
“We like gravity to do the work,” he said as a ramp emerged from the cargo space, tilted down toward the floor. “The last thing we want is someone getting behind the wheel and contaminating the crime scene.”
More groaning as the Beetle emerged, attached to a winch that was slowly being let out. The truck spit out the Bug, Roland stepped forward to unhook the winch from the front bumper, and the platform receded like a giant metal tongue.
Allison stood on the sidelines as the tracer snapped on some surgical gloves and got to work. Task one: photographing the car from every angle, which he did with a small digital camera.
“Hey, you mind aiming that light for me?” He glanced up at Allison as he opened the passenger’s-side door and crouched down.
This was the strangest garage Allison had ever seen. Besides having a floor that looked clean enough to double as an operating table, it had an abundance of lights—overhead lamps, portable lamps, handheld flashlights. Roland nodded at the standing spotlight closest to her, and she tilted it to shine inside the car.
“Not much of a neat freak,” Roland told her, bending over something on the floor with his tweezers. “I like this guy already.”
“You’re aware he shot twenty-eight people, right?”
The tracer deposited something Allison couldn’t see into a small paper bag.
“Yeah, but look at all the goodies he left behind. Soil, plant matter, synthetic fiber … The plant matter alone could keep us entertained for days.”
Okay, maybe he was more of a geek than she’d given him credit for.
“Whoa.”
Allison stepped closer and ducked her head. “What?”
He snapped a few pictures, then dug some extralong tweezers from his pocket and reached under the passenger seat. He pulled out a small gray wad.
“Chewing gum,” he announced with a smile. “Mia’s going to love this. She’s our DNA tracer. She can run an STR analysis and develop a profile.”
“Not bad,” Allison said. “And if our mystery man was smart enough to wear gloves but dumb enough to spit out his gum, I’ll take you out for a beer to celebrate.”
He lifted an eyebrow but didn’t look up. “I’ll hold you to that beer. And you never know. Perps can do stupid things.”
“Won’t argue with that one.” Allison stepped closer again. “I once worked an apartment burglary where the guy used a flexible plastic card to get past the lock on a door. You know those phony credit cards you get in the mail?”
“Yeah?”
“They’re the best kind. Nice and thin. Anyway, this guy must not have had one handy because he used his driver’s license instead. Didn’t manage to get the door open, ended up dropping the thing in her apartment, and it was waiting right there when she came home from work.”
Roland snapped another picture. “So, if he didn’t get into the apartment, how do you know he was planning to burglarize it?”
“He hit the other apartments on her hall first.” She leaned closer, trying to see what had his attention. “What are you photographing?”
“McDonald’s wrapper. And a receipt.”
“Tell me it’s a credit-card purchase.”
“Sorry.”
He collected the bits of paper in separate bags, then moved around to the driver’s side, which was Allison’s primary area of interest. If Sophie Barrett’s claims had any merit, here’s where they’d be most likely to find evidence.
Roland arranged more lamps before crouching down and shaking his head. “Damn. Your fingerprint guy really went nuts in here. There’s powder everywhere.”
“He was trying to be thorough.”
“Next time, send it straight to the best.” He glanced up at her with warm brown eyes and a cocky smile that made her pulse pick up.
“I’ll remember that.” She shifted away from Roland and pretended to be examining the car instead of wondering what he looked like under those coveralls. She needed to get out more. She hadn’t been on a date in ages, and she was starting to get itchy around all the men she worked with.
The door behind her squeaked open and a lab-coated woman stepped into the room. She had reddish-blond hair and a smattering of freckles covering her nose.
“Mia, baby, you’re going to love me.”
“What have you got?” She came over to stand next to Allison, and they traded greetings.
“Some ABC gum, for starters.”
Allison looked at the woman. “ABC?”
“Already been chewed.” She smiled. “We like our acronyms around here.”
“Unfortunately, it’s pretty petrified and it came from the passenger side. I doubt it’s the guy you’re looking for.”
Mia donned a pair of surgical gloves and pulled a small glass vial from her pocket. Inside was a cotton swab.
“You finish the door yet?” she asked, walking over to Roland.
“Thought I’d save that for you.”
“How thoughtful.” She pulled out a small container of liquid, dampened the cotton swab, and began rubbing it in tiny circles along the top of the car door.
Allison eased closer, intrigued. “You’re looking for skin cells?”
“Skin cells, maybe traces of sweat.” She glanced up at Allison. “Anyone driving this little car probably rested an elbow on the door here. He may have worn gloves, but it was nearly a hundred degrees last Wednesday, and I’d be surprised if he was in long sleeves. If we’re lucky, we’ll get DNA.”
“And it looks like this is our lucky day.”
Allison and Mia both looked at Roland as he pulled the camera from his pocket and snapped a picture of the headrest.
“What is it?” Mia asked.
He traded the camera for tweezers. “A hair.” He gently tugged it loose from a crease in the headrest, then lifted it up for them to see.
“About six centimeters, brown.” He glanced at Allison. “Does your fingerprint tech have brown hair?”
“Black. He’s vietnamese.” Allison’s stomach tensed with excitement as she gazed at the strand.
Mia looked at Allison hopefully. “What about the shooter? What color was his hair?”
“He didn’t have any,” Allison said. “Head smooth as a cue ball.”
“It wasn’t random at all. I’d bet my badge on it,” Jonah told Ric over the phone. He drove past yet another set of golden arches and felt a pang in his stomach. After fourteen hours of driving, he was tired, cranky, and running on fumes. “It was damn near surgical. Ankles, hands, wrists. He shot up windows and statues. He wasn’t tr
ying to kill students, he was trying to terrorize. I think the whole thing was staged.”
“Who was the target, then? Or was he aiming for all three?”
Jonah stared ahead and concentrated on keeping to his lane. Only a few more miles to go, but he could hardly hold his head up. He’d driven almost eighteen hundred miles over the past two days and had a shitty night’s sleep in a cheap motel in Columbus after wasting the remainder of yesterday looking for Himmel’s ex-wife. She was MIA.
The phone was silent, and he remembered Ric had asked him a question. Shit. The target.
“I don’t think it was Jodi Kincaid,” Jonah said. “He didn’t mean to kill her. It was a ricochet bullet. Confirmed it with Scott Black just the other day.”
“So he didn’t mean to kill the pregnant lady, but he had no problem killing a student and a professor. Good to know. The question is, why?”
“I’m still working on that.” Jonah sailed past another exit, ignoring the fast-food signs. He planned to raid whatever was in his pantry before falling into bed. “Allison’s helping me, too. She’s pulling together victimology reports on all three. If we can get to motive, we can get to who else might be involved, if anyone.”
“That’s sounding more and more likely. By the way, Noonan finally broke down and sent the car up to Delphi.”
“The VW?” Jonah couldn’t believe the chief had sprung for the cost. But considering the media uproar, he probably thought covering his ass was a good use of funds.
“They found a hair in the headrest of the driver’s seat,” Ric informed him. “Mia’s working on the DNA.”
It took Jonah’s fried brain an extra second to process the words. “Shit.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
Himmel’s head had been shaved. Because he liked it that way? Because of chemotherapy? Jonah didn’t know yet. But a hair recovered from the headrest of Himmel’s car, assuming it wasn’t his, would be the first physical evidence of a possible accomplice.
A pause on the other end. Even in Jonah’s wiped-out state, he could tell there was something more on Ric’s mind.
“Whatever it is, fucking spit it out. I’m too tired to play guessing games.”
“This new info …” Ric paused, clearly uncomfortable with whatever it was he had to say. “It goes a long way toward proving this was a targeted murder. That conspiracy theory is looking more and more believable. You understand where this puts Sophie, don’t you?”
“Right in the fucking middle of our fucking investigation.”
“She’s a critical witness,” Ric said.
“She’s our only witness.”
“You hear what I’m saying, man?”
“Yeah.”
“Whatever you got going with her—”
“I got it. Jesus.”
“I’m pointing out the obvious, I know, but you sound pretty beat.”
“I am.”
“Get some sleep,” Ric advised. “I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.”
Jonah tossed the phone onto the passenger seat as the burning in his gut intensified. It wasn’t just hunger. It was disappointment, too—the stinging kind. Because suddenly he knew he’d been counting on Sophie’s story falling apart. Not just counting on it, hoping for it, desperately, because somehow in his sleep-deprived, food-deprived, sex-deprived state, he’d decided she was fair game. He wanted her. Issues or not, head case or not, he wanted her and he’d decided to go after her. He’d decided to quit thinking about right and wrong and finally give in to the lust that had been gnawing away at him for months now.
That plan had been obliterated.
Now Sophie wasn’t just involved in this thing, she was a witness. And now she wasn’t just a witness, she was the witness—the only one who mattered. If he cared anything about his job, she was off-limits.
The badge can get you tail, but tail can get your badge. The advice he’d heard during his first year on the job came back to him. He hadn’t fully understood it then, but he understood it now. When it came to witnesses and confidential informants and especially crime victims, the badge inspired trust, sometimes even lust. And while that sounded good, it could mean a shitload of problems if a man wasn’t careful.
His whole career, Jonah had never been anything but careful. Until he’d met Sophie.
Jonah finally reached his neighborhood and turned onto his street. He slowed as he neared his house, where a subcompact car was just pulling up from the opposite direction. The car had a glowing delivery sign on top.
Jonah pulled into his driveway, grabbed his duffel, and climbed out. The aroma of fresh pizza nearly knocked him over. He glanced at his house, where a Tv was on in the living room. He glanced at his closed garage door and got a sneaking suspicion about what was behind it.
“This for you?” A skinny kid with about ten rings in his eyebrow came up to him.
“What is it?”
“veggie Supreme.”
Sighing, Jonah reached for his wallet. He handed the kid a couple twenties and waited for some change, all the while staring at his front door. Finally, it swung open, and Sophie stood there, perfectly silhouetted in the light from his living room. She wore a tank top and cutoffs, but it might as well have been a G-string, because backlit like that, she looked like every X-rated fantasy he’d ever had—in the flesh. Standing in his doorway, waiting to welcome him home from a business trip. It was a dream come true and a goddamn nightmare, all at the same time.
The kid made a strangled sound in his throat, and Jonah looked at him. His jaw had practically hit the sidewalk. Jonah jerked the change from his hand and scowled at him.
“Well, hello.” Sophie tipped her head to the side and smiled as Jonah collected the pizza box from the dazed delivery boy. “I didn’t expect you home so early.”
He hiked up the steps to his door and glared down at her. She didn’t even flinch.
“What are you doing here?”
She took the warm box from him and gave him a sultry smile. “It’s a really long story. Come in and I’ll tell you.”
Jonah seemed tense. Not just tense, he seemed … bitter about something. Sophie had hoped two days would have been enough time for him to work through his anger over her television appearance, but evidently not. Maybe he was one of those macho guys who didn’t “work through” their emotions, but instead let them stew.
He looked good, though. Instead of his typical detective garb, he wore faded jeans, a gray T-shirt, and a two-day beard.
She carried the pizza into the kitchen and put it on the counter, then remembered the bread sticks and let out a gasp. She spun around and raced back out the door.
But the hatchback’s taillights were already fading down the street.
She returned to the kitchen, where Jonah was leaning back against the counter, watching her coldly.
“Well, no bread sticks,” she chirped. “But that’s probably for the best, right? Who needs garlic breath?”
He folded his arms over his chest, clearly not amused by her attempt to lighten the mood.
“What’s going on, Sophie?”
“Well.” She walked over to the cabinet and got down several plates as she stalled for time. She’d had her speech all planned out, but she hadn’t counted on quite this level of hostility. “Before you left, you told me to keep a low profile. And to stay out of trouble.” She picked up a slice of pizza and tore a few strands of cheese before setting it on his plate. Then she smiled up at him. “I was having a hard time doing that at my apartment, so I decided to crash here.”
She handed him a plate, and he put it on the counter without looking at it.
“How’d you get in?”
“Your Hide-a-Key.”
He frowned.
“Magnetic box behind the gutter near the back door.” She smiled. “I’ve always been a champ at finding them, but I would have expected a better hiding place from a cop.”
Jonah shook his head and looked away.
Sh
e served herself a slice. “Don’t you like pizza?”
“That’s not pizza, that’s salad.”
“Extra veggies. Yum.” She chomped into her slice and chewed, watching him. He practically radiated stress. Must have been a long drive.
Sophie put her food aside and fetched a vitamin Water from the fridge. She offered him one, but he refused. Obviously, her beverage choices were lacking, too.
“Is the media camped out at your apartment?” he asked. “Is that what this is?”
She tipped her head to the side. “I’m not sure. Not last time I looked.”
“And when was that?”
“Yesterday.”
“You’ve been here since yesterday?”
He seemed angry, and she felt a tug of doubt. Maybe she’d picked the wrong tactic. She could have just called him up and asked his permission to stay here, but she’d been afraid he’d say no.
“I figured you wouldn’t mind.” She smiled up at him. “You did tell me to keep a low profile.”
He looked away, shook his head again. On an impulse, she eased closer, but that seemed to ratchet up his tension another notch. The muscles in his jaw hardened.
“Why are you so upset?” she asked.
“Why are you lying to me?”
“I’m not.”
“Okay, have it your way. But you can’t stay here.”
“How come?”
“Because you can’t. End of story.”
“But—”
“Call Mia if you need a place to crash.”
She crossed her arms. “Ric’s living there. And you’re the one who told me he thinks I’m full of crap, so I don’t exactly feel comfortable hanging out with them.”
“Then go to a motel.”
“Our motels are full of news people.”
“Then call Mark.”
“Who?”
“Mark Royers.” He glared at her. “Your date from the other night. I’m sure he’d be glad to put you up.”
“I hardly know Mark. We don’t have that kind of relationship.”
“Sophie, we don’t have that kind of relationship.”
“I’ll be out by tomorrow. It’s only for a night. What’s the big deal?”
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