9 Kill for Me

by Karen Rose

“Mirrors are cheating. This was real.” Her grin softened, her smile luminous. “You think you robbed me of pleasure. You have no idea what this means, Luke.”

  “Then tell me,” he said quietly.

  Her smile faded completely, leaving her eyes full of yearning. “Do you know what it meant to sit at your family’s table? Do you know I’ve never done that before? Never. Not once, in my entire life have I had a family dinner with people who loved each other. You gave me that.” He opened up his mouth to speak, but she pressed her fingers to his lips. “You gave me more than that. You gave me back myself. I wanted to do something for you. If you were selfish, it was in making me work so hard to do that.”

  “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  She studied his face, then shook her head. “No, you didn’t want to be hurt.”

  He looked away. “You’re right.”

  “I know,” she said dryly.

  He dropped his head. “I’m so tired,” he said. “And it never stops.”

  “I know,” she said again. “Go to sleep. It’ll still be there when you wake up.”

  “Will you?” he asked, and one side of her mouth lifted.

  “Be here when you wake up? Where am I gonna go? I’m out of clothes.”

  Reluctantly he withdrew from the warmth of her body, repositioning her so that she snuggled, spooned against him. “There’s always the outfit Stacie bought you.”

  “I gave it back to her. Besides, I can just see me wearing that to my arraignment if Chloe decides to charge me. The judge would think I’d been busted for hooking.”

  Her wry tone didn’t fool him. “What will you do?” he murmured, tightening his arm over her waist. “Can they really disbar you?”

  “Sure. I can appeal it, but Chloe’s right. A room full of reporters was the wrong venue to break the law. I’ll be on the front page of the morning paper in a few hours. I was already all over the TV last night.” She sighed. “I’ll be the subject of discussion over coffee and water cooler breaks. And I knew it would be so from the moment I stepped on that plane Friday morning. I’ll be okay. The worst that can happen to me is a lot of publicity and maybe a misdemeanor. Chloe’ll cut a deal, no time served. It’s what I would do.”

  “You didn’t find that gun in your father’s house,” he said quietly, and she said nothing. “Susannah?”

  “Some things are best left unanswered, Luke. If you know, you could be subpoenaed. You’d have to tell. Either way, I wouldn’t change a thing. Would you?”

  “No. Except now Leo gets an even better Christmas present for the rest of his life.” He tugged at the shirt she wore, kissed the shoulder he’d bared. “So what will you do if you can’t be a lawyer anymore?”

  “I don’t know. I was thinking about what I said to that reporter today, about every woman having the right to disclose her assault or not. I push these women to disclose every day as a prosecutor.”

  “That’s your job, to get convictions.”

  “I know, and I’ve served the state well. But during the trial . . . I always think about what it would have been like had I come forward. I would have been so scared. They are, too. They have to live it all again. The state stands against the perpetrator, but nobody really stands for the victim.”

  “You’re thinking of victim advocacy.”

  “If I get disbarred. Even if I don’t, it’ll be hard for me to go into a courtroom and not have the focus be on me and not on the victims. I’m going to have to do something different, no matter what Chloe decides. Hell, maybe I’ll set up a Kool-Aid stand.”

  He yawned hugely. “Will you sell cherry flavor?”

  “Grape,” he heard her reply sleepily. “Nobody hates grape. Sleep, Loukaniko.”

  His eyes popped open. “Excuse me? What did you just say?”

  “That nobody hates grape. And go to sleep,” she said, annoyed. “So go to sleep.”

  “No, the Loukaniko part.”

  She craned her neck to look up at him over her shoulder. “Leo said that was your real name. That’s why your mama calls you Lukamou.”

  Luke bit his lip to keep from laughing. “Um. Lukamou is like . . . ‘my dear.’ Loukaniko is a big fat sausage.”

  She winced, then her eyes narrowed. “Oh. Sorry. I blame Leo.”

  “Brother Leo just dropped a rung on the Christmas present ladder.”

  She snuggled back against him. “Although, I suppose under certain circumstances Loukaniko could apply, too.”

  He snickered. “Thank you. I think.”

  “Go to sleep,” she said quietly. “Lukamou.”

  His arm tightened around her, and on a contented sigh, he let himself drift off.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Atlanta, Monday, February 5, 7:45 a.m.

  What’s in these boxes?” Susannah asked, sitting in Luke’s office the next morning.

  Luke looked up from his reports. She looked fresh and beautiful in the black dress Chloe had loaned her the Saturday before. The dress had magically appeared in Luke’s closet while they slept, free of the dirt, blood, and clay she’d accumulated at Sheila Cunningham’s funeral. It was nice to have family in the dry-cleaning business.

  “Yearbooks,” he said, “from all the schools in a twenty-five-mile-radius of Dutton. We used them last week to identify the victims in Simon’s pictures.”

  Kneeling on the floor, she opened the box. “Is my senior annual in here?”

  “No. I gave it to Daniel. It’s probably in his office. Why?”

  “Just curious to see if I looked like I remember. Perspective is an interesting thing.”

  “You don’t have any pictures of your senior year?”

  She leveled him a look. “Why would I? I just wanted to forget it.”

  “I have your picture. Kind of.” He pulled his wallet from his pocket, feeling foolish. “I was going through the yearbooks and saw your picture. I’d been thinking about you for days, since I first saw you at your parents’ funeral. I . . . photocopied it. I even thought about going to New York to meet you. Priced airfare and everything.”

  She sat back on her heels, grinning delightedly. “You didn’t.”

  “I did.” He gave her the folded photocopy and watched as she opened it, tentatively.

  Her smile dimmed. “I look sad.”

  “I know,” he said softly. “I thought so, too.”

  She swallowed hard and gave him back the copy. “So why did you copy it?”

  “Because I thought even sad, you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”

  She blushed, charming him. “That’s sweet.” She went back to the box and he returned to his paperwork. All was quiet for minutes, then she spoke again. “Luke, I know why Kate Davis was called Rocky.” She put a yearbook on his desk, looking over his shoulder as he studied the page. It was a picture of a young girl with a very bad overbite and thick glasses. “That’s Kate Davis,” she said, “aka Rocky.”

  Luke tried to reconcile the gawky child with the sleek woman Kate had become. “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. It’s a wonder what braces and a makeover will do. I’d forgotten about it until I saw this picture, but the kids used to call Kate ‘Rocky.’ For the squirrel. You know, the one on the cartoon. With Bullwinkle,” she added when he looked up at her blankly.

  “Oh. Why?”

  She frowned, thinking back. “It started at one of the plays back in high school. Our private school was K through twelve, so they had little kids, too. They did Snow White and cast some of the younger kids as woodland creatures. Some thoughtless teacher cast Kate as a squirrel. She couldn’t have been more than eight or nine at the time.”

  Luke looked at the buck teeth of the young Kate in the photo. “That was cruel.”

  “They started calling her Rocky Squirrel after that, and because Garth was so big, they called him Bullwinkle. He didn’t mind, but Kate did. I remember her crying.” She sighed. “I should have said something then, but that was right after . . . well, after Si
mon and the others did what they did. I was keeping to myself a lot then.”

  “I can see why.” Luke swiveled in his chair and looked up at her, deciding to confront his question head on. “Susannah, how did you know Simon raped you?”

  She winced. “He showed me a picture. Somebody must have taken the picture, because it was definitely Simon, artificial leg and all.”

  “What happened to the picture?”

  “I don’t know. He made his point, then took it back. But I saw it, and for Garth Davis to call me a liar . . . It makes it worse.”

  He hesitated, then spoke when she gave him a look. “It’s just that I’m surprised it wasn’t with Simon’s collection. Either the one Daniel found or the box you found.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t believe me?”

  “Of course I do,” he said quickly and her frown smoothed. “I definitely believe you. I’m just wondering where the picture went.” He sandwiched her hand between his. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll go with you to see Garth when morning meeting is finished. He may know where Bobby is hiding. Now I gotta go.” He dropped a kiss on her lips.

  “Luke.” He turned at the door. Her eyes were wide, her hands clutched together so tightly her knuckles were white. “Tell Chloe to make up her mind. I’d rather just know.”

  Atlanta, Monday, February 5, 7:55 a.m.

  “You look better,” Chase said to Luke when he sat at the conference room table.

  “You don’t,” Luke replied. “Any news on Leigh?”

  “No. I talked to her family. Nobody seems to know why she would have done this.”

  The rest of the team filed in. With the exception of Ed and Chloe, all looked rested, but worn. Ed slipped Luke a note as he passed. Loomis paternity, it read. Positive.

  That was one question confirmed. He met Ed’s eyes across the table with a nod.

  “You want to share the note with the rest of the class?” Chase asked sarcastically.

  Susannah had already given her okay to share the information, now that she’d told Daniel first. “Angie Delacroix, the hairdresser in Dutton, told Susannah that Arthur Vartanian wasn’t her father. That her mother had had an affair with Frank Loomis. Ed ran the tests and it’s true. Frank Loomis is Susannah’s biological father.”

  Chase blinked. “Well. I didn’t see that coming.”

  “Neither did she,” Luke said. “Seems like Frank Loomis fixed a lot of Simon’s legal problems, including falsifying evidence in the Gary Fulmore case.”

  “That explains a lot,” Chloe said. “I’ll make sure that gets included with the record. We’d started an investigation into Loomis the day before he was killed.”

  “Speaking of investigations,” Luke said. “She needs to know, Chloe.”

  Chloe looked miserable. “I didn’t sleep a wink. But, Luke, I have to file charges.”

  He bit back what would have been a sharp reply. “At least she’ll know. Tell them,” he added, when the team looked confused.

  “Susannah Vartanian was in possession of a firearm illegally yesterday,” Chloe said.

  “Oh my God,” Talia snapped. “Chloe.”

  “That’s stupid,” Pete added. “Talk about adding insult to injury.”

  “No time served. Right, Chloe?” Chase said wearily.

  “No time. Community service, but no time.” She looked at Luke and for the first time he saw the sassy Chloe on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry.”

  He patted her hand. “She’s okay with it. She said she’d do the same thing.”

  Chloe blew out a breath. “It still sucks.”

  “Nothing about the last week has done anything other than suck,” Chase said. “Ed, you were busy during the night. Tell them what you’ve got.”

  “A couple things.” His eyes grew bright in his worn face. “We lifted some prints off the syringes we found in the bunker and got a match with the hospital’s records.” He pulled a photo from his folder. “Jeff Katowsky, thirty-nine years old. He’s a nurse at the hospital. We picked him up this morning, hiding in his mother’s basement.”

  “He tried to kill Ryan Beardsley?” Luke asked.

  “He’s confessed,” Chase said. “He was contacted by a woman and threatened that she’d reveal his drug habit if he didn’t kill Beardsley. Just like Jennifer, the nurse.”

  “How did Bobby know these people’s secrets?” Nancy asked. “Bobby had to have a source. Who knew about Jeff Katowsky’s drug problem?”

  “He won’t say,” Chase said. “Chloe offered him a deal, and he still wouldn’t say.”

  “He was genuinely terrified,” Chloe said. “We said we’d protect him. He laughed.”

  “Just like Michael Ellis, Darcy’s killer,” Luke said. “Not a coincidence.”

  “Chloe, did you ask Al Landers about pressing Darcy’s killer again?” Chase asked.

  “I called him before I came in this morning, but he wasn’t in yet.” She took her BlackBerry from her purse. “I also e-mailed him after last night’s meeting.” She scrolled through her messages, then looked up with a frown. “Here’s his reply. He says he’ll go up to the prison himself today, but he didn’t get the police sketch we faxed up to him. The one Susannah gave of the man who raped her the night Darcy was killed.”

  Luke closed his eyes. “Susannah said the artist gave the sketch to Leigh.”

  “Fuck.” Chase called for the new clerk sitting at Leigh’s desk. Minutes later, he was scowling. “No record of a fax to New York. Leigh didn’t send it and it’s not in her desk.”

  “The artist will have a copy,” Pete said. “We can send it again.”

  “Yeah, we can,” Luke said. “But why would Leigh not send it? She seemed to be playing both sides of the fence, giving information to Bobby and to us. I wonder what else she held back from us.”

  “I’ve been going through the record of calls to her office phone as well as the hotline records all night,” Chase said. “Seems like she shared everything that came through.”

  “Maybe she knew him,” Luke said. “Or maybe Bobby told her not to send it.”

  Chase stared for a moment, then sighed. “You could be right. I asked the new clerk to contact the sketch artist. We’ll get the sketch sent out and see what shakes out. For now, we focus on identifying the unknown man Monica Cassidy heard in the bunker. He could be the only one left who was willing to help Bobby escape.”

  “Mansfield took pictures of Granville in the bunker as insurance in case Granville ever crossed him,” Ed said. “Maybe this guy is in one of them.”

  Luke’s stomach turned, bile rising in his throat at the thought of having to look at those pictures again. “I’ll look at them.”

  Chase shot him a look of sympathy. “I can get somebody else to do it.”

  “No. I want this guy. I’ll do it.” And if it got to be too much, he now had somewhere to turn. He wondered if Susannah understood exactly what she’d offered to do, then he remembered that first afternoon in his car. And a little more of you dies each day. She knew. From experience she knew. It made her need to help him all the sweeter. “But first I want to talk to Garth Davis. He may know where his wife is hiding.”

  “He gets arraigned this afternoon,” Chloe said. “He’ll be transported by eleven.”

  “Can you get remand?” Talia asked.

  “I’m going to try, but I don’t think so. I’ll probably get a pretty high bail, though, which may amount to the same thing. Garth Davis’s bank account is empty. It appears Bobby cleaned him out right before she supposedly ran away.”

  “Won’t he get that money back?” Nancy asked, and Chloe shrugged.

  “If we could separate Garth’s money from Bobby’s revenue,” she said innocently. “We found her bank accounts on her hard drive, no problem.”

  “That hard drive of Bobby’s was just packed with information,” Ed said, his jaw hard. “She was getting rich selling children to rich perverts. Right now we’re too busy trying to document her business transacti
ons to find Garth’s money. He can sit a while and rot.”

  “Amen,” Luke said. “Are we done? I want to see Garth before he gets transported.”

  “In a minute,” Chase said. “Pete, get that artist’s sketch and pass it around. Show it to Leigh’s friends and family, see if they recognize him. I want to know who he is. Talia, get with the police in Arkansas. Find out whatever you can about Bobby’s childhood, anybody she might go to for help. Ed, what do you have going?”

  “We’re tracking concrete manufacturers.”

  “Why?” Pete asked.

  “Do you remember me telling you that the floor of that bunker was really old, but that the walls were new, prefabbed? Well, guess who also had prefabbed concrete walls in his house that are identical in composition?”

  “Mansfield,” Nancy said, snapping her fingers. “It was that structure off his basement, where he’d stored all his munitions and kiddie porn.”

  “Yep. I’ve got a list of concrete companies who’d have this mineral composition,” Ed said. “If Mansfield bought a bunker, who knows who else they’ve served?”

  “What about Granville’s safe-deposit box key?” Nancy asked.

  “Track it,” Chase said. “The banks are all open today. See if Granville had a box at any of them. Germanio, I want you in Dutton by ten. Congressman Bowie’s daughter Janet’s funeral is at noon.”

  “She was the first of Mack O’Brien’s victims last week,” Chloe said. “There will be a media circus in Dutton today. Politicians and reporters everywhere. Bobby might show.”

  “I know. I’ve arranged to have video surveillance and plainclothes agents at both the funeral and the cemetery afterward.” Chase looked at Germanio. “I’ll get you a list of the agents who’ll be there. I want you there to coordinate. We’ll do searches going into the church for the funeral, but the cemetery will be harder to control. Apparently there’s also a luncheon of some kind afterward for the media. I’ll see you’re admitted.”

  Germanio nodded. “Will do.”

  “Good. Everyone, meet back here at five. You’re all dismissed.” Chase pointed to Luke and Chloe. “You two stay.”