“Darling, you look positively disturbed,” Celeste breathed. “What on Earth has gotten into you?”
Gage pointed toward the double doors he’d just slammed closed, making the flaps of his suit open wide. “Veda was pushed last night. Down a flight of stairs.”
Celeste’s mouth fell open, and she covered her heart with her hand.
David blinked lazily.
Knowing them both better than he knew himself, Gage expected both responses. Faux concern from his mother and no emotion whatsoever from his father.
“She was pregnant,” Gage said with a nod.
“How awful.” Celeste began towards him. “Did the baby—?”
“No.” Gage head shook almost as rapidly as his voice, his sharp tone freezing Celeste in mid-approach. “She lost the baby. Our baby. Your grandson.” When his voice broke, he covered his downturned lips with the back of his hand and dropped his head.
Recovering, Celeste’s voice, and her subtle, womanly scent, moved in close, even as Gage backed away from it. “Darling I can’t begin to imagine—”
“Did you push her?” Gage’s eyes shot back up, filled with moisture that hadn’t been there a moment earlier.
Celeste paused again, a frown coming between her own eyebrows. “What a dreadful question.”
“What an unfair question,” David added, still standing behind the desk with his hands deep in his pockets.
Gage clenched his teeth. “Did. You. Push. Her?”
“My darling, of course not.”
“Did you hire someone?” Gage’s tear-filled eyes shifted over Celeste’s shoulder to David just in time to see his father turn away from both of them completely, a deep chuckle leaving him as he faced the domed windows behind the desk. Gage spoke to his father’s back while rearing away from the comforting hand Celeste tried to lay on his cheek. “Perhaps the same person you hired to follow her all over town, taking pictures of her without her knowledge or consent? The person who captured the photo of her and Lincoln Hill alone in her apartment?” Gage sucked in a breath, his heart still breaking at the thought of that photo of Veda and Linc. The photo that had crushed his pride to bits. A pride so shattered that he hadn’t been able to find the heart or the strength to forgive Veda after first seeing it, even when she’d begged him to come back to her. His abs tightened. Guilt tried to race up his throat, but he gulped it back. If only he’d given Veda the second chance she’d begged for. If only he’d found a way to swallow his pride…
“Did you do this?” Gage demanded again, desperate to escape the stomach-churning direction his thoughts were taking him. “I’m only asking you the same questions Lincoln Hill is going to ask when he eventually comes knocking at this door later today. The same accusatory questions he just got done asking me at the hospital last night. He knows you and Veda have never gotten along and he’s going to paint this as retaliation for the deal you lost out on when I broke my engagement to Scarlett Covington. So you might as well tell me now… because you’ll be telling him soon enough.”
This time it was Celeste who took a healthy step away, covering her lower stomach with both hands. She took a deep breath. “We simply had Jax Murphy keeping an eye on her to be sure she would make a suitable wife, but of course we never set out to hurt her.” Celeste’s jaw tightened. “In fact, the only person who actually got hurt was Jax.”
“Found himself dead in the river, just a few weeks after he began trailing her,” David swiveled on his heel, apparently lured back into the conversation. “Perhaps he found a secret so good that someone decided he couldn’t live to tell the tale.”
Gage watched his father from the corner of his eyes, a slow smirk growing on his lips, understanding what he heard in his tone. “So now Veda killed Jax Murphy? Veda’s a killer, Dad? Is that how we’re going to spin it?”
“Nobody’s trying to spin anything,” Celeste cooed, making another attempt to approach Gage, laying her hands on his chest when he allowed her to. Her big green eyes reached up high to search his. “And I’m so terribly sorry that something so tragic has occurred. But you must believe that we had nothing…” She dug her nails into his chest. “Nothing to do with it. Why on Earth would we set out to hurt Veda when we knew you’d already moved on with Stephanie Cochran?”
“So, if I hadn’t moved on to Stephanie, your hurting Veda would be justified?”
“Well, now you’re just being absolutely ridiculous.”
“Perhaps you discovered Veda was pregnant and didn’t like it?” Gage asked.
Celeste sucked in a breath as if he’d stabbed her. “How would we know she was pregnant without you ever having told us? How would we know that?”
Gage looked down at her as his lips drew into a hard line, searching her eyes.
Celeste nodded softly, trying to smile, but her lips wavered as she did. “You do believe us…?”
Gage studied her face for a moment longer, then his eyes went over her shoulder to his father, who’d gone back to staring out of the window with his hands deep in his pockets.
Gage drew in a breath and looked back down at his mother. He took a moment before whispering, “Lincoln Hill will surely be here, no later than today, to question you both about what happened to Veda. He’s convinced that you losing out on the investment deal with the Covingtons is motive.”
Celeste’s eyes went wider with each word Gage said, her ample bosom rising and falling faster every second.
David faced them once more, moving slowly over to his desk while watching Gage across the room.
Celeste spoke through slightly clenched teeth. “We need to know every… single… question that Lincoln Hill asked you about Veda’s attack.”
“Will you tell us everything he asked you, Son?” David asked, picking up the phone on his desk. “Us and Ari?”
Gage pressed his lips together at the name of the family’s attorney, Ari Levine. Jaw still clenched tight and fingers curling as well, Gage’s eyes moved back and forth between his parents before he gave a sharp nod and stepped deeper into the study.
7
“Zena, believe me, I know what you’re going through.” Linc paused, watching Zena across the interrogation table. The sloppy bun he’d tied to the nape of his neck was still damp from his shower that morning, leaving every bone in his body quivering in the freezing room. The sun shining in through the single window built into the concrete walls provided only slight warmth. It gleamed across the steel table between them.
His eyes ran Zena’s face, in awe of her transformation. What a difference a day had made. Gone was the scantily clad girl who’d been propositioning him in a leather bustier the night before, replaced with a blushing schoolgirl in a bulky red sweater and baggy blue jean overalls. Her long red hair had been braided into two pigtails that hung past her waist. Her full lips were naked, no longer drowning under a glop of fire-red lipstick. Her blue eyes were devoid of make-up too, but the bruise around the left one had gotten bigger and darker since the night before, proving it was more recent than Linc had originally imagined.
And even though she was now fresh faced and fully clothed he couldn’t help but notice what was missing from Zena. The blissful unworldliness only a truly sheltered child could have in their eyes. The innocence. Linc wondered if it had ever existed in her at all.
He raised his eyes over Zena’s shoulder and across the room. Her father, Kent Jones, leaned against a tall file cabinet in the corner, watching them with his arms crossed tight and his blue eyes hard, as if he were waiting for Linc to jump across that table and attack her. His salt and pepper hair had been gelled into a spiky style that reminded Linc of a 1990’s boy band member. He had a voice that belonged on a teenage pop singer, too, just a little too high and prepubescent to belong to a man pushing fifty-years-old.
Linc shot a look at the mirror covering the back wall, where he knew his lieutenant watched from the other side, and then slowly returned his attention to Zena. “I know you’ve been taught to fear punishme
nt for tricking. And I know part of that blame lies with us…” He covered his heart with both hands, making the chain holding his police badge jingle around his neck. “Unfortunately, when it comes to prostitution, we still live in a society that’s hell bent on punishing the wrong people. But I know you’re not the bad guy here. I don’t care what you did, or what laws you broke, or even who you might’ve hurt because I know you did it all out of fear for your life…”
Zena swallowed heavily, shifting in her seat while sneaking peaks at Linc from under her lowered lashes, her hands clasped into fists in her lap.
Linc fought back the aggravated groan tickling his throat, leaning deep into the table with his own hands clasped together. “Just tell me who was driving the car, and I swear to you, I’ll do everything I can to protect you. But I can’t protect you from a monster I don’t know. I can’t protect you from a monster I can’t see.”
Eyes down, she shrugged, her nose red and stuffy, eyes swollen as well. Her voice came out weak and hoarse. “I don’t know who was driving.”
“Who beat you up?”
No response.
“Who knocked you up? Who snatched you, degraded you, and branded you?”
“Detective!” Kent jumped in for the millionth time that afternoon, pushing off the file cabinet, making the metal drawers wobble before approaching the interrogation table.
Zena’s chin sank deeper into her chest the closer he came.
Kent loomed over her chair while baring his teeth at Linc. “Watch your language when you’re speaking to my daughter. It’s bad enough you insisted on questioning her, an underage girl, in the hospital last night, without me being present to supervise. Out of the kindness of my heart, I didn’t press charges over that.” His high-pitched voice rose to galaxial levels until he bordered on sounding female. “Further, I’ve taken time out of my busy day to bring my poor daughter down here this afternoon, even though she’s in no condition for this kind of aggravation. But you’d do well to watch your mouth and your tone, or I might just change my mind.”
Linc spoke calmly. “Your daughter also solicited sex from me, a police officer, at the hospital last night, which is grounds to hold her for questioning with or without your consent, but I’d hate for things to get to that point.” When the silence went on a moment too long, Linc clenched his fists on top of the table and leaned forward while holding Kent’s eyes. “Call me crazy, but I’d think Zena’s father would want to know who kidnapped and violated her more than anyone else on the planet, but for the past thirty minutes all you’ve been doing is interjecting on my questioning and making this entire process ten times harder than it needs to be, sir. Why is that?”
Kent stilled, his shifty blue eyes narrowing away from Linc’s. “I just want you to watch your language around my kid, that’s it.”
“How about you let me do my job so we can find the person who hurt your kid?”
Kent looked down at her, taking her shoulders and squeezing. “Do you feel comfortable with that, Zena? Or are you ready to go home for the day? Is this too much for you?”
Linc clenched his teeth.
Before Zena could answer, a loud knock on the mirror rang through the room, causing it to vibrate, making everyone inside of it but Linc, jolt and shoot their eyes toward it in surprise.
At the knock, Linc pushed out of his chair in disgust, its legs disagreeing with the concrete floor. Without another glance at Zena or her father, he crossed the room. Before he got to the door, however, he paused, looking over his shoulder. When he saw that Kent had moved away from Zena, shaking his head with his back turned, Linc put his hand in his pocket and re-approached the interrogation table.
Zena’s wide eyes lifted to watch as he grew closer, and Linc checked to make sure her father’s back was still turned before he took his business card out of his pocket and folded it in half.
With the card trapped between his middle fingers, he reached out to shake her hand. “Zena, thank you for talking to me this morning. Take care, a’ight?”
Kent swirled on his heel, his cheeks flushed when he realized Linc was still in the room, even though whoever had just finished banging on the mirror clearly wanted him out. Kent’s wide eyes fell to Zena as she reached out to shake Linc’s hand.
As her tiny fingers wrapped around his, Linc saw the exact moment she realized something was in his hand. Her eyebrows jumped, and she gave him a wide-eyed look.
Just like he knew she would, in one smooth motion, so fast it was invisible to the naked eye, Zena took the card and hid it in a fist under the table. The card with his number on it, as well as a note he’d scribbled on the back earlier that morning. A note letting her know she could call him anytime she felt unsafe.
With one more glower at Kent, Linc stood, fighting a roll of his eyes as he made his way back to the door without a word. He threw the door open so hard it hit the wall and ricocheted back.
Just as Linc knew she would be, his boss, Lieutenant Chavez, awaited him outside the door, wearing her signature pants suit and stone face.
Linc slammed the door closed, trying to conceal a grimace. “The father is hiding something. Watching her like a hawk. Interjecting. Goading her with leading questions…”
“You’re right, Hill, but I’m going to have Rodriguez finish the questioning,” Lieutenant Chavez said, walking with Linc through the bustling precinct. Every desk was teeming with police files that nearly reached the ceiling, as well as dozens of furrow-browed officers who would never get around to looking at them.
“You’re taking me off,” Linc said, as more of an irritated statement that a question.
Chavez kept her voice even, smoothing a hand over her jet-black hair, pulled into a slick high bun. The lines in her ebony face ebbed deeper, the way they only did when Linc was resisting her authority, showing her middle age.
“I need you to focus on The Chopper,” she said.
Linc stopped walking mid-step with a roll of his eyes, waiting for Chavez to face him before holding his arms out at his sides. “I can do both. I’m the one who found Zena. I’m the one who saved her. She’s flip-flopping right now because her father is down her neck, but she trusts me. I’m the only one she will ever trust. I can get her to talk.”
“Your hands will end up around her father’s neck before she has the chance. The tension in there was palpable and it’s only going to get worse. Yeah, he’s a pain in the ass, but Zena has the kind of information that could blow open a million of our cold cases, and we can’t risk losing her.”
“I’m not gonna lose her. I got this.” Linc stepped to the side to block her path when she tried to walk away. “The woman locked in the trunk? Veda Vandyke? She’s a good friend of mine. Somebody I care about…” He paused, stroking his beard before lowering his voice. “I care about her a lot.”
“All the more reason to put someone else on the case. You’re too invested.”
“An investment that guarantees I’ll close this faster than anyone else.”
Chavez licked her lips and looked away, crossing her arms tight before sneaking a look at him from the corner of her eyes.
Linc leaned in. “I had to watch her, lying in a hospital bed on the brink of death. I had to watch her lose her unborn child. Please don’t ask me to watch her attacker slip through our fingers because you gave her case to someone who won’t pursue it with half as much passion as I will.” When she hesitated, he doubled down. “Lieutenant, if you give this case to someone else I won’t sleep. And if you let me keep this case… I still won’t sleep. So we might as well cut out the middleman. I will close this. Not just for Zena, but for Veda. I can handle both cases.”
Chavez shifted, the frown line between her eyebrows growing stronger.
“Listen… Because of me,” he growled, jamming two fingers into his chest, “we know the Chopper’s going alphabetically, right? That means her fifth victim is Liam O’Dair. An inmate. Arrested for slipping his girlfriend—”
“The ab
ortion pill. Yeah, I know the story, Hill. It’s only been all over the news for months.”
Linc continued. “Then you also know O’Dair was denied bail because he has the means to flee. He won’t stand trial for another month, which means The Chopper will be stagnant for another month, which frees me up to continue looking into Zena and Veda’s attacker.”
“How do we know The Chopper won’t just move on to number six?”
Linc shook his head. “Type-A. Compulsive. All the way down to the stitching she uses on her victims. She’s not gonna skip the line or break her pattern.”
“Her attack on Brock Nailer at the Marriott was ill planned. Sloppy. She’s getting impatient—”
“She won’t skip the line.”
Chavez hesitated.
“I’m not suggesting we drop The Chopper completely,” Linc said. “I just want the opportunity to pursue both cases.”
“So what’s your big plan on The Chopper if she’s supposedly going to be stagnant for another month?”
“I’ve been thinking about the broken nail clippings we found at the cliffs Jax Murphy was thrown from. Forensics confirms the clippings belonged to a female and broke off during a scuffle. I’d bet my life those clippings belong to The Chopper, and that she killed Jax Murphy in a moment of self-defense, maybe even panic, on the cliffs.” He took a deep breath, knowing his next sentence had the potential to make that conversation go all the way left. “I want to check the hospital, one last time.”
She groaned.
He continued as if she hadn’t. “See if we can’t get a DNA match on the nails.”
“I know you’re stuck on the idea of The Chopper being a medical professional, but we’ve turned that hospital upside down too many times to count and come up empty every time, Hill.”
“If we take DNA samples from every female employee and still can’t get a match on these nails, I’ll drop it.” He paused. “I just can’t shake this feeling. The feeling that The Chopper is hiding in plain sight. Maybe so close to us that she can see every move we make before we make it. Make every necessary change she needs to make to keep herself out of prison. But she can’t change her DNA.” He took a deep breath. “If I’m really in consideration for sergeant like you say I am, give me the opportunity to prove myself.”
Pulse (Revenge Book 5) Page 6
