“Thanks,” she said, finally making it to the building’s entrance. She could see Strickland through the thick glass door, holding his phone to his ear, looking at her. He must’ve seen her approach from the victim’s apartment and come out to walk her up.
“Reporters are like stray cats—they’ll stop showing up as soon as you stop feeding them,” he said into the phone.
“I know—Croft caught me off guard. I’ll be right there,” she said before hanging up and dropping her phone into her pocket. Holding up the camera, she smiled at the pair of uniforms guarding the entrance to the building foyer. “Which one of you wants to do some real police work?”
She dropped the camera into the first hand that reached out and read his badge. “Okay, Trujillo—I want crowd shots. Lots of them. When you’re done, bring the camera to me. Don’t give it to anyone else, got it?” She’d bet money that the man who called her was in the crowd. He lured her here for a reason. If this was some sort of sick game, he’d be watching to make sure she played.
TWENTY-FOUR
Strickland met her in the foyer and led her toward the elevator. “Victim’s name is Bethany Edwards.” They stepped into the waiting car and Strickland pushed the button for the fifth floor. “She’s a sophomore at Berkeley.”
Sabrina didn’t know what she expected, but that the victim was a college student wasn’t it. The doors slid open and they stepped out into a wide, well-lit hallway. Plush carpet and fresh paint stretched down the corridor, making Sabrina shoot her partner a doubtful look. “She’s a college student? This building offers car service, housekeeping, and personal shoppers. I’d bet a studio the size of a broom closet runs a couple grand a month.”
“Her parents are Trent and Lauren Edwards.”
She stared at him, waiting for him to finish. He shook his head and widened his eyes at her. “Really? Trent and Lauren Edwards. He’s a city councilman. She’s a high-dollar criminal defense attorney. They pretty much own San Francisco.”
She shrugged. “Lawyers and politicians. Two things I make it my life’s mission to remain ignorant of.”
Strickland laughed. “Well, they have more money than God. Tuition, rent, car payment … they paid it all. Thought the gates and security would keep her safe,” he said as he led her down the hall.
Sabrina didn’t say anything. She understood how important maintaining the illusion of safety was. She also understood that if a monster wanted to take you, he was going to take you, and there was nothing that would stop him.
“Find anything in the prelim?”
“Not much. No visible blood evidence. Place looks wiped clean—too clean, considering,” he said, handing her a pair of booties.
“Considering what?” she said, slipping them over her boots so as not to contaminate the crime scene.
“Considering it looks like someone cut her heart out,” Strickland said, dropping his voice as she pushed open the front door.
The small foyer immediately opened up onto a spacious living room with large windows, offering a gorgeous view of the Golden Gate Bridge. A well-dressed couple sat on the couch, the woman weeping into a handkerchief while the man held her, staring blankly into middle space. Evans sat with them, notebook and pen in hand, asking them questions they probably didn’t know the answers to. When Sabrina and Strickland walked in, he stopped talking, giving them his full attention.
Strickland nodded at Evans as he led her down the hall. “Housekeeping found her around noon. She was scheduled to attend a nine a.m. lecture on the civil rights movement—instead, the maid walked in on this … ” He pushed the bedroom door open and she stepped through, the sweet flowery sent of roses hitting her like a truck.
They were everywhere. Vases and bowls crowded onto every available surface. Not red this time—a bright, vibrant pink. Sabrina knew without having to ask what Bethany Edward’s favorite color was.
Paper crunched beneath her feet. She looked down to see a runner had been placed around the perimeter of the bed. Under it, dark spots showed through—rose petals mashed between the paper that protected them and the carpet they’d been scattered on.
Movement caught her eye, and she turned to find Mandy Black standing over the bed, camera in hand. Sabrina approached, the smell of roses getting stronger and stronger with each step. Mandy clicked off a few more photos before letting the camera hang loose from the strap around her neck. “Hey.”
Sabrina gave the ME a brief smile. Taking pictures was usually CSU’s job, but Mandy took her own. She said it was to save time, but Sabrina knew it was because she wanted to make sure that nothing about the scene was overlooked. It was something she admired about the woman.
Sabrina looked past her to the body on the bed, immediately feeling that familiar pull trying to drag her under. Guilt.
“The parents confirmed that the victim is their daughter, Bethany Edwards, age nineteen. No signs of forced entry. No roommate. No boyfriend that her parents know of,” Strickland said from beside her. She barely heard him.
She is your sister.
For just a moment, it wasn’t Bethany Edwards she saw—it was Riley. Riley’s bright red hair. Her delicate, heart-shaped face. She blinked hard, trying to clear her vision.
Sabrina—given the horrors you survived, does it affect you differently when it’s a young woman who’s been brutally murdered?
“Yes,” she said quietly. She wanted to look away but refused to give in. Strickland was right. There was no blood. Not on the bed or the walls, or even on her skin. Her chest was cracked open, ribs spread wide. There were no other visible wounds that might explain cause of death.
“Did you say something?” Mandy asked, but Sabrina didn’t answer her. Inside the gaping black hole in the center of Bethany’s chest were pink rose petals. Hundreds of them, spilling out of the wound—scattered across the body and the blush-colored duvet like confetti.
“Sabrina.” It was Strickland this time. She could feel the two of them pass a look at each other over her head.
“Mandy, I need you to do me a favor,” Sabrina said, without looking up.
“Sure.”
“I need you to go downstairs, find Jaxon Croft, and bring him up here. Now.”
TWENTY-FIVE
No one moved.
Sabrina finally glanced up to find Mandy staring at her like she’d just asked her to jump out the window. “I’m serious.”
Mandy shifted toward the door but barely took half a step before Strickland stopped her. “Uhhh, no,” he said, throwing an arm up to stop her progress. “Have you lost your mind?” he said, glaring at Sabrina.
“I’ll explain, but you have to trust me. Please,” she said.
“Trusting you rarely works out for me,” he shot back, but he dropped his arm to let Mandy pass. She stood between them, un-
moving.
“How am I supposed to sneak a well-known reporter onto an active crime scene past a room full of cops?” Mandy said, bouncing a look between her and Strickland.
“Use your imagination,” she said to Mandy, waiting for her to shut the door behind her before she turned back to Strickland.
He glared at her, cheeks and neck flushed and splotchy. “You’ve got about thirty seconds before I go after her. Talk fast.”
She told him everything that’d happened. The altercation with Croft in front of The Sentinel and the blackmail that followed. The red envelope in her car and his interpretation of what it said. The phone call she got at her desk telling her to come here. Every word she spoke drained a little more color out of Strickland’s face.
“He called you again?” he said, taking the steps to the window in a few strides. “What did he say exactly?” He flicked the curtain away from the window just a touch, studying the crowd gathered in front of the building below.
“He said to come here. To hurry. He said she is y
our sister. Called her Clio,” she said. “I don’t know what that means, but I’m guessing Croft does.”
“He must’ve not counted on the maid finding her and calling the police so quickly. You were supposed to find her alone.” Strickland let go of the curtain and crossed his arms over his chest. He shook his head stubbornly. “I don’t like it, Vaughn. Don’t you think it’s a bit odd that Croft keeps turning up, offering explanations to riddles he’s the only qualified person around to answer?”
“He’s hardly popping up out of nowhere. He’s been following me for months.” Was she really defending Croft? Strickland seemed only slightly more surprised than she was.
“Exactly. That shit isn’t normal,” Strickland said. “Asshole quit his job, so why’s he still following you? What could he possibly want from you?”
Sabrina shrugged. Until about thirty minutes ago she’d thought she knew, but then Croft said O’Shea’s name and everything went sideways. Whatever he wanted from her, it had to do with Michael. “Maybe he wants to write a book about my harrowing fight for survival,” she said with a smirk, earning herself a scowl from her partner.
“Don’t do that.”
“What? If I don’t joke about it, I’ll fucking cry—and you know how much I hate crying,” she said.
Strickland jammed his hands into his pockets and decided to ignore her attempt to waylay him. “Croft’s up to something. I can smell it … I don’t trust him.”
She gave him a shrug. “That makes two of us—but we have an arrangement. He’s too smart to bite the hand that’s gonna feed him,” she said. If she told Strickland that O’Shea was involved in whatever Croft had cooking, he’d go into DEFCON five. Not something she needed right now.
Strickland sighed and swiped a hand over his face, a clear sign that she’d won. “What about Evans? If he sees Croft, he’ll run his mouth to Mathews.”
Now was the time to tell him about her transfer. She tried to force the words out but couldn’t work them loose. “Well, then I guess we better not get caught,” she said, moving through the door to wait in the hallway for Mandy and Croft.
She watched while Evans wrapped up questioning the victim’s parents. He stood and shook the father’s hand and patted the mother’s shoulder before leading them out the door. He gave them the usual spiel about doing everything he could to bring their daughter’s murderer to justice, adding that he understood the delicate nature of the situation, given their prominence in the community. The pandering to their wealth and influence was enough to make her gag, but she said nothing. She actually felt sorry for them. The Edwards didn’t look like a high-powered super couple; they looked broken.
Evans ushered them through the door and told a uniform loitering in the hall to escort them to their car before he shut the door and turned toward her. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
She settled her shoulders against the wall and gave him a half smile. “My partner’s here. Where else would I be?”
“Back at the station, cleaning out your desk and praying like hell you can make an eight-minute mile,” Evans said, telling her what she already suspected. He knew she’d been loaned to SWAT, which meant he was Mathews’s lackey—no surprise.
He stood there for a few seconds, like he was expecting her to say something. When she didn’t, he shot her a smirk and turned toward the door, almost running into it when it swung open. “Excuse me,” he said to Mandy, holding the door open for her as she worked the wheels of the gurney she hauled across the threshold and into the foyer.
Mandy gave Evans an exasperated smile. “Thanks, Inspector,” she said, pulling the gurney into the living room to give her assistant room to swing the end of it into the hallway. Mandy shot her a panicked look and Sabrina felt her gut tighten. Less than two feet away from Evans, under a windbreaker with coroner splashed across the back and a matching cap tugged low on his head, was Jaxon Croft.
“Tell my partner I’m going to round up a few uniforms and get the canvass started, will ya?” Evans said, without so much as a glance at Mandy or Croft.
She pulled herself off the wall and clicked her heels. “Yes, sir,” she said, snapping off a salute that ended with her flipping him the bird.
“Cute, Vaughn. Do him a favor and pretend you give a shit about someone besides yourself and just … fade away quietly.” She didn’t have to ask who he was talking about. Strickland was loyal. As soon as he found out about her transfer, he’d see it for what it really was: her slowly being squeezed out of the department. He wouldn’t let her go without a fight—not unless she pretended it was her idea.
“Better hurry. Those doors aren’t going to knock on themselves,” she said, ignoring his comment and the fact that he was right.
Evans just shook his head and walked out the door, leaving the three of them alone.
“What’s he talking about?” Mandy said.
“Mathews had me bounced out of Homicide. Effective—” She glanced at her watch. “—three hours ago.” Sabrina settled her glare on Croft’s down-turned head, letting herself blame him for something he had nothing to do with.
“And Strickland doesn’t know?” Mandy said, her green eyes as sharp and bright as shards of glass.
“No.” Her shoulders sagged under the weight of the day. “And right now isn’t the time or place, so please—”
Mandy held up her hands, her sunny blond ponytail pulled through the back of her coroner ball cap, swinging as she shook her head. “I’m not grabbin’ that cat by the tail. That’s on you,” she said, commandeering the gurney and pushing it toward her, down the hall.
Mandy looked over her shoulder at Croft. “I’ll leave you to it.” She pushed the bedroom door open, leaving the two of them alone.
Croft was standing at the mouth of the hallway, hands in the pockets of the windbreaker Mandy’d put him in. “Is it true?”
“Is what true?” she said, interested in what he thought he knew.
“They’re saying the murder victim is the kid of some politician,” he said.
The corner of her mouth quirked in a humorless smile. “Careful, Croft, your reporter is showing.”
“Okay, you want to tell me why Coroner Barbie smuggled me past the yellow tape?” he said, the brim of his cap making his face hard to read.
“In mortem, et est soror tua.”
Croft pulled his hands out of his pockets and took a look around the apartment, as if just now realizing where he was. “He killed someone? The guy who left that note in your car—he killed a woman?”
She nodded. “Are you still willing to help?”
He didn’t answer, just reached past her to push the door she guarded open. She stopped him, covering the knob with her hand, shaking her head.
“In the interest of full disclosure, I’m still not entirely convinced that you aren’t involved. Part of the reason you’re here is so that I can keep an eye on you,” she said to him, his face inches from hers. “If I find out you’ve got a part in this, I’m gonna make you very, very sorry.”
“You gonna arrest me?” The fleck of gold in his brown eyes caught the dim light of the hall, shooting burnished sparks in her direction.
Sabrina just smiled and turned the knob, pushing the door open for him. “Arrest you? No, Croft. If I find out you’re in on what was done here, I won’t arrest you. I’ll kill you.”
TWENTY-SIX
Dubai City, Dubai
There was nothing like having diagnostics run on the dirty bomb grafted to your spine to make you feel like a shower. A long one, with plenty of soap and water hot enough to blister your skin. Michael scrubbed like he was sanding Bondo off the fender of his dad’s 1934 Ford coupe, the steam so thick he felt like he was growing gills.
He’d told Ben Miami, but he planned on heading to Colombia. There was a situation there he wanted to keep an eye on between a well-established
arms dealer and his old employer, Alberto Reyes. Things were heating up between them—they were either getting ready to announce their engagement and move in together or start a full-scale turf war … and Reyes wasn’t the type to settle down.
Reyes ruled Colombia’s drug trade with a level of viciousness that made Pablo Escobar look like a kid selling chocolate bars. He was a greedy bastard—never satisfied with what he had, never willing to share if he could see a way around it.
Jorge Cordova was Europe’s premier arms dealer. Based in Spain, he made his millions supplying RPGs and AK47s to rebel upstarts, but the truth of the matter was, if it could be used to kill, Cordova sold it in bulk to anyone with the cash to make it happen.
Drugs and guns went hand in hand. Reyes would see Cordova’s operation as a valuable asset and want it for himself. And he’d burn down half of Spain to get it.
Reyes was powerful. Too powerful. The fact that he’d had a major part in Reyes’s rise topped his mile-long list of regrets. Michael had been monitoring his activities and the longer he watched, the more certain he became that he’d have to step in and put a stop—
A pounding, fast and hard, against the bathroom door ripped Michael out of his reverie. “Hey, Crying Game—you gonna spend your thirty in the shower or what?”
Michael gave the shower faucet a twist and popped the shower door open, steam pouring out after him. He whipped a towel off the bar and gave his high and tight a fast rubdown before slinging it around his hips. “I thought you left, asshole,” he said, pulling the bathroom door open and crossing the room without sparing his partner so much as a glance.
“I missed you.” Ben grinned at him before dropping his lanky frame into the nearest chair. “And I thought I’d offer to drop you in Cartagena, since I know that’s where you’re really going.” He leaned back in the chair, pulling the front legs off the floor, balancing on the back.
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