The Lullaby Girl (Angie Pallorino Book 2)

by Loreth Anne White

  “So they say.” She sucked back another sip. Do it. Get blind drunk. Screw this guy senseless. Do it to hurt Maddocks, to kill this thing between us that’s messing with my head and heart and mind … just like I’ve damaged every other relationship I’ve attempted. Angie Pallorino—the black thumb to relationships.

  She raised her glass, chinked it with Andy’s.

  I want to share spring, summer with you, Angie, get those kayaks out. Get out onto the water—work on the old boat, have barbecues on the deck, have you and Ginny there with me. I want to spend fall and next winter with you, dammit. I want a normal relationship when things settle down. I want us to see if this can work.

  She stilled the glass halfway to her mouth. And it struck, in drunk, blinding clarity as she caught her image in the mirror behind the bar—shocked a little at what she saw—she wanted to try.

  She wanted to be better than that drunk ex-cop looking back at her from a seedy bar mirror. Better than the sum of her past, her childhood. She wanted to go back in time. To that grove of trees in her memory. To find the answers, and her twin. And to dust off and try to start again. From whatever that start point might be.

  Yes, James Maddocks. I want to try. I want to try to be normal. Her eyes burned.

  I’m going to finish this search and then go home and try.

  If she died in her effort to revisit her past, well that was her lot. She needed to stare death in the face in order to be reborn, as drunkenly philosophical as that might seem. If there was a threat to her life out there—bring it on. She wasn’t going to mess in anyone else’s sandbox of an investigation—she was just going to look into the eyes of Semyon Zagorsky. And ask.

  She stood abruptly, then steadied herself with her hand on the counter.

  Andy came to his feet beside her.

  She shook her head, not looking at him. “Go home,” she said with a clumsy wave of her hand. On second thought, she glanced up at him with bleary eyes. “It’s not worth it, Andy, so not worth it. Trust me.”

  She pushed herself off from the counter and tried to hold a straight line as she navigated her way around the strippers’ stage, aiming for the stairs that would lead back above ground.

  CHAPTER 44

  SUNDAY, JANUARY 7

  It was Sunday morning, and Kjel Holgersen had the day off. Pressure was easing with the bulk of the Amanda Rose barcode case having moved with Maddocks to Surrey. If Kjel had a life or a half-decent apartment or some hobby or something, he might have stayed at home. But he didn’t. Staying home alone without being blind-tired and crashing into bed or without something to fully occupy his brain was dangerous—he’d been down that road before. That’s when the shadows crept out of the closets of his mind. That’s when those demons started to dance and beckon with enticingly dark promise. So he was here, at 11:00 a.m., hungry for the Flying Pig Bar and Grill’s Sunday brunch mashup—a low-priced, high-carb, full-fat fry-up replete with sausages, maple syrup, bacon, and eggs with a stack of lumberjack-size flapjacks on the side. And all-you-can-drink coffee.

  He pushed through the old wooden pub doors and drank in the aroma of sizzling bacon and freshly brewed caffeine and the familiar buzz of the police bar.

  “Homes from home, Jack-O, ol’ boy,” he said as he made his way to the bar to place his order. Jack-O didn’t stir in the infant carry pouch into which Kjel had stuck him. The pouch hung warm against Kjel’s hollow stomach, halfway zipped into his bomber jacket. Dog knew a good thing when he saw one—probably figured if he moved, he might get chucked out. The sensation of the old pooch’s little beating heart—his warm three-legged body cuddled close and trusting—sent an odd punch through Kjel. It stirred things he really couldn’t handle having stirred because it could just tilt him back over the edge, and this time he’d no freaking clue whether he’d scrape back up that interminable hill again.

  “Yo, Colm,” he called to McGregor. The big redheaded bearded Scotsman came up to Kjel’s end of the bar, his apron du jour stretched around his strapping torso, different one each day. His shtick. Today’s said, BRUNCH = EXCUSE FOR DAY DRINKING.

  “What’ll it be, Detective?”

  “The number one mashup times two. One packaged to go.”

  McGregor wiped his hands on a white towel, rang the order into his system. “Got a wee hole in your stomach today then?” He glanced up, did a slight double take. “What’s that you got in there?” He tilted his bearded chin at the baby carrier.

  “That’s who gets mashup number two.”

  “A kid?”

  Kjel angled himself sideways so McGregor could peer into the carrier. “Look like a kid to you?”

  McGregor frowned, then guffawed. “That be Maddocks’s hound,” he declared in his great booming Scottish accent.

  “Boss has gots me babysitting.”

  The pub owner raised a bushy thatch of red brow. “It trusts you then? To sit like that in a wee bairn pouch.”

  “Everybody’s gots to trust somebody.”

  Kjel turned to survey the scene and find a table while McGregor bellowed his order through the hatch to the kitchen. He spotted the odd couple again—Leo and Grablowski. Ensconced in a secluded booth near the back of the pub, huddled over coffee mugs and partially eaten plates of food in front of them. A sinister sensation unfurled in Kjel. It tasted of distrust, suspicion. Curiosity. His mind went to the article that Leo had shown him on Pallorino being that angel’s cradle kid.

  He ambled over to the booth.

  As he approached, Grablowski made a call on his cell phone. Leo was watching, leaning forward with interest.

  “Yo,” Kjel said. “Whassup, dudes? Can we’s join you?”

  Grablowski’s head shot up. His brow lowered, and he glanced sharply at Leo as if to say, Get this fucker away. Leo opened his mouth, but before he could protest, Kjel was sliding himself and Jack-O onto the padded seat in the booth beside the crusty old detective.

  “What in the hell is that?” Leo said, his gaze shooting to the baby pouch.

  Kjel threw him a grin. “You know how cold it is out? Flippin’ winter. Old three-legged little man here don’t like to be cold. Ain’t so speedy hobbling on a dog lead, either. So I gots him a carry bag.”

  “A baby pouch? Are you kidding me?”

  “Ergonomic baby pouch. Boughts it at Mountain Equipment. Pricey Gore-Tex shit. Good for the momses back and all. Ands for baby posture.”

  “It’s a dog, Holgersen. You’re not even using the damn leg and arm holes.”

  Kjel tilted his chin toward Grablowski, who’d turned in his seat in an effort to shut Holgersen off from the conversation he was trying to conduct on his cell.

  “He’s on the phone. Do you mind?” Leo said.

  “He can go talk somewheres else—” Kjel stopped midsentence to listen.

  “I’m just giving you one last chance,” Grablowski was saying, his back turned to Kjel and Leo, “to get in on the deal … Yeah. Yeah, I know it’s your life story, Detective, but it’s going to be out there. If not through me, then through someone else. This way you have control—”

  “Fuck off, Grablowski.”

  He heard her voice, loud and clear, yelling at the shrink. “Pallorino?” he said softly to Leo.

  Leo shrugged. But the bastard had a little gleam in his eyes.

  “I heard the scuttlebutt when I checked in at the station this morning,” Kjel said. “Heard she’s out on her ass.”

  Leo snorted. “’Bout fucking time. It’s given Grablowski the push he needed. Now he doesn’t have to worry about the MVPD not hiring him because he won’t be exposing a cop. She’s a disgraced ex-cop.”

  “You have something to do with her being axed?”

  “I wish.”

  “So what was it?”

  “No clue.”

  Kjel regarded Leo steadily. “You do too have a clue.”

  “Serious. I don’t.”

  Grablowski said into his phone, voice clipped, “Fine. You have until midnig
ht tonight to come on board. The official book offer came in Friday. I met with my agent yesterday. We sign Monday, with or without you. Also got an offer pending from DayLine TV. They do that cold case series. They’re interested in a podcast plus regular televised updates, interviews as the investigation unfolds. My publicist will hit media outlets with my book deal news Monday.”

  Kjel heard Pallorino’s retort through the phone. “Break my story and I break your back, asshole.”

  Kjel smiled. She had spunk, that girl.

  Grablowski killed the call. He turned in his seat. His face looked hot. He removed his round glasses, polished them with a napkin, and replaced them on the bridge of his beaked nose.

  The waitress arrived with Kjel’s coffee.

  “Oh, look at that,” the server cooed as she reached for the baby carrier to pet Jack-O’s head, which was peeking out now. The Jack Russell cross pulled back his lips and growled. The waitress yanked back her hand.

  Kjel shrugged, but admittedly he felt a little smug at the dog’s defensive stance. “Old. Whats can I say?”

  “Well, he clearly likes you.”

  “Yeah.” He gave her a warm grin. She returned his smile. It lit her eyes prettily and put pink in her cheeks. “Be right back with your order.”

  “Gig kinda suits me, eh,” he said to Leo as he watched the waitress go.

  “Yeah. Right. Turns you into a veritable babe magnet.”

  Kjel reached for the sugar and poured an unhealthy stream into his steaming mug. He snagged up a spoon, stirred.

  “Too bad you’re celibate. What’s with that, anyway?”

  Kjel ignored Leo and said to Grablowski, “So, you gets pleasure out of a book deal on Pallorino’s story, then, on top of the money?” He took a sip from his mug.

  “That’s right.”

  Kjel stilled, mug midway between mouth and table. “You’re still burned overs the fact she cost you the Spencer Addams book deal. Is that what this is?”

  Grablowski slipped his phone into his breast pocket. “Pleasure aside, this is an even better deal than the first. She’d be well advised to climb on board.”

  “It’s her fecckin’ story.”

  “And it’s going to run out of her control. This way she has a measure of input, direction over the content.”

  “An’ she gets to work with you. Whoo—bonus.”

  Grablowski locked his gaze with Kjel’s. “And you, Detective? What do you want?”

  “Some good company for brunch.” He threw Grablowski a wild grin.

  His food arrived—one meal packaged to go, another on a large plate with a side of flapjacks. Kjel reached for the syrup and smothered the lot with a hefty pour of maple-y nectar. “Fresh tapped from them trees in Quebec, I’ms sure,” he said, raising the bottle before he set it down on the table. He lifted his knife and fork and caught sight of the black Sharpie scrawl across the lid of the takeout carton. MASTER JACK. “Hey, well, look at that, Jack-O boy.” He pointed his knife at the print and said, “Master Jack. I likes that.”

  Dog didn’t even poke his head out of the carrier. Kjel tucked in.

  “That a mashup for the dog?” Leo said.

  “Yup.”

  “Dogs need dog food,” Leo muttered.

  “Yeah, you’d know, right, Leo?” He jerked his chin to Grablowski as he chewed. “Where is she—Pallorino?”

  He shrugged. “In a car. Driving somewhere.”

  “What happened with her job and Vedder?”

  Grablowski picked up his mug. “Don’t know yet.”

  “It’ll all make for a freaking good story when this breaks first thing Monday morning, right?” Holgersen said around his mouthful.

  “Right.”

  Kjel studied the shrink’s face as he swallowed, then delivered another forkful of syrup-drenched sausage and egg to his mouth. He chewed, thinking that Pallorino was in for a rough ride. MVPD wasn’t going to come to her defense when this story hit the fan.

  He reached for his mug, washed his food down with a hot swig. The company at this booth was leaving a really bad taste in his mouth. As he cut into a flapjack, his cell rang. He set down his fork, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and answered his call.

  “Holgersen.”

  He stilled at the news on the other end of his call. He shot a glance at Leo, who was watching him.

  “Yeah. On my way,” Holgersen said. He killed the call.

  “What was that?”

  “Russian interpreter, the one who helped take the statement from the dead barcode chick—theys just pulled her little blue Yaris outta Duck Lake off the highway to Sooke.”

  CHAPTER 45

  Angie swore as she killed Grablowski’s call. Fisting her hands on her wheel, she increased pressure on the gas as the empty ribbon of highway began to climb and curve through smooth, rounded hills of dun-brown wintery grasslands. She was making her way to Kelvin Maximum Security Institution. She glanced at the clock on the dash—making good time at that. Her anger with Grablowski just fueled her forward faster.

  Cooperate? Asshole.

  This was her story, one thousand percent. She owned it; she was going to finish it.

  Nevertheless, Grablowski’s ultimatum had set the clock of urgency ticking, because once the news hit about her being the mystery cradle child and a sibling to the floating foot, plus the disgraced and terminated cop who’d overkilled Spencer Addams and narrowly missed prosecution herself, her hands would be tied. She had to look into Zagorsky’s eyes before Pietrikowski or anyone else joined those dots.

  Angie floored the gas as she overtook a semi lumbering up the pass. As the elevation increased, snow turned the landscape white. On either side now, as far as her eye could see, brutally clear-cut forest was band-aided with the purity of snow. She crested a ridge, and wind suddenly slammed into her vehicle. Up ahead a road sign stated the elevation—she’d hit the peak of the pass. Rounding the bend, she caught sight of the valley unfurling below. Fine dry snow blew off the landscape and swirled in drifts across the road. Angie reached for her water bottle and took a long swallow, eyes on the road. She felt gross, hungover, yet remarkably clear-eyed about where she was headed now. She’d made a decision.

  As she began a slow descent through the endless hills with no sign of life apart from a scattering of oncoming cars and the odd rancher’s truck, her phone rang again. She hit the button on her dash connecting the call via hands-free.

  “Pallorino,” she snapped.

  “It’s Jacob Anders. We have news.”

  Her pulse kicked. “Yes?”

  “We managed to obtain two nuclear DNA profiles from the two different semen samples—the old lab samples had been well enough packaged and preserved. We also obtained a profile from the blood evidence on the teddy bear and the dress. The blood DNA is a unique match to the sample you provided here at the lab. You were in that cradle, Angie.”

  She swallowed as she steered into a hairpin curve. Her tires slicked slightly on black ice. She corrected, slowed. “Is it possible the blood could also be my twin’s?”

  “Yes. Possible. More complex testing could determine that, if necessary.”

  “And the hair evidence?”

  “Insufficient DNA for routine STR typing, but we did obtain mitochondrial DNA profiles for both the long dark-brown hair and the short ash-blonde hair. The ’86 lab reports indicate that the hairs were examined by microscope at the time, but since the nineties, mtDNA analysis has been made possible on hair samples that were historically unsatisfactory for STR profiling. However,” he cautioned, “mitochondrial DNA is not a unique identifier in the way that nuclear DNA is—it’s maternally inherited. All a woman’s offspring, her siblings, her mother, and other maternal relatives will have the same mtDNA profile. It can, however, rule out a maternal connection if there is no mitochondrial match.”

  Angie hesitated. “Does … my profile show a mtDNA match to the dark hair?”

  “It does.”

  Her stomach tighte
ned. So did her hands on the wheel. “So the long dark hair could have been my mother’s?”

  “It’s not ruled out.”

  Emotion burned in her eyes and nose, her feelings so close to the surface. She was not used to this. Clearing her throat, corralling her self-control, she said, “What about the ballistics report?”

  “The two bullets retrieved at the scene were a .45 caliber. Rifling shows both were fired from the same gun. We ran the results through our own growing database, but no hits.”

  “Can you forward the DNA profiles and ballistics report to the personal email address I provided you?”

  “Hitting SEND as we speak, files attached.”

  “Thank you, Jacob.” She wavered slightly before asking the next question. “That underwater study you’ve got on the monitor in your office—do you have any info on how far a disarticulated and buoyed foot could float in the Salish Sea?”

  “That foot could have come from anywhere, Angie,” he said softly. Kindly, she realized. “Those currents in the Strait of Georgia are highly variable and fed from rivers all over the place, from Alaska down to Washington, with a maze of islands and inlets in between. It could theoretically even have drifted across the Pacific from the Far East.” He paused. “Okay, looks like the email has gone through—should all be in your inbox.”

  “Thanks again.” She killed the call, saw a pullout ahead, and slowed. Drawing off the highway, Angie came to a stop. She checked her email via her phone as the raw wind buffeted her Nissan. As soon as she saw that Anders’s emails had come through, she forwarded them to Stacey Warrington’s addy at the MVPD station. She then called Warrington’s work number and left a message.

  “Stace, it’s Sunday—I know you’re not there—but I’ve forwarded some DNA profiles and ballistics imaging to your email. Any chance …” It struck her right then and there, like that ice-wind hitting her Nissan …

  I’ve been terminated. I’m not a cop anymore. I’m not working an MVPD case. My badge and clearance is invalid. Stacey can’t do this for me.

  “That you could run them through the system for me? If there is … any problem, please, let me know. I … I’ll owe you, Stace.”