Edge of Darkness

by Karen Rose

  Adam wanted to frown, because rushing the next of kin was pretty ruthless, even when the victim was a murderer. But he trusted Isenberg, so he kept his mouth shut.

  Dale shuffled off with Isenberg, out of the room and out of view. Adam and Trip waited, while Deacon stood at the door, watching Isenberg’s progress down the hall. Finally, Deacon entered the room and went straight to the table, pulling a glove on. He picked up the coffee cup that Dale had pushed away and bagged it.

  “We’re going to need DNA for a definitive ID of the body,” Deacon said. “Face is bashed in. A bloody brick was found near the body. Dental records would be of no use. Fingers are gone, so no prints.”

  “And the tat?” Trip asked.

  “Cut right out of his skin. But it was over his heart.” He tilted his head. “Adam?”

  Adam blinked up at Deacon, then realized his own hand was over his heart. “Like the scar Mallory saw,” he said quietly. “Wyatt had a tattoo, a long time ago. Over his heart. He had it removed when he started the academy.”

  “What was it of?” Trip asked in a way that said he already knew.

  “Celtic cross in flames. He said that Mike had taken him out drinking for his eighteenth birthday and when he woke the next morning, he had the tattoo. He didn’t know it was white supremacist until his father saw it and threw a fit. Wyatt didn’t want his application to the academy to be rejected so he had it removed. That’s what he told me, anyway. I only saw the tat once and I never knew it scarred. I never thought about how a tattoo would be removed. I didn’t even consider he’d have a scar. Hell, I was still in high school and he’d gone off to the academy. I never saw him without a shirt on after he’d graduated high school because we weren’t playing ball any longer. He always wore a T-shirt in the precinct locker room.” He closed his eyes. “Wyatt raped Mallory.” Saying it out loud didn’t make it easier to accept. “Wyatt. Holy God.”

  Deacon gripped his shoulder. “And we’ll make him pay for that, don’t worry.”

  “He was afraid she could ID his scar,” Trip said. “And that you could as well. That must be why you are both targets.”

  Adam felt curiously detached. “I didn’t even remember he had one. That was twenty years ago.”

  “Sounds like Wyatt’s spent more time thinking about you than you have him,” Trip said mildly. “All that shit coming out of his father’s mouth was just that—shit. You know this, right?”

  “Yeah. Still stings.”

  “I’ll bet,” Trip grunted. “Did you have anyone in your life who was nice to you?”

  Adam drew a breath because Deacon was still gripping his shoulder. “Yeah. My mom, when she could be. And Deacon, Dani, and Greg, all of the time.” He patted Deacon’s hand awkwardly. “You can let go now, D. I’m not gonna bolt.”

  “Wasn’t sure,” Deacon said, dropping his hand. “You look like you might.”

  “It’s a lot to take in. And I’m feeling . . . raw,” he confessed. “I can’t believe anyone believed I thought I was superior to anyone. Well, to criminals, sure, but to my family?”

  “You are, you know,” Deacon said. “You could have ended up a mean drunk like your dad, but you’re a nice, recovering drunk.”

  Adam laughed, which he knew was Deacon’s intent. “You asshole.”

  Deacon grinned. “Yeah, well, we all have our special gifts. Come on.”

  “Where are we going?” Adam asked.

  “Upstairs to strategize.” Deacon held up the bagged coffee cup. “I’ll catch up with you in the briefing room after I drop this sample off at the lab.”

  Cincinnati, Ohio

  Monday, December 21, 10:45 a.m.

  “Merry, wake up.”

  Diesel’s voice startled Meredith out of the doze she’d fallen into as she’d watched snow falling outside the waiting room window. She blinked awake, finding Diesel grinning.

  “What?” she asked, touching her mouth, hoping she hadn’t been drooling.

  “You snore.”

  “I do not!”

  His eyes twinkled at her. “Yes, you do and it’s cute. Ask Adam. He’ll tell you.”

  She gave him a glare that held no heat. “Did you wake me up to make fun of me?”

  “No. I finally broke into Bethany Row’s personal e-mail.”

  “Just now?”

  “About a half hour ago.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

  “Because I wanted to find evidence and you needed to sleep.”

  She smiled at him. “Thank you.” He was a sweet man. For the hundredth time she wondered what Dani Novak was waiting for. Diesel clearly was interested, but Dani didn’t seem to be. Which wasn’t important now. “What did you find?”

  “Well, several messages from foster parents discussing perks, payments for her looking the other way. Some of the messages come out and say what they’ll pay her or what they’ll do for her because she’s discounted a child’s complaint. I imagine that’s what’s being used in the investigation against her. But I went back further. She got an e-mail from her bank six months ago saying that ten grand had been wired into her account.”

  Meredith stared. “Ten thousand dollars? From whom?”

  “This is the interesting part. The e-mail says the account it was wired from is the same account that Broderick Voss was paying into.”

  Her eyes widened. “That’s amazing.” Then she realized what they had and she groaned. “And of course we can’t talk about it or tell the cops about it because you hacked to learn about it.”

  “Which poisons the tree and makes anything the cops learn inadmissible,” he said with a disgusted sigh. “I like it better when I’m not working with cops. I do what I want with what I find.”

  She nodded glumly. “The Fourth Amendment’s a pain in the ass.”

  Diesel snorted. “I’m sure your cop can figure out how to use this info just fine. He can ask the Indy cops for the file on the investigation and this e-mail will pop up. He won’t get into any trouble.”

  She smiled. My cop. He is. Mine. Diesel’s expression softened and she tilted her head, studying him. “What?”

  “Your face. You look happy.” He shrugged uncomfortably. “You deserve to be.”

  Her eyes stung. Again. “You keep making me cry.” She pushed away from the table and was searching the waiting room for a box of tissues when her cell phone rang.

  “You should answer that,” Diesel said. “It’s an Indy area code.”

  She hurried back to glance at her screen. “It’s the detective.” She hit ACCEPT. “Hello? This is Meredith Fallon.”

  “Good morning, Dr. Fallon. This is Detective Santos, Indianapolis PD. I was told by my boss to stop avoiding your calls.”

  “Thank you,” she said with a frown. “That’s very polite of you.”

  He huffed a laugh. “I suppose I deserve that. But I haven’t been totally ignoring you. I had to go hunting through my personal notes, and given I can’t read my own handwriting, that took some time. But I have something for you.”

  Cincinnati, Ohio

  Monday, December 21, 10:50 a.m.

  Adam and Trip found Scarlett and Nash waiting in the briefing room. Nash was standing at the whiteboard, once again staring at the photos of Paula and Tiffany.

  Adam joined him there and stood silently for a moment. “I’m sorry, Nash,” he murmured. “I didn’t want to even wonder if you were involved, but I had to.”

  Nash angled him a wry smile. “Hey, it’s okay. I might have thought the same in your place.” He returned his gaze to the photos. “Do you think he had Paula killed? Wyatt?”

  “I think it’s possible. And that hurts,” Adam confessed. “So damn much.”

  “I know,” Nash said. “It hurts me and he wasn’t my childhood friend. I just can’t get over it in my head. How he stood next to us and
watched her die.”

  “I know. But, looking back, I’m seeing that Wyatt wasn’t really the friend I thought he was. I was only eleven when I met him. I’m remembering a lot of the ‘pranks’ and ‘teasing’ he’d do—stuff that wasn’t funny, but I heard a helluva lot worse from my own father, so it didn’t register.”

  “He also didn’t want you to know,” Trip said from behind them. “Sociopaths are really good at hiding their true nature. Otherwise we’d catch a lot more of them.”

  Adam sighed. “Yeah, I know that. At least some things make sense. Whoever had been hiding Paula knew some sign language. So does Wyatt.”

  Nash shook his head. “But years? He held her for years, Adam.”

  Adam closed his eyes, unable to look at the photo of Paula’s suffering any longer. “I know. We know he was . . . attracted to Mallory at thirteen and was willing to risk being found out to rape her. Paula wasn’t through puberty yet. She was only eleven.” And he’d kept her for years. “He has a little girl, Nash. She’s only seven.”

  Nash made a pained noise. “God, I hope he hasn’t touched her.”

  Adam wanted to be sick, but he gritted his teeth and forced his stomach to settle. “Yeah. Hopefully we can save Ariel from what the others went through.”

  “If Wyatt was Paula’s captor, why didn’t she know him the day we watched her die?”

  Adam thought back to those few days during which he and Paula had communicated via Skype after she’d reached out to him. “Because he always stood off-camera. He said that it was ‘my show’ to run. That he’d coach me through it because it was one of my first big cases in Personal Crimes.”

  “Which was condescending bullshit,” Nash muttered.

  Adam sighed. “I see that now. We wondered how she’d figured out how to use the Internet and e-mail without raising the notice of her captor right away. Now I’m wondering if Wyatt did this to mess me up. Apparently he’s always hated me.”

  Nash was quiet a moment. “After I came out of my funk? I poked around and found that you paid for her ashes to be buried in a proper grave. Out of your own pocket.”

  Adam shrugged, uncomfortable now. “I couldn’t stand the thought of her ending up in some unmarked grave. I didn’t know if she had family. Hell, I never even knew her last name. Just . . . for a few days, she was mine to protect.”

  Nash’s sigh was sad. “I’ve been putting flowers there. First Sunday of the month. Maybe next time we can go together. Get some closure.”

  Adam’s throat thickened. “I’d like that. Thank you.” He turned away from the photos, just as Deacon came through the door, bigger than life as usual.

  But not impervious to hurt, Adam thought. Just like Meredith wasn’t as impervious as everyone thought, either. I hurt them both. I hurt a lot of people by closing myself off. Not gonna do that anymore.

  “How long before the lab gets DNA back on Dale Hanson?” he asked Deacon.

  “Few hours. They moved it to the top of the priority list. It’s so much nicer now with the high-speed methods. Not like the old days when we had to wait a whole day or more.”

  Nash rolled his eyes. “I love hearing you young pups talk about the old days. You got no concept about—” He broke himself off, rolling his eyes again. “God, I’m old.”

  Deacon assessed him seriously. “Maybe. But remember we need to hear from the old guys sometimes.”

  Adam knew his cousin wasn’t talking about the older detective’s methods, but the dressing-down Nash had given them earlier. He was proven right by Deacon’s next words.

  “Trip, can you drop Adam off at the hospital when we’re done here? I think he needs some time to process.”

  Trip’s brows arched. “With Meredith?”

  Deacon shrugged. “Adam might need therapy.”

  “So that’s what you old guys are callin’ it now?” Trip drawled. “Therapy?”

  “I’m not old,” Deacon protested. “You’re just young.”

  Nash chuckled. “That’s what happens when you call someone old, Novak. There’s always someone younger to come along and pay the insult forward. And ‘therapy’ is a fine word for it, Agent Triplett. Adam could use it.”

  Adam actually felt his cheeks heating. “Shut up. I’m not going to the hospital for Meredith yet. We are going to find Wyatt Hanson.” He swallowed hard. “I need to.”

  “I know you do,” Deacon said earnestly. “I get that. But you are his target, Adam. By putting yourself out there, you’re putting the rest of us in danger.”

  Adam frowned, unimpressed. “You’re resorting to guilt, D? What the hell?”

  Scarlett looked up from her phone, her expression a little guarded, making him wonder what else had happened, but she simply agreed. “It was pretty lame, Deacon.”

  Adam gave her a grateful nod, before refocusing on Deacon. “Besides, it’s not your call. Until Isenberg decides otherwise, I’m lead on this case and I’m not going to hide.”

  “Isenberg,” Isenberg said as she came through the door, “has decided otherwise. I’m taking the lead.”

  Adam turned his frown in Isenberg’s direction. “Why?”

  “Because this case just became a big fucking deal, that’s why,” she said cordially, as if they were discussing a sale on chicken at Kroger. “You do not want to be lead anymore. Hell, I don’t want to be lead. I’m doing you a favor, Detective.” Then she shocked him by laying her hand on his arm and giving it a squeeze. “And because,” she added in a murmur, “you were shot at this morning by someone you trusted and haven’t fully processed it.”

  Adam wanted to be annoyed, but couldn’t find it in him. “I’m fine.”

  “You will be,” she said, gently confident, completely disarming him. “Let’s all sit down. I have information you don’t. Let me tell you all and you will be begging me to take this off your hands.”

  “You might have told him this privately,” Nash said in a loud whisper.

  Isenberg rolled her eyes. “I don’t have time for niceties, Detective Currie, and my people are tough enough not to need them.” But she gave Adam a look of apology before continuing. “I briefed the brass on what you all have put together this morning. Let’s just say that the idea that we have a rogue cop out there running prostitution rings and killing innocent people did not go over well. The media haven’t sunk their teeth into the story yet, but it’s a matter of time. Especially since the video Shane made for Linnie went viral.”

  “What video?” Deacon, Nash, and Trip asked all together. Scarlett was oddly silent.

  Adam blew out a breath. “Oh, the video. I’d forgotten all about it.”

  “Well, you have had a busy morning, Detective,” Isenberg said, her eyes filled with I-told-you-so. “Tell them now.”

  “It was Meredith’s idea, actually. We were talking about losing Linnie’s trust and how she’d never approach us now, but she might trust Shane. I asked Colby and Wendi to supervise a video of him asking Linnie to come to us, since they’re with Mallory in the same hotel as Shane and Kyle. I figured I’d ask the Ledger to upload it to their Web site. But then John . . .” He shrugged. “I lost the thread in everything that happened next.”

  Scarlett blinked at him. “You did all that before your AA meeting?”

  He had been productive, come to think of it. “Everything but talking to Marcus. I didn’t think he’d be awake at five thirty in the morning.”

  “He wasn’t,” Scarlett said. Which she’d know because she and the newspaper owner were a couple. “But you could have asked me.”

  Yes, he could have. And should have. Because he recognized the odd expression in her eyes, now. He’d hurt her, too. “I’d planned to after my AA meeting this morning. Honest, Scar. As it turned out, though, Wendi and Parrish Colby were already awake. Mallory wasn’t sleeping. Neither were Shane and Kyle. They were all having a Star War
s marathon.” He glanced at Isenberg. “How did it go viral? I never got to ask the Ledger for help.”

  “Diesel Kennedy took care of uploading it to the Ledger home page,” Isenberg said, then one side of her mouth lifted in a smirk. “He actually cleared it with me first.”

  Scarlett looked surprised to hear that. “Wow. Diesel’s getting downright civilized. Asking permission and everything. I think that scares me.”

  “Don’t worry,” Isenberg said dryly. “I don’t think he’ll be making it a habit. Anyway, the video went viral. Shane said very complimentary things about you, Adam. He told Linnie to trust you, that you wouldn’t hurt her. That you’re trying to help her. He begged her to come to him, so that they could bury Andy together.”

  “No wonder it went viral,” Deacon murmured. “That’s a heartstring tugger.”

  “Indeed,” Isenberg said briskly. “I asked Diesel to put your name, Adam, and the precinct’s switchboard number on the video. So far we’ve gotten a shitload of calls, but none from Linnie. It’s only been an hour, though. And as far as we know she doesn’t have a phone, so she’ll have to see it via another medium. Which won’t be a problem, because the story’s been picked up by every major news outlet in the world.”

  Adam stared at her. “In the world?”

  “You heard me. A fucking mess is what it is, but that can’t be helped. It can’t even be contained. We can only try to herd the media in the direction we want them to go.”

  “Which is?” Nash asked.

  She grimaced. “Fifteen minutes ago, it was to spin this as a cop suffering from PTSD after too many years on Personal Crimes and ICAC. The mention of cops working Internet crimes against children always makes good press.”

  “Except that’s not true,” Adam said quietly. “Especially since he may have been responsible for Paula’s murder.”

  Isenberg’s eyes flashed angrily. “I told them that. They . . . scoffed.” She drew a breath and regained her composure. “Initially, anyway. I was able to convince them otherwise. But this is exactly why you do not want to be lead on this case anymore, Adam. That a cop’s involved in something this huge? It’s going to be a political nightmare. I won’t let you get dragged into it.”