“I looked Hannah’s mother in the eye not thirty minutes ago,” I said. “Her behavior, her inability to make eye contact, the way she recoiled when Aaron took the slightest step toward her—I’m telling you Cade, she’s a battered woman.”
“Did you see any bruises on her?” he asked.
“She was covered up. Almost too covered up.”
He nodded. “I believe you.”
“I don’t,” Renee said.
“Then you’re a fool,” I said.
And a liar. Over the last couple minutes, she’d nibbled at the inside of her cheek like she was trying to chomp right through it.
“You’d better start believing,” I said. “If he’s as mad as you say he is, Hannah shouldn’t be left alone with him.”
“Why do you think I haven’t left yet?” Renee asked.
I looked at Cade. “What can you do—anything?”
“Not much unless the wife or the daughter comes forward. Until then, as far as the law is concerned, my hands are tied.”
CHAPTER 18
Cade’s hands may have been tied when it came to involving his fellow men at arms, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t prepared to lean on Aaron a little, or a lot, depending on the way you looked at it. Renee returned to her post, vowing to keep us updated, and to remain by Hannah’s side until she was released.
Cade and I found our way back to room 211. We’d just about reached the entrance when a man dressed in scrubs stopped us. “Are you family? Because if you’re not, I’m sorry, but I can’t permit you access to the patient’s room.”
Cade stepped in front of me, acknowledging the male nurse with a single tip of his cowboy hat.
“I’m Detective McCoy, and this is Detective Monroe. We just need to look in on the girl, make sure she’s all right.”
“Sir, I can’t allow you to—”
Cade flashed his badge. “We will be lookin’ in on the girl. Step aside.”
So much for Aaron’s attempt to keep me at bay.
Cade entered the room, acknowledged Hannah’s mother first. “Ma’am.”
Her eyes flashed, darted around, never resting on any one thing. Aaron vaulted off the chair he was sitting in, his face puffed up like a cobra ready to strike.
“You again. There has to be some kind of security in this hospital.” He turned to his wife. “Where’s my phone?”
“Mr. Kinkade. My name is Cade McCoy.”
Aaron snatched the phone from his wife’s outstretched hand. “Yeah, what’s it to me?”
Cade flashed his badge a second time. “I need you to step outside.”
“What for?”
“We need to talk.”
“About?”
“It would be better if we had this conversation in private,” Cade said.
“I’m not going anywhere. I know what this is. You’re trying to get me out of the room so she can put the wrong kind of ideas into my daughter’s head.”
She meaning me.
“This isn’t about Hannah, Mr. Kinkade. It’s about you.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m staying.”
“I’d rather not do this in front of the ladies,” Cade stated. “So I’ll ask one last time.”
“Do what in front of who?”
Aaron held steady in his position, didn’t budge.
“Explain what will happen if you ever lay a finger on your wife or daughter again.”
Ann stiffened. Hannah looked right at me, her eyes telling a story words wouldn’t allow. My hunch was right.
Aaron’s face inflamed, turning a radish-like shade of red. Through clenched teeth he managed to serve up a few garbled words. “You don’t know what you’re talking—”
“I’m not gonna stand here and debate the facts,” Cade said coolly. “You’ve been warned. I’m extendin’ you a one-time, one-chance offer. If you value your life, you’ll take it.”
CHAPTER 19
I’d never been the kind of person who placed blame on problems I considered my own, but if I had to blame someone, I suppose I’d condemn society for driving me inside, shutting me away for all those months. Seeking shelter from the outside world hadn’t been such a bad thing. It kept me away from the news, away from hearing about the latest shooting in an unsavory part of town, the drunk driver who plowed through a mother and child in the crosswalk. The world was filled with it. Sin. Crime. Corruption. Lies. Enough noise to make a person want to dig their own grave and bury themselves nice and deep.
My grandmother’s intervention hauled me out of the fortress I’d built to keep me inside and humanity out. She gave me hope, purpose, the will to try again, to find meaning and purpose in my life. I longed for it, desperately. But it was times like this, days like today, when I was willing to abandon it all, retreat to a safe place within.
A phone call from Maddie after I left the hospital with Cade shed light on the real story behind what happened to the baby boy found dead inside the duffel bag on a long stretch of Utah highway. A woman had come forward claiming to be the deceased infant’s mother. She was penniless, and without a job, money, or any relatives to rely on, she’d convinced herself she wouldn’t be able to give birth at the hospital the way everyone else did. Instead, she elected to have the child herself at home. Assisting with the delivery was her current boyfriend, a man who wasn’t the child’s biological father. They were no experts, but hell, they were confident they could get the job done. After all, they’d prepared for the event by watching several home-birth videos on the Internet. And if that doesn’t say “you can do it yourself,” nothing does, right?
All was lost when the baby arrived stillborn, a result of the woman’s umbilical cord developing a tight knot. The child had suffered from a loss of oxygen, something that may have been prevented had the mother been under the care of a proper physician. The bruises the baby sustained were postmortem, an unfortunate result of mother and boyfriend playing God, thinking they could revive the boy, bring him back to life.
Swaddling the dead child in her arms as she became aware nothing she could do would save him, the mother had panicked. The boyfriend consoled her, said not to worry, he’d “take care of it.” He left the apartment, returning an hour later, unwilling to discuss the exact details of the baby’s whereabouts. The woman confessed she had no idea what her boyfriend had done with the dearly departed until she clicked on the television, hearing the sordid details unfold on the news.
When the boyfriend was questioned about why he hadn’t just placed the baby in a dumpster, he said the way he saw it, if the wee one was found, the state would make sure the infant had a proper burial, something the boyfriend felt the child deserved. And what better place for a dead child to get noticed than the shoulder of a well-traveled freeway?
What an unbelievably screwed-up world.
CHAPTER 20
“What can you tell me about the way Serena died?” Cade asked.
A coroner Cade referred to as “Hooker” stood a few feet away, his hand resting on the edge of a metallic table that contained Serena Westwood’s body. Hooker was tall, about six foot five. He had ginger-colored hair and an adorable, crooked smile that brightened a room even as gloomy as the one we were standing in.
“I thought you were ordered off this case,” Hooker lectured Cade.
From his tone of voice, we were about to get shot down. Cade smacked Hooker on the shoulder, and the two exchanged glances. Clearly, I was missing something.
“Did the chief warn you I might drop by?”
“Don’t he always?” Hooker cocked his head, narrowed his eyes. “Never cared before. Best not disrupt that pattern now.”
Cade turned. “Sloane, I’d like you to meet one of my oldest friends, Quaid Hooker.”
“Watch it with the ‘old’ insinuation. I’m the same age as you.” Hooker stepped in front of me, drank me in. “You must be the infamous Sloane Monroe.”
There it was. Again. Luckily the shock value had dulled to a manageable low. I’d come t
o expect it.
“Seems like everyone around here has heard of me,” I said.
“You’ve been a topic of the chief’s conversation a time or two.”
The chief’s and not Cade’s this time. It should have been refreshing. But nothing the chief had to say about me ever was.
Hooker stifled a laugh. “Sorry to say when your name is mentioned, it usually has an expletive attached to it.”
No sugar coating here.
“I suppose it’s not easy for him to admit he wouldn’t have solved the case he had last year without me,” I said.
“You got it half right. This town saw you as the hero, not him. He probably figured he had plenty of time, and then all this retirement talk started.”
“What you’re saying is, I stole his legacy.”
“Legacy or not, from what I know about you and your ability to solve every case you get, we needed you then and we need you now.” Hooker swiveled, diverted his attention to Cade. “Shame we’re meeting like this, man. I’m real sorry, for you and your family. Serena was one of the sweetest girls I’ve ever known.”
“How did you know her?” I asked.
“Went to high school together. Always wanted to ask her out. Never got around to it though—not before Jack came along, snatched her up before I had the chance to reel her in for myself.”
“Don’t feel sorry for him,” Cade teased. “He’s never had a shortage of women in his life. Not then, not now.”
“I’m a yellow,” Hooker replied. “What do you expect?”
“A what?” I asked.
“Haven’t you ever taken that personality test to see what color you are?”
I shook my head. “A yellow is … what?”
“Fun, outgoing, don’t take life too seriously. Free-spirited. Charming, of course. Anyhow, some girl tested me. Said she was red so we couldn’t be together, not that it mattered. I wasn’t looking for a relationship at the time.”
“At the time?” Cade joked. “I’ve never seen you in a relationship, not a lasting one.”
“I dated Patrice for four months.”
He said it like it was his crowning achievement. And I’d always thought my relationships were short.
“Four months is nothin’ to brag about,” Cade said.
Hooker smacked me on the shoulder, thumbed at Cade. “Just so you know, Cade here’s a blue. At least in my opinion.”
“And blues are …?”
“Don’t change the subject by bringing it back to me,” Cade said.
“Truth is,” Hooker said. “I’ve never married.”
“Some people never do,” I said.
“I would, well, maybe I wouldn’t marry. I’d entertain the idea of a relationship though, living together. It’s just, I’ve never met a woman who could handle me enough to settle down.”
I could think of one bright, beaming yellow who’d be up for the challenge: Miss Madison “Maddie” LaFoe.
“We can talk relationships later,” Cade said. “Right now I need to know if there’s anything you found during the autopsy that will give us any headway, help us locate Serena’s killer.”
“As far as bodies go, Serena’s is clean. I didn’t find any prints or fibers that didn’t come from her house. No skin under the nails. No sign of a struggle. No sign of sexual assault. From what I can tell, the guy never touched her.”
“What about the bullet wound?” Cade asked.
“The contact wound was consistent with the nature of her injury. As you probably know, she was shot once from behind, point-blank range, at a distance of just under three feet. The bullet, a forty-five caliber round, entered the back of her head, lodged in her skull. Whoever shot her got lucky.”
“Why do you say that?” Cade asked.
“We’re not talking about a heavy-duty gun here. Speaking of which, still no sign of the murder weapon?”
“Not to my knowledge.” Cade ran a hand across his forehead. “Anything else?”
Hooker paused.
“What is it?” Cade asked.
“There is one other thing. Something I didn’t expect to find. Serena had a slight amount of swelling in her lower abdomen.”
“Do you know what caused it?”
“At first I wasn’t sure. Once I opened her uterus, I saw something I didn’t expect. A fetus.”
“A what?”
“Are you saying Serena was pregnant?” I asked.
Hooker nodded.
“Around eleven weeks from what I can tell.” Hooker looked at Cade. “I take it you didn’t know?”
“I had no idea. Jack and Serena had been tryin’ to conceive on their own for years. Serena was convinced she’d never be able to give birth on her own. That’s why she adopted.”
I wondered if Jack knew Serena was pregnant. If she, herself, knew she was pregnant. If anyone else knew, and whether it played a role in her murder if they did.
CHAPTER 21
Lime green Plymouth Barracudas weren’t the variety of car people see every day. Standing inside of a run-down, yet immaculately clean auto body shop the next morning, I had to admit, even though the car didn’t suit my taste, it looked like one hell of a sweet ride.
Cade knelt down, nudging a boy’s pant leg with the tip of his boot. “Daniel Alvarez? We need to speak with you.”
“The name’s Danny,” the boy shouted from beneath the Barracuda. “And I’m busy.”
Cade yanked one of Danny’s legs, ejecting Danny out from beneath the car. He squirmed, kicked at Cade’s hand. Cade held tight, unwilling to relax his grip until the boy relented, smirked at Cade. “What’s your problem, man? You deaf? I said I was busy.”
Danny wasn’t what I expected. With short, spiked, black hair and baggy, ripped jeans, he didn’t look like the kind of guy a clean-cut Hannah would be attracted to—but what did I know about teenagers? Not much apparently.
“When’s the last time you saw Hannah Kinkade?” Cade asked.
“What’s it to you, bro?”
Cade reached out, his fingers twisting a knot into the front of Danny’s shirt. “It’s important, bro. Now answer the question.”
“You her pops or somethin’? … cuz we’re not together anymore.”
Cade eased his jacket to the side with his free hand, flashed the badge clipped to the front of his jeans. “I’ll ask again. When was the last time you saw her?”
“Two months ago maybe.”
If what he said was true, it matched Renee’s story of the birth father not being at the hospital when Hannah delivered Finn. It also meant he may have never seen his son before. Unless, of course, he was lying. There was always that. And I had to admit, Danny looked like a kid who’d had run-ins with the law before.
“I need details,” Cade pressed.
“What details?”
“We need to know what happened the last time you saw Hannah,” I said, “and what you know about the baby you two had together.”
“I don’t know a thing, mama. The two of you wasted your time comin’ here, ahh-ight?”
It wasn’t ahh-ight or all right. Not even close.
“We just want answers. Give them to us, and you can get back to your job.”
Across the room, a rather oversized man with a thick, black mustache craned his neck to the side, peeking out the door of an office. His eyes were focused on Cade’s hand wrung around Danny’s shirt. A dollop of red sauce leaked from a foot-long meatball sub the man was holding, splotching onto the desk. The man unwound a piece of brown paper from a roll and half-wiped up the mess before setting the sandwich down on a stack of papers. His lack of sanitary measures bothered me to the point that I almost looked away.
The man stood and shuffled over, stopping once to shove his white, collared shirt inside his blue polyester pants. As soon as Danny saw Sandwich Guy en route, he performed a classic teenage eye roll and began speaking in rapid succession at Cade.
“I don’t have to talk to you without a lawyer or somethin’ like t
hat, right? I mean, teck-nick-ally, you two can’t do nothin’ to me.”
“What makes you think you need a lawyer?” Cade asked.
“Excuse me.” Sandwich Guy looked at Cade’s fisted hand then at Cade. “Who are you, and what’s this about?”
“It doesn’t concern you,” Cade replied, his eyes never leaving Danny.
“I need you to take your hands off my son … or I’ll call the police.”
Danny’s father seemed nice. Maybe too nice.
Danny sighed. “He is the police, Pop.”
Cade removed his grip from Danny. Sandwich Guy stretched his hand out. I shook it. His grip was flaccid, weak.
“I’m Miguel Alvarez. And you are?”
“Sloane. And this is Cade. We’re not trying to harass your boy. We just need to ask him a few questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Mr. Alvarez, are you aware of your son’s relationship with Hannah Kinkade?” I asked.
He nodded. “When they were together, my wife and I had Hannah over for dinner a few times.”
“Stop talking,” Danny cut in. “Why you gotta tell them stuff that isn’t their business?”
“Danny, keep quiet. Let me handle this.” Miguel looked at Cade. “I apologize for my son.”
“Were you aware Hannah was pregnant?” Cade asked.
Father and son exchanged glances. Miguel had known about the baby. “I was. My wife was not.”
“Why not tell your wife?”
“It would have been too hard on her if she knew Daniel and Hannah weren’t keeping the boy. She would have wanted to raise the child herself. There would have been no talking her out of it. Not telling her was for the best.”
On the far end of the shop, something clanked to the ground. It sounded like a wrench or a tool of some kind had slipped from one of the worker’s hands. Miguel peered across the cars, lowered his voice. “Mind if we continue this conversation in my office?”
Cade and I followed Miguel to the back of the shop. Danny didn’t move. He looked on as if he didn’t feel it was necessary for him to be involved in the conversation now that his father was doing his dirty work for him. When Miguel discovered his son was no longer in tow, he swiftly rectified the situation. “Son, you too. Let’s go.”
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