He smiled reflexively. She looked lovely. The dark circles under her eyes had faded, and a faint pink glow warmed her cheeks. He stood to give her a quick but awkward hug. The sling around his arm made him twist around her.
“How are you doing?” Abby nodded toward his arm. Her eyes brimmed with worry.
“You know, I’m fine. Can I get you a coffee?”
“Actually, I was wondering if we could take a walk.” Her blue eyes strayed to the window before moving back to his.
“Sure, just give me a sec.”
It took him a few minutes to empty his coffee and pack up his computer. It wouldn’t be much longer, only a few more days, before he could ditch the sling. It couldn’t come fast enough for Alex. Aside from the general inconvenience of having to master the one-handed task, he was tired of answering the constant stream of questions. People meant well, but sometimes he wished they could just mind their own damned business.
“Got everything?”
The sky overhead was a patchwork of dappled gray. Although no rain had fallen yet, it didn’t look far off. A gentle wind ruffled Abby’s hair around her pretty face, and she kept her eyes down, as if studying the sidewalk intently. Alex waited for her to speak. They’d walked two blocks before she said the first word.
“I can’t believe that Natalie’s gone. I still expect to see her whenever I go to Mom and Dad’s place.” She raised her chin but kept her eyes trained ahead. “I don’t know how long it takes to accept the truth.”
“How are your parents doing?”
“They’re okay. Better now that Honeywell is in custody.” She peeked up at him from the corner of her eye. “We have you to thank for that.”
Alex’s stomach lurched as their eyes met. He quickly looked away. Although it was true that they had finally apprehended Honeywell, there was a part of him that wondered if they could have done more to save Natalie. For him, this would never feel like a victory.
“Glad we tracked him down. At least he won’t be free to hurt anyone else.”
Abby nodded, and Alex could see the tears filling her eyes. He stopped and enveloped her in another awkward hug. She clung to him, arms wrapped around his waist. She looked up, and their eyes caught. And this time, he didn’t look away.
The feel of her in his arms was so achingly familiar. So right. And, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, she rose up on her toes and their lips met.
It was not the peck on the cheek that passed between friends. There was no mistaking the intention of the kiss, and Alex stood rooted to the spot, the taste of her lips familiar. Achingly familiar. And Alex responded, leaning forward to deepen the kiss. Her soft lips parted beneath his, and everything else fell away. There was only her.
After roughly three seconds of head-spinning insanity, reason prevailed. As much as part of him wanted to suspend reality, he knew what giving into his impulses would mean. There would be consequences. For him. And for Abby.
It wasn’t fair. He couldn’t let his doubts about Jill cloud his judgment.
With his good hand, Alex gripped her shoulder before gently pulling away. Her blue eyes pierced his with a searching look before the blood rushed into her cheeks, staining them red. She looked down quickly. He could read the embarrassment on her face as she took a hasty step backward.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was barely audible over the sound of the cars passing by. “I didn’t think …”
“It’s okay, Abby. But you’ve got to know that this can’t happen. Not now. Neither of us could live with the consequences.” Alex kept a steady grip on her shoulder until she met his eyes again. He couldn’t stop his finger from touching her soft cheek. With a small nod, she pulled out of his grasp, folding her arms into a tight knot against her chest.
“I know. It’s just that everything is so screwed up. I guess I’ve always kind of wondered. You know—if there was something left between us. I’m sorry.”
She looked mortified.
He had wondered that, too. But telling her how he felt wouldn’t help either of them. If anything, it would only complicate the situation more. And she deserved better.
Cupping the back of her head with his hand, he pressed his lips to her fragrant hair. For a brief moment, he closed his eyes and savored the sweet smell of peaches before he released his grip on her.
“It’s going to be okay, you know? It may not seem like it now, but you’ll find a way through this.”
Unshed tears shimmered in her eyes. She cleared her throat, and her head nodded in jerky movements. She blinked.
“I should get going,” she said at last.
Alex watched her walk away. He hated himself for hurting her again. Why couldn’t he stay away and let the past go? It was the best thing for both of them. He knew it. But part of him wanted to go after her.
Leaning into the damp wind, he doubled back onto Greenwood, toward his parked Jeep. The ring of his cell phone interrupted his thoughts.
“Shannon here,” he said, picking up on the first ring.
“Alex, Jackson’s been shot.”
CHAPTER FORTY NINE
Alex pushed past the knot of people clustered around the waiting-room door at Harborview Medical Center toward the familiar face of Captain Brad Lewis. Lewis stood, removing his hand from the shoulder of Michelle Levy, Jackson’s estranged wife.
“How is he?”
“He’s in surgery.”
Michelle looked up, her tear-stained face saying everything that Captain Lewis had not. Alex stepped forward, taking both of her hands in his good one. For a brief moment he held her gaze, until he could no longer stand the pain pooled in her dark eyes.
“He’s going to be okay.” Alex’s words were soft, and he wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince, Michelle or himself. “He’s strong.”
Michelle nodded, hitching in a deep breath.
“Thanks for coming.”
Alex nodded and released her trembling fingers. He watched as she clutched the sodden tissue she had balled in her lap. Catching Alex’s eye, Captain Lewis inclined his head to the side. Alex stood and followed him down the hall.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a familiar face. Kris Thompson was seated near a cluster of cops, her drawn face turned toward him as they passed. He was surprised to see her. Although she was part of the fabric that bound the unit together, Jackson was on the fringes of their circle. Her worry for his well-being was apparent, a fear that Alex himself channeled into action.
“What the hell happened?”
Mindful of the family’s proximity, he kept his voice low.
“Honeywell was released. The judge threw out the search warrant from Winthrop.”
“What? On what grounds?”
Lewis shook his head and shot Alex a sharp look. Michelle had glanced up. Several other faces swiveled in their direction, including that of an older black woman who was seated beside her.
“The judge ruled that the scope of the search warrant was too broad,” Lewis said, leading Alex a little farther away from the crowded waiting room.
“That’s bullshit. Why didn’t we catch this in the jail release report so we could have …”
“Could have what, Alex? Could have been more careful? Come on.”
Alex blew out a long breath, angling his eyes toward the ceiling as he fought to regain control of his anger. It goddamned well did matter. Not knowing Honeywell was back on the streets had put them all in danger. Lewis was right about one thing, though. It was too late to second-guess now.
“Where did it happen?”
“On Eightieth, near Aurora Avenue.”
Alex cringed. Jackson was attacked mere blocks away from where he had met Abby.
“Anyone see anything?”
“We have an eyewitness. The man she saw fleeing the scene doesn’t fit Honeywell’s description. She said he’s tall with dark hair, leather jacket, earrings. She’s working with a police sketch artist now.”
Alex stop
ped, his face twisted into a painful grimace. While the description didn’t fit Honeywell, he did know one other person who it might. The only thing that concerned him now was how quickly he could get himself hooked into the manhunt.
“Who do you have on this?”
“Everyone.”
Lewis’s gaze was steady as Alex’s mind thrashed. Honeywell knew Jill’s habits. Could he also have targeted Jackson?
“What can I do? Where do you want me?”
“I want you here.” Lewis’s voice was firm, his face dead serious.
“You’re fucking kidding me. You can’t really expect me to sit on my hands while Honeywell is out there. I should be looking for him. I know him better than anyone.”
Lewis’s hand gripped Alex’s forearm.
“She needs you.” Lewis nodded back toward Michelle’s bent form.
“Fuck that.” Alex yanked his arm away and took a reeling step backward. “What good can I possibly do here?”
“Listen to me, Shannon.” The use of his surname, along with the James Earl Jones tone of voice, told Alex that he was not going to budge. “If this was Honeywell, you’re a potential target. The last thing I need is to be down two officers. Besides, this is where Jackson would want you to be—taking care of his family. That’s an order.”
Alex clenched his jaw, teeth grinding together, hating everything about the hospital, from the sound of the beeping monitors to the antiseptic smell of the corridors. He knew he had no choice in the matter, though. Michelle had the support of her family, and Jackson would understand. Being trapped in the hospital was torturous when he wanted to be out hunting for Honeywell. After all, Honeywell was hunting those closest to him.
Alex acknowledged the order with a curt nod. There was no point in arguing. Lewis would not be swayed, and he couldn’t afford to flagrantly disobey orders. Instead, he stalked down the hallway in search of some coffee. Michelle could probably use some, too. It was going to be a long night.
Striding down the corridor, he pulled the cell phone out of his pocket. Thumbing through the list of numbers, he found a California area code and pushed Dial.
“Detective Shannon. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Agent Jacob Wilde of the ATF answered on the third ring.
“Where is Duke?” Alex asked.
The eyewitness had picked Duke out of the photo array by the time Alex arrived home. Jackson had survived surgery, but the doctors were tight-lipped about his prognosis. If the number of tubes going in and out of Jackson’s body was any indication, the next few days would be critical. Michelle had sent Alex home to get some rest, promising to do the same, as Jackson’s mother held vigil in the ICU waiting room.
Rest was the last thing Alex wanted. Fresh from the shower, he wandered the house room by room before sitting down at the kitchen table, placing a wicker basket in front of him. Bills and other pieces of assorted mail overflowed its sides. Jill usually took care of paying the bills, but typically it wasn’t until the basket overflowed onto the counter before they resorted to shredding and filing. Grabbing a fist full of papers, he sorted them into piles.
As he went through the hefty stack of documents one by one, cable, cell phone, and Puget Sound Energy statements piled up. It took half an hour to sort through it all. In the end he had relegated Jill’s credit-card statements into a smaller pile.
Thumbing through them, he fished out the statements for the past few months. Head bowed, he examined each one line by line, fingers brushing through his short hair. He stiffened as he came to mid-November.
There was a line item for airfare, which coincided with a last-minute business trip. There were two things that bothered him about the charge. First, Jill’s company typically paid for airfare directly. The destination was the second. Jill had said she was flying to San Jose. The ticket that she had charged to her credit card showed a flight to Reno. ZyraNet had no office in Reno, but it was close to Lake Tahoe.
There was also a charge from Avis. She had rented a car. Where had she gone? Alex made a note to call Avis and check the mileage for the rental period. He frowned as he scanned the list of charges, all the while aware of the connection: Jamie King had died in his cabin at Lake Tahoe.
Lower in the list, he found a fifteen-dollar charge from an Internet lookup site, the type of service you would use to do a reverse lookup on an email address. Who was Jill looking for? With a warrant, he could get details on the transaction. Without it, all he could do was wonder.
Nothing else jumped out at him as he scanned the financial records. There were a few cash withdrawals from California ATMs, but nothing that was inconsistent with a shopping trip or typical business expenses.
Alex took a deep breath and placed his laptop on the table in front of him. He logged into his personal email account, and he clicked on a notification from the spyware application he had installed on Jill’s computer. It referenced a variety of websites she had visited, online shopping portals, weather forecasts, news sites. There were no hits on Hook Up.
Before he could breathe a sigh of relief at not seeing any hits to the site he was particularly interested in, his stomach clenched as he viewed the results of her Google searches. Jill was looking for news stories on Kenneth Cox and Peter Young. Kenneth Cox was the victim in one of the San Francisco murder cases. The name Peter Young didn’t ring any bells, but he made a note to do some research.
With a growing sense of dread, he turned back to his laptop’s screen and located the results of the face-recognition search. They were a couple of days old. But with everything that had happened, he hadn’t had a chance to look at them yet.
Alex clicked on the link in the email. It led to a well-known professional networking site. The photo was a match for Dana Evans. His brow creased in a deep frown as he stared at the woman’s profile. Dana Evans was the director of Product Management for ZyraNet, the company that Jill worked for.
Why did her name sound so damned familiar? Alex searched his memory. It was possible that Jill had spoken of her during one of their many conversations about work. He suddenly remembered where he had heard the name. Jill had talked about Dana Evans the night they went out to dinner in Vancouver.
Jill had said that Dana Evans was having an affair with Jamie King, and now Jamie King was dead. There were two possibilities. Dana Evans was Lilith, or Jill was setting up Dana Evans.
Why would she do that?
Alex’s pencil scratched against the page of his notebook, and Jill’s face began to quickly take shape. Only it wasn’t a smiling Jill that stared up at him. He almost didn’t recognize this Jill. Her expression was darker, as if she was guarding monstrous secrets. Was Jill having an affair with Jamie? Had she been involved in his death?
With a sinking feeling, Alex slumped back in his chair. He wished he could call up one of the guys from the movie Men in Black to use that flashy tool to erase the last few days from his memory. The trail of evidence was building. He couldn’t rule out the possibility that Jill was somehow involved in the San Francisco murders.
As much as he wanted to ignore Luka’s case, he couldn’t turn a blind eye to what was staring him in the face. He had to find out as much as he could about Jill’s whereabouts. What if someone else stumbled on the connection to Jill? What if he could find the one piece of evidence that exonerated her?
He had no choice but to keep digging.
CHAPTER FIFTY
“What are you doing home?” Jill said as she spied Alex. He was seated at the kitchen table, a stack of bills beside his open laptop.
“I could ask you the same question.” His voice was flat, and she could see the thick matt of stubble on his cheeks. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “You’re back early.”
Jill set her purse down on the countertop. The smell of fresh coffee filled the kitchen, and she poured herself a cup. Molly sprawled on the kitchen floor beside Alex’s chair. She did not rise to greet Jill. Instead, she shifted, positioning herself between them. The subtle rise
in Alex’s eyebrows told her he caught the shift in Molly’s protective stance.
“Yeah, I wrapped up my meetings and decided to catch an earlier flight. I’m wiped.”
“You okay?” Alex asked, not taking his eyes off of her face. There was something about the way he was looking at her that set her on edge. He looked wary.
“I think I’ve got a bug, and I’ve really been dragging the past few days.” She sat down across from Alex, glancing at the stack of bills distributed on the table. “What’s all this?”
“I had some time, so I thought I’d sort through the mail. I don’t think you could cram another piece of paper into the basket.” Dropping his gaze to the pile of papers in front of him, he began to methodically stack them.
“Is that all?” Jill tried to keep her tone light, but anxiety knotted in her stomach. Alex was probably just paying the bills. But why did she have a feeling there was more to it than that?
Alex snapped the lid of his laptop closed and set the bills on top of it.
“Actually, no.” He ran his hands roughly over his face, fingers pressing against his closed eyelids, before looking back at her.
“Jackson was shot yesterday.”
“What?” She felt a jolt of shock electrify her. She stared at Alex.
“They think it may have been related to the Honeywell case.”
“But you caught him. He’s in custody.”
“He was released.”
“Why?” she asked, trying hard to let her head catch up with what Alex was saying.
“The judge presiding over the case threw out the Winthrop search warrant.”
Jill didn’t have to ask Alex how he felt; anger and contempt were clearly evident on his face.
“How’s Jackson?”
“He’s out of surgery, but it’s still too soon to say.”
Jill’s fingers pressed against her lips as she thought of Jackson. He had to pull through. She said as much to Alex, whose flat stare offered little comfort.
“Do you think Jackson was his main target?”
Deadly Lies Page 27
