“See that house there? The one with the satellite dishes on the edge of the roof, right on the corner? Well, they’re always getting complaints, making the cops come by late at night to make them shut the music off because they have these parties in their yard that get pretty loud. My dad told us to stay away from them because they got busted for dealing pot.”
Craig made a note. “Did they have a party last night?”
The teen nodded. “Yeah.”
“Any idea what time they were in the yard?”
“Midnight, I guess. My mom works the three to eleven shift at the hospital, and she usually gets home around eleven thirty. She’d been here long enough to make herself a snack and go yell at Alec for not cleaning his room. I was on my way to bed, and the music came on. Always the same boom-boom-boom, making the dogs bark and the windows rattle.”
“So they had it on for a while?”
He shrugged. “I put my headphones on.”
“I didn’t get your name.”
“Ryan Lewis.”
“Did you see or hear anything else last night?”
Ryan’s mouth twisted as he shook his head. “Why? What happened?”
“A woman on the next street was murdered.”
His ruddy cheeks blanched. Then the boy seemed to get even taller. “I wish I could help.”
“Maybe you can. Here’s my card. If you hear anything, let me know. I don’t want you to go around snooping,” Craig said, trying to mimic the stern tone Daly always used on him for lectures. “But maybe you could ask your mom if she saw or heard anything last night when she came home from work. Even the tiniest thing that doesn’t seem important to her could give us a lead.”
Ryan nodded, his mouth set in a firm line. “I won’t overstep. But I will ask my mom.”
“Thanks,” Craig said, starting down the steps. He was halfway down the front walk before he turned around. “And ask if she saw anyone unusual around in the past week or so. You never know.”
The teen nodded, his curly brown hair flopping with the motion, making Craig smile as he walked away. He pictured a slightly older Ryan Lewis in the red serge with his long hair getting measured by a frowning Steve Daly before Daly launched into a lecture about regulated appearance code.
“What the hell is going on out there, Daly? We’ve got some sadistic rapist terrorizing the women of this city, and now he’s graduated to murder. What’s being done to put a stop to this?”
Daly looked up from his desk. He was beginning to feel like all he did was sit at work, offering hollow answers about cases they couldn’t make headway on. “Open cases nationwide are being reviewed, and we’re looking at local known offenders who might fit the particulars.”
“That’s management speak bullshit and you know it. What’s being done right now?” Inspector Hawkins slammed his hand down on Daly’s desk for effect.
As though he needed to drive the point in. Daly waited until Hawkins’s red cheeks deflated a bit and he sank into a chair. Then Daly answered.
“Craig is out canvassing the area, trying to find witnesses. He’s been through the crime scene and will review all the evidence. He’s on top of this.”
Hawkins stopped rubbing his chin and stared at Daly as his cheeks went white and then flushed.
“Your little prodigal is working his ass off, is that it? What’s Lori doing, making coffee?”
Daly felt his neck burn. “I haven’t got a clue what she’s doing—”
“Don’t you think it’s your responsibility to supervise her too? You have to stop pandering to that kid of yours and be a real team leader, Daly.”
“You have a son who’s an RCMP officer in this district too, Dennis.”
“This isn’t about me, is it?”
Daly clenched his hands into fists and leaned forward. “I don’t know what Lori is doing because she never bothered to show up for work this morning. And she didn’t think it might be important to phone in sick or make up some excuse and let us know what the hell is going on.”
The color drained from Hawkins’s face a second time. Finally, he sprang up from the chair and turned on his heel.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he paced the room, arms folded across his chest, with his head down. “I’m just worried. We’re going to take a beating over this.”
“Look, I know we are. I don’t know what more I can do. These rapes are right across the Tri-Cities. We’ve increased the overtime and circulated every bit of information possible to all officers. At this point, with no profile, with no geographic area to concentrate on…” Daly shrugged. “We’re up shit creek.”
Hawkins stopped pacing. “And what are you going to do about Lori?”
A sharp knock at the door prevented Daly from answering. The door sprang open, and Daly’s assistant stuck her head in, glanced at Hawkins but didn’t retreat. She extended her hand to pass him a note.
“There’s been another rape,” she said. “And I think you might want to handle this personally, sir.”
Daly felt his heart flailing against his chest as he stood up to take the message. He glanced at the address. “Alderside Road in Port Moody. Doesn’t mean anything to me,” Daly said as Hawkins snatched the paper from his hand.
He looked up at Daly, his mouth hanging open.
“Get your coat. And call Craig. Hey!” He rushed into the hallway, Daly able to hear him yelling instructions at his assistant. “And tell them to make sure not a damn, bloody person sets foot in this house before we say it’s okay.” Hawkins barged back into the office, Daly still frozen at his desk, his phone in hand but the number not yet dialed. “What are you waiting for?” Hawkins demanded.
“I…” Daly thought better of what he wanted to say, mindful that Hawkins would only tolerate so much candor, even at the best of times, which this clearly wasn’t.
He dialed Craig’s number and watched Hawkins turn abruptly, rubbing his eyes, his lips moving silently.
Daly felt as though the floor had come out from underneath him. Hawkins looked like he was resorting to prayer. He swallowed. Here he’d been thinking things couldn’t get much worse.
It looked like he was wrong.
Tain tugged on the door. “Churches keeping their doors locked during the afternoon.”
“Late afternoon,” Ashlyn corrected. “When all those rotten kids are out of school and on the loose. This is the time of day I’d lock up if I lived in this neighborhood. Let’s try for a side door.”
They followed a narrow walkway around the building.
“This looks promising.” Tain nodded at a side entrance with double glass doors. He walked up the steps and pulled on the door on the right, which didn’t budge. Then he tried the door on the left.
“Seek and ye shall find,” he said, walking inside.
“Maybe next time you’ll think of ‘knock and the door shall be opened to you,’” an older man said as he stepped into the foyer. He was dressed in black, with the only relief being his clerical collar. “I’m Father Benjamin.”
“Tain,” he said, holding up his ID. “My partner, Ashlyn Hart.”
Only the faintest shadow flickered across his face. “You’re here about Lindsay.”
“We were hoping to ask Luke Driscoll some questions,” Ashlyn said.
The priest’s overgrown eyebrows merged into one thick line. “Luke is a respected member of this church, well-liked by all the families. He is very devoted to the youth program, and we’re lucky to have him.”
Ashlyn and Tain glanced at each other. Unsolicited defense? Tain noticed Ashlyn’s eyebrow arch just a touch, and he coughed to conceal the smirk he felt tugging at his mouth.
“It must be reassuring to have such good people helping with the youth in your church. We just need to ask him about someone he may have seen at the rec center last night,” Ashlyn said.
The eyebrows disconnected and after a slight pause, Father Benjamin nodded. “You’re fortunate. Normally, Luke’s at work, but he took a persona
l day today. He’s quite upset about the incident.”
The incident? Tain let Ashlyn take the lead, following Father Benjamin along a corridor, up a few steps, through an unmarked door, past a baptismal tank and into the sanctuary. He could see past Ashlyn to the bent head resting against a pew in the second row.
Father Benjamin cleared his throat and stepped aside. Tain nodded his thanks and followed Ashlyn to the first pew, where they sat down, twisting around to wait for Luke to look up.
“There’s no news, then?” The voice came, loud and clear despite the fact that the blond head was still lowered against the pew.
“We’re following some leads,” Ashlyn said, her voice a bit quieter, more hushed than Tain was used to. “That’s why we’re here.”
Luke lifted his head, the tousled hair giving way to the wrinkled brow, the red-rimmed eyes and the tear-streaked cheeks showing a bit of stubble. He stared unblinking at them but said nothing.
“We’ve been reviewing the security tape from the rec center,” Tain told him. “Can you think back to when you were leading the group down the hall, toward the change room?”
“It’s, uh, ahem, pretty much all I can think about,” Luke choked out, his eyes welling up at first and then his cheeks going red as he cleared his throat. He’d regained enough composure to speak, but his fingers were digging into the wooden bench in front of him.
Tain wondered what had happened to the quick smile and calm composure from the night before. “There was someone who walked around from behind the group and came along the far side of the hallway. Someone you needed to move for, to let them pass.”
Luke turned to stare at Ashlyn for a moment and then blinked. “I, uh, I just remember counting the kids, waiting for the dawdlers to catch up. I was only worried about keeping all the kids together.”
“So you don’t remember anyone moving behind you?” she asked.
“I, uh, I don’t know. Why? What does it matter?” Luke’s gaze drifted down to his hands and then below, to the back of the pew he was gripping, as though maintaining eye contact was requiring an enormous amount of energy and he didn’t have the strength for the task.
Tain saw Ashlyn’s quick glance, and he felt the corners of his mouth twisting a bit. “We have reason to think the person who took Lindsay was in the hallway when your group came in.”
Luke’s head jerked up, and the remaining tinge of color dissipated from his face. “So this guy was right there, right there, and I didn’t even notice? What the hell is wrong with me?”
He slumped forward, and his shoulders started to shake.
After a moment, Ashlyn glanced at Tain and then slid off the pew, drifting away down the aisle, studying the archi tecture.
Tain finally put a hand on Luke’s arm. “This isn’t your fault.”
“Tell that to the parents. They want me replaced as the primary youth worker.”
The unsolicited defense and the desperation on Luke’s face were starting to make sense.
“We figure this guy, he planned this.” Tain pulled out a card and tucked it under the few exposed fingers. “If you do think of anything else, call us.”
He stood up and walked toward Ashlyn, who had craned her neck to study one of the stained-glass panels.
“Noah’s ark and the expulsion from Eden I get, but what is that?”
“You’re asking me?” He shrugged.
“The sacrifice of Isaac,” the scratchy voice said from behind them.
They glanced back and moved apart to give Father Benjamin some room between them. He nodded at the representation above the doors to the foyer. “Abraham is commanded by God to sacrifice his only son. Just before Abraham killed the boy with the knife, he heard God tell him his son was spared. He found a ram in the bushes and sacrificed it instead.”
“What’s the boy, Isaac, lying on?” Ashlyn asked.
“Wood. Abraham was commanded to give his son as a burnt offering to God.”
Tain saw Ashlyn glance at him as Father Benjamin led them out into the entry area and opened the main doors for them to leave.
A burnt offering to God. He could picture Isabella in her purple shirt and green pants, placed upon a bed of sticks and straw and some shadowed figure offering a prayer, lighting a match and dropping it into the kindling, setting her funeral pyre ablaze.
Craig felt his stomach twist when he saw the sea of police-related vehicles. He double checked the address. It was the right house. Once he’d parked he got out of the vehicle and reached for his ID.
He flashed his badge and ducked under the crime-scene tape. As he moved toward the front of the group he noticed a few sympathetic glances being sent his way, but most of the people waiting averted their eyes as soon as he was in their line of sight. A gap opened, and he could see his bosses.
Hawkins was treading a footpath to China, and Daly was as white as a glacier. He glanced up, and his eyes met Craig’s. Craig swallowed. Whatever was going on here, it was bad. Then Hawkins spun on his heel, saw Craig and almost ran down the front walk to him.
“This needs to be handled by the book. I don’t want any shoddy work on this one. I expect you to supervise every minute of the evidence recovery.” Hawkins grabbed his shoulder and almost pushed him up the walkway.
“Absolutely,” Craig said, trying to keep the confusion he felt from showing on his face. He fought the urge to free himself from Hawkins’s grasp. “We’ll do everything—”
“You’ll do more,” Hawkins snapped. “You haven’t been able to catch this guy, and he’s started killing people. I’m personally supervising this case now, and I expect results.”
Craig glanced up and saw the pinch in Daly’s cheeks.
“So we have another murder here?” Craig asked.
Hawkins let go of him. “No, we don’t. We have a police officer, your partner, who’s been raped.”
He strode up the remaining part of the walk, unaware or indifferent to Craig and Daly remaining like statues where he’d left them.
Shit. Craig moved forward automatically as Hawkins turned his glare back in their direction, a sudden image of Ashlyn’s face flashing through his mind, making his throat constrict and his breath catch.
He knew how he’d feel if it had been Ashlyn. He could only guess that was something like how Hawkins felt about having one of his officers raped.
Hawkins opened the door. Craig glanced at Daly, took a deep breath and followed him inside.
The traffic situation Tain and Ashlyn found themselves in was more comparable to trying to navigate an oversized yacht through a crowded marina than driving on a road. It definitely was not a flowing stream of vehicles. Nobody seemed particularly motivated to get anywhere fast; big gaps were left unfilled, tempting drivers from other lanes to pull in. One person had pulled halfway off the road and put his hazards on, his hand gestures emphasizing the importance of the conversation he’d stopped and blocked traffic for.
Ashlyn heard Tain swear under his breath when they passed that particular motorist and turned toward the window so he wouldn’t see her smile.
A year earlier, she hadn’t even known his name. When she had met him, she’d developed an instant dislike for him. It was amusing to think back to their early working relationship, him keeping everyone, especially her and Craig, at arm’s length.
It had been her first real experience in plainclothes work, her first opportunity to prove herself capable of handling the challenges of multiple investigations.
Her first chance to test her gut and follow her instincts.
It had been a hell of a case. At the time, she’d felt like she’d gone through it keeping her head clear, remaining somewhat objective. It was only after they wrapped things up that the enormity of it all hit her, and it had almost been a knockout blow. Solving the case had only been the beginning. An internal investigation of their RCMP detachment had followed, along with disciplinary action for some, like Tain, and others had been fired.
The consequences Tai
n faced had been the toughest thing for her to take. She knew she deserved the same treatment, but he’d shielded her.
He’d even protected Craig.
And without either of them ever saying a word, the one thing she was sure of was that every single one of them had wanted to pull the trigger….
For a while she hadn’t been sure whether she could cut this job. The guys, normally stoic, had reeled from the fallout of that case.
Ashlyn squeezed her eyes shut. Even now, after all this time, she didn’t want to think about it. Couldn’t. She hadn’t realized how glad she’d been that she wasn’t dealing with the child abductions until she was looking at Isabella Bertini’s body. Working with Tain was a blessing and a curse. He was a reminder, but she could joke with him in a way that allowed her to suppress her feelings. No need to worry that he was always second guessing her competency, that she’d be able to keep her emotions in check and do the work.
What Burns Within Page 14
