“It’s better if we wait here. We should know in the next ten minutes.”
He started to pace. “I can’t just stand around and wait.” He grabbed his wife’s hand. “Let’s head over to the pier.”
Two officers walked up to a girl sitting on the rocks, staring at the sky.
“Melissa Chartel?”
She turned quickly at the sound of the officer’s voice. “I didn’t do anything.”
She stood up quickly and took a step back.
“Are you Melissa Chartel?”
She took another step back. “Why do you want to know?”
The female officer stepped up to her. “You are not in any trouble. Your parents are worried about you. They asked us to help find you.”
She took another step back. “My parents are away on business.”
“When they came back this morning you weren’t where you were supposed to be. Now I’m going to ask one last time before I arrest you. Are you Melissa Chartel?”
Slowly she nodded. The first officer took out his phone. “We got her, Lieutenant. She’s alive and well.”
Dani nodded to the Chartels. “They found her. She’s fine.” She returned to the phone.“Bring her to the fifth precinct. I’ll have her parents there in twenty minutes.”
“Do you want us to cuff her?”
“Hold on.” Dani looked at the Chartels. “Do you want the officers to teach her a lesson?”
They both smiled. “Sure, why not?” Mrs. Chartel answered. “It couldn’t hurt.”
Dani smiled. “Go ahead with that. Not too tight, but put a little scare into her.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded to his partner.
The female officer reached for her cuffs. “Melissa Chartel, you are under arrest for running away. Turn around and put your hands on your head.”
Melissa took a step back. I didn’t run away. I was just down here thinking.”
“You can tell it to the judge. Turn around.”
Melissa took a minute to weigh her options. If she ran away from the police her parents would kill her. They were going to ground her for life as it is for leaving Genie’s house without telling anyone, but running from the police, they would definitely kill her. She could probably talk her way out of the grounding after a week or so. She couldn’t get out of it if she was dead.
Slowly she put her hands on her head and closed her eyes.
After two hours spent talking to the Chartels, Dani finally made it back to her office. While scaring Melissa by arresting her was the original plan, it quickly turned to be another open case. It seems Melissa was not that upset that Robbie hadn’t asked her to the dance. Oh, she was upset about that, but seeing a girl about her age that looked exactly like her had pushed Robbie down on her list of problems.
She had been going to that spot on the pier for over a week now trying to figure it all out. Melissa was heading to her part-time job at the movie theater when she saw herself getting on the train on the other side of the platform. After the initial shock she headed for the girl, but the train pulled out before she could jump on. Unfortunately, even by going to the same spot at the same time every day this week, she has not seen her again.
Dani hated to show her the picture of the dead girl, but it had to be done. Now she had a fourth puzzle to figure out. She leaned back against her desk and stared at her case board.
“I guess I can knock it back to three puzzles if I remove Jake from the board,” she mumbled to herself.
The problem with that was she would have to admit to herself that he really was who he said he was. Oh, she believed it. How could she not? He seemed to be every bit the detective everyone said he was. It had never crossed Dani’s mind to have the Chartels take a DNA test to match to the Jane Doe’s. He handled the interview with both Jennifers like a pro. And most importantly, he was determined to find out who killed Zach.
She shook her head and grabbed her keyboard. With a sigh she removed Jake’s profile. She still kept his file on her desktop for easy access, but she had to put him aside for now. She returned to the computer to organized the three cases that were left. She had just sat back in her usual thinking position with her feet on her desk and her hands clasped behind her head when Jake barged into her office.
“Lieutenant, let’s go!”
“Don’t you ever knock?”
“No time. We have to go now.” He turned away.
When he realized she wasn’t following, he yelled back, “Now, Lieutenant!”
Dani had no idea what was going on, but there was no way she was going to let him get away with ordering her around. Slowly she grabbed her jacket. As she started out she realized that even though she didn’t know him that well, he would never order her around unless it was important. She picked up her pace, ran her hand across Zach’s picture, and ran to catch up with Jake.
“What the hell is your problem?” Dani yelled as she caught up to him as he entered the parking garage.
“I’ll tell you on the way. Where’s the car?”
“You’ll tell me now!” She took the car keys out and twirled them around her finger.
Jake grabbed them from her as he frantically continued to look for the car. “I think Jennifer was murdered.”
“What? Why would you think that?”
Jake stopped and looked directly into her eyes. “I’ll fill you in on the way. Now where is the damn car?”
The look in his eyes had Dani grabbing the keys back and running for the car. As soon as they cleared the garage Jake stuck the light on top of the car and hit the siren. Dani remained quiet until they were speeding down the expressway.
“What’s going on?”
“After hearing Jennifer’s story about why Katie ran away, I got this weird feeling. If that scum of a boyfriend, Matt, can hit her for suggesting that his son has been bothering Katie, I have no doubt that he was not the best roll model for Daren. I wanted to keep an eye on Jennifer and Katie so I had dispatch get in touch with me if anything came up on their names or address.”
He ran his fingers through his hair and blew out a long, slow breath.
“I just got a call from dispatch. They dispatched an ambulance and the police to the house about an hour ago.”
Dani swerved around a truck and hit the gas. “Why do you think she was murdered?”
“Again, just a feeling, but dispatch did say the person that called it in was screaming she was dead.”
“It may not be Jennifer. It could be Jennifer was the one that called it in.”
Jake sighed. “I don’t want to think about that, because the only person I can see Jennifer screaming about being dead is Katie.”
Dani cut back and forth between lanes to get to the exit as fast as possible.
CHAPTER 14
JENNIFER’S AND KATIE’S HOUSE WAS only three blocks from the exit off the expressway. As she made the turn onto their street, Jake turned off the lights and siren. The street was blocked with police and rescue trucks. Dani flashed her badge to get through the roadblock set up at the entrance to the street. She slammed on the brakes, triple parking the car next to an unmarked police car similar to theirs.
“This time I’ll take lead,” she told Jake as she got out of the car.
Showing the badge to the seven or eight men and women that asked who they were, they made it up to the front door without much fuss. That changed as they made it to the top step.
“Who are you?” the officer at the door asked as he stood up straighter.
“Lieutenant Castello.” She showed her badge and motioned over her shoulder toward Jake. “That’s Detective Santos. What happened here?”
“You’re a little out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you?”
“Jennifer Granta is a witness in one of our cases. We were here this morning interviewing her.” Dani’s snatched her phone off her hip when it rang. “Manark, did you find her?”
“Maybe. One of my guys saw a girl that fits her description in the Bronx.”
“Where?”
“She just got off the train at 76th Street. He tried to get to her, but the crowd got in the way and he lost her.”
“That’s about ten blocks from her house. Hopefully she’s coming this way. Thanks, Manark. I owe you one.”
“Don’t worry about it. This one’s on me. It’s the least I can do for Zach.”
Dani hung up and turned to Jake. “Katie may be heading this way.”
“God, not now. If what we think happened in there she’ll be devastated.”
Dani turned back to the officer. “What’s going on?”
“Maybe you should talk to the lead detective.” He hit the talk button on his shoulder radio. “Sir, I think you need to step outside for a minute.”
“What is it? I’m a little busy at the moment.”
“There’s a Lieutenant and Detective from the fifth precinct here to see Ms. Granta.”
Less than a minute later, Detective Jeremy Vanella stepped out the front door.
“Dani?”
“Jeremy?”
After a moment of them staring at each other, Jake broke the trance. “You two know each other?”
Dani cleared her throat. “Detective Jeremy Vanella, meet Jake Santos.”
When he turned toward Jake, he sucked in a breath and his eyes got big. “Zach?”
Jake stuck out his hand. “No, Jake. I’m Zach’s twin brother.”
Jeremy turned back to Dani with the usual question in his eyes. “Long story. What’s going on here?”
He stared at Jake another moment before turning his attention back to Dani. “Come in.”
He motioned them inside as lightning struck over the house followed by a loud boom of thunder.
“Great. It seems we’re going to get that storm.”
As they entered the living room, Dani and Jake stopped dead in their tracks. “God, no!” Jake exclaimed.
Dani brought her hands to her mouth as another loud boom echo through the neighborhood. “What happened?”
“Her throat was slashed. She bled out quickly.”
“Son of a bitch.” Dani stepped closer to the body. “What’s time of death?”
“About ten-fifteen. They’ll pin it down when we get her to the morgue.” Jeremy looked at each of them. “What’s your connection?”
“She was Zach’s high school girlfriend. We were here this morning talking to her about her missing daughter. It seems Zach recently found out he was a father and that his sixteen-year-old daughter has run away.”
Jake continued. “It seems he may have been killed while looking for her.”
Jeremy took Dani’s hand. “I’m sorry. I was at the funeral, but you didn’t look like you wanted company, so I stayed back.”
“Thanks.”
Another flash of lightning and thunder struck, making Dani jump.
“Still hate storms, I see,” Jeremy smiled.
Before Dani could respond, a scream came from the doorway. “No, no, Mommy, no!”
Katie looked at her mother on the floor and screamed again.
“Sorry, sir,” the officer from the door apologized. “She ran right past me.”
“No.” Katie shook her head. She looked at Dani and Jake. She sucked in a breath, quickly turned and took off running out the door.
“Damn it,” Jake and Dani yelled at the same time, taking off after her.
As they stepped out the door the rain started coming down in buckets. They ran right into a gurney that was being wheeled into the house. By the time they found which way Katie was going, she had a good lead on them.
Katie took them on a tour of the Bronx. Every time one of them got close enough to grab her she would take a sharp turn and get a lead again. She used just about every person on the streets rushing to get out of the downpour as blockers. She ran into the street, using the cars to slow them down. She weaved in and out of streets and alleyways.
“Damn it, Katie, stop,” Dani yelled.
“We want to help you,” Jake yelled.
She slowed to look over her shoulder at them. She turned and ran into traffic again. Jake was nearly hit by a cab as he followed her. Dani kept running, not worrying if he was hit or not. She caught up with Katie as she rounded a tree in the park. Dani dove to take Katie down. They both hit the next tree hard, falling to the ground, landing in a mud puddle.
“Katie, stop,” Dani yelled as she held her down. “Stop. We want to help you.”
Katie fought Dani until there was no fight left. She fell back and took a deep breath. Jake walked up to them.
Dani slowly got off of her. “Are you okay?”
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” Katie cried.
“I’m sorry, honey, she is.”
“No.” Katie covered her face with her hands. “She can’t be dead. I have nobody else.”
Jake knelt down next to her. “We’ll figure it out. We’ll help you.”
Katie removed her hands from her face and looked at him. She quickly started crab walking away from him. “Leave me alone. You’re dead. I saw you die. Leave me alone.”
When she started to get to her feet, Dani held her down. Jake took a few steps back.
“No, Katie,” Jake shook his head. “I’m not dead. I want to help you.”
“No, no. You’re a ghost. Leave me alone.” She tried to get away from Dani’s hold, but the mud was making it hard to get up.
While holding Katie down in the mud, Dani took the car keys out of her pocket and threw them to Jake. “Jake, go. Go back to the house and see what you can find out. Find Vanella. Fill him in on what we know on our end.”
“But…”
“No buts. I’ll take care of Katie. Meet me back at the house.”
She motioned with her eyes to Katie.
Jake stared a moment before turning away and slowly smiling. Somehow he knew that Dani did not mean she would meet him back at the precinct. Just looking in her eyes he knew she meant her apartment. Was it possible that after only a few days of knowing her, he could read her mind?
He shook his head. “Nah, that’s just crazy.”
But as he turned up the street toward Katie’s house, he couldn’t help but wonder if it was.
As soon as Jake was out of sight, Dani knelt in front of Katie and slowly lowered her hands. She wiped some mud away from Katie’s mouth.
“Listen, I’m not very good at this comfort stuff, but I need you to trust me. We’re going to help you.”
Katie tried to move away again. “You can’t help me. No one can help me. I’m all alone.”
“No you’re not. I can and will help you. Why don’t we go to my place and get cleaned up. We can talk there. I promise you’ll be safe with me.”
Katie shook her head. “I don’t know you. I can’t go with you.”
“I’m a Lieutenant with the 5th precinct, but you know that already. You sent me an email to my precinct account about your friend Willy.”
“A lot of good it did. You think he killed himself when he didn’t. He was murdered and you don’t care.”
“I do care. I care more than you can ever imagine. I know he didn’t kill himself. We’re doing everything we can to find his killer. Please trust me, Katie. I promise I will find whoever hurt Willy and I swear on my life that I will help and protect you. Come with me and I’ll tell you why you mean a lot to me.”
“What does that mean?”
“Come on. Let’s go get cleaned up, then we’ll talk. I don’t know about you, but I have some mud where I would rather I didn’t.”
Katie gave her a smile. It was slight, but it was there. Dani stood up extending her hand. “I’ll explain everything. Come with me.”
Katie ignored her hand, but got up. “I’ll come with you, but if I don’t like what you say, I’m leaving and you won’t stop me.”
She walked away.
Dani ran her hands down her face and followed.
Jake walked past the officer at the door. He found Detective Vanella watching the CSI
team from the hallway. “How do you know Dani?” he asked as he watched the morgue personnel put Jennifer on a gurney.
“What makes you think we know each other?”
“Beside the fact that you’re on a first name basis, I can read the looks you gave each other.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s taking care of Katie. Are you going to answer me?”
“We were partners for three years when we were in uniform.”
“And?” They stepped out of the way as the gurney was wheeled past them.
Detective Vanella turned to Jake as the gurney left the room. “And you’ll have to ask her if you need more information than that.”
Jake smiled. “Fair enough. Do you have any idea what happened here? Who called it in?”
“You first. What do you know about this?” He motioned around the room.
Jake ran his hand through his hair to get some of the water out. “We were here this morning talking to Ms. Granta.”
“What time was that?”
“A little after nine.”
“What did you talk about?”
“As we said, she was Zach’s high school girlfriend. We just found out about Katie last night. We came by to see if Ms. Granta had heard from her or what she could tell us about Katie.”
When Jeremy stared at him, he continued. “It seems Katie ran away about three weeks ago. She was having no luck finding her and the detective in charge was not being very helpful. She finally called Zach to tell him about Katie. She asked him to help find her. We are also working a case that has three teenage runaways dead. As soon as we found out about Katie we knew we had to step up the search.”
Again Jake ran his hands through his hair. “Before we knew who Katie was to Zach, we knew her. She was a friend of one of the victims. She sent Dani an email about him being killed. We had her, but she ran away from us.”
“Damn. That must have pissed Dani off big time.”
Jake chuckled. “You have no idea. As soon as she found out she was Zach’s daughter, she put one of her CIs on finding Katie. Turns out Zach had already gotten this guy involved. He called as we got here telling us she was spotted in the Bronx.”
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