The Next Victim (Kali O'Brien series)

by Jonnie Jacobs

  Kali felt Bryce stir. He rolled toward her and snaked an arm out of his sleeping bag. But instead of tickling her, as she expected, he pulled her close and kissed the end of her nose.

  “This is the life, isn’t it?” he said.

  “I have to admit it’s pretty nice.”

  She snuggled in the warmth of their impromptu nest, envisioning the day before them. An easy morning walk around the lake, maybe a glass of wine with lunch, and a leisurely afternoon of sunshine and relaxation at the water’s edge.

  “How about hiking to one of the upper lakes today?” Bryce asked.

  “I thought we were going to take it easy.”

  “Sure, after we get back. It’s only about four miles in.”

  “And four miles back,” she pointed out.

  “We should still be back by noon.”

  Inwardly, Kali groaned. But a morning hike would allow her to enjoy her lunchtime wine with impunity. And four miles Kali could do in her sleep. She covered nearly that distance on her regular morning walk at home. “Okay,” she agreed. “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Bring your cell phone, if you want,” Bryce advised. “The pass is only another mile or so beyond the lake. There should be reception near the summit, not to mention a fantastic view.”

  “Good idea.” The inability to make and receive calls was the only real drawback to the place. Even with her associate, Jared, covering for her at the office, and her neighbor Margot keeping an eye on the house and her dog, it made Kali nervous to be out of touch. “Are you going to call in, too?”

  “Not me.” He grinned. “Vacation means getting away from all that.”

  <><><>

  As it turned out, four miles scrambling over granite with a thousand-foot rise in elevation was nothing like four miles on the paved streets of Berkeley. And counting the times they’d missed the trail and taken a wrong turn, they’d gone far more than four miles by the time they reached the upper lake. By then it was already noon, and Kali had given up her fantasy of lunch on the deck and an afternoon swim. She agreed to press on to the summit, because having come this far, she wanted to make her calls.

  The trail to the top was steep and hot, an endless succession of rocky switchbacks. But she reached the summit before Bryce did and was rewarded with an impressive, panoramic vista. A succession of Sierra lakes fanned out below her to the west, and to the east, a gently sloping trail meandered through a mountain meadow before disappearing in a steep descent into the next valley. She let her eyes feast on the beauty of it all while she breathed deeply to catch her breath.

  “What took you so long?” she joshed when Bryce appeared some two minutes later, still huffing with the exertion of the ascent.

  “Watch it, lady. You take a nosedive off a ledge way out here, and no one’s going to know what happened.” He stripped the pack from his shoulders and offered her some water.

  Kali felt exhilarated by the strenuous climb and proud of herself for having done it. Her spoiled afternoon plans were only a minor irritation. She handed back the water bottle, took out her cell phone, and made several calls while Bryce explored the rocky outcroppings around them.

  “Anything important?” he asked when she was finished.

  “Jared seems to be holding down the fort just fine at the office, and Margot says Loretta misses me, but I know she’s just saying that to make me feel better.”

  “Dogs are very loyal,” Bryce pointed out.

  “Oh, Loretta’s loyal, but she also recognizes a sweet deal when she’s got it.”

  “No urgent messages, then?”

  “Nope. My hairdresser called to change an appointment, the stockbroker who’s been trying to get my business wants to schedule a meeting, and my brother called.”

  “John? Did you call him back?”

  Kali shook her head. “We haven’t talked in months. Waiting a few more days isn’t going to matter. We won’t have anything to say to one another, anyway.”

  “Then why’d he call?”

  “Who knows? Sabrina probably browbeat him into it.” Her sister lived under the misguided notion that she could orchestrate everyone’s life.

  Bryce offered Kali more water, then capped the bottle without taking any for himself.

  “Aren’t you thirsty?”

  He shrugged. “We’re getting low.”

  Another miscalculation. Like the amount of time it would take them to get to the lake, and the missed forks in the trail.

  “Should I be getting worried?” she asked.

  “We could make it back with no water if we needed to. It won’t be nearly as hard as the hike in. It’s just that I underestimated.”

  Kali knew Bryce was embarrassed and her heart went out to him. Befuddled and vulnerable was sexy in a man who was used to calling the shots.

  “We’ll ration what’s left, then,” she told him. “But we should share equally.”

  “I want you to have it, Kali. You’ve been a good sport about this.”

  “Hey, I’m having fun.”

  Surprisingly, she was.

  “When am I going to get to meet your family?” Bryce asked as they headed back down the steep path.

  “You want to?” Bryce would have less in common with her siblings than she did.

  “Of course I want to.”

  What did it say about their relationship, Kali wondered, that he was interested in meeting her brother and sister when she’d never once thought of introducing him? For that matter, what did it say about her own relationship with them?

  “There are three of you, right?”

  She nodded. “John’s the oldest. He was already away at college when my mother died.” Her mother’s suicide Kali’s freshman year in high school had been a defining point in her life, yet John had barely acknowledged it. She’d since come to realize that avoidance was his way of coping with the loss, but at the time she’d felt he’d abandoned her.

  “You’ve mentioned before what a tough time that was for you.”

  “Yeah, it was.” Kali’s foot slipped on a sandy patch of steep granite and she staggered to catch her balance. She slowed her pace a bit. “John and I weren’t particularly close growing up. I was the pesky baby sister he didn’t want to be bothered with.”

  “And it hasn’t gotten any better?”

  She shrugged. “Mostly, I don’t think about him much, and I doubt he thinks about me. But when we’re together, we get along okay.”

  Bryce crossed a fallen log bridging a creek bed, then turned to offer Kali a hand. She’d nearly fallen off on their way up.

  “John’s lived all over the world,” she said when she reached solid ground again. “He’s been involved in some questionable business practices—and habits. He went through rehab once for addiction to painkillers. But he’s done all right for himself. Made a small fortune at one point, then lost most of it when the market went south.”

  “He’s in Tucson now?”

  Kali nodded. “Working for a fraternity brother whose family owns a chain of grocery stores.”

  “Your sister’s in Arizona, too, isn’t she?”

  “Scottsdale. She’s a lot more like John than I am, and she keeps trying to make us all one big, happy family.”

  “Nothing wrong with that.” Bryce sounded almost wistful. From the little he’d told her, his family made hers look like the Brady Bunch.

  “Except that Sabrina wears blinders when it comes to reality,” Kali explained. “She keeps trying to make things fit her fantasy.” Kali was pretty sure her sister nagged at John as much as she did at Kali.

  Only Kali wouldn’t have expected John to give in. Usually, she was the one who reached out to him—with mixed results. Still he had called. It was, she decided, an interesting new twist to their relationship.

  Chapter 4

  After a string of late nights, Erling arrived home Monday evening in time for dinner. Sandwiches actually, but at least they were all three eating together, seated at the round pine table in th
e kitchen. Deena had set out red-checkered place mats and matching cloth napkins.

  “You should have told me you’d be home,” she said, reaching her well-tanned arm across the table for the pepper. “I’d have made a real meal.”

  “I didn’t know myself until the last minute.” But he should have called, Erling realized now. Deena continually complained that she never knew when to expect him. “Besides, I love tuna salad sandwiches.”

  She made a face like yeah, sure. “Anyway, we’re honored you could make it home.”

  Erling was working on a response when she held up a palm. “Wait, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” She smiled at him warmly with dimpled cheeks, then covered his hand with her own. Her fingers were stubby, the nails unadorned except for streaks of indelible yellow marker that must have been part of the day’s classroom project. As a first-grade teacher, Deena had a signature style that often involved splashes of primary colors, or grime.

  “I honestly wasn’t being facetious,” she told Erling. “We’ve missed you. Haven’t we, Mindy?”

  “Geez, Mom. It’s not like he’s been on a trip or anything. He’s come home at night.” Mindy shot a sideways glance at the readout on her cell phone, momentarily distracted. Then she frowned. “Hasn’t he?”

  Deena brushed the air with her hand. “Can’t you put that away honey? In fact, turn it off. We’re eating dinner.”

  Mindy moved the phone closer to her plate, but she didn’t turn it off. Erling supposed he should jump in and say something stern but in truth, the phone didn’t bother him. If Mindy had friends calling her, all the better. In high school she’d had few enough of them.

  “Of course he’s come home,” Deena continued, looking again at Erling. “But your dad’s been putting in some very long days though.”

  Long and tough, Erling thought.

  Homicide investigations were inevitably demanding, but this one was taking a greater toll on him than most. Bad enough he was emotionally entangled with one of the victims. Worse, because of that, he was walking an ethical tightrope. By all rights he should have removed himself from the investigation. With every day that passed, he wondered if he’d made the right decision.

  It was also a high-profile case, and the pressure to close it, intense. Tomorrow would make it a week since the murder occurred, and the lieutenant, eager for a break, was breathing down Erling’s neck. The victims’ families demanded constant updates. And with Sloane’s family ties to the well-known Logan Foods, the press was having a heyday digging for dirt.

  “Unfortunately, it’s not over,” Erling told his family.

  “How’s it going?” Deena asked.

  Erling shrugged. This was one case he wasn’t eager to talk about. “How was your day?”

  Deena smiled. “Could have been better, could have been worse.” She tucked a strand of silver-streaked hair behind her ear. “I heard on the radio you have a suspect.”

  “A person of interest,” Erling corrected. Although John O’Brien certainly topped his unofficial list of potential suspects.

  “An employee with Logan Foods, isn’t he?”

  Erling nodded. “An executive VP, and a friend of Reed Logan’s from college.”

  “A longtime friend of Sloane Winslow’s too, from what I hear. There was an interview on the radio today with her ex-husband. He said the suspect . . . the person of interest . . . was an old boyfriend of hers.”

  Hearing Sloane’s name flow so casually from his wife’s lips caused Erling’s breath to catch in his throat. Or maybe it was the old boyfriend remark. Or ex-husband. He had no right to be jealous of either man, but he was.

  “Does their relationship have something to do with why he killed her?” Deena asked. “Were they still involved?”

  “No, they weren’t,” Erling bristled. He swallowed a mouthful of sandwich and washed it down with water. “Why are you so interested, anyway? You usually don’t like my talking about work. Especially over dinner.”

  “But this murder has been in the headlines. Everyone’s talking about it. I’m interested.”

  Erling let his breath out slowly. The important thing was to act as if it was just another case. “O’Brien and Winslow have been butting heads over company policy. O’Brien was apparently pushing for greater profitability. Winslow wanted to focus on quality. Expand organic product lines, carry free-range poultry and grass-fed beef, that sort of thing.”

  Mindy slouched in her chair, her freckled face resting on one hand. “Seems like a stupid reason to kill someone,” she huffed. “Like anyone really cares what their hamburger ate growing up.”

  “You may not,” Deena scolded, “but some people do. And that’s not really the issue. It’s a power struggle about the direction of a business.”

  Mindy rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

  “The rift was fairly deep,” Erling explained. “Word is that Slo . . ., Mrs. Winslow was pressuring her brother and the other directors to get rid of O’Brien.”

  “They could do that?” Mindy had a finely tuned sense of what was fair. “For no reason?”

  Erling nodded, but before he had a chance to explain the workings of corporate boards, Deena jumped in with another question.

  “Anything that points to him actually having killed her?” she asked.

  “They were known to have argued the night she was killed,” Erling said, keeping the explanation brief. Discussing Sloane’s murder with his wife was both terrifying and painful. “There’s also a witness who puts a car similar to his at her house later that same night.”

  “What does John O’Brien say?”

  “As little as possible.”

  Erling’s dislike for the man went beyond what he usually felt for an uncooperative suspect. Maybe it was O’Brien’s former brushes with the law—DUI and assault—though both charges had been dropped. Maybe because he’d been at odds with Sloane. Or it could simply have been the arrogance and raw good looks of a man blessed with the sort of movie-actor appeal Erling distrusted. And, as Sloane had once told him, John O’Brien had been her first real boyfriend. Her first lover. Whatever the reason, Erling’s gut instinct was that O’Brien was guilty. And nothing he’d learned in the investigation had changed his mind.

  “It’s a shame about the girl.” Deena turned to Mindy. “Did you know her?”

  “It’s a big school, Mom.”

  “Yes, you’re right. I just thought since you’re both sophomores . . . Anyway, it’s a real tragedy She worked for Sloane Winslow?” This last was directed to Erling.

  He nodded as he poked an errant slice of tomato back into his sandwich. “General housekeeping and errands. In return, she got a place to live rent free. The girl was working to put herself through school.”

  “Unlike someone we know,” Deena said pointedly with a glance in Mindy’s direction.

  Mindy had known since high school that if she wanted to live on campus, she had to earn the money herself. She hadn’t, so she lived at home. She faulted her parents for being stingy; they accused her of being spoiled. Truth was, Erling was relieved that he could keep her close for a bit longer. Losing Danny had made him more protective than ever of his remaining child.

  “So she had a job,” Mindy replied haughtily. “Look what happened to her. She’s dead. Is that what you want for me?”

  “Of course not!” Deena barked, her face suddenly ashen. “It’s a silly analogy.”

  Maybe it was silly, but Erling’s initial reaction hadn’t been all that different from Mindy’s. A girl the same age as his daughter, a classmate in fact, killed for no reason other than that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Under different circumstances, it might have been Mindy. The thought squeezed his heart. Its grip had been especially painful during the autopsy.

  Erling had never gotten comfortable with the acrid smell of formalin, the grating whir of saw blades on bone, the splaying open of a human being. For the most part, he’d learned to steel himself against the procedure by
bottling his feelings until it was over. There were limits, however. He’d passed on Sloane’s autopsy, claiming a schedule conflict, and sent Michelle instead. He knew that seeing Sloane’s once warm and familiar flesh laid out on a steel table under harsh lighting would be more than he could bear. He’d attended Olivia Perez’s autopsy, though. And the whole time, the refrain had played in his head: This could have been Mindy.

  “Okay, so I’ll get a job,” Mindy muttered. “I’ll move out. Will that satisfy you?”

  “We’re happy to have you live here,” Deena said.

  She looked to Erling for support, and he nodded just as his beeper went off. “You can stay as long as you’d like. You know that.” He checked the readout and saw that it was Michelle. “Sorry,” he told his family, “I’ve got to call in.”

  Deena frowned. “Surprise, surprise.”

  Erling went to the kitchen phone and punched in the number. Michelle picked up on the first ring. “We finally got our search warrant,” she said. “But Jenkins is being a bear about it, as usual. The scope is more limited than we’d hoped.”

  Judge Jenkins, a former defense attorney, was a notorious guardian of citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights. He drew his warrants narrowly and with a specificity that drove cops nuts.

  “Lets hope we find something,” Erling said. “Then we can go back and hit him with another affidavit.” It was a tricky, and to Erling’s mind, needless dance, but at least everyone involved understood the moves.

  “You want to serve it tonight or tomorrow morning?” Michelle asked.

  Erling looked across the room at Deena, who was pointedly ignoring him.

  The only thing you care about is work. It’s always the job first. Never your family. Never us. Erling knew what she was thinking because she’d said it often enough. It wasn’t true. Not true at all. He loved Mindy so much it hurt sometimes. His love for Deena was more complicated, but he did love her. And Danny was a hole in his heart big enough to drive a tank through.

  But being a cop wasn’t a job where you could punch out at five. He’d thought Deena understood that when she’d married him. Danny’s death had changed a lot of things.