She fired up the coffee maker and Bahan leaned a hip on the counter and smiled at her. “You look good. Like you’re really happy.”
She paused and thought about Bahan’s observation. She did feel more alive, more like a normal person—with real hope of having a normal life—than she ever had before. “I really am happy, I think.” She turned away from Bahan’s assessing stare, embarrassed by how huge those words felt.
“Are you blushing? Jordan Delany, warrior cop of the drug world?” he teased. “Holy crap, McGee’s made you soft. You’re like a schoolgirl with a crush.”
She grabbed a kitchen towel and snapped it at him. “I’m a schoolgirl who will kick your ass.”
He dodged her attack. “Yee-haw, bad-ass Jordan Delany is now a ranch mama. You’ll probably be pregnant and barefoot the next time I visit.”
She flipped him off and turned to grab the coffee mugs.
“I’m just joking around.” His voice was softer now, more sincere. “I’m happy for you. Everybody deserves a little domestic happiness, I guess.”
She shot him a sideways glance. “Yeah. What about you?”
“Everybody who wants it, that is,” he said, quickly backtracking. “I know nothing about domestic happiness. The only family time I ever enjoyed was when my old man passed out before he stumbled his way home. I’ll take bad guys and bullets any day over this domestic crap.” He stared down at Beauty. “No offense.”
They went to the table and sat. “Well, don’t tell Ty, but sometimes all this domestic crap scares the hell out of me, too. But if I’m ever going to give it a shot, I think now’s the time. And I think now might also be a good time to pull back on some of the long-term undercover. Don’t get me wrong, I still want to do the job. It’s just—”
Bahan held up his hand. “I get it. It’s a hard life. Especially when you’re starting a relationship. Technically I’m not your boss, though. I only put the task forces together. You’re going to have to run this by your commander.”
“I’ve already mentioned it to him.”
Bahan shook his head. “Jordan Delany in love. I never thought I’d see the day. You are really screwed.”
She smiled over the top of her mug. “Seems that way, doesn’t it.”
Bahan reached into his computer bag and pulled out a file folder. He slid it toward her. “I was hoping McGee would be here when I gave this to you.”
Neither of them spoke. The innocent manila folder sent Jordan’s heartbeat into a wild, racing rhythm. A file folder wasn’t how Bahan typically got her up to speed on a new case. She turned it enough to see the label. Jack Delany.
Her stomach churned as if the coffee had been tainted with spoiled milk. “So it’s true?” she murmured.
He nodded. “It’s true.”
“My dad was FBI?”
“For about seven years,” he confirmed. “He was a St. Louis city cop before that.”
She swallowed, choking down a lifetime of believing her dad had been a drug dealer. “So I’ve hated my dad for twenty years, called him every name in the book because I thought he was dealing drugs. But in reality he was doing the same job I do?”
“I’ve only had the file since yesterday, so I haven’t had time to comb through every detail yet. It looks like he was in deep cover with a cartel when things went south for him and another agent. The case file has been sealed for twenty years. It only became available a month or so ago. It’s all on this disk.” He held up the plastic case. “But I’d like to keep the disk.”
Puzzled, she looked at him. “Why would you keep it?”
“I could put together a better picture for you if you give me some time. Some of the information I’ve printed for you to see, some I haven’t. If I keep the disk, you could ask questions any time you need answers. I can help you—”
She pushed back from the table. “I don’t need you to go through the file for me. Do you think I need a damn keeper?” She stood and stomped over to the sink, then slammed down her coffee mug.
“I didn’t say you needed a keeper.” He followed her. “There are reasons cops aren’t allowed to investigate cases related to them. Realistically, if it were my family, there might be things I wouldn’t care to know or see.”
“That’s bullshit. You’d want to know every last detail, just like I do. I mean seriously, I already tried and convicted my dad. Spent twenty years convinced he was nothing more than a drug-dealing loser only to find out he was a cop. Is there really anything else that could make me feel like a bigger shit right now?”
“Believe it or not, I think so.” He paused until she made eye contact. “There are crime scene photos on the disk.”
She shrugged. “So?”
“So?” he repeated. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“You think I haven’t seen crime scene photos? How long have you known me?”
“I think you haven’t seen them of your own family’s murder.”
“I was there, Bahan.” She slammed a hand down on the old ceramic countertop. “What part do you think I don’t remember? The gunshots? Hiding in the closet with the smell of vomit and piss all over me? Crawling through my dad’s blood to try to shake him awake? And you’re going to stand there and tell me I can’t take whatever is on that disk?”
Bahan went still for a moment, then rubbed at the back of his neck. “I’m not saying you can’t take it. I’m saying you don’t have to take it, at least not alone.”
She closed her eyes and took a breath, reminded herself he was trying to help, trying to be a good friend. He didn’t deserve her wrath. “I’m sorry. I know you’re trying to protect me from an ugly truth.” She laid her hand on top of his. “It’s way too late for that. I need to know what really happened that night.”
“Do you? Do you need to know every little detail? Because it seems like you’re happy now. What if that folder takes you back to a place that you’ve spent a lot of years trying to get away from? Digging up the past could make everything worse.”
She thought about the reoccurring nightmares, about all the questions, about the twisted resentment for her father that had been based on a lie. “It could also make everything better. I think I need to take that chance.”
He studied her face, her posture. She made no other pleas. Finally, he nodded. “Okay. Since McGee’s not here, I’ll stay. We can go through it together.”
***
“So what do you think?” Ty asked Isobel as they stared down at the lifeless body of the young blonde nursing student.
“Well, whoever it was did a number on her. Her face is covered in blood. But ultimately, I think cause of death was strangulation.” Isobel bent down and looked closer at the victim’s neck. “Could be a head trauma we can’t see, but I doubt it.”
“I agree. Someone was angry and gave her a few good blows to the face, but I’d also wager that whatever caused those marks on her neck is what killed her.” Ty gently turned one of her hands over. “She wasn’t wearing gloves. Hopefully she’s got enough DNA under her nails to fry someone.”
“All right.” Isobel stood. “Pictures are done. Diagrams are done. I’ll tell the coroner he can have her if you’re okay with it.”
Jonesy approached with an evidence bag in his hand. “If she had any cash, it’s gone, but her iPhone and iPad weren’t touched.”
“Yeah,” Ty said, “this wasn’t a mugging gone wrong. Even if she dropped the purse somewhere back there and he didn’t see it, a thief would’ve taken those diamond earrings. If they’re real, you could pawn them for a good chunk of change.”
“You ready to talk to her roommates?” Isobel asked.
“Lead the way, Detective Riley,” Ty answered.
She waited until they were out of earshot of the other cops. “You can still call me Issy. Detective Riley is a bit formal, considering.”
“I was trying to keep it professional.”
“That’s your loss,” she said with a flirty smile.
“Isobel.”
He stopped walking and waited for her to turn around. “There’s something I should make clear. I’m seeing someone.”
“Seeing someone the way you saw me that night? Or is there more?”
“A lot more,” he said. “We’re living together.”
“I guess that’s your loss, too,” she said and winked at him. “That doesn’t mean you don’t still owe me a meal.”
“Fair enough,” he said with a great deal of relief. Isobel had taken the news well, and he felt better for being upfront. Still, no need to shoot himself in the foot. The less Jordan knew about Isobel Riley, the better.
***
“The thing about losing someone when they’re young is that they never age in your mind. I don’t have any memories of him ever being in a uniform. Mom told us he was a salesman.” Jordan ran a fingertip over the picture of her father in his dress blues. “I wonder what he’d look like today, twenty years later? And what my mom and Katy would look like?”
Bahan was quiet until she glanced up. “Sorry.” She gestured to the documents. “Guess I got caught up for a second.”
“I’ve opened a Pandora’s box for you, and McGee’s going to kick my ass when he finds out I did it when he wasn’t here.”
Jordan grinned and just to piss him off, clucked like a chicken. “Are you scared of Ty, Bahan?” she teased. “I had no idea.”
“I am not scared of him, but I don’t need your big ape of a boyfriend hacked off at me. I can’t very well shoot him, not without a crapload of paperwork.”
Jordan laughed. “He may be big, but he’s harmless.”
“To you, maybe. He’s obsessed with you, thinks you walk on water. I’m just the asshole that brought the folder that threw you into a tailspin.”
Insulted, she narrowed her eyes at him. “Thank you for your confidence in my mental stability.”
“I just think stepping back in time may not be as easy as you think.”
“I know.” She wanted to argue, say that she’d make it through this just fine. Yet truthfully, her stomach was already in knots. “You’re right. I’ve thought about little else since Bellows walked into my office last week and asked if my father could have been FBI. I’ve played the what if game a hundred or more times.”
She shrugged and picked up the picture of her father again. “It makes such perfect sense, you know. My dad was never a bad guy. Never abusive or mean. He loved us, I know he did. It pisses me off that I’m trained to look beyond the obvious lies on the surface, yet I was too messed up to dig deeper for my own dad. Part of me wants to hate myself for it, but I also know there’s a reason I blamed him. I mean, I asked questions. Even at ten years old, I had good bullshit radar. For some reason, everyone around me hid the truth. Now I need to know why.”
“Maybe why isn’t as important as knowing that your old man was a good guy. Couldn’t that be enough?”
She looked up at Bahan. This time she wanted—no, she needed—the truth. The real truth. “No, it isn’t enough. There was a very specific reason I was led to believe my dad was a drug dealer. I can’t take back all the years I hated him, but I can do this much for him.”
She flipped through a few more documents. “Who is this?”
Bahan took a mugshot from her hand. “He was the shooter.”
“No.” She took the photo back, studied it closer. “No, this isn’t him.”
“His name was Anton Linder. The reports state that the first responding officers caught this guy”—Bahan tapped the picture in her hand—“fleeing from your house. And there’s something else you should know. Linder had connections to a very powerful cartel. Care to take a guess as to which?”
No way. Jordan’s gaze locked on to Bahan’s. “Delago?”
“Bingo.”
Memories of her last case surfaced quickly, memories of being beaten nearly to death by a drug distributor for the Delago cartel. The low-grade churning in her gut kicked up another notch. “Jesus. Fate certainly has a way of fucking with you, doesn’t it?” She took a few deep breaths, determined to stay focused in front of Bahan. “I knew the Delago family was powerful and has been around for years, but . . .”
“But nothing. This is why I’d prefer you let me check into things before you go poking around. It’s going to take hours and hours to look through all the documents on that disk and piece everything together.” Bahan scrubbed his hands up and down his face. “I knew I shouldn’t have brought this to you today. Just knew I’d never be able to talk any sense into you.”
“I’m fine.” Bahan had a lot of power and connections; she couldn’t afford to lose his support now. “Look, I’m not stupid enough to think I can remain completely emotionless; it was my family. But I’ve got a handle on it and I won’t let my feelings interfere. I’ll treat this like any other case—gather facts and figure out what really happened. And whatever the truth turns out to be, I’m not going to let it affect my life right now.”
He studied her for a long moment, as if he didn’t believe anything she’d just said.
Finally, she pleaded her case one more time. “Believe it or not, the truth doesn’t make things harder. Knowing my dad was FBI, knowing he was doing the right thing . . . it helps. Someone murdered my family. That’s not ever going to change. But knowing who pulled the trigger, and understanding why . . . I think that’ll help, too.”
He nodded. “I want that closure for you, but only on one condition. If I say you’re done, you’re done.”
“Bossy, much?” Jordan smiled her agreement. Then she picked up the picture of the man identified as the shooter. “Let’s start here.” She shook her head. “This is not who shot my family.”
“According to the report, he is.” Bahan flipped through the stack of papers, pulled out a document, started giving Jordan a rundown. “The first cops to arrive saw that man, identified as Anton Linder, thirty-two, of St. Louis, run from your house, jump into a 1982 Ford Mercury, and flee the scene.”
Bahan handed her the report. “There were two cops. One got out of the cruiser and went into your house. The other followed the suspect a few miles until Linder crashed, killing himself. The gun used in the shootings was in the car with Linder. Ballistics matched. He had the murder weapon right next to him. His fingerprints were all over it.”
“I can’t help what the report says—something isn’t right.” With absolute certainty she knew Linder was not the man she had seen over and over in her dreams. “The man I saw was tall and thin, had long black hair, Native American features, and a big red scar that ran from his eye down to the bottom of his cheek. Time may dull a lot, but it’s never dulled what that son of a bitch looks like. I’d know him anywhere.”
Bahan leaned back in the chair and sighed. “I thought you said you didn’t actually see the shooter? That you were hiding in a closet while your mom, dad, and sister were killed?”
That was true. Technically, she didn’t see the shots fired on the night of the murders. But she’d seen the shooter very clearly in her dream. Every feature, every scar, every strand of hair, every cadence of his body. “I had a dream the night before the murders. That’s when I saw him.”
“You believe this”—Bahan held up the mugshot—“was not the guy who killed your family based on a dream you had over twenty years ago? You said you were going to try to be objective. Two different policemen stated that this guy ran from your house and jumped into a car. The bullets that killed your family match the gun they found sitting next to this guy. He was a local dealer working for the Delago family, notorious for being one of their lynch men. What conclusion would you draw from that?”
“It sounds like a slam dunk, I know. But no one besides me was there. They weren’t inside the house. They didn’t see.”
“Neither did you,” he accused. “You were hiding.”
This—the disbelief from others—was always going to accompany her gift. “How did I know the drug transfer was going to happen in Titus on our last case?”
He paused,
conceding the point. “A dream. I get that.” Then he tilted his head back and shut his eyes briefly, as if channeling patience from some divine power. “I understand about your dreams, and I know how strongly you believe in them, but this is different.”
“Why? I was able to give you every last detail we needed to bust our last case wide open.”
Bahan said nothing.
“I wasn’t wrong then, and I don’t think I’m wrong now. Maybe there was more than one shooter. Maybe the guy I saw was there too and freaked when he heard sirens. He could have dropped the gun, and maybe the other guy grabbed it. I don’t know for sure, but I think these questions are worth asking.”
She fished through a few more documents. Found one from Saunders Funeral Home and Crematorium, which on the surface made sense.
Next she picked up a newspaper article about her family’s murder. It wove a bogus tale of a robbery gone wrong. So much for journalistic truth. She brought the picture next to the article closer to get a better look.
She recognized the man in the picture. Her dad’s brother Bill. Bill had refused to take her in after the murders, which was why she refused to acknowledge his existence to this day. He’d turned his back on her. The way she saw it, he hadn’t earned the right to be called uncle. Not then, and not now.
Even so, there was something other than her disdain for Bill that bugged her about the picture. “There shouldn’t be caskets if you cremate someone, right?”
Bahan shrugged. He was heavily engrossed in a different document. “I guess not. Probably depends on what the family wants. Why?”
“Because as fucked up as I was when all this was going on, I remember spreading my family’s ashes. Bill and I spread them in the lake my family loved to boat on. We didn’t have any other family. So what’s the deal with this funeral and the caskets? And listen to this, the article reads: Robbery gone wrong in North St. Louis. Suspect dead.
“It wasn’t a robbery, it was a goddamned ambush. But this doesn’t say anything about the drug connection at all. Just that two adults and two children were murdered. But that’s not right. Only one child was killed. This doesn’t make any sense.”
Dream Caller (A Dream Seeker Novel Book 3) Page 2
