This Dark Place: A Detective Kelly Moore Novel

by Claire Kittridge

  “Take shelter,” she told the girl. “It’s going to be okay.”

  The sounds of police sirens and an ambulance grew louder and Kelly walked toward the front turnaround where they would arrive, adrenaline preventing her from feeling the full pain of the wound. Minutes had passed since she’d heard the shots. Donaghue was likely dead and there was no going to him in the darkness. She had lost the killer’s trail. Lost everything.

  More people were coming out of the theater building and there was a growing commotion over by the entrance. Suddenly the students looked down at their phones in unison—checking a message they seemed to get simultaneously. Thank god, Kelly thought, there must be some electronic notification system in place.

  Six police cars, a fire truck, and an ambulance cruised into the drive bordering the theater. She ran to the first police car to pull up and showed her badge.

  “Second floor of this building,” she said. “Possible fatality in the projection booth of the main theater. How can I help? what’s the lockdown protocol?” She could feel the blood soaking through her shirt and down her back. Could feel the heat of the day.

  “Is there any description of the shooter?”

  “No.”

  More police from the Specialist Firearms Unit had arrived and were speaking through bullhorns, giving instructions for students to line up to be walked under their cover to the nearest building, where they would shelter in place until further notice.

  “Has anyone else been shot?” the cop asked her.

  “Not that I know of,” she said.

  “We need to get you to an ambulance.”

  “Go, go,” she said. “I’ll get myself there.”

  She started in the direction of the ambulance idling at the curb, but kept weaving back into the crowd.

  How was it possible for him to have disappeared in the seconds it took her to follow him out the stage door exit? She examined the landscape again; roofs, the parking lot—did he have a car?

  Kelly scanned the crowd, recognizing no one. There were a few students on benches who had seemed to just now be understanding the magnitude of what was happening. One of them she did recognize—Quinn Shaw, the prop master—was wearing black boots and dark jeans that were fashionably ripped along the legs. Despite the heat, he wore a heavy leather motorcycle jacket.

  The killer was gone.

  “Hey, Quinn,” she called. “This way.” There were now several officers on the grass in bulletproof vests, helping students to safety, and she knew they would soon put her into the ambulance, where she didn’t yet want to be.

  As she approached Quinn, she could see the denim on his left thigh had a dark stain extending down his leg in an uneven shape from a small hole.

  She looked up into his face.

  “I’ve been shot,” he said, waving to the closest officers. One of them spoke into the radio. They were nearly alongside Kelly. “Two casualties on the southwest grass.”

  “Quinn,” she said again, hurrying toward him. And a flash of recognition passed between them.

  Priscilla, Jenny, Roane, Donaghue—Quinn Shaw was the connection. He knew them all. Intimately.

  Quin stopped and reached around his back. Kelly lunged, delivering a hard fist directly to his exposed body. One officer rushed forward and grabbed Kelly, but she twisted and kicked free as Quinn gasped for air and fell backwards, drawing his gun as the back of his skull hit the paving stones with a sharp crack.

  Kelly landed with her knee on Quinn’s chest. From the corner of her left eye, she saw the gray metal of the gun swinging toward her head. Instinctively, she struck out with her arm, knocking the killer’s wrist and sending the Glock skittering off the path into the grass.

  Above them, three officers had drawn their guns and were aiming at her and Quinn. Whatever they were shouting she could not hear. This child, she thought, this horrifying child, had lived his life as a perpetual audience, a guardian of objects for the stage. This child had murdered and terrorized; taunted her with her sister’s name.

  At least Donaghue had finally shown some backbone, shooting Quinn with the bullet in the last chamber of the gun.

  The police were still yelling commands as Quinn writhed beneath Kelly’s weight. She eased off momentarily, allowing him to raise his head, but only so her punch could land squarely on his jaw. Flipping him over in a swift motion, she twisted his right arm behind his back while holding his face against the ground with her left. A sharp pain shot though her shoulder, making her gasp.

  Then there were more voices.

  “Kelly!”

  She heard Dunne’s call as he rushed over, the sound of his voice a sudden comfort. Joshi and Rodgers followed right behind.

  “Meet Graham Dalton,” Kelly said, holding the killer’s face down against the pavement.

  54

  “How’s that shoulder, Kelly?” Dunne asked with concern. A medic was finishing up her bandage.

  “Not too bad, Jack,” she said. “The bullet passed straight through, missed anything major.” She could already feel a stiffness setting in. The medic handed her a painkiller and a small paper cup of water.

  “Come inside then, you’ll want to see this.”

  Dunne led her to the police barrier through a sea of reporters who had been arriving steadily since the lockdown was ordered. They ducked under the tape and went into the theater, past the stage door to Quinn’s prop room. A team of crime scene specialists wearing white protective suits were going through the boxes on the shelves. Kelly and Dunne suited up from head to toe and walked to the door marked “Staff Only.” A technician on a ladder was pulling a surveillance camera from the mouth of the stuffed bobcat above the transom.

  Inside, Joshi sat at the desk in front of the bank of monitors. The screens showed Priscilla’s bedroom, Donaghue’s doorway, the entryway to Kelly’s flat, several streets around London, Superintendent Frame’s empty office, and a woman dressed in sheer lingerie talking seductively into the camera.

  “He was watching our every move,” Joshi said. “Unreal. He’s hacked into secure systems and set up his own cameras all over town. And look at this.” She picked up a stack of clear evidence envelopes that were sealed at the top. “Snuff pics of Jenny Hooks and Roane Davies, screen grabs of you trapped in the fire.”

  Kelly looked around the place in disgust. The lengths people would go to for control. Quinn couldn’t be an actor or a director, but he could rule in his own private hell. She thought of Chief Delancey, what details he would see if he looked at this scene, what more anyone could see. Maybe there was nothing to learn from sifting through the detritus of this kind of evil, nothing to take away. On the windowsill something caught her eye. It was a smooth pink seashell, one that might have housed a hermit crab. She thought again of South Brooklyn and Cass at the beach. She thought of Quinn walking somewhere across the sand, looking for pretty things to take. A master of props, a voyeur, and now they were watching the videos he’d watched. She picked up the shell and held it. The horror of Quinn wasn’t that he lived in a world apart like a monster in some cave. The horror of Quinn was that he was human. She thought of all the surveillance cameras in prison, of the dank brutality of it. Quinn shackled and behind bars.

  Kelly turned from the scene and left the room. She unzipped her suit and sealed it into an evidence bag, leaving it with forensics officers, keeping hold of the shell.

  Outside, camera crews vied for the best position. Kelly ducked her head and walked quickly past Channel 4’s live news feed.

  “Can you tell us what went on there?” a reporter asked. “Detective Moore, what was found inside?”

  “Is the case closed? Have they found the theater school killer?”

  Their cameras clicked, the video rolled.

  Kelly walked silently across the devastated lawn, out to the turnaround where police cars and news vans were waiting. The pain medication would wear off soon; she’d do well to get home for a strong drink with a hot bath.

 
; At the edge of the barricade, she saw another familiar face. Nigel Brickmat was smiling broadly, his jacket over his arm and his shirt collar unbuttoned.

  “Everyone says you’ve saved the day.” He walked alongside Kelly as she followed the path toward Fulham Road.

  “And everyone says you’re a pain in the ass,” she shot back.

  “I’d love to sit down with you,” Brickmat went on, ignoring the jab. “Get the whole story from the woman who was first on the scene.”

  She stopped and stared him in the face, all patience gone, barely a scrap of professionalism left. She let him see how tired she was, how spent. That was all he would get from her.

  “Go home, Nigel. The world doesn’t need a front row seat for other people’s pain.”

  She turned her back on him and kept walking.

  Crowds had gathered around the entrance to the campus and police were directing them. Squad cars were parked on the perimeter, their lights silently flashing in the warm afternoon light. As she reached the road, an aging patrol car pulled up beside her.

  “You look as lousy as I feel,” Kelly said as Dunne leaned his head out the window. He gave her a weary grin. She shook her head, laughed out loud. He motioned for her to get in the car and she opened the door. The air conditioning hit her and the radio crackled softly.

  “Been a long day,” she said, shutting the door as he pulled out into traffic. “But why not take my life in my hands one more time.”

  He laughed. “Where can I take you, Kelly?”

  She looked up into his pale eyes.

  “Home.”

  Epilogue

  The knock at the door took her by surprise.

  “Oh, hi,” Kelly said as she opened the door.

  “I hope I’m not being a bother. But I heard you banging around down here and thought you might like to see this.” It was Stephen Oldman, her upstairs neighbor. He was wearing a greenish tweed sports jacket over a dark Oxford shirt. A yellow patterned scarf was wrapped smartly around his neck, and he held out a copy of the Wall Street Journal’s international edition.

  “Looks like you’re a hero, Detective Moore,” he continued. “I thought you might like to see how it’s playing out in the American press.”

  “New York Detective Takes Down London Killer,” the headline read.

  “Thanks, Steve,” Kelly said, taking the paper and tossing it into the apartment behind her. “You know, I don’t usually like to read about myself in the news. Even when it’s good, they never get it right.”

  “I see your point. But it might make a good keepsake, something to show the grandkids in your old age.”

  “You’ve got grandkids!” A familiar voice came floating up from the stairway. “All this time working together and you never said a peep.” Joshi smiled as she hustled down the hall to Kelly’s open door.

  “It’s a real party now,” Kelly said. “Steve, this is my colleague, Sam Joshi.”

  “Fancy a biscuit?” Joshi said to the neighbor, opening a cake tin. My sister is positively obsessed with The Great British Bake Off. Every Thursday, I get a new tin filled with more sweets than I could eat in a million years.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” he said, and delicately took one from the box. “I should let you two catch up now. Give a shout if there’s anything you need.”

  “Seems like a good sort,” Joshi said, following Kelly into the flat and closing the door behind her.

  “Won’t your family eat those cookies?” Kelly asked, putting the box on the kitchen counter.

  “Family? Nah. I fly solo. Got no time for any of that rubbish. My sister, she’s here in London with a hubby and a couple of little dictators. I’ve got a brother back in Oxford, single, with a kid that’s almost ten. But me? No thanks.”

  “Then what’s with the ring?” Kelly said, pointing to the gold band on Joshi’s finger.

  “That’s just a ruse, lovey. Keeps all those bastards at the pub off my case.”

  “Ha!” Kelly laughed sharply. “I love it. Hey, I haven’t been out of the house in two days. Let’s go for a walk down by the water.”

  Kelly took a cookie from the box and devoured it in two bites.

  They walked without speaking through the quiet afternoon streets, following the route Kelly had taken the morning that Roane was murdered, until they got to the towpath along the canal. The water was dotted with deeply colored houseboats whose blues and reds caught Kelly’s eye. Two women walked past with toddlers in strollers. A jogger wearing white earbuds and black running tights ran by.

  “Avery was released yesterday,” Joshi said, breaking the silence. “All charges were dropped once I got the video from Donaghue’s computer.” She paused and kicked a small stone into the water. “Watching the footage was almost more than I could bear.”

  Kelly heard the sadness in Joshi’s voice that was slowly inching toward a world-weary hardness.

  “I got a message about it from Ames,” Kelly said. “He wants her to come back to New York, but she’s insisting on finishing the semester at school.” Kelly thought about it for a moment, the drive to keep in motion, to always be ahead of the pain. She understood the way that Avery was feeling.

  “And what about you, Kelly? Now that Avery is free and that monster is locked up?”

  “First, back to New York. Second, a Chinatown foot rub. Third, a new dye job.” Kelly turned her head and flopped her hair over her eyes. “Then, back to work.”

  “Shame,” Joshi said. “I thought I could convince you to stick around for a bit. Some R and R before you go back to the rotten apple and chase bad guys. There are plenty of posh spas and hair salons in London, you know. And an old schoolmate of mine just messaged me; she’s looking for someone to stay in her narrowboat up in Oxford for a week.”

  Kelly looked at Joshi and a flood of warmth filled her limbs. “It’s a tempting offer, Sam,” Kelly answered. She thought of the sleepy south Brooklyn neighborhood where she grew up at the edge of Jamaica Bay. “When I was a kid, me and my sister would sneak onto the little fishing boats in the harbor. We’d scale the fence and pretend to be yacht owners drinking champagne. Spending some time floating on the Upper Thames with no one to bother me sounds pretty sweet.”

  “Yeah. Call up old Chief Delancey. Tell him you’ve got some paperwork to finish at Fulham Broadway—that reminds me. Did you hear what Rodgers found on Johanna Clement’s computer?”

  “What?”

  “You remember that spreadsheet with names and numbers, right? Turns out there was a second page that he hadn’t seen in the first go-round. You’ll never guess whose name was on it.”

  “Boris Johnson?”

  “No.”

  “Gordon Ramsay?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay, I know. Boy George?”

  “Janet Frame.”

  Kelly exhaled. “No shit? The superintendent was a customer.” She thought about it for a second. “Or a supplier. And Brickmat had the list, too. He must have been blackmailing Frame, which would explain the leaks.”

  “Yup. And Quinn Shaw was using it against her, too. He’d been recording all his phone conversations, including some between him and Frame. It’s all under wraps right now, but pretty soon the muck’s really going to start to fly.” The canal was widening up ahead and they could see the opening to the Thames in the distance. “There’s whispering that Jack is up for the promotion.”

  The mention of Dunne cut into Kelly harder than she’d expected. Her face grew dark. Dunne had lost the person he loved most and was reminded of it every day. She felt connected to him through loss. But he had his son to love. His wound was deep, but at least the edges of his grief were known.

  As if reading Kelly’s mind, Joshi put her arm through Kelly’s as they walked along the water. Kelly fought back tears.

  “Sam, do you think Quinn had any real connection to Cass going missing?”

  “We haven’t found anything in his files,” Joshi replied. “It’ll take some time to go
through it all.”

  Kelly nodded and cried silently, the tears running down her face as the two women walked.

  “You’re right,” she said after a moment. “A week on the river might be just what I need.”

  A Letter From Claire

  Thank you for reading This Dark Place. I’m thrilled to share the first novel in the Detective Kelly Moore series with you! Ever since I was a girl in South Brooklyn, reading under the covers with a flashlight, I dreamed of being a crime writer. And now YOU, dear reader, have made this dream come true. I couldn't have done it without you.

  Please let me know what you think—I'm a boxer, I promise I can take it. Tell me what you would like to see from Kelly in the future, what you loved, what scared you, or made you mad. I can tell you Kelly has a rocky road ahead of her, and many crimes to solve, but with your faith I think she's gonna make it!

  If you want to give a shout, you can reach me here:

  Facebook: ClaireKittridgeAuthor

  Twitter: @CPKittridge

  And if you loved the book and want to tell the world, please post a review and tell your friends.

  A Letter From the Publisher

  Delicate Prey Publishing

  The hard work of many people has gone into the production of this book, but despite all our efforts, typos do slip through. Ugh. If you find any typographical errors, please help us out by sending an email to typos@delicateprey.com and we’ll set it right as rain.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to my editor Marc Lepson for having faith in my work and making this book happen. We did it, ML! And thanks to everyone at Delicate Prey, notably Erica Stuart for help with the early draft, and the geniuses Emily Goldman and Carrie Laben (I can’t wait to read your books, ladies!). To the irrepressible Julia Dahl, thank you for razor sharp insights into the mind of a killer. Special thanks to Julie B. for your love, support, copyedits, and willingness to talk endlessly about books, art, and cats! Thank you, Tom Sanderson, a true professional, for the gorgeous book cover.