She leaned forward, squinting at the computer screen. “Is that an R on it?”
He leaned forward as well. “Maybe. We’ll let the techs see what they can do with this tomorrow.” Boone stared at the delivery person. Looked like some type of uniform, and whoever it was wore a ball cap pulled low over wild blond hair. “I can’t see the face. Can you?”
She shook her head. “I can’t even tell if it’s a man or a woman—the hair could belong to either. Let’s see if the lighting gets any better.”
They watched in silence as the person set the basket on a table and turned. Rachel froze the feed. “There. Is that a beard?”
He looked closer. This frame was blurred, and he could barely make out the jaw. “Maybe. Could be a shadow.”
“Whoever it is, they never looked toward the camera,” Rachel said. “It’s like they knew where it was.”
“We know we’re not dealing with your run-of-the-mill killer. Let’s see the rest of the video.”
Boone fast-forwarded the video, stopping when Terri came into view carrying two baskets. They watched as she set the baskets on a table, then talked to Randy Culver. The video went to snow briefly, then picked up with Terri still standing near his table, but Randy was not there. Boone fast-forwarded again.
“Look at the video here—this is where the baskets were moved,” Rachel said. She paused her feed then backed it up. “Here.”
He looked over at her computer. Monica Carpenter picked up two baskets and walked out of camera range. “One of those must have been Daryl Cook’s basket that he mentioned,” she said.
Boone nodded and returned to his video as it showed a brunette in a flowing caftan walking toward the table where Culver’s basket sat. Her back was to the camera, and he couldn’t see what she did at the table.
“Look at this,” Rachel said a minute later. “It’s the woman in the caftan. She’s going to the ladies’ room.”
He stared at her screen. The video was grainy, and the woman kept her head ducked, keeping him from making out her features. “Let’s see how long she’s in there.”
A few minutes later a brunette came out, but she kept her head down as she walked toward Culver’s table and he couldn’t be certain it was the same person. “Have you seen this brunette in any of your feeds?”
Rachel paused her feed and shifted her attention to his screen. “No.”
Soon, the video showed Rachel and Boone talking to Culver, then the singer leaving.
“I think Randy’s collapse is coming up. Watch for someone avoiding the cameras,” Boone said.
A few minutes later chaos broke out on the tape as people focused their attention toward the stage, except for one person. She no longer wore the caftan, but the hair was the same style and color.
Boone kept his eyes on her, and beside him Rachel stiffened as the brunette barely glanced toward the stage. Instead, she calmly sidled around the table until her back was to the camera. Then it appeared she reached for something. “I think we have our person,” he said. “Could you tell anything about her features?”
She shook her head. “It’s so dark in that corner and then she turned around.”
“Maybe our video techs can pull something out that we can’t.” He rubbed his eyes. “I think I’m done. You okay with quitting for the night?”
“I won’t argue with you.”
When they reached their cars in the parking garage, he waited until she had her door unlocked. “I’ll follow you home.”
“My house is in the opposite direction from where you live, Boone.” She looked at her watch. “It’s almost midnight. No one is sitting on my street waiting to jump me when I get home. You’re tired. I’m a cop. Go home.”
He was too tired to argue with her. “Okay, Miss Independent. Have it your way.”
Boone waited until she pulled out of the space before he climbed into his truck. But when she took a right out of the garage, he took one as well. He wasn’t too tired to follow her home, just too tired to argue about it.
He knew a shortcut to her house and took it, so he was waiting when she pulled into her drive. When Boone climbed out of his truck, humidity was thick enough to swim in. He approached her Civic as she lowered her window.
“I can’t believe you,” she said, shaking her head.
“Believe it.” A dog barked to his right. Suddenly the skin on the back of his neck prickled. His ears picked up a faint creak, like a door scraping against concrete. With his heart thrumming in his ears, Boone scanned the area.
Tall oaks cast eerie shadows from the full moon overhead. The darkened cars could conceal someone just waiting for Rachel to get out of her car alone. In the park across the street, swings hung empty. He pinned his gaze on the pavilion. Perfect vantage point for a sniper.
Sniper?
He wasn’t in Iraq. And Rachel wasn’t Corporal West.
“What’s wrong?”
With his eyes still on the pavilion, he said, “I don’t know, but you’re a sitting duck out here. Pull into your garage.”
Her body stiffened as she, too, scanned the area. “I don’t see anyone,” she whispered.
“I feel someone out there. Come on. Raise the garage door and get inside.”
After she pulled into the garage, Boone ducked inside. He couldn’t put his finger on why he thought someone was there, but he’d learned in Iraq not to ignore his internal alarms.
When the door was half closed, a car motor turned over. “Raise the door again,” he said and dashed back into the drive, trying to find the vehicle. Halfway down the street, a small dark car shot away from the curb, but he couldn’t make out the model.
“What happened out there?” she asked as soon as they were inside her house.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you scared me to death.”
“Sorry, but someone was out there.”
She swayed and reached for the doorframe. “I didn’t see anyone.”
“Trust me, someone was waiting on you.”
Rachel shivered and ran her hands up and down her arms. “Are you sure you aren’t seeing things that aren’t there?”
No, he couldn’t be 100 percent sure. But the one time he hadn’t listened to his gut, someone had died. “I don’t know how to explain it, but when I was in Iraq, somehow I just knew when the enemy was near. It still happens sometimes.”
She glanced toward the door. “Do you think they’re still out there?”
“I don’t think so now. I saw a car pull away from down the street. I couldn’t see what kind, other than it was small. Do you know—”
“Only about twenty people I know drive small cars.”
Her voice held irritation, and she probably thought he was manufacturing the whole thing. He didn’t care. “Sorry I can’t be more precise.” At least she was safely inside now. “It’s getting late, and I better go.”
“Look, I’m wound tight, and didn’t mean to take your head off.” Rachel rubbed her arms again. “I’m going to have a cup of chamomile tea. Would you like to join me? Maybe a cup of decaf for you?”
“Sure.” It surprised him that she wanted him to stay . . . and how much he wanted to stay. Only to make sure she was okay, though. He followed Rachel to her kitchen, noticing that, just like her desk, her house was neat.
He’d never been inside her home since she’d never asked him in when he picked her up for their dates. In fact, he would not have met her family if not for the dinner at her father’s, a dinner he was certain the Judge had insisted on.
The house was open concept, with a fireplace that warmed both the living room and kitchen in the winter. The living area was filled with comfortable chairs and a leather sofa. “I’ve been looking for furniture. Where’d you get yours?”
“My grandmother.” She glanced around. “Nana wanted all new furniture a year or so ago, so I got her old stuff. This was from her den.”
“Then she has good taste.”
“Oh yeah.” Rachel la
ughed as she placed tea bags in a pot and turned on her water kettle along with the coffeemaker. She waved her hand toward a carousel of coffee pods. “Take your pick.”
Coffee didn’t keep him awake at night, so he chose a hazelnut blend instead of decaf. He knew he’d surprised her when she raised her eyebrows.
“I wouldn’t have figured you for flavored coffee.”
“Not all the time, but that’s what sounds good to me tonight.”
She started his coffee and rummaged through her cabinets. “Mug or china?”
“Mug, please. Then I won’t have to worry about breaking it.” He sat on one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter. “I like your house.”
“Corey picked it out. It’s the right neighborhood, the house is stately enough but not too showy, and he liked that there was a park across the street for our 2.5 kids.”
“Kids?” Rachel didn’t have children. “Wait a minute. Two-point-five?”
“Haven’t you heard? That’s the perfect family, and Corey wanted everything perfect.”
“And he died before any children came along.” It sounded as though the steamrolling attorney Boone knew in court wasn’t any different at home. He’d observed there were no photos of him sitting around.
“He thought the ideal time to start a family was after three years of marriage. We were closing in on the second-year mark when he died . . .” She gave a slight shake of her head. “I don’t know how we got on the topic of Corey when we were talking about the house.”
“It’s really a nice place.”
“You should have seen it before I changed it.” Rachel glanced toward the living area. “He had an interior decorator come in and furnish it before we moved in. Her tastes were more modern than mine, and after . . .” She bit her bottom lip. “Well, it just wasn’t me, so when Nana downsized, I changed everything out.”
“I’m sure his death had to have been hard.” Boone took the steaming mug she handed him. She never talked about her husband. “It was some kind of accident, wasn’t it?”
31
THE KETTLE WHISTLED, allowing Rachel time to collect herself while she filled the teapot with hot water. Talking about Corey’s accident was never easy, but for some reason, she found herself wanting to share the story with Boone.
“It was a boating accident. One that wouldn’t have happened if I’d gone on the trip with him.” Sometimes Rachel surprised even herself. She’d never said those words to anyone except Nana. Once she’d poured the steaming water in the teapot, she moved it to the counter and sat across from Boone.
“You don’t know that it would have made any difference if you’d gone.”
“Yes, I do. If I’d gone, he wouldn’t have been fishing at the dam when they started up the turbines. I wouldn’t have let him,” she said.
“He was a grown man. Not much you could have done if he was determined to fish there.”
“Now we’ll never know.” Guilt hung over her like a storm cloud. If only she’d gone on the trip. “That swirling mass of water . . . the way it rushes through the gates. Just thinking about it terrifies me. I can’t imagine what it was like in his small boat. A log came through the gates and caught the boat and flipped it. No one is sure which hit him on the head, but he drowned before anyone could get to him.”
Rachel raised her gaze, and his brown eyes sympathized with her. “You know why I didn’t go? Because I was mad at him. So mad I didn’t want to be in the same room with him.”
“What did he do?”
At least Boone didn’t automatically believe it was her fault. Even so, she wasn’t certain she wanted to tell him the real reason she hadn’t gone. That she had proof Corey was seeing someone, a client of all people, and he’d told Rachel he wasn’t going to stop seeing her. He expected Rachel to accept it. “We’d spent the last month arguing because I wanted to have a baby. I didn’t want to wait another year.”
“Could you have worked out your problems if you’d gone?” Boone asked. “You had a good marriage, right?”
A good marriage? No. Maybe things would have been different if she’d gone into it with the right attitude, but she would never forget Corey standing at the front of the church with her father’s arm locked in hers like she might run away. And she might have, given the doubt that plagued her at that moment. Doubt that proved true.
“The Judge thought Corey was perfect for me, but I think I knew from the beginning, something was missing. Even before we married, he set out to mold me into what he thought a governor’s wife should be. That’s what he wanted, you know.” Lead settled in her stomach as she remembered the day she realized their marriage had been nothing but a stepping-stone for him. That he’d married her for the Judge’s connections and because she would be an asset in his career.
“Is that why he didn’t want children yet? He wanted to concentrate on running for office?”
The truth will set you free. The words from the man at the cemetery. She stared at the tiny periwinkles on the teapot that had been a wedding gift from Nana. Nana, who had told her not to marry Corey. She couldn’t do it. Rachel was tired of perpetrating the lie.
“The argument wasn’t about having a baby.” Rachel lifted her gaze, ignoring the tightness in her throat and her burning eyes. “Corey was seeing another woman. He accidentally sent me a text intended for her. I needed those five days alone to cool off. I do regret not getting the chance to tell him I was sorry for the things I said before he left.” And not just for her angry words, but for letting him down . . . for not being enough.
“Wasn’t he afraid news of the affair might leak out and ruin his political career?”
“Corey was one of those people who believed rules didn’t apply to him and that if they did, people wouldn’t hold it against him. If you think about it, affairs haven’t appeared to hurt other politicians.”
Rachel took a deep breath and released it, then picked up the teapot and poured herself a cup of chamomile tea. She didn’t exactly feel freer, but she did feel better. “And that’s my sad story,” she said, putting a bright spin in her voice. “At least one of them.”
“I didn’t know.” He gave her a gentle smile. “You deserved better.”
Bless Boone’s heart. He was trying to make her feel better. “Thanks, but I think I’m just not good marriage material.”
“That’s probably true of half the people who are married. But they make it work,” he said.
“I thought our marriage was working up until I received the text.” Corey would not have it otherwise. “Maybe not as good as it could have been, but I had made a commitment to be the best wife I could be.”
Why was she babbling like this? It wasn’t like her, and she took a sip of tea to calm her mind.
“And I’m sure you were.”
When she looked up, Boone was staring at her with a question in his eyes she knew he’d never ask. “You’re wondering why I married him, aren’t you?”
A flush crept into his face. “It crossed my mind.”
“How well did you know him?”
“Not well, but enough to know you deserved much better.”
Boone was tactful if nothing else.
“When he wanted to be, Corey was the most charming man in the world. He had a way of making me feel special. Told me what I wanted to hear. That I was pretty, that I was smart, that he loved me. I didn’t hear those kinds of words from my father.”
The compassion in Boone’s eyes almost undid her, and she dropped her gaze. “You see it happen all the time. Girls seeking love because their fathers were absent. And a father doesn’t have to be missing to be absent.”
“I agree,” Boone said. “It’s probably why I haven’t married yet and had kids—right now I’m too focused on my job. If I ever have a family, I want to devote time to them.”
She’d always pegged him for one of the good guys. And right this minute, she didn’t understand why she’d thought working in Homicide was more important than seeing if so
mething could develop between them.
Rachel rubbed at a water spot on the granite counter. It bothered her that she’d made it sound like her failed marriage was all her husband’s fault. “Corey wasn’t all to blame for our problems. If I’d been the person he wanted me to be, he wouldn’t have gone looking elsewhere.”
“That’s baloney. If you have problems, you work them out. Go see a counselor. You don’t go looking somewhere else. I hate that he hurt you.”
“Did you have many dealings with him?”
“Just in court.” He cocked his head. “And I have a hard time seeing you two together.”
“Looking back, I feel the same way, sometimes.” She tried to swallow a yawn.
He checked his watch. “It’s getting late. I better leave since five comes pretty early.”
“Sorry I bent your ear. Someday you’ll have to tell me your sad story.”
“You don’t want to hear mine,” he said softly. He looked around. “I don’t suppose you’ll let me camp out on your sofa?”
“Boone Callahan, I’m armed and trained to use my weapon. I appreciate your concern, but—”
“Okay.” Then he stood. “You do have an alarm system?”
“The best. Corey made sure of that.”
“Make sure you arm it after I leave. And wait for me to come by in the morning to pick you up.”
“Why?” She folded her arms across her chest. Rachel really did appreciate his concern, but she was a cop. “I’m not riding with you. I need my car because I want to talk to Monica Carpenter again. Among other things.”
“So? I’ll go with you.”
Rachel shook her head. “We’ve been over this already. I’ll get more out of her if you’re not along.”
“What? You’re going to waterboard her?”
“No. But I think if it’s just the two of us at her condo, she might open up.”
He considered what she’d said. “Okay, but come and go through your garage from now on. That way you won’t be an open target. And make sure there’s plenty of traffic on your street when you leave. Even though it doesn’t seem to make any difference whether you’re in a crowd or not, I’d feel better.”
Justice Betrayed Page 19
