by Jen Talty
Matt grunted. “That’s interesting considering Callie’s back in town.”
“Don’t go reading anything into it. She wanted to interview me for her book. I agreed, but I didn’t want to do it in the office or at my home. I thought somewhere that put us both on common ground would be a good place to hash something like that out.”
“You didn’t need to give me a dissertation,” Matt said. “Do you want to know what I’ve got?”
“I sure do.”
“No prints on the trinkets left at your place, but we did find a local store that carries them, and it’s the same one that carried all the other ones that the Trinket Killer left at all his crime scenes.”
“Any idea when they were purchased?” Jag scratched the center of his chest, hoping it would help the heartburn that churned in his gut.
“The store owner said someone bought their entire stock about a month ago. Paid in cash. No receipt. Only remembers it was a woman, average height, thought maybe light-brown hair, but couldn’t be sure because her hair was tucked up under a hat. The owner didn’t think anything of it because the woman was on the phone talking to someone about how she found the perfect party favor,” Matt said.
“And how many were in their entire stock?”
“Fifty at ten dollars apiece,” Matt said. “That’s a lot of cash to be carrying around these days.”
“Sure is.” Jag stood by the fire and stared out at the lighthouse. The salty air filled his nostrils, cooling his increasing anxiety. “When the Trinket Killer made his, or her, first purchase, it had been after Renee’s murder, so they’d already had an attachment for the store. Did you ask if they had any of the original dolphin ones?”
“I did, and they haven’t carried them since they found the Trinket Killer purchased them at their store.”
“Thanks for letting me know.”
“I sent all the information over to Detective Marlo at the cold case division. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Thanks, man, I appreciate it.” Jag tapped the screen, ending the call, and shoved the cell in his back pocket.
A woman serial killer would shift the entire investigation.
Movement in the tent caught his attention. He glanced over his shoulder and smiled. “Good morning, babe.”
Callie stepped from the tent wearing his long-sleeved shirt and sweatpants. She’d pulled her hair into a messy bun on top of her head.
His favorite look.
Especially after wild, passionate sex.
“This yo-yo weather is crazy.” She rubbed her arms.
He pulled her in for a hug, pressing his lips on her cheek. “Do you have all your questions that you wanted to ask me with you?”
“Most of them are in my head, but my recorder is in the Jeep.”
He dug into his pocket and pulled out the key, pressing the button. The Jeep beeped twice. “Let’s get this party started,” he said with a slightly sarcastic tone.
“I promise, I’ll go easy on you.”
“Right,” he said with a chuckle, patting her behind as she jogged toward his SUV.
He went back to the open fire, his boiling water, and a couple of fried eggs and sausage links. He tossed them on a couple of tin plates and poured the thick coffee that smelled like burnt pavement. He picked at his food while she set up shop with a little more excitement than he’d like. He understood she wanted to humanize the detective who botched part of the case. If he were being honest with himself, her book was set up to show a series of events that led the police down a dangerous path.
A narrow road with tunnel vision.
One she as a reporter had traveled down as well.
She settled herself across from him and scarfed down a few bites of her food. “You always manage to make the best open-flame eggs.”
He laughed. “You can keep stroking my ego all day long; I won’t complain.”
“You might when we’re done with this interview.” She pointed to the recorder. “Ready?”
“Go for it.”
She hit the record button and announced the date and what the interview was for all professional-like.
Meanwhile, all he could think about was all the different ways he wanted to have sex with her again. It was a really nice distraction from what he was about to dive into.
“It’s been a little over a year since the last time the Trinket Killer has struck. Looking back on the time you were the lead detective, or even the few cases you started off with as a beat cop early on, what do you wish you had done differently?”
“That’s a loaded question.” He waved his fork in the air. “I’m older, wiser, and have more information. Also, it’s really hard to pinpoint a few things because it’s like a game of dominos. Change one thing, and you change the entire trajectory, and then there could have been an entirely different set of problems. But if I had to pick something, it would have been the arrest.”
“But we know now that Adam wasn’t the Trinket Killer, so why would you want to do that differently?”
“For one, I fucked up, and that potentially caused your sister her life. Something that still gives me nightmares and I’m not sure I’ll quite be able to forgive myself for it.”
She reached across the table, but he jerked his hand away. This was a professional interview, and right now, he couldn’t deal with feeling the tenderness lift from her skin to his, seeping into his heart, soothing his aching soul.
“But also, I can’t help but wonder if I hadn’t jumped the gun, and the chaos that ensued because of it, if we wouldn’t have realized that Armstrong had been tampering with evidence and planting it at crime scenes.” He lifted his coffee and stared at the grinds floating at the top. He set the mug down, deciding the caffeine wasn’t worth it. “And that’s the other thing. I didn’t see things that were right in front of my face that now seem so obvious, but when I go over all the evidence now, I still can’t figure it out, and it’s infuriating.”
“I know the feeling,” she said. “I recently sat down with the FBI profiler who originally created both the victimology report and the unsub description. He still believes both are spot on. What are your thoughts?”
“I’m not a profiler, which is why we called in the FBI. They are experts in that kind of thing. That said, I do trust my instincts, and there were always a few things that didn’t sit right with me and more so today.”
“Do you care to share some of those theories?”
“Actually, I don’t. At least not on the record. I did, however, share my thoughts with the cold crimes detectives handling the case.”
She reached out and stopped the recording. “Okay. Off the record. This is where you were talking to me last night about the bookends and both Renee and Stephanie knowing the killer and it being a woman not a man?”
He nodded. “I didn’t mention this last night, but I think the victimology is linked to Renee and Stephanie. I just don’t know how since they didn’t know each other and have no real commonalities.”
“Except Renee did have an affair and my sister had a secret girlfriend.”
He let out a long breath. “Yeah. That could be the key right there.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “But that still doesn’t explain why the Trinket Killer stopped killing.”
She tapped the recorder. “Do you ever feel like he’s watching you, waiting for the right moment to come out of murder retirement and kill again?”
“Every night before I close my eyes. And even more so now.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because you’re here. I know that sounds crazy, but the second you walked back into my life, I half expected the killings to start again.”
She nodded. “Let’s talk about what happened after it was proven that Adam wasn’t the Trinket Killer. How did your life change?”
He laughed, though it wasn’t a haha funny laugh. “I almost lost my job, for one. My fiancée dumped me. I realized I wasn’t as good of a homicide detective as I thought
I was. Basically, for about a month, my life spiraled out of control. Then my buddy Levi Crawford helped me pick up the pieces, and I landed this gig as chief of police in Langley.”
“That’s a big change,” she said. “Are you satisfied and fulfilled in your new position?”
“I am,” he said. “Maybe more so than when I was a detective. But to be totally transparent, I do spend time following up on what few leads come my way when it comes to the Trinket Killer. I feel like I owe it to all the victims, their families, and especially to my ex-fiancée.”
She tilted her head and arched a brow. “Why?”
“You should know why.”
“But I don’t.”
Now it was time to make it personal. He took her hand and kissed her palm. “The night I proposed. The night Stephanie died. I promised to love and protect you. I told you I’d always have your back. I also made a joke, though I was serious, that I would always investigate with you. I crossed a line when I told you certain things, and by doing so, I put you and your sister in the line of fire.”
“We both crossed that line.” She set her pen down on top of her notebook and shut off the recorder. “I think I have more than enough. You’ll get a copy before I send it to the publisher. I won’t put anything in there that you don’t want me to.”
“I appreciate that.”
“I want you to know something,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“I blame myself just as much, if not more, than I blame you for everything that happened.”
“Babe, none of this is your fault.”
“You warned me that giving the killer too much attention might escalate things.”
“And I turned around and fed you information to give you the exclusive anyway. Besides, our killer didn’t do anything for the attention of the masses. One thing I don’t want in that book is that I think at some point, our killer started doing things to impress you or for you in some weird way, and that’s why I’ve been so worried the killings might start again with you back in Seattle.”
“I’ve never understood why you thought the killer had some sort of weird vibe for me.”
He lowered his chin. “Seriously? The killer communicated to you, and we can’t rule out that the killer isn’t doing it again.”
“Okay, first off. I was the most aggressive reporter during that time, so it makes sense that the killer would reach out to me. And aren’t you the one who told me the note and the trinkets are just whack jobs fucking with us?”
“That thing is off, right?”
She nodded.
“The raven trinkets were purchased at the same store as the dolphin ones, and they were bought in bulk a month ago.”
“Oh fuck, that might not be good.”
“Nope,” he said. “It could be bad. Very bad.”
Callie tossed her knapsack on her bed in the guest room. A couple of shiny objects bounced off the bed and rolled to a stop near her feet.
She bent over and picked up two raven trinkets.
One silver and one gold.
She dropped to her knees in search of the third one, but it was nowhere to be found. However, she did find a note with her name on it that read:
Callie: You disappoint me. I thought you’d have more strength. The game has begun.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
She raced down the stairs, fumbling with her phone. She paced in Jag’s kitchen with her cell pressed against her ear. “Come on, Kara, answer the damn phone.” She peeked around the corner. Jag had slipped into his home office and shut the door. She’d give him a few more minutes before letting him know what she’d found.
“Hi, Callie girl,” Kara finally said.
Callie plopped herself on the stool at the island and let out a long breath, fighting the tears stinging the corners of her eyes. “I need to tell you something.”
“Why do you sound so ominous?”
“Because those raven trinkets I showed you? They were bought in bulk at the same store where all the dolphin ones were purchased.”
“Oh no,” Kara whispered. “Ivy and I were talking about the differences between a dolphin and a raven. A dolphin symbolizes harmony, resurrection, and protection. Ravens generally represent death, often predicting it. It’s a really big jump for a killer to go from one concept to the other.”
Callie had to agree, but psychopaths often made connections normal people couldn’t possibly understand. “What about resurrection and death? They go hand in hand.”
“I suppose. But one is sunshine and unicorns while the other is all Alfred Hitchcock,” Kara said. “One is about balance, and the other really deals with the coming of something terrible.”
One of the things Callie loved about working with Kara was that she constantly forced Callie to stretch her mind, examine every angle, even the ones that seemed so obscure that the ideas bordered on the ridiculous.
But Kara was often right on the money.
And something horrible was on the horizon.
Callie pinched the bridge of her nose. “What if we’ve had it all wrong from the beginning and the Trinket Killer is a woman?”
“Why would you say that?” Kara asked. “That’s not anything we’ve ever really talked about before.”
“I know you don’t want to hear this, and I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but Renee was having an affair.”
A faint gasp echoed from the other side of the cell. “Why would you bring that up? Why would you tell me that? Are you trying to hurt me?”
“No. It’s not like that. Whoever killed my sister and your wife knew them. That’s a key connection,” she said, taking a quick breath. “Did you get to see Renee’s body?”
“I identified her, yes. Why?”
“Did you know all the details? How many times she was stabbed? What she looked like at the crime scene? Did the police show you any of that?” Callie asked, trying not to sound so desperate.
“The police tried to trip me up so that I’d admit to killing my wife or give them something they could arrest me for,” Kara said with tinge of resentment hanging on her words. “Why are we talking about this?”
“I know the Trinket Killer is back, only I’m really thinking he’s a she, and I believe both your wife and my sister knew the killer. But what’s the connection? What’s the common denominator?”
“Callie. Slow down and take a breath,” Kara interjected. “Have you talked to Jag? What does he think about all this?”
“He hasn’t said too much. He’s eerily calm about the entire thing.” One thing Callie had learned early on was not to always tell Kara what Jag’s theories were. When she’d first met Kara, she and Jag clashed, which was understandable since Jag all but accused Kara of murder. It had taken a long time for the two of them to become friends. “I’m not exactly sure what he thinks, except that I don’t think he’s ever really given up looking for the killer.”
“Well, that’s good. I’m glad someone is still looking, but you need to stop. Remember when you asked me to tell you if you crossed that line into the abyss? Callie girl, you’re there.”
“I’m not obsessed,” Callie said. “I stepped foot in Seattle, and shit started happening, and today I found out that my sister’s crime scene was identical to Renee’s. Those two were different from all the rest. What does that tell you?”
“That the cops don’t always tell the public and the press everything?” Kara said sarcastically.
“I can’t believe you of all people are taking this piece of information so lightly,” Callie said softly.
“I’m not. I find it disturbing, and it hurts my heart. But I lived in the past for a good five years. I’m not doing it anymore. I can’t. But I swore to you I’d help you finish this book, so if you want me to come back, I will. All you have to do is ask.”
Callie dropped her head to her forearm. No way would she ask Kara to come back. They’d been through a lot over the last couple of years, b
ut it had become painfully aware to Callie that she’d been holding Kara back. That Kara had been trying to move on with her life, but Callie wanted to hold on to the pain and suffering a little while longer.
“No. I want you and Ivy to chase your hopes and dreams. I just wanted to keep you informed of what was going on here and ask about the ravens.” Callie slumped her shoulders. For the longest time, Jag told her that Kara had formed an unhealthy attachment to her. That Callie had let Kara get too close, something a reporter should never do with a family member of a victim.
Maybe he’d been right back then, but now it was Callie that was holding on to Kara for dear life. It was as if letting go of Kara meant Callie had given up on finding her sister’s killer.
“Come to San Francisco, Callie. You got the interview. You can finish the book anywhere. That place is no good for either of us.”
When Callie did leave Seattle for good, it wouldn’t be with Kara and Ivy. No. Callie needed to learn to rely only on herself. Her entire life, there had always been someone else there to hold her up.
First her parents.
Then her sister.
Jag.
And finally Kara.
Callie had to figure out what it looked like to be an independent soul.
“I can’t. I’m sorry. I have to see this through.”
“You know how to reach me,” Kara said before the line went dead.
When Callie had left Seattle with Kara a year ago, the idea had been to write the book as a way to put the past where it belonged. She dove so deep into writing she hadn’t realized her friend, and assistant, had started to live again, while Callie barely existed in the past.
She had to come to terms with the fact that Kara would be okay with not knowing. That, as she said, because she’d done everything she could humanly possibly do, she needed to do what Renee would want.
Stephanie would want Callie to nail the bastard.
Sucking in a deep breath, she stood and smoothed down the front of her jeans. She reached up and pulled out her ponytail, shaking out her long blond hair. That was another thing that always bothered her. All the women had long blond hair.
Just like her.
