Investigate With Me: A With Me In Seattle Universe Novel

by Jen Talty

  “But you two slept together anyway.”

  Jag nodded. “Why dirty two sets of sheets for Mom to clean.”

  “You are my son.” His father let out a short laugh and quickly cleared his throat. “But it sounds like she might be trying to convince herself that she should leave and perhaps subconsciously wanting you to ask her to stay. But giving her the ring and re-proposing marriage might be a little rushed and could scare her away.”

  “What do you suggest I do?”

  “I take it she doesn’t know you found the ring?” his father asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Show her that you painstakingly took the time to find it and keep it so that she knows you wanted her to come back to you. Just because you still love each other and are compatible in bed, that doesn’t equal forever.” His father reached across the table and tapped his finger against Jag’s chest. “Letting her see and feel what you’ve been hoping for all this time will let her know that your life has stalled without her in it, and maybe she’ll be able to see that she came back for one reason only.”

  Jag waited for a long minute for his father to tell him what that reason was, but his father just sat there and stared at him. Jag let out a long breath. “Are you going to clue me in to why she really came back to Seattle?”

  “You really need someone to fill in the blank, son?”

  Jag sipped his coffee. His pulse pounded in his head. “I hope you’re right, Dad, because I’m going to lay my heart out on the table for her to destroy.”

  “I think she might surprise you.”

  “I hope you’re right, because I don’t think I could get over her again.”

  “Son, you never got over her the first time.”

  Callie tossed her purse on the kitchen table in Jag’s house. If she’d gotten three hours of sleep last night, it would have been a miracle.

  “Are you going to be okay?” Jag asked, smoothing her hair from her face.

  She sighed. “I’ll be pacing until I get the yearbooks from Carol Armstrong’s college.” Callie rested her head on Jag’s shoulder, wrapping her arms around his strong frame. “I feel sick to my stomach about digging into Kara’s background, but I’m shocked about how little I know about her.”

  “We looked at their relationship, how they interacted with their friends, which was hard since they’d just moved to Seattle from Colorado. Once Kara was cleared, there was no reason to dig any deeper.”

  She lifted her head. “Jag, I should know more. She worked with me on this book. Hell, she worked with me on the side during the investigation of the Trinket Killer. I trusted her.”

  “So did I,” Jag said.

  Callie shook her head. “I told her things I shouldn’t have. Things you told me about the investigation that I swore I’d keep to myself. She helped me form the theory about Adam Wanton. She all but talked me into going after him in the press, which made you look like an idiot.”

  Jag pressed his warm, tender lips on her forehead. “Let’s first find out if Kara is indeed Carol. That shouldn’t be too hard to figure out.”

  “God, if she is, I’ve been such a fool, and so many people died because of me.” She squeezed her eyes so tight, pushing out a few tears.

  “Babe, look at me.”

  “What?” She tilted her head, blinking wildly.

  “I’m the king of self-blame for all these deaths, especially Stephanie’s. If what you and I are thinking, and the Trinket Killer has been right under our noses for the last few years, then I’m going to have to brace for impact because we both know people like Bailey are going to make me look like an incompetent idiot. And maybe I was. But this killer is smart, smarter than us; you even said so in your book. And if Kara is the killer, she had her mother’s help. Think about that for a second.”

  “Trust me, I’ve been thinking about it. But there are still a few things that don’t add up.” Her mind splintered off into a million directions, firing thousands of questions and scenarios, but none totally made sense. There were too many unknown factors.

  And she still didn’t want to believe that Kara could have been lying to her for a good three years.

  “Will you go through a couple things with me before you head to the office?”

  He glanced at his watch. “I have twenty minutes.”

  “You were a beat cop when Renee was murdered,” Callie said.

  “I took the call. My partner and I were the first on the scene.” Jag took a step back and fiddled with the Keurig, shoving his travel mug under the spout. “The lead detective retired three months later, but it had already gone cold. It wasn’t until we had a fourth murder, which was my first case, that we put it together.”

  “And that’s when I gave the killer a name, and shortly after I did that, I got an email from Kara.”

  “Okay,” Jag said, taking a second mug and pressing the start button on the coffee machine. “Do you have all that correspondence?”

  “I do.”

  “Will you email it to me?”

  “Of course,” she said. “For about a year, I kept her at arm’s length in the sense that I interviewed her and took as much information as I thought was useful, but I was more interested in finding the killer and getting ratings.”

  “But you did a personal story about her and Renee.”

  “I did. It was a filler piece, but it was what started our friendship. Kara seemed generally interested in the investigation. She started picking up patterns…fuck, she was planting those things at the crime scene and in my head.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  Callie snagged the cup of coffee he handed her. “Don’t coddle me or try to make me feel better. We need to be realistic and keep our heads in the game.”

  “I am. We don’t know anything for sure. We first need to find out who and where Carol is. We do that, we make a plan.”

  “Wow. You really have changed,” she said. “I like this new, calm, levelheaded man.”

  “Like? What about love? I prefer that word.”

  “Jag. Why do you have to do that? You know how I feel, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m still leaving.”

  “I don’t want you to leave. I want you to give us a second chance. A real opportunity to see who we are now and where this might take us.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” he asked. “Because I think we’re worth taking a risk for.” He took her by the hand and tugged her upstairs.

  “We don’t have time for sex.”

  He laughed. “I’m a guy. I can be done in a couple of minutes if I need to, but no, as much as I would love to have sex with you right now, that’s not what I need to show you. Sit.” He pointed to the bed.

  “I’d rather stand.” She folded her arms across her middle and stared at him. “What’s this all about?”

  He pulled open the top dresser drawer and took something out. He held a box in his hand.

  “Oh, my God.” She went to sit on the edge of the bed but missed, landing her ass on the floor with a thud.

  He raced to her side, helping her up. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” she said. “Is that what I think it is?” She pointed to the jewelry box with a shaky finger. Her heart pounded in her chest so fast she thought it might explode.

  “It’s your engagement ring,” he said, flipping open the box.

  She gasped, covering her mouth. The half carat white diamond sparkled as if it had just been cleaned. It sat high in a six-prong silver setting. “I tossed that in a big pile of watery mud. How did you find it?”

  “It took me three days of digging and sifting, but I got lucky.”

  “You sure did,” she said, reaching out to touch it, but she snapped her hand back. “I can’t believe you found it, much less kept it.” She glanced up at him with tears burning in her eyes. “Why didn’t you sell it?”

  “If I did that, it would mean I had let you go, and I couldn’t do that. I know I was an asshole at Levi’s par
ty, but I was protecting my heart. I can’t do that anymore. My heart wants what it wants, and it wants you. I love you. I always have, Callie. From the day you walked into that bar and challenged me to an intellectual debate. You make me want to be a better man.”

  She covered his mouth with her hand. “Stop talking.” A wave of dizziness washed over her system. The room spun. She felt as though she might be sick. Taking in a few deep calming breaths, she battled the nausea, shoving it out of her mind. “You sound like you might propose again, and I don’t want to have to turn you down.”

  He chuckled. “I’m not asking you to marry me. I know it’s too soon for that. All I’m asking is for you to consider staying in Langley for three months after we catch this killer. If after that time you really don’t think we are perfect for each other, then I’ll take this ring and sell it. But if you do realize we should be together, then this ring goes back on your finger.”

  Well, that was a lot to digest in one morning. She blew out a puff of air. Three months. She could do three months. “Are you expecting me to live with you?”

  “That’s up to you,” he said. “I certainly wouldn’t say no to the prospect, but if you’re not comfortable with that, I’d be happy just to have you on the island dating me, officially, with the world knowing. No secrets.”

  She laughed. “Yeah. That kind of fucked us the first time.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “I think I’ve utterly lost my mind, but yes.” She pressed her hand on his chest when he moved in for a kiss. “However, as much as I love the view here, I’m not going to live with you.”

  Jag smiled like a teenage boy who just saw a naked girl for the very first time. “I’ll take it.”

  She jumped to her feet. “Now get the fuck to work so I can do a deep dive into research.”

  “Lock the doors behind me and don’t you dare leave this house.” He kissed her nose. “And promise me you won’t talk to Kara.”

  “I won’t promise that,” she said. “But I will let you know if I do.”

  “I guess I have to live with that.”

  She followed Jag to the front door, giving him a proper kiss before making sure everything was locked up tight. She shivered when she walked into Jag’s home office. All the victims stared at her as if they were begging her to bring their killer to justice.

  Flipping open her laptop, she made herself comfortable behind the desk. She pulled out a notebook and started organizing her thoughts, pushing the tiny excitement about her decision to stay for a while to the back of her brain.

  Every ten or fifteen minutes she’d check her emails to see if any of her requests had come through. Nothing yet. Meanwhile, she did her own searches, and one of them consisted of looking up the dead college roommate.

  But so far, Callie had found nothing other than what had been reported.

  Jag had promised if Matt or the cold case detective found anything, he’d let her know, but so far, she hadn’t heard from Jag either, and it had been over an hour since he’d gone to work.

  Well, that wasn’t too long.

  She’d never been the most patience person, and today it was being tested to the limit.

  Her email dinged, and a message from the college came through with an attachment. Butterflies filled her gut as she clicked the icon.

  She scrolled through the digital yearbook until she found Carol Armstrong. She found seven different images, all equally disturbing because of the uncanny similarities.

  “Oh, my God.” Callie expanded one of the images with Carol and her roommate in an intimate embrace. Their arms wrapped around each other, Carol had her lips smacked on her roommate’s cheek. It could be seen as close friends, but Callie’s gut told her it was more than that.

  Callie pulled up another picture and studied Carol’s features. She had long blond hair. Kara had short light-brown hair. They both had stunning blue eyes. Both had slender builds, though Kara was a tad bit more muscular. But what really freaked Callie out was the tattoo that dotted Carol’s midriff. It was in the exact location as a blotchy mark that Kara always said was a birthmark.

  But maybe it was a tattoo that she tried to remove.

  Callie forwarded the information on to Jag, along with her thoughts about Carol having a relationship with her roommate. She pulled up police reports from the murder, and not a single person mentioned a potential love affair.

  So, why did Carol kill women who also looked like her and her stepmother? Wait. In Carol’s picture that her father had given them she had dark hair. And it wasn’t as long. Not to mention she wore less makeup and wasn’t as glitzy as the Carol at college.

  No. Carol as a teenager was more like the Kara that Callie knew. Down-to-earth and very little maintenance. But Kara had a type. She liked her women to be girly-girls.

  Ivy was a blond. With long hair, though she didn’t style it the way…fuck. It didn’t matter because the killer styled some victims the way she wanted.

  “Oh no,” Callie whispered. Ivy could be next.

  But the other thing that bothered her was Carol’s stepmother, Tina. She looked young. Really young.

  Callie tapped her cell, pulling up Jag’s number. “Pick up,” she whispered.

  “Hey, babe,” he answered on the second ring. “Everything okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. But no. Things are not okay. I think I have something,” she said.

  “I just got your email, but I’m out of the office and hard to see much on my cell.”

  “Just more evidence that points to Carol and Kara being the same person, but I have another hunch.”

  “Lay it on me,” Jag said.

  “Didn’t you think Tina looked young?”

  “I’d say she was a trophy wife, why?”

  “Would you say she could be close to Kara’s age, which is forty-two?” Callie said as she tried to swallow, but her pounding heart lurching up to her throat made it impossible.

  “That would make her a really young mom.”

  “But it’s possible,” Callie said. “What if Carol, Kara, or whoever the fuck we’re dealing with knew Tina first. Introduced her to her father and then boom, no more friend or lover, and Carol goes off the deep end and starts killing people who look like her stepmother.”

  “That’s an interesting theory,” Jag said.

  “I want to go talk with the stepmother.”

  “No. No. No,” Jag said. “I don’t want you leaving my house, much less the island.”

  She was about to say that Kara wasn’t even here, but if she was the killer, she certainly was close, and maybe watching.

  Jag had a point. But she couldn’t sit idle.

  “What if I could get Tina to come to me?”

  “I could live with that, but how are you going to get her to come out to the island?”

  “You forget, I used to be a manipulative reporter who was used to getting whatever I wanted.”

  “Oh, dear Lord, I’m terrified,” he said with a laugh. “Do me a favor; let me know when and where so I can have someone watching, Promise?”

  “Absolutely. Thanks, Jag.”

  “For what?”

  “For believing in me.”

  “What are good boyfriends for?”

  “Christ, did I really just agree to be your girlfriend?” she asked, tongue-in-cheek. “Don’t answer that. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Love you, babe.”

  “Right back at you.”

  Chapter 16

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Jag slammed his fist down on the steering wheel as he swerved his patrol car to the side of the road.

  “I’m sorry,” Matt said. “I wish it wasn’t true.”

  “You’re sure it was Ivy Thompkins body we found in Beverly Beach.”

  “All the medical records prove it,” Matt said. “And the medical examiner pins the time of death at three in the morning the night of Levi’s party.”

  “Callie and Kara blew into town the day before
.”

  “And supposedly Kara rolled right out of town the next day,” Matt said. “When was the last time Callie saw either of them?”

  “We both saw Kara the day the Trinket Killer left a note for Callie at the Langley Inn, but I only got a glimpse of Kara the night of the party, and I believe that was the last time she’s seen Ivy, but she’s spoken to Kara on the phone numerous times.”

  “But not Ivy,” Matt interjected.

  “Seeing as though she’s dead, no. It’s always just been Kara or Carol.”

  “Yeah. Armstrong. That’s a fucking blow, man. If what you and Callie are saying is true, Armstrong has been covering for her daughter for years.”

  “I’m thinking you might want to have someone take a closer look at her suicide.” Jag glanced in his rearview mirror as a four-door sedan came barreling down the road.

  “Already on it.”

  “Fuck. I’ve got to go. Some asshole is doing like eighty in a forty and coming up on a school zone.”

  “One more thing you need to know.”

  Jag kept his gaze on the approaching vehicle that didn’t bother to slow down, even when Jag hit his siren and flashed his lights. “What’s that?”

  “We got a call from John Armstrong last night. His wife didn’t come home. I pushed the missing person through even though it hasn’t been twenty-four hours. I’ve put out a person of interest bulletin for Kara, and I’ve contacted the locals in the town you mentioned she and Ivy were supposed to be staying at, just to see if they even went there at all, but I’m sure it’s a dead end.”

  “Well, we have to cover our bases.” Jag gripped the steering wheel, ready to punch the gas. He’d call Callie after he dealt with this motherfucker.

  At least he didn’t have to worry about Callie leaving the house and meeting with Tina anymore.

  Nope. He just had to worry about fucking Kara walking onto his island, if she wasn’t already there.

  “Can you order a checkpoint at the ferry?”

  “Done,” Matt said.

  “All right. Stay in touch.” Jag tapped his cell and peeled out onto the street in hot pursuit. He lifted the mic. “Isabelle, this is the chief. I’m pulling over a light-blue Sonata for doing eighty in a forty. Washington plates of ERI 778. Can you run them for me?”