“Don’t give me that shit, Spears. I know what you’ve been doing.”
She tipped her head to the side. “What, you mean investigating?”
“Let me tell you something. Ava Quinn was dumping her husband. She’d just met with one of the best divorce lawyers in town and withdrawn twenty-five grand from her account for a cash retainer. We got the bank records to prove it.”
This was news to Charlotte, but she tried not to look surprised.
“The woman was getting a divorce.” He pointed a finger at her. “Her husband offed her, and we proved it six ways to Sunday, and I don’t need you and Diaz going around stirring up shit.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “No one’s stirring up anything.”
“Then keep your nose out of my case.”
She got up and walked away, ticked off. She should have come at him a different way. Or asked his partner.
He stalked into the break room, no doubt to go bitch about her to Goldstein.
Charlotte stood at her desk, gazing down at the photo of the big yellow print. She traced her fingertip over the loops and whorls.
Keep your nose out of my case.
If he’d wanted her to butt out, he’d picked exactly the wrong tactic.
Brock’s office was a ghost town on Saturdays, and Kira and Jeremy zipped straight up to the thirty-seventh floor.
The reception area was dark, and Sydney’s desk was cleared of everything except a black phone and a thick pink message pad.
Kira followed the low sound of voices to the back, where she found Brock and Neil in a glass conference room. Both had changed from their funeral clothes into jeans and button-down shirts.
“Hey.” Brock sat forward as Kira stepped into the room. “Any word from HPD?”
Brock had hit her up at the church—in the pew, no less—for details about Shelly’s murder, but Kira had little to share.
“Nothing they’re telling me.” She set her bag on the table and watched as Jeremy ducked into the conference room across the hall. Erik and Liam were seated at a table, deep in conversation. Kira turned her attention to the paperwork spread out in front of Brock. “How’s it going here?”
Neil shot him a look.
“What?” Kira pulled up a chair.
“We’ve decided to switch gears,” Brock said.
“Gears?”
“The trial strategy,” he elaborated. “Instead of focusing on the alibi—which is mortally wounded since you dug up the restraining order against Peck—”
“The prosecutor may not know about it,” Kira said.
“He knows.” Brock shook his head. “Or we have to assume he knows. He’s not an idiot. So we’re making adjustments. We’re shining the spotlight away from Quinn and onto the real killer.”
Kira arched her brows, waiting. Brock and Neil just looked at her.
“And that would be . . .?”
“Whoever murdered Ollie,” Neil said. “And now Shelly Chandler. The theory is, they uncovered his identity—either wittingly or unwittingly—and he killed them on the eve of trial to prevent exposure.”
Irritation welled in Kira’s chest. The way Neil was talking, it sounded like a movie trailer.
“That’s a theory,” she said.
Neil nodded. “A well-supported theory.”
She looked at Brock. “You’re not really going to put this in front of a jury, are you?”
“Why not?” He leaned back in his chair. “It’s an excellent piece of detective work, and we plan to use it.”
Kira felt flattered. But they had a long way to go before her theory was ready for the courtroom.
“Where’s the proof?” she asked. “And how are you making a connection between Ava Quinn’s murder and Ollie’s and Shelly’s?”
“The connection is Markov,” Brock said. “You said so yourself.”
“I believe he’s connected, yes, but I don’t think he killed Ollie or Shelly. I’ve seen Markov’s mug shot, and he looks nothing like the person I saw jogging in front of your house that night. Not to mention that his car was in Channelview when Shelly was killed.”
“So if Markov isn’t the killer, who is?” Neil asked.
“I don’t know.”
“We need to figure out what Ollie’s death has to do with Markov,” Brock said.
Kira sighed and closed her eyes. She rubbed her forehead. Four days of too much stress and too little sleep was starting to catch up with her. She rested her arms on the table and looked at Brock.
“I believe Markov is a trip wire,” she said.
Brock’s gaze narrowed. “How do you mean?”
“Look at the timeline. Ollie was running surveillance at a dock in Channelview the Friday before his murder. I think he spotted Markov’s car and took down the license plate, exactly like I did last night. I think he ran Markov’s name and hit on his arrest record, like I did. I think he then called his lawyer buddy Drew Spence—on a Saturday, mind you—and asked him to get him Markov’s trial transcript ASAP. Ollie was in a hurry, and he didn’t want his fingerprints on the request.”
Brock watched her, and she couldn’t tell whether he was buying any of this. “Walk me through it.”
“Okay, so last Saturday, Drew is getting on a plane to Florida for vacation,” she said. “So he hands off Ollie’s request to his clerk, who goes to the courthouse and fills out a request.”
“The trip wire,” Brock said. “Maybe some guy at the courthouse had a flag on the record?”
“Who?” Neil asked.
“I don’t know.” Kira shrugged. “But everyone’s got a ‘guy at the courthouse.’ Someone who does favors, tips you off to gossip, flags interesting filings that come through.”
Neil looked intrigued. “Who’s yours?”
She snorted. “I’m not telling. I don’t even know who Ollie’s guy was, but there was definitely someone.”
“Get back to your story,” Brock said.
“So when Shelly gets the trial transcript, she overnights it to Ollie’s office. He gets the package, then arrives at your house excited about this hot new lead he’s found.”
“He told me he had something big,” Brock said.
“He told me that, too.” Kira’s stomach clenched as she thought back on the conversation. She could still see the sparkle in Ollie’s eyes. “Minutes later, someone shows up and kills him. And a few days later, that same someone kills Shelly.”
Had the murderer been following Shelly when she went to meet Kira at the coffee shop? Kira didn’t know. The thought filled her with guilt. She liked to think that she or Jeremy would have spotted a tail, but she didn’t know for certain and probably never would.
If only Shelly had never been involved. If only Ollie hadn’t called Drew and he hadn’t passed the favor off to his clerk. If only, if only, if only . . .
“So Markov’s case is the trip wire,” Brock stated.
Kira nodded. “That’s my theory.”
“Why, though?” He picked up a thick file and dropped it onto the table. “I read the whole damn transcript, and I’m not seeing it. How is a two-year-old aggravated assault outside a bar connected to the murder of Ava Quinn?”
“I don’t know, but I know that it is.”
“But Ava and Gavin aren’t mentioned.” Brock turned to Neil. “Did you come up with anything?”
He shook his head. “Whole thing seems off.”
“I thought that, too,” Kira said. “I mean, why’s an aggravated assault going to trial in the first place? That’s the sort of thing that normally gets pleaded down, right? But the aggravated assault is the original charge.”
“You’re saying he should have copped a plea,” Brock said. “I thought that, too.”
“The prosecutor was playing hardball,” Neil said. “Maybe he was using the threat of a trial to pressure Markov to flip on someone else, a bigger fish. What are Markov’s connections?”
“We need to find out,” Brock said. “But whoever they are, it does
n’t sound like he cooperated. He rolled the dice and went to trial and ended up getting acquitted.”
“So Markov took a risk,” Kira said. “What does that tell us?”
Neil shrugged. “Could be he thought he’d get a friendly jury. Or he had the judge in his pocket. Though I’m not sure that’s a can of worms we want to open.”
Brock closed his eyes and tipped his head back. “I hate this case. I really hate it.”
Kira did, too.
“Okay, so assume Markov somehow got a lock on an acquittal,” Brock said. “We still don’t know what the trial has to do with Ava Quinn. How does any of this give Ollie a suspect to pin Ava’s murder on?”
“What about the obvious?” Kira asked. “Maybe Markov killed her.”
“I thought of that.” Brock’s voice was edged with frustration. “But where’s the evidence? And why was Ollie so excited to get his hands on this transcript? It doesn’t spell out Markov’s connection to my case, and yet Ollie was acting like it was a gold-plated Get Out of Jail Free card for Gavin Quinn. Why?”
“I don’t know,” Kira said. “But I plan to find out.”
Jeremy stuck his head into the room. “Kira. We need a word.”
“What is it?”
“Logistics.”
She looked at Brock, and the expression on his face put her on her guard. “What’s wrong now?”
“Another change of plan.” Brock nodded at Jeremy. “Go ahead and fill her in.”
Irritated, Kira followed Jeremy across the hall into the conference room where Liam and Erik were waiting. She took a chair at the end of the table, suddenly self-conscious about all the testosterone in her midst.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“New plan,” Jeremy stated.
“We’re increasing the number of agents staffed to you and your colleagues,” Liam said.
Colleagues. Like she had a law degree and a fat salary to go with it. She almost laughed, but the serious look on Liam’s face stopped her.
“What else?” she asked.
“We’re recommending that we consolidate operations at the Metropolitan Hotel,” he said. “That makes it easier for us to conduct round-the-clock surveillance and also facilitates communication between agents.”
“So . . . you’re saying you want us to work there?”
“Live there,” Liam said. “For at least the time being.”
Kira barked out a laugh. “Are you kidding? I couldn’t afford to buy an omelet at that place, much less live there.”
“The law firm is covering expenses.”
She glanced through the glass into the opposite conference room. Brock stood at the whiteboard now, debating something with Neil as he sketched out a timeline.
She looked at Liam. “How long are we talking about?”
“Until we get a handle on this threat or until police make an arrest.”
“Or both,” Erik added.
“But that could take weeks.”
“We know,” Jeremy said.
Kira stared at him. He looked so serious, with his sleeves rolled up and his arms folded across his chest, and she caught a glimmer of the expression he’d had on his face last night, when he’d been standing in her kitchen.
“Of course, it’s up to you,” Liam said. “We can’t make any one of you do anything.”
Jeremy shot a glance at him. “We can recommend.” He gave Kira a steely look. “And this is our recommended course of action, based on what we know about the current threat level.”
Threat level. It sounded unreal. She wasn’t a political figure or some celebrity. And yet they wanted her to move into what amounted to a luxury fortress and have round-the-clock protection. If it was hard to do her job now, she could only imagine what it was going to be like going forward.
She looked directly at Liam. “You’re the security experts, so I’ll defer to you.”
Liam nodded. “Good.” He pushed back his chair.
“On one condition.”
All three men looked at her.
“I have a job to do. Now more than ever. And I can’t be a hostage in some hotel room, so don’t try to get in my way when I tell you I need to leave.”
Liam’s gaze flicked to Jeremy. “Sounds reasonable. Jeremy?”
Based on his look, Jeremy didn’t think it was reasonable at all. Kira waited, and finally he gave a slight nod. “Fine. Agreed.”
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
GAVIN QUINN’S house wasn’t what Charlotte had envisioned. She’d expected a mansion like Brock Logan’s, an imposing monument to the ego of the city’s top heart surgeon. But the doctor’s home was low and understated, hidden from view behind a tall hedge in an expensive neighborhood.
Charlotte passed through the gate and parked her unmarked unit between a pair of black Range Rovers with tinted windows, probably belonging to Quinn’s security crew. Beside the Range Rovers was a silver Escalade. Was this more security, or did the doctor have a visitor?
A black fence with horizontal slats faced the driveway. The gate stood ajar, and Charlotte walked into a stony courtyard with a modern sculpture that looked like a rusted Easter egg. She approached a pair of tall black doors and was searching for the bell when one of the doors swung open.
“Well, hello.” She fixed a smile on her face. “Nice to see you again, counselor.”
“Likewise.”
Brock ushered her into the house. The foyer was dim and empty. It looked out on yet another courtyard with another rusty egg in the center.
She turned to face the lawyer. Unlike Charlotte, he’d had a chance to change since the funeral. He now wore jeans and a tailored shirt that fit nicely over his muscular shoulders, and he looked so athletic she almost didn’t notice his black sling.
“How’s the arm?” she asked for lack of something better to say.
“Fine.” He smirked. “I take it you’re surprised to see me here?”
“Not really.”
He walked down a hallway, and she followed him. She’d guessed Brock would be Gavin Quinn’s first call as soon as he hung up the phone with her.
The house was dim throughout, the only light coming from narrow niches where spotlights shone down on more arty sculptures on pedestals. All the surfaces in the house were stone, glass, and metal, and the rugs and fabrics covered a range of gray. The look was sophisticated yet muted, and she figured either Quinn had hired an expensive decorator or his late wife had a flair for design.
Brock led her down a glass corridor past a wall of trees. Charlotte halted.
“Wow.” She looked out at the view. An evening shower had soaked everything, and a vibrant green lawn covered a sloping hill. “Is this all his?”
Brock nodded. “He’s got two acres. It’s a pie-shaped lot. Doesn’t look like much from the street.”
Quinn’s flat-roofed home was like a tree house, she saw now, with expansive views overlooking the bayou.
“Nice, isn’t it?”
She sniffed. “Beats the hell out of the Harris County Jail.”
Charlotte didn’t bother to hide her annoyance with the way the system worked for people like Quinn. The judge had ordered Quinn to surrender his passport and granted a one-million-dollar bail. Most accused murderers couldn’t afford anything close to that amount and ended up awaiting their trials as guests of the county, three hots and a cot, and your chance of an assault-free stay was low if you had the wrong tattoos or none at all. Meanwhile, rich guys like Quinn got to await trial at home.
Brock led her through yet another glass corridor, nodding at an armed security guard as he stepped into a living room. The guard was bald and bulky, with hands like baseball mitts. Charlotte couldn’t imagine him handling the Glock on his hip.
She looked at Brock. “Is he with your outfit? Wolfe Security?”
“No, Gavin’s got his own guys. He’s had them for months. Been getting death threats since the arraignment.”
This was news to Charlotte, b
ut she didn’t react.
“Wait here,” Brock told her, then disappeared down another hallway, leaving her alone with the guard.
Charlotte stepped closer to the window and tried to admire the view. But she couldn’t. You could not give her two acres backing up to Buffalo Bayou. What looked like a harmless creek had become a surging torrent when Hurricane Harvey stalled over the city and dumped trillions of gallons of rain. Charlotte had joined the cadre of emergency workers who’d boated and waded through chest-deep water to pull stranded residents from houses. She remembered the slime. The stench. The fear in people’s eyes as they abandoned their homes, clutching their kids and their pets, leaving all their earthly possessions behind. Charlotte had gone home each night filthy, exhausted, and deeply grateful for her no-frills second-floor apartment in the Heights.
“Detective Spears.”
She turned around.
Gavin Quinn entered the room, followed by his attorney, and Charlotte was struck by the sight of them together. Brock Logan was tall and strong and virile. Even with the sling, he was a picture of health.
Gavin Quinn was . . . not. The doctor had pasty skin, slumped shoulders, and a listless look on his face. His gray eyes were bloodshot and watery, and the bluish circles under them made Charlotte think of a NyQuil commercial. The man’s rust-red hair had gray streaks, and he’d grown a beard since that press conference he’d given in front of the police station. The detectives had nicknamed him “the Leprechaun” when they were working his case, and she could see where they’d gotten that. But he didn’t look very sprightly now, much less lucky.
“Have a seat.” Quinn gestured at the general area of a seating arrangement and sank into a chair. He wore loafers without socks, and his ankle bracelet was clunky and black against his pale skin.
Charlotte perched on the end of the L-shaped sectional. Brock sat in an armchair across from her and reached up to switch on a standing lamp.
Quinn winced at the light. “What can I do for you, Detective?” The man sounded tired. The kind of tired that wouldn’t be cured with sleep.
“Thanks for making time to meet with me.” She darted a look at Brock and took out the file she’d tucked into her purse.
“Well, not like I’ve got much else to do. What’s this about, anyway?”
Her Deadly Secrets Page 18
