On the Count of Three, page 21
“You got it, but—” McGuire’s gaze went from the printout to her eyes. “Do you have more copies?”
She pulled out her phone and opened her e-mail app. The message from Johnny, complete with attachments, was there. “Your e-mail, Officer?”
He smiled at her. “If you want to meet up for drinks sometime, just say so.”
She stared him down. “I don’t know how long you’ve been on the job, but your behavior isn’t appreciated, nor is it professional. A woman is dead. You do realize that?”
His cheeks flushed. “My apologies.”
She wasn’t sure whether he was being sincere or sarcastic. “E-mail?” she prompted.
McGuire gave his e-mail address to her, and he took out his phone.
“Let me know when you get it.” She forwarded the photo of the delivery guy, and a few seconds later, McGuire confirmed receipt. “Share it with the officers canvassing the area,” she continued. “But hurry.” She glanced at the clock in the lobby, and it showed it was creeping up on eleven thirty. The head was delivered over two hours ago now. “We’re already more than a couple of hours behind this guy.”
“I’m all over it.” McGuire hurried off.
Her phone rang and startled her. She answered. “Marsh.”
“Sergeant Ramirez,” he said, formal, tight, and pompous—his trademark.
She’d take it over the phone if she had to. It was a small miracle he wasn’t there, underfoot. Maybe his embarrassment with the mayor bursting into the conference room had made him reconsider getting in Jack’s face again. But that would be assigning the sergeant a conscience and she wasn’t sure he had one.
“What’s the latest news?” he asked as if they hadn’t just spoken about getting officers out on the street to hit up the pharmacies.
“It’s still early.” She wasn’t inclined to share information on the delivery guy unless—or until—she absolutely had to. Technically, the FBI was lead on this so for once she could circumvent her boss. If Ramirez got ahold of the guy’s picture, that was one thing, but she didn’t want to be party to him flapping his gums to the mayor—and who knows who else.
“Give me a little more than that, Detective.”
“We have a lead, and we’re following it,” she said curtly. “I’ll update you when we have more.”
“Should I come down there?” he asked as if she needed micromanaging.
Her hand squeezed around the phone; it saved her palm from digging fingernails. “Officers are canvassing the area to see if they can find the delivery guy.”
“There, now was that so hard?”
Smug, arrogant bastard.
“I really need to go.” She didn’t wait to see if he was going to say anything else. She hung up and was on the move.
She tucked the printout under an arm, took out Nadia’s business card and called her. Jack would either approve of her initiative or be irritated that she didn’t run it by him first, but it’s said that it’s better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.
“Nadia Webber.”
“Nadia, this is Kelly Marsh, the detective in Miami working with Jack on the Kelter case.”
“Yes. What can I do for you?”
“You’ll be getting an e-mail from a Johnny Cash,” Marsh told her. “It will include a video and a still of—” Kelly stopped. Nadia might not have been kept up-to-date on the case.
“Of what, Kelly?”
Kelly smiled. Nadia seemed polite and down-to-earth. Kelly gave her a brief recap of the day’s events so far.
“Damn. I was hoping…”
“That makes two of us,” Kelly said, certain Kelter’s husband and the FBI team could be added to that list.
“So the pic coming to me will be the guy who delivered Kelter’s head?”
“That’s right.”
“I’ll run it through the databases, see if we can get a hit with facial rec.”
“Thanks, Nadia.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Kelly detected the smile in Nadia’s voice. Speaking to the analyst had made Kelly’s mind go back to what her life could have been if only things hadn’t transpired the way they had. With that thought, she remembered Clark West’s gratitude for her taking his son’s murder case seriously, keeping the perspective that Kent had been a person, not just a file number or a toe tag. If her path hadn’t led her to Miami PD, where would she be right now? And if it wasn’t here, maybe that would mean this killer would remain free.
-
Thirty-Five
The first-floor security office was the size of a cubbyhole. I could tell this much just from the doorway. If Jack, Paige, Zach, Marsh, the building employee, and I were all in the room, we’d be packed like sardines in a can.
For now, we were in the hallway where Paige, Zach, and Marsh had been standing when Jack and I approached.
Marsh handed me and Jack a colored printout. “That’s the delivery guy.”
“His name’s Ben,” Paige said before going on to share how she and Zach had made out with Donna. Talk about striking gold.
“So what are we looking at? A partner?” I hypothesized.
“Or a patsy,” Paige suggested. “You’ll see it looks like Ben is married.”
I looked closer at the picture and noted the gold band on his finger.
“I’d more readily believe he’s a fall guy,” Jack said. “This guy—” he shook the photo “—was relaxed. You said he even cracked a joke. And we’ve pegged our killer as organized, and even though his game has changed a bit, I still see signs of that. That doesn’t lend itself to a partnership that could mess with how he wants to do things.”
“This younger guy could explain the cheap cologne,” I said.
“Nah.” Jack dismissed me with a wave of his hand. My temper flared beneath the surface.
“His only role could be to deliver the heads,” I said, not giving in just yet.
“He wasn’t the guy who dropped off West’s head on the courthouse steps,” Marsh said.
“You don’t know that,” I served back. “It wasn’t the clearest picture.”
“Huh.” Marsh angled her head. “Yesterday it was clear enough to determine stature. I remember you saying that you thought it was our unsub. Now you think it’s Ben?”
I didn’t respond.
“Until we can find this Ben guy and question him, we’ll keep our options open as to his relationship—or lack of one—with the unsub,” Jack said.
I took his words as a tiny victory: he didn’t sound as opposed to a partnership as his initial reaction had indicated. Maybe I’d actually swayed him.
Jack turned to Marsh. “Get officers…” He stopped talking when Marsh started nodding.
Were they reading each other’s minds again?
“I have them showing his picture to everyone in the area,” Marsh said.
“Next time lead with that.” Jack grinned at her and added, “Excellent work.”
“How did you and Brandon make out with the lawyer?” Paige asked Jack.
“Apparently, Henderson received an e-mailed threat after Kelter’s trial that warned him to keep quiet about its existence or the sender would hurt him and his family.”
Marsh’s eyes widened. “I’d love to know what it says.”
“Same here,” Jack said. “I’m waiting on Henderson to send me a copy. Then we’ll know more about what we’re dealing with there.”
“So the guy has it from four years ago, and he said nothing this whole time?” Marsh bit her lip.
“The threat against him and his family,” I happily reminded her, but Marsh gave me no reaction again.
“We need to check in with the lawyers for West and Sullivan,” Jack began. “See if they received anything similar. We should have the e-mail from Henderson soon.”
I looked at Marsh, taking pride in the fact we’d now be exploring an avenue I’d brought up before.
“I’ll reach out to the other lawyers,” Marsh said. “They know me.”
“That works for me,” Jack said.
Marsh jacked a thumb over a shoulder to indicate the security office behind her. “The video’s queued up for you to watch. I’m going to notify Gordon Kelter—if you’re all right with that.”
Jack and Marsh fell silent and locked eyes. Eventually, he nodded.
“Thanks, Jack.”
I wasn’t sure why someone would volunteer for notification duty and be grateful for the assignment. It was one of the worst aspects of the job. Much better her than me.
Marsh left, and the remaining four of us squished into the room. The security employee was at a bank of monitors. He swiveled his chair and looked at us. He had a long, narrow face and a scraggly beard. He gave me a pressed-lip smile.
“This is Johnny Cash.” Paige put her hands on the back of his chair, a smile tugging at her lips.
I laughed. “Johnny Cash?”
“Yep, lucky me.” Johnny’s words were thick with sarcasm, anger’s ugly cousin. “My parents were big fans. Sadly, I don’t share their taste in music or their sense of humor.”
I liked this guy. I held out my hand. “Brandon Fisher.”
Jack introduced himself, as well, then pointed to the monitors. “Go ahead and play the feed.”
“Ah, yeah, sure…” Johnny spun forward and worked the mouse right off the desk onto the floor. “Oops.” He bent over and retrieved it. A part of me felt sorry for the guy. Jack could be intimidating for someone who knew him, let alone a stranger.
“Here we go.” Johnny’s tongue curled over his top lip as he clicked the mouse, and the feed started to play.
A heavy energy cloaked the room, and we all fell silent as we watched the video.
“Freeze it there,” Jack told Johnny when the delivery guy was facing the camera. “Whoever the hell this is we need to find him.” His statement was obvious—we’d just had an entire conversation about it—but it clearly communicated his frustration.
Jack extended a card to Johnny. “Get this still forwarded to Nadia Webber at that e-mail address.”
Johnny took the card but said, “Detective Marsh already told me to do that.”
Of course, she had… I was going to have to up my game if I was going to knock Marsh off the pedestal Jack no doubt had her bolted to.
Jack nodded and stepped out into the hall. Paige and Zach followed, but I lingered next to Johnny.
“Thanks, Johnny Quick,” I teased.
He turned, made a finger gun, and pulled the trigger. “Heard it before, but that’s a kickass nickname.”
His preference to a comic book superhero over a musical legend might have made Johnny some enemies, but I wasn’t one of them.
I fist-bumped Johnny and left to find the team waiting for me. Each of my colleagues met me with expectant expressions.
“Brandon and I are going to LDS,” Jack said. “See if we can shake anything loose. I want you two to visit Abigail Cole and find out if she received any mysterious donations or if she recognizes the unsub or the delivery guy.”
“You got it,” Paige said.
“When we’re finished with LDS, Brandon and I will go to Ava Jett’s again and do the same with her.” Jack tapped his shirt pocket. “We’ll see where the day takes us from there. We should visit the three families affected by West’s accident, too.”
The laundry list of things to do was getting longer by the second, but that was a good thing. We’d be narrowing in on our killer sooner rather than later.
-
Thirty-Six
One moment here. The next gone. To think that just two days ago Jenna Kelter had been alive, and today, her husband would be receiving word of her murder.
Zach and Paige were waiting at a red light. There were cars in front of them, cars behind them. At this rate, they’d be lucky to reach Abigail Cole’s place by dinnertime. The dash clock already read one in the afternoon.
He looked over at Paige. “When we wrap up this case, I won’t miss Miami traffic.”
“It is crazy.” Paige smiled at him, but her mind seemed to be somewhere else.
“You okay?” The fact he was asking her that question when she’d asked him the same thing yesterday just proved how life could change. Nothing was predictable or guaranteed. Why should they ever fall into the trap of believing the killers they hunted were?
“I’ll be all right,” she told him, though she lacked conviction.
The light turned green.
“This is me you’re talking to,” Zach said as he drove through the intersection. “I know something’s bothering you.”
“Honestly?” She turned toward him. “This job gets easier in some ways, but not in others. Maybe part of this is your fault. Your talk about leaving the BAU has me thinking about my future.” She sounded somewhat melancholy.
“You’re going to leave—”
“Never,” she shot out. “I wouldn’t know who I am without this job.”
“Then what’s going on?”
“I see something that horrific and…” Her gaze snared his as if seeking understanding.
He nodded. “I get exactly what you’re saying without you saying it. I was thinking the same earlier.”
“Right? My stomach didn’t even clench at the sight of it.” Contrasting her serious confession, her face brightened, and she laughed. “Did you catch the look on Brandon’s face?”
“How could I have missed it?” He snickered, and realized that he and Paige weren’t laughing as much at Brandon as they were envying his wide-eyed innocence.
That thought morphed, the innocence suddenly representing his unborn child. Every day, he’d be witness to their curiosity and growing passion as they explored the world around them. But if he stayed with the BAU, how much of that would he miss? Wouldn’t it be better for his child, for Sheri, for him, if he had a job that allowed him to be around more often?
Zach pulled into the lot for Cole’s apartment building. It was located in Overtown, just north of the downtown core.
They parked and then rang up to the seventh floor where Cole’s unit was. She buzzed them inside.
A couple of minutes later, Zach had his hand raised to knock on her apartment door when it opened and cold air rushed out into the hall. A thirtysomething woman stood there in flannel pajamas and fuzzy slippers. She smelled of cigarette smoke and whiskey. Her hair was greasy and plastered to her skull, her eyes red rimmed. She looked much better in her DMV photo, but this was unmistakably Abigail Cole.
“Who are you?” she asked gruffly as if they were intruding. Which he guessed they sort of were.
Zach held up his badge. “We’re agents with the FBI, and we’d like to talk with you about Justin Cole.”
The woman pointed a finger at Zach and swayed. “He’s dead.”
“We realize that, ma’am,” he said.
“Did you really just call me ma’am when you’re older than I am?” She screwed up her brow.
Zach wasn’t going to argue semantics. Besides, he never understood why women took issue with being called ma’am in the first place. He gestured to her apartment. “May we come in?”
Abigail hesitated but eventually stepped back, sweeping out an extended arm as an invite. Once the three of them were inside, Abigail locked the dead bolt and slid the chain across. “It’s not the best building, but it’s what I can afford. Follow me.” Abigail sashayed toward a living room where she plopped down onto a couch. “And never mind that old clunker.” She turned her head toward a window where an air conditioner rumbled, kicking out cold air and dripping water onto a towel on the carpet beneath it. “It’s noisy but it works.”
That was a matter of opinion. The water should have been routed outside…
“Sit wherever you’d like,” Abigail told them, but the options were limited. They could join her on the couch or…
A nearby kitchen table had four chairs around it. Zach grabbed one for himself and one for Paige and set them across from the couch.
“My name’s Zach Miles, and this is Paige Dawson,” he said.
Abigail’s face was blank, and she reached for a glass next to her that held two fingers’ worth of amber liquid. She took a large mouthful that had her cheeks bulging before she swallowed. She swiped a hand across her mouth. “Why do you want to talk about Justin?” Her eyes were dead when they met Zach’s. If it was possible grief had broken the woman.
“We’re sorry for your loss, Mrs. Cole,” Paige offered, seeming to have picked up on the same thing Zach had.
Abigail blinked slowly. “Do you know how many times I’ve been told that over the last seven years? More than I can count. And you know what? It never makes it easier.” Her mouth twitched as if she was about to burst into tears, but she held herself together.
Zach nodded sympathetically. “We can only imagine how difficult—”
“Can you?” Abigail barked. “You know that I lost his baby, too? Just from the stress of losing Justin. My body…” Abigail’s chin quivered. “I’ve relived that day so many times in the last seven years. And each time I wake up hoping that it was all a bad dream, but then I realize it wasn’t. This is my life now. No husband and no baby.”
The heavy weight of her grief was its own entity in the room. It stabbed Zach in the heart, the resulting pain blinding and suffocating. He could never put Sheri through this. Sure, Justin had died in some random accident, only testifying to the fact life could end at any time, but being a field agent was like tempting fate.
Paige glanced at him and took over. She pulled out her phone. “We’d like to know if you’ve ever seen any of these men?”
Zach was there in body—his ears hearing Paige and Abigail talking, and Abigail’s swearing she’d never seen any of the men in the photo array—but his imagination had already taken over. He envisioned Sheri suffering years after his death, her life flipped upside down because of him, her drinking heavily in the afternoon in a crappy apartment… Their child who knows where, doing who knows what.
She pulled out her phone and opened her e-mail app. The message from Johnny, complete with attachments, was there. “Your e-mail, Officer?”
He smiled at her. “If you want to meet up for drinks sometime, just say so.”
She stared him down. “I don’t know how long you’ve been on the job, but your behavior isn’t appreciated, nor is it professional. A woman is dead. You do realize that?”
His cheeks flushed. “My apologies.”
She wasn’t sure whether he was being sincere or sarcastic. “E-mail?” she prompted.
McGuire gave his e-mail address to her, and he took out his phone.
“Let me know when you get it.” She forwarded the photo of the delivery guy, and a few seconds later, McGuire confirmed receipt. “Share it with the officers canvassing the area,” she continued. “But hurry.” She glanced at the clock in the lobby, and it showed it was creeping up on eleven thirty. The head was delivered over two hours ago now. “We’re already more than a couple of hours behind this guy.”
“I’m all over it.” McGuire hurried off.
Her phone rang and startled her. She answered. “Marsh.”
“Sergeant Ramirez,” he said, formal, tight, and pompous—his trademark.
She’d take it over the phone if she had to. It was a small miracle he wasn’t there, underfoot. Maybe his embarrassment with the mayor bursting into the conference room had made him reconsider getting in Jack’s face again. But that would be assigning the sergeant a conscience and she wasn’t sure he had one.
“What’s the latest news?” he asked as if they hadn’t just spoken about getting officers out on the street to hit up the pharmacies.
“It’s still early.” She wasn’t inclined to share information on the delivery guy unless—or until—she absolutely had to. Technically, the FBI was lead on this so for once she could circumvent her boss. If Ramirez got ahold of the guy’s picture, that was one thing, but she didn’t want to be party to him flapping his gums to the mayor—and who knows who else.
“Give me a little more than that, Detective.”
“We have a lead, and we’re following it,” she said curtly. “I’ll update you when we have more.”
“Should I come down there?” he asked as if she needed micromanaging.
Her hand squeezed around the phone; it saved her palm from digging fingernails. “Officers are canvassing the area to see if they can find the delivery guy.”
“There, now was that so hard?”
Smug, arrogant bastard.
“I really need to go.” She didn’t wait to see if he was going to say anything else. She hung up and was on the move.
She tucked the printout under an arm, took out Nadia’s business card and called her. Jack would either approve of her initiative or be irritated that she didn’t run it by him first, but it’s said that it’s better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.
“Nadia Webber.”
“Nadia, this is Kelly Marsh, the detective in Miami working with Jack on the Kelter case.”
“Yes. What can I do for you?”
“You’ll be getting an e-mail from a Johnny Cash,” Marsh told her. “It will include a video and a still of—” Kelly stopped. Nadia might not have been kept up-to-date on the case.
“Of what, Kelly?”
Kelly smiled. Nadia seemed polite and down-to-earth. Kelly gave her a brief recap of the day’s events so far.
“Damn. I was hoping…”
“That makes two of us,” Kelly said, certain Kelter’s husband and the FBI team could be added to that list.
“So the pic coming to me will be the guy who delivered Kelter’s head?”
“That’s right.”
“I’ll run it through the databases, see if we can get a hit with facial rec.”
“Thanks, Nadia.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Kelly detected the smile in Nadia’s voice. Speaking to the analyst had made Kelly’s mind go back to what her life could have been if only things hadn’t transpired the way they had. With that thought, she remembered Clark West’s gratitude for her taking his son’s murder case seriously, keeping the perspective that Kent had been a person, not just a file number or a toe tag. If her path hadn’t led her to Miami PD, where would she be right now? And if it wasn’t here, maybe that would mean this killer would remain free.
-
Thirty-Five
The first-floor security office was the size of a cubbyhole. I could tell this much just from the doorway. If Jack, Paige, Zach, Marsh, the building employee, and I were all in the room, we’d be packed like sardines in a can.
For now, we were in the hallway where Paige, Zach, and Marsh had been standing when Jack and I approached.
Marsh handed me and Jack a colored printout. “That’s the delivery guy.”
“His name’s Ben,” Paige said before going on to share how she and Zach had made out with Donna. Talk about striking gold.
“So what are we looking at? A partner?” I hypothesized.
“Or a patsy,” Paige suggested. “You’ll see it looks like Ben is married.”
I looked closer at the picture and noted the gold band on his finger.
“I’d more readily believe he’s a fall guy,” Jack said. “This guy—” he shook the photo “—was relaxed. You said he even cracked a joke. And we’ve pegged our killer as organized, and even though his game has changed a bit, I still see signs of that. That doesn’t lend itself to a partnership that could mess with how he wants to do things.”
“This younger guy could explain the cheap cologne,” I said.
“Nah.” Jack dismissed me with a wave of his hand. My temper flared beneath the surface.
“His only role could be to deliver the heads,” I said, not giving in just yet.
“He wasn’t the guy who dropped off West’s head on the courthouse steps,” Marsh said.
“You don’t know that,” I served back. “It wasn’t the clearest picture.”
“Huh.” Marsh angled her head. “Yesterday it was clear enough to determine stature. I remember you saying that you thought it was our unsub. Now you think it’s Ben?”
I didn’t respond.
“Until we can find this Ben guy and question him, we’ll keep our options open as to his relationship—or lack of one—with the unsub,” Jack said.
I took his words as a tiny victory: he didn’t sound as opposed to a partnership as his initial reaction had indicated. Maybe I’d actually swayed him.
Jack turned to Marsh. “Get officers…” He stopped talking when Marsh started nodding.
Were they reading each other’s minds again?
“I have them showing his picture to everyone in the area,” Marsh said.
“Next time lead with that.” Jack grinned at her and added, “Excellent work.”
“How did you and Brandon make out with the lawyer?” Paige asked Jack.
“Apparently, Henderson received an e-mailed threat after Kelter’s trial that warned him to keep quiet about its existence or the sender would hurt him and his family.”
Marsh’s eyes widened. “I’d love to know what it says.”
“Same here,” Jack said. “I’m waiting on Henderson to send me a copy. Then we’ll know more about what we’re dealing with there.”
“So the guy has it from four years ago, and he said nothing this whole time?” Marsh bit her lip.
“The threat against him and his family,” I happily reminded her, but Marsh gave me no reaction again.
“We need to check in with the lawyers for West and Sullivan,” Jack began. “See if they received anything similar. We should have the e-mail from Henderson soon.”
I looked at Marsh, taking pride in the fact we’d now be exploring an avenue I’d brought up before.
“I’ll reach out to the other lawyers,” Marsh said. “They know me.”
“That works for me,” Jack said.
Marsh jacked a thumb over a shoulder to indicate the security office behind her. “The video’s queued up for you to watch. I’m going to notify Gordon Kelter—if you’re all right with that.”
Jack and Marsh fell silent and locked eyes. Eventually, he nodded.
“Thanks, Jack.”
I wasn’t sure why someone would volunteer for notification duty and be grateful for the assignment. It was one of the worst aspects of the job. Much better her than me.
Marsh left, and the remaining four of us squished into the room. The security employee was at a bank of monitors. He swiveled his chair and looked at us. He had a long, narrow face and a scraggly beard. He gave me a pressed-lip smile.
“This is Johnny Cash.” Paige put her hands on the back of his chair, a smile tugging at her lips.
I laughed. “Johnny Cash?”
“Yep, lucky me.” Johnny’s words were thick with sarcasm, anger’s ugly cousin. “My parents were big fans. Sadly, I don’t share their taste in music or their sense of humor.”
I liked this guy. I held out my hand. “Brandon Fisher.”
Jack introduced himself, as well, then pointed to the monitors. “Go ahead and play the feed.”
“Ah, yeah, sure…” Johnny spun forward and worked the mouse right off the desk onto the floor. “Oops.” He bent over and retrieved it. A part of me felt sorry for the guy. Jack could be intimidating for someone who knew him, let alone a stranger.
“Here we go.” Johnny’s tongue curled over his top lip as he clicked the mouse, and the feed started to play.
A heavy energy cloaked the room, and we all fell silent as we watched the video.
“Freeze it there,” Jack told Johnny when the delivery guy was facing the camera. “Whoever the hell this is we need to find him.” His statement was obvious—we’d just had an entire conversation about it—but it clearly communicated his frustration.
Jack extended a card to Johnny. “Get this still forwarded to Nadia Webber at that e-mail address.”
Johnny took the card but said, “Detective Marsh already told me to do that.”
Of course, she had… I was going to have to up my game if I was going to knock Marsh off the pedestal Jack no doubt had her bolted to.
Jack nodded and stepped out into the hall. Paige and Zach followed, but I lingered next to Johnny.
“Thanks, Johnny Quick,” I teased.
He turned, made a finger gun, and pulled the trigger. “Heard it before, but that’s a kickass nickname.”
His preference to a comic book superhero over a musical legend might have made Johnny some enemies, but I wasn’t one of them.
I fist-bumped Johnny and left to find the team waiting for me. Each of my colleagues met me with expectant expressions.
“Brandon and I are going to LDS,” Jack said. “See if we can shake anything loose. I want you two to visit Abigail Cole and find out if she received any mysterious donations or if she recognizes the unsub or the delivery guy.”
“You got it,” Paige said.
“When we’re finished with LDS, Brandon and I will go to Ava Jett’s again and do the same with her.” Jack tapped his shirt pocket. “We’ll see where the day takes us from there. We should visit the three families affected by West’s accident, too.”
The laundry list of things to do was getting longer by the second, but that was a good thing. We’d be narrowing in on our killer sooner rather than later.
-
Thirty-Six
One moment here. The next gone. To think that just two days ago Jenna Kelter had been alive, and today, her husband would be receiving word of her murder.
Zach and Paige were waiting at a red light. There were cars in front of them, cars behind them. At this rate, they’d be lucky to reach Abigail Cole’s place by dinnertime. The dash clock already read one in the afternoon.
He looked over at Paige. “When we wrap up this case, I won’t miss Miami traffic.”
“It is crazy.” Paige smiled at him, but her mind seemed to be somewhere else.
“You okay?” The fact he was asking her that question when she’d asked him the same thing yesterday just proved how life could change. Nothing was predictable or guaranteed. Why should they ever fall into the trap of believing the killers they hunted were?
“I’ll be all right,” she told him, though she lacked conviction.
The light turned green.
“This is me you’re talking to,” Zach said as he drove through the intersection. “I know something’s bothering you.”
“Honestly?” She turned toward him. “This job gets easier in some ways, but not in others. Maybe part of this is your fault. Your talk about leaving the BAU has me thinking about my future.” She sounded somewhat melancholy.
“You’re going to leave—”
“Never,” she shot out. “I wouldn’t know who I am without this job.”
“Then what’s going on?”
“I see something that horrific and…” Her gaze snared his as if seeking understanding.
He nodded. “I get exactly what you’re saying without you saying it. I was thinking the same earlier.”
“Right? My stomach didn’t even clench at the sight of it.” Contrasting her serious confession, her face brightened, and she laughed. “Did you catch the look on Brandon’s face?”
“How could I have missed it?” He snickered, and realized that he and Paige weren’t laughing as much at Brandon as they were envying his wide-eyed innocence.
That thought morphed, the innocence suddenly representing his unborn child. Every day, he’d be witness to their curiosity and growing passion as they explored the world around them. But if he stayed with the BAU, how much of that would he miss? Wouldn’t it be better for his child, for Sheri, for him, if he had a job that allowed him to be around more often?
Zach pulled into the lot for Cole’s apartment building. It was located in Overtown, just north of the downtown core.
They parked and then rang up to the seventh floor where Cole’s unit was. She buzzed them inside.
A couple of minutes later, Zach had his hand raised to knock on her apartment door when it opened and cold air rushed out into the hall. A thirtysomething woman stood there in flannel pajamas and fuzzy slippers. She smelled of cigarette smoke and whiskey. Her hair was greasy and plastered to her skull, her eyes red rimmed. She looked much better in her DMV photo, but this was unmistakably Abigail Cole.
“Who are you?” she asked gruffly as if they were intruding. Which he guessed they sort of were.
Zach held up his badge. “We’re agents with the FBI, and we’d like to talk with you about Justin Cole.”
The woman pointed a finger at Zach and swayed. “He’s dead.”
“We realize that, ma’am,” he said.
“Did you really just call me ma’am when you’re older than I am?” She screwed up her brow.
Zach wasn’t going to argue semantics. Besides, he never understood why women took issue with being called ma’am in the first place. He gestured to her apartment. “May we come in?”
Abigail hesitated but eventually stepped back, sweeping out an extended arm as an invite. Once the three of them were inside, Abigail locked the dead bolt and slid the chain across. “It’s not the best building, but it’s what I can afford. Follow me.” Abigail sashayed toward a living room where she plopped down onto a couch. “And never mind that old clunker.” She turned her head toward a window where an air conditioner rumbled, kicking out cold air and dripping water onto a towel on the carpet beneath it. “It’s noisy but it works.”
That was a matter of opinion. The water should have been routed outside…
“Sit wherever you’d like,” Abigail told them, but the options were limited. They could join her on the couch or…
A nearby kitchen table had four chairs around it. Zach grabbed one for himself and one for Paige and set them across from the couch.
“My name’s Zach Miles, and this is Paige Dawson,” he said.
Abigail’s face was blank, and she reached for a glass next to her that held two fingers’ worth of amber liquid. She took a large mouthful that had her cheeks bulging before she swallowed. She swiped a hand across her mouth. “Why do you want to talk about Justin?” Her eyes were dead when they met Zach’s. If it was possible grief had broken the woman.
“We’re sorry for your loss, Mrs. Cole,” Paige offered, seeming to have picked up on the same thing Zach had.
Abigail blinked slowly. “Do you know how many times I’ve been told that over the last seven years? More than I can count. And you know what? It never makes it easier.” Her mouth twitched as if she was about to burst into tears, but she held herself together.
Zach nodded sympathetically. “We can only imagine how difficult—”
“Can you?” Abigail barked. “You know that I lost his baby, too? Just from the stress of losing Justin. My body…” Abigail’s chin quivered. “I’ve relived that day so many times in the last seven years. And each time I wake up hoping that it was all a bad dream, but then I realize it wasn’t. This is my life now. No husband and no baby.”
The heavy weight of her grief was its own entity in the room. It stabbed Zach in the heart, the resulting pain blinding and suffocating. He could never put Sheri through this. Sure, Justin had died in some random accident, only testifying to the fact life could end at any time, but being a field agent was like tempting fate.
Paige glanced at him and took over. She pulled out her phone. “We’d like to know if you’ve ever seen any of these men?”
Zach was there in body—his ears hearing Paige and Abigail talking, and Abigail’s swearing she’d never seen any of the men in the photo array—but his imagination had already taken over. He envisioned Sheri suffering years after his death, her life flipped upside down because of him, her drinking heavily in the afternoon in a crappy apartment… Their child who knows where, doing who knows what.
