“She’s fine,” Gideon assured. “She was just whimpering a little.” He studied her face, frowning at whatever he saw there. “Rafe called Sasha and Damien. They’re coming to get you. Okay? You know Damien, right?”
She nodded. “He used to give us piggyback rides,” she whispered. “Sasha and me. When we were little.” Now the oldest of the Sokolovs’ children was a big, burly cop with little girls of his own. “He gave us rides home from Irina’s Sunday dinner a few times. Me and Trish. He fussed at Trish for living in a building with no locks on the front door.” A sob forced its way out. “I wish she’d just moved in with me. She’d still be here.”
He came to his feet, standing between her and the crowd. Blocking their view, she realized. She looked up at him numbly. “I keep wanting to wake up.”
“I know,” he said quietly, keeping one hand on her cheek, taking her free hand in his.
“He . . . stabbed her,” she whispered. “So much blood.”
He brought the hand he held to his cheek and nuzzled her gently. The faint scrape of his stubble grounded her. It was real. He was real. Not like the nightmare they’d stumbled into.
She choked on a sob. “Why?”
“I don’t know. But we’re going to find out.”
“He . . .” She was crying now. Weeping. “I saw the marks,” she whispered, hyperaware of the crowd waiting for any tidbit they could gossip about. “On her throat. I did, didn’t I?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “Yes.”
He’d strangled her. God. “When?”
He sighed. “I won’t know until the ME—”
“Estimate,” she interrupted on a hiss.
He shook his head slightly. “Maybe eight hours. Give or take.”
“She was supposed to get off work at one this morning.”
“We’ll call her boss, okay? I promise.” He gave her hand a little squeeze. “Do you have any photos of Trish wearing the necklace with the turquoise cross?”
“On my phone.” He let go of her hand so that she could find her phone in the side pocket of Brutus’s bag. She fumbled with it one-handed and he took it gently, tapping in her passcode. She frowned for a moment, then remembered she’d given it to him on Thursday night. Less than forty-eight hours ago. How was that even possible?
He held the phone so that she could swipe through the photo files until she found a selfie that she’d had taken with the two of them at the radio station’s New Year’s Eve party. The turquoise cross hung between Trish’s breasts, plainly visible against the pale cream of the sweater she’d been wearing that night.
“This one,” Daisy whispered. She’d never see Trish smile like that, not ever again.
“I’ll just e-mail it to myself and Rafe, okay?” Gideon said quietly. He did so, then slipped Daisy’s phone back into the side pocket of Brutus’s bag.
A door slammed several floors down and heavy footsteps echoed up the stairs. Two uniformed police officers had arrived.
“I’ll be back,” Gideon said softly, swiping his thumb over her cheeks to dry them. “Stay here.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I have to talk to these officers. Make sure they don’t disturb anything until Rafe gets here.”
She nodded, still numb. Unable to do a thing. Except sit. And wait. And try not to think about what she’d seen. How Trish had suffered. God.
The crowd had dispersed. Rafe arrived, along with the woman Daisy had met at SacPD on Thursday night. The forensics woman. Cindy Grimes. Cindy gave her shoulder a sympathetic pat and Rafe gave her a hug, before they disappeared into Trish’s apartment.
Where Trish lay on the floor. Dead. It was . . . impossible. But it was true.
Trish is dead. Because she’d been the target after all. Not me.
Although if Rafe had asked Damien to come with Sasha . . . They still think I need protection. And that was something her mind couldn’t process at the moment.
If we’d only protected Trish like they’ve protected me.
I’m sorry, Trish. So goddamn sorry.
FIFTEEN
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2:50 P.M.
“Did they leave?” Erin Rhee asked when Gideon joined her and Rafe in Trish’s small apartment. Cindy Grimes from Forensics was taking photos of Trish’s body, her mouth set in a firm line as she worked.
“Yeah.” Gideon pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting back a headache. “Sasha and Damien took her to your parents’ house, Rafe.”
Rafe nodded, staring down at Trish’s body with a carefully blank expression. “She was stabbed and strangled.”
Erin squeezed Rafe’s shoulder. “We can hand this one off,” she murmured.
Rafe shook his head, his blank expression remaining unchanged except for the twitch of a muscle in his cheek. “No. We’re going to find the fucker who did this.”
“Okay,” Erin agreed. “But say the word and we’ll back off.”
“You knew Trish well?” Gideon asked.
Rafe’s nod was terse. “She’s been a regular at Sunday dinner for the past six months. Ever since DD moved in. My mom . . . liked her.”
“I’m sorry,” Gideon murmured, but Rafe didn’t respond, continuing to study Trish’s body with angry concentration. Gideon crouched next to the body, careful to stay out of Cindy’s way. No one had touched Trish since the coroner hadn’t yet arrived. “He strangled her. Just like he tried to do to Daisy.”
“And the others,” Erin said quietly. “‘They all do.’”
Rafe pointed to a pile of clothes next to the body, neatly folded, but jagged slices in the fabric were visible. “He cut them off her. That’s her work uniform. I hope he wasn’t as meticulous about cleaning the crime scene as he was with her clothes.”
“I think he was,” Erin said. “I checked the kitchen. It’s very clean, except for a single butcher knife washed and left in the dish drainer. I smelled bleach on it. I haven’t been able to find any bleach anywhere in the apartment. Not even a bleach-type spray bottle. Nor are there any empty bottles. He may have brought it with him or at least taken the bottle with him when he left if he used Trish’s. My money is on him bringing it with him. This was planned.”
“Agreed,” Gideon said. It was impossible to tell whether the knife had made the incisions, but it seemed likely. He hoped the coroner would be able to hazard an opinion. Pivoting, his gaze swept over the apartment, falling on the coffee table.
He rose, frowning. “Look at the stack of magazines.” The blood spatter on the top magazine had abruptly stopped, leaving a clean edge.
“He took the top magazine,” Rafe said flatly. “Why?”
“Souvenir?” Erin waved Cindy over. “Can you get this from every angle, Cindy?”
Gideon stepped back to let Cindy take the photographs. “Possibly a souvenir,” he said. “Daisy thinks he took Trish’s necklace. Turquoise cross.” He found the photo he’d e-mailed to himself. “I sent it to your e-mail, Rafe. I didn’t have yours, Erin.” He passed Erin his phone so that she and Rafe could examine the necklace. “Daisy said that Trish always wore it.”
Erin studied the photo. “He took her necklace, like he took Eileen’s locket.”
“We should have been guarding them both,” Rafe said heavily. “This may have had nothing to do with Daisy specifically. Nothing to do with her e-mails or voice mails. He might have simply followed them from the community center on Thursday night, but Daisy surprised him by confronting him.”
Gideon agreed. “Which means he might come after her, too. Especially if he’s afraid she can identify him.”
“We can put her in a safe house,” Erin said.
Rafe’s laugh was grim. “We can try. After twelve years in hiding, she’s not likely to agree to being hidden away again.”
“Then we don’t let her out of our sight,” Gideon said. A.k.a., I don’t let her out of my sight. So basically, nothing about her protection plan had changed.
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 4:45 P.M.
“Excuse me, ma’am. I’m so sorry to bother you at this time.” He smiled sympathetically at the woman who’d answered the door at Kaley Martell’s house. This would be her mother and her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen from crying. Poor lady.
It honestly hadn’t been anything personal toward this sad old woman. Her daughter had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and had been unforgivably rude, refusing to get into his car when he invited her nicely. Something about her “policy.” She’d tried to convince him to get out of his car.
He might have cut Kaley some slack and moved on to another hooker had he known she was a single mother with a sick kid, but he’d been in a crisis of his own that night.
“I don’t have anything more to say to you reporters,” the woman said wearily. “Please go away.”
He was glad he’d prepared a plan B. “No, ma’am, I’m not a reporter. My name is Johnny Steves and I live over on the next block. I saw the report on Kaley on the news. She . . . I’m a customer. At the bakery. She always had a smile for me.” A common theme of the people the reporter had interviewed. Kaley was always smiling. “We were . . . well, we’re friends.”