‘Possible,’ she murmured. ‘But not that likely. What else?’
‘That the killers were different people, completely unrelated, but that Bruiser knew I was on the case and figured seeing Tiffany’s body would freak me out and I’d be too distracted to investigate properly.’ He drew a breath. ‘Which sounds utterly presumptive and narcissistic of me.’
A shiver clawed across her skin. ‘But someone tried to kill you yesterday.’
‘I know. That’s why I’m sitting here making myself crazy.’
‘What are the other options?’
‘Just one – that the same man killed Paula and Tiffany and her mother. Which means I’m connected on some level. Which makes sense if we’re talking about a cop being responsible. So, I’m leaning toward this last one, as crazy as it sounds.’
‘You’re saying you know this cop. Or this cop knows you. And wants to hurt you.’
‘Well, he wants to hurt Mallory,’ he said grimly. ‘He just wants to fuck with me.’
She shuddered out a breath. ‘It was better when I was the only one in danger.’
He gave her an angry look. ‘Not funny.’
‘Not trying to be. I’m just being honest.’
He closed his eyes again. ‘I’m . . . blown away by this, Meredith. Not gonna lie.’
‘How can we know, one way or the other?’
He tapped a beat on his laptop lid, keeping time with the slow ballad coming from his phone. ‘We connect Bruiser to the man who hurt you all tonight. And then we check all their connections and find out where they cross paths with the cop who raped Mallory.’
‘Okay. That sounds like a place to start.’
His lips curved bitterly. ‘Sure. Except we don’t know Bruiser’s real name, tonight’s gunman got away, and all we know about the cop is that he has a birthmark or a scar on his chest.’ He frowned. ‘And that, if he really is a cop, he had a way to make any records of his interaction with Mallory’s captor disappear.’ He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. ‘And even if we knew more, we don’t know if there are any other players in the mix. What we fucking know is a fucking drop in the fucking ocean.’
Meredith wanted to soothe him. Wanted to assure him it would be all right, but knew that platitudes wouldn’t help. Closing her eyes, she let the music fill her mind, brushing all the frustrations into a corner. Humming with ‘Sentimental Journey’, her thoughts wandered to what she knew, what she had seen and heard, and suddenly little Penny Voss had center stage. Penny’s horror, her sadness, and her frustration as she’d smashed the face of her creation because she couldn’t replicate a person so sick.
Sick and sad and scared and on the run.
‘Linnie knows,’ she said quietly. ‘Linnie’s seen his face.’
A bitter sigh. ‘And she’s in the wind. She’ll never trust us now.’
Meredith opened her eyes, studying his stony profile. ‘But she’ll trust Shane.’
His black lashes lifted and then he was staring at her with a proud wonder that morphed into intense focus. ‘Yeah. She would. I need to get Shane on TV, to get him to make a plea for her to come to us before Andy’s killer gets her.’
She smiled at him. ‘Then do that.’
He cupped her jaw and roughly pulled her to his mouth, kissing her hard. ‘I will.’ He let her go and stood up. ‘We need to go.’
She blinked at him. ‘We do?’
‘Yeah. I have to go home and get some clean clothes, drop you . . . where? Where can I take you where you’ll be safe? I can’t leave you here.’
‘I’m not the target,’ she reminded him, but he shook his head.
‘I don’t care. I won’t be able to think clearly if I don’t know you’re safe.’
‘Then drop me off at the hospital. I’ll sit with Papa.’
‘Okay, that’s good. Isenberg posted an officer between his room and Kate’s. Then I can go into the precinct to—’ He cut himself off. ‘No, I have something else to do before I set up a TV spot for Shane.’ He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. ‘Full disclosure? I promised my sponsor I’d hit a meeting this morning. St Agnes’s has one at six a.m.’
‘Then you should. Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be ready to go.’ She started for the bedroom, but a thought struck her hard and she turned back to Adam. ‘Who knows about that video, Adam? The one of Paula?’
He’d cut the music and had started to dial a number on his phone, but he stopped and frowned at her. ‘Wyatt and Nash. They were standing with me when it went down.’ He grimaced. ‘It was Nash who made me think of this again.’
‘He was looking at the photos before we left the briefing room,’ she said quietly.
Adam’s expression became suddenly unreadable. ‘He couldn’t be . . . No, Meredith. He can’t be involved. Nash’s a good man.’
‘I’m not saying he’s bad. But even if Tiffany and her mother’s murders are only related to upset you and throw you off your game, it means somebody had to know. You need to find out who’s had access to that video. Maybe it was someone you know. Maybe someone you don’t.’ She grabbed his hand and squeezed it. ‘Call your old department. Maybe they’ll have records of who’s viewed it other than Wyatt and Nash.’
He sank back into the chair, looking like he’d been hit with a mallet. ‘Shit.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He shook his head. ‘No, no. You’re right. Of course you’re right. But . . . shit.’ He looked up at her bleakly. ‘I’m just . . . Damn, Meredith, who do I trust?’
‘Isenberg, Deacon, and Scarlett, for starters.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Well, of course I trust Isenberg, Deacon, and Scarlett.’
Meredith considered carefully. ‘And Trip.’
He held her gaze. ‘Because your gut says so? I mean, I’m inclined to agree, but I haven’t known him long enough to be sure.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s not just because I like him, even though I do. I trust Trip. But the fact is, the man who raped Mallory was white. The man who attacked us last night was about seven inches shorter and probably a hundred pounds lighter than Trip. And I happen to know he was still training in Quantico around the time Paula was killed.’ She rose. ‘Call Isenberg. I’ll get your things together while you do.’ She was halfway to the bedroom when he called to her.
‘Meredith? Thank you.’
He looked a little lost, so she retraced her steps to stand behind his chair. Leaning down, she wrapped her arms around his broad, strong shoulders. She pressed her lips to his temple. ‘You’re welcome,’ she murmured in his ear. ‘I’m not going to say it’ll be okay, but I will remind you that you are not alone. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Monday 21 December, 6.15 A.M.
Linnea woke with a start, mind fuzzy, aware she was in a strange place. She slept under soft blankets and her head rested on one that was folded into a pillow. Her hand covered a gun and her stomach was only a little growly.
The Gruber Academy’s little bus. She stretched, wincing when her muscles ached. She’d walked a long way yesterday. But she was still alive and that meant something.
It was dark, so it wasn’t seven yet, which was good because parents started dropping off their kids at seven thirty. It had said so on the school’s website.
Cautiously, she pushed to her knees and peered out the window, relieved to see the parking lot exactly as it had been the night before. She needed to fold the blankets then find somewhere to freshen up.
She was relieved to see she hadn’t bled on their blankets, so Dr Dani’s stitches were holding. The woman might be a terrible person, but she was a decent doctor.
Linnea pocketed the gun, wondering exactly what she’d do when she found little Ariel. She wasn’t going to shoot the child, that much she knew for sure. And she still wasn’t sure that Ariel’s daddy was the man she sought.
But this was her best lead and she had to follow it through.
Twenty-five
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Monday 21 December, 7.02 A.M.