‘He knows I’m lying,’ Meredith murmured back. ‘Who do you think taught me how? Don’t play poker with him. He’ll tell you he’s never played before and the next thing you know, he owns your favorite Billie Holiday album.’
‘I also still hear very well,’ Clarke called from the pantry. ‘And I have an excellent memory. You made a bootlegged copy for me and kept the original for yourself.’
‘And you were proud of me for creatively cheating,’ Meredith called back.
‘That I was, Merry. Diesel, you want soup? Seems like if I’m actually going to make some, somebody should eat it. She’ll just pick at it.’
Diesel’s mouth curved in an easy smile that Meredith had never seen before. ‘Yes, sir. Thanks.’
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Saturday 19 December, 6.55 P.M.
Adam, Deacon, and Scarlett had spent the last hour taking statements from all the occupants of the restaurant. There weren’t many people he’d trust implicitly to interview witnesses without his involvement, but Deacon and Scarlett were two of them. Deacon was his cousin and Scarlett and Adam had worked homicide together for years. The three of them made a good team and systematically took statements from patrons, staff, and anyone who’d been outside at the time of the shooting.
The restaurant’s occupants had all seen the same thing. The young man with the gun, Meredith trying to talk him down, Meredith pulling her gun, the shot coming from outside, the gore, the broken window, the second shot, and the injured patron.
But they’d struck gold with a couple who’d come to the restaurant to get engaged. The groom-to-be’s best friend had been hiding behind a post to videotape the entire proposal. The groom had just gotten down on one knee when the young man walked through the restaurant and stopped at Meredith’s table.
They’d gotten a perfect view of his face. Hopefully the victim’s fingerprints would yield an ID, but, at a minimum, they had his face. They’d provided a photo to the media and it was now being shared by every national news outlet, online and on TV. So far, no one had come forward to identify the poor bastard.
Deacon and Scarlett joined him in the meeting room the hotel had provided for their interviews, both taking their seats with deep sighs.
‘Are we done?’ Deacon asked wearily.
‘We still have one more person to chat up,’ Scarlett said.
Adam rubbed his temples. ‘She still in the ladies’ room?’ The one person they had yet to interview had hidden herself in a bathroom stall. Officer Kendra Cullen had noticed her as soon as they’d evacuated the restaurant patrons to the hotel lobby and had been rotating watch duty with a few of the other cops outside the ladies’ room door. Wendi’s little sister was a damn good cop.
‘Yep.’ Scarlett rolled her eyes. ‘Every time she peeked out of the bathroom she ducked back in. Kenny went in, asked her to come out to be interviewed, but she kept saying she was feeling sick and locked herself in the stall.’
‘Is she sick?’ Adam asked.
Scarlett shrugged. ‘She’s repeatedly refused medical attention. Kenny had to go back on patrol and there’s a guy standing watch now, so I guess I’m elected to go fetch her.’
‘Do we know who she is?’ Deacon asked.
Adam nodded. ‘Name’s Colleen Martel. She’s the hostess at Buon Cibo. She showed Meredith and Mallory to their table.’
‘Their very conveniently placed table by the window,’ Deacon murmured.
‘That Meredith had been told wasn’t reservable when she called ahead to ask for it,’ Adam added. ‘I’ve been waiting for a background check on Colleen. I wanted to know if she had any priors before I talked to her. It came in about five minutes ago. She’s clean. Not even a parking ticket.’
‘I hope she’s got a good reason for hiding in the toilet, then.’ Scarlett stood. ‘Don’t do anything fun till I get back.’
Adam propped his elbows on the table, dug his thumbs into his throbbing eye sockets, and tried to figure out what the girl could have done or seen or . . . whatever to make her hide for hours in a toilet so that she didn’t have to talk to them. But his brain was serving up nothing. His mouth was dry and his skin felt way too tight on his bones.
Dammit, he wanted a drink so fucking bad. He was glad he’d given his sponsor the heads up because this day was only going to get worse. Fortunately, he’d be able to take in a meeting at midnight. John would meet him in the basement of St Agnes’s, no matter what time of the night. The guy was a truly fucking awesome sponsor. I’m lucky.
I’ll be luckier if I can get Meredith to listen to me tonight.
He’d also be luckier if he could get a fucking lead on this case so that he wouldn’t have to worry that someone was going to kill her the next time she left her house.
‘You okay?’ Deacon asked quietly.
‘Yeah. Just a bad headache.’ Not a total lie at least.
Deacon dug into the pocket of his leather trench coat, pulled out a power bar and tossed it across the table. ‘Eat something.’
‘Thanks. I forgot about food.’ He demolished the bar and washed it and some ibuprofen down with a bottle of water, immediately feeling a little better. He scrolled through the seventy-five texts he’d received in the last hour.
‘Anything new?’ Deacon asked.
Adam shook his head. ‘Mostly requests from reporters, but I’m happy to leave the sound bites to the brass,’ he muttered, then grimaced. ‘Hell.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve got texts coming in from my old unit. They’re all “worried” about me.’ He blew out a breath. ‘There are days I wish I’d never taken that leave.’ The mental health leave that had been so very necessary, but continued to get him looks from the other cops – of pity, derision. Contempt. He got the contempt look a lot, especially from the cop who’d spawned him. Thanks for that, Dad.
Deacon made a sympathetic noise in his throat. ‘Sorry. They just care.’
He grunted. Not all of them. He kept scrolling, ignoring the not-so-subtle jabs, until he came to a text that made one side of his mouth lift in as much of a smile as he was capable. ‘This one does. It’s from Wyatt.’
After Deacon, Wyatt Hanson was his next oldest friend. The three of them had gone to high school together, but Deacon had been a nerd while Adam and Wyatt were jocks. It had been Adam and Wyatt who’d kept Deacon from getting beaten up daily, because even then Deacon had been opinionated. And far too brilliant for his own good. It was like he painted a target on his own head every morning before school.
Deacon’s smile was fond. ‘How’s he doing?’
‘Good,’ Adam said. His and Wyatt’s friendship had fully cemented after high school, when Deacon had gone away to college. Wyatt had been his first partner right out of the academy and again in Personal Crimes, the year before. Wyatt was the guy who’d gotten him through the disaster that had been his former assignment. ‘He says if I have another meltdown, to run to his place because he has a driveway full of snow he’d like cleared.’
Deacon’s white brows lifted sharply. ‘That’s . . . kind of horrible.’
Adam chuckled. ‘It’s gallows humor and it’s okay. I did have a meltdown.’ His smile faded. The full details of which he’d only told one person outside of his old unit. And Meredith had kept his secret too. Only a few other people knew the whole story – Wyatt Hanson and Nash Currie, the detectives who’d been with him when it happened. Their immediate boss in Personal had also known, of course.
And, obviously, the guy who’d actually done it.
Panic, reflexive and visceral, washed through him at the memory, as it always did. So much blood. He still heard Paula’s pathetic attempts to scream in his nightmares. He closed his eyes, shoved the memory aside.
‘You okay?’ Deacon asked quietly.
‘Yep. Peachy.’ Adam scrolled through more messages from reporters and sighed again when he saw the messages from another familiar number. ‘Just fuckin’ peachy.’