A Panicked Premonition

  I rocked back and forth on my heels, greatly amused. No way was I stopping. “He’s supercute. And I see he also works with the law, but his employment has to do with books and there’s a connection to government. City attorney, by chance?”

  Grayson’s cheeks warmed to a deeper hue and she looked around to see who might be listening. Of course everyone in the area—about six detectives in total—was staring at us curiously. “I could arrest you, you know.”

  “Second date?” I said, completely unfazed. I’ve been to jail. It ain’t no thang. “Looks like you might get lucky if you play your cards right.”

  Grayson narrowed her eyes and reached into her side drawer to withdraw a set of handcuffs. “I’m not playing, Cooper.”

  I laughed and Candice covered her lips with a finger to stifle a giggle. “Okay, okay,” I said, holding up my hands in surrender. “But for the record, you look gorgeous today. Stunning, actually. He’ll be lucky to be seen out with you.”

  Grayson pocketed the cuffs before tugging at the front of her blazer, but I could tell she was pleased by the compliment. “Can we just focus on the Wixom and Roswell cases this morning?”

  “Of course,” I said. But then one more thing occurred to me, and I almost hesitated mentioning it, because it was early and I knew that Nikki would be disappointed.

  “What?” she asked me, noticing I was trying to say something else.

  “Probably nothing,” I said, but it wasn’t nothing, and it was bumming me out.

  “Spill it,” she said, her hand finding her hip.

  “It’s just . . . this guy, he kind of plays the field. I’m sensing he’s got a bit of a wandering eye.”

  Nikki shifted on her feet. I got the impression she wasn’t aware of that. “He’s a good-looking man,” she said with a shrug. “And we’re not exclusive.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said, but I didn’t like what I saw in the ether with the detective’s love interest. He seemed ready to disappoint her, and I liked Nikki. I didn’t want to see her end up with some jerkwad.

  The three of us fell into an uncomfortable silence until Candice made a waving motion toward the elevators to get us back on course. “After you, Detective.”

  “Hold on,” Grayson said. “The reason I wanted you two to come down here instead of meeting me at the crime scene is because there’s something I want to show you.”

  “What’s that?” Candice asked.

  Grayson tucked her purse into her desk drawer, retrieved a key card on a lanyard, picked up one of the two coffee cups she’d carried in, and said, “Follow me.”

  We headed away from the detectives’ area back toward the elevators, took one down to the first floor, where we walked through a windowed corridor and finally through a set of double doors with the words CRIME LAB posted on them.

  Grayson had to swipe her key card to gain access to the doors, and she held them open for Candice and me. I have to admit that I was very curious about what she wanted to show us, and my gut was telling me I was about to learn something crucial to the case against Dave.

  The brightly lit lab itself was a large room with several workstations, and crime techs in lab coats and rubber gloves were already hard at work on various cases identifiable by the clusters of brown paper bags on the long tables at each station. Only one or two of the dozen or so techs in attendance looked up as we entered; one was a statuesque blonde, with an absolutely beautiful heart-shaped face, full lips, a shapely figure, and angular black-framed glasses.

  She was like something out of a nerd’s wet dream. “Nikki,” she said warmly as we approached.

  “Good morning, Sienna,” Grayson replied, offering the tech the cup she’d brought with her. “Mocha chai latte, right?”

  Sienna’s beautiful face lit up with a smile. “Thank you!” she said, grabbing for the cup and taking a sip. “Yeah,” she added, closing her eyes with pleasure. “That’s the stuff.”

  When she focused on us again, Grayson motioned to Candice and me. “These are the two I was telling you about.”

  Sienna looked from me to Candice. “Which one is the psychic?”

  I raised my hand. “Moi.”

  “Huh,” Sienna said, as if my admission had disappointed her. “I gotta admit that I don’t really believe in psychics, but word around here is that you’ve got some sort of talent for seeing stuff on cases that no one else hits on.”

  My smile tightened. For the record, it’s SUPER rude to tell someone that you don’t “believe” in their profession. I mean, even if you don’t, don’t fucking say it to their face, okay?

  “Yeah, I get that a lot,” I told her.

  “Get what a lot?” she asked.

  “Doubt. But the doubters always seem to come around after I say something like, ‘Gee, I hope you like that new black SUV you’re driving. It’s a real improvement from the dull white sedan you used to drive. Oh, and while I’m at it, sorry about the breakup you just had with your significant other. I know it got really ugly there at the end, but now that you took a little break to visit with your family on the East Coast . . . somewhere in the Carolinas, and he’s moved out, you’re actually finding yourself relieved about his absence and ready to spend some quality time working on yourself.’”

  Sienna’s mouth fell open and she simply stared at me for five or six wide-eyed blinks. Finally, she switched her gaze to Detective Grayson and mouthed, Whoa!

  Grayson shrugged her shoulders in an I-told-you-so way and Candice nudged me slightly with her elbow to let me know she liked what I’d just done.

  But I was still a bit annoyed. My life is a never-ending battle to prove myself, over and over, and over again, and it got really wearisome and old after a decade and a half at it.

  “How did you know all that?” Sienna asked once she’d recovered herself.

  “How do you think?” I replied.

  I could see the mental gears turning while Sienna considered how I might logically know several very intimate and personal details about her without ever having met her, and I’m pretty sure she was thinking that I’d either spied on her prior to this morning or gleaned the info from the Interwebs.

  To my relief, Detective Grayson said, “Sienna, just so you know, Abby had no idea I was bringing her to you, and I doubt that she’s ever even heard of you. To my knowledge, she’s never even been down here, right, Abby?”

  “Right,” I said, without taking my gaze off Sienna.

  “That’s what I thought,” Grayson said. “So, there’s no way she would’ve had an opportunity to investigate you prior to following me down here just now.”

  Sienna seemed troubled, and I suppose I could understand. These science people are the hardest to convince because they can’t measure or quantify the type of energy I interact with. It doesn’t compute in their minds.

  A long moment of silence followed while the crime tech continued to process what had to be, in her mind at least, an impossibility, and then Grayson said, “I brought Abby and Candice down here to have them hear about what you discovered last night on the Roswell case.”

  The set to my shoulders eased. I loved that Grayson was so obviously on my side when it came to supporting my talent in the face of skepticism. She’d almost always proven herself to be a terrific ally to me and Candice, and I found myself feeling a little guilty for having teased her about the new beau in her life.

  Sienna nodded, but I could tell she was still slightly thrown by what I’d said to her. There was a flush to her neck as she moved away from us to retrieve a thick, tan case file. “I received confirmation on the blood sample taken at the Roswells’ home and the hair sample supplied to me from the search warrant as being from the same individual.”

  My brow furrowed, as did Candice’s. “Which blood sample?” I asked.

  “And which search warrant?”

  Sienna was flippi
ng the case file pages up as she read the notes. “The blood sample taken at the security gate of the Roswells’ home, and the hair sample retrieved from the ponytail holder confiscated at Dave McKenzie’s house.”

  It was my turn to let my jaw hang open. “The bloody handprint with Dave’s fingerprints was also made up of Dave’s blood?”

  Sienna pushed at the nosepiece to her glasses. “Yes,” she said. “If it’s truly Dave McKenzie’s hair from the ponytail tie—”

  “His wife claimed it was his and we got it from his side of the bathroom,” Grayson interrupted to confirm the origin of the hair tie.

  Sienna nodded. “Right, then the DNA from the ponytail holder matches the blood sample taken from the gate.”

  “So it wasn’t the Roswells’ blood, or Rosa’s, or the gardener . . . what was his name?” Candice asked Grayson.

  “Mario,” Grayson said. “Mario Tremblee.”

  “Yes, if it wasn’t Mario’s blood either, then that could only mean that Dave was wounded when he left the Roswells’ house.”

  “That’s what it looks like,” Grayson said.

  I felt that awful sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach again, especially when I remembered the handprint. Dave’s hand had to have been covered in blood. “He’d have to have been hurt pretty badly,” I said.

  “Yes,” Grayson said. “From the blood trail leading to the handprint and the amount of blood recovered on the gate, that’s what it looks like.”

  “Did you check the hospitals?” Candice asked. “To see about any men matching Dave’s description who might’ve sought treatment in the past couple of days for a severe injury?”

  “We did,” Grayson said. “No one matching his description has sought any medical attention for a wound bad enough to cover his hand in blood.”

  “It could be the reason Gwen was abducted,” Candice said to me. “She could’ve patched him up.”

  I remembered Gwen telling us she was a registered nurse, so Candice’s point was a valid one. Gwen possessed the skills to provide at least some level of aid to Dave.

  “Was he shot?” I asked the group.

  “Given the amount of blood on the palm print and the droplets we recovered from the driveway, he certainly could’ve been,” Grayson said. “It could’ve been a ricochet, though, as all the bullets fired at the Roswells’ house came from two guns.”

  “Uh-uh,” Sienna corrected. “There were three guns involved, Detective.”

  Grayson motioned to her. “Yeah, sorry. Three guns. I forgot about Tremblee. He was shot with a forty-five.”

  “A forty-five? That’s different than the thirty-eight used to shoot Chris Wixom last night,” I said.

  “It is,” Grayson said. “Rosa Torrez was shot with an AR-fifteen, as were Andy and Robin Roswell, but there appears to have been an additional AR-fifteen used to shoot them as well.”

  “Two killers,” I said. “Both using AR-fifteens to kill the homeowners.”

  “Yes,” Sienna said.

  “So the point was to cut them to ribbons,” Candice said.

  Sienna’s expression turned grim. “It appears that way. With two of those weapons turned on them, they had no chance of survival.”

  “But Mario was shot with a handgun,” I said. “Along with Chris Wixom, but not the same handgun.”

  “Yep,” Grayson said, and I could tell that it troubled her as well that none of the same guns had been used at both scenes. The inconsistency was hard to explain.

  “Any prints on the casings?” Candice asked next.

  “We found an index fingerprint and a partial thumbprint on the casing that came from the bullet fired at Tremblee, but none on the casings of the AR-fifteens. The prints don’t match anyone in the system either,” Grayson said.

  “They’re not Dave’s?” I asked just to be sure.

  “No, which leads us to the next puzzling bit of info.”

  “Which is?” I asked when she fell silent.

  Sienna answered the question for her. “We found a set of prints on the casing recovered at the front door of Wixom’s house. It doesn’t match the print from the casing at the Roswells’, but we did get a hit in the system for it.”

  “Who?” Candice and I asked together.

  Sienna pulled out a mug shot from the file she was holding and handed it to me. The guy in the photo was a seriously bad-looking dude. His mug shot had him at above six feet tall, with stringy long hair, a thick beard, a mustache, and mean beady eyes.

  Candice, who was looking over my shoulder, said, “He looks a little like Dave.”

  I’d seen the resemblance too, but it went only as far as height, hair, and maybe general scruffiness. Next to each other, however, these guys were as different as night and day. It was in the eyes, I reasoned. Dave’s eyes were bright blue with a twinkle of good humor. The guy in the mug shot had the eyes of a killer. A guy who’d shiv an old lady for getting in his way.

  A guy who’d murder four people in cold blood.

  “Who is it?” I asked, because there was no name to go with the mug shot.

  “Gene Gudziak,” Grayson said. “He goes by the nickname Snake and he’s wanted in Arizona, New Mexico, and now here. He served twenty years of a forty-five-year sentence for murdering his landlord in Phoenix back in the early nineties; then he violated his parole by skipping town and is the key suspect in a double murder in Albuquerque and a sexual assault in Santa Fe.”

  I shuddered as I stared at Gudziak’s photo. I’ve looked at the mug shots of lots of wicked men in my time. Men who’ve done heinous things, unspeakable really, but almost none of them gave me the shivers like Gudziak did.

  “There’s more,” Grayson said in a quiet tone, and I understood that she’d saved the worst for last.

  “Tell us,” Candice said, and I could tell she had steeled herself to hear something terrible. Much like I was steeling myself.

  “It appears that Robin Roswell was violently raped before she was murdered,” Grayson said even more softly. “The DNA recovered from her attacker matches Gudziak.”

  I shut my eyes against the imagery of Robin Roswell’s final hour on this earth. “Jesus,” I whispered.

  Candice swore softly and I felt her lean against me. She was imagining the horror Robin must have endured too.

  And then Gwen’s image came to my mind’s eye and I felt a renewed sense of panic. “We have to find Gwen,” I said, opening my eyes.

  “Do you know if Dave has any association to this guy?” Grayson asked me.

  “None,” I said.

  Grayson looked to Candice and she backed me up. “No way,” she said. “There’s no connection.”

  “And yet,” she said, “the evidence from the casing suggests he was with McKenzie at Wixom’s attempted murder.”

  “I still don’t believe Dave did this voluntarily,” I snapped.

  Grayson shook her head and crossed her arms. “When I spoke to Wixom, he didn’t hesitate to implicate McKenzie had been the one to shoot him with little provocation.”

  “That’s not the Dave I know,” I insisted. And then I turned the mug shot of Gudziak toward the detective. “And I know you see the resemblance between this guy and Dave. What if it was Gudziak who shot Wixom, but Wixom got confused and fingered Dave as the shooter? In fact, what if Dave was this guy’s hostage, forced to ride along with Gudziak, who was really in charge?”

  But Grayson seemed unconvinced. “Abby, I know McKenzie is your friend, but up close McKenzie and Gudziak couldn’t be mistaken for each other.”

  My lips pressed together. I knew she was right, but I still wanted Wixom’s statement to be a mistake. The Dave I knew just couldn’t have pulled that trigger.

  “Listen,” Grayson said, seeing that I was still stubbornly holding to the faith of my friend. “I know you want to believe he’s innocent,
but I’ve got two separate connections to him at two violent home invasions. He was at both places, and he wasn’t some innocent bystander at the second one. He shot Wixom.”

  Candice crossed one arm over her torso, resting the opposite elbow on her wrist, to tap her lip with her finger. It’s a mannerism she adopts every time she doesn’t agree with an argument. I call it her Sherlock pose. “Detective,” she said formally. “You told us the casing retrieved from the bullet that went into Wixom had Gudziak’s print on it, right?”

  “Yes.”

  Candice took the mug shot from me and waved it at her. “Then isn’t it more likely that Gudziak shot Wixom and not Dave? After all, wasn’t Wixom shot in the back?”

  “Yes, he was shot in the back, but no, Wixom told me he saw McKenzie step up to him when he was lying on the floor and fire the second shot. Gudziak’s prints on the casings only mean that Gudziak loaded the gun.”

  “Okay,” I tried, thinking of a different angle. “Wixom said that two men entered his home and attacked him, right?”

  “Yes,” Grayson said with a small sigh.

  “So, what did the other guy look like?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that Wixom identified Dave, but since last night has he been able to give anyone a physical description of the second man?”

  Grayson pressed her own lips together. “No,” she said. “Like I told you, he blacked out before I had a chance to ask him.”

  “Did he make it out of surgery okay?” Candice asked carefully.

  Grayson pulled up her cell and tapped at it. It looked like she was searching for a text. “He did. The hospital has listed his condition as stable, but he’s on a lot of pain meds right now.”

  “Can we go talk to him?” I asked, meaning the three of us.

  Grayson frowned. “I’d prefer to speak to him alone.”

  “Oh, come on, Grayson!” I said, frustrated that she kept blocking my efforts to figure out what was going on.

  “No, Cooper,” she replied calmly. “I’m not compromising this case just because you want to try and find a hole in Wixom’s story. He’s on painkillers and subject to suggestion. I’m not going to have you plant a different suspect in his mind.”