But he has the soul of one. Christine had been his soul mate. She wondered if each person truly only got one. And hoped not.
After a few minutes he sighed. “Mia, listening to Young had me wondering something. It’s going to come out sounding bad, but I don’t mean it that way. I just don’t know how else to ask.”
She frowned. “So just ask.”
“You grew up around cops. Why didn’t you ever tell one of them about your father?”
“If you only knew how many times I’ve asked myself that same question, especially after Kelsey went to prison. When I was little, I was too afraid. Then when I was older, in high school, I didn’t think anyone would believe me. He was a respected police officer. Then later, when I became a cop, I was... ashamed. I felt people would pity me if they knew, that I’d look weak and I’d lose respect. Then when Kelsey finally told me the truth, it was guilt. And now he’s dead, so it doesn’t seem to make much sense to tell now.”
“You told Olivia,” he said and she winced.
“And that went well, didn’t it? I didn’t want her to feel rejected. I should have just kept my mouth shut. When this is over, I’m going to Minneapolis to talk to her.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
She studied his face. There was no pity there. Only support. “Yes, I’d like that.”
He smiled. “You accepted my help. Progress. Now, let’s talk about your shoes.”
She grinned. “Watch it, Solliday.” The grin faded. “And thank you.”
His eyes became intense. “You’re welcome. I think we need to change the subject because it’s becoming increasingly difficult not to touch you.” He shifted again and looked out the window. “I wish the sonofabitch would come. I want this over with.”
Monday, December 4, 7:55 A.M.
Mia sat at her desk. “I can’t believe this.”
Reed yawned. “He either didn’t see Wheaton, or he made us.”
Kates hadn’t taken the bait. “Shit,” Mia grumbled. “Now what?”
“We regroup. Then after morning meeting, we go back to the hotel and get some sleep. There’s no way we’ll find him if we’re not sharp.”
“Maybe he’s gone after Tim Young.”
“Santa Fe PD is watching,” he said, then sat up straighter. “That’s interesting.”
Mia twisted to look then shook her head. Lynn Pope from Chicago on the Town was walking her way, a distinctly hurt look on her face. Crap. “Lynn,” Mia said.
“Mia. I’ll be brief. You met with Holly Wheaton yesterday. Then last night Wheaton gets this great scoop. Why? You hate Wheaton.”
Mia met Pope’s eyes. “Yes, I do.” Head tilted, she continued to hold Pope’s gaze until the woman drew in a breath and cognition dawned.
“Oh. And it didn’t work, did it?”
“Nope. Look, Lynn, when this is over, I’ll call you.” One of her neurons fired unexpectedly, and the idea made her smile. “Wait.” She walked to Solliday and whispered in his ear and he nodded. “Lynn, check out a guy named Bixby. Runs an outfit called Hope Center. It’s juvie. You might need to dig a little.”
Pope brightened. “I will. Call me when this is over. And watch your neck.”
“I will.” Mia leaned on Solliday’s desk. “She’ll do it right.”
But he wasn’t listening. “Now serving number two,” he said and again she twisted.
Margaret and Mark Hill must have passed Lynn Pope in the elevator. The brother and sister wore twin looks of grim resolve. “Mr. Hill, Miss Hill. How are you?”
“Have you caught him?” Margaret asked.
“No, but we’re close. Why are you here?” It felt strange to be the one saying it.
Mark Hill drew an envelope from his coat pocket. “Our mother’s lawyer read her will on Saturday. He gave us this. We agonized yesterday over whether or not to give this to you. But we want our mother’s murderer found and punished. So here.”
Mia took the envelope, read the letter inside. “Oh boy.” She passed it to Reed, who shook his head silently. “We’ll try to keep your mother’s name out of it. Thank you. I’ll call you as soon as we catch him.” The Hills walked away, Mark putting his arm around his sister’s shoulders. Margaret leaned against him. “I guess they cleared the air.”
Reed stood. “So it would seem. Come on, Mia. Let’s get to morning meeting.”
Murphy and Aidan were already there. Spinnelli frowned when they came in. “You’re late.” Mia gave him the letter and reading it, he sat down. “Oh boy.”
“What is it?” Murphy asked.
“A letter from Penny Hill,” Mia said, “documenting what happened when she returned from disability, nine years ago. She went through her files, found Shane’s buried at the bottom of some other records. No one had been assigned the boys. She then found Shane was dead and Andrew had been placed in another home. She went to her supervisor, who told her to destroy the file. She threatened to go higher, he convinced her she’d be fired if she did. She had medical bills, so she stayed silent.”
“This letter is dated six years ago,” Spinnelli said. “She was experiencing a great deal of guilt, nightmares. She sealed the letter and gave it to her lawyer for -safekeeping. I’ll take care of this.” He blew out a breath. “So where are we?”
“Either he didn’t see the news or he made us,” Mia said.
“I figured that out for myself,” Spinnelli said darkly. “What will you do next?”
“Follow him to Santa Fe?” Mia shrugged, frustrated. “Set up Tim Young as bait?”
Spinnelli’s brows went up. “Tim Young it is.”
Mia shook her head. “Wait, I was just... We can’t use a civilian as bait, Marc.”
Spinnelli’s mustache went down. “He said he’d help. Kates must be stopped. And now we have one more victim. Mia, your super was found dead in the closet of an empty apartment in your building. Her keys were gone.”
As Mia’s mouth fell open, Jack came in carrying a box. “Kates was there. He left a mess in your bedroom, Mia. Blankets, pillows on the floor, clothes everywhere.”
Mia felt her cheeks heat even through the shock of her super’s death. “That doesn’t mean he was in my place. I’m not much of a housekeeper. The bedroom was like that.”
“Did you leave your photo album out?”
Her heart started to pound. “No. Hell.” Jack put the box on the table and Mia lifted the album to the table, sorted quickly. “I’m not organized, but I know what was here. Bobby’s obituary is gone.” Then her pounding heart stopped. She held Dana’s wedding invitation in her hand. “And so is Dana’s reply card. He has her address.”
Spinnelli reached for the phone. “I’ll send a unit out there now.” But Stacy poked her head in with a frown.
“Marc, there’s a Dana Buchanan on line one for either you or Mia. She’s upset.”
Spinnelli put the phone on speaker. “Dana, it’s Marc -Spinnelli. I’m here with Mia and others. Kates has your address.”
“Kates has Jeremy,” Dana said, her voice frantic. “Mia.”
Mia’s blood went cold. She slowly rose, trembling. “How? How did he get Jeremy?”
“Let me talk to her.” The phone changed hands. “Mia, it’s Ethan. We’re at Jeremy’s school. We came in early this morning to get him enrolled. Jeremy went to his new class while we were still signing forms. The fire alarm went off right before school started and it wasn’t a drill. Fire blocked one of the exits. It was chaos. We immediately started searching for Jeremy, but he was gone. How did he know Jeremy was here?”
“He had your address from my apartment. Marc, when was my super murdered?”
“Sometime Saturday afternoon.”
“I shook a tail when I left your place Saturday night, Ethan. I thought it was Carmichael. It must have been Kates. He must have come back yesterday and found Jeremy.” Her knees buckled and she sank into her chair. “He was looking for me. He killed my super and now he’s using Jeremy to get to me.” She
drew a shuddering breath. “Get Dana calm. This isn’t good for the baby. We’ll find Kates. And Jeremy.”
“Was anyone hurt in the fire at the school?” Reed asked.
“Just bumps and bruises. The teachers got control quickly. We weren’t sure if we should push Jeremy back to school so soon, but we couldn’t let him sit in front of the TV any longer. We wanted to get him back into a routine. Please find him.”
Mia rubbed her forehead. He’d taken Bobby’s obituary. “I think I know where he is.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Monday, December 4, 9:25 A.M.
Reed’s hands fisted at his sides. “You can’t do this.” They had a SWAT team and every uniform and detective -Spinnelli had been able to muster. They would wait, concealed in unmarked vans, a block away from Annabelle’s house. They didn’t want to spook Kates, so Mia would stroll inside alone, pretending to pay an ordinary visit.
Mia twisted at the waist. She wore a bulky sweater that hid the bulletproof vest and the weapon in her back waistband. “Damn Kevlar itches,” she said, ignoring him.
“Mia, if he’s in your mother’s house, you’re walking into a trap.”
“If he’s still setting the trap, I’ll get him first.” She met his eyes. “He’s got Jeremy.”
That a killer might also have her mother was absurdly absent. She was solely focused on the boy. And on Kates. After her initial shock, Reed had watched her training and skill take over. She was calm, while his heart was beating out of his chest.
“Reed.” Her voice was quiet. Sober. “Let me do my job.”
You’re not a cop. She’d said it that night he’d wanted to chase Getts. She was right. At the moment he didn’t feel like a fire investigator, either. He was a man, watching the woman he cared for wrapping herself in Kevlar and arming herself like Rambo.
He turned to Spinnelli. “You agree with this, Marc?”
“Not my first choice. But he didn’t take the bait last night, so catching him before he’s prepared is the best plan we’ve got. Mia’s wearing a wire. She’ll have backup.”
“Let me go in with her.”
Spinnelli shook his head and Reed could see the man understood all too well. “No.”
“She’s SWAT trained, Reed,” Murphy murmured beside him. “Let her do her job.”
Reed drew a deep breath. “Ben called. There were two points of origin at the school, so Kates used two more eggs, Mia. He may have one more.”
“I’m counting on it. No pun intended.” She flashed him a distracted smile. “Don’t take this wrong, Reed, but go away. I have to focus and I can’t with you here.”
He cast his eyes up and down the street, looking at the utility markers. This neighborhood had gas lines. Mia could be walking into a fireball. No, she won’t.
He couldn’t go in at her side. So he’d shore her up from below. Spinnelli and all the others were in deep conversation. Jack was pinning the same wire to Mia’s sweater that she’d used with Wheaton yesterday. Nobody was watching him. He started walking.
“Going somewhere, Lieutenant?” The female murmur came from behind him.
He blew out a breath. “Carmichael. Haven’t you done enough?”
“I haven’t done anything today. And I won’t. I never even saw you.”
He turned, eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“You’re going in.” She lifted a shoulder. “Don’t need to be a rocket scientist. I would appreciate a few words when you come out. Just watch Mitchell. Regardless of what you might think, I hold her in high personal regard. She thinks she’s indestructible.”
“I know.” He started walking again. Bulletproof, Jack had said. Lucky, Mia believed. All too human, Reed knew. He slipped through backyards until he came to Annabelle Mitchell’s. The main gas valve would be in the basement. A set of entrance steps went down into the ground. He crouched at the base of the stairs, prepared to break in. But one of the panes in the door was already broken. The door was unlocked.
Kates is here. Reed cautiously opened the door, slipped inside. Now so am I.
Monday, December 4, 9:35 A.M.
Mia let herself in Annabelle’s front door with her key, her weapon pointed down behind her leg. The last time she’d been here was the day they’d buried Bobby. Now Bobby meant nothing. Getting Jeremy out unharmed and stopping Kates meant everything.
He was here already. She could feel it from the moment she walked through the door. There was an eerie stillness to the place. She crept to the kitchen doorway and drew a silent breath. Annabelle sat in a kitchen chair a foot from the stove. Hands and feet tied with twine. Mouth gagged. Dressed in only her underwear, she shivered violently. Her body gleamed, coated shoulder to hips with the solid accelerant Kates had used six times now. The stove was already pulled away from the wall, his intent clear.
Her mother’s eyes met hers, terrified and... full of the furious contempt Mia knew so well. Her mother had always blamed them for Bobby’s violence. Mia supposed this time her mother finally had it right. Kates was here, she was in danger, because of me.
No gas filled the air yet. Either Kates was still preparing or he was waiting to spring his trap. She scanned the kitchen, wondering where he’d put Jeremy. Her mother’s eyes followed her, narrowed, as Mia crept into the kitchen, opening the cabinets under the sink. It was the only place large enough to hide a small boy. But they were empty.
“Help me.” It was really two muffled grunts from behind the gag, but Annabelle’s eyes left no question as to the translation.
Mia put her finger to her lips. Then she pulled a knife from the block on the counter and prepared to cut her mother’s bonds. With one less hostage, she could focus on Jeremy. She’d taken a step toward the chair when a voice stopped her in her tracks.
“Put the knife down, Detective.”
Even though she’d mentally prepared herself for exactly this sight, Mia’s heart froze. Jeremy stood trembling in front of Kates, one of Kates’s gloved hands in his sandy red hair and Kates’s long shiny blade at his throat. Jeremy’s freckles jumped out from his white face. His eyes were terrified and... full of desperate trust.
“You’ve seen what my knife can do, Detective,” Kates said smoothly. “So has the boy. Haven’t you, Jeremy?” She watched his fingers tighten in Jeremy’s hair, watched -Jeremy’s small jaw tighten as he struggled to control his own fear. “Put down the knife.”
Mia set the knife down, hilt out so she could grab it quickly if the opportunity arose.
“And the gun.” He yanked Jeremy to his toes. “Now. Kick it over here.”
Again she complied, and her gun went sliding across the kitchen floor.
“Mia.” It was Spinnelli’s voice in the earbud she prayed Kates wouldn’t suspect. The wire she wore gave Spinnelli and the others a view of the inside. The earbud was her link to the command center in the van. “Get him into the living room. I have snipers with a clear shot through the front window. The boy is small. We’ll aim high. Out.”
One flick of Kates’s wrist and Jeremy would die. The snipers couldn’t fire until Jeremy was clear. She had to get him to let Jeremy go first.
“Don’t hurt the boy.” She didn’t plead, didn’t command. “He’s done nothing to you.”
Kates laughed. “He has and we all know it, don’t we, -Jeremy? He told you I’d been there. Led you to my things.”
“No, he didn’t. We found the house on our own. Jeremy said nothing.”
“Impossible.”
“Truth. We found the car you ditched the night you killed Brooke Adler. It had an aftermarket GPS you didn’t see.”
His eyes flickered. He was annoyed with himself. Good. “So?”
“You like animals. You let out the cat and dog before you set the houses on fire.”
His jaw cocked. “I’ll repeat the question. So?”
“And you had access to curare. We checked vet clinics and pet shops and their employees in a one-mile radius of the car we found. And we found Mrs.
Lukowitch.”
His mouth flattened to a line. “And she told. I wish I’d killed the bitch myself.”
“No. She lied. But not well and that made us suspicious. We found your stash the old-fashioned way, Kates. Good detective work and a search warrant. Jeremy said nothing. Let him go.” Kates stood still as stone. “He’s only seven. He’s innocent.” She took a chance and prayed. “Like Shane was before your aunt’s husband.”
The hand that held the knife tightened on the hilt. “Don’t say his name.” Kates’s chin came up, eyes narrowing. “I don’t recall seeing a single sweater like that in your closet. I only remember those clingy shirts that you wear to show off your breasts because you’re a tease. You’re wearing a vest. Take off the sweater, Detective. Now.”
“Mia, keep the vest on,” Spinnelli said with urgency, but Kates lifted his knife to the underside of Jeremy’s chin and sliced, just deep enough to draw blood. Then the knife went back to the boy’s throat.
“Take off the sweater or the boy dies right in front of your eyes.”
“Mia.” Spinnelli’s voice held a thread of panic. “Don’t.”
Tears were welling in Jeremy’s eyes. But he never wavered. Never whimpered. Kates’s brows lifted. “I cut Thompson’s head nearly off his body. Jeremy is so much... smaller. You want that on your conscience, Mitchell?” He pulled Jeremy’s head back and the steely look of determination in his eyes left Mia with absolutely no doubt he’d make good on his threat.
“All right.”
“Mia!” Spinnelli barked it. Mentally she tuned him out. The camera was buried in the sweater’s fibers below her left shoulder. If she could drape the sweater on the counter so the camera pointed out, Spinnelli would still have a clear view. Carefully she pulled the sweater over her head and put it on the counter. And prayed.
Kates’s lips curved. “Now the vest.”
“Goddammit, Mia. Do not take off that vest. That’s an order.”
Her fingers were steady as she pulled at the Velcro. “You protected Shane, Andrew. You sacrificed yourself to Tyler Young to keep him safe.” She was pulling at the Kevlar vest slowly, strip by Velcro strip, hoping to make headway before she was completely at his mercy.