No One Left to Tell

  He should walk away or, better yet, send her running before she got any ideas of permanence. Of anything more than a few days or weeks. Months at the outside. Because if she wanted more, she’d end up hurt. Just like the others.

  He’d never raised a hand to a woman. Ever. But he’d broken a few hearts, despite his best intentions. The thought of breaking Paige’s left him feeling physically ill.

  At least his timing was good. He was in Elena’s neighborhood. “I have to go, Mom.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He tapped his earpiece to disconnect and slowed his car, focusing on reading the house numbers.

  The Muñoz place was dark. Grayson assumed the Muñoz brothers were all together, grieving. He didn’t want to imagine losing his mother or any of the Carters. Much less to have lost a mother and a sister in the same day. His heart ached for them.

  His heart always ached for the families.

  Unfortunately, by the time he entered the picture, there was nothing to be done but get justice for the victims. And protect future victims by putting murderers behind bars.

  He thought he’d done the right thing by Crystal Jones. He thought he’d put a murdering bastard behind bars. He thought he was one step closer to balancing the scales. But it was never enough.

  Never enough. He glanced over at Paige, still asleep. She’d said that, too. How many little boys will you save? he’d asked. Never enough. He wondered what she’d meant. He intended to find out, but it would need to be later.

  He stopped his car in front of Delgado’s row house. It, too, was dark. No one was home. He was tempted to leave, but Paige needed to make the attempt for her own peace of mind. He shook her shoulder lightly and she opened her eyes.

  “We’re there?” she asked.

  He’d brushed his thumb across her cheek before he could stop himself. “Yes.”

  “Then let’s do this.” She was out of the car before he could assist her, telling Peabody to stay before closing the door. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s home,” she said.

  He followed her to the Delgados’ front door, looking from side to side, wondering who was watching. Paranoia wasn’t fun. He glanced at the bandage peeping up from Paige’s collar. Except it wasn’t paranoia when someone was really trying to kill you.

  She knocked on the door lightly. “Mrs. Delgado? Are you home?” she called.

  When no one answered, Grayson knocked harder. Then both of them sucked in a startled breath when the door creaked open. It hadn’t been closed.

  “This feels bad,” Paige whispered, then raised her voice to call again. “Mrs. Delgado? Are you all right?” She sniffed deeply. “Oh God. Do you smell that?”

  “Someone’s fired a gun. Recently.” He took his cell from his pocket, then cursed as Paige walked straight on inside, her hand on her holstered gun. “Paige. Stop.”

  She looked back, her dark eyes snapping. “A little girl lives here.”

  Muttering, he followed her into the narrow house and down the hall. “This is insa—” He stopped abruptly in front of the bathroom, as had she.

  “Oh no,” she whispered. “No.”

  Grayson couldn’t speak. Could only stare. The wallpaper was from a child’s cartoon. Now it was splattered with blood and brain. He made himself look at the tub. Delgado knelt, hands and feet bound. His body listed to the right, propped up by the side of the tub. He’d been shot in the back of the head.

  “Executed,” Grayson whispered hoarsely.

  Paige turned to the mirror, where a message had been scrawled across the glass. “‘Pago del saldo,’” she read, her voice barely audible. “It means ‘Paid in full.’”

  “I know.” Grayson had understood the meaning of the words as soon as he’d seen them. Both literally and symbolically. The message had been written in Jorge Delgado’s blood. “What does it say at the bottom?”

  Without stepping over the threshold, Paige leaned in and squinted. “‘RIP Elena.’”

  “Shit. Let’s go.” He headed back for the front door, cell phone in hand, but she’d already started up the stairs, her gun drawn. “Paige,” he hissed. “Dammit.”

  She looked back, eyes shattered. “His little girl is only eight years old,” she said fiercely, her voice thick with unshed tears. “If she’s alive, she needs help.”

  He clenched his jaw, torn between knowing she was right and the need to get her the hell out of here and to safety. He quickly dropped to one knee and drew the Glock from his boot while her eyes widened. “Fine,” he said. “Just stay close.”

  He slipped past her on the stairs and carefully ascended, listening for any noise. Any moans. Any whimpers. But the house was silent except for their breathing.

  There were two bedrooms upstairs, one belonging to a little girl, the other to an adult woman. Both were painfully neat. And appeared empty.

  The little girl’s closet was slightly ajar and Grayson nudged the door with the toe of his boot. School uniforms hung on the rack, shoes in a pile on the floor. No child.

  His shoulders sagged in relief. He’d braced himself for the worst.

  The mom’s closet also held only clothes. There was no sign that a man lived there, in the closet or the upstairs bathroom, which was thankfully empty.

  Grayson pointed to the stairs. “Now we get the hell out of here.”

  Outside, they took great gulps of the rainy air as Grayson slid his pistol into his coat pocket, then hit the redial on his cell phone.

  Stevie answered on the first ring. “I just got your voice mail. What’s wrong?”

  Where to start? “I need your help. Now. I’m at the home of Jorge Delgado. He testified in the trial of Ramon Muñoz. Delgado’s dead, bullet to the back of his head. His wife and child are not in the house. Nothing else appears to have been touched. There’s a message on the mirror, in Delgado’s blood. ‘Paid in full. RIP Elena.’”

  “I’ll be there as fast as I can. Are you safe?”

  He looked up and down the street. “I don’t know. Paige Holden is with me.”

  A half beat of silence. “You’re going to tell me what this is about, right?”

  Grayson nodded, numb. “Yeah. But only you. I mean that, Stevie. You do your investigation, get CSU and the ME out here, do whatever you need to do. But what I tell you stays with you until we know what the hell is going on here.”

  He hung up, then reached for Paige. She turned in to him as his arms came around her. For a long moment they held on to each other, shaking as they stood in the rain.

  He’d seen countless crime scenes, but most were photographs. It had been a long time since he’d seen one in person. He was stunned. Sick to his stomach. Paige had also been stunned, he thought, but her first instinct had been to protect Delgado’s child.

  My mother’s going to love her.

  His arms tightened around her, one hand running down her spine. And coming to a halt when he touched a second holster in her waistband. It was a smaller gun than the one she held by her side, pointing at the ground. Another tentative touch revealed the hilt of a knife. It was reassuring and terrifying all at once. And left him wondering how many more weapons she’d concealed. And where.

  “You need to put your gun away,” Grayson murmured against her hair. “If they get here and your gun’s out, it’ll make for questions you don’t want to answer.”

  She slid the gun in her hand into the shoulder holster, then looked up, devastated. “I got that man killed. I should have told Morton and Bashears. I should—”

  He shook his head, pressing his fingers to her lips. “No. I still don’t believe Morton and Bashears have anything to do with this, but we’ll continue according to plan. We tell Stevie and no one else. Someone executed Jorge Delgado. Now three of the four people who knew the truth about Ramon’s alibi are dead. You’re the fourth.” He lightly gripped her chin. “We keep you alive, understand?”

  “I understand. Grayson, you’re the fifth. You know
, too.”

  “Yeah, I know.” And standing here, they were sitting ducks. He led her to his car and opened the back door. “Get in the backseat and keep your head down.”

  She frowned as she obeyed, giving Peabody a reassuring pat. “What about you?”

  “I’m going to drive.”

  “We’re leaving the scene?” she asked, shocked.

  “No, but I want to be able to see all the exits.” He drove down the block, picking a point that was close enough to see the front of the house and the alley.

  “There are binoculars in the front pouch of my pack,” she said. “On the floor.”

  “Thanks,” he said as they settled in to wait for Stevie.

  Tuesday, April 5, 6:55 p.m.

  “What have we got?”

  Stevie turned when J.D. entered the Delgado home. “Jorge Delgado, twenty-eight-year-old Hispanic male.” She stepped back to let him look. So far, they were the only ones there. CSU hadn’t arrived. Stevie hadn’t called her boss yet, either.

  When she’d arrived at the scene, she’d found Grayson grim and shaken. Except when he looked at the black-haired woman sitting in his backseat, her arm hugging a very large Rottweiler. When Grayson looked at Paige his whole face softened in way she’d never seen before. Except on the TV news. If he hadn’t called her, she’d been ready to call him about the parking-garage incident.

  But it wasn’t only infatuation Stevie saw in his eyes. He was afraid, for Paige. The mystery woman was equally shaken, her face so pale that her dark eyes appeared bottomless.

  He’d been adamant that no police except Stevie should know Paige had been there. He’d been equally adamant that Stevie keep the Delgado case.

  Because it was Grayson, Stevie would do everything in her power to do what he’d asked. She’d sent the two to get coffee, hoping to pull a little color back in Paige’s face.

  J.D. stepped back from the bathroom. “Who is this guy?”

  “Jorge Delgado was the best friend of Ramon Muñoz.”

  J.D. threw her a startled glance. “So in less than twenty-four we have Ramon’s wife dead, her alleged lover dead, and now the best friend. Why this guy?”

  “Ramon gave him as his alibi. But Delgado testified that Ramon was nowhere near the bar where he’d claimed to be the night he was accused of murdering that coed.”

  “Crystal Jones.”

  “Yeah. I downloaded the report. Meant to read it after I put Cordy to bed, but I haven’t had time to do more than skim the top few pages. I’ll make you a copy.”

  “Execution, vengeance message on the mirror, a two-liter cola bottle on the floor.”

  “Amateur silencer.”

  “Or somebody wanted it to look that way,” J.D. said. “The ties on his hands and feet were done by someone who knew their knots.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “And that entry-wound placement? Instant death. Other than the terror of knowing he was going to die, this guy didn’t suffer.”

  And as a former army sniper, J.D. would know. “No evidence of forced entry,” she said. “Front door askew, back closed but no dead bolt. Empties into an alley.”

  “Who found him?” Stevie didn’t answer and J.D. turned to meet her eyes. “What’s going on here, Stevie?”

  “I don’t know. Yet. I’ll tell you as soon as I can.”

  “Stevie,” he said, warning and annoyance clear.

  “You know I trust you. I will tell you, I promise. First I have to get the facts myself. Can you handle this scene? I have to take off for a few minutes. I’ve checked the house. Nobody else is here. Doesn’t look like any bags were packed and the car is gone, so the wife and daughter may be coming back. I’ve called CSU and the ME.”

  J.D. looked at her shrewdly. “And Hyatt?”

  “No. Not yet.” Their lieutenant could be tyrannical and theatrical, but ultimately he was a good cop who operated best on facts. “When I know more, I’ll tell him.”

  “Will we have to give this one to Morton and Bashears, too?” J.D. asked.

  “I hope not. Check things out quickly, in case we don’t have a choice.”

  “You got it. Who should I say found the body?”

  “Right now, an anonymous informant. I need to go talk to said informant.”

  “Tell him I said that was a good save with the briefcase in the parking garage,” J.D. said dryly and one side of her mouth lifted.

  “I’ll call you when I’m on my way back. Thanks, J.D. I owe you one.”

  “A helluva lot more than one.”

  Tuesday, April 5, 7:20 p.m.

  “I got you guys some coffee.” Sitting next to Grayson up front, Stevie Mazzetti handed a cup to Paige, who still slumped in the backseat. “Easy, boy,” Stevie murmured to Peabody, who’d sat up to check her out.

  “Thank you.” Paige shivered as the warmth hit her throat. She was numb, the image of Delgado’s body overwhelming her mind until it was all she could see.

  After filling Stevie in at Delgado’s house, Paige and Grayson had driven a few miles away to a burger place where they’d parked in a corner of the lot and waited.

  “Thanks,” Grayson echoed, his jaw set grimly. “Thanks for coming.”

  “You’re welcome,” Stevie said. “So. Tell me a story, kids.”

  Paige and Grayson did. Stevie showed no reaction until they’d finished.

  “That’s one hell of a story,” she murmured, shaking her head.

  “It’s true,” Paige said defensively.

  “I don’t doubt you,” Stevie said, then pointed to Grayson. “Because I don’t doubt him. It’s just… a hell of a story. So what do you want to happen next, Miss Holden?”

  “You need to—” Grayson began, but Stevie cut him off with a look.

  “You’ll get your turn,” she said, then patted his arm. “I want to hear from Paige.”

  Paige laid her head on Peabody’s neck. “I want to go to sleep and wake up and find this was all a bad TV show. But it’s not.”

  “No,” Stevie agreed. “So what next, Paige? What are you prepared to do?”

  Paige’s eyes flew to Stevie’s, alarmed. “What does that mean?”

  “It means that if you pursue this, you’ll inevitably be questioned by guys in suits. Some will be kind, some will rip out every secret you own. It means that you’ll likely make enemies of a few cops who don’t like squealers. It also means that if you’re right, and there was police misconduct on Ramon’s investigation, that most of the cops will thank you in the end. The bad apples make us all look bad.”

  “I can handle being interrogated,” Paige said, quelling the urge to rub her shoulder. She’d been interviewed by the police after the shooting last summer, again and again. At times it had grown downright ugly. But last time you had Olivia by your side, supporting you. This time you’re on your own.

  “Then again,” Stevie said levelly, “they might find that Elena was wrong, that cops weren’t chasing her. That no cops were involved today or back then.”

  “You mean someone might say Ramon is still guilty. That he stays in prison and all of this was for nothing.”

  “Pretty much. So what happens next, Paige? What do you want?”

  “I want the truth. I want everyone to know what Elena gave her life for. I want not to be hated by cops, because I’m going to need them in the future. I’m still in the honeymoon phase with my new partner and if I don’t work out, we call it quits. I’d have to relocate again and I finally unpacked my pots and pans.”

  “Which is a total pain in the ass,” Stevie murmured. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. I want whoever attacked me this afternoon to be caught. I came here to stop looking over my shoulder, yet I find myself there again.”

  Stevie’s brows lifted. Grayson’s lowered. Neither spoke.

  Paige sighed. “And I don’t want to have blood on my hands. Ever again.”

  “All fine wants. So what are you prepared to do?” Stevie persisted.

&
nbsp; She met Stevie’s eyes. “Whatever it takes. What did I just sign up for?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Stevie said. “Grayson, what’s on your agenda?”

  “A meeting first thing tomorrow morning with you, your commander, and me.” He’d arranged for it already, making the call to the commander as they’d waited.

  “What will you tell him?” Stevie asked.

  “The truth, just like we told you.”

  “He’s not going to like that Paige is accusing a cop of involvement.”

  “I don’t like it, either. And it may not be true. Elena could have been mistaken. Assuming evidence was planted, anyone could have done it. But a victim—who somebody took a big risk to silence—accused the police in her dying declaration. The individual who heard that declaration was nearly killed this afternoon. We have to consider Elena’s accusation credible until we’ve disproven it.”

  “The commander’s going to bring Internal Affairs in,” Stevie said, “before you’ve left his office.”

  “He can bring them in,” Grayson said, “but not to take over.”

  “Ah,” Stevie said softly. “The list of demands. Let’s hear them.”

  “First, I don’t want Paige hurt. If this escalates, my office will hide her in a safe house and IA won’t have access to her.”

  “Hey,” Paige protested. “I should get some say in—”

  Stevie held up her hand. “Not your turn. I figured as much,” she said to Grayson.

  “I will keep this investigation under the control of the state’s attorney’s office. I will lead it. I want police backup—you. No other unless all hell breaks loose. IA is to be involved on an inform basis only. And I want access to any ongoing investigations into the deaths of Elena Muñoz, Denny Sandoval, and Jorge Delgado as well as the personnel files of anyone involved in the investigation of Crystal Jones’s murder.”

  Stevie gave him a long look before replying. “You ask for a lot.”

  Grayson pulled folded papers from his shirt pocket. “These are copies.”

  “Of course they are.” Stevie studied each one. “Where are the originals?”

  Paige looked at Grayson and he nodded. “In my safe-deposit box,” she said.