Watch Your Back

  ‘So what do you want to do, Stevie?’

  ‘I want to go see her. In person. I want her to look into my face and tell me that Silas left nothing for me.’

  ‘What more are you looking to learn, honey?’ he asked gently. ‘I mean, as soon as they let me out, we’ll go. I promise. But what are you hoping to hear? An apology? Would you even listen to it? Would you want to?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe I do want an apology. But it wouldn’t be worth much, would it? He could have sent that package to Sam at any time if he really was sorry. He could have stopped working for Stuart Lippman if he’d really been sorry. He could have not hired someone to kill my family to begin with.’

  ‘Kind of what I’m thinking,’ he said.

  ‘Silas sending the package after he was dead was cowardly. No, you’re right. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to hear an empty apology. I do believe I’ll let this one go.’

  ‘We should mark the calendar,’ he said with a smile.

  ‘Smart ass,’ she said, but she smiled back. ‘Are you ready to entertain the masses?’

  ‘The sooner I do, the sooner we’ll be alone again, right?’

  ‘Kind of what I’m thinking,’ she said lightly.

  ‘Then I’m more than ready.’

  Thursday, March 20, 1.00 P.M.

  Everyone stopped talking when Stevie walked into the waiting room. ‘He’s awake,’ she said. The chatter restarted, everyone coming to their feet and hitting her with a barrage of questions. ‘He’s fine. He’s alert. He wants to see Cordelia and Alec, first. Alec, will you take Cordelia with you? I’ll be back in a few minutes. I have to get some food.’ Now that Clay was awake, she finally had an appetite again.

  ‘We’ll go with you,’ Emma said. She and Izzy and Maggie VanDorn started gathering papers from the table where they’d been sitting.

  Stevie narrowed her eyes. ‘What are you guys planning?’

  ‘Not your wedding, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ Izzy said tartly. ‘That’s Mom’s arena.’

  Maggie shook her head. ‘You poor dear.’

  Emma snickered. ‘We’re writing my next book,’ she said, taking pity on Stevie, ‘on equine therapy. Maggie and I are co-authoring it and Izzy’s going to do the photos.’

  ‘It keeps me off the street,’ Izzy said wryly.

  ‘I think it’s a great idea,’ Stevie said. ‘Izzy, you’ll do the photos justice. You’ve got a good eye and a beautiful heart.’

  Stevie had asked Izzy to show her the photos she’d downloaded from her old camera, needing something to occupy her mind while Clay had been in surgery. With Cordelia on her lap and Izzy by her side, she’d looked at hundreds of pictures of Paul and Paulie. Some she’d taken herself, but most had been Izzy’s. She had always been the photographer in the family. Her sister had taken all those shots and had created a beautiful memorial to the family they never discussed. They’d smiled and laughed and cried and when they were done Stevie felt . . . not healed, but healing. It was progress.

  ‘Thank you, Stevie.’ The startled gratitude in Izzy’s eyes told Stevie she’d been selfish with her sister, too. Izzy, like Clay, had always been there for her, never asking for anything back. Stevie had known that Izzy liked to play with cameras, but had never seen her sister’s gift. She did now. She slid her arm around Izzy’s waist, hugging her casually, and the minute hesitation before Izzy hugged her back was another revelation. ‘Does this mean we’ll see you here more often, Emma?’

  ‘Yes, but there are equine facilities in Florida, too. All over the country, actually.’

  ‘We’re thinking about a fact-finding trip,’ Maggie said.

  ‘Just be honest and call it a road trip,’ Stevie said, making them all grin. ‘I can see the three of you in a convertible with the top down, driving across America. I wish I could go.’

  ‘What’s stopping you?’ Emma asked. ‘We’ll do it in pieces and over the course of six months. You can come on some of the trips. Come summer, you can bring Cordelia and I’ll bring Christopher and the boys and we’ll have fun.’

  ‘Fun.’ She frowned, considering it. ‘I could do fun.’

  Izzy squeezed her playfully. ‘I’ll give you a tutorial on fun first.’

  Stevie met her sister’s eyes. ‘I’d like that.’ She shrugged off the emotion. ‘Besides, I’m not sure what kind of job I’m going to be fit for. I may never go back to active duty.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Izzy protested. ‘Of course you will.’

  ‘You know, I’m okay if I don’t go back.’

  Emma blinked. ‘What planet are you from and what have you done with our friend?’

  Stevie smiled. ‘A year ago, hell, a week ago, those words never would have occurred to me. Now I’m reassessing my priorities. Cordelia is number one. My career has put her through more in two years than anyone should suffer over a lifetime. I can change that. I will change that.’

  ‘What about all of Silas’s cases?’ Emma asked. ‘There may be more to uncover.’

  ‘There probably are more,’ Stevie agreed. ‘But I won’t be the one to uncover them. I told Hyatt to spread the word that I’m not digging anymore. I’m not the only cop who can spot a fixed case. Especially since the State Police are now running the Lippman investigations while IA sorts out their shit. I want people to stop shooting at me and my family. We’ve had enough.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree with you more,’ Emma said softly, pride in her eyes. ‘But what will you do? I can’t see you living the life of leisure.’

  ‘I can’t see my bills paying themselves yet, either,’ Stevie said dryly. ‘I’ll find something to do. Something amazing. I’m just not sure what it is yet.’

  But that wasn’t true. She had the germ of an idea. But she had to think it through before telling anyone. Keeping the notion close to her vest, she pointed to the door. ‘Ladies, I’m starving. Let’s go eat.’

  They’d made it to the elevator when she heard a man call her name.

  ‘Detective? Detective Mazzetti?’

  Stevie turned to see a couple tentatively approaching. The woman was a stranger, but the man’s face was familiar. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been hustling Todd Robinette back into FPL’s factory so that she could retrieve Robinette’s used cigarette butt.

  ‘Frank Locke,’ she said, meeting them halfway. ‘It’s good to see you.’

  ‘And you as well,’ he said. ‘This is my wife, Amy.’

  Amy’s expression was grave. ‘Detective.’

  Stevie looked from Locke’s face to his wife’s. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘It’s what I can do for you,’ Locke said, sliding a backpack off his shoulder. He handed it to her. ‘These are Harvey’s lab notebooks, transferred to DVD.’

  She took the backpack with a frown. ‘Harvey? You mean Harvey Ballantine, Julie’s head chemist, the one who was killed with her?’

  Locke nodded. ‘Harvey’s wife gave these to me a few weeks after his funeral. It was some time before I looked at them. Losing Harvey was such a shock.’

  ‘I know it was,’ Stevie said gently. ‘I barely made B’s in chemistry, so I won’t understand these notebooks if I try to read them. Why are you giving them to me?’

  Locke drew a breath. ‘They tell why Harvey and Julie were murdered.’

  Stevie stared at the backpack, then back up at Locke’s face. ‘Then tell me why.’

  ‘Robinette came to work for Rene and Julie when he got out of the Army,’ Locke said. ‘He started out in the warehouse, an entry level job that everybody did at some point in their career, even the PhDs. Rene made sure of it. He wanted people to understand how the company worked and to appreciate every worker’s task. But Robinette had a bad attitude. He hated the warehouse, hated that he had to work with people he considered beneath him.’

  ‘Why didn’t Rene fire him?’ Stevie asked.

  ‘He wanted to, but Robinette was his friend. And every time Rene tried to give Robinette feedback
, Robinette would threaten to leave and take Levi with him.’

  ‘Which would have broken Julie’s heart,’ Stevie murmured.

  ‘Rene’s too,’ Amy said. ‘They both loved Levi like he was their own.’

  Locke sighed. ‘They did. Robinette didn’t care about the boy, except to use him as a pawn. Then as a weapon. Then later a scapegoat. Robinette did the shipping in the warehouse. Harvey found out he was stealing.’

  ‘How?’ Stevie asked.

  ‘Right before he died Harvey noticed an increase in the number of batches that didn’t meet quality standards. He was trying to figure out why, you know, what was going wrong with the equipment. He found out there was nothing wrong. Good batches had been marked as bad so that they’d be rejected. Those batches went to the same area that the expired vaccines went. Harvey got suspicious – partly because he’d never liked Robinette. None of us did. Rene had died and Robinette had forced Julie to marry him so that she could keep Levi. Robinette was strutting like a peacock.’

  ‘Frank,’ Amy said softly. ‘Stick to the story.’

  ‘Sorry, Detective. Anyway, Harvey hid a camera in the warehouse.’

  ‘And found Robinette shipping to his own customers?’

  ‘Exactly. But not just the good stuff Robinette had diverted. Harvey saw that he was shipping the expired stuff, too. The expired vaccines should have been destroyed. They wouldn’t have hurt anyone, but they wouldn’t work either. Diverting the good stuff was stealing. Shipping expired vaccines as good ones? That’s . . . criminal. More criminal anyway.’

  ‘Did Harvey confront Robinette?’

  ‘Not that he wrote about. One of his last entries was that he was taking his findings to Julie. If she confronted him . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Julie was like Rene. She wouldn’t have stood for stealing, but putting the health of children at risk? Because these were vaccines that kids got, to keep them from getting sick. Julie wouldn’t have tolerated that. But she probably wouldn’t have reported him right away, either. She was one to try to settle things with the individual. And she walked on eggshells with Robinette anyway, because of Levi.’

  ‘So if she told Robinette what she knew, he’d have to get rid of her. If he figured out that Harvey knew, too, he’d have to get rid of them both.’ Stevie sighed. ‘Hell.’

  ‘There’s one more thing,’ Locke said. ‘Harvey noticed that the good vaccines being diverted to the reject area began to accelerate after Rene died. I don’t know if that has anything to do with anything, but before that, Harvey believed that Rene also knew.’

  Stevie thought of the bullet in the Rubik’s cube. ‘It means something,’ she said quietly. ‘What happened to you? I always worried that helping me get that cigarette butt would get you into trouble.’

  ‘I think I would have been in trouble anyway. After Julie was gone, Robinette cleaned house. Fired everyone who’d been vocally opposed to him. I was one of the first to go. Amy and I moved away, near our grandchildren. I didn’t look at the books for a long time. Then one day, I was cleaning out my desk and found them. I started reading and found the truth.’ He looked away. ‘I should have come forward.’

  ‘You were afraid to come forward.’

  ‘There was that,’ he agreed. ‘That Harvey had been killed was a warning to all of us. That Robinette sacrificed Levi . . . his own son . . . It made me afraid for my family. I didn’t read Harvey’s notebooks for years. When I did, I figured it was too late. Nobody believed Robinette was a killer then. Nobody but you anyway. By the time I knew the truth, he’d cleaned up his image. I didn’t think anyone would believe me. I should have known you would. I’m sorry.’

  She nodded. Made her lips curve. Tried not to think about how much misery could have been avoided if he’d come forward. Locke did come forward before, she told herself. Helped her get evidence, and lost his job in the process. ‘Why bring these to me now?’

  ‘We saw the news. Heard what Robinette was doing now, with the sarin. Heard what he did to you and your family. It really is too late now, but I thought you’d want to know the truth.’

  Stevie drew a breath. ‘Thank you. The truth is always good to know.’

  Locke lifted his hand, weakly. ‘Take care, Detective.’

  ‘You, too.’ She watched them go, waiting until the elevator doors closed to close her eyes.

  ‘You okay, Stevie?’

  She turned to see JD standing behind her. ‘Where did you come from?’

  ‘The other bank of elevators. I always get lost in this hospital. I came to see Clay, but saw you talking to that couple. I’ll take the DVDs to the station for you, unless you want to do it.’

  She handed the backpack to him without hesitation. ‘You can have them. I’m done.’

  JD’s brows went up. ‘Done with this case or really done?’

  ‘Haven’t decided yet. But I promise you’ll be one of the first to know. But you should probably start breaking in a new partner. If I do ever come back, it’ll be a while.’

  JD looked sad, but unsurprised. ‘My next partner has some big shoes to fill. I’m going to see Clay now. You call me if either of you need anything.’

  He walked away and Stevie sighed, then frowned. ‘What was I going to do?’

  ‘Eat,’ Emma said. ‘You were going to eat.’

  Stevie gave her a sideways glance. Emma stood with Izzy and Maggie off to the side where they’d been quietly watching. ‘Oh yeah. I’m still starving.’

  Izzy put her arm around her. ‘Come on, let us take care of you for a little while.’

  Stevie swallowed hard. ‘I think I like the sound of that.’

  Hunt Valley, Maryland, Friday, April 4, 1.30 P.M.

  It was a beautiful house. It took Stevie’s breath away, thinking about the possibilities, about how much Cordelia would love it. The house was Victorian style but new construction, which Clay said would make installing security systems easier.

  It sat on three acres of rolling farmland, close to Daphne’s farm. It meant that Cordelia could go riding more often and that Stevie could try more often.

  She still hadn’t gotten comfortable with the idea of sitting on top of a twelve-hundred pound animal with big teeth. Even though one of the horses at the farm did seem to like her. At least she could brush him and not hyperventilate. She even kind of liked him back.

  Her daughter was proud of her for being brave. So . . . progress.

  ‘Well,’ Clay said quietly from behind her, ‘what do you think?’

  She tore her gaze from the beautiful view and turned to face him ruefully. ‘I love it. But there’s no way I can afford it.’

  ‘I can,’ he said.

  She was incredibly touched and a little scared. ‘Have I told you today that I love you?’

  ‘Three times, not that I’m counting,’ he said, but his dark eyes were carefully mild, which meant he was very emotional behind his mask.

  ‘I don’t want you to take this wrong. I plan to spend a lifetime with you. But I have a seven-year-old daughter.’ His frown was quick and dark and she knew he’d misunderstood. ‘Stop right there,’ she ordered. ‘This isn’t me being afraid she’ll get too attached to you. That train left the station a long time ago. This is about me wanting to set a good example.’

  His frown relaxed a hair. ‘Explain, please.’

  ‘Simply put, I don’t want her to think it’s okay to jump into a permanent relationship with the first man she dates. To Cordelia, you are the first man she’s ever seen me with. After three weeks, it’s too soon for me to be accepting houses from you. That’s not a good example.’

  His frown disappeared. ‘I agree. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t suggest you move in with me, even though I really want you to.’

  ‘One of the reasons?’

  ‘The other is that two men died in my house. I want Cordelia to have a place that is safe. Where no one has died violently. Plus I want space, enough that our friends can come stay whenever they want. There’s even enough room
in this house so that Izzy can live with us. She could have her own suite and a private entrance.’

  She was even more touched now. ‘You’re okay with Izzy living with us?’

  ‘As long as she wants. I want acreage where a big dog can run. And there are no deed restrictions. I could build a stable for Gracie and Cordelia could ride every day. This place fits the bill for everything I want.’

  ‘But the bill is huge. I can’t afford the mortgage, even if a bank was crazy enough to give me a loan. Which none would consider doing with my job situation up in the air. Which brings me to something else I wanted to talk to you about.’

  ‘I’m not ready to end the conversation about this house,’ Clay said, calling her on her ploy. ‘But I’ll put it aside for now. What else did you want to talk about?’

  ‘My job. Hyatt called me yesterday.’

  His expression shuttered. ‘Why?’

  ‘He wants me to come back, just not to the detective squad. They created a position, a liaison to work with the State cops as they investigate IA. Scott Culp was on Robinette’s payroll. They want to make sure the rest of IA is clean. They want me for the liaison job. It’s a promotion and a pay raise.’

  ‘What did you decide to do?’

  ‘I haven’t yet. I wanted to talk to you first.’ She knew it was the right thing to say by the look of relief on his face. He hadn’t wanted her to go back to the force, in any capacity. She hadn’t realized that before. ‘Because I had another idea. The night you told me about Silas you said you were behind, that you’d be more behind because Paige was out. She’s back now, so are you still behind?’

  He shrugged, his eyes now considering. ‘It’s not so much a question of behind as of lost potential. The security side of the business is going well. Alec is handling a lot of things for me and Alyssa keeps the office running smoothly. I could take more personal security jobs if I had more people I could trust to be bodyguards. After we lost Tuzak . . . Well, I haven’t had the heart to find someone else.’

  ‘What about Paige?’