A Grave Prediction

  Rivera was oblivious to our shenanigans; he was too focused on the call. “Thank you, Doctor,” he said, then set his cell down to consider me. “Catalpa is convinced of the identity,” he said. “We’ll do a DNA test on the other bones to make sure they’re from him as well, but it looks like the jawbone is definitely a match to Trevor Hodges.”

  “Duh,” I told him. I was being snarky for sure, but I figured he had it coming.

  Rivera didn’t seem to like the snark. “Ms. Cooper, I’ve asked you here as a courtesy. . . .”

  Hmmm. Seems I’d gotten his dander up. “You asked me here because I delivered for you, Agent Rivera. Even without your requesting it, I still delivered you a win. After all, you’re the one who’ll get to take credit for identifying Trevor within hours of discovering his remains—not me. The FBI doesn’t publicly admit that they consult with psychics, now, do they?”

  Rivera drummed his fingers on the conference table. I knew I was causing him to be pretty conflicted. He looked very much like he was considering kicking me out again, and that’s exactly what I wanted. If he was going to ask me to come back and work for him, he’d have to eat a little crow to do it. If not, then screw him. So far, Candice and I were doing pretty well working this case on our own.

  As Rivera and I were silently glaring at each other, Agent Hart leaned forward and said, “Sir, if it’s all right by you, I’d like to take up the investigation into how Trevor’s bones ended up at the excavation site.”

  Rivera’s gaze slid to Hart. “LAPD will want to loop in on this, Hart. The bones were probably moved there by Trevor’s killer.”

  “Understood, sir. And I’d also like to enlist the help of Ms. Cooper and Ms. Fusco. After all, they’ve been instrumental in helping us identify the young man.”

  “Aren’t you wrapped up with the Grecco case?” Perez said. I wanted to slap him.

  “I am,” she said. “But we’ve collected enough evidence to keep the crime techs busy for a while. I can take a few days off that case to do a preliminary investigation into this one.”

  Hart was going out on a limb here, for sure. No way did she really have room in her schedule to work on Trevor’s case, but she was doing it anyway, and it didn’t take a genius to understand that she was doing it to act as a buffer between me and Rivera, Perez, and Robinson. It made me like her all the more, and it also made me ease back on the attitude. “We’d be happy to help,” I said.

  “We would,” Candice agreed.

  Rivera inhaled deeply and turned to Perez and Robinson, as if to ask them what they thought. “If they want to take it on,” Robinson said, “let them.”

  Perez nodded and Rivera turned back to us. “Fine. But this is the only case you work, Cooper. Understood?”

  I thought Rivera had a lot of gall, but I kept myself in check. “Perfectly understood,” I said sweetly. I then got up without being excused, lifted my coffee cup in toast to Agent Hart, and said, “Call me.”

  “I will,” she said.

  I left with Candice in tow, feeling rather smug.

  Chapter Fourteen

  • • •

  Hart called the next day to say that she had some family stuff to take care of, and as it was a Sunday, there wasn’t a lot that we could accomplish on the case anyway, so she suggested we take the day off.

  I took her advice, because I really needed a break, and headed down to the pool. Candice, meanwhile, spent much of the day on her laptop searching for a new lead that she could follow up on.

  She dug into Cindy Clawson’s background and came up empty. She dug into Trace’s online footprint, but the kid had one Instagram photo of some not-so-funny GIF, and that was it.

  She tried to find out any information she could on Will Edwards’s connection to the cameras used in the banks, and couldn’t reach anybody who might know anything about it.

  Finally, she headed out for a “quick run” of 13.1 miles, followed by a stint down in the hotel gym using free weights that left her sore and achy the rest of the afternoon.

  Meanwhile I took my frustrations out on a bag of potato chips that I snuck out of the vending machine. (Okay, so maybe it was two bags. Or six. Whatever.)

  We then got to bed early that night, vowing to each other to start fresh Monday morning.

  When the next morning came, Candice got up first and donned running shorts and a tank top, and I reluctantly did the same. But only because I was feeling so guilty about the chips.

  Still, to my surprise, as I was lacing up my shoes, Candice sat down on the bed opposite mine and said, “We need to talk.”

  “Sounds serious.”

  “It could be,” she said. “I was up most of the night thinking about the case—”

  “Which one?” I interrupted.

  “All of them, collectively,” she said. “The robberies, Trevor Hodges, the girls . . .”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Abby, we’ve got nothing to go on. I spent all day yesterday trying to find a new lead to follow, and after I blew that one on Saturday at the Starbucks where we suspect Phil was treated to a tea bag of constipation relief, I’m not sure where else to look for a clue.”

  I nodded. I’d tossed and turned a lot the night before, thinking much the same thing. I was out of ideas on where to dig up the next relevant clue too.

  “There’s got to be something we haven’t looked at,” I said, thinking that maybe Candice was suggesting we should give up and head home. I wasn’t ready to do that, and I was afraid that Candice might be.

  “There is,” she said.

  “What?”

  “The inside of the Edwards home.”

  My mouth fell open. “How’re you going to weasel your way in there?” I asked. “Will already knows us, and he’d recognize us on the spot, and I don’t think Mrs. Edwards is just going to let you come in and snoop around. Plus, you definitely don’t want to go have a look around when that kid is there.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” she said. “Which is why I think we should snoop around when no one’s home.”

  My eyes widened to their maximum capacity. “You want to break in?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “No.”

  “Why aren’t you kidding?” I demanded. On rare occasions, Candice and I had perhaps pushed the envelope a little where the law was concerned. . . . Okay, so maaaaaybe we’d actually, on occasion, when we were desperate and being chased by bad guys, broken a few laws here and there (including B and E), but this was a little different. No one was chasing us, and to my knowledge we were not currently in danger for our lives.

  Candice rubbed the back of her neck and bit her lip. The decision hadn’t come easy to her, I could tell. “I don’t know how to find out what we need to know if we don’t get into that house and look around, Abby. There has to be a clue hidden there. A clue linking Trace to Trevor’s death, or a clue linking Will to the robberies. Either thing will get us a trail to follow or hand to Kelsey so that she can issue a search warrant and discover the clue for herself. I’m not talking about disturbing or taking anything out of that house. I’m merely talking about going inside and having a look around. I’d be in and out in five or ten minutes. Tops.”

  I sat with that for a long time, but I wasn’t convinced. “Maybe Kelsey can come up with something by looking into Will Edwards’s online records?” I said.

  “We could ask her, but I’m worried that with all that’s currently on Kelsey’s plate, adding one more thing for her to chase while we sit around may not be an effective use of time. Plus, even after she obtains the subpoena, it’ll be a while before she gets access to Will’s online information. My point is that time isn’t something we have the luxury to waste. We can’t stay out here for weeks and weeks, Abby. We don’t live here and very soon we’ll have to get back to our lives. If these ca
ses aren’t resolved by then, well . . . then four bank robbers go free and a psychopathic kid gets to grow older, stronger, craftier, and work on getting away with murder.”

  “But, Candice, we could get caught. And then what? I mean, it’s not just you and I who’d get into trouble. Brice and Dutch are sure to catch hell if this blows up in our faces. Not to mention the hot water Director Gaston would be in, and if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not cause Gaston any giant-sized headaches.”

  “How can we get caught if you’re using your eyes, ears, and that radar of yours to keep a lookout?” Candice asked.

  “You’re kidding, right?” I said.

  “Nope. I’m still not kidding. I want to do this. I know we’re taking a chance on this, but I think it might be worth the risk.”

  I didn’t say anything. I just took that all in. It was hard for me, because in many ways Candice was a kind of moral compass for me, and when she pulled stuff like this, stuff that wasn’t quite morally right or wrong but somewhere in the gray area, I was always a little lost about how I might feel about it.

  While I was mulling it over, however, she said, “Can you at least look into the ether and tell me if we would get caught if we got in there and snooped around?”

  My intuition immediately gave me the feeling that we’d be okay, as long as we were very careful and didn’t take any unnecessary risks. I think that’s what decided it for me. It was the fact that we could honestly get away with it and no one would ever have to know, if we were very, very, very careful. I said as much to Candice and she said, “Good. Then let’s come up with a plan.”

  Candice and I spent the next hour or so coming up with a plan that of course involved the running gear. After she’d run a half marathon the day before, I didn’t think she’d be so keen to get back out on the pavement, but Candice has always used exercise as a grounding technique, and since she was the one taking all the risk today, I decided not to complain and simply follow along.

  Once we were sure about the plan of action, we headed over to the bank in La Cañada Flintridge, parking in the lot before making our way up the hill to the clearing. There was now yellow tape all around the area that’d been excavated, but how that would stop any truly curious soul from taking a peek was beyond me. Still, we didn’t go beyond the tape, but took up the run that I’d mapped out on my phone, beginning at the back of the clearing and working our way over to the Edwards house. It took us less than twenty minutes.

  As expected, at quarter to eleven on a Monday, none of the Edwards family appeared to be home. Mr. and Mrs. had probably gone to work, and the kiddos were no doubt off at school, so eleven a.m. was likely the perfect time for a break-in.

  And if you’re wondering how Candice was going to manage to gain access to the inside of the Edwards home, she’d been the one to notice the very large tree in their backyard, which she suspected Trace had climbed to get in through the window to his bedroom upstairs. As a backup, she also carried a sophisticated set of lockpicks, but I hoped she didn’t have to use those, because picking a lock takes a good chunk of time.

  When we were just about ready, Candice looked to me and I focused my radar on the house. “It’s clear,” I said.

  “Okay,” she said, “you head up the street to the end and sprint down like you’re doing wind sprints. Keep an eye out to alert me if I need to hustle out of there.”

  “Okay,” I said, nervous now that we were actually doing this.

  As Candice nonchalantly strolled up the drive to the back of the house, where she was then going to find a way inside, I turned away to jog up the street. Cruising up to my starting point, I had to admit that I thought it was good that I could work out some of the adrenaline on the runs up and down the street, even though I could barely get my legs to move faster than the jog, and then of course I had to pay attention to any traffic on the street and keep my radar up in case one of the Edwardses came home.

  By the sixth slow plod up the street, I was seriously wondering what was taking Candice so long. My lungs were on fire, my legs rubber, my mouth dry and begging for water. Why hadn’t I brought water?

  After looking at my phone, I realized that I’d only been doing the sprints for about four and a half minutes. “Sweet Jesus,” I wheezed, stopping to bend at the waist and let my lungs heave. Walking stiffly to the stop sign at the end of the street, I stood for a few moments, hand on my hip, slightly bent, hoping I didn’t die before Candice made it back out of the house.

  One thing about exercise—it ain’t for the weak.

  As I was getting ready to start my next “dash” (and I’m using that term loosely), I felt a little ping! in the ether.

  “Uh-oh,” I said. Bringing up my phone, I texted Candice to get the hell out of the house.

  She didn’t reply back and I ground my teeth together. Had she gotten the text?

  Biting my lip, I looked down the street. I didn’t see anyone walking toward the Edwards house—hell, I didn’t see anyone, period. No cars, no pedestrians, no neighbors outside gathering up the paper. Just an empty, quiet street.

  But my radar was pinging again and I felt a strong sense of urgency, so I texted Candice a second time and hopped in place anxiously.

  At the opposite end of the street I saw a car pull onto the road and begin to cruise toward me. To make myself look less suspicious, I started jogging nice and slow toward the car, keeping my expression neutral and trying to avoid staring at the vehicle.

  Just as I feared, the car pulled into the Edwards driveway, parking, and out hopped a group of girls in cheerleading uniforms.

  “Dammit!” I swore, lifting my phone to text Candice for the third time.

  One of the girls moved up to the panel at the side of the garage and punched in the security code, leading the others inside. I turned my head right and left, looking anxiously for Candice, but she hadn’t yet appeared.

  “Son of a bitch, Candice!” I muttered. “Get out of there!”

  The garage door closed as I came abreast of the house, and I paused to jog in place for a few beats, trying to decide what to do.

  I was caught between whether to flee to the car, because standing around looking suspicious wasn’t going to help any, or to wait for Candice, wherever she might be.

  After a thorough internal debate, I decided to wait for her, and paced only a few yards away before turning around and jogging back. I kept stopping to check my phone, though, but there was no message from her there either.

  “Candice Fusco!” I growled as I began to type out a fourth text. “I swear to God I’m gonna—!”

  “What?” she said from right behind me.

  I screamed.

  “Hey!” she said, reaching for my shoulder and drawing me close. “Sundance, chill out, okay?”

  My hand was at my chest and my heart was racing. “Where did you come from?” I demanded.

  “I got your text and snuck around the block,” she explained. She didn’t even look sorry. Hell, she looked amused.

  “It’s not funny!”

  She took me by the hand and dragged me forward several yards away from the Edwards place. “Let’s keep it moving, okay?” she said. Then she eyed me critically. “There’s some water back at the car. We should get you some.”

  “I’ll get you some!” I snarled.

  Huh. Apparently, dehydrated-me is as charming as hangry-me.

  Candice chuckled. “What does that even mean?”

  I wiped my brow and felt my face. My skin was crazy hot, and my thoughts were becoming muddled now that the adrenaline was wearing off. “I need to sit down,” I announced. And without further ado, I did just that.

  Candice stopped as well and considered me with a slightly worried expression. I thought she might even look a bit guilty. “You need water, Abs,” she said. “I’m going to get the car. You stay here and I’ll pick you
up. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  I waved weakly at her and pulled my knees up to rest my elbows on them. “Go,” I managed.

  Candice took off at an impressive sprint, and I watched her stride away, confident, strong, fit, and gloriously beautiful.

  “Bitch,” I said softly to her retreating form. But I meant it with love.

  Looking around, I got up to hobble over to a tree to lean against and keep in the shade. A few cars drove by, but no one stopped to ask if I was okay or to offer me water. I was about four houses away from the Edwards place, and I didn’t even care if anyone inside looked out the window and saw me.

  Around the time I caught sight of a buzzard circling high overhead, I noticed someone walking toward me from the opposite direction. I wondered if I should get up and just start moving on down the street, but the person didn’t seem to take note of me. It looked like a man, and then, as he got closer, I realized it was a young man.

  The adrenaline coursed through me again and I knew without even seeing his face up close that it was Trace Edwards. He walked with his head down and a pair of earbuds in his ears.

  He turned up his drive and I saw him pause at the back of the car in the driveway. He looked from there to the house, tilting his head as if he was looking at one of the second-story windows. And then his whole demeanor shifted and he moved toward the panel at the side of the garage and let himself inside.

  The vibe I had from pointing my radar at him while watching what he did caused me to involuntarily shudder. That kid was bad news. Like, seriously bad news.

  I’ve been in the crime-solving business for a few years now, and I’ve seen enough to know that some people are just born evil. It may be that the gene that was supposed to deliver them a conscience got mutated into something else, but some people are, at their core, incredibly frighteningly dangerous, villainous human beings. There’s no therapy or drug that’s going to work on them. No environment that’s going to shape them into someone good. No mother’s or father’s love that’s going to touch them. They’re beyond help and hope from the moment of their birth.