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Chapter 18

September gave Guy Urlacher the evil eye as she entered the station around seven on Monday morning. She whipped out her badge and silently dared him to ask for more as she passed by. It looked like it took a good deal of self-control for him to just let her pass, but he did. It felt good to win that battle of wills; she wasn’t the newbie she’d been last week. A lot of things—a lot of things—had happened since, practically none of them good.

She’d slept poorly and had fallen asleep hard around four, blasted awake by her alarm clock at six. She’d woken up slowly in the shower, then had wolfed down some strawberry yogurt and half a bagel with cream cheese. Coffee she would get at the station, sludge that it sometimes was. Still, it had the power to jolt you awake and she was counting on that as everyone involved with the Zuma case was attending an impromptu meeting in D’Annibal’s office around ten.

Foremost in September’s thoughts was Trask Burcher Martin. It appeared he’d stumbled into something involving Olivia Dugan, and it seemed likely whatever it was had something to do with the Zuma Software massacre, too. The press had gotten hold of that angle last night; they’d interviewed Jo Cardwick and managed to get her to scream that it was Olivia Dugan’s fault her boyfriend was dead. She’d come to the station directly afterwards and broken down. That bit had been breaking news at eleven last night.

It was a damn good thing Auggie was bringing her into the station today.

Gretchen was yawning at her desk, cradling a cup of coffee. September went straight to the staff room and poured herself a cup, too. When she returned to her desk Gretchen was standing beside it.

“I called the hospital,” she said. “Jessica Maltona’s taken a turn for the worse. Upjohn isn’t doing much better.”

“That’s depressing,” September answered glumly.

“Weasel wants to run on the Decatur killing, since it looks like the same doer killed Sheila Dempsey and he feels connected to her.”

September nodded. “Fine by me.”

“I want to make an arrest on the Zuma shootings. The press is already calling it a massacre, as are we, but if Maltona and Upjohn or either one of them dies, it really will be.” She looked angry. “God damn. I hate these bastards who go in shooting. The carnage.”

George had joined them, catching her last remarks. “You’re still on Zuma? I thought maybe you got moved to the serial strangler since D’Annibal sent you out there.”

“Yeah, we’re still on Zuma,” she snapped back. “Why wouldn’t we be? Somebody’s gotta keep looking under rocks for this slimeball.”

“I thought it was Rafferty. Isn’t he with Dugan?”

“He’s bringing her in today. Maybe we’ll finally learn something.” She went back to her desk and slammed open a drawer, reached inside and pulled out some ChapStick, rubbing the waxy end over her lips. “Sunburn,” she snorted.

They went over the case and what they had so far. By a process of elimination they’d crossed out Kurt Upjohn and Paul de Fore as the target of the Zuma killings. They just didn’t seem to fill the bill. Add Jessica Maltona to that list, although Gretchen still felt her boyfriend, Jason Jaffe, deserved a second look.

Aaron Dirkus and his stoner buddies were still being considered, and Camille Dirkus was still floating around the periphery.

But the missing Olivia Dugan had risen up the “prime suspect” list with Trask Martin’s murder.

Yes, when Auggie brought in Olivia Dugan, September had a lot of questions to ask her.

Auggie lay spooned up next to Liv, his face in the cloud of her light brown hair, his naked body touching hers, one arm possessively slung beneath her breasts. They’d made love twice and he was surprised at how much of a thrill it was to feel her soft breath on his face, her warm body pressed urgently to his, her eager tongue and exploratory caresses. He struggled for the right word to describe the way she reached for him so eagerly. Insatiable was all wrong; it sounded sleazy and borderline psychotic. But there was a hunger inside her, a need, that had been there a long time, he suspected; maybe all her life. Something she couldn’t disguise when they were making love; something she didn’t try to.

It also made him afraid. Not because it scared him away. No . . . afraid because when she learned the truth about him, the betrayal might be too huge for him to explain away. What had started out as a tiny omission, a small gap in the truth, had turned into a gaping abyss.

He tried to think how to tell her. Just come out with it and rip off the Band-Aid? Or, ease her into the station and let it come out after her fear of authorities had lessened a little. He wouldn’t be able to do the latter without the cooperation of D’Annibal and the other detectives, and that wasn’t going to happen.

He was going to have to tell her. Today. This morning.

She stirred and turned in his arms, her eyes lazy with sleep and satiation. “I like this,” she said. “It’s a fake world where I feel safe. I’m trying to stretch out the minutes before I have to get up.”

Dread filled his heart even while he kissed her forehead and temple and eyes. “I don’t want to get up either,” he said regretfully.

She picked up the tone of his voice and pulled away slowly, reluctantly. “It’s Monday,” she said, and then added on a note of wonder, “I feel like I’ve known you forever.”

“Liv . . .”

When he didn’t continue, her eyes searched his face. Whatever she saw there shut her down and she climbed out of her side of the bed and picked up her clothes, holding them to her breasts as she skirted the bed. “I’ll take a shower first,” she said, and she was into the bathroom and running the water while he stared at the ceiling, watching a thin slice of summer sunlight sneak through the curtains of the bedroom and streak across the walls.

She sensed something was coming. While they were on their quest, they hadn’t discussed their own relationship at all. They’d just gone head down and worked like an investigative team, something he understood completely. But after two days of going headlong into her past and on the trail of the sinister Dr. Navarone with his unorthodox medical practices, they had slowed down long enough to look at each other.

Everything would shift today, and Auggie wasn’t eager for that to happen.

He threw on his jeans and pulled his cell phone from the pocket. He’d charge it in the car as they drove to Halo Valley Security Hospital.

And after that. After Halo Valley. Then he would take her in. They were on the same page on that. That’s what she’d said, and there was no more time to fool around. The police needed to debrief her and get her take on the Zuma killings and Trask Martin’s murder, and Auggie needed to be brought up to date on the case. It hadn’t been a full three days since the shooting, but a lot had happened.

When she was finished she came into the bedroom with a towel around her torso and one around her head.

“I like this look,” he said. “Drop the towels and I think I’d like it better.”

She almost did. He could see the twitch of her lips and the glint in her eyes. But her built-up walls of reserve won and she merely arched a brow at him. “Nope. We have things to do.”

Growling, Auggie climbed to his feet, naked, and grabbed his clothes and cell phone and headed into the bathroom, but not before squeezing past her and running a hand across her bare shoulder.

When he was through in the shower and had shaved and brushed his teeth, he examined himself in the mirror.

You’re a coward, he told his reflection silently.

His own blue eyes were full of accusations.

“Shit,” he said softly, under his breath, then he walked back to the bedroom where Liv had finished putting on a pair of black pants and a dark green blouse, which she was yanking on, trying uselessly to pull out the wrinkles.

“Have you got an iron?” she asked.

“Uh-uh.”

“I’d like to look a little more presentable.”

“The police aren’t going to care. Trust me.”

She stopped tugging. “I was thinking of the hospital.”

“Oh.”

While Auggie put on his jeans and a gray shirt, she pulled off the blouse and grabbed a black, short-sleeved T-shirt, which she yanked over her still damp hair. When they were both dressed, he said, “You want to catch some breakfast on the way?” though he could scarcely stand making her always pay.

“I don’t think I could bear more fast food,” she said.

“I’ve got cereal. And the milk’s still good, I think.”

“Let’s do that,” she said.

Ten minutes later they were sitting at the table, each with a bowl of cereal in front of them. She didn’t have much of an appetite, as usual, and this morning he didn’t have much of one, either.

The effect of a guilty conscience.

It was nine A.M. when they hit the road and began the hour-and-a-half drive to Halo Valley.

The detectives all squeezed into the lieutenant’s office along with a researcher and the uniform who’d been with September when they’d found Trask Martin’s body, Don Waters. It was crowded enough that D’Annibal shooed them all back to the squad room and they moved as if choreographed toward Wes Pelligree’s desk, where he had the photos of the two female strangulation victims on a bulletin board with their names and the dates and locations of where they were found.