Catch Me (Detective D.D. Warren, #6)(114)

Three forty-five P.M. Daylight already fading.

Nightfall would bring me cover. I could leave Tom’s apartment, home in on my final target, and start making amends for past mistakes. Assuming I wasn’t already too late.

I started with the easy tricks. Ballpoint pen thrust into the elastic at the base of my ponytail, where it would be easily accessible. From Tom’s bureau, I’d helped myself to one long white athletic sock. Now I stuffed the foot with the four D batteries, tied a knot in the ankle, then whipped it around a few times experimentally. The heavy weight in the toe stretched it out and would pack quite a punch, enabling me to inflict damage, while also staying out of strike range.

I used the duct tape to fashion a sturdy knife sheath, then attached it to my ankle. Into the sheath I thrust a short, serrated kitchen blade. Not optimal, but if I was at the stage where I needed a knife, I was already in trouble. I didn’t have those kinds of skills. Wasn’t even sure I had that kind of stomach. But desperate times called for desperate measures.

Everyone has to die sometime. Be brave.

I heard footsteps out in the hall and froze. A quiet quick rap.

“It’s me,” came Tom’s low voice, then I heard his key in the lock.

Quickly, I grabbed the remaining items and shoved them in my pants pockets. Already, I was breathing too hard, my heart rate accelerating. At the last minute, I dropped and loosened the laces on both my heavy boots.

I was just straightening up when Tom walked in.

And that quickly, it was game time.

January 21.

Everyone has to die sometime. Be brave.

I’d like to think that Detective D. D. Warren’s shocking declaration had opened the floodgates of my mind. I magically remembered my long-lost sister Abigail. I magically understood Detective O and the relevance of the twenty-first, and why my best friends had to die. I even understood why a respected sex crime detective had started shooting perverts, leaving the same disturbing note with each body, while framing me for her crimes.

I didn’t.

Abigail remained in my mind, a beaming, brown-eyed, chubby, gurgling baby. My little sister, whom I’d loved with all my heart. And lost. Died, I had believed. Except, of course, if she’d died, I should’ve absorbed her name, as I’d done with the others. Charlene Rosalind Carter Abigail Grant.

In Detective Warren’s mind, that was further proof that Abigail still lived and, in some way we didn’t yet understand, had become Boston sex crimes Detective O. Brown hair, brown eyes, just like the baby in my dream.

Except I truly only remembered an infant, maybe nine months old at best. Not a beautiful exotic creature with that hair and those curves, and a solid career as an up-and-coming sex crimes investigator. A young, astute detective who, from the very beginning, didn’t seem to like me.

Everyone has to die sometime. Be brave.

Those words, I recognized. Those words, I understood on a level that chilled my spine, set my shoulders, and raised my chin.

My mother’s favorite expression. That, more than anything, proved Detective Warren’s argument. Abigail lived.

But my baby sister didn’t love me anymore.

“Raid the fridge?” Tom asked now, standing just inside the door. His features were drawn, tired. He’d been up at least eighteen hours by now. We both had. He appeared self-conscious as he took me in from across the room, then seemed to shake it off.

“Drank your OJ,” I said.

“Find any unexpired food?”

“The dill pickles were pretty good.”

“How about the gun safe?”

“Twelve months together, and I still don’t know your birthday, favorite pet, or mother’s maiden name. Totally screwed me with guessing the combo.”

“Figured as much. Calls?”

“One. Talked to Detective D. D. Warren. Good news. I think she believes me.”

Tom drew up short. He stood on one side of the counter dividing the kitchen from the living room. I stood on the other.

“She didn’t pull the warrant,” he said.

“I said she believes me. Not that she trusts me.” I had my hands down at my side, hidden behind the counter. I didn’t want him to see that they were shaking. That, in fact, I was trembling with nerves over what was about to come.

Everybody has to die sometime. Be brave.

“So, why does this other detective, O, have it in for you?”

“D.D. believes she’s my long-lost sister. Out for revenge.”

Tom’s eyes widened. “Seriously? That’s why she’s going to kill you?”

“D.D. thinks so.” I took the first sideways step toward the end of the counter, putting my right hand into my pocket, fiddling around until I found what I needed to find. “I disagree.”

“You don’t think she’s your sister?”

“No, I’m pretty sure D.D.’s right about that. But I don’t think Abigail, O, is going to kill me. I’ve been wrong all along. I’m not the third target.”

“That’s good news.”

“Quincy, the profiler, kept warning me we didn’t have enough data points. Our victim pool, so to speak, was too small. I kept seeing best friends, two out of three, making me the next logical target. But Randi and Jackie weren’t killed because they were my best friends. They were killed because I loved them.”