Never Tell (Detective D.D. Warren #10)(14)

“I’m okay,” I say again.

That’s it. A female CO reappears, leads me out of the medical exam room. I have a little baggie of toiletries, a clear toothbrush the size of a pinky, a small, clear deodorant, clear shampoo, and white toothpaste. On my feet, I wear the world’s ugliest pair of flat white sneakers, but at least they’re comfortable. Around my wrists, the CO has once again fastened the restraints.

The hall is wide and cold. Cinder block. Thick, but the nurse is right; I already hear the towering prison moaning and groaning around us. Thudding pipes, booming mechanicals, distant murmurs of hundreds if not thousands of caged humans, trying to get through another night.

We arrive at a cell. Cream-painted cinder-block walls. A molded stainless steel toilet, no seat. Thin foam mattress with single beige blanket.

I say nothing. Walk inside. Hold out my wrists. The female CO removes the cuffs.

She closes and locks the heavy metal door, with its cutout window so they can monitor me at all times.

I sink onto the hard platform bed. I pull up my legs with my tennis shoes still on. Then I close my eyes and wish it all away.

My father. Conrad. Beautiful Cambridge. Hard-fought Winthrop. Choices made. Cycles repeated. Around and around and around.

And now, growing determinedly in my own womb, the next generation of tragedy.

I need to do better. I have to do better.

Yet, locked inside jail, waiting to be formally charged with murder …

I don’t have any answers. Just distant notes from piano pieces I haven’t played in at least ten years.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl in a big house who loved her father so much she was sure he would never leave her.

But he did.

And now this.

I close my eyes and, curled around my baby, will myself to sleep.





CHAPTER 5


    D.D.


FLORA DANE WAS DRIVING D.D. nuts. Which was why, D.D. thought for the umpteenth time, a smart detective should never recruit a wild-card vigilante to be her CI. Because D.D. had to follow rules and procedures, whereas Flora had absolutely no interest.

“You’re saying you recognize the victim, Conrad Carter. You spotted him in the company of Jacob Ness during the time of your captivity. Furthermore, you believe they might have had some sort of relationship. At least know each other.”

“I already told you that!” Flora was agitated. Pacing the sidewalk, rubbing her arms. D.D. had never seen the woman so rattled before. All the more reason to get her on the record.

“I need you to come down to the station and make a formal statement.”

“No!”

“Flora—”

“I will talk! But we both know it won’t be to you.”

Which was the other issue. Flora might have been a Boston college student at the time of her kidnapping, but she’d been on spring break in Florida when Jacob snatched her. Meaning from the first taunting postcard Jacob had mailed from a small town in the South to Flora’s mother in Maine, Flora’s abduction had fallen under FBI jurisdiction.

The feds had done right by her. Eventually identifying Jacob as a long-haul trucker. Tracking his rig to a cheap motel. Storming the room with a dozen SWAT team officers and enough bullets and stun grenades to take out a small village. Jacob hadn’t survived the raid; Flora had.

To the best of D.D.’s knowledge, it had been at the hospital, still waiting for her mother to fly down, that Flora had given her official statement. She’d made a deal: She’d speak of her kidnapping one time to one person. Then she’d delivered her story, word by painful word, to FBI victim specialist Dr. Samuel Keynes.

The rumor was that Keynes—who had a long history of interviewing international kidnapping victims—had barely made it to the bathroom before vomiting.

Since that day, Keynes and Flora had maintained a relationship that was beyond D.D.’s understanding. She doubted it fell strictly within the guidelines of the FBI’s Office for Victim Assistance. Not that it was romantic at all—in fact, last D.D. had heard, the famously reserved psychologist had finally expressed his true feelings for Flora’s mom, Rosa. Who was an organic-farming, homemade-muffin-baking, free-spirited yogi. What they actually talked about, D.D. had no idea, but having personally seen the spark between them …

At least something good had come from Flora and her family’s ordeal.

The problem remained; Keynes was Flora’s confessor of choice. But he also worked for the FBI. Meaning, the moment Flora started talking to him about seeing D.D.’s murder victim in the company of Jacob Ness, D.D. now had the FBI involved in her case. Or worse, taking it away.

“How many times did you see Conrad?” D.D. tried now. If Flora wouldn’t agree to a formal statement, D.D. would settle for an informal one.

“Just once. At a bar.”

“How long ago?”

“I don’t know. I’d been with Jacob for a while. Weather was cooler.” Flora rubbed her arms. “So maybe it was winter in the South.”

D.D. nodded, working some mental arithmetic. Winter of Flora’s abduction would mean they were looking back basically seven years. Detective Manley had reported that Conrad had traveled for his job, which could mean he’d had a good cover for many activities.

“What about the wife?” D.D. tried now. “Evelyn Carter look familiar to you?”