Never Tell (Detective D.D. Warren #10)(56)

I had to have seen her. My eyes had been red and swollen, my nose a snotty mess, but still … No matter how much I try, I still can’t bring her face to mind. She remains a voice in the dark. Clipped. Firm. In control.

The kind of woman I’m going to need for the day ahead.

Five A.M., I give up on sleep completely and go for a run in the ice-cold dark, neon vest glowing, headlamp beaming. Then shower. Bagel. Black coffee. Still hours to kill.

I boot up my computer, check in on my new friend Keith Edgar, who, interestingly enough, has posted nothing from yesterday on his true-crime blog site. Trying to impress me with his restraint? Or just waiting for something more significant to share?

I decide not to worry about it for now. Instead, I cycle back to where I’d started my evening. Memory. Such a fickle tool.

I read anything and everything about how to handle traumatized minds, from EMDR to virtual reality simulations to old-fashioned hypnosis. Ten A.M., my phone finally rings. That familiar clipped voice: “My plane has landed.”

I’m not nervous anymore. I’m ready.

—

ARRIVING AT BPD headquarters, I spot Keith first. He is standing awkwardly to the side, gazing up at the glass structure as if he’s not sure its existence is such a good idea. When he sees me walking toward him, his face immediately brightens and I feel an unexpected tug inside my chest.

He’s dressed upscale metrosexual. Open dark wool coat. Black skinny jeans topped with a deep purple sweater over a lavender-and-pink-checked shirt. He looks like an Abercrombie model. Which is to say, an updated Ted Bundy. I wonder what SSA Kimberly Quincy will make of him.

Then I see her. Stepping out of an Uber vehicle. Long camel-colored coat to fight off New England temps that must feel shocking after Atlanta. A dark leather shoulder bag slung across her body. Nice brown boots, currently getting ruined by the wintry mix of salt and sludge.

I don’t even have to hear her voice to know it’s her. Something about the line of her body as she leans down to retrieve a smaller, overnight bag. Then she straightens, turns.

And I realize why I blocked her face from my mind. Because for all intents and purposes, SSA Quincy looks almost exactly like me. Same lean profile, gray-blue eyes, dusty-blond hair, hard stare. Except she’s a slightly older, wiser version of myself. No dark shadows under her eyes. Real muscle mass lining her frame. A woman who sleeps at night, eats three to five healthy meals a day, and knows exactly who she is and where she’s going.

“Damn,” Keith says, taking in the two of us, and I realize I’m not ready for the day after all.

—

KEITH AND I let Quincy take the lead. She shakes my hand, then his. If she wonders about his presence, she doesn’t say anything. Maybe she thinks he’s my boyfriend. Maybe I don’t mind that impression.

She leads us into BPD, slaps down her credentials to announce her arrival, and crisply requests to see Sergeant D. D. Warren. Keith is looking all around the vast glass and steel lobby. I can already feel myself shrinking inside my down coat. As a woman who’d once been confined to a box, you’d think I’d like large open spaces. But this kind of space makes me nervous.

A redheaded detective appears. I’ve met him before, Neil something or other. He chirps about do we need breakfast, coffee, any thing? Quincy stares at him. He stops talking, leads the way up to the homicide unit.

Along the way, we pass an older man in a suit and a woman I recognize instantly from the news—Conrad Carter’s wife. The woman who supposedly shot and killed her husband. My feet slow on instinct. I open my mouth, feel like I should say something, anything. How well did you know your husband? Would it surprise you to know he was hanging out with a known rapist in a honky-tonk in the South? But Keith suddenly has a grip on my arm. He drives me forward, till she’s gone, and I’m left with a last impression of a woman who’s as anxious and exhausted as I am.

D.D. greets us with her normal chipper self. “What the hell?”

Quincy smiles. “Sergeant Warren. Nice to speak with you again. Shall we?” Quincy gestures to the conference room behind D.D. D.D. looks like she’s on the verge of arguing, probably on principal, but Quincy smiles again, says, “Not in front of the children,” and that does the trick.

The two female investigators enter the conference room, closing the door firmly behind them. Keith and I remain in the hallway, still in the company of the redhead, who’s fidgeting.

“Coffee?” he asks again. Most likely to have something to do.

Keith and I exchange a glance. “No,” we state in unison. Which makes me feel warm all over.

From inside the room: “A Boston shooting is a Boston case!”

“I’m not interested in your murder. I’m interested in the victim’s possible connection to Jacob Ness.”

“This has nothing to do with Ness. We’ve already charged the wife in the shooting.”

“Then my angle of inquiry won’t conflict with your own.”

“Like hell! You start digging in Conrad’s past, raise the specter of some serial killer bestie, and you’ve just handed the defense reasonable doubt. Evie Carter didn’t kill her husband. Clearly the ghost of Jacob Ness did it.”

“Do you know for sure someone else didn’t do it? Because a man who was known to go on frequent business trips, and at least spent part of them in the company of a serial rapist … As an investigator, these are questions I’d like to answer.”