Paranoid(30)

Mercedes. Rachel flashed on the article in the Edgewater Edition and the fact that there were more stories slated. “She’s here already?”

“Yes. But antsy. Always on her damned phone. Always working.” Lila found a shaker of Tic Tacs in her pocket and popped a couple of orange tablets, crushed them between her teeth. “She wants to talk to you.”

“I know.”

“You may as well tell your side of the story,” Lila confided, stepping to the door. “She’s going to publish the series whether you contribute or not. For the record, I was against it, but—” She shrugged. “You can’t fight city hall or the press.”

Can’t you? Rachel thought and, in this case, silently vowed to try.

*

“Aren’t you about outta here?” Patricia Voss, the other detective in the department, poked her head around the edge of the partition separating Cade’s desk from hers. A large woman with clipped gray hair, zero makeup, and lines creasing her face from years in the sun, she made a big show of checking her watch.

“In a few.” Cade leaned back in his chair, a cup of this morning’s coffee still congealing on his desk in front of a picture of his kids. At the time of the photograph, Harper had been about eleven, a gawky tween in shorts and a jacket, trying to hide behind a curtain of hair and looking as if she’d rather be anywhere than the focus of her parents’ attention. She’d been standing on the rocky shores of the river with Dylan next to her. In a sweatshirt and jeans, his uncombed hair a wild riot, Dylan had grinned without any inhibitions. He’d been shorter than his sister and skinny, freckles cast over his nose, his teeth still seeming too big for his face.

A lot could happen in six years. Some good things. Some very bad.

Tricia’s voice brought him back to the present.

“It’s supposed to get down to the low forties tonight.” She was slipping her arms through the sleeves of her rain jacket. “Can you believe it? This is supposed to be May, for God’s sake.” She threw a disgusted look through a window to the gloom of the evening.

“Spoken like a true transplant from California.”

“In the forties, Ryder,” she repeated. “Like in ten degrees above freezing.”

“I know.”

“Brutal.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.” She zipped her jacket, then squared a cap on her head before offering him a piece of advice. “Go home, Ryder. Enough with all the work. I’ve got ninety jobs around here, and even I can leave.”

“Ninety?” he questioned. She did do double duty. In the small department, Tricia not only was one of the two detectives, but also worked as a backup patrol officer if two or more of the regulars were sick. “I thought two.”

She gave a snort of disgust. “Yeah, well, I just happen to be the one who holds this department together, if you haven’t noticed.” Shaking her head, she added, “Who do you think does the real work around here? Who cleans out the coffeepot and starts a new one? Who cleans out the refrigerator? Geez, you people are pigs.”

“Careful,” he warned. “Not all cops like to be referred to as—”

“Oh, can it, Ryder. You know what I mean. And this crew?” She motioned around the large room divided by now-empty cubicles. “They’re the worst. Not just the men, mind you. The women are no better!”

He laughed. “Wow. You’re in a mood.”

“Always. As bad as all this is, it’s worse at home.”

He doubted it.

Sketching a quick salute, she added, “See you Monday.”

“If you’re lucky.”

“Funny guy,” she muttered, making her way toward the back door. “Real funny guy.”

“Some people think so,” he called after her, but she was out of earshot. He rotated the kinks from his neck and looked at the file on his desk. Dusty and yellowed, pulled from the archives of closed cases and marked HOLLANDER.

He’d never gone over it before, though he’d glanced through the digital files years before, then chastised himself. What was done was done; everyone thought Rachel killed her brother in a horrible accident. She’d said as much that night, though later she’d been confused and the case had been muddled with conflicting testimony from eyewitnesses, especially Violet Osbourne and Annessa Bell, both of whom were friends. Coupled with that, the inconclusive evidence had been a little compromised as the first officer on the scene had been Rachel’s father.

“A shitshow from the get-go,” Ned Gaston’s partner at the time had said and been quoted.

So why look at it again? It was over. Closed. Had gathered dust for two decades.

Maybe it was because it was the anniversary of the tragedy.

Maybe it was because he’d felt there had been loose ends never tied up.

Maybe it was because it was a helluva coincidence that Violet Osbourne Sperry, a key witness in the investigation, was killed twenty years to the damned day that Luke Hollander had been shot.

Maybe he was just a damned fool.

Whatever the reason, he knew by just going over the case he was stepping on an emotional land mine.

Well, so be it. He glanced at his watch and considered calling Kayleigh about any updates to the Violet Sperry homicide.

It’s not your case.