What Have You Done(12)

“I figured honesty would work best here.”

“Did you kill her?”

“Of course not.”

Sean stepped closer to his brother. “What happened to you last night? You were going to the boat to grab the sweatshirt you left on board the other day, and then you were supposed to meet me for drinks. You never showed. Where were you?”

“I… can’t remember.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I can’t remember. I woke up this morning in my tub, of all places, and I have no recollection of anything from last night.”

“How is that possible?”

“I don’t know.”

“Were you with Vanessa?”

“She said I came home late, drunk, and passed out on the couch. But I don’t remember going to any bar or drinking.” He paused for a moment. “You think I could’ve been drugged?”

“Maybe, but who would do that?”

“Same person who did this?”

“Maybe.”

“There’s something else,” Liam said.

“What?”

“Kerri left a message on my phone last night. Around eight. She mentioned that she got my text, but I didn’t text her.”

“But her number came in on your phone the same night she was killed?”

“Yeah. I called her back this morning. It went right to voice mail. I also tried her when I got to the station. Voice mail again.”

“And now your number’s on her phone. Twice.”

“If you think I had anything to do with this, you’re crazy.”

“But you can’t remember where you were last night.”

“I didn’t kill her, Sean. How could you even think that?”

Sean grabbed Liam by the shoulder and walked him out of the hotel room. “I don’t think you killed her, but you just proved my point. You see how this can look if we tell them up front about your affair? The less they know about you and Kerri, the better it’ll be at this point. It’ll give us time to figure out what happened. If you come clean now, you’ll be their primary suspect, and they’ll build a case against you while whoever really did this is running around free. You get it?”

“I guess.”

“You need to get those phone records and erase your number before Heckle and Keenan get their hands on them.”

“And how does that not make me look even more guilty?”

“You won’t look guilty if they find the guy who did this. Our priority has to be to keep this between us for now. Otherwise, you become the primary suspect, and the real killer goes free. If they’re wasting their time investigating you, then no one is carrying out a proper investigation. You need to stay quiet for now. Can you do that?”

“Yeah.”

Sean looked on as the team began to exit the hotel. “Meet me at the dock tonight at seven. We need to think this through, and you need to try and remember where you were last night. Those flowers scare me. Somebody knows something.”





8

Sean leaned against the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. His eyes were red and slightly swollen from crying. He splashed water on his face and dried himself with a paper towel. The men’s room was deserted. No one was there to see him like this, and he intended to keep it that way.

Kerri was dead. The scene at the hotel was almost too much to bear. Seeing her like that—her body mutilated, her hair chopped off, the blood—was overwhelming, despite how many crime scenes he’d worked in the past. He knew this girl. She had been sweet, kind, and innocent. She had only wanted the best out of life, and now that life had been cut short. She was gone, and although death was an inevitability for everyone, the reality of her death—of her murder—really shook him. Seeing her in that body bag brought it all home again.

Sean crumpled the paper towel and tossed it in the wastebasket. He took one last breath, pulled the door open, and walked back out into the station. It was time to get to work.



The sky had finally opened up. The rain was coming down in sheets, hissing like a snake as it slapped the pavement. Cars passed slowly to avoid the water that was rushing along the gutters, minirapids carrying the debris of strewn litter toward the grates that were already beginning to overflow at the end of the blocks. The day was drawing to a close, and with the rain, the sidewalks would be empty soon. Across the street, under the dome of city hall, people rushed to catch the subway.

Don sat alone at his desk, filling out paperwork from the takedown earlier that morning. He liked the quiet. It helped him think with more clarity. He’d often go to the library across town when he had to work through a difficult case. The serenity of the reading room gave his mind freedom to wonder without the constant interruptions he got at the station house. The shouting, the ringing phones, the general noise of movement. The library had none of that. But this was the rare, thin line of time between shifts, when the division was quiet and he could actually get some work done. It was, undoubtedly, his favorite time of day.

Footsteps shuffled up the stairs and into the empty Homicide Division. It was Sean, soaked from the storm. “Where is everyone?” he asked.

“Changeover.”

Sean peeked into Phillips’s office. It was empty. He came back and sat at his desk across from his partner. “Lieutenant still at the hospital?”