Mission Road (Tres Navarre #6)(63)

Kelsey’s ears turned red.

“You and Ana have a history,” Etch continued. “So did you and Frankie White. Lee will say you have a motive for the Franklin White murder. It’s bullshit, but she’ll use it.”

Kelsey’s fingers had whitened on the nine-millimeter magazine. “Ana’s on the mend. She’ll tell us the truth.”

“I hope so. Maybe you should wait on the announcement. If Lee shook you up—”

“She didn’t shake me up.”

“All right.”

“It’s just, if Navarre and Arguello are with White—”

“They’re trying to beat you to the punch. You gave them a deadline. Now they’re trying to hand Guy White his son’s killer early. And it sounds like they’ve settled on you as a patsy. But maybe you’re right. God willing, Ana will come around and tell us the truth. Today. Or tomorrow.”

Etch could tell Kelsey was turning now, aiming his anger back in the direction Etch wanted.

“Anything else Lee said?” Etch prodded, his tone full of concern—the fatherly lieutenant, protective of his people’s welfare. “Anything that might put you in a bad light?”

Kelsey licked his lips. “No . . . no, sir.”

“You want to go ahead with the announcement? It’s your call, son.”

The son did it.

Kelsey stood a little straighter. He set the clip back on the picnic table. “I’ll go ahead with it. We don’t owe Arguello and Navarre anything. Nothing else we can do.”

ETCH STOOD AT HIS WINDOW, WATCHING the parishioners leave St. John’s. The old married couple who always parked in front of his house were just getting into their car. Every year, they got a little more stooped. The old man’s coat got a little more threadbare and his wife’s hair got bluer. But they were still together. Must be pushing ninety.

Etch wished them well. He hoped they died together some warm summer night, holding hands in bed. Nobody should die in winter. It was too depressing. Too cold and impersonal.

He looked down at the windowsill where he’d placed a few of his last possessions—a tiny black velvet box and an evidence bag.

He opened the evidence bag, brought out the vial and syringe—the same glass vial he’d had in his pocket the first time he visited Ana.

Etch hadn’t investigated homicides for fifteen years without picking up a few interesting methods of killing. The vial was a souvenir from a chemistry professor at Trinity University who used his postgraduate research to plan his wife’s perfect murder. If he hadn’t confided in his lab assistant, Etch never would’ve caught him.

Clear liquid. Damn near untraceable. Etch would need one minute to inject, no more. The effects would take maybe an hour to manifest. Coma. Organ failure. Everything you’d expect from a gunshot victim who suddenly took a turn for the worse.

He doubted the ME’s office would run toxicology, but even if they did, this stuff wouldn’t show up on a standard scan.

Etch’s first visit to Ana’s bedside, there’d been too many people. No opportunity. Then Maia Lee had shown up and rattled his nerves.

Etch turned the vial, watched a small air bubble float through the poison.

Maia Lee was becoming a major problem. She’d gotten to Titus Roe. She’d rattled Kelsey. She was putting together Ana’s line of investigation much too well. Depending on how much she’d told Navarre and Arguello . . . Etch needed a way to tie up all the loose ends at once.

He slipped the poison into his pocket. Today, one way or another, he would finish things.

He remembered sitting with Lucia on her porch, a few hours after they cleared the Frankie White crime scene. He’d wanted to tell her why he was late to their shift that evening. He’d been rehearsing in front of his bathroom mirror, practicing what he would say to her, worrying about whether he was doing the right thing.

But Frankie White had ruined everything. As usual, the Whites got in the way.

Etch picked up the black velvet box from the windowsill.

He opened it and stared at the white gold engagement ring, the small stone that was all he could afford, eighteen years ago.

He hadn’t had the courage to propose that night—not after the murder. And in the following weeks, Lucia started drifting away. He never found the right moment. He feared that she would say no.

Lucia never saw the ring.

Like so many of Etch’s dreams, the velvet box got tucked away, a secret what if he never showed to anyone. It was all Frankie White’s fault. The bastard had deserved every hit with the nightstick.

Lucia spoke to him: It isn’t the Whites you’re mad at, Etch, any more than you’re mad at Ralph Arguello.

“You’re wrong,” Etch said.

You’re mad at me. Because I couldn’t be there for you, not one hundred percent.

“That wasn’t your fault.”

It’s still true, love. You meant to kill Ana. As soon as she looked into the case, you stole that poison from the evidence room. You were already thinking about how to stop her.

“No.”

Don’t kill her, Etch.

“She betrayed you. She left you. She doesn’t deserve anything from me.”

Ana’s words mixed with her mother’s: Everybody is so goddamn busy protecting her reputation, they’re not helping her.