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  Numb. He was as numb and cold as his mother’s fingers.

  “I should have stayed.” McKenna's soft voice came through the phone still pressed to Jordan’s ear. “I should have helped.”

  Trying to push the past away, he pinched the bridge of his nose and watched Robinson standing at the edge of the crime scene at the cemetery. His arms were still crossed, his glare centered on Amanda.

  “There wasn't anything you could do, Slick.” And he meant it, knew it as a complete truth.

  “One minute I was there, the next running through the woods unable to think about the direction my legs took me.”

  “I don't blame you. I wouldn't blame you even if it could've changed the outcome for my mom or Matthew.”

  Robinson turned from the site and headed in Jordan’s direction.

  “I would. I do.”

  “Don't.” The air around him thickened. He couldn't take one more confession right now. “It won't do any good.”

  “Jordan, I...”

  “I've got to go, McKenna. I'll see you at the wedding.” Then he hung up before he made a fool out of himself.

  His friend made it to the truck and hopped inside, slamming the door after he did.

  Okay, then. Jordan followed his lead.

  “This is the biggest load of crap. Did you see how they wouldn't even let me observe?” Robinson gestured toward the burial plot. “I handed that to her.”

  He knew Amanda Nettles was the 'her' to which he referred. Jordan didn’t have much emotion left to spend on figuring out the crux of Robinson’s issues.

  “Obviously, you think she can handle it, then.” He backed out of their parking spot and headed north on Sugar creek road.

  Robinson took in a huge breath and laced his hands behind his head. “I know I acted like a jerk, so spare me the lecture.”

  “Won't get one from me. I'm just the lowly ASAC.”

  Robinson looked over at him then. “Sorry, man. I lost my cool for a minute.”

  “Does it have anything to do with Kara moving out?”

  “Geez, no. No,” he said the last like he was a little horrified at the thought. “I wasn’t thinking past more than finding a way to have FBI presence on that case. I temporarily forgot that I’m supposed to be professional.”

  “Not to mention keep the lines of communication open between agencies.”

  An expletive came from his mouth and he punched his seat. “This whole case is a mess. I've got agents punching persons-of-interest.” He threw a pointed look at Jordan, proving that not much went unnoticed. “That same person-of-interest promising to sue our butts. An agent currently MIA. And a detective who is uncooperative in the best of situations.”

  “But probably not stupid or psychotic.”

  Robinson winced, some of his anger seeming to deflate. “Poor choice of words. Horrible timing.”

  “McKenna's not MIA, either.”

  Then he geared back up. “And when did either of you plan on telling me Moore's car was stolen outside the front gates? The news. I have to find out that the car that destroyed a good portion of Rupert’s house was Moore's. Are you seeing the pattern here?”

  Loud and clear. Sometimes he forgot that Robinson was not only his friend, but his boss as well. The two didn't always go hand in hand. “Yes, sir. Won't happen again.”

  Robinson rubbed his forehead, then rested his hand on the edge of the window. “Quit with the sir stuff. You make me feel old. I’m thirty-five, not fifty. You got any updates or were you just dicking around in here while I did all the leg work?”

  “The lab connected Mrs. Gaidies’ crime scene to the vandalism at Rupert’s home. Casing from a size ten Timberland boots were found at both sites along with her DNA in the car.”

  “That’s not a whole lot to go on. Timberlands are pretty common. The DNA in the car is interesting, however. It means our guy kept those hands, in their post-mortem state for a small amount of time.”

  A few days, max. McKenna’s car had been stolen the next day. “The lab believes our perp has little natural arch to the left foot and is left handed.”

  “Or maybe an old injury to that side of his or her body?”

  The conversation he’d had with McKenna less than twenty-four hours ago, atop her parent’s house came to mind. The memory of that talk seemed miles ahead of the logical thought process in his brain. The connection was in there somewhere, hovering. Then it clicked. “Ciamitaro suffered a gunshot wound to the knee before he retired from the force.”

  Robinson was on the phone with CMPD before Jordan could maneuver a U-Turn and hit the highway headed for Ciamitaro’s residence. He swerved in and out of traffic on the interstate, half listening to Robinson’s single syllable replies, half trying to avoid the traffic in his way.

  Fifteen minutes later, they pulled up to Ciamitaro’s house. Even before getting out of the truck, he could tell something wasn’t right. The brown rambler’s front door stood slightly ajar, the white trim near the deadbolt battered.

  Jordan grabbed his phone and called for backup.

  Both he and Robinson pulled their weapons and climbed the steps, Jordan leading the way. “FBI. We’re coming in.”

  The entry led to the living room, organized chaos littering the hallway from there to the open-floor-plan kitchen. A lamp sat on its side on an end table in the corner. A red throw pillow was on the floor near his feet, stuffing scattered over the living room carpet.

  Jordan side-stepped pieces of what appeared to be a several drinking glasses strewn in front of the kitchen island. Droplets of blood started there, lead into the kitchen behind the island, which contained a butchers block filled with knifes, one missing. Jordan carefully headed in that direction, gun raised, ready to find the worst, while Robinson moved toward the rear of the house. A small pool of blood greeted him on the other side, the missing chef’s knife lying beside it, bloody fingerprints marring its sleek wooden handle.

  The droplets zigzagged in the kitchen area leading up to the sink.

  “All clear,” Robinson said from beside him. “Is that what I think it is?”

  He pulled a pen from his pocket and moved a piece of something white to the edge of the red fluid near the island. “Looks like part of an anterior tooth.”

  Robinson glanced around the house, noting, the same as Jordan did, that the blood splatter stayed confined to the kitchen area. “We’ve got a syringe in the sink.”

  Jordan got up, glanced at the pile of dishes. A medical syringe sat amidst plates and silverware. The sound of siren’s closed in on their location. The walls around him weren’t heavily decorated. A plaque near the fireplace in the living room, a few pictures hung near the entryway. A discoloration caught his eye on the far wall, directly above the couch. A stark-white X shape stood out against off-white walls, like something had hung there for a very long time.

  He moved closer and noted four holes patched with cheap putty, but not yet sanded smooth. “I think we need to start looking for any swords or bats. Anything that a person might be able to hang in the shape of an X, which could be used as a weapon.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  A long time ago, wrist and ankle shackles would have humiliated Matthew.

  Back then, he had always been the one administering the cold, offending metal while reading the Miranda Rights. He’d been the one staring into the face of crime, daring it to make one wrong move.

  He’d tried his hardest to make this world a safer place. To protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. Before Cassidy, his job had been his life. Not because of what he could get out of it, but what he could give back.

  He was somebody. Doing something important.

  For the last ten years, he’d been exactly the opposite. Just a guy who killed the woman he loved and couldn’t prove otherwise. A guy who didn’t care about anything, surrounded by a lot of the same.

  At first he’d been numb, trying to grieve for Cassidy in a halfway house surrounded by people, some
trying to do the same, others just biding their time. It hadn’t taken long for the numbness to turn into boiling rage. He supposed he’d turned it on Cassidy first because she was dead and unable to defend herself against his recriminations.

  If she’d been honest with him… How many times had that thought run through his mind?

  He rotted away six months of his life in that halfway house. During the day, he wore himself out physically and at night mentally, thinking of ways he could have changed the outcome of that April day.

  By the time the trial went to court, he didn’t have much hope that the judicial system, in which he had served faithfully, would prevail in court. Maybe he’d harbored a small sliver of faith anyway, but it had died as he’d heard the jurors give their indictment.

  “We the jurors, on December fifteenth, nineteen-ninety, find Matthew Bryan Blaney guilty of second degree murder of Cassidy Riley Bening.”

  “All right, Blaney.” Aaronson checked each cuff at his ankle, followed by the chain that led up and around his waist, then connected to his wrist shackles. “Let’s go.”

  Another prison guard, one Matthew had never see before today, opened the door of the blue van they’d ridden in. Rain pelted his face and body as he exited. Both guards flanked him on either side once he reached the pavement.

  They were doing their job. Making sure this routine visit to the Oral Surgeon stayed that way. So far, he couldn’t see any way to change that. Every scenario he’d imagined since they’d hauled him into the van over an hour ago had too many variables.

  They all required planning. Or sheer luck. That had run out when they pulled the bars of his cell shut for the very first time.

  The guards led him into a smaller, white building. Warm, dry air hit his face upon entering. The waiting room was empty. A short woman with brown hair held open a door that Matthew assumed separated the waiting area from the surgical area. She smiled at the guards, then at him.

  It didn’t reach her eyes. How many times had he seen that condemning, fearful look? As if he were already dead and not fit to be outside the prison’s doors. The brunette showed them into a small room with a red dental chair and two metal tables filled with instruments he wouldn’t recognize even if they weren’t covered by sterile drapes.

  A small television hung in the corner with CNN news headlines running across the bottom half of the screen. No windows. His guards blocked the only exit from the room.

  Matthew could feel his chance at righting the past slipping away from him. Cassidy slipping away from him. Again. Jordan, living with the same guilt. The real murderer still out there as McKenna had said with conviction this morning.

  Maybe if Jordan had never written to him, he’d be fine. Or if McKenna hadn’t come to visit him, full of spit-fire ambition sure to get her into trouble. Then he could live without a care. Continue to condemn himself to the judicial system. Bury his feelings on Cassidy’s life and death beneath chess games and weight lifting. Bleak nothingness. Empty. Forgotten. Alone.

  For the first time in all those years, there was a spark he couldn’t deny. Like he could make a difference in the world again—if only he had the chance.

  Sure, he could do that from behind bars. He could get a new lawyer, file paperwork, rehash the details to said lawyer and Jordan and McKenna. In the end, McKenna was right. They’d grieved and started moving on, while he was still stuck on the lawn in front of Cassidy’s house. His own definition of purgatory becoming real as he tried to breathe into her lungs, the life draining from her body and spreading out an ugly, angry red.

  The anxious look on the brunette’s face deepened as she asked him to sit down, as if she’d had to repeat the petition. Aaronson looked mildly annoyed. And the other guard looked ready for a fight, the excitement of the prospects clear in his eyes.

  Fighting was out. The odds weren’t in his favor with his arms and legs tied together. He’d need a miracle to pull this off.

  And something to pick these handcuffs.

  ###

  McKenna knew Shawn was beyond bored.

  They’d played every road game she could remember in the last four and a half hours and now he was kicking the back of her passenger seat with a glum look covering his face.

  “Bet you wish you hadn’t decided to surprise me, huh?”

  The kicking stopped. “I thought we could do something cool, like arrest somebody.”

  She glanced in the rear-view mirror and found the little boy picking a scab on his arm. “Hey, remember what you promised me.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He sighed, then started playing with the window. Up. Down. Repeat. “I won’t say anything to Dad about the jail.”

  She locked his window in place. “You’ll be able to talk to him about it, but I want to tell him first, okay? That way if he gets mad, he can get mad at the right person.”

  “He’s always mad.” Another kick.

  “We already talked about this, Shawn.”

  The surly teenage-girl attitude surfaced again. “Yeah, I know.” He rolled his eyes. “He sometimes acts funny ’cause he gets worried ’cause he loves me.”

  McKenna bit back a laugh. “Is that really what’s got you upset?”

  “I just wanna go home. This is the worst day ever.”

  “Another fifteen minutes and we will be home.” She gave him a minute, hoping his sweet nature might return.

  “If you were mean to Jordan, does that mean you love him?”

  Always with the questions. “Well…”

  “’Cause if you love him, then you can’t love my dad, can you?”

  Oh, boy. No, she couldn’t. Not in that way.

  A loud vibrating filled the car, which suddenly became hard to steer, saving her from having to answer. She pulled to the shoulder of the road, put on her flashers, got out of the car and walked around the passenger’s side. A flat tire mocked her.

  Shawn opened the door facing the ditch. “What happened?”

  “We got a flat, buddy. Here.” She handed him her cell, then went to dig in the trunk for the spare, tire iron and jack. “Play some snake while I fix this.”

  He stared at the phone, but didn’t turn it on.

  Silence reigned while she worked, the sound of tires on pavement making up for it.

  “Do you miss your mom?”

  He shrugged.

  “It’s okay to miss her.” After loosening the lug nuts, she removed the tire. “Tell me about the last time you got to see her. Did she take you anywhere fun?”

  “The zoo. But her boyfriend came too and he doesn’t like me.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  A shrug. “He said he doesn’t like kids.”

  McKenna stopped working and watched Shawn digging the toe of his sneaker into the gravel near the edge of the highway. “Guess he doesn’t know you very well then, huh? You’re a great kid. Your mom and your dad know that and so do I.”

  He looked up then, his dark eyes filled with worry. “I heard you tell that man that you married your friend, Jordan.”

  Instead of going to see Matthew, she should have taken Shawn home the moment she noted he was in the car. “I thought we agreed you weren’t going to eavesdrop?”

  “I got bored.” A chagrined smile covered his face, much like the ones she’d seen on Jordan’s face when they were kids. The thought stunned her.

  Rupert sometimes had that same goofy smile, though not as bright as Jordan's, but with the same slight wobble. All three of them shared the same shape to their eyebrows, chins and eyes.

  And Rupert had never known his biological father.

  Holy mother of pearl.

  She finished tightening the nuts. “I did marry Jordan. That’s what two people who...love each other do.” The truth broke free like phlegm from a chest cold. “But it doesn’t have anything to do with you or your dad.” She ruffled his hair.

  The look on his face told her he didn't understand at all. And she didn't want to give him more information than Rupe
rt wanted him to have. Or deliver false hope. “Did you beat my score yet?” She tapped the phone.

  “Yeah. A long time ago.” He rolled his eyes. “Are you done, yet? I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “Soon. Why don't you go in the woods quick. Don't go too far.”

  His face turned a little red.

  “I won't tell anybody.”

  He still didn't move.

  “It's that or wait until we get home.”

  He shoved her phone in his pocket and took off for the edge of the woods, his bright blue jacket in clear sight. She released the jack and stored it along with the tire iron back inside the trunk. Something stung her deltoid. After realizing it wasn’t a bug of any sort, but a man with a syringe, her mind went into overdrive. She hadn't heard a car approach. Though her movements seemed sluggish, she pulled out her SIG and aimed it in the man's direction. He had blonde hair, dark eyes, a long face and seemed unarmed beyond the needled he'd shoved in her arm.

  Shawn. She tried to glance in his direction without giving over his location. The sight before her seemed to swim in colors of green and black. She tried to say something, but the words didn't come out. The gun dropped from her hand and sense of weightlessness took over before blackness crowded in.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Matthew hadn’t meant to scare the brunette.

  Her name was Sandra. She loved her job and had a two-year-old girl with Cerebral Palsy. Because of that, she only worked part-time—normally not Friday’s, but one of the other assistants had the flu, so here she was.

  Sandra talked him through the injections of Novocain—course it wasn’t called that anymore, she had added—like she might have talked to her daughter. She kept him company while they waited for the anesthetic to set in.

  Despite HIPPA privacy laws, they left the door to his room open. He could hear the guards talking in the hallway. Aaronson had some story about his wife and kids. The other guy did little more than grunt a few times before changing the subject to work.