Книга - The Echo Killing: A gripping debut crime thriller you won’t be able to put down!

The Echo Killing: A gripping debut crime thriller you won’t be able to put down!
Christi Daugherty


The most exciting new crime voice you’ll read this year!Fifteen years ago her mother’s killer got away. Has he finally struck again?MURDER SHOCKS PEACEFUL NEIGHBOURHOODA woman in her thirties. Found naked and stabbed on the kitchen floor. Discovered by her twelve-year-old daughter after school.As top Savannah crime reporter Harper McClain stares at the horrific scene before her, one thought screams through her mind. This murder is identical to another murder she has witnessed. Her mother’s murder…For fifteen years, Harper has been torn apart by the knowledge that her mother’s killer is walking free. And now, it seems he’s struck again. There are no fingerprints. No footprints. No DNA. Yet still, Harper is determined to discover the truth once and for all.But that search will come at a cost…and it could be one she isn’t ready to pay.























Copyright (#ulink_50e95bab-a904-5681-8414-68939179f7c9)


Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

Copyright © Christi Daugherty 2018

Cover design by Holly Macdonald © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

Cover photographs © Richard Ellis/Alamy Stock Photo (http://www.alamy.com/) (main image); Shutterstock.com (http://Shutterstock.com) (figure)

Christi Daugherty asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008238780

Ebook Edition © January 2018 ISBN: 9780008238803

Version: 2017-12-12




Dedication (#ulink_49e07169-4f34-5753-ab7a-c4299d2f10d4)


For Loyall Solomon. Who gave me my first newspaper job.

And changed everything.


Contents

Cover (#u23fe4cdb-af6c-5614-8e86-48a7974fc622)

Title Page (#u2e6055bb-9b95-562b-8e96-379fa89e876f)

Copyright (#u2bcaa390-b659-533d-9a21-028c1dde80f7)

Dedication (#u064280ae-8999-50f2-8baf-62b1125b0a05)

Chapter One (#ua32e009b-98bd-545e-8fe6-9c84611c5cfb)

Chapter Two (#u7f3dfc20-8da9-5f17-9adb-b04618d21f6d)

Chapter Three (#ub91ae6a5-c226-53b9-a37a-97ae5c601f70)

Chapter Four (#u42d53084-9f02-5dee-9041-1070ee6a5a02)

Chapter Five (#ua4aab67a-2de7-5eae-bbe5-ed63aab4f62b)

Chapter Six (#u179e54fb-4574-5443-b2ae-2cf5ddb2eda7)

Chapter Seven (#uc78b02c5-caf5-536e-b097-05fc2f2ced11)

Chapter Eight (#ub2a506b9-f313-5423-a5fb-bb3ab193247d)

Chapter Nine (#u096845bb-7c51-5bce-a257-b522fd9e2e5a)

Chapter Ten (#u49ba89f4-0c88-5067-b0e2-2e0fa6465ed5)

Chapter Eleven (#ud6f84f46-2dc2-5826-8af0-1bc7441e5ea9)

Chapter Twelve (#ua48a863f-8388-510b-a3f0-9701d96109fb)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-one (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-two (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-one (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-two (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-one (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-two (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-five (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)

Read on for a sneak peek of the next instalment, coming April 2019 … (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)




Chapter One (#ulink_9072bf60-ee4d-5fbb-8b17-ceef7bda1ca1)


It was one of those nights.

Early on there was a flicker of hope – a couple of stabbings, a car wreck with potential. But the wounds weren’t serious and the accident was routine. After that it fell quiet.

A quiet night is the worst thing that can happen to a crime reporter.

With an hour to go until her midnight deadline, Harper McClain sat alone in the empty newsroom with no story to write, doing the one thing she despised most in the world – a crossword puzzle.

On the far wall, tall windows reflected back a dark image of the huge open room with its white columns and rows of empty desks, but Harper didn’t notice it – she was glaring at the paper on her desk. Smudged and scratched-out letters glared back, like an accusation of failure.

‘Why would anyone know an eight-letter word for “reckless bravery”?’ she grumbled. ‘I’ve got a seven-letter word for “bravery” – it’s called “bravery”. I don’t need a longer word …’

‘Audacity.’ The voice soared across the newsroom from the editor’s desk at the front.

Harper looked up.

City Editor Emma Baxter appeared to be focused on her computer screen, a silver Cross pen glittering in one hand like a small sword.

‘Excuse me?’

‘An eight-letter word for reckless bravery.’ Baxter spoke without shifting her eyes from the monitor. ‘Audacity.’

Baxter was pushing fifty at varying rates of speed. She was small and wiry, and that only made her look better in a navy blazer. Her angular face had a permanent look of vague dissatisfaction, but somehow that suited her, too. Everything about her was precise – her perfectly even short nails, her stiff posture, and you could cut your hand on the razor-sharp edge of her straight, dark bob.

‘How the hell do you know that?’ There was no gratitude in Harper’s voice. ‘In fact, why the hell do you know that? There is something fundamentally wrong with anyone who could answer a question like “What’s an eight-letter word for bravery?” without first wanting to off themselves with a …’

At her elbow, her police scanner crackled to life. ‘This is unit three-nine-seven. We’ve got a signal nine with possible signal sixes.’

Harper’s voice trailed off. She cocked her head to listen.

‘I’m willing to forgive your insubordination on this one occasion,’ Baxter said magnanimously. But Harper had already forgotten all about audacity.

On her desk, her phone buzzed. She picked it up.

‘Miles,’ she said. ‘You heard the shooting?’

‘Yep. Slow night just got busier. Meet you out front in five.’ His Tennessee accent glided over each word, smooth as warm honey.

Harper gathered her things with quick efficiency and hooked her police scanner to the waistband of her black pants. Sweeping a light black jacket off the back of her chair, she shrugged it on. A narrow reporters’ notebook and pen were shoved into one jacket pocket. Press pass and phone in the other.

Moving fast, she headed across the room.

Baxter cocked an enquiring eyebrow at her.

‘Shooting on Broad Street.’ Harper talked as she walked. ‘Possible injuries. Miles and I are heading down now to find out more.’

Baxter reached for her phone to alert the copy desk.

‘If I need to hold page one,’ she said, ‘I have to do it no later than eleven thirty.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

She turned out of the newsroom into a wide, brightly lit corridor that opened directly onto a staircase leading down to the front door. Her editor’s final words floated after her.

‘When you return, we can have a talk about your attitude.’

It was Baxter’s favorite threat. Harper knew better than to worry.

The sleepy-looking security guard at the reception desk didn’t even glance up from the small TV on his desk as she hit the green exit button with hard impatience and hurled herself out of the building into the steamy darkness.

June had arrived a couple of weeks ago, bringing blistering days with it. Nights were better, but only a little. Tonight, the air was velvet soft, but so thick you could stick a fork in it and expect it to stay standing up. This wasn’t the usual Savannah humidity – this was like breathing under water.

Summer rain in Georgia is no minor threat – it can wash away your car, your house, your hopes, your dreams, and Harper glanced up at the gray clouds scuttling across the sliver of moon as if they might tell her when the water would fall, but the sky had no news to give.

The newspaper’s offices were in a century-old, rambling four-story building that took up half a city block on Bay Street, close enough to the slow-moving Savannah River to smell its green river scent and to hear the giant engines of the massive container ships rumble as they rolled slowly out to sea. The neon words ‘DAILY NEWS’ glowed red from a rooftop sign that must have been one of the last things the sailors saw before the great Atlantic Ocean opened before them.

Down the street, the ornate city hall’s gilded dome gleamed, even at this hour, and through a break in the buildings, Harper could see the cobblestone lanes leading down to the water’s edge.

She’d never lived anywhere except Savannah, so it had been a very long time since she’d paid much attention to its landmarks and antebellum architecture. To her, like the verdant town squares and endless monuments to ill-fated Civil War generals, it was all just there.

She didn’t spare any of it a glance now as she waited, one leg jiggling impatiently. Her scanner crackled on her hip. Ambulances were being called out. Backup was being sent.

‘Come on, Miles,’ she whispered, turning her wrist to see her watch.

It was quiet enough for her to hear the faint wail of sirens in the distance, as a gleaming black Mustang rounded the corner and roared straight towards her, headlights blinding. It stopped in front of her, the motor revving.

Harper yanked the door open and leapt in.

‘Let’s go,’ she said, strapping on her seatbelt.

The tires spun as they sped off.

Inside, the Mustang was alive with voices. Miles had one scanner on his belt, one mounted within the dash where there might otherwise have been a radio, and a third hooked up behind the gear shift. Each was set to a different channel – one monitored the main police frequency, another was set to a side channel the cops used for chitchat. The third monitored ambulance and fire.

It was like walking into a small, crowded room where twenty people were all talking at once. Harper was used to it, but it always took her a second to make sense of the cacophony.

‘What’ve we got?’ she asked, frowning.

‘Nothing new.’ He kept his eyes on the road. ‘Ambulance en route. Waiting for an update.’

Photographer Miles Jackson was tall and lean, with dark skin and neat, short-cropped hair. He’d been a staff photographer until a few years ago, when all the photographers were let go. Since then, he’d been freelance, doing whatever paid the most. He could be found shooting a wedding on a Saturday afternoon and a murder later that same night.

If it pays it plays, he was fond of saying.

He had a cool sardonic smile and liked driving fast. He was doing about twice the speed limit as they roared around the corner onto Oglethorpe Avenue, sending the car fishtailing.

Swearing under his breath, Miles wrestled the wheel.

‘Doesn’t this thing go any faster?’ Harper deadpanned, hanging on to the handle above the door.

‘Very funny,’ Miles said through gritted teeth. But he quickly regained control.

As they raced past Forsyth Park, where a huge marble fountain poured a hoopskirt-shaped arc of water into a stone pool, she cocked her head, listening to the scanner.

‘They know where the shooters went?’ she asked.

Miles shook his head. ‘Lost them in the projects.’

As he spoke, the scanner for the police chitchat channel lit up. A grave-deep voice growled, ‘This is one-four. Unit three-niner-seven, what are we dealing with here?’

Miles and Harper exchanged a look. Fourteen was the code number used by Lieutenant Robert Smith, head of the homicide division.

Miles turned down the other scanners.

‘Lieutenant, we’ve got one fatality, two going to hospital,’ the officer on the scene responded. Excitement sent his voice up an octave. He talked so fast Harper got a contact high from his adrenaline. ‘Gang-banger party. Three shooters, all MIA.’

Not waiting to hear the rest, Harper pulled out her phone. Baxter answered on the first ring.

‘It’s murder,’ Harper said without preamble. ‘But it could be gang-on-gang.’

‘Damn.’ She could hear the editor tapping her silver pen on the desk. Taptaptaptap. ‘Call me as soon as you know more.’

The line went dead.

Shoving her phone in her pocket, Harper leaned back in her seat.

‘If the dead guy’s a banger, the story goes inside.’

‘Well then, we’d best hope our victim is an innocent housewife,’ Miles observed as they turned onto Broad Street.

Eyes on the road ahead, Harper nodded. ‘We can dream.’

On early maps of Savannah, the city is a perfectly symmetrical grid of straight lines, OCD neat, with Broad Street forming the eastern border. In all directions, everything outside that grid is dark green emptiness, its contents identified with the words ‘Old Rice Fields’ in the nineteenth-century cartographer’s precise handwriting.

Today, that orderly grid remains largely unchanged, save for the rice fields, which are long gone, replaced by unlovely sprawl. Broad Street forms a speedy direct line between gorgeous, picture-postcard old Savannah and the parts where Harper and Miles spent most of their working nights.

As they headed west, the grand old houses fronted by trees draped in the gray lace of Spanish moss gradually disappeared, replaced by peeling paint, overgrown yards and cheap metal fences.

No leafy squares broke up the dense housing in this neighborhood. No fountains poured beneath oak trees. Instead, battered apartment buildings stacked people on top of each other in cramped and ugly conditions fronted by broken sidewalks and illuminated by the garish signs marking out fast-food chains and discount shops.

Out here, the streets were busy – drug dealers did good business at this hour.

Miles’ hands were steady on the wheel, but his eyes – scanning the buildings around them – were alert.

He was older than Harper – in his forties. Photography was his second career. Years ago, back in Memphis, he’d had another, very different life.

‘I was an office guy,’ he’d told her once as he took his camera carefully to pieces. ‘Pushing paper. Made good money. Had the big house, the pretty wife, the whole nine yards. But it wasn’t for me.’

He’d always loved taking pictures and he knew he had an eye. One day, he signed up for a photography course. Just, he said, for something to do.

‘After that, I had the itch.’

As far as she could tell, within a year of taking that course, he’d quit his job, left his wife, and started over.

He’d visited Savannah for a business convention and it always stayed with him, he said. The slow way of life. The silky, sweet beauty of the place. The long curve of the river.

He said it felt like a fairytale. So he came here, to live the dream.

They’d both started at the newspaper the same year. Harper as an intern. Miles as night-shift photographer.

Even after seven years, he still saw the city with a stranger’s eyes. He loved the homey cafés and the waitresses who called him ‘sweetie’. He liked driving out to Tybee Island at sunset, or sitting on River Street, watching the ships pass by.

Harper couldn’t remember the last time she’d done any of that. She’d spent all her life in Savannah. To her, this was simply home.

Ahead, swirling blue lights lit up the street like a deadly disco.

‘Here we go,’ Miles muttered, hitting the brakes.

Peering into the glare, Harper counted four patrol cars and at least three unmarked units.

An ambulance rumbled up behind them, its siren blaring, and Miles pulled to the side to let it pass.

‘Better leave the car here,’ he decided, killing the engine.

Harper glanced at her watch: 11:12. She had eighteen minutes to let Baxter know if she had to hold the front page.

Her heart began to race in that familiar way.

She had a thing for murder. Some people called it an obsession. But she had her reasons. Reasons she didn’t like to talk about much.

Miles gathered his equipment from the trunk, but Harper couldn’t wait.

‘Meet you down there.’

Leaping from the car, she took off, notebook in one hand, pen in the other, running toward the flashing lights.




Chapter Two (#ulink_226ba799-9470-5e65-afd0-a69953733aa2)


On the street, the warm, humid air smelled of exhaust and something else – something metallic and hard to define. Like fear.

In the dark, the flashing lights were blinding. It wasn’t until Harper got beyond the police cars that she saw the body in the road.

If people get shot while they’re running, they fall hard. Legs at unnatural angles, hands above their heads, clothes fluttering around them – for all the world as if they’ve tumbled from the sky.

This guy had been running when he was shot.

Pulling out her notebook, Harper jotted down what she saw. Blue jeans and Nikes, baggy T-shirt riding up over a lean, dark-skinned torso. Large bloodstain forming an uneven circle on the pavement beneath him. The face was hidden from view.

Nearby, the ambulance was parked with its back door open, sending light flooding out onto the street. A team of paramedics was working on the two living shooting victims – plugging them into fluids, stopping other fluids from leaching away.

They were a bit late with that, though. There was blood everywhere.

Both wounded men looked like teenagers. The one closest to her still had baby fat in his cheeks.

They were dressed like the dead guy – T-shirts, jeans, matching Nikes.

Harper made notes, but kept her distance. Trying to be invisible.

Miles appeared across the road, crouching down on one knee to get a shot of the body. He had to be careful – the paper wouldn’t use it if the dead guy looked too dead. So he angled himself to get a shot of the guy’s hand, one finger pointing out, reaching for something now lost forever.

Movement in the distance caught Harper’s attention and she looked up to see two men in cheap suits, their eyes focused on the ground, walking with slow deliberation. They were both listening intently to a uniformed patrol officer who was pointing and talking animatedly.

Detectives are easy to spot, once you get to know them.

Taking care not to step in the blood, she made her way toward them, sticking to the edges of the road.

She knew both men from previous crime scenes. Detective Ledbetter was short and portly, with thinning hair and a kind smile. The other detective was Larry Blazer. Tall and thin, with dark blond hair going artfully gray, he had cheekbones to die for and eyes as hard as copper pennies.

All the TV reporters had a thing for him, but Harper found him cold and self-aware, in the way of men who are handsome and know how to use that as a weapon.

Absorbed in their work, neither man noticed as she navigated the shadows until she was close enough to eavesdrop.

‘The shooters came up from the Anderson Projects. The victims won’t say how they knew each other, but this wasn’t random,’ the uniformed officer was saying as she walked up. ‘Someone wanted these guys dead.’

He was green. This could even have been his first shooting. His words poured out in an excited rush.

By contrast, Blazer’s questions were delivered at a slow and deliberate pace; trying to communicate calm and hope it was contagious.

‘You say the vics told you the three shooters ran off together. They give any idea where they went?’

The officer shook his head. ‘All he said was, “that way”.’ He pointed roughly towards the building in front of them.

Ledbetter said something Harper couldn’t hear. She took a step closer.

In the dark, she never saw the empty forty-ounce beer bottle in the gutter, but the rattle it made when she kicked it was hard to miss.

She winced.

All the cops looked up. Blazer spotted her first. His gaze narrowed.

‘Careful,’ he said. ‘Press on scene.’

Stepping back, Harper waited warily, hoping Ledbetter would be lead detective on the case.

But it was Blazer who walked towards her.

Crap, she thought.

‘Miss McClain.’ His voice was cool, with an oddly flat intonation. ‘What a surprise to see you standing in the middle of my crime scene. I don’t suppose you’re a witness?’

He was tall, over six-one, and he used that height to intimidate – looming over her. But Harper was five-eight, and she wasn’t easy to impress.

‘Sorry, Detective,’ she said, her tone a cultivated mixture of contrition and respect. ‘There’s no crime tape. I didn’t mean to get in your way.’

‘I see.’ He studied her with distaste. ‘And yet you are standing where no journalist belongs. Shedding DNA all over the place.’

Who was he trying to kid? They weren’t going to collect that kind of evidence at this scene. The cops cared no more for a dead gangbanger than Baxter did.

Harper blinked innocently.

‘I know you’re busy,’ she said, all sweetness, ‘but could you give me a little information for the morning paper so I can get out of your hair? Names of the victims? Number of suspects?’

‘Our investigation has just begun.’ Blazer recited the familiar words in a tone that said he saw right through her. ‘It would be premature to say anything at this time. We’re still identifying the deceased and have not yet notified next of kin. Now, I’m going to have to ask you to step out of the scene immediately.’

Clearly, he wasn’t in a giving mood.

Still, Harper gave it one more try. ‘Detective, is this part of a drug war? Should local residents be concerned?’

Rocking back on his heels, Blazer studied her with an interest she didn’t like.

‘McClain, a few small-time scumbags stepped on the turf of some bigger scumbags and they got a lesson in why that’s a bad idea. Why don’t you put that in your rag?’

She opened her mouth to answer, but he cut her off.

‘It was a rhetorical question. I have no official statement at this time. Now, kindly get the hell out of my scene before I have you arrested.’

Harper knew better than to argue. Holding up her hands in surrender, she backed away.

When she made it back to the ambulance, Miles was leaning against it casually, checking his shots on the camera screen.

‘Blazer’s lead detective, so I’ve got nothing,’ Harper announced glumly. ‘That man hates me like a canker sore.’

Straightening, Miles motioned for her to follow him back towards the Mustang.

‘I shot the lead paramedic’s wedding two months ago,’ he said quietly, when they were a safe distance away. ‘Gave her a cheap deal. She owed me a favor.’

Harper grabbed his arm. ‘You got an ID on our dead guy?’

‘More than that.’ He held up a crumpled piece of paper. ‘I’ve got it all. Melissa had a wonderful honeymoon. She was very chatty today.’

‘You hero.’ Harper mock-punched his arm. ‘What’ve we got?’

Miles squinted to read his own writing.

‘Our dead guy is Levon Williams, nineteen, recent graduate of Savannah South High School – played for the baseball team. Hell of a hitter, I’m told. Also, apparently, an up-and-coming heroin dealer. The two wounded victims are his known associates. Suspects are three black men, slim, two are average height, T-shirt and jeans, one is short and stocky, wearing a bandanna around his neck. All are late teens to early twenties. Suspected members of the East Ward gang.’ He handed Harper the page. ‘It’s all here.’

Harper scanned the paper quickly, seeing nothing that said page one. As soon as they reached the Mustang, she called Baxter to give her the bad news.

‘Damn it,’ the editor said when she’d heard the rundown. ‘Get back here and write it up for page six. It’s better than nothing.’

Miles started the engine as Harper ended the call.

‘Page six?’ he guessed.

Harper folded the paper and put it in her pocket.

‘Buried in the weeds.’

He shrugged. ‘You win some, you lose some.’

Turning the wheel, he began to pull out of the parking space, before braking hard to let a white van creep by. The words ‘COUNTY CORONER’ were emblazoned on the side in sepulcher black.

‘The iceman cometh,’ Miles murmured.

Harper barely looked up. She was scribbling notes for the piece she needed to write when she got back.

When the van passed, Miles turned the car around with neat precision. They’d only gone a short distance, though, when a breathless voice suddenly filled the car.

‘Unit five-six-eight in pursuit of suspects from Broad Street.’

Harper’s pen froze.

Miles lifted his foot from the accelerator.

They both looked at the scanner.

‘Copy unit five-six-eight,’ the dispatcher responded calmly. ‘Please verify: Are these the suspects from the shooting on Broad?’

‘Affirmative.’ The man was panting, his voice shook. He was running.

‘Three males heading south on foot on Thirty-Ninth Street,’ he shouted. ‘Two tall. One short with a bandanna.’

In the background, Harper could hear the dispatcher typing the information into her computer, her fingers quick and light on the keys. It was Sarah tonight on dispatch – she recognized the voice. She was good.

‘All units. Backup required for unit five-six-eight in pursuit of shooting suspects heading south on Thirty-Ninth.’

Sarah’s voice was so unemotional she might have been reading a cake recipe.

Harper turned to Miles. ‘That’s five blocks from here.’

‘Copy that.’ He shifted gears and hit the gas. The Mustang responded, tires squealing. A smile lifted the corners of his mouth as he turned towards Thirty-Ninth.

‘Let’s get ourselves on page one.’




Chapter Three (#ulink_a40db6b8-a7a7-5b61-a981-e9edbfde46fe)


As they drove through the dark streets to find the suspected killers, Harper stared out the window, tapping her pen impatiently against her notebook. They didn’t have much time. Even if this went smoothly, Baxter would have to delay the last edition.

Ordinary people might have been thinking about the victim back at the crime scene – his short life ended in a violent instant. But her mind had already moved on. Now, she just needed to know who killed him.

It had always been like this. Murders didn’t bother Harper. They fascinated her.

She knew everything about the mechanics of homicide. She knew what the detectives were doing now, and the coroner’s office. How the victim’s family would be informed, and how they would react when they learned. She knew how the machinery of government would kick into gear and consume the lives of everyone involved.

She knew, not because she wrote about it, but because she had lived it.

When she was twelve years old a murder had destroyed her world. She could trace her career, her life and her obsessive interest in crime back to that single day, fifteen years ago.

Some moments get imprinted on your mind so thoroughly every breath of it stays with you forever. Most of these are bad moments. Harper could walk through every second of the day her mother died any time she wished. She could place those hours in a mental reel and play them like a film. Watch herself, so small and quick, walking home from school. Utterly unaware that life, as she knew it, was already over.

3:35 p.m. – Twelve-year-old Harper shoves open the low metal gate, closing the latch with a silvery clang.

3:36 p.m. – She dashes up the steps – flinging the unlocked door open and closing it behind her with a resounding thud. God, it’s all so bright and warm in her memory; so filled with color. She calls out, ‘Mom, I’m starving.’ No one replies.

3:37 p.m. – She yells up the stairs, ‘Mom?’ She’s not worried yet. Humming to herself, she checks the living room, the dining room.

3:38 p.m. – She steps into the kitchen.

This is where her childhood ends.

There is more color here – not only the yellow of the walls and the tiny vivid jars and bottles of blue and gold and green paint. But red. Red everywhere. Splattered on the walls and counters. Pooling on the floor under her mother’s naked body.

Blood-red filling her memories with horror and leaving behind trauma that will never go away.

In her memory film, time has stopped now. It stays 3:38 for a very long time.

In the next frame she’s running in slow motion to her mother’s side, she’s skidding in the blood, losing her balance. She’s trying to breathe, but it’s as if someone has kicked her in the stomach. Her whole body hurts and there’s no air, no air, as she falls to the floor, blood squelching beneath her skinny knees.

This was the first and only time she was ever afraid to touch her mother. Her trembling hand reaches out to brush the smooth, pale shoulder. She recoils, yanking it back again.

She’s so cold.

Someone is sobbing far away. ‘Mom? Mom?’ And faintly, plaintively, ‘Mommy?’

She knows now it’s her own voice but the her on the memory film isn’t sure. She feels far away from her body.

In the next frame, she is scrambling to her feet – still no air to breathe, and she is gasping for it, but her lungs refuse to work – skidding across the kitchen and hurtling out the side door to Bonnie’s house. But the Larsons moved away after their divorce, and the new neighbors aren’t nice and they’re not home anyway, but she pounds on the door leaving bloody marks on the wood, and the pounding echoes in the emptiness.

She’s weeping so hard her breath begins to come back, forced into her lungs by tears, as she runs back to her house to find the phone. She picks it up only to see it fall from her nerveless, blood-slick fingers. Then she is sobbing and finding it on the floor, taking choking breaths, making herself slow down. She only has to dial three numbers. She can do this. She has to do this.

‘OK,’ she whispers over and over through her tears as she dials, hands shaking so hard the phone vibrates. ‘OK. OK. OK …’

It rings. A distant series of odd, mechanical clicks. A dispatcher answers – and that irrationally calm female voice, so inured to hearing the horrors of the world expressed through the panicked, disembodied voices of witnesses and victims, is a rope she can grasp.

‘This is 911. What is your emergency?’

She is trying to speak but her tears and breathlessness make it almost impossible. Only a confused scattering of words make it from her frightened mind to her lips.

‘Please help,’ she sobs. ‘My mom. Please help.’

‘What’s happened to your mom?’ The woman’s emotion-free voice is stern-friendly. Stern to help her focus. Friendly because she is a child.

Now Harper must say the word. The word she can’t even think. A word so distant from her until this moment in time it had no more bearing on her immediate life than Uzbekistan. Her mind doesn’t want her to say the word. Saying it hurts.

‘My mom … there’s blood … I think … someone killed her.’

It is all she has. She is sobbing inconsolably. The dispatcher’s tone changes.

‘Sweetie,’ she says with utter gentleness that disguises the worry beneath it and the absolute tension of the moment, ‘I need you to take a deep breath and tell me your address, OK? Can you do that? I’m sending help.’

Harper tells her. She doesn’t know then, but she knows now, that as she talks the operator is typing urgent things into her computer, motioning for her supervisor’s attention, setting wheels in motion that will turn and turn through her life for years to come.

Then the operator is asking if she’s safe, and that is the first time it occurs to Harper that someone very dangerous might be in the house with her. Her levels of fear and panic are off the charts now. And the operator is telling her to take the phone outside, and to stand by the curb and to run and scream if anyone scares her.

She does as she’s told, each step wooden and unreal, until she is at the metal gate again with its clanging latch, the phone clutched in one blood-sticky hand.

The dispatcher is saying calming things. ‘They’re coming, honey. They’re three minutes away. Don’t hang up, sweetheart …’

In the distance she hears the urgent wail of sirens and despite everything doesn’t realize they’re coming for her.

When the first police car screeches to a halt, blue lights flashing, she feels even more frightened as the officers climb out of the car with guns in their hands, and run past her into the house.

One of them shouts to her, ‘Stay there.’

She stays.

More police pull up and soon she is surrounded by men and women in official uniforms with guns and mace and Kevlar vests.

‘Are you OK?’ people keep asking her.

But Harper is not OK. Not OK at all.

Then a man, tall, with a deep voice and authoritative air appears at her side. He takes the phone from her hand and hands it to another officer, who places it, strangely, Harper thinks, in a plastic bag.

The man has a weathered face that has seen other children like her, bloodied and frightened. Many of them. There is kindness in his eyes.

‘My name is Sergeant Smith,’ the man tells her in a deep, soothing voice. ‘And I’m not going to let anyone hurt you …’

‘Harper.’

She gave a start, blinking hard.

The car had slowed to a crawl. They were on a dark street, surrounded on all sides by run-down buildings with boarded-up windows.

Miles was looking at her oddly, as if he’d said her name more than once.

‘We’re here,’ he said. ‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine.’ Her tone was brusque and she turned away, her eyes sweeping the sidewalk for trouble, out of habit.

She was angry with herself. Why had she been thinking about that stuff? It was ancient history.

Right now, she had a job to do.

‘Have you seen any sign of them?’ she asked, peering into the shadows.

‘Nothing at all.’ He slowed the car to a crawl, squinting at the buildings around them. ‘Looks like we got here before backup did.’

This wasn’t normal. Harper frowned.

‘What’s taking so long?’

Miles shook his head. ‘No idea.’

Thirty-Ninth Street was narrower and much darker than Broad, lined on either side by some of the city’s most notorious public housing projects. Harper had been here many nights before, but she could never remember seeing it so empty. No one hung out on the steps, or gathered on the concrete drives. There were no pit-bull gangs comparing dogs, no crowds of young men jostling on the basketball court.

Miles gave a low whistle.

‘Well, this is unusual.’ He spoke softly, as if they might be heard through the windows.

Harper leaned forward in her seat to look up.

‘Someone shot out the streetlights.’

‘Five-six-eight, what is your situation?’ The dispatcher’s voice crackling out of the police scanner seemed too loud in the heavy silence.

A long moment passed. All the radio chatter had stopped now, as if every cop in the city was waiting for this one crime to play out.

‘This is five-six-eight.’ The officer’s voice was low now, barely above a whisper. ‘Suspects ran into the Anderson Houses. I’ve lost visual. I’m looking for them.’

‘Copy that, five-six-eight,’ the dispatcher said. ‘Be aware, backup is en route.’

Miles pointed to a decrepit cluster of boarded-up, graffiti-covered three-story buildings at the end of the road.

‘Anderson Houses,’ he said. ‘Been closed a few years now. Great place to hide.’

Pulling the car into an empty space at the side of the road, he cut the engine. The quiet that followed felt unnatural.

In sync, Harper and Miles unhooked the scanners from their belts and placed them on the floor of the car.

Miles looked at her, his eyes gleaming in the shadows. ‘This could get messy.’

Harper grinned at him. ‘What’s new?’

Tilting her head at the door, she reached for the handle.

There was no more discussion. They both knew how dangerous it was.

They jumped out of the car in the same moment, closed their doors carefully and edged down the road toward the boarded-up buildings.

Outside, the humidity hung thick in the hot air and the odd hush felt even heavier. Not one person walked down the normally crowded street. Their soft-soled shoes were silent on the pavement as they moved through the darkness. Still, Harper was conscious with every step of a sense of being watched.

The fine hairs on the back of her neck rose.

‘Where is everyone?’ she whispered.

Slowing, Miles scanned the ramshackle buildings around them. They appeared empty. But Harper suspected there were people there, behind every dark pane of glass.

‘Waiting,’ he said grimly.

Across the street, something moved in the shadows.

They both noticed it at the same time but Miles reacted first, grabbing Harper’s arm and pulling her behind a parked car.

They crouched low.

Peering into the darkness, Harper could make out three figures about twenty yards away. Two were tall and thin, one was short and stocky. Hidden behind a tall, abandoned tenement, the three didn’t seem aware they were being watched. They were staring intently in the opposite direction.

Following their line of vision, Harper at first saw nothing. Then she noticed the glow of a flashlight bobbing at the far end of the long, dusty courtyard.

Her heart sped up. It had to be the cop – Five-six-eight.

The killers were two buildings away from him and he was heading the wrong way. He had no idea where they were. But they knew right where he was.

Carefully, she raised herself up above the hood of the dusty parked Toyota, trying to get a better look at what the men were doing. The small one was fussing with something around his neck. It took her a second to realize it was a bandanna.

The three wanted men leaned towards each other, whispering. They seemed to be arguing.

The smallest one said something that silenced the others. Despite his size, it was immediately clear he was the leader of that group.

The other two dropped back as, with one hand, he tugged the bandanna up over his nose and mouth, like a bandit from a western movie.

Reaching behind his back, he pulled a gun from the waistband of his jeans.

Harper’s stomach dropped.

He was going to take the cop out.

In desperation, she looked over her shoulder to the empty street. Where the hell was backup? They should have been here long ago.

But behind them there was only darkness.

A few feet away, Miles had balanced his camera on the very edge of the trunk and was focusing it on the three men. His hands were absolutely steady.

Harper leaned towards him.

‘We have to warn that cop,’ she hissed.

Miles turned far enough to give her an incredulous look.

She couldn’t blame him. She knew as well as anyone reporters at crime scenes were supposed to be nothing but eyes and ears – always observing, never getting involved.

But surely this was different. Someone could die. And there was no one else here to save him.

Before she could make up her mind what to do, the three gunmen stepped out of the shadows.

Harper’s eyes had adjusted to the dark now and she could see them clearly as the one with the bandanna raised his gun, leveling it at the bobbing light in the distance.

The would-be shooter was small – no more than five foot four – and so young. He could easily be a teenager.

But his stance was confident. His hand was steady. There was a kind of eagerness to his posture – he leaned forward onto the balls of his feet, the gun thrust out. As if he couldn’t wait to kill.

The scene took on a haze of unreality. It was too late to call for help. They were too close, anyway.

Next to her, Miles took his first careful shots. There was no loud click – just a muffled shushing sound, instantly lost in the breeze.

He modified his cameras for silence.

Across the road, the gunman spread his legs, bracing himself to fire. The gun glittered silver in his hand.

Every muscle in Harper’s body tightened, preparing for the roar of gunfire. Her hands gripped the trunk of the Toyota in front of her, knuckles gleaming pale.

This couldn’t happen. She couldn’t sit there and watch a man die. She had to do something.

Closing her eyes she drew a sharp breath. Then, before she could talk herself out of it, she shouted into the quiet night.

‘Police. Drop your weapons.’ She paused, trying to think up something else intimidating to say. ‘You’re surrounded.’

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Miles glare at her.

Across the courtyard, the cop’s flashlight swung hurriedly in her direction. It blinked once, then disappeared.

The wanted trio whirled toward her voice. The taller two whipped handguns out of their waistbands and pointed them at the Toyota.

Harper and Miles ducked down below the windows.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Harper listened for any sound. Her heart slammed against her ribs. Her breath came in short, tight gasps. She had definitely not thought this through.

‘Great.’ Crouching next to her, every muscle tense, Miles hissed, ‘What’s next in your plan? Hit them with your pen?’

Harper didn’t have an answer. What was the step after yelling? Yell again?

Where were the real police, for God’s sake?

Cautiously, she raised her head to look at the men through the dirty car windows. All their guns were pointed directly at her.

With a gasp, she dropped back down. Her ribs felt too tight around her lungs – she couldn’t seem to breathe.

If the police didn’t get here soon, she and Miles were both going to die.

Swallowing hard, she tried shouting again.

‘I said drop your weapons, now.’

‘Fuck you, five-o,’ the tallest of the three shouted defiantly.

She heard a series of metallic clicks.

Her heart stopped.

She heard Miles whisper, ‘Oh, hell.’

They threw themselves down flat, hitting the rough concrete as the men fired.

The noise of three powerful guns letting loose was deafening – an almighty cannon roar.

Overhead, the windows of the car shattered.

Her hands covering her head, Harper squeezed her eyes shut as glass showered her.

They were trapped.




Chapter Four (#ulink_517dc7da-0a32-584e-b667-ae2f66305f85)


The shooting seemed to go on forever. When it finally stopped, the silence left a hollow feeling in Harper’s chest – a curious emptiness.

Her ears ringing, she reached out blindly for Miles.

He wasn’t there.

‘Miles,’ she whispered urgently, hands flailing in the air.

‘I’m alive,’ he hissed from a few feet away. ‘No thanks to you.’

Blinking dust and glass from her eyes, she saw him, crouched by the trunk of the car.

‘You dead, five-o?’ one of the shooters shouted mockingly.

Before Harper could think of an appropriate reply, a cool voice spoke from behind her right shoulder.

‘I am alive and very pissed off,’ it said. ‘Now drop your weapons or I will unload on you.’

Startled, Harper twisted around. A tall, broad-shouldered man stood directly behind her. He had a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol trained on the three suspects.

Luke Walker.

He wore a black T-shirt and jeans. The badge hooked to his belt gleamed. His gun hand was absolutely steady.

‘You really are surrounded,’ he added, motioning with his free hand.

As if on cue, a line of dark-clad undercover cops poured onto the street. Overhead, a police helicopter thundered across the sky, its blinding spotlight turning the night into cold, white day. Amid the sudden deafening confusion, voices shouted rough commands.

The cavalry had arrived at last.

Caught off guard, the three wanted men were pointing their guns wildly in all directions. But it was too late, and even they knew that.

With slow reluctance, the tallest one dropped his gun. The short one gave him a look of disgust.

But seconds later, as the police shouted commands and threats at him, he did the same.

One by one, they knelt on the ground, putting their hands behind their heads.

As the police swarmed them, Miles left the battered Toyota and ran over to get more shots.

Harper stood cautiously. Her legs were a little shaky.

That had been too close for comfort.

As she turned to face him, Luke holstered his weapon.

‘Harper McClain.’ He didn’t sound happy. ‘Why am I not surprised to see you here?’

‘Because I’m always this intrepid?’ Harper forced a nonchalance she didn’t feel into her voice.

She’d known Luke since she was an intern at the paper and he was a rookie patrol officer. At twenty, he’d been earnest and thoughtful. They’d both grown up in the same neighborhoods and they were the same age. So, when her editor assigned her to do a ride-along with him, it was almost inevitable they’d hit it off.

They’d spent three hours racing from one fairly minor crime to another with the enthusiasm of ingénues. She’d written an excited article about his life as a new cop. They’d been friends ever since.

So she knew him well enough to know he was genuinely pissed off as he strode toward her, boots crunching on broken glass.

‘Intrepid is not the word I’m thinking of,’ he said, a sharp edge to his voice. ‘Dammit, Harper, since when do you perform citizen’s arrests? You could have gotten yourself killed. You know that, right?’

‘What else was I supposed to do?’ she asked. ‘Backup never showed. Those guys were about to shoot Officer Flashlight over there. I had to do something.’

‘You could have waited for us,’ he said, his voice rising. ‘You could have gone to a safe place and called this in. You could have considered your own safety for one minute. You could have done a lot of things, McClain, if you’d just thought it through.’

Harper flushed.

‘I did think it through,’ she insisted. ‘And I decided I wanted everyone to live. Jesus, Luke. Give it a rest, OK?’

She folded her arms tightly across her torso.

His eyes swept her pale face.

‘Are you OK?’ He took a step toward her, his face softening. ‘I was half a block away when they let rip on you guys. I thought …’

His voice trailed off.

‘I’m fine,’ she assured him. ‘They’re crappy shots.’

‘Not that crappy.’

Across the road, the cops were searching the shooters, emptying their pockets onto the dirty pavement. Fat rolls of money, a handful of tiny plastic bags of white powder, a comb, some change.

Harper had begun to piece the night together. Luke worked on the undercover squad – which meant he mostly handled drug-gang cases. She hadn’t seen him in more than a month, which usually meant he was working somewhere deeply unsavory.

‘Luke – did this blow your cover?’ she asked.

She was relieved when he shook his head.

‘I’ve been keeping an eye on these clowns for a few weeks. Had a tip-off they were making a move tonight against a rival group.’ He glanced at her. ‘I’m still not sure how you and Miles got caught in the middle.’

‘We heard the call that the killers had been spotted,’ she explained. ‘Came over to see it go down. We didn’t realize it was going to go down right on top of us.’

She gestured as she spoke, and only then noticed that glass had cut her hand at some point. A small trickle of blood traced across her skin. Harper stared at it.

‘Jesus, Luke,’ she said. ‘They actually shot at me. Is this what it’s like to be you?’

‘Every day,’ he said evenly.

She rubbed the blood away. ‘They don’t pay you enough.’

‘Tell me about it.’

He fell silent for a second, then suddenly, said, ‘“You’re surrounded?” God’s sake, Harper. How much TV do you watch?’

‘I didn’t have time to think of a better line,’ she said defensively. ‘What do you say in these circumstances?’

He considered this. ‘I usually go with “Drop the gun or I’ll blow your balls off.”’

She gave a short laugh. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

‘Next time,’ he said, glancing at her.

When he smiled, he looked more like the rookie she’d first met seven years ago. All chiseled jaw and clear blue eyes.

Time and work had done a number on him. His edges had sharpened and all the eager innocence she remembered from back then was gone.

She wondered if he thought the same about her.

In the years that followed the ride-along, their careers had shadowed each other. He’d been promoted to detective the year she became a full-time police reporter. He’d been on a fast-track to sergeant – working homicides at twenty-five.

They’d always had a connection – a holdover from that first night on the road. Whenever she saw him, it was a good night. This wasn’t the first time he’d melted out of the darkness at a crime scene to check on her.

Then, abruptly, eight months ago, everything changed. Luke left Homicide and joined the undercover squad. He’d refused to tell her why.

It didn’t make sense. Undercover was a lateral move – and a tough one. The work was dangerous and hard. When Harper first heard about it, she’d tried to find out why, but he ducked the question, refusing to be pinned down. Still, she could sense something was wrong.

Since then, she’d seen less of him. He disappeared for long stretches of time. He changed his appearance regularly and dramatically – and he kept his distance. On the rare occasions when she did see him, he didn’t seem happy.

‘How’ve you been?’ She shot him a sideways glance.

‘Busy,’ he said, looking away.

Across the road, the three handcuffed men were now on their feet, watching the police with identical expressions of dull disinterest, as if everything were happening to someone else.

By now, crowds of gawkers had appeared on the sidewalk – manifesting as if from thin air. In malevolent silence they watched the police walk the men to the van that would take them to jail.

‘Luke!’

Another undercover cop waved for him to come over.

Luke raised a hand in acknowledgment.

‘Wait here,’ he told Harper.

She watched him go, his stride long and unhurried. Like him, the other cop was in jeans and a plain T-shirt. He wore his badge on a chain around his neck.

The two conferred in low voices, looking at something taken from the suspects. After a minute, the cop left, holding a plastic bag of evidence.

When Luke returned, he stopped on the far side of the car and motioned for Harper.

‘Come here. You need to see something.’

She walked over to join him, her shoes crunching on the glass.

What she saw made her breath catch in her throat.

The car was destroyed. All the windows were gone. The spray of bullets had left an uneven pattern of jagged holes in the doors and hood. Some of the gunshot holes were bigger than quarters.

‘I wanted you to see how close you came.’ The humor was gone from his expression. ‘Seriously, Harper, you’ve got to be more careful. One of these days you’re going to get yourself killed.’

‘Come on, Luke,’ she said. ‘I was doing my job.’

‘Getting killed is not your job,’ he said sharply. ‘It’s my job.’

Harper stared. Before she could think of a good response, Miles walked up to join them.

‘Our hero,’ he said, holding out his hand to shake Luke’s. ‘Thanks for the rescue, man.’

‘Miles, don’t tell me you agreed to this.’ Luke gestured at the car.

‘As God is my witness, I had no idea she was going to do that,’ Miles said. ‘All I ask is that you don’t arrest her until after she files her story.’

Turning to Harper he tapped his watch. ‘On that note, and as pleasant as this evening has been …’

Harper checked the time. It was ten minutes to twelve.

‘Shit. We’ve got to get back.’

Whirling, she ran towards Miles’ car. At the last minute, she turned back.

Luke still stood by the ruined car, watching her.

‘Thanks for saving my life, Walker,’ she called to him. ‘I owe you one.’

‘Damn straight you do.’

Something in his voice told her he was serious.

Back in the newsroom, Harper wrote the story with Baxter leaning over her shoulder.

‘Change “ran” to “fled”,’ she said, tapping the screen with a short, unvarnished nail.

Harper corrected the line without argument.

‘Good, good, good,’ Baxter murmured, whenever Harper wrote something she liked. She smelled faintly and not unpleasantly of Camel Lights and Chanel Coco.

It was twelve thirty when the article was finally sent to layout. Miles’ stark photo of the three suspects, one with a bandanna disguising his face, gun pointed right at the camera, dominated the front page beneath the headline, Suspected killers arrested in dramatic shootout.

Baxter stretched her arms up, loosening the kinks from her shoulders.

‘Why can’t criminals be more thoughtful about our deadlines?’ she asked.

‘Because they’re assholes?’ Harper suggested.

Barking a laugh, Baxter headed towards the copy room.

‘Go home, Harper. You’ve caused enough trouble for one night.’

When she was gone, Harper switched off her computer and tucked her scanner in her bag. But she didn’t get up. She sat in her chair, staring at the computer’s dark screen.

She kept seeing those blank-faced young men pointing their guns at her. Hearing Luke’s voice in her head: ‘One of these days you’re going to get yourself killed.’

On some level, she knew he was right. She liked getting close to danger. It drew her.

Tonight she’d been too close. Other people could have been hurt.

She and Miles always took risks but tonight she’d pushed it. Tonight she’d tried to be a hero.

At the other end of the room, Baxter bustled in, interrupting her thoughts.

‘Are you moving in?’ the editor barked. ‘Go home, already.’

Harper straightened.

‘I’m going,’ she said, reaching for the phone. ‘I need to make a call first.’

She waited for Baxter to pick up her bag and head out the door. Then she dialed a familiar number.

‘LIBRARY,’ a voice shouted impatiently.

In the background Harper could hear the normal Tuesday-night chaos at the bar – loud voices, guitars, clattering glasses, laughter.

‘Hey, Bonnie.’ Harper leaned back in her chair.

‘Harpelicious! Where are you? Why isn’t your gorgeous ass making my bar prettier right this very instant?’

Bonnie’s always husky voice was rougher than usual after a night of shouting to be heard above the din.

‘I’m still at work,’ Harper said. ‘I was thinking of coming down.’

‘Come. I’ll make you a mai tai. With extra cherries.’

Harper laughed. Mai tais had been her favorite drink when they were teenagers, sneaking into bars with fake IDs. She hadn’t knowingly consumed one in years.

All of a sudden it sounded wonderful.

‘I’m on my way.’




Chapter Five (#ulink_89f57778-d870-5104-aae9-c86c10baaaf6)


It was nearly one as Harper pulled her car into an empty spot beneath the wide-spreading branches of an oak tree in front of her house. Spanish moss hung so low it brushed the top of the car, soft as cat paws.

Miles wasn’t the only one who liked a muscle car. But while his was sleek and new, hers was a fifteen-year-old Camaro. It had 103,000 miles on the clock, but the engine purred. She wasn’t about to park it anywhere near a bar, especially in June. Summer tourists had begun pouring into town a few weeks ago, a river-over-the-banks flood of them, and they were all drunk on that intoxicating mixture of vacation, warm sun and three-for-one happy-hour specials.

She could walk from here.

She was preparing to climb out when she caught a good glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror. Her face was a freckled, shiny oval. Mascara had left a black smudge under one wide hazel eye. Her skin was blotchy beneath a tangle of auburn hair.

How long had she looked like that?

With a sigh, she slid back into her seat.

‘Great, Harper,’ she muttered, rummaging in her bag for a brush. ‘You fail at being a grown-up, again.’

She fixed her hair hurriedly and, in a burst of inspiration, applied a coating of the red MAC lipstick Bonnie had given to her for her birthday.

‘All I ask,’ Bonnie said at the time, ‘is that once in a while you actually wear it.’

When she was satisfied that she looked less of a mess, she got out of the car and stood for a moment, gazing up at the house across the street.

For the last five years she’d been renting the garden-level apartment in a converted two-story Victorian on East Jones Street not far from the art college. Her landlord was a jolly, self-made redneck named Billy Dupre. He mowed the lawn and fixed things when they broke and never raised her rent. In return, she kept an eye on the grad students who rented the upstairs apartment and did a bit of painting now and then.

It was a good arrangement.

The blue house had a high, peaked roof and a stained-glass attic window that glowed amber and green on a sunny day.

All the windows were dark tonight, save for one light which shone reassuringly in the entrance hall. The door was solid. She’d had the locks changed to a high-security brand shortly after moving in.

It was safe. She’d made sure of that.

Satisfied that all was well, she threw her bag over her shoulder and headed out on foot.

The houses lining Jones Street were not the grandest in town but they had their charms. During the day, their tall windows overlooked tourist buses and students carrying portfolio bags as they hustled to the art school. At night, though, it was a quiet lane, plucked from history. Cast-iron streetlights cast dancing shadows through the graceful arching oak tree branches.

The moon had disappeared now, and the clouds were thickening. It was still uncomfortably warm and the humidity hung in the air so thick she could almost see it.

As Harper turned left at the first corner the sky vibrated with a threatening, low rumble of thunder.

Nervously, she quickened her pace, casting a quick glance over her shoulder at the empty street behind her.

The shooting had thrown her off-kilter. A spiky remnant of adrenaline still coursed through her body. She kept having the same feeling she’d had at the shooting scene – the feeling she was being watched. But whenever she turned around, there was no one there.

By the time she reached busy Drayton Street she was glad of the lights.

Here, even at one in the morning, the atmosphere was buzzing. As usual, Eric’s 24-Hour Diner – with its vivid, 1950s neon sign promising: ‘Fresh burgers and frozen shakes’ – smelled tantalizingly of fried things.

As Harper threaded her way through the crowds, the first fat drops of what looked to be a fearsome storm began to fall.

Half-running, she turned off the main drag. She could hear The Library before she reached it – music and laughter poured out the open door through the crowd of smokers. Harper inhaled the spicy scent of clove cigarettes as she hurried inside.

‘Hey, Harper,’ the bouncer said. ‘Back from another successful night fighting crime?’

Well over six feet tall, he had a scraggly beard, a huge beer belly and the unlikely nickname of Junior. Harper had once seen him haul three men out of the bar at the same time, without breaking a sweat.

‘It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it,’ she said, holding up her fist for him to bump.

When he smiled, Junior revealed an array of teeth so mismatched he might have stolen them from other people.

‘Bonnie’s waiting for you. Said something about a tequila sunrise.’

‘Mai-tai,’ she corrected him, raising her voice to be heard above the cacophony as she headed into the crowded, dimly lit bar.

As the name implied, the bar was tucked inside a former library. The space was all wrong for a bar – the old reading rooms were small and inevitably overcrowded, but somehow it worked.

Harper liked the place, not only because Bonnie was a bartender here, but also because there was almost no chance of running into anyone she worked with. It attracted a twenty-something crowd who sat around smoking fake cigarettes and arguing loudly about Nietzsche and politics. The cops wouldn’t be caught dead in here, while the reporters favored Rosie Malone’s, an Irish pub near the river where local politicians tended to hang out.

The Library was Harper’s place.

She liked that the walls still held the original built-in bookcases, stacked with paperbacks, and that there was a ‘take a book, leave a book’ policy. The only rule was displayed on a sign by the door, which read: ‘NO PORN PLEASE, WE’RE CHILDREN’.

The main bar had been placed where the librarian’s desk had once stood, in the middle of the largest room. Harper weaved through the crowd toward it.

The air was steamy and smelled of sweat and spilled beer and the rain blowing in through the open door.

Bonnie was easy enough to spot – she’d recently added magenta streaks to her long, blonde hair, and she glimmered in the dimness like a beacon.

The shocks of color perfectly suited her leopard-print miniskirt and cowboy boots. But then, with that figure, she could get away with wearing anything.

The two of them had been friends since childhood. Their relationship had always been more that of sisters than friends.

Like Harper’s mother, Bonnie was an artist. Since there was no money in that, she bartended four nights a week and also taught a few classes at the local art school – making, from all of her jobs, just about enough for rent on a cheap apartment in a dodgy neighborhood.

When Harper walked up, she was pouring five tequila shots at once and talking a mile a minute. A goateed guy in a neat, button-down shirt was waiting for his drinks and wistfully watching her every move.

When Bonnie finally paused for breath, Harper leaned over the bar and pointed at the shots.

‘Thanks, but I’m not that thirsty.’

Whooping, Bonnie shoved the shots at the startled goatee guy and launched herself over the bar, pulling Harper into a full-body hug.

‘I can’t believe you came. You hate going out in tourist season.’

‘The lure of a tropical cocktail never fails,’ Harper told her.

‘If that’s true, I’ll make you a mai tai every night.’ Bonnie’s eyes scanned her face. ‘How’s it going? Nice lipstick, by the way.’

‘It’s been a weird night.’ Harper shrugged off the question. ‘And this is your lipstick.’

‘Knew it. I have amazing taste. You should let me choose your shoes.’ Jumping back onto the bar, Bonnie swung her legs around and leapt down, landing neatly in front of a long row of glittering bottles. ‘Stay there. I’m going to get you that drink and you can tell me about your weirdness.’

Just then, though, a group of laughing drinkers shoved their way to the bar, credit cards clutched in their hands.

Bonnie shot Harper an exasperated look. ‘First, I have to get rid of all these fucking people.’

In no hurry, Harper pulled up a bar stool and settled in.

Despite the volume and the chaos, being here made her calmer. Bonnie was the only person in the world who knew everything about her, and Harper could never fool her about one damn thing. Tonight, she needed someone who could see through her.

The two of them had met on Bonnie’s sixth birthday. Bonnie’s family had been living on Harper’s street for a few weeks by then. She’d seen the new little girl next door many times, with her long, covetable blonde hair, roaring up and down the sidewalk on her tricycle, a handful of brothers in tow. It was impossible to miss her.

Although their modest, post-war bungalows were nearly identical, Bonnie’s noisy, crowded house was the opposite of Harper’s. Harper was an only child. Not in a tragic, poor me, lonely kid way. More in the indulged, loved way.

Her mother was a painter and art teacher. Her father was a lawyer who traveled a lot for work. Her memories of her childhood were a blurry watercolor blend of jazz flowing from the speakers, and color – color everywhere. The kitchen was lemon yellow, the sofa was cherry-red. Harper’s room was aquamarine, and her mother’s vibrant oil paintings covered the walls.

On sunny days, her mother set up her easel in the kitchen, where light poured in through wrap-around windows. When Harper was young, she’d often set up a tiny easel for her, too, so they could paint side by side.

The day of Bonnie’s birthday party, Harper was sitting quietly on the back porch with a coloring book when, on the other side of the fence, Bonnie appeared holding a can of Silly String.

Setting down her crayons, Harper watched as, with careful deliberation, Bonnie made her way across the grass to the wire fence. Her bright pink dress and white-blonde hair gave her a jaunty, elfish appearance. Harper expected her to say hello. To ask what she was coloring. Instead, without warning or provocation, she’d pointed the nozzle at Harper and covered her in sticky pink threads.

Harper had stared at her in disbelief.

‘Why did you do that?’

Scratching her shoulder, Bonnie considered this.

‘Because you look lonely,’ she pronounced after a second. ‘And because I thought it would be funny. Come to my party.’

Harper, who had already clocked the balloons tied to the front fence and the BONNIE IS SIX sign on the door, and who had watched other children arrive for the event, played it cool.

‘I didn’t know it was your birthday,’ she lied.

‘It is,’ Bonnie assured her. ‘But I hate my cousins. And my brothers are assholes. I want you to be there instead.’

Harper didn’t flinch at the obscenity.

‘Why? You don’t know me.’

Bonnie gazed at her with a look of beatific confidence.

‘I like your hair. Go ask your mom if you can come over and I promise I won’t spray you anymore.’

Inexplicably satisfied by this explanation, Harper had removed the Silly String from her clothes and gone into the kitchen to seek permission from her mother, who waved an approving paintbrush from behind her easel.

‘Have fun, honey,’ she’d said, eyes still on the canvas. She was painting a field of daisies in the sunshine – each petal so real you could almost touch the cool silk of it. ‘Be sure and say thank you to Mrs Larson.’

From that day forward, for reasons Harper never fully understood, she and Bonnie were inseparable.

Their friendship had endured the trials of primary school and the grim anarchy of middle school. It had survived first boyfriends, Bonnie’s parents’ divorce, the pain of the Larson family moving away from the house next door. And worse.

Much worse.

Bonnie was the one reminder of Harper’s childhood that she allowed in her life. The only one who’d known her before.

The only one who understood.

Harper waited patiently until the bar gradually emptied out. At around two o’clock, Bonnie handed her the third unfathomably pink cocktail of the night, topped with a tiny paper umbrella and four maraschino cherries impaled on a long toothpick.

‘Carlo’s taking over for a while,’ she said, waving a beer bottle at the muscular, dark-haired guy behind the bar. ‘Let’s go talk.’

Feeling much better about everything by now, Harper held her drink up to the light to admire its atomic shades.

‘This is my very favorite drink.’

‘There’s so much fruit juice and rum in that baby, it’s diabetes in a glass.’ Bonnie stretched her arms above her head with a groan. ‘Man, this has been a long night. I’ve got to get a real job.’

At this hour, only the most determined drinkers remained, wrestling their demons one glass at a time. The music had been turned down and the air felt cooler.

They found one of the side rooms completely empty. It was largely dominated by a pool table.

Motioning for Harper to join her, Bonnie lifted herself up onto the green felt top.

‘Get up here and tell me what’s going on.’

Harper climbed up next to her, less gracefully. Bonnie had put a lot of rum in those drinks.

‘Nothing’s going on,’ she said, stretching out her legs until her toes brushed the far edge of the table. ‘It’s all good.’

‘Harper.’ Bonnie shot her a look. ‘You’ve been sitting in my bar drinking pink drinks for over an hour without saying a word to anyone. In tourist season. Something’s going on.’

Harper smiled. Bonnie always could see right through her.

‘There was a shooting.’ Harper made a vague gesture with her drink. ‘I got a little too close.’

Bonnie took a sip of beer, studying her narrowly.

‘How close is too close?’

Thinking of the windows shattering above her head, Harper held up her hand, finger and thumb two inches apart.

‘That close, I think.’

Bonnie’s eyebrows winged up. ‘What the hell, Harper? You’re supposed to write about crime. Not get yourself shot.’

‘It was fine,’ Harper insisted. ‘I wasn’t in danger.’

‘Bullshit,’ Bonnie said bluntly. ‘It scared you. I heard it in your voice on the phone. I saw it on your face when you walked in the bar. Don’t lie to me.’

Pulling the tiny paper umbrella from her glass, Harper furled and unfurled it absently. While she’d been waiting for Bonnie, she’d had a lot of time to think about what had happened. And to question her own motives.

Through the protective haze of alcohol, she found herself asking a question she would normally never have said aloud.

‘Tell me the truth. Do you think I’m self-destructive?’

Bonnie hesitated too long.

‘Come on,’ she said, finally, her tone softening. ‘You know you have good reasons for what you do.’

It was true. But it also wasn’t a no.

Out of nowhere, Harper thought of Luke, standing on the street like the god of justice, looking at her in a way he never had before. Like he was worried about her.

She’d had some time to think about him, tonight, too.

‘By the way,’ she said, ‘I think I might have a crush on a cop.’

She could sense Bonnie relaxing as the serious moment passed.

‘Well, hell, honey.’ She nudged Harper’s shoulder. ‘Get yourself a piece of that law-and-order action.’

Harper shook her head. ‘I can’t. I write about cops. I’m not allowed to have crushes on them. It’s a …’ she sought the words from the drunken recesses of her mind, ‘… conflict of interference. No.’ She blinked. ‘Interest.’

‘Really?’ Bonnie looked doubtful. ‘Come on. What can they do?’

‘He could get demoted for it,’ she assured her. ‘Cops take this stuff seriously.’

Bonnie made a derisive sound.

‘Since when do you give a damn about rules, Harper? The police don’t have cameras in your bedroom. Actually, I’ve been thinking for a while now you needed to get laid. When was the last time you had any?’

Caught off guard, Harper found she wasn’t sure of the answer to that question.

‘Last year? That California guy, I guess?’

Bonnie stared at her as if she’d announced she liked doing it with cats.

‘Harper, that was nearly two years ago. This can’t be. I’m going to get Carlo to do you right this instant. Carlo!’

She half-turned toward the bar, raising her voice. Carlo, who was stacking glasses in the dishwasher, looked up enquiringly, muscles bulging through the sleeves of his black Library T-shirt.

‘Ignore her, Carlo!’ Harper yelled hastily. ‘It’s nothing.’

Laughing, she tugged Bonnie’s arm. ‘Behave yourself.’

‘He’d do it,’ Bonnie assured her. ‘I know he thinks you’re cute.’

‘I’m not cute.’ For some reason, Harper found the assertion outrageous. ‘I’m introverted and I never remember to wear makeup. I’ve seen the women Carlo hangs out with. I am definitely not his type.’

Bonnie waved her beer. ‘Everyone is Carlo’s type. But if he’s not yours …’ She looked around the mostly empty bar. ‘There’s always Junior.’

‘Will you stop?’ Harper pleaded. ‘Look. I promise, I’ll sex someone up. Soon.’

‘Do the cop,’ Bonnie ordered. ‘You like him. What’s he like? I’ll bet he’s all Texas Rangery. Tall with lots of muscles; not much of a man for words. Takes command of the situation.’

‘Shut up.’ Harper’s face heated.

‘Oh my God, I’m right.’ Bonnie’s laugh was delighted. ‘I want to meet this guy.’

Harper was starting to feel dizzy. She wasn’t sure whether it was the mai tais or the conversation.

‘We have got to stop talking about this,’ she moaned, lying down on the table. The felt top was soft and she turned to press her face against it. It smelled soothingly of chalk and dust.

‘Don’t fall asleep on the pool table, Harper. Junior might carry you home and have his wicked way with you.’

Bonnie leaned over her, the tips of her long hair tickling Harper’s face.

‘Anyway, it’s decided. You’ve got to get busy with this cop. And soon.’ She smoothed Harper’s hair gently away from her face. It felt nice. Harper closed her eyes.

‘It’ll fix all that ails you,’ Bonnie promised.

Harper thought of Luke Walker standing there holding that gun. And wondered if maybe she was right.




Chapter Six (#ulink_795fbdcc-9bc1-502e-82f1-1ef640c87c78)


The next afternoon, Harper arrived at the police station at four o’clock, feeling like a truck had run over her face during the night.

At the edge of downtown on a quiet street, the police headquarters looked like a nineteenth-century jail, which is exactly what it was. Neat rows of small, arched windows marched across the brick walls, all of them overlooking a sun-baked parking lot that was, at this moment, completely full.

Muttering under her breath, Harper found a parking place on the street around the corner and fed the meter before hurrying out of the bright sunlight to take a shortcut through the blessed shade of the Colonial Park Cemetery.

Sheltered by the long branches of ancient oak trees, the old burial ground behind the station was more park than cemetery. Ever since she was a child, she’d loved it. You could read the city’s history in its inscriptions:

James Wilde.

He fell in a duel on the 16th of January, 1815, by the hand of a man who, a short time ago, would have been friendless but for him.

At twelve, she’d been outraged for that man. Today, she would happily have been buried next to him.

Her gravestone could read: ‘Harper McClain, died of a hangover. What an idiot.’

She and Bonnie had stayed at the bar after closing, drinking with Carlo and Junior, and playing half-hearted, quickly abandoned games of pool. It must have been four in the morning by the time she got home.

She’d awoken at noon, cotton-mouthed and hammer-headed, to find her cat, Zuzu, lying on her chest like an eight-pound tumor.

‘Get off me, you evil fluffball,’ she’d murmured, shoving the tabby to one side.

The cat waited until she drifted off, then got back on her again, purring maliciously.

At that point, Harper had given up and climbed out of bed. Four ibuprofen and a gallon of water later, she’d felt able to go to work.

When she pushed open the heavy, bulletproof door and walked out of the heat into the police station’s icy air conditioning, she didn’t remove her sunglasses.

The front-desk clerk looked up as she approached.

‘Harper!’ she trilled. ‘You look mysterious today.’

Barely over five feet tall, with glossy black curls and a curvy figure that tested the buttons of her navy blue desk uniform, Darlene Wilson’s skin was so flawless it was impossible to determine her age, but Harper guessed she was in her mid-thirties.

‘Please, Darlene,’ Harper said pleadingly. ‘If you love me at all. Whisper.’

Darlene’s booming laugh threatened to split her skull.

‘All right, honey. I hear you,’ she said, lowering her voice a fraction. ‘Were you at a party last night or something?’

‘Let’s just say drinks with an old friend got out of hand.’

As she spoke, Harper flipped rapidly through the thick stack of overnight police reports.

Burglary, burglary, burglary, public nuisance, DUI, burglary, stabbing …

She paused, scanning the description of the last one.

At 0400 hours, a 34-year-old male did enter the address and proceed to utilize a sharp bladed instrument against a 32-year-old female identified as his former spouse …

‘Male friend or female friend?’ Darlene prodded.

Harper turned a page. ‘Not the kind of friend you’re thinking about.’

Darlene made a tutting sound. ‘That’s a shame.’

‘I would like to know,’ Harper said, without looking up, ‘why everyone is so fascinated by my love life all of a sudden.’

Arching one expressive eyebrow, Darlene turned to her computer.

‘No reason,’ she said.

It took Harper about ten seconds to decide against covering the stabbing. Baxter hated domestic violence stories. Today, she didn’t have the strength for an argument.

Returning that report to the stack, she flipped through the rest, making a couple of notes. She was nearly finished when Darlene held up her hand.

‘Oh, honey, I almost forgot.’

The hint of warning in her voice made Harper look up.

‘The lieutenant wants you to see him in his office.’

‘Now?’ Harper’s brow creased. ‘Did he say why?’

‘Not exactly.’ Darlene leaned closer. ‘All I know is, everyone’s talking about the shooting last night. They say you got involved.’

Her heart sinking, Harper slid the stack of paperwork back across the counter.

She should have known the lieutenant would hear about it.

‘How pissed off is he? Scale of one to ten.’

‘Oh, you know what he’s like.’ Darlene busied herself straightening papers. ‘He likes having something to complain about.’

For a tantalizing second, Harper contemplated slipping out the door and back to the newspaper, but she didn’t want the lieutenant tracking her down. He’d done it before. Once, when she’d ignored his summons, he’d sent motorcycle police to pull her over and escort her back, blue lights flashing.

‘Damn.’

Reluctantly, she trudged to the security door leading to the back offices. With a sympathetic smile, Darlene pushed the button releasing the lock.

The shrill buzz it emitted was a sound-blade in Harper’s hungover head, repeatedly stabbing her cerebellum. Wincing, she pulled the door open.

On the other side, a long corridor stretched the length of the building. Windowless and shadowy, it was lined on either side by offices. She passed the 911 dispatch room with its glowing bank of computers. Then several sergeants’ offices – each small and crowded, all of them empty at the moment.

She was halfway down the corridor when two detectives in lightweight summer suits approached her, talking quietly. Spotting her, one nudged the other.

Detective Ledbetter’s smile took up his whole, round face. Next to him, Detective Julie Daltrey was grinning mischievously. She was ten years younger and a head shorter than Ledbetter, with dark brown skin and endearing dimples.

When Harper reached them, the two stopped, blocking her way.

‘Oh hello, Officer McClain,’ Detective Daltrey said, as Ledbetter snickered. ‘I hear you’re joining the force.’

‘Oh, fuck me running.’ She glared at them. ‘Is this how it’s going to be?’

‘Do me a favor,’ Daltrey goaded her. ‘Say, “Stop or I’ll shoot.” I want to judge your technique.’

‘No, that’s not what she said,’ Ledbetter reminded her. ‘It was “You’re surrounded”.’

They guffawed. Daltrey bent over double, clutching her ribs.

Harper had heard enough.

‘Will you please get out of my way?’ Lowering her shoulder she shoved her way past them with such force they had to jump aside to avoid being knocked down. ‘Don’t you have murderers to catch?’

‘Yeah, but you can do that for us,’ Daltrey said. ‘We’re taking the rest of the day off.’

Their laughter followed her all the way down the hall.

Harper knew this was only the beginning. Nobody on the planet enjoys ridicule more than a cop. They never tired of it. Last night she’d basically pinned a bullseye on her back.

She was grateful when she reached the door at the end of the hall where the name ‘Lieutenant Robert Smith’ was written on the sign outside.

Taking off her sunglasses, Harper stuffed them in her bag. Then, letting out a deep breath, she tapped her knuckles against the door.

‘It’s Harper.’

‘Get in here.’ The voice was a low, baritone growl.

Steeling herself, she opened the door, already launching into her defense.

‘Look, Lieutenant, last night wasn’t my fault.’

‘I’ll be the judge of that.’

Lieutenant Robert Smith was about fifty years old, with thick, graying hair and a square jaw made to take a punch. He was six foot two and, even sitting at a desk, he dominated a room. His charcoal suit looked expensive, as did his dark blue silk tie.

He was one of those men who, even when no cigar was present, looked as if they ought to be holding one.

As she approached the desk, he listed the charges against her in an icy voice.

‘So you called out three armed men, while wearing no Kevlar and not carrying a weapon. You then impersonated a police officer when those three criminals threatened you. Am I summing this up correctly? And if I am, how is any of that not your fault?’

‘I was improvising.’ Dropping into one of the faux leather chairs in front of his desk, Harper pressed her fingertips against her pounding forehead. ‘I thought they were going to kill that stupid cop.’

‘That stupid cop is an experienced officer of the law.’ Smith’s voice rose. Harper winced. ‘He is trained to carry and use a standard, police-issue semi-automatic firearm, and to defend himself in dangerous situations. He was wearing a government-approved bulletproof vest. You were carrying a notebook.’

‘True,’ she conceded. ‘But they were about to blow your highly trained officer’s stupid head off.’ His face hardened, but she plowed ahead stubbornly. ‘Lieutenant, he was looking in the wrong direction. It is true that I could have yelled, “Hey, idiotic cop. They’re over here.” And they would have shot at me anyway. So I tried to buy time until your inexplicably delayed backup arrived on the scene to keep the residents of Thirty-Ninth Street safe from three wanted killers.’ She held up her notepad. ‘By the way, do you have any comment on the reason for that delay?’

The lieutenant opened his mouth and then shut it again.

‘Dammit, Harper. How do you always manage to turn everything around so I’m the bad guy?’

He still sounded a bit heated, but the edge had left his voice.

Harper flashed him an apologetic half-smile.

‘I learned from the best, Lieutenant.’

‘Flattery won’t help you today, young lady.’ He shook his finger at her. ‘In all seriousness, you could have got yourself killed. Walker told me everything.’

‘That narc,’ Harper muttered.

‘He is paid to narc,’ he reminded her tartly.

Before she could argue, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk.

‘Why’d you do it, Harper? I try to look out for you. But I can’t protect you if you walk into a bullet. You understand that, right?’

There was no more anger in his voice. Harper’s defensiveness slipped away.

‘I’m sorry, Lieutenant,’ she said. ‘It all happened so fast. Believe me, I know it was dangerous. I promise I’ll be more careful.’

Smith’s expression softened.

‘I don’t want you to get hurt.’

‘I know,’ Harper said, adding remorsefully. ‘And I didn’t mean what I said about Luke. He was great out there. He saved my life.’

‘Luke’s one of my best,’ Smith said. ‘And he didn’t come here to “narc”, as you say. He came here because he was concerned.’

Harper said nothing, but the idea of Luke worrying about her was curiously pleasing.

‘Well.’ Smith’s brow creased. ‘Were you injured? You look pale.’

‘I went out drinking with Bonnie last night.’ She rubbed her temples remorsefully. ‘Overdid it. I feel like crap.’

‘Ah.’ His expression changed to one of almost paternal indulgence. ‘Were you at that hippy bar where she works?’

‘It’s not a hippy bar,’ Harper said, although it kind of was.

‘I hope you didn’t drive home.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Of course not.’

It was always like this. He talked to her like she was a teenager and before long she started acting like one.

He picked up his pen from the leather desk blotter.

‘Before I forget, Pat’s after me to get you to come to dinner.’ He glanced at her. ‘You free on Sunday? It’d make her happy.’

Harper brightened. His wife was an amazing cook. ‘If there’s any chance she might make her chicken and dumplings, I think I can be free on Sunday.’

‘She’ll be happy to hear that,’ he said gruffly. ‘I always tell her you’re fine, but she likes to see you for herself.’

He grew serious again.

‘Now, look, Harper, can I tell the deputy chief that the crime reporter from our esteemed local newspaper has agreed to stop impersonating an officer at crime scenes for the foreseeable future? Will you at least give me that?’

‘I suppose I can agree to stop breaking that particular law,’ she agreed. ‘I really am sorry. I had to think fast, and I wanted to keep Officer Dumbass alive.’

The lieutenant’s eyes held a look that was equal parts affection and exasperation.

‘Well, Officer Dumbass owes you one, and I’ve made sure he knows it.’ He flipped open a file on his desk and put on a pair of wire-framed glasses. ‘Now then. Get your pen out. The official statement is as follows: Backup was delayed because they required a helicopter in an effort to locate and isolate the suspects. Officers approached on foot from the first crime scene in an attempt to ascertain the location of the suspects, and in an effort to avoid loss of innocent life. Undercover officers arrived first on scene, but awaited arrival of all parties. Said undercover officers have been investigating the three suspects for several weeks, as part of a project to curtail drug dealing in the area.’

After jotting this down, Harper glanced at him. ‘You got enough evidence to throw the book at those guys?’

‘Off the record?’

She nodded.

‘Oh, yeah. We’ve got them.’ He closed the file. ‘That will be all, Officer McClain.’

‘Oh hell.’ Harper stood up. ‘I’m never going to live this down, am I?’

His smile told her everything.

‘I believe they’re having a badge made for you upstairs.’

It was nearly five by the time Harper left the police station, half-running to her car. She’d have to hurry to make it to the newspaper’s offices in time to file for the early edition.

But five o’clock is a bad time to be in a rush and, as she pulled out onto Habersham Street, she immediately found herself trapped in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Swearing under her breath, she hit the brakes and fell into line.

As traffic inched along, she replayed the meeting with the lieutenant in her head.

She wasn’t surprised Luke went straight to Smith. He knew how close she and the lieutenant were, and he’d wanted Smith to put the fear of God in her.

Harper’s own father wasn’t really in her life anymore. They spoke a few times a year, and that was more than enough for her.

Now that he lived up north and had a young family, it was easier than ever to forget he even existed.

Besides, Smith had filled that role for her for many years. Together with his wife, he’d helped her through her teens, fed her when the money ran short and remained close to her even now. She was grateful for them both.

No matter how old she got, Smith still saw her as a child in need of protection. In part because the day they’d met was seared on both their memories forever.

He was the cop who took the phone from her hand the day her mother was murdered.




Chapter Seven (#ulink_a05c3dd1-a582-5e87-855f-096e9bbecc33)


When Harper arrived at the newsroom twenty minutes later, the day shift was already wrapping up their final articles. Editors were making the usual demands, issuing low-key threats. In the bustle, no one paid any attention as she made her way to the battered black office chair and switched on her police scanner.

The familiar crackle and drone of official voices filled the air.

She was turning on her computer when the writer at the desk in front of hers rolled his chair back and swung around to face her.

‘Hey.’

Harper glanced at him. ‘What’s up, DJ?’

David J. Gonzales earned his nickname after announcing that his newspaper byline must include his middle initial.

‘It’s an important part of my name,’ he’d explained earnestly, to anyone who would listen.

At twenty-three years old, and on his first-ever newspaper job, he had no idea why this was so hilarious to the paper’s hardened old-timers.

At first they’d referred to him as David J in all circumstances. ‘Is David J coming?’ ‘Have you seen David J?’

Over time, that shrank to his initials, and he’d been DJ to everyone at the paper ever since.

‘Baxter’s looking for you,’ he said. ‘Where you been?’

An unruly mop of thick, dark hair overshadowed his glasses and round, jovial face.

‘Cop shop.’

‘Huh. She said she tried to call you.’

‘Oh crap. Did she?’ Harper dug through her bag until she found her phone. The message on the screen blinked an accusation.

Ten missed calls.

‘Balls. I forgot to turn the ringer on.’

‘Again?’ DJ shot her a look. ‘She’s going to kill you.’

‘Good. At least that’ll give me something to write about,’ she said snappishly.

Half-standing, she looked to the front of the room, but the city editor’s desk was empty.

She sat down again. ‘What does she want?’

DJ shrugged. He’d missed a spot shaving and the dark whiskers stood out against his tawny skin like a fingerprint.

‘Dunno. She’s on the warpath about something.’

‘Yeah, but that’s every day.’

‘True.’ Seeming to notice her suddenly, he took in the dark circles under her eyes and her unhealthy pallor. ‘You look terrible. What’d you get up to last night?’

Harper typed her login – a machine-gun rattle of keys.

‘Demon alcohol is destroying my life,’ she informed him solemnly. ‘I need to find Jesus.’

DJ grinned. ‘My mom knows where he is if you’re really looking for him. She also has an excellent lock on the Virgin Mary’s location.’

With that, he shoved his chair forward and around in a surprisingly accurate move that propelled him precisely as far as his own desk.

DJ was only four years younger than Harper, but they were four really long years. When he’d first started at the paper, he was like the kid brother she never wanted, and she’d blamed Baxter bitterly from day one for putting his desk next to hers. He was so needy – constantly asking questions. It drove her crazy.

Gradually, though, he’d got better at his job and, although she couldn’t put her finger on when it happened, at some point she’d decided she liked him after all.

Pulling out her notes, she began typing up a quick report of the day’s smaller crimes. These would go on page six, in a box unimaginatively called ‘The Crime Report’.

‘McClain.’ Baxter’s voice cut across the hum and buzz of the room.

‘Present.’ Harper lifted her hand.

Baxter marched over to her desk – her hair bone-straight, her angular features set in tight lines. She moved so fast her jacket swung around her thin frame when she stopped at Harper’s desk.

‘I had an agitated call from the deputy police chief this afternoon,’ she announced. ‘Seems you got too close to the action at that homicide last night. Is this true?’

As she spoke, the ambient noise in the room dipped subtly.

Harper leaned back in her chair, calculating her chances. Even after years at the paper, she found it impossible to tell when Baxter was really pissed off. The woman had to be a nightmare at the poker table.

‘I guess I did,’ she conceded. ‘That bullet missed me by inches.’

The room was very quiet now. DJ swiveled slowly around to watch.

Baxter’s hand dropped onto Harper’s shoulder in a movement that could either have been a pat or a punch.

‘Good work,’ she barked. ‘That’s what I like to see. Initiative.’

The noise in the room returned to normal.

‘Get me another front page like that and I’ll give you a raise.’ Baxter spoke loud enough to ensure the whole room could hear.

Behind her back, DJ gave Harper a thumbs up.

‘A raise? Isn’t that one sign of the apocalypse?’ Harper heard someone ask in a pseudo-whisper.

When the editor had returned to her desk, DJ slid closer.

‘That reminds me. I meant to tell you your story was awesome today,’ he said. ‘That picture, too.’ He shook his head. ‘You’ve got the best beat. I never get to write that hero shit.’

DJ was on the education beat. The most exciting thing he got to write about was a new dormitory at the college.

‘The hours suck,’ she pointed out kindly.

‘True.’ He spun around again and returned to his desk.

She didn’t know how he could do that so many times a day without making himself puke.

Harper’s copy of the day’s paper still lay on her desk. Idly, she picked it up. Miles’ photo took up most of the space above the fold, with her story running underneath it.

Because of the darkness, and the way Miles had widened the aperture so he could shoot at night without a flash, the photo looked almost black and white. The barrel of the gun was pointed right at the camera. Above the shooter’s bandanna, his young, jaded eyes stared at the reader with unconstrained loathing.

It was intimate. Intimidating. It grabbed you by the throat and demanded to be noticed.

‘Hell of a shot,’ she muttered.

Then she tossed the newspaper aside and got back to work.




Chapter Eight (#ulink_385e17e5-6866-5f83-b9e9-5d92a6d6e7b6)


That night was blessedly uneventful – Harper spent most of it at her desk, listening to the low rumble of the scanner and trying to stay awake.

At midnight, she went straight home and collapsed in bed. She was asleep in seconds.

The next day, she woke after noon, ravenous, the last remnants of the hangover finally gone.

Following a quick shower, and a scan of her emails, she headed out for breakfast. She was sitting alone in a red vinyl booth in Eric’s Diner eating one of the ‘fresh burgers’ advertised in vivid neon out front when Miles called.

Stuffing a French fry in her mouth, she hit the answer button.

‘What’s up?’ she asked.

‘I’m at a crime scene on Constance Street. I think you better get down here.’ His voice was low but intense.

‘What’ve you got?’

Even as she spoke, she was wrestling her scanner out of her bag; switching it on. A confusing tangle of police voices hissed into the air.

A man at a nearby table glanced over curiously and she turned it down.

‘Looks like homicide,’ Miles said. ‘A bad one. Everyone’s rolling out.’ He paused. ‘It’s a good street, Harper. Expensive houses. Fancy cars.’

She didn’t wait to hear the rest. Pulling a wad of cash from her wallet, she dropped some bills on the table and hurried to the door. It jangled cheerfully as she opened it.

‘How many vics?’ she asked, stepping out of the ice-cold air conditioning into the bright sunlight.

‘Unclear,’ Miles said. ‘Can’t get a word with the detectives. They’re all inside. And I do mean all – there must be six of them in there.’

Harper gave a low whistle.

Two detectives were standard on a normal homicide. Six was unprecedented.

A wall of heat hit her as she opened the door of the Camaro. She dumped her bag unceremoniously on the passenger seat and stuck the scanner in the dashboard holder. Switching her phone to speaker, she started the engine and cranked up the air conditioning.

Hot air hit her face like a punch.

‘What’s it look like to you?’ she asked, putting the car in reverse and glancing over her shoulder.

She’d turned the volume up high – Miles’ voice soared above the rumble of the engine.

‘It looks like page one.’

When Harper arrived, Constance Street was blocked by crime tape and a uniformed officer waved her away. The TV news crews were already there and their satellite trucks took up most of the available spaces.

Just outside the historic district, this neighborhood had once been affordable. But lately the big lawns and Arts and Crafts houses had been discovered and prices had skyrocketed. The schools were good around here and parents would claw each other’s eyes out to get their kids in one of them.

Harper could already see what Miles had observed – this was not the usual place for a homicide.

She backed hurriedly into an empty space around the corner and ran toward the crime tape, straight into the TV reporters, who were blocking the way with the forest of tripods and boom microphones that followed them everywhere.

‘Hey, Harper.’ Josh Leonard, Channel 5’s blow-dried but not entirely offensive news correspondent flashed a blinding smile as she approached the crime tape. ‘We were wondering when you’d show up.’

‘I can’t believe you beat me,’ Harper said absently, her eyes on the police activity beyond the crime tape. ‘I guess there’s a first time for everything.’

‘The first time was that car racing accident, actually.’ Josh straightened his cuffs. ‘But who’s counting?’

She raised one eyebrow. ‘You are, apparently.’

‘Five times.’ He held up his right hand, fingers splayed. ‘Five times – and I can list each one – I’ve got there first.’

‘Give up, Josh. This is not a fight you’re going to win.’ Natalie Swanson, the anchor from Channel 12 stalked up to them. In a pristine blue suit and four-inch heels, she looked impossibly regal as she hooked a tiny microphone to her lapel. The sun made her glossy helmet of blonde hair glimmer.

Harper blew her a kiss. ‘Looking hot as ever, Natalie.’

The other woman smiled serenely. ‘Compliments will get you everywhere.’

‘Now, see,’ Josh told his cameraman, ‘I’d never get away with saying that.’

‘Try it. See what happens.’ Natalie’s voice dripped pleasant malice.

Harper looked down to where police were bustling in and out of a yellow house with a high peaked roof.

‘What do we know?’ she asked, glancing from Josh to Natalie.

‘All I’ve been told is the victim is a woman in her early thirties.’ Natalie lowered her voice. ‘The cops are being weird about this one. My producer talked to the information officer and he wouldn’t tell her a thing. Never got that before. Anyone got anything else?’

Josh shook his head. ‘Everyone’s keeping schtum.’

‘Miles might have more.’ Harper stood on her toes, trying to see through the growing crowd of gawkers, cops and TV cameras. ‘I better find him.’

Grabbing her phone, she typed a quick message:

Where are you? I’m here.

When she’d walked as far as the tape allowed, she paused beside a handful of residents gathered in a worried huddle. Most of them were elderly.

That made sense. Everyone else would be at work at this hour.

While pretending to look at her notepad, Harper studied them carefully. Their clothing was perfectly serviceable, but nothing fancy. There was no indication that they could afford to pay half a million dollars for a three-bedroom. They must have bought before the bankers moved in.

This was good. Bankers would know better than to talk to her.

Sticking her notebook back in her pocket, she made her way to the center of the group. She moved slowly, a sympathetic look softening her expression.

‘I hate to bother y’all,’ she said, thickening her native Georgia accent and keeping her voice hushed.

As one, they turned to glance at her.

‘I’m from the Daily News. Can anyone tell me what’s going on?’

‘Oh Lord,’ a sixty-something woman in a floral dress said mournfully. ‘The newspaper’s here, too. Someone’s dead for sure.’

A dark-skinned, gray-haired man with a glossy black cane took a step towards her. ‘I wish you could tell us. All we know is the police are in Marie’s house. They won’t tell us anything. Is she dead?’

‘It can’t be Marie, can it?’ The first woman shook her head. ‘Or her little girl? Sweet Jesus, not that.’

Gradually, Harper moved closer to their tightly knit circle, making herself one of them. She kept her expression curious but also open and unthreatening.

‘Tell me about Marie,’ she said, all sympathy. ‘Who is she?’

‘Marie Whitney,’ the first man said. ‘She lives in that house.’ He pointed his cane at the yellow house. ‘Where the police are.’

‘She lived there long?’ she asked.

The neighbors conferred.

‘Was it two years?’ someone said.

‘It was after the tree fell on the Landry’s place,’ the first man reminded everyone.

‘About three years, I think,’ a woman said, after a second.

Harper did a quick mental calculation. Three years ago, prices were already rising. Whoever bought that place had money.

She needed to tell Baxter to hold the front page.

‘Is she married?’ she asked easily.

‘Divorced,’ a small woman in a blue cardigan informed her, a hint of excitement underlying her tone. ‘Ex-husband lives out of town somewhere.’

She seemed chatty. Harper inched closer to her.

‘Do you know if she worked?’

The woman lowered her voice confidentially. ‘She worked down at the university. I don’t know what she did there, though. She wasn’t a teacher, I don’t think.’

‘And there’s a daughter?’ Harper asked.

The woman nodded so hard her gray hair bounced.

‘Camille is how old now? Maybe eleven or twelve years old?’ The woman glanced at the others for affirmation. ‘But she should be at school today. She’s doing that special program this summer.’

‘Not now,’ floral dress reminded her. ‘It’s nearly three.’

The realization sent a shiver through the group like a breeze.

‘Oh, it’s horrible,’ cardigan woman said, pulling her sweater more tightly across her plump shoulders.

‘Did anyone hear anything at all?’ Harper tried to refocus them. ‘Or see anything?’

‘I thought I heard a sound.’ The voice came from the back of the group. Everyone shifted until Harper saw a woman, thin and pale, her hair cotton white. ‘At first, I thought it was a scream but it was so brief. I decided it was a crow.’ Her shoulders drooped and she looked around for forgiveness. ‘I truly thought it was a crow.’

‘No one can blame you,’ cane man said gruffly. ‘Nothing like this ever happens around here. We all would have thought the same.’

Harper asked a few more questions, then, pulling out her notebook, convinced a couple of people to give her their names. As she’d suspected, this put an end to the discussion.

She was jotting down notes from the conversation when Miles appeared at her side.

‘I got a name from the neighbors,’ Harper told him. ‘Marie Whitney. You got anything?’

‘All I know is she was code four when the police arrived.’ Glancing around to make sure no one could hear him, he whispered, ‘A patrol cop I know told me it’s a bloodbath in there.’

‘Do they have a suspect?’ she asked. ‘Neighbors say there’s an ex-husband.’

He didn’t get a chance to respond. At the other end of the crime tape, the news teams had swung into motion, lenses focused on something happening further down the street.

In tandem, Harper and Miles rushed forward, leaning across the tape to get a better look as the front door of the house opened and a group emerged.

Miles raised his camera and focused, firing off a round of shots.

Harper saw Blazer first – his smoothly carved face and cold eyes were impossible to miss. Nearby, Ledbetter and Daltrey stood at the edge of the group, talking somberly – no mocking smiles today.

A familiar tall figure stood behind them.

Harper’s brow creased.

‘What’s Lieutenant Smith doing here?’

If he heard the question, Miles was too busy shooting to respond.

As Harper watched, the group stepped slowly out of the yellow house. When they reached the street, the cluster parted enough for her to see who was at the center.

It was a girl, about twelve years old. Her thick, dark hair had been plaited into a long glossy braid. Her small fingers held tightly to Smith’s big hand. With her free hand, she wiped tears from her cheeks. She stumbled towards a parked car, the stunned look on her face clear even from a distance.

Harper couldn’t hear the breeze in the trees anymore. Or the low murmur of the crowd behind her. All she was aware of in that instant was her.

This scene was torn from her own tormented childhood. She’d been that girl once, standing in front of her house with Smith holding her hand.

The pen dropped from her nerveless fingers. She took a slow-motion step forward, bowing the crime tape. An official voice barked a complaint at her but she barely noticed.

The girl, her attention caught by the angry words, looked up. For an electrifying instant, their eyes met.

Harper stared at her own twelve-year-old self – pale freckled face surrounded by tangled russet hair, hazel eyes filled with tears.

Then she blinked and the dark-haired girl returned.

Leaning over, Smith said something and the girl turned to climb into the car. Harper knew how it felt to do that – hands so numb it was hard to feel the rough fabric of the seat. Small body moving clumsily, knees suddenly forgetting how to bend.

The lieutenant closed the door behind her.

Seconds later, he and Daltrey got into the car with her, before it sped to the other end of the lane and disappeared around the corner.

Harper let out a long breath.

In the aftermath of this incident, the gathered gawkers were hushed enough for Harper to hear Natalie whisper to her camera operator, ‘You get that?’

‘What a tragedy,’ Miles said, flipping his camera over to look at his shots. ‘I hate to see kids at these things.’

Harper, still studying the yellow house, didn’t reply.

Miles glanced up at her. Seeing the look on her face, his eyes sharpened.

‘Something wrong?’

‘It’s nothing.’ She kept her gaze fixed on that front door. Seeing that girl’s eyes.

This was too familiar. The house. The girl. The time of day. The time of year. A woman alone. Murdered.

Something was coming together in her mind. Something unthinkable.

‘Miles, I need to get inside that house.’

He stared at her, incredulous.

‘Oh sure,’ he said. ‘The cops won’t mind if you step into the middle of their homicide scene. As long as you make it quick.’

Harper opened her mouth and then closed it again.

This was going to be hard to explain.

As far as she knew, Miles wasn’t aware of what had happened to her mother. Few people were. It wasn’t something she ever discussed. Miles had only lived in Savannah seven years – he wasn’t here back then to read about it in the paper, or see smiling pictures of her mother on the TV news.

Still, she didn’t need him to understand everything, she needed him to help.

‘This is going to sound weird,’ she said slowly. ‘But I need to reassure myself about something. Literally, I need two seconds in that house.’

Miles still looked perplexed.

‘Harper, don’t be ridiculous. Every cop in the city is in that house.’

It was true. Four patrol cops stood out front, guarding the door. Two more were on the crime tape, stopping anyone from getting in.

After Smith and the girl had gone, Blazer and several detectives had gone back inside, along with the coroner – whose van was parked in the middle of the street.

She thought for a minute, studying the neighborhood. There had to be some way to at least see what had happened in there.

She’d grown up on a street a lot like this one, with houses lined up, backyard to backyard. Her street had been more modest, but the layout was more or less the same.

‘I only need to see in a window,’ she said, thinking aloud. ‘That would do it. I don’t have to actually go inside.’

The look Miles gave her told her he still thought she’d lost her mind.

‘What the hell is this about?’

She hesitated. She had to tell him something, but this wasn’t the time for long explanations.

‘Look,’ she said finally. ‘I have a hunch. I think I’ve seen a crime scene a lot like this one a few years ago. A mother dead. A girl coming home after school. I’m probably wrong. It’s probably nothing. But that killer was never caught. If I’m right …’

She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to. She’d already seen the light dawn in his eyes.

‘We could be dealing with the same killer,’ he said slowly.

Their eyes locked. Neither of them had ever covered a serial killer before.

‘You sure about this?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Not at all. In fact, I’d be willing to bet if I take a look at the crime scene, it’ll be completely different. And I’ll come back here feeling like a fool.’

‘Why is this so important, then?’ Miles asked. ‘Why not call Smith and ask what he thinks?’

It was a good question. Smith had been at both crime scenes. He would certainly know.

But this time that wasn’t enough. She had to see for herself. To know for certain whether there was any connection at all between this crime scene and the one on that day, fifteen years ago, when her childhood ended.

Because no one ever caught that murderer.

That little girl never got justice.

‘Please, Miles,’ she pleaded. ‘I just … I have to do this. I need two seconds looking through a window.’

He held her gaze, his expression a complex mix of doubt and worry.

Harper thought he’d refuse. His relationship with the police was important to him. Ever since he’d been laid off he’d had to tread a fine line with the newspaper, the police and his work. He did not want her to mess that up.

But then, shaking his head, he held up his hands in surrender.

‘Tell me this before we throw our careers away. How do you propose to illegally cross that police line and get into that house without the cops and detectives and their merry band promptly arresting you?’

Harper pointed at the houses peeking out through the trees behind the crime house.

‘Through the backyard.’




Chapter Nine (#ulink_c3c381a3-8e4d-5ef5-8ada-c5cb4f877bfe)


Here’s a thing about crime scenes most people don’t know: they’re boring.

The vast majority of any reporter’s time at a crime scene is spent waiting around. First you wait for the detectives, then you wait for the forensics team, then you wait for the coroner. Sometimes, hours will pass before you’re even told what you’re waiting for.

At a crime scene this high profile, Harper knew she had time to burn. The forensics unit had just begun putting on their white moon suits when she stepped away from the crime tape. Nothing would be announced until they’d had a chance to examine the house.

As she hurried down the street, nobody noticed her departure. Everyone was still focused on the yellow house.

Around the corner, away from the gawkers and journalists, the neighborhood seemed calm and peaceful. But Harper wasn’t.

Despite her bravura performance with Miles, she was so nervous her stomach burned. She had to force her hands to unclench. She’d always pushed the limits but she’d never done anything like this before.

For one thing it was wildly, profoundly illegal.

If she got caught, the police would undoubtedly arrest her. The newspaper would be unlikely to bail her out because breaking the law was not part of her job description. Not overtly, anyway. Oh, they were happy to take advantage of it when she broke the rules and got a good story, but if she were ever truly busted for it, they’d let her hang.

And yet, she didn’t stop. She had to know.

In her mind, she kept seeing that girl in her school clothes, standing dazed and shocked in a protective phalanx of police.

She looked so small. So vulnerable.

Was that how she’d looked that day?

And Smith – what was he doing there? A single homicide, even in a neighborhood like this, ordinarily merited his oversight from a distance but not his physical presence. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him at a crime scene. Certainly not since he was promoted to lieutenant four years ago.

‘I’m a paper-pusher now,’ he’d told her at the time, pride in his voice. ‘I’m off the street at last. Got a chair that cost as much as I make in a week and a great big office, and by God, I’m going to use them.’

He’d been true to his word. Until now.

What if he was here because he had seen this once before?

The next street along was a perfect mirror image of Constance Street. The same brightly painted, over-priced houses with lush gardens behind low fences.

The blue paint on Number 3691 was perfect and its front garden was lavish. Fat, pink roses spilled over the glossy black bars of the wrought-iron fence in a fragrant tumble.

It was directly behind the murder scene.

If she stood on her toes, Harper could see the yellow house from the sidewalk.

Given the well-maintained look of the house, odds were ten to one the lawyer or banker who lived here was at work and the place was empty.

Or a trophy wife could be inside, watching cable and doing her nails.

There was only one way to find out.

Setting her jaw, Harper lifted the cool metal latch on the heavy gate and walked with purpose to the door. When she knocked, the sound echoed in the quiet street like a gunshot.

For a moment, she stood still, summoning an excuse, waiting for footsteps.

None came.

Just to be sure, she knocked again.

Still, nothing.

Pulling her phone from her pocket she called Miles.

He answered immediately.

‘I’m in,’ she said, hurrying down the steps toward the side of the house. ‘Do it now.’

There was a long silence.

‘You sure you want to do this?’ he asked.

‘I’m already doing it.’

Without waiting for his reply she hung up, setting the phone to silent before she shoved it into her pocket.

Back on Constance Street, Miles should now be going up to the officer standing guard and demanding to talk to a senior detective. He’d complain about the slow pace and lack of information. He’d get Natalie and Josh involved – it was never very hard to get them riled up about deadlines.

Hopefully, this would keep everyone busy out front, ensuring nobody wandered around to the back while she was there.

That was the plan, anyway.

The really terrible plan.

There was no gate between the front and back garden of number 3691. A narrow walkway led past a ginger hedge on the side of the house to the perfectly manicured back garden.

A patio table surrounded by six wicker chairs sat near the back door. A curving stone path led through lush daisies and climbing bougainvillea to where two pear trees bookended the yard right in front of the back fence.

Ducking behind one of the trees, Harper peered into the backyard of the murder house.

The garden across the fence wasn’t at all like the one in which she now stood. The lawn was neat, but unimaginative.

A purple bicycle leaned against the wall of the house near a rusted barbecue grill that looked like it hadn’t been used in quite a while.

This was the house of a single mom too busy to worry about gardening.

From here, Harper could see the murder house had big windows lining the rear wall and a back door with three steps leading down to the patio.

The fence between the two houses was about four-feet tall and chain link. That was normal around here – the summer humidity and heavy winter rains destroyed wood so quickly most people didn’t bother with it. Harper could make it over the fence easily.

The only problem was, now that she was here, all she could see was that she was about twenty long steps from getting arrested. There was no place to hide in that yard. And the hot sun reflected off the windows, making it impossible to see inside. There could have been fifty police looking out at her and she’d never know.

Biting her lip, she stood staring across the expanse of green grass.

She could turn around. Tell Miles she changed her mind. Go back to the crime tape and do her job.

But then she remembered that girl again – her achingly familiar look of despair.

She had to know what was in that house.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped on the raised roots of the nearest tree for a bit of height then, grasping the top of the fence, warm from the sun, she stuck the toe of one shoe into a chink in the fence and hoisted herself up, swinging a leg over the top and dropping down on the other side.

The jangle of the metal against the support poles seemed absolutely deafening. As soon as she landed, she crouched low and froze, eyes on the house, waiting to see if she’d been noticed.

There was no cover here. If she was going to be caught it would happen now.

Nothing moved. Nobody opened the back door. No one yelled a command.

Adrenaline gave her heart a kick. She had to run.

Keeping low, she sped across the grass.

It was no more than forty feet from the back of the garden to the house, but it seemed to take forever until she made it, pressing against the warm yellow siding between the door and the window.

There, she paused, breathing heavily.

It was strangely quiet. All the sounds of a normal afternoon were missing. No children laughed. No dogs barked. No cars rumbled by. She could hear her heart pounding, and her own rasping breaths.

It took a minute to steady her nerves enough to move again. Gritting her teeth, Harper inched along the wall to the window and stopped.

If this house was like the ones she knew, the kitchen would be here. All she needed to do was look into that window and she would know the truth. One way or another. If there was nothing there – if the murder scene were in the bedroom, or the living room – she was done here.

Steeling herself, she turned and took a sliding, sideways step to her left until she could see through the bottom sliver of window.

A uniformed policeman stood directly in front of her.

Harper jerked back, her heart pounding in her throat.

On the verge of panic, she stood stiffly, forehead pressing against the wall, nails digging into the yellow paint, breathing in the smell of dust and heat and her own fear.

It’s OK, she promised herself. It’s OK.

The cop’s back had been to her. There was no way he saw her.

Still, every muscle in her body tensed as she strained to hear what was happening.

There were no sounds of movement or alarm from inside the yellow house. Only the faint murmur of official voices, words too soft for her to make out.

Harper bit her lip hard, trying to decide what to do. A cop was right in front of the window. She was now at one hundred percent risk of getting caught.

But in that brief flashing view, she’d seen the kitchen. And something on the floor.

She couldn’t leave now. Not without knowing.

She took a strangled breath, hands clenching into fists against the sun-soaked wall. It took everything in her to slide back to the window and look again.

The policeman had shifted to the left. He was leaning back, his uniform dark against the glass. Harper could see past him on the right-hand side.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust from the bright sunlight to the shadowy interior.

It was a more modern kitchen than the one she’d grown up with, but not dissimilar – square and spacious. Cupboards – modern and expensive. A designer range, as big and glossy as a Land Rover.

Automatically, she noted indications of a struggle – chairs had been knocked over and the kitchen table had been shoved at an odd angle.

A cluster of men and women in white forensic suits stood over something on the floor. Harper recognized the chief coroner’s distinctive short, prematurely gray hair. She was studying something through a magnifying device and talking quietly to Detective Blazer, who crouched beside her, looking where she indicated, a notepad in one hand.

It was only when the coroner straightened to reach for another tool that Harper saw the body.

Her heart stopped beating.

It was her mother’s body.

The woman was naked, lying face down on the tile floor in a dark, viscous pool of blood. Against her paper-white skin, the wounds on her back and arms seemed lurid. Harper counted three stab wounds but, with all that blood, she knew there would be more on the other side.

One pale hand was flung out defensively to the side, delicate fingers reaching for something they would never touch. Her nails were painted pale pink.

Harper couldn’t tear her eyes away. She knew how cold that skin would feel if she touched it.

The woman’s wavy hair had been soaked in blood, making it hard to determine the color. It looked like red with streaks of gold.

The same as her mother’s hair.

Harper heard herself make a whimpering noise deep in her throat.

Instantly, the policeman on the other side of the window shifted. Shuffling his feet, he began to turn around.

Panicking, Harper yanked back, flattening herself against the wall next to the window.

Her ribs closed around her lungs.

She closed her eyes against the blinding sun, and images of that day so long ago flooded back. Sliding in the blood. Hands ice-cold and slippery.

Mom? Mommy?

It felt like her chest was going to explode. She had to breathe. She had to get out of here.

Blindly, she stumbled across the back garden, her feet clumsy where earlier they’d been so swift. She was certain everyone on the block could hear her hammering heart. Her choking breaths.

When she reached the back fence she didn’t even slow down. Using her forward velocity to propel her, she leaped up, grabbing the bar at the top and vaulting over. The sharp points of metal were blades digging into the palms of her hands and she let go too early, landing badly in the pretty backyard on the other side. Her ankle twisted with a worrying crunch, sending her sprawling into the petunias.

For a moment, she lay there amid the colorful blooms, clutching her leg and breathing in sobbing gasps.

That body. That hand, reaching out.

This was no coincidence. That murder scene looked exactly like her mother’s murder in every way.

How was that possible?




Chapter Ten (#ulink_31897fff-a2d6-51a0-aee5-73b70099685d)


When Harper limped back to the crime tape a few minutes later, the news crews were leaning against their vans, drinking coffee from cardboard cups.

Spotting her, Natalie’s eyebrows shot up. ‘What the hell happened to you?’

Harper had brushed as much of the dirt from her clothes as she could, but her ankle had begun to swell. She was hot and sweaty, her clothes clung to her back.

‘I tripped on a broken curb. Twisted my ankle.’ She made a vague gesture that she hoped said would-you-believe-it-what-a-day, and limped over to where Miles stood some distance away, watching this exchange without expression.

‘I assume that went as well as could be expected.’ His tone was dry.

‘It went fine,’ she said shortly. ‘How about at this end?’

He gave a one-shoulder shrug.

‘The TV crews are now very exercised about the lack of information.’ He gestured at her disheveled appearance. ‘What the hell happened back there? You look like you walked through a snake’s nest.’

‘I fell,’ she said, ‘coming back over the fence. That’s all.’

He stepped closer to her.

‘You got in the crime scene?’ His voice was barely above a whisper.

‘I got a look,’ she said. ‘I didn’t go in.’

He looked at her with reluctant curiosity.

‘What’d you see in there?’

In her mind Harper saw the pale body. The spreading pool of deep red. Her mother’s kitchen.

But she made herself think like a reporter.

‘The victim’s in the kitchen,’ she said evenly. ‘Looks like it’s the mother, as we thought. Seems to be only one victim – the coroner and Blazer were both in the room with her. The forensics unit is examining the body now.’

Miles knew her well enough to know she wasn’t telling him everything.

But when he spoke, all he said was, ‘She shot?’

‘Stabbed. Repeatedly.’

A flare of interest in his eyes.

‘Stabbing’s a personal crime,’ he mused, rubbing his jaw. ‘Crime of passion. They’ll be looking at the husband.’

‘I don’t think there is one.’

‘An ex-husband then. Or a boyfriend.’ He met her eyes. ‘You said this scene reminded you of another crime. Is it the same?’

Harper had promised him an explanation but now wasn’t the time to get into everything.

‘Looks a lot like it,’ she said. ‘Before I can be sure, though, I need to do some research.’ She paused. ‘The other crime … It’s an old one, Miles.’

‘How old?’

‘Fifteen years.’

His eyes left hers, sweeping down to the house in the distance.

‘Now why,’ he wondered aloud, ‘would someone kill and then not kill again for fifteen years?’

Harper didn’t reply. But it was a good question.

Why would her mother’s killer be back now? Where had he been for all these years?

Police had investigated her murder for months. Harper’s family had protected her as much as they could from what was happening but she’d known.

The investigation had torn her family to shreds. Leaving her with nothing.

And in the end, after all that, the killer got away.

‘Tell me about this old murder,’ Miles said. ‘Who was it? You would have been a child fifteen years ago.’

‘Not now.’ Harper’s reply was sharper than she intended.

When he shot her an exasperated look, she gestured at the crowds around them.

‘There’s too much going on, Miles. I promise I’ll explain. But let me do it later, OK?’

‘Fine with me.’ His tone was curt, but he seemed more perplexed than angry.

Suddenly, he straightened, hands reaching for his camera.

‘Looks like we’re about to find out something.’ He gestured with his chin.

A cluster of police had left the house and was heading for the crime tape.

Detective Blazer strode ahead of the others, his sharply structured face somber. Two less senior detectives walked behind him, along with a few uniformed cops.

Miles was already shooting pictures as the group ducked under the crime tape. The TV crews hustled to shift camera tripods into place. Josh and Natalie held out fur-covered microphones, like gigantic caterpillars, to catch his words.

Pulling a notebook from her pocket, Harper limped past the neighbors crowding around to eavesdrop, until she stood next to Natalie.

When everyone was still, Blazer spoke in a cool flat tone.

‘This afternoon at 3:30 p.m., the body of a deceased person was discovered at 3691 Constance Street. The body has been identified as that of one Marie Whitney, thirty-four years old, resident of said address. Cause of death is still being investigated by forensic units, but the weapon used appears to be a bladed instrument. The case is being treated as a homicide.’

The crowd of neighbors gave a collective gasp and drew closer together – shutting the reporters out. Harper heard someone say, ‘Oh, sweet Jesus.’

Glancing up, Blazer frowned.

‘The time of death is estimated between eleven hundred and fourteen hundred hours. We would like anyone in the area who saw or heard anything suspicious at that time to contact the Savannah Police.’

He put his notebook away. It was a remarkably short statement, under the circumstances.

‘That’s it?’ Josh looked around the team of detectives.

Blazer’s brow lowered. ‘Print it the way I said it.’

‘I don’t print anything,’ Josh reminded him tartly. ‘I put it on television.’

Blazer glowered at him.

‘May I remind you a woman was murdered today?’ he said. ‘Can’t you behave with decorum for five minutes?’

‘Detective Blazer, please forgive my colleague from Channel 5.’ Natalie deployed her most winsome look. ‘Could you, perhaps, tell us about the girl we saw earlier? Is she related to the victim?’

Nobody could resist Natalie when she was on her game, not even Blazer. His expression softened infinitesimally.

‘All I can tell you is that she is the daughter of the victim,’ he said. ‘And she’s safe and unharmed.’

‘Could you tell us her name?’ Natalie asked hopefully.

Blazer had clearly anticipated this. ‘Her name is Camille Whitney.’

Josh leaned forward, jutting his microphone out. ‘Did she discover the body?’

Blazer fixed him with an icy stare.

‘I can’t tell you any more than that at this time.’ His gaze swung back to Natalie. ‘I’m sure you’ll appreciate this is a delicate situation and we want to keep everyone – particularly children – as safe as possible.’

‘Detective.’ Harper angled herself forward. ‘Have you got any suspects?’

He glanced at her without interest. ‘We’re not yet ready to divulge that information.’

‘Could you tell us more about the crime?’ Harper tried again. ‘Were there signs of a struggle? Do you suspect a relative?’

Blazer’s jaw tightened. ‘It’s too early for this. Give us some time to do our jobs here, would you?’

‘We’re trying to do our jobs, too, Detective,’ Josh reminded him.

By then, though, Blazer had had enough.

‘Thank you for your cooperation,’ he said pointedly.

Ducking under the crime tape, he stalked back towards the yellow house, the other detectives following a short distance behind.

‘Thanks so much, Sergeant,’ Natalie called after him.

As he rolled the microphone cable around his arm, Josh shot her a withering look.

‘Kiss ass.’

Natalie smiled beatifically.

‘Of course you can kiss my ass if you’d like, Josh. All of Channel 5 can.’

‘Seriously, though.’ Josh tilted his head at the retreating backs of the police officials. ‘What was that about? He didn’t give us anything.’

Miles appeared at Harper’s side, his phone in one hand. The puzzled look he’d worn since she’d insisted on seeing the crime scene was still there.

‘That’s all we’re going to get out here, today, I reckon. I’m heading back to the newsroom,’ he said, distance in his voice. ‘Baxter wants you in, too. Says you need the story before six for the website.’

She nodded. ‘On my way.’

He paused, staring down at the yellow house. ‘That was a short statement, wasn’t it? He didn’t say much.’

Grabbing her keys, Harper turned to limp to her car.

‘He said plenty.’

Back at the newsroom, she wrote up a quick article for the early edition. Miles sat a few desks away from her, pointedly not looking at her as he edited his photos. Harper knew she’d have to give him some sort of explanation for what had transpired out on Constance Street, but there wasn’t time now.

Still, the practical work of putting together the scant facts the police had been willing to share steadied her. When she finished writing, though, the article was far too short. She needed to know more.

Pushing other papers out of the way, Harper flipped through her notes from the crime scene. Hadn’t the neighbors said Whitney worked at a university?

Savannah had two colleges – the Savannah College of Art and Design and Savannah State University. The art school was downtown, not far from where Harper lived. It was funky and modern, populated mostly by tattooed kids from wealthy northern families.

The university was out in the suburbs. It attracted working-class Georgia kids looking for a smaller school closer to home than UGA in Athens.

Harper wasn’t immediately certain which one the neighbors meant.

With quick sure movements, she typed Whitney’s name and the name of the local college into the computer. The search brought up a page on the Savannah State University website with an image of a slim, polished woman. Her shoulder-length hair was honey blonde, forming a striking contrast with her warm, brown eyes. She had a wide, Miss America smile.

Under her picture the caption read: ‘Marie Whitney, Vice Chair for Development and Enrichment’.

Leaning closer, Harper stared at the image. It was hard to believe this was the same woman she’d seen earlier that day.

Death takes away everything that makes you distinctive. Everything that makes you who you are.

Dead, Whitney had been anonymous. Pale skin on the cold floor – a hand reaching out imploringly.

Alive, she’d looked electric. She was almost hypnotically beautiful – cinnamon eyes and flawless golden skin warm and glowing with life.

If Harper was looking for parallels between Whitney and her mother, she wasn’t going to find any in their appearance.

Her mother had been beautiful, yes. But Harper could hardly remember a time when she wore makeup. Her long red hair had usually been twisted up and held haphazardly in place with a paintbrush or pencil. She’d favored faded jeans with torn knees and was usually barefoot when she worked.

There was nothing to connect her, physically at least, to this polished woman.

Still, there were obvious elements linking the two. They were both in their thirties. Both were mothers. Both were about the same age when they were killed. Both were stabbed multiple times in their homes in daylight crimes. Both were found naked, on the kitchen floor. Both were discovered by their twelve-year-old daughters after school.

It wasn’t enough to go on and Harper knew it. But it wasn’t nothing, either.

‘Is that her?’

Baxter’s sharp voice made Harper jump. The editor had walked up without her noticing. She peered over her shoulder at the image on the screen.

‘Uh … Yeah. That’s her,’ Harper said, clearing her throat. ‘I’m trying to figure out what Development and Enrichment means.’

‘Money,’ Baxter said. ‘It’s a long-winded way of saying “fund-raising”.’ She straightened. ‘Find DJ and get him to call the university and ask permission for us to use that.’ The editor tapped her fingertip against Marie Whitney’s face. ‘Tell him to get a high-res version for print. I’ll let art know.’

She hustled off, her low heels clicking on the terrazzo floor.

When she was gone, Harper didn’t immediately search for DJ. Instead, she searched for more information on Whitney.

She was mentioned in a few articles about the college, mostly as a minor player. There was only one piece of any length – an over-excited article in the university newspaper, The Caller. It had been written two years earlier and was headlined: Whitney Brings in Big Bucks.

Fundraiser extraordinaire, Marie Whitney, 32, is being credited with organizing a campaign that has so far brought a whopping $4.3 million to the school’s coffers.

Whitney has arranged gala balls, celebrity concerts and art sales, together with an online campaign. Thanks in large part to her efforts, the school has exceeded its annual fundraising goal of $3.8 million by over half a million dollars.

Ever cheerful, Whitney is popular with other workers in the Development Office, for her bubbly personality as well as her can-do attitude.

‘Everyone loves Marie,’ her boss Ellen Janeworth said, when interviewed. ‘She’s a dream to work with. There’s nothing she won’t do for the university.’

Whitney told us she was delighted by her recent success.

‘I loved my time at college,’ she said, smiling. ‘It was the high point of my life. I want to make sure future students – including my own daughter – have the chances I had.’

The article was illustrated with a candid picture of Marie, standing on the portico of the university’s administration building. She wore a white pencil skirt and a blue, snug-fitting top. Her skin was unlined. Her lipstick was a conservative, delicate pink. She was smiling that same perfect smile.

Harper stared at that picture for a long time.

There was so much that didn’t make sense. What connected Whitney to her mother? Who would have wanted to kill both of them?

And, if the same person killed them both, what had made him come back now?




Chapter Eleven (#ulink_5b26f4ee-1a5a-5bdc-b281-0c9c47e87076)


Two hours later, Harper walked out of the darkening city through the heavy glass door into the police station. The entrance hall was empty at this hour and her footsteps echoed in the hollow quiet. Her ankle still ached from her fall earlier, but she was no longer limping. The air conditioning felt like ice against her skin.

Dwayne Josephs looked up from the screen of the small TV that sat underneath the top of the broad modern reception desk. Seeing her, his face brightened.

‘Harper! I heard y’all got y’allselves a live one,’ he said, his tone meaningful. ‘Got everyone here in an uproar. Like someone killed the president.’

Dwayne was dark-skinned and as skinny as daytime receptionist Darlene was curvy. He was six feet tall but his arms and legs still seemed too long for his body, a fact that imbued him with the endearing gawkiness of a teenager, although Harper reckoned he had to be at least thirty-five.

She’d known him for years and she knew how much he loved to gossip. At the moment, she needed information, and she was hoping he’d have something she could use. But she had to play this carefully. As much as Dwayne loved gossip, he also hated breaking the rules. So the trick was to get him to talk without realizing he was saying anything he shouldn’t.

Harper tried to strike a note somewhere between interested and not too interested.

‘Really? Why are they in an uproar?’

Leaning against the counter, Dwayne lowered his voice conspiratorially.

‘Well. Blazer went through here a while ago cussin’ a bluestreak,’ he confided with breathless reproach. ‘F-this and F-that.’

Aware that Dwayne had a close and fervent relationship with his church, Harper shook her head disapprovingly.

‘Did he now? My goodness, that’s not like him.’ It was like Blazer actually, but she also knew Dwayne liked to think the best of everyone. ‘What was he so upset about?’

‘Said the TV reporters were vipers crawlin’ all over his crime scene and talkin’ the b-word.’

It took Harper a second to figure out that ‘talking the b-word’ probably meant ‘talking bullshit’. She could readily imagine Blazer coming up with that one.

‘Really?’ She tried to look aghast.

‘Said they were tryin’ to trip him up.’ Dwayne warmed to his topic. ‘Make him say something wrong. Get him in trouble. Said there’s a killer out there who’s a professional and they ought to be worried about that instead of wastin’ his time.’

Harper’s heart jumped. She had to look away so he wouldn’t see the excitement in her face.

‘A professional?’ She pretended to dig in her bag for something. ‘In Savannah? Is he crazy?’

Dwayne didn’t notice the tight edge to her voice.

‘He ain’t crazy,’ he assured her. ‘Everyone’s sayin’ it. No fingerprints. No footprints. No DNA.’

Harper pulled out her lip balm as if that was what she’d been looking for all along. Her eyes glanced off of his.

‘So they don’t have any suspects at all?’

It was a step too far. Dwayne paused, biting his lower lip.

‘I don’t know about that,’ he said, suddenly cagey. ‘You’d best ask Detective Blazer.’

His brow lowering, he took a step back from the counter.

‘Yeah, I really should.’ She kept her tone easy, meticulously applying the lip balm and then dropping it in her bag. ‘Is he in?’

He shook his head. ‘He’s at the morgue.’

This was fine with Harper. There was no point in talking to Blazer. He’d give her nothing. But someone else might help.

‘What about the lieutenant?’ she asked.

Relief suffused Dwayne’s features. He hated to tell her no.

‘He’s in his office,’ he said. ‘I’ll buzz you through.’

She headed for the security door. ‘Thanks a lot, Dwayne.’

It was after seven and the long, narrow hallway, busy during the day with uniformed police carrying files, dispatchers heading off to get coffee, and detectives strolling to interview rooms, was quiet.

As she walked, Harper worked through the information Dwayne had unknowingly revealed.

A professional killer? What did that mean? A hitman? Or just someone who’d killed before?

And if it was the latter, why couldn’t it be the same person who killed her mother fifteen years ago?

Smith’s door was near the end of the hallway. The lights glowed softly through the frosted-glass window as Harper approached.

He wasn’t usually in this late. The Whitney case must be keeping him busy.

She knocked once.

‘Enter,’ he called gruffly.

When she stepped in, she saw surprise on his face. Closing the folder on his desk, he set a paperweight – a heavy bronze golf ball – on top of it.

‘Harper.’ He didn’t sound thrilled. ‘I figured you’d be busy writing up that homicide.’

‘I am. That’s why I’m here. I need to talk to you.’

He gave her a warning look.

‘Now, listen, you know I can’t help you with an active investigation …’

She held up her hands. ‘I know. But still. There’s something I need to ask you.’

Without waiting for an invitation, she closed the door and sat in one of the chairs facing his desk and leaned toward him.

‘The girl I saw you with today – Camille Whitney – is she OK?’

Some of the sternness left his expression.

‘She’s fine, Harper. You know we’ll look after her.’

She did know. She knew exactly what would happen to Camille now. How police would try to keep her distracted, plying her with soft drinks she didn’t want and coloring books she was too old for, until social workers and family could spirit her away to some inadequate kind of safety.

‘Is that all you wanted?’ Smith asked, when she didn’t speak again.

‘I just …’ she paused, looking down at the notebook in her hand. ‘Seeing her today. With you. It was so similar to what happened. Back then.’

Smith shifted the golf-ball paperweight across the folder.

‘I thought the same thing when I saw her,’ he said gruffly. ‘My first thought was it was too much like you.’

‘Lieutenant, do you think …’ Harper paused, gathering her courage. ‘Did it look to you like the same person who killed my mother, killed Marie Whitney?’

An odd look crossed Smith’s face then. A kind of visceral shock – as if she’d slapped him.

‘What the hell kind of question is that?’

His deep baritone voice was the low, ominous rumble of thunder in the distance.

‘Could you answer it?’ Harper looked at him pleadingly.

Smith shook his head.

‘Harper, no. Trust me – all those two crimes have in common is a girl coming home from school.’

His tone was firm – irrefutable. But she knew that wasn’t true at all.

She wasn’t sure how to play this. She couldn’t explain what she knew without revealing she’d seen the crime scene. And then he was going to want to know how exactly she’d managed that.

But she didn’t have much choice.

‘Are you sure? Whitney was found in the kitchen, right?’ She tried to sound confused but not challenging. ‘Naked and lying on the floor. Stabbed repeatedly. Lieutenant, that’s exactly like my mother.’

His eyes widened. She could sense him preparing an argument, so she launched into all the questions that had filled her mind in the last two hours.

‘What kind of knife did he use? Was it the same kind used on my mother? Have you compared the cases? If it’s the same guy, why—’

‘Harper stop.’ Smith’s big, craggy face reddened. ‘How the hell do you know where the body was found? None of those facts have been released to the press and I’ll be damned if Blazer told you. That man would sooner kiss a rattlesnake than talk to a reporter.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she argued. ‘What matters is whether the same person killed Marie Whitney as—’

‘Enough,’ he snapped, cutting her off again. ‘You don’t get to ask the questions. I do. Now, you have somehow accessed information you should not have about a murder case under investigation. As head of the homicide division I am ultimately responsible for that crime scene. And I will know who gave you those details, or I will be on the phone to your editor to get her over here to explain for you.’

Harper swallowed hard.

Now and then she got small glimpses of what it must be like to be a murder suspect interviewed by him. His narrow blue eyes were so steely and penetrating it hurt to look at them. It was as if he could see through her to her soul.

‘I saw the crime scene,’ she confessed.

Smith rubbed his forehead tiredly.

‘Oh, wonderful. And how, exactly, did you manage that?’

‘Through the window,’ she said. ‘I happened to get a quick glance. That’s it.’

‘Happened to get a quick glance?’ Smith cocked his head, eyeing her with open suspicion. ‘Which window?’

‘One of the back ones.’ She tilted one shoulder. ‘Does it matter?’

‘Hell, yes, it matters. Because the only way to see through those windows …’

With a silent apology to Miles, Harper said, ‘… is with a long-range camera lens from the backyard of a helpful neighbor. Yes. And that is not illegal, Lieutenant. As you well know.’

His mouth snapped shut.

There was a pause as they both sat staring each other down across the vast desk.

Finally, he blinked.

‘Harper, why did you do that? This isn’t like you.’ The anger had left his voice, replaced by weariness. ‘You know you’ve got no business spying on an active homicide investigation.’

This time Harper didn’t have to think up a good lie.

‘I saw Camille,’ she said. ‘I saw her standing next to you, and it was like looking at myself. I had to know if the crimes were the same. And they were.’

The lieutenant sagged in his seat.

‘It’s not the same,’ he insisted. ‘That girl isn’t you.’

‘Lieutenant, please.’ Harper leaned forward. ‘I have to know why this crime scene looked so much like my mother’s. I don’t want to fight with you. I need to understand what’s happening. This is for me, not the newspaper. For me.’ She pressed a hand hard against her chest. ‘Do you think the same person committed both murders? Is my mother’s killer back?’

Deep lines scored the skin above Smith’s eyes as he studied her with grave understanding.

‘I’m so sorry, Harper,’ he said gently. ‘The same person did not commit both murders.’

Some tiny strand of hope or fear that had wrapped itself around Harper’s heart from the moment she first saw Camille standing on the street hours earlier, let go. And she hated to see it leave.

She felt numb. She’d been so sure.

‘You’re certain?’ Her voice was airless.

‘I’m certain.’ He leaned forward. ‘Now, look. I’m not denying there are striking similarities with your mother’s case. But there are differences, too, Harper. Significant differences.’

‘What differences?’

‘The type of weapon used, the angle of the wounds, the force used in the attack – it all indicates a different person committed this crime,’ he said. ‘This person is taller than your mother’s murderer. He’s heavier. The wounds were less efficient, more tentative – Whitney had more defensive wounds, so she had more of a chance to fight. This all points to a different killer.’

He spoke with confidence. Evidence was where he was comfortable. It’s where all detectives are most at home. Building a case from a hundred microscopic individual strands, like an architect designing a building one pencil-stroke at a time.

Harper couldn’t argue with evidence.

‘There are enough differences in this scene to reassure me that those superficial similarities are no more than coincidences,’ he continued. ‘Listen, if you stick around in this business long enough, you get to see the same kind of murder happen again. There are only so many ways to kill.’

Harper tried to think of something to say, but all the fight left her. She kept seeing Marie Whitney – her hand flung out, fingers curled. And her own mother, still and cold.

‘Oh,’ she said softly.

‘Harper,’ the lieutenant looked concerned. ‘Are you OK? You need something? Some water?’

‘No …’ she told him. ‘I mean … I’m fine.’

It wasn’t true. She wanted to ask him about what Blazer had said, about the killer being a professional, and what did that mean but, suddenly, she felt suffocated in this windowless room. She had to get out.

She stood abruptly, shoving the chair back so hard it skidded harshly on the floor. Smith looked startled.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, backing to the door. ‘I have to get to the newsroom. Deadlines.’

Smith nodded. ‘Of course.’

But he stood up behind his desk, as if deciding whether or not to follow her as she fumbled with the door.

In the open doorway she stopped and looked back at him. He hadn’t moved, but his eyes were worried.

‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Really.’ Remembering their agreed lunch plans, she added hurriedly, ‘I’ll see you Sunday, OK?’

Before he could reply, she yanked the door open and ran out into the hallway, rushing to the security doors and out into the warm summer night.




Chapter Twelve (#ulink_22c969ad-5115-5fc1-bcc9-795d440018a9)


Five hours later, just after midnight, Harper stood in front of a converted warehouse on a cobblestoned lane at the edge of the river squinting at the numbered buttons in the dark.

The light above the door had gone out two weeks ago and no one had fixed it yet. One of these days she was going to come down here with a screwdriver and replace that damn bulb herself.

Finding number twelve, she hit it hard and waited, staring at the camera above the door. Her right leg jittered with ill-concealed impatience.

Now that she was here, she wanted to get this over with.

‘Jackson.’ Through the tinny speaker, Miles’ voice sounded crisp and cautious.

‘It’s me,’ she told the camera. ‘Obviously.’

With a deep, mechanical clunk, the heavy steel door unlocked and swung silently inward.

Inside, she crossed a spacious, empty lobby, past over-sized pots holding glossy palms and ficus trees that seemed small in the cavernous space. The owners had kept the original pitted and worn stone floor, polishing it up to make it look a bit more like a home and less like what it had been for more than a hundred years – a giant holding area for crates of cotton and tobacco, sweet potatoes and sugarcane.

Even now, despite all the developer’s efforts cleaning and glossing and polishing, she thought she could detect the faintest scent of ancient field dust in the artificially cooled air.

The elevator opened as soon as she pressed the call button. They’d gone for a post-industrial look here, with walls made of sheets of metal that looked like someone had punched it repeatedly until it behaved.

As the lift rose, she leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes. Her stomach grumbled loud enough to be heard above the elevator’s pulleys. She hadn’t eaten anything since her interrupted lunch at Eric’s. There’d been no time.

Once she’d returned from the police station, she’d spent hours putting together a complete news package about Marie Whitney for the final edition. DJ had stayed late to help.

The headline – Murder Shocks Peaceful Neighborhood – was mediocre, in Harper’s opinion. But it was, at least, accurate.

Miles hadn’t told anyone about Harper’s behavior at the crime scene. Now, she was here to give him the explanation she’d promised.

On the fourth floor, the doors swept open with a soft shushing sound, revealing a dimly lit, wide hallway with exposed brick walls. The door to number twelve stood ajar.

She walked in, shutting the door behind her. A husky blues singer’s voice streamed from speakers.

‘Hello?’

The loft apartment had soaring ceilings and a floor made of wide planks of reclaimed oak. Huge windows lined one wall, framing the glittering lights of downtown Savannah and the undulating dark swirl of the river.

The living room, dining room and kitchen were all one space. His furniture was modern – leather and chrome. Most of the lights were turned down low, except in the kitchen, where Miles sat at the table in the bright, clean glow of a pendulum light.

Glancing up at her, he tilted his head toward the fridge. The wire-framed glasses he wore for close-up work glittered in the light. If he was still angry at her, it didn’t show on his face.

‘Grab yourself a beer.’

He’d spread the internal parts of a camera out on clean, white paper and under a bright light was working with an array of complex tools, meticulously putting it back together.

He did this regularly; said it helped him think.

A police scanner on the counter next to the fridge buzzed and crackled loud enough to be heard above the music.

Harper pulled a bottle from the fridge.

‘I’m surprised to see you,’ Miles said, as she popped the lid with an opener he’d left on the counter. ‘Figured you’d be at Rosie’s.’





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