Kansas City Christmas (5 page)

The brooding intensity and lengthy silences made Holly wonder just what was going on behind those alert, soulful eyes. Maybe because of the air of complexity that shrouded him, this secretive, solitary man definitely intrigued her.

“My apartment’s not too far from here,” she commented when she realized she was doing more studying than talking herself.

“One of the brownstones?”

Holly nodded. That’s why she’d picked this particular place to share a conversation. While she knew
who
the detective sitting across from her was, she didn’t really know him personally. And though she found Edward Kincaid the most interesting mystery to solve of the day, the practical experience of watching her younger sister allow one wrong man after another into her life—just to ensure her next fix—had taught Holly that acting impulsively on this strange attraction to the taciturn detective might not be the wisest move she could make. If things got too weird, she could quickly duck out and get home to the safety and serenity of her own place. “I live on one of the hills south of Brush Creek Boulevard, so I’ve got a great view of all the Christmas lights.”

He didn’t respond to that. After savoring a long drink from his mug, he shifted the conversation back to his reason for asking to meet her in the first place. “When you performed your autopsy on my father, was there any indication that he’d been wearing a ring?”

So much for getting acquainted. She’d already guessed that his raspy, low-pitched voice was a permanent thing—due to injury or surgery of some kind, not a temporary cold. And closer observation had shown her that his chocolate brown beard wasn’t unkempt, after all. Instead, the scraggly effect was actually a normal midnight shadow coming in around a splash of scars that dotted his jawline and right cheek.

On the outside, she was learning about—and unexpectedly liking—Edward Kincaid. But no way was he going to let her see the man behind the eyes.

She reminded herself that this wasn’t a date. He wanted to pick her brain about autopsies and corrupted lab reports.

“Let’s see.” Holly sipped her tea and sorted through the information inside her head. The kind of details he wanted had been deleted from her file by the virus, but she retained a mental image of every victim she’d ever worked on in her head and her heart. In her memory, she gently traveled over John Kincaid’s bruised and broken body, stretched out beneath the bright lights of her lab. “He had a wedding ring on his left hand.”

Edward sipped his coffee and nodded. “Mom insisted he be buried with it. Could there have been a second ring?”

Her eyes closed and she drifted back in time to her lab. She tried to picture each hand in her mind. No indentations at the base of any finger, indicating the habitual wearing of any other jewelry. But a remembered notation popped into her head and she opened her eyes. “Wait.” She set her cup in its saucer and leaned forward, gesturing across the back of her neck. “There was a long, thin abrasion at his nape. I thought it might be related to the beating he took. He’d been tied up so…”

A muscle ticked along his jaw as Edward pressed his lips into a thin grim line.

Holly instinctively reached across the table, cursing her own careless words. “I am so sorry.” Just as quickly, she curled her fingers into her palm and drew them back. He was here for information, not sympathy. “It’s a professional thing,” she explained. “I have to stay clinical when I make these kinds of reports—so emotional reactions don’t clog my perception of things—but I know it’s personal for you. You don’t want to hear—”

“I want to hear anything that can help.” His words indicated that he’d learned to detach his emotions from his job as well. “Tell me about the mark on his neck.”

For a moment, Holly was struck by the sheer strength of will it took to go through everything Edward Kincaid had suffered and still be able to get up in the morning, much less carry on a conversation or run an investigation into something so personal, so violent. Maybe she’d just gotten her first glimpse inside the man.

And maybe she’d better shut off her speculation and any resulting compassion or admiration. He clearly didn’t want to deal with his emotions. Holly took another sip of the tea that had grown tasteless on her tongue and continued. “I wish I could review my notes to be sure, but if I remember correctly, the mark was made postmortem. Something like that could be caused by tearing a necklace off someone’s neck. Could your father have been wearing the ring on a chain?”

“It’s possible. If the ring was something he’d had for a while, then it might not fit his fingers anymore. I never knew him to wear one. But then…” he leaned back against the black vinyl seat, “I dropped out of his life for a while.” After losing his wife and daughter to a vengeful André Butler, that was probably an understatement. “I didn’t even know he was looking into Z Group on his own time, so, why would I know about changes in the style of jewelry he wore?”

“Z Group? Your brother Atticus mentioned that when I was working a Jane Doe murder investigation with him. He thought she was connected to your father’s murder—that they both had worked for the same security organization at one time. They were both killed with two shots—head and heart. Both with the same unique type of bullet.”

Edward nodded. “Disintegrators. I’d love to get my hands on one—see if I can find anything that matches it on the underground market.”

“I have a few samples in my lab. But the breakdown rate is extreme once they enter the body and react with our biological chemicals.” It amazed as much as sickened her to think that someone had created something that could be deadly one moment, then decompose beyond recognition the next. “You’re welcome to come by and look at one, though I don’t know how much good it would do you. I guess that’s the point of making them in the first place—so someone can commit a crime and not leave a trail that can be traced.”

“I intend to follow that trail all the way to the source.” Edward’s gaze zoomed in on hers. “I need you to understand something, Doctor.”

Holly nearly had to hold her breath to keep from looking away from the piercing sensation of those eyes. “Okay?”

“If I have to break the law to do this, I am going to find out who killed my father.”

There was no question that he meant every dramatic word. “You’d give up your badge?”

He braced his elbows on the table, steepled his fingers together at his scarred-up chin and leaned forward, eating up the space in the booth. “I don’t know how much my badge is worth anymore since it got my wife and daughter killed. But I know what justice is worth.” A chill of destiny—or maybe doom—washed over her, raising a sea of goose bumps across her skin. “If you don’t want to help me, I understand. I don’t want to jeopardize anyone’s career but my own—not my brothers’, not yours.” Holly couldn’t help it, she crossed her arms in front of her and tried to hug some warmth into her body. “But I owe this to my dad. I intend to do whatever it takes to put an end to Z Group and to prove who killed him.”

It still stuck in Holly’s craw that someone—most likely from Z Group—had hacked into her computer files and deleted key elements of reports relating to the murders of John Kincaid and others. She was always thorough, always precise. But now there were gaping holes in her work. Court orders, exhumation of bodies and second autopsies would allow her to replace most of that missing information—if the bodies hadn’t degraded and embalming hadn’t altered lingering evidence. But unless there was a new lead on a case, KCPD and the D.A.’s office hadn’t been inclined to budget the expense or put the victims’ families through any more pain or false hopes. She’d love the chance to make things right, to stamp a
Closed
on every corrupted investigation file. Reclaiming the accuracy of her work was a gut-deep need that could put professional and personal frustrations and insecurities to rest.

But to skip protocols or break the law to find her own satisfaction or personal vindication?

“Are you asking me to do something illegal for you?”

His steely eyes didn’t blink. “I’m asking you to turn the other way if
I
have to.”

Then this meeting was over. Holly began to slip into her coat and gather her things. “What kind of cop are you?”

No longer pretending that this had been some kind of consultation between KCPD and the crime lab, Edward pulled some bills from his wallet and tossed them onto the table. “My father’s badge was never recovered from the kidnapping or murder sites. Let’s just say getting that badge back is more important than keeping my own.”

Holly shook her head before pulling her stocking cap on over her hair. After living with the uncertain future of being orphaned in college and the frightening second-guessing and guilt of raising a sister with a drug addiction, she demanded honesty and dependability in her world. Her science was safe—there were answers and rules. She couldn’t risk the hard-won security of her life. Not even to solve a difficult case. Not even if the man asking her to break the rules had already touched something feminine and compassionate inside her. “It’s late. I’d better be getting home.”

“I’ll walk you to your car.”

Holly slid out of the booth to button her coat. “That’s all right. I can take care of myself. Thanks for the tea.”

Then she realized it had been a statement of fact, not a polite offer. Edward Kincaid moved surprisingly fast for a man who used a cane. Before she could wrap her scarf around her neck and grab her purse, he was out of the booth beside her, shrugging into his coat. “My father taught me to always walk a lady to her car this time of night.”

No sense endangering herself, just to make a point. “All right. Thank you.”

The guiding touch of his hand at the small of her back was warmer than the layers of wool and cotton she wore. The unexpected warmth was almost as unsettling as the bite of wind that hit her face when she pushed open the door.

His touch shifted but remained as Edward positioned himself to take the brunt of the wind. Like so many other couples around them, they strolled the wide sidewalks toward her car a couple of blocks away. The setting was festive and romantic, with the brightly colored lights overhead and swirling gusts of snow at their feet.

But there was nothing romantic about their conversation. “I don’t want to deny you access to information that can help you find your father’s killer.”

“I appreciate that. Atticus and Sawyer said you’d been helpful in their investigations, so I thought you’d be the best place to start looking for answers.”

Holly hunched her shoulders against the cold, wondering if she should shorten her stride to accommodate the slight limp in his right leg. But, as before, he didn’t complain, didn’t lag behind, and, when she snuck a sideways glance toward the grizzled line of his jaw, she saw that he wasn’t grimacing in any kind of pain. So she just kept walking. He kept his hand at her back.

And scanned the street from side to side, marking each face as they passed, peeking into alleyways and between parked cars.

“Are you looking for someone?”

“Old habit.” He nodded toward a vehicle about half a block away. “You’re the silver Honda, right.”

“Right.” Old habit? As in, this hyperwatchfulness, ingrained from his time spent working undercover, was just a part of his everyday life now? Or was there something specific that had put him on guard tonight? Holly found herself paying a little more attention to the other people around them. “Believe me, I’d love to see your father’s case put to rest and someone on trial for the crime. By all accounts, John was a good man—a well-respected leader in the department.”

“He was.”

Holly stopped beside her car and turned in front of him, putting up a warning hand. “But just so we’re clear. If I find anything missing from my lab, any file copied, any evidence corrupted, I
will
report you.”

“Skinny as a stick but you pack a punch.” Was that a hint of a smile on his lips? His idea of a compliment? And when had he been sizing up her figure?

Probably the same time she’d been sizing up his.

“KCPD hasn’t had a lot of luck going by the book on Dad’s case.” He switched the cane to his left hand and held up his right. “I promise to do everything I can by the rules—and I’ll take any help you can give me. But mark my words—I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to bring in his killer.”

“Anything?” she asked. “As is legal or not?”

“Anything.”

Fine. So no guarantees from this man.
Tuck your fascination away. Put your curiosity aside. Keep everything strictly business with Edward Kincaid. Say good-night.

Holly extended her hand. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Detective…Edward.”

“No, it hasn’t.” But his black leather glove wrapped around her green woolen one, anyway, swallowing her handshake up in his grip.

“Yes, it…”
Pull away.
She didn’t. “Well, it was between the I-thought-you-were-going-to-attack-me-in-the-garage part and the breaking-the-law part. It
has
been an interesting night.”

“Why, Dr. Masterson, I do believe you have a sense of humor.”

Holly bristled. What was with the analysis of her ability to make or get a joke tonight? She released his hand and opened her purse to unclip her keys. “Come by the lab tomorrow if you want to see the bullet. But I’m not letting it—or you—out of my sight.”

Her cell phone rang and everything inside Holly instantly tensed. It rang a second time, and she wondered if it was worth pulling it out to read the all-too-familiar number.

“You need to get that?”

“No, I…” She’d answered too quickly. “At this time of night?”

“Could be a call to a crime scene.”

“I’m off duty.”

“Family emergency?”

Jillian. What if it
was
her sister calling for advice—or rescue.

Holly’s deep breath clouded the air between them. When it cleared, she saw patient expectation in his expression. He wouldn’t walk away until she answered it now. On the fifth ring, she pulled the phone from her purse and looked at the number.