Unforgivable (9 page)

Jonah was in a black mood, like Ric. Maybe it was Frank’s upcoming funeral. Maybe it was the stalled investigation into who killed one of their own. Maybe it was the fact that they’d spent the better part of their Sunday trying unsuccessfully to figure out who had raped and murdered two women barely out of their teens. Ric wasn’t sure what it was, but he should have known that letting himself get talked into a round of beers tonight wasn’t going to help.

“Heads up,” Jonah said, looking over Ric’s shoulder.

He turned around to see Mia step through the door and fold a coat over her arm. She wore jeans and Ugg boots and a thick white sweater that in no way accentuated her amazing body. And yet she looked hot. How was that possible?

Her gaze scanned the line of bar stools and came to rest on him.

“Shit,” Ric muttered as she crossed the bar. She had that look in her eye, a look he recognized. Dr. Voss was on a mission.

She stopped beside their stools. “Detective Macon, Ric.”

“It’s Jonah.” He sent Ric a look, then started to offer Mia his seat.

“No, don’t get up.” She turned to Ric. “I saw your truck outside. Could we talk for a minute?” She glanced around the crowded bar, which, as usual, was packed with off-duty cops and emergency workers. El Patio was one of the few watering holes in town that didn’t cater to the college crowd. That plus the fact that it was located near the police station made it a hangout.

The bar erupted as the Eagles threw an interception. Mia watched Ric patiently, oblivious to the excitement. Not a football fan, evidently. And he could tell she wanted to talk to him in private.

“Let’s go outside,” he said. “They’ve got heaters.”

“That’s fine.”

Jonah gave him a look.
Are you crazy? The ball’s on the five-yard line.
Ric ignored him as he picked up his beer and led Mia to the patio. It was mostly smokers tonight because of the cold. He stopped at the outdoor bar to order a Bud Light while Mia claimed a picnic table that had just been vacated.

Ric slid the beer in front of her, then straddled the bench and sat down facing her. She was frowning at her phone.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“You know Vince Moore?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s called twice tonight. Maybe it’s something about the case.”

“It’s not.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m the lead investigator. He’s calling to ask you out. Do yourself a favor, and say no.”

She watched him warily as she tucked the phone back inside her purse.

Ric sipped his beer. He needed a change of subject. “How’s Sam?”

“Vivian picked him up this afternoon,” she said, not really answering. Ric figured the kid was fine—it was Mia he wasn’t sure of.

“Anything more on the man from the zoo?” she asked.

“No.”

She bit her lip and looked away. Ric set his beer on the table and waited. A breeze kicked up, and he smelled something sweet and feminine underneath the cigarette smoke wafting over from the next table. Mia’s perfume. He recognized it from months ago, although he hadn’t even realized she wore perfume until just that moment.

“I want to ask you something,” she said, “even though it might sound weird.”

“All right.”

“Do you ever dream about your cases?”

He took a second to answer. “It’s happened before, I guess. Why?” He watched her, hoping she wasn’t going to launch into some discussion about psychic detective work. She’d never struck him as the type to believe in all that crap, but maybe she did. He couldn’t picture it, though. Mia was a scientist.

“The case you brought me—”

“From Friday,” he confirmed.

“Yes, the Ashley Meyer homicide. I went into work today and looked at the evidence again.”

Ric wasn’t surprised she’d been at work on a Sunday. She worked the same kind of hours he did—endless. He waited for her to get to the point as she peeled the label off her beer bottle and made a little pile of scraps on the table. She started to say something, then stopped herself.

“What’s on your mind, Mia?”

She looked up at him. “Did I ever tell you I got my start in Fort Worth? I spent a year at the crime lab up there right after grad school.”

“I think you mentioned it once.” And if she hadn’t, he’d known anyway. He’d checked out her background when they’d worked together on a cold case last summer. She’d gone from Fort Worth to the state crime lab before landing her job at the Delphi Center.

“There was this case about six years ago,” she said. “One of the first ones I worked all by myself. It was a sexual homicide. The victim, Laura Thorne, was nineteen. She disappeared from a party one night and was found in some nearby woods a few days later. The duct tape used to bind her hands came through our laboratory. Her clothes, too. I tested everything. Couldn’t recover anything from the perpetrator, only the victim.”

“Was she stabbed?” Ric asked, now seeing where this was going.

“Fifty-three times. There were slashes all over her dress.”

“Piquerism,” he said.

“Exactly.” Mia shook her head. “Anyway, the case
made an impression on me. I still think about it a lot. Sometimes I even dream about her, and she’s wearing those putrid clothes.” Mia shivered, and he didn’t think it was because of the weather.

“Some cases stick with you.” He wasn’t sure what else to say. Sometimes he’d wake up in a cold sweat thinking about a crime scene. Only there was usually some sick twist to it, such as the victim wasn’t the victim but Ava. Or his mom. Or even his ex-wife. The worst part wasn’t the scene but the suffocating feeling of getting there just a few minutes too late.

“I think the cases might be connected.”

Ric raised his eyebrows.

“I know what you’re going to say,” she hurried to add. “There are a lot of stabbing victims. Duct tape is common. I know all that. But I think you should check into it.”

Ric took his time answering, choosing his words carefully. Mia was the most talented DNA expert he’d ever worked with, both in the lab and on the witness stand. With a little finesse, he could get her to turn his lab work around in record time. Besides the district attorney, who liked him, Mia was probably his best contact. No, she was definitely his best contact, because she couldn’t get booted out of office the way the DA could, which meant that she was with him for the long haul. And he couldn’t afford to jeopardize her help by balking at her theory.

He also couldn’t afford to sleep with her, no matter how much he wanted to. It would be a disaster on every front—professionally, personally. Maybe not sexually, but that didn’t make up for the other two.

He thought of that kiss last night. It had been over before it started, before he’d even gotten a good taste.

“Will you check into it?” Her blue eyes looked hopeful now.

“I can take a look. Like you said, though, stabbing and duct tape are pretty common. Is there something else you noticed … ?” Ric let the question dangle, not wanting to ask if there was anything else that would make a rational person think these two cases might be connected.

“Isn’t that enough?”

“Honestly? No. If it was an unusual kind of tape, maybe. But it looked like plain silver duct tape to me. You guys should be able to run it down, find out if that’s true.”

Mia sighed, frustrated. “It’s just, I don’t know, a feeling I get when I look at the evidence. Like the crimes
feel
the same, you know? The same kind of impulse behind them or something.”

Ric just stared at her.

“Don’t you ever follow your instincts?” she asked.

“Absolutely.”

“That’s all I’m asking you to do here.”

Hell, what could it hurt? If nothing else, it would keep his best contact at the Delphi Center in his corner. “All right, I’ll check into it,” he told her.

She looked relieved, as if he’d lifted a weight off her shoulders.

“Thank you.” She stood and collected her purse. “You have something to write on? I’ll tell you the case number.”

“You’ve got it in your head? From six years ago?”

“I told you, it made an impression on me.”

Ric pulled out the notebook he kept in his jacket pocket and jotted down the number she recited. Six years ago. As cold cases went, this one was in deep freeze.

“You need to compartmentalize,” he said, tucking the notebook away. “Trust me, you let yourself get emotional about this stuff, you’ll drive yourself crazy.”

“I compartmentalize fine,” she said defensively. “And I’m not emotional, I’m just sharing a potential lead.” She glanced at the door, and he knew she wanted to escape before he gave her any more advice.

“Lemme walk you out.” Ric steered her back through the bar and out to the parking lot, where he spotted her subcompact pulled up beside his pickup. The white Aveo could have fit into his truck bed.

“They couldn’t rent you a real car?”

She opened the driver’s-side door and slid in. “It’s from their Green Collection.” She shot a disapproving look at his F-250. “Gets good gas mileage.”

“Cheapest one they had, huh?”

“That, too.”

“Your Jeep’s been on the hot list for three days now. Chances aren’t good we’re going to recover it. You should go ahead and talk to your insurance company.”

“I’m working on it.”

Ric scanned the parking lot. There was a guy sitting in his SUV talking on the phone, but Ric saw the SMPD sticker on the back of his car and dismissed him as a threat.

His gaze settled again on Mia and the turtleneck sweater that covered everything up to her chin. He had the sudden urge to warm his hands under it.

“Want me to follow you home?” he asked.

“That’s not necessary. I’m armed and dangerous.”

“Seriously? You’re packing?”

She’d told him once that she hated guns, which must
still be true, because she reached under her seat and pulled out a can of Mace that could fell a grizzly bear.

Ric whistled. “Damn, you don’t fool around.” He’d do a drive-by anyway, same as he’d done every night since her attack. He wasn’t sure when her safety had become his personal responsibility, but he intended to keep an eye on her until they figured out who was behind Thursday’s shooting.

He leaned an arm on the roof of her car and gazed down at her and suddenly wanted nothing more than to follow her home and get her out of that sweater.

“Call me if you need anything,” he said.

She started the car and smiled ruefully, as if she’d read his thoughts. “How about I call you when I get those DNA results back? And guess what—you don’t even have to buy me coffee this time.”

CHAPTER 7

Mia navigated her way through the scrub brush, keeping a sharp eye out for body parts. Cadaver sites were supposed to be marked off with caution tape, but coyotes and other scavengers had been known to ignore the signs.

She found Kelsey Quinn on her knees beside a dead pig. Mia counted herself lucky to catch her working on animal remains instead of human. Mia pulled a pink bandanna out of her lab-coat pocket and held it over her mouth and nose, pretty sure she was the only participant in the cancer walkathon to be using the souvenir for this particular purpose.

“That’s a big pig. What is it, a hundred pounds?”

Kelsey glanced up from the carcass. “One-twenty.” With a gloved hand, she lifted the animal’s foreleg and picked up something from beneath it with a pair of tweezers.

“Fly cases?”

Kelsey dropped the item into a glass jar, then removed the baseball cap she wore over her long auburn hair and wiped her brow with her forearm. “It’s
for my graduate seminar this afternoon. Postmortem interval.” She replaced the cap on her head and gave Mia an up-and-down look. “Are panty hose making a comeback? Think I missed the memo.”

Mia’s legs felt like icicles despite the hosiery. She typically wore pants to work, but today was an exception. “I’ve got to be in court this afternoon.”

“Bummer.” Kelsey screwed the lid onto the jar. Evidently satisfied with her collection of specimens, she stood up. She looked Mia over, and her expression softened. “I heard about Thursday. How are you doing?”

“Six stitches.” Mia shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.” Mia looked out at the wintry landscape. She could have told Kelsey about the fear, the jumpiness. The inability to sleep. But she didn’t want to admit to anyone, maybe not even herself, how anxious she felt doing the most mundane activities now— walking down the grocery aisle, passing strangers in parking lots, taking a shower. Her irrational anxiety wasn’t something she wanted to share with people from work.

Kelsey tucked the jar into a tote bag along with her tweezers, and they set off toward the building in silence. The Delphi Center occupied more than one hundred acres of rugged Texas Hill Country, a beautiful setting if you forgot the science projects littered about. Mia found them hard to forget, which was why she rarely ventured out onto the grounds.

“What brings you out here? I know it’s not the fresh air.”

“Dr. Heinz sent me,” Mia said. “He’s been examining
some duct tape for me in connection with a murder case. He said you sent him something similar a while back that was recovered up near Lake Buchanan.”