Whatever Remains (20 page)

             
“Yeah. That’d be good.” Ben took a moment to collect himself, staring at the industrial pile of the gray carpet and trying to remember the deep breathing exercises the VA shrink had tried to talk him into doing way back when. It didn’t help. Or else he wasn’t doing it right. He pushed a hand through his hair, felt raindrops under his fingers, and went in.

             
Scott was the bad kind of angry: the stupid kind. Coiled power and leashed fury and flashing, smart eyes Ben knew how to work with; that was a dance in which he knew all the steps. But there was something boring, and head-to-wall frustrating about a red-faced meatneck with a bigger mouth than brain. Confessions usually came quicker, but they were less satisfying. As much as this case had kept him up, Ben wanted to think the killer had at least given him a good chase.

             
“Mr. Redding,” he said, sitting. “My partner told you why you’re here?”

             
Scott slapped a meaty hand down on the table and his attorney made a restraining gesture that went nowhere. “He’s saying I murdered that girl, fucker!”

             
“Yes he did.” Trey had left crime scene Polaroids on the table and Ben pulled one close with a fingertip: Heidi’s clothes, black and stiff with dried blood. He flicked it across to Scott. “We found these under that sink of yours in the basement. We found blood in your sink. We found blood on the trail between your house and Heidi Latham’s and, guess what, it matches her blood type. And the bag Heidi’s clothes were stuffed inside? Covered in your prints. And you have no alibi for Friday night. And your kid’s prints were on the key to the Lathams’ back door. And you’d threatened Alicia Latham repeatedly. That spells means, motive, and opportunity. So, yeah. I’m a fucker and he accused you of murder.”

             
Scott’s face had purpled to the point of becoming a whole new color; there was a vein throbbing along his temple. “I didn’t kill that kid!” he shouted with another fist thump.

             
“Scott,” his attorney said. He was overweight and tired-looking, disgusted with his client. “You need to calm down.”

             
“I don’t have to do anything! I didn’t kill that girl and neither did Jared. This is…this is
outrageous
!”

             
Who the hell said
outrageous
? “Actually,” Ben said in a calm voice that surprised him, “it’s textbook. I’ve got everything I need to make a case. And what’ve you got besides your outrage?”

             
Scott’s lawyer laid a hand on his arm and he froze, mouth gaping open, ready for a retort. “I’ve advised my client not to say anything further at the moment,” the attorney said. “Scott and Jared have nothing to say until you’ve presented some hard evidence.”

             
How much harder did it get than blood-spattered clothes? But Ben shrugged. “Fine. The sooner he’s done talking to me, the sooner I can arrest him. My captain’s getting the warrant.”

             
Scott pressed his fists together and fumed impotently at the table, but said nothing.

             
“Okay,” Ben said, rising. He felt like pushing buttons. “I hope it was worth it to you. I hope stabbing a little girl in the throat made you feel like a man.”

             
Ben had his hand on the door, his back to the room, when he heard the attorney swear. Chair legs screeched back across the tile and Scott sucked in a breath like a water buffalo as he made his move. Ben let him get close, right up behind him, before he spun. He caught the guy across the throat with his open palm, and squeezed as he shoved him back against the wall. His other hand – in a tight fist – went up under Scott’s ribs and knocked the wind out of him. Scott made a wordless sound; his head thumped back against the cinderblock.

             
The attorney shouted something he couldn’t hear.

             
Ben leaned in close enough to smell stale sweat and lunch meat, putting his weight on the man’s windpipe. “Don’t try it,” he warned. His pulse wasn’t even up, but Scott had instant-sweat weeping down his face. “You’ll be in a cast before you can even think police brutality. Understand me?”

             
For the first time, the seriousness of his circumstances flashed through Scott’s eyes. He nodded, and Ben let go.

             
Rice was waiting in the hall. “He saying anything?”

             
“No.” He folded his arms and let the wall catch the weight of his shoulder. He had a knot between his shoulder blades that even the best masseuse would needs days to untangle; this case was taking a physical toll. His stomach growled. When was the last time he ate? “I didn’t expect him to, really. Once we get DNA back on the blood, then he’ll have to talk. Even a dumbass like him would want to keep this case out of the courtroom.”

             
Rice nodded, satisfied for the moment. His confidence – his complete assuredness that Ben had things under control and didn’t need micromanaging – had always been a valued thing. Ben was breaking that trust, his woman and child just down the hall, and he felt like an ass for it. Trust lost was almost impossible to regain. If Rice found out about this, about the girls, Ben’s life on the unit would be altered permanently. It was a risk he’d never thought he’d take, but here he was, doing it effortlessly. Trey had been right, that first night at Canterbury – they should have passed the case off on another pair of detectives – and how much did it suck for the kid to have to be the one to point it out to him?

             
“Thinking about what they do to kid killers in prison might change his mind,” Rice said, and Ben twitched a humorless smile. “Where’s Kaiden?”

             
Cool
, he reminded himself.
Be calm about it
. “The neighbor came in, thought her kid might have heard something from the little sister. I let Trey take down their statements.”

             
“Good.” He nodded, offered a shoulder bump, and moved down the hall. “Good job on this one, you two. I like fast solves.”

             
Ben did too. So why did this one feel jagged and unsettling? He pushed the thought away and went to see what kind of progress Trey had made.

             
They were in the cushy interview room – the one they’d brought Alicia into that first morning. The blinds were cracked and through them, Ben had a clear view of the picture the three of them made. Trey was at the head of the rectangular table, Jade and Clara flanking him, the lights pouring warmly over them while rain streaked down the night-blackened window behind them. The glitter of water added something cozy to them, seemed to pull them all toward one another like little magnets. Clara had a cup of something to drink and a red lollipop that she was waving to emphasize whatever it was she was saying. Jade had her chin propped on a hand, relaxed save the little worry lines crinkling in the corners of her eyes. Trey was smiling at Clara, an easy, charming little boy smile. He and Jade were about the same age, Ben realized. They were well matched: pretty young people with dark hair and vivid personalities. The thought ground his teeth together; what would he do, he wondered, when Jade finally quit dating the Ashers of the world and found herself a real guy? Someone like Trey, who liked her little girl and who made her smile and who made him seem like some bad dream from which she’d at long last awakened.

             
He rapped on the door before he entered, pulling all their heads his direction. Clara started to say “Daddy,” but caught herself, mouth closing with a soft click of teeth. He didn’t look at Jade – he didn’t want to all of a sudden. “Trey, walk them out to the truck when you’re done, here. Please,” he added.

             
Trey frowned, but nodded. “Yeah. Sure.”

             
Someone sighed as he slipped back out.

             
They stayed another ten minutes; all the while Ben sat at his desk, staring blankly at his computer and stealing glances like some dumbass high school kid. He’d been reduced to snooping, and he hated that. Finally, the interrogation room opened and the girls came out first, Jade holding Clara’s hand. Trey stayed back a polite distance, escorting but not crowding, and followed them around the corner and out of sight. Before he returned, Ben realized he was up on his toes beneath the desk, rapping his boot heels against the carpet, change in his pocket jingling.
Idiot
, he chastised himself, and had his limbs well under control when Trey came back and perched a hip on the edge of the desk.

             
“Clara didn’t hear much,” he said without preamble. “If she did, she didn’t understand it, I don’t think. You know how it is with kids that age; who knows if they even remember things right?”

             
“What’d she say?”

             
“According to Grace, Heidi had been ‘bad’ lately. Whatever that means. She ‘hadn’t minded.’”

             
“Like going outside when her mom was asleep,” Ben said. “Or egging on the asshole neighbors.”

             
Trey nodded. “It’s not anything solid – I don’t even think we could use it.”

             
“But there’s no such thing as too much information.”

             
“Yeah.”

             
Ben turned back to his computer. “Thanks,” he said without glancing over. “For dealing with them.”

             
Trey gave the verbal equivalent of a shrug. “Sure. They’re your family.”

             
And they were.

“Can we have ice cream?” Clara asked. She trailed alongside the shopping cart, fingers hooked through its mesh side.

              “Not for dinner,” Jade said as she eased them down the produce aisle. “How ‘bout some carrots to go with our sandwiches?” Clara might insist on Manwich, but Jade could slip some veggies in there.

             
The store was crowded with shoppers trapped inside by the rain, too chicken to duck out to their cars. Wet shoes squeaked over the tile and umbrellas left drippy trails. Jade kept snagging a finger in the hood of Clara’s jacket, half afraid she’d get shuffled away in the sea of bodies.

             
“Carrots are for horses,” Clara said with a little laugh, and Jade smiled. So far, she didn’t seem at all troubled by their visit to the precinct. Jade envied that innocence; she wished she could sweep things from her mind and think about dinner with not another care in the world.

             
“They’re for growing little girls, too – ”

             
Something banged into their cart from the side, pushing them into a display of lemons. “Ouch,” Clara said like she didn’t really mean it, and Jade glanced up to see…

             
Asher.

             
He had a cart full of frozen food: fish sticks, pizzas, tater tots, ice cream sandwiches. Kid stuff. He looked ten years older than the last time she’d seen him: puffy bags under his eyes, sickly complexion, hair textured like wheat straw where it fell across his forehead. He was in a lumpy sweatshirt and jeans that did womanish things to his hips. Ben’s voice came floating up from the back of her subconscious, crackling with the flames from the fire at Rosewood:
“He’s married.”

             
“Jade, hi.” He pulled his cart back a fraction, face tumbling through surprise and gladness and terror. “Hi,” he repeated. “I’ve been meaning to call you.”

             
She wasn’t furious, like she’d expected. Embarrassed. Disbelieving of her own stupidity. She felt like a dumb teenager, like when she’d been sixteen and hadn’t known the dangers of stealing a sip of an older boy’s beer. She’d traded nothing more than a handful of awkward, chaste kisses with Asher, but even that felt vile now, knowing he’d been lying. She’d never expected a wolf to have such convincing sheep’s clothing.

             
She forced a tight smile and pushed her cart ahead with one hand, grabbing Clara’s hood with the other. “There’s no need for that. See ya around, Asher.”

             
“Mommy, is that your friend?” Clara asked, and Jade pulled her along.

             
“No,” she said. “We’re not talking to him.”

             
Asher followed. As they rounded the corner into the bread aisle, she felt his hand curl around her elbow, and fear went ripping along her nerve endings. She didn’t understand it – he might be an adulterer, but he wasn’t
frightening
– but she whirled, shaking him off with a gasp. “Don’t touch me,” she said in a fast, urgent whisper, not wanting Clara to hear, needing him to take her seriously. She was clammy with fright all of a sudden and she wanted him
away
from her. Them.

             
Asher withdrew his hand, sandy brows all the way up his forehead. “I-I didn’t mean – ”