Triptych

When John had finished telling her the story, Aunt Lydia had tears in her eyes. She took his hand-grabbed it, actually-so hard that it hurt.

“Don’t worry, John,” she had said. “I’ll take care of everything.”

And she did. The bitch certainly did.

Joyce was still looking at him, waiting. He could tell she was tired, maybe exhausted. Makeup couldn’t hide the dark circles under her eyes. Her shoulders were slumped in defeat. Still, John could not help but notice that she had stood here in her office talking to him for around thirty minutes without once yelling at him or accusing him of anything.

He asked, “Did they ever test the drugs? The white powder?”

“Of course. Lydia sent it to a private lab. Mom was on pins and needles for a week. They didn’t come up with anything unusual, though. It was cocaine and heroin.”

John felt a stabbing pain in his jaw. He had been clenching his teeth again.

“Joh

He closed his mother’s notebook, the last notebook she had used on his case, the last thing she had ever held in her hands that co

“Get Kathy back in here,” John said. “I think she needs to hear this, too.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

9:22 pm

Will sat in his office, trying not to twiddle his thumbs. He had paid a visit to Luther Morrison, Jasmine Allison’s… what? What did you call a thirty-year-old man who was having sex with a fourteen-year-old girl? Sick God damn bastard was what Will had decided on, and it had taken everything in him not to punch the animal in the face.

After that pleasant visit, Will had returned to City Hall East and caught up Amanda Wagner on the case. She hadn’t offered any staggering insight but neither had she taken him to task for not having a lot to say. Amanda could be demanding, but she knew a difficult case when she saw one.

The one thing she had told him was to not focus so much on the missing girl. Will’s case was the murder of Aleesha Monroe and how it co

The only way this would be news is if she hadn’t run away. The DeKalb cops hadn’t moved an inch on Cynthia Barrett’s case and they weren’t keen to share their notes with Will. The DNA obtained from the vaginal swab Pete had taken was too contaminated to test. Toxicology had not yet come back, but Will wasn’t holding his breath for a miraculous revelation.

As for Aleesha Monroe, Forensics had reported nothing more earth-shattering about her apartment than what Will had seen for himself: the place was remarkably clean. He’d even sent back the techs to test the spot he’d found in Monroe’s doorway the night Jasmine was reported missing. There had not been enough of a sample to determine anything other than the spot was human blood.

All Will had to follow now was the stack of papers Leo Do

He wasn’t that desperate yet.

Will opened the fluorescent pink folder on his desk and found a recordable DVD in the back pocket. He slid this into the tray on his computer and clicked play.

The monitor showed two women and a man sitting at a table with a teenage girl. The man spoke first, identifying himself as Detective Dave Sanders of the Tucker police department, then giving the names of the two women before saying, “This is the statement of Julie Renee Cooper. Case number sixteen-forty-three-seven. Today is December ninth, two-thousand-five.”

Julie Cooper leaned toward the microphone. The camera angle was wide and Will could see the girl’s feet swinging back and forth over the floor.

“I went to the movies,” the girl began, her words difficult to understand. Will knew that when the recording had been made, her severed tongue had only recently been reattached. “There was a man in the alley.” Will had watched the teenager’s statement so many times that he could almost recite the story along with her. He knew when she paused to cry, her head down on the table, and the point where she got so upset that the recording had to be stopped.

Her abductor had dragged her into the alley. Julie had been too frightened to scream. He was wearing a black mask with holes for the mouth and eyes. She tasted blood when he put his mouth over hers, shoved his tongue past her lips. When she tried to turn her head away, he punched her in the face.

“Kiss me,” he kept saying. “Kiss me.”

Will jumped at the sound of his phone ringing. He picked up the receiver, said, “Will Trent.”

There was a pause on the other end, but no words.

“Hello?” Will asked, turning down the volume on the computer speakers.

“Hey, man,” Michael Ormewood said. “Didn’t think you’d be there this late.”

Will sat back in his chair, wondering why Michael had called if he’d thought Will wasn’t going to be there. “Why didn’t you try my cell?”

“Couldn’t find the number,” Michael explained, though how that was possible, Will did not know. He’d given all his numbers-even his home-on every message he’d left for Michael since Monday night. At first, Will had just wanted to talk to the man about Jasmine; now, he wanted to know why Michael had been avoiding his calls.

Will asked, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Thanks for asking.” Will heard the click of a lighter. Michael inhaled, then said, “Been making myself useful around here. Knocked out some of those chores Gina’s been ragging me about.”

“Good.” Will was quiet, knowing Michael would fill in the silence.

The detective said, “I talked to Barbara like you asked. My mother-in-law? She says she never saw Cynthia skipping school. Maybe the kid just wasn’t feeling good that day?”

“Makes sense,” Will allowed. He wasn’t used to talking to people like Michael unless he was interrogating them, and Will struggled not to let his hatred come through. That’s what it was-hatred. The man beat his wife. To Will’s thinking, he raped prostitutes. God only knew what he had done to Angie.

Will asked, “How’s your family?”

Michael hesitated. “What?”

“You said the other day you didn’t feel safe. I was just wondering if they were doing okay.”

“Yeah,” Michael answered. “I got them over at my mother-in-law’s, like I said.” He chuckled. “Tell you what, she spoils Tim. There’s go

Will thought about Miriam Monroe, the huge difference between the loving way she talked about her children and the way Michael talked about Tim. Michael was just giving it lip service, saying the words he thought a good father should say. The man beat his wife. Did he hurt his mentally retarded son, too?

Michael said, “You still there, man?” Yes.

“I said, DeKalb PD is shutting me out.” He paused, probably to give Will room to respond. When he didn’t, Michael asked, “You hear anything from them?”

He was fishing about the restraining order. Will gave him a non-answer. “They don’t exactly have a reputation for flashing their cards around the table.”

“Right, right,” Michael agreed. He blew out a stream of smoke. “Phil’s real broken up about this. I tried to see if there was anything he knew, but the guy’s just shattered, you know?”