Cold Target (24 page)

Gage turned back to Meredith. “What happened, Meredith?”

“You know each other?” one of the officers said.

“Ms. Rawson is a former assistant district attorney,” Gage said.

The officer turned back to her. “You didn't say that.”

“I didn't—” she started.

“What happened?” Gage broke in.

The officer shrugged. “What you see is all I know. We just got here a few moments before you, about the same time as the paramedics. It looks like a bullet wound.”

“Call the crime scene people,” Gage said. “Then secure the scene and keep anyone else from coming inside.” The paramedics left. The body couldn't be moved until the crime scene unit did its work. He turned to Meredith. “We should go in the other room.”

Once he got her out of the kitchen, he asked Meredith gently, “Who is she?”

“Are you the lead detective?”

“I'm not sure yet,” he said. “Probably.”

“I didn't think …”

She was in shock. He knew that. A few days ago, he would have been surprised. She must have been at similar scenes. She'd certainly seen thousands of photos.

But this was different. This was the latest in a succession of threatening incidents. Attempted murder. Her home trashed. Threatening phone calls. All aimed at her.

“It probably didn't have anything to do with you,” he said.

“Didn't it?” Her voice was a cry for help.

“What is her name?” he asked again.

“Mrs. Starnes. Lulu Starnes. She was a widow. A teacher.” Tears glittered in her eyes.

“Did anyone know you were coming here?”

“I don't see how …” She stopped suddenly. “I called from my house and my office. Several times.”

“I think we should have someone check your phone and house for bugs,” he said.

Her face paled even more. “But I have a new alarm system. Wouldn't someone have discovered listening devices?”

“Not if they weren't looking for them,” he said. “Did you know her? Before coming here today?”

“No,” she whispered and sat down on the edge of the sofa.

The dog tried to get loose from her hold, but she held him tighter.

“Why did you come to see her?”

“My mother. She was one of my mother's friends when they were younger. I wanted her to know—”

She stopped in mid-sentence, leaving something unsaid.

Why?

“Gage?”

He turned around at Wagner's voice. He had almost forgotten the man's presence.

“Glenn, this is Meredith Rawson. Meredith, my new partner, Glenn Wagner.”

“I've heard of you,” Wagner said.

Her blue eyes appeared luminous as they turned toward Wagner. “Detective Wagner,” she acknowledged. “I don't think I've met you.”

“I joined the department after you left the prosecutor's office,” he said. “What happened here?” His voice was gentler than Gage's voice had been.

“I had an appointment with Mrs. Starnes,” she said. “She seemed pleased about meeting with me, but no one answered the door. I waited a while, then tried the front door. It was unlocked.” She glanced away. “The dog was pretty frantic,” she continued. “Running back and forth as if there was a problem, as if he wanted me to follow him. I went inside. He led me to her.”

“You didn't see anyone around the house?” Wagner was asking the questions Gage should have asked. But he was watching her face, the bewilderment and fear in her eyes. He sensed she wasn't saying something. Something important.

She had made it clear the other night that she was busy with her practice and her mother. Why would she take time to visit someone in her mother's past? Why not just call?

And why would anyone target someone from her mother's past?

A pattern was developing.

It was clear she saw it, too, and it terrified her, though she tried hard not to show it.

He longed to reach out to her. But she had signaled the other night that she didn't want more than a professional relationship, that their encounter had been born of desperation and was not to be repeated. Hell, this was a murder scene—and no place for personal feelings.

Wagner's gaze moved from Meredith back to Gage.

Had he been that obvious?

She looked helplessly at the dog. “He keeps trying to go back to the kitchen. I'm afraid …”

Gage looked around for a dog leash, finally found one, snapped it on, and handed it to her.

“His name is Nicky. Mrs. Starnes mentioned him when we made the appointment,” she said in a small voice. Grief was embedded in it. He heard it. He felt it.

He looked around the room. It was neat except for dog toys. Photos of a man and a woman together were scattered around. There were no photos or portraits of children.

The dog was still agitated, standing alert. Gage sat down in a chair near Meredith, leaned over and scratched the dog's short ears. “It's okay,” he crooned.

“What will happen to him?” she asked.

“There might be family,” he said.

“Now. I mean now.”

“We'll be canvassing the neighbors. Perhaps one of them can take him in.”

“She loved him. I heard it in her voice when she talked about him.” Her voice cracked. She was obviously fighting back tears.

“Meredith,” he said.

She looked at him.

“We have to get details.” He was insistent.

“You know everything I do.”

He didn't. He would bet on it. “You may not know what you know,” he said.

She nodded. She knew the drill.

“Did you see anyone around the house when you arrived?”

“No.”

“What time did you arrive?”

“About five forty-five.”

“Your appointment was for that time?”

“No. It was at six. I waited.…” She stared at him again. “Maybe if I … hadn't …”

“The paramedics said she had been dead for more than an hour,” he said. “It wouldn't have mattered if you hadn't waited.”

But her expression didn't ease.

“How did your mother know her?” he tried again.

“They went to school together.”

“Which school?”

She named New Orleans's most expensive and exclusive private school. He looked around the modest home, remembered the appearance of the woman on the floor. A lined face. A plain, practical haircut. The dark hair touched with gray that had probably never been tinted.

“And you haven't seen her before?”

“No. Apparently they lost touch when …”

“When what?”

“After graduation.”

He knew she was withholding information now. He had gotten to know her well last night. It had been only a few hours, but it might as well have been much more. He knew by her carefully phrased words that she knew more than she was saying.

“When did you make the appointment?” he asked.

“Yesterday. When I reached her, she told me she was a teacher.”

“Anything else? Did she sound worried or upset?”

“No. She didn't know about my mother's illness and she expressed sympathy about that. But that's all.”

“Why did you want to see her?”

“I told you—”

“No, you didn't. Most people don't go to so much trouble to seek out old friends of their parents.”

“My mother is dying. I wanted her friends to know.”

It was more than that. Much more, dammit. It had to have something to do with what had happened to her this past week.

He knew Wagner was listening intently. He saw from the corner of his eye that his partner was taking notes.

The front door opened again, and a man and a woman from the crime scene unit entered.

“Wag, will you show them the crime scene and tell them what we have so far?”

Wagner had seniority at the moment. Still, he shrugged and went to the door, ushering in the newcomers and taking them into the kitchen.

“Now tell me why you were really here,” Gage told her. “And don't tell me it's privileged.”

She gave him a hostile stare that slowly faded. She looked lost for a moment.

“There are too many violent incidents around you for them to be coincidences,” he pressed. “And now someone has died,” he added brutally. He had to shake her loose from whatever she was withholding. “What was your connection with Mrs. Starnes? It's more than you've told us. Hell, you've been a prosecutor. You know better than this.”

“My mother,” she whispered. “She told me a few days ago that I have a half sister. She had a daughter that was taken from her. She asked me to find her. There wasn't anything to go on. I thought I would start with her friends at that time.”

Her face was strained, her eyes pleading. “I didn't want it public,” she said. “I didn't think it was anyone's business but ours.”

“The attack on you happened after that?”

“Yes.”

He had been sitting across from her. Now he stood. Tried to think. Damn, he wished she had told him last night. But then they had both been occupied with each other, with the obvious hunger they'd had for each other.

But it showed an obvious distrust of him, and he felt a stab of disappointment, even hurt.

He knew it was unreasonable. He hadn't shared any of his past with her. Why should she have poured out her guts to him, especially with something so personal and private?

“Have you talked to anyone else about your mother?” Gage asked.

“Mrs. Robert Laxton. She gave me Mrs. Starnes's name. I wish to God she hadn't.”

“We'll send someone over there to talk to her,” he said.

“She didn't really have any information, other than some names of my mother's friends. She said Mrs. Starnes was close to her, but I never heard my mother mention Mrs. Starnes's name.”

She was in control again. Her face was still pale, her eyes sad, but she was in complete control. Still, her back was stiff with tension, and he wondered exactly how much emotion she was holding in.

The dog whined and she leaned over and hugged it, sharing some of that emotion, and sorrow over a death, with the dog.

“I want to take him until someone claims him,” she said. “I don't want him to go to animal control or wherever you usually take them.”

“I don't see a problem there,” he said. “We will notify the next of kin and tell them where he is.”

She looked stricken again. “I wonder who the next of kin would be.” She looked around again. He did as well. No pictures of children. Yet Mrs. Starnes must have loved children if she was a teacher.

He hated what would come next. Finding someone to contact. Then the message itself. It was the part of the job he despised.

“Who else knows about your mother's daughter?” he asked.

“My father. My staff. No one else.”

“How much do you know about your sister?”

“Only that she was born somewhere around Memphis and was taken away from my mother. I don't know how, or why, or even who. I know the approximate date. Nothing more.”

“An informal adoption then?”

“I think so. I don't know. We can't find a birth certificate.”

“When your home was trashed, was anything taken pertaining to this mysterious daughter?”

“No. I hadn't had time to do anything.”

“It might have been an attempt to distract you,” he said.

“But why? Who would care about an adoption thirty-plus years ago?”

That was the question that kept ringing in his head.

But he knew from long experience that the immediate questions were probably not the right questions.

“Anything else?” he asked. “Anything you can remember that might have even the slightest relationship to the events of the past few days?”

She shook her head.

“What was your father's reaction to your sister?” He kept coming back to Charles Rawson.

She shook her head slowly. “He would never hurt my mother or myself. We've had differences. More than one. But I am sure of that.” She paused. “He would be mortified if this came out about my mother.”

“I would think he would be more concerned with his daughter's safety.”

Her face flushed. Her eyes glinted. She was becoming defensive.

Because he'd hit a sore spot.

“Can I go home?” she asked.

“I'll talk to Wagner.” His emotions were reeling. Her terror came through, even though she was very good at hiding it. And her grief about her mother's friend. He'd wanted to take her in his arms. Tell her that he would help. That he would be there.

It had taken all his willpower to remain cool and professional. Yet that had been what she needed now.

Today showed she continued to be in danger. Mrs. Starnes's death proved someone would stop at nothing.

How much of a catalyst was Meredith Rawson?

And how much a target?

sixteen

N
EW
O
RLEANS

Meredith struggled to keep her composure as she hugged the dog to her. He whined to get away, to check on his mistress. How long had the two been together?

She rubbed her cheek against the dog's fur. She would not cry, even though grief wrapped around her heart. She couldn't shrug off the guilt, no matter what Gage Gaynor said.

The only way to help now was to care for the dog.

She glanced at the front door. She wanted to leave this house. She wanted to go home. But that, too, had been violated. Despite the new alarm system, she hadn't really felt safe at home. She wondered whether she ever would again.

Get over it
. She was an attorney. She prided herself on her toughness and control. She had seen horrendous situations both as a prosecutor and as a private attorney.

But she had never before been the focal point of violence.

The dog licked her hand anxiously.

“It's okay, Nicky,” she said softly. “I'll find someone for you.”