Deadly Lover (26 page)

They’d gone over everything twice when Sean appeared in the doorway of Lily’s apartment and headed toward them. He and Newman exchanged a look and Newman moved away.

Sean sat down on the step beside her. “How you doing, Lil?”

She stuffed her fists into her coat pockets and widened her eyes, fighting off the tears his simple concern threatened to shake loose. “Stupid question, Sean.”

He smiled sadly and nodded. “Okay. To the point, then.” He dug in the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a clear evidence sleeve. “Recognize this?”

She studied the e-card, sealed inside the bag. “No. You find it on Rose?”

“It was tagged to a silver flower box we found in your apartment. The box hadn’t been opened.” He clasped his hands between his knees and propped his forearms on his thighs. “The flowers are lilies. The card seems to reference the deaths. At least the deaths of the women.
Don’t lose sleep over the lost girls. They made their beds and they deserve to die in them.
”

Lily ran the lines through her head, playing them back again, looking for meaning. There had to be something useful there, but she couldn’t see it.

“They’re taunting us.” Sean’s hands tightened and he spoke through a clenched jaw. “Damn EFE lunatics.”

“You still think this is EFE?”

Sean nodded.

She squinted at him. “I don’t know.”

“Has to be,” he said, straightening and clenching his hands into fists. “I knew the guy in the hospital wasn’t operating alone. I’ll take down every last member of the EFE if I have to. They’ll pay for this. Every last bastard who had anything to do with this is going to pay.”

Lily shook her head. “It feels personal. Someone wanted me involved from the beginning. I don’t have any connections to EFE.”

“Of course it feels personal.” Sean turned his body toward her. “They tried to kill you.”

“Yeah. And Rose is the one dead.” She swallowed hard. “God. How am I going to tell Mom?”

“I’ll handle it,” he said.

“No.” Lily pulled her hands free of her pockets and pressed her flattened palms down her thighs as if she could push away the pain. “I have to do it.”

Sean eyed her thoughtfully. “No. We’ll call Brian. She’ll need him there when she hears the news.” Sean but an arm around her shoulders and pulled her up against his side. “Trust me, Lily. I’ve done a lot of notifications.”

Lily dipped her chin in concession and stared at the step beneath her feet. It felt wrong. She needed to take responsibility. But Sean was probably right. There would be time enough to face her mother.

“Sean, you need to know.” She lifted her chin to face him. “They’re going to find evidence that Bradley slept in my apartment last night.”

“Fuck.” Sean’s arm slid free of her shoulder and his spine sagged with the added complication she’d dropped in his lap. He didn’t deserve to be in the middle of this.

“I didn’t...I mean, we didn’t...” Lily pulled her jacket a little tighter around her. “There wasn’t anything going on between us. He slept here and I spent the night at the hospital. We weren’t having sex, but Rose believed we were. It’s probably why she came. To confront me.”

“Shit, Lil.” He rested and elbow on the step behind them and dropped his head back then pinch the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah.” They sat together in silence for several minutes. “What will happen to Jolaj?”

“That’s up to their Council. We only have the authority to detain.” Sean shook his head. “As if we could detain him against his will. Regardless, it’s up to the Council to deal with him, but that won’t be an easy out. They won’t want to look like they can’t enforce the terms of the treaty. And I think they’re pretty tough on crime.”

“They’re all about discipline, duty, honor.” Principles she respected, but she’d somehow made them sound hollow passing across her lips.

“Right.” Sean let a moment pass in silence. “What was he doing here, Lil?”

“He was seeing me home,” said Lily. She and Sean shared a long look, but she didn’t see the censure she expected. His look was searching and more accepting than she had any right to hope.

“Lil—”

The techs carried Rose’s body into the hallway in a coroner hov-container and they both stood, whatever Sean had been about to say discarded. Sara followed the techs looking years older. When she saw them on the stairs she walked over, eyes red and cheeks pale. “I’m going to take her in. The forensics techs will be here awhile longer.”

Sean acknowledged her, then they watched her follow the cart down the stairs.

“Okay,” said Sean. “Time to call Brian.”

Her brother’s face filled the small screen on Sean’s com. Brian’s expression went from carefree and happy to shocked and saddened before firm determination settled in.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll tell Mom and then head down.”

To collect the body. Mom would want Rose back in DC. The funeral would be a big social event. The idea sickened Lily, but Rose probably would have wanted it that way.

Sean’s arm wrapped around her and she realized she’d hunched over the multi-com like an old woman. Grief had layered upon grief, loss after loss, until she could no longer support the heavy weight.

“Lil, you have to be strong.” Brian’s voice resonated with determination. “You remember what Dad used to say? It gets worse before it gets better.”

She laughed grimly. “God, Bri. I don’t think it could get any worse.” And she wasn’t sure she could take it if it somehow did.

“It could get worse for me, sis. I could lose you too. I’m counting on you to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

She nodded. Unable to acknowledge any of the feelings roiling inside her. Gratitude that he didn’t seem to blame her. Love for him. Guilt for being alive when Rose lay dead. And terrible loss.

“We’ll make them pay, Lil. Every last one of them. Just let’s focus on that.”

She nodded again, a little surer. She let his confidence and resolve fill her up and rebuild her will to fight. “Sara and Sean are on the job already. I want to go back over everything. Try to see what I’ve missed.”

“Good idea. I’ll come by Aunt Jane’s when I get there. We can all go over it together. And in the meantime I’ll touch base with my contact in The Pool.”

His simple statement threw her off balance. She knew Brian was deep into his tech, but he had to be deeper into the tech culture than she thought to have developed contacts among the elusive and aloof members of The Pool. The implications worried her, but for now they could use it. “Do you have a white-hat contact that might be able to use The Pool to back door into Deepwater?”

“Maybe with your ID.”

“I’ll transmit the codes.” She’d be fired for the security violation if the hack was detected, but she didn’t give a damn. “I want every scrap on Simone Rawls they can dig up.”

“How does she connect to this?” Brian asked the question but Sean had grown more intense at her side.

“I think she’s somewhere close to the beginning of it, but I can’t be sure.”

“Okay. See you soon, sis.” Brian’s gaze remained steady on hers. “Love you, Lily.”

Tears again threatened to spill but Lily fought them. “Love you too.”

She transmitted the codes then closed the connection.

Sean cleared his throat again. “Sara dug up the file on Simone Rawls and sent it to me. I wish you’d brought it to me earlier. The first victim is always the most likely to tie back to the killer.”

“I’m sorry, Sean. I was going to talk to you about it but things have been so hectic.”

“These damn bastards haven’t let us catch our breath.”

“You think there’s more than one killer?”

“There has to be. We have the EFE guy from the hospital locked away, he couldn’t have done this. And it explains the different methods used for the murders and the attacks. We haven’t been able to find any documentation of a plan at their headquarters, but that doesn’t mean anything. I’ve been interviewing these people all night and some of them are smart enough—”

“Detective O’Leary.” Newman’s voice interrupted on Sean’s com. “You wanted an alert when the
stringers
showed.”

Sean glanced to Lily, but spoke to Newman on the com. “Tell the Ormney representatives that I’ll be down in a sec.” He closed the link and got to his feet.

Lily stood and kept pace as he headed down the stairs. “I guess the cultural enlightenment training didn’t take with Newman.”

Sean shook his head. “These attacks have drawn out the ugly side of a lot of people.”

When they stepped out of the building, pink tinged the sky, but the morning sun hadn’t yet risen above the horizon.

Jolaj, Newman, and an officer she didn’t recognize stood between a half a dozen cops and another half dozen Ormney Law Keepers. Lily went to Jolaj while Sean spoke to the Law Keepers.

“Will you be okay?” With so many people around she couldn’t say the things she wanted to say. How much his sticking around had meant to her, how worried she was for him. She wanted to slip her hand in his—longing for the reassurance of his touch—but even that small gesture could cause him more trouble.

He dipped his chin in answer. “Lily, I know you’re strong and smart and capable of many things, but anyone can be harmed if the attacker is determined enough. This killer has proven he’s determined. There’s safety in numbers. You must promise to stay with your family until I can come for you.”

“Then you’ll be back?” Her heart thumped hard. She shouldn’t have been surprised. He was constant. Reliable. And a lot of other boring words that meant the world.

“I must answer to the Council, but I’ll return to you.” He waited for her to meet his gaze. “Now promise.”

He stood close, his heat and his scent teasing her senses, tempting her to lean in and wrap her arms around him. For both their sakes, she remained still. “I promise.”

Lily watched Jolaj turn and walk away, flanked by the other Law Keepers. It was like watching the sun dip below the horizon. Sure, it would return, but until it did all of its warmth and light were gone too.

“You two made friends fast.”

Lily looked over her shoulder to where Sean stood. “Is that a problem for you?”

“My only problem is the information you’re holding back. How is he involved in this, Lily?”

She turned to face him. “He wants to help us stop it.”

“Seems more personal than that.”

She turned to face him and nodded. “He knew most of the victims.”

“And you don’t find that odd?”

“He wasn’t involved in the attacks, I’m sure of that.” She tried to sound firm but it came out more tired than anything.

“No,” Sean said. “I can’t say I see him for this either. But there’s something else going on here. And being in the dark, that pisses me off.”

She studied his face. “Yeah. He told me to tell you everything.”

Sean scowled. “Everything?”

There were still cops everywhere. “Not here.”

“Come on.” He tossed the words over his shoulder as he walked toward a duty auto-cart.

Lily had to jog to catch up. As he slid behind the controls she got into the passenger seat. “Where are we going?”

“Mom and Dad’s. You told Brian you’d be there. You need a ride and maybe you’ll feel like explaining when we get there.”

“I don’t want to take you away from the investigation.”

“I’ll have everything forwarded to my com. I can coordinate the investigation remotely. Sara will join us there.”

After
, Lily thought. Sara would join them after she’d finished autopsying Rose’s body.

Jane O’Leary met Lily with open arms. In the warmth of her aunt’s arms, guilt swamped her. Her aunt had lost a niece. One that had spent holidays and shared vacations. One that had probably called and kept in touch. Lily wanted to do something, say something that would ease her aunt’s loss. She knew what Jane wanted, needed—someone to grieve with her. But Lily couldn’t afford to grieve. Maybe she didn’t even deserve it. If she let herself feel she might fall apart.

She could be hospitalized again, she might
need
to be hospitalized.

When Lily tried to speak her voice stuck in the back of her throat. When she finally broke it free, she barely managed the words. “We’ll find him. It won’t bring her back, but she’ll have justice. They all will.”

 Aunt Jane pushed Lily away, just far enough to look into her eyes. She wrapped her warm hands around Lily’s face then slipped them down to squeeze her shoulders.

“I know,” said Jane. “You’re going to catch him. And my Sean and Sara are going to help you.”

Lily tightened her lips in what she hoped would pass for acknowledgement of her aunt’s words.

Jane pulled Lily to the kitchen and pressed herbal tea into her hand. They sat at the kitchen table in silence while Sean paced up and down the hall, directing the investigation via link. Lily wanted to ask him about Jolaj, but she had no idea how long it would take for the council to decide what to do with him. Concern for what might be happening to him ate at her, but asking Sean to look into it seemed wrong. His focus needed to stay on the case, on the killer.

Lily passed the morning with her aunt, helping around the house. Relieved to have the mind numbing tasks while Jane contacted members of the O’Leary side of the family to relay the news. Sean didn’t break contact with his team until Sara arrived. She looked pale and tired and perfectly comfortable crying into her mother’s apron. Lily envied her cousin the freedom to indulge her grief. Lily would never want her mother to see her so vulnerable. Her mother would call it weak and improper. That was the lecture Lily had gotten when she’d balked at moving to Washington. The last time she’d cried had been at her father’s funeral.

No. She
had
cried. In Jolaj’s arms.

She’d shed her tears in front of him. Fallen down more than a little and trusted him to pick her back up. He made her feel safe for reasons she didn’t understand and didn’t want to question.

When Sara pulled it together she left her mother in the kitchen and led Lily and Sean to the family war-room. It sat in the back corner of the house. Two walls of dark tinted windows looked onto the backyard and the trees and bushes beyond the lush carpet of the lawn. A simple vid-screen stretched the length of the opposite wall. A large media display table dominated the room, positioned in the center and surrounded by a half dozen comfortable chairs. The table’s surface gleamed an unrelenting black, slick and empty like a blank slate waiting to be covered with grim crime scene vid-captures, clues, and bread crumbs that might lead them to the truth.