Silent Scream (24 page)

“Yeah, except that Martino flirted with her shamelessly.”

David chuckled at Glenn’s sour tone. “What time did you get her home?”

“A little earlier than you rolled in,
Dad
. Thought you’d stay out longer.”

David’s smile faded. “Yeah. Well, it didn’t work out that way.”

“Sorry, boy.”

David sighed. “Me too.”

For a while they were silent. “So what did you do to your pretty blond cop?”

David leaned his head back to stare at the stars. “Did you ever mess up, Glenn?”

“With a woman? Time or two,” he said easily. “How bad did you mess up?”

It was something about Glenn, something about the night, or maybe David was just damn desperate for advice. “I, uh, said someone
else’s name when we…”

“Oh.” Glenn’s face creased in a prolonged wince. “You didn’t just mess up, boy. You royally fucked up.”

“I got that,” David said dryly. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Was the other woman current or past?”

“More like never.” He stared at the sky again. “I believe they call it unrequited love.”

“Ah. Well, that sucks.”

“Indeed it does.”

“So, why did you do it? Say the other woman’s name, I mean.”

“Got drunk on champagne,” David muttered.

“Why’d you do that?”

“It was a wedding. I hate weddings.” But he didn’t get drunk at weddings, no matter how miserable he’d been. Hell, he hadn’t
even gotten drunk at Dana’s wedding. So why at Mia’s? Why in front of Olivia? He’d been asking himself that for two and a
half years.

“Did your lady cop buy the champagne excuse?”

“No,” he said grimly.

“Didn’t think so. So what are you gonna do?”

“Talk to her again.” He’d promised not to bother her again, but sitting among the Gorski sisters’ roses, he’d decided that
was a stupid promise to have made.

Glenn’s gray brows lifted. “Planning to wait another two and a half years for that?”

David huffed a surprised chuckle. “No.”

“You know,” Glenn mused, “I’ve never seen you drink more than one beer.”

“I don’t get drunk,” David said flatly, then amended it. “Hardly ever, anyway.”

“What happened the last time you got drunk? Before the lady cop?”

David closed his eyes.
Someone I cared about died.
“Something very bad.”

“But you got drunk again that night at the wedding anyway. I think you need to figure out why before you try to smooth things
over with your lady cop.”

“I know,” he said. “I just don’t know how.”

“Yeah, you do.” He met David’s eyes. “I’ve watched you for seven months and you don’t sit still, boy. You run all the time,
doing for other people. According to your
mama, over Martino’s lasagna and a couple of glasses of red wine, that’s the story of your life. St. David, defender of the
helpless, fixer of broken stuff.”

David gritted his teeth.
Not again.
He couldn’t have this conversation again. “There’s nothing wrong with doing for others.”

“There is when it keeps you from facing yourself. You’ve been running from yourself so long, all you see is your own ass.
Eventually, that’s all anybody else will see.”

David started to get up. “Good night, Glenn.”

“Sit your ass down, boy,” Glenn snapped, and, rolling his eyes, David obeyed. “Do you care about her?”

David crossed his arms over his chest. “Who?”

Glenn huffed his displeasure. “Your pretty blond cop.”

David pictured the hurt in Olivia’s eyes and his anger abruptly fizzled. “Yes.”

“Why?”

David drew a breath, letting the scent of roses calm him as he considered his answer. “I felt like I’d known her forever the
first night I met her. There was something there. I can’t explain it, but it was like… home.”

“Yet, knowing you shouldn’t, you drank too much and said something that hurt her. You wanna know what I think?”

David stole a glance at Glenn’s craggy face. The old guy was staring at him with a mixture of pity and wisdom that he missed
so much since his father passed. “Why not?”

“I think you recognized something special and you got scared. You’d been pining for this other woman for so long that being
alone had become comfortable.”

“But I don’t like being alone.”

“Didn’t say you liked it. Said you were comfortable. Big difference there. One thing I learned in all the years I was married
is that good relationships take time. They take heart. And they take trust. Maybe you didn’t want to give her that.”

David swallowed hard. “How long were you married, Glenn?”

“Almost forty years. Miss her every day. She made my life… good. And a man can’t ask for more than that.” He started for his
apartment, but looked back. “Heard buzz on the scanner before I came out. Warehouse fire. Might be arson. Definitely homicide.
And they found another glass ball.”

David came to his feet. “They mentioned that glass ball on the scanner?”

“Nah. Your captain’s there, at the scene. He tried to call your cell, but it went to voice mail, so he called me. Asked me
to tell you to call him.”

He shoved his hand in his pocket, looking for his cell. Then remembered it was inside his apartment, charging. “Why didn’t
you tell me that first thing?”

Glenn shrugged. “Your mama is worried about you, so I wanted to say my piece. Your pretty blond cop will be at the fire scene.
Be careful.”

David waited until Glenn had his hand on the back door. “Thank you, old man.”

Glenn looked over his shoulder. “You’re welcome. Don’t fuck it up again.”

• • •

Monday, September 20, 11:59 p.m.

Sitting in his easy chair, he reached for the cell he used with Eric when it beeped. There was no message with Eric’s text,
only an attachment. It was grainy, but he could see the flames consuming Tomlinson’s warehouse. They’d taken a while before
sending it to him, as close to a “fuck you” as they dared. Part of him had to admire their pluck.

you almost missed your deadline. wait for your next assignment
.

He closed the phone and went back to his nightly task of combing through his customers’ e-mails, working through potential
clients who were ready for first contact. Ah, here was one who was almost ready for the plucking.

An office flirtation he’d been following seemed to have taken the next step, the man sending the woman a link to a quaint
bed-and-breakfast off the beaten path. There was no invitation, no details, yet. But there would be, he was quite certain.

At the beginning the two had come in for lunch, talking about nothing but their office project. But the moment he’d seen them
together, he’d known. He could always pick the couples who’d end up together. Sure enough, after a few weeks they were sharing
personal details. A few weeks later, she told the guy she was unhappy with her husband, and then the guy was covering her
hand with his. Whether they’d started out intending to have an office affair or not, it didn’t matter. That’s where they were
headed.

And once they did the nasty, he’d be in business.
Ka-ching.

He could always spot the philanderers and the ones
who were up to something more. Doers of the naughty often realized it was better to conduct their illegal business in plain
sight, rather than to skulk in the shadows, drawing attention to themselves. Sometimes they got away with being naughty in
plain sight,
but not if I’m listening
.

He logged into his offshore account and smiled. Right on schedule. He studied each line of his statement and nodded. Most
of his clients paid regularly and on time. Except one. Dorian Blunt had missed a second payment. He’d been patient last month
when Dorian had complained of mounting medical bills for his child and his out-of-work wife. He’d begged for more time.

And I gave him more time. Once
. Grabbing a new disposable phone from the box next to his easy chair, he texted Dorian Blunt’s personal cell phone.

you’re late.
While he waited, he checked Dorian’s checking account. The man did have a lot of bills. His balance was disturbingly low.
Still, a deal was a deal. After a few minutes, he got a response.

I’m broke. 100K will have to be enough. No more.

He sucked in both cheeks, annoyed.
Broke?
Hardly. Dorian simply hadn’t dipped into his illegally gotten gains for fear of getting caught. If the man didn’t want to
play by his rules, he shouldn’t have embezzled company funds.
And he definitely shouldn’t have left a paper trail that I could have found blindfolded.
He knew where Dorian kept his stash of embezzled cash. He could take it at any time. But that would be stealing.

He looked at blackmail as a kind of poetic justice with a twist of irony.
That makes me rich.
If people didn’t want to get blackmailed, they shouldn’t do bad things.
Or they should be smarter about it.
Calmly, he texted back.

i would reconsider. you have 12 hours. watch the news and be “plumb” afraid
.

That should do it. If Dorian didn’t pay, the College Three would have their next assignment. Then, he’d go in and clean out
Dorian’s stash of cash, leaving Dorian’s life insurance for his grieving widow. Whenever possible, he always left something
for the widow, grieving or no. It was the right thing to do.

Tuesday, September 21, 12:20 a.m.

Olivia was one of the last ones to the warehouse, having gone home to change her clothes first. No way she was arriving on
a scene dressed like she’d been for David.

And?
Sonofabitch. The fact he’d screamed another woman’s name when she’d been giving him… Well, he was an ass. She slammed her
car door then stopped abruptly, realizing she was at the scene. Her gut had been so churned up over David, she hadn’t had
any churn left to worry about the body she was about to view.

Like Wile E. Coyote suddenly realizing he was standing in midair, Olivia’s stomach dropped and she leaned against her car,
momentarily weak-kneed. Now she had dead-body churn on top of David churn. And there was a mojito rolling around in there,
too, along with some greasy chicken fingers from Sal’s Bar. She swallowed hard.

Throwing up at the scene would not be good.

Move your body. Find Kane
. She took a deep breath and immediately regretted doing so. Acrid smoke hung heavy in the air, burning her lungs.
Fuck this night.

She made her feet move. At least David wouldn’t be
here. He didn’t work again until Wednesday. As always, she found Kane easily in the crowd, his “fire fedora” pushed to the
back of his head. He waved her over when he saw her headed his way.

“We have another one,” Kane said. He stood with Barlow and Captain Casey, from the fire department. Casey wore his gear and
looked grim.

“Appears they used gasoline this time,” Barlow said. “They left four empty cans inside the building. Entered through a broken
window in the back door.”

“The victim?” Olivia asked, focusing on the words, not the churn.

“Probably Barney Tomlinson, the owner of the company,” Kane said.

“Probably?” The warehouse’s concrete walls still stood. “Was the fire that bad?”

“Pretty bad,” Casey said. “But there’s a good bit left inside. Lots of melted chrome.”

“Tomlinson sold plumbing fixtures,” Barlow explained. “No known connection to KRB Corporation or Rankin and Sons’ construction—not
yet anyway.”

“So the fire burned Tomlinson up?” Olivia asked.

Casey shook his head. “No, ma’am. He was shot. He’s still in his office, sitting at his desk. Most of his face is gone. He
was shot in the back of the head.”

Her stomach pitched. “Who discovered the body?”

“One of the firefighters out of Company Forty,” Barlow said. “The office was in the center of the warehouse, self-contained
with walls and a separate eight-foot ceiling. Inside was the victim, facedown on his desk. The team tried to keep the scene
as intact as possible while putting the fire out.”

“When you called, you said they found another glass ball?”

“Covered in gel,” Barlow answered, “like before.”

“When the firefighters saw it, they told their captain, who called me,” Casey said. “They’d all heard about the glass ball
Hunter caught yesterday. Nobody plans to talk to the press, although I’d be surprised if we kept it secret for too much longer.
When they saw the ball tonight, they called me. I called Barlow.”

“I asked him to bring Hunter over,” Barlow said and Olivia’s gaze shot to his face. “I wanted Hunter to walk through and tell
me how the place looked compared to last night’s fire. I needed the info fast, before they’d let me go in. Hunter’s in there
now.”

“All right,” Olivia said calmly, although her heart had started to pound with the first mention of David’s name. “What about
video surveillance?”

Kane pointed to a man standing next to the uniformed cops on duty. “That’s the warehouse manager. I haven’t talked to him
yet. There was also a guard dog.”

Olivia grimaced. “They killed it?”

“No,” Barlow said. “Appears the animal was drugged. The warehouse manager dragged him to the edge of the fenced area, then
called 911. The dog was unconscious when the firefighters responded. I called a vet. I think the warehouse manager is more
worried about the dog than his boss. Tomlinson didn’t seem very well liked.”

“We’ll want to talk to Hunter and the firefighters who discovered the body,” Kane said. He looked at Olivia. “But first the
manager.”

She nodded. “Let’s go.”

“I didn’t know Hunter was here until just now,” Kane murmured as they walked toward the now-pacing warehouse manager. “Did
you, um, get my field glasses?”

“No. I… left early. I’ll get your damn glasses later, all right? You want me to lead with the manager?”

“Knock yourself out, kid.”

The warehouse manager stopped his nervous pacing when they approached. “I’m Detective Sutherland. This is my partner, Detective
Kane. You are?”

“Lloyd Hart. Is that vet here yet?”