Tender Is The Night (13 page)

"Probably wasn't good enough." Devin flipped to the next page. He paused, almost surprised to see a group photo of Baines and Jenkins and two girls. They were sitting at a lunch table. The girls were tagged as Kristina Strem and Lindsay Blake.

"Do you have something?" Kate asked.

He turned the book so she could see the photo. "It's the only candid I've found."

Her eyes lit up. "This is great. We have two more names, two more links to Baines. We just have to find them."

He couldn't help but smile at the fire in her eyes. "Sounds like a plan."

"Why aren't you more excited? This could be a break."

"I'll celebrate when we get to the end of this whole thing."

"See, that's one of your problems, Devin. You don't let yourself enjoy the good moments. Not everything has to be a homerun. Sometimes you get a single, or the pitcher hits you in the arm and you walk your way on base. But once you're on base, anything can happen."

He grinned. "You're seriously giving me a baseball metaphor?"

"Yes. I'm trying to speak your language. And my dad talks a lot in baseball metaphors. He also played in high school and college. I can't tell you how many times he said, 'Kate, you can't steal second with one foot on the base.'"

"That's what he said to you?"

"To me and to every other one of my siblings. He wanted me to understand that there's little reward without some risk."

"So you get some of your fearless instincts from your dad."

"Definitely. He was a firefighter. He liked impossible challenges; he still does. Right now he's trying to convince my mom to go on some crazy-ass, two-thousand mile bike ride across two states."

"They bike?"

"No, they don't bike, except to ride around town or the bay. But he saw this trip and he's convinced they should start training for it. He's a little bored in retirement. My mom told him no way, but I have a feeling he's going to wear her down." She paused. "Getting back to you—"

"Let's not get back to me. Let's get back to the apartment and use our resources to track down two former students from St. Bernadette's."

"Okay, fine, but I'm going to buy you a cookie on the way out to celebrate."

"Knock yourself out."

Ten

Kate didn't just buy Devin a huge oatmeal raisin cookie at the Bird's View Café; she also grabbed some ready-made sandwiches and salads to have for lunch later. She had a feeling they were going to be buried in research for the next few hours.

She knew Devin thought she jumped a little too fast into optimism, and maybe she did, but she felt good about the new leads. Since she'd arrived, she'd been able to help Devin cover new ground, and she really hoped that new ground was leading them in the right direction.

Devin pulled into his garage, and then they walked back out to the street to go into the building. Before they could hit the stairs, a woman called Devin's name.

"Shit," he muttered.

"You know her?" she asked as a dark-haired woman wearing a short dress and high heels approached them.

"Devin. I've been calling you for days," she said. Her gaze turned on Kate, her eyes filling with anger. "Who's this? Is she the reason you haven't been calling me back?"

"No," he said evenly. "This is Agent Kate Callaway from the FBI."

"Oh," the woman said, taken aback. "I thought…I'm sorry." She looked at Kate. "I'm Valerie Parker. Has there been a break in Sam's case?"

Kate immediately surmised that with the same last name, Val was Sam's sister or some kind of relative. Before she could answer the question, Devin jumped in.

"There was a new fire on Monday," he said. "I asked the Bureau for help, and they sent Kate."

"A new fire?" she echoed in surprise. "Where?"

"St. Bernadette's Catholic High School."

"Another school," Val murmured. "Are you sure this one is tied into the others, because last time—"

"I think it's tied in," he said, cutting her off. "So we're a little busy right now, Val. Can we talk another time?"

"This isn't about us, Devin. It's about my mother. She is losing it. Over the past few months, she's gotten more and more depressed. She doesn't even get up or get dressed some days. And you know what she asks me every single time I see her? 'Have you heard from Devin? Is there any news?'"

Devin took a quick breath, and Kate could see that Val's words had stabbed him like a knife. She suddenly saw something she hadn't seen before. Devin wasn't just fighting this battle for himself; he was fighting it for Sam's family.

"I'm working as hard as I can," Devin said evenly.

"She's counting on you to get justice."

"I know that."

"And I know you're busy, but could you go by and visit her? I think it would really help. If she sees you, talks to you, she'll feel better again. She'll know that you'll keep going until you catch Sam's killer. I wouldn't ask you to take the time if I wasn't really worried about her."

"I'll try to get over there in the next few days."

"How about this afternoon?"

"Val—"

"My father is out of town on business. He's been traveling a lot lately. My mother escapes into her pills and her sleep, and my dad stays on the road. It's hard to watch my family disintegrate, Devin. I know I haven't been the best daughter, certainly not as good as Sam was, but I'm trying to help them, and I'm at my wits' end. It's just been going on so long. It seems like we'll never get to the truth, and I think that's why my mother is getting worse. She's giving up. She needs to see that you haven't given up."

Devin slowly nodded, his jaw tight. "I'll go over there this afternoon."

Relief flooded Val's eyes. "Thank you." Val looked back at Kate. "Sorry to interrupt."

Kate shrugged and offered a compassionate smile. "It's fine."

"Devin, I'll see you soon." With that parting reminder, Val walked briskly across the street and disappeared around the corner.

Devin headed up the stairs and Kate quickly followed him into the apartment and down the hall.

She set the food down on the table by their computers and said, "So, do you want to tell me about Sam's family?"

"Not really," he said, taking a seat.

She gazed at his hard, guarded expression and knew she was going to piss him off, but she couldn't let him keep her at a distance, not when the subject matter had to do with the case.

"You said Sam was your partner, nothing more, but that's not really true, is it?"

"It's true," he said, meeting her gaze. "Sam and I were not having sex. We were not romantically involved. I don't know how else to say it."

"Then it was Val. You were involved with her sister. When she first came up to us, she said, 'this isn't about me or about us.' That implies there was an
us—
as in you and her."

Devin dug into the bag she'd brought from the café. "Is this sandwich up for grabs?"

"Yes. I'm having the salad, and you still have to answer the question."

As Devin unwrapped his turkey and cranberry on ciabatta bread, he said, "Val and I hooked up a couple of times. It wasn't a relationship."

"Did she know that?"

Devin shot her a dark look. "She knew exactly what was going on."

"Sometimes men think women are on the same page, but they're not."

"We both knew what was going on, and we both knew it was a bad idea. Val and I were not a good match."

"Why not?"

He shrugged. "We didn't have anything in common, except maybe a tendency to blow up our lives every so often."

"How long did it last?"

"A few weeks."

She frowned. "If it was that short, how did you get to be almost like a son to Val's mother?"

He chewed and swallowed, then said, "Sam and I met at Quantico. We were in the same class, and we were instant friends. Over the years, she'd take me home with her on holidays, and her family treated me like one of their own. It was a lot more fun to be with them than to be with my mother and her second family and all her second husband's relatives. I never felt like I fit in there."

"So you knew Val a long time, too."

"I'd see her occasionally on those holidays, but she wasn't always around. She was younger than Sam. First she was away at college, then she was living in Dallas for work. She had a boyfriend for a couple of years, who always came with her to Christmas. I never thought of her as anything more than Sam's little sister. But when Sam and I came to the city to work on the arson fires, I ran into her one night in a bar. We had too much to drink and one thing led to another."

"What did Sam think about it?"

He shook his head. "She was pissed. She told me I was crazy and that she couldn't imagine two people who were worse for each other. She didn't like that I'd gotten involved with her sister, and thought it was going to complicate all our lives. She was right. It was a disaster."

"Did you break up before or after Sam died?"

"A few days before. Like I said, it wasn't a relationship. We hooked up like three or four times."

Kate gave him a long, speculative look.

"What?" he asked.

"There's something you're not telling me."

"I can't think of anything. I answered your questions."

"But I haven't asked you the right question yet, have I?"

He took another bite of his sandwich and gave her what appeared to be an uncaring shrug, but she could see the tension in his body.

"Val has something to do with Sam's death," she guessed.

He set down his sandwich and got up to get a drink out of the refrigerator.

When he sat back down again, she said, "You weren't with Sam the day she died. You said you had to meet someone, and that's why you didn't pick up her call and that's why you were late getting her message. You were meeting Val, weren't you?"

He stared back at her with pain in his eyes. "Yes. She'd been calling me all day, saying she just wanted to talk to me, and I should hear her out. So I went to meet her. She was upset about a lot of things besides just me. When I finally got out of the bar, I listened to Sam's message. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the house, it was engulfed in flames. The fire department was already on their way inside."

"I'm sorry," she whispered, seeing the guilty agony in every tight line of his face. "That's why you blame yourself. It wasn't just the case; it was the personal stuff, too."

"I let Sam down. I didn't have her back. I was distracted. It was the first time I ever let my personal life get in the way of a case. And I wasn't the one who paid the price; that was Sam. She was probably my closest friend." He cleared his throat. "Are you satisfied?"

She didn't like the question, because it made her feel like she'd pushed too hard, but maybe she'd needed to do that.

Devin could have lied. He could have avoided her questions, but he hadn't. Was there a chance he'd needed to make the admission to someone else besides himself?

"I'm glad you told me," she said. "It helps me to understand."

"I don't need your understanding; I need you to help me find a killer. And whether I was involved with Sam's sister has nothing to do with that."

"You're right. Your relationship with Val has nothing to do with the case now. But I also wonder if it has as much to do with what happened to Sam as you think it did. Were you on the verge of some groundbreaking moment when you went to meet Val?"

He frowned. "No."

"So you didn't leave Sam in the lurch. You didn't know something big was coming?"

"Don't try to make me feel better."

"I'm just getting to the truth. What were you doing that day besides meeting Val?"

He drew in a breath as if he wasn't sure he wanted to keep talking, but in the end he said, "I went to meet with the fire investigator. We were going over the evidence again—or lack of evidence. Sam was focusing on the persons of interest. We were supposed to meet up that night to compare notes."

"So you were working independently that day."

He shrugged. "I guess. It doesn't matter."

She thought it mattered a lot more than he was saying but decided she'd pushed enough on that part of the conversation. "Tell me more about Sam. Not who she was as an agent, but as a person."

"Why? Who Sam was is not important to what we're doing now. We should be focusing on potential fire targets."

"We'll get there. But you're eating, and so am I." She grabbed the salad and a plastic fork to make her statement true. "Tell me about Sam's family if talking about her is too difficult."

He sighed. "Fine. Sam was the center of her family. She was very smart, excelled at everything. Her mother adored her. Her father respected her. Val was always in her shadow. Sam didn't put her there, but Val couldn't escape it. Val was always rebelling. Whatever Sam did, Val would do the opposite. That's why she often found herself in trouble."

"What did Sam's parents do?"

"Her mother was a stay-at-home mom. She volunteered at school and city fundraisers. Now she doesn't do much of anything. Her dad is a salesman for a software company. He's gregarious and bigger than life. Sam was a mix of her quiet mom and her outgoing dad. She was friendly but introverted. She liked analysis more than she liked people. She preferred to profile than to interview or take action. That's why we were a good team."

"Did Sam enjoy being near her family for this assignment?"

"She did. We had several dinners over there in the weeks before she died." He paused. "When I had to call her mom and tell her what had happened." He shook his head. "Worst call of my life."

She couldn't even imagine. She impulsively reached across the table and put her hand over his. "You went through hell. I'm so sorry, Devin."

He squeezed her fingers. "Thanks." He drew in a breath and let it out. "The hell got worse when the Bureau closed the case, and I was reassigned. I spent three days on that new assignment and then said to hell with it. I quit that day, and I've been here ever since—working and waiting. Now, the wait is almost over."

She nodded. "We're going to find the bastard who killed Sam. I believe that."

"I believe it, too," he said, surprising her with the admission.