When the Storm Breaks (9 page)

Afton met his eyes for a long moment. “You think one of our male clients attacked Claire?”

“It’s possible. The attack occurred only a couple of minutes from here,” Sean pointed out.

“You’re wrong. I’m sorry Claire was attacked—you have no idea how sorry—but our screening measures and security policy are excellent. Anyone with this type of behavior in their past would be discovered by our investigator. We’d cancel their membership and refund their money. My sister set the system up, and it’s solid,” Afton said.

The baby in her arms stopped fussing and began to wail.

“I’m sure it is,” Sean said. “I hope you understand that we need to investigate every possibility.”

“Of course. I just don’t want you to spend your time scrutinizing Camelot when you could be exploring more productive leads.”

With the crying baby in her arms, Afton made her way over to the phone. She spoke to someone and asked for two bottles of formula to be brought from the kitchen. As if on cue, the other baby began to cry as well, either from hunger or in sympathy.

“I need to, er, feed one of these guys while my mother gives the other a bottle,” Afton said. “Then we switch. We’ll probably be a while.”

Both men shot to their feet. Aidan bent down, handed the second crying baby to Afton, and turned to leave.

“We need to talk with you again,” Sean said quickly. “We’ll leave our cards with the receptionist.”

Almost before Afton could blink, the two men were out the door and moving down the hall at a good rate of speed. She smiled grimly to herself. Nothing like mentioning breast-feeding to send a grown man running for the hills. As she rocked the babies to calm them, she wondered if Claire blamed her for the attack, if that was why she hadn’t called to tell her what had happened.

With her arms full of screaming babies and her heart full of guilt, Afton waited for her mother to bring in the reinforcements.

Washington, D.C.

Wednesday evening

S
ean grunted with the effort of blocking the basketball. He took an elbow shot to the gut from Aidan but refused to give way. Lunging forward, Sean swiped the ball from Aidan and jumped up to make a basket.

Using the back of his arm to wipe the sweat from his forehead, Sean passed the ball back to Aidan. “Fourteen to ten,” Sean said, grinning.

“I’m just getting warmed up.”

Aidan’s bare torso, like Sean’s, glistened with sweat. A sly wolf whistle from the left distracted Sean long enough for Aidan to get by him and score.

“Looking good, there, boys. Looking real good.” A plump woman in her early forties gave them both a thumbs-up sign and lascivious smile on her way into the precinct’s back entrance.

“Careful, Teresa, or I’ll tell your husband you’re window-shopping,” Sean yelled as he tried to get by Aidan on the right, then lunged to the left.

“Boys, when the merchandise is really fine, there ain’t
no crime in admiring it on the shelf.” Teresa waved and headed inside to her job as a computer operator.

The two men continued to play, enjoying the rough game of one-on-one. The last few days had been an infuriating mix of bureaucratic roadblocks and dead ends. Both men were head-banging mad about their lack of progress on the case. Finally they had come outside to blow off steam at the basketball hoop someone had set up behind the station.

“Time out,” Aidan panted.

He and Sean went over to their water bottles and towels. Even in the late evening the heat and humidity were intense.

After pouring cold water over his head, Sean took a long drink. “Any word on the court order to transfer Camelot’s databases to our files?”

Aidan shook his head. “Attorney’s office says we still don’t have enough evidence to get a judge to issue the order. We’ll have to talk Afton into just letting us have the records, or keep digging until we get something for the court. Maybe if we got a sworn statement from Claire saying she was positive the killer she saw was a client….” He trailed off and shrugged.

“We’ve spent the last three days working on the dating service angle,” Sean said, “and we’ve got squat to show for it. The forensics team has nothing from the scene—no fingerprints, hair, semen or skin samples that can be tied to the killer. Or to any of the other cases. The scene was just too contaminated.” He set down his water and picked up the ball again, waiting for Aidan to finish gulping his drink.

Aidan wiped his mouth and headed for the blacktop beneath the hoop. “No one is this good, this careful. We have to be missing something.”

“Well, we did get the medical examiner to agree that it’s
possible
all three victims were killed with similar knives and, more importantly, knife strokes,” Sean said, passing Aidan the ball. “None of the murdered women had incision marks or evidence of slicing. They all died from clean, deep wounds made by a six-inch blade that’s at least an inch wide at the base.”

Aidan grunted and made a jump shot over Sean’s head. “I haven’t had time to go over the preliminary forensics report. I’ve been too busy chasing court orders and trying to tie things up from the Camelot perspective.”

“Me too. Maybe that’s the problem. We’ve been running around trying to flesh out the dating service connection, going on the assumption that Claire really did see the killer in the catalogue. We’ve been trusting her instincts.”

“That’s nothing new. You and I go on instinct all the time,” Aidan said, spinning around as Sean got by him.

“Yeah, but we always look to old-fashioned investigative work to back up our hunches. So far we haven’t come up with anything. We’ve been working around the clock for close to five days,” Sean said, slamming the ball through the hoop.

“What are you saying? You think Claire is imagining things?”

“It’s possible. She took a helluva knock to the head.” Sean’s concentration faltered for a second, and his partner stole the ball. “Shit, I don’t know. It seems like everything we follow turns to nothing. Mendes has nothing in her life to point to her killer. Nobody saw anything the night she was murdered but Claire.”

“Slow progress is nothing new for murder investigations. Is Captain Michaels chewing on you?” Aidan asked, dunking the ball.

“Yeah. He’s got this wild-ass idea to use Claire as bait to draw the killer out of hiding.”

“She’s all we have,” Aidan said neutrally.

“Bullshit,” Sean shot back. “We could go back and dig up everything that’s been written in the files on the dead women over the years. And we need to go through unsolved stabbing murders for every precinct in the D.C. Metro area, maybe as far out as Baltimore. I have a feeling that this guy has been active for a while.”

“No argument.” Aidan caught the ball Sean fired at him after scoring and began a new charge toward the hoop. “The captain told me to dig into the Camelot angle.”

“And Claire?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s really hot on the bait idea, isn’t he?”

“Yeah.” Aidan made a basket while Sean stood there.

“Shit.”

Sean grabbed the rebound and slammed it through hard enough to make the backboard vibrate.

Washington, D.C.

Friday morning

C
laire was relieved when Olivia finally went back to work on Friday morning. She felt guilty that her friend had already missed so much work, guiltier still for the fact that she had worried and fussed over Claire since she’d left the hospital. But now Livvie was back to her job at DC Child and Family Services, leaving Claire to entertain herself in her friend’s cozy two-bedroom apartment.

After locking the two dead bolts and chain behind Livvie, Claire sat at Olivia’s antique desk and opened the laptop computer a coworker had dropped off. She barely paid attention to the status update her team had sent. Things were going well without her, and she was confident her accounts would be fine for a few more days. When she heard her own thoughts, she paused.
Who would have believed it?

She was normally the type of person who took her computer and cell phone with her on vacation, half-convinced that things would fall apart while she was away from the office.

Funny how almost dying changed a person’s perspective. She’d barely given work a second thought in the last week.

Giving herself a mental shake, Claire dealt with some e-mails needing replies and shut down her laptop. She wanted to keep Olivia’s phone line free in case someone called. Specifically, in case Sean called with an update on the investigation. Since it had been days since they’d last spoken, Claire had to believe he would attempt to contact her soon.

The phone didn’t ring, so she cooked a quick breakfast. While she ate it, she told herself Sean was busy following an investigative lead. That would explain why he hadn’t called.

Later, as she surveyed the refrigerator for lunch prospects, she told herself she would give Sean one more hour. When the phone finally rang, Claire dropped the sandwich she’d been picking at and rushed to grab the receiver.

“Hi, Claire. It’s Afton. When I couldn’t find you at home, I called Olivia’s number. I didn’t want to disturb you before.” Afton paused. “Anyway, I understand if you don’t want to talk to me, since I’m the one who got you into this mess.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Claire said. “No one got me into this. It just happened.”

“And it wouldn’t have if I hadn’t nagged you into joining Camelot. The detectives seem sure the dating service is connected. I’m so sorry,” she said miserably. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“You spoke to Sean and Aidan? When?”

“The first time was Monday morning, but I’ve pretty much had daily contact since then. They’re trying to get a
court order to access Camelot’s files. I’d like to just give them the information, but Mother contacted our lawyer and he says I could be liable if I turn over confidential details on clients. He’s reviewing our membership contracts right now, to see what the liability is if we turn the database over to the police.” Afton hesitated. “Are you all right?”

“Sure—I just knocked myself out when I fell down a set of steps. It really wasn’t as dramatic as it sounds. Everything’s fine.”

“Is it really? The detectives are going to an awful lot of trouble just to catch an assault suspect.”

Claire hesitated. Afton seemed to be under the impression that Sean and Aidan were treating the attack as an isolated incident, instead of one that was connected to the murder of Renata Mendes.

“What exactly did Sean tell you about last Friday night?” Claire asked cautiously.

“Just that you were assaulted while walking home from Camelot. He said you couldn’t remember much, except for the impression you had seen the guy who attacked you in a photo. Possibly a photo from Camelot’s catalogue. Although they don’t seem to be pursuing that angle anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Claire asked.

“It’s just an impression. At first both detectives were involved in questioning me, and they really pushed for me to turn Camelot’s catalogue over to their technical department. Recently, I’ve only been talking to Detective Burke. Frankly, he seems more interested in you, me, and Camelot as a business than he is in the catalogue. That’s my take, anyway.”

“Did they mention anything about the woman who was
murdered at the middle school near Camelot?” Claire asked, already knowing the answer.

“No. What’s going on?”

Claire was reluctant to fill her in. Sean and Aidan had clearly withheld the information from Afton. On the other hand, no one had told her not to talk about that night.

Besides, if the police were going to play games, they could at least call her and tell her the rules. Since they hadn’t, it didn’t matter, did it?

With that, Claire told the entire story to Afton.

“My God. You witnessed the murder?” Afton was in shock. “And you think you might have seen the killer in Camelot’s catalogues? I can’t believe it!”

“Obviously, neither can the cops, since they’ve abandoned their efforts to get into your files and check out my story.”

“If there is even a chance that murder is involved, I’ll turn over the entire database with no questions asked—forget my mother and the lawyer. Jesus, all the police had to do was explain.”

“That would be too easy,” Claire said bitterly.

She told herself it was stupid to be hurt. She shouldn’t take it personally that Sean had been holding back information—and his opinion—about Claire’s version of the night of the murder. But she was hurt, and angry that she’d learned more about the status of the investigation from a chance phone call than from the detectives who were supposed to be her advocates.

She felt her temper rising and deliberately clamped down. Flying off the handle wouldn’t help. Okay, so the police didn’t believe her story. So they had been keeping her in the dark right along with Afton. And because the detectives didn’t believe her, they’d blown off the dating
service catalogues, which was the one thing Claire felt certain about in all the events of the last week.

“You’re sure about seeing the man in a photo?” Afton asked.

“Do you have time to meet with me this afternoon?” Claire interrupted.

“I’ll clear my schedule and be over in half an hour.”

“No. I’ll meet you at your office. I think we’ve let me fall behind on my membership obligations.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I suddenly feel a great need to look through your catalogue again. I’m sure I must have overlooked suitable matches the last time around. When would you have time to go through the photos with me again?”

“How soon can you get here?”

“Give me twenty minutes.” Claire hung up and got ready to leave for Camelot.

And to hell with a blue-eyed detective named Sean Richter.

Washington, D.C.

Friday morning

C
laire stalked into the building that held Camelot’s offices. She was still simmering over the fact that the police didn’t believe her about having seen the killer’s photo. Sean probably thought she’d just been hysterical. Maybe he thought she was wrapped up in some kind of dating neurosis and had subconsciously tied witnessing the murder with her visit to Camelot. After all, hadn’t he almost lost it when she’d told him she’d gone to a dating service in the first place?

She stepped into the elevator and punched the button like it was a certain detective’s face. Normally she wasn’t one to simmer. When she got mad, she exploded, worked through things with the object of her frustration, and moved on with few hard feelings. But given Sean’s annoying absence, that wasn’t possible.

Coward. He knows I’m furious.

The fact that he could hardly know whether she was cheerful or killing mad didn’t matter. It was much too satisfying to think of him hiding from her temper.

With a toss of her dark curls, she strode through the doors to the dating service. Afton was waiting there. She hugged Claire tightly, which surprised her. Afton was a good friend, but not normally a hugger. Claire returned the embrace, sensing that Afton needed to be reassured about something.

“I’m so glad you’re all right,” Afton said, leading her to the private office. She shut the door behind them. “I’ve been sitting here worrying about you, thinking what I would do if it turns out this guy is a Camelot client. It will destroy everything Maura worked so hard to build.”

“Don’t worry yet. I can’t be certain I saw the guy in the catalogue.”

“But how can we be sure?”

Claire took a deep breath. In some ways, she really didn’t want to do this, but there wasn’t any choice. “Since I have such a strong image in my head of a photograph of the killer, and since this is the only logical place I could have seen photos recently, I want to go through the catalogue pictures until something jogs my memory.”

“You think you’d recognize the photo—or maybe have some kind of emotional reaction—even if you can’t remember anything else about that night?”

“Exactly. If only you could see the photo in my mind. I don’t really have an idea about his features, but his smile—” Claire stopped and shivered.

“Tell me about it. Maybe I’ll recognize him and save us some time.”

“It was a very unique smile, kind of tight and twisted up at the ends. Hell, it was twisted period. As if he were getting off, only there was real cruelty in the smile as well.” Claire looked at Afton, needing to be believed. “I’m not
doing a very good job of describing it, but I’m sure I’d recognize him if I ever saw that smile again.”

“Okay, so we look through the catalogue for guys who have a twisted smile.” Afton mentally reviewed the best way to approach this task. “Some of the clients aren’t smiling in the pictures. Do you want to eliminate them?”

“No, I think we should go over every male client, in whatever way I did the night of the murder. I think that’s very important. Maybe something will trigger a memory.”

“Sounds good.”

Claire looked at Afton, seeking any sign that she was being humored or patronized. There was nothing but determination in Afton’s brown eyes.

“That night,” Afton said thoughtfully, “you opted to view the catalogues alphabetically. You went through every photo and bio in the system. It took hours, but it should be easy to duplicate. Let me transfer my calls to voice mail and set the computer up, then you can pull a chair over here and start.”

Claire dragged a chair over to the desk. “Have the police already been through the pictures?”

Afton shook her head. “I told you, my lawyer advised me against releasing the information until he could determine our liability. However, since you’re a paying customer, I have no issues.” She winked at Claire and gave the command to sort the database entries in alphabetical order.

Very quickly a photo popped up on the screen. Nice enough man, a little older than his bio stated, and smiling like a choirboy.

“Next,” Claire said.

Another photo appeared. No smile.

“Next.”

Claire settled in and concentrated on bringing up memories of having been here before, of seeing the parade of hopeful male faces. Something. Anything. Whenever she spent longer than a few moments on a photo, Afton wrote down the name for further research. She gave up asking Claire why she lingered over any photo. Her friend simply didn’t know.

They had gotten to
F
when voices from the hall distracted the women.

“I think she’s in her office, even though she’s not answering.” A pause, then a soft knock on the door. “Afton?”

“Come in.”

The door opened a crack and Camelot’s young receptionist popped his head in the opening. “Detectives Burke and Richter here to see you again.”

Claire grimaced and muttered, “Busted.”

Afton sighed. “Let them in.”

The men came through the door, one after the other. Sean stopped abruptly on seeing Claire, and his partner smacked into him from behind.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Sean asked.

Claire’s temper red-lined in a heartbeat, though she kept her expression calm. “Detective Richter, how nice to see you. I’m so pleased you remember me, because I was beginning to think you’d forgotten who I was. Certainly I haven’t heard from you or Detective Burke in days, but I guess even common courtesy must be pushed aside during important police investigations.” Claire’s Louisiana accent was pronounced, the drawling tones doing nothing to hide the fire burning in her eyes.

Well, shit
, Sean thought.
Who pissed in her chili?

And when had he become
Detective Richter
, uttered in that nasty, syrupy voice? He knew she’d been raised in New Orleans, but her accent wasn’t usually so pronounced. He exchanged a look with Aidan.

Afton stepped into the yawning silence to offer the men seats and some coffee. Claire continued to work one-handed on the computer. After giving a new command to the database program, she swiveled her chair, looked directly at Sean, and waited for him to make the next move.

Aidan tried to smooth over the tense silence. “You’re looking great, Claire. How’s the head doing?”

“It’s just fine. You’d be amazed at what a few quiet days can do to clear up your thinking and put things in perspective. Especially when your office leaves you alone and all you have to do is think about your personal life.”

“Have you remembered anything?” Sean asked.

“Nothing you would find useful, I’m sure.” She turned back to the computer and began searching the next range of entries.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Sean asked. It was better than asking what he really wanted to know, which was why she was mad at him. The composed, angry woman sitting before him had little resemblance to the one he’d last seen in the hospital, with wild curls and shadows in her vulnerable eyes.

“I think she’s pissed about something,” Aidan said.

“Now why would I be mad?” Claire asked, looking over her shoulder at Aidan. “Haven’t you and your partner kept me up to date on what’s happening with
my
investigation and when I can move back into
my
home? Haven’t I had twice-daily calls letting me know what y’all are working on, and how things are going and if I could be
any help?” Claire picked up Afton’s letter opener and began to tap it on the blotter pad.

Sean’s eyes narrowed.

Aidan started talking fast. If Sean lost his temper things would go to hell real fast. “That would be my fault,” Aidan said. “I’ve been working on the part of the investigation involving you and Afton, while Sean has been buried in archived files for every precinct in the D.C. Metro area. We’ve both been so busy that some days we didn’t remember to eat.” He smiled his most winning smile.

Despite her annoyance Claire had to admit that what Aidan said made sense, if you didn’t examine it too closely.

“Plus,” Aidan added quickly, “your doctor told us to give you a couple of days to rest. Couldn’t go against his orders, now, could we?” Aidan stretched the truth without hesitation. He
had
spoken to Claire’s doctor as part of his background check, and the man
had
said the best chance for Claire to recover her memory would be through rest and recuperation.

Claire fiddled a bit more with the letter opener. From the corner of her eye she could see that Sean looked very tired, with deep circles under his blue eyes. His short, dark hair was carelessly combed, as if he had run a hand through it repeatedly.

Never one to hold a grudge, she decided to give the detectives a chance to redeem themselves by bringing her fully up to date on the status of the investigation.

“How have things been going on the Mendes case, then?” she asked.

Sean’s expression became guarded. He resisted the
urge to glance at Afton and see her response to the question. They had planned to stop by Camelot today and explain to her in detail why they believed Claire’s attack was related to a series of murders in the area.

“Don’t worry,” Claire said. “Afton knows the whole story about the night of the murder.” She smiled defiantly at Sean. “You didn’t tell me to keep things quiet, did you? Besides, Olivia already knew. I needed Afton’s help, so I told her.”

Sean sat back in his chair and told himself that losing his temper would be stupid. Obviously Claire had been doing quite a bit of thinking in the last few days. While he was pleased she was feeling well enough to be out of the hospital visiting friends, he was uncomfortable with the idea of her revealing information about an active case without consulting him in advance.

“You should have talked to me,” Sean said.

“How? You didn’t return my call. Twice.”

“It’s fine if Ms. Gallagher knows,” Aidan said before his partner could put words to the anger narrowing his eyes. “We’d prefer if neither of you discussed it with anyone else, though.”

Sean rubbed his neck and told himself to cool off. They should have known that Claire would talk with her friends. If they hadn’t wanted her to, they should have told her so. He couldn’t get mad at her for something that was their own fault.

“Sure, it’s no problem,” Sean said. “Saves us some explaining.” He looked over the desk at Afton. “Now you understand why we want to go through your files.”

“I certainly do. But since I hadn’t heard anything more about the court order, I’d assumed you had, um, abandoned
the idea that our files would be useful.” She looked at Claire uncomfortably, seeking support as she became the focus of Sean’s intense stare.

“Why would you think that? We’ve just been working other angles of the case,” Sean said.

“What she means,” Claire said, “is it seemed like the police didn’t believe me about the potential connection between the killer and Camelot’s catalogue. I can understand how she came to that conclusion.”

“It’s not that we don’t believe you,” Sean said. “And we haven’t dismissed any possibilities. We’re detectives, Claire. A lot of what we do would seem pointless to you, but it’s all part of building an investigation.”

“Puh-lease,” Clare said, rolling her eyes. “Look, I understand that an eyewitness suffering from amnesia isn’t exactly a slam dunk for a court order, much less a conviction. That’s why I’m working on finding something more concrete than a
feeling
I’ve seen this guy’s picture before.”

“What are you up to?” Sean said.

“I’m not ‘up to’ anything. I’m merely pursuing something I believe is critical to regaining my memory.”

Sean shot out of the chair and came around the desk. One glance at the computer screen was all he needed. “You’re looking through the catalogue.”

“Give the detective a cigar,” she said.

Aidan started to say something, then shut up at a look from Sean.

“Do you really believe you’re going to find the guy’s picture here?” Sean said, ignoring her attitude.

“What I really believe is that if I don’t do something to get my life back under control, I’ll go nuts.” With that, Claire lifted her chin and scrolled through the next entry.

Sean placed one hand palm down on the desk and the other on the back of Claire’s chair, effectively making a cage out of his arms. “Were you going to let me know if you found anything in the database?”

She was smart enough not to answer a question asked in the deadly quiet tone Sean was using. She also understood body language enough to know that Sean was deliberately trying to intimidate her, so she resisted the urge to squirm in her chair.

Silence continued, punctuated by the occasional click of the mouse Claire used as she worked her way through the photos.

“Were you, Claire?” He leaned closer, frankly looming over her. He was angry and didn’t mind letting it show. “Were you going to let us in on your little side investigation, tell us if you found a suspect? Or maybe you were just going to slip on your Wonder Woman costume and take the guy out yourself, huh?”

Claire leaped to her feet and tried to stare Sean down. It was a difficult task, given the fact that he was more than a head taller. “I’m not an idiot. How come if you look through the catalogues for a suspect you’re just doing your job, but if I do it I’m some kind of nutcase with a Nancy Drew complex?”

“Because it’s my job,” he said.

She drew in a breath that was half sob. Until that instant she hadn’t realized how stressed she was. “Your job. But it’s my
life.
You go to the office, work on the case, then close your files and go home. I don’t have any place to leave this locked up. Someone else is calling the shots, but
I
have to live with the results twenty-four hours a day.”

Sean’s anger faded as he tried to imagine what it would
be like to have his life turned upside down, then have strangers controlling his attempts to get things back to normal again. He’d be mad as hell.

“I have no idea what progress, if any,” she said, “has been made on a case that has me afraid to stay in my own home. Worse, I feel like I’m being treated as a suspect, when in reality I’ve done nothing except be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”