LITMIR.BIZ

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crying, exactly. She was just . . . done.

      He reached over and caught a bit of the liquid that fell from the corner of one eye. “I’m kind of a sucker for women in need,” he admitted. “Just ask my last ex-girlfriend. It was on the top of her list of complaints. Well, at least number three or four. She also said I was uncaring, uncommunicative and dog shit, not necessarily in that order.”

      “Don’t be cute. I can’t stand cute.”

      “One thing I’m not . . . is cute.”

      His blue eyes regarded her with warmth. Kindness, even. In another time, she might have argued that fact. He was a hell of an attractive guy and she was pretty sure he knew it.

      “I thought it was an ex-wife,” she said.

      “That,” he admitted, “was a lie.”

      The starch just went out of her. Surrender. Capitulation. The aftermath of too much adrenaline. Whatever the case she felt her body start shaking as if she had the palsy and her watering eyes flooded in a rush of tears she found embarrassing.

      “Hey . . .”

      “Shut up,” she said through a thick throat. “I mean it.”

      Silence fell between them. Fighting emotion, she lowered her gaze, focusing on his cowboy boots. “Go ahead and call the police. Charge your phone and call them.”

      He didn’t answer, just started up the Jeep.

      “Where are we going?”

      “Don’t worry. I’m not turning you in,” he said, on a long-suffering sigh. “We’re going back to my house. Then, we’re going to take it from the top. Figure out what to do. We’ll start with what happened at Zuma. That’s where it all began. That’s why you and I are together now.”

      The mood around the station was tense, and Lieutenant D’Annibal had actually said, “Damn,” which was way outside his usual vocabulary. He was the face of the authorities and looked good on camera, and he was as careful off camera as on.

      It was a testament to his own anxiety when he used the word, and he used it when September questioned him, a bit tensely, about her brother.

      “I just got a text from him,” the lieutenant told her and Gretchen after September asked to speak to him and Gretchen followed her quickly inside his office, as if she’d been invited. “He’s been with Olivia Dugan since about five o’ clock last night.”

      “With?” September asked. “What does that mean?”

      Gretchen said, “So, she wasn’t involved with the Martin murder?”

      “Doesn’t look like it,” D’Annibal said.

      “Well, where are they?” September demanded. “Why doesn’t Auggie bring her in for questioning? What’s the big secret?”

      “What does he think about the Martin shooting?” Gretchen asked.

      “I don’t know if he knows.” D’Annibal was crisp. “I told Channel Seven I’d give them an update. Maybe he’ll see it on the news.”

      “Update.” Gretchen snorted. As if she were reporting, she said, “Person or persons unknown shot him in the residential parking lot of Zuma Software’s employee, Olivia Dugan, missing since yesterday’s massacre.”

      “Have you tried calling him?” September asked the lieutenant. “’Cause he’s not picking up for me.”

      “He’s not picking up for me, either,” D’ Annibal admitted. “For the moment, I’m going to trust he knows what he’s doing. Dugan apparently went straight to her apartment after she fled the homicide scene. Then she grabbed up some belongings and headed out on foot. Rafferty picked up her trail at that point. He was in his Jeep, and he caught sight of her and called it in. He was going to keep with her.”

      “Well, that was yesterday.” September couldn’t stem the irritation in her voice. “And then he texted you today? You sure it’s him, and not her with the phone?”

      “You think she took Detective Rafferty’s phone off him, found my cell number, and texted me an alibi for herself for last night’s murder?” The lieutenant gazed at her calmly and September felt her face heat up as she heard how improbable that sounded.

      “From what we know of Olivia Dugan, that’s not likely,” she admitted.

      “From what we know of your brother, it’s quadruple unlikely,” Gretchen said. “He doesn’t let women get the upper hand on him.”

      You don’t know him as well as you think you do, September thought, but she’d said enough already.

      She and Gretchen were dismissed from D’Annibal’s office and September said, “Where were you last night?”

      Gretchen made a sound of disgust. “On a date. With a man with grabby hands. Slid ’em over my ass about ten times while we were waiting for a table. So, I ordered the most expensive things on the menu and stuck him for a huge bill. He liked the idea of taking out a cop, but got pretty nasty when he realized the night was ending at my front door. Told him I’d arrest him for sexual harassment if he didn’t let up. He believed me and left.” She made a face. “Turned my phone off. Sorry. Would’ve rather been with you. So, the girlfriend blamed Olivia Dugan?”

      September had given her the highlights before they walked into D’Annibal’s office, and now she gave her a more complete report. Gretchen listened closely, then nodded a couple of times.

      “All right, let’s go see Kurt Upjohn and the ex, if she’s still at the hospital.”

      “Camille. What about Maltona’s boyfriend . . . um . . . Jason?”

      “Jason Jaffe.” She humphed her annoyance. “Slippery bastard. Yeah, I’m gonna track him down after the hospital. When’s the interview with Channel Seven?” September shrugged and Gretchen said, “Probably soon. They’ll put it on like a teaser. D’Annibal looks good on camera and so does the viper.”

      “Pauline Kirby? Wes called her a barracuda.”

      Gretchen smiled thinly. “You’re bound to have a ‘moment’ with her sooner or later. You’ll find your own adjectives.”

      Liv watched the landscape flash by outside the window. “Actually, this started long before Zuma,” she said to Auggie, picking up the conversation where it had dropped off. They were almost back at his place.

      He shot her a look. “You’re thinking it started with your mother. Her death. Or, maybe something to do with the things she sent you?”

      “Her death . . . And there were other deaths at the same time of my mother’s supposed suicide.”

      “Supposed,” he repeated.

      “The official version is she hanged herself, but I’ve never been able to make myself believe that. There was a serial killer, just outside of Rock Springs. Twenty years ago. He strangled them, and left their bodies in fields. And I think it’s connected to my mom’s death.”

      “You think he’s responsible.”

      “It’s a theory.”

      He asked, feeling his way, “You lived in Rock Springs at the time of the killings?”

      “Strangulations. Yes.”

      He thought in silence for a few moments, then said, “I remember some about that case. They never got the guy, and the killings seemed to stop.”

      “The theory is that he’s either dead or in prison for something else.”

      “You don’t believe that,” Auggie guessed.

      “No. I don’t. Like I don’t believe it was suicide. Mama’s death. I always thought it was . . .”

      A

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