He thought of his mother, tossing and turning in her bed and he was suddenly, fiercely angry. She had to know. She had to see. She knew he disappeared in the night. But she got up every morning and put on her best face. Made him bacon and eggs and smiled like they were normal. They weren't normal.
He wished he would just go. Leave them alone. He wished his mother would throw him out. Tell him to never come back. But she wouldn't, because she was scared. He knew that. He knew she had a right to be. So am I.
Thursday, November 30, 7:20 a.m.
"Daddy?"
Reed looked up from buttoning his shirt, buttonhook in one hand. "Yes, Beth?"
She stood in his doorway, her brows drawn together in worry. "Are you okay?"
No. He was sick at heart. Two more. "Just tired, honey. Just really tired."
She hesitated. "Dad, I need more lunch money."
Reed frowned. "I just gave you lunch money on Monday."
"I know." She made a face. "I owed some library fines. I'm sorry."
Feeling unsettled, he gave her another twenty. "Return the books on time, okay?"
"Thanks, Dad." She slipped the money into her jeans. "I'll go put your coffee on."
"I could sure use it." Wearily he sat on the edge of his bed. Mia had been right He was a wreck this morning. He wondered where she was, imagined her back in her apartment, alone. He should have held off, waited until they could establish the ground rules. No strings. But he hadn't been able to. His mind had been too full of her, his body at the edge of control. He had to stay in control because he didn't want to hurt her.
He looked around his bedroom. Everything here was as Christine left it, elegant and tasteful despite the passage of time. Mia's room was a hodgepodge of clashing colors, orange and vivid purples. Striped blankets and plaid curtains. All rummage sale stock.
But the bed had served its function quite well. Sex with Mia could become addicting if he allowed it. But he didn't allow addicting behaviors. He was stronger than that. Absently he rubbed his thumbs over his numb fingertips. He'd stopped himself from drinking when it got out of hand, something his biological mother had never done. A disease, she'd said. A choice, he knew. She'd loved the liquor more than she'd loved him, more than she'd loved anything.
He grimaced, pushing the thought of his mother out of his mind. He'd thought about her more this week than in years.
He had to stay in control. Not let this thing with Mia distract him from what was important. The life he'd built for Beth. For himself. He lifted the fine gold chain from his nightstand and put it around his neck. A talisman, perhaps. A reminder, most certainly.
He had to get moving or he'd be late for morning meeting.
Chapter Fifteen
Thursday, November 30, 8:10 a.m.
"Count to ten and go to hell?" Spinnelli sat at the head of the table, frowning. Jack was there, along with Sam and Westphalen. Spinnelli must have been shoring up the troops because Murphy and Aidan Reagan had joined them. Mia had taken the chair farthest away where she sat alone, eyes shuttered. But Reed knew her emotions churned. She'd called him when she'd left the hospital, her voice heavy with despair.
"Those were her dying words," she said, blandly now. "Literally."
Westphalen was watching her closely. "What do you think it means, Mia?"
"I dunno. I thought at first she was telling me to go to hell." She huffed once, sardonically. Painfully. "God knows she had the right."
"Mia," Spinnelli started and she held up her hand, straightening in her chair.
"I know. It's not our fault. I think it's what he said to her, Miles, right before he lit her on fire. I've ever seen anything like that before. I know I never want to again."
"Then let's get busy." Spinnelli went to the white board. "What do we know?"
"Well, Manny Rodriguez couldn't have done it," Mia said. "He was in holding."
"You were right about him," Spinnelli agreed. "Now it's even more important to find out what he knows and isn't telling. What else? What about the victims?"
"Brooke Adler and Roxanne Ledford," Mia said. "Both were schoolteachers. Brooke, English, Roxanne, music. Roxanne was twenty-six. Brooke just turned twenty-two."
Spinnelli's expression became one of grim resignation. "Cause of death?"
"Cause of death for Adler was cardiovascular collapse secondary to overwhelming burns," Sam said. "Cause for the second victim was the stab wound to her abdomen."
"The blade?" Mia asked tightly.
"About six inches long. Thin, Sharp. He plunged it into the abdominal cavity and"-he made a horizontal slicing motion-"cut her, approximately five inches across."
"The knife is consistent with his sexual assault on his victims," Westphalen said. "Many believe the knife is an extension of the penis."
"I'd like to take a knife to his extension," Mia muttered.
Reed cringed. He wasn't alone. "Smoke inhalation?" he asked.
"None. Ledford died within a few minutes at most. Well before the fire started."
Spinnelli wrote it on the whiteboard, then turned. "What else?"
"Adler's car is gone." Mia checked her notes. "We have an APB, but nothing so far."
"He repeated that part of MO," Spinnelli said thoughtfully. "What else is the same?"
"The device was the same," Reed said. "I found remnants in Brooke's bedroom and at the front entrance of the building."
"Adler's legs were broken like the first two victims," Sam added. "But she wasn't cut like the Hill woman. If she had been, she probably wouldn't have lived long enough to have been rescued. Ledford had only the stab wound and the burns caused by the fire."
"I think it's safe to say Roxanne Ledford surprised him," Jack said. "We found pieces of her violin around where firefighters found her body. I think she hit him with it."
"After she called 911," Mia murmured.
"And we can be thankful for that," Spinnelli pronounced. "If she hadn't, Adler wouldn't have lived as long as she did and lot of other people may have been hurt."
"Thirty people lived there," Reed said. "Ledford may have saved their lives."
"I'm sure that came as a great comfort to Roxanne's family," Mia said harshly.
"You told them?" Westphalen asked gently.
"About two hours ago. They didn't take it well."
Neither had Mia, Reed thought.
Murphy squeezed her forearm. "It sucks, kid," he murmured around his carrot stick.
She chuckled bitterly. "Y'think?"
Reed wished he could touch her too, hold her hand, but he knew that was out of the question. He fixed his eyes on the board. "There was no gas explosion. The apartments only had electric. There was also a difference in the egg fragments." He pushed a glass jar holding a lump of melted plastic to the table. "I found this a few feet from the door. I think the egg came apart before the fuse burned through. It never shattered."
Spinnelli's mustache bent down. "Interesting. Theories?"
"Well, if I'd set the device, I would have put it on the mattress itself. It would have caught fire faster and have been closer to Adler's body. But I don't think it was there."
Aidan Reagan was scratching notes on a pad. "Why not?"
"Because if it was on the mattress, she wouldn't have been alive when Hunter and Mahoney got to the bedroom-she would have looked like Penny Hill and Caitlin Burnette. Also, the burn patterns indicate the fire started on the floor close to the door, so it took a few minutes to spread to the bed."