Now she looked away. “So if we…” She picked at the shirt of his she wore. “If this continues, I’d have to quit.”
“I wouldn’t expect that, Eve. I know what Sal and Josie mean to you, and you to them. But I can’t visit you there.” He tugged on the tail of his shirt, pulling her to his lap. “If this continues, we’ll both give and take. In the grand scheme, your job, my knives, not a big deal.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I dreamed of him last night.”
“I know. It gave me chills.” Bone deep chills that had kept him awake for a while.
“I wish I could make them stop.”
“They’ll pass, Eve, the dreams and the voices. Mine took years, yours may take longer.” He took her hand, threaded their fingers together. “It’ll be all right.”
She pressed their joined hands to her lips. “I believe you.” Then she abruptly turned his hand over, her expression suddenly taut. “Dell Farmer wasn’t wearing a ring.”
Noah stared at his hand, his chest growing tight with dread. “No, he wasn’t.”
“David said the man who ran him off the road was wearing a ring, like yours. So either David was wrong, Farmer lost his ring, or…”
“Or somebody else ran David off the road.” He closed his eyes, trying to remember the scene at Harvey Sr.’s house. “The father wasn’t wearing one either.” He dug his cell phone from his pocket. “I’ll call Olivia.”
As he dialed, there was a knock at his front door. He opened his door to Olivia, holding her ringing phone. “We gotta talk, Web.” She pushed her way in before he could say another word, then stopped, her eyes gone wide. “Well, hello, darlin’.”
Eve halted her attempted flight and leaned against the wall, arms crossed, long legs bare. Her face was red, her scar visibly white. “Olivia,” she said, warningly.
“I was going to ask if you had a good night, Web, but I can see that you did.” She looked at Eve. “And next time my sister asks if you’re happy, I’ll know to say yes.”
Noah dragged one hand down his face. “Give us a minute to get dressed. There’s coffee in the pot. We need to talk to you about Dell Farmer.”
“That’s why I’m here. He was tracking your car, and Jack’s. I found the device under your engine block. Jack’s car had one, too.”
“Well, that explains a lot,” Noah said. “I wondered how he seemed to know when to follow us. He was at every victim’s scene and there when we interviewed the families.”
“I checked Katie’s cell LUDs,” Olivia said. “Lots of calls to Dell’s cell matching up to calls made between you and Jack, going back about three weeks.”
“Since MSP hit the stands,” Eve said, “and Katie hit on Jack.”
“She was tipping off Dell every time Jack got a call. Have you heard anything?”
“They won’t tell me anything,” Olivia said, “except that he’s not conscious.”
“Farmer wasn’t wearing a ring,” Noah said abruptly.
“Somebody else ran David off the road,” Eve said. “Somebody else was after me.”
Olivia didn’t look surprised. “Farmer wasn’t driving a black SUV last night. And he seemed to think it was really funny when we questioned him about it.”
“He said Donner ‘almost got you good tonight,’ ” Noah said slowly, a piece falling into place in his mind. “Did you trace any of his calls to that reporter from the Mirror?”
Olivia’s lips thinned. “The one who wrote that trash story on Jack? Yeah, his number’s in Dell’s call log, not fifteen minutes before the reporter showed up.”
“At the Bolyards’ house,” Noah said. “He knew that’s where we were. And that reporter’s first question wasn’t about the Bolyards’ homicide, it was about Jack.”
“Dell was there,” Eve said. “He saw something. He saw someone try to get you.”
“Get us,” Noah corrected. “That somebody tried to get you first, yesterday.”
“He was there, outside the Bolyards’,” Olivia said. “They both were. Dell and the killer. The other killer.” She scrunched her eyes. “Sorry, it’s been a long night.”
“Why? Why me?” Eve asked, but by the look in her eyes Noah knew she knew.
“It’s all about Shadowland,” he said. “Your test. Your subjects.”
“We almost got him coming out of Rachel’s,” Olivia said. “Because you alerted us.”
Eve leaned against the wall, stunned. “And now he wants me gone. Damn, why do I always get involved with these people? I’m a god-damn trouble magnet.”
“Dell started with the ‘pow’ shit when he heard me say Donner’s name, and the Bolyards told that TV reporter that it was Donner that followed Martha out that night.”
Eve shook her head. “I still can’t see Dr. Donner killing five women, Noah. I can’t.”
“I’m having trouble with it myself. But we won’t know until we find him, and he’s run.”
“Could Dell know where he is?” Eve asked uncertainly and Olivia shook her head.
“He wouldn’t talk. And I don’t want to start out offering him any deals.”
“Let’s talk it with the team,” Noah said. “We’ll get dressed and follow you in.”
Thursday, February 25, 7:30 a.m.
“Hurry,” Liza muttered, rushing down the stairs of her apartment. “Be late, be late.” The words were for her school bus. If she missed the bus, she’d have to walk three miles and miss the test she had first period. She burst out of the apartment building, relieved to see kids at the bus stop at the end of the block.
“What’s your rush?” Liza heard the silky voice a moment before she felt something sharp at her back. “Scream and you die,” a man’s voice promised softly.
She sucked in a breath to scream her lungs out anyway, but his hand covered her mouth, yanking her head backward. He was strong, dragging her into the alley between her building and the next. Fear gave her strength and she flailed, biting his hand. The gun abruptly disappeared from her back, but she was stunned by a blow to the side of her head. Dazed, she tried to fight, until a needle pricked her neck.
Seconds later he had her under his arm, dragging her through the snow. She could see an outline of a dark vehicle ahead. She tried to scream, but she couldn’t move her mouth. Couldn’t move anything. Tom. He wouldn’t know she was gone for hours.
He pushed her eyelids closed and she couldn’t open them. “Your sister is dead,” he whispered in her ear. “And soon you will be, too.” Then she landed hard on the floorboard of his backseat and the car drove away.
Thursday, February 25, 8:00 a.m.
The mood around Abbott’s table was silently grim as the team waited for Abbott to return from his meeting with the commander. Noah had put Eve at his own desk with orders not to move for anyone. Right now she wore the biggest target of them all.
Olivia and Kane were tired after their fruitless hours in Interview with Dell. Micki also looked exhausted, having coordinated multiple crime scenes. Ian had actually fallen asleep sitting up. Four new bodies in the morgue kept the MEs busy through the night.
Carleton’s shoulders sagged, his eyes on Jack’s empty chair. No news was no longer good news.
Abbott returned, and one look at his face said his meeting had not gone well. The commander had a right to be perturbed. Five dead women and they didn’t have shit.
Abbott threw a stack of local newspapers on the table. The headline on every one was Jack’s alleged murder-suicide, but each had an equally damaging variation on the Mirror’s NEW RED DRESS VICTIM FOUND, with the details of Rachel Ward’s death. Below the headline was the smaller “Two Witnesses Slain” and “Cops Have No Leads.”
Ian jerked awake as the papers slid across the table, Micki patting his hand silently.