“In my car,” he said.
“Okay.” Daniel passed Luke and Luke slipped the envelope under his arm.
“I’ll wait,” Luke said and Daniel only nodded.
Feeling like a dead man walking, Daniel got into Chase’s car and pulled the door closed. Chase got behind the wheel.
“What’s in the envelope, Daniel?”
Daniel cleared his throat. “My demons.”
“I kind of figured that.”
He watched Malcolm and Trey lift the gurney into the rig and slam the back doors shut. Sheila’s blood is on my hands. No more secrets. No more lies. “It ends here.”
“What ends here, Daniel?”
“Hopefully not my career. Although if it comes to that, I won’t fight you.”
“Why not let me be the judge?”
An appropriate starting place, Daniel thought. “My father was a judge,” he said.
“Yes, I know. Daniel, spit it out. We’ll deal with whatever we need to deal with.”
“I am spitting it out. It all started with my father, the judge.” And Daniel told him the entire story, including the details he had not shared with Alex earlier-the part when he’d first laid eyes on the pictures eleven years before, but his father had burned them to keep him from revealing the secret to the police. When he finished, Chase was staring straight ahead, elbows on his steering wheel, his chin propped on his fists.
“So you technically have had these pictures only a week.”
“I gave a set to Vito Ciccotelli in Philadelphia the day I got them.”
“And that’s the one thing that’s going to save your ass. Why didn’t you come to me?”
Daniel pressed the heels of his hands to his brow bones. “God. Chase, have you ever done anything so horrible, you were ashamed for anyone to know?”
Chase was silent so long Daniel thought he wouldn’t answer. But he finally nodded. “Yes.” And that appeared to be all Chase planned to say on the topic.
“Then you know why. For eleven years I have lived with the knowledge that these girls were victimized. That I knew and I said nothing. I promised myself I’d find them, that I’d fix this. Then the moment Alicia’s ID was dumped in my lap I found every reason not to tell. I didn’t want to jeopardize the case. I wanted to atone. I didn’t want to hurt Alex.”
“Did you tell Alex?”
Daniel nodded. “Yeah. She wasn’t as mad as I thought she’d be. Are you?”
“What? Mad as you thought I’d be?” Chase sighed. “I’m disappointed. I thought you trusted me. But I have been in your shoes and it’s not a place where right and wrong are black and white.” He looked at the envelope. “Those are the pictures?”
“Yes. I was thinking Alex might be able to identify some of the other girls. She recognized Sheila from high school.”
Chase put out his hand and Daniel gave him the envelope, feeling as though a weight rolled off his shoulders as he did so.
Chase looked at the pictures, his face tightening in disgust. “Hell.” He put them back in the envelope and slid it next to his seat. “Okay. This is what we’re going to do from here on out. You’re going to put in a formal request for the pictures to Ciccotelli in Philly ASAP. You’re going to say you thought Alicia was one of the girls but that you didn’t know any of the others until you saw Sheila tonight. So we requested the pictures back.”
“That’s not actually untrue,” Daniel said slowly and Chase shot him a rueful look.
“That’s why they pay me the big bucks. You will not mention that you made copies and kept the originals. Who else knows you have these, besides Luke?”
“Alex and her cousin Meredith.”
“Can they be trusted?”
“Yes. But Chase, I want to use those originals tonight. I need to find out who the other girls were. Maybe one of them knows who did this to them. Somebody out there doesn’t want their identity known.”
Chase shook his head thoughtfully. “Killing Sheila supports that theory, but killing Janet and Claudia doesn’t. Why call attention to themselves?”
“Maybe somebody found out,” Daniel said quietly. “And we can’t forget about the keys. It’s important. I just don’t know how.”
“And the hair. Did you get Alex’s hair down to the lab so they can compare them?’
“I did. Wallin’s going to run the PCR on overtime. He thinks he can have a DNA comparison by tomorrow afternoon.” Daniel glanced at his watch. “I mean, today.”
Chase slapped his own face lightly. “We need to get some sleep, Daniel. You especially. You’ve been burning the candle at both ends for three weeks.”
“I want Alex to look at the pictures tonight.”
“Fine. You drive to her bungalow. I’ll follow you.”
Daniel lifted his brows. “You’re coming?”
Chase’s smile was tight and not terribly friendly. “Pal, I’m your new partner. You don’t go anywhere or do anything without telling me.”
Daniel blinked at him. “Forever or for just this case?”
“Just this case unless you pull some other dumbass stunt. You only get so many get-out-of-trouble-free cards.”
“Get out of jail,” Daniel corrected with a smile.
“If this had gone a different way, you might’ve ended up there,” Chase warned, not smiling back. “No more secrets. You tell me everything.”
“Fine. I’m going to sleep on Alex’s sofa tonight.”
Chase leveled him a long look. “Fine. Just stay on the sofa.”
Daniel lifted his chin. “And if I don’t?”
Chase rolled his eyes. “Then just lie and tell me you did. Go on. If we’re gonna show her the pictures, let’s do it before sunup.”
Chapter Thirteen
Dutton, Wednesday, January 31, 2:30 a.m.
They were hideous. Obscene. But Alex forced herself to look at each one even when the sandwich Meredith had forced down her throat threatened to claw its way back up.
“I’m sorry,” Alex said for the seventh time, shaking her head at the picture of a girl being brutalized. I thought my dreams were bad before… “I don’t recognize her.”
Daniel put another on the table in front of her while Chase looked on in stony silence. Meredith sat on the other side of her while Daniel’s friend Luke sat on the sofa in the living room with his computer on his lap, watching in the same thoughtful way he’d watched her at the Underground.
It seems like it’s been years. But it had been less than twenty-four hours since she’d nearly been killed.
“Alex?” Daniel murmured and Alex forced herself to look at the eighth picture.
“I’m-” She frowned, the denial forgotten. She pulled the picture from the table and held it close to her eyes, which felt like they’d been rubbed with crushed glass. She studied the girl’s face. Her nose. “I know her. That’s Rita Danner.”
“How do you know?” Daniel asked.
“Her nose. It’s been broken. Rita hung with the popular crowd, but she had a mean streak, especially if she was jealous of you. She liked to pick on the nerds.”
“Did she pick on you?” Meredith asked.
“Only once. We were at a sleepover and I woke up to find Rita smearing peanut butter into my hair. I took a handful of the peanut butter and shoved it up her nose.”
Daniel blinked. “You broke her nose?”
“I shoved a little too hard.” Alex sighed. “I hated her. But this… My God.”
“Luke?” Daniel asked.
“I found a wedding announcement. Rita married a Josh Runyan of Columbia, Georgia.” He tapped a few more keys. “And here’s a divorce announcement dated two years ago. But it looks like Rita still lives in Columbia.”
“It’s not too far,” Daniel said. “We can visit her. See what she recalls. What about this one?” He slid another picture on the table. “Well?”