Turning to Elkins, Jordan asked, “Meaning no offense, you’re not a gay man who had a straight wife and a family, are you?”
The writer gave her a wry smile. “No. Nobody gay in my immediate family. I don’t think there’s any family in America that if you look hard enough, you won’t turn up a gay cousin or aunt or whatever, but... no.”
Levi said, “Add to that, when my family was killed, I didn’t even know I was gay yet.”
Jordan said, “Really?”
“Well, not in any real way, I mean I hadn’t even come out entirely to myself yet, so how the hell did the killer know?”
“Sometimes the people around you know before you do.”
“But only somebody really close to me.”
“How about a teacher, or a counselor?”
“I don’t think so. But we do have another commonality — the Sully brother in Afghanistan is a survivor.”
“Four families murdered,” David said. “Each with a single survivor.”
Jordan said, “He said he wasn’t going to kill me because he wanted me to tell his story.”
Levi’s grin was a little crazy. “Only you clammed up on him. Sweet.”
“But,” David said, “maybe that’s what he thrives on. The crime, the atrocity he’s committed, lives on... because the survivor carries it on. And, he hopes, shares it with the world. Of course, Jordan, you cheated him out of it.”
They all sat and thought about that.
“We each bring something to the effort,” David said, with a general gesture. “Levi is a computer whiz, I’ve researched crime intensively as a backdrop to my fiction writing, and Kay has a way of providing keen insights, from the sidelines, that we might miss.”
Finally, with a bit of a smirk, Jordan asked, “What do you think I can add to your little Serial Killer Support Group?”
“Information,” David said.
Levi added, “The more we have, the easier it will be to determine if there’s a pattern or patterns... and maybe even how to catch the guy.”
“I like the sound of that,” Jordan admitted.
“Obviously,” Elkins said, “when we know enough, we take it to the police.”
That she didn’t like the sound of, but kept it to herself.
“All right,” she said. “I’m in.”
David and Levi exchanged smiles, both saying, “Good,” and Kay nodded. So far Kay hadn’t offered any of those “insights” that David had mentioned, and really just seemed to be along for the ride. Literally. But what the hell — every team needed a mascot.
And every survivor of violence had to find meaning...
Jordan checked her watch. “I’ve got to go now, but after the next meeting, we’ll dig in. Hard.”
They said their goodbyes and the others stayed on in the coffee shop. Outside, she unlocked her scooter, started it up, then headed home, the cool air bracing, her mood upbeat.
As soon as she rounded the corner, Jordan knew the black Ford parked in front of her building didn’t belong there.
She came up from behind the Ford, on the driver’s side. As she neared, she caught the reflection of the driver’s face in his rearview. A middle-aged African-American male, kind of good-looking for his age.
Jordan didn’t look at him, but she didn’t exactly look away either, as she rode by. She checked her mirror. He was noting her passage. As she glided by her building, she saw another man, white, in a rumpled suit and an unconvincing hairpiece, showing something in his billfold to the building manager. Streetlight glinted off that something.
A badge?
She turned the corner and pulled over. She supposed she knew that someone would come sniffing around at some point. The murder of her family was very old news, but her release from St. Dimpna’s was new news, and maybe enough to get the police to revisit the case, in a perfunctory way probably. All it meant to her was more questions she had no desire to answer.
Screw it, no reason to avoid these guys. If she did, they would just keep coming around. Gunning the scooter, she went around the block and came up behind the Ford. The white cop in the rumpled suit was back in the car, obviously waiting her out.
She stopped the scooter directly beside the driver’s door, leaving him no room to get out. Raising the visor of her helmet, she smiled at the detective, who actually jerked a little when he realized who had him pinned inside his car.
His window came down.
“Ms. Rivera,” he said in a deep voice that seemed to start somewhere around his shoes.
She just looked at him. Did they know she had started talking again? Probably, but no reason to hand it to them. She just stared at the man. He had kind brown eyes, a short Afro, and a tidy goatee.
“I’m Detective Grant.”
Silence.
He nodded toward his partner. “This is Detective Lynch.”
The detective with the obvious hairpiece leaned over so she could see him, giving her a weak smile.
“We’d like to ask you some questions,” Grant said. “How about inviting us inside?”
“No.”
Grant frowned, more confused than irritated. “Ms. Rivera, this is important. It has to do with the death of your parents and brother.”
“Has there been a breakthrough in the case?”
That took Grant by surprise. He managed to say, “No, no, it’s just that we’d like to talk to you about your family and—”
“If you have new information to share, I’d be happy to hear it. Otherwise, no.”
“Ms. Rivera, we never had the chance to interview you after—”
“It’s still too painful. I’m in therapy. Check with my doctor — Dr. Hurst? At St. Dimpna’s?”
“We understand, but if we’re going to apprehend whoever killed your family—”
She sharpened her voice. “What part of ‘it’s too fucking painful’ do you not understand?”
The detective gaped at her as Jordan gunned the scooter and rode off, fast enough to earn herself a ticket, practically daring them to come after her. But when she’d rounded the block and turned the corner, the Ford was gone.
She turned down the alley, pulled into the compact parking lot behind her building. Spaces were at a premium, but there was a light post on one side that she could lock her Vespa to.
The scooter’s still-coiled chain was in one hand when two men stepped from the shadows of the storage shed behind the lot. One, a skinny Hispanic kid, had a knife that caught the dim light, the long slender blade pointed toward Jordan, like an accusing finger. The knife wielder wore black jeans and a black T-shirt, his curly hair combed back — it looked wet, like he’d just climbed out of a pool. His face had angular features and he would have been a good-looking kid if his close-set eyes hadn’t made him look so stupid.
The other one, a rangy white kid, was also in black jeans and a black T-shirt, though his bore the phrase DON’T BE SEXIST — BITCHES HATE THAT.
Staying consistent with his shirt, he said, “Gimme your purse, bitch.”
She held out her free hand, open palm up. “You see a purse?”
The pair traded frowns, and the white kid said, “Then your wallet, bitch.”
Jordan let one end of the balled chain slide out of her hand with a metallic rattle. “Say bitch one more time.”
“Ooooo, she got balls,” the knife wielder purred, apparently amused by the sight of the three-foot length of chain dangling from her hand.
The white kid blurted, “I said your wallet, you lezzie cunt!”
She shook her head. “Just fuck off, fellas, and we’ll be fine.”
The kid with the knife took a threatening step closer, and the big one gave her a wide-eyed, sneering look that she guessed was supposed to scare her.