“I need to speak with you, too. Something odd’s happened at one of my build sites.”
“What?”
“A workman was inside when I arrived this morning. He said he works for one of my contractors, but that’s not true. I don’t know what he was doing here, or what he wanted. I got him out of the house as soon as I could—”
“Are you alone?” There is unexpected urgency in Moore’s voice.
“I am, but things are locked up tight. I’m okay for now.”
“I’ll be there in ten. Stay put. And if he comes back, call 911.”
Olivia hears the siren start to wail.
“Okay, now you’re scaring me.”
“Just clearing people out of my way. Perks of the job. Get to make lots of noise and drive real fast. If we could blow shit up, I’d have the trifecta.”
There’s a smile in Moore’s voice, and Olivia hangs up a little more settled.
She takes a look at the marble, runs a hand over the circular stain, yanks it back as if the stone is burning hot. Could there be fingerprints? Hers and Eddie’s, without a doubt, but the mystery man, too?
What else might he have touched?
The back door. He left through the back door. Did I touch anything but the dead bolt?
He wasn’t wearing gloves, was he? Surely, they’ll be able to find his prints and figure out who he is. She doesn’t know. She wasn’t paying attention to his hands.
She pulls out her notebook and writes up everything as she remembers it—the chapped lips, the toolbox, the red hoodie, the coffee cup… Did he take that with him? A quick look confirms he has. The van with the extension ladder. She line-sketches the flat, serpentine eyes.
A knock on the front door. Moore has arrived.
Olivia lets the cop in. Moore’s eyes are guarded as she looks around.
“Any sign he broke in?”
“Not that I’ve seen, though I haven’t checked upstairs yet. Nothing down here. He must have had the contractor code to the door. But look. Here’s what’s bizarre.” She hands Moore the papers. “Park has nothing to do with my business. It’s not like he would come here and leave his birth certificate. And this, from Winterborn Life Sciences. I have no idea why these things are here.”
Moore nods, lips pursed, looking very interested now. “I do. Someone broke into your husband’s shed last night and emptied his safe. I think we can assume your intruder this morning was involved.”
“So he stole stuff from Park and brought it here. To me? Why?”
“An excellent question. To make sure you know about Winterborn, is my guess.”
Olivia grapples with details, lets them run through her mind as quickly as a flooded creek. There is only one answer, but she needs to ask anyway.
“Detective, are we in danger?”
“Also an excellent question.” Moore takes the papers and flips through them, either ignoring or unaware that Olivia is staring. The cop is just so blasé about it all. It’s like she’s seen everything; nothing surprises her. Olivia doesn’t know whether to feel reassured or terrified.
A cramp takes Olivia’s belly, and she gasps inadvertently, just a little intake of her breath. She turns away to grimace and rub the spot. Brigit the nurse told her to call if she was having any issues. She’s still spotting, and the cramps have been nasty. Maybe she needs to get looked at. She had to have a D&C—“just to clean things up”—after her second miscarriage. It felt a little like this. Insult to injury.
Moore doesn’t miss it, though.
“Are you okay?”
Is she? Is she okay? Her world has shattered around her, yet she is still standing. She is strong. But okay? No.
“I miscarried. Right before you arrived the other day. I hadn’t even had a chance to tell Park, and suddenly you were there with the news…” She chokes back a sob. “I’m sorry. It’s been a lousy week.”
Moore looks both horrified and sad. She awkwardly pats Olivia’s shoulder. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she says quietly. “Truly. Can I help? Do you want to sit down or something?”
“No. I’m fine. Do you have children, Detective?”
The woman shakes her head. “Always too busy with the job. Kids just weren’t my thing.”
“They’re clearly not meant to be mine, either. And now we find out Park has twenty-eight of them? It’s ridiculous to think…”
“Think what?”
“That having one with me will matter to him anymore,” she finishes, then dashes a hand against her cheeks and wipes away the tears. Get yourself together, Hutton. You’re letting her in too far. “Sorry, that is really not your problem. What do you want to do about this guy who was here today?”
Moore seems grateful to return to the break-in. “Can you sit down with a sketch artist for me? So I have an idea what he looks like?”
“Of course.”
“Good. I’ll have an evidence team look for prints and any other biologicals he might have left behind, too. Now, tell me everything he said, what he did.”
Olivia runs the cop through her interaction, shows her the coffee-stained marble, walks to the back door and describes how he stood on the other side of the glass, clearly relishing how uncomfortable he made her.
“It felt like he was trying to send me some sort of message. Though I haven’t a clue what. He gave me the willies, though. Something about the way he looked at me. I can’t describe it. It felt wrong. I’m making this into more than it is, I’m sure. My hormones…”
Moore shakes the papers. “I don’t think you are, Mrs. Bender. Could be something here. I’m not a big believer in coincidences. Especially when women are being murdered. Run me through what happened when he left.”
“He got in a van and drove off. Well, I didn’t see him get into the van, but it left right after, so I just assumed it was him.”
Moore looks at her notes. “‘A dirty white van with an extension ladder on top.’ Did it have windows?”
Olivia closes her eyes to recall. “No. It was a panel van. There’s got to be a thousand just like it, crawling all over town.”
Moore looks as if she’s trying to make a decision. Finally, she says, “I don’t want to alarm you, but I saw a van that matches the description you just gave me cruise by your house while I was there looking into the break-in.”
All of the breath leaves Olivia. “My God. He left here and went to my home?”
“Possibly. I’m going to have a car put on your house. And check the cameras coming in and out of the neighborhood here, and there, to see if we can’t capture a license plate. We’ll print this place, compare the latents to the ones from your husband’s office. Put them in the system, maybe get lucky and get ourselves a suspect. This is what we do, Mrs. Bender. Don’t worry, okay? We’ve got your back.”
Sure you do. “Do you think this is Park’s son?”
Moore pauses before answering, thoughtful and calm. “I honestly don’t know. I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but I’m going to look into all of this. I promise.”
“Have you talked to the people at Winterborn?”