The medication was legit. A prescription. Though three years old. For insomnia. His jaw tightened as he remembered the doctor, a woman with a kind smile and white coat, Indian heritage visible in her dark eyes, jet-black hair and slight accent. “These will help you get through the day,” she’d said kindly while dashing off the prescription. “Once things have stabilized and you’re sleeping again, then you can taper off.”
Trouble was, things had never stabilized.
He wondered if they ever would.
He tossed back the tablet, stepped into the shower, and let the bracing cold water run over his body. That was a shock. It helped. Icy needles pummeling his skin and running through his hair. Slowly he increased the temperature and within five minutes, he was fully awake and could get on with his morning. He threw on clothes, retrieved his service weapon from the safe and was out the door when he noticed his free weights and bench left unattended near the treadmill, where he’d tossed his jacket last night. Tonight, he promised himself, and left any shred of guilt behind him as he walked out the door and into the stairwell.
In less than two minutes he was in his SUV, threading through traffic. He grabbed a triple espresso and a sausage roll from a drive-through kiosk, where the barista, all of eighteen with a messy bun, bright smile, and a tattoo of a rose vine crawling up one arm, handed him his breakfast in a white sack while saying “You have a good day” around a smile that was just too perky at this hour of the morning.
“You too,” he’d said by rote, echoing the platitude.
Fifteen minutes later, he was at his desk when the station was still on the quiet side, but that would soon be over. It was nearly time for a shift change, the day crew coming on to replace the few officers and staff that held down the fort during the early-morning hours.
His phone vibrated.
He glanced at it and recognized Sheila’s number.
Hell.
He picked up. “Hey.”
“I thought you might be avoiding me,” she chided softly.
“I might be.” He imagined her with her intense brown eyes, pale, freckled complexion and wild cloud of red hair that never seemed tamed. Though forty, she looked ten years younger and kept herself in top athletic shape with some kind of intense boot camp–type fitness regimen that the army would envy.
“Look, I just thought you could give me some insight on the McIntyre Massacre. You know, now that Jonas McIntyre’s a free man, what’s the department going to do?”
Good question, he thought.
“I mean, are you going to look for the real killer?”
“You’re assuming that Jonas McIntyre’s not guilty.”
“He’s going free.”
“On a technicality.”
“Because the cops screwed up,” she said.
With effort, Thomas held on to his temper. Because she was right. There apparently had been a mistake in handling the evidence. The admission of that fact had sent the slow-grinding wheels of justice into reverse. But didn’t get Jonas McIntyre off the hook, not in Thomas’s mind. Sure, he couldn’t be tried for the same crimes, as double jeopardy prevented him being convicted again, but a man like McIntyre, a cold-blooded killer who’d spent over half his time locked away with felons? What were the chances that he wouldn’t fall back on his homicidal ways? The odds were zero to none.
“Is the department reopening the case?” she persisted.
“Listen, Sheila, I don’t know anything yet, and even if I did?”
“I know, I know. You wouldn’t say. Protocol and all that crap.”
“Yeah, all that crap.”
“I just thought I’d give you a chance to say what the department’s going to do. I’m already talking to some of the other people who have a stake in the case.”
“What’d’ya mean?”
“Other sources. Witnesses.”
She was baiting him. He knew it but couldn’t help asking, “Who?”
She laughed. “I believe you call them ‘persons of interest.’ ”
“Sheila—？”
“News at eleven,” she said, teasing. Or was it a veiled threat? With Sheila, you never knew.
Her voice lost any hint of banter. She said, “You owe me, Cole.”
And there it was. The favor that he knew she would call in someday. His jaw tightened. “I thought I’d paid up.”
She barked out a laugh. Completely without humor. Sadly. There had been a time when she’d laughed spontaneously, when she’d flirted and giggled and been sexy as hell. A time when she’d challenged him to strip chess, and he’d ended up sitting stark naked in her dining room while she was wearing everything other than a charm bracelet and her dangling earrings. And a time when she and he had discussed world issues along with the subtle differences between Oregon microbrews. And now this, the hard-edged laughter and her killer instinct. He knew she’d go for the jugular to get a jump on this story. Hence the mention of the favor.