Allison Brennan - Silenced

Noah let the racial slur slide. “How was he dressed?”

“How’em I supposed to remember that? Not like a scumbag. No suit, but I thought he might have been an undercover cop. ’Cept the narcs I know try to look like addicts, you know what I mean?”

“You have a good memory.”

“Two bills? Don’t see those here. Counting pennies for a bottle of beer, sure, got that going down.”

“Anything else you can remember?”

“No, and I’d tell you, honest. You just killed my business for the next two hours, buddy. Everyone on the block pegged you for a cop. My dad is going to shoot me.”

Noah handed him his card. “Thanks for your help.” He glanced up and saw the security camera. “Any chance you have that guy on surveillance?”

The kid shook his head. “No chance. We copy over the tapes every twenty-four hours. My dad’s cheap, and tapes cost a lot, and do you know how much it costs to go digital?”

Lucy closed her eyes as she savored the dark chocolate Haagen-Dazs ice cream Sean brought her.

“Umm.”

“Good?”

“Umm-hmm.”

Kate hit Sean in the shoulder. “You didn’t bring me any?”

“I’m sure Lucy will share.”

“No I won’t,” Lucy said between bites. “I’m the invalid here.”

Kate snorted and waved her hand around the family room. Lucy had taken over the coffee table with all the files and notes Noah had sent over. Her laptop was open and Noah had given her access to the complete Wendy James file. Because she’d been out of the loop on the James case for the last two days, she wanted to go through those documents first, with an eye for any connection to Ivy Harris or the murder victims.

“I need the chocolate to keep me focused on the task at hand,” Lucy said.

Kate sat on one of the chairs, tucked her shoulder-length blond hair behind her ears, and picked up a file.

“Wait,” Lucy said, “if you want to help, first read the Cyber Crime Unit report.” She leaned over and handed Kate the appropriate file, then took another big scoop of ice cream and put the lid on the carton. She started to get up to put it in the freezer, when Sean grabbed it from her.

“Sit.” He walked into the kitchen to put it away. Lucy glanced up when he came in a few minutes later, holding the cat. He sat down and adjusted the cat in his lap to pet him. The cat purred happily.

“Did you pick a name for him?” Lucy asked.

“Why does Sean get to name the cat?” Kate said.

“Because he’s taking him when I’m at the Academy.”

“No he’s not.” Kate looked from Lucy to Sean, narrowing her gaze to a glare. “You travel too much, Rogan.”

“Patrick and I are rarely gone at the same time.”

“I’m here every night. The cat needs consistency.”

“Admit it,” Sean said, “you like the cat.”

“I never said I didn’t.”

Lucy laughed. “You told me you didn’t want a pet.”

“Cats are easy.”

The cat suddenly meowed loudly and jumped off Sean’s lap.

“See, he doesn’t like you,” Kate said, picking the cat up. “Good kitty. I knew you wanted to stay with me.” She stuck her tongue out at Sean, an odd and hilarious gesture for a woman who was nearly forty.

“There’s a bump on his neck that’s probably sore, that’s why he jumped down. You should take him to the vet.”

“If I’m taking him to the vet, I’m keeping him while Lucy’s gone,” Kate said.

“I guess that’s final.” Sean winked at Lucy and she suspected the conversation wasn’t over on the cat.

Lucy finished going over the Wendy James reports while Sean worked on his laptop.

Next, she picked up the arson report on the Hawthorne Street house and reviewed it again.

“What I don’t understand,” Lucy said, “is how Ivy Harris was able to rent that house on Hawthorne when she was using a false name. Did she have a complete fake identity? Social Security number and everything?”

“Where’s the rental agreement?” Kate asked.

“I haven’t seen it.”

Sean said, “Maybe someone cosigned the agreement, or she took an ID. Often, the companies do only a cursory background check. Or, if someone has a good record as a tenant, a reference from a previous landlord is sufficient.”

“It’s not here,” Lucy said. “At least, it’s not in the arson reports. I don’t know that we requested it.”

“Tell Noah to request it tomorrow,” Kate said.

Lucy didn’t want to wait that long. “The agreement may give us an emergency contact, someone who knows Ivy-maybe even knew she was using a fake name.”

Kate pulled out a paper. “Here’s the contact information for the owner. Give them a call.”

The doorbell rang as Lucy was on the phone with the owners. Kate jumped up to answer it.

By the time Kate came back to the family room with Noah, Lucy had the answers she needed. “The owner is going to fax me a copy of the rental agreement.”

“For what?” Noah asked.

“The Hawthorne Street house. Check if Ivy Harris has any references or a previous address. Someone knows where she is.”

“Good plan.” He sat down. “I can’t stay long, but I need to follow up on your accident.”

“I sent you a report. That’s everything I remember.”

“And it was detailed. I went back to talk to Patricia Neel, the neighbor, and she identified a church that Hannah Edmonds had attended.”

“You mean Ivy?” Kate asked.

“Ivy Harris is a false identity,” Noah explained. “We have confirmation that the girl known as Ivy is in fact Hannah Edmonds, who’s bipolar and suicidal.”

Lucy shook her head. “She wasn’t acting suicidal. She was definitely in preservation mode, believing that she’s the only one who can protect her sister.”

“Which is asinine,” Noah said. “She must not be thinking straight if she thinks she can protect a fourteen-year-old better than the authorities.”

“She may have some reason for distrusting law enforcement. She got in the car because she was terrified of the guy chasing her-she said she didn’t know him, and that may be true, but she’d seen him before, I’m certain of it. If we can get her to work with a forensic artist, we can get a good rendering.”

“That’s a big if, because she ran from the crash site.”

“You’re treating her like a criminal, not a victim,” Lucy said.

“You don’t know that she’s a victim. She is accused of kidnapping her sister, a fourteen-year-old minor. She is using a fake identity after making her family believe she committed suicide. She’s a known prostitute who fled a murder scene. Yes, she is most certainly a person of interest.”

Lucy felt chastised, and Noah wasn’t wrong about the situation, but at the same time they didn’t have all the facts. Pieces were missing that would make the picture clear.

“I understand,” she said, “but she’s a classic victim, particularly if someone in authority let her down. Distrustful of the police-”

“So are criminals,” Noah interrupted.

Lucy continued, “Protective of her family, scared, hiding.”

“I know a lot of bad guys who fit that bill, too,” Noah said. “You know nothing about her. She’s considered dangerous.”

“Her house was burned down in the middle of the night. She went to someone she trusted-Jocelyn Taylor-who wasn’t under duress. We know that Chris Taylor contacted Senator Paxton for advice, but was killed before he could meet with him.”

“Maybe Ms. Edmonds didn’t want him talking to anyone.”

“You think she’s party to the murders of her friends?”

Noah hedged. “No, but I think she knows more than we do about who is responsible.”