Allison Brennan - Killing Fear

“Could Anna have called me?” Will asked, almost to himself. “If she was scared or heard something, why wouldn’t she have called 911?”

“I was right across the street! Why didn’t she call me?”

“We don’t know, we’re only speculating…”

“Or Glenn called Will,” Robin said, grasping at straws. “You said the killer may have called him. To scare him. Didn’t you say that he wanted to scare me by making me think he was after Will, and scare Will to make him think he was after me?”

“If the time line proved that, I’d say it was a damn good guess,” Hans said. “I do believe that Glenn was after you that night. Then Will came into the bar. He wasn’t expecting him. Maybe he wasn’t prepared.”

“So who killed Anna? Who would want her dead? She was harmless. Sweet.”

Hans was about to say something, but Will interrupted. “We don’t know, but we will find out. In the meantime, we have a more important problem. Glenn is still out there and he is playing with you. And me.” He looked at Mario. “Sit on her tight. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

“What about you?” Robin asked, her voice wavering.

“I’m a cop. I’m surrounded by cops. I’ll be okay.”

She didn’t look convinced.

“Glenn killed Anna,” Robin said emphatically. She didn’t look at either of them.

Pickles jumped in her lap. Will stared at him, looked at Hans. “This is Anna’s cat,” Will told him, awestruck.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Robin said, scratching the cat’s ears.

“If Theodore killed Anna, he would have wanted to torment her first,” Hans said.

“Remember his sister’s testimony?” Will said softly. “About how he tormented her by killing her cat? And no one believed her?”

She nodded.

“It’s part of his M.O.,” Will said. “He plays with his victims. Cutting them. Pouring bleach over them. Killing their pets in front of them. But Anna’s cat lived.”

“Maybe Pickles hid from him,” Robin said, her voice almost a whimper.

“This is the friendliest cat on the planet,” Will said. “The cat proves it.”

“Proves what?” Robin demanded.

Hans answered. “Theodore Glenn didn’t kill your roommate.”

Will walked outside with Hans. He instructed the patrol to be on alert, then pulled Hans away from the other cops.

“She’s going to be okay,” Hans told him.

“We laid a bomb on her tonight,” Will said, frustrated. While last night he’d been only half convinced that Glenn hadn’t killed Anna, tonight he was certain. “I never thought about that phone call coming from Robin’s apartment,” he admitted. “It just didn’t enter my mind. Shit, I could have saved Anna.”

“You don’t know that. She could have been already dead. You could be dead now. You can’t second-guess yourself in this business. It’ll eat you up. We make difficult decisions instantly and then spend years thinking about every fraction of a second. What if we did this, what if we did that. I’ve worked hostage negotiations, and I’ve worked with hostage negotiators who were on the edge because they began to question themselves after an assignment went bad.” Hans stared Will in the eyes. “Don’t do it. You can’t afford to lose your judgment now. You’re going to have to make those difficult decisions, and you can’t doubt your instincts and experience.”

Will let out a pent-up breath. “Who? Who wanted to kill Anna?”

“Or, who wanted to kill Robin?”

Hearing it out loud unnerved Will. “Other than Glenn,” he added.

“It’s nearly two in the morning.” Hans Vigo glanced at his watch. “She’s worn out and on edge right now. We’re going to have to talk to her in the morning about her life back then. But first we have to bring in Jim Gage.”

“Because of the evidence on scene.”

Hans said, “I’ve played with every scenario I could think of, but the only thing that makes sense-if we agree that Glenn didn’t kill Anna Clark-is that someone involved in the case killed her and framed Glenn by planting the evidence.”

Will nodded. “Hair would be easy forensic evidence to plant. It doesn’t need special storage, like blood, and it doesn’t degrade.”

“The follicles would degrade after a short period of time,” Hans said, “and I need a more detailed report as to exactly how the hair was tested and what they found.”

“I don’t like this.”

“Neither do I.”

“We do this quietly,” Will said, rubbing his face. “I’ll talk to Trinity again tomorrow, make sure she keeps it off the air. If Anna’s killer thinks we’re looking into the case again, he may get scared and do something rash.”

“And we have to consider that the killer may already know. Trinity’s report wasn’t all that secret.”

“They wouldn’t know we took Glenn’s comments seriously. Hell, I pretty much called Trinity a fool for even considering the possibility.”

“Which gives us a break. Everyone knows how you feel about Glenn, you’re running the investigation, and if you don’t give credence to Glenn’s claims, then no one else will.”

“What if we asked Trinity to play along with us?” Will suggested, an idea popping into his head.

“How so?”

“We do an interview. Say only what we want Anna’s killer to hear. Trinity can go public with the fact that Glenn contacted her, ask us about his statement, and we put it to rest.”

“There’s only one problem with that,” Hans said.

“It’ll piss Glenn off.”

“Exactly.”

“We’ll keep watch on Trinity 24/7. And give her an out. Let her say no. We issue a formal statement through Chief Causey, get the information out there either way.”

“But Trinity Lange is respected and known,” Hans said. “It would give credence to our statement.” He gave a quick nod. “If both she and your chief go for it, I think it’ll work. It’ll buy us time to find Glenn. Once he’s behind bars we’ll all rest easier. But until then, you’re one hundred percent confident in Jim Gage?”

“Yes. No doubts.”

“Then we need to meet with him out of his office tomorrow. Away from any police hangouts.”

“What about here, at Robin’s place?”

Hans agreed.

“Let me set it up with Gage and smooth the way,” Will said. “He’s not going to like what we have to say.”

“He doesn’t have to like it. He just has to keep his mouth shut.”

Robin relished her privacy. Running a popular club, always having her social face on, was draining. Having people in her home was equally draining.

She couldn’t consider anyone but Theodore Glenn killing Anna. Not tonight. Her head was pounding and all she wanted to do was go to sleep.

But she feared the nightmares.

She contemplated drinking herself to sleep, but didn’t want to use alcohol as a crutch. More important, what if Glenn came around? Tonight, tomorrow, the next day? She needed to be on full alert.

She walked over to her art corner, looked at the project she hadn’t touched since Saturday. It was going to be a gaslamp scene, an expression of her love for this area and the people who lived and worked here. The view was of storefronts on the same street as the Sin. She’d taken a series of photographs from two corners, and had designed the piece to reflect both sides of the street, focusing on perspective and color.

She loved working with color.

Her first art show was Sunday. She didn’t want to cancel, but she didn’t see that she had a choice. If Glenn wasn’t in jail by then, how could she put all those people in jeopardy?

She had to make the decision about opening the club tomorrow as well. They would normally open at five in the evening. They had a large after-work crowd who mostly came to drink, listen to music, and socialize. They blended into the evening dance crowd that really came on scene around nine.