Lisa Gardner - The Survivors Club

“I never had a sister, and I'm not married anymore.”

“Let me guess-she stopped thinking you were cute?”

“No. She died.”

Jillian finally shut up. He'd caught her off guard. She looked troubled and perhaps fleetingly sad. Then she looked angry again. Jillian Hayes really didn't like being caught off guard.

“I don't think this is an appropriate conversation,” she said curtly.

“I'm not the one who started it.”

“Yes, you did. You showed up again after we'd already chased you off today.”

“Yeah, but tell me honestly-would you really sleep well at night knowing the state police sergeant working your case could be chased off by three women?”

She scowled and appeared even more flustered. Interesting, he thought. Her eyes went gold when she was angry, and brown when she was troubled. What about when she was sad? Or when she was plotting revenge against the man who'd killed her little sister?

“You miss her, don't you?” he asked more softly.

Her voice was stiff, but at least she answered. “I think that's obvious.”

“I lost my wife two years ago. Cancer. I still miss her.”

“Cancer is hard,” Jillian said quietly. She wrapped her arms around her middle, looked away. She did hurt. He could see it in every line of her body, whether she meant him to or not.

“I hated the disease,” he continued. “Then I hated the doctors who couldn't make her better. I hated the chemo that robbed her strength. I hated the hospitals that smelled like antiseptic death. I hated God, who gave me someone to love, then took her away from me.”

Jillian finally looked at him. “And if you had a high-powered rifle,” she said, “you would've tried to kill the disease, too, isn't that what you mean?”

Fitz had been right. She was no dummy.

“Something like that,” Griffin said lightly.

She shook her head. “I'm sorry you lost your wife. I'm sorry anyone loses someone they love. But don't try to play me, Sergeant. Don't think that because you've also known loss, you can climb inside my head.”

“Your grief is special?”

“Everyone's grief is special.”

It was Griffin 's turn to look away. She was right, and that shamed him.

“Are you sure it was Eddie Como who attacked you and your sister?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Never had a moment's doubt?”

“Never.”

“Why not?” He looked her in the eye. “Everyone has doubts.”

“Voice,” she said crisply.

“Voice?”

“When I was attacked, the man spoke. So while I couldn't see his face, I definitely heard his voice. And that voice was consistent with Eddie Como's.”

“Consistent?” Griffin raised a brow. He caught that nuance right away. “Did they do a voice line-up with Eddie?”

Jillian scowled. “Of course.”

“Just you?”

“Carol, as well.” More grudging.

“What went wrong, Ms. Hayes?”

“I'm telling you, it was consistent. That means nothing went wrong.”

“Bullshit. Consistent is not a positive ID. You couldn't make him, could you?”

“We could narrow it down to him and one other guy.”

“Yeah, in other words, not a positive ID.” Griffin rocked back on his heels. That was interesting.

Jillian, however, was vehemently shaking her head. “Positive ID is a legal phrase. It's law-enforcement fine print. As far as Carol and I are concerned, we stood in a darkened room, we heard six guys speak and we could pick Eddie out of that bunch. Think of it this way. Four of the guys we were certain weren't the College Hill Rapist. And Eddie wasn't one of those.”

“A legal breakeven,” Griffin mused. “You can't use the voice ID at trial because you didn't really make an ID, but the defense can't afford to bring it up either, because then as you point out, you can argue that you did home in on Eddie. And once again we're back to DNA to break the tie.”

She regarded him curiously, her face less obstinate for a change. “You make it sound like that is a bad thing. Last I knew, DNA evidence was a very, very good thing.”

“Yeah, generally.”

“Generally?”

“Have you ever met Eddie's girlfriend?” Griffin switched gears. “Ever personally spoken to Tawnya Clemente?”

Jillian hesitated a fraction too long. “I… I'm not sure.”

“You're not sure?”

She sighed. “Did Fitz tell you his theory that Tawnya forwarded Eddie's calls to our homes?” Griffin nodded. “I've also gotten some other calls,” she continued. “Someone on the line, just being there. I don't know why, but I think the caller might be Tawnya.”

“She's very convincing about Eddie's innocence.”

“She's a woman with a child to protect. A woman with a child to protect can be very convincing about anything she needs to be.”

“Do you like her?”

“I don't know her.”

“You sympathize, though.” Griffin was sure of this, and it surprised him. Once again there was more to cool, composed Ms. Hayes than met the eye.

“She has an infant son, Sergeant Griffin. Whatever Eddie did or didn't do, it's not her crime, nor the baby's crime.”

“But she forwarded his calls to you. Helped harass you. Maybe even called you on her own.”

Jillian smiled dryly. “Women in love, Sergeant, have done far worse.”

“Call me Griffin.”

“No offense, but I think I'll stick to Sergeant.”

Now it was Griffin 's turn to smile. “Hey, Jillian,” he said lightly. “Do us both a favor. Look me in the eye, and tell me you weren't involved in Eddie Como's murder.”

Her chin came back up. She looked him in the eye. And she said, “I won't tell you any such thing.”

“You understand that we have a second corpse, from the RISD parking lot. Now the bodies are piling up. We can't ignore that, Jillian. The state is in charge of this investigation, and we're manning it with every detective we have. Whatever we learn, whomever we zero in on, we're going to come down on that person very, very hard.”

Jillian snorted. Her eyes had gone gold again, about the only warning he got. “Is that supposed to scare me, Sergeant? Is that supposed to terrify my weak little female mind? Because I'm not exactly quaking in my boots. Let's get this straight once and for all. My sister wasn't Eddie's first victim. She was his third victim. Third victim, Sergeant! And six whole weeks after the first attack. That's how well Providence 's ‘serious police investigation' was going. And even then, my sister is dead, I'm beaten within an inch of my life and the Providence detectives still didn't have jack shit until we, three women, three civilian women, got involved in the case. So fuck you, Sergeant. If you cops are so good at your job, you should've been good at it a year ago, when it might have still saved my sister's life!”

She ended harshly, her face red, her breathing coming out in ragged gasps. In the next instant, the full extent of her outburst must have penetrated because she immediately turned away, wrapping her arms tightly around her waist. For a long time, they both simply stood there. Griffin looking at her back, the fallen line of her shoulders, the bowed curve of her neck. Griffin, hearing all her grief and rage still boiling so close to the surface. Calm, controlled Jillian Hayes. Accustomed to single-handedly running her own company while simultaneously raising her little sister and taking care of her invalid mother. Calm, controlled Jillian Hayes, who had probably never felt powerless before in her life.

And then for the first time, Griffin got it. Carol wasn't the member of the Survivors Club closest to falling apart. Jillian was. She merely hid it better than the rest.