Justine Davis - Operation Notorious

Until that day a week later, when she had come home from work to find a bloody nightmare of a scene. Her fingers curled into fists as she fought to get it told. The words came out in compressed chunks, in between harsh breaths.

“They told me there was no sign of forced entry. She fought him, they said. Then...he used a kitchen knife. It wasn’t mine. He...he slashed her. Blood everywhere. He cut—”

She broke off, nearly choking on what she couldn’t, just couldn’t give voice to, the horrifying carnage she’d walked in on. She was aware of Hayley putting a comforting arm around her. Cutter jumped up beside her and put his head in her lap. She automatically put a hand on his head, and the feel of the silky fur steadied her again.

“Is that why you moved here?” Hayley asked, and the gentle concern in her voice almost broke Katie. She was holding on to a hair of control when she answered.

“Yes. The opening at the library here came up, I knew the area because my father lives here, and... I wanted new surroundings. Quiet, peace. A place where I could soak in the tranquility, purge the...the ugly.”

“Of course,” Hayley said.

Katie nodded because she didn’t dare speak anymore. This quiet, supportive concern, even from near-strangers, was somehow harder to cope with than the thoughtlessness of people who had no idea. That was another reason she’d moved here, to get away from those who couldn’t resist speculating about the shocking murder, never realizing or caring that they were talking to or in front of the collateral damage.

“It’s taken me a while, but I reached...tranquility, if not peace.” She grimaced. “I wasn’t sure of that until I went back to visit a friend and ran into Ross at the coffee shop.”

“That must have ripped the scab right off,” Quinn said with a grimace.

“Yes. Yes, it did. I couldn’t wait to get back here. I could feel the...serenity, I guess, growing the closer I got.”

“Sign of a good decision,” Hayley said.

“Why isn’t he the prime suspect?”

The question, the first time Gavin had spoken since she’d begun her sorry tale, was not quite brusque but close. It had the effect of a blast of cool wind, complete with the rain still falling outside. And it quashed the silly reaction she was having to him.

“He was. In the beginning. Especially since they’d recently broken up. They even grilled me, until they verified I’d been at work late that night. The ones closest to the...victim always are the first ones they suspect, aren’t they?”

“And they’re guilty more often than not,” Gavin said, in that same tone.

“I know. But Ross had a solid alibi. They verified it. Lots of witnesses.”

Odd, she thought. It was somehow easier to deal with that brisk, businesslike tone. Or maybe it was the inexplicable comfort provided by petting Cutter.

“And,” she added, “he was as devastated as I was. He genuinely cared for Laurel. He told me the breakup had made him realize how much he loved her. He’d even bought a ring, was about to propose, right before she was killed.”

“Then why did they break up in the first place?”

Again, Gavin’s clipped tone made it somehow easier to answer. As if they both realized this, Quinn and Hayley stayed silent. Cutter never moved, however, and she was glad of that. Still she hesitated, then said, “I know she’s gone, but it still feels like betraying a confidence.”

“Weigh it,” Gavin said, “against finding out who killed her.”

Put like that, there was no question. “Cheating was all she said. She hadn’t been ready to talk much about it yet.”

“And so she turned up on your doorstep, expecting you to take her in?”

Something jabbed through the pain of her recollections. “No,” she said, rather sharply herself, “she turned up on my doorstep knowing I would take her in. As she would for me.”

His expression didn’t change, as if he hadn’t heard the shift in her tone. She wondered then if he’d done it on purpose, to shake her out of the dreadful memories. Surely he hadn’t gotten to where he’d been a household name without having more than a few tricks up his sleeve. And she had to admit this one had worked; she was steadier now. Before she had time to decide how she felt about that, he dragged her back to what she’d been dreading most of all.

“Your father,” he said flatly. “He’s now a suspect?”

“That’s what they’re saying. And they’re talking like he’s now the only suspect. The news, I mean.” She gave herself a mental shake; she was sounding very scattered. “A friend heard it and called me.”

“Let me guess,” Gavin said, his tone sour now. “It was ‘according to a source close to the investigation,’ or some such.”

“Yes, something like that. They didn’t say who it was.”

“Of course not.”

She realized he’d dealt with the media a lot during his career. She saw him exchange a glance with Quinn, and although the other man didn’t speak Gavin apparently saw some kind of signal and went back to his questions.

“Has an investigator called you yet?”

“Yes, although I didn’t realize it was about this at the time. A detective contacted me about a month ago, said she was following up, and asked several questions they’d already asked. But one of them was if my father had a key to my apartment—he used to, but I got it back to give to Laurel—and if I’d seen him that day.”

“That came in the middle of a lot of other questions, I’d guess.”

“Yes. Why?”

“Less chance for you to realize that was the whole purpose. Hide that particular tree in a forest of them. So you couldn’t tip off your father that they were looking at him.”

Her mouth tightened. “Well, it clearly worked on Ms. Oblivious.”

He shrugged. “If they’re good, it works on most people. What did you say?”

“The truth, of course. I hadn’t seen him or talked to him, not that day. Since there’s no way he could have done it, it didn’t matter. At least I thought it didn’t. Until I heard he’d become their prime suspect.”

The toxic combination of anger and despair threatened to rise and swamp her, and she barely managed to hold it at bay. She felt a bit like a bug—a helpless one—under a microscope, and wondered if that was what the people Gavin de Marco confronted in court had felt like. She wondered, as she had at the time, why he’d really quit. Cutter gave a low whine and licked at her hand. And again the dog steadied her.

She lifted her gaze from the dog to the man whose attention was so focused on her. “If they were so worried about keeping it secret, then why are the police talking to the media about it now?”

“Likely because they haven’t got enough evidence, or it’s all circumstantial.”

She frowned. “Of course they don’t, since he didn’t do it. But why would they let it leak that he’s a suspect now, after all this time?”

“They may be hoping to prod him into doing something.”

Perplexed, she frowned. “Doing something?”

“The knife,” he said. “Did they find it?”

“No. The killer took it with him.”

“Then they may have wanted him to think he had to get rid of it, if he hadn’t already.”

Her frown deepened. “My father doesn’t own that kind of knife, either.” Somehow she was able to say it fairly evenly, and fight off the images that were piling up behind that barricade she’d built in her mind. She suspected it was thanks to his businesslike tone.

Again Gavin glanced at Quinn. This time she saw the barely perceptible nod. It was odd, she thought, to think of Gavin de Marco having a boss. She would have thought he would call his own shots. And again she wondered why he’d walked away, wondered who left when they were top of the heap?