Stephanie Doyle - For the First Time

“It wasn’t on his head. The hood was down. It was gray. I’m sure it was gray. You know, like a workout sweatshirt.” She just remembered that, which meant maybe there were other things she would remember. Something important that would bring Julia back.

“Then the van sped away. It made a U-turn in the middle of the street and was gone.”

“Did you see the driver?”

JoJo closed her eyes. “It was just a guy. I couldn’t really see. A shape behind the wheel, that’s it.”

“But you know that the person who grabbed your sister wasn’t driving the van.”

“Yes. It happened too fast. He grabbed her and the door was sliding closed and the car was moving.”

“Okay, Josephine...or can I call you JoJo?”

She shrugged. Whatever. She hated to be called Josephine. Julia sometimes did it to piss her off.

“I need you to really think. When the car drove away did you see the license plate?”

Everyone wanted to know that. They kept pushing her over and over again to think about it, visualize what the numbers and letters might have looked like. If she could just remember those numbers, then they could find Julia and everything would be all right.

Only she couldn’t.

“Think, JoJo!” her father shouted as he moved between her and the detective. “This is important. You have to think about what you saw and tell them the license. It’s her only hope.”

She lifted her face to her father. “I can’t remember. I didn’t see it. I don’t think... Maybe it didn’t have a front plate. It was fast and I was running to get her.”

“That’s not good enough!” he roared. “This is your sister’s life! Now think!” The blow to the side of her head knocked her off the couch.

“Jonathan!”

“No,” he barked at her mother. “She has to do this. You have to do this!”

“Sir, I know what you’re going through right now. But this isn’t the answer,” the detective said, purposefully keeping his voice even and steady.

JoJo lifted herself onto the couch with a ringing in her head. That was the first time her father had ever hit her. It was so weird.

“Tell them the license plate numbers. Tell them. If you can’t do this, it’s your fault what happens to her. Do you hear me?”

Her fault? Of course it was her fault. She’d wanted to go to the movies. She had a crush on Peter. Julia knew it, too. It was probably why she was being slow. She knew it would make JoJo crazy and Julia lived to make JoJo crazy.

It was what twins did.

JoJo closed her eyes and struggled to think about what happened. The sound of the tires screeching. The vague shape of the body behind the wheel. The back of the van moving away from her as she screamed and screamed and ran so hard after them.

She couldn’t remember one stupid letter of the license plate. She didn’t think she even looked at it.

CHAPTER ONE

MARK SHARPE LOOKED across his desk at the latest job candidate. Her hair was slicked into a tight ponytail, with a straight heavy band of dark hair falling down her back. The nose stud she obviously sported had been removed for the interview. She wore a black turtleneck blouse that looked as if it was strangling the life out of her under her suit jacket.

Occasionally, when she fidgeted with the collar, he could see the hint of ink peeking out.

A nose stud and a neck tattoo. Who knew what else she was hiding?

“I wanted to let you know how impressed I was with your work on the Anderson case,” she said.

Josephine Hatcher was the second investigator he’d interviewed. The previous one had wanted to talk about the Anderson case, too. Interviewing 101, he supposed—compliment the boss on his work. Some days, though, that case didn’t feel like an accomplishment. It felt like a family ripped to shreds starting with the murder of a daughter by her own father.

“First getting the coroner’s ruling of suicide overturned and then learning her father was behind the poisoning had to be shocking. He’d been free for thirteen years until you uncovered the truth.”

The other candidate had said almost the same thing. Mark was a genius, a detecting marvel, a hero for justice. Blah, blah, blah...

“It took you a little long, though.”

“Excuse me?” The other candidate hadn’t said that.

“After you exhumed the body and were able to confirm the girl had been poisoned, the number of suspects was limited to her family and her boyfriend. Few others would have had sufficient access to her over the prolonged period of time it took to her kill her. Once you knew the method, how hard was it to eliminate suspects?”

“Not hard.”

Her lips twitched. “Just saying. Can I ask why you opened the case?”

“Anonymous tip.”

“Probably someone who knew her, knew the family dynamic.”

“Probably,” he grumbled. Who the hell was interviewing whom?

“Did you find the source of the tip?”

“No.”

“Did you look?”

Yes, but he wasn’t about to admit that to her. Anonymous tips were tricky. Sometimes they panned out. Sometimes they didn’t. Mark always preferred identifying the source of an anonymous tip as a way of evaluating the reliability of the information. But he hadn’t been able to locate the person who had sent him the copy of the coroner’s report along with the plainly typed note that simply read, She didn’t do it.

It had been enough to pique his interest. Especially when he read the report and the police file. Suicide had been a stretch, he thought. When people chose to kill themselves they wanted it done immediately.

This girl had been dying for months.

“That doesn’t matter now—the case is closed. So, I should tell you I’m looking for someone with several years’ experience.” It was a prelude, he thought. A way to cushion the blow he was preparing to deliver.

“I’ve been working in the field independently for four years, and apprenticed with another investigator two years before that while earning my master’s in criminology.”

He sighed. He should have figured she would be the type to put up a fight. Couldn’t she pick up on all the subtle no signs he was throwing out? It wasn’t that she wasn’t qualified—of course she was qualified or she wouldn’t have gotten as far as this interview.

The problem was her. There was something about her that made him want to squirm in his chair. It was completely irrational. He had no idea why he felt this way. But he was a man who relied on his gut. His gut said no. His gut said she was trouble.

Mark really hoped that gut feeling wasn’t based on the fact that when he looked her in the eyes, he had a suspicion she was smarter than he was. Because that would probably make him an ass.

“I’m targeting a certain type of clientele.” Hell, that made him sound like a snob. Now he was a snob and an ass.

“I imagine paying ones.”

There was no point in prolonging the inevitable. He’d made his decision almost instantly. The moment he’d shaken her hand and it fit so securely in his. A knee-jerk reaction that told him to run.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Hatcher, but I’m not sure you’re the right fit.”

He watched her shoulders slump. Only for a second, though, then she straightened. “Can I ask why? You have my résumé. You know I’m more than capable.”

It was a ridiculously impressive résumé. A bachelor’s in psychology from New York University, and that master’s of criminology from Columbia—graduated top of her class in both. She’d worked for a medium-size private investigator firm for the six years since. She was changing jobs only because the firm’s owner had decided to retire and she wasn’t happy with the new ownership. Her former boss, Tom Reid, happened to know Ben Tyler—Mark’s former boss and adversary from their days in the CIA together.