Chapter 26

Jess

Someone has strung Christmas lights around the police station. Inside, a Christmas tree fills the entryway, a pink plastic doughnut haloing the top. I bought it for Rivero, our old lieutenant, a few years back.

I jab my ID against the door and let myself into the bullpen. On the far side of the room, my old partner, Will Casey, is at his desk. He's staring intently at his computer screen, a cup of coffee in hand, but he looks up as I enter and follows me to my desk, settling a butt cheek onto the edge.

"You've been avoiding me," he says.

"No," I say. "Well, yeah."

He laughs, his large belly jiggling a little, his face flushed pink.

"But it isn't your fault," I add.

He raises an eyebrow. "It's not you, it's me? That old chestnut?"

I can't help laughing. "In this case, it's true."

"Want to tell me why?"

I lean my cane against my desk and sit, digging my knuckles into my aching thigh. "All right. You were at the Christmas party the night the Harpers disappeared."

"That's right," he confirms. "That's why I can't be on the case. Potential conflict of interest."

God. Now it makes sense why he wasn't assigned to the case.

"What, you thought I was hiding it?"

"I mean, yeah, a little," I say honestly. "Coming into this case midway through, I feel like I'm only getting half the picture. I didn't realize you weren't assigned the Harper case with me because you were at the O'Briens' Christmas party—that it was because it could be seen as a conflict of interest. I just wondered if you were hiding the fact you were there from me."

He's shaking his head, but I keep talking. "I know now you weren't, but in the moment, yeah, I thought you might be." I glance at him. "Honestly, I thought Galloway was trying to punish me by putting me with Shane. It didn't occur to me she had a real reason for keeping you off the case."

"So you added two and two and got five."

I'm mortified; I try to cover it with a wry chuckle. "Yeah. You know me. Sometimes I get too caught up in my own head."

I go a little insane.

I hear Mac's words again.

You can go insane ... just come back.

"Shane isn't so bad, is he?" Will asks. "I've worked with him before, and he's good."

"He's really good," I agree. "You know he works his missing sister's case at night, after work?"

"Shit, I didn't know."

We fall into a comfortable silence; then I say, "I'm sorry, Will."

"No need to apologize, old girl. I would've wondered, too." Will pokes my shoulder and grins. "I just would've asked you about it. Want to know why Shelby and I were at the O'Briens' Christmas party?"

I nod. My job. This case. Helping the dead. I need to focus on that. "You know I do."

"Shelby co-owns the yoga studio with Melanie O'Brien—you know the one over by Sammy's? Mel invited us to their Christmas party. I think she felt bad for us, since we don't have any other family around."

"Did anything stand out that night, anything weird or unusual?"

Will rubs a hand over his pink, balding head. "Man, I've gone over and over that night in my head a million times. I just can't think of anything. Jack was pretty drunk, flirting with the elf, which was pissing Mel off. She was already stressed out because Finn hated the Santa she'd hired, but she wanted pictures with them together. Alice and Laura were sniping at each other, I don't know what about, so don't even ask. Teen drama, I guess. Laura was pretty drunk. Pete less so, but still drunk. Just normal family drama, you know?"

"So you were all drunk?"

"Very. Shelby and I walked home, and it was a looong walk." He laughs. "Oh, except Clarissa, Jack and Laura's mother. She was sober. But she went up to bed around eleven p.m. or so."

"Hmm. Alice said nobody was drunk."

Will raises his eyebrows. "Not sure why she said that."

Neither am I. But it makes me wonder what else she's lied about.

"So Pete drove even though he'd been drinking?" I ask.

Will pushes his glasses up his nose. "I guess. We'd already left by then. Honestly, I thought they were spending the night. The girls came with their backpacks, and they were talking about it."

"Alice had a sore throat," I murmur. "She wanted to go home."

Or was it something else that made them leave?

I glance over my shoulder at Lieutenant Galloway's closed office door. She's on the phone, arms gesturing, like she's angry, which she probably is.

I tell Will about the cash and the compact .22 LR revolver I found hidden in Laura Harper's painting, a gun often used for concealed carry.

"No shit! Ballistics running the gun?"

"Yeah. It'll be a few days. No idea where the cash came from, but we're combing through the Harpers' finances again."

I fiddle with the top of my cane. "You know the weird thing? In her initial interview, Alice Harper said there was a girl in the car with her when she woke up."

"A girl?"

I nod. "Seven or eight. Messy blonde braids. A Hello Kitty headband."

Will looks confused.

"Isla. She saw Isla. But why? What is Alice Harper's connection to Isla?"

"Is that why this case matters so much to you?" Will asks carefully.

"What? No." I'm flustered by the insinuation that I'm letting my personal life get in the way of my professional one. Again.

"Don't let your guilt be an obstacle that gets in the way of what you want, Jess."

"I'm not!" I press my fingers into my temple. "I see him, Will. Pete Harper."

"You do?"

"Yeah, but ... he doesn't speak to me. I don't know why. I can't figure out how he connects to the body in the suitcase. How Isla connects to Alice. How Jack connects to all of it. None of it makes sense."

"The worst thing a detective can do is make the case about themselves. Maybe Isla is connected to Alice because this is the case she thinks you need. Don't make it personal."

"I just want to help them," I say.

Will studies me for a long moment. "Maybe you should ask yourself whose wounds you're trying to heal by solving this case, Jess, theirs or yours."

I blink but don't get a chance to reply because Shane lopes into the bullpen, waving a report at me. His hair is slightly damp, his face freshly shaved. He's wearing jeans with a blazer and tie.

"Lambert. Townsend," Lieutenant Galloway barks from her office.

Good luck, Will mouths as I grab my cane.

Shane and I hurry into Galloway's office, shutting the door behind us.

"I was just on the phone with the FBI, and they want to get involved in this case," Galloway says.

"What? No!" My protest is instinctual. No cop likes the FBI swooping in and taking over a case.

"They were involved in the search for the Harpers last year," Galloway points out. "I'm inclined to say yes. We just don't have enough manpower for a massive investigation. They can help."

"We don't even know for sure if the cases are linked!"

She gives me a withering glare. "We have Ella Harper's blood on her missing backpack with an unidentified body. You don't think they're linked?"

I grind my teeth. Of course they're linked, but I don't want the FBI stealing this case. Galloway must see something in my face because she backs off with a sigh befitting a teenager. "We'll give it a week. See what we find. Then I'm calling them in."

She levels her gaze at Shane. "Catch me up."

"Right. I'm waiting for a call back from Jack O'Brien again. I've also tried to schedule an interview with Alice, but Melanie O'Brien told me to go through her lawyer. Melanie's her legal guardian, so I'm organizing that now. We've finished interviewing the kids who were at the party, including Maya, who found the backpack."

"We've also checked security video from the nearest neighbors, but nobody saw anything unusual, and there's nothing on the security videos," I add.

"Have the dogs or the search team found anything yet?" Galloway asks.

"Nothing." Shane darts a look at me. "We may need to expand our search."

"Do we have an ID on the body in the suitcase?"

"The specialist postmortem examination is scheduled for tomorrow," I say. "Khandi's working on dental records for Theo Moriarty, the man we suspect is in the suitcase. We should know more soon."

"I just got a preliminary report from Khandi this morning." Shane taps the report he's set on the table. "We got a bullet. The head shot was a through and through. It's likely what killed him. But he was also shot in the shoulder, and that bullet's been recovered."

"Okay, let's hope the gun you found in the painting is a match," Galloway says.

"Khandi's running the partial fingerprint found on the suitcase's zipper through AFIS, but so far there aren't any matches. When we get DNA from that fingernail, she'll run it through CODIS. There was also trace evidence on the suitcase and the victim's coat of a plant called milfoil."

Milfoil. I riffle through the files in my head. Where have I seen that recently?

My mind is whirling, so I don't notice when Galloway dismisses us.

"Lambert," she snaps.

I look up. Galloway is glaring at me. "What the fuck are you waiting for, a hug?"

I flush and jump up, hurry after Shane. My phone's already in my hands, Google open.

Milfoil. A submerged plant with feather-like whorled leaves.

"Aha." I snap my fingers, making Shane turn to look at me. "I know where I recognize this from. We need to talk to Khandi."

He follows me up the stairs to Khandi's lab. We find her bent over a microscope. Today she's wearing a new choker, one with a tiny skull and crossbones.

"Yesss! Just the detectives I wanted to see!" Khandi's fist pumps the air, her long, cinnamon-colored twists swinging.

"Wait, Khandi." I hold up a hand. "I have a question for you. Milfoil. Your report says you found it on our victim?"

"That's right. Bucketloads of it. Like he was bathing in the stuff."

"Like he was submerged?"

"Possibly. I found it on his clothes, his hair, even his shoes."

I turn to Shane. "Milfoil was found in the trunk of Laura Harper's minivan. I read it in the case file."

"He must've been in their car," he says.

"Maybe Laura or Pete Harper were with him when he died. Maybe at the lake somewhere."

"Nuh-uh." Khandi's nose ring winks as she shakes her head. "Not Black Lake. The city spends about ten grand a year to have a contractor treat the lake with an herbicide that kills milfoil and keeps it scenic and open for fishing. But milfoil is found in some of the rivers around this area."

It comes to me like a punch to the stomach. "The River Rothay."

My mind is humming; my skin feels tight. I hear the crack of my car hitting the deer. Isla's long, jagged shriek. The dizzying feel of the truck flipping. The dark face of the sky, the river, hungry and urgent, as it filled the cab.

These are the moments I most crave a drink. I swallow past a dusty throat. Shane gives me a questioning look, but I shake my head. Some things hurt too much to explain.

"Can I tell you what I got now?" Khandi's voice breaks into my thoughts.

"Yes. Sorry."

"We have a match on Suitcase Man based on the dental records you had sent over," she says. "You guys were right, it's Theo Moriarty."

My heartbeat thumps, that sense of the clock ticking, ratcheting up.

Shane turns to me. "Well, there's no question now. The missing Harpers and the body in the suitcase are definitely connected."

"And we have exactly one week to figure out how."