Текст книги "Snakes and ladders"
Автор книги: Sean Slater
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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 29 страниц)
Twenty-Two
The Adder sat on the grey concrete of the floor in the dimness of the room, and felt the cool dampness of the walls invading his core. No matter what he did, he was never warm. Not here in this room. Not anywhere. He was always cold.
Cold like the water in the well.
He stared at nothing for a long time, and listened to the sounds that came from above. The Doctor was up there. In the study. And dangerously close to the edge again.
The Adder tried not to think about it.
He stood up from the floor and walked to the far wall, where the cabinet stood. Behind it were his beloved DVDs and the back-up hard drive. More than anything, he wanted to watch his movies. To relive that wondrous moment. That instantaneous miracle.
The Beautiful Escape.
But he could not turn his thoughts from the detective. The man was a force like no other. And the man was in pain. The Adder could see that just by looking at him. Bad things had happened in the man’s life. He had researched it, researched this man. More than anything, the Adder wanted to release him from the chains of this world. To set him forever free.
And to watch the bliss in his eyes when it happened.
He didn’t understand it himself. The greater the challenge, the more beautiful the release. It was odd. And the mere thought of such a moment was so powerful that it sucked him away. And time passed. When he finally awoke from the reverie, his face was bleeding and he realized he had been scratching it again.
It was unimportant.
He moved over to the cabinet and turned on the computer. Pale blue light – as cold as the blood in his veins – artificially tinted the room. The Adder signed on to the computer.
Logon: William
Password: Flyaway
He hit Enter and the Windows screen flashed up. There was no screen saver. No saved image on the desktop. Just an icy white screen, because that was how he felt. All icy white.
He double-checked his internet options to be sure that privacy was set to maximum. Then he logged on to the relay computer he kept off-site. It was a necessary tactic. If the cops ever did manage to trace his IP Address – which was almost impossible considering he used proxy servers and ran his requests through other unprotected Wi-Fi users – poor eightynine-year-old Martha McCallum would find the cops kicking in her front door in the middle of the night and searching her crawlspace.
And even that did not matter. The computer was set to delete All History every night using the KillDisk program.
As a last wall of defence, the Adder always used his Anonymous-Sender account because the host company purged their servers every twelve hours. Even if the cops did get a warrant – which was highly unlikely – the information would be gone by the time they executed it.
Everything was one hundred per cent safe.
And yet still, it was not enough for the Adder. Over confidence had been the downfall of many before him. So he spoofed his IP Address regularly. And he changed the way he did things every single time so that there would be no pattern. With all the steps the Adder had taken, he was confident he had created a nonentity on the net and an email host with no traceable account.
It made him smile every time he logged on.
With everything set in place, he was ready. He took one last look at the hatch above the ladder, making sure it was secured and locked in place – for an action such as this would enrage the Doctor – and then he began typing his email.
Addressed To: Homicide Detective Jacob Striker
Subject: Snakes & Ladders
Twenty-Three
The Vancouver morgue is located on the north side of Vancouver General Hospital, behind the police and ambulance parking area. No signs show the way. There’s just a pair of grey doors leading to a cargo elevator. That’s it.
Striker had been there too many times to count. Long-forgotten memories bombarded him, one after another, whenever he came here – the murder victims, the car accident casualties, and of course the never-ending string of suicides.
Like his wife’s. He would never forget the day he came here to identify Amanda. The walls had seemed warped and the lights far too bright and the body cleaners smelled like Lemon Pledge. That was a memory that refused to leave him. He doubted it ever would.
They took the elevator down two levels into the morgue and Striker moved over to let Felicia stand by the doors. Her claustrophobia was always two seconds from exploding, and she almost jumped from the booth when the doors were half open.
Striker followed. Once in the hall, the stale smell of old paint and dampness hit him. The building was old. The morgue, equally so. He walked down the long dim corridor, turned right, and stopped at a drab grey door. This was the main entrance to the morgue.
Where he had identified Amanda.
The moment hit him hard. So many memories. All bad. This was a sad and despondent place, one he never wanted to see again. And yet here they were, like always.
He opened the door and stepped inside.
On the nearest examination table lay the body of Mandilla Gill. Nineteen years young. A plastic white sheet covered her body and neck, but her face was exposed, which was abnormal. Clearly, the Medical Examiner, Kirstin Dunsmuir, was prepping the body for examination.
Striker looked around; didn’t see the woman anywhere.
‘You see Dunsmuir?’ he asked Felicia.
‘The Death Goddess?’ Felicia shook her head. ‘No. And I’m thankful for it. Small miracles, you know.’
Striker didn’t disagree. Were it not for the heaviness of the moment, he might have smiled at that. Felicia didn’t like Kirstin Dunsmuir, which was unsurprising. Most people didn’t like Kirstin Dunsmuir. And he was included in that group. The woman was colder than the stiffs she worked on, and equally fun at parties.
He killed the thought. He gloved up with fresh latex and moved towards the body on the steel table. In the harsh brightness of the examination lights, Mandy Gill’s skin looked almost ashen. Her face was slightly deflated from the draining of fluids, but the muscles around her eyes were still somehow tight. Striker had hoped the woman would look more peaceful in death, but she did not.
He pulled back the sheet and studied the body below. The prep work had already begun.
Felicia saw this, too. ‘Dunsmuir’s probably tagging the undergarments right now. Maybe we should wait for her before touching anything – you know how she is with this stuff.’
Striker didn’t really much care. ‘I’m not touching anything just yet. I’m just looking at a few areas.’
‘For what?’
‘Signs.’
He reached up, grabbed hold of the examination light, and tilted the face of it downwards, so that the brightness of the light shone directly on the body. Lividity – the pooling of the blood – was showing like a faint purplish line now, running all along the lower fifth of Mandy Gill’s body. Her facial muscles were stiffening, mainly the eyelids and cheeks.
Rigor was setting in.
Striker looked past all of this and focused on the skin. He swept his eyes around the most common injection areas first – the shoulders, the arms and wrists. When he saw nothing out of the ordinary, he started back at the toes, then slowly, patiently, worked his way up the body, looking for anything that stood out as irregular.
When he reached the neck, he found it. A small mark, almost imperceptible, even with the bright glare of the examination light – definitely impossible to detect back in the dimness of the victim’s room.
‘Right here,’ Striker said to Felicia. ‘Left side, just lateral to the base of the neck. Over the first rib area.’ He pointed out the area of skin to Felicia, and she shook her head.
‘I don’t see it.’
Striker took out his pen and pointed to a small precise area where the skin had a slight mark on it.
‘See that?’ he said. ‘The tissue is slightly swollen here. Just barely, but when compared to the right side, you can see there’s a difference.’
‘Why?’
‘Because, I believe, she was injected here.’
Felicia made a face. Looked again. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Positive. And the swelling indicates Mandy was alive when it happened – otherwise there’d be no immune response. If you look close enough, there’s a small mark right here.’
He pointed and Felicia shook her head. ‘Since when do injections leave a mark like that?’ she asked.
Striker gave her a dark look. ‘They don’t – unless someone’s resisting and the needle tears the skin.’ He was about to say more when a cold voice filled the room.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
Striker looked up to see a very unhappy Kirstin Dunsmuir. One look at the medical examiner and Striker could see that she’d had more work done to her face. Cosmetic surgery. The woman was addicted. She crossed her arms over her breast implants and sneered at them through her collagen-filled lips.
‘Why are you touching my subject?’
Striker just pointed to the area he was looking at. ‘I think she was injected here, can you take a look for me?’
Dunsmuir said nothing for a moment, her icy blue contacts staring Striker down. She strode across the floor with her blue autopsy gown flapping behind her like a cape. Once beside the table, she gave him a long hard look before seeming to relax a little. She put on her glasses, examined the skin, then nodded slowly.
‘Yes, it would appear she’s been injected.’
She stood back and put on a forced smile, one that showed every one of her capped teeth. ‘Excellent detail,’ she said to Striker, ‘and if I ever again catch you touching one of my subjects before the autopsy is done, I’ll have you banned from the lab.’
Striker felt his jaw tighten. His first instinct was to tell the woman off – he had every right to be in here. Mandy Gill was his victim first; her subject second. He could have argued that point and won.
But what was the point in that? He knew Kirstin Dunsmuir well. The Death Goddess had earned her reputation for a reason. And fighting with her would only complicate the investigation.
‘I’m sorry,’ he offered. ‘I wasn’t trying to overstep my bounds here. It’s just that . . . I knew this woman. She was a good person. She didn’t deserve this.’
The medical examiner didn’t blink. ‘If you knew her, you should remove yourself from the case.’
Striker let the comment go. ‘Look, I didn’t mean to step on your toes or break your lab policies. I’m just worried that this is more than a simple suicide.’
Kirstin Dunsmuir made no immediate reply. But Striker’s words seemed to placate her. Her posture relaxed. ‘I’m just starting my assessment now,’ she said.
‘Good. Can we get some toxicology on this one?’ Striker asked.
‘I always do tox tests – when it’s warranted.’
Striker nodded. ‘What are we looking at for timeline here?’
‘For the tox tests? I’ll expedite them. But we’re still looking at a while. Twenty-four hours, for sure.’
‘It’s appreciated,’ Striker said. The smell of the body cleaners was getting to him. So were the memories. He handed Dunsmuir one of his business cards with his personal cell number on it. ‘Call me the moment you know.’
Dunsmuir took it and said she would. Then Striker gave Felicia the nod to leave, and they did. Once back in the hall, Felicia looked over at him. Nodded approvingly. ‘I thought you were going to tear her head off in there.’
Striker shrugged. ‘More flies from honey,’ he said softly.
He walked down the hallway, the hard sound of his heels echoing against the walls. With every step, the lighting seemed to grow darker and the long corridor narrower as they closed in on the cargo elevator.
Striker couldn’t wait to get outside. He needed some space, some fresh air. A moment to think. But more than anything, he just needed to get out of the morgue and away from Kirstin Dunsmuir.
He was suffocating on the darkness.
Twenty-Four
Striker got the car going immediately. Got himself focused. Again, they headed for the headquarters of Car 87, with one purpose – to see if the clinic had a personnel file on Dr Erich Ostermann.
At this point, anything on the man would be helpful.
It was going on for eleven o’clock now, which didn’t matter as far as the headquarters were concerned because they were open twenty-four hours a day. Whether it was a nurse, a counsellor, or one of the officers involved, someone would be there.
They drove on. The traffic was surprisingly bad, given the time of night. And it thickened the further they went.
When they got stuck at a red, Striker pulled out his cell phone. He tried calling Courtney to tell her not to wait up for him, but then got directed immediately to the answering machine.
She was already on the line.
That usually meant at least a half-hour wait, so he left her a brief message, then hung up the phone. Felicia hung up her own phone as well. When she let out a long sigh, Striker didn’t like the sound of it. ‘What now?’ he asked.
‘I just tried their office. A few of the nurses are there, but Car 87’s gone home for the night. We can’t get to any of their files till morning.’
Striker cursed and thought this over.
‘Screw it. We’ll drop by the office anyway. See if anyone else there can help us. Maybe one of the nurses has access to the files.’
The light changed from red to green and Striker hit the gas. Not ten minutes later, they pulled up in front of the building, just in time to see a familiar figure emerging.
Constable Bernard Hamilton was sneaking out of the front door.
Striker knew it was Bernard. He was the only cop around that owned an entire wardrobe of pastel-coloured dress shirts, complete with matching ties. He was a strange-looking man. He was thinning badly on top, and in an effort to divert attention away from his baldness, had grown the rest of his hair into a long ponytail, which he then braided down his back.
Striker didn’t like the man. Never had. As far as he was concerned, Bernard Hamilton was a lot like Inspector Laroche – a by-the-book guy, but only when it served his purpose. Bernard Hamilton cared more about stats and commendations than honest-to-God police work, and his only goal in life was to see his face on the Officer of the Year plaque.
Whether he deserved it or not.
Striker had done the man some favours in the past, covering him when he needed a day off for personal reasons – which was, of course, not by the book. Bernard Hamilton owed him one for that, and for many other things over the years. It was time to collect.
Striker rolled down the window. Cold air blustered inside the car. Striker ignored the chill and waved the man down. ‘Bernard! Hey, Bernard!’
Hamilton looked up, unwelcome recognition filling his face. ‘Striker,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Planning my retirement. You got any room in there?’ When Hamilton didn’t so much as break a grin, Striker got right down to business. ‘We’re here about the Mandy Gill suicide down on Union Street.’
Bernard shuffled his feet and blew into his hands. ‘Yeah, I figured as much. I heard the call.’
‘What do you know of her?’
Bernard Hamilton shrugged as he came closer. ‘Not much more than’s already in her file. No family or friends. On social assistance. Suffered from depression. And she self-medicated, like everyone else down there. You know how it is.’ He pulled out a pack of smokes and lit one up.
‘What kind of self-medication?’
‘What kind ya think? Crack, mostly. Some heroin too, though. She could be a little speedball queen.’
Striker made a note of this for the toxicology tests, then texted the information to Kirstin Dunsmuir. While he made the text, Felicia interjected.
‘What about this doctor Mandy was seeing – Dr Erich Ostermann?’
Bernard blew out a trail of smoke. ‘Ostermann? Don’t know him personally. But he’s a good man, from what I hear. Created EvenHealth, you know – he’s won awards for that. Got some publicity from it. Good stuff. Front page stuff. TV, too. BCTV news, I think.’
Striker didn’t much care about the accolades. He put his phone away and asked, ‘What do you know of the man’s work?’
Bernard bundled up the top of his coat, hiding a pastel blue shirt and matching tie, and turned away from the wind. ‘Fuck, it’s cold out here. Can we do this later?’
‘Just answer the questions,’ Striker said.
Bernard took another quick puff and cursed. ‘Ostermann does a lot of work with high-risk offenders. The criminally insane. The mentally ill. Stuff like that. Works mainly out at Riverglen.’
‘Can I see his file?’
Bernard said nothing for a moment, he just stared back blankly.
‘You mean his personnel file?’
‘What other one is there?’
Bernard shook his head. ‘Sorry, man, they did away with all that after one of the patients stole a folder. One of the docs complained about it and the board ruled it a breach of privacy. The office got rid of all the staff’s private data six or seven months ago. Shredded everything.’
Striker gave Bernard a queer look. ‘All of it?’
Bernard asked, ‘Why are you so interested in Dr Ostermann anyway?’
‘Because he’s not being entirely forthcoming with us. I think he’s protecting one of his patients. Billy something. I need you to look into it. And while you’re at it, keep an eye open for a Dr Richter. His name was seen on Mandy Gill’s referral pad.’
Bernard bit his lip. ‘I dunno. We’re pretty busy right now.’
‘I’m not asking.’
Bernard let out a heavy breath. ‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’
‘You owe me one,’ Striker reminded him.
Bernard threw his cigarette on the ground and crushed it with his foot. ‘Fine, then, fine. Tomorrow, maybe.’
Striker nodded his understanding. This was Bernard Hamilton’s passive-aggressive way of trying to get out of doing the job. Striker pretended not to notice.
‘No maybe,’ he said. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’
‘Uh sure.’
‘Track you down if I have to.’
‘I’ll look into it,’ Hamilton said, the irritation in his voice now audible.
Striker smiled. ‘You’re a saint, Bernard.’
Felicia always giggled at that joke, and Bernard just scowled.
‘Whatever, Striker. I’m freezing my balls off here, and I’m not getting paid for it.’ Bernard Hamilton turned about, his ponytail snapping across his upper shoulders, and stormed down the road towards his car.
Striker watched the man climb into a new-model Audi located on the east side of the road. The lights turned on, the motor revved, and Bernard Hamilton took off down the road. He was just barely out of sight when Striker’s cell vibrated against his side. He plucked it up and saw that he had voicemail. He scrolled back through the received calls and frowned when he saw the name:
Larisa Logan.
The counsellor from Victim Services.
He let out a groan.
Felicia looked over and smiled. ‘Just call her back and tell her you don’t want to talk about Amanda right now.’
Striker met her stare. ‘You don’t know Larisa – she’s a pit bull. The woman’s jaw locks and she never lets go.’
‘Then tell her now is not a good time.’
‘She’ll say that means it’s exactly the right time.’
Felicia grinned. ‘She’s persistent, I’ll give her that.’
‘Stubborn as hell is more like it – similar to others I know.’ Before Felicia could respond, Striker hit the Voicemail button and then punched in his password. There was only one message waiting, and when he hit Play the sound of Larisa’s voice was completely unlike anything he remembered of her from the past – high in pitch, unsteady, and speaking too fast:
‘Jacob, it’s me, it’s Larisa . . . Look, I just saw you on the news and . . . . I need to speak to you. About what happened. About Mandy Gill. She didn’t kill herself, Jacob. She was murdered. And I can prove it.’
Twenty-Five
The phone message shocked Striker and he called Larisa’s cell number. It went unanswered. He dialled and waited for her to pick up three more times but to no avail. Finally, he got hold of the police department’s Info Channel and asked them to look up Larisa Logan’s home number. He called that, too. Again, there was no response.
‘This is bullshit,’ he said.
Felicia agreed. ‘Let’s just go there already.’
‘Already one step ahead of you,’ he replied and hit the gas.
Larisa Logan lived in Burnaby, just a few blocks outside the boundary of the City of Vancouver. From Striker and Felicia’s location – the twenty-seven hundred block of Granville Street – the drive normally took twenty minutes.
Striker made it there in ten.
The listed address came back to a small rancher-style house, located on the north side of Parker Street. In the dark of winter, the place looked abandoned and secluded. A barren cherry tree covered most of the front yard, its long bony branches reaching up into the night sky like arthritic fingers. Inside the house, all the lights were turned on. But there was no movement inside.
Striker parked the car and jumped out. Felicia followed suit.
‘I don’t see any movement,’ she noted.
‘Me, either.’
As he spoke, Striker absently touched the butt of his pistol, tugged on it to make sure it was snug in its holster. Then made his way up the sidewalk.
The front stairs were slippery with frost, and he took them slowly, one hand on the railing, one hand free and ready for a quick draw. When he reached the front door, he saw that it was already ajar. Just an inch, but definitely open.
He showed this to Felicia.
‘Be ready.’
She drew her pistol and took a position of cover on the right side of the door frame, out of the direct line of fire; seeing this, Striker took the left. When they were both lined up, he gave her the nod and then knocked hard on the door.
‘Larisa!’ he called. ‘Larisa, it’s Jacob Striker. With the Vancouver Police Department!’
No answer.
‘Larisa, I got your message!’ he called again.
But still, nothing.
He pushed the door all the way open, and it moved silently, exposing the hallway, living room and kitchen beyond.
‘Larisa!’ he called. ‘It’s Jacob Striker! Felicia Santos is with me. We’re coming inside!’
He and Felicia moved inside the foyer, then shut and locked the door behind them – they didn’t want anyone sneaking up behind them. Once done, Striker gestured for Felicia to cover the right side of the room. When she nodded her understanding, he took the left. Together, they cleared the entire floor, room by room, starting with the den and office and finishing with the bedroom and ensuite in the back of the house.
They found no one.
‘She’s not here,’ Felicia finally said. ‘Shit. Where did she call you from?’
‘Her cell.’
‘Was she home at the time?’
‘She didn’t say. It was a message.’
He spoke the words without paying attention; his main focus was on the area around them. Something about the room bothered him. Something about all the rooms bothered him. Tugged away at the back of his mind like an invisible string.
He holstered his gun and moved slowly from the bedroom, down the long carpeted hallway, into the living room and den area. He stood at the entrance to the kitchen and looked back and forth between the rooms.
Felicia followed him.
‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘What’s wrong?’
He said nothing and just looked around. On the kitchen counter and table were piles of dirty plates and leftover food. By the stove, a pile of spaghetti had been dropped on the floor and never cleaned up. In the far corner of the room were piles of newspapers and bags of empty cans.
‘The place is a pigsty,’ he noted.
‘Some people are messy.’
‘This is beyond messy. And the door was left open. With the heat blasting. I know Larisa – she would never live this way.’
‘How would you know? Have you ever been to her place before?’
‘No. But I have been to her office. And in her car. Everything is always neat and tidy. Clean. Orderly. This . . . this isn’t her.’ He walked outside and checked the address. It was correct. They were at the right house. ‘Maybe she moved,’ he added. ‘Maybe someone else lives here now.’
‘Let me get the computer,’ Felicia said. ‘I’ll check out her history, see what I can drum up.’
He nodded, and she returned to the car.
While she was gone, Striker made his way back down to the bedroom. On the bureau was a family photograph. The picture was of Larisa with two other women, so this was definitely her house.
It struck him as odd.
He moved closer and focused in on the photograph. It looked like Larisa and her family – presumably her mother and sister. They were smiling, happy, looked like they had been laughing about something.
A hidden joke between them all.
Striker continued looking around. Piled beside the photograph was a stack of newspaper clippings. And on the wall were more of the same. Stories. Articles. Clipped out and stuck to the walls. Some were from tabloids and magazines; others from more reputable sources.
He read through them all. Across the front of one story – where a man had thrown himself out of a window on the sixth floor of the Regency Hotel – someone had used a big thick felt pen to write: LIES! LIES! LIES!
The collage of articles made bad thoughts filter through Striker’s head, and he hoped he was wrong in what he was thinking. Then he heard Felicia re-enter the house through the front door. He went to meet her.
When he reached the living room, he found her standing at the kitchen table with the laptop open. She was reading through a list of entries on the PRIME database.
‘What you got?’ he asked.
She gave him a queer look. ‘How well do you know this woman, Jacob?’
‘Well enough.’
‘Do you? When was the last time you talked to her?’
‘I dunno. A while ago,’ he admitted. ‘Probably just over a year – why, Feleesh? What are you getting at?’
‘I’m getting at this.’ She turned the computer around so he could see the screen. The first thing that caught his eye were three letters, marked in big red font:
MHA.
‘Mental Health Act?’ he said. ‘What the hell?’
Felicia nodded. ‘Turns out this Larisa you know has had a lot of problems since she left the Victim Services Unit.’
‘Problems?’ Striker looked up from the laptop. ‘What do you mean?’
Felicia took the laptop back and clicked through the electronic reports. ‘According to PRIME, Larisa Logan has been listed as a Disturbed Person numerous times.’
Striker raised an eyebrow. Disturbed Person was a politically correct label for bat-shit crazy.
‘Must be a mistake.’
Felicia continued reading through the reports. ‘I wish it was, Jacob. But I don’t think so. It looks like Larisa actually left her position with Victim Services twelve months ago and took some kind of personal leave. Could be stress-related. I’m not sure. It doesn’t really say.’
Striker closed his eyes and thought back. ‘Twelve months . . . . That was right about the time I had my last session with her. Or maybe thirteen months – it was before Christmas. And then she took stress leave?’
Felicia grinned. ‘Yeah. Must’ve been your boyish charms.’
He didn’t respond. He just began reading through the reports.
While he did this, Felicia took a moment to look around the room. After a few minutes, she returned with a large piece of paper in her hands. On it was a list of strange scribblings. It was confusing and nonsensical. Written gibberish. But some names were there.
Striker saw two names that he recognized:
Mandy.
Billy.
He pointed to them. ‘That could be Mandilla Gill. And that could be this Billy guy . . . Ostermann’s patient.’
Felicia didn’t look so assured. ‘There’s over thirty names here, Jacob. It could be a lot of things with all these scribblings. But yeah, sure, the names do match.’
Striker read through all the scribbles until he spotted one name he did not recognize. Unlike the other names, this one had been underlined several times:
Sarah.
He wrote the name down in his notebook.
Felicia held up a pile of more newspaper clippings – tabloid stuff about everything from medication frauds and passport scams to the existence of aliens and demons. ‘Jesus Christ, Jacob, look at this stuff. Aliens? Demons? The woman’s gone right off the deep end.’
Striker said nothing and finished the report he was reading. When he was done, he skimmed through the list of call incidents. There were many: Disturbed Person. Suspicious Circumstance. And even a few Assaults where Larisa was listed as a Suspect Chargeable. Meaning she was lucky she hadn’t been thrown in jail.
This alarmed him.
One of the assault charges was against one of the police psychologists, a man Larisa had worked with during her time in the Victim Services Unit. The charges had been dropped for compassionate reasons, further stating in the Remarks section that ‘Mental Health Issues were involved’.
Striker felt himself deflate; the news was depressing and hard to believe.
He closed the laptop and felt overwhelmed by the information. Larisa Logan. His friend. The woman who had helped him through so much after Amanda’s death. It just couldn’t be true, and yet . . .
And yet here they were.
When he finally found the words, his voice was hard and full of grit. ‘This woman helped me through the darkest hours of my life,’ he said. ‘I’m going to help her through hers.’
Felicia rubbed his arm. ‘She’s out there somewhere, Jacob. We’ll find her.’
Striker did not return the smile. ‘We have to – and not just out of compassion.’
‘What do you mean?’
He turned to face her. ‘Think about it, Feleesh. Her connection to the victim. Her open access to medications. Her history of mental illness. And over the last year, the willingness to resort to violence . . . I hate to think this way, but it’s something that has to be considered. Something we have to be prepared for. Larisa Logan is one of our prime suspects.’
‘Do you believe that?’
‘No, but it’s not about what I believe. We have to find her and get her professional treatment – but we also have to rule her out as a suspect first.’
He headed for the front door. The night was already cold and quiet, but it felt darker now than it had before.
Deeper, thicker. Blacker.
And he feared it was only going to get worse.
