Damaged (14 page)

“All right,” he said softly.

She inhaled sharply. It sounded suspiciously like a sob. “Thank you.” The phone went dead.

Randall placed the receiver down and stared at it for a long moment.

He pushed back his chair and rose heavily to his feet.
Kate’s office was on the floor below him. He headed down the hallway.

Twice he paused, ready to turn back to his office. What he was about to do went against everything he had worked for, everything he stood for. But then his mind invariably returned to Hope’s daughter, lying in a coffin with her toy dog. Hope’s daughter, who had died a horrible, unimaginable death. How could any parent live with the knowledge that they had failed their child when they needed them most? From the sound of Hope’s voice—bleak and hopeless and angry—the knowledge was eating away at her. He couldn’t make her suffering worse. He had been spared. His own child was safe and happy in her blue-and-green bedroom in Toronto, surrounded by her stuffed animals and people who loved her. He didn’t really believe in God, and yet he couldn’t help but hope that this act of charity toward Hope might keep his daughter safe from the wolves that prowled the streets.

He turned down the corridor toward Kate’s office. It was quiet, the air-conditioning turned off for the weekend. He half hoped she’d be in her office. Then he’d be saved from the decision he had made.

But she wasn’t. Her chair was empty. Although when he stepped into her office he had the sense she was there, leaning against her desk, those long legs crossed at her slim ankles, arms folded. Watching him, disappointment and betrayal written in those startling eyes of hers. Eyes that could ignite his pulse.

He frowned. She had gotten too far under his skin. He didn’t know how it had happened, but it had. It had to stop. He could not get involved with her, with any lawyer in his firm—not after what his wife had put him through—but especially her. John Lyons’ protégée.

He didn’t want Kate Lange in his head anymore.

He strode toward the filing cabinet and found what he was looking for. He knew without a doubt that Kate would put two and two together.

She’d get the message loud and clear.

No one took a stand against the bull without getting gored.

D
amn.
Kate couldn’t believe it. It was 9:21 a.m. on a Sunday morning and Randall Barrett’s car was already in the parking lot. Didn’t the guy have a life?

She drove up another level of the parkade and left her car in the dimmest corner. Her errand would only take a few minutes, but she was taking no chances.

She took the elevator to LMB’s associates’ floor and ran her security pass through the reader. Her palms broke out in a cold sweat.

The halls were hushed as she hurried down the corridor. She breathed a small sigh of relief. No one else was working this morning. Except, of course, Randall Barrett.

She turned the corner and strode into her office, heading straight for the file cabinet. She pulled out the MacAdam folder and flipped it open.

Her fingers began to shake.

The folder contained only one sheet of paper. The one Randall had given her, with the simple notation
Marian MacAdam. Custody matter
.

What had happened to the rest of the file? Panic made her fingers clumsy. She pawed through the folders and Post-it notes in her drawer. No notes.

She racked her memory. The last time she’d seen the notes was the day the police detectives had come to her office. She remembered putting the file in her filing cabinet.

She opened the filing cabinet again. This time she combed through every file from
A
to
Z,
searching in the folders and between them to see if the notes somehow had fallen in.

They hadn’t.

Where were they?

She dropped to her hands and knees behind her desk, looking under the credenza, her desk, chair, and behind her bookcase. No sign of them.

She stood. Her glance fell on the clock. It was 10:03 a.m.

Her heart sank as her panic rose. She couldn’t even write out another copy. The harder she thought back to her meeting with Marian MacAdam, the more blank her memory became.

The clock ticked another minute: 10:04 a.m. Ethan would be at her house right now, wondering where she was. She grabbed the folder, Marian MacAdam’s name blurring in front of her eyes and ran to her car. As she drove down the ramp, she noticed Randall’s car was gone.

Her mind whirled.

She had been about to breach her own legal ethics by giving the notes to Ethan to read. Now someone had beaten her to it.

It could only be one person.

Randall Barrett. He wouldn’t be worried about the repercussions of being caught.

He had a personal relationship with Judge Carson.

His ballsiness took her breath away.

He knew that she could only challenge him if she was willing to lose her job.

She wasn’t. She had mortgaged her life to LMB.

Pain tightened her chest. Why had he done this to her? After that look she’d caught on his face in his office, she’d thought there had been a rapprochement of sorts. She’d thought he’d be willing to comfort her. Hell, she’d thought he
desired
her. There had been a moment of awareness between them that had shaken her to the core.

And now he stole from her.

Her heart twisted.

Damn him. Damn him for making her feel like this.
She clenched her teeth and forced the pain of his betrayal down.

She wouldn’t confront Randall Barrett about his theft.

But she could never trust him again.

She pulled into her driveway. Ethan was standing on the porch, leaning against a post. He had a coffee in each hand. He gave her a small smile when he saw her.

Her stomach churned.

“Hi.” He was freshly showered, his hair still damp at the ends. His T-shirt showed his fit physique. She could almost feel the soft cotton warmed by his skin, the broad rounded muscles of his shoulders underneath.

She stepped carefully around him, putting her key in the door. “You’d better come in.”

He straightened at her tone and followed her inside. Alaska padded toward her, ready for his welcome. She scratched his ears hurriedly.

“Look,” Ethan said awkwardly, “I’m sorry about what happened yesterday. I don’t know what came over me.”

“It’s okay,” she said, although they could both tell from her voice that she didn’t mean it. She rubbed her arm.

Ethan handed her a coffee. “I bought this for you.”

“Thanks,” she said.

Silence was a black hole of recriminations between them. Who would fall into the abyss first? she wondered.

“Did you bring the notes?” Ethan asked.

His question gave her the answer. She’d be the first to make the plunge. “I brought the file.”

“Good.” He relaxed, sipped his coffee. Waited expectantly.

Here goes.
She took a deep breath and blurted, “The notes are gone.”

He stared at her. “Gone? What do you mean, gone?”

“They aren’t in the file. Look.” She thrust the file folder at him, wondering in the next instant why she did so. It only contained a single piece of paper with one line scrawled on it. Ethan flipped open the cover. His lips pressed together. He looked up at her. His eyes searched her face. “So what happened to them?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I searched all over my office, under the desk, in the drawers—” She stopped abruptly. She was babbling. “I don’t know.”

“Did you change your mind?”

“No. I was going to give the notes to you.”

“So you didn’t destroy them?”

“No.”

“Hide them?”

“No!”

“Give them to someone else.”

“Ethan, I told you I don’t know what happened to them!”

“So someone stole them.” He gave her a skeptical look.

“I guess so.”

“Who would do that, Kate?”

“I don’t know.” She didn’t want to voice her suspicions about Randall. With the bad blood between Ethan and her boss, it would be adding oxygen to a wildfire. This was between her and her managing partner. And there would come a time when she would make Randall account for this. He wouldn’t get away with it.

“You don’t know?” Ethan’s eyes gleamed. “I think you do.”

She took a sip of her coffee. It scalded her tongue. “No. I don’t.”

He studied the page in the folder. “This isn’t your handwriting, is it, Kate?”

She looked away. “No.”

“Who assigned you the file?”

She hesitated for a second. It was fatal.

Suspicion tightened his face.

She answered with quiet resignation. “Randall Barrett.”

He slammed the folder shut. “That bastard. He took the notes.”

“You don’t know that, Ethan.”

“Yes. I do.”

“Why would he do that? He assigned me the file because he had no interest in the client, Ethan!” She was panicking now. Would Ethan confront Randall? She didn’t want to think about the fallout of that. She’d be exposed, fired, thrown out on her butt, lose her income, her house, her reputation, all because she’d tried to assuage her conscience and help Ethan with his investigation.

What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive…

“Really? Maybe he assigned you the client for another reason.”

“Like what?”

“’Cause he wants to screw you.” His deliberate crudeness was meant to offend.

A heat rose in her chest. She glared at him. “That’s so off base you have no idea.” She hoped he couldn’t see the truth of what he said in her eyes.

“So why are you protecting him?”

“I’m not!”

“Yes. You are.” He took a swig of his coffee. “Has Barrett made a pass at you yet?”

You jerk.
That hit too close to home. “No. He has more finesse than you.”

Ethan’s face tightened. “I told you—”

“Randall didn’t even hire me.” She cut him off, her voice razor sharp. She wasn’t going to stand there and let him point fingers. Time to set the record straight. “John Lyons did. And the fact you could suggest that I was hired for a reason other than my skills shows how little you knew me. Just because Randall Barrett made you doubt your abilities on the Clarkson case doesn’t mean he doubts mine!” She stopped abruptly, her chest heaving. The lies never seemed to stop coming when she was around Ethan.

“You think I’d worry about some arrogant bastard when the Court of Appeal said he was full of shit?” His voice reverberated with a bravado that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He was lying, too, she realized with a start. “And now you’ve gone to work for him and his fucking firm.”

“I don’t have to explain my career decisions to you.”
Now
. Her eyes challenged him to refute this new truth.

“It was a big mistake, Kate,” he said curtly. “You can’t go work for a bastard like that and not get smeared by the shit he mucks around in.” He shook the file folder. “Case in point.”

She crossed her arms. “I was prepared to muck around in it for you.”

His lips tightened. “We need to find Lisa’s killer.”

“So that makes it okay? When it’s for the greater good?”

“Yes. It does.” He dropped the folder on the hall table and opened the front door. “Goodbye.” His tone was heavy. Final. He wouldn’t be showing up on her doorstep again.

He was almost at his car when his cell phone rang. He
waited until he got into the front seat, then answered the relentless chime. “Detective Drake.”

“Ethan, it’s Deb.”

“Yeah?” He started the engine. He wanted to get away from Kate’s house. ASAP.

“I’m calling in the team.” Her tone was clipped. “We’ve got another victim.”

Monday, May 7, 9:00 a.m.

K
ate sat back on her heels.

She’d rushed to her office this morning, dropping her purse and falling to her knees in front of the filing cabinet.
Please
, she prayed.
Please let them be there
. At 3:04 a.m. last night, she’d awoken with the chilling certainty that she had forgotten to look through the
N
folders. The notes were there. Misfiled. Or maybe she’d been wrong about Randall. That he’d only taken the notes to photocopy so he’d have his own record when Child Protection grilled him.

But the notes weren’t there. Of course not. Never trust those dead-of-night certainties. They were just ghost whispers of what might have been.

Here she was, on her knees in her office, coming to grips with more than one unpalatable truth. The managing partner of one of Halifax’s finest firms had stolen her notes, breached a fiduciary duty, snatched her confidence, her trust and, most importantly, her hopes. In one quick grab.

She pressed her face against the cool metal of the upper cabinet. And Ethan believed she was either lying to protect
herself, or to protect Randall—because he thought she was having an affair with him.

That one hurt. First Rebecca Manning, then Ethan. Both insinuating she had done the rounds with the senior partners’ beds to get hired on. As if she wouldn’t be hired on ability alone. She’d worked her butt off, taken every crummy family law file thrown at her, to prove she was worthy of being at LMB.

And what had happened? She’d dropped the ball and let down her client, her firm, herself. And a young girl had been murdered.

Her direct line rang. She glanced over her shoulder at the clock on her desk. It was 9:01 a.m. It felt more like noon. Not a good way for the week to begin. That was the problem. It didn’t feel as if last week had ended.

She staggered to her feet and picked up the phone.

“Kate Lange.” She cleared her throat.

“Ms. Lange, this is Marian MacAdam.”

Shock made her legs weak. She sank into her chair. Had Marian MacAdam learned somehow that Kate’s notes were missing? Guilt rushed in where shock ebbed.

“Mrs. MacAdam. What can I do for you?”

Marian MacAdam’s voice was strained. “As you are probably aware, my granddaughter’s funeral was on Saturday.”

“Yes.” Kate cleared her throat again. “I went. It was beautiful.”

“Yes, it was.” Marian MacAdam’s voice was tight. “But that is not the reason why I am calling.”

So, she
was
calling about the missing notes. Kate’s body went into red alert: pulse racing, body temperature rising. “Yes?”

“You know that the night Lisa was killed she had
returned to her old haunt—” Marian MacAdam cut off the word abruptly. “Lisa returned to the street corner where she bought drugs.”

“Yes.” Kate became aware of how cool the phone receiver felt against her cheek. “I read about it in the paper.”

“She met with some friends.” Marian MacAdam paused. “One of them came to the funeral. A black girl named Shonda.”

“I see.” The funeral was a blur for Kate. She didn’t remember any of the faces except for Ethan’s.

“Although I partly blame these so-called friends for encouraging Lisa’s habit, I cannot blame them for what happened to Lisa.”

Whom
do
you blame?
The insistent voice of her conscience jumped into the conversation.
Yourself, for claiming you had no proof of self-endangerment? Hope Carson, for driving Lisa to it? Or me, for not doing anything about it?

“This girl Shonda was very upset about Lisa’s death,” Marian MacAdam continued.

“We all are,” Kate said softly.

“She told me some concerning things after the funeral.” Marian MacAdam’s voice dropped.

Kate breathed in deeply. There was a subtext in Marian MacAdam’s voice, a hidden message that Kate hadn’t yet deciphered. But she sensed the code was about to be given to her.

“She told me that Lisa wasn’t the only street kid to disappear.”

Kate’s heart dropped. But she forced herself to sound unconcerned. “Really?”

“She said there were others.”

“It’s not unusual for street kids to come and go. They’re a pretty transient population.”

“That may be, but she seemed to think there was something more to it.”

“Did she tell the police?”

“Yes, but they told her there wasn’t much they could do.”

“Why is that?” Kate couldn’t imagine Ethan ignoring a lead like this.

“Because there was no proof that the girls were killed. And they’d been missing for months.”

“So maybe there’s no connection to what happened to Lisa.”

“Perhaps. But I told her that I thought there’d be someone willing to look into this for her.”

Kate’s heart nosedived. “You did?”

“Yes. I thought you might be willing to help.”

“Mrs. MacAdam, I’d like to be of service to you, but…”
But what? But I don’t want to get my hands messy?
She closed her eyes. The guilt could no longer be held down. Marian MacAdam had her by the balls, and her client knew it. She swallowed. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

“Shonda’s nervous of dealing with the police, given her background.” Marian MacAdam paused delicately. “You know, living on the street.” Kate understood how this girl could feel. How once you were branded no good, it was so much more difficult to ask for help. “Maybe you could find out who these missing girls are and work as a kind of liaison with the police.”

A humorless smile crept across Kate’s face. Marian MacAdam had no idea how the police operated. And how much the police wouldn’t want her, in particular, involved.

“I’m not sure if that will work—” She rubbed her forehead. She was always making excuses with Marian MacAdam. She owed this woman. The debt was there.
Acknowledged. Being called in at this very moment. Maybe she could meet this girl Shonda and find out if her concerns were legit. “Okay. How can I find her?”

“She is living in a place on Gottingen Street. Here is her number.”

Kate jotted it down. “I’ll get back to you.”

“Thank you.” It sounded like the devil himself had answered her. But she had a feeling it was more the reply of an avenging angel.

She had been given a chance at redemption.

But not before she made a sacrifice. If Randall Barrett found out she was sticking her nose further into Lisa MacAdam’s case, she knew what that sacrifice would be. She’d be ousted from the firm. She’d lose her shot at a decent career and the salary that was paying for her house. She doubted she’d get another job in a big firm.

She was taking her future and throwing it out the window. Her rational, logical brain had been hot-wired with guilt, short-circuited by a desire to make amends.

And maybe, just maybe, she’d be able to live with herself again.

The break had come quickly, courtesy of Vicky. She was good, no denying it. Her uncanny recall for people had once again connected a face to a criminal record.

“The girl’s name is Krissie Burns,” Ferguson had announced in the war room. It was 9:11 a.m. The room was buzzing, everyone getting that surge of adrenaline that comes with a break.

Redding clapped Vicky on the shoulder. She stood next to Ferguson, her dark hair pulled into her habitual ponytail. Ethan stood at the back, watching her. He hadn’t spoken to her since New Year’s Eve. She’d avoided him at the
station, pretending not to see him when they crossed paths in the hallway.

He wondered why. Was she ashamed of the way she’d behaved? Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And yet he hadn’t really believed her capable of that. She’d always seemed to be a sensible kind of woman, pragmatic, straight shooting, never one to mince words. Not malicious.

He grimaced. He hadn’t believed himself to be capable of being so cruel to someone he thought he loved, too. And yet, he’d been a bastard to Kate. Had she deserved to be treated that way? He still couldn’t tell. The kaleidoscope was spinning madly, shifting into focus for seconds, then blurring again. Giving him glimpses of what he thought was Kate’s guilt, then shifting to reveal another facet of the case that made him doubt all his previous assumptions. No sleep and too much coffee wasn’t helping.

“The victim has a record as long as my arm,” Vicky said. Her china-blue gaze flicked around the table, skimming past Ethan before they could make eye contact. He wondered if that would always be the case. It saddened him. He had once loved Vicky. Not with the same kind of devouring passion that he’d experienced with Kate. But there had been pleasure, and he remembered with a pang the soft whimpers she made as he ran his tongue over those muscular thighs that were encased in soft, creamy skin.

But it hadn’t been enough. When she pushed him to move in with her, he realized that Vicky wasn’t the one for him. It had been difficult to break things off, knowing they would still be in the same division. But she’d taken it like the cop she was.

No question she’d screwed up big-time on New Year’s Eve. Confronting him in front of his division and spilling the beans about Kate’s family had given her a bad rep with
some of the other officers. But she’d also forced to the surface the secrets that Kate had kept from him. She’d had the guts to tell him when Kate hadn’t. And he respected Vicky for it.

“Krissie Burns has been in and out of prison for the past several years, prostituting and shoplifting to support her habit.” Vicky produced a computer printout. “This is what we have on her—no fixed address since her last incarceration, but known to frequent Windmill Road and Agricola. Her pimp is a guy by the name of Darrell LeBlanc. She went by the street name of Kristabel.” She sat down, closing her file folder.

Ferguson marked the large map mounted next to the white board. “So we’ve got two similarities with these victims. Krissie strolled the same area where Lisa bought drugs. And her body was found in the south end. This time at the Camp Hill Cemetery.”

“Next thing we know he’ll be burying her for us,” Lamond said, his brown eyes glum.

“I doubt he’ll use another cemetery,” Ethan said. “But he’s got a reason for using the south end. We just have to figure out why.”

“So he’s changing dump sites,” Ferguson said, “but not his M.O. In fact, his M.O. is practically identical to his first killing—the victim was strangled, dismembered and left naked.”

She flipped open the M.E.’s report. “The M.E. believes that a ligature with a smooth surface was used to strangle Krissie. Just like Lisa. The time of death is estimated at 1:51 a.m. The victim had one identifying mark, a tattoo on her left shoulder blade. It was a large red heart with the words
In Smack We Trust
.” There were a few snickers. Ferguson paused until the team was silent. “Her limbs were
dismembered with a bone saw, and the killer notched
LOL
on her—” she glanced down at her notes “—glenoid cavity.”

“Just like Lisa,” Redding said.

“Just like Lisa,” she confirmed. She looked around the table. “This guy has an agenda.”

“What about trace evidence?” Ethan asked.

Ferguson shook her head. Frustration tightened her features. “It rained that night. Heavily. It washed away whatever tracks the killer might have left.”

“That guy must have a subscription to the weather channel,” Lamond muttered.

Ethan stared at him. “Holy shit. The killer is following the weather. He’s making sure that the dump site gets rained on.”

The team exchanged glances.

“I think you’re onto something, Ethan,” Ferguson said. “Brown, keep track of the weather forecasts. I want you checking every three hours.” The weather could change at the drop of a hat in Halifax. Especially in the spring.

Ferguson glanced at her watch. “Our next debriefing will be at 1200. And in the meantime,” she said, her face turning grim, “keep praying for sunshine.”