now
, and that was all that seemed to matter.
While they were at a movie one night, Kris recalled another memory. In the film, one of the actors pointed a gun at the audience and, quite suddenly, the man Kris knew he had run over was back in his head. He was lying on the ground and his arm was pointed straight at Kris. His hand flashed and then flashed again.
The sound of gunfire from the screen made Kris jump. His head throbbed and he suddenly realized Lulu was whispering to him.
"Let's go," she said. "This is dumb."
"It's only half over," said Kris.
"I can think of better things to do than watch the rest," she said.
He was distracted as they drove away from the movie theater. Had the man he'd hit been shooting at him? That didn't make any sense. He didn't mention it to Lulu, because he knew she'd have questions, and he had no answers.
Instead, he let her distract him from thinking about it when they got home.
Two days later, Kris walked into the diner after work. Jessica was sitting at a table and he joined her. They chatted a little until Lulu came to take their order. She acknowledged it and then put her pad and pen in her apron pocket.
"There's an art show over in Willow Flats next month," she said, looking at Kris. "I think Ambrose would really enjoy it."
"I want to go!" said Jessica immediately.
Lulu looked at her. "Okay," she said.
Jessica looked across the table at Kris. "Maybe you could invite Mitch to come with us," she suggested.
"What?" Lulu was obviously shocked.
"Well," whined Jessica. "He had another fight with Carla. I saw her in town yesterday and she was moping around complaining about him."
"I didn't know you were interested in him," said Lulu, peering at her friend.
"I'm not," said Jessica. "Not like
that
. He's kind of interesting ... that's all." She folded her arms. "And they
did
have another fight."
"I'd think you'd be wanting to invite Carla," said Lulu.
"It was just an idea," complained Jessica. "I still want to go, though. I don't get nearly as much time with you since
he
showed up." Jessica jabbed her finger at Kris, who smiled shyly.
"I said you could come." Lulu's voice was firm.
"Okay, then," said Jessica. "Are you going to get our orders or do we need to go somewhere else?"
"Don't go there," warned Lulu.
Jessica slumped. "Okay, I'm sorry. It's just that you get to have fun, and I'm still all alone. It's not fair."
"I told Mitch about the naughty nurse outfit," said Kris, trying to defuse the situation. "He seemed very interested in it."
"Great," said Jessica glumly. "Like I'll ever get to show it to him."
"I was thinking of borrowing it from you," said Lulu, her voice light. She laughed as Jess' face wrinkled up. "Oh stop! We'll find you a man."
"Sure you will," sighed Jessica. "You may as well just take the damn thing."
"I'll watch you wear it," offered Kris. "I liked it on you the last time."
He had to duck from Lulu as she slapped at him, then duck further as Jessica picked up the menu and launched it his way.
Chapter Twenty-six
Harper sat, staring at the four cases laid out on his desk. It was late and everybody else was gone, except for Dick Chapman, who was catching up on paperwork on the other side of the room. Both men wanted quiet and neither had spoken to the other for over an hour.
Jim knew there was something he was missing in his review of the cold cases. He couldn't put his finger on it, but he knew it was there. His eyes kept drifting from one cover sheet to another. His gaze landed on the date that the young boy's body had been found. The kidnappers had killed him on purpose, shooting him execution style in the back of the head. They'd left a warning that maybe the next victim's parents would follow the "rules." His eyes closed and he realized he was falling asleep. But that dozing state allowed him to see multiple things in his mind at the same time so, as if he had left his body, he just looked at everything. Moe had gotten the gun from Jimmy Four Fingers about a month before the boy was shot.
His eyes popped open and his hands reached for the file, lifting pages until the lab report was exposed.
The bullet had all but exploded the child's head, shattering the skull into multiple pieces that only the skin had kept in general relation to each other. The bullet had lodged in the jawbone, where it had almost penetrated the lower teeth, breaking them, but not pushing its way through.
His eyes dropped to the description of the bullet.
The boy had been shot with a forty-five.
Nine hours later, Harper was waiting by the lab entrance lab holding two sheets of paper, copies from the reports that had been on his desk the night before. The lab supervisor arrived first and tried to ignore him, going straight to the kitchenette to start brewing coffee. He wasn't much interested in the agitated detective, and succeeded in ignoring him until Harper swept the coffee machine off the counter. The carafe smashed and what little coffee had dripped into it splashed all over the floor. He turned to berate the detective, but stopped as he saw the man's face.
Thirty minutes later a tech lifted his eyes from the binocular microscope that had two bullets stuck to the viewing plates with wax, and turned to Harper, who was just then plugging in the new coffee pot he'd gone out and bought to replace the one he'd broken.
"It's a match."
The DNA evidence from the other cold cases took longer to process. In the end, the donor of the hair found on the girl's body that had been thrown in a dumpster, still bound and gagged, was positively identified as coming from Larry Higginbotham.
Quite suddenly, relatively speaking, a group of serial kidnappers and murderers, already in custody and under charges for attempting to kidnap Chantal Custer, were identified and two cold cases were solved.
Jefferson, for once, smiled when he hung up the phone from his conversation with Jim Harper.
Ambrose struggled with the wrapping on the large, flat package that was decorated in brightly colored birthday paper. He finally got a purchase on the paper and pulled, ripping a large swath of it away from the box inside. Line after line after line of brightly colored artists pencils was exposed, along with various colors of chalk and a full array of watercolors, brushes and other accoutrements of the artist's trade.
"Cool!"
squealed the excited little boy.
Lulu looked at Kris, who had brought the package.
"That's a professional set," she commented, thinking of how much it must have cost. The kit included a case to store everything in, with hundreds of little loops to hold each pencil, brush, and pot of paint.
"He's got a real future in art," said Kris, shrugging his shoulders. "I just figured he should have the tools to explore his talent."
Lulu cocked her head and the hair fell away, baring her bald scalp.
"You're just the sweetest man I've ever met," she said softly.
"I had an ulterior motive, of course," said Kris, smiling gently.
"Oh?"
"This will keep him busy, so his mommy has time to ... entertain guests."
Lulu turned to Ambrose.
"What do you say to Kris?" she asked.
Ambrose jumped up, struggling to hold the heavy package in his hands and hug Kris at the same time. Lulu had to take the case, while Ambrose bestowed a wet kiss on Kris' cheek.
"Thank you," he said in a sing song voice.
"You're welcome," said Kris. "Happy birthday, big guy."
"Would you like to draw something right now?" asked Lulu, taking the case to the table and pulling a chair up for Ambrose to climb up on so he could kneel at a comfortable height to work.
"Yay!"
squealed the excited little boy.
After he was settled with a pile of paper there, Lulu stepped back and then turned to Kris.
"He looks like he'll be busy for a bit. You look like you could use some ... entertainment."
Jefferson and Harper had finished going through all the case files. There had been a jurisdictional fight, at upper levels, once it was determined that the Higginbotham case would reap some huge public relations benefits for somebody. The Department of Justice, though, had more clout, even more than Governor Custer. In the end, Harper had actually been relieved to turn over everything to Jefferson. It was going to be a complicated and drawn out prosecution. The death penalty was on the table now for sure, and it was much better that it be handled at the federal level than the state. It still wasn't likely that anybody would be put to death before nature claimed him first, but at least the state wouldn't have to deal with the ACLU. Their capital punishment division was already slavering and nobody had even been tried yet, much less sentenced to death.
The US Attorney, of course, was elated. This was the kind of case that could make for a lucrative career in the private sector at some later date. Many a US Attorney had "done his time" serving the public and then gone on to become a millionaire, based on that record of public service.
The actual amount of paper being transferred was minimal, considering the importance of the case. The real pain in the ass was Chantal Custer. She wanted her savior found, even more so, now that she knew the men who had tried to take her were murdering monsters. She believed firmly they would have killed her, had they succeeded. She called fairly routinely, at least once a day, asking for progress reports on identifying the man she was sure had saved her life.
When Jefferson left, that was the only residue of the case that Harper still had on his plate.
Kris fell forward as Lulu collapsed under him, landing on her stomach with her arms flung wide. He tried to stay in her as they bounced, but he was already softening, and slipped out of her.
"Ohhhhhh," she complained.
He started to get off her, but she told him not to.
"I like it when you crush me like this," she panted.
She'd been waiting for him when he got there. Ambrose was down for a nap. When he'd left after they'd celebrated Ambrose's birthday, she had told him that, in the future, she wasn't going to stop whatever she was doing just to answer the door. She'd told him to just come on in the next time he came over. This had been that next time.
When he'd entered the house, he had called out and heard an answering call from the bedroom.
"I'm in here! I need your help. I lost one of the studs from my ear and I'm looking for it."
When he got there, she was on her hands and knees on the bed, stark naked, her face close to the covers, which made her ass jut high in the air. He stopped to admire her and she peered around her shoulder.
"I'm unhappy," she said, pouting.
"You can get a new stud," he said, mildly.
"I want the old one!" she insisted. Then she went back to moving her face around on the bed, inches above it, which resulted in her ass waving back and forth at him. He could see the full lips of her labia peeking out at him. She moved her knees apart a little and backed up until her feet were off the bed. Her invitation was obvious and he knew she was teasing him.
"Be careful," he said. He was already hard. "You might fall off the bed and hurt yourself. Your knees are awfully close to the edge."
Again her face appeared around her shoulder.
"I'm not old and feeble like you," she said. "Come help me."
He went up behind her and, without warning, slid his hand between her legs and penetrated her with a finger. She was already slick and wet.
"Maybe it's in here," he teased, wiggling his finger around. She pushed her butt back toward him.
"Maaaaybe," she said, resting her head on the bed.
"Can't tell," he commented. "Can't get deep enough to feel all the way up in there."
"Don't you have something longer?" she moaned.
"Let's see," he said, removing his finger from her and unbuckling his pants. He shoved them down around his thighs, fisted his erection, and pushed it into her. She groaned, an obvious sound of happiness. It made him even harder, if that was possible. "I don't feel anything," he teased.
"Keep looking," came her muffled reply.
"Which one was it?" he asked, reaching under her to cup her breasts and squeeze gently.
