Sea of Suspicion (8 page)

“You can’t blame her for that.” Susie wiped her eyes, pulling away. She hadn’t come to rehash the past. “I told her if she reported it I’d kill myself.”

The memory wasn’t funny, but right now it made Susie laugh.

“Oh, the drama of being a teen.” Leanne rolled her eyes and Susie knew her friend understood.

“Stupid, huh?”

“Dumb as a rock,” Leanne agreed. “But she could have reported him without your name being made public, she knew that.”

Susie shuddered, remembering her despair during that awful time. Her brother had discovered them in the boatshed and he’d beaten the crap out of Clayton. Weeks later, when she’d realized she was pregnant, humiliation had morphed into a defiance that had gone nowhere and spiraled into depression.

“Your mother used what happened to gain political power.” The passion in Leanne’s voice undid Susie, and even though she tried to hold them inside, tears fell on their joined hands. “She squeezed every bit of political blood she could out of your pain. I know she’s your mom, but I wouldn’t vote for her if she were running against Paris Hilton.”

Leanne and Darcy Cooper had despised each other on sight. And it felt good to have someone standing so firmly on Susie’s side, even if Leanne didn’t know the whole story.

“I’m over it. Really I am. And that’s precisely why I’m
not
getting involved with Nick Archer.” Susie pulled a tissue from her purse and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I’m looking for something serious, something like you and Dougie share.”

“Nick is a good man,” Leanne said quietly.

“Pah—”

“But he was a fabulous kisser, wasn’t he?” Leanne’s eyes sparkled. “And I spoke to Patricia on the phone this morning and it seemed you weren’t the only one who got a goodnight kiss. Although I think Patty got the extended version.” Her eyebrows bobbled and Susie laughed.

“Aren’t you the little matchmaker?” Susie stood to pour the coffee.

Leanne went over and pulled a bottle of whisky out of the cabinet. “This is Dougie’s best stuff.” She held up a Bowmore single malt. “Don’t tell him we put it in the coffee.”

There was a pause as they stared at each other, sadness tightening the edges of Leanne’s eyes. “I’m not pregnant. I took a test,” she explained. “I must have bought out the entire drugstore over the last six months.”

“I’m sorry.” Susie didn’t know what else to say. “I didn’t know you guys were trying for a baby.”

“I didn’t want to say anything, I was afraid of jinxing it. But now I think there might be something wrong with me.” The petite brunette caught her lip in her teeth. She looked tired and pale. “My old sins catching up with me.”

Susie boosted her smile. “Now who’s holding on to adolescent drama?”

Leanne smiled but her eyes remained far away.

“Have you talked to a doctor?” Susie threw a spoonful of sugar into each mug before carrying them over to the table, where Leanne added a shot of whisky.

“Not yet, but it’s been six months.” Anxiety tugged at the corners of Leanne’s lips.

“Six months isn’t that long to try for a baby.”

“But some people get pregnant the first time they have sex. It is so unfair.”

Susie’s hands shook. Her best friend, the super-smart psychologist, didn’t even notice.

“Just give it time.” Susie was surprised at the strength in her voice. The control. She’d never told anyone she’d given up her baby, signed him away without even holding him. The secret was like a vacuum sucking up her self-worth, and she didn’t know if she’d ever get it back. “Have you tried taking your temperature and pinpointing the exact day of ovulation?”

“No, we’ve just been going at it like rabbits.” She sat up straighter in her chair, stretched her arms above her head. “Tell me about the temperature thing.”

“Well, I only know this because I worked with a woman in Brisbane who’d been trying for years.” Susie sipped her coffee and sighed at the fabulous aroma. “Eventually she started tracking her temperature, found out exactly when she ovulated and jumped her husband frequently over the next twenty-four hours.”

It sounded so easy. All you needed was a man who wanted to make babies.

“Oh God. I can see it now.” Leanne’s eyes lit up. “Phoning Dougie in the middle of a lecture to come home and
take me
—” she dropped her voice to a husky whisper, “—right now.”

Gales of laughter drowned out the arrival of Dougie and Nick’s big hairy dog, who did a brisk lap of the downstairs before dropping his muzzle into Susie’s crotch.

“Rocket.” Dougie shook his head solemnly. “Men have been murdered for less.”

He whistled and the dog raced back to him, wagging his tail. Dougie took one look at their faces and jammed his brows together at the sight of his whisky bottle. “I dinnae ken what you’ve been gossiping about and I don’t want to.”

“But you will,” Leanne promised, holding his gaze. “You most definitely will.”

The first murder in St. Andrews in over a decade was being given high priority by Fife Constabulary and the local press. Thankfully there were no royalty in the town to turn a dog and pony show into a three-ringed circus. It was Sunday, but the pathologist and his assistant were both in the sterile tiled basement that housed the mortuary.

It wasn’t like in the States where each corpse had a drawer to themselves. In Scotland bodies were stacked a dozen to a fridge.

Nick stared at the pale cadaver on the steel-top table. The stench of formaldehyde and bleach never quite disguised the odor of human decomposition. But it wasn’t the smell he detested, though that punched you in the gut at the door and clung to your clothes and skin until you scrubbed it off. It wasn’t the body parts displayed like offal in a butcher’s shop. It wasn’t the coarse, ugly incision, stark against smooth alabaster skin.

What Nick hated most was the knowledge that one day the body being dissected on the slab might be his. His heart gave an extra hard squeeze in protest.

Dying didn’t bother him, but having some saw-wielding mortuary technician peel off his face sent a quiver of fear into his bowels. And he hated being scared. It reminded him of that terrified little kid who’d held a knife to his mother’s throat all those years ago.

“There’s sign of sexual activity, but difficult to say if it was forced.” Cutter glanced up from washing his hands in the old Belfast sink.

“Any semen or trace?” Nick asked.

Intelligent black eyes gleamed as Cutter nodded, drying his hands on paper towels. “I sent it to Forensics, priority.” His beak of a nose jutted out from a face that was almost hairless. “Cause of death is blunt force trauma to the back of the head.”

No shit, Sherlock.

Runrig belted out “Loch Lomond” on a radio perched high on a bench behind him. With help from the mortuary assistant, a girl with hair as straight as a plumb line, Cutter rolled Tracy Good onto her side and pointed to two gashes on the girl’s skull.

Nick raised his eyes to the pathologist. “Hammer?”

Cutter nodded. “Possibly.” His bony shoulders stabbed through his lab coat in a shrug. “Probably. I’ve included scale photos of the lacerations with the report.”

Where was the murder weapon? Where were Tracy Good’s belongings? Was this a simple case of robbery gone wrong, or something more sinister?

His boss, Superintendent Pamela Richardson, had promised him every resource as long as he nailed the killer. He and the supe had gone through Police College together, but while he’d been mired in the filth of London’s organized crime, she’d been fast-tracking up the ranks at record speed. Didn’t mean she was a bad copper, but she was one hell of a politician. She generally left him alone to get on with the job, but that would change if he didn’t get a result. It might change if she knew who his chief suspect was.

“Her palms and knees were abraded and her clothes were covered in grass stains.” Cutter laid Tracy Good back onto the table.

“From the blood splatter I’d say she was probably hit first from behind as she walked along the footpath.” He demonstrated on his assistant who fell as directed. “She dropped to her hands and knees and rolled down the embankment and fell onto the beach. The killer followed, stood over her from the front and hit her again.” Cutter stood before his assistant and raised his hand. “The second wound is the mirror image of the first and the second blow killed her.”

The assistant stayed on the floor for a moment looking like a dead body extra on
CSI
. Then she got up and brushed off her white coat.

“It took time for her to die. At least ten minutes.”

Nick closed his eyes.
Was she dying when I walked past?

“Time of death?” His voice was croaky, but he coughed it out.

“Between midnight and one. Probably closer to one given the lack of rigor.”

Shit
. Nick stared at his boots. There was enough margin for error that she could have been breathing her last gasp as he passed by. Not that he could have saved her, but the idea of her dying alone bothered him. Chrissie had been alone in the water, floating around in the ocean feeding the fish. And now another of her supervisor’s students had turned up dead.

“No evidence of postmortem injuries or sexual assault, although she did have ligature marks on her wrists—as if she’d been tied up—but the marks were around twenty-four hours old.”

Nick went over and looked at her wrists, raised his brows. “She was seen in at work that day.”

Cutter adjusted his cuffs. “Maybe she just liked being tied up during sex.”

The assistant turned away and Nick didn’t want to know why Cutter’s cheeks turned ruddy.

“The tox screen came back negative for drugs and alcohol. No signs of a struggle or defense wounds.” Cutter pursed his lips as he stared at what was left of Tracy Good.

It sounded like a surprise attack from behind.

Nick remembered the thick haar that had boiled over the edge of the sea last night, reducing visibility to only a few feet. The weapon suggested premeditation. The swift, brutal nature of the crime suggested organization.

Was Tracy’s death planned? Or did someone just take advantage of a girl walking home alone late at night?

Christ, what if Susie had been working late?

He shut out that thought, kept his mind off Susie Cooper. He had no intention of seeing her again. It was time to back away from that particular explosive device. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. Preliminary police interviews suggested Tracy was a studious loner who’d recently developed an appetite for sex. Nick would bet every penny in the bank he knew who’d caused that particular conversion.

“There’s no family.” Which he personally thought was a blessing.

Cutter’s gaze was penetrating and black. “I expect the university will take care of funeral arrangements.”

They’d offered to do the same for Chrissie, even though they’d blamed her for her own death. Rage flowed through his blood and made his heart pound.

Nick bared his teeth and pointed a finger. “Do not release this body until I say so, no matter what the university says.”

He stalked over to the wooden bench near the door, picked up the report Cutter had laid out. Nick took a moment to level his anger. Anger would not catch Tracy’s killer. He cleared his throat. “I appreciate you doing this on your day off.”

“I did it for her,” Cutter said patiently. His assistant stood by his side, her glance measuring Nick.

Cutter was right, this wasn’t about him or his long-dead wife. Nick let his eyes rest on the victim. Death had stolen her dignity, her beauty and her future. All he could give her back was justice.

Except justice was a fickle bitch.

Nick nodded to the pathologist and left. This time was different. Homicide was his business and Tracy Good had been murdered on his patch.

It felt fundamentally wrong to be at work on Monday morning when a student had been murdered just thirty-six hours earlier, but Susie didn’t know what else to do.

A couple of reporters were camped out on the beach like crows scenting carrion. She’d averted her eyes as she’d passed the crime-scene tape fluttering in the wind. A bored-looking uniformed cop patrolled the area. She’d taken the poor guy a cup of coffee before the lab’s chief technician had interrogated her over the lost keycard. He’d eventually given her a new card, albeit reluctantly, and with such a skeptical expression on his face she figured it was her last.

Support staff ruled the world. Everyone with half a brain knew that.

She sipped her morning coffee and flinched when Jake Sizemore sat beside her, Nick Archer’s warning fresh in her mind. Jake shifted in the seat, his impeccable appearance reduced to wrinkles and creases as if he’d slept in his clothes.

She put down her coffee and looked at her watch. Her lecture wasn’t until the afternoon, but it had been moved to the Bute Medical Building out of respect for the dead girl. Tracy’s work spaces had been sealed off, and most of the staff and students were sitting around in a sort of stunned stupor.

There wasn’t much work being done, except for Lily and Rafael, who’d spent the morning cleaning out the CT room. For some reason Rafael appeared to have cooled his hormones and had started treating Susie like a proper boss. Maybe Lily had had something to do with it, or maybe Tracy’s death had given the young man a long overdue kick in the butt. It didn’t matter why, as long as they could establish a platonic working relationship and she didn’t have to worry about being alone with the guy.

Susie wanted to ask Jake questions about purchasing equipment for the CT room, but now didn’t seem to be the time to bring it up.

“I need to organize a memorial service.” Jake’s eyes were fixed on nothing.

Sunlight poured through the break room, dappling the octopus motif on the floor and turning the man’s skin to paste.

A swell of pity took Susie by surprise. “If I can do anything to help…” she offered her boss.

Jake nodded absently. “The police are on their way to interview everyone who knew Tracy.” His tone was gruff and his hands shook as he raised a University of Texas mug to his lips.

Nick thought Jake was dangerous, but right now he just looked pathetic and old.

Susie was just about to stand when she heard the door open behind her and felt a draft of cold air wash through the foyer. Everyone swiveled to look.

It was the cops. She knew from the tightening of people’s expressions and the subtle tingle of awareness spreading along her spine. A moment later Nick Archer rounded the chairs and stood directly in front of her. His lips took on a sneering twist as he looked from Jake to her, pissed she wasn’t obeying his instructions, although Jake had sat next to her, dammit.

“Susie.” Nick’s green eyes glittered.

Jake’s eyes flicked over her as if suddenly repelled, and she pressed her hands between her knees. Nick’s colleague stood behind him and sent her an encouraging smile. Automatically she smiled back, feeling like a kid caught smoking behind the gym, trapped between a parent and the principal.

“You two know each other?” Jake asked.

“Not really—” Susie began.

“Not yet.” Nick cut in. Marking territory to a man he believed killed his first wife.

Well gee, thanks
. The warmth in her cheeks could have heated the city, but Nick’s attention had already moved on. How very male.

“How’ve you been, Jake?” Nick’s blond hair shone like a halo in the morning light.

“I can’t believe
you’re
in charge of this case. I’m going to put in a complaint.”

One side of Nick’s mouth turned up in a smile. “If you want to impede the investigation into Tracy Good’s murder and waste police time, be my guest, but the only person to gain from that is Tracy’s killer.”

There was a collective gasp and Jake looked around the room with a flare of horror. “No. No, I don’t want that. She was a lovely girl. I want to catch her murderer as much as you do.”

“Right then, let’s go up to your office and have a chat. Unless you’d rather come to the station?” Nick’s voice was polite, but it grated like dry chalk across slate.

Jake staggered to his feet, using Susie’s shoulder for support. Nick’s eyes narrowed, but Susie doubted whether Jake even realized he’d touched her. The guy was running on fumes.

“P.C. Lewis and P.C. Mosel will start interviewing everyone else in here, if that’s all right? And take volunteer DNA samples from the blokes?”

Jake lost all color. He either had something to hide or a raging fear of cotton swabs. Doubt rippled along her spine, and apprehension made her shiver. What if Nick was right about Jake? What if he was a killer?

“We need to interview everyone who works here.” Nick put a hand on his hip and Susie caught a glimpse of ridged stomach muscles as his shirt gaped. He glanced down and noted the direction of her gaze, and her cheeks flamed so hot she could have third-degree burns.

“Don’t go anywhere, Dr. Cooper.” Nick’s eyes darkened. “We need to talk.”

Nick recognized the route from his Saturday night break-in. Without speaking they tromped up the stairs and along the corridors, Sizemore’s hoarse breathing the only human sound. They passed two doors with police tape stretched across them.

Crime scene techs had done their thing yesterday, found a billion fingerprints and enough biological trace to generate life on Mars. Nick wanted to look the rooms over, to get a feel for Tracy Good’s life, but right now he wanted to have a go at Sizemore.

Nick glanced over his shoulder and Ewan quirked an eyebrow in silent accord. Guilt rolled off the professor in waves of sweat, and excitement lifted the fine hairs on Nick’s nape.

He could imagine the prison doors slamming shut on this bastard. Smell the fetid air of a cell. Twelve years of waiting had led to this one perfect moment, and he intended to make sure the takedown was noisy and painful. They walked to the end of the corridor, through the brightly lit open-plan office. Three women stopped chatting as Nick entered, six eyes focused on him as if he was the Antichrist.

“Candace, can you get the detectives some coffee, please?” Jake strode to his door, finally remembering he had a pair.

Pushing Jake’s buttons was something Nick had waited for a long time to do and he wasn’t missing an opportunity to make the bastard bleed. Deliberately he stopped at Candace’s desk and gave her a slow smile.

He took his time looking. She was long, lean and toned, with shoulder-length curly brown hair and red lipstick that gave a man all sorts of ideas. No wedding ring. Just the type of woman he normally went for. He waited in vain for some faint stirring of attraction.

“I take mine black, Candace. Please.” He glanced at the other women in the office. One with short blue spiky hair and everything pierced, the other with a school teacher’s gray bob. He didn’t recognize either of them from when Chrissie had worked here.

“Can I get milk and two sugars, please,” Ewan interrupted loudly.

Nick turned high-wattage charm on Candace. “I bet nothing much gets past you, does it, Candace?”