Stolen Lives: A Detective Mystery Series SuperBoxset (49 page)

“It’s just family shit.” Cooper exhaled, hoping that whatever sins she committed in the past wouldn’t affect her sister’s future.

Chapter 6

Cooper leaned up against the living room wall in her apartment and watched the team of FBI agents turn the place upside down. Hemsworth directed his people as they turned over every last fiber and transformed her apartment into a crime scene the Baltimore PD would have reserved for a triple homicide. Forensics techs snapped pictures of the writing the killer had etched on her wall, along with the hole she punched in it earlier that morning.

Every foreign hand and finger that combed through Cooper’s property sent an uncomfortable shiver through her body. It was an invasion of privacy that didn’t sit well, and as she watched one of the forensics snap a picture of the binder that she kept of her father she had to step away.

With the explosion at the stadium their case had ascended from local news and thrust into the national spotlight. The media was already circling the precinct, wanting to know more about the detective and her sister who was kidnapped by the deranged serial killer that they had already dubbed “The Baltimore Scribe” due to the notes he made his victims write. Cooper would be helpless as she watched their entire family history transform into soap opera entertainment for the masses. She’d seen it happen locally to citizens in the Baltimore community. But as bad as it was going to be for her, she knew it was only going to get worse for her nieces.

“Detective,” Hemsworth said, “you’ll need to find a place to stay until we can gather what we need from your apartment. If you don’t have anyone you can stay with the bureau can handle your accommodations.” He retained the business-like demeanor all morning and stepped aside as one of the techs entered her bedroom.

“I’ll figure it out.” Cooper took one last look at the killer’s message on the wall then left. When she reached the bottom of the staircase, away from the prying eyes of her neighbors and the FBI, she stopped and sat on the last step. The weight of the day fell with her, and Cooper buried her face in her hands, feeling the sweat and grime that had collected. Dull thuds and chatter from the agents upstairs mingled with the noise of the reporters waiting for her outside. Both were like insects buzzing about her ear, and no matter what she tried to do she couldn’t squash them.

Suddenly, the door opened, and with it came Hart and a flood of questions shouted from reporters. He shut the door quickly and pressed his back flush against the wood, the murmurs of the news teams still seeping through the door cracks. “Hey.”

Cooper rubbed her hands, her right one aching slightly from the day’s activities. “What are you doing here?”

Hart joined Cooper on the bottom step and pointed upstairs. “I heard about the raid on your place. I wanted to drop by and see how you’re holding up.”

Cooper leaned her head against the stairway banister posts and clutched her detective’s badge. “Why’d you join, Hart?” She cast him a sideways glance. “Why’d you want to become a detective?”

Hart twirled the gold band on his left ring finger, and the taut skin on his forehead wrinkled slightly. “I never did well in high school. I never considered myself stupid, but I wasn’t ever driven.” He shrugged. “The police academy seemed less dangerous than the military. Less chances for me to get shot at, anyway.”

“But why’d you become a detective?” Cooper pointed down to the ring, shining as though it were still in the case at the jewelry store. “Did you do it for her?”

Hart paused for a second, continuing to spin the ring around his finger. “It started that way. But after I went through the academy, something changed. I saw what we could do for the community, how we could make it better.” Hart shrugged, smiling. “Taking the detective exam seemed like a good way to catch more bad guys.”

It took Cooper a second to realize the tightness in her cheeks was from smiling. “Beth was always an idealist. Even when we were little kids. No matter what we were doing she always saw the glass as half full. No matter how bad the situation was it could always get better.”

“What about you?” Hart asked, giving her a nudge. “What made you become the legendary devil detective?”

Cooper released her grip on the badge and pushed herself off the staircase. “For reasons that don’t matter anymore.” Cooper took a step toward the door, and the noise of the reporters outside grew louder. She hesitated, reaching for the door, not wanting to confront the storm outside. She turned around. “Did stadium security ever find anything on the rest of those tapes?”

“No,” Hart answered, standing up from the staircase. “I spoke to a few of the workers, and none of them remembered seeing anything out of the ordinary over the past few days. I did get the reports from the morgue back about Alfonso Rivera. He was stabbed twice. Two incisions, the first in the liver, and the second in the kidneys.”

Cooper cringed, feeling the ghost-like pain in both areas. “He’s becoming more violent. And the bomb was reckless, which he knows. If he’s been doing this as long as he’s claimed, we might be able to look into unsolved missing persons or murder cases. See if he left any of his messages. It could help us decode his pattern. Maybe even figure out where he’ll hit next.”

“The unsolved cases are in the thousands, Cooper. It would take half the Baltimore police force to go through all of those files. We don’t have that kind of resources. Or time.”

Cooper lifted her head to the noise still running rampant in her apartment. “Sounds like a task for the FBI.” She smiled. “Night, Hart.” She reached for the handle, and before she opened it Hart pressed his hand against the door.

“Hey, listen.” Hart scratched the back of his head, mumbling as he spoke. “I know we haven’t been partners for that long, and I cleared it with the wife before, so it’s completely fine, but you’re welcome to stay at our place until you can go back to your apartment.”

“I appreciate it, Hart. But I’m fine.”

“All right. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“See you then.” Cooper opened the door and shielded her eyes from the flash of cameras. Microphones were thrust into her face, reporters asking dozens of questions as she made her way down the stoop of her building. She shouldered her way through, staying quiet.

“Detective Cooper, do you have any leads?”

“Is it true that you and your sister had a strained relationship?”

“What’s going through your head right now?”

“Is it a conflict of interest to keep you on the case?”

The reporters followed her all the way to her car, a few even trying to chase after her when she drove off. She blew past two stop signs, and didn’t let her foot off the gas until there was nothing but the quiet of the engine and the night around her, sealing herself into the cone of silence that she’d grown accustomed to over the past few years.

The cruiser hummed slightly as Cooper idled on the side of the road, and she caught her mind retracing her career: the cases, the suspects, the court appearances, the investigations, all of the sleepless nights; her body grew stiff just thinking about it.

Cooper cracked her neck and then caught her reflection in the side mirror. The aged face staring back at her was one she didn’t recognize. The greys in her hair had made significant inroads in taking over the brown, and the tired bags under her eyes aged her well beyond her forty-one years. The job had taken its toll. But even with her experience, and all of the solved cases under her belt, none of it had prepared her for this, and the killer she had to stop.

***

Dawn arrived quicker than Cooper would have liked as she pulled the jacket over her face to block out the morning sun breaking through the front windshield of her cruiser. But when the light refused to recede, she lifted her seat to an upright position and rested her forehead on the steering wheel. With dry, tired eyes, she squinted into the empty parking lot she pulled into last night and found herself alone. With her mind still clouded from the restless sleep, the first stop was a quick coffee and breakfast. Once awake, the next destination was the precinct.

When Cooper arrived the night shift was clocking out. She spotted Agent Hemsworth across the bullpen, and before she could duck into her office, he spotted her, “Detective Cooper, I need to have a word.”

Cooper sipped the coffee, hoping the caffeine would offer her the needed strength to deal with him. “What?” But before he answered she already knew the question of his inquiry as she saw the binder tucked under his arm.

Hemsworth pulled her out of the open hallway and into her office, sealing them both inside. He lifted the binder, waving it in front of her face. “I assume you know what this is?”

Cooper set the coffee down and then took a seat herself. “Do you?”

Hemsworth tossed the binder on the desk. “I checked the records in there, and saw that you pulled them without permission.” He stepped forward, the authoritative tone growing with every word. “That’s a felony.”

Cooper reached for the binder and opened it to the first page. A picture of a middle-aged man, complete with weight, height, and physical description, was the first thing that greeted her. She grimaced at his face, turning the page. “If you knew about the miscarriage, then you know why I have this.”

“Yes,” Hemsworth said. “I do.” He picked up the file and cleared his throat. “Henry Miller. Aged forty-six. Caucasian. Six feet, two hundred pounds, brown hair and green eyes. Deceased.” He snapped the binder shut and drummed his fingers on the cover. “I see you got your mother’s looks.”

Anger from the comment dissolved Cooper’s fatigue, and she shot out of her chair, her fiery gaze locked on Hemsworth as she knocked the binder out of his hands. “This binder doesn’t have anything to do with the case. And neither does half the evidence I saw your people tag.”

Hemsworth’s cheeks reddened, and he puffed his chest. “You stole confidential material from a federal database to hunt down your own biological father, who you found was already dead.” He gestured around to the office. “Is that why you got into police work? So you could hunt him down?”

“If you want to charge me, then do it.” Cooper spit the words, kicking the binder away and sending some of the papers spilling out over the sides. “Or you might not have to the way the reporters have been snooping around.” She ran her hands through her hair, her nerves fraying, and let out a sigh. “Half the police force uses the DMV to look up old boyfriends or girlfriends, check up on who their kids are dating.” She turned around. “I used a federal database to locate my biological father without permission because it was no one’s business but my own. And it still is.”

“Detective, you and your family are at the center of a federal investigation. By now someone has leaked your information to the press, and the entire country will know what’s happening by this afternoon. Knowledge of obtaining unwarranted pieces of information is not something you want added to the headlines.” While the tone had remained strict, the enthusiasm and anger Hemsworth displayed earlier faded from his voice. He rubbed his forehead in frustration and changed the subject. “We couldn’t find anything in your apartment. Nothing that wasn’t already found. You can head back whenever you need to.” He lingered for a moment, looking down at her father’s file. “Get rid of that before it bites you in the ass.” He stepped out and Hart entered, the two passing at the door, neither exchanging a word.

Hart set his coffee down and adjusted the tie on his collar. “What’d he want?”

“My apartment’s a dead end,” Cooper answered. Hart nodded, reaching for his coffee and rubbing his eyes. Cooper noticed the dark circles and the fact that he hadn’t shaved this morning. “You all right?”

“Didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.” Hart drained half his cup and set the mug down. “The baby kept waking Alice up, which kept waking me up.”

A quick knock on their door, and the panicked face of one of the desk officers ended the brief quiet. “We’ve got another one.”

Cooper drained the rest of her coffee and followed the officer out to the front. When she stepped out into the waiting area she saw the news trucks still camped out front, but her attention was focused on the young man that paced the waiting room floor, holding a folded piece of paper that trembled along with his arms. “Can I help you?”

The young man stopped and looked at Cooper. The peach fuzz on his cheeks was a failed attempt at trying to look older, his voice cracking as he spoke. “I-I don’t know. I saw what was happening on the news, and then I got this.” He looked down to the paper. Most of the edges were crinkled. “I don’t know what it means.”

He extended the note and Cooper reached for it, un-crinkling the paper carefully, taking in the letter written in red crayon. “How long has she been missing?”

The young man was thin, all skin and bones, with a thick mop of brown hair on his head. “I-I just saw her last night. I spoke to her an hour ago actually, and she was fine. And then when I went out to my car to head to work I saw this on my windshield.” The vein on the side of his neck pulsed quickly, and all of the color faded from his cheeks. “Did something happen to her?”

“Let’s get some information from you, and we’ll figure that out together.” Hart stepped in, taking the young man by the arm and leading him back into one of the interrogation rooms. Cooper lingered in the waiting room and reread the note:

Dear Addy,

Do you remember how hard high school was? The pressure, the hazing, the constant worry of whether or not people liked you, and that first-time feeling of young love?

Once there was a young boy who knew that struggle all to well. He was small, weak, but intelligent. Attributes that none of his peers appreciated. He struggled through school, waiting and wishing for the day he could escape, waiting for his moment to shine, waiting for those who could help lift him up instead of bring him down. He fought through ridicule and bullying, pain and insecurities, and when he finally managed to arrive on the other side, he barely had enough left of his soul to survive.