You Can't Hide (28 page)

Tess’s throat thickened. “I’l call her, Harrison. She’l meet us at the hospital.”

“Tell her I love her.”

Tears stung her eyes as she pressed clean gauze to the stil bleeding head wound. “Don’t be silly, Harrison. You’ll tell her that yourself. It’s just a nasty cut on your head.” He just looked at her and she knew he knew that she lied. The dark bruises indicated massive internal bleeding that would be much more difficult to treat.

“Who’s Flo?” Reagan asked quietly.

“His wife. Can you call her? My cell phone’s in my jacket pocket. It’s stored under ‘Ernst home.’ Tell her I’l meet her at the hospital. You won’t be able to get a signal in here.” Nodding, he squeezed her shoulder again and took her cell phone.

Harrison’s lungs wheezed. “He’s a handsome devil… your cop.”

Tess blinked, clearing her eyes, then swiped at her wet cheeks with her shoulder. “Sshh.”

“Saw him with you on the news. Almost as handsome as me,” he quipped and Tess let out a laugh that sounded more like a sob.

“Quiet, old man,” she said, making her voice light. “Save your charm for Flo.”

His eyes opened, urgency mixing with pain. “Tell her, Tess. Please.”

She stroked his cheek. “I will. I promise.” He settled then, every shallow breath sounding as if he inhaled through tissue paper. It was a very bad sign.

Reagan was behind her again, lifting her to her feet. “EMTs are here, Tess. Let them do their jobs.”

Dazed, she watched as they took Harrison away. Reagan stood behind her the entire time, his hands on her shoulders. He turned her to face him and his blue eyes that had once stared at her with accusation now kept her from falling apart. “Not your fault,” he said.

“His lung is punctured,” she murmured, ignoring him. “Did I tell them that?”

He shook her gently. “You did. Now pull yourself together. I need you to think.” He squeezed her shoulders hard.
“Tess.”

She blinked and steeled her shoulders. “What?”

“Who was he talking about? Young, buzz cut. Big ears. Hadn’t been here recently.”

She closed her eyes, and saw the man’s face in the blackness of her mind. It would be so easy. One name and he’d be locked up. Punished. It would be so easy. But it wouldn’t be right. “I can’t tell you.”

“What do you mean you can’t tell me?”

She opened her eyes to his expression of stark disbelief. “It means if I’m wrong then I’ve needlessly disclosed the identity of a patient.”

He dropped his hands and stepped back. “You’re joking.”

Knees weak, she looked around, but there was no place to sit. “I wish I were.”

“You heard what your friend said. Whoever did this threatened to kill you.”

Weary, she walked over to the wall and leaned. “I heard him.” She was almost sure she knew who Harrison meant. Big, young, mean, one of the few patients who had truly terrified her.
He’d
kill me without batting an eye.
Tears were forming at the base of her throat and she swallowed hard, unwilling to give in. “I’m scared,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “Okay?”

Reagan joined her against the wall and tilted her chin up with his finger. “Then tell me,” he murmured. “I won’t tell anyone you did. I promise.”

She shook her head, so tempted to tell. Tempted to turn into his arms and have him hold her tight. “I can’t. Today I was accused of breaking privilege but I knew it wasn’t true. If I tel you now, it will be true.”

“Tess, no one would know.”

“
I’d
know.” She looked away.
And so would you.

105

Karen Rose

[Suspense 5]

You Can't Hide

Jack’s team had arrived and numbly she watched him lead them into the vault. “Jack can’t have the records without a court order, Aidan.”

His jaw tight, Reagan nodded. “Don’t touch any of the paper until we get a court order, Jack,”

he called.

Jack stuck his head out. “Hadn’t planned to. We’l dust all the surfaces in here, shelves and walls. If only three people had access, it should be easy enough to eliminate them.”

“If he didn’t wear gloves,” Reagan said.

Jack shrugged. “I’m an optimist.”

Reagan twisted so that his back was against the wall, then turned just his head to look down at her. “Can you at least point me in the right direction?”

She hesitated then nodded. “If you get a print, you’l get an AFIS match.”

“He’s got a record, then?”

Her smile was void of all humor. “Longer than your arm. If it’s the person I’m thinking.” She checked her watch. “I need to get to the hospital. How long will Jack need to dust? I have to close up the vault before I go.”

His eyes darkened. “Don’t trust us to keep our hands off the goodies, huh?”

She clenched her fists at her sides, kept her voice low. “I really want to slap you for that. Dammit, this has nothing to do with me trusting you. It has everything to do with the law. Every piece of paper in there is protected, Detective. I give it to you without a court order and I have broken the fucking law. Does that matter to you at all?”

He gritted his teeth. “What matters to me is that some unbalanced man with a record longer than my arm plans to kill you. That matters to me.” He drew a breath, let it out on a sigh. “We’l hurry up here and let you lock it up.”

Her own frustration evaporated. “I’m being uncooperative again, aren’t I?”

“Yes. But I understand. I don’t have to like it, but I do understand.” He fished her phone from his pocket. “I noticed you had some missed cal s when I cal ed Mrs. Ernst.”

Tess looked at her phone blankly then remembered. “I put it on silent when I was in session this afternoon.” She flipped it open and gaped. “I missed thirty calls?”

“Most are from reporters, probably.”

“How did they get my cell phone number?”

“How do they get any of their information?”

“Good point.” She frowned at her phone. “Can this be bugged?”

Now he looked blank. “I haven’t a clue. Don’t touch the phones here, but you can use mine to call your voice mail if you want.” He slipped his hand under her hair and stroked his thumb along the side of her neck, unerringly finding the place her muscles were most tense. A shiver ran down her back. “Try not to worry about your friend,” he murmured. “Okay?” He gave her his phone and went to work.

“Thirty messages,” she muttered to herself as she dialed her voice mail, hoping it would be enough to keep her mind off Harrison while Jack worked his magic, knowing it would not.
Tuesday, March 14, 8:50 P.M.

Aidan slid into the passenger side of Murphy’s car and coughed, fanning the smoky interior.

“Hell, Murphy, did you smoke the whole pack at once?”

“Sorry.” Murphy rolled down his window, took one last drag on the cigarette between his lips before crushing it in an ashtray that overflowed. “What took you so damn long?”

He’d missed Murphy’s first call because Tess was using his cell phone, which was a point he’d keep to himself. “Have you seen her?” he asked instead.
Her
being Nicole Rivera, voice actress extraordinaire.

“No, but she works there.” He pointed to a restaurant across the street.

“Expensive.” This Aidan knew from experience. The very sight of the place left a bad taste in his mouth.

106

Karen Rose

[Suspense 5]

You Can't Hide

“Tuxedos and everything,” Murphy agreed. “The manager confirmed she works here, though he wasn’t too happy about talking to me. He’l be even cheerier now. She’s twenty minutes late for her shift.”

“Somebody tip her off?”

“Maybe. I was here about two hours ago. That’s when I talked to the manager the first time. He gave me the address she’d used on her job app.”

“Fake?”

“Old. The woman that answered the door said she’d moved out about two months ago when she couldn’t pay the rent.”

“If she works here, she’s making good money. She leave a forwarding address?”

“Yeah, and I checked it but she wasn’t home and I didn’t have a warrant for that address yet. I do now.”

“You’ve been busy.”

Murphy nodded. “You never told me why it took you so long to get here.”

“I had to drop Tess at the hospital.” He’d already related the details of the break-in, assault on Ernst, and threat to Tess.

That took a little starch from Murphy’s shorts. “Did you inform hospital security?”

“Yeah.” Aidan scowled. “Big guy, buzz cut, big ears. Skinned knuckles from beating the shit out of an old man. No damn name.” She’d been quietly adamant and while he did understand, it made him frustrated enough to break something-or someone. He hoped he was there when Jack got the name out of AFIS.

“Will Ernst make it?”

“Touch and go. She did a good job of stopping the bleeding before the EMTs got there. Kept her head.” He inspected his own knuckles, remembering how she’d bandaged them the night before. “I keep forgetting she’s a real doctor.”

Murphy’s smile was wry. “I wouldn’t put it to her quite like that.”

He huffed a laugh. “I won’t. Look, that restaurant’s going to be filling up real soon. If we want to talk to the manager again, we should do it now.”

They got out of the car, Aidan grateful y gulping at the fresh air. Murphy shot him a sour glare. “I said I was sorry.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Hell,” Murphy grumbled. “How do you know this place will fill up soon, anyway?”

“Ex-girlfriend used to drag me here. After the symphony.”

Murphy whistled as he opened the door. “Expensive girlfriend.”

Tell me about it,
Aidan thought grimly, the sight of the pristine tablecloths bringing back a host of memories, expensive in more ways than one. This place had been one of Shelley’s favorite haunts. A dinner with cocktails and wine could easily cost two days’ salary when he’d been in uniform. So he’d put a stop to it. And she’d pouted.

Shelley could have made a living giving pouting lessons. But she didn’t need to now. She’d achieved her goal, marriage to a man who could support her the way her daddy had. Poor bastard. Her future husband, not her daddy. Shelley’s daddy was a
rich
bastard. He drew a breath. And Shelley was now somebody else’s problem.

Aidan had never felt comfortable in places like this, always afraid he’d use the wrong fork. To pay for the privilege seemed insane. But Tess would be totally comfortable here, he thought, and instantly wished he hadn’t. She could afford herself, she’d said and while she’d been mouthwatering as she’d said it, there was no way in hell Aidan was letting the woman pick up the tab.

How chauvinistic, his conscience intoned.
And?
he shot back.
So the hell what?

“Ancient history,” Aidan said curtly, scanning the faces of the scurrying help. “Excuse me.” He got the attention of the tuxedoed maоtre d’ who gave him a superior onceover. “We’re looking for Nicole Rivera.”

“Join the club,” the maоtre d’ said with a sneer. “If you find her, tell her she’s fired.”

107

Karen Rose

[Suspense 5]

You Can't Hide

“Because she’s twenty minutes late?” Murphy asked mildly.

“No, because this is the third shift she’s missed in the last two weeks.”

“Which days?” Aidan asked.

The man sighed impatiently. “I don’t remember.”

“Try,” Murphy advised. “Or we’l stay much longer.”

He rol ed his eyes. “Yesterday, and Saturday night, too. Now if you’ll excuse me, please.” He showed them the door with a disdain that made Aidan want to pound his face. Instead he gave the man a card. “If she shows up, you’ll call us.”

The man held the card at the corner. “Of course.”

Back on the street, Murphy shook his head. “What’s a dinner there set you back? A hundred bucks?

“Each.” He had to chuckle at Murphy’s boggled-eyed stare. “Times three if you have wine.”

“Which is why she’s an ex-girlfriend.”

“Let’s go check Nicole’s apartment again. Maybe she was home all along and just didn’t answer the door.”

Tuesday, March 14, 9:40 P.M.

“Fuck,” Murphy muttered. “Goddammit. We were too late.”

Truer words were never spoken. Nicole Rivera had been home all right, Aidan thought, surveying the damage. But there was a damn good reason she hadn’t answered the door. They’d found her kneeling beside her bed wearing black slacks and a ruffled shirt that had once been white, her work uniform. Her hands were cuffed behind her back, her torso resting on a bedspread that had once been covered with delicate blue flowers. Now both her white shirt and the blue bedspread were covered in blood.

Aidan slid his phone in his pocket. “ME’s on his way.” He crouched close to the body, inspecting the single bul et wound in the back of her head. “Execution style.” Quick and merciful. More so than Adams, Winslow, and the Sewards anyway. “Looks like a twenty-two did the job. No exit wound, so the bul et’s still in her.”

Murphy was checking the closet. “She cold?”

Aidan pul ed on a pair of gloves and touched her neck. “Lukewarm. She hasn’t been dead long.” He started opening dresser drawers. “Socks, shirts. Underwear, more underwear… Hello. What have we here?” He picked up a handful of receipts that fluttered from inside the cup of a lacy bra, folded and stacked within four others. “They’re copies. The Toy Box. One Baby Linda dol .” He riffled some more. “And one roasting pan and one teddy bear from Wal-Mart, all dated yesterday morning. She paid cash for all of them.” He set them aside to be bagged. “They must have known we traced the credit card.”

“Or the card was a one-time decoy,” Murphy said from inside the closet. “The lilies were the only charge on that card. Damn, this woman had a lot of shoes for somebody who couldn’t pay the rent.”

“There could be other cards. I put in a request for all credit-card activity in Tess’s name this morning. Hopeful y it’l be in my box when we get back.”

“Good idea.” Murphy emerged from the closet, a black gym bag dangling from his finger. “It was rolled up and hidden inside a shoebox. Smells like flowers to me.”

Aidan looked down at the body. “Why kill her now?” he wondered, then blew out a frustrated sigh. “He was watching this afternoon. I told Seward that we had evidence that Tess’s voice had been imitated. I tipped our hand.”