CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
The precinct ran on skeleton crew this late. Most of the desk jockeys had packed it in hours ago, and now Ella could hear the janitor’s cart squeaking somewhere in the maze of corridors. But otherwise, she just sat alone with her thoughts, and they weren’t good company tonight.
Her office felt too small. The walls pressed in tight while her brain spun disaster scenarios about what their killer might be planning next. Three bodies in three days. Each one staged differently. Each one missing something precious from their collection.
She’d called Edis and told him how everything had devolved, and he’d sighed in that defeated way that hurt her more than harsh words ever could. Now, her cell phone lay dark and silent on the desk. No texts. No missed calls. No indication that Luca gave a damn where she was or what she was doing. Not that she blamed him. She'd acted like a first-class bitch back at Carpenter's house, and she’d let her frustration poison what should have been a professional disagreement.
A sharp knock startled her out of her head. She looked up as Reeves poked his skull into the room. His hangdog face was set to 'sympathetic with a chance of pity'.
‘Hey.’ He hovered in the doorway like he wasn't sure of his welcome. ‘Thought you might still be here.’
Ella mustered a thin smile. ‘I’m always here.’
‘Don’t you have a home to go to?’
‘Not around these parts. What about you?’
‘I got a home, but the longer I stay away, the harder it is to go back.’
‘Why’s that?’
Reeves settled his bulk into the chair across from her desk. ‘Not sure I even understand it myself. I got a wife of 22 years. Two teenage girls. They’re asleep by the time I get back, and they’re gone by the time I get up. Sometimes I feel like a stranger in my own house.’
Same story, different detective. It was a universal requirement for anyone in law enforcement to be married to the job, despite no one asking them to be.
‘Why don’t you go home earlier?’
Reeves laughed. 'Yup, I say the same thing to every guy on the day shift. Funny, isn't it, how we never take our own advice.'
Ella stifled a laugh. ‘True.’
‘Before I depress you any more, I’ll just tell you that the team wrapped up at Carpenter's place about an hour ago. Forensics might have something by morning.’
‘Any prints?’
‘Take a guess.’
‘Figures. Do you know where Hawkins is?’
‘Hawkins? No idea. He left at the same time as us.’
Of course , he hadn't come back here. Of course he'd finally reached his limit, thrown up his hands, decided she wasn't worth the effort after all. She'd all but told him to, hadn't she? Spat it at him like acid. You never knew what you had until you'd shoved it away with both hands.
‘I was kind of a bitch to him,’ she admitted.
‘Kind of?’
‘Okay, I was a massive bitch to him. Sorry for making a scene.’
Reeves pulled out his phone. ‘That’s your business, but if you want cheering up, I got some good news at least. Remember that warrant we were waiting on? The one for Vanessa Blackburn's company records?’
Ella sat up straighter. ‘It came through?’
‘Mayor fast-tracked it himself. Guess finding a priest dead in his basement gets attention in high places.’ He gestured at her laptop. ‘Should be in your email. Full access to employee records, client files, everything. Vanessa’s probably having kittens right about now.’
She clicked through her inbox, and there it was. Federal warrant with all the trimmings, signed and sealed by someone important enough to have their own parking space at city hall.
‘Well damn. Something finally went right.’
‘I guess the place is closed now, but first thing tomorrow…’
Tomorrow. Christ. It felt interminably far and fingertips-close all at once. A thousand years and no time at all to finalize their assault on the appraisal world's most upstanding den of thieves.
But if this was the closest thing to cosmic alignment they were going to get, Ella would take it.
‘Don’t get too excited though. The lab checked out the mask and the bills that kid dropped off. No DNA or hair strands in the mask, and the bills aren’t consecutive, so they didn’t come from an ATM.’
‘No surprise. Our guy is too good for rookie mistakes like that,’ Ella said.
‘Yup. Coroner has confirmed manual strangulation killed Eleanor and Alfred, and prelims say the same for Reverend Joe. Time of death was about midday today, which means…’
‘That Gabriel Thorne isn’t our guy.’
‘Not unless he can teleport.’
Ella nodded, but her mind was already racing ahead. Tomorrow they'd tear the Curated Value Group apart, dig through every file and record until they found the connection between their victims. Maybe then she could start making sense of the senseless.
'Might want to cut Thorne loose, then,' Reeves continued. 'Poor bastard's been in interrogation for hours.'
‘You want to charge him with anything?’
Reeves sighed dejectedly. ‘Like what? Resisting arrest? Intent to destroy property? We can’t arrest him for his little tax avoidance scheme because it’s not illegal.’
Fair point. By the same token, Thorne also hadn’t laid a hand on Ella or Luca, so she couldn’t get him on assaulting a federal agent. Given his co-operation, maybe it was easier to let him go.
‘You want to do the honors or me?’
‘He’s all yours.’ Reeves pushed off her desk and turned for the door, only to pause on the threshold. Half-in, half-out. ‘And by the way, Hawkins looked like a kicked puppy after you stormed off.’
Ella felt her heart seize up. ‘Did he?’
‘Yeah. I don’t think you know how lucky you are to work this job with someone you love.’
The observation landed like a knife between her ribs. ‘I know.’
‘Try not to stay here all night. Serial killers will still be there in the morning.’
‘That's what I'm afraid of.’
Then Reeves was gone. Ella waited until his footsteps faded before letting out the breath she'd been holding. The man was right, damn him. Luca deserved better than her jealousy and control issues. At the next opportunity, she was going to apologize like she’d never apologized before.
But for now, she had work to do.
Starting with the white collar criminal sitting in Interrogation.