Mutual Possession (Nine Tenths of the Law #1)

14. Kendrick

Chapter fourteen

Kendrick

The boxes of evidence and information that we packed up at the creep’s house are the most depressing shit I’ve ever seen.

“Even if he didn’t kill her,” Six says, grimacing and dropping another photo on the dining table we’ve got everything spread over, “he needs therapy or something; fucking hell.”

“Or something,” Spencer mutters. He stopped looking at anything a good twenty minutes ago, lounging cross-legged on his chair with an iced coffee from McDonald’s instead. He’s wearing his glasses, through my insistence, and it’s taking everything in me not to yank him into my lap. The sexy-librarian look is really doing it for me. “I’m hungry.”

“The fact that you can look at all this and still be hungry means you need therapy,” Moira says. She shoves a bunch of photos back into their envelope and drops them on the pile at the end of the table. “This guy needed a different hobby. A better one.”

“My stomach doesn’t discriminate.”

“Hunter should be back soon,” I say, plucking out a notebook. It took the four of us hours to clean out the guy’s room after Greer arrested him. A dozen boxes filled with his sick fixation.

As if on cue, our boss pushes through the front door, carrying bags of Subway. Jericho comes in after him, carrying a tray of takeaway drinks. Whatever bun he had his hair in is falling out, with half of it across his forehead and in his bright-blue eyes—contacts; his real colour’s brown.

“We bring sustenance,” Jericho says loudly. “Now, someone needs to tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“What isn’t going on,” Six replies.

“Nice glasses, Spence, they’re very ‘schoolteacher.’ When’d you start wearing those?”

It’s giving me library fantasies, not a classroom. Jericho can get his own fantasies. Doesn’t one of his boyfriends wear glasses? Sebastian, the lawyer that Spencer keeps hanging around? His connection to Jericho is the only reason I haven’t killed him. He wears glasses, I’m fairly confident.

“Kendrick made me,” Spencer says, pouting.

Jericho gives me a look that says he knows why. He only has it half right. Spencer should be wearing them regardless, whenever he’s reading.

“How was your sex-fest holiday?” Six asks with a leering grin.

“Fucking fantastic.” Jericho kicks out a chair and drops into it. “You should think about taking some time off.”

“Try telling that to Greer.”

“Don’t you, like, boss him around?” Spencer asks. I pull out a chicken teriyaki sub and unwrap the top, giving Spencer a bite before taking one of my own.

Moira swipes the macadamia cookie first. “Yeah, Six, put him on his knees and tell him how it is.”

“I have so many questions about what you two think happens between Greer and me.” Six grins, pulling out a piece of bacon and eating it by itself. “I steer clear of giving him any orders about his day job if I can help it. He doesn’t take kindly to me ‘poking your nose in shit that doesn’t have anything to do with you.’”

“That sounds verbatim.” I bet it is. Greer isn’t one to pull his punches or monitor how his words may be misconstrued. In fact, half the time he wants them to be taken the wrong way. He thrives on being an asshole.

“Oh, it was. And he knows not to say it again, but I got the point.”

Jericho snorts out a laugh.

Spencer wraps his fingers around my wrist and brings my sub back to his mouth so he can eat more. There’s a drop of sauce on the corner of his mouth, so I lick it off with a flick of my tongue. He turns his head and kisses me, lips moving as he chews. Once he swallows, he opens for me, letting me taste. It’s better than the source.

“Greer’s on his way with some information about your man Trine,” Hunter says. He carefully unwraps his own food—a wrap, not a sub—always so neat when eating. “Before you leave, Six, I need to speak to you and Moira about what you’re working on at the moment. There are some new facts you’ll want to know.”

Six nods. He steadily makes his way through his first sub and then starts on his second, putting away a terrifying amount of food in short order.

“I think you have an admirer, Hunter,” Spencer says with a snicker. He turns one of the subs around, and right there on the paper is a phone number.

I whistle low. “Nice. It’s about time you got out there.”

“Get it, boss.” Moira fist-bumps Spencer.

Hunter gives them an unimpressed look. “I highly doubt that’s for me,” he says dryly. “Considering I did the order over the phone and only picked it up once it was ready, they hardly have a reason to be wanting to give me their number.”

“It’s the hot sex-phone voice,” Six pipes up, mouth already full of a bite. “Melts your panties right off.”

Hunter blinks at him, like he’s not sure whether to take Six seriously or not. It’s always better to err on the side of caution and not. He turns away from the menace and says, “Have you found anything in this pile to make any charges stick?”

“Charges for what, exactly?” Spencer asks. He reaches for a chocolate chip cookie, and Moira almost gets there first. The ensuing battle ends with them each having a half. “No one knows she was murdered, and we’re supposed to keep it quiet. We can get him for illegal spy cameras, possible breaking and entering if we can work out how he kept them running, some major stalking and serial killer vibes without the killing part—though any defence lawyer worth his fee would rip right through that. There’s nothing here to link him to the first murder, there’s not even technically anything linking him to the second. Just circumstantial.” He rocks back onto the back two legs of the chair, lifting his feet and crossing his ankles on the table. “Besides, Ken doesn’t think it’s him.”

All heads turn to look at me.

“You don’t?” Six asks.

Moira fiddles with the straw of her drink, her long nails tapping. “Why not?”

“He has the tendencies, sure. But if you look at all of this”—I wave my hand at all the evidence in front of us—“he covets her. Thinks he loves her. Maybe he does, in his own sick way. The bruising on her body suggests a brutality I don’t think he’d be capable of with her. There was no consideration for keeping her ‘pretty’ or undamaged. This man worships her, he doesn’t want to kill her. I think if this were a kidnapping case, he’d be my number-one suspect. He wants to keep her, to have her as a trophy.”

“But not a dead one?” Hunter asks. “Plenty of serial killers were in love with their victims. Sometimes that’s where it starts and why they choose them in the first place.”

“Sure. But it’s not the case here.” I’m sure of it. Someone else did this. “The cameras are what interest me the most. Without one in the bathroom, there’ll be no footage of the murder itself. But there could be some of the killer walking into the house. It’s possible that Colin Trine witnessed it himself.” Considering how surprised he was to learn of the murder, I won’t count on it, but stranger things have happened.

“It’s weird,” Spencer says. “That he didn’t put one in the bathroom. Or her bedroom.”

“Giving her some privacy?” Jericho suggests. He takes the last cookie before anyone else can and ignores the look Moira gives him.

Six laughs derisively. “Oh, sure, let’s put hidden cameras in her apartment to spy on her while she’s unaware, but better make sure we don’t catch her in the bathroom?”

“Maybe there’s a line he won’t cross.” Some teriyaki sauce drops on my thumb, and Spencer snags it before I can, sucking it off. Our eyes meet, heat swirling deep in my gut. “Only willing to go so far in violating her privacy,” I say shakily, trying to remember what we’re talking about.

“Maybe he wants her to come to him willingly,” Hunter adds thoughtfully. “Wants her to surrender to him.”

If anyone knows anything about willing surrender, it’s Hunter. “Either way, he’s not our man,” I say confidently. I’m positive he’s not who we’re looking for. My gut says we’re missing something important. Something obvious .

“So we’re back to square one.” Spencer drops his chair back down, boots hitting the floor with a dull thud .

Not quite. We have the cameras. “Depends on what Six can find.”

“Well, I went by your victim’s place and snagged all the SD cards and left the cameras intact, in case Greer wants to take this further and find a way to get him charged for being a creep.”

“Is that the official terminology?” Spencer asks, laughing. He twists in his chair, lifting a leg to spread over my thighs. I instantly rest a hand on his calf, gently massaging. He can invade my space whenever he wants.

“Separate issue.” I don’t care what Greer does with him even if that involves leaving him in a dumpster somewhere. Though he’ll pick somewhere more discreet. Greer would never be so common as to leave a body with the trash. “Do you think you can get something off them?”

Six shrugs. “Maybe? You said it records over previous footage every forty-eight hours. That means it’s only just been erased. It’s thirty-seventy, but I wouldn’t bank on it.”

If only we’d found it earlier. This might have been over already.

Greer arrives then, slamming the front door behind himself. He’s wearing a suit, the charcoal material sitting perfectly on his lean frame. Impeccable until Six gets his hands on him. With his ever-present scowl, he doesn’t say a word as he comes to the table and sits heavily beside Six.

“This one’s yours,” Six says, handing him one that has “no cheese” written on it. Most lactose-intolerant people like to take a walk on the wild side most of the time, and I doubt Greer cares all that much, but Six is a stickler for it. He takes care of Greer, always.

“He didn’t see anything,” Greer says after he’s made his way through half of it. “He’s adamant he hasn’t watched the recording for about a week.”

Should have seen that coming. “Convenient.”

Greer grunts, more focused on his food.

“You think he’s telling the truth?” Six asks. He leans back in his chair and drapes an arm behind Greer’s, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“Unfortunately, yes. I checked his work records and aligned them with the time of the murder. He’s been doing overtime for the last week, and it’s probable he didn’t get a chance to watch the recording before it was wiped.”

“Not very diligent of him.”

“I get the feeling…” Greer trails off, brows drawing together as he stares at his food. “It’s not an obsession thing.”

“Seriously?” Jericho asks. He looks pointedly at the boxes of evidence to the contrary. “What is that, then? A casual hobby?”

I happen to agree with Greer. “Stalker tendencies don’t have to be about obsession.”

Greer nods at me. “Exactly. He’s not obsessed with her; he thinks they’re friends. He’s created this intense relationship in his mind and made it his reality.”

“Reality in the most basic sense of the word,” Jericho mutters, looking like he wants to find the guy in the cell and show him the error of his ways, painfully.

“He doesn’t think he’s violating her privacy,” Greer continues. “He thinks he has a right to it because they’re the best of friends.”

“It’s why he doesn’t have a camera in the most-private areas of her home,” Spencer says, lips parting as the pieces click into place for him. He pushes his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose from where they’re slipping down. The simple move destroys me, and I need him closer.

It only takes one tug to get him up and onto my lap, sitting sideways so I can still see everyone at the table, and so can he. Spencer doesn’t resist the sudden change in position, making himself comfortable without skipping a beat.

“Friends spend time together in the living room, in all the communal parts of the house,” Spencer continues. “But the bathroom is a singular event; so is the bedroom. Usually.”

“Unless you’re fucking,” Jericho points out. “I can’t remember the last time I had bathroom time by myself.” The look on his face makes it clear he’s not talking about getting clean but getting dirty.

“Okay, but when was the last time you and I had a shower together?” Six asks, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

“Just say the word, honey.”

Spencer leans back into my touch, where I’m drawing circles on the small of his back. Having him in my arms feels like being complete. He turns and gives me a look. “What are you thinking?” he asks quietly.

“I’m thinking I want to go home,” I admit. I want him alone, and it has nothing at all to do with the case.

“I doubt he’s the killer,” Greer says, ignoring everyone’s bullshit. “And as much as it pisses me off, I don’t think he has any answers as to who is. He’s a dead end.”

“What kind of stalker is he?” Spencer asks disdainfully. “Can’t even work out who else is watching her? The least he could do is make himself useful.”

“How terrible of him not to have a brain like us,” Hunter says with a low laugh. “It’s disappointing that he’s a dead end, but at least you can cross him off the list.”

“You going to charge him with something?” Jericho asks Greer curiously.

“Oh, yeah. There’s plenty to go around, and I’m not about to let him start a new fixation on someone else.”

“We’ll get these boxes transported to the station for you,” I offer. We have no use for them now. And I want them out of my sight. They can be used as evidence for whatever Greer has planned for him. Better him than me.