Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
Gabriel
“Oh my god,” I whisper because I don’t quite know what else to say.
Honestly, it’s the only thing that comes out of my mouth while I stare at the presentation in front of me.
He wasn’t going to let Nadine live even after all that we’ve done.
He was going to do what he could to make sure she never got away.
“Do you think she knew something, and he wanted to make sure she couldn’t talk?” I ask as I look up and discover that Liam seems mesmerized by this. I already knew he was going to figure out whether Whitaker was still alive or not, but I didn’t realize how fixated on him he was.
“Liam,” I snap before someone else notices his expression. He quickly covers it as the security guard walks in and gasps.
“Oh fuck,” she whispers before jerking back, and I hear her radioing the others, telling them to surround the area and not to let anyone go.
I walk up to stand beside Liam, my heart aching for this woman I’d never even talked to.
It’s an emotional whirlwind to have gone from thinking she’d died there in that trunk only to find that we’d saved her.
We’d really saved her… only for her to end up like this.
“Do you think she knew something and he wanted to make sure she wouldn’t talk?” I repeat.
“No,” Liam says quietly so only I can hear. “I think… I think this is for Jesse.”
My eyes snap up to him. “What the fuck do you mean this is for Jesse?” I whisper.
“Call him.”
“We don’t want him here, do we?”
“I need him to look at the body,” Liam says.
I really don’t want to drag Jesse into this, though Liam is so adamant that I feel like I don’t have a choice… but still. What if we’re wrong and Whitaker doesn’t know about him? What if we’re putting Jesse in danger by bringing him here?
“Liam, what if it is Whitaker and he doesn’t know about Jesse and we pull him in here where Whitaker sees him?”
“He knows,” Liam replies, but before I can say more, the door opens and Matthew comes in with Jesse trailing after him.
Jesse slowly walks up to the body and stares down at the way it’s been displayed, and the look on his face tells me that Liam is right, even if I want him to be wrong.
Jesse jerks back, hiding his expression, and turns toward the door.
Appearing anxious about what’s going on, Matthew reaches for him, but Jesse dodges him and rushes out of sight.
“What… what was that for?” Matthew asks, knowing very well that out of all of us, Jesse wouldn’t be squeamish when it came to a body.
I look over at Liam and see him staring after Jesse but he’s not making any moves, so I hurry after him.
I look both ways down the hallway, but I don’t see Jesse, so I just pick the direction that has the fewest people and go down it.
I find him on the other side of a wall, leaning against it like without the wall’s support, he’s not sure he could stand.
“Jesse…”
“Well… it was a semi-decent life for a couple of years there,” he says with a laugh, like he thinks making a joke will hide how he truly feels.
“We don’t know that it’s him,” I whisper in case anyone comes around the corner.
Jesse’s eyes snap up to mine as he shakes his head. “He displayed her like she was getting an autopsy, Gabriel. How much clearer can you get? He knows. And now he’s going to kill me. Ha… I never should have gotten you guys involved. What if he targets either of you now?”
I grab Jesse’s shoulder and turn him to face me. “Jesse, we are homicide detectives. This is what we do. You’re not a kid anymore who is facing the world alone. You are surrounded by some pretty damn good detectives, if I might say so myself. Now pull it together. Let’s end this.”
“How? How am I going to even explain who this man is without condemning myself?”
“It’ll be easy. If he’s the guy who was posing as her brother, we’ll be able to make it public that it’s Whitaker. Simple as that.”
“If he was the guy,” he says as he pulls out his phone. After a minute or so, he flashes a picture at me.
“Not as simple as that,” I realize.
“Different guy?” Jesse asks, not even sounding surprised.
“Definitely a different guy. Fuck. Let’s talk to Liam,” I say as I pull him back. By the time we return, Michaels is there and Matthew is over with Liam, but I notice he gives Jesse a concerned look.
“Do we have any PPE?” Jesse asks. “I just want a better look, but I promise I won’t move the victim.”
“We’re working on it,” Michaels says. “How’d you end up here?”
“I was on the phone with him when you called,” I respond.
“I knew you’d need all the manpower you could get if someone had kidnapped her…
I didn’t expect this is how it would end up,” Jesse says, looking upset.
I don’t blame him. I’m sure he feels like she died because of him.
I know that feeling. I know how terrifying it is when someone is after you but is targeting others to prove to you that they are in control of the situation.
But we have Liam.
I step up beside Liam and whisper, “It’s not the brother.”
“Oh?” Liam asks, interest piqued. “Did anyone get the image of the man who met us in her room? Have you found that yet?”
“I’ll check, I’ll be right back,” Breanna says. She makes a call, and a few minutes later, she shows us a picture of the “brother” we’d met.
“I want to check whether this person really is someone close to her. The brother I see on her socials is someone different,” I say.
“Sgt. Michaels, can you find someone who can do that? And also have security on the lookout for him, just in case. We don’t know whether he really is an innocent bystander or involved in some way. ”
Michaels nods and quickly sets to it. “Send the photograph to all security here, and send it to me so I can pass it on to the officers on scene. He has to have checked in or given some name somewhere. I’ll also check with the nurses to see if this is the same brother the medical personnel interacted with—”
“Lacey!” I say, realizing that we have someone who could help. “Lacey was really close friends with Nadine. She said that Nadine’s brother kept her up to date. I’ll contact her.”
The techs move in to document the crime scene while I find Lacey’s number and give her a call.
“Hello?”
“Lacey, this is Detective Hyde,” I say.
There is obvious hesitation. “H-How can I help you?”
“Detective Paige told me that you said that Nadine’s brother was in contact with you. Did you ever meet him?”
“I did, at the hospital.”
“I just sent you a picture. Is that her brother?”
“Yes. Why? What’s going on?”
“Can you send me the number he gave you?”
“Of course,” she says.
“Thank you,” I reply before ending the call. I’m sure she very much wanted to hear if I had anything more to say, but I have to deal with things here first. If the killer is still in the building, we are working against the clock.
“So they had all of this prepared before collecting Nadine,” Liam mutters out loud.
“They likely wore something to cover their clothes so that when they cut her open, they remained clean. Of course they used gloves; they wouldn’t dare to chance leaving a fingerprint anywhere.
” He scrutinizes the scalpel that looks spotless, likely never touched by bare fingers.
“Then they pulled their covering off and disposed of it in this trash here.”
Liam borrows the keycard from Breanna and rushes off before she can ask where he’s going, but when Liam’s focused, he seems to do whatever he thinks is best, even if it’s slightly rude. She stays behind, dealing with something in the OR while Jesse and I hurry after Liam.
“They passed through this door,” he says as he walks into the next room and looks around.
“This wasn’t quick, though,” I say, waving back at the operating room. “Like… for all of this to have been done in such a short period of time…”
Jesse nods. “I agree. Maybe they’ve done this time and time again, but I have my doubts because they made a few mistakes. It’s not quite sloppy, but… there are parts that show inexperience.”
“Understandable, since she was only missing for thirty-seven minutes before we arrived here,” Liam says. “This whole scene isn’t for them. This wasn’t them enjoying themselves. This was them leaving a message.”
“So they could still be in the building?” Jesse asks.
“It’s a possibility. Just stay with us,” I say as Matthew catches up to us. I know he’d normally work with Chris somewhere else, but he seems quite concerned about Jesse.
“Jesse… are you okay?” Matthew asks.
Jesse looks back at him and offers him an apologetic smile. “Yeah, everything’s fine.”
“Okay,” Matthew says, clearly not believing him, but tagging along anyway in case there’s something he can help with.
Liam is off on a mission, and I feel like a duckling trying to keep up.
“Is this… is this how it always is with him?” Jesse asks.
“Yes. I try to join in, but sometimes it’s impossible,” I say as I jog to keep up before Liam jerks to a stop. I slam into him and he catches me with ease even though I’m behind him.
“They wouldn’t have gone through this way. There’s too much traffic outside that door,” Liam decides.
“I have to assume they weren’t in regular clothes bringing her down here.
They could have put her in a wheelchair and made it look like she’d fallen asleep.
If the killer was dressed as a nurse or a doctor and someone who wasn’t part of the department saw it, they wouldn’t question it,” I say, pulling on some gloves and beginning to check the room. “You think they stepped in here?”
“Possibly,” Liam answers. “You might be onto something with the wheelchair.”
“Mr. Confidence doesn’t sound overly confident,” Matthew says as he also pulls on some gloves and starts combing the room. I pause when I look at the card reader and cock my head.
“Liam… there’s blood on the card reader. They might have passed through this door.”
Liam comes over to the card reader then cocks his head and backs up to look at the floor.