Insinuations Read online

  “No. Please. I’ll look up the number and have someone take a look at him if necessary, but frankly, all I want right now is a warm bed. I’d be grateful if it could be yours again, but I’m warning you. I’m not up for anything but sleep right now,” she said with a wink.

  “Ellie.” Jordan sounded far more troubled than the situation required, Ellie thought. “This is bad. He’s referring to the attack.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe they read about it in the paper. Clearly someone’s having fun messing with me.”

  Her unease was growing. Ellie had wondered if she’d be paranoid to think of a connection, but Jordan seemed to assume the same thing.

  “I know I probably should have taken it more seriously, but there’s a limit to how much bad news a person can take. I’m sorry,” she said a split-second later. “I didn’t mean it that way.” Darby, Pratt, she didn’t need to educate Jordan on how it felt when the hits just kept coming. “I’m sorry,” Ellie said again, too many times today. “I’m tired, and I’m not at my best this morning. I’ll file a report first thing when I go in tonight.”

  “Or you could come with me, and we do it together.”

  “Please. I really need to sleep.”

  “You’ll have enough time. I’ll drive you. I need to check something. That bastard is not supposed to send messages from prison, so there must be someone who provided him with the phone.”

  Even in her exhausted state, it came through to Ellie loudly and clearly what Jordan had said. “No, I don’t think so. There’s no way he can get to a phone, and besides, why would he…no. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “You were the originally intended victim,” Jordan reminded her. It was the last thing Ellie wanted to hear after her shift and the emotional conversation with her friends, after her nightmares from that night had faded, if replaced by others.

  “Well, thanks for the reminder.”

  “I need to make sure you’re safe,” Jordan said, making no attempt to apologize. The strange thing was, Ellie could understand her reasoning, even if she didn’t like it. She was trying to keep the big picture in mind, how it wouldn’t serve Jordan at all if her colleagues thought she was on a wild goose chase. The mere idea that she could be right, though, opened up a bottomless pit of fear. Neither of them could be completely rational when it came to Darby. They would have to enlist help. With a sinking heart, she realized that it would probably be some time before she got to sleep.

  “Please, do that for me. If it’s nothing, I’m sorry, and I’ll owe you for keeping you awake, but I can’t stand…”

  Jordan’s fears were on a different scale after those days in Darby’s basement. There was no way Ellie could tell her no.

  “Let’s go find out,” she said.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ellie was silent during the drive to the station, probably more from fatigue than irritation, Jordan reasoned. It wasn’t irrational to make sure the anonymous sender wouldn’t go from a nuisance to a real threat—it might be a tad irrational to assume Jonathan Darby cared enough to orchestrate this scheme, but she wasn’t willing to take any chances.

  If she had to scare Ellie in order for her to take this seriously, Jordan wasn’t above that, even if she was sorry.

  She knew Darby and his work. It was a mistake to hesitate or show weakness with him. If there was a guard who allowed him to send these messages to Ellie, it had to stop, for both their sake. Jordan was well aware that she might look a bit frantic to Ellie. She couldn’t help it. After filing a report and have the number traced, her hectic activities came to an abrupt halt when she saw Detective Doss sitting at her desk with someone familiar: Kathryn Larson.

  “Could you please wait in the break room? I’ll drive you home in a few,” she said to Ellie who nodded, resigned to her altered schedule. Jordan followed her inside, and they shared a quick kiss before the door opened and a uniformed officer walked inside in search of caffeine and sugar.

  “I won’t be long,” Jordan promised.

  “No problem.”

  Just as well that Ellie was more tired than freaked out. Maybe they’d be lucky, and it was nothing but a stupid prank.

  You already know it’s never that easy, don’t you?

  “Detective, can I talk to you for a moment?” she addressed Doss, aware of Kathryn’s curious look. Whether she knew or not, it didn’t matter. She had no place in Jordan’s life any longer.

  “Sure,” Detective Doss said, looking surprised. “I’ll be back with you in a moment, Mrs. Larson.”

  “What is she doing here?” Jordan asked as soon as they were out in the hallway. She didn’t like the uneasy expression on Doss’s face.

  “I thought you weren’t on the case anymore.”

  “I still work here.”

  “Okay, sure,” the younger woman said nervously. “She came in because she had information on Hobbs.”

  “What? Just like that? Why do you think you can believe her?”

  “Because right now, he’s in an interrogation room with Henderson. No trace of Pratt yet, but we assume it’s only a matter of time.”

  Jordan leaned back against the wall, trying to come to term with this image, Kathryn having a hand in Hobbs’s arrest. Through the glass of the double doors, she cast a glance at the woman, wondering if she should feel something, or what would be appropriate to feel in the first place.

  She couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea that Kathryn could have done something to benefit someone other than herself. She and Jim weren’t that kind of people, not in her experience.

  “Is that all?” Doss asked. “I was just going to finish up with her.”

  “Yeah, sure, go ahead.”

  She hadn’t forgotten about her promise to Ellie, but Ellie understood the priorities in police work. She could probably hold out a moment longer until Jordan had figured out how the man who slipped through their fingers so many times had finally been apprehended.

  She stepped into the observation area, joining the lieutenant and Sergeant Bristol. After what happened at the safe house, this case was even more high profile than before. Hobbs’s arrest was good news. She shouldn’t feel any regrets that it wouldn’t be on her record, not this time.

  Everything must have happened very fast. Jordan was certain Derek would have called her if he could have spared a second to do so.

  “No trace yet of Pratt?” she asked.

  The lieutenant shook his head. “Guess what, Hobbs denies having been near the safe house or TJ Pratt since his escape, says he wants nothing to do with what happened there.”

  “That’s rich. He already killed a man during his escape. What’s his angle?”

  At this point, her question seemed merely rhetoric. There was no way she could leave now, but hopefully she could find someone who could drive Ellie home. She excused herself and made her way back through the main room where Doss’s desk was now empty, and into the break room.

  Ellie was fast asleep, her head resting on her arms on the table. She looked almost comfortable.

  * * * *

  After making sure Ellie would get home and to bed safely, Jordan headed back to her desk, where the blinking light on her phone alerted her to a missed call from the lab. She was about to call back when she saw Doss return with Kathryn. They shook hands and Kathryn went to leave. She could have avoided walking past Jordan’s desk, but she didn’t, slowing her steps.

  Oh no, not today, not this week, not ever. I have nothing to say to you.

  “Jordan,” her birthmother spoke in a soft voice. That was unfamiliar. In the home she’d known for the first thirteen years, there had been a lot of yelling—when the Larsons and their friends weren’t stoned out of their wits. Not all of their guests had stopped at pot, and there had been a lot of drinking going on. It had never been safe.

  “What do you want?”

  “I don’t know…” Kathryn wrapped her arms around herself, hesitating.

  “Well, if you don’t know, I can’t
help you. I have work to do here.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry. I don’t quite know how to say this.”

  “Then don’t.” It came as a surprise to Jordan that she had even gone this far to make the connection. It wasn’t a good one either. She had done well without these people in her life, and Jordan preferred for it to stay that way.

  “I saw on TV…I saw what happened to you. I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m not dead. It’s all good. Was that all?”

  “Yes…no. I was hoping we could meet. There’s something we should talk about.”

  “Like what, your bad taste in men?” Jordan shot back icily. She had no intention of indulging Kathryn. “I don’t care. Look, I heard you helped capture Hobbs. Thank you for that. I need you to go now.”

  “Can we meet for a coffee sometime? I would like to explain.”

  “I’m busy.” I’ll be forever busy, when it comes to that.

  “Okay.” Kathryn’s shoulders slumped slightly. She was good, Jordan had to give her that, almost believable. “Take good care of yourself.”

  “Sure. I’m pretty good at doing it myself.”

  Kathryn nodded, the tight set of her lips indicating that the jibe hadn’t gone unnoticed with her. Then she left. Jordan leaned back into her chair, resisting the lure of unwanted memories. How twisted of this woman to use Jordan’s worst nightmare for her own redemption.

  Then again, Jordan had expected nothing less of her. She couldn’t afford to dwell on yet another confirmation of how lucky she’d been to get out of that place.

  Jordan picked up the phone and called Forensics, hopeful they might already be able to tell her something about the sender of the anonymous texts. Instead, ballistics from the Mara Lyman scene had come in, and the findings made her jump up from her seat.

  Mara Lyman had been killed with the same gun as Jensen Baker, which meant there was a connection between Pratt and the mysterious Carl. Bud. She needed to see her CI again, see if Darla had found out anything.

  Maybe they’d been able to hit two birds with one stone this time.

  Jordan winced at the violent image, then went to find her boss.

  Hobbs’ interrogation was still going on. Apparently, there were bits and pieces missing, about the timeline, about how much he was willing to share. He wanted a deal. He wasn’t going to get one until he gave them something substantial, but Hobbs still insisted he hadn’t seen Pratt outside of the prison.

  Outside. That was the key word.

  Jordan related the findings to Sergeant Bristol who was still in the interrogation room. Of course the sergeant was extremely interested in the connection between the drug case and the men who had killed one of his officers, and he agreed with her strategy too. She knocked on the door and asked Henderson to step outside for a moment. He did, looking guilty.

  “Hey. I know you would have wanted to see this, but there was no time to call. Larson came in, told us Hobbs wanted to turn himself in—it was all very fast from there.”

  “I know. That’s fine. Let me have a shot at him?”

  “Sure, go ahead. We’ve been hitting walls in there for a while.”

  “Well, yeah, you know I’m good at banging my head against walls,” she said matter-of-factly and went inside.

  Hobbs looked up at her with an impassive impression. Jordan was still reeling at the connection between Kathryn and this man, Kathryn and Hobbs, bad choice in men indeed. She wasn’t a child anymore, hiding in the corner of the bedroom. She put men like this behind bars now. The thought was fairly consoling, even if the trace of unease remained.

  “I saw what happened to you. I’m so sorry.”

  “My colleagues told me what you said—that you were never at the safe house, and you didn’t come back to kill Pratt.”

  “That’s the truth. After I got out, I went back one time, to see if he could help me out with money or something. He wasn’t there, so I left. I never wanted to kill anyone.”

  “One of the guards died though.”

  “I didn’t mean for that to happen! It was supposed to be quick and easy.”

  “I believe you,” she said, seeing his eyes widen. “There are a few things though that don’t make sense yet, and we hope you can help us clear them up. After all, you do want that deal, and I can tell you we need something good in return for those men you shot during your escape.”

  “But I didn’t shoot them!”

  That was something a lot harder to believe. Jordan was willing to humor him for the prospect of results. “You escaped from prison. Who shot the guards, if it wasn’t you?”

  “Bud Ryder’s guy. I didn’t want to kill anyone, but he said it didn’t work that way.”

  “Bud Ryder, is that another of your prison acquaintances? He helped you with the escape?”

  “Oh, no, he doesn’t have a record. That guy never gets caught. He came here to do some business and look for his girlfriend.”

  “Mara,” Jordan said, feeling a bit sick as she could guess what was about to follow—not the details, but she was forming a general idea. Someone had dangled Mara in front of Ryder like a prize. “You knew where she was, that she’d been trying to get away from him?”

  Hobbs shook his head. “I didn’t hear about her until later. Man, I needed to get out of this place. I would have done anything…”

  “So you did. Pratt didn’t contact you once you were out, but he knew, right? He offered you a way out…You just didn’t know what the prize would be.”

  “No one was supposed to die! I realized when I saw the headlines that he was going to pin the safe house on me, and the guards too. They wanted a distraction from the drug business, I assume. They wanted to hit it big, put the locals out of business. Ryder would get his girlfriend back, and he and Pratt would be at the top of the food chain.”

  “That’s why you turned yourself in,” Jordan concluded. “You knew Pratt and Ryder would eventually want to take care of the loose ends.”

  “Kathryn said it would be for the best. After all, she knows TJ well.”

  Those words made her stomach churn, but the pieces were finally coming together. If they got to Bud Ryder, they’d get to Pratt as well, and this nightmare would finally be over. She could forget about Kathryn and everything she said. None of it mattered anyway—Jack and Pauline were the only real parents she knew.

  “Well, she gave you the right advice. Where do we find this Bud Ryder?”

  “You don’t find him in just one place. He moves around…and he found connections here pretty quick. If you’re lucky, someone else gets to him first,” Hobbs shared his assessment.

  Jordan wasn’t too pleased with it. If someone else got to him, Pratt would still be out there.

  * * * *

  “Suddenly all of this becomes a lot clearer. Pratt is the mastermind behind Hobbs’s escape, and he rats Mara, who’s probably been hiding for years, out to Ryder,” Derek mused as they were heading out for a quick lunch. “All of this while sitting in his little trailer, hiding in plain sight among his friends of low-level dealers and such—even under the full radar of the police.”

  “Yeah. Doesn’t look too good for us, does it?”

  Jordan still hadn’t decided if she could stomach the idea of food, given her association by blood to a brutal criminal and murderer. The trick was to hide in denial for a bit longer. The problems she was dealing with were bigger than that anyway—the texts to Ellie’s phone had been sent from an untraceable account. On the plus side, if Darby was trying to play games with them, it meant that Ellie wasn’t in immediate danger, from him, anyway. She shuddered, thinking of the scene at the safe house. It had made a mockery of the term. Derek misinterpreted her reaction.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to imply that your parents were…”

  “By all means, imply. They’ve been dealing and using on and off as early as I can remember, Jim and Kathryn that is. There’s hardly anything you can throw at them that isn’t true. It�
��s a blessing they figured out how to use contraception at least.” Derek didn’t say anything to that, but the joke came back to bite her anyway—Kathryn had slept with TJ. The one time she hadn’t been careful.

  “I understand you’re angry, but you know that everyone’s aware you have no connection whatsoever to him. You’re a good cop. You risked your life to save those women—that’s what everyone remembers.”

  “Flattery before noon?” She laughed, a bit self-conscious about Derek’s unusual display of emotion. “You know what? I’ll take it.”

  “You should.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him about her plan, but Jordan knew he would try to deter her. She wasn’t even sure if it was a good plan, probably not. However, it might be her best chance to ban Darby from her mind, see him for the small, and small-minded man that he was, not the monster of her nightmares.

  Jordan was well aware of the result of memories and trauma, as opposed to the sad reality—Darby’s attitudes towards women weren’t so foreign, he just gained more attention because he took them to an extreme. Still, the media wouldn’t make the connection. Darby, Ryder, Pratt, and many more—their actions might not be common, but what was in their heads, sadly, was.

  Darby had punished women for what he considered a deviant sex life. Ryder had punished Mara for leaving him.

  “I saw you talk to Roberts at the funeral,” Derek ventured.

  “Okay, not a good subject. Also, none of your business.”

  “Just checking. She keeps showing up in unexpected places. First, Marcus’s party, and then the funeral. I still think she should have faced one hell of a lot more disciplinary action for what she did.”

  His anger surprised her. “I’m not keen on defending her under the best of circumstances, but her plan worked after all. She drew Darby out. Look…He kept tabs on the investigation like every good little serial killer does. He’d already attacked one of ours, so you can’t tell me that it’s only because of Bethany he got interested in me. That just gave him the specifics.”

  Derek’s expression was grim, and she didn’t need to ask further clarification. The video. Her stumbling apology to Bethany, according to the misogynist madman’s script. When she thought about it now, the instant reaction was shame, though at the time she had been too distracted by pain and drugs to feel it.