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“What about the gun?”
“I disposed of it—you’ll never be able to find it, and even if you did, the water damage would render any forensic evidence worthless.”
“Where did she get the gun?” Noah asked.
Mallory looked at him as if he were smarter than he’d expected. “I never asked.”
Hans said quietly, “Why did you get Lucy involved in the first place? You had to know that one day, this would crash down around you and burn the one person you claim to want to protect.”
“You won’t understand.” Mallory put his cuffed wrists against his forehead. “Even though she didn’t know she was helping us, there was a sense of justice in her getting those guys. She’s so good at this, Hans, she’s uniquely qualified in separating the online jerks from the true predators.”
“So you stalk her and kill her ex-boyfriend because you admire her?” Noah was losing his temper, his tone getting louder.
“I didn’t kill Lorenzo, and I wasn’t stalking Lucy!”
“Mallory, the fake suicide note was written by the same person who sent Lucy a dozen red roses on Monday morning. If it was Lorenzo, it ties everything up in a pretty package. But it wasn’t. Forensics proved it. Admit it was you.”
“I didn’t send Lucy roses!”
“Give it up—”
“I swear to God, I did not.” Mallory leaned forward. “Are you lying to me?”
“We haven’t been doing the lying here.”
He pounded his fist again. “Listen to me! I didn’t send the roses, I didn’t kill Lorenzo, and I didn’t write any fucking notes! If the roses were sent by the same person who killed the cop, then Lucy is in danger! Dammit, where is she? What kind of morons are you?”
A mourner held the outer door of Holy Trinity open for Lucy as she walked in from the snow. A large flake hit her on the back of the neck and she rolled her shoulder so her collar would absorb the moisture. “Thank you,” she mumbled, and walked into the church just after the processional. She looked around and spotted Cody’s partner, April Dunnigan, near the back. Lucy slid into the pew behind her.
April was a well-rounded, fit ebony-black cop a few years older than Cody, with short curly hair and six piercings in each ear. They’d been partners for as long as Lucy knew Cody.
She tapped April on the shoulder. The cop turned around, her eyes rimmed red but her expression guarded. When she recognized Lucy, she came around to her pew and gave her a hug.
“I’m glad you could come,” she whispered.
“You heard about the evidence?”
April nodded. “Are you okay?”
Lucy shrugged. “I’ll be okay. What about you?”
“I want to shoot the bastard who killed him.” She grimaced. “I shouldn’t say that here.”
“I’m sure God understands.” He had to understand better than she did.
The cop went back to her seat, and that was fine with Lucy. She preferred to grieve alone.
It was hot in the church, and Lucy took off her coat, folding it beside her. She took a deep breath.
There were only a few cops present, but this was the mass before the prayer service. Lucy suspected many would arrive during and after mass. And the funeral on Friday would be a procession through D.C. with every cop in attendance. Lucy had been to the funeral of an officer killed in the line of duty, a friend of Cody’s from the police academy. She and Cody had been seeing each other then, and the murder had hit Cody hard, but at the same time he had never wavered from his duty.
“No one told us we’d live into retirement. But dying to protect all that we hold precious is easier to accept than dying in vain.”
The guilt ate at her because there was no reason Cody should have died. In her head she knew that Cody was a cop, that this was his job, but at the same time, it was a different situation—they should have brought in the FBI from the beginning. Maybe Cody would still be alive.
Lucy stood a few seconds later than everyone else for the Our Father, surprised that the prayer had come so soon. How long had she been here? It didn’t seem like more than a few minutes. She only vaguely remembered the readings. She was still too hot, and her eyes were dry. Too many tears shed in the last two days.
But in the back of her mind, she thought something was truly wrong with her. Was she getting sick? Sean had made her eat a late lunch, though she’d told him she wasn’t interested in food. He cooked chicken noodle soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. She’d eaten half, but now the small meal felt like a lead ball in her stomach.
