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"I'm betting the rumors aren't just rumors," I said. "Maybe not the Russian mob, but Kozlov's record does scream organized crime. Sporadic arrests, never convicted, then after one conviction, a downhill slide."
"Washed their hands of him," Jack said.
"But he may have earned enough clout for them to hire a lawyer for that murder charge. Either way, I shouldn't be seen poking around Norfolk asking more questions, so maybe you--"
"Put Evelyn on it. We have an appointment."
"Who--?"
"Called Quinn, too. He's not talking."
Jack's voice and expression were passive, but his hands tightened on the steering wheel as he turned the corner.
"Not talking...? Oh, you mean about the Manson connection."
"Yeah. Confirmed it. Won't explain it. Protecting his sources."
I stared out at the passing streetlights. "This Quinn. He was a cop, too, wasn't he? Had to be, if he's your go-to guy for police intel."
"Not was. Is."
Cold blasted down my spine as I swiveled to face Jack. "Jack, don't tell me I'm working with--"
"You aren't. That's why." He paused. "One reason."
"For not meeting the others, you mean."
"Yeah. Quinn's legit. Not working undercover. But you two meeting?" He shrugged. "That cop at the bar? Fine. More police contact? Not if we can help it."
"In case he recognizes me?"
Jack nodded. It took me a moment to unclog my throat and answer.
"It made national news at home." My voice sounded odd. Like a newscaster reciting a story that had long since lost emotional impact. "And, yes, it was picked up in the States. But what makes headlines in Canada isn't a big deal down here. No American cop would have recognized me a month later, and it's been over six years."
"That's what I figured."
I turned back to staring out the window, into the night. The distant wail of a police siren rose above the rumble of the car. I tracked the sound, wondering if it was coming or going. Unlike everyone else on the highway, I wasn't glancing in the side mirror or checking the speedometer. For me, the wail of a siren evoked memories of home and childhood, the best and most comforting of both.
I sounded my first siren when I was three. Riding in our town's Santa Claus parade, tucked into the front seat between my grandfather and my father. Granddad was chief of police. Dad had just made detective. An uncle and an older cousin walked behind the cruiser, stiff in their dress uniforms, struggling not to smile.
I don't remember ever deciding I wanted to become a cop, no more than my friends consciously decided they would grow up to marry and have children. We simply assumed that was what we would do, what we needed to complete our lives.
I enrolled in police college right out of high school. My brother had already headed off to New York to pursue acting, having never shown any interest in the "family business." When I graduated, Dad was so proud, he didn't stop grinning for a month. My mother says it's a good thing he died three years
later, or "what happened next" would have killed him. Maybe she's right, but I'll never forgive her for saying it.
"What happened next" began when my partner and I were first to a crime scene. Dawn Collins, fifteen years old, brutally raped and murdered. I'd seen murder victims before. I'd seen far worse cases than this. And yet, when I walked into that room and saw Dawn, naked and curled up in the corner, her dark hair falling over her face, the cord around her neck the only sign she hadn't just fallen asleep, something in me snapped. Not a loud snap. Not even a hard one. Just a tiny little snip, like someone had flipped off my power switch and I just...shut down. Couldn't think. Couldn't process. Couldn't react.
My partner, a seasoned constable nearing retirement, had taken it in stride, presuming I was in shock and just letting me follow him as he processed the scene, calmly explaining each step, and letting me play student bystander. By the time the others arrived, I'd snapped out of it enough to do my job.
That night, the nightmares came. I'd lived with them for over a decade by then and, usually, they were the same images played and replayed--running through the forest, running for help, help for Amy, help that would never come in time. But that night after seeing Dawn Collins, I wasn't running. I was back in the cabin, a man's face over mine, features contorted in laughter as I screamed. Screamed in terror, in pain--screamed for Amy, screamed for my father, for anyone.
I woke up screaming. Bathed in sweat. Shaking so badly I had to gasp for breath. Twenty minutes later, two officers from my own precinct showed up at my door, responding to a call from my neighbor. By then, I was calm enough to convince them it hadn't been me--maybe someone down the hall or a too-loud television. They bought it--even joked about it later, at the station, teasing me about who I'd been having sex with to make me scream so loud. And I laughed with them, because that's what they expected, and because I knew no one would ever guess the truth. Nadia Stafford was not the kind of girl to wake up screaming from anything.
That night, I gagged myself before I went to bed. I knew the nightmares would come again, and they did. That crime scene had reminded me too much of Amy's death. Once I fell asleep, I felt her panic, her terror, her agony. Knew what it was like to be a victim.
And when they caught the guy a few days later, I knew what I needed to do to make the nightmares end. I had to see Dawn get the justice that had been denied Amy. So I asked for and received permission to be in on the arrest. I wanted to see his face at that moment when he knew it was over, that justice had prevailed and he was going down.
