“And the others? Glen, Susan, and Anthony? Larry wasn’t chief then.”
Carter shoved back his chair and stood. “Christ, I don’t know!”
Surprised by the sudden blast of anger, Lincoln rocked back in his chair, balancing on the back two legs.
Carter’s face fell, the anger rushing out as fast as it had come. “Shit, L, I’m sorry.” He clasped Lincoln’s shoulder and steadied him on the way back down to all four chair legs. “I shouldn’t have blown up at you like that.”
Lincoln reached up and covered his hand. “Hey, babe, it’s okay, we’re both just tired and stretched thin.”
Carter’s eyes jumped from their hands to Lincoln’s face, and the soft, genuine smile Lincoln liked so much graced his handsome features. The babe slip was totally worth it. And frighteningly easy. Lincoln didn’t have time to dwell on it with Carter running through case theories again as he reclaimed his seat.
“I just keep thinking about Barry and Trudy, and what their murders would do to this town, and what happens when the press gets ahold of this. Our clock is ticking down.” He scrubbed his hands over his face and into his hair. “I keep coming back to something Baxter said. ‘He didn’t reject me, he rejected himself.’”
Lincoln slid the thermos and a muffin in front of him. “And you think that’s about Larry becoming chief?”
Carter ripped off the muffin top and shoved it into his mouth. He chewed and washed it down with a swig of the coffee. “He had a way out, and he didn’t take it. He became the chief instead, tying himself here.”
“I’ll take a look back through Larry’s photos. Search for signs of distress or triggers. We can call the team at the hospital too and see if they can get hospital logs or security tape from the dates the victims passed through. See if Larry’s on there.”
Carter shot to his feet again and yanked his coat off the back of the chair. “I have a better idea.”
Lincoln grabbed his wrist. “What are you going to do?”
Determination hardening his features, Carter wrenched his arm free and hustled for the door. “I’m gonna give him another option.”
Lincoln yelled after his partner. He would have chased after him too, if he could just find his damn boots. Another minute of hunting, he found them under a box lid. He shoved his feet inside, grabbed his coat, and shouted another “Carter, wait!” as he turned for the door.
Only to have his path blocked by Jeremiah. “He’s long gone. Got in the elevator I got off of. And y’all sure do have a lot of domestics for newlyweds.”
“Fuck.” Lincoln slung his coat at the chair, missed, and knocked over the stacks of Larry and Barry photos. Photos he needed to go back through. He could do that faster if he wasn’t doing it alone. He glanced again at Jeremiah. They’d trusted Jo yesterday; that had worked out in their favor. Time to trust another.
“We’re not newlyweds,” Lincoln confessed. “And I need your help.”
Carter approached the black Dodge Charger parked in the far corner of FP’s lot, positioned to give the occupant a clear view of the chancellor’s mansion across the intersection. Also Lawrence Petticoat’s current registered address. Carter rapped a knuckle against the Charger’s window and held up a to-go coffee and bag of muffins, an offering for the car’s driver.
Jo’s tired face lifted into a smile as she rolled down her window. Accepting the goodies, she took a giant gulp of the coffee and sighed happily. “You sure Mark and I can’t steal you away from Lincoln? Or hell, Mark and I can make a quad work.”
Carter laughed. “I think that might overload L’s circuits.” He still didn’t correct her assumption. Granted, he’d implied as much when they were at Barry and Trudy’s place, still maintaining some semblance of the cover, but there was no longer any reason to do so with Jo. She knew their real identities. He spun the ring on his finger; this was starting to feel like a real identity too. He and Lincoln were even arguing like a married couple.
“Fine,” Jo mumbled around a bite of muffin. “Keep your dopey happiness to yourselves.”
He ducked his chin, hiding his smile, and rested back against the door. “He still in there?” he asked, voice low.
She nodded. “Met with the insurance adjuster at the station last night, then came home. Hasn’t left since.”
Carter probably should have called ahead and set up a meeting. Pretended to follow up on the course he was supposed to be teaching at some point this week. But he didn’t want to give Larry the forewarning. He wanted to catch him off guard. This was what he was good at. Reading the situation, and the current one warranted surprise.
“You want backup?” Jo asked.
He shook his head. “The both of us approaching might set off alarm bells. I want to get in and get a look around before he suspects anything.” Never mind that Jo would probably lock his ass in the car and call Lincoln to come get his deranged husband if she knew what Carter was really planning to do.
“Good luck,” she said.
He tapped the Charger’s hood in parting, then crossed the street among the morning sea of students. Where most of them turned into the quad, he walked a block farther, then turned up the walkway of the big mansion.
Larry answered the door after the second ring. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair was doing an admirable Einstein impression, and he had on a flannel robe hanging open over his uniform pants and undershirt. He gave the distinct impression of hadn’t slept. “Come in,” he tossed over his shoulder, already starting back down the hallway and expecting Carter to follow. “I should have called to update you and check in after the explosion, but with Barry missing, that Weathers girl’s murder, school back in session, and trying to coordinate police activity remotely, things are all out of sorts. I just want to find my brother and Trudy, but there’s all this other shit.”
Carter interrupted his perusal of the meticulously kept, stately old house to consider Larry’s ramble. It sounded exactly as it should for an overworked police chief worried about his missing family members. It didn’t sound like the ramble of a killer but looks could be deceiving, especially if perpetrated by a trained professional. Hadn’t he just done the same moments ago with Jo? He twirled the ring on his finger again.
