“Hmm.Got it.Only here’s the thing.I can also see your computer.Your screen saver is Derek Hammond’s house.”
Kate raised an eyebrow.Dr.Hartwell seemed to have shrunk into herself.Her full lips were bloodless, no mean feat considering her lipstick.Her shoulders were rigid, her hands clenched into fists.Kate looked above the desk and whistled.“Nice knife.”
Marcus looked that way and added his own whistle.“Pugio, right?”
Hartwell swallowed.“Lawyer.”
“You might need one,” Kate said honestly.“In the meantime, we’re going to confiscate the knife and photograph and take a picture of your screensaver under plain view doctrine.We’ll be seeking a search warrant for this office as well.”
Hartwell’s eyes snapped up.Marcus grabbed the knife and photograph and pulled his phone out to snap the screensaver.She looked between the two of them and said, “I didn’t kill them.I would never use violence.It never solves anything.”
“What about removing a violent person?You don’t think that’s worthwhile?”
She licked her lips.“I didn’t kill them.”
“The screensaver is the part I don’t get,” Kate said.“Why put Derek Hammond’s house as your screensaver?Unless, of course, you were fixated on him for some reason.”
“I’m not…” She clammed up again.“Get out.Get your warrant and come back, but in the meantime, get out.”
“We will,” Kate said.“But we’ll be back very soon.I strongly recommend you don’t do anything rash.”
“Just get out.”
Kate and Marcus left the room with their evidence in hand.The receptionist nearly bumped into them.She squeaked and gripped Marcus’s arms to steady herself.A flush instantly reddened her pale cheeks, and Marcus cleared his throat and extricated himself.Kate would have been amused by this if they weren’t on the cusp of a possible break in the case.
The receptionist passed them, opened the office door, and said, “Dr.Hartwell, Mr.Ratner is here for his… What are you doing?”
Kate turned around to see Hartwell kneeling on the floor in front of a shredder.She had a sheaf of papers in her hand and a deer in the headlights look on her face.
Kate’s eyes narrowed.“Marcus, get us an e-warrant ASAP.Call Whitaker as well.Tell him we’re arresting Dr.Rachel Hartwell on suspicion of obstruction and destruction of evidence.”
The receptionist surprised Kate by managing to pale even more than her natural skin tone.She excused herself with an unintelligible mutter and practically ran to the front of the office.
Hartwell turned back to the shredder, still clutching the papers in her hand.Kate stepped back into the office and pulled the plug.Hartwell didn’t move.
Kate tried a final time to break through.“Look, I get it.It sucks to think that murderers are allowed to get away with killing innocent people.Someone has to do something about that, right?”
Hartwell swallowed and repeated, “Lawyer,” in a reedy voice.
“You’ll get one,” Kate promised.“One last question.How does the Lawgiver talk to you?He’s supposed to be in solitary.”
Hartwell’s brow furrowed.“What?What are you talking about?”
“Never mind.We’ll follow up on that later.”
She hid her frustration by turning around and making eye contact with Marcus, who was on the phone arranging a pickup for Hartwell and a search warrant for them.Hartwell’s confusion about the Lawgiver seemed genuine, but Kate was certain the connection was there.It had all the signs.Coxhadto be a part of this.
But how did the sixth commandment fit?All the other killings had been connected somehow to her past.These ones didn’t seem to apply at all.
Or maybe, just maybe, her worst fears were coming true.This had nothing to do with Cox at all.The killer had simply adopted his MO, inspired by him without being proselytized.The Antichrist had been cast into prison, but Hell had already followed and now ran rampant across his Earth.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It was a scene with which Kate was familiar.She’d been on both sides of this coin.Before she ever heard about Elijah Cox or the commandment killings, she had fixated on her father’s murder, going days without sleeping or showering, sometimes without eating, consumed with her desire to bring his killer to justice.Her apartment had been filled with notes, clippings, scrawled speculations, sometimes just scrawls that made little sense to anyone.It had come to the point where her mother worried that she was losing her mind.She wasn’t completely wrong.
Rachel Hartwell appeared to have a slightly better handle on herself, but only slightly better.Her obsession with justice extended beyond Hammond and Santos.She had files on dozens of defendants: acquitted, dismissed, commuted, or otherwise spared the fall of justice’s hammer.The level of detail was impressive, worthy of any of the case files Kate had compiled over her career in the Bureau.
But the brightest stars in Hartwell’s constellation were undoubtedly Hammond and Santos.The papers she was trying to shred included multiple pictures of both victims, their homes, and their workplaces.Files detailing nearly every aspect of their lives since their acquittals filled the bottom drawer of Hartwell’s desk.
