Page 123 of D for Dead

Gently he cupped her face in his hands, kissed her again, soft and passionate, before pulling back.

‘Because it’s wrong: I’m a cop and you’re at the centre of this investigation. Yes, I want you, you know that, but we can’t.’

Looking vexed with himself at his lack of restraint, he stepped back, shaking his head before going back inside her apartment.

Amy closed her eyes, drew in a deep shaky breath. He was right, she did know that, but it didn’t make it any easier to swallow.

Damn you Jake Sullivan.

* * *

Down below, in the safety of the trees, he watched, noted they were at it again. This time they couldn’t pretend nothing was going on, that it was an innocent embrace.

Amy was now alone on the balcony. She looked annoyed, unhappy. Lovers’ tiff? He slipped back into the shadows, made his way down to where he had parked his car.

It wouldn’t be much longer before Amy Gallaty realised there was more in life to worry about than having a broken heart.

36

There were two breaks in the case on Saturday, both providing answers but throwing up several more questions in the process.

Boaz had recovered from his bout of food poisoning and was back looking after Amy. Jake was glad when he showed up, keen to get out of Amy’s apartment and clear his head. Things had been tense between them after the kiss. Amy didn’t understand, or want to understand, the implications, and he’d been a fool to lead her on.

He had spent a restless night on the couch, the scents of her shampoo, her perfume, of her, clogging his senses, making it hard to focus on anything other than kissing her, needing again the taste of her mouth and the feel of her body against his.

He was a damn idiot. Rebecca had warned him, but he hadn’t listened, had thought he had it under control. Hard as it would be, he needed to stay away from Amy for a while. She was messing with his head.

When he walked into the precinct he hoped his transgressions weren’t too obvious for his partner to notice. Rebecca could be annoyingly intuitive at times.

She seemed rather subdued, not her usual self, and he noted the sudden change in atmosphere when Hickok walked into the room a couple of minutes later. It felt a little like the frigid one he’d left in Amy’s apartment and he immediately picked up that the two of them were avoiding eye contact.

What had he missed yesterday?

Rivers followed contritely after Hickok, his tail still between his legs.

Jake had a certain amount of sympathy for him. There was no denying the guy was an idiot, but he’d been set up and now had to live with the consequences of killing a police officer.

He knew how that part felt.

With several hotels still to check for David Gavin, Rebecca and Rivers both worked that angle, while Hickok and Jake headed over to Ryan Caparelli’s place for clues to his whereabouts. It was his apartment that threw up the first revelation.

Jake and Hickok met with the super, who was affable enough to let them have a quick look inside for any sign of Caparelli. From his shifting eyes, the way he bent over backwards to accommodate them, Jake suspected he wanted them out of his hair. An ex-criminal who didn’t want attention drawn to his rap sheet; he would bet good money on it.

Caparelli lived on the first floor; patio doors led out to the communal grounds, which included a swimming pool and tennis court. While there was no sign of anyone being home, the refrigerator empty and the super vouching he hadn’t seen Caparelli in over two weeks, the mail had been piled up onto a side table. If he was away, who had done that?

Without a warrant they couldn’t search the place, so they did a quick sweep of each room, looking for cause to need one. It was the bathroom that gave them the cause: a speck of blood on the back of the door. Jake noticed it as he was about to leave the room.

Maybe Caparelli had cut himself shaving, but the blood was nowhere near the sink. There could be a logical explanation, but it still needed checking out.

They thanked the super and Hickok made a call. They had the warrant signed and were back in Caparelli’s apartment by lunchtime, this time with Withers and his bloodstain pattern analyst, a smart young redhead named Hannah. While Withers and Hannah worked in the bathroom, Hickok and Jake conducted a thorough search of the rest of the apartment.

The discovery of Caparelli’s passport in a desk drawer in the bedroom verified he was in the country, while the screwed-up ticket in the trash can for a Portland to Paris flight confirmed he had never made it to Europe. His clothes were hanging in the closet and the suitcase they found under the bed was empty.

So where the hell was Ryan Caparelli and what part did he play in all of this? Was it his blood in the bathroom or did it belong to someone else?

A further clue to his involvement was found in a bag stashed in a cupboard under the kitchen sink: plastic sheeting, towels, rope and reams of used duct tape, all of it soaked in blood. Seconds after Jake made the discovery, Withers called them through, stepping out of the bathroom and pulling the door closed after him, leaving Hannah to work the scene.

‘Gentlemen, we have ourselves a crime scene.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Lucky for us you spotted the blood and also lucky for us our killer missed it when cleaning up. We sprayed luminol on the walls and in the tub to see what he did clean up. Someone turned that bathroom into an abattoir.’