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Come on, man, pull it together.
He couldn’t let his dick overshadow his mission. Not again.
His fingers flew over the keys, banging down on them until he found where the crime lab’s preliminary report was logged…or more correctly, where it should have been. Instead, there was a note.
PAPER RESULTS DELIVERED TO DET. REGGIE WATTS, WHO REQUESTED THEY BE FILED BUT NOT ENTERED INTO THE COMPUTER SYSTEM UNTIL FINAL RESULTS WERE IN.
“Well played, Detective,” Carlos muttered.
Final results. That could be weeks.
Carlos turned the note’s meaning over in his head. Whatever the preliminary test results were, Reggie didn’t want him to see them. The detective was extended Maltese Security family, but he was a cop first—one who didn’t feel like sharing.
Stymied by an old-school move, Carlos stared at the computer screen. If he couldn’t access one avenue, maybe it was time to go down another virtual path. He exited out of the police system and accessed the district attorney’s records. He entered Mika’s name and witness into the closed case file search engine. Thirty seconds later he had access to everything pertaining to her sister’s murder trial—and there was a lot.
He skimmed the reports, searching for information about the perp’s parents. Like Mika had said, they were in Switzerland
and hadn’t come back for any of the post-trial hearings. Of course, out of the country didn’t mean they couldn’t hire someone. It was a hypothesis, and a pretty damn shaky one considering that Mika wasn’t the only one targeted. Hell, she hadn’t even been at the front of the line…unless the parents were using the attacks on the other LARP members as a way to cover up their purpose.
Next up in the file were the crime scene photos. They were horror-movie bloody.
“What in the hell are you doing?”
He jerked his head up. Mika was sitting up, the blanket wrapped around her, and the color had drained from her face. She stared at a spot just over his left shoulder.
The mirror. Fuck.
“Why are you looking at those?” A brittle hardness turned her voice cold, and she gathered the blanket tighter around her bare shoulders.
The horrified look on her face ripped a hole in him. He exited out of the DA’s system as fast as possible. “Research. We haven’t ruled out Keenan’s parents.”
“And you thought you’d get more information about them by looking at…those?”
“I had to know the facts.” That’s what had gotten him in trouble with Ivy. Going with his gut instead of digging deeper.
“The facts?” Mika laughed, if you could call the strangled sound a laugh. “You really want to know what happened?”
He nodded, his empty stomach turning in on itself.
“Hana and I were both at the University of Harbor City. She was a sophomore. I was a senior. I introduced her to Keenan. He was a friend of a friend, a lacrosse player, a nice guy from a good family. At least that’s what I thought.” She paused, turning her face away from him. Her jaw hardened, and she wiped the back of her hand across one cheek and turned back toward him. “I was wrong. I was so wrapped up in my own little world that I didn’t even realize he had managed to isolate Hana until they’d already been going out for six months. That’s the first time I saw one of the bruises. I wish I could say it was the last, but…she always had an explanation, and I was too involved in my own stuff to see through the lies.”
Her chin trembled. She squeezed her eyes shut and seemed to shrink inside the blanket.
Regret ate the edges of his stomach. He’d done this to her. Brought all of the memories back. His chair screeched when he pushed it back and went to her. Her eyes snapped open, and she held up her hand, holding him back without touching him.
“When she supposedly fell down the stairs and broke her wrist, that’s when everything clicked into place. I confronted her about it. I told her to break up with him. I told her I was going to go to the cops or kill him with my bare hands. She begged me not to. She said it wasn’t what it looked like. She promised everything was fine. I didn’t believe her, but I didn’t know what else to do. So I did nothing.” Her voice broke and tears flowed down her cheeks.
Seeing her break down was like being pummeled by an invisible giant. He felt the blows, but there was nothing for him to strike out at. He was as helpless as he’d been in the last moments before he’d passed out from the poison Ivy had given him.
“But Hana did something.” Mika took in a shaky breath. “She found a counselor on campus and…well…she tried to leave Keenan. When she didn’t call home for our mom’s birthday, I went to her dorm room. Her roommates hadn’t seen her. I went to Keenan’s apartment. He wasn’t home, but the door was unlocked. I went in. That’s when I found her.”
She shivered under the blanket, and he couldn’t stand back any longer. He sat down, wrapped his arms around her, and tugged her close. It was the only thing he could do, and it wasn’t enough.
“It took the cops a week to track him down,” she said. “If I’d never introduced them, if I’d told someone, if I’d killed him with my bare hands, if I’d done something—anything—she’d still be alive. The fact is that any man who’d kill the woman he professed to love is a monster, and I introduced that monster to my sister.”
Carlos’s blood turned to ice. A monster. Was he a monster? The circumstances couldn’t be more different, but Mika wouldn’t see it that way. The wound was too fresh, her pain too close to the surface. He’d loved Ivy and he’d killed her. If…when…Mika found out, she’d put him in the same category as an abuser like Keenan. He swallowed back bile.
Not that it mattered what she thought of him. After this case was over, it was doubtful their paths would ever cross again, and that was for the best. No matter the connection between them, he was the last guy she needed in her life.
