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“I’m sorry. Am I keeping you awake?”
“Are you kidding? I have so many thoughts swirling in my head I’m surprised I even lay down.”
“Need more help with the wedding planning?”
“Nah, I’ve got a handle on the wedding plans. Seamus has been great. He has a good sense of what’s important, and he’s really come through on a couple of details at the church I needed him to handle. It’s like having me mam’s help, without all the criticism.”
“Don’t worry, the criticism will come. Just give it time.”
We both giggled. I waited a moment, then said, “Are you getting cold feet? I’d understand. I wouldn’t like it, but I get it.”
“It’s nothing to do with that. Though it is just a bit…overwhelming to think I’ll be stepmother to ten children. I love them all to pieces, but it’s loads of responsibility, isn’t it?”
I marveled at my incredible luck. I had found not only a beautiful woman but one who loved me and my kids too.
“I worry about them all,” Mary Catherine continued. “I already told you my concerns about Brian, and now I’m a little bothered by Jane’s new boyfriend. Does it ever end?”
“Not really, no,” I told her truthfully.
Mary Catherine gave me a smile, which reassured me. Then she kissed me and I felt even better. She brushed the papers off my stomach and took the penlight out of my hand. Her soft lips caressed my neck and she nibbled at my ear.
Then Mary Catherine wrapped her delicate hands around my face and pulled me toward her as she stretched out on the bed.
I mumbled, “What’s going on?”
“Really? The city’s best detective can’t figure it out? I worry for the fate of our citizens.”
The more she kissed me, the less I worried about anything else. It was exactly what I needed.
Chapter 9
I was on edge the next afternoon as I stepped through the front door of One Police Plaza. My lieutenant, NYPD veteran Harry Grissom, and I had been called in for a meeting, and I’d brought Brett Hollis along as comic relief. The swath of white bandages across his face would distract anyone. To his credit, Hollis had not complained once about breaking his own nose while chasing Van Fleet through Harlem.
The conference rooms in this public face of headquarters, where the NYPD often hosted other agencies, journalists, or politicians, tended to be more plush and technologically up-to-date than the cheap furniture and threadbare carpet in the precincts. These rooms looked like government offices are supposed to.
As soon as we stepped into the second-floor conference room, which overlooked the parking area for the highest-ranking NYPD administrators, I froze. I turned to Harry and said in a very low voice, “I didn’t know the FBI would be here.”
“Neither did I,” he said, stroking his long gunslinger mustache.
In the room were four FBI agents, all of whom seemed to be in a staring contest with us lowly NYPD detectives.
That was the real problem: law-enforcement agencies working together. Even though the national rate of unsolved murders was just under 60 percent, no one really thought the solution was to trust people from other agencies. Not only because they were worried other agencies might steal their cases but, even worse, other agencies might screw up any cases they were brought in on. It was petty and stupid, and I was as guilty as anyone.
It was pretty clear what this meeting was about, even before I saw detectives Terri Hernandez from the Bronx and Javier Tunez from Brooklyn already at the table.
Hernandez smiled and said, “This must be important if they’re bringing in big guns like you.”
“Nah, can’t be that important. The FBI is here.”
That comment made Tunez bark out a laugh. Ever since an overzealous FBI agent had tried to charge him with workers’ compensation fraud, accusing him of overstating his injury claims from a car accident, Tunez had no use for the federal agency. He’d won his case easily, but he still suffered from the stress, as well as speculation in the press—the media never seemed to believe the FBI could be fallible and screw things up more often than local police.
NYPD inspector Lisa Udell was running the meeting. With her professional demeanor and terrifying reputation, I knew she’d make sure things didn’t get out of hand. She was known for chopping your nuts off if you did something stupid. I could get behind that kind of administrator. If you act stupid, you should face the consequences. The flip side of the equation was that if you were in the right, Udell always backed you up. Every time.
Inspector Udell said, “We all know why we’re here. We have three murder cases in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. The FBI has graciously offered their help to investigate the similarities in the crime scenes. I thought it would be best if we all sat down and talked about where we are in our investigations.”
The door to the conference room opened and two more FBI agents rushed in. One of them looked at me and smiled. I couldn’t help but smile back. Emily Parker had helped me out a dozen times over my career. And we’d once come within a moment of having a romantic relationship. That was before Mary Catherine and I had gotten serious. Now I just counted Emily as a good friend who happened to be a damn good cop. No matter who she worked for.
The other FBI agent who’d entered along with Emily was a sharply dressed, forty-something black man. He cleared his throat and said, “My name is Robert Lincoln. I’m the assistant special agent in charge of our New York office. The FBI is prepared to bring in resources and personnel to move this case along.”
