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“Ah, spare me,” she replied with a disgusted smirk. “You taught me, remember? You said, ‘People are responsible for their own fate if they can’t push themselves to find the truth, even if it hurts.’ Did I quote you correctly?”
He stared in Richard’s direction without making eye contact. “Yes, you did.”
“And it hurt to find those Trojans, you know. But I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they were old… some item you forgot all about because you didn’tneedcondoms anymore.” Her eyes darted at Richard for a brief moment, then scoffed bitterly. “The expiration date on the purple pack is four years from now. I called the company with the serial number. They confirmed you bought them after last February when this lot was released for distribution in stores.” She mumbled something unintelligible as she counted on her fingers. “In six months, you used six condoms that I know of.” She looked to the side, seemingly defeated. “Prosecution rests, Your Honor.”
“Natalie, hold on for just a moment. It’s not what you think.”
“Now you’re going to tell me you moonlight as a volunteer for clean sex education, and those Trojans are handouts for young people who can’t afford them? Spare me,” she said, turning her back to him and staring out the window. “Whatever excuse you could come up with, I thought of already, trying to forgive you.” A beat of silence. “I wish you’d have the backbone to admit it like a man, not cower and lie like a yellow-bellied jackal.” She wiped a tear with her index finger. “I’m not going to let you ruin this child’s life so you can keep your fly zipped up.”
Anger rose in Richard’s throat. Why bring him into their fight? And how dare she speak to his father like that? Men had needs… it was her fault she decided to move to Mount Chester. What was his father supposed to do? Become a monk? He looked at his father, but he seemed lost, dismayed; his eyes, deeply saddened, stared at the floor.
She had castrated a fearsome man. If Richard didn’t pay attention, she would soon castrate him too.
Without a word, he turned around and left, slamming the massive door behind him. With a few rushed strides, he reached his Jeep and jumped over the custom door, sliding into the driver’s seat as the key found the ignition and the engine started. As he reversed out of the driveway, he heard his mother shouting again.
“See? Now you’re driving our son away. If anything happens to him, I swear…”
The rest faded behind him as he sped through the hilly, sleeping street, then across town heading for the ski resort. Up there, on the deserted mountain, under the stars, he could find some peace.
FIFTEEN
PRELIMINARY
The sun peeked from behind Wildfire Ridge, sending sharp rays burning through the lingering fog that colored the glens and ravines a misty gray. It was going to be another beautiful summer day.
Kay barely registered that; her mind wallowed in the darkness surrounding Jenna’s brutal death. What could’ve happened to that girl in April to transform her from a confident and easygoing teenager to someone who looked as if she’d lost everything that had any meaning to her? She had to find out. Might’ve not been related to her actual death, but Kay’s gut wouldn’t let go. Whatever happened in April had turned Jenna into whom she had been in the last few months of her life, which spoke to victimology. Maybe, under her recent duress of unknown origin, Jenna somehow became vulnerable, and someone knew about it. Someone who wanted her dead.
“Why did you become a cop?” Elliot asked, shattering the silence that had been lingering between them since they left Kay’s place. He was driving the Ford to the medical examiner’s office on nearly deserted streets; the town still sleeping at that hour. Dr. Whitmore had spent another sleepless night and had summoned them to his office at first light.
Elliot shot her a quick glance from underneath the wide brim of his favorite cowboy hat, a black felt one with a small silver buckle on the hatband and a pronounced front dip. He’d picked Kay up a few minutes earlier. The moment she’d received Doc’s text invite, she’d stopped her early morning routine of spackling walls and sanding them ready to be painted, but even so, she barely had time to get dressed and be ready to leave before he arrived. A straggling thought nudged her; had she closed the lid on the spackling paste container? Or would she find it all dried up and clumped in brittle, white, useless bits?
Elliot’s question threw her into a whirlwind of emotions and memories. “You mean, now? You know why,” she deflected. Elliot was part of the reason she’d decided to stay in her hometown instead of returning to her previous life in San Francisco, but she wasn’t about to tell him that.
He flashed a quick smile he rushed to contain. “No, not now. When you joined the FBI.”
“Oh.” She considered her answer for a moment.
Like many traumatized people, she’d chosen psychology as her major, probably in a clichéd attempt to figure out her own problems. But she’d taken it to the next level when the FBI had offered her a job upon graduation. She’d accepted the offer enthusiastically, forfeiting the fat paychecks that psychologists made either as therapists for Silicon Valley’s overworked millionaires or becoming overworked business professionals themselves. She’d never looked back; she wanted her life to have meaning, and to the twenty-three-year-old graduate she used to be eight years ago, that meant preventing other families from going through the hell that hers had. If she could save one family, if she could keep one daughter from having to—
No. She couldn’t let herself think about it again.
Since her early days with the FBI, her concept of meaning had changed, had evolved in lockstep with her career, but it was still about saving lives, about giving victims a voice, about finding the truth, and delivering those responsible for crimes to justice.
“Why? Don’t you think I have the talent for it?” she replied with not one question, but two, a perfect example of how unwanted queries should be handled.
Elliot’s smile reappeared, lingering on his lips for a moment. He was onto her deflective tactics. “You’re faster than greased lightning to dodge my question.”
Unfazed, Kay calculated how much longer she needed to stall. Two more minutes, tops until he’d pull in front of the medical examiner’s office. “I wanted my life to mean something. If I could save a single life…” her words trailed off, realizing she was getting dangerously close to letting Elliot see past her defenses. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t work my share of white-collar crimes and embezzlement cases.” She frowned for a moment, thinking where she was going with that and why what she was saying felt wrong. “Those are important too, and in many cases, lives are saved from poverty and despair, but it’s not—”
“How did you graduate from white-collar to serial killers?” Elliot said, turning onto the medical examiner’s street with slightly screeching tires.
She smiled widely as she grabbed the door handle for balance. “I went looking for trouble. There was a case in San Francisco; it was my second year—”
Kay stopped as Elliot cut the engine in front of the single-story gray building that housed Dr. Whitmore’s office. “Some other time, I’ll tell you all about it,” she said, glad to focus all attention on Jenna instead of herself.
Quicker than her on the front steps, Elliot held the door open. She turned to say thanks as she entered the building and noticed the grimace of disgust on his face as the chilly morgue air with hints of formaldehyde hit his nostrils. She hid a smile and crossed the deserted lobby, then pushed through the stainless-steel swing doors that led to the autopsy room, passing quickly by the empty reception desk. It was still too early for any of Doc Whitmore’s helpers to be present.
The autopsy room was flooded in powerful light coming from several ceiling fixtures and an LED operating-room lamp installed on a mobile flex arm screwed into the ceiling. Only one of the two autopsy tables was occupied, the body resting on it covered with a white sheet.
