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She took a deep breath. “I’ll start with Ossokov. The way he stared at Bob, even when I was the one asking the questions, was… I don’t know. Almost like he wasoffendedArnett would show up at his door. If he was just feeling harassed by the unit he’d have been offended by me, too, but he wasn’t. Like Arnett’s presence in particular was some act of aggression.”
“Did you ask Bob about it?”
“I did. He swears nothing particular happened between them during the investigation.”
Matt shifted in his chair. “You think he’s not being straight with you?”
She raked her bottom lip. “I trust Bob more than anybody in the world, and I can’t imagine why he’d lie. And Bob has always preferred to be the backup eyes and ears, he’s not the one out front. I engage, he observes. I’ve always been able to draw people out, and he watches and analyzes. So if a suspect had honed in on someone, it wouldn’t have been him, it would have been the other detective.”
“Who was the other detective?”
“I started to ask him, but Marzillo called and I forgot. I’ll ask him tomorrow.”
“Maybe something happened that Bob just doesn’t remember,” Matt said. “You investigate hundreds of crimes a year. It’s like asking me if I remember all the conversations I had with a random patient I saw fifteen years ago. No way that’s going to happen, even after I consult my contemporaneous notes.”
“Exactly like that,” she said.
Matt took a long sip of his wine and leaned back in his chair. “Well. I don’t know what’s going on, but I know you well enough to know if something about this is bothering you, it’s bothering you for a reason.”
She put on a teasing love-struck expression and reached over to stroke his hand. “Aw, you always know the right thing to say.”
He scrunched his face at her playfully. “I mean it. But you also said Bob’s reaction was worrying you?”
Her face dropped again. “That’s even harder to pin down. He just feels… off. Distant and closed. I can’t help but feel like there’s something he’s not telling me. You know how when you come back onto land after being on a boat all day and you feel wobbly like the ocean’s still moving under you? That’s how this feels. Like the ground under me is moving, ever so slightly.”
Matt squeezed her hand. “Maybe he’s just upset because he knows the people involved? You worked with Ashville fairly closely, didn’t you?”
Jo nodded. “That’s another thing, actually. I thought I had a reasonably accurate sense of her character, but the more we learn about all this, the more clear it becomes that she plays fast and loose with boundaries. Nothing illegal, but the way she chased off Hauptmann crossed a line in my opinion. And as much as I don’t want to, I tend to believe the Hauptmanns that she asked the officer who responded to the nuisance call to find a reason to take him in.”
Matt connected the dots she didn’t want to speak out loud. “You think Bob knows more than he’s saying about Ashville and Ossokov?”
Jo tapped the tines of her fork on her plate. “I really don’t want to believe that. Holding back the truth isn’t like him.”
Matt looked down at the table. “No, not from what I’ve seen.”
“Anyway.” Jo set her fork onto the plate and pushed it away. “Maybe it’s just because I’ve had next to no sleep for two nights, and I’m not likely to get any tonight, either, with a killer out there waiting to murder someone in the small hours.”
DAY THREE
CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE
Just after midnight, she emerged, changed in her gym clothes.
An hour a day she should be spending with her partner, who was most likely in bed now without her. I had no sympathy for people who didn’t appreciate what they had.
My heart thudded in my chest like a dog’s tail on a carpet. She was right on time. I didn’t feel ready. When I’d planned it all out, I’d decided fast was better. Less time for the police to figure anything out, less time for me to get too lost in my head overthinking everything. But twenty-four hours flew far faster that I’d imagined once everything was in motion, and I felt like I was on a carnival ride that couldn’t be stopped.
I checked the time. It took her ten minutes to get to the gym, and she normally worked out for fifty minutes. She didn’t shower until she was back home. Since I was fifteen minutes away, that gave me forty-five minutes to watch and mentally prepare.
The parking lot was nearly empty thanks to the late hour. I parked as close to her car as I could while both avoiding the single security camera that hovered over the front and staying in sight of the front window. The entire storefront was conveniently made of glass, from sidewalk to ceiling, so anyone outside could watch everyone working out.
She stood talking to the guy behind the counter. They always chatted for a minute or two, and he always said something that made her shake her head and laugh for a moment. I decided weeks ago he must be some connoisseur of dad jokes, the kind that make you wince and moan. Most of the people who went in swiped their cards and hurried past. He’d look after them for a moment as they headed in, like he was casing them. Maybe he was.
The instant she walked away from him, her taut expression returned. Then she made her way to the treadmill, a tight bundle of tension, all scowling face and stiff muscles. She warmed herself up slowly over the first two minutes, then in an almost desperate burst accelerated into a full run, as though trying to escape herself. Within a few minutes she hit her stride, legs moving rhythmically while her mind slipped elsewhere. Then the muscles in her face relaxed—she even closed her eyes like she’d fallen asleep. ‘The zone,’ I’ve heard athletes call it: a place where endorphins kick in and peace swells from the center out.
I stared, fixated by the transformation. She smiled and wiped the sweat from her brow. How could a few minutes of physical exertion allow her to put it all aside? To put everything on her mind into a box, from the difficult decisions to the guilt from her failures?
A crack startled me, followed by a slash of pain. The plastic lid on the coffee I’d been sipping had popped off, and the hot liquid seared into my clutching hand. Swearing, I set the cup in the holder and retrieved the lid from the floor.
