The Rookie Club: Dead Center Part 9

"There must have been something," she pressed. "What happened?"

"I don't know," he said again. "I swear. I thought we were fine and then she blew me off again. It's like there are two of her-one hot, one cold. It's not the first time. She does this from time to time-kind of freaks out and distances herself. But it got to me this time. I was furious."

Jamie noticed how he spoke of Devlin in the present tense. Like she wasn't dead. "And you hadn't talked since you were in her office?"

"No."

She shook her head. It didn't make any sense. "So after the banquet you went back?"

"I went out for drinks with Marshall and Ramirez then Ramirez dropped me off. I saw her car in the lot, so I went up to her office."

"And?"

"I called her name, but she didn't answer. I walked in. The office was dark and I saw her on the floor. I leaned down to check her and someone hit me."

"Did you see the attacker?"

He shook his head.

"Did you hear anything?"

He glanced up. "Yeah. He said something."

"What did he say?"

"He said, 'Stupid b.a.s.t.a.r.d.'" Tim's eyes widened. "I think he stuttered it, actually."

"Stuttered?"

Tim nodded.

"Did you tell all this to the police?"

"Yeah," he said, deflated. "I told them."

Jamie tried piecing it together. It was enough to charge him. The blow to the head was hard to explain. He couldn't really have given it to himself, but maybe they thought it had happened in a struggle with her. "Do they have anything else?"

"They talked to her neighbor about the fight."

"And that's all?"

He didn't respond.

"Tim."

"I wrote her a note. I gave it to her when I was leaving her office that day-before the banquet."

The guard appeared behind Tim. He pointed to his watch.

Jamie put a finger up. "One minute." She looked back at Tim. "What kind of note?"

He didn't answer.

The guard stepped forward, took Tim's arm. Tim tried to pull free.

Jamie stood up and rapped on the window to get Tim's attention. "What did the note say?"

The guard yanked Tim to his feet. The phone clattered against the gla.s.s.

Jamie banged against the thick plastic window. "Answer me," she shouted.

Tim shook his head, kept silent.

"Christ, what did the note say?" she yelled.

He met her gaze. His words were barely a whisper. They struck her ears like thunder.

"That I couldn't live without her."

Chapter 12.

Hailey Wyatt parked the department's brown Taurus in a spot at the far end of Was.h.i.+ngton Square just below Russian Hill. The residential neighborhood was quiet at lunch time. Anywhere else, she would have flipped down the police lights on her sun visor and parked in the red. Not here. When she was here, she didn't want to call attention to her car. Or herself. They always arrived separately. She always left first. Her rules, not his. There was too much at stake professionally and privately to get caught.

She sat in the car, stared across toward Buck's building, wondering the same thing she always did when looking at this view. Why was she here? There was plenty to keep her occupied with Natasha's murder. CSU and the lab were scrambling to solidify the evidence against Tim Worley. She and her team were interviewing everyone to identify any witnesses. Though they were trying to narrow the window, the time of death was currently estimated between eleven and two. Even at that hour, Hailey had to believe someone saw something. It was always that way. There was always a case that required her attention, more to do to finish off the workload, tie up one murder as another landed on her desk. This one was worse. This was the murder of a police officer. Everyone was putting in one hundred and ten percent. The pressure was as heavy as she'd ever felt it. And despite all that-or perhaps because of it-Hailey was here.

She pictured John kissing her good-bye that morning, saw the girls in their bath the night before. They'd had a good night. As near perfect as ever. So why did she do this? Why wasn't that life enough?

She imagined how she'd grown up-the comings and goings of her mother's men. Men Hailey never knew, a long line of shadows whose faces never had the chance to imprint. That had been her mother's choice. Not to keep those men around. She didn't want a partner; aside from the occasional companions.h.i.+p, relegated to the hours when her daughter was sleeping, she didn't want companions.h.i.+p. Hailey wasn't her mother. Nor did she blame her for her own failings. That would be pointless. Still, she knew the answer lay somehow in that past.

Giving in to her desire, Hailey stepped from the car and crossed through the park. The sun cut between two fat clouds that looked like unshorn sheep grazing in a blue pasture. A woman in sweatpants ate a McDonald's hamburger and fed bread to pigeons. She spoke to them in a low jabber that Hailey a.s.sociated with mental illness. The pigeons didn't seem to mind.

The woman reeled her arm back over her head and threw bread to the far reaches of the flock like a fly fisherman casting. She paid no attention to Hailey.

Head down, Hailey hiked the steep block of Union Street, then turned in to the familiar marble facade on August Aly. She stared at the bell, felt more guilt. Rang apartment number 10. The door buzzed and clicked open. Without a word, she climbed the two flights. The halls were empty. His door was cracked. The first time she'd made this trek, a nest of rattlesnakes had been hatching in her belly. Now, just the eager flutter of a dozen b.u.t.terflies.

She let herself in, closed the door behind her, turned the lock, and made her way into the kitchen.

Buck drank ice water from a tall plastic cup, handed it to her. She took a thirsty gulp before he pulled it from her hands. He set it down with a splash and yanked her to him. She heard her breath seize as he took her mouth, pressed against her. Intense.

His mouth on hers, he backed her down the hallway toward the bedroom. No words. Her jacket dropped to the floor. He unfastened her b.u.t.tons, kissed her neck, the small of her throat. He hung her s.h.i.+rt off the bathroom doork.n.o.b. They fell onto the bed, the rest of their clothes soon a tangled mess on the floor.

"G.o.d, I missed you," he said when they were done. The first words they'd spoken.

She smiled, rolled over, and leaned her chin on his chest. "Me, too."

He tucked an arm under his head, wound a finger through her hair.

She pushed his hand away, the motion too much like John. They couldn't be the same. She forced the guilt out, closed her eyes. Tired.

Buck ran a finger down her spine. She felt the stretch of her muscles in the small of her back and legs. Sighed. "What's going on in IA?" she asked. Talking work made it feel less personal, less like she and John.

"You heard Scanlan's latest?" he asked.

"No. What'd he do?" Scott Scanlan was the deputy chief's son. Though Hailey never met him, rumor had it that he was a punk with a tendency to drink too much and act like a total a.s.shole. After getting kicked out of the Los Angeles Police Department after a drunken incident at the annual police ball, he made his way home and hooked up with Daddy's department.

"Couple of investigators from General Works made some jokes. Scanlan got so upset, he took them on in the parking lot."

She winced. "He's only five seven or something."

"Yeah. And he was already on probation."

She remembered the story. A few months back, Scanlan was out drinking at Balboa Cafe, one of three bars that made up a hot spot called the Triangle in San Francisco's marina district. Drunk, Scanlan demanded a college kid give up his burrito. The kid had refused and Scanlan hit him. The kid hit back and although Scanlan had suffered most of the injuries, the kid had called the police.

The department had tried to sweep the incident under the rug. The attempt to conceal Scanlan's misadventure had led all the way to the chief of police, but the media had gotten wind of the story and the attempted cover-up and hung the whole department out to dry over it. There was a flurry of press releases issued about Scanlan's mental state-references to post-traumatic stress though no one could identify the incident to which the reaction was related.

"These are guys my age," he continued.

"Wow. Old, huh?"

He tickled her side.

She wiggled. "What did they say to him?"

"Burrito jokes."

"Oh G.o.d."

"I guess Scott took a swing at one of them."

"What'd they do?"

"They left him cuffed to the axle of his car."

She laughed. "That's terrible."

"Ah, he deserved it, the punk." He turned her over, kissed her again. They stopped talking for a few minutes. Then he sat up again, stared at her. "What's going on with Devlin?"

She put a leg over his, tucked herself against him. Put her head down. "You heard Tim Worley came forward? He was with her. Says she was already dead when he found her in the office."

Buck raised a brow.

"Claims he planned to take her to the hospital. He knelt down to check her pulse when he was. .h.i.t in the head."

"Any evidence he was. .h.i.t?"

She nodded. "He's got a odd-shaped cut and a goose egg. He claims he woke up a bit later and carried her out."

"Why carry her out if she was already dead?"

"Says he didn't realize she was dead until he was already moving her. Then he didn't want to leave her there."

"Is the story consistent?"

Hailey shrugged. "Hard to be sure. She was definitely killed in her office and definitely moved. That's about all I can say on it yet."

"You find a weapon?"

"No. And since he'd showered by the time he came in, any trace evidence on him is down the drain. He was. .h.i.t by something. CSU is working with photos and some molds of his injury to try to find out what it was."

"Where's he now?"

"In jail. We found clothes covered in Natasha's blood in his car."

He whistled.

"Did you see the blowup they had at the awards ceremony? Must've been three-dozen witnesses."

"Christ. Not good PR for the department."

"'Cause he's with the department?"

He nodded. "We've got enough bad PR circulating."

Neither said anything for several moments.

"How do you figure it happened?" he asked.

"Lovers' quarrel in her office," she offered. "He came at her. She struck him in the head, and he slammed her against the desk or something to finish her off. Could've been an accident. We're still running some basic tests, but we've got two different s.e.m.e.n samples. Our lab can't do anything with it, so the samples go to the outside lab. It could take months to get usable DNA results. And that's if we're lucky."

Buck frowned. "s.h.i.+t."

"She got around, too, which doesn't help," Hailey told him. "Once we match the other one, we'll need to talk to that guy, too."

"Well, it's good work. Lots of people watching that case. Better to have it wrapped up."

"It's not that simple," she said. "One thing we can definitely tell from the evidence is that Natasha had s.e.x with someone else after Worley."

"So you think Worley interrupted something and killed her?"

"If so, who's our other guy? Why didn't he come forward?"

"You printed her office?"