“Show me,” James demanded.
Doc Jerome pulled back the sheet to reveal a girl in her mid-teens, black and blue from head to toe, the violent trauma of death etched in her horrified expression. Fright forever pasted on her face.
“Was she raped?” James asked, while tears escaped his eyes.
“Yes,” Doc Jerome said.
Neither man paid attention to Jake’s weeping at their side. He couldn’t stop as he viewed his younger sister. With a gentle caress, he touched her forehead, her cheek, then kissed her good-bye on the lips.
He turned away in grief, saw both his anger and his pain reflected in his father’s face. His father’s fists clenched, his shoulders racked with heavy sobs as he viewed the broken body of his daughter. Jake understood he looked with a father’s eye, not a cop’s.
“My baby,” James cried.
Jake listened every night at dinner when his father spoke of his cases. It was something distant, stories that didn’t touch his life. Until now.
The buzzing in his ears increased. Time and space slipped by, then someone held a glass of water to his lips. The stress of the situation had overtaken him—he’d collapsed on the floor.
“I’m sorry, Jake. I shouldn’t have brought you here.” James hugged him, crushing him to his chest.
“I’m fine, Dad. When you catch the bastard, I’m going to kill him for what he did to Eva. You need to know I’ll do it.”
It was the first time he’d ever cursed in front of his father.
It took every ounce of strength within him to pull himself out of the memory. A fist squeezed his heart. He couldn’t do this alone. God, he needed a drink. No, he needed Louie.
After a couple of hours, Jake decided to go back to work. Until a new trial came to fruition, he’d continue to line up the info on the case if and when they needed the ammunition to get a second conviction on Spaulding. He’d have it ready. Tonight, he would lay out a strategy and organize the files as he would for any other case he worked.
* * * *
News traveled fast in a cop shop. Among curious glances thrown his way, or comments of support from his detectives in the bullpen, Jake ignored them all. He took a seat at his desk across from Louie. His friend eyeballed him but didn’t comment, which Jake found out of character for him. The Wagner file he wanted to review wasn’t in his desk drawer.
“You got the Wagner file?”
“Yes.” Louie gathered the papers spread across his desk, placed them back in the file, closed it and handed the bulk of it to Jake.
As he took the file from Louie, Jake studied his partner and his messy desk. The finicky Louie didn’t match up with how he maintained his area. His suits pressed, his pants creased to razor sharpness, along with his precisely knotted tie and styled black hair, were at odds with the mess on his desk.
He wondered how Louie worked with all the clutter. Jake kept a phone and computer on his desk. All his files were in the desk drawer, alphabetized for easy access. Louie had all his files on top, an in-and-out box, an empty coffee cup and this morning’s wrapper from his breakfast sandwich. A cluttered desk would clog up my mind, Jake thought as he opened the file. Pushing Eva’s case to the back burner, he tried to concentrate on Shanna’s.
“Are you free tonight to throw a couple of things around?”
“Yep.”
“We’ll do it at my house after we get out of here. I’m going to suggest to McGuire that Burke and Kraus work Eva’s case if Spaulding gets a new trial,” Jake said.
“I agree.”
“I’ll need to tell him. And I don’t care what he said. I need to be in on the briefing. I’ll be right back.”
Jake got up and walked into McGuire’s office without knocking. “Shamus, give the case to Burke and Kraus. When the time comes, I’d like to be in on the initial meeting in case they have questions.”
“I’ll need them to come at it with fresh eyes, Jake, not with your preconceived notions.”
“I’m not going to offer personal opinions. The file will speak for itself. No one is more familiar with it than me.”
McGuire checked his calendar. “We might as well get ahead of this. Set it up in Conference Room One for three o’clock on Wednesday afternoon. I want to refamiliarize myself with the file and also give Burke and Kraus time to do the same. And Jake? I’m still in charge here.” Jake took the mild slap on the wrist without comment.
After reserving the conference room, he left it up to the captain to speak with Burke and Kraus. All day he tried to keep his mind off Eva’s case while he dug into Shanna Wagner’s file and rearranged the contents to coincide with the timeline as they understood it.
“I’ll let you catch up before I give you my thoughts on this.” Louie scratched his head. “Chloe Wagner stopped in to see you.”
“Shit.” Jake blew out a breath.
“Yeah, she asked a few questions about her sister, but she seemed more concerned about you ignoring her calls.”
He’d been an idiot to date her in the first place. Right from the beginning, he handled her wrong and now he was paying for it. Never before had he disregarded a regulation. Ha, the one time I do and it’s a catastrophe. An indiscretion like this could cost him his career. He’d been flattered by the way she had pursued him. Her pretty girl-next-door looks fooled him. No matter where he turned, restaurants, bars, the grocery store, Chloe was there. Alarms should’ve sounded. What a fool he’d been. On the second date, she had insisted on bringing dinner to his house. Before he had a chance to open the cartons of takeout she was on him. He should’ve kicked her out then. Instead he took what she had to offer. Afterward when they lounged in bed, Chloe had started to talk of the future. She stressed how they both had dealt with death at an early age and understood it was important to live for today because there might not be a tomorrow. Before she had finished her sentence, he had her dressed and out the door. She had scared the living hell out of him. No way had he led her on about commitments and forever.
When she called the next day, he ended the relationship over the phone. In hindsight, maybe he should’ve done it after a third date, not the morning after, but the woman had shopped for a damn ring, for God’s sake. After he broke it off, he decided to keep a journal of the times she had showed up at a place where he was dining or drinking. It went from flattering to creepy, fast. She seemed to have arrived at a place even before he made plans to be there. “Cripes, dating her was a mistake. What did you tell her?”
“I told her I don’t get involved in your personal affairs.”
“Oh please! I can’t get you out of my personal life. There’s something off with her. Did you feel it?”
“No,” Louie said, wiping the grin off his face.
“Well I did, when I was with her. We should have taken a closer look at her sooner.”
“You can’t miss what’s not there, Jake.”
“I’m hoping we did. Otherwise we have nothing. Let’s put everyone back on the suspect list and start over.”
With fresh eyes, Jake studied the crime scene photos first. Once or twice he caught himself comparing them to Eva’s wounds. It was difficult, but he forced himself to remain in the present. Such brutality in most cases meant the victim knew her killer. Somewhere along the line, Shanna had pissed off someone and paid the ultimate price. The question was who had she angered? Rage, Jake thought. The crime scene photos exhibited uncontrollable rage.
Everyone they had interviewed stated Shanna was well liked with no enemies. An ambitious woman, she was first in her class, a scholarship athlete