“I’ve seen the news reports regarding the case you’re working on, Sarah. You let yourself be vulnerable and you could end up a victim. You know this. It’s one of the hazards of your work. Not to mention the fact that you’re not going to win any popularity contests while you’re there. Stress can be an overpowering enemy.”
“Yeah. Yeah. I got it, Doc. I’ll do better.”
“Tomorrow,” Ballantine reminded. “Five o’clock. You call me and give me an update.”
Sarah gave her assurance and ended the call. She pitched her cell aside and lay there for a long, disturbing moment considering all that Ballantine had said.
The medicine made Sarah groggy, slowed her reactions. She just forgot to eat. It wasn’t on purpose. And the dreams etc., she had about as much control over those as she did the rest of her life. Shit happened.
She’d always dealt with it just fine except that once. Maybe the case had been too close to home. The murdered kids had been between eight and ten years of age. Sarah had empathized too closely with their vulnerability. Gotten in too deep ... nearly gotten herself killed.
She touched her right side. Shuddered.
Put it away. Don’t even look.
In her experience, the best medicine for her was work.
As long as she remembered not to trust anyone but herself.
With that in mind, she sat up and reached for her shoulder bag. She never left home without it. Inside she carried a folder on whatever case she was working, a flashlight, a compact pair of binoculars, pepper spray, matches, and toilet paper. Oh, and a bottle of water. The bag was her life preserver.
She pulled the folder from the bag and thumbed through her handwritten notes and the newspaper clippings and police reports she’d gathered. As if she’d gone blind and couldn’t see any of those things, her thoughts wandered back to Conner. If she opted to keep him around, how long would it take her to win him over to her side? A couple of days? Maybe. Right now he was just doing the job he’d been ordered to do. But he wantedthe truth just as badly as she did. Maybe more. He wouldn’t find it until he backed off that high horse of his and admitted that the killer could be anyone.
Then again, she could be expecting too much. Maybe winning him over wasn’t possible.
She’d learned in the past couple of hours that he wasn’t quite as easygoing as he appeared.
Not twenty minutes ago she had reminded herself what trouble she could get into hanging around with a guy like him. Suddenly she was leaning in that direction.
Kale Conner was a means to an end. He could help her get into places she might not get into otherwise. He could be useful. Keeping him around another day or so couldn’t hurt.
The last piece of research material she had in her file was a photograph that had cost her editor a pretty penny. A copy of a crime-scene photo taken of Valerie Gerard’s body on the cold stone floor at the chapel.
Why hadn’t Conner told her the truth about the body?
Maybe he’d been instructed not to. After all, that detail hadn’t been disclosed to the public. Nine days and counting and there hadn’t been a leak yet beyond the photo. But that wouldn’t last. Eventually someone else would break and then the proverbial shit would hit the fan.
That one redacted detail was more telling than any other related to the condition of the body. It also told something significant about the killer.
A single word had been written along the victim’s torso in her own blood.
That one word shifted this homicide to a whole different level.
A very personal level.
Sarah stared at the photo of the young woman who had died such a slow, painful death.
“Who hated you enough to call you that?” Sarah murmured. “Then killed you for it?”
One word, four seemingly innocuous letters that when aligned together carried profound meaning.
Liar
9
1812 Captains Alley, 8:30 p.m.
Kale spread the invoices across the kitchen table. Christine, his office manager, had done an outstanding job organizing the paperwork he needed to sign. He penned his legal signature on one document after the other, then leaned back in the chair and considered that was about all he needed to do for now.
