Chapter Seven
Eric
April nights were cool, even so late in the month. The snow was gone, except for the occasional remnants of snowbanks on the north side of buildings, but the earth was still cold. Spring still had to fight its way to the surface.
Eric shifted his chair a little closer to his fire pit. He used it from when the first patch of green appeared in his backyard until it was covered with snow again. It was especially satisfying to take his axe to a stack of logs and work out his frustrations. He’d chopped most of it already as he tried to figure out what went wrong with Bree. The batch of splinters he was burning now were the result of his feelings about seeing her again.
The rumble of Adam’s motorcycle pulling into his driveway stirred him enough to give a shout from the backyard. Adam’s obsession with bikes had started long before he got his badge. Eric wouldn’t give up his truck for any amount of money, but he understood the appeal after the first few rides he’d taken.
The bike also indicated Adam’s failure. If he’d convinced Bree to come back to Eric’s house with him to chat, they would have arrived by car. “Was she there?” he asked.
Adam dropped into the Adirondack chair beside him. “Oh, she was there,” he said. He twisted the cap off the beer bottle Eric had set out for him. “Ask me who she was with.”
That sounded like a trick question.
“Forrester,” Adam said before he could answer.
“She was with Forrester?” He supposed the biker could be Bree’s type. She preferred more rough-and-ready to Wall Street types. But he hadn’t thought she’d cross over to the dark side.
“Not willingly, according to both her and Forrester. She vanished as soon as I got there. Forrester said he tracked her down to give her another message, but since I was there, we had it out in the parking lot. We might have a lead on Jane Doe. One of the Ice Road Warriors, Hammer Wilson, was admitted to St. Boniface Hospital a couple weeks back. Wilson’s cousin was in town visiting and she drove him to the Emergency room. She went home to Ontario, but she’s back in town now and she saw Jane’s picture on the news. She thinks she saw Jane Doe talking to a man when she was there.”
“Do we believe it?” Eric asked. The story didn’t fit.
“Maybe. We know our January vic was a former Warriors party girl. We crossed paths with some of Forrester’s boys who went out to look for her, but they came up empty. Forrester said they’d usually never help the cops, but they’ve put together a couple pieces. Too many dead women, and no progress on January’s case is pissing them off. They shook a few trees to see what would fall out, but they’re running as blind as we are.”
“That’s all we need.” The WPS operated on procedures and patience and laws. The Ice Road Warriors ran on vengeance, and had no restrictions on how they’d get their information. They might find the first woman’s killer, but none of the proof the club found would be usable in court. Eric smirked at the thought. Like the fuckwit responsible would get anywhere near a court if the Warriors found him first. “Will they tell us if they get anything?”
Adam shrugged. “The cousin is willing to come in and give us a statement. Maybe work with a sketch artist. But we’re still negotiating. Forrester wants to ensure we aren’t going to ask her anything about the club.”
“What happened with Bree?” Eric asked. The other information was important, but it wasn’t what he wanted to talk about.
A log in the steel box crumbled, sending a shower of sparks and ash into the air. Flames danced for a minute and then settled down again. “She was there. She looked a bit freaked with a biker sitting with her, but okay. She bolted as soon as I arrived.”
“You didn’t get to talk?”
“She said she’d call again tomorrow. And for me to leave the Greys alone.”
“You had to see that one coming.” Eric used to have her loyalty like that. “How did Forrester find her?” he asked.
“He didn’t volunteer that information. It could have been coincidence,” Adam said.
“I think I’ll call after all. Discourage any more coincidences,” Eric said. Any distance between Forrester and Bree would be a good thing.
****
Mackie had his ass parked in Booker’s chair when Eric arrived at the station the next morning. “Where’s my trainee?” Eric asked.
“Getting me coffee. You guys have a real pot. We have that pod crap in Sex Crimes.” Mackie stretched, his arms extended well past the sides of the desk. He was the kind of cop the PR department loved. Clean-cut, huge, and intimidating as hell. They tried to get Mackie on the stage behind the chief of police once when he had to give a press conference and they wanted to keep the reporters in line.
Mackie liked reporters and had enjoyed working with them. They liked him back, especially after the chief had made a comment about another female reporter’sassetsand Mackie had stepped aside and let the man get slapped. Mackie hadn’t been invited to another press conference since.
“I hear Bree’s back in the picture. What’s up with that?” Mackie asked.
Why did every man he know want to talk about his ex-girlfriend? And who kept telling them about her? Mackie had known Bree back in the day. He’d originally been assigned to Homicide but had transferred to Sex Crimes before the whole Zane fiasco went down. He and Eric had stayed close, but Eric hadn’t seen much of him lately. Until recently, Mackie had been putting in the hours trying to close Jane Doe’s assault. Now that file had moved to Eric’s unsolved pile.
“What are you doing up here?” Eric asked.
“I have a buddy who works at Stony,” Mackie told him.
“We all have buddies who work at Stony,” Eric said. Stony Mountain Institution was the federal prison thirty minutes outside the city. It was for bigger, badder criminals, and WPS kept them well stocked.
“Well, my buddy called me first thing this morning to give me news on Zane,” Mackie continued.
“What news?”
“You’re not going to like it.”
