“Like I said, PTSD from the Hash and Tiffany tragedy could have been a trigger. Or it might all just have been building over time, increasingly exacerbated by the daily stresses of working in sex crimes.”
Angie’s thoughts turned to Grablowski and his words about the development of paraphilic love maps and sexual deviance. Was there something in her own prepubescent past that would explain her issues around sex and control? Her resistance to—fear of—love? The emotional walls she’d been erecting around herself over the years of being a cop?
Could it explain why she’d often felt so oddly distant from her parents and why she’d felt Hash had been more of a mentor and father figure in her life than her real dad had?
“I need to talk to my father again,” she said quietly.
Alex nodded. “And here’s another thing I can offer you. Something bad happened to that little girl in the past you’ve blocked out, and I suspect that subconsciously you’ve been spending your entire adult life trying to fix whatever it was. To save her. To make it right. I think it’s why you became a cop.” He paused. “And why you chose to work sex crimes in particular.”
A chill trickled down the length of Angie’s spine. Her thoughts wheeled to what she’d told Merry Winston, about how shecared. For that nine-year-old who’d slept with a knife under her pillow. For the little girl she’d seen at the gas station, carrying her doll. For Tiffy Bennett, abused and killed by her own father. The words had just poured from her mouth in a quietly passionate outburst. And she realized Alex Strauss might be right.
In everything she’d ever done as an officer, she was trying to save that little girl in pink with the long red hair.
And in losing Hash, she’d lost a father figure who was a true friend. In losing Tiffy, she’d failed the little girl in pink. And now that little girl wasn’t going to hide inside Angie anymore. She wanted her place in the world.
CHAPTER 58
“What the fuck—are youfollowingme? I don’t have to talk to you guys anymore. I don’t have anything to say. My dad’s lawyers—”
“Oh, we think you have something to say, Jayden,” Maddocks said as he and Holgersen reached Norton-Wells.
“This is harassment.” Norton-Wells’s pupils were already dilating as Maddocks and Holgersen hemmed in on either side of him, leaning in, and kept inching him backward toward the wall until he was backed into a corner.
The kid’s gaze twitched in desperation toward other students exiting the law building, as if seeking a lifeline from one of them.
“Jayden!” a guy called, coming toward them.
“I ... I gotta go—” Norton-Wells started saying.
But Holgersen stepped in front of Norton-Wells, blocking his line of sight to the approaching guy.
“Yous didn’t come down to the station to make a statement about the stolen vehicle,” Holgersen said, towering over Norton-Wells. “You says you was sick, but you looks all better to me, what you say, Maddocks?”
“He didn’t come down because the Lexus wasn’t stolen, now was it, Jayden?” Maddocks said.
“Jay?” said the male student as he neared. “You okay?”
“You want all your legal colleagues of the future to see you being arrested, Jayden?” Maddocks said.
Norton-Wells paled. He was starting to sweat—signs of stress, cortisol dumping into his system. “What do you mean?”
“For the rape and murder and mutilation of Gracie Drummond.”
His eyes widened. “Go ahead,” he yelled to his friend. “I ... I’m good. I’ll catch up with you guys.”
The student hesitated.
“Go. I’m fine.”
The other guy wavered a moment, then turned and left. Norton-Wells swallowed, his mouth clearly going dry. More stress. Good, thought Maddocks.
“We knows you were not at the Auberge—you know about CCTV, Mr.Law Boy?”
“They don’t have—”
Holgersen laughed. “He thinks they don’t have surveillance cameras, Maddocks, you hear that?”
“Sure did.”
