Page 13 of View from Above
Angie Green settled back in her seat. “She said she’d had to deal with the consequences of her mistake, and so should I.”
CHAPTER NINE
Angie Green’s marriage counselor confirmed her alibi. She and her husband had been waiting outside his office at promptly seven this morning for their appointment. Right in the timeframe Virginia Green had fallen to her death. She hadn’t been the one to coach her mother over the ledge, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t given someone else access to Virginia’s life.
Everything he’d pulled on the victim echoed in her daughter’s character testimony. Virginia had been applying to jobs around the city as the mortgage on her townhouse fell behind. Turned out she’d sold most of her valuable possessions to distance herself from her daughter’s support, leaving behind an empty museum of her life. The influx of cash in her accounts was only temporary since her trust fund and savings had been emptied about six months ago. The killer’s motive hadn’t been financial. At least not in Virginia’s case. No. Instead, the connection between the manner of death of this latest victim and Roland Kotite had Payton leaning to a personal grudge. But he wouldn’t know anything until the judge signed the exhumation order for Roland Kotite’s remains and they could prove the litigation lawyer had been murdered.
He snapped the to-go lid onto the last of two coffee cups and shouldered out of the break room. He had twenty-four hours to prove Angie Green had something to do with her mother’s murder, and the clock had started ticking the moment he’d brought her in for questioning. Not a lot of time to solve a case. Phones rang at intermittent intervals, puncturing through his single focus on the woman asleep at his desk. As much as he hated to admit it, she’d done a hell of a job handling their suspect. She’d gotten Angie Green to admit motive. That deserved a cup of the worst coffee Seattle had to offer.
He set the cup between her face and angled arm on the desk, and those mesmerizing brown eyes blinked open. “Rise and shine, Doc. Case isn’t solved yet.”
“Five more minutes.” Mallory pried herself from the wood surface and latched onto the recycled cup for support. Her hand skimmed against the stack of case files piled on the corner of his desk. While he primarily worked fresh homicides, his own cold cases, and suicide investigations, the department had taken a hell of beating the past couple of years. It was all hands on deck, wherever they could get them, and it showed. She swiped the remnants of fatigue from one eye. “Is this what your day normally looks like? Going from one case to the next with nothing more than coffee to get you through? When do you have time to eat?”
He took a sip of his own liquid adrenaline and collapsed back in his chair. Unpocketing a protein bar he’d gotten from the break room, he tossed it to her across the desk. “Don’t say I never get you anything nice.”
“Thanks.” She peeled the wrapper free and bit into the near flavorless cube of sugar, nuts, and protein powder. He’d managed to grab the last chocolate bar for her, the one with the most taste, but in that moment, he couldn’t exactly remember what anything tasted like. Soft brown waves caught on the zipper of her jacket and brushed against the underside of her jaw. Shadows crested and faded under clean cheekbones as she chewed, and he realized she’d forgone makeup entirely except for a swipe of mascara along her already thick eyelashes. The result exposed her for the natural beauty he hadn’t seen coming.
For the first time since he’d caught Mallory sprinting through the middle of a potential crime scene, Payton got a good look at the woman who had him doubting every case he’d closed. She’d seen a connection between Virginia Green’s death and her father’s where he hadn’t. What else had he missed?
Three distinct lines deepened between her brows as she tossed half the protein bar on his desk. “I take that back. This is disgusting.”
He couldn’t stop the laugh escaping past his control as he reviewed his notes from this morning. “You get used to it. The coffee too.”
She stopped herself in the middle of taking a sip and slowly spit it back through the small opening at the top of the lid, trying to hide her revulsion behind one hand.
“I saw that.” He tossed his notebook onto the desk and sat forward. In this light, he caught sight of a red streak down one side of her neck, and Payton swore to himself. Hell, he hadn’t meant to grab her, but every cell in his body had needed her to know he hadn’t meant any of what he’d said in that interrogation room. Not to her. “I’m sorry about before. Using your history with your father to break Angie Green.”
“You were just doing your job. I know that.” Mallory turned at the movement off to his right as a uniformed officer led their suspect to holding in cuffs. “What’s going to happen to her?”
Payton didn’t have the discipline to visually follow Angie Green down the length of the station. He only had attention for the therapist who’d knocked him on his ass. “No official charges yet, but she is a person of interest in this investigation. She had the opportunity and the motive to help her mother off that roof. Her lawyer is on his way, but we have every intention of holding her for the next twenty-two hours.”
“She has an alibi.” Mallory turned warm brown eyes back to him. “Doesn’t that count for something?”
“Not yet.” The concern in her voice, in the way she’d watched Angie Green led down the hallway, how she’d barged into the interrogation room to stop the accusations—it combined into a visceral storm of regret in the pit of his stomach. “You’re worried you two are more alike than you want to admit.”
“Aren’t we?” Mallory gripped her coffee cup but didn’t move to take another drink. “We both suffered for years at the hands of the people who were supposed to care about us. Who’s to say I wouldn’t have done the same thing given enough time to escape the pain?”
“You’re not the type.” Payton had always followed the evidence, but this claim came straight from his gut. Despite his initial reaction to her, Mallory didn’t have a murderous bone in her body.
“You don’t even know me,” she said.
“I know enough.” He lifted his phone and tapped the messages icon. Hitting the number at the top, he turned the screen toward her to show off the string of one-sided conversation between them. “You’ve been sending me messages and leaving voicemails on my phone for weeks to take a second look at your father’s case, and I know I wasn’t the only one. You were willing to alienate everyone involved in the investigation and possibly get yourself arrested for harassment, and you didn’t care. Because it was important. You knew something was wrong, and you were doing everything in your power to fix it.”
He set the phone down between them, her gaze honing on the screen. “The cases I investigate, the people I hunt, people like Angie Green, they go for the quick fix. Whether they’re motivated by revenge, greed, or love, it doesn’t matter. Some strategize to make sure they won’t get caught, but that strategy is just a manifestation of their pride. They’re not willing or they’re too weak to do the real work to solve their problems, and you’re nothing like them.”
“All right. Maybe she and I aren’t so alike.” Mallory skimmed her fingers down the side of his phone. “But I can’t help but notice you never answered any of my messages or returned my calls.”
“I’m not supposed to engage with stalkers, and neither should you.” Payton stood, grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair. “Come on. You’re beat. I’ll walk you to your car.” He set his hand at her lower back and navigated her through trash-covered desks, rogue office chairs, and rusted file cabinets. Detectives and uniformed officers maneuvered out of their way as he led her to the elevator. Despite the exhaustion from running off caffeine fumes since yesterday, his night was just beginning, but he wouldn’t put her through his destructive routine. More coffee. More protein bars. More cases.
He scrubbed the tiredness from his eyes as she ordered the elevator to the lobby floor. Hints of her body wash or lotion teased the back of his throat a split second before they were encased in the steel car together, and the vice restricting his ribcage loosened. Payton memorized the curve of her neck as she stared straight ahead. “Did you catch up with your mom earlier?”
“No. Not yet.” Mallory shifted her weight between both feet. “To be honest, I’ve kind of been pushing it off, but I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact I can’t avoid her forever.”
“Why would you want to?” The elevator signaled they’d reached the main floor, and they stepped out in tandem. Streetlamps flickered to life through the glass doors and windows revealing the small length of Virginia Street and the faces of civilians and officers outside.
“I think you’ve gotten enough of my crazy for one day, Detective.” A weak smile followed her attempt to brush her hair behind one ear as she targeted her vehicle a few cars down. Four-door sedan, older model. Sensible, reliable. The kind of car she would’ve been able to afford after walking away from her family’s fortune.
“Payton.” His elbow clashed with hers and threatened to unbalance him all over again. He rubbed his hands together to generate heat against the sudden drop in temperatures as the sun dipped beneath the horizon. “I’m always up for a bit a crazy. Just look at the kind of work I do for a living.”