Page 14 of View from Above
She scanned the street over his shoulder, a distraction technique he’d noted at the condo where they’d questioned Kiera Wood. “It’s hard for me to see her miss a man I’ve resented for so long. I mean, we lived in the same house. He controlled her. What she ate, what she wore, who she talked to, where she went. He treated her as poorly as he treated me, if not worse, but—”
“But she still loved him.” He understood that brand of commitment too well.
“It’s like she can’t admit our family wasn’t as perfect as everyone thought. Like we have to live up to some expectation none of us were ever told about, and I… I want her to feel as relieved as I do that he’s gone. I want her to have the guts to be happy for once.” Her gaze found his, and the world righted itself. Mallory shook her head. “I probably sound insane right now. Maybe you should’ve had me arrested for harassment and tampering with your crime scene. At least then you could save the world from my influence.”
“You’re not insane.” If anything, she’d ripped the layer of denial he tried to hold onto free. “My mom still believes my father is going to walk through the front door of our house any day now, and every night at six, she cooks dinner for two. She sits down to wait for him until her food goes cold, and it’s only after she accepts he won’t be home for dinner or that I show up that she lets herself eat.”
“She must’ve loved him very much,” she said.
“Yeah, she did.” How the hell did she get him to open up like this when no one else—not his childhood therapist, not the department shrink, not the full range of partners who’d walked in and out of his life—could? What was it about her that convinced him he could trust her? Payton didn’t know. Was starting not to care. “But no matter how many times I tell her he’s not coming back, she won’t let it sink in. Not for long, anyway. And the next night she’ll be right back at that table, waiting for him to come home from work.”
“Grief is funny like that.” Mallory wandered down the sidewalk toward her car then turned to face him. “There one second, gone the next. It can surprise us at the least opportune moments and demand to take up space in our heads. I hope your mom can find a bit of peace though. Sounds like she deserves it.”
“Thanks.” He slipped his hands into his jacket, not really sure whether to shake her hand, thank her for her help today, or keep to himself. He’d go for the latter.
She dug her keys from her jacket and hit the remote key. The car’s lights flashed twice. She bent to wrench the driver’s side door open and put the plate of steel and glass between them, one boot along the curb. “Thank you for letting me tag along today and for pushing the exhumation order through. I appreciate it.”
“Yeah, well, next time you have a hunch something isn’t right with a death in your family, feel free to harass someone else.” He’d miss this. The back and forth they’d fallen into. Truth was, no matter how fluid and compelling the connection between them, once he closed Roland Kotite’s investigation, they’d go their separate ways. Her back to her private practice learning people’s secrets. Him to the next investigation. He lived in the shadows chasing the city’s worst killers, and she was on a mission to expose anyone and everyone to that light she carried. Incompatible, to say the least.
Her laugh filled the night around them and triggered a flood of goose pimples down his arms. Light, addictive, a laugh he could lose himself in if he weren’t careful. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She angled down into her seat. “Good night, Payton.”
“Good night, Mallory.” He took a single step away from the curb as she started the engine.
Right before a body slammed on top of her car.
CHAPTER TEN
Glass had shredded through her jacket and straight through skin.
Mallory clamped a hand over her arm as the EMT pressed a square of gauze to her temple. Stinging pain rippled across her face, but the rest of the lacerations hadn’t cut too deep.
She stared at her totaled car as police and fire and rescue walked around the scene. Just two inches to the right and she wouldn’t have survived.
“I’m going to have to take a look at that arm.” The EMT helped her free of her jacket sleeve. Blood stained the hem of her T-shirt and tendrilled down her arm. He added pressure, keeping her in the moment. “You’re lucky. Any deeper and the glass would’ve shredded through your artery.”
Lucky. She didn’t feel lucky. Red and blue patrol lights skimmed over the sidewalk where she sat and intensified the headache pulsing at the base of her skull. One minute she’d been forcing herself to say good night to Payton instead of giving into her biological impulses and the next he’d been dragging her shaking body from the car. Mallory pulled her knees into her chest. “Do they know what happened yet? Who she is?”
“The detective on scene isn’t talking.” The EMT wrapped her arm in gauze then packed up his duffle bag of emergency supplies. “You’re good to go. Just keep the wounds dry and clean for a couple of days. Should be good as new.”
“Thank you.” She caught sight of Payton on the other side of her car. Her breathing echoed—too loud—in her ears, and suddenly it was the only thing she could hear. Camera flashes, chittering civilians, reporters throwing questions over the perimeter tape—it all melded into her body’s natural rhythm until he was the only connection she had to the moment.
He worked the scene like the professional he was. Commanding. Focused. He moved as fluidly from one end of the perimeter tape to the other as though he’d done this a hundred times before, his expression never revealing anything more than neutrality. Because he had done this a hundred times before. Maybe more. And it was only once the medicolegal investigator cleared fire and rescue to move the body that he settled his gaze on her. In a matter of steps, he took position beside her, his back pressed against the precinct wall. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I should be in one of those body bags.” Exhaustion was quickly undermining her control, and her eyes burned as adrenaline drained from her veins. She watched the rescue crew climb on top of her car to dislodge the draped woman from the mangle of steel. The EMTs had warned her the crash was coming, but she’d hoped she could’ve held on long enough to fall apart at home. “Who is she?”
Payton ducked his chin to his chest, intent on fighting to answer, but she was part of this now. She deserved to know. “It’s Angie Green.”
Shock solidified in her stomach as she turned her attention to the set of his mouth. “You told me she would be in holding for the next twenty-two hours. You said—”
“I know what I said.” He leveled sea-blue eyes with hers, and it was then she recognized the same regret running through her. “We’re trying to find out how she managed to get to the roof. I’ve got Trooper Wells interviewing all of the uniformed officers who had contact with Angie from the time we brought her in to when she went off that roof, but we don’t have all the pieces yet.” He lowered his voice, seemingly memorizing the faces behind the crime scene tape over her shoulder. “Mallory, the medicolegal investigator discovered a handful of injection sites at the base of Angie Green’s skull. One of them was fresh.”
Her heart squeezed until black spiderwebs encroached on her vision. “She was murdered. She didn’t kill her mother. She was a victim. Why?”
“That’s what we need to find out, but I need to get you out of here first. Not too fast. We don’t want to draw attention.” Payton struggled to his feet, reaching down for her uninjured arm. He hauled her into his chest. Too close. Too comforting. “Out the back.”
“What? Why?” The weight of dozens of curious bystanders’ attention pressurized between her shoulder blades as he maneuvered her back into the precinct. But instead of taking the elevators up to the homicide unit, she followed him to another set of elevators leading to the parking garage.
He hit the call button and angled that sharp jawline up to watch the numbers.