Exposed (25 page)

“I was going to ask you the same question,” he said.

“I had to testify.”

“Again?”

“Comes with the job. You?”

“I was at the bank.” He glanced back over his shoulder toward the CenTex building, and she could see by the expression on his face that whatever he’d wanted there, he’d been disappointed.

He turned to look at her. “You done? We could grab some lunch.”

The expression on his face was completely bland. He could take it or leave it. But maybe there was more to the offer than she was seeing.

“Well?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“What don’t you know?” Again, carefully blank.

But fine. If he wanted to act as if this wasn’t their first social encounter since That Night, she could play along.

“How about Pino’s?” She nodded toward the deli across the street. “They have good subs.”

“Pino’s it is.” He fell into step beside her, and she hitched her purse up onto her shoulder. She glanced over and noticed him looking at her shoes.

Her nerves jumped as she remembered them thudding against the wall of his bedroom.

This was a bad idea. She should make it quick. And casual. When she reached the sub shop, she grabbed the door before he could open it for her.

The restaurant was warm like an oven and smelled of fresh-baked bread. Maddie slipped her coat off and draped it over her arm.

“You know that woman?”

She looked at Brian, who was reading the menu board.

“Navy suit,” he said. “Two o’clock.”

She glanced across the restaurant, and sure enough, a woman in a navy-blue suit was watching her. She quickly looked away.

“That’s Rae Loveland, the criminal defense attorney from the trial this morning,” Maddie said. “She doesn’t like me much.”

“Why not?”

“We’ve gone toe-to-toe a few times in the courtroom.”

“Really?” Brian looked intrigued.

“She’s especially unhappy with me today. I probably helped put her client away for shooting a cop.”

“Good for you.”

They reached the register. Maddie whipped out her wallet, and for once, he didn’t object when she paid for her meal. He paid for his, too. Friends out to lunch.
Not
a date. Not even a sort-of date.

They found a minuscule table by the window Brian had to shift his legs around, because they were too long for the narrow space. He dug into his food without even looking at her, and she felt relieved.

She unwrapped her sandwich, subtly trying to pick up on his body cues. He seemed relaxed. Unperturbed. Basically, the opposite of how he’d seemed the other day in her kitchen.

Had it really only been two days?

So much had happened. And so much
hadn’t
happened. Jolene Murphy hadn’t miraculously been found and returned to her family. The case hadn’t miraculously been solved—as far as Maddie knew.

She watched Brian eat his sandwich and wondered
if he’d tell her if they had any big leads. Probably not.

He glanced up at her. Then he glanced over her shoulder, and his mouth quirked up.

“What?”

“The lawyer. I’m trying to imagine the two of you duking it out.”

“I duke it out with lawyers all the time. The more important a photo is to a case, the more effort they make to discredit me at trial.”

He met her gaze, but now his expression was unreadable.

“So,” she said. “I’m glad I bumped into you.”

“Why?”

“Because I thought you were upset with me.”

“How come?” He sipped his drink through the straw.

“You didn’t call.”

“Neither did you.”

She searched his face, looking for any hint of resentment. “So we’re good, then?”

“We’re friends.” He rested his drink on the table. “That’s what you wanted, right?”

His tone was blasé, but her guard went up.

“You don’t think I can do it, do you?” He smiled slightly.

“Do what?”

“Be your friend without hitting on you.”

“I don’t think that at all. You probably have lots of female friends.”

The smile widened. Shame on her. That was a fishing expedition, and he’d seen right through it. His
female friends—or lack thereof—were none of her business.

“So, Maddie.” He wiped his fingers on a napkin and leaned his elbows on the table. “Now that the sex thing is off the table, can I ask you a question? Friend to friend?”

Her gaze narrowed at the word choice. But his expression was bland.

“Sure. What?”

“Why’d you get divorced?”

She drew back, surprised. She hadn’t expected something so personal. She hesitated a moment before answering. “We grew apart.”

He didn’t react, but she instantly regretted giving him such a canned answer.

“It was Emma, mostly.” She looked out the window, at the hustle and bustle of people going to lunch. “After what happened, I don’t know, we just . . .” She hesitated. They
had
grown apart, but that was such an inadequate way of describing the chasm that had opened between them.

Plus, if she was being honest here, it wasn’t really accurate.

Maddie sighed. She looked him in the eye. He was watching her now, very carefully.

“Everyone tells you people grieve in different ways.”

He nodded.

“Turns out, Mitch grieves with his penis.” She looked out the window again, because all these years later, she still felt the sting of embarrassment. “He had an affair. Several, actually. The one I found out about was a twenty-five-year-old nurse.”

“Ouch.”

She shrugged. “It’s okay. I’m not sure I even blame him, really. I was a bitch to live with.”

“That doesn’t excuse infidelity.”

She sat back now and looked at him.

“What? It doesn’t,” he said.

“I’m surprised to hear you say that.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” Maybe because he was a guy—a young one—she’d expected him to be a little looser in the morals department.

It was a dumb assumption.

“Anyway, it was a messy divorce. Not to mention humiliating.” She picked up her drink and took a slurp.

“Doesn’t sound very amicable.”

“It wasn’t.”

“So why’d you keep his name?”

She put the drink down. How had they gotten into this extremely personal conversation? It probably would have been easier if they talked about sex.

Then again, they were friends now. Friends talked about things. If Brooke or Kelsey had asked her the same question, she wouldn’t have thought twice about answering.

“Emma was two.” She paused, searching for words that would make sense to someone who’d never been a parent. “She didn’t have anyone but us. Her family.” And Mitch didn’t count anymore. He’d moved on. Maddie felt the familiar burn in her chest.

Brian was watching her intently. “You feel connected to her. By keeping her name.”

She nodded, relieved not to have to verbalize it. This
was harder to talk about than she’d thought. She saw something in his eyes . . . something she recognized, but she couldn’t put a finger on it. Not pity, really. Empathy. This man had a heart, and that simple realization made her feel a swell of regret over the way they’d left things.

“What was she like?”

“Who, Emma?”

He nodded.

Maddie smiled. She looked out the window at the traffic, but her thoughts went to one of her favorite memories. They’d gone to a nursery to pick out shrubs for the yard. It was spring, and millions of monarch butterflies were migrating through the area. The nursery was swirling with them, and Emma had stood among the lantana, entranced by all the black and orange wings. Maddie’s eyes welled up.

“She was . . . a ray of sunshine wrapped in a little girl.” She smiled at him. “She could never sit still, ever. Unless she was asleep. And she had this infectious laugh . . .” A tear leaked out, and she swiped it away. “Sorry.”

The look of tenderness on his face made her throat ache. But he didn’t look uncomfortable. He didn’t look sorry he’d asked, and that mattered to her. It mattered a lot.

She looked away and regained her composure. She couldn’t believe they were talking about this. Most people never asked about Emma, never even mentioned her name.

Where did he get all this maturity? Maybe it had to do with fighting in a war. He’d seen death up close. He’d seen suffering. For all she knew, he was suffering
from some unhealed wounds of his own that he didn’t talk about.

He was watching her, and she looked down at her untouched sandwich, suddenly desperate for a change of subject.

“We have a new lead from Vega.”

She pounced on the topic. “The detective in California?”

“LAPD.” Brian nodded toward her food. “Aren’t you going to eat that?”

She picked up the sandwich. “What’s the lead?”

“Turns out the victim, Gillian Dawson, had just rented the apartment where she was murdered.”

“Okay.”

“The previous tenant at that address was Nicole Sands, a twenty-two-year-old from San Marcos. Her physical description is a lot like Gillian’s: five-two, blond, blue-eyed.”

“No way.” Maddie gaped at him.

“Turns out, Nicole was a high school classmate of Katya and Jolene. She went out there for college, dropped out her sophomore year.”

“Oh, my God, Brian. Where is she now?”

“We’re looking.”

“And you think
she
was the intended victim?”

“It’s a strong possibility.”

“What other possibility is there? We need to find this girl!” She grasped his arm. “Brian, she could be next on the list!”

“Believe me, we’re working on it. We’ve got half a dozen agents out in LA dedicated to the task.”

She sat back and watched him, both shocked and
alarmed.
Another
potential victim. Or maybe Volansky had already realized his mistake and found her.

She closed her eyes.

“That’s not all,” he said.

She looked at him, and something in his expression made her think that his bumping into her today was no accident, that maybe he’d specifically sought her out to tell her something.

But why hadn’t he simply called? Maybe he’d assumed she’d try to dodge him—which she would have.

“What is it?” she asked.

“We’re working a theory. Sam’s not sure about it, but I’m pretty convinced. We think these murders are all about silencing witnesses. Katya, Heidi, Jolene, and now Nicole. He’s tracking these girls down. Torturing them for information, in some cases. Then eliminating them.”

“But again,
what
information? We’re talking about college kids here. What could they possibly have on him that could be damaging enough to risk committing
four
murders?”

“We’re working on it,” he said, for the
n
th time.

From the floor, a chime. Maddie dragged her purse into her lap and checked her phone. “Damn.”

“What is it?”

“The sheriff needs me out in Wayne County.” She stuffed the phone back into her purse. “I have to go.”

“One more thing. Where’s your gun?” The look on his face chilled her.

“At home. Why?”

“Keep it with you.”

She looked at him.

“Okay?”

“But I don’t even have a permit—”

“You know how to use it?” he asked.

“Well . . . yeah.”

“Keep it with you.”

He scooted his chair back and stood up. Maddie stood, too. “You’re serious?”

He nodded.

“But what—”

“I don’t know what. I’ll tell you when I do.” He took her coat off the chair and handed it to her. “Until then, you need to be careful.”

Brian watched her dash across the street and pluck the parking ticket from her windshield. She muttered something he would have liked to have heard as she stuffed the citation into her purse and slid behind the wheel.

His phone buzzed.

“Yeah.”

“You talk to her?” Sam asked.

“Yeah.”

Brian glanced across the park toward the bank, where he’d left his car. The place where all this had started. He surveyed the bank entrance and wished more than anything that he could turn back the clock.

“Well, how’d it go?”

Worse than he’d hoped for. About how he’d expected. He pictured her talking about Emma. The guilt there ran deep. It was painful to listen to. And he knew
her guilt over her daughter was what drove her to spend her career working her ass off for perfect strangers.

“It went fine,” Brian said. “She agreed to start keeping her gun with her.”

And he’d make sure she did it, too.

“Okay, and what about the bank?”

“Another dead end,” Brian reported. “But I thought of something else, talking to Maddie. I may try Delphi again. I met the computer guy over there, and he seems pretty sharp. Think I’ll take this to him, see if we can get anywhere.”

“He does photo enhancement?”

“He does a lot of things. Most of them on computers.”

“Well, take it wherever you want, but do it soon. We’re racing a clock here, Beckman. And we’re running out of time.”