The Man Behind The Badge

“Detective Quinn, it’s Celeste Langley again.”

Instantly, he felt the edges of his brain growing fuzzy.

“I’m so sorry to phone this late, but—”

“Don’t worry about it. I barely finished working,” he said, thinking she sounded upset. “In fact, I’m still on my way home.”

“That’s a very long day.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“I...Detective, I just had a call from a man who told me he was one of Steve’s patients.”

Travis felt an icy numbness at the base of his spine, the sensation he always felt when he knew he was hearing something not good.

“He said that you and Detective Ballantyne had been to see him, and—”

“What was his name?”

“Evan Reese.”

Definitely not good. Reese had been seeing Steve Parker five days a week for the past three years, but he was clearly a long way from being cured of whatever his problem was.

Not that Travis figured he was any expert in the field of psychiatry, but it didn’t take Sigmund Freud to recognize a mentally unbalanced person. And his read on Reese was that the man might be dangerous.

“We talked to him a couple of hours ago,” he said, keeping his voice calm. “Why did he phone you?”

“He said he wanted to offer his condolences. But...well, the thing is, the conversation got weird enough to make me nervous.”

Weird. Crap. They were well beyond not good.

“Even so, I wouldn’t be calling except that I simply couldn’t figure out why you’d tell him about me, let alone give him my number. So I decided that if I bothered you for just long enough to get an explanation, I’d sleep a lot better.”

“Ms. Langley...did he say we gave him your number? Or are you only assuming—”

“No. He said you happened to mention Steve had a sister, and that when he told you he’d like to offer me his sympathies you gave him the number.”

“Well, he lied.”

“You mean about your giving him my number? Or do you mean you didn’t even mention me?”

“Not a word.”

“Oh,” she murmured.

Her tone told him he’d just upped her anxiety level.

“Then how did he even know I existed?” she asked.

“Your brother must have talked about you.”

“No, that can’t be it.”

“He wouldn’t have had to say much.”

“But he wouldn’t have said anything. I wasn’t an important part of Steve’s life. I don’t imagine he ever talked about me to anyone, and he’d definitely never have said a word about his personal life to his patients.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. It would have been inappropriate, and one thing I do know about Steve is that he was very professional.”

Okay, if it wasn’t Parker who’d told Reese...

Travis tried to think of another possibility but came up empty—probably because his mind was so closely focused on the fact that since Reese had Celeste Langley’s number he likely had her address, as well.

That thought reminded him he’d forgotten to ask an obvious question, so he said, “Regardless of how Reese knew about you, is your number listed? Could he have gotten it from Information?”

“Uh-uh. It’s unlisted.”

“Then I think we’d better talk some more about this face-to-face. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

“No, wait. Coming here at this time of night would be crazy. I can—”

“Five minutes,” he repeated. “Ten, max. And...” He hesitated.

What would happen if Reese showed up at her place?

He considered the question for a couple of seconds, then decided that when she’d been so cautious about letting him and Hank in last night, she’d never open her door to a stranger. Especially not one like Reese.

And that meant there was no point in warning her not to. It would only make her more upset.

“And what?” she said.

“Nothing. Nothing that can’t wait till I get there.”

CHAPTER THREE

Monday, October 4, 10:23 p.m.

GAZING OUT INTO the night, stroking Snoops’s soft gray fur while she watched for Travis Quinn, Celeste couldn’t help feeling a little dumb for not even considering that Evan Reese might have been lying.

If that possibility had occurred to her, she’d never have bothered Quinn. But she had. And despite her guilt about that, she wasn’t entirely unhappy that he was on his way over.

She was feeling a chilliness that had nothing to do with the room temperature. If Reese hadn’t gotten her number from the detectives, then where?

And how had he even connected her to Steve when their last names were different? Obviously, he’d somehow learned Steve had a sister, but just how had he honed in on her?

While she anxiously watched the street, a car sped down it and pulled to an abrupt stop in front of her building. A black Mustang. The car Travis Quinn had been driving last night.