On Dangerous Ground

“Both cases…” Sky’s voice trailed off, and she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “Grant, you’re not going to like what I have to say.”

“You’re sending that message loud and clear.”

The waitress returned with Sky’s drink, an oversize lemon wedge hooked precariously on the rim of the glass.

Ignoring the woman’s intimate wink, Grant waited until she turned her attention to four cops with empty beer mugs at a nearby table, then he shifted his gaze to Sky’s hands. They were still wrapped one around the other, and her knuckles had turned as white as one of her lab coats.

“You’ve got my full attention,” he said quietly.

“The blood found on Mavis Benjamin’s clothing matches the suspect’s blood from the Peña crime scene.”

“You mean,” Grant began carefully, “the suspects in homicides that occurred two years apart have the same weird blood type?”

“I mean they have the same DNA.”

Grant felt sweat gather at his lower back. “Identical?”

“Yes.”

A double-fisted punch to the gut would have been easier to take, he thought as he stared across the table. “Ellis Whitebear is sitting in a cell on death row at the state pen. I doubt they issued him a pass so he could go out and cut the Peña woman’s throat, then rape her for good measure. That means he’s got a hell of an alibi.”

Sky kept her eyes locked with his. “I know.”

“What else do you know?”

“That my test results are accurate.”

“On which case?”

“Both.”

Grant uttered a ripe curse. “How the hell could both be right? We’ve got two murders. There’s no way the man who killed the first woman killed the second. So how could your tests show the same suspect DNA at both crime scenes?”

When Sky shifted in her chair, light from the nearby jukebox touched her sculpted cheek with gold. “The only way I know for two people to have the same DNA is if they’re identical twins.”

“You’re sure about all of this?”

She arched an eyebrow. “About identical twins?”

“About the results from the Benjamin and Peña crime scenes.”

“Yes. I couldn’t believe it when the computer got a hit on both cases. I went to the evidence bay and pulled Benjamin’s clothing. I did another DNA profile on the suspect’s blood found on her dress. The latest result didn’t vary from the first one. The DNA is Whitebear’s. I did the same thing with the evidence from the Peña scene. I’ve spent the past three days…and nights double-checking my work. Grant, I’m positive. One man, or two with identical DNA, killed both women.”

This time, Grant’s curse brittled the air. The bartender glanced their way. A scathing look from Grant had the man quickly returning to his business. Grant tightened his jaw. He could almost picture Sam sitting across from him, one of his thick cigars clenched in the side of his mouth, thumbs under the suspenders he habitually wore, as he smiled and said, “Well, pretty boy, sounds like you’ve got one hell of a mess to clean up.” Grant rubbed at the knot that had edged up his shoulders and settled in the back of his neck. Sam was gone, and he was the one who had to negotiate some damn mental chessboard.

He refilled his glass, nudged it across the table toward Sky. “Forget the tonic water. You could probably use this about now.”

She glanced at the glass, then her glossed lips curved into a slight smile that only reminded him of how it had felt to kiss that warm, lush mouth.

“If I thought it would help, I’d drink the whole bottle.”

“You might just have to fight me for it.”

She massaged her right temple as if pain had lodged there. “I don’t remember all the details of the Benjamin case, just the work I did. Was there ever any doubt in your mind that Whitebear did it?”

“No, though he kept claiming he was innocent.” As he spoke, Grant felt the numbing effects of the Scotch, fought against it. “Most of the evidence against Whitebear was circumstantial, but compelling. The victim was the manager at the apartment complex where he did the maintenance and yard work in exchange for an apartment. It was well-known that the victim and suspect didn’t get along—tenants often heard them yelling at each other. We had two credible witnesses who swore that, hours before the homicide, Mavis Benjamin threatened to fire Whitebear and toss him out on the street.”

“She was killed in the communal laundry room right off her office at the complex,” Sky said, adding the details with which she was most familiar. “Hundreds of hairs and fibers from people’s dirty laundry contaminated the scene. The only evidence I found on the victim’s person that linked to the suspect was one drop of his blood.”

“Sam and I figured he’d been injured while they struggled—a nosebleed, or something like that,” Grant said. “You took blood samples from all the male workers at the apartment complex and got a match to Whitebear’s. That made the case.” Grant settled a forearm on the table and leaned closer, forcing himself to ignore Sky’s punch-in-the-gut scent. “You’re sure it was Whitebear’s blood on Mavis Benjamin’s sleeve?”

“Yes.” Her brow furrowed. “His, or his identical twin’s, if he has one.”

“If? Whitebear’s in a cell, and I’m pretty sure he’s not Houdini reincarnated. You think there’s some way to explain the suspect blood from the Peña scene if Whitebear doesn’t have a twin?”

“Not that I know of.” She picked up her glass, then set it down without drinking. “If he is innocent, and there’s a twin brother out there murdering people, why didn’t Whitebear mention him?”

Grant raised a shoulder. “The guy’s got a room-temperature IQ. He dropped out of grade school. To him, DNA is probably just three letters.”

“His attorney, then. Surely Griffin found out about Whitebear’s family. He would have zeroed in on a twin if he knew his client had one.”

“Ellis Whitebear’s DNA, or what we believe to be his, was found on the first victim—”

“It is his DNA,” Sky said, the tiny lines around her mouth deepening. “I know what I’m doing in my lab, Pierce.”

“Dammit, Milano, I’m not questioning your ability,” Grant shot back, then set his jaw. It had been that same confidence and determination that had attracted him to her in the first place. Where her job was concerned, Sky had no equal. She didn’t waver. She was in control. It was her personal life that had splintered into hundreds of pieces, and driven her from him.

If you care about me, you’ll let me go.

The memory of the words she’d spoken that night six months ago assaulted him like sniper fire. She had taught him what it was like to want. To feel helpless. To hurt. He stabbed his fingers through his hair. He didn’t need this. He had let her go. He was over her. Why the hell was he even allowing her presence to bother him?

“All right,” he said, forcing his mind back to the problem at hand. “Whitebear’s DNA was on Benjamin’s dress. Because of that, I doubt Griffin thought his client’s protests of innocence held any weight. But then, we’ll never know since the esteemed public defender died in a car wreck a month after Whitebear got shipped to the pen.”

Grant settled back in his chair and forced mental chess pieces to move in his Scotch-soaked brain. “There’s another angle we haven’t talked about,” he said after a moment. “Ellis killed Mavis Benjamin. His twin killed Carmen Peña. It’s a stretch, but anything’s possible at this point.”

Sky nodded slowly. “You’re right.”

Just then, a grizzled, retired detective with a gray beard stopped by the table. He nodded, then spent a few minutes reminiscing about the time he and Sam cornered a do-wrong inside Uncle Willie’s Donut Shop.

When the detective moved off, Grant felt the now-familiar drag of grief over his partner’s death. “Dammit, Sam.”

He wasn’t aware he’d spoken the words until he saw Sky’s eyes soften. “I’m sorry, Grant. I know you’re upset about Sam. The last thing you need right now is a mess like this. But both of these cases were yours and Sam’s…yours now. I couldn’t put off coming to you any longer.”

“Yeah.” Because he was tempted to reach out and smooth his fingers across the strain at the corners of her eyes, Grant balled his hands on the table. She had drawn Whitebear’s blood from the man’s arm, performed tests, testified in court to her findings. Her word had helped put Whitebear on death row. It was now possible a different man should be in that cell, and Carmen Peña was dead because he wasn’t.

If that was true, the press would have a field day with mistaken-identity stories. Not to mention make chopped liver out of both his and Sky’s careers along the way. For his part, the idea of getting shipped to Larceny to investigate lawnmower thefts held little appeal.

Grant heard the clatter of more coins going down the jukebox’s slot. A heartbeat later, a low, weepy love song drifted on the air and the dance floor filled.