“Some people aren’t content to treat their own women as property,” Darien said, rather fiercely now that she knew what they were dealing with. “They look at all women that way.”
He gave a half shrug, half shudder, as if he were trying to shed a distasteful idea. “Hard to believe he’d risk it.”
“Or his partner in crime,” she said.
Her own partner went very still. “His partner?”
“Yes. Didn’t you see who the files were copied to?”
“No.”
“Here, it’s in here,” she said, pointing to the lines still in gibberish-or what had looked like it to him-at the top of the list. In the middle of a long string of characters he saw D.Reicher@gardnercorp.com.
“He’s in this, too? Damn, I knew he had snake eyes.”
“All I can say positively,” she warned, “is that he got sent copies of the list, and-”
She stopped suddenly as another thought struck her.
“What?” Waters asked.
“I was just thinking. If they were both involved in this enterprise, maybe there was a falling-out among criminals?”
“One that occurred at Gardner ’s penthouse, and ended up with Gardner dead? Yeah, that thought has occurred to me.” His grim expression lightened suddenly, and he gave her a crooked smile. “You might just have nailed our killer, partner.”
The words warmed her beyond rationality. “Thank you…” She hesitated, then risked it. “Colin.”
“You’re welcome, Darien.” He said it so easily, yet it was pointed enough to acknowledge the change.
Now we’re partners, she thought with satisfaction. Just the tiniest bit of anxiety tinged that satisfaction as she acknowledged that Colin Waters was a very unsettling associate. He would be for any woman, she told herself, not just her.
And managed to ignore the fact that how it would affect other women didn’t matter because she was the woman being unsettled.
While waiting for the search warrant they’d requested, they had attended the funeral. Mrs. Gardner had apparently made enough noise to enough important people that the autopsy had been rushed to a finish and the body of her son released. There had been a side benefit, to them anyway, in that the autopsy report had been completed faster than they could have gotten it no matter how hard they’d pushed. Ironic, she thought.
But they’d learned that the injury to the back of the head had indeed been the fatal blow, with the stab wounds inflicted postmortem. And who knew what Benton and Sutter would turn up when they analyzed the autopsy that might open up new avenues to pursue, she added silently as she stifled a yawn.
Waters had indicated with nothing more than a nod and a whisper, Detectives Benton and Sutter, present at the funeral for the same reason they were: to see who showed up on the chance their killer was among them. Given the size of the funeral, and the upper crust of society who were present, it only added to the nightmare size of the investigation. The three remaining Gardners of course were there, wearing very expensive black and suitably grim expressions. However, so were the mayor and several other high-powered notables, and Darien wasn’t sure they’d learned a thing. Other than that she still hated funerals.
By the time they returned, the search warrant was ready. They got it for Reicher’s home, since they doubted he would be foolish enough to store information like that on his office network. It had taken so long because they’d been fighting to make it as broad as possible in case they stumbled across anything else incriminating besides the matching computer files they were hoping to find. They’d encountered the resistance they’d expected, but not nearly as much as Gardner ’s maid had given them, and Colin wondered rather cynically if it was because Reicher was a less-than-kind employer.
His residence was a condominium both larger and flashier than Gardner ’s penthouse, with stark, modern furnishings and lots of exotic lighting. The servant who answered the door had taken one look at the warrant and welcomed them with ill-concealed glee. Colin doubted Reicher would find out about this from that quarter.
“This place is as cold as his eyes,” Darien had said, and Colin couldn’t argue with her.
They’d found two computers, one laptop and one desktop, and confiscated them both to be inspected in depth at the station. And now that she knew how they’d been hidden, Darien was able to find and decode the files in relatively short order once they got them there.
“Got it,” she said, and Colin saw the same change from garbled text to a match for the files they’d pulled from Gardner ’s computer.
“Looks like we’ll need to go chat with Mr. Reicher again.”
Colin stood up, but before he could reach for his coat Darien said, “Wait a second. There’s more here.”
“More? More on the list?”
“No. Another file. Hang on…”
He waited, knowing she’d tell him when she could.
“There. Dates and times and some sort of abbreviations.”
He leaned in to look over her shoulder. He studied the new list she’d uncovered for a moment, but it didn’t mean anything to him. A couple of the abbreviations seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place them. After a few fruitless minutes, he walked to a cubicle across the aisle and up one.
“Palmer? Can you come here and take a look at something?”
The man lumbered over. If he noticed Darien pulled back so there was no way they could even brush, he didn’t say anything.
He looked at the new list. “I don’t know. Doesn’t mean anything to me. Unless there were events scheduled at each place on those days. I could check, if you want.”
Colin stared at the detective and asked carefully, “Each place? What places?”
Palmer gestured at the third column in the list. “Those. You know, Safe Haven, Laurel House, Lakeshore.”
“Of course!” Colin exclaimed. “That’s why those abbreviations seemed familiar.”
“What are they?” Darien asked.
“They’re halfway houses and shelters for runaways.”
It didn’t take her long to figure it out. Colin saw her eyes widen as it hit her. “That’s where they…went shopping?”
“Let’s just say when we correlate this list with the other list and the missing persons reports, and check with those agencies, I won’t be surprised if there’s yet another series of connections,” Colin said.
“ Gardner was on the board of the charity that funded three of these,” Palmer contributed, and Colin knew they had yet another nail in Reicher’s coffin.
Within an hour of concerted effort, they knew he was right. Everything matched. Phone calls to the shelters and halfway houses verified the last facet of his guess.
“I think we’ve got it,” Colin said. “Thanks to Darien,” he added. The words were for her, but he was looking at Palmer, who had the grace to look abashed.
“So Gardner did the shopping, off this list, at these halfway houses and shelters, sent the list to Reicher, who arranged the kidnappings?” Darien asked.
“Probably helped deliver them to the buyer,” Colin said.
“And I’m supposed to be sorry he’s dead?” she asked.
Colin and Palmer gave her a startled look. “Ah,” Colin said. “Under that beautiful exterior beats a justice-craving heart.”
Darien stared at him, so intently he felt nonplussed.
“You going to go get him?” Palmer asked.
Colin shook off the odd sensation Darien ’s steady gaze had given him.
“That we are,” he said.
Chapter 6
“T his is an outrage!”
“You’re right about that,” Darien said, her voice cold. “Did you figure you could get away with it because nobody cared about those kids?”
She’d been stunned when, after discussing interrogation strategy, Colin had told her to go ahead and start the questioning. She’d asked why, and he’d told her she was just angry enough to face Reicher down.