Jess heard the rustle of paper in the background before Sam got back on the line. With every second it took, her gut twisted and tightened into a knot.
“Her name was Amanda Vincent, street name Desiree,” Sam said.
Hearing that name jolted Jess wide-awake, confirming her fear. Harper had claimed not to know the dead woman. Had he lied to her? Why had he given Mandy’s name and description—sending her on a wild-goose chase to find a dead woman?
Her hinky barometer crossed into the red zone—none of this made sense. Gut instinct forced her to keep her suspicions to herself. She didn’t have enough to tell Sam, at least not yet. But with the evidence stacked against her boy, Jess didn’t like the odds. Harper needed someone on his side. And tag, she was it.
She hoped Harper had kept his mouth shut when the cops questioned him again. By now, the detective in charge would have done that. With CPD having the woman’s identity, they would have started a push for a confession. Any connection Harper had with the woman would be fair game and used against him. And if her boy genius had flinched when he heard the woman’s name, the police would have seen it. His reaction would have been like blood in the water with great white sharks circling. A feeding frenzy.
“Can you arrange for me to see Harper again, Sam?”
This time Seth had to talk to her.
CHAPTER 8
Cook County Jail
Chicago
“I didn’t lie to you, I swear,” Seth insisted, sitting behind the Plexiglas of CPD’s lockup. “I can’t believe she’s…dead.” He looked washed-out, and the dark circles under his eyes looked stark.
“But you had me chasing a blonde. And Sam just told me Desiree was a brunette. What gives?” Jess asked, putting her elbows on the table.
“Last I’d seen Mandy, she was a blonde.” He shut his eyes, looking tired. His lower lip trembled, but he covered that up by running both hands over his face. “And she was breathing.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t get a good look at the body. It was dark and…I just couldn’t. Too much blood, and her face was…messed up.”
Jess sat in silence, watching her friend. He didn’t act or talk like a stone-cold killer. Mandy’s death had taken a toll on him. Overnight, he looked older than his years, his innocence gone. But maybe Jess didn’t know him as well as she thought.
“I had gotten through to her…finally. At least I thought I had.” A tear trailed down his cheek, but he couldn’t look her in the eye. Under the fluorescent light of the jail, the wetness was robbed of its sheen. “When she let her guard down, you could see…”
When she realized he wasn’t going to finish—that he was mainly coming to terms with what had happened to Mandy in his own mind—she pushed him for an answer.
“See what, Harper?”
“She had the eyes of a little girl under all that makeup.” A sad smile came and went. “She let me see her scrub faced one day. She was really pretty, you know? The kind of pretty that comes from inside.” He swept a finger toward his face. “And she had freckles across her nose. She covered them with makeup, but she let me see them…once.”
Mandy Vincent had only been twenty-two years old when she died. The reality of a life cut short hit Jess hard. Considering her own twisted childhood, the same could have happened to her.
“You don’t have to tell me this, but did you have feelings for the girl, Seth?”
Jess thought she knew the answer. Harper had secrets, sure. And he certainly was complicated. But when it came to his heart—and the people who mattered most in his life—he appeared to be an open book.
“I just felt…sorry for her. And besides, she had a boyfriend. Jason somebody.” He shrugged. “The first time he saw us together, he misread it and got all bent. That was why we arranged places to meet, away from him.”
“Do you think he could’ve found out about you and Des…” She corrected herself. Out of respect for Seth’s feelings, she wouldn’t call the girl Desiree anymore, at least not in his presence. “—I mean, you and Mandy? Killing someone with a knife is an act of passion. Maybe he did it.”
Jess wondered if Harper had said anything to the cops about the boyfriend. Anyone hearing his story would assume Harper had gotten involved in a love triangle gone bad. It wouldn’t exonerate him, not hardly. Checking out the boyfriend could turn up something usable in his defense or give a motive to the DA. She’d talk to Sam about it, to see what the cops knew on the guy.
“I don’t know, Jess. We never really talked about him. I was trying to get her clean. The crank was eating her alive, from the inside out. She already had hep C from sharing dirty needles. Her liver was a fuckin’ time bomb.”
“Oh man, Harper. I had no idea.” Hearing him talk about Mandy raised questions in her mind. Not about the girl, but about the reason Harper had chosen her for his personal project. “How did you meet her? When did all this start?”
Harper slumped back in his chair with crossed arms. Defensive with a capital D.
“I can’t talk about that.” He shook his head. “But Jess, if you wanna be my friend, don’t judge her. I couldn’t take that coming from you. Just trust me when I say, Mandy had plenty of reasons for the way she turned out. Some people aren’t strong enough to deal, that’s all.”
Jess heard the truth in what he said about judging people. She’d been on the receiving end of criticism plenty of times. But for her, Mandy had crossed a line. It was one thing to screw up your own life, but to take someone else with you was inexcusable.
To say Mandy had made bad decisions in her life was an understatement of mega proportions. Hooking up with a psychopathic jerk wad with a penchant for sharp objects could have been just one on a long list. She had ruined her life, but to play a hand in stealing the rest of Seth’s wasn’t right. Jess had sympathy for what her gullible boy genius had tried to do for this messed-up girl, but she found it hard to muster any sympathy until she knew more about her.
“Mandy got caught on the wrong side of dead, Harper. Her life was doing a 360 down the commode. You were only trying to throw her a lifeline. I get that, but the cops have tunnel vision. You being found with her gave them a slam-dunk case. They’re not gonna believe that you were only trying to help her.”
“Help? She’s still dead, Jessie.” He shook his head, chin low.
“Yeah, and you’re still screwed.”
“Thanks for the update.”
“I just want you to start caring what happens, Seth. To you.”
Harper looked too fragile for Jess to say what was really on her mind—that his so-called friend had probably come close to destroying him. Even sporting a morgue Y-incision with her chest splayed like a lab rat, the girl still might take him down.
For some, misery loved company—even in death.
“So I guess that’s it.” He shrugged, defeat settling on his face. “The cops are gonna get me on this, aren’t they?”
Jess didn’t have much to lift Harper’s spirits, but something Nadir Beladi said last night made her think.
Whoever Desiree was before, she isn’t now. She is no longer your concern. Had the smoker known about Mandy being dead before the story had appeared in the papers?
Plus, his beefy sidekick had been too quick with a knife. After he tried to bully her, imagining the bastard using his blade on a woman wasn’t much of a stretch. Maybe Mandy had threatened Beladi’s livelihood. After all, he’d been willing to cut her up for simply asking questions about Mandy. What did the girl know—being an insider to his dealings—that put a target on her back?