Repressed Page 19

  His mouth tightened.

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone, Roger?”

  Roger paused, then sighed and backed into the house. Morrison followed him into the living room across light oak hardwood floors. A deer’s head glared at him from over the fireplace though Shannon had once told him Roger didn’t hunt.

  Roger made himself a drink from a bar cart in the corner: Scotch on the rocks. He didn’t offer one to Morrison. “Dating Karen wasn’t relevant,” he said finally. “I date lots of people. And so did she. Obviously.” But the last word was laced with malice.

  “Not relevant?” Morrison snapped, but he inhaled sharply and leveled his voice. “She was feeding you information about me, telling you that I was taking advantage of those in rehab, lying to you about people under her care.” And Roger had bought it all, not thinking for a moment that she might have been covering for Griffen or even egging him on.

  “So what?” Roger jerked back hard enough that Scotch splashed over the rim of his glass. “She was crazy but she wasn't a killer. He was the whack job.”

  “If she was so crazy why didn’t you give a statement after you found out about Griffen? You could have mentioned she seemed unhinged.”

  Roger slugged back half the drink and pointed at Morrison. “What happened with Griffen wasn’t my fault.”

  “Shannon was attacked while I was in jail. If you knew your girlfriend was messing around with an unstable guy who was close to Shannon during that time, you had an obligation—”

  “I didn’t know Karen was with … him.” He spat the last word, eyes tight as he downed the rest of the drink and poured another. “Not until it was all over. And once he was dead …” He shrugged.

  Based on the journal entries, Griffen had no idea about Roger—your girlfriend banging someone else was worth writing about. Had Karen manipulated them both? If she’d convinced Roger of Morrison’s guilt when she and Griffen were the ones involved in the crimes, maybe she’d even been the one to plant the murder weapon at Morrison’s home. And Shannon—

  “Did she ask you to hurt my wife?” The last words escaped Morrison’s lips with an intensity beyond his control. He tried to calm his shuddering insides but it felt as if his entire being were trapped in an earthquake.

  Roger balked at the accusation, or maybe at the reminder of what he’d lost. “Don’t be ridiculous. I wouldn't have let that slide.”

  But just this week Roger had refused to even listen when Morrison told him Shannon had been kidnapped. “How could you not know Karen was dating Griffen?”

  “It wasn’t like we were in an exclusive relationship. She was young. And … flexible.” The smirk was back for only a fraction of a moment, and then it was gone. Roger’s eyes went as fiery as the lake behind his house. “I had no reason to think she was seeing anyone else.”

  Maybe Roger really hadn’t known. If he’d been aware, he would have cut it off. “Roger, I think she manipulated Griffen. Sent him after Shannon. Now she’s after you. And she was in my neighborhood the other day, just before Shannon was … taken.”

  “If you’re trying to fuck with me, you’re doing a—”

  “Call the Central District Station in Toledo and ask about Shannon’s car.”

  “What?”

  “Found abandoned. Blood on the headrest. No leads yet.”

  Roger still didn’t look convinced, but the heat in his eyes had mellowed. “A prosecutor, kidnapped? That’s big news.”

  “The people who know about the car think it was a misunderstanding.” Morrison stood and took a step toward Roger and the bastard flinched. “Goddammit, Roger, I’m not making this up. There’s no way in hell I’d be speaking to you if it wasn’t necessary. And I swear to god I wish it was my life on the line. I’d gladly give it to get my family back.”

  “Karen was just a piece of ass.” Roger’s face did not change, but his voice almost sounded … remorseful. Maybe he’d figured out why this woman was pissed at him. Maybe she had a good reason.

  “Did she know about the safe deposit box, Roger?”

  “Everyone has a safe deposit box.”

  “Does she have reason to think you had something questionable inside?”

  Roger’s lips were nearly white from pressing them together so hard. “No.”

  The hairs on the back of Morrison’s neck stood, but he had expected nothing less than a lie. “I have a list of questionable activity taken from your accounts, much of it in the form of irregular deposits.” Morrison nearly whispered the accusation but Roger reeled back as if it had been shouted it at him.

  “You didn’t have a warrant for that.”

  “No, I didn’t. It was acquired over the course of the Griffen investigation when we considered you a suspect. And now with the knowledge that your girlfriend was also Griffen’s—”

  “That’s a fucking illegal search and you know it. I should have you—”

  Rage flamed through his chest and his vision went red. “Have me what, you entitled fuck? You want to charge me with getting this information illegally? Just a rumor would spell the end of your career, and you know it. I’m not going to hold my fucking breath.”

  Roger sat heavily on the couch, the Scotch slopping over the side of his glass and darkening the oak floor. His face hardened into a stony mask. Morrison was losing him.

  “Griffen’s journal entries,” Morrison said in a calm, measured tone. “He wrote about a woman’s voice, telling him to do things, and comforting him after he killed Johnson. We assumed that voice was a hallucination, maybe even Frieda Burke, the social worker he dated before Karen. But … what if it was her? What if Karen is pulling the strings now, but with a more dangerous crew?”

  “That waif of a woman? You’re out of your mind.” But Roger’s confidence seemed to have cracked. His voice was tenuous, his gaze exploring the ceiling as if he was considering something.

  “Roger? What?”

  “She asked about you. A few times. I thought it was because of her work, the rumors she said she heard about you during the Griffen case.” Roger set his glass on the end table and it clattered briefly like his hand was shaking. “She was nuts. Intense. But I didn’t think she was lying.”

  “You found out afterwards, didn’t you?”

  “I couldn’t verify what she said, but that didn’t mean she was wrong. And by then, Griffen was already dead and the case was over.”

  Know your opponent. Know your killer. “What did she do that was so intense?”

  “She was a good fuck, did everything I wanted her to do. Threw herself at me the night we met, all over me in the parking lot after we’d talked for like twenty minutes. Begged me to take her back to my place, all glassy eyed like she’d lose her shit if I refused.”

  Maybe Shannon had done that too. Morrison averted his gaze before he puked all over Roger’s lap. Don’t think about her in his bed. Focus. Morrison’s fist clenched and he tried to relax his grip as he asked: “What’d you do?”

  “What the fuck do you mean? I took her back to my place. Figured it’d be a one-time thing.”

  “But it wasn’t,” Morrison said, muscles taut, ready to throttle the asshole. “You did something to make her angry. She isn’t after you for nothing.”

  Roger shifted in his seat. “The next day she seemed to think we were together. I didn’t call her for a few weeks, but she kept showing up places where I was, and eventually I took her out. That first night at dinner, she waited until I ordered, then asked me to order her the same.” He snorted and it was a derisive sound. “When it came, she said she was allergic to shellfish and refused to get anything else. Weird shit. And the next week, I saw her in court, and she asked if I liked to ski, suggested we go onto the slopes. She had no idea what she was doing, almost broke her fucking leg. Two dates later and she started accusing me of bullshit, and I broke it off. Wasn’t like we had an actual relationship.”

  “What’d she accuse you of?”

  “The usual. Looking at other wom
en.”

  “That doesn’t seem that strange.” Morrison’s voice was colder than he'd intended but he couldn’t seem to connect himself to it. And Roger probably had been looking at other women: his continuous infidelity was one of the reasons Shannon had left him.

  Something flashed in Roger’s eyes—angry, incredulous—and disappeared. “She tried to kill herself when I broke it off, screaming and threatening me on my voicemail, and then just hung up, like that’s supposed to make me want to call her. How’s that for crazy?”

  Morrison glared at him. How fucking stupid is he? “Why wouldn’t you say something about that before? We’re talking about her being unstab—”

  “I didn’t think that much of it, I guess. Not the first woman ever to go stalker on me.”

  “What did you do when she threatened suicide?” But he already knew the answer—he’d have known if Roger had called the police.

  Roger shrugged. “Told her to fuck off. Put a block on my phone.”

  Blocked. That must have pissed her off, especially if she’d planned to use him for more than just a fling. But … that didn’t make sense. This wasn’t just a fatal attraction. She hadn’t kidnapped Shannon for being Roger’s ex, or she would have done that long ago. She wanted to hurt Roger, but … he was a bonus. Instead of going after Roger when he’d hurt her, Karen had just kept dating Griffen. And continued to pursue Shannon.

  And Shannon had been Griffen’s ultimate target, and maybe Karen’s too—she’d spent a lot of time filling Griffen’s messed-up head with hatred, if the notes in his journals were any indication. Shannon had been the one in danger then, and she was the one in danger now. Maybe Karen had given Morrison this futile mission because she wanted a reason to kill Shannon—to do what Griffen couldn’t.

  But why?

  He was missing something. Something big.

  “Where does Karen live, Roger?” They hadn’t been able to find a recent address.

  Roger glanced at the mantel—at the framed photo of himself and Shannon on their wedding day.

  Morrison’s heart seized, and his body seemed to come back to life, every nerve ending alight and singing with desperation. “Please, Roger. Don’t let Karen kill Shannon.”

  When Roger turned back, his eyes were glassy, mouth hard. He loves her. For all his narcissistic bullshit, Roger really did love Shannon. He always would. If Karen, unstable as she was, had sensed Roger’s devotion to his ex, she would have had ample reason to hurt Morrison’s family.

  Roger blinked rapidly and lurched to his feet so fast Morrison jumped. “I’ll go with you,” he growled. “I want to talk to that bitch myself.”

  The address Roger had for Karen was a handsome colonial on the outskirts of Berkley, a place not listed in her employee file. The couple who answered the door had bought the home six months before. They didn’t know Karen and had no idea who the previous tenant might have been. He’d look into that.

  But if Karen was hiding she probably hadn’t left a forwarding address.

  Roger stared out the side window on the way back to his house. “You’re not fucking with me? She’s really gone?”

  Morrison kept his eyes on the road in front of him, avoiding Roger’s face.

  “She is.” But not forever. Please not forever.

  “Why don’t you call in the FBI?”

  Petrosky had found no bugs in the car and the killers couldn’t hear him with the phone off, even if they had it tapped. Still, he shoved his cell deeper into his back pocket and leaned his weight against it. “I don’t want her to get hurt. And I think Karen … wants me to find them.” On the phone, Karen had said they were waiting for him, saving Evie for when he got there. If the FBI came barging in, everyone was dead. If he went alone … hope burgeoned in his belly.

  “Why would anyone want Shannon?” Roger said, slowly but pained as if he still couldn’t accept the truth of it. “She doesn’t have much of a past.”

  No she didn’t. A dead brother. Alcoholic parents, deceased. But nothing about this case was normal. Had Shannon prosecuted someone close to Karen? Convicted one of Karen’s family members, maybe another lover? Morrison shook his head. That theory was what Petrosky called “Maury Povich shit” but it might make sense here. Karen was calculating. Ruthless. She’d killed Abby’s kitten last year for fuck’s sake—or rather encouraged Griffen to do it. She had wanted to make Shannon suffer. This was personal.

  Roger cleared his throat. “But you do.”

  What was Roger talking about? “I do what?”

  “You have a past. I investigated you, too, remember?”

  Morrison clenched his jaw and drew his eyes back to the road. “Not a past that most would be interested in.”

  “Come off it, asshole. You and your fucking partner do all kinds of shady shit. Petrosky’s known for being a loose cannon—picking up hookers, paying their bills.”

  “How do you—”

  “I get around too.” Roger raised an eyebrow. “Maybe some of their pimps don’t fucking like that. And anyone watching him would know he’s close to your family. He’s probably into other things too, that drug-addicted—”

  “No.” Rage bubbled in Morrison’s belly. “Petrosky isn’t on drugs.”

  Roger snorted. “No one tried to take her when she was married to me, Curt. No one but you. And you didn’t get over your past. No one gets over their past. We all are a certain way. Just because you go around convincing everybody that you’re better doesn’t mean you are.”

  “I’ve never—”

  “No, but you think it, don’t you? Every time I saw you with Shannon, it was all, ‘Hey, Roger, how’s it going, Roger?’ Showing me you didn’t care how pissed I was about you hanging around her. Showing me you thought you were better. Challenging me all the time. And you know what? Congratulations. You provoked me until I got angry. And I scared her off and gave her to you with a fucking bow on her ass.” Roger grunted as if that had all been part of his master plan. “And the second you saw the opportunity, you took it. You took her.”

  “That wasn’t about you, Roger. Shannon and I were friends.”

  “Of course you’d say that now. But you saw her and you wanted her and you couldn’t go about it the reasonable way, the honorable way. Like I did. I didn’t have to steal her to get her to marry me.”

  Morrison’s wife, his baby, had been kidnapped and Roger was trying to make this about himself? He’s fucking with me. Shannon had told him many times about the way Roger could turn things around, make everything about him. And right now … it was. He needed Roger no matter how much he wished that weren’t true. Roger might be the key to getting Shannon and Evie back.

  “You wanted her and you figured you’d try to hurt me.” In the space of that sentence, Roger’s tone went from vulnerable to acidic. From victim to aggressor. “But you can fucking have her, especially now that you have someone else pissed at you. Tell me, how many other women have you taken? Who else might want to get back at you?”

  I don’t steal women. And no one but Roger would think he had, of that he was quite certain. But Morrison couldn’t leave things this way—he needed Roger’s help. “The better man doesn’t always win.”

  Roger said nothing, but Morrison could almost hear him smirking. He swallowed his pride and the lump in his throat and headed over the amber streets toward Roger’s house by the lake. The house that would have been Shannon’s now if she’d stayed married to Roger. Maybe Roger was right. Maybe this was all his fault. Maybe he should have looked out for her better. Protected her.

  If only she’d never met Roger.

  If only she’d never married me.

  By the time Morrison returned to the precinct, the bustle of the early morning hours had been replaced by a solemn nighttime shuffle of people disappearing one by one back to their families. Because they still had families. Even Petrosky was gone and Morrison felt the absence of his own family as vividly as if he’d been boiled alive, his skin raw and exposed and utterly
defenseless.

  He needed to talk to Shannon. To hear her voice. To prove to himself there was something there for him to fight for. To prove they weren’t dead already. Find her.

  Roger’d already checked social media—all traces of Karen gone—so Morrison sat at the desk and searched for Karen Palmer’s driver’s license from the state of Michigan. Strange. She should at least have a photo ID, but according to state records … nothing. No records at any nearby university, despite her employer’s claim that she’d been in school. He flipped open her employee folder from the rehab center—nothing but a state ID from New York. Forged? Wouldn’t the center have double-checked?

  He grabbed the phone, and a quick call to the rehab center told him that while they ran the names for background checks, they just ensured the licenses were valid. The out-of-state license wouldn’t have been an issue unless it had been suspended. Not unusual, but …

  The New York State database, then. This time he got a hit. The address, the date of birth, everything matched the license photocopy in the file … except for the picture. Dark hair. Wide nose. No freckles.

  It wasn’t her.

  Heart in his throat, he clicked through to the national databases and on to birth certificates. Using the New York driver’s license, he found her: Karen Palmer, born in 1985 in California, in a city ten minutes away from Morrison’s hometown. And died … no, that couldn’t be right.

  Karen Palmer had died eight years ago in New York, the records said. Cause of death: suicide. Maybe she’d faked her death? Gotten plastic surgery? No, that was real Maury Povich shit. And Karen Palmer’s information had been out of circulation after she died—until the kidnapper had resurrected her four years later.

  Which meant Griffen’s girlfriend had been someone else until a few years ago. And she probably hadn’t known Shannon until she’d arrived here—otherwise his wife would have remembered Karen when she met the woman again as Griffen’s girlfriend, especially if “Karen” was someone with a reason to be angry.

  So Shannon hadn’t known her, but this was no new wound. It was something deep and primal and feral. Based on old hurt. Not something Shannon had done in connection to Griffen or Roger or anyone else. Maybe not even something Roger had done since she hadn’t gone after him until now. Was Roger just a bonus too? But Karen had definitely gone after Shannon. And she’d gone after … Morrison. Had him arrested.