Ultimate Fear (Book 2 Ultimate CORE) (CORE Series) (3 page)

Alex met her gaze. “The husband didn’t even give her a chance to properly grieve.”

“He didn’t give himself the chance,” she countered, not with sympathy, but with frustration. She didn’t believe time healed all wounds. Hers were still raw and painful, but she knew first hand that life could go on after death. Just not the life she’d foolishly envisioned. Not the happy home, the warmth of her husband’s embrace or the joy and enchantment of her baby’s endearing smile.

“Looks like there’s a silencer on the gun,” Alex said.

Jessica shook off the melancholy and, with it, the image of her daughter’s dimpled smile, and moved behind the headstone to join her partner on the opposite side of the grave. “Unless he’s a cop, I’d say this was definitely premeditative.” In the state of Illinois, it was illegal for civilians to own silencers. “Not that it matters at this point.”

Megan moved next to them. “Yeah,” she began, “he’s already given himself the death sentence. On the bright side, he saved Chicagoans tax dollars. No trial, no long prison sentence.”

“Really, Meg?” Audra held up her camera and began taking pictures. “Just because you think it, doesn’t mean you have to say it. These people were obviously grieving for their dead child.”

Megan rolled her eyes, then knelt and rummaged through her toolkit. “I don’t remember ‘killing your wife’ as being a stage of grief.” She slipped on her protective eyewear. “I mean, I get it. Losing a child has to be the worst thing ever, but there are better ways to deal with—”

Audra cleared her throat. “Change the subject,” she said, and sent Jessica an apologetic look.

Megan glanced over at Jessica, before she hung her head. “Sorry, Jess. I…didn’t mean…” She let out an audible breath and went back to her toolkit.

“Let it go,” Jessica said, looking to the crows above them. There were eight now. “I’m going to head down the hill to talk with the groundskeeper and get the officers to tape off the area.”

“Jess.” Megan stood. “I really am sorry.”

She started to back away. “Seriously. Let it go. It was a long time ago.”
Six years, two months and four days.
She held no contempt toward Megan for her faux pas, but she could have done without the reminder of her own loss. Not that it was ever far from her thoughts. Nor was the pain. The agony. Physically, she was fine. At least that’s what her doctor had told her, but had added that depression could cause the constant dull ache in her neck, back, legs and chest. Her doctor didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. She wasn’t depressed. Donavans didn’t do depression, but they did do anger. For a long time now, she’d certainly had plenty of rage bottled inside her.

Six years, two months and four days.

Rather than become caught up by that rage and the excruciating sorrow that sometimes came with it, she quickly pushed her mind to that place where nothing existed but the job. She reminded herself why she was here, brought to mind the dead woman who hadn’t deserved to have her brain penetrated by a bullet and splattered on her dead son’s grave. She thought about the woman’s family, and redirected her anger toward the husband. That family had already lost the little boy. Why, she didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. What mattered was now there would be more suffering. By taking his own life, the dead man had stripped his wife’s family of any chance for justice. And
that
pissed her off.

By the time she’d covered the short distance from the grave to the shady tree the groundskeeper and patrol officers stood beneath, the loose cotton shirt she’d purposefully worn today with the hope of combating the heat clung to her back. She’d also managed to refocus her anger to where it needed to be—on the investigation.

As she questioned the groundskeeper, who assured her he hadn’t seen or heard anything when he’d left the cemetery yesterday evening around six, the patrol officers cordoned off the crime scene. The groundskeeper had mentioned noticing the couple, mostly the husband, visiting their son’s grave on a daily basis. Whether alone or together, they’d never driven a car through the cemetery and the groundskeeper had assumed they’d taken a bus or taxi. Since the cemetery closed its gates to the public at dusk, without a car lining the small road at the base of the hill, it made sense why the couple would have gone unnoticed by Holy Cross’s security guards. Add on the silencer used, along with the heavy traffic from the nearby intersection, and she could imagine how the murder-suicide took place.

After dismissing the groundskeeper, she glanced back toward the grave. Ten crows flew high above the weeping angel and she was struck by the memory of an old poem about crows that her grandma used to recite when her grandpa had complained about the black birds menacing their small Illinois farm.

One for sorrow,

Two for mirth;

Three for a wedding,

Four for birth;

Five for silver,

Six for gold;

Seven for a secret,

Not to be told;

Eight for heaven,

Nine for hell,

And ten for the devil’s own sell!

She’d been about eight or nine when she’d first heard the poem. She hadn’t understood the point of it, or the term ‘devil’s own sell’. Her grandma had explained that it was a very difficult thing. After her ex, Dante, had heard her grandma recite the poem, he’d taken the term and had given it his own pragmatic, yet philosophical twist. He’d suggested ‘devil’s own sell’ referred to a burden that needed to be completed. If not, there would be no pleasure in life.

Whatever. How that man had gone from badass Navy SEAL to a Gandhi wannabe, she didn’t know. She wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. She should send Gandhi a text and remind him to water their vegetable garden. No,
his
vegetable garden, she amended. Still. The garden might not belong to her anymore, but it was a symbol of the past, of the summers she’d spent on her grandparents’ farm. Of Dante and the beautiful memories they’d created while making their yard and home a happy place filled with hopes and dreams.

Before she drifted down the muddy road of sappiness, she pulled her phone from her pocket. As she was about to text Dante, Alex called for her. She looked up and caught him heading down the hill.

Pocketing the phone, she met up with him. “Sorry I abandoned you up there,” she said. “How much longer will Meg and Audra take?”

He steered her toward the unmarked Ford Inceptor. “They’ve got at least another hour before they’ll be finished.”

“Did they find anything that disputes the murder-suicide idea?”

He shook his head. “Nope. They did start moving the bodies and we’ve got a positive ID on both victims. Meg found drivers’ licenses for Richard and Leslie Palmer. So now we get to tell their family.”

Joy
. She let out a sigh. Informing victims’ families that their loved ones were deceased was her least favorite part of the job. She hated being the bearer of bad news, but it was an unfortunate necessity.

As they reached their sedan, the Coroner’s van slowed around the curve of the hill. “Let’s get out of here,” Alex said. “I’ve already called in for a warrant for the Palmers’ house. An officer is going to meet us there. After that, we’ll find next of kin and go from there.”

In other words, they’d go straight back to their precinct to do a crap-ton of paperwork. “Just get me inside someplace air conditioned,” she said, and headed for the passenger side of the sedan. Before she climbed in, she looked to the top of the hill again.

One by one, as if their job had been done, the crows began to quietly veer off in different directions. All but one. The tenth black bird circled several more times, then flew toward their sedan and hovered there, flapping its wings and staring down.

“What are you looking at?” Alex asked over the hood of the car, before following her gaze.

An eerie chill prickled her skin. “The devil’s own sell,” she said, quickly slipping inside the car.

Alex climbed in, too, then slid the key into the ignition. “The what?”

She shrugged and pulled out her cell phone. “Nothing. It’s a long story.”

“We have a forty minute drive to the Palmers’ house. I’ve got time,” he said, and drove out of the cemetery.

She finished sending Dante a text, reminding him to water the vegetable garden, then dropped her cell phone in her lap. “My grandma had a weird thing for crows,” she began, then told him about how her grandpa would complain about the crows, and then the poem her grandma would recite. “I don’t know. Maybe the tenth crow represents our burden. You know, having to go through the dead husband and wife’s house, then tell the family that they’d not only buried a little boy a month ago, but they’ll have to bury the parents now, too.”

“Are you back with Dante?” he asked, turning down South Michigan and heading toward Prairie Parkway.

She quickly looked at him. “No,” she said with more vehemence than she’d meant. “I mean, we talk. You know that.” She’d been partners with Alex for five years, but since he’d married her cousin, Shannon, she’d known him for nearly fifteen. He, of all people, would know if she was back with Dante. Which she wasn’t and, based on how their marriage had ended, she doubted she ever would. Some things could never be mended, no matter how much she’d like them to be.

“Sorry, but when you start spouting off about stuff like crows representing burdens, you sound like him. Not that it’s a bad thing.” He glanced at her and sent her a half grin. “I’m talking about you and Dante getting back together. That deep shit about the crows I could do without.”

She picked her cell phone up from her lap and opened up the website her friend and Dante’s coworker, Rachel Malcolm, had created for her five years ago. Dante and Rachel both worked for the private investigative criminal agency, CORE, and Rachel had access to private and government agency databases the Chicago PD didn’t. How legit that access was would remain to be seen. As CORE’s computer forensics analyst, Rachel wasn’t always forthcoming as to how she obtained her information. Not that Jessica cared. She’d needed the information and Rachel had set up the program to show data as it came available. And Jessica checked that data constantly. With nearly two thousand kids reported missing on a daily basis in the U.S. alone, she could spend every waking hour online sifting through the files. While she’d love to find every missing kid, her focus was only on one.

Her daughter
.

Her throat tightened as her baby girl’s infectious smile and laughing dark eyes filled her mind and her heart with so much sadness, she wanted to curl up and die. Her daughter’s image was suddenly replaced with the Palmers’ dead bodies. No. She’d never take her life. She wasn’t brave enough or selfish enough to go to that extreme. Searching for her child consumed her. She ached for answers and prayed for the day she would be reunited with her baby girl, but couldn’t have either if she were dead.

“Well,” she began, “the explanation behind the deep crow shit
was
Dante’s idea. So I can see how you’d think—” She looked up from her phone when he stopped the sedan. “Is this it?” Holy crap, the house was huge. The Palmers either had a ton of money or had been in debt up to their eyeballs.

“Yep. And about that deep crow shit. Maybe Dante’s on to something,” he said, killing the ignition.

“You mean our burden, not just with this case, but each one of them.”

“That and—” He shook his head and opened the car door. “Never mind.”

“Since when did you get a filter?” she asked.

“I didn’t. It’s just…” He closed the door and faced her. “Did you ever think that your ‘devil’s own sell’ is right there?” he asked, and nodded to her cell phone.

“Technology isn’t a burden. But if my being on my phone all the time bothers you—”

He took off his sunglasses. When she caught the sympathy and the unwanted pity in his blue eyes, she realized where this conversation was heading and chastised herself for being so damned obtuse.

“You know,” she began, reaching for the door handle, “that’s okay. Keep the filter on, it’s probably for the best.”

He touched her arm. “Jess, stop. What Megan said at the grave…don’t tell me the entire situation didn’t bother you.”

“It didn’t,” she lied. “Meg’s comment wasn’t directed at me.”

“No, but knowing the husband killed his wife and himself because he couldn’t handle losing his son must’ve hit you on some level.”

The anger she’d been trying to keep at bay since walking away from the gravesite surfaced. “Sounds like you want it to upset me.”

He widened his eyes. “You’d really think that?”

No
. Alex was like a brother. He’d stood up for her numerous times and had always covered her mistakes when her search for her daughter had interfered with a case. “Then why are you bringing this up now?”

He let out a deep breath and pressed his head against the headrest. “I miss the old Jessica.”

She’d died the day her baby was taken.

“And I worry about you,” he continued. “All you ever talk about is missing kids. You’re letting your obsession dictate your life. It’s ruined your marriage, it’s caused problems with your job and the stress of it is going to drive you to an early grave.”