1
“You already heard, right?”
David Willis glanced up at the man leaning into the cubicle surrounding his cluttered desk. Detective “Tiny” Wyman, his best friend on the force and a damn good cop, was even larger than he was, with skin like burnished copper and a ready smile that always seemed at odds with the depth of sadness in his brown eyes. He took his crime-fighting seriously; he also wasted few words. When he talked, most people listened. Including David.
“Heard what? That I’m behind on my paperwork again?” he joked.
Tiny shoved giant hands into the pockets of his khaki pants, but the casual pose didn’t make him look any more comfortable in his clothes. Tiny just wasn’t the kind of man who was meant to wear slacks and a sports jacket, let alone a tie. “You’re always behind on your paperwork,” he grumbled with a crooked grin. “You think I’d waste my valuable time pointin’ that out?”
When his smile didn’t linger, David knew he hadn’t stopped by to spar with him. “No,” he said. “What’s up?”
Tiny yanked at his tie as if it were choking him. “’Member that guy we put away for attackin’ that little blond woman in the middle of the night?”
David had handled enough cases over his thirteen years with the Sacramento PD that, with such a sketchy description, he might not have instantly recalled this particular assault. But Tiny’s mention of “that little blond woman” brought the details immediately to mind. Probably because those details hadn’t been that deeply buried to begin with. He hadn’t talked to Skye in a few months, but she was never far from his thoughts. “Yeah, I remember. Burke got eight to ten.”
“Turns out it’ll be closer to three.”
Rocking back in his chair, David tossed his pen on the stack of paperwork he’d been forcing himself to complete. “I knew he was coming up for his first parole hearing. But last I heard, there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell he was going to get it.”
“He shouldn’t have gotten it,” Tiny responded. “Burke is dangerous. But…” He gave up fiddling with his tie, his attitude one of surrender to another day at the office. “I guess he ratted out a fellow inmate, which meant San Francisco PD could close two previously unsolved homicides. They recommended him to the parole board.”
David shot to his feet. “Didn’t anyone read my damn letter? Why didn’t they call us first? Check this guy out?”
“Apparently they contacted Chief Jordan several weeks ago.”
“Did he tell them the body count along the river stopped once our friendly dentist went to prison?”
“Of course. And they said it could just as easily be a coincidence.” Tiny finally cracked his usual broad smile. “I say they can bank on our intuition. But they want more.”
More. That was why the chief had questioned him about the unsolved cases, wanting to know if he was any closer to developing a solid connection to Oliver Burke. Jordan had been looking for something tangible to contest San Francisco’s opinions. And David hadn’t been able to give it to him. But their meeting hadn’t concerned him too much. He hadn’t realized what was on the line. He’d figured he’d have at least two more years to uncover the missing link.
“This is bullshit.” David nudged his friend aside as he squeezed through the opening of his cubicle, intent on finding Jordan. But Tiny grabbed his arm.
“Save your breath, man. There’s nothing he can do. The decision’s been made. Dr. Burke walks next week.”
“Next week? Doesn’t anyone care what he might do?” Two other detectives in the violent crime unit stuck their heads out into the hall. David used a pointed stare to encourage them to mind their own business and shifted his attention back to Tiny.
“Seems that San Francisco cares more about closing old cases,” Tiny said. “By rewarding Burke, they give others an incentive to step forward. There’re some gang-bangers in there who know a lot of shit. I think the SFPD would’ve fought this all the way to the governor, trying to get a pardon if they had to.”
Obviously, it hadn’t been necessary to go that far. Burke’s early release had been far easier to accomplish than David would’ve believed possible. “But if he attacks again, he’ll know better than to leave his victim alive to testify against him. He made that mistake once and it landed him in prison.”
“Which was Chief Jordan’s argument.”
“And?”
“He was told we can’t take every ‘might’ into account or we’d never be able to do our jobs.”
“Skye Kellerman is a ‘might’ that should matter!”
Tiny ran a hand over his bald head. “She matters to you, right?”
As usual, Tiny’s voice was a low rumble, but David couldn’t help noticing the subtle inflection. He ignored it, as well as the memory of Tiny warning him that he was getting too emotionally involved with Skye. Then, as now, he’d been trying to reconcile with his ex-wife.
“I wouldn’t put it past Burke to seek her out—to take what he couldn’t get from her, along with an extra measure of revenge.” The image created by his own words made him sick.
Tiny’s gaze remained steady. “Neither would I.”
“We have to do something.”
“What? Unless we find the proof we’re missing on those old murders, or he commits another crime, there’s nothin’ we can do.” He released a long, laborious sigh. “You want me to call her?”
David wished he could let Tiny deliver the news. Or someone else. This was the last thing he wanted to tell Skye. But he refused to take the easy way out. It had to be him. “No, I’ll do it.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.” With a curse, he smacked the divider as Tiny left. Tiny didn’t bother to look back. He knew David too well, shared his frustration. But several heads popped into the hall again.
“What are you staring at?” David growled.
Everyone disappeared, but intimidating his coworkers didn’t make him feel any better. How was he going to tell Skye that the fear she faced daily—after surviving Burke’s attack—was about to get a lot worse?
Skye Kellerman’s shoulder blades tensed as she heard tires in her gravel drive. It was a cold morning in early January, not dark, but a thick blanket of fog made her feel completely isolated. Cut off from the rest of the world.