Are you Mrs. Keck?”
She only flinched a little bit at the Mrs. designation. Too young to be a widow, too old to be a Miss. And Ms. always sounded like a mosquito buzzing out of the person’s mouth. At Flynn’s school they simply called her Miss Colleen, in that quaint Southern way that kept children on a more formal but still personal level with their parents’ female friends. Of course, it was only for the women, she didn’t have a single recollection of someone ever saying Mr. Tommy.
The guard was looking at her, perplexed. Oh, please tell me I didn’t say that aloud. She tried again.
“Yes, I am. I’m here to see Lieutenant Jackson.”
“Yep, you’re on the list. Sorry about your husband, ma’am. They’re waiting for you. Just go knock on that door over there, someone will let you in.”
“Thank you.” She fought back the urge to tip him, almost laughed out loud. After her years as a journalist, she was so used to handing out the twenties when she was in need of information the reflex was ingrained into her.
Flynn had miraculously stayed asleep during her panicked flight from the parking garage. She blessed his father’s genes. Where Colleen would start and wake from the tiniest click or knock in the house’s night, Tommy could sleep through a tornado siren going off next to his bed. He was forever sleeping through his alarm. Flynn was the same way: easy to fall asleep, hard to rouse.
Her third knock was answered by a handsome black man, about six feet tall, impeccably dressed. She almost laughed out loud-who looked that good, that put together, at three in the morning? He smiled at her and she saw the gap between his front two teeth. He looked like a rock star, someone she couldn’t place. She had his CDs though. Damn, what was his name? Lenny something. She racked her brain. Kravitz. That was it.
He saw her trying to place him and smiled wider. He must be used to the double take people did when they saw him. Of course, that was what most folks in Nashville did-the country music capital of the world attracted a bevy of famous musicians, songwriters and singers, not to mention several actresses and actors who enjoyed the illusion of privacy Nashville afforded. Folks might look twice when Nicole Kidman wandered into Starbucks with Keith Urban and Sunday Rose, but they’d never do anything more than smile politely and say good morning. It just wouldn’t be polite to hit them up for an autograph when they were just trying to fuel up on caffeine.
He ushered her inside. “You must be Colleen Keck. I’m Detective Ross. Sorry about all this.”
“You and me both, Detective. Have you heard anything?”
Ross closed the door behind them and gestured for her to follow him. “No, nothing yet. We all just got here. The LT is on the phone to some of her contacts. I think she’s expecting you to brief us, can you do that?”
“I can. Is there someplace I could lay Flynn down? I’m not sure I want him hearing this.”
“Yeah, we can finagle something. I’ll ask one of the shift detectives to keep an eye on him and page me if he wakes up. They’re slow tonight. Will that work?”
“You must be a father, Detective.”
He smiled at her. “Nope. My mom was a reporter, and my dad worked the overnight shift. I got used to waking up in strange corners of the city. Always felt better if someone was around to tell me she’d be back in a second.”
They came to the conference-room door. He took Flynn from her arms and made his way back out of the room.
Taylor Jackson was on the other side of the room, sitting on what looked like a countertop, one long leg dangling beneath her, talking rapid-fire into a cell phone. She must have been sitting on the other foot, she looked like a very blond crane. Two other men were sitting at the table, flipping through files. One was cute, rangy with floppy brown hair, the other more obviously reserved, with blond hair graying at the temples. She mentally dubbed them Frick and Frack. Wondered where the hot guy had gone with her kid. Wondered why she was thinking that.
Colleen took a couple of deep breaths. It was all going to be all right.
Jackson was wrapping up her phone call now. She flipped the cell shut, stowed it in her pocket, and crossed the room to Colleen. She didn’t smile, exactly, but her face was welcoming.
“Hell of a thing,” she said, sticking out her hand to shake. Colleen took it, grateful for the warmth.
“Good to see you again, Lieutenant.”
“Take off your coat, have a seat. Detective Ross took care of you?”
“Yes, thanks. He’s just put Flynn down for me. I’m sure he’ll be back in a moment.”
Jackson cocked her head and looked at her, but said nothing. Damn. She must have sounded a bit possessive of Detective Ross. Strange, she was feeling possessive of the man. She’d only met him five minutes before for God’s sake. Hormones. Her hormones must be in gear. It was probably getting close to her time; she always got a little horny when nature was about to make a visit.
God, Colleen, get your head in the game. She was getting punchy. No sleep plus a bucketful of stress and a healthy dose of fear did that to a girl. She tried to redeem herself by resorting to her most professional tone.
“So, Lieutenant, what do you have?”
Jackson turned and went to the table, sitting across from Colleen. “Trouble. A boatload of it. I need you to tell me everything you know about the murders.”
“Where should I start?”
“How about telling us where you got the information about the killings in San Francisco in the first place?”
Colleen shook her head. “I can’t do that. I have sources. If I burn them, they’ll never speak to me again. I can’t give you their information. I’m sorry.”
Jackson stared at her, then sighed. “Okay, we’ll come back to that. Why don’t you just start at the beginning and share what you’re comfortable with?”
Colleen could tell the woman was trying hard not to be adversarial, but there was the tiniest bit of anger in the soft words. She didn’t blame her-of course Jackson would want the names of the sources. But Colleen had no intention of burning anyone if she could avoid it.
“I knew there was something up when I got a couple of emails from San Francisco telling me there had been a murder that looked like the Zodiac. You have to remember, this happens a lot. People love to imitate him, and there are false alarms all the time. But something felt different about this. Right afterward, emails came in from New York and Boston. At first I thought it was some kind of joke, but it felt wrong. So I started digging. The reports I was getting were right on. I double-sourced everything. Two nights ago, three different cities were struck by copycat killers. They imitated the Boston Strangler, Son of Sam and the Zodiac. Yesterday morning, you had a fiasco in Nags Head, North Carolina, that I’m convinced was related.”
“ You’re convinced. No one in the law enforcement community was drawing correlations between these four sets of murders, but you, a semi-pro true-crime blogger, immediately recognized a pattern. So you went off half- cocked and posted your theories on the blog, thus drawing the ire of some creep who decided to spook you.”
Colleen raised her chin a fraction. She refused to be condescended to. When Jackson said it aloud, she had to admit, it sounded absurd. But she knew she was right. Knew it in her heart.
“Say what you will, but I was right. And that’s what I do, Lieutenant. I run a crime blog. Sometimes the criminals I’m discussing read that blog. It’s a free world. But here’s the important thing-I help the police solve cases all over the country. People have an inherent mistrust of the police, of the system. They think if they tell the truth, or rat on a friend, the police will somehow sweep them into the case. I provide a forum for people to share tips, insight and information with law enforcement anonymously. I’m very good at drawing conclusions. I’m self-trained to some extent, but please don’t forget, I worked the crime beat for years and I was married to a cop. A good cop. Tommy taught me everything he knew. And you were one of the ones who taught him.”
Jackson gave Colleen a half smile. “Touche.”
“Please don’t blame me for all of this. All I’ve done is report the facts as I’ve seen them. Just like any good investigator would.”
Jackson ran her hands through her hair. Colleen was jealous, because the more rumpled it got, the sexier it looked. Her own hair would do nothing of the sort; when it was mussed up, it just looked like she’d slept on it for days.
Jackson put her hair into a fluffy ponytail, then started playing with a ballpoint pen. “No one is faulting you, or blaming you, Colleen. I wish you had come to me before you shared your theories with the rest of the world, yes.
