“Bring it sista!” Karma shouted, pushing by them and heading for the kitchen.
“Karma, my office is to the left, third door on the left.”
“Rian?”
“He’s at GlenCare until six.”
Jo headed to the back of Sullivan’s car to grab a few boxes from his trunk while Redden and Blair unloaded the SUV. Hefting the boxes, she led the two into her home. The small kitchen table had come with her from her apartment. It didn’t fit the decor any more than the recliner but these two items she had been adamant about being in her office.
The table was a dull yellow with paint chipped off from her and her siblings’ disagreements that began in her mother’s kitchen. Under the table was a drawing of a dog in red marker Jo’s youngest sister had made when she was four and ran out of coloring paper. Her mother had wanted to toss the table away but Jo had refused. It held too many memories. The first time she arrested her siblings when she was nine, and she had handcuffed them to the chairs.
Now it would remind her of her roots as a cop brought up by a retired captain in the Moody Police Department. She was proud to be part of the Rayburn legacy and liked having the table as a reminder.
She set the boxes on the scuffed-up table.
“Nice place.” Blair placed more boxes next to hers.
Sullivan whistled, and Jo flipped off all of them. “Screw you guys.”
The office Rhys put together for her was great. No ruffle, lace, or frou-frou decorations anywhere. He had it painted tan with a cream accent on the molding. A dark, sturdy desk he had found at auction took up the far side with natural light from the window pouring through a sheer panel. Jo had asked him to keep the overstuffed furniture and wood and glass filing cabinets that graced the room when they settled on this room for her office. A door beyond the couch on the left side of the room led to Rhys’s office.
“What did this room used to be?” Karma asked bringing in a stack of binders.
“An outer office for Rhys’s dad so he and his buddies could drink and talk without it being a formal setting in his office.” Jo strode from the room and hurried to grab the last box so Redden could shut the door. “We done?”
“Yep.”
When they reached the office again, Blair pointed to Jo and Sullivan. “Walk us through the first case.”
Sullivan rubbed a hand over his face. “We wrote it off as a break-in gone wrong. The kid, Mark, was seventeen and headed for college at the end of summer. He’d just graduated from high school and decided to hang around Birmingham until he shipped off to Tuscaloosa in the fall.”
“Meeting up with friends and such?”
“Yes, but not that week. It was the first week of August, so he wasn’t due to school until the weekend. Most of his friends had left for their own universities or were forced into last minute family trips. Mark and his parents did the family thing the week before so he could finish packing what he needed.” Sullivan met Jo’s gaze.
“Why did you two think it was a burglary?” Redden propped his hip on Jo’s desk.
Jo slumped on the couch. “It’s not that we thought it was a burglary at first. It looked like a crime of passion.”
“Parents?”
“At work. Rock solid. Mark’s father was in a marketing meeting, and his mother was taking minutes in a board meeting. One in Homewood and one on the twenty-fourth floor of a downtown high rise.”
“Girlfriend?”
“Nope,” Sullivan answered flopping down next to Jo. “They called it quits before Christmas the year before. Both wanted to experience college life to the fullest. And Lucy was dating a guy. ‘Her last summer fling,’ she called it before.”
“What’s that mean?”
Karma’s hand shot up. “Oh, pick me.”
Redden squinted at her. “You were here?”
“Nope, but I know the summer fling thing. I did that. It’s finding like a hot guy with not a lot of brains so you won’t get attached. Basically, you use him for sex.”
Jo planted her face in her palm.
“Seriously?”
Lifting her face, she sighed. “Yes, Lucy’s fling was a few years older, and he worked construction. Really buff and not very bright.”
“So? She still could’ve—”
“Nope, because while Mark was being stabbed, Lucy and the fling were screwing each other’s brains out. Or they were napping in between bouts. Neither could recall a minute by minute account just how many condoms they’d used,” Jo answered.
“It was a lot,” Sullivan chimed in.
She swung around to face her partner. “How is that helpful?”
“Well, now they know if the two weren’t screwing they were sleeping. Because there were quite a few missing. Swear twenty-years-old have good refractory time. I should know. I was a twenty-year-old once upon a time.” Sullivan’s narrow chest puffed out.
“Oh, God.” Karma’s head thumped on the table. “Not an image I want in my head.”
“So you wrote it off as a break in. Any evidence to support it?”
“Some. The window leading to the backyard was broken, the shards of glass were inside the house, and the door was unlocked. We found several large footprints in the dirt leading to the back door and out again when the killer left the house,” Sullivan said.
“But Mark wasn’t shot.” Redden crossed his arms.
“We think the person was surprised the house was occupied, took the nearest object, and stabbed Mark.” Jo had never felt quite settled with their findings but every rock they’d turned over led nowhere. “The problem with the theory is we found nothing in the house missing. Nor anything in the house that could make those kinds of wounds. So the thief was armed. Maybe he assumed a knife wouldn’t get him into as much trouble as a gun.”
“Makes sense, but now we know there’s more to it. We need to dig into that first case again.” Maker said. He was quiet and introspective
