As Ellie scanned through the file, her mind wandered to the psychiatrist who was once employed by the department. Dr. Ernest Powell. During mandated sessions, Dr. Powell had worked with Ellie on recovering lost memories around her kidnapping, and though the visits were tough and often painful, she’d been grateful at the time.
Right up until she discovered Dr. Powell was one of Kingsley’s lackeys, planted in the department to keep tabs on her.
She rubbed her neck, frowning at the pages without really seeing them. Why was she so stuck on this? As awful and invasive as the revelation about Dr. Powell had been, she’d processed that trauma already. But her brain refused to drop it. Psychiatrist. Her psychiatrist had been crooked. Why was that ringing a bell?
Ellie stiffened. Another psychiatrist had come up in the past couple of days. Back in the Savannah PD, Charli had pointed out a section of Letitia Wiggins’s trial transcript, where an eloquent psychiatrist spoke on her behalf. His conclusion that Wiggins suffered from Battered Women’s Syndrome had likely gone a long way toward procuring her the light sentence.
She dialed Charli’s number.
“Did you arrive home safely?”
Ellie blinked. No hello, just straight to the point. No one could accuse Charli Cross of beating around the bush. “I did, thanks. I was wondering if you could send me copies of those transcripts we went over? Pictures are fine. You can text them if that’s easiest.”
“Yes. I’m in the middle of something, but I should be able to get those to you first thing in the morning.”
“Thank you, that’s perfect.”
“Good.”
Once again, the line clicked without Charli saying goodbye. Ellie shrugged, already growing accustomed to the Savannah detective’s abrupt send-off. She gathered the papers into a pile and set them on the bedside table, then went to her dresser and pulled a t-shirt and a pair of soft-knit pajama pants from the drawer and carried both into the bathroom.
She was about to twist on the faucet to wash her face when the doorbell rang. Who the hell?
When the bell rang again and again, she hurried to the front entrance, a hold your horses on the tip of her tongue.
Ellie peered through the peephole and gasped. Fumbling for the lock, she twisted the knob and swung open the door.
Katarina stood in the hall, illuminated by the soft glow of an overhead light. The woman’s hair was mussed and a little oily, like it was in need of a good wash, but her ridiculous, very un-Katarina outfit of pink beanie and matching sweatpants paired with slippers stood out more.
As silly as she looked, nothing was more prominent than the navy-blue baby carrier strapped to her chest.
Ellie gaped at the woman, wishing she’d thought to grab her gun. “For the love of god, please tell me there’s not an actual baby in there.”
Katarina removed the thin pink blanket draped across the top of the carrier. Nestled inside was a plastic doll. “But shh, don’t tell little Suzy. She thinks she’s real. All the better to go with my sweatpants.”
She stuck out a leg so Ellie could read the white letters running up the side. New Mommy. “Why are you wearing…that?” Ellie waved her hand to encompass the entire ensemble. “Better yet, what the hell are you doing here?”
Katarina nudged her shoulder with her chin, drawing Ellie’s attention to where the gray sweatshirt was stained red with blood.
“I was hoping you had some clothes I could borrow.”
23
Katarina sat behind the table in the fancy dining room, keeping her hands in plain sight and doing her best to seem as nonthreatening as possible. Not the easiest job when Ellie’s roommate scrutinized every move she made with the gun in her right hand held at the ready. That’d be rich, if, after her wild and crazy life, Katarina ended up getting taken out by a tiny blonde in cartoon sushi pajamas.
She surveyed the room, pausing on the wide-legged stance of Ellie’s bodyguard. Definitely not her biggest fan. The death stare he drilled into Katarina from across the room was unnerving, and in her opinion, a little misplaced. She’d stooped to begging and pleading to prevent Ellie from calling the cops, not a loaded gun.
The rest of the apartment was roomy and elegant, decorated in that tasteful sort of way that rich people used to mask the fact that they were rolling in dough. Please. Katarina bet the carpet was some top-of-the-line, premium crap, created in limited supplies and handcrafted from the wool of prize-winning sheep that were only fed organic wheat, or whatever the hell sheep ate.
“Here.”
Ellie tossed a pizza box onto the table near Katarina, next to a massive bowl of pasta salad. When she opened the cardboard lid, Katarina almost moaned out loud at the heavenly scent that wafted free.
Cheese. Pepperoni. Sausage. So much deliciousness in one package. After the cardboard flavor of the hospital food and endless containers of Jell-O, fresh pizza was a miracle.
She lurched for the box but drew up short when movement caught her eye. The roommate’s gun arm had twitched. That woman was too jumpy by half.
Meanwhile, the red-haired detective was also keeping close tabs on her from across the table, even though she acted more nonchalant. No obvious gun, but Katarina had zero doubts she was armed too. Goody. Stuck between a trigger-happy runt in kid’s jammies and a stuck-up detective with an ax to grind. She could sense the indigestion setting in already.
Her mouth watering, Katarina made a big show of inching her hand toward the box. Torture, when all she wanted to do was cram a slice into her mouth, but no pizza was worth a bullet in the skull. No matter how delicious it smelled.
She retrieved a piece with equal care,
