Everything To Lose

Book 5: The Rookie Club

by Danielle Girard

Genres: Police Procedurals; Crime Fiction; Mystery; Mystery Anthologies & Collections; Hard-Boiled; Female Sleuths; Crime & Mystery; Domestic Thrillers; Suspense; African American; African American Mystery & Detective; African American Urban; African American Women's Fiction; City Life; Feminist; Women's Fiction; Psychological Thrillers; Pulp Thrillers; Vigilante Thrillers; Fall & winter reads

Synopsis

When the daughter of San Francisco socialites is brutally assaulted, Jamie Vail makes it her mission to find the attacker. A seasoned Sex Crimes Inspector with the SFPD, work is what Jamie does best. She isn't distracted by the fact that her adopted son and the victim go to the same school.

Jamie can almost set aside the fact that the man caught on tape with the victim is someone she's been wary of for years—her son's biological father. At home, her son is performing poorly in school, becoming more reclusive, and nothing she does can draw him out.

More frightening is the fact that every piece of evidence brings her closer to home . . .

As her case escalates into a homicide investigation, Jamie teams up with old allies and rookie club members from across the department.

Loyalties are tested and the stakes raise as the case becomes frontpage news and the spotlight lands on her.

With his future on the line, Jamie must find Charlotte's attacker to prove her son's innocence before he lands behind bars, or worse . . .

Release date: March 26, 2015

Publisher: Saddle Peak Entertainment

Print pages: 330

Sample

 

CHAPTER 1

It was the way he held her hand. His long fingers wrapped around her hand and held firm like he was saving her. His skin was warm and dry. Boys her age never had dry hands. He thought about what she’d said before answering, considered exactly what she was asking. He was calm, sometimes so serious. A grown-up. She studied him standing in the doorway.

It was the way he laughed. Not some hysterical cackle like guys at school, and not the I’m-too-cool-to-laugh that others put on. Though serious, he laughed softly, more with his eyes than his mouth.

Such a silly schoolgirl crush thing to say, but she swore his eyes changed colors. They might be the exact color of toffee, or they could deepen to the shade of black coffee. They could change in an instant. “On a dime,” as her father liked to say when he was lecturing her about how lucky she was and how much she had been given, and how easily it might all go away if she made one wrong decision.

It was also that she knew he was the wrong decision, at least to everyone but her. He was not the one she was supposed to choose. Not one of the boys she’d always known, whose parents knew her parents, whose mothers were on the opera board with hers and only worked outside the home to raise money for the “underprivileged.” Not one of the boys in designer jeans and shirts that were washed by someone who worked for them. In fact, not like most of the boys at City Academy.

He had lived on the street. He had been given nothing. His father had been in jail. Yet he was the one who asked the tough questions. What would she do? How would she be someone who counted? Challenging her to move beyond her comfort zone. And he talked about the chances of survival for someone like him, the slimmer chances of not repeating the patterns set by his father.

It was the way he stood at the door, giving her plenty of time to speak up, to say she didn’t want to, that it was too much. They could go back to the way they’d been. To talking and holding hands if she wanted. But she didn’t. As he closed the door, she scanned the mattress that lay on the floor. Covered in faded green sheets, a gray comforter. A single pillow lay at the top, propped against the bare white wall. One pillow, while her bed was a mountain of them. Why did anyone need all those pillows?

They had never come here before. This had been her request, but he’d tidied up for her. Although she didn’t know if he’d moved things elsewhere, or if this was everything he had. The room was almost bare—no dresser and no closet. His clothes were stacked in three piles along one wall, two pairs of shoes lined neatly alongside. Books were stacked on the small table he used as a desk. Candles provided soft light, giving the room the smallest bit of ambience. The air smelled of ocean and coconut.

“We don’t have to do this,” he said again when they reached the mattress.

It was that he didn’t apologize for the room or try to play off the way he lived. He was the first person she’d ever known who was truly real.

She took his hand, felt the tremor of energy as they touched. “I want to.”

He waited a beat, watching her, scanning her face.

“Really.”

Only then did he reach up to unzip her jacket, moving slowly, reassuring her that he would stop any time, for any reason. But she didn’t. She wanted this. They both did. She was awkward. He was kind and careful.

It was that he didn’t tell her he loved her just because they’d had sex. Afterward, he lay beside her, running his finger along the profile of her hip. She’d thought his naked form would make her uncomfortable; instead, she felt calm.

She wasn’t a stupid high school girl at City Academy. She wasn’t Gavin and Sondra Borden’s daughter. She was just Charlotte. Charlotte naked in bed with a man.

It was how he was afterward. As he convinced her that she had to go home before her parents started worrying. She’d texted to say she was staying late to work on a school project. He wasn’t into rebellion. He didn’t need to make a point. Better to play by her parents’ rules, he said, than to risk not being able to see her again. It was that he wanted to see her again.

He blew out the candles and reached for the door. He grabbed his baseball mitt off the floor and tucked the ball deep into its pocket.

“You going to play some ball?”

“Thought I might toss it around a little. It’ll distract me when you’re gone.” He took her hand and, together, they crossed through the darkened main room. The smell of burnt food lingered along with something like sour milk. He didn’t live alone. Where were the others? The candles had been meant to mask the smell and the mixture was like something rotting on a beach. Anywhere else, she might have felt slightly sick.

Anywhere else, she might have walked out to the car by herself. As they crossed into the hallway, she was reminded of how different his world was. Along one wall were doors; on the other, a single dingy window that faced a patch of dirt in front of the building where, maybe once, there had been grass. The air was cold and the hallway dark but for a single bulb behind glass that was blackened with dust but miraculously unbroken. He led her down the corridor and into another hallway where the light hadn’t been so lucky. Slowly, the light behind them faded away until the light pollution from the city’s surrounding buildings and a few early stars cast shadows in the darkness. She stayed close to him as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. A door opened behind her and she turned back. Nothing there. She stumbled to catch up as they came around the corner. He gasped and shoved her forward.

She squinted in the darkness. His expression startled her. “What is it?”

Glass crashed. A grunt. Then he was no longer beside her.

She screamed and reached out, but he wasn’t there. She called his name. She huddled against the wall and fumbled in her purse for her phone. His hands were tight on her shoulders. No, not his hands. These hands gripped too tight. He twisted and she fought to break free. He launched her forward as she caught sight of dark brown, angry eyes. Familiar eyes. “What—”

The brown of his eyes flashed to black as he threw her from his grip. She reached out, hand caught in her purse strap. The stairs rushed toward her. Cement closed in. An explosion of blackness.

 

CHAPTER 2

It was almost 9:00 p.m. when Sex Crimes Inspector Jamie Vail snatched the phone off her desk. She caught it before the Dr. Dre ringtone could play all the way through. Every time it rang, she reminded herself to ask her son to change it to “Brave” or maybe “Roar.” Something empowering, and by a woman. Something that might make a victim feel a little stronger. Something more acceptable for a thirty-nine-year-old sex crimes inspector. “Vail,” she said.

“It’s Maxi.”

Maxi Thomas was the trauma nurse Jamie worked with most often at San Francisco General Hospital. For almost fifteen years, the two of them had worked side by side on some of Jamie’s worst rape cases. When Maxi called, it only meant one thing. “We’ve got another one.” Jamie grabbed her blazer off the back of her chair. She glanced at the paperwork scattered across her desk that she’d promised herself she’d clear today. “Where?”

“Sixteen years old. Came into General about 7:40. Her parents just arrived. I’ve talked to them, but they haven’t let me near her yet. Doctors are doing everything to protect the evidence. It should be intact.”

Intact meant that no one had washed the girl’s body yet. Probably because her condition wasn’t stable enough. “Who brought her to the hospital?” Jamie asked.

“Don’t know. Maybe a Good Samaritan who didn’t want to stick around. Or maybe the perp dropped her off.”

That would be a first. “I’m on my way.”

“I should warn you,” Maxi said, and Jamie recognized the tone.

Jamie forced herself to keep moving. “It’s bad?”

“She’s unconscious. Coma. They’re not sure she’ll make it.”

“Drugged?” Jamie asked.

“Head injury.”

“We looking for a beater?”

“Don’t think so,” Maxi said. “It might have been a fall. A little bruising on the wrists, so maybe a struggle.”

“Are we sure it’s a sex crime?” Jamie asked.

“The admitting doctor noted fluids. Tests came back positive for lycopodium.”

Lycopodium was one of the powder-like substances used by condom manufacturers to keep the rolled up latex from sticking to itself. “Which indicates she had sex,” Jamie said.

“Safe sex, no less,” Maxi added.

There was obviously more to the story. “But—”

Maxi sighed. “But according to her parents, she’s a virgin.”

“And, of course, every sixteen-year-old tells her parents about her sex life. What did the doctor find?”

“There are signs of trauma,” Maxi added. “Some tearing, bruises.”

“Could indicate assault but could mean it was her first time,” Jamie said.

“Right.”

It was Jamie’s turn to sigh. “But the parents want us to treat it as a possible assault.”

“They do,” Maxi confirmed. “And these are some particularly opinionated parents. With some serious pull.”

Jamie pushed through the department’s door and headed for the stairwell. Since she’d stopped smoking, the stairs were her best ally in the never-ending war with her size six pants. If she could afford a new wardrobe of size eights, it would be enough to surrender. “What kind of pull?” Jamie asked.

“The attending got a call from the mayor, requesting tightened security.”

“The mayor’s office called?”

“Not the office, Jamie. The mayor. No press, no outsiders. He also spoke to the head of security. All the video surveillance has been sent to you guys. They think they caught the guy on film.”

“Well, that’s good news.” Jamie jogged down the stairs. “Who are the parents?”

“Gavin and Sondra Borden.”

“I should know them?”

“If you read the society papers you would. Her grandfather was the first black attorney in San Francisco. Gavin Borden joined the family practice. They have two daughters. Charlotte, our victim, is a junior at City Academy.”

Jamie’s heart skipped a beat.

“That’s where Zephenaya goes, right?” Maxi asked.

“Yeah.” Her son was at City Academy on a scholarship. “I’ve never heard the name though. Z’s a freshman, so junior girls are out of his league.”

Maxi chuckled.

“I’m on my way.”

Jamie reached the station’s main floor, out of breath. Panting from the trip down the stairs. That was pathetic. She emerged into the hallway. Nodded to one of the crime scene techs she knew and a patrol officer who had helped her make an arrest a few weeks back. She caught the eye of an assistant district attorney she didn’t want to talk to and ducked her head.

She was about to cross through the department’s rear doors when her phone buzzed on her hip. She pulled it from the holster. “Vich,” she said. “You get a call from the lab? SF General sent over some surveillance footage.”

Vich was the nickname given to Alexander Kovalevich when he’d been in the police academy thirty years ago. A Boston transfer, Vich had joined SFPD sex crimes about four months ago. After the fallout from her divorce, Jamie had largely worked alone. Mostly because she was too surly for anyone to stand. At least until Vich.

“I got it all right,” he confirmed.

“I’m heading over to the hospital to try to get the parents to agree to a rape kit.”

“You need to see this first,” he told her.

Jamie groaned, thinking about climbing the stairs again. Swearing off the elevator was plain stupid.

“We got the perp dropping her off,” Vich said. “I’m in the lab with Blanchard.” With his Boston accent, he pronounced Sydney’s last name “Blanchud.”

At least the lab was only one flight away instead of three. She tried to do it without panting. Only partially successful, she found Vich leaning against a table. Behind him, the lab’s fuming chamber was humming. It looked like they were trying to pull fingerprints off a broken wine glass. At the other end of the table sat the evidence drying cabinet, not currently in use.

Sydney Blanchard stood over the shoulder of a lab tech who was frantically typing on a keyboard. “There,” she said, and the tech froze the image on the computer screen.

It was a grainy shot of a man holding a woman in his arms. The victim’s feet were closest to the camera, making it hard to tell much about her. Jamie studied his face, the way his head was turned. Something about his stance was familiar. She scanned her memory for the suspects she’d interviewed over the years. Hundreds of them. Maybe a thousand by now. “We can’t ID him from that,” Jamie said.

“Can you enhance it?” Sydney asked the tech.

The tech was already running commands. Slowly, the image crystallized. The screen went black. “It will reload and hopefully be something we can use.”

The image built one tiny layer of pixels every few seconds. Jamie resisted the urge to sit down. The ping of a text message.

DA wld b grt for Z. Not nearly as homogenous as CA. +C’s a grt town. A frsh start.

Leave it to Tony to send a text in all sorts of outdated shorthand and type out the word “homogenous.” No way he was taking Zephenaya when he moved to Cincinnati for his new teaching job. She didn’t care if the school in Ohio, Davidson Academy, was a better school or more diverse. Staying with her was best for her son. And best for her. She tried not to think too hard on whether she was confusing the two things.

On the computer screen, the top of the photo had appeared. In it was the dark sky in the background and the shape of cars in the parking lot. “We don’t get a shot of his car?”

Sydney shook her head. “The camera only picks him up a few steps before this. Right here is the only time he looks in the direction of the camera.”

Her phone buzzed again. U know this = wht he needs.

Tony wasn’t wrong about that. Something was going on with Z. He’d been caught smoking, was suspended for cheating on a biology test. Not to mention that City Academy was determining whether he would receive a scholarship for his sophomore year.

Sending him off to Ohio was too extreme.

On the screen, the suspect was revealed in thin lines, top to bottom. First, the very top of his head formed. His hair was cut short. Next was a prominent forehead then the furrow in his brow. The screen froze, the clock icon spinning. “It’s thinking,” the tech said.

“Wish it would think a little faster,” Vich said.

The phone buzzed again, reminding Jamie that she hadn’t answered Tony’s texts. Certainly, she couldn’t afford to send Z to City Academy without the scholarship. But he was her child. She couldn’t send him away. She hated the idea that Tony was moving to Ohio and breaking up their family, as untraditional as it was. Tony was like her brother. She hated the idea that he wouldn’t be close. Losing her son was unthinkable.

The layers began building again. Slowly, the suspect’s hooded eyes were unveiled followed by his wide nose. It was his full lips and the angular jaw line that gave it away. Jamie grabbed hold of the table.

Vich touched her arm, but she couldn’t pull her gaze from the image.

“I’ll put it through face recognition software to see if I can find a match against the database,” the tech said.

Jamie cleared her throat to get the words to come out. “You don’t need to do that.”

The tech spun in his chair. “You know him?”

“His name is Michael Delman,” she said.

“Delman,” Vich repeated, putting it together.

“Right. The man who dropped off our victim is my son’s biological father.”

 

Chapter 3

Whenever Jamie drove to see a victim at San Francisco General Hospital, she needed quiet. It was a time of meditation for her. No fifties radio that she blared when no one else was in the car because it reminded her of climbing on the fire trucks and sliding down the poles at the station when her father was working. No ESPN radio that she and Z compromised on when they rode together because she’d much rather hear sports than his music.

On the way to meet a victim, Jamie wanted silence for the chance to clear the fray from her intentions. For the victims, she was often their first conversation, their first eye contact, their first touch after an attack. She believed how she handled that had an impact on how they recovered. Whether they recovered.

After a particularly harrowing case a couple of years back, a nurse tried to convince Jamie that she ought to take ten or fifteen minutes to meditate. She taught Jamie to imagine using a huge broom to sweep out any thoughts that entered her mind. This drive was as close to meditation as she got.

Today, though she tried to keep them at bay, sounds of the world rose and batted against the car as she drove. Electric buses emitted high-pitched hums as they pulled away from the curb. Music blasted from another car—Robert Plant singing “Since I’ve Been Loving You.” The rev of a motorcycle, a distant siren.

She prayed the phone didn’t ring. Not even Vich, who would manage dispatching the crime scene team to the hospital parking lot and contact their captain to try to get a warrant to search Michael Delman’s home. She drove with purpose, breathed with purpose, and she did not think. Not on any one thing and certainly not on whether Captain Jules would rule this case a conflict of interest because the suspect had fathered her adopted son.

More than five years had passed since Zephenaya last saw his biological father. Michael Delman had been in prison twice. Jamie pulled Delman’s rap sheet every few months. She kept track of where he lived, how close he was to their son. Her son. She had no way to find out where Delman worked, to really know where he was, so she settled for knowing if he was in or out of jail.

Her thoughts stirred like a dust storm. Using the big brush that nurse had described—one that always looked like a broom that a witch might ride—she brushed them out. She needed to come to this with a clear head.

Even if Charlotte Borden was in a coma, Jamie wanted to be in the right frame of mind.

Maxi had said that Charlotte Borden was in the ICU. Most of their cases were seen in a room Maxi and Jamie called “2R.” It had been called the “Rape Room” before Jamie joined the department, although no one seemed to know exactly where the nasty and inappropriate nickname had come from.

A patrol officer accidentally dropped the words “Rape Room” in front of a victim, causing a bout of screaming hysterics that lasted until a doctor pumped her full of Valium. The officer was suspended without pay; the name of the room permanently changed.

2R was a small, pale yellow exam room with a single bed and bright, glaring lights—both overhead lights as well as several that could be moved around the room. Other than that, the room had gloves, tissue, and almost nothing else. If a victim required an x-ray or scans, she (or, rarely, he) had to be moved. Unless a victim was physically unstable, she stopped at 2R. Charlotte Borden had bypassed 2R, which meant samples and photographs would have to be collected in the ICU.

Jamie showed her badge to the security officer seated behind the desk. “I’m here for Charlotte Borden.”

“I don’t have a Charlotte Borden,” he said. “You sure she’s at General?”

Jamie dialed Maxi. “I’m at the front. She’s not listed.”

There were voices in the background. “413.”

“Why isn’t she listed?”

“Uh huh,” Maxi said, letting Jamie know she was with the parents.

“They requested her name be kept out of the hospital registry?” Jamie asked, as she started for the elevators.

“Oh, yes. Definitely.”

“There’s more?” Jamie guessed.

“Much.”

Jamie hung up and felt the vibration of her phone. A text from Vich. Warrant’s a no go. Delman could be a good samaritan. We need more.

That the warrant had been denied to give Delman the benefit of the doubt was comical, although not at all humorous, but Jamie understood the argument. Arresting people for bringing an injured woman to the hospital would create a disincentive to help people out. They didn’t want to do that. They had no reason to bring in Michael Delman. Until they could tie him to Charlotte’s injuries.

Coming down the hospital corridor, Jamie didn’t need a room number to locate Charlotte Borden. The hallway outside her door was congested with people—mostly men, and a token woman—dressed in expensive suits. Jamie held up her badge as she made her way through the mass. The suits watched her, but no one said anything as she knocked on the door and it opened to reveal Maxi’s face.

As Jamie entered the room, she went straight to Charlotte. Without touching her, Jamie stared. Beyond the breathing tubes, she had a beautiful face. With small, delicate features and high, round cheekbones, she looked older than sixteen. Charlotte’s mother stood on the far side of the bed and two others sat in chairs across the room. They watched her, but Jamie wanted to focus on Charlotte first. There would be plenty of time for everyone else.

Careful not to touch anything, Jamie took note of the left side of her face. Her eye was swollen shut; blood pooled thick under her skin where the bone in her cheek may have been broken. There were no apparent injuries on the right side of her face. Her hands lay at her sides, tucked under the blankets. It was something parents did. Nursing staff usually kept the hands out so as not to tangle the IV and to make it easier to check vitals. Parents tended to cover their children as though they were tucking them into bed for sleep. Jamie pulled two gloves from a box beside the bed.

“Excuse me—”

The man behind her had to be Charlotte’s father. The lines in his face were pressed deep into his skin as though he’d slept on a wrinkled sheet. His tie was pulled loose, and he smelled faintly of sweat and expensive cologne. “Mr. Borden, if you could give me one minute.”

Charlotte’s mother backed away from the bed and began crying.

Her hands gloved, Jamie turned Charlotte’s right hand over in her own. She noticed the bright orange nail polish, a ridiculous color that managed to be gorgeous against the young woman’s brown skin. She repeated the process on her other hand, then pulled out her notebook. She would do an entire exam, but not with her parents in the room.

“What are you writing?” Charlotte’s mother asked.

In the room were Charlotte’s parents and a gentleman seated in a chair in the corner. He rose and crossed to Mrs. Borden, placing his hand on her shoulder. “What are you writing down?” Mrs. Borden repeated.

“I appreciate you giving me a moment to see your daughter before we spoke,” Jamie said without answering the question. “I’m Jamie Vail. I’m an investigator with the San Francisco Police Department.”

Neither Mrs. nor Mr. Borden reached to shake Jamie’s hand. “Has the doctor been in to talk to you about her condition?”

The man behind Sondra Borden stepped forward. In pressed slacks and a dark denim button-down, he was probably from the mayor’s office. Or an attorney. Jamie tried not to dislike him immediately. It wasn’t easy. “I’m Dr. Travis Steckler.” He reached out his hand and, maintaining her game face, Jamie pulled off the glove on her right hand and shook. While her skin was rough and callused and probably clammy, his felt like it had been recently dusted with baby powder, warm and dry. “I’ve explained to Sondra and Gavin that Charlotte has suffered a contrecoup contusion. A contrecoup contusion means—”

“That her head hit something hard, and her brain struck the inside of her skull,” Jamie interrupted the medical lesson. “Most commonly associated with a fall.”

Dr. Travis Steckler smiled, and Jamie was frustrated at his condescension. Except, he wasn’t actually being condescending. She looked at his casual attire. “Are you the attending?”

“I’m an emergency department physician, but I practice out of UCSF,” Steckler said. “I’m here for Gavin and Sondra as a friend.”

Jamie turned her attention to the parents. “If it’s okay, I’d like to ask you both a few questions.”

Sondra began crying again. Gavin went to a chair and sat, rubbing his head and staring at the ground. He was a tall man and in the small chair his knees rose almost to his chest. “Go ahead, Inspector,” he said, ignoring his wife’s crying.

“When was the last time you saw Charlotte?”

“This morning. Before school.” Gavin glanced at his watch and rubbed his face. “Fourteen hours ago.”

“Was there anything unusual about this morning?”

“I left around 7:00,” Gavin said. “Lotti was having breakfast with her sister. They were still in their pajamas.” Gavin Borden winced as though the words came with a painful image. His daughter in her pajamas and now in this hospital bed.

“Her car was found in the hospital parking lot,” Jamie continued. “Does your daughter drive to school?”

“Yes,” Sondra said.

Jamie flipped a page in her notebook although she remembered the car exactly. “She drives a red Mercedes 510?”

“It’s a 520,” Gavin said, his voice fading over the last number.

The “2” Jamie had written looked like a “1.”

“But that isn’t her car,” Gavin said. He started to turn to his wife but didn’t make it that far. Instead, he crossed his arms and sat stiffly in his chair.

“Whose car is it?” Jamie asked.

Sondra Borden seemed to shrink. “It’s mine,” she said, then quickly added, “I was picking up a silent auction item—a curio bookcase—and I needed the Jeep.”

“Is it unusual for your daughter to take your car?”

“Yesterday was the first time,” Sondra said. “But I’ve only had the car a couple months.”

Gavin stood. “I need a cup of coffee.”

“Mr. Borden, I know this is hard, but I’d like to get as much information as I can to help our investigation.”

“I don’t know anything,” Gavin said. “I left and she was in a pair of polka dot pajamas.” His eyes were red and swollen. “Purple and yellow polka dots,” he continued. “Next thing I know, I find out she was driving her mother’s car, wearing her mother’s clothes, that she was—” He choked on the next word, clamped his mouth shut, and strode from the room.

“He blames me,” Sondra said, sinking into a chair.

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Steckler told her.

Jamie made no such promises. “What did he mean about her wearing your clothes?”

“She borrowed a sweater of mine. And a scarf. Shoes.”

“Did she do that often?”

“More and more. We’re almost the same size and you know how teenage girls are.”

Jamie said nothing. She couldn’t remember being a teenage girl herself—certainly not the kind who shared clothes with her mother—and she had no frame of reference with Z, either.

“Gavin didn’t approve,” Sondra went on. “He thought she was growing up too fast, but it was just a scarf or a pair of earrings. My boots. It wasn’t like she was wearing high heels to school.”

“Is it possible she was dressing up for someone?” Jamie asked.

“She wasn’t dating,” Sondra said without hesitation. “She didn’t have a boyfriend. I’d know if she did.”

Travis Steckler’s gaze held a silent plea not to tell Sondra Borden that she was crazy to think she’d know everything about her daughter’s love life. “I know this is difficult to hear.”

Sondra went still.

“I’d like to do a rape kit on your daughter. It will allow us to collect evidence of what happened to her.”

Sondra looked to Steckler.

“Let the police do their job,” he told her.

“Okay.” She went to Charlotte’s side and smoothed the covers over her daughter’s motionless form.

“I’m going to ask you to wait outside.”

Sondra nodded without taking her eyes off of her daughter.

“While you’re waiting, I’d like you to make me a list of Charlotte’s closest friends. Names and phone numbers. It’s important that I talk to as many people who know Charlotte as possible.”

Steckler led Sondra from the room. A beat after the door closed, Jamie turned to Maxi. “What do you think?”

Maxi waved at the door. “I think that’s the whitest black couple I’ve ever seen. You hear how they talk to each other? My mother’s white family is blacker than those people.”

Maxi’s mother was white, her father black. Married forty years, Maxi described her parents as the perfect couple. Like Jamie, Maxi had been married too. Hers only lasted a couple of years. Jamie’s had ended with finding her husband in bed with a woman she’d thought was a friend. It was understandable why the two of them almost never talked about men in any positive way. It was also probably a natural side effect of the job.

“They obviously love their girl,” Maxi added in a quieter voice. “They both look torn up.”

Jamie imagined the expressions on Sondra’s and Gavin’s faces, then forced them away again. “What do we have so far?”

Maxi handed Jamie the initial exam results. “I’ve started her file. The on-call nurse got initial images of the surface injuries. The hospital’s CMO ordered a full set of scans, so she’s already had those, too. I should be able to get those e-mailed to you this afternoon. All that’s left is to do a rape kit and get it to the lab.”

“Wow, you’re on it today, Maxi.”

“Well, it’s easy when you’ve got everyone paying attention,” Maxi said. “Didn’t have to ask twice for anything. Not like most times.”

“Okay. Nail scrapings first?”

“There’s some sort of gray chalk under a couple of the nails on her right hand,” Maxi said.

Jamie placed a collection sheet on the bed and lifted Charlotte’s right hand. Carefully, she scraped the substance onto the sheet.

“What do you think it is?”

“It’s too rough to be chalk.”

“Sand?”

“I don’t think so. Not uniform enough. We’ll get the lab to work it up.”

Maxi and Jamie fell into a comfortable silence as they worked Charlotte’s rape kit. The victims usually required constant reassurances, confirmation that they were safe, that it would be over soon. Maxi uttered these to their comatose patient. “We’re going to comb your hair, see if we find anything. I’ll try not to pull,” she told Charlotte. Charlotte didn’t respond in any way. Maxi would have said the same thing to a victim who never made it to the hospital, to the ones they did rape kits on in the morgue. She had before.

When they were done, Jamie checked that each sample was labeled and collected it all into a single bag.

“There is one more thing I think you’ll want to take.” Maxi started across the room to a small veneer locker above the sink. From it, she pulled out the white bag that held Charlotte’s personal items. Still wearing her gloves, Maxi removed a lace bra. It was bright orange.

“Not the kind of bra I was wearing at sixteen.” Or thirty-nine, Jamie thought.

Maxi showed Jamie the tag. “And check this out.”

“Agent Provocateur,” Jamie said. “Never heard of it.”

“Me neither, but Carly down in Labor and Delivery says she sees it all the time at Pacific Medical, on the mothers who come down from Sea Cliff and Pacific Heights.”

“So, it’s expensive,” Jamie said.

Maxi snorted. “I Googled this Provo-ca-whatever. This shit’s not expensive; it’s like a car payment. We’re talking a hundred and eighty bucks for the underwear, which is only about four inches of lace. The bra?” Maxi paused for dramatic effect. “The bra costs another two hundred.”

Jamie looked over at Charlotte. “And she had a matching pair?”

Maxi lifted a paper evidence collection bag off the table and handed it to Jamie. Jamie unrolled the top and looked in at the matching lace underwear, no larger than a cocktail napkin. “Four hundred dollar underwear. Makes it seem like she had plans for someone to see them.”

“Damn straight,” Maxi agreed.