Four of a Kind

Book 4: An Audrey Harte Novel

by Kate Kessler

Genres: Crime Fiction; Psychological Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

When a girl in the New England town of Ryme is found brutally murdered, the community seeks help from criminal psychologist Audrey Harte.

The media wants Audrey's insight into the mind of a killer, and the school and parents hope she can help the students properly process the crime.

But Audrey can't resist assisting Detective Neve Graham in the quest to find the killer. A killer who seems willing do anything to avoid going to jail, even killing a cop—or a psychologist.

Four of a Kind is the latest thriller featuring Audrey Harte, the criminal psychologist who uses her own dark past to help stop dangerous killers.

Audrey Harte novels
It Takes One
Two Can Play
Three Strikes
Four of a Kind

Release date: March 6, 2018

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 352

Sample

CHAPTER ONE

April 26, 2017

There were three words Neve Graham hated to hear. They echoed in her ears as a twig snapped beneath the sole of her boot. They found something.

It was late April, but there were still patches of snow in the heavily sheltered woods, despite it being a sunny day. Another few rains and it would be gone soon. New shoots of life burst through the dirt, rotting vegetation giving away to something vibrant and green, despite the stubborn snow.

God, she hated spring. It smelled like death to her, all that decay stripped bare by the slow but relentless thaw.

“You see it yet?” called a voice.

Neve turned. Coming along the path toward her was Charlotte deBaie, death investigator for the area. “Just got here,” she replied. “Can I carry some of that?”

Charlotte waved her away as they started down the rough path down the rocky hill. “Do you think it’s her?”

“It’s someone.” When she’d gotten the call earlier, she’d been told that hikers had found human remains at the Edgeport state park, commonly referred to simply as “the Falls” by locals. The area only had one missing person, but that was one too many as far as Neve was concerned. Part of her wanted to give the family closure, but there was no goddamn way she looked forward to making that visit.

Maybe it was a tourist. A lone hiker who hadn’t told anyone where they were going. It was possible—it happened occasionally.

Charlotte’s boot skidded on a loose rock. Neve reached up to steady her. She really didn’t want to break the larger woman’s fall at the bottom of the bank. Plus, the guys would make lesbian jokes for the next month, regardless of the fact that both Neve and Charlotte were in relationships with men.

When they finally reached bottom, they had to pick their way along the rocky terrain bordering the river to where the falls growled and splashed. A young man was sitting partway up the steep incline. Neve recognized him as Gareth Hughes, one of the caretakers of the park. He was pale and perched on a rock about ten feet below the bridge that allowed hikers to cross over the falls.

“Climbed all that way down just to climb up again,” Charlotte muttered, watching where she stepped. “Sounds about right.”

Neve smiled slightly. “Better to come down the path than that.” She pointed where Gareth sat. That was just an invitation for a broken neck, which was what had probably happened to the person he’d found. There was a path from the parking lot to the upper level of the falls as well, but it was tricky terrain.

Finally, they reached the base of the falls, where they were soon joined by Gareth’s brother, Owen, and Neve’s fellow state trooper Vickie Moore, who was in uniform and the first on the scene. There were others as well, but Neve was primary since it was a female body. She’d been looking for Tala Lewis for two months, ever since the girl went missing.

Neve and Charlotte suited up to preserve the scene and made their way twenty feet up the side of the falls. The rocks and vegetation were wet from melt and rushing water, making it a slippery mess.

“Be careful,” Neve cautioned as her own toe slipped on a slimy patch. Damn booties.

“Not my first rodeo, girlie,” Charlotte replied, deftly avoiding the same spot. Somehow, she managed to look cool and graceful while a tiny trickle of sweat ran down Neve’s back.

Gareth reached down to give her a hand up the last couple of feet. Then, when Neve stepped to the side, he helped Charlotte as well. The bridge was only a few feet away—a good place for anyone else to stand so as not to contaminate the scene any more than it already was.

“Where is it?” Neve asked the younger man.

He pointed to a pile of rocks that looked as though it had been part of a landslide at one time. Behind them, Neve saw alders, more rocks, and a boot. A boot that looked as though it might still have a foot in it. She swallowed. She’d been doing this job for ten years now, and it never got any easier.

She and Charlotte approached in single file, Neve stepping on the hard rocks in an attempt to preserve the scene as much as possible. She paused on top of the largest boulder and looked down.

Shit.

The body had been a young woman at one time. It was surrounded and still partially covered by rocks. Long black hair stuck to the scalp and tangled with debris on the ground. She wore a puffy purple jacket, ripped and stained with blood, and jeans stuffed into black boots. Her skin was almost the same color as her coat, with patches of red. Freezer burn, Neve thought. It wasn’t the bloat that got to her—or even the smell. Thank God it was still too cool for bug activity, and the rocks had kept her covered until meltoff started. No, what got to Neve was the grimace, and there always seemed to be a grimace. It was the one reminder that what they were looking at used to be alive. The girl’s revealed a slightly crooked eyetooth.

Charlotte began taking photos with her phone. “It’s her, isn’t it?”

Neve nodded, her throat tight. They both knew they’d have to compare dental records before they could say anything publicly, but there was no doubt in her mind. “It’s Tala Lewis.”

And it was obvious her death hadn’t been an accident.

  

The moment Audrey Harte saw the unmarked police car pull into the drive, she knew something bad had happened. Detective Neve Graham was a friend, but things had been strained between them ever since Neve made it clear she didn’t fully trust Audrey, or her fiancé, Jake. It wasn’t that Audrey blamed her; Neve had every reason to be wary as a cop, but not as a friend. Audrey would never betray her that way.

So if Neve was there, unannounced, then something bad had happened. Audrey turned away from the workers building an extension onto the old farmhouse that would soon be her Grace Ridge facility for troubled teens and walked toward the spot where Neve had parked under an ancient apple tree. There would be blossoms on the tree in a few weeks, toward the end of May, but for now it was thick with buds. It was obvious back there, on what locals referred to as “the Ridge,” that spring had truly arrived.

Neve climbed out of the car and shut the door. She wore a black pantsuit and white shirt that indicated she was on duty. Was it Jake? Audrey’s mother? No, someone would have called her, unless it was really bad.

“What’s wrong?” Audrey demanded, closing the distance between them with long strides.

Neve leaned against the car. Her dark hair was back in a tight bun, but curls had managed to escape regardless. They had met as children, and Neve had been the first black person Audrey had ever seen that wasn’t on television. Audrey was also the first person Neve ever met whose eyes were different colors. They’d been fascinated by each other, and became pretty good friends.

Then Neve’s father arrested Audrey and her best friend for murder and put an end to that.

Neve crossed her arms over the chest of her button-down. “We found a body this morning.”

Audrey’s shoulders sagged. “Tala Lewis?”

Neve nodded. She looked defeated. “Yeah.”

“Shit. Alisha is going to be heartbroken.” Alisha was Jake’s niece, who’d been good friends with the girl who’d disappeared a couple of months ago. Alisha clung to the hope that her friend had taken off to New York or LA to pursue her dreams of becoming an actress. She was convinced that Tala would send word as soon as she was settled in, even though the girl was much more considerate than that and would never let people worry about her.

“I’m going to ask you not to say anything to her until we know for sure. I haven’t talked to the parents yet.”

“Of course.” She didn’t like keeping secrets from Alisha, but she couldn’t be expected not to share the news with friends, and her mother—Jake’s sister, Yancy—had a reputation as a gossip. It would be all over town before suppertime.

Neve was silent for a moment, giving Audrey a chance to study her. She looked exhausted; there were dark circles under her wide eyes, and tension in her brow. “What else?” she prompted. It was obvious now that Neve had sought her out not because of Alisha, but because she needed to talk. “Is it Bailey?” Bailey was the daughter of Neve’s boyfriend and was currently incarcerated at a juvenile facility, awaiting trial for the murder of her stepmother, Maggie. The same Maggie whose father Audrey had helped kill.

It all felt so very incestuous.

“No. She’s good. The lawyers are optimistic.” She shifted against the car, turning so that her back was against the driver’s door. “The body we found had been stabbed. Multiple times.”

“The body” rather than Tala. Either Neve was being very diligent about not committing to the victim’s identity, or she was trying to be impersonal. “I don’t suppose there’s any way it could have been accidental?”

Neve gave her a sharp look, as if questioning her intelligence. “We found her back the Falls. Someone had taken the time to cover the body with rocks.”

Audrey leaned against the car as well. A cool breeze ruffled her hair. “So now you have to tell the parents their daughter was murdered.”

“By someone who seems to know the area and had the thought to leave her in a spot where she was very unlikely to be found. If it wasn’t for the park guys doing some work, we might not have found her. Once the warm weather hit . . .”

She didn’t have to explain any further. Audrey had worked with the police enough—and watched enough TV—to have an idea what bugs and animals could do to a corpse.

“You’re thinking it was someone local.”

Neve sighed. “I hate the cases with murdered kids. I thought when I left New York I was leaving this kind of stuff behind.”

Audrey didn’t know exactly what had happened, but she knew Neve had been shot and almost died, and that her parents had begged her to give up the city, because her father had almost been killed on the job years earlier. It was the reason they’d moved to Edgeport.

“It’s been getting worse,” Neve continued.

“Since I came home,” Audrey supplied, because of course it was all about her.

“Shut up.” Neve scowled at her. “You coming home didn’t have anything to do with what Bailey did, or this. It’s just that I’ve been much more affected by crimes involving kids because of it.”

“Welcome to my world.” Audrey had started into her career as a forensic juvenile psychologist because of her own background, but it soon became more than that. She wanted to help kids, but now her life was so full of wounded and even criminal teenagers that she sometimes wondered if she’d become desensitized to the very issues she wanted to help solve.

“No. You’re trying to help these kids. I’m the bad guy. I had to arrest Bailey.” She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. “I don’t want to be my frigging father.”

Ah. Audrey supposed she ought to have seen that one coming, but Neve didn’t talk much about her father, or what she thought of him. Really, Audrey was the last person fit to comment on the mental and emotional health of Everett Graham.

“You’re not your father any more than I’m mine.”

Neve shot her an arch glance. “Seriously?”

“Hey, I might be like him, but I’m also a fully grown woman capable of making my own decisions. I’m not my father, and you’re a better cop than your father ever was. At least you care.” That might have been overstepping, but Neve didn’t seem to mind.

“She was stabbed to death, Audrey. I’ve never seen anything so brutal.”

Audrey’s lips compressed. It was obvious Neve was affected by this case if she felt she needed to discuss it when she oughtn’t. “It was personal.”

Neve nodded. “Very. If this was one of those criminal shows we’d be discussing overkill.”

Audrey liked procedurals. “So, what are you going to do?”

Neve sighed and tilted her head back as she met her gaze. “Wait for ID to be confirmed and the autopsy results to come in, and then I’m afraid I’m going to have to start looking for a murderer.”

Audrey’s smile was grim. “I’ve got an alibi.”

CHAPTER TWO

Did you hear they found a body?”

Alisha Tripp’s head whipped up so fast a spasm ran down her neck. She stared into heavily lined wide eyes. Lucy Villeneuve plunked her skinny jean–clad ass into the seat beside her on the bus. Lucy lived close to Ryme, which was on the other side of Edgeport from Eastrock, where the high school was located, which meant Alisha was probably going to have to listen to Lucy for her entire ride home, as Alisha’s stop was first.

Lucy was something like what Alisha’s mother was accused of being—a gossip.

“No,” she replied, which was true. Even if it weren’t, she wouldn’t tell Lucy.

“Kendra’s mother said she saw the cops going back the park road this morning—meat wagon too.”

Alisha grimaced. “Meat wagon” was one of those terms that unsettled her stomach, kind of like “genital warts,” or “trust me.” Or maybe it was the idea of them finding someone that made her feel queasy.

Now that she took a good look at Lucy, she could tell the girl’s expression wasn’t eager at all, but concerned, and she immediately felt bad. Lucy, Kendra Granger, and Tala had been best friends since Tala moved to Eastrock last summer. Of course Lucy would be worried that the body they’d found was Tala—Alisha was.

She and Tala hadn’t started becoming friends until just before Christmas, but they’d become close incredibly fast. Alisha hadn’t had a best friend since Bailey was sent away. She had lots of friends, but not one she would trust with her secrets, not until Tala. And Tala had trusted her too.

“Tala would never go back the Falls,” she muttered. “Not by herself.”

“Maybe she wasn’t by herself,” Lucy suggested with a lift of her eyebrow. “Randy was around that night.”

Alisha frowned. She knew what Lucy was implying. Tala never would have gone off with a loser like Randy Dyer. Would she? “Don’t be stupid.”

The other girl slumped against the bus seat, her body turned toward Alisha, who set her book bag between them as a way of maintaining her own space. “I don’t want it to be Tala, you know. I just want them to find something.”

“I know,” Alisha murmured. “Me too.”

“And poor Luke. This has been absolutely tragic for him.”

That wouldn’t be the word Alisha would choose, but it was appropriate. Luke Pelletier and Tala had been dating for almost two months when she disappeared. Of all of them, he’d taken her disappearance the hardest—the most personal. Why would she just up and desert her friends and family? Her boyfriend? People said she went to New York, but Alisha couldn’t believe Tala wouldn’t at least let her parents know she was okay. She wasn’t that selfish or unthinking.

She turned her attention toward the back of the bus, where Luke sat. He lived in Edgeport too. He sat by himself—the space where Tala used to sit empty—and stared out the window. Something pinched in Alisha’s chest at the sight of him. Suddenly, he turned his head. She didn’t look away fast enough. She forced a little smile when his gaze met hers. Surprisingly, he smiled back. It wasn’t much, just a twitch at one corner of his mouth, but it was something. Then he went back to staring out the window.

She wondered if he’d heard they’d found a body.

“Kendra’s been a mess,” Lucy was saying. “I mean, so have I, but Ken’s been really wrecked. I stayed over at her place the other night and I woke up in the middle of the night. She was standing by the window, crying. I was like, ‘What’s wrong?’ and she told me she was upset about Tala. That she just felt so bad all she could do was cry.”

Alisha looked the other girl in the eye. “She probably wouldn’t like you telling me that.”

Lucy shrugged. “Are you going to say anything to her?”

“No.” She wasn’t a shit-disturber.

“Then it doesn’t fucking matter, does it?”

At that precise moment, Alisha decided she didn’t much care for Lucy, and like her uncle Jake and her great-grandmother, when she decided she didn’t like someone, there was no changing her mind. “You’re a lousy friend, Luce.”

The girl’s face flushed, and her eyes glittered. “Fuck you, Alisha.” She grabbed her stuff and stood up—never mind that the bus was moving. For a second, Alisha imagined what might happen if they had to come to a sudden stop. She watched as Lucy stomped to the back of the bus and dropped into the empty spot next to Luke. He didn’t even look at her.

Alisha turned away and pulled her phone out of her bag. She texted her uncle Jake. He’d know if they’d actually found a body back the Falls, and if he didn’t know, then Audrey would. They would tell her the truth.

She just wasn’t sure the truth was what she wanted to hear.

  

Neve was having lunch the next day at Gracie’s, the local tavern, when her phone. Normally, she had lunch at the field office in Machias, but there was no point in driving over there when the brunt of her work was in her hometown. She’d only end up having to deal with reporters who had gotten wind they’d found a body. The ones skulking about town were bad enough, but she could avoid them.

She glanced at the screen before answering the call. It was the coroner’s office in Augusta.

“Hello?” She sucked ketchup off her thumb.

“Hey, doll.” It was Annette Martin from the medical examiner’s office. “Am I interrupting your lunch?”

“Nah. I’m good.” She could eat onion rings and talk at the same time. “What’s up?”

“Well, the body you sent me definitely belongs to your missing girl.”

“Tala Lewis?” She needed to be sure.

“Unless you’ve got another one I don’t know about.”

Neve closed her eyes. Shit. She had expected this outcome, but it was still…what? Disappointing? Enraging? A pisser? “Give it to me.”

“COD was deep lacerations to the neck, torso, and abdomen. Basically, the poor thing was stabbed to death. I counted forty-one points of entry. She bled out.”

“Jesus.”

“I recovered the tip of a blade from one of the rib wounds. The size and shape make me think hunting knife, but of course, we’ll know more once it’s processed.”

A hunting knife—the second most common household item in Edgeport after a rifle. Practically every male, and many females, owned at least one. Gideon owned at least two.

She didn’t like thinking of her boyfriend and murder at the same time.

“It appears that she was killed where you found her,” Annette continued. “She had defensive wounds on her hands and arms. Judging from what we found at the scene, I’d say she bled out as her attacker covered her with rocks. Of course, runoff took away trace evidence.”

Of course. “How long has she been dead?”

“Judging from decomp and state of the body, I’d say she’s been out there for at least two months.”

So she was probably killed the night she disappeared, or shortly thereafter. “Why would a teenage girl climb the falls in the middle of winter?” It would have been cold—icy. If the climb had been difficult the day before, it would have been doubly so in February.

“Could have been a party. She might have been drinking.” The Falls was a popular party spot, given its remote location. “Tox screens won’t be back till next week. Maybe she was dared to? When I was that age I would have done almost anything a boy asked.”

“Yeah,” Neve agreed dryly. It almost always came back to a boy. “Me too. Anything else I should know about?”

“Well, I don’t know if it was simply part of the stabbing, or intentional, but her penis was completely severed.”

“Her what?”

“Penis.” There was a pause. “You didn’t know Tala Lewis was transgender?”

“No.” Jesus H. “The family never said anything about it.”

“That’s a pretty significant detail to leave out when police are investigating your child’s disappearance.”

“Tell me about it.” A tickle of anger rose up in Neve’s chest. She didn’t like it when people withheld information. She didn’t care if the family thought it was unimportant, or private. She should have been told that Tala was transitioning, because now it was much more possible that the murder was sexually motivated, or a hate crime. If she’d had that detail two months ago, she might have conducted her investigation differently.

“Any evidence of sexual assault?”

“There’s evidence of activity, but nothing that leads me to believe it was forced. I didn’t find any sperm or fluids, but given the time of death and that she’s been outside in freezing temperatures, I’m not surprised.”

So probably a hate crime, though not necessarily. “Thanks, Nettie. If there’s nothing else, I’ll let you go.”

“I’ll ring you back when I have more.”

Neve hung up and shoved her phone into her purse. Then she swung the bag over her shoulder, rose from her chair, and made her way to the bar. She shoved a twenty across the polished surface. Jake Tripp, Audrey’s fiancé and owner of Gracie’s, was working behind the bar. He was tall and lean, with brown hair that always seemed to flop over his high forehead, and piercing hazel eyes. He would have been too pretty if not for those eyes. She’d seen hardened ex-cons with more open gazes. Honestly, Neve didn’t find Jake all that attractive, and there was something about his relationship with Audrey that gave her pause. The two of them seemed to breathe each other. She was pretty sure that wasn’t healthy. But it worked for them. She just hoped Audrey didn’t ruin her career—and herself—by getting too involved in Tripp business. She couldn’t prove it, but she was fairly certain Jake had something to do with the prison death of Matt Jones the year before. No one missed Jones, but that wasn’t the point.

“Need a receipt?” he asked. He always seemed to be assessing—reading people. He probably would have made a great cop if he didn’t consider himself outside the law.

She nodded, and he quickly punched some keys on the cash register. He tore off the strip of paper that printed out and handed it to her. “I get the feeling saying ‘Have a nice day’ would be wasted on you.”

Her smile was grim. “You wouldn’t be wrong. Thanks anyway.” She shoved the receipt in her jacket pocket and walked out into the sunny spring day. She slipped on her sunglasses as she slid behind the wheel of the Impala. She hadn’t been looking forward to telling the Lewises that their daughter was dead, and now she looked forward . . .