Julie Miller – Kansas City Cowboy (страница 3)
“Ladies and gentlemen, if I could have your attention, please.” As her eyes adjusted to the unnatural brightness, some of the faces in the crowd began to take shape. She recognized Gabriel Knight, a reporter for the
She hesitated for one awkward, painful, debilitating moment when she spotted Vanessa Owen, a woman who reported local news for one of the city’s television stations. Vanessa’s caramel skin, dark brown hair and smoothly articulate voice had become a fixture on Kansas City televisions. She’d once been a fixture in Kate’s life, as well. Vanessa had been a good friend, a sorority sister from college who continued to move in the same social circles as they established careers and marriages after graduation. The story between them that mattered the most had thankfully never been aired, though at times like this, the events that marked the end of their friendship still burned like a raw wound in Kate’s chest.
But Kate was here to do her job, just as Vanessa was here to do hers. This wasn’t personal.
Beyond that first row of reporters, the lights and flashes and eager crowd made identifying others in the sea of faces nearly impossible. “I’m Dr. Kate Kilpatrick. I’m a police psychologist and public liaison officer with KCPD.”
Gabriel Knight didn’t wait for any further introduction. “Is it true that the Rose Red Rapist’s latest assault victim is dead?”
Biting her tongue to maintain a patient facade, Kate looked straight into the reporter’s probing blue eyes. “I will be making a brief statement on behalf of the department and the task force investigating the attack, and then I will have time for a handful of questions.”
“Make your statement,” Knight challenged.
Kate eased the tension she felt into a serene smile and included the entire gathering, including Vanessa Owen, in her speech. “A twenty-eight-year-old woman was sexually assaulted in this neighborhood last night, sometime between ten p.m. and three o’clock this morning. There was a rose left at the scene, indicating the attack was committed by the man—” she paused and held out her hands, placing the blame for their perp’s notoriety squarely where it belonged “—
“Kate, is the woman dead?” Vanessa stole Gabriel Knight’s question before he could ask it.
Although she bristled beneath her coat at the liberty her old friend had taken in addressing her by name, Kate merely nodded. “Yes. We are in the preliminary stages of a murder investigation—”
“Who was she?” Vanessa followed up.
“—and pending more exact information and notification of the family, I can’t give more details at this time.”
“Kate,” Vanessa prodded. “You have to give us something.”
She looked straight into the camera beside Vanessa. “This is what I can tell you. We
A commotion at the rear of the crowd diverted Vanessa’s and Gabriel Knight’s attention for a moment, but the cameras were still rolling, so Kate continued with the briefing. “Rest assured that KCPD and the commissioner’s task force are doing everything in our power to identify the attacker and ascertain whether or not this crime is related to the attack that occurred in May, or to others that have occurred in previous years.”
The shuffling of movement and
The spotlight faded as cameras turned to see what the fuss was about. Normally, Kate was relieved when the cameras turned away to give her the privacy she preferred, but she had to say what she was required to say. “KCPD urges the women of Kansas City to practice common safety procedures. Don’t walk alone after dark. Lock your cars and doors. Carry your keys or even pepper spray in your hand, and be sure to check under and around your vehicle before approaching it. Remember that KCPD is offering free self-protection workshops, or you can look into classes offered elsewhere. And finally we ask that everyone remain vigilant….”
Kate’s voice tapered off as the lights followed the parting of the crowd, splitting like a crack in an icy lake, and heading straight toward her.
“Sir, you’re gonna have to …” She thought she heard Pete Estes’s voice, but it faded into the growing buzz of the crowd.
She spotted a cowboy hat and broad shoulders a moment before Gabriel Knight was pushed aside and a man dressed in a tan-and-brown uniform and insulated jacket stood before her. His eyes, dark like rich earth and shadowed by the brim of his hat, captured hers.
“Who are you?” Vanessa asked beside him. “Are you connected to this investigation? Has KCPD called in outside help?”
But the questions went unheeded as the dark focus of the man’s eyes never left Kate.
“Are you in charge here?” His dark voice was just as coolly efficient, just as menacing, as the gun and badge next to the hand splayed at his hip.
Rarely at a loss for words, Kate cursed the splutter of hesitation she heard in her voice. But she shook off the foolish reaction and came up with a diplomatic answer. “I’m part of the task force that’s in charge—Hey!”
Apparently, something she’d said was good enough for him. Immune to the flash of lights and uncaring of the public recording of the scene he was making, the cowboy closed his grip around Kate’s arm and pulled her aside. If he hadn’t been wearing a badge that identified him as law enforcement, Kate might have protested further.
“Lady, I’ve been driving ever since the report came over the wire early this morning.”
“What report?”
With the interview effectively ended, she quickened her pace to keep up with his long strides. And though she tugged against his hand, his hold on her never wavered.
“What can you tell me about the woman you found in that alley?” he demanded.
“Excuse me, but we have rules about how a press conference is conducted here in Kansas City. We also have rules about interdepartmental investigations. If you need to speak to someone about a case, then you—”
“I’m only interested in this case.” She nearly pitched off her pumps when he abruptly stopped to test the door on a nearby storefront. That same strong hand kept her upright and pulled her inside the boutique beside him, beyond the flashes of cameras and noise of the reporters and curious onlookers. Once he released her and shooed away the store clerk who offered to help them, Kate could face him. Only then did she see the jet-black hair with shots of silver at the temples. Only then did she clearly make out the chiseled jaw and six feet or so of height. Only then did she detect the scents of leather and man and some unnamed emotion that made her back up half a step.
“Who are you?” she asked.
This time, he answered. “I’m sheriff of Alton County.”
Alton County? Central Missouri? “What are you doing here …?” Temper turned to confusion. She sputtered again while her brain shifted gears. “How do you know about the murder? We haven’t even released her name to the public, pending notification of her family.”
“You’ve notified them,” Sheriff Cowboy stated. “My name’s Boone Harrison. Jane Harrison is … was … my baby sister. I want to know who the hell killed her, and what you’re doing to find him.”
Boone paused at the doors leading from the medical examiner’s lab into the morgue and autopsy room. He pulled off his hat, working the brim between his fingers as he looked through the glass windows to the stainless steel tables inside.
He watched a dark-haired woman in blue scrubs and a white lab coat working beneath the bright lights at the middle table. She wore gloves and a surgical mask. And as she circled around the table, the front of her lab coat gaped open, revealing a baby bump on her belly.
But it wasn’t the pregnant medical examiner who had his attention. He wasn’t even shocked by the tray of wicked-looking tools or the cart filled with saws and hoses, glass containers and evidence bags.
Boone touched his fingers to the cool glass partition, wishing he could reach through the glass and erase the images before him. It wasn’t his first dead body or even his first murder. But it was his first and only baby sister lying there—her life cut short, her beautiful laugh silenced forever.
His jaw ached with the tight clench of muscles holding back the tears and curses. And his gut was an open pit of anger, grief and failure, eating him up from the inside out.