Page 42 of Long Way Down

“That Waverly thing.”

She sighed. They hadn’t discussed it; he was too tactful and too genuinely nice of a guy to gossip. But her involvement with the raid on the Beaumont building was official record; she’d given her badge number when she called it in, and everyone in Manhattan knew she’d been involved, however tangentially. They didn’t know she’d sent a man with a GSW to her best friend at the ER, or that she was still sleeping with a man who’d come out of the building in riot gear with a rifle strapped to his chest, but they knew she’d been tipped off when none of the rest of them had been, and that meant something. Contreras had given her a few curious glances, but he’d never given to voice to whatever suspicions churned in his head.

Now, he let that curiosity bleed to the forefront…but it wasonlycuriosity, she noted through her spike of panic. No judgement, no contempt. Nothing but an almost-boyish desire to know the dirty details.

And theyweredirty, weren’t they?

He said, “Some seriously bad dudes took out Waverly, his son, and a whole pack of thugs dressed up like SWAT that night. It’s gonna take months for the feds to sort it all out. And you know something about who did it.” A statement of fact, rather than an accusation, but it needled her all the same.

She folded her arms. “I can’t talk about it.”

Generally, that statement earned her some wheedling, or sneering, or a muttering of insults. With Contreras, it earned a nod.

“Alright. I get that. But this girl. You talk to her?”

“No. I wanted to. I tried to get an in, but so far I don’t even know her name.”

Another nod. “Fair enough. I know how it is. But your acquaintance – Pon, yeah? You’ve gotta stress to him that if she doesn’t come forward, we can’t investigate, and this guy will hit somebody else, next.”

“I told him to pass the message along. But that’s all I’ve got right now.”

He turned reflective. “Shit. If this is the same guy–”

“The message, those words exactly, are too big a coincidence.”

“I agree. When did this happen?”

“Days ago. He said the wounds were scabbed over. So it was before Lana.”

“Practicing on someone he didn’t think would come talk to us, maybe.”

“Yeah. But if it’s him, he de-escalated. From mutilation to leaving notes. Why the shift?”

“That’s a question for the shrink,” Contreras said. “I don’t mess around with that stuff. We’ve gotta make sure it’s the same dude, and then let the pros deal with all the up here BS.” He tapped his own temple.

“That’s very wise of you.”

“Isn’t it? Saves me a lot of heartburn that way.”

Footsteps creaked on the stairs beside them. “Detectives?” It was one of the techs. “Dr. Deming has something to show you.”

Though the scene had been hopelessly contaminated by the parents and first responders, Melissa and Contreras donned over-shoe booties and gloves for the trek up the stairs and into Lynn Wheatly’s bedroom.

Like the rest of the home, it was a portrait of understated elegance – tall baseboards and crown molding, walls a soft gray, the bay window outfitted with a cushioned reading nook and built-in bookshelves beneath. A queen-size bed occupied one wall, the same dark wood as the twin nightstands, highboy, and mirrored dressing table. There were touches of youth, though, beyond the expense: a photo booth strip of pictures tucked into the mirror frame; a plastic lei on the bedpost, most likely a souvenir of a party; framed movie posters and artwork that Melissa actually took the time to notice. They were landscapes, mostly, with a few smudgy portraits; the medium looked like charcoal.

The floor of the room looked a whole lot like that of Lana Preston’s living room. Blood. Tipped-over desk chair. More blood. Spilled tray of charcoals and colored pencils; crumpled paper.

The other tech was photographing everything, little white markers laid out to mark points of notice.

Deming stood at the end of the bed, holding a hot pink square of paper in a set of tweezers.

“Rob.” His voice was eager, flush with hot-on-the-trail excitement. “This was sitting right in the middle of the bed. On top of the bedspread.”

Melissa already knew what it would say, dread heavy in the pit of her stomach, but she stepped up on Deming’s other side anyway to read it.

Black, slanted, all-caps:

THIS ONE’S FOR YOU, DAVEY.