Page 41 of Paranoid

“In the forties, Ryder,” she repeated. “Like in ten degrees above freezing.”

“I know.”

“Brutal.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.” She zipped her jacket, then squared a cap on her head before offering him a piece of advice. “Go home, Ryder. Enough with all the work. I’ve got ninety jobs around here, and even I can leave.”

“Ninety?” he questioned. She did do double duty. In the small department, Tricia not only was one of the two detectives, but also worked as a backup patrol officer if two or more of the regulars were sick. “I thought two.”

She gave a snort of disgust. “Yeah, well, I just happen to be the one who holds this department together, if you haven’t noticed.” Shaking her head, she added, “Who do you think does the real work around here? Who cleans out the coffeepot and starts a new one? Who cleans out the refrigerator? Geez, you people are pigs.”

“Careful,” he warned. “Not all cops like to be referred to as—”

“Oh, can it, Ryder. You know what I mean. And this crew?” She motioned around the large room divided by now-empty cubicles. “They’re the worst. Not just the men, mind you. The women are no better!”

He laughed. “Wow. You’re in a mood.”

“Always. As bad as all this is, it’s worse at home.”

He doubted it.

Sketching a quick salute, she added, “See you Monday.”

“If you’re lucky.”

“Funny guy,” she muttered, making her way toward the back door. “Real funny guy.”

“Some people think so,” he called after her, but she was out of earshot. He rotated the kinks from his neck and looked at the file on his desk. Dusty and yellowed, pulled from the archives of closed cases and marked HOLLANDER.

He’d never gone over it before, though he’d glanced through the digital files years before, then chastised himself. What was done was done; everyone thought Rachel killed her brother in a horrible accident. She’d said as much that night, though later she’d been confused and the case had been muddled with conflicting testimony from eyewitnesses, especially Violet Osbourne and Annessa Bell, both of whom were friends. Coupled with that, the inconclusive evidence had been a little compromised as the first officer on the scene had been Rachel’s father.

“A shitshow from the get-go,” Ned Gaston’s partner at the time had said and been quoted.

So why look at it again? It was over. Closed. Had gathered dust for two decades.

Maybe it was because it was the anniversary of the tragedy.

Maybe it was because he’d felt there had been loose ends never tied up.

Maybe it was because it was a helluva coincidence that Violet Osbourne Sperry, a key witness in the investigation, was killed twenty years to the damned day that Luke Hollander had been shot.

Maybe he was just a damned fool.

Whatever the reason, he knew by just going over the case he was stepping on an emotional land mine.

Well, so be it. He glanced at his watch and considered calling Kayleigh about any updates to the Violet Sperry homicide.

It’s not your case.

Yeah, he knew that, and yet . . . he leaned over his desk and returned to the stack of old notes and reports on the Hollander homicide. Up first, the autopsy report, which included notes, a body sketch showing all of the wounds, and then pictures of the body.

His jaw clenched as he remembered Luke in life—vibrant, cocky, athletic—and then there were the pictures of his body. He skimmed the report, noting that Luke was pronounced DOA at the hospital and the death certificate was signed by Richard Moretti, M.D.

Cade eyed the signature; he hadn’t known that Nate Moretti’s father was the attending physician, but there it was in black and white.

No big deal, he thought, sitting alone at his desk, as most of the personnel in the station had left for the day. The hospital Luke Hollander had been rushed to was no longer in existence, like so many of the businesses that had once thrived in this community.