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K ate was frozen. She couldn’t believe what she heard on the recording Simon had sent her. Earlier she had tried to explain her stepfather and his request to the others on her team, and everybody had just stared at her, like nobody would really do that. But now? After listening to this tape, listening to what Ken had told her brother, it just permanently etched a new source of pain into Kate’s brain. Thinking that her brother had believed Ken was so painful that she was locked in place and couldn’t move.

Rodney squeezed her knee. “Ken would have said anything to save his sorry ass and to cause you the most pain,” he told her. “You can’t believe a word of it. He’s just choosing what he knows will hurt you the most.”

She looked over at him gratefully. “I’m really hoping he didn’t tell Timmy that,” she whispered, still struggling to deal with this. “However, Ken’s an asshole through and through, so I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“Yeah, you’re not kidding, but what is interesting,” Rodney pointed out, “is the part about your brother getting into a vehicle.”

“I know, and I do recall… Well, I’m pretty sure that there were reports on that, saying it was supposedly the father of a friend. However, when he was questioned, he had an alibi and looked to be completely in the clear. I don’t know. We never—I never contacted the cop on the case. There were two at the time, and I did try to contact one, but he didn’t have anything good to say to me. I never did contact the other one, and I lost track of him. So I don’t know where the hell he ended up,” she shared.

“What do you mean by that?” Rodney asked.

“I don’t remember exactly. He moved, changed countries, something,” she muttered, with a headshake. “I didn’t blame the cops,… but my mother certainly did. Plenty of other things were going on at the time, but only as I’ve been an adult and had a chance to go through the files can I see what the cops did, what they didn’t do,” she muttered. “And it’s never easy coming into a case after the fact,” she noted. “People don’t want to talk at the time, and yet now I was hoping that maybe somebody would loosen their tongue. It’s been so damn long.”

“Now you have your stepfather as a potential witness, but would you have gone to the prison to talk to him about it? I don’t know that I would have,” Rodney admitted.

“No way, I sure wouldn’t have gone anywhere near him. Yet, now that he’s brought up his involvement already,” she pointed out, with half a smile, “you can bet that’s at the top of my list.”

“Do you suspect him of it?”

“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “I don’t think so, but”—then she frowned—“I also don’t like that bit about the drugs. Simon was concerned about that because we’ve got these current deaths, plus the potential death of my mother. Simon seems to think that those instances might have been related to Ken’s remark about drugs.”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it wasn’t related to Ken,” Rodney stated. “If it is related, then we may have the seller, Ken .”

“Ken used to be into drugs,” she added, frowning. “How the hell do I get my mother away from this asshole?” Everybody stopped and looked at her. “Obviously he’s back to torturing her again.”

“I’m sorry to point this out,” Lilliana corrected, “but it is quite possible that he’s back to controlling her.”

Kate frowned, while nodding. “Here’s something to consider. My mother’s very skinny, so, with a hat, dressed in men’s clothing, with a little bit of crafty makeup, what are the chances of her fitting the description of the one who sent that kid with the note in the puzzle box into the station?”

Colby joined them, hearing that last part from Kate. He remained silent as the team members shared a look. Lilliana walked over to the case files and reread the description. Immediately she nodded. “Honest to God, Kate, she probably could pull it off, couldn’t she?”

“Yeah, she probably could. Christ,” Kate muttered. “Why the hell would she do that?”

“You know the answer as well as I do,” Lilliana stated. “If Ken’s got her hooked again, she would do nearly anything to get the drugs she needs. She didn’t want to but couldn’t hire somebody else to do it without putting herself at even more risk, and she had to be careful, knowing it all would bring everybody back to her just because it was your brother.”

Kate stared at them. “It explains our glorious reunion at her front door.… Jesus, another element to this shit show I wasn’t expecting.”

“Of course not,” Lilliana agreed. “You don’t expect your own mother to be involved in this. Do you… Do you think your mother was involved in the disappearance of your brother?”

Kate looked up at her teammate. “I sure hope not,” she muttered, “but I have no way of knowing. I do think that all this mess stirred up by delivering the note was literally because Ken wants me to recant my statement,” she shared. “He had hope that I would do it, and it would show him as being innocent, so he could then be cleared and sue for a shit ton of money. However,… I have a question.” Kate looked around the room and let it fly. “Why did he wait all this time to do it?”

Silence. Everybody stared at her, then at each other.

Rodney spoke up first. “That’s a really good point.”

Lilliana added, “What do you want to bet it was something that your mother might have suggested or something that someone in prison with him thought about?”

Rodney tilted his head, grimacing. “I’m surprised he didn’t bring up the vehicle that your brother got into as being evidence suppressed by the police. Maybe he wants to tarnish your reputation—or that of the whole department—by saying you’ve been hiding evidence this whole time.”

“He probably thought it wasn’t enough,” she muttered, “but I wouldn’t put it past him to create other evidence.”

He nodded. “I can see that too.”

“This recorded discussion was not a twist I expected,” Kate admitted. “I’ve got it downloaded on my computer to send off as needed.”

“Let forensics deal with this last bit,” Rodney suggested, as he walked out, “because that conversation is something we’ll need to question him about. However, as far as I’m concerned, if he’s got anything to do with distributing those deadly designer drugs, especially when these two kids died from it,” he added, “that’ll put him away for the rest of his life.”

“Good,” Kate declared. “As far as I’m concerned, he never should have gotten out in the first place.”

“I hate to ask,” Colby said, joining in the conversation, “but it sounds like he thinks you lied.”

She snorted. “It’s more that he doesn’t think he did anything wrong. I didn’t lie. I’m just the only one of however many kids who stood up. I tried to talk to several of them back then, and nobody would talk to me. I became some pariah in my world because of this. But, for me, there really wasn’t any other option. Maybe he was right about one thing though. I was destined to be a cop even then.” She looked over at Lilliana. “You need to bring in Andrew’s parents and Sammy.”

Lilliana nodded. “I just sent three black-and-whites to pick them up. If nothing else, we need to ask them a whole lot more questions than what they’ve given us so far,” she clarified. “Kate, I can’t have you taking part in the formal interviews.”

Kate stared at her and then slowly nodded. “Right, I understand.… As much as I want to, as much as I want to hear them, I also know that it’ll be ugly. So, better you than me. I’ll watch from behind the glass.”

Lilliana smiled, and this time her teeth showed. “Don’t you worry,” she declared. “If Ken’s involved in the deaths of these kids, he will pay. And, if Ken really did have something to do with your mother’s overdose, we’ll get him on that too. And, if Ken withheld evidence on Timmy’s disappearance, we’ll add that to the growing list of charges against your stepfather.… In the meantime, we have some people to interview,” she announced, standing up and turning to look at Rodney.

He nodded. “Let’s go see how much Alana, Adam, and Sammy had to do with the deaths of their two kids.” And with that they headed into the interviews.