Page 10 of The Truth You Told (Raisa Susanto #2)

CHAPTER SEVEN

Raisa

Now

Everyone was capable of killing. Raisa had learned that long ago.

But even knowing that, Raisa couldn’t imagine Kilkenny murdering Shay.

Of course, a lot of family, friends, and loved ones had thought just that before their family, friend, or loved one did the unimaginable.

Rage was a strong and terrible drug. There were plenty of normal, everyday people who snapped and then couldn’t even remember what it was that had set them off. It was such a common phenomenon while driving that it had its own name.

It was also part of the reason domestic violence statistics were so high.

Was Kilkenny hiding fingerprint-shaped bruises and torn knuckles in his past? Was the myth of Callum and Shay just that—smoke and mirrors that covered deep wounds?

The picture was so easy to paint, so easy that it could become compelling.

Raisa glanced at the clock on the bedside table of the hotel she’d checked into for Isabel’s trial. She’d come back to grab her bags while Kilkenny made flight arrangements.

It was three in the morning, an ungodly hour when nothing good happened. But that meant it was almost an acceptable time to call someone on the East Coast.

She slipped the hotel keys into the drop box in the lobby and then pulled up a contact she hadn’t used in quite a long time. She hit the call button as soon as she pulled out of the parking lot into the mostly empty Seattle streets.

“Shit, this better be important,” Matthew Nurse said when he answered, even though she could hear birds in the background and would bet money on the fact that he was already on his morning run.

Raisa’s first year at the Bureau had been rough. She’d been young and a paper pusher in a job most people had never heard of before. Matthew Nurse had been a seasoned vet in the behavioral sciences unit with his eye on the exit, and zero interest in taking a rookie underneath his wing.

But for some reason they’d made allies of each other. Unlike Kilkenny, Nurse had never felt like a partner. He’d played the role of reluctant mentor pretty well, much to his own surprise and displeasure. He’d taken some job in DC after her first year, and they’d mostly lost touch, as Raisa did with the vast majority of people who came into her life.

That was probably something she should work on, but that was a problem for another day.

“You were around for the Alphabet Man, right?” Raisa asked without any preamble. It was six in the morning for him. If she started in with small talk, he’d hang up on her.

“Not on the case,” Nurse said, panting only slightly.

“You were in the behavioral science unit, though,” Raisa said, taking the highway toward the airport. “With Agent Kilkenny.”

There was a long pause. “You want to know if he killed his wife.”

Raisa couldn’t hold in the surprised sound. “What? How did you get there?”

Nurse laughed. “Baby, I don’t live under a rock. And I know you worked with him on that last case. You doing okay over all that, by the way?”

“Yup,” she said, and she was sure that if he’d managed to intuit the reason she was calling, he was still sharp enough to tell that was mostly a lie.

“Sure.”

“Anyway,” she drawled. “Do you have an answer?”

“He didn’t do it,” Nurse said without missing a beat. “Someone with a grudge might plant some rumors over the next few days if you all don’t handle this quickly, though.”

“We’re headed to Texas now,” Raisa said absently. She’d had the passing thought as well—that even if no one really believed Kilkenny had murdered Shay and framed the serial killer he’d been hunting, it sure could throw a wrench in his career for some time.

“Good, you’ll get it straightened out,” Nurse said, sounding far more confident than she’d given him reason to be.

“How are you so sure that Kilkenny didn’t kill her?” she asked.

“Because the head honcho of the BSU at the time ran an internal investigation,” Nurse said. “I wasn’t on it, but I heard that all the t’s were dotted and i’s crossed and Kilkenny was cleared quickly. It’s not like we all lost our collective brains when the wife of an agent was killed. There are procedures in place.”

Raisa exhaled in relief. She hadn’t truly believed Kilkenny capable of such a thing, but that’s how people got away with crimes for so long. “Then it can’t be used against him.”

“Please, you know that’s not true.” Nurse had come to the Bureau a cynic and left with all his worst ideas about humanity and government work proven right. At least how he told it. “I’ll put a call in to make sure the report from the internal investigation surfaces, but you know the saying.”

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its underwear,” Raisa said, echoing the sentiment he’d used at least once a week in that first year.

He guffawed, clearly pleased she remembered. “Being in Texas will help. Pierce is running the show down there—he’ll offer Kilkenny some cover.”

“Any tea on him?” Raisa asked, since she was already on the phone.

“Ambitious,” Nurse said. “I’ve found with people like that, it can go one of two ways.”

“What do you mean?”

“Either they follow every rule to the point of driving everyone crazy,” Nurse said. “Or they slime their way to the top.”

Nurse, who worked in politics, would know plenty about the latter. “Any thoughts on which one he is?”

“Eh, there are some rumors about him,” Nurse said. “Nothing major, just enough for me to lean toward the slime.”

Raisa perked up at that. “What kind of rumors?”

“The biggest one is that he uses questionable assets, sometimes off the record,” Nurse said. “If someone can help him close a case, he’s not exactly a stickler for policing the crime that helps them do it.”

That wouldn’t be great for his career if it came out, but it wasn’t exactly the worst thing Nurse could have spilled about him. “Maybe five years chasing a serial killer wore down his ethics.”

“Wouldn’t blame him,” Nurse agreed. “You go long enough with everyone thinking you’ve got your thumb up your ass, and buying off a few junkies to bump that closed-case ratio starts to look more appealing.”

“Maybe he’s all about the greater good,” Raisa offered, the lights from the airport bright against the dark night.

“Never painted you for an optimist,” Nurse said.

“I’ve turned over a new leaf,” she lied.

Nurse laughed again. “Right. Come visit me inside the Beltway and I’ll cure you.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” she said, and he hummed, seeming pleasantly surprised. She’d forgotten how much she enjoyed talking with him. “Did you ever meet her? Shay Kilkenny.”

“No,” Nurse said. “Agent Kilkenny and I rarely overlapped. He was so busy with that case, he ended up in Houston more often than not.” He paused. “He kept a picture of his wife on his desk, though. That doesn’t mean much, but it doesn’t mean nothing.”

He still wore his wedding ring, too.

“An internal investigation means a lot more than that,” Raisa pointed out, and Nurse laughed again.

“There’s the realist I know and love,” he said. “I was worried there for a second. I’ll make some calls to get a head start on damage control.”

“Thank you,” she said, and he grunted in acknowledgment.

“You owe me a drink,” he said.

“And dinner,” she promised before hanging up.

She left her rental car in long-term parking—she’d deal with any potential fees when she got back.

The shuttle was empty except for the driver.

“Late night or early morning?” he asked in a way that didn’t demand a response if she had no interest in giving one.

But she laughed, a little hysterically. “Both.”

He nodded like he understood, and Raisa checked Kilkenny’s latest text for the airline information.

They would land in Texas in time to meet with Conrad not long after visiting hours started.

Raisa wasn’t sure what strategy they would take with him, but she figured she’d leave that to Kilkenny. After all, out of everyone in the world, it was Kilkenny who knew Conrad best.

That was a strange thought and a by-product of their jobs. Kilkenny’s and Conrad’s lives had become intertwined in a way that superseded even friendship. Enemies were always closer than acquaintances, hate being on the other side of the coin from love.

Conrad probably knew Kilkenny better than she did.

It took a half hour to get through security and find the gate. Kilkenny was already there. She gratefully snagged the soft pretzel he held out to her—it wasn’t actually breakfast since she’d never gone to sleep—and then took the seat two down from him so she could see his face.

“Did you call this all in?” Raisa asked. She couldn’t actually remember the name of his supervisor at the moment, her brain foggy with all the new information she’d read about the Alphabet Man case.

“There were a few people on the call, and they all believe Conrad is lying,” Kilkenny said. “They expressed their distress that this is happening, but then suggested I rent a fishing boat until Conrad is no longer twitching on the table.” He noticed her grimace. “Their words.”

“Obviously,” she said, the butter and salt and dough going a long way toward making her feel human again. “And you told them that you’re going to Texas to talk to Conrad instead.”

“They hung up before I could mention that.”

Kilkenny, she thought.

“Okay,” she said, and shrugged when he lifted his brows. “I’m not your mother. And if the head of the behavioral science unit for the FBI can’t figure out that you’re not about to go get up close and personal with the Puget Sound marine life right now, he probably shouldn’t be in the position.”

“I’m sure he’ll see it that way,” Kilkenny said dryly, but didn’t actually sound worried. They both knew she was right anyway. Just because his supervisor told him to go fishing didn’t mean he thought Kilkenny would listen.

She thought about bringing up the call with Nurse, but Nurse had said he would take care of surfacing the report clearing Kilkenny, and she believed him. She wondered if Kilkenny even knew about it.

They couldn’t worry about it now; they had a ticking clock above their heads.

Raisa hid a yawn behind her hand as the announcement came for them to start boarding soon. Kilkenny glanced at the gate door, then seemed to make some decision.

“There’s something I should tell you before we leave,” he said slowly, and every muscle in Raisa’s body tensed. Kilkenny never sounded completely lighthearted, but his tone left no room for interpretation. Whatever this was, he thought there was a chance it would make her stay in Seattle.

That it would make her abandon him so that he would have to go talk to Conrad alone.

Logically, Raisa knew Kilkenny’s life must be similar to hers—constant traveling for a demanding profession making it almost impossible to build up a supportive social network. She didn’t know much about his family, but considering he had never once mentioned them, she didn’t think they were close, if they were still alive.

They were so alike, but it hadn’t clicked until now that he might feel as lonely and isolated as she did. For some reason, she’d imagined this whole other part of his life, with bros over for football Sunday and close colleagues he considered friends. Even though what she’d seen and experienced around him didn’t support that idea.

She had been viewing him as someone slowly and surely working his way into her inner circle. She just hadn’t realized that she’d been doing the same.

Raisa was his support system. Maybe his only support system, as he was hers.

And she wasn’t about to let him down now. “Hit me.”

“I met Shay in a bar,” Kilkenny said. Raisa almost relaxed on reflex, but then her brain caught up. Whatever had his shoulders as tense as they were, it was more than just embarrassment that he’d picked Shay up at some hole-in-the-wall.

“Okay,” she said again, as neutrally as possible.

“It was during Tiffany Hughes’s investigation,” Kilkenny said. “The first victim we found.”

Raisa blinked at him dumbly for a good ten seconds. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I met Shay when I first started working the Alphabet Man case,” Kilkenny summed up, seeming to know she needed it repeated in easily digestible words.

When Raisa just continued to stare, the tips of his ears went pink. “She was a bartender at the place I went to unwind.”

“Oh my god,” she said, as the realization came to her. “Are you telling me you guys had a one-night stand? While you were working a serial-killer investigation?”

“I don’t know how to break it to you, but that’s not exactly an unusual occurrence,” he said, the corners of his eyes crinkling.

Raisa covered her ears and shook her head. “No, my innocence has been ruined.”

Kilkenny almost laughed at that, and she counted it a win. An almost-laugh from Kilkenny was a near guffaw for anyone else. Raisa dropped her hands and shot him a wry grin. “Okay, now that we’ve covered the fact that people have sex, that really wasn’t my main concern.”

Although, to be fair, when Raisa tried to imagine seeking that kind of relief during an investigation, she couldn’t get past the idea that she’d probably pass out from exhaustion when her body hit the mattress. So maybe she was a little stunned by that aspect.

Still, there were more important things to focus on.

“Isn’t that a wild coincidence that you met Shay while you were working the case for Conrad’s first victim?” she asked.

“First victim we knew about at the time,” Kilkenny corrected, a not-very-skillful dodge of her question. “He’d killed three times before that.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Semantics won’t distract me.”

“The bar was in a different county. She didn’t know I was an FBI agent,” Kilkenny said, like he’d rationalized this to himself a million times. He probably had. “I watched for any untoward interest. She didn’t care about the Alphabet Man.”

“Ohh, untoward . Are we Victorian dandies now?” Raisa teased.

“My first day in town, everyone at the bar was talking about the case,” he said. “Shay was working, and even then she barely paid attention to any of it.”

“You remember the specific night well?” She’d had a million nights like that, all at different bars or hotels or in cars or airports. It was rare she could pinpoint exactly where she’d been when, let alone remember what those around her had been talking about.

“I met my wife that night,” Kilkenny said with simple surety.

A lot of times she wondered how Shay could possibly live up to the reputation she’d gained as a tragic figure in Kilkenny’s life—no fights or flaws, no personality or mistakes, just a ghost to be remembered as perfect. But right in that moment, a tiny part of her admired the stalwart devotion.

“In hindsight, though ...,” Raisa prompted, because Kilkenny was too good of an FBI agent not to look at this coincidence and call it suspicious.

Still, he shook his head. “It’s not some conspiracy. I met Shay in the area and then dragged her into the crosshairs of a serial killer. It’s me that’s the connection.”

Raisa wasn’t sure he was right, but she knew he believed he was. Eventually she was going to have to stop treading carefully. Kilkenny could handle it. “What if she wasn’t collateral damage, though? You met her the first day you were in town. You have to think that’s strange, looking back on it.”

“She was a bartender with a tight-knit family and only a handful of close friends. Moving with me to Washington was the first time she’d left Houston in her life,” Kilkenny said. “She didn’t have enemies. She was killed because of me, not because of something she was involved in.”

Sometimes there were stories that people told themselves so many times they became a cornerstone to who they were as a person.

They couldn’t see that the stories weren’t always true.

And at the heart of Kilkenny’s story that he told himself was guilt. That was a far easier thing to live with than pure grief. If Kilkenny didn’t have guilt to sustain him, what would he have? An empty house and pictures instead of the woman he’d loved.

Raisa understood that, she did. She had her own story she had been telling herself all her life, and it started and ended with two people she’d believed to be her parents. Two people she’d thought had died because of a silly mistake she’d made.

Raisa understood the simplicity of guilt, and how addicting it could become. Guilt at least implied some degree of control over your life. You became the driving force of terrible things, and so terrible things would never happen to you again if you were just a better version of yourself.

The universe was random, though. Bad things happened to good people, and all you could do was acknowledge that there was always a chance something devastating could happen again. And you might not have any control over it.

That was a pretty terrifying thing to sit with.

But if they were going to figure out what had really happened to Shay, they had to stop telling stories.

“Or maybe,” Raisa said softly, so softly she wasn’t sure Kilkenny actually heard, “you had nothing to do with it at all.”