One with You (Crossfire #5)(66)

Chris came in from the kitchen with a tray bearing four steaming mugs of coffee, a small cup of half-and-half, and sugar in a bowl. He set it down near Michna, since the rest of the dining table was covered in pictures.

The detectives thanked him and each took a mug. Graves took her coffee black. Michna added a splash of cream and a sprinkling of sugar.

I’d only seen Michna in the course of the investigation into Nathan’s death. I knew Graves more personally; I’d sparred with her during Parker’s Krav Maga classes. I believed Graves liked me or was at least sympathetic. And I was certain it was Gideon’s love for me that swayed her into closing Nathan’s case while she still had questions.

It comforted me to have them in charge.

“I want to be sure I understand,” I said, pushing through the grief that had fogged my mind all day. “This man was stalking Gideon?”

My dad shoved the photos away. “Was Hall targeting my daughter or Cross?”

“Hall believes Cross betrayed him,” Graves answered, “by getting married.”

I stared at her. She wore no jewelry or makeup, yet she was fiercely compelling. Pummeled by the realities of her job, she still had a passion for justice—even if it came outside the law. “If he couldn’t have Gideon, no one could?”

“Not quite.” She looked at Gideon. “Hall believes he has an ‘entwined destiny’ with you—some kind of cosmic pact—and that your marriage breaks this pact between you. Killing you is the only way to prevent his life from going in a direction he doesn’t want to go.”

“Is that supposed to make sense?” Cary asked, setting his elbows on the table and gripping his head in both hands.

“Hall’s fixation isn’t sexual,” Michna elaborated, looking rumpled and tired from pulling an all-nighter. Still, he was keenly and disconcertingly observant. His partner zeroed in; he assessed the periphery. “It’s not even romantic. He claims he’s heterosexual.”

Graves pulled another photo out of the file and set it atop the others. “You both know this woman.”

Anne. My palms were suddenly damp. Gideon’s body tautened like a bow.

“Fuck me,” Cary muttered, his fisted hands dropping to the table with a thud that made me jump.

“I saw her last night,” Chris said, taking a chair by Gideon. “She was at the dinner. Hard to miss that bright red hair.”

“Who is that?” my dad asked, his voice firm and flat.

“Dr. Anne Leslie Lucas,” Graves replied. “She’s the psychiatrist who was treating Hall, although she met with him at a second office away from her primary practice, using the alias Dr. Aris Matevosian.”

Gideon’s breath hissed out between his teeth. “I know that name.”

Graves zeroed in, her gaze sharply focused. “How?”

“Just a moment. I’ll show you.” He pushed back from the table and headed down the hallway.

I watched him go, saw Lucky scampering after him. The puppy had been sticking close to me for most of the morning, as if he thought I needed him more than Gideon did right now. Something had changed. And since Lucky’s emotional barometer was more accurate than mine at the moment, I needed to pay attention to that.

“Will someone explain who Dr. Lucas is,” my father demanded, “and her relevance to Hall and Monica?”

“We’ll let Cross fill us all in on that,” Michna said.

“They had a sexual relationship awhile back,” I interjected, wanting to take the burden of telling the story off Gideon’s shoulders. He was ashamed of what he’d done, I knew that.

I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, trying to get warm. I knew I had to choose my words carefully. Telling the whole truth would be difficult, considering the unflattering picture of my husband my father would see.

“She got wrapped up in it,” I went on, “and wanted to leave her husband, so Gideon broke it off. She hasn’t been able to move on or get past it. She showed up at my building once, and tried approaching Cary a couple times, wearing a wig, pretending to be someone else.”

Graves watched me with a sharp, savvy gaze. “We reviewed her complaint. You and Cross confronted her, separately, on two different occasions.”

“Damn it, Eva.” My dad glared at me, his eyes bloodshot and red rimmed. “You know better.”

“Know what?” I shot back. “I still don’t understand what this all means. She was harassing my best friend and my husband. I told her to back off.”

Gideon returned and held out his phone, showing a picture he’d taken.

Michna examined the image. “A prescription for Corinne Giroux written by Dr. Aris Matevosian. Why do you have this?”

“There was a time, a couple months ago,” Gideon said tonelessly, resuming his seat beside me, “when Corinne became erratic. I discovered she’d been seeing a therapist who prescribed antidepressants, which were causing her mood swings. I took a picture of the label so I’d know who to contact if she continued having problems.”

Gideon put his arm around me, urging me to lean into him. The moment I was pressed against him, I felt him sag heavily into the chair, as if holding me was a major relief. I slid my arm around his waist, felt his lips press against my forehead.

His chest rumbled beneath my ear as he spoke. “So Anne was Hall’s therapist,” he said, his voice rough with fatigue. “Why the alias?”

“She thought she was smart,” Grave said bluntly. “We’re smarter. And we have Hall, who is very disturbed but also very cooperative. He confessed the minute we sat down with him. He was also clever—or paranoid—enough to secretly record all of his sessions with Dr. Lucas, which we recovered during a search of his vehicle.”

“Did she put him up to this?” I asked, wanting to be sure there was no misunderstanding.

“I don’t think Hall was ever playing with a full deck,” Michna said, “but he used to have a job, a place to live, and no particular interest in Cross. Anne Lucas did a number on him.”

Graves started gathering up the photos with the help of her partner. “He mentioned to her that he dropped out of school after the Cross Ponzi scheme wiped out his grandparents. It wasn’t something he held a grudge over, but she got him thinking that his life and Cross’s are paralleled in some way.”

“Can she go to jail for that?” I hung on tighter to Gideon. “What she did—that’s part of the reason my mom’s … gone. She can’t just get away with that, right?”

“We picked her up about an hour ago.” Graves held my gaze and I saw her determination. “When her lawyer shows up, we’ll take a crack at her.”

“The DA’s office will determine the full extent of the charges,” Michna said, “but Hall’s recordings, plus security footage of both Lucas and Hall entering and leaving her secondary office, gave us probable cause.”

“You’ll keep us posted,” my father said.

“Of course.” Graves tucked everything back in her satchel, then shot a look at Gideon. “Did you see Dr. Lucas at the dinner?”

“Yes,” he answered, his hand stroking up and down my arm. “Eva pointed her out to me.”

“Did either of you speak with her at all?” Michna asked.

“No.” Gideon looked down at me with a question in his eyes.

“I flipped her the bird from a distance,” I confessed, the memory of her drifting through my blurry mind. “She had this smirk on her face. Maybe that’s why she was there, so she could see what happened.”

“Angel.” Gideon enfolded me, wrapping me into his warmth and the scent of his skin.

“All right. We’ve got what we need for now,” Graves said briskly. “We’ll just take Mr. McLeod’s statement regarding the Westport incident and be on our way. Thank you for your time.”

Dismissed, we all pushed back from the table.

“Eva.” Graves waited until our gazes met. For a moment, she wasn’t just a cop. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” Self-conscious, I looked away from Graves.

Did she wonder at my dry eyes? God knew I did. As crazy as my mother drove me at times, I loved her. Didn’t I? What kind of daughter didn’t feel anything when her mom died?

Angus took Gideon’s abandoned chair and began recounting what had happened in Westport.

Gideon took my hand and led me a few feet away. “I need some time with you.”

Frowning, I nodded. “Yeah, of course.”

He drew me along with him toward our bedroom.

“Cross.”

We both turned at the sound of my father’s voice. “Yes?”

Dad stood by the living room, his face hard and his gaze heated. “We have to talk.”

“Agreed,” Gideon said with a nod. “Just give me five minutes with my wife.”

He kept going, not giving my dad a chance to object. I followed along to our bedroom, Lucky racing ahead of us. I watched Gideon as he shut the door with the three of us inside. Then he faced me, his gaze searching.

“You should take a nap,” I told him. “You look tired.” And that troubled me. I couldn’t recall when I’d ever seen him so wiped out.