Excerpt from Her Every Move
by Kelly Irvin
When
Jackie and Avery meet for the first time:
Finding a cop was no problem. Getting him
to stop long enough to listen proved more challenging. Jackie approached the
uniformed officer standing guard outside the command center. He had his spiel
down. “Wait. They’re interviewing everyone. They’ll get to you as soon as they
can, ma’am.”
“I may have important information—”
“Everyone is anxious to get out of here,
ma’am. Have a seat. They’ll get to you as soon as they can. They’ve got more
than eight hundred witnesses to process. Have a cup of coffee. The Red Cross is
bringing in sandwiches.”
He was trying so hard to be kind. Jackie
stuffed a sock in her impatience. First responders and law enforcement saw the
worst of the worst—just as she had this day.
She trudged toward the chairs again. A
lanky, scruffy-looking man in street clothes and a Windbreaker emblazoned with
SAPD across the back brushed past her, headed the same direction. “Excuse me,
are you interviewing witnesses?”
He glanced back and stopped. The irritated
expression faded. “If you’ve been triaged, ma’am, you can wait in the area set
up by Victim Assistance. We’ll get to you as soon as we can.”
“I know that. Please listen to me.” Jackie
fought to bring her voice down a notch. He didn’t need a hysterical witness
right now. “I have information that might be important to give to you now
rather than later.”
“Who are you?”
“Jackie Santoro, the adult collections
coordinator at the Central Library. I helped plan this event.”
“You don’t look like a librarian.”
Jackie got that a lot. She didn’t
understand it. Librarians came in all shapes and sizes. “Sorry I don’t meet
your expectations.”
“Don’t apologize. It’s been a day for
everyone.”
His assessment of the day was spot-on,
even if he didn’t catch her sarcasm. “Do you want to take my statement or not?
Officer—”
“It’s detective. Detective Avery Wick.
SAPD Homicide Unit. I’d be happy to take your statement.” He glanced around,
then took her arm.
Surprise washed through Jackie, followed
by sudden warmth. He had a steely grip—one a person could count on—and he
hadn’t hesitated to reach out. It had been a long time since someone did that
for her.
He guided her to the curb. “Someone who
volunteers to share information is either innocent or trying to look that way.”
So much for warmth. Detective Avery’s
prickly pear persona reasserted itself.
Anger could be a tonic under the right
circumstances. Jackie’s bubbled up. She tugged her arm free. “I was one of a
team of people who planned this event. One of my best friends died in there.”
She pointed to the Tobin Center. “What possible motive would I have to set off
a bomb in the middle of my event?”
“Sit down, please.” Detective Wick’s
assessing gaze ran over Jackie from head to toe and back. A shiver ran through
her that had nothing to do with the cold. It felt as he could see through her.
He smiled—a grim, sardonic half smile. “Give me a minute. I’m sure I can come
up with a motive.”
Before Jackie could introduce herself, he
walked away, leaving her with her mouth open and her entire body shaking.
He returned a minute later with a blanket
and a cup of coffee. Jackie wrapped the blanket around her hunched shoulders
automatically. It wouldn’t help, but his offer was so unexpected in light of
his last words, she couldn’t refuse.
“Here, drink this.” He held out a
Styrofoam cup filled with steaming liquid. “You look frozen.”
Did this man have multiple personalities?
“Bless you.” Her words came out in a croak. She cleared her throat and tried
again. “Thank you.”
Her hands shook so hard the hot liquid
spilled over the edges, burning her fingers. “Ouch. Sorry.”
“Stop apologizing.” Detective Wick cupped
his hands around hers and steadied them. Again, with the touch. “You’re in
shock. Why weren’t you transported to Baptist or one of the other downtown
hospitals?”
“I’m not hurt, not physically.” Her voice
didn’t quiver. For that small victory she was grateful. “I refused to be
transported. Or treated.”
She wasn’t leaving until Estrella did.
“Not smart.”
“Not hurt. They’re overwhelmed as it is.”
“We’re doing preliminary interviews . . .”
His big hands covered Jackie’s completely.
She closed her eyes, concentrating on how real and firm they were. He had a
callus on his thumb. His fingers were strong. Finally, the shaking stopped.
“You’re not going to pass out on me, are
you?”
She opened her eyes to find him leaning so
close his scent of cinnamon gum and citrusy aftershave filled her nose. After
the stench of blood, excrement, and burned rubber, it was comforting. So was
his angular face filled with a mixture of concern at war with barely tethered
impatience.
Jackie leaned away from his space.
“Absolutely not. I’ve got it—the coffee, I mean.”
His hands dropped. The warmth dissipated.
She swallowed against sobs. No more tears. Estrella would not want tears. She
would want action. She deserved action. “Did they find the remnants of the
explosive device? Do they know how it was triggered?”
Detective Wick looked up from the narrow
notebook he’d tugged from the hip pocket of his Dockers. “You said you had
important information. Let’s start with that.”
Once she told him about the bag, her
opportunity to get information from the detective would be gone. “Were there
any unexploded devices found?”
Impatience spread across his face, his
effort to muzzle it obvious. “The bomb squad cleared the hall before search and
recovery began. Let me ask the questions, if you don’t mind.”
Everyone knew that. The other first
responders wouldn’t have been allowed in otherwise. Search and recovery. “One
of the victims is—was—my best friend Estrella Diaz.”
Detective Wick’s pale-blue eyes studied her
so intently, he squinted. “I’m sorry about your friend. This has to be the
worst day of your life. The faster we get all the facts, the faster we can
track down the monster who did this. Okay?”
Another day came close, but Detective Wick
didn’t need to know that. They were on the same page, even if he chose not to
share information with her. “Won’t the ATF and the FBI have jurisdiction? How
does SAPD figure in?”
“You ask a lot of questions.” The crow’s
feet around his eyes and the lines around his mouth deepened. He sucked in a
long breath and let it out. “Contrary to what you see on TV, the Feds don’t
come in and take over. They assist. There’ll be a joint task force. But you can
be sure we’ll be leading the charge with one of our own dead. Chief Little—”
“Chief of Police Little is dead?”
Confirmation of the city manager’s words. Body bag number five. The chief,
dressed in street clothes, had been sitting near the front with his wife—right
behind the city manager and his spouse. The Littles had four kids, all still
young enough to live at home. “I’m so sorry for your loss. Did his wife
survive?”
“Yes, but she’s in critical condition. We
want the monster who did this for the sakes of all the victims, but this one is
personal.”
Estrella would be relegated to the also
killed paragraph of every news story written about this incident. After the
biographies and quotes collected from the peers of Councilman Sandoval, Chief
Little, and Milton Schaeffer. That was fine if it meant law enforcement went
after the killer with every resource available to them because of the intense
public scrutiny that came with their lofty status in the community.
“You said you had something important to
tell me.”
She held the coffee close, concentrating
on its warmth. “There was a backpack left on the front row. I found it.”
Any hint of cordiality disappeared from
his rugged face. “You found it? When?”
