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?”