Free You Can't Hide by Karen Rose Page B

“Mom, today is not the day for this.” Becca nodded. “I know. But I didn’t want you to hear this from somebody else and be unprepared. She’s getting married.”
    Once he’d felt hurt. Now he felt only disgust. “I know.”
    His mother’s eyes flew open. “You do? How?”
    “She sent me an invitation.” One final, well-placed jab in a line of so many. Shelley had been well-versed in the art of backstabbing and betrayal. “Now drop it, please.”
    Becca sighed. “Eat your pie before your brother realizes I’ve cut it for you.”
    “It’s too late,” Abe growled from the doorway. “Dammit, Aidan, you’re eating it all.”
    “You snooze, you lose,” Aidan replied smoothly.
    Grumbling, his brother snatched a plate and sat down at the table. “What happened to you?
    You’re all wet.”
    Becca set the coffeepot between them. “It’s raining, Abe,” she said and Aidan smiled in spite of himself.
    But Abe wasn’t smiling. “You haven’t slept, have you? You still working the Morris boy?”
    Aidan shook his head. “Me and Murphy spent all yesterday afternoon tracking the slimy SOB
    of a father, but he’s gone under. We picked up a new case just after midnight. Kept us busy all day.” Abe frowned. “The only new case on the board from last night was a jumper.”
    Aidan focused at his dessert. “It wasn’t a suicide. Not really.”
    “How can it not really be a suicide?” Becca wanted to know. “Isn’t that like being a little bit pregnant?”
    “Who’s pregnant?” His sister-in-law, Kristen, entered the kitchen, holding a baby with red curls. She narrowed her eyes at the remaining slice of pie, then at Abe. “Hey.”
    “Talk to Ma,” Abe said with a shrug and reached for the baby.
    “Who’s pregnant?” Kristen repeated, joining them at the table. Abe bounced Kara on his knee. “Nobody. Aidan grabbed a jumper last night.”
    Kristen grimaced. “Tough night.” His sister-in-law knew all about tough cases. A prosecutor for the states attorney’s office, Kristen saw her share of bodies daily. Aidan sighed. “You don’t know the half of it. This woman was being treated by a psychiatrist who-” He stopped when Abe and Kristen flashed each other a look.
    “Tess Ciccotelli,” Kristen said flatly. “So you’re the one who dragged her into Interview this afternoon. Hell, Aidan.”

    32
    Karen Rose

    [Suspense 5]

    You Can't Hide
    Aidan looked from Kristen to Abe. Kristen looked furious and Abe was fiercely concentrating on retying the bow in Kara’s curly hair. Aidan knew he was on his own. “How did you know?”
    “My boss cal ed me this afternoon. Told me the basics and asked me to take the case, to talk to the cops who’d brought her in for questioning. I told him I couldn’t. Tess and I have worked together for years. We’re friends.”
    “You and everybody else it seems.” Aidan jabbed at the pie, annoyed. The woman had more allies than NATO. “Wasn’t anybody else sitting in that courtroom when she absolved Harold Green of all responsibility for murdering three little kids and a cop?”
    Kristen went still. “She did not absolve him of responsibility, Aidan.”
    “You weren’t there, Kristen,” Aidan said, warning in his voice. “I was.”
    “Not in the courtroom, no. Before, after, yes. She came to me, Aidan, torn up about what she had to do. She knew what the backlash would be. She could never have testified to Green’s incompetence to stand trial if she hadn’t believed it completely. That’s not the kind of woman she is. You spent hours with her this afternoon. Surely you saw that.”
    Aidan shifted in his chair, uncomfortable because he still was unsure exactly what he’d seen and heard. “She’s a shrink, Kristen. She can make people see what she wants them to see.”
    Kristen shoved her plate away. “She’s a psychiatrist, not a witch doctor. You’re wasting your time, Aidan. Find out who else wanted that woman dead. And find out who hated Tess