The Murder That Never Was (Forensic Instincts 5)

She’d tried so hard to get it. She’d had both her blood and her urine checked, hoping there’d be evidence of the drugs in her system. But it had been too late. Whatever Jim had given her clearly had a short half-life and had already dispersed. It had been a long shot anyway. Jim wouldn’t have chosen a steroid that could be detected in the bloodstream for months, maybe even longer. So that possibility was out. And now Julie had vanished along with whatever she might have found out. So Shannon had nothing.

She’d considered going to the cops anyway, to tell them everything she knew and to see if they could help her. Not only to protect her, but to find Julie and determine what she knew and if she, too, was in danger. But she couldn’t. The risk was too great. Not only could the killers be following her, but she herself might be in legal trouble, no matter how hard she’d try to make the police understand that she’d thought the pills she was taking were healthy supplements. Why would they believe her? She was an Olympic hopeful who’d do almost anything to get the gold.

God, she’d been such an asshole.

In the meantime, she couldn’t disguise her state of mind. Her parents were frantic, her psychiatrist was deeply troubled, and her tutors were well out of their league and afraid to say or do the wrong thing. So Shannon shut down like a clam, distancing herself from everyone and going so far as to end her psychiatric sessions after an intensive two-week regimen of daily visits.

Everyone attributed it to the devastation she was enduring about the shattering loss of her career. She let them think that. It was partly true anyway. As for the rest—if she wasn’t going to the police, she certainly wasn’t telling anyone else about Julie’s investigation and the PEDs Jim Robbins had been giving her.

Shannon hadn’t seen Jim since the day she’d spilled her guts to Julie. It wasn’t a reach to guess that he believed—with a great sense of relief—that Shannon had just fallen to pieces and was avoiding anyone connected to her old life. Obviously, the last thing he wanted was to be found out. Shannon might have no proof that the supplements she’d been taking had been performance enhancing drugs, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t make a big stink about it and ruin his career—not to mention get him investigated and possibly arrested.

Despite her fear, she was half tempted to take that step and blow open Pandora’s box.

But she didn’t. She was too scared. And she was so alone.

Then she got Julie’s Facebook message.

And everything changed.

Julie had finally reconnected. According to her private message, she’d fled to the East Coast after the murder, to some town in New Jersey called Upper Montclair. She’d sworn Shannon to secrecy about her location, and about the fact that she was opening her own gym in a week. She seemed really stoked about the gym. Normally, Shannon would have been thrilled for her. But now, all she could think about was danger and death. Julie really hadn’t addressed either or answered any of her questions. She’d just expressed concern for Shannon’s state of mind, and asked her where things stood in every aspect of her life.

Was she too scared to even broach the subject?

Shannon hadn’t wasted a second. She’d typed in a response, blurting out everything that had been crowding her mind these past weeks. How she’d withdrawn from the world and stopped seeing her therapist. How she was sure she was still a target for Lisa’s killers. How she was more than certain that the PEDs Jim Robbins had been giving her were part of something bigger. She’d concluded by begging Julie to tell her anything she’d found out before disappearing, since Shannon had no place else to turn.

Julie was all over the response the instant it arrived. The information it contained was invaluable toward handling the potential crisis at hand.

Milo did his job pronto. He researched Jim Robbins and the Apex Olympic Gymnastic Center. He revisited all of dead Julie’s emails, concentrating on those to Shannon, which were rife with sympathy and compassion. And he put together a list of professionals, such as Shannon’s manager, who were closest to her, so he could concoct a viable dialogue for the new Julie to have with Shannon. Once he’d compiled everything, he prepped Julie for her Facebook Messenger response.

In that response, Julie made sure to be soothing as she tried to calm Shannon down. This time, she’d addressed the subject head on. She’d echoed Shannon’s fears but said that, unfortunately, she’d learned nothing—so far—other than what they already knew. She wasn’t giving up her efforts, she assured Shannon, even though, at this point, she had nothing to take to the police. But she was still digging into Jim’s background, along with the background of the Apex Olympic Gymnastic Center. She was even delving into the history of Shannon’s trainer, Yuri Varennikov, covering all bases to see who might be involved. Given that her investigation was delicate and potentially dangerous, she made Shannon promise not to go to the cops, not until they had real evidence. She concluded by telling Shannon to private message her anytime, and they could have a good, long cell phone talk right after the chaos of her gym’s grand opening was behind them.

The reply from Shannon came instantly: Thank God I’m not alone.

Milo read the last of Julie’s return message over her shoulder, along with Shannon’s instantaneous response.

“Nice work,” he praised with a nod. “You used all the research I got you and added a warm, personal touch. That should keep Shannon’s hopes up and her impulse to go to the cops at bay.”

“I hope so,” Julie replied. “But I’d better keep the lines of communication open. She’s a scared teenager. They’re not known for their impulse control. Remember?”

“Yeah, I remember. And I agree. Stay in touch with her. Feed her little snipp

ets of things as I find them.” Milo paused. “And if she happens to be right, we’re all in deep shit.”

Manhattan, New York

Emma hated the subway. It was one of the evil necessities of living in the city. Normally, she walked the mile from FI’s Tribeca brownstone to her apartment on Mulberry Street. But she’d met some friends for drinks uptown, and now she was relegated to this miserable form of transportation.

Luckily, she’d gotten a seat, albeit a slimy one next to some weird woman who was staring straight ahead, swaying back and forth, and talking to herself. She had a large canvas bag sitting on the floor in the aisle—not a sharp idea. But it was none of Emma’s business.

She returned to her iPad and the follow-up news tidbits she could find about that girl, Lisa Barnes, who’d been shot to death in Chicago. There was little to nothing to dig up, only an obituary and a throwaway commentary that the Nineteenth district of the Chicago Police Department was still looking for the killer.

Bullshit on that. They’d shut the investigative door five minutes after they’d determined that Lisa was a loser who’d been in the system and who had had a sketchy youth.

Emma slapped her iPad closed on her lap with a frustrated sound. She didn’t know why she couldn’t shake her preoccupation with this murder, but she couldn’t. It just hit too close to home.

She was half tempted to take her thoughts to Casey and see if Forensic Instincts could do anything with them. But Lisa Barnes hadn’t been a client, and they had no right to step into a case halfway across the country without a reason.

Emma was still lost in thought when, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a twenty-something guy in a sweater and jeans weaving his way through the subway aisle. Up went her antenna when he slowed down an aisle or two ahead of her and quickly eyeballed the tote bag lying on the floor in front of him.