The Innocent (Will Robie 1)

He led her up the stairs. When they came to the locked door to the roof he pulled out his pick tools and in a short time the door swung open.

“That wasn’t a key,” she said, smiling in admiration at his skill. “You just picked the lock.”

“A pick is a key by another name. That’s as close to poetic as I’ll ever get.”

She followed him up a short flight of stairs and through another doorway. The rooftop was flat and coated with a sealed asphalt top coat. It radiated a slight warmth.

Robie pulled out a bottle of wine from under his jacket.

“Hope you like red.”

“I love red. Are we going to take turns chugging from the bottle?”

From his pocket he produced two plastic wineglasses.

He uncorked the bottle and poured out the wine.

They stood by the edge of the roof and rested their arms and glasses on the chest-high wall of the building.

“It is a beautiful view,” said Lambert. “I guess I never thought about there being one from here. I just look out my window and see the building across the street.”

Robie felt a pang of guilt as he thought about his vantage point from that building into her apartment. “Every place has a view,” he said hesitantly. “Some are just better than others.”

“Hey, that was poetic,” she said nudging him with her elbow.

The wind blew gently across them as they sipped their wine and talked. The conversation was innocuous and yet helped to deliver a bit of a respite, of peace, to Robie. He had no time to be doing something like this, which was one reason why it was so important to do it.

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” said Lambert.

“I’ve come up here before, but not with anyone else.”

“I feel honored, then,” she said. She looked out once more at the surrounding area. “It seems like this would be a good place to come and think.”

“I can show you how to pick a lock,” he said.

She smiled. “That might come in handy, actually. I’m always forgetting my keys.”

Another thirty minutes passed and Robie said, “Well, I guess we should call it a night.” He looked at his watch. “And you might as well shower and get ready for work. I guess you don’t need much sleep.”

“Look who’s talking.”

He walked her back to her apartment. She turned and said, “I really enjoyed this.”

“So did I.”

“I haven’t met many people since I’ve been here.”

“It’ll happen. Just takes time.”

“I meant that I’m really glad I met you.”

She kissed him on the lips, letting her fingers linger against his chest.

“Good night,” she said.

After she went inside Robie stood there. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling. Well, maybe he only hadn’t felt it in a really long time.

Finally, he turned and walked off, more confused and unsure of himself than ever.

CHAPTER

55

ROBIE GOT BACK to the other building a few minutes later. Part of him wanted to look at Lambert through the telescope, to see what her reaction had been to tonight. Although her kiss probably told him all he needed to know. He imagined her showering and getting ready for work. But maybe she would think about him today too as she went about the important work of the country.

And after that thought Robie refocused on what lay ahead for him. It was time for him to go back to work too.

He checked on Julie and found her sound asleep.

He showered, dressed, and left, setting the alarm.

He drove through the empty streets. His wandering was not aimless. He had places to go, more things to think through.

He passed an MPD cop car going the opposite way, its rack lights blasting blue streaks into the dark. Someone was in trouble. Or dead.

Robie’s first stop was Julie’s home.

He parked a block away and approached the house from the rear. A minute later he was in the duplex. He navigated with a penlight through the dark interior. He knew what he wanted to look at.

Two people being murdered here had set Julie’s flight in motion. The bodies had been removed and the place sterilized. To what degree precisely was the reason Robie was here tonight. At some point the Gettys’ disappearance would prompt calls to the police. They would come here and find the place empty. They would connect that Julie was or at least had been in foster care. They would try to find her. They would fail. They would assume that the Gettys had gone off together for some reason—perhaps to escape accumulated debt or unpaid dealers who wanted payment for the drugs the Gettys were known to have used.

The police would put some time in, but not a lot. Without any evidence of a violent end to the lives of the Gettys, the investigation would be put on the back burner. Big-city police departments did not have the luxury of expending time and resources on cases like this one.

Robie stooped and studied the mark on the wall. Blood, to his eye, but the police might not even notice it. Even if they noticed it they wouldn’t test it. That meant paperwork, tech hours, and lab time. And for what?

But that little smudge was telling Robie something.

Blood spatter. They got all of it except this spot. This spot is not hidden. It’s in plain view. They should’ve cleaned it off, or painted over it like they did on the other section.

Robie straightened. That mark was a message.

The Gettys were dead. He had never doubted that.

But who was the message meant for?

They knew that Julie was aware her parents were dead. She had seen it happen.

Was it for one of the Gettys’ friends? Who might want to talk to the police, but wouldn’t if they knew they’d been killed?

That was a stretch, thought Robie. The friend might never see this mark or know what it was if they did spot it.

But I would find it. I would know what it is.

He searched the rest of the house, ending in Julie’s bedroom. He shined his tiny light around. He saw a stuffed bear in a corner lying on its side. He picked it up, put it in the knapsack he’d brought with him. There was a photo of Julie and her parents next to her bed. He put that in the knapsack too.

He’d give them to Julie when he saw her again.

His next stop was Rick Wind’s. Not his place of business where someone cut his tongue out and then stuck it down his throat. He was heading to Rick Wind’s house in Maryland.

But he would not get there. At least not tonight.

His phone buzzed.

It was Blue Man.

“We found your handler. You can come and see what’s left of him.”

CHAPTER

56

THERE WAS NO STENCH. A burned body doesn’t give off much odor. The flesh and bodily gases, the twin engines of forensic malodor, had been burned off. Charred remains carried a scent, but it was not a disagreeable one. Anyone walking into a fast-food burger place or the aftermath of an inferno had experienced it.

Robie looked down at the mass of blackened bone and then stared two feet over at Blue Man. His white shirt was crisply starched, his tie point dropped right at six o’clock. He smelled of Kiehl’s facial fuel. It was a little after five o’clock in the morning and he looked ready to make a presentation to a Fortune 500 board.

Blue Man was staring down at the black husk that used to be a man. A man who had ordered Robie to kill a woman and her child.