ran toward the exit door and shoved it open to a set of stairs that led up. Taking them, he followed the scent of cigarette smoke as if it were a bread crumb trail.
As he burst out the door onto the roof, he didn’t see anyone. But he heard the murmur of voices. His instincts had him closing the door quietly behind him as he moved toward the sound, his weapon drawn.
* * *
MO NEVER THOUGHT she’d find herself on a rooftop fourteen floors above the city with a killer. What made it more surreal was that she knew this man. She’d loved Thomas like a brother.
“I knew you would figure it out if you kept at it long enough,” Thomas said, his gaze locked on her. “Tricia used to say that you were like a dog with a bone when you got something into your head. How could I forget that you’re a cop, through and through? Her ashes, huh?”
“When did you realize that I knew?” Mo asked as Thomas lit another cigarette, never taking his eyes off her.
“You forget. You and I go way back, Maureen. I met you even before I met your sister. I know you. What I don’t understand is why you would come here alone tonight to meet me, knowing what I’m capable of doing.” He started as if it finally hit him. “You didn’t know.”
She felt the fine hairs stand up on the back of her neck. “You’re not a killer.”
His laugh sounded full of glass shards. “I wouldn’t have thought so not all that long ago, but now...” His expression soured. “But maybe you haven’t noticed, I’ve changed.”
She shook her head. “You killed Tricia in a fit of passion, I would imagine. Killing me would be in cold blood.”
“It’s not all that much different, I don’t believe. It’s about survival. I don’t want to go to prison. I want to live.”
She knew in that instant. “Quinn.”
He smiled, his teeth looking sharp in the glow of the city below them. “You picked up on that right away, didn’t you?”
“So you and Quinn—”
“I wasn’t having an affair at the same time my wife was, if that’s what you’re asking. I got to know Quinn after Tricia died—”
Mo felt a stab of anger at how blasé he was about her sister’s death. “She didn’t die. She was murdered.”
His gaze narrowed. “You want to hear this or not?”
She didn’t really want to. Was she that sure that he wouldn’t hurt her? Or that sure that she could take care of herself?
Right now both seemed foolish. Thomas had fallen in love again. He had even more reason to want to be free of the past and that meant being free of his sister-in-law, as well.
“I got to know Quinn. She’s sweet.”
“You thought Tricia was sweet.”
His eyes narrowed dangerously again. “But I never thought of you that way, Maureen.”
His words actually hurt. “You’re confusing sweet with vulnerable.” Mo had forgotten that her sister had been in love with another boy at college before she’d met Thomas. The boy had broken it off. Had she not realized how vulnerable Tricia had been when she’d met Thomas? Had he recognized it, though, and preyed on her?
She’d thought she had such a clear picture of the past, but now it wavered as if for years she’d remembered only what she wanted to. Thomas and Tricia, the not-so-perfect couple.
Even in the beginning, hadn’t she seen tiny flaws in their relationship? Red flags that her sister had ignored. She suspected that Thomas had never let Tricia forget that he’d given up medical school for her. Add to that Tricia’s problems getting pregnant—until she met JP.
She told herself she could talk him off this roof. Talk them both off. “I was surprised when you had her cremated.”
He finished his cigarette, brutally stubbing it out with the others. “You think she deserved a nice burial?” He snorted. “When I confronted her, she told me that she had planned to tell me. Leave me, is what she meant, but then she realized she was pregnant. Apparently her lover wasn’t interested in fatherhood so she broke it off. Or so she said. But often I smelled him on her skin.” His eyes swam with tears. “That’s right, your precious sister wasn’t just an adulteress, she was going to pass off another man’s son as mine.” He made a swipe at his tears with the back of his sleeve. “It was just one betrayal after another.”
She considered her