memento from the legendary serial killer Albert Stucky. Although he had never seen it, Tully knew from rumors that the scar crossed the length of her abdomen, as if the man had tried to gut her. Now he and O’Dell had something in common. Tully had a scar of his own, a constant reminder of the bullet Albert Stucky had put into him last spring as he and O’Dell tried to recapture him.
The bullet had caused some damage, but he refused to let it stop him from his daily ritual run. Lately he hated to admit that it qualified more as jogging than running. That one bullet had messed up a lot of things, including his ability to sit cross-legged on the floor without feeling the muscles sting and pinch. There were some things worth a little pain, and having pizza on the floor with his daughter was one of them.
“Mom called,” Emma said as if it were an everyday occurrence. “She said she talked to you about Thanksgiving and that you were cool with everything.”
He clenched his jaw. He wasn’t cool with everything, but then Emma didn’t need to know that. He watched her swipe a strand of long blond hair from her face to keep it away from the strings of cheese that hung from the pizza slice.
“Are you cool about spending Thanksgiving in Cleveland?” he asked.
“I guess.”
It seemed like a typical Emma response, a hint of indifference mixed with that you’d-never-understand-anyway shrug of the shoulders. He wished someone had told him long ago that he’d need a degree in psychology to be a parent of a teenager. Maybe that’s why he enjoyed his job. Figuring out serial killers seemed like a piece of cake compared to figuring out teenage girls.
“If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to.” He gulped his Pepsi, trying to replicate the art of indifference that his daughter seemed to have perfected.
“She’s got it all planned and stuff.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“I just hope she didn’t invite him over.”
Tully wasn’t sure who the new “him” was in his ex-wife’s life. Maybe he didn’t want to know. There had been several since their divorce.
“You have to understand, Emma, if your mom has someone new in her life, she’s probably gonna want to include him for Thanksgiving.”
Jeez! He couldn’t believe he was defending Caroline’s right to screw yet another guy. Just the thought made him angry, or worse, lose his appetite. Two years ago his wife decided one day that she was no longer in love with him, that the passion in their marriage was gone and that she needed to move on. Nothing better to destroy a guy’s ego than to have his wife tell him she needed to move on and away from his passionless, unlovable self.
“What about you?”
For a minute Tully had forgotten what exactly they had been talking about.
“What do you mean?”
“What will you do for Thanksgiving?”
He caught himself staring at her, then grabbed for another piece of pizza, feeling his indifference slipping. Yet he couldn’t help but smile. His daughter was worried about him spending Thanksgiving alone. Could there be anything more cool?
“Hey, I’m planning on a full day of fun, sitting in my underwear watching football all afternoon.”
She frowned at him. “You hate college football.”
“Well, then maybe I’ll go to the movies.”
This made her giggle, and she had to set her Pepsi aside so as not to spill it.
“What’s so funny about that?”
“You, go to the movies by yourself? Come on, Dad. Get real.”
“Actually, I’ll probably need to work. There’s a pretty important case we’re working on. In fact, I wanted to talk to you about it.”
He pulled the photocopy from his back pocket, unfolded it and handed it to Emma.
“Do you know this girl? Her name’s Virginia Brier.”
Emma took a careful look, then set the copy aside and began on another piece of pizza.
“Is she in some kind of trouble?”
“No, she’s not in trouble.” Tully felt a wave of relief. It looked like Emma didn’t recognize the girl. Of course he had been crazy. There had been hundreds of people at the monuments Saturday night.
But before he could relax, Emma said, “She doesn’t like to be called Virginia.”
“What?”
“She uses Ginny.”
Jesus! The nausea grabbed hold again.
“So you do know her?”
“Actually, Alesha and I just met her Saturday when we were on the field trip, but yeah, she was there Saturday night, too. She sorta made us mad, because she was flirting with this boy Alesha really liked. He was really cool