he say now? Miss you sounded needy. Thinking of you was obvious. He should have sent a text. “Do you like dogs?” Where the hell had that come from? “I mean. Never mind. I hope everything is going well in Seattle. Call me when you have a second.”
He hung up.
“Do you like dogs?” He might as well have asked if she liked suburbia and white picket fences.
Liam grabbed his beer and jogged down into his yard.
Her cell phone startled her awake.
Avery plopped a hand on the bedside table to answer the rattle. “Hello?”
“Ms. Grant?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Detective Armstrong.”
She woke up quickly, hearing his name. “Hold on.” She tossed back the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She glanced at the clock. Nine in the morning. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Okay. I’m back.”
“Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“I overslept. What did you find, Detective?”
“We looked over the pictures of our suspect.”
She knew what was coming even before he said the words.
“And?”
“He didn’t have any tattoo of a spider on his body.”
Avery crossed to the windows and pulled the light-blocking blinds open. She winced. “So what do we do now?”
“We’re reopening the case.”
There was some satisfaction in that.
“I need to caution you . . .”
“Caution me about what?”
“Tattoos are circumstantial at best. Unless there is something else to identify your attacker, the chances of being able to arrest, let alone prosecute, anyone we find with that mark is minimal.”
“What does that mean? You’re not going to look?”
“We’ll look. But . . .”
“But what?” It was too early for her to be this upset.
“Ms. Grant . . . we want men that do the things this guy did to you off the street just as much as you do.”
“I doubt you want it more than me.”
“Okay. Maybe in this case that’s true. Most of us got into this profession because we want to protect and serve. This case is almost a year old, and without a physical description outside of a tattoo, he is going to be impossible to find with the resources we have.”
Resources . . . that was what this was all about. “You mean it’s not a priority.”
“I mean we need more than a spider tattoo. An image that can be repeated on any arm, every arm, from here to Jersey.”
She started to pace. “What if I do remember this guy’s face and I give you a description?”
“Now we have something to work with. We give our friends in Manhattan the description. We search the prison database. If he is here, we’ll eventually find him. Then we can bring you back here to identify him.”
The tone in Armstrong’s voice told her there was something he wasn’t saying.
“And then?”
“We give the case to the DA and hold him as long as we can.”
“What does that mean?” She was starting to raise her voice.
“Ms. Grant—”
She was getting tired of hearing her name. “Avery.”
“Avery, this guy assaulted you. People are mugged and assaulted every day in Manhattan.”
She closed her eyes, her breath coming fast. “I was in the ICU for a week.”
“Which will weigh on the case. You have a lawyer friend, right?”
Lori. “Yes.”
“Ask her what the chances are of this particular perpetrator doing any serious time for your attack. There are always exceptions, but my guess is your friend will break this down to a few months, maybe a year or two.”
“So I’m just supposed to turn my back on him? He fucked me up, Armstrong. I’m not the same person I was before he stomped my head into the pavement.” She was seething.
“I’m going to look for him, Avery. Give me a description. Let us do our job.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“Give me his face, and if he is still here, we will bring him in. But finding him is not going to give you the satisfaction you seek.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I watch the face of victim after victim when we have to let their assailants back on the street. We go from hero to asshole in one day in cases like this.”
Where was the fairness in any of this?
Since when did she think life was fair?
“I’m sorry, Avery. I really am.”
“This is hard to accept.” She refused to.
“I know. How long are you in the city?”
Until I find him. “I don’t know. I have some work here,” she lied.
“If you remember more while you’re here, give me a call. I’ll come to the city, and we’ll sit down with a