Page 3 of View from Above

“That depends. Are you going to try to jump off another ledge given the chance?” He tossed a file onto the stainless-steel table between them.

“I’m not suicidal, Detective Nichols. I would’ve survived the twenty-foot drop onto the next building’s roof.” Whether she would’ve walked away was another story, but she’d only been thinking about escape at the time. She slid her hands across the table as he took his seat opposite. The grind of metal against metal kept her charged anger at bay.

He produced a handcuff key and slid it into the small keyhole between her hands. Warm skin brushed along her inner wrist and spiked her blood pressure higher. In an instant, he’d freed her, but her instincts screamed that was as far as his courtesy would extend. “Tell me what you were doing on that rooftop this morning.”

The hard edge to his voice didn’t come close to the condolences he’d offered mere weeks ago. Now she wasn’t just someone to be consoled. She was a criminal who’d possibly contaminated the only crime scene that would prove her theory of murder. But if the detective hadn’t chased her across the roof, she’d have gotten the answers she needed. He would’ve, too.

If only her father could see her now. First, dropping out of his precious law school in favor of becoming a trauma therapist. Now, this. He’d gotten her in the end though, hadn’t he? Leaving her with the entire litigation firm to shoulder on her own had been the ultimate payback for her independence. His pride and joy.

Mallory gave into the itch encircling her wrists but ducked her hands beneath the table to keep Detective Nichols from seeing the temporary crack in her armor. She wouldn’t break. Not because of him. “Do you remember the first time we met?”

“I remember.” The detective leaned back in his chair. Soft highlights of blonde reflected the fluorescent lighting from overhead but didn’t reach the thick well-kept beard along his jaw. The circles beneath his eyes had darkened in the weeks since she’d seen him last and enunciated the intensity in his expression. She’d studied his career. Research—of any kind—had always been a hobby she’d been more than happy to indulge, but Detective Nichols’s case history had kept her coming back for more. He’d committed himself to this work over the past decade. Maybe even needed it.

His preference for unusual and bizarre cases had shot him from the bottom of Seattle PD’s ranks into investigative stardom. If there was a homicide in this city, he made sure he was the first detective on scene. Most recently with serial cases. There was a drive inside of him, something that propelled him to prove himself case after case, but it wouldn’t ever be enough. Not in his line of work. There would always be the next case, the next body, the next death notification. He studied her with those cold blue eyes, as though trying to predict her intentions. But just as he’d worked to remain emotionally detached during his investigations, she’d developed a similar tactic when treating clients. “I came to your home to tell you your father had died. You accused the medical examiner of making a mistake and told me I’d missed something. You said the great Roland Kotite never would’ve killed himself.”

Mallory set her back teeth together. There’d been very few times she’d spoken of her father in the past decade, but grief had a funny way of sticking in her throat when she least expected. “My father was not a nice man, Detective. He prided himself on starting from nothing and building himself an empire to rule. There were hostile acquisitions of smaller law offices, poaching of large clients from other firms, and the firing of unproductive employees at whimsy. If anyone or anything got in the way or threatened his presumed power, it would be dealt with swiftly and with great force. Sometimes by his own hand, sometimes through one of his many assistants he surrounded himself with.”

“I’m aware of Roland Kotite’s business practices,” he said.

She ignored his comment. For now. “Then you know one of the ways he loved to show off that power he’d obtained was to prove how much I needed him. In fact, he made it known to anyone who would listen that his lifelong goal was to see me crawl back to him for help.”

The creases around Detective Nichols’s eyes deepened, and for a fraction of a second, Mallory felt as though he’d actually listened. “You’re saying your father wouldn’t have jumped from the roof of his law office last month because he was set on proving you were nothing without him.”

Her mouth dried. Despite years of her own therapy, of researching until there was nothing more to learn and reminding herself to detach from the man who’d essentially given her life, there were still instances where she missed him. Missed the idea of him. Even while he’d been alive. Now that he was gone… She wasn’t exactly sure how to feel. “Narcissists have a tendency to convince themselves they’re valuable to everyone they come in contact with, but when it comes to a child or a spouse, that belief is tenfold. They feed off the lies they tell themselves. They’re always right. They’re always the victim. They’re always in control. All it takes is one wrong answer or choice, and you suddenly become the focus of their self-hatred.”

“All right, Ms. Kotite.” He reached for the file he’d set between them on the table and flipped it open, oblivious to the mental slap in the face caused by the use of her father’s last name.

“Mallory,” she said.

“Mallory.” He enunciated the single word but never took his attention from the case file. The first page detailed an index of sorts, and at the top of the hole-punched list, her father’s name. “Let’s say I believe you. Roland Kotite did not commit suicide despite no evidence of foul play and a complete autopsy report from the medical examiner’s office registering his death as a suicide. What does any of this have to do with you contaminating a potential crime scene today?”

She struggled to keep her breathing even. “I believe whoever killed my father murdered that woman who reportedly jumped this morning.”

“The medical examiner hasn’t given us an official cause of death yet.” The detective’s index finger whitened from pressure against the table. Such a small difference but spoke volumes from a man who’d honed his ability to dull his reactions on the job. “So you think these two cases are connected. How?”

“She didn’t have any identification on her.” Mallory instantly understood how ludicrous her theory sounded without any context, but it was the only explanation she had. “I’m a trauma therapist. The clients I’ve treated who suffer from severe depression are convinced they’re a burden on others. Their friends, family, their pets, even the very people they’ve sought out for help. When a patient is in the space of wanting to harm themselves or end their internal suffering, their goal is to end that burden, to make everyone lives easier.”

“So if they jump off a building in the middle of the city, they’re not going to make the detectives’ jobs harder by not carrying identification?” Doubt crept into his voice and lodged in the pit of her stomach. He didn’t believe her, which shouldn’t have surprised her. He hadn’t responded to her text messages or voicemails in the weeks leading up to this moment, but she’d had hope.

“I know how it sounds, but it’s just one of the reasons I don’t believe my father or that woman jumped to their deaths of their own free will. Neither of them were carrying ID,” she said. “You know I’m right. You noticed her makeup and clothing, didn’t you? It’s why you were on that rooftop.”

“I was up there because I’m trained to treat every case—self-inflicted or not—as a homicide until I’m told otherwise, but nothing at either scene is telling me these deaths are connected or that what happened this morning was more than a very unhappy woman desperate to escape her life.” Detective Nichols shoved back in his chair and stood.

She was losing him. The longer she took to convince him, the less time before someone else paid the price. Because this wasn’t over. If anything, her gut said her father’s staged suicide had just been the beginning. “Wait, please—”

“You’re free to go, Mallory.” He collected the file from the table and headed for the door. “Your vehicle’s parked out the south exit. There won’t be any charges for now. Go home, grieve, celebrate—do whatever you need to do to make peace with this. This is your only warning. No more voicemails or text messages. If I see you come anywhere near my investigation again, I will have you charged with obstruction.”

“Detective, please. I know what I’m saying doesn’t make sense, but I’m telling you. Something is very wrong with these deaths, and I need you to…” Trust her? When had she given him the opportunity to trust her? Was it her accusation he hadn’t done his job well enough during the investigation into her father’s death? What about the countless messages she’d sent in the middle of the night pushing him to take a closer look? Or this morning when she’d usurped his authority and talked her way into the Logan Building to get the truth for herself? Mallory pressed her spine into the back of the chair. She wasn’t law enforcement. She’d worked her way through two semesters of law school, but she didn’t know the first thing about investigating a homicide, let alone two. “I understand I haven’t exactly earned any kind of trust or consideration from you. What if I can prove it?”

He froze, hand on the brushed nickel door handle. Wavy hair escaped from his rushed effort to style it several hours ago. As he turned to face her, the imagined tendrils of warmth she’d associated with him the moment they’d met dissipated. “Prove what?”

“That Roland Kotite didn’t kill himself, and that the woman you found on the pavement this morning is connected.” She couldn’t blow this. She couldn’t let him walk away. “My father’s assistant asked me to go through his things after his death. Since I inherited the firm, nothing was considered confidential any longer. And while I was cleaning out his email, I found the deleted folder full of threats. He obviously hadn’t taken them seriously. They’d been trashed mere seconds after he received them, but one sender was growing angrier the longer he ignored her.”

“You’ve been investigating your father’s death on your own.” The detective slid his hand from the doorknob and settled against the wall behind him. Aggravation etched deep into his expression. He gripped the file in both hands, tight enough to bend the cardstock. “Lawyers get threats every day from all kinds of people, but okay. I’ll bite.”

“They started a few months ago, innocent enough in the beginning. Seems my father fired this particular client due to low billable hours to focus on high-paying clients, not unheard of in a firm as massive as his. The ‘whales’ as he called them paid for a lot of status symbols he’d accrued throughout his life, not to mention ensured he made payroll, insurance payments, and funded employee retirements.” Mallory leveled her attention with his, careful not to reveal exactly how much of her own investigating she’d done in response to Seattle PD’s lack of support. “But the last threat she sent detailed how she intended to have him thrown off the roof of his precious law firm.”

Detective Nichols pushed away from the wall and leveraged his palms into the edge of the table between them. “I’m going to need to see that email.”

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