Bleed (Detective Ellie MacIntosh) by Kate Watterson Read Free Book Online

dissimilar to what you do for a living. You pick up the pieces too, don’t you, Doctor?”
    “I suppose.”
    “How did she get ahold of the gun?”
    “What?”
    “I’m a pretty good investigator, so let me give this a shot.” Ellie smiled thinly. “You were the person waiting for Cranz and Paul Jayson. Greta would do anything you told her to do—I’ve seen her with her lawyer and her manager. She was asleep upstairs just as she told us. You killed the two of them, and then you left.”
    “What an interesting theory. Prove it.”
    Ellie ignored the challenge. “But, here’s a problem for us. She’s an actress. A fairly talented one, at that. What is real and what isn’t? Maybe you gave the weapon to her so she could kill her ex-husband … but I don’t think that is exactly what happened. I can see it. You have a patient who has sick fantasies about what he wants to do to a famous star. Well, big conflict of interest, the star is also your patient. You like her. You want to protect her. And you do. Did you leave the carefully wiped clean gun behind … maybe one you got from one of your suicidal patients? They gave it to you for safekeeping because with it in the house they were too tempted, so you thought it would never be traced. You were right. We haven’t managed that, by the way.”
    Lukens just looked at her.
    “But I’m unclear on how Greta got the gun. Her story about her ex-husband setting it down is implausible to me, but not impossible, I suppose.”
    “He obviously was not rational if he wished to kill her.”
    “Yeah, kind of a big ‘if’ in my mind.”
    “What is it you think happened between Greta and her husband?” Lukens asked the question very evenly.
    “Fair enough.” Ellie smiled humorlessly. “I think she called Sam and said she needed him, and she’d hid that weapon somewhere. He flew out to rush to her side because he’s wanted that all along. By her own admission, he was obsessed with her. So she let him in the house, and she killed him in the kitchen. There is no perfect crime but this is pretty close. You can’t turn her in without confessing what you did, and when it all comes down to it, Sam Garrison is not a great loss to this earth.”
    The doctor leaned back and lifted her brows. A light flashed on the desk and Ellie assumed that meant a patient was waiting.
    It took a moment, but then the other woman smiled with visible effort. “That is one incredible story, Detective MacIntosh.”
    “How close is it to the truth?”
    “It doesn’t matter, if you can’t prove it.”
    “True. I was interested to discover with a little probing that your ex-husband was a sharpshooter in the military. I think it was your expression when we came to talk to you the first time. I can completely see how you would not expect the gun you so carefully wiped and left behind—good call, by the way, disposing of it involves all kinds of risks—was going to be used again by Greta in a third homicide. Did you underestimate her?”
    Lukens turned her head, her dark hair glistening in the sunlight coming in the window. “Are you looking for a confession? If so, I am afraid you’ll be disappointed.”
    “That remark seems like one to me.”
    “Have you ever been in an abusive relationship, Detective?”
    Ellie shook her head and answered quietly, “No. But I have answered domestic violence calls.”
    Lukens rubbed her nose and dipped her head, laughing softly. “So when you arrived you had a badge, and a gun, and were not that terrified woman cowering in the corner of the kitchen.”
    “Tell me about that terrified woman.” Ellie studied her expression. “I want to know.”
    “I assure you, you don’t.”
    The glimmer of truth was enlightening. “ You were a battered wife. The military husband? The one who taught you to shoot?”
    “I never said that.”
    “Is that why you feel such empathy toward Greta?”
    “I’m not going to play your game.”
    “As far as I can tell, it