She recognized Detective Armstrong when he pushed out the doors leading to the back of the police station. “Ms. Grant.”

He reached out a hand.

“Detective.”

“You look much better than the last time I saw you.”

“That wouldn’t have taken much.” She’d been black, blue, purple, and green for six weeks.

“What can I do for you?”

“I need to see the pictures of the man who attacked me again.”

“The case has been closed.”

She lifted her chin. “I think you need to reopen it.”

Armstrong shifted back on his heels, his eyes blank. “Okay, then. Come with me.”

He walked her behind the reception desk and through the doors he’d emerged from. The noise behind the wall was ten times what it was in the lobby. It might be first thing in the morning on a Wednesday, but apparently that didn’t matter when it came to cops and their work. She walked around several old desks, all of them piled with papers. There was a wild-eyed young man sitting with his hands behind his back, telling an officer he “wasn’t there.” The exhausted officer talking to him wasn’t buying it.

They rounded the corner to a slightly less populated part of the space and into a semiprivate office.

“You remember Detective Gray.”

“Vaguely. I was pretty drugged up when I saw you both last.” They shook hands.

“Sit.”

She took the edge of the chair and waited for them to follow.

“I’ve started remembering things. Details of that day.”

“What kind of details?” Gray asked as he picked up a pad of paper and held a pen at the ready.

Avery held her notebook in her hand but closed her eyes in an effort to bring the image back up. “Boots. The work kind. I think they were new, because I remember a spiky edge to the tread coming at me.” She looked beyond the boots in her mind and described the man’s tan pants to them. “New boots and old pants you’d see on a homeless man, the contrast is clear in my head.” She opened her eyes to see the men watching her.

“The man who attacked you is dead, Ms. Grant.”

She narrowed her eyes. “No. The man in my memory is not the man in the morgue.”

The detectives looked at each other.

“Anything else?” Armstrong asked.

She nodded and placed her notebook on the desk.

Opening it to her amateur artwork, she turned the page around and pointed. “He had a tattoo on the inside of his right arm. I saw it when he dragged me around the car. This spider. It covered his skin and was so lifelike . . .” She shivered. “There were bones and hair. The eyes had color. Red.” No wonder she had blacked the image out.

Avery shifted her gaze between the two detectives and placed both hands on the desk. “I don’t remember this from the pictures you showed me. All I’ve seen in my nightmares is the mug shot of the guy you said did it. All the while I’ve kept thinking it wasn’t right.”

“Do you remember a face?”

She shook her head. “No. But I’m remembering details every time I close my eyes. The doctors said the day of the attack might flood back in, and it is. So it’s only a matter of time. I need to see the evidence you have. I need to know if this guy”—she pointed at her drawing—“is still out there.”

Armstrong sat back in his chair. “We need to pull your files and bring you back in. Where are you staying?”

“Manhattan.”

Once again the officers exchanged glances. Their precinct was in Suffolk County, a good hour and fifty minutes outside the city. While her assault case had originated in Manhattan, it had merged with the murder case of Trina’s late husband, who lived in the Hamptons. Officers Armstrong and Gray had the cases combined. Left alone, Avery’s assault case would have gone to the bottom of the page in terms of priority. A murder case of a wealthy man, on the other hand . . .

Avery turned several pages over in her notebook, took a pen from the desk, and scribbled down her cell phone number. “How long will it take to retrieve the file?”

“Later today, maybe tomorrow.”

She tore the paper out and placed it on the desk as she stood. “I remember you saying that you had a video of the man you believe responsible leaving the garage.”

“I think that’s right,” Gray said.

“Was there any other evidence linking this scar-faced man to me?”

“Physical evidence? No. Not that I recall. But one of Petrov’s men turned state’s evidence on the other in the suspicious deaths of your suspect and the housekeeper,” Armstrong told her.

No evidence. None? “What was the state’s evidence?”

“That Ruslan Petrov had put a hit out on you. His man hired Scarface, as you call him.”

“What was the name of the scum that you assumed altered my face forever?”

“Mason, I think.” Armstrong looked at Gray.

“Ken Mason. Went by Krueger on the street,” Gray added.

“As in Freddy?” Avery asked.

“That’s what his rap sheet told us. A known hit man.”

“Did this Krueger have spider ink?”

They were silent.

“I’d have to look at the photos again,” Armstrong eventually said.

Avery felt her blood pressure rise. “I will bet my next paycheck he didn’t. The picture of Krueger that you showed me was a man with acne scars and haunting eyes. No ink on his neck from the mug shot. And while I don’t remember the whole conversation, I do think you said something about him liking ink, but he kept it off his neck and arms. Since this Krueger made his living killing people for money, that would make sense. If he had two brain cells to rub together, he would keep any defining marks like this one”—she slapped her hand on her open notebook—“hidden.”

Armstrong raised both palms in the air. “I understand your frustration. But at the time this was happening, you remembered nothing, and all we had to go on was the evidence we did find and the testimony of those in Petrov’s circle. Now that you’ve remembered something distinctive, we can look into the case again. If Krueger didn’t have this tattoo, we will reopen it.”

She really wanted to scream. “By reopening it, what does that mean? Put out an APB on a tattoo?”

“Let’s cross that bridge when we have to.” Gray stood, along with Armstrong. “We need to do our job and get back to you.”

She felt a brush-off coming.

“If you remember anything else, call us.” Armstrong handed her a business card.

Avery started toward the door.

“Ms. Grant, don’t forget your purse.”

Avery glanced at the chair she’d just vacated. “I didn’t bring one.” No, she had the rental car key in her front pocket, a pocket wallet on her right hip, and her cell phone on her left.

“Let me walk you out,” Armstrong said.

They zigzagged through the station and out into the lobby. From there he walked her to the front door and matched her pace down the steps. “Where are all of those bodyguard friends of yours, Ms. Grant? The last time we saw you, you were surrounded by an army.”

Avery stopped in front of the rental car she didn’t bother locking and opened the door. “You only need an army when you can’t defend yourself.”

He hiked a brow.

“Have a nice day, Detective.” Avery slid behind the wheel, started the car, and reversed out of the space.

Armstrong stood, hands on hips, in her rearview mirror until she drove out of sight.

They had the wrong guy. She’d seen the looks on their faces, expressions that shadowed doubt on what they remembered about the case.

They had the wrong fucking guy.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Derrick Armstrong walked back into the station and straight to the office he shared with Gray. His partner was busy clicking behind the computer monitor. “Did you find it yet?”

“I’m not that fast.”

They did have to dig a little deeper for archived files. But unlike the days when everything was paper and physical photographs that were stored in remote locations, they didn’t have to leave the station to find what they were looking for.

Armstrong looked at the chair Ms. Grant had sat in. “A woman without a purse?”

“Less likely to get mugged,” Gray said.

“More prepared to fight if she were.”

Gray glanced up. “She doesn’t look like a fighter.”

“Looks aren’t always what they seem.”

“She sure as hell didn’t fight the last time.” Gray went back to the computer.

“No guarantee she wouldn’t now.” In fact, he would bet his next paycheck she would.

Thirty minutes later they were both staring at the postmortem pictures of Ken “Krueger” Mason.

“Well, shit.”

The man had lots of ink but nothing that looked like a haunting spider crawling on an arm.

“What about the video we have on him leaving the garage?”

Gray pulled up the file and they watched the only footage they had of Krueger leaving the scene.

“Jeans. He’s wearing denim, not tan pants,” Armstrong pointed out.

“He looks like he’s wearing boots.”