Page 72 of Jar of Hearts
“Did the extra support help?”
“Not even a little bit. She was a really difficult child. It was hard.” She bites her lip, looks away, the guilt of having said something negative about her dead daughter etched all over her face.
“And what about the father?” Kaiser asks. “Did you ever learn anything about him?”
“All Sasha would say is that their relationship was very brief,” Daniel says. “Sounded like a fling, maybe even a one-time thing. She wouldn’t tell us his name.”
“Or maybe she never knew it.” Lara sighs. “Of course, if you ask her, maybe she’ll be more forthcoming. She no longer speaks to us.”
And she never will again. “Why’s that?” Kaiser asks.
“When we talked to her about Emily a couple of years ago, we told her we needed to take a complete genetic history,” Daniel says. “We told Sasha that while we understood she didn’t want to tell us anything about Emily’s biological father, it was necessary to know more about him in order to help our daughter. We explained about the violence, the aggression, that we were concerned she might hurt her brothers. The conversation upset her. She hung up on us and never returned our calls again.”
Emily Rudd’s parents seem like practical people. Determined, eager to be helpful, motivated to get to the answer in the most efficient way possible. Kaiser decides it’s time to be honest with them.
“I want to be straight with you here,” he says. “When we found Emily, we found another victim as well. A woman.”
The parents exchange a look.
“You think it’s Sasha,” Daniel says flatly. “You must, or else you wouldn’t have asked all those questions. Look, like I told you, Sasha had zero relationship with Emily. Any contact we had with her was between us—”
“Is it okay if I show you a picture?” Kaiser asks, pulling out his phone. “It’s of the female victim.”
Lara shakes her head. Sighing, Daniel holds his hand out for the phone. Kaiser figured out how to use the censor-bar app Kim downloaded for Claire Toliver, and he’d cropped the photo to show onlythe victim’s face. He doesn’t plan to tell Emily’s parents that the woman was dismembered, and that the head isn’t actually attached to a body.
The man looks at the photo. His expression doesn’t change. Again, Kaiser figures it must be his surgeon’s poker face. “Well, it certainlyresemblesSasha. Same nose, same chin. What’s with the black bar?”
“There’s significant damage to the eye area.”
Daniel rolls his eyes. “I’m a trauma surgeon, Detective. I had a teenager come in the other week with a detached eyeball due to head trauma. Popped out during a football game and was dangling from his goddamned eye socket. I see things like that, and much worse, every day. If you show me the uncensored version, I can probably verify that it’s her.”
Kaiser sighs. Swipes to change the photo. The uncensored photo causes Daniel Rudd to blink exactly once, but that’s it. The man is unshakeable.
“Yes,” he says. “That’s Sasha.” Short and to the point.
Lara makes no move to look at the phone, so Kaiser slips it back into his pocket.
“How was she killed?” Daniel asks, standing up. He begins to pace. The calm demeanor is beginning to fade.
“Strangulation, we think,” Kaiser says, and stops there. “We’ll confirm cause of death later today.”
“Why did you want to know about Emily’s biological father?” From the tone of Daniel’s voice, it’s clear he’s growing agitated. “Do you think he had something to do with this?” When Kaiser doesn’t respond right away, he stops pacing. “My god. You do.”
“We’re looking at him as a suspect, yes.”
“But you don’t know his name,” Daniel says. He exchanges another look with his wife. “Oh, hell. You do.”
“I can’t believe this.” Lara’s voice cracks, and she buries her face in her hands. The grief, pushed away earlier, is beginning to surge back, and her breathing is becoming shallow. “You think Emily’s own biological father killed her, and Sasha. What kind of depraved—” She stops, then gasps, as if hearing what she just said. “It was genetic.” Her breathing becomes more rapid, and a light sheen of sweat appearsabove her brow. “That’s where Emily got it from. Oh god. Oh god, I don’t understand any of this. Why would he kill his own child?”
“Deep breaths,” Daniel says, looking over at his wife with concern, pacing once again.
“I know what to do,” Lara snaps. It’s the first time she’s spoken sharply to her husband. She takes several deep breaths, her chest expanding and contracting in an exaggerated way, and after a half-dozen or so breaths, she calms down. “You should talk to Sasha’s grandmother. She mentioned they were close, that her grandmother was the only person who stood by her through the drugs and the drinking. She might be able to confirm whether the person who murdered our daughter is the person you’re thinking it is.”
“What’s his name?” Daniel asks. He’s sitting beside his wife, but they’re inches apart, not touching, not looking at each other. “The killer?”
“I’d rather not say until I know for sure,” Kaiser says.
“Well, I hope you catch the sonofabitch,” the man says. “And I hope he tries to attack you, so you can kill him.”
