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Part Fourteen: Certainty

August 30, 2006

Woody was nodding. "Thanks. Yeah. Okay."

Jordan and Nigel gave him expectant looks as he hung up. "Amanda Holloway died ten months ago."

"What?" Nigel was aghast. Jordan could only sigh with exhaustion and irritation.

"That was her brother. She moved to Maine after the accident. Ten months ago, she killed herself."

"Not to sound too – um – ghoulish, but he's sure?" Jordan did manage to look apologetic.

"Yeah. He id'd the body." Woody closed his eyes and leaned against the wall. "Another dead end. The print was only a partial."

"It can't be!" Jordan's eyes burned with fervor. "It's too coincidental that her print – partial or not – was pulled off of that necklace. And look at her. All of our vics looked like her or were made to look like her."

"Jordan-"

"Woody, Amanda Holloway is involved in this in some way!"

"How, Jo? How? She was dead before these crimes started? And why? Why would she do it?" He held his own temper in check, but barely.

The M.E. smoldered. "I don't know why – anger? Jealousy? Resentment that these models still had what she lost? I don't know. But maybe she faked her death."

"Her brother-"

"Could be lying!"

"Jordan," he pled with her. "It was a good thought. It didn't work out. Let it go."

She glared at him.

He crossed to her and put his hands on her arms. "Let it go for tonight."

"Woody's right, Jordan," Nigel concurred. "We're all exhausted. We'll keep at the necklaces tomorrow. We'll find something. This – This was a coincidence."

Slowly, ruefully, Jordan nodded in agreement.

XXXXX

Woody drove Jordan home, neither of them speaking much. He walked her up to her door and turned to leave. "Where are you going?"

He looked at her. "I thought – I mean after…. You didn't want to let it go."

She leaned against her door. "When do I ever want to let something go, Woody?" She reached out and took hold of his tie. "We're both going to have to leave some things at work. Or your earlier prediction will be true."

He gave her a quizzical look.

She grinned. "We'd kill each other within a week. Remember?"

He nodded, smiling softly. "I didn't mean it, you know."

"Yeah?"

He nodded, bringing his mouth to hers. "There was a lot I didn't mean, Jo."

She pushed the door open, slipping away from his lips as she backed into her apartment. He had no choice but to follow her as she maintained her grip on his neckwear. "What did you mean?" she murmured, her voice husky and edged with a slight anxiety.

He wrapped her in his arms and laid his mouth against her ear. "Everything I said earlier."

She looked up, searching his face, struggling to rein in the thudding of her heart, to quell the small voice in her brain that still screamed at her to run.

He saw what she tried to keep out of her eyes. He raised one hand to her face and stroked her cheek. "Did you mean it?"

Slowly, unable to trust her vocal cords, which felt taut enough to snap, she nodded.

"Really?"

She swallowed and silenced the voice for once and all. "Really."

Wordlessly, Woody lifted her into his arms and took her to bed, leaving all matters of work well behind them for the night.

XXXXX

Jordan spent her lunch hour the next day researching Amanda Holloway. The young woman had been, as Nigel had said, one of Boston's up and coming models six or seven years ago. She had been the toast of the party circuit, courted by men with more money than sense, pampered and promoted until one rainy evening in April. The photographer she'd been with had been driving intoxicated and too fast on the way back from a concert in Foxboro. There'd been almost no skid marks before the hot little sports car without air bags ended its career wrapped around a tree. The photographer had walked away – and into a jail cell for a few months. Amanda Holloway had walked away – after almost a year of therapy and numerous reconstructive surgeries. Being nearly roasted alive in the ruins of that little car had ended her career. No longer toasted, courted or promoted, she had been closely guarded by her brother and mother. By the time she had left Boston, her fleeting fame was little more than a footnote, and her death had merited only a three sentence obituary.

Jordan sighed and leaned back, staring at a printout of the Holloway family in happier times. She looked up as Lily tapped on the door and then came in with a file. "Sorry to interrupt, Garret needs you to sign these."

Dr. Cavanaugh sighed. "It's okay. I'm not any closer to an answer on this Calendar Girl thing than I was an hour ago."

Lily brought the files around. She glanced down at the picture. She bent closer. "Hmm."

"Hmm?"

"Oh, I guess I just never realized Amanda Holloway was Jeanette Holloway's daughter."

Jordan's eyebrows shot up. "The mother? You know her?"

"Well," Lily hemmed and hawed, blushing slightly. "I wouldn't say I know her exactly. But I know her work. And I love it. It's all so – so – I don't know – just – cool."

"What sort of work is that, Lily?" Had Jordan been a bloodhound, her nose would have twitched.

Lily shrugged. "She's a jewelry designer."

"She's a – what?"

"Jewelry designer. Oh! And she does a lot of charity work with the burn unit at UMass."

"Thanks." Jordan was nodding as Lily left. The moment the door was closed, she picked up the phone. "Detective Hoyt, please," she said when the precinct switchboard operator came on.

"Hey, Jo. Want to grab some lunch?"

"Not exactly." Her voice was urgent. "Woody, the calendar? It was for charity right?"

He picked up on her tone and settled into business. "Yeah. Why?"

"What charity?"

"Jordan-"

"What charity?"

"Hold on." He sighed at her impatience, but at the same time he knew it was one of the things he loved about her. "Uhhh… let's see… okay, in tiny little print that I could probably read under one of your microscopes…."

"I'll get you a magnifying glass for your birthday, Sherlock. What does it say?"

"Okay… all proceeds go to the burn unit at-" She finished it with him. "-UMass."

He stopped. "Good guess?"

Smiling on her end of the phone, she said, "No. I know who our killer is."

END Part Fourteen