Cold Truth (13 page)

“Huh?”

“Don’t ever discuss politics with her. You’ve been warned.”

“You are just in time.” Lucy directed her comment to Cass, but was looking directly at Rick.

“Lucy, this is Rick Cisco. He’s the agent the FBI sent to work with us. I ran into him on the beach. Rick, this is my cousin, Lucy Webb.”

“Pleasure,” he said. “Can I give you a hand?”

“You’re a savior.” She smiled prettily. “I just did my nails.”

“Hey, never let it be said that the federal government failed you in your time of need.” He lifted the remaining three bags from the trunk of the car. “Lead the way.”

Lucy beamed and led him up the driveway. Cass picked up the bag Lucy’d set on the ground and apparently forgot about. She followed the mini-parade into the house.

“I thought you were only going to the fish market,” Cass said as she put the bag on the counter.

“Well, as long as I was out, I figured I might as well shop for the week. That way, I can take advantage of the good beach days we’re supposed to have this week.” She smiled at Rick. “Must work on my tan.”

“I can see that you’ve spent some time in the sun. You’ve got some nice color.”

“Oh, do you think so?” Lucy held her arms out in front of her.

Cass stood behind Rick and rolled her eyes. Lucy saw and laughed out loud.

“So, where are you staying?”

“The Brighton.”

“It used to be real nice.” Lucy started to unpack a bag.

“It still is.” Rick turned to Cass. “Well, I’m going to get out of your hair. I’ll see you in the morning. We’ll get together with the county lab person . . .”

“Tasha Welsh.” Cass nodded. “I’ll give her a call this afternoon and see what her schedule is for tomorrow.”

“What time do you think you’ll be in your office?”

“I’ll be there by seven. No later.”

“I’ll see you then.”

“Can you stay and have dinner with us?” Lucy asked him.

“No, no, but thank you.”

“Seriously. We have tons of food. I’m used to buying for an all-male house and haven’t figured out how to cut down on the portions for just me and Cass. Really. It wouldn’t be an imposition.” Lucy smiled at Cass. “Would it, Cassie?”

“Not at all.” Cass smiled, too, between clenched teeth.

“Thanks anyway, but I’ll take a rain check. I have to go clean up.”

“So does Cassie.” Lucy grinned. “I insist.”

“Cass?” he asked tentatively.

“Oh, it’s fine. Really. And Lucy is a wonderful cook.”

“If you’re sure . . .”

“Sure. Go on back to the Inn and change, and be back here . . . when, Luce, an hour?”

Lucy nodded. “Perfect. Dinner should be on the table by then.”

“Okay. Great. I’ll see you both then.” Rick left by the back door.

“I’m going to kill you,” Cass said when Rick was safely out of earshot.

“No you’re not. You’re going to thank me someday. I saw the way he was looking at you.”

Lucy opened the refrigerator and tucked away cartons of yogurt. “That is one hot guy, Cassie-girl. You won’t find many like him wandering around Bowers Inlet in the off-season, that’s for sure. I did you a favor. Anyone could see he’s interested in you. He was itching to find a way to spend some quality time with you. I’m just helping him out a little.”

“Oh, please.” Cass shook her head and went upstairs.

“You have forty-five minutes, Cassie. And I’m doing your face . . .”

As it turned out, there’d been no time for a facial makeover, nor, for that matter, time for dinner.

Cass had barely gotten out of the shower when her cell phone rang. She wrapped a towel around her body and rummaged in her bag, which she’d left on the floor in her bedroom.

“Burke,” she said right before the call went to voice mail.

She listened quietly, without reaction.

“Where?” she asked, then, “I know where to find Agent Cisco. We’ll see you in ten.”

She towel-dried her hair, and instead of the pretty shirt she’d been planning on wearing—pale yellow with a little ruffle at the hem, so different from the plain white or dark-colored T-shirts she favored for work—Cass slipped a navy tee over her head. She pulled a pair of jeans from the dresser and stuck her feet into her running shoes, then hoisted her bag, checked for her gun, her holster, and her camera, and took the steps two at a time.

“I thought you were going to wear that cute little—” Lucy took in Cass’s demeanor and paused. “Do not tell me . . .”

“Over in Hasboro. I’ll wait for Cisco at the car.” She grabbed a few bottles of water from the refrigerator and some granola bars from the cupboard.

“Cass, eat something. Look, dinner is ready . . .”

“I can’t, Luce. I’m sorry, but I can’t eat and then go there and look at—”

“Oh, my God, of course you can’t. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ll make up plates for you and Rick, bring him back with you when . . . well, when you’ve finished up.”

Cass looked out the window in time to see Rick’s car pull up out front.

“I’ll see you later.” Cass went out the front door.

Rick had just opened the car door and had one foot on the curb when Cass ran down the drive.

“I just got a call from Chief Denver,” she told him as she reached him.

“Where this time?”

“Hasboro. Two towns south.”

“Get in,” he told her as he climbed back into the car and slammed the door.

She opened the passenger-side door just enough for her to slide in. She handed him a granola bar as he shifted into drive and hit the road.

“Lucy said she’d hold dinner. This will have to do for now.”

He watched from the shadows as the car pulled away and took the corner on two wheels. If he leaned back against the corner of the house next door—gratefully, this one had yet to be rented for the summer—he could see into the kitchen but not be seen.

This was good. He wanted to watch her for a while.

She passed by the kitchen window several times and he wondered what common little task she might be engaged in.

Not that it mattered.

Soon enough, nothing else would matter.

They’d be together—finally, together—and this time he would get it right. He had to. He’d waited so long . . .

His hand slid into his pocket and he fingered the key to the room at the pretty bed-and-breakfast in Cape May where he’d made reservations for the two of them. They’d spend a few wonderful days together there. He’d already booked them on one of those pelagic boat trips for tomorrow, so that she could watch her beloved seabirds in their natural habitat. He’d bought her new binoculars—a really special pair that had a camera built right in, so she could take all the pictures she wanted. Then after a few days, they’d head off to the Outer Banks, where he’d rented a house for the rest of the summer.

He sighed. This would be the best summer of his life. He just knew it.

Everything he’d gone through to get to this moment, it had all been worth it. He thought of all the ones who’d tried, over the years, to trick him, all the ones who’d pretended to be her. Well, he’d taught them a lesson, hadn’t he?

She walked past the window again.

Oh, but this one . . . this one. This one . . .

This is the one.

T
hirteen

Rick followed Cass’s directions to the inlet where the latest body had been found. He parked on the road and together they walked over coarse yellow stone down to the bulkhead where a crowd of law-enforcement types had gathered. As they approached the group, the body began to come into view.

Cass had just reached the fringes, close enough to see the body of the young woman, close enough to see the arms flung over the head, the dark hair spread out like a cape, when one of the members of the Hasboro police force stepped forward.

“Hey, Caplan . . .” Cass began, and he grabbed her by the arm to halt her forward motion.

“Don’t bother, Burke, this isn’t your crime scene,” he said unpleasantly. “You’re out of your jurisdiction here.”

“Well, I know that,” she hemmed slightly, taken aback by his reaction to her presence, “but Chief Denver called and asked me to—”

“Denver has no say here, either. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a civilian here. And that makes you a trespasser. I suggest you leave. I’d hate to have to arrest you.”

“What the hell, Caplan?” She shook off his arm.

“The way we see it, you’ve had several shots at this guy, and you’ve come up with squat. Now you can step back and let the big boys show you how to catch a serial killer.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw several of the other Hasboro cops shake their heads and look away in embarrassment, while a few of them smirked in her direction.

“Look, I’ve been at several of the scenes, I can—”

“You can turn ass and go back to Bowers. We don’t need you.”

She shrugged and turned to Rick.

“I’ll call Lucy and have her come down to pick me up. You’ll want to stay.”

“Who are you?” The Hasboro detective pointed to Rick.

“Special Agent Rick Cisco. FBI,” Rick responded stonily. “Who’s in charge here?”

“Well, it ain’t you.” Caplan folded his arms over his chest. “I do not believe the Hasboro PD requested assistance from the FBI. You can leave with Burke.”

Rick stood quietly and watched the detective posture.

“Detective Burke, I’ll give you a ride back.” Rick motioned to the road.

“But . . .”

He took her elbow, and she shook off his hand.

“Not now,” he whispered through clenched teeth.

Cass turned and took two steps before almost colliding with Tasha Welsh.

“Where do you think you’re going?” the tech asked her.

“I’ve been uninvited. Territorial little bastards, those Hasboro cops,” Cass seethed.

Tasha shrugged. “Their loss. You home later tonight?”

Cass nodded.

Tasha leaned close to her. “I’ll let you know if I find anything that might be of interest to you.”

To Caplan, Tasha said, “Well, you can’t kick me off your turf, so how’s about you just step aside and let me do my job. I don’t suppose you’ve gotten a decent photographer on your force?”

“Stupid fuck,” Cass muttered as she opened the passenger door and got into Rick’s car. “I can’t believe he all but threatened to arrest us.”

She called Chief Denver and was annoyed to get his voice mail. She left messages for him at his office, his home, and on his cell, then tossed the phone into her bag in disgust.

Rick started the engine at the same time he speed-dialed a number on his cell.

“John, it’s Cisco. We have a situation in New Jersey we need to talk about. Call me back.” He left the terse message as he made a U-turn in the middle of the road.

“I imagine my boss will have a few words for the Hasboro PD before the night is over.”

“I can’t believe you’re taking this so calmly.”

“It’s not as if it’s the first time I’ve been asked to leave a crime scene.” He checked his rearview mirror before making a turn onto the highway. “Looks as if we have an escort.”

Cass turned in her seat. A Hasboro cruiser followed several car lengths behind them.

“Arrogant bastards.” She smacked her hand on the dashboard.

“Don’t let them get to you. We’ll take care of it.”

“How do you propose to do that?”

“I won’t. John will.”

“Is John all-powerful?” she said sarcastically.

“Pretty much.” His eyes never left the road. “Look, this happens sometimes—high-profile case, the local agency doesn’t want to share the limelight. They need to be put in their place, so to speak. But we’ve been told not to make it an issue, to let the brass tell the locals how it’s going to be. That way, you’re on the scene, you’re not pushing anyone around, you’re not dictating to anyone, you’re not the bad guy, you can still work with these people. That’s the way my boss wants to handle things, that’s how it’s done in our unit.”

“Your unit? Is that different from your average, everyday FBI unit?”

The slightest bit of a smile almost touched one corner of his mouth.

“The agents in our unit report directly to our boss. And he reports only to the director.”

“So I guess that’s a yes.”

He almost smiled again.

She was still seething when he pulled up in front of her house.

“I’m going to drop you off, then I’ll head back to Hasboro. I expect I’ll hear from John within the next ten minutes. I want to be on the scene as soon as possible.”

“I can’t believe they wouldn’t even let us look at the body.”

“You looked at it.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t get close enough to see . . .” She paused. “Did you see it? Her? The victim?”

“Yes.”

“Did something look off to you?” She had gathered her bag onto her lap. “I showed you the photos from all of the other crime scenes. Did you notice how this woman’s face was straight up, not turned to the side, like the others were?”

“I didn’t have enough time to notice much of anything,” he said.

“I don’t know, it’s a little thing. The other victims were posed so exactly, they could have been superimposed upon one another. This one . . .” She sighed. “Then again, one of Hasboro’s finest could have moved her.”

“We’ll find out if one did.”

She opened the car door and got out, slammed it closed, then leaned into the open window.

“If you don’t get a golden ticket onto the crime scene, stop back. Lucy was saving dinner.”

“I might do that. In any event, I’ll keep in touch. I’ll let you know anything I find out. You suppose your friend, the tech, will remember to call you?”

Cass nodded confidently. “She’ll call. She’s solid.”

“I guess I’ll talk to you later.”

Cass stepped back from the car and turned to the house.

“Bastard Caplan,” she growled as she walked up the front steps.

She opened the screen door and walked across the porch to the front door. The outside light was off.

Odd.

It was supposed to come on automatically, at dusk. Maybe the bulb had blown out. She’d ask Lucy to pick up a new one if she had time this week.

Between visits to the beach, of course.

Cass smiled to herself. Her cousin was a piece of work. On the one hand, Lucy was kind and helpful and trying hard to deal with a bad situation; on the other, she was self-centered and frivolous and thoughtless.

And, Cass realized, she loved her in spite of it all.

She fished in her bag for her keys, then gave up and knocked on the door. She leaned against the jamb and waited.

“Lucy?” She knocked again.

There was a banging sound from inside. Cass dropped her handbag and searched through it quickly and found the key and her gun.

She jammed the key into the lock and turned it with frantic fingers, then she stepped into the semi-darkness, the skin at the back of her neck prickling. Her eyes had yet to adjust to the light, but movement to her right, in the living room, drew her attention.

“Don’t move,” she said firmly.

The figure on the floor rose quickly and sprang for the kitchen before she could react.

“Police,” she shouted, as the figure began to disappear into the dark room.

She dodged the chair he flung in her direction, then tripped over it.

Cursing, she aimed and fired off two shots. She was almost to the back door when she heard a moan from the front of the house.

The sound stopped her cold in her tracks.

“Lucy?” She turned slowly and walked back toward the living room.

“Lucy?”

She switched on the hall light.

“Oh, holy mother of God.”

Lucy lay on the living room floor, her dark hair spread out around her head like a halo.

“No, no, no, no . . .” Cass rushed to her and dropped to her knees. “Lucy, no. No.”

“Cass?” Rick called from the front door. “I heard shots. What’s going on?”

“Lucy, please . . .” Cass sought a pulse.

“Jesus, Cass . . .” Rick stepped into the room.

“Call for help. Call now. I don’t think she’s breathing.” Cass began mouth-to-mouth while Rick summoned help.

“Let me try,” he said, but Cass waved him away and continued to force air into her cousin’s lungs.

“I think I’m losing her.” Cass looked up frantically.

“My turn.” Rick eased Cass out of the way and took over as the sirens began to scream in the distance.

“Don’t die, Lucy,” Cass pleaded wildly. “Please don’t die . . .”