Last Light (5 page)

“Thanks a lot, Wash.” The blonde slapped the back of the first man’s chair. Lucy realized he didn’t sit in one of the regular chairs aligned around the table, but rather a wheelchair. It had a low back, was sleekly designed, and painted racecar red.

“You must be the Fed,” the woman continued. Despite the fact she appeared to be younger than either man, she was obviously the leader. “I’m TK, TK O’Connor.” Instead of approaching Lucy to take her hand, she dropped into a seat, crossing her arms over her chest as if waiting for Lucy to dazzle and amaze her.

“Nice to meet you, TK,” Lucy said before Valencia could intervene. “I’m Lucy Guardino.”

The older man had better manners, rushing forward to shake Lucy’s hand. “Don’t mind TK. She’s always grumpy until she gets her coffee. I’m Tommy Worth. Pediatric ER doc, so I usually handle any medical or pathology records. And this,” he turned to indicate the man in the wheelchair, “is George Washington Gamble, our resident tech guru.”

“They call me Boxcar,” George said.

TK frowned. “What? No one calls you Boxcar—”

“Well, they
could
.
Why are you the only one who gets to use a nickname,
Tiffany
?”

“Ignore him,” TK said in a voice of dismissal.

Lucy chose instead to ignore TK’s order. This was her chance to take charge. She walked to the end of the table to take George’s hand. “Boxcar, like in dice, right? Because G-G could look like two sixes.”

He grinned, nodding his head. “Hey, you’re the first one to get it. But seriously, call me Wash—after my middle name. Most everyone does.”

“Good idea. Boxcar might not give the professional impression we’re aiming for.”

“Yeah, right.” He nodded like it was his idea to deep-six his nickname. Lucy turned back to Valencia, raising an eyebrow as if to say,
See, this is why I wanted to hire professionals
.

Valencia seemed unperturbed by the antics of her civilian staff. She poured herself coffee, using a delicate porcelain cup instead of the larger mugs the others had, and slid gracefully into a seat at the far end of the table. “I was just telling Lucy about the Martin case.”

“Why the rush on a case twenty-nine years old?” Lucy asked.

“It’s a case the Justice Project brought to us,” Valencia answered. “One of their key witnesses is in hospice and if they can’t find evidence to support their appeal before she dies, their case dies with her. TK, you can fill Lucy in on the details on your way to Texas.”

TK beamed at Tommy and Wash. “Told you, boots on the ground is the only way to go.”

“May I have a word?” Lucy pulled Valencia out into the hall and closed the thick oak door behind her. “None of them has any investigatory experience. I can’t send them into the field.”

“This isn’t the FBI. There aren’t going to be armed felons chasing them. It’s a simple matter of sitting down, drinking a few cups of coffee, teasing memories from people who may not have told the police everything they knew at the time of the original crime.”

“Until you ask the wrong question of the wrong person and things turn ugly.”

“Lucy.” She settled her hand on Lucy’s arm in an almost maternal gesture. “We’ve been doing this for years. So have the Doe Network, NamUs, the Southern Law Poverty Center, and all those other unsung heroes who volunteer their time to help victims get the justice they deserve. Most of the time, we don’t need to leave the building. It’s a simple matter of picking up the phone or going online.”

“I’ll go,” Lucy decided, knowing Nick and Megan would be angry. This job was supposed to give her more time with them, not send her off to Texas with no notice on what was almost certainly a wild-goose chase.

“We didn’t hire you as a field investigator. We hired you to lead. To build a team we can send out into the field when necessary. Like now.”

Lucy was a lead-from-in-front type. Even when working with fully trained FBI agents who she trusted with her life, she would still take point, especially if it was dangerous.

“A team of highly qualified investigators,” she argued. “Not a trio of amateurs.”

“They’re the best we have, and the Justice Project doesn’t have time for us to waste.”

Her tone had an edge; Lucy had insulted not only Valencia’s people but also the work to which she’d pledged her life. Lucy took the hint and backed down. “Well, Wash obviously isn’t going. What about the others? Do either of them have any training or experience in investigations?”

“Tommy has fellowship training in forensics, specializing in abuse and sexual assault.”

Lucy frowned. She couldn’t see the pediatrician being much help—maybe if they had live victims to interview or to do a forensic evaluation on, but not a case like this. Which left only TK, the former Marine MP whose military record had been almost totally redacted, even from Lucy’s Top-Secret clearance. All Lucy knew was that she’d served for eight years, including deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

No wonder the woman tried to take charge. But TK didn’t radiate the command authority most of Lucy’s Marine friends did. Instead, an edgy energy sparked from the younger woman.

“Why’d TK leave the Marines?” From Nick’s work, she knew all too well that many returning veterans had issues the military left untreated.

“You’ll have to ask her. But it was an honorable discharge and she received several commendations. Including a Bronze Star.” Valencia stood even straighter than her usual perfect posture, ready to defend her team. Lucy liked that about her even if she didn’t appreciate the sudden change of plans.

“I’ll take TK with me.” Former Marine MP, at least TK would know how to handle herself if things got rough. “That way I can evaluate her in the field.”

Valencia’s smile told Lucy that the older woman had gotten exactly what she wanted. She’d have to watch this one—beneath all that elegance beat a heart of steel. “Sounds perfect. My assistant has the tickets booked. You leave in three hours.”

“If I don’t like what I see,” Lucy countered, “then I get to build my own team. Of qualified professionals. And your amateurs can go back to working the phones and surfing online archives. Deal?”

“I wish it was that simple. I’m afraid that with our limited funding, we’re only able to hire three fulltime staff for your team. If they don’t work out—”

“They lose their jobs?” Shit. At least at the FBI, if you were dismissed from one assignment, they would quickly find you another. Here at the Beacon Group, she was responsible for not just her team’s lives but also their livelihood.

Valencia gave her a nod. “I sincerely doubt it will come to that. I think you’ll see that civilians can have unique insights you might not get from indoctrinated law enforcement officers. After all, with most of these cases, the police have had trained investigators working them for years and have gotten nowhere. Our closure rate is seventy-four percent, much higher than most police department’s cold case squads.”

“But that’s not with field investigations,” Lucy countered. “Out there, it’s a whole different ball game.”

“That’s why we hired you. To build a team that can handle what local authorities don’t have the resources to deal with. I look forward to seeing what you can accomplish.”

“Okay then,” Lucy said, accepting Valencia’s challenge and not-so-subtle reminder that it wasn’t only Lucy’s team on probationary status, but also Lucy. Who said retirement would be easy? Especially when she still had to face Nick and Megan with the news that her first day on the job was taking her to Texas for God knew how long.

She opened the door to the conference room. Wash was rattling away on his keyboard while Tommy leafed through a stack of case reports. Only TK sat doing nothing, leaning back in her chair, balancing it on two legs, a smug smirk aimed at the door.

“TK, go home, get packed. I’ll pick you up for the airport in an hour. The rest of you, build me a coherent summary of the forensic findings and any evidence we have. I want facts, not interpretations. Oh, and transcripts of all the interviews. Line item them, compare them to each other and their previous statements. Highlight anything contradictory or inconsistent. I need to know where the holes in the case are so we can focus our investigation.”

TK popped her chair forward, landing with a soft thud.

“Ma’am, yes, ma’am,” Wash said with a mock salute and a grin, while TK stood, looking none too happy.

“I can go alone,” TK said. “I’m sure you’re needed here. To supervise.” Her tone was cordial, but there was no mistaking her meaning, especially when she punctuated it with a glance at Lucy’s cane.

“I’ll pick you up in an hour.” Sometimes there was a lot to be said about having the last word. Lucy spun on her heel, glad the others couldn’t see the wince of pain the movement brought, and stalked out the door.

Hell of a first day, that was for sure. And if TK’s attitude didn’t improve, it was going to only get worse.

WHILE
SHE PACKED,
TK plugged her ear buds into her latest language tape. Conversational Portuguese.

She’d begun using the language tapes back in Iraq when she’d first been drafted to go out into the field and serve as unofficial liaison for all things associated with their host nation’s women, from searches of their persons and living quarters to questioning them and their children, often learning valuable intel no man would have gleaned. One of the unexpected benefits, aside from being able to function without an interpreter, was that the tapes soothed her anxieties and helped her block out the noise of the base while trying to grab some sleep before each night’s raid.

So far she’d learned Arabic, Pashto, and some Dari, and now that she was back stateside, she was delving into the languages of the exotic lands she’d always dreamed of visiting. Hell, if it helped her sleep at night, she’d learn Klingon.

She moved around her tiny room above the gym, collecting her gear and efficiently sorting it into her ruck. TK had pretty much been on her own since she left high school to join the Corps almost nine years ago. In many ways, even long before then. Her parents had tried their best, but...well, sometimes your best just wasn’t good enough.

The Corps had been her home. Supporting not just TK, but with the wages she sent back to her parents, her entire family. After leaving the Marines, she’d drifted in the general direction of her hometown—Weirton, West Virginia—but ended up stalled here in Pittsburgh, unable to finish the journey back to the home of her youth. There was nothing left for her in West Virginia. She’d be just as homeless there as she was here.

The problem with being homeless wasn’t so much the lack of a place to call home. The main problem with being homeless was that there were so many damn people. Especially in the shelters, making it impossible to sleep anyway. So what was the point?

TK preferred to bivouac in the open air, but again...people. Crowding the alleys that were safest and provided the best shelter, camping out under the bridges or in the city’s parks, attracting more people: street thugs, cops, the church folks.

The people were the problem, not her lack of a roof over her head. How was she supposed to get any rest when she couldn’t trust who was at her back? How was she meant to “resolve her issues,” in the words of the transition counselor who’d evaluated her prior to her separation from the Corps, when she couldn’t find ten minutes of peace and quiet to just stop thinking, stop waiting, stop anticipating the next attack?

Sal’s gym had been the ideal solution—she could work out, chat up guys like Wilson who’d been there, done that, had the same scars she had
.
Share a few laughs at the expense of the suits who had no idea what a Hesco was, much less what it felt like to have thirty-nine inches of sand all that stood between you and the enemy. Hell, it even had a freaking whirlpool and a view of the river. Sal’s leaky, saggy-roofed, should’ve-been-condemned gym had saved her sanity, if not her life. First time in years she’d felt human.

Not for long. Thanks to the demands of his new fancy-pants clientele, Sal was closing the gym for a complete reno. Leaving TK back on the street.

She’d saved up enough money to buy a bike, an old BMW R80 a Vietnam vet had given her a fair price on. But now it made things worse. Because where could she go where the bike would be secure?

If she got a permanent gig with Beacon, she could maybe afford a cheap apartment. Probably up in the Southside slopes and flats, where the developers hadn’t hit yet.

She didn’t care where it was as long as it was hers and hers alone. Running water and a working toilet would also be nice, but optional compared to her need for security.

Yeah, the counselors at the VA would have a field day with that, wouldn’t they? Maybe it was a good thing her benefits had dried up after they decided her PTSD and anxiety weren’t a result of her service. She’d been in the Corps since she left high school, so where the hell else had it come from?

Not like she’d been shot at, blown up, or attacked back home in Weirton. Or the other thing...although, that could have happened anywhere, to any woman. Didn’t make it right. Especially not when it was someone who was supposed to have your back.

Leave no man behind. But what about women?

She cinched her ruck tight, slid the concealed knife free from her belt then bent to remove the knife from her boot—stupid TSA, they didn’t trust anyone. The blades went into a metal lockbox secured to the wall, followed by her Beretta.

“I carry that same model,” Lucy’s voice came from behind her.

TK whirled, pistol in her hand, settling automatically into a shooting stance. Lucy didn’t move, simply held both hands out wide, away from her body. She met TK’s gaze, gave her a small nod of understanding. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

TK blew her breath out, adrenaline jangling through her entire body, returned the Beretta to the lockbox, secured it, and yanked her ear buds out. “Didn’t hear you.”

“Obviously. What are you listening to? Pucifer?” She nodded to TK’s tee.