Mariah Stewart - Cold Truth

“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…”

Too anxious to sit, Cass stood against the cinder-block wall in the emergency room of Bayshore Memorial Hospital and did something she had not done since she was nine years old. She chewed her fingernails to the quick.