At Close Range (21 page)

A three-way conversation. The words played at the edges of his mind, alongside Fitz’s scrawl. Anna Susie. He almost had it. The connections almost made sense in his brain.

But not quite.

They walked into the conference room, where Chief Parry was already at the podium. With his tie done up tight to his throat—a remnant of his televised briefing, no doubt—he looked uncomfortable. Angry. There was a stir in the room when Cassie entered, a buzz of whispers.

Until that moment, Seth hadn’t thought about what Maya’s outburst would mean to the forensics department.

“Good. You’re just in time.” The chief stepped aside. “I’d like you two to walk us through what happened in Florida and how it fits into the case.”

“I’ll let Varitek handle it,” Cassie said quietly. She avoided the glares and took her habitual seat at the edge of the room. Without Alissa or Maya nearby, she sat alone.

Seth glanced at her and took a half step in her direction before deciding to leave well enough alone. But his heart was heavy as he made his way to the podium and brought the others up to speed on the events in Florida, and the results his team had come up with while he and Cassie had been on the road.

There were a few new pieces of data. Seth’s crew had processed two DNA samples.

The first was from the red hat and dark jacket Cassie’s attacker had dropped after sabotaging her brakes. The second was from the skin tag of a single short hair—maybe an arm hair?—they had found wedged beneath one of Peter Dunbar’s fingernails. They were a match. Final confirmation that Cassie had been targeted by the killer.

After the DNA evidence, Seth gave the others a brief rundown on the evidence that remained to be processed, but it was precious little. They needed something more. They needed a break. But as Seth sat down and the meeting progressed, it became obvious that the other cops were suffering from the same limitations.

Not enough evidence. Or rather, too much evidence, not all of which fit into a clear, coherent pattern.

Finally, Chief Parry retook the podium. He’d pulled his tie off and jammed it in his breast pocket, but his face remained grim. “Before we break, I’d like to make sure we’re all on the same page regarding the Henkes matter.” He scanned the room, eyes lighting on a number of the more outspoken task force members. “If anyone asks you about Wexton Henkes, his son Kiernan, Officer Cooper, or any related matter, you are to say ‘no comment.’ Period. Until we know what went down today, I want your lips zipped, understand?”

Most of the task force members nodded or murmured agreement. Others were not so kind.

Piedmont spoke up first. “No comment is fine for the reporters, but how about us?

What about our right to know?” He stood and glanced around him, and received a few nods, a few uncomfortable smiles. “And what does this mean for the forensics department?” He gestured toward Cassie without looking at her. “Unless it’s escaped your attention, the FBI’s been doing all of our forensics lately. Why spend money on these three? Why not just outsource?”

“Piedmont, that’s enough.” The chief’s voice was deadly even. “Sit down.” When the homicide detective had obeyed his chief’s order, Parry glared around the room.

“Anyone else have any other bright ideas along those lines? No? Good, then let’s—”

“Chief?” Cassie’s voice broke in. Seth jerked his head in her direction. Her shoulders were set and her eyes crackled with the sort of prickly anger he hadn’t seen much of in the past few days. Not since she’d walked into that drab studio apartment and seen him hunched over her crime scene. She stood, fists clenched, every line of her body screaming that she was ready to do battle. “I’d like to say something. I think it’s time we cleared up a few misconceptions about the crime lab.”

Oh hell, Seth thought. This is going to be ugly.

WHEN PARRY GESTURED for her to go ahead, Cassie’s heart pounded into her throat, but she knew she had to do this. The others weren’t there to defend themselves. It was up to her.

She stood in the corner, not taking the podium, but rather turning toward the back of the room, where the other cops sat in knots, vaguely grouped by rank or specialty.

When she spoke, she focused on Piedmont and his partner, Mendoza. They had been the most vocal in their opposition to the Forensics Department from day one.

“You don’t have to like us personally,” she began, aware of Seth sitting off to one side, watching her with cool green eyes that hid what he was thinking. “I can’t tell you who to like or how to act any more than the chief can. But—” she emphasized the word with a pause “—I can tell you to look at the evidence.” She scanned the room, skipped over Seth, and returned her attention to Piedmont before she continued. “Since Maya, Alissa and I took over Bear Claw forensics, your evidence turnaround rates are up, your case clearance rates are up, and you’ve had fewer cases thrown out on evidentiary problems. I know. I checked.”

Piedmont scowled. “So what? We’re paying for three of you to do one man’s job. We should be seeing a three-hundred percent improvement. Instead, one of you is playing slap-and-tickle with Tucker McDermott, one is in the hospital halfway to a section eight, and you’re—”

“I’m here, and I’m doing my job,” Cassie interrupted, “which is more than I can say for you at the moment. You seem more interested in causing a fuss than solving crime.”

She was aware that maybe half of the cops in the room looked uncomfortable, like they wished Piedmont would just shut up. She wasn’t sure what she’d ever done to the surly homicide detective, and she was pretty sure she couldn’t fix it now. But amazingly…his words hadn’t crushed her. They hadn’t demolished her. They hadn’t proved that she couldn’t cut it, couldn’t hack it, couldn’t do the job.

She pressed her lips together for a moment, listening for Lee’s voice in her mind.

It was silent.

Wow. She’d finally banished his ghost, and all it had taken was standing up to Bear Claw’s schoolyard bully. She almost smiled, but didn’t, because her revelation didn’t change a damn thing. The other cops still hated her, they still had a murderer to catch, Maya was still in the hospital, and Seth was still…

Well, he was still Seth. Unattainable. Unapproachable.

Damn him.

So she fisted her hands at her sides, aware of the speculative looks from her supposed coworkers, and said, “Maya Cooper is a good cop. Stick with ‘no comment’

or you’ll answer to me. Now, if that’s all, I’ll be in the damn basement. Don’t bother me.”

She turned and stalked from the room, partly to make an exit and partly because she couldn’t stand to be in there anymore. The walls were too close, the air too close, as though even in a room with thirty-some cops, it was only her and Seth.

Damn him. Was he a coward for not trying again, or was she just not good enough to make him want to bother?

Never mind, she told her internal voice, don’t answer that.

She didn’t want to know.

The desk officer raised an eyebrow when she blew past the front desk. “Task force meeting done?”

“No, but I have work to do.”

Temper carried her downstairs and through the lab, but instead of powering up the machines, she sank into her desk chair and felt a heavy beat of depression at the emptiness of the space around her. She wished Alissa were there to tell her she’d done an okay job of keeping it civil upstairs. She wished Maya were there to tell her she’d been right to end things with Seth. She wished—

The four-line phone on her desk rang. The fourth light blinked red, indicating that the call was coming in on her direct line. The caller ID showed that the number was blocked, even from the police system, which should have been impossible.

A chill shimmied through Cassie’s body. Nobody had the direct number except Maya and Alissa, and she was pretty sure the hospital should show up on caller ID.

Shouldn’t it?

It could be a prank, she told herself. A hoax. A sales call. But her fingers trembled ever so slightly when she grabbed the handset.

“Bear Claw crime lab,” she answered professionally, half expecting the click of a disconnect.

Instead, she got a voice. Low, distorted, like the man on the other end of the line feared he would be overheard. “There’s a present waiting for you on the back step.

Go get it and come back to this phone without speaking to anyone or signaling anyone. You have thirty seconds.”

Cassie’s heart jammed her throat, then raced into overdrive. Her palms dampened and adrenaline sizzled through her body. “Wait!” she said quickly. “What sort of present? I’m not picking up anything that—”

“You have twenty-five seconds,” the voice interrupted. “If you don’t follow instructions, she’s dead.” There was a shift of movement, then a female scream, high and terrified.

Christ! Cassie didn’t stop to ask who or why. She was out of the office at a run moments later, gunning for the back door. She didn’t know who had screamed, but she absolutely, positively believed that the speaker would kill without mercy.

He already had.

To hell with not signaling anyone. She waved frantically at the hallway cameras and pantomimed a phone call, hoping the desk officer was watching, hoping he’d get the hint.

The seconds ticked away in her brain. She slammed open the back door, then threw herself to the side, half expecting that the promised “present” would be a hail of gunfire.

But there was no sound, no bullets. Just a small cardboard jewelry box sitting on the steps.

These days, an explosive the size of a pencil tip can wipe out an entire building, she remembered Sawyer saying. But though the bomb expert knew his stuff, she didn’t have time for subtlety.

She grabbed the box and ran. When she reached her office, she snatched up the phone. “I’ve got it. Hello? I’ve got it.”

But her exertion-sped breaths echoed into a silent receiver. Damn! Was she too late?

Not willing to accept that option, she yanked open her desk drawer and pulled out a set of gloves and a pair of tweezers. She’d already messed with the outside of the box, but there was no need to sully the evidence on the inside. Working quickly but carefully, she eased the lid off the box to reveal a square of cotton batting. She used the tweezers to pull the batting up, and gasped.

“Oh, God.” She swallowed hard and ordered her stomach to stay put. It was a fingertip.

A fresh one.

“Officer Dumont?”

It took her a crazed moment to realize the voice was coming from the receiver she’d dropped on the desk, not from the finger, which glistened red with blood, pink with chipped, feminine nail polish and gray with the pallor of death.

Neither Alissa nor Maya would be caught dead in pink polish, and the other female officers were upstairs. So this was someone else, an innocent caught up in the killer’s evil game.

Cassie snatched up the phone. “Where is she? What have you done to her? What do you want?”

The answering chuckle was dry, and gave nothing away. “To answer your questions in order, I have her with me, she’s fine except for the regrettable loss of a digit, and I want you.”

The last three words were delivered in a low, silky tone. I want you. She’d heard the same thing from Seth—was it only the night before? It seemed like forever. But the intent had been so different. Then, she had shivered with excitement.

Now, she shivered with dread. But she was a cop, and she was tough enough for the badge and the job. So she stiffened her spine and said, “Where.”

She didn’t even make the single word sound like a question.

“Walk out the back door. Don’t speak to anyone, and don’t try waving at the cameras again. I’ll see you but they won’t.”

A shiver worked its way through her when she realized he’d somehow preempted the P.D. cameras. That was how he’d managed to sneak in undetected. He wasn’t a cop at all.

Or maybe he was. She didn’t know anymore.

She licked her suddenly dry lips. “And then?”

“Leave your cell phone and your weapon on the desk. I’ll be watching, so don’t mess with me. There’s a blue hatchback in the parking lot, next to the exit. The keys are tucked in the visor and there’s a cell phone in the glove box. Start driving. You’ll get your orders once you’re on the road. You have sixty seconds.” There was a pause.

Harsh breathing. Then his final words, delivered in such a menacing tone that she couldn’t help believing him when he said, “Any wrong moves and I’ll kill her. It’d be a shame, too. She’s such a pretty thing.”

And the line went dead.

Cassie was out the door in a heartbeat, then skidded to a stop and reversed direction. She yanked open the lab freezer, grabbed a scoop of crushed ice and plonked the fingertip in the middle. Then she left the mess on her desk along with a hastily scrawled note.

And ran.

Seth wanted to go after Cassie when she fled, but he didn’t dare. It would cause too much talk. And besides, he didn’t have the right to comfort her.

Not anymore.

So instead of following her, he stood and retook the podium without waiting for the chief’s go-ahead. He glared at Piedmont. “I won’t beleaguer the point Officer Dumont has already made except to say that I consider her a top-notch evidence technician, and I would be proud to work with her again.”

As he stepped away from the podium, he realized it was the absolute truth, which was almost a surprise. When they had first teamed up, he’d been unable to see past the legs and that long, blond hair. When had she gone from being a woman to a cop in his brain?

She hadn’t, he realized. She was both of those things.

He retook his seat as the chief closed the meeting by shifting a few assignments and repeating that they were to have “no comment” about the Henkes incident.