Bye Bye Bones (A CASSIDY CLARK NOVEL Book 1) (29 page)

Grabbing my flashlight, with my hand still firmly on my gun, I started scouring the room just as Chief Manning and a backup of armed bodies approached the scene from the tunnel.

I pointed my flashlight toward Manning and the wall behind him.

“Hit that row of switches,” I yelled.

He flipped on four switches and the scene became illuminated.

In the light, we saw the absolute darkness of the scene.

With another officer, I ran over to Jessica and we began cutting her loose, starting with removing the loosened duct tape across her mouth. She spoke nothing. Her eyes glazed over. She fell into a state of shock as her limp body caved into my arms.

I yelled out to Jaxon that she was okay. I hoped she was. I placed my jacket over her shoulders as her body tried to shake out the pure and cold moments of wickedness she must have endured. She was sitting in her own excrements. That was the least concern.

Only then did I become fully aware of the toxic fumes spewing from an enormous plastic vat in the far corner of the massive room.

“Get everyone out of here,” Manning yelled. “Get Hazmat here, now!”

I took one last look around the room and I saw the multitude of emptied plastic gallon jugs of muriatic acid. How could I be so stupid? Of course! That bitch! Easy pickings for her. Dissolve a body, gold fillings and all, in one big vat. Without a trace left.

Then I spotted the golf cart. “Load Giles and Silva in the cart! They go out first.”

“She’s gone through a lot of trauma. She’s highly sedated,” the nurse told us.

Jaxon smiled and said, “Thank you. I’ll stay right here tonight.”

I divulged a little bit of information. I told Jaxon that apparently Vickery had tested Jessica. Sampled Jessica’s pain, or maybe her own insanity. She had scalded Jessica’s fingers in the muriatic acid. She would have no trace of fingerprints left, and extensive damage to the tissues.

“So she can go commit some crimes,” he tried to joke.

“Indeed. Except I’m on your team.”

“I need you to go to my house. My maid will let you in. In my study, top left drawer. There’s a bag in there. I need you to bring it to me.”

“A bag?”

“From Falls & Falls.”

“The jewelers to the stars. I got it. You have it. I’ll bring it back yet tonight.”

“And she’s a big one, now, but our dog, Lizzie has a service dog coat hanging by the backdoor. Put it on her and walk her in.”

“No one well mess with me. A bag and a dog, coming your way.”

The teams found more trophies from the victims, including items from my murdered detective helper. A wedding ring. Of note, they found traces of Michael Scores.

I provided Jaxon Giles our latest information. A ledger of cash withdrawals from Vickery coincided directly with the sudden luxury buying sprees of Scores. They started one month before Karl Marks was killed.

“Don’t tell me. Not enough to prove anything,” he said.

“Not yet,” I said, “but it is becoming crystal clear to me that Vickery was playing Michael Scores like a stacked deck of used cards from one of our casinos.”

“Why him?” Giles asked me.”

“I still don’t know what role Scores played in all of this. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive but I do know when he went to Punta Cana he pulled out $9,999.00, just under the ten-thousand dollar limit to take abroad without raising an IRS red flag.

“I don’t know why he left my friend in the Dominican Republic. If he wanted to make a deposit he could have just ran into a bank under the pretense of exchanging dollars for the Dominican pesos.”

“Why wouldn’t he just go to the Cayman Islands.”

“Good question. I remember when I first visted Grand Cayman I naïvely expected the town streets to be lined with banks. Of course, the money is all on paper, and these days, in the cloud. Given our FBI some due credit, they have the intelligence to access the money trails. It’s way too much on the radar.”

“One more question. Do I have reason to be worried about Scores?” His voice cracked.

“Absolutely not.”

“Is that your instinct talking?”

I laughed. “Now that’s an extra question, but the answer is it’s one-hundred percent my instincts, plus a brain. Scores has no regard for anything he does or doesn’t do. Now that his source of income has dissolved, literally, he won’t be back. He simply doesn’t care.”

The whacky sweet girl at the interior design shop, Mandy, attended every memorial service.

Vickery was gone. Of her own demise, Shame on her. She had climbed onto a platform, shot herself, and fell into her own liquid death. Some said there was no justice. Mostly, I thought there would be no lengthy and painful trials with Vickery’s money buying legal mumbo-jumbo and standing behind her.

Still, I wondered, did she manage it alone? Two taser guns were found at her home, along with chloroform. In combination a victim would surely be subdued, quickly, but did she have the strength to lift the bodies into her van?

Maybe. Just maybe Scores was paid handsomely for his muscles

With a break in the storm, my new gorgeous friend, Marcos, led the way in to Hacienda del Sol, a favorite boutique resort and a truly hidden desert gem. Instead of leading me toward the restaurant he took my hand and dangled the key to one of their casitas.

“This is very thoughtful, but I can’t spend the night. Finnegan and Phoebe would piss and poop all over my house. “

“And just be miserable without you,” he said.

‘Well, yes.”

“Just like I am miserable without you.”

“So you understand?”

“I understand that whether you realize it or not, we are officially dating. It’s clearly been a long time for both of us so there will be some awkward moments and maybe some strange parameters. But we have developed trust. You gave me one helluva a story with Vickery, and I was proud to be there to keep you strong. Now, through all of this, where are your psychic abilities? if you think for one moment that you don’t have both of your so-called pupcakes waiting for you inside this room, then you need to get to know me better before you ravish my body.”

“It’s my mantra. Sometimes I do my best thinking when I’m not thinking.” And I wasn’t thinking. I was feeling. I was so ready to share my entirety with this man. With Finnegan and Phoebe watching.

Giles reserved the main dining room, but he had asked for the removal of all of the starched white linens on the tables. He had them replaced them with a full spectrum of rainbow colors. Yellow. Blue. Pink. Green. Purple. Orange. The colorful napkins matched that rainbow. He paid the bill for the lunch, which offered anything from hamburgers, vegan dishes, steaks and chicken.

It was my place, I suppose, to recognize both Chief David Manning and our illustrious mayor for their attendance.

“Gentlemen. Good to see you both.”

“Ms. Clark,” the mayor said, “I want to personally commend the outside efforts you gave our department.”

“There’s no need for that. Just, next time trust your Chief of Police Manning, and trust me. Call me a sensitive, or just
sensitive
, but I don’t like being laid off the job. And for the record, I don’t love the way you suck up to the FBI. It’s a funny chain of command. They grandstand.
They
solved the case of the missing Congresswoman Strong. And Mr. Mayor, I heard and read some of your comments. You are on the grandstand, as well. It seems it was all you and your special task forces that solved all of these cases, all without you giving a damn about these families.

“If you allow Chief Manning to hire me again, I will want a contract.”

“Duly noted. I would like to hire you full time.”

“Not a fucking chance.”

“Are you always so blunt?”

“Ask Manning. I quit smoking. It only enhanced my potty mouth.”

Manning messed with me, pointing to my purse where sure enough, I might had some cigarettes. Not too many.

Schlep and Carson were best buds. It didn’t concern me, businesswise. He very well might be a natural dad, as long as he doesn’t try and teach the kiddos calculus too early.

I did peek into the Falls & Falls bag before I delivered it to Jaxon Giles in the hospital. A brilliant canary diamond engagement ring. Jessica would and did approve.

The surprise email delighted me. My old college roommate wants to move to Tucson. She was a mucky-muck brilliant attorney in D.C., and then she did some pro-bono work in a sleepy town in Colorado. She wanted to know if we could hang out a shingle together. That intrigued me. I love Breecie Lemay.

My agent and publisher both loved my synopsis for my new book. Bye Bye Bones. Something about bodies disappearing, in totality, within a vat of muriatic acid.

And the most amazing ending of all? I was sleeping in my bed, spooned next to the most amazing man, Marcos Giuliani.

The bedroom windows were open, accepting the awesome scents after a gentle rain. The creosote and one lone pine filled my bedroom with total aromatherapy for the soul.

My pupcakes, Finnegan and Phoebe, heard it first.

Then me. The purring.

My beautiful cat, Daphne, was home.

The odds were so much against her in the desert but I never relinquished hope. That feeling I get and I trust.

I couldn’t save those women. They were long gone. But I had a survivor.

Red herrings fly off of the pages, along with the snappy dialogue we’ve learned to know as a Corriere trademark.

With her original voice and tedious research, we can’t wait to read the next Cassidy Clark novel.