Kill Fee (26 page)

W
indermere and Mathers walked back from the restaurant to the Sheraton Four Points after dinner. It was a cool night, and damp; Windermere shivered but refused Mathers’s proffered coat.

“What are we, dating?” she asked the young agent.

Mathers just grinned that all-American grin of his. “Just wanted to prove chivalry isn’t dead, Agent Windermere. No offense meant.”

“Shit,” she said. “I can take care of myself.”

She was drunk, a little bit, though she wasn’t sure why. She’d had three beers, maybe four. Normally, she’d be fine. But tonight, for some reason, she was tipsy. Giggly. She kept catching Mathers’s eyes on her. Hated herself for how flushed his looks made her.

You’re tired.
Exhausted from this ridiculous case. You’re pumped up because your idea worked, and that corn-fed goofball over there keeps giving you the eye.

Well, so she was drunk. So what? She was allowed to get drunk. She was an adult, wasn’t she? She’d worked the case for a week plus, solid, no stops. She was allowed to relax a little. Unlike Stevens, she didn’t get to go back to Minnesota. Had to take her breaks where she could.

And so what if she was maybe crushing on Mathers a little? The agent was pretty cute, and even if he wasn’t the most intellectual guy in the world—really, what the hell was up with that
Point Break
stuff?—he was better-looking than Stevens.

Windermere let Mathers hold the door for her when they reached the hotel. Matched his grin and skipped into the lobby, light-headed and light on her feet. “Maybe you are a gentleman, after all,” she told him. “Even if you hide it well.”

Mathers pretended to pout. “When have I been anything but a gentleman?”

She punched his arm. “Man up, Wendy,” she said, pressing the elevator call button. “Drop your purse and try to keep up with me.”

The elevator doors opened. Windermere walked in, pressed the sixth-floor button. Then glanced at Mathers. “Eight,” Mathers said.
“Please.”

She pressed eight. Curtsied.
“You’re welcome.”

They rode up in silence. Mathers grinned at her. Windermere watched her reflection in the mirrored doors. Watched his reflection. The elevator stopped at floor six. The doors slid open. Then they slid closed. The elevator climbed toward eight. Mathers frowned. “Thought you were on six.”

She turned to him. “Shut up,” she said. She shoved him back until he
hit the elevator wall. Then she leaned up and kissed him, hard. He went rigid for a minute. Then he relaxed, kissed her back, his tongue pressing against her lips, his hands wrapping around her and pulling her closer to him. She let herself melt into him, let his tongue spar with hers. She kissed him, and she thought, briefly, about Stevens. Then the doors opened and she pushed Stevens from her mind. Held Mathers’s hand and led him down the hall to his room.

Y
ou have yourself a very stubborn daughter, Agent Stevens.” Nancy Stevens looked across the bed at her husband. “Girl latches onto an idea and she won’t let go.”

Stevens put down his paperback. Dared to give her a smile. “Takes after her mother,” he said. “Whip smart and stubborn as hell.”

Nancy shook her head. “Got her dad’s brains, that one.”

“Her dad’s looks, you mean.”

“Better take that back,” Nancy said, frowning. “I’ll march you down there to her room and you can apologize right now.”

Stevens laughed. “Fine,” he said. “She got her mother’s looks, too. Beautiful, smart, and stubborn. Lord help the man she ends up with.”

“What, like you have it bad?”

Stevens dog-eared his book and set it on the nightstand. “I have it just fine,” he said. “I need a pretty girl to keep me honest. Keep me in line.”

Nancy frowned. “A policeman,” she said, sighing. “Or an anchor, holding you back. Kirk, that’s not how I want you to see me.”

“I know,” he said. “And I don’t, I swear it.”

It had been a tense homecoming so far. Stevens had walked the dog
around Lexington-Hamline, bought milk and a newspaper from the corner store. He’d lobbied his son unsuccessfully for a game of catch, and settled instead for a distracted conversation while JJ slayed dragons on his Xbox. Then Nancy had come home from work, and if she’d been surprised to see Stevens, she didn’t show it.

“How long?” she said, hanging her coat. “When are you gone again?”

She looked worn-out, and Stevens’s heart ached to see her. “I don’t know,” he told her. “It’s up for debate.”

But they hadn’t debated, not really. He’d made his famous chicken Parmesan for dinner and they’d eaten, largely in silence. Andrea was still upset, from the looks of it, and Nancy was exhausted. His attempts to engage either of them in conversation were met mostly with one-word responses. Meanwhile, JJ spent most of the meal feeding scraps to his dog. They’d eaten, cleaned up, and gone to bed with nothing accomplished.

Now, though, they were talking. Nancy’s expression had softened; she looked at Stevens, it seemed to him, with something closer to the old spark. “I don’t want to hold you back, Kirk,” she said. “Not from something you love.”

Stevens snuck an arm around his wife’s shoulders. Pulled her close. She leaned in readily, snuggled against his chest. “I don’t have to go back,” he told her. “Windermere and her partner have the basics covered just fine.”

“What does Lesley say?”

Stevens sighed. He’d talked to his boss earlier in the day. “Lesley says it’s up to me,” he said. “The Pyatts are cleared, as victims and suspects, so there’s no reason for the BCA to stay involved. I can be back in the office working cold cases on Monday, if I want.”

“You don’t want to abandon your case in midstream, do you?”

“I don’t want to abandon you,” he said, squeezing her tighter. “You need me at home more than Windermere does.”

Nancy was silent awhile. Then she twisted in his arms and looked up
at him. “Your daughter,” she said. “I don’t know how you got to her before I did, but she’s square on your side.”

“Didn’t seem like it at dinner,” Stevens said.

“Oh, believe me, she’s firmly pro-Dad.” Nancy laughed. “She ambushed me one night. Wednesday. Asked me what I thought would happen if you’d let Carter Tomlin get away with it. Asked me how many people I thought would have died before someone finally stopped him.”

Stevens shook his head. “That’s different,” he said. “Her life was in danger. Of course I was going to chase Tomlin.”

“That was my argument. She was ready for it. Asked me what made her so special, anyway? Why should she get special treatment when I didn’t want you helping anybody else?”

“Jesus,” Stevens said. “You think she’s okay? I mean, after Tomlin . . .”

Nancy sighed. “I don’t know, Kirk. I keep looking for cracks in her armor.”

“She told me I should get back out there and solve the case,” Stevens said. “Before the bad guy came after our family again.”

“The doctor said she might experience flashbacks. PTSD. You think we should take her to see someone?”

“Counseling.” Stevens shook his head. “She seems so damn invincible most of the time,” he said. “Like her mother.”

Nancy snuggled closer. “I’m not invincible. Not by a long shot.” She looked up at him and sighed. “I don’t know, Kirk. Maybe it’s selfish, but I want you around.”

“I miss you,” he said. “God, I miss you when I’m gone.”

“Bull.” She grinned up at him. “You’ve got Windermere to keep you company.”

Stevens leaned down and kissed her, long and slow. When their lips parted, he sighed. “I don’t know what to do, Nance.”

She grinned again, mischievous. “About Windermere?”

“No,” he said. “About you. About us.”

She laid her head on his chest and stared across the room. “I’ll be here, Kirk,” she said. “We’ll be here. Just don’t forget we’re not invincible, either.”

L
ate that night, the phone rang. Stevens rolled over in bed, checked the time: nearly midnight. He fumbled for the handset as Nancy groaned beside him. “Agent Stevens,” he said.

“Agent, it’s Drew Harris. I’m sorry if I woke you.” The FBI’s Special Agent in Charge of Criminal Investigations spoke softly, but there was an electricity to his voice. “I haven’t been able to raise Mathers or Windermere.”

Stevens reached for the light switch. “No problem, sir. What can I do for you?”

“I’ve been following your progress on the Killswitch case, Agent Stevens. It’s a big one for my division. The Bureau’s involvement in high-profile investigations like these is always under scrutiny, and this case in particular is not one we can afford to let slip through our fingers.”

“Yes, sir.” Stevens rubbed his eyes. “We feel we’re making good progress, sir. This guy is slippery, but we’ll get him.”

“I know you will, Agent Stevens, and I’m not calling to light a fire under your ass. I just ducked into the office this evening and came across something I thought you and Agent Windermere should have a look at.” He paused. “There’ve been reports of an attempted shooting in Las Vegas. An unidentified man broke into a suite at the Bellagio and fired on the occupants.”

Stevens scratched his head. “You think it’s related to Killswitch?”

“I’ve seen the police sketch, Agent Stevens. It’s your guy.”

“God damn it.” Stevens looked around the room, helpless. “So he did it again.”

“To a point,” Harris said. “The shooter didn’t kill anyone. Didn’t even draw blood. Fired a shot through the ceiling and ran.”

“Didn’t kill anyone? The target’s—”

“Still alive, Agent Stevens. And still in Las Vegas.”

“I’ll be damned.” Stevens kicked off the covers. “Thanks for the heads-up, sir. This is huge.”

“Try and wake up Windermere, would you? And get your asses down to Vegas and talk to that target.” Harris ended the call. Stevens stared at the phone for a moment, his thoughts racing. If Harris was right, then O’Brien had bugged out. Somehow, Killswitch had failed.

Nancy rolled over beside him. Stevens turned to find her staring at him from underneath the covers. “They—”

“I heard,” she said. She rolled over to stare at the ceiling. “Just don’t get yourself killed, Kirk.”

W
indermere woke up in Mathers’s bed with her phone ringing and the big lug snoring beside her. It was dead dark in the room. Her head hurt. The clock on the night table read half past one.

Windermere let the phone ring a minute. Lay back and stared into the darkness and tried to decide how she felt about what she’d done with Mathers.

They were both adults. Mathers was a good-looking guy, and she liked him. He didn’t come off as a whack job, and he was pretty damn good in
bed. She’d had fun with him, and now it was over, and in the morning they could go back to work.

This was the part of the whole ordeal where she was supposed to feel guilty, she knew. She was supposed to look over at Mathers, at the junior agent’s broad expanse of back, and wonder what the hell she had done. Windermere sat up in bed and pulled the sheet around her. Looked at Mathers, listened to him snore. Didn’t feel guilty at all, to be honest.

She wondered if Mathers would be weird in the morning. If he’d think of what had happened as anything more than a fun night in a strange town with a good-looking colleague. She hoped not. The last thing she needed right now was a boyfriend. After Mark, hell, she’d pretty much resigned herself to spending the rest of her life alone.

Mathers was a young kid. He was a good-looking cop. No doubt he had plenty of girls chasing him. He wouldn’t jump to conclusions. He’d understand she wasn’t looking for any repeat performances.

The phone was still ringing. Loud and insistent. Windermere chased Mathers from her mind and fumbled for the phone on the nightstand. Three missed calls. Shit. She answered. “Windermere.”

“Carla.” Windermere’s stomach flipped. It was Stevens. “Guess I woke you.”

“You know I don’t sleep, Stevens.” Windermere swung her feet over the bed and hurried into the bathroom. “What’s up?”

“I got a call from Drew Harris just now. Said he heard something out of Vegas that might help our case.”

Shit
. “My boss called you?”

“Said he couldn’t get ahold of you or Mathers. You guys hit the clubs or something?”

Windermere locked the door and turned on the light. Caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and quickly turned away. She sat down on the toilet and ran her hands through her hair. “Turned in early,” she said. “So?”

“So listen,” he said. “Harris is keeping tabs on our case. Apparently the whole Bureau’s watching.”

Mathers knocked on the bathroom door. “Carla?”

Shit, shit, shit.
Windermere covered her phone. “One second,” she said. “Be right out.”

“You on the phone?”

“Home base,” she said. “Be out in a minute.”

“Who was that?” Stevens asked her when she was back on the line. Windermere shook her head, rubbed her eyes, laughed at her predicament.

“Room service,” she said. “I skipped dinner. You said something about Vegas.”

“Yeah. Right. So according to Harris, some kid snuck into the Bellagio with a pistol today. Broke into a guest suite on the thirty-fifth floor. From the LVPD description, it sounds like O’Brien.”

“Shit.” Windermere stood. “Holy shit. He kill someone?”

Stevens paused. “No,” he said. She could tell he was smiling. “That’s the best part. He bugged out for some reason. Got away, but the target’s still alive.”

“Still alive,” she said. “And we’re sure it’s Killswitch.”

“Young kid, skinny, matches the description. LVPD’s faxing you a sketch and some security cam stills, but on the surface it sounds pretty damn close.”

Windermere looked at herself in the mirror again. Looked a hell of a lot less tired than she had five minutes ago. “Good stuff, Stevens,” she said. “How soon can you meet us on-site?”

“Vegas? I figured you guys could—”

“Bull,” she said. “This is your lead. You’re working it with us. Don’t act like you don’t want to be here.”

He paused. “You know I do.”

“I’ll get you a flight, Stevens. See you in Sin City.”

She ended the call just as Mathers knocked on the door. “One
second,” she told him. Then she stared at her reflection.
Stevens,
she thought.
Mathers. Sin City.
Things were bound to get messy.

No time for that now. She had a lead to work. Windermere pushed away from the mirror and opened the bathroom door. Found Mathers waiting for her, wrapped in a bedsheet. He smiled at her, sleepy. “Everything cool?”

Windermere brushed past him. Looked around for her clothes. “Rise and shine, big guy,” she said. “We’re going to Vegas.”