Exposing Ethan (Cassidy Kincaid Mystery Book 4)

by Amy Waeschle

  Cassidy exhaled slowly. “I understand.” They stopped at a light where a woman dressed in a mismatched jogging suit and slippers pushed a shopping cart full of dirty clothes and cardboard across the street. With a shudder, she remembered her frightening visit to the Mission District, courtesy of Saxon only a week ago.

  “You’ll meet our case agent, Special Agent Katrina Harris. She’ll be conducting the interview. Special Agent Rudy Santiago might be there, too.”

  “You’ll be there, too, right?” Cassidy asked.

  He flashed her a grin. “You’re my job right now, remember?”

  “What will you do…after?”

  “I’ve requested to work the murder angle.”

  They pulled up to a single-story gray concrete building with the state and U.S. flags hanging limp from poles near the entrance. They exited the car, and Cassidy wiped her sticky palms on her chinos. Bruce eyed her as if to say “ready?” Cassidy nodded, and followed him inside.

  Bruce steered her into the office located immediately inside the door. A man sat at a large desk in front of a set of monitors, each showing a section of the exterior. Cassidy realized that he had watched her and Bruce enter. After a short greeting with the guard, Bruce slid the sign-in book closer and handed her a pen.

  Moments later, they entered a dark hallway flanked by closed doors.

  “When they combined school districts a few years back, this one was no longer necessary,” Bruce explained. “We sometimes get lucky like that. We can’t run all of our operations from the federal building downtown. For obvious reasons.”

  Cassidy wasn’t sure what that meant but was getting too nervous to give it much thought.

  They passed a row of large windows, all shaded by blinds. Bruce knocked on the door, then popped his head inside.

  Through the crack in the door, Cassidy got a quick glance inside the stark, white room. A tall man in a suit stood at the far end of the table, a large three-ring binder open in front of him and a paper cup of coffee nearby on the table. In the center of the table a tray held a box of muffins, a carafe of coffee, and a sleeve of white paper cups. She saw the shadow of the agent’s gun inside his open suit coat. With a start, she realized that Bruce was likely armed, too.

  “Does Special Agent Harris want us in room C?” Bruce asked.

  Cassidy got the impression that she wasn’t supposed to see inside the room. She tried to avert her eyes, but the mural of pictures pasted in a giant web at the head of the room drew her in like a magnet. She leaned forward to get a better view.

  “Glad to have you back, man,” the agent said to Bruce. “We just had our morning briefing.” He nodded at Cassidy, his brown eyes keen. “Is that Dr. Kincaid?”

  At the sound of her name, Cassidy snapped her attention away from what she had seen at the head of the table—Pete’s notebook. Had the agent caught her peeking?

  “Dr. Kincaid,” a female voice said. Cassidy spun to see a slender woman striding toward her in a navy-blue suit, her pumps tapping firmly on the floor. Her blonde hair was pulled into a tight bun and her blue eyes pierced the air like lasers. Following her was a man with a stocky build and a round, soft face.

  Cassidy shook hands with Special Agent Harris and her partner, Special Agent Santiago.

  “We have a lot to cover Dr. Kincaid,” Special Agent Harris said, her words sharp. “Shall we?”

  Without waiting for a reply, she led Cassidy down the hallway. Cassidy used the distance to erase the image of Pete’s notebook and the images on the board.

  At the doorway to a conference room, Bruce’s hand was at her back, as if to steady her as he ushered her inside.

  Special Agent Harris wasted no time. After they entered the room, this one with an oval table at its center and no windows, she directed Cassidy to a chair, then closed the door behind them. A square side table in the corner held an opened case of clear plastic water bottles.

  Once they were settled, with both task force agents across from her and Bruce to her left, Special Agent Harris pressed the button on a black device in the middle of the table. Cassidy noticed her unpolished yet perfectly curved nails.

  “Please state your name and occupation for the record,” Special Agent Harris said, folding open a medium-sized notebook and clicking on a black pen.

  Cassidy inhaled a steadying breath and complied, forcing the tremor from her voice.

  “Special Agent Keoloani has given us the rough draft, so let’s fill in the blanks. We’ll start at the biker rally,” Special Agent Harris said, tilting her head. “What led you there?”

  “I got a call from someone I met earlier at a truck stop in Biggs Junction, a biker.”

  Cassidy watched Special Agent Harris jotting notes, her black pen moving fluidly across the page.

  “I had been there the day before.” She remembered interviewing the trucker and the convenience store stocker. “Hitchhiking seemed like the only form of transportation out of there.”

  Special Agent Harris looked up, expectant.

  “I gave this biker my number.”

  She watched Special Agent Harris’s eyes flash. Cassidy could almost hear the scolding.

  “The biker told me he saw Izzy at the rally with this other guy, Lars.” Cassidy suffered through a moment of anguish. Lars, who was now dead. Her palms felt sticky again. She licked her lips.

  “Lars told you about Saxon?” Special Agent Santiago asked, tapping the end of his pencil against the table.

  Cassidy nodded. “Someone saw her leave with him.”

  “So you just thought it was okay to track him down?” Special Agent Harris said, her voice edged with irritation.

  Cassidy couldn’t hold her gaze. “I didn’t think it would be dangerous.”

  “Sounds like you didn’t think at all,” Special Agent Harris said, crossing her arms.

  “You’re right,” Cassidy said with difficulty. “I was under the impression that Izzy was just blowing off steam, not about to get involved in…selling herself.”

  Special Agent Harris narrowed her eyes. “Let’s move on to the club,” she said, flipping the pages of her book to one full of notes.

  Cassidy described the wait at the bar, being escorted upstairs by the bouncers, and how Saxon had offered to take her to the place in the Mission where he had supposedly dropped Izzy the night before.

  “It was stupid,” Cassidy said in a rush. “But I had no other option.”

  “Where did he drop you?”

  “I don’t remember,” Cassidy said, her head thudding as she remembered the smell from the diner that had sent her tumbling into another terrifying flashback. “But Izzy wasn’t there. I searched the apartment buildings. Knocked on doors.”

  “So why did you go back to the club?” Special Agent Harris said, her eyes narrowing. “You had just learned that you couldn’t trust him.”

  The memory of the flashback and the conviction that she would never be right again surged through her once more. “Because she had no one else, okay?” The words shot out before she could soften them. “Her father wasn’t coming, and he forbade us to contact the police.”

  Special Agent Harris’s nostrils flared.

  “Once I got back to the club, I found out what was about to happen, or at least what could be about to happen, and I wasn’t going to stop until I found her.” Cassidy tried to slow her fast breaths. She wished there was a window she could open to erase the feeling of being trapped in a box. I’ve got this fear that you’re going to go in there and never come out...

  “The warehouse,” Special Agent Harris said, her frustration with Cassidy evident in her hardened expression.

  “Dutch gave me his bike,” Cassidy began.

  “Whoa. Dutch?” Special Agent Santiago said, connecting eyes with Special Agent Harris for a moment.

  Cassidy reached through her memories. Hadn’t she already explained her connection to Dutch? “He’s the biker who told me Izzy was at the rally. He gave me a ride to the club after my
car broke down.” Her heartbeat jumped when she remembered her hasty goodbye. “They beat him up or he probably would have driven me to the warehouse, too.”

  Bruce shifted his position, but his eyes were blank when she looked at him. He gave her a reassuring nod.

  She shared the story of finding the warehouse and getting in through the back window, watching Special Agent Harris’s face darken with each of Cassidy’s missteps.

  “You went in there in full defiance of orders from an FBI agent, Dr. Kincaid,” she fumed. “I could arrest you.”

  Cassidy grimaced. “I didn’t think about it like that at the time.”

  Special Agent Santiago stood from his chair. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he uttered, rubbing his chin in distress.

  “It’s my fault,” Bruce interrupted. “I should have tried harder to stop her. I really didn’t think she would go in there.”

  Special Agent Harris glanced at Bruce. “But you were in D.C.” Her gaze refocused on Cassidy. “No, Dr. Kincaid did this on her own.”

  A sense of frustration rose up inside her. “You weren’t there,” she said, feeling like she might burst. “I couldn’t let them hurt Izzy.” A flash of memory popped into her mind of Mel dragging her down the stairs of his treehouse while her fingernails scratched desperately to get the knife open.

  “You very nearly destroyed eleven months of work, Dr. Kincaid,” Special Agent Harris finally said.

  They stared at each other for a long moment.

  “I’m sorry,” Cassidy replied, feeling torn. If I hadn’t gone in there, what would have happened to Izzy? She remembered her conversation with Brad Sawyer, and Bruce’s comment: So you’re saying we have dirty cops bringing in runaways? With shock, Cassidy realized what would have happened if a band of crooked cops had shown up at the warehouse that night instead of the fire department.

  Special Agent Harris nodded at her partner. “Bring the evidence, please,” she asked. Without a sound, Special Agent Santiago rose and left the room.

  Cassidy looked to Bruce for reassurance. Evidence? But his eyes gave nothing away.

  Special Agent Santiago returned with a clear plastic bag labeled with a small white sticker. Inside the bag was a gun.

  “Do you recognize this weapon?” Special Agent Harris asked as Special Agent Santiago slid it to her.

  Cassidy’s pulse thumped hard into her head, and a dull ache was growing at the base of her skull. “Uh…” She remembered Bruce asking her about the bullet hole in the wall.

  “Maybe,” she said, which was honest. It looked like any other handgun.

  “Ballistics match with the bullet hole in the wall of that room.”

  Cassidy gulped down a swallow, trying to moisten her suddenly dry throat. How had they found the gun? She had dropped it into a dumpster. “Dutch told me to take it, and I…” She felt a slow burn rise up her face. “Had to use it when Saxon…came for Izzy.”

  Special Agent Harris stared at her for a long moment. “It’s a good thing you didn’t kill anyone.”

  “It’s a good thing I had it,” Cassidy said. “Or Izzy and I would be dead.” Yes, it was wrong of her to use a gun without the proper permitting or whatever was required to do so, but there had been no other way.

  “I heard one of the girls was rescued,” Cassidy said. It had been eating at her…sometimes she dreamed that she was one of the girls waiting on a mattress.

  Special Agent Harris sent a blistering glance at Bruce, then turned back to Cassidy. “That’s not something I can share with you.”

  Oops, Cassidy thought.

  “We’ll need to talk to Izzy,” Special Agent Harris said to her partner, who was scribbling notes into a binder.

  “No,” Cassidy said, her spine going erect. “She’s been through enough.”

  Special Agent Harris raised one eyebrow. “Her cooperation is essential. Testimony from her would be very powerful.”

  Cassidy thought of Preston Ford. “She’s gone anyways. Even her father can’t find her.”

  “Good thing we have you to help us,” Special Agent Harris said.

  Cassidy’s eyes went wide. “Wait…what?”

  “Maybe let’s take a break,” Bruce said, rising. “Say, fifteen minutes?” He connected eyes with both of the other agents, and a look of understanding passed between them.

  Moments later, Cassidy and Bruce were alone in the room, a bottle of water in each of their hands.

  “You holding up okay?” he asked.

  Cassidy nodded.

  “You’re doing great,” he said, giving her a weak smile.

  She decided to visit the restroom, maybe splash some water on her face. Bruce pointed to a door at the end of the hallway, then turned back toward the conference room. The cold water helped a little. She avoided looking at her reflection in the mirror and pushed through the door to the hallway, mentally steeling her mind for round two.

  Suddenly, a door popped open.

  “No fucking way!” a gravelly voice snarled. “You think I have some kind of death wish?”

  Cassidy spun to see a figure storm into the dark hallway, his heavy boots scuffing the linoleum. She pressed herself back into the wall as the person neared.

  Behind him, the agent she had seen in the main conference room earlier watched him go, the light from the room illuminating his tense face.

  As if in slow motion, the figure came into focus: flannel shirt, leather vest, and faded jeans, graying curls at the nape of his neck, and those piercing blue eyes.

  Dutch.

  Six

  Several thoughts crashed together at once in her brain, but her mouth was already moving.

  “You’re the undercover agent?” she asked, backpedaling through all of her memories of the search for Izzy, evaluating each one in light of this concept.

  “Cassidy,” he said, his voice a deep rumble. The fury in his expression was fading by the second, but what remained was a mix of disbelief and something softer. Regret? Kindness?

  “You’re okay,” Cassidy said, relieved. “I tried to find you. I called all the hospitals. I was so worried.”

  His eyes flashed with that cocky glint. “Were you, now?” he replied, evoking that same unique form of exasperation she felt whenever he was near.

  The sharp click of heels on the linoleum floor made Cassidy turn.

  “What’s going on here?” Special Agent Harris stopped and put her hands on her hips, revealing the edge of her gun, holstered beneath her suit coat.

  “He’s walking away,” the agent called from the doorway.

  Special Agent Harris’s expression tightened. “Shall we open up that file of yours, then, Mr. Harker?”

  Dutch glared back at her. “Go ahead, honey. I’ve paid my dues.” He gave Cassidy one last glance, so quick she barely caught it, then he plodded past her. “Find someone else to get their throat slit,” he muttered.

  Cassidy watched him go, feeling torn.

  Special Agent Harris and the other agent exchanged a glance, and Cassidy heard him sigh. “I’ll work on him,” he said, and disappeared into the office.

  “Shall we continue, Dr. Kincaid?” Special Agent Harris indicated the open doorway of the conference room with a sweep of her arm.

  Cassidy took one last glance at the end of the hallway, where Dutch had punched through the front doors, his silhouette framed by a square of bright light.

  What had they wanted him to do? And how was it that he could refuse?

  Once back at the table, Special Agent Harris lectured her on why contacting Izzy was so important, but her mind was replaying Dutch’s outburst. Bruce had warned her that by going after Izzy she was risking the life of someone undercover, who was just getting close enough to make progress. Seeing Dutch here just now, she had instantly put him as that resource. But not as an agent. I’ve paid my dues, he had said.

  She remembered Dutch confessing to being a past member of Saxon’s motorcycle club, the Voyagers, a one-percent club engaging in activities
they felt allowed them to be above the law.

  Meaning that Dutch couldn’t be an agent. Did that make him some kind of informant, like the cop shows she’d seen on TV? So, what did the FBI want him to do? Could they force him to do it?

  “…and if you refuse, we’ll be forced to subpoena your phone records,” Special Agent Harris added, pulling Cassidy back to the room.

  Cassidy glanced at Bruce, trying to get her bearings. She wondered if she had the right to get up and storm off like Dutch, leaving a trail of curses.

  “What about Izzy’s father?”

  Special Agent Harris frowned.

  “Preston Ford?” she added.

  To her left, she heard Special Agent Santiago curse softly.

  For an instant, Cassidy saw Special Agent Harris’s stern mask falter. “I don’t care who her father is, we need her testimony. Wouldn’t you like to see Saxon behind bars, Dr. Kincaid? Before he tries something like this again?”

  “Of course,” Cassidy replied. “It’s just…she’s been through so much.” She thought of the X-rated video she had made with Cody and William, who would get dragged into this, too. “Her mom is dying,” she continued.

  “That’s very unfortunate, but I’m afraid it won’t stop us.”

  Cassidy closed her eyes.

  “It’s for your safety, too,” Bruce said. “Let’s get him off the streets before he crawls out of whatever hole he’s hiding in right now.”

  A shiver shot down her spine. This exact fear had kept her from answering Bruce’s calls for the past week and had driven her to Hawaii; the disbelief regarding Pete’s death propelling her forward like rocket fuel. Acting on instinct, the only thing that had made sense was to continue her plans: fly to Hawaii, conduct her research, then carry on with her life. But she knew she would spend the rest of her days watching over her shoulder.

  This isn’t over, Saxon had said.

  As soon as Saxon came out of hiding, would he come for her, too?

  “Okay,” Cassidy said. “I’ll tell you what I can.”

  Hours later, Cassidy followed Bruce to his car, the early afternoon sunlight baking the top of her head. Her armpits felt clammy with sweat and her knotted stomach ached.