The way he says her name. So much tenderness there.
My God, how could this be happening?
I don’t deserve any of this.
Cat can tell he wants to protect her from harm, to take her away from all of this. Protect her from the life she accepted when she accepted her job with the FBI. He wants a relationship with her. And with her son.
And he wants her away from all of this.
He wants her to be safe. She can tell from what he is saying, and more so, how he is saying it.
But safety simply is not reality.
She lets her body and mind absorb the truth in what he is saying.
“I don’t know what to say.” She finally speaks up, the words coming slowly, deliberately. Her voice is small and hoarse. Right now, she cannot look at him. If she does she will open a watershed of emotions she will not be able to control. But she must look at him. She must open up to him. She must let him into her heart.
He glances at her.
“Say you feel the same.” His voice is low, husky and emotional. She can see his longing eyes.
In her heart, it is as if a watershed dam burst, letting all her feelings pour out, like water over parched rock. She has been alone for so long. Never let herself feel anything except for Joey. Never let anyone into that safe place for two years. Since Mark died. Since Mark was taken from her. Since he was taken from Joey.
Losing Mark was the most difficult thing. The events she lived through had scarred her; she knows that much. It is so much easier to protect that scar and never let anyone see what is inside.
Never let anyone share her heart again.
It scares her to let anyone in. To be hurt again. To risk being alone again.
But this—this is something new and real. Her soul tells her this.
Can she let Nate in?
Can he be the one for me?
This man sitting next to her who works in the same business, a dangerous business of death and chaos. This man working the same case. Can she risk losing him? Like she lost Mark, when Joey was kidnapped by the Burning Man?
Her mind tells her no, but her heart tells her yes. She is finally able to say the words. “Yes, I do.”
It is enough for Nate for now.
The rest will come in time.
* * *
That afternoon, despite being told to take it easy, Cat is back at Fort Lauderdale PD with Nate. He counsels her to take it easy, but she will not listen.
There is work to do.
The blood-soaked papers that Cat recovered at Roxie’s house needs to be analyzed. No one has done it. Cat wonders what the holdup is. Then she decides to do it herself.
Cat walks down to the Evidence Room to retrieve the multi-sheet item, signs out the memo to preserve the chain of evidence and takes it up to the lab. Painstakingly, she goes about drying each sheet, careful to preserve as much of the evidence as possible.
Luckily, whatever is printed on the papers hasn’t been fully obliterated.
Some things Cat can make out with the naked eye, as well as with the help from a powerful microscope. At the top of the first page is the word “AGENDA” printed in capital letters and underlined.
Below this, with some difficulty, Cat sees the names of those attending the meeting. Listed are familiar names from Black and Knight—all the partners—as well as Isabella Arsovska. Cat’s heart skips. So, there it is, confirmation that the last name that Thomas Pierce gave for Isabella is false. Confirmation that what Roxie said about Isabella’s last name was true. Confirmation that Roxie saw Isabella’s real passport with her real last name.
Why would Pierce lie about something like this to me?
Below this were listed categories of asset holdings, merchants, wire-transfer stores, a familiar Italian high-end designer name. Were these the assets of Black and Knight? What would an international law firm need with such holdings?
Lower on the first page, everything’s been obliterated, having been soaked in blood too long. The second and third pages that are stapled to the first are just a mess. There is nothing there to recover.
Cat is disappointed. But maybe what she has is enough for another warrant. This time to search Black and Knight’s downtown offices. Maybe to search Thomas Pierce’s office, where those secret files are kept.
At least now she has some proof.
Something that she can swear out to a judge to get a warrant. Something to go on.
After an hour, Cat is done with her analysis. She feels drained. She just wants to take a hot bath and go to bed, even though it is only four in the afternoon. She tells Nate she is done for the day.
He can see the weariness in her face. Her cheeks, normally glowing, hold no color. Her lipstick is gone, eaten away as she stared through the microscope’s lens for the last hour. Cat’s eyes seem to fade into nothingness. This investigation is taking a toll on her. He can’t let her continue like this, but there is not much he can do.
She won’t listen, and she won’t quit.
He knows it is useless to try to talk her out of it.
“Go get some rest. I’ll call you later.” Nate tries to sound chipper, but he is worried. Cat can’t continue like this.
* * *
“I’m so exhausted, but I can’t sleep,” Cat says to Nate at 11:02 p.m. “My mind is going a mile a minute, and whenever I close my eyes, I see Roxie.”
Cat starts to cry.
Nate listens, letting her spill out her feelings.
“I’ll come over and stay with you.”
“No, I’ll be okay. It’s just been a long day and long investigation.”
“You know I’m not taking no as an answer. The last thing you need right now is to be alone. Did you eat?”
“No. I was so exhausted I just took a shower and got in bed.”
“It’s settled then. I’ll grab some take out Chinese food and bring some good single malt scotch. We can eat and talk until you feel better and feel like going to sleep.”
“Chow mien noodles?”
“You got it. Anything else?”
She says nothing except “Thank you” and hangs up.
Within fifteen minutes, Nate is knocking at her hotel door.
She has taken the time to wash her face and put on some lip gloss. She does not want to look as awful as she feels inside. Then she wonders if Nate will even care what she looks like. They are colleagues, after all. He saw her looking awful already. What difference does it make?
She opens the door for him, looking down at the floor. Keeping her eyes averted. She does not want him to see the puffiness in her face and the sadness in her eyes.
He comes inside, and puts the food and drink on the table as she closes and dead bolts the hotel door. She turns to him and his eyes meet hers. He says nothing and just takes her in his arms. She crumbles into them—her full body weight into his capable arms.
“Please don’t go. Please stay.” Her voice is barely audible even to her own ears.
It is all she can muster, but these are the most heartfelt words she has spoken in a long time. In a way, she can’t believe what she is saying, but she has wanted this for a long time.
He says nothing. He reaches for her chin, tilting her head up to his. His eyes meet hers—finding there a deep sorrow. She finds, in his eyes, loss too. His eyes shine with tears as do hers.
A shared emotion. A shared moment.
Shared grief.
Shared pain.
Shared sadness.
Shared hope for something new.
In an instant, all this registers for them both.
It is as if they have always known it would come to this.
Nate kisses her—a soft, tender kiss so filled with emotion she can hardly believe it. She feels an electricity run through her muscles as his lips meet hers. His hand is in her hair, cradling her in his embrace. He is strong and tough and tender all at the same time. She can feel his body against hers. The feeling of his skin. Roughness and sweet tendern
ess all in one.
He stops kissing her but holds her close for a long time. He says nothing. There is nothing to say at a time like this.
Cat just allows herself to be in his arms.
No thinking.
No forward movement.
No grief.
No Mark.
No Joey.
No Roxie.
No death.
No work.
Nothing except his embrace.
Hardly even a breath.
She loses track of time, here with him.
Like this.
Finally, he kisses her again, deeper this time, a longing in his mouth and in his touch. He needs her. There is no other way. And she needs him. It is just that simple. Yet, it is always that simple.
He strips away her nightgown, exposing her neck to his kisses.
Her body responds to his touch, wanting him even more.
There is an urgency in him now.
“Catherine. Catherine. My beautiful Catherine.”
The sound of her name pours out of his lips. It is the most beautiful name he has ever heard.
His voice is low, filled with a million emotions and thoughts of her he has never shared with her. Or anyone at all.
“Please stay,” she whispers in his ear. “Please.”
“Yes.” His kisses find her body. Her skin.
His kisses are more urgent now, growing more so with each second. She finds an urgency to each moment. Her mind is reeling in all this. She can’t believe what she is doing. And yet, it seems so natural with Nate. She wants his comfort tonight. She has never wanted anything more in her life. Just to feel safe and needed and loved in this strong man’s embrace. The safety of his body close to her as she sleeps.
“Please.” It is the only word she can seem to find. The only word that seems to come to her lips. And yet, in this simple single word, that is all she needs to say. She knows in time, she will find other words, but for now “please” is enough.
His mouth finds her lips again, then the promise of her soft skin. “Yes, I will stay.”
She kisses him more deeply and they go to her bed, still locked in each other’s embrace and kisses.
In his sweet words that night, in his kisses and in his strong body, Cat finds the escape she needs. She finds relief from the stress.
When she wakes during the night, in the dim light, she looks at Nate sleeping, the rise and fall of his chest visible in the dim moonlight.
For just a moment, she wonders if she has made a terrible mistake. Or if this is something good and new. As she watches Nate sleep soundly, she puts the doubts out of her mind. She knows in her soul, she has found a good man. She believes in her soul this man will take care of her.
Nothing and everything has just changed between them.
It is time to believe again.
It is time for hope.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
—William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Watching Federal Judge William Rifkind, he hasn’t changed in ten years.
From the looks of it, Cat knows that he is still the same old cantankerous ass he was when he was a lower court judge many years ago. Perhaps now with a little less hair and a little more gut than before. His prickly personality certainly hasn’t changed at all—even though he “earned” an appointment to the federal bench.
Cat wonders how a man with so little judicial temperament could “earn” a lifelong appointment to the bench. Then it dawns on her: Judge Rifkind comes from a long line of Republicans, hard-core ones to boot. Judge Rifkind’s father served with Ronald Reagan when he became president of the United States. So, it wasn’t Rifkind’s glowing personality, his judicial temperament or his smarts that won him this appointment; it was daddy’s connections to high-powered Republicans. And that was before Judge Rifkind’s daddy kicked the bucket.
Unlike most judges, when Judge Rifkind issues a warrant, he wants to see you face-to-face.
Once an asshole, always an asshole.
It will be good to stare down this son of a bitch.
Walking into federal court with Nate and one of the detectives working the case, Cat feels a palpable change in air temperature as they enter Judge Rifkind’s courtroom. As huge floor-to-ceiling wooden doors close behind them, Cat catches a whiff of lemon Pledge. Before her, the courtroom’s navy blue carpet is so plush and thick under her heels she feels like she may be swallowed up. It resembles a deep blue ocean. Rimming the carpet are layer upon layer of yellow stars deeply tufted. Cat wonders if Rifkind looks at the stars each day and feels like the universe has stopped spinning just for him. Counsels’ tables, rows of wooden chairs and jury pews gleam as if they have just been polished. To her left, a court clerk sits, surrounded by stacks of paper, her fingers clicking on a computer keyboard. Next to her, another clerk, probably an assistant, speaks in a whisper to someone on the phone. Both women look competent and efficient.
As federal judges are prone to do, Judge Rifkind takes the bench acting like he is far superior to the citizens he serves. He sits elevated five feet off the ground behind a dark wooden bench that is twelve feet across, looking down through his gold-rimmed spectacles at Cat. They sit low on his nose. She can see he is admiring her body, as he always has, the pig.
A glimmer of recognition in his eyes from their “meetings” years before. She needed a warrant on a case in Tampa, the “Stone-Cold Killer,” they had called him, because he bound victims with duct tape and left them in freezers in storage shed lockers to die. Of course, Judge Rifkind, in his infinite blockheaded wisdom, had denied her a warrant back then. Three more bodies had to turn up before he grew a brain, issuing a warrant to run surveillance on the subject. What Cat and Tampa PD turned up in the guy’s apartment was worse than any horror story anyone in this courtroom could imagine.
Moron.
As if reading her mind, his eyes move down away from her body and her stare, looking at the morning’s “law and motion” paperwork on his desk. She watches his cheeks flush red.
Yes, you remember me, you son of a bitch.
After some time, Judge Rifkind’s marshal calls their matter. Cat and the others meet with the judge in chambers, presenting legal declarations relating what they have so far on the law firm, the connection to Big Tiny and the fact that he was found dead—killed with a sedative, his throat slit, apparently as an afterthought, floating in his own swimming pool. Facts connecting Big Tiny to the law firm. The fact that he had been employed by the firm. The fact that Big Tiny’s house had been ransacked. His computers, cell phones and cell phone records were gone. Judge Rifkind seems unimpressed. He does not bother to ask a single question after looking at the evidence they present.
Judge Rifkind, in his black robe, reviews the declarations quickly, not-so-keen eyes skimming what is there. Then he rolls his chair back from his desk, puts his palms behind his head and gives a huffing sound. His glasses slide lower on his nose as his chair comes to rest. In a booming voice, he says, “Not enough here for a warrant.”
“What?” Cat is incredulous, standing up to her feet, even though she knows she shouldn’t. “What are you talking about?”
“Not enough here for a warrant to issue. I won’t sign it. Get someone else.”
Cat leans forward and glares at the man. “Are you insane?”
“Excuse me, you are speaking to a federal judge.” Rifkind’s nose and cheeks glow crimson red.
“I know exactly who I am speaking to. I remember you quite well.”
“Dr. Powers, you should restrain your comments, or I shall . . .”
Cat is leaning harder into him now, over the detailed declarations that she and others had prepared. “Or you shall what? Have me arrested? Go ahead. Call your bailiff or your marshal. I don’t care. You forget I know about the Stone-Cold Killer case. You screwed that one up pretty good, didn’t you, you self-righteous ass? You wiped that one from y
our memory banks, didn’t you? You want to arrest me, and I’ll tell the media how you botched that case. How women died because of your incompetence.”
Judge Rifkind says nothing, but his cheeks are now crimson, and his eyes bug out of his face. “Dr. Powers, control your—”
Cat will not let him finish. “Control my what? My outburst? My temper? My reference to one of the biggest screw-ups of your legal career?”
“Enough. I will not have this in my chambers.”
“Daddy couldn’t fix that one for you, could he? So, I’m asking you how many girls have to die this time? How many? Answer me.”
Judge Rifkind just looks at her. He says nothing because there is nothing he can say. He knows it is true.
“How many bodies in pieces do I have to find this time, Your Honor? How many refrigerators full of body parts? How many?”
Nate is holding Cat’s arm, trying to calm her down. “Cat, don’t. Now is not the time.”
Cat will have none of it. “Oh yes, it’s the time, because that won’t happen on my watch. Not again. I don’t care who I piss off. It won’t happen because of this idiot.”
She whirls back around to Judge Rifkind, her face just inches from his. “So, answer me. How many parts do I have to autopsy this time? How many girls will go missing? How many? Answer me, you son of a bitch.”
Nate is still trying to calm Cat, but it is no use. She will have none of it. “Answer me.”
Rifkind draws in a breath, as if air can calm him down. “I’m not going to issue a warrant that could potentially harm the reputation of one of this city’s and, for that matter, one of the country’s most prominent international law firms. You haven’t shown me enough evidence to make any kind of a connection, much less one to require me to issue a warrant. And if you know anything about the law, it’s in my discretion . . .”
Dying Declaration Page 16