Cassidy Kincaid Mysteries Box Set

by Amy Waeschle

  After a shower, Cassidy removed her contact lenses and slipped on her thick glasses, her eyes feeling red and raw. She flicked on the TV, knowing sleep would not come easy. Wrapped in a towel, brushing her hair, she channel surfed, hoping for an update on the eruption or something neutral, like a National Geographic or nature show, anything to help distract her mind, when something caught her eye on a news program.

  The anchors wore grim expressions while a banner flashed below them.

  Young woman found dead at California car show.

  Cassidy upped the volume on the remote, her heart thudding.

  “ . . . police report that she was shot multiple times,” a brunette woman in a yellow dress said into the camera. “Her body was found near the grounds of the annual Mt. Shasta Bike Rally.”

  The screen flashed to an image of a dry field with people milling among rows of cars and motorcycles, their metal fenders shining under the late-evening sun. Then the image changed to show yellow crime scene tape strewn between two trees.

  A new image popped onto the screen, showing a man with a bushy mutton-chop mustache in black sunglasses. “This is a family friendly event,” he said into the camera, his face somber. “Nothing like this has ever happened here.”

  The camera switched back to the anchorwoman. Below her, a phone number asking for information about the dead woman crawled across the screen.

  “In a surprising move last month, Oregon lawmakers . . . ” the male anchorman to the woman’s left began, but Cassidy stopped listening.

  A tight coil of dread wrapped around her insides. Pictures flashed through her head: first of Izzy in her field camp getup: shorts, t-shirt, vest and hiking boots, her long hair pinned back in a ponytail, then dancing with Cody and William at the resort bar in her tiny shorts and off-the-shoulder blouse. Cassidy intentionally skipped past the images from Cody’s movie—quickly, before the sounds of Izzy’s pleasure reached her ears—and pushed on, seeing Izzy sneak out of the van in Biggs Junction, then hitching a ride somehow, her pocket fat with a roll of twenties.

  Cassidy remembered the biker from the gas station, the way he leered at Izzy’s picture. It was easy to imagine Izzy climbing onto the back of a motorcycle like his. Cassidy heard the sound of the rumbling motor as it sped away and saw Izzy’s blonde hair whipping back over her shoulders. Izzy could easily have ended up in Mt. Shasta. Especially considering her state of mind—she would know her life had taken a major turn and she was now alone. What did she have to lose by jumping on the back of bike to go to a party?

  My girl, my girl, don’t lie to me, tell me where did you sleep last night?

  Then something goes wrong, and she ends up dead.

  Fifteen

  Cassidy rose from the bed and moved to the window, the glass a dark mirror. She ignored her fearful reflection and leaned closer to the glass, its cold pressing against her face. The dim glow of the overhead lights illuminated the parking lot below, broken by the flash of taillights from cars passing on the freeway. Her fingers gripped her phone. She expected it to ring, for Richard to call, his voice blaring. Or Preston Ford.

  She glanced at the screen—11:38 p.m.—and decided not to wake Martin.

  What if the dead girl was Izzy? Another thought trickled into her mind. What if it was Dominique? What if Izzy was heading to this place all along—either to join her, or maybe try to save her?

  Cassidy closed her eyes and pressed her cheek against the glass. A scene formed in her head where Izzy was running across a field of dry grass, her blonde hair swinging wildly, and a man in thick black boots catching her. A shiver chilled her skin.

  Izzy could have hitched a ride from somewhere near Charlie’s cabin in Bend to Mt. Shasta. The distance wasn’t far—probably only three or four hours. Izzy could have arrived as early as mid-morning.

  Then Izzy drifted away with nothing but the clothes on her back and what was left of her money. From the images of the biker rally on the TV, it appeared as though the party lasted all day. Given that Izzy was experiencing a major crisis, it made perfect sense that she would be looking for an escape. Maybe while trying to figure out what to do.

  A wave of heaviness began its slow, deliberate cascade, filling her feet, then her legs, her pelvis with what felt like wet sand. She sank into the desk chair, tossing her phone to the bed. Holding her head in her hands, she heard her breathing rattle in her chest. Rationally, she knew that she was safe inside a hotel room, that she was not watching Izzy die, but her thoughts wouldn’t obey.

  The sound of the motorcycle’s grinding, shuddering engine blared in her ears. She imagined herself on the back, holding the biker’s waist as he accelerated out of a turn. Cassidy’s hands began to shake. Is it my fault? she thought.

  A flash of memory from a certain road in San Francisco crawled into her mind. The bike cutting through the dark, with Pete at the wheel, gunning it, going too fast on that curve. She remembered the police report listing Pete’s likely speed and the intersecting skid marks burned into the road.

  The past pulled at her. She went back to the hospital room, and the image of Pete’s broken body, the motionless hands that would never hold her again.

  A pain broke through the stillness and Cassidy pushed against it, pushed past the noises rushing in her ears and the smell of the hospital room’s starch and medicine, pushed hard.

  No! Cassidy jumped to her feet, knocking the chair over.

  I will not, she told herself, balling her fists.

  Calming herself with a shaky breath that made her throat feel even tighter, she lay down on the bed. Her phone was nearby, and she tapped open a web browser, then searched for any updates on the news story. But there was nothing new.

  Cassidy understood that of course Preston Ford knew about the murdered young woman by now—he probably owned the news channel that broadcast it. Did he think it was Izzy? Was he right now mounting a giant investigation? Was he on his way to Mt. Shasta to get to the bottom of it? Cassidy slumped onto the pillows. The air conditioner fan kicked on, grinding loudly. She slipped under the thin sheet, suddenly shivering.

  She remembered the look in Charlie’s eyes—his normal easy charm no match for his fear. Had he been lying to her? Cassidy had the feeling that he wasn’t telling her everything about what happened between them, but if Izzy was dead, it didn’t matter now.

  With the lights off, Cassidy tried to empty her mind, knowing that she would not sleep but hoping for some kind of mental downshift that would pass as rest. She tried distracting herself with thoughts of her new lab, of the coming of fall, and of her many projects. She imagined arriving in Hawaii, her team assembling for the brutal workload she had planned. Most of her gear had been shipped there in advance, but some items she needed to buy on the island, like car batteries and the solar panels. If she returned home in the morning, she would have just enough time to finishing packing and make her flight. But what if Izzy was dead? Would she be able to turn her back on the girl, even then?

  Her thoughts bounced from project to questions to bits of memory from her day, but in the back of her mind, the troubling images from the television continued to churn. Who would do such a thing to a young woman? What threat could she possibly have presented? The images from Cody’s video returned despite her efforts to ignore them. Once again, she tried to understand Izzy’s motivations.

  She put herself in the young woman’s mindset, beginning at Charlie’s house. I find out that instead of making a little extra cash from a night of fun, someone I trust tries to blackmail my dad about it. I call him, try to understand why he would do this, but it ends in an argument. Then, I hitch a ride with someone headed to a party in California, maybe to see a friend in trouble. When we arrive, I have no place to stay, my dad’s cut me off so I’m almost out of money. Then . . .

  Then what? It seemed Izzy was no stranger to creative moneymaking. Would she do something at the party to make money? Something that in the end, put her life in jeopardy? Cassidy remembered seein
g a film many years ago about how young girls were used as mules to smuggle drugs across borders. Would Izzy do something like that, but the deal went wrong somehow?

  The image of Mel’s face hovering over her pushed to the surface of her thoughts. Could Izzy have trusted someone like Mel, only to end up in danger? Cassidy saw herself at the threshold of her hotel room with Mel’s hands on her body and his kisses filling her with heat. How could I have let him do those things to me? The idea that she had herself be vulnerable like that filled her heart with an aching sadness. It’s my fault.

  She tried stopping this line of thinking with Jay’s words: what would you have said to Quinn if this had happened to him?

  Quinn, Cassidy thought, squeezing her thighs so tight her fingertips felt like pincers. She realized how desperate she was to talk to him. To someone she trusted. She extended her hand into the empty space in the bed next to her. A fantasy of Quinn arriving at her hotel room, his familiar face settling her emotions instantly. He would take her into his arms—though only briefly, Quinn wasn’t much of a hugger—then sit on the bed. Knowing Quinn, after listening to her story, he would bring out a deck of cards and insist that they play gin.

  She thought of Jay and his calm, measured expression, the smile lines around his eyes. His office was painted white, and the colors of his furniture—yellow and tan leather and the green accents from the little plants he grew on a shelf—made it feel open, fresh. While she never looked forward to going there, she began to feel okay about sharing things with him. He had coaxed her memories and pain from the deepest places of her mind and held them carefully, then taken her by the hand and showed her the way out.

  Would he answer a phone call at midnight?

  Using a breathing exercise he’d taught her and pretending she was in his office, Cassidy finally felt the tug of sleep. She woke from a doze with her phone still in her grip, and checked her call log, thinking that a call about Izzy woke her. Her screen showed a handful of voicemail messages, all from foreign numbers. She began playing them—if only to clear them from her log.

  “Good evening, Cassidy, this is Arabella McKee from Crosscut. Please give me a call. We’d like to hear your side of the story.”

  “Uh, yeah, Cassidy, this is Carter Tibbins, from NBC. We’re prepared to make you a deal. You sell us exclusive rights to your story and the rest of those people burning up your phone go away. Let me know when you’re ready. Our proposal could buy you an awful lot of seismometers.”

  “Ms. Kincaid, this is—” Cassidy deleted that one before he got going. If he didn’t have the wherewithal to call her by her proper title, then he didn’t deserve to have his message heard.

  The next voice shocked her. “Cass,” Mark’s rich voice said. “Look, I know you’ve probably got a hundred messages a mile long.” A loud breath buzzed into the phone. “Call me. I wanna find out how you’re doing. You don’t have to tell me the story, okay? Just . . . Jeez, honey, I just . . . did that stuff really happen to you?” Cassidy waited through a long pause. “All right. Call me,” he added, then hung up.

  She could feel the emotion building up and blinked at the dark ceiling. Tears leaked down her temples and tickled into her hair.

  She pictured Mark’s bushy beard and mustache and the way his eyes always danced. Then the memory of digging through the pile of hardened snow after the avalanche to find Pete followed—her feelings about Mark would always be tied to that day. And the memorial when after, she’d fallen asleep in his arms.

  She removed her glasses and wiped her eyes, then returned to the task of clearing her messages. Playing the fifth one, she froze.

  “Yo, Cassidy, I found your girl,” a gruff voice said. “Call me.”

  Cassidy sat up, her stomach liquifying in the process. She knew that voice—it still made her shiver: gravelly and arrogant all at once. It was the biker at the truck stop in Biggs. After tapping “reply,” she gathered the covers around her lap, suppressing a shiver from the over-cooled air.

  The phone clicked. “What, you up late, polishing your telescopes?” the biker’s gritty voice said, confirming her conclusion. “We had a deal. You gave me your number. You’re supposed to answer.”

  Cassidy’s hackles went up. “I don’t even know your name,” she said.

  “Dutch,” he replied. “Feel better?”

  “Where did you see Izzy?” Cassidy said, ignoring his banter.

  “Whoa,” he said. “I never said I saw her.”

  “God damn it, this isn’t funny!” she cried. “Have you seen the news?”

  “Take it easy,” the voice said in a patronizing tone that had the opposite effect of helping her relax. Then, Dutch exhaled a long breath that Cassidy could visualize—his broad chest falling, his shoulders curling in. “It’s not her.”

  Cassidy blinked. “What do you mean ‘it’s not her’? How do you know?”

  “Because I know, okay?” he barked. Cassidy could hear distant music in the background. Or voices, maybe.

  “The place is crawling with cops now, but before . . . I know one of the guys who found that girl.” He paused, and Cassidy heard the swirl of ice in a cup. She imagined herself at home holding a glass of whiskey, the ice hitting her teeth and the burn of the liquid searing her throat.

  “It’s not her,” he said again.

  Cassidy felt the first tingle of relief. She clung to it, desperate to believe it. “I’m sorry I didn’t answer your call,” she said, feeling foolish for ignoring her phone all evening. First, she’d missed a call from Mark, and now this. “It’s been sort of a crazy day.”

  Another shifting of ice cubes. “There’s a café in Klamath Falls. Along the run. Lotta bikers stop there. I asked around. A few guys saw her with a rider named Lars. That’s all I know.”

  “What time?”

  “These guys don’t exactly wear wrist watches. It’s a breakfast place, so . . . yeah.”

  “Do you know Lars?”

  The biker paused. “I seen him around, you know, here and there.”

  Cassidy was out of bed now, pulling on her clothes with one hand. “Is Izzy still with him?” She released a shudder thinking about what Izzy could be doing right now with a leather-clad biker named Lars.

  “No clue.” He muffled the phone for a moment, long enough for Cassidy to put the phone on speaker so she could slip on her bra and t-shirt. She heard the biker laugh, a cold-ringing chuckle followed by a female voice saying something Cassidy didn’t catch.

  “Say, I gotta run,” he said, the laughter softening his voice. “I just thought you should know.”

  “Wait!” Cassidy cried. “Please,” she begged. “I’m coming.”

  “Whoa-ho!” he cried. “I’m all ears, precious.”

  Cassidy’s mouth dropped open in shock. Instantly, her neck flushed with heat. But just as fast, she felt a rise of anger so powerful she had to grip the edge of the TV stand. Asshole.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “The rally,” he answered. “Big shindig tonight,” he added. “How fast can you get here? You could bring your telescope.”

  “I’m leaving now,” she said, barely controlling her frustration at how easily he was turning her inside-out. “When I get there, you’re going to introduce me to Lars.”

  Sixteen

  By the time Cassidy rolled up at the fairgrounds in Mt. Shasta, California, the harsh summer sunrise had begun coloring the landscape. As she’d packed her backpack in the hotel room, she realized she was likely going to miss her redeye to Hawaii. But if Izzy was at the rally, a little delay would be more than worth it.

  Despite the minimal sleep, she felt wide awake, though coffee was in order, pronto. The fairgrounds parking area felt quiet, with cars parked loosely in rows spread across a broad field. Walking beneath the bright red banner arching above the entrance, she noticed the outline of tents in the open field beyond the rows of bikes and classic cars. She passed several food vendors, their awnings closed and generators silent.
The lineup of classic cars and bikes shone with so much polished chrome that she had to squint shiny chrome of a bumper. She heard the occasional cough, and from beneath a blue tarp stretched out like a lean-to from a motorcycle to the ground, a sawing snore.

  Dutch told her to look for his green tent in the field. He said he’d try to keep an eye out for Izzy, but it was a big place, with thousands of people, and his companion’s nearby voice made Cassidy question Dutch’s motivation for such a thing. Music still pumped in the background when she hung up with him.

  Cassidy needed to find Dutch, then Lars, who would hopefully either still be with Izzy, or know where she had gone to. Before leaving Eugene, she had sent Martin an email with the link to the news story and to reassure him that it likely wasn’t Izzy. She would call both him and Richard later, once she knew more.

  Cassidy wondered if she might accidentally run into Izzy here, or find her asleep in one of the bedrolls, next to a stranger. Her senses went on high alert for female sounds, or a flash of blonde hair. Cassidy passed rows and rows of motorcycles, all polished and gleaming, in styles ranging from the ordinary to the truly strange, like wide handlebar styles and long axels extending far in front of the saddle. It reminded Cassidy of something one might see in a circus, though knew immediately that saying this out loud would probably get her thrown out.

  At the end of the long row, one man stood smoking a cigarette, his back to her, his thin, gray hair secured in a ponytail that snaked between his shoulder blades. He wore the same type of vest she had seen on the others at the gas station in Biggs with a giant embroidered design on the back, this one a skull and crossbones. The man coughed roughly, and barely registered her with his bloodshot eyes as she continued past him.

  Though there were several tents in various shades of green, Cassidy identified Dutch’s bike parked alongside one of them. All the tents sat still, like a herd of giant sleeping turtles. Hugging herself at Dutch’s tent entrance, she cleared her throat. “Hello?” she said, afraid of waking the rest of the campers.