by Liana Brooks
Grimacing, Mac walked past, trying not to look too closely. It had been nearly thirty years since the last victim was interred but it still wasn’t long enough to make the fear of the plague fade.
Agent Edwin was pacing the empty lobby when Mac walked in. The younger man looked up with red-rimmed, tear-swollen eyes. “Thank you.” He closed his eyes and rocked on his heels. “Thank you for coming, Agent MacKenzie.”
“My pleasure.” Mac tried to smile, but the plague statue outside had put fear and doubt in his mind. Please, God, if you’re out there, don’t let it be the plague. “What’d you need me for?”
Edwin took a deep breath. “There was a . . . an accident. Hit-and-run.”
“You look okay,” Mac said.
Edwin nodded. “Agent Rose . . .” The younger man looked up at him with his lips set in a flat line. “They brought her here.”
“Sam?” His voice cracked and thundered, shaking the bulletproof glass of the lobby doors. His calm shattered. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me it was about Sam? I’d have been here in minutes. Where is she? I can . . .” He took a deep breath. “Do they not have a surgeon? I can do that. I mean . . . yeah. Where is she? Get me some gloves. This’ll be fine.”
A woman in medical scrubs with bright pink and green flowers came through a heavy metal door. “Agent Edwin? Is everything all right?”
“Um . . .” Edwin looked panicked between the nurse and Mac. “This is the senior agent in the district right now. Agent MacKenzie. He’s a medical examiner from Chicago.”
“Where’s Sam?” Mac demanded, doing everything he could to get his temper under control.
The nurse frowned with disapproval. “Maybe you should calm down a little before you come back.”
“No,” Mac shouted.
She stepped back.
He swallowed, then coughed. “I mean, I’m fine,” he said in the calmest voice he could summon. “Sam’s my best friend. I’d like to see her, please.”
“I’m . . . I’m sorry.” The nurse pulled a green curtain back as she turned. “Dead on impact.”
His world tilted, spiraled away, colors fading as he realized what he was looking at. Sam lay lifeless on the hospital cot, neck twisted at an unnatural angle. Oxygen fled the room.
“It happened instantly,” the nurse said in a consoling voice. “She didn’t feel anything.”
“Sam.” His knees hit the tiled floor. “Sam?”
“I can get you a chair,” the nurse offered in a calm, rational voice so at odds with what he felt. “We tried to contact her next of kin, but her mother was in a meeting, and her father didn’t pick up.”
“He’s dead,” Agent Edwin said. “And she doesn’t talk to her mother.”
“Oh.”
“I called Agent MacKenzie because he’s listed under her family contacts,” Edwin said. “At least on her bureau file.”
“How irregular.”
Mac reached for her hand. She’d painted her nails lilac. It was . . . cute. He’d never seen her with her nails done before. “Her hand’s cold.”
“Yes, she’s been dead for over an hour now,” the nurse said. “We just needed you to come in and confirm her identity. Officer Hadley was first on scene, and she recognized Miss Rose, but there was no purse or wallet found.”
“Probably stolen,” Edwin muttered.
“This is Sam,” Mac said with all the emotion of his dead partner. “Samantha Lynn Rose, CBI senior agent.”
“Wonderful! You have the condolences on the loss of your coworker. Would you like her cremated? We can have her in an urn by dinnertime, just say the word.”
The ghost of Sam Rose, Agent Perfect, rose over his shoulder with her arms crossed. Something clicked in his brain. The emotions drained away, locked behind steel walls of practicality. Mac stood up. “You said it was a hit-and-run?”
“Yes,” the nurse confirmed.
“Is that common for this area?”
“We have one or two every year, but not really. It was enough to shake up the three witnesses, for sure—they’re all being treated for shock. When we do get them, it’s usually drunks driving around after holidays, but there’s no evidence of that.”
“No evidence the drivers were drunk?”
“I’m sorry, there was no one on scene. No witnesses.” The nurse frowned. “Is that a no on the cremation? Only, anything else is a lot more paperwork. If it’s all the same to you . . .”
“A CBI agent killed under suspicious circumstances is treated as a homicide investigation until the culprit is found and the situation explained.” He looked down at her lifeless face, already starting to swell from decay. There was a pale mark on her neck, like a scar he’d never noticed before. “Have the hospital finish any work they need to do, then have the corpse transported to the CBI office. The medical examiner will need to do an autopsy.”
Never refer to the deceased by their name—it was an old army trick. A corpse was an it. A dead friend on the ground was an inoperative combat unit, a fallen hero. But no one said Johnny was dead. Mac swallowed hard. The ghost of Sam raised a phantom eyebrow in challenge.
“Agent Edwin, you’re with me. Nurse. Make this a priority. I want the body in my morgue in under an hour.”
The bright Florida sunshine hit him like a gut punch as they exited the hospital. He was going to get Sam to go to the beach with him. There was a little seaside restaurant he’d spotted on their drive yesterday that looked like it could knock out a good po’ boy. He was going to take her there. She wasn’t supposed to leave him like this. Not here. Not now.
They had time.
He knew that, eventually, Sam would die. She’d done it once, five years in the future, then been caught in a madman’s nightmare that sucked her back through time. Her face on the diagnostic screen kept him up at night, but they had time. To solve things. To stop her murder. To be together.
He slammed his fists down on the hood of his rental car, searing his hands with the heat.
“Sir?” Edwin looked at him with puffy eyes. “Sir, what do we do?”
“Do?” Mac raised an eyebrow, a perfect imitation of his Agent Perfect. “We do what we were trained to do and solve the murder. We’ll start with this morning. Retrace her steps. Find out where she went and why and with whom. We find her killer, and we interrogate them until their gonads shrivel in fear. Then we lock them away for the rest of their miserable life. And then we get therapy.”
“Therapy?”
“Lots of therapy. Trust me on this.” He unlocked his car. “Get in, I’m driving.”
Edwin didn’t look happy with the offer, but he climbed in, tall frame bent over and beefy shoulders hunched. The junior agent buckled himself in and pulled out his phone.
“I don’t need the GPS,” Mac said.
“Oh, no, sir. I was just . . .” He waved the phone near Mac’s ear as if that explained something. “She was really dressed up today, I thought.”
It took Mac a moment to realize Edwin was talking about Sam. He nodded as they waited for a light to change. “She had her nails painted. I don’t remember her ever doing that when we lived together in Alabama.”
“It was the purple blouse that got me,” Edwin said with a heavy sigh. “She looks good in gem tones, but I’ve never seen her wear them to the office. Do you think her boyfriend gave them to her?”
Mac hit a curve a little too fast, and the brake too hard as they came to a stop sign. The tires squealed in protest. “Boyfriend?” He kept his voice flat, but he could feel the muscle under his high tic.
“You, ah, didn’t know? She used to talk about some guy she lived with in Alabama. And then I think this week she was with someone. It sort of slipped out. I thought, maybe, he bought her some stuff.”
Praying for patience worked for some people. He’d seen Sam do it wh
en she was frustrated with him, but closing his eyes while weaving in and out of erratic south Florida traffic seemed like a bad idea. “Edwin, I lived with her in Alabama. I’m the one who just showed up in town.”
“Oh!” Edwin swiveled in his seat. “You? You seem so normal.”
“Why wouldn’t I be normal?”
“Agent Rose talked about you like you were a genius. I pictured some heroic-looking guy who was, you know, taller.”
“I’m six-two!”
Edwin shrugged, rubbing his shoulders against the fabric-lined car seat so it was audible. “Seems short to me is all.”
Mac growled as he turned into the bureau parking lot. A bright turquoise Montero Sunlit sat in Sam’s parking spot. It was an exquisite car that breathed sensuality and wealth like a French vintner inhaled the scent of grapes on a hot autumn afternoon. He’d never wanted to destroy a car so much. “How dare they?”
“What?”
He pressed his lips together, picturing the brazen gez who’d violated her space.
“Sir?”
“I’m fine.” He refrained from punching the car only because he knew from firsthand experience that it would deploy the airbags, and those things hurt. “Let’s get inside. I need you to pull up Agent Rose’s schedule, then I need all the traffic data for the area. Find out which businesses have security cameras facing the street.” He glared at the Montero Sunlit as he locked his rental car. Damn, Sam would have looked gorgeous in that. With a little black dress and those extra high heels he’d seen at the back of her closet one day. Just picturing her there made his knees weak with pain.
No more Sam.
He couldn’t process the thought. One step at a time. Find a cause of death. Find a killer. Mourn later. Mourn after he’d done everything else he could do for her.
Following Edwin into the CBI building, he could almost smell Sam’s perfume. If he closed his eyes, he could hear her heels tapping a delicate staccato across the marble floors upstairs. She was there, only in spirit, but she was there.
Agent Edwin opened the office door and collapsed behind his impeccably tidy desk, staring into the distance.
The thousand-yard stare. Mac knew it from too many mornings catching his own reflection in the dirty mirror in the dingy apartment he survived in before Sam came along. She’d pulled him out of the depression and given him a reason to live again.
A light at Edwin’s desk flickered as he turned the phone back on. “She was so pretty in that shirt. Why’d she never wear purple to the office?”
“Regulation states a white blouse or button-down shirt with tan, navy, or black slacks or skirts are appropriate attire,” Mac said offhand. “She said the black made her look like a stewardess.”
The door behind him slammed open, and Mac jumped, hand dropping toward where his sidearm should be.
“Edwin, if you’re going to be late, call me,” Sam said.
Mac started shaking.
She was right there. Navy skirt three inches above her knee, two-inch navy kitten heels shined to a fine polish, regulation blouse that was still just tight enough to emphasize the swell of her breasts.
And she was looking at him. “Mac, did you walk Hoss before you left?”
“Agent . . . Agent Rose?” Edwin stood up unsteadily. “Um . . .”
“I hate the word ‘um,’ ” Sam said with an oh-so-typical eye roll.
The junior agent turned pale, blood draining from his face. “I don’t know how to tell you this, ma’am, but you’re dead.”
Mac’s strangled sob turned into a choked laugh. He covered his mouth and dropped into the stiff secondhand couch that completed the government office set. There was a god, and that god was probably Loki, possibly Coyote. Definitely a trickster god bent on torturing Mac until the last of his sanity dribbled away.
The clock ticked as he giggled madly.
Edwin shuffled like fire ants were crawling up his trousers. “Ma’am, it’s nothing personal, ma’am. It’s just that you are dead, ma’am. I . . . ah . . . um . . . went to the hospital. You died. In a car accident.”
Sam’s shiver, such a strange movement, focused Mac’s attention.
“Sam?” He tasted the salt of tears on his lips.
“I had a dream last night that I was hit in a collision. My neck ached like it’d been snapped. I couldn’t get back to bed, so I dropped my car off at the auto-body shop to get the dents knocked out and went for a run. Wound up here, showered and changed in the locker room downstairs.” She rubbed her neck. “I was surprised Agent Edwin wasn’t here, but I must have left my phone in the car . . .” Sam’s word slowed to a halt under the weight of his stare. “Mac? Can you please explain why you’re crying?”
“Edwin called me this morning from the hospital. Forty-five minutes ago, I arrived and was told you’d been killed in a hit-and-run accident.”
Horror suffused her face, and she ran to him. “Oh, no! Are you okay?” She hovered just out of reach.
“Am I okay?” Mac laughed. “Me? You’re worried about me when you’re the one I saw dead?”
Sam’s eyes went wide, and she looked between him and Edwin. “I’m fine. You’re the one who just saw his best friend in the morgue. All I had was a bad dream.”
He took her outstretched hand and pulled her almost close enough. The scent of her perfume surrounded him like the blessing of a saint. Warmth radiated off her body. Her pulse beat a steady rhythm that calmed the wild despair.
Agent Edwin cleared his throat. Mac tightened his grip on Sam’s hand and looked at the younger agent, professional behavior be damned. “Yes?”
“I . . . I hate to be the one to bring this up, ma’am, sir, but how do we know she’s Agent Rose?”
“Who else would I be?” Sam demanded.
“A clone. A spy. A plant or actress of some kind. We positively identified the body at the hospital as Agent Samantha Rose,” Edwin said. “Both Agent MacKenzie and I know her very well. What is the likelihood of someone with your physical description, in your car, not being you?”
Sam took a deep breath and let it out. “Statistically, I admit the numbers aren’t in my favor. However, there are instances of this sort of thing’s happening before.”
“I’ve never heard of them,” Edwin said belligerently.
“You don’t have the right security clearance,” Mac shot back, instinctively siding with Sam.
“Sir, I don’t want to question your judgment, but doesn’t this strike you as the least bit fishy?”
Mac looked up at Sam. Agent Perfect in her uniform and office smile. He let her hand go. “Fine. DNA test?”
Sam shrugged. “If this is what we think it is, the DNA test isn’t going to be conclusive.”
“What?” Edwin asked.
Mac waved his question away. “Twenty questions?”
Sam nodded. “Agent Edwin, there is classified information that only you and I would know, correct?”
He frowned in puzzlement. “I suppose.”
“What about the contents of your primary evaluation when you first reported to this station? I described you as overexcitable and too trusting.”
Edwin licked his lips clearly caught between a desire to believe Sam was the real Sam and his loyalty to the truth. “With all due respect, ma’am, anyone could know that. Especially since you arrived at the office before I did. Anyone walking in could have hacked into our system and checked Agent Rose’s comments on my review.”
“Especially since our password is ‘ice-cream-for-all-6-7-8-9,’ ” Sam said. “All right. When Agent MacKenzie came I told you to find me an ME and you scrambled a fighter jet. I said it was overkill.”
“Again, ma’am, dozens of people were in the building with you when we had that conversation. It doesn’t prove anything.”
“I h
ave one,” Mac said. He looked Sam in the eye. “The first time we met, what bra were you wearing and why did I see it?”
Sam’s cheeks flushed. “I can’t believe you’re asking me that in front of my junior agent.”
“Just answer the question.”
“Black, and you saw it because my white shirt was wet. The maintenance man turned the sprinklers on and said it was an accident. I reported him, and Marrins laughed and told me I should have come in right away if I wanted to file a complaint, not go home to change and whine about it later.”
Mac nodded. “She’s Sam.”
“Then . . . who is the hospital delivering to the morgue?” Edwin asked.
“Probably also me,” Sam said. “Sit down, Edwin, I think it’s time we had a little talk about the facts of life.”
“Like, the birds and the bees?”
“No,” Sam said with a shake of her head. “More quantum physics and the transient nature of reality. Don’t worry, I’ll talk slow, and Mac will fill in any of the gaps in your education.”
Edwin looked at Sam dubiously. “A time machine? I don’t think that’s how time works, ma’am.”
“That’s what we said.” She punched in the code to the morgue and scanned her hand for verification. “Dr. Emir started with a theory.”
“The idea of a multiverse has always been very popular,” Mac said.
“In science fiction!” Edwin looked at her pleadingly. “The idea that someone bent time and space, though? I’m sorry, it sounds ridiculous.”
“It is ridiculous,” Sam said. “But so are birds that can’t fly, giraffes, and someone named Zoe Frillmumper running for president of France—but they all exist.”