by Lis Wiehl
Nic didn’t even bother to answer her. They both knew that the keys, the purse, the unlocked door—all put the lie to Allison’s last hope.
Just past the phone, something glinted in the fading light from the dining room window. Three drops, each of them shining, oily, and thick. Blood.
When Allison saw what Nic was looking at, she caught her breath in a gasp.
Nic bent closer. The drops were nearly round. Passive spatter, meaning the drops had been formed by the force of gravity acting alone. Not high-velocity blood spatter, like that from a gunshot. Not cast off from a bloody weapon being raised again and again, flinging drops with each strike. If Cassidy had cut herself on the broken phone, it was possible that the blood had slowly dripped from her fingers until she noticed it and staunched the bleeding.
It was possible, wasn’t it?
Nic realized she was being as bad as Allison. Forcing the pieces together to make a picture of a sunny, happy scene.
She swallowed back a sudden nausea, the taste of chips and salsa burning and sour on the back of her tongue, and fought the unreasoning urge to run. How many crime scenes had she walked into? Hundreds? Her life had been in danger dozens of times. And she had never faltered. But now something told her that what had happened here was bad. Very bad indeed. And she most definitely didn’t want to see it.
Straightening up, Nic took her gun from its holster. The weight of it settled her. Her eyes swept over the floor around the blood and the broken phone, but she saw nothing else out of place. She turned her head to scan the rest of the condo again. Everything was as neat as it got at Cassidy’s. There was no trace of anyone else in any of the rooms.
But there was the broken phone.
Nic went back to the bathroom, Allison trailing. The blue shower curtain was pulled across the tub.
Was there a shadow behind it? Taking a deep breath, she pushed it back with the barrel of her Glock. The plastic curtain rings rattled.
Nothing. The white tub was empty except for a yellow rubber duck.
Nic’s breath came out in a rush, and she realized she’d been holding it.
They went back to the bedroom. The sheets and lightweight duvet were only messy on one side, mute testimony to the fact that Cassidy had been sleeping alone. Allison dropped to her knees, reminding Nic of prayers. Of prayers it felt too late to say now. Allison looked under the bed.
“Nothing.”
Nic reached for the closet door and then hesitated, thinking of the front door. Even though heavily handled objects didn’t usually yield good prints, the only way not to corrupt a latent print was not to touch it. Taking a tissue from her purse, she was careful to twist just the connection between the knob and the door shield.
She pulled the door open, her gun at the ready. It was stuffed full of clothes. No beige or gray for Cassidy, and very little black. Just the bright colors she loved: turquoise and orange and bright blue. With her free hand, Nic pressed on the jackets and skirts, looked underneath the hanging hems. Discarded clothes lay on top of dozens of shoes. But there was nothing that shouldn’t have been there.
She walked back into the center of the condo and stood tapping her toe, the sound click, click, clicking on the linoleum.
Finally she spotted it.
A tiny puddle of blood was pooled on the floor in front of the sink, hidden by the lip of the cabinets. It didn’t even look dry. She took two slow steps toward it.
Allison stayed where she was, her eyes wide.
Taking a deep breath, Nic hooked her pen into the metal loop of the door and pulled.
Cassidy lay on her side, stuffed under the sink. Her body was curled around the silver U of the drain pipe. She barely fit, her knees against her chin. The front of her coral jacket was soaked in dark blood the color of the wine she liked to drink.
With unseeing blue eyes, Cassidy Shaw stared at her two friends.
CHAPTER 4
Allison tried to connect the empty blue eyes, the still form, to Cassidy. But Cassidy was never still.
“Maybe we should try CPR?” Her voice sounded as if it were coming from someone else. Someone far away. She had bent over when Nic opened the cabinet, and now it was as if she couldn’t move, couldn’t take her hands from her knees, couldn’t lift her head from where she crouched with her face just three feet from Cassidy’s.
A horrible gasping sound filled the air. It took Allison a second to realize that she herself was making it.
Cassidy couldn’t be dead. She was a force of nature. There must be something that could be done, some procedure or drug that could bring her back from the brink. Maybe not to the point where she would immediately crawl out from underneath the sink, smiling at how it had all been a misunderstanding or a sick joke, shrugging back her bloody jacket to reveal unblemished skin. But still, there must be something they could do that would bring her to consciousness, leave her moaning and thrashing while one of them frantically dialed an ambulance and the other sought to comfort her.
Nicole gently pressed her fingers on the side of Cassidy’s neck. Finally she looked up at Allison and shook her head.
Cassidy was dead, Allison tried to tell herself.
Dead.
The word was meaningless. But then she looked at Cassidy’s face again, her dull eyes. Really looked. Whatever this lifeless waxy thing was, it wasn’t Cassidy. Every bit of it was dead, every cell, every atom. It wasn’t Cassidy at all.
Allison straightened up. A wave of dizziness washed over her. Despite the oppressive heat, her teeth were chattering.
“She’s still warm.” Nicole’s face looked perfectly composed, but her breath was coming in short gasps, as if she had been running. “And there’s no rigor. This didn’t happen that long ago.”
So they had been what—laughing? eating chips? drinking margaritas?—when someone punched a knife into Cassidy’s belly?
Allison’s legs were suddenly too weak to hold her. She groped blindly behind her for a place to sit down. Sit down before she fell down.
“Don’t!” Nicole cried out. “Don’t touch anything.”
Allison pressed her hand to her chest and tried to concentrate on breathing. The air was too heavy. It resisted being sucked into her lungs.
Slipping her gun back into its holster, Nicole pulled her cell phone from her belt and punched in 9-1-1. Her face was a mask.
“This is FBI Special Agent Nicole Hedges. I need to report a homicide at the Riverside Condominiums. Unit 414. The victim’s name is Cassidy Shaw.”
As she half listened to Nicole’s words, Allison stood frozen in the middle of the kitchen floor. Like an inflating balloon, her head felt like it was getting bigger and lighter and emptier. The dirty dishes on the counter seemed far away, tiny, fit only for dolls.
Don’t look at Cassidy’s face, Allison told herself, but against her will her gaze was drawn back to the open, staring eyes. Horror choked off the thick breath in her throat, tightened across her chest like a band.
Her fingers groped for and finally found the small silver cross her father had given her for her sixteenth birthday, three weeks before he died. The cross was the only anchor Allison could find in the world, a reminder that this world was not the only one.
What would happen to Cassidy’s soul now? She had always been a seeker, flitting from belief to belief. Lord, she prayed, please accept Cassidy’s soul into Your keeping. Allison’s next breath was slightly easier, even though it still shook. And help us find justice for her here on earth.
Nicole was still talking with the 9-1-1 dispatcher. “You need to notify detectives that this is clearly a homicide.” Impatience edged her voice. “I’m here with Allison Pierce. She’s a federal prosecutor. We’re both friends of Cassidy’s. She was supposed to meet us for dinner but never showed up. We came here to check on her, and we found her body.” She listened for a second and then said, “There’s no one here but us. We came in through the underground parking garage and took the elevator to the fourth floor. We
didn’t pass anyone.”
Allison tried to remember. Had she seen anyone on the street outside or through the glass doors of the lobby as they drove past them and down to the underground lot? Could there have been a shadowy figure watching from a dark corner of the garage? Had the murderer seen them? Could he still be in the building?
Nicole hung up and turned to Allison. “They’re dispatching a patrol car here first. And then we’ll have to wait for the uniform to get the homicide detectives out here. But this scene is fresh. The longer it takes, the less fresh it will be.”
She crouched back down on her haunches, just inches from Cassidy’s limp form, then looked up at Allison. “She was stabbed with something. Don’t touch anything, but see if there’s a knife missing from the block.”
Thankful to turn away, Allison looked at the wooden knife block sitting on the counter next to the stove. “There’re two empty slots.”
Nicole stood up and scanned the dirty dishes. “There.” She pointed and then pointed again. “One’s in the sink and the other’s on the counter.”
Allison followed her finger, being careful not to let her gaze drop any farther. She couldn’t bear to look at Cassidy again. One blade was smaller, a paring knife, the other a long serrated bread knife. Neither seemed like the kind you’d use to kill someone.
“There’s really not that much blood,” Nicole said, almost to herself.
“What do you mean?” Despite her best intentions, Allison looked down again. The front of Cassidy’s jacket was red and sodden.
“There’s blood, sure, but if she had died from being stabbed, I think we would have noticed a big pool first thing.” Nicole pointed at the floor, at the small circle of blood that was not more than three inches across. “That’s nothing. A couple of tablespoons.”
Allison thought of another scenario. “Or maybe she was stabbed someplace else and moved here?”
“If they did that, there should be blood between here and wherever they killed her. And all we’ve got is a few drops.” She bent down again to look at Cassidy. Her voice muffled, she said. “I don’t see any stains or marks on her clothes. But her skirt’s bunched up, like she’s been moved.”
Allison hoped Cassidy hadn’t been raped. She tried to work it through. “Maybe they cleaned up.”
“There should be evidence of that too. But I didn’t see any wet or missing towels in the bathroom. And the tub and sink were dry.” Nicole leaned down. “The kitchen sink’s dry too.”
While she heard Nic’s words, Allison’s brain kept toggling back and forth between the terrible now and the past that now could never be anything but past.
Cassidy’s empty, staring eyes. The Mexican restaurant where she and Nicole had just eaten while complaining about Cassidy’s lateness. The blood that now soaked the front of her friend’s coral-colored jacket. Cassidy’s habit of twisting the back of her hair—a place the camera never saw—whenever she was lost in thought. How Allison and Nicole had chattered away while their friend must have been dying.
She had a thousand memories of Cassidy laughing, joking, eating, gesturing, and talking. Always talking, her words coming a mile a minute.
Then Allison’s eyes would again find the real Cassidy, absolutely still and absolutely empty, looking like a clever doll fashioned from pale wax.
For the dozenth time, she tore her gaze away from those flat eyes. “I just don’t understand how this happened. We know that Cassidy sometimes took risks. But to be killed here, in her own condo. It feels personal. I mean, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she was in an accident driving too fast to a story or if some suspect she was interviewing turned on her. But to die here, in her own home . . .” She let her words trail off.
“I didn’t see any signs of forced entry—no tool marks or anything on the doorframe,” Nicole said. “And I don’t think the lock was broken.”
Allison walked back into the living room and looked at Cassidy’s things. “Okay, she came in here, she put down her keys and her purse and her mail and then what—someone knocked on the door and she answered it?”
Nicole came out to join her. “Maybe. Or she could have come home and surprised a burglar.”
Allison surveyed the room. “Only if that’s what happened, where’s the mess? Nobody’s gone through things. There’s no sign of a struggle.”
“Maybe it was someone she knew, and when she let them in, they suddenly attacked her.” Nicole’s eyes were slitted like a cat’s. “And if it was someone she knew, you know who I keep thinking of? Rick.”
Allison blinked. She was still considering the idea when there were two sharp raps on the door.
“Open up,” a woman’s voice said. “Police.”
Taking from her pocket the tissue she had used earlier, Nicole opened the door by turning the section between the knob and the door. The cop who stepped over the threshold was young with short dark hair. Half-moons of sweat darkened the underarms of her short-sleeved blue uniform shirt.
Twenty-five at the most, Allison thought.
“I’m Officer Santiago with the Portland Police Bureau. The 9-1-1 dispatcher reported you found a body?”
Nicole said, “I’m Nicole Hedges, FBI. And this is Allison Pierce. She’s a federal prosecutor. We’re the ones who found Cassidy Shaw. She’s our friend. And she was definitely murdered.”
Santiago swallowed and pulled back her shoulders. “Where’s the victim?”
“In the kitchen,” Nicole said.
The three of them walked back to stand at the entrance to the kitchen. When the cop saw Cassidy’s body wedged under the sink, she let out a tiny gasp. Allison wondered if it was the first dead body she had ever seen.
“It looks like she was stabbed,” Nicole said. “How long until your backup officer and the homicide detectives get here? We need to canvass the area immediately. The body is still warm.”
“Are you sure she’s dead?” Under brows plucked to a thin line, the cop’s eyes were wide. She started forward.
Nicole put a hand on her arm. “Yes. I checked. You shouldn’t go near her. We don’t want to disturb any trace evidence. There are some drops of blood by her phone on the floor over there and more blood in front of the sink.” She pointed.
Santiago nodded, but her eyes never left the body. Finally she said, “I need to notify dispatch.” She reached toward the landline phone sitting in a cradle on a side table.
“What are you doing?” Nicole’s voice rose as she grabbed her wrist. “You’ve got a radio and a phone on your belt, and you’re going to use the victim’s landline? Didn’t they teach you about fingerprints at the academy?”
“Nic—” Allison said, but Nicole shook her head. Earlier she had been calm and methodical, but now she was so tense she was nearly vibrating. Nicole rarely got angry, but Allison realized her friend would rather surrender to anger than to sorrow.
Santiago pressed her lips together, then pulled her radio from her belt. “Dispatch, I’m on scene at Unit 414 of the Riverside Condominiums. We have one victim, deceased, apparent homicide, no fire or ambulance needed. No suspects on scene.”
After putting away her radio, Santiago took a pen from her breast pocket and a notebook from the back pocket of her pants. “May I see some ID, please.” Her voice was chilly. “I’ll need your name, address, date of birth, and phone numbers.”
“Why are you wasting time? Cassidy’s body is still warm—whoever killed her could still be in the building or on the block! What you need to be doing is searching the area.”
Office Santiago acted as if she hadn’t heard. Moving with deliberate slowness, she flipped back a page and turned to Allison as if Nicole wasn’t even there. “Name? And spell first and last.”
“What?” Allison realized that Santiago must be so unnerved by the body that she was falling back on her training.
“We need to be able to get hold of you in the future. Witnesses have a habit of disappearing.”
“Are you kidding me?” Nicol
e asked. Her voice rose. “We’re not just some bystanders who happened to be walking by on the street. We’re in law enforcement. And Cassidy Shaw is one of our best friends. You can bet that we will see this thing through to the end, until whoever did this to her is in prison. And you need to be helping us achieve that goal. You need to get the homicide detectives and some more officers out here as fast as possible. I will not have this investigation messed up by some girl who has no idea what she’s doing.”
Allison saw a muscle flicker in the cop’s face and knew that Nicole had pushed her too far. “Look, you can’t take what she’s saying personally,” she said hurriedly. “Cassidy’s our friend. Nicole’s very upset.”
Ignoring Allison, Santiago set her jaw. Slowly she put away her notebook. Then she drew herself up to her full height, which was probably no more than five foot three.
“Nicole Hedges, I am placing you under arrest.” The cuffs were already in her hand.
“What?” Allison couldn’t believe this was happening. “Why?”
“For obstructing an investigation.”
“But—”
“You watch it or you’ll be next.” Santiago’s gaze swung back to Nicole. “Now turn around, Ms. Hedges, and put your hands together behind your back.”
Nicole just observed her calmly, her tip-tilted eyes making her look like a cat, inscrutable and haughty. “You’re joking, right? Let me advise you, Officer Santiago, that this is a very, very poor career move.”
And then Nicole turned her back and presented her wrists.
CHAPTER 5
The metal cuffs slid around Nic’s wrists and clicked into place. Anger burned in her like a cold fire.
Anger at Santiago, the rookie cop who was impeding the vital work of investigating Cassidy’s death.
Anger at herself, for doing the same.
She had to shut up. She had to bite her tongue and not say a thing. She owed Cassidy justice, not a three-ring circus.