He cleared his throat. “Look, I’ll keep her on her leash.”
“Umm, Joshua?” Had offered, his tone tentative. “She… doesn’t really have a leash any more.”
Joshua gave the young cop a back-off look and turned his attention back to Coop. But not before he saw the amused half-smile on Reggie’s face. Man, that woman did a number on him. She was smart as hell and a total history buff, which is why Coop had dragged her along, but she was serving as a bit of a distraction to Joshua, truth be told.
“Just make sure she stays out of the way,” Coop said, retreating back into her passive shell that she’d adopted. She even turned and walked away from the gathered team.
Joshua stifled a groan. This was not a good sign.
They had worked a case about a month ago out on a Native American reservation which had seemed to help her snap back to her former self, but her confidence level was erratic at best. Even Special-Agent-in-Charge Nathan Tanner had noticed. Thus, their current case.
After coming to a dead end on Humpty, and seeing his newest lead agent floundering, he’d assigned them what he thought would be an easy win. Which, up until the bomb, it had seemed to be.
But Coop’s behavior was putting Joshua in the painful position of having to take the lead himself. And when someone like him was in charge, things were bad.
A sound of sirens wailing pierced the air. At least Coop had thought to call in backup. He hoped there wasn’t an ambulance for him. As nice as their drugs might be, he had no desire to have some paramedic fussing over his possible concussion.
Whatever. He was awake now. Just a little bump on his head.
At least there hadn’t been any resistance from Had or Reggie. Had always treated him like the older brother he had never known, and Reggie was just… Reggie. Always pleasant, always supportive. Of everyone, come to think of it.
Most of the resistance had come from Joshua himself. He knew how badly screwed up he was. Having him lead the team was a shitty idea. Problem was, the shitty idea was the only one available.
He waited another couple of seconds, hoping against hope.
“All right, let’s see what we can find out here,” Joshua ordered. He then added as an afterthought, “And watch out for more bombs.”
Wouldn’t do to start off the case with dead body parts. They got more than enough of that with Humpty Dumpty.
* * *
Special Agent Sariah Cooper pulled at her pants that were clinging to her in the humid heat of Pittsburgh in September. According to the local cops, the sun they were experiencing wasn’t all that common, but Sariah could use a bit of relief right about now.
In more than one sense.
From the time they had dealt with Preston Longmore, Sariah had been doing all that she could to put one foot in front of the other. But from what she could tell, her best efforts hadn’t amounted to all that much.
The team, while functioning well, had all but given up on looking to her for leadership. The significant pauses, so common during the last few cases they’d worked, were becoming shorter and shorter. Joshua would step in almost before Sariah could realize that something needed to be done.
She was grateful, but it didn’t take a genius to realize that team unity was suffering. And that it was her fault.
Even as she mulled the problem over in her mind, Joshua was pulling the team off to a different entrance to the building, after giving her one of his patented I’m disappointed in you looks. Those were coming more and more often.
Reggie peered back over her shoulder at Sariah, her lips twitching up in a sad sort of half-smile. Her eyes glittered, their dark chocolate color turning to something even softer as her gaze lingered on Sariah. Reggie turned back to Joshua, who was busy assigning tasks for the search he wanted to have happen. Her walk was meandering, as if Reggie had no idea where she was going or why she was even there.
And then there was a hand on Sariah’s shoulder, and she snapped out of her reverie. It was Had, his face suspiciously blank, which meant he wanted to comfort her without looking like he was comforting her.
He wasn’t good at that. Had was many things, but subtle was not one of them.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked. “You know, a Coke, iced tea… maybe a Frappuccino? Ooo, I know. A Slurpee.”
“No, Had, I’m fine.” Sariah forced a smile. “You go see what Joshua wants you to do.”
“Um. I was kind of hoping you would have something for me to do.”
Sariah sighed. “I’ve got nothing, Had. You’re better off with him.”
Had gave her a wry grin as he moved from her side. “Not even Joshua thinks that, Coop.”
Hellfire. She couldn’t even count on human ambition to get her off the hook. Didn’t they get that ever since Joshua had started taking over, things had gotten better? Much better?
It was clear to her. It’s not like there were even random flashes of competence from her to make anyone believe otherwise. She had pretty much face-planted and hadn’t ever gotten back up.
Oh, she’d tried. So many times. But with every attempt had come the image of that poor trucker she’d falsely accused, hanging from the ceiling of the hotel room, his tongue swollen and jutting out of his mouth, an accusation of her guilt pointed right at her soul.
It had been her fault. She couldn’t let it happen again.
Problem was, she was now disappointing every member of her team every time they were sent out on a case. How was she ever supposed to regain her confidence when she was surrounded by reminders of how badly she was screwing things up?
Moving toward the site of the blast, Sariah watched as the CSI unit scurried around the gaping hole. She was surprised at how little damage to the building there actually was. The explosion had centered around the doorway Joshua had been headed toward. That had been lucky.
They’d all been spread out down the alleyway between the buildings. Joshua had tied up Bella at the streetlight, knowing her penchant for barking at odd times might not be the best idea while trying to sneak up unannounced on a penny stocks boiler room.
And then the world had ripped apart, bleeding light, heat and sound. And Joshua had been picked up and thrown like a rag doll.
It was almost like Joshua had been targeted. Strange.
How in the world would anyone have known which entrance Joshua would have picked? The ability to predict behavior spoke of knowledge. Intimate knowledge.
Knowledge of the team dynamic. Knowledge that Joshua would take the lead. Knowledge that the former agent always took the least obvious entrance, wanting to take everyone by surprise, rather than Sariah’s method, which was more straightforward.
She shook her head. Crazy imaginings, that’s all this was. They were working a securities fraud case. Yes, the bomb was surprising, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was more than that.
Reaching the door that had been mostly blown off its hinges, Sariah noticed an area of the wall where several bricks had become dislodged. That wasn’t a shock, considering what had just happened here.
What was perplexing was the blackness of empty space that had been uncovered by the sagging bricks. She poked at one of the pieces of masonry with her foot, and it dislodged fully, opening up a hole into the wall that really shouldn’t be there.
Her heart thudding in her chest, Sariah felt a band of tightness constrict at the same time, isolating each beat, forcing each expansion of that muscle to work ever harder against the pressure bearing down on it.
What was she afraid of?
Another removed brick and the space was open to her view. And there, squatting in the shadow, was a dusty metal box. It was unassuming, a dull gray container that looked like something out of an old man’s garage.
Yet its presence there was disturbing to Sariah. It appeared to be leering at her, somehow. How in the world a metal container could leer, she had no idea, but the impression remained. Sariah had to break through a barrier of fearful inertia to reach into th
e hole in the wall.
She should call the bomb squad over. That was the smart thing to do. Procedure. That was her MO.
Something inside her rebelled. Procedure had not saved her when she’d caused a good man to take his life. In fact, it was procedure that had dictated her course of action.
Joshua had known there was something off. And what frightened Sariah was that she might have known as well, if she hadn’t been so set on playing things by the book. That small little voice inside that had whispered that something was off.
Screw this. It was time to take a risk, even if none of her team was there to witness the feat. But even with that thought, she snapped a picture of the box with her cell phone and pulled on a pair of latex gloves before going any further.
She bent down and pulled out the box. As soon as she had it off the ground it was clear there was no bomb inside, and one of her worries evaporated. The box was way too light for any kind of explosives to be inside. It was probably some geo-cache left behind by some teenager somewhere.
Popping up the lid, Sariah changed her mind immediately. There, inside the box, were what looked like three thumbs, enclosed in plastic bags. And a folded note.
Peering closer at the severed digits, Sariah could see that every single one of them was cut off at the same angle, meaning that they had all come from the right hand of the victims.
Three thumbs. Three bodies.
Even before she opened the note, she could feel the cold heat on her neck. The prickle of fear that trickled down her spine, ending up right in her lower back.
Pushing past the sensation, Sariah opened up the note. The first line struck her like a sledgehammer to the face.
Dear Special Agent Sariah Cooper, it read in plain type font.
And Sariah felt her world go dim.
* * *
Had was stoked.
First, they were in another place where he’d never been. And while Pittsburgh maybe wasn’t the prettiest town he’d been in, the people were nice, the food was decent, and there was a beer brewery inside a chapel. Beer made in a church. If that wasn’t awesome, Had really didn’t have any idea what was.
There had been the issue of trying to decide what to wear. It wasn’t like being in the south, where he got to wear his cowboy boots, or in Miami, where he could pull out his white linen suit. Pennsylvania was tricky.
Did you go more Amish-sheik or flannel dressed-down? In the end he’d copped out. Gone with a vintage t-shirt and raw denim. Well, sort of raw denim. After the shrinkage incident he’d suffered with a sprinkler and hot sun, he’d taken to washing his jeans at least once before wearing them out in public.
He was a little disappointed in himself. But at least he was experiencing a new city, filled with all kinds of fun stuff.
Okay, the bomb hadn’t been so great, and Coop was still acting all skittish. Oh, and Joshua was turning out to be not so much fun.
Still, after several months, Had was still working with the FBI, in the prestigious BAU. Sure, everyone else in the unit thought they were the total misfits, but damn this was so much fun.
As far as he could tell, the Bureau was paying him to have a good time. And Had was totally okay with that.
“Hey, did you know that Pittsburgh is the home to the world’s biggest furry convention?” he asked his teammates.
“Furry?” Reggie asked. “What’s a furry?”
“You don’t want--” Joshua began, but Had beat him to the punch.
“They’re people who dress up like animals. Sort of.” He grinned. “They anthropomorphize animals, so that they have human personalities and traits and stuff.”
“Seriously, you don’t want to know,” Joshua said without turning.
“Wait. What are you talking about?” Had asked. “They just dress up like big furry animals and stuff.”
“That is not all they do,” he answered.
“What are you…?” Had began, then trailed off. An image formed in his mind. “Oh.” He stopped in his tracks. “Wait a minute. How would that even work?”
Joshua called over his shoulder. “I told you. You don’t want to know.”
Reggie chuckled as they walked into the building. Had was following in her wake when his cell phone rang. It was the theme to Psycho.
Mama.
He groaned. How in the world did she manage to know when something dangerous had gone down? It was like she was a superhero or something. Maybe a super villain. Although no villain should be able to do with pork what she could.
Her voice crackled over the line. “Had, darlin’, what’s goin’ on out there? My mama sense is tinglin’.”
Wow. She was uncanny.
“Nothing, Mama. Everything’s fine. We’re all doing just… fine.” Had winced. He’d cracked at the last second. And there was no chance in Hades that she wouldn’t pick up on it.
“Uh huh,” came her disbelieving answer. “Lemme talk to that woman… no, scratch that. She won’t tell me the truth. Hand me to that grumpy one. You know, the handsome one with that cute puppy.”
“Mama, I’m not letting you talk to Joshua. We’re busy right now.”
There was a moment’s pause, and Had could almost hear the wheels turning in her head. Then the response came.
“Oh, that’s fine, honey. I’ll just pop out there and ask him myself.”
Dagnabit, she was good. Had would’ve called her bluff, except the thing was, she’d do it. No question. She was definitely a super villain.
“Fine,” he groused, and handed his cell over to Joshua, who lifted an eyebrow in question. Had just pointed at the phone and mouthed mama.
The most shocking part was that if Had didn’t know better, he’d swear Joshua’s face lit up. The former agent grabbed the phone and held it up to his ear.
“Ms. Hadderly, how’s it going? I’m still dreaming about that brisket.”
That was it. That was how she did it. Had’s mama managed to win everyone over. And how did she accomplish it? With her smoked meats.
“No, no, everything’s fine,” Joshua said. “I mean, there was a little explosion a couple of minutes ago…”
Had tried to wave his hands in front of Joshua’s face to get him to stop, but then there was a burst of rapid speech that spilled out of the phone, and Joshua’s face went slack. Had winced. Joshua’s policy of speaking the truth, consequences be darned, wasn’t such a good idea when it came to Mama.
“No, he wasn’t anywhere near the blast, Ms. Hadderly. I was.”
Another burst of sound, and Had was sure he saw a bead of sweat stand out on Joshua’s forehead. Mama was a force to be reckoned with, and it wasn’t something with which the man had gotten much experience.
“I understand, Ms. Hadderly. Yes, I will. No, of course not. Ye… yes, no, I completely get it. But… Okay, yes. Have to go now. Got bad guys to catch.” He clicked off the line with what looked like some level of trepidation.
Joshua handed the phone back to Had with what seemed to be newfound respect in his eyes. He shook his head.
“That was… Wow. I’ve got no words.” He turned back to the building, and the others fell into line behind him, Had bringing up the rear.
The original plan had been to surprise the operation inside, but with a bomb having gone off, that probably wasn’t much of an option any longer. When they reached the open space they were using for their call center, the men and women there already had their hands up, headsets still attached to their phones.
One man at the front of the room, his face ashen and his eyes darting from one face to another, stepped forward. He spoke with a voice that trembled, and it looked like he might cry.
“You didn’t have to blow up the building,” he choked.
Had was going to go out on a limb here, but it didn’t seem like these guys had anything to do with the explosion. Which left a significant question in its wake.
Who the freak had tried to bomb their team?
* * *
Reggie was r
ifling through more of the records that Chad Osterling, the head of the trading scam, had provided the team. Somehow, the idea that they had stormed the building using explosives had gotten itself embedded in the man’s brain, and Joshua had done nothing to disabuse the criminal of that miscalculation.
He’d turned over his entire life to them, and now it was their job to go through it all. And it would take some time. Already Reggie had found fifteen “errors”, and she was still only on the first page of the ledger.
She flipped the page over and was scanning through the next sheet when Coop rushed into the office that sat just off of the call center. Her face was as pale as Reggie had ever seen it, and even Coop’s beautiful mocha skin appeared drawn and gray.
“What’s wr--?” she began.
Coop cut her off, whipping her head about in an obvious search for Joshua. “He was here.”
“Who’s he?” Reggie croaked, her heart sinking within her chest, but Coop had already gone back out the door by which she’d entered. Rushing to follow, Reggie watched as she pulled Joshua away from the poor Chad Osterling, who looked like he’d rather be anywhere than right here, right now.
“What? Slow down, Coop. What are you babbling about?” he groused as Coop dragged him bodily back to the office space. Turned out that Reggie hadn’t needed to follow, but she was ultimately glad, as she was able to find Had and motion to him to join them. It appeared that he’d been chatting up one of the female brokers, who had a calendar of the Pittsburgh Ballet Company posted up on her cubicle.
Had and his weird dance fetish. At least it hadn’t been Latin this time. Although that might have been a deal breaker for him. The guy loved his Salsa and Merengue. And don’t even get him started on the Lambada. An affectionate grin crept onto her face, until she caught sight of Coop’s face again. There was something seriously wrong.
They congregated in the office just as Coop took another shuddering breath and showed a piece of paper to Joshua. Reggie noticed that she was wearing latex gloves, so whatever it was, the agent considered it to be evidence.
Joshua glanced at the sheet, and it looked for a moment like he wanted to wave it away to get back to whatever it was he wanted to say to Coop. But then he seemed to take in what the note said.
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