Cassie McGraw Box Set: Books 1-3

by David Archer

  “I can actually tell that about you. There’s something about you that just comes through as vibrant, completely alive and in touch with the world. You don’t see that with a lot of people, so it shows pretty clearly.”

  We finished our coffees and went our separate ways. For me, that meant going on to the office and trying not to think about the missing women for a little while. There were other women and children who needed my attention, and I needed to be focused on them.

  I parked the car in the back like always and entered through the back door. I had almost made it to the lobby to mark myself in when Marsha stuck her head out of her own office.

  “Cassie? Can I see you for a minute?”

  Something in the tone of her voice sounded like I was about to get my butt chewed, so I turned immediately and stepped inside. She shut the door behind me and pointed at a chair, so I sat down in front of her desk. She took the chair behind it and just looked at me for a few seconds.

  “Why wasn’t I told about this mysterious phone call?” Marsha asked, and I instantly felt guilty.

  “Well, I guess I just thought it was directed at me and wasn’t all that important,” I said. “It wasn’t until these women started to go missing that I realized it could be.”

  “I listened to the recording yesterday afternoon,” she said. “It sounded to me like it was aimed at everyone who does our kind of work. He mentioned ‘you and your kind,’ remember? That’s more than just you, Cassie.”

  I looked down at my hands in my lap. “You’re right,” I said, “and I apologize. I won’t let it happen again.”

  Marsha licked her lips as she stared at me for a couple of seconds. “Cassie, you’ve done a lot of amazing work here. I don’t think it would be amiss to say that there are women who are alive and safe mostly because of you, and there’s no doubt in my mind that you saved the life of Melanie McCoy. The problem is that you have a tendency to think of yourself as a lone warrior, and that’s not going to fly. We are a team, all of us who work here at St. Mary’s. We have to not only work together, but we have to consider each other. After I heard that recording, I called Joe Hernandez and asked him to round up a couple of other retired cops and hang out here. At least one of them will be here in the offices every day until the situation comes to an end, because I’m not going to take a chance on something happening to one of us that work here.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, “I understand, and I really am sorry. If I ever get another threatening call, you’ll be the first to hear about it. I promise.”

  It’s not often that Marsha exercises her authority in the offices, but when she does, it pays to listen. “That’s good,” she said. “Cassie, I’d hate to lose you, but everyone here has to be a team player. Our clients are counting on us, and we have to be able to give a hundred percent all the time.” She smiled at me. “Now, go get ’em, tiger. We’ve got clients coming in.”

  I got up quickly and left her office, went to the lobby and moved the little marker that said I was in, and then hurried to my own office and shut the door. I sat down at my desk, fought back the urge to cry, and then started reviewing my appointments for the day.

  My first had already been taken by Marsha, because of my delay with the police. My second appointment was due in at ten thirty, which was only a couple of minutes away. Sure enough, my phone rang right on schedule to tell me that Ruby Franklin had arrived, and I got into position as I told Angie to send her on in.

  Ruby came in with one child, eight-year-old Alonzo, who looked like he was attached at her hip. They sat down in the chairs in front of my desk and I started doing the intake forms. That only took a few minutes, and then she began telling me about her boyfriend, Lee Grayson.

  “He never lays a hand on me,” she said, “but he’s always—it’s like I can never do anything right, you know? He’s always telling me how stupid I am, how fat I am—and yeah, I’m a little on the heavy side, I know that, but I’ve actually lost weight since we’ve been together. When I tell him that, he just laughs and says it’s not enough.”

  “How long have you been together?” I asked.

  “Almost a year, now,” Ruby replied. “At first, he was just like the nicest guy I’d ever met, and he always said I was beautiful and just—I don’t know, he just made me feel good. It wasn’t until about six months later that things started to go downhill.”

  “Can you think of something that happened around then, something that might have triggered a change in the way he felt?”

  Ruby’s face turned pink. “Well, he—he said he wanted to try some new things, some things that involved…” She glanced at Alonzo, and I gather that she was being careful what she said. “Some things that involved other people, if you understand what I’m saying. I said if that’s what he wanted, then it was okay with me, but then afterward he started complaining about how I looked and stuff.”

  I tried to think of how to ask a question without revealing too much to the child. “Are you talking about a sort of trading arrangement?”

  “Well, yeah,” Ruby said, turning even pinker. “And there was a couple of, um, trios?”

  Wife swapping and threesomes, I understood. It certainly wasn’t the first time I had heard these things mentioned, and it seemed like they were common denominators when you talked about when abuse began in a relationship.

  “Does he compare you to some of the other participants?” I asked.

  “Only at first,” she said. “Then it was just generally complaining about how I look and my weight. I mean, I know I don’t have it as bad as a lot of women, ’cause he never hits me or anything, but sometimes he can make me feel so bad that I wish he would.” She sniffled, and I took that as my cue to turn and face her.

  I’ve seen all kinds of reactions when people first see just how bad my left side looks. I’ve seen shock, I’ve seen nervous laughter, I’ve seen tears—but this was the first time I ever saw panic. Ruby took one look at my burned side and gasped, and then she screamed. She was up and out of her chair in a second, grabbed hold of Alonzo’s hand, and was out the door like a shot.

  I jumped up and followed her out into the hallway, but she wasn’t even slowing down. She shot right through the lobby and out the front door, not even bothering to shut it behind her.

  Angie was staring, and she turned to look at me with a question on her face. I shrugged.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “All I did was turn to look at her and she took off screaming out the door.”

  I went over to close the door, and when I turned around, Angie was doing her best to stifle her laughter. I gave her a mock glare, and that was all it took to drive her over the edge.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said in between bouts of hilarity. “I’m so sorry, Cassie, I’m not laughing at you. I just can’t imagine anyone reacting like that. That was unbelievable, she just ran right out the door.”

  By that time, I was chuckling right along with her. “I guess she couldn’t handle facing Freda,” I said. Everyone at the Outreach knew that I referred to my burned side as Freda Krueger, Freddie’s twin sister, and most of them managed to get a giggle out of it now and then.

  “I guess not,” Angie said, getting herself under control. “Was she in a bad situation?”

  “Not the worst I’ve heard,” I said. “Verbal abuse, mainly, but I suspect she’s going to find a way to either live with it or move on. She didn’t sound like she’s really scared or anything, just getting tired of it, I think.”

  We chalked it up to experience and I went back to my office. I saved the intake forms, just in case she came back, but I had a sneaky hunch we had seen the last of Ruby.

  It was almost eleven o’clock, and I didn’t have another appointment until one thirty. Between the stress of the police interview and the feeling of rejection from Ruby’s panicked flight from my office, I was really starting to feel a little down. I grabbed my phone and hit the speed dial button for Dex.

  “Cassie?” Dex said as he a
nswered. “Everything okay?”

  There’s nothing I hate more than when I break down and cry, but the tears started to flow down my right cheek. The tear duct in my left eye had been too badly damaged in the fire, but my right eye could cry enough for both of them.

  “No,” I said. “Can we get together at lunch time?”

  “Sure,” he replied. “You want to meet somewhere, or should I come pick you up?”

  “How about my place? I’ll pick up some KFC, that okay?”

  “That’s fine. Cassie, are you crying?”

  “Yes,” I said. I think it was the first time I had ever admitted to any kind of weakness with Dex, but he was the only person in the world I could trust far enough to be completely honest with. “Yes, and I just need to be with a friend.”

  “I’ll clock out early,” he said, “and I’ll be at your place in thirty minutes.”

  I thanked him and said goodbye, then got up and managed to wipe my eye with a tissue. I slipped my coat on, grabbed my purse and marked myself out, then headed straight out the back door.

  KFC was on the way to my place, and I was early enough to beat the lunch rush. I went through the drive-through and got a couple of three-piece meals, then broke a couple of speed limits getting to my house. Dex wasn’t there yet, but he pulled in while I was unlocking the front door.

  He followed me without a word, and I set the boxes on the table before I turned to look at him. When I did, the tears started flowing again and he just wrapped his arms around me. I don’t know how long we stood there, maybe a couple of minutes, with him just holding me close and rocking slightly. It was exactly what I needed at that moment, and he knew it.

  I let go of him and leaned back, and he released me. “I got food, but not drinks,” I said. “I’ve got pop in the fridge, or I could make some coffee.”

  He opened my refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of root beer, and we sat down at the table. We were sitting across from each other, so he slid one of the bottles over to me while he popped open the box with his lunch in it.

  “So,” he said, “you want to tell me what has you so upset?”

  Did I want to? No. Was I able to stop myself? Not just no, but hell, no. The whole thing poured out, all my concerns about the missing women, the fact that the crazy phone call might be connected, the police interview that morning, and even Ruby’s horrified reaction to my face. Dex listened to it all without a word, then waited a moment to be sure I was finished.

  “Carolyn Stern,” he said. “They said she’s been talking to a different women’s center?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, Harvest of Hope. They’re associated with one of the big evangelical churches on the south side. Pretty good outfit, from what I understand.”

  “I don’t think I ever heard of them,” Dex said, “but I’ve never had any connection to abused women before I met you. Just seems odd she would’ve gone to somebody other than you. I mean, I’m sure she knows that’s what you do, it seems to me she would’ve called you first. After all, you sort of helped her get her life back.”

  “Yes, but that could be exactly why she didn’t want to talk to me. After all that, she might be ashamed to let me know that she got into another bad situation. You have to look at it the way women think, and that isn’t exactly a field your experience qualifies you for.”

  “Or my plumbing,” he said with a grin. “Okay, so maybe she wouldn’t call you. It still leaves all four of the missing women with a connection back to you, which is why the cops pulled you in for a talk. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that detective believed you, but there’s still the connection. He could be right, this could be somebody trying to strike back at you. We just need to figure out who and why.”

  “We,” I said with emphasis, “don’t have to do anything. The police are handling it, and I’m sure they’ll get to the bottom of it sooner or later.”

  “I’m not concerned about that,” Dex said. “I’m concerned about you. You’re a pretty tough gal, but there’s some things you’re pretty soft on, and one of those things is worrying about other people getting hurt because of you. Those women were almost certainly abducted, and as much as I hate to admit it, I’m having a hard time believing that somebody just wanted them for company. This sounds like the kind of thing you hear about on the news, and I can’t help wondering when we’re going to start finding the bodies.”

  A chill went down my spine. “Oh, God, Dex. You could have gone all day without saying that out loud.”

  “Wouldn’t matter, you’ve already thought about it yourself. The first woman, what was her name? Wanda, right? She’s been gone four days now. Can you honestly tell me you believe she’s still alive?”

  “I want to,” I said slowly. “Her kids need her, so I want to believe there is a chance for her to come home safely. At the same time, I know that they usually say you only got forty-eight hours to find someone who’s been abducted. The odds say she’s probably dead, but I won’t accept that until I know for sure.”

  “Okay, I can understand. In that case, though, you can’t afford to wait for the police. Cassie, you already had to explain to the cop how he was looking at the situation wrong. I hate to say this—no, I don’t, because it’s true—but you are probably the most qualified person to figure this out. You know the world of abused women, and that’s the world this monster is running around in. The question is how he got into it, and how he is able to target those women that you know personally.”

  I rolled my eye. “And just how am I supposed to figure that out? If the police haven’t found any leads, what makes you think I can?”

  “Same reason I always think so,” he said. “You ask the right questions. It’s a gift, and you’ve got it. Time to put it to work, girl.”

  I leaned back in my chair and stared at him. He was always claiming that I ask the right questions, that I look at things just differently enough to get an original perspective. Granted, I had done pretty good on my first few little private eye cases, but this was a case of serial kidnapping and possibly murders. I had no legal authority to be investigating it, and would probably get in trouble if Detective Niles found out I was even considering giving it a try.

  Still, there was this nagging little voice in my head—Abby, of course—who was pushing me to go along with what Dex had to say. Lizzie is counting on you, it said. Wanda is counting on you, and so are all the others. You may be the only hope they have, so don’t let them down.

  “Fine,” I said. “Got any suggestions on where I should start?”

  “Actually, I do,” Dex said. “Finish up, I want to introduce you to somebody.”

  I had already eaten everything except a small part of the wing, so I gobbled that down in a hurry and tossed our boxes into the trash. Critter was cussing me out in cat, because I didn’t let her have the bones, but she still had cat food in her dish, so I ignored her. We headed out the door and I backed my little Kia Sportage out of the driveway and followed Dex as he drove down the street.

  I didn’t have a clue where we were going, but I had learned to trust Dex. Something about the man always rang true, and I had yet to ever catch him in a lie of any kind. Considering the fact that most men, even my father, had a tendency to bend/break/modify the truth as they saw fit, that was a refreshing feature.

  We didn’t go very far. It may have taken all of ten minutes, and then we were pulling up at a decent-looking apartment building. There was a parking lot with spaces for visitors, and we parked side-by-side. A moment later, Dex led the way into the building and we rode the elevator up to the third floor.

  When the elevator opened, Dex took a right and I followed again, all the way down the hall to the last door on the left. He knocked shave-and-a-haircut and the door swung open only a few seconds later. It was opened by one of the shortest men I had ever seen.

  “Cassie McGraw,” Dex said, “I want you to meet Alfie. Alfie, Cassie McGraw.”

  Alfie was—I’m not sure if I’m getting it right, b
ut I think he was a dwarf. He was about three and a half feet tall, and reminded me of the guy from the movie Willow. He held out a hand and smiled, and I didn’t even detect a split second of double take or revulsion. I reached down and shook with him.

  “Good to meet you,” I said.

  “And I’m glad to meet you, finally,” Alfie said. “Dex’s told me a lot about you. Come on in, come on in.”

  We stepped into his apartment and he closed the door, and suddenly I was in another whole world. From the look of all of the computer monitors that filled the room, I suspected I had just stepped into the Matrix.

  SIX

  “Alfie is the guy who fixes the computers down at the shop,” Dex said. “He reprograms the ones in the vehicles; when they have a glitch that makes them do something crazy, he’s the guy we call to come fix it. He and I have gotten to be buddies over the last couple years, and I found out he does a lot more than just that. I told him he can trust you, and I’m telling you now that you can trust him. If anybody can help you figure this out, I think it’s going to be Alfie.”

  Alfie had climbed up onto a stool that stood surrounded by about a dozen different computers. He almost looked like the pilot of some kind of spaceship, sitting there, and I adjusted my thinking from the Matrix to Star Wars.

  “You’re a computer whiz?” I asked.

  Alfie gave me the kind of look my mother would use when I was a kid and asked a stupid question. “A computer whiz is the kid in high school who helps everybody set up their YouTube accounts,” he said. “I am a hacker, a gray hat. What that means is that I don’t spread viruses or use my skills to commit crimes or get rich; however, I’m not above breaking or bending a law if it gets in the way of what I need to do.”

  Dex was grinning. “Tell her what you do, Alf,” he said.

  “Well, I do lots of stuff. Like Dex told you, I can repair or reprogram just about any kind of computer, and I speak more than a dozen different programming languages. I also run a service for attorneys and such, tracking down assets and finding where people have hidden their money, getting into supposedly secure records, stuff like that. Dex tells me you could use my talents now and then.”