Cassie McGraw Box Set: Books 1-3

by David Archer

  “Well, hopefully there’s no harm done,” Niles said, barely relaxing, “and this might even give us the break we’ve been looking for. Just try to use a little common sense in the future, would you?”

  I did my best to look chastised, at least on the pretty side. “Okay, and I really am sorry.”

  Niles got up and left, but Alicia sat where she was. “You can fool him, Cassie,” she said, “but you’re not going to fool me. You’ve got this natural need to stick your nose into things. You have no intention of waiting for us to find this guy, do you?”

  “Alicia, trust me,” I said, “I would prefer nothing more than to have you catch this guy. Until you do, though, I can’t look myself in the face if I don’t do everything I possibly can to help those women. Are you going to tell me you can’t understand that?”

  She grinned. “Understand it? Honey, my money is on you. I don’t know who your anonymous hacker is, but I’m pretty sure you do. All I ask is that you call me or Niles if you get any further leads. Whoever this guy is, he’s dangerous.”

  I looked at her for a moment, then scowled. “You might suggest to Niles that he check for similar cases over the past few years. This happened at least four other times, in California, Florida, Utah, and Arizona. In each case, there were about a dozen women abducted and most of them were found dead in a mass grave a few weeks later. I have no intention of letting this one go that far.”

  She pursed her lips and looked at me as if she was about to scold me, but then she must have thought better of it. “Did you start your private investigator courses yet?”

  I shook my head. “No, but I’m thinking about it more lately. Dex still thinks I should go for it.”

  “I think he’s right,” she said. “You’d get a lot less static from the police if you had your license. You’ve already had the firearms training in order to get your CCL, and it’s possible I could get you a waiver on the education part. After all, you have been instrumental in helping the police a few times, and it just so happens that I know who to call. Can you handle getting a bond and liability insurance?”

  I think my eyebrow shot upward an inch. “Yeah, I could handle that. What do you mean by a waiver?”

  She grinned. “My sister is married to the guy who issues the licenses for the state. You can get a waiver on the education requirements if you have been a reserve officer in the state of Oklahoma. I think I could convince him that you’ve been a reserve officer for TPD for the last several months. If I can, will you go ahead and get your license? So I don’t have to worry so much about you?”

  I stared at her for a few more seconds, then nodded. “Okay. Yeah.”

  NINE

  I went home, where Critter spent several minutes letting me know just how pissed she was that I had been gone all night. She decided to forgive me, however, when I let the can opener sing her favorite song again. I swear, that cat can tell the difference between a cat food can and a can of SpaghettiOs. She only comes running when I’m opening the cat food.

  Once she was fed, I sat down in my recliner and kicked back to relax. I was frustrated at the reaction I got at Harvest, because I was sure Alfie knew what he was doing. That call came off their server, but Sheila seemed pretty certain she didn’t recognize the voice. I was having a hard time figuring out how that could be possible.

  St. Mary’s had its own hotline, but I wasn’t involved in it. Even so, I had met most of the operators at one time or another, and I was sure I would have recognized that voice if it had been one of ours. For Sheila to be so certain she didn’t know the voice, it almost had to mean that it was someone she hadn’t worked with. Since she ran it on the weekends, it was certainly possible that she didn’t know them all.

  My phone rang suddenly, and I saw that it was Alicia calling. I snatched it to my ear as I hit the answer button.

  “Hello? Alicia? Any...”

  “Hey, Cassie,” she said, and I could hear disappointment in her voice. “I was calling to let you know that Niles managed to get all the Harvest of Hope operators to come in and meet with him at their office, but none of them recognize the voice on the recordings you were sent. It wasn’t any of the current operators, and Dr. Hendricks, the guy who is in charge of the whole thing, says they haven’t had any other operators than these for more than six months.”

  “But that isn’t possible,” I said. “Did he get a warrant for the server where the recordings are kept? That would show that these came from there, and if you check the phone records of the missing women, you’ll see that they all called at the times the recording says they did.”

  “He won’t be able to get that until Monday, but you’re right about the phone records. Each of these women were calling that hotline, and the times of the calls matches what your anonymous informant sent you, but that isn’t solid enough evidence to say that anyone is lying. Right now, he’s working on the assumption that there’s another operator who isn’t being named, but unless he can prove that...”

  “Then we’re still at square one,” I finished for her. “Did you tell him about the other cases?”

  “Yes, and he was able to confirm that, but he really wants to know where you got that information. I told him you checked it on the internet and found enough to give us the tip, and I think he bought it, but he might call you anyway.”

  I sighed. “Whatever,” I said bitterly. “I just want to find these women before anything worse happens to any of them.”

  “I know, and I’ll let you know if I hear of any other developments. You just be sure to call me or Niles if you get any more anonymous tips, okay?”

  I promised I would and we said goodbye, then I glanced at the clock on my living room wall and saw that it was a little after one, which explained why I was feeling hungry. I got up and walked into the kitchen, planning to pop a frozen dinner into the microwave, but my phone rang just as I opened the freezer.

  It was Dex. “Hey, there,” I said.

  “Well, I was hoping you would call and tell me how it went,” he said. “When you didn’t bother, I figured it must not have gone very well. Am I right?”

  “I’m afraid you are,” I said. “The weekend manager over there swears she doesn’t know the voice, but it’s possible she doesn’t know all of their operators. I figured out a way to turn it over to the police, by getting Alfie to tinker with the email so it looks like an anonymous message. Niles got mad and threatened to arrest me for obstruction of justice or something, because I didn’t call him first, but Alicia just started pushing me to get my PI license again.”

  “Good, I agree with her. I think you’d be very good at it.”

  “Yeah, well, she sweetened the pot. I guess her brother-in-law is the guy who is in charge of issuing licenses, and she thinks she can get me a waiver for all the schooling. Something about claiming I’m a reserve police officer, based on those few cases where I was helpful to the Tulsa Police Department.”

  A smile came into his voice. “Hey, that would be sweet. You gonna go for it?”

  “I told her I would, if she can pull it off. To be honest, it was the school that was keeping me from it already. I’ve had about all the education I really want.”

  “I can understand that, I’d hate to go back to school now. But if you can get your license without it, I think you should.”

  “I know, right? And when would I get another chance like this? If she can swing it, I’m in.” I suddenly startled giggling, as a funny thought hit me. “I wonder what my folks will say, if I call them up and tell them I’m a licensed private investigator. Mom’ll probably have a cow, but my dad might think it’s cool.”

  “Well, I think it’s pretty cool. When will you know more about it?”

  “Whenever she gets around to it, I guess,” I said. I was looking in the refrigerator as we talked, and suddenly it dawned on me that nothing in my freezer really appealed to me at that moment. “Hey, you want to do something for lunch?”

  “Now, it’s funny you should
ask,” Dex said, “because I was actually calling to ask you the same question. I’m about ten minutes away from your place; how about if I swing by and pick you up, and we can go find something together?”

  I closed the refrigerator. “Sounds good,” I said. “Let me get off the phone and I’ll be ready when you get here.” I hung up without waiting for him to say anything more, then scampered to my bedroom. I’d had a shower at his place that morning, but I’d put the same clothes back on that I had worn the day before. It took me less than half of the ten minutes to strip down to nothing, slide into clean clothes and brush out my hair. I was just about to put on my coat when I thought about Critter.

  For some reason, it occurred to me that I might not be back home that night, so I quickly opened another canned cat food and dumped it into her bowl, then grabbed her water dish and rinsed it out. I put it back on the floor with fresh water in it, and Critter sniffed at it before giving me that look that meant, “You’re running out on me again, aren’t you?”

  “Don’t look at me like that,” I said. “I might be home, I’m not sure. I just want you to have plenty in case I decide to stay over at Dex’s place tonight.”

  The look on her face did not change, so I grabbed my coat and slipped it on, then walked out the front door. I went out to where the Kia was sitting in my driveway and leaned against it for about a minute and a half before Dex pulled up in front of me.

  “I’m just curious,” I said as I got into his Mustang, “but do you ever wonder if I take up too much of your time?”

  He looked at me as if I had grown a second head. “What? Where in the world did that come from?”

  I shrugged. “I was just thinking,” I said. “If you weren’t always available at my beck and call, you might actually find a girlfriend. Doesn’t it ever occur to you that you might want one?”

  He pulled away from the curb and concentrated on the road for a moment, glancing at me every few seconds. “Cassie, are you trying to get rid of me?”

  “Not particularly,” I said. “Okay, I guess I was just wondering why you don’t have a girlfriend. Why aren’t you ever busy when I call?”

  He shook his head. “Cassie, I’ve had girlfriends. Most of the time, they come with so much excess baggage that I spend the majority of my time with them just wishing I was somewhere else. When you and I decided that being friends with benefits would suit us both, I quit worrying about anything like that. If you’re having second thoughts about that, I wish you would just tell me.”

  “I’m not having any kind of second thoughts,” I said. “I actually like things the way they are, quite a lot. I just don’t want to be holding you back from a chance at happiness. It’s not going to be the end of the world for me if you had a date or something, you know?”

  “Cassie, I’ve known you for what, three months now?”

  “About three and a half,” I said.

  “Okay. In the year before I met you, you know how many girls I asked out on a date?”

  I shook my head. “How would I know that? I didn’t know you then.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you,” he went on. “The answer is zero. Zip, nada, zilch. And do you want to know why?”

  I sat in the passenger seat, leaning against the door and just looking at him. After a few seconds, he went on.

  “The reason I didn’t ask anybody out is because I didn’t want to deal with all the BS that goes with it. You know what I mean, you meet somebody you think is nice, you take them out on a date, then you find out she’s a little bit psycho and is expecting the fourth or fifth date to be at the altar. Do you know how many women I’ve known who were that crazy?”

  “Besides me, you mean?” I said with a grin. “Oh, come on, it couldn’t really be all that bad.”

  “Oh, yes it can,” he said. “I stopped dating because it always turned out one of three ways. Either the girl would likely be fine until she found out about my burns, or she’d find out about them and stay with me out of pity, or she’d want to move right past the dating stage into the engagement and wedding stage. Now, I’ll be honest and say that if I had found the right girl, that might have worked for me, but I didn’t. I’m not interested in taking in somebody’s extended family, I don’t plan to be with anyone who thinks she has to be in control, and I don’t want someone that has to be micromanaged. One of those three things was always part of the deal with any of the girls who wanted to make it permanent, so I quit looking.”

  I just sat there and looked at him for a moment, thinking about how ruggedly handsome he was. There must be an awful lot of stupid women out there, for him to still be single.

  “Okay,” I said. “I just wanted to be sure I wasn’t keeping you from finding somebody.”

  Oh my gosh, Abby’s voice said in my head, you’re fishing. He made that comment about what it would be like if you two got together, and then you thought about that this morning, and now you are actually fishing to see if he’ll say it again!

  “I am not,” I said, and then felt foolish when I realized I had said it out loud.

  “Not what?” Dex asked.

  “Sorry, I choked. I was starting to say that I am not intending to keep you all to myself, if you want to find somebody else.”

  His eyes bounced from the road to me and back several times. “No, I don’t think that’s what you were going to say. It sounded like you were having some kind of argument with yourself. Were you?”

  Dammit, there he went again. Sometimes, I almost believed he could read my mind, but he swears it’s just a knack for recognizing body language and facial expressions.

  “Of course not. Why would I have an argument with myself?”

  “I don’t know, but you do it fairly often. I’ve seen it before. You just don’t usually do it out loud, that’s all.”

  “Oh, you’re being ridiculous,” I said with a bit more animosity than I intended. “Besides, what could somebody have to argue with themselves about? It’s not like you’re going to fight with yourself over what brand of toothpaste you like, is it?”

  He was quiet for a moment, but then he looked at me again while we were sitting at a stoplight. “Most people argue with themselves about what they want out of life,” he said, and I felt the right side of my face flush. I quickly turned to look straight ahead through the windshield so he couldn’t see that side.

  “That wouldn’t make any sense,” I said. “I mean, you want what you want, right? What’s there to argue about, especially with yourself?”

  “Plenty. Most people have a hard time admitting to themselves what they want. That’s why there’s so much depression and anxiety in the world.”

  “Well, thank you, Doctor Phil,” I said sarcastically. “Which of those categories do I fall into?”

  “Anxiety, I think,” he replied. “You don’t really seem to be depressed, but you tend to get nervous from time to time, and I don’t know why. You’re probably one of the most capable women I’ve ever known, undoubtedly one of the smartest and certainly the coolest. If I’ve ever met anyone who has nothing to be nervous about, I would have to say that it’s you, but you still get nervous. I’ve seen it, too many times.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I asked, stupidly. “And when do you see me getting nervous? What’s going on when you think I’m getting nervous?”

  I walked right into it. I did, I walked right into the trap with both eyes open and never even saw it coming.

  “Well, usually,” he said as we started moving again, “it’s whenever we’re talking about you and me. It always seems to happen whenever we discuss this little arrangement of ours, or when one of us starts to wonder about whether we might have a future together.”

  “I never wondered about that,” I said rapidly. “Never. Not even once.”

  He burst out laughing. “Do you remember me telling you that my company commander used to call me his human lie detector? You, Cassie, are fibbing.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  He kept laughing, finally win
ding down to a chuckle as we pulled in to the Applebee’s on Yale Avenue. I was so irritated that I didn’t even wait for him to come around and open the door, the way he usually does. I got out and started toward the door, walking quickly enough that he had to skip a little to catch up.

  He caught my left arm and pulled on it gently. I stopped and turned to face him, trying my best to look pissed off, but his grin was infectious. After a couple of seconds, I couldn’t help grinning back.

  “Don’t be mad,” he said softly. “Haven’t you figured out by now that there isn’t any other girl I want to be with, other than you?”

  My grin faded. “But that isn’t fair to you,” I said. “You know me, Dex, I’m not the kind of woman you want to get attached to. I’m damaged goods, remember?”

  “If you are, then so am I. We’ve both been burned, in every sense of the word. We’ve both had our share of heart aches, and we’ve both been burned with fire. If that makes you damaged, then maybe you and I are perfectly suited for each other, have you thought of that?”

  I opened my mouth a couple of times, but nothing came out. “Dex, let’s just not talk about this, okay? I—I really just can’t even think along those lines right now.”

  And just like that, he showed me why he was the perfect man for me. Without the slightest bit of argument, he nodded his head and turned to walk me in through the front door of the restaurant. The hostess seated us in a booth, and he changed the subject to the situation that was driving me crazy.

  “So, I was thinking,” he said, “you might want to think about taking a trip out to Tucson. It seems like this guy was out there just last year, and if you can get anyone to talk to you about it, you might pick up on something the police missed.”

  I gave him a sheepish grin. “I was actually thinking about that,” I said. “I hadn’t really let it solidify into a plan of action, but the thought had definitely crossed my mind.”

  He nodded. “I knew it would sooner or later, which is why I went ahead and brought it up. That’s why I was asking you how long it would take to get your PI license. You’d carry more clout if you had it, you know?”