Cassie McGraw Box Set: Books 1-3

by David Archer

  I went straight to Beverly and knelt down in front of her.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” I said. I saw that she had a headset on, just like Toni had worn. “Is he on the line?”

  “Yes,” she said nervously. “He says you should be able to get me out of this thing.”

  “That’s the idea,” I said. “Can I talk to him?”

  She reached up and took off the headset, and passed it to me. Like the other one, it was attached to a cell phone on the front of the bomb. I put it on my ear.

  “Hey, Danny,” I said conversationally. “So, I think giving me the password would be just a little too easy, so I’m guessing that it’s not desiderata. Am I right?”

  “Well, you can type it in and see,” he said. “You might want to bear in mind that you only get three tries. If you haven’t got it right by the third try, the bomb goes off.”

  “Yeah, I kinda figured it’d be something like that. I’m pretty sure you didn’t hand it to me as a freebie, though, so I’m going to save my guesses for a minute. How much time have I got?”

  “I haven’t started the countdown yet,” he said. “How about we start it—now. Fifteen minutes.”

  The cell phone was just like the one before, one of those cheap, non-smart phone types with the slide-out keyboard. The headset I was wearing had a wire that was running right into it, rather than one that plugged in. That told me that Danny was capable of messing with the electronics, so there was no telling what kind of gizmos and gadgets were actually involved in this thing. I looked at the wires, but didn’t dare try to touch them. No matter how I figured it, the only hope I had was getting the password right.

  I was quite certain it wouldn’t be the same password he had used before, but I really didn’t believe that it was going to be ‘desiderata,’ either. On the other hand, he said I had three tries. If time started getting short, I would probably type it in just to see.

  I took out my phone and looked at the poem again. If the title was a clue, then the password might be in the poem, itself. I scanned through it looking for particular words that jumped out at me.

  Nothing. There were a few odd words in it, but nothing that struck me as what I would choose for a password, not even for my email. I read through it again, just to be sure, but it still didn’t shake any ideas loose.

  Twelve minutes, twenty seconds. I needed to try something, but I didn’t actually trust Danny on whether there were three chances or not. I closed my eye and tried to put myself into his mind for a moment, see if maybe trying to think like him would give me any insights.

  For some reason, he had chosen this poem. I didn’t think he was trying to gain any wisdom from it, and I didn’t believe that he was even capable of following its advice about peace and wisdom. Danny Kendall was a man full of hate, and this poem spoke of love and compassion and goodness. Still, there had to be something about it that he connected to his feelings about me.

  When I thought about it that way, it dawned on me that there might be words in it that he would use to describe those feelings. I opened my eye and read through it one more time.

  What words in the poem might Danny ascribe to me? He didn't want to be on good terms with me, I was sure of that. And while he might consider me dull and ignorant, I didn't think that was anything important to him. He would undoubtedly consider me aggressive, though.

  Nine minutes, twenty-six seconds. There was one word in the poem that I suddenly realized would probably describe me perfectly to Danny. I slowly reached out and punched it into the keyboard.

  That word was vexatious. I hesitated before I typed the final S, but then I did it and pressed the enter key.

  The countdown display went blank, and I suddenly realized I had been holding my breath.

  “Damn, Cassie,” Danny said in my ear. “You’re two for two. It’s all clear, you can unbuckle her now. I think you ought to go out and celebrate tonight. Maybe if you let your hair down a bit, you might start to figure out the puzzle.”

  The phone line went dead, and I reached for the straps and began unbuckling them.

  “It’s all done, Beverly,” I said. “It’s disarmed, and I’ll have you out of it in just a minute.”

  She started crying. I lifted the vest off her and set it down gently on the couch, then got to my feet and took her hand. We walked out together, with my arm around her as she wept on my shoulder. The bomb squad guys passed us on the way.

  A couple of police officers took Beverly to where an ambulance and paramedics were waiting, and they started checking her over. Dex and Pennington grabbed hold of my arms and yanked me out of the way as people came flooding out of the hotel. I guess the word spread that the bomb was disarmed, and people were checking out as fast as they could.

  “You did it again,” Dex said. He wrapped his arms around me and held me close for a moment, then kissed me quickly before letting me go.

  “I got lucky again,” I said, “but we both know that’s not gonna last much longer.” I turned to Pennington. “We’ve got to stop this guy. It just hit me, has anybody been tracing the cell phones? He was talking to me through that phone that was hooked up to the bomb; isn’t there a way to trace the call? Find out where he was?”

  “We had people working on it,” Pennington said, “but the call was through a VoIP server. He bounced it through a lot of proxy servers, so there was no way to get a trace. He could literally have been sitting inside the hotel or in one of the buildings around us, but the call seemed to be coming from Latvia.”

  I grimaced. “Okay, it was just a thought. Any other bright ideas?”

  “Not any that would make sense. Our tip line is going crazy with calls, people hoping to collect the reward, but nothing has panned out.” An officer ran up and handed him a sheet of paper, and he looked it over. “We did have someone monitoring the call, while you were talking to Danny. This is the transcript they just printed out. Any idea what he means about figuring out the puzzle?”

  “I told you,” I said. “Every time he talks to me, he says I have to figure out some clues he’s leaving about where to find him. I don’t have the slightest idea what clues they might be, though. Dex and I have both gone over and over it, and I can’t see any kind of pattern going on, other than the fact that he’s targeting my clients and people like them.”

  The detective just looked at me for a moment. “Yeah, I don’t see any particular pattern, either. I’ll have CSI look over each incident, see if they can spot anything. If they come up with any ideas, I’ll let you know.”

  I nodded. “You done with us for now?” I asked. “It’s almost 5 o’clock, and I need to eat something soon. The one thing Danny said that made any sense is that I should go out and celebrate tonight, and I think that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

  Pennington nodded. “We’re done for now,” he said. “Let me know if you get any other contacts from Danny Kendall.”

  I turned to Dex. “I need food, and then I need to go get plastered. You game?”

  He broke into a big smile. “I’ll be your designated driver,” he said. “Come on, babe.” He took my hand and we started walking toward my car.

  We went to a little place we had discovered a month or so back, a tavern called Gray’s Roadhouse. It was hidden in the back of a small shopping center, and had a fantastic kitchen that offered everything from hot wings to T-bones. It had a small dance floor, and seemed to be the place where local bands could get started.

  The place wasn’t very big. There was a dozen tables, a long bar that could seat about twenty, and ledges on two walls where patrons could set their drinks while they stand. There were times when it was so packed that there was a line outside, waiting for tables or barstools to clear, but that was usually after seven. When we got there at five thirty, the place wasn’t even half-full.

  We grabbed a table near where the band was setting up. Dex struck up a quick conversation with the bandleader, and found out they were a country group known as Scarecrow. W
e’d never heard of them, which always makes me wonder if they’re going to be any good, but a couple of people at neighboring tables told us we were likely to enjoy them.

  I, of course, am always easily recognized. The barmaid, whose name was Reagan, came out of the kitchen and broke into a big smile when she saw us. She was the reason we had found the place; Reagan was one of my clients from the Outreach, and I had helped her get herself and her kids away from her drug addict husband.

  “Cassie, I’m glad to see you,” she said. “I heard what happened, and I was scared to death until I heard you were okay.”

  “I’m fine, Reagan,” I said. “How are you doing?”

  “Pretty good,” she said. “I don’t know if you heard, but my ex got busted for dealing meth a couple weeks ago. I guess he tried to run from the cops and hit one of them with his car. He’s going away for a long, long time.”

  I jumped up and gave her a hug. Her ex, Bart, had been stalking her at one point, and had threatened violence against her and her children. A long jail sentence for him would give her a chance to really start over.

  We ordered wings, because Dex and I both love them. I can’t handle the really hot buffalo wings, but they serve a Thai sauce that’s absolutely wonderful. I could put away a dozen by myself, and sometimes ordered more. Dex always went for two dozen, and occasionally he’d get the second dozen in Thai sauce, so I could steal one or two if I was still hungry.

  I had learned the hard way not to drink at all until I had food in my stomach, so I settled for a Doctor Pepper while I was eating. Dex ordered a beer, but I knew him well enough to know he’d sip on that one for quite a while. When he decided to be designated driver, he never allowed himself more than two beers for the whole night.

  The band was all set up, and they were scheduled to start at six thirty, but they decided to do what they called an “on-site rehearsal.” What that meant was that they were going to play through a couple of songs before their actual start time, just to be sure everything was tuned up and ready.

  Dex and I were just finishing up our dinner, so I went ahead and ordered my first beer as the band members were taking their positions. There were three men and two women up there, and I was sort of surprised to see that the girls were playing electric guitar and bass. The drummer was a big guy, there was a skinny fellow who looked like he couldn’t possibly be more than fifteen on keyboards, and the singer reminded me of Jack Black. He played rhythm guitar, and he and both of the girls had microphone stands in front of them. There was another microphone hanging over the drummer, and one more mounted to the keyboard.

  “Looks like all of them sing,” Dex said. “You don’t see that very often anymore.”

  “I just hope they’re good,” I said. “I feel like dancing tonight.”

  The lead strummed a chord on his guitar, and then the rest of them started playing. It didn’t take five seconds for us to realize that they definitely knew how to play, and then the singer stepped up to his microphone.

  “This old day’s been dragging on, I’ve been working since the crack of dawn,

  Thank God that clock is moving on and soon I’ll be with you,

  I punch my card and run out the door, can’t stand to be without you anymore,

  Feeling you move when we’re on the floor, oh, babe, those things you do,

  “When you dance with me baby, you know you drive me crazy,

  Everything gets perfect when you start to shake that thing,

  Ain’t nothing else that matters, the world could be in tatters,

  Life can’t get no better than it does—when you dance!”

  It took me a moment to pick my jaw up off the table, and then I noticed that Dex was staring at the band just as hard as I was. He turned and looked at me, his eyes wide and his smile wider.

  “They’re good,” he said, the surprise evident in his voice. He was absolutely right, too, because the music we were hearing was every bit as good as anything coming out of the radio lately.

  The couple at the next table leaned over toward us, and the lady patted my shoulder. “We told you,” she said. “These guys are going somewhere.”

  “I’ll say,” I said. “Do they write their own music?”

  She grinned. “Actually, they write the music, but I write the lyrics.” She held out a hand. “I’m Donna Fenton. The girl on electric guitar is my daughter, Shannon, and that’s her brother Shane singing lead.”

  “They really are incredible,” I said. “I’m Cassie McGraw, by the way.”

  Donna nodded. “I recognize you from your picture in the paper. I understand you’re having some rough times lately.”

  I grimaced. “It seems to come with the territory. This maniac is blaming me for something that happened a long time ago, and we’re trying to put a stop to him.”

  “You will,” Donna said. “You’ve got that grit, and it shows. I hope you enjoy the band, and please tell your friends about them.”

  I promised I would, and Dex and I went back to listening to the music. When they started the second song, he reached over and grabbed my hand and I followed him out onto the dance floor.

  “We should’ve danced to the first song,” he said in my ear. “It fit, because I do love to watch you dance.”

  I laughed. “Everybody does,” I said. “It’s not often you get to see a monster shake her booty.”

  And shake it I did! The music was fast and hot, and I desperately needed to feel alive, especially after coming so close to death so many times lately. Dex held onto me and met me move for move, and I’m sure some people might have been shocked at some of the things we did on the dance floor.

  I didn’t care. I was celebrating the fact that I was alive, and that Beverly Walker was alive. I didn’t want to think about riddles or clues or games; I didn’t want to think about Danny Kendall, or just how insane he really had to be. I just wanted to be alive and with Dex.

  TWENTY-NINE

  My phone was ringing, and I flailed out with my hand to find it on the nightstand. I managed to get my eye open and looked at it, and it was another number I didn’t recognize. I groaned as I put it to my ear.

  “Cassie McGraw,” I said sleepily. “What is it now?”

  “Ms. McGraw?” It was a voice I didn’t recognize, a woman’s voice. “I’m sorry to be calling so early, but I think I may have some information that you need.”

  I shook my head to clear it, and tried to focus on what she was saying. “Who is this?” I asked.

  “Look, I don’t want to give my name. I got your number from somebody you know, and I promise I wouldn’t bother you if I didn’t think it was really important.”

  I pushed myself up to a sitting position, and Dex rolled over on his side to look up at me.

  “Okay,” I said. “What is it?”

  “I think I may know where the bomber is staying. I’m not really sure about this, but somebody has been staying in a house down the road from me, and it’s a house that I know is supposed to be empty. Whoever it is drives a van and doesn’t use the regular driveway. They’ve been cutting across a field beside the house and parking the van inside a barn.”

  “Have you seen the driver?” I asked.

  “Yeah, a couple of times. I haven’t gotten up close, or got a real good look, but he’s tall and fairly young. I saw the picture on the news of the guy you’re looking for, and it could be him. I just don’t know for sure, and I didn’t want to call the police.”

  “That’s fine, I’ll take care of them,” I said. I grabbed a pen and notepad out of my nightstand drawer. “Where is the house? How do I get to it?”

  “It’s outside of Sapulpa,” she said. “If you take Route 66 out past Kellyville, you’ll come to Slick Road. Turn south on Slick Road and follow that for about two miles till you come to 181st Street, then go a quarter-mile past that. There’s an unmarked county road on the right, and if you follow that to the end you’ll find the house. It’s a big yellow house with two barns. He parks t
he van in the one closest to the house.”

  “Okay, I’ve got it. Listen, you know there is a reward out, right? If we get this guy, you call me back and I’ll make sure you get to collect it.”

  “I don’t want any reward,” the woman said. “I—I stayed in the New Beginnings shelter once. If this is him, I hope you can put him away forever.” She hung up, and the line was dead.

  I looked at my phone and saw that it was just after seven. Dex and I had stayed out dancing until almost one, and I vaguely remember him dragging me out of the Roadhouse. We both should have been up already, but I guess neither of us thought to set an alarm.

  “What was that?” Dex asked, and I explained quickly. “Then you better call Detective Pennington.”

  I looked at him for a moment and licked my lips. “Yeah,” I said. I called up Pennington’s cell number in my contacts and hit the button.

  “Cassie? Another call?”

  “A different one,” I said. I told him about the woman who called, and gave him the directions I had written down. “I want to go along. If he’s there, I want to be there when you arrest him.”

  “That’s out in Creek County,” Pennington said. “I’ll have to coordinate this with the sheriff’s office out there, and that’ll take a little time.”

  “How much time? We need to nail this guy.”

  “I agree, but there are still channels I have to go through when we cross jurisdictional lines. It shouldn’t take long, give me an hour at most.”

  I huffed. “Fine, call me.” I hung up and got out of bed.

  “Cassie?” Dex said. “Where you going?”

  “I’m going out to that house,” I said. “As a private investigator, I can work anywhere in the state of Oklahoma. I don’t have to,” I used finger quotes, “wait till I ‘coordinate’ with anybody.” I picked up the pants I’d been wearing the day before and sniffed them, then tossed them at the laundry basket we kept in our room and went to my dresser. I pulled out clean clothes and tossed them on the bed, then started getting dressed.