Cold Blooded

by Toni Anderson

  The detective glanced over at the pretty friend. “What do you want me to do with her?”

  Hunt frowned. People who found bodies were always suspects in murder cases, but this didn’t appear, at first glance, to be a homicide. But it was possible it was something far more sinister.

  He called Hernandez at SIOC, gave her the license plate and name and asked her to run a quick background check and to get back to him.

  “I’ll need to question her after I’ve assessed the body and the scene, which will take some time because of the new regs, which in this case requires the scene to be tested for the presence of pathogens. We need to crosscheck the time of death with Ms. West’s story.”

  “I can take her back to the station.” Howell nodded to the Honda. “That’s her vehicle. The shit heap. She said she had engine trouble on the way in. Might need to tow it into town. That might be a good way to slow her down for a few hours while convincing her we’re the good guys.”

  Hunt eyed the stacks of boxes in the backseat and wondered what else was inside. “She moving?”

  The detective smoothed down his mustache. “Just left her job in Tallahassee. Claims she was planning to stay with the vic until she decided what to do next.”

  Now the friend was dead.

  Was it possible she’d supplied the vic with whatever had killed her? Had they fought? Had Cindy not wanted the other woman around?

  Or was the vic selling weaponized anthrax to international terrorists? Maybe this was a suicide because she’d figured it was only a matter of time before the FBI tracked her down. And if that was the case it was also possible she’d left them a bioweapon bomb as some twisted form of revenge.

  “We should try to check whatever Ms. West has packed in her car before we let her leave.” He was thinking potential biohazard but could frame it as a drug search. Hunt motioned with his chin at the crammed Honda. “In case she’s not telling us everything.”

  Howell nodded slowly. “She’s a suspect?”

  “Everyone is a suspect,” Hunt said tiredly. “Until they’re not. We’ll know more after the autopsy.”

  The detective went off to handle the photographer and let the others know what was going on. Hopefully they’d clear out of here before the CDC turned up. Because nothing screamed, “No need to panic!” like men in space suits.

  Chapter Three

  A tall, broad-shouldered, slender-hipped guy in a lightweight gray suit had turned up and was clearly calling the shots.

  “Who’s that?” Pip asked the uniform officer who’d first questioned her when he’d arrived on the scene then had hovered like a shadow ever since. She didn’t know if he thought she was going to run away or start a rampage.

  Part of her wanted to crawl over and wrap her arms around her best friend, shielding her nakedness from these strangers’ eyes. She stuffed her fist against her mouth to hold back a sob. She hoped Cindy forgave her for letting them do their jobs.

  The deputy shrugged noncommittally, apparently unimpressed by the newcomer.

  “You don’t know?” she prodded his ego.

  “Fed.” His lips twisted. He was young and cleanly shaven. He stood with his hands on his equipment belt, one hip cocked.

  Oh, God. He was trying to impress her, she realized. Not understanding that even on a good day her heart was as impenetrable as steel.

  She looked away, her eyes drawn back to the new arrival. He carried with him a natural air of authority even though he wasn’t that old. Her age, maybe a few years older. He shrugged out of his jacket and put it in his car, careful not to wrinkle the material.

  Anger seeped through the cold numbness that encased her.

  Her friend was lying dead in full view of everyone and he was worried about wrinkling his suit?

  The Fed spoke to the detective, both of them eyeing her like they were measuring her for handcuffs.

  Screw them.

  Pip eyed the new guy’s short, sandy-brown hair, crisp white shirt, shoulder holster and shiny gold badge clipped to his belt. Combined with the confidence of his stance and the reaction of her minder, Fed made sense.

  DEA? In her experience they rarely looked so neat and shiny.

  She’d told the cops fifty times that no way had Cindy taken drugs and she was too good a swimmer to drown. Pip had thought they didn’t believe her. Perhaps they did and had called for a second opinion.

  But a Fed?

  The ME and his assistant turned Cindy over. Pip watched the strangers manhandle her friend wishing she could somehow protect Cindy from all this. The moisture in her mouth turned to hot tears that wouldn’t quit.

  Pip had only had the strength to drag Cindy halfway up the bank. Her friend’s feet were still in the water. Pip desperately wanted someone to pull Cindy’s toes out of the cold lake, but she also knew that the moment they did, Cindy would be hauled off to the morgue and Pip would have to face the bleak reality that her friend was gone forever.

  She reached up and touched the deputy’s hand to get his attention. Asked in a rough whisper. “Can’t they cover her up? Please?”

  The deputy’s gaze flickered over her friend’s naked body but he made no move to do as she asked. She drew her hand back into her lap.

  The Fed gave her a hard stare then turned to make a phone call. She couldn’t hear what he was saying though she tried. He turned back to look at her with a new expression on his face, this one piercing her to the bone. Whatever someone was telling him wasn’t good. She shivered and looked away. Which of her sins had he discovered, and why did any of them matter?

  After a few minutes, the newcomer walked down to where Cindy lay on the wet grass. He studied her intently, eyeing her friend’s tattoo, before crouching and looking even closer at the private places of her friend’s pale and vulnerable body.

  Bile rose in Pip’s throat.

  Cindy would hate this. She hated this. The ignominy of death. The casual callousness of the observers. Death should be something that made them all look away in shame. Instead they stared.

  “What happens now?” she asked the cop.

  She was usually good with people, especially cops and blue-collar types, single moms and students working two jobs to get through college. They were her people. That’s where most of her information came from. Normal, decent, hard-working folk. At least that’s where it had come from.

  After her last big story, she doubted anyone would trust her with their secrets again.

  At least my job doesn’t get people killed…

  “Depends,” the cop told her, snapping her attention away from the past. He had white blond brows. A patch of red was forming on his neck where his skin was getting fried by the sun. “Most drug overdoses don’t warrant an autopsy.”

  A sob caught in her throat.

  She’d witnessed a postmortem and knew how objectively death was evaluated. She was torn between not wanting her friend’s body desecrated and a burgeoning anger that law enforcement might not consider Cindy’s death worth investigating.

  The county probably couldn’t afford to autopsy every suspected OD, but this was different.

  “Cindy didn’t do drugs,” Pip repeated. No one took any notice and she was starting to feel invisible. Maybe if she started screaming she might get their attention. Then they’d call her hysterical and ignore her for that reason instead.

  “Ms. West?”

  Pip looked up to meet a direct blue stare. Thin gold bands circled the irises like rings on a small planet. She pressed her palms against her chilled thighs to stand so she wasn’t at such a massive height disadvantage. Her movements slow and stiff.

  The uniform faded away to where the detective—Howell—stood watching them from the deck.

  “I’m Agent Kincaid.” The Fed held out his hand. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Pip West.” She accepted his handshake, her fingers so numb she barely registered the squeeze of his. She caught the scent of him, some sort of fresh pine combined with the subtle
odor of laundry detergent. It beat the smell of swampy lake water that permeated her clothes.

  She shivered.

  “You’re cold,” he observed.

  Her bones felt like icicles ready to snap. She gritted her teeth and glanced at Cindy. Cold didn’t begin to describe the state of her being.

  “Can you walk me through what happened earlier today?” He had a nice voice. Deep, but not gruff. Smooth—as if the rough patches had been sanded out by a good education. She couldn’t place his accent and she was usually good at that.

  She told him how she’d found Cindy earlier that morning. “Which agency did you say you were with?”

  The smile around his mouth didn’t reach his eyes. “Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  “Since when do FBI agents investigate single person deaths?”

  He ignored her answer. “Ms. Resnick wasn’t expecting you?”

  She shook her head. Gooseflesh rose on her arms and she rubbed her roughened skin.

  “You were planning to move in with her anyway?” The words had a slight bite and she started.

  She nodded, unable to speak. Her teeth started to chatter. Her damp top clung to her chest and she was suddenly aware her nipples were clearly visible against the cotton. She crossed her arms over her chest. Mortification seeping between slivers of grief.

  “I need a sweater from my car.” The numbness of finding Cindy was beginning to wear off. Tiredness from a sleepless night and an hour of CPR started to make her feel dizzy.

  He matched his stride to hers as they walked up the hill to her battered Honda. She went to the passenger door and grabbed a red fleece that was draped over a box of photo albums and knickknacks sitting on the front seat.

  Two potted plants Cindy had given her for Christmas were on the floor. Cindy had said she needed more friends.

  God.

  Tears filled her eyes.

  Agent Kincaid didn’t even notice. His gaze was all over the contents of her car, but it was nothing to get excited about. A box of kitchen pots and plates was crammed next to her printer and TV. The haphazard mess was covered by a crimson duvet. She had two suitcases of clothes and all her documents and books in the trunk. She’d left her furniture for the next tenant back in Florida.

  Kincaid didn’t say anything and she had no idea what he was thinking. Did he know who she was? They’d have run the plates but would they have made the connection between her and the journalist who’d run a story on a dirty cop and gotten her source killed?

  Her stomach cramped.

  Agent Kincaid took a notebook out of his pocket. “When was the last time you spoke to Ms. Resnick?”

  “We texted last night. I don’t remember exactly when we actually spoke.”

  “Try.” The edge in his voice suggested he knew she was lying.

  Twelve days ago.

  She looked down at her bare feet covered in dirt and bits of dead leaves. Her wet socks and sneakers were drying in the sun beside the old tree stump she and Cindy had often used as a table between two deck chairs during the sweltering heat of a Georgia summer.

  Her eyes shifted to Agent Kincaid’s feet. He wore good quality black leather shoes that had a lot of miles on them.

  People who worked for the government generally weren’t in it for the money. Hopefully that meant he’d do the right thing by her friend.

  Her eyes hurt from the effort of holding in her grief. “I tried to call her last night after we’d texted,” she said gruffly, avoiding his question. “She didn’t answer.”

  Had she already been dead?

  Her hand covered her mouth. She couldn’t do this. Not now.

  “You quit your job?” His eyes were back on her belongings.

  “Yeah.” A harsh laugh escaped. “Quit my job. Quit my apartment.”

  Two weeks ago, she’d been the golden girl at the small paper about to break a massive story about police corruption. Now she was nothing.

  “Cindy would never do drugs,” she told him.

  “What about you?”

  Her chin snapped up. “I don’t do drugs, either.”

  Those eyes of his were hard. “So how do you explain that arrest for possession when you were seventeen?”

  She took a step back as if he’d physically assaulted her. “I was charged with a misdemeanor.”

  His gaze drilled into her like this mattered.

  This was bullshit.

  She gritted her teeth and felt the muscles in her jaw flex. “They weren’t my drugs, but no one ever believed me.”

  “You pled guilty.”

  “My shitty court-appointed attorney told me I was lucky it was my first offense. I was actually still sixteen at the time and my boyfriend shoved his stash into my coat pocket when the cops pulled him over for running a red light. He said they wouldn’t search me, and that even if they did I was a juvenile so they’d let me go.” She looked away. “They did search me, and they didn’t believe me when I told them the truth so I stopped trying.”

  “Prisons are full of the cries of the innocent.” He didn’t quite sneer and she didn’t quite glare.

  It was an experience that had pushed her toward journalism. Trying to tell the truths of other people who’d stopped trying.

  “When did you speak to Cindy last?” he asked, forcefully.

  She looked at her dirty toes again. “Twelve days ago. We had an argument.”

  “About?”

  She brought her nose down to the softness of her fleece and closed her eyes.

  You work too hard. You don’t eat properly. You hook up with guys you barely know.

  You don’t know everything, and at least I’m not too terrified to date. At least my job doesn’t get people killed!

  “Nothing. Stupid stuff.”

  When she opened her eyes, his penetrating gaze made her look away. Cindy’s words had cut deep and Pip had hung up on her. The next day, Pip had quit her job and tried to figure out what to do next. If only she’d figured it out a day earlier Cindy might still be alive.

  “Last night she texted to say she’d finished her thesis and then she said she wasn’t feeling well. I’d already given notice for my job and apartment, so I thought I’d surprise her this morning. I have the texts on my phone. I’ll show them to you.” That grip tightened around her throat again. “I tried to call but she didn’t answer. I figured she’d probably gone to bed and I wanted to be here by the time she got up in the morning so I just started driving.”

  Had she been so caught up in the drama of her own life that she’d completely missed something was going on in Cindy’s? She knew Cindy had been hiding things from her lately. It was one of the reasons she’d pushed her friend during their last phone conversation.

  What’s going on with you?

  Nothing.

  Liar.

  Drop it, Pip.

  “She completed her thesis?” Agent Kincaid asked.

  “Yeah.” All that work for nothing.

  “Do you know the nature of what she was working on?”

  Pip closed her eyes as Cindy’s laughter rang clearly through her mind.

  “Anthrax.” She caught a tear with a knuckle. Pretended it wasn’t there. “She was developing a new vaccine.” She drew in a shaky breath. “It always freaked me out that she studied something so dangerous. I know she was good at what she did but we rarely discussed the details.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the science is so far over my head it’s like a comet passing through the outer atmosphere.” Pip propped her hands on her hips. “She just needed a break from it sometimes.”

  Pip hadn’t told Cindy every detail about her work, either. She wasn’t the only one whose work could be dangerous. Pip swallowed the rest of her tears. Stuffed them down. They did no good and revealed a weakness she didn’t want exposed. “She was the smartest person I ever met.”

  Agent Kincaid frowned, obviously not convinced. “What about her family?”

  Grief was like a
rusty nail driven into her gut. She wanted to curl into a ball and howl at the unfairness of it all, but she had to get through this, for Cindy’s sake. She needed to know what had happened to her friend. “Her parents and younger brother died in a car wreck seventeen months ago.”

  Those blue-gold eyes narrowed with a mix of sympathy and suspicion. She couldn’t hold his gaze and her eyes dropped to his chest. His navy tie had teeny tiny handcuffs on them. The gun he wore looked frightening and lethal.

  “You were close to the family?”

  She nodded.

  “What about other relatives?”

  Pip pressed her lips together. “Cindy’s dad had a half-brother up in Alaska and her mom had a few cousins dotted around the south. They never made it to the funeral.” Which had pissed Cindy off, big time.

  “Did Cindy have a boyfriend?”

  “I don’t think so, but I’m not sure. It’s the first thing that crossed my mind when I saw the things on the coffee table,” she admitted. “Cindy is a neat freak and always cleaned up immediately—even if that meant doing it at four in the morning. But she didn’t mention a new man in her texts and she’d come here to work, not play.”

  “People don’t always plan to hook up.” A gleam of something that spoke of late nights and tangled limbs flashed through his eyes.

  Heat spread over her cheeks. “But she said she wasn’t feeling well. I can’t imagine that she went from there to partying.”

  “Maybe she was lying so she didn’t have to chat. You always told each other when you hooked up with someone, even for one night?”

  Pip didn’t want to talk about her sex life with a stranger. And talking about it with a guy she’d have been attracted to if she’d met him in a bar? Uh, uh.

  “We told each other everything, but not always straight away,” she admitted reluctantly. “She’d have told me if she was dating someone new though.” Wouldn’t she?

  You don’t know everything.

  “You don’t look too convinced,” he said.

  Her stomach clenched.