Cold Blooded

by Toni Anderson

  Maybe they were lousy. She’d soon find out.

  Cindy wouldn’t have done drugs, but she might have drunk too much and gone skinny-dipping. So maybe there was a new man on the scene and the coke belonged to him. They’d partied and then climbed in the lake for a quick swim.

  Had Cindy known what was happening? Or had she just gone to sleep and sunk beneath the surface? Had the guy panicked and run?

  Pip pressed her fingernails into the skin of her palm.

  After a lifetime of avoiding recreational drugs, Cindy would be pissed that people were labeling her a junkie. Pip owed it to her to figure out the truth even if the law dropped the ball. After another swig of water, she got up and tried the door. Maybe they’d forgotten about her.

  She poked her head out and bumped right into the hard chest of Agent Kincaid. Ouch. She drew back and rubbed her brow.

  His brows rose with a grin that seemed to catch them both by surprise. “Looking for the escape hatch?”

  His face settled back into guarded lines as he held out a cardboard cup of coffee that he’d balanced on top of another one.

  She took it reluctantly. Caffeine might get her through the rest of the day. She doubted it would stop her from crashing tonight.

  He followed her back inside, sat at the bolted down table and started leafing through a bunch of papers.

  He had big, capable-looking hands.

  Her heart gave an unsteady knock against her ribcage as she imagined Cindy’s throaty laugh at her observation. Pip crossed her arms over her chest, knowing she was giving him negative body language but so what. He already thought she was capable of killing her best friend.

  “You provided a statement to the locals.” Kincaid held up the sheaf of papers.

  Was that a question?

  “You refused to let them examine your vehicle?”

  She gritted her teeth. “If they want to check the engine they can knock themselves out.”

  The outside edge of his lips lifted. She hated the fact she liked his face.

  She reached for the coffee cup. Wished her hands didn’t shake when she raised it to her lips.

  “What time did you get to the Resnick property?” He looked at those notes again but he was bullshitting. No way had he forgotten. He was making sure she had her story straight.

  She was suddenly so tired she regretted not curling in a ball on the floor and catching a nap earlier. They would probably have offered her a cell if she’d asked for one. She smiled humorlessly. “Do I need a lawyer?”

  “I don’t know, do you?” His long legs stretched out under the table. She made sure she didn’t accidentally brush against him.

  She had spent enough time around court cases to know she probably did need a lawyer but couldn’t afford a good one and didn’t want some inexperienced court-appointed sap.

  Her brain wanted to scratch and spit about her rights as a citizen, but her body was spent. “I didn’t have anything to do with Cindy’s death, but I am glad you’re investigating it properly. Don’t fuck it up.”

  “I’m just supposed to take your word for it? You admit to having fought with the victim, you have a drug conviction”—her eyes narrowed into murderous slits—“and you’re the one they found hunched over the body.”

  “I was trying to revive her. I’m the one who called the paramedics!” Emotion surged but she pushed it aside.

  Those interesting blue eyes with their thin gold bands watched her steadily. Straight brows and dark brown lashes framed them prettily. A lean jaw and a stubborn looking chin underscored a nose that was possibly a fraction too narrow. He was handsome and appealing, or he would have been if her best friend hadn’t just died and he hadn’t accused her of having something to do with it.

  He raised a brow. “I find it a little surprising that you seem to be impeding the investigation.”

  An exhausted laugh escaped her. “Impeding? I’m impeding jack. I’m trying to help. No way did Cindy OD. I’m the one who’s been telling you this from the start. Not without help, anyway—and not my help.” She held his flat cop stare.

  He looked unconvinced. She really wanted to kill him now.

  “So why not let us look in your car?”

  Her chin lifted. “You know what I do for a living, right? The FBI are surely smart enough to have figured that out by now?”

  Of course, he did. That’s why she was in here sweating and why they wanted to toss her car. Make her life as miserable as possible whether she was guilty or not.

  Too late. Life was already as low as it could go.

  “You’re a journalist.” An edge of derision escaped into his carefully controlled voice.

  “Was. I quit.” She didn’t know if she’d ever work as a journalist again.

  “How come?”

  “I messed up.” She blinked and swayed a little in her seat. She was starting to feel lightheaded, probably from lack of food.

  “Tell me what happened,” he repeated. He crossed his arms loosely in front of him. Patient as Job.

  It shouldn’t make her so crazy. “Leaving the paper doesn’t have anything to do with Cindy’s death.”

  “It gives me insight into your state of mind,” he said.

  “Which is irrelevant.”

  “Nothing is irrelevant in a suspicious death investigation.”

  She clenched her teeth. “This is.”

  “Tell me, anyway.” That tone of his was so condescending.

  “Go to hell.” She tangled her hands together and squeezed so hard her fingers turned red at the tips.

  He leaned forward. “What is it you don’t want us to see in your car, Pippa?”

  “Pip,” she corrected automatically, like it mattered. She bit her thumbnail. The idea the cops thought she might be involved in Cindy’s death was crazy, but she couldn’t have her cake and eat it. If she wanted them to investigate she had to accept them investigating everything.

  “Fine. You can look at my car,” she conceded. “And through all my belongings. But you can’t read any of the paper files or get into any of my electronics.”

  “Okay—”

  “And I get to observe.”

  He hiked his brows. “That’s not standard procedure.”

  “I don’t care. You want to do this quick and dirty and without a warrant then I get to observe. If you refuse I want a good lawyer and you keep your hands off my stuff until a judge okays it.”

  He considered her slowly and thoroughly. It made her uncomfortably aware that she probably looked like a drowned rat who’d been dragged through hell.

  She ran her tongue over her teeth and raised a brow to match his. “I have better things to do than sit around here forever. I’m assuming you’re in the same position.”

  “Fine.” He took a sip of coffee. “You can observe.”

  “And you conduct the search. Only you.”

  “You’re kidding?” Now he sounded pissed which was fine with her. “As you pointed out I have better things to do.”

  Nothing was more important than figuring out what had happened to Cindy.

  “I don’t trust the locals,” she admitted.

  “Why?”

  “Because two weeks ago a veteran cop killed himself rather than face the allegations of corruption I’d uncovered.”

  Agent Kincaid’s nodded slowly, confirming he knew why she’d left Tallahassee.

  Here was something he might not know. “But not before he somehow figured out my informant was his wife. He shot her and each of their three kids before turning the gun on himself. I won’t put my other contacts in the same sort of danger.”

  His only response was an almost imperceptible widening of pupils.

  No one, not even her editor, had known who her source had been until after the disaster that had unfolded. Somehow Detective Frank Booker had figured it out.

  The disgraced detective had been spotted driving past Pip’s apartment at dawn the morning he’d killed himself and his family. If she’d bee
n at home rather than asleep at her desk, she’d have likely been another victim.

  At least my job doesn’t get people killed…

  How could a story be worth so much bloodshed? Did truth really matter that much? Her brain said yes, but her heart wasn’t so sure anymore. Dizziness swirled and she braced her arm on the table to stop herself face-planting.

  “Ms. West? Pip? Are you okay?” The Fed was behind her now, with his palm pressed gently against her back. She was aware of the warmth of his fingers. Of the scent of his body.

  She drew in a long deep breath and shook away the disorientation. Today had lasted a lifetime and she wanted it over. “Let’s get this done.”

  Chapter Five

  Hunt led the way through the police station fielding unfriendly glances and pissed-off cop vibes directed at the woman behind him.

  Cops really didn’t like reporters, especially reporters who specialized in police corruption. He’d left HMRU collecting evidence and they’d promised to pack up the decontamination tent and drop it back at the CDC when they were done. The cottage would remain a sealed crime scene until they figured out for sure whether or not Cindy Resnick had been illegally dealing anthrax.

  He checked his shoulder to make sure he hadn’t lost Pip West. Her skin was so pasty she looked like she was gonna pass out and only grim determination held her upright. He had to fight the desire to offer support.

  But maybe she was manipulating him the way she’d played the deputy who’d watched over her earlier. She was attractive and she must know it. That little touch he’d witnessed, of her hand on the deputy’s. Drawing attention back to her when the guy hadn’t answered her question to her satisfaction.

  Maybe he was jaded.

  No maybe about it, but he didn’t intend to fall for the fragile creature act.

  Although someone should have stayed with her, especially since she’d received a vaccination. But it was a small department and Detective Howell and many of the other officers were canvassing people who lived on the lake, at Hunt’s request. The locals simply didn’t have the manpower to babysit a journalist and they certainly hadn’t wanted one in the bullpen.

  A journalist.

  ASAC McKenzie had blown a gasket when Hunt had found out and told him. Hunt had assured the ASAC he could handle her. He’d better.

  As soon as the news had come through as to her connection to the investigation into police corruption in Tallahassee, the attitude of the police department here had shifted toward her. Hardened.

  Hunt got it.

  In LA, he’d spoken to a journalist he’d thought of as a friend, strictly off the record. She’d asked about the rumor UC Irvine might have a serial rapist operating on its campus. The journalist had run the story and quoted an unidentified FBI source and their chief suspect had got on a plane that same day and headed home to his mega-rich parents in Switzerland.

  Hunt had confessed his unwilling involvement to his SAC and received a letter of censure for his trouble. The journalist had called him up again a few months later. She’d thought it was trivial and funny and got annoyed that he wouldn’t talk to her anymore. But he wasn’t just pissed, he was atomic-bomb fucking furious. Because of her a rapist had gotten away. All those victims had been left with no closure. No justice.

  So, yeah, he didn’t like reporters—not even when they filled out tight blue jeans and a fitted t-shirt like a wet dream. Not when the stakes were this high.

  The cops had towed Pip West’s car to the fenced compound at the back of the station. Someone had set up klieg lights. Hunt went back inside and grabbed a chair and placed it where Ms. West could observe without getting in the way. Sooner they got this over with, the sooner everyone could go home.

  She lowered herself gingerly into the seat, wobbling slightly.

  He frowned. “When was the last time you ate?”

  She stared at him, mutely, big eyes filled with a mixture of grief and defiance.

  He went back inside and grabbed a can of soda and a cheese salad roll he’d picked up on his way through town earlier, but hadn’t had time to eat yet. His stomach growled in protest but the last thing he needed was her collapsing on him.

  “Here.” He handed it to her. “Eat.”

  She muttered a thanks and began pulling the roll apart, eating it slowly, bit by bit.

  He nodded with grudging satisfaction. If she was telling the truth she’d had a truly awful day and he didn’t want her to faint on him. If she was lying they’d figure it out. No need to be an asshole.

  A K9 team were due to arrive any minute and another officer was videoing the whole thing as per Hunt’s instructions. The crime scene photographer was also on hand to document the search if anything turned up. Hunt wasn’t going to get accused of impropriety or making a mistake if he found a flask full of weaponized anthrax hidden somewhere inside this vehicle.

  Except he couldn’t see how a reporter from Tallahassee might be involved with selling a bioweapon to international terrorists, especially when she was so keen on exposing police corruption. But what did he know?

  A van pulled up and the K9 handler jumped out. Hunt pulled on a Tyvek suit, face mask and latex gloves while the drug dog went over the vehicle and indicated nothing. There were ways of obscuring scent from hounds.

  It would tie up the case with a nice pretty bow and let him get back to his real job if Pip West had given her BFF some coke to party with and accidentally gotten her killed.

  He glanced at the woman.

  Her ravaged eyes told him she thought she knew exactly what he was looking for and resented the hell out of him for it. But she’d insisted Cindy’s death be properly investigated and he was obliging by doing his job.

  So much for not being an asshole.

  He saw the deputy from earlier today come outside and lean down to whisper something in Pip’s ear before placing his hand on her shoulder and giving her a little squeeze.

  Hunt turned away.

  Do the job. Arrest her or send her on her way.

  The photographer stretched out a large blue tarp on the ground to keep Pip’s belongings out of the dirt.

  Hunt started with the plants. He knew what cannabis looked like but apart from that he was clueless. His stepdad would know. His stepdad funneled grief into his garden to the extent Hunt’s mom now called it “the other woman.”

  Hunt shoved thoughts of his parents aside. Losing focus could result in missing something.

  “Any needles in here? Sharp objects?” he asked loudly.

  Pip West’s expression was derisive, but she answered clearly for the video. “Small scissors and a nail file in my toiletries bag. Kitchen knives and big scissors are in a Tupperware container in a kitchen box.”

  He started in the front seat. Cardboard coffee cups and a brown paper food sack, presumably from the road trip, were in the foot well of the passenger side. His stomach grumbled again and he glanced at her. She’d finished the cheese roll and some of the awful pallor from earlier had receded. Grief still marked her features and she looked like a gentle breeze would knock her off the chair.

  The set of her jaw suggested she’d climb right back on again.

  He pulled out a box of books and flicked through them quickly and efficiently. Lots and lots of books. Tiny TV, computer, pots and pans. Bed cover. It was deep crimson and the image of her lying on it, wearing nothing but a seductive smile flashed through his mind.

  Obviously lack of food was making him delusional.

  She was a suspect, for both her friend’s death and the bioterrorism thing. But an unlikely one. She hadn’t had to call 911 that morning—frantic and afraid. She could have driven away. A terrorist probably would have.

  She’d provided receipts from two convenience stores on the way from Florida and Hunt had asked local agents to go to the gas stations to find timestamped surveillance footage to help verify where she was when her friend died.

  It all depended on what Time of Death the ME established. In the
meantime, Hunt couldn’t afford to give her the benefit of the doubt. Someone somewhere was weaponizing anthrax to sell to people who liked to indiscriminately kill as many innocents as possible.

  He pulled out a coffeemaker and a random assortment of mugs. One had a smiling photo of Pip West and Cindy Resnick at one of the big theme parks. He put another stack of books to one side. He’d taken a look at their message exchanges and needed no further proof that Pip West and Cindy Resnick had been good friends.

  But they had argued.

  Or the overdose might have been accidental. Celebrating finishing her thesis and partying too hard.

  Shoes, lots of shoes, were scattered on the floor of the back of the car. He pulled them out, one by one. Spiky heels and sparkly sandals. He indicated the K9 handler come over and take the dog over the interior again while he moved on to the trunk. He hefted out a suitcase and opened it up on the tarp.

  He shook out every piece of clothing and placed it in a black plastic bag so it didn’t get dirty.

  He could feel his own face heat, and an expression of outraged horror crawled over Pip West’s features. He wasn’t a shrinking violet, but women were normally lovers or dead by the time he was handling their lingerie.

  He grabbed the second enormous case. More clothes. Down the side were several make-up bags. He had no clue why women put so much crap on their faces, especially when they were already knockouts. He was grateful he could shower, shave and brush his teeth and consider himself ready for the day.

  Although he did have to wear a tie.

  Another good reason to dedicate everything he had into his quest to join HRT.

  He searched the cases quickly, efficiently. No obvious sign of drugs or drug paraphernalia. No freaking anthrax.

  Last, but not least, he pulled out a pink teddy bear that he examined carefully before tossing it to Pip.

  She caught it easily.

  “Cindy gave this to me,” she said softly, stroking the pink fur. “She bought it at a teddy bear museum in England when she visited a few years back with her mom and dad.” She hugged it and looked close to tears again.

  He said nothing and then felt like an asshole, but what could he say? Sorry? What good did sorry do?