Drop Dead Crime: Mystery and Suspense from the Leading Ladies of Murder

by Lisa Regan

  “You’ll have to answer a few questions,” he said, running his hand across his forehead as if to stretch the deepening ridges of his furrowed brow. “In front of a formal review board.”

  “Better than to tell another parent we’re too late, sir,” she replied steadily, unflinching, almost cold. She knew she was in trouble, yet she didn’t feel bad about what had happened.

  “Are you sure that’s what this was about, Winnett? The victims? Or was it about your case clearance rate that you want to maintain as perfect?”

  She repressed a smile. No one else had the enviable, 100 percent clearance rate Pearson was referencing.

  “Isn’t it the same thing, sir? We’re tasked to protect the public, and we’re measured against that goal.”

  SAC Pearson shook his head. “Jeez, Winnett. How close were the nearest civilians?”

  “At least a few feet.”

  “And Pacheco?”

  “Thirty yards and opening.”

  He shook his head again. “Don’t let anyone interview you without me present, understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” She stood silently, waiting, ready to leave the room. Eventually, he pointed at the chair she’d just vacated, and she retook the seat.

  “I have a new case for you,” he said, pushing a thick file across the desk. “BCI Insurance Services. Fraud and conspiracy to commit.”

  “Oh.”

  Her obvious disappointment immediately raised Pearson’s eyebrow. “Not fancy enough for you, Winnett?”

  “I’m a skilled manhunter, sir. I understand there will be an investigation into the Pacheco shooting, but is there a murder case open that I could be looking into? This,” she pointed at the thick file on his desk, “anyone can do. It’s just paperwork and analysis.”

  “You’re arrogant, Winnett; and it doesn’t suit you,” Pearson replied, pushing the file an inch closer to her hand. She withdrew her hand and promptly placed it in her lap as if the proximity of the file burned her skin.

  “There’s the Word Killer case still open. I believe SA Patto is working that.”

  “Yes, SA Patto is handling that one.”

  She scoffed quietly. “Patto has been dancing with this killer for a while now, sir, and nothing. No results.”

  “Winnett!”

  “Please, allow me to look into this case before I lose myself down the rabbit hole of fraudulent health insurance plans.”

  “Patto’s case is exactly that, Winnett, it’s Patto’s case. We don’t yank cases from agents when other agents want a piece of their action. That is not how we work. We’re a team.”

  She stood abruptly and placed her hands on the desk, leaning forward, towering over Pearson, a strategic mistake that she didn’t realize she was making. “Did Patto mention the killer is escalating? Did he figure that out yet? Patto’s not a profiler.”

  “I don’t want to hear it, Winnett. You have your case assignment, and Patto has his.”

  “The way the Word Killer is carving on the bodies of his victims, the words he leaves behind written in blood on the walls, he’s not going to stop. He’s just getting started. Please, sir.” She ended her tirade on a more subdued tone, likely to appease the growing anger she discerned in her boss’s glare.

  “Yeah, you’re an excellent behavioral analyst, Winnett. Quantico wants you, Bill McKenzie holds a spot open for you—yours when you want it. Why are you still here?”

  “Oh,” she reacted, surprised to hear he knew about it. “I don’t feel I’m ready for that kind of action, not yet.”

  “Is that the real reason? Or is it the fact that the Behavioral Analysis Unit works as a team and only as a team?”

  Her phone started to vibrate, and she threw the screen a fleeting look before sending the call to voicemail. It was Cat. He never called so early in the morning. He almost never called.

  Frowning, she looked at Pearson, eager to leave, glad to leave his question unanswered.

  “Thankfully, Florida doesn’t have nearly enough blood-lusting killers to keep you satisfied, Winnett. So BCI Insurance it is, if you choose to stay here, under my command.”

  The threat was unveiled and unmistakable, and yet she didn’t stop pleading.

  “But you have one blood-lusting predator out there, the Word Killer. He’s about to strike again, if he hasn’t already, and Patto doesn’t even know about it.”

  Pearson stood in one abrupt move and grabbed the thick file, lifting it in the air. Then he slammed it on the desk with a loud noise.

  “BCI Insurance, Winnett. Or else.”

  They locked eyes for a long moment, then she lowered hers while she picked up the file, defeated. If she still wanted a job, she needed to learn to take orders.

  “You are dismissed,” Pearson said, after she’d already turned to leave.

  3

  As soon as Tess left Pearson’s office, she took out her phone, frowning as she retrieved Cat’s voicemail. She couldn’t think of another time he’d left her a message, not in the twelve years she’d known him, since he’d saved her life and became the closest thing she’d had to a father. Cat was stuck in his ways like most people his age, refusing to use all the functions of a cell phone, and for him to break that pattern of behavior was enough reason for concern.

  She tapped the screen and put the phone to her ear, listening intently.

  “Sorry to bother you at work, kiddo,” Cat had said in a guarded whisper, panting a little as if he’d climbed a flight of stairs faster than usual. “Um, if you could come by this morning, I’d appreciate it.” He’d paused for a moment, as if unsure what to say next. “Please,” he’d added, then hung up.

  Not good.

  She didn’t even pass by her desk to get rid of the BCI file; instead, she patted her pants pocket to make sure she had her car keys and rushed to the parking lot and, within minutes, she was burning rubber leaving the area. When she turned the corner, she switched on the flashing lights and the siren and started weaving through traffic as fast as she could.

  When she pulled up in front of the Media Luna Bar and Grill, she cut the noise, but she was going too fast, and her SUV’s wheels threw gravel high in the air, making a grinding sound as the car came to a stop. The “Open” neon sign was off, quite normal for nine in the morning, and only Cat’s Jeep was visible, parked in its usual spot, left of the building, leaving all the front places for the customers.

  She climbed out of her vehicle, carefully looking around for any sign of trouble, resisting the urge to pull out her weapon. After all, Cat hadn’t said anything was wrong; he’d just asked her to come by. If she showed up with her gun drawn, he’d probably never dare to call her again.

  She heard a whistle coming from the second floor and looked up. Cat’s head popped out through an open window, his finger touching his lips in a plea for silence. She nodded, and he beckoned her upstairs, then disappeared from view.

  She took the side stairs to the apartment, struggling to ignore the wave of memories that overwhelmed her the moment she opened the door. She breathed deeply and focused; he hadn’t called her over for something that had happened almost twelve years ago; she could bet good money on that.

  He met her in the hallway of the small apartment, his finger back at his lips, urging silence. She hadn’t seen him in a while, and these days, a while, any length of time really, seemed to make her previously ageless friend appear a little bit older. He still wore his signature Hawaiian shirt, unbuttoned at the first two or three buttonholes, enough to allow a peek of the tiger tattoo, now barely visible, mated and discolored, that had brought him the nickname he allowed very few to use. His hair, almost entirely white, still touched his shoulders in loose waves but was thinned out, and his forehead had gained a few inches in height. His face was still tan and his eyes sharper than ever, but he looked tired, drawn.

  Cat was getting old.

  That simple statement brought tears to her eyes. Silently, she vowed she’d find a way to come by more often, maybe hel
p at the bar a few nights a week.

  He leaned down and put a quick smooch on her cheek, grabbed her hand and led her into the bedroom. She followed, curious and surprised, but when she saw the figure lying between the sheets she gasped, a quick and loud intake of air before she covered her mouth with her hand.

  Frozen in place and trembling under the wave of unrelenting memories, she studied the young woman resting under the white down duvet on Cat’s bed. She was young, twenty-two, maybe twenty-three years old. Her face was bruised but clean; Cat must’ve cleaned the young woman’s wounds like he’d done for her ages ago. Dried tears had left streaks on her face. Her hair, auburn-gold and long with bottom lowlights, was tangled in places where blood had dried on it, clumping the strands together. A deep cut ran along her neck, cleaned and patched with Mickey Mouse butterfly Band-Aids.

  She shifted in her sleep and started whimpering, but Cat sat in the bedside armchair, grabbed her hand, and began soothing her.

  “Shhh… I’m right here, and you’re safe. You can sleep now.”

  It was as if Tess were looking at an image of herself, a ghost from another time.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, and the unwanted memories rushed in. She saw herself crawling to the pub’s door, bleeding, barely conscious, hurt within an inch of her life. She remembered waking in that bed twelve years ago, patched up, cleaned, her body screaming with pain. She’d found Cat by her side, saying the same things, doing the same things he was doing now for this young woman. She vividly relived the pain, the fear, the anger, as if she were going through it all over again. She recalled healing slowly, nurtured back to life by a kind stranger, a man who’d saved her life and asked for nothing in return.

  Tears quietly rolled down her face; she couldn’t hold them back anymore. She’d kept them bottled up for so many years, and finally they could flow freely, the floodgates now open. When she dared, she opened her eyes and looked at Cat.

  “Again?” she asked, with a sad smile on her lips.

  “I’m sorry, kiddo… I didn’t know what else to do,” he whispered.

  She shook her head and wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. He had no reason to apologize. “It’s all right.” She slowly approached the bed, afraid the floors might creak, and the young woman would startle from her sleep.

  “What happened to her?”

  He shrugged, while deep ridges marked his brow.

  “If I could get my hands on this son of a bitch, I’d rip his insides out and strangle him with them until he stopped drawing breath.”

  “Tell me what happened,” Tess said, keeping her voice low. She crouched next to Cat’s armchair, her eyes on the same level with his. “Step by step.”

  “I was about to close the place for the night,” he said, then stopped his account when the girl whimpered again. She was dreaming, probably screaming in her sleep. “A couple of regulars were passed out at the tables, and I was getting ready to call them a cab, you know.”

  She nodded encouragingly. “Keep going.”

  “Then I heard someone banging on the door but didn’t see anyone, so I went outside and found her, bleeding. I brought her in.”

  “What was she wearing?”

  He gently let go of the young woman’s hand and sighed as he stood up from the armchair with some difficulty. “I knew you were going to ask me that, so I packed it in a Ziploc bag.”

  He went into the small bathroom and returned with a plastic bag holding a mauve, silky garment, profusely stained with blood. “Just this, a fancy robe, I guess.”

  “No underwear?”

  He lowered his eyes. “No.” His jaws clenched and his fists too. “She was, um, there was blood… I could kill him with my bare hands—”

  She touched his shoulder, then squeezed it gently. “I get it, Cat. Trust me, I do.”

  “Now I understand why you do what you do for a living. Someone’s got to put these monsters down. Promise me you’ll get this son of a bitch, just like you nailed that other bastard.”

  “I’ll do my best, Cat.”

  “I’m proud of you, you know? What you do… It must be terrible to see this every day, people like this, hurt, tortured, killed.” He slowly paced the room, wringing his hands. “What the hell ever happened to people, huh? It’s like ’Nam out there, in the streets.”

  She walked over to him and grabbed his hands in hers. “I have to call it in, Cat. She needs a hospital.”

  “No,” he reacted, his whisper filled with intensity. “She made me swear I wouldn’t.” He searched her eyes, pleading. “Just like you did.”

  Damn… another unwanted memory. Cat had taken a big chance caring for her on his own. Failure to report the crime could’ve got him charged with a felony; worst-case scenario, he could’ve done serious time as an accessory after the fact. Yet he’d done it all for her, so she could still have a life and a career with the FBI unmarred by the stigma of sexual assault. He was willing to do it again.

  “Did she say why we can’t call it in?”

  He shook his head once, staring into thin air. “There will be time for that later, when she wakes up.”

  She walked over to the window, thinking. “Did she mention anything about her attacker?”

  “No.”

  “Did she say anything else? Her name, maybe?”

  “Danielle,” he replied after a split second’s hesitation. “She said her name is Danielle.”

  4

  Tess leaned her forehead against the cold window, looking at the gloomy winter sky and wondering what she should do. Her law enforcement training demanded that Danielle file a formal complaint and go to the hospital for a rape kit, in the hope that the attacker had left behind his DNA. But her own memories were still raw after all those years; she remembered how terrified she’d been about her life being forever marked by the four-letter word that brought undue shame to the victims.

  Either way, on or off the record, she wasn’t going to let that bastard walk.

  Danielle whimpered in her sleep, then woke abruptly, sitting anxiously, pulse racing, ready to run. She seemed oddly familiar, like someone Tess might’ve seen in traffic recently or on TV.

  “It’s okay, you’re safe here,” Cat said, looking straight at her with a kind smile.

  “Uh-huh,” she whispered, out of breath. She looked around the room, panicked, and saw Tess; her pupils dilated, and she withdrew farther away on the bed, as if Tess was going to hurt her.

  “I’m here to help,” Tess said, speaking as gently as she could. She wasn’t used to dealing with live victims, but she understood what the girl must’ve felt.

  “Who are you?” she asked, nervously licking her dry lips.

  “She’s a good friend, someone you can trust,” Cat replied, “I called her.”

  “Why?” the girl asked, looking at Tess with increasing fear.

  “Danielle, I’m a federal agent,” Tess said.

  The girl instantly burst into heart-wrenching wails. “You promised,” she said, looking at Cat. “You swore to me,” she added, trying to get out of the bed, wincing in pain with every move.

  Cat looked at Tess with an unspoken plea in his eyes.

  “I’m not here in any official capacity,” Tess said, frowning a little when she noticed how ineffective her statement had been. Danielle’s tears flowed in streaks down her bruised face, her shoulders heaving with every sobbing breath she took.

  Tess approached the bed and slowly sat on its edge, careful not to cause her any additional pain. “Listen, I will not report this, unless you want me to,” she said, holding the girl’s hand with both hers. “No one will know.”

  Danielle looked at her with a glimmer of hope in her eyes. “You promise?”

  “I swear,” Tess replied with a tiny smile, fighting back her own tears. “Cat and I will keep you safe. I’ll get the man who did this to you.”

  She sniffled and nodded a couple of times. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “But I n
eed you to cooperate with me,” Tess added. “First priority is your health. I need to know how badly you’re hurt, and if you need a hospital.”

  Panic returned in full force in the girl’s round eyes. “No, no, please. No hospital.”

  Tess nodded, then glanced at Cat quickly.

  “Okay, we’ll try,” she conceded. “May I touch you?” she asked, leaning forward a little.

  Danielle whispered, “Yes.”

  Tess traced the cut on her neck to the place where it disappeared in her thick hair.

  “How did this happen?”

  She swallowed hard. “He… slammed me down, and I hit something.” A fresh tear rolled down her cheek. “The coffee table, maybe. I don’t remember.”

  “You could have a concussion,” Tess said, feeling more and more uneasy with Danielle’s decision to avoid the hospital.

  “I checked her pupillary response in both eyes,” Cat said. “She’s not throwing up, and she’s not dizzy, so I think we’re good.” His grin widened a little when he noticed Tess’s doubtful look. “I was a medic in ’Nam, in case you forgot.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Tess replied.

  “Human skulls were the same back then as they are today. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

  Tess turned to look at Danielle again. The young woman avoided her scrutiny.

  “How about the rest of you?” she asked, lowering her voice a little.

  “I think it’s time to go downstairs and fix some soup,” Cat said as he walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. Danielle followed his departure with wary eyes, then glanced briefly at Tess, her fear renewed.

  Tess waited for the door to close and looked at Danielle for a moment.

  “A few years ago, I was lying in this bed, going through the same hell as you are now. Believe it or not, I’m on your side.”

  She noticed the girl’s apprehension wane a little.

  “Work with me, please,” Tess insisted.

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  “Why won’t you let me call this in?”