by CJ Lyons
His words emerged so fast they slammed at Cassie, physically backing her into a corner while she absorbed them. Richard was right. His plan would solve everything. For him.
Her natural instinct to fix every problem was the only thing that had made her consider his crazy proposal for more than a moment in the first place. But finally she realized she wasn't the solution here. She wasn't even the problem.
She was just the rope in a dangerous tug-o-war.
"Go home, Richard." She wanted to tell him exactly what she thought of a man who'd let a child-killer go free to get his way—much less the sociopathic brother who orchestrated it. "Leave me alone."
"But Cassandra—"
She walked away as fast as she could. The wheels on his chair squealed as he raced to keep up with her. They passed a crowd of people in line for the security checkpoint. She didn't care that they stared at her appearance or the man following her. All she wanted was to be left alone. She ran down the steps, leaving Richard behind.
When she emerged out onto Grant Street, the sunlight was blinding. No clouds to be seen, but the humidity was still palpable, making the air feel clingy, like walking through gauze.
Two men approached her. One was broad shouldered and looked like an ex-college lineman gone to seed. The other was tall and thin, perfect type casting for Ichabod Crane in a production of the headless horseman.
With their ill-fitting suits and impervious manner, they had to be cops. The two men flanked her, ignoring the other people trying to crowd past on the narrow sidewalk.
"Dr. Hart?" Ichabod asked.
"Who are you?" She stopped, still in sight of the courthouse and the security guards inside. Not taking any chances.
He seemed taken aback she would challenge him so soon. "I'm Detective Ventura and this is Detective Sandosky. We'd like to invite you to our office to answer some questions."
"Could I see some ID?" she asked. They exchanged glances and shrugged. Obviously she wasn't what they expected. Cassie took her time scrutinizing their credentials.
"You're a hard woman to track down," Sandosky, the paunchy ex-linebacker told her as he pocketed his ID.
Cassie shrugged. "What is this about?"
"Our car is right at the curb, we could get out of this heat," Ventura said, aiming at politeness but missing by a mile.
Cassie kept her feet firmly planted and waited for them to answer her question.
"It's about the death of Monica Burns," Sandosky finally allowed.
"You're from IAD." They nodded. "Let's go," she told them, leading the way to their white Dodge. They seemed discomfited when she beat them there and stood waiting beside the front passenger door for them to unlock it. They exchanged looks as Ventura unlocked the door and moved to the driver's side while Sandosky maneuvered into the back seat.
The clatter of the blasting AC precluded any discussion as they zipped across the river to police headquarters. Not that Cassie was in any mood to chat.
The detectives escorted her up to a conference room with comfortable chairs and a video camera at one end. She waited with Ventura while Sandosky left for a minute, returning with coffee and a woman who silently began to fiddle with the video equipment.
She sipped at her coffee and waited for the detectives to make the first move. She wondered how much of her taxpayer's money was being used for the comfortable surroundings and expensive equipment. Not to mention the videographer's salary. She'd visited Drake at his station house and knew the detectives on the major crimes squad had nothing to compare with this.
"Just as a formality, Doctor," Ventura began. "I'd like to read you your rights as well as a release for the recording of this interview. Once I'm done if you would please acknowledge your agreement and sign these releases?"
He slid a stack of papers in front of Cassie along with a felt tip pen. Cassie signed and initialed where he indicated as he read her Miranda rights. She thought they were being melodramatic, she knew they didn't have to read her the Miranda warnings unless they were questioning her as a suspect.
Which, of course she wasn't. Just one more intimidation ploy. She wasn't going to let it rattle her. Just like she wasn't going to let them hound Drake for a murder he didn't commit.
"Dr. Hart," Sandosky began the official questioning. "Have you ever seen this woman before?"
He slid a photo face down in front of her. Cassie flipped it over and froze. It was the crime scene photo, showing the young woman from the roof, a close up of her face demolished by the gunshot wound.
Cassie swallowed hard. Stay calm, she told herself. "I doubt if anyone could recognize this woman in the condition she is in," she told them, using her best clinical voice. She kept her face composed as she visualized Drake viewing the same photo. God, what visions of Pamela's death it must have brought back.
She idly picked at the peeling skin on her arm, then stopped as she realized that the movement would be picked up on the video. Sandosky slid another photo to her, this one face up.
"Try this."
Cassie glanced at the photo. A blown up bus pass photo of a young blonde with soft green eyes and a wide, toothy smile. "Sorry, I don't know her."
"Are you certain?"
Cassie looked again then shook her head. "I never saw her before."
Sandosky and Ventura exchanged glances. "Do you have any knowledge of Detective Drake's whereabouts from approximately midnight to six am Sunday morning?"
"Yes. Detective Drake came to my house at about nine-thirty Saturday night," she told them.
"About?"
"He'd been there maybe ten minutes when I looked at a clock and it was a quarter to ten."
"And he stayed with you the rest of the night?"
"He was drunk. We argued briefly about his being drunk and I let him sleep on the couch. He was still asleep when I left the next morning around nine."
"Is there any possibility that he may have left your house without your knowledge?"
Cassie shook her head, suppressing a smile. Finally she understood why she was here. "I have an alarm system on all the doors and windows. It would record any opening or closing of a door as well as if it was deactivated."
"But didn't your house burn down last night? How can we verify this?"
Cassie frowned, she hadn't thought of that. "The alarm company will have a record. It will also show the exact time Detective Drake arrived, if that helps. Would you like me to call them for you?"
Half an hour and several phone calls later, the detectives were pouring over the data from the alarm company.
"Why the hell didn't Drake tell us about this yesterday?" Ventura asked his partner.
Cassie almost felt sorry for them. "Because he didn't have what he needed from you guys."
"What do you mean?"
"Drake didn't get to go to the crime scene himself. So he had to string you guys along long enough to show him the crime scene photos."
"Sonofabitch."
"Except we never showed him the crime scene photos."
"We were about to. When Kwon showed up." They both stared at Cassie and she realized she was the reason Drake abandoned his plan.
This was why she had to stay clear of him—he could have ended up in real trouble because she got in the way. He'd been right all along.
<><><>
Drake made it to the courthouse just in time to see Ventura and Sandosky pick up Hart. For once he was happy to see the IAD detectives. Hart was more in danger of being bored to death than anything else while with them.
He was about to follow when he noticed someone else watching Hart leave. Richard King.
It was time he had a little chat with the weasel. He left the van and took a brisk stroll down Grant Street, following King to where his BMW was parked in a handicapped space. He timed it so he reached the car just as King did.
"We need to talk."
To his surprise, King didn't appear upset or threatened at all. Instead he said, "You're right."
Wi
th practiced movements he transferred to the driver's seat, folded his chair, then slid it into the rear of the sports car where the back seat had been removed.
"You seem to be adapting well," Drake observed, noting that not only did King have plenty of upper body strength—enough to hold a woman down long enough to shoot her, he was certain—but he also had regained partial use of his legs.
"Rehab. Does wonders. I can't wait until the day I show Cassandra I can walk again. She'll be so proud."
Definitely a no-no hitting a guy sitting in a handicapped spot, not to mention the fact that Drake was already suspended, but damn, it was hard to resist wiping the self-satisfied smile from King's face.
"Is that why you're doing all this? You think that's how you'll win Hart back, by ruining me?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Monica Burns. Or should I say, Elizabeth Reynolds."
King's expression didn't waver. He waited for Drake to explain.
"Don't play games with me, King. Whoever killed Burns might be after Hart."
"She's not in danger. Not really."
"What the hell are you talking about? You know her car got shot up and her house torched. She almost died."
King glanced inside the car as if thinking about leaving without answering. Drake took that option off the table by jogging around to the other side and hopping into the passenger seat. "Talk."
"It's not what you think. I want what's best for Cassandra. That's all."
Only King's idea of what was best for Hart verged on psychotic. Crazy bastard cost her her job at Three Rivers, what more did he want?
"What did you do?"
"Guardian Security. They're not setting up the Liberty Center's security as a charitable contribution. I'm paying them. And Tony Spanos. I asked him to keep an eye on Cassandra. I didn't like her working there on her own. He's been watching her and reporting to me."
Spanos. That explained why the ex-cop always hung around, getting underfoot. Didn't take him off the suspect list, though.
"Did Spanos give you keys and security codes to the building?" he asked, remembering how he'd found King inside the Center the other night.
"Yes."
"How long has Spanos been working for you?"
"Two months."
Same time Burns received the cash deposits and moved here from LA. "And that's when you hired Elizabeth Reynolds to move out here and harass me?"
"I don't know anyone named Elizabeth Reynolds."
"Right. How about Monica Burns?"
"Her either. Believe me, Detective, Hart has never been in any danger from me. It's you who keeps her there in that bad neighborhood, middle of a gang war. I'm trying to save her."
"Well, then, I suggest you call off Spanos and stay the hell away, because neither of you are doing a very good job of protecting her."
An ugly smirk flit over King's face. The kind of look that was gone in a flash but left a bad taste in Drake's mouth.
King started the engine. "Spanos told me how you were flirting with that girl. He said you were the last one to see her alive. And where were you when Cassandra's house was firebombed? If you want to see who's responsible for the danger Cassandra is in, look in the mirror."
Drake got out of the car and watched King drive away. He hated the smug bastard, knew he was behind at least part of this mess, but he couldn't get King's last words out of his head.
<><><>
Drake spent the rest of the day following Hart, first from the Police Headquarters on the North Side back to the car she was using, then out to Monroeville where she shopped at the same Wal-Mart he'd been at this morning, and finally to a small motel off Route 22.
He snuck a peek through the window of her room and saw she was napping. She looked so vulnerable, it took everything he had not to pound the door down and take her away. To the Lake, to the far side of the world, he didn't care.
But then Jimmy called. "We can't find any ties between King—either of the brothers—and Elizabeth Reynolds. I'm hitting a brick wall."
"How about between Spanos and Reynolds?"
"Other than both of them being at the Stone with you on Saturday, nothing there either. But we're still working on getting her LA phone records, they might have something."
"Call me if you get anything."
"Denise wants to know when she'll get her van back."
Drake looked around the already littered space. Stakeouts were messy. "As soon as I get a chance to get it detailed."
"Better make it sooner rather than later. She hates driving my car."
"Mine should be released. You can let her drive it."
"No way. If anyone's driving the Mustang, it will be me."
Drake hung up and ate some beef jerky and cheese for dinner. Hart went over to the small cafe attached to the motel but didn't return to her room after dinner. Instead she got into her car.
As he followed her back to the city, keeping an eye to make sure he was the only one following her, he realized she was taking precautions as well. Instead of her usual carefully assertive driving, she was varying her speed erratically, making turns without signaling, circling around a block.
She did a good job and even lost him at one point. But by then it didn't matter. He knew where she was going.
Back home.
CHAPTER 31
Cassie parked around the block from her house. Or what remained of it. She took the flashlight from the car's glove compartment and flicked it on. Her shoes squished in mud and ashes as she headed down the alley.
The garden gate hung open, wrenched half off of its hinges. She ducked under yellow hazard tape. The carefully tended landscaping was now torn to shreds by fire truck tracks, footprints, and rivulets left behind by rushing water.
She didn't try to go through the structure. It seemed to lean threateningly towards her, the remaining walls ready to tumble over at any minute. The bright moonlight cast eerie shadows through the timbers and brickwork left standing. Like some kind of wild animal with its fangs bared, that was what her home had become.
Creeping around, she managed not to trip over any debris. Her bedroom furniture had tumbled out—or been blown out—and lay splintered, clothing strewn about and trampled on. The headboard Padraic had carved with such painstaking care had split in two. The way the scorch marks marred the red oak, it looked like it had been struck by lightning. The wrath of God.
The least of her worries, she told herself as she cast a tearful eye about the remains of her garden. Glass and shattered paving tiles littered the area where the patio used to be. Her cast aluminum glider lay upside down in the rhododendrons. Her own hands, so much sweat had gone into remodeling the patio and reviving the garden, now all gone in one fell swoop.
"Thought I might find you here."
Cassie turned at Drake's voice. Where else was she to go? This was her home. Always before, she'd run here for solace when life became overwhelming. Sheltered by quiet memories, safe from the outside world, here she could find her balance, regain her perspective. She hoped to find something—anything—she could save of the only home she'd ever had.
But there was nothing left. She breathed in and her mouth filled with the bitter taste of sodden ashes. Where would she go now?
Drake's hand landed on her shoulder, an answer, an offer. She shrugged it away. He had his own troubles to deal with. She couldn't lean on him, not if it meant leading him into danger.
"Go away." She turned her face into the darkness so he couldn't see how much it cost her.
"I'm here to help."
How? Build her a new house? Catch the person trying to kill her? Get a child killer off the streets where she put him? Because that's what she needed.
She took a deep breath and turned to Drake. A crease of worry lined his forehead and his eyes were dark with exhaustion.
"I don't need you," she lied. She wished he hadn't come. This was so hard. "Leave me alone."
"Never."
The word
slipped out so easily, so calmly, she wondered if he even realized he'd said it out loud. It came as a gentle whisper on the breeze, come and gone so quickly she might have imagined it. She wished she had, it would make this so much easier.
"Not before I do what I wanted to do Saturday night," he said, moving close so she could clearly make out his features, his eyes burning bright in the moonlight.
"Sorry, I'm all out of booze," she told him, gesturing at the shambles around her.
"That's not funny. This is what I came to give you when I came home from the Lake." He pulled something dark from his pants pocket and laid it in his palm.
Cassie stared at the sapphire ring sparkling amidst the black velvet. This wasn't happening, she told herself. It was all a bad dream. Please God, she didn't have the strength for this.
The last thing in the world she wanted to do was to hurt Drake.
Her gaze focused on the blackened remains of the last thirty years of her life. Thirty years in one place and now it was gone. She didn't even know where she'd spend the next thirty hours.
"Come with me," Drake persisted. "We can start over. Together."
Right. And lead whoever wanted to kill her straight to Drake. A swirl of ashes spilled across her feet, the wind dancing them over the debris.
If he only knew how hard it was for her, him being here. Every person she'd ever loved had left her to stand alone–you think she'd have gotten the hang of it by now. But this was harder. This time she was the one setting love free, and, God forgive her, she didn't want to let it go.
"Damn it, Hart! Why won't you let me take care of you? What are you afraid of? Why won't you allow yourself to be happy?"
The words hit her with a force that bowed her head. Drake's hands on her shoulders yanked her back upright, face to face with him, refusing her any quarter, any room to hide.
His eyes darkened to a deep indigo with their emotion. Then he pulled her back to him until she could feel the beating of his heart echoing hers. He lay his head on hers, his strong arms wrapping around her body like strands of a cocoon. Protecting, insulating, promising a brighter future soon.
"I love you! Why isn't that enough?" he demanded. "Do you still not trust me? Not believe that I'm not like King? I won't hurt you, not ever, I promise–" his voice trailed off and Cassie was horrified to see tears spill from his eyes.