Cold Malice

by Toni Anderson

  “He wasn’t shot.”

  Relief wasn’t as enormous as it should have been. Walsh’s expression was too fierce and unamused. She was missing something. “What is this about, Agent Walsh?”

  “Mac’s ex-wife was found murdered in the early hours of this morning,” he said without inflection. “Cops think he did it.”

  “What? There is no way he killed her.” She clenched her fists. “He isn’t that sort of person.”

  “I never said I thought he did it. That’s not my job.” Walsh’s eyes were like lasers cutting into her and she wanted to take a step back. “I’ll give it to you straight, Tess, as Mac seems to have a weakness for you.”

  Weakness?

  “I don’t care what happens to you”—holy crap—“but Steve McKenzie is a fine man and a helluva well-respected agent. He’s dedicated his life to law enforcement and now his career is going to be destroyed because he got involved with you.”

  A rush of humiliation engulfed Tess. This was why she’d changed her name and concealed her background. Her truth had the power to destroy—and not just her own life but also the people who cared about her. Which wasn’t fair. None of this was fair.

  Anger unfurled and took hold.

  “Because he got involved with me? If he didn’t do it, he didn’t do it and his,” she tripped over the words, “association with me should be irrelevant. I thought you were supposed to protect the innocent, Agent Walsh?” She took a step toward him and his mouth tightened. She remembered shoving Mac into a wall earlier this morning and how that had ended. She stopped moving. The file sitting on the chest taunted her. Maybe she wasn’t as innocent as she wanted to believe. “Why are the cops even considering a man like ASAC McKenzie for murder?”

  Walsh’s face went blank. “I can’t reveal the details of a case to you.”

  Her mouth opened and closed in confusion. “Details? How can there be details if Mac didn’t do anything?”

  He remained closed-mouthed and she stood in her hallway feeling impotent and alone. She had to talk to Mac. She didn’t know who else she could trust, certainly not Walsh. But she couldn’t give that file to Mac either. He was probably off the case and she was his alibi for another murder.

  “How can I help?” she said finally.

  She half expected him to tell her to keep away from his boss, but he didn’t.

  “Get dressed and I’ll escort you to the PD to make a statement.”

  She blew out a long breath. She could do that.

  “Bring your cell phone.”

  She nodded.

  “Anyone see you and Mac between the time I left and the time you say Mac left?”

  She shook her head.

  “Pity.” He pinched his lips together.

  She begged to differ.

  “Corroboration would be useful.”

  Her upper lip drew back. “My word isn’t good enough to count as an airtight alibi?”

  His huffed out a dry laugh. “You ever heard of the word accomplice, Ms. Fallon?”

  Her eyes bugged. What the hell? “You think I might be involved in the murder of a woman I’ve never met?” Her voice came out high-pitched and loud. What a nightmare.

  He jerked his chin. “It’s not my case so I don’t think anything. But you might want to think very carefully about what you tell them, and I suggest sticking closely to the truth.”

  As if she made a habit of lying?

  Anger stained her cheeks and she glanced at the file folder on the side table. Guilt and shame warred within her. But logic won. “Did you ever stop to wonder why Mac’s ex-wife was killed now? Was he relieved of duty? Taken off the task force? Do you actually believe this is a coincidence? How about you really do your job, Agent Walsh?”

  He stared at her without blinking and she knew she was supposed to be intimidated. But she didn’t scare easy. Never had.

  All she actually wanted was to be left alone, but the world wasn’t letting that happen. So she’d deal.

  She pushed past Walsh and grabbed her laptop and purse off the table. She placed the thumb drive and file folder inside, too. He eyed her with curiosity but she didn’t trust him enough to confide. She didn’t trust him at all.

  No way Mac had killed his ex. Hell, she’d known he was honorable from the moment she’d first met him and she’d been ten. That hadn’t changed despite everything they’d been through together. She’d help get him out of jail, and then give this information to the FBI…but who?

  She didn’t know. Her heart sank. What if Cole was involved? Could Mac save the boy she loved or was it already too late?

  * * *

  What seemed like an eternity later, Mac was still being questioned by local cops. He’d surrendered his service weapon, his backup, his cell phone, not to mention his goddamned pride because he wanted this over with. He wanted the cops to verify what he was telling them so they could move on and catch the real killer and he could go back to work. Apparently, they liked the color of his motive.

  The young, female detective who’d been pushing him hard for the last hour shifted her chair to the side of the table, rather than sitting across from him—invading his personal space in a move designed to make him uncomfortable.

  “So, you think the suspect was still in the house when you got there?” she asked.

  With her attitude, he half expected her to pop gum. She reminded him of Dunbar, but Dunbar had a heart and a brain rather just a hard-on for some federal ass.

  “Not necessarily in the house. I told you, I got a text telling me to come in when I was standing on the doorstep. The sonofabitch was watching me from somewhere.”

  “But you didn’t see anyone?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t touch anything?” the male cop asked. He appeared near retirement. Old enough to be the female detective’s father. Hell, Mac was theoretically old enough to be her father.

  “I straightened a picture in the hallway outside the upstairs living room. It was crooked.” The killer had probably knocked it askew. “I touched the doorbell, possibly the knob of her bedroom. And I checked Heather for a pulse.” He wanted to scrub the whole thing from his brain. No one deserved to die like that.

  “You didn’t touch any evidence?”

  “I’m not an idiot.” This wasn’t his first rodeo.

  “You don’t seem that cut up about her death.” The woman detective tipped her head to one side.

  Man, he hoped he got to grill her on federal charges one day. He could not wait.

  “I mean, you’re not exactly shedding tears. The uniforms who picked you up said you didn’t appear that cut up to them either.”

  Mac stiffened at the expression “picked you up.” He hadn’t been picked up, he’d called the cops, come in voluntarily for questioning. But he didn’t say anything. He was a trained professional. People reacted in different ways to this kind of event and sometimes how they acted made them look guilty. If these two were any good at their jobs they’d know that.

  “And you say you went over there to just talk to her?” the older detective said with a tired expression.

  “I told you before.” He was beginning to realize how annoying repetitive questioning could be though he understood the reason for it—being an experienced federal fucking agent he appreciated all the ways cops tried to trip suspects. “The last few days she wouldn’t stop calling me. When I started getting texts tonight I’d had enough. I decided to go over there to persuade her that we would never get back together and that I didn’t want to hear from her again.”

  “Persuade her?” the old guy asked.

  “As in tell her I wasn’t interested.”

  “I’m thinking your ex wouldn’t like the sound of that.” The female detective’s brown eyes gleamed like he’d given away something vital.

  Mac leaned forward and spoke slowly in case they were both a little dense. “She never found out, guys. She was already dead when I got there.”

  “Where were you aga
in? Before you say you went over to Mrs. Surrey’s house?”

  He eyed her. Her detective shield must be brand spanking new given her age and enthusiasm. That or she hated Feds. “I was in Bethesda, at a suspected break-in tied to my current task force investigation.”

  She checked her notes. “I spoke to Agent Walsh. He said they all left that house around one. How come you were still there at three?”

  No way was he admitting to having sex with Tess. Not even to save his career. Hell, he wasn’t sure which the Bureau would frown on more, murder or inappropriate relations with someone involved in a case.

  “I had more questions for her.”

  “I bet you did.” The young detective’s smirk was a work of art. “We’ll be checking that out with Ms. Fallon.”

  Mac forced himself not to tense up when they mentioned Tess’s name. Of course they knew about her. This was a murder investigation.

  The older guy took his turn. “Why’d your ex suddenly start calling you this week if you hadn’t seen her in two years?”

  Mac rubbed his eyes, wishing to hell he’d handled this whole thing differently. Maybe Heather would still be alive then. But why was she dead? Who’d killed her? And why the hell were the cops still questioning him? “Heather’s pride was bruised from her new hubby screwing around on her and I just transferred to FBI HQ. She probably figured she’d be able to manipulate me into having an affair.”

  “Manipulate, how?” asked the older guy, adjusting the belt that rested beneath his gut.

  He gave the man a look. “How’d you think?”

  “You thought she was going to use sex to snare you?” The female detective gave him a cynical sneer.

  “Actually.” He leaned forward across the table, holding her gaze. “I think she was hoping to use sex with me to somehow get back at her current husband. Maybe make him jealous? Heather got most of her relationship pointers out of Cosmo. You questioning her actual husband this hard?”

  She ignored that. “Did you have sex tonight?”

  “I haven’t had sex with Heather since eight months before our divorce.” Fuck. How to not answer the question. He did not want to be in this fucking room. His sex life was not their business and if she pushed it he was getting a lawyer.

  He stared at an ink spot on the table. Why had this happened now? Why two gunshots?

  “Someone had sex with her tonight.”

  Mac’s stomach lurched. Had Heather been raped? He blinked away the sharpness of tears. He’d learned young, never show weakness.

  Funny, Tess had learned the same thing.

  “Your ex cheat on you?”

  He wanted to roll his eyes. “Yes, she did, with the guy she then married—Lyle Surrey. So if I’d been going to kill anyone it would have been him.”

  The detective’s eyes gleamed brighter. “So you thought about it?”

  Mac had meant it as a joke. “Why? Is he dead?”

  Homicide cops usually had a dark sense of humor but these guys seemed like they both had a bad case of irritable bowel syndrome. He’d thought this was routine but things weren’t adding up. Like the fact it was nearly seven a.m. and they still hadn’t let him leave yet.

  Damn.

  “No. I didn’t think about killing Lyle. I thought about punching him in the mouth a time or two just to teach him some manners, but once I found out Heather cheated on me I wasn’t really interested anymore. He was welcome to her.”

  “Not the forgiving type?” Detective teenybopper’s tone was snide.

  “I don’t like liars, Detective.” He raised his gaze towards the mirrored glass where somebody important was bound to be staring back at him. He hoped to hell it wasn’t his boss. “And if I had decided to kill Heather I wouldn’t have been caught at the murder scene and you would never have found her body.” They’d taken his clothes for gunshot residue analysis. Thankfully they’d allowed him to grab clean stuff out of his go-bag so he wasn’t wearing jailbird stripes.

  “Maybe it happened in the heat of the moment. You guys go at it for old times’ sake and then she says something to piss you off—”

  “So I shoot her?” he said incredulously.

  “Did you?”

  “No. I did not shoot her. I did not have sex with her. I did not inflict any harm upon her person and nor would I want anyone else to harm her.” Was that clear enough for them? He scrubbed his fingers through his short hair. He bet he had more than one gray hair now. “Look, I’m in the middle of a big investigation that I need to get back to. When Heather’s texts started arriving in the middle of the night I decided I’d talk to her face-to-face and make it clear that she had to stop causing me grief.”

  “Trust me,” the female detective told him. “Her texting you is not going to be your biggest problem anymore.”

  “Cute.”

  The detective leaned back in her chair and stretched her booted feet out to the side. “You have a temper, Steve?” She flipped the top page of her notes over the top of her clipboard. “Says here you punched a US marshal in the jaw last year, during that investigation into the mall attack in Minneapolis.”

  Mac rolled his eyes extravagantly and crossed his arms over his chest. The guy had swung at him first. “Okay, I take it we’re done here? I told you everything that happened last night, including the fact that if you didn’t find her phone at the house the killer likely still has it and you need to track that shit the fuck down.” He stood. “So unless you’re gonna charge me, I’m outta here.”

  “I don’t know why you’re in such a hurry to leave, ASAC McKenzie.” The detective’s mouth curved the exact same degree as her elegantly winged eyebrows. “They’ve already taken you off the case.”

  “What?” He sat back down. Fuck. “Why the hell would they do that?”

  She admired her manicure. “Press has gone nuts about this whole murder thing. I spoke to your boss about an hour ago. He said that while you have the full support of the Bureau, blah, blah, blah, you’d been assigned desk duty until this murder investigation is concluded.”

  “Is this a joke?” Mac closed his eyes for a moment. But he knew it wasn’t. “You’ve got nothing on me. The cell phone GPS data will confirm when I left Bethesda. No way did I have time to set up the text messages and kill Heather. Did the ME give you time of death yet?”

  The detective’s mouth tightened. “Maybe you had an accomplice.”

  His eyes widened. The idea that Tess might be dragged into this mess made his chest ache. After him being so sure she’d be the one to ruin his career, instead he was going to destroy her life.

  “Anyway.” She gave her fingers a jaunty tap on the table. “We don’t need the cell tower information when we have solid proof you killed her. You should save us all a lot of trouble and just confess, Steve.”

  He stared at her dumbfounded. What the fuck?

  She leaned forward, mimicking and mocking him. “I guess you thought you’d committed the perfect crime to get rid of the annoying ex, huh? Set it up like one of these other murders going on around DC to confuse the issue, huh? Or maybe so you’d be in charge of that investigation, too?”

  If she said “huh” one more time he was going to punch the wall.

  “Only you’re not as smart as you think, ASAC McKenzie, because you forgot one of the most basic pieces of forensic evidence.” She stood up. “Your fingerprints were on the shell casings found at the scene. On the bullet casings next to your ex-wife’s dead body. So tell us again you didn’t touch any evidence or murder Heather Surrey.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Mac made his phone call and hoped Frazer remembered to contact a lawyer on top of the other things he’d asked him to do.

  The interview room door opened. Walsh stepped in. “What the hell is going on?”

  Mac sat at the bolted down table. In front of him was a notepad and pen they’d left so he could make a statement. He’d written everything out in excruciating detail, excluding the hot and heavy encounter with Tess
. It wasn’t just because it might not look good to his bosses. It was none of their goddamned business and he didn’t want that negative attention focused on Tess. She didn’t deserve it.

  Mac raised his brow. “I’d ask how the investigation’s going, but apparently I’m a murder suspect so I won’t bother.”

  They hadn’t booked or charged him yet. Fuck. He’d been arrested on suspicion. He was hoping evidence would be enough to clear him before things went any further but the detectives were getting off on the fingerprint bullshit—as if he’d got his gold shield in a Cracker Jack box. To say he was pissed was a massive understatement but he knew how the system worked so he kept his mouth shut.

  “What the hell happened after I left you in Bethesda?” Walsh’s shaved scalp shone under the hot lights. “I mean Bethesda for Christ’s sake, how much trouble can you get into in that neighborhood?”

  Mac winced. A lot, apparently.

  He’d spent the last hour or so mulling things over and the more he deliberated, the blacker it looked. Someone had gone to a lot of effort to set him up.

  “Cops here are suggesting I tried to stage Heather’s murder to look like another one of the string of murders happening in DC.” Grasping at straws to make their square peg of evidence squeeze into the round-shaped hole. “The detective also intimated Heather was sexually assaulted before she was shot.”

  Mac’s stomach hurt to think about it. Heather had been immature and demanding and annoying but she had not deserved this.

  “They think you’re a sexual predator who is this inept at staging a murder?” Walsh leaned against the wall and crossed his arms and legs in a relaxed pose.

  Mac met Walsh’s gaze. “They claim to have my fingerprints on the shell casings. Sounds like a slam-dunk to me.”

  “Obviously, they have a low appreciation of your brain capacity.” Walsh’s mouth twisted.

  Mac contemplated his former second-in-command. Did the guy think he’d done it? Walsh hadn’t asked him outright.

  “Could your ex have any of your ammunition from when you were married?”