Deputy Marsh gave a single, sharp nod.
“If you’ll come with me, we can view the victim, and if you could provide an ID, we would greatly appreciate it,” Vivi said.
By some unspoken agreement, only Vivi and Sam accompanied the marshals down to the morgue. Carly, Drew, and Daniel stayed where they were.
“Carly?” Drew said from beside her. “We need to talk.”
She let out a quiet, cynical laugh. The marshals were there, they’d take over the investigation. “No, I don’t actually think we do. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to make a call.” Before he could stop her, she stood and walked out, dialing Marcus’s number as she left. Stepping into an empty room around the corner from where Drew and Daniel sat, she closed the door as Marcus answered.
“It worked,” she said.
“They’re there?”
“Yes, a Supervisory Deputy Mikaela Marsh and two others she didn’t introduce. They’re down in the morgue with Vivi and Sam identifying the body.” She could hear Marcus letting out a deep breath.
“At least we know Marguerite will be taken care of now. I’m thinking the marshals aren’t going to take the murder of one their own lightly,” he said.
She flashed back to the expression on Mikaela Marsh’s face. “No, they most definitely aren’t.”
“Good. Once they’re gone, we should talk. We need to figure out what to do next.”
“Whatever we do, we have to be careful,” she said. But what exactly she meant by “careful,” she didn’t have a clue. “We’ll talk later?” she asked. When Marcus agreed, the two hung up.
Taking a deep breath, she exited the room, but because she wasn’t quite ready to go back into the briefing room with Drew, she walked the halls until she came to the kitchen.
Pulling out some change she bought a chocolate bar from the vending machine, ignoring the fact that the clock had barely hit ten a.m. She had just finished four squares when Drew walked in, coming to an abrupt stop at the sight of her.
For a single, brief moment, she wondered if he planned to apologize to her. But then reason set in. What did he have to apologize for? Doing his job? That didn’t make any sense. And she couldn’t have expected him to go around announcing what he did for a living to everyone he met. He certainly hadn’t owed her that honesty, they barely knew each other.
“The coffee’s not bad,” she said with a gesture toward the machine that made individual cups. He hesitated for a second then moved toward it. Eyeing him, she popped another square of chocolate in her mouth and went to pour herself some water.
“No coffee?” he asked.
She shook her head as she filled a disposable cup. “Not with chocolate—that would be bad news for everyone.”
“Too much sugar and caffeine make you sick?”
She smiled and took another bite. “No, not sick, but jittery, unfocused. It’s not the most helpful state to be in while working.”
He leaned against the counter with his fresh cup of coffee. “No, I don’t imagine it is.”
“I assume they aren’t back yet?” she asked, taking a few steps toward the hallway without, she hoped, appearing too eager to leave.
He shook his head but kept his eyes on her. For a moment she paused, and his eyes held hers—a small, quiet moment.
And then she forced herself to break eye contact and take another step away. “Thanks for your help this morning. I have a feeling the case is going to be transferred over to the marshals. If the woman is one of theirs,” she added, not wanting him to think she already knew the answer to the question.
“Probably. I wonder how they found out, though. Don’t you?”
She popped the rest of her candy bar into her mouth and shrugged. “Maybe they’ll tell us,” she said. Then, with a small wave, she turned and made her way back to the briefing room.
Drew had rejoined her and Daniel when Vivi and Sam led the three marshals back into the room. If possible, Deputy Marsh looked even more displeased with the situation.
“Our victim is Marguerite Silva,” Vivi announced. “She was a US Marshal based out of DC.”
Carly swallowed nervously when Deputy Marsh’s eyes landed on her. “Are you the lead officer?” the deputy asked.
Carly shook her head. “I was the responding officer, the lead officer is Sheriff Ian MacAllister.”
“And is he here?”
Carly drew back at the barked question, then shook her head. “No, I’m the senior local law enforcement here.”
“Good,” Marsh said, turning toward the door. “We need to talk. Where can we talk?” She didn’t wait for an answer, nor did she wait to see if Carly would follow her. But Carly did. Pushing back from the table, she rose and then walked into the hallway in time to see Marsh enter a room two doors down. Thirty second later, she and the marshal were facing each other behind a closed door.
Chapter Five
Carly spent well over an hour talking to Deputy Marsh, but it took even longer to escape the lab after their meeting. When they’d finally returned to the conference room, the marshals had announced that they were officially taking over the investigation and then left to make arrangements to have all the evidence, including Marguerite’s body, transferred to DC. After their departure, Drew had lingered, still attempting to find a moment to talk to her. In order to avoid him, she’d sequestered herself in one of the labs, where she’d helped Daniel package up the evidence for transport.
She felt relieved once she was finally back at her desk in Windsor, several hours later than she would have hoped, reviewing the week’s schedules. The plan she and Marcus had put in place had worked. They still had a lot of unanswered questions, but at least Marguerite had been identified.
She’d just finalized the preliminary schedule when Vic walked in and took a seat. “I’m going to start the process for filling our open positions,” he announced without offering a greeting.
She switched her gaze from her computer screen to her boss. He looked terrible. She frowned, realizing she hadn’t seen much of him recently—since her schedule had been hectic and he’d been in out of the office so much. His eyes sat above dark circles and his cheeks looked sallow. Glancing down, she saw that he’d also lost some weight—never a big man to begin with, he now bordered on scrawny.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
He shook his head. “You and Marcus are working too many hours. The overtime I authorized this month was the highest yet.” He raised a hand to stave off her defense, “And before you object, I’m not concerned, we have the money, given we’re down two officers, but I am concerned with how much you two have been working. I know Marcus doesn’t mind so much—working off his demons the way he is,” he added under his breath. “But I’m guessing you might not mind a day off here and there.”
She wouldn’t mind, but she wasn’t going to say as much. She had a job. One she mostly liked. And with no family or hobbies that needed her attention, she had the time to work.
“Well, let me know if I can help,” she said instead.
Absently, he nodded. “Speaking of work,” he continued after a brief pause, “How did things go up in Albany this morning?”
It took her ten minutes to brief him on the case, the arrival of the marshals, and the fact that Vivi and Sam had turned the investigation over to the federal agency. Vic didn’t bother to hide his relief at not having his only two officers drawn into what would no doubt be a lengthy investigation. Promising to start looking into candidates and setting up interviews, he rose to let her get back to work. Carly watched him leave, then sat staring at the empty doorway for a moment. She had no idea where his sudden urge to fill roles that had been open for nearly a year had come from, but she also knew not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
After confirming the availability of the all the part-time officers, she finalized the shifts and closed out of the scheduling program. Debating about what to tackle next, the budget or the annual equipment inventory, she sat back in
her chair and eyed the file cabinets.
Her thoughts shifted to what had happened that morning and what needed to happen next. She’d spoken to Marcus after leaving Albany and he knew about the marshals taking over the investigation, but he’d been out on a call when she’d returned to the station, so they hadn’t had a chance to discuss anything else.
Carly sat, thinking about what constituted the “anything else” they needed to discuss—they needed a plan, or course, but a plan to do what? Before her mind could start down the dark path of everything they didn’t know and shouldn’t do, she heard the door of the police station open and Marcus greeting Sharon, their receptionist. Ten seconds later, he appeared at her door.
“How was it?” he asked, closing the door behind him and taking a seat across from her. She didn’t have to ask him what he meant.
“Talking to Marguerite’s boss was weird, really weird. I don’t like keeping what little we do know from Vivi and the others, but Deputy Marsh agreed that it’s probably for the best right now, until we have a better idea of what’s going on.” Carly paused, reflecting on her conversation with the deputy. “It seems so long ago. But then to hear her talk about it . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“Do you think we can trust her, the deputy?” he asked.
She mulled the question over before responding. “Yes. She told me Marguerite had worked for her for over a decade and I think that says a lot. I just,” she paused again and turned to look out her window. “Never mind,” she said with a little shake of her head. “It was a long time ago and we can’t change the past.”
“No, we can’t,” he said, knowing where her thoughts had been headed, and knowing just as well that it was a path not worth taking. “So, what now?” he asked, letting out a breath.
Carly relayed a summary of the conversation she’d had with Deputy Marsh, including a warning she’d issued about the possibility of electronic surveillance—given what had happened with the fingerprint database—and a plan they’d made to touch base again in a few days, once the marshals had looked into the situation further. Marcus couldn’t find any flaws in the strategy, even though, like her, he didn’t like the fact that it meant they’d more or less have to sit on their hands and do nothing for a few days. But not wanting to do anything that could bring unwanted attention to them or Windsor, waiting was perhaps the better part of valor.
“I hate this.” He ran a hand down his thigh as he spoke, the thigh on which he’d had the skin graft just over a year ago. Occasionally, she still saw him take a misstep on his other leg, on which he’d had knee replacement surgery. Thinking back to that time, when he’d been airlifted to a hospital in New York City after being trapped in a building with an exploding bomb, Carly swallowed. She’d been terrified then, but only recently had she come to understand, or allow herself to understand, how close she’d come to losing the one person who mattered most to her.
“Yeah, I hate it too,” she conceded.
“And I wish I knew more about computers,” Marcus said, oblivious to her train of thought. “I picked up a lot of things during my time at the lab, but I don’t know enough about how to spot, let alone avoid, some of the electronic surveillance type stuff the deputy probably had in mind when she gave you that warning.”
“Me neither. Naomi could do it, I’m sure,” Carly thought out loud. What Vivi was to bodies and criminal investigations, Naomi was to computers. “But I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“Wyatt would know more than we would,” Marcus suggested.
And Wyatt lived closer. He’d been an officer with them up until about two years ago when, thanks to Vivi, he’d been offered a spot in a special program for local law enforcement at the FBI. They’d liked him and he’d liked them, so when they’d made him an offer to join the bureau, he’d accepted—his only condition of acceptance being that he be able to return to the Windsor area. Since Albany wasn’t one of the hotspots agents vied for, they’d been able to place him in the local office just over three months earlier.
“Maybe we should talk to him,” she said. “Just to get an idea of what kinds of things we would want to look for—not that I’m going to look,” she added as Marcus opened his mouth to protest. “I feel like, well, I feel like I should be doing something, even if that something is just academic.”
Marcus took a deep breath and let it out in a huff. “I get it. I can’t do it tonight or tomorrow, though. I have a few physical therapy appointments this week.”
“How’s it going?”
“Fine, better than dealing with what we’re dealing with now,” he said, dismissively. He had been like this ever since he’d left the city and come back up north. He worked hard to rehab himself, but he didn’t like talking about any of it.
“Maybe I’ll call Wyatt and see if he can meet me tonight. It’s not like I’m going to learn anything that will change what we’re doing. Or what we’re not doing.”
Marcus made a vague gesture with his head that she took for agreement.
“If I learn anything interesting, I’ll give you a call when I get home. If not, get a good night’s sleep and we can talk tomorrow,” she said.
Marcus let out a laugh as he rose from his seat, moving more stiffly than he would have the year before. “Yeah, call me. But between the two of us, if anyone needs a good night’s sleep, it’s you.”
She raised her eyebrows at him. “You’re not daring to tell me I look worse than you, are you?”
He laughed again. “I wouldn’t dare. You are my boss, after all.”
The comment could have been snide, but she’d heard the hint of affection. With a smile, she picked up the phone and dialed her old friend.
• • •
Drew walked into Anderson’s restaurant in Old Windsor, intent on ordering one of his favorite meals for dinner. He’d been to the establishment with Kit many times before and he knew their flat iron steak would satisfy. Scanning the room—with its round wooden tables, hardwood floors, and deer heads mounted on the walls—he made a beeline for a stool at the end of the bar. A seat that offered a view of Carly. With a man.
Even though she continued talking and kept her gaze fixed on her companion, he could tell by the small pause her hands made as she gestured that she’d seen him come in. Other than that small arrested movement, however, she did not acknowledge him.
As the bartender chatted with another customer, Drew took the opportunity to have a good leisurely look at her. She wore jeans and boots again, but of a completely different sort. She hadn’t dressed up—Old Windsor wasn’t really that kind of town—but her jeans, rolled to well above her ankles, were that contradictory kind some women could pull off—they looked relaxed and casual, but fit in such a way that left no doubt about the wearer’s awareness of, and comfort with, her body. Her boots were also different; ankle high with three-inch heels, their chocolate-brown color went well with the tan sweater that fell loosely off one of her shoulders as she leaned forward to say something to the man sitting across from her. As she did so, her blonde hair fell forward onto to her face. She tucked it behind her ear, as she always seemed to do, but here, in this setting—and apparently this company—the gesture was relaxed and easy, not one of frustration.
Interrupting his perusal, the bartender came by to drop off a menu. He already knew what he wanted so he went ahead and placed his order for the steak and a beer. When his drink was delivered, Drew pulled out his phone, trying not to spend his entire evening staring at Carly. But even as he scrolled through his e-mail, his mind strayed back to her. Begrudgingly.
She was a beautiful woman, a beautiful younger woman. Contrary to popular belief, not all men liked younger women. He found that with the life he led, the things he’d seen, he didn’t really click with women who didn’t have a fair bit of life experience. And while age didn’t always equate with experience, he found it often did.
He had to admit, though, that he didn’t know much about Carly or her life experience—they�
��d probably exchanged no more than a total of an hour’s worth of conversation since he’d first met her seven months earlier. Then again, it wasn’t as if he didn’t know anything about her.
He knew her to be good at her job. He’d watched her the day before and he’d seen the way the other officers and techs had treated her with respect—not something he’d likely see if she hadn’t earned it. He also knew she was brave—after all, she’d pulled Kit out of the path of a moving car, then brushed off her own injuries to focus on helping track down the perpetrator.
Based on the way Vivi trusted her when it came to keeping secrets about Deputy Marguerite Silva, she also inspired loyalty in her friends. And though he hadn’t seen much evidence of it as it pertained to her interactions with him, she liked to have a good time too—after Kit and Carly had said their hellos and left him to his date that summer night in New York City, it seemed the only thing he could hear over the din of the restaurant was the sound of her and Kit laughing and enjoying themselves.
So she was intelligent, brave, loyal, fun, and beautiful—his attraction to her shouldn’t be a surprise. But what did feel like a surprise, or more like a puzzle, was the fact that what he felt for her seemed to be more than the sum of those parts. And being a man used to knowing his own mind, it bothered him that he couldn’t figure out why, just that it was.
When the bartender placed his steak in front of him, Drew glanced at the time on his phone and realized he’d been staring blankly at it for about twenty minutes. With a sigh, he slid the device into his pocket and began cutting his food as his eyes went back to Carly, and lingered. She and her companion were finishing their meals and whatever they were discussing seemed quite serious.
Drew didn’t know whether or not what he was observing constituted a date, but the man certainly had her attention as he spoke. Every so often, he’d gesture and she’d nod, but he did most of the talking. Who was he? Drew wondered. Judging by how comfortable they seemed in each other’s company, he’d bet they knew each other at least reasonably well. Maybe as friends, maybe as more. He had to admit to himself that, age-wise, they were better suited for each other than he and Carly would be. But still . . .
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