At Close Range

by Jessica Andersen

  There was a pause. He couldn’t hear anything in the background, which meant that CeeCee’s husband and kids were off somewhere else, because Lord knew, they weren’t a quiet bunch. Then she said, “This isn’t about your work, is it?” And there was a new, softer note in her voice.

  “No.”

  “I’m glad,” she said simply. “It’s time. Robyn would want you to move on and be happy.”

  “I’m perfectly happy,” he argued, “and you’re not listening to me. I’m not starting something. I’m trying to figure out how to end it without hurting the woman in question.”

  “What’s her name?”

  He sighed. “Cassie.”

  “And what’s the matter with her? She have a criminal record? Antisocial tendencies? Bad breath?”

  He snorted. “No. None of those things.”

  “Then why end it? You don’t love her?”

  “I barely know her!” The response rang false, but Seth ignored the twinge and said,

  “It’s not fair to her. She wants kids eventually. That means marriage.”

  Amusement tinged CeeCee’s words when she said, “If you barely know her, isn’t it a bit premature to decide you don’t want to marry her and father her children?”

  “This isn’t funny. I’m serious.”

  Her voice sobered. “I know you are. I just don’t see the problem. Are you sure you’re not making this more complicated than it needs to be?”

  He let the silence hang. A flight attendant walked past and gave him a faint, distracted smile. When she was gone, he sighed and said, “I think Mom and Dad had it right. One marriage per person. Get it right the first time because you don’t get another chance. Don’t you remember those lectures?”

  “That was a hyperbole and you know it,” his sister said. “They wanted to make sure we wouldn’t go through three or four marriages like some people. They wanted us to be sure before we took our vows. And it worked, didn’t it? I was positive I wanted to marry Jack. You were positive you wanted to marry Robyn.” Now her voice softened. “Robyn’s death was a terrible, awful thing. But it doesn’t mean your entire marriage was a mistake.”

  “But what if it was?” he asked, and took a deep breath. “Some days I think that if she’d lived, we would’ve ended up divorced. We fought all the time. Hell, we fought the day she died.”

  And for that, he would never forgive himself.

  “Couples fight,” CeeCee said pragmatically. “Life goes on. Doesn’t mean you would have divorced. And if you had, would the world truly have ended? You did your best.

  That’s all anyone can ask.”

  “My best wasn’t good enough.” Seth flexed his knee, which ached from his cramped position. “I don’t want to go through that again.” It wasn’t worth the guilt, the shouts, the bad feelings.

  “That’s your choice.” CeeCee sounded irritated now. “But don’t you dare blame it on Mom and Dad for lectures they gave us when we were horny teenagers. They never meant you should stop living when Robyn died. Hell, call them if you don’t believe me.

  They’ll tell you themselves.”

  “No. That’s okay.” Seth closed his eyes, suddenly exhausted. “I hear you.”

  “You hear me but you don’t believe me,” CeeCee said. Her voice softened. “Give it a chance, Seth. Being lonely isn’t going to bring Robyn back and it isn’t going to change what happened—or didn’t—between the two of you. It’s time to start something new, find a different pattern.”

  “Maybe.” But if that was the case, shouldn’t he pick someone who was the opposite of his fractious wife? Shouldn’t he look for a calm, stress-free relationship that would avoid the arguments, the accusations?

  Hell, he didn’t know anymore.

  “Look, I’ve got to go,” he said when the same flight attendant passed again, and this time tapped her watch to indicate that it was nearly time for the plane to take off.

  “I’ll call you in a few days.”

  He ended the call more tangled up inside than ever.

  When he returned to his seat and buckled in, Cassie shifted in her sleep and touched her head to his shoulder. She sighed softly and the faint wrinkle between her eyebrows faded.

  Seth thought about easing her aside.

  Instead, he laid his head back on the seat and closed his eyes while the plane taxied into position and accelerated, sending them home.

  AS THEY DISEMBARKED from the plane, Cassie felt Seth’s tension, but he brushed her off when she asked what was wrong. She snuck glances at him, and saw the angry set to his jaw and the coolness in his eyes. Beneath the annoyance, she thought she detected guilt. Reluctance. And that made her nervous.

  She didn’t press him for an explanation. Instead she ran through the Florida trip in her head, trying to figure out what had him so upset. It could be the case, of course, but she didn’t think it was. His mood seemed too bleak for that. Too hurt.

  So it was something she had done, or something she hadn’t done. But what? What could she do to fix it? How could she—

  Whoa. She stopped dead in the middle of the airport concourse, nearly causing a pedestrian pileup behind her.

  Seth stopped and looked back. “Something wrong?”

  Yes. Everything was wrong, she realized suddenly. She was doing it again. She was making excuses for the man in her life, trying to figure out what she had done to make him unhappy, what she could do to fix things.

  Anger surged, not at him but at herself. At the weakness she thought she’d conquered when she left Lee.

  Damn it, she knew better.

  But that was her problem, not his, so she forced herself to walk. “No. Nothing’s wrong.”

  They left the airport terminal, picked up Seth’s truck from short-term parking and headed straight for the Bear Claw police station.

  Annoyed with herself and the silence, Cassie punched Alissa’s number into her cell.

  According to Alissa’s last report, Denver Lyttle had admitted that he had driven Jasmine Gardner home from the slopes the afternoon before her murder, but said he’d dropped her off at home before six because she needed to get ready for a hot date.

  With a solid alibi for the time of the murder—between ten that night and two the next morning—and an explanation of the witness testimony, Denver had been released.

  Which sent them back nearly to square one. Suspicions but no suspects. Evidence but no concrete patterns.

  Alissa’s voice answered, sounding breathless and harried. She must have checked caller ID, because she immediately said, “Cassie, I need you to meet me at Hawthorne Hospital. Something’s happened to Maya.”

  Cassie’s heart jammed her throat. Oh, God. Not Maya. “What? What’s wrong?”

  Seth looked over at her tone, but she gestured for him to wait while she pressed the cell phone to her ear, willing the connection to stay strong as they passed under an overpass.

  The connection fuzzed but held enough for her to hear Alissa say, “I’m not sure.

  Just get here!”

  Cassie slapped the phone shut, pulse pounding. “We’ve got to go to the hospital.

  Maya’s been hurt.”

  Without a word, Seth cut across three lanes of traffic, ignored the angry horn blasts and took the next exit, which dumped them in downtown Bear Claw, maybe five minutes from Hawthorne Memorial Hospital. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know.” Cassie twisted her fingers together as a parade of images jammed her brain. Maya cheering and flushed with success when the three of them graduated from the academy. Maya playing the impromptu counselor, sitting Cassie down after another bad first date, prodding until the Lee situation had come spilling out. Maya telling her it wasn’t her fault, urging her to take what she needed from the experience and move on.

  Maya a few days ago, looking sad and lost and torn up over a child services case.

  Guilt stabbed Cassie. She should’ve tried harder to find Maya, to make sure she was okay. The case was no ex
cuse. Seth was no excuse. She should have been a better friend.

  “We’re here.” Seth pulled his truck into the Emergency dock and whistled. “And apparently, so is everyone else.”

  The ambulance bay was crammed with people. Satellite trucks were parked haphazardly in the visitors’ area, and men and women with cameras and microphone booms jostled for position near the main ER doors. Smaller knots of people spread out to the edges, where brightly dressed on-camera talents did stand-up reports from the scene.

  But the scene of what?

  “Let me out here,” Cassie ordered, reaching for the door.

  “No way.” Seth floored the gas and aimed for a semilegal parking space, sending a trio of media types scurrying out of the way. “This could be a distraction, a plan to get you unprotected.”

  “Seems pretty elaborate,” Cassie argued, but stayed put until he’d parked and moved around to cover her back.

  “At this point, I wouldn’t put anything past our guy. He’s too smart. Likes the grand gesture too much. So far it’s been mostly small stuff. My gut tells me he’s planning something big. There has to be some reason he wanted us out of town for a few days. Maybe this was it.”

  But when they pushed their way through the surging sea of reporters and found two beleaguered uniforms trying to clear the ambulance bays for actual emergencies, they quickly learned that the frenzy had nothing to do with the murders.

  “Officer Cooper went after Wexton Henkes with her sidearm,” one of the uniforms told Seth, pitching his voice low so the crowding reporters wouldn’t hear.

  “Something happened with his son and she snapped. Completely lost it.”

  It took a moment for the words to register in Cassie’s brain, because they made no sense. Supercool, super-controlled Maya would never do something like that. She just wouldn’t.

  Then the second half of the officer’s report penetrated. Something happened with his son. Cassie remembered Maya talking about the boy, Kiernan, remembered how she had taken the case so personally, how she had questioned the wisdom of sending him home to his family, even though there was no actual proof of abuse.

  If something else had happened to the boy…

  “Let me through.” She pushed past the officers, aware of Seth at her heels. Under other circumstances she might have found his presence soothing, strengthening.

  But as she strode through the ER waiting room and headed for the main desk, his looming bulk itched along her nerve endings like an accusation.

  She had been so focused on him, on trying to figure out what he wanted and how to get along with him, that she’d missed helping a friend.

  “Cassie!” Alissa erupted from a nearby room. “Thank God you’re here!” She barely spared a glance for Seth as she grabbed Cassie’s arm and dragged her into the room.

  Maya lay in a hospital bed, eyes closed, skin so pale it looked nearly translucent. Her chest rose and fell rhythmically.

  Her wrists and ankles were bound with soft restraints.

  “What happened?” Cassie asked tightly, afraid that if she let loose with all the questions at once she might explode. She wanted to reach for Seth’s hand for support. At the same time, she wanted to ask him to leave. He wasn’t part of this friendship.

  Alissa touched Maya’s lax foot. “I’m not entirely sure. From what I’ve been able to piece together, Kiernan Henkes was admitted earlier today with severe injuries.”

  She pressed her lips together, then continued. “Maya heard about it and she…hell, she went nuts. I wasn’t there, but I guess she drove out to Henkes’s mansion, used her badge to get inside, and then just…lost it. Wexton Henkes says she was screaming at him and accusing him of all sorts of terrible things. She had a weapon, and I guess he grabbed for it, they struggled and the gun discharged. Henkes had a slice carved out of his arm. He says Maya slipped and fell during the struggle. Hit her head on the corner of a marble table. She’s been out ever since, though the docs say she should’ve come around by now. They’re wondering if there’s something else going on.”

  Nausea twisted Cassie’s stomach. Maya looked small in the hospital bed. Pale.

  Fragile. Cassie had never noticed before just how thin Maya’s arms were, how narrow her wrist bones were. How had she never noticed that her friend was so delicate?

  “Did the doctors have any suggestions?” Seth asked, his voice sounding too loud and masculine in the hushed hospital room.

  Alissa glanced at him. “They think she took something—accidentally or on purpose—

  that altered her mental state and now has her unconscious. They’re still waiting on the full tox screen. The alternative…” She paused, then said, “The alternative is that she’s had some sort of mental breakdown. Her mind may be keeping her from waking up.”

  A chill skittered through Cassie. “That’s ridiculous.” But was it? Maya hadn’t been herself over the past few days. She’d been stressed and unhappy ever since returning from the conference. Cassie had attributed it to the murders, but what if it had been something else entirely?

  Something she would have seen if she’d been paying better attention.

  “Good, you’re all here” a new voice spoke from the doorway, startling all three of them. Chief Parry stood there, grim-faced. He glanced from Seth to Cassie and back. “You get anything useful from Fitz before the shooting?”

  “A name,” Seth answered. “Anna Susie. Mean anything to you?”

  “Not a damn thing,” the chief said bitterly. “And it sure as hell isn’t anything I can take to the media.” He cursed. “We’ve got two bodies, we just released our only solid suspect, and now this.” He gestured toward Maya’s motionless body. But though his motions were brusque, his eyes mirrored his concern. “Henkes is outside right now, playing the wounded martyr, telling the camera that although his son’s in critical condition and he has fifteen stitches in his arm, his heart goes out to Officer Cooper. That sort of thing.” Parry grimaced. “The higher-ups want me to make a statement. You three got any ideas?”

  Cassie had some ideas, all right, but she wasn’t about to share them with the media, so she stayed silent. When the others did the same, the chief scowled, but didn’t pursue the question. He gestured toward the door. “I need Varitek and someone from the forensics department at the task force meeting in a half hour. The other tech stays with her. I want her guarded until we have a better handle on what happened.”

  “I’ll stay,” Alissa volunteered. She nodded to Cassie and Seth. “You two should be at the meeting.”

  Cassie had to force herself out of the room, had to force herself not to look back at Maya. Nerves twisted in her stomach. What had happened? It didn’t seem to have anything to do with the murders, but still…

  The timing seemed too coincidental.

  She and Seth backtracked through the ER and out into the waiting room, but stopped just inside the doors at the sight of the mob outside. “Maybe we should go out another way.”

  “Good idea.” Seth gestured for Cassie to lead.

  As Cassie led Seth to a side exit, she couldn’t get Maya out of her mind. The psych specialist had looked so fragile. So breakable. So she said, “Once we’ve got this case closed, I hope you’ll be able to stick around for a few days. I could probably use your help with Henkes.”

  Seth paused on the stairs and turned to her. Standing two steps below her, he was just shy of her height, so she had the strange sensation of looking down at him. The serious intensity of his eyes brought her up short and sent a chill skittering through her gut.

  “I won’t be staying after the case is closed.” His expression was guarded, his voice laced with a thread of regret.

  Cassie felt like she’d been gut-punched, not by his seemingly harmless words, but by the sudden suspicion that entered her soul. “What are you saying?”

  The strong muscles of his throat moved as he swallowed. “I’m just making sure we understand each other. Things got…intense last night. I don’
t want either of us to make more of it than we should.”

  “You mean you don’t want me to make more of it,” she countered, feeling an icy wash of embarrassment and clutching disappointment spread through her body. “Wow.

  That’s insulting. Just because I’m a woman, you assume I’m going to equate good sex with love, is that it?” Her voice sharpened because maybe some small part of her had begun to think past tomorrow, had begun to wonder whether they might have a future.

  “No, that’s not it.” But the protest lacked force. “I’m just trying to be fair here.”

  He lifted his hands to her hips and held her in place as though he had the right to touch her. “Look, this could get out of hand if we let it.”

  A fluttering, panicked feeling pressed in Cassie’s chest. She knew this wasn’t the time or the place for this conversation, but couldn’t bring herself to end it, couldn’t force herself to step away from his hands and agree that yes, he was right.

  Instead, she gripped his wrists where they braced her. “And why would that be a bad thing? Explain it to me, because I’m sure as hell confused right now.” She continued before he could answer, as the feelings built up inside her and spilled over in a torrent of words. “We like each other. We’re good in bed together. Hell, we’re even in the same field, so there isn’t any problem with the hours or the expectations. Why not give it a try? We might surprise you.”

  The word we shimmered in the air between them like a promise. A plea.

  But he shook his head. “I don’t want what you want.”

  “Which is?”

  “Kids. Family. Marriage. Any of it.” When she didn’t answer right away, he sighed heavily. “Look, I was the best husband I knew how to be, and it didn’t sit easy with me. I wasn’t good at compromise.”

  “You still aren’t,” Cassie countered, “and for some reason that doesn’t bother me.”

  She took a deep breath, trying to react with logic rather than emotion. She felt as though they were teetering atop a precipice, ready to slide down one side or the other, and her next words could tip the balance. “Look, I’ll admit that little Eden has me thinking I’ll want a baby eventually, but that’s the key. Eventually. I’m not looking for a husband right now and I’m not looking to start a family right now. Why not give us a try for a while?”