by Tee O'Fallon
Overwhelming guilt sliced deep. Again, he felt responsible. Six years ago, a woman had been murdered because of his mistake. This time, he should have seen it coming. But how the hell could he have anticipated this?
He’d known Cassie was hiding from something, but he’d been so blinded by his feelings he’d gone against his better judgment and done nothing, content to let her tell him in her own time.
Fuck.
He’d been distracted. Again. This time by Cassie.
“I’m sorry.” Dr. Morrison rose from the sofa. “If there’s any change in Leo’s condition, I’ll let you know.”
“Can I see him?” Ginny whispered.
“As soon as he’s out of post-op, but I have to warn you…” The surgeon’s forehead creased. “Leo will be heavily sedated and won’t know you’re there.”
More tears ran down Ginny’s cheeks. “This can’t be happening. Somebody please tell me this isn’t happening.” She began to shake uncontrollably. “I–I never got to tell him I love him.”
“Ginny, he knows.” Cassie stroked the girl’s cheek. “You have to believe that. I saw how the two of you looked at each other today. He loves you, and he knows how much you love him, even if you didn’t have the chance to say it.”
“Are you—are you s–sure?”
“Positive.” Cassie lifted her eyes to Mike. “Love is something you can’t hide.”
A lump the size of a football rose in Mike’s throat.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
“Chief?” Mike turned to see the surgeon waiting for him. “I’ll tell the nurse’s station to keep you posted as well.”
“Thanks.” He shook Dr. Morrison’s hand and watched him disappear behind the double doors leading to the surgical unit.
Ginny sobbed openly on Cassie’s shoulder. Her pink shirt was damp from Ginny’s tears. And blood. They all had Leo’s blood on them. One way or the other.
Cassie met Mike’s gaze again over Ginny’s head. She bit her lower lip and slowly shook her head back and forth. The grief ripping through Mike was as palpable as the stabbing ache in his shoulder.
Footsteps sounded on the linoleum floor, and he turned to see Rose and Sue coming along the hospital corridor. Rose rushed to Ginny’s side and gave the girl a big hug. “Thank goodness you aren’t seriously hurt. Jimmy didn’t say much, just that you and Leo had been injured in the explosion at the park.”
“How is Leo?” Sue looked first to Cassie, then to Mike.
“Not good,” he answered in a tired voice.
Cassie covered her mouth with her hand and bolted from the sofa to run into the ladies’ room across from the waiting area. Mike stared after her.
“Is she okay?” Rose asked. “For that matter, are you okay?” She took in the dried bloodstain on the front of his shirt.
“Fine,” he lied. He walked to the ladies’ room door and heard the distinct sounds of someone retching. Mike steeled himself for what he had to do next. What he wanted to do was storm in there and help her through this, but what he had to do was question her. She was as much a suspect now as a witness or target.
His cell phone vibrated. A feeling of dread swamped him as he answered the call. “Go ahead.”
“You’re not gonna like this,” Jimmy responded.
Mike’s already sinking heart took a nosedive. He leaned one hand against the wall next to the ladies’ room door. “Let’s have it.” He closed his eyes as Jimmy rattled off Cassie’s criminal history.
“Cassandra Younger, age thirty-four, two felony arrests. One seven months ago for burglary in Brooklyn, one a few months before that for narcotics trafficking and endangering minors. That one’s out of Manhattan. Sentencing for both charges is still pending.”
Mike froze, barely able to process what he’d heard. At this point, he wasn’t surprised Cassie had a record, but he hadn’t expected it to be this bad. It didn’t fit, not with the woman he knew. It was like Jimmy was describing an entirely different person. He let his head fall backward and stared at the ceiling.
She said she’d never done anything illegal. A goddamn lie. Yeah, she did a number on you, Flannery. Played you like the fool you are.
Just when he’d begun to feel… Feel like he…
No, dammit. She betrayed you and everyone in this town, and now someone might die because of her lies.
“Mike…there?” Jimmy’s voice cut out. “…ike…hear me?”
“Yeah, I hear—” The connection was severed. Mike pushed redial twice. Nothing. He clicked his radio, but all he heard was static. “Shit.” The electrical storm was wreaking havoc with communications everywhere, even police radios were working intermittently.
The toilet flushed inside the ladies’ room followed by the sound of running water. A moment later, Cassie burst through the door and flinched when she saw him standing so close.
“Let’s finish this. Now!” He grabbed her arm, intending to pull her into one of the empty rooms down the hall. She twisted out of his grasp.
“No.” She was white as a sheet and visibly shaking. Grim determination etched into her features. “It’s too late, and I have to leave.”
Cassie swiped a tear from her cheek then strode down the hallway. When she picked up speed, Mike followed. As she began to run, he charged after her.
He caught up with her outside the automatic sliding emergency room doors. Rain pelted them in sheets. He spun her to face him, ignoring the pain shooting from his wound as he gripped her upper arms. His chest felt like it was on fire, but he held fast to Cassie’s soft flesh.
Lightning lit the pitch-black sky. Thunder echoed. The air was so charged with energy, he could smell it. In seconds, they were both drenched.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he shouted. “Not before you tell me exactly what you’re involved in. Someone tried to kill you, and Leo took the hit. I have a responsibility to the people in this town. To protect them, even if it means protecting them from you. You owe me—hell, you owe all of us—an explanation. And don’t even think of playing me again.”
“Please,” she cried, “you have to let me go.” She struggled in his grasp. In the intermittent brightness from the lightning, Mike couldn’t tell if the water streaming down her face was rain or tears. From her tormented expression, he’d bet it was both.
“Why, so you can get someone else killed? Or get killed yourself?” Despite the anger at her betrayal, the thought of her lying dead somewhere nearly sent Mike to his knees. “Talk to me, dammit! Who wants you dead?”
She lowered her head, and Mike fought the urge to press his mouth against her damp hair. “Christ, tell me.” He softened his hold on her arms. “I can protect you.”
“No, you can’t.” She leveled him with that same determined look he’d seen on her face outside the ladies’ room. “I should have stayed where I was. It’s my fault Leo is going to die. I don’t know how I’ll ever live with that or the pain I’ve caused. I don’t want anyone else’s blood…” Mike followed Cassie’s gaze to where fresh blood soaked his shirt “…on my hands.” His wound must have reopened. “Oh, God.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. So, so sorry.”
“Sorry? For what?” Leo would likely die and Cassie had about ripped Mike’s heart out. “Getting people hurt, or having a criminal record? The one you lied about not having.”
“What?” Cassie snapped her head up. “I don’t have a—”
“Stop lying,” he hissed through gritted teeth. The conversation they’d had when he changed her flat tire flashed in his mind. “You told me you’d never do anything to hurt anyone in this town and that you’d never done anything illegal. That was a goddamn lie.”
“No,” she screamed, shaking her head. “It wasn’t.”
“Then how do you explain your felony arrests—burglary, narcotics trafficking, endangering minors?”
“Those records are phony.” Cassie twisted from his grip, and this time he let her go. She stood ramrod straight. Defiant. “That’s what I should
have told you a long time ago. I’m a cop, Mike. An undercover cop. Those arrests are fabricated, part of my fictitious background. My real name is Cassandra Yates.”
Mike felt as if he’d been slapped. “No. You can’t be.” That would mean… Not again.
Another crack of lightning rent the black sky, illuminating the seriousness on Cassie’s face and adding credibility to her shocking confession. “I’m telling the truth. This is what I wanted to tell you after the fireworks. I’ve been a cop for over ten years, most of it working undercover in New York City. You were right, I am hiding out. You know as well as I do maintaining your fictitious identity is the single most important thing to an undercover cop.”
Yeah, he knew it well. So did Elaine Bitters. He hadn’t seen it coming then. Or now. The blood in his veins seemed to stop flowing. His past flitted before his eyes in all its emotional gore. It wasn’t possible. This couldn’t be happening to him all over again—worked by an undercover cop. No way could he have been duped again this good.
“If you’re a cop, prove it,” he said through clenched teeth.
“I left my shield at home. You know as well as I do undercovers don’t walk around with their real ID.”
Mike held his arms from his sides. “You expect me to take your word for anything—especially something as absurd as this—after all the lies you’ve told?”
He was shouting now, and a middle-aged couple running out of the rain into the emergency room stared at them as they hustled by.
“No, I don’t,” Cassie yelled back. “Call Detective Dominick Carew at the 1st Precinct. He’ll confirm it. He’ll also confirm there’s a hit man trying to kill me for the last undercover job I did in Manhattan.”
Energy drained from Mike’s body. He was looking at a complete stranger.
Cassie. An undercover cop.
Suddenly all the pieces of her puzzle fell into place.
Why she’d really landed in town out of the blue and how cryptic she was about her past. The unexpectedly professional way she’d handled herself during the armed robbery at the Nest and how panicked she’d been afterward when the Gazette photographer had snapped a shot of her. Now she’d actually given him a name, someone who could corroborate her story.
“Fuck.” He pressed his hand to his forehead. Anger and pain, the likes of which he’d never known, funneled to the surface. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” he shouted. “You could have trusted me. Or were you playing me, seeing if you were good enough to fool another cop with your story?”
“I never played you.” Cassie’s face was a mask of misery. “I was afraid. I didn’t know you at first.”
“You’ve known me pretty darned well since last night and you still didn’t fess up. It took what happened to Leo before you decided it was important enough for me to know.” Mike searched the face of the woman who’d managed to break through the wall he’d erected to keep others out. The same woman he’d spilled his guts to about the most painful time in his life. The tightening in his chest was almost unbearable. He’d trusted her. He’d let her in, and look where it had gotten him. Where it had gotten Leo. “How long did you plan to keep this charade up? How long were you planning on using me?”
“I wasn’t using you. I planned to tell you everything tonight after the fireworks.” She clasped his face in her hands. “I love you.” Her body started to shake. “I love you with everything that I am.”
Mike shook his head. “No. You. Don’t.” He grabbed her wrists and yanked her hands from his face. “It was an act, all part of your undercover act.” The same way it had been part of Elaine’s act when she’d told him she loved him then tape recorded their intimate conversations for a goddamn Internal Affairs investigation.
“It’s not an act,” Cassie cried. “I love you. You have to believe me.”
“I don’t have to do anything.” He leaned to within inches of her nose. “It’s over.”
“Why can’t you understand?” She held her arms from her sides. “You’re a cop, too. You would have done the same thing if you had to.”
“No!” Mike got in her face again. Blood pounded at his temples so loud he could hear it, feel it in every cell of his body. “I would never have done that to you. I don’t use people.”
“I never meant for it to get this far. I never even expected to be here this long.” Cassie took a deep breath and shuddered. “Whether you believe me or not, I have to go. I have to call my people.”
“As much as I want you out of my sight,” Mike said, knowing deep down in his gut that wasn’t exactly true, “I can’t let you leave. You’re at the center of an attempted homicide, and if you’re telling me the truth, you’re still on this guy’s hit list.”
“Then the best thing is for me to go back to the city,” Cassie said. “To a safe house.”
Rain continued to pound the pavement, though less intensely than before. The echoing thunder had become more distant.
Mike clamped his jaw tight. If he didn’t, he’d say something he’d regret. Like don’t go. Not because he still had to interrogate her, but because he didn’t want her to leave. The thought he was so weak he would even think it sickened him.
Duty came first. Not emotion. Not feelings. Nothing personal would get in the way of what he had to do. “You’re going to the police station,” he said as a patrol car pulled to a stop near the emergency room doors. “Even a hired gun won’t try a hit there.”
“Everything all right, Chief?” Officer Mackey shouted from the car’s open window.
“We’re good,” Mike said over Cassie’s head. “Give Cassie a ride to the police station. Make sure she gets inside.” When he looked back her eyes were filled with anguish.
“I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m sorry I lied to the whole town, but especially to you. It’s just that I loved my new life the way it was, and I didn’t want anything to change that.”
She gulped down a sob. Her hair was flattened against her head, dripping with rainwater. Part of him wanted to yank her into his arms and never let her go, but he knew he never would.
He could understand the need for maintaining an undercover identity, particularly if there was a hit man involved. But her lies and deception cut him deeply nonetheless. He couldn’t separate her professional caution from the pain and mistrust it was causing him. His guts might as well be staring up at him from a pile on the ground.
Without another word, Cassie turned and headed for the patrol car. Mike watched her get into the passenger side. The car door slammed shut. He followed the red taillights of the car as it left the hospital parking lot. Then she was gone.
He stared into the darkness. A bolt of lightning lit the lot, and his heart split in two. He willed his feet to move, to go after her. But they wouldn’t. Couldn’t.
Wind whipped at him. Hard-driven rain stung his face. His shirt and pants were soaked, but he felt numb. Watching Cassie disappear into the night was like watching his life slip away. His future. He balled his fists tightly, keeping them that way intentionally until another shaft of pain darted to his chest. Pain was better than the nothingness Cassie had left behind.
Goddamnit.
He’d believed in her, history unknown. And she’d taken that trust and trashed it.
Chapter Seventeen
“How are you doing?” Officer Mackey asked as he turned onto Main Street a few blocks from the police station. Cassie had met him earlier in the day at Mike’s PBA table.
Rain pounded the streets. The car’s wipers swung back and forth across the windshield in a steady rhythm, making a swishing, thumping noise with each pass. Cassie ran her hand over her wet hair and shivered as cool air from the vents chilled her skin beneath her soaking clothes.
“I’m fine,” she lied. “But thanks for asking.” Mercifully, Officer Mackey had the good sense to know she wasn’t in the mood to make small talk.
In reality, she was thinking about Leo and how she would never forgive herself. The absolute worst thing that could
happen to a cop was someone else getting hurt because of their actions. It had happened to Mike. Now it had happened to her.
Cassie blinked rapidly to keep from bursting into uncontrollable tears, something she hadn’t done since she was fifteen years old. All her hopes and dreams for a new life. And love. Gone in a flash.
When she’d told Mike she was an undercover cop, the very thing Cassie feared most played out before her eyes with heinous results. He hadn’t understood. Worse, he’d coldly and emphatically rejected her and her pathetic admission that she was in love with him. Every beautiful moment that had passed between them last night might as well never have happened.
Cassie clawed her fingers into the upholstered seat. Mike didn’t love her or he would never have treated her with such disdain, such icy detachment. The all-consuming, hateful look he’d shot her outside the hospital killed everything inside her.
My life—and Leo’s—destroyed.
Cassie stared through the windshield at the adorable Mom and Pop shops lining the town’s sidewalks. The whole town would hate her when they found out, and that tore at her heart nearly as much as knowing it was over between her and Mike.
It took a moment before she realized the car had stopped at the curb in front of the station and Officer Mackey was staring at her.
“I’ll drop you off here,” he said. “I need to get back to the park, but I’ll wait until you get inside.”
“Thanks for the ride.” Cassie forced a tight smile then got out of the car and shut the door. A few drops of water splashed onto her face, but the torrential downpour had diminished to a light sprinkle.
True to his promise, Officer Mackey waited while she headed up the few steps to the double glass doors of the police station.
Breathing a heavy sigh, she realized that after tonight she would never see any of her new friends again. Tomorrow morning, she’d be on her way back to New Jersey, or to a safe house somewhere in New York City. Hopewell Springs would be nothing more than a blur in her rearview mirror.