Читать книгу Deadly Past - Kris Rafferty - Страница 9

Chapter One

Searing pain had Special Agent Cynthia Deming’s blue eyes opened and wide as she bolted upright in bed, her blond hair draped over half her face. Heart racing, vision blurred, she threw her legs over the mattress’s edge, suffering nausea and a headache that left her gasping. She touched the back of her head and felt matted, sticky hair around a clotted cut. When her vision cleared, she studied the resultant blood smears on her manicured fingertips, on her expensive gray pantsuit, on the worn and ugly bedspread.

Wait. Not her bed, or her bedroom.

“Well, this can’t be good.” Her voice came out raspy. What the hell happened last night? Fully dressed, injured, in a stranger’s bed? This was an unwelcome first.

The stale air did seem familiar, however, as did the brown drapes pulled closed over windows. The bedroom was innocuous, its furnishings dated and worn. Maybe a cheap motel? Bare beige walls, fragrance of carpet cleaner, and a television against the wall did hint at a rented room, but there was no desk, phone, or tiny refrigerator—things that would indicate a motel.

She struggled to her feet, swayed, and felt dizzy. A heavy object fell to the floor. A gun. Cynthia’s hand palmed her hip holster and found it empty. No small beans. She didn’t remember removing it from her holster. Definitely not good. Cynthia retrieved it from the floor too quickly, inviting more nausea and spiking head pain, forcing her to sit again as panic teased the edges of her composure.

She couldn’t remember. Not how she’d arrived here, or even where here was.

Pulling back the gun’s slide, she noted the bullet chambered, checked the magazine, counted rounds, and found six missing. A sniff told her it had been discharged recently.

“Well, shit.” Bad news was piling up, and it was beginning to feel personal.

Cynthia struggled to her feet. She had to take a moment to find her balance, so it felt like an accomplishment when she’d made her way to the heavily draped window. She nudged aside the curtain, winced as morning sunlight irritated her eyes, and felt relieved to recognize the view.

Chinatown, Boston. She was at a federal safe house she’d used three weeks prior for a case now closed. Why was she here? Injured, with gun drawn, red flags flapping in the breeze. From her vantage point, she could see her black Lexus parked at the curb across the street, indicating she’d driven here. A quick press of her palm to her pants pocket and she found her car keys, which eased her mind enough to holster her gun. There was no sign of her iPhone, or wallet, suggesting she’d been robbed. But then what?

She couldn’t remember.

Whatever had happened had prompted her to seek shelter at the safe house. Not the worst decision she’d ever made. An active safe house had on-site personnel who could help her, and fill in some blanks. Hope spiked as she hurried out of the room, and it grew as she continued to recognize familiar wall-to-wall rugs, worn to the backing in places, dingy beige drywall, the dark hallway, the smell of cigarettes and air freshener. She might have lost time, but she remembered these details.

The safe house had a hollow feel, and it surrounded her in silence. Calling out, searching every room, she continued to hope someone was there, until the last room was searched. Nothing and nobody. Not unusual, just damned inconvenient. When not staffed, the safe house was locked up tighter than a tick, heavily alarmed to protect its expensive surveillance tech. So how’d she get in?

The security cameras would have the video. Cynthia hurried back to the surveillance room on the first floor, in the back near the kitchen. It was hard to focus past the stabbing pain in her head and the accompanying nausea, but she did, punching in the door’s code with trembling fingers. Afraid the code might have been changed since she’d last been here, she waited nervously, and then enjoyed a wave of relief when the door clicked open. She stepped inside to view a wall-to-wall display of monitors, each screen dedicated to a different live security camera: the building’s two entrances, all abutting streets, and the roof. A long desk in the middle of the room was covered with electronics, hard drives, and keyboards.

Cynthia sat at the desk, logged in using her FBI security clearance, and pulled up archived digital video, searching for last night’s time stamp.

The desk’s phone caught her eye as she scrolled through the video, keeping her finger on the keyboard’s down arrow button. It nudged her conscience. Her team leader, FBI Special Agent Jack Benton, would be wondering why she hadn’t arrived at work yet. Eight AM. He’d want her absence explained. He’d have questions, deserved answers, and she’d have none.

She’d look like a fool.

Cynthia’s heart sank as she thought of the many ways her team would spank her over this bizarre turn of events, but when she factored in the safe house’s phone protocols—three levels of security on all incoming and outgoing calls—it had her hesitating to broaden the scope of who knew of her troubles. Staff, rightly, would require explanations regarding a federal agent’s unauthorized use of a secret safe house, and her blackout would produce incomplete answers, suspicion, and be noted in her personnel file—a high cost for a potentially benign reason for waking, injured, in a Chinatown safe house.

“Ugh.” A lifetime of following rules could not be ignored. She grabbed the phone, and then her image appeared on the monitor’s screen, distracting her enough to place the receiver back on its cradle. Digital time stamp: 10:30 PM. Cynthia’s image staggered down the center of the street, just outside of the safe house, gun drawn and hanging at her side. Drunk? Cynthia refused to believe her eyes. Then her image moved and a streetlight illuminated her face. She froze the image, zoomed in, and recognized pain—not inebriation—contorting her face.

She’d arrived at the safe house injured. Good to know.

Rummaging in a desk drawer, she found a flash drive, inserted it into the computer’s port, and watched as her image progressed past her parked Lexus to the safe house’s stairs, and then its stoop. Whatever her level of impaired cognition last night, she’d been clear-headed enough to punch in the door’s security code, but not clear-headed enough to drive. Cynthia paused the video, clicking appropriate pulldown menus, and copied, then downloaded, the time-stamped video footage.

Benton would have questions, and this video was all Cynthia had to offer.

She clicked “copy,” and flinched as pain flared behind her eyes. It blinded her for a moment, forcing her to breathe through the nausea. Her stomach lurched without warning, forcing Cynthia to lean over a waste bin as she emptied her stomach. Shaken, blinking past watering eyes, she struggled to read the screen, clicking a message panel she assumed said “download complete.” Tucking the flash drive into her pocket, she managed to breathe past the worst of her stomach’s spasms, and finally her vision cleared.

The screen’s pop-up message box stated, “File deleted.”

“No!” Cynthia hit the computer’s power button, hoping to hard boot the system, maybe activate an auto-recovery program. The computer didn’t respond. The screens remained unchanged as the words “File deleted” stared back at her. She hit the power button again. Still nothing. In full panic mode, Cynthia yanked the wires from the hard drive’s ports, front and back. All monitors went dark, and the hard drive’s motor fell silent. Heart racing, her breathing labored, Cynthia stared in horror at the wall of now blank monitors. What had she done?

She’d fucked up.

This computer system didn’t respond like her personal laptop. Where were the fail-safes? High tech federal security hardware should have fail-safes, but tech hated her, so maybe she’d found a way to make them fail. Cynthia couldn’t keep a watch more than six months before it died, and had long since given up wearing them. Even her iPhone hated her, always freezing, never working correctly. Why had she assumed she could finesse these computers? Cynthia groaned, realizing there was nothing she could do now but cut her losses. Tech support would clean up this mess as they’d cleaned up her other messes in the past.

She pushed away from the desk, spared a glance for the soiled waste bin, and then remembered the sheets and comforter that she’d bloodied upstairs. Ten minutes later, she tossed them in the dumpster out back and headed across the street toward her car. Clicking her Lexus’s key fob, she opened the driver’s side door and slid behind the wheel, instantly relieved to see her pink Kate Spade pocketbook in the backseat. Her gym bag was open on the passenger seat. Resting her hand on the clothes, she realized they were still slightly damp, and it triggered a memory. The gym last night. A couple blocks down. It might have security cameras, too, so maybe video there could fill in her memory gaps. Her iPhone lay on top of the soiled gym clothes—battery dead, big surprise—next to a small container of peppermint gum, which she fell on like a starving child. Her wallet was in her Kate Spade bag.

“Hm.” Cynthia’s anxiety had her chewing the gum frenetically. “Curiouser and curiouser.” Finding her phone and wallet ruled out robbery, so what was left? Abduction by aliens?

Fifteen minutes later, she parked at the curb of her Back Bay Gloucester Street apartment, impatient to call Benton from her landline phone. The peppermint gum had settled her stomach and her headache was under control, but she was panicking. Memories were flooding back…of men on their knees, bags over their heads, hands tied behind their backs. A brick wall. Blood. Lots and lots of blood. So…definitely not aliens.

Cynthia dropped her keys twice as she worked the front lock to her apartment. Once inside, she hurried down the hall to her landline phone in the living room. In her rush, she dropped her pocketbook, and didn’t see him until she flipped on the overhead light. Cynthia lashed out with a punch, shrieking as fear suffused her. He twisted his upper body upon impact, stripping her blow of power, but by then her fright had turned to anger.

“Charlie!” If looks could kill, she’d be planning a funeral.

Charlie Foulkes. The center of her universe, her past, her present, her best friend. He stood between her and the phone, arms folded over his chest, and he was glowering. Totally pissed. Almost as pissed as she was with him. Cynthia had been avoiding Charlie for months, and just looking at him now made her cringe with embarrassment.

“Damn, Charlie!” She holstered her gun, only then noticing she’d even pulled it, and that her living room was a mess. Among other things, an empty carton of mango sorbet with an accompanying dirty spoon littered the side table. Clean laundry waited to be folded on the ottoman, and four pair of heels were underfoot, scattered over her rose-colored Persian rug. Fighting back mortification, she gathered the shoes and tossed them behind the leather couch, pretending not to hear the loud clatter as they bounced off the oak wainscoting. “I almost shot you!” she said.

Charlie—Boston Police Department’s forensic pathologist—didn’t seem all that impressed with his close call. Sexy as hell, his red hair disheveled, Charlie wore his usual jeans, boots, and short-sleeved shirt. His big blue eyes were hooded by furrowed brows, his full lips thinned with anger, and the sight was impressive. Intimidating, even.

Lifting the laundry basket, she gave Charlie a wide berth as she set it next to the grandfather clock, out of his line of sight. After a last scan of the room, she decided the rug didn’t need vacuuming, and the books and newspapers on her antique side tables weren’t technically clutter, so she mirrored Charlie’s posture—arms folded over her chest, scowling. Cynthia hated when Charlie got mad at her. Other people? She could give a damn. But Charlie? It really bothered her, and he knew it. He’d weaponize himself, and her one defense was being angry back, because it really bothered Charlie when she was angry at him.

They were best friends; it didn’t have to make sense. They’d known each other since she was twelve, and up until a few months ago they’d been as close to inseparable as friends could be. Friends. Just friends. Whatever had prompted his drive to her apartment—at nearly the crack of dawn—had him upset enough to interrupt his morning routine. He’d foregone his shave. Cynthia hadn’t seen him unshaven since…well, since the accident, and that was ten years back. The scruff was a menacing layer to his full-bodied frown. Boots braced shoulder width apart, Charlie towered over Cynthia’s five-feet, six inches, intimidating her, though he’d be the last person to admit that was his endgame.

“You look like shit,” he said. His biceps twitched as he rolled his shoulders, as if working out a kink.

“Kiss my ass.” She nudged a matted lock of hair behind her ear, hating that he was right. Hating that he looked sexy and fit in his dishevelment, while she not only felt like hell, he’d assured her that she looked like it, too. She walked to the couch, peeled off her ruined suit jacket, and then sat, using her jacket to protect the leather from her disgusting hair.

“Where have you been?” Charlie lived for his job and his family, and not in that order. He was taking her absence personally. She wanted to throw a denial in his face, to tell him he had no right to worry about her, but she knew it wasn’t true. They didn’t share so much as a DNA strand, but Cynthia was family by default. Terrance’s little sister. Terrance, who’d died ten years ago, after wrapping his new roadster around a tree with his best friend, Charlie, in the passenger seat. “I’ve been waiting here since eleven last night,” he said.

“Who asked you to?” Cynthia hated the guilt he easily summoned. “Since when do you show up unannounced at my apartment, using a key I gave you only for emergencies, by the way, and question my whereabouts?”

“Cynthia—” Her name left his lips on a growl.

“No, really, Charlie.” She felt at a disadvantage—sitting, while he towered over her—so she flavored her tone with belligerence to hide her weakness. “What if I’d pulled an all-nighter last night with a strange man I picked up in a bar? Then I find you here when I return home, making things all awkward. I could lie to you, of course, and pretend it didn’t happen. That I wasn’t doing the nasty between the sheets with some dude named Jeff. Should I? Should I lie?”

She hated that he’d just assumed she’d be here when he showed up last night, as if she had no personal life. Odds were nil she’d do the nasty with a stranger, named Jeff or otherwise, but damn. A woman had her pride and he had no right to assume her sex life was dull as dishwater. That was Cynthia’s sad little secret. She wasn’t even sure he was listening, because he seemed fascinated by her hair, his anger expanding his chest and widening his eyes.

On a sharp exhale, he said, “Your head is bleeding.”

“Huh?” She pressed her palm to the top of her head, instinctively trying to hide the evidence, which was stupid. No hiding that she’d been roughed up.

He finally met her gaze, and looked ready to explode. “Are you telling me Jeff did this to you? You had sex with a ‘Jeff,’ who did this to you?” Shock nudged aside irritation, and now that she thought on it, it wasn’t unreasonable for Charlie to draw that horrible conclusion from her hypothetical social life with the nonexistent Jeff.

“No.” She bit her lip, recoiling from the thought. There it was again: guilt, guilt, guilt. There seemed to be guilt connected with every damn interaction they’d had lately. “No, Charlie. I’m sorry. Forget I said anything.” Yada yada yada. Her head hurt. She didn’t have any more energy to wade through another emotional quagmire. When would she learn to just shut her mouth?

“So Jeff,” he said, allowing his words to hang as he waited for more information.

Cynthia waved him off. “Doesn’t exist. Forget it.” Flushed, she felt stupid now that her Jeff example had blown up, especially since it seemed like a clinical example of a blatant cry for attention. Almost as if she’d wanted to make Charlie jealous. She peeked at him from behind a lock of hair hanging over her right eye, wondering if he was…but that would be insane, because they were just friends. She wanted to change the subject. Not easy, under the pall of Charlie’s dark frowns and him looming over her, making it hard to think.

Especially since the last time they’d talked, really talked, she’d been quite drunk on tequila and had kissed him: a full-throttle, moan-inducing, tongue-thrusting, hips-grinding kiss. Just thinking about it mortified her. Well, not the kiss so much as what had happened afterward. The damn man pushed her away, and the kiss had gotten off to such a great start, too. Hot. Sexy. Bone-meltingly arousing. She could tell he’d liked it, too, because when her hips ground against his rock-hard erection, he’d moaned, too. It was the sexiest, most arousing sound she’d ever heard in her life. Then he rejected her.

Rejected her kiss, and more importantly, rejected everything the kiss would have preceded. She’d been drunk, so she’d respected his integrity and everything, but Cynthia’s pride still stung. And despite all attempts to avoid him since, Charlie kept pushing, pushing, and pushing past every roadblock she’d erected between them. The guy refused to give her privacy to lick her wounds and move past his rejection, and insisted on hovering, worrying, trying to gentle them back into the comfortable “friendship” they’d enjoyed since the accident.

But she wasn’t ready. Every time she looked at him, she remembered how she’d revealed herself. She’d been emotionally naked, and he’d pushed her away. How did a woman move past something like that? She didn’t.

Cynthia went so far as to decline invitations to his parents’ house to protect her pride. Even that backfired. Delia and Paul Foulkes, his parents, kept sending Charlie to her house, demanding to know why she was avoiding everyone with the last name of Foulkes. Well, Charlie knew. Actions had consequences. Rejecting her kisses had consequences. And the man had to learn.

“What do you want, Charlie?” His deep blue eyes bored into hers and narrowed, telling her he was irritated with her tone. Well, duh. That had been the point of her tone.

“You called me,” he said.

Charlie’s shirtsleeves strained as he adjusted his arms, folding them more firmly over his chest, making his biceps pop. His thigh muscles stretched the fabric of his jeans also, and his waistband rode low on his hips, revealing a strip of muscled lower abdomen, that tasty bit of belly that separated the “six-pack” from “the package.” Cynthia loved that strip.

Charlie was large, mere inches from being “too muscular,” though she’d yet to hear a woman complain. No, women didn’t complain about Charlie, but they talked. Lots of talk. If Cynthia had to hear one more woman at the precinct swoon over the sexy Boston Police Department forensic pathologist, Cynthia was going to spit, because she knew any one of them had more of a shot with Charlie than she did.

“I called you?” When Cynthia found her cell in her car, it had been predictably dead.

“Last night.” He stepped close, his boots between her shoes, trapping her on the couch, forcing her knees to widen or risk touching his legs with her inner thighs. A glance told her he was examining her for damage, noting every tear in her suit, every smudge on her face. “What’s with the blood?” He pulled her head forward and none too gently examined her laceration.

“Hey!” Cynthia slapped at his hands, but he easily maintained control of her head, poking at her scalp.

“Stop it. Let me see,” he said. She felt him pick aside her blood-matted hair. “It’s not bleeding anymore, but you still might need a stitch or two to help it heal correctly.” He palpated the rest of her scalp, then drew his warm fingers down her neck and checked her pulse with one hand as his other moved to her shoulder, stopping her from squirming. His touch felt like a caress, and his nearness made her feel all weak inside, and vulnerable. “You hurt anywhere else?” He lifted her hands, his touch gentle, almost reverent, as he studied them. She leaned back in the couch, needing to put distance between them. He was making her feel things she didn’t want to feel.

“What are you doing?” she said, loving how his strong hands enveloped hers.

“You look like you had one hell of a brawl last night, but I see no knuckle abrasions or bruising, so what happened?”

She had no idea. Not fully, anyway.

Cynthia pulled her hands from his strong grip. “I…I’m fine.”

“You’re clearly not.” He walked away, leaving the room, and it felt like a reprieve. From Charlie’s alarmed expression, she feared her head laceration was worse than she’d supposed. He returned moments later, a bag of frozen peas in hand. When he pressed it to her head, her pain spiked, taking her breath away. She gasped, batting at him.

“Hold still.” He took her hand and pressed it to the frozen bag before releasing it. “Keep that in place. The cut can’t be stitched if the wound is too swollen.” Head bent, she stared at his boots, focusing on the sensation of the cold bag against her overheated hand.

“Stop treating me like a child.” The bag slipped from her grip, forcing her to use both hands to adjust it back in place. “I’m all grown.” He sat next to her, doing the whole “manspread” thing, and the heat of his thigh pressed against hers made it hard to concentrate, especially since she suspected her stringy, matted hair, and hunched back from holding the bag to her wound, made her look like a crone.

“I’ve noticed.” His smile confused the hell out of her, until he raised his brows suggestively. Her heart curdled with embarrassment. Leave it to Charlie to think now was a good time to talk about the-kiss-that-shall-not-be-mentioned.

“Listen, Romeo.” She swatted his thigh and scooted away from him on the couch. Cynthia didn’t do humiliation well, so she defaulted to anger. “Yes, I kissed you, it was a disaster—”

“A disaster?” His smile was kind, and playful. She would have preferred a swift kick.

“I’ve kissed loads of guys, and sometimes it’s good, and sometimes, yes, it’s a disaster, but not one of them acted—months later—as if the sky was falling.”

His cheek kicked up. “It sure felt like the sky was falling. Or maybe that was the earth moving.”

“Stop.” They both knew he’d rejected her. Why was he acting as if he hadn’t? “I don’t appreciate you embarrassing me.”

“I’m not.” His eyes widened as he shook his head.

“Yes, you are! Can you just leave it alone? The kiss was a mistake. I didn’t like it either—”

“You didn’t like it?” His brows lifted again, skeptically this time.

“No, I didn’t, and please do us both a favor and pretend it never happened. I had too much tequila. We both know what happens when I drink tequila.”

“We’ve drunk plenty of tequila and you’ve never stuck your tongue down my throat before.”

“But—” He had her there, and as she struggled to piece together a suitable comeback, she found herself studying his features. He was enjoying himself, and here she was injured, bleeding, for heaven’s sake, and he was torturing her.

“Yes?” he prompted, giving her his complete attention.

“As I said, I didn’t like it. So…just stop, will you?”

He sighed, and then finally averted his intense stare, only to give her the side eye. “One disastrous kiss shouldn’t ruin a friendship.”

The very idea was ludicrous on both counts. “I never said that!”

“We kiss. You think it’s a disaster, and then you avoid me like the plague. If I were a better kisser, would you still have cut me and my parents off?”

“I didn’t.” A bald-faced lie. She did. She really did.

“And I’ll have you know, plenty of women think I’m a good kisser.”

Plenty? She didn’t want to think about it. Struggling to say the right thing and keep her pride, she floundered. “I’m sure you’re a good kisser with…well, with someone else. Or…I don’t know.” Who was she kidding? Their kiss had been fabulous, and try as she might, she couldn’t get it out of her head. “It’s just—” His eyes narrowed and Cynthia gave up, groaning as she leaned her head back on the couch, squeezing her eyes shut.

“What? Talk to me.” He took her hand and gave it a squeeze.

She’d kissed him. Took a chance, and now it was time to suffer the consequences. She’d earned this comeuppance, and it was only right that she take it like a…well, a woman.

“Go ahead. Have at it,” she said, allowing her head to loll to the side so she was forced to see the male arrogance on his face as he declared his superiority. For Charlie didn’t want Cynthia as she wanted him, and that put her at a disadvantage. They both knew it. “Say what you will.” Only she didn’t see male arrogance radiating off him. She saw kindness.

“Okay.” Charlie tugged her to his side, and when she was comfortably enfolded in his embrace, he gave her a brotherly squeeze. “I’ve been worried since ten last night, after you called, and I’ve been checking police scanners ever since, fearing they’d find your body on the side of the road.”

Guilt, guilt, guilt. Her bottom lip pushed out. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember calling you.” His long silence, coupled with his body tensing, told Cynthia he was going to make a big deal out of this, and she wasn’t sure she had the energy to argue with him.

“Explain,” he said.

“I blacked out. What did I say on the call?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I answered, and the line went dead. When I hit redial, it went straight to voice mail. I called your landline. No answer. I called Benton, Gilroy, O’Grady—”

“Dammit!” She groaned. He’d called her supervisor, and her teammates, so they’d been worrying since last night, too. “Who didn’t you call? Now they’ll—”

His arm around her shoulders squeezed, making his embrace more restraint than comfort. “I was trying to track you down. I was worried. Tell me about this blackout you suffered.” His protective tendencies had been triggered, and Charlie had slipped into big brother mode. He’d spent the last ten years—even the year he’d been flat on his back after the accident—worrying, doing his best to be a big brother because of a misguided belief he could have stopped her brother from driving drunk and dying. Cynthia knew better. Everyone who had ever known her brother knew there was no controlling Terrance.

“I’m sorry.” Cynthia pressed the frozen bag to her head again, feeling the weight of those familiar words. Sorry she’d made him worry. Sorry he felt responsible for her, for Terrance’s death. Sorry. Guilt, guilt, guilt. Their tragic history linked them forever, and couldn’t be ignored, because it’d shaped their identities, and now their lives were a mutual tapestry of obligation. Pull one thread, risk unraveling it all.

Kissing Charlie had pulled a thread.

“I’m such an ass,” she whispered, and then pressed her face to his chest, resting there, finding comfort in the beat of his heart, so steady and strong. She couldn’t hold the frozen bag anymore. It was too cold, so she dropped it on the cushion next to her and warmed her hand against Charlie’s bare arm. “Why do you put up with me?”

It was a rhetorical question. They both knew why, but Cynthia felt it was important to ask once in a while, just on the off chance Charlie might start asking that question himself. He deserved to cut bait and live his life out from under the obligation of Cynthia, the little sister he never asked for.

“Who hurt you?” He picked up the bag, gently pressing it to her injury. “Where were you last night?” His scruffy chin abraded her forehead as his lower lip pressed against her skin. It felt like a kiss, but was simply his lips moving, asking questions.

“I don’t know. I mean, I know bits, but”—she shrugged—“not everything.”

“Tell me.” He didn’t bother hiding his worry.

“I told you,” she said. “I blacked out.”

“Last night,” he said, “Benton said you’d left work with plans to go to the gym. I called there first, and the front desk said you’d left around ten.” He gave her a little squeeze. “You called me at ten on the nose.” Cynthia pushed off his chest, digging into her pocket to access the flash drive. She held it up, showing him.

“Security footage placing me at a federal safe house in Chinatown at ten-thirty last night.” Charlie frowned as he took it from her hand. “I don’t remember leaving the gym, Charlie. Just a scattering of weird memories. Horrible memories.”

“What do you remember? Exactly.”

“A brick wall. Men on their knees, bags over their heads, tied. Screaming. Begging for their lives.”

“Bags?” His gaze lowered and lost focus as if she’d triggered a memory for him. Pulling her gun from its holster, she handed it to him. He sniffed the gun’s slide, studying it from all angles. “It’s been discharged,” he said.

“Recently.” They both knew that Cynthia would have cleaned it after practicing at the range. “I have to call Benton and tell him what’s happened.”

Charlie stood and lifted the television remote off a side table, then turned on the set. Local news appeared on the screen, broadcasting live. It was a media circus, and the station’s chyron spelled out, “The Chinatown Massacre.” Special Agents Benton, Gilroy, and Modena—three black-suited, white-shirted, black-tied FBI task force members—were on screen, working behind yellow crime scene tape against the backdrop of a brick building.

“Benton knows,” Charlie said. Cynthia’s heart pounded as she carefully stood, eyes focused on the screen.

“That’s the place…from last night!” She pivoted toward the living room entrance, where she’d dropped her pocketbook, and made quick work digging out her phone and plugging it into the wall charger. “They must have been calling—”

“Since an hour ago.” He stepped to her side. “Six dead. Executed, wrists zip tied, cloth bags on their heads, affixed by duct tape circling their necks.” He tilted his head toward the television screen. “Why didn’t you call it in last night? You called me at ten. Shots were reported around then. That’s a half hour unaccounted for, if the video recorded you entering the safe house at ten-thirty.”

“I know.” She bit her lower lip. “A half hour after the murders, on foot, blocks from the crime scene, holding a recently discharged weapon.”

“A half hour where you didn’t call for backup.” He spoke with slow, measured tones, but she understood the context. Why? Damned if she knew, but she understood her behavior looked sketchy as hell.

“My phone must have died.” She’d left it in the car, in her pocketbook. “I don’t know, Charlie, what more do you want me to say? I don’t know.” He tossed the remote on the couch and took her by the upper arms, forcing her to meet his gaze. Whatever he saw there had him pulling her close, holding on. Evidence shuffled in her head like a pack of cards until the facts lined up. Cynthia looked guilty as sin. He wasn’t saying it, but they were both thinking it. “I’m afraid,” she said. His fingers curled into her back as he more completely formed his body to surround hers, even resting his chin on the top of her head. He was her shield against the world.

“I’ve got you,” he said. “I’ve got you.”

She believed him. Cynthia had a target on her back, so Charlie would protect her. It made her feel safer, but it was no comfort. Instead, it just filled her with guilt, guilt, guilt.