by Alex Kava
It didn’t matter. She didn’t have the energy to entertain such thoughts. She needed to remain focused. She needed to start listening to her head and her gut, not her heart. And more importantly, she didn’t want to care about someone who Stucky could take away from her in a split second.
What Gwen had said last night about Stucky coming after her stayed with Maggie, gnawing at her. Although she honestly didn’t believe Gwen needed to worry. They all believed Stucky had chosen women who were mere acquaintances of hers, in order to make it impossible to predict who his next target might be. But the fact of the matter was, Maggie had few people she allowed into her life. Gwen claimed it was because she wasn’t over the loss of her father. What a bunch of psychobabble that was. Gwen believed that Maggie purposely made herself off-limits, emotionally, to her friends and co-workers. What Maggie called professional distancing, Gwen called fear of intimacy.
“If you don’t let people in, they can’t hurt you,” Gwen had lectured in her motherly tone. “But if you don’t let people in, they can’t love you either.”
Nick and Harvey were coming back, Harvey carrying the bone Maggie had bought him. She thought he had taken it out and buried it because he didn’t want it. Instead, the fresh hole under the dogwood was merely for safe storage. She certainly had a lot to learn about her new roommate.
As soon as Nick unleashed Harvey, he bounded up the stairs.
“He looks like a guy with a mission.” Nick watched.
“He’ll plop down in the corner of my bedroom and gnaw on that thing for hours.”
“The two of you seem to be getting attached to each other.”
“No way. The smelly brute goes home as soon as they find his mom.” Or at least, that’s what she kept telling herself. Fact was, she would feel horribly betrayed when Rachel Endicott showed up and Harvey ran to her without so much as a glance in Maggie’s direction. The thought alone felt like a stab. Okay, maybe not a stab—a poke or a pinch.
The point was, Gwen was full of crap. Letting anyone in, including a goddamn dog, usually ended up hurting like hell. So she protected herself. It was one of the few things in her twisted life she could protect herself from. One of the last things she could have control over.
She realized Nick was leaning against the kitchen counter, watching her, concern clouding his crystal blue eyes.
“Maggie, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she answered, and his smile told her she had hesitated much too long to convince him.
“You know what?” he said as he walked slowly across the kitchen toward her, stopping directly in front of her, his eyes holding hers. “Why don’t you let me take care of you for one evening?”
His fingertips stroked her cheek. The familiar current of electricity raced through her, and she knew exactly what he meant by saying he wanted to take care of her.
“Nick, I can’t.”
She felt his breath in her hair. His lips didn’t pay attention to her words as they traced where his fingers had been. Her breathing was already uneven by the time his lips brushed hers. But instead of kissing her, he moved to her other cheek. His lips moved over her eyelids and nose and forehead and hair.
“Nick,” she tried again, only she wondered if the word was audible. Her own heart beat so noisily in her ears, she couldn’t hear herself think. Not that her thought process was in any kind of working condition. Instead of concentrating on what his hands and lips were doing, she kept thinking about the edge of countertop that was cutting into the small of her back as if that would allow her to hang on to reality and not be swept away.
Finally, Nick stopped, his eyes meeting hers, his face still so close. God, she could easily get lost in his eyes, the warm blue oceans. His hands caressed and massaged her shoulders. His fingers strayed inside her collar to gently touch her throat and then the nape of her neck.
“I just want to make you feel good, Maggie.”
“Nick, I really can’t do this,” she heard herself say while the flutter in her stomach disagreed with her words, screaming at her to take them back.
Nick smiled, and his fingers caressed her cheek again.
“I know,” he said, taking a deep breath. There was no disappointment or hurt, only resignation, almost as if her response had been a foregone conclusion. “I know you’re not ready. It’s too soon after Greg.”
It was great that he understood, because Maggie wasn’t sure she did. How could she explain it to him?
“With Greg, it was so comfortable.” It was the wrong thing to say. She saw the wounded look in his eyes.
“And it’s not comfortable with me?”
“With you, it’s…” His fingers were distracting her, still exploring, making her breathing uneven. Was he trying to change her mind? Did he realize how easy it could be to change her mind? “With you,” she tried to continue, “it’s so intense, it scares me.” There, she said it. She had admitted it out loud.
“And it scares you because you might lose control.” He looked into her eyes.
“God, you know me well, Morrelli.”
“Tell you what. When you’re ready, and I’m emphasizing when. No ifs,” he said, his eyes not letting her go, his fingers still touching her. “I’ll let you have all the control you want. But tonight, Maggie, I just want to make you feel good.”
The flutter reawakened, immediately kicking into overdrive.
“Nick—”
“Actually, I was thinking maybe I could fix you dinner.”
Her shoulders relaxed immediately, and she sighed with a smile. “I didn’t realize you knew how to cook.”
“There are a lot of things I know how to do that I haven’t shown you…yet.” And this time, he smiled.
CHAPTER 53
Maggie couldn’t believe such delicious aromas were coming from her kitchen. Even Harvey had come down for a look and a closer sniff.
“Where did you learn to cook like this?”
“Hey, I’m Italian.” Nick faked an accent that sounded nothing like Italian as he stirred the tomato sauce. “Don’t tell Christine, okay?”
“Afraid you might ruin your reputation?”
“No, I don’t want her free dinner invitations to stop.”
“Is this enough garlic?” She stopped chopping and mincing long enough for him to examine her progress.
“One more clove.”
“How are Christine and Timmy?” Maggie had grown attached to Nick’s sister and his nephew in the short time she had spent in Nebraska.
“They’re good. Really good. Bruce has taken an apartment in Platte City. Christine’s making him earn his way back into their lives. I think she wants to make sure his philandering days are completely over. Here, taste this.” He held the wooden spoon out to her, keeping an open palm underneath to catch any drips.
She took a careful lick. “A little more salt and definitely more garlic.”
“So can you tell me anything about this Tess who Will is so crazy about? Any idea what happened to her?”
Maggie wasn’t sure where to begin, or how much she wanted to share. All of it was still speculation. She watched him take salt in the palm of his hand, make a fist and sprinkle it into the simmering pot. She liked the way he moved around her kitchen, as though he had been fixing her dinners for years. Already Harvey followed him, anointing Nick the new master of the house.
“Tess was my real estate agent. She sold me this house, then less than a week later, she disappeared.”
She waited, wondering if it would sink in, if he would make the connection on his own. Or was she the only one who could see that connection so clearly? He came over to the island where she sat on a bar stool and minced garlic. He poured more wine into both their glasses and took a sip. Finally, he looked at her.
“You think Stucky’s murdered her?” He said it calmly and frankly.
“Yes. Or if he hasn’t murdered her, she may be wishing he had.”
She avoided his eyes and pretended to concentrat
e on the pieces of garlic. She didn’t want to think about Stucky carving up Tess McGowan or playing his little torture games with her mind and body. Now Maggie’s mincing had turned into vicious chops and hacks. She stopped herself and waited for the beginning fury to settle back down. She handed the cutting board to Nick.
Thankfully, he took it without commenting on the slight tremor in her hands. He scraped the garlic bits into the steaming sauce and immediately the new aroma filled the kitchen.
“Will told me there was a car parked outside Tess’s house that morning he left.”
“Manx ran the license-plate number through the DMV.” It was one of the few things Manx had grudgingly shared with her. “The number belongs to Daniel Kassenbaum, Tess’s boyfriend.”
Nick glanced over his shoulder. “The boyfriend? Did anyone question him?”
“My partner did, briefly. Manx promised he would question him in more detail.”
“If he saw Will leaving her house, then he should be pissed. Maybe Stucky doesn’t have anything to do with her disappearing.”
“I don’t think it’s that simple, Nick. Apparently, the boyfriend doesn’t much care that Tess is missing or that she may have been cheating on him. My gut tells me Stucky has everything to do with this.”
Maggie’s cellular phone rang, startling both of them. She grabbed her jacket and searched until she found it in the breast pocket.
“Maggie O’Dell.”
“Agent O’Dell, it’s Tully.”
Damn it! She had forgotten all about Tully. She hadn’t called him, hadn’t even left him a message.
“Agent Tully.” She probably owed him an apology or at least an explanation.
Before she had a chance to say anything he said, “We’ve got another body.”
CHAPTER 54
At first, Tully had been relieved when he heard the body wasn’t in Newburgh Heights. The call came from the Virginia State Patrol. The state patrolman told Tully that a trucker had grabbed a take-out container from the counter of a small café. On the phone, he explained with a quaking voice how the truck driver hadn’t made it back to his truck before he discovered the container was leaking. What he thought was his leftover chicken-fried steak was suddenly dripping blood.
Tully remembered the truck stop, just north of Stafford, off Interstate 95 but it wasn’t until he pulled into the café’s parking lot that he realized this was probably Agent O’Dell’s route home from Quantico. His relief quickly dissipated. If this wasn’t Tess McGowan, chances were, O’Dell would still recognize the body.
Tully cursed when he saw the media vans and strobe lights already set up for the TV cameras. They had been lucky up to this point. Only local media had taken the time to be interested. Now he could see the national players were here. A group was crowded around a large, bearded man who Tully guessed was the truck driver.
Thank God, the State Patrol had had enough sense to confiscate the take-out container, and restrict the area behind the café. That’s where a battered gray, metal trash bin rested against a chain-link fence. The trash bin was one of the extra-large commercial ones. Tully estimated it to be at least six feet tall. How the hell did Stucky dump the body? Never mind that, how had he gone undetected, with the gas pumps and the café open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week?
He flashed his badge at a couple of uniforms keeping the media behind the sawhorses and yellow crime scene tape. His long legs allowed him to step over the ribbon without much effort. The Stafford County detective Tully had previously met behind the pizza place was already on the scene, directing the commotion. Tully couldn’t remember his name, but as soon as the detective saw him, he waved him over.
“She’s still in the Dumpster,” he said, wasting no time. “Doc Holmes is on his way. We’re trying to figure out how the hell to get her out of there.”
“How did you find her?”
The detective took out a pack of gum. He unwrapped a piece and popped it into his mouth. The pack was in his pocket before he thought to offer Tully a piece. He started grabbing for it again, but Tully shook his head. He couldn’t imagine having an appetite for anything, even gum.
“Probably wouldn’t have found her,” the detective finally said, “if not for that snack pack he left behind.”
Tully grimaced. He wondered how many years it would take before he could refer to body parts in such a nonchalant way.
The detective didn’t notice and continued, “Least not until the trash truck dumped this sucker. But you know, these big ones hold a lot. We might never’ve found her. Not like anyone would complain about the smell. This stuff always smells. So it looks like this guy’s on a roll again.”
“It appears so.”
“I was working in Boston the last time.”
Tully would have guessed the accent had the detective not told him. He was keeping an eye on the reporters near the ribbon, constantly looking over Tully’s shoulder. Tully had the impression not much got past this guy. Without knowing anything more, he decided he liked him. But whether Tully liked him or not probably would matter little to the detective. And Tully liked that about him, too.
“Yeah, I remember the last time when they found that councilwoman’s body in the woods. Bite marks, skin ripped off, cuts in places you don’t need to see cuts.”
“Stucky’s one sick bastard, that’s for sure.” Tully remembered the photos of Stucky’s collection that O’Dell had laid out on the conference-room table. Side by side they looked like a savage pack of wolves had ripped up the bodies and left them for the vultures.
“Wasn’t he playing games with one of your agents back then? I remember reading something. That he was messin’ with her head, sending her notes and stuff?”
“Yes, yes he was.”
“Whatever happened to that agent?”
“If I’m not mistaken, that’s her red car pulling into the parking lot.”
“Fuck, no kidding? She’s still working on this case?”
“She doesn’t have much choice.”
“She’s got some balls.”
“I guess you could say that,” Tully said, now distracted. “More than likely, Agent O’Dell will be able to identify the victim for us.”
He watched O’Dell. Her badge was getting her across the barriers but not without a lot of glances and long looks. He had worked with other attractive women in law enforcement and in the Bureau, but none quite like O’Dell. There was no discomfort and certainly no preening. Instead, she seemed oblivious to the stares, almost as if she had no clue they were aimed at her.
Tully didn’t see it until O’Dell was closer to them. She carried a small black bag, not a purse but a case. They couldn’t touch the body until the medical examiner got to the scene. He hoped O’Dell didn’t have other plans.
Her eyes met his as her only greeting. He could see the exhaustion, the nervous anticipation.
“Detective—” Tully again realized he didn’t know the man’s name “—this is Special Agent Maggie O’Dell.”
She offered him her hand, and immediately Tully could see the detective’s tough exterior softening.
“Sam Rosen,” he said, more than willing to fill in the blank for Tully.
“Detective Rosen.” O’Dell gave him her polite and professional greeting.
“Call me Sam.”
Tully resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
“Sam here—” Tully tried to keep the sarcasm to a minimum “—is with the Stafford County Sheriff’s Department. He was at the first crime scene with the pizza delivery…with Jessica Beckwith.”
“Is the victim still in the Dumpster?” O’Dell appeared anxious and unwilling, or unable, to hide her anticipation.
“We’re waiting for Doc Holmes,” Sam told her.
“Is there any way I can take a look without disturbing the scene?” She was already taking out a pair of latex gloves from her black case.
“Probably not a good idea,” Tully said, knowing that O’Dell wanted to s
ee if she recognized the victim. He saw her eyeing the trash bin. The thing was almost a foot taller than her. She brushed past them for a closer look.
“How were your men able to look inside?”
“We pulled a cruiser alongside. Davis crawled up on the roof. He took a couple of Polaroids. Want me to get them for you?” Sam looked as if he’d do just about anything she asked. Tully couldn’t help being amazed. And even more amazing was how oblivious O’Dell seemed to it all.
“Actually, Sam, would you mind pulling the cruiser alongside it again?”
Or maybe she wasn’t entirely oblivious. Without hesitation, Detective Rosen shouted at one of the uniforms holding back the reporters. He left them to meet the officer halfway and started telling him what he wanted, with hands gesturing as quickly as he talked.
“There’s a chance it might not be her,” Tully said while Detective Rosen was still busy giving directions. He knew she was expecting this to be the missing real estate agent.
“I want to assist with the autopsy. Do you think we can convince Dr. Holmes to do it tonight?” She avoided looking at him and kept her eyes on Rosen.
It was the first time she had asked anything of him, and he could tell it was not an easy thing for her to do.
“We’ll insist he do it tonight,” he promised.
She nodded, still keeping her eyes from him. They stood quietly, side by side, watching the police cruiser drive up as close as possible to the metal trash bin. He heard her take a deep breath as she set down the black case and threw the pair of gloves she had extracted on top. Detective Rosen met her at the bumper, offering her a hand, but she waved it off. She kicked out of her shoes and crawled up on the trunk with bare feet and little effort.
She paused, almost as if preparing herself mentally. Then she carefully stepped up on top of the roof and stood upright, able to stare down into the trash bin.
