Cold Snap

by Allison Brennan

She sounded panicked. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Dad. He’s in the hospital. He’s had a heart attack.”

  “Jack and I will be there as soon as we can.”

  Patrick hung up. His dad—he had to go home.

  He called Elle, but remembered that her cell phone was toast. He called Dwight. Voice mail picked up.

  “Dwight Bishop, leave a message.”

  “Dwight, it’s Patrick Kincaid. I have a family emergency in San Diego. Please tell Gabrielle that I’ll call her as soon as I can. And—put in a good word for me, okay? I screwed it up last night, and I want to fix it.” He hung up and hoped he hadn’t made a mistake asking Elle’s ex-husband for help.

  But he couldn’t have made the situation any worse than it was when he walked out last night.

  Jack stepped out of the bathroom. “It’s all yours.”

  “Pack up,” Patrick said. “I’ll be ready in five minutes. Carina called—Dad’s in the hospital. We need to go home.”

  PART TWO

  Denver

  Saturday, December 22

  CHAPTER 17

  Lucy Kincaid stifled a laugh at the text message her brother Patrick sent.

  I wish I was stranded in Denver. When Mom found out I was in Sacramento, she sent me on an errand to San Francisco. You will not believe what she’s asked me to do. See you at home!

  “What’s so funny?” Kate stretched and rolled over on her side. She was relaxing in one of the two queen beds in the Denver hotel they were stuck in.

  Lucy held her phone out so Kate could read the message.

  “At least he’s in the right state,” Kate said with an exaggerated sigh.

  “You didn’t even want to come,” Lucy said.

  “Only because your family terrifies me.”

  Lucy laughed. “Hardly.”

  “All those hugs and piles of food and constant noise. I was raised by my grandparents, who were the most soft-spoken people on the planet.” And, as Lucy knew, they hadn’t been affectionate. Kate could handle one or two Kincaids at a time, but she usually avoided big family gatherings.

  “You’re lucky—you get to stay with Carina and Nick at their place. Sean and I are at the house, and Dad already made it clear that Sean has to stay in the room above the garage.” Lucy didn’t complain, however. It was the same for all her brothers and sisters; if they were involved with someone, they weren’t allowed to sleep with them in the same bed under her parents’ roof until they were married. Lucy was a bit nervous telling her dad that she and Sean were moving in together, but she wasn’t the first in the family to do so.

  “What are the boys doing?” Kate said. “If they’re drinking in the bar without me, I’ll shoot them.”

  After hours of weather-based delays, all flights in and out of Denver were canceled. The blizzard, which was being compared to the storm of 2006 when the airport shut down for nearly two days, was getting worse. Sean had reserved a hotel room in Denver while they were still back in D.C. as a precaution—he said he didn’t like the weather patterns and thought the predictions were overly optimistic. Considering Kate and Dillon couldn’t get their own room, Sean was enjoying being right—even though the four of them had to share one room.

  “At least we have beds,” Sean had teased.

  Lucy sent Sean a text message. He and Dillon had dropped off their carry-ons, but Dillon had needed some things from the shop downstairs. “I’m sure there’s a long line,” Lucy said.

  “If Sean tells me one more time that he didn’t forget anything in his overnight bag, I’m going to beat him up.”

  Kate had next to nothing. She had packed light and checked everything at the airport. All she carried was a backpack that contained her laptop and wallet. Dillon was downstairs buying toiletries and a T-shirt to sleep in.

  “He wasn’t even a damn boy scout,” Kate muttered and went back to reading her book.

  Lucy grinned. Kate liked to give Sean a bad time, but for the most part, they got along. Kate once told Lucy that Sean was like the little brother she never had.

  Sean responded to her text message.

  Long lines, I’m in the bar. Join me.

  She smiled and replied:

  Don’t tell Kate! I think she wants a drink.

  Bring her.

  All right. But stop gloating.

  I don’t gloat. ☺

  Lucy laughed.

  Kate said, “That was Sean, wasn’t it? He’s gloating.”

  “He said he’s saving seats for us in the bar. Dillon is still in line getting the things you need.”

  Kate grumbled. “I need a beer.” She sat up and slipped on her shoes. She stared at her feet and bit her thumbnail.

  “Is something bugging you?” Lucy asked.

  “Other than being stuck here?”

  “It started when we picked you up this morning.”

  “No,” she said in a tone that really meant “yes.”

  “Kate, something’s been bothering you all week. Is it San Antonio?”

  Lucy found out last week, before her FBI Academy graduation, that she’d been assigned to the San Antonio field office. She had two weeks before she had to report to her new assignment, and since those two weeks included Christmas she’d been able to promise her mom and dad that she’d be home for the holidays and they could finally meet Sean. But Kate had been moody ever since Lucy announced her location.

  “I think San Antonio is lucky to have you. You’re going to do great there. Dillon is a little upset.”

  “Dillon?” Lucy and Patrick had had a long talk last week before he left for Sacramento, and she knew he was upset not only about her move cross-country, but also about Sean leaving RCK. Still, they’d worked things out. But Dillon had seemed to be pleased with her appointment to San Antonio.

  “Because he’s going to miss you. So am I, but I knew you’d be assigned out of the area. Few agents, if any, work out of their recruitment office. I don’t think Dillon quite understood that it meant you’d transfer two thousand miles away.”

  “I’ll visit.”

  “Of course you will. I’ll make you.” She tried to smile.

  “Then what?”

  “Are you taking Chip?”

  At first Lucy was confused. Chip was her cat. “Well, yeah, I guess I didn’t think much about it.”

  “Because I don’t think he’ll like the heat. And then there’s the flight and you’d have to drug him, and I’m pretty sure that’s not good for cats. The stress and everything. I just want you to know, if you can’t take him, or if you find a place that doesn’t allow pets, I don’t mind keeping him. He can live with me.”

  It was clear as day that Kate wanted Chip. Now a bunch of other little things that she’d said over the last few weeks made sense.

  But it was also clear that Kate didn’t want to admit to Lucy that she’d grown attached to the orange and white cat that Lucy had adopted last summer when his owner was murdered.

  Sean was attached to Chip as well. Though the cat had lived with Sean while Lucy was at Quantico, when both Sean and Patrick were out of town, Kate babysat.

  Lucy thought Kate might need a pet more than Sean.

  She said, “I’m going to be putting in a lot of long hours, and while Sean gets his business up and running, he might not be home a lot. Maybe it would be best if Chip stayed permanently with you.”

  “Are you sure?” Kate said. “I know you really like him.”

  “I do, but he knows and likes you. He stayed at your house as much as Sean’s while I was at Quantico. It’s settled, Kate, Chip can live with you.”

  Kate jumped up and hugged Lucy. Just a quick hug, but from Kate it meant something. She wasn’t a huggy person.

  “Why do I get the impression you would have missed Chip more than me?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Kate said as she grabbed her wallet. “I’m going to miss you as much as Dillon will. Now I have something to remember you by.” She winked.

  A scr
eam split through the silence and Kate pulled open the door, instinctively reaching for her gun, which she didn’t have.

  They peered into the hall, cautiously at first. Across the corridor, two rooms down, a man and woman stood outside a door propped open with luggage. The man was on his phone while the woman screeched in a high-pitched voice.

  Kate approached first. “Donovan, FBI,” she said.

  The woman was borderline hysterical. “Ohgodohgodohgod—”

  Lucy looked through the doorway. The room was just like theirs, only in reverse.

  And the walls were streaked with blood.

  At least, it appeared to be blood. And it smelled like blood, though there was no body that she could see. The bathroom door was closed, and she gestured to Kate.

  Kate nodded. “You two,” she told the man and woman, “go down the hall to the house phone and call security.”

  Both the man and woman were shaking, but they ran to the phone, leaving their luggage.

  “I wish I had my gun,” Kate muttered. “Watch the bathroom door. If you see any movement, let me know.” Kate stood on the other side of the open door, out of sight of the bathroom. “We’ll just have to wait,” she grumbled.

  If someone was in the bathroom, they’d be aware that the room had been discovered. Or the body was in there. Either way, they couldn’t check without weapons, especially not knowing what they were facing.

  “What’s taking them so long?” Kate said.

  “It’s only been two minutes,” Lucy reminded her.

  “Feels like twenty.”

  It wasn’t more than another minute before two security guards rushed down the hall. Both were young—not much older than Lucy—and when they saw the room, they both hesitated.

  Kate introduced herself and Lucy as FBI and said, “Give me your gun and I’ll clear it.”

  “No, ma’am,” said the guard with “B. Decker” on his nameplate. “Stand aside, please.”

  The two guards quickly cleared the room—no one was hiding in the bathroom or closet. There was also no body to go with all the blood.

  “Maybe it’s paint,” T. Bonny said.

  Kate said, “Call the police and report a probable homicide. Get your manager up here. I’ll stay until they arrive.”

  “Might be a while. I don’t know how they’ll get here in the blizzard.” He glanced into the room again, pale. “And we don’t know that there’s been a murder.”

  “Were you on the job?” Kate asked. Many hotel security officers had been law enforcement, but Decker was a little young to have first been a cop.

  “No, ma’am. I’m the assistant chief, Brian Decker. My boss is on vacation. But I don’t think we should jump to conclusions.”

  The elevator doors at the end of the hall swooshed open and a young, fresh-faced woman with minimal makeup and blond hair pulled back into a severe bun rushed toward them.

  “I’m Lynn Thomsen, the manager. What’s going on here? We’ve had a dozen calls to the front desk about screams and—Oh, my.”

  “It could be a prank,” Decker said.

  “Yes, a truly awful prank,” Ms. Thomsen concurred.

  “We need Denver PD here to assess the scene,” Kate said. “I’ll talk to them, figure out what they want us to do.”

  “And you are?”

  She flipped open her identification and badge again. “Special Agent Kate Donovan, FBI. My sister-in-law, Special Agent Lucy Kincaid. Agent Kincaid has the added credentials of being a pathologist, and she thinks someone was killed here.”

  Lucy hadn’t said it, but that was certainly her opinion.

  “Come to my office, we’ll call the police and get to the bottom of this,” Ms. Thomsen said.

  “Lucy,” Kate said, “stay here with security. No one goes in or out until we get the okay from Denver PD.” She kicked aside the luggage and closed the door.

  Kate had taken control easily, a testament to her personality and experience. Lucy stood with Decker, who didn’t want to chat. Kate spoke to the two guests and asked them to come to the office to be interviewed; they left with her, after retrieving their bags.

  Lucy called Sean. “We have some excitement upstairs,” she said. “A room across the hall from us is covered in what appears to be blood spatter. Kate’s talking to the Denver Police Department.”

  “Is this a joke?” Sean said.

  “No.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Guarding the door with hotel security.”

  “I’m coming up.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  But he’d already hung up.

  CHAPTER 18

  Sean chatted with Decker about hotel security. At first, Decker was suspicious of Sean’s questions and answered with vague, clipped responses. But within minutes, Sean had him talking details about their security system and where the security cameras were located, and recent security threats in the hotel.

  Decker was in the middle of an elaborate story about how a local congressman had been caught on camera in a compromising situation with his mistress last year when Kate returned.

  “I just got off the phone with Detective Harris of Denver PD,” she said. “He’s on his way, but it’s going to take a while. He’s across town, and apparently a twenty-minute drive is going to take two or more hours. Fortunately, the assistant chief of police went through my class as a LEO National Academy and vouched for me. We’re cleared to run the investigation until Harris gets here.”

  “We shouldn’t touch anything until forensics arrives,” Lucy said.

  “We might not have a choice. There’s no team they can send out until tomorrow. Harris is trained as a criminalist as well, which is why they’re sending him.” Kate handed Lucy a pair of blue latex gloves. “From housekeeping,” she said. She glanced at Sean. “I told the manager to pull all security feeds and records. The room had been rented to a corporation for the past three days, and whoever was staying here checked out this morning. Denver PD can’t run it because they’re operating off a generator right now. No nonemergency work.”

  “I’ll take care of it.” Sean glanced at Decker. “Can you take me down?”

  Decker looked like he’d been steamrolled. “Um, yeah, I need to talk to Ms. Thomsen first.”

  “You can introduce me,” Sean said.

  Kate added, “I overheard one of the security guys say something about a glitch. I don’t like glitches.”

  “Trust me,” Sean said with a wink. As he and Decker walked away, Sean asked, “Brian, are these glitches common, or was this a one-time thing?”

  Lucy and Kate were now alone. Kate frowned and said, “I should have brought back the other security guard, but I have him working with the head of housekeeping to find out who cleaned the room, who was the last one in the room, and to see if anyone in the hotel knows who this guy was who checked out this morning.”

  Kate used a master key to open the door. She and Lucy stepped inside. Lucy drew in a breath. “I smell distinct biological matter, probably urine—but no hint of decomp. The body wasn’t kept in the room long after death.”

  “No one could have survived losing this much blood,” Kate said matter-of-factly, then glanced at Lucy as if to confirm her suspicion. “It is blood, right?”

  Lucy nodded. “It smells like blood.” What she wanted to say was that it smelled like violence, but that would sound silly. Though, looking at the room, violence certainly had left its imprint.

  Kate let the door close as they visually assessed the scene. There was nothing personal in the room. Lucy was careful not to touch anything; she wasn’t even certain why Kate wanted them to go through the room, except to look for evidence that might point to the killer still being in the hotel, or evidence to identify the apparent victim.

  The blood on the walls appeared dry, but there was a substantial pool on the carpet next to the bed that was clearly wet. If it wasn’t blood, then someone had staged the room to look like a violent crime occurred. There w
ere arcs of castoff across the walls and ceiling, suggesting the victim was on the floor while being stabbed repeatedly.

  Lucy took pictures with her cell phone of the blood arcs and the pool of blood on the floor. She could almost picture the attack based on the angles and arcs of blood spatter, which disconcerted her. Not that she could see the violence, but because it didn’t faze her. Her coolness at crime scenes made her good at her job, but it unnerved her too, the ability to calmly and without emotion dissect a crime.

  “There are no personal effects here,” Lucy said. “No luggage, no toiletries. The bed is made.”

  Kate checked her notebook. “The room was reserved to a corporation, but the hotel didn’t have an individual’s name to go with it. A corporate credit card was used at check-in.”

  “They’re supposed to check ID.”

  “Supposed to.”

  After photographing the scene, Lucy checked the blood on the floor with one gloved finger. As she suspected, still wet. The arcs on the ceiling were tacky, some of the smaller drops dry. The uneven acoustic ceiling made visual analysis difficult, but the spatter on the walls was telling.

  “Most of these arcs are castoff,” Lucy said. She counted. “At least nine separate stab wounds.” She walked back to the door. “The first stab wound was here, right near the threshold.”

  Kate concurred. “And the victim ran away from the attacker.”

  “So the victim was already in the room. A room that was supposed to be vacant.”

  “Housekeeping staff?”

  “Possibly.”

  Kate said, “I’m already having security count heads of all housekeeping staff who were on duty today.” She said, partly to herself, “Why didn’t the victim scream? Why run into the room where she—or he—would be trapped?”

  “Because the killer came in through the door—or the bathroom door—and the victim was already in the room.”

  “Using a master key.”

  “Or the room was open.”

  “Meeting someone?”

  “Speculation at this point. But I can say fairly confidently that the victim was standing here for the first stab wound, ran back into the room, was stabbed here”—Lucy pointed to the large pool of blood—“and then collapsed. The stabbing must have been both deep and violent to render the victim immobile so quickly. There’s no sign that he or she tried to move away while they were on the floor.” Lucy gestured to arcs of blood on the bedspread and the walls. “Those are not castoff. If a carotid artery is cut, the heart will pump out the blood as far as thirty feet. I think the second or third blow definitely hit a major artery or the victim’s heart.”