Cassidy

by Irish Winters

  “Thanks, Boss.” She turned away, hoping to get away before Alex did anything else kind.

  “I’m keeping track of him, too.”

  She froze, afraid to ask. Who?

  “You need to know. Mother’s been tracking him since he landed in D.C. She knows where he is in New York now, too. He’s been in FBI custody, but he’ll make initial contact with the Brothers Grimm in the next twenty-four hours. He’ll be okay.”

  That helped. Jude must have willingly gone undercover since he hadn’t even called. Hadn’t even said goodbye, but Cassidy knew better. The FBI used bully tactics. He was a means to an end to them, but to her and Judith? He was everything.

  “I have to go,” she whispered, her eyes on the floor and her hand on the doorknob. Alex didn’t speak again, so she hurried out of his office and walked straight to the elevator. It would’ve been a clean getaway if Murphy Finnegan hadn’t intercepted her.

  “Young lady,” he called as she rang the elevator. “Wait up. I need to talk with you before you leave.”

  She hoped to make this short and sweet. No such luck. Murphy was the kindest, most grandfatherly man she’d ever known. The minute he was close enough, he grabbed her into a hug. “You take care,” he muttered against her cheek. “We’re all worried about you.”

  “I will,” she squeaked out her promise. And the floodgates opened. She couldn’t see the buttons on the elevator, much less anything else.

  Murphy directed her into his office and shut the door. Without a word, he sat her down in the nearest chair, and gave her a handful of tissues. She was embarrassed, mad at herself, and too sad for words. There was nothing to say. Swearing didn’t help. Neither did prayer. All the eulogies and all the tears in the world couldn’t bring Rourke back.

  Murphy pulled up a chair next to hers while she dabbed her eyes and blew her already sore nose. “You know this isn’t your fault, don’t you?”

  “I know,” Cassidy choked out. “I just wish I’d been there. He needed my gun. I could have helped.”

  “Now, now, that’s what we all say, honey.” He tapped her knee. “We all wish we were superhuman, able to be in two places at one time, able to leap tall buildings and save everyone, don’t we?”

  “But it was just a kid who did it?” she asked again, still finding it hard to believe that Rourke had been murdered by an over-zealous teenage cult member with a cheap .22 rifle. Not a .50 cal, not a .9mm, not even a 30-06, and certainly not any kind of Lapua sniper round. Just a .22. Just a damned lucky shot that had hit Rourke’s femoral artery while he was heroically covering Melissa, Judith, and Tucker’s retreat to safety. Just doing what he’d always done. Serving others. Saving others. Thinking of everyone but himself. Damn him.

  “Yes, a kid,” Murphy agreed. “He’s a real believer of all the Cain bullshit, this one. Only fifteen, and he’s ready to avenge his prophet like one of those mid-eastern terrorist yahoos. The FBI has him under top-level security. He’ll never see the light of day.”

  The inequity of the loss cut Cassidy to the bone. A dumb kid had murdered a highly-trained sniper who’d survived multiple overseas tours without serious injury. A boy had killed one of the nation’s unsung heroes, and done it in cold blood. Nothing made sense. Nothing seemed fair.

  She stuck two wads of tissues to her eyes, striving to get a grip on her emotions. “It’s just that, Rourke was always so good to me. He was always there. He was... my friend.”

  “He’s going to be hard to replace,” Murphy muttered. “There’s no doubt about that.”

  Cassidy couldn’t speak. There was no way to replace Rourke. She wished she hadn’t been so hardheaded and caused him all that trouble by getting caught by the cult. She wished she’d run to him at that last moment. Told him what he meant to her. Hugged him like her heart had urged her to. She wished... oh, hell, she wished she’d taken the hit instead of her dearest mentor. A thousand ways, her heart still cried, not Rourke!

  “We lose good people in this line of business, honey. It’s just the way it is.”

  She looked up from her grief at Murphy’s gentle blue eyes. “Why do we do this, Murphy?” she asked tearfully. “Why do we walk into harm’s way like we’re invincible? Do we have something to prove? Are we all stupid?” She shook her head even as she asked. She already knew the answers. She just needed to hear the words.

  “I guess it’s the same reason you’re going to Florida with Judith Cannon,” he replied, his hand now moved to a gentle squeeze at her shoulder. “There’s givers and there’s takers in this world, kiddo. Guess we’re just a bunch of crazy givers. I don’t guess you’d want to be any other way, would you? I know I wouldn’t.”

  She blew out a deep sigh, no longer sure what she wanted. “I’m tired, Murph. I’m really tired.”

  “You’ve got a right to be. Wish I could talk Alex into taking off for Florida with you and Judith. He’s taking this pretty hard, too.”

  “He is?” That raised her eyes. Alex never seemed like an emotional man, except when he was angry. “Why doesn’t he take some time off then? He owns this place. If anyone could, he could.”

  “That’s not his way.” Murphy’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “You oughta know that by now. Besides, this whole thing made him mad, and you know how Alex is when he gets his dander up.”

  Cassidy wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. She definitely knew how Alex could be. “Well, tell him he’s welcome to come for a visit. I hear Jude’s home over looks the Saint John River.”

  “Sounds like a good place for a couple days of R&R.”

  “Hope so.” Cassidy tucked her hair behind her ears. Even it felt dull and listless. Sad.

  “Before you go...” Murphy went to his desk and pulled a small, brown-paper package out of his drawer. “Here’s something I think Rourke intended you to have. Take it with you. Open it when you’re ready.”

  She clasped the package against her chest and got to her shaky feet. “Thanks for the tissues.”

  He walked her to his office door. “I’ll be waiting to hear from you.”

  With a final hug, she slipped away from the privacy of Murphy’s office and bolted for the elevator. Finally in the TEAM garage, she placed Rourke’s package on the passenger seat of her Subaru Forester and leaned her forehead to the steering wheel. Unbearable grief wrenched out of her. She couldn’t stop sobbing. Her buddy and mentor was gone, she had yet to hear from Jude, and her heart was left with one big, gaping hole. The only thing remotely good was Judith waiting at home for her.

  The storm passed. Cassidy gunned her trusty vehicle out The TEAM’s parking garage and away from downtown Seattle, hooked into I-5, and headed south to Puyallup. She needed time away from the dream job that had become a nightmare.

  The sight that met her eyes when she got home was just what she needed. Judith had traded her dingy cult apparel for a tiny pink T-shirt and a pair of acid-washed jeans that fit her slender figure perfectly. She sat curled and sound asleep in Cassidy’s big wooden rocking chair on the wrap-around porch overlooking the gentle Puyallup River. Snuggled in one of Cassidy’s over-sized sweaters, she held onto Magic like a little girl with a teddy bear. The sleek black feline didn’t move off her new friend’s warm lap.

  “You look happy,” Cassidy whispered.

  Magic blinked as if to say, I am now.

  Cassidy took a moment to drink in the peace of the backyard. The apartment she lived in was part of a remodeled Victorian-styled home with all the gingerbread cutouts at the eaves and dark-shingled siding instead of the more modern aluminum. She’d fallen in love with the restored home at first sight, but signed the lease mostly because of the porch. Each of the three tenants who shared the home with her had a river view. Here she sat with a cup of coffee on her few days off with the peaceful verdant splendor of the Pacific Northwest spread before her like a veritable paradise.

  When she’d first moved from Utah, the sight of Mount Rainier used to tantalize her. She loved all the splendid vistas
the Northwest offered, but this porch was where she re-energized her soul. Even now a hummingbird zipped up to the hanging baskets of pink and purple fuchsias, its quiet chirps and buzzing just another musical instrument against the backdrop of the murmuring river. The planters of purple and white pansies she’d scattered along the railing didn’t hurt, either.

  She breathed in a lungful of the cool, moist air, forgetting for a moment. The tranquility of her home surrounded her, and Cassidy knew she would live through this tragedy. Just like that, Rourke’s eyes came to mind. He’d always had a way of seeing right through her. Regret slithered in where she’d just felt peace. I should’ve invited him over for cheese and wine.

  It hurt knowing she’d missed her chances with him, especially with his dying words. Of all the times to finally tell her that he’d always loved her. She wished she’d known sooner. Maybe things would’ve turned out differently.

  Magic’s soft mew pulled Cassidy from her brooding. She looked at the childlike young woman in her charge. There was nothing she could do to change the past, but she could help Judith in the present.

  With a resolute sigh, Cassidy packed and loaded their two bags of luggage into her Subaru, including the package Murphy had given her. When she returned for the cat carrier to transport Magic to a nearby friend’s home, Judith was awake. “It’s too bad we can’t take her with us. Magic would have fun playing with Miss Fluffy.”

  “Or they’d fight tooth and nail and make us both miserable,” Cassidy said. “You know how cats are.”

  “I think they’d get along.” Judith eased up onto her feet, the cat still in her arms. “Cats are smarter than people.”

  Cassidy smiled as she ushered Judith and Magic to her vehicle.

  Truer words were never spoken.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It’s now or never, moron. Move your dumb ass.

  Tucker’s insults should have inspired more confidence. They didn’t. Jude stood frozen at the orange-painted door to a cheap motel room outside New York City, his knuckles ready to rap, and his heart in his throat.

  Floyd had made certain he got a decent hotel room before the job began. That first hot shower in months went a long ways to scrubbing the filth of the prophet away. The prime rib dinner filled a hole in his stomach Jude hadn’t realized he had. But then all progress ground to a stop.

  During the past few days, he’d been briefed and debriefed at FBI Headquarters in Washington D.C., then briefed and debriefed again at the New York field office. Jude set the record straight where he could, but the overall redundant bureaucracy of this federal agency had slowed the urgency of this undercover operation into a bad slow motion nightmare, one from which Jude wanted desperately to wake up from.

  But now that the day for action had arrived, he was the one holding up the show. Only television noise came from within. Jude hesitated, his heart a jackhammer in his chest that wouldn’t back off. If this charade worked, it would be the biggest miracle of the century.

  “You’re not alone.” Floyd’s calm voice deep inside his ear was no damned help now that Jude was about to come face to face with the Brothers Grimm. By themselves, Alan Campbell, Mickey Perez, and Clyde Fonda were no more offensive than Tucker Chase. But all together?

  Jude had seen them around the cult, running to do Cain’s bidding. He knew as much about them as he knew about other Elite, mostly to stay away from them.

  He swallowed without any saliva in his mouth to actually make that bodily function work. Resolutely, he removed his new pair of glasses, FBI issue and supposedly unbreakable, and tucked them in his shirt pocket. He couldn’t take the chance of being blind with these three, but damn.

  This whole operation hinged on one big unknown. Cell phones. The FBI refused Jude telephone access in case he’d contact his daughter or Cassidy, but Cain was no dummy. Despite his no modern conveniences mandate inside the cult, he’d sold guns and he’d raised castor beans, two definite commodities that required communication with a seller or a buyer. He had to have a way to communicate with whomever that entity was. But the FBI had yet to find anything or anyone. The only electrical line ended at Cain’s home. He had no computer, cell phone, or LAN line. If he’d ever contacted an outside source, it had to have happened during one of his few excursions into the nearby town.

  The FBI assured Jude that the Brothers Grimm had no burner phones in their possession, that they hadn’t placed a call since they’d stepped off the Jetway at La Guardia, either. Jude found that as hard to believe as Cain’s no modern conveniences baloney. Yet, there he was, on the verge of doing something scary brave. Dressed in the same clothes he’d worn most days in the cult. Scroungy. Smelly. Yeah, exactly like the Brothers Grimm. He hoped.

  He knocked at the door harder than he’d intended. Heavy footsteps responded.

  “Here we go,” Floyd murmured.

  The door jerked open to a flabby man with hard eyes that skewered Jude straight to his accountant’s soul. “You?” Alan Campbell sneered. “What you doing here?”

  “The prophet sent me,” Jude replied, surprised his voice sounded as strong as it did.

  Alan’s curled lip belied his disbelief. He jerked Jude through the door, spinning him into the room where Mickey and Clyde sprawled across the disheveled bed watching television.

  “Cannon?” Mickey roared to his feet. “What do you want?”

  Oh, great. These guys knew his given name, not his cult name. That could spell trouble. Before Jude answered, Alan had his arm around Jude’s neck, and Mickey’s fist rammed into his gut. Jude doubled over gasping for air, but Alan didn’t release him, just jerked him upright for more of the same. Two more punches landed before Alan shoved him onto the motel’s pressed wood coffee table. The flimsy furniture shattered under his weight.

  By then, Clyde had rolled off the bed to watch. The shortest and roundest of the three brothers, he’d grabbed a donut box from the nightstand. He stood there stuffing one powdery confection after another into his face, crumbs falling over his big belly to the dirty beige carpet while Mickey and Alan pummeled Jude’s back, head, and face. He ducked, trying to protect his eyes and nose while he was down.

  At last Mickey jerked him back to his feet and pushed him up against the wall, his arm hard to Jude’s throat. “What are you doing here, faggot?”

  Jude dug deep into his jean’s pocket and pulled out Cain’s gold nugget ring, the one token he had to convince the Brothers. “This,” he muttered hoarsely, Mickey’s stranglehold difficult to talk past. “I got… orders from the… prophet. Here… Take it. Honest. I’m legit.”

  “You ain’t nothin’ but a lying snitch.” Alan grabbed the ring and held it up to his eyeball, scrutinizing it. “Let him go, Mick. Why’d he give it to you, huh? Answer me and it better be good.”

  “Proof...” Jude wheezed, wishing he’d stayed in California. “He… he wanted you to know… for sure… that he… sent me.”

  Alan stared hard and long at Jude, then the ring, his lips pressed into a hard line, his jaw clenched.

  Mickey still had his arm pressed to Jude’s throat, making it damned hard to breathe. “He right? Is that really Cain’s ring?”

  Alan glanced around the room at his buddies. “Sure looks like it. It’s got the sign inscribed inside it.”

  The sign—a five-leafed symbol of the castor bean plant, the hand of Christ. He and Floyd knew they’d need a way to convince these three Elite. The prophet’s ring was the only thing that made sense.

  “It is. Trust me.” Jude hoped he sounded more convincing than he felt. “Look, he told me right where to find you three or I wouldn’t be here, would I?”

  Mickey seemed to believe. His hold loosened enough that Jude caught a full breath.

  “But why you?” Clyde stood staring, the twisted snarl to his powdered-sugared lips evidence he wasn’t persuaded. “You’re Chloe’s father. You’re supposed to be dead. Has there been a change to that, too?”

  Jude nodded quickly. “Yeah
. I finally saw the light. Brother Victor converted me. He did.” His stomach clenched at what he was about to say. “A guy can’t fight the truth forever. Chloe belongs with the prophet. I know that now.”

  Alan still sneered. “Brother Victor converted you? The butcher? The only light he would’ve shown you was after he hit you between the eyes with his hammer.”

  Jude gulped. He hadn’t known Brother Victor’s assigned duty until then, but it made sense. The guy was solid muscle from head to toe. Handling a side of beef or a dead body would’ve been easy for him.

  Clyde cocked his head as if to hear better, but Mickey only growled deeper in his throat. Jude panicked. These guys meant to kill him before he got started.

  “Besides, Chloe’s not just my daughter,” Jude rasped, grasping at straws. “I mean, don’t we all belong to the prophet?”

  “Prophet said not to trust no one,” Clyde grumbled.

  Jude nodded again. “That’s right. The prophet said you might not believe me. That’s why the ring. By the way, he wants it back so keep it safe. Even if you don’t believe me, at least put it where you won’t lose it.”

  Alan’s nose wrinkled. He peered closer at the ring and squinted, as if that helped him make up his mind, then glared at Mickey. “Let him go. I guess. Least ’til we got us a minute to discuss this supposed change in plans.”

  Jude slouched to the nearest chair while Alan, Mickey, and Clyde huddled by the motel door. Instead of listening, he shook his head, trying to clear the pounding inside his skull. Like it or not, he’d become everyone’s whipping boy. “Hey, ah, mind if I use the bathroom? I need to clean up.”

  Alan shot him a dark look, which Jude interpreted to mean if you have to.

  He ducked inside the bathroom, leaving the door wide open so the brothers could watch if it made them feel better. Jude put Tucker’s lesson on how to stop a bleeding nose to practical application. A few cold handfuls of water in his face helped. The man staring back from the mirror still looked like hell, and the nose Tucker had mashed just days before looked worse. Might be broken. And now a black eye.