by A J Rivers
He could have brought his daughter upstairs into her room to sleep, but he didn't want to go to the upper floor of the house. He didn't want to walk past his bedroom and see Mariya's shoes on the floor or the closet door standing slightly open like she always left it. Someone else would do that for him. Right now, there were other things he had to do. He would let Emma rest. As long as she was sleeping, he didn’t have to worry about her so much. He could get the arrangements in place while she was protected by the quiet in her mind.
Ian walked into the kitchen and picked up the phone. There were a few numbers he knew without having to check his address book, and this was one of them.
“We need to move,” he said when the voice came through the other line. “As soon as possible. Make sure the house in Vermont is ready.”
“And Mariya?”
He filled his lungs to combat the pain of his heart ripping.
“They still have her. You know their wishes when they release her body,” he said, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice.
“Is that it?”
“No,” Ian said. “Get in touch with the funeral home and schedule a memorial. Order a casket and flowers. Tell them to contact Spice.”
Chapter Three
Now
There's never a good way to take a body away from a crime scene. I've witnessed it enough times to have seen every emotion, every thought process, every approach teams take. None of them are right. There are those who are tenuous and delicate about the way they touch the body like they are afraid to offend the person who once occupied that corpse. There are those who seem almost afraid of it, or disgusted. They take too much time, far too overcautious about the way they move the body and transfer it onto the stretcher or into the body bag. Sometimes they approach the task so gingerly they end up dropping the body or making more of a production out of the situation than they need to.
Then there are those who treat the body almost with a level of disdain. Like they want to distance themselves from the thought it was ever a human. These are the ones who scoop the body up like it's nothing and shove it into place without any evidence of respect.
Both make me uncomfortable. I've learned to disconnect myself from the harshest of emotions when it comes to human bodies. In most situations, I'm able to close myself off and see the body as simply another part of the crime scene. Like with the man who tumbled out of the juncture between the two train cars and sent me spiraling into the madness of that trip. I couldn't think about him as a man in those first moments or even the hours that followed.
It would break me to see him as a life, to think of what he might have been doing when he got on the train that day. He couldn't be someone's son, someone's brother, someone's husband, someone's father. If he was any of that, I would have had to think about the blood that soaked his shirt and pooled on the floor as more than just blood. I would have had to think about who else shared that blood, where it came from, the potential it still had. I would have to think about his eyes and wonder what the last thing they saw was, and the voice I'd never heard and wonder what was the last thing it said.
Keeping all that out of my mind meant being able to pull back from the person and think instead about the larger picture. But I didn't see them take him from the train. That is the moment that changes everything, without fail. Zipping the body into a bag or covering it with a sheet on a stretcher is an altering moment. Concealing the body makes it real again, forces it back into the cold starkness of being the tragic remains of a human life.
That's what I‘m watching now. The coroner's team lifts Marren’s body onto the stretcher and covers her face before pulling her out of the house to load her into the car. I watch until she disappears, my eyes sliding back down to the blood on my hands.
"You need to get out of the way so my team can do their investigation," LaRoche says.
My eyes snap over and I stare at him, blinking a few times and waiting for him to rewind and say something else.
"You can't be serious," I tell him.
"I'm very serious, Griffin. I'm not going to talk about the fact that you showed up here and broke into a woman's house. Right now, I just need you to get out of the way so we can do our jobs and find out who did this."
"You can't honestly think I'm just going to leave?" I sputter.
"And you can't honestly think I will accept anything else," he snaps back. "This isn't your scene, Griffin. You're not undercover. You're not in my department. You are a civilian, and you're a distraction. You've already compromised the scene by touching the body and moving that note. You know better than that."
"Don't you dare scold me," I warn. "Now is not the time for you to start waving your..." I draw in a breath, forcing myself to calm down, "badge around because you want to be in charge of everything."
"I am in charge of everything. This is my jurisdiction and my investigation. From what I hear, you aren't an active agent anymore, and unless you're in Sherwood, your deputization means nothing."
"Who are you talking to about my status as an agent?" I ask.
"That's not relevant to the conversation," he tells me.
"Whoever it is has been misinformed. I've spoken to Creagan about adjusting and redefining my role within the Bureau. I haven't given up my badge, and I have no intention to."
"Just like a baby with her bottle full of water," LaRoche remarks with a sneer.
"Excuse me?" I ask.
"You've been on leave for how long now?"
"What does my leave have to do with anything?” I ask.
“How many times has Creagan asked when you're coming back to headquarters? When has he asked you to put an end date on your leave?”
“That's between the Bureau and me,” I snap. “He knows when I'm ready to be back full-time, I'll let him know. And until then, if he needs my help in an investigation, I'm available. That's the agreement we've always had.”
“And yet you still don't have your gun. Your badge is a pacifier, Griffin. It's to keep you feeling like your relevant when they've moved past you. You're a loose cannon. They know if they oust you, you could explode. So, they keep you quiet by reassuring you, by making sure you think you're still a part of it all,” he sneers. “You keep your mouth shut, they don't have to deal with the disaster you'll cause. But I have no reason to placate you. The last time you were here, you ripped my town apart. Now you've dragged us into your shit again. I'm not dealing with it.”
I glare at LaRoche, all the anger and irritation from the first time I encountered him rushing back. From the first moment I saw him, I didn't trust him. He's slimy and arrogant, misogynistic, and intensely invested in his image. Right now, none of that means anything. This isn't about show or getting attention.
"During my leave, I have assisted the Bureau in three investigations. My current case will require more extensive FBI involvement. This game isn't about you, LaRoche. You can pack your ball and go home. I'm here because I need to be here. And you may have forgotten, but the last time I was in your town, ripping it apart meant catching a killer you couldn't," I tell him, my voice low as I try to maintain some control of myself.
"How about the dead man on your porch?" LaRoche asks. My shoulders square, and my throat tightens as I stare at him silently. "Exactly. Don't believe for a second I don't think that man was here because of you."
Another officer walks between us and into the living room to collect more evidence. They're going to start dismantling the crime scene without me even getting a chance to look around. I have to stop them. As much as it makes me sick to even consider it, I have to feed into him. It's the only way to make him stand down and get out of his defensive mode enough to give me access to the investigation. Without that, I will be at the mercy of what he’s willing to release to the public, and that's never going to give me what I need. Not only because he would leave out critical details they find, but because he would miss details he didn't notice or even know to look for. Even ones I don't know to look for.
But I have to be careful about how I do it. This isn't the time to give away more than he already knows.
"Yes. He likely was. And that is linked directly to this. Just as everything that happened on the train is. As soon as I got that note supposedly from Marren Purcell, I knew something was going on, and that's why I wanted you to check on her that day and then again earlier today. I admit all this has to do with me. This is happening because of me. But we don't know why, and that's why I need you to let me be involved. I'm already helping the department actively investigating the murders on the train. The cases are linked, and I could be a liaison between the two of you. If I can answer even one question that might make something make more sense, that would be worth it, right?" I ask.
Just talking to him like this feels sour in my mouth, but I have to keep myself under control. If I can play into his perception of himself, I can convince him to give me the access I need.
"Why would you think I need your help?" he asks.
"Because you do," I insist firmly, some of the softness I've forced into my voice disappearing. "Look at that wall. Whose name is on it?"
"Yours," he admits, never looking at the bloody message.
"Just like on the note pinned to Marren. Just like the notes on the train. This person is doing this because of me. Like I said, this is a game. A sick, twisted, screwed-up, patented by Hades himself game, but a game. And he doesn't want to play with you. He wants to play with me." I draw in a breath. "So let me play."
Chapter Four
“He's going to let you shadow the investigation,” Sam points out. “Isn't that what you wanted?”
“No,” I sigh. “What I wanted was to be a part of the investigation. Not to shadow it. Not to be able to walk around and listen to what people say and let them screw things up without being able to say anything about it. They have no idea what they're dealing with.”
"We both know that, but this is what you have to work with right now. You're not going to be able to convince LaRoche to hand over the reins of the investigation. Unfortunately, you're stuck. Unless all the stars align, and LaRoche decides to call in the Bureau within the next few hours, they agree to investigate everything as one case and let you act as an investigating agent; this is all you have. You need to take the opportunity where you have it," he tells me.
"Don't put that too much into the universe," I say.
"What do you mean?" he asks.
"The Bureau might end up involved, especially the more complicated this gets. But if Creagan gets involved, he might make me a consultant rather than letting me actually participate in the investigation itself. That would keep me out of it just as much as LaRoche is, maybe even more. If by some slim miracle he does make me an investigating agent, I'd be locked down. I'd have to follow absolute protocol. Even if it meant not following my instincts. There was a time when I might have been willing to do that, but not when it comes to this," I point out.
"Because you've proven yourself so good at doing that in the last year," Sam teases. "You've stuck stringently to the rules in all the cases I've worked with you."
I roll my eyes and flip the sun visor up.
"I've done what needed to be done. And I've stuck far closer to protocol than a lot of agents and officers I've known would have in the same situations. Sometimes the rules don't fit, and you have to go with your gut and be willing to live with the consequences. I've been facing consequences I'm not willing to live with. And right now, I'm dealing with the same thing. You know as well as I do this isn't just going to go away. Whoever this is has a plan, and they're going to keep going until they've checked off everything on their list. Which means unless I can dig as deep as I need to, it's just going to get worse."
"You can't think that way," Sam says.
"I have to think that way. Do you seriously think this guy is going to have been so sloppy he'd leave clues LaRoche would understand? This isn't some break-in that went bad. It's not a random murder. Marren was chosen. He picked her for a specific reason, and he planned every bit of her death. It might not have gone exactly like he thought it would because I didn't end up here in Feathered Nest a few days ago, but it wasn't just thrown together. The mighty chief isn't going to find dots to connect that are going to create a picture for him. I have to figure it out, and if shadowing is all he'll let me do for his portion of the investigation, then I'm going to have to make the most of that and do the rest on my own," I say.
"Not on your own," Sam tells me, reaching across the car and squeezing my hand. "I'm here, and I'll do whatever I can. You're right. No one understands this the way you do. And that's the point. But I have two more days until I have to be back in Sherwood, and I will give you every minute of those days."
I squeeze his hand back, leaning my head against the seat to look at him.
"Thank you."
The long, narrow road we've been following ends, and Sam lets out a breath, his eyes locked through the windshield on the cabin hunkering in front of us. Cabin 13.
"You're sure about this?" he asks.
I nod, releasing my seatbelt and climbing out of the car. It's been a year since I've stood here, but in so many ways it feels like I'm right back in that moment. But this time I'm not afraid. I refuse to be.
"Yes," I tell him.
"You know he's doing this to mess with your head, right?" Sam asks.
I glance over the top of the car at him.
"Yes."
"And you're still going to stay here?"
"Yes."
"Is this what we've gotten to? You're only going to give me one-word answers from now on?" he asks.
“Yes.”
I walk around to the back of the car to get my suitcase from the trunk.
"But you're right. This," I swirl my hand around in a gesture toward the cabin, "is screwed up. I know it. LaRoche knows it. But that's the point. He's trying to throw me off. His little mea culpa at the courthouse always felt like a bunch of bull to me. He only admires me and my work if I'm far away from Feathered Nest. I intimidate him, but more than that, I piss him off. He despises that it took an undercover Bureau agent to solve the serial murders and disappearances here. The last thing he wants is to have the town think he's letting the same thing happen again with another killer. They'll lose trust in him and think he can't keep them safe. But he thinks if he distracts me enough, no one will blame him for the murder and won't think he needs an agent to save his ass again."
"But he does," Sam says.
"Even more than before. Not that I care about saving him. I want to save whoever's next. Maybe myself. And if that takes staying here again, so be it. The closest hotel is outside of town, and I don't want to be that far from everything that's happening. Besides, maybe being here will give me some clarity and help me find the answers I need," I explain.
"What answers are you going to get by being in this cabin again?" Sam asks. "You already solved those murders. Jake Logan is sitting in prison right now because of it. What other answers could you need from here?"
"Ron Murdock," I say simply.
I start for the door and Sam follows me.
"Emma, you don't even know who he was."
"I know he knew my parents. I know someone keeps leading me back to him. And I know somehow or another, his death has something to do with all this. It started with him. Maybe it ends with him, too."
I step up onto the porch with a chill on my skin. The weather is still cool, but it's not as cold now in the early part of February as it was last January when I stepped onto this porch for the first time. Pausing at the top step, I reach out and rest my hand on one of the rough-hewn support beams holding up the roof of the porch. Sam steps up behind me and rests his hand on my back.
"Are you okay?" he asks.
I glance up at him, then at the door to the cabin.
"It almost feels like I'm visiting a movie set. Does that make sense? It's like I wasn't really here, but I watched it happen over and over in my mind,
so I know everything about it. My head was in such a different place the first time I was here," I say, looking back at him. "You know?"
Sam shakes his head. "No. You've never really talked to me about it. I know what was in the news and what you found. You told me about Jake and his grandmother. I know about the thimble you took and the flack you got from some people for not falling in line and doing what they thought an agent should do. But you haven't talked much about what happened before that. I didn't ask because I figured you didn't want to talk about it."
I nod, letting out a slow breath.
"Do you want to know?"
"You don't have to talk about it."
"Do you want to know, Sam?"
"Yes."
Chapter Five
"You know how Greg and I met. I don't think I need to get into many of the details about that. It's not really applicable to the rest of the story. Suffice it to say things were fine between us. I never really expected to have anything more than ‘just fine’. Not after you. When I made the decision to go to training and become an FBI agent, that defined the rest of my life for me. I thought I was structuring my entire future when I made that choice, including any future relationships."
I let out a mirthless laugh and shake my head. "As soon as I walked away from you, I knew that part of my life was never going to be the same. It wasn't that I was going to go have my career and find someone else, and we were going to live happily ever after. I was going to go have my career and settle. If I ever decided to find someone at all."
"Why did you?" Sam asks.
"What do you mean?" I ask. "Why did I what?"
"Why did you have a relationship with Greg? You haven't told me much about him, but from what I do know, he doesn't seem like anyone you would have ever been interested in."
