I didn’t know what to say, because she was absolutely right. There I was, fighting with her, begging her to come around and assist the cops—and there she was, knowing it was in her best interest to keep her mouth shut. Just like it had been in my best interest as a kid to pretend I didn’t know who shot that man in the courtyard. That whole time I was trying to get through to her, I missed what was right in front of me.
She sneered at me, like she could read my thoughts. Maybe she could. Maybe she knew I had no argument because there was no argument to be made. She stood up and walked to the bedroom. “I’m not hungry anymore. Good night.” The slam of the door told me everything I needed to know about how she felt.
***
“I don’t recognize any of these people.”
I wondered if it bothered her at all that I knew she was lying. Or was she? I would never know, would I?
Ricardo didn’t bother to hide his frustration. “You’re sure?”
“Like I told you, it was dark. Shadowy. If they had been outside, I would’ve been able to make them out. I’m sorry.” She looked at me, then back at him. “Really. I’m sorry.”
He only slammed his hand against the desk and left his office. She looked up at me and winced. “I mean it. I really don’t know who any of these guys are.” She sounded relieved. Why did she sound relieved? She was telling the truth. She was relieved that she didn’t have to lie.
I touched her shoulder to show her it was all right, and she relaxed. “I’ll catch up to him. You hang tight.” I walked down the hall in the direction he’d gone in and found him in the break room, waiting for a cup of coffee from the Keurig on the counter.
“Do you believe her?” he asked without looking at me.
“Honestly? Yeah, I do. We had a long talk about it last night, and she just insisted in there that she didn’t recognize anybody. She sounded like she was relieved, and I think it’s because she didn’t wanna have to lie.”
He shot me a look and rolled his eyes. “Man. She’s gotten to you, hasn’t she?”
My spine stiffened. “Listen, Ricardo. I like you a lot, and I respect you. Don’t make this personal.”
“It’s been almost a week and all I know is the guy they killed was a mafia nobody. I’ve got the FBI in here at all hours, asking questions, trying to find out how they can horn in on my case.” He dumped probably way too much sugar into his mug, then topped it off with a healthy glug of cream. I wondered if he ever ate, or if he just lived on very light, very sweet coffee. “I have nothing to give my boss, nothing to give anybody. And I have a witness.” He pointed in the direction of his office. “She’s sitting there, sweet as can be, and she is lying to me. I can stand almost anything in the world except being lied to, Brett. She’s pulling my chain, she’s pulling your chain, and she’s fucking up the entire investigation.”
His face was twisted in a mask of rage, but I could see the exhaustion underneath it. Not to mention the hopeless frustration. He reminded me of some of the guys in my unit after we found out how brutal things would get over there. After some of our buddies had died and we had to wonder who would be the next one to go. It was the only thing that kept me from shooting my mouth off. That and the fact that we were in a police station.
“Let me ask you something,” I started in a low, calm voice. “What happens to her after you get your guy? Or guys, as the case may be?”
“What do you mean?” He avoided eye contact.
“You know what I mean. What happens if she testifies? She goes into witness protection, right? Mob witnesses usually do, unless they don’t make it to trial.”
He let out a heavy sigh through his nose, then met my eyes. His lips were pressed together so tight, I couldn’t see them. “So?” he finally asked.
“So, can you blame her for being scared to say anything? Even if she did see the guy who pulled the trigger, there’s a reason she’s not telling. Because she knows what’ll happen. She’s terrified of what this will mean for the rest of her life. If they haven’t come for her yet, she’s convinced they’re never coming at all. She wants out of this—away from the agency, from you, from everybody. Haven’t you ever had a witness like that before this?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“I know having the FBI up your ass on this is making things a lot harder than they usually are, but please. The more we push her, the more she’s gonna clam up. Believe me. I’ve tried.”
“How do we convince her this is for the best?”
“I don’t know that we can. We can only try to find out what’s on the memory card and move on from there. They don’t need to know who took the photos—the De Marcos, I mean.”
“Well, my guys are still working on it. They told me they’re having a hard time unjamming it from inside the camera.”
“They’ll get it. I’m sure they will.” I wasn’t sure of any such thing, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. I needed him to stay sane and sharp. He had to find some evidence other than her testimony to put the shooter in jail—or use the shooter as leverage against the rest of the family.
We went back to his office, where a man was handing his business card to Molly. Anybody could take a look at her and see how afraid she was of him. We both hurried down the hall and stormed in.
“Agent Knightley. What an unpleasant surprise. I know you’re not trying to poach my witness.” Ricardo’s smile was nasty.
“Not at all. I just wanted to remind her of everything that’s at stake in this operation, and how important she is to our case against the crime family in question.” He smiled down at her, but it was more like a sneer. He had that sort of long-faced, pinch-nosed look of a comic book villain. From the looks Ricardo was giving him, I guessed he acted like a villain, too.
“Thank you,” Molly whispered. Her hand shook a little, and the card shook with it. I wanted to take that little weasel by the collar and throw him up against the wall, Fed or not. What had he said to make her shake like that?
He nodded at the two of us, then left. Ricardo shut the door behind him as a string of Spanish expletives poured out of his mouth.
“What did he say?” I crouched in front of her. “What does he want?”
“He was just putting pressure on me to testify to what I saw. How can I do that? I can’t do that. I’m so scared.” She leaned in, and I caught her in my arms. Her body shook with sobs as she leaned the side of her face against my shoulder. The dam had to burst sometime, I guessed.
Ricardo waited while her tears soaked my shoulder. Finally, once it seemed like she was calming down, he handed her a box of tissues. “Here. Relax. They can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do—unless you have a deep, dark criminal history.”
In spite of her swollen eyes and tear-stained face, she giggled. “No. I don’t have any sort of record. I’m squeaky clean.”
“Then you’re all right. They have nothing to use as leverage.”
“Right. They have nothing,” she whispered, more to herself than to either of us. I glanced up at Ricardo, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Come on. I’ll take you home.” I helped her to her feet and let her lean against me as we walked down the hall and out to the car. It was the first time she’d let me see how she really felt—afraid, lost, vulnerable. And damned if that didn’t spark something deep in me: the need to keep her safe at all costs.
Chapter Eight – Molly
I took a nap when we got back to the apartment. I was suddenly exhausted, wrung out. I guessed a crying jag like the one at the police station would do that.
“I feel so embarrassed,” I whispered when Brett drove me home.
“No need. You have no idea some of the things we’ve seen—and the people we’ve seen. A few tears are nothing.” He smiled over at me. “Really. It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay. I won’t worry.” And I tried not to as I fell asleep. Even so, my dreams were dark, haunting.
I was back at the scene of the shoo
ting. The light was warm and tawny—the sort of light that only happened at a certain time of day, a certain time of year. The golden hour, people called it. It was perfect for getting good shots.
Only I wasn’t there to get shots of the skyline or the bridge or the water. I was there for a very specific purpose. Only I didn’t know how bad things would get.
The gunshot went off. My mind whirled. He’d pulled the trigger. I was sure he was only trying to scare the guy, the one on his knees who blubbered and begged for forgiveness. But no. The dark, shadowy figure with the gun had fired. The man on his knees had become the man on his face, in a ball on the floor of the abandoned restaurant.
I had to get away. I had to run as fast as I could and get out of there before anybody saw me and knew what I’d seen through the lens of my camera. I backed up, but my feet were like lead. I could barely move them. I fought and struggled to put distance between myself and that ramshackle old building, falling apart in a million places. I wondered how many bodies were inside and imagined hundreds, thousands. All dead men who would tell no tales.
The light drained from the sky like somebody had pulled the plug in a drain. It was dark, suddenly, and cold. A raw, damp cold that settled into my bones. I still couldn’t move as fast as I wanted to, but as long as they didn’t know I was there…
A crash. People who were bent over the body on the floor jumped like they were startled. One head turned in my direction. My feet were free. I ran, ran, ran as fast as I could and as hard as I could until it felt like my lungs would burst. I ran until it felt like my insides were on fire. I could just see my car at the end of the block, parked next to an old mill that was just as empty as the other buildings down on the water. I ran and ran, pumping my arms, but the car never seemed to get any closer. If anything, it was further and further away. I let out a cry of pure terror, and sweat rolled down my skin and soaked into my clothes.
Then, I tripped. I was falling, falling, everything suddenly going in slow motion. Excruciatingly slow. I saw every piece of glass on the cracked, broken concrete sidewalk as it came closer and closer. No, I was coming closer, wasn’t I? It wasn’t coming up to meet me, I was falling down to meet it. Every little piece glittered like diamonds, just waiting to tear into my skin.
And they did, every single one. The pain in my hands burned like the pain in my lungs. I struggled to get to my feet and keep running. I heard footsteps behind me, but they were more like the thudding of a giant’s feet. Boom! Boom! Boom! Or maybe it was my heart. Maybe that was the sound that reverberated through the sidewalk beneath my feet.
My car. I got to it. I couldn’t get the door open. No, no, it wasn’t right, I had to go. I unlocked it and opened the door. A figure was coming closer and closer, running toward me. No! I had to go! I couldn’t let him catch up!
But I had to look at him. Just once. He mouthed a single word. Go.
“Molly!” I felt my body shaking as the dream broke apart like mist. I heard sobbing and knew it had to be mind. It sounded familiar enough. “Molly! Wake up!” I thought my brain was going to start rattling around in my head if I didn’t stop shaking the way I was.
“All right!” I yelled. “All right! I’m awake!” But my cries were weak and choked with tears. I was crying again. I didn’t think I had enough water in me to keep crying the way I was.
“What happened?” I felt Brett’s chest against my cheek and realized he had pulled me to him. I didn’t try to fight him off, mainly because I didn’t want to. I wanted nothing more than to sink into his embrace and let him make all the bad things go away. I wanted to forget it all. I needed to.
“Bad dream.”
“About that night?”
“What else?” My hitching gasps quieted down, and I concentrated on composing myself. As good as it felt to let go and release all that emotion, I couldn’t stand the exhaustion. It was too much.
The light outside my window had changed, and the shadows along the floor were longer. “How long have I been asleep?” I asked.
“Four hours.”
I pulled away, stunned. “Four hours? Four hours? Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“What are you missing otherwise?” One corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile. “I’ve only been watching TV out there. Everything’s okay. I checked in with the guys outside in the car and they said it looks okay out there, too. So you could take a nap.”
“But four hours. I feel like such a lazy slob.” I held my head in my hands. It was pounding from all the crying—I was probably getting dehydrated.
Brett sat up straight on the side of the bed. “Tell me the truth. How many hours a night have you gotten this week? Be honest.”
I could hardly think for the throbbing in my head, but I gave it my best shot. “Four hours? Five on a good night? Maybe?”
“Yeah. That’s what I thought. You’re a wreck because you’re exhausted.”
“I’m a wreck now? Thanks.”
“Well? What would you call it? Listen, there’s nothing wrong with admitting this is all a lot to handle. You’ve done better with it than most people I’ve worked with.” He tucked a piece of hair behind my ear almost absentmindedly as he spoke. Like it was the most natural thing in the world for him to reach out and touch me. I wondered if he had any sisters—that would explain how protective and gentle he could be. Surprising, a big man like him acting so tender.
“Really?” I wondered if what he said was true, or if he only wanted to make me feel better. “Like who?”
He grinned. “You know I can’t tell you about my old cases.”
“Why not? They’re old cases, right? It’s not like you’re, I don’t know, jeopardizing somebody’s safety by telling me about them. You don’t even have to use real names if it makes you feel better.”
“I can’t believe you’re trying to convince me to tell secrets like this!” He stood up and threw his hands in the air. “I give up.”
“Oh, come on. Please? Just a couple of stories. And I’ll order something to eat and I’ll even pay for it.”
“Wow. Generous.” He walked into the living room and flopped down on the couch. I could see him through the open doorway from where I still sat in bed.
“Please? It’s better than thinking about what’s on my mind, which is much less pleasant.”
“You can’t make me do it by making me feel sorry for you,” he warned. I pouted. He looked up at the ceiling. I whimpered like a puppy. He shook his head. “Okay, fine. Jesus. Stop making that annoying sound.”
“Gimme a sec.” I got out of bed and popped a couple of aspirin for my head, then splashed my face. I couldn’t believe I was actually smiling after what I had just dreamed.
***
Brett shrugged. “After that case, I decided it would be better to put in a request. I never wanted to work with a rich, old widow again.”
I shook my head in wonder at his story as I reached for another slice of pizza, the box sitting open on the coffee table. “I can’t believe that. She actually walked around naked to seduce you?”
“I know, right?” He grimaced as he chewed. “I can’t believe I still have an appetite after thinking about it. She made sure I knew what she was after, and the more I told her I wasn’t interested, the more determined she was to make me interested. But I’m sorry. She was in her seventies. Not like I’m trying to be ageist or anything, and I’m sure there are guys out there who would’ve reacted differently…”
I shook my head. “The only reason they would’ve given in would be because of her money. I’m sure that’s how cougars her age end up with hot young boyfriends. It can’t be sexual attraction. Can it?”
“I don’t know. There are a few older women who I think are still pretty hot.”
“Like who?” I asked with a laugh.
“Like that one woman—the one who plays the president on that TV show. You know the one. She has that blonde bob?” He sliced the side of his hand across his jaw to mimic her hairstyle.
“Oh, I know the one you mean. Um, Genevieve something-or-other.”
“Yeah, that’s her. She’s pretty foxy.”
“She’s also about twenty years younger than the woman you just described to me,” I laughed. “So it’s really not the same thing.”
“Well, I’m sure she’ll make some other man very happy, Mrs. Cougar. Wherever she is.”
“She managed to keep all of her money?” I asked. “Her greedy stepchildren never got any of it?”
“Not when the police figured out it was the stepkids who were sending the death threats.”
“No shit!” I covered my mouth with my hand, and Brett laughed.
“Yeah. They weren’t even creative about it. It was like amateur hour. Here’s a tip: If you wanna get away with threatening somebody’s life, make sure you don’t run around town shooting your mouth off about how much you hate the person you’re threatening to kill. Also, make sure you don’t complain to anybody who’ll listen about how unfair it is that your father left her all his money before he died.” He shook his head, still laughing. “Pretty pathetic, actually. Greed does ugly things to stupid people.”
I giggled helplessly. “I’m sorry, but I can’t get the image of this old woman walking around naked out of my head—and the look that must’ve been on your face when she did!” I could just picture it, and the more I thought about it the more impossible it was to stop laughing.
“Okay, jeez, it wasn’t that funny.” He pulled a pillow out from behind him and threw it at me. I caught it and threw it back.
“Yeah, it kinda was that funny. It’ll never not be funny.” When I did manage to calm down, I said, “That goes to show what sort of person you are.”
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