Born to Die

by Winter Austin

  “Yes, sir. And a rash of robberies.”

  Ulrich glanced at him sideways then focused on the screen. “What is it about that town that interests you so much, Agent Hunt?” The deeply interested tone in his voice triggered that self-preservation side of Boyce.

  Slowly, he faced the TV and was graced with seeing Cassy in the newscast, speaking with Nash and O’Hanlon. From the camera’s distance, he couldn’t tell for certain, but he swore he could see blood on her coat and uniform, yet she appeared to be okay. Relief flooded his body, easing the tension and giving him the answer SAC Ulrich needed to hear.

  “I like small towns. Eider grew on me. The townspeople are getting the raw end of the deal, and they need all the help they can get.”

  “I think Iowa softened you up.” Ulrich turned his back to the TV and returned to his office. “Our conversation will continue.”

  The newscast ended, and the anchors moved on to the next topic. Closing his eyes, Boyce took a calming breath. Cassy would be fine. She had her family, and Liza was there to handle the whole situation.

  So why was there a violent storm of doubt raging inside of him?

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Thirty-six hours of a living hell.

  Cassy didn’t like getting drunk, and definitely not in public, especially after the way The Priest had managed to drug and kidnap her. But given the last two days, she was seriously reconsidering her stance and getting rip-snortin’ drunk.

  Yet here she sat in The Killdeer Pub, alcohol-free and wired. She couldn’t face her home, not with all the reminders of Boyce still lingering, and she wasn’t about to go to Nic’s with her parents still there. Her last option was the pub, because the diner was closed in the evenings and she’d been kicked out of the department. Hamilton was dancing on a hot wire, and everyone was feeling his stress. She couldn’t fault him one bit; she was in the same boat. Hell, everyone in Eider’s law enforcement family was.

  An unopened bottle of sparkling water was placed in front of her. She looked up as Xavier grabbed a chair and joined her at the small table. He wore a navy-blue dress shirt with the top two buttons left open and the sleeves rolled to mid-forearm and pair of what appeared to be loose-fitting jeans. The dress shirt was too much of a reminder of Boyce, who would have grimaced at the too-casual treatment of such nice clothing. She banished the pangs. Forget him. Stay focused.

  Averting her gaze, she noticed the surreptitious glances thrown Xavier’s way by some of the younger women in the pub and a few of the teenagers. It was fairly evident that business had picked up for The Killdeer Pub when he started working here.

  “I’m cuttin’ off your coffee supply,” he said, the lilt of his mysteriously faded accent still driving her nuts.

  She broke the seal and twisted off the cap. “Aren’t bartenders supposed to say that to drunks?”

  “There comes a point when too much coffee is a bad thing.”

  Cassy made a noise in her throat before taking a long drink of the fizzy water. Setting the glass bottle on the table with a thunk, she began picking at the corner of the label.

  “Do you want anything to eat, Cass?”

  “What I want is answers.”

  “Sorry, fresh out of those.”

  The label peeled away. “That seems to be the sentiment of the day.” She wadded the sticky mess into a ball and rolled it around on the table. “Marine.”

  Xavier jolted at her statement. “Come again?”

  “I grew up with a father who was one, and a sister who became one, and lived most of my life on bases. I know a marine when I see one.”

  His eyes, so like Nic’s—and frankly, Pop’s—it was disturbing, twinkled. “And the great detective has arrived. Been talking with that Agent Hunt?”

  Cassy’s heart lurched at the mention of Boyce. She flicked the label away, watching it bounce and roll off the table. “He figured you out, too, huh?”

  “Sort of.” Xavier reached down and picked up the label. “We didn’t discuss much.” He placed a warm hand over hers. “Go home. You look like you need to sleep.”

  “Can’t. Too many ghosts.” She tipped the bottle back and guzzled.

  “You have company.” Xavier stood and returned his chair to its rightful place. “When you actually want alcohol, just give me the signal.” And with that, he hobbled back to the bar.

  Cassy’s eyes narrowed as she watched him go—she really needed to figure out what he was hiding—and then glanced over her shoulder. Rolling her eyes, she scooted her seat around, shoving it up against the wall as Mom took Xavier’s vacated seat.

  “Who’s the new bartender?” she asked, studying Xavier.

  “Some guy who moved to Eider a few months ago. Why are you here?”

  Emma Rivers gave her a pointed look. “As much as you’d like to avoid being with your father, I came here to see my daughter. And it bothers me greatly that she’s doing her best to shut me out of her life.”

  “Mom ... ” Criminy, how did she tell her own mother she was just as much to blame for lying to her as Pop was? Emma had long been privy to William Rivers’s disdain for his eldest daughter and the damage it had inflicted on Nic. Instead of bringing Cassy into the fold, Emma had kept the truth from her.

  “Cass, I know you’re furious with him for what he did, but it was war.”

  “It’s not an excuse. He should have trusted her to do the right thing.” She massaged the back of her neck. “Mom, I’m not talking about this here.”

  “Nowhere is a good place to talk about this. What isn’t right is what you’re doing to your father. He’s making an effort to change.”

  “Where was that effort years ago?” Cassy leaned closer to her mother. “How many years did I lose with my sister because of him?”

  “Nic will tell you the decisions she made that put a rift between the two of you were of her own making. We don’t want to see you do the same.”

  The urge for alcohol finally hit her. Cassy caught Xavier’s attention and gave him the signal. His nod was precise, and he moved to get her that drink.

  “Where’s Boyce?”

  “Wow, what a subject change.”

  “Cassandra,” Mom sighed in exasperation.

  Xavier arrived with the glass of wine, nodded to Mom, and then returned to his station. Cassy didn’t bother to sip the Merlot; she downed half the glass and let her head fall against the wall as she waited for the warmth to spread through her veins.

  “My God.”

  She lifted her head. “What?” Frowning, she followed her mother’s gaze. She was really staring at Xavier now. “Mom, what?”

  “Nothing, I just had … nothing. You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Boyce is an off-limits topic.” She downed the last of the wine, set the stemmed glass on the table, and pushed to her feet. “Mom, I love ya, and it’s been great seeing you, but I’m going home. In the past forty-eight hours or so I’ve had one shitstorm after another, and I can’t do this right now.” With measured steps, she left the pub.

  • • •

  The townhouse was chilly and smelled musty. Boyce fiddled with the thermostat until the furnace came on and turned the air purifier to the highest setting. He dumped his suitcase in the bedroom, kicked off his shoes, and tossed his jacket on the bed before entering the kitchen. Pulling a stool out from under the island counter, he settled on the seat and placed his cell phone on the granite top.

  The message reminder dinged. The text had come midafternoon. He’d marked it to read later and then spent the rest of the day trying not to think about it. It was from Liza; he was fairly certain he knew what she’d said, and part of him dreaded opening it. Yawning, he scrubbed his face, ending the yawn with a groan. He had to face the music.

  Boyce tapped the icon. Call her. Simple and pointed. The main screen returned, declaring the current time 8:06 p.m. A reasonable time to call, but was it smart? His fingers tap-danced on the countertop, doubt playing havoc on his mind. Slapping the g
ranite, he shoved off the stool and went to the bathroom. In the doorway, he stopped and gripped the door frame as he stared at nothing in the darkened interior.

  “Shit,” he spit. The pull of the phone was too strong to walk away from.

  The sane thing, the right thing, to do would be to call Cassy. Talk to her, keep in touch, let her know he wasn’t abandoning her as he had in the past. Yet logic dictated that contacting her would only make the separation worse.

  “You, Boyce Hunt, are one screwed-up individual.”

  Giving in to his need, he returned to the island counter and picked up the phone. It rang, startling him so much that he almost dropped it. The unfamiliar number gave him pause. It rang three more times before he relented and answered.

  “My, your voice certainly has matured.” Ruby Jean’s cultured southern drawl was like razor-sharp fingernails tearing into his flesh.

  Boyce licked his lips. Shit shit shit shit! Panic licked at his heels. He wasn’t ready to deal with her right now. He’d dallied too long in calling Cassy. Damn it.

  Be a cold-hearted, SOB agent.

  “What, no tart rebuttal? Seems a penitent life has softened you, son.”

  “How did you get this number? Wait, don’t bother answering that. I’m hanging up.”

  “Do, and I’ll continue to call. Or better yet, contact your superiors and tickle their fancy with some of your finer exploits.”

  And the bitch would. The Bureau was familiar with all of his youthful indiscretions, but there were things he’d left out, things that shamed him. His hand strayed to rub the burn scars. Things that had turned his soul black.

  “What the hell do you want?”

  “Why, what every mother wants—to connect with her child.”

  “You were never a mother. This ploy of yours to drag me into some scheme to save your ass won’t work.”

  Mother tsked. “Boyce Hunt, you have always underestimated me. I’m well aware, and have been for years, that you and the FBI have been dogging my heels. You’re out of practice if you think you can outmaneuver me.” Her voice dipped into the deadly calm he knew usually came before she let the blade drop.

  “Ahh, there’s the mother I know and loathe. Let’s pretend, for a moment, that you truly, honestly called to connect with me. Why now, after all these years?”

  “Truly, honestly? Because, son, there are some things a mother learns to regret. For years, I’ve wondered, what if I’d done it differently? How would you have turned out? What if I’d been a little more like the women you spoke of, the mothers of other children? Where would our relationship be now?”

  Frozen, her saccharine words curdling in his mind, Boyce stared at the wall of cupboards across from him. This was her game? She was trying to tenderize him. Or worse, greasing him like a pig being prepared for slaughter, so he’d squeal on his fellow agents or himself.

  “I’ve stunned you. My, that must be a first.”

  “And the last. You’ve said your piece, goodbye.” He turned off the phone.

  Leaving the stool, he went to the bedroom and, from his suitcase, dug out the spare phone.

  “Ulrich.”

  “She’s made the first move.”

  “Good. How long do you think it will take her to react to your counter?”

  Hanging up on her before she’d had a chance to really lay into him had been royal, but it wouldn’t go over nicely. She’d be livid that he had the balls to cut her off like that. No one disrespected Ruby Jean Gladstone. “Twelve to thirty-six hours. It depends on how much panic you can create among her known associates.”

  “I’ll alert the teams. Leave your phone off for the next twenty-four hours.”

  “Sir, be aware that she’ll say or do anything to discredit me in the Bureau’s eyes.”

  “Agent Hunt, what enterprising criminal hasn’t? Good job. We’ll meet in the morning and plan for your face-to-face with Ruby Jean.”

  Wrapping the call, Boyce placed the phone on the bed. The entire afternoon, he, along with Ulrich and some of the team leaders involved in the Gladstone case, had plotted and planned for every contingency, and it seemed Mother had played right into their hands. But it was too soon. He’d hoped for at least another day to prepare, to shore up any leaks in his emotional wall that Mother could exploit. Groaning, he scrubbed his face. Even if it seemed reasonable and doable in the boardroom, that didn’t mean he was prepared to deal with it in reality.

  The townhouse would be his “home” for the next day or so. A precautionary measure Ulrich had put in motion to protect Boyce, along with access to three different cars. With Mother knowing his whereabouts, they had to avoid sending him to his actual home—nothing would stop her from putting out a kill order on her son. Blood relation didn’t mean a damn thing to her.

  He returned to the kitchen, glancing at the silent phone on the counter. Sadly, he wouldn’t be making that call to Cassy. At least not in the next day or so. He couldn’t use the spare phone outside of FBI business at this juncture or alert Mother to Cassy’s connection to him.

  From here on out, everything had to be carefully analyzed if this plan was to succeed. Otherwise, no one would be safe from the wrath of Ruby Jean Gladstone.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  To get through the night and get some decent sleep, Cassy caved and took a sleeping pill. Sitting here in front of an exhausted Hamilton and crew, she was glad she’d done it. One person in this department needed to be fresh.

  “Is there any security footage from the bank robbery yesterday?” she asked.

  “Not that I’m aware of, and if there is, FBI has it now,” Hamilton said.

  “There isn’t,” Jennings said. “I got a chance to speak with the clerk the robbers put through a window. They had her show them where it was, and when she couldn’t wipe it clean, throwing her into the glass was their retaliation. Then they shot up the system. Last I heard from Agent Bartholomew, she was going to ask DCI’s best techs to get on it and see if they could pull anything from the wreckage.”

  Cassy straightened in her seat. “Why destroy it now, after the other times of not caring?”

  “Panicking?” Nash asked.

  “Or something happened in the bank that could ID one of the robbers,” Jennings added.

  Hamilton’s weary features tightened as he swung his chair around and studied each of them. Cassy didn’t particularly like how he stared at her the longest. It meant she was going to get stuck doing something she wasn’t going to like.

  “With all the chaos going on, we’re spread thin. We’ve still got our regular duties. Nash, you’re on patrol today, west side. Jennings, same on the east side, but I want you talking with DCI tech to see if there’s anything you can help with to speed this up. I’m going to be with the K-9 units coming in today.” Hamilton squinted at Cassy. “Rivers, you and O’Hanlon are going to work with Agent Bartholomew. Since I have no idea why Hunt left and really don’t care, the two of you would be better suited for our liaisons with the FBI.”

  She tilted her chin up. “How do you figure that, Sheriff?”

  “You’ve got an in and generally speak their language. This is why you came to McIntire County, isn’t it, Deputy?”

  • • •

  She had an in with the FBI? What kind of crap was that? She mulled this over while she waited for Con to arrive at the department so they could go through what evidence had been processed by DCI. What was Hamilton smoking?

  The evidence box she carried thunked against the table. She leaned over that box and the others, studying the labels. There were four boxes with evidence that DCI was able to process quickly: from Eider Savings Bank, Officer Wallis’s truck and murder site, the Clydes’ home, and the cabin. With the rash of crime happening in Eider alone, she wouldn’t be surprised if they were slowing the cogs of forensic testing in Des Moines.

  She lifted the lids and leaned them against their respective boxes. Within the Wallis and cabin boxes, she found the candy wrappers. Lifting
the two evidence bags, she laid them on the table and dug out the reports. No human biologics and no prints, just traces of chocolate, peanut butter, and additives used to make the candy. Either the person eating the candy handled it with gloves or wiped the wrappers clean after removing the food.

  Damn it. She slid the reports under the evidence bags and moved back to the boxes.

  A tap on the door alerted her to Con’s arrival. “See you got started.” He removed his coat and hung it on the back of a chair.

  “Might as well. We’re losing hours.”

  With a grim nod, he reached into the Wallis box and pulled out the autopsy report and the files on the truck.

  Cassy slid the cabin box closer. “It has to be hard being the only one in your department to do this. Especially when Wallis was one of your own.”

  “No more difficult than walking into a multiple homicide of people you knew.” He sat in the chair with his coat and laid the file open in his lap.

  “What disturbs me most is that we both saw the Clydes the night before.”

  “Did we miss something? Were they acting out of character?”

  Swallowing hard, she sat in the nearest chair. “I don’t know.”

  Con tossed the file onto the table and leaned forward. “Then we find out. We’re going to have to tear their lives apart. Kendra is still missing … and I don’t like how that looks.”

  That shift in his demeanor. The wrinkles and ridges in his face as he became more focused. Cassy had worked with her brother-in-law enough to know when he was piecing things together in his head.

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Ian,” he whispered.

  He was right to be secretive. Jolie was working just beyond the open door. That was one problem Cassy could solve. She shot to her feet and closed the door. “What about Ian?”

  “The fight that night with his parents. It was about his disappearances and drinking. At one point, I could have sworn Eli mentioned missing money.”