by Kris Calvert
“You wanna explain that?” On the outside Beckett was retaining his cool demeanor, but I could tell, like me, he was merely holding his emotions at bay.
I shrugged my shoulders just enough to seem callous when I wasn’t, but there was no way in hell I was going to show any emotion, standing at the feet of my dead ex-girlfriend while panties were pulled from her mouth. “We dated in college, twelve or so years ago at Cornell. It was a joke. I wrote my name in black marker on some white panties I’d given her.”
“Mind if I ask why?”
“We were twenty-one,” I replied, allowing the sarcasm to slip through my answer.
“Sir,” the female investigator said to Beckett as she held up the panties. King was clearly written in capital letters along with the rudimentary crown I’d drawn one late night in my apartment after a round of mindless sex and alcohol. There it was, right on the crotch for all to see.
“Nice work, Doc. Any idea why she might be wearing twelve year old underwear with your name on it?”
I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to answer any more questions without Joy, my attorney, present. And yet I was afraid to not answer questions. “I have no idea.”
“Sir, she’s clutching something in her hand,” said the female investigator.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I saw it too. It looks like a piece of paper.”
Beckett gave me a smirk. It was the kind of look I remembered getting from my father as an irresponsible teenager. Whatever trouble I might have stumbled into, it kept getting deeper and deeper.
I walked behind him to examine the small white card clutched inside her palm. As I got closer, I searched my jeans pocket for my cell phone—a cell phone that was still sitting by my bedside. I needed to call my lawyer.
“Dr. Giles,” Beckett said. “She seems to have your business card clutched inside her cold, dead hand.”
I paced the marble floor of the office attached to my master suite and waited for Joy to answer.
“King. Jesus, it’s early. I’m busy today.”
“No, Joy. I need you,” I gasped in a hushed tone.
“Honey, not today.”
“Joy. I know we’re friends, we’re more than friends at times, but you’re still my attorney. The body of a dead woman has shown up on my doorstep this morning and I’ve got police up my ass and all over Rose Hill. Joy,” I said bringing my voice down. “She was an old girlfriend and the worst part is that she’s got white panties with my name on them stuffed in her mouth.”
“Holy shit, King.”
“How fast can you be here?”
“Give me an hour,” Joy replied. “Don’t say another word. I don’t care if you’re involved in this or not. Keep your mouth shut, okay?”
“Look, the police are all over the place and they keep asking me all kinds of questions.”
“What? No. King, just…no. Keep it zipped and I’ll be there in an hour. Tell them I’m on my way and you don’t feel comfortable answering anything until I arrive. Understand?”
“Yes.”
Joy hung up and I stared at my reflection in the large mirror on the wall of the study and shook my head. I’d be contacted within twenty-four hours of this shit show and my shadow, Nyx was going to want some answers.
I shoved my phone in my pocket and winced when the house phone rang again. “Yes?”
“Dr. Giles, it’s Agent Beckett. I know you’re in shock,” he said, sarcasm lacing his tone. But we need to ask you some questions. Can you come outside please?”
“Be right there.”
I hung up and shouted at the phone. “I’ll be there when I’m damn good and ready, asshole.” The words seethed through my teeth and I wanted to punch something. I slipped my feet into a pair of loafers and glanced at the clock on the wall of my office. Joy was still forty-five minutes away. I needed to call Lilah. She would contact the house staff and ask them to stay home today. I didn’t know who was scheduled to come in since it was a Sunday, but no one else needed to see a dead body.
I dialed and waited for her to answer. In the six months as my Girl Friday, she’d managed to take down a computer, hang up on a hospital board member and screw up my hotel reservations. I didn’t how she’d handle today, but she’d have to—otherwise I would be letting her go.
“Hello?”
She was groggy and her voice was hoarse. I knew I’d pulled her from her Sunday morning sleep in.
“Lilah, it’s King. There’s a bit of an emergency and I need you to take care of some things. Can you do that for me?”
“Absolutely,” she replied, suddenly awake and on point. “Anything.”
“Check the Rose Hill staff schedule. Whoever is supposed to be here today, tell them they have the day off—with pay. I don’t want anyone coming to my house today. Understand?”
“Yes, of course. Is everything all right?”
“No, Lilah. Nothing is all right.”
“What happened?”
“There’s a dead body on my doorstep and the FBI is so far up my ass right now I feel like I’m getting a prostate exam.”
“What?” I could hear the astonishment in her voice and I didn’t want to explain it again.
“I don’t want to discuss it right now. We’ll talk about it later. Just take care of the staff today.”
“But—”
“Look Lilah, I’m asking you to handle this for me. I don’t need your questions or comments. Just do it, or I’ll find someone who can take orders. Understand?”
There was a break of silence on the other end and I felt like an asshole, but at the same time, I needed her to do her job and not ask questions.
“I will take care of all of it.”
“Thank you.”
I hung up without saying goodbye and checked the time on my phone. I wasn’t joining the detective and crew downstairs until Joy showed up, but the longer I stayed away from them the more suspicious I looked.
“Fuck it,” I said, deciding to face the music. As I made it to the main staircase that led to the entrance hall of Rose Hill, I told myself I didn’t have anything to hide. Descending the ornate mahogany steps, I looked at the portraits of my family and found strength. I would get through this just as I’d made it through the death of both of my parents, just as I’d handled my own unpredictable existence. I was used to facing the world alone. I would face this alone, too.
Opening the front door, I could see Tina’s body still lying at the entrance and thought of Tina’s dad, Joe Joseph. This wasn’t going to go over well with him—someone would pay.
Beckett waited for me on the large porch that encompassed the house. “Dr. Giles,” he began. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”
“Why is her body still lying out there? For God’s sake, give the girl some dignity.”
Beckett looked over his shoulder and back to me. “Well Doctor, that’s a crime scene. And if someone is murdered then we need to collect every single bit of evidence we can before we move the body—before we move anything. Surely you understand that.”
I nodded and stared at the scene unfolding. It was a nightmare—a nightmare I wanted to wake from immediately.
“You said you were with Miss Joseph in Atlanta. Can you tell me what you were doing there with her?”
I stared back at Beckett. I wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. That I wasn’t saying another word. Instead I gave him a reassuring nod and said, “My attorney Joy Henderson is on her way to Rose Hill right now. I want to wait until she arrives before we talk.”
He blinked, but didn’t waver from his own steely glare. “Fine, but please don’t leave the premises.”
I looked to the scene at the end of lane and back to him. “Really?”
“I just wanted to be clear.” Beckett spoke to me as if I were a child he needed to wrangle.
“Crystal.” I began to shut the door. “Oh, and one more thing, Agent Beckett. Please allow my attorney past your crew when she arrives. Joy Henderson. She’ll be driving th
e red Corvette.”
5
REAGAN
I’d barely slept six hours in New York and I was already on the move. Leafing through the files Win had given me, I read all about the Joseph family while my partner leaned into the window of 3B napping without a care. Our flight was scheduled to land in Alabama within the hour and I’d be on my first real crime scene. I was excited and scared. Win had dressed in a black suit, white shirt and no tie. I’d planned on wearing a black suit too, but when he arrived to pick me up, I decided we looked too much like the Men in Black and opted for a navy pinstriped suite and robin’s egg blue shirt. I hated being a woman who needed to dress like a man. As great as I knew my legs looked in a skirt, it was hard to wear my service pistol without pants. It was a price I was willing to pay.
I glanced over the information on the deceased and her family. Tina Joseph, daughter of mob boss Joe Joseph—a.k.a. Joe Joe. Part of one of the oldest crime rings in the United States, he was highly respected by all other mob families, except the Russians, who don’t respect anything—including life.
The case landed in our lap when intel sent word that a phone conversation had been intercepted stating a possible connection. It was unclear as to why the hit was made—there’d been no business dealings between the Russians and Cosa Nostra of record. Still, the Russians had put a contract out on Tina Joseph and killing the child of a mob boss, regardless of how old they might be, was a death wish. To the Italians, women and children were off limits. ROC had killed two birds with one stone.
The Italian mob was different from the ROC. Yes, they were criminals and killers, but at the same time there was a strict loyalty to the family—their own and their mafia family. The Russian mob was disjointed. Mostly made up of former KGB and old USSR intelligence, these were people who’d lived through tremendous suffering. There was no respect for human life. There was little respect for anything.
For that very reason, if the Russian mafia had anything to do with the hit, we needed to know, and fast. We could have an all-out war on our hands.
The photos and file on Tina showed me she was an independent woman. Tall and dark with long hair, she looked like a good Italian girl with fortunate genes. A graduate of Cornell, she had a degree in Journalism, but the file stated that she was working for a new drug company out of Atlanta—BioGen. She was never photographed with a man or another woman and so I thought that perhaps she was single. It was hard for me to imagine someone so pretty being alone every night.
Regardless of who made the hit, someone would pay. The girl’s father, Joe Joe would see to that. And it wouldn’t be pretty.
Joe Joseph’s family was known for torturing their hits for information before killing them. The autopsies were hard to read and sometimes the forensic pathologist couldn’t be certain if the victim was alive or dead when the degradation of the body had taken place. One of their hits was an example in my first CSI class where the instructor asked, “Was she dead before they peeled the skin from her neck over her mouth, or did she suffocate because they peeled the skin from her neck over her mouth?”
I shook my head at the thought. I was walking out of the classroom and into possibly the biggest case of my life.
“Where are we?” A groggy but still handsome Win Holloway slid his body into an upright position and rubbed his eyes.
“We’re about twenty minutes out. Speaking of out, you’ve been asleep this entire flight.”
“You made me get up early to work out,” he said with a sly grin. “Remember?”
“Is everything going to be my fault?”
He scoffed. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
I knew he was kidding, but at the same time I wondered if everyone else assigned in the field had a partner that joked like this, or was it all business all the time.
“What’s your plan?” I asked as the flight attendant walked the aisles making sure everyone was prepared for landing.
“I thought you had a plan, Gip.”
“You can’t be serious. I’ve just read through the case file this morning. You’ve been on this case for a couple of years.”
“How could I be on this case for a couple of years? They just found a body this morning. Don’t overthink anything. Reagan.” Rubbing his cleanly shaven face, Win closed his eyes tight. “You’ve been poring through the case the entire flight. I bet you know every word in that file. Just tell me what you see.”
I shook my head. I didn’t know what I saw, but I wasn’t going to admit it, so I began with the basic facts. “The victim is accomplished on her own. She didn’t seem to work in the family business—I mean she had a job outside of narcotics and racketeering—a legitimate job.”
Win nodded and put his seat back into the upright position, complying with the flight attendant’s silent request. “What else?” he said.
I stared at him. That was all I had and by the look on his face he knew it.
“Keep looking, there’s more.”
I opened the file again. She owned a condo in downtown Atlanta and she lived alone. She’d been working at her new position for six months. Before that, she worked at Twirl. “What’s Twirl?” I asked.
“Well, it’s not a pharmaceutical company,” Win said as the plane touched down.
I pulled out my phone and Googled Twirl in Atlanta.
“It’s a sex club,” I said flatly. “She worked at a sex club?”
Win raised his eyebrows. “Some chicks are into that, you know?”
“Into what?”
“Weatherford, do you not know what a sex or a swingers club is?”
It was the first time he’d used my last name since he met me. Suddenly I felt as if I was back at the Academy and somehow missed an assignment.
“Of course. But that doesn’t mean I’ve been to one or participated in an orgy.” The engines died and we began collecting our bags and backpacks.
“There’s a car waiting for us. I’ll explain on the way.”
I whipped my head around so fast my hair caught in my mouth. “Wait. How do you know enough about it enough to explain it?”
He pursed his lips and nodded for me to move ahead and get off the plane. There was obviously more to Win Holloway than met the eye.
A car from the Birmingham office met us as scheduled and we were on our way to Shadeland without delay. It was just turning fall and the leaves had only begun to change. A southern breeze blew through the car—Win was insistent upon putting the windows down just a bit. It was easy to see the country boy was happier outside of the big city.
“So we know she has a thing for swinging or was into wild sex. Is that what you’re telling me?”
Win shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe, maybe not. She could’ve been into it, or her dad might have had some interest in the club and she was there to watch over it. Either way, she would’ve been dealing with some pretty unusual characters. Sex clubs are expensive and wealthy folks have been known to do desperate things to keep their private life private.”
“And you think there’s some connection with that and her murder?” I asked, pulling my hair back and into a ponytail as the wind whipped it into my face.
Win shrugged. “Don’t know.”
I nodded and leaned back in the car, watching the signs rush past us until I saw the exit for Shadeland. “Don’t miss our turn.”
“Don’t be so bossy.”
Win turned the black sedan onto the exit ramp and I picked at my fingers and then just decided to ask the question. “So how do you know about Twirl? Have you guys investigated it before?”
Win stared straight ahead, the wind blowing his blonde curls from his forehead. I couldn’t see his expression behind his black aviator sunglasses. “I’ve been there before,” he said keeping his stoic demeanor.
“You mean in a professional capacity?”
Still, he stared ahead.
“Win?”
He rubbed two fingers across his full lips and I unconsciously found myself biting my own.
<
br /> “No,” he replied without looking at me.
I leaned forward grabbing the dashboard and tried to get a read on his face. I didn’t know if he was being serious or joking around with me, but my gut told me it was the former.
“Wow.” If I were a man this is where I would ask him all kinds of questions, so I did. “Are you into that?”
“Not really.” Win shifted his weight in the seat. I was making him uncomfortable and I liked it. I liked it a lot.
“What was it like?”
Giving me an expressionless double take, I knew I hit an emotional chord and I wondered if he was deciding whether to treat me like a partner or a woman.
“Look, Reagan. You’re my partner, but you’re also a…”
“A what?”
“A woman,” he said as if he was confessing to a priest.
“And yet I’m a federal agent, just like you.”
“I’m just not comfortable—”
“What? Discussing your sex life with me like I’m one of the boys? Listen Win. I know your reputation. I don’t know what you’ve been up to in Kentucky or New York City, but I’ve heard you’ve slept with just about everything that moves in Quantico.”
“Actually, I haven’t,” he replied as we came to a full stop at a red light and he looked at me for the first time since we started the discussion. “But if you want to believe everything you hear from the secretarial pool—and believe me, I realize that pool isn’t only women—then go ahead.”
I felt bad for trying to shame him by joking my way into pulling information out of him and my expression showed it. “Dammit Win. I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”
“Reagan, I like you. You’ve got potential to become an excellent agent and I think we’re going to make a great team. But here’s the thing. I’ve seen a lot of shit out here in the field. Shit that no one should have to see. I’ve lost a little bit of my faith in humanity but what I refuse to lose is my dignity. I’m never going to stop being a gentleman, which means I’m always going to treat you like a lady—even if you’re a Federal Agent and my partner.”
