Cold Spite, page 11
part #1 of Cold Justice® - Most Wanted Series
“Any idea how the fire started?”
“Well, obviously that isn’t part of my job.” Her eyes shot to the door. “But I overheard the other agent say the fire appears to have started in the downstairs apartment.”
He pressed his lips together. He hadn’t found as many answers as he’d hoped for.
He turned and looked at poor David Gonzales. He’d been a good-looking guy until someone had pointed a gun at the back of his head and pulled the trigger. The exit wound had taken out his right temple.
Had he and Delilah loved one another? Or had it been more casual? Any jealousy he felt was misplaced. And he would rather Gonzales, and Valerie, still be alive and for him to forever be out of Delilah’s life, than the current circumstances.
Delilah deserved to be happy.
“You find the bullet?”
“Fragments only. Nothing definitive. Agent Gonzales died instantly.”
He hid his relief.
“What about the other guy?” Cas turned to stare at the body on the third table. A man in his early thirties. “He connected?”
The overhead lighting emphasized the dark circles under Linda’s eyes. “Apparently, he was an informer for the FBI, for these agents actually. Clarence Carpenter. He was found in his car in his driveway this morning. Died of asphyxiation.” She finished one line of the Y and started down the torso. “It’s possible Agent Quinn was asphyxiated prior to death also, but we haven’t found the usual markers. The fire could have masked them.”
Cas frowned and went to look closer at Clarence Carpenter. Even basic recruits were taught various chokeholds to subdue attackers. By applying pressure to the carotid artery in the neck, the blood supply to the brain was cut off. If you held a chokehold for long enough, the recipient died.
The marks on the dead man’s neck were reminiscent of a chokehold from behind. Had the attacker hidden in the back of Clarence’s vehicle?
“Seems suspicious.”
“Highly.” Linda agreed.
“You have his TOD?”
“Between five and seven a.m. this morning. Roughly.”
“So after the two FBI agents died.” Voices could be heard coming down the corridor. It was time to leave. “I’ll get out of your way.” He headed toward the exit. “Thank you for your help. I will call Delilah’s parents and inform them of the sad news.”
“I’m very sorry for their loss.”
“Thank you.” He nodded slowly. If that’d been Delilah’s body on that gurney, he’d be in a fetal position on the floor, weeping like a babe, and this woman wouldn’t be able to move him for a week.
And this had to be how Delilah felt, he realized suddenly. She’d lost her best friend and her partner. He’d been so relieved she was alive, he’d forgotten she was dealing with so much trauma. Not only the loss of two people she cared about, but also her home and possibly her career.
It was a wonder she could function at all.
He hadn’t been there for her before.
He knew that.
But this time.
This time.
He’d be there for her.
Scanlon wasn’t getting anywhere near her. Not on his watch.
Chapter Seventeen
Delilah had changed out of the sundress into something a little more work appropriate. Now she sipped another coffee while she paced the hotel room with the burner pressed to her ear. She’d managed to track down a landline number for Nicole Zimmerman, Scanlon’s ex-wife, who’d remarried and now lived in the Seattle area.
She’d done a few web searches, but without access to FBI and law enforcement databases, she had no idea if anything untoward had already happened to the woman. She desperately wanted those resources.
It was a risk, but she couldn’t not warn her about the possible danger.
“Hello?” A young high-pitched voice answered.
Delilah cleared her throat. “Hello, I’m looking for Nicole Zimmerman. Is she there?”
“Mommy! It’s for you.”
Delilah pulled away at the piercing volume. At least the kid and mother were still alive. That was good news. She waited patiently while sipping her coffee and wearing a groove in the floor.
“Hello?” The voice was tentative.
“Nicole Zimmerman? I’m with the FBI.”
“Yes?”
The tone turned frosty. Nicole hadn’t been a fan of her or the FBI. In fact, she’d been a constant pain in the ass online until the video and audio tapes had been released during the trial. That had been too much evidence for her to overlook then.
“My boss requested that I connect to make sure you were aware that your ex-husband was released from prison three weeks ago.”
“Yes. He wrote to me from Miramar to let me know and to apologize for everything that happened. He wanted to reestablish a relationship with Melody, our daughter.”
An apology?
Didn’t sound like Scanlon.
“Forgive me for being curious, but are you going to let him see her?”
Nicole gave a bitter laugh. “Well, technically he has legal rights. And my new husband, Preston, said every man deserves a second chance. We both think Melody should spend time with her father, supervised, of course.”
“Of course.”
The idea of Scanlon being suitable father material for a young girl seemed preposterous, but maybe Delilah was wrong about the guy. She’d only seen the nasty side of Scanlon—the drug mule, the liar, the betrayer of his unit and his country, the wannabe rapist. Maybe he was a great dad.
“As it happens, they’re meeting up for the first time this afternoon.”
That jolted her. “In Seattle?”
“Yeah. He practically begged me to make it happen. I’m pregnant, and the doctor has told me to get plenty of rest,” she added as if excusing her decision.
Delilah felt that familiar stab of hurt but pushed it away. “It’s important you take care of yourself…”
What was she supposed to say now? That she thought Scanlon had attempted to kill her last night and murdered three other people in an elaborate frame? To be careful? Maybe she was completely off the mark about the guy.
She covered her face with her hand. She wasn’t sure anymore.
Anger could calm over time and five years was plenty. Perhaps this situation was related to one of her current cases. Maybe she was closer to a big public corruption scandal than she’d realized. Something huge. Someone with a lot to lose? The governor or some tech bro who thought he was God and beyond the law?
Maybe she was simply paranoid. Which left her where?
Absolutely fucked.
The Agency might not be such a bad option after all.
She gripped the back of her neck. “Okay. I just wanted to make sure you were aware.”
“Thanks. Agent—”
“Have a great day.” Delilah spoke over her and then hung up without leaving her name. She wasn’t a complete idiot, although the risk she’d taken suggested otherwise.
There was a knock on the door and she pulled her weapon and moved behind the wall to the bathroom. “Who is it?”
“It’s me.”
Cas.
Demarco, she corrected herself.
Using his first name was too intimate, and she needed distance.
She walked over and checked the peephole. He stood there wearing a dark suit and carrying that large, heavy bag of his. She’d rarely seen him in business clothes. She hated that he looked even better in a suit than dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.
She opened the door. Let him inside. Put her gun in the holster at the back of her dark jeans as the door closed with a firm bang.
He glanced at the bags on the bed. “You went shopping?”
She winced. “I hope you don’t mind.” She went and grabbed his credit card. “I have receipts and will pay you back as soon—”
“Delilah.” He held up his hand. “It’s fine. I can afford a shopping spree for a friend.”
“I’ll pay you back,” she repeated firmly. She had expensive tastes and paid her own way. Then she frowned. “Is that what you think we are now? Friends?”
It sounded so mediocre and tepid, like warm milk.
It sounded wrong.
He stared down at the cream marble floor. “I guess that depends on you. I had hoped to earn back your friendship, but I also know I treated you abominably.”
“Abominably.” She crossed her arms over her middle. “That’s a good word for it.”
“I’ll understand if you can’t forgive me.”
“Will you? How very generous.” Her eyes watered, and she looked at the ceiling, blinking rapidly. “It’s actually not that easy to forgive you, even after all this time. The things you said…”
Misery washed over his features. “I’ll never forgive myself for the way I treated you that day and afterwards.” He opened his mouth, but she spoke over him.
“That I was a good fuck but not to make the mistake of thinking you were emotionally invested? And that the high stress of undercover work made people say things they didn’t mean—like ‘I love you’?”
Suddenly the weight of her secrets was too much to bear. And why should she bear them alone? What sort of self-destructive bullshit was that?
“I didn’t know it at the time, but I was pregnant with our baby. That day at the condo.”
Demarco went sheet white.
“The day you scraped me off your boots like dog crap.” Tears came now. This had been her silent wound for years, and he deserved to know it all. All the reasons she would never be his friend.
“After you dumped me, I went to bed and cried. Not long after, I started to cramp and bleed.”
He took a step toward her. “Delilah—”
“Don’t.” Her glare was forceful enough he took a step back. “Do not touch me. I lost the baby—that’s the first I’d known I was pregnant, so the pain of losing it was unexpectedly acute.” Her laugh came out ugly. “And I don’t blame you for the miscarriage, don’t think that. Ten to twenty percent of known pregnancies end in miscarriage.” She blinked rapidly, trying to stem the tears. “But the fact I went through that alone… I blame you for that.”
He collapsed down to the bed as if his legs could no longer support him.
She clenched her fists determined to tell it all, to spare him nothing.
“Unfortunately, I wouldn’t stop bleeding. The doctors tried various medical procedures, but nothing worked. I had to undergo an emergency hysterectomy—it was that or die.”
She didn’t tell him that she hadn’t been mentally strong enough to make the choice. Between Cas leaving her and losing a baby she hadn’t even known she was carrying, she’d zoned out and been incapable of making a decision. Or perhaps it had been blood loss and the threat of ischemia to the brain. The doctors had made the choice for her. She still mourned her lost fertility but was grateful for her life.
He looked aghast. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Her voice was as brittle as shattered glass, but she was proud she wasn’t shouting.
He opened his mouth as if to argue.
“Don’t. Don’t you dare. Don’t you fucking dare.” She paced the room, barely able to stop herself from slamming out the door. This truth was something she could never outrun, and he deserved to know why she couldn’t forgive him, why they couldn’t be something as insipid as friends. “You had no right to know anything. Not about the fetus who died in the womb or the fact I almost died, too, or about whether or not I have a uterus. You told me exactly what I meant to you, and I owed you nothing after that.”
Demarco looked as if he might vomit.
“Val…” A shiver stole over her. “She’s the one who got me through it. Val—who is now dead because some bastard thought she was me. While you packed your bags and headed merrily off to the Hostage Rescue Team, she held my hand.” She bared her teeth in a snarl proving exactly how much she wasn’t over this. “You had your path, and I had mine. I’m grateful you ripped the blinders off before I did something stupid like request a transfer.”
His olive skin looked ashen.
“So, regardless of your coming here, uninvited, to help me out of the shit show my life has become, do not mistake that for friendship. We are colleagues at best. You are here because you insisted on helping me. That’s all. It’s all we will ever be.”
Her heart pounded, and she wanted to whirl away and run down to the sea. She didn’t have the luxury. She pushed the emotions back down so she could function the way she needed to if she hoped to make it through this mess with her career intact. “Do you want to shower and eat before we leave for the air base? I’m not hungry. I had tacos at the shack.”
The shack where they’d used to hand feed each other like besotted fools. Demarco stared at her mutely, as if she’d poleaxed him.
Yeah.
She probably had.
She checked her watch. Nervous energy crawling through her. No way could she stay here with him looking at her like that. As if she’d hurt him.
“If not, let’s head out and be ready to catch that flight out of here.”
She pulled her long brown hair into a tight pony and dragged the blond wig over her forehead and back, adjusting the fit.
“I need to change.” His voice sounded scratchy and suspiciously deep.
“Fine.” She slipped on her sunglasses. “I’ll wait on the balcony.”
Chapter Eighteen
Scanlon stood beside a little bird of a social worker whose neck he could snap with his fingers. The woman who’d vowed to love him until death-did-them-part pushed through the doors and walked towards him, fat with another man’s bastard.
The fucker, Preston, stopped twenty feet away, arms crossed over his polo-shirt-clad chest, pretending he wasn’t shitting his pants.
Scanlon moved his lips into a smile as his daughter looked up at him with big blue eyes that were eerily similar to the ones he saw in the mirror every day. If it weren’t for the fact she looked so much like him, he might have questioned the kid’s legitimacy, given he’d been deployed for most of his wife’s pregnancy. As it was, there was no doubt as to her parentage.
“Melody.” He held out his arms and frowned when the girl pressed back against her mother’s legs. She’d been two the last time he’d seen her, but he was her father. She shouldn’t be scared of her own blood. He had no reason to hurt her.
Nicole squeezed her daughter’s shoulders. “It’s okay, honey. This is your father. You remember him, don’t you?”
The little girl shook her head from side to side so fast her hair got caught in her eyes. She held her mother’s hand and twisted to press her face into Nicole’s groin, a place he’d spent a lot of time in back in the day. He bet Preston didn’t go down on Nicole nearly often enough for her liking.
Nicole frowned at him. “What happened to your face?”
He touched the healed scar. “Someone tried to knife me in prison.”
“You look just like Virgil.” She shuddered.
His twin had always unnerved Nicole. He unnerved most people. “Yeah, he thinks it’s pretty funny.”
The kid tried to pull away back toward the door, but Nicole held onto her and scolded her. “Enough of this nonsense, Melody. You know who this is.” This new prim version of Nicole looked embarrassed by her daughter’s behavior. “She has a picture of you in your dress whites in her room.” Which was hardly the same as seeing her daddy in the flesh. He’d repeatedly asked Nicole to bring her to visit him, but she’d refused, saying prison was no place for a child.
More likely it was too much trouble to make the journey.
He understood. It was a choice. Everyone got to make choices, even people who were incarcerated.
Nicole crouched down and gave Melody a quick hug and then turned the kid back around to face him.
“Sorry. She’s a bit out of sorts. We sprang this on her on the way over. I didn’t want to give her too much time to object.”
Melody’s bottom jaw thrust out in mutiny.
Oh, yeah, she was a Scanlon all right.
“We’ll be back in a couple of hours, honey.” She looked at the social worker, who nodded, and then pried Melody’s hand from her own.
“Be good, baby.” Nicole’s eyes begged. “Your father just wants to spend a little time with you.”
Preston uncrossed his arms and shifted impatiently.
“Sorry.” Nicole backed away.
God, she was pathetic.
His wife had ditched his ass as soon as he’d been found guilty. She’d told him after he’d been sentenced that she’d barely gotten through deployments. There was no way she could wait seven years for him to get out of prison. So much for honoring. So much for obeying.
She’d moved back to her hometown to be closer to her bitch mother, and then she’d met “Preston.”
He’d never beaten her. Never given her a slap even though she’d sometimes deserved one. He might not have been completely faithful, but that was a man’s nature. Spread his genes far and wide.
If he’d wanted her back, he figured it wouldn’t take much. Nicole liked sex. A bit of flattery, some practiced charm, the right timing, she’d be flat on her back, begging for his cock to plow her like the good ol’ days.
But he didn’t want her no more.
She repulsed him.
Even if she hadn’t been carrying someone else’s bastard, she’d lost all her appeal. The day she’d left him, she’d ceased to be anything except for an insult to his pride and caretaker of his child.
He watched the couple push out through the doors and climb into a silver Lexus. They drove away.
He lowered his gaze back to the girl who looked resentful and a little scared.
He held out a huge pink teddy bear, and she took it tentatively.
He turned to the social worker. “Can I take her for ice cream?”
