The Carter Legacy: 3 Book Box Set, page 22
‘You may not believe me,’ she replied quietly, ‘but Coop was my friend and I am more sorry than I can ever say that he was killed, but I just want to go home.’
Dex nodded after a moment, ‘I’ll see to it that you are released. But if I could just beg your indulgence for one more moment, in the passenger seat of the car that killed Coop we found something a little odd. I was just wondering if you could take a look at it and see if you recognize it?’
Cass’s eyes narrowed suspiciously but she nodded anyway. She needed to know what else they were going to throw at her.
Dex leaned down and retrieved another clear plastic bag from the floor by his seat; this one seemed to contain a larger bulkier item. Cass’s stomach churned uncomfortably and her mouth went dry. Her eyes widened as he lifted the item more fully into view and her forehead broke out into a sweat. Her eyes were fixed on the clear bag, wide in horror.
It was a small, elaborately designed music box. As he set it down on the desk, the motion jarred the mechanism loose and it started to play, a haunting melody filling the air.
Cass couldn’t think, she couldn’t breathe. Her heart hammered in her chest and her breath came in short panicked gasps. She stood abruptly, stumbling backward over the metal chair as it tumbled to the floor with a metallic clang. She backed away until her back slammed against the cold wall, her wide eyes fixed on that small innocuous music box.
‘Cass,’ Rhys jumped up and headed for her, ‘Cass, Christ, breathe, just breathe.’
She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t draw in a breath; she was suffocating. Her vision danced with spots and grayed at the edges, she could hear Rhys’ voice distant and tinny as her legs gave way. She slid down the wall and everything went black.
13.
Cass sat curled up on her couch, her legs tucked up underneath her and covered by her favorite, hand knitted patchwork blanket. Her hands were wrapped tightly around a rapidly cooling cup of coffee she’d forgotten about, as she stared silently into space.
Jackson frowned in concern from the doorway as he watched her; she’d barely uttered a word since they’d brought her home. He glanced down at his watch, realizing it was late, well past midnight. Maybe he should just tuck her into bed and let her sleep it off; perhaps by the morning she’d be ready to talk about her violent reaction to the seemingly harmless music box. Fortunately, it was Cass’s scheduled weekend off so at least she wouldn’t have to face work in the morning and he wasn’t due back at Saul’s until Monday morning.
‘How is she doing?’ a soft voice spoke up behind him.
Jackson turned back into the kitchen and took the coffee cup that was offered to him.
‘I don’t know,’ he shook his head in worry, ‘she’s just sitting there staring into space.’
‘I have to admit I’ve never seen her like this,’ Rhys frowned, ‘and I’ve known her a long time.’
‘How long?’ Jackson asked, with a sudden flare of jealousy.
‘A long time,’ Rhys chuckled as he sipped his own coffee. ‘Relax honey, you’re more my type than she is. In fact, she introduced me to my partner Kade.’
‘Oh,’ Jackson replied.
‘I met Cass back in college and we just clicked. Two misfits we were,’ he smiled in remembrance, ‘I was pre-law and she was an English Lit major. In fact she was my very first client after I passed the bar and she’s been with me ever since.’
‘So how much do you know,’ Jackson asked carefully, ‘I mean, about her family?’
‘More than you I imagine,’ he took another thoughtful sip, ‘I probably know more than most people. Cass has always been very private when it came to her family and her past, she’s had to be, otherwise the press would have eaten her alive.’
‘The press?’ Jackson frowned, ‘why would they…’
‘Look,’ Rhys shook his head, ‘I’m not going to fill you in, sorry. You seem like a good guy and all, but if Cass wants you to know, she’ll tell you. Which I’m sure she will sooner or later,’ his head tilted thoughtfully as he studied him, thinking back to the moment he’d walked into that interrogation room and seen Cass crying in his arms. ‘I’ve never seen her lean on anyone before,’ he murmured, ‘she never lets anyone see her cry.’
Jackson understood what he was trying to say and he got it. Cass seemed to feel the same pull and trust for him that he felt for her. It defied all logic given the short period of time they’d known each other, but it was there none the less.
‘I’m not going to hurt her Rhys,’ Jackson told him quietly, ‘she means something to me, something important.’
‘I can see that,’ he replied, ‘the question is, is it enough?’
‘Enough?’
‘She has secrets, lots of them,’ he breathed out slowly as he shook his head. ‘For years she’s denied them, ignored them, locked them away and tried to move on, but the truth is she needs to face her past and deal with it, or she’ll never be free. It’s going to crush her, especially if she finds out something about her sister that she might not want to hear. What she needs is someone who’ll stand beside her and hold her up when the truth catches up with her and takes her legs out from under her.’
‘What do you know about her sister?’ Jackson asked suspiciously.
‘I know that no good can come from Cass chasing her,’ he answered seriously. ‘Cass has been searching for Chloe for the whole time I’ve known her. What I do know is, that if her sister is still alive then she doesn’t want to be found.’
‘What do you mean, if she’s still alive?’ Jackson asked.
Rhys opened his mouth but a sudden pounding on the apartment door had them both turning in surprise. Jackson glanced down at his watch again, who the hell would be banging down the door at this time of night? He moved over to the door and glanced through the peep hole. Seeing a familiar face his stomach sank and for the first time in his life he wasn’t pleased to see his best friend. He swung the door open and crossed his arms, standing in the open doorway, his expression closed.
‘Dex,’ he spoke quietly.
‘Jackson,’ Dex frowned as he ran his hand through his hair uncomfortably. ‘Look I’m sorry, I know it’s late but I couldn’t wait until the morning. Is Cassandra still awake?’
‘Why?’
‘I’m not here to cause any more trouble for her I swear,’ he held up his hands. ‘That whole interview didn’t sit well with me, but my gut is telling me something is wrong, really, really wrong. I believe her, I know that Frank is still pissed but when his head clears and he looks at the evidence he’ll come around. Losing Coop was a shock to him; they came up through the academy together. Coop was his oldest kid’s godfather.’
‘Look I’m sorry about what happened to his friend, but I think Cass has had enough for one night,’ Jackson shook his head. ‘Maybe you should wait until tomorrow; I’ll speak to her and…’
‘I don’t think we should wait.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Jackson frowned.
‘I think Cassandra is in trouble, really bad trouble,’ Dex replied seriously. ‘She knows more than she’s letting on, about why she hired Coop and what the pair of them were mixed up in.’
‘Like her lawyer told you, what Cooper was looking into was a personal family matter,’ Jackson argued.
‘That may be true,’ Dex answered, ‘but whoever did kill Coop, not only went out of their way to shut down his investigation by killing him, but they went to a helluva lot of trouble to implicate Cassandra in his death.’
Jackson blew out a troubled breath.
‘Dex,’ he began.
‘It’s alright Jackson,’ a smooth voice spoke from behind him.
Jackson turned to find Cass standing next to Rhys. Although her skin was still very pale, her eyes were clear and direct.
‘Cass?’
Her pale, lake colored eyes moved from Jackson to Dex and held his gaze unflinchingly.
‘Cassandra,’ Dex replied quietly, ‘I’m sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have let Frank steam roll you like that. I don’t know what to tell you, the whole thing came as such a huge shock. Coop meant a lot to all of us and I guess it just clouded our judgment. I know it’s no excuse for the way you were treated by my department, but I can assure you that I really do want to help you. Whatever you are caught up in, whatever you had Coop looking into, I want you to know you can trust me.’
Her gaze cut across to Jackson.
‘It’s true,’ he nodded. ‘I’ve known him my whole life, you can trust him.’
Her gaze moved back to Dex.
‘Come in and shut the door,’ she replied.
Dex stepped over the threshold, the door clicking closed behind him.
‘Dex,’ she began, ‘if you want to know what’s really going on, if you want me to trust you, then what I tell you here tonight does not leave this apartment. I will talk to you, not to your partner and most definitely not to the NYPD.’
‘What?’ Dex frowned, ‘Cass, that’s not how this works.’
‘It is or you can leave now,’ she replied more firmly.
‘But why?’
‘Because I have reason to believe that someone inside the NYPD was part of a cover up,’ she told him quietly. ‘Until I know who I can and can’t trust I need everyone’s word that this does not leave the four of us.’
She looked to Rhys and Jackson as they nodded their agreement before turning back to Dex, whose expression was torn somewhere between concern and curiosity.
‘Okay,’ he finally conceded, ‘we’ll do this your way…for now. But if I think you or anyone else is in danger, I make the call.’
‘Agreed,’ she held out her hand and watched as he reached out and took it.
‘You’d better come through to the lounge,’ she told them, ‘this may take a while.’
Once the four of them were comfortably settled with fresh cups of coffee, Cass settled back into the couch and took a breath, trying to organize her thoughts.
‘I suppose the only place to start is at the beginning,’ she spoke softly. ‘My name is Cassandra Carter, or at least it was. I am the youngest daughter of Elizabeth and Philip Carter.’
‘Philip Carter?’ Jackson frowned, ‘why does that name sound familiar.’
‘He was a big deal back in the eighties and nineties,’ Dex told him, ‘the owner of Trans-Atlantic airways among other things. He was a very wealthy and prominent man, he ran in the same social circles as our parents.’ He looked back at Cassandra, ‘he died of a heart attack back in ‘95, he was alone in the house at the time.’
‘You have been doing your homework haven’t you,’ she muttered looking at him thoughtfully, ‘but you’re wrong.’
‘What?’ he frowned, ‘about which part?’
‘The official line sold to the press was that he was alone in the house when he suffered a massive heart attack, fell and hit his head on the marble fireplace in his study and died.’
‘Are you telling me that’s not what happened?’
‘He wasn’t alone in the house that night,’ she took a deep breath. ‘I was there, along with my mother, my older sister Chloe and my father’s business partner Bryce Williams. He didn’t die from a heart attack; he died from a brain hemorrhage caused by a skull fracture.’
‘Are you seriously telling me your father was murdered?’ Dex asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she shook her head, ‘I can’t tell you for certain exactly what happened that night. I have huge gaps in my memory. I was taken to see a therapist once, a few years after he died. My grandmother took me because I was having nightmares and panic attacks.’
‘How old were you at the time?’
‘By then, about nine or ten years old I suppose,’ Cass replied. ‘The therapist believed I’d blocked it all out. Whatever happened that night, whatever I saw, she concluded that it had traumatized me so badly I’d repressed the memories.’
‘Jesus Cass,’ Jackson swore, unconsciously linking his fingers through hers.
‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘the night my father died, was the last time I ever saw my sister. They separated us; I was taken to my Grandmother’s house in the Hamptons and left there with her in the middle of the night. My father’s business partner Bryce took my sister and I never saw or heard from her again.’
‘What did your mother have to say about it?’ Dex asked.
‘At first nothing,’ Cass shook her head, ‘I didn’t speak to her for the first six months after it happened. I didn’t return to the city at all, not even for my father’s funeral. My Grandmother refused to speak about either of them, there was only one rule in her house and that was I wasn’t allowed to even mention my father’s or Chloe’s names. When my mother finally reappeared in my life I asked her, I begged her for years, but she wouldn’t speak of them either. On the very rare occasion I managed to get an answer out of her, all she would say was that Chloe had been sent to an exclusive all girls’ boarding school in Europe.’
‘But you don’t think that’s what happened?’ Dex replied, ‘I guess this is where Coop comes in? You hired him to find out what happened to your sister, didn’t you?’
Cass nodded slowly. ‘I tried over the years to find her myself but I couldn’t, I was at a complete dead end.’
‘Why didn’t you go to the police?’
‘I tried that once,’ she told him. ‘As soon as I turned eighteen I filed a missing person’s report.’
‘You did?’ Dex looked at her in surprise. ‘I searched the name Chloe Carter in our database and there was nothing.’
‘No, there wouldn’t be,’ she answered bitterly.
‘Why do you say that?’ Dex asked suspiciously.
‘I was called in, not twenty-four hours after filing the report, by the captain,’ she replied. ‘I watched him tear up the document right in front of me. He told me he knew my father and he knew Chloe. He said she was a troubled girl and that she wasn’t missing, she just didn’t want to be found. He told me to stop wasting my time and his department’s resources.’
‘What?’ Dex’s eyes widened, ‘who was it? Do you remember his name?’
Cass rolled her eyes up to the ceiling trying to cast her mind back.
‘Hanson or Hudson, something like that.’
‘Hudson?’ Dex looked up sharply, ‘Perry Hudson?’
‘That’s it,’ she nodded. ‘How do you know?’
‘Because he’s no longer a captain,’ Dex’s face was hard. ‘He’s now Deputy Commissioner Hudson and if I’m not very much mistaken, plays golf every other Sunday with none other than Carson Evans.’
Cass turned to Jackson.
‘You know him?’ she asked.
‘I know that he’s a smug, self-centered bastard,’ Jackson replied in disgust. ‘That’s probably why he gets on so well with Carson. I also know the guy is as bent as they come, that’s doubtless why Carson keeps him close. From the whispers I heard when I was working at Evans Enterprises, Carson used that connection more than once to get what he wanted.’
‘Small world,’ Cass murmured.
‘Okay so I get you couldn’t go to the cops,’ Dex steered the questioning back toward her sister’s disappearance. ‘Did you ever speak to the business partner, what was his name… Bryce Williams?’ As he said the name his eyes narrowed, as if only just realizing he knew the person she was speaking of. ‘Bryce Williams, he’s married to Joanna Williams isn’t he?’
‘I don’t know,’ Cass shook her head.
‘He is,’ Dex replied thoughtfully. ‘I’ve met him and his wife a couple of times, a few years back now, but again same social circle as all of our parents.’
Cass frowned.
‘I never spoke with him, I didn’t even know about him until recently. All I had was a picture in my head of the man who dragged my sister from our house. I didn’t know his name until Coop showed me a picture of my father’s business partner and I put two and two together.’
‘Jesus,’ Dex shook his head, ‘okay so, you hired Coop to find Chloe. Did he?’
‘No,’ she shook her head, ‘not yet, but he had a copy of the police file from the investigation into my father’s death.’
‘He had a copy?’ he blinked, ‘you’re sure?’
‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘I never saw it, but he said he had to pull some serious strings to get his hands on it. He also said it was like a rookie had filled it in; there were omissions and red flags all over the place. He was convinced someone had told the cops not to ask specific questions and to gloss over others.’
‘I haven’t been able to get my hands on a copy,’ Dex replied. ‘The original files are missing, and I can’t access it through the database. I hate to admit it but you may be right about someone on the inside covering something up. It would take someone pretty high up to lock up those files.’
‘Someone like a deputy commissioner?’ Rhys asked sardonically, as he swirled a delicate balloon glass in his hand. At some time during the conversation he’d discarded his coffee in favor of a brandy.
‘Maybe,’ Dex muttered sourly.
‘Anyway,’ Cass continued, ‘in the file there was a copy of a flight plan. According to the official records, Chloe was supposed to have boarded a plane at 6pm on the evening of my father’s death, for Charles de-Gaulle, Paris. But I can tell you with one hundred percent certainty that Chloe was still with me at the house at 6pm.’
‘A fake passenger manifest?’
‘That’s what Coop thought,’ she nodded. ‘He checked thoroughly and could find no evidence that Chloe ever left the States. She just disappeared that night, but that wasn’t the only thing that didn’t add up. After my father’s death, my mother signed over all her shares in Trans-Atlantic, including those that should have passed to me and Chloe as part of our inheritance. She sold them for a fraction of their actual worth to a third party; Coop thought she was being blackmailed. She didn’t benefit financially from my father’s death, not the way she should have. I’ve been going through her accounts recently and there’s no money there at all. That’s what the voice mail on Coop’s phone was all about.’
