“No. It’s not. I swear. I’m not really sure what it is exactly, but I can tell you that she wanted me to hide it and keep it safe and I’ve done that.”
“Is it bigger than a bread box?” he asked next.
“Stop trying to guess!”
Dutch blew out a sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “Fine. But whatever this thing is, will you at least tell me if you had it over at the Witts’ place at some point?”
“Yes. It’s not there anymore, but I had hidden it over there.”
Dutch got up and began to pace. “Christ, Abs,” he said. He didn’t sound mad at me per se, but I couldn’t blame him if he was. If that burglar had been the same person who’d hit our offices, I was responsible, even though indirectly, for the robbery next door, and the Witts had suffered because of my carelessness.
“I don’t know how to make amends to them,” I said. When Dutch looked at me, I motioned with my chin toward our neighbors’ house.
“It’s not your fault,” he said. I looked at him doubtfully. “Mostly it’s not,” he added, his lips quirking at the corners. “The thing that worries me is that someone’s obviously watching you. They knew you’d hidden something in that house, and they probably know you’ve retrieved it by now, so that makes me worry about you and our place.”
“Not if I make it look like they didn’t find what they were looking for and pretend to take it back,” I said, thinking fast.
Dutch cocked his head. “Come again?”
“The odds are probably pretty good that whoever was watching me is still watching me, right?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Which is what worries me.”
“You’re missing the point.”
“Okay, go on. They’re still watching you—so?”
“What if right after the cops leave, you and I go back over to the Witts’ and enter through the garage and then we’ll come out a few minutes later and you could . . . I don’t know, have something tucked up under your jacket, and then you could immediately get in your car and drive off. Whoever was watching us would then assume you had the thing that Candice was trying to hide.”
“And where would I go with this pretend thing?” Dutch asked me.
“Straight to the bureau offices. If you head there, no way would anybody risk a break-in to retrieve the ffffah . . . er . . . thing. The thing.”
Dutch arched an eyebrow. “The ffffah—thing?”
I waved impatiently. “Leave it alone, cowboy. I’m not going to tell you what it was. Anyway, once you leave, I could follow after you at a discreet distance, and if I see anybody tailing you, I could call you and let you know, and then we’d nail this son of a bitch!” (Crap, there went the other free quarter I’d lifted from Dutch.)
Dutch eyed me with heavy lids. “Or I could call Brice, fill him in on what’s going on, and he could tail me to see if anybody’s following.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Why him and not me?”
“Because he knows how to shoot a gun.”
“I know how to shoot a gun!”
“His aim is better. He can actually hit what he’s aiming at.”
“Ah. Good point. But wait—if we fill him in, won’t he demand to see what it is that I’ve hidden?”
“The ffffah—thing?”
I cut Dutch a look.
He smirked. “Yeah, he might.”
“Will you back me up if I refuse to show it to him?”
“I might.”
“You might?” I said, glaring a little, because I totally knew where this was heading. Why did marriage always have to come with so much compromise? “You might cover for me if what? I do the dishes every night for a month?”
Dutch offered me a lopsided grin. “I might if you promise to call me the second things get dicey, and by dicey I mean you see Candice tailing you in your rearview mirror, or anything even remotely similar to that, you call me. I don’t like this one bit, Abs. You don’t have anybody to cover your ass if things escalate, and that makes me nervous.”
“I’ll be okay, honey,” I said.
“How can you be sure?”
I tapped my temple. “My crew always lets me know when I’m in trouble.”
“Yeah, but you almost never listen to them either.”
“Ah. Good point. But this time I will. I promise.”
Dutch nodded. “Okay, but I’m gonna need more from you than your usual pinkie swear.”
“Like what?”
“If I catch on that you lie to me about being followed or withholding more than you know you should, then you have to show me this ffffah—thing, whatever it is.”
I nodded. “Yeah, okay. That’s fair. You have yourself a deal. Now call Brice and let’s get this show on the road!”
* * *
It took us both an hour to calm Brice down. He was furious with me for withholding the ffffah—thing, and I wouldn’t even hint at what it was that Candice had asked me to hide. He demanded to see it. When I wouldn’t, he threatened to arrest me. When both Dutch and I leveled a look at him, he threatened to call Detective Grayson and have her arrest me. I finally got up and headed to the kitchen. Brice followed me, shaking his finger the whole way. I ignored him and got down some pancake mix.
“What the hell are you doing?!” he yelled.
I turned to face him. “You seem crazy stressed-out, Brice. And you look like you haven’t eaten a decent meal or slept in three days. When I’m stressed, hungry, and tired, I always want pancakes. So, how about you sit your damn ass down, and wait for some pancakes so you can feel better and then we’ll have a reasonable discussion.” (Swearing doesn’t count when your boss is being a li’l cray-cray.)
Brice glared at me, but I stood my ground—whisk in hand. At last Dutch patted Brice’s shoulder and said, “Come on, buddy. Let’s park it over here and get you some coffee while Abby makes us breakfast.”
Reluctantly, Brice allowed Dutch to shuffle him over to the table. He collapsed in a chair and we got him coffee, then a nice heaping stack of pancakes and bacon.
He didn’t talk much through the meal, and he ate like a man who in fact hadn’t had much to eat in a few days. At last he pushed his plate away and said, “Thanks. Sorry for yelling at you, Abby.”
“It’s cool,” I said, and Dutch nudged my knee affectionately under the table.
“I still want to know what it is that Candice asked you to hide for her,” Brice said.
“I know. But until she tells me it’s okay to let you see it, I can’t. My loyalty is to her, Brice.”
“So is mine, Abby.”
I sighed. “I guess we’re at an impasse, then.”
“Hey,” Dutch said to get our attention. “For now I think we should focus on flushing out whoever’s trying to get their hands on this thing—whatever it is—and once we’ve caught him, maybe we’ll have more of an idea what prompted Candice to shoot Robinowitz.”
Brice flinched. I could see that it pained him greatly to be reminded that Candice had murdered a man in cold blood. I knew exactly how he felt. “Yeah, okay,” he finally agreed. “What’s the plan?”
We went over the details and as we did so, I realized that I finally had to come clean and confess that the “fffah—thing” that Candice had hidden was a fffah-ile. A file containing something that I wouldn’t even hint at. The only reason I finally let on that it was a file, and not her computer, or a weapon, or Jimmy Hoffa, was that I wanted whoever was watching me to know that I was turning over the goods to the bureau. It was the only way to keep me, Dutch, and the pups safe from an attempted home invasion.
Once we had our plan in place, Brice left, but he was only going as far as the bottom of the sub to wait for Dutch to drive past and then he’d follow him at a discreet distance to the bureau offices.
Dutch then headed out the front door with E
ggy and Tuttle—he was going to pretend to be walking the dogs while rather indiscreetly watching the front of the Witts’ house—and I headed out the back. I crept along the side of our neighbor’s house and spotted Dutch at the top of the Witts’ drive with both pups sniffing around their mailbox.
My hubby sent me a nod and I moved around to the front of the garage, punched in the code, and went inside.
Again I was a little surprised to find the garage in much the same state as I’d left it the night before. Only a few paint cans and storage boxes had been moved around from the far left wall. “What kind of an idiot destroys the whole house looking for a file but doesn’t even think to fully check out the garage?” I muttered as I pulled up the canvas chair and sat down. I needed to make it look like I’d hidden the file someplace really good, so Dutch and I had agreed that I’d spend three minutes inside the garage before coming back out again.
I kept an eye on the clock on my new phone. . . . Three minutes takes a long time to pass when you’re simply waiting for it to go by. And then I got up, folded up the chair, and headed out the garage again.
Dutch was walking the pups up the street a little and I waved at him as I trotted up the drive. He met me by the mailbox and handed over the leashes while I pulled out a plain manila folder with nothing but blank paper inside. I handed that to him and he made a show of looking around before tucking it into his coat and kissing me on the cheek. I left him to walk over to his car while I went in our front door and put the pups in their crates, set the alarm, and grabbed my keys.
Now, following after Dutch and Brice hadn’t been part of the plan, but I’d never been the kind to follow directions. I’m more of a make-it-up-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of gal. So, I jumped into my SUV and took off to try to catch up to them.
I wanted very much to apprehend the guy who’d caused so much mayhem at my office and at the Witts’, and I also wanted to grill him about what he knew about the file, and I figured that tailing Brice, who was tailing Dutch, was a pretty good insurance plan. If the perp caught on to the fact that Brice was tailing my hubby, he would probably be too focused on Brice to notice me. I figured it doubled our odds of finding him.
I didn’t catch up to Brice until he was entering the freeway, and I got stuck at a yellow light behind a car that refused to make the turn. Grinding my teeth while a ton of traffic passed us before the guy in front of me finally moved, I whizzed around him and raced to the on-ramp.
Weaving in and out of traffic, I scanned the road ahead for any sign of Brice’s car. At last I spotted his black Volvo and breathed a sigh of relief. Easing up on the accelerator, I tailed him for a few miles at a nice comfortable distance when I noticed that Brice was picking up the pace.
I sped up too and kept speeding up to maintain my tail. We blew past seventy-five, eighty, ninety, and I realized that Brice wasn’t just speeding; he was chasing after another car.
In front of Brice was a black SUV very similar to mine, but that one had some zip to it. It cruised ahead and Brice stuck with it. I wove in and out of traffic and white-knuckled the steering wheel just to keep up. Then Brice flipped on his strobe lights and it was game on.
The SUV raced down the highway and Brice raced after it. About a mile down I saw Dutch’s car had slowed and now both of them were giving chase. I bit my lip anxiously, trying to decide if I should continue to keep up or back off because we were exceeding a hundred miles an hour now and while I’m a good driver, I’m not an idiot. Common sense took over and I slowed down to eighty-five. My heart still felt like it was going well over a hundred and anxiously I searched ahead for any signs of the boys, because I’d lost track of them.
At last, way ahead I spotted a group of cars all pulled over on the side of the highway. I squinted and could just make out four cars in total—Brice’s sedan, the black SUV, and Dutch’s car, along with an APD patrol car with its lights flashing. I breathed another sigh of relief and checked my rearview, ready to move over to the right lane and pull up behind them on the shoulder, when I spotted a flash of yellow about five cars back. My breath caught and I focused on the yellow Porsche. It was definitely tailing me. I couldn’t see Candice clearly—she was too far back—so I focused on the road ahead for a second and realized I was closing in on the four cars on the side of the highway. Between me and them, however, was an exit, and I just knew Candice wouldn’t whiz by Brice in her car. She was gonna take that exit, but if I took it first, I risked having her skip it and accelerate down the road to the next exit, which was only a quarter mile away.
So I checked my left side mirror and luck was with me. No one was behind me. I then checked the rearview one last time and Candice was still behind me, a few cars back. When I was almost to the exit, I darted out to the next lane on my left and hit the brakes hard. Cars on my right flew past me including Candice’s Porsche. “Aha!” I shouted as I punched the accelerator again. “I’ve got you now, Candice!”
Just as I’d predicted, Candice flew down the exit ramp and I was right behind her. At the bottom of the exit was a green light, but then it went to yellow and I hissed through my teeth. Candice accelerated and flew through the light just as it turned red, and I was too far back to drive through safely. “Dammit!” I yelled, hitting the steering wheel. (Swearing doesn’t count when your BFF keeps ducking you.) I watched her car cruise away and out of sight with mounting irritation, so the minute the light turned green, I was off like a bullet. I was hoping to catch her at the next intersection, but there was no sign of her. I cruised down the street farther, my head turning back and forth looking for any hint of that yellow Porsche, but there was nary a yellow car in sight.
Pulling over at a gas station, I took out my phone and sent her an angry text.
Really?????
I waited, staring at the display for her reply, but none came. Finally I sent her another text:
I don’t like this game you’re playing, Cassidy.
Then I tossed my phone on the passenger seat and headed back toward the freeway.
It took me a good ten minutes to work my way back to Dutch and the boys. I had mixed feelings about telling him that I’d had another Candice sighting. Our deal was that I had to let him know, but I had a pretty good loophole, namely, that I couldn’t be absolutely one hundred percent positive that it was Candice’s yellow Porsche behind me. I mean, it could’ve been someone else’s car. Austin was a big place. Candice couldn’t be the only person in the city to drive a yellow Porsche, so . . .
Anyway, I decided not to fill Dutch in just yet. If it happened again, I’d totally come clean (maybe). What I really wanted was to figure out why the heck she was tailing me. I mean, if she wanted to know what I was up to, all she had to do was text me and I’d fill her in, and I knew she knew that, so why the tail?
While I was thinking on that, I came close to the group of cars pulled over on the highway, and I saw that there were now considerably more cars, most of them the black sedan or SUV variety.
Instead of pulling over and adding mine to the mix, I passed by and took in the scene. There were a number of men there, all in suits, except for the patrol officer, who appeared to be having a heck of a time trying to keep the peace. One guy in a suit was in handcuffs, and Brice stood behind him, with Dutch on his left, but there were three other men all yelling at Brice, who looked mad enough to throw a punch at someone. “Yeesh!” I said as I flew by, and ducked when I saw Dutch’s head snap in my direction. “Ruh-roh,” I muttered.
Not really knowing where else to go, I headed to the bureau to wait for whatever was going to come next.
What came next was Director Gaston, looking so angry my breath caught. Gaston had been the director for a few years, and what I really liked about him was how cool under pressure he always seemed to be. He never got ruffled no matter what the situation, so to see him seething with anger was terrifying. I immediately regretted my decision to come to the
office and wait for Dutch and Brice.
Gaston spotted me and walked right over. I’d been sitting at Agent Oscar Rodriguez’s desk, chatting with him, when Gaston walked in. The second Gaston parked himself in front of us, his eyes pinning me to my seat, Oscar cleared his throat and muttered, “Think I’ll get some coffee.” And he hustled away.
I gulped. “Sir,” I said.
“Abigail,” Gaston replied smoothly, his voice belying the fury in his eyes. “May I speak to you in Agent Harrison’s office?”
“Actually, I’m sorta late for an appointment,” I said, reaching nervously for my purse. No way did I want to be locked in an office with Gaston. He was shrewd, cunning, and intuitive in his own right. He’d have me confessing all in a matter of seconds.
“This won’t take long,” Gaston said firmly, and I knew his request wasn’t so much a request as it was a direct order.
I gulped again. “Yes, sir.”
I followed after him to Brice’s office and he closed the door, then shuttered the blinds, and I will admit to being so scared I almost peed a little. He took a seat then and simply stared at me intently for a few beats.
I tried not to squirm and failed miserably.
“I know you’ve resigned your position as civilian consultant,” Gaston said. I didn’t say anything, because I knew there was more coming. “I’m very disappointed with that decision, Abigail.”
“I . . . I thought under the circumstances it was the right thing to do, sir.”
“Under what circumstances?”
I blinked. “Uh . . . the Candice-being-accused-of-murder circumstances, sir.”
Gaston sat back and studied me again. “Do you know where Ms. Fusco is?”
I felt claustrophobic. Even though I’ve had tons (and tons) of practice, I’m not a great liar, especially not with an exceptionally gifted interrogator like Gaston. “No, sir.”
“Have you heard from her?”
Crap. He’d asked a question I didn’t want to answer. “I don’t think I can comment on that, sir.”