“So what can I do?” she asked.
“Hang out with me for a while tonight, give me a pep talk in the morning, and tell me it’s all gonna work out in the end.”
She wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me in close to her. “It’s all gonna work out okay, Sundance. You just go in tomorrow, bring home a big win on that bank robbery case, and those bureau boys will have no choice but to come around. Just remember, you won Brice over, and nothing says more about your capabilities than that.”
She was right about that. Brice had been the worst when I’d first started working his cases. He’d put me through all sorts of seemingly impossible scenarios—which I’d passed—before finally coming around. And the boys at my own bureau back in Austin had also been really tough nuts to crack. Candice reminding me of that actually bolstered my confidence. “When you’re right, you’re right,” I told her. “I’ll just go in tomorrow and blow their minds while bringing in another big win.”
“Easy peezy,” she said.
And we both drank to that.
Chapter Five
• • •
The drive to the first bank in La Cañada Flintridge the next morning felt interminable. Of course, that might have been because Robinson and Perez forgot to bring along their sunny dispositions, opting instead for Mr. and Mr. Grumpy Pants.
Such an unpleasant couple, I thought as I stared meanly at the backs of their heads. I’d even offered to treat them to a coffee if they’d been willing to stop at any one of the five gazillion Starbucks that we passed along the way, and they’d both looked at each other like, “Does she really think we’re doing that?” and kept driving.
And because I’m not someone who can just let an obvious insult go (you’re reeling in shock right now, I know . . .), I’d taken to humming a merry tune. I’d started with “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” segued rather elegantly into “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” and lightly flitted over to “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” before Robinson had turned his head to glare hard at me and said, “If you don’t stop, I’ll throw you out of this car.”
“Like I’m scared of you!” I’d snapped in return. Still, I’d stopped humming. When one is faced with being tossed from a moving vehicle, it’s probably best to fermez la bouche.
At last we arrived at the bank in question and Perez parked near the rear. The boys got out first, buttoning their suit jackets to hide their badges and guns. The move wasn’t lost on me; they didn’t want anyone to know they were FBI with me in tow. They were probably afraid I’d get inside the bank and start speaking in tongues.
I was tempted to pull something like that out of spite, but then, I didn’t really know what speaking in tongues was all about and quite frankly it sounded like a lot of work, and I hadn’t even had a decent cup of coffee yet.
With a reluctant sigh I followed them into the bank and after coming through the doors, I moved off to the left near a potted ficus tree, as much to find a quiet place to feel out the ether as to get away from the señores Grumpy Pants.
The bank had only two patrons in it, but there was a tense energy to the place. I figured the staff was still very much on edge after their ordeal. It occurred to me that I didn’t know much about the robbery other than what I’d already felt out about it the day before. Neither Robinson nor Perez had shown me anything from the case file: no photos, video, descriptions, witness statements. Nada. Which was fine—I mean, I could still pick stuff out of the ether on my own—but it would’ve been nice to have had something tangible and relevant to the case shown to me prior to our hopping in the car and driving all the way here.
“Whatever,” I muttered as I shrugged off my irritation and got busy doing my job. Taking three deep breaths, I got calm and centered and focused all of my intuitive prowess on the interior of the bank.
My attention was pulled in a completely different direction. “Weird,” I said quietly. Turning toward the window that I was standing in front of, I looked out at the parking lot. It, like the bank, was mostly empty.
“Did you need some assistance?”
Looking away from the window, I saw a woman about my age with long blond hair and clean, somewhat angled features, smartly clad in a black business suit, addressing me. “No,” I said, attempting to smile. “I’m good.” My radar hummed and my attention was pulled back toward the window and outside.
“Are you sure?” she said.
There was a nervous hitch in her voice and I realized that I might look like someone who could be casing the joint. To put her at ease, I pulled out the lanyard from inside my coat with my FBI consultant ID attached. “I’m here about the robbery,” I said.
She flinched ever so slightly before steeling herself; then she leaned forward and looked closely at my ID. “You’re a consultant to the FBI?”
“I am,” I said, then pointed to Dumbledumb and Dumbledumber. “They’re actual agents.”
She turned to look and took in the sight of Robinson and Perez standing off to the other side staring dully at me. “I think those two were in last week,” she said. “They spoke to the bank manager. Would you like me to get her?”
“Not right now,” I said, and swiveled once again toward the window, unable to keep my attention away from the parking lot for some reason. “What the heck is out there?”
“Out there?” she repeated, that nervous hitch back in her voice. “Nothing. I mean, it’s the parking lot.”
Still distracted, I said, “Yeah, but there’s something. . . .” I moved away from the ficus and over to the entrance. Something from outside was pulling at me and my intuition wasn’t letting it go.
“Where’s she going?” I heard Perez say when I pushed on the door to head outside.
“I guess we’re leaving,” Robinson replied.
But I wasn’t leaving so much as following my gut. Once outside, however, I was at a bit of a loss. There were four cars in the medium-sized parking lot. None of the cars felt suspicious to me. So what was it that had called to me so urgently from inside?
I scanned the parking lot, trying to feel from which direction that intuitive pull had come from, and finally settled on straight ahead—but there wasn’t a car parked in any slot straight in front of me. Just several spaces and a hill that appeared to lead up into the mountains.
Walking forward a few paces, I puzzled over what my intuition was trying to tell me. I felt like I needed to look at the ground, so I did, sweeping my eyes back and forth over the pavement, searching for anything resembling a clue, but there was nothing, not even a bit of litter.
“Dammit,” I said, irritated.
“What are we doing, Cooper?” Perez asked me. “Are we leaving and going to the next location?”
I waved at him impatiently. He needed to shut up so that I could focus. “Not yet,” I told him while I scanned the ground again. Walking forward several more paces, I tried to find the clue, but something felt very off about where I was looking. “This is so weird,” I said to myself. Then I looked up at the horizon and put my hands on my hips. In the distance at the top of the hill that abutted the parking lot was a bulldozer, trudging along near the base of what appeared to be a plateau of land about a hundred meters up and away from where I stood. All of a sudden I sucked in a breath because a series of images was popping into my mind like flashbulbs, and none of those images meant anything good.
“Agent Perez?” I said, staring up at the bulldozer.
“Yeah?”
“Was someone killed during any of the robberies?”
“No,” he said.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” he replied with a note of irritation.
“Weird,” I muttered, walking forward again, my gaze still on that bulldozer. I have a distinct sign for murder—it’s the image of a smoking gun—and it kept appearing in my mind’s eye like an annoy
ing strobe light. The closer I walked to the hill, the more the image flashed. I wondered if maybe the driver of the bulldozer had committed a crime, but I wasn’t sure that felt right either.
Behind me I heard Perez say to Robinson, “Where’s she going?”
“No idea,” came the reply.
I didn’t bother to turn around and explain it to them. At that moment I was totally focused on following my intuition.
It kept leading me forward and when I reached the edge of the parking lot, I didn’t stop. Lifting my leg over the metal guardrail that separated the hill from the lot, I moved into the deep grass and began to ascend the slope.
It was a steep climb, but the ground was firm from the recent drought, which was good since I was in heels, but at the top the view was a bit unexpected. There was a large swath of flat rectangular land that’d been cleared of trees and scrub. There was also a sign posted about ten feet away announcing the new development of a series of homes starting in the mid–seven hundred thousands. A mock-up of the type of house about to be built was also on the sign, but what was really weird was that the sign appeared to me to be both new and then something aged and faded.
I blinked hard and when I focused again, I saw that the sign had to be brand-spanking-new, but then it seemed to fade again right before my eyes, becoming dirty and weatherworn. I shook my head and there it was again, crisp, clean, and promising luxurious homes for an affordable price.
“What the hell?” I asked myself. I felt a little dizzy and disconnected as I gazed at the sign, so I pulled my gaze away from it and back to the cleared land, and that’s when I saw the graves.
There were four of them. They were freshly dug, side by side, without markers or ornaments of any kind. At the sight of them, my breath caught and my heart seemed to skip a beat. I knew that the graves held the bodies of four young girls. It was as if someone had told me that as a fact, and it caused me a bit of nausea. “Oh, God,” I whispered.
And then I realized that the bulldozer was headed right for the graves. In a panic I rushed forward onto the freshly tilled earth. Slipping in my heels, I began waving at the driver, trying to get his attention. He wasn’t stopping or even slowing down; he simply kept a steady pace directly for the four graves. “Hey!” I yelled. “Hey!”
A moment later the bulldozer ran over the first grave. “Stop!” I screamed, and tried to run faster. My feet were covered in dirt and my ankles kept twisting as I ran in the damn heels, but I wasn’t fast enough to reach the bulldozer and he ran over the second grave a moment later. “Stop! Stop! STOP!” I screamed.
“Cooper!” I heard behind me. Perez or Robinson had obviously come up the slope—I didn’t know which of them was calling to me, nor did I care. At the moment I was completely focused on getting to the driver of the bulldozer before he crushed the bodies of all four victims. Just as he was about to plow over the fourth victim, however, he must’ve heard or seen me, because the bulldozer came to an abrupt stop, rocking on its giant tread as the driver pushed hard on the brake.
I was panting and out of breath when I caught up to the big machine, and I was still waving my arms, trying to get him to back away from the fourth grave, as well as get off the first three.
“Cooper!” I heard again, but I continued to ignore Perez and Robinson.
At last the door to the bulldozer opened and the driver leaned out a little. I pointed to him and said, “Get back! Get back off the graves!”
He blinked. “What?” he said, turning off the loud rig so he could hear me.
I pointed to the front of the bulldozer. “You just ran over three graves! The women have been murdered and you’re destroying evidence!”
The driver’s eyes widened in shock and he got out of the cab, stepping onto the tread of the wheel to look out over the shovel of his truck.
I ran forward to the front to point to the remaining grave, but when I rounded the rig, I came up short. In front of the shovel, the dirt was perfectly flat. “Dammit! You ran over the fourth one too!”
“Cooper!” came that voice again. Now that the bulldozer was silent, I could tell that it’d been Perez who’d been shouting to me.
“Shit!” I swore, and moved quickly to the other side of the shovel to look underneath the big truck, but it was too dark to see anything.
By now the driver had jumped down from the tread and had come around to my side. “Lady, what graves are you talking about?”
“There were four mounds of dirt here!” I said, in a bit of a panic about them. “How could you not see them?”
The driver took off his ball cap and squeezed it nervously. “I didn’t see any graves!”
“What’s going on?” Perez demanded, coming around the bulldozer.
I was actually a little relieved to see him. “There’re four women buried here,” I said.
He looked down at the ground, then back at me. Robinson came around the bulldozer at that moment too. “What do you mean there’re four women buried here?” Perez said. That made Robinson skip a step.
“When I was in the bank, my intuition kept pulling me up here, and when I crested the hill, I saw the bulldozer about to run over the graves of four young girls.”
Robinson, Perez, and the driver looked down to where I was pointing, which was right in front of me. I could’ve sworn the fourth grave was there, but again I figured it was underneath the dozer’s shovel. “You need to move this thing,” I said, hitting the shovel with the flat of my hand.
The driver nodded and started to walk toward the cab, but Robinson called to him with, “Hold on a second. Somebody explain to me what the hell this is all about.”
I moved away from the shovel, past Robinson and Perez, without pausing to explain. When I was clear of the bulldozer, I motioned to the driver to get up into the cab and back the thing up. I figured the explanation would come when I could see the graves more clearly, if they weren’t already smunched level.
Luckily, the driver seemed to think I might have more authority than Robinson (although why he thought that was anybody’s guess), and he moved up to the truck, hopped in, and started the engine. Perez and Robinson came to stand next to me, and as the bulldozer was very loud, it prevented them from yelling at me.
We all waited until after the bulldozer had backed up several meters and then the driver cut the engine again and came back down to us. I moved over and stared at the ground. There was a tugging sensation in my gut and I pointed to a section of dirt. “There,” I said.
“There what?” Robinson asked, his tone low and even with barely veiled fury.
I directed my answer to Perez. “There are four women buried here,” I said. “Murder victims.”
Perez looked at me like he thought I was crazy. “Says who?”
“Says my intuition,” I told him.
Perez turned to the driver. “You see any dead bodies around?”
The driver got even more nervous and fidgety. “No, sir! No, I didn’t see anything. I’ve been leveling off the grade here all morning, and I didn’t see nothing.”
Perez looked from the driver to me, then back again. “You got a hand shovel we could borrow?” he asked.
“Back at my pickup,” the driver said. “It’ll take me a couple of minutes to get it.”
“Please do,” I told him. If the only way to convince these clowns was to dig a little into the dirt, then I was willing.
The driver nodded to me and took off at a slow jog. I was grateful for his help at least.
Perez’s phone buzzed and he answered it immediately. “Yes, sir,” he said into the phone. “We’re at the La Cañada Flintridge target with her right now, but she’s led us to some plot next to the bank where she says four women were murdered and buried.” There was a pause, then, “Yes, that’s correct sir. That’s what she said.”
I rolled my eyes. I knew he had to be talkin
g to Rivera, and the way he’d explained the situation made me sound cray-cray. A moment later, Perez handed me his phone and said, “Rivera wants to talk to you.”
I took the phone and before he could even address me, I said, “Agent Rivera, I’m not wrong. My gut is telling me there are four young women buried here. I believe they were all murder victims.”
“What evidence do you have to support that?” he asked me.
“Nothing yet, sir. But the driver of the bulldozer who’s been leveling the grade has gone off to retrieve a shovel from his pickup truck.”
Rivera sighed. “Is this like your hunch about Grecco yesterday?”
I knew he was asking me if what I was sensing now was like how I’d sensed Grecco’s hidden wine cellar was behind his fish tank. “It’s a much stronger sense, sir. I know these women are buried here and that they were murdered.”
After a long silent moment in which Rivera was obviously considering what I’d just told him, he said, “Fine. Please hand the phone back to Agent Perez.”
I did as instructed and Perez listened to Rivera for a minute and didn’t seem to like what his boss told him. He walked off to try to argue, but either he was hung up on or Rivera shut him down quickly. He came back to Robinson and me, wearing an angry expression.
I turned away from the agents, picked up a stick, and began to mark off where I thought all four graves were. By the time I was done, the driver had returned with the shovel. There was an awkward moment where we all looked at one another to see who was going to do the actual digging, and when both agents eyed me, I lifted one heeled shoe and wiggled it at them.
Perez scowled and grabbed the shovel, handing me his suit coat and rolling up his sleeves before he began to dig. I watched him with bated breath, waiting for that awful moment when his shovel would find flesh and bone, but also dreading it as well.
He dug steadily for a good fifteen minutes, and removed a fair amount of dirt in that time. Pausing to wipe his brow and look at me, he said, “How far down is she buried?”