Cross Cut (32 page)

I didn’t follow her. The truth of it is, we’re a pretty dysfunctional operation. There’s rarely an underlying sense of satisfaction at the end of any of our cases. There's little to take away. Most of the time shit just happens and it either concerns you or it doesn't. To expect a lighthearted pow-wow and a high five would just be dumb.

38

It was with a somewhat lamentable attitude that I made my way to Cassandra Bishop’s home, not too far from her practice in Beverly Hills.

While this was supposedly a form of celebration on a job well done, I couldn’t help being dissatisfied with how everything had turned out. Although I said there’s usually little to take away from a case, if the last week showed anything, it’s probably to do with how little we may know about the people we think we care about. I thought about the people of Gillham and Mane, most of whom had no idea what was going on within their own company, and that Guy Lynch was a serial killer with such a terrible past. I thought about Agent Gibbs. I thought about Kacie and Melissa, who couldn’t even entrust me with their own alleged happiness. That hurt, but not nearly as much as Ryder. I understood all too well the past is sometimes best left alone, but surely the truest form of camaraderie is the sharing of experience. I’m not too sure who is more grieved; me for believing my trust means nothing, or her for not possessing the personality to open up to anyone.

When I parked outside Cassandra’s house, I got a phone call from Sully. He’d gone straight home after what I understood was a strenuous night of sitting and binocular staring.

“Aren’t you going to the beach house to report to Ryder?” I asked.

“Nah. I’ll leave it till morning. I was just on the phone to her anyway. I’m bushed.”

“What happened?”

A sigh. “Was going fine. I got to Swanson in time. They stopped the trade and took Andonian by surprise. Few of their gang died in the cross fire, and they took Andonian in—but then—”

“What?”

“Everything was under control. All the gang members were subdued. But then out of nowhere, somebody shot Andonian as he was entering the back of the car. Must have been three hundred feet at least.”

“One of Cristescu’s men?”

“I dunno—maybe. Keep him quiet I suppose.”

“Yeah, would have thought so.”

“Think they’ll come for us now?”

“Wouldn’t have thought so. We barely know jack about the operation anyway.”

“Guess not. Oh well, I’ll come over in the morning. Been fun.”

“Yeah, fun.”

Cassandra poured me a half glass of red wine as we sat in her living room, fully decorated with a rustic wood interior. White carpet and furniture created a nice secondary base of color, along with the stone supporting pillar. The way the planks lay made the room look spacious and stylishly cozy.

The TV in the centre of the room was on. There was no news of the Cross Cutter’s unmasking yet, nor of the FBI raid in San Francisco, but that would have been remarkably early. Cassandra dimmed the lights, and lit a candle on the coffee table.

“Do you want anything to eat?” she said.

“I’m okay,” I said.

She raised her glass. “To a world class detective, may she continue to nail bad guys everywhere.”

“Here here.”

We drank. Then we poured some more. Cassandra was still wearing her work attire. The only change was her hair. She had let it down and removed her glasses. Attractive and fetching, but to be honest, the loss of the glasses made her lose her sophisticated look. I picked them up off the coffee table and rested them delicately on her nose.

“I think that’s more you,” I said.

“Oh? How so?”

“It’s what you are. Too many people remove or hide things about themselves these days.”

She laughed. “Is that coming from experience?”

“I guess.”

“Everyone adheres to a charade of sorts. Life may as well be one giant masquerade. We are all trying to impress others—maybe just ourselves. The challenge is to accept others, as well as yourself.”

I took a drink and nodded faintly. “I suppose so.”

She looked at me from various angles. “You seem troubled. Is it something I said?”

“No, of course not. I guess I’m just brooding.” As Sully would say.

“Cheer up. This should be a celebration.” She grabbed the remote and turned the TV off.

“Yeah, sorry.” I looked at my glass. “I’m a half empty kind of guy.”

“We can soon sort that out,” she said, as she poured the rest of the bottle. She turned her head and her hair followed in a smooth sway. “What is it the kids say—let’s get wasted.”

I grinned. “Now that doesn’t sound like you,” I said.

She smiled and gave a coy wink. “Like I said, life is a masquerade.”

She stood before me, in front of the coffee table and unbuttoned the top buttons of her shirt, exposing her cleavage.

“Forget the half empty glass,” she said. “I can make it full. Tonight, we can be happy.”

An hour later, we lay together on the sofa, one behind the other watching the TV. Discovery Channel, the kind of stuff you can watch and have no idea what the overall theme is.

Cassandra pushed herself off the sofa and retrieved her clothes from the floor.

“More wine?” she said.

“Got any orange juice?”

“Maybe. Just a second.”

She went into the kitchen while I got up and got dressed. I stretched my arms a little and wandered about the room, only just realizing there were three windows with neither blinds or closed curtains. I considered it lucky her house was at the end of the street, and that it was unlikely anyone had passed the window during the last hour or so.

I looked over her medical books in the corner; psychology, hypnotherapy, various textbooks on medicine. On a cabinet against the back wall there was an audio mixer, identical to the one in her office.

She came into the living room, carrying a glass of water.

“Sorry, it’s the best I can do,” she said.

“No problem,” I said. We kissed and she explained a book I had in my hand. All nonsense to me. I moved to the other bookcase while she sat back down on the sofa, half watching the TV and half watching me.

I took a sip of water and began to mumble something about Ryder’s opinion of psychology, just to keep a conversation going. I took another sip and put the glass down to pick out what looked to be a photograph album.

There were pictures of Cassandra as a young girl. She was well rounded back then, very ample cheeks and red hair as opposed to the muddy brown she had now. After several pages of infancy I arrived at the high school photographs, and then the university ones. By the time she was in her twenties, she had slimmed and become the figure she possessed now, although, her face looked slightly different. Her cheekbones looked more prominent, her eyes and nose thinner.

“I don’t think you’ll find out much about me from those,” she said. “Photographs were different back then. It’s not like now, where kids can capture every damn moment with their cell phone.”

I nodded. “What did you do after med school?”

“Med school?” she chuckled. “I went to law school before I had a change of heart. If you’re looking for my life after school, try the album in the draw.”

I opened the draw and retrieved a dark green album. Opening the pages let out a stream of dust that I waved away with my hand. I moved back to the sofa.

“I’ll put on some music,” she said.

I yawned. “I feel tired.”

“This will rest your head.”

She began to play some smooth instrumental music from the audio mixer at the back wall.

I yawned again. Flipping over the pages it became clear what she had done after ditching law school—she went into the army. In fact, it was pretty close to what I had done. I ditched university in Cambridge before I went on to sign up for selection and training for the SAS.

“You never mentioned this,” I said. “Never would have taken you for a soldier.”

She nodded. “I don’t recall you telling me, either. I suppose we both like to think of it as the past.”

I nodded back in agreement.

“I didn’t really think of myself as a soldier. I had a different area of expertise.”

“That badge—” I said thumbing over the pictures. “You were a PSYOP solider? Makes sense, given what you do now.”

“Yes,” she said. The music still playing in the background. I recognized a violin and a piano. I felt her over me and she began to massage my shoulders, soothing me into a pleasant state of mind. “I believe that’s what they call them now… PSYOP.”

“So you used to distribute and air all the wartime propaganda?”

She grunted. “Much more sophisticated than that, but yes.”

I yawned. I felt my eyes beginning to close as I turned over pages of the album.

“I eventually left. Much like Miss Ryder, I too felt a certain amount of neglect in my field.”

I turned over a page and my eyes felt a sudden urge to open. The majority of the pictures had been of her in uniform, with various officers and civilians. One was different. The picture in the top right hand corner took my eyes by surprise. She was standing nonchalantly in the middle, holding a cigarette, overlooking two young soldiers, kneeling and smiling. The one on the left bore a direct resemblance to a photograph I had seen in the army records given to me by Huntington—it was Lee Lynch. Beside him, in youth, was Guy Lynch, his brother.

“What—”

“Something the matter?” she said, her head peering at me from the side. “It looks like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I didn’t yawn this time. The weight of my eyes was too much. I could barely manage to speak. “Wait—how did you even know about Ryder’s history—I never told you.”

I could only make out a chuckle as she ran her fingers through my hair. After a while, my body gave in and sank back in the sofa. She walked around in front of me, closed the photograph album, and then picked up the glass of water.

“Don’t worry, it’s just a sedative.” She knelt down and gripped my hand. “I’ve enjoyed tonight, very much so. But it is time to finish our relationship. Sleep, we are going for a ride.”

39

I woke in the darkness. No idea of place or time. Hands and legs bound by tie wraps, three times over. It felt as if I had been asleep a few hours, but it could have been more—but just as easily less. During the course of my life I’ve been prone to the phenomenon of power napping, even during my regular bedtime. I tend to wake at 6AM and spend the rest of the morning sleeping in ten minute bursts that feel like they last forever. So you can understand my lack of judgment. Cassandra, now Dr Bishop to me from this point on, had said we were going for a ride, which I took to meaning we were not now inside her house.

The room felt cold. Air was coming from a vent in the corner, and the only light came from a crack in the ceiling, trailing down a set of wooden stairs beneath. The crack was most likely a trap door that opened out, which led me to believe this was a basement or cellar. The floor was concrete, and I could tell the walls were brick as I ran my fingernails across the fading cement lines. I could hear movement from my left, but the sound didn’t draw closer. In the darkness all I could make out was the rustling of metal and a clapping sound, like something was thumping against the wall.

In time, the light came in from the ceiling, and a shadow descended the staircase, holding a flashlight; the familiar figure of Dr Bishop. Her hair now tied back again. She wasn’t wearing her glasses.

Still in darkness, she called out, “Did you sleep well, Ader?”

“Who are you?” I grunted, struggling with the tie wraps.

“I gave up my name a long time ago,” she said. “I remember the names of others, especially those who interfere.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Nothing. This isn’t about you, Ader. It isn’t about your friends, either.”

“Friends?”

She held out a hand and reached for the wall beside the stairs, flicking the switch for a single light bulb from the ceiling. She nodded to her right, and the noise I’d heard earlier was all too evident. Chained to a piece of piping, gagged and naked, was Kacie Cordell. She looked at me and squirmed. And next to her, on the floor, also showing nothing but her bare dark skin, was Melissa.

“What have you done!” I balled.

“Raise your voice once more and I will have to drug you again like your friend, Melissa. She is not dead, not yet.”

“Why—”

“I did tell you that everything that has been happening revolved around Kendra Ryder. Just as she took from me all those years ago, I shall repay her in full.”

I shook my head. “You knew Guy Lynch back then—you were part of all that?”

“
All that
?” she said scornfully. “I doubt you even know what you’re referring to.”

“The corrupt part of the army that stole all that stuff transported from America…”

She mumbled, “Perhaps you know a little. All thanks to that Dale Huntington, I assume.”