Face to Face (24 page)

The final flames were doused and the firefighters began the messy work of unearthing any smoldering embers that might cause further problems.

Cassie could bear to watch no longer. 

She strode away from the ruins of her home and found Ed Castro searching the neighbor's forsythia for Hennessey. If the cat got out, she would be fine. And if she didn't—she couldn't bear watching the firemen unearth Hennessey's remains. She rubbed a knuckle over her eyes. Still no tears but it wasn't for lack of trying. "Got room on the couch?" 

"Always. Are you done here?"

"Yes. I'm finished." 

CHAPTER 27

Drake arrived just in time to see Hart drive off with Ed Castro. He ran after her, but then stopped and let her go, his insides feeling as charred as the blackened timbers that were all that remained of her house. What would he do if he caught her? It would break him to have to let her go again.

Jimmy arrived. "Where's Hart?" 

"She left," Drake faced his partner. "What've you got for me on Burns?"

Jimmy took a small notebook from his back pocket and leafed through it.

"No useable prints or trace evidence."

"Any idea how he got inside?"

"That's what bothers me–no signs of forced entry at all."

"So we've got an intruder who goes through locked doors and alarm systems without a trace."

"Like a fucking ghost."

"Or a cat," Drake put in, spotting movement from beneath a parked fire chief's car. "Gimme a hand here," he told Jimmy, crawling under the rear bumper, making tiny clucking noises with his tongue. 

"Jimmy, go around. She's trying to run away," he called out as the quivering ball of fur moved away from his arms. Jimmy's feet moved towards the front of the vehicle. Drake slapped his hands on the pavement, startling the skittish cat right into Jimmy's waiting arms.

"What have we here?" Jimmy asked, his big leathery hands embracing Hennessy, quieting her struggles easily. "Shhh. It's okay." 

Drake smiled to see his partner clucking over the traumatized feline like a mother hen. 

"Her name is Hennessy, right?" Jimmy asked as the cat tried to burrow inside his lightweight suit jacket.

"Yeah. It's a miracle she made it out alive." Drake reached out a hand to stroke the cat's head, the only part of her still exposed. "Good to see you girl." 

"Miracle anyone made it out alive," Jimmy told him. "Arson says it was some kind of incendiary device. If Hart had been upstairs asleep—"

Drake dropped his hand and turned away. He couldn't think of that. Hart asleep in bed when the house caught on fire–he blocked out the image.

"Guess there's nothing more we can do here," he said, noting the firemen stowing their hoses and lighting their cigarettes, a sure sign they'd moved into cleanup mode.

Drake realized he had nowhere to go. His apartment building was a homicide scene, Hart's place gone. For the first time in years he was unsettled, a vagrant in his own town. It was an unsettling feeling, rocking his equilibrium. 

"Get in," Jimmy told him. "Denise has the sofa bed made up already."

Trust Jimmy to be three steps ahead of him. Drake hadn't even realized his temporary lack of shelter until just now. He slid into the passenger seat of Jimmy's Intrepid. Jimmy plopped the sodden load of wet cat onto Drake's lap. Hennessy looked up at Drake with one disdainful amber eye then curled up into a ball.

Drake called Ed's home. He and Hart hadn't arrived yet, so he left a message with Ed's wife that Hennessey was safe at Jimmy's house. When he hung up he realized he felt a strange sense of relief he hadn't been able to talk with Hart. She'd lost everything because of him. How the hell would he ever face her again?

He couldn't. Not until they locked this actor away for good.

"What else on Burns?" Drake asked.

Jimmy was silent for a moment, studying the four lanes of empty highway as they sped down 376. "Miller gave it to Webster," he told Drake. Drake guessed Miller wasn't too happy about having anything to do with the case but she was wise not to leave it solely with the Internal Affairs buffoons.

"And?" Drake prompted.

Jimmy shrugged. "Not much to go on except you were one of the last people to see her alive, she was killed above your apartment after what appears to have been consensual sex, and the murder weapon was your gun."

"Don't hold your punches," Drake muttered. The media would crucify him by morning. Not like his name was unknown to journalists; they had a field day after Pamela's death.

"You asked for it," Jimmy said. "And, just to warn you, you'd better be careful what you say around Denise. She's not too happy with the idea of you getting drunk and messing around with that girl. Even if nothing did happen."

"Is that because she likes Hart or because she's disappointed in me?" Drake asked. Annoying Jimmy was one thing but you didn't mess with Denise. Drake learned that the hard way when he first partnered with Jimmy four years ago.

"A little of both."

Great. It'd be like having his mother looking over his shoulder. Drake thought of how happy Mom and Nellie had been when he left them at the Lake. Was it only last night?

"Shit," Drake cursed, unsettling the cat in his lap as he sat upright.

"What?"

"I've got to call my mom. Was there anything on the news?"

"How the hell should I know? I was stuck at the morgue."

"Right. What'd he have to say?"

"Usual. Wait until all the tests are in and I'll send you my final report," Jimmy did a fair imitation of the medical examiner's tenor. "There was one thing, though. Seems Burns didn't have long to live. Advanced cancer with metastases everywhere: liver, lymph nodes, even her brain. Steward thought it probably started in the ovaries. He said there were signs she already had at least one course of treatment, so it must have been extremely aggressive."

"Jesus, the poor kid was only, what, twenty-six?"

"Twenty-four."

Drake felt bad about the way he'd treated Burns. He'd done his job, even gone above and beyond, but he thought of her as a nut job, not a woman who deserved his respect. One more way he acted like an idiot this week. 

"How about time of death?" he asked.

"Based on witnesses and the state of the body, estimated between midnight and six am. Hart talked to a street kid who told her there was a shot sometime after midnight but couldn't narrow it further and we've no confirmation. She also alibied you."

Drake hated the thought of Hart having to face those IA assholes. Not to mention the fun the gossips at the House would have dissecting his sex life.

"But the brass won't be satisfied until they have Steward's final results. Another witness besides Hart would help. Not to mention the rumors you may have hired someone–"

"To kill a woman I had never laid eyes on before yesterday?" Drake scoffed.

"Relax. I think it was Spanos who started that one. Let the Keystone Cops have fun tracking down rumors."

They pulled into Jimmy's garage. Drake held Hennessy while Jimmy carefully emptied his Glock, checking the chamber twice. He locked the gun in the safe high above his tool bench. With six-year-old twins on the loose, he took no chances. 

"Webster's set a meeting for tomorrow morning," Jimmy told him, placing the full clip into the glove compartment of his car and locking it as well. "Said they'd call you when they needed you."

Drake shot a glance over at his partner but Jimmy wasn't looking. That hurt, like he was an outsider. Or worse, a victim. But Drake had no shield, no gun, no standing whatsoever in this case.

He was worse than an outsider. He was an outcast.

With these thoughts, Drake trudged inside Jimmy's house, diligently wiping his feet clean of the soot and ashes before moving in to take position on the family room sofa bed Denise had made up for him.

<><><>

Ed's wife Natalie had the guest room ready when they arrived, along with the good news about Hennessey. 

"How's Tagger?" Cassie asked as she and Natalie rummaged through Natalie's closet for spare clothes to replace the tattered and singed tank top and shorts. Unfortunately, Natalie was barely four-eleven, so the best they came up with was an old T-shirt of Ed's to use as a nightshirt.

"He's good. Finding his comfort zone." Natalie sighed and opened dresser drawers in her quest to dress Cassie.

The real challenge would be tomorrow morning. Cassie was due in court at eight, leaving no time for shopping. Natalie improvised an outfit from a pair of Ed's scrubs with a drawstring waistband and rolled up cuffs, a smock top that looked more like a cropped top on Cassie, and, since Natalie's feet were also smaller than Cassie's, a pair of Ed's sandals with the straps pulled as tight as the Velcro would allow.

"But your hair…" Natalie brushed her hands over Cassie's long, dark curls. The slight touch left a cascade of burnt hair fluttering down to the carpet. "I'm so sorry."

Cassie couldn't bear sympathy. Not when it'd be so easy to slide down the path to self-pity. "Don't be. Just get me a pair of scissors and I'll take care of it after I wash up." She stifled a yawn.

"Let's get you to bed."

Cassie soaked for a long time in the guest bath. Her entire body was raw and bruised, but although patches of skin were lobster red and a few blisters had popped up, none of the burns were serious. The worst pain came from the multiple lacerations and abrasions from flying debris. Too shallow to bother with band-aids, too many to count, she tried her best to ignore them.

All in all, she would not recommend the experience, she thought as she tried to wash the sour smell of smoke from her hair and ended up breaking off large clumps. 

She slipped into the cotton robe Natalie lent her and sat in front of the bedroom mirror, trying to decide where to cut her hair so that it wouldn't make her look like a freak.

"What happened?" Tagger's whisper came from the doorway. The boy looked less gaunt but just as scared as when they'd been in the alley, gunshots flying. Was that just two days ago?

"This is why they tell you not to play with matches," she joked. He frowned, his face twisting in distrust.

"Athena okay?" He shuffled in to stand beside her, his hand without the cast lifting lengths of hair and appraising it.

"I saw her this morning and she was doing fine." Not as fine as she'd be if she'd let Cassie take her somewhere, but she wasn't about to tell Tagger that. "The Gangstas are still looking for her. They say she killed your brother."

He straightened. "That's a lie. She didn't kill Rodney."

"Do you know who did?" 

He nodded. 

"Tagger, it's important. Why are the Rippers and GGs after Athena?"

He blew his breath out. "She said not to tell. Said they might hurt Baby Jane."

"You can tell me. I'll make sure nothing happens to Baby Jane."

Silence as he studied his cast as if it held the answers. "She and Rodney were in love. Rodney was trying to save her."

That's what Athena had said. "Is Rodney Baby Jane's father?"

He shook his head. "Lucien, head of the Rippers is. He's Athena's uncle."

That explained a lot. Baby Jane's DNA would prove incest if Athena disclosed the sexual assault. Lucien probably sent that young Ripper to take the baby. To him, Jane was merely evidence. "Lucien had Rodney killed?"

Tagger's eyes sparked. "Did it himself. Rodney was going to take Athena away but Lucien caught them, shot them both. Athena got away, so he made it look like she killed Rodney."

"That way the Gangstas would be looking for her, want to kill her."

"Yeah. And then he told the Rippers that she stole the money when it was really him, so now they're after her, too."

Wow. And Cassie thought she had problems. Damnit, she should have found a way to get Athena off the streets. "Why doesn't she run away? Why was she camped out in the Rippers' territory?"

"I heard them talking. Rodney stole Lucien's phone and there was a movie on there. Lucien and Athena." Tagger made a face. "Rodney hid it somewhere in the Stackhouse, but he died before he told Athena where."

"So she keeps going back to find it."

"Figures it's the only way anyone would believe her."

It wasn't. But there was no reason for Athena to believe the system might work in her favor. Cassie gave Tagger a hug, wishing Athena was there as well. 

"Want to help me cut my hair?"

Tagger nodded and supervised as she cut the tangled curls. The end result was pretty awful, but better than shedding chunks of burnt hair every time she moved. Finally she got Tagger to go back to his bed and she was able to slip between the cool, clean sheets herself.

She woke several times during the night, propelled from sleep by the smell of burning flesh and the searing pain of flames devouring her. Each time she woke she found new injuries and would fight to find a comfortable position. 

As the pink streaks of dawn crept through the large windows, she finally rolled onto her belly and slept, one arm fitfully flailing at her side, searching in vain for Drake.

CHAPTER 28

Drake woke with a heavy weight on his chest. "Move it Hennessy," he mumbled, attempting to roll over. His tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth and seemed to be coated with fur.

The weight shifted and giggled. Drake opened one eye in time to see a handful of damp Cheerios arch over his head and land on the oversized sweatpants Jimmy lent him. More giggles ensued.

A tow headed six-year-old bounced on his chest, smiling in delight. "Uncle Drake's up!" she called out.

Drake cringed. Uncle Drake was definitely not up. Uncle Drake was down, down, down in a deep pit that echoed with the noise of Bridget's voice.

If Bridget was sitting on his chest, the thought slowly penetrated into the quagmire of Drake's brain, then Colton couldn't be far. Drake opened both eyes and rolled them back as far as he could.

There was the second of the twins, the pelter of stale breakfast cereal. Drake kept both eyes opened. A purple dinosaur danced on the TV across from him. He growled deep in his throat and let the noise rumble up. This produced more giggles of delight as Drake sat up and shouted, "I'm going to get you!"