An ache tightened behind her ribs. “How much is a new engine?”
“Let me see,” Shane said. Cassidy heard the gentle tapping of keys. “With parts and labor, it’s looking like five grand.”
Cassidy pinched the bridge of her nose. Five grand was a lot, but it was still cheaper than buying a new car. And she couldn’t bear the idea of it being cut to pieces, not with all the memories it held. “How long would it take?”
“Uh, ‘bout a week right now.”
“Okay,” she said. “Can I think on this?” Quinn would know what to do. She was clueless about cars.
“Of course,” Shane replied.
Cassidy was about to hang up when Shane added, “Say hi to Dutch for me.”
With the phone cradled in her lap, she stared out the window. Her mind replayed the memories of riding on the back of Dutch’s motorcycle from Shane’s lot to the club in San Francisco. She remembered sending Dutch off in the ambulance after a beating from the club’s bouncers. Since then, she had failed to locate him. Was he okay?
When the driver turned down her street, her mind calmed. Tall, leafy trees cast their wide shade patterns on the broken sidewalks. Someone was running a sprinkler on their tiny patch of lawn and a boy and girl in bathing suits were sprinting over it.
Once inside her house, she stepped out of her shoes and yanked her dress shirt from her waist, then unbuttoned it while striding to her room on the far side of the kitchen. Two minutes later she had changed into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and pulled her hair into a knot. Her house had no air conditioning, but a decent breeze wafted through the rooms. She made a note to close the windows before leaving later.
Bruce had said she might be away for as many as two days. She kept a spare set of clothes and contact lenses at Quinn’s but threw together a bag of essentials. What does one wear to an interrogation by the FBI? she thought, scanning the clothes hanging in her closet. Her hand went to play with her pendant, sliding it back and forth while she evaluated her choices.
Once packed, she used her phone to check the time and noticed a new message waiting for her. Since reporters had hounded her about Mel’s trial weeks ago, she was wary of foreign numbers. But a voicemail from a reporter was rare. She considered deleting it, but curiosity won.
“Cassidy, this is Brad Sawyer,” a tense voice called out followed by a tense exhale. She heard freeway noise in the background. “Call me back.”
Cassidy’s pulse thumped hard into her temples. She inhaled a deep breath, her eyes drinking in the familiarity and safety of her kitchen. Quit meddling, a voice inside her head warned—Bruce’s voice.
With a shaking finger, Cassidy tapped the key and put the phone to her ear. She flexed her toes on the cool wood floor as she waited. Finally, the tense voice answered.
“Why did you call me?” Brad asked. This time, no freeway noise crowded the background.
“I wondered if you might know where Pete was going that night,” Cassidy said, momentarily thrown by his lack of introduction. “I thought it was an accident, but now I know it wasn’t.”
“Yeah, I figured that one out, too,” he said, his voice softer now.
Her gut jolted upwards.
“I had to bury that story,” he said.
A shiver passed over her skin. This was all happening too fast. “What story?”
“Not on the phone,” he said. “Meet me.”
“Where?”
“Birch Bay State Park.”
“In Bellingham?” Cassidy said, picturing the vast seaside park near the Canadian border. She had assumed Brad was in still San Francisco but realized this had only been a guess.
“Okay, when?”
“How soon can you get here?”
Cassidy cursed—now? She was supposed to be on a plane at six thirty. “Two hours,” she said as gooseflesh erupted across her skin.
Brad described a picnic area within the park near a playground. “Follow the signs for the boat launch,” he said. “And come alone.”
When Brad ended the call, Cassidy grabbed her backpack and hurried into her flip flops. She still had time to get to Birch Bay and back by five o’clock. It would be tight, but she wasn’t going to miss this.
But when she pulled out her keys, she remembered that she no longer had a car.
However, she had a bigger problem. In her driveway, carrying a bag of takeout food, was Bruce.
Four
“No way in hell!” Bruce shouted, his jaw tight.
Cassidy flinched, but held her ground. “He knows something, Bruce.”
“Then someone from the Bureau will interview him,” Bruce replied, pacing in her kitchen. “Did you not hear me when I warned you to butt out?”
“Yeah, I heard you,” Cassidy said, “but I also heard the part about ‘we’ll see.’”
Bruce groaned. “It’s not like on TV, Cass. Justice takes time. We have to go about it the right way or the case gets thrown out. I can’t let that happen. We’ve worked too hard.”
As a scientist, she understood all this, yet her rational brain had already left the building. “What if he knows who was behind it?”
“Then the Bureau follows the lead.”
“What if he’ll only talk to me? He said ‘come alone.’”
“Are you even listening to yourself right now?” He crossed his arms and glared at her. “It’s not safe, Cassidy.”
“He’s just a journalist, how scary could he be?” Cassidy replied, though secretly, she had wondered this same thing. She had no reason to trust Brad Sawyer. A million bad what-ifs had already spun through her mind, but she kept coming back to one fact: Brad had met with Pete two days before his death.
“How the hell am I supposed to keep you safe when you are constantly putting yourself in danger?” Bruce put his hands on his hips.
“All this time I thought it was an accident,” she shot back, her emotions expanding inside her like air filling a balloon. “And now I know it’s not. Do you know what that feels like? Do you know how hard I’ve worked to accept that he’s gone only to find out someone did this to him? That someone took him away from me?” Her voice broke and she had to clamp her lips shut to keep from saying more.
Bruce stepped closer, his expression at once fierce and compassionate. “I know how hard this must be, but I promise you we’ll do everything we can to bring Pete’s killer to justice.”
“That’s not good enough!” she said as a tear leaked from her eye. She wiped it with her wrist and glared at the ceiling, trying to regain her composure.
“Think of the bigger picture here,” Bruce said calmly, his eyebrows knitting together. “We’re trying to bring down the whole thing, stop these bastards from selling kids like slaves.” He moved closer. “Pete would want that, don’t you think?”
Cassidy squeezed her eyes shut. Yes, Pete would want that, of course he would. “I can’t let this go, Bruce.” She remembered the flashback she’d had in San Francisco, how the smell of frying shrimp had sent her right back to Mel’s treehouse and the fight of her life. Afterwards, she had come to the realization that no matter what she did, the experience would never leave her alone. She would be forever scarred. “I’ve already given up too much.”