“It’s much less formal than a grand jury, yeah, but I want you to understand how serious this is.”
Cassidy exhaled slowly. “I understand.” They stopped at a light where a woman dressed in a mismatched jogging suit and slippers pushed a shopping cart full of dirty clothes and cardboard across the street. With a shudder, she remembered her frightening visit to the Mission District, courtesy of Saxon only a week ago.
“You’ll meet our case agent, Special Agent Katrina Harris. She’ll be conducting the interview. Special Agent Rudy Santiago might be there, too.”
“You’ll be there, too, right?” Cassidy asked.
He flashed her a grin. “You’re my job right now, remember?”
“What will you do…after?”
“I’ve requested to work the murder angle.”
They pulled up to a single-story gray concrete building with the state and U.S. flags hanging limp from poles near the entrance. They exited the car, and Cassidy wiped her sticky palms on her chinos. Bruce eyed her as if to say “ready?” Cassidy nodded, and followed him inside.
Bruce steered her into the office located immediately inside the door. A man sat at a large desk in front of a set of monitors, each showing a section of the exterior. Cassidy realized that he had watched her and Bruce enter. After a short greeting with the guard, Bruce slid the sign-in book closer and handed her a pen.
Moments later, they entered a dark hallway flanked by closed doors.
“When they combined school districts a few years back, this one was no longer necessary,” Bruce explained. “We sometimes get lucky like that. We can’t run all of our operations from the federal building downtown. For obvious reasons.”
Cassidy wasn’t sure what that meant but was getting too nervous to give it much thought.
They passed a row of large windows, all shaded by blinds. Bruce knocked on the door, then popped his head inside.
Through the crack in the door, Cassidy got a quick glance inside the stark, white room. A tall man in a suit stood at the far end of the table, a large three-ring binder open in front of him and a paper cup of coffee nearby on the table. In the center of the table a tray held a box of muffins, a carafe of coffee, and a sleeve of white paper cups. She saw the shadow of the agent’s gun inside his open suit coat. With a start, she realized that Bruce was likely armed, too.
“Does Special Agent Harris want us in room C?” Bruce asked.
Cassidy got the impression that she wasn’t supposed to see inside the room. She tried to avert her eyes, but the mural of pictures pasted in a giant web at the head of the room drew her in like a magnet. She leaned forward to get a better view.
“Glad to have you back, man,” the agent said to Bruce. “We just had our morning briefing.” He nodded at Cassidy, his brown eyes keen. “Is that Dr. Kincaid?”
At the sound of her name, Cassidy snapped her attention away from what she had seen at the head of the table—Pete’s notebook. Had the agent caught her peeking?
“Dr. Kincaid,” a female voice said. Cassidy spun to see a slender woman striding toward her in a navy-blue suit, her pumps tapping firmly on the floor. Her blonde hair was pulled into a tight bun and her blue eyes pierced the air like lasers. Following her was a man with a stocky build and a round, soft face.
Cassidy shook hands with Special Agent Harris and her partner, Special Agent Santiago.
“We have a lot to cover Dr. Kincaid,” Special Agent Harris said, her words sharp. “Shall we?”
Without waiting for a reply, she led Cassidy down the hallway. Cassidy used the distance to erase the image of Pete’s notebook and the images on the board.
At the doorway to a conference room, Bruce’s hand was at her back, as if to steady her as he ushered her inside.
Special Agent Harris wasted no time. After they entered the room, this one with an oval table at its center and no windows, she directed Cassidy to a chair, then closed the door behind them. A square side table in the corner held an opened case of clear plastic water bottles.
Once they were settled, with both task force agents across from her and Bruce to her left, Special Agent Harris pressed the button on a black device in the middle of the table. Cassidy noticed her unpolished yet perfectly curved nails.
“Please state your name and occupation for the record,” Special Agent Harris said, folding open a medium-sized notebook and clicking on a black pen.
Cassidy inhaled a steadying breath and complied, forcing the tremor from her voice.
“Special Agent Keoloani has given us the rough draft, so let’s fill in the blanks. We’ll start at the biker rally,” Special Agent Harris said, tilting her head. “What led you there?”
“I got a call from someone I met earlier at a truck stop in Biggs Junction, a biker.”
Cassidy watched Special Agent Harris jotting notes, her black pen moving fluidly across the page.
“I had been there the day before.” She remembered interviewing the trucker and the convenience store stocker. “Hitchhiking seemed like the only form of transportation out of there.”
Special Agent Harris looked up, expectant.
“I gave this biker my number.”
She watched Special Agent Harris’s eyes flash. Cassidy could almost hear the scolding.
“The biker told me he saw Izzy at the rally with this other guy, Lars.” Cassidy suffered through a moment of anguish. Lars, who was now dead. Her palms felt sticky again. She licked her lips.
“Lars told you about Saxon?” Special Agent Santiago asked, tapping the end of his pencil against the table.
Cassidy nodded. “Someone saw her leave with him.”
“So you just thought it was okay to track him down?” Special Agent Harris said, her voice edged with irritation.
Cassidy couldn’t hold her gaze. “I didn’t think it would be dangerous.”
“Sounds like you didn’t think at all,” Special Agent Harris said, crossing her arms.
“You’re right,” Cassidy said with difficulty. “I was under the impression that Izzy was just blowing off steam, not about to get involved in…selling herself.”
Special Agent Harris narrowed her eyes. “Let’s move on to the club,” she said, flipping the pages of her book to one full of notes.
Cassidy described the wait at the bar, being escorted upstairs by the bouncers, and how Saxon had offered to take her to the place in the Mission where he had supposedly dropped Izzy the night before.
“It was stupid,” Cassidy said in a rush. “But I had no other option.”
“Where did he drop you?”
“I don’t remember,” Cassidy said, her head thudding as she remembered the smell from the diner that had sent her tumbling into another terrifying flashback. “But Izzy wasn’t there. I searched the apartment buildings. Knocked on doors.”
“So why did you go back to the club?” Special Agent Harris said, her eyes narrowing. “You had just learned that you couldn’t trust him.”
The memory of the flashback and the conviction that she would never be right again surged through her once more. “Because she had no one else, okay?” The words shot out before she could soften them. “Her father wasn’t coming, and he forbade us to contact the police.”