Special Agent Harris’s nostrils flared.
“Once I got back to the club, I found out what was about to happen, or at least what could be about to happen, and I wasn’t going to stop until I found her.” Cassidy tried to slow her fast breaths. She wished there was a window she could open to erase the feeling of being trapped in a box. I’ve got this fear that you’re going to go in there and never come out...
“The warehouse,” Special Agent Harris said, her frustration with Cassidy evident in her hardened expression.
“Dutch gave me his bike,” Cassidy began.
“Whoa. Dutch?” Special Agent Santiago said, connecting eyes with Special Agent Harris for a moment.
Cassidy reached through her memories. Hadn’t she already explained her connection to Dutch? “He’s the biker who told me Izzy was at the rally. He gave me a ride to the club after my car broke down.” Her heartbeat jumped when she remembered her hasty goodbye. “They beat him up or he probably would have driven me to the warehouse, too.”
Bruce shifted his position, but his eyes were blank when she looked at him. He gave her a reassuring nod.
She shared the story of finding the warehouse and getting in through the back window, watching Special Agent Harris’s face darken with each of Cassidy’s missteps.
“You went in there in full defiance of orders from an FBI agent, Dr. Kincaid,” she fumed. “I could arrest you.”
Cassidy grimaced. “I didn’t think about it like that at the time.”
Special Agent Santiago stood from his chair. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he uttered, rubbing his chin in distress.
“It’s my fault,” Bruce interrupted. “I should have tried harder to stop her. I really didn’t think she would go in there.”
Special Agent Harris glanced at Bruce. “But you were in D.C.” Her gaze refocused on Cassidy. “No, Dr. Kincaid did this on her own.”
A sense of frustration rose up inside her. “You weren’t there,” she said, feeling like she might burst. “I couldn’t let them hurt Izzy.” A flash of memory popped into her mind of Mel dragging her down the stairs of his treehouse while her fingernails scratched desperately to get the knife open.
“You very nearly destroyed eleven months of work, Dr. Kincaid,” Special Agent Harris finally said.
They stared at each other for a long moment.
“I’m sorry,” Cassidy replied, feeling torn. If I hadn’t gone in there, what would have happened to Izzy? She remembered her conversation with Brad Sawyer, and Bruce’s comment: So you’re saying we have dirty cops bringing in runaways? With shock, Cassidy realized what would have happened if a band of crooked cops had shown up at the warehouse that night instead of the fire department.
Special Agent Harris nodded at her partner. “Bring the evidence, please,” she asked. Without a sound, Special Agent Santiago rose and left the room.
Cassidy looked to Bruce for reassurance. Evidence? But his eyes gave nothing away.
Special Agent Santiago returned with a clear plastic bag labeled with a small white sticker. Inside the bag was a gun.
“Do you recognize this weapon?” Special Agent Harris asked as Special Agent Santiago slid it to her.
Cassidy’s pulse thumped hard into her head, and a dull ache was growing at the base of her skull. “Uh…” She remembered Bruce asking her about the bullet hole in the wall.
“Maybe,” she said, which was honest. It looked like any other handgun.
“Ballistics match with the bullet hole in the wall of that room.”
Cassidy gulped down a swallow, trying to moisten her suddenly dry throat. How had they found the gun? She had dropped it into a dumpster. “Dutch told me to take it, and I…” She felt a slow burn rise up her face. “Had to use it when Saxon…came for Izzy.”
Special Agent Harris stared at her for a long moment. “It’s a good thing you didn’t kill anyone.”
“It’s a good thing I had it,” Cassidy said. “Or Izzy and I would be dead.” Yes, it was wrong of her to use a gun without the proper permitting or whatever was required to do so, but there had been no other way.
“I heard one of the girls was rescued,” Cassidy said. It had been eating at her…sometimes she dreamed that she was one of the girls waiting on a mattress.
Special Agent Harris sent a blistering glance at Bruce, then turned back to Cassidy. “That’s not something I can share with you.”
Oops, Cassidy thought.
“We’ll need to talk to Izzy,” Special Agent Harris said to her partner, who was scribbling notes into a binder.
“No,” Cassidy said, her spine going erect. “She’s been through enough.”
Special Agent Harris raised one eyebrow. “Her cooperation is essential. Testimony from her would be very powerful.”
Cassidy thought of Preston Ford. “She’s gone anyways. Even her father can’t find her.”
“Good thing we have you to help us,” Special Agent Harris said.
Cassidy’s eyes went wide. “Wait…what?”
“Maybe let’s take a break,” Bruce said, rising. “Say, fifteen minutes?” He connected eyes with both of the other agents, and a look of understanding passed between them.
Moments later, Cassidy and Bruce were alone in the room, a bottle of water in each of their hands.
“You holding up okay?” he asked.
Cassidy nodded.
“You’re doing great,” he said, giving her a weak smile.
She decided to visit the restroom, maybe splash some water on her face. Bruce pointed to a door at the end of the hallway, then turned back toward the conference room. The cold water helped a little. She avoided looking at her reflection in the mirror and pushed through the door to the hallway, mentally steeling her mind for round two.
Suddenly, a door popped open.
“No fucking way!” a gravelly voice snarled. “You think I have some kind of death wish?”
Cassidy spun to see a figure storm into the dark hallway, his heavy boots scuffing the linoleum. She pressed herself back into the wall as the person neared.
Behind him, the agent she had seen in the main conference room earlier watched him go, the light from the room illuminating his tense face.
As if in slow motion, the figure came into focus: flannel shirt, leather vest, and faded jeans, graying curls at the nape of his neck, and those piercing blue eyes.
Dutch.
Six
Several thoughts crashed together at once in her brain, but her mouth was already moving.
“You’re the undercover agent?” she asked, backpedaling through all of her memories of the search for Izzy, evaluating each one in light of this concept.
“Cassidy,” he said, his voice a deep rumble. The fury in his expression was fading by the second, but what remained was a mix of disbelief and something softer. Regret? Kindness?
“You’re okay,” Cassidy said, relieved. “I tried to find you. I called all the hospitals. I was so worried.”
His eyes flashed with that cocky glint. “Were you, now?” he replied, evoking that same unique form of exasperation she felt whenever he was near.