Deadly Past. Kris Rafferty
Her eyes lost focus. “The victims… It was a hit, done for money, not excitement.” He grabbed the doorknob again, leaning closer. Close enough to feel her heat.
“Can we dispense with your worries now?” He purposefully lowered his tone, attempting to ratchet down the intensity. “You did not execute those men.” His whispered words seemed to jolt Cynthia from her thoughts. Now, she noticed his closeness, but made no attempt to scoot away. Instead, she studied him as if logging his reactions. She was a profiler, and he knew reading people was what she did, but her searching gaze felt peculiar nonetheless. As a forensic pathologist, Charlie wasn’t used to his patients studying him back.
“No,” she said. “I don’t think I killed them, but it sure as shit looks like I did.” She sniffed, then sniffed her sleeve, grimacing. “I smell.”
He nodded. She did, indeed. His gaze roamed over her ruined suit, and up close and personal he could see all the dirt and abrasion tears in the cloth. Charlie did his best to appear clinical in his appraisal, but he was unabashedly admiring her body. “You look as if you were thrown from a moving vehicle.”
She blinked a few times before stepping to the side, careful not to touch him as she moved away from the door. “Thanks.” She didn’t sound thankful.
“Did you want me to lie?” He rested his head on the door, doing his best to rein in his frustration. Then he turned and leaned against the door as he contemplated her.
“No.” Cynthia kept her gaze averted. “I forgot my pocketbook and phone. I’ll get them, and then we can go.” She hurried back to the living room and came back with her pink pocketbook, dropping her iPhone into her suit jacket pocket.
“Don’t tell Benton anything until we know more,” he said. Her look of horror had him shaking his head. “It’s only obstruction if you’re guilty. And, anyway, the Fifth Amendment protects you. I’m just saying.” He shrugged. “Wait.”
“Failure-to-report laws, Charlie.” She shook her head. “You can’t pick and choose which laws to follow.”
“We’re in Massachusetts. It’s not against the law to fail to report a felony here. Just wait to tell Benton anything.”
“For what?” Her eyes narrowed, and now it was her reaching for the doorknob, and Charlie keeping his hand on the door. “To be charged with accessory after the fact?”
“We’re not concealing anything, least of all a crime. It’s on the news. We don’t know who did it, so we’re not aiding and abetting.”
“You know that’s not true! And stop with the we. I don’t want you involved.” She used her shoulder, attempting to move him, but quickly gave up when he didn’t budge an inch. “I’m giving the flash drive to Benton, along with the evidence in your trunk, and then I’ll confess everything.”
“I’m involved,” Charlie said. “There’s no way to keep me out of this without lying, so just wait. Until we know more.”
Her shoulders sagged. “You’re right. And I can’t lie. Look what I’ve done.” She pressed a palm to her forehead, looking ready to cry. “I’ve dragged you into this. After all you’ve been put through by my family…” Her words had Charlie’s teeth grinding. Would she ever look at him without thinking of the accident?
Her cell phone rang. She retrieved it from her pocket and they both looked at it. “Benton,” she said, sounding worried.
Charlie tilted her chin up with his fingers, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Just wait. Until we know more.”
Cynthia hit “accept” and then put it on speakerphone. “Hi, Benton. I’m here with Charlie Foulkes. Sorry, I’ve been—”
“I’ve got six executed Coppola syndicate WITSEC snitches on my hands,” Special Agent Jack Benton said. Charlie and Cynthia exchanged horrified looks. The vics were Coppola syndicate witnesses for the prosecution of a tightly closed case. This would reopen it. “And the U.S. Marshals are riding me, looking to cover their asses.”
“On my way.” Cynthia had grown pale, and her hand holding the phone shook. Charlie understood why. The vics weren’t randomly killed. Their identities threatened the careers of everyone who had worked on the Coppola case, and this made Cynthia appear even guiltier than before.
“No, Benton,” Charlie said, ignoring Cynthia’s instant glare. His patience was gone. “Charlie here. Sorry, but Cynthia isn’t going anywhere but to the emergency room. She’s got a head injury. You caught us on our way there.”
Benton’s angry tone mellowed to worry. “She okay?”
“Hopefully. We’ll know more after a CAT scan,” Charlie said. “She’s fighting me.”
“Cynthia, get the test, and then get your ass to the crime scene,” Benton said. “You’ve both seen the news?”
“Yes, but they said nothing about the victims being Coppola syndicate,” she said.
“We’re keeping that quiet for now,” Benton said. “Your team of techs are here, Charlie.”
“I called them as soon as I got your voice message,” he said. “They’ve kept me updated best they can, but I’m assuming they don’t know this is a syndicate hit, or they would have said something.” Like asked for hazard pay. “We’ll be there, too, just as soon as we get Cynthia sorted out.”
“Be quick about it. This is no time for the B team.” Benton disconnected the line.
Cynthia slipped her phone into her suit jacket pocket. “And so it begins.”
“If you must,” Charlie sighed, resolved to the unavoidable delay, “take a quick shower, but try not to get the wound wet. Then we’ll head to the ER. If you check out fine, we’ll go straight to the crime scene afterward, but no matter what you decide, you must change. Arriving at the crime scene in this condition will create too many questions.”
“You’re so bossy.” She said it with no heat, and just stood there, as if frozen with indecision. Charlie cupped her cheek.
“Don’t think, Cynthia. Just do. You know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you safe, right?” She covered his hand, pressing her cheek more fully into his palm. He could tell his words saddened her rather than comforted her, which had been his intent.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she whispered.
Then she left him, tugging her shirt from her pants as she walked down the hall toward her bedroom. He was so distracted by what she’d said that for a second or two, he’d forgotten he’d told her to change, so the image of her unbuttoning her shirt confused him, even as it sent his imagination to uncharted places… Taboo places. When she’d disappeared from sight, he no longer needed visuals to feed his active imagination. It ran free. By the time Charlie heard the shower turn on, he needed one, too. A cold one.
Chapter Three
Why was Cynthia surprised to discover Charlie had friends in high places? Moments after arriving at Massachusetts General Hospital, her ass landed on a trauma room exam table. While others waited hours to be seen, Cynthia shot to the head of the line. Lucky her. The power of Charlie.
She’d balked, of course, at the order to don a hospital johnny, and no perky, freckle-faced, hyper-kinetic nurse in moon and star designer scrubs was going to intimidate her into changing her mind. Charlie was never seeing Cynthia in a johnny. Just the idea of him in the room while she was practically naked on the exam table sent waves of mortification through her. Cynthia’s rebellion earned her a hostile preliminary exam, and by the time Nurse Ratched left—having poked, measured, and grimaced through Cynthia’s vital signs—it was clear she’d won the nurse’s “most difficult patient of the shift” award.
Whatever. Charlie acted as if nothing was amiss, so Cynthia just went with it and didn’t complain. Though she’d wanted to. She’d