Total pages in book: 54
Estimated words: 51825 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51825 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
“Of your house,” I say. “Maybe.” I eye the ring on his finger. “Big, big maybe. But either way, I’m not saying I’m in charge. I’m saying you are not.”
“This is not your case,” good ol’ Larry insists. “You need to evacuate the premises.”
Obviously, someone forgot to tell him Homeland Security escorted me here, and Homeland Security, in this situation, trumps FBI. Of course, my general opinion of Homeland Security is that they are idiots, and this assessment comes from my experience with two agents. One, on a task force I was on early in my career, who was so stupid I thought he was pretending. Turns out, he was not. The other, on yet another task force, was a jerk who thought a woman couldn’t possibly know what she was doing, but he was happy to hit on me. He found out I hit, too. With my fist. I enjoyed it, too.
Bottom line, two for two was all it took to convince me Homeland Security has a staff of stupid, but then I’m unforgiving.
I don’t pretend otherwise.
Stupid is what stupid does, which is piss me off.
I motion to Murphy. “This man was a director of the FBI. That makes the lead on this case the President of the United States. When he tells me to leave, I’ll leave.”
His cellphone rings and his lips twist. “Maybe that’s the President now.”
“Hate to break it to you, Larry, ol’ boy, but it’s more likely to be your mama or partner—or wife—whatever you have, checking to see if you’ve been taking your vitamins, than it is the President. Have you? Taken your vitamins?”
He scrunches his face up, and it’s not a pretty sight. “Aren’t you funny.”
“I am, thank you, very much. If I’m honest, very few people really recognize that obvious fact. I’ll remember that you do.”
He grimaces and answers the call. I reach into my field bag and pull out a pair of gloves before kneeling next to Murphy. “Not only did you lie to me, now I have to catch your killer. But you know what they say, a dick in life, a dick in death.” I pat him down, searching for his phone and come up dry, which is strange. This was a professional hit, and a pro knows we’ll just pull the records, but there could have been the hope there was sensitive information to retrieve. Or maybe there was a text message someone didn’t want seen. Or there could have been more than one phone, a burner and his actual registered line.
At this point, Larry has stepped out of the room.
Considering I worked with Murphy, me getting kicked off the case is inevitable, which means I have too little time and too much to discover.
Murphy needs to be a dead man talking.
That means I need to read the scene he’s left for me.
I start with how long he’s been dead. Based on rigor mortis, at least half a day. What he’s wearing—a collared shirt and casual pants, which isn’t work attire, but it’s not sit-at-home-alone attire either. He was meeting someone or doing something. The question is, who and what? I check his pants and find one of his business cards in his rear, hard-to-reach pocket, that an assassin in a rush might easily miss. There’s a Nashville number scribbled in messy writing on the back. I know it’s Nashville because I consulted on a case there a few years back, not long before Kane and I got back together. I grab my own phone and snap a photo of the number before I bag the evidence. For reasons I can’t explain, my gut tells me to conceal that number. How very un-FBI of me, or how very FBI of me, depending on who you ask.
As of late, I’m not sure there is any government-run operation I consider untarnished or impenetrable by the Society.
I decide the card is going with me.
I stuff it in my field bag, and just in time. That’s when Larry returns.
I push to my feet, noting his scrunched-up face has transformed into a bulldog face. I like me a cute bulldog—I like animals more than people—and Larry fits the lost puppy image to a T right now. “What’s wrong, Larry? Did Mom get really, really mad at you?”
He glares at me. “I always heard you were a bitch.”
“Well, it’s interesting to know I’m talked about, and while I prefer to be known as witty and funny, bitch works, too. I’m in charge of the crime scene,” I assume, because he’s as easy to read as a book with large print.
He grits his teeth. “You’re in charge of the crime scene.”
Interesting, I think of this unexpected twist, but I don’t ask who told him to hand over the reins. It might have been Homeland Security, but I’m not sure why they know who I am. Okay, a drug cartel is a national security risk, so I do, in fact, know how they know me. Even if it was the President himself who put me in charge, I wouldn’t care.