Tinted Windows
“Good for the Colin PD,” Rhodes said as she got behind the wheel. “I doubt these guys ever really get that kind of action.”
“Yeah, good for them,” Chloe said. Then she added: “You saw it, too, right? He was terrified of what he had done…almost like he still didn’t even believe it.”
“Yeah, I saw it. Not exactly the way you’d expect a man that has brutally killed two men to react to being questioned by federal agents.”
“Still, we should try to find an alibi. See what Cooper and his men come up with.”
“Agreed,” Rhodes said. “But what do we do until then?”
Chloe thought about it for a moment and finally gave a shrug. “Lunch?”
It was admitting defeat without actually admitting defeat. Chloe hated to think of a killer being brought to justice as a defeat but the seemingly cut-and-dry case of Carol Hughes did put something of a damper on the Bjurman case. Chloe knew that without any link between Bjurman and Fielding, she and Rhodes would be called off the case, leaving Bjurman’s death as an unsolved murder to be handled by local law enforcement.
And it was that fear that revealed something else to her: the fact that she was so hard pressed to keep this case because she was not ready to return to the drama waiting for her with Danielle back home.
***Lunch consisted of a greasy yet delicious pizza at a local pizza joint, and side salads. They ate in relative silence, certain that Johnson or one of his underlings would be calling any minute now to tell them to come on in. Rhodes had called bureau headquarters after leaving the Colin PD to update the case and even in that, things had felt rather final. Chloe had no doubt that their visit to Pine Point was already coming to an end.
“Anything still pricking you the wrong way?” Rhodes asked.
“Why do you ask?”
Rhodes shrugged and wiped her hands on a napkin that had already accumulated a lot of the grease from their margherita pizza. “You look bothered….like you’ve lost something.”
“Maybe a little,” Chloe admitted. “I have no doubt that Hughes did not kill Bjurman. But the whole Bjurman thing…something about Theresa Diaz seems off to me. Even if she had come out and admitted to sleeping with Bjurman—which I’m pretty certain of, by the way—I think there might still be something to her…something she might be hiding.”
“If they were sleeping together, maybe it was more than an affair,” Rhodes suggested. “Maybe they were in love?”
“Possibly.”
They fell into silence again, mulling it over. About a quarter of the pizza remained, though both agents had had their fill.
Chloe felt a slight shift inside of her as returning home became more and more of a possibility. While she was indeed happy to be away from all of the Danielle drama—even if only an hour and a half removed—she was still very much worried about how her sister was going to react when (more than likely if, Chloe figured) the FBI contacted her. The entire ordeal created a boiling knot of worry within her, so she did her best to push it to the side.
When Rhodes’s phone rang while they were waiting for the check, they both jumped a bit. They both figured it would be Johnson, and Chloe did her best not to feel slighted that he had opted to contact Rhodes over her.
Chloe listened closely, trying to act as if she really wasn’t all that interested in what was being said. But in listening to Rhodes’s side of the very brief call, Chloe heard all she needed to. When Rhodes ended the call, the expression on her face confirmed it. It was an expression of mild irritation and a faded sort of relief.
“He wants us to check in with the Colin PD before we leave, and then come on home,” Rhodes said. “And if you ask me, that should put us back in DC at the perfect time to go grab a few drinks before calling it a day.”
They settled up the bill and headed back to the Colin Police Department. On their way back into Colin, they drove directly past the curb where Viktor Bjurman had been murdered. With no patrol cars or crime scene tape to section the area off, it looked like any normal corner on any city in America. Something about that unnerved Chloe, knowing there were answers on that corner that may never be found—answers that, as of now, would forever remain out of Chloe’s reach.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Danielle was balancing on the very thin line between buzzed and totally drunk when someone knocked on her door. She had been drinking to put a nail in this chapter of her life, to keep it closed like a treasure chest buried at the bottom of the ocean. Her work had not allowed her to come in last night, or tonight for that matter. But she started back tomorrow, pulling both the afternoon and night shifts. She never thought she’d be happy to see the strip club again, or to smell the scents of spilled liquor and cheap cologne of the men around the bars.
But she could not wait to get back. First, though, a small bender of sorts. It had been a while since she had gotten drunk by herself. She was sure some people saw it as sad and pathetic, but she had always found it liberating in a way she could not quite grasp.
When the knock came to her door, she had already knocked back three margaritas she had made in her blender—a perfect concoction she had learned at work. Walking to the door, she wondered if it might be Chloe, come to rehash everything face-to-face. Danielle almost hoped this was the case. With enough tequila in her, she’d freely say things that a sober-minded Danielle would think better of.
When she answered the door, though, she did not find Chloe on the other side. A man stood there, dressed in what Danielle had always thought of as a “goon suit.” Because her sister was in the FBI, she recognized the get-up and the man’s too-serious expression at once. He was a federal agent. He looked to be of Asian descent and when he smiled at her, it seemed far too fake for her.
“Danielle Fine, correct?” the man said.
“That’s me. And you are…?”
“Agent Shin, FBI.” He flashed his badge, allowing her to study it for a moment before folding it back up and slipping it back into his inner jacket pocket. “Would you mind if I came in for a moment?”
“With all due respect, what for?” Danielle asked.
“Well, while I don’t know your sister personally, I did hear about the ordeal you went through down in Texas. It’s a story that is sort of making the rounds at the bureau. I’ve been asked to come out to check in on you.”
“By whom?”
“By my supervisor. There are some loose ends regarding what happened down there and we’re just trying to tie them up. Of course, with your sister, those ends can be tied up internally. But we need to get just a few assurances and answers from you as well.”
She looked oddly at him but opened the door to let him in. She recalled Chloe telling her on the phone that there was an internal investigation and if anyone came asking her questions, she needed to play it cool. Refusing to allow a federal agent into her apartment would likely be considered the opposite of playing it cool.
She stepped aside and opened the door wider, allowing Agent Shin inside. Danielle sat down at the kitchen table, making it clear in a polite way that she did not intend to let him walk any deeper into the apartment. Shin relented and propped himself up against her kitchen counter.
“First and foremost,” he said, “how are you doing? I know you suffered a few injuries during everything that happened.”
“Thanks for asking,” she said, doing her best to pour on the charm. “But it seems that I’m good. I head back to work tomorrow and—might as well go ahead and admit it—I’ve sort of been celebrating today.” She nodded toward the blender and the pale green drink inside.
Shin smiled and said, “Glad to hear it. Now, I sort of have to ask this, and I’m sorry if it’s too personal, but do you plan on pushing hard for a case to find your father?”
“No,” she said right away. “Fuck him. The only time I’m going to give a damn about him is if he shows up in DC, coming after me and Chloe again.”
“Well, as you know, his description has been handed out to several field offices. But we can’t make it a priority unless you want.”
Danielle shrugged and sipped from her latest margarita. “Chloe and I can talk it over a bit more, but I think we’re done with him.”
Shin nodded, as if he understood perfectly. As he nodded, a little spike of fear made its way through Danielle. She recalled digging the hole in a mad dash, shoving their father’s body into it, and then covering it back up. Had they dug deep enough? Had some scavenging little fox already come along and found their father as a morsel?
“Fair enough,” Shin said. “I do have a few more questions about what happened, if you don’t mind.”
“Again? Really?”
“I know. But with your sister being a federal agent, we really need to make sure we fully understand everything.”
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