Deadly Messengers (18 page)

Trip’s face showed amusement. He was enjoying this. His smile gave her a little hope that this situation might be redeemable. So she addressed Trip.

“I wouldn’t normally do a story like this. I can’t handle violence. Even the thought of violence upsets me, but I’ve hardly won any of the jobs I’ve pitched recently, and look, I’m really very sorry.”

Kendall paused to catch her breath. Suddenly she felt close to tears. She swallowed several times and that seemed to send the tears back from wherever they’d swelled.
Thank God.
The last thing she needed was to let this O’Grady know he was getting to her.

When she looked back to O’Grady, he was still stony-faced. She should have followed her first instinct and run from the café.

Kendall was hoping O’Grady would be the one to reply, who would realize she wasn’t a threat, hadn’t meant any harm, would say that now he understood. It was Trip, who, instead of addressing Kendall, spoke to O’Grady. Kendall had already started to think of him as
good cop
to O’Grady’s
bad cop
. Good cop, he certainly proved to be.

“O’Grady, you hard ass. She’s just trying to do her job.”

Trip then spoke to Kendall, his face open and friendly, ignoring the dark look O’Grady now gave him.

“Sorry, Kendall, but we can’t talk to you about particulars. It’s an active case. If we did, we’d get our balls beaten by our sergeant. But maybe, we could—” He paused and looked back to the still frowning O’Grady, then swung his gaze back to Kendall. “—listen to a few questions.
If
we can answer them or part of them, we will. If we can’t, you’ll just have to live with that.”

O’Grady glared at Trip, as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He shook his head, even as Trip continued to talk, seemingly uncaring of his partner’s annoyance.

“You’ve got to admire her guts to follow us in here, O’Grady. I like a woman with chutzpah.”

And there it was.
Now Kendall understood. The way he was smiling, the wink he’d just given her. Her
guts
weren’t exactly what he admired.

Trip looked her straight in the eye, and said, “That’s what you did, wasn’t it?”

Perspiration dotted Kendall’s upper lip; the back of her neck felt clammy.
What should she do?
Play along with him or take advantage of her reprieve and get out of there?

“Yes, I guess. Yes, I did follow you. And I
am
sorry. I won’t bother you again. Sorry. Really.”

Kendall turned away from both men, her heart crumpling. She felt useless. Useless and embarrassed. She wasn’t just a fish out of water, she was a school of fish in the wrong class, out of water. Tears stung her eyes. All she wanted to do was get home, eat a big tub of ice cream, and let the tears come.

Then she felt a hand on her arm.

“Wait.”

She turned to find herself facing the now standing, six-foot tall,
Good Cop
. Trip was mid-thirties, with a wide nose and a wider mouth. A glint in his eyes and still the smile on his face warmed her a little.

“Where are you going, Kendall? I
was
serious. You
can
ask me a couple of questions. Let’s start again. I’m Trip.”

He held out his hand, which Kendall took and shook. He held her palm a little longer than seemed normal. Yes, she
had
been right. He did like her.

“I’ll help if I can. Maybe in the future, you might be able to help us. Who knows? Maybe—”

O’Grady interrupted, speaking directly to Trip as though Kendall didn’t exist. “This is
not
a good idea. You don’t tell them anything. You
know
what could happen.”

Trip raised a hand to his forehead in a
I don’t care what you think
salute.

O’Grady stared at Trip for a moment, his mouth clenched, eyes squinting. “Right, I’ve given you my opinion. Ignore me, and it’s on you. But I’m not staying.”

Without acknowledging Kendall, O’Grady turned and headed away. Trip and Kendall watched him weave his way to the door. Even the way he walks looked angry. She continued to follow him until he yanked open the door and was gone.

Now Kendall and Trip were alone, she didn’t know where to look or what to say. She mumbled “sorry
,”
again, wondering if he would now be angry, too, since she seemed to have caused an argument between the partners. Trip continued to smile, though. He wasn’t her type, but as bad as the encounter had been, this was an unexpected advantage. If she didn’t seize this opportunity and work it, somehow, she would never forgive herself.

Trip smiled a big toothy grin. “Please sit. Do you want me to grab you another coffee?”

“I should be buying
you
a coffee.” She returned his smile as sweetly as she could.

“No, no,” he said, pulling out a chair for her. “It’s a rule I never break. Always buy a pretty girl a coffee on a Saturday. Look at that, today is Saturday, and I haven’t filled my quota. So help me out, let me get you another coffee.”

His gaze flicked to the piece of banana bread still sitting upended on the table. “We’ve already got the food.”

Kendall smiled. This was turning out better than she could imagine. Trip did seem like a nice guy. Just maybe she’d end up with something for her article and keep Beastie at bay.

Trip left to order the coffee, giving her time to gather her thoughts. Lance O’Grady had unsettled her, even though, thanks to her dream, she still couldn’t shake the odd feeling of intimacy. It felt as though they’d just had a lover’s spat even though neither of them knew the other.

Trip interrupted her thoughts as he placed a cup of steaming coffee before her.

“Right, here’s the deal. For every question you ask, I get to ask you a question. I’m not promising I can answer everything. Maybe there’s a few things I can share without getting anyone into trouble.

The first question she now wanted answered surprised her. It had nothing to do with the mass killings.

“How long have you and O’Grady been partners?”

“That’s easy. Three years. He’s not a bad guy. That thing today with you, that’s something else. Don’t take it personally.”

“Okay, second question then. What’s the something else?”

“I think you’d better ask him. My turn. How long have you been a journalist?”

Kendall had begun her reply of “I’m not a journalist, I’m a freela—” when the door to the café opened with a heavy whoosh. O’Grady practically flew into the room. Kendall, facing the door, saw him before Trip, and the look on his face caused her to gasp. He was changed from the angry man who’d left five minutes before, his face serious and drawn as though he’d just witnessed something terrible.

He was across the room and at their table before Kendall had time to motion to Trip his partner had returned. When O’Grady arrived beside them, Trip must have presumed he’d reconsidered, had come back to apologize. He casually threw his arm over the back of his chair and smiled a greeting at his partner.

Ignoring Kendall—yet again—O’Grady leaned into Trip’s ear and whispered. Suddenly Trip’s smiling face mirrored O’Grady’s serious demeanor. Kendall overheard a few snatches of words, but all she made out was: “Again. Bad. Famine?”
No, wait, was that family?

Trip nodded, as O’Grady spoke, until O’Grady finally stood back, and Trip said, “Yep, okay. Give me a minute.”

O’Grady glanced at Kendall as though whatever had happened had been her fault, then turned and headed for the door. Trip pulled out his wallet to leave a tip. While he did, he addressed her, but his thoughts were clearly wherever O’Grady was headed.

“I can’t stay. Sorry.”

“What’s happened? Bad news?”

“
Very
bad news.”

Trip gathered his phone from the table and stood.

“Since it’ll be all over the news in the next hour, I’ll give you a heads-up. It’s happened again.”

“What’s happened?” She didn’t understand what he meant.

“Another mass killing.”

A shiver ran through Kendally’s body, her mind immediately puzzling.
How could there be another mass murder so soon?
Impossible. Mass killings were random and rare, that much she knew from her research.
Where? How?
More pressing, why?

Trip pocketed his phone, pulled out his wallet and retrieved a small, plain business card. He placed it before her on the table. The tone in his voice, the tight pursing of his lips, and the intensity in his eyes told her their flirtatious moment was done. His mind was back in work mode.

“Oh, my God, no. What’s happened?”

“Don’t know. A family is all we know so far. If I knew more, sorry, I couldn’t tell you anyway. You understand, right? Take my card. Call me, and…”

He paused, rocking his head slightly from side to side as though he were trying to make a decision. “I didn’t tell you this, either, but, if you drive past three sixty-three Bentley Street West, you might see something worth writing about. Now, I’m gone. I’m sorry. I hope to see you again.
Soon.
”

Trip turned and hurried toward the door. Kendall picked up his card, clutching it in her hand as she gathered her bag—the bag she’d cursed fifteen minutes ago but which had truly been her ally—and hurried to follow him.

Outside, in the bracing autumn air, Kendall squinted in the bright sunlight after the darkened interior. How different she felt from when she’d stood outside, less than an hour ago, thinking everything was lost. Now she was excited, her body pumped with adrenaline.

This might be good for her, not just professionally but personally. Finally, she might overcome her fears that lightning could strike twice in her life, that violence would find her again. People always say confront your fears. This story was forcing her to do just that.

As the door closed behind her, she realized she’d forgotten the banana bread. She’d recovered the bread while Trip was getting her coffee and had placed it back on the plate.

You win some; you lose some
, she thought. Today, crazy as it had already been, felt like it was the beginning of a win.

INSIDE 363 BENTLEY STREET WEST it looked like a war zone. After making his way from the bodies at the front entrance to the bodies in the bedroom to the dead dog in the pantry, O’Grady decided he’d already seen too much death in the past two weeks. It took all his strength not to walk back out the door and heave.

After forty-five minutes of checking the bodies and perusing the scene, the horror of it finally overwhelmed him. Cops were presented as tough and all-about-the-job in films and books, but the reality was they were just people who saw more misery than the average Joe. O’Grady couldn’t fight the urge to just get out and breathe air that didn’t reek of blood and shit and death. Trip could manage alone for a few minutes.

Despite the churning in his gut, O’Grady maintained a calm exterior as he walked outside and away from the commotion inside and out on the front lawn. He strode past the white-suited CSIs and their vans, the police cars, and the media who mobbed him as he left, asking—no, make that shouting—for details. Always they wanted details, when all people needed to know was innocent people had died.
Wasn’t that enough?

He walked, his mind filled with the visions of bodies, here and at the other two massacre scenes. He walked until he couldn’t hear the noise of the reporters and police attending the scene anymore and couldn’t taste death on his tongue. He walked, thinking life was shit and life was precarious. He’d seen death before; that came with the job. These past two weeks, though, and then this: a mother slaughtering her relatives and husband practically in view of her own kids, it was … well, he didn’t know what it was.

What was wrong in their city suddenly for this to happen? In fact, what the hell was actually happening? He needed a drink or a cigarette; something to stop his hands from shaking, when his hands didn’t normally shake. O’Grady had given up smoking in his twenties, but right about now, the idea of one of those cancer sticks taking the edge off sounded good. On his way out from the crime scene, he’d bummed a cigarette and some matches from one of the officers.

He had choices. He could ask to be taken off the case. He’d already investigated two of the mass killings, and who would blame him for wanting a break? That though, would land him in counseling. Once on your record, that black mark was there for good, a psychic hole into which the powers remained ever nervous you might fall at some future date.

O’Grady stared at the cigarette before placing it in his mouth and lighting. He dragged deeply, coughed, and then determinedly dragged again, feeling the chemicals in the smoke instantly fire in his brain. A calm flowed through him as he gathered his thoughts.

He looked around his surroundings, noting the middle-class brick homes, set on perfectly manicured lawns complete with palm trees and hedges that would take constant care. Madness rarely visited communities like this, where neighbors shared backyard barbecues on summer Sunday afternoons, where kids rode their bikes in the streets until dinnertime, and where family worries centered around kids passing exams or how to cover the school fees. Nobody expected his or her family to become target practice on a Saturday afternoon.