R. E. Bradshaw - Rainey Nights (26 page)

Rainey approached the office, crouching down to make herself a smaller target. She swept the ground under the Mountain Dew painting with the flashlight, seeing nothing there but dried grass in need of cutting. She moved to the front of the building, checking all the windows and the door. Everything was locked up tight. Rainey shined the light in the windows. Nothing looked out of place.

She was running out of places to look without going into the woods, which Rainey was not prepared or stupid enough to do. If the source of the blood were in the thick woods and swamps, they would need to bring dogs to find it. She crept around the corner, toward the lake. The beam of her flashlight bounced off the surface of the water and into the trees. She searched the shoreline, as she eased down the side of the building. She ran the beam of light over the ground behind the building. She saw no traces of blood anywhere. Freddie followed her and danced around her legs.

“Where did you get that blood all over you?” She whispered to the purring feline between her legs.

Still cautious, but relieved at not having found a body on her property so far, she headed back around the building, scanning the surface of the lake by the dock. Rainey’s father had installed motion detector lights on the dock to discourage people from using it as a make-out haven. If anyone had crossed the motion detector barrier, the dock would have been lit up like a landing zone. Rainey continued toward the parking lot in front of the building. She stepped too close to the sensors and the dock burst into view, startling her down to one knee, shotgun poised to take aim, trying to adjust her vision to the sudden brightness. She blinked several times against the blinding glare of the lights. That’s when Rainey saw the blond hair.

For a moment, she was frozen in time. Everything stopped. Her heart, her breathing, her ability to move, all ceased to function. She was suspended there on one knee, while her mind tried to make sense of what it was seeing. A sudden rush of adrenaline seized her and thrust her legs and arms into action. She ran down the dock, falling to her knees in front of a bloody piling. Staked out, in a macabre cannibalistic scene, was a decapitated head. A mass of blond hair covered the face. Rainey reached up with trembling hands, parting the hair gently to the side. She saw the woman’s startled expression and fell back. Rainey’s arms slid to her sides, her chin dropped to her chest, and she began to sob. Gasping breaths of air burned her lungs. Waves of sadness washed over her, juxtaposed with her immense relief. It wasn’t Katie, but Rainey had just located Kim McNatt’s missing head.

Rainey put herself back together before the first police car arrived, with Mackie hot on its tail. She waited at the end of the dock. The deputy leapt from his car and ran toward her. She pointed at the head on the dock. When the deputy saw it, he gagged, covering his mouth with one of his hands.

“Don’t puke on my crime scene,” Rainey said.

The deputy went over to his car, leaned on the hood, and lost his dinner.

Rainey called out to him, “When you’re done, call it in,” and then turned her attention to the panting Mackie at her side.

“I’m all right. I guess you heard the call go out on the scanner. Sorry, I didn’t call to warn you.”

Mackie began to calm down. “I wish you’d called me before you went outside.”

“I know, but I didn’t have time. Someone could have been bleeding to death out here. I couldn’t wait.”

“That’s just the excuse you’re using to justify such a stupid move. Rainey, you know better than that.”

Rainey defended her decision. “What if it was you laying there, bleeding? Would you want me to wait twenty minutes for the cops to get here, before I came out of the house? Would you have waited, if you thought it was me?”

“No, I wouldn’t have waited, but then there isn’t a killer stalking me, leaving heads on my dock.”

With a little more emphasis than was called for, Rainey said, “I took a vow to protect and serve. I’ve known from day one that my life may have to be given for someone else’s. You need to consider that I have been trained to stay alive, before you judge my actions.”

Mackie turned his head quizzically. “Who was that meant for, baby girl, me or Katie?”

The newly recomposed deputy walked up with a roll of crime scene tape, ending that part of their discussion. Mackie helped the deputy seal the scene, while Rainey called Danny, letting him know everything was okay, and what she had discovered. Rainey walked over to Mackie when she was finished

“Hey, I’m sorry. I was still in a bit of shock. You didn’t deserve that.”

“It’s okay, baby girl. You got a lot on your mind.”

Rainey remembered Ernie. “Look, you better call Ernie. Tell her what’s happened so she won’t hear it some other way.” Mackie was already pulling out his phone. “And tell her the crime scene guys will be back in the morning, so she won’t freak when she sees them.”

“Anything else?” Mackie asked, poised to dial his phone.

“You should go on home, too. It’s going to be a while before they finish processing the scene. Danny is on his way. He won’t let me stay out here by myself, so don’t worry.” Mackie started to say something. Rainey interrupted, “Really, I’ll stay in the house.”

Mackie would worry, but he agreed to go home. Danny arrived exactly an hour after Rainey’s call. The rest of the team, Detective Robertson and her officers, the Medical Examiner, and crime scene investigators were already there when Danny pulled into her driveway. Rainey sat on the stairs, alone for the first time since the first officers arrived. Freddie perched on the step beside her, watching all the activity down at the dock, somehow aware that he needed to be close to her.

Danny approached, trying to force eye contact. “Rainey, are you okay?”

Rainey looked him straight in the eyes, because she knew he was looking for her reaction. Danny wanted to know if she could remain on the job. She was rattled, but Rainey wasn’t backing off.

“I’m fine, Danny. Pissed, but fine.”

Danny sat down on the step just below her. He leaned back on one elbow so he could see her face. Danny knew her, maybe even better than Katie did. He knew what to say.

“You know, they keep running that part where you questioned Cookie’s sexuality on the news. That’s pretty funny stuff. Katie clapped when I showed it to her.”

“Is she okay? Does she know what happened?”

Danny patted Rainey’s knee. “That’s a strong girl you’re hooked up with. She’s more worried about you than herself, at this point.”

“Did you convince her that she’s in more danger than me? The plan is her first. Did you tell her that?”

“I did, and I also forced her to accept an armed guard at all times. She’ll be outside the door when Katie goes to the bathroom. She’ll sleep on the floor in Katie’s bedroom. Katie will not move inside the house without protection, and if she leaves the house, which I totally objected to, a male officer will accompany her, as well. Two patrol cars are in the driveway.”

Rainey perked up. “She? Who is guarding Katie?”

Danny smiled. “The biggest, baddest woman I could find. She’s from vice. She’s been around. Detective Robertson says no one will get by this cop, not even you.”

Rainey was unsettled by the news another woman would be sleeping in the same bedroom with Katie. It took her mind away from the scene at the dock, which was exactly what Danny had calculated it to do. She smiled down at him.

“She’s safe then?”

Danny stood up, extending his hand to Rainey. “She’s locked down tighter than the President. The Secret Service doesn’t get to sleep with him.”

Rainey took his hand and raised her eyebrows. “On the floor, right? You said she’s sleeping on the floor.”

Danny laughed, pulling her to her feet. “Well, now, I guess that’s entirely up to Katie. We all know what happened the last time she had a female bodyguard.”

#

At midnight, Rainey’s cell phone rang. She was still down at the dock, waiting for the crime lab to finish collecting evidence. They were packing up to leave for the night, but would come back first thing in the morning. Daylight could reveal more evidence. Rainey pulled the phone out of her pocket. She saw Katie’s name on the caller ID, flipped the phone open, raising it to her ear rapidly.

“Katie, is everything all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Katie replied, softly.

Rainey stepped to the other side of the building, away from Danny and the few others still talking under the bright halogen lights brought in by the investigators.

“Katie, what’s wrong?”

“This is all wrong, Rainey. Me over here and you there, people getting their heads cut off, a strange woman watching me sleep, it’s all wrong.”

“She’s really watching you sleep? Where are you? Is she watching you, now?”

“No, I’m hiding in the bathroom,” Katie said, laughing.

It did Rainey’s heart good to hear Katie laugh. She smiled into the phone. “Well, you can’t sleep in there. You’re going to have to come out sometime.”

“I will… I just missed you. I wanted to hear your voice, know that you were okay, before I try to sleep, which seems to be impossible without you next to me.”

Rainey’s throat tightened, her voice hushed, when she said, “I miss you, too.”

“You do know last night was the first night we’ve been apart since July?” Katie asked.

Rainey kicked at the ground. “Yes, I’m well aware of that.”

“I saw you on TV.” Katie changed subjects, as she often did, forcing Rainey to pay attention whenever she was talking to her. If she didn’t, she could end up completely lost. Katie continued, “That was so good, what you said to Cookie. I laughed.”

“Yeah, Danny told me you clapped.”

“Oh, she deserved it. That was fabulous… You looked great, by the way.”

Rainey never took compliments on her looks well. She said, shyly, “You’re biased.”

“No, really Rainey, you looked fantastic, confident. The FBI Agent persona looks good on you. I never saw it before, but you looked… I don’t know, comfortable maybe.”

“I wasn’t. The shoes were killing me.”

It was quiet for a moment, and then Katie said, “Do you miss it? Is that what you really want to do? Am I keeping you from your passion?”

“No, Katie. I was gone from the Bureau long before I met you. I just didn’t know it, yet. I don’t have to be in the FBI to do what I do. I would like to consult on cases from time to time, if you can live with that, but I don’t want to be submerged in this anymore. It’s just not a good place for me to be.”

“Are you sure, Rainey? I don’t want you to wake up one day and be sorry. I don’t want to be the reason you gave up such an important part of who you are.”

“But it’s not all I am.”

“I know that,” Katie responded, quickly. “You are a cop at heart, though. I don’t think you would be happy if you weren’t chasing bad guys.”

“Katie, I… I know I’m not the ideal person to have a relationship with. My job is scary sometimes. My past catches up with me occasionally. I respect that frightens you. I can do more to make you less fearful, but I can’t promise you that something bad won’t happen. I could be killed in a car accident, just as easily as on the job. I trained for this, just like you did to be a teacher. I can handle myself out there. The question now is, can you learn to respect that?”

Rainey hadn’t meant to speak so freely. The silence on the other end of the phone suggested it might have been too much.

Katie cleared her throat. Her voice sounded dry and tense, when she answered, “I know I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything, but I can’t answer that now. We jumped into this relationship under similar circumstances. I don’t want our decisions concerning the future to be clouded by all this. Do you understand, Rainey?”

Rainey saw Danny coming toward her. The last of the investigators pulled away in a county van.

“Katie, I have to go now. Danny’s coming.” She was wriggling out of answering the question posed to her. The doubt that their relationship would ever work out was quite evident in Katie’s voice. Rainey couldn’t deal with that possibility at the moment. “Promise me, you’ll do what the deputy says, okay?”

“I’ll make sure to stay with my escort. I don’t want to worry you, Rainey. You focus on catching this guy. Like I said, it’s who you are.”

Rainey heard the edge in Katie’s voice. She could tell Katie was trying to control it.

“I love you, Katie. Don’t give up on me.”

The phone went silent.

#

As predicted, Danny slept on the couch. This became a problem for Rainey soon after she went to bed. She couldn’t sleep, tossing and turning in the big bed for more than an hour. Rainey pounded on the pillows, changed sides of the bed, and even lay across it sideways at one point. She could smell Katie everywhere, and she felt the empty space where Katie should be. Rainey thought she might have been able to fall asleep on the couch, but then Danny was there. She ended up on the futon in the home office and finally slept a few hours.

Now, Rainey was standing in the closet, looking at shoes. In the two years since she last dressed in suits to go to work, Rainey wore tennis shoes, hiking boots, even tactical boots, but not heels. Yesterday had nearly done her in. She was dressed in dark blue slacks and blazer, with the obligatory white blouse, the other “uniform” of her FBI days. Katie had rows of brightly colored heels. Rainey had the blue and black variety of low-heeled calf boots and the smallest heeled pumps she could find. She owned one really nice pair of high-heels that went with the black dresses she wore on rare occasions. Rainey’s clothes fit on half of one of the long racks that ran along the walls of the large, master bedroom closet. Katie’s wardrobe filled the rest.

Rainey stared at her shoes, wondering if anyone would notice if she just put on a pair of Nikes. The thought then occurred to her that she wasn’t really an agent anymore. She slipped back into that skin yesterday with ease, but despite what Katie said about her looking comfortable, it didn’t quite fit anymore. Rainey left the suit and blouse in a pile on the closet floor, not even bothering to hang them up. She wouldn’t be needing them anymore.