Page 14 of Go Under

Her instincts failed her on both counts. The evil thing was in the kitchen, sitting at the table, propped up so that rigor kept it in its chair rather than allowing it to slide to the laminated maple floor.

And Carol didn’t run. She didn’t feel fear. Had she possessed the capacity to understand surprise at that moment, she would have been surprised that she didn’t feel fear.

She didn’t feel grief either. Not exactly. What she felt more than anything was exhaustion. She’d run a long race with her sister and made it farther than any of the other participants. Now she’d come to the end of that race to find not a finish line but a pit, and in that pit, a stiffened corpse. All of that for nothing. All of that to find one of the pillars on which she’d constructed her life, a cruel pillar but a pillar, nonetheless, had sunk into the mud.

She sat carefully down on the floor of her sister’s kitchen, lowered her head into her hands, and wept.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Darnell called Kate and Marcus before dawn that morning. Kate had endured a fitful night, not quite suffering the repeated dream she had of Cox entering her room and strangling her to death but constantly hearing his whispers in her ear.

Darnell’s call woke her, followed immediately by a rancid smell that first made Kate think he was calling to alert her to some emergency in the hotel’s water or ventilation system.

Then she remembered that Darnell wasn’t staying in their hotel. She blinked, sat up, and realized that the smell was her. Once again, she’d soaked her bed through with sweat. The effort she’d put into cleaning herself up yesterday was utterly wasted.

She lifted a shaking hand to her forehead, still damp, and sighed heavily. Right back where she’d started from. All of the progress she’d made getting past the psychological torture Cox had put her through erased.

Marcus answered Kate’s phone when he saw Kate wasn’t going to. “Yeah.” He listened for a moment. Then his eyes widened. “Yeah? Awesome! Kate! He’s got a lead for us!” He listened another moment, and his smile faded a little. “Correction, not a lead. A motive.”

“That’s still progress,” Kate replied. Her voice, thankfully, betrayed none of the lingering fear of her night terrors.

She got out of bed and rushed to the bathroom, got halfway there, and realized she hadn’t brought a change of clothes with her. Cheeks burning, she returned to her bag, grabbed it, and headed back, ignoring Marcus’s concerned frown.

She toweled herself off and put deodorant on after she dressed. It helped a little bit. Maybe with the smells of Philadelphia’s field office competing and a fresh cup of coffee to focus on, Marcus would forget about the smell of Kate’s own special brand of saltwater.

She stepped out of the restroom and found him half-dressed. He was wearing boxers and an undershirt, but his slacks and button-down rested on the bed. She stopped, and her throat closed as her eyes traveled along his physique.

She’d seen him in states of undress before. Hell, she’d seen him wearing nothing but a towel before. When you were partners in the FBI, you learned to not be shy.

But knowing how close they’d come to being more than just professional partners made the sight of him tantalizing. She hated it. On top of everything else, she now had to deal with a flareup of her attraction to him.

“I’ll drive,” Marcus suggested.

“Yeah, good idea.”

They made the drive in silence. Marcus’s lips were pressed together, his shoulders tight as he fought not to say everything she knew he wanted to say. As for Kate, she was too busy looking everywhere but at her partner to wonder what her lips and shoulders looked like.

God damn it, Kate. You two were getting along again, too. You were working well together. You were almost friends again without any of the awkwardness.

“You can keep looking if you want, but you won’t find anyone.”

Kate blinked. “What?”

“Anyone sexier than me. You can keep looking, but you won’t find anyone.”

Kate looked at him now. His lips were crooked in a small smile, and his eyes danced. She loved him so much she could have cried.

Instead, she shoved him lightly. “Screw you.”

The car swerved as Marcus corrected. “Hey! Watch it! I know I’m dazzling, but I look a lot prettier not spread across the highway.”

She rolled her eyes and gave him a finger. “You’re stupid.” She turned away again, this time to hide the smile that spread across her face.

And just like that, her nightmares, the morning awkwardness, her worries about what might have been: all of it was gone. Marcus had proven once more to be a good partner and an awesome friend. Now they could both focus on the job.

Darnell met them in his office. Steaming mugs of coffee and a box of donuts rested on the desk, and two folding chairs taken from a briefing room sat on either side of his.

He greeted them in his stoic, basso voice, but his eyes gleamed as he showed them what he’d dug up on Daniel Avery and Gerald Mace. Kate skimmed the notes and lifted her eyebrow. “Wow. That would do it.”