CHAPTER THREE
Kate ran through about a thousand different ways to say what she wanted to say on the flight up to Portland. They were all stupid. Not even close to workable.
Hey, I know we’ve been feeling things about each other…
Hey, not at all trying to say anything about Cheryl, but…
Marcus, if you tell me you’re happy with her, I’ll never bring this up again, but I have to ask…
Marcus, please leave your wife, run away with me, and let’s have nasty, steamy sex in the back of my car.
It bothered her that the last statement wasn’t the dumbest one she’d come up with.
By the time she reached her car, an old beat-up SUV she’d bought for a surprisingly small amount of cash, she had decided to give it up.
This was stupid. Everything she wanted to say was stupid because this, this entire thing with Marcus was stupid.
He was her partner. Her friend. Her confidant sometimes sorts of, but not anything more than that.
She was lonely, even more so after things didn’t work out with Mike, and she was projecting those feelings onto Marcus because he was a guy she liked and trusted and who happened to be in her life.
And he was married. Capital M-A-R-R-I-E-D.
And who was Kate to say that he wasn’t happily married?
She didn’t know that. She barely knew Cheryl.
Marcus, like most law enforcement officers, kept his personal life away from his professional one, so although he’d been dating Cheryl since before they met, Kate had only met her once, and other than during a few serious incidents, every attempt she made to talk to Marcus about her was deflected or rebuffed.
From what little she could glean from their interactions after their recent marriage, Marcus seemed pretty damned happy. Sure, they’d had their troubles before the marriage, but who didn’t? Her parents had troubles, but there was no doubt in hell they loved each other.
And even if Marcus was unhappy, that was his problem to solve, not hers. She wasn’t the “other woman.” She would never be a homewrecker. The fact that she even thought about it for more than ten seconds was offensive.
But she thought about it the entire drive back to the field office.
Marcus: big, brawny, Marcus. All grins and bad jokes and cheerful quips.
Lovable, strong, tenacious, incredible with people, loyal to a fault Marcus.
Marcus, who loved fine art despite the fact that it made no sense at all that an ex-Navy SEAL should care about the difference between a Picasso and a Léger.
Marcus who was always there for her, even when she wasn’t there for herself.
Marcus, with whom Kate felt safe and comfortable and happy and not like an awkward, hopeless, gangly tangle of stunted emotions and haunted memories.
Marcus, to whom she was thinking almost seriously about baring her feelings despite the fact that it meant breaking rules she considered sacred.
Marcus, who would probably be horrified at the confession and tell her there was no chance, he was happy with Cheryl, and if that’s how she felt, then they probably shouldn’t be partners.
He was sorry, but he couldn’t jeopardize his marriage, and she couldn’t fixate on him when he wasn’t available to her.
“So, I can’t,” she said, tapping her steering wheel. “That’s all there is to it. I can’t, and it’s a waste of time thinking about it, so I’m going to not think about it and enjoy my partnership with my friend.”
So, saying, she pulled the car into the parking lot of the Portland Field Office and walked inside to find out what was so urgent that her partner had pulled her away from her conference in New York without telling her why.
The Portland FBI Field Office had all the grandeur of an FBI field office located in one of the least important cities in the country. It’s brick facade—once red now faded a dull orange brown—reminded Kate of an underfunded high school in a neighborhood that gentrification had passed by.
The sign didn’t declare the place as the center for federal law enforcement in Maine so much as offer the information as an afterthought with plain brass letters several sizes too small for the sign and decades removed from any semblance of shine.
The interior, too, reminded Kate of something that had long left its glory days. It was clean, and at the moment, everything worked, but the creaky office chairs, thin “motel special” carpet, and wheezy ventilation system spoke wonders about the Bureau’s budget in this corner of the country.
Still, this was home, the place Kate had gone to work for most of her adult life. Despite everything that had happened over the past year or so with Elijah Cox, she was glad to be back.
The feeling, it appeared, wasn’t mutual.
Few faces looked up to greet her, and those that did wore cold expressions.
Kate’s decision a month ago to ignore orders and pursue personal leads on the Quinn Marsh case had earned her no friends, and the fact that those leads had panned out and led to Marsh’s capture only deepened the anger they felt for her.
And she hadn’t even talked to her boss yet.
A hand closed around her chest. Was that why Marcus had called her here? Because Winters was finally moving her?
Another hand closed around the first as she realized she might be separated from Marcus. She released a shaky breath as the thought struck her. Winters wouldn’t do that, would she? Marcus wouldn’t allow it.
Unless Cheryl told him to.
Kate doubted like hell Cheryl suspected that Kate had feelings for Marcus, but she knew from snippets of overheard conversation that Cheryl resented Marcus for prioritizing his job, and she suspected Cheryl was jealous of their connection even if she didn’t know about Kate’s feelings.
Kate sighed. This was bullshit. She pressed her lips together, straightened her back, and told herself firmly to stop acting like a lovesick teenager and go talk to Marcus for the love of God.
She took a deep breath, walked into the office, and…
Nothing. Marcus wasn’t there.
She pushed a breath out of her nose. Lovely.
“Hey, fellas,” she said to the room. “Anyone seen Marcus?”
Eleven pairs of cold eyes looked up at her. Irritation rose up her spine. Damn it, she’d wrestled with enough conflicting emotion to have to deal with everyone acting like she was persona non grata. “Marcus Reid? Big guy? Clumsy? Cares way too much about sports?”
“Kate?”
“Thank God.”
Kate walked toward the voice and saw Marcus sticking his head out of the records room. She lifted an eyebrow as she entered. “Ooh, are we gonna make out in the closet?”
He flushed red when she said that, and she instantly regretted it. She didn’t apologize, though, because that would mean overthinking it, and she’d done enough of that for one day.
“Yeah, the last thing I need is Cheryl being even more jealous.”
And queue the overthinking again. “Why? What’s going on?”
He opened his mouth, tilted his head, then shook it. “Nothing. Forget about it.”
This was normally when Kate would press him for more information, but she really was playing with fire right now. “Whatever it is, I’m sure things will work out. They always do between you two.”
He chuckled bitterly, but before she could screw up the courage to ask him for more info after all, he grabbed a box off of the shelf and set it on the counter.
“Winters is cleaning house and wants everyone to make sure their ducks are all in a row. I need your help going through the Lakeview Automotive case.”
“Lakeview? Seriously?”
Lakeview Automotive was the second case they’d ever worked on, before the first commandment killing, back when they were new partners still getting past the awkward initial meeting stage.
The owners of Lakeview were suspected of laundering money for organized crime.
As it turned out, they were just committing garden-variety tax fraud.
All in all, a rather boring case, but it did feature a memorable conversation with one of the principals where he tried to bribe Kate with a steep discount on a 2008 Mercury Sable.
“Well, we’ve had enough eyes on us for the recent cases that I’m pretty sure every t and i that can be crossed and dotted has been crossed and dotted. The only ones that haven’t been poked at by literally everyone in the Bureau with an office instead of a desk are the pre-Cox ones.”
“Got it. And you needed my help with this?”
Marcus hesitated. He looked past Kate at the door, and her heartbeat started to quicken. Was he about to spill the tea about his and Cheryl’s latest fight?
“Winters doesn’t like the idea of you out of her sight after… well, you know.”
Kate blinked. “So, you called me here to babysit me?”
“I called you here so she knows you’re not running around causing trouble again.”
His words pierced her like sewing needle to the chest. “Causing trouble?”
“Come on, Kate, you know what I mean.”
“No, actually, I don’t know what you mean. Because the last time you and I talked, you said you understood. You said you supported me and that you’d have my back.”
Marcus frowned. “I am supporting you, and I do have your back. That’s why I called you here.”
Kate opened her mouth to offer another angry retort, then stopped and replayed what he’d said in her mind. She frowned. “When you say Winters is cleaning house, what exactly does that mean?”
Marcus sighed heavily. “I mean… Last time wasn’t the first time, Kate.
” She pressed her lips together, and he said, “I’m not saying I disagree with you or that I wouldn’t have done the same thing in your position.
I’m just saying that from the Bureau’s perspective, you’ve demonstrated a habitual disregard for procedure and authority. ”
“But that’s not true!”
“Isn’t it?”
Kate opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked away. Folded her arms across her chest.
“Like I said, I get it. And so does Winters. She’s pissed at you, but she does understand.
On the other hand, the bigwigs see it as her losing control of her agents.
They’re reviewing the Field Office’s records.
Depending on what they find, they’ll probably send an observer from Washington to keep an eye on things for a while. ”
“An observer?”
“That’s just my guess.”
“Is Winters going to be replaced?”
“No,” Marcus said. “It’s not like that.”
But his eyes flicked down and to the left, and his head twitched very slightly that way.
Before Kate could process this, Kate’s phone buzzed. They both jumped, and Kate cursed softly when she landed. Winters. She answered the phone. “Kate, you and Marcus are needed in my office immediately.”
“Understood, ma’am. Is everything—”
The line clicked dead. Kate looked at Marcus. “It’s Winters. She wants to see us in her office.”
Marcus took a deep breath. “Okay. It’ll be okay. Don’t worry.”
She frowned. “Well, I wasn’t worried until you said that.”
They left the records room. More glances followed Kate as they walked into the office of Assistant Director Victoria Winters, the head of the Portland Field Office.
Winters' office was, as always, spartan and meticulously organized, smelling faintly of the French perfume she wore.
The only personal touches were a Charlotte Bobcats pennant, and a framed photograph of a handsome, but pensive-looking man in naval dress uniform.
Nobody knew if he was a husband, brother, father, lover…
Nobody, thus far, had ever dared to ask.
The director herself was known for dressing glamorously, more like an old-fashioned movie star than the head of an FBI field office.
Today, however, she wore a conservative pantsuit, fitted well and attractive, but not at all her ordinary style.
Her hair was conservative too, pulled back from her face and hanging straight down over her shoulders.
She looked up at Kate with a cool expression. Kate’s throat constricted, but she wasn’t sure if she should apologize or just listen.
In the end, she didn’t get a chance. Winters handed Marcus a file and said, “There’s been a murder in Pittsburgh. It fits the commandment killings profile. You two are to head there immediately and investigate.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kate replied. “Ma’am, I’m—”
“Dismissed.”
Kate felt a knife twist in her chest. She never wanted anyone to get in trouble for her.
But they do anyway, the voice in her head said. And does intention really matter when the results are the same?
She swallowed, nodded curtly, and headed out of the office.