If She Ran

Olivia smiled the sort of smile often seen on tired villains in movies. “Well then, it seems you already have your mind made up about me.”

“That’s not the case at all. We just—”

“If you ladies don’t mind, I’m going to politely ask you to leave. I’d like to properly grieve my son.”

Kate knew that their time with Olivia Tucker was over; if she kept pressing, the woman would only shut down. Besides that, she had been useless for information—unless the vile feelings she had toward her daughter-in-law could be seen as truth. And Kate doubted there was anything to it.

“Thank you,” Kate said. “And we are truly sorry for your loss.”

Olivia nodded, got up, and walked out of the room. “I’m sure you remember where the door is,” she said, before disappearing elsewhere into the house.

Kate and DeMarco took their leave, no closer to a solid lead but having been thoroughly rattled by Olivia Tucker’s views on Missy.

“You think there’s a shred of truth to any of it?” DeMarco asked. She seemed to be coming out of her funk, apparently motivated by the case.

“I think in this moment, while she’s searching for answers to what happened, she thinks some of it is true. I think she’s taking little nuggets of fears she’s had over the years and amplifying them just to have some object to place her blame and rage on.”

DeMarco nodded as they got into the car. “Whatever it was, it was ugly.”

“And I think it rules her out of any foul play. We may want to keep an eye on Missy, though, just to keep her safe. Maybe even let local PD know how unhinged Olivia seems to be.”

“And then what?”

“And then we regroup. Possibly over a glass or two of wine back at the hotel.”

It sounded like a good idea but Kate continued to think of Missy Tucker and how her world was now very much an empty shell of what it had once been. Kate remembered all too well what it felt like to lose the man you loved, the man who knew you like a book he’d read millions of times. It was heartbreaking beyond words and drained the life out of you.

Revisiting that feeling in that moment, as she headed toward the hotel, made her more motivated that ever. It made her reach back into her memories to where details of the first case rested, back where the Nobilini case had started.

Her mind tried to latch onto a name—a name she knew well but that had faded into the deeper regions of her memory. It was a name she was reminded of earlier in the day, when they had met with Jack Tucker’s friends at the yacht club.

Cass Nobilini.

You know there are answers there, Kate thought.

There might be. And she’d go looking for them if it came to that.

But she really hoped it wouldn’t. She hoped she could make it the rest of her life never seeing Cass Nobilini again. But she also knew the chances of that were very slim—that she may, in fact, be seeing her sooner rather than later.

CHAPTER SIX

They settled in at the hotel’s bar just as the dinner rush started to pack the place out. While the prospect of a glass of wine was indeed promising, Kate found that she was a bit more excited about the burger she ordered. Usually when on a case, she’d somehow forget to eat lunch, leaving her ravenous at the end of the day. As she sank her mouth into the burger for the first bite, she saw DeMarco giving her a small smile. It was her first authentic smile of the day.

“What?” Kate asked through a mouthful of burger.

“Nothing,” DeMarco said, picking at her grilled chicken salad. “It’s reassuring to see a woman of your size and age eat like that.”

Swallowing down the bite, Kate nodded and said, “I was gifted with an amazing metabolism.”

“Oh, what a bitch.”

“It’s worth it to be able to eat like this.”

A brief silence passed between them, which was shattered by both of them laughing together at the exchange. It felt good to be able to lower her guard around DeMarco after the tense day they’d shared. DeMarco seemed to feel the same way, based on what she said after sipping from her glass of wine.

“Sorry I was so bitter all day. The whole thing of breaking news like that to a family…it’s hard. I mean, I know it’s hard, but it’s especially hard on me. I had this thing happen in my past that jarred me. I thought I was over it, but apparently, I’m not.”

“What happened?”

DeMarco took a moment, perhaps considering whether or not she wanted to delve into the story. With another large sip of wine, she decided to go ahead with it. She let out a sigh and began.

“I knew I was gay when I was fourteen. I had my first girlfriend when I was sixteen. When I was seventeen, my girlfriend Rose and I—she was nineteen—decided that we were going to go ahead and come out. We both had kept it a secret, particularly from our parents. So there we were—about to break the news. I was supposed to meet her at her house and we were going to tell her parents, who, I might add, assumed that Rose and I were just really good friends. I was always at her house and vice versa, you know? So I’m sitting there on her parents’ couch when I get a phone call. It’s from the police, telling me that Rose was in a car accident and that she had died right away, upon impact. I was called rather than her parents because they found her cell phone and saw that I took up about ninety percent of her call history.

“So I break down right away and her parents are sitting there, wondering what the hell happened—why I’m suddenly in tears, on my knees in the floor. And I had to tell them. I had to tell them what the policeman had just told me.” She paused here, poked at her salad a bit, and then added, “It was the absolute worst moment of my life.”

Kate found it hard to look at DeMarco; she was delivering the story not as an emotional part of it, but as if she were a robot, reciting back a series of events. Still, the tale was more than enough to explain DeMarco’s attitude the previous night when she, Kate, had volunteered them to break the bad news to Missy Tucker.

“If I’d known any of that, you know I wouldn’t have volunteered us,” Kate said.

“I know. And I knew it then. But my emotions strangled any reason or logic. Quite honestly, I just needed to sit and stew in it for a while. Sorry you caught the brunt of it.”

“Water under the bridge,” Kate said.

“Have you done that a lot in your career? Breaking news like that?”

“Oh yes. And it never gets easy. It becomes easier to detach yourself from it, but the act itself is never easy.”

The table fell into silence again. The waiter came by and refilled their wine as Kate continued to work on her burger.

“So how’s your man?” DeMarco asked. “Allen, right?”

“He’s doing good. He’s just about to the point in the relationship where he worries about me still being involved in the FBI. He’d prefer that I take a desk job. Or stay retired.”

“So it’s getting serious, huh?”

“It feels that way. And part of me is excited for it. But there’s a small part of me that feels like it would be a waste of time. He and I are both quickly approaching sixty. Starting a new relationship at that age feels…odd, I guess.” Sensing that DeMarco would latch onto the topic if she was allowed to do so, Kate quickly redirected the conversation.

“How about you? Has the love life picked up at all since the last time we had this awkward conversation?”

DeMarco shook her head and smiled. “No, but that’s by choice. I’m still enjoying the Land of One-Night Stands while I still can.”

“Does that make you happy?”

DeMarco seemed genuinely shocked by the question. “It sort of does. I don’t need the responsibilities and requirements that come with a relationship right now.”

Kate chuckled. She had never been in the Land of One-Night Stands. She’d met Michael while in college and married him a year and a half later. It had been the kind of relationship where she had started to understand that they would spend their lives together as soon as their first kiss.

“So where’s the next step in this case?” DeMarco asked.