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Tinted Windows

CHAPTER TWO

Craddock started the questioning. When he did, he wore a very small smile. She was sure it was there to try to make her feel more at ease, but it made it look like he was enjoying the moment of putting her through this torture.

“Agent Fine, how did you happen to know where your sister was?”

The truth, of course, was that Danielle had called her from a pay phone. But the truth would damn them both. She pulled up the story they had come up with as they had buried their father and recited from it.

“Honestly, it was almost a lucky guess. When I knew something was going on, I started trying to think of places my father might take her. Danielle once lived in Millseed—during a time in her life when she was verbally confrontational with our father. She used to tell me that the one time she spoke with him—during a visit to see him in prison—he told her she belonged in a place like Millseed. A sorry excuse for a town, drying up and dying. He said it would be a terrible place to die but maybe that’s what she deserved.”

“Was your father always so dramatic and good with foreshadowing?” Kirsch asked.

“Forgive me if I don’t want to discuss my father’s personality with you,” Chloe said. “Is this about a profile on my father or questioning me once again about all that happened?”

Craddock and Kirsch exchanged a perturbed glance before carrying on. Johnson stared her down, his expression conveying a simple message: Watch your tone.

“Can you tell us exactly what happened when you arrived?” Kirsch asked.

“The place was easy to find,” Chloe said. “Danielle had told me stories about some of the not-so-lawful things she and some friends used to do out at that old warehouse. I had to stop at a store and ask how to get there. When I did get there, he had her tied to a chair and was slapping her. I confronted him, we fought a bit, and he managed to get away.”

“Define fight,” Craddock said.

“The use of fists to punch one another. Sometimes kicking. The attempt to better your opponent with physical force.”

“Agent Fine,” Kirsch said, “I suggest you take this inquiry seriously.”

“Oh, I am. And I took it seriously the other two times I was deeply questioned about it.” She took a moment here, taking a series of breaths to try to keep herself in control. “Look. I understand the need to understand it all and I fully accept my faults in trying to take matters into my own hands. But you have to understand…this is not just a case. This is my sister and my father and the whole deplorable history between us. I don’t particularly enjoy being put through this wringer again and again.”

Her little plea must have worked—somewhat, at least. Craddock and Kirsch exchanged a sorrowful look between them. They then looked to Johnson, who gave a small shrug.

“Of course we are trying to keep that in consideration,” Craddock said. Then, as if choosing each word carefully, he asked: “Do you think you injured him during the fight?”

So maybe her plea wasn’t as effective as she had thought. Angry, she went ahead and answered the question. She lied, saying she thought she may have landed a blow that could have resulted in a cracked or broken rib. It was an extra and useless detail, but in these sorts of interrogations, she knew that they would be looking for such details.

As they continued to question her, she became very aware of what, exactly, they were doing. They were having her go back over her story, making her retrace it from a different standpoint, seeing if she would change anything. They were trying to trip her up…she just wasn’t exactly sure why.

Maybe they found something that breaks the story apart, she thought. But this was doubtful. If that were the case, the questions would have been more direct and they may even make an accusation.

But no…instead, they were looking for cracks in her story. And Chloe did not intend to give them any.

But she wondered what this scenario might be like if Danielle was sitting in her seat. If they brought Danielle in and had her run through the story for a third time—in a more official setting with these stuffed suits surrounding her—would she crack?

It scared Chloe to think about it. So she did her best not to as she swallowed down her anger and continued to answer their questions like a good little girl.

***

It was quicker than she had been expecting when she sat down. Craddock and Kirsch took their leave fifteen minutes later. When they were gone, Johnson looked at her from across the table. Chloe was interested to see if he was going to try to play the sympathetic good guy or if he was going to side with the power duo that had just left his office.

“Sorry to make you go through that again,” he said.

“Are you? You seemed to do a good job of blending in with them.”

“Fine…I understand you’re under an immense amount of emotional pressure, but I still need you to mind your tone and your attitude. I’m trying to be as reasonable as I can, but I will certainly file a report for insubordination if you continue to address me and your other superiors in this smart-ass way.”

Still swallowing her anger and her pride down like some bitter pill, she nodded. “I understand. Now, can I go?”

“Yes. I believe you’ll find assignments on your desk. Wiretap detail and a research request from a field agent in Philadelphia, I believe.”

“Are you kidding me?”

She exited his office before he had time to offer an answer or an explanation. While she certainly did not think she was above the more trivial desk-oriented work that many agents endured on a weekly basis, it still seemed like a step back. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was a punishment of sorts—and if it was, she wondered how long she’d be mired in it.

Usually one to keep her emotions contained, Chloe found herself struggling to keep her anger in check. She took her time as she walked to her cubicle, knowing she was only going to grow angrier when she saw the bullshit work that Johnson had lined up for her.

She was so caught up in her own emotional chaos that she almost didn’t notice the familiar face coming out of an office at the end of the hallway. It was Rhodes, her face pointed down as she scrolled through something on her phone. When she looked up and saw Chloe standing there, she looked at first alarmed and then relieved.

“You good?” Rhodes asked.

“Yeah. But you saw me yesterday. Why do you ask now?”

“Word gets around,” Rhodes said. “I heard you had been called into a meeting with Johnson today. I also heard that Director Craddock was there. I figure you were getting reamed for something.”

“No, not really. Just…they keep wanting to plow up this story about my sister and my father, and I’m just done with it.”

Rhodes looked up and down the hall, as if wanting to make sure no one was within hearing distance. “I wonder if they’re looking to see if it emotionally affected you…maybe seeing if you’re capable of working after such a personal and traumatic event.”

“Doubtful.”

“I don’t know. It would make sense as to why I was just given an assignment without you as a partner. I know we haven’t been made official partners yet, but the case looks like it would be right up your alley.”

“What? When did you get the assignment?”

“Half hour ago. I’m about to set up travel arrangements right now. The reason I was given was that Johnson wasn’t sure you were up for the task. He thought you might need some time to recuperate.”

Chloe grinned, but only because it was easier to do that than to bite back her scream of anger. “I’m perfectly fine. Apparently, his idea if recuperating is listening in on wiretaps and helping out the research department.”

“You poor thing,” Rhodes said. “If you want, I could push to get you added.”

“I appreciate it,” she said, “but I think I’ll make the request.”

Rhodes nodded, but it was clear that she was uncomfortable with the way it was all going down. “Don’t push, though. I wouldn’t want you getting into trouble or anything.”

“I won’t.”

She was about to turn around and head right back to Johnson’s office, but then a thought occurred to her. It wasn’t like Rhodes to show this type of concern. The phrase I wouldn’t want you getting into trouble or anything was not like her at all.

“Rhodes…have you heard anything? About me or my sister?”

“Nothing anyone else hasn’t already heard. It sort of got around that you went down to Texas and had some sort of confrontation with your father. Most people around here think it was heroic of you. I think Johnson probably does, too…he just has his superiors breathing down his neck.”

Chloe wasn’t quite sure why, but she didn’t believe her. She felt that she was getting to know Rhodes pretty well, and there was something about the way she had answered the question that did not sit right with Chloe. Still, if she wanted to get on this case and try to carry on with her life as usual, she was going to have to let it sit for now.

She walked back down the hallway to Johnson’s office and happened to run into him in the hallway while he was on his way to somewhere else.

“So, I spoke with Rhodes,” she said. “Why was I not given the chance to work this new case with her?”

“Not that I have to answer to you, but I didn’t know that you would be ready to head back out, given everything you had been through.”

“I appreciate that, sir. But if nothing else, I think it might actually help me.”

He smirked at her and she could not tell if it was one of disgust or good nature. “Would it help to get you over this subordinate attitude you’ve got going on?”

“I can’t promise it,” she said. She meant it as a joke, hoping it might sway him.

“She’s due to leave within a few hours. Can you just drop things that quickly and go?”

“Yes, sir.”

Johnson considered this for a moment and then sighed. “The case does seem to fall right into your wheelhouse.” He then gave a defeated little shrug and said, “Okay. Speak with Rhodes and have her forward you all of the case details. You’re officially on the case, but I need you to be responsible. If you get out there and find that you aren’t ready for it just yet, I need you to be honest about it.”

“Of course. And thank you, sir.”

She wheeled back around, heading for Rhodes’s office before he could change his mind.

CHAPTER THREE

Danielle had been handling the aftermath of Millseed, Texas, about as well as she might have expected. Because Danielle had always preferred solitude and stewing in it to actually trying to be proactive, she had spent the five days since coming back home sitting in her apartment. The only thing she had done in terms of going out and trying to better herself was seeing the doctor in regards to her injuries. She had suffered a mild concussion and a slightly sprained ankle from the confrontation with her father and nothing more.

Still, she felt sore all over. She had read something somewhere about how the body keeps score—how even when there is no psychical trauma, your muscles and nerve endings recall the tension of a given time or place and can cause it to resurface.

Apparently, her body was doing exactly that.

She was also having to deal with the fact that she held no regrets. She was glad the bastard was dead—glad even that she had helped get him to such a state. When she looked back to the backbreaking work of digging the grave and then shoving him in, she was filled with relief and pride rather than any sort of sadness.

These were all things she would never tell Chloe. She was well aware that Chloe had always thought she was a little deranged. It was hard to read Chloe on the matter, though. Sometimes it was broached as an almost passive sort of comic relief, while other times she felt that Chloe almost looked down on her because of it.

Honestly, Danielle just wanted to get back to her life—back to work, back to pretending like her father didn’t exist. She still felt that it had been unfair of him to resurface after she had spent so much of her life pretending he didn’t exist in the first place.

Now, on day five after everything had taken place in Millseed, Danielle was sitting on her couch, trying to decide what to watch on Netflix. She knew she needed a shower, knew she needed to call into work to see when they would let her start picking up shifts again. But she knew once she did that, her life would begin again. And as cliché as it seemed, she knew that now that her father was dead, there would be a new chapter to her life beginning when she did decide to get her ass off the couch.

As if reading her thoughts about needing to get into action, her cell phone rang on her coffee table. She reached out for it and was surprised to see it was Chloe. They’d only spoken once since returning from Texas. It was unlike Chloe to distance herself after something so monumental, but Danielle assumed she had her reasons. The lies they had constructed were so intricate and numerous that she likely figured it was best not to talk very much for a while.

So then why is she calling now?

Curious, she answered the call. “Hey, sis.”

“Hey, Danielle. How are you feeling?”

“Rested up and mostly fine, I think. You?”

“Same. I haven’t been sleeping particularly well, though. I feel the need to just start life back up again, you know?”

“I do, actually,” Danielle said. “The sleep thing…you having nightmares?”

“No. It’s just anxiety, I think. Look, D…there’s something a little strange going on at work and I wanted to give you a heads-up. I was questioned again this morning about what happened. It wasn’t just my director this time, though. He brought in some other people from higher up—the sort of people that only get involved when there could be potential trouble brewing.”

“How’d you do?” Danielle asked. She knew just how careful her sister could be. She didn’t think Chloe would have cracked under the pressure, but she wasn’t absolutely positive. If either one of them cracked or slipped up and their stories all of a sudden didn’t line up, they were both going to be in some pretty deep shit.

“I did fine, but I’m worried they might call you in, too.”

“Don’t I need to be arrested for them to question me like that?”

“No. It’s almost considered a courtesy at this point. They’ve already questioned you, so they’d expect you to accommodate them again.”

“To hell with that. Why would I want to go through it again?”

“If they do contact you, you can’t have that sort of attitude.”

Danielle rolled her eyes. “So I just bend over and keep taking it as long as they want to give it to me?”

“For a while, yes. Just please…Danielle, please stick to the story. Don’t let your emotions or annoyance take over.”

“Is that really why you called?” Danielle asked.

“It is. Well, that and because I know how you tend to stew in your emotions when things get bad. How are you holding up?”

“I stink. And I’m out of things to binge on Netflix. Thinking of heading back in to work tomorrow.”

“That sounds good,” Chloe said. “Please don’t talk about what we did to the people you work with, okay?”

“My God, Chloe. I’m not an idiot.”

“I know, I just—”

“Chloe, let’s not do this. How about you go ahead and resume your life and I’ll do the same. Let’s give it a few weeks and see where we are. I know how this works. We’ve been through something pretty fucked up. And no matter how you like to paint it in your head, you and I have never been especially close. We don’t have that tight sisterhood bond, you know? So maybe we don’t need each other to get through this.”

She sensed she had said too much about halfway through, but it had been too late to stop by that point.

“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” Chloe said. Her voice was deflated and thin. Danielle had clearly hurt her feelings—something she had never been fully aware of either as a child or as a grown woman.

“Chloe…”

“I think you should get back to work,” Chloe interrupted. “Pick up your life like it was before all of this. And if the bureau or the cops come calling, all I ask is that you play it cool. Don’t take it personally. They are, after all, only doing their jobs.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Love you, sis. Bye for now.”

Before Danielle could respond, Chloe ended the call. Danielle set her phone down slowly, not quite sure why she was so bothered by the nature of the conversation. She had always been the sister who had not been bothered by hostile discussions. But now, to feel that Chloe was so annoyed with her, she felt like she was letting her sister down.

It’s because she saved your ass from a stupid mistake, she thought.

Yes, it had occurred to her several times in the last few days that Chloe had likely saved her life. And that would change the direction of their relationship from here on out. Never having been comfortable with feeling as if she owed people anything, Danielle was simply not sure how to handle it.

She absently started scrolling through the Netflix home screen again. She looked back to her phone and considered calling work. Maybe she could even get on the schedule for tonight.

Chloe was right, after all; she had to pick things up at some point. She no longer had the shadow of her father looking over her to blame everything on. No, now the bigger mistake was one that she had to own—the knowledge of knowing she had played a very large hand in her father’s death.

Yes, it would alter her entire life from here on out, but it was no reason to throw in the towel and give up on everything. But what scared her the most was the notion of discovering—even after her father was no longer around—that he may not have been the only problem after all.

CHAPTER FOUR

Chloe had pored over the information in the case files the moment she received them. She did not realize it then, but she was diving into the case in the same way an alcoholic turned to the bottle. She was trying to drown out the reality of what she and Danielle had done. She felt that if she could bury it all beneath enough passion for her work, she might just be able to obliterate it completely after a while.

They were headed to the rather small town of Pine Point, Virginia. About ten miles outside of Winchester, it boasted a population of just under ten thousand and was made up of predominately wealthy families, making it a case that seemed to line up with just about every case Chloe and Rhodes had been assigned to. The difference here, though, was that the victims were both male. From what Chloe could tell from the reports, there was nothing special or unique about the killings. It appeared that in both cases, the men had been beaten to death rather brutally, with no apparent links between the two.

“Getting tired of these high-end neighborhoods yet?” Rhodes asked from behind the wheel. Chloe, looking over the case files on her tablet, looked away from the content and out the window. Somehow, they had already arrived. The distance between DC and Pine Point was only about an hour and a half, and it had gone by quickly.

“I’m getting there,” Chloe admitted. “You have to admit, though…the familiarity of it is pretty nice, right?”

“Yeah, I suppose. The files for this one, though…makes me think this one is going to turn into nothing more than some whacked out muscle-bound dick taking his aggressions out on those he feels are either beneath him, or a threat to him.”

This had also crossed Chloe’s mind, but she wasn’t too sure. Someone killing for those reasons would likely be perfectly fine with placing a bullet between someone’s eyes or slicing through a throat. A brutal beating on two separate occasions seemed to speak to something a little darker.

There was more to dissect, but her brain was in a fog of sorts. There were a few questions she wanted to ask Rhodes—questions to help her probe into what Johnson and others in the bureau were truly thinking about what she had helped her sister do. She couldn’t help but wonder if they knew more than they were telling but didn’t have enough evidence to actually confront her. After all, it was the fact that Johnson had been fully prepared to send Rhodes out on this case alone that had Chloe more paranoid than anything else.

“Can I ask you something, Rhodes?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“Have you heard anything about an internal investigation into my actions regarding my sister?”

She tried to read Rhodes’s reaction but her partner had a poker face. After a few moments, she shook her head. “I don’t think so. I know there were questions about your father and his abduction of your sister, but I haven’t heard anything about an internal investigation into your actions.” She hesitated for a moment and then shrugged. “If you’re worried about Johnson not immediately pairing you with me for this case, I wouldn’t read too much into it. I’d imagine he was just taking your mental well-being into consideration.”

“Maybe.”

“Now…let me ask you something,” Rhodes said. “And please don’t take this the wrong way. This is just between the two of us, but I need to know. Is there anything I need to know about? Is there anything you’re afraid they might be looking into?”

“No,” Chloe said. She feared she’d answered too quickly, with a bit too much bite to her tone.

“I had to ask,” Rhodes said. “Working together in this capacity and all. I can’t claim to understand what you’re going through, so I won’t patronize you. But I just need to know you’re good to go. In hindsight, I should have maybe asked before you signed on to help with this case, but you know how it goes.”

“I’m good.”

This was mostly true, but now Chloe could not help but wonder if Rhodes’s prying had ulterior motives. Had Johnson spoken with Rhodes before they left DC, asking her to try to pry information out of her? It wasn’t like Rhodes to ask deep, personal questions. She typically remained above the surface, not going too deep. For her to pry so blatantly seemed a little out of character for her.

“Good,” Rhodes said. “And I hope you know that if you do ever need to talk it out or process through it or whatever, I’m a decent listener.”

“Thanks,” Chloe said, though the comment made her even more suspicious.

The two women fell silent as the GPS on Rhodes’s phone told them to turn in half a mile. And beyond that turn was their destination, the crime scene of the second victim.

***

There were two local cops waiting for them, as had been arranged with a phone call before leaving bureau headquarters. Their car was parked on the side of the road, a few feet away from a curb where two streets intersected. One of the cops, a very tall red-headed woman, smiled and pointed to the space directly behind their car. Rhodes pulled into the designated place and said: “This one already seems bossy.”

Chloe and Rhodes stepped out of the car and joined the two cops on the sidewalk. The tall woman greeted them first, her smile wide and strikingly beautiful. The second cop was an African American man who looked to be forty or so. He had the look of someone who knew full well he worked in the shadow of his partner. When he shook Chloe’s and Rhodes’s hands, introducing himself as Officer Benson, he did so with a lackluster smile.

The tall redhead was named Anderson, and she spoke with a slight southern drawl. “Good to meet you,” she said, the you coming out with a dragged out a on the end, the typical southern ya. It made Chloe wonder if she was the type who used the word y’all.

“So,” Anderson said, “it’s a pretty simple story. A guy named Viktor Bjurman was found on this curb last night. Two teenagers on bikes discovered him. The blood was still pouring out of him. He was pronounced dead right away when the ambulance got here. The latest report from this morning tells us that there are multiple causes: blunt force trauma to the head, a broken rib, which was shoved upwards and pierced his heart, nearly completely crushed chest and breastbone, or a collapsed lung. Take your pick.”

“Any clear idea on the weapon of choice?” Chloe asked.

“Everyone is assuming it was a bat,” Anderson said. “The coroner has all but agreed with this, but says if it was a bat, it was an aluminum one. Bjurman was struck with such force that a wooden bat would have left splinters.”

“Is there any connection to Bjurman and the first victim?” Rhodes asked.

“None that we can find,” Benson said. “Victim one—a guy by the name of Steven Fielding—was found in his home. His wife discovered him sprawled out on the living room floor.”

“At first, it looked like a botched burglary,” Anderson said. “Someone broke in, beat the hell out of the guy who just happened to be home, and took some stuff. But as of right now, the wife can’t come up with a single thing that appears to be missing. So it looks like if it was a break-in, it was only to kill Fielding.”

“The files indicate that the first murder wasn’t as brutal as this second one, right?” Chloe asked.

“Depends on your definition of brutal,” Anderson said. “He was struck in the head and face with something hard—something that may or may not have also been an aluminum bat. Fielding’s nose was crushed to oblivion. Grossest damned thing I’ve ever seen.”

“But on the other hand,” Benson said, “Bjurman’s face appeared to have never been struck, though there was a single blow to the top of the head that left a slight indentation.”

Chloe walked a few steps forward, looking to the area on the sidewalk that had clearly been Viktor Bjurman’s final resting place. The dried blood was still visible, though it was clear that the city maintenance crew had done its best to clean it up.

“Is there anything at all remarkable about this intersection?” she asked.

“Nothing at all,” Benson said. “It’s just like any other corner in this town.”

Chloe walked to the end of the corner and looked to the right. If Bjurman was indeed attacked here on the street, this would be where the attacker had been hiding. It would have been easy enough, she supposed. There was no stoplight, just a stop sign. Before the sign, though, there was a monstrous oak tree that had deposited acorns all over the ground. The oak was bordered by withering shrubs. Still, even without their foliage, they would provide more than enough room for someone to remain hidden, so long as they were crouching down.

“The files state that Bjurman was some sort of athletic trainer,” Chloe said. “Any idea what kind?”

“Yeah, he was more of a fitness guy, not a trainer per se,” Anderson said. “Worked down at a private gym, but he did house calls, too.”

“What gym might that be?”

“Fulbright Fitness. This super pricey place that pushes yoga, sweat rooms, things like that.”

“And what about Fielding?” Rhodes asked. “What did he do?”

“Car detailer by day, bartender by night,” Anderson said.

Chloe did her best to not let her own personal issues cloud her mind, but so far she was having trouble finding a link between the two men and the way they were killed. She was quickly coming to the conclusion that this was not a serial case at all. But even if that was the case, the fact remained that two men had been brutally killed.

“Victim one didn’t live here in Pine Point, right?” Chloe asked.

“May as well,” Benson said. “He lived just a few miles outside of town, closer to Winchester. Little town called Colin.”

Another mark against it being an obvious serial, Chloe thought.

“Has anyone spoken to Bjurman’s wife yet?” Rhodes asked.

“Yeah, that would be me,” Anderson said. “Weird situation there. She was very sad, of course, but not as upset as you’d expect.”

“Any idea why?” Chloe asked.

“None that she shared. You’re welcome to speak to her yourself. Maybe you can get more out of her than I did.”

There was no scorn or judgment in the statement. It seemed Anderson and Benson might be glad the bureau had arrived to take this mess off of their hands. They both stood idly by as Chloe and Rhodes snapped a few quick pictures of the scene, as if waiting impatiently for them to make the case magically disappear.