Cold Spite (Cold Justice: Most Wanted #5)

Chapter 20

CHAPTER TWENTY

D elilah stretched her aching limbs and yawned widely. It was 3:15 a.m. East Coast time, and her eyes were scratchy with fatigue. The flight was loud, cold, and uncomfortable. Thankfully they’d begun their descent. They were near their destination.

Cas— Demarco —was stretched out on the floor, head on his kit bag covered with a thin blanket. He’d gone to sleep soon after takeoff. He looked as peaceful there as if he were sleeping in one of the comfortable beds at the Del. She guessed he had a lot of experience doing this, from his SEAL days and with the Hostage Rescue Team, who were always racing all over the US and the world, being the quiet heroes, saving the day.

It had been his dream to get into HRT.

He’d once told her he’d set his eyes on it as a young SEAL deployed to Afghanistan. His platoon had had an HRT operator embedded with it, collecting evidence on a high-value target the FBI agent had then arrested and escorted back to the US for trial.

He’d told her he hadn’t liked how many innocents were caught up in urban warfare. Didn’t enjoy the bloodlust some of his peers had developed over time. But he liked the idea of taking down specific targets and prosecuting actual crimes. That’s what he’d told her anyway, when they’d lain naked in bed, side by side, both reluctant to sleep when their time together was always short.

And he’d done it. Passed selection into the most elite tactical law enforcement unit in the US, if not the world.

She’d known he would.

Had it made him happy?

Happy in a way she hadn’t been able to?

She watched him now, taking advantage of the fact he couldn’t see her staring. He was still unfairly beautiful, like some fallen angel. All that thick, silky, sinfully black hair and eyes that shone like polished gold. His face was a little older, more mature, less boyish. The groove between his dark brows carved deep, as if a frown was his default expression nowadays.

His confession that he’d lied filled her with mixed emotions. Gratitude because she hadn’t been wrong about their feelings for one another. Sadness that he hadn’t had the faith to believe in what they’d had—that it hadn’t been enough for him to take a risk on. Anger because he’d caused her so much pain with his lack of courage.

What a classic alpha male. Tough on the outside. A seething wreck of scarred emotional turmoil on the inside.

It was done now.

She was glad they’d cleared the air.

No more secrets.

There’d be no repeat of mistakes from the past. She was going to be too busy clearing her name before she became wanted for murder to have time to fall into that emotional quagmire again.

Suddenly, he opened his eyes and stared straight into hers. She blinked and looked away and hoped he didn’t realize she’d been ogling him for some time.

He climbed slowly to his feet and stretched out his arms above his head, showing off the breadth of his shoulders before taking a seat two down from her. The noise from the engine changed and the wheels dropped. They were about to land.

As soon as the plane stopped taxiing, they picked up their belongings and walked to the rear of the aircraft to deplane via the ramp.

Demarco’s cell dinged, his personal cell, which he pressed awkwardly to his ear as he juggled the kit bag that was heavy enough to contain a small arsenal. Whatever he was listening to didn’t make him happy.

They started down the ramp before it was even fully down. Thankfully, he didn’t bother with the handcuffs this time.

He slid the cell back into his pocket. “Killion sent a friend of his to meet us.” He scanned the area and pointed. “Alex Parker. Runs a cybersecurity firm and consults heavily with the BAU. Wife’s an agent.” He lowered his voice. “Rumor has it he’s a former spook.”

She eyed the man standing a short distance away beside a large black SUV as they strode across the tarmac toward him. Parker opened the rear for their luggage.

They all shook hands.

“Agent Quinn? Nice to meet you. Sorry to hear about your friend and colleague.” Parker turned to Demarco. “Operator Demarco. I recognize you, of course, but we haven’t been formally introduced. Alex Parker. You can put your stuff in the back here too.”

Demarco hung onto his belongings. “My truck is here. I’ll need it in the morning.”

Delilah felt a sudden pang that they’d be separated, but what had she expected? Nobody thought Demarco was dead. He didn’t have to keep a low profile. He was expected to report for duty tomorrow.

Funny that it hit her so hard. She should be used to saying goodbye to Cas Demarco by now.

“Killion had your truck driven back to your apartment complex.” Alex Parker smiled and transformed an average-looking face into devastatingly attractive.

Wow . He’d have been a very useful spook .

Demarco’s brows rose. “Seems like Killion thought of everything.” He sounded resentful rather than grateful.

“Get in. We’ll talk on the way.”

“We appreciate the help,” said Demarco, as if he and she were a team. And maybe they were in this. Scanlon, if it was Scanlon, wouldn’t be satisfied just with her. He’d want Demarco too. But Demarco was HRT and his whereabouts were more protected than most.

He wouldn’t be so easy to attack.

For that, she was grateful.

Delilah took the back seat and fought another yawn.

“What can you tell us?” she asked once they were underway. Parker drove fast but handled the vehicle in a manner that suggested he knew what he was doing.

“Not that much. I was only brought onboard this afternoon to check what my team and I can find out about Joseph Scanlon since his release and to see if we could pick him up in the La Jolla area last night.”

Delilah sagged a little to know it was only about 30 hours since her friends had been murdered and her life had been upended. “Thanks for helping us. I can pay for your services as soon as I can access my accounts. Did you find anything to place him at the scene?”

“Nothing yet.” He caught her gaze in the mirror. “We can discuss payment when this is all over. I admit I kind of like Killion owing me a favor.”

She huffed out a laugh. “This is a heck of a big favor.”

“Even better.”

She suddenly remembered she was wearing the wig and began removing the pins and dragged it off her head, shaking out her own long dark hair and scratching her scalp. She breathed out a long sigh.

She caught Parker’s glance in the mirror again, but it wasn’t the perusal of a man who found her dazzlingly attractive. Her mood dropped. “You aren’t sure if you can trust me. ”

Demarco bristled like her own personal attack dog.

“I’m very careful about the people I invite into my home, Agent Quinn. I have a wife and a baby I love beyond reason. When I say I’ll do anything to protect them, I mean anything .”

Demarco stiffened.

Delilah was amused but grateful the HRT operator kept his mouth shut. Despite recent evidence to the contrary, she did not need him to fight her battles.

“Let me know when you make a decision. In the meantime, you can drop me at a hotel—as long as someone lends me money to pay for it.” She laughed self-consciously. As much as she wanted to be independent, she wasn’t. Not right now. She wanted to visit her parents but even that wasn’t safe. She wouldn’t place them in Scanlon’s target zone.

“You can stay at my place,” Demarco told her. “I have a spare room.”

Delilah opened her mouth to argue, because spending too much time with Cas Demarco would be a mistake of epic proportions. At the same time, she’d already spent a lot of his money and didn’t want to bankrupt the guy when he was doing her a favor.

“That’s not necessary,” Parker interrupted. “You are welcome to stay with us if you’d like to, but I want you to know it’s only because I do trust you. We have a spare room that’s soundproofed—you never know when you’ll need to stash a kidnap victim.”

At their combined looks of surprise, he grinned. “And it’s particularly useful as we have a six-month-old baby who is teething and has the lungs of a future opera singer.”

Demarco glanced back at her anxiously as if he thought she’d crumble at the thought of being close to a baby.

She stopped herself from rolling her eyes. The fact that he cared shouldn’t be something she held against him, but over the past five years she’d had plenty of time to inure herself against the pain of being infertile. Didn’t mean she didn’t ache with want sometimes, but she wasn’t a fragile flower. And there were plenty of advantages to not having kids .

“Maybe I’ll redesign my spare room because that sounds useful.” Her mouth went dry. “Except I don’t have a spare room anymore.”

“Let’s deal with catching the killer and keeping you safe before we worry about that aspect of things,” Demarco told her.

She refrained from telling Demarco he didn’t have to worry about a damned thing when it came to her former home.

“Operationally, it would be easiest if you stay with us until after the memorial service tomorrow. My wife and I plan to attend, as does Killion. Georgie will be at the FBI’s daycare, but we have a dog who’ll keep you company. Afterwards, we can meet with a few other interested parties who’ve been read into the situation.”

“What people?” This was her life. She didn’t want to be in the dark about who was getting added to the circle—not that she had a say now she’d asked for help.

“People Killion trusts. Tonight, we all need some sleep and tomorrow, we have to take a moment to pay our respects to a good man.”

She pressed her palms together at the need to honor the dead. “I really should call Valerie’s mother.”

“Again, you can do that. I’m not in the FBI, and I’m not your superior. But if you do, you risk negating everything you’ve done up until this point to hide the fact you survived. Valerie Strauss will still be deceased—that won’t change. But it might harm our chances of finding her killer.”

Delilah hunched over. “How do you know it wasn’t me? Really?”

He gave her a long look in the mirror. “I dug a little. As far as your story goes, I found you running past several door cams around the time the fire started.” He cocked a brow. “It’s generally advisable to stretch before you start running, by the way.”

She laughed unexpectedly. “Believe me, I know.”

That was fast work. And presumably illegal without a warrant.

“And you could have killed your friend. Set a fire in the apartment downstairs. But then when you came back, you hung around for far too long if you were the killer. In fact, why go for a run at all? Seems like a weird thing to do when you could have just disappeared and faked your own death. Plus, I checked your background,” he was staring straight ahead now, “nothing there but integrity and character. Someone who has dedicated her life to service and upholding the family tradition within the Bureau.”

She drew in a deep breath, grateful to this stranger for making her feel respected and believed, despite the circumstances. “Thank you. I appreciate that. I hope the FBI feels the same way when this is all over.”

“The FBI is overrated,” Alex joked.

Demarco grunted.

She smiled. Alex Parker was doing his best to reassure her that everything was okay, but for some reason Demarco’s nose was out of joint.

“I set up some searches for Scanlon’s cell phone location and for his presence on any flight manifests. Unfortunately, it shows he was at his family’s home in La Croix, Louisiana, all day Monday, but travelled from New Orleans to Seattle today.”

Delilah felt deflated.

“Could he have flown under a false identity and left his cell behind?” suggested Demarco.

“Yep. For sure,” Alex agreed. “I’ll set up facial recognition programs tomorrow to scour the internet in case he appeared in the background of anyone’s social media posts, or in any malls or street cams that are online in the San Diego area.”

She was impressed. “He has a twin brother, Virgil. Monozygotic twin so identical in every way, except Virgil has a scar down one side of his face. He was a little heavier than Joseph the last time I saw him, but who knows what shape he’s in now.”

Parker passed the few cars on the road and left them quickly behind. “I’ll add Virgil to the searches tomorrow. Anything from the autopsies?”

Demarco cracked the window for some fresh air. “Time of death of Clarence Carpenter was between 5 and 7 a.m., so after Delilah’s house burned down.”

“Which could make me look guilty once they find out I am actually alive,” Delilah muttered.

Demarco glanced over his shoulder. “I didn’t falsely identify Valerie’s remains as yours because the fire damage was so extensive it was implausible. But I remembered that you told me years ago how you and Valerie had matching tattoos at the base of your spine. When the Assistant Medical Examiner asked for any identifying marks, I mentioned that tattoo, and she drew her own conclusions.”

Delilah flinched.

“That won’t protect you if it comes to light you’d seen Delilah alive and well,” Parker commented.

“I’m aware.” Demarco’s deep voice rolled over her, and she tried to ignore the magnetic pull he always seemed to have on her. “Obviously, I’m hoping that doesn’t happen before we are ready to reveal the truth about Delilah’s survival. But no one saw us together that I’m aware of, and when we were together, she wore the wig. I did speak to a friend of mine this morning, a Senior Chief at Coronado. He came up with two names of friends of Scanlon’s who are still on the teams. Mark Johnson and Kevin Holtz.”

Delilah recognized the names from the investigation. Despite being close friends of Scanlon’s, they’d had no discernible links to his criminal activities, but they’d been potential witnesses.

“I’ll see if one of my people can find any recent electronic links between them and Scanlon. Anything else?” asked Parker.

They were getting close to Quantico now.

“One thing.” Demarco swung to face her with a look of disquiet on his features. “I didn’t tell you earlier, but Valerie suffered significant skull trauma.” He indicated the back of his head. “Here.”

Delilah covered her mouth. “He hit her with something?”

“The assistant ME wasn’t sure. A beam fell during the fire and struck the body which could either account for or help obscure the damage. Their forensic anthropologist will be back in a couple of weeks, and she’ll attempt to piece it together. But Valerie was dead before the fire started. There was no smoke inside her lungs.”

“Scanlon was a Navy SEAL sniper. Bashing someone’s head in seems uncharacteristically brutish.” Parker turned off the interstate.

“It gets the job done.” Demarco frowned. “What if he shot her through the window first? Set a timer to set off a fire.”

Alex Parker mulled it over. “What about the lack of a visible entrance wound?”

Demarco gave her a look, his features shadowed by the darkness. “Bullet could have gone through her eye socket. The fire burned away most of the soft tissue.”

“Could he have made that shot?” Parker asked. “Because he couldn’t rely on the fire burning the evidence before the emergency services arrived and perhaps pulled her out of there.”

“Before he went to prison, he could have made the shot.” Demarco crossed his arms. “Now?” He shrugged. “He had three weeks where he could have practiced every day. With the right weapon, he could have made the shot from the opposite roof.”

“But he took my service weapon from my bedroom. He more likely crept inside shortly after I left. Mistakenly thought it was me in the chair, hit me from behind like the coward he is. The only light was from the TV and the one under the microwave. I doubt he’d have been able to tell me and Val apart.” She drew in a breath but ignored the sharp pain that cut into her ribs at the thought of her friend’s suffering.

“In and out in sixty seconds,” Demarco agreed. “Start the fire as soon as he believed you were dead. Makes sense.”

“Was that your usual evening routine? The run? Watching TV?” Parker asked.

She shook her head. “I usually run early in the morning, three times a week, but I missed that morning because I had court and had to meet with the prosecutor first thing. But the TV? Sure. Sometimes, I’ll sit and watch TV while I eat dinner.” Then she’d do more work, assuming she wasn’t called out for something.

“So he kills Valerie thinking it’s you, steals your weapon, and then heads over to David Gonzales’s place and shoots him.” Demarco laid it out.

She flinched.

“The CI, Clarence Carpenter? He was choked, which is much more Scanlon’s speed. But he died between 5 and 7 a.m., so that addition to the plan had a few flaws—assuming it’s connected.” Demarco gave a half shake of his head. “He had five years to plan it. He could have had his brother or one of his friends go map out the area of Delilah’s complex and follow her routine. He could have practiced his ass off with Glocks and whatever as soon as he got home. But for some reason he decided to improvise and kill the CI and try to inadvertently link it to the deaths of two FBI agents?”

“Perhaps he always planned to kill someone involved in one of their cases to throw investigators off his trail. Perhaps it was a matter of finding the right someone, anyone, on the day to target,” Alex mused. “Clarence Carpenter put himself on the top of the list when he contacted Gonzales for a meet that day.”

“We have to assume he bugged David’s Bucar.” Agitation rushed along her nerves along with growing fatigue, whereas Demarco looked wide awake and fully refreshed after his uncomfortable nap. “In which case, he presumably removed the bug after he murdered David.”

“Which still leaves us with no proof.” Demarco sounded despondent.

“We have some starting points. Let’s see where they lead us and, in the meantime, let’s all get some rest.” Parker pulled up outside a tall apartment building and got out of the SUV to open the trunk.

Demarco put his hand on the door handle. “You’ll be all right without me?”

She held his gaze as memories of her absolute devastation bombarded her. “I’ll be fine. The same way I’ve been fine for the past five years.”

Dammit. She hadn’t meant to say that last bit out loud.

His expression darkened.

“Good night, Demarco,” she said firmly. She refused to feel guilty.

“Good night, Delilah.” His eyes were unreadable in the shadows. “I’ll see you tomorrow after the service. Call me if you need me. Anytime. You know the number.”

She nodded. She wished it wasn’t etched onto her brain.

“I won’t let you down again.”

He closed the door before she could react to that statement.

Just as well.

He’d apologized. It was over five years ago, and she needed to move past the anger and grief. But it didn’t mean she had to forgive him, and it didn’t mean she wanted him thinking he was some medieval knight riding to her rescue. She didn’t need that bullshit. She needed help to catch Scanlon and put him away, but professional assistance only.

She slid over the console into the passenger seat and looked up at Demarco’s building as Alex Parker climbed back into the driver’s seat.

Weird to see where he lived after years of trying not to wonder.

Alex put on his seatbelt while reversing out of the lot. “You two have a history. Will that make it difficult for you?”

She eyed him. “Exactly how deep did you delve?”

“Deep enough.” He stopped the car before putting it back into drive. His eyes met hers and it was the sympathy in them that told her he knew everything there was to know that had been recorded—and had guessed some of the rest.

“Demarco is involved in this whether I like it or not. I’ll deal with it.”

Parker pulled away. “We aren’t far now.”

She shivered under her new wool blazer. “I’m grateful for your help with this.” She swallowed. “And for trusting me. Your wife is a lucky woman.”

“I’m the lucky one.” His eyes were sad when he looked at her. “We’ll figure it out, Agent Quinn.”

“Call me Delilah—although it has the same number of syllables, so it’s up to you.”

“Delilah it is.”

Five minutes later, Alex drove through tall automatic gates monitored by cameras and slid smoothly into the attached garage.

“Home, sweet home,” he said softly. “This way.”

He led her through a secure metal door, and they were greeted by a soft woof.

Alex patted a golden retriever on the head as the dog wagged its tail.

“This is Rex,” he said softly. “Valiant guard dog.”

She slid her fingers into Rex’s soft coat and petted him while he wagged his tail some more.

They turned right and into a huge dream kitchen, down a corridor and into a small, open-plan sitting room and bedroom with an attached bath.

He put her bags on the bed.

This was a pretty fancy spare room. “Is this for a housekeeper?”

“More for my in-laws when they occasionally come to visit. But it is, more or less, soundproofed, and the windows are bullet resistant. Plus, there’s no way of anyone finding a clear vantage point for any of the windows at the back of the house without me knowing an intruder is on the grounds.”

“You take your security seriously,” she noted.

He tilted his head to one side as he appeared to consider her words. “I take my family’s safety very seriously. Security is my business.”

She nodded.

“Mallory put a few basics in the drawers, and the bathroom is fully stocked. Relax. Get some sleep. I promise that things are in motion even if it seems we aren’t doing much of anything. We might be gone in the morning for this memorial when you wake up, especially as you’re on West Coast time. We’re dropping Georgie at the daycare first thing, so take your time. Make yourself at home, and help yourself to anything to eat or drink.”

“Thank you. I’ve already put you to a lot of trouble for which I’m sorry.” She hugged herself.

“Nothing I’m not used to.”

She laughed at that. “You must have a very understanding wife.”

“You have no idea. You’ll get to meet her tomorrow. Anything else I can get you?”

“Do you have a computer I could use? I want to do a little research—I’ll be careful.”

His gray eyes held hers. “I can do that…”

A shiver of apprehension washed over her at the expression in his eyes. “What?”

“If this isn’t Scanlon, if we discover that this is actually, instead, related to Clarence Carpenter and one of your public corruption cases, it might be harder to justify disappearing the way you did.”

She bit her lip. “I know. Cas, Demarco ,” she corrected, “told me to lie about going to David Gonzales’s home and taking my service weapon. Without the weapon or witnesses, no one can link me to David’s death despite the fact I texted him.” The lump in her throat was solid stone. “But if there’s no proof to connect me to the murder then there’s no evidence to convict the real killer either.” She blinked away the grit of fatigue. “And I think the same might be true for Valerie’s murder. If the ME can’t rule it a homicide, Scanlon—or whoever—might get away with it.” She clutched her hands together wishing she could get a grip on herself and her grief but knowing that while the killer was walking around free, she never would. “And if he can get away with killing two FBI agents, then perhaps the system doesn’t work quite as well as it should. ”

Alex looked down at his feet. “Can I ask why you haven’t called your father for help?”

She rubbed her temple and decided Alex Parker had earned the truth. “Dad has early onset dementia.” She forced down the knot in her throat. “We’ve kept it quiet at his insistence, but I don’t even know if he’ll recognize me when I next see him, let alone whether he’ll have a coherent conversation with someone who has the power to act about something this complex.” She met Parker’s clear gray eyes. “When I saw him at Christmas, he mostly knew who I was, but there were a couple of times… Anyway, I’m not saying I won’t contact or leverage his cronies if I have to, but if I can keep him out of it, I will.”

“I’m sorry.”

She nodded in acknowledgment. “My mother had all firearms removed from the house for everyone’s safety and has put alarms on the doors so she can hear if he leaves the house. She’s preparing really, for if things get worse.”

Parker pressed his lips together. “I can imagine how hard it must be to see someone you love lose themselves that way.” He put his hand on her shoulder and then moved away. “Try not to worry. We’ll figure it out.”

He softly closed the door, taking the dog with him. Drained and exhausted, she sat on the edge of the bed and held her head in her hands as thoughts from the last two days bombarded her. Val, David, Clarence, Scanlon, her job, her home, Demarco .

How could they possibly figure this out when the evidence was on the other side of the country?

Her eyes threatened to close she was so tired. She dragged off her clothes, found an oversized T-shirt in a drawer, curled up under the covers, and tried to sleep.