My nails were cutting into my hand. “Why?”
“I thought you’d be delighted,” Frank said, doing taken aback and a little miffed. “You didn’t want—”
“I didn’t want to go in to start with. I know. But I’m in now, and I’m getting close. Why the hell would you want to pull the plug? Because I didn’t ask you before I rattled these guys’ cage?”
“God, no,” said Frank, still all bland surprise. “Nothing to do with that. You went in to find a direction for this investigation, and you’ve done that beautifully. Congratulations, babe. Your work here is done.”
“No,” I said, “it’s not. You sent me in to find a suspect, those were your exact words, and so far all I’ve found is a possible motive with four possible suspects attached—five, if you take into account that Ned could be lying his little head off. How does that move the investigation forwards, exactly? The four of them will stick to their story, just like you said at the beginning, and you’re right back where you started. Let me do my fucking job.”
“I’m looking out for you. That’s my job. With what you’ve found out, you could be at risk here, and I can’t just ignore—”
“Bullshit, Frank. If one of those four killed her, I’ve been in danger since Day One, and it never bothered you one bit till now—”
“Keep your voice down. Is that it? You’re pissed off because I haven’t been protective enough?”
I could practically see his hands flying up in outrage, the wide offended blue eyes. “Give me a break, Frank. I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself, and you’ve never had a problem with that idea before. So why the fuck are you pulling me out?”
There was a silence. Finally Frank sighed. “Fine,” he said. “You want to know why, fine. I no longer feel that you’re maintaining the objectivity required to serve this investigation.”
“What are you talking about?” My heart was hammering. If he had surveillance on the house after all, or if he’d guessed that I’d taken off the mike—I should never have left it for so long, I thought wildly, stupid, I should’ve gone back inside every few minutes and made some kind of noise—
“You’re way too emotionally involved. I’m not stupid, Cassie. I have a fair idea what happened last night, and I know there’s shit you’re not telling me. Those are warning signs, and I’m not going to ignore them.”
He’d fallen for the Fauré; he didn’t know I’d been burned. My heart rate went down a notch.
“You’re losing your boundaries. Maybe I should never have pressured you to do this. I don’t know the ins and outs of what happened to you on Murder and I’m not asking, but it clearly wrecked your head, and you obviously weren’t ready for something like this just yet.”
I have a flash-bang temper, and if I lost it now, the argument was over; I would have proved Frank’s point. That was probably exactly what he was angling for. I kicked the tree trunk instead, hard enough that for a second I thought I’d broken my toe. When I could talk I said, coolly, “My head is doing just fine, Frank, and so are my boundaries. Every one of my actions has been directed towards achieving the goal of this investigation and finding a prime suspect in the murder of Lexie Madison. And I’d like to finish the job.”
“Sorry, Cassie,” Frank said, gently but very firmly. “Not this time.”
There’s one thing about undercover that no one mentions, ever. The rule is, the handler holds the brake: he’s the one who decides when you need to pull back or come out. He’s the one with the overview, after all, he may well have info that you don’t, and you do what he says if you value either your life or your career. But here’s the part we never talk about, the grenade you carry with you always: he can’t make you. I had never known anyone to throw that grenade before, but every one of us knows it’s there. If you were to say no, there would be—for a little while, at least, and that might be all you needed— fuck-all your handler could do about it.
That kind of breach of trust can’t be repaired. In that second I saw the airport codes in Lexie’s date book, that hard, ruthless scrawl.
“I’m staying,” I said. A sharp wave of wind ran through the woods and I felt my tree shiver, a deep judder going up into my bones.
“No,” Frank said, “you’re not. Don’t give me hassle on this, Cassie. The decision’s been made; there’s no point in us fighting about it. Go home, pack your stuff and start playing sick. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“You put me in here to do a job,” I said. “I’m not leaving till I get it done. I’m not fighting about it, Frank. I’m just telling you.”
This time Frank understood. His voice didn’t sharpen, but it had an undertow that made my shoulders go up. “Do you want me to pick you up off the street, find drugs on you and throw you in jail till you pull yourself together? Because I’ll do it.”
“No you won’t. The others know Lexie doesn’t do drugs, and if she gets dragged in on a bogus charge and then dies while in police custody, they’ll kick up such a stink that this whole operation will go up in flames and you’ll be cleaning up the mess for years.”
There was a silence, while Frank evaluated the situation. “You know this could end your career, don’t you?” he said eventually. “You’re disobeying a direct order from a superior officer. You know I could haul you in, take your badge and your gun, and fire you on the spot.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know.” But he wouldn’t do it, not Frank, and I knew I was taking advantage of that. I knew something else, too, I’m not sure how; maybe from the lack of shock in his voice. Sometime in his career, he had done this same thing himself.
“And you know you’re making me miss my weekend with Holly. It’s her birthday tomorrow. You want to explain to her why Daddy can’t be there after all?”
I winced, but I reminded myself that this was Frank, Holly’s birthday was probably months away. “So go. Let someone else monitor the mike feed.”
“Not a chance. Even if I wanted to, I don’t have anyone else. The budget’s run out on this one. The brass are sick of paying officers to sit around listening to you drink wine and strip wallpaper.”
“I don’t blame them,” I said. “What you do with the mike feed is your call; leave it to monitor itself, if you want. That’s your half of the gig. I’m just doing mine.”
“OK,” Frank said, on a long-suffering sigh, “OK. Here’s what we’re going to do. You’ve got forty-eight hours, starting now, to wind this up—”
“Seventy-two.”
“Seventy-two, on three conditions: you don’t do anything stupid, you keep calling in, and you keep that mike on you at all times. I want your word.”
Something prickled inside me. Maybe he did know, after all; with Frank you can never be sure. “Got it,” I said. “I promise.”
“Three days from now, even if you’re an inch away from breaking the case, you come in. By”—watch check—“quarter to midnight on Monday, you’re out of that house and in an emergency room, or at least on your way there. Until then, I’m going to hang on to this tape. If you stick to those conditions and you come in on time, I’ll erase it, and no one else ever needs to know about this conversation. If you give me one more iota of hassle, I will haul your arse in, whatever that takes and whatever consequences it has, and I will fire you. We clear?”
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re crystal clear. I’m not trying to fuck you around, Frank. It’s not about that.”
“This, Cassie,” Frank said, “was a really, really bad idea. I hope you know that.”
There was a beep and then nothing, just waves of static in my ear. My hands were shaking so hard that I dropped the phone twice before I managed to hit End.
The irony of it: he was millimeters from right. Even twenty-four hours earlier, I hadn’t been working this case; I’d been letting it work me, free-falling into it, full fathom five and swimming deeper. There were a thousand tiny phrases and glances and objects that had been scattered through this case like bread crumbs, going overlooked and unconnected because I had wanted—or thought I wanted—to be Lexie Madison so much more than I wanted to solve her murder. What Frank didn’t know, and what I couldn’t tell him, was that Ned of all people, without ever having a clue he was doing it, had pulled me back. I wanted to close this case, and I was ready—and this isn’t something I say lightly—to do whatever it took.
Probably you could say I came back fighting because I had been suckered, almost fatally, and this was my last chance to make up for that; or because the only way I would ever get my career back—It’s my job, I had said to Daniel, before I knew the words were going to come out—was if I got a solve here; or because our lost Operation Vestal had poisoned the air around me, and I needed an antidote. Maybe a little of all three. But this was the one I couldn’t get away from: no matter what this woman had been or done, we had been built into each other since we were born. We had led each other to this life, this place. I knew things about her that no one else knew, in all the world. I couldn’t leave her now. There was no one else to look through her eyes and read her mind, trace the silvery lines of runes she had left trailing behind her, tell the only story she had ever finished.
All I knew was that I needed the end of that story, that I needed to be the one who brought it home, and that I was frightened. I don’t scare easy, but just like Daniel, I’ve always known that there’s a price to pay. What Daniel didn’t know, or didn’t mention, is what I said right at the beginning: the price is a wildfire shape-changing thing, and you’re not always the one who chooses, you’re not always allowed to know in advance, what it’s going to be.
The other thing hitting me over and over, with a horrible sick lurch every time: this could have been why she had come looking for me, this could have been what she had wanted all along. Someone to change places with her. Someone longing for the chance to toss away her own battered life, let it evaporate like morning mist over grass; someone who would gladly fade to a scent of bluebells and a green shoot, while this girl strengthened and bloomed and turned solid again, and lived.
I think it was only in that moment I believed she was dead, this girl I had never seen alive. I’ll never be free of her. I wear her face; as I get older it’ll stay her changing mirror, the one glimpse of all the ages she never had. I lived her life, for a few strange bright weeks; her blood went into making me what I am, the same way it went to make the bluebells and the hawthorn tree. But when I had the chance to take that final step over the border, lie down with Daniel among the ivy leaves and the sound of water, let go of my own life with all its scars and all its wreckage and start new, I turned it down.
The air was so still. Any minute now, I would have to go back to Whitethorn House and do my best to wreck it.
Out of nowhere I wanted to talk to Sam so badly it was like being hit in the stomach. It felt like the most urgent thing in the world, to tell him, before it was too late, that I was coming home; that, in the ways that mattered most, I was already back; that I was scared, terrified as a kid in the dark, and that I needed to hear his voice.
His phone was off. All I got was the voice-mail woman telling me, archly, to leave a message. Sam was working: taking his turn surveilling Naylor’s house, going through statement sheets for the dozenth time in case he had missed something. If I’d been the crying type, I would have cried then.
Before I understood that I was doing it, I set my phone number to Private and dialed Rob’s mobile. I pressed my free hand flat over the mike and felt my heart going slow and hard under my palm. I knew this was very possibly the stupidest thing I’d done in my life, but I didn’t know how not to do it.
“Ryan,” he said on the second ring, wide awake; Rob always had trouble sleeping. When I couldn’t answer, he said, with a sudden new alertness in his voice, “Hello?”
I hung up. In the second before my thumb hit the button I thought I heard him say, fast and urgent, “Cassie?” but my hand was already moving and it was too late for me to pull it back even if I had wanted to. I slid down the side of the tree and sat there, with my arms wrapped tight around myself, for a long time.
There was this night, during our last case. At three in the morning I got on my Vespa and went down to the crime scene to pick Rob up. On the way back the roads were all ours, that late, and I was going fast; Rob leaned into the turns with me and the bike barely seemed to feel the extra weight. Two high beams came at us around a bend, brilliant and growing till they filled the whole road: a lorry, half over the center line and coming straight for us, but the bike swayed out of the way light as a stalk of grass and the lorry was past in a great whack of wind and dazzle. Rob’s hands on my waist shook every now and then, a quick violent tremor, and I was thinking of home and warmth and whether I had anything in the fridge.
Neither of us knew it, but we were speeding through the last few hours we had. I leaned on that friendship loose and unthinking as if it were a wall six foot thick, but less than a day later it started to crumble and avalanche and there was nothing in the world I could do to hold it together. In the nights afterwards I used to wake up with my mind full of those headlights, brighter and deeper than the sun. I saw them again behind my eyelids in that dark lane, and I understood then that I could have just kept driving. I could have been like Lexie. I could have hit full speed and taken us soaring up off the road, into the vast silence at the heart of those lights and out on the other side where nothing could touch us, ever.