Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [329]
“I honestly can’t tell you all their names, but the one who was killed was a Special Agent Delaney.”
“Richard Delaney?”
“Yes, sir. I believe so, sir. He was the HRT—the Hostage Rescue Team—negotiator. From what I heard, he had them ready to talk. They invited him into the cabin, then opened fire. The bastards. Sorry, sir.”
“No, don’t apologize. And thank you for telling me.”
The soldier turned to lead them through the trees, but Tully wondered if Cunningham would manage the trek. His face had gone white; his usual straight-backed walk seemed a bit wobbly.
With only a quick glance at Tully, he said, “I fucked up big time. I just sent Agent O’Dell to autopsy a friend of hers.”
Tully knew this case would be different. Just the idea that Cunningham would use the words please and fucked in the same day, let alone the same hour, was not a good sign.
CHAPTER 4
Maggie accepted the cool, damp towel from Stan and avoided his eyes. With only a quick glance, she could see his concern. He had to be concerned. Judging from the towel’s softness, she could tell it had come from Stan’s own privately laundered stash, unlike the institutional stiff ones that smelled like Clorox. The man had a cleaning obsession, a fetish that seemed contradictory to his profession; a profession that included a weekly, if not daily, dose of blood and body parts. She didn’t question his kindness, however, and without a single word, took the towel and rested her face in its cool, plush texture, waiting for the nausea to pass.
She hadn’t thrown up at the sight of a dead body since her initiation into the Behavioral Science Unit. She still remembered her first crime scene: spaghetti streaks of blood on the walls of a hot, fly-infested double-wide trailer. The blood’s owner had been decapitated and hanging by a dislocated ankle from a hook in the ceiling like a butchered chicken left to jerk and drain out, which explained the blood-streaked walls. Since then, she had seen comparable, if not worse—body parts in take-out containers and mutilated little boys. But one thing she had never seen, one thing she had never had to do, was look down into a body bag soaked with the blood, cerebral spinal fluid and the brain matter of a friend.
“Cunningham should have told you,” Stan said, now watching her from across the room, keeping his distance as if her condition might be contagious.
“I’m sure he didn’t know. He and Agent Tully were just leaving for the scene when he called me.”
“Well, he’ll certainly understand you not assisting me.” He sounded relieved—no, pleased—with the prospect of not having her shadow him all morning. Maggie smiled into the towel. Good ol’ Stan was back to his normal self.
“I can have a couple autopsy reports ready for you by noon.” He was washing his hands again, as if preparing the damp towel for her had somehow contaminated his precious hands.
The urge to escape was overwhelming. Her empty but churning stomach was reason enough to do just that. Yet there was something that nagged at her. She remembered an early morning less than a year ago in a Kansas City hotel room. Special Agent Richard Delaney had been concerned about her mental stability, so much so that he had risked their friendship to make sure she was safe. After almost five months of him and Agent Preston Turner playing her bodyguards, protecting her from a serial killer named Albert Stucky, it had come down to that early morning confrontation, Delaney pitting his stubbornness against hers all because he wanted to protect her.
However, at the time, she had refused to see it as protection. She had refused to simply see it as his attempt to, once again, play the role of her surrogate big brother. No, at the time, she had been mad as hell at him. In fact, that was the last time she had spoken to him. Now here he lay in a black nylon body bag, unable to accept her apology for being so pigheaded. Perhaps the least she could do was to make certain he received the respect he deserved. Nausea or not, she owed him that.
“I’ll be okay,” she said.
Stan