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She walked to her desk and shuffled through the files there. Her last case was closed. Nothing new had come in. That was the way of a small private investigations firm. It was feast or famine. Pauley had explained the instability of the business was the primary reason he’d bought this building. The pub downstairs was the only one of its kind in this neighborhood. Very Irish, very vintage. He had leased it to a real Irishman years ago. The money from the lease provided sufficient income for scraping by if nothing else panned out.
Lately, Sadie had come to appreciate her old friend’s foresight. Barely a month after Pauley died, she had walked away from her damaged career at the BPD and taken over the PI shop. Pauley had left it to her, after all. Why not? She could be her own boss. Do things her own way.
Funny, her father—the man she hadn’t been able to impress with her law enforcement career—had suddenly been beyond pissed off that she’d left it behind.
Sadie shook off the memories. She poured a cup of coffee and walked over to the wall next to the door, the one that stood between her and the alley. No windows on that wall. She used it like a massive bulletin board for her cases. But at this end, next to the door, was her ongoing, four-year-old-pluspersonalcase. The one that haunted her sleep and gnawed at her every waking hour.
What in the world happened to Sadie Cross?
The answer to that question was the one—however remote—real reason for her to have even the slightest desire to continue breathing. A little less than five years ago she had taken what would turn out to be her final field op with the BPD. Deep undercover. Inordinately dangerous. Four months in, she’d disappeared. Nearly a year after vanishing she’d reappeared as if an alien spaceship had dropped her back on the planet. Those missing months had stolen the person she had once been. Had taken more from her than anyone knew. She’d come back an emptyshell. Her stellar law enforcement career had suddenly become that of a file clerk digging through dusty cold case files.
Now she was here. Filling the emptiness with booze and what Pauley had left her until she could find the truth.
She couldn’t really say why it mattered, but somehow it did. She stared at the timeline she had created. There were dozens of sticky notes on the wall. Red, yellow, and purple. Even a few pink ones. A couple of light-green ones. All were pieces of her shattered memory. Scattered fragments. Nothing, not counseling, not regression therapy, had unearthed more than mere slivers of recall. This past Christmas she’d considered going back to the guy who had done the regression therapy three years ago and trying again, but then he’d died. Car crash. He’d been the only one of the shrinks she’d seen that she had liked ... trusted just a little. She’d considered requesting her files and the audiotapes of her sessions after his death, but she’d never bothered.
She’d let it go. Wouldn’t help. The shrinks had reached a certain point, and her mind had blocked any further progress. There was a brick wall inside her head, and nothing or no one seemed able to get her past it. Maybe the truth was she didn’t want to know whatever was beyond that brick wall. It wasn’t like she could change whatever had happened during those missing months.
Sounds and images whispered through her mind, making her flinch.
She had survived. The only question was why.
“Just another mystery in the life of Sadie Cross.”
She stared at the colorful notes, some faded with age. Did it actually matter what had happened during those lost months? Probably not. She wasn’t a cop anymore. It wouldn’t fix the canyon-wide rift between her and her father. Damn sure wouldn’t help the failed operation. Still, part of her wanted those weeks and months back. It was her life, and whatever happened, she wanted to know and understand it. To log itin like the rest of her days. If she was going to continue breathing, she might as well have the whole story.
The regression therapy shrink, Dr.Oliver Holden, had told her the memories behind that wall were either gone for good or there to stay. Trying to dig them out was in all likelihood a pointless endeavor. If regression therapy hadn’t resurrected them, they weren’t coming. The trauma could be too much for her to handle. The mind’s ability to block something like that was powerful.
Denial was an incredibly strong cognitive process.
The soft chime of the alert that someone had approached the fire escape sounded. She went to her laptop and checked the camera. The stairway down to the first floor, to the pub, had long ago been closed off to allow for a private living space on the second level. This upstairs loft—her dusty, disorganized home—was entered via the fire escape in the alley. Since that access point created a vulnerability all its own, she’d taken precautions with plenty of added security. Like cameras and motion sensors.
Frustration furrowing her brow, she watched the images on the screen. Kerri Devlin, followed by Luke Falco, climbed the rusty iron stairs. At least now she knew who had landed the double homicide at Leo’s Tobacconist.
“Shit.”
She would have been far happier if it had been anyone else. Luke Falco she liked, sort of. It would be harder to lie to him with a good degree of success.
She needed to lie. Not that it was anything new.
She lied a lot.
It was necessary. Or, at least, less complicated.
Equally troubling, Falco and Devlin were good. By far the best of the lot at the BPD.
The knock came.Knock. Knock. Pause. Knock.Sadie stared at Falco’s face on the screen. She might as well get this over with. Even if they went away, they’d only come back again later.
At the door she disengaged the multiple dead bolts. Heaved a massive sigh and opened the door.
“What do you want?” She never minced words. Ask the question, get the answer. Done.
“We need to talk.”
Falco was usually direct as well. Most of the time anyway. She glanced at Devlin. “Fine. But make it fast. I have shit to do.”
She turned her back and walked over to where she’d left her coffee on the counter next to the sink. Like most lofts, the space was one big room with only a dinky bathroom closed off with its own walls. She liked it. The place suited her personality. Urban. No fuss. She kept the lighting dim, almost dark, on purpose. People were nosy. Especially detectives.
“I’d offer you coffee”—she held up her mug—“but you won’t be here long enough.”
