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“Well when you find him, let me know. We’ve got a bit of unfinished business.” Vera huffed a laugh, trying to brush it off.
After cleaning her wounds, Teddi forced her to lie down and try to rest until their nine a.m. call. She tried to fight her, but when Teddi threatened to hold her down, Vera gave in. Teddi hadn’t been joking but laid on her bed anyway, watching over her until the sun rose again.
Sleep wasn't something she was interested in. Not with her pistol under the pillow and a chair jammed beneath the door handle. No one was getting in or out. Why Vera wandered outside in the first place, she couldn’t fathom. But she wasn’t going anywhere alone again. Teddi knew she was tough but the reminder of how intensely she was attacked was evidenced by the raw wounds across her body.
She gripped the chair arm, willing the nausea to recede and forcing herself to turn back to the conversation at hand before fear ate her in one swallow.
“What about the lab results?” Vera asked J.
She shook her head and grabbed her phone. “Nothing yet but I wouldn’t worry. He promised we’re top priority.” Good. If they could get a fingerprint from the note or something useful off of the bodies they would be on sturdier footing. Deputy Gunson may be a good suspect but they needed undeniable proof linking him to the murders.
“And you’re sure about what you saw at Alex’s identification? You’re sure it wasn’t a suicide?” Mackey asked Vera point-blank.
She debriefed them about the falsified autopsy, sending over pictures for them to read through. Even Mackey was surprised at the cheap effort, scanning the documents with a frown.
“I’ve seen a lot of suicides and dead bodies, trust me. Some markings couldn’t be anything but human, not to mention the marks on his wrists. What Sam described when she found his body also testified to that.” The way she said it was so detached as if he was just another victim. Teddi knew better, knew it was eating away at her. It was the reason behind that dark look that kept taking her far away when she was still right next to her. She brushed the backs of her fingers against Vera’s thigh. Mackey mumbled something to J she couldn’t hear. Not as Vera’s thigh pressed gently back into her hand.
“To the Feds, then?” Teddi focused back on J, looking unimpressed with being ignored. “Are we going to the Feds? We’ve got you both as witnesses to evidence tampering, three bodies in some fucking weird ass shed in the middle of nowhere that took satellite photos for me to locate. It’s creepy as hell, by the way, I don’t know how you went inside there.” J shivered.
“No feds,” Vera nearly barked, shocking everyone into silence. She leaned back in her chair, hands flexing over the armrests. “Just, not yet. I’m not ready to hand this over and I don’t want Alex getting swept under the rug.” The lack of faith in her counterparts was shocking. Mackey must’ve had the same thought.
“You think they’d do that?” No matter how long Teddi knew Mackey, there was some part of her that was still tucked away. She knew she ate a tomato and ham sandwich every day for lunch, that she hated loud music and that leather was a favorite smell. Other than that, she was enigmatic, even now as she zeroed in on Vera through the computer screen. It was a look of heavy scrutiny she’d been under a few times herself.
Vera shook her head, lifting her hand to rub her temple before remembering she couldn’t. “No, I just… I want a few more days on this. There’s something wrong here and I don’t just mean the murders.”
All three of them stared at her, considering the request.
“We could be charged with impeding an investigation,” J suggested.
“No one is getting charged with anything.” Mackey sighed calmly.
Teddi believed her but she wanted to know what Vera was thinking, what she thought was so important to stop outside investigators from coming in with what they had. Deputy Gunson was a solid suspect. He could be placed as the first on scene more than once, he was seen tampering with the bodies and evidence and then there was the arrest Daisy mentioned about her dad. Gunson would have been involved if only in the peripheral.
“I’ll call you guys back,” she said, slamming shut the laptop before J could make a peep.
Vera stared at the computer, shocked. “What’d you do that for? We were having a discussion.”
“What’s going on?” Vera’s lips pinched together. “Why don’t you want the FBI or additional law enforcement here?” She was picking at a scab, digging her nail under a sore spot but they were past needing it done.
Vera fumbled as her words tripped over themselves. “It’s not that I don’t. I want to figure this out. I want to find out why Alex’s life was taken here.”
Leaning back in the stiff chair, she stared Vera down. “You mean us. You want us to figure this out.”
She blew out a noisy breath. “Yes, of course.”
“Jesus, if you were this bad of a liar in the FBI no wonder you’re on suspension.” Vera reeled back like she’d been slapped. “Shit, Vera, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t—” She scrambled to alleviate the caustic pain hanging around the room, to erase it. This was why she planned, why she took care to speak. She was known to be a wise-ass and it’d hurt Vera’s feelings on more than one occasion when they dated. Long before she learned to reign herself in for the most part. She reached for her hand, relieved when she didn’t pull away. “I’m sorry, that was messed up. I’m trying to understand what’s going on in your head.”
Hair brushing across her face like black feathers, Vera shook her head. “I’m not… this isn’t me. I’m not myself.” Her voice was small like a child admitting to a wrong-doing. It carved a hole in Teddi’s heart.
“Why not?”
Vera’s eyes filled. Her ability to hold back the tears was superhuman. “I don’t know how to do this anymore. I don’t know how to function or breathe or do my job.” She huffed a sarcastic laugh, dropping her hand on her thigh as her voice rose in disbelief and rage. “My job, that isn’t even my job anymore.” Still, the tears were held in.
Teddi never saw Vera as an FBI agent. She didn’t know first-hand what that version of her was like. Ten years later there were flashes of her that felt like a stranger. That was just age and time though, a cruel mistress working against them. She knew Vera as she was, who she was when she lay down at night. The Vera who collected hundreds of photographs of the things that mattered most to her. She knew the Vera who rarely showed her true emotions, holding herself inside from almost everyone. She reached for her hand again, searching for her words to lifeline Vera back to somewhere familiar.
“You are doing your job. You haven’t got your badge or issued weapon but you’re still working for these victims, trying to solve these murders, figure out what happened to each of them.”
“What if it’s not enough?”
