AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Kara had dealt with numerous sociopaths over the years—many career criminals were sociopathic.
But Marcy was a psychopath, Kara was pretty certain. Someone that Kara wasn’t altogether certain she could reason with. But she had to try and de-escalate the situation. She and Marcy had a connection, but Kara didn’t understand the obsession. Catherine did. She understood people like Marcy Anderson. That’s why Kara needed to talk to her.
All Kara could think about was making sure little Hazel was safe. Then Jamie. Children should never be used as pawns in games of grown-ups. It made Kara see red.
Kara drove fast, just as Cal would drive because this was his family. She had navigation working on her phone, and one eye on Cal’s phone in case Marcy responded. Catherine stared straight ahead, her hand on the chicken stick above the passenger window.
Cal’s phone buzzed, Kara reached for it, but Catherine grabbed it.
“I’ll read it.” A second later. “She said, ‘Don’t fuck with me. If you’re not here at five thirty on the dot, I’ll be gone.’”
Kara glanced at her phone. She’d be there at 5:34. She pressed the accelerator further. She’d make up the time.
“But that’s good, right?” Kara said. “Because she didn’t sayI’ll kill them.”
“A smart person, even a psychopath, wouldn’t put that in writing.”
“Thank you for backing me up with Matt.”
“It’s not ideal, but you made a valid point. You are the closest to Marcy, and while she will be suspicious, you can use your rapport with her to extend the conversation. Matt and Michael will approach the house to search for the hostages as soon as we hear from you where they might be.”
“My primary goal is to locate Jamie Finch and her daughter and get them to safety. But I don’t know exactly what I’m going into, how I can do that. I need to understand Marcy better.”
Catherine said, “From the beginning, you’re the one who said there was something off about Deputy Anderson. Maybe you have more insight than you think.”
“I find most people a bitoff. With Marcy, it was because I couldn’t read her—and I can read almost anyone.”
Catherine gave a little snort. Kara would call it delicate, but it still irritated her.
“You have always been the smartest person in the room,” Kara said, doing her own version of a profile. “You expect—mostly deserved—to have everyone defer to you because of your intelligence, education, and experience. When someone pushes back who you feel is beneath you, you dismiss them or shut them out. How dare they doubt you. If someone trumps you on one of those three criteria? You’ll listen. I judge people instantly. Bad habit, but when undercover, you develop that skill.” Not to mention when you’re a con artist. “So do you, Catherine. But I judge them as to their threat level, you judge them based on an intellectual hierarchy.”
“I don’t know if that is fair, but it’s mostly accurate.”
“Mostly?” Kara laughed. “Anyway, the reason I sensed Marcy was off was because I was raised by two con artists. I learned how to read people from the first time my parents used me in a con that I understood—I was five. They used me all the time when I was a baby, but I don’t remember any of that. My parents stopped trying to lie to me by the time I was nine because I called them on it. My father was going to prison and they tried to tell me he was going to a fucking resort in Bora Bora.” She rolled her eyes, but that was the only time Kara had been truly scared. She didn’t love her parents anymore, but she had when she was nine, when she feared being alone. “For me, reading people was as much about survival as it was about getting them to do what I wanted. When I worked undercover, those skills finally became useful to someone else. And I was adamngood undercover cop.”
Kara wanted that back. And she knew she’d never have it. It fucking hurt.
“Marcy put on a face as to what she felt a female cop in a small town would be. I see it now.”
“Slow down,” Catherine said as they came up fast behind an SUV pulling a boat trailer.
They were on a straightaway. Instead of slowing down, Kara sped up and passed the lumbering vehicle, then moved quickly back into the right lane before she had a head-on with a VW Bug.
If she wasn’t so worried about the kid, she would have enjoyed Catherine’s white knuckles on the dash.
“She dressed the part,” Kara continued. “Lived the part. The way she talked, the way she acted, hell, even the way she ran every morning and worked out. She was the epitome of a female cop. There was nothing...personal. I don’t know if that’s the right way to say it. When we went to interview people, she let me take lead. Not because she was incapable, but I sensed that she wanted to see how I did it.
“I called her former FTO in Seattle PD, and her former roommate. Marcy’s been obsessed with Cal for years. Back when they were in the Coast Guard a decade ago. Even after Cal left, moved here, she told her FTO that she lived with her boyfriend Cal, but he never met him. And then at some point, maybe because someone expected to meet him, she told her FTO that Cal was transferred, and she didn’t think they’d survive a long-distance relationship. I need to work on the timeline, but that might have been after the one-night stand five years ago. Marcy was a solid rookie, did everything her FTO said, but he never felt a connection with her. He felt she had no personality—at least, that was my sense.
“Her roommate said she thought Marcy and Cal were friends with benefits, but Marcy wanted more. She grew concerned because Marcy started dressing like her, changing her hairstyle, doing other odd things that made Lisa uncomfortable. She said she was still in touch with Cal, but had cut off ties with Marcy. And that had me remembering that Marcy changed her workout attire to match mine. Wore a blazer when she never wore a blazer. And last night when we went to the Fish & Brew for dinner, she ordered dark beer. Damon was the bartender, was going to pour her a blond until she changed it. Made me think she never drank dark, which was confirmed when she only had a couple sips.”
“Did you leave before or after her?”
“After, about forty minutes.”
Catherine didn’t say anything for a long time, and Kara was becoming irritated. She thought this would be a conversation, not a monologue.
She quickly glanced down at her phone. She had almost made up the time, but she had to slow down to go around a sharp curve. It said thirty-five, she did it at fifty. Then she floored it again, passing two cars in a row, earning an obnoxious horn when she had to pull in quickly to avoid an oncoming truck.
